"You don't have to do a thing," insisted Cynthia. "I can do everything for you. I'm your apprentice, right? I'm here to serve you. To ensure you complete your life's work. Leave it to me. I'll make sure you're fit as a fiddle in no time so that once that darling girl of yours is back in the world, you'll look like a prince once again."
Hearing her vow to look after me like I so wished my mother would do almost brought a tear to my eye.
"Thank you," I said, shying away from her concerned eyes. "I'd like that."
~
"No."
"Just drink it."
"I will not."
"It's good for you."
"I don't care. I'm not drinking it. It looks like something bigfoot would shit out of his enormous hairy ass."
"Good grief, Lincoln. You can be so dramatic at times."
"I'm dramatic? I'm dramatic!"
Storming out the kitchen and banging the door like a teenager, I ran up the stairs. Cynthia was in hot pursuit with a glass of wheatgrass juice behind me. She wasn't going to give up but I wasn't going to let her catch me. The thing was that I was as unhealthy as she thought I was and almost collapsed once I reached the top step. My bedroom door was in sight but I couldn't bring myself to walk anymore so I slumped onto the cool marble and lay my head down.
"Aw you big baby," moaned Cynthia.
She was beside me again, holding the glass out. The smell of it made me nauseous. I couldn't imagine what it actually tasted like.
"I'm not drinking it."
"Yes you are."
"Looks like the Hulk jizzed in that glass."
She huffed, flaring out her nostrils and sat beside me with her lips disappearing as she pulled them into a tight line.
"Young man, you're going to listen to me. Now, sit up."
"No."
"Sit up!"
Then she did something I wasn't expecting. She slapped me with the full force of her hand around the back of her head. I sat bolt upright, enraged.
"Bitch!"
"Don't talk to me like that."
She slapped me again.
"Jesus fucking Christ cut it out!"
She slapped me one last time for good luck then set the glass of juice down in between us.
"You're a spoiled child," she said. "Clearly all your money and power has turned you into a brat."
"Shut the fuck up, Cynthia."
She shot daggers out her eyes. I knew what was coming.
"Don't make me slap you again..."
Jesus, that look on her face. It could turn anyone to stone.
"Sorry," I mumbled.
"Now you'll do what's good for you and you'll drink this juice. It's full of all sorts of homeopathic remedies that I have enjoyed the benefits of for many years. Why do you think I look so fresh and young for my age?"
Fresh would not be the word I would use to describe the woman but clearly she had some interesting if not delusional views about her appearance.
"Cynthia, Cynthia... My dear Cynthia."
I patted her shoulder trying to remind her of who was in charge but she wasn't falling for my tricks because she puffed out her chest and pointed her rather manly jaw at me.
"I'm not a child."
"Of course not but I have to tell you, as a trained physician, that homeopathic remedies are... how do I put it in the clinical terms? Oh yeah, utter bullshit."
She visibly flinched beneath the weight of my insult.
"Don't..." she seethed, "You don't know what you're talking about."
Now I felt like I should be the one doing the slapping.
"Sweetheart, what is it I do? That's right, I'm a doctor. I know my shit and I know this is shit."
I took the glass and threw it over the banister. We heard it smash in the hall below. She jumped up, horrified as though I'd just hurled a baby to its death. Leaning over the railing, she looked down and saw the green juice spread across the marble floor.
"You dick," she spat. "It took me ages to make that. I'm trying to fucking look after you can't you see that! Have you gone mad? Have you suddenly melted under the heat of this place and developed shit for brains!"
She was raging mad, throwing her arms all over the place so that her voice was eclipsed by the sound of her jewelry rattling.
"Cynthia, you talk to me like that again and I swear to God you'll be joining that precious juice of yours on that lovely floor down there. Understand?"
She stopped her wild gesticulating and froze.
"I understand," she whispered.
I walked away, watching her pine after the juice.
"All I want is for you to be happy and healthy," she said as I walked down the stairs. "Is that really so bad?"
The woman was driving me fucking crazy. I needed away from her, away from the house. I strode across the hall, making sure to walk around the broken glass then I simply just kept walking. I put one foot in front of the other until I was at the front door, then I was outside then before I knew it I was at the end of the drive.
Before long I was back in the center of the tiny town of San Lucrezia once again. The place was empty. There wasn't even so much as an old lady out on her balcony smoking those vile, dry cigarettes that they loved so much here. There was nothing. I was starting to think I had survived a nuclear apocalypse. Or maybe a disease broke out. Or maybe everyone had fled.
A cat walked across my path and paused. I never really was much of a cat person but this one looked kinda friendly. Usually cats had a knack of hiding their emotions. You could never guess what they were going to do from one second to the next but this one looked different. It lay down and offered me its white and orange belly. I gave him a good scratch and he began to purr.
"Aw, who's a good kitty?"
He purred louder. It was definitely a he. His balls were almost as big as lemons. He was clearly king of his neighborhood.
"Yeah, that's right. You're a good kitty."
He purred even louder so that he sounded like a tiny lawnmower.
"I see you've made a friend," came a voice.
