The Bighead

by Edward Lee

  — | — | —

  EIGHT

  (I)

  tap-tap-tap

  Charity’s left eye popped open, the right side of her face burrowed in the pillow. Morning? she thought. Already? Sunlight radiated in the panes of the french doors; birds could be heard, chirping their avian celebration.

  tap-tap-tap

  “Charity? You awake?”

  “Yeah,” came her groggy reply. “Come on in.”

  Jerrica entered through the connecting door, her blond hair tousled from sleep. All she wore was a single bedsheet wrapped about her. “I guess we should rise and shine, as they say.”

  “Who’s they?” Charity groaned. “I can’t believe it’s morning already. It seems like I went to bed about fifteen minutes ago. And—” Her whole face pinched up, and she brought a hand to her forehead. “Boy, did I have a nightmare.”

  Jerrica laughed. “Don’t feel too bad. I’m sure it wasn’t as gross as the nightmare I had. Shit. I dreamed I went to hell.” She made a yuck face. “I dreamed that demons were raping me. It was disgusting!”

  This made Charity feel a bit better; her own pallid nightmare had been spared, at least, of demons. The rape had been perfunctory.

  Jerrica lazily smoked a cigarette. “Oh, and guess what? The priest is here.”

  Priest. Oh, yeah, Charity recalled now. Aunt Annie mentioned him yesterday, something about coming to inspect the abbey.

  “Maybe I can talk him to taking me to the abbey.”

  Charity sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes. “When did he get inn?”

  “Last night,” Jerrica answered. Now she was looking out the french doors, into the garden. “It was about one.”

  “One! I thought you went right to bed when we got back from the bar. What were you doing up that late?”

  Jerrica turned, chewing her lip. “Well, I kind of…”

  “What?”

  Jerrica huffed a sigh. “I kind of ran into Goop. I went out on the back porch for some fresh air, and he was there adjusting the sprinklers or something, and, well, you know.” Charity couldn’t quite believe the implication. “Jerrica, you didn’t! With Goop?”

  Jerrica nodded, shame-faced. “It was just one of those things, I guess. He was there, I was there—then one thing led to another.”

  “Where?”

  “In the back yard.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  Jerrica shook her head, spewing cigarette smoke.

  “But Goop is, like—isn’t he retarded?”

  “No, he’s a little slow, maybe,” Jerrica observed. “He’s not retarded, for God’s sake. Kind of a bumpkin is all. And that’s not the problem. It’s obvious, he’s got a bigtime crush on me.”

  “That is a problem,” Charity agreed. She still couldn’t believe it, though. Jerrica had sex…with Goop? Well, she supposed he was attractive, in an earthy, unsophisticated way. But she hadn’t even been here one day! “You sure move fast,” she said, finally climbing out of bed. She blanched a moment, recalling her lurid dreams. But then the most unusual question occurred to her. “Can I ask you something—personal?”

  “Sure.” Jerrica half-chuckled. “Personal questions are the best kind.”

  Charity’s voice lowered. “Was it—you know—was it…good?”

  “Yeah, actually it was,” Jerrica responded without a second’s pause. “It was real good. But it was just a one-night thing, you know, and like I was saying before, the kid’s hung up on me. It could be a mess.”

  Charity couldn’t argue. “You got that right. A guy like Goop? He’ll be following you around like a little poodle.”

  Jerrica maintained a steady frown at her predicament. “I’ll just have to steer clear of him, give him the polite cold shoulder. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but, Christ—” She didn’t even bother finishing.

  More atypical questions assailed Charity. She couldn’t imagine why. How long did they do it? How many times? Did she…come?

  It simply blurted out of her before she could even think. “Did you come?” she asked.

  Jerrica shot her an amused look. She was obviously not the type to be offended by such a query, but it was clear she was a bit surprised. “I just told you it was good. Of course I came. A bunch of times.”

  Another pang of jealousy. Jerrica’s looks, her out-goingness and overall personality already made Charity feel secretly inept. Now this. I’ve never had an orgasm in my life, she thought, and Jerrica talks about it like she’s having another cigarette.

  “Enough of this sex-with-Goop talk,” Jerrica proposed. “We better get our butts in gear and get downstairs. Your aunt’ll think we’re a couple of lazies. And I can’t wait to meet the priest!”

