by Kirk Alex
Big Tex was whining about Julian Ionesco, the Rumanian in the bunk above him, whom he very often deliberately referred to as the “Red Menace,” or the “Pinko Punisher,” whenever the two engaged in one of their verbal exchanges that they were known for.
Ionesco, who had emigrated to the US twelve years before with his wife Anastasia, and had for a time earned his living as a New York City cabbie, then subsequently drove a taxi in LA, and was, for a period, “Butler to the Stars,” spoke in a pronounced, far-from-easy to decipher Eastern European accent, and would not/could not clam up about Europe, Rumania in particular, constantly ran his mouth about it (when he was not lamenting the passing of his beloved spouse, who had succumbed to cancer a while back.)
It was not so much the constant bemoaning of his deceased wife that irked the man from Texas, since this type of loss was not difficult to relate to or be understanding about, but the never-ending praise of Paris and Berlin, Vienna and Brussels, Rumania and the city of his birth, Bucharest, the Balkans, and the ever-present besmirching of the US and the way it did not live up to his dreams and vision of what he thought it would be, from what he had heard and seen in Hollywood movies; the constant reminder of what a letdown and disappointment it was, is what riled the cowboy.
“Don’t like it?” Big T. had spat out more than once. Did so presently. “Who twisted your chorizzo to come here, amigo? Ain’t nobody gripped you by the nutsack and forced your depraved Commie ass to fly eight thousand miles to these here United States so you can bellyache about how you’re disappointed because Doc Holiday is long gone and Wyatt Earp ain’t runnin’ Dodge these days and Injuns is doin’ all their scalpin’ at the gaming tables. That’s right: own casinos. Gettin’ fat on greenbacks an’ drunk on gold. About time, too, I say. You bet. Now, cowboys, on the other hand, I can help you out with. Ain’t got to go far—on account you’re lookin’ at a genuine, Stetson-wearin’, rootin-tootin’ bronc-buster from the Lone Star State. Texas. The Real McCoy. Still got somethin’ to bellyache about? Don’t like my country? Eat a cowpie and die, is my final piece of advice to you, Pinko bag of steer manure.”
The balding, squat Rumanian was not disagreeing. “Ja ja. We are comrades. We are all comrades here.”
“There goes the sumbitch again with that comraide shit.”
“Pipe down. I don’t want to hear about it. I have a bunch of doors that are ruined—and all because you people allowed Mr. Fimple to get loose. All you had to do was keep him subdued long enough to give me a chance to catch up on some desperately needed sleep. You couldn’t even do that.”
“Please turn the heat up, Bishop Biggs,” a black woman in her thirties said. This was Patience McDaniel. Wrapped in a dark brown monk’s robe that Biggs had given her a while back. He, in fact, kept enough of these robes on hand for all of the members of his staff and board of directors for when snoopers from various government agencies came sniffing around to make certain and to satisfy themselves that “all was well” with the United Christian Church of Re-Newed Hope.
Patience, curled up in her favorite, the fetal position, was in a bottom bunk, at the far end, left side of the room, and she was shivering. She was always shivering. Seemed to be her natural state. Eyes shut. Wasn’t interested in tv, food, water, drugs or booze, not even sex. Was after but one thing always—be it summer, winter, spring or fall, not that Southern California was known for its seasonal changes—to keep warm.
“Please turn the heat up.”
Biggs ignored her, as most everyone always did. In the bunk above her, lay the tall lady named Greta Otto, who at times was either called “The Leaper” or “The Jumper,” for good reason.
A Cupid mask covered the Amazon’s face. With the exception of Biggs, none of them had any idea what she looked like underneath that facade, and the one time Biggs got his glimpse some time back had been more than enough to keep away from her.
Greta’s features had been disfigured over the years by a series of suicide attempts: first by fire, and then by acid—by her own hand—as well as a number of leaps from a rooftop or two, all prior to becoming a member of the group.
The rest of Greta’s attire consisted of a far-from-clean negligee, worn black sweater over that, black leather Wehrmacht jackboots with hobnails and heel irons. She used her robe the way one would a blanket, to cover herself with.
