by Kirk Alex
Fimple struggled to adjust himself to a sitting position. Leaned his back against the wall and got his fat face caught in a cobweb. Brushed and rubbed against the wall to shake it all, to get rid of the spider racing down his face, over his Adam’s apple and chest.
“Take it easy, Norbert. It’s just a spider. That’s all it is. Spider. I love spiders. . . .”
Biggs stepped in and gave Norbert’s chest a hard backhand that flattened the spider out of existence. He wiped the spider’s guts against his own boxers. Biggs found himself cursing under his breath right after he did this.
Marvin was back with a ten gallon paint can and a gallon jug of tap water, roll of TP. Placed them on the floor. He reached in his shirt pocket for Norbert’s eyeglasses. One of the lenses was cracked, the frame bent.
“Put them on his face. Won’t last him long anyway.”
Marvin did that. Adjusted the specs. Norbert remained in a zombified state pretty much. He may have reacted a bit to the episode with the spider a moment ago, but for all intents and purposes, he was clearly out of it.
Marvin produced a couple of dog biscuit treats. Dropped them on his lap.
“The toilet paper is to wipe your fat ass with after you’ve taken a dump in the bucket, and not to jerk into. Try to remember that. Ass-wipe is not free; otherwise I might be inclined to let you wipe with old issues of the LA Times, for the useless Lefty rag that it is.”
Biggs looked at Marvin. Asked if he had any luck locating the man’s dentures. With thumb and index finger, Marvin gingerly reached inside a trouser pocket, extracted the false teeth, and just as gingerly placed them on Fimple’s lap.
“Look’ like some of them chopper’ be broke.”
“Don’t sweat the small stuff. Never sweat the small stuff.”
They unhooked the chains from the loops on the metal collar on Norbert’s neck and walked out. Biggs closed the cell door and locked the heavy padlock, leaving Mr. Norbert Fimple to ponder his latest predicament in utter darkness.
CHAPTER 22
The deacon was instructed to take Terri Denise Klopp and return her to the pit. Marvin went about to do as told, only the woman was no longer at the stairs where he’d left her.
“Where the ho go?”
Biggs looked at him. Shook his head.
“This is what I’m talking about: Cunts can’t be trusted. You can’t trust a cunt.”
He raised his eyes to the ceiling, not that there were answers to be found there.
“What are you waiting for? Go get her.”
Marvin scrambled up the flight of stairs to the first floor. Cleared the landing, and stopped. Took a breath in the alcove. Using great care and caution, he stuck his face out past one corner, then the other—looking up and down the hallway.
“Ain’t no use, ho. All you be doin’ is gettin’ the bishop all pissed off. Heard what I said? Show your ass, ho.”
The door to the john was closed. He walked to it. Reached for the doorknob. Turned it slowly. Opened the door. No one in there. Approached the utility closet next to it. Door, like the other, was closed. Wondered if she was in there. Hiding out. Had to be in there. Prob’ly hiding under them pile of kicks, or else found the sliding door to the livin’ room closet. Where else was she gonna go? Open the damn door, then, he said to himself. Got his hand on the knob and took his time pushing the door in—to find his upper body drenched in ammonia.
Marvin whirled out of there and into the hallway, screaming and rubbing his burning eyes.
The woman proceeded to whack away at his face and neck with a mop handle and Marvin was on the floor yelling for assistance of his own. Biggs came up from behind and whacked her hard across the nape and side of the face with the flashlight. She was down, not out, but on the floor. He had his Magnum aimed at her. Hammer cocked.
“It’s back in the pit for you, missy. With a little bonus added on top.”
He looked at Marvin. Kicked at his feet. “Get up. You’re useless to me. Get your ass up, I said.”
Marvin rose. The ammonia continued to sting.
“Go wash your eyes out.”
While Marvin did that in the bathroom, Biggs resumed whacking away at the woman on the floor before him simply because she’d had the audacity to do what she just did.
“What’s taking so long? I need a hand over here.”
