Rust on the Razor

by Mark Richard Zubro

  I lay down.

  “Turn your head away from the door. If you move it this way, I will kill both of you.”

  I complied. The corner of the cabin I stared into had one of those all-in-one exercise machines. Like everything else in the cabin, it gleamed as if it had been polished five minutes before. Behind it hung a Nazi flag. To the left of the flag was a five-foot-long aquarium. I thought it odd that it was devoid of water. I saw small mounds of sand with small logs on them. Then one of the logs moved. Snakes. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them I tried to avoid looking looking in the direction of the flag or the creatures.

  I heard Jasper put his guns down. Several swift steps followed, and seconds later I felt sure hands grip my ankles. I kicked violently and by luck caught him in the nuts. It took me extra time to get to my feet because my hands were tied, and those few seconds were too many. Something hard crashed into the back of my head. I fell back and smacked my head on the floor. I felt woozy and dizzy. He tied my ankles with leather thongs.

  “Don’t do that again,” he said. “Your death will be ever so much more unpleasant because of it, but remember, I could make it even worse.”

  I watched him walk to the flag, stepping over the handgun on the floor, and lean the shotgun against the wall. He opened a drawer in the table on which the aquarium sat and pulled out a four-foot-long set of tongs. Then he dragged out what looked like a cane with a loop on the end.

  He opened the glass lid of the snake pit, slipped the tongs in, and grabbed one of the vipers just behind the back of the head. He held the squirming beast at arm’s length.

  Jasper said, “Time for a walk, Bob.”

  I guess if you live in the middle of a ghastly swamp in Georgia and have guests in to torture, you might as well name your snake something, Bob being as good as any other moniker. I certainly was in no position to tell him it sounded supremely weird.

  Bob coiled and writhed. He opened his mouth wide, and I saw acres of white, which framed vicious-looking fangs.

  Jasper looped the rope-thing at the end of the cane just behind where Bob’s ears would have been, had he had ears. Then, holding the four-foot squirmer at arm’s length, Jasper took Bob and set him down so his head was a foot from my nose. Jasper took a metal pin out of the floor, inserted it through a hole in the far end of the cane, let it fall back into the hole in the floor, gave the end of the pin a twist, and stood up.

  Bob could now move his head up to about six inches from my face and a foot or so to either side.

  “In case you decide to hinder me, Bob will intervene. You’ve probably never been bitten by a cottonmouth before. It’s not pleasant.”

  There are times in our lives—not many, it’s true—when a mad, blind panic seems like the only sensible option. Certainly this was well on its way to being one of those times. I couldn’t remember ever being this frightened. I breathed slowly and deeply, tried concentrating on any small opening that could give me an edge in fighting back. There didn’t seem to be a lot of those at the moment.

  Jasper opened a cabinet and took out a scrub brush, cleaning fluid, and a sponge. I heard the screen door open and close. I guessed he was cleaning up Dennis’s blood from the cabin’s logs. He reentered, returned to the sink, cleaned the sponge, and replaced everything neatly where it belonged. I saw him pick up the guns, then heard his footsteps. The door swung open but did not close. I heard the click of handcuffs. Finally Jasper said, “Into the cabin.”

  “I can’t move,” Dennis said.

  “Then I will kill you here.” I heard a hammer pulled back. Must have been the handgun he held.

  “Okay, okay, okay, okay.” Dennis sounded like he was crying. The subsequent whimpering and moaning I heard I took to mean Dennis had begun to move.

  “No noises,” Jasper commanded.

  For the next half-hour I heard the shuffle of a human being dragging himself across the floor. I heard rain pouring on the cabin roof, and saw Bob twisting and squirming at the end of his tether. Dennis couldn’t muffle all of his moans and sobs, but Jasper seemed content with the low decibel level of his captive’s agony. I didn’t hear Jasper’s footsteps, so I assumed he stood and watched, certainly made no move to help his victim.

  The shuffle-shuffle noise stopped and Dennis said, “I can’t.”

