By Bizarre Hands Read online

  I laughed, saying, "I draw the line at dying for you." I took her by the throat, fastened my grip until her breathing was a whistle and her eyes protruded like bloated corpse bellies.

  "That's not what I mean," she managed. And then came the statement that brings us back to what started it all, "Let's do someone."

  I laughed and let her go.

  "You know what I mean?" she said. "You know what I'm saying."

  "I know what you said. I know what you mean." I smiled. "I know very well."

  "You've done it before, haven't you?"

  "Once," I said, "in a shipyard, not that long ago."

  "Tell me about it. God, tell me about it."

  "It was dark and I had come off ship after six months out, a long six months with the men, the ship and the sea. So I'm walking down this dark alley, enjoying the night like I do, looking for a place with the dark ways, our kind of ways, baby, and I came upon this old wino lying in a doorway, cuddling a bottle to his face as if it were a lady's loving hand."

  "What did you do?"

  "I kicked him," I said, and Gloria's smile was a beauty to behold.

  "Go on," she said.

  "God, how I kicked him. Kicked him in the face until there was no nose, no lips, no eyes. Only red mush dangling from shrapneled bone; looked like a melon that had been dropped from on high, down into a mass of broken white pottery chips. I touched his face and tasted it with my tongue and my lips."

  "Ohh," she sighed, and her eyes half-closed. "Did he scream?"

  "Once. Only once. I kicked him too hard, too fast, too soon. I hammered his head with the toes of my shoes, hammered until my cuffs were wet and sticking to my ankles."

  "Oh God," she said, clinging to me, "let's do it, let's do it."

  We did. First time was a drizzly night and we caught an old woman out. She was a lot of fun until we got the knives out and then she went quick. There was that crippled kid next, lured him from the theater downtown, and how we did that was a stroke of genius. You'll find his wheelchair not far from where you found the van and the other stuff.

  But no matter. You know what we did, about the kinds of tools we had, about how we hung that crippled kid on that meat hook in my van until the flies clustered around the doors thick as grapes.

  And of course there was the little girl. It was a brilliant idea of Gloria's to get the kid's tricycle into the act. The things she did with those spokes. Ah, but that woman was a connoisseur of pain.

  There were two others, each quite fine, but not as nice as the last. Then came the night Gloria looked at me and said, "It's not enough. Just won't do."

  I smiled. "No way, baby. I still won't die for you."

  "No," she gasped, and took my arm. "You miss my drift. It's the pain I need, not just the watching. I can't live through them, can't feel it in me. Don't you see, it would be the ultimate."

  I looked at her, wondering did I have it right.

  "Do you love me?"

  "I do," I said.

  "To know that I would spend the last of my life with you, that my last memories would be the pleasure of your face, the feelings of pain, the excitement, the thrill, the terror."

  Then I understood, and understood good. Right there in the car I grabbed her, took her by the throat and cracked her head up against the windshield, pressed her back, choked, released, choked, made it linger. By this time I was quite a pro. She coughed, choked, smiled. Her eyes swung from fear to love. God it was wonderful and beautiful and the finest experience we had ever shared.

  When she finally lay still there in the seat, I was trembling, happier than I had ever been. Gloria looked fine, her eyes rolled up, her lips stretched in a rictus smile.

  I kept her like that at my place for days, kept her in my bed until the neighbors started to complain about the smell.

  I've been talking to this guy and he's got some ideas. Says he thinks I'm one of the future generation, and the fact of that scares him all to hell. A social mutation, he says. Man's primitive nature at the height of the primal scream.

  Dog shit, we're all the same, so don't look at me like I'm some kind of freak. What does he do come Monday night? He's watching the football game, or the races or boxing matches, waiting for a car to overturn or for some guy to be carried out of the ring with nothing but mush left for brains. Oh yeah, he and I are similar, quite alike. You see, it's in us all. A low pitch melody not often heard, but there just the same. In me it peaks and thuds, like drums and brass and strings. Don't fear it. Let it go. Give it the beat and amplify. I tell you it's love of the finest kind.

