Homemade Sin

by V. Mark Covington

  “I have always found religion to be a poor substitute for spirituality.”

  “And now my stupid ex-boyfriend lost all of my tuition money playing poker, so I can’t afford to go to school. And he’s probably lurking in the parking lot at this very minute.”

  “Speaking of Cutter,” Roland said, “what was the bird foot supposed to do?”

  “Vulture foot,” Hussey corrected him, “and it’s part of an emasculation spell.” Hussey smiled in the dark. “The opposite of Viagra.”

  “And if it doesn’t keep him away?”

  “Then I guess I’ll borrow your runcible spoon.” Hussey laughed at the notion.

  Ex? The little two-letter word sank in and Roland brightened. “You aren’t gonna take him back?”

  “No, he’s an idiot. I guess I’ve known it all along but losing all of our money was the last straw. I was probably attracted to him because of the good looking bad boy thing. I need to be hanging out with an adult, or at least a better class of idiot.”

  “I’m a better class of idiot.” Roland grinned in the dark.

  “Then why are you unattached at … what … thirty-five?”

  “I’ve had a few girlfriends,” Roland said.

  “Tell me about them.”

  “OK, let’s see.” Roland settled into the bed and stared at the ceiling, recalling. “I had a high school sweetheart, Debbie. We had plans to go to college together, get married, the whole thing, but we had a fight in our senior year. Something stupid, I think it was over which graduation party we were going to on a Friday night. So being eighteen and stupid I figured ‘I’ll show her’ and went down to the army recruiting station on Saturday and signed up. This was at the height of Desert Storm in ninety-two. Anyway, we’d made up by Sunday night so I went down to the recruiting office on Monday to ‘straighten everything out’. Two months later I was in Kuwait.”

  “And Debbie?”

  “She went on to college and we wrote back and forth. Finally, when my hitch was up, I caught a plane home and called her from the airport, ready to pick up where we left off. She answered her cell phone and told me she was in the middle of her wedding reception.”

  “Ouch, that sucks.” Hussey cringed in sympathy. “What did you do?”

  “I reenlisted.” Roland chuckled. “I was still young and stupid. And when my second hitch was up the last thing I ever wanted to see was a desert. So a buddy in my platoon offered to go in on buying a bar at the beach. We bought this place together with money we had saved. He took off six months later; said he wanted to go back to college. My name was on the lease so I was stuck with the bar, and here I am.”

  “And I’m sure you’ve had other girlfriends since you’ve run the bar?” Hussey said.

  “Let’s see … there was the ‘Country Curtains’ girl. She wanted to redo the bar in country kitsch, put in checkered tablecloths, shelves of knick knacks around the bar. Her long term goal was a little house in the suburbs, picket fence, two point five kids. Not actually a lifestyle I was interested in. Then there was the ‘Black Ring.’”

  “Black Ring?”

  “Yeah,” Roland said. “You know the black ring in your toilet? No matter how many times you scrub it out it always comes back? I also called her ‘Lojack’ – no matter where I hid, she could find me. She was like that, a total psycho stalker. I’d break up with her and a couple of days later she was back. Finally, I had to get a restraining order.”

  “I know the type,” Hussey said.

  “And then there was “Mustang Sally.” My old waitress named her that because her name was Sally and she said she looked like she’d been ‘rode hard and put away wet.’”

  “And Dee Dee?”

  “Is it that obvious?” Roland said.

  “You could cut the tension between you two with a runcible spoon,” Hussey said.

  “That’s all over, she’s crazy. I think I’ll call her ‘Deranged Dee Dee.’”

  “Why is it when a couple breaks up the girl can always pinpoint the reason for the split. He was too clingy, too noncommittal, too immature … we always know the reason. Guys say; ‘everything was fine and then she just suddenly went crazy.’”

  Roland opened his mouth to speak and then thought better of it.

  “It’s funny how you gave secret nicknames to all the girls in your past,” Hussey said. “My girlfriends and I did the same thing.”

  “Like what?”