  Footsteps crossed the floor and then Jasper reentered my field of vision. He placed his guns on hooks, turned, and from the wall opposite the aquarium picked up a table. He carried it to the center of the room. He quickly returned to the hooks and picked up his guns. He looked down at me and said, “Shift your body ninety degrees and look in this direction.”

  I did as commanded. Bob remained between Jasper and me. I prayed for the little thong to hold Bob tightly. I now had a clear view of Jasper’s actions.

  Dennis lay next to the table. Jasper placed the guns on the table. With one hand he grabbed Dennis by the belt and hefted him onto the table. It wasn’t a perfectly smooth move, but he executed the maneuver with incredible ease. From the knees down, Dennis’s legs hung past one end of the table. His head rested on the far edge.

  Tears, blood, and snot ran down Dennis’s face.

  Jasper took a rocking chair from a corner and sat down on it, forming a triangle among the three of us. Bob was directly between Jasper and me. The rocker looked as if it had been carved from one piece of wood. It was all white and unvarnished.

  “I don’t like guests,” Jasper said. “You’ve been here before, Dennis. What did I say last time?”

  Dennis sobbed while Jasper rocked.

  “What did I say?” Jasper repeated.

  “That you’d kill me if I ever came here again.”

  “Did I ever break a promise I made in school?”

  “Jasper,” I said. “It’s not his fault. He drove me out here because I asked him to. We don’t mean to intrude.”

  “Yes, you did mean to intrude. You came because the sheriff is dead and you’re trying to find someone who would be a better suspect than yourself. I’m one of the usual suspects they try to round up when anything goes wrong in this county. Only reason I’m not in jail is because they’re afraid to come into my swamp. Doesn’t hurt that my daddy owns half the county.”

  He got up and walked to a cupboard and took out a slim box about eighteen inches wide and twenty-four inches long. He set it down on the floor in front of me so that I could see what he did. It comforted me to know that even Jasper took care not to get in range of Bob’s fangs.

  He opened the box. It was filled with knives of various sizes. He examined them carefully, then picked out a slender one from the blue-velvet-lined interior. He snapped the lid shut and carefully replaced the box on the floor on the far side of Bob’s leash.

  Jasper stood next to Dennis’s head. “I’ve been curious about the sheriff’s killing,” he said. “Lots of secrets in this county, and I know most of them. Usually, I stay in my swamp, but I sneak out when I have a mind to. I thought it was funny last night how Hiram Carpenter made you walk all the way up the driveway. I almost laughed out loud when I rustled that bush and you almost ran out of your pants to get to the house.”

  “You were there?”

  “You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” he said, then answered his own question. “I’ve always wanted to play connect-the-dots on somebody’s face.”

  The threat was awful, but I think his constantly talking in a whisper was the most unnerving thing of all.

  Jasper continued, “You know, like connect the dots from zit to zit.”

  “That’s not necessary,” I said.

  Jasper walked into the kitchen area, opened a drawer, took out a pair of surgeon’s gloves, and pulled them on. “Can’t be too safe these days, with all these diseases going around. Don’t want to infect myself. You never know who might be queer and trying to spread diseases. Always thought you were a fag, Dennis. Even in first grade, I thought you had a bit of a swish.”

  Dennis’s eyes tried to follow what
Jasper was doing. I could see the whites around Dennis’s gray pupils.

  Jasper flipped a knob on a radio. I heard soft country music. Throughout his preparations, Jasper hummed softly along with the music. Songs to torture by. I knew I’d hate the sound of country music as long as I lived, which I hoped would be longer than sunset.

  Jasper took several thick towels from a pile in an open cupboard. He folded one several times, then lifted Dennis up by his belt and gently placed the towel under his crotch. He placed the others in a small pile next to his butt. From another drawer he pulled out some rope and tied Dennis’s torso to the table. Then he opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out a plastic dish drainer. He placed a towel under it, and the whole thing under Dennis’s head. He returned to the kitchen and came back with numerous smaller towels, three bottles of rubbing alcohol, and a box of cotton balls.

  Gently he took Dennis’s glasses off and placed them carefully next to the sink.

  Dennis tried to wiggle and squirm from his bonds, but Jasper had tied him tighter than a swarm of Eagle Scouts working together for an hour.

