The Brickeaters

by The Residents

  As soon as the presence of the tac squad was announced, a small knot of panic instantly roiled the pit of my stomach. By the time the words “search the premises” were uttered, the knot had swelled to the size of a basketball lodged at the base of my throat. Looking at my companions in abject fear, I pleaded, “THEY’RE… THEY’RE SEARCHING THE BUILDING! THEY’LL FIND US! WHAT CAN WE DO?”

  As I reached for my pint of Jack Daniels, Ted stood up and barked, “We don’t have any choice. It’s Beasley’s safe room or the tac squad… QUICK! We have to make it look like no one’s been here… PATTY! Help me gather up this bedding so we can take it with us. HURRY! The cops will be here any minute!”

  Looking like she’d just eaten a rat, Patty froze. “Patty! C’mon… We have to hurry!”

  Stammering, she spit out, “The… the safe room? But… but… Duane… Duane is in there…” Her face was the unappetizing color of concrete.

  “I’m sorry, Patty, but we don’t have any choice. The tac squad means jail for all of us… HURRY! PLEASE!” Terrified, I grabbed the small bag of clothes containing my three remaining pints of bourbon, as Hendricks pushed Patty out into the circular hallway connecting the rooms in the lower compound. We hurried down the passage leading into the garage as the sound of men entering the circular hallway echoed behind us. A barking voice issuing orders to search all the rooms, followed by loud footsteps spreading through the compound, heightened our panic as we burst into the garage, stumbling and lurching our way toward the entrance to the safe room. Shaking, Ted reached across the work stand where, facing him, were a dozen or more screwdrivers, wrenches, ratchets, a hammer and more. Desperately grabbing every tool and implement on the rack, Ted finally twisted a small hand chisel, causing the work bench to slide sideways and reveal Crawford Beasley’s secure panic room. Staggering into the space, the techie activated the switch securing the room as we tumbled on the floor, the door closing behind us. Frantic, we listened as the sound of footsteps and loud voices abruptly filled the space on the other side of the door.

  Crowded into the small opening near the entrance, we sat frozen in silence, terrified of making a sound as Duane’s equally silent and unseeing eyes stared up at us through the musty plastic shroud enclosing his body.

  Six, seven, eight hours went by as we sat in fear until the muffled sound of the Hummer starting and leaving the garage penetrated the walls of the safe room. We had no idea where Beasley was going. The muted sounds of footsteps moving through the building had faded but, by this time, it was too late for the madman to rendezvous with his daily delivery of tea bricks. Regardless, we were alone in the compound with no idea when the quasi-military nutcase would return. Maintaining a guarded posture, Hendricks triggered the door mechanism, opening the safe room to the garage again. Tired and hungry, we cautiously re-entered the empty space and slowly made our way back to our tiny hidden area in the rear of the storage room.

  Another hour passed, then two, until, as we raided Beasley’s food stockpile, the throbbing sound of the Hummer’s engine announced the madman’s return. Meanwhile, the makeout madness of Ted and Patty was on full display. Magnified by an intimate connection to the white-hot passion of my pals and compounded by two days of hiding in a hole like a crippled cockroach, my angst was nearing outer orbit. Black Jack was never a better buddy.

  Declaring a nature call, Ted excused himself. More than a little sloshed, I decided it was time to confront Patty over her rapidly mushrooming involvement with Ted Hendricks as compared to her once eager interest in me. Overly self-conscious and awkward, I blurted it out, “Uh, Patty… I mean, like, okay, sure, I respect that you are a free agent and all, but… well, you know, I thought me and you kinda had a thing going and now it seems like you and the techie nerd are like, lip-locked forever… I mean, what gives?”

  With her face quickly turning the tint of a medium rare ribeye, Patty paused. Gathering her thoughts, her eyes, circular pockets of pain oozing liquid sorrow, finally met mine.

  “I’m sorry, Frank… I really am… it’s just…”

  “It’s just what, Patty?” Needing all my courage to continue, I mouthed a mondo slug of bourbon and said, “Okay… I know it’s been tough for you lately… with your mom… and Tommy Joe… and now Duane… and I guess I haven’t been much help… but… but… what about me? I mean… I’m not a brick over here, you know…” And with that, my own well of emotion turned to tears suddenly leaking around the corners of my eyes.

