Thought Forms

by Jeffrey Thomas

  Paul puffed out his chest and raised a haughty (scruffy) chin.

  “Yes,” Jean said as if to humor him.

  “Okay. Years ago I was dating this girl who really had me mixed up, she practically drove me nuts. She left me to go to college, finally—U.

  Mass. Right? So she took me up to her dorm once to visit, and this place sucks…there’s a big party, everybody’s doin’ drugs and bong hits and getting drunk, the nuclear physicists and politicians and teachers of tomorrow, right? So this one guy who’s supposedly bisexual keeps asking my girlfriend to take a shower with him! He’s kissing her and everything…I’m sitting there steaming surrounded by all this and I wish I had a Magnum in each hand, and on the stereo is this weird fuckin’ music I don’t know what the fuck it was…so it was driving me crazy and I just looked at the stereo and arrr! ” Paul gritted his teeth and jabbed his fist in the air to symbolize his emotion, not his action. “All of a sudden the arm skids off the record and the music stops and my girlfriend looks at me funny. So the next day I can’t believe it, my girlfriend and I are walking and she asks me if I did that to the record last night—” Paul laughed “—and I said yes.”

  “Oh man that’s wild,” Maureen breathed, smiling a little, eyes sparked.

  “The other time, I did it even more consciously. I did it in here. There were times when I really wanted to go home and the panel would short out mysteriously, or something like that…more than once, y’know? But this one time this guy…well I was singing a stupid little song, you know how I fool around, and this guy, my friend Marty who used to be a molder with me, he cranked up the radio when I began singing. He always cranked it and he probably didn’t do it because of me, but at the time I was in a touchy mood or something and I got pissed, so I decided to test my powers—I was gonna fuck up his mold. So I really got myself psyched up and I began to concentrate on it, and in no time this mold that had run smoothly that night up until then began to fuck up. First this problem, then that problem. Marty was going crazy. It was too much for coincidence, too much for synchronicity. Finally as my anger began to fade his mold went back to normal and was fine after that, all by itself, no repairs.”

  “Shit, I hope you never get mad at me!” Maureen gasp-laughed.

  “Weird stories,” Jean said, wagging her head, and tossed her empty coffee cup in a waste bag. “I believe in stuff like that.”

  “You do?” said Paul. “It didn’t sound like it.”

  “Yeah, I believe it—I just don’t know if I believe your stories.”

  “It’s like you said about Vietnam—it has to happen to somebody, so why not me?”

  “I guess. I’m not calling you a liar or anything, just…” Shrug.

  “Maureen,” Paul said casually, “you wanna go in the cardboard room and get me some cardboard die-cuts?”

  “Fuck you!” she laughed. “No way.”

  “Me neither,” Abby laughed.

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” Jean proclaimed loudly. “Well, heights.

  Blood makes me sick in my stomach but I’m not like afraid of it. And I don’t like guns…”

  “If you don’t like guns and blood you’re afraid of them,” said Paul.

  He like blood and guns, in the fictional context of his art and the video epics he filmed with his cousin Ray.

  “Maybe the ghost has been taking Tar-Fiend down,” said Abigail, who’d gone back to masking.

  “Yeah, right,” said Paul.

  Maureen clicked her tongue. “What is this ‘Tar-Fiend ‘ you guys talk about?”

  “Who is Tar-Fiend? Who is Tar-Fiend? ” Paul gasped, with eyes popping. He scurried to her table. “Are you insane? The Great and Immortal Tar-Fiend? I shall summon his Majesty forth for you…”

  Maureen leaned closer to watch as Paul used her pen to start sketching on a production sheet. He seemed to be sketching out a skull.

  He said, “The first week they put me in charge of this shift I drew a creature and titled it Tar-Fiend and hung it up on a wall. The next day it was gone. I thought maybe someone either liked it a lot and kept it or hated it and destroyed it, so I wrote a note that said, ‘Where is Tar-Fiend?’ and hung it up in the same place. The next day that was gone. So over the next few weeks I hung up Tar-Fiend a few times, once over the cafeteria door—I had to stand on two boxes. This time he had a word balloon with a message to first shift, something like, ‘Foolish mortals, don’t your limited imaginations have the capacity to appreciate the presence of Tar-Fiend?’ or something to that effect. Gone the next day.”

