by Kirk Alex
Marvin was done with Big T. He wasn’t getting any better at it, but at least 95 percent of Big T.’s hair was off.
Leo Nix stood up. Walked to his chair at the table. Sat down.
“I don’t rightly give a rank fart, my Pinko sumbitch. Gimme some of that down home cookin’. Lordy. . . . Porterhouse steak, mashed taters, gravy, corn-on-the-cob, Billy Bob’s and Bob Wills, Hank Williams. Don’t bother me, Com-raide. Can’t relate to all that hogwash you’re yappin’ about, on account you’re yappin’ outta your hind end, boy—’cause your yap sure knows better.”
Big Tex removed his weather-beaten, sweat-stained Stetson, reached inside for a worn, dog-eared color snapshot of his wife, two young girls, and family dog. Big Tex looked at the photo and it brought back memories, good memories, and the subsequent tragedy.
“Who be my next victim?”
Biggs looked at Norbert. “Your turn.”
Norbert was not inclined. Didn’t want a haircut.
“Would you rather undergo another session of Pit Therapy instead?”
That made him comply. Mr. Fimple walked to the barber chair and sat in it. Marvin began cutting the hair off of the big head.
“You feel bad, my American comrade,” Julian said to the Texan. Biggs hadn’t cared for the melancholy tone the conversation was headed in; it kept him from enjoying the good news about his stock jumping in value.
“Caught her with my best amigo in a No-Tell Motel,” Big T. said to no one in particular. Perhaps only recounting the event for the hundredth time for no one’s benefit but his own, perhaps in a dire hope that as he retold it, the ending, the tragic ending of it might somehow amend itself, magically transform into something not as burdensome and heartbreaking. Only it never did. Life didn’t work that way. Big Tex always recalled the blood and finality of it. Death.
“I wiped the smile off her face with a .50-.50, then dropped that two-timin’ whore’s body down a mine shaft. I shot the family dog and my two baby girls. . . .” And tears filled his eyes, slow, quiet tears that kept forming in his pain-wracked eyes, one after another. “Lord, how come things don’t ever turn out the way they ought to?”
“Best not to have dream, my friend. No dream, no disappointment. . . . But then: no dream, no life—no hope. Hard to do, no?”
Julian patted Big Tex on the shoulder. Patience walked over to him with her sweater in her hands. Draped it about the cowboy’s back. The cowboy wept on the table top, face down this way.
“Don’t worry, my friend, on the other side we will be happy. . . . There will be much love. . . . I promise you. . . . I know my wife, too, she wait for me on the other side. You needs to take it easy on you, my American buddy. . . .”
Patience was back in her chair, shivering. Wiped a tear or two from her eyes. Tex was sitting up now, staring off in the distance, staring at a cobweb up in a corner, above the pennies embedded in the wall, the fat spider in the cobweb, not seeing anything other than his past, images of something he’d once been a part of, a sanity and love that he’d once known, and then it had all gotten short-circuited somehow.
“High school sweethearts, we was. Down a mine shaft. . . . You could hear them hit bottom. . . . Couldn’t see nothin’ down there; it was pitch black . . . but I heard them hit bottom . . . one after the other. Dropped them right down that mine shaft. . . . Shot the sumbitch’s privates right off. He lived. . . . Don’t believe he spends a whole lot of time schemin’ how to get into poontang what ain’t his no more. . . .” Big T. cleared his throat. “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’ta done it that way. No, sir. My baby girls wasn’t guilty a nothin’. . . . I’da just blowed my own dang head off instead.” Big Tex looked at Julian Ionesco and the others. “Then again, who knows?”
Biggs lowered the Wall Street Journal.
“Yeah, well. You people have a way of cheering a fellow up.” He had another Twinkie, sip of his soda. “You can’t dwell on the past; it will only pull you down. Regret is for the birds. Dwell on things you didn’t do right, the times you went wrong—for whatever reason, and all you’re doing is pecking at wounds. Not good for you at all. We have a lot to be grateful for. You’re well fed, and you got a roof over your head. Beats being homeless, doesn’t it? Beats having to sleep in some public park somewhere, beats being on The Row, or sleeping on a cot, bus bench, in some doorway. You’re a lot better off than all those homeless out there, and my stock is up.”
