The day had begun with Ophelia’s horrifying discovery that William Douglas McCall had been abducted from Rector Mortuary. Then the imbecilic Steve Cooper, the security guard, wasn’t able to identify the thief or even point a finger in the right direction, despite Ophelia giving him a generous shove in the acceptable and only reasonable route. Certainly, his memory hadn’t been improved by a Taser shock at point blank range. The patronizing Paxton Andrews had proceeded to look down his nose at Ophelia. As if he’s better than I am, Ophelia fumed silently.
Ophelia had been forced to call in a favor from three of the town council members in order to get Paxton to move on the issue, threatening to reveal peccadilloes so vile that one of them had begged with her over the phone for mercy. And lo and behold, what had that lost use of valuable resources gotten for her? A large, crappy pile of nothing. Pascal Waterford was not rotting in a jail cell with a large, hairy, tattoo-covered cellmate named Sex Machine who had vile peccadilloes of his own. William Douglas McCall’s mortal remains had not been efficiently and rapidly produced so that they could be returned to their rightful locale.
Pascal had covered his trail but well. There was no evidence to be found at Sawdust City’s City Hall. Clearly, he was exhilarated to show them his house and his extensive collection of empty liquor bottles and pornographic magazines. Then, when Ophelia’s temper had erupted, she hadn’t even been able to plant her foot in Pascal’s gluteus maximus where it belonged. Instead, her foot had ended up in the ass of a stupid little garden statue who had suffered her wrath and her checkbook had become a pathetic secondary victim.
Finally, having had the foresight to send her sons, Oscar and Orem, to lay in wait at Sawdust City’s City Hall, and having called them after leaving the location, she could no longer get them on the cell phone. Oscar’s cell phone was turned off or the battery was dead. The phone wasn’t being answered at his house and Orem was also missing in action.
Ophelia was pacing about Rector Mortuary like a psychopathic lunatic on Viagra at midnight in a coed dormitory. Her facial muscles were caught in an infinite tick. One hand twitched as if grasping the handle of a powerful weapon, ready to bury it in between the unwary eyes of an unwitting, perky-titted student. Her eyes flicked back and forth, anxiously seeking her next prey. Her movements were disjointed and disquieting. The unknowledgeable observer could not tell if she were about to pounce with a piercing shriek or to collapse with a primitive scream to beat fists on the floor in abject disgruntlement at being thwarted.
Her secretary peered around the door jamb of the front viewing room as if merely making eye contact would bring instantaneous death. Of course, there was a better than average chance that it would do exactly that. Then she retreated hastily, but not before the movement was noticed.
Ophelia stopped and glared at the door. The secretary poked her head in and her face twittered in consternation. “Yes,” Ophelia snapped; her voice was the agitated rumble of an animal teetering on the wrong edge of insanity.
“Messages,” the secretary muttered. She tentatively offered a sheaf of papers around the corner, only showing the messages and the fingertips of her hand. “Council members calling about Friday’s service and parade. Two bankers, the same. The Historical Society president. All worried. Someone from the Fire Marshal’s office about licenses for vendors. Not good. Oh, not good at all.”
The very corner of Ophelia’s mouth curled upward. Her right eye convulsed uncontrollably. Never before had she lost complete power over a given circumstances. There was always a way to overcome, to win, to advance in the manner that she so desired. If the deed was not accomplished by fair means, then occasionally it was completed by foul. Whatever a Rector needed to have done was to be brought about.
Her project, her baby, her tour de force, her piéce de résistance, her crowning glory would be ruined, decimated, torn asunder, destroyed.
And it was all because of Pascal Waterford, the asshole mayor of Podunkville, in bumfuck Texas. That bastard. That grievously decadent yokel. That unfortunate occurrence of unprotected sexual intercourse. The infectious atrocity to all that has merit and value. That…that…that…that…motherfucking son of a whore’s bitch.