  (II)

  The nun was pissing up his ass…

  ««—»»

  Holy…shit, Alexander thought.

  He jerked up in bed, a bad taste in his mouth. Perhaps it was a veritable night of dreams, an encampment of nightmares, for Father Tom Alexander had had a nightmare of his own, from which he’d just wakened. Hideous. Disgusting…

  He’d dreamed that he was staked to the ground, naked, on his belly. His wrists and ankles chafed within girds of bristly rope. Who had tied him down? And why? And—

  Where am I? his thoughts struggled.

  In the dream, a shadow crossed the floor. He craned his neck, to glance up over his shoulder the best he could. Eventually, he spied the figure projecting the shadow.

  A nun.

  “What the fuck is this?” Alexander demanded in the dream. “Un-fucking-tie me right now, goddamn it!”

  Her voice was a whisper, fragile as perfume, and vaguely southern. “Though shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

  “Yeah?” the priest retorted. “And though shalt not tie fucking priests naked to the fucking floor!”

  “But it’s only a dream,” the nun pointed out.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Alexander continued to profane. “I don’t like it, so untie me! I feel like a fucking idiot tied naked to the floor in front of a nun!”

  But she was a beautiful nun, he noted in time. Her delicate white hands steepled at her bosom, as if reciting a standing prayer. She wore a traditional black habit, but stood in bare feet rather than the expected black clunky shoes. A lean, pretty face seemed mounted in the open oval of her white wimple. It was a sedate face, but wanton. Clear brown eyes beamed down on him, shining in honesty and faith. In reverence to God on high.

  So why was Alexander tied up?

  “We’ve been cleansed now,” she said. “We’ve been purged. It feels so good…” Her brown eyes focused more sharply. “Wouldn’t you like to be purged?”

  “No!” Alexander bellowed. “I’d like to be un-fucking-tied! That’s what I’d like to be!”

  She didn’t so much as flinch at his rant. Instead, she smiled ever so faintly, a nun’s smile, and then she—

  “You gotta be shitting me,” Alexander muttered, still peering painfully over his shoulder.

  —hiked up the skirt-section of her habit. She wore no typical black legsocks, no linens beneath. The vision, at once, seemed to bark at him. Two slim, pretty legs stood spread above him, joined by a bountiful plot of black pubic hair. Fainter hair trailed wispishly down the insides of her white thighs, while an even fainter lance rose upward, to her navel.

  “Ever heard of Lady Remington?” Alexander said.

  “The purging is upon us, Father,” her dainty voice embarked. “And it’s upon you.”

  Holding the bunched habit above her waistline, she awkwardly stepped forward, behind him. She stood with her feet on either side of his bare hips, her bushy pubis directly above his buttocks.

  “Ahhhh,” she murmured.

  She began to urinate.

  “What the FUCK!” Alexander yelled, helpless against his fetters.

  She pissed hard. The stream was hot, and firing directly into the cleft of Alexander’s clenched buttocks.

  “Stop it
!” he yelled.

  She didn’t stop it. Instead, the force of the urine accelerated. It stung, expelling in a pinpoint line to his rectal orifice, and eventually its velocity rose to such an extreme that it was actually entering his anus. Soon he could feel it, he could feel the droll nun’s piss forcing its way into his rectal canal. And piss she did, on and on…

  “What are you, a fucking race horse!” he shouted.

  It seemed to go on for an hour, her urine firing precisely as a laser, jetting from the plush plot of hair.

  “Aw, gimme a break!” Alexander groaned. “You’re pissing enough to fill gasoline truck!”

  Eventually, and thankfully, the stream abated, dying to a trickle which dribbled onto his calves. But in the aftermath, he could feel it all in there, all that hot urine wobbling, filling his large intestine to the point of distention, and slowly working its way up into his alimentary canal…

  “There,” the nun said. She dropped her habit. “Doesn’t it feel good, Father? Doesn’t it feel good to finally be purged?”

