When she put the hammer back I mumbled a prayer and asked forgiveness for my life in general. Anything I might have done. The barrel was then placed on my forehead.
“Go ahead sister. Get them all out. What the fuck did you do exactly? Steal a quarter from a goddamned bake sale? Jerk off a priest in the closet? Or no, I know, you were fingered by a cousin! You motherfuckers are…”
When Vishy was yanked back it was more of a suction, as if the room were its own black hole. She flew across the space and hit the other wall after the gun went off by my head. The bullet hit the pillow, sunk into the mattress and I felt the impact beneath me, the digging of the shell into the cotton. When the stress made me drowsy it wasn’t expected because I knew others were there. Aeric’s voice and another, and still another screaming, and I realized that the voice was a cop’s. Had Aeric called the police?
With the flooding of the sun into room twenty-three I knew the rain was finished. No more rain would come with the light.
“Naomi, hey, Naomi.”
Aeric
Vishy had disappeared and hadn’t come to work for three days and nights when I called him. My father wanted to know where she was. This was prior to her attack on Naomi. He said he would handle it, and as to that he did not, because the following Wednesday was the assault. My father had sent a private detective that trailed and lost Vishy like he meant to. On the Wednesday of Naomi’s assault, he was sitting in the lot of her apartment when she left and drove to The Comfort. The man didn’t even bother to follow. As for myself I never saw Vishy drive in, because Vishy parked at her house. She went to Naomi’s before she came here, because she needed to find us together. If she expected us there in the middle of the day or if she planned to find her alone, all she had to do was look at my schedule. But she didn’t and it made no sense. When one of the maids heard Vishy on Naomi, I immediately called the police. I wanted to go in there but I needed Vishy gone. The police witnessing her insanity would be what I needed to get rid of Vishy. The police were there in two minutes, a unit was local, and I stormed into the room behind them. The two policemen that came were enormous, taller and heavier than me. One slung Vishy across the room, while the other waited for the bounce, before he dressed her and handcuffed her wrists. She was unconscious the entire time and the officer was professional about it. He asked me to stay in the room. To sit on the bed with Naomi. He said “watch what I’m doing. You’re a witness. This is a frequent occurrence.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Some people like to fight nude. Wouldn’t you like to wrestle her naked?”
“I have. Fourteen times. Lost every fucking bout.”
“Lucky you’re alive.”
“That’s the truest statement ever spoken.”
What they did was a wonderfully decent job and though not to my surprise, when they got Vishy to the station, before she was printed and booked, three attorneys from a local practice, of course on a retainer from my father, were waiting to deal with her case. I never saw Vishy again which had been my reason for calling the police and not going in there after her myself. I drove by her apartment the Monday after that and it was emptied of her personal things. I called my father to ask what had happened and this was our conversation:
“Is Vishy here in Waco or not?”
“Aeric, Vishy’s with me. Do you plan on continuing to fuck your employees like you’ve done every time I’ve used you?”
“You’re so patient and understanding. I thought I was becoming, with Naomi’s help, a man worth learning to love. But I guess you’ll tell me different. You seem to know your son so well.”
“You’re a pussy. Just like your mother. I’m ashamed to call you a Copeland.”
Then he hung up on me. To retaliate, or because I could do it, I gave Naomi Vishy’s job. I put her on salary, paid her tuition, and then fucked the whole thing royally. I’d like to blame it on the anti-depressants mixed with coke and three screwdrivers. But I can’t. I was weak. It was Naomi’s day off and her phone went unanswered so I reasoned she was with her mother. I drove to the home, after my liquid breakfast, and proceeded to the resident’s sun porch. The place where her mother told her story. A female physician on an Alzheimer’s grant was there going over her notes. She was younger than me and impressively built and for some odd reason knew my name. I should’ve never answered back. I was slightly drunk and had taken my dose and admittedly done a line of coke. I kept this from Naomi and never touched the shit if I knew I would be in her presence. On this dismal, motherfucking day, apparently my defenses were down. I needed a boost, so I took it. There was no excuse for what happened next. After this stunning, short skirted physician, said my fucking name.
