by Weston Ochse
FIRST EDITION
Nancy Goats © 2011 by Weston Ochse
Cover Artwork © 2011 by Daniele Serra
All Rights Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DELIRIUM BOOKS
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For Doug Clegg
Acknowledgements
I originally conceived of Nancy Goats in 2002. I’d written a straw man short story, but wasn’t exactly happy about how it turned out, so I held onto it for awhile. The biggest issue was that although I wanted to write about gay issues, especially because of a recent rash of gay bashings in L.A. at the time, I didn’t want to be disrespectful to anyone. Thanks to Mikey Huyck and Mike Oliveri for looking at early versions of this and providing advice.
Thanks also to my Kuai Lua instructor in San Pedro, Mark Nunez, for not only teaching me Hawaiian blend jujutsu, but also for letting me be the bouncer at several MMA matches before UFC was a big deal. That gave me the opportunity to see firsthand fighters and their trainers in small octagon matches in downtown L.A. and Wilmington. I met the normal and the crazy. Most often I couldn’t tell the difference between the two.
Thanks also to Kevin Sessums for his memoir, Mississippi Sissy. Reading this amazing piece of work reminded me that I had yet to finish Nancy Goats and inspired me to complete it.
Last but not least, thanks to all my Delirium Books fans, Shane Staley, and my wife, Yvonne Navarro.
“Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to go to his class”-Bruce Lee
Muddled Nursery Rhyme:
Nancy Goats ‘n dosey dotes
an’ little lamsy divey,
A kiddely divey doo
wooden shoe, wooden shoe.
– Daddy Pain
From a U.S. Special Forces Press Release: “The army will go forth with this training because it is vital in teaching Special Forces and other special operations medics to manage critically injured patients. In effect, this type of training is directly responsible for saving lives in real world combat situations. All training involving animals is conducted in accordance with established protocols and all applicable federal laws.” Public Affairs Officer, United States Army Special Operations Command
1. Captured
Paco Le Poulet strode down the sidewalk about as happy as he’d ever been. He’d moved to Los Angeles three years ago a confused, young athlete from Idaho intent on a wrestling career at UCLA. Within a year he’d found the space to embrace the roots of his confusion and moved to West Hollywood. Born Brian Overstreet, he’d changed his name when he’d begun dancing. He’d thought that Le Poulet had sounded European. Sophisticated.
“Hey, Chicken Taco. Spare a fiver?”
It wasn’t until he’d been established on the runway with his own persona that he’d discovered that he’d actually surnamed himself The Chicken. But that didn’t matter, either, because tonight he’d finally headlined and it had been the best night of his life. The crowd had absolutely eaten him up when he’d done his cover of the Scissor Sisters’ Any Which Way, complete with an air cannon firing condoms and confetti into the crowd
“Come on girly boy. Give an old man some of what you got.”
Paco Le Poulet stopped, spun and placed his manicured hands upon his hips. The marquee lights of Leather Kitty, his name in foot-high red letters garish enough to almost be seen in Idaho, lit the sidewalk the same color as the sequins on his knee-length Donna Karan knock-off.
The man stood on the corner leering back at him. Grizzled and dirty, he held a sign that said Will Work for Laptop on one side and Will Work for Food on the other which he flipped according to the car—foreign or domestic ruling his decision.
“You can’t handle what I got,” Paco said through clenched teeth. “I’m more than the sum of my sequins.”
“I’ve handled tougher than you. In fact, I bet you taste like—”
Paco cut him off by stepping forward and wagging his finger. “Oh no you don’t, you dirty old fag. Do not say it. Do not say I taste like chicken.”
The man grinned for a moment and seemed as if he’d say it anyway. But then fear danced across his face as he lurched back. He seemed to be about to say something. His hands began to shake. Then he dropped his sign, shuffled into the shadows and was gone.
“That’s right. That’s right. You don’t want to mess with Paco Le Poulet.” Paco spun and beheld four men. “Oh shit.”
Then pain.
Then more pain.
Then darkness.
* * *
Paco awoke to a pounding head. He smelled sweat, rubber, urine and gasoline. He was in a small space with sharp metal all around him. Suddenly the small space lurched, sending him face first into a tire. He tasted blood. His wrists and ankles were duct taped. He knew now that someone had shoved him in a trunk. Not someone, he reminded himself, but those four handsome young bucks wearing the same crazy T-shirt with the words Family Pain emblazoned across the front.
Although he tried to keep his breathing in check, he was on the edge of hyperventilating. He prayed to God that this was just a fraternity prank. He didn’t want to be another Brandon Teena.
The car took a corner sharply, hurling him into a place where a tire iron dug into his cheek.
He’d been stupid to let his guard down. He’d been so caught up in his success that he’d forgotten one of the cardinal rules of gay men in the universe: watch your back.
A series of bumps sent him back into the relative safety of the uncomfortable darkness.
2. Arrival
Paco awoke to the electric whine of a garage door closing. He heard voices around him. Car doors opened then slammed shut. Metal clanked against metal. And beneath it all he heard a far away sound like thunder that had been captured and chained to the earth.