  Jasper stood with his feet on either side of the table end near Dennis’s head, leaving enough room so that I could see clearly what he was doing.

  Jasper said, “You still have zits, Dennis. You should see a dermatologist. But then that won’t be a problem after today.”

  “Leave him alone,” I ordered.

  Jasper said, “Course now, you’re out here investigating. Y’all want to know who would want the sheriff dead.” As he talked, Jasper gently lifted Dennis’s head as carefully as if he were a diamond cutter choosing where to carve the next facet of a jewel beyond price.

  “Lots of people didn’t like the sheriff. Especially women who couldn’t fight back. He used to take advantage of them a lot. I never put a stop to it, because I enjoyed watching when I could. Instead of arresting young ladies who were in trouble, he’d often as not take them into the backseat of his police car. Bet they could find all kinds of interesting things if they took a microscope to the back of his car. He never saw me watching. Best show in town on a Saturday night. I was going to buy a video camera so I could film it and give him a Christmas present. Died too soon.”

  He let Dennis’s head down gently so that his victim’s nose faced in my direction. He entwined his fingers in Dennis’s hair and gripped tightly. Jasper said, “The biggest zit is here.” He placed the knife next to a yellow-headed pimple in the middle of Dennis’s chin. “And the next largest seems to be here.” Jasper sliced a bloody furrow from the chin to the side of Dennis’s nose. Dennis screamed and tried to yank his head away. He was barely able to move his face a quarter-inch, but the rest of his body twisted and spasmed. The ropes held him to the shaking table. Blood flowed from the four-inch-long gouge in Dennis’s face. The skin on either side of the cut flapped open. If Dennis lived, he would be scarred for life.

  I went berserk. I began bellowing epithets at Jasper and coiling myself backwards, attempting to leverage myself for some kind of spring at him.

  Jasper grabbed a gun and aimed it at me.

  Keeping Bob between us, Jasper edged to the aquarium, took the tongs, opened the glass lid, and plucked out another viper.

  “Do you know how a person dies from the bite of a cottonmouth?” he asked. Jasper provided the answer I didn’t want to hear. “It dissolves the tissue it comes in contact with, and the swelling spreads out from where a person gets bitten. It itches some, and pretty soon you’ll want to scratch a whole whale of a lot. Then you sort of collapse and die. Course, sometimes this doesn’t happen all at once. Can take ten minutes or a lot longer. Depends.”

  He swung the snake in my direction. I became very quiet.

  “Over here,” he ordered, pointing to the original spot I’d been in.

  I moved slowly, my eyes never leaving the thing at the end of Jasper’s tongs.

  “This is Roy,” Jasper said. “I named all the snakes after the therapists I had as a kid. Bob and Roy were the first two counselors, and the first two cottonmouths I caught.” Once again he shoved the creature inches from my nose. Then he secured the rope-thing behind its head, placed the end of the cane onto the floor, and pinned it in place. Bob was still between me and the table with Dennis. Roy lurked on the other side of me. The only direction I could move now was backwards, maybe three feet to the aquarium, where more snakes were encaged.

  On the table Dennis’s body continued to jerk spasmodically. An acrid stench reached my nostrils. I understood why Jasper had placed the towel under Dennis’s middle. Then for a while Dennis didn’t move. I figured he’d passed out. The towel and drainer mat under his face caught the blood that poured out. Almost lovingly Jasper cleaned Dennis’s wound, once going to the sink and pouring water on a washcloth to rinse out the mess created on it. When he finished cleaning, he stood back a few feet to examine his work. He came within six inches of Bob, whose mouth gaped open as he lunged to the end of his tether. Jasper never even looked in the snake’s direction. He did not deal with the towel under Dennis’s middle.

  I tried to think of a way to get free and save us, but nothing seemed likely. Jasper returned to the kitchen area and came back with a small vial. This he placed under Dennis’s nose. Eventually Dennis came around. His eyes blinked at me. He began alternately crying, screaming, and begging. “God, it hurts! … I’m sorry! … Please, let me go! … I’m sorry! I’m sorry! … Please don’t hurt me anymore!”

