A Self Made Monster (5 page)

“It belongs to the kid.”

“Uh?”

“The bookworm that was studying on the fourth floor.”

“That bookworm is Edward Head!”

“I borrowed it to go to the 7 Eleven. He was gonna go for coffee anyway, and I needed some aspirin and Advil for my headache. I get these clump headaches, I mean duster headaches.” Marty reached into the jacket pockets, removed two bottles: one bottle contained aspirin, the other contained Advil. “He let me use his jacket because I got some paint on mine at work tonight. I was soaking it in the janitor’s closet.” He put the bottles back in the pockets, as if he were about to leave.

Alex’s face was deformed with rage. “Now my plans are all fucked over!” He hurled a hacksaw against a wall, then threw a jar at Marty. The jar cut Marty’s scalp and exploded against the wall.

Adrenals pumping, Marty struggled to his feet. Alex was too busy smashing Ball jars to notice. Marty heard two more jars shatter as he was halfway up the stairs. His headache had escalated to a surreal level: the stairs rippled as if underwater. The pain in his back was enormous: it was too great to be contained in a single human body, and Marty faltered as the pain radiated beyond him to seemingly penetrate the walls of the stairway.

Marty reached the landing. He turned to see Alex marching slowly up the stairs.

“Goddammit! You take one step and I’ll drive these—” Alex held up his scissors “—through your eyes.”

Stumbling into the kitchen, Marty saw something on the kitchen table. A carving knife. He grabbed it, held it over his head in a threatening pose. Mute with rage, Alex threw down the scissors, crossed the room, and grabbed Marty’s shirt.

Marty slashed at Alex’s arms with the carving knife.

Alex pushed Marty against the kitchen table, but Marty kept slashing and blood welled through Alex’s torn sleeves.

“Let go of me and I won’t kill you!” Marty promised.

Alex let go.

“You stupid fuck!” Marty slashed at Alex, missed. “You believed me!” He slashed at Alex again, missed again.

Alex grabbed Marty’s head.

Marty heard bones in his neck crack from the sudden jerk, and he saw that he was about to crash against Alex’s raised right knee. Blood poured from where his nose had been. I’m surprised my nose doesn’t hurt more, Marty thought. My nose, it’s, it’s—where is it?

No time to think. He collided against the knee again. And again. His blood spattered the knee, his own pants, his work shoes, the floor. I know how to clean, he wanted to tell his assailant, you need to mix ammonia with water to get that out.

The blood on his assailant’s pants turned yellow, as if Marty were looking at the negative of a photograph. The once white floor was black, the puddles of blood were dazzling yellow, and the pain was turning into pleasure. Warm waves, like those of a sauna, soothed him.

His headache was gone.

He decided to drop the knife. No need to fight now, everything was fine! But he could not drop the knife: his hand would not obey. With enormous effort, he lifted his head and looked at his disobedient hand.

The knife had impaled his hand: the handle was on top of his hand, and the blade emerged through the palm. Marty tried to shake the knife loose, but a new pain distracted him. The new pain was in his neck and pierced the soothing waves. He tried to ask why the pain had returned, but his question was a gurgle. The new pain faded quickly into a black dot that was surrounded by blacker black.

Out of spite, Alex chewed off half of Marty’s neck, pausing only to cough up pieces of gristle. Then he dropped the carcass and went to bed.

The alarm clock sounded at seven thirty, but he was already awake. His eyes and nose ached as if struck by a ball bat. Burning white spots marred his vision.

Alex walked slowly, but each step aggravated his headache. He dragged Marty’s corpse into the basement, then wrapped it in the big plastic bag and pushed it under the workbench. As he walked up the stairs, he saw two small bottles: a bottle of aspirin and a bottle of Advil.

He cursed his bad temper. Tearing Marty’s neck open with his teeth, driving the knife through the victim’s hand: all of it was stupid and sloppy. He was spinning out of control, and his plans to gain Edward Head’s blood were at risk.

