Authors: Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
Ghosted (25 page)
Mason shivered beneath the hot sun, felt his own scalp crawling. Gas Station Joanie was inside the store, calling the tow truck driver again. She came out, two cans of beer in one hand. “Whatcha reading?”
“You don’t want to know.”
She shrugged and passed him one of the beers. “The tow truck guy’s being complicated. Says a Dogmobile’s not a real
kind of car and he doesn’t know when he can get here. Whatever happens, it’ll cost you.”
“Figured it would.” He’d tried to talk to the tow truck guy himself, but it hadn’t gone very well. “Isn’t there someone else?”
“Round here? You got somewhere to be?”
Mason opened the can of beer. “No idea.”
“That’s a weird answer.”
He tipped the can towards her.
“Cheers,” she said. “Don’t worry—I won’t bug you. We’ll have us a drink, then I’ll leave you to your reading.”
T
HE
B
OOK OF
H
ANDYMAN
Although Larry says he’s not reading this, he seems right fucking edgy about something.
I handed it in for his “perusal.” At our next session he put it on the table between us and tried to look me in the eye, but his gaze fell fast and he was staring at my chest. “What’s up, Mr. White,” I said to him. “You checking out my titties?” I said it in that same voice I’d been using since the day I met him—kinda stupid, sort of naïve, almost accidentally rude. We’ll call it my first-page voice.
He took a moment, then said, “Remember—you can call me Larry.”
I’ve got to hand it to him; that was just great: you can call me Larry! He started babbling about how it was good to see that I’d taken his advice, and that writing was a constructive thing to do. But I had this vision forming:
Larry the Fat Bitch is in his office. He’s taken off his jacket and is looking particularly ugly in a sweaty beige checkered shirt. He stops for a moment to contemplate his likeness to a hideous overweight woman. Pushing the thought away makes him twitch. He reaches down and pulls a brown notebook from his briefcase. He starts to read. And now, in my vision, his thoughts form in a bubble over his fat head, as would those of a particularly ugly comic book character.
“Ah, yes. Poor Seth Handyman. Can’t write any better than he talks: the semi-coherent, childish ramblings of an idiot. Maybe with a bit of time, though, and my help of course, he can learn to access things, process his thoughts. I could write a paper about it. Oh look, there’s my name!” And then Larry turns the page.
And oh, what’s this?
Fat Larry starts to shake.
The sweaty patches spread across his ugly shirt. He breathes quickly—and then, reading on, the words fill his brain like smoke fills a lung. He coughs, then retches.
When he’s finished there are two thought bubbles over his head. One says, “Holy shit, that man can write!” The other says, “He’s going to scalp my fat ugly head!”
“If Larry White knows what’s right
He’d better keep his mouth shut tight
Sing Larry White (Larry White)
Sing Larry White (Larry White)
It’s all right (It’s all riiiiight).”
The thing about reading this fucked-up crap—it took his mind off Sissy.
But is the book going to last the rest of your life?
The sun was starting to sink in the sky.
“Still nothing.” Gas Station Joanie was leaning in the doorway. “There’s a bus goes by the junction to the county road. It’d take you into Barrie.”
“Just leave the Dogmobile?”
“They got other tow trucks in Barrie.”
“Well, why don’t we call one?”
“Not their district.” She came out of the shadow and looked at the empty road.
“What time’s the bus at?”
“Five-thirty,” said Jonie. “It’s almost five now. I’d give you a ride, but I’ve just got the scooter.” She pointed at it, parked beside the tin-can building—small and orange. He couldn’t imagine how she fit on it.
And so Mason gave up on the tow truck man. He said goodbye to Gas Station Joanie, paid her for the beers, and headed back to the county road. He’d been up for thirty-six hours, killed the Dogmobile, stranded himself—and all for what?
For nothing
.
When he got to the highway he checked his cellphone again. Still no reception, and it was past 5:30—no bus to be seen. His mouth felt full of sawdust. He sat down and drank a bottle of water. His hollow body ached, the air around him dry. Naught for company but the ramblings of a disturbed convict.
