by Sean Platt
Boricio couldn’t tell Rose that he knew for a fact that the longer she took on something the less of her it had inside it. He had read plenty of her words, and knew how long some had taken to vent. The faster they flew, the better they were. Rose couldn’t see it.
“You’re right,” she said. “Wanna hear about it?”
“Did Marilyn Monroe have six toes on her foot?”
“I don’t know,” Rose shrugged. “I guess?”
“She did, and I bet she did nasty shit with them, too, bet she gave Kennedy a presidential foot job with all 11 toes.”
Rose laughed. “What other stuff do you know that no one cares about?”
“Plenty: Pearls melt in vinegar, a pig can’t stare at the sky, honey never goes bad, a starfish has eight eyes — one on each leg … ”
“OK!” Rose laughed harder.
Boricio stopped being obnoxious, knowing his trip to Colorado was settled. It hadn’t been that long since his last purging, which made him look all the more forward to this one since it would be less dinner and more dessert.
For the next hour Boricio stroked Rose’s hair, cheeks, and naked breasts. She ran her hands along his hard abs, telling him about The Drama Behind It as he told her how terrific it sounded, inserting theory into pauses. Eventually, her hand fell between his legs and turned insistent. Then they were back where they’d been a little more than an hour before.
Boricio fell asleep and slumbered like a wolf in waiting to kill. He woke the next morning strong. After a kiss on Rose’s cheek, a large mug of black coffee, and a massive scrambler wrapped in a tortilla, he tore toward his purging.
**
There were plenty of things Boricio enjoyed as much as or more than the open road, but most were available when on it, and nowhere else was the scent of freedom so strong. Any asshole could have a sack of problems strapped to their back, give that asshole a full tank and five 20s, and those problems were halfway to solved.
Boricio rarely drove anywhere straight. It always took him longer to go wherever he went, but he figured that helped him stay invisible. As always, Boricio sidetracked and lingered as he followed his nose to Colorado. He was a rambler and had driven the states since he could, but the impossible had happened a couple of Octobers before and changed the meaning of empty. Boricio couldn’t drive through any sort of lonely sprawl without remembering the other world’s vacuum, and his old craving to hunt in a world of scarce prey. The feeling was worst in western Kansas, after Boricio found himself barreling down a narrow dirt road, flanked on both sides by towering trees haunting the black sky above. Boricio was trying to see a dick hole in the dark, peering through the windshield at the blackness as it draped the world outside in its neverending blanket.
Boricio finally fled the thin strip of nothing and returned to the highway, slipping in between the red and white of two cars, the pair of them helping him to forget the other world and Luca, Brother Rei, Prophet, Charlie, and Adam and all of the rest of everything else, though it was hard to bury those thoughts entirely on his way to help Mary and Paola.
Boricio was exhausted, but wanted to keep driving. To stop in the dark with his heart beating fast was in a way conceding defeat. And Boricio wasn’t willing to do that. He would make it into the city’s edge, then stop and sleep for a few hours before finishing his business.
Mary was at some weekend survivalist thing, and taking Paola to a kid’s wilderness camp they were holding next door, for all the kids of all the survivalist wackos. Paola said the timing was perfect, there was no way they’d be around. Boricio figured she was right, and that he’d be in and out like a quickie, and leave with a smear at the end just the same.
Boricio paid for a room in the first place that looked like they kept shit records — those sort of places were easy to spot — then slept until the sun was just high enough in the sky to start spreading her legs.
He stopped into the nearest diner that looked good enough to give him what he wanted, ordered a scrambler plus the tortilla to wrap it in, and headed toward Fairfield, where the diddler made his home.
Hank Carol had spent three years in prison for kiddy diddling, but was let out early, apparently so he could do it again. Kiddy diddlers were always fun to kill because they deserved it like a whore deserved herpes and because Boricio barely had to clean up. No one was sad to see a kiddy diddler get what was coming. Carol could’ve been killed by an enemy he’d made in prison or someone on the outside. Or an angry parent out for revenge. The cops wouldn’t care either way. Boricio would have to dress the scene something fancy for them to even open their eyes at all.
