by Brian Hodge
The two bouncers were dragging the fat man out of the doorway with much difficulty. The fat man's face was very red, and he looked like he was about to explode. As the front door bounced twice against the frame before shutting, Downs hear "Rosanna" playing again.
"All I want to do when I wake up in the morning…"
The fat man struggled violently and Downs thought that he might have been handcuffed, as he could not see the fat man's hands. His feet kicked at the gravel helplessly. Swirls of white dust hung heavily in the air.
One of the bouncers lost his balance slightly and the fat man moved away from him toward the roof. The other bouncer hit the fat man squarely in the right ear, drawing blood, and the fat man fell forward against the hood of a red Buick. His hands were handcuffed.
Both bouncers kicked the fat man repeatedly, in the back, in the neck, everywhere. Falling to the lot, the man's body was kicked toward the fence surrounding the quarry.
The fat man rolled over and over, his blue windbreaker slapping against his exposed, bloodied face, his eyes shut in pain and terror, his mouth saying wordlessly over and over I'm a cop I'm a cop I'm a cop
and then his body hit the chain link fence
(every time one of the Cubs hits one over the fence, it's a Tru-Link fence… for beauty, privacy, security)
his whole body jiggling like a Jell-O mold as it stopped amid the beer cans and weeds at the fence's base. One bouncer kicked him in the crotch. The other kicked him in the teeth. The blood was black and splattered the Miller High Life cans. Downs thought of their new ad slogan — Miller: Purity You Can See. A mad thought.
Though it was in the 50's, with none of the humidity summer would bring, Downs was very warm indeed. His underarms were soaked and a thin line of sweat ran down his spine to his buttocks. That winter, at the AKA on Broadway, Downs had spilled his Seagram's down the back of a Mexican girl's dress and she had been super-pissed. Downs figured that his drink had ended up right where his sweat was now.
Downs looked across the street and saw a jovial Rusty Jones shaking hands with Mr. Goodwrench. He knew all along what the men were going to do, and the sudden realization shocked him.
The bouncers had the fat deputy up above their head now, nearly to the top of the barbed wire fence. Their flexed muscles resembled tree roots. The fat man's shirt was pulled up around his neck. His right nipple was hanging off. He was whimpering. Then — heave, now — he was half over the fence.
The lights on Front Street showed everything. The barbed wire pierced the fat man's skin in half a dozen places. The blood on his chest was like paint squeezed from tubes.
Another push and he was over. Incredibly, the man's belt buckle caught on the fence and the deputy hung suspended on the opposite side of the fence, several hundred feet above the ground. He seemed to be a warped version of a guy on a weight inverter in the Chicago Health & Racquet Club commercials.
It took three hard kicks from the bouncers to shake him off. Looking at the deputy's lips in these last seconds, you'd think he was praying.
He hit something on the way down. It sounded like a tree branch. Then a muffled crack as he hit bottom. The sound echoed like it had been a basketball bouncing in a vacant lot. The two bouncers simply turned and went back inside the bar, each allowing themselves one quick look at the result of their handiwork. They did not congratulate themselves.
When the lounge door was opened, Downs heard "West End Girls" playing and he remembered exactly where he was. Three sailors walked down Front Street, oblivious to anything that had just occurred.
He had to look. He had to.
Downs felt like a ghoul. One foot forward, then the next. If the bouncers saw him, he'd say he was urinating. What would they care? He had to look.
He jumped as he kicked a beer can errantly. Touching the fence slowly, as if it might suddenly be electrified, Downs strained to see bottom. He saw only shadows.
After long moments, Downs moved away. The blood on the fence left dark, wet grids on Downs' face and hands, but he didn't know this.
He walked to Front Street, and kept walking, past the Club Aphrodite, past the Feline Inn, the Union 76, the Feelie-Meelie, not looking back until The Touch was just an ugly spot in the background.
Downs did not know what he was going to do next.
Chicago:
13 May 1986
Rail Rider
Clohessy watched Raine's blue Civic turn back towards the Kennedy on-ramp, then himself turned, zippering his jacket as he took the escalator steps two at a time to the concourse leading to the el trains. The Kennedy overpass was deserted, and he stood for several minutes staring at the eight lanes of weekend traffic — four on each side of the Jefferson Park/Douglas/ Englewood rapid transit line. Then he noticed the girl.