  Now it was Hussey’s turn to lay back on the pillow and reflect. “Cutter was my high school boyfriend and we went off to college together, but he was kicked out after the first semester because he was such an idiot; I stayed on to get my degree. We agreed to date other people while we were apart so I dated a few guys in college.”

  “I want to hear some funny nicknames,” Roland said.

  “Well, there was ‘Who’s Jay?’ I dated him a few times and he was so nondescript and forgettable, every time I told my roommate I had a date with Jay she would say ‘Who’s Jay?’ One evening I came back from a class and my roommate told me, ‘Jay called,’ and I said ‘Who’s Jay?’ I couldn’t even remember him.”

  Roland sniggered in the dark.

  “And there was Holden Caulfield. His real name was Jim something but I secretly called him Holden because he read Catcher in the Rye endlessly and thought he was Holden Caulfield. He was always saying, ‘Growing up led to hypocrisy and the only answer was to keep the innocence of youth.’”

  “I wonder if Stinky knew J.D. Salinger,” Roland said aloud.

  “Stinky?” Hussey said.

  “He’s the pussy cat that lives out behind the restaurant in the dumpster. I met him in a bar in Key West.

  “You mean the black cat that was lurking on top of the dumpster when I found Moreover?”

  “That’s him,” Roland said, “he fed a bunch of cats poison fugu out there and I think he poisoned the dog. He claims to have known all these writers; Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allen Poe, Tennessee Williams ….”

  “The killer cat claims to know them?”

  Yeah,” Roland said, “he says he knew them but I’m not sure I believe him. I think he’s some kind of a psychopath.”

  “The pussy cat talks to you? You are making this up, right?”

  “Actually, it would make a pretty good book,” Roland said. “I’d have to write it as fiction, nobody would believe it.”

  “I know I don’t believe it,” said Hussey.

  “OK,” Roland said. “I’ll introduce you to him tomorrow, you’ll see. Anyway, what happened with the Holden guy?”

  “Senior year,” Hussey said, starting to think Roland was a little nuts, “I caught him with a cheerleader, a freshman in high school. I guess he was really into the innocence of youth. And, when I graduated and came home this summer, there was Cutter and we kind of fell back into our high school relationship. But he’s such a bad-boy fuck-up.”

  “Why is it women say they want a nice guy and always go for the bad boys? And when they get the bad boy they end up on Cops screaming, ‘He’s hiding under the mobile home, take his ass to jail!’”

  “And here I am sleeping with a bartender who talks to pussies. How can this not end badly?” Hussey smiled.

  “I’m not just a bartender,” Roland said, “I own this flea bag, and beside I’m actually a writer in disguise, and the cat does talk.”

  “Oh yeah? I should have known you were a crazy writer when you started quoting The Owl and the Pussycat. What have you written? Anything published?”

  “Nothing published yet,” Roland said. “I’ve tried my hand at every possible genre but I can’t get an agent interested. I tried fiction, children’s books, even a couple of plays but nobody wants my stuff. I had hopes for the kid’s book. It was about a kid named Shamus who discovers a secret world in his parents’ liquor cabinet, wakes up the next morning beside the toilet having learned a lot from his adventure.”

  Hussey laughed. “I can see why parents might not think that’s such a good bo
ok for kids.”

  “It was actually pretty good,” Roland said, “but it wasn’t exactly politically correct. Agents and publishers want stuff now that meets some socio-political agenda. When they accept politically correct drivel over good writing, it’s like killing the swan to feed the buzzards.”

  “What about your plays? Some plays I’ve seen seem to have avoided the political correctness purge.”

  “One was a musical called Rickets the Musical. For some reason the concept of actors writhing on the floor singing praises of citrus didn’t catch on. I even wrote a version of Macbeth set in the White House in the mid-nineties but that was during the Clinton administration and my editor thought it was too close to reality so I turned it into a play called Shakespeare in the Trailer Park. Still, nobody wanted it, so I finally posted it on the Internet so see if anyone would want to do it.”

  “Shakespeare in the Trailer Park!” Hussey said, sitting up in bed. “You wrote that? We did that play in high school. The drama teacher found it on the Internet and thought it was a cool idea. I played Barbie Q Bacon.”

