No matter what happened now, we would never be a normal family again.
I dared a look at the hell about me, and found Skinny Man on the ground petting Butch, who was in turn licking the stump of flesh that had just been placed in his bowl next to the mystery woman’s arm bones. It played sort of like a movie, like I was in another dimension, trying to figure out how they lit the shot without drawing attention to the crew. If I wanted to, I could change channels by blinking my eyes and watch the California station instead.
Seemingly, the two worlds melted together like paint mixing, and soon I was watching Butch eat pieces of my sister on a beach in Malibu. Tooth stood next to me on the beach, his flat, sizzled crotch attracting seagulls.
Skinny Man walked up to the ice cream truck on the boardwalk and bought a molten red shovel, threw it over his shoulder and carried it back to a door that opened against physics in the breaking tide. He disappeared inside, fading into darkness and into a woman’s screams. Out in the cloudy red sea, the dorsal fin of a dolphin broke the surface and then sank back into the depths.
CHAPTER 17
I don’t know how much time went by before Skinny Man returned to our dungeon, but it was long enough for hunger pangs to make my stomach feel like it was tearing itself in half. Long enough for Butch to finish eating my sister’s flesh and go back upstairs. Long enough for Tooth to wake up and cry and lean back against the wall and doze off again. Long enough for me to fall asleep myself without noticing because one minute I was happily engaged in coitus with Lucy Graves on a Malibu beach, and the next I was being slapped in the cheek.
I came to in a fog, blissfully ignorant of the fact I was being tortured in some crazy man’s basement. The slapping, however, was lighting up my face so I instinctively lunged at whatever was causing my discomfort, only to snap back, crack my skull against the wall, and see stars. When my vision cleared, in front of me hovered the maniacal visage of Skinny Man, laughing at my surprise. He smacked me again for good measure and showed me the dice. I had forgotten about the game.
“Did you have a nice nap? Count any sheep? Can do lots with sheep, ya know. For instance, bet you never seen your sister get fucked by a big ol’ billy goat, huh? Give me some time I can arrange it, perhaps throw in a flaming wasp nest while we’re at it. Lock ’em all up in a big box and shake it up! Just shake it good! Man, that would be something to crow about. All in good time, I suppose.”
I noticed for the first time he had fillings in his back teeth and wondered what doctor was crazy enough to get so close to this man that their hands were in his mouth. Even more distressing was the notion that Skinny Man took better care of his teeth than I did.
“Figure your number is due, boy,” he said, and leaned in close toward Tooth, sniffing the collection of fluids around the tape. “You’re friend here is starting to stink. Maybe I should put him out with the garbage.”
“I’m thirsty,” I said. Through the tape and gag it sounded like, “Mmm mmrrmmy.”
“Thirsty?” he asked, deciphering my mumbles.
Honestly, how long had he been talking to gagged prisoners?
“You want a drink? Shit, you motherfuckers want everything. ‘I want a drink, I want to go home.’ Boo-fucking-hoo. You should have thought about that before you crashed my party. It ain’t my fault you’re down here parched like a sand trap. Shit, there’s a whole frigging lake out there in that mountain. You should have gone there, done some swimming, drinked your fill. Drinked? Is that a word? Shit, I’m not so good with words, ya know? I said ‘Ya know!’”
He grabbed my throat and squeezed-his old familiar tactic-and while he did it he grit his teeth like a child poking a dead bird. I frantically nodded yes, but he wouldn’t let go, just kept squeezing. What did he want? Confirmation of his stupidity? Yes, you dumb fuck, you used the wrong word, because you’re fucking insane and take orders from your dog!
“You must have the angels on your side, boy. Because something is telling me to play fair, roll the dice, even though I know I should snap your virgin neck right now.”
I prayed he would do it, that’s how far gone I was. But he didn’t; he just let go of me in a huff.
“Shit,” he said, seemingly annoyed at himself. “You want water? Okay, I’ll get you some water.”
