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It
echoed off high, crumbling buildings and he was all of eleven again. Carl
ducked his head and ignored it. It was this way, day after day.
“Carl’s
got no dad-dee! Carl is a whore’s son! Nyah, nyah! Carl is a bas-turd.
Hey, turd. Where’s your pop, pimp?”
Something
soft and stinking spattered on the leg of his jeans and clung there. He looked
down in horror.
Dog
crap. And on his new jeans, too.
Carl
dropped his math book and the flock of tormenters scattered. He ran down the
worse of them and felled the kid with one punch to the back of the head.
The
mother to the boy raced out of her house and screamed she was going to call
the cops.
“You’re
twice as big as him, you piece o’ friggin kark. Go fight somebody your own
size.”
Carl
turned blazing eyes on the woman. She backed from him, stumbled over a loose
plank on the porch and darted into her house. The heavy front door slammed on
her son’s weeping.
He
ran all the way home. Carl slipped in the back door and went to his room. He
changed as fast as he could. Carl took the dirty jeans, dumping them in the
washing machine. He went through the doors along the sagging, shotgun style
row house to the living room.
His
mother was there, watching her favorite soaps. Even this time of day a towel
wrapped her head, she wore an old bathrobe. She ignored him.
Of
course, his mother worked graveyard shift and probably woke up just a little
while ago. He caught the harsh smell of a Pennsylvania Screwdriver, grain
alcohol and orange juice. Carl’s nose wrinkled.
Head
bowed, he returned to the kitchen. The whole place was a mess.
Carl
smacked himself on the forehead. Homework.
He
could forget that. By now the books were history. With a sigh, Carl
straightened the kitchen. Hunger over-came a sense of disgust at the mess. He
fixed himself a cold supper. The haluptkies weren’t too old, and the sausage
pie was only a little dry and had just a small spot of mold on it.
An
hour later the kitchen was clean. He followed the noise of the television
through the darkened house back to the living room. It was worse than the
kitchen, but he didn’t dare touch it. Not with Mom in there. When she left
for work, then he could clean the mess she dropped while he was at school.
Carl took a deep breath.
A
father. Everybody had to have somebody, didn’t they?
“Mom?
I l-love you.”
As
if she wanted to spit on him, the woman gave Carl a sharp glance. He opened
his arms for a hug. She returned to her soaps. Like Nana Ivanoff said to, Carl
embraced her anyway. His lips brushed her cheek and he could smell stale
men’s cologne still scenting her hair.
Her
voice raised shrill and spite-filled. “Get away from me, you little
bastard.” Greta Ivanoff shoved her son away. “I can’t stand the sight of
you.”
Tears
rolling down the lean face, he cried, “Why’d ya have me then?” In a
gesture of rage he scrubbed away the tears.
Hand
on hip, she gave Carl a hard, mocking leer. “Your grandmother wouldn’t
give me the money to have you aborted.”
“My
father -”
The
frowsy, towel-wrapped head jerked back in a roar of mocking laughter.
With
a look bordering on hate Greta sneered.
“Your
what?” Eyes filled with contempt, she cocked her head to one side. “Kid,
you ain’t got no old man. Or, maybe you got lots o’ fathers. Fuck knows,
they all pay me plenty to keep my mouth shut.” Greta’s hand smashed over
his face.
“Old
lady Mishko called. That dirty polock said she was calling the cops on you. I
had to promise her a bunch of –“
He
ran from the stark hate on her face.
“Carl,
where the hell do you think you’re going? You’re gonna earn your way from
now on. You hear me, you little bastard?”
With
that, she flopped back in her chair and scowled at the TV.
It
was getting dark, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to go out and pick up no
guys. Let the little bastard do it. He could go to the dammed bars. Only
eleven, yeah, but already almost six foot. Christ. The bartenders wouldn’t
give a tinker’s damn. The kid meant new business, too. How many old bims
like that hag, Mishko, were always giving him the eye. Tons. They’d pay
through the nose for what she got for free, the nights she could coax him into
it, the little bastard.
Carl
was no less ugly than the man who sired him, but he was good. She taught him
all she knew.
Six
foot, almost, and only eleven. Damn, but what would the calf be like when he
was a bull? Greta Ivanoff shivered and refused to think of it.