  ««—»»

  The image followed him, like a buzzing pest. When Alexander leapt out of bed, he rushed immediately—if out of reflex—to the bathroom, where he immediately defecated. No urine, of course, was forthcoming, but he felt obliged to do so regardless. Then he showered and shaved, dressed quickly in his black slacks and shirt, affixed his collar. But the image wouldn’t leave him.

  The nun, he thought.

  Christ.

  “I should see a psychologist,” he considered, then stalled. “Wait a minute. I’m a psychologist!” But what could explain such a disgusting dream? Dreams, after all, were born in the psyches of the dreamer. It was part of him, in other words… Christ.

  Eventually he got moving, went downstairs and looked around. There was no sign of Annie, the proprietor. But when he turned through the kitchen into the dining room, he saw two attractive women sitting at the veneered table, eating. One blond, one brunet. They both glanced up in unison.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I’m Father Alexander.”

  “Hi, Father,” said the blonde. The brunette smiled curtly and nodded.

  “I’m rooming here for awhile.”

  “We know, Annie told us,” said the blonde. “I’m—”

  “Don’t tell me.” Alexander held up his hand. “You’re Annie’s niece, and you—” he pointed to the brunette. “You must be the newspaper reporter.”

  “You got it backwards,” the blonde told him, laughing. “I’m Jerrica, the reporter, and this is Charity, Annie’s niece.”

  “Nice to meet you both.” They all shook hands; Alexander sat down.

  “Would you like some funnelcakes, Father?” Charity offered, extending her hand to a plate full of squiggly looking pieces of fried dough beside which sat a small bowl of molasses.

  “No thanks. They look great, but I’m never hungry in the morning.” Then he looked more closely at both women. Charity was dressed primly in a billowy, flowered summer dress. Jerrica wore cutoff jeans and a white halter. But both their faces, pretty as they were, looked drained somehow, depleted.

  Then Jerrica, the blonde, spoke up. “You’re probably noticing how ragged out we both look, Father. It’s because we both had outrageous nightmares last night.”

  Alexander felt his brow go rigid. “Well, then, nightmares must be contagious around here, because I had a hum-dinger.”

  “Oh, yeah? We’ll tell ours if you tell yours.”

  Ho! Alexander thought. I dreamed that I got a piss-enema from a nun. That’s not the kind of thing I really want to tell people about. “Forget it,” he said instead. “One time I dreamed that the Pope and I were playing volleyball, and he was kicking my butt; dreams are a lot of laughs sometimes. But, believe me, this one’s worth forgetting.”

  “Aunt Annie said you’re here to rebuild the old abbey,” Charity said.

  “Not rebuild it, restore it,” Alexander corrected.

  “It used to be a convalescent home for priests, right?” Jerrica ventured.

  Precocious, Alexander thought. “Something like that What we’re going to turn it into now is a rehab center.” Alexander knew the rap. Lately the Catholics were getting trashed bigtime. Lots of priests up on allegations of child molestation, drug addiction, gambling. That’s all that filled the papers these days, and no doubt Jerrica, a journalist herself, had made the connection. Christ, they were probably going to close down St. Luke’s in Suitland, the rap was so hot. The local residents were protesting, said they feared for their children should a sick priest escape.

  “I’ll be the first to admit,” he came clean. “The Catholic Church is looking for remote places to field their rehab centers. Priests are like anyone else: sometimes they get sick. But in the old days, Wroxeter Abbey wasn’t a rehab, it was a hospice for dying priests. It was a long time ago, mid-70s. We had a bunch of Epiphanist nuns running the place. They were just back from Africa, and they had nothing to do, so the Pope gives them this gig.” Alexander noticed another turtle shell on the table, and lit up. “Cancer, Alzhiemer’s, and just plain old age—”

  “AIDS too, right?” Jerrica challenged.

  He didn’t jive her. “Probably, before AIDS was an official diagnosis, sure. Sometimes priests go astray, the Church has never denied that. But when they become terminal, we needed place to put them that was cheaper than a hospital. So we make hospices, and that’s what Wroxeter was.”

  “But it closed down, didn’t it?” Charity asked.

  “Yeah. It wasn’t very full, and the Pope needed the nuns to go back to Africa, for another famine. So they closed her down.”