“And you got them heathen fornicators what need to be shown the Way of the Lord.”
“You certainly are right about that, Miss Betty Lou. I’ve been working hard on that. What I was doing earlier: reading from the Bible to that amoral hussy. Did my desperate best to set her straight. She’ll eventually see the light by the time Bishop Cecil O. Biggs is done with her. Want to ensure your place in Heaven? Making the Lord a big part of your life here and now is the only way. There is no other.”
Marvin was done cutting Norbert’s hair. Both returned to their places at the table. Norbert did not waste time chowing down,while Marvin picked at his.
“Amen, Pastor.”
Others readily agreed with Betty Lou Rutterschmidt.
CHAPTER 240
Early next morning Marty Roscoe squeezed through a flimsy section of the picket fence that separated his backyard from the one belonging to Cecil’s church. One thing was certain, the closer he got to Biggs’s front door the stronger the odor became. It was unusual for Roscoe to be up this early in the day and the smell didn’t make it any easier. When you had need, you had need.
He pounded on the door.
Eventually the four-by-ten-inch security slot slid open and Deacon Marvin’s tired eyes were giving the redneck the twice over.
“Like to join up with this here Christian Church of Re-Newed Hope.”
“Got to be jivin’ me, man.”
“No jive. I got religion. Something come over me said it was time for religion; time to reconnect with the Lord.”
“Membership be by special invite only.”
“The kind of House of Worship is this anyway, buck? I want to come in and thank the Maker for my good fortune over the years: marriage, health—all that good shit.”
“What keep’ you from doin’ it from your own cribby?”
“My ‘cribby’ ain’t a church, is it?”
“You gonna have to talk to Bishop Bigg’.”
“Get him out here, then. We’re wasting time. You tell ‘Bishop Bigg’ you got a sinner here wants to join his church. That should make him feel damned good. I know how important membership is to a half-ass parish like this. What are you waitin’ for? Move your behind.”
Marvin stood there looking at Marty Roscoe and not knowing how to react to this off-the-wall request. He stood and thought about it. Ofay mofo gotta be out of his mind. Last thing Bishop gonna want is this dumbass redneck runnin’ ’round in his house.
Roscoe was clearing his throat. “I like the looks of this church and I want to be part of it. It’s convenient for me and my lady. We been talking about joining up. We don’t belong to no church right now and we sure could use some spiritual guidance, you might say—if you know what I mean?”
Marvin remained unconvinced. Don’t nobody know what the cracker mean. Prob’ly don’t even know it hisself. Marvin’s lack of reaction was enough to piss Roscoe off.
“Are you deaf, buck? Tell the bishop.”
“You don’t be gettin’ it. Be by invite only.”
“Huh? What kind of shit are you talking now?”
“Membership be by invite. You got to be brung by a member, and since you don’t know nobody who be a member—”
“I know Peaches LaBelle. She’s a member, ain’t she?”
“No, she ain’t.”
“I seen her and her friends comin’ in here—”
“That don’t mean she a member. You just wastin’ yo’ time, brother—and mine.”
“You saying I’m not good enough? Are you calling me a redneck? I get enough of that shit
from my old lady.”
“I ain’t said nothin’—”
“You said I ain’t good enough to join your church. I don’t like being called a redneck, punk. You tell that to your ‘Bishop’. You understand?”
CHAPTER 241
The church door opened and Biggs appeared. The odor of decay, heavy Lysol and lemon-scented ammonia mixed-in hit Marty Roscoe full on. He coughed, did his best not to be too obvious about it. Only there it was: that odor. It had been wafting in periodic waves out through the open slot all during his conversation with the flunky, but now that the door was wide open the stench was difficult to take.
Still, Marty Roscoe could not stop thinking about Peaches LaBelle. She was beyond reach for him, and yet, she could stoop low enough to waste her time on nothing losers like Cecil Biggs and Marvin Muck.
