by Kirk Alex
“Man, all I ever be wantin’ was vagina. I ain’t no vampire. Bloodsuckin’ be for vampire’.”
Biggs looked at him. There was absolute silence in the room.
“You step on your dick now, my black American friend.”
The Rumanian was shaking his head. Biggs’s eyes were on the Rumanian, and his gaze shifted back on Marvin.
“Are you calling me Dracula, punk?”
“Didn’t mean it like that, Omar. I mean Cecil. Keep forgettin’ you don’t like for nobody to call you Omar. I remember that. Said your old daddy give ya that fuckin’ name on purpose. He be the one hatin’ yo gut’ before you was ever born. What you said, Cecil. Kicked yo mamma in her belly so the ho could miscarry. What you said. Remember?”
“You called me a vampire.”
“Tol’ me so yo’self yo’ daddy expected he wasn’t even yo’ real daddy—an’ that be why he was kickin’ yo mamma in her belly, and then give ya one of them A-rab name’ when you was born.”
“You have no idea how nasty kids can be when you have a name like Omar.” The intimidating black eyes stared at Muck, but his head was somewhere else. Images of his childhood flashed in his mind, images of being mocked by the other kids for being different and “weird,” mocked for the dented forehead and for having a strange and fucked-up family: street whore for a mother, a dogcatcher stepfather who beat dogs he caught, and for having a sissy name like “Cecil Omar.”
“He couldn’t have picked a worse name to give me. Goddamned Cecil Omar. . . .”
“He don’t be right, to give somebody that name.”
“On the other hand, it could have been worse: It could have been Marvin Ritalin Muck. How do you name someone after a drug used to treat depression and hypersensitivity?”
“Have to aks my mama. Only—”
Biggs finished it for him: “Ho be dead.” As an afterthought, or something like it, added: “That’s all right. Cecil suits me just fine these days. Cecil O. Biggs. It’s mine.”
Indicated to Marvin to get himself a cup. Muck did not have to be told “twiced” this time. Scooped up half a cup of blood. Shut his eyes tight, and drank it down. He felt an immediate urge to throw up. Fortunately it didn’t happen.
“That’s better.”
CHAPTER 251
Biggs got his gear back on: mask and goggles, the gloves.
“More water!” The stripper was brought back to life. She was breathing. Biggs wished this were Marty’s wife Petunia before him. What a treat that would have been.
Crimson continued to pour out of the blond. Trusty the Clown, wearing the heavily-stained and flesh-pocked Parfrey hog mask, proceeded to cut her head off at just above the collar bone.
“Turn the music up!”
Marvin threw up instead. Biggs grabbed him by the scruff and dunked his head in the tub, all the way down in there in the blood and muck, and held it like that until Marvin started kicking out with his legs, then shot up, gasping for breath.
The Rumanian was laughing. Biggs would have if he could have. Marvin suspected he thought it was funny. Whirled away, raging.
“Hey, fuck you, Cecil! Get me? FUCK YOU, MAN! WE AIN’T PARTNER’ NO MORE! NOT LIKE THIS! GOIN’ BACK TO THE HOOD! I DON’T NEED THIS SHIT! I WAS COOL ON MY OWN! I AIN’T NO GODDAMN VAMPIRE, CECIL! I’M A PIMP, ME! MY NAME DON’T BE DRACULA! YOU WANTS TO DRINK BLOOD? NO PROBLEM! ONLY LEAVE ME THE FUCK OUT!”
“Ungrateful. Don’t you think, Bishop Biggs?”
“Nah. Just a little pissed. Eh, Deacon? Craves it as much as I do. Only I’m honest about it.”
“Marvin should be honest with Marvin.”
“Keep yo mouth shut, Commie Dawg. You ain’t even prob’ly got yo green card and you be tryin’ to tell everybody what to do. We don’t need that in America, greasy-ass punk.”
“How you know I don’t have green card? Maybe I got green card and you don’t know, ‘Dawg.’ My business, don’t you think? Truth be, you got weak stomach. Bishop should make me deacon. I help pick up big Eastern European woman all the time. I take you to Mediterranean restaurant in San Fernando Valley, Bishop Biggs.”
“SHUT YO MOUF, NAZI MOTHAFUCKAH!”
