by Kirk Alex
“That last one you wrote for Pearleen I hear is a real winner. Fans love it.”
“Don’t say that whore’s name in this house! Don’t make me crazy!”
“All right. Okay. Calm down.”
“I’ve had dozens of songs ripped off. They’re so slick about it. Rearrange the lyrics; change a word here, replace a phrase there—and they have a hit on their hands, make millions, while we live in a slum in North Hollywood. The worst one of the lot that I’ve had to deal with is that low-life of a record producer you introduced me to: Sal Falco. I had to turn over more than half the publishing on my very first two songs ever recorded. Half the publishing; quite possibly more than half.”
“Now you know why I quit being a roadie, got out of the business. Lot of ’em are just like Falco. He’s a coke-head. No ’count. Rest are junkies and alcoholics. You think my beer drinking is bad? You ain’t seen nothin’, babe. I only introduced you to him you so you could get your foot in the door. They’re all like that. Take what they can; all they can.”
“I’m disgusted with it. So tired of it, Marty. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever make it to Beverly Hills.”
She sat at her desk. Buried her face in her hands and wept. Roscoe walked up from behind and gently, ever-so-gently, with an open palm, rubbed the area between her shoulder blades. He eventually applied the other hand. Massaged her shoulders and the trapezius in order to relieve the stress he felt ’neath his fingertips.
CHAPTER 271
Biggs was at the kitchen stove heating up a pot of jambalaya, while Marvin sat at the long table shaking his head, biting his fingernails and looking none too happy. His old and battered tv sat in front of him, the cord wrapped around it. Biggs had decided to take it down for Pearleen to use.
“What chu doin’ here ain’t right, Hoss. Be takin’ my tee-vee to give to that ho Peach, when you know you gonna ice her ass.”
“We don’t know what the future has in store.”
Biggs dipped the ladle into the pot and filled a bowl with jambalaya. He had a wooden spoon in it. Got a couple of Butterfinger candy bars and two cans of Hawaiian Punch out of the refrigerator. Shoved the items into the pockets of his black fatigue jacket.
“How come the ho be gettin’ all this special treatment? I be Deacon and don’t get no Butterfinger or Twinkie—else when I eat me some you be throwin’ a fit.”
“Instead of sitting there bitching mindlessly, why don’t you check the cluck-clucks’ water and food.”
Biggs reached for a couple of clean bowls and dumped a ladle each of jambalaya into them. While he did that, Muck had pulled his chair out and was about to climb on it.
“Wait a minute. I know you’re not as dumb as that fucking Rumanian cabbie. I know you’re not as rattle-brained as Mr. Fimple and them.”
“What?”
“What nothing. You were going to stand on the kitchen table.”
“Said who?”
Muck stepped down from the chair and walked over to the iron eyebolt in the wall of pennies to the right of the cupboard, untied the rope, and lowered one of the cages so that it landed on the table a might rougher than it should have and spooked the hen inside. He then untied the other rope, and lowered the second cage. The hens clucked away nervously. They were always on edge, it seemed.
“Lookit that.” Marvin reached inside one of the cages for the empty chow bowl. “Them Foghorn Leghorn be always makin’ noise. Never know if they gonna lose they head.”
Biggs handed a bowl with stew to him. Took the dirty bowl and placed it in the sink.
“Any eggs?”
“No egg’.”
Muck traded him the other dirty bowl for one with jambalaya. The water containers were refilled and the cages hoisted back up.
Cecil rinsed one of the dirty bowls in the sink and dumped some stew in it. Handed it to Muck.
“Take this to the one in the living room closet.” Gave him a couple of keys off the carabiner. Reminded him to keep out of the mini fridge. Muck looked at him.
“Yo, why you got to tell me all the time?”
“Got beer in there. I know exactly how many.”
Muck left without saying a word to that. When he came back he handed the keys over and wasted no time on the thing he was on earlier.
“You ain’t said why Peach be gettin’ all this treatment? Like the ho be the queen or somethin’.”
Biggs didn’t feel like going over it.
“I know: I ain’t got no vagina ’tween my leg’. That be why. Only that don’t make no kinda sense, ’cause you the original Vagina Killa. Always out to ice vagina. Me? I be wantin’ to bang vagina.”