Before looking back at the girl, Clohessy, time-scheduled commuter that he was, glanced north and saw that the train was nowhere near arriving at the terminal. He had been chilled crossing the parking lot, but the girl below him was wearing only a pair of jeans and a white sweater that hung well below her waist. Maybe he'd offer her his gloves.
Clohessy walked briskly down the glass and stainless steel corridor to the stairs leading to the El platform in the expressway's median strip. It was after ten p.m.; the ticket agent's booth was closed. He'd have to pay on the train, and took a second to make certain he had small bills. The conductor couldn't break a twenty.
He never carried a comb, so Clohessy ran a hand through his hair (not that it would matter in the sharp late-September wind), and pushed through the gate and took the down escalator. Halfway down, he saw a flash of the girl's sweater, pushed up around her elbows.
Clohessy had been disappointed that he had to leave Raine and Peg's place so early, due to his having a two-hour trek on public transportation to the Southwest side ahead of him; he enjoyed the couple's company, and likely wouldn't see them again until the Japanese Animation Convention in January, but he had also been blown away by Peg's co-worker at T.J. Maxx's, Mary Velez. Mary was built like Maria Conchita Alonso, and her personality was just as zany. But seeing the girl on the platform made him momentarily forget the last few hours.
As Clohessy's shoes clacked onto the concrete, the girl turned to look at him. He met her eyes and she looked quickly away. She did not seem too concerned about whether the train was coming; she didn't seem impatient in her movement, and, after the first five minutes Clohessy had watched her from the corner of his eye, she hadn't once leaned over the tracks as most people, himself included, usually did.
He looked at the digital clock on the Northern Trust bank across the Kennedy. 53°°at 11:09. If he were going to strike up a conversation with her, he'd have to do it now; the train would be there by quarter after.
Walking the ten or so steps to where she was standing, Clohessy jammed his fists into his pockets, realizing just as he neared her that he was wearing his spring jacket, and that he'd sound pretty damn stupid offering her his gloves when they were actually on his coat rack back in his apartment. Slightly embarrassed, he turned away.
The platform rumbled; he started to look north. It was only a plane leaving from O'Hare a mile away. Clohessy whistled tunelessly and rubbernecked. The sign above him that read:
BOARD HERE TRAINS TO LOOP & WEST SIDE was flickering. The clock at the bank now read: 52° at 11:11. A huge tanker truck obscured the neon Mona Kani restaurant sign as it made a wide turn into the parking lot of Dominick's.
Clohessy began watching for signs of life in one of the lighted upper floors of an office building to the far side of I-90's left lanes. When he turned again, the girl was gone. Clohessy glanced up at the escalators. From where he stood, he could see the bottom fifteen steps of the two stairwells with the escalator in the middle, before they disappeared out of sight behind the overhead ads for Camel Filters and Salem Lights. He was still surprised, as he had been each of the three previous times Raine had picked him up or dropped him off at the Cumberland stop, at how well-kept
and graffiti-free the El station was.
Clohessy saw a blurred splash of color.
The girl was riding the rails on the up escalator. Slipping back into sight from above, she'd slide back down nearly to the bottom before stopping and repeating the process. Clohessy watched her straddle up the moving stairwell a half-dozen times, then watched her ride up in a kind of swimming sidestroke. She was gorgeous. Her sweater had hiked up over her hip, exposing a gilded belt looped into her jeans. Her hair fell across her face.
She turned to stare at Clohessy, winked at him. He touched his collar and glanced away at the bank clock again, too flustered to even notice the time. He looked back; she was again gone from sight.
Clohessy heard whistling and cat-calls from above. Male voices. As the voices came nearer, accompanied by the squeegee-like sound of sneakers on the concrete stairs. Clohessy calculated four separate voices. They all wore slicked back hair, he saw when they reached bottom, and all wore lime-green fall windbreakers. Each was carrying a bag of some kind. They walked closer. Behind them, the girl again slid back down the rail. She stared back at them, bored.