“Maybe even down to Fairfax Avenue. Down there plenty of European place’ to eat, West Los Angeles; we go all over. This black boy not very intelligent.”
Marvin had hosed the blood off his face. Turned the hose on the Rumanian. Moved in. Whipped the hose against his face and kept whipping him until gouts of blood appeared in his mouth and Ionesco reeled against the wall, slipped, and went down.
Biggs scooped up limbs and other body parts and viscera and dropped them into a galvanized bucket. Got out of his gear and clothes, reached for the chalice and stepped into the tub. Lowered his body until he was sitting in it. He enjoyed watching Free Ride kick the living daylights out of the foreigner.
“Let me drown in it.”
Biggs dipped the chalice in. Raised it over his head and let the red pour down, and followed this procedure with two more helpings, pouring blood all over his face as he tilted his head back, allowing plenty of it to wind its way inside his open mouth, the red matching the red of his eyes.
Marvin kicked Ionesco in the groin. Watched the man twist around in the blood and water on the cement floor and liked it.
“WHO YOU BE MAKIN’ FUN OF NOW, NAZI ASS-HOLE?”
“I am not Nazi. You are not correct, boy. I no Nazi. I am Rumanian. My dear wife and I come to America to see Cowboy and Indian.”
Marvin stood back. Shook his head incredulously.
“Fulla shit, too. Punk. You don’t never call me ‘boy’ neither. We don’t got no boy’ in America. What we got is mens in America. Mens. I be a man, me.”
The Rumanian was too preoccupied spitting blood to answer. Muck kicked him in the belly, then picked up the hose again and began to whip the man on the floor some more with it—and mistakenly whacked his right knee. Cursing, Marvin dropped the hose and reached down for the pain.
“That’s enough, Brother Marvin.”
Biggs was calm. Well immersed in his own ritual and wanting to enjoy it to the fullest. His erect penis, not unlike Nessie—the Loch Ness monster—rose up through the blood in degrees . . . and he gripped it in his right hand.
CHAPTER 252
Marvin was on the floor rubbing his knee. Ionesco took the opportunity to send a fist into the light-skinned black’s crotch and watched his head drop back down against the cement. The Rumanian scooted over, so that he was within spitting distance, and spit in the deacon’s face, then sent a hard fist into his jaw. He followed that up with another to Muck’s nose and fell back, his fist aching.
Muck sat up. Managed it. Wiped at the mucous and blood with the back of his sleeve. Both men were too exhausted to do anything else just then.
“Leave.” Biggs meant it. Had his eyes closed. “I want to be alone. . . .”
The Rumanian crawled away in the direction of the door, with Marvin doing the same.
“I could leave, me. Keep right on goin’. Leave this plantation for good. Don’t be no future here for this nigga.”
“You’ll leave all right. Feet first. . . .”
“Feet first?”
Marvin paused. Turned his head.
“You know too much.”
“I know too much? You the one be all the time sayin’ I know shit about nothin’.”
“You’d never make it out there, Free Ride. Don’t act like this is news to you.”
“Could find me a rich ol’ ho. All it take’. Down in Beverly Hill’. One of them old bitches don’t nobody want’ ’cause she had too many face lift’; got her face all messed up. Me? I don’t mind. Give her the black mamba, the big black dick—’cause that be all they want. They be wantin’ it and can’t get it. Yo. Them Hollywood faggot’ don’t like fuckin’ them over-the-hill ho. Them big shot studio mothafuckahs be busy payin’ outcall hoe’ to do the golden shower on ’em. Some of them rich dude’ be akskin’ the hoe to shit on ’em, too—for big
bread. I know that scene; ain’t nothin’ new there. Why there be so many unhappy over-the-hill old bitches in Bel Air and Beverly Hill’ and Malibu.”
“And you’re going to solve everyone’s problems with a big dick? Is that it?”
“What I said.”
“Close the door on your way out.”
Marvin crawled out of the room and kicked the door shut behind him.