  “Did Ted do it, you think?”

  “Nope—I asked him. I even went to Gary and asked him. He said I can draw all I want as long as it’s on break. Unless him and Ted are lying, it has to be the first shift girls.”

  “Why would they do that, rip all your cool pictures down?”

  Abigail had been waiting to pounce into the conversation, and did, her voice raised. She seemed to relish adversity, in Paul’s opinion. She answered for him, “They hate us, that’s why; they think they’re better than us. Remember I told you how they left me a note on my table telling me not to move parts off their tables? I told this girl the next day, where the hell am I supposed to work if I don’t clear a table? They don’t own these tables any more than we do. Remember what they wrote on our equipment box? ‘Don’t Touch Out Stuff.’ And what pisses me off is that they’ve got decorations hung up, Playboy cartoons and stupid pictures hanging up, but when we hang up something like a monster Paul draws they tear it down. They go out of their way to tear it down! Paul hung up a banner that said, ‘Tar-Fiend Is Coming!’ way up near the ceiling over a shelf where you couldn’t see it too good, but it was ripped down a couple days later. They have their pictures and tables and chairs and when we come into their work area they look at us like we’re shit. I mean, doesn’t that make you mad?”

  “Really,” Maureen cooed, checking on Paul’s progress. From what she could see, Tar-Fiend was a moldering skeleton with mechanical appa-ratuses grafted to him to keep him alive; tubes running out of his temples, his skull jaw wide and a long slick tongue hanging out dripping blood. He had a heart with an arrow impaled through it tattooed on his arm, a spoof of a similar tattoo on Donna’s arm. He was pretty disgusting, perhaps offensive enough to inspire the weak-stomached first shift to censorship.

  “Nothing makes me more furious,” Paul said, finishing a gnarled hand, “than somebody who sneers at my artwork. It’s an insult. In a way, though, it’s an honor…because I affected these people, I got them upset.

  It makes me pissed but it makes me laugh at them.”

  “Are you gonna hang him up?” Abby asked.

  “You bet. You can’t suppress Tar-Fiend.”

  “Aw-right!”

  Maureen watched Paul complete Tar-Fiend’s latest incarnation.

  “You’re so talented,” she told him.

  56

  Chapter

  3

  Ray had six guns (eight if you counted the BB rifle and BB

  pistol). He left the single shot shotgun at home, and his AR-7

  Explorer .22 rifle because it was broken. The .357, the .38, the

  .22 pistol and his other .22 rifle he brought with him.

  It was a blue-skyed, very warm May Sunday; he wore his blue jeans from yesterday and a short-sleeved khaki shirt with tails untucked. His avi-ator sunglasses had cost him twenty-six dollars and he was proud of them, but didn’t wear them often lest peopled think he was trying to look cool and tough. He drove alone. A friend had introduced him to the spot but since then he had come here on his own except once with his cousin Paul, and once with his best friend Dicky and Paul together. He, Dicky and Paul had all fired the .357 with .38 special loads (Dicky very reluctant at first)—only today did Ray have .357 loads for the fairly new Magnum.

  He would experience them for the first time alone.

  Another uncivilized back road like the one he lived on, though more hilly. Only one hou
se along it, too, though a higher income than his was in evidence. Further down, a rocky dirt road broke to the left and was blocked a short distance in with boulders and some fallen trees laid for that purpose. Ray parked his car, made sure it was locked, and went on foot carrying his rifle in one hand, finger lightly on the trigger, and an army-type duffel bag with the ammo. The dirt road crackled and crunched under his sneakers, a nostalgic outdoorsy sound—the air a nostalgic scent. The gun a nostalgic weight—only it wasn’t a childhood toy anymore. Or was it? Ray had passed the boulders and further up the trail the land opened up. To the right, beyond a wall-like heap of rock, lay a small pond; to the left were a series of three tall, rocky sand-pits. Hunks of metal, an old TV antenna, but mostly trash intended as targets. Ray bypassed the first two pits as too rocky. He was glad no one else was here today. From the looks of things, some shooters had been here since his last time, but mostly the shotgun shells were rusty and tire-flattened, the empty .22 boxes faded.