“What kind of parish you running here anyway, Biggs? Buck here claims I ain’t welcome.”
Biggs handed him a church flyer. The legend across the very top in heavy black letters read: UNITED CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF RENEWED HOPE. There was writing in much smaller print underneath that, and the bottom was signed: Bishop Cecil Omar Biggs.
Roscoe glanced at the flyer.
“The hell is this?”
“Fact is, we’ve got all the members we can handle. Read the flyer.”
“I don’t have time to read this shit. Fine print hurts my eyes.” Roscoe balled the flyer up and tossed it over his shoulder. “Look, I just felt like coming inside to say a couple of prayers. What’s the big deal in that?”
“Where were you when the church first opened years ago, Roscoe? I delivered pamphlets door-to-door. Everyone in the neighborhood was invited to come in and worship: the lame and the insane, rich and poor—all were invited back then. Times have changed since all that. We have rules to abide by as implemented by the board of directors—for security reasons. I may be the bishop, I still have rules and guidelines I am expected to abide by.”
“‘Security Reasons’? What for?”
“I’ve been threatened. We receive our share of death threats. No point being reckless.”
“Hogwash, Biggs. You don’t think we know about the pole crawlers and the rock-n-roll?”
“He’s desperate to go inside because he saw those ghetto ballerinas with tits out-to-here go in the other night!” Petunia Roscoe shouted from the sidewalk. Gave her husband a real start. He’d never heard her walk up. Roscoe had been so preoccupied in dealing with Biggs and his crackhead secretary, or whatever Muck was to him, that he’d had no idea that his wife had tracked him to Biggs’s smelly abode. But there she was—and she wasn’t through.
“Isn’t that right, Marty honey?”
“What ghetto ballerinas?”
“Whores.”
“Whores? Can’t you see that’s an insult to the reverend and all he stands for? He’s a Man of God. This ain’t no whorehouse.” Roscoe pointed at the plaque on Biggs’s door. “This is a church. See that? United Christian Church of Re-Newed Hope. It don’t say Church of Made-Over Hoes, does it? Besides, hoes got just as much right to worship as anyone else.”
Biggs stepped past the redneck in order to unlock the front gate as an invitation for Roscoe to take a walk and get lost, and stay lost.
A disappointed Marty Roscoe took the hint: left the premises, grumbling. “I ain’t givin’ up, Biggs. I need the Word. You ain’t seen the last of me.”
He rejoined his wife on the sidewalk and the verbal sparring continued as they made it back to their prefab shanty.
CHAPTER 242
Biggs noticed the mail carrier drop a bunch of advertisements in his mailbox, glance nervously at him, and quickly drive off in the postal Jeep. Everybody was nervous these days. He didn’t care for it. It wasn’t good for his condition. He unlocked his mailbox to retrieve the bundle inside and could easily hear the Roscoes going at it on their front porch.
“Don’t lie to me, Marty. I hate it when you lie to me. You know how much I hate that, Marty.”
“What’s the big deal? What the hell did I do now?”
“You know exactly what this is about. You can smell those sluts a block off—especially if they’ve got tits out to here.”
“What’s wrong with tits? You got tits. That’s how I got interested in you, ain’t it? You never complained about that.”
Even though they were inside by now and their front door closed, the back-and-forth shouting was easily audible.
Biggs locked his gate back up, went through the mail as he walked to his front door. He shook his head, cursing under his breath.
“I don’t believe it.”
“What do it be, Brotha Lusty?”
“Roscoe put my name on a smut list. I’m being sent smut now. Some of this is fag porn. How can they do this? How can they send smut to a reputable church?”
Marvin’s reaction was a double take. Do the mofo be serious? Can’t be. After all he be doin’ to the bitches, he complainin’ ’bout weak shit like this?
He followed Cecil inside. The front door was locked. They were in the living room. The Roscoes could still be heard: the battle raged on in their domicile.
CHAPTER 243
Biggs had tossed the queer porn in the trash, and was rubbing himself while going over the straight porn catalogue and flyers. He stood at the shuttered window facing the Roscoe house as he did this.