  So I've said my piece and I'll just add this: when they fasten my arms and ankles down and tighten the cap, I hope I feel the pain and delight in it before my brain sizzles to bacon, and may I smell the frying of my very own flesh . . .

  LETTER FROM THE SOUTH, Two MOONS WEST OF NACOGDOCHES

  For Mignon Glass

  Dear Hawk:

  Your letter stating that you can't believe I'm not a Baptist, due to the fact that my morals and yours are so similar, astonishes me. How can you think only Baptists are good people and lead happy lives? You've known me longer than that, even if most of our contact has been through letters and phone calls.

  Well, I might ask you the same in reverse. How can you accept such a silly pagan religion? And if you must consider a religion, why not look back to your heritage, instead of taking on a Hebrew mythology.

  And how in the world can you believe being a Baptist makes you happier than others?

  I'm quite happy, thank you. I mean I have my ups and downs, but from your cards and letters, our occasional phone calls, so do you. Don't we all?

  In answering your question about why I don't believe more fully, I might add that I've been a student, if not a scholar, of religions all my life, and I find nothing to recommend the Baptist over any other religion, no matter what the origin. Only the Aztec and their nasty custom of human sacrifice could be worse, and I'll tell you, though it's off the subject, I think the old Chief of this country is crazy as hell to sell them the makings for a nuclear reactor. I don't care what sort of diplomatic gesture it was meant to be. Those heart-cutters get up here on us and it's the last pow-wow, buddy. With just sticks and stones, practically, they ran the Spaniards off, so I sure don't want to see them with the ability to make the big shitty boom machine, if you know what I mean. They're tougher than us, I admit it. I say let's let our technology be our muscle, and not let those mean pyramid builders have an equalizer, because with their attitude about war and sacrifice, they're going to be a whole hell of a lot more equal than we are.

  But that's off the point, as usual.

  On to why I'm not a Baptist. Well, first off, let's keep this simple. Consult history text if you don't believe me, though that won't keep you from twisting them around to suit you, or from picking just those that say what you want them to say (I remember our argument before on the civil war with the Japs, and I've got to add, though I shouldn't bring it up again, how you can side at all with those bastards after what they've done to our people on the West Coast is beyond me), so perhaps my asking you to examine historical text isn't sound advice on my part, and you're sure to take it as an insult.

  But history does show, Hawk, that John the Baptist was not the only religious nut running around at this time, and it was only fate that gave him the honor (a dubious one in my book) of becoming the "Messiah." I mean a dramatic death like decapitation and having the head put on a silver (Does the text actually say silver? I can't remember and am too lazy to check.) platter, and then the fact that the execution was performed at the bidding of a dance hall floozy of the time, and the head presented to her as a gift, does have a certain element of showboating, and that's just the sort of thing people latch onto. High drama.

  It always occurs to me that Jesus of Nazareth, mentioned briefly in your so-called "Holy Book," and I believe he was a cousin or something to John if memory serves me, was as likely a candidate for martyrdom as John. Exce
pt for fate, he might well have been the one your congregation worships.

  He, however, in spite of his many similarities to John, had the misfortune to suffer less than a martyr's death. He was hit and killed by a runaway donkey cart and knocked up on the curbing with his, how was it put in the book . . . ? Can't remember, but something like "with his flanks exposed." Words to that effect.

  I believe it was Jesus's inglorious death, more than anything else, that jockeyed him to a lowly position in the race toward Messiahism (did I make that word up?). He certainly had all the goods John did. Nice fanaticism, pie in the sky, promises of an afterlife, etc. But it seems to be in our natures to prefer bloody, dramatic demises such as decapitation to a relatively minor death by runaway donkey cart, the latter casualty being all the more jinxed by the fact that he ended up draped over some curb with his ass exposed, his little deep, brown eye winking at the world.

  If we were more open-minded, a religion might have formed where Jesus was worshipped, and instead of the little bleeding head on a platter medallions many of your congregation wear, they might be adorning themselves with little buttocks with donkey cart tracks across them.

