"Were they in the bus accident, too?"
Roy shook his head. "No. Those two had a couple'a years on me. They went marching off to Korea. One didn't come back—he's planted in the cemetery just up the road, right next to the morgue your buddy the doc raided when he put you together. The other came back ruined. He was the smart one, too. A college man. A doctor, just like your buddy Frankenstein. He almost made it out of this pit, but his brain required some serious pickling after two years up to his knees in blood and guts as a MASH surgeon. He's been at the bottle since the day he returned to the good ol' U. S. of A."
The young man sighed.
"Don't say I'm sorry,” Roy said. "You get one shot at that, and that's it."
"I won't."
Roy nodded. "You just take care of that arm for me, amigo. You get on that highway, and you get the hell out of here, and you take care of my arm."
"I will," the young man said. "But my car — "
"You can take mine," Roy said. "It's parked out back, behind my trailer. It's got a fancy knob on the wheel for one-armed driving and everything, should you ever come up short."
"What about you?"
"I'll fix up your rig. New bumper, couple'a headlights, new windshield... Like the mad scientists say: Parts is parts." Roy chuckled. "To tell you the truth, I wasn't much of a mechanic even when I had two arms, but I get along. My brother helps me out. He's way too shaky for cutting on people, but cars are different. They don't scream."
Frankenstein's creation couldn't help but wince.
"Get gone, amigo," Roy said, tossing a set of keys.
Roy's right hand opened. The key ring disappeared between thumb and forefinger, into the bulldog's gaping mouth. Strong fingers snapped closed around the keys. The owner of Roy's arm slipped them into his pocket.
"Thanks," he said.
He patted the junkyard dog's head, one last time.
Then he was gone.
Frankenstein could hear nails tearing loose from warped plywood. Years of dry rot had finally taken their toll. One of the support timbers had crumbled, and now the stairway was pulling away from the brick wall of the pit.
Frankenstein dragged himself forward. Onto the eighth step. The ninth. Behind him, stairs collapsed like dominoes, splashing into the black water, but the doctor heard nothing but his own feverish breaths, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the next step, and then the next.
He pulled himself into the hallway just as the staircase crumbled behind him. The lab lay before him. If he could get to it in time, there was a telephone. His house was far from town, but an ambulance could reach him in a matter of minutes.
If he could reach the phone.
He had to. He'd come this far. He had to make it, all the way.
The tile floor was slick, freshly waxed. It was hard going, but Frankenstein kept at it, ignoring the wet squeal of his bloody stump sliding across slick tile, instead imagining pleasant things. A nice, warm fire. A good brandy. A fragrant curl of smoke drifting from his pipe.
That was when he smelled the smoke. Not fragrant, but raw. With sudden clarity he remembered the monster striking him with the fireplace poker, the pipe flying from between his teeth. An image flashed in his memory, a smear of red smoldering tobacco on the living room carpet.
And now he could smell the smoke.
The phone. He had to get to it now, while the line still worked.
Urgently, he dragged himself across the lab. The desktop was out of reach, but he tugged at a length of black cord and the phone tumbled to the floor.
He snatched up the handset and dialed frantically.
All for nothing.
The phone was dead.
And, Frankenstein knew, so was he.
He lay back on the cool tile floor, waiting for the end.
The needle stabbed Frankenstein's arm. "Don't worry," the man said. "I'm a doctor."
Frankenstein stared at him. He blinked, but his vision refused to clear. Still, he did not need to see the man to form an impression, not when he could smell the whiskey on his breath.
Footsteps came from the hallway, along with laughter. "Jesus, the kid wasn't kidding." It was another voice, different from the first but somehow the same. "You should get a look at this. There really is an alligator down there."
"We gotta get out of here." The first voice again. The doctor.
"Sure. How about our buddy the mad scientist? I mean, I know his tap dancing days are history, but is he gonna make it?"
"Well, I topped him off with morphine. If he doesn't pull through, at least he'll die happy."
"We don't want that to happen."