“You’re Aeric Copeland aren’t you?”
I actually responded like this.
“Did my father send you to ask me?”
“I’ve never met your father. I recognized your picture in the paper.”
“That was a good while back.”
“I remember men like you. You’re much handsomer than the photo they took.”
This is where I should leave. If I answer I am fucked. Women have always been aggressive with me because of my looks and money and family. Men like me need Naomi’s in their lives and I’ve often wished that if I had my choice I’d have God strike evil from the earth, though along with this female in the sunroom, I would equally be stricken with that evil. Why can’t I walk away?
“I…”
I shifted like a wide receiver and ran a pattern to the restroom on my left. It was there that I did another line. When I emerged she was waiting on me. She was quick and alert and seemed to know junkies, because her comment wasn’t wasted on me.
“You got another gram in your pocket? I’ve been awake all night preparing this lecture and my fucking mind is shredded. I could use a toot if you get me?”
“What? You’re a doctor! In charge of these patients and if not in charge, doing research they depend on!”
“Oh, shut the fuck up. My father is on the board. Blow got me through medical school and I have no intention of quitting. I was summa cum laude. Top o’ the heap. I give cocaine a lot of the credit. And besides, if you don’t share, that security guard out there might have to come in here. It could get really dramatic. I might say that I think there is coke residue on the sink in that very bathroom. And that you called me some horrible name. That you referred to me as a cunt or a bitch while I was organizing my research. Your pupils look like saucers. This would be easy for me.”
Why are these women placed in my path? Why would this female be here? A doctor, a goddamned physician, preparing a lecture on the visual effects that the disease levies on its patients. I then knew to walk away. Fucking now! Sprint to your truck! Leave this room and get in your car and drive immediately back to The Comfort! Common sense screamed this, but then I said it. And by its speaking so went the day. A day that then became night.
“I don’t have any more on me.”
“Can you get some and meet me somewhere?”
I thought then that I would meet her, give her the blow, and be done with the woman for good. Was my reason that I wanted her to remain awake to deliver an intelligible lecture? To speak clearly for the common good? I didn’t want another junkie to suffer withdrawals when her work was important to her. This is called “justification.” It often stems from an “illogical function.” Its end was the means I’d employed.
“Ah, where? Yes, I can get some.”
“Where IS THE COKE Mr. Copeland?”
“In room thirteen at…”
“The Comfort. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Um, make it an hour if you can.”
“I can make it after she leaves.”
She knows that the patient I’m here to see is Naomi’s mother, or Naomi. Why the fuck is she doing this?
“Okay, listen, come after five and I’ll comp you a gram on me. No charge, just take it and go.”
Fast forward to te
n o’clock that night and I’m drunk and high in the woods near Aquilla, completely naked with this doctor in the G Wagon. Naomi has called me sixteen times and left me twenty really pissed off texts. It’s cold outside but we’re so coked up that the windows are down while we’re fucking. She’s faced away from me and I’m squeezing her tits from behind with my cock in her pussy. She’s thick and Germanic and her head’s between the seats while I’m sinking my dick to the balls.
“Fuck it harder Aeric! Hurt it! I like to feel those nuts pound my thighs!”
I fill her anus with a thumb of blow and then snort it out of her asshole. Gathering a wad of her hair, I yank it back and pulverize her cunt, my strokes long and deep and violent. Her puckered anus is ringed, because I fucked it with my fingers, and her ass remains red from my slapping. She’s going to take my load in her snatch and I hope she’s ready to receive it. But not yet, I slow my thrusts.
“Aeric! Hard again! Don’t stop what you were doing!”
“I need you to answer a question or two. Then I’ll resume throttling that pussy.”
I slide in and out, excruciatingly so, and she calls me a “fucking bastard.”
“Answer my questions woman!”
“Then ask them! Shit, hurry up!”
“Who owns this fucking cunt?”
