Homemade Sin

by V. Mark Covington

  “I think it’s from a publisher,” he told Roland as he ceremoniously handed over the letter.

  Roland picked up a fruit-slicing knife from the bar and sliced the envelope flap open. His shoulders sank and he sighed as he scanned the single sentence.

  “Another rejection?” said Henry.

  “Yeah, it seems my work is not on their ‘list’, whatever the hell that means.”

  “Better luck tomorrow,” said Henry as he placed the bills on the bar and headed toward the door.

  Balling up the rejection and tossing it in the trash Roland thought about Hussey. He picked up her glass to wash it and became transfixed by the precious pink imprint her lips left on the glass.

  Even another rejection letter couldn’t depress him for long today.

  Chapter Eight

  What A Beautiful Pussy You Are

  “I’m ready to go to work,” said Hussey, as she slipped behind the bar and found Roland pouring a beer. Tony was watching him with anticipation. When Cutter heard Hussey’s voice he broke away from Dee Dee, opened the kitchen door a crack and listened in.

  “I’m as dry as my wife’s meatloaf,” Tony said as Roland slid the frosty mug down the bar to his waiting hand.

  “I called the dog’s owner at the race track,” Hussey said. “The owner didn’t want him back at first, said he had some kind of mental problem. He said the dog hadn’t won a race in months. I told him Moreover had an accident but he is up and about and better than ever. I told the owner any mental problems the dog had are probably much better. He didn’t believe me so I told him to sign Moreover up for a race and he may be surprised at the new tricks an old dog can do. I told him I could bring him to the dog track today, but I don’t have a car. Would you mind if I borrowed yours?”

  “I was thinking,” Roland said. “The bar is pretty empty and we don’t have any reservations for check-in today. Not many vacancies left anyway, the snowbirds all flocking in for the winter over the last couple of days. They all seem to come in at once, right after the first cold day up north. They’re all floating around in the pool now and they won’t crawl out to do the silver-backed shuffle to their rooms until dark. It might be nice to take a day off. Maybe Cutter and Dee Dee can handle the bar and the kitchen. I can drive you to the track to return the dog.”

  Roland was hoping for a day alone with Hussey, to see if something would develop. Now that she had dumped that idiot Cutter, maybe he had a chance.

  “I want to go to the track too,” said Cutter. He stepped out from the kitchen into the bar.

  “I think you’ve spent enough time at the track,” Hussey said. “Besides I thought you lost all your money, and mine too.”

  “I have a couple of bucks left. Maybe I can win some of your money back.”

  “I can take your action right here,” Tony said. “I make a little book on the side.”

  “I think I’d rather see the dog run in person,” Cutter said.

  “I’m in too,” Dee Dee said, emerging from the kitchen and standing beside Cutter.

  “Uh … that’s not what I had planned ….” Roland trailed off. Damn! That’s all I need, Hussey’s ex and crazy Dee Dee hanging around. “Somebody has to stay here and run the bar and take care of the folks in the pool. Normally it would be Dee Dee or Hussey but it looks like it’s you today, Cutter. You’ll need to take a trip out to the pool every hour or so and take their orders. They mostly order boat drinks, like mango daiquiris and piña coladas. The mixes are in the bar fridge, just dump some of the mix and some liquor into the blender and add ice.”

  “The floaters are sure to be a problem,” was Dee Dee’s considered opinion.

  “Alright, it’s settled,” Roland said as he reached below the cash register and opened the cash box. He removed a wad of bills and began counting them. “For some reason I thought there was more money than this in here,” he said, looking puzzled.

  Dee Dee looked away.

  Cutter leaned in close to Tony, “I’m interested in some action,” he said. “What kind of odds can you give me on that dog Moreover?”

  Tony picked up his cell phone and punched in some numbers. “This may be the start of a beautiful friendship,” he said, smiling at Cutter.

  “Hey boy,” Tinker Jones, Moreover’s owner and trainer, called out to the brindle greyhound.

  Moreover stood beside Hussey with a glassy-eyed gaze.

  “Hey boy, come on, come and get a treat.”

  Moreover still stared as if he were looking through Tinker.