Once they reached the glare of the sodium lamps, Clohessy saw why the girl wasn't afraid of them, and, for what seemed like the twelfth time that night, he felt extremely stupid. They weren't gang members. The jackets advertised Szostak's Tavern. One guy was singing 'Who Stole the Kishka?'
The four guys were a Polish bowling team.
Within minutes, the southbound train pulled in and the bowlers got on, heading towards Milwaukee Avenue, Clohessy was certain. He glanced at the time; 11:18. Still plenty of time to catch the Archer bus downtown. He'd wait around to see what the girl was going to do. She seemed to be in no hurry to leave. Maybe she was waiting for Clohessy to make his move.
The southbound train was now far in the distance. The girl had not come back down the escalator since the train was in the station. Clohessy was inching closer to the stairwell when he heard shuffling from the concourse above. Probably her boyfriend showing
He saw something white lying flat on one of the escalator steps descending to the platform. White with splashes of red.
Descending.
Red nails on the girl's hand.
Red veins at the wrist.
Descending. Catching on the edge of the platform's grill and flipping up. The girl's hand, severed at the wrist. Hideous in the green glow seeping up from the escalator's bowels. Creating a ghastly cast of shadows from her dead veins and finger joints.
Then her corpse followed, riding the rail down, lines of blood sprayed across the chrome. Her eyes, forever open, still had the bored look she gave the bowlers.
Then, also riding the rails down, toward Clohessy, the man with the knife.
Des Plaines, Chicago:
16 September 1987
Bumpy Face
THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT WAS GIVEN OF HER OWN FREE ACCORD BY SHYANNE DOWALOBY, AGED 10, RESIDING UNTIL THE ARREST OF HER FATHER AND PENDING INVESTIGATION OF MOTHER AT 6550 NORTH METROPOLE. ATTENTION POLICEWOMAN DORELL MYLES, DATED 0800 HOURS, 30 AUGUST 1991, 25TH DISTRICT, 5555 WEST GRAND.
Hi, my name is Shyanne and I'm ten years old. I like country and western music like Garth Brooks and Highway 101 and I'm real afraid of Bumpy Face.
My mother won't let me stay up late, she says I got to go to school in the morning but I don't believe her when she says that because she won't let me watch the late night videos on TNN. Don't tell her that, okay? Mommy really loves me.
My friend Amy's older sister has Randy Travis concerts on video caskets and she lets us watch them while she talks on the phone with Anthony Kuzak who says Randy Travis is a fag because of his hair. What does he know? Not much.
But I don't go out anymore not even by Amy's, because of Bumpy Face. He will get me if I go outside and especially if I tell anybody about him, Daddy told me so.
I found out about Bumpy Face by accidentally hearing Daddy talking about it to his friend Dave and the guys from The Lime Room. They were all sitting around the kitchen and I was supposed to be in bed because it was after 8:30 but I left my picture of Garth Brooks that I stole from Anthony Kuzak the fag's magazine with Madonna on the cover. It was on the stairs and Mommy doesn't like me leaving things on the stairs and cluttering so I went to get it and put it in my spelling book, before Mommy came back from her Al-Anon meeting.
I know that's what it's called, what she went to, because whenever Mommy left the house, mostly on Thursdays and that's when Daddy's friends came over to drink and talk about women and their titties but boy would they clear out before Mommy came home, and whenever Mommy left she would always smile at me and say honeybunch, real loud, so that Daddy would hear even from the kitchen. Mommy's leaving for her meeting now, she would tell me slowly like I was the dog Jake next door and had just peed on the floor. And if I was in my room when she left, she would slam the front door real hard and the shelf on my wall with all my Ken and Barbie dolls would shake. One time, even, she slammed it so hard that Ken fell on top of Malibu P.J. and they looked like they were making out.
I laughed at that but Bumpy Face won't let me laugh anymore.
So I was on the stairway not making any noise in the dark and I could hear my Daddy's voice talking to his friends. I heard some cans opening and I knew it wasn't Pepsi because that rots my teeth and so Mommy doesn't buy it.
