A Self Made Monster (9 page)

“You’re in the wrong class if you want people to feel sorry for you!” The trainer had just led the class though a half hour of jumping jacks, pushups, and stretches. “Anytime you feel sorry for yourself, stand naked in front of the mirror for one minute. Then tell yourself that you’re worth more than French fries or cookies or ice cream or whatever. Tell yourself that you’re worth about twenty sit-ups!”

“I can’t do five sit-ups!”

“Not yet. But in two months, you’ll be doing fifty.”

When Holly Dish turned 18, she weighed 120 pounds. Three years of diet and exercise had transformed her. She could do one hundred sit-ups and one hundred pushups. She ran three miles daily. The boys liked her and the girls respected her. Her regime naturally rendered her athletic: she could have modeled for those swimwear magazines such as
Clingy Tops and Bottoms
, and
Sunned American Buns
. When she went running in her tee and slims, she gave boys a hormone high.

Holly went away to college, and she retained her two personalities, the Trainer and the Hippo, as motivation. She also took the petition, which she had kept taped to her dresser mirror for three years. Once at college, Holly realized she could reinvent herself. She was not fat Holly. She was Holly Dish, a campus spool drool.

Holly soon decided that the best part of college was the social life. She liked talking with people, and people liked talking with her. She discovered a gift of gab, and her advisor recommended public relations.

“Why public relations?”

“You’re good around people, and your best grades are in speech. Frankly, your grades aren’t so hot otherwise.” He paused, reconsidered his words. “And you’re an attractive and vibrant young woman. You have confidence, and confidence is what pub. rel. is all about.”

“I was thinking of publishing.”

“You’ve taken only a freshman English course, and you got a C minus. That won’t do at all.”

“I don’t want to write.” Holly was by now an expert actress, adept at manipulation. She offered her sheepish grin. “I was thinking of being an agent, of representing authors in their deals and stuff.”

“I see.”

“I know my grades need to be better, but I do want to get into publishing because I want to live in New York.”

“Why New York?”

“It’s supposed to be…” Holly cocked her head. “Cosmopolitan. Glamorous.”

“Why not?” Her advisor shrugged. “Perhaps publishing will be your niche. You’ll have to take more English courses. Both literature and writing.”

Holly nodded firmly. “I’m prepared for that.”

The bartender refilled Sandy’s glass. Sandy put the glass to her mouth, savoring the barley and malt, and finished half the beer in two gulps. With another two gulps, the glass was empty.

The customers applauded as the jazz trio finished “Star Eyes”. She giggled into her empty glass, imagining that the applause was for her. Sandy imagined the bartender addressing the crowd: A round of applause and a round of drinks for the lady. She’s put down four straight beers and is not yet weaving in her seat.

Sandy put down her glass, waited for another refill. She searched through her purse for a smoke. No luck. She tapped the shoulder of the man sitting to her left.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but could I steal a cigarette from you?” Sandy hoped “sorry” and “steal” did not come out as “shorry” and “shteal.”

The man kept her back to Sandy. “I don’t smoke.”

“Oh.” Sandy looked over the man’s shoulder. The man’s companion raised her plucked brows at Sandy. The brows were as sharp as a saber.

Sandy turned to her right. “Say, could I borrow a…” The stool was empty. The man sitting next to her had smoked those stinking Kools, she remembered. But she was now agreeable to any cigarette.

Alex had been sitting by the wall, not ten feet behind Sandy. He had watched for a half hour. She was apparently alone, which surprised him. Though the light made it difficult to be sure, she seemed attractive. Her orange hair and red dress were catchy. When she failed to bum a cigarette from anyone, he took the chance.

“Here,” Alex offered. “Have one of mine.”

“Thank you.”

“You need another beer too. Bartender?” He gestured for two more drinks.

“No thanks,” Sandy said. “I can buy my own.”

“I’m sure you can. But it’s my pleasure.” His smile seemed genuine. Many smiles, Sandy thought, were disguised smirks. “If you like, you can buy my drink. If not, that’s fine too.

