A Self Made Monster (17 page)

“What’s that prick’s name?” Alex asked the man beside him.

“Lee Howell. You know him?”

“I thought maybe I did.” Alex squinted, feigning concentration. “But I don’t.” Alex shrugged. “Anyway.”

 
The man stopped stroking his beard and extended his hand. “My name’s Marty Hesse. Yours?”

“William Yeats.” Alex shook his new friend’s hand; it was as thick as Alex’s foot.

Marty nodded and kept talking about the Soo Locks. His talking was structured by geography, moving south from Sault St. Marie to
Mt.
Pleasant
to
Alma
. Alex pretended to listen, mumbling “Yes” or “Uh huh” or “No kidding.” He kept his eye on Lee Howell.

The band had been on break for a half hour. The members were dragging themselves back to the bandstand, which was plywood supported by milkcrates. They played “Sweet Dreams”, and a few couples slow-danced. One man vomited on his girlfriend’s shoulder. She slapped him and used his blue windbreaker to wipe off the vomit. When she returned to the dance floor, Lee Howell was with her. They leaned against the Wurlitzer to lick each other’s tongues.

Alex excused himself and approached Lee Howell’s straw-haired companion. “How ‘bout a dance, ma’am?”

“My name’s not ma’am. It’s Val.” Val sat coolly at the bar, as if she were a beauty used to rejecting dances, and looked Alex up and down. “I’ve got a few minutes.”

Alex took the lead and nudged Val across the dance floor. They were next to Lee and his freshly-wiped dance partner. Lee did not notice his company at first. Lee was sucking his partner’s neck; she embraced him and tipped her head back in drunken rapture.

When Val saw her man Lee with another woman, she gripped Alex’s waist and thrust her hips.

Alex twirled Val around. In doing so, he elbowed Lee. Lee removed his mouth from his partner—he was now working on her cheek and eye—and looked at Alex. Lee’s eyes were glassy from booze, and his mouth was slack. A string of saliva, tinted peach with his partner’s makeup, swung from his chin.

Alex held Lee’s gaze for a moment, then stuck his tongue into Val’s mouth. She squeezed his ass in return. Alex extracted his tongue from Val’s cigarette-flavored mouth and pushed his tongue up her cigarette-flavored nostril. She snorted and wiped at her nose, but she was grinning. Alex smiled back and stuck a hand between Val’s thighs.

Lee pushed his partner away and stepped forward. He stared at Alex, but Alex kept thrusting his hand between Val’s thighs. She began unbuttoning Alex’s shirt.

“You bitch,” Lee muttered.

“You dancin’ with a blow-job vendor like Amy Johnson!” Val nodded at Amy, who offered a drunken smile in return. “And you call me the bitch in the bar?”

“Touché!” Alex laughed.

“Quit rubbin’ her box,” Lee ordered.

Alex shook his head. “She likes it.”

“Stop it, you whore.” Lee kicked Val in the ass. She whirled and swung at Lee. Lee backhanded her and Val fell over a chair. Lee spit in Alex’s face and yelled, “You hit my woman!”

The band stopped its interpretation of “Faster Horses”. The patrons turned to the confrontation. A retiree at the pool table asked if anyone wanted to make wagers on the fistfight.

“Wait until I tell your daughter what Daddy’s doing on weekends. Gettin’ drunk and slappin’ women.” Alex wiped the spit from his face, then gripped the lapels of Lee’s shirt. He pulled sharply, as if opening curtains, and the buttons popped off.

Lee quickly yanked his shirttail back over the pistol he’d stuck in his pants, but Alex saw the handle between Lee’s bony hip and jeans.

“You’re chickenshit, carrying a gun,” Alex whispered. Nobody else saw the gun. The customers, along with the band’s three musicians, formed a circle around Alex and Lee. The bartender enjoyed the excitement. She lit a cigarette, poured herself a whiskey, and put her feet up.

Alex heard the retiree taking bets. “I’m not much of a fighter, but I’d still bet on me to whip this cornholer.” He pulled his cowboy hat down until it shaded his forehead and eyes. The betting increased, and in one minute the retiree had seventy eight dollars crumpled in his fist. “Winner of the fight gets free drinks and ten bucks.”

“Twenty bucks,” Lee yelled.

Val had risen and pulled twenty dollars out of her purse. “I bet on the cowboy.”

“You gonna stand there faggot, or you gonna fight?” Lee stuck his thumbs into his pocket and sneered.

