‘Ain’t a lot of fucken life left in these here batteraries. Only bord em last fucken week and look at em. Hey! Prong! How’s ya batteraries holding?’ cried one.
‘Wha-a? Is that you Sal?’ called back another man from the other side of the bridge.
‘Yeah. Ah said how’s ya fucken batteraries holdin’ out?’
‘Batter him? Ah’m gunna bash the little fucker black and blue. If there is one thing ah cain’t stand, it’s a freakin’ secko, know what ah mean?’ replied Prong, who came clomping across the bridge to stand by Sal.
‘Dumb bastard,’ hissed Sal, unner his breath.
Again there was a silence, only longer this time. Beams probed.
‘Where’s Groper and… ah dunno… what’s his name… the youngster?’ asked Prong.
‘Chisolm or Prism or Jism… ah dunno… they’re down checkin’ unner da britch. Let’s get going. Ah cain’t see a fucken thing with this here torch. He’s probably clear of the fucken valley by now, anyway. Why don’t this Swift character do his own fucken man-huntin’?’
Across the creek ah could see two pale beams flashing through the briar on either side of the bridge.
‘How’s your side, Groper?’ called a voice.
‘What was that?’ replied Groper.
‘Wha-a-a?’
‘Ah said, what was that?’
‘Ah said, how’s your si… oh forget it, it don’t matter any.’
‘Yeah, mine too, and ah only bord ‘em last week.’
A bottle smashed on the rocks that lined the creek. Ah gasped.
Sal or Prong, one or the other, said sharply, ‘Shhhh. Shut up. Do ya hear that?’
‘Hear what?’
‘That. Shhh. Listen!’
‘Wha-a?’
‘That funny breathy sound. Is dat you, Stoat?’
‘Wha-a-a?’
‘The fucken breathy sound! Christ!’
‘No! It ain’t me,’ said Stoat nervously, ‘it certainly ain’t me.’
‘Shut up! Everybody listen and hold their breaths. Shhh.’
Ah held mah breath.
A screaming, head-splitting, lung-frying, heart-punishing lifetime ensued, and in the interminable ache of its passing when the atmosphere pounded with deep reds and dark blues, ah remember thinking to mahself that for all the beating of gums that went on, nothing much was really said and that maybe, just maybe, the gab wasn’t such a great fucken gift after all and that it was action that spoke louder than words, action ah say, as ah waited for them to find me and put me to death.
And they did.
Torch beams of naked light felt me out. Little hairless animal. Clomping boots encircled me. Machetes pared the air. Parted the slats. Carved me into long strips of meat. Cleaved mah skull with a dead hit. Hacked me into cubes. Into mince. Into mush. Into soup. And not a peep of protest.
And from the pool of creamed corpse a perfect soul, complete in every way, floated up to be received into that heavenly breast of His into that heavenly breast of His into that heavenly breast of His.
But they did not. No, they did not.
‘There he is, crawled into a ball, unner the bridge!’ exclaimed Prong or Sal, dropping to his knees with his trembling torch in his hand. With eye glued to the floor of the bridge, he peered at me through a gap in the beams.
‘O mah God! He’s completely naked, and he’s smiling at me weirdly!’ gasped Prang or Sal, and kissing the pricked tip of mah sickle ah slogged the steel claw up through the slatted beams and sunk it to the hilt into his great, gawping face, then wrenched the sickle back again, ripping it from his skull like a mask – that silly face – ripping it from his skull like a screaming mask.
Yeah, but me neither. No neither did ah.
‘There ain’t no fucken breathing sound, chucklehead. Let’s get going,’ said Sal and they turned and headed for their vehicles.
‘The tamperer’s there, ah know he is!’ protested Chucklehead, but they loaded him into their pick-up and eventually both vehicles were roaring down Maine, toward town.