She knows what I’m doing and wants to play. So we take it and the race is on.
“Aeric Copeland owns my pussy!”
“Put a Mr. in front of that bitch!”
“Mr. Aeric Copeland owns my pussy!”
“And do you want Aeric Copeland’s load?”
“I do! The deeper the better!”
I smacked her ass, pulled out and she fell on the floorboards, wedged between the seats and panting. She said my name, asked permission for my cock, so I continued the abuse without any consideration if the woman had the first feeling. Being demeaned was the shit she enjoyed. And so I took it as far as she would.
“Get on your knees and suck this cock! First bend over and let me eat that ass while I consider where to shoot my love! I might even fuck you again!”
She threw some invective at me. I back handed her face and grabbed her by the hair and rammed the head of my dick down her throat. She gagged and then began sucking. I made her slap my thighs and scream on my dick before releasing the top of her head. “Now bitch you can lick my ass!” Retrieving my cock, I made her mouth my balls, and then flipped for her tonguing of my asshole. I jerked myself off while she was lapping on my anus and then promised the next phase was my jism. “Is that what you want in that hot little snatch? Get on top goddamn you and fuck me! Your daddy is ready to come!”
“You owe me a tongue up my ass! I want more with your fingers inside me!”
By the hair I snatched the good doctor about and then threw her across the seat. When I spread her cheeks apart she was bucking and whining, my lips then fusing with her asshole. I buried my tongue and she howled like a banshee and if not on coke I would continue.
“You like that don’t you cunt?”
“I do! Eat my ass and put your fingers in my pussy! All four right up to the fist!”
I ate her ass while I fucked her with my oversized hand and she begged to be allowed an orgasm. I had to ween her from this cock because this bitch was too wild and I’d never be able to resist her. She was potentially as destructive as Patricia and Vishy combined and she was probably armed. Though I didn’t see a gun on her currently.
“Okay, time for us both. Get on. Saddle up you whore!”
She came into my lap worn and ragged and seeping from her cunt like a fountain. I threw her knees to my hips, slammed my cock inside her, the doctor’s tits bouncing to bruise, the space between her mammary mashing my face, the boobs surrounding my head like a wreathe.
“Harder bitch! Get the full stroke! Take that dick! Shove it in that pussy!”
“Aeric! Shit! Here it comes! Right there! Give it to me!”
She came and I came and as my release rained her guts she wilted and fell to the side. I got on top for a while, banged her into submission, until she begged me to stop or I would kill her.
“You’re the one that came on to me! Get the fuck up and let’s go! I didn’t waste my good coke on a bitch that can afford it, without thinking I would get something back!”
She then changed her disposition. Sobered like an actress from a scene. Was completely sane and abnormally awake for the pounding I’d given the woman.
“And Aeric, you’ve already received it. Gotten ‘something back’ as you say.”
From between her toes, her motherfucking toes, came the tiniest wireless transmitters. There was one on each foot and they were so miniscule that she hit the dome light to reveal them. Simpering like the feline she was.
Graciously opening her palm, the woman showed me the delicate hardware.
“These, your father bought me. But he paid a lot more for today. Thirty grand to be exact.”
“You’re not a doctor?”
“Fuck no, I’m a call girl.”
“Why the hell would he send you to me?”
“Oh sweetheart, have you no idea? Still, when it’s right before you?”
“You didn’t?”
“Fuck yes, I did.”
“Naomi…”
“…has a link straight to the audio and has heard the entire day. Beginning when you came to find her. I was a plant. Waiting on you.”
“Well…”
“Don’t get sassy Aeric. You’re not dumping me in Aquilla. I’m not fucking walking back to Waco. My car is waiting right through the trees. Courtesy of Copeland Industries. Thank you very much for the fuck.”