There was no response from Muck.
When Biggs stepped in the john to check up on him—didn’t want to risk the fool going blind—Marvin was bent over the sink, delicately splashing water into his eyes with both hands like some kind of sissy. Biggs shook his head. Idiot had a way of trying his patience. He turned the shower on. Grabbed Muck by the nape and stuck his face under the shower head so that the water sprayed his eyes.
“Keep your peepers open.”
“Be hurtin’ like a mofo.”
“You have to keep them open.”
CHAPTER 23
Biggs returned to Theresa Denise Klopp, who had managed to crawl to the rear door and was clawing against it, twisting the doorknob (knowing it was futile). Biggs gave her several whacks with the Maglite just because it made him feel good inside, and for no other reason this time. Yelled out to his right-hand man.
“What’s taking so long? Marvin?”
“Eyes ain’t right. Seein’ triple an’ shit.”
“What you get for being careless.”
Marvin staggered out of the john at last, cursing. Insisted he was blindsided.
“I don’t want to hear it. We’re taking her back down.” Biggs’s stare was on the female. “I envision shock therapy in your immediate future this time, bitch.”
Marvin attempted to grab the victim by the wrists. She resisted. His counter was to deliver a punch to her belly. Watched her double over. The deacon shoved her in the direction of the entrance to the basement. Biggs shoved Marvin out of the way, and kicked the woman in the ass and watched her tumble down the flight of stairs.
It was a nice move, Biggs thought. Only there he was with a tinge of regret, fearing that it may have resulted in a broken neck, or worse—therefore, making pointless the Pit Therapy session that he had planned for her.
The bishop and the deacon climbed down the stairs. The whore was nearly out, but not quite. No broken neck, that he could detect. No broken back or legs or arms. Resilient cunt. All the better.
“I hate it when subjects try to pull a double cross; when unrepentant sinners try to out-con the sharpest con artist of them all—because, you see, it can never happen.”
They attached the chains to the loops on the iron collar on her neck. “Have a heart, please. Have a heart.”
“You don’t want to be sayin’ somethin’ like that to somebody like Cecil, ho.”
Biggs had Marvin re-plug the extension cord into the wall.
“Ho ain’t gonna be able to take it like Pimple. That damn Norbert be like one of them grizzly bear. Can take a lot. This here ho don’t look like she can take it.”
“She’ll take it. Or she’ll die taking it.”
Biggs had the cord untangled. Held the raw ends in his left hand. Re-holstered the Magnum.
“Drag her ass over to the pit.”
Marvin did his best, tugging on the chains. The woman fought him, resisting. He had no choice but to literally drag her over and dump her in.
Biggs ordered him to run the free ends of the chains through holes in the door. Once this was accomplished, the door was closed over the pit. Biggs was on hands and knees, as before. Held a wire in each hand.
It was a matter of selecting the right holes to slip the wires through. It was a good thing he’d made the holes the size of a large coin and easy enough to see where the wires were going as he peeked through yet a third hole. With his left hand, he drove the wire through and down into the water, with his right he was at the other end of the door, slipping the wire in in order to have it connect to the collar on her neck.
And all this he watched while peering through a hole so
mewhere in the center. Well, this took a degree of skill. The wire in the water was no big feat; it was the other that usually proved a challenge, because the victims, the bright ones, got the idea to duck under, and trying to connect the wire to the collar was not easy. He kept his eye glued to the hole in the door to see exactly where he was. If she attempted to submerge, he would have Marvin yank on the chains to pull her out, for if the wire in his right hand touched the water itself it could mean short-circuiting the entire electrical system. Wouldn’t want that. Had the same concerns when Norbert was buzzed. Sure, Big Tex might be able to repair the damage, but why go to the hassle if one were able to prevent it? He’d had it happen to him once or twice in the past. What a bitch. Live and learn. Caution was the way to go. He kept his eye down against the hole, while poking around with the wire that he held in his right hand, guiding it. Touched the collar just enough to witness the resulting sparks. The sparks, although never great, were usually enough to cause a tingle in his nuts. It was akin to burning flies and spiders as a young firebug. Gave him wood. Something like when Juicer Joe sledged his pet Rottie to death, or even when the truck plowed into his Mama. No denying it. You could try, but it would be a less-than-honest way to go through life.