He let her be.
The television was on, but no one had interest in what the idiot box had to offer. Somehow they seemed to sense it was all a bunch of horse dung, no matter how you added it up. Not that it mattered any to Biggs; he left the set on as a means of providing them with some light, so that they wouldn’t break a leg or arm while climbing out of their bunks to use a honey bucket or make it to the basement john.
Then, too, there was that door in the floor that covered the pit that he thought anyone might easily trip on if he didn’t at least allow for some illumination. The crimson-tinted night-light in that area outside the walk-in cooler where the patio table and chairs were was quite weak and hardly adequate.
His attention was drawn to the bunk on his left presently, lower berth, and the character lying on his belly. Lawrence Sassounian was his name, and he was a forty-year-old former psychotherapist and carpet cleaning technician out of Azuza, who was usually either banging his forehead against the hard-edged steel part of the frame above his pillow, or else banging the right side of his face and head against the wall in back of him.
There must have been something like the head of a nail sticking out or else the constant back-and-forth rubbing and banging against the frame that caused it, because there was blood on his face as well as on the grimy white bra and cheerleader skirt with the red, white and blue cleats that he had on.
Lawrence Sassounian, who was partial to “Laura” or “Sassy,” was an individual of few words and preferred to “express” himself through self-mutilation and/or self-cannibalism. It was because of this that Biggs had gone to the trouble of individually taping his fingers and thumbs with gauze and medical tape. Cecil had gone to the trouble of taking the time to do likewise with the man’s toes on both feet.
Even though it was rather obvious, with the clogs he wore, that gauze and medical tape had been torn off several of them and toenails and tips of toes were missing. Had been severed. How Sassy may have been able to accomplish this without access to a cutting implement was a mystery.
This was not the only disfigurement the man had inflicted upon himself. Sassounian’s lower lip, having been at some point chewed off by the man and was a series of cracked scabs and tiny blisters bloated with puss and blood, didn’t help matters. There hadn’t been anything that Cecil could have done to prevent it, either.
The stained skirt and white bra had seen better days, as had the female scalp with the long, dark brown strands that sat atop his practically bald dome.
Biggs gradually realized Sassounian had something in his mouth that he was chewing on. Looked like an ear. Perhaps merely part of one.
The bishop held Sassy’s head still long enough to brush back the hair over the other ear. Still bleeding. About a third of it gone somehow, the former therapist having found a way to cut it off—and it was in his mouth. His own ear—and he was banging his head against that nail in the wall.
Biggs understood perfectly why: he’d refused to let him have the panties and other undergarments he’d lifted from the same source he’d lifted the skirt. Tough. There were other issues, no doubt. The gender reassignment he was intent on wasn’t happening fast enough as far as he was concerned. It didn’t matter to him that this type of surgery was not only exorbitant, but clearly out of the question for other reasons that Biggs didn’t feel like going into.
“Do you have any idea how difficult it was to ‘acquire’ that shit in the first place?” said the bishop to him in a guarded tone, not wanting the others to hear. “The risk involved? Better yet: Do you even give a damn? From the looks of things I don’t suppose you do.”
Biggs
resumed in his normal voice: “I don’t much care what you do to yourself, Sassounian. Can’t control that; can’t watch you night and day. What I do give a damn about is my property. You’re damaging my property. The mortgage isn’t even paid off and you’re trying to bring me down; you’re causing me problems. I have a tough enough time sleeping as it is.”
Sassounian kept at it: banged his forehead against that steel bar by his pillow, then would lift his head, sitting up, and rub the right side of his face and temple against the wall behind him and the nail head sticking out, while he chewed the ear in his mouth. Made no difference to him what anyone said or thought. Had his own agenda. This was Sassy’s way of coping.
“Knock it off, Mr. Sassounian, before you knock my wall down. Some of these walls are made of nothing more than wood and Sheetrock, planks and two-by-fours. Constructed with my own two hands—for the most part.”