Carol worked from home, running an Etsy shop of all things. Figures he’d have a gig that gave him plenty of time to web-diddle, creeping around and finding kids online, or trading tales with other sick fuckers who deserved a ball gag and a Molotov cocktail. If things went as Boricio planned, Carol the Kitty Diddler would be nabbed in no time. He planned to wait outside his house until the diddler left his place for a live show, then he would follow him wherever he went.
Boricio only had to sit across from Casa de Kiddy Diddler for 81 minutes before he left the house, climbed inside his azure sedan, and pulled out of his driveway.
Boricio followed a long block behind.
The diddler drove straight to the mall, like going to a cherry grove to pick cherries, and parked away from most of the other cars. He got out of the azure sedan and went into Macy’s. Boricio parked in an isolated cluster of cars about four rows over, ducked into the department store about 30 seconds after the diddler, and made it just in time to see him stepping across the seam from Macy’s into the mall.
From there the diddler was easy to follow. Boricio wondered what sort of sick bread he was baking in his brain, walking the mall, eyes everywhere, lingering as he passed the toy store, and when he circled the small train that drew children like magnets, Boricio thought he might have to execute a motherfucker in public for the first time ever.
The diddler fell in line behind a girl who looked a year or so younger than Paola. She was walking, holding hands with her mother. The diddler kept his pace steady behind them. And Boricio followed, a few lengths behind him.
And the curtain rises.
Just as Boricio’s heart started racing, mom and daughter ducked into Arctic Cool, a frozen yogurt store for idiots, where you picked out your container — large or larger — filled it with (heavy) yogurt, piled on the toppings, then paid based on weight. No prices were listed so the rape was usually a surprise. Yet, the amazing thing was assholes would get ripped off once and then knowingly come in to get Shanghaied again.
The diddler ducked in behind the mom and daughter, then Boricio a few seconds after that, hoping the fucker was too fixed on a possible diddling to detect a shadow.
Boricio stepped into line behind them, watching the diddler pretending to study the menu. There were two other people in line, one ordering and the other paying, with two people working the counter.
The diddler turned to the little girl. “Any suggestions? I don’t know what to choose. There are too many choices. You’re probably lucky enough to come here all the time, I’m sure you know what’s good. What should I get?”
The girl turned to her mom. Her mom looked at the diddler, then turned to her daughter and gave her a small smile and matching nod. The girl said, “Well, my mom says it’s gross, but I get like four flavors together. She says I should get one or two and actually taste them, but I like them all and can taste them fine. Today I’m getting mango, cotton candy, pomegranate and original — that one is sorta sour.”
The diddler’s smile made Boricio settle on a chainsaw for sure. He said, “Hmmm … I think I have to agree with your mom on this one. What if I were to just choose one flavor, which should I choose?”
Mom smiled.
The girl said, “Definitely vanilla. It’s the best.”
Mom rolled her eyes as the first clerk called them to the counter and the second went to help
the diddler. Boricio slipped outside the line to stay invisible, then watched the rest of the scene from afar.
The diddler ordered the same recipe the girl had given him, judging by the multi-colored yogurt twirling up from the cup — orange, blue, white, and red — and was gesturing to the toppings bar, likely inquiring what nuggets of her suggested pleasure he should add. The girl smiled like an authority, wagging her finger at the glass. The diddler smiled at the girl as he followed her jabbing digit, clearly taking all of her suggestions. The mom paid for the yogurt while the girl said goodbye to the diddler.
Boricio ducked behind an Orange Julius as they left, and stayed frozen until the diddler walked by a few moments later, turning left rather than the mom and daughter’s right.
Boricio followed the diddler to the men’s restroom, and again risked being seen by following him inside. Boricio braced himself as he opened the door — there was a slim chance that entering the bathroom would spell the beginning of the end for this particular purging. Boricio might need to end the diddler lickety split, either because the diddler was on to him, or because Boricio just couldn’t quell his rising disgust.