Sparks were all right. Sparks, and a trapped heifer with no place to hide.
The cunt jerked around some, then ducked under. Just as he knew she would. Nothing original there. Biggs cursed, not that he was pissed, simply amused by the lame action.
“She’s under water. Stupid cunt is under water, hiding out.”
Marvin asked if he ought to yank up on the chains again to pull her back up, to force her to surface.
“No need. She’ll have to come up for air eventually.”
And this she did. When it happened, Biggs was there with the exposed wire that he held in his right hand. Played with it, shifted it around, until he connected with the metal collar on her neck. Sparks ensued. The victim flapped around. Biggs lifted the wire to give her a chance to recoup for a bit, then resumed the procedure. Continued with it, never leaving it down there long enough to do serious damage.
“Don’t want you to expire just yet, only teach you a lesson. Cause me grief and aggravation and this is the way I work it, the way I deal with it.”
Finally, the last zap seemed to take a heavier toll on the victim than he intended, and Biggs decided it was enough. A slight slip-up on his part.
“Ho be gone?”
“Don’t worry about it. She’s not gone.”
Biggs yanked the cord out of the socket in the wall. Lifted the door open. Checked her eyeballs. The pupils were not dilated. That was a goofball error the ever over-rated Hitchcock made with the Janet Leigh character, post shower assault: her pupils were not dilated. And they should have been. They should have been. Fuck Hitchcock. At least this bitch here still had life left in her.
The chains were detached, the door closed over the pit, and the padlock locked. He had Muck go back up and finish up.
CHAPTER 24
Now that that was over and done with, he felt a need to reassess the damage and check the other rooms thoroughly.
The grunting and general flatulence that came from the john in the corner continued unabated. Biggs shone his Maglite in there. The bald-headed, cross-eyed, diaper-wearing putz from South Dakota (or was it North Dakota?) was still on the throne doing his business.
Olin Goodfellow, the portly forty-year-old, horse-molesting farmhand had his stuffed Porky Pig doll with him that he was clutching to his bosom.
The newcomer was a tough one to teach new tricks. At least he wasn’t taking a dump in the tub as he did all during that first week he was here. But a taste of the pit had educated him enough to the point he was using the bathroom the way it should be used. Well, most of the time. At least the rest of the time he went in his diaper. Gave Marvin less to complain about that way. Crap in the tub tended to clog up the drain. Dirty diapers weren’t a problem for the washing machine. Not yet, anyway.
To the right of the john was the Bunk-cum-Geek Room. Biggs looked the door over. Dislodged bottom hinge. Busted lock and part of the jamb. Would require work.
Goddamned Fimple. All of these doors, with the exception of the bathroom door, had a ten-inch-by-ten-inch meshed glass Judas window with a small curtain over it. In a couple of the cases, the Mattress Room, as well as the Fun Room, had a curtain on both sides of the window.
Bunk Room’s door curtain was on the outside (that Biggs liked to keep drawn usually when administering Pit Therapy—in order to keep the geeks from witnessing the process—unless he wanted them to see it).
Fimple had not only managed to tear the small curtain to shreds, but yanked the curtain rod right off. It was relatively minor, yes, compared to the serious damage done to the doors, still . . . It rankled. Compounded the situation.
Basement door ruined, kitchen door fractured—and now this one. Made it three doors that either needed repair or replacement. Then you had the walk-in door “handle” that he didn’t even want to think about. How often could you bolt the thing into the steel wall without running out of places to drill new holes into?
