by Rick Hautala
God is waiting in the store parking lot; just standing, to most, loitering maybe, but for Sharpe he’s always waiting. The old man wiggles a couple of fingers at the sweating cup in Sharpe’s hand and asks the flavor.
“Don’t know why you bother asking,” Sharpe replies. “You can’t tell the color, let alone the taste.”
“I suppose I needed to be reminded,” is the response, a salvo of brittle contempt that moves at the speed of drying paint. God has a sarcastic butler’s accent and that only grates more on Sharpe’s nerves. Of all the places to hang out and all the people to gripe on with his Eeyore shit, why does God have to trouble Sharpe while he’s tucking into his Slurpee?
Sometimes, though, Sharpe thinks maybe the old man just likes to watch him do his killin’ thang.
Sharpe swishes the cup’s already-melting contents. “Blue kind.”
“What’s it taste like?”
“Heaven. No offense.”
None taken. Sharpe supposes God looks at Heaven the same way a McDonald’s manager looks at the playland. A place where smelly shoeless runts crap in the ball pit. Sharpe takes an icy gulp. A cold little knot gathers between his eyes. That’s a new pain.
“I see you’ve got yourself a cock and some balls,” Heavenly Father observes. Sharpe glances down, but there’s nothing visible in the drapery of his sweatpants.
“You been watching me at home? I don’t like that.”
“No, no,” God says, “I just know.”
They head down the sidewalk, and God adds, “I also know you’ve been spending more and more time cooped up in that motel room, though no, I don’t look in.”
“I got internet now.”
“Mmm. A new computer and genitals. Are you starting a small business?”
“I ain’t jackin’ off if that’s what you’re asking. Haven’t gotten onto that yet. Don’t see much need for it, frankly. I get mine.”
“I don’t know if I care for these changes, Emil.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Of course. You’re a true artist and a maven at that. You don’t answer to any critic. But,” and God stops and turns to face Sharpe, “now you’re giving me reason to doubt that.”
“How so?”
Sharpe is mid-gulp when God reaches out and taps his scrotum through his sweats. Sharpe hacks up a glob of blue ice. “The hell!”
“Adam begged for them,” the old man says. “At first he busied himself making men out of clay—and he did, ugly little things, and never allowed one to draw its first breath before crushing it beneath his fist—and then he begged me for that and those.” God points at Sharpe’s crotch like it’s a condemned lot. “Then he wanted woman.”
Sharpe lowers his eyes and takes another drink. He didn’t ask for the things, they just appeared. Just like the coarse white hairs on his legs and back and like the throbbing ache in his head—his first brain freeze, he figures. Digs a knuckle into his brow and stares at the sun.
“My pulp is turning to flesh. I can feel blood wormin’ through it, carving veins. I can feel hair sprouting behind these balls and so what? So I’ll be a little bit more like the rest of ’em. A little grounded.”
“Grounded.” God spits on the sidewalk. “Buried is the word, Emil.”
*****
They continue to the Laundromat at the bottom of the hill. It’s cool inside, not like the 7-Eleven but refreshing nonetheless. The dryers rattle and hum like the Slurpee machines. Sharpe sits on a little plastic chair and kicks off his sandals, cooling his alabaster soles on the tile.
God sits beside him and surveys the joint. There’s a girl in the back unloading a washer and that’s it. Sharpe looks her over. She’s got dark brown hair cropped at the neck, thin but dark eyeliner and an aquamarine top about Hello Kitty. Kitty looks like a hydrocephalic over those fake tits. Doesn’t stir Sharpe in the pants any, but she’s nice.
“Pretty girl,” God says.
Sharpe puts the straw in his mouth and scrapes the tip of his tongue back and forth over it. He says, “Why don’t you do her?”
“It isn’t about killing, or watching you kill,” the old man replies. He coughs and hitches up his dungarees to scratch his calf. “I haven’t anything to learn about that. I could teach you a thing or two.”
Sharpe doesn’t say anything in reply. God nudges him. “What?”
