The Church of the Sick

It was modest and sweat worthy building. Most probably built in the 70‘s. We had entered it wanting therapy once. Not the exact building of the Church, but some side venues rented out to independent therapists that were associated with it. A side path led through an early spring garden showing tulips, light blue ones, browning from a lack of water, and early spring bugs I knew about that hatch from eggs under the dead leaves.

The therapist was a bearded, one-man-wonder in corduroy. He met us at the top of some stairs and had us sit on the sofa. He had no patience with us. An angry sort that meant well. She was defensive. Angry as well. It went badly.

Yet still she had suggested that we attend a service. We entered the pastor’s quarters to enquire. The smell of must and mold was inside the shoe beaten carpet we walked on. Mustiness seemed to be everywhere, settled upon things, and locked in place. It was earnestly decorated with odds and ends from 20 years before hand. All of it forest green, jaundice yellow, and a panel colored brown. Including the frames of pictures on the wall, displaying articles about a man who was a war hero. And one blur-ally photographed portrait with the man in a tapered jacket and some decorations on his sleeves and breast. Maybe it was the pastor. He wasn’t around.

He eventually came up from someplace he had been downstairs, in the basement. His name was Winston Monga. He was not the war hero in the photographs. That had been his father apparently. He talked about the Church. It was the Church of God or something, a Unitarian kind of thing. I honestly can’t remember. They accepted homosexuals. I kept trying to get some kind of pazz-azz into the conversation. A stray comment about these pictures and their quality. I wondered if he would to talk about Pinchards’s theories in Lux Cantata and the Modern Photon with me, but he offered us ham sandwiches and Dr. Peppers, which he remarked was his favorite for lunch and also his favorite for breakfast, instead of coffee. The sandwiches came out on damp, white-bread. Bad ham. Edible, but as if eating pink, shiny boloney. He told us it was a small, yet active congregation. She felt it would be a good idea. My wife at the time was searching for this kind of group, but I guess eventually settled with some version of Orthodox, from what I know now.

It was my last attempt at fitting in with what could be called a congregation per say. I had my own alchemy. But at the time I was trying to keep the peace. Now I keep glass bottles of water on the sill and let the sun fill them up with light and quartz made rainbows and I drink them, not worrying about stuff that is holy and stuff that is not-holy.

At the time though we went to the Church. It was the last good year. We didn’t always go. Sometimes we took Sunday drives instead. It was healthy. The Church had amazingly long, smooth timbers that gave it a grand, high ceiling. The interior was painted a pallid yellow. There were pews. Behind the pulpit was a baptismal. A big and beautiful one. Everything was mostly just as a Church should be. There was no stained glass. It was a much more modern building. Much like a large Stamm house, an architect that had built in our area. It did have those three long vertical rectangular windows that step upward in a row, so everyone would know it was a Church.

Winston wore a white robe with gold and black sewn into it. He gave sweet and short sermons in the midst of the duties mapped out on the program. Once he gave a sermon about the Lord of the Rings. He believed in the valor of killing a dragon. The vestige of a great hero who defeats evil. Yet they were modest and unassuming sermons mostly. And at times he would touch upon something of a vast emotional nature, and would weep quietly while he preached. As we in the crowd would also weep a little sometimes. Winston was a touching man.

The congregation was very small, some Sundays no more than 15 people in attendance, at best. At times more even. Sometimes a group of philosophy majors from the Great Books College would attend. There were some old ladies and some older couples. Two sisters that sang good, rather complex duets. And a piano player that was a very old-women named Margret who played Liszt and Chopin and Bach sometimes, as her version of the hymns was also pleasurable and head turning-ly facile. There were not many our age. There was a women named Elizabeth who looked as if she had Middle-East, maybe East-Indian descent. She sold artifacts in town and had smooth looking, dark skin. Rich dark eyes. Sometimes in attending I would hope she was there so I could look at her, and wonder why she was always alone, and by herself, while she was so utterly beautiful.

Within the duties of the program there was the calling to the sick. It was the first thing they would do as a congregation each Sunday. All the members would go around and mention those in their lives that were sick and needed prayer, and Pastor Winston would also mention those in the congregation who were ill and not attending. They would then carry on with the rest of the service. Singing. The bread and wine. The Sermon. They would all have cookies and coffee and bug-juice afterwards. What we Easterners called fruit punch.

It had come to the fact that she and I would sell the house we had owned during that we time that we went to the Church. It was the beginning of the end. There were many beginnings to it. We attended, and tried to sanctify something. I spent some time in the Church garden for them, helping them with their queasy and overgrown plants. They were nice people.

I wanted to move them in some way. Churches like this have a way of being very beige. Very un-moved. Not emotionally vacant, but un-moved in a deeper way. A way of aesthetic. A way of acute attention. I remember an odd friend in the city, when I was very first-off in school, once had mentioned that flowers in presbyterian Churches die because there was no magic there. That magic had been outlawed. Annette could have dumped that extra pan of spaghetti in her brain, as it turned out. But I thought of this, one of her many phrases that had stuck with me. Churches like these bashed out personal angles. Not even these exact people, but they meandered through things, and somehow it seems all squares and nothing appears to have much flavor.

Even the sweet music they sung and played could not break through the restraint. My own religious up-bringing had made me if not callous, at least critical of the doctrine. For me the old texts were transposed, or at least uncovered. I had read other texts. I had looked at my own hands in my dreams. It made not any sense, but to me somehow a mind traveled and procured, had become cultivated, cultured. A regular petri dish of options. In these crazy times everything is suspect. Churches such as this had a vital part missing. A Church like this dims light. But I kept the peace through that last year with her.

And it wasn’t really an ego thing. I had had this problem growing up with the strident and the righteous. Once there was a fellow who worked at the deli where I had a job and had cut myself on the slicer, and bloodied a turkey breast. I was expressing to him some kind of doubt. He responded that God would not make me to doubt if I was not meant to. Some triple talk. He had meant well though. He was my friend.

And it was always the same way, as now it was with this congregation, that I felt these people were missing out on some fully desirable ice cream of life. Some kind of freedom to dream that they lacked. Some in-congruency with nature, that rattled around in their noggin like a nitrous oxide buzz. Some stray drawing on a napkin, they didn’t think to notice and look over, or didn’t think to take home and frame for a just second, before throwing it away. Simply missing out on the way life can be discerning. And pleasantly ugly.

Once in a while they had a meal. A pot luck. I would cook exotic things for them. Lobster bisque. Smoked fowl. I yearn for others to enjoy tempered and complex things. So I try.

At this one meal I noticed a sweet old codger of a man who attended. With a scruffy white beard on a thin chin, and a duck hunting cap. He was the Church treasurer. I think his name was Bob. He apparently was a retired scientist for some atomic numbers, semi-secret bomb department in the mountains when he was younger. It appeared he was a numbers person, anyway, from our discussion, during which he had adulterated all his food together in one big pile on his plate. Mixed it all. Mixed up the Thousand Island dressing with the ziti. The meatballs with the cool whip. The cherry jello and the cottage cheese, all churning around on his plate and in his wrinkly mouth, with a blueberry muffin in his hand, that he feverishly dipped into my lobster bisque that he had draped this whole garbage-y mess with.

I asked him why he put all the food together. He replied what difference did it make. That it was all food. So I talked with him about that and watched him crunch down the pile of calories in front of him. 6’s and 10’s and point 5’s getting pushed through his rough and elderly pie-hole, that dripping and chomping told me he liked the soup.

That was the week that a strange women named Nancy stopped coming. She had attended since I was first there. Cloying. She told everyone that she was trying to recover from cancer, and had been unable to eat. That everyone should pray for her. She recommended herself in the calling to the sick even though to everyone she seemed well, and rosy-cheeked. She was overbearing. Quietly put off.

It was ironic that she was shunned, because almost everyone in this Church was gravely ill. So I guess they would have known.

And then this seemingly dire situation made itself known to me, when apparently it had been right there all along. I hadn't noticed. It would have been impossible to immediately figure such a thing. It was the calling of the sick, over and over. The first ritual they performed when the service organ stopped. That is what keyed me in. It was a slow, collecting kind of a realization. I recall I did not see it because I was trying to save my marriage. I may have been consenting, in many ways, not to have seen it.

No one really mentioned the calling of the sick. I was even uncomfortable mentioning it. They did not even call it “the calling of the sick.” I had started calling it that to myself! It wasn’t even a typeset set winky-dink on the program or anything. Maybe it was not very important? Yet everyone seemed unaware. The very first thing they did!

Sometimes, very subtly it seemed as if people wished they could join in. Some even seemed to be waiting on the edge of their pew to get a word in. The man who lived with his mother because his wife had passed suffered from horrible stomach problems. The nice lady who sat next to my friend’s next door neighbor got acute angina. A ladies father had lime disease. Even the Pastor’s wife, Wilma Monga, who shone in some of those panel framed pictures as his teenage bride was un-attending services because of chronic depression.

I decided to experiment and got involved as the preparer of the bread and the wine.

It was a quick task in the morning and at the time my wife was also interested. They of course used grape juice. I made no pleas to use real wine. I knew it wouldn’t fly. But I took the elixir made by Welches home and fortified it with an insignificant amount of drips dripped from the last of a bottle of 74 St. Estephe I had been drinking. I then set up a circum-navigant network of mirrors that bounced sunlight through the house and into the newly fortified Welche's grape juice, hoping the faeries that live in those photons would cure some of the illness I saw running through the Church. Because God sure wasn’t.

I then took a tiny bottle of not-holy mountain valley dew that I had collected the summer before and dumped it in while sweetening the deal with some crystals of a special Himalayan sugar distilled from a sacred red rice that was said to be the food of great prophets, which would do nothing, except help me believe them all into good constitution. It was worth a try, at any rate.

That next morning at the service it was gravely apparent how much help the threadbare assemblage really needed. Margaret the organist was having problems with her hip replacement and there was a fill-in who could hardly play a note except for a clunky rendition of Eleanor Rigby that she played whole heartedly during the beginning, middle and end of the service. And sadly during the calling of the sick it was announced that Bob, the Church treasurer/food-mixer-upper had taken ill from a case of the hungries which had ended badly, with Bob at emergency and then in surgery. A chicken bone had lodged itself in his wind pipe and apparently was threatening to poke through a lung, deepening with each of his gasping breaths. The congregation was asked to pray that the surgery went well.

It figured that when the bread and wine was finally served, I was too depressed to believe anything at all, and absconded myself for stretching things that far in the first place. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him well, even after you put your hand up his butt. Life isn’t like "All Creatures, Wise and Wonderful" all the time.

Then sickness, and who would have doubted, came to the wife. It came in the form of symptoms that were unknowable and conditions the would most likely, and did, precede other more puzzling symptoms. Her hair had started to fall out. She got psoriasis. Her toenails started to curl up so extremely that it looked as if she had brittle, yellow tubes at the end of each toe. Other symptoms. Excessive boogers. Doctors diagnosed everything from her having a thyroid condition, to a multitude of immune deficiencies eventually deciding on a particular, one in a million recessive gene that caused a build up of unwanted minerals in the bloodstream. It would start to effect women, much like osteoporosis, when they reached forty.

