“But we must have hiked a five-mile perimeter around this place. They’re gone. Just gone.”
Voices echoing in the dark against a thousand years of decay.
I have my canteens filled with boiled water, ready to go. Over the last few days I’ve collected enough Protein Beans to last a few weeks, and I even spent a few minutes at The Drinking and Washing Fountain collecting extra water to bathe in—once properly boiled and cooled, of course. Then I took my mining shovel and found a nice, out-of-the way spot not too far from Monster Island and dug a kind of shelter. I dug it at the foot of this particularly beautiful garbage heap—I call it The Container Store Ridge. It’s full of your usual split-plastic-bag type of rubbish, but for some reason this heap is speckled with a variety of neon-colored plastics. Even sheathed in grey dust and grime, they help brighten up the area. It’s nice. Anyway, I just dug a square into the grey dirt about four-by-six feet and about four feet deep. I covered it with a big, heavy metal door. God’s Breath is coming any day now and I’m going to need a proper place to take refuge. And I expect I’ll be spending some time around Monster Island since those Out-of-Towners appear to have set up camp out there, so that’s why I’ve dug my shelter close to it.
Right now I’m watching them. They just returned from searching the dump, for what, I don’t know. Me, perhaps. But King Clyde the Destroyer is only found when he chooses it to be so!
They’re starting a fire and kind of moping about. They’ve taken off their gasmasks and tied the hounds to a stake in the dirt. Joyce is collecting water from the well. Eventually, they’ll sit around the fire, boiling water and munching on whatever it is they’ve found to eat—Protein Beans, flies, or rats. They’ll sit around that fire with their backs to the hounds, who are near the western wall and always slumbering, those lazy fucking animals. For the last several days, this routine has been normal. And the three have gotten quieter with each passing day. That twerpy Terrance fella doesn’t open his big fat mouth as much and Joyce has seemed just fine to carry on in silence. The big bald giant rarely says a thing, though sometimes he’ll yelp or grunt, like the time he was starting a fire and singed his hand. He seemed ready to cry, the giant baby. Joyce went to him immediately and blew on his knuckles and told him it wasn’t that bad and the big dummy smiled, bit back his tears, and said “Thanks, Joyce,” in that slow, dumb voice of his.
As expected, they’re sitting around the fire now, quiet as cockroaches, their eyes glossy in the glow of firelight, their dark backs to the dogs.
I’ll take notes in my little book of lined paper, but I’ll let these fuckers be tonight. It’s not quite time. Besides, I have to return The Art of War to The Library before it’s too dark. The book’s already late. Rosa and Petunia will be furious!
Boy, Rosa and Petunia sure chewed my ear off about responsibility and timeliness and all that junk. They kept saying things like, “If you were a man you’d honor your commitments,” and shit like that. I am a man, though. My Momma said so. And all this right after that fucking twig-dick, Terrance, disparaged me and called me a boy. It really twisted my nuts, so I knocked poor Petunia’s block right off. I felt bad immediately and ran after her tumbling skull. I put her noggin back on her neck bone and even helped her log the return of my book. Then I made her feel better by getting her to talk about her granddaughter. I told Petunia that her granddaughter should visit soon so I can put my thing in her and Rosa made that tsk-tsk sound Momma used to make and shook her old head. I told her she better watch it if she wants to keep her block from getting knocked off, too.
That shut her right up.
“That’s right,” I said as I left The Library with a new book, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. “You both better watch what you fucking say to me. I’m a man. I’m the man. I’m goddamned Clyde The Destroyer, King and servant to none!”
I followed those fucking Out-of-Towners all over my Kingdom these last few days. They stalked around in gasmasks, heavy-booted, just tearing apart my land. The big guy would lead the way, hauling an enormous shovel, and he’d bulldoze right through a trash mountain, totally leveling it. He’d reach out with his massive hand and easily shove aside large, rusted appliances, not worried at all about tetanus! Then he’d lay into the hillside with his shovel and shit would just fly over his shoulder. Before I knew it, he’d successfully moved a whole mountain from one spot to fifteen feet behind him. I have to admit, I was kind of in awe. I always thought Papa was pretty strong (he could always beat the shit out of me, anyway), but this guy made Papa look like an absolute pussy. And maybe he was, in fact. The way he let Momma smack him around and talk down to him—the way he died… I guess maybe he wasn’t much of a man, himself. And Momma always loved me more. She made sure I understood that in the end. So how much of a man could Papa have actually been?
