The House (28 page)

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Authors: Edward Lee

BOOK: The House
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"There aren't any fast food places up here," he complained. "I'd have to drive almost all the way to Rochester!"
"Thanks for being such a good sport, Melvin."
Melvin sighed.
Housemaid AND delivery boy. See Spot run...
Gwyneth unconsciously pulled up her bra straps. The gesture elucidated her breasts to a spectacular effect. "Oh, and don't fill the hole back in yet. There might still be more cool stuff in it."
Cool stuff?
Melvin thought.
In a hole in the ground?
 "What's the big deal with this hole?"
Her eyes lit up. "Look what I found," and she reached into a small cardboard box and withdrew an animal skull. It was about the size of a melon. "It's perfect. The perfect hue for my next mosaic."
Melvin's frown was rich. "An animal skull? How can you make a mosaic out of that? It's too big."
"Not with the skull itself, silly." She hefted the hammer. "I'm going to smash it up into bits and use the pieces."
Melvin shook his head.
What a weirdo. But at least she's got great tits.
"Oh, I wanted to ask you something," he said, remembering Gwyneth's job with the straw. "Did you come into my room last night?"
She threw a smirk at him. "No, Melvin, I did
not
 come into your room last night."
The look on her face seemed convincing.
I guess I dreamed that too...
A brief anger flared. "And don't you dare be playing that damn radio of yours again tonight. It kept waking me up! That's rude, Melvin. What
is
that shit you were listening to? Barry Richards, the home of the heavy, heavy head? What the
hell
is that? And who in God's name is
Barry Richards?
"
Melvin's eyes crossed at her. "I have no idea on earth what you're talking about. I don't know anybody named Barry Richards, and I didn't even
bring
 a radio."
Now her smirk signaled disbelief. "Well, it must be some music download on your computer, or some radio-internet thing."
Melvin remained firm. "I don't know what you're talk—"
"Melvin!" she abruptly yelled. "Stop being so weird! There was a radio station playing last night! It wasn't me so it had to be you! So don't play it tonight! Can you handle that? Is that too complicated for you?" Her hands gestured at the pile of junk before her on the table. "I have important
work
to do here! So go get our fucking lunch! And don't play that fucking radio again tonight! And quit
bugging
 me!"
Ah, so I'M the one being weird,
Melvin thought uselessly.
You're the one who walks around naked and drinks chocolate sauce with a straw. You're the one who pees in the grass and digs holes in the yard. And you're the one sitting there with an ANIMAL SKULL ON THE TABLE! But I'm the one who's weird.
 