I tried to raise up the situation. Sick Church or not we attended once again after being absent for some weeks. In moments after arriving and sitting down the congregation went into the calling of the sick. My wife raised her hand and asked to be prayed for. She looked terrible. One of the attendees, Beth Thompson looked at me funny, as if bringing her here had been my fault. And not having her come sooner had been my fault also. I gave her my own look as if to say I was king of my castle and my wife was certainly king of hers! Winston Monga prayed for my wife and the others who were sick. Another attendee interrupted him as he closed the prayer, awkwardly and quickly mentioning that he shouldn’t forget to pray for Jarrett Moser’s son, whose feet were so bound up with chigger bites he couldn’t pitch for the Saturday game. Winston made a mention. Mrs. Thompson gave me a few extra scathing looks through the rest of the service.

It was apparent I had not done all I could. Watching my wife I felt that some tiny invisible microbes had eaten into her and our household. I didn’t believe it but I couldn’t resist the imagery in my head, that little weavils were digging holes with tiny shovels, putting notches in the very fabric of our lives, and filling them up with some stinky yellow spackle that caused innumerable afflictions upon the good and the faithful. And to be honest the weekly laundry list of maladies I had subjected myself to hearing over the past year and a half had made me callous to my wife’s woes. In a last ditch effort to save my marriage and my wife’s health, I put the greater part of my skeptisism aside and did my best, bringing out every effective and reasonable remedy I knew.

I had her do sweats in the dark, with hot, thousand degree chunks of marble that steamed a healing floral essence when splashed with the spring water I had treated with a dozen rare and essential oils. I packed her ears with silver dust and slathered her down with me own stinky paste, made from the great and powerful durian fruit, and generous drizzles of Liver of Sulphur that could transform her metallic equilibrium to the up and up. In her condition anything was worth a go. She protested but I would not give out, for it was on her behalf. I even tried a slow and intense tai chi like dance that ended with arms reaching up to the very ethers of light, powerfully trying to manipulate and coax the most insignificant and important particles of energy, which quantum physics now says may not even exist.

My wife had started to say that it was my fault she was sick. As I myself was sick with disgust, for there was nothing I could do. Because it was true, that I had no power. All I could do at that point was turn around. Which I did, and left the vanquished behind. A Church that was buttered in blight. A wife who evidently had other fish. (I found she quickly recovered and married an egyptian orthodox priest, an enourmously-bearded luddite that made goat cheese in the country.) I left the drab design, satisfied, yet bored. And the bones of that unreasonable feeling that maybe I had caused this distress. That I had made them sick.

The weeks and months passed. I had heard things. But then again I had forgotten things. A man with loss on his hands tends to-re write the world. Be his own God finally. Or at least act like it.

It was a Tuesday that I saw Winston Monga pushing along a shopping cart. We were both looking for bargains. A candid man he asked about me, and then my wife and I explained the divorce, even a little nitty gritty. He suggested that I attend, and mention that they had all liked us there. I said I was sadly doing other things. And then Winston Monga candidly told me that his wife, Wilma had passed tragically, and he told me the truth, that out of the blue she had commit suicide because of her depression, in the baptismal tub of the Church, slicing herself just enough to bleed out slowly in the sacred place that was behind the pulpit curtain. He said that when he first found her that morning, the light reflecting on the still blood mixed with the water in the pool appeared pink, and he had at first wondered why his wife had fallen asleep quietly and alone in a baptismal full of bug juice. And then I realized that Winston looked positively awful.

I asked him how he was doing. What else could I say. He lowered his head and asked that I pray for him, because not only was he grieving badly, but he was also told that his bladder might have to be removed and it was turning out to be a serious situation. As he said it my eyes followed his head downward, ending up focused on the things in his cart. White bread. Pounds of rubbery ham. And a 24 pack of that old faithful Dr. Pepper, whose secret ingredients not only include prune juice, but also something akin to battery acid that’ll that rot the face off a copper Lincoln in a matter of a week.

I told Winston I would pray for him. I didn’t mention that I had been keeping some company with the women who had attended with rich, dark skin. The east indian beauty that didn’t mind being alone. Winston seemed to be in no mood. When we left each other I felt eerily at peace, in spite of the bad news. I almost felt light. Absolved from any reasonable guilt for the sick. I had extended myself. At least none of it was my fault, and I was able to simply walk away.

Epiphany

A life can become caught in anger. Anger at death. Anger at loss. The body becomes swollen with it. It itches, festers. The dialogue within becomes also swollen, and immovable. Here, loss does not resolve itself. Without silence, anger is fed with the constant conversation of the mind. Grief is a ghost limb, hot and burning and reminding. A ganglion cluster of nerves. Imagined. Gone over.

Such a life had become Roger Strickland. There was no epiphany for him. There were long angry walks. Through the city and down to the piers. Not really to think, but to look. Let each distraction ambiguously confirm. A decaying girder. A dead pigeon in an oily puddle. A bad smell. All confirming a loss in life. For the cynic, humor is always a conformation of the worthlessness of life.

Here is a man of notoriety. He is familiar to his friends in his long, camel hair coat. His contemporaries dismiss his moods. He is even funny. And the composer is fortunate. His work is known, even celebrated in circles. He was a composer before his daughter had died. When he was able to enjoy the things is his life that seemed fortunate.

That was a time when Roger had almost skipped with fortune. For him, it was a family with money. An upbringing that allowed. Roger had direction. And vision. A great cello player, he soon started to write composition, eventually graduating from Juilliard.

He would sit at the bar with his friends he graduated with. They would clink drinks. His blonde intellectual wife would sit also. All the intellectual wives would sit with the intellectual husbands and they would discuss the nature of silence in Cage’s music and they would discuss Shoenberg’s twelve tone. Roger described a series of notes that invoked Autumn. Sometimes they would all be very drunk in the bar with the oiled wood trim and antique frosted mirrors, and become excited about a particular composition. They would all brainstorm about the archetypical scale and the roots of human resonance. The very keys to emotion that trigger movement in the human race. Even Roger’s wife agreed that it was because of what quantum physics was proving, that it was frequency, the frequency of particles that defined rhythm in life, as in music.

They would go home with a certain smugness that an urban lifestyle can produce and they would walk into the brownstone apartment and pay the babysitter and have a nightcap of Remy Martin. Then going to the bedroom to have titillating sex of the type you can have when you are educated and familiar with The Joy of Sex, the Karma Sutra, and various writings of Anais Nin.

Here were the days. Here were the days when the man was not a shell. The short time when everything came back to him tenfold. Roger produced. The little family would go on adequately. Much childcare for Heather. His wife played oboe for the philharmonic. He wrote music. They ate dinner sometimes. Sometimes they went out. Sometimes they went out with their friends. It seemed remarkable that all were so content and productive. There were absences in them as a couple. The little girl was starting to talk. He loved her deeply at times and wished he were not so wrapped up in things, to be able to truly spend some time with her. She responded when they played pieces to her. Roger imagined that the sounds of the woodwind and the strings would blossom in her someday, like a pile of dry leaves getting hit by the wind. The vibrations growing stronger with time. He had his theories.

He was offered a teaching position at a University in Prague, and spent large chunks of time there for a couple of years. He did not worry about the family back home. His wife assured him that he would be loved from afar during those months, although he missed his daughter, and at times said so on the phone, and he would imagine little sparks traveling through cables under the ocean carrying his voice. His wife would say she was proud of him with sparks that came back to his end and it would satisfy him. They had a don’t ask don’t tell arrangement. When he wasn’t teaching he wrote music almost non-stop. Vibratory and resonant pieces that over laid on each other like rich blocks of fudge. Long and dissonant chords from four and eight piece string ensembles. His music became popular in Prague as well as New York.

In his daughter Heather’s eighth year she got a spider bite. On her leg. He was not in Prague. It happened right under his nose. The spider had crawled from the fireplace in the brownstone across the hardwood oak floor onto the horsehair rug and up into the little girls bed where it rested for the day and then bit her on the shin. It was not a terribly poisonous spider, but it carried a stray, rare bacteria that killed the little girl in the matter of a week.

All time stopped for Roger when that happened. The mother had screamed how can you not do something in the doctors faces. The dawdling men in white coats and clipboards said they had never seen anything like it. The girl grew sicker by the hour. Her skin turned. By the third day she was filled with tubes and on a heart monitor. It was difficult for Roger and his wife to even come to the hospital in the end. The doctors had said on the phone that it had gotten awful for the little girl in a way that a parent wouldn’t want to see.

That was when everything completely fell apart. Roger said to friends that it is beyond explanations what he is going through. The couple separately enclosed into themselves. In Roger’s way of enclosing himself he becomes non-sexual and placid and could not be touched, where as his wife became over sexual and took more lovers. She explained that it was her way of dealing. Then one night she was being cool to him and he asked her what was the matter and she cried and told him that she was out of control, or had been a little bit, that she had sex with a couple of strangers in the recent month and now she was freaked out because AIDS was everywhere and she didn’t use a condom at all. She asked that Roger take her to get a test because she was scared to death. He brought her. She didn’t have AIDS. They got a civil, friendly and consenting divorce.

Now are the days when Roger walks alone, covered up in his long camel hair coat. Enclosed up in his thoughts and his walks. Grief as a ghost is vicious. It forces one to consider. To constantly reckon and regret. If he had only loved before, in the way that he now loved. Or felt he did. But it had become more abstract than that, for Roger. His anger at death had spread in him much like the putrid bacteria that had killed his daughter. Spread through his thoughts. Beckoned on him like a layer of brown oil.

He had stopped teaching in Prague. He published some older works and gave a couple of lectures and that was all. No music he could think of. The wind was enough. And the sounds of the trains. Some things were loud and constant and could cover up bad thoughts.

A life can become caught in anger. Anger at death. Anger at loss. The body becomes swollen with it. It itches, festers. The dialogue within becomes also swollen, and immovable. Sometimes there are only the sounds of trains. Sometimes there is only the hollow sounds of what could have been, echoing in tunnels that drip with dirt, and age like caves. Sometimes years go by like this. You read the paper. You come up with righteous diatribes. People become bastards. Its all because of entropy. Life falls apart around you. Like a dry pastry. A picked apart croissant. That turns to croissant dust.

It had come now to years. Roger amended himself. Un-re-coiled. Amended as if to continue with solace. And know things as a stoic does. Drag, but push. Solace. Un-requite. The way he would push down the street and rush angrily into the cold wind. Winter always seemed much longer than summer to him. In fact it was in summer that he begged for the enclosure of winter.

But, as with even devastating stories, they become stories. In him, monuments to his place of such a pallid vacancy. To this sentinel place was where he walked. He walked to the piers. He walked to trains to take him places. Sometimes Coney Island. Even once the beach in Montauk . Only there to walk once again, and look at the decay of the world, and in a way listen to it. Listen to the whole world crumble apart around him. There was no music in it except a topic upon silence.

By now by his thoughts about his daughter had bled into his moment. His waking up. His going to sleep He had realized that it was not just his daughter. That in a way regret or even reproach had existed always within him. And that his life was reproach pieced together from the very beginning. And in some way that was where he walked, and fled to. That story of himself. That knowing it was his discretionable day.

There he would look on as a stoic. The beach his porch as he sits, stands, and looks out. The beach is always littered and filled with glass. The sea less green-blue than he remembered it as a child. Filled up with toxic microbes, sloshing around in some unknowable brown muck. Or so it seemed. But he was watcher, and in it he heard no other music. Just a cold math that bounced around in front of him.

