“You don’t want to kill her, Leonard.”
It was the voice. That damn voice. He looked to the stars.
“You can’t kill her, Leonard. Even though you have the power of a God you can’t kill her.”
No, he told himself. He felt a whimper grow somewhere in his chest. A whine that made his heart shudder.
“She does not love you. God or not, she will never love you. You are already forgotten.”
With a scream of rage Leonard Samson flew into the sky and disappeared. There was something else in this world, he knew. There was something, or someone, for him.
Out there, somewhere, someone believed in him.
***
“And this is our basset hound,” Lila said, pointing at the picture with a smile. Hector looked at it and grinned. He sipped his beer. The dog was so cute, with its wide ears and soul filled eyes. It looked right into the camera as if it knew it was having its picture taken.
“Smart critter,” Hector said with a slight southern drawl.
“Too bad he’s gone now. Road kill.”
“Oh, sorry,” he lamented. “Uh, what was his name?”
“Murphy,” Lila sighed. “Murphy the dog.”
“Murphy,” he rolled around his tongue. “You know I have a dog. He doesn’t have a name yet.”
“I thought I smelled something canine in here,” she said, crinkling her nose.
“Maybe that will be his name. Murphy is as good as any.”
She blushed at that and turned the page. The next photo was of a gargoyle, sitting still in the dim light of a fading sun. Its long face was close to the ground in opposition to the bat-like wings stretching off its arched back. The shadow leaned out from its body, thick and black on the pavement.
“Hey, that’s really cool. It could be, like, an album cover, or something.”
“It’s one of my dad’s,” she said. “He really likes to take pictures of gargoyles. But this one is my favorite.”
She turned the page. The picture appeared to be of two lungs. Black and white, like something a doctor might hang on a light board.
“What’s that?”
“My mom’s cancer.”
Hector blanched and immediately went sober.
“See,” she said, pointing at the black spots. “Can you see the face?”
Hector took a closer look. He could not. The splotches sort of looked like a living being, but he knew they weren’t. He looked back at Lila. “Yeah. Sure.”
“That’s what my dad’s trying to find with all his shadow pictures. The shadow that killed my mom.”
“What will he do when he finds it?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Her death was hard on him.”
“I can imagine.”
“We used to live in Arbor. Then she died, and he brought us out here. Apparently, The Copacabana is on some sort of Indian burial ground or something. He read about it in a book. He spent his life’s savings buying this place.”
“Your father sounds like an interesting man.”
She nodded. Then looked at him. “Do you think it’s stupid?”
“No way. I think it’s great,” he said and leaned in to kiss her nose. “Without that we never would have met.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“And maybe this is some sort of Indian burial ground. I can feel forces moving.”
“You can?”
Hector leaned in and kissed her lips. All the depression rushed through his body, from his mind to his feet, and flowed out into the night. There was no reason to be depressed anymore. Not ever again.
The Razor Boys
The television cast a boring web of pornographic entertainment over their impressionable young minds. It trapped them like flies, beaming the lurid images straight into their eyes.
However, it was nothing they hadn’t seen before. In fact, the boys had become bored of pornography. It was a numbing sensation, one easily ignored.
Instead, Roderick and Jamie were naked on the floor, playing with a giant robot Miss Felony had bought them last Christmas. She had made the purchase in one of her rare giving moods, and it was one of the few presents she had ever gotten for them that was not completely sexually perverse. But the robot had still been equipped with a giant fake penis and realistic human breasts. She had done this as an afterthought sometime the night before Christmas and an innocent gift turned prurient. That night before Christmas they had stayed awake. She had promised a visit from Santa Claus. That night before Christmas they listened to her in the other room, laughing with glee as she glued and attached, molded and sculpted, anatomically correct attachments to a plastic robot.
The next morning the boys were given their present. A robot with tits and a dick.
Somehow Jamie and Roderick managed to ignore that and pretended that they were shooting at one another on a cosmic landscape. They got out some of their other toys, including a lifelike vagina molded from the private parts of Miss Felony herself (back when she was a much younger woman). The penis became a gun. The vagina a snare. The plastic boobs space shields.
On the television screen a large black woman wearing a strap on plowed a blonde girl dressed up as a cheerleader. The white girl had pig tails that swung with every thrust and she appeared to be enjoying it. Her screams of pleasure erupted throughout the trailer. Pornography was the only thing Miss Felony ever let them watch and they had long since become immune to it.
Still, the movie was turned up loud, which made it hard to play with the toy. It was difficult to get into that zone of the imagination they both loved so much, the creative place that was far away from Miss Felony and her demented trailer.