“Meaning what? What’s your point?”
“Point? My point? I don’t be likin’ this bitch gettin’ my tee-vee and seein’ her get all this kinda special treatment: candy bar’ and Hawaiian Punch.”
“Candy’s bad for you. Besides, you hate Hawaiian Punch. ‘Cat Piss,’ is what you always like to call it, isn’t it?”
“Yo. Cat piss be right. Only it still be mo’ better than tap water an’ blood.”
“Blood is good for you. Only you’re too damned ignorant to appreciate it. You’d rather drink malt liquor and give yourself cirrhosis of the liver.”
“What about my tee-vee, Cecil? Gonna miss my porno; Super Fly and Dolemite. I be watchin’ Dolemite all the time. Rudy Ray Moore be my man. Seen that shit a thousand time’ and don’t never get tired. Gonna miss seein’ my Richard Pryor, too: Car Wash and Stir Crazy. I can’t live wiffout my tee-vee, Cecil.”
“Don’t sweat it. Got a few still left up in the attic. Better than this one. Bigger screen. We’ll hook you up a better VCR, too.”
Marvin nodded his head. He liked that.
“I could go for one of them Butterfinger right now.”
“Give him an inch—he wants a foot.”
“I don’t be akskin’ for no foot. What I got be a foot.”
“Bullshit. You don’t have a foot. You never had a foot.”
“Damn near.”
“Ten inches does not make a foot.”
“More like eleven. When I be real hard—like a mofo. Eleven inch’, solid man meat. Black pipe.”
“Your dick grows every time it comes up.”
“Suppose’ to, ain’t it? You got to admit: it be big and black, like a mothafuckin’ mamba.”
Not only was Cecil disinterested, but he had a pretty good idea where it was leading.
“I could go for some of that trim. Ho got junk in the trunk. I could fuck that bitch in her culo, her pussy, back in her culo and then right in her mouf.”
“Well, it’ll have to wait. You’ll have to be patient. Besides, how did we go from candy bars to pussy?”
“Could go for a Butterfinger, me. Or Twinkie.”
“You’re not getting any.”
“Why come? Never mind. I know: shit be costin’ coin.”
“You got it. A pretty penny. On the other hand: there’s always jambalaya —”
“And tap water.”
“And tap water.”
Marvin scratched his groin. Spit on the floor. Cecil didn’t care for it.
“Keep spitting on my floor, and you won’t get the tv.”
“Yo. Keep forgettin’ you don’t like for nobody to spit on the floor, Dawg.”
“If you ever became a property owner yourself, you’d understand—only I doubt you’ll ever own anything in your life. I just can’t see you owning anything, much less a house like this.”
“Never know. Got my own plan. Could be one day I could buy me a cribby and have me a buncha bitches to shag all the time. My own harem of sex slave’. That be super fly, no shit.”
“Like Youngblood Priest?”
“You right there. Be just like Youngblood. Have my own bad-ass short, and a stable of Rent-A-Hoe’ like Dolemite. Bringin’ in coin an’ suckin’ my dick whenever I be wantin’, me.”
Biggs had Marvin pick up the stack of true crime and hardcore porn
paperbacks sitting on the table, a jug of cold tap water, while he carried the rest out to the basement door. Cecil unlocked it, and they made it down the staircase, all the while reciting the familiar “Hate the Sin, not the Sinner” line.
Marvin was tired of it.
“Yo, them tard’ don’t be givin’ a dog turd about none a that ‘hate the sin, not the sinner.’ Them mofo be playin’ wiff they private’ and talkin’ to they self, no lie. Why they be tard’.”
Biggs insisted on hearing it, as they crossed the basement to the Fun Room. “Put some enthusiasm into it. If you still want the tv from the attic.”
Base went along with it, putting a high-pitched spin on his delivery, going overboard with it, as if in church and delivering an emotion-fueled sermon.
“Yeah, baby! HATE THE SIN, NOT THE SINNER!”
It was not long before the sentiment was echoed back by some of the basement dwellers like Big Tex Leo Nix, Betty Lou Rutterschmidt, Mildred Elizabeth, and one or two others from various nooks and crannies in the poorly lighted dungeon.
