The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes (The King Henry Tapes)

by Richard Raley

  I wasn’t.

  I went with the fall; always remember to go with the fall. Instead of ending up on my back I rolled my way to my knees. Tatter threw at me again, a wild haymaker that went too quick over my head.

  I backed up as Suit got to his feet looking all rumbled, businessman after having himself some booze, some buffalo wings, and some stripper pussy. Overcoat stayed down, moving in twitches, probably with a jaw that felt broken. Thank you, iron fist. Tatter grabbed Suit’s shoulder to steady him, his other hand cocked up to punch.

  “You sabes who you messing with?” Tatter asked. “You muerto, crazy puta, you just don’t know it yet.”

  “The girl didn’t want what your friend offered,” I explained. “She just didn’t speak your asshole language, see? So I translated for her. In case you still need some more translation . . . a hammer-fist says, ‘get your hand off my shoulder.’ Want to know what a right cross says?”

  Suit puffed himself up. He glanced to his sides, down at Overcoat, then around us. We’d drawn a small crowd of shoppers. Couple went for their cell-phones, not to call the cops, but recording us with cameras. YouTube popularity wins over civic duty.

  “Girl’s gone, no reason to talk tough now,” Suit said, seeming to realize a camera could turn into a call for the cops really quick. “Run along, little man, we’ll let you live this time.”

  My hands came back up in front of my face. “More Translation: I’m a little pussy who didn’t like the first bit of my medicine and don’t want to get punched no more.”

  Suit’s face went red. He slapped Tatter on the shoulder. “Next time the little Princess can watch her own ass.”

  “Don’t talk like that, sobrino,” Tatter warned him. “Vega make you pagar if he entera about it.”

  My pool hit one minute again, plenty for another personal conjuration, no need to sit around watching them talk. Camera phone guy was about to get a hell of a show. After you’ve taken out the weak one, always go for the strongest. Odds are it will break the rest of the group.

  I rushed Tatter, trusting Suit to remember my first punch and keep off me thanks to instinct. Sure enough, he flinched back in surprise, which gave me just enough time to slide into his tougher friend.

  Tatter was ready and threw another kick but this time I stepped over it. A surprisingly easy thing to do, but most people don’t think about it. Instead they try to pull their legs back and end up even more off balance. But work the distances and you find raising your foot a couple feet is a whole lot easier than changing all your momentum. Sure, when your foot comes down you have to pause a second to make sure you got your balance . . . but after that second . . .

  You let go another burst of anima into your right hand this time, and the hook you aim at Tatter’s gut bounces him backwards into the tire of the grande truck like he’s been launched off a mechanical bull.

  Don’t ask how I know enough to use that metaphor, please.

  Yeah, I was drunk.

  Yeah, strippers were around.

  No, I said don’t ask.

  Suit’s eyes got wide. He’d missed what I did to Overcoat—still down and finally wiggling—but he saw all of Tatter’s misfortune. Suit’s wide eyes went to my brown coat. “Mancer . . .” he hissed.

  Alarm Bell Number Three for those Sesame Street loving bastards still counting.

  A frown came over my face, but it was too late to question the guy. My pool built back up even as my right hand cracked. One more to go. Didn’t think it would take long.

  One second: I stepped towards Suit.

  Two seconds: Suit started to shake his head and pull a gun, an old school magnum revolver from inside his coat.

  Three seconds: My left hand moved out from my body.

  Four seconds: Suit’s gun cleared his coat and pointed in my general direction.

  Five seconds: My anima pool, so very tiny and useless under most circumstances discharged into my static ring, hours worth of electricity unleashing from a containment field just as my hand slapped down on Suit’s arm.

  There was no sixth second. Suit withered up into a little ball on the floor, his gun dropped and clattering across the asphalt.

  I glanced at the three guys, all of them down and out. Suit twitched, Overcoat held his jaw, and Tatter just groaned. “Next time . . . no means no! Got it, douchebags?”

  The only answer I got was a round being chambered behind me. Different gun, semi-auto pistol.