Anyway, after that leviathan managed to completely rearrange the geography of my only known world, they proceeded to The Used Car Lot. There, they went looking through all the gutted vehicles, just like last time, and the skeletal trees shivered around them. Only this time they’d lift the hoods (on the cars that still have them) and stare down into those cavities, inspecting invisible V8 engines with great interest. What they were looking for, I’ve no idea. Maybe they were just playing games, same as I do.
Now they’re back near the well at Monster Island, seeming exhausted and downtrodden. They’re resting up against duffel sacks, drinking from canteens, looking like pictures I’ve seen of army men in magazines. They’re filthy and sweaty. Joyce says something about Kenneth and the big guy makes the sound of a wounded animal. Terrance says “fuck him” and spits into the fire then rises angrily and stomps over to the well, which he gives a quick kick.
“Maybe they got him,” Joyce says, staring into the fire, absentmindedly rolling a pair of chopsticks between her palms. She looks so sad and beautiful. I want to sit in her lap and tell her that everything is going to be OK even though I know it won’t be. Not for them.
“All of them?” Terrance retorts, his back to her as he stares down into the well.
“Maybe…” Joyce answers, her voice trailing off.
“Or maybe they just left us.”
“Kind of a waste of perfectly good meat, if that’s the case,” she answers, matter-of-factly.
“Hrm,” the big guy says, rubbing at his shoulders and biceps.
“It doesn’t make sense for them to just abandon us,” Joyce says.
“Oh yeah? I can think of a couple reasons Kenneth might throw us away like trash.” Terrance scoffs. “No pun intended, I guess.”
The giant bald guy whines again and Joyce walks over to him, sits atop his duffle behind him, and massages his shoulders. He sighs and grunts and his eyes roll back.
“You’re always pampering him, Joyce. You’re gonna turn him soft,” Terrance says.
Joyce doesn’t say anything, just keeps working away at the behemoth’s shoulders, staring into the fire. It’s quiet for a while. Just the crackle of fire and wind causing trash to trickle in the distance.
“We can’t go back out there without them. Well, we wouldn’t get far, anyway,” Terrance finally says.
13
After God picked Papa up by the toe and flung him into the sun, into Hades, I did all the hunting, all the mining, all the protecting. While Papa was having his dick sawed off with a rusty screw for all eternity, I’d patrol my Kingdom looking for monsters, Out-of-Towners, and food while Momma would dust The Memory Palace, boil water, and keep all the pathways between the ragged ranges of rubble clear as best she could. Trash would get all over, of course, but she’d take a large broom and try to push it back into the belly of the beast it came from. She’d also keep our tent as dust-free as possible. One time I asked her why we didn’t build a real shelter. I suggested we could even build a little town. I said we could pretend there’s more than just the two of us. She said no. She just said no. I asked why, and she teared up and I had to console her. I asked her if it was about Papa and she b
roke down into convulsive sobbing fits, clinging on to me and biting down into my shoulder as she soaked it in snot and tears. I told her the tent was fine. It was around this time she started ordering me to locate gas cans, paint cans, glue bottles and the like. We were having a hard time finding more booze, though we’d still come across the occasional dented can of Old Style or something. I didn’t get it. The gas cans, the paint cans, the glue bottles were always nearly empty, but Momma wanted me to find ones that were capped shut, even if they were almost empty. She’d tell me, with a bare-knuckled voice, that I better not remove the caps. I better not or I’d be sorry! She said if I took the caps off, even once, she’d not let me sleep in the tent. She told me to find all the capped cans of gas, paint, or glue that I could and bring them directly to her. I found quite a few, surprisingly. I expected most would be without their tops and that I’d only disappoint Momma. Instead, I’d find these old, beat-up red and yellow gas canisters shut up real good and tight. They were mostly empty, but that was good enough for Momma, apparently. I’d run over trash mountains in my big rubber boots, gloves, and orange life vest, smiling big against the grey dome of the sky all the way back to her. There I’d find her sitting in her red chair, staring off. She wasn’t looking at the photo album, marking days in the calendar, or reading or nothing. She barely perked up when I said, “Hey, Momma!” and handed her the cans I’d found. Momma would reach out for them, smile, pat me on the head, and cradle the cans to her chest. Then she’d get up and drag her feet to the tent, enter, and close the flap behind her. Once in there she’d start breathing real hard. It always ended with a long sigh, then nothing but silence. It’d be hours before she left the tent again. I’d just run off and find more treasure for my poor Momma because eventually something I found was going to make her happy.