What he got me was shit in a cup, a rancid smelling brownish-green fluid I could only have guessed came from some dead animal’s ass. “The pipes are rusty,” he said. “It looks bad but it tastes okay.”
I shook my head no, closed my eyes. Naturally, that pissed him off, but that’s what he was hoping for. “You ungrateful little shit! I didn’t have to get you any water, you know. I could have left you down here to die of thirst. Now you drink this water.”
He ripped the tape off my mouth, taking bits of facial hair with it. It burned like someone rubbing sandpaper on my skin. With one hand closing my nostrils, he forced my mouth open and poured the sludge down my throat. Instantly, I recognized the coppery taste of blood. But there was more than just blood. There was some sort of salty fat, and feces as well. Definitely shit from some animal or human, decayed flesh, bits of skin, something worse than bile. I felt it land in my hungry belly and fill up all the space, smelled it behind my eyes as I fought to exhale. Realizing I was drinking death, somehow, despite his vice-like grip, I coughed and spewed the rest of it onto his face.
Skinny Man snapped his fist back to hit me and that’s when Tooth woke up.
“Mmmm.”
At this, Skinny Man stopped short of dislocating my jaw and sneered.
“Well, I’ll be a red-assed monkey in a banana factory, look who’s awake.”
Tooth was awake, and what was more, he was aware. Narrow slitted eyes, furrowed brow, hands balled into fists and flexing by his side. The sonofabitch was ready for a fight. And all this with his face so unrecognizable and his groin so hacked up you’d swear he’d just crawled out of the grave.
“I’m sorry to inform you,” Skinny Man continued, “your angry stare doesn’t do much to frighten me. Kind of hard to be intimidated by a man with no dick. Or does that make you a woman. . technically speaking? Tell me, hot shot, how does it feel to loose both your guns?”
Tooth didn’t waver.
“Okay, looks like the fun’s about to begin. This here is more like it, sort of like the playoffs-who gets to advance to the next round and all that shit. C’mon, sing with me. Take me out to the ball game-hey, you still got those, that’s gotta count for something.”
He threw the cup over his shoulder and tossed the dice on the floor. I never prayed so hard it wouldn’t be my number, and I didn’t look at the result just in case. But when he looked back up, he looked right at me, a grin snaking across his bearded face. I knew he’d rolled one of my numbers, I knew this was going to hurt. I wanted to go back to my dream world but the rancid taste in my mouth kept me in the present.
“Oh God, please, no,” I said.
“’Oh God, please no,’” he repeated, whining it like a baby.
“Please, you don’t have to do this.”
“Jesus, boy, you are a little sissy. It ain’t even your number.”
Looking down, I found the dice near my feet, two fives beaming back at me. I didn’t know which was worse, that I was happy it wasn’t me, or that Jamie was about to be hurt again. I was thanking God and at the same time cursing Him for putting me here.
The man did his song and dance, stripped bare and went into the back room. I was slowly beginning to realize how amazingly strong the human body is, how resilient and self-preserving it can be. But also how much pain it can suffer. I figured there was no way Jamie would even be conscious anymore, but her screams tore me in half, scratched my brain and I just cried and cried. Where the tears came from I had no idea; my body should have been empty of everything by now, including my will and concern.
Her screams brought the dog down the stairs, sniffing the air and looking for its master.
Tooth, in a subdued yet dedu
ctive mood, started pulling his hand through the cuff again, peeling back his skin like a banana. He groaned and pulled until the bone came through, a sickening pearl colored fragment scraping on the metal. I watched him in awe, both because the pain must have been unbearable, but also because he should have been dead, or at the very least, unconscious.
Through the concrete wall behind me the screams grew to a crescendo, but my mind started to focus on what Tooth was trying to do. It was that cosmic connection we had; I just knew what his twisted mind was playing at. He was trying to break his thumb, maybe even sever it off, get his arm free and use it on Skinny Man.