“I’m gonna stick my fist up your ass, queer.” Alex parodied Lee’s pose, fists on hips and lips pursed.

The customers laughed. Lee began to laugh along with them, but he suddenly threw a haymaker. The punch missed. Alex swung back, but Lee ducked and landed a one-two. Alex pawed at his bleeding nose.

Another one-two struck Alex’s mouth. Alex’s counterpunch was feeble, as if thrown by an arthritic. Lee wind-milled several shots to Alex’s face and stomach. Alex dropped to one knee and Lee kicked his chest. The impact was loud, and the customers roared.

“Kill him, Lee!” someone screamed.

Lee whooped and kicked Alex’s head. Alex fell onto his side and shielded his face with his hands. Lee kicked him three more times, exhilarated. “Rip my shirt, ya shit! Faggot!” He lifted a chair over his head. Val screamed at Lee to stop, and the retiree laughed. As Alex rolled onto his stomach, Lee gripped one leg of the chair and swung hard. The chair crashed against Alex’s head and broke in half. Only the chair’s leg remained in Lee’s grip, and he twirled it like a gunfighter twirling his smoking six-shooter.

Three customers pulled Lee away. Marty, who had bet on Alex, hunched over Alex and wondered what to do. Alex was motionless, and Marty poked cautiously at him, as if he were a frog squished on the road.

“Whydya have to use the chair on him, ya prick?” Marty complained.

Lee wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and demanded half the kitty. “Never laid a hand on me,” Lee boasted.

“I’ll still kick your ass,” Alex announced. His claim was muffled because his face was flat against the greasy wood floor. “Up that kitty to two hundred.”

“Enough’s enough,” Marty told the crowd. “I’ll buy these two bums a drink. Let’s call it a night.”

Lee ordered the retiree to take more bets. “Make it double or nothing. Easiest money you’ll ever make.”

Nobody took the bet. The crowd doubted that Alex could stand, much less fight. But Alex pulled himself up with a table and chair and faced Lee. He raised his fists awkwardly and demanded a second chance.

“Nobody’s bettin’. Why should I whip you again?”

“You haven’t whipped me once.”

Lee gripped Alex’s collar with his left hand, drew back his right, and launched his haymaker. The blow landed with a sharp report on Alex’s head.

A pained yell excited the crowd. The bartender grimaced, afraid that Lee might kill Alex. She was walking to the pay phone to call the police when she heard Alex laugh.

Lee clutched his broken right hand to his chest.

“Somebody should have bet on me,” Alex laughed. Lee swung at Alex with his left fist. Alex lowered his head so the punch struck his forehead. Lee howled. Both hands were broken. He tried to strike Alex with an elbow, chicken-wing style, but Alex slapped him. The slap spun him 360 degrees, like a top. Lee saw two of Alex standing in front of him, then three.

The three attacked with six fists and six boots.

Lee realized his face was on the floor. He rolled over, peering through his fingers like a child watching a horror movie. But the horror was real. Six arms held twelve chairs over him. The chairs struck him in unison.

With a guffaw, Alex faced the spectators. They stared at him, slack-jawed and unbelieving. The retiree handed Alex the wad of bills. “Best fight I ever saw,” he said.

“Thank you.” Alex stuffed the money into a pocket and punched the retiree in the face. The retiree imploded into an awkward heap at Alex’s feet.

“What the fuck!” Marty yelled. He swung at Alex, missed badly, and ineptly covered his head in self-defense.

“Watch this!” Alex roared to nobody in particular. He kicked Marty’s knee, then his shin, and Marty fell on top of the retiree. Marty was still conscious, and Alex stilled him with a kick to the head.

The bartender was holding the pay phone’s handset with a shaking hand. “Put that goddamned phone down!” Alex barked. Frightened, the bartender hesitated. Alex ran across the bar and pulled the handset out of the wall. The bartender swore at him, and Alex hit her over the head with the severed handset. When a man tried to help her, Alex choked him with the phone’s armored cord, then locked the front door and pulled the neon light’s power cord from the wall.

The three musicians were trying to sneak out the back. “I’ve got a gun!” Alex yelled. They stopped.

Alex crossed the room and grabbed Lee’s pistol. “Turn around, you guitar pickers.” The trio obeyed. Alex approached them, pistol pointed.

The bassist panicked and turned to run.