"Well, sure. We gotta get him out of here. Hell, we gotta get us out of here. That fire up there isn't going to be very forgiving once it gets going good and proper."
"Don't worry, brother. Tonight's our night." The second man laughed, and the sound cut Frankenstein like a knife. "Jesus, we're lucky fellas. Driving around, looking for a secret laboratory, like we're really going to find it, even if it's out here in the middle of nowheresville. Thank God that kid couldn't drive worth beans. Thank God he smashed that mailbox but good. And that brodie he laid down on the front lawn, that was pure X marks the spot."
"But is it worth the risk, Roy? I mean, do you really think this guy can fix things for you?"
"He made a whole guy out of dead stuff. Compared to that, how tough can it be to fix me?"
"I guess you're right, but..."
Frankenstein couldn't follow the conversation. The voices were much too similar, and the men were talking fast. If only he could see clearly, see the two men... He reached up, fingers scrabbling over his numb cheek, and rubbed at his right eye. He couldn't feel a thing...
...but that was good, because there was nothing to feel.
Frankenstein jerked his hand away from his face.
He had no right eye. Only a raw red hole. Now he remembered. His right eye was upstairs, a fleshy smear on the carpet. The monster had taken it.
Gott in Himmel. The morphine. He was swimming in the stuff. He couldn't feel a thing.
A man loomed over him. Frankenstein blinked, left eye straining. For a moment his vision cleared, and he saw that the man who stood above him only had one arm.
It was difficult speaking through a torn mouth, but Frankenstein managed to ask, "Who... are you?"
"It's not who I am," the one-armed man said. "It's who I'm gonna be. See, I figure that you owe me a little favor, Doc. And when you deliver on that favor, I'm gonna be your new right-hand man. It's time someone put you on the straight-and-narrow, and I figure I'm just the guy to do it. You and me, we're going places, Doc. Just you wait and see."
"You only get what you can take," the other man said. "That's our motto, amigo."
The two strangers laughed at that.
And, laughing still, they dragged Frankenstein up the stairs, through infant flames, through dark rumors of smoke, conveying the good doctor into the night beyond, where waited the enduring embrace of captivity.
CANDY BARS FOR ELVIS
THIS GUY HAD THE SNEER, ALL RIGHT. It slithered like a pink snake around a little black cigar, the skinny kind He favored but never smoked in public.
I leaned against the wall of the recording studio that had once been a warehouse, just watching him. Then I got tired of watching and stepped from the shadows into the dim light, my motorcycle boots heavy on the wooden loading dock.
A startled little puff of smoke escaped from his nose. "You almost scared me to death," he said, and I smiled because he'd forgotten the accent.
He squinted. Like I said, there wasn't much light. Then he really saw me. My face, that is. "This some kind of a joke?" he wanted to know.
I stood there and let him sweat. I was a real piece of work. The Kentucky rain had sopped me pretty good, and I hadn't shaved since leaving Denver. The blade in the Schick injector that had seen me through Vietnam was so damn dull that it wasn't worth bothering with. And the way things were
going money-wise, cheap burgers and jelly donuts were what my budget demanded, not little niceties like fresh toiletries.
"Okay. A joke's a joke." The sneering man flicked his cigar into a puddle and turned to the door.
Even with the rain, my mouth was as dry as a schoolmarm's cunt. I worked up some spit that got my tongue to tasting like burnt tinfoil and croaked, "I-I've been listening. You can still hit the high notes, and that's a fact."
He stopped cold. Maybe it was just the sound of my voice. Sometimes it can do that to folks. Or maybe it was what I said.
Or maybe he could smell the burnt tinfoil.
His hand slid off the knob. He spoke softly, remembering the accent this time. Even the little stutter. "I-I'm glad to see that you're a real fan."
I didn't want to scare him again, so I didn't say anything. Just nodded.
He looked me over, and his eyes froze when he saw my neck. "H-hard times, huh?"
Again, I nodded.
He fished a twenty from his pocket and filled my hand. "There's a store down the road. Little ol' mom-and-pop joint. How about you run down there and get me a couple'a candy bars? You can keep the change."