T
HE
B
OOK OF
H
ANDYMAN
A few notable things have happened of late. Firstly, our dear friend Larry has greatly impressed me—so much, in fact, that I will
refrain, for the time being, from referring to him as Larry the Ugly Bitch (that he remains an ugly bitch is, for now, unimportant). I assumed that he was a coward and that upon “perusing” my latest journal submission he would (a) hand it over to the warden, (b) refuse to counsel me any more, (c) quit his job and spend his time wetting himself in lieu of jacking off.
But wrong I was, on all counts. Fat Larry has handed me back this notebook, which suggests one of two things: (1) he was honest about not reading what I wrote, or (2) he is being a man for once in his girly life. Either way, good for him. Although nervous, he managed to mumble for a while, then said he’d like me to “go back further now—and write about other things.”
Which brings me to notable thing the second. In this prison—a terrible, shitty place, filled with ugly passion but no succulence—I’ve rediscovered something I truly enjoy: I like to write. It feels fucking good. And for that I thank Larry.
Thirdly, there’s this: according to the charter, my internment is meant to be rehabilitation rather than punishment, yet I’ve been here four and half years, convicted of horrible crimes, and it wasn’t until someone lopped off the top of my head that I was deemed fucked-up enough for personal therapy. It’s wondrous, really; the system understands exactly how I feel: more for my scalp than for my sins.
And the final thing to note is our calendar.
In just two more months I’ll be up for parole.
It was past six o’clock. The bus hadn’t come and Mason was having trouble reading. His brain was boiling from the heat of the day, the drugs and exhaustion. A car drove by. Ten minutes later, another, and neither of them stopped—like he wasn’t even there.
But he knew that he was—he could tell by the mosquitoes. They were feasting on him now, buzzing around his ears. He slapped at them, blood streaking his fingers. His scalp was crawling, his skin burning as they swarmed.
The Lak—of Fir—is real!
And now he was up and running, back towards Utopia.
51. I would rather do karaoke than sing in the shower.
52. Good things never come in threes.
The scooter was gone, the gas station closed. He looked at the sign on the door:
Hours of Operation: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., except when I feel different
.
He’d never seen a business referred to in the first person singular before. And now it occurred to him: he hadn’t asked her a thing about herself—just kept on taking her beers, listening to those
hoo-hoo-hoos
—couldn’t say if she was happy or dying of loneliness. He sat down next to a gas pump, a lamp buzzing overhead, the deep yellow glow. Did the bus even exist?
At least the mosquitoes were gone. Maybe the smell of gasoline kept them away.
Maybe, maybe, and fucking maybe
.
Who fucking knows?
He leaned against the pump awhile, waiting for sleep or nothing. He thought of Sissy. Soon and Sarah. Warren and Willy. Then he pulled out the goddamn notebook.
T
HE
B
OOK OF
H
ANDYMAN
“If Larry White’s butt was tight
I’d fuck it hard with all my might
Sing Larry White (Larry White)
Sing Larry White (Larry White)
It’s alright (It’s aalllriiight)”
Aw, I’m just kidding. But that’s a fucking great word, isn’t it? Alllriiiight. You listen to good rock ’n’ roll—say some Velvet Underground—and there is no greater attainment than
alright
. That’s all you can hope for, and you’ll do anything to get it—drugs, sex and violence all night, and then anything at all to feel
alright
, more and more till nirvana. Nirvana feels alright. I feel alright. Lou Reed feels alright. Steve Earle feels alright. And finally Kurt Cobain feels alright.
But sometimes it takes a lot.
Okay, picture this: it’s three o’ clock in the afternoon, April 8, 1994. I’m sitting in my brother’s living room, drinking beer and listening to
In Utero
. I’ve been doing this since I turned off the TV. No one else is home. This morning an electrician found Kurt in his own guesthouse. On the floor next to him was a shotgun, a suicide note and a large part of his head. So I’m fucking angry—and with each turn of
In Utero
I’m getting angrier. This album used to get me off without too much risk, make me feel “alright.” But now he’s ruined it for me—and it’s not like he’ll be making any more of them….
When I see her through the window, “Heart-Shaped Box” is playing. I see her red socks, and make my decision fast—up and out the door. I reach the sidewalk in front of the yard at the same time she does. Then, just like that, I pick her up, like a little bunny.
She is remarkably light, I move fast, and we’re up the stairs before she starts to scream. I close the door behind us.