Alex shot him in the back, and the bassist lurched twice before hitting the floor.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Alex yelled at the remaining two.

“You told us to stop!” the drummer answered.

“Shut up!” Alex shot the drummer, then the guitarist.

Val, Amy, and a rosy cheeked young man in mechanic’s overalls were the last living customers. The three huddled beside an empty beer keg. “Don’t hurt us,” the mechanic pleaded.

“It doesn’t hurt. Watch this.” Theatrically, Alex held the barrel against his outstretched left palm. The trio whimpered in fear, and Alex shushed them. Then he took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. The blood sprayed the trio and the beer keg. Alex suppressed a yell: not a yell of pain, though the pain was enormous, but a yell of elation.

He held his hand in the air, holding it at an angle so the overhead fluorescent lights highlighted the bloody hole in his hand.

Val and Amy fainted.

“You try it.” Alex dangled the gun in front of the mechanic.

“I don’t like guns,” the mechanic insisted, eyes shut.

Alex fired. The bullet left a hole beside the mechanic’s nose; Alex mused that the hole resembled a third nostril. Alex sucked blood from the hole until the mechanic’s face was ashen. Then he dragged Lee’s corpse next to Val, fit Lee’s fingers around his pistol, and pushed the barrel into Lee’s mouth.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Alex repeated casually.

Alex was in a Battle Creek hotel room when the afternoon TV news carried a story of an “apparent suicide/multiple murder” in northern Gratiot County.

“Gratiot County sheriff Chief Jonathan Snively-Goodheart announced that Lee Howell of Gratiot County apparently beat and shot several people in Cal Clyde’s Elks Lounge and Nitespot, then turned the gun on himself. Chief Snively-Goodheart speculates, however, that Howell may have shot the others and then tried to burn down the tavern before killing himself. Much of the interior was burned, and investigators are struggling to cope with the extensive fire and smoke damage.”

An early morning shot of the Nitespot appeared. Six trucks were parked outside. Smoke escaped from a broken window, blending with the morning fog. A brief shot of the inside showed the blackened chairs, tables, and bar.

“Authorities believe there is a connection between the tragedy at the Elks Lounge and three recent murders in Portage, Michigan. Police found capsules of the drug haloperidol in Howell’s Ford Ranger. The drug was stolen from a Portage pharmacy, and the pharmacy owner was murdered. Furthermore, fire consumed the home of another Portage murder victim. Police are investigating the possibility that Howell was involved in the recent Portage murders and fire, either directly or through an acquaintance.”

Jimmy cursed as he trudged to his first class. He cursed for the same reason an angry infant screams: to vent rage. The curses made no sense, but they felt good, a random string of words and images. Jimmy told himself that goddamned spring break went faster than tits on a dolphin and I hate that fucker Resartus more than a tart hates boils on my, on my ass.

However, Jimmy didn’t hate Algebra enough to stay awake. He sat in the back, chin on his hand, and kept his snores to a minimum.

He did hate his history course enough to stay awake. Pompous Dr. Jones. A four hundred pounder whose ten-year-old suits were stained, and whose yellowed shirts strained at each button.

But Resartus was the worst. Jimmy had expended a lot of energy hating Professor Jones’s nasal self-importance, and he was tired. He fantasized that Resartus had called in sick.

No such luck. Resartus was already in front of the lectern, shuffling his notes. Jimmy hurried to the last row and wondered what bullshit Resartus would fry up today.

Alex adjusted his sky blue tie before beginning his lecture. He had not worn a tie in several years, and it felt alien. But he liked it. He felt refreshed and wanted to convey his refreshment with the tie, and with the rather sporty tweed jacket.

“I hope your spring break was as good as mine was, ladies and gentleman.” A few murmurs, mostly frowns.

“That’s wonderful,” Alex smiled. “Now. Let me see if I can reduce you to tears of boredom by 2:50.” He took a deep breath, like a tenor before his solo, and launched into his lecture. “We are nearing that section of the course where we study black humor and its underlying philosophy. The philosophy of black humor is wonderfully uncomplicated: life is absurd. In other words, it’s pointless. If we look for meaning, we don’t find it. Nothingness. Religion? Forget it! God? Another childish wish. Love? It’s really just the small comfort of someone’s company before you or the lover gets sick and dies. Or dumps you. Philosophy? A distraction for shut-ins. Absurdism is in direct opposition to much of our most venerable Western thought. For instance, Plato argued that when we followed reason…”