  All this talk of nuns, though…

  Nuns, he thought, with a sudden taste like sour milk in his mouth. The nightmare… Alexander’s stomach involuntarily clenched. Then he looked up to notice Charity pouring iced tea; the trickling sound only reminded him more—of being urinated on. What inside him could summon such a dream? Did he secretly harbor some fear of refinishing Wroxeter? Do I have a secret fear of nuns? he wondered. But that couldn’t be it; it didn’t make sense.

  Wouldn’t you like to be purged? the nightmare sister had asked…

  “Father?”

  Alexander looked up. It was Jerrica, casting a sudden look of concern.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. Mind got away from me a minute. Anyway, that’s the scoop on the abbey.”

  “But that’s a strange assignment that the Church should give you, isn’t it?” Charity inquired next. “What about your regular duties, your parish?”

  The $60,000 question. “I don’t have a parish,” he admitted his pet peeve. “I’m the psychologist for the Richmond Diocese.”

  “That sounds fascinating,” Jerrica offered. “A priest shrink.”

  “I wouldn’t quite call it fascinating, but it beats jacking fries at Burger King.” God, she’s beautiful, he thought to himself. Actually, both women were, Charity’s looks remaining more subdued, more prim. But Jerrica, there was something vital about her, something really in-your-face. The striking contrast of her suntanned skin and white-blond hair, blue eyes bright as gems, slender yet curvaceous. She could pop a stiffer on a bishop, he thought. It’s a good thing I’m celibate, otherwise I’d be all over her like a cheap suit. Christ, twenty years ago? Look out, honey! At least he could joke about it now; actually, though, celibacy proved easier than he’d thought. It was even relieving. It converted his human lust into much more productive energy. Celibate, he could look at women honestly—without lust

  —and acknowledge the beauty of their womanhood minus the taint of libidinal hormones. It refreshed him to be able to look at women without wanting anything of what he saw. Besides, in his younger days he’d had his fill, so to speak. If anything, more than his fill.

  “Is Annie around?” he asked. “I haven’t seen her?”

  “We haven’t seen her either, come to think of it,” Charity said. “I don’t know where she c
ould be.”

  Alexander screwed out his butt in the turtle shell. “Last night, she told me there’s a handyman?”

  “Goop,” Charity said.

  “What?”

  “That’s his name,” Jerrica added. “Goop.”

  “Goop. Ah, well. Anyway, where can I find him? Annie said he could take me into town, to the general store. I need some supplies.”

  Jerrica’s eyes lit up. “Oh, forget Goop. Let us take you, Father!”

  (III)

  More’n more, it seemed, the more Dicky looked at Tritt Balls Conner, the more he started lookin’ ike the devil’s son. Yes sir. A lean fella he were, big, an’ with rock-hard muskles in his arms, like apples under his skin, they looked. Black hair hangin’ ta his shoulders, anna goatee ta boot. Adn that blammed John Deere hat. But it weren’t all that as much as the gander in his eyes. Steely little eyes, they was, like barrelholes on a long rifle.

  “Bored, I’se say,” Tritt Balls remarked, ridin’ shotgun in the ’Mino. “Bored shee-it-less, I is, Dicky.”

  “I’se hear that.” The El Camino rumbled along Rout 154, sucking down onto the road under about 450 horses. “What we gonna do today, Balls? We ain’t got no shine runs till the right now.”

  “‘S’true, Dicky. We’se ain’t got no runs, but what we’se do got is a wad’a cash in each our pockets the size of a hamhock. Guess we’se kin find somethin’ ta do.”

  “Shore, but what?”

  Balls chuckled, strokin’ that black goatee. “Well, I’se’ll tell ya what I’d likes ta do. Like ta cornhole me some bitch so hard my spunk’d be dribblin’ out her nose like she just blew a snot, I would.”

  Dicky frowned at the wheel and Hurst shifter. “Yeah, Balls, but we cain’t do that now. ’S’broad daylight, it is. We’se cain’t be pullin’ no shit like that this early.”

  “I’se know, Dicky, I’se were just sayin’.” Balls frowned hisself just then. “I’se hungry, though. Shee-it, man, I’se so hungry I could et me Mother Ter-ay-shah’s pussy, I could, an’ her asscrack too, I say. What say we stop on by the diner fer some hash’n eggs?”