The screaming is distracting. I’m trying to cover her mouth and I drag her over to my brother’s toolbox, but by the time I’ve found the duct tape and stretched it over her teeth I can barely feel my prick. So I push her onto the carpet facing up, and kneel on her little arms.
When she struggles, her pigtails whip back and forth, her eyes flooding over. I reach my hand under her Care Bear T-shirt and pull at her tiny nipples. They’re hard. The opening riff to “Rape Me” is playing as she writhes beneath me. It looks like she’s moving to the music; I fucking love that, and start to slobber. “You’re going to like this song, baby,” I say … and by the time our Kurt (half his head missing) has reached the song’s end, I am deep inside her—the first man ever, and probably the last.
I did everything to that little bunny—stopping only to turn over the record. At one point I got tired, so I poured a full beer into her. When the bottle was all the way in I took off the tape so I could hear her screaming. When it turned back to sobs I said, “Tell me your name and how old you are.” Then I said, “If you don’t, I will break this bottle inside you.” It took a while, but eventually she said, “My name is Becky. I’ll be eight next week.”
“That means you’re seven,” I said, and filled her mouth with her underwear. It had blue ducks and blood on it. I taped it all in and got back to it—her body bouncing and twitching like a spastic fucking Care Bear.
And I’ve got to tell you: by the time we were done, I loved
In Utero
again. I loved that fucking album, and I felt Alright.
The sad, drunk stranger had left hours ago, staggering up the road, but now Sissy Follow heard something outside. She opened the front door. There was a commotion in the stables—the beating of hooves, whinnying. She went back to get the rifle, then headed towards the barn. The sky was dark, just a faint glow on the horizon, stars appearing like in pinhole cameras.
She pulled back the barn door and could see right away what was missing: a blanket, saddle and bridle. She entered the paddocks. Silver, her shining white stallion, was gone. In the sawdust lay a piece of paper:
I am sorry, Sissy, for everything.
He was riding a white horse, leaving Utopia behind.
There are a number of ways to see it, and just as many to say it: You could say he’d been galloping like this for five long years, a ghost rider chasing him. You could say he had a monkey on his back, or an albatross or a drug-addled chimpanzee. You could say he was on the back of a stolen horse, carrying a bag of secrets.
He can see Sarah’s hair, shimmering in the moonlight as they race across the plains. He leans forward, thumping the horse’s broad neck with his open hand. He feels a great love for the animal, the night sky, the dizzying, rumbling speed—chasing something and
also chased. This is where he is supposed to be, racing in the silver light—ready to fly or fall.
You could see it as a metaphor or a cheap cosmic joke. But this much you’d
have
to see: the branches
were
whipping his face, the stirrups
were
a bit uneven, the hooves
were
thundering beneath him. He
was
on the back of a white horse—five years ago and now again—drunk, high and full of purpose.
He pulled out his cellphone.
Still no reception
.
On his back was a pack.
In the backpack, a notebook.
He had read it front to back.
Faster, man!
Turning his head, he caught a glimpse of wings. He leaned forward and dug in his heels.
Giddy fucking up!
T
HE
B
OOK OF
H
ANDYMAN
I’m worried about Larry the Fat Bitch. I might have judged him too highly. He did return this notebook to me, but with hesitation. And I’m pretty sure I could see little Becky the Bunny in his eyes.
That always cracks me up: as if my situation has anything to do with her. It didn’t even have to be a little girl. It might have been anybody that day—a fat, girlish-looking man with pit stains, who just happened to waddle into the light at the right time, a short necktie instead of red socks … or not a person at all; a new drug could have fallen from the sky, God might have
risen up and licked my balls with a tongue of pure sensation—any of those things might have worked right then. It was a small fucking moment.
Fatty’s eyes are only full of little Becky since she’s who I chose to write about—and that’s only because I was busted for that one. It’s not like I’m copping to anything new, or threatening anyone—that would be stupid, especially so close to my parole hearing.
Speaking of which, I’m sure, despite his worrisome sputtering, Larry will testify courageously on my behalf. There’s really no reason not to; they’ll let me free eventually. They tried to kill me and failed, might even try again—but someday I’ll walk out of here, my fucked-up head held high.
I trust he’ll remember that.