The Bighead (10 page)

Yes, another world it was here. Simple
in its truth, and so real in its lack of veneers. Real people with
real problems, however unadorned. The typical bar in the city would
be full of phony pseudo post-yuppies listening to The Cure and
bragging about that new Lexus with the Nakamichi CD player and
12-speaker sound system, or lamenting that the condo fees just went
up on the loft on Capitol Hill.

Billiard balls clacked. Darts ticked
into cork boards. Then the juke changed songs: “Tar Water,” by
Charlie Pickett.

Jerrica sat reflecting, sipping her
beer. She couldn’t wait to get started on her article. There was so
much to see, so much to write about…

“
I haven’t had beer in
ages,” Charity commented, breaking her anxious silence. “It’s
pretty good.”

At least she was livening
up finally. “See? I told you this place wouldn’t be so bad.” But
Jerrica’s thoughts, then, began to stray a bit. Perhaps it was the
alcohol. They’d be here for two weeks.
Two
weeks,
she thought. That was plenty of time
to write her article but—

Christ. Can I
last?

It was a scary question, and one she’d
asked herself before.

“
Are you all right?”
Charity asked.

Jerrica shook out of the sudden mental
freeze. “Oh, yeah. I just…spaced out there for a
minute.”

“
Spaced out about
what?”

Wow. What could she say? Oh, I was
just wondering if I can go two weeks without getting laid? No, she
couldn’t say that! Instead, she told a semi-lie. “I was just
thinking about my article.”

“
It must be exciting to
write for such a big newspaper, and knowing that hundreds of
thousands of people are reading your words.”

Indeed, it was exciting, but that part
wore off quick. “You get used to it. Believe me, you’ll forget
about that sort of thing real fast when you’ve got line editors and
production editors and copy editors on your ass every day. Not to
mention a boss who’s about as amiable as a mad dog. I can’t really
complain, though. It’s a good career.”

Charity sipped more beer, loosening up
now that she realized the big bad rednecks weren’t going to carry
her off into the woods. “What are your goals, though, long range
goals? What do you want to be doing in ten or twenty
years?”

A tricky question. “Well, I
don’t ever want to be an editor, and I sure don’t want to be in the
management office.” She drew on the thought, lit another cigarette.
“I want to be the best feature writer for the
Washington Post.
How’s that for
modest ambition?” She laughed gently. “And I’ll be there one of
these days, I know I will… What about you?”

“
I don’t know,” Charity
responded. “I’ve not very career-oriented, I guess. My job’s okay,
and as long as I’m making enough money to pay my bills, I really
don’t need anything more than that. I’d like to be an accountant,
but— I guess I want more traditional things eventually.”

“
Like what?”

“
You know, marriage,
children.”

Jerrica shrugged. That certainly
wasn’t her own agenda, but she could easily respect it. “You’ll
find the right guy eventually. I’m sure you will.”

Charity’s chin dropped to her palm.
“That’s what worries me. I guess I probably will find the right
guy, but when I do I’ll probably be too old to have
children.”

“
Don’t be ridiculous,”
Jerrica offered. “What’s the rush, anyway?”

“
I’m
thirty,
Jerrica. Not exactly a spring
chicken.”

Jerrica smiled, shook her head.
“You’ve just got a case of the biological clock, Charity. Shit,
women can safely have kids up to their early forties. That gives
you over ten years to find Mr. Right.”

“
That’s what worries me,
too,” Charity gloomily continued. “I’ve got ten years, but in
the
last
ten
years, I’ve never even come close to having a relationship. Like
what we were talking about on the drive up. Honest to God, I’ve
never even been asked out by the same man twice.”

Jerrica’s brow raised
unsuspectingly. That
was
a bit odd, and Charity didn’t seem the type to
exaggerate. She seemed pleasant enough, and intelligent and
thoughtful. A little timid, sure, and a little insecure, but traits
such as those hardly made a woman anathema. And—

She’s certainly
good-looking enough,
Jerrica quickly
considered now. Perhaps
handsome
was more fitting a description. Her face was
pretty in a plain, unfrilled way, and though she might be described
as large-framed, she certainly wasn’t overweight. A nice curvature,
nice legs. And—Jerrica noted fully for the first time—a more than
ample bosom riding tight in her dresstop. So ample, in fact, that
Jerrica felt a bit envious. She couldn’t imagine a single reason
why men wouldn’t take to her.

