At Night She Cries, While He Rides His Steed

by Ross Patterson

  “Please join hands in a moment of silence for Totally Fucking Mexico,” she says softly.

  Just as we bow our heads, we hear the rope being cut and a loud gong sound outside from the statue hitting the ground.

  “I cut him down, Dad!” Daniel screams out.

  Louretta loses it and bursts into hysterics. She takes her napkin off her lap and throws it on the table, excusing herself. The rest of us sit in silence as we pick at our meal. I consider saying something to her about burning the veal as she is leaving but think better of it at the last second. I’ll tell her tomorrow. Daniel walks in and sits across from me at the table.

  “Dad, did you K-I-L-L that guy in the forest?”

  “Yeah, and I fucking U-R-I-N-A-T-E-D on him too.”

  He stares at me, confused, as do the rest of my children. If he’s going to spell shit out like he’s a big man, he better know all the big-boy words. I try to eat my shitty food, but I can’t stop thinking about all the different ways that I’m going to fuck up my neighbor, Mr. Paulson, when he gets home.

  I know he works late, because each of us only has one neighbor, and you know everything about them. You go to church with them on Sundays, cook each other pies, biscuits, casseroles, all that bullshit. More important, you look after them and make sure they are safe. As a man, you know to look out for your neighbor’s wife and kids if they are in trouble. Guy-code shit.

  Instead, my cocksucking neighbor Ron Paulson did nothing, and for that, he will feel my fucking wrath. I’d ride down to his office now, but it’s best if I catch him right when he walks into his house, so I can beat him in front of his wife. This will ensure a mental scar that will stay with him forever and make him feel weaker in her presence every time they’re together the rest of their lives. I’m going to enjoy every fucking second of it too. I know that may sound sick, but you don’t just sit there with your hands on your dick while your neighbor’s kid is getting dipped in hot gold. My four-year-old, whose name I’m blanking on, looks up at me deep in thought.

  “Dad, should I bring some veal and cabbage out to Totally Fucking Mexico?” he asks.

  All my boys look up at me for an answer. For the first time ever, I have to be a real father. My voice cracks, and I’m barely able to muster up the words, “He’s not very hungry right now, and he wants me to have it.”

  I take his plate and scrape his meal onto mine before I get up. On the way out, I lean down and whisper into Daniel’s ear, “You’re the oldest, so I want you to keep an eye on your brothers tonight. I gotta go ball your mom. She’s probably grieving, so don’t disturb us unless it’s an emergency.”

  Daniel nods silently as I head into the bedroom with my double plate of veal and cabbage. I’m fucking starving, but I know I’m not going to get to eat anytime soon. As I close the bedroom door behind me, a large perfume bottle whizzes by my head and smashes against the top of the door frame. Louretta is crying hysterically, looking for something else to throw. She sees my prized banjo hung on the wall and grabs it by the neck, raising it above her head.

  “I hate you!” she screams.

  “Don’t you fucking dare throw it! That’s my favorite banjo!”

  “You did this! You’re the reason he died, asshole!”

  I quickly put my dinner plate down on the bed and sprint over to her, grabbing her arms before she can throw the banjo at me. We struggle, then I squeeze a pressure point under her armpit and she slowly releases it, crumpling to the floor, sobbing. I take the banjo and carefully hang it back on the wall, where it belongs.

  “You care more about that goddamn banjo than you do your own family!” she wails.

  She gets up and starts punching my chest, yelling, “You killed him! You killed my third-youngest baby boy! He was my favorite!”

  I grab her and pull her tightly into my flexed pecs. “I loved him too! That kid was worth his weight in—”

  Shit. I knew it the second it came out of my mouth. Louretta tries to shove me away from her, but it’s like trying to push a mountain up another mountain. She slaps me hard across the face, and I slap her right back. She then spits at me, which I catch with my hand, jamming it down my pants, using it to gently stroke my cock to get it hard. I lift her up against the nightstand while she tries to squirm away.

  “What are you doing?” she shouts.