Pushing Jamie’s cries out of my mind, I watched him like I was watching two girls kissing, trying to see it from different angles. If he got his arm free, he could grab the guy, pull him in. I could go for the keys in his pocket if he was close enough. The chains offered about two inches of slack, so he’d have to be practically on top of me. But then what? I wouldn’t be able to unlock myself, would I? And wouldn’t Skinny Man just push free and kill us? And did he even keep the cuff keys on that particular ring? And half the time he was running around naked playing with himself so he wouldn’t have any clothes on anyway.
It was the start of a plan but it had no clear execution.
“Tooth,” I yelled over the noise, “What. .”
He lolled his head my way and stared at me, nodded toward the clothes on the floor, which pretty much told me I was right. Seeing my comprehension, he went back to sawing at his hand. The pain didn’t seem to bother him; I guess he was just numb all over.
“But. . but. .” I didn’t really know what else to say, and what was worse, I knew I should have tried to talk him out of his plan. But it was our only hope, pathetic as it was, because I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “He’s got to have his clothes on.”
Swollen like a cherub, Tooth nodded in agreement. And that was that, we had our plan, our weak and feeble plan, which revolved around my friend’s probable death. A death that would be a relief for him, and a lifetime of shame for me. I felt hollow, worthless, and yet. . prepared.
The door beside Tooth flew open, rebounded against the wall, and shut itself. But Skinny Man was already through it and holding one of Jamie’s feet.
She was still screaming.
Licking at the chopped bone, he came over and put it on my head, put the fucking foot on my head so that the blood ran down into my eyes. I shook it off and it fell to the floor between Tooth and me. Then the glowing shovel and the naked man went to play doctor on my sister’s leg. That took a minute, which Tooth used to work his hand into the cuff, and then Skinny Man was back again and he had that fucking saw in his hand, the one he’d used on the mystery woman and no doubt on my sister, and he looked stoned to high hell, his eyes half closed and his thin lips content like he’d just swallowed some hot chocolate on a cold night.
He put the shovel back in the damn stove, picked up some wood from next to it and put it inside as well. Butch spotted Jamie’s foot near my own and came over and sniffed it. But Skinny Man snatched it up and took the saw and cut one of the toes off. “Savor it,” he said. The dog slowly took the toe from its master’s hand, bit into it and chewed it up, dropped a half-painted red toenail back on the ground. Skinny Man cut off another toe, and another, and left them on the sticky red floor.
Then, sweet fuck, he rolled the dice again. No intermission, the game was on again. It was a three and a two, and that equaled Tooth.
Skinny Man snarled at me-actually bared his teeth like he wanted to eat me. “What’s your deal, boy? Why are you so special?” He placed the saw on my neck and I felt the teeth bite in near my jugular. “Luck’s gotta run out soon.”
He ripped off Tooth’s shirt and sawed his nipples off with four clean slices. I went dizzy, bombarded by the dual shrieking from Tooth and my sister. And to top it off the dog stared howling, too, like we were all in some insane fuck-all butcher shop quartet.
The slabs of flesh fell on the ground near one of the severed toes, like two hamburgers next to a finger sausage. Naked, Skinny Man picked up the dice again, bounced them off my head and followed them as they rolled over to the dog dishes. “MOTHERFUCKER!” he yelled as he kicked the dishes against the wall. Butch ran up the stairs, apparently able to tell the difference between a psychotic fugue and a domestic tantrum.
He came at me again with the saw, stopped in front of me, fondled himself. “You must shit horseshoes.” I watched him rub blood all over his erect cock, up under his balls, until I almost threw up again.
He went back in the room with Jamie, zing went the blade, out came an ear, arcing through the air. Zing went the blade again, and out came two fingers, followed by a wad of blood soaked hair. And the screams, so loud, so relentless. I was in space, I was out of my mind, even though I was still kind of in the moment. Like walking down an icy hill, knowing you’re going to fall no matter what, I was just accepting it all, just going with it, like, yeah, man, cut us up, show me how bad it can be, bring it on and do your crazy dance with me. I could feel myself sliding into another world.
When he came out he flung a handful of bloody teeth-Jamie’s teeth-against the wall.