  Shit . . . backup? Cops? The Punisher? I froze.

  “Turn around slowly,” a tight voice said near the gun, a woman forcing herself to be tough. “Don’t move your hands at all, mancer.”

  I turned, twisting on my heels. In the dying light of day I could just make out two women. One was blond, dressed in pajamas, braless judging by the obscene hang on them things, and pushing a shopping cart loaded with meat cuts and booze bottles.

  The other . . . was in her twenties, shorter than me . . . brown hair highlighted to golden all curled to her shoulders, brown eyes surrounding a tiny nose with a pugnacious cast to it. She wore a skimpy little skirt and a pink top with barely any fabric at all, covered by a dinky pink hoodie-sweater unbuttoned. She looked like a hooker. A hooker with a big ass gun in her hands.

  But I couldn’t think about the gun . . . all I thought was: Dad would be so pissed to see her dressed like that.

  Her face was angry, an anger I recognized in the mirror every morning. “Do you have any idea what you just did?” she asked me.

  It was her . . . hadn’t seen her in over eight years, but I knew it was her. Sister Number Two. “JoJo?” I asked back.

  Anger faded into pure disbelief as she gave me another look-over. The gun lowered and a gasp escaped from her lips. “King Henry?”

  Jordan Josephine Price . . . found her at last.

  Session 9

  Imagine my fucking dismay when I handed over my tape recorder after a month’s hard work coming up with a narrative for my purpose at the Asylum, only to have Ceinwyn Dale look at the thing like it’s some alien sex-device and ask me, “What’s this?”

  “That’s the tape you wanted.”

  Her expression was skeptical. When Ceinwyn gets skeptical it comes with a little wrinkly smile that might as well scream out her thoughts on your intelligence. “You’re done after a month?”

  “You wanted a guide for recruits, right? That’s what I gave you. You picking me up, little bit about the Asylum, and I even got in about Mom and why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

  She just kind of stared at me like I’m an idiot.

  “What?” I asked. “It’s really good. I cried all night when I talked about Mom’s funeral . . . it was awful. Fucking emotions . . . from me.”

  Her smiling face moved into acceptance about my idiocy. “So if I understand you . . . you talked about me bringing you to the Asylum?”

  “Right.”

  “And your mother’s funeral.”

  “Still right.”

  “And something about your shop?”

  I had to remember what I said to the tape recorder. I was already trying to forget. “The Jobs Fair and then our conversation on the Mound my last day.”

  Ceinwyn finally said it out loud, “King Henry . . . you’re such a moron.”

  “That’s what you wanted and it’s what I gave you.”

  One of her slim fingers rose up to stop me before I could start. “No, that was the direction I pointed you towards to get you started. You’re forgetting that I’m not the one who demanded these tapes, it was Plutarch.”

  I grunted. “For which I plan to beat him up next time I see him, what’s your point?”

  “He wants all of it.”

  I stared at her for a bit. “All of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bullshit . . .”

  “King Henry . . .”

  “Fucking bullshit, Ceinwyn!”

  “It’s in the loan contract.”

  “You know how long that will take? It�
��s seven years of stuff!”

  The idiot look had turned into something worse—she treated me like a child. “He doesn’t want every time you went to the bathroom or diddled yourself, just the important events.”

  “That’s still bullshit . . . also . . . please never say ‘diddled’ in front of me ever again . . .”

  “Bullshit or not, Plutarch is going to get his way—“

  “—because Plutarch always gets his way,” I finished for her in a guttered whisper. I thought about it some more. “So I’m screwed.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have to make another one?”

  “Probably several.”

  “Like, what about?”

  “Did you talk about Heinrich and Valentine? I seem to recall them being important to you.”

  “Just the first time I saw them. I was going to go into the first day at the Asylum but then I thought about it and figured if I’m only getting one shot I should talk about Mom.”

  “See . . . now you get more than one shot at it.”

  “Yeah, I guess . . . I’m really busy, Ceinwyn. The antique store might be mostly done but artificing ain’t going so good. I have to find anima suppliers; have to work some experiments so I have something to sell, got to find time for construction on the artifacts. Only a month before I open and you want me to keep doing these stupid ass tapes?”