He would always come home. Riding the trains late. Always a last sprint back to his enclosure. Usually he would come into the door with a bustle. Take care of things. Fold things. Drink Scotch. Watch news. Sometimes he would talk on the phone with his sister. Always pothering. Unable to sit still. Trying to continue. Continue at home while waiting to ride and walk out again to the sea. His restlessness crawled out of his skin, bugs of death that putrefy the earth. Bugs that crawl up into your bed. Maybe he wasn’t walking to the trains, or to the sea. Maybe he was just escaping, walking away from the bugs of the city. Away from the roaches of his very brain he felt. Grateful they didn’t appear outside of his thoughts. Grateful for the banging and screeching of the trains. Leading him to the sea of reproach.

There was a day he was coming home from Coney Island. He had left. The brown sea was in him. The second stop came. He was mostly alone and went in through the sliding door. A few unsmiling people as is the custom to keep a straight face on a New York subway train. Some people were reading. The train ground on down. The sliding door opened. Two men walked on with instruments. They were obtuse. Their faces were a little deformed. They wore black pants and white shirts. Shiny shoes. One held a black accordion with silver embossed into it. The other a guitar his looming face and model-clay chin hung over. Large spaces in between all his teeth. People looked up from their books. Roger looked up. One of the men gave a little speech. Roger couldn’t hear it clearly above the train.

They played their song. It was a folk tune. A simple porch song. The one with the gaps in his teeth sang words. The train groaned with the accordion. As if turning a crank organ. But it was not spring. It was cold Autumn. He heard the trains deep in the song of the two. Something about the way the air went through the accordion. Or maybe the crooning of the singer. Something about the frequency of the train. The squeals and caws of the metal track. It all bled together. Roger still had the brown sea in him. He heard some dark, slow music that the men were not playing. A music he had heard before. The next stop came. The complacent and unsmiling faces reached in and gave the men their dollars. Roger gave his dollar.

A life can get caught up. The body becomes swollen with it. A person needs to spend time listening. Listening to the sorrow of the world. Sometimes a man is not granted with such an extreme nothingness. There are urges. One must look in the mirror. Open the casket up and examine the resumes of a life. Sometimes one admits the dis-chord in ones self. And how they hear it. It can be that things happen to you and you hear sorrow and enclosure clearly. The anger becomes clear. The feeling of dissonance.

Sometimes one only exists to write the music of a dark death.

Mrs. Big Eyes

It had been a long and difficult time for Marianne, trying to find censure for the way things had went. She didn’t know what shape the house would be in, or if it was even there anymore. She had not been to Brass Hands since her family had left, after only being there three years, when she was seven, thirty-seven years ago.

The house had been red brick. A two story with white washed exterior wood that cascaded down into square-paned, bay windows. A door in the middle of the two of them. It had been a shop-front way back. As a girl Marianne imagined it had been a candy shop. But no one had known really what it had been.

Her family had rented in the upstairs apartment. Her, her Dad and Mom. Although they had moved around constantly, Marianne had always thought of this place as first. Her original home.

In those early days she was here everything was sun soaked. Summer lasting always. Golden sun through North Jersey maples and oaks. And something in the quality of sun that shone against it. In her mind the sun came from the orange matter of the crumbly brick which reflected out to her, and filled her up with some kind of exquisite warmth. Warmth like her shoulder length red hair. It had become the very warmth of memory for her.

As Marianne drove through Brass Hands she barely looked at the buildings and how things had obviously changed because she was so focused on her thoughts of the house, and what it had been to her, and what had finally happened there. It was odd enough that she was on this business trip in the Tri-State area, from Cali, and had enough time through the weekend to rent a car and make this jaunt.

Brass Hands may have been the most stable three years she had, since they left. Back then Brass Hands was a real suburban neighborhood. The way they made them in the seventies. Secluded. Safe. She rode her bike and went off with the other children without a care. Investigating the woods. Playing in sandboxes and swinging on swings. People in Brass Hands called across the neighborhood for their children, including Marianne’s parents who would call, “Mariannnnnnnnnnne! Time for Dinnnnnnn-errrrrrrrr! She thought of herself running across yards to come home. And sometimes not running. Once in the middle of summer, late, her parents cooking a 9 pm extravaganza of spaghetti for friends, she was in terrible trouble, taking over a half hour to arrive. Pockets filled up with squished fireflies that she had been catching and collecting in the dark dusk.

It was before her parents had split up, before they all had left the town quickly and hastily that third year.

The people that lived downstairs were Mr. and Mrs. Hibbler. Mrs. Hibbler stood out as a real "crazy looking lady" the first time Marianne had seen her. Even her parents had called her a crazy lady. The children in the neighborhood called her Mrs. Big Eyes. And they were ridiculously huge, especially through the magnifying glasses she wore. A short women compared to the grown-ups around her, she had the same loud, flamingo-y clothes as most old lady’s back then. Yet something made her more than strange, and it wasn’t just the eyes, or the hunch back she walked with. It was the look of her. A huge square waddle under the mention of a chin. An old, old lady, Mrs. Hibbler was plastered and clogged with smelly make-up, always, except a few mornings when Marianne got to look at her pallid, almost dripping, bare face. Still, she was fixed on this old lady’s big eyes, that looked around. That never really looked at Marianne. Or anyone. She just looked around from thing to thing, when she spoke.

But she was nice. As nice as any grandma, of which Marianne had seen little, or nothing of as a little girl. Mrs. Hibbler had spoken very kindly to her. Not talking down to her, but calling her dear and sweetness all the time, in a way that made Marianne feel comfortable, and safe. Isn’t it funny with children that they do forget the oddities of people easier, and forgive them. Mrs. Big Eyes knew all the kids had called her that name, and worse. How could she not? They yelled it to her, and taunted her over fences, and yelled it with their fingers pointing down drive-ways. Marianne hated that she called her that, to herself, along with the other mean kids.

Mrs. Hibbler’s husband on the other hand was a fat, squirmy fellow that couldn’t be nice even if you paid him.

He was balding with a grey crew cut and his neck in the back balled up in folds.

His name was Izzy. She forever would think of everyone calling him Izzy. Izzy Hibbler. She never knew Mrs. Hibblers first name. And for all the time Marianne was there in Brass Hands, in the red brick apartment, she had watched Izzy Hibbler taunt his poor old wife. Awfully. Like an icky secret that that end of the block didn’t talk about. No adult had. Because much of it took place outside, and everyone knew and watched, so why stir things up.

Izzy was in the habit of taking her keys to the low-slung, grey de Ville she dangerously puttered around town in. Dangling and jingling them in front of her.

Saying, “Come on you old bitch, come and get’m. Lets see you go-go-go. C’mon ya old cunt.”

Or something like that. Marianne heard the words echo in her ears. He drove Mrs. Hibbler to fits of rage, and she would fight back, using the f-word over and over and coughing up spittle as she hobbled around the yard after him. He’d stand by a fence and jingle and bang them against it, calling. And when she approached closer he would run to another part of the yard, and make the same nasty gestures, hanging the keys in front of his privates, and dangling them down there.

In spite of her parents who told her that Mr. Hibbler was only crotchety, Marianne had hated him, terribly, really hated him. They had said he was the landlord and people shouldn’t judge other peoples lives. Sometimes, once in a while, Izzy would sit and drink a beer with her dad. Once he was talking about the fat on his belly, so he grabbed a hold of it through his undershirt, and jiggled it for everyone to see, jiggled it over and over, like the keys, until everyone sat in silence feeling uncomfortable, and wishing he would quit it. Even now, today, Marianne never questioned that this man had been a real weirdo, and had obviously done much worse things. Things she could never know about.

She turned on Erie and then Glen, now wondering about the backyard. There had been a few cast and white-washed cherubs around, close to a flagstone space. Plants on trellises. Grapes maybe they had been. Things that once made this space a proper and charming garden were strewn about the yard. She had understood it because it was “gratefully unkempt”. Mrs. Hibbler had said so, and Marianne thought of her, often haggling a dollar to help clean up. But she was too young to be of any real help. Mrs. Hibbler had always given her the dollar anyway.

Brass Hands really had changed. Many stores and parking lots were different, rebuilt. It had started to lose it’s country appeal. Marianne went up Glen Ave, up the long hill, where at the top the house would lay.

If anything, looking down the streets inspired her to a sense of nostalgia, in more of an uplifting way than she had expected. The non-descript and vacumned rental car crested the hill and came finally upon the the old vestige. And it was there! Almost as it had been. She looked, and avoided it, deciding to curtail it for a moment more by driving around the block. No need to rush this recompense while she was sentimental feeling, and wanting to revisit the neighborhood. She passed the house that use to belong to “Uncle Bill” the retired town Chief of Police. Many memories of him, she smiled. All the kids sitting on his porch while he smoked his pipe and talked about trout fishing, and how he grew his tomatoes with aluminum stakes. The cracking, moldy green floor littered with matches, burned and strewn about, and strangely fragrant pipe ashes engrained in the paint of the porch, from years and years of smoking.

Across the street was Philip Dreyer's house. Since, it had been knocked down and rebuilt. Not the same structure at all. The barn in the back had been turned into a couple of adjoining apartments, and the monstrous Oak tree they all went around and around with their bikes had been chopped down. Smirking, she pictured him, asking her to take her clothes off and strip as he sometimes did. He was a nice boy, her same age. It had amounted to playing doctor, mostly posturing to show each, and would they or wouldn’t they. Once when they were on the swing set, he had wanted her to go in the back of the barn, and she made the deal that they were not going to get married if they went and took their clothes off, a deal which Philip had taken. A deal that didn’t make any sense except in kid speak. At the time it did give Marianne some feeling of leverage, that she wasn’t giving in to everything her little courtier wanted.

Philip, truly had been a charming little boy, and even when he asked her to spread it open so he could see inside, it was asked in as innocent a fashion as the bairn that he was. Like many things at that time, in that place, she used it as an experience by which to judge all others, and had actually spent years wishing lovers would be as caring as little Philip was, to whom she had given up her mental virginity, when she was also just a pea.

Many, if not all the houses and people in them had some kind of history for her, and she could probably fire off all their names if she had to. There was no staving off her pre-planned reconciliation any longer though. It was time to come face to face with this old berth where she once had lived.

It had been a ball and a fleeting bad intention that had caused Marianne, as only a seven-year-old, to think she killed Mrs. Hibbler. It had happened simply enough. It was on some morning. Marianne was playing ball in the garden. Mr. and Mrs. Hibbler began to argue in the house. Mr. Hibbler did his thing. This time, instead of her keys it was her glasses. He called her frightful things and kept going into the house, and then out of the house, finding somewhere to stand and taunt her, teasing her with the glasses in his hand. Calling her Mrs. Big Eyes, and Mrs. This and Mrs. That, just the way the children had.

“Misses Big Eyes”, he called. “Come and get’m. I bet you can’t get over here and get’ummm, you cum-sucker you. Misses cum-suckerrrr, misses cum-suckerrrr.” he called with yucky suck noises.

Marianne had a genuine distaste for vulgarity ever since.

Then Izzy re-entered the house and they’ed fight, and she called him horrible names back, in her old, scratchy, grandma, hibbler, mrs. big eyes voice.