  “‘Nay,’” Roland quoted. “‘Do not go; but stay.

  T’is but thy name, ‘Bacon’ that is my enemy;

  Thou art thyself, though calls thyself Bacon.

  O, be some other name!’”

  “‘But thinking makes it so. What’s in a name?

  That which we call a hog would taste as sweet

  By any other name’” Hussey completed.

  Hussey couldn’t see Roland in the dark but he was still grinning ear to ear as he drifted off to sleep.

  Stinky leapt from the top of the dumpster into the air vent. He paused and sniffed the air, picked up Hussey’s and Roland’s scents and the unmistakable musky smell of sex. Following his nose he crept through the metal duct, through the twists and turns in the darkness, his whiskers twitching with the excitement of the hunt.

  He examined each small square of faint light that penetrated the duct from the rooms below, made semi-dark by the moon, until he found the room he was searching for. He slipped his paws under the edge of the vent and lifted it noiselessly into the ductwork and pounced onto the dresser of Hussey’s room.

  Pausing to make sure he didn’t arouse the sleeping couple, he began his search. That zombie powder has to be here somewhere, Stinky thought, as he carefully nosed under the bed. Finding nothing he moved to the closet and discovered Hussey’s doctor bag under a pile of clothes. Tipping the bag over and pawing it open he tried to make out the labels on vials that spilled out in the darkened room. Sorting through the vials he came across the Mambo powder. This can’t be the right one, he thought, Mambo is a dance and the last thing I want is a bunch of pussies dancing around my dumpster.

  It reminded him of Cats, The Musical and he shivered.

  A shaft of moonlight fell on a vial of purple powder that had rolled away from the pile. Stinky’s eyes fell on the name on the label, ‘Eros.’ His Greek was a little rusty, but Stinky remembered that Thanatos means death, and he believed Eros meant life. Life from death. Sounded like zombies.

  Oh, shit, I got to get my furry butt out of here, Stinky thought as Hussey’s cell phone rang out with Jimmy Hendrix singing ‘Voodoo Child.’

  Stinky clamped his teeth around the vial of Eros powder and made it from the closet to the dresser and through the vent in two fluid, silent leaps.

  “Sorry,” Hussey told a groggy Roland, “my cell phone, go back to sleep.”

  “Hello?” Hussey whispered into the phone.

  “Hey Hussey,” Dee Dee whispered into her phone. “It’s Dee Dee, I got your number from Cutter and I hate to bother you but I’m with him right now and he tells me that you two are totally broken up, is that true?”

  “Yes, I’m done with that juvenile jerk. But why are you calling me in the middle of the night to ask me that?”

  “I figured I’d call you before I had sex with him. Some exes get upset at that kind of thing, so I’m checking with you.”

  “Where are you?” Hussey said.

  “We’re on the beach, I found him lurking around the parking lot and we took a walk and one thing led to another—”

  “He was stalking me?” Hussey was incensed.

  “More like lurking,” Dee Dee said. “Is the sex thing OK with you?”

  “Sure, go ahead, I don’t care. I’m done with him. Don’t expect too much, he’s not exactly the stud of the universe.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Dee Dee said. “He thinks he’s a lot better than he is.”

  “If you’ve already had sex with him why did you call me to ask me if it was OK?”

  “Oops,” said Dee Dee. “Well, then do you mind if we do it again?”

  Hussey closed her cell phone and snuggled up beside Roland. He responded, turning toward her and beginning to caress her body. His hands moved slowly down her back as he kissed her deeply.

  Hussey’s phone resonated once again with the sounds of ‘Voodoo Child.’

  “Goddamn it, Dee Dee. I don’t care what you and Cutter do. I’m too fucking busy! Wait, reverse that!”

  “Is this the lady who saved the greyhound’s life?” a voice said on the other end. “I’m Misty Day, a reporter with the St. Petersburg Beach Times and I’m writing a feature story on you and how you saved the dog and cured him.”

  “Oh, gee, I’m sorry,” Hussey said, sitting up in bed. “I thought you were someone else. Isn’t it kind of late for you to be calling me?”