Mrs. Mathews clicked her tongue when Alex called in sick. “Goodness. With a headache that bad, you may have to see the doctor. There’s an influenza bug going around campus, and…”

Mrs. Mathews set aside her typing to discuss influenza: Alex might be suffering from both bacterial and viral infections; he should eat onions, garlic, and ascorbic acid to build white blood cells. He should check his lymph nodes for swelling. Swollen nodes cause sore throats. Alex should not use an antipyretic unless the fever becomes unbearable.

“Antipyretics are fever reducers,” she explained.

“Why not just call them that?” Alex rubbed his eyebrow. It twitched wildly, as if it had grown nostrils and inhaled pepper.

“Antipyretics are the proper name. I was a biology major, you know.”

Alex grunted.

“Furthermore—”

“You’re right,” Alex agreed. “I’m going to the doctor right now.” He hung up.

Alex slumped against the wall of the bedroom closet and drank whiskey. The booze dulled the headache, but not his foul mood.

“Go to the doctor!” He laughed bitterly at his secretary’s advice. The word “doctor” triggered memories of his dead brother. “I’m beyond the realm of doctors, thank thirsty Christ.”

Jimmy considered the sacrifice he was making to woo Holly Dish: taking a class he despised. As a rule, Jimmy disliked all his classes, but already he harbored the most sour loathing of Professor Resartus’s class. Other students also seemed to despise it, except the English majors: those pretentious grease spots in patched denim and dirty tennis shoes who blathered about symbols, metafiction, deconstruction, metaphor, and metonymy. And Resartus! A half-baked, Alzheimeresque slob who wrote a book that nobody read.

All these woeful crosses to bear, and all for hot Holly Dish. Now, bracing himself to endure Resartus’s nonsense, Jimmy waited at the end of the hallway. When Holly breezed by on the way to class, he stealthily fell in behind her. He studied her trim thighs and tight ass. Jimmy guessed that Holly was a virgin ninety-nine times removed, but he did not care. He ached for her sack-smarts, for her thighs clamping his twenty five inch waist, for her tongue in his nose.

He imagined that he was spooling her on top. She raised him up and down, like a dumbbell on the bench press.

He did not hear her say, “No class.” He walked into the empty room.

Holly stood in the classroom entrance. “You’re learning to like it here, huh?”

Jimmy tried to snort nonchalantly, but the snort came out as a belch. “See what I think of this class?” he sneered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Jimmy walked past her, hoping she did not see his blush. He was half way down the hallway when he turned around. “Want to grab some java with me at the union?” he asked in his most casual voice.

She was gone.

Jimmy stomped down the stairway and out the building. He was greeted by cold wind that cut through his jacket and cotton slacks. The life-affirming joy of a canceled class was gone, so he decided on a solo coffee. The caffeine might restore his spirits.

He forgot about the coffee when he saw Holly talking with Edward Shithead. He tried to reason with himself: she’s just after his perfect notes. She doesn’t like him. How can anyone like him? Do-it-yourself haircut. Goofy blue sweatshirt and stiff denims a size too large. Eyes that are out of whack. One eye looked higher on the face than the other did, though Jimmy had noted that look on other intellectuals.

As Jimmy reviewed the reasons to hate Edward Know It all, he realized that one of the biggest reasons was gone: that God-awful prissy varsity jacket. Jimmy guessed that Edward threw a ball like a girl—unless the girl was Holly Dish.

“Nice break from class today, huh?” Jimmy called, approaching Edward and Holly.

Edward looked up, sighed, and moved over to make room for Jimmy.

Jimmy remained standing; he took every opportunity to stand over others.

“Edward was telling me the weirdest thing about his jacket.” Holly nodded to indicate that Edward should continue with his story.

“Yeah, I noticed you weren’t wearing that jacket.” Jimmy’s grin was mocking. “It’s a nice jacket.”

Edward nodded.

Impatient, Holly offered a summary. “Edward thinks that the guy who stole it was a gambler, and that he got killed or something.”

“Well, I don’t know if I really believe that,” Edward cautioned. “But campus police said it was possible. They’d heard he owed a lot of money.”