He wasn’t prepared for the brightness when the trunk finally opened. He’d thought himself blindfolded. Dazzled by the overhead lights in the garage, he was jerked out of the car and tossed to the floor. He felt his Donna Karan rip along the side. He tried to stand, but he’d lost one shoe, leaving him balanced precariously on a single stiletto heel. With his ankles taped, he had to brace himself against the car with his back or fall.
Wobbling slightly and blinking away tears, he observed his captors for the first time. Four young men, boys his age really, stood in a semi-circle around him all wearing the same Family Pain shirt. From the raised ridges of their pectorals and shoulders to their corded thighs, it was obvious to Paco that they were athletes. While a small part of him admired this, another larger part him was afraid of it.
“Blindfolded,” Paco mumbled, suddenly realizing the danger.
“What’d it say?” asked one of the boys.
“I’m not blindfolded.” With a sinking feeling, Paco realized that people who were going to be let go were usually blindfolded.
“No need,” a brown-haired boy on the left said. He flashed a boy-next-door smile. “I’m Brett. This here’s Randy.” He punched the shoulder of a lanky, red-haired boy next to him.
“I’m Dude 1 and this is Dude 2,” one of the others said.
They were perfect twins spawned from some crazy surfer Dr. Seuss parody. Sun-bleached, wiry hair shot in all directions. Their skin was the same dark orange color as a Gene Wilder Oompa Loompa. Although they had perfect-teeth smiles, their eyes were as dull as their faces were handsome. The other two, Randy and Brett, seemed boy-next-do
or normal. Paco could easily believe that Randy was just a good catholic boy from Boston, while Brett could have been a nice Jewish kid from Santa Monica. So why had they abducted him? Looking at them, he couldn’t help but feel a little hope.
“Well? Do you have a name?” Randy asked.
Paco glanced sheepishly from one boy to the next. He so didn’t want to be here. The Donna Karan that had so recently made him feel so on top of the world now made him feel exceptionally vulnerable.
Brett flicked his ear. “He asked your name, sweetie.”
Paco flinched and muttered his name.
“What did he say?” Brett asked, turning towards Randy.
“Le what?” asked Dude 2.
“Pooh-lay,” replied Dude 1.
Brett scoffed. “Poulet?”
“Means the chicken.” Randy grinned and shook his head. “Daddy’s going to love him.”
“Paco the Chicken?” asked Dude Two. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“No. I mean yes, that’s right.” Paco felt obscenely foolish explaining himself to these boys. They were completely the opposite of the type of men he’d become accustomed to being around. Their testosterone and desire to inflict pain were poised on the rounded bones of their thick knuckles. Acceptance wasn’t even part of their vocabulary.
“That’s a faggot name if I ever heard one. Since it’s a chicken, say we chop off its head and see how long it runs around?”
Paco snapped his head around so fast he almost fell. The nice catholic boy named Randy had said that.
“Naw. He was a chicken once, but now he’s a goat. He’s my goat,” said Brett.
“No shit, Brah,” said Dude 1. “Total Congrats. You’ve earned it fer sure.”
“First of a new batch,” Randy said.
“Daddy Pain’s gonna be happy,” said Dude 2. “You caught yerself a good one. Now you just got to learn how to not kill ‘em.”
A scream came suddenly from inside the house.
Everyone glanced at each other for a moment, then erupted into laughter.
Everyone except Paco, whose eyes were as wide as a cartoon victim’s.
“Better bring him inside,” Randy said. “It’s late and tomorrow’s training begins early.”
Brett nodded. He reached around Paco’s waist and slung him onto his shoulder. “Come on, Goat.” As they traveled the length of the garage, Paco spied surf boards along the walls. Punching bags hung from various beams. It wasn’t until he’d been carried up the steps into the kitchen that he realized that the sound he’d mistaken for far away thunder was the Pacific Ocean. He was somewhere in the South Bay, where the homes were large, the people were rich and a circular driveway was the norm; somewhere where he’d somehow evolved from a chicken into a goat, whatever that meant.
3. Daddy Pain
Paco knew the house was immense by the sheer size of the dining room. If he was right about this being the South Bay, this was one of those multi-storied mansions he’d seen on the hills of Rancho Palos Verdes when he’d driven the coast in the spring. The closest he’d previously been to a mansion was inside a hill hugger in Coldheart Canyon. A famous British writer had held a costume party in honor of art he’d made for a children’s book. Paco had been the guest of a former TV sound editor he’d met at Club Ripples. The art had looked nothing like what he considered children’s book-worthy, but then again Paco’s childhood reading had consisted of nothing but his father’s collection of Victoria Secret magazines and the odd Dr. Seuss book he could steal.
“I was a Special Forces medic,” Daddy Pain declared as if the universe was attentive and listening.
Paco couldn’t help but stare at the muscled hulk sitting on the large wooden chair at the end of the fifteen foot long, glass dining room table. The man introduced to him as Daddy Pain had the pulpy face of an old boxer. His crew-cut hair was a salty blonde. Slate blue eyes crouched meanly above a mashed nose. His cauliflowered ears were painful to look at and seemed more like drawer knobs. As the man spoke, his hands gripped and re-gripped the wooden arms of the chair. Even from fifteen feet away, Paco could see the granite architecture of the hard-knuckled hands.