  “I know you’re probably mad at me for dumping you on the street, but you have to understand, I was upset. You haven’t won a race in months. I felt bad about doing it right after and I did come back for you but you were already gone. I looked for you. I missed you. Come on over here boy and at least lick my face.”

  Hussey led the dog over to Tinker. “He is not quite himself yet. Hi, I’m Hussey Paine,” she said, extending her hand, “I found him out behind the restaurant where I work, the Fugu Lounge; he was at death’s door, but now he’s much better”.

  “What happened to him?” Tinker said.

  “It’s a long story, but he’s alive and well now, and he’s home, so take good care of him. Say ‘hi’ to the nice man, Moreover,” she whispered in the dog’s ear.

  Moreover padded over and licked Tinker’s face.

  “Now that’s my old Moreover,” said Tinker. “I got him on the ticket for the third race,” Tinker said to Hussey. “But looking at him, I’m not so sure. He looks a little stiff.”

  “He’ll be OK,” Hussey said. “I have a feeling he might even win today.”

  Roland, Hussey, and Dee Dee stood by the rail looking at the little chutes where the dogs were loaded to start the races. Moreover was glassy-eyed as he stood in the chute for the third race. When the little rabbit rolled by and his gate opened, he still stood there.

  “Why is he just standing there?” Roland said to Hussey.

  “You gotta tell zombies what to do,” Hussey said, “or they’ll just stand around all day, like government employees.” Then Hussey turned to Moreover and shouted loudly enough to be heard over the crowd, “RUN, Moreover. RUN like the wind!”

  And run he did. Moreover quickly made up the ground he had lost when the other dogs had exploded out of their chutes and by mid-race he was passing the slower dogs. By three quarters of the way around the track he had overtaken the leader and was pulling away. Moreover shot past the finish line a good twenty feet ahead of the second place dog and kept running.

  As he rounded the midway turn for the second time Hussey realized what was happening. “Stop Moreover!” she shouted.

  Moreover braced his front legs, straight out, dug his hind legs into the dirt and slid to a stop in front of Hussy and the others.

  “Good boy!” said Hussey. Moreover looked up at her, a blank expression on his muzzle. “Now go back to Mister Tinker.” Moreover obediently trotted over to the kennel area to where Tinker was waiting.

  Roland, Hussey and Dee Dee wandered over to congratulate the dog. As they approached, Tinker sat staring at the dog in his pen.

  “Congrats,” Roland said to Tinker, “your dog is a winner.”

  “Oh, hey, you folks stayed for the race? Moreover has always been a little weird,” Tinker smiled and shook his head, “but not weird like this, and he’s never run a race like that before in his life. Hell, I used to think he was just stupid, didn’t know sit from Shinola. I always suspected he had some kind of psychological problem that kept him from winning.” Turning to Moreover, Tinker said “I don’t know what’s gotten into you boy, but I hope it stays in you for a while. You keep winning like that and we can both retire.” Then to Hussey he said. “I don’t know what you all did to him but you made him a winner.”

  “He must have had some issues,” Hussey said to Tinker, “but I think he’s going to be OK now. You just have to remember to tell him what to do for a while at least. You have to tell him to run when t
he gate opens and stop after he wins the race. You also have to tell him to eat, sleep and relieve himself.”

  “I have to tell him when to pee?” Tinker said. “What happened to him?”

  “He got hold of some poison and he kind of died,” Hussey said. “He would have been dead permanently if I hadn’t given him my Mambo powder.”

  “Mambo powder?”

  “Just something I’ve been working on. It’s still experimental and there is one serious side effect. The part of his brain that makes decisions stays dead, at least for a while. It may come back, it may not.”

  Tinker was a little uneasy as he looked at Moreover’s blank expression. Sure, the dog was a flake, one minute the dog was taking baby steps on the track, the next minute he was trying the nudge the whole pack in the wrong direction, but he had always been animate, affectionate, if a little goofy. This was different, Moreover had changed; he was cold, unemotional, he’d lost his personality. And his eyes looked funny. The dog had never been the most precocious puppy in the pound but there had been some intelligence in his eyes before. Now they were flat. There was less there than Gertrude Stein had found in Oakland.