My daddy was talking about the liquor store and he said that he was in line once and a black man from past the viaducts came in and said he wanted to see Bumpy Face. Daddy said it funny, kind of sounding like that show on Fox about the black guy who plays that clown, and Daddy had to wait in line until the counter man came back with Bumpy Face.
That is a scary name and I bet that if I ever see him in the light that he looks like Dracula and is as big as Frankenstein the monster. That is why I am afraid to go outside, too. I don't think I want to see him.
Then a little while ago, just before school got out, my daddy came to pick me up from school and I told him all about what Memorial Day was all about, like honoring veterans. Daddy was so proud of me that he said to give him a big hug so I did. My Daddy says I have Mommy's eyes but his hair is black like mine and he's real tall.
We drove fast and my daddy kept looking at his watch. He said we were going to make a pit stop. I thought he meant a pet shop but I figured it out when we stopped at the Shorty's Liquors on Naragansett and Daddy said not to tell Mommy and he would let me come in to buy a candy bar.
While Daddy was by the freezer that said cold beer in pints I stood by the cash register and tried to think about what kind of candy bar I wanted. Then this black man came in and rubbed his beard and asked for Bumpy Face. The cashier lady snapped her gum and didn't even look around. Instead she gave the black man a flat bottle that was shaped lumpy around a silver and yellow label. When the saleslady bent down to pick up the bottle and her butt stuck out the black man made a kiss-face.
(It is interesting that Shyanne has identified street slang for Seagram's Extra Dry Gin — called bumpy face because of the beveled glass — with her father's alcoholism — Officer Myles.)
I figured that maybe Bumpy Face wasn't coming out because it was still afternoon and there was light in the store.
Later on I was in my room pretending to sleep but I really couldn't because Mommy and Daddy were arguing about Bumpy Face. I am sure they were talking about Bumpy Face because Mommy knew that Daddy had made a pit stop because her friend Mrs. Hasenfang was there in the store and told her so on the phone.
After awhile, I heard Daddy's keys jingling and I knew he was going out again. He knocked something over. Before he left he said that Mommy didn't give out enough but he was slurring his words and I didn't know what he meant. I heard Mommy slap Daddy real hard, probably on the face like in the soaps.
That was when I knew Bumpy Face was in my Daddy. Mommy cried for awhile and then went to bed. Later, Bumpy Face came into my room. I was sleeping and it must have been real late because there was
only that buzzing sound coming from the TV downstairs. Somebody was shaking me and at first I thought it was Mommy but it was Daddy's voice that was shushing me.
I had only opened my eyes about a second when Daddy bent over me real close and put his hands on my night gown. He had never touched me there before but he started whispering to me and I knew I was right when I smelled Bumpy Face in his mouth.
Bumpy Face was in my daddy.
Bumpy Face said that if I ever told anyone that he would kill me. Then he touched me some more and I felt him in my mouth. He was in my room almost every night.
That night that Mommy saw him and called the policemen, Bumpy Face had my nightgown pulled up around my shoulders and he was touching me someplace else.
Blind and Blue
Rebecca brought down the house that night at The Nunnery the first time ever she sang "Am I Blue?" The teens in the non-drinking area stopped their groping for the duration, and the smokers forgot all about their nicotine fits as well.
The night, the moment, Christ, each moment was strung to the next on a necklace of electric current long before the man with no eyes force fed me a hell of which will never leave my mind. It started with a mention of decapitation. But let me go back; as with every confession ever given, let me start from the beginning. Before "Am I Blue?"...
I had flown down to Nashville that afternoon for Jack's Ripper party, commemorating the double murders of 30 September 1888. It was a welcome release from my working on the second draft of The Holy Terror; though I take that back, I had written several pages in Jack's kitchen, over a carton of Pepperidge Farms crackers, before the crowd from Louisville showed up. Some things never leave you.
The party was to begin at one in the morning, and we had all gone to The Nunnery, a once-abandoned warehouse off of 8th and Broadway, to hear Becky sing and Oscar play guitar. The Shakers — individually, Rebecca Stout, Oscar Rice, and Robert Logue — were a kind of legend in Nashville, especially at this particular bar. "Get Thee To The Nunnery!" the Metro ad ran next to Jack's article on The Bell Witch.