“
It’s like anything,” she
offered a simple aphorism. “Patience is a virtue. In order to get
what you want out of life, you have to be patient.”

“
Yeah, I guess you’re
right.”

Jerrica wished she had something more
promising to say.

But the conversation had long since
turned morose, so she got off it. “Excuse me?” she asked of the
keep. “Could we have two more beers please?”

“
Why shore!” the feisty
keep replied.

“
I’ll be right back,”
Jerrica said. “Got to make use of the facilities, if you know what
I mean.”

Charity smiled vaguely,
nodding, as Jerrica hopped off her stool to search for the ladies’
room. At once, though, her earlier preoccupations
reappeared.
I’m a clinical sex
addict,
she reminded herself, and she knew
she had been since her first orgasm at age fifteen. The teenage boy
helping the pool man change the filter at her parent’s posh Potomac
estate. She’d flirted with him all day in her bikini until he
eventually goaded her behind the cedar pump shed. She could’ve
sworn she’d come the instant his roughened fingers touched her sex.
Then he’d promptly ruptured her hymen. The pain had been intense
but momentary, soon overplayed by waves of pleasure even more
intense. The pool boy had been the hook which would change her
life. Since that day, sex and orgasm had grown to a pining, even
hell-bent need. It wasn’t normal, she knew, to be so obsessed, but
as hard as she’d tried, she could never help herself. The pining
only grew worse over the years, to the extent that it destroyed
genuine relationships, like Micah, for example. One man was never
enough, not
nearly
enough. Like an alcoholic shaking for a drink, Jerrica Perry
shook for sex. Masturbation proved a poor substitute; three times a
day for the last decade, and it barely took the edge off her need.
Many times she’d rush home after a sexual interlude—often after
repeated coital orgasms—only to desperately retrieve her vibrator
for what she thought of as her “nightcap.” Allaying herself, trying
to sluff it off as merely being oversexed, had long since stopped
working. After hundreds of men and thousands of acts of
intercourse, Jerrica was no closer to controlling her desires than
she was over a decade ago, while the sweaty pool boy humped into
her aching virginity behind the pump shed…

And now, as she wended her
way cross the bar, she caught herself discreetly eying the male
patronage, as a man himself might eye centerfolds in
Penthouse.
The younger
ones all brandished hard, exciting bodies, somehow made more
exciting by unkempt hair, work-calloused hands, and the scent of a
day’s work of perspiration. “Hi, boys,” she said, stepping between
the billiard tables. All eyes immediately left the table and rose
to Jerrica, her tanned legs and belly, her jutting breasts in the
halter top. “Where’s the ladies’ room?”

A pause of speechlessness, then one
overalled player finally spoke up, “Rat in there, hon,” pointing to
a dark hall by the payphones.

“
Thanks.” She could feel
the eyes on her back as she proceeded, eyes like needy hands. She
liked the simile. The two local girls in the booth glanced dourly
at her as she passed, venom in their eyes, and then she arrived at
the little hallway, transomed by a neon-red Miller High Life
plaque. By the juke, more young, work-hardened men snuck glances at
her body; several smiled. She smiled back, noticing the onlookers
not as whole men but as parts: tapered backs, broadened chests and
shoulders, toned biceps on sunburned arms. The hot visions nearly
dizzied her.
Would I really go to bed with
any of these guys?
she asked herself. The
reply faltered, and perhaps so did her soul.

Of course I
would…

“
Christ, Jerrica, what is
wrong with you?” she muttered subaudibly. FELLAS read a carved
board on one door in the dim hallway. Then, GALS.

The bathroom was empty,
cleaner than she would expect in a place like this. Cinderblock
walls shined pale green from many counts of enamel.
No, no!
she thought, once
in the stalls and sitting on the commode. Just seeing that crush of
men left her tingling; she wanted to touch herself.
I am not going to masturbate sitting on a toilet
in a redneck bar! Get a hold of yourself!