"Okay," he said.
The day was ruined. Melvin figured the only way to salvage something good out of it would be to masturbate in the bathroom in grand style. He was about to leave when she said, "What do you think this is?"
"Huh?"
She was holding the skull up now, looking at it with inquisitiveness. "What kind of skull?"
There wasn't anything in the entire world that Melvin could've cared less about. "I don't know. Looks too big to be a racoon or possum. Dog skull, maybe."
Her eyes held fast to it. Her voice reverted to its usual cool drone: "Or maybe a pig."
(II)
Melvin did indeed masturbate in the bathroom before he left, in grand style. It was a frenzied, nearly maddening release full of angst and resentment. In his mind he saw himself slapping her down. Suddenly Melvin was a big decked-out black-rappin' thug-life lovin' pimp. His name would be Big Melvy P., or maybe Rap Daddy M. Who is 2 Kool 4 U. Melvin made the scene and if you fucked with him he'd bust a cap in your ass with his AK. Yes sir, Rap Daddy M. could BUST a move, and of course, the hottest bitches in town all lined up to work the street for him, and his top-drawer ho was Gwyneth and, see, she'd been holdin' out on him but Rap Daddy M. was wise to
that
shit, man, so he lay down some
hard
pimp-hand 'fo he grabbed hisself some hang-time on duh monkey. Her big bodacious white-bitch tits jiggled when his big black hand
cracked
 her right across her lily-white face. "I slap you UP, bitch!" his terrifying voice thundered. "Ain't none of my ho's holds out on Rap Daddy M., ya dig?" CRACK! Her tits jiggled again, nipples sticking out like fucking spark plugs. "I've been a bad girl, Rap Daddy M.!" she squealed on her knees before him. "I need some lovin' like only Rap Daddy M. can lay down! Gimme some'a that big licorice stick!" and then those killer white thighs were divaricated before him, butterscotch quiff all hot and ready. Who's duh MAN? Shit-yeah! Uh-HUH!
The image provided an outstanding orgasm, the residue of which Melvin anxiously deposited into the crotch of a pair of her panties he'd found in the hamper in the bathroom.
There, how do you like that, bitch? Call me a weirdo? Call me shy and sheltered and insecure? Make fun of ME? Well, there. How do you like that?
Melvin veritably
creamed
 the panties—a beautiful frilly shade of noon-blue, by the way—and chucked them back in the hamper. Then he zipped back up and washed his hands, and—
The aftermath of the event caused him to reflect. He looked hard at himself in the mirror, and realized:
That was...uncharacteristic?
Not masturbating, which he did excessively, but the mental images he'd summoned. Melvin was not a violent person. He abhorred violence of any kind, and had never found it to be erotic or stimulating in any way.
So why did I just have the best orgasm of my life while fantasizing that I was slapping Gwyneth silly?
It was a disturbing consideration.
Aw, I was just mad 'cos she's a dizzy bitch,
 he blew it off and left the bathroom. Something else occurred to him, though.
Something he wanted to check before he went to get lunch.
In the pantry, he looked on his laptop. He didn't have any music downloads on it but sometimes he did listen to internet radio while online.
Was I online yesterday?
He couldn't remember.
Maybe I forgot to log off,
 but when he checked, he saw that he hadn't.
Hmmm.
There'd been no radio on last night, no weird music.
She really is off her rocker,
 Melvin decided. To satisfy his curiosity, he quickly logged online, checked his browser, and saw that he hadn't gone to any internet radio sites in over a week. Then he ran a search for Barry Richards and clicked the first page that came up, to discover that a disk jockey named Barry Richards made some minor notoriety with on a Maryland radio station called WHMC (the heart of Montgomery County), 1150 on the AM dial. Richards was thought of as a progenitor shock-jock, calling himself "The Boss of Sauce." He's also credited as a maverick of sorts by promoting controversial acts such as Blue Cheer, Pentagram, Bloodrock and Alice Cooper, in the late '60s. In 1968, he also booked Led Zeppelin into an obscure high school community center, insisting that the group would soon become the biggest band in the history of music since the Beatles and was laughed at when he could only sell 50 tickets to the show. Two years later, when Led Zeppelin had become the biggest band in the history of music since the Beatles, Richards booked them again with local hard-rock outfit Sir Lord Baltimore. Zeppelin performed dismally even as their brand-new single "Whole Lotta Love" hit number one on the charts, and Sir Lord Baltimore blew them off the stage. As for the station, WHMC remains a legendary footnote as one of the nation's first "progressive" radio stations, and was taglined, "The home of the heavy, heavy head." After multiple FCC violations, they went off the air in 1977.
Barry Richards,
Melvin rolled the name over in his mind.
The home of the heavy, heavy head?
Gwyneth had just said that to him, hadn't she? It must have been something she'd heard elsewhere. Then Melvin considered something further:
Maybe she's slipping some vodka into that ridiculous chocolate sauce juice of hers.
Hey, it was a thought.
Melvin made doubly sure to log off the internet and shut the laptop down. Who knew? Maybe some audio pop-up had come on the computer last night, and that's what Gwyneth had heard.
Five minutes later, he was driving Dad's Hummer away from the house, heading north.
I feel...much better all of a sudden,
 he thought, eyes wide behind the wheel, the gorgeous countryside unreeling before him. The high sun, blue sky, and deliriously green hills therapized his mood more effectively than a couple of Prozacs. It almost seemed the minute he left the house his head had been cleared of all the anguish, illogic, and nonsense that had hounded him for the last 24 hours.
He drove for a full hour without a single sign of civilization. He should be getting close to the outskirts of the Rochester area, or at least he thought so.
What is with this place? There's NOTHING out here.
 No shopping centers, no strip malls. He didn't even see one house for all that distance. And of course no fast food joints for Gwyneth's lunch.
Eventually he turned around.
There's no way I'm driving all the way to Lake Ontario just so Gwyneth can have a damn Big Bruford Burger with fries!
But the only place he knew he could get food was same shopping center he'd gotten the Chinese at.
Sheriff Funk said there was a pizza place there, too,
he recalled. Heading south again, he dialed Gwyneth's cell phone from his own. It rang several times with no pickup.
Jesus, she's not even there now! Probably out in the yard digging in that hole again...
Just when he expected the voice mail message to come on, a female voice answered, "Hello? Is this Rocco? We're dying up here, Rocco."
Melvin winced. It clearly wasn't Gwyneth's voice. Immediately he thought,
I dialed the wrong number,
but...
What did she say?
"Did you say you're
dying?
"
The female voice sounded tiny, exhausted. "Please bring our junk. And we don't have anything to eat, either, and neither do the dogs. If we don't croak stringing out we'll starve to death."
Melvin remained silent, cogitating.
Wow. When I dial a wrong number, I dial a WRONG NUMBER...
 "I'm sorry, I dialed your number by mistake," he said, "but it sounds like you need help..."
"We don't need help, we need junk!"
Melvin stared at the open road.
Another woman's voice could be heard in the background, jabbering something. Did he hear dogs barking? He heard something else too: a whining chortle...
Then she said, "You're not Rocco! Leonard, is that you?"
Melvin severed the connection, eyes opened so wide he could feel their surface going dry.
Calm down, calm down.
His mind ticked.
No big deal, it's just another coincidence. I dialed the wrong number and it happened to be a bunch of mentally ill people, and they just happened to know someone named Leonard. Lots of people are named Leonard...

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