I heard him, but not real clearly — I was too busy looking at his hands.
He wore black gloves. A silver guitar was stitched on one, a musical note on the other. Rhinestones, or diamonds, outlined both.
I looked him in the eye, letting a sneer of my own raise one cheek, like I was smart enough to understand.
He nodded. "Gloves don't leave no fingerprints. Make sense, son?" He slapped my back with a big leather paw and sent me into the cold Kentucky rain. And then he hollered after me, "Most folks think I'm dead, remember?"
I sat in my car and stared at the twenty. I figured it'd buy a lot of cheeseburgers and a lot of jelly donuts. Even one of those cheap pizzas from that Domino's joint, though I didn't know how He felt about pizza.
I was tempted to stuff the money in my pocket and go.
I'd done worse. And skipping with the twenty wasn't anything next to what Black Gloves was doing. Raindrops tapped on the hood of my rusty old Cadillac and I thought about it. Andy Jackson stared up at me, anticipating my decision with appropriate solemnity.
Egypt wouldn't like me taking off, though. If I did that, it would mean we were quits, and I'd have to cross Denver off my road map. No more visits to her little place on South Clarkson. No more feeling her hands on me while I stared up at His black velvet portrait.
Egypt's voice came back to me: "I heard about this fella from a gal in one of the Kentucky fan clubs..."
Above me, on the bedroom wall, the velvet microphone in His hand. Run your fingers through my hair...
"This fella's been lettin' folks see him, playin' cat and mouse games..."
A knowing grin on His face. Cuddle me real tight...
"And he's actually makin' records. This fella wants to leech money from the true fans. Just like that writer who said He's still travelin' around the country, usin' that name from one of His movies..."
Egypt's fingers, traveling everywhere, real slow and nice.
I almost sang it. "I don't want to be your tiger, 'cause tigers play too rough." But I couldn't sing anymore, and it wasn't any good just saying it.
Besides, it would have been a lie. Egypt made me feel real good, and I would have done just about anything to keep it that way. So I just stared up at His face, thinking about her soft, black velvet touch.
Her fingers went everywhere. Everywhere but the scars on my neck.
No one touched those.
No one touched His sacred marks.
I looked away from the Cadillac as soon I stepped out of it. It was pretty-well rusted. The new paint job hadn't helped any, but that was my own fault. After my visit with the writer who had claimed He was still alive. I'd made the mistake of celebrating at a bar that was across the street from a paint store. I'm here to tell you: whatever the problem, pink Rustoleum isn't the solution.
Anyway, Black Gloves was right about one thing: the store was definitely a mom-and-pop operation. Tonight, Pop was working. He didn't pay me any mind, though. Monday night football.
I looked at the magazines, enjoying the fact that the old guy kept the place pretty toasty. I dried off a little, flipped plenty of pages, but nothing really interested me. The guys in the rock 'n' roll magazines had hair that was prettier than Egypt's. And that's saying something, because Egypt's hair is done up in one of those spider's nest bouffants. It's really something to see.
The donuts were next to the magazines. I got a box, then took a pint of milk from the fridge case. As the glass door whispered closed, I caught sight of my reflection.
Black sideburns. Thick whiskers between 'em.
Whiskers that didn't do a damn thing to hide the scars on my neck.
It always upsets me to see my neck. I eased down the far aisle, palmed a pack of razor blades, and tucked them into my jeans.
Like I said: I've done worse things.
I remembered the candy bars just as a commercial interrupted the game. Some jock pitching— you guessed it— razor blades. The old guy looked up from the register and saw me for the first time.
"Kiss my ass," he said. "You look just like Him."
Tinfoil sizzled underneath my tongue. "Don't sound like Him, though. Not anymore."
Pop looked away, his old lips sagging like he'd torn away Christmas wrap and found nothing but a big turd. I walked out— the plastic pack of razor blades jabbing my crotch, the familiar sneer spreading across my face— and climbed into the Caddy that was the color of an old scar.