Sandy did not know if she liked the man, but at least he did not seem to be a creep. These days, that was a terrific start. He was dressed sanely: no idiotic gold chains or piercings, and his smile widened into an easy grin.

“My name is John Lowe,” the man said. “Come see me if you’re ever looking for a Chevy.”

“Really? I do need a new car.” It was true. Her car had 138,000 miles. “Can you get me a good deal, Mr…” She had forgotten his name.

“John Lowe.”

“Sorry. Sandy Chandler.”

“It’s all right. I forget people’s names all the time.” He laughed. “I forget all kinds of things all the time.” His second laugh was a snort.

Sandy laughed too. She laughed freely at his candid snort, and at her own drunkenness. The room had been tipping left since her third beer.

The bartender had delivered Sandy’s beer and John’s gin & tonic. He waited to see who would pay for the drinks.

“She’s paying for the drinks,” Alex said.

Sandy laughed again. The laughs were coming so easily. She waved a ten at the bartender.

Alex lightly pushed Sandy’s hand away. “Just kidding.” He paid the bartender and sat on the stool. “The trio’s back,” Alex noted. “Let’s see if we can name the tune.”

“All these jazz tunes sound alike to me.”

“You’ve just got to concentrate.” He laughed inwardly. He was alert, witty, focused. He felt wonderful when he had a victim. The anticipation was energizing. His headache had melted like ice cubes in warm water.

The trio kicked into a double time cover of “It’s Easy to Remember.” He told Sandy the name of the tune, then noted the composers, Rogers and Hart.

“They’re famous, aren’t they?”

“You’d probably recognize a lot of their tunes.” He rocked his head back and forth. “You know, ‘Isn’t It Romantic?’, ‘Spring Is Here’, stuff like that.”

“Geez I don’t think so.” She found herself leaning toward the man, rolling her shoulders to the music. Her spilling orange curls had loosened and now reached the middle of her back. She realized she was flirting and chuckled. The man understood her chuckle and smiled.

“It’s a nice night, isn’t it?” Sandy asked.

The thought of Sandy’s blood thrilled him. “Very much so.”

Alex hummed along with “Blue In Green”, the trio’s last tune. When the trio left the bandstand, Sandy asked that he walk her to her car. “You can tell me how much I can get on a trade-in,” she joked.

They walked toward the parking lot. Alex wanted to remain a gentleman for the moment, so he kept a polite distance. Sandy wanted to close the distance, so she began to walk suggestively. She imagined that her walk was alluring. She offered her new friend a cheesy smile, held it, then raised her eyebrows playfully, then smiled again. I know I’m acting silly, she wanted her eyebrows to say, but I’m loaded and I think I like you.

Sandy wanted Alex to smile at her drunken riot of facial tics. So he smiled.

Inside the car, she rolled down the window. “Give me your phone number, I’ll call you next weekend.”

“Give me yours first.”

She did. He invented a number with the same prefix.

“What a coincidence. Do you live around here?”

He nodded. “What’s your street?”

“Broadway, almost on the corner of California.”

“I live just a couple blocks away.” He stepped away from the car. “I’ll call you soon,
 
okay?”

“You bet.”

Alex opened his mouth as if to speak.

Sandy leaned half way out the window. “Did you say something?” she teased.

“Not yet.” He looked to his left, to his right. Nobody within thirty yards. “I’m sorry if this is a bit odd, but…”

“I hope really fucking odd.” More facial tics to show her good humor.

“Could you give me a lift? I took a taxi down here, you see, and since we live close…”

Alex sat on a fake leather couch in Sandy’s living room. Sandy had stepped into the bathroom ten minutes ago, and he wondered if she had passed out. Her speech was slurred as she wobbled to her apartment building. The lobby elevator was not working, so they took the stairs to her fifth floor apartment. She had fallen twice, but she just laughed. “I’m smashed and it’s harder to be hurt when you’re, when you’re, when you get hammered.”