That place was the last piece of childhood the boys had left.
Miss Felony had gone to the library for work. She was always at work during the day, leaving the boys on their own. They preferred this. When the sun came up a weight always felt lifted off their shoulders. It was a time for them to be children. Unfortunately, they were growing up.
“This sucks,” Roderick proclaimed, tossing the toy robot down. The fake penis between its legs snapped off and rolled away, disappearing under the couch, never to be seen again. “I’m fucking bored.”
“What do you want to do?” Jamie asked, letting the plastic vagina wilt in his hand. He had a rocket that was trying to penetrate its g-spot shielding.
“I don’t know,” Roderick muttered and went to the window. Jamie stayed on the floor, playing with himself.
Roderick looked at the world. Outside the day was bright and filled with hope. Moist warmth could be felt through the glass. He wished that he was wearing pants so that he could go outside, but Miss Felony never let them wear clothes when they were in the trailer. She wanted them to be comfortable in their nudity. It was important, she told them. They had to be able to feel sexy no matter the situation. So, they did everything naked. They ate dinner naked. They took baths naked. They did everything naked. And sometimes they dreamed of clothing.
“Hey, its old man Torne.” He was busy snapping away with his camera, taking pictures of the shadows. This gave Roderick an idea. “Jamie, come here!”
The younger brother dutifully followed directions and they both sat at the window, peeking out at a world they had been denied. Miss Felony had tinted the windows so that no one could see inside. When she got home at night she drew the shades.
“Let’s moon him,” Roderick suggested. “You know, stick our ass cheeks up to the window.”
“Okay,” Jamie nodded and climbed up onto the couch. As always, he went first, and he pressed his young ass against the window pane. It was warm by the sun and felt nice. Roderick followed with a lustful giggle.
Outside Mr. Torne shook his head and nearly dropped his camera. The boys just laughed, collapsing on the floor it was so funny.
But Miss Felony was coming down the drive with three books under one arm and a plain brown bag in the other. She smiled at Mr. Torne.
“Ah, good m
orning Miss Felony!” Mr. Torne grinned, and in a jovial gesture took off his fisherman’s cap. “I must say, weird things are happening inside your trailer. I think your children might have gotten into the cable television.”
“What do you mean?” Miss Felony demanded. She rarely talked to Mr. Torne, only when the rent check was due and sometimes not even then. Mostly she slipped it into his mail box.
“Well, I heard some things inside,” he said. “You know, it sounded like people having sex. Smut. So, I went closer to make sure I was hearing everything all right and then those brats mooned me. Something going on I should know about?”
Miss Felony’s face turned sour, and she grit her teeth in anger. Around the paper bag she made a fist and it crumpled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Torne. Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.”
“Ah, no harm done!” Mr. Torne stammered. “Boys will be boys. I played tricks like that when I was younger. But, you know, I notice that they never come out. Heck, I haven’t seen them since you moved in. They don’t go to church or school. Tell me, is there something ...”
“Mind your own business,” she snapped and turned towards her trailer.
Mr. Torne watched her open the door onto a dark room then kick it shut with a slam behind her. He went back to finding his shadows while Miss Felony stood in the center of the living room.
There were her boys, sitting on the floor like angels, naked and focused on the television screen. A man with a very large penis shoved himself between a giant pair of oiled tits and began to moan as he came. White liquid shot all over the woman’s chest and her long tongue came out, licking the nipples clean.
“You boys have been naughty,” she said, putting the bag of books down on the table. “Haven’t you?”
“No!” Jamie cried. “Mr. Torne is a liar!”
Shaking her head, she sat down at the dinner table. “So, you were being naughty. Jamie, come here.”
He did so, knowing the drill. With a sigh he threw his stomach over her bare knee. She picked up one of the books she had brought back from the library, a leather-bound copy of Moby Dick. Before he could argue she brought it down, hard.
Jamie screamed in pain. The boys hated it when she brought books home. She would always beat them with whatever she got, and the larger the volume the worse the punishment. It didn’t get much worse than Moby Dick.
Jamie got five swats. Roderick ten, because Miss Felony knew he was the ring leader. He was always the ring leader.
Now she stood the boys up and inspected them. Their tiny penises dangled between their legs. Roderick had Herman Melville’s name stenciled across his butt-cheeks.
Miss Felony stared at their immature cocks. Roderick’s was much longer, growing into a full- blown dong while Jamie’s was still little more than a piss worm.
“Jamie, look at your brother’s prick,” she commanded. “See how long it is? Your brother is hung like a razor, ready to rip a woman apart from the inside out. Your penis must look like his. Do you
understand?”
Jamie nodded.