The
phone cut across her musings. She snatched it up. The broken voice of Anna
Grey whispered across the years, her eyes tear-filled and pleading. Carl
reached out to Anna, pulling her onto his lap.
“Dear
God, woman,” he whispered in her ear, “But how I love you.”
Naked
in the damp chill Carl shivered through the nightmare.
Carl’s
head rolled.
A
sliver of tears wound through the grease-caked stubble of an unshaven face to
be lost in the worn arm of the couch.
The
phone rattled again. A husky male voice rang out, “Leda
is beautiful! Leda is powerful!” The noise split through his aching
skull.
“Christ.”
He clenched his teeth. “Damn it.”
Clutching
at his head, Carl muttered a groan. It felt like that time Tony the Tiger
slammed his favorite baseball bat over it. Only fight Carl would ever admit he
lost. But then, he cracked Tony’s bat, too. Carl grinned, winced, and
chuckled. All things work out.
“Leda
is a goddess. Leda is a sex queen.”
The
phone screeched on and on until Carl bellowed at it to shut up. That stupid
voice command wasn’t working. Carl heaved off the sweaty, stinking couch. A
miasma of auto grease, old sex, and unwashed body followed him to the kitchen.
He
stumbled through a clutter of empty soup cans and beer bottles. In the middle
of it sat a mother raccoon and three half-grown kits. Hissing and shoving on
her babies, the black-masked burglar scurried out an open window. Hanging on
the door posts, Carl stopped and scowled at the filth.
“Screw
it,” he said in a low, muttered bass, “Ain’t no friggin way I’m
cleaning this place for that lazy sow again.”
Carl
rubbed his face with a callused, dirty paw. Truth be known, he was usually too
drunk to notice. They were all better off with him in this pigsty, where Benny
couldn’t see him. Here, where Anna couldn’t look at him with huge,
care-filled eyes.
Friggin
phone.
A
bottle materialized under his bare foot. Carl’s arms flailed in a roar of
outrage at this affront to what remained of his dignity. He crashed into the
wall, shaking down several years worth of calendars and a dozen or so shocked
cockroaches.
His
head cracked on the doorframe. He crashed to the floor, partway into the
shadowy living room and lay stunned. Too many weeks of trying to live in a
bottle caught up all at once. The contents of his stomach heaved. Drowning on
his own vomit, Carl snapped onto his knees and heaved. Vomit spread in a thin,
acrid haze over an already filthy carpet. Carl squatted back on his heels.
Sullen,
he wiped his mouth off with the back of one scarred hand.
“Never
be friggin noticed. Not in this place.”
Other
things, worse thing, lay in boxes and bags. Items collected by the woman from
past times at the ‘Stone. The rank stench of rotting semen and human blood
made Carl’s guts twist.
Clutching
at his stomach, Carl heaved in agony at the nausea. Nothing remained. Sitting
back, he spat in the middle of the mess.
“Friggin
Grade-A bitch.”
Instead
of making a good living in a shop of his own, he worked all day in a small,
dank garage. A go-nowhere, minimum wage job because his parole officer
demanded he work at an ‘approved’ place. Unlike the one he owned before
Leda sold him to the Project.
Haunted
by failure, he closed his eyes and cursed in a dull monotone. A smart man
would have stayed in the Marines and died fighting Shining Path drug lords in
the Andes Mountains. Their Jivarista soldiers made life a little too
demanding. Nobody wanted to end up as a shrunken head.
“Dammed
pigs.”
Why
couldn’t Leda at least run a broom around the place? She didn’t bother
getting up and going to an honest job.
“Scuds
bitch.”
Instead,
she lay on her friggin chuffy ass and waited until Carl got sick of the mess,
sick of living in filth like he had to as a kid. More times than he wanted to
remember he scrubbed this place from top to bottom.
“Dirty
rip.”
He
winced and grunted. Carl’s head sagged to his knees. The phone screeched
again.
The
male voice sang, “Leda ends depression
always.” It whispered a husky moan, then chanted,
“Love embracing delightful ass. Leda enjoys doggy anal. Leda loves life-long
lovers.”
“Shut
up,” Carl roared and immediately
clutched his head, the groan imprisoned behind grinding teeth.
“Jesus.”
Carl let loose a long, protracted belch that scorched his throat. “No more
mixing apple jack and beer. And to hell with that friggin Charlie Wya for
talking me into it. Chiste`, but my
guts are on fire.”
