He shook his head clear with a widening of his eyes. On television screens it was magnified, so he seemed to be struggling with devils inside. In fact, he was, but he smiled and returned to his story:
“She was like an addiction for me. I confess it and I attest to it... she was like a drug I had to have. Her sex — the power of her generative organ — aroused in me a lust of monstrous proportions...Let me tell you, after a while it got so bad that Rebecca just began to live in bed all day long, watching television and eating candy and waiting for me to come home from church. I knew something was wrong with our marriage, but I didn’t know what it was. I was innocent before I married her! And the worst part was, that it didn’t stop even when she conceived, even when her womb was full...”
He covered his eyes with his hand, and bowed his head in shame. The audience stirred at the sight of him struggling with such a concupiscent Devil. But the memory he struggled with was not of his wife’s sin, but his own.
He was seven, small for his age. His Sunday School Class went to the circus as a reward for learning all their Bible lessons. Little Tommy Flood went dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and sandals. The circus was thrilling. A tent was pitched in a vacant lot in the small Indiana town where he grew up, and there were animals and rides and clowns.
It was the clowns that Tommy wanted to see. He went off by himself to look for them, impatient before the show to see the funny men. But the clowns were cruel and scary and there was a snake charmer who held him and suddenly the snake was inside him...
He was getting sick and for a moment he lost his train of thought. Get rid of the snakes, he told himself. Snap out of this.
“Yes, I was innocent. I didn’t know about the temptation of lust and what the punishment for it might be. It was God’s punishment that was visited upon us. He was so sickened by our lust that he struck Rebecca dead.”
He could almost feel them shiver out in the blue cathedral of television land. He could almost hear the million intakes of breath. He had never told this story before.
“My wife Rebecca was killed by an intruder in our home. He raped and murdered her, and it was God’s punishment on us!”
His glistening blue eyes widened dramatically. His head fell to his chest.
After lingering on him for a slow sixty seconds, the cameras switched to Flood’s co-host on the Evangelical Evening News, the Reverend Bill Dalrymple, who was inspired to make a particularly effective appeal for Crusade contributions at this dramatic moment.
The studio audience saw Flood step off the brightly decorated set and disappear through a door. He was headed for the men’s room to recover himself, or throw up. He was in sore need of guidance.
He hurried down the long hallway to the men’s room, pushed the heavy door open, and found Jack at the urinal. His treasurer zipped up hurriedly. A warning buzzer went off in Thomas Flood’s mind, but he ignored it, his crisis was so great. He stepped quickly up to the white urinal and unzipped himself before Jack could leave.
His eyes fixed on Jack’s, he held his power in his hand and shook it mightily, daring his treasurer not to look at the serpent in his hand. The moment was too brief, but Flood felt a deep thrill at having shown his power to this insignificant servant.
“Excuse me, would you, Jack? I really came in here to pray.”
Flood fell to his knees before the urinal and called upon the Lord.
— This is more than I can bear, Lord. How do I explain Rebecca?
— You got yourself into this.
— Help me.
— You’re beyond my help.
— I’m helpless.
— You’ve told yourself the story so often you believe it yourself.
— I confess, Lord, I don’t know shit from Shinola right now. I can no longer distinguish what really happened from my version of it.
— You never could. You’re hopeless as well as helpless, but you are my servant. Get out there and finish your lie, for sometimes I am with you.
Thomas Flood had spoken with God. It was on his face when he returned to the set, a look of awed resolution. He faced the camera and offered up his account of his wife’s death, skipped over his indictment, trial and acquittal for the crime, and picked up the thread of his sermon again:
“The man who came into our home and murdered Rebecca was a consumer of pornography... the police found a collection of Playboy magazines in his closet! A fiend of lust! You know the famous saying, ‘Pornography is the theory, rape is the instrument?’ The man who came into our home was injected with the poison of pornography— the word itself means ‘the writing of whores’— unclean images! Unchaste cartoons. Foul stories...”
God spoke through Thomas Flood. He felt transformed.
“Pornography is noxious in the nostrils of God, and our ministry here at the Parousia Foundation has been selected by the Lord to lead a great crusade into the capital of pornography and heathenism, San Francisco.
“That’s right: San Francisco, Sodom by the Sea. It’s a city built on vice, on licentiousness. Just a hundred years ago the Barbary Coast was known throughout the world for the number of its prostitutes. Not for the number of its churches! The Lord warned San Francisco in 1906 with a great earthquake, but still it kept to its evil ways. Our crusade to save the soul of San Francisco will burn the pornography and scatter the Devil worshippers! Lust will be defeated by our crusade, and driven down into the fiery pit!”
He roared the last line, arms stretched skyward in a triumphant ‘V’, eyes glowing with a fervour that was money in the plate:
“Lust is the devil we will drive down into the fiery pit!”
XIII
Buddy on the Loose
Robin and Pearl Dollar were still asleep when I hit the street. They were curled together like cats. I was hungry, and after I took care of that I just walked around looking at things. Faces passed like blips on a screen, like they weren’t human. My hips hurt. My ass leaked. But I was smiling.