Her apartment was pleasant, and Alex was comfortable. Stucco walls, a miniature forest of houseplants on the floor, in the living room window, and on the window sill. Light gray carpet, art deco prints, and a gleaming kitchenette to the side of the living room. At the end of the hallway, two bedrooms and a bathroom.

He waited calmly, his senses enlivened with anticipation. He heard her singing “Speak Low”. Soon she was walking down the hallway in a bathrobe.

“You’re very beautiful,” he whispered. “And healthy looking.”

She smiled. No facial tics this time, only half closed eyes and candid smile. “You’re astute. I just got a physical last month, and I’m in shape for a big fuck.”

He took her in his arms and heard her blood rushing through her. It was especially turbulent in her neck and chest.

“You like this?” She ground her breasts against his chest.

“Very much.” He wondered if he should excuse himself to go to the bathroom; he wanted to put on his rubber gloves.

Now she rubbed her tummy against him in a circular fashion. With each completed circle, she pressed her breasts against him and squeezed his buttocks. He smiled, followed her cue. They moved to the middle of the living room.

Her perspiration and rising pulse excited him. He imagined her carotid artery ejaculating into his mouth. He had managed to slip on one glove by thrusting his hips as a distraction.

“Off with that.” She began unbuttoning his shirt.

After she unbuttoned the shirt, he shrugged it off and let it fall to the floor. With a big grin, he slipped on the second glove.

She stepped back, eyes widening.

“Don’t worry about the gloves,” Alex smiled. “You’ll like the feel of them.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she whispered. She backed into the kitchenette, arms folded across her breasts.

He followed.

“Frank, Jesus Christ, Frank.”

Alex turned.

A tall swarthy man stared at Alex.

“You asshole, Frank, you asshole. I changed the locks. I’ll have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

“The goddamned door was not locked. I walk in, and what do I see? I see you naked and crawlin’ all over this creep.” Frank pointed at Alex, and hate hardened his black eyes. He removed his trench coat, revealing thick hairy arms and a big chest straining against a tee shirt.

“I should kill you both,” Frank declared.
Sandy
blinked through tears.

“No need for hostilities, Frank.” Alex tried to sound frightened. “Please. Why don’t we sit down and discuss this quietly. There’s always a way to settle differences without resorting to hostilities.”

Frank removed his cap, tossed it over his shoulder. The gesture was theatrical, and Alex wondered if Frank rehearsed it before a mirror.

“He’s right, Frank. Let’s talk.”

“We’ll talk after I pound his goddamned face.”

“Please. Civility is most precious at the very moment it’s being threatened,” Alex suggested.

“Shut up!”

“Suck me off.”

“Christ shut up, he’ll kill us,”
Sandy
pleaded.

“No really. Suck me off, Frank, and then I’ll fuck her.”

“Now you shut up!” Frank demanded. “You’re a freak.”

“And a mass murderer.” Alex gripped his own neck and stuck out his tongue, pretending to choke himself.

Sandy starting crying, and Alex, still pretending to choke himself, told
Sandy
to calm herself and sit. She sat.

“Goddammit, I’m the bastard that gives orders in my apartment,” Frank roared. “You don’t have nothin’ to say in here!”

“You’ll wake the neighbors,”
Sandy
warned.

“I don’t give a hard shit about the neighbors. They can kiss my—Hey, let go of me!”

Alex had grabbed Frank’s neck.

“I’m warning you, let go!” Frank managed to punch Alex.

“Rude host,” Alex half-whispered. He stomped Frank’s foot.

“Stop it,”
Sandy
pleaded. She tried to pull Alex off her husband.

“Shut up, both of you,” Alex ordered. He gripped Frank’s neck, squeezed, and smashed his face against
Sandy
‘s. A sharp report echoed through the apartment. The sound was exciting, like a baseball player hitting a home run, so Alex crashed their faces together again.