There was no one inside the bathroom except for the diddler, in the farthest stall, the only one with a closed door. Boricio could hear the diddler’s loud breathing from the other side of the bathroom. Boricio walked to a urinal, pissed, flushed, ran the water without washing his hands, walked to the restroom door, then loudly opened and shut it.
Boricio paused just inside the closed door, held his breath for a half minute, and crept like an Injun back toward the last stall, listening as the diddler started doing what Boricio figured he was, diddling his diddle-stick. It was only a few seconds until Boricio heard the diddler finishing himself. As the man was close to finishing, his left sneaker started thumping on the floor.
Wow, that fucker really gets into his jackin’.
Boricio had to creep back out of the bathroom biting his lip to keep from laughing because some shit’s so sick it’s funny. Boricio waited for the diddler outside the bathroom, behind a large ficus.
A minute later Diddler came out, still holding the yogurt. Boricio had no idea what he was going to do with it, and was finding himself both flummoxed and strangely challenged to figure it out. He didn’t get to turn the puzzle long. In less than a minute the diddler was cutting back to Arctic Chill and stepping through the doorway.
WTF?
Boricio stared, laughing, watching the diddler from behind Orange Julius as he ranted and raved, returning his yogurt. Boricio wondered if making the return was part of the diddler’s thrill, or whether he was really that cheap. Boricio wondered if his hot milk had actually made it into the yogurt, and if it had, whether the diddler had stirred it around so it was all mixed up, or whether he had drizzled it on the top like syrup, maybe spunked it on the wall or shot it down into the bowl.
The diddler got his money back, left Arctic Chill and headed through the mall toward the exit. Boricio could smell the end of his adventure so he beat the diddler to the parking lot, went to a cluster of cars not too far from the diddler’s, hot-wired an Acura SUV so he could ditch his NY plates for a bit, then waited for the diddler to get inside his azure sedan, which he did just two minutes later.
Boricio was out of the parking lot before realizing he had left his chainsaw in the other trunk.
**
“Bring God your glory glory, kiddy diddler!” Boricio yelled, waving his flashlight in front of the diddler, waiting for him to open his eyes. “Rise and fucking shine!”
The diddler blinked and choked on his scream. Boricio slammed his flashlight hard on the diddler’s head, then dropped it on the carpet and put a knife to his throat, killing the scream as it slipped free from its choking.
“Good, you’re awake,” Boricio said, leaning closer and shining his light into the diddler’s eyes, turning him bug-eyed. The diddler tried to squeeze them shut, but Boricio pried his lids open. “I didn’t say you could shut your eyes to the horror.”
The diddler whimpered until Boricio told him to shut the fuck up, adding an exclamatory to his order by pressing his knife-tip into the diddler’s neck.
“You’re a heavy sleeper,” Boricio said. “And you snore like a chainsaw. An old one, low on gas. I figured you were out so cold you wouldn’t care if I took a gander through your shit.” Boricio smiled. “So I did. I looked through all your crap. I saw the stuff you lay on display like pictures in a museum to pretend you’re not a monster; I saw the pictures of family and friends you’ve been smart enough to fool; I saw the evidence of your obsession; and I saw proof of your deeds.”
The diddler whimpered again, even though Boricio’s knife was digging deeper.
“What do you think I found, looking through your shit?”
The diddler said nothing, and had killed his whimper. He’d fallen to silence, until Boricio punched him in the chest and brought him to coughing. “That question was for you, in case there was some confusion. But since you’re probably gonna be choking on your spit for a while I guess I’ll go on myself.”
Boricio stood and walked from the bed, walloping the diddler’s head on his way.