For a couple seconds, I genuinely thought it came from the cat. Who else could have spoken? There was no one around. Then a shadow fell across the cat’s stomach.
Chapter Three
Berger
He was more afraid than angry. He was shouting but his hands were trembling. His eyes were wide, his chest was struggling to pull in a breath, but all the while he just kept shouting.
"Why were you going through my shit? Where did you find this?"
I opened my mouth to tell him about the bird. I was going to tell him all about how I wanted to strangle and roast the fucking thing but before a single word could leave my lips, he took off running.
"Hey, Coop."
He was dashing out the house into the midday sun.
"Where the fuck are you going?"
He didn't answer, just kept running, just kept hurtling himself over the sand until he reached the stables that were situated on the edge of his property lines. Any further than that and he'd be out in no man's land where even the vultures didn't venture when it was this hot.
"Coop?"
I was on the verge of collapsing. Jesus, I thought. I'm not as fit as I used to be. His figure was nothing but a shadow leaning against the stable wall. He had a hand on Mercy's head as though he was seeking the comfort of his oldest friends out here, his horses.
"Coop. Jesus Christ talk to me."
He ignored me as I caught up with him and flinched when I lay a hand on his shoulder.
"I wasn't prying," I told him. "I stumbled across the box in the attic. Tripped over it. There was this bird. I was gonna make breakfast outta him and-"
"Be quiet."
I did as I was told and shrunk away from him, leaning against the flimsy wooden fence as I regained my breath. The other horse was looking at me with wary eyes. It could obviously sense a tension between me and its owner. When the fence felt as though it was going to give way, I crouched down in the dust in the s
light coolness of the shade.
"I was gonna tell you, you know," Coop said at last. "When I was ready. I was gonna tell you eventually. But..."
"Sorry I killed the magic, I suppose."
"You weren't supposed to find out right now and... and you're a fucking cop I mean for fuck sake."
"Hey. Former cop," I emphasized. "Former. As in disgraced. As in I'm no better than the crooks I used to arrest. If you think I'm going to judge you I'm not."
I could hear the sound of him licking his lips like his tongue was struggling to find an iota of moisture over his crinkled skin. It sounded like a snake slithering over rocks.
"What do you think of me?" he asked, his back still turned to me.
"I think you give sensational head," I replied.
"That's not what I meant."
"Yeah well it's exactly what I meant. What the fuck do I care if you have a past? I have one. A terrible one. I'll tell you about it someday. Maybe on a day when the two of us can spill the beans and let it all out. Until then, you're a guy with a golden dick. A guy who can throat fuck me like a fucking vacuum cleaner."
At last, he turned around and there was a faint smile on his lips.
"Have you heard about... what happened?"
"The legend of DB Cooper?Erm, yes. I've heard of you. Everyone in the entire world has heard of you."
He froze, panicked.
"You don't mean that."
I nodded.
"Seriously, you're a legend all right."
"No."
"Yep!Absolutely. To be honest, I'm a little star struck. Feel like I’ve just stumbled on Elvis or something. I'm waiting for you to introduce me to the loch ness monster. Hey, you got any aliens in your attic? At this point nothing would surprise me."
He laughed. It was a genuine laugh. Finally, he let his guard down. Yet the paper was still in his hand, fluttering in the breeze.
"Who sent you that?" I asked, pointing at it. "Who sent you the newspapers?"
Coop looked down to the ground then over at Mercy.
"My boy. The boy I did it for."
I thought for a second. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the boy he loved. The one who was hungrier for cash than he was for the supreme, perfect dick of Cooper's.
"Your boyfriend?" I asked. "Don't tell me he convinced you to steal all that money!"
Coop's smile dropped. His eyes glossed over. Clearly, he was remembering some tremendous betrayal, some soul destroying heartache.
"He told me once it was done the two of us could run away together, be free andhappy, live in paradise where no one knew us. I was to come down here first and he was gonna follow once the heat was off. He kept me updated. He'd send me these letters in code to the nearest village over the border and with some newspaper clippings of what the press was saying back home. But after a couple months of waiting, the clippings stopped coming and so did the letters."
His chin began to quiver. Once again, he turned his back to me and faced the horses. He walked into the shadows until he was nothing but a vague outline against the wall. I left him there for a while, remembering. I could hear him swallow down tears as though his heartache was still fresh. Bless the guy, I thought. He's the loneliest man in the world.
"Did you ever hear from him again?"
I didn't need to be able to see him to know he was shaking his head.
"Never. I assumed he found someone else or... I don't know."
"Why not go back home?"
"Madness," he replied. "And a certain lifelong jail sentence and to be honest, I didn't want to go back home to a place that had no time for me and a family who thought I was the devil just because of who I was. He was the only thing I wanted but I assumed he didn't want me."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I just know. He had a real fickle nature."
"But you literally parachuted into oblivion with mega amounts of money just for him and you think he just ran off with someone else?"
He stepped out the shadows and just shrugged.
"I'm sick of talking," he said. "Sick of remembering."
He pointed back into the house.
"Thank you," he said.