Lawrence Sassounian wouldn’t stop. Biggs gave his left leg a kick. Then again. Not that it did any good. Whacked him over the head with an open palm that knocked the female scalp right off, exposing open sores across the top of his noggin.
“All you’re doin’ is makin’ him feel good,” said Big Tex. “Pole smoker loves to be whupped.”
“You have a point.”
Biggs left the Bunk Room for a few minutes. When he returned he held a pair of pink panties, matching shade of red lip gloss, hand mirror and a violet barrette in his left hand; in the other he held a fresh Band-Aid and a tube of ChapStick.
“You get the goodies, so long as you apply the lip balm to your lower lip, then the Band-Aid. Deal?”
Sassounian stopped carrying on of his own accord. Placed the scalp back on his head. He accepted the lip balm and applied it to the appropriate lip; then did the Band-Aid. He winced, but went ahead. Band-Aid was a bit askew. It was better than nothing, thought Cecil. Let him have the other items—save for the hand mirror—as a peace offering.
Sassy’s acceptance of what was being given allowed for a kind of truce between them.
“You happy? I get it: accessories make the outfit.”
Sassy was eager to try out the barrette. Applied the lip gloss. Cecil held the mirror up for him to help out.
“No, not the lower lip, Sassy.” But it was already too late, the determined one-time therapist had already drawn a coat of lip gloss across the Band-Aid.
CHAPTER 26
Taking the mirror with him, Biggs stepped out of the Bunk Room. He paused at the damaged door. Knew the size by heart. Measured it all the same and jotted the figures down. Waited there until the cross-eyed fellow from South Dakota returned with his stuffed Porky Pig doll.
Swine Vomit walked to a bunk in the middle, right-hand side, bottom tier. Slipped, lost his balance, and dropped to the cement with a thud.
No one bothered to notice or gave a damn, no one that is, with the exception of Patience McDaniel. The mishap had jarred her out of her usual dazed-and-confused state. She helped Goodfellow up and onto his mattress, and returned to the security of her own bunk. Wound the robe about her, the blanket, resuming the fetal position, eyes closed, shivering.
Biggs had taken it in. Patience had a way of being helpful. It was this kind of support—should he have been able to get from the rest of them—that would have made his existence easier, at least to some degree. The burden would not be resting entirely on his shoulders if some of the others gave a damn about his situation and what a struggle it was to keep the church going and the overhead manageable.
“Use the paint buckets to go in for the time being. There is enough drinking water in the water jugs to tide you over for a while. I have to run an errand. You can behave yourselves for a few hours.”
He found a way to secure the door with a longer chain. Locked it. Biggs continued to the right: Furnace Room door. Seemed intact. Nothing in there he would want. To the right of this door was a bookcase, from floor to ceiling. Then you had the walk-in cooler. Looking at it again only managed to aggravate the foul state he was in. Nothing he could do about the “handle” right now. The cooler itself ran the length from here to the wall on the right, that faced the Roscoes’ prefab domicile. Another bookcase here, much larger, stretched from floor-to-ceiling and was over the window.
This bookcase was about twenty or so feet wide. This entire section here, about twenty feet by twenty feet, was like a game area where the geeks could play checkers and cards, or, if they so wished, draw with crayons, fill in coloring books.
There was the green, round patio table, steel, bolted into the cement floor, with green iron patio chairs all around. Bolted down as well. This way, if in a fit of rage, for whatever reason, they would not be able to split open each other’s skulls by picking up a chair.
There was a yoyo on the table, dominoes, a beach ball on the floor at the base of the larger bookcase, ping pong table to the right of this, up against the wall that was part of the Fun Room.
There was the small night-light in the shape of an elf that gave off a weak red light and had been plugged into a socket somewhere. Biggs assured himself once more: This night-light was made of hard plastic and there was no fear that Mr. Fimple would attempt to chew and devour it.
The Fun Room-cum-Workshop was thirty-five feet by thirty-five feet. The door seemed fine here. He took a peek through the ten-inch-by-ten-inch meshed glass window. All seemed intact inside, as it should, since he’d just been in there earlier.
