There goes the aluminum siding and my truck again. Cooper hid beside the couch with his tail between his legs, not looking so brave anymore. We braced ourselves for impact and waited in silence.
I couldn’t imagine what it was that prowled outside, and I couldn’t bring myself to draw the shades to look.
Jane didn’t hear any of it. She was dead asleep when we made it back upstairs to the bedroom.
Dusty was in pieces when I brought him back into his room. It was my first time seeing the boy cry. I don’t think he’d shed one tear since I brought him home.
I was never good with the emotional gooey stuff, but I patted him on his back and told him he did good as he wiped the tears from his cheeks with his sleeve.
“The monster’s gone now, kiddo. You have nothing to worry about as long as I’m here to protect you, okay? Even if it means hiding underneath a table together.”
I put my hand on his chin and shook his head up and down until he cracked a smile. The boy wasn’t much for words, but he was alright.
I sat beside Dusty on the bed, took a quick look around Kate’s room, and let out a deep sigh. I remember when Kate would run into our bedroom at night and hide underneath our covers because she believed Boogiemen lurked underneath her bed or in her closet.
My father would tell us to shut up and go to sleep if we even made a peep from our bedroom. I can hear him now: “Shaddap the both of yous or I’ll come in there and really give yous guys sumtin’ ta cry about! Do ya want the belt?”
So, I would put on my Super dad cape, hoist Kate over my shoulders, and go charging back into her bedroom to kick the Boogieman’s butt. “Here we come, Boogieman, you ugly stinker!” she’d cry, riding my back into the fray like a brave little warrior. Kate would throw her little fists up, and we’d go in swinging until she believed he was gone. I’d stay with her, praying, until she fell back asleep.
I’d pray. I’d pray over her every night: “God, please don’t let my angel grow up to be a lying, cheating whore, and let no man treat her like one. If I can’t show her the way, please give her the strength to do so herself.”
Boys have to be tough, right? You can’t pamper them and tell them everything’s going to be okay; otherwise, they’ll grow up with no penis. You see, that would be something my old man would say, but I know better now. I pulled Dusty close to me and nuzzled him underneath my arm.
“Listen here, champ,” I said. “It ain’t easy, but we have to be strong just for a little while longer, okay, pal? We’ll get out of here, we’ll go somewhere far away, and safe, where there aren’t any monsters and jack offs. You can make new friends, grow up to do something cool like play ball for the Yanks and marry a pretty girl like your buddy Charles. Do you like baseball? What do you like?”
Dusty’s shoulders slumped and he looked away.
“Oh, come on. Hey, don’t do that. I know what I’ll do, I’ll show you how to throw a ball, how ya’ like that, huh? Fast ones, too. My father and I never threw the ball around. Would you like to know why? He was an asshole and a drunk, but that’s beside the point.I wasn’t so bad a ballplayer when I was younger, you know. I was maybe about your age, a little bigger though. I was out there every day practicing—practicing, practicing, practicing. Morning, noon, night, rain, cold, hot, sick, broken foot, and whatever. Three consecutive championships for the team isn’t something to take lightly either. Yeah, the Bayside Fireflies, that was my team. Center field, MVP, I was one of the best. Your friend Charles was going places. That’s right. The big league, bright lights, and where the big boys play: Yankee Stadium. I was unstoppable, but what can you do, right? Shit happens. You—you’re going to be okay. I won’t let anyone hurt you, do you hear me?”
I made Dusty pinky swear, and then he threw his arms around me and buried his head into my chest.
We’re going to be okay.
CLEAN UP IN AISLE STYX
Tuesday, January 7th, 2014
The onslaught of foul bacteria at the market could have driven anyone to puke half a dozen times. Any remnants of meat, dairy, and produce had flesh flies and larvae crawling in and out of it. The produce gave us all diarrhea weeks before, and Dusty didn’t stop shitting his pants for three days after ingesting my salmonella ridden chicken marsala.