Sure thing, he thought. “And fuck you, too, Omar. Fuckin’ Omar gotta have his way. Like I ain’t suppose’ to want nothin’, like I ain’t got my own need’, too. Makin’ me drink blood like Dracula. Always be talkin’ ’bout: Don’t cross me. It be about trust. Trust be everything. Meantime, Trusty be the one you can’t trust. I don’t drink blood. Don’t need it, me. Base don’t be needin’ it. Ain’t my style. Iceberg never dranked blood; never got into that shit. Neither did Dolemite; Mr. Moore. Man want’ to drink blood like a vampire that be his business. I don’t be doin’ it ’cause I don’t like it. Fuck them vampire’.”
His belly went tight on him. Grumbled some more. Marvin found himself throwing up again near the pit and could not stop. Feet first. Two words. Could not shake the threat anymore than he could stop vomiting. Mothafuckah be always makin’ threat’.
“Lord, that hurt’. Damn, my gut’ be fucked up real bad. . . .”
When the deacon lifted his head he could see that the Rumanian was in the john and had left the door wide open as he urinated standing up. Missed the bowl more often than he should have, spraying the tank and floor.
Marvin was dry heaving at this point. All he wanted was for the pain to go away.
END OF BOOK ONE
Interview with Kirk Alex
How do you write something as graphic and twisted as LUSTMORD: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher and live with yourself? How do you sleep at night?
I’m not making excuses, but this is who they are, how they behave. Take a pit bull pup, mistreat it, beat it—abuse it—and you end up with a killing machine. Why should a human be any different? Granted, the occasional bad seed happens. Have been reading true crime for decades. You pick up knowledge, learn how serial killers operate. I know how the cowardly fuckers think, and what they’re about. Bundy, Gacy, Manson—pussies and punks. Prey on victims who can’t fight back. Having said that, yes, there were two scenes, well, more than two actually, but two specifically that literally caused me to lose sleep. One in particular, that I won’t mention, that during the initial two-and-a-half years it took to write the first draft, I kept taking out and putting back in, taking out and putting back in. It was no easy task, mind you, since the four-hundred thousand-plus word novel was written (primarily) on a typewriter. Taking out the scene made me feel that I was being less-than-honest with what I was dealing with, the material that I was tackling; leaving it in turned my stomach because the scene, in its graphic depiction, and it is graphic, is absolutely abhorrent.
Finally, I said: Fuck this shit. Leave it in. I’m leaving the goddamned scene in. Not only that one, but the others as well, because that’s the way these assholes (serial killers) are. Very few give a damn about the victim, very few feel any remorse afterwards. It’s all about them, getting their rocks off, having their fun—or else it’s about filling that void, the hollowness within—that never gets filled; the “wound” never heals; the psychological wounds caused by a brutal childhood are never mended, not by hurting the innocent who never did them any harm, anyway. But they have themselves convinced that killing is the answer, that taking life, crushing, destroying, maiming, torturing, will somehow make them whole. . . It gets convoluted, because you’re dealing with psychosis; it ties in: getting their jollies, while at the same time needing to “fill the void.” In BTK’s case, for instance, I doubt he was needing to fill any void; he was strictly out for kicks, thrills—and in doing so left devastation in his wake. Ruined lives. Every now and then you get one of these guys (even their female counterparts, who do exist, by the way) who feel a degree of remorse and turn themselves in, or commit suicide—but it’s rare. It happens, but not very often. In BTK’s case, he was heartless, so was Bundy, so was Gacy; Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, is another one. Just cold-blooded sociopaths. Selfish and remorseless. I know it’s a long answer, but it’s also a tough question. Also, you want to keep in mind that the book was begun way back around 1987, and wasn’t finished until about 2013. That’s how many years? Twenty-five, twenty-six years? Give or take. Long fucking time. On and off. Still a long time to spend on a single book. Because the subject matter is so brutal and psychologically taxing. Somewhere in there was a five year period when I wouldn’t go near it. In the mid-90s, I believe. I’d done several drafts by then . . . still felt it needed more work, polish, revision. The characters wouldn’t let me be. They had additional things they wanted to do and say. The way it is when the people in your tale are three dimensional: they tell YOU what they want, and not the other way around. I go with the flow when it gets like this. The book leads, and I go along where it wants to take me. In addition to the above, there was a period after that five year hiatus when I could only bear to work on the book four, five, maybe six months out of the year (for about three years)—and that was it. I’d be off working on other things that had nothing to do with killing and mayhem. That shit can pull you down, give you nightmares. Like I said: That’s the subject matter, that’s the tale. I wanted to do it justice. I refused to whitewash any of it.