  “I need you to confirm some facts before we go to press tonight. Is it true you used something called Mambo powder to heal the racing greyhound owned by Tinker Martin?”

  “You mean Moreover? I guess I did. Is he alright?”

  “Oh he’s great,” the reporter said. “He actually won a race today. It was the first time that dog has won since I’ve been covering the track. I talked to the owner and he said it’s miraculous how the dog has changed, it’s like he’s a different dog. What is in this miracle Mambo powder?”

  “Mostly mushrooms and some other herbs and things,” Hussey said.

  “My research shows you also saved a dog back in your hometown of Cassandra. Is that true?”

  “Uh, yeah. I gave Miss Zoller’s shepherd some of my Mambo powder and he overcame his fear of sheep.”

  “Tell me, Miss Paine, do you think your miraculous Mambo powder could have human applications?”

  “I suppose, but I’ve never tried it on a human. Look, it’s late.” Hussey yawned. “Can’t we do this tomorrow?”

  “Going to press tonight, Miss Paine. I think I have all I need for now, thank you.” The reporter clicked off.

  Hussey turned off her phone turned toward Roland. He had drifted off to sleep again. She sighed and snuggled up beside him.

  Chapter Nine

  Cat Orgy

  When Deputy Sheriff Ignatius Jones of the St. Pete Beach sheriff’s office arrived at his desk in the morning he found his chair occupied by the considerable girth of Deputy Andy Dickerson. Dickerson had his feet propped up on Jones’s desk and was munching on a sausage biscuit, scattering crumbs on Jones’s unfinished paperwork. “Comfortable?” Jones said to the other deputy.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” Dickerson said. “Who’s the girl in the picture?” Dickerson said, waving his sausage biscuit at a silver-framed picture on Jones’s desk, raining a fresh shower of biscuit crumbs on the desk.

  “That’s my fiancée,” Jones said.

  “Pretty,” Dickerson said. “When are y’all getting hitched?”

  “I lost her in New Orleans during Katrina,” Jones said.

  “Oh shit, I’m sorry,” Dickerson said swinging his feet down and standing up. “I didn’t mean … did she die in the flood?”

  “I don’t know.” Jones brushed crumbs off the desk into the trash can. He picked up the picture and blew off some more crumbs. “I just lost her. In all the confusion, evacuations, I don’t know what happened to her.”

  “I’m sorry,�
� Dickerson said. “I almost forgot why I was camped out at your desk. The chief wants to see you.”

  When Jones entered Sheriff Curtis Ferguson’s office, the sheriff handed him a thick police report. Jones scanned the report while the sheriff stacked some papers and stuck them in a desk drawer.

  “What’s this, Curtis?” Jones said to the sheriff, waving the report. “Dead cats?”

  “We’ve had five or six calls a day for the last three days reporting missing cats,” said the sheriff. “This morning the Animal Control folks found a couple of dead ones in an alley near the beach. They sent the two dead cats they found over to the animal hospital to have an autopsy done, see if the vet can find out what killed them. They suspect the pussy cats were poisoned.”

  “Dead cats?” Deputy Jones repeated. “You want me to investigate dead cats? Isn’t this Animal Control’s job?”

  “We’re getting a little pressure from above on this one.” The sheriff sighed. “Our department has been requested by the mayor’s office to take on the case. I figured it’s something you can handle. After all, the mayor thought it was a good idea to give all of you displaced New Orleans police officers jobs after the hurricane.” Sheriff Ferguson leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “He said you guys were hungry and homeless and to put you guys to work, so I’m putting you to work. It wasn’t my idea to hire you but, since the mayor made me hire you, you are on the case. Get out there and find out what happened to the missing pussies.”

  “I was hungry and homeless because Hurricane Katrina wiped out my whole neighborhood back in New Orleans. It’s damned hard to walk a beat when the street is five feet under water. Six foot long ’gators swimming up Almonaster Avenue, how you gonna police a six foot ’gator? I’ve seen some damned strange things in my life.”

  “Still—”