The Caddy's worn wipers couldn't do much against the pouring rain. I popped a cassette into the tape deck. Gold Records Volume 4. "It Hurts Me."
I did pretty well after He died. I even had a manager. Smart little fellow I'd known since high school. He got me out of the Chicago legion halls and into the Vegas casinos, a move that made me feel like dreams could come true.
That was when things started to fall apart. I guess His songs say it all. "Girls! Girls! Girls!" and "Burning Love." And then, when things got weird and black, "Way Down."
I'm ashamed of the stuff I did in Vegas. But I never actually bought the drugs. And I swear that those women asked me to do those things to them. For the most part, they enjoyed every minute.
For the most part. That doesn't make it right, though.
Anyway, that's when the cancer came. The doctors burnt it out, of course. They said that I could live a full life. Just so long as I didn't mind the dry mouth, the taste of burnt tinfoil.
It's funny. Even then, I knew that the cancer was a sign. My own personal flaming star, sent directly from Him. You see. He didn't want me to end up the same way He had. It was a simple case of caring. Pure TCB.
Now, that's Love with a capital "L."
That's when I really changed. I couldn't perform, of course, but I still wanted to be like Him. The way He should have been. The way He was in those movies — pure and good and right like no other man could be.
I spent the next couple years working some of the same jobs He'd had in those movies. I was driving truck for a carnival, thinking of Roustabout, when I met Egypt. She was a dancer in counties where we couldn't buy the law and a stripper in counties where we could. Not young, not beautiful, but she knew how to use what she had and took good care of it. I laid eyes on her and it was love, just like the song says: I went and bought myself a ticket and I sat down in the very first row...
At first, she was drawn by my looks. But she didn't turn away when she saw my scars, and she didn't flinch when she heard my voice.
See, she understood His love better than I did.
We were happy for a while. Quit the carny life. I drove truck and she settled in Denver. Then things started happening that we didn't like. It seemed like every time we heard His name, someone was trying to make a fast buck.
They were turning Him into a joke.
We didn't think it was funny.
We followed His motto. TCB.
Takin' care of business.
"Took you long enough," Black Gloves said. "I'm damn near starvin'."
I handed over the candy bars. One of His songs ran through my head. "You're the Devil in Disguise." Suddenly, I felt kind of dizzy, like I might faint.
"Whoa, boy. Whoa." Black Gloves steadied me.
"H-hard times," I croaked.
Black Gloves patted my back and sent me into the Kentucky rain one last time. Just like I'd hoped, I heard the sound of paper tearing as he moved slowly through the darkness. I ran halfway across the parking lot before I turned and hollered. "I-I'll tell 'em that you're still around. I'll tell 'em you still care!"
Black Gloves had entered the building, and the door had almost closed, but I caught his wink, and his words.
"You do that. You tell 'em that they gotta believe."
Then he was gone. I stood in the rain and rubbed my whiskers, feeling like the dark gunslinger He'd played in Charm.
I thought of candy bars. Razor blades.
Little bits of nougat. Little bits of steel.
When you come right down to it, they couldn't taste any worse than burnt tinfoil.
I hurried away, laughing so I wouldn't hear Black Gloves hit the raw, red note that He never touched.
STYX
THERE HAD TO BE A PLACE where they could be alone, a quiet place where they could find an ending. A place empty of everything but shadow, where they could be together. The man behind the shuddering steering wheel of the old Dodge van, the broken doll of a woman hunched in the rear, the ghost of Buddy Holly whispering haunting promises of sweet kisses he'd miss.
Buddy's promises were cold and dead, but they kept coming, verse after verse, traveling from the afterlife via completely unsupernatural means—a Maxell cassette, a Panasonic boombox, and six fat Duracell batteries. The man behind the shuddering wheel drove on, his knuckles as large as mushrooms, as red as rare beef. The steering wheel was his tiller on this black Styx of a highway and the big Dodge van was his ferry. He held on, his grip vise-tight, his jaw clenched, his lips drawn back in the hideous grin of a man chewing his own heart.
Bad Intentions Page 9