Anna
would fix him up. She always did when he went on a bender. No, for her own
good, Anna was part of the past. Better leave her there. Let her find a real
man, not a man already dead.
“Group
sex. Worshipful loves call for Leda’s whip!”
He
glared at the visi-phone. The voice was growing cheerful. The dammed thing was
driving him totally nuts. Carl hissed. Bloodshot eyes grew a deeper red.
“Fucker.
I’ll kill you.”
Hands
gouging out chunks of mildewed plaster and dusty lathe board he clawed his way
up the wall. With rage red eyes he stared at the phone. Carl blinked. It was
silent now. Feeling a little foolish, he glanced away. A beer can sat amid
dirty dishes and moldering food on the kitchen table. Carl slumped to the
floor and crawled to the table.
A
trembling hand reached up and he yanked on the can. It stuck to the cloth.
Carl gave a hard jerk. A shower of Leda’s dishes followed. He grunted,
disdainful of the woman and her grossly expensive plate ware.
Carl
hesitated. How long had it sat there? Maybe one from the feast Leda put on for
her minions last week.
The
can tasted of ashes. Dimly, Carl remembered using it to outen RYOs last night.
Or was that last week?
Eyes
bleary, Carl stared at the can.
“Screw
it. Who the hell cares, anyway.” Holding his breath, Carl drank again,
choking it down with a desperation born of sorrow.
Stale
beer eased away some of the red fog of pain from his mind. The phone again
took up its quest to make his life an even worse hell.
“Adorable
Leda! Calling the svelte and passionate Leda!”
The voice lowered to a husky whisper. “Hey,
babe. Come do me like you will.”
Ramming
himself up and at the phone, Carl slapped it from its cradle and lunged to
snatched it out of the air. On the floor, he bared his teeth in a snarl of
hate at the wall screen.
“What
the hell do you want?”
The
screen tipped to accommodate him. Carl’s jaw sagged.
“Anna?”
He
raised an unsteady hand and managed to heave up, unmindful of the hundreds of
tiny cuts from shattered porcelain.
Carl
ran a burl of a hand over beer-swollen eyes. He stared in wonder at the pretty
face. Tears welled up and to his shame, he couldn’t stop them. Carl sagged.
“Honey?
C-Carl, is that you?” Anna peered at the wreck in the screen. This wasn’t
Carl. Her mind refused to believe what her eyes told her. Carl, her husband.
Her beloved-man. Eyes a glacial, steely blue, now a reddish-gray. The once
golden hair was filthy, caked with dirt.
Anna
moaned. “Dear Lords of Light,” she said in a frightened whisper and raged
at herself for not taking the initiative. “Dear Tsi:ge:Yu:i.”
She could have found a way to make him come home.
He
looked like the walking dead. Too much booze and no love.
With
a savage motion he scrubbed at the traitorous moisture seeping from his eyes
and over the bony, starved face.
“What
do you want, bitch?” he said, his voice harsh and deep as only Carl
Ivanovitch’s could be, rough as only a man who has known bitter heartache
could get.
“I
need you, Carl.”
Slow
and in shock, he blinked. Carl tried to sneer, but his need for Anna was too
strong. Cold fury tipped his head back. He needed nothing.
Nobody.
“No
go, lady. I want you out of my life. Just let me the freek alone.” Carl
reached to slam the phone back in the cradle.
“It’s
Benny.”
Freezing
in place, Carl’s face took on a darkly thunderous aspect. Fear shivered cold
hands through him.
He
snarled a smile. “Nice try, babe. But this bad boy learned the hard way
never to trust a bim. Not any bimbo.” He glanced through the window in the
back door at the lights dancing around the Witch Stone. Shrieks of drunken
laughter pierced the thin walls.
“Benny’s
gone, Carl Bear-Person. Come see for yourself, if you don’t believe me.”
Anna dragged the hair from her tear-swollen eyes. “It’s only a short walk.
You took it yourself enough times.” She grimaced. “The motorcycle, it’s
gone, too.”
Carl
hesitated. Anna started to weep. His Anna. Strong, enduring Anna. And he
cursed her with every filthy term he could think of in English, Peruvian, and
Belerio-Russian. Carl slammed the phone down and charged from the house,
uncaring if any neighbors in the sparsely populated Valley saw him.