The girl is in full view now, putting her stuff into a dryer. She’s wearing gray jogging shorts and flip-flops. Laundry day, right. And she doesn’t even know the two of them are there watching her. Her head’s bobbing a little, not in a blank-eyed fugue but in time to some song in her head. In her head. Sharpe wonders what it would feel like, boring into her brain with a screwdriver and watching the music run out. He shifts in the chair.
“You like her,” says God.
“She’ll do.”
Sharpe sets his drink between his legs. He’s getting hard, actually getting hard, and he feels his face go from chalk-white to eggshell in a semblance of embarrassment. This day of all days the old man has to show up with his Catholic guilt. Some G-damn adventure. And Sharpe knows there’s no getting rid of New Best Friend until he’s been allowed to scratch his secret itch.
“I know you want to watch,” Sharpe says. “No sense fibbing. It’s the kill. You’ve never dropped in to watch me do the dishes.”
God shakes his head, but he’s full of it and they both know it.
“You’re a long way from Sunday, preacher,” Sharpe says and smiles. “You talk her into leaving with us and I’ll turn her inside out.”
The old man harrumphs. If they’d been playing cards Sharpe would have pushed all in.
“No glamours,” Sharpe says. “No hoodoo. Straight pick-er-up.”
“I’m not interested—”
“Then don’t play.” Sharpe goes back to nursing his Slurpee.
“So you’ll just let her walk out of here, then?” The old man’s cheeks tremble as he tries to keep it below a whisper.
“There’ll be others. She’s just alright.” Sharpe’s making his bluff, and he knows there’s a red-hot tell pulsing against his thigh. It makes him feel stupid, that hard thing. Was that the point of the Adam story?
Sharpe looks at the Creator. The old man is incredulous.
“You don’t think I can do it,” God breathes. “You don’t think I can speak to a woman.”
“I think you’ve got the personality of a sandwich,” Sharpe replies.
God rises from his seat. His face flushes red, but it’s not anger—and maybe that’s why he likes Sharpe, after all, because who else has the stones to mouth off to him like that? Grieving mothers and fallen clergy don’t count. They’re just screaming into their hands. Only one other gentleman has ever dared say anything salty to the old man’s face. Maybe this outlaw has that same charm.
Then the old man walks over to the girl, and that just reaffirms Sharpe’s long-running theory that he’s but a god gone soft and looking to see some Old Testament torture porn.
Sharpe leans forward and listens as God stands beside the girl at the dryer. She glances at him then goes back to putting in quarters.
“You,” God says. “Do uh, I mean I, do you…”
He sits back down and Sharpe says, “Quite a rap you got there.”
“This is nonsense. Madness.” God turns on Sharpe, and this time it’s anger. He speaks quietly. “How dare you? How dare you?”
“You made a bet with the Devil once. What’s the big deal?” Sharpe pats the back of God’s T-shirt. It’s a damp red rag that says SURF SHACK on the front in faded letters. “Listen,” Sharpe tells him. “She can’t emasculate a feller what ain’t got no hang-low, right? That was the point Adam didn’t get, right? What I don’t get? So go on and introduce her to her maker.”
“You think you can patronize me?”
“I think you’ll let it slide long enough to win this wager.”
God grabs the sides of his seat and kneads the plastic. “I wasn’t made
for this. I wasn’t made for anything, you understand?”
There’s a back pocket in the girl’s jogging shorts, and Sharpe sees the folded book, a notebook, tucked halfway in and pushing up her shirt just enough to reveal some ink. On her, not the notebook. But he tells God, “Ask her what she’s writing.”
“What she’s writing?”
“No,” Sharpe corrects himself, “ask her if she writes. Then, when she says yes, then what.”
He slaps God’s knee. “Get onto it then!”
And by gumption, it works.
The little ½-scale composition book is for free writing, she says. She can’t concentrate to write while out in public, so she just lets idle thoughts flow through her pen. And her name is Amy.
“How about you?” She offers God her hand.