  Just a thought. Don't get mad.

  The other thing you mention is the Platter of Turin. And I admit to you that it is indeed mysterious and fascinating. But I've never seen nor read anything that convinces me that whatever is making itself manifest on the platter—and I also admit it does look like a head with a bleeding stump—is in fact, the likeness of John the Baptist. And even if it is his likeness, and somehow the trauma of his death caused it to be forever captured in the platter, that still does not mean he is the Messiah.

  Consider the statue of Custer at the site of the Battle of The Little Big Horn. Many have reported (and I believe it has been filmed) that it bleeds from the nose, ears and mouth from time to time. To some, this was interpreted to mean that Custer was a Saint and that the statue could cure illnesses. I know from our letters in the past that you hardly believe Custer a Saint, quite the contrary.

  What I'm saying is this: there are many mysteries in the world, Hawk, and there are many interpretations. You need only choose a mystery and an interpretation to suit you.

  Well, got to cut this short. Got to get dressed. There's a meeting tonight. They're having another public execution, and it's about time. Bunch of niggers are going to be crucified along Caddo Street and I don't want to miss that. Those stupid black bastards thinking they're good as us makes me ill. I've had my hood and robes starched special for the occasion, and I'm actually getting to light one of the pitch-covered niggers placed at the end to provide light. I also get to lead the local Scout troops in a song. I'm excited.

  Oh, almost forgot. If you haven't read about it, we finally got that trouble maker Martin Luther King, and he's the main feature tonight. I know from your letters that you have a sort of begrudging respect for him, and I must admit his guerilla activities conducted with only twenty-two men throughout the South have been brilliant for his kind. But after tonight he'll plague the South no more.

  As I said, wish you could be here, but I know you've got a big pow-wow going up there and I wish I could see it. Like to see your tribe strip the skin off those White Eyes slow and easy. They're worse than our niggers, and I'm only glad the last of them (far as we know) have been eliminated down here.

  Another thing just hit me about this Baptist business, and I'll go ahead and get it off my chest. Here we are getting rid of the whites and the niggers, and you and some others have adopted their silly religion. I admit that our own is pretty damned dumb (Great Heap Big Spirit, Ugh), but doesn't that kind of thing, accepting their religion, give the lowlifes a sort of existence through us? Think about it.

  Guess while I'm badmouthing them, might as well admit I'm against the trend to drop all of their ways, as some of the traditional methods just don't translate as well. This two moons and two suns bit is ridiculous. With automobiles that method is no longer correct. What used to be a two day trip is now only a matter of hours. And this switch over from their language to ours, the use of Cherokee writing for all tribes, is going to be a pain. I mean we'll all be speaking our tribal languages, translating the writing to Cherokee, and when we all get together how are we going to converse? Which language will we pick? Cherokee for writing, because of their good alphabet makes sense, but which will be the superior tribal language, and how's it going to go down with folks when one is chosen over all the others?

  Oh to hell with it. This old gal is going to have to get to stepping or she isn't going to have time to get dressed and moving.

  Best to you,

  Running Fox

  BOYS WILL BE BOYS

  For Karen Lansdale

  1

  Not so long ago, about a year back, a very rotten kid named Clyde Edson walked the earth. He was street-mean and full of savvy and he knew what he wanted and got it any way he wanted.

  He lived in a big, evil house on a dying, grey street in Galveston, Texas, and he collected to him, like an old lady who brings in cats half-starved and near-eaten with mange, the human refuse and the young discards of a sick society.

  He molded them. He breathed life into them. He made them feel they belonged. They were his creations, but he did not love them. They were just things to be toyed with until the paint wore thin and the batteries ran down, then out they went.

  And this is the way it was until he met Brian Black-wood.

  Things got worse after that.