Harold’s Super Foods looked like an earthquake and demolition derby hit it all at once. All cash registers were absent from checkout, flickering neon-light fixtures dangled from frayed cables; showcases, displays, and carts were shoved around or pushed over onto their sides. The aisles were in complete disarray and littered with overturned racks, broken glass jars, and condiment slop.
The hoarders even took off with the damn gumball and sticker machines chained to the spaceship ride in the front of the store. Dusty stood with sad eyes in the immaculately clean circles left in their absence. I let him ride the one working conveyer belt at the registers and snack on some Cherry-Twisty-Sticks I found in a compartment underneath a counter. We even bowled and pitched rotted fruit down aisle three for a while.
“Keep your eyes peeled and stay close, kiddo,” I told Dusty. We didn’t have much light as we ventured further back into the market, away from sunlight. Dusty and I had miner lights I found in my garage strapped to our heads to stay hands-free in case we needed to carry stuff back home.
We found some canned goods: Spam, hash, and a pallet partially stacked with an alcohol infused energy drink called Mojo-X (recently banned in New York and tied to three underage deaths) tucked away in the stock room of the supermarket.
I cracked open a can of the Mango-Pineapple flavored Mojo-X and chugged it down despite the bold warning label, and it tasting like warm mango puke. Within minutes I felt lightheaded, my heart raced and skipped, and I wanted to dry hump the shit out of the cardboard bikini girl at the empty beer display. I saw why the kids went crazy for the stuff. It was fruit flavored Viagra disguised as beer, and it made your heart explode.
I tossed a six-pack into the duffle bag I carried over my shoulder and continued through the market.
Dusty was walking funny and holding his crotch. He looked uncomfortable and folded over, but didn’t say anything. “Stop doing that,” I told him. “What is it? Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
He shook his head and crossed his legs. He bunched up his crotch even tighter with his fist as he shuffled down the aisle in a funny dance.
“Didn’t I tell you to go before we left the house?” I said. “So go…go here.” I said pointing to the vacant meat bin. “No one’s looking, come on.”
He refused with a suffering squint on his face.
“Well, what are you gonna’ do? I can’t take you back home now. Can you hold it for ten more minutes?”
He shook his head even faster and with a tighter squint—really bunching his crotch and then he froze in place.
Dusty let out a fearful moan and soaked his jeans. His eyes widened with horror, like the piss stain spreading around his crotch and pant legs as he looked past me. I grabbed his hand and turned slowly, aiming my head-light down the long and narrow aisle-six.
The squealing traveled around us in the dark with quick and wet slippery-slaps against the market tiles and walls.
Aisle Six: Party goods, Pet care, Detergents, and…a human cocoon made of blood red gelatin and veins.
The mucus-veiled coffin was covered in a feeding frenzy of ill-formed tumors tearing away at the body with teeth and stingers. This heaving meat was in the shape of a man.
The massive clot jerked from side to side in squirming seizures from the force of these creatures going to work at it. They were on him, inside him, secreting out of pockets in his body, and puncturing him with the lightening speed of a sewing machine.
Chunk-Cha-chunk-Chunk! Squeee! Chunk! With each collective puncture, the clot released thin red lines into the air and onto everything in its vicinity, bleeding like a stuck pig. The blood red amoebas swarmed on the ceiling above us, and slid their way down the market columns to the f
east in viscous streams, coalescing over the body.
Dusty collapsed to his knees, his hand vice gripped to mine, his face frozen with horror—pee on his sneaker. My legs did not respond to the signals from my brain—neither did my penis, thanks to the potent Mojo-X. There was a communication breakdown between my brain and sheer survival skills: slo-mo-tion, paralyzing fear, nerves exploding into pins and needles…React. React now. Move, asshole.
I won’t let anyone hurt you, do you hear me? We’re gonna’ be okay. I won’t let fear make a liar out of me. I hauled Dusty away as quickly as I could. His legs still wobbly from fright gave out beneath him, so I threw him over my shoulder until I brought him into the safety of daylight, never looking back.