Confused, I just blinked at him.
"For being here," he elaborated. "For stumbling into my life like this. I've been waiting for so many years, for decades for my dreamboy to walk across the desert into my arms and at last he came."
I was almost close to tears for this love starved old man. I wanted to take him in my arms and squeeze the life out of him as I smothered him with kisses but my alpha, masculine nature wouldn't let me so I just awkwardly patted his back instead and said,"I'm hungry."
He smiled and slipped his hand into mine.
"Eggs?"
"As long as they're not on the wall."
Back in his kitchen, I breathed in the scent of hot sauce. It was so potent it was kept in a brown bottle out of sunlight like a magical potion. I was pretty sure I could get high from just sniffing the fumes. The eggs were sizzling in the pan. Coop sang to himself as he flipped them over. It wasn't a song I knew. It sounded like a nursery rhyme but more macabre. I had the feeling it was something he'd made up himself.
"And the little fat girl with the big plump arms shared the axe with the goose as both their heads rolled. Too many eggs for just one goose as the mothers clucked round and paid their toll."
He danced over and slid the eggs onto the plate. They smelled divine.
"Coop?"
"Uhuh."
"What else is in that box?"
He sat down across from me and cracked open a homemade bread roll. It was as solid as the ground and sounded like someone snapping a bone.
"Things," he said. "Just more clippings.More memories."
"Why keep it?"
"I don't know. Why keep anything? Why keep eating? Why keep breathing?"
I stabbed my fork into the yolk and watched the golden liquid run over my blue plate. It was strangely beautiful, too pretty to eat.
"Here, mop it up with this."
He dropped a roll onto my plate and the yolk spattered. The beauty was gone.
"You know I really wasn't snooping," I insisted.
He stared into my eyes for a second. He may not have been trained to spot a lie like I had been but he still had the most uncanny, natural ability to get into my head.
"I know," he said. "Of course not."
As I crunched on the bread, I pressed my leg up into his. Somehow, being affectionate under the table was easier than being affectionate over it. If I couldn't see it, I didn't need to cringe. But this thought made me laugh considering only an hour ago his penis was beating the shit out my tonsils. Affection's a weird thing, I thought. It's different from sex. It's... more personal. No matter how little of it there is, it's somehow more intrusive that penetrating someone. Maybe it's because it's thought out, it's on purpose. It's not the result of some animalistic reflex that lay within the reptilian part of our brains.
"Why don't you burn it?" I randomly blurted out.
"Eh?"
His foot ran up and down my calf.
"Burn the box."
He looked horrified but his foot still moved higher, and higher still until it was pressing into the inside of my thigh. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't get hard. I was exhausted.
"Why in the name of fuck would I do that?" he asked.
His foot moved even higher.
"Because it reminds you of him and I think you deserve better than to just live out your twilight years pining over some spoiled little shit back home with a box full of memories."
His face was angry but his foot was now pressing against my dick. To my surprise, it started to firm up. Or at least it tried to with the best of its ability.
"That box is all I have that ties me to the past."
"Yeah, well I hope you don't mind me saying thisbut your past sounds rotten. Sounds like it did you a heap of damage and spat you out into the wilderness."
/> He dropped his foot.
"You're right," he said as the realization hit him. "I do deserve better."
"That you do."
I grimaced as the hot sauce stung my nostrils but poured some onto my eggs anyway so the yolk became a tropical sunset.
"Can I ask you something else?"
The foot returned to my crotch.
"Well nothing really seems to stop you saying anything so fire away."
He pressed his foot harder on me. It was starting to hurt but I found myself enjoying the sensation.
"Where's the money?"
He squinted at me so that his long, spidery, gray lashed covered his eyes.
"Why? You looking to get your hands on it?"
"No. I'm just wondering why you're not living in the lap of luxury like you'd planned to. I mean you're literally making your own electricity down here. You're living off the land."
"You say that like it's shameful or something."
"No... I'm just curious. What happened to the money? What happened to the paradise you promised yourself?"
He cocked his head to the side and sighed before taking his plate over to the sink and dropping it into it with a clatter.
"I fucking hate money," he said. "That cash ruined everything. It turned the boy I loved into a cash hungry monster. It made me do things that terrified me, that went against every instinct in my body. Cash can change a man. It can kill a man. It can rot them from the inside out."
I thought about Bosworth and how true that was. Money had given him the opportunity to do whatever came into his head. And some of those thoughts were deadly.
"Don't tell me you got rid of it all," I said. "You like, burn it all or something?"
He perched against the edge of the sink and crossed his arms.
"You think I'm stupid, don't you?"
"No. I think you're a little nuts, though."
"Well I'm not stupid. I got rid of it. Kinda."
He paused for what I could only assume was dramatic effect then said, "I buried it. It's safe. I can have it if I need it."
Then he just walked away, continuing to sing that ghastly nursery rhyme of his as he banged around the pantry.
"You like the hot sauce?" he asked.
"Sure."
"Good. Cos I also made some moonshine. Want some?"
Jewels and Panties (Book, Sixteen): The One Above All Page 2