Shaking it lightly, he mumbles, “Ah, Max. Max Korn.”
“And how about the shy one?” She waves over God’s shoulder at Sharpe.
“Blacula,” Sharpe answers, matter-of-factly, and makes no expression when the old man gawks at him.
“So, you published?” Sharpe meanders over. “I’ve taken a hack at it in my day but never had the nerve to send anything off.” That’s not true. His inbox is full of rejections. He realizes too late that telling the truth might actually have been more endearing to her, but either way she’s smiling.
“A few things in the university lit journal,” she says. “And my blog, I guess, but that doesn’t count.”
“That’s wonderful. What sort of things do you write?” God asks, leaning in slightly, and as Sharpe stands beside him and watches Amy, she doesn’t have her guard up at all. Not the least bit threatened by these encroaching white-haired bums—
She thinks we’re queer together
Sharpe sighs and supposes it doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t anyway.
God is trying his best to move the conversation along, as is his charge, but Sharpe is no longer interested in watching him squirm. He interjects to ask the girl, “You know of any groups that get together ’round here and talk about writing? It’s just me and my books anymore.” He pinches God’s hip. “And this one.”
“Some of the people from my writing class get together,” Amy says. “But you know what they say, reading is a writer’s best teacher.”
“I didn’t know they said that.” Sharpe smiles.
*****
The sun almost seems to shudder in its firmament as God paces the sidewalk outside. He spins toward Sharpe and demands, “What possesses you to defy and DEFILE your God?”
“Maybe just that I can,” Sharpe answers. He folds and unfolds the swatch of paper bearing Amy’s phone number. “If I couldn’t then what’s this bit we do all about?”
“It’s meaningless if you don’t play!” the old man hisses. He pauses, as if he expects Sharpe to be taken aback, but there’s no reaction. He stamps his feet. Clap clap! goes God’s terrible wrath. “This all began as a lark. I mean all of it. You, her, the stars. Life! There’s no inherent purpose. That’s for you to make yourself. From the ant to the prince, that’s the gift I’ve given each of you. And you, Emil, you more than anyone had seized that will and exercised in a way that I found—most enjoyable. I admired it.”
“Past tense?”
“Now you’re just another walking hard-on.” God throws his hands in the air. “Her phone number, Emil. A writing group? A farce!”
Sharpe pockets the phone number and turns. “I’ll see ya when I see ya.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere more interesting.”
“You—I—”
“Right.” Sharpe shrugs his back at the Creator, who does nothing.
God used to have a certain odd, if uninspired, appeal, like a haunted bed & breakfast, but now he’s nothing but boring. Sharpe supposes this realization is what evolution feels like.
*****
“I don’t know. Do you feel like going?”
Amy drives a scuffed-up hatchback. The back seat is piled high with school stuff and the floor is littered with straw wrappers and receipts. It smells like maybe she used to smoke. There’s a red fir tree hanging from the rearview, but it doesn’t smell like anything. Sharpe has never trusted the red ones.
“That’s a stupid question,” Amy continues, brow knitting as she looks at him. “Of course you want to go, that’s why you’re here. We’ll go. I just feel out of it tonight.”
“People make me claustrophobic,” Sharpe says.
“Me too.” There’s hope in her eyes. He never intended on going to the group anyway, but he lets her dangle a few seconds longer. He once learned some points of manipulation and seduction from a guy in a chatroom that had actually come in handy. The only difference is that once he’s close enough he kills the girls like a normal predator.
“We don’t have to go. We can talk ourselves if you like. Get a Coke or something.”
Amy smiles and starts the car. “I’m starving. I didn’t eat because we usually meet at this little bakery. Are you hungry?”
They go to a drive-thru and then take their bag of burgers to an empty Little League field behind Amy’s neighborhood. Sharpe’s never been out this way before. He’s not sure if he’ll be able to find his way home after. Might have to take her car and tool around until he recognizes something.
Perched at the top of the bleachers, she chews daintily on a cheeseburger. “What do you write, Emil?” He’s told her his name isn’t really Blacula.