  “I am sorry, Frank, I am, but… but…” Something was caught in the kid’s throat, something that throbbed and ached, desperately fighting the idea of coming out into the air where it could be seen, tasted, touched. Finally, after another prolonged and painful pause, she coughed it up, “It’s your drinking, Frank… it’s the alcohol… I told you how much you reminded me of my father… I guess… I guess I didn’t realize how true it was… how true it is. My dad is an alcoholic, Frank… and I just couldn’t go back there again… I’m sorry, but I couldn’t do it.”

  So there it was. Patty’s lust-infused dive into the arms of Ted Hendricks wasn’t just about escaping the loss of her family or Duane or her entire dumbfuck life, it was also about me. She was running from me. And there was nothing I could do about it… except take another drink. Knowing that Ted would soon return, and with him the desperation fueling their frantic souls—frenzied fingers grasping, rubbing, clawing, embracing… it was too much. I had to leave.

  Grabbing my bottle of Jack, I staggered out into the hallway, too drunk to grasp my own stupidity, as the sound of Crawford Beasley’s grating voice, broadcasting yet another inane monologue, was approaching from somewhere around the bend of the brightly lit hallway.

  “GOOD! GOOD! GOOD! I want to do GOOD! I NEED TO DO GOOD!”

  Panicking again, I rushed ahead, plunging through the nearest door with the madman’s voice still echoing along the corridor behind me.

  “Is there a more confusing concept in the English language? And is it any coincidence that the word GOOD is so similar to GOD, another monumental mass of confusion and lies!”

  I was in the lunatic’s downstairs living room. The space was dominated by a large television; in front of the tube was a tray containing a hot TV dinner. Hurrying to the rear of the space, I paused by the back door until I realized that Beasley was also coming in. Aware of my presence or not, the fucker was following me! Panicked, I hurried into the adjoining room.

  “The Romans… The Romans were undoubtedly doing GOOD when they crucified Christ. Of course, the irony of this GOOD is how it enabled the creation of Christianity, the decadent force behind religious persecution and the slaughter of native people for hundreds of years.”

  The next room over was the kitchen, also brightly illuminated, where Beasley had just finished making his dinner. Fearful that he might return, I crawled beneath a table covered by a cloth hanging down a few feet below its surface. Cowering on the floor in the shadows below, I listened as the madman droned on.

  “HEY! Liberals were doing GOOD as they pilloried poor Joe McCarthy, the valiant scourge of postwar communism, and the Indians were no doubt doing GOOD as they massacred George Armstrong Custer and his men at Little Bighorn, who were undoubtedly doing GOOD by attempting genocide on the Cheyenne.”

  Casually entering the room, Beasley took something from the refrigerator then returned to his living room, his monologue loud, unceasing and monotonous.

  “Will I be doing GOOD by fouling billions of gallons of wholesome, unadulterated water? It’s human to doubt, but TRUE GOODNESS begets faith and confidence. My goals are pure and my resolve remains unshaken!”

  Finally shutting up, the madman changed channels, listening to a weather report noting a new storm front moving into the area and dumping inches of snow on northern Missouri. After a few minutes of relative calm, I assumed the madman was settling down, and used the moment to exit the kitchen, returning to the circular hallway. Hurrying back to the storage space where I left Patty, I r
e-entered only to discover that she and Ted were finally DOING IT! Moaning like crazy, the pair was going at it like two beavers in a dried-up ditch. Unable to take it, I bolted back into the hallway, ducked into Beasley’s mother’s room, crawled under the bed and passed out. It was a rough day.

  The next morning I was awakened by a sound that was by now both gnawingly familiar and friendly as a chainsaw. As I lay on the floor beneath the bed of Crawford Beasley’s dead mother, the madman clomped into the room, exhorting as always. This time the monologue concerned his father but, not unlike the birthday soliloquy to his mother, the tone was different, evolving from brash to gentle over the course of sixty seconds.

