Bronx Noir

My name is Rockford Goodman. My mother thought she was being cute naming me after The Rockford Files. Even at her most depressed she was superficial that way. Gary calls me Rock and I’m not sure why either. Rockford sounds like shit, I know, so either he can’t be bothered with saying the whole name or maybe he thinks I have some inner strength or something. Right. He’s probably calling me Rock Hudson. I go back home. He’s either waiting for me or coming for me. One or the other.

Fifth Snapshot. I’m alone in this house and can still see the bloodstains. On the living room wall where Andre took the house rifle and shot Daddy in the shoulder. Andre didn’t know all that much about guns so he threw it away and went for a hatchet in the kitchen. By the time he found it, Daddy had already made the mistake to run upstairs. I can bet he was screaming. He must have grabbed the wall to support himself, because it had frantic bloodstains, which have fear written deep in them. Fear written deep. Clever. Man, I should be a writer. A blood trail leads halfway to the bathroom at the top of the stairs. It begins again and continues to Diane’s room. There’s blood in the closet. This strikes me as so damn ironic that he would run for safety into a closet that couldn’t save any of us.

I imagine it happened the same way. He’d be crouched under the musty clothes, so shit-scared that he wouldn’t even realize that his own blood was ratting him. Andre would open the door, and Daddy would see him, and that would be the last thing he saw before his eyes went red. I can imagine the hatchet becoming a part of him with a life of it’s own; taking control of his actions and plunging into flesh like a jackhammer. It feels as if it commands you and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

Actually, I didn’t say any of that shit, but the criminal psychologist did, at his trial. Personally, I think that is all bullshit. I don’t think he lost it when he killed my parents. I don’t think he was possessed by some temporary insanity or some Night Stalker bullshit. I think he just had enough. He told the court that he knew how Jane Fonda felt in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? My brother was tried as an adult and is serving two life sentences.

I wonder where Gary is. I wonder why this kinda exhilarates me, and I don’t use that word every day. Maybe he’s doing something that he always wanted, some kinky shit that he’ll take too far. Maybe he’ll enjoy it. He always talks about taking some asshole out in Kingston and how he’ll let him bargain for his life by sucking him off, then kill the guy anyway.

Final snapshot. Yesterday I was sitting on this bed that I’m sitting on now and I hear the door crack. It fucks me up how these things just happen. I know it’s the front door. Living here all these years, I remember the whole house coming to attention when one heard the click and clang of the front door being opened. Gary’s at the door and he’s laughing loud. This is strange. I lived here most of my life and never felt like I belonged, but this man who has never been here already sounds like his name is in the will. He laughs out loud again and I’m thinking he’s either mad or with somebody.

I’m forcing myself not to give a shit. Sitting on the bed, staring into space as if downstairs is some new dimension entirely. Fuck it. I have to see who…No, I hate how this bothers me and I wish it didn’t.

Damnit.

Damn him.

I get up and move to the door. Then turn back. It’s none of my damn business. He laughs again. She laughs with him. Louder, longer. I’m out the door before it can even swing back, feeling the cold concrete and hearing my own feet. The bedroom door bangs shut and rats me. Downstairs nobody seems to notice. Damn that son of a bitch. I don’t want to look, but I deserve to see who’s having so much fun in this miserable house.

She’s already on the floor smiling broad, with white teeth. Her hair is a big red Afro. I hate her already. She’s got these huge breasts with big black circles on each nipple. He grabs one of her legs and slaps her pussy a couple times with his cock. Then he pushes it in and begins to fuck her. She screams immediately. Of course she’s faking it, she could never know what true pain from being fucked feels like. He lies down on top and I see muscles in his back and buttocks flex and release as he moves in and out of her. She looks as if she’s being battered to death. They don’t say a word, only grunt like dogs or something. How does he do it? How does he fuck both ass and pussy but can’t stand either? He rolls over and sees me.

“Ohhhh, Rock. Big, bad Rocky.”

He’s looking at me with a big grin and humming the tune to that fucking Sylvester Stallone movie.

“Baby, look up, some people watching the show. Ooooh, slow down, baby, this train soon reach the station. Rock is one bad girl this you know. You know how bad? She talking ’bout how when pussy getting fucked, ass must get fucked too!”

I hate him.

“Hers or yours?” I say.

I watch the albino man go red. The woman laughs out loud. He jumps up and starts to kick her in the belly. She’s screaming, but he grabs her by the hair.

“You know say me a bad man, bitch? You know say me a bad man?”

He pulls her up and tells her to get the fuck out. She runs, pulling down her dress and forgetting her shoes. I run to my parents’ room, but before I can close the door he kicks himself in. He grabs me and I’m kicking and fighting and trying to hit his balls, but he’s not feeling anything.

“What the fuck wrong with you, eh? What the fuckin’ fuck!”

He pulls me on the bed and straddles me and starts to punch me in the face and slap me and cuss me. And I can’t do anything but fumble around the night table beside the bed, reaching for something, anything, to hit this son of bitch. He’s still slapping me and cussing about me fucking up his business and how it’s my fault that people looking for him and white people just love to fuck up ghetto man life, and he’s still hitting me. I grab around the table and knock the lamp off and pull the crochet off and finally grab onto Mom’s letter opener. Then he swings his hand back to give it to me this time, his final superfuckin’ colossal shot, and as he swings his hand to my face I swing the letter opener to his palm and crucify the motherfucker.

He’s looking at me all shocked and shit, and I’m shocked too. And I think about saying something, and he’s pulling this puppy dog thing that disappears as soon as he notices that I notice. He climbs off me and leaves and I’m watching the door.

That’s why he’s coming back for me.

I’m beginning to think that there’s some deep shit to loneliness. People think loneliness is the absence of people, but I’m starting to think that it’s the opposite of people. And if that’s the case, then loneliness is just as real