more?”
The dog looked up, tilted his head, gave a little wag of his stubby tail. He looked unsure whether he’d get a treat or a kick in the ribs.
“Who’s feeling lucky? Will it be asshole number one, wearing the hat of a loser team made of midgets and niggers? Or will it be asshole number two, who rubs his nub to pictures of Wonder Woman because he’s too much of a nerd to get laid? Or perhaps,” he smiled, licked his forefinger and stuck it in the air, “asshole number three. A sweet young hole if there ever was one.”
I hated him talking about Jamie, but I forced myself to remain calm, to figure out what Tooth had hit on. It was difficult to ignore Skinny Man as he rolled the dice about and tossed them on the floor. I didn’t look at the numbers, didn’t look to see the expression on his face. I had to think. What had Tooth been doing when he’d tried to pull his hand through the cuffs? I tried to pull my hand through but my wrist wouldn’t fit, and I ended up opening the cut that was there already a little more.
“Eleven. Boy, I am one lucky motherfucker, ain’t I, Butch? Got to hand it to fate, I tell ya.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding when I heard it wasn’t my number.
Then the ritual began, the dancing, the fondling, the dog barking. I fought to control my mind, to focus on the chains, on escaping. But as he undulated in front of me, taking off his clothes, I found it harder and harder to concentrate until, inevitably, I started crying again. He danced right up to me, all the tattoos following his lead, his own little tribe of headhunters. When he was completely naked he went into the room with Jamie.
She started screaming when he opened the door, though her voice was muffled from the tape. It wasn’t long before I heard a clink of metal and Skinny Man’s heaving grunt as he lifted something heavy. Whatever it was smashed against the ground and reverberated off the walls, sent chills down my spine and stood my hairs on end. Jamie pierced my ears with an unholy wail that lasted until her breath gave out.
I started shaking like I was freezing, but it wasn’t from any cold. I think I might have been going into shock, but I couldn’t be sure. I wanted to tell Jamie to shut up. I just didn’t want to deal with it anymore. I wanted to be in California, by the waves and smoking fresh dope.
She filled her lungs again and let loose with the same excruciating cry, and I couldn’t take it. This wasn’t happening. I was asleep, and any moment now I would wake up.
He came out of the room, blood smeared like war paint on his face and chest, carrying a large ax that looked like it had just been used to serve several pieces of cherry pie. Chunks of red flesh slid down the blade and plopped on the ground. Butch ran over, snorting like a wild boar, and sucked in the meat. Skinny Man rolled the largest piece of flesh up and down his stomach, then down to his erect prick where he rolled it up under his balls. I turned away, nauseated. I didn’t want to know what it was, it didn’t matter anymore. The daydream was safer, so I went back to the West Coast. But even then he wouldn’t leave me alone, came out of nowhere and stood next to me on the beach.
So I took a walk toward a public park to watch the children playing. I saw Jamie and myself running away from our father who was busy chasing us, making his silly faces. My mother was sitting on a checkered blanket, laughing and taking pictures. Jamie tried to dodge my father and twisted her ankle, crashing to the grass with tears in her eyes. I stopped running and stood next to her, just looking at her puffy face as she cried. My father scooped her up and carried her to the blanket and kissed her on the forehead. My mother rubbed her ankle and made more funny faces until she laughed. Nobody seemed to know I existed at that moment so I sat in the dirt and played with some ants, wondering why this little girl had stolen my parents from me.
Why that particular memory resurfaced is beyond me, but it calmed me down. I think I was trying to tell myself something, find reason for being where I was. It was a peculiar memory to dwell on, watching myself give in to jealousy. But perhaps it was not the resentment that was the focus, but something else. The picture from that day hung on the wall in our family room, though it was taken in the field behind the elementary school near our home and not in California. And though I had never paid much attention to it growing up, it always reminded me of the blandness of my upbringing. We weren’t a family of stature, or adventure, we were just your typical normal, no- flair unit. But we were a caring family, always there for each other when it mattered most, even if we couldn’t stand to be in the same room with one another half the time.
