The man opened fire and Maurie’s chest lit up in red blotches as he reeled backward. Laxmi screamed, running to Chess, who stood protectively between her and the meth’d up maniac.
“Shit motherfucker, you shot my friend!”
“Oh my God!” said Laxmi. “He’s going to kill us!”
“You raped my wife, didn’t you?” said the gap-toothed killer, his wrath now turned upon Chester, who couldn’t process what was happening.
“I don’t know what you’re talkin about, man!”
“Just like that dog I nailed to the door! That dog touched my little girl too — see what I did to it? That dog was a lurcher. Ever heard of a lurcher? Them is gypsy dogs. They’re bred for stealth, stamina, and speed. 2 can bring down a deer. Know what the farmers do if they catch em? Cut their tails off. Cain’t walk without their tails!”
“I don’t fucking know what you’re — oh Jesus oh God oh shit oh Jesus…”
“You mo-lested my little girl! How ya think that feels, dude? As a dad? Are you a dad?”
“No, man…”
“You ain’t a dad, you a fag. That’s why I had to kill her — that’s why I had to kill em both! Cause I couldn’t let em walk the earth with that shame on em. Couldn’t let em live, without protectin em from ridicule. You are one sick madre, dude! Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy it when you were with my wife and little girl?”
“Man, stop! Just fucking stop! I don’t know your wife, and neither does my friend! And you fucking killed him!”
“Ah’m gonna nail you to the wall, bitch! Cause you a goddam child molestin faggot lurcher—”
Maurie groaned. “Help me. Help me…”
He began to twitch grotesquely, as if in seizure. Chess kneeled beside his friend.
“He’s still alive! We gotta call 911, man! Just get the fuck away and let me call 911! We’ll say it was an accident, just run the fuck away and let us get help!”
The madman fixed him with that bizarre Deliverance hillbilly grin.
“You cain’t help him now. Step aside! I’m gonna do the girl the way you done my wife!”
Laxmi let out a bloodcurdling bellowshriek.
“You. Keep. Away!” said Chess, standing ramrod straight. “Keep away from her!” The goddess of good fortune clung to his waist from behind as the madman moved closer. “I said stand down! Stand the fuck away! I’ll stay — but let her go! You let her go!”
He ogled the couple, lasciviously stroking his chin. He slowly raised the gun. “Are you freaked out?”
Chess braced himself to be shot.
“I said: Are you freaked out?”
“Yes!” said the traumatized warrior, lips trembling in shock and fear. “Now just let her—”
“Well, you shouldn’t be. Cause you’re on Friday Night Frights!”
Chess was cornered. He tensed, gave out a deafening war cry, then bolted backward with superhuman strength into a wall of glass bricks. But the wall did not give. His pants were soaked in urine.
A bunch of men suddenly poured into the room; Chess thought they were the police. Everything was in slo-mo. Why did I move back instead of forward? I was trying to make a hole for us to escape. Why hasn’t he shot—one of the men had a camera on his shoulder — they were all dressed in civilian clothes. Were they undercover? What was happening?
The madman threw down the gun and gleefully shouted. “The TV show! Friday Night Frights!”
Now he spoke without the twang. He was an actor.
Maurie stood up, melodramatically dusting himself off as the camera recorded his miraculous recovery. Laxmi, who bolted when Chess smashed into the wall, reentered, looking baleful and faintly agonized. She tried to smile at the probing lens.
“Are you OK?” she said to Chess, maternally.
Chess stutter-strobed his head like a dog just out of water, as if to throw off everything that had happened.
“See?” said Maurie, pointing to the red ragged splotches on his polo shirt. “They’re squibs! Like The Wild Bunch! Bonnie and Clyde! Pulp Fiction!”
“It’s a TV show, man,” said someone in civvies. He carried a clipboard and had a small black box attached to his belt. They were all wired for sound.
“Friday Night Frights.”
“Whoa,” said Chess, wincing a smile. He still couldn’t put it together but the name sounded familiar: Friday Night Frights. It was a joke, though — he knew that much. He turned to Maurie. “You piece of shit.”
All laughed heartily.
Everything was being filmed.
“Your friend set you up!” said the clipboard man.
“C’mere,” said Maurie. “Gimme a hug.”
The 2 friends embraced and a relieved Laxmi joined them as the crew laughed and hooted and patted Chess on the back like he was way cool for having aced a reality show rite of passage.
XII.Marjorie
PAHRUMP had his diagnosis: leukemia.
The awful thing was that Marj had just read in the paper about a pet hospice in San Francisco. A woman there specialized in putting the animals down. She let them lick peanut butter or cream cheese from one hand, if that was the kind of food they liked, while giving them a fatal injection with the other.
She sat with her neighbor as she cried. Cora said she was going to spend whatever it took to get “my baby” healthy again. Pahrump didn’t seem so bad; Marj asked if she was going to get a 2nd opinion. Cora said she had the best doctors “on the West Coast” so why would she?
“The worst thing is, Mr P just got accepted to day care. Heads ’n’ Tails, on LaCienega, by San Vicente — it’s very hard to get into. That’s where Reese Witherspoon keeps her dogs. The poor thing went through the most rigorous peer review. Marj, it’s worse than preschool! And he sailed through. Everyone loved him! Reese’s dogs loved him. They said he was ‘gifted’—didn’t they, Mr P? But now…”
The neighbor quickly composed herself then buzzed around the kitchen making dinner “for my Rump.”
She showed Marj the bottle of custom canine water that she poured in the doggie bowl. Pahrump was finicky about his H2O and always a little dehydrated, but now Cora gave him a special kind that came all the way from a river at the bottom of a glacier in Washington.
“Mount Rainier — Jerry and I were there once, in a custom RV. Can you imagine me camping? Have you ever drunk mountain water, Marj?” She looked down at a somewhat forlorn Mr P, who eagerly awaited his supper nonetheless. “No chlorine or fluoride, which are tough on the kidneys.” She said Pahrump’s rank breath seemed to have “improved.” He’d been putting on weight — this was months before the diagnosis — so she had him on a strict diet. Now she regretted it. Well, that was going to end today. From now on, she’d have Stein FedEx “grub” from New York. A place called the Barkery. “And a shop called Pawsitively Gourmet, isn’t that adorable?” Cora said the food was actually made for human consumption, so she and Pahrump could have dinner together. There were desserts like truffles and “pupcakes” (from the “pawtisserie”), almond butter waffle cones topped with carob, and oatmeal biscuits in the shape of fire hydrants. She couldn’t resist pulling her neighbor into the bathroom and showing off Mr P’s array of beauty products: tea tree oil shampoo, nail polish from Paul Mitchell, Earthbath Mediterranean Magic, and a misty spritz for his coat that was “kind of like eyeshadow.” Some of the products were very important because they stopped P from itching; Lord Rump had been known to scratch himself raw. Once a week, Stein sent over a mobile pet spa that gave her baby a hot oil treatment with Bulgarian lavender and African sage soil. As she spoke, she occasionally broke into quickly suppressed tears. Why had this befallen her little prince? Why? Marj touched her neighbor’s arm and said there were some questions that could never be answered. But she had a feeling that Pahrump would be “just fine.”