Marianne went over it all vividly. All of it. Again. She remembered her feelings of hate toward him. How horrible a man he was to do that to her. How Mrs. Hibbler would never say such things if it weren’t for him. Feeling such hate as a little girl. Such malintent.

And in a quick moment, with her little girl mind she decided to set a trap for Mr. Hibbler, back then, in that third year she had lived here, when she was seven. A little precocious, but none-the-less an easy decision to quickly run, and place the ball at the doorstep of the stoop. So he could trip. So that is what she did. Mr. Hibbler had been in and out, and in again, twice. It was obvious to her he would just come out again. Marianne quickly placed the ball. She waited in some secret fashion around the corner. Froze in fear when it was Mrs. Hibbler that came bumbling out of the door. Yelling. Without her glasses on. She tripped. Stepped right on the ball and fell. She screeched and crumpled down the cement stoop, landing on her side. Everything after that was muddier in what Marianne could recall. Only that an ambulance came. Mrs. Hibbler was taken away. She remembered her last look at Mrs Big Eyes, being pushed into the ambulance. She had her glasses on now. She was quiet, looking around from thing to thing.

Marianne had finally parked and got out of the car to walk up to the house. The blue stone graveled drive-way was empty. The front of the house was more weathered and didn’t have that glossy, candy store shine it had once had had, but it was as pretty as ever. So was the old orange brick. There appeared to be no one home. She walked down the drive-way and looked at the door where the incident had happened. She looked at the garden which was more overgrown than ever. There were grapes on the trellis but they begged for water now. They weren’t full anymore, like they had appeared in her mental picture of the place. They were craggy and the whole garden had lost the charm she remembered it having.

Marianne had not led her whole life in a state of self-loathing. Although she had panicked as a child to the point of silence. It was at that moment, when Mrs. Hibbler fell, that the endless golden summer of her youth ended. She felt, even as a young girl that she was capable of bad, evil things.

It had gotten worse for the old lady afterwards. Everyone had slowly told it to her, after days and days, that she was in the hospital for a broken hip. Then it was that Mrs. Hibbler had had a stroke. And then things went completely downhill, and she died, of complications, and heart failure.

Now, staring at the doorway, Marianne didn’t know why she hadn’t said anything. She was scared. A tiny girl at the time. An opportunity had never arisen she guessed, and then much time passed. Yet over the years it mucked around in her. Worse. Marianne believed she was unlucky. In her darker moments she was a monster. At other times she rejected things people tried to give her entirely, feeling un-worth it. A bad seed. Always courtroom drama in her brain. Living life like a defendant. Always hoping for a fair verdict of involuntary man-slaughter, at best.

The years of therapy that ticker-taped through her. Proper acts of contrition Stenographed and catalogued. The “forgive yourself” speeches she got, when as an adult she finally “came clean”, whirl-pooled in her like water down a bathtub drain. Through her body right out her feet, into the gravel. The speeches hadn’t done anything. Nothing. She looked again at the stoop in question. The same unrest for herself. Worse. Why did she think, even imagine that coming here would bring an end to the contempt for herself that she lived with?

Vivid recurrences of being in the town crashed in on her as she stood up against the quiet surrounds. She savored the moments too, as she knew she wouldn’t ever see this house, yard or even Brass Hands again. There was no quelling of ghosts here at all, as she had wished. In her head she could hear the children taunting the old woman. She could see the faces of all the friends she rode bikes with, and played in the woods with. It was funny to her that even though this place had been a place where a serious apple had been bit, it was also the place where she had her best, and possibly only great childhood recollections.

These had been the first years of her life. There-had-been wonderful summer days. There had been the sunlight that bounced from the brick house to her red hair, that now was greying, she cynically thought, and put a lock in her mouth. A bad habit she could never seem to entirely break.

Being in the midst of a landscape she had dreamed of for 35 years, she found it difficult to separate the angst from the bliss in her head. This was the place where they all became confounded.

More flashes of things. Wonderful Halloweens. Her first day of school where she lit up because Peggy Papke was in her class, with whom she had spent the summer before mixing Pixie Stix with water in her little plastic tea set, and pretending to tink the little cups and sipping the sugary elixer down, with pinkies up in the air. Secretly playing by herself one day in Eileen’s fancy play house her dad had made for her, and waiting too long to leave, finally pooping in her pants. And crying home.

Marianne smiled at the image of herself coming down the block, with such simple little girl problems as a heiney filled with number two. It was this silly memory that caught her up, and she then cried. Wept for the years in between then and now.

Had nothing changed? She continued to leverage with herself that it was not real malintent. That she was only a little girl. Maybe if she didn’t recall so specifically how it had all gone. Hadn’t remembered her decision, and making it. Putting the ball there. Knowing she would do it again.

She had been standing here too long she thought, sick in her stomach that she was even back here. There were no surprises in the things she saw. They were burned into her. It was a joke that she had even decided to come. Nothing had changed for her.

She turned. Walked back out toward Glen Avenue. To get to her car. And then she walked toward another branded anamnesis she had spent a life mulling over. A small cluster of pines that had been on the corner there. Two summers in a row dead and dying baby birds on the ground underneath. The first year it had been a fluke, an accident. But the second year she had seen the same thing. A dead ugly baby bird under the pine trees, still moving, trying to breathe as it died. How could this be? Something must kill these baby birds. Some kind of malintent. It had always eaten at her.

The trees were there on the corner and had grown larger, and taller. From where she could see on the ground there were no birds in them at all. No dying baby birds underneath.

In her car she pulled away, and decided she would get a pack of cigarettes at the store, on the way out to the highway. She hadn’t smoked for a couple of years now.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men go South

It was initially Casey's idea to steal the money and split. Her boyfriend was right on top of it. She told him that she would steal the cash and he just had to be ready with the truck. They were gonna go to Vegas. Her mother had sixteen hundred bucks stuffed away and Casey knew where it was. Danny thought it was a great idea because her mother was such a fucking cunt. And had been such a fucking cunt lately.

Casey said she would do it when it gets dark, even though she had taken it before she had even called Danny, and told him she would.

-Hell Yeah! Danny had said. -That fuckin bitch can go fuck. Baby we're going to Vegas! Your cute little ass an shit. I'm gonna fuck you in one a those fancy hotels.

-You do it baby I'm gonna get that fuckin money, Casey said

Danny said you better have that fuckin money cause once I'm gone with the truck I wanna get the fuck outta here.

Danny was spun up. When they peeled out they screamed and laughed. Dust everywhere. The truck was red. The cab was blanketed with fast food wrappers and porn. Vantage cigarette packs.

Casey liked to ask him whether this girl or that girl had as nice a tits as her. Or as nice an ass. Danny always said no baby you got the best tits. Sometimes Casey would say no way fuck you that bitch has better tits. And this time she told him she liked one of the girls with nipples as big as cherries and he must like it and when he said not a bit better baby she'd said no yer fucked, and then said shut the fuck up and then she sucked his cock and said she didn't give a shit that he was dry, and so spun up.

Casey had short, cropped, black hair. Cut sharp and goth. Fair skin. A tiny but lithe creature. She kept lipstick on and had a little split between her front teeth. Danny always looked crazed. He had weird hazel eyes. He had a short blonde mohawk and twirled his blonde beard in two long tassels that hung from his chin and fell in front of his sleeveless white tee.

Casey hung out with him cuz he was a real shit kicker. She didn't like him drinkin on the road though. That’s how her everyone gets screwed.

They were coming down from Idaho. It would probably take a day with stopping but Danny didn't need to sleep. Casey looked out around at the darkness of their getaway. Not much of one. Casey's mother had fallen asleep in the middle of the day. Casey had fought with her about some crap again. Her mother had called her a spooky and mean bitch. Her mother had cried on her while Casey had pushed her off onto the floor. Casey waited until she was well into the vodka she would drink through on her day off. Then her mother would pass out only a few hours after she had woken up. That's when Casey went into her closet and went through all the shoe boxes and got the money. Only God knows how she knew it was there. Not. She called Danny and stayed in the house until her mother got dressed and put on her bar face. When her mother left Casey called Danny and he came up. They didn’t leave quickly, and Danny fucked her in her mother’s bed and came right on the mother's pillow. They laughed and got in the truck and rip roared down Staub Street with the windows open yelling later you fuckers, and Casey showed her ass out the window and Danny fired off his pistol a couple of times.

Things were were riding great for them. Danny had fixed the truck with some kind of tax money he had. Skinny Puppy ripped from the tape player and Casey imagined that she would rock Vegas, and maybe dance and maybe get a gig singing lead for some thrash band. They were gonna get lucky. She could feel it.

-Hell yeah, its all comin our way Case.

-My fuckin mom don't know shit.

-She's a funking cunt Case. She should have given you that money so we could go do somethin. We got plans. Fuck that.

-You fuckin came on her pillow Danny! O my fuckin god what if she puts her head in it.

Casey laughed and laughed saying O my fuckin God Danny.

*

Ishmael smoothed his jacket. He was a top salesman. A time share closer for a Vegas resort hotel. And he was also a man that could get inside a person. And make them buy. He went to the restroom and washed his hands up a little bit. The Indian wanted a couple, this time for a girl. Not tonight though. Tonight was for salesmen, closers. It was dangerous and he would stand out.

There was no gung ho personal achievement in the employment Israel had chosen. A few car prizes. Steak knives. This was a way to make money in Vegas that suited him. There were the dirtiest of sheep in this business. The dirtiest of sheep and pigs came to Vegas. But like he cleansed them, he was also able to sell them. And it worked out well because it took a good sum to support what they needed, and the place the Indian had out in the desert. The Indian had shown him sheep to be cleaned. He had taught himself though to hate them. But what he even hated more was having to touch them. But you had to touch them to close them, and eventually clean them.

He rang his wet hands in the sink and spit the bundle of leaves out into the trash. The Coca leaves they chewed cleared the mind. Quick like a snake. He combed his short black Latin-American hair, and smoothed out his jacket again. The Indian was failing. Where at one time he was the one who had lifted Ishmael up. When the Indian was quick like a snake. When his mind was clear.

Before he went to the rally he checked the room schedule. Tomorrow night. Good openings. He closed best in private. And the last he could lead in a way that was purely private. In safety they could be given to the Indian. Israel had figured this out, so it could go off without a hitch, each time.

Only the top closers could go to the rally. It was more like a party. There would be lots of laughing about big closes. All the salespeople would revel. Like pigs in shit. They all had big numbers. Ishmael wouldn't laugh. He would give advice. And talk quietly. Everyone would listen.

He would talk about promises of equity, the dream of a Vegas getaway. But he would tell them they had to hate them quietly and touch them. Put your hand on them. And tell them how much that they would like to help them. And when they say no insist that it's not their fault and that they can have this, and they deserve it. That this is their time to really do something that’s important in their lives. And when they say no tell them that you really want to help them. People want to be helped more than anything. And touched.

But of course he didn't tell them that the Indian had helped him sell. By showing what was in the eyes of those sheep and pigs they chose to clean. Which in turn had helped him to get inside everyone, and take any of the sheep he chose, and make them not believe themselves. He didn't tell the group of salespeople how the Indian made him sit. Sit and watch as he used and disposed of the sheep. How the Indian had taught him to calmly talk to them. While they were scared. While they were needing to be helped. As the indian had helped them.