  “Oh Mumsy, Mumsy… So often I come in here to speak to you, but is it not true that where goes The Mother has also tread The Father… The Warrior… The Vindicator… The Force of Fury and Fire… My greatest shortcoming, one I rue moment by moment, is my failure to follow in your fearless footsteps. Is there a greater calling than military life… the worthy quest of sanctuary, safety and security for one’s family, friends and fellow countrymen? If perhaps your pursuit of perfection in me, your only son, was at times overly zealous, your spirited discipline echoing my failure to rise to and embrace your standards. Fate, the serendipitous gap between life and death, sadly called too soon, Dad, long before your guidance fully formed the man you desired… but I persevere, sir…in sadness for the sacred profession I cannot pursue, I do persevere… please forgive the imperfections I cannot overcome. I love you, Dad.”

  Totally unprepared for the madman’s emotion, I realized that Crawford Beasley was weeping, his chest softly heaving as he maintained a reverent silence for what felt like an eternity before finally slipping out of the room and quietly closing the door behind him. Laying on the floor, my head throbbing, I too was overcome by conflicting thoughts, feelings and emotions, engendered by this overly complex and dangerous man, the most disturbing of which was disappointment—the lunatic was not allowing me to solely see him as the demonic force of pure evil I so desired.

  I mean, what the fuck?

  I waited almost an hour before crawling out from under the bed. It was around 11:30 a.m. and my hangover was no less potent than it was when I first woke up. According to Ted, Beasley normally left for Kingdom City around 11:00 so I figured it was safe to venture back out into the rest of the compound. Patty and Ted would undoubtedly be awake and wondering what the fuck had happened to me but first I had to make sure the asshole was gone. Sneaking back to the hallway leading to the garage, I then followed it into the space normally occupied by the big SUV. It was empty.

  Reassured, I returned to the storage area where Patty and Ted greeted me with a combination of relief and anger. Sheepish, my one-time lover hugged me, while Hendricks first hesitated, then barked, “Where the fuck have you been, Frank? Shit, we thought maybe the asshole got you, too. C’mon man, you can’t leave us hanging like that. What gives?”

  Releasing her embrace, Patty slowly backed away while giving me a look reflecting both guilt and complicity, as she burrowed back into Ted’s welcoming shoulder. “Look guys… I’m sorry, okay? I had a little too much to drink and kind of needed a break… a little time to myself… I mean, you guys are pretty intense… you know what I mean?” Blushing like a rose in a room full of ferrets, the embarrassed blonde looked away.

  Unaware of the unspoken communication between Patty and me, the techie softened, “Okay, I get it, but you gotta be careful, Frank… and lay off the booze… we… Patty and me… we’d hate to see something happen to you…” At that point Patty’s look of remorse, peeking back at me from the womb-like safety of Ted’s embrace, said mondo more than the tech screener’s words.

  Releasing a sigh of resignation, I moved on, “Yeah, yeah, I get it… you guys think I’m hot shit… you groove to the tune of my awesomeness… shit like that… and I dig you, too. But right now my head feels like a bloated cantaloupe and I’m starving, so where’s the sardines and Spam?”

  A half-hour later my inner id was nearing the neighborhood of subhuman—all things considered, a major triumph. We figured we had a good two hours before Beasley returned and earlier resolved to split our search three ways, with Ted looking through the psycho’s workshop and Patty checking the big storage area, while I examined the control room. We needed something that would connect Crawford Beasley to the Escalade, the bomb and the curious crater near Clinton, Missouri. But before starting the search, I grabbed another pint of Jack Daniels from my small overnight bag and gulped a mondo slug—you know, hair of the dog and all that.

  Thus buttressed and ready for action, I entered the large central room containing the madman’s computers, communication system and surveillance setup. Other than a quick peek, none of us had actually spent any time in the nerve center of Beasley’s stronghold. Well designed and laid out, the facility housed an impressive display of audacity, organization and technology. Two areas of the room were immediately striking. The first was a large round table set in the dead center of the space; rising from the middle was a six-foot spire, the design of which awkwardly fell somewhere between a miniature Eiffel Tower and a dinky oil derrick. In keeping with Beasley’s favorite motif, the wooden spire was painted in camo and flaunted a neon revolving PAGWAG logo at the top. The other area featured an array of six large monitors mounted on the west wall of the room, three of which displayed computer data, while two constantly broadcasted images from the compound’s surveillance system, systematically alternating from one camera to another. The sixth screen was tuned to a local news broadcast currently airing severe weather warnings regarding the potent storm system entering the area; a large semicircular steel desk sat in front of the cluster of monitors. Completing the room was a long curved sofa set against another wall, an elevator entrance, a closet, a large map displaying the route of Beasley’s fluoride pollution plan, several filing cabinets, and a small undetermined structure across the room.