  “Giving you that child that was just taken from you. Time to get pregnant.”

  I put my finger on her mouth, shushing her, because I’m pretty sure she’s going to try and say something. This isn’t a time for words; it’s a time for lovemaking. The type of lovemaking I participate in when a child dies is different. It’s furious and unrestrained. It’s the type of love where you use quick, short thrusts while pulling the back of each other’s hair with a firm grip. Both parties exert a lot of raw emotions, and the sex is intense. You also never break eye contact, because in a fucked-up way, you’re glad you’re still alive, and happy you’re not the one who’s frozen in gold. Quietly, I ask her if she wants to climax with me. She nods as I scream out into the night, “Your death will not go unavenged, Mejico!”

  We climax hard together—hers lasting longer than mine, obviously. She falls to the ground on top of me and begins sobbing lightly. I wipe her tears away and tuck her hair back behind her ears, because it’s in my face and I can’t see anything.

  “You’re definitely pregnant after that.”

  She exhales deeply and says, “I’m sure of it.”

  I scoop her up off the floor and lay her on the bed next to my plate of food. “Don’t eat that,” I say as I head over to the wall and grab my banjo.

  She nods knowingly and positions herself against the headboard, holding my dinner plate. I nestle myself between her thighs and begin to play a tune for her as she feeds me my dinner. She sways her head slowly to the rhythm and continues to feed me as I pluck my ’jo seductively.

  “What happened out there today, Saint James?”

  “I kilt summon ta dahay.”

  “What? I can’t understand you, your mouth is full of food.”

  I swallow and look off into the distance. “I killed some men today. Also, we might be out of gold.”

  “What do you mean we might be out of gold?”

  “The mine is empty. I sent my Chinaman home. We’ve got enough here to live off of for the rest of our lives anyway.”

  “Actually, we don’t. Those men took all of our gold out of the barn and put it in that cauldron to melt and throw Totally Fucking Mexico into.”

  I stop playing my banjo. “What? They covered Totally Fucking Mexico in my own gold?”

  “Yes. All of it.”

  “And Mr. Paulson did nothing to stop that either?”

  She shakes her head no. “Maybe it’s not a bad thing, us losing all our gold. You’ve become a different person since you struck it rich. I miss the old you. We were so much happier when we were simple farmers working eighteen hours a day all seven days a week just to live.”

  She knows I hate when she talks about me being poor, but she goes there anyway. I stand up and carefully place my banjo back on the wall, before putting my jeans on. “Maybe you were. You pretty much just hung out and did the same shit you were doing now, cooking and cleaning, tending to the kids and whatnot. I was out there busting my balls wide open every day just so we could eat shit made out of cornmeal.”

  I put my boots on, throw on a shirt, and holster up as I walk out.

  “Where are you going, Saint James?”

  “To handle shit like a boss. First stop, Mr. Paulson’s. That fuck should be home by now.”

  On my way out, I see Daniel sharpening his knife on the front porch. He looks up at me as I pass him. “Are you going to kill the rest of those men, Pa?”

  “No, son. When you kill someone, or multiple people in the same family like I did, the rule of thumb is you give them a week to grieve before you kill another relative. That’s why I’m going to give Mr. Paulson a workout.”

  �
��Can I come with you?”

  “Sorry, but you’re too young to see something like this go down. This is some old-school shit that will fuck a man up on the inside.”

  Daniel smiles at me as I hop on my steed and head off into the night. This is a revenge ride, so there’s really no need to explain in great detail how my pecs are flexing at a max level as I glide on my horse alongside the river, down to Mr. Paulson’s house. I’ve got other shit on my mind. I do, however, manage to take a glance at my reflection in the water and see my triceps ripple as I hold the reins. They’re as perfect as you can imagine.

  * * *

  I. I’m not kidding. I used to do shit like that, just so people had a really fucked-up mental experience before they left this earth. Wait, now I remember. Of course I fucking pissed on him. He killed my son.