  What a locale for a movie. He and Paul could stage a realistic gun battle here, with real guns. No sound effect, even in real films, could match the real thing in quality. He and Paul just hadn’t got around to it yet, but someday they’d film some good video carnage here.

  Ray set down his duffel bag on the rocky ground, unpacked. He decided on the rifle first. It was a semiautomatic Ruger Model 10/22 carbine. It looked a lot like a real .30 carbine to him, which was why it had attracted him. The regular magazine had a ten shot capacity but Ray had bought a long and radically curved “banana” clip that held thirty bullets.

  It took a while to fill it and the gnats about took advantage of his preoc-cupation by swarming around his head. Finally he clicked the clip in the belly of the rifle, rose, turned and considered what to destroy.

  At the foot of the curved sand-pit was a giant tree stump on its side, serving as the central base. Leaning against it were a gas tank from a truck, rusty and bullet-ripped, a punctured sheet of metal, some large pipe made of something like plaster or light cement, and all around a scattering of torn beer cans and obliterated bottles.

  Ray set down the rifle and went to the target spot to arrange a better variety. He found two intact bottles—amazing—and some large pieces of bottle neck, set up some plastic soda bottles, a few cans, a bleach bottle, some big chunks of slate. That was a fair selection. He went back to his guns.

  The .22 didn’t give much jump, the report was an inoffensive fire-cracker snap, but Ray still wore cotton in his ears. He’d learned his lesson the first time he fired his .38 five years ago without protection and was eighty percent deaf for the day, with a ringing that lasted several more.

  Three cans in a row jumped, a bottle neck tinkled, a hunk of slate exploded like a clay pigeon. Ray switched to the very top of that plaster-like conduit and pumped bullet after bullet into it as fast as he could pull the trigger, chewing away the rim at the top, trying to see how much he could cut away before he ran dry. Smoky dust flew from the pipe. Little brass shells popped out of the side of the gun to litter the ground. Crack, crack, crack, click. Empty.

  Ray switched to his H&R Model 923 nine shot revolver, which took the same ammo as the rifle. A toy-like pistol with black plastic grips and a handle a little too short for comfort. The cylinder wasn’t hinged: the whole thing popped out in your hand so it was a bit awkward to load at first. When he was ready he surveyed the battlefield for survivors.

  The pistol was louder than the rifle, the barrel being so much shorter and the cylinder area letting sound out. Blue smoke blew out from the muzzle and sides. The gun had a little bit of kick to it. Ray shot at a can three times. No movement, but he was sure he’d hit it at least once. He walked to within three feet of it and fired twice more. No movement, but he had to have hit it. They must have zapped straight through, the can being stabbed on a piece of wood stump. Ray moved back and emptied the rest at an intact bottle, hitting it on the last try. With its fairly short barrel, the gun wasn’t very accurate. Cocking the hammer first and firing it with a hair trigger made it more accurate, but he didn’t do this much, and he mostly fired it with one hand, too, which didn’t help.

  The .38 S&W Model 36 snub-nose was his oldest gun, but for his broken Explorer. A mirror-bright, nickel-finished detective’s special with a two-and-a-half inch barrel. It and the nickel Magnum complemented each other nicely. Someday he wanted pearl grips for it to replace the checkered wood. He loaded her up with five semi-brass jacketed hollow-points.

  The first shot he’d ever taken with the snub .38 it had jumped and the hammer, being close to his thumb in such a compact revolver, had gashed his thumb. That had also happened once the last time he shot it, because he had fired too fast, without a good grip. With its short barrel and greater loads, this pistol kicked and the sound made the .22 pistol seem like a cap-shooter. It was as inaccurate as hell. Ray missed twice on the bleach container, tried two more a few steps closer, on the last shot he walked within four feet of it. It was a big target so he hit it. He pretty much bypassed the .38 after that—the Magnum was too luring.

  First he loaded it with .38 special flat-nosed semi-wadcutters. He shot holding the pistol in both hands but didn’t bother with a wide stance. The heavy gun kicked but not as much as the .38 snub, what with the heavier barrel, and with more barrel the bullet had more revolutions; it would go further and straighter like a good football throw. Accurate. After three shots Ray switched to one hand. An intact bottle tinkled into dust. A rusty can leaped. Good, solid, satisfying impacts.