CHAPTER 25
Biggs stepped in. The room contained a dozen bunks: a row of three double-bunks on the left side of the room, the same number of bunks on the right. A plastic jug of water hung on a rope from every one of those bunks. He was always on Marvin’s case to make sure that those jugs had plenty of tap water in them. And on special occasions, he, Biggs, saw to it that there was Kool-Aid in the jugs in place of plain water.
Say it was someone’s birthday. Well, that individual received not only Kool-Aid, but an extra Pop-Tart or two. Not to mention all the times the lot of them were invited to dine upstairs in the kitchen and treated to dog biscuits and the extra helping of Greta’s jambalaya. Meaning he did what he could for them; went out of his way even, quite often, and this was the thanks he got. Indifference to Fimple’s reckless behavior. Wait. There was more. In addition to his aforementioned kindness, there was the idiot box. “Glass teat.” High up, on the far wall, perched on a shelf was a thirteen-inch black-and-white television set. Did it matter? Did it make any difference to them? Apparently not. His kindnesses went unappreciated.
He looked about to make certain that all the other church board members and staff were accounted for. To his right, in this bunk-free area, weathered, ninety-two-year-old Miss Betty Lou Rutterschmidt in her wheelchair with that huge Bible open and resting across her skinny lap and all those stained, old, Raggedy Ann-type dolls attached to the back rest.
Having had a strong desire her entire life to have kids, lots of kids, and never having been able to make the dream happen, she had, instead, developed a habit of collecting all sorts of dolls of this nature, as well as, many years before, while up at the institution in Central California, she had “adopted” the sixty-seven-year-old woman who lay on the foam mattress at her feet, alternately snoring and farting.
The farts seemed to compete in volume and audio with the snores. Biggs could not tell whether the snores or the other had the winning edge. Although what was not easy to ignore were the gaseous fumes that competed with the otherwise existing odor of the basement.
Mildred Elizabeth continued to snooze. She had dragged her mattress out and was curled up on it down there. Didn’t have enough sense to do her sleeping in her assigned bunk.
Let them. They had beds to sleep in, pillows, blankets and sheets—and yet some preferred to crash on the cement in this fashion. Logic? Don’t look for logic and/or common sense here, thought the bishop.
He was ready to move on, check out the hole in the wall that Fimple must have caused when he yanked his chain out of it. Only the cockroach caused him to linger a bit longer here.
A large enough roach having difficulty moving through Miss Betty’s wiry, white hair at above the brow. Scrounging around for something to eat? Or looking for a place to take a roach-dump?
If he slapped at it to get it o
ut of there, or did anything of the sort, he only risked waking the tired old woman who required more rest than the others. At her age, she spent a good deal of her time dozing, in dreamland; and when she wasn’t doing that she had her nose buried in her beloved Bible.
Let her. Saw the chain hanging from her neck. Would let her hang on to it for the same reason. No point rousing the gravel-voiced old heifer. Chain was Norbert’s. A yard or so in length. Behemoth had managed not only to pull the one end out of the wall above his bunk, but break off the end on his wrist.
He’d let her keep it for the time being, as he had allowed her to retain one or two other “items” to defend herself with against anyone who was brazen enough to attempt to take the flashlight away from her. Besides, it wasn’t her fault that Fimple was loose. There is no way that she, or the daughter, could have done anything to prevent it.
It was the others. The lot of them. Bloody Sam had his Wild Bunch, I’ve got my Crazy Bunch. Their fault. Blame was theirs. They could have done something to prevent it. Then again, why would they? No skin off their noses that his property was being vandalized on a daily basis.
His eyes cased the others. In a bottom bunk, on the same side of the room, was reed-thin, silver-haired six-foot-five “Big Tex” Leo Nix in that jockstrap with the colorful rhinestones that he always wore. Big T. was stretched out on his mattress, scratching his scrotum and muttering to himself.
“I left Texas for this?”
He looked up. Winced at the bright Maglite that Biggs held in his hand. “Listen to me, Bishop. You gotta tell that puke-suckin’ Commie scum up there to keep his pie-hole shut.”