“If I could kill him now,” Ophelia muttered. “I would do it by fastening each appendage to four rabid Brahman Bulls by chains and having them pull him apart like a chicken that has just come out of a pressure cooker. I would pour boiling oil over his body by increments, and then when the blisters started to burst I would rub salt in the wounds. I would take a rusty machete and slice off pieces of his body starting with his irritating nose and ending with his…”
There was a frightened peep and her secretary unexpectedly vanished.
“What’s wrong with her?” Ophelia said irately. Then her thoughts abruptly went back to the issue at hand. Pascal Waterford has to make a mistake. He wants to have a ceremony and parade the same as Albie, on Friday, the 21st of July. Consequently, he has two days to put things right. He can’t produce the last perpetual relics himself. Or he’ll risk going to jail. Perhaps an anonymous call as to the location of William Douglas McCall’s final vestiges in the hours before the ceremony. Then he can go ahead with it and damn Ophelia Rector and Albie, Louisiana. Legally, can I stop their ceremony? Probably, but it’ll take a Texas licensed lawyer and then a judge, and by that time, the ultimate relics will be under six feet of earth with concrete poured over the grave. Is that his plan?
Ophelia’s face contorted into a twisted mask of everlasting rage. That fucker. That shit-sucking, sweat-stained insult to humanity. That cretin. What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?
“I need someone to do something. Someone with pull and power,” she muttered hoarsely. “I need proof that Pascal Waterford stole William Douglas McCall’s earthly remnants. I need to pin his weaselly hide to the wall with a dozen ice picks. I need to get the upper hand and kick some major ass. I need to know where in the name of God my two idiot sons are!”
Lacking any immediate solutions in the area of Bayou Billy, Ophelia transferred her thoughts to Oscar and Orem. Gone astray while on a secretive mission to spy on the enemy and incommunicado, they could have been arrested, or they could have had an accident, or Pascal could have had them rubbed out.
Ophelia shook her head. No. Pascal is a creep but not a murderer. More’s the pity. So what happened to them? They fucked up. That’s what they did. They had him, then one of them slipped on a banana peel, and he got away. That’s it. “I’m going to kill Pascal Waterford gradually in a lingering tortured death that will have him screaming for hours for compassion and then it’s going to be Oscar and Orem’s turns.” Her imagination went into overdrive as she considered wondrously inventive forms of torture that could be devotedly applied to the two offending offspring.
“DRUSILLA!” Ophelia bellowed as she headed down the hallway.
A frightened peep that sounded as if it was originating from the interior of a closed closet was her only answer.
“I’m going to see Oscar and Orem!” Ophelia yelled. “If someone tries to reach me about Bayou Billy or Pascal Waterford’s arrest, call me on the cell phone! Otherwise, I’m not available!”
There was an indistinguishable noise that might have been Drusilla’s acknowledgement or perhaps the last gasp as she suffered a severe nervous breakdown and went into indefatigable convulsions.
•
“Dude, is there anything else to eat?” Orem asked plaintively. He peered into the refrigerator and drummed fingers on the open door he was holding. “I mean, what’s that?”
Oscar looked up from the couch. He was watching Pink Floyd’s The Wall on his widescreen TV. “Looks like mayonnaise from here, numbnuts. I don’t know how old that is. I think it was here when I moved in.”
“How about this?” Orem held up a disposable plastic dish with a blue cover.
“I don’t know,” Oscar answered. “Open it up and look at it.”
There was a popping noise and then
Orem said, “Looks like tuna salad. I think it’s got celery in it.”
“Bring two forks,” Oscar called.
When Orem brought the dish in and plunked it down on the coffee table, Oscar leaned forward and peered inside it. “Shit stain,” he said. “I don’t think that’s tuna salad. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember ever having tuna salad.”
Orem poked the contents of the dish with his fork. He stood up straight and cried, “It moved! Motherfucker, it moved! It’s alive!”
Oscar groaned. “No more hash for you,” he chastised. “You can’t handle it.” Abruptly, he sat up and grabbed the TV remote. Muting the volume on the DVD, he said, “Did you hear something?”