Without thought, she
scratched at her ring finger, then noticed the tan line. Micah’s
engagement ring—she’d removed it earlier, putting it away in her
little travel bag as effectively as she’d put him away. It reminded
her of what Charity said, about wanting “traditional”
things.
Shit.
The
things Charity wanted the most were the same things Jerrica threw
away on a regular basis. When she’d stashed the ring, though, she’d
noticed the small bag of years-old cocaine stashed there too: a
haunting reminder. She’d had a bad habit just out of college, but
she’d kicked it, so at least that proved she could kick something.
But she kept the cocaine around to prove her resolve, the way an
alcoholic keeps an unopened bottle of scotch stowed, knowing he’ll
never open it.

She sought more diversions as she
urinated: the stall’s walls. Trace graffiti could be seen,
scratched into the paint. CHAD AMBURGY CAN GO STRAIGHT TO HELL! one
woman had scrawled. Another: LS & JS 4 EVR with a heart around
it, and then a more recent X etched through it. And another,
typical: MEN ARE PIGS!

But the diversions didn’t
work. Jerrica felt flushed, winded by her own hot thoughts. She
should’ve considered this before making the long trip.
What am I going to do!
The fever of her lust throbbed. Sweat began to trickle down
her face.
How am I going to last two weeks
without getting laid!

Frustrated to madness, she grit her
teeth and finished her business. But as she was pulling up her
panties and cutoffs, she noticed a final graffito, scratched right
in the middle of the stall door facing her. How could she not have
noticed it?

The barely literate inscription
read:

THE BIGHEAD’LL GET’CHA

IF YA DON’T

WATCH

OUT

—
| — | —

SIX

(I)

Fer days now, The Bighead had been
outa the Lower Woods, marchin’ ever onward through the thickets and
forests, yes sir, ever onward an’ headin’ fer the Outside World.
A’corse, he didn’t know where the Outside World was ’zactly, he
just knowed it was somewhere. Grandpap had said so.

“
I ain’t yer pappy,” the
old man had told him so very long ago, just when The Bighead
started to understant words. “Just calls me yer
grandpap.”

The Bighead had no idee-er how old he
hisself was; ’n’fact he didn’t really even have much of a
understandin’ ’bout time. He knowed he’d been a l’il tike once, and
then he growed big. It were Grandpap who’d raised him up there in
the mud’n thatch shack deep in the Lower Woods, and it were
Grandpap too who’d told him ’bout how he’d et his way out his
mama’s cunt. Grandpap was a stinky, crinkly ol’ fella, who had but
one normal arm. The other arm weren’t nothin’ but a li’l twig’a
flesh with a finger hangin’ off it, an’ the finger moved! Grandpap
said this were so on account of his own maw an’ paw was brother an’
sister, which Bighead didn’t quite understant. But Grandpap, over
time, were the one who taught Bighead all he knowed, like words,
an’ how ta git food, an’ how ta bust folks up, et their brains,
fuck gals, an’ the likes. Grandpap were a fine ol’ man he was, and
The Bighead had tears in his big lopsided eyes when Grandpap died
last week. Bighead et Grandpap’s brains ’fore he buried him by the
shack, ’cos he figured Grandpap woulda wanted him to, ta take all
that knowler-edge inta hisself. And that’s when The Bighead started
walkin’. Shore, Grandpaap had taught him lots, but Bighead knowed
there were much more ta learn, and that learnin’ wouldn’t come ta
him here in the Lower Woods where he’d been raised, no sir. That
learnin’ could only come from the Outside World that Grandpap had
talked about so often.

“
People ain’t no good,
Bighead,” Grandpap had told him shortly ’fore he died. “That’s why
I’se chose to live out here in the Lower Woods, ta be
aways
from people.
Don’t’cha trust no one, son, ’cos if ya do, they’ll’se screw ya
over any way they’se can shore’s shit. They’ll’se
use
ya, Bighead, an’
don’t’cha let ’em. If ya ever hear anythink I ever said, here this,
son. Ya got ta fuck folks up ’fore they fuck you up.”