No matter what happened now, we would never be a normal family again.
I dared a look at the hell about me, and found Skinny Man on the ground petting Butch, who was in turn licking the stump of flesh that had just been placed in his bowl next to the mystery woman’s arm bones. It played sort of like a movie, like I was in another dimension, trying to figure out how they lit the shot without drawing attention to the crew. If I wanted to, I could change channels by blinking my eyes and watch the California station instead.
Seemingly, the two worlds melted together like paint mixing, and soon I was watching Butch eat pieces of my sister on a beach in Malibu. Tooth stood next to me on the beach, his flat, sizzled crotch attracting seagulls.
Skinny Man walked up to the ice cream truck on the boardwalk and bought a molten red shovel, threw it over his shoulder and carried it back to a door that opened against physics in the breaking tide. He disappeared inside, fading into darkness and into a woman’s screams. Out in the cloudy red sea, the dorsal fin of a dolphin broke the surface and then sank back into the depths.
CHAPTER 17
I don’t know how much time went by before Skinny Man returned to our dungeon, but it was long enough for hunger pangs to make my stomach feel like it was tearing itself in half. Long enough for Butch to finish eating my sister’s flesh and go back upstairs. Long enough for Tooth to wake up and cry and lean back against the wall and doze off again. Long enough for me to fall asleep myself without noticing because one minute I was happily engaged in coitus with Lucy Graves on a Malibu beach, and the next I was being slapped in the cheek.
I came to in a fog, blissfully ignorant of the fact I was being tortured in some crazy man’s basement. The slapping, however, was lighting up my face so I instinctively lunged at whatever was causing my discomfort, only to snap back, crack my skull against the wall, and see stars. When my vision cleared, in front of me hovered the maniacal visage of Skinny Man, laughing at my surprise. He smacked me again for good measure and showed me the dice. I had forgotten about the game.
“Did you have a nice nap? Count any sheep? Can do lots with sheep, ya know. For instance, bet you never seen your sister get fucked by a big ol’ billy goat, huh? Give me some time I can arrange it, perhaps throw in a flaming wasp nest while we’re at it. Lock ’em all up in a big box and shake it up! Just shake it good! Man, that would be something to crow about. All in good time, I suppose.”
I noticed for the first time he had fillings in his back teeth and wondered what doctor was crazy enough to get so close to this man that their hands were in his mouth. Even more distressing was the notion that Skinny Man took better care of his teeth than I did.
“Figure your number is due, boy,” he said, and leaned in close toward Tooth, sniffing the collection of fluids around the tape. “You’re friend here is starting to stink. Maybe I should put him out with the garbage.”
“I’m thirsty,” I said. Through the tape and gag it sounded like, “Mmm mmrrmmy.”
“Thirsty?” he asked, deciphering my mumbles.
Honestly, how long had he been talking to gagged prisoners?
“You want a drink? Shit, you motherfuckers want everything. ‘I want a drink, I want to go home.’ Boo- fucking-hoo. You should have thought about that before you crashed my party. It ain’t my fault you’re down here parched like a sand trap. Shit, there’s a whole frigging lake out there in that mountain. You should have gone there, done some swimming, drinked your fill. Drinked? Is that a word? Shit, I’m not so good with words, ya know? I said ‘Ya know!’”
He grabbed my throat and squeezed-his old familiar tactic-and while he did it he grit his teeth like a child poking a dead bird. I frantically nodded yes, but he wouldn’t let go, just kept squeezing. What did he want? Confirmation of his stupidity? Yes, you dumb fuck, you used the wrong word, because you’re fucking insane and take orders from your dog!
“You must have the angels on your side, boy. Because something is telling me to play fair, roll the dice, even though I know I should snap your virgin neck right now.”