Orem stabbed the inside of the container again. “You’re just messing with me now, dude. Cut it out.” He peered intently. “I think it’s some kind of soufflé.”
“You don’t even know what a soufflé is, barf bag,” Oscar said, looking toward where the living room ended and the front door was hidden behind a foyer wall. “I heard something.”
Orem looked toward the front door. Then he looked at his brother. “You are so fucking with me.”
“I shit you not,” Oscar protested. “There’s something out there.”
“I ain’t biting, bro.”
“I heard something,” Oscar whispered harshly. “I got a big butcher knife in the kitchen. I’ll get it, you check the front door.”
“The hell you say,” Orem said promptly. “Mama didn’t raise any stupid Rector boys. First person who goes to the front door is the one who gets their head bitten off by a demon monster that they summoned by reading a summoning spell as a joke. That’s a fucking gimmie.”
Oscar stared at his brother for a moment. “Okay, you check the door and I’ll get the butcher knife.”
“Well, okay then,” Orem said, and took a step toward the front door. He paused as he realized what he’d agreed to and added, “Oh, fuck me.” He said over his shoulder to Oscar, “If something bounces my head in here like a basketball I hope the fucker nails you right in between the eyes.”
“Ass wipe,” Oscar said.
Oscar stood up and retreated to the kitchen, serious about obtaining a weapon of massive proportion. He had dismissed a six inched blade as too small when there was a curious whimper slash squeal that came from the direction that Orem had taken. An unsettling twist of intestines informed Oscar that all was not well. He reached into the drawer and found a serrated edge Ginsu knife ten inches in length. If it’ll cut through a nail and a can, then it should take care of demons, hellbeasts, vampires, and psychotic paranormal beings that come back from the dead to kill a troop of voluptuous cheerleaders. Hefting the knife in front of him, he nodded firmly and took a step toward the front door.
From the obstructing wall that hid the front door, Orem appeared one hand waving wildly as if trying to warn his brother. Then Ophelia appeared directly behind his brother. She had her hand up around Orem’s face and was determinedly pinching Orem’s lower lip between her index and middle fingers and her thumb. The lip was pulled so far away from Orem’s face that Oscar could clearly see Orem’s bottom gums and all of his lower teeth. A trickle of blood was working its way down the corner of his mouth. His eyes were rolling back in his head with the pain exacted on him by his mother’s unyielding grip.
“Ah-aaaa, leeezeeee,” Orem said helplessly.
Ophelia yanked again. Orem came along as if invisible metal ropes were attached to his testicles. They took two steps into the living room and Oscar could see that his mother was rumpled. Rumpled wasn’t a word that was normally associated with the likes of Ophelia Rector. Typically she was dressed as the consummate professional business woman; she usually appeared to be wealthy and not afraid to show her taste in elegance and style. But now she was definitively rumpled. It’s a very, very, very bad sign, he thought inanely.
Oscar dropped the Ginsu knife and it clattered on the vinyl floor. Not going to take care of this problem. Panic was beginning to drift through him like drugs filtering through his veins. I should have barricaded the door. I should have shoved Billy out of the car door at the mortuary and driven off. I should have gotten a plane for South America so I can live in the rain forest for the rest of my natural life. Oh, fuck, I’m in deep, deep, deeeeeeeeeep doo-doo.
“Ulffffffffthht,” Orem said. Ophelia yanked on the lip again and something tore. Oscar cringed.
“What happened?” Ophelia asked and for a moment it sounded to Oscar like his mother was being polite.
“I-we-uh-oh-crap,” Oscar said, at a loss for words, much less coherent speech. He looked at Orem’s frantic eyes and suddenly yelled all in one word, “WEGOTHIMBACKFORTHELOVEOFGODPLEASEDON’THURTUS!”
Ophelia’s face changed craftily. She was judging whether or not Oscar was telling the truth. Her eyes left his face and toured the room, settling on the bong on the table. “You’ve been home all this time, getting high?”
