Lust Demented (3 page)

“I’m sorry about your father.” I could already picture Percy’s body in the ground, maggots eating his skin.

“You hated his guts like everyone else. It was just a matter of time that somebody dealt with him the way he dealt with others.” Lars was Percy’s son. His real name was Clayton Featherton. He probably picked his last name so the day somebody decided to shade in his past with typeset font and pleasant exaggerations there was no chance the title would get fucked up.

“Now Gloom’s gone too.”

“Last time I saw the dark sorceress she attacked me with a steak knife at Peter Lugers. I splashed her eyes with gravy, but she managed to take a piece off the corner of my ear.” Recounting the story, Lars pulled back his hair so I could see the slight deformity the slain scribe marked him with. A questionable tale to say the least. Waiting for my reaction, his eyes became orbs that turned the world into a giant shadow that only he could navigate aimlessly. It was at that moment that Hawaii appeared wearing tiny pink shorts. I hadn’t seen her in some time. She looked pretty much the same as the last time we bumped into each other, except she was wearing shorter shorts. Every time we crossed paths I noticed that her shorts would get shorter. Shorter every time. Hawaii was the bridge between Lars and Gloom. A couple years ago, she dated them both simultaneously and the discovery blossomed into the scuffle over red meat that Lars had just finished lamenting. It made the papers and I remembered lining my kitchen cabinets with the newsprint.

“Farrow the transient outcast and Lars my bitter love.” Hawaii put her arms around both Lars and I. Hawaii had the habit of laughing after everything she said. It might have come off as an obnoxious or an ignorantly stoned gesture if it came from somebody else, but something about her ways was subliminally seductive. It was a gentle orgasmic giggle that forced you to picture her in scenarios reserved only for her.

“How are the girls?” For some reason it made me relax to see Lars cringe. Despite his open-minded demeanor, he struggled with the fact that Hawaii’s main duty outside of spoken word throwdowns was to help chicks rid themselves of unwanted pregnancies.

“They’re fine Farrow. Thanks for asking.” Hawaii smiled, affectionately massaging both of our shoulders. “Truth is I’ve shifted roles at the hospital. I got a transfer to the neonatal intensive care unit about a year or so ago.”

“That’s nice.” Lars stayed suspicious as Monika Gloom’s latest pet got up on the stage.

Kiko seemed to hover above us all, forcing the entire crowd to start at the pointy toes of her stilted blue leather boots and follow floral black lace leggings to her lunar skin mid-thigh, tangling our minds deep in a short black and white anime maid’s dress, slices of fabric missing which allowed her tattoos to burst through bleeding color. Her hair dyed deep blue where it was not jet black, short where it was not spiked up in a fuck the world typhonic wave.

“Why don’t you all shut up?” The room filled into an immediate hush as Kiko snarled, whipping her neck around jaw first.

“You… you just stand there waiting to hear me read the same words that you read to yourself. The same words that you make mean whatever you want them to mean. You think they’re written for you, but these are my words. Monika used to say… Kiko you’re my porcelain muse, stay near me so I can write. Never shatter.” Kiko licked her lips, fighting the endless desert in her mouth.

“I can’t do this.” Choking up with two fingers inserted past the knuckle, Kiko shook Gloom’s latest novel like it was an extension of her fist.

“Pale skin and pale words.” Lars rolled his eyes, twitching on account of the unwanted attention. The gawkers that weren’t wrapped up in Kiko’s trance were staring down Lars from all corners of the room.

“What do we do now?” I was getting restless, short-attention span and all.

“Listen.” Hawaii used a roguish whisper to undress Kiko on stage.