Everyone at the rally simply knew not to touch Ishmael and they brought him drinks wrapped with a napkin around, which he would put down, because he did not drink.

*

Their roadtrip was coming to an end. Casey and Danny wanted to get a whore. Danny was still really spun. Casey knew he was really gonna kick some ass when they got there.

It was dusk and the strip was lighting up. Their eyes all bugged looking at the monolithic space-age signs, staring outta the truck. There was no where to park. All the hotels we're so expensive. They felt like shit. Danny said let’s get a bitch and ask her where the fuck to go. They drove around the city bumper to bumper for a while, starting to get pissed off. There are not many whores on the streets in Vegas anymore. Just guys with cards and phone numbers.

-Fuck that, these bitches are like 500 dollars Case.

-I thought we were gonna be fuckin Vegas style Danny, on the strip.

-We got 1200 left.

-Fuck You, it’s my money.

-Don't be a fuckin bitch Case.

-I'm gonna get a job dancin, fuck you.

Then Danny saw a whore. They had driven off in some more out of the way place. She was hispanic and wore black poly-lace, garters. Not much more. Frizzy but flat hair. She had a little black make-up smudged on, lipstick, nothing else. She was a crack whore. When they jammed her in the car she said, while looking back and fourth, more at Casey

-I'm Adela, I know you is good people. I'm good people too. You want a good time I can show you a good time. What? You wannit now? I just gotta get the rock. You pay me and let me get some and then I'll show you a good time, k? You guys are good people, I can tell. I wanna show you a good time. It's a drive-up. I stay in the car. Your boyfriends a real tiger there huh girlie?

She pulled on Danny’s weird tassley beard.

Danny wiggled his tongue at her and gave her the crazy eyes. Casey offered her some crank. They started feeling her up. The whore did a bump and said she still wanted the rock and pushed their hands away, wanting the rock first. Danny got the ball rolling and took her to the drive-up spot. Casey told him to buy her a bunch! She had her hand in the whores garter now. Adella grabbed the vials and smoked the rock while they felt on her. Danny said she could find them a cheap motel and she could smoke the rock and fuck them. Adella agreed. They bought beer and whiskey and cigarettes and a bag of egg rolls and got to a motel. Adela knew where to get some viagra so that was another stop. Danny had promised her more money than he had wanted.

They went at it hard and got real high and played the tape player. Adela showed them a good time and worked them both with her hands while Danny packed her pipe for her and gave her hits. She made Casey come and Danny laughed and said Casey was an easy bitch. He smoked some of his crank with the rock out of Adella's pipe. He got really crazed and bull-fucked the whore hard into the wall and hollered and called her names. Casey laughed and broke it up, telling Danny to calm down a bit. He drank some beers and watched. He pinned his abracadabra hard-on up in his jeans and went out to the truck to get some sleeping pills he had in there, thinking he would need them later. He was starting to feel the two days.

Casey and the whore liked each other. Casey kept getting her high and kissing her and giggling to her and finally got her to lay back and let her eat her pussy. Danny watched. Casey and the whore had rough sex that went on and on. Metal wailed from the tape player. Now they were really partying in Vegas. Danny got over and the whore sucked on him, and then also Casey went to him. With some work the fairly inebriated girls got Danny off and he came hard on the whores stretch-marked breasts. Casey put some in her mouth and squirted it out the split between her teeth at Danny. Danny turned his head. He hated that. The two laughed at him. He paid Adela two hundred dollars begrudgingly, felt a headache and passed out while the two girls talked like school kids.

Casey told the girl she was gonna dance. Adela told her a few names and some clubs to check out. Adela smoked some more out of the pipe and told Casey she was good people and wanted to make her relax nice, and stroked her until Casey also fell asleep.

*

When they woke up, Casey first, it was apparent that the whore had stolen the money and the last of the drugs. They called each other stupid. Danny started to get really pissed off. Casey had started crying and pushed at him. He pushed and stomped at her.

-You fucking stupid fucking bitch. That fucking cunt! What the fucks the matter with you?

-Shut the fuck up. Why'd you give me those fucking sleeping pills. Shit Danny? How am I supposed to stay awake and get her outta here.

-O Case. You a stupid little bitch.

-You fuckin asshole! that was my money. Why'd you leave that shit in your pants?

That's when Danny smacked her good on the side of the face. Punched her really. Casey went bananas and kicked him and scratched him and bit. Danny pushed her down on the bed. Got in her face and told her to fucking calm the fuck down, that he would take care of it. Casey said she'd look for a dancing job. Danny's crank hangovers could be pretty bad and he pushed his hands into her face, into the bed, and got his wet lips right by her and told her to-shut-the-fuck-up. Said he was gonna knock off some quik-stop now for you, you bitch, so shut up!

Then Casey thrashed him off her, and bit and kicked and scratched and bashed the living crap out of him.

*

For Ishmael it had been a good day. A lucky Vegas kind of day. He had been brought to many tables saying no. He brought the forms, and the better numbers. He helped them become able to buy. Helped them in his way, by touching them, and calming them down.

He brought them to the room. The real one. He led them like sheep and like pigs. They saw the roll down wall size television. The wet bar. The hot tub. The custom leather furniture. He got the couples and the singles to admit that they have always wanted something like this. They would look starry eyed through the panoramic window at the expanse of the city. The lights. The dazzle. And when he knew they had fully heard him and they were ready to give themselves over he sat down with them, and they would sign. And the last couple seemed perfect. Just off the street. Not a soul knew they had come for the demo. The spare room downstairs was free, empty. It was off season. It was late.

But the good day, the lucky day got stopped up. The last couples phone had rung, and they were distracted. An emergency. There was no time. Ishmael knew he had lost the momentum completely and he allowed them room to scoot past him, from the table.

He went to the wash room. Scrubbed and thought how he would not be able to call the Indian tonight as expected. He would not bring the last couple to the spare viewing room downstairs. The fake one. With instead of the panoramic view real, it was a giant screenshot poster on the wall. A hot tub with no water. A poolside deck with no pool. The one for the busy season only. The one where he could bring the sheep and the pigs and the flies and the toads, and offer them a drink, to use the powder to put them to sleep. And get them cleaned. The way it had been, again with the Indian and him.

But never the less, he didn’t have that luck tonight. He put a small bundle of Coca leaves in his mouth and decided to walk home.

*

Danny was jonesing. He told her it was harsh and after he got some money and some crank he'd be alright. They tried to make up. Casey had taken over and was telling him what to do. Danny still thought everything was his idea. Casey was smart that way. She’d played him all the way down getting high off his tax money, now they were in this mess. She didn't know about this guy. She jerked him off to calm him down. They agreed she would drive. Luckily she knew how to drive a stick. And better. When she was fourteen she got lessons from Vern Porter in his Dad’s old ford pick-up. She was a shit-kickin driver.

They picked some joint. Some place back aways. They thought they had a plan. It really just amounted to Danny waving his gun around with some panties of Casey's tied around his face. It took an unreasonably long time. Danny was a big guy, and looked like he would put someone in the hospital. The sales clerk was scared but cocky. He started talking about other money besides the register. He pressed the button. Then Danny argued some more, not getting the cash. Then the sales clerk got scared and impatient and pressed the button again. This time Danny saw. He got freaked. Started screaming, gimme the fucking cash, gimme the fucking cash. The clerk handed it over quickly and finally Danny got out of the place.

He was hyped up and crazed and sweat from the panties on his face got in his eyes. He didn't see the truck right away. He was all panic and sure the cops were around the corner. He saw some stray flashing lights to the left, the truck to the right. He thought he was pegged. A man on the sidewalk walking up between him and the truck. It was a television move but Danny for a second thought a hostage was the kind of leverage he needed at the moment. He ran up to the man, put his gun to his head, cuffed him with his arm and dragged him into the passenger side of the truck.

Casey started screaming, -What the Fuck! What the Fuck! Danny fuckin Jesus Christ!

Ishmael struggled slightly but Danny smacked the truck door into his legs and told him to get the fuck in. Ishmael released and got into the cab and they all sat clambering in the seat. Danny’s gun was against Ishmael's head. Casey kept screaming what the fuck is goddamn goin on! Danny said just go, get the fuck outta here. Casey ripped the truck into gear and drove, fast. Danny uselessly tried to explain grabbing the man.

Ishmael was unstruck. Even jarred, and overcome with a gun to him, he calmly talked.

He touched Danny on the knee. Even Ismael had never experienced luck such as this.

-I think you guys need some help, he said, right away.

-Shut the fuck up. Said Danny.

-Yeah, shut the fuck up, agreed Casey.

-I think you guys need some help. I can help you. I know a place where you can go, fast.

Asshole! said Danny, pushing the gun closer to his head.

Casey said, -Stop it Danny, maybe we should listen to him.

He seemed calm and on the level to her. And she was also scared to death of the cops any second. Danny had said he knew the clerk had pushed the button.

Ishmael postured to her -Look sweetheart, I don't know what you’re doing and I don’t care. I'm just a guy trying to get through the night, and I know you’re just trying to get through the night too. Vegas cops are quick and there are cameras all over this city. Now I’ve got a nice place you can stay at. I can help you.

And Israel was not surprised. Not surprised that his luck would turn this way.

Casey wasn’t convinced but she didn’t think this guy wanted to screw with them other than not getting himself shot. Danny really felt he was running out of time. He didn't want a confrontation with the cops or even a car chase. Being a thug with a gun to someone wasn't his brand of crazy. What the hell was he thinking? He took the gun from Ishmael's head. He suddenly jumped at Ishmael’s offer.

Ishmael told them where to go. And he listened and he patted Casey on the shoulder and told her that it would be alright. He would get them out. Now they were on the lamb with the truck. Next they would be safe in a parking garage. He could get them some drinks in a real Vegas Hotel room. They learned his name was Ishmael. He seemed legit, not really, but they would get off the road. In spite of herself, Casey agreed and they went with him.

And Ishmael led them like so much sheep.

He led them through as they looked up at Vegas. Looked at the vaulted ceilings. The faux opulence. The interior-designer lighting set ups and the bing bing bing of the machines.

It was easy as luke warm water from then on in. Ishmael couldn't wait to get them some drinks. They sat down. Danny spouted like an asshole. He pointed to the picture of the Vegas skyline replacing the window set in the fake model condo apartment. He got haughty about what the fuck is this and Casey told him to shut up.

Ishmael didn't want a problem. He yearned to wash. He took the time to get them the drinks right away. Rifling through his breast pockets to find the powder the Indian had given him. It had always seemed as musty green poultry seasoning when he looked at it. He put it in the beers.

The Indian wanted to arrive after they were asleep. In so much sleep as the powder provided. Casey and Danny sat catatonic on the chairs. Eyes mostly open. Ishmael made the call and the Indian came. Quickly. In one half hour. He knocked. It needed to be very staged.

The Indian was huge. Greasy. Latin-American like Ishmael. He had a huge face, beaming with pitted cheeks. Sad. Wide. A huge flat nose. Greasy long hair. Some tribal dress. He put his hand to Ishmael’s face and held his cheek and trailed his thumb down his nose and around his lips. He said, how's the closin business brother. He said thank you. Ishmael felt so much hate for the sheep he had led. In contrast to the Indian's care. The Indian checked the two in the chairs. Ishmael held his chest out. The Indian came over and pounded on it. Beat it with fists until Ishmael buckled and held himself. The Indian’s dress moved with the pounding of his fists. The Indian held him up. Ishmael on his own got up and helped with the couple. They put them in wheelchairs, outside the door that the Indian had brought, and wheeled them from the basement, through empty non-descript hallways. Out to where Ishmael helped the Indian put the two breathing, lifeless and open-eyed bodies into the car.