Oscar grunted and wondered if he had time to get out the back door. His mother kept herself in shape. He didn’t. He thought maybe she could take him in a fair fight. Also she could take him if he wasn’t playing fair. It was a no-win situation. “We followed that guy you told me about,” he said quickly. “He led us right to the place and then tried to move the body in a freezer. He left it wide open in a garage and we got it then.”
Ophelia tugged sharply on Orem’s lower lip while he squealed and then abruptly let go. His lip snapped back into place with a sickeningly loud, wet crack and he fell over backwards with the force of it. He lay on the floor moaning with relief.
However, Ophelia moved unerringly toward Oscar. Oscar was as frozen into place as Bayou Billy had been frozen in the chest freezer. “So why haven’t you called me?” she asked slowly and precisely.
Oscar trembled. “Waiting for the body to thaw,” he said rapidly.
Ophelia paused. “Thaw?”
“They had it in a chest freezer for a long time,” Oscar blurted. “Frozen solid. I can’t do anything with it until it thaws out.”
Ophelia took three more steps forward. Oscar could see that Orem was halfway up on one elbow and staring at the tableau in front of him with the utter terror of expectation painted across his face.
“It,” she said. “The body,” she added purposefully.
Oscar gibbered helplessly, trying to think of appropriate adjectives for a dead body. His mother took another step forward and stepped over the forgotten knife. Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she considered her fifth son’s apposite punishment.
Oscar shuddered in powerless immanency.
One of her hands moved, faster than the deadly strike of a cobra’s fangs, and Oscar felt all breath leave his body. Clearly he heard Orem gasp in horror. Inexorable pain radiated from the stricken area and Oscar couldn’t resist the urge to bend forward in a futile attempt to alleviate the fulgurant suffering. It didn’t help.
“Ohjesusgodmarymotherofchrist,” Oscar said.
Ophelia had her hand wrapped around her son’s testicles and was vigorously squeezing them.
Orem groaned.
“Last remains!” Oscar shrieked. “Final remnants! Concluding vestiges! Oh, let go for the love of any future grandchildren you might want!”
The vengeful hand squeezed tighter. “So why didn’t you bring his mortal relics to the mortuary? And why didn’t you call the police to arrest the man?”
“He was in Sawdust City!” Oscar squealed. “They would have kept the bod-final remains!”
Ophelia considered that and finally nodded. Her grasp relinquished marginally. Oscar screamed, “Have to let Mr. McCall thaw! In time for procession!”
“And you thought you’d spent that time getting high and not calling me?” she asked politely. Her other hand came up and Oscar flinched but all she did was smooth her hair into place.
Oscar knew that was a damned-if-he-did and damned-if- he-didn’t answer. The excruciating agony in his balls wouldn’t compare to what unbearable a
ffliction his mother could next mete out.
“But you did retrieve the final essence of the folk outlaw,” Ophelia murmured. “So where is he?”
When Ophelia heard where her two sons had left the corpse of Bayou Billy, she compressed her hand on Oscar’s gonads until a bone in her hand snapped.
Orem made two makeshift icepacks out of T-shirts and moldy ice cubes from Oscar’s infrequently used freezer.
Holding one of the icepacks across her hand, Ophelia gritted, “Let’s go see the damage, shall we?”
Minutes later, the three were standing at the back of the Mustang. Oscar said, his voice still falsetto, “Dorkus McLorkus, you left the trunk open.”
Orem said, “The smell, dude. I had to let some of it out. Get real.” He reached out and gingerly opened the trunk. In the dim street light all of them saw the same thing at the same time. Orem was already hurriedly backing away. But Oscar couldn’t waddle fast enough holding the makeshift icepack on his abused genitalia.
Ophelia suddenly dropped her improvised icepack and moved like a vicious strike of lightning. After his mother got her hands on Oscar again he screamed so loudly that three separate people called the Albie Police Department to report that someone was being eviscerated while still alive in the street. Also they reported a man running away while repeatedly yelling, “INSTANT KARMA, DUDE!”
Life and Death of Bayou Billy Page 25