  Chapter Six

  TIME TO TAKE A SHIT IN MY OWN HANDS. I THINK THAT SENTENCE IS WRONG.

  Riding up to Mr. Paulson’s house, I laugh to myself at the size of it. Bullshit realtors would call it “modest,” but let’s call a spade a spade here: the fucking thing looks like elves or cobblers live in it. As I’m tying up my steed, I notice that even his horse is shittier than mine. My steed resembles a goddamn racehorse, his looks like it has been giving ghost tours to carriages full of tourists downtown for thirty years. I reach down and move the eating trough and put it in front of my steed.

  “You can fuck that other horse when you’re done eating if you want to. I left enough slack in those reins,” I whisper.

  He winks at me as I knock on the door. A woman in her early thirties, Sheila Paulson, answers and is immediately taken aback by my presence. She quickly tries to fuss with her hair to pretty herself up, but let me tell you, she’s giving you a five back when you hand her a ten. Trying to fix her hair at the last second isn’t going to make her a six.

  “Why, Saint James, Ron didn’t tell me you were coming over.”

  “I know. You would have made yourself look prettier. Did Ron tell you anything about what happened today up at my place?”

  “No. I heard some screaming, but Ron told me to hide in the bedroom and put a pillow over my face. He said we shouldn’t get involved.”

  “Did he now? Where is Ron?”

  As soon as the question leaves my lips, Ron appears through the backdoor of the house with a newspaper under his arm, holding a lit lantern. He’s a taller, gimpy, balding man in his forties who owns the town printing press. What you’re picturing in your head right now is exactly what he looks like. His face freezes in fear at the sight of me standing in his living room.

  “Hey, Ron, how was your day?”

  “It, it, it was good, you know? I was just reading over tomorrow’s newspaper before it goes to print in the morning.”

  “Reading it over a nice hearty deuce I see.”

  “Well, no—I was just out back, reading it by lantern.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Sure,” he says, somewhat surprised.

  He hands me the paper, and I read over it quickly, shaking my head in mock disappointment. I then hold it up for him to see the entire front page, tilting it from side to side.

  “It’s strange. I don’t see a headline in here that says, ‘Four-Year-Old Boy Killed from Being Dipped into Scalding Hot Gold While Neighbor Watches and Does Nothing.’ ”

  “Probably because that would be a run-on sentence. You can’t join two independent clauses . . .” he cuts himself off and quickly looks away. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” he finishes.

  “You don’t? That’s odd. Because your wife said you made her hide in the bedroom and put a pillow over her face while the screaming was going on up at my house today.”

  “That screaming could have been for anything, Saint James. You and your wife have sex a lot.”

  “Normally that excuse would fly, because it’s true, but did you not hear a little boy’s voice crying out as well? You know I never fuck directly in front of my children. If you had any children of your own, you would understand.”

  “We’ve been trying, Saint James, but Sheila just can’t.”

  “She can’t . . . or you can’t?”

  “Saint James, that’s not fair.”

  “It’s hot in here. You mind if I take off my shirt, Ron?”

  “No, please don’t—”

  It’s too late. I’ve already taken off my shirt and placed it on his coatrack. Ron nervously shakes his head as Sheila licks her lips slightly. I’m not going to lie—I may have thrown on a half-inch of butter on the ride over just to accentuate my physique. Deliberately, I begin to take off my belt, loop by loop. As the belt slithers through each rung, Ron is visibly shaking like a man with Parkinson’s holding a set of wind chimes.

  Once I’ve successfully pulled my belt all the way through, I snap it in the air. I crack my neck back and forth, before slowly walking over to Ron. Out of my peripheral vision, I spot a bowl of water to wash up in, and I dip my belt into it. Ron puts his hands up in front of his face.

  “Saint James, please, sir!”

  “Aw, look at you. You’re putting your hands up to protect yourself. I wish someone would have protected my little boy today before he was melted into hot fucking gold!”