  After entering, I took a couple of slugs of bourbon and placed the bottle of Jack Daniels on the round table. Scanning the space for anything that could potentially be used as evidence against the insane Crawford Beasley, the first thing I noticed was a stack of papers on one side of the steel desk facing the monitors. Crossing the room, I grabbed the docs, my mind racing as I quickly shuffled through them. BINGO! THIS WAS IT! A schematic for making a bomb, receipts for C-4 plastic explosive and blasting caps, unfiled registration docs for the Escalade. I couldn’t believe it! It was almost like the fucker had laid everything I needed right out on the table, nice and neat, waiting for me. Apparently Beasley’s fanatic sense of order and arrogant belief in the sanctity of his stronghold allowed him to leave shit like this lying around.

  Excited, I stuffed all the papers into a large envelope and walked back toward the round table in the center of the space; as I reached it, my eyes focused on the bland enclosure stationed across the room. Distracted, I absentmindedly reached for the pint of Jack, knocking it over and shattering the bottle with a loud crash as it hit the concrete floor. At that moment the purpose of the unexplained structure made itself crystal-clear—it was a doghouse and I HAD JUST WOKEN THE FUCKER UP! Immediately bounding upon me was one hundred and fifty pounds of savage, snarling Rottweiler in its full and unbridled fury. Scrambling for the top of the table, I almost made it before the beast clamped its teeth onto my ankle, dragging me down to the floor. Panicked, I kicked wildly and connected, my other foot slamming solidly into the dog’s nose and stunning it just long enough to scurry up onto the table where, by hugging the PAGWAG tower, I remained just out of the nasty bastard’s reach.

  With the Rottweiler’s savage growl filling the room, I stood on the table desperately clutching the flimsy spire and took a deep breath. Scanning the room in disbelief, my mind was screaming at me. The fucker had a dog! THE FUCKER HAD A DOG! We had been in Beasley’s compound for three days, had watched countless hours of surveillance video, AND DIDN’T HAVE A FUCKING CLUE! How was that possible?r />
  Lost in my own bewildered brain, I suddenly noted an especially loud and menacing howl, and turned just in time to see Fido charge again; running at full speed, the beast was attempting to mount the table. As he leaped, mouth open wide and saliva glistening on his teeth, I flinched, abruptly causing my flimsy support to collapse, dumping me back down onto the floor and into the jaws of hell. This time the beast immediately clamped on to my calf. Desperate, I unbuttoned my pants, shoving them down over the dog’s head, then hammered him with both fists, but I could’ve been whacking concrete. The fucker had me in a death grip and the pain, the mother-of-God searing sharpness, pushed me to the verge of blacking out. With my arms outstretched, blindly groping, frantic to find anything to defend myself, my hand suddenly seized on something hard and sharp—it was the neck of the broken bottle of Jack Daniels. Lashing out, I jabbed, stabbed and slashed… again and again and again until the beast, bleeding like a headless hog, finally released its grip, staggered across the floor and collapsed. In agony, I picked up my bloody pants, tore off a strip of cloth and looped it around my thigh, furiously trying to stop the bleeding.

  Shaking and wracked with pain, I crawled over to the large semicircular desk, somehow managing to pull myself into an upright position. Standing there, gasping for breath, my eyes were suddenly drawn to one of the surveillance monitors displaying a familiar large camo-colored vehicle pulling into the garage—BEASLEY WAS BACK! The storm must have forced the fucker to return earlier than expected. Terrified and naked from the waist down, I frantically scanned the space; spotting a closet across the room, I hobbled over, opened the door and collapsed on the floor.