  2

  —guy had a black leather jacket and dark hair combed back virgin-ass tight, slicked down with enough grease to lube a bone-dry Buick; came down the hall walking slow, head up, ice-blue eyes working like acid on everyone in sight; had the hall nearly to himself, plenty of room for his slow-stroll-swagger. The other high school kids were shouldering the wall, shedding out of his path like frenzied snakes shedding out of their skins.

  You could see this Clyde was bad news. Hung in time. Fifties-looking. Out of step. But who's going to say, "Hey, dude, you look funny?"

  Tough, this guy. Hide like the jacket he wore. No books under his arm, nothing at all. Just cool.

  Brian was standing at the water fountain first time he saw Clyde, and immediately he was attracted to him. Not in a sexual way. He wasn't funny. But in the manner metal shavings are attracted to a magnet—can't do a thing about it, just got to go to it and cling.

  Brian knew who Clyde was, but this was the first time he'd ever been close enough to feel the heat. Before, the guy'd been a tough greaser in a leather jacket who spent most of his time expelled from school. Nothing more.

  But now he saw for the first time that the guy had something; something that up close shone like a well-honed razor in the noonday sun.

  Cool. He had that.

  Class. He had that.

  Difference. He had that.

  He was a walking power plant.

  Name was Clyde. Ol', mean, weird, don't-fuck-with-me Clyde.

  "You looking at something?" Clyde growled.

  Brian just stood there, one hand resting on the water fountain.

  After a while he said innocently: "You."

  "That right?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Staring at me?"

  "I guess."

  "I see."

  And then Clyde was on Brian, had him by the hair, jerking his head down, driving a knee into his face. Brian went back seeing constellations. Got kicked in the ribs then. Hit in the eye as he leaned forward from that. Clyde was making a regular bop bag out of him.

  He hit Clyde back, aimed a nose shot through a swirling haze of colored dots.

  And it hurt so good. Like when he made that fat pig Betty Sue Flowers fingernail his back until he bled; thrust up her hips until his cock ached and the rotten-fish smell of her filled his brain . . . Only this hurt better. Ten times better.

  Clyde wasn't expecting that. This guy was coming back like he liked it.

  Clyde dug that.


  He kicked Brian in the nuts, grabbed him by the hair and slammed his forehead against the kid's nose. Made him bleed good, but didn't get a good enough lick in to break it.

  Brian went down, grabbed Clyde's ankle, bit it.

  Clyde yowled, dragged Brian around the hall.

  The students watched, fascinated. Some wanted to laugh at what was happening, but none dared.

  Clyde used his free foot to kick Brian in the face. That made Brian let go . . . for a moment. He dove at Clyde, slammed the top of his head into Clyde's bread basket, carried him back against the wall crying loudly, "Motherfucker!"

  Then the principal came, separated them, screamed at them, and Clyde hit the principal and the principal went down and now Clyde and Brian were both standing up, together, kicking the goddamned shit out of the goddamned principal in the middle of the goddamned hall. Side by side they stood. Kicking. One. Two. One. Two. Left leg. Right leg. Feet moving together like the legs of a scurrying centipede . . .

  3

  They got some heat slapped on them for that; juvenile court action. It was a bad scene.

  Brian's mother sat at a long table with his lawyer and whined like a blender on whip.

  Good old mom. She was actually good for something. She had told the judge: "He's a good boy, your honor. Never got in any trouble before. Probably wouldn't have gotten into this, but he's got no father at home to be an example . . . , " and so forth.

  If it hadn't been to his advantage, he'd have been disgusted. As it was, he sat in his place with his nice clean suit and tried to look ashamed and a little surprised at what he had done. And in a way he was surprised.

  He looked over at Clyde. He hadn't bothered with a suit. He had his jacket and jeans on. He was cleaning his fingernails with a fingernail clipper.

  When Mrs. Blackwood finished, Judge Lowry yawned. It was going to be one of those days. He thought: the dockets are full, this Blackwood kid has no priors, looks clean-cut enough, and this other little shit has a bookfull . . . Yet, he is a kid, and I feel big-hearted. Or, to put this into perspective, there's enough of a backlog without adding this silly case to it.