BIRDS, BEES, AND OEDIPUS
Thursday, January 9th, 2014
You know the dream where you’re desperately running through an infinite hallway from some thing? Or the dream where you fall from the top of a building and wake up just before you become sidewalk pizza? You ever have those dreams?
I’d wake up terrified, clenching the sheets and soaked from sweating it out. I always wondered what would happen if the boogiemen did get me. Would they tear my heart out and pick me out of their teeth as the Deviants would?
Some people believe you would die in your sleep.
Does it ever mean anything?
If you have a dream about having sex with your mom, does it mean you want to fuck your mom?
I mean, I had dreams like that before, and when I woke up the last thing I wanted was to have sex with my mother. I was revolted at how depraved the dreams were. It was the kind of wet dream boys had with women—who were not their mothers.
I had those dreams around the time I was the angriest with her. I was 13 and just discovering the revolving doors of fleshy female analogy at school. I took ALL OF IT in and indulged in every foul fantasy a boy my age could muster over the bathroom sink.
I was vigorously masturbating myself dry to every lingerie catalogue, Jordache jean commercial, classmates, and even my 7th grade homeroom teacher Ms. Tarver—a young French African-American transplant with voluptuous breasts and green eyes. Her skin was a soft, lush, caramel brown and smelled like cake.
When she leaned in over me at my desk, I wanted to nuzzle and caress myself into the crevice of her mountainous firm breasts. When she smiled at me with those plump glistening red lips, I came close to ruining my underwear with my boyish warm goop.
My mother was an attractive and well-dressed woman, but she was emotionally vacant. Most likely from the Valium she was throwing down like Chiclets every morning before breakfast.
I might have had mommy issues at the time, or maybe I had what my therapist called the “Oedipus complex.”
She was going through the motions without a glimmer of light in her eye. My brother and I didn’t get hugs and cookies when we fell and scraped our knees. We never got the talk about the birds and the bees from our mother.
All we got was clean laundry, dinner, and a “go ask your father” whenever we needed something.
“What the hell are you good for, woman? We come to
you because we don’t want to go to Dad. He’s a DICK!”
He would laugh in my face and chastise me every time I’d attempt to speak to him about girls.
“Girls? Ha! You even know how to wipe your ass yet?” or “You wouldn’t know what to do with it if you caught it.” Clearly, I wouldn’t, since I’m trying to talk to you about it, you douche bag.
My friend’s fathers would throw them the keys to the car, a few bucks for their pocket, and kick them out the front door without a curfew (and offered pointers on how to get lucky with the lady friends).
My father instead created a list of chores I needed to do and swat me off like a gnat that pestered him.
I was the last virgin standing among my friends and I never heard the end of it…
“Dude, are you gay?”
“Are ya a fag or sumdin’?”
“You like the cock, don’t you, Charlie?”
No, but I imagine if I threw the date-rape candidates into a closet when they passed out at the parties like many boys did, I suppose I wouldn’t be a virgin either.
I lost my virginity to my first steady girlfriend Rosie Lee Arnold in the dugout on my 17th birthday. Rosie Lee was one of my best-kept secrets. The boys always had the need to try to nail everyone else’s girlfriends, including mine, and pass them around in their little horny relay race. On my 18th birthday, Rosie did the unthinkable. She did things I don’t think I could ever forgive her for.
All my life I felt like I was running from something, but it eventually caught up with me.
It didn’t kill me.
I just woke up to it every day and continued running because I could never feel like I was good enough for anything. I think I’m tired of running now.
I think it’s time to grow up.
SUNRISE AND SATELLITES
Friday, January 10th, 2014
6:52 a.m.
Looking out into the twilight from the roof of the house, I have a panoramic view of THE END from my lawn chair.
The faint columns of smoke in the north rose from the infernos set the night before, standing still in the distance over the wasteland in blends of black and gray.
Satellites in strange activity over the west cascade and zigzag fluidly across the sky like a school of goldfish in a pond. The orbs shimmer and explode with impressive lights, like Fourth of July without the boom.