He dropped the smut on the futon. Only then did he notice, among the porn, the white envelope that had been sent by the PI he kept on retainer to track Tillie down.
Marvin was all over the smut at this point. Agog.
Cecil yanked the envelope from the stack. There it was. The name. In the left-hand corner: Philbert Coyne, Private Investigations. He suspected what was inside. Hated to open it. Did so just the same. Another bill, or rather the same one. PI insisting he be paid for work rendered during the past few months or so.
Bill was too high, thought Biggs. Exorbitant. Otherwise he would have paid it by now, not to mention the private detective hadn’t given him anything he could use against her, such as photos that caught her mistreating the kid in some way or that showed her for being the rotten, lying gold digger that she was who would spread her legs or blow cock at the drop of a peso.
Not only had he not given him anything to use as leverage to counter her demands for increased child support and alimony, but this was the same grifter who hadn’t been able to provide him with any evidence to nail her with while the divorce was going through, that she had lied about being a virgin and that she’d been running around on him while they lived as husband and wife.
The other thing that nagged at him: Why were women never penalized for being lame lays and/or for refusing to take it in the ass or for not knowing how to give satisfactory head? Why was the blame always left at the man’s doorstep? And when the marriage unraveled, which was bound to happen, the husband was punished once more with demands of money and property—when all he had been interested in in the first place was spicing up the lackluster union?
It’s the Betty Friedans of the world. Bull dyke bitches built like longshoremen and truck drivers who had started it; the two Glorias: Steinem and Allred. Then you had the Commie-loving, capitalist-hating filthy rich celebrity bag of excreta called Jane Fonda.
There was a time when cunts knew their place. Not these days. Not anymore. Until he got his hands on them and showed them what was what.
Stapled to the back of the bill was a brief note regarding the two Mex turds, former employees, who were doing their best to shake him down for a substantial wad of cash over the incident with Greta. They’d found a liberal ambulance chaser to take their case on. Charges were serious enough: Assault and Battery, and should have been against them. For assault with intent to invade a lady’s poop chute without proper consent.
Everything was upside down these days. He and his attorneys should’ve been suing the other party instead. Wouldn’t happen. Mexicans haven’t got a pot to piss in. No. So instead you sue the har
d-working small businessman like himself and do your damned best to liberate him from the few dollars he has managed somehow to set aside over the years for his retirement. On of the things he found annoying about the system. He was all for liberty, capitalism and free enterprise. Problem was, it also fostered underhanded practices such as this. Nation was lawsuit happy. And it had gone way overboard with no end in sight.
When you thought about it, though, looked at it logically and with a calm mind, Greta had been at fault. Yes. Entirely. For not taking them both out. Bitch had fucked up by not crushing the vermin out of existence. Right there in the women’s john. Flushed them away. And no one would have faulted her for it. She claimed she’d tried, and that they’d been too quick for her, and that Violeta, a girlfriend of one of the Mexicans, had used pepper spray on her. You couldn’t make this shit up. Sprayed with pepper spray by a pepper belly. Too much. Worth a chuckle. Even from him. Almost. But not quite. Only because there was nothing funny about any of it. What it was, instead, was stress-inducing; what it did was to make certain that his sleep disorder would never abate. Slugs. Were humans slugs? Humans were slugs. Everywhere you turned. And then you had that certain segment of society acting like they’re appalled and thoroughly repulsed when his type responded in kind. Trusty, Mr. Turnbull, took it. With all due respect, sir; this is what did you in. They crushed you because you were a saint. You were good and you took it. Cretins like J.J. make it a point to seek out and disassemble your kind. Your demise and destruction is their life’s goal and sole intent.
Cecil folded the notice. A thought occurred to him as he stuffed it in his shirt pocket: What if he dealt with this latest request for remuneration from this bogus shamus by simply enlarging the already dug hole in his garage floor—to accommodate not only Agenda Marie and this cum stain Honesto, whom she claimed was his, but PI Philbert Coyne as well? And adding the two Hispanic shakedown artists and their shady lawyer as icing on the cake.