The crowd cynically dished out unintelligible jeers intended as support. Kiko inhaled deeply, opening the hardcover as she exhaled into the microphone, “This is an excerpt from
Viscous
by Monika Gloom…” Everyone started clapping like their favorite band finally sobered up enough to take stage. Kiko dramatically stared at a sky blocked by a black ceiling. When she was finally ready her eyes fell back on the page. “The uncivilized fathers of New Amsterdam cannot comprehend the biological clock of the immortal undead. I have seen more sunrises than the city’s bridges have been masturbated by river waves. I have tasted more necks than the soil has swallowed plague ridden bones… that’s it… she’s dead… I’m sorry…” Kiko and most of the Gloom groupies in the room seemed to have the passage memorized. Stomachs grumbled to be fed their idol. Heartbroken fans stormed the stage, prying the book from Kiko’s hands. Ripped pages filled the room, twisting and twirling through the air, landing on candles with poofs of smoke.

I noticed Lars shaking his head and found myself shaking mine in agreement. Whatever happened tonight was over and done with. Hawaii gazed in wonder at the strange man making his way across the room. Detective Anderson motioned to me and it seemed like a good time to get some fresh air.

“It was nice seeing you guys. Give Detective Anderson my regards.”

“Who?” Hawaii and Lars exchanged suspicious glances.

B
LACK
RAIN. WRITING IS A
race against death. The only difference that the present moment had over the day to day was the assassin slicing up the competition and leaving my calling card behind in torn from the binding. Usually when I left a room of writers, a suspicion lingered that my delusions were justifiable.

Cloud sweat pounded my armor chest. I could only march on unashamed to ruin or fame. Delivery guys in their makeshift ponchos chugged forward through the honks. The city was mad with hunger and willing to pay dearly for her secret fetish. It had been a long time since I’d seen or been seen. Seasons had passed since the public success of my pilfered novel. It was no mystery to any of them that I was sitting around chanting obsessed curses of vengeance.

Nude in the dim lighting, Missy moved in a trance of summoned passion. The music was loud enough that she didn’t notice me at first. When she did catch my eye, it was with a gas chamber stare. A metaphoric blade at my throat.

“Practicing for the old man?”

I was staring lost into the East River. I didn’t remember exactly how I got there, but I could remember other things. Spend enough time in this town and every corner becomes stage for a memory. There was a bench at my side that I just couldn’t sit on. Last time I sat on that bench, Missy stood behind me with searing eyes.

“You’re not a man.” Her words were forever etched.

“You don’t even know what a man is.”

“You’re not a man, Farrow.”

“A man survives.”

“What?”

“A man survives. That’s all.”

Missy’s reasoning at the time was based on nothing more than what she wanted me to decide for her. I had already made my decision before I met her. Just the same, she had already made her decision before she met me.

“You’re no writer.” Engorged, her breasts shook as we waited on line at the supermarket. She was pregnant. Hormonal.

“What do you want?”

“I have no idea. I only know what I don’t want.”

“Then what don’t you want?”

“I don’t want you here. I don’t want your baby living inside me.”

“It’s our baby. Not only mine.”

“It’s nothing.”

Missy had room for a dozen razors under her tongue. She explained how she had no choice. We weren’t ready. She had to kill it. Now ghosts of dead publishers and overly ambitious writers were at my sides. I wondered if anything changed. The bench was still there. I wanted to rip it out of the ground and throw it in the fucking river. That’s just what I needed to do, so I did it.

T
HE
BENCH DIDN’T FLOAT AND
neither did I. Rain arpeggiates the river’s surface helping along the three foot swells. Above the water the city is a shimmering miracle. A rough menstrual drain pouring from Gotham’s luscious lips. The entire planet was spotted with blood to drown in. I was more a part of it than it wanted me to be. The bench was sinking somewhere below me. I could no longer see her, but I knew she… I mean it…was still there.

“What do you want me to say?… um let me see Farrow… how about… I just give you more material for your book.”

“My book?”

“A Greater Truth… if it even exists! Not everything in life is material for your book. Please don’t make me material for
my book
.”

“Your book? What the fuck are you talking about?”

She called it her book. I was taking her serious up until that point. I should’ve taken her even more mysterious when she let that claim slip. If the night carried out in the direction it was heading, my last book would forever be credited to someone else. Motherfuck memories. Thoughts of the woman were electrocution. Unfortunately, the river made certain things far and others close. How strange to be alone anywhere in this city. Fighting the current would only tire me. Bobbing between silence and droning echoes… between the townhouse Percy’s life was taken and Gloom’s death-stained cave.