Oddly, there’s no sizzle, no hum from rotors, no sonic trail from when the planes flew over from Kennedy. I know for a fact from seeing the Thunderbirds air show at Coney Island as a kid that this is not an exercise of jet planes.
Back and forth, up and down, left, right, stop, and off they go again—physics be damned. Here you have it, ladies and gents: the best damn 30-second light show your tax dollars can buy.
And for the grand finale, the aerial rascals will now climb together in an ornate fashion, spiraling in loop de loops, vanishing before your very eyes.
DON’T SEND FLOWERS
Saturday, January 11th, 2014
There are no Cowboys on the horizon, and no one is going to SAVE THE DAY. I think I’ve come to accept that. It’s up to me now. I guess Jerry was right all along—no one is coming. I’m sure they extracted anyone worth saving long ago.
Most of those who stayed probably didn’t meet the criteria that screamed “worth saving.” Trim the fat, thin the herd; we only had a small window for evacuation.
Don’t send flowers, I don’t want them. Save your apologies and excuses for someone else. They would only be insulting when I’ve seen the brutality and malice with my own eyes.
I won’t hold my breath for the relief fund, the memorial, or your public vigils. I don’t want any sad puppy-eyed celebrity crying for me in an over-publicized infomercial either. I don’t care for the answers anymore.
I just want a way out without having to scratch and claw my way through the trenches. That’s the least they can do for us—the courtesy of a choice, but I guess prisoners in general population don’t have the luxury of having choices.
I just wanted a way to be with Morgan and Kate again. If what they say is true about the police abandoning ship and heading to the city, then they’re in good hands.
Morgan’s family has so much blue in it, it’s not funny. Her father is a retired police sergeant, her older brother is a cop, her younger brother just became a cop, and her sister, who used to date a firefighter, is now married to a cop. You get my drift. I’m sure they’re out of harm’s way for now, but I still worry.
It was a simple plan. Tread the marsh under the overpass, get to the freeway as quickly as possible while staying under the radar, and get back alive.
No one had the guts to maneuver through the parks or through the tunnels because it was too high risk with the Deviants. No one could safely cross the bay to the airport because the Coast Guard or the froggies would shoot you de
ad in the water.
The only alternative was to sneak through the sewers like rats on our bellies.
No questions asked, no questions answered. It’s open season, without warning or any remorse.
I can hear them now—“Shoot to kill! Take no chances and make no exceptions!” The way the jarheads use us for target practice at the borders shows me how expendable we really are.
HOO-RAH!
It was like shooting fish in a fish bowl. How many people have to die before something gives?
They made it look easy, but there’s nothing casual about casualties, is there?
When we left for Willets Point to get to the Van Wyck Expressway, we barely crossed the marsh before the bullets started flying.
There were four of us that night: Savio, Fausto, Julio, and me. We devised a game plan over by Savio’s junkyard to get across without letting the grunts patrolling the bridge see us.
The first bullet whizzed by my head, and the next struck Julio in the face, leaving him dead in the water. The other two men died immediately after, going down like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery.
I managed to tread away from the overpass and through the tall grass until I got back to the pier on College Point Boulevard, where I hid in an empty karaoke bar for the night.
In hindsight, the rows of floating human remains and bones collecting in the water should’ve been the red flag that crossing wasn’t a good idea. Good thing I let my friends go first. It serves Julio right for calling me a ‘pendejo’. I didn’t know what my little banditos were saying, but they sure as hell were convincing to me. All it cost me were a couple of bottles of booze and cigarettes to tag along.
“Ok, saddle up, amigos!”
I thought they were good at these things. I didn’t know any better. I assumed Mexicans knew their way around these situations like how I used to think all Asians knew karate. Just how I once thought the Mexican national anthem was La Cucaracha. When your dad is a bigot, you pick up slanted truths about other cultures until someone sets you straight and kicks your ass in the schoolyard.
I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1 Page 5