One particularly ugly night with no moon, just the fire outside the tent, Momma and I lay sweating, in and out of sleep because it was hot and muggy. Earlier I’d brought her a virtual cornucopia of paint cans, gas cans, glue bottles, and the like. All capped tightly shut. Some even had some stuff left in them. She didn’t pat me on the head or smile. She didn’t say thanks. She was saying less and less at that time. She just disappeared into our tent again. Besides the talking, she was doing less and less in general. She wasn’t keeping the grey pathways free of debris. I had to boil all of our water and wash our clothes at The Drinking and Washing Fountain. I had to decapitate the cockroaches. I had to cook the rats and seagulls up at Dante’s Inferno, all by myself. I did all those things with no gratitude, but I figured it was OK. I still had Momma and she still had me. She was Queen and I was her King, even if our whole world was trash. We were royalty and trash was our treasure.
That night she said my name and asked if I was awake. I said of course I was. She pulled me close to her and for a few minutes I felt really good. The she grabbed my hand with her slimy hand and placed it on her belly, just above where the hair grows down there.
It was nice for a moment, us lying there like that, our bodies slickened with sweat, glowing in the firelight from outside the tent. For a moment I thought we were having a nice moment, Momma and me.
Then, still holding my hand against her belly, she said, “You’re a monster.” Her voice kind of slurred. “You shouldn’t have done that to your Momma.”
I yanked my hand away and asked what she meant. Sloppily, she snatched my hand back and put it on her belly once more. Her white eyes glistened in the dim glow. “You’re sick,” she said. “You disgust me,” she said. “Monster,” she said. She kept saying it, unblinking. “Monster.” Over and over and over again: monster.
Pushing myself up on my elbow, I yelled at her to shut up and smacked her once, real good, across the cheek. She barely reacted and she wouldn’t shut up. She just kept mumbling monster again and again. I ran out of the tent, into the black night, naked, unconcerned about all the sharp objects in my way. Crying, I climbed the nearest garbage heap and shouted for the moon to show itself. I pummeled the rubble beneath me, dug my hands into it, and squished it all between my fingers.
“Momma,” I screamed, choking, my hands carved up and dripping black blood in the night. “Momma, I’m sorry! I didn’t… I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry!”
14
Surprise. Disabling the enemy’s weaponry. Flanking and taking out their first line of defense, retreating, and attacking during the confusion. These are all things I learned from The Art of War.
That’s why right now, while those fuckers sleep, facing the fire, their dirty faces against the grey earth, I sneak up on one of the giant hounds, stealth as can be in the soft moonlight, and gore the thing right through the skull with the new bowie knife I mined from The Kingdom’s plentiful mountains. A loud crack sings from the blade as it splits the baddie’s brain. The beast barely has time to yelp but it’s enough to wake its comrade. Immediately that hound’s snarling, its thundering rage echoing against the close night sky that’s backlit by the ever-hidden moon.
In this split moment, while that hound tears up the earth on its way to me, I have enough time to regret not being able to play around in the dead dog’s blood, rip open its belly, and place my whole head inside its ribcage after I crack it wide open. I want to cover my face in the warmth of its just-expired organs and feast on its liver, drink mouthfuls of ruby blood.
But I can’t. It’s a shame.