CHAPTER 272
Biggs unlocked the Fun Room door, then the door to the steel cabinet. Opened the first-aid case to make certain it contained all the necessary items: Band-Aids, gauze, medical tape, peroxide, Q-tips, cotton swabs. Took it with. Locked the cabinet back up. Stepped out, and locked the Fun Room door. He and Muck walked across the way to the Mattress Room. Muck was still at it. It was too much.
“HATE THE SIN! NOT THE SINNER! DON’T YOU BE HATIN’ THE SINNER! NO, LORD! HATE THE SIN, NOT THE SINNER; NEVER THE SINNER! NO WAY! YO! HEARD WHAT I SAID?”
Biggs unlocked the Mattress Room door. Stood there, looking at the fool. He was laying it on. Way over the top.
“Cool it, Reverend Rich.”
“You told me to do it, Cecil.”
“Now I’m telling you to calm down. That’s enough. You’re getting them all worked up.”
Base turned it off. Took notice that Cecil remained standing in the doorway, blocking his entry. Marvin got the idea.
“What am I suppose’ to do while you be in there gettin’ all that good trim?”
“Go blow yourself. Seems to be your favorite pastime.”
“Sheeyet. I could do better than that: slide my meat through one of them glory hole’ in the door that be over the pit—and let the victim suck my dick.”
“No. I’d rather not have staff and members of the board see you behave like a good-for-nothing heathen. Sets a poor example.”
The bishop’s right-hand man spit on the floor, and didn’t seem to care that he was being given a dirty look by him.
“I’ll go to my room.” Marvin walked away. “Suck my Jones my own damn self. How about that? That be all right wiff you, Bishop? Yo. That be cool wiff you, Trusty Lusty?”
“What I just suggested. Just don’t break your neck.”
“What chu care if I do?”
“You won’t be any good to this church.”
Marvin was about to say something else. Cecil cut him off.
“You didn’t see me lock the door back up up there.”
“How you know what I was gonna say?”
“What is it, then?”
“Nothin’. That be what. Yo.”
CHAPTER 273
Biggs stepped into the Mattress Room. Closed the door behind him. With the exception of the blouse he let her wear, Pearleen Bell was not clothed. The reasoning behind it, in Cecil’s mind, was that it allowed for easier access to pussy and butthole—whenever he felt like getting some. She did, however, have that old Salvation Army blanket wrapped about her, and she was chained to an overhead pipe via the leggings, with enough slack in the long chain to allow for sufficient freedom: to use the bucket to go to the bathroom in, lie on the mattress (in whichever position she chose), and now, be able to turn the television on (when and if Biggs decided to flip the light switch on the wall outside her door that made electricity possible). The chain that connected the leggings themselves was approximately two feet in length and made walking relatively easy. Whenever he needed her to leave the room, all Biggs had to do was unlock the lock that connected the two chains. It was a type of precautionary measure that he took pride in and adhered to religiously—in a manner of speaking. You had to keep at least three steps ahead of the bitches. Always. Never trust a victim. World was full of backstabbers and schemers.
There was grime and traces of blood on various parts of her body, welts and bruises. Most of it having been caused by her and her exotic stripper friends during their failed escape attempt through the tunnel.
All in all, she looked all right. Wounds merely needed to be cleaned again with peroxide and bandages replaced with fresh ones.
She appeared on the weak side to him, probably due to hunger. Also, the water jug he had left with her from before was empty.
Biggs handed her the bowl of jambalaya and watched as a look of disinterest showed on her face. Nothing new there. She took a whiff, and turned away. Finicky.
“You’ve got to eat something, Pearleen. Because if you don’t, you’ll eventually become too frail to be of any use to me. Go on. Eat some. I’ve got dessert for you this time.”
Pearleen Bell’s hunger pangs got the better of her and she managed to get a spoon of the stew down her throat. She forced herself to take another, and it was enough. She shook her head. Didn’t want it. Cecil handed her a can of Hawaiian Punch. Watched as she gulped a good half of the contents down her thirsty gullet. He held out the Butterfinger candy bar. She tore the wrapper off, and chewed with relish. He withdrew the other candy bar, unwrapped it, and bit off a good chunk. He loved Butterfingers. He cracked open his own can of Hawaiian Punch, took a good pull. Held the candy bar between his teeth long enough to place the tv set on the rickety end table and plug it in.