After the Williamsburg, there were two more bridges for me to pass under before I was out to sea. I too wanted to join in the killing, but I set my goals higher than one of my own. I wanted God dead by sunrise. The fantastical concept reflected itself illuminated. It would be a traditional crime of revenge, jealousy, and awe all in one. Such an overweight sacrilege bordered on immortal innocence. Somebody already discovered the nuclear bomb more than a half-century ago, but took their finger off the button too soon. Fuck it… maybe that’s how civilization began in the first place. Either way the almighty appeared to be immune from any technology our tumored brains could design in self-hate.

Enough deprecation. Save philosophy for the silhouette of a man ready to leap into the waters. I could just make him out in the downpour. Though I couldn’t see him clearly, I sensed where the figure would land before he even leapt. I wasn’t sure if it was a giant raindrop falling from a cold steel cloud or a human tear straight from the creator. Instinct on my shoulders, I took deep breaths preparing for the dive to make things right. Occasionally there are times in life when you know you’re standing or in this case floating in the right place. When life collides in order.

A brief flash of light, the body torpedoed past me. I followed the human form into oblivion. We were raindrops racing down a window. I shot through the glassy rain and slowly became the drop of water caught up in the race. A rare occasion of peace. I’m not sure he even knew I was there. He thought he was alone. That he found the only place among the eight million that he could die in silence.

H
E
WAS WRONG. EITHER WE
would die together or live together. It wasn’t his choice. Next thing I knew I was back above the water. Under the last bit of strong light before a patch of darkness, I recognized the suicide diver as Lars Wildman. We passed the Brooklyn Bridge, floating out into New York harbor. The shock sent me unexpectedly underwater. He pulled me to the surface. I looked at him, then at the Statue of Liberty. I could see up freedom’s skirt and taste the bitch’s freshly fucked cunt.

There were more than a few shores to aim for. Effortless drifting could strand us on Governors Island and leave a lot of explaining to do. Harbor patrol was visible in the distance. So far the cops were useless and landing there would just bring more rubber badges and plastic pistols. In a strange way I never felt so free. I was too small for the big ships to see, while any small patrol vessels seemed to fly by at blurring speeds. It was as if I didn’t even exist.

Of all people to share this moment with, it made sense it was Lars. People coasted in and out of our lives, but somehow our friendship survived. Lars was born a success and I piled up scarcely read pages. We swam through this world, pulled by an invisible current. Then it was over as if it never happened.

“My lungs.” Blue skinned missing air.

“My head is burning up. My whole body aches.”

“Motherfucker pushed me off the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“Who?”

“You know who.” Lars fighting the spasms in his chest.

“Nobody.”

“Somebody. Farrow why the hell were you doing the backstroke in the East River anyway?”

“What the hell were you doing jumping... I mean… getting thrown off the Brooklyn Bridge, Lars?”

“You know as well as I do that everything that doesn’t end in orgasm or death is just a hustle to write more. Writing lately?”

“
Lust Demented.
”

“I dig it.”

“That’s not the title.”

“It should be.”

“It is. I was just testing it out on you. What the fuck do you want? I’m washed up. I traded my last book for a murder rap and an invisible woman.”

“Could’ve been worse… you could’ve traded it for love.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“I got a new book too Farrow.”

“What’s it about?”

“The usual. I found a sacred spot to write it this time. The roof of the library on Forty-Deuce. I know a few of the guards there. They used to do security at The Featherton building. When they’re not working, I sneak in jewel-thief style. Write my ass off.”

“The spot to get it done.”

“I sit out on the ledge and leave my body behind. I turn into a gargoyle on the side of the building. A stone statue that nothing can harm. Same as my old man was, except he was more on the lines of Michelangelo’s Moses. Sitting proud… unashamed. Not lurching no matter how many motherfuckers were bashing at his knees with hammers and chisels.”