  “I’m curious about his name,” Hussey said to Tinker. “Why Moreover?”

  “It’s from the bible,” Tinker said, “from the story of when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead; ‘moreover the dog came and licked his feet.’”

  “Appropriate,” Hussey said. She handed Tinker a slip of paper with her cell phone number. “Let me know how he is from time to time. I want to see how Mambo powder works in the long run.”

  “How much did we win?” Dee Dee said to Roland as the group walked toward the row of betting windows.

  “Well, we each put up five dollars and the dog came in at 20 to 1,” said Roland. “That’s a hundred dollars each.” Turning to Hussey, Roland said, “how about having dinner with me?”

  “I’m in,” said Dee Dee.

  “Damn,” Roland said under his breath.

  As Tinker watched the group wander off toward the exit, he noticed a well-dressed woman, holding a small spiral notebook, standing by Moreover staring at the dog. When Tinker turned to address the woman, she spoke first. “What did you do to this dog? I’ve been following the greyhound races for years and that’s the most miraculous change in a dog I’ve ever seen.”

  “He sure ran a good race today,” Tinker said. “I’ve never seen him run like that.”

  “I’m Misty Day,” the woman said, extending her hand. “I’m a feature reporter for the Saint Petersburg Beach Times. I’ve watched that dog do crazy stuff for a year and he’s always entertaining but he never won a race. What did you do to him? Did you change his diet? Give him some kind of drug?”

  “It wasn’t me,” Tinker said. “That lady who just left gave him some kind of magical powder. I think she called it Mambo. It made him a winner. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Can you tell me where I might find the woman?”

  “Her name is Hussey Paine and she works at the Santeria Hotel,” said Tinker. “I have her phone number.”

  He handed the reporter the slip of paper Hussey had given him.

  The waitress at the steakhouse seated them by a large window looking out on the Gulf and started passing out menus.

  “I’ll take the wine list,” Roland said and plucked it from the waitress’s hand.

  Hussey looked at him and raised one eyebrow at him, as if challenging him to pick out a halfway decent wine. Roland perused the wine list while the waitress continued to pass out menus. She ran out of menus before she got to Dee Dee and said “I’m sorry, hon, I picked up one too few menus. I’ll bring you a menu in a minute.”

  “Stupid, lazy bitch,” Dee Dee shouted.

  The waitress blanched and her mouth fell open.

  “I got Tourette’s,” Dee Dee said. Her grin conveyed both evil and feigned innocence, “I can’t help those little outbursts.”

  The waitress raised her eyebrows and backed away.

  “This Bordeaux, number thirteen …” Roland said, bringing the waitress back toward the table. She approached Roland, eyeing Dee Dee cautiously, “… how deep is the hole?”

  “The what?” the waitress said.

  “The hole,” Roland said. “The little indention at the bottom of the bottle. How deep is it? Can you get half your finger in it?”

  Hussey was shaking her head, smirking at Roland.

  The waitress looked puzzled.

  “I think the Bordeaux will do nicely,” Hussey said, giving Roland a sideways glance.

  “Go ahead and bring the bottle,” Roland said. “I’ll give it a hole check when it gets here.”

  “Dirty, nasty, stinking hole!” Dee Dee shouted.

  The waitress practically ran from the table.

  A few minutes later the waitress returned with a bottle of wine and showed the label to the group. Roland took the bottle from her and stuck his middle finger in the indention in the bottom of the bottle. His finger went in past the knuckle.

  “Fucking cheap rot-gut, putrid pond water!” Dee Dee Touretted.

  “I’m sorry.” The waitress backed away from the table. “I thought this is what you ordered.”

  Roland removed his finger from the hole and sniffed it, “Its fine,” he said, “just what we ordered, a nice deep hole.”

  Hussey shook her head and gave Roland a wan smile. Roland turned his palms up, as if to ask ‘what?’ They exchanged pregnant looks.

  The waitress looked confused, “But she just said—”

  “It was the Tourette’s again,” Dee Dee said. “Just ignore me”.