.

When Casey awoke she was in a room of a metal house. She was lying on a couch. Felt terrible, sluggish, like a giant thumb came from the ceiling and pressed on her forehead. She realized she was alone. Everything that had happened came to her. She rose up from the couch. Panic. Where the fuck was she? She tried the locked door. She saw a table with the only thing on it a folded note. Her reading wasn't great. And the writing was scratchy. This was what she worked through.

You are a little mouse and you need to be calm. I have led you here as sheep and I will raise you up. You are in your waiting period. There is food and water and a toilet here. There are coca leaves. Chew them. I will know when you are ready. The Indian.

Casey was so disoriented that before any real reaction she just sat down and stared for a little while. Thought it was some fucking joke. Or not. And then she acted out, screamed. Pounded the corrugated metal walls. Screamed for Danny. Screamed you fucker. Smashed at the walls. Her voice soon went hoarse. She still screamed though, and cried. And thought of her Mom. And screamed for Danny.

To no avail. She was locked up. Pure and simple. By a whack job. She thought it must be Ishmael, whom Danny had dragged in the truck. Maybe he was really pissed about that? She had nothing to really go on. Alone with her thoughts. Scared about what might happen when someone finally did open the door. She was hungry. She ate some food. Spaghetti out of a can. Not cold, because there was a microwave. There were no cigarettes. She still felt terrible. She found the coca leaves and chewed on them, sticking them in her mouth the way guys chewed tobacco. The dried things tasted awful and took more spit than they gave. But soon they moistened and her mouth slightly numbed. It was nothing like being coked up. But she started to feel better, physically, at least.

*

His friends said that Mike was a bit of a road tweaker, but he didn't dress like one. Mike wore jeans and a long sleeve blue shirt, mostly. Kind of a boy blue in general. And his car, also baby boy blue. A twinkly souped up Chevy Nova. His friends had a lot of tattoos. Not Mike. He was a good Irish boy really. Mike McCabe. Son of the Famous Mack McCabe. Racers. Three generations. His Dad was one of the top Nascar. And his Grandfather had also been a racer. Early Nascar. Talladega. In Alabama, the family had been smothered with it.

But his work was the bread now. Mike had been doing the best he could since the divorce. And that included fathership. Once every two weeks. At best. It should have meant something. A little.

Mike did not race. He was an engine man. A tweaker. The real thing. After he had served, (his father hated the military), he came back to the family and started doing what he had done all along, (in the army he was a mechanic, he had wanted to go into demolition), and now just built engines.

He had a hard time with marriage. He had a one track mind. It was a shame. He really did love his wife. But she was frigid for him up and down. And she needed him to pay attention, but he didn't most of the time, because he was off somewhere. In engineland.

He was a good guy though, Mike, and she should have counted herself lucky she was told. But she didn't and he got the lip. Often. Even though he was a nice guy, Mike fucked things up. Missed appointments because he was in the shop. Endlessly in the shop. Paying every crazy bill that came up was not enough. He wished he had played more Yahtzee with his daughter. But he wasn’t there mostly, because he was in the damn shop, or somewhere.

He also gambled. Loved it. Said it made him feel alive. Sometimes he went to the Reservations instead of working, when he could. And who could really complain. He was a good gambler. He knew when to stop. That was one thing about Mike. He knew when to stop. Knew when to play his little game. What had become his little game about stopping. Mike could drive. But apparently not good enough. Not for his dad. Or to place. And had been deemed an engine man. Not that he wasn't becoming a bit of a legend himself as one. But he was an engine man.

The last fight before Mike had moved out had been a doozy. She had forced him. In her way. He hadn't wanted to go. In fact he said -Please, Vicki, I swear, I won't, I mean, I'll be home sometimes. I mean more. More than I have.

She yelled that he was a cocksucker and an asshole and what was she thinking.

She said she didn’t care what he fucking said, that was it. I’ve already started seeing somebody. We’re having sex, she smirked to him.

He acted surprised, and it felt satisfying to let loose and call her some names. But he had known about it.

Still he had pleaded. Mike knew she was done. So did his girl. He was embarrassed. And in someways hobbled with embarrassment.

But it was just as well. Mike had started cheating also. Violent and short episodes with stray women. Passionate. In some reaction to his wife’s chilled tips. Like he had found another part of himself, somewhere in between the engine part and the gambling part was this new, fresh part. Where he felt opened up like a horse. Filled with blood and revved up.

*

For Casey, the Indian’s was a gentle abuse. Not in that Casey hadn’t thought about it for a good many days before the Indian finally opened the door. She had waffled and jonesed cigs for days. Would she freak out, and really flip out? Or, would she play whoever it was. Play ’em like she played, or had played some guys. It was a thin line until on some day, night, (she couldn’t tell), Casey had a small epiphany. She had been really freaking out. Climbing the walls. Suddenly then she figured it didn’t fucking matter. And she screamed and danced, and screamed you fucked up piece of shit. I’ll fuckin kill you! She screamed and got as high as she could on the leaves. It was all crazy for her. She shocked herself into being apart from it all. Everything with Danny and everything with her mother. Constantly thinking of her mother. She had fucked two of her moms boyfriends. Casey thought she regretted that. It was around the time she stopped banging on the walls for good that she decided to play him. Her captor.

Soon enough the Indian did finally knock on the door. Knocked right on the door, as if to say, can I come in. A fast knock. Casey had been zoning off. She jumped. By then she had conceded to just letting whoever come in when they did, what could she do? When something finally happened. She had decided to play him good.

But the door unlatched, and the Indian was seen. Hardly. He stood at the jam as the steal metal door opened. Bent as if to beg forgiveness. Looked at Casey as if she had been through hell. The first thing he said was

- Let me help you feel better.

Casey saw him in the flouresent light. She looked. The time allowed her to look at him and she looked. It was a moment for both of them. The Indian had also sweated with anticipation for days and days, waiting to see her. Now that they stood before each other there were not many words right away.

The Indian then led in with the diatribe. Casey was bombarded with words. Lots of animals. He called her a little mouse. He referred to her as sheep. He spoke of eagles. Flies, toads. It was like goddamn Wild Kingdom with this guy.

She couldn’t stop looking at him. Looking at his face. The Indian looked like a sad clown. She kept thinking over and over, that he looks like a poor sad fucking clown.

He had appeared to her in the doorway in full dress. His version. Poster paint. Hobby Shack dyed feathers and plastic beads. He had on dirty green scrubs. Leather outer garments. Fluorescent colors on his face. Even cowboy boots with eagles, stitched in bead work across the backs. And fake Wal-mart spurs.

He had looked at her with a sentimental and disappointed look. Greasy. Wide Faced. Unwashed. Casey didn’t say anything. The Indian talked. She listened to him. It was gibberish. Not totally. Casey liked the parts about raising her up to be the eagle. He seemed to like what she said, when she talked and asked some questions. She thought she could play him. She let him talk, on and on.

It was an odd situation also for the Indian. This girl, Casey, was different than the other two girls. She wasn’t petrified, not like the other girls who were despondent and whom he had given back to Ishmael to clean. She had gotten him hard. She made him ejaculate. It was not his demand really for her to be any kind of sex toy. But quickly into thier interacting she was on him. He believed it was something she needed, maybe to feel calm, so he let her, in that he participated some. Mostly he would sit, a sentinel as she worked him from below, like a prostitute. She called him a big hard bear and the Indian had taken to it.

Casey, lost herself when she would work to make him come, in that it was a way to be apart from it all. But it was not pleasant. The Indians cock was a huge, stiff horn with the odor of him pungent, and almost reeking. And he would not really change his calm, sad Indian grin when he came. He didn’t let himself come in her mouth and it would hit the air palpitantly. He would hold her head and look at her for a moment until then getting up and just leaving her in her room, to clean up.

Eventually Casey slowed and then stopped her advancements. They mostly sat for hours with the Indian explaining things to her that were complicated and just seemed like craziness built on craziness. He explained that she would have to be with him and not fear him and when she asked when she could go free he said when you are finally free with me. And so she figured the best way to play him simply was to freely and quietly listen.

Her sucking him off must have gotten his brain turning around, Casey thought. When he had suddenly explained how it was important to produce the seed inside of her, for a child, she said she couldn’t, it had only been a number of weeks. That was the only time he had actually been up inside her, but it wouldn’t take. He had been following her body temperature. It rose with her moon. But not much. Casey had not mentioned the prevention shot. She resisted his hand to her throat. She gagged, and breathed now that he took the hand away. Holding her tightly from behind on their sides, with his rhino horn up inside her he fucked her and came and again didn’t change his wanting expression. And Casey found that she really minded it, but she was going to play him down the line so she relaxed, and did her thing telling him that the seed of a great wolf was now inside her.

And somehow she was able to tell him that it was important that he get what he needed and that she get raised up from sheep in this way, because she had listened to him and had started saying all the crazy crap he had. And she thought it was the best way for her to get away.

There was a certain amount of commitment in the Indian. He was only 56 but was old with consumption he said. He ate badly, his sin was to drink, in which even Ishmael, wouldn’t know, though Casey figured it with his breathe on her and figured he did. And his kidneys failed him to a bad yellow jaundice. Green in his brown skin. Like a sick, giant, sad, Latin-American throw-back he was dying of liver failure. And he was the freak of the week, Casey was stuck with. Some sick old man she didn’t know a thing about, but she kept trying to even the score, so he would trust her. So she could get away. So she could just even it up somehow, make him forget she was even captured.

*

More time passed between them. It had hit the doldrums. It was apparent that Casey wouldn't be anything more than a house cat for him. He brought her clothes. Loud and trashy things she asked for. She had slowly been trained in his gibberish. Many hours of it back and fourth. She longed for some TV. To smoke and drink and fuck and party. Casey kept her composure, still now even unsure why she was even kept like this. But one day The Indian said,

-This is that day you can be risen up. I’m confident that you know that you can be helped Little Mouse. Ishmael has chosen well for me. I want you to come out with me.

There wasn’t anything of any importance really in it. She thought it was just some craziness, just because this sad greasy nutcase needs a sidekick. He didn’t even want to get sucked off anymore.

And then he said she would now see what it is to be cleaned. And he simply led her down, out of the doorway she had been locked in for a solid two months. Down though some hallway of no real consequence. But still she peered around to see these surroundings. They continued down through the rusty complex and then came to another metal door which The Indian walked through, and then Casey walked through.

Any feeling of eminent danger that had fallen away over the long waiting period suddenly back dropped and hit her in the head like a club. Heated up to panic. Worse. A hot flash from hell. It is amazing she did not faint.

She immediately saw what looked like Danny, what was Danny, hanging. Suspended from hooks. He was draped with some colored cloths. Had dried paint on him. His mohawk had grown and was hung with small leather straps and plastic beads. He had other hooks in him unattached except for tassels and beads. The funny blonde tassels he grew on his chin hung with heavy sea shells. Some hooks in his shoulders. One large hook through his scrotum. There were sores, abrasions all over him. He was unconscious. If even alive.