All right. Fine. But why horror?
Why not? I have as much respect for horror as I do any other genre. Horror is just as valid, if not more so. I feel the same way when it comes to horror flicks. To me, the great ones, and they are few and far between, but the best ones like Polanski’s Repulsion, or The Tenant; George Romero’s and John Russo’s Night of the Living Dead (Yes, I’m aware they “borrowed” heavily from Matheson’s Last Man On Earth, starring the late, great Vincent Price); Fred Walton’s (original) When A Stranger Calls; Friedkin’s The Exorcist; the 1974 original Texas Chain Saw Massacre; John McNaughton’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer; William Lustig’s (original) Maniac, starring the late, amazing Joe Spinnel; I’ll even toss Bergman’s Virgin Spring in there (and I’m no Ingmar Bergman fan, by the way)—are as worthy of praise as any of the great films in the other genres, be they drama, western, comedy, etc. That’s part of the reason, the other reason is I’d rather not keep painting the same painting over and over, working in one genre, writing the same type of book each time out. I can remember when I was down, as a young man, broke, living in tiny furnished rooms in LA, on my own, no prospects, no woman in my life—no one to love, or be loved by—and there you are, feeling worthless, no money in the bank, no car, between cab gigs, or some kind of low-wage day gig—but I’d always been able to scrape together enough change to go see a horror flick, because nothing takes you away from your troubles the way a good scare flick can. Nothing. Not for me, anyway. Sure, running helped, but you can’t do that night and day; guzzling brew helped—but you can’t do that 24/7. It’s no good to sit there in the dark playing Billie Holiday records or Janis Joplin or Roy Orbison and sucking down brewskies, because that’s a sure way to push yourself over the edge. So, I’d find a movie, preferably a horror flick—to take my mind off my troubles. Mind you, we’re talking when I was in my 20s, 30s. But finding a great horror film is not easy—because most of them suck. Hell, most films, most of anything sucks: books, music. Just the way it is.
ZIGGY POPPER AT LARGE
14 Tales of General Degeneracy, of Mayhem & Debauchery – for the Morally Conflicted & Borderline Criminal
Raw and loony, filthy and funny gutbucket belches from Kirk Alex, author of the acclaimed and controversial LUSTMORD: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher.
This collection includes tales such as the sexually graphic and outlandishly violent, “Ziggy Popper at Large,” featuring a fresh out of the joint ex-con sitting in a dive bar in seedy East Hollywood nursing a beer and minding his own business, when a scrawny a-hole wa
lks in and parks his butt on the stool next to his and offers him money to shag his wife. Hardboiled and packing a punch of LA attitude in its gritty realism and black humor, “Ziggy Popper” shows what can happen when a man’s past catches up to him.
The compilation also includes the cab stories “Don’t chu want it?” “Cruising for Action,” and “You should have done what I did,” as well as the seriously raunchy and absurd noir parodies, starring low-rent, private eye “Choo-Choo” Buschitski in a series of adventures entitled: “Bone,” “My Kind of Client,” “Angel–the Crazy Woman,” and “The Case of the Vengeful Vixen,” et al.
Praise for Ziggy Popper at Large (crime noir single) “★★★★1/2 out of five.” –GoodReads.com
Praise for Fifty Shades of Tinsel: Portrait of a Heartthrob: “This story is a bit dark and to say there is a lot of sex is an understatement. Jimmy’s journey is an interesting one. ★★★★ out of five.” –NetGalley.com
Praise for nonentity: “You can digest this book in two hours – it will stay with you forever.” –Steven Rosen, Curled Up With A Good Book
ZOOK
By KIRK ALEX
Blurb & Novel Excerpt
Some very strange things are taking place at the New Pueblo Funeral Home . . .
War vet, Ray Zook, a PTSD afflicted former grunt, is about to regret that he ever set foot in Tucson, Arizona.
All he wants is to gain the courage to face his inner-demons and somehow explain to the widow of his best friend what really happened to him during their stint in the military. But when Zook is mugged and takes a temporary job working the night-shift at a crematory run by a couple of unsavory employees, those plans get derailed.