You could say I was under a spell. Killer. I liked thinking that Robin thought I could kill her father. I guess she had good enough reasons for such extreme prejudice. With six and a half billion people on the planet chomping on Big Macs, one big-assed preacher wouldn’t be missed. And people get up and salute killers. If I killed Robin’s father, people would pay attention. I wouldn’t be invisible then.
I was walking on the Lower Haight looking at the hippies and the dippies and the faggots when, lo and behold, a familiar face. I turned my head but he saw me and I had to go over to where he was sitting and say hello.
It was Anyguy, the old Indian who was watching out for my luck. His box had a couple of twenties, so the luck business was good.
“I can see you found that bad girl.”
“She was only half of it.”
“You jump right into things, don’t you?”
“No time to waste. People say the world is coming to an end any time now.”
“You’re in trouble if you believe that stuff. Don’t worry — I’m watching your luck. Take your time. Enjoy. The world won’t come to an end until the serpent swallows the moon. That’s a long time away.”
“When the serpent swallows the moon?”
“When else?”
“I think if I listened to you I’d be too crazy to enjoy myself.”
“You can count on whatever I tell you, Buddy.”
“Tell me why you call yourself Anyguy.”
“You call me that. My name is Inigahi.”
“What does that mean in Indian?”
“One Who Lives Alone In The Wilderness.”
I laughed. This old Indian was amazing.
“And here you sit on your ass on a busy street.”
He shrugged his high old shoulders.
“Life plays tricks on you. Maybe you only think I’m here.”
He winked at me and somehow, don’t ask me how, he sent a line in my pocket with a hook on it and, presto, my last twenty dollar bill was in his box. His e
yes were shut.
I started to walk on when he didn’t open them, but he called me back. There was a serious look on his face that I paid attention to.
“Look out for blood in your eye, Buddy.”
“What does that mean?”
“Remember what I said.”
Sometimes I thought he could read my mind. I had to think about hooking another wad of cash somewhere, and K. Farouk’s pistol was in my pocket so there was the danger of having to use it. Blood. That didn’t sit well with me, but I didn’t have a choice. I’d spill blood to be able to afford expensive women. It was part of the bargain you made with them. No pay, no play.
There are some advantages to being invisible like me. One is when you’re hunting pigeons. There are a lot of similarities between people and pigeons, I’ve decided, after watching them both. Pigeons go where the food is, and leave a lot of droppings. Pigeons like crowds. Pigeons are easy to get close to. They’re watching, but they’re easily distracted. A lot of them are fat and careless. And some are just stupid.
I stood on a street corner looking down Market Street like I was waiting for a bus, but what I was doing was waiting for the right pigeon. They came in waves down the sidewalks, and then there’d be the stragglers. I waited a long time until I spotted the right one.
He was a typical California richie. Loose jogging pants about to fall off his ass, and a t-shirt that said ‘A Higher Power Within’. He wore a bag around his waist that looked stuffed with money. He was built, but I’m not puny, and he had a tan so dark you knew he didn’t know the sun gives you skin cancer. A real asshole.
I just followed him like a ghost, looking for the right place. He turned onto Valencia and I was right behind him at the underpass. Nothing there but a vacant lot and some trucks.
“Get it out,” I yelled when I was about a yard or so behind him. “Give it up, you asshole!” The pistol was pointed at him.
I thought he was going to run because his eyes looked scared wild, like he couldn’t decide whether to shit or go blind, so I jumped on him and jammed the barrel in his chest to stop any ideas. He practically stopped breathing.
“Take that off,” I told him, dropping the pistol back into my jacket pocket. I owned his ass now. No sense attracting attention. Just in time, too. A police car slid by, but we just looked like two guys standing there talking.
His hands were trembling but he got the bag unbuckled and handed it to me.
“What’s your name?”
“Tom. Tom Stanforth.”
“Never did like that name. Well, Tom, I’m not going to tell you mine, but you want to forget about me. If you tell anybody about this I’ll find you and cut your hands off, and then your balls.”
I was right about my pigeon. His wad was held together by a gold money clip. Probably a bigger thief than K. Farouk.
“You’re probably a lawyer, aren’t you Tom?”
“Yes.”
“I ought to kill you.” I was just joking, but Tom didn’t see me smiling. He muttered something like he was surprised and we both looked down at his crotch. He was pissing his pants and looking at me. It was disgusting.
“Don’t kill me. I won’t tell anyone.”
He was a pathetic asshole, just about ready to cry, and he made me feel dirty.
“No, I won’t kill you. But one of these days you’ll wish I had, with the kind of life you got ahead of you.”
I made him take off his shoes and socks and throw them into the busy traffic and then I skipped off down Valencia Street, flush again.
It was dark when I got back to the Hotel Napa. The sidewalk outside it was filled with bag brides, pre-ops, post-ops and TVs. The lobby smelled like people had pissed in it.
The bed was empty. Clothes were everywhere, the way girls do. No note. Just gone, and they left the lights on, the door unlocked.
Should have tied them to the bed.
Well, what did I expect?
Shit happens.