The other hound’s pouncing toward me just as the Out-of-Towners around the fire stir. As the beast flies at me it eclipses the dim light of the fire, and of the escaped moon, and it lands on me with all the weight of a rusty old refrigerator. I slam back to the dead dirt, hard, my breath playing hide-and-seek with my lungs.
Still tethered to the stake in the ground, that hound leaps from me and runs in jagged circles, pulling its rope taught in an attempt to get way. It’s confused as to what has happened. It feels an invisible monster attacking it but can’t shake it. Its legs go wobbly and awkward, giving me time to catch my breath. While wailing and growling and spitting it stumbles and falls, once, twice, three times. Deciding I’m the invisible offender, it’s galloping toward me again, barking through its cries, but stumbles a last time and falls dead at my feet, its black tongue exiled from its muzzle, forever to lap at grey dirt.
“Snuffy!” the giant says in his slow, dumb voice, drawing my attention. They’re less than thirty feet away and they’re pulling themselves from their sleep, the earth, and the fire. And they’re coming at me, blurry silhouettes with slow, unsure footing.
“You’re dreaming!” I scream at them as I flip the hound over at my feet and yank my knife from it. “You’re just dreaming!” I tell them once more as I frantically saw the dog’s head off, cradle it to my chest, and sprint away toward the suddenly brightening horizon.
“You’re crazy! Let me outta here! I didn’t do anything!” I yell into the circle of light way above me. “You just dreamed it!”
A dark head slides into that circle. “Shuddup,” it snarls and a glowing ember tumbles down the darkness toward me. It’s a cigarette and it sizzles out in the water I’m wading in. I’m in the well in the northwestern corner of my Kingdom, in Monster Island.
Where’d he get a cigarette?
Anyway, I ran from them. I ran like a goddamned ghost. So fast. I slipped around and over garbage mountains until I found the shelter I dug—The Cellar Door. I pushed the heavy metal door aside, slid in, and pulled the door back in place over me. I almost thought they had a third sniffer hound with them, they found me so quickly. The door flew off and I was bathed in dusky light, the three Out-of-Towners standing over me like demons come to drag me from the grave to Hell.
First, the big guy reached down and palmed the dog’s head from my clutches. Next, one-armed, he yanked me from the hole in the ground. He held me, by the neck, up above him, his eyes red and angry, his broken yellow teeth showing. I gasped and tried to kick the bastard, but it was no use.
“Put him down, Sam,” Joyce ordered and t
he giant tossed me to the ground like I was nothing. Again, I had the wind knocked out of me and I became paralyzed on my back, trying to suck in some oxygen. That twerpy Terrance fucker kicked at my feet and told me to “get the fuck up” but I couldn’t move.
Joyce stepped forward, squatted beside me, looked me over and said, “What the fuck are you thinking, kid?”
She told Sam, the big guy, to pick me up. He was petting the dead dog’s head. Confused, he looked around, handed the head off to Terrance, and scooped me from the earth. Terrance immediately dropped the dog’s head, disgusted. On our way back to Monster Island, within the giant’s death-grip, I unsheathed my bowie knife from my rubber boot and tried to stab the giant in the throat but he easily flicked the blade from my hand as if I wielded a toothpick.
As they were tying me up with the well rope, Joyce asked if I understood what I did. I spit in her face and regretted it immediately. They then tied my ankles together and my wrists behind my back. “I’m sorry!” I screamed as they lowered me down the well. “I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!” Then I realized what they were doing and I have to admit that I began to squeal like a gopher stuck with a bunch of knives strategically placed to miss all its vital organs and keep it alive through the pain.
I was really screaming my head off!
They were dropping me into the acid water! They meant to kill me by burning off all my skin and incinerating my insides when I inevitably swallow some of it down!
“Ahhh! Let me out! Let me out! Bring me back up! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I screamed like a wingless seagull. “Let me out! Let me out! Please!”
With my arms tied behind my back I had no way of pulling myself up the rope. When the mineral scent of the water grew near, I kicked and tucked my knees in, keeping my feet and legs from penetrating the dark, glossy surface. But it was no good, they just kept lowering me. I screamed and wailed and bawled, ashamed even at the moment of my impending demise.
The Sun My Destiny Page 6