CHAPTER 27
Biggs climbed the stairs to the landing. He stood at the seriously impaired door, shaking his head. There would be no way to repair it. The lock and the doorknob he was certain could be salvaged; the door itself would have to be discarded. Son of a bitch. Retards were costing him more than they were worth. It seemed that way at times. What else could he do? He was stuck with them. He’d have to measure the door and hope he had one in the garage that fit; anything to keep from having to spend money. This was the third door Norbert had managed to destroy in as many months. Number didn’t include all the other ruined doors before that. Then you had the kitchen door on top. He’d have to see if Big Tex could do something with it, save it. Possibly. Do a repair job on the door to the Geek Room. Three doors. Three of them. There was no end to it.
Marvin was through cleaning the floor and was now spraying the air with Lysol.
“Stuff is expensive. Don’t use it all up. Save some for later.”
“Yo. You know Pimple gonna drop another big load on the floor sometime, break more door’.”
“You mean Fimple.”
“What I said: Fimple.”
“No, you did not. You said ‘Pimple.’”
“Yo. I know what I be sayin’.”
Biggs measured off the door. He’d replaced some of these doors so often he knew the particular sizes by heart. Measured all the same, to be on the safe side. Width and length. Jotted it down in the notepad. Measured off the kitchen door as well, in case they wouldn’t be able to salvage it.
Marvin was still spraying the air, wasting disinfectant.
“What did I just tell you?”
“I’m doin’ what you tol’ me to do. Said to clean up. I be doin’ it.”
“I told you to stop spraying.”
Marvin returned the Lysol to the utility room. Came out. Indicated the barking sounds that came from somewhere in the vicinity of the back door.
“Omar, hear it?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Bet it be them Roscoe mutt’ again.”
Biggs paused to listen. Sounded like it may have stopped raining out there. It had been raining off and on practically the entire week and evidently had subsided, because what he heard definitely sounded like something else. Dogs growling and barking. Marvin was right. Biggs cursed. Walked down the end of the hallway to his back door. Unlocked it.
Bright midday sun blinded him momentarily. He looked down from the stoop. The dogs had a habit of usually digging and clawing at that basement window to the right of it. Not this
time. Could hear them barking and scratching away around the corner of the house.
CHAPTER 28
Biggs withdrew the .357 Colt “Python,” discreetly held it against his side, not wishing to draw undue attention from any of the neighbors, and stepped down. Marvin followed him to a basement window located on the redneck’s side of the property.
Familiar-looking mutts were digging away frantically at the base of the window. Didn’t matter to them that Cecil and Marvin were standing there taking it in.
The shaggy white dog (in dire need of shampoo and trim, especially over the eyes) was an overweight Lhasa apso bitch named Ziggy. The other, much smaller dog, another bitch, was a Boston terrier called Darcy.
The animals were clearly aware of the bishop’s presence, and continued to dig away just the same. It was the smell that they were undoubtedly drawn to down there, the strong smell of burning flesh that emanated from the basement—even though Biggs and Marvin had not dumped any body parts in the furnace in over two months. Couldn’t help noting again that they had chosen a different window this time. For whatever reason.
Beasts were nosy, and a nuisance. Like their owners. He stood there watching them, cringing and watching. They had managed to crawl through the fence again; that flimsy six-foot-high wooden fence that separated his property from his neighbors on the right. It didn’t do any good to complain to Marty Roscoe and his wife Petunia about their dogs constantly getting into his backyard and sticking their snouts into his private affairs.
When would he break down and spend the money to have a proper fence put up, Cecil asked himself. Chain-link fence is what this called for, like what he had in the front. Fences cost money he wasn’t willing to spend on something he shouldn’t have to spend it on. It was Roscoe’s fault, pretty much. Kept removing pickets, or his wife did—or both—from time to time, to snoop on him. Billy garbage. White trash busybodies interfering in his business. Humans respected nothing these days. Nothing was sacred. Well, they did respect one thing, even in the 80s; one thing still worked: force, brute force, the kind of brute force a powerful handgun made possible.