Much made sense, and non-sense as she became aware of Ishmael also in the room. He stood by a sink, he was washing his hands. He had on a cloudy, transluscent disposable smock. The Indian and him spoke. They seemed as if they had been at odds. The Indian said I’m sorry to him. Ishmael spoke to Casey and said he was happy she was ready. He did so reluctantly. The Indian walked over to Ishmael and stroked his chest as Ishmael puffed it up for him. They rubbed cheeks. The Indian turned to Casey and told her Ishmael was ready to believe in her.

There was no real reason Casey should have kept it together to play along. Some strength in her knew she must not flinch if she were to get away at all. And more, she was now in a real, tangible, horrific danger. Somehow she responded to them. Somehow she assumed a face and fit in to the moments ahead. Where Ishmael put on long gloves and a medical smock. Used cable clippers and cut the tortured, broken punk from where he hung. Flipped him over after he dropped to the floor and cut his heart out in front of her with a pair of boning shears.

*

More and more Mike had become a weird case. Had started sliding to the down-low. Now that his marriage had gone over and out. But hadn’t Mike always been a weird case. His father had died racing while he served. He died clocking 125. Not even fast. But the car had buckled upward and caught. The down flip landed it just right so it was blast into smithereens carrying his Dad with it. Mike had carried on with deep pangs. He went about his business and came back to Talladega where he despairingly built the life and family that now lay in a mess.

He had started playing the casinos more frequently. His hunger for sex drove him out into the night after he had been in the shop all day. He picked up trash with his blueberry looks and demeanor. The girls wouldn’t know anything of his pangs. Mike was always sweet. They would have hard, sometimes questionable sex that would excite and shock the girls. Every time Mike came he thought of his father crashing at 125. The orgasm would mirror this dream-pain he would inflict on himself. So maybe he would just die in the shadow of it. Often he would quickly leave the bed. Go out and gamble, or go home to drink.

One night after he had gone out and picked up his girl for the night and took her out and had gotten his rocks off on her with a scarf pulled up in her mouth like a yoke it suddenly dawned on him that he was caught up completely at the shop and that he didn’t fucking care and that he was going to drive to Vegas and get some real action. The casinos at the res were dried up. They were played out and it was time to get out. The Nova was spankin and god knows it was packin. And God knows he was ready to ride. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of days. He grabbed all the smatterings of cash lying about and drove, almost non-stop with only a couple stay overs, leaving Alabama in the middle of the night, going west on 80, to Vegas. Where he really could get some action. Without a word to anyone and he was gone on his shiny, polished piece of perfect horsepower. An armored knight riding to a neon camelot.

The souped car was a god on wheels. His only flawless creation. Built to his specs. Parts machined with care. There were tricks in that engine that no one knew. And it could fly as good and sometimes better than cars on the track. But Mike had his little game. And he played it with his dead Dad, a deal he made to never top 125 on the road. But he pushed it, as close as he could. 120. 123. The power of the powder blue metallic Nova roared it down the interstate. He sweated and tricked the wheel. He swerved it at the high speed. Playing little death games with himself. But he knew when to stop. Just like the gambling.

And driving he had time to think. About how he’d never really race because he wasn’t a very good driver. And he was third generation Nascar, and all that. And his wife and what a nasty bitch she turned out to be. But he really was on a rampage, and he was really thinking fuck this, and fuck that, and fuck everyone. He thought about Vegas and getting jacked up, and getting lucky. And all that. And with all that and a quiver in his crotch he barreled his fast and shiny powder blue car to the city of lights and luck.

*

Auto-pilot Casey looks to the Indian. She fakes something. She doesn’t smile as the Indian doesn’t smile hardly. She says some foggy thing to Ishmael about the cleaning of this dirty pig. Ishmael just stares at her, wearing the same lintless black zip-up coat he wore when she first met him. In a panic she doesn’t know what to do and hugs then the Indian. He responds. The weird and sad clown is getting played. Casey cries in him, in his consumptive body. If only to avoid saying anything. The Indian strokes her back. Ishmael puts the apparently dead heart on one of the hooks. He takes his smock off and then tells the Indian that his is not sure. The Indian says he is sure. He says that Ishmael is sure because he is sure..

While still holding Casey the Indian addresses him as Mano and tells him that he didn’t differ from him when they were children.

Ishmael turns to the pair who are now uneasily embraced, and says I didn’t differ because you weren’t a drunkard then, and then directs his helping hand toward Casey and tells her that if she isn’t with the Indian like he says you are, I’ll clean you up like a pig.

-Ishmael, you will see, the Indian says.

Ishmael mutters something about sheep and months and cleaning this mess up and leaves the room. The Indian weeps some and tells Casey that he didn’t know anymore with him. Casey bucks up and plays. She says she understands the cleaning of the sheep. They agree that Danny was dirty sheep. She thanks him for raising her up. He calls her little mouse. She asks if she is now an Eagle. They go through the whole animal fandango. She puts on her best face possible. The Indian leads her back to the room and puts her to bed. He reeks of rum. He tells her he wants her now to come out with him tomorrow when he goes, and he locks the door and leaves.

What the fuck these crazy mother fuckers I gotta get the fuck outta here jesus fucking christ Casey thought over and over curled up thinking fuck this shit I’m gonna get the fuck OUTTA here these crazy fucking sickos I bet they’re weirdos from LA who got beat and fucked by their daddies. I don’t give a fuck fucking shit..., when I get out that’s fucking it!, I am fucking gone. I’ll figure some shit out I don’t even fucking care, clean me like a fucking pig you fucking shitbag scumfucker I’ll fucking tear your eyes out I’ll fuck you up so bad you piece of fucking crap she thought as she rocked a bit in the cot and thought about getting away the second she could, and how she would hook up and that was it, and she’ed find some fucker to take her to fucking mexico and they’d do fuckin crank all night long and that would be it, and she would fucking party then, and fuck her mom too, and fuck everyone and all that fucking crap, and fuck these fucking leaves he’s got me stuffing in my mouth, and fuck Danny too!!, even though he’s already really fucked. And then she laughed. And then she cried her fucking eyes out.

*

Mike hummed as he crossed over the Hoover dam. There was a line of cars. The art deco gleamed in the bright sun. The statues wings reach up like stiff swords. He had stopped thinking about his family even though the sleek lines of the cement and brass reminded him of older times, and older races, and older cars. He hummed because he was set in his game and everything was comin his way. He never felt so hungry.

Maybe he’d meet a chick he’d stay with, fuck around with. This was gonna be his weekend. Fuck everyone. He hummed along. The Nova was heavy with chrome. Mike loved his car. Knowing about his Dad, everyone cringed when Mike called it his pretty little death-box.

*

Casey awoke after nightmarish, grinding sleep. After a time The Indian knocked at the door, unlocked and entered. He was in some weird new costume subtle but ridiculous. He wore a leather Harley-Davidson Jacket with a bunch of bright but dirtyish color underneath. His beaded boots.

Everything seemed to be going her way. She composed herself. He was actually taking her out of the room, hopefully not to see another spectacle. She wanted to tear him to pieces and spit in his face and gritted her teeth as she imagined kicking the shit out of him and running but she fell into whatever character and boned up and said little. The Indian was happy almost. It was not like him. He told her she didn’t have to worry about Ishmael and to forgive him for the remarks he makes. He threw her a new dress. Some black thing. He said it was an evening gown. He said get ready, and then he called her his lucky little bird. She put on the dress in front of him undressing, and then they left, as easy as pie.

It had become a dream at this point. Casey felt she was not in any kind of right mind. But this was the end of her play and she must be good because here is this guy, this murdering sick weirdo walking her on out of her cage. To where-ever. She still didn’t know. She rarely asked questions. Had never even asked about Danny when she first got there. Never ask too many questions if you’re trying to get some fucker to trust you.

She didn’t falter when she subtly held his arm, as he led her down the halls. She held up, waiting, timing as best she could with out knowing anything. The dreaminess persisted. She floated along as she departed from months of being in the room. She had a secret little fuck everything I’m getting the fuck outta here song move through her brain as she kept her eye on every turn, every little opening. She, for the moment, had curbed thinking about Ishmael cutting Danny’s heart out for her to see.

When they got in the long brown cadaillac Eldorado the Indian smiled again out of character and asked her to wear a blindfold. Casey smiled back and agreed. And they drove. She sat close to him. The black leather interior was cold under her I’m-gonna-get-the-fuck-outta-here ass.

And when they got to a place they stopped. And got out and she took off the blindfold. They were in a parking building. They walked up into a casino. And that was it. The Indian sat down with her at a slot machine. He played. The ding ding ding fluttered around. He smoked cigarettes. She wanted to grab one but she resisted. He took drinks that were passed to players. Sometimes he turned to her and said he was glad she was with him. Some coins came out of the machine. He called her his little bird. And that was it. She was supposed to sit here next to this fucking clown sicko murderer and make him lucky? Fucking ridiculous. Keep drinkin bozo. Fuck this noise cocksucker, she thought. This would be too easy.

So she sat, waited, looked around. Tried to see Ismael whom she thought might be spying. The Indian sat getting into his game. He looked like any of the other grandmas in the casino. All fruited up in his stupid clothes. Ding dinging at his stupid machine. What the fuck. And then she saw her out, somehow while she sat. She patted her foot. Then she stopped. Now it was all about making a break for it. She saw a show in the back of the casino, some stage where people were going in and out. The Indian was four drinks in. She didn’t know. What the fuck. Suddenly she thought about Ishmael and the horror of his little fucked up cleaning ceremony hit her mind and she panicked. A little. It didn’t change anything. She had to just bolt now. She flew from her seat and didn’t look back. And after that she didn’t know. It was all a blur after that. A stage guy touched her and asked where is the pretty girl going. In a second of brilliance Casey pointed in the direction where she came and said there's a guy with a gun. The stage guy turned. She bolted. Back stage to hide. But she found a door and suddenly she was in a stairwell. She ran for her life, climbing the stairs and out another door. She didn’t even know what the fuck casino she was in. Maybe it was Caesars Palace? It didn’t look like it. She ran towards people. Her heart was pounding. She got lost in a bar. Something. Anything. It was filled with people. The pounding, thumping, panicked girl scoped the bar. Looked. Looked for prey. Someone to play. Like Casey knew how to do like the back of her hand. Like the the back side of her fucking pussy if she had to. And she did know how. How to reign sheep. She looked and strolled and then over to the left, by himself, a guy in a light blue work shirt came up all cherries.

Mike had arrived, played some craps, lost, felt exhausted and sat down for a drink. All the lights and action were more than he expected. The drive was pumped up and tired. And he thought he would just charge a room and sleep.

When the girl sat at his table, she just sat and looked him square in the face and said, -I’ve been watching you a bit and you’re hot and I wanna get out of here with you.

A buzzed and slumbered Mike shook his head. -What the fuck do you know Emmie Lou? he jabbed. Who the hell was this girl?

Casey put on the charm. Or what-ever. Whatever the fuck she had to do. She was thumping and throbbing and probably flushed, sweating. She had no make up on.

She needed to sit here a minute, and get him to get up, and go now.

-Looks like you could use a drink ma’am.