“Every house has hidden stuff, even studio apartments. Know where to look and you’ll find them. Obvious places like sock drawers, dressers, shoe boxes, well a retard could figure that shit, and a diddler like you with everything to lose will choose someplace smarter, subtle. It can’t be in a place that’s difficult to get to, whether you’re needing to add or subtract it’s gotta be near you like a bathroom after chili, and shouldn’t be anywhere that might be used by visitors when unseen. Childhood whatnots are always a good place to start — kids books, a stuffed animal from a favorite relative. You had plenty of both, but nothing hidden. Your vents were clear, too, except for the dust. Good thing I don’t give up, and you were sleeping deep enough to buy my time.”
Boricio paused to revel in the diddler’s fright.
“I’ve known a lot of dead guys, some of them hid small things in tiny places, like battery compartments. Remotes, phones, you know, things like that. In your bottom desk drawer there’s a wireless keyboard without any batteries. You know what it had inside?”
The diddler said nothing, too frightened to cry.
“That’s right,” Boricio said, slapping the mattress. “I found something I’ve never seen before. That happens so rarely I thought it was worth sharing. Know what it was, kiddy diddler?”
The diddler said nothing.
“It was a web address, like 16 letters and 18 numbers long, all of them scrambled and meaning nothing. Rain Man couldn’t have remembered that shit. Neither did your browser, so I’m sure you’ve been visiting incognito. But I logged on and saw it all, Carol. So you can’t be too surprised at what I’ll be doing to you.”
“That’s not illegal,” the diddler said. “I know the urges are wrong, but you can’t blame me for looking. That’s all I do.”
Boricio made an exaggerated frown. “Carol, I heard you adding yogurt on your yogurt after chasing Shirley Temple to Arctic Chill. I’m not looking for a fair trial, Sunshine. I’m judge, jury, and executioner. What I already know is more than enough.” Boricio sat back on the bed and crossed his legs.
“I also looked under your wide-bottomed desk, got down on the ground, scooted beneath it, and pushed up with my feet. Saw quite a lot of hiding space there. It’s a stupid place since anyone knowing anything about anything would look there first, but I could see how a retard like you might think it was good enough. I will give you props for keeping shit in only two places, though.”
Boricio sat back on the bed. “All of this is to say, your shit reveals you. I know you like I was your pecker, and know you deserve what’s coming. You’re a monster made from a pit deeper than the one that made me. Normally it’s not personal; this time it is. The girl you leered at when she’s waiting for the bus, well you shouldn’t have. I wonder if you even know which girl I mean. Not that it matte
rs. I drove nearly 1,800 miles for you because I know which girl. Maybe you lose track when you don’t have a trophy to look at. Maybe you lose track when your work isn’t finished, like it is with whoever belonged to the lock of hair. The tennis shoes. The bracelet. The ring. The journal. The hair clip. The panties. You need to die, and I’m here to help you do it. Any last words?”
Boricio had no intention of letting the diddler speak. The second he opened his mouth, Boricio cut him off.
“Look, I know we’re not about to see eye to eye on this. But that’s how the world is — some people are forgive and forget, some aren’t. I fall into the latter camp when we’re talking about kiddies and diddling. That calls for a trip into the forest, 100 percent of the time. So, any objection to coming with me for a ride?”
As expected, the diddler got out of bed and followed Boricio out to his stolen SUV without making a sound. Boricio tied him at the wrists and ankles, then drove toward the woods. They traveled in silence until they were nearing the forest’s edge.
Boricio started making exaggerated sniffs at the air. “You smell that?” He paused, then added, “I think it’s shit. Smells like crap in here. Did you shit yourself on account of being so scared? It would make sense. It’s a scientific fact: 100 percent of kiddy diddlers shit their pants. It’s in their DNA. They also piss their beds and jerk off to Jay Jay the Jet Plane.”
Boricio fell silent, sinking into his anticipation like a bath. It wouldn’t be long before he felt the heat of purging, with his most deserving target in a while.
Boricio drove as deep into the woods as he felt like he should in the SUV, then carefully drove about a mile more. He killed the engine, opened the door, went around to the back and grabbed a pack of stuff he’d gathered from a trip around the diddler’s house, then dragged the asshole into the woods, hoping he wouldn’t be idiot enough to get himself killed before reaching a clearing.