Maybe it was all the fleeing, all the fearing, all the falls, the earth mauls, bad steering, all the goddamn feeling ah had had to do on this dark descent, this day, this night – or perhaps it was the thoroughly obstetric secureness of mah pouch of earth, the pulse and lull of its clay. Or maybe ah needed to dream, to purge all of the rogue thoughts that had been hidden for so long in the back-streets and basements, the alleys and attics of mah subconsciousness. Or could it be ah just hadn’t been sleeping much lately – oh but ah had, ah had, hadn’t ah? Or perhaps it was none of these reasons and God had just deemed it necessary for me to tarry a little longer in that queer crawlspace, ah dunno, but that is exactly what ah did, crouched and naked and slumbering there.
Never unnerestimate fear. Fear is the boss. Fear is king. Fear is God. It is everywhere and in everything. The peril potential. What do you think? Fear is a good chief but a bad brave. That’s mah view. That’s the way ah see it. Of all the emotional influences that play upon the senses there is none so all-consuming, so arrantly demanding and so downright insistent as fear. So much so that, as ah lay entombed in earth in that creeping crawlspace beneath the bridge, so afraid – so in fear – ah barely noticed the frightful condition mah body was in. Though it had no doubt been remonstrating, mah brain had been so thoroughly ravaged by fear that mah sensory switchboard had jammed. Now, as the motors died in the distance and fear subsided for the moment, pain bullied its way in.
A ferocious cramp gripped mah right leg. Mah left leg was numb and dead. Gripping onto a support beam on the unnerside of the bridge with mah free arm, ah lifted mahself up a few inches and twisted mah body around, knees still drawn up to mah chest, and lowered mahself down upon mah back. Ah screamed as a sizzling pain ripped through the angry stripes across mah back and shoulders and ah hoisted mahself upward, disturbing a handful of slugs that seemed to welcome the warmth of mah body, peeling from the wooden beams and falling cool upon the conflagration of mah flesh.
The pain generated by the great bruised swellings across mah back and shoulders seemed to stimulate parts of mah memory that would have otherwise remained dormant – stark jumbled bursts of recall – baffling – foreign – lost re-runs all triggered by shouts of white pain – terrible snippets of deadtime, ghastly in their vividness and somehow made even more harrowing by their transience, their disjointedness and their inconclusiveness. Deadtime revisted in agony.
Darkness. Creaking floorboards unner mah feet. A slip of moon shining through a wide open window. A flapping curtain. Ah am near naked, but it is night and there are no lights in this room. But ah know the room. Ah know the room. Girl smells. Clean sheets. Soap. Powder. Her smells. Then an urgent whisper, trembling and excited. Excited. Her voice. An arm’s reach away. Come… upon… me… Jesus. O… Jesus… please… come… upon… me. Boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom. Sickle flash. The moon a scarlet slice. Here in the dark. In her room. The breath of her words against the skin of mah face. I… am… prepared. I… am… prepared. Clean cotton fabric. Mah body glistening in the moonlight. A brush of lavender across mah cheek. Your little doll… little doll… is prepared. Blushing blackness. Blushing blackness. Deadtime.
Then an explosion of light. A wall of waxed dolls with hinged jaws. Beth’s face wet with tears. And me – and me standing in the centre of the room, shamed in light. And in the doorway – an ogress. Flowery apron. Florid face. Wooden rolling-pin in her fist. Screaming teeth, screaming O my God… O my God… O my God. Ah spin around. Glimpse Beth wrapping herself in a white sheet, sitting up in the bed. And me, shaking with fear. Ah turn to the window. Go climbing through. The brutal whacks across mah back – with the club, with the pin. Their dull thud. One. Two. Three. Four. Screaming and spinning and rushing ah go, like a wounded dog, through the night. Crawling through the dust and the darkness to mah refuge, to mah Kingdom. And there, in mah room, howling, mad with pain. Ripping apart a kennel with an axe-handle. Dull meat whacks. Pain transferral. Me, howling with pain like the dogs in the dark. A clutch of lavender fabric. Fresh and new and all unbuttoned. Still warm with her. In mah hands –