“Edward was studying late last night, and a maintenance man was replacing all the lights on the fourth floor. He came in to replace the lights in the room Edward was in, and—”

“And he had this bad headache. He said he had a cluster headache.”

“Cluster headaches!” Jimmy cackled. “What’s
that
bullshit?”

“I think it was real. A teacher in high school had them. The headaches came in groups. Like two or three, then they’d be gone for a week or two.” Edward winced, recalling the teacher’s symptoms. “His eye would twitch and his nose and eyes would run.”

“So get a Kleenex,” Jimmy said.

“Anyway, the maintenance guy was rubbing his head and said he’d left his medicine at home. I was going to get coffee at the 7 Eleven. He said he’d get it for me and pick up some aspirin and Advil at the same time.”

“But he had to borrow Edward’s jacket,” Holly interjected, “because the guy’d spilled paint on his own jacket.”

“An hour went by. I went over to the 7 Eleven and asked Jeff if a guy in my jacket had come by.”

“Jeff the stoner,” Jimmy chuckled. He narrowed his eyes and grinned.

“And Jeff said that the guy had come in and left a long time ago!” Holly said, excited.

“So today I talked to the campus police,” Edward continued. “They said he might be in trouble with some people he owed money to, and he might have just taken off. That didn’t make sense to me. They admitted it didn’t make sense to them, either.”

“Why not?” Jimmy challenged.

“Just leave in the middle of the night, in the middle of his shift? He’d even said he needed money, and that’s why he was working a double shift. And what’s a Tailor jacket worth? And it’s conspicuous to leave with a stolen jacket.”

“There must be signs of, a, of a struggle,” Holly blurted.

“What?” Edward asked.

“Struggle,” Holly repeated. “If the guy got grabbed or jumped or whatever. C’mon let’s check it out!”

“Yeah dream on,” Jimmy snickered. “What, you think you’re a cop and you’ll find—”

“Excellent idea!” Edward announced. Holly was right: there might indeed be evidence of a struggle. He and Holly were half way across the room when Jimmy called for them to wait.

Edward, Holly, and Jimmy carefully walked up and down the path that led to the 7 Eleven.

“I don’t see any signs of struggle,” Jimmy said, trying to sound observant. He wondered if he would recognize such signs.

“What would they look like?” Holly asked.

Jimmy tried to imagine.

“Probably not much,” Edward speculated. “Maybe you’d see a pair of footprints, where they fought. Or maybe some marks in the dirt, if the guy got dragged along.”

The three scoured the path, which frequent travel had turned to packed dirt. They could find no such marks. They looked through the tall grass that ran parallel to the tracks, but found nothing.

After an hour, the wind had turned sharper. Holly complained that she was cold and went home. Without Holly around, Jimmy lost interest and left too. Edward stayed, looking for anything. He found nothing.

Jimmy cracked open a second after-dinner beer, handed a second to his frat brother Don. Don drank in peace because he had no homework. Jimmy drank in agitation because he had lots of homework. But if he got drunk, he would be incapable of studying, and so he could skip his homework in good conscience.

They passed ninety minutes in gossip: who was sleeping with whom, who was cheating on whom, and who was cheating on his term paper. Don enjoyed Jimmy’s serious treatment of gossip. Don even occasionally invented gossip just to savor Jimmy’s reaction. Jimmy, the short cynic, considered himself a shrewd operator. He was always looking for the right angle on people and situations.

Who, for example, was the easiest instructor? What girl was breaking up with what guy? She might be vulnerable, and Jimmy could provide a sympathetic ear, sweet wine, and comforting embrace. Don once lied to Jimmy that Ellen, a tall Italian girl—”Nice black curly hair, and just a faint mustache”—had broken up with her boyfriend back home.

“You know how some of those Roman Catholics are,” Don said.

“Of course I do,” Jimmy assured, even as he wondered what Don meant.

“This chick was supposed to marry this guy, and she finds him cheating on her. You know,” Don improvised, “I think that the guy’s name was Jimmy. How about that?”