  Jasper sat in his rocking chair and let Dennis babble on like this until the young reporter was hoarse with his pleading.

  When Dennis was quiet, Jasper returned to his position six inches in back of Dennis’s head.

  “No!” Dennis screamed.

  He fainted again. Jasper revived him and began the same type of preparations he’d done before the first cut. The preparation again seemed to take an eternity.

  Jasper resumed speaking in his chatty whisper, as if his best friends had come to an intimate tea party. “Now, the sheriff was having intercourse with anything female that moved. Maybe an angry husband decided to do him in. Hard to tell.” All this while his eyes roved and his hands gently probed the skin on Dennis’s face, in a pore-by-pore inspection.

  I heard the radio playing softly, occasional thunder, Dennis’s whimpers, Jasper’s whispering or humming, Bob and Roy rustling, the whine of bugs and mosquitoes, and the continuous thud of rain hitting the roof. I could feel several bugs biting. A few landed on Jasper, but he never brushed them off. If a mosquito landed, it got a meal and then flew off.

  “Of course, it could have been Al Holcomb. Old Al thinks the world revolves around his penis and the Ku Klux Klan. I’m the only one besides the sheriff who knows Al has a black mistress deep in Thomas Jefferson woods.”

  He took the knife and slashed a path between two pimples three inches apart on Dennis’s forehead. Dennis screamed and passed out again. Jasper took his bottle of rubbing alcohol and several cotton swabs and cleaned the blood off of Dennis’s face. When the bleeding stopped, Jasper took the towel, rinsed it thoroughly, and placed it back under Dennis’s face. Jasper cleaned him up, revived him as often as necessary, and then began hunting for a new spot.

  He picked up speaking exactly where he had left off, as if inflicting these ghastly wounds were as meaningless as knitting a shawl. “Having a black mistress is not considered good form among fellow Klan members. Still have trouble with interracial couples in this neck of the woods. Course, a black man with a white woman would still cause quite a stir. Sort of like faggots. If they kept quiet, they probably wouldn’t be harassed on the street, but late at night, my the things you can do to scare people.”

  I tested the handcuffs again. My hands weren’t going anywhere. I could move my feet a few inches, but my ankles were absolutely not going to part without help from another appendage. I could maneuver my knees some. If the impetus for physical action was going to happen, it would be from them, which seemed kind of pointless. Lea
ping to one’s knees to subdue an unencumbered opponent was on the stupendously stupid end of the spectrum of options.

  “Listen, Jasper,” I said. “Please let him go. Don’t hurt him anymore. We really mean you no harm. Can’t you just listen?” I continued speaking even past the point when I figured he wasn’t paying the slightest attention. He simply kept humming and checking Dennis’s head. Finally I let out a roar that must have come close to rupturing my vocal cords. “You listen to me, you son-of-a-fucking-bitch.” I gasped for air. He simply got up and walked carefully to the other end of Roy’s cane/leash. He unhooked the end and moved it so Roy’s gaping maw came to within three inches of my face. I shut up.

  Jasper started another round of inspecting Dennis’s head. By this time the young reporter’s eyes were glazed. Jasper had him conscious, but only by a little.

  “Now, Hiram Carpenter is a secretive fellow. I wouldn’t trust that whole family. My daddy never liked them much. Always so high and mighty with their big-deal faggot son. Hiram’s a thief. Always has been. Tried desperately as a kid to outshine his brother, but never could match him. He has this huge spread in the north part of the county. For a while I thought he grew drugs or maybe imported them, but old Hiram’s a clever one. I’m not sure what he’s up to. I think the sheriff was on to him about something. Course, each one is sneakier than the others. Got too much religion in that crowd. Thought Nathan was going to be a good Nazi for a while, but he chickened out. Got religion at a tent revival one year. Poor sap. Shannon Carpenter is sneaky. She’s been up to something lately. I’m not sure what. Quitting her job unexpectedly. Leaving the house in the middle of the night for trysts with somebody. I’ll find out who. Has to be illegal.”