Genital Grinder

On August 20th, he got his chance. Taste of Death 9: Grave Matters came out with no further delays. He took it home that night. Its plastic box seemed to radiate energy, something that promised his eagerness would be rewarded. He watched it slide around on the passenger seat as he drove, as if it would accidentally slip and reveal its true self.

The cover had been decorated with an autopsy table and a stainless steel tray featuring the tools of dissection. The back of the box warned of the violent content within, promising the death clips of a man who should have paid more attention to a DON’T FEED THE BEARS sign, movie stunts gone horribly awry, results of drunk driving on the Autobahn, alligator farm mishaps, PCP addicts in shoot-outs with the police, the final escape attempt of famed magician Isaac the Invincible, riots, tightrope walkers who laughed at safety nets, and assorted other punishments for hubris and just being in the wrong place at the right time. It promised to be the best shockumentary yet, a veritable extravaganza of morbid atrocities.

It sounded like just what the doctor ordered after an unproductive five hours of half-hearted banter that left no impressions on Carrie and Renee, or at least not any good ones.

He nuked himself a TV dinner, took it to his room, and parked in front of the screen. He was especially on the lookout for any possible Bartokians and local settings. As it turned out, they were more obvious than he would have believed.

“This young woman should have just called Triple-A,” the narrator opined, with the assurance of one who knows he has just gotten off a sterling quip. The scene was purportedly captured by a nearby security camera. The female in question was leaning underneath her car hood in an otherwise empty parking lot, hands constantly fidgeting to signal she had no idea what she was doing. The scene occurred at night and was somewhat obscured by shadows. Another figure, probably male, appeared beside the woman, his face a silhouette. He seized the car hood and repeatedly brought it down across her back and head, instantly bringing her to her knees. The killer stepped back to admire his handiwork, his face still cloaked by the night. Without the overdone shadow work, Gabriel would still have been able to assess the authenticity—or lack thereof—in this scene. Though her tormentor had remained hidden by the unrealistic lighting scheme, the victim herself had not.

It was Carrie, whom he’d been admiring at Movie Heaven a mere two hours ago.

V.

“I didn’t know you wanted to be an actress,” Gabriel said to her the next day.

“I didn’t know I did either,” Carrie replied smartly, rolling her eyes for Renee’s benefit. Renee giggled in that shrill fashion that always made her a distant 2nd to Carrie in his private list of Hottest Movie Heaven Trim. When his attempts at mirth with them inevitably failed, her refusal to laugh became a silver lining unto itself.

He smiled bitterly at Carrie’s predictably evasive response. Weren’t they a class act? Hiding things from him, sharing their meaningful looks, whispering to each other off in the corner (which always resulted in Renee’s ear splitting histrionics, like Carrie was Eddie Murphy or something, and of course Gabriel knew they were talking about him), playing their little games. How long had they been perpetuating the charade? All along?

“But I’ve seen your work,” he announced when Renee’s laughter blissfully ceased.

“What’s he talking about?” Carrie asked Renee.

“I don’t know . . . but I bet it’s sexual harassment, whatever it is.”

“On Taste of Death 9,” Gabriel explained, with a calmness that really surprised him. He felt anything but, especially with Carrie talking about him like he wasn’t there. He was already tossing around the idea of taking one of Movie Heaven’s rental VCR’s home so he could get a copy of Carrie’s death, just for ha-ha’s.

“Taste of Death 9?” She couldn’t have looked more disgusted if a leper had tried to solicit her for oral sex.

“Yeah,” Gabriel grinned. “You know, the one after eight, but before ten?”

Renee didn’t laugh at that, he noticed.

“How can you watch that trash?” Carrie asked, her face all knotted up into almost a natural Renee Zellweger look. “That’s really sick, Gabe.”

“At least I didn’t star in it.” He turned to check out a customer, a beady-eyed man who had selected an interesting variety of videos: Dumb & Dumber, The Ten Commandments, and Gaping Anus.

Gabriel felt compelled to comment on the last choice. “That one’s four hours long.”

The customer’s lips split apart to reveal teeth stained by nicotine and coffee as he smiled. “Yeah . . . I know. ”

By the time Gabriel had collected the man’s money and warned him about his snowballing late fees (he had a feeling that the customer, Greg Bracken, probably wouldn’t be getting these back on time either . . . four hours was quite a commitment), Carrie and Renee had deployed themselves to other parts of Movie Heaven, probably just trying to put some distance between him. He saw them huddled up over in comedy, inconspicuously standing in front of ‘80’s sex comedies like The Last American Virgin and The Joy of Sex.

No hee-hawing this time, though. Worried. That was good. They had every reason to be.

VI.

At the stoplight at 37th and Garren, he had to crack the window—he felt like he was suffocating.

The shotgun fatality was back, and so were eight other people he had seen meet some very colorful ends on the latest Taste of Death. There was the blonde woman with the ponytail who got her throat torn out by a rabid dog (“Man’s best friend, but not such a success with the ladies”). The guy with the crewcut who’d gone through his windshield after hitting a telephone poll (“He should have dialed 1-800-COLLECT”). Two of the promised PCP addicts who’d gone out in a blaze when surrounded by police, one screaming that he was Jesus Christ (“Somehow I don’t think he’ll get up in three days”) and the other pleading for someone to “Get them off me!” And still others.

He punched the accelerator and drove through the red light, narrowly missing one of the angel dust addicts on the crosswalk and a car making a wild left onto Garren, not letting up on the gas until he was home.

He didn’t get out of his car immediately. He sat there, his hand shaking, sweating bullets which had nothing to do with the August heat.

What in the hell was going on? He could accept that the shotgun man didn’t really die; pack a prosthetic head with blood-filled condoms and blast it, the effect would be very similar to the real deal. But what about the others? The woman with the ponytail, for instance. The camera never left her as the dog burrowed into her throat. There had been no chance to cut away for a special effect. He’d watched the life vanish from her eyes, and he’d seen the torn remnants of her throat and shards of neck bone when someone finally got a lariat around the dog and hauled it away (someone unceremoniously shot it in the head, again with no cutaway).

She’d died, he had no doubts about it. Same with the PCP addicts, because wherever they’d had their last rush, it hadn’t been anywhere in Bartok. If he lived anywhere else but here, he could rationalize this all as extremely realistic special effects.

Was he losing his mind? It would be the natural conclusion if he told anyone what he’d seen, and more importantly what he thought about it. His parents would have him committed to the Sunshine Elkins Institute over in Hasbrouck. There had been a guy from his high school who wound up at Elkins. A chronic masturbator. It may not have been such a problem, but any place became a good place for him to jack. The bus stop, the cafeteria, the bleachers at a pep rally, driver’s ed (once as a backseat passenger when it wasn’t turn), and the straw that broke the camel’s back, career day. A lot of parents and important visitors on hand that day . . . and he was on hand, too, right there during a presentation from a cop with a K-9 German shepherd who looked very puzzled by the whole display. An apoplectic PTA mom demanded the cop drag him off to the electric chair on the spot. The jokes about him had lasted until graduation, wondering what kind of business he could get up to with a whole graduation gown to hide the ol’ slapstick. It didn’t seem very funny to Gabriel now, though. He’d go insane if they locked him up . . . if