The tape from Paco’s wrists and ankles had been removed by a lithe black teen named Panther Joey who now stood behind him, muscled arms crossed over a Family Pain shirt. As Paco listened, he couldn’t help nervously trying to smooth the mess the trunk and capture had made of his dress and hair. He wished he still had his shoes. He felt naked without them.
“My job was to keep soldiers alive,” Daddy Pain continued. “Not just any soldiers, mind you, but the best in the universe. United States Special Forces.”
Paco nodded, afraid to look away. He felt trapped by the man’s intensity. What he knew of soldiers began and ended with friends he’d met in bars who’d been victims of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and sometimes their own platoons before they’d managed to escape.
“We couldn’t practice on real soldiers, so their solution was to give us goats. These goats were more than pets, understand. These goats represented soldiers and were very special.” A granite finger pointed towards him. “Like you are. Very special.”
Paco had felt special that night with his standing ovation, but he was certain that it wasn’t the sort of special Daddy Pain was talking about. He didn’t want to feel that kind of special, whatever it was.
“We’d take these goats and break their legs to learn how to fix them. We’d beat them with bats to learn how to heal ribs. We’d even shoot them to learn field expedient surgery.”
Paco remembered a friend named Lenny who’d been walking home from Church one Wednesday a few months ago. Lenny had been minding his own business until a four-door Acura Legend filled with bat-wielding Hawthorne boys had made him their business. The doctors said that Lenny had been hit over a hundred times with the bats—forty-two broken bones including both legs in six places. He’d been in a coma until just last week when his family had pulled the plug.
“The goats saved lives and were useful to the process.”
Lenny hadn’t been part of any process except anger and ignorance.
“And I was the best medic of them all. I never lost a goat. Never. I’m sure if they’d sent me to Grenada or Panama or The Gulf that I could have helped. Had I still been, I would have loved to have participated in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m damn sure of it.”
Paco detected a note of regret and missed chances in the man’s speech. He wondered why if the man had been so good at his job that he’d never been allowed in combat.
“Fuck ‘em. Their loss.” Daddy Pain glanced around and yelled, “Hey Randy, get me a protein shake. I need something before I get these old bones to working.”
A voice from the other room answered immediately. “Coming right up, sir.”
Daddy Pain grinned and leaned forward. The chair creaked in protest, but he ignored it. As he probably ignored the cries of the goats, Paco couldn’t help think. Daddy Pain placed his hands together on the empty table top.
“This is where you come in.”
Dry lips parted as a pit opened in Paco’s stomach. “Me?”
“Yes, you. See? My boys do two things here. They surf and they fight. There’s a whole ocean out there to teach them how to surf. All they need is a board and the desire and they can surf whenever and where-the-fuck-ever they want.”
Paco had dated a surfer boy with a heart of gold named Bodner and had learned their curious language. As he glanced at Dude 1 and Dude 2, he imagined them ripping six footers and narrowly avoiding being pitted as they struck the beach.
“But fighting is another thing. The boys need to practice. We do tournaments almost every weekend. Not those sissy-win-a-trophy-and-make-momma-happy joy fests that all those Tae Kwon Do assholes attend but real tournaments. We’re extreme fighters and understand pain. It’s all about full contact and we are the Family Pain.”
Randy strode into the room with a plastic pitcher filled with what looked like oran
ge sludge. “Mango creatine.”
Daddy Pain grabbed the pitcher like it was a mug and drank deeply. He strode the length of the table and gestured for Panther Joey to slide back Paco’s chair. “You know what extreme fighting is, right son?”
“Pay-per-view,” Paco whispered, not really wanting to understand, but unable to keep from answering. “Ultimate fighting.”
“Exactly!” said Daddy Pain, taking another swig. “Except there are no Hoyce Gracys or Ken Shamrocks here to dictate the outcome. There are no Tito Ortizes to strut around, date pornstars, chicken out of fights and be pretty. Our results are based on our skills and our skills are based on you.”
“Me?” He gulped.
“Yes. Family Pain needs you to be a goat.”
“But I don’t think—”
Daddy Pain cut him off by jerking him to his feet. “We always choose the gay and the retarded. You guys fight hard. Real hard.”
“But I’m not a fighter, I’m a danc—”
Daddy Pain cut him off by shaking his head. “Everyone’s a fighter when it comes to dying.”
Paco remembered one night when he’d proven that point against two semi-drunk toughs out to prove their manliness and unaware that a person with a different sexual destination might know how to fight. Paco had ruined a pair of hundred dollar pumps, but had survived.
“And we do it because you’re headed for hell. I mean, if you’re retarded it’s plain that God has forsaken you. Likewise, if you love other men then you have forsaken God because God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
Paco had dated a guy named Adam who’d been kicked out of the Army and was in search of himself. Although Paco had merely been a rest stop on the boy’s journey of self discovery, he’d been there in the dark hours when the tears had run and the pride had rested precariously on shoulders toughed by ruck marches, pushups and bar fights when he’d pretended to be straight.