  Ron flinches and covers his head as I unleash my belt right across the fat part of his back. He buckles to the floor and lets out a high-pitched, preteen white girl scream. I bet Daniel is on the front porch back home smiling, listening to this little pigshit cry. Ron balls himself up into the fetal position on the ground, preparing for the worst, which is coming.

  I rise up again and again, continuing to beat him with my wet belt. In my blind rage, I look over and see Sheila hiding behind a door, peeking out at me. I notice her smirking through clenched teeth. Each time I beat Ron, she seems more into it, as if she’s rooting for me. She bites her lip seductively.

  “You enjoy watching me humiliate him like this?”

  “Yes,” she says softly.

  Ron looks at her with disdain, but she ignores him and starts to undo her dress with a zeal she probably hasn’t experienced since she was nineteen. Her dress hits the floor, and Sheila shows no shame. Most women her age would try and cover up, but she doesn’t even flinch. She may be a five on the outside, but goddamn if she hasn’t been hiding a seven body underneath her colonial dress all these years.

  “I want you to fuck me like I deserve it,” she says.

  “No. I’m going to fuck you like Ron deserves it.”

  Ron begs through muffled tears, “Please, I beg you, I can’t take this.”

  He didn’t have a hard time hearing my son beg for his life, so me fucking his wife in front of him on the family kitchen table that they eat from every night is only fair. I take Ron’s arms and legs and methodically hog-tie this fat fucker on the floor with my belt. After I’m satisfied that he can’t move, I push him over so he’s on his side, facing up at the table.

  Taking two long Bigfoot strides over to Sheila, I lift her up and insert myself into her at the same time. We crash against the kitchen wall and make out like two Mexican teenagers underneath a picnic table at a quinceañera. Pots and pans hanging from above crash to the floor. Without looking down, I kick them at Ron while I grab Sheila’s surprisingly firm ass as I walk-fuck her over to the table.

  With my free arm, I clear off a delicious dinner of sautéed carrots and a skirt steak that she has made for Ron. The plates shatter right in front of his face as well. His sobbing isn’t enough for me; it’s time for the real emotional scarring. I begin to fuck Sheila like Ron never could in a million goddamn years. With her back on the table, I lift her legs up above my shoulders.

  For Ron’s wife, because I respect her, I go with the jackhammer because I want to maintain a controlled amount of penetration, with rhythmic timing. I also want Ron to know that this move is part of my regular arsenal and that I can maintain it for long periods of time, something he could never do. Again, I cannot stress how impor
tant my sexual precision is in moments like these. It adds years of destruction to someone’s conscience.

  With a decent sweat worked up, I walk over to the wood-burning oven, still full-bone, and open the door so it gets even hotter in here. We’re now licking each other’s sweat and biting one another. Sheila asks me to choke her, and of course I oblige. Just as she can’t take it anymore, I tell her I’m going to climax with her. Climaxing with someone’s wife in front of them is the final nail in the coffin. I look over to Ron, who is sweating profusely and crying. He just wants this to end, but I won’t let it quite yet. I snap my fingers to get his full attention.

  “I want you to listen to me, Ron, as I climax. I want you to look me in the eyes. Do you understand?”

  Through his crying, he weakly says “Okay.” With eye contact established, I pick up the pace of my thrusts and apply more pressure to Sheila’s throat. She starts moaning like she’s from a foreign country. As I climax, I hear my steed climax outside as well, which makes me happy to know that my horse fucked Ron’s horse too. With our eyes still fixated on one another’s, I squint intensely and whisper to Ron, “I now live inside your mind forever.”

  Mentally and physically broken, he closes his eyes and he blacks out from the heat. I rise up off Sheila and thank her, but she has no words. She instead takes my hand and begins blessing herself sign-of-the-cross style, before I unwrap my belt from around Ron’s arms and legs. His limbs hit the floor and he gingerly rolls over. Standing over him, I slap his face with my hand until his eyes open.

  “I’ll see you at the funeral this weekend. Sheila, its potluck, so if you could bring some potato salad, that would be amazing.”

  “Of course. See you then. Tell Louretta she’s in our thoughts and prayers.”