I knew where to look for Dollar. It was the busy time at the Pussy Palace. A fat Mexican-American in a tight purple t-shirt threw down tokens for my hard earned money and I stepped inside the sleaze emporium. Sex fiends everywhere, looking at the magazines, watching videos, checking out the booth girls. Miss Dollar Pearl wasn’t working the booths, so I stepped into a cubicle that would allow me to view the live peep show with my Pussy Palace tokens. The wooden barrier came up, and a Latina girl came to my window and stuck her hand out. I gave her five from Tom’s roll and she stood there smiling and waiting for me to touch her big silicone breasts. I touched them but it wasn’t a thrill. Real titties feel real. But I asked her if she’d seen Dollar and she stepped away from the window.
Dollar was across from my window letting a guy feel her ass. There were eyes in every dark booth, just eyes watching. Guys coming in their pants watching Dollar and the Latina.
The guy stuck his finger in her pussy and she jumped back from him, seeing me at the same time. I pulled a fifty off the roll and showed it to her and she strutted right over to me.
“It is you, Buddy Tate. Your eyes glow in the dark.”
She wasn’t surprised to see me.
“Where’s Robin?”
“She had places to go, and people to see.”
Somebody yelled from one of the other windows.
“I want to talk to her.”
“Play with my titties or I have to leave you.”
I cupped one off her boobs in my hand and felt the bounce, the jiggle, the firmness of real girl tit, not plastic like the Latina’s.
“I need to see her, Dollar.”
“I think you scared her a little bit. I know her. She was upset about what she told you.”
The yelling got louder and she pulled away from me.
“What she told me?”
“It was a nice party, Buddy. Now the party’s over.”
She danced away from me and a hand came out to stroke her beautiful ass. She grinned at me and winked, and the wooden partition rattled down.
XIV
Buddy has a Vision
I turned on the television at the Hotel Napa looking for relief. The remote was like a pistol I pointed and punched at talking heads as they appeared. Channel after channel clicked by that way.
I got interested when I hit a news show where experts were talking for the millionth time about the Kennedy assassination. They said there was new evidence that Kennedy had been snuffed by Oswald, working with the CIA, the FBI, and the Mafia. Oswald’s picture as a young punk holding a rifle came up again and again. His wife, an old white-haired Russian-American lady, was talking about how he was in bed. Seems he couldn’t get enough. Used to drive her crazy.
Maybe that’s why he shot Kennedy. Jealousy, because old J.F.K. was getting it by the truck load.
Oswald had done it. He had gotten the world by the balls and twisted. He had caused a hundred million heartaches. He was invisible too, and then he picked up that Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and pulled the trigger and he was everywhere. The guy had to be one of the hundred most famous people of the twentieth century. If he could do it, so could I.
And then I saw it! I had the vision! It was me up there on the screen, talking with Ted Koppel. Amazing! When I clicked to the next channel, there I was on it, talking to somebody famous. No matter how fast I fired the control, there I was. In some of them I looked different — older, wearing different clothes — but it was my face on the screen. Everyone was looking at me, all over the world. Asking my opinion about things. All I really wanted was for them to say my name: Buddy Tate, and keep it in their minds, so when they saw me they’d really see me. I wouldn’t be some jerk who was invisible, I would be Buddy fucking Tate!
I punched that control until my fingers got tired, and on every channel found more pictures of me. Sure, I wondered a little about how I got there, but I take it when it comes.... If I was crazy, so what?
I got scared when I stopped seeing myself. Suddenly I was gone from the screen, and
there was Thomas Flood talking down to people who were kneeling and praying and dropping their crutches. Telephone numbers flashed on the screen asking for pledges.
I hit the control. But on channel after channel, I was gone, faster than a commercial for dog food. Just a blip on the screen, and then gone. It hit me in the gut and I just kind of rolled around in front of the television in pain while Robin’s father talked about coming to San Francisco to clean house on witches and pornographers. I was sure he could see me rolling around in pain, but his eyes just looked right through me as if I wasn’t there. His face filled the whole screen, and his mouth was telling me what to do. I shut off the sound, but big letters crawled across the screen:
It is never too late to save a soul.
I wondered if I had one, and if I did, was there any hope for it? But hell, what’s a soul but another shuck that guys like Flood sold you? I didn’t need a soul, I needed a clean hit — right between this mother-fucker’s eyes. If I didn’t exist on his channel, then I swore he wouldn’t exist on any channel. I, Buddy Tate, claimed them all.
I watched, trying to chill out, as Flood fleeced the suckers. He was scary. The flying saucer people would surely grab him and take him up and away — just up and away — if I didn’t get to him first.
I thought about him torturing and messing with Robin and I felt how easy it would be to snuff him. I just had to get close enough, and she could help me get there. Then the whole world could tune in on our wedding...
I must have been hallucinating: what would we do, married? Couldn’t bring that in clear on my own screen. Static. Interference. Buy a house? Ride motorcycles together? Run from the law?
Maybe we’d even have a litter of replicas of ourselves we would have to beat so they’d be like Mom and Pop? Then there’d be a smelly old dog who’d find Robin’s bloody tampax on the floor and chew it. Bills. Taxes. No thanks.
Dark Matter (Modern Erotic Classics) Page 9