He rolled the dice a third time, and again it came up with Tooth’s numbers. It was funny, in a sick way. I began to go with it, thinking I was protected by Heaven, that maybe I did have some purpose for being here, here on earth, here in hell, here there everywhere.
He went and got his big ax once more, put it over his shoulder and undulated in front of us, a snake rising out of a basket. The ax cut through the air, a glint of chrome through a piss yellow light. The blade zinged into Tooth’s soft flesh and crunched into his hip bone, and his body fell sideways, caught on the chains.
The ax fell to the ground and chimed off some stones on the dirt floor. Tooth passed out, or died, I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t really care. Jamie kept crying.
Skinny Man tossed the ax over near the door and left, the light went off, the door locked, I shut my eyes and dreamed of my mother.
CHAPTER 18
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
What the hell was that? I opened my eyes and saw a demon moving in the shadows beside me, sucking in a labored breath and choking on it. It took a moment to realize it was Tooth, awake again, and sawing at his hand. His vague shadow revealed bits and pieces of razor wire sticking out of his face. He was bent sideways at an awkward angle, like he’d been doing the YMCA dance and got stuck at C.
It became clear to me that the next time Skinny Man came down would probably be the last time; he was irate, if such an understatement could be imagined. The remaining seconds were ticking away slowly, counting down to an inevitable demise. It’s hard to describe what I felt at that moment: sheer panic, absolute fear, anger at knowing I could do nothing about it. I wanted to say goodbye to Tooth and Jamie, figuring maybe I’d find some closure in it all, that maybe it would cleanse my soul. Who knows, really; it just felt right.
“Hey, guys. .” I began. I stopped, searching for the words. If this was going to be my last time talking to them, I wanted to go out with dignity and meaning. It brought back a memory of when Jamie’s hamster died, and how she’d made us all go out into the backyard while she said a eulogy in its honor. I’d hated that damn hamster because she used to let it run around the house and it nearly tripped me down the stairs a couple times. Sometimes I would torment her by pretending to step on it until she cried and hit me. In the backyard, she’d stood there with her shoebox coffin and said, “Nibbles is going to Hamster Heaven, where all hamsters have fun and play all day and there’s lot of other hamsters for friends, and when I go to Heaven I can visit Nibbles, too.” And she cried and put the box in the ground and I was annoyed because I was missing an episode of Star Trek or something. I didn’t realize it then, but her idea of Heaven was pretty nice; for a ten-year-old, she’d put it pretty well.
Right now, I couldn’t think of a thing to say, nothing even close to being poigna
nt. So I said, “Tooth, I’m scared. Oh, man, I’m scared and I don’t want to die. I’m so sorry for this and I know this sounds lame and stupid but, I just want you to know you were the best friend ever, and if we go to Heaven, I don’t know, I hope there’re a lot of naked women waiting for us.”
I wanted to tell Tooth that Skinny Man was right-I was a virgin-but I didn’t. Even in death I was embarrassed. Not only was I a virgin but I was also a geek, I mean a stereotypical nerd. Why had I cared so much about science fiction and comic books and horror movies? Lot of good it did me in life, and it sure didn’t give me any insight into this hell we were in.
He didn’t even look at me, just kept at his wrists.
“I guess I just want to say thanks, Tooth, for always having my back, for being cool to me when everyone else kind of ignored me. God knows you could have left me home most nights and hooked up with some girls. It means a lot to me that you didn’t.”
I was crying now, but not the frantic scared-shitless crying I’d been doing for the past-what was it? — couple days. I was crying from my heart, because I was feeling the beauty of life. I know that sounds like a crock of shit, but as I leaned there, the jingling chains supporting my tired bulk, I was able to understand why people hung posters of sunsets on their walls. Life really is amazing, and when you’re about to lose it, you finally notice that you never really took it in before. And you realize the sheer magnitude of what it involves, from your first kiss to your hundredth slice of pizza. I guess that’s why those tears drifted down my cheeks.
The Summer I Died Page 12