Naomi
When I got the email I was driving to The Comfort after a visit with my mother. She’d had a rough night and an equally hard morning and I would try later on to see her. Though I was not on duty, I was now on salary, since Vishy went back to Seattle. There was paperwork to do so before I went to work I drove by the house to shower. I clicked on the link in the yard. There was a photo of a vagina with the legs spread open and in the middle red letters saying this: CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO YOUR BOSS. I did not know what to do. Although I have a phone I hate my phone and it’s use to me is annoying. It has never been convenient to me. If this was some kind of poisoned virus I guess I was about to contract it.
“What to do? What to do?” Then I touched my finger on the letters. Later on, years later, I would be pleased that I did, but for the next five hours I wasn’t. I remained at the house with the phone plugged in as I listened to Aeric and the woman.
Alcohol. Drugs. Sex.
Lies. Deception. Untruths.
This is who he was and this is what he did and I heard every second of their day. I wanted it to plant deep in my brain and I never wanted it to leave. What people are and what people can be often never meet. This was now obvious to me. I am not naïve, nor am I stupid, and words without actions are useless. You have to trust when you’re together and even more when you’re apart. When apart Aeric Copeland was himself. This recording is who the man really was. What I heard on my phone was Aeric the junkie. Aeric the oversexed. The only Aeric that really existed.
I left my house and returned to the person I loved most and to the place where it began that morning. This so called doctor, who was actually a whore, had the gall to pretend to be preparing a paper on my mother’s fatal disease. Goddamn her for doing that. My heart was broken over Aeric, because I’d fallen in love. But to compound the hurt with that, went beyond the unforgiveable. How had I let myself fall in love with someone so damaged? I’d pay the price for that now.
I parked my car, the one I’d purchased, by working double shifts. It wasn’t much, but it was mine. Aeric had no pride like that. He hadn’t earned a thing.
“So this is the Copeland game,” I said. “They pick a person and then they destroy them. Not me. They won’t get me.”
I got out of my car, said hello to Alvin and went to my mother’s room. S
he was sitting in a chair staring through the window and she knew who I was and said my name.
“Hey mama. I came back.”
“Were you here before? I’m sorry.”
Here it comes. This is what I do.
“No. I misspoke. I haven’t seen you today. I tend to get the days mixed up.”
I lie. This is me lying. In my mind I think that what I just accomplished was that for a second she was okay. She wasn’t the one being ravaged by this affliction and she wasn’t the one forgetting. When she was first diagnosed I cried for two days and then she told me the following: “it’s here and we’re gonna fight it. I have to count on you. You’re the best human I know. What people see when snow covers the woods is beauty, purity and light. Naomi dear, you’re all three.”
God, if you’re sincerely listening, why was this placed on her?
No answer. I don’t need one. I do what I do because I love her. I am hers and she is mine.
When first diagnosed her general practitioner referred us to a specialist in Dallas. He told us what to expect. How his team would attempt to stem its progression and there was passion and imbalance in his eyes. He said “I hate this fucking disease. I want to beat it, stomp it and kill it.” My mother really likes him. He’s bearded and psychotic and smells like sweat. Geniuses, often, don’t care, what you or others think. Before we left I saw him smoking outside. He was talking to a homeless person.
A week later this doctor, not his secretary called, and he told me he would be in Waco. He said “I want you to come to my lab.” I replied “just me? Not her?” He said “yes, I can show you what your mother will experience. I guess you might call it the spectrum.”
I met him at a local hospital. There were eleven people in the group. We were all responsible for an Alzheimer’s patient and we were there to understand. Each of the eleven put on these green glasses and then everyone’s hand was gloved. Your dominant, not the other. Through the glove you couldn’t feel a thing. A set of headphones with voices and loud annoying static was placed on our heads and we were spun. Around and around till dizzy. Each was given a simple chore. Mine was to fold a set of towels. Though they were blurry, I saw them on a table, but I didn’t understand what was asked. When the assistant said it again I heard the word “fold,” but our time was up and not a person finished their task. We now understood what they were dealing with. What was felt, seen and heard. Their brains had built plaque to defeat them. Their bodies and minds were no longer connected inside the shell-like beings they’d become. Or in the case of my mother, becoming.
The Book of F*ck Page 5