“Regular slice-of-life stuff I guess,” he says. “I don’t have much of an imagination for places and things. I think a lot about people.”
“See, I’m just the opposite. I mean, I get what you mean, but I like it when a place tells a story.”
He gestures at the field. “How about here, then?”
She stares hard at the tiny diamond, its unsettled lines and faded foot tracks. When she doesn’t say anything, he says, “I see a guy sitting up here watching the game. He’s not a dad or anything, or a weirdo, he’s just got nothing else to do.”
“I was thinking about what this field was before it was this,” she murmurs. “Where these kids play now, what used to be here?”
“Grass?” he suggests.
“Tall, wild grass,” she says. “And kids, different kids, still throwing a ball though. Maybe a hundred years ago.”
“Huh.” There’s a weird knotty thing in Sharpe’s patty that gets stuck between his back teeth. He shoves his finger into his mouth.
“Have you ever written any homoerotic stuff?” she asks. He nearly swallows the digit.
Deciding not to complicate things by addressing her misconception of himself and the old man, he simply says, “I wouldn’t be real comfortable writing about intimate things.”
“Me neither.” She rummages through the burger bag and fishes out a rogue fry. “I’m trying to work on it. Not that I want to write erotica, I’m just trying to get outside my comfort zone. It’s one of our exercises. I’ll have to read it out loud, too. God.”
“That’s scary.”
“I’m not a prude,” she says. “So why do I have a hang-up about it? I’ve written a few scenes now and they’re all like, dissociative—know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“It’s like I can’t even let my characters be that vulnerable without feeling weird about it. I’d almost rather write about sex that’s totally foreign, like literally aliens—” She glances at Sharpe. “Am I saying too much?”
“No, not at all.”
“We love sex but it’s a hang-up. It’s why kids in slasher movies get killed after they screw. That’s where I am emotionally.”
“And because they smoke pot,” Sharpe adds. He likes those Friday the 13th flicks. Sometimes when he’s stalking, he wonders if Jason Voorhees ever stood in a tool shed outside some party house at two in the morning and debated the merits of the hacksaw versus the sickle. He wonders if Jason ever had to piss. Sharpe took his first leak about a month ag
o and has barely been able to turn the thing off since.
“Do you smoke?” Amy asks.
“You mean tobacco, or don’t ya?”
“Don’t I.” She goes into her little purse.
He’s tried it before, but not like this stuff. It hits his lungs and suddenly he can feel his brain, like feel the actual thing sitting wet and heavy behind his face. He turns his neck and hands and feels the life within them too. Sharpe laughs at something somebody said once, and Amy seems to get the joke, and his Coke tastes like fucking ambrosia.
“That was…any more burgers in there?” he asks.
“You already asked that. They’re gone. Wanna get another one?”
“Nah.” Sharpe runs his fingers over the pineapples on his chest. They seem to turn slowly, like clock hands. “Ought we to be doing this right out here?”
“I don’t think anyone cares,” Amy says. “I smoke outside all the time. My boyfriend doesn’t want me doing it at his place. Doesn’t care if I get caught I guess. Doesn’t tell me to stop. I wouldn’t stop.”
“…Boyfriend.”
“Yeah, Alec. You know what he doesn’t like? When I eat fast food. He forbids it.” She grabs the burger bag and shakes it. “This. This is contraband.”
“…Alec.”
Sharpe stares at his feet. He doesn’t know why those syllables make him queasy. A-Lic. A-Lic. Amy seems far away from him now. He doesn’t like being up this high on the bleachers. He slowly maneuvers his way down the rows.
“Where are you going?” she calls.
“I’m just down here. I didn’t go anywhere.” He turns and squints at her, but the sun’s at his back. She’s hard to look at. She’s too goddamn pretty.
A-Lic.
This is all because of that dead baby rat in his pants. Goddamned thing.
“He’s a critic,” she says, scooting down. “A few papers carry him. He refuses to read my stuff though because he’s ‘too close to it.’”