“A great star must have a large penis. You both know this.”
They nodded.
“Luckily, I made a stop at the store in town. You know the one.” They did. It was the sex shop. They hated it when she went to the sex shop. “And I bought something that will help.”
Miss Felony reached into the brown paper bag. She took out a plastic tube attached to a hand-held pump and some lube.
“You are to use this every night before bed,” she told Jamie. “Starting now. Lie down.”
He did so, even though every part of his body was shaking. That thing looked like some sort of weird torture device, a medieval instrument designed to make holy men corrupt. He watched as she smeared lube inside the plastic cylinder. Then she fit it over his dick and started to pump.
Jamie screamed in pain. He could feel himself swelling, and blood vessels popping. Things were moving. It was like invisible hands tugging on him, pulling him apart. Through it all there was Miss Felony, hanging over him, pumping the device harder and harder.
“Ignore the pain,” she commanded. “I want you to think about all the little porn starlets you are going to rip apart with your massive cock! Think about it! Hung like a razor! HUNG LIKE A RAZOR!”
“Hung like a razor!”
“Tell me again!”
“HUNG LIKE A RAZOR!”
“AGAIN!”
“RAZOR!!!”
And the boy screamed as Roderick watched with tears in his eyes. This was torture. He knew that they had to escape.
The Lands We Forgot
“I think, in his own way, my father was always searching for something beautiful. It was an eternal quest of some sort. I never understood it. The world has always seemed ugly to me. Maybe because the world was so ugly he was just looking for something beautiful, so he could destroy it. He certainly didn’t find it in my mother.”
Hector took another sip of warm beer and ran his fingers down Lila’s bared spine, feeling every bump along the way. He trickled down to her lower back, touching the soft flesh and thrilling when she quivered beside him.
They were in bed at the back of the van. A pile of ruffled sheets was strewn around them, and they were bathed in one another’s sweat. They were spent. They were exhausted. They were breathing deep and using the warm beer to cool themselves off. The lovemaking was over. Now it was time to cuddle and talk.
Hector found it strange that he wanted to talk. He was a musician. Normally he just fucked a girl then kicked her out. Lila was different. He wanted to open to her. He wanted to tell her everything. So, he started at the beginning. With his father.
“Didn’t he love her?” she asked, rolling over and finding Hector’s eyes. “I mean, every man searches for beauty. Hell, every person searches for beauty. We are an awful sort of people, and therefore drawn to beauty. I know that my dad worshipped my mother. He still does, as if she’s some sort of lost God. And I respect him for that. I think it’s the one thing about him that I love the most.”
No answer from Hector. This would take some thought. He took another drag off his cigarette, followed by a gulp of beer. He hoped that Murphy was all right out there in the big world but knew that he was. Chupacabra’s were tailor made for this ugly world.
He killed the cigarette and tossed it into the stainless-steel miniature sink. The ember glowed in the darkness for a moment, then blinked out like a dead eye.
“Hey, I asked you a question,” Lila said, playfully poking him. “Did your father love your mother?”
“He loved to beat her,” Hector finally answered. “And fuck her.” He shook his head.
“That doesn’t sound like love to me.”
“You have to understand that my father was a simple man. He worked hard on the docks of San Pedro every day. I remember he would come home covered in sweat and black soot until he looked like a shadow. A living breathing fucking shadow. That was my old man. A real blue-collar dude, right down to the calluses on his hands. Always up before the sun rose, then work all day until night fell. He would come home dead tired. My father would die tired. He was a worker. In fact, I think it was when he stopped working that he finally started dying.”
“Did he drink?” she asked, looking at the beer in his hand.
“Yeah,” Hector nodded. “A lot. Nothing could stop him. He would drink in front of me, he didn’t give a fuck. He would drink in front of my brother and sister like they weren’t even there. We would have to watch him unwind and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized we were watching him disintegrate. We were watching a man fall apart. We were watching a man slowly lose control.”
“You have a brother and sister?”
“Yeah. Jimmy and June.”
“You’re lucky. I’m an only child.”
Hector could tell. There was a way she talked, a way she carried herself, that suggested an intense loneliness. Maybe that was the attraction. He didn’t want to talk about
that, so he talked about his family.
“June was the youngest, my little kid sister. June, I always loved that name and she was lucky to have it. My mother gave it to her. And Jimmy. Jimmy was such a brat,” he smiled. “Always getting into trouble. Lord, I hated that kid. Now I miss him. Every day.”
“Where are they?”
Hector took a deep breath. This was getting to be a hard story to tell. “They’re gone. Somewhere else, far from here.”
Acquaro Page 6