  “Plutarch wants,” she corrected.

  I thought about it. “First day ain’t going to take up a whole tape. Not even close.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “Pocket and I started being friends those first weeks . . . I eyed every girl in the class but Soto-crazy.”

  Ceinwyn’s smile disappeared. “King Henry, I’ve warned you before about that name. Graduate or not, I can still cut your fingers off.”

  “Isabel,” I corrected myself. She’s a sore point between us. Ceinwyn had plenty of reason to be mad over it too. “At the end of first year there’s the story about how the Lady’s staff went missing.”

  “Are you admitting to stealing it now?”

  “Right . . . maybe that’s a bad idea.”

  “What about your first field trip?”

  Huh. “I could do that . . .”

  “Good, then it’s settled. When you’re finished with all the tapes then bring them to me please. But not before . . . I’m a busy woman.”

  And that’s how I ended up with you again, tape recorder. You better hope the day never comes when I’m finished. If it does, I’m going to give Ceinwyn the memory cards and then I’m going to blow you up or burn you or smash you with a hammer. I’m going to enjoy it and I’m going to think about Plutarch for making me do this . . . because it’s bullshit.

  [CLICK]

  September, 2009

  You ever been on a vacation trip out of town? Look at me being abrasive with the questions again. But that’s okay, answer it. Have you?

  I’m sure most people have. Can’t say I’m one of them. Had one trip to my grandma’s in my early days. That’s it; the rest was all stuck in Shithole Price. Okay, let’s forget vacations. Let’s go with something I know I did in my day. Ever had a sleepover at a friend’s house?

  I got another question for you, call it a follow up: why is it that when you’re away from your everyday bed, no matter how nice the temporary you sleep in is, you wake up feeling like crap?

  Maybe it’s different for people who vacation in five-hundred-dollar a night rooms, I don’t know, never been in one of those for sure, but to me, a foreign bed might as well be a pile of rocks. Waking up every hour, remembering where you’re at, new noises you’re not used to, noises you’re used to absent.

  It’s some not fun crap.

  Not like I even liked my bed back home. Had itself some scratchy blankets and a lumpy mattress, if you fell on it too quick you had a habit of sliding up and banging the back of your head on the metal headboard, and it squeaked something awful. Made jerking off a nightmare. No one should have their sister call out, ‘stop playing with it!’

  Ever.

  For me, it was even worse than just the bed. First day of seven years at the Asylum and all I could think about were my parents, who for so many years I’d cussed and defied. Thinking about how they’re really gone. I was all alone. Just King Henry Price, sleeping in a huge room with twenty-nine strangers. Thirty kids, all of us feeling lonely and vulnerable. All of us cried at some point in the night.

  Well . . . maybe not Jesus. Or Welf, but only on account of the pain medication they gave him. Jesus told me once that the first night at the Asylum was the first night in his life he never worried about someone trying to kill him in his sleep. Growing up on the streets will do that to you. Among all us gringos, he slept right on through to the alarm bell.

  I didn’t. Late that night, I woke up and clicked on my personal light, grabbed my curtain and yanked it shut. Right then and there I dried off my wet face and got to writing my first letter to Mom. After that, I slept a little bit, if not well. It’s hard to sleep when someone in the bed next to you is crying . . . especially when it’s a girl . . . especially when you’re the one who opened your big mouth and made her cry. I closed my eyes about 4AM, finding a little peace . . .

  [CLICK]

  Welcome to your first true day as a mancer.

  Welcome to your new world.

  The Asylum morning alarm wants you up now. The crazy thing about it . . . is that it’s not a beep or a buzz or any other sound you’re used to hearing from an alarm clock. It’s also not coming from your bedside table right in your ear, but from above, from the intercom. It’s a hum. A slow hum that keeps building and building and goes on and on getting louder and louder until it just stops. On whole, it’s a noise that just freaks you out. Nothing about it to like. There were quite a few of us who would start waking up five minutes before the thing went off just so we didn’t have to be in the bedroom and hear it. I wasn’t one of them. I liked my sleep. Every minute of it I could get.