He stepped out of the room briefly to flip the light switch outside the door. Cecil was back in the room to turn the set on. He pointed out that the table was not very sturdy and that she should never climb up on it—for any reason.
He looked at her. Waited for her to nod her head.
CHAPTER 274
Oprah was on.
“You like Oprah?”
She shook her head. “Can’t stand that bitch.”
Biggs grinned. “I’d love to carve the cunt up. Something about that phony facade of hers that never agreed with me. She’s one ugly cow with a big mouth who never learned to shut the fuck up. Can’t stop yakking about her weight. Been at it for years. Homely whale drops two ounces and the whole world has to know about it. Never mind that the lumpy heifer always gains it all back, plus interest. Makes no difference that she’s got the millions and the world class chefs, top makeup people and all the rest of it. Obnoxious bitches like that make me want to reach for the sledge. I’d love to sledge her skull in, her and Jenny Jones. I hate cunts like that. Phil Donahue is another bitch I’d like to do that to; Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas. Then there’s Dr. Phil McGraw. Cretins. They do nothing but poison the world we live in.”
He changed stations. Left some game show on. It was mindless, but it didn’t matter. He indicated the jug of water on the floor.
“You’ve got water for later.”
“Thank you.”
Pearleen ate some more of the candy bar, drank more of the Punch from the can. He looked at her. Indicated the stack of paperbacks.
“Reading material. Mostly true crime. I like reading true crime. The worst, the really bad ones—for me, are the good ones. The more gruesome and violent, the better I like them. How about you?”
“I don’t know. I hardly ever read any.”
He didn’t get it. Nodded his head anyway.
“The others are hardcore fuck books. All types: fucking, sucking. In one of them there’s this scene, for instance, where a White Bread bitch takes a cum bath in a tub. Funny shit. Turned me on, too. She’s in a tub, after being gang-banged by the Crips. She’s in a tub and they jerk-off all over her until the tub fills up with cum—and she
takes a bath in it. It starts out with her White Bread rich husband driving her down to South Central on a false pretext after catching her cheating on him one night, shoves her out of the car in the ghetto and leaves her there. The bitch is surrounded by the Crips and taken to a house—and gang-raped. Good story. Read it half a dozen times. A classic. Makes my dick hard every time I revisit the book.”
The way she moved her head indicated that she were able to relate. It wasn’t exactly a nod, instead an expression expressing same.
“You’re into that nasty reading material. I suspected you might be. Broads like reading that shit, too. Tillie Marie was that way—only she didn’t go for swinging, didn’t care for any sex-a-trois type of scenario. Too many hang-ups, if you ask me. Why it didn’t work out—between us. Bitch took off. Got my young son. Rarely get to see him. Goes and names him Honesto—when she didn’t know how to be honest herself. Ain’t that a kick in the head? Ain’t it a punch in the mouth? Comes over here under false pretenses, marries me in order to get her citizenship—and then walks off and nails me for alimony and child support.” He paused. “Now she’s pursuing legal action for more. Cunts are like that. Especially ones from the Philippines. Can’t be trusted.”
“Sounds like she was monogamous.”
“Claimed to be.” Biggs looked at her, startled out of his reverie. “She claimed to be. Me? I have to have my fun. One woman can’t satisfy me. It’s not enough. It’s never enough.”
He finished off his candy bar, finished off the Hawaiian Punch. Pearleen did not know what to add to it. Admitted to having read her share of these sex books when younger, as a teen. “Although lots of them had to do with gay men doing it to each other, or in groups.”
This was disappointing to him. This was something he could not/would not ever be able to relate to.
“Fag books? You would like that. Women are that way. Charlotte Yvonne kept stacks of them in the closet. Come to think of it, they were mostly the old man’s. J.J.’s. Punk. I hate faggots—and the way they carry on. Asshole John Wayne Gacy, and those other assholes: Randy Craft, the Freeway Killer, and that piece of shit Vernon Butts and his fag partner. Fucked young boys in the ass. I have to draw the line there. To me, in my opinion: the male rectum was always a sickening and disgusting thing to look at, let alone stick a groin in. Understand?”