  The waitress took their orders, salads and steaks all around. When the waitress left, Roland turned to Dee Dee. “Do you have to do that? You’re scaring the waitress half to death, she thinks you’re insane. And you need to be nicer to our bar customers too. That Tony guy has a huge crush on you”.

  “I’m insane?” Dee Dee said. “You’re the one sticking your finger in wine bottles and sniffing it like some obscene act. My mother would have washed your mouth out with soap for just thinking of doing that. You should have seen what she did to me for saying ‘damn’ once.”

  Hussey raised her eyebrows: Could be the source of Dee Dee’s Tourette’s, she thought.

  “And you have conversations with a crazy cat,” Dee Dee said as the waitress returned with their salads. The waitress was looking at the group like they were all escapees from a mental hospital.

  “Big fat fucking pig!”Dee Dee yelled as the waitress approached. She turned to Roland and said, “Fat Tony could crush about anybody he crawled on top of. What a filthy, disgusting pig and besides, he’s like a hundred years old.”

  The waitress, who was escorting an older couple to a nearby table, turned a right angle and took the couple to a different table far in the back of the restaurant.

  “It’s the Tourette’s,” Dee Dee called after the couple, smiling broadly.

  Hussey turned to Roland. “Speaking of crushes, how long have you had a crush on me?”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “A girl can just tell things,” she said. “Besides, you’ve had your hand on my leg since we sat down.”

  “I g-guess when I s-saw you at the front desk and our fingers touched, I felt a kind of spark,” Roland stuttered, blushed and jerked his hand away.

  “I didn’t say you had to move it.” Hussey smiled. “And I felt a spark too.”

  Now Roland didn’t know what to do, he put his hand back on her leg, then he took it away again. He tried for a witty remark but nothing came to mind, he settled on pouring her more wine and smiling at her.

  The waitress brought their steaks.

  “Bloody raw putrid nasty hunk of flesh!”

  The waitress dropped the steaks in front of them, stalked over to the bar, snatched her purse from behind the bar and left the restaurant.

  “Now see what you did, Dee Dee. You made the poor girl leave,” Rola
nd said.

  “I saved us having to leave a tip,” Dee Dee said. Then turning to Hussey, she said, “The dog at the track, Moreover? The manager said he didn’t win before; now today he wins after you voodooed him. Why was that?”

  “He probably had some psychological problem, that’s why he wasn’t winning,” Hussey said “Some deep emotional fear or a personality dysfunction. And when I made him into a zombie all those fears went away.”

  “What was in the purple powder you gave him?”

  “A combination of natural ingredients that reactivated the part of his brain the poison affected. The way the powder works, it reverses psychological trauma, like phobias, psychoses, stuff like that. Without the fear the dog was free to win. I expect he’ll win a lot now.”

  “Psychological problems?” Dee Dee said. “What kind of psychological problems could a dog possibly have?”

  “You’d be surprised, it could be a simple personality disorder; could be depression. Dogs have many of the same psychological problems humans do.”

  “I guess so,” Dee Dee said. “I knew a collie named Mellon once. He was always kind of sad.”

  “Mellon Collie?” said Hussy. “Well, what did the person who named him expect?”

  “So can you do this to humans?” Dee Dee said. “Make them do what you tell them to do?”

  “That’s how the whole zombie thing started,” Hussey said. “People have always tried to raise others from the dead, get them to do their will. The practice is as old as time. Remember the story of Jesus rising from the dead? How do you think that happened? I’ve done some research on it. Did you know there is a prohibition in the Old Testament against eating fish without scales and it describes puffer fish in particular, the Red Sea version of the fugu fish. Pictures of the Red Sea Puffer Fish even appear on some of the walls of an Old Kingdom tomb in Egypt. The ancients knew what tetrodotoxins could do. There was a group of healers during Jesus’ time called the Therapeutae who used tetrodotoxins regularly, possibly on Jesus before the crucifixion. Some believe the Shroud of Turin was laced with tetrodotoxins and when Jesus wiped his face and breathed in, the toxins started to work.” Hussey stopped and took a sip of wine.