Slice (12 page)

Daniel was a man to whom taunts and ridicule had no effect. He was oblivious to the scorn of the monkees. To a man whose life had been a saga of abuse, torment, torture, anguish, unbearable pain, distress was a catalyst—a hair trigger in a gun loaded with suffering, confusion, misery, bewilderment, and the paralysis of dread and fear. It had kept a child immobile, willing his heart not to beat, willing his tiny penis not to leak or drip, not to pee, willing his bladder not to burst, slowing his respiratory system to death's threshold, taking his mind all the way to its limits and beyond into the darkness of consciousness's edge, willing himself not to scream in his childhood's hellish, unending nightmare rending the mind and heart and soul and rendering the victim a frozen, cowering thing riveted with terror and abject fright.

To this man, whose horror is more jolting than any electric shock, whose fear and hatred is more hallucinogenic than any combination from add to lithium to peyote to paregoric, those hideous, violent, psychodynamic origins and psychogenetic developments cause Daniel Bunkowski to see hear smell feel taste touch and perceive—to say the least—a distorted reality.

And so the set of the punk's shoulders or the bared teeth of the punk's smile is enough to trigger it. And it comes in a hot, brutal tidal wave washing his senses in the mad desire to kill and in just that moment of derisive laughter from a passing pair of punks, in just that hot heartbeat of memory-jarring reality, Daniel's kill lust was kindled. So he said his piece to Sissy Selkirk and was in the black Caprice and the flickering telephone poles whipping by were a hypnotic thing ticking at the edge of his vision as he drove into the darkening night, driving over newly painted yellow line, aimlessly yet with singular purpose, driving toward the heartbeat of an unknown victim.

He would not remember what triggered it, later, or how he knew to sit for so long in the parked car. The infinite patience and mysterious self-confidence always his trademarks. Nor would he remember why he zeroed in on Harmon Schmitz when he saw him. It was a thing of balance. The inner clock. The gyro. The thing that was his automatic pilot and regulator.

Harmon Schmitz was a faggot. A simpering, mincing, limp-wristed, queenish, full-blown, cruising-for-a-lip-bruising sperm-sucking fag. He was as gay as a fucking fruitcake. He had good points. He was smart. He was a good worker. He loved his mother. But he had this problem. The idea of putting a stiff male erectile member into his bodily orifices got him crazy. He was smart enough to know if he wanted to keep his gig out at Cat's Paw he would have to act butch during the day. And he liked the bucks and so during the day Harmon Schmitz was a regular guy. No sly looks. No hand on the hip. All he needed was a palomino named Fury and he was Straight Arrow.

But with the coming of nighttime Harmon Schmitz underwent a wild and gay metamorphosis and Lon Chaney, Jr., became the wolfman under the lunar luminosity, but instead of getting hairy he got horny and instead of wanting to sink his fangs into somebody's neck he wanted to sink his lips onto somebody's beaver-cleaver. A total, God-help-me-Mary-I'm-coming, Hi-there-sailor, screaming, swishing, knees-to-the-men's-room-floor queer.

And he was in mortal fear day and night, not of being found out, he wasn't worried about coming out, he was worried about shagging a nice, virulent, unstoppable case of killer AIDS. Scared out of his wits. Frightened half to death. Not to the point where he'd stop cruising, you understand, but very seriously afraid. He already had three friends who were in some stage of the devilish disease. And it was all he thought about when he wasn't horny.

I mean, when you think about it, what's so wonderful, what's so exciting, what's so thrilling about the rubbery, cock-sweaty, tasteless taste of a penis? What was the big attraction about gobbling a few cee-cees of nasty, warm cum? Why couldn't he give it up? He didn't know. Harmon Schmitz just plain loved to suck the boys’ things and that was all there was to it.

He liked the humiliation, he supposed, of subjugating himself to another man. The way they'd look at him when he let his eyes travel down to a guy's bulging crotch and back up to look him in the eye and let him know. The way one of them was always dominant and one was always the more passive. He loved the passive role but he'd play it either way to get laid.