Things were looking up suddenly now for him, right about where he had wanted the evening to go. Mike put on his own charm. As long as she wasn’t a hooker. The girl was young but hot. He was shaken by her approach. But that didn’t mean this wasn’t a good thing. She looked like she had a problem, and was flushed. But she was smiling and she was little, the kind Mike like to toss around.

So Casey then went for broke because he looked like he wanted it. He was buff too.

She was getting lucky all around.

She leveled with him. She told him she thought he was cute and that her boyfriend was around, all pissed off and she needed to get away from him, and she wanted to take off with him because she thought he was cute, and maybe he could help her out. Then Mike got all sweet. The girl really looked strung. But he thought she was a cutie too and worth it for the night. And it would be just the thing with all this to start out getting laid good. That’s what he was in for. He downed the drink in front of him.

The second Mike seemed like he understood the deal she reached over and told him to pay lets go. Mike didn’t want to pass the night up. He thought fast and threw a hundred down on the table and got up with her. She dragged him across the bar. She saw a butter knife on a table and grabbed it and slipped it up the slinky black gown into her underwear. He must have seen. But there were people clambered up everywhere. He didn’t and followed smiling at her. She asked him where his car was. He said who the fuck knows in this place let’s find it. They walked. He asked her her name. She said Adela. He said you sure don’t look like an Adela. Casey said just be the fuck quiet so we can get outta here and chill out and giggled at him. Mike felt weird about the whole thing, but he thought fuck everything. I’m just gonna have a good time.

*

They got to Mike’s car. Casey was just on another cheap date, holding this guys sweet, big, muscular, comforting arm as they walked, echoing, through the parking garage. And this guy even seemed like some normal guy. Compared to the freaky fuck brothers. She rushed him to the car in disbelief that no one followed them. And finally she just collapsed into the seat as they drove off. And Mike had no idea about anything except this girl was in his car. And Casey had no idea about anything because it was a dreamy haze and all like a buzzing in her burned out head. She had gotten away from that fucking weirdness, and maybe now she could calm down, because there was a good chance now no one would be cutting her heart out of her. Anything could be true. She played Mike on with cheap conversation and suddenly realized this guy had a fuckin fab ride, so she perked up and played and talked about that. Mike was thrilled. Truly. He yammered about the car. Casey was truly impressed. She acted all normal too, for him, and giggled and acted slinky and showed off her nasty sailors mouth. And calmed down more each minute they drove farther away.

Casey was boning up against the whole thing now. She was sure she was free. No looking back. Now she wanted to fucking party. She didn’t tell Mike she wanted crank but then she did. She tried to be polite and just said forget about it and lets go get drunk. Mike had stopped talking about the car. He was getting all sexy on her. It didn’t matter now that she had just plopped herself down at the bar in front of him. And it didn’t matter she was sketchy. A ticket to ride baby. This is what I came for Mike thought. They got a bunch of beer and some Jack. Mike took out some really nice room off the strip. Casey felt faint. Mike played around with her. He goofed his goofy lines to her and asked didn’t she want to make boom boom and patted and spanked at her tits. Then Casey remembered the butter knife. Then she hid it in the couch while he got more beer. Whatever, she had it. She smoked a bunch of cigarettes and got really drunk drinking most of the Jack. They talked about cars and he told her a little about Nascar. Casey was really interested, so Mike talked. And then Casey fell asleep. Right before she told him her name was Casey.

*

Mike let her sleep. He wasn’t accustomed to having sex with the estranged and sleeping, no matter to what kinky stuff he liked. She was a cutie. He lit up around her a bit too. She put him in a good mood and liked hearing him babble about the shop and the cars. She was really hot for him. He thought he could score some crank for her at a bar. He wasn’t unfamiliar with doing such things. He wanted a drink and wanted to play some slots. So he left her sleeping and went out again, and even left her a note telling her he would be back.

He wasn’t out long. His luck ran at some Vegas Biker bar and he cashed out with a couple hundred from the slots and actually scored by talking to some bikers that looked the part. He got a bunch of drinks in him and got horny thinking about Casey back at the room and how sexy and little she looked and thought about fucking her five different ways and he left smug as a pig in shit about everything.

When he got back she was still passed out. Mike was spinning himself. He hid the crank and laid down next to her. Aware of his cock he conked off with all good intentions.

*

This time Casey was awake. Her surroundings were the familiar party of a hotel room with empty beers and ashtrays. She checked herself and saw Mike hadn’t done her. She looked at him there sleeping and she smiled, thinking of her getaway. How could anyone find her here? She got up and saw the note. Again she smiled. What could she say, she actually liked this sheep, this rabbit she could take like an eagle. She struggled with wanting to jump on him while they had talked and drank. She really wanted him, wanted to go crazy with him. There was chemistry.

She put her hand on him, on his arm to see if he would wake up. He did through sleepy eyes and looked at her as his head pounded and she was all smily because she thought that he must like her, to write a note like that. Mike told her that there was some cash in his pocket and she should go shopping and told her he was gonna take her out later but she should let him sleep.

Casey was nervous about Ishmael, obviously, but went down to some gift shop and got make-up and a purse. She got a hamburger and ate it in large bites. Again Vegas was almost too bustley for her nerves and again, wobbly, she went back to the room.

After some Tv and getting made up Mike woke up and looked at his surprise get away girl from the night before and said. -Damn Emmy Lou, where’ed I find you?

Casey laughed and they smiled at each other. She asked how he slept and he said get over here but still Casey tried to stave off the sex and told him to get dressed because she wanted to go out like he said. She gave him a look that meant it was gonna be worth it for him so he played. And even asked her where she wanted to go. Casey had thought about it earlier and decided to tell him straight off that she was still worried about that jerk who was my boyfriend so not the strip. Mike told her that he was going to take her to Fremont street. The old Vegas. Casey said that would be fine. Mike told her that she looked fucking gorgeous.

Somehow in the midst of Mike's confusion and Casey’s even greater angst they had a great time. It was like a date. Mike was in just the mood to show off to some girl. He charged a bunch of chips and they gambled and drank drinks. She sat by his side at the craps table and she told him that she was his lucky little bird. He told her that he had scored some crank. She screamed yeah, Fuck! yeah! And she started to touch his cock a bit through his jeans and started to give him the look like she was bored and wanted him now. Which she did, but she, in spite of having a great time, started to get nervous about seeing Ishmael and now got all up against Mike and rubbed her little pokey tits on him and said let's go.

They left buzzed and Mike had his arm around her thinking oh my god I’m gonna flip this babe around. Casey couldn’t wait to party and do some crank. The Fremont light show went off and dazzled them as they walked and it made them see stars on the whole cab ride home.

The crank was kinda harsh. They put on music and partied. Mike hadn’t done crank for some time, years. Neither had Casey for that matter, since a couple of months ago. The drug raced through them both. They were kissing and he said now you’re gonna be my little girl and get it good. Quickly Casey was taking his pants down. Mike wasn’t shy. They sweated from the drugs and went at it. Mike worked himself in front of her, getting hard for her and telling her to look at that big hard pecker while he held it to her. Casey was all over him now really kissing his chest, biting on him, making a fuss of him. The crank had Mike pretty swept away. He picked her up suddenly and threw her playfully on the couch but got inside her squarely and Casey was on just the wrong side of wobbly at that moment, with the crank blowing her head off like it was.

For better or for worse Mike was jacked and began pumping away, like an angry steam engine. Banging her onto the couch. Casey, with her legs up in the air felt like she was gonna get it good, like she would, and then Mike really let loose, like he would, really giving it to her like there was no tomorrow. He started to call her a few names like take it you little bitch and I’m gonna cum you right up the wall Emmie Lou. And then Mike boffed her so hard her neck wrenched and she wigged. The drugs and her trauma finally snapped on her. Casey was suddenly scared to death. She thought Mike was going to kill her. She thought she was a rabbit getting gutted the way he ripped into her. She thought of Ishmael and she wigged. She snapped like a deer that needed to run. Mike was on top of her fucking with his face close to hers saying nasty shit to her. He ploughed her into the back of the couch, hurting her. Her hands went for the butter knife, and she fucked him up like a scared dog would.

She never screamed stop. Mike would have. He was only revved up, crazy like he could be. He had wanted to take her out to a fancy restaurant after this. How could Casey have known? She was suddenly caught in absolute fear. She picked through the cushions. The butter knife held fast in her hand. With all her might she bashed the blunt thing through him, wigging, freaking. Fucking him up so she could get away. She forced it into his chest. She pulled back again as he screamed, and she plugged it hard right into his eye. Back through the boneless socket, plunging it right through his eye into his head.

Making sounds and yelps, she pushed the yelling, twitching body off her. She ran around looking for his keys. She took his money like Adela would have. The blood didn’t show much on her black dress. She rinsed her hands quickly and split while Mike lay there bleeding and not really moving.

*

What else could she do? She couldn’t think about anything straight. She found his car where they had parked it or at least the valet got it for her with the ticket on his keys and she was off. It was probably the fucked up thing to do. But she took the car. She really needed to get as far away as quickly as possible. She was sure Ishmael would kill her, or cops, something. The powder blue metallic jacked up Chevy Nova peeled out with a shell of Casey behind the wheel. She drove around. At a gas station she got gas and a burrito and asked someone how to go south. She just figured to go to Mexico with what had now happened. Now she had killed someone. She drove and ate the burrito. She got sick out the window. She found the south going highway.

The car burned rubber. Casey handled it. She screamed over and over about how they all can go to fuckin hell, popping through gears like she knew how. As blacked out and buzzed up as she was it still dawned on her what a fine ride she had. And she got into it. And drove hard. And yelled at the windshield or whoever that she was gonna fuck up whoever she would fuck up. Even if she didn’t get to fucking mexico.

Now she was a bitch on wheels getting out of dodge. Running and pumping up the gears. She never drove even such a thing. But Casey was crazed. And she lit it up and soon she was going over 100 miles an hour.

As things went for Casey, Mike wasn’t just a normal guy in a light blue mechanics shirt. Mike was a weird nut. And he did things a little off.

To Mike it was a game. It was just how he played. Who knows if he would have ever pushed it over his limit. Who would have thought that Casey, or anyone would steal the thing. But who wouldn’t. Mike was a reckless guy. And this was his little game he played. And if you brought this one over 125, it’ll blow to smithereens.

But for Mike it was nothing. Just something to think about, as he cruised down the the highway. Getting his restless ya ya’s out. He didn’t even set it up high tech like he knew how, with explosives and charges set off by odometer read outs. He just plugged sensors in and out with a charge, wired it through the bottom, and welded it right into the damn gas tank.

And he was on his way.

So now Casey was on her way.

She hollered and screamed on the highway south. Screaming yeah fuckin baby. Get me the fuck down to Mexico!!! You fucked up fuckers she yelled. The desert wind rushed in the windows. She thought about all this crap, and fuck her mother, and fuck those fucking mother fuckers. And went through gears and thought about sucking Vern Porter's cock so he’d show her how to drive. And she thought fuck him, and fuck that. And she thought fuck every goddamn cock I’ve sucked. And she drove with fury. And she then thought about Ishmael snipping noisily through Danny’s ribcage. And she barreled it, and put it into fifth. She raced the Nova easily past 125 screaming fuck you into the night.

And the car exploded into fiery bits while jack knifing down the road in a rolling, hellish mass.

And then Casey was dead.