  For me, that first day it wasn’t all that hard to get out of bed.

  I felt like shit.

  No other way to put it. No sugar coating. No gummy center. I felt like shit. Detox: Day Number Two. No cig in sight. My head felt like it might explode and my hands shook so bad I could barely grab onto anything, even my covers. I had to try twice. That hum from the alarm didn’t help my headache. Nothing helped the headache.

  For you?

  You’ll hear the others getting up. Thirty kids getting out of their beds, trying to wake up. Yawns, sneezing, groans. Then the curtains are drawn open and you’re all standing there looking at each other, unsure what to do. Eventually everyone will know everyone’s name—hell, eventually everyone will know everyone’s everything. Malaya Mabanaagan? Sucks her thumb in her sleep. Patrick Brown? Kid has wet dreams like you wouldn’t believe. Your everything will get out; best not worry about trying to hide it.

  But that first day? Nametags or not, it’s nothing but thirty kids looking at each other, confused as all hell.

  My first day, we were all too nervous to even begin thinking about forming friendships the night before, especially after my show with Welf. Not a person could look me in the eye, which fourteen-year-old-me liked. It fit right into the attitude of the day, was just fine not knowing names. I was there for the Mancy, to learn how to break tables and be an Ultra, not to make friends. People left me alone? That’d be fine by me. My whole life I’d been waiting to be left alone. Finally got rid of Dad and Mom, I told myself, no time to start adding people back to my contacts list.

  Even if I did want to get all social butterfly . . . first day ain’t the time for it. The Asylum is ready for you, throwing chimpanzee shit at you so quick you’re praying for nothing but a plastic bag and a pooper-scooper. After the hum-from-hell you’ve got your student-advisor banging through the common room door.

  In my case the student-advisor was one Patrick Hanks—not to be confused with Patrick Brown of wet dream fame. I alre
ady described Hanks in the first tape, but being as you’re probably brain rot like the rest of the teenagers I’ve ever met, here’s your recap: total dweeb. Made Russell Quilt seem cool. Faunamancer—Beasttalker.

  That means when he busted into our sleeping room he already wore his colors, green and brown, clapping his hands to get our attention over the echoing hum still lodged in our ears. “Today is going to be busy,” he told us on his last clap, “so I need all of you to be patient and to behave yourselves.”

  Yeah . . . pre-fucked on this one.

  “The first rule to remember about this week,” Hanks continued, “is: be quick. Second rule to remember is: take one task at a time. Third rule to remember is: I’m always here to answer questions, so do not hold off if you have one. I’m here to help you all year long. I’m your friend.”

  I finally got a pair of eye-meetings with the kids to the left and the right of my bed. Wasn’t a single kid in the class who didn’t roll their eyes at Hanks’ happy-go-lucky tone. On my left was Valentine Ward, who looked to me then looked away real quick. She’s the one I made cry by outing her accidental dog killing to the rest of the class. Dick move on my part. I’d apologize over it for the next seven years. Be paying the price back for the next seven years too.

  On my right sat a decent sized gangly fourteen-year-old with slightly longer than average brown hair and these green eyes that just popped. He also had a bad case of acne Single year, but he’d get over it quick and the ladies would be crushing all over him by Bi. He rolled his eyes so dramatically he managed to get a chuckle out of me.

  “Alrighty then,” Hanks said, “everyone get out of bed and follow me to the showers.”

  You won’t have enough time in the showers to be embarrassed about being naked. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like some Catholic priest’s sex dream or nothing. They’ll separate the sexes and inside the shower room you’ll have a semi-closed and semi-private stall to yourself—one for each. Once you are in the stall you finally take your uniform off. There is this little box-like container for your dirty clothes, which I guess is eventually picked up by some type of maid. You’ll always have normal workers around cleaning the rooms or fixing plumbing or whatever, but for me it’s never something I really paid much attention to.