  After those six he switched to .357 Magnum loads. Hollow-nosed.

  Exciting—his first time.

  He didn’t know what to expect. How much greater power over the .38

  slugs. He was deliciously surprised.

  Those shells weren’t longer for nothing, the mythic allure of the Magnum not unfounded. The gun didn’t kick back and cleave his skull as some had said Magnums did, but it was more than you saw or felt from watching TV cops shoot it out. He had both hands on it and now he wore green headphone-type ear protectors, but the recoil jerked his hands up, jolted his shoulders back, his whole upper body back a little, and the noise—even muffled—was immense. It was like some small thunder clap, with a sort of whoomp sound in there.

  WHUMP—that rusty truck’s gas tank was punctured.

  WHUMP—a two liter plastic soda bottle jumped two feet off the ground.

  Ray switched to one hand for the next six Magnum loads.

  He went through five hundred .22 bullets, fifty .38 bullets, and thirty

  .357 bullets. He didn’t want to use them all up at once because of their expense, and because he wanted to keep the Magnum loaded with them for home protection. The .38 specials weren’t enough for him anymore. It took some amount of will to keep himself from using up those twenty last

  .357 shells.

  He left with the sun lowering in the sky, feeling very contented. The wonders of annihilation. He was particularly proud that he could say to himself he had fired his first Magnum bullets, and out of a Magnum he owned. It was almost like having had sex for the first time—that kind of self-satisfaction, that kind of fantasy finally come true.

  Though most people who have shot Magnums have had sex first.

  ««—»»

  Sometimes the beginnings of an attraction or infatuation are obvious, as when one sees or meets a particular person who appeals to their personal concept of outward beauty. It was easy for Ray to understand what had prompted him once to ask out a Portugese girl at work. From her first day he had been attracted to her physicality. She was short, with sexy wide hips, with pouty childish prettiness, long black hair in bangs, wearing heavy glasses and somewhat native clothing instead of Americanized fashion. Dark, earthy, human, unlike the fabricated beauty personified by American fashion models and commercial actresses. A lot of Latin types, Europeans, blacks and especially Asians excited him. So he was attracted early, but asking her out was another matter—that came later, after he had
found her to be shy, family oriented (a virgin, he heard).

  One night after weeks of torturous stalling and hours of fantasy confrontations and conversations and happy endings, Ray drew her a card that just said “Hi!” inside, showing a cute kitten batting curiously at a but-terfly. He photocopied it for his personal records at the library, and the next day, up til now having only exchanged shy hellos with her, he gave it to her at the foot of the stairs during break. She said it was cute and bashfully accepted it. He went upstairs, heart pounding. The next day during break, at the foot of the stairs, he asked her if he could take her out to a movie or dinner sometime. She looked a little more than nervous—she looked a little scared. She shook her head. A boyfriend? he asked. She nodded. Well, if she ever changed her mind… “I don’t think so,” she replied. After that, some days he walked past her like she didn’t exist, but usually they exchanged subdued but friendly hellos like before. About a month later he wondered why she seemed extra friendly lately, watching him; a mood. He asked her if she still had a boyfriend. She nodded. He joked, “Oh, you’re no fun,” and he went upstairs. She still worked here, way in the back but still painfully within his vision, torturing him when she walked by him, her rear full, haunches shifting in her tight skirt like those of an animal. A pagan goddess. He often wished she’d quit.

  But when a person’s physicality doesn’t leap out at you like that, your attraction to them can sneak up on you—surprise you—as if your unconscious has been working independently of you, building something.

  A few weeks into May, Ray found himself paying extra attention to the new redheaded girl. It made him wonder if he hadn’t been paying this attention all along.

  He had stored up information about her. Her name was Heidi. She was twenty-one. She was working the summer, having just completed her junior year at U. Mass. She was obviously bookwormish, reading from a paperback at breaks, which she took at her machine—never out in the break room with the male card players again. She attended some night school classes or other several nights a week. In mood, she reminded Ray a little, sometimes a lot, of himself. Though he was a high school drop-out, like his cousin Paul.