He liked it in the mouth in the butt in the hand, he would take it in his armpit if that's what got some stud off, but the important thing was the cruise. He liked finding it. The tingling and decadent erection that would threaten to rip through the front of his pants the moment he saw a guy. He liked all the numbers out there and it was then that his thoughts would be far from AIDS and the other dangers of the mean streets.

Harmon loved “dating,” which is the name he gave it in his mind. And when the number wasn't too rough sometimes they would date and it would be an even greater ecstasy in anticipation of the climax of the evening. But he liked the toughest trade too. Liked, hell he craved it. Craved the suicidal impulses and self-destructive urges that led a fellow down that path.

He loved the language of the game. The illicit kick of the stalk and the final moves. He loved the positioning of the belt buckle and the hip pocket handkerchief and all the lore and the secret mating signs and the self-advertising clothing and mannerisms of the gay brotherhood. He adored the rites of homosexuality. He got off on the ritual, like an inveterate pipe smoker reaming away at the dottle and dreaming about the sweetness of what he was going to be sucking. He could write a book about sucking.

In fact, that is exactly what Harmon Schmitz was thinking about when this hulking behemoth stepped out of the shadows and rumbled something at him and he turned and it was like a rowboat looking up at the looming
Queen Mary
but sometimes you take what you can get and with his caution switch on overdrive he turned and said something clever and the voice rumbled again, some nonsense about how to get somewhere and he was both relieved and mildly disappointed that this big thing wasn't a number just someone asking bothersome directions and he replied he didn't know and started off and the voice rumbled again, “Hey!” And he turned back, frightened, but then it spoke to him again and it wasn't menacing the guy just wanted to get directions and so he made himself stop and think for a minute and the man said, “Isn't that Scranson Something going east?” He didn't catch the name but when the huge Goliath pointed and said, “There!” so insistently, he turned his head to look to make sure, Oh that, he thought, that's only Kings Highway but he never got the thought enunciated because as he was turning back to speak a building fell on him and he died.

Nothing fell on him really, but when Chaingang turned back to his left, moving his right arm, that powerful killing arm, to his left to point in front of the victim, pointing out toward the street, his arm going right in front of the man's face where he'd have to turn and look, and as the man's scrawny, pencil neck turns Chaingang smashes that battering ram of an elbow back into the side of the man's temple, and as he fell to the ground he killed him then and went over to the waiting vehicle and packed him away and Harmon Schmitz died as he lived.

He died a heartless death. He died as a piece of meat is butchered. And one cannot overlook the perverseness of the irony that had Harmon Schmitz known that he would be killed so that a madman could eat one of his organs, he'd never in a million years been able to guess which one it would end up being.

Life is funny.

S
he'd first told him about it that night coming back from Peggy and Jimmie's when they'd gone over for dinner and cards afterward. Lee not seeming as downbeat as he'd been and the evening a pleasant one, with no talk of the Job or any other subjects that might bum anybody out, and they were both in a cuddly mood when they drove home that night.

He loved the look of metropolitan Buckhead after dark. It always seemed to him to look like the best of both worlds, the familiarity and predictability of a small hometown environment coupled with the pizzazz and dazzle of a big city at night. Invariably Jack would recharge a bit at the look of the lights of the city skyline and the surprisingly big-town feel of a vast cosmopolis when he drove through South Buckhead and down Main toward Buckhead Springs, and saw that string of bright lights and all the glittering nightlife in the distance.

She rode close to him and her perfume was intoxicating. She seldom failed to arouse him up close like this, and as always, when he glanced over at this lady he could never quite fully believe was his, she stirred that kind of desire and admiration in him. Donna's scent mingled with the car interior making the vehicle smell newer, more luxurious than it was, and her nearness made the lights a little brighter. They had Laurindo playing on the tape deck.

“That's nice."

“Just your basic unamplified, six-string, open-face guitar sandwich. He do play."

“He play good, Laurindo do."

“I play good too. Wanna play later?"

“Umm. And I wanna play Saturday too but not what you think exactly.” She snuggled against him. “I want you all to myself all day Saturday."

“I'll have to look at my calendar. I have a very busy schedule. My dance card is very full at this time of the season. I'll check."

“You do that little thing. Make room in your busy schedule for Donna. All day Saturday. Really."

“Okay. Whatcha got planned?"

“Just something,” she told him mysteriously.

“I don't like surprises. Tell me."

“I won't tell. You can do anything you want and I won't talk."

“Are you saying your lips are sealed?"

“I won't go THAT far.” She giggled a womanly giggle. “I mean let's not get crazy here. I won't say that my lips are sealed but I won't spoil my surprise. Just be mine alone all day Saturday."

“I'll see if I can clear the decks. Tell Racquel and Heather I just don't have time for them Saturday."

“You're too kind to me. Whatta guy."

“I know."

When Saturday came she woke him up with kisses and fresh juice and coffee and they had breakfast in bed.

“I made you a card.” And she handed him a card with the legend HAPPY BIRTHDAY written across the front and then he remembered it was his birthday. “I hope you like homemade greeting cards because I couldn't find one I liked.” He told her he did and opened it and inside a drawing of a big heart she'd written his birthday message. He read it out loud.

“I love you, my husband. You have made my life a dream that I thought would never come true. When you are away from me I feel the way you hold me and when I make up our bed it makes me tingle just to see your imprint in the sheets. I love you a lot and I will be yours forever. You are the best man I've ever known. All my love.” And he turned and they kissed over the Xs drawn across the bottom of the card.

“That's enough. That's for later,” she said, drawing away from him. He looked at her with such love and in that second he couldn't imagine that he'd ever bad a life without her.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he told her. “So. Get dressed and come into the Official Birthday Room.” The Official Birthday Room was the living room. There was a box, a large, beautifully wrapped box, and he opened it. There was a beat-up baseball and two well-used gloves, together with a note.

This is the old-time saturday you told me about. Remember the way it was when you were a kid? Playing catch with your dad? Going to Shepherd's Drugstore with your pals? Then reading a comic book out under the trees? Going to the double feature at the Orpheum? Have fun! Love—xxx, Donna.

“I'll be your dad. I get the catcher's mitt, so—let's go, son,” she said. She had a little trouble keeping the cap on all that hair. Finally she hairpinned it in place somehow, a Mets cap that had been a gift to Eichord from a guy he'd worked with once, and he followed her out into the yard.

“Burn it in there,” she said. She had on one of his old shirts and a pair of shorts you couldn't see somewhere under the shirt tail. “Burn one in to your old dad."

“Hate to say this but you don't look anything like old dad.” She pushed out even the voluminous shirt front.

“Cut the talk, son, ‘n burn one in."

“Okay.” He pitched one to her.

“Come on, boy,” she told him, “you can throw harder than that. I'm not no sissy girl."

“Right, Dad.” He threw another.

She hopped around blowing on her hand. “Okay,” she said, “that wraps up the catch game. Besides I gotta get these rented gloves back.” He laughed. “You made Dad's hand sting. Later you can kiss it and make it well."

“I aims to please."

“I hear that. Okay. It's time to read our comic book under the tree.” She went and returned with a sack in her hand, motioning for him to come with her. They sat under a red maple.

“Look what came in the mail."

“What on earth?” It looked like one of the old-time comic books that he used to subscribe to. Sure enough, there was an old mailing sticker on the familiar brown paper with his name and his address where he'd grown up. “Where in hell—"

“I'll never tell.” She had found an old copy of Children's Activities Magazine and soaked his mailing label off the cover and glued it to the wrapper she'd made for the comic. He removed it gently from the container and opened it.

“MY GOD! Walt Disney's Comics & Stories! I haven't seen one of those in thirty years. Where on earth?"

“Some guy up in Missouri sells old comic books. I remembered you telling me about the covers."

“Huey and Dewey and Louie with Uncle Donald,” he said, smiling one of the biggest smiles she'd ever seen on his face. The nephews were watching Donald about to go skiing. But two rows of tiny animals, birds, and assorted hangers-on had lined up on the back of each of Donald's skis. “That's the way I remember them. I got this one, and Tarzan and Red Ryder. Three comics a month from the same company—I'll never forget it."

“I know—I know. I wrote it all down. I thought about getting you a Tarzan, too, but I didn't know how you'd feel about my selling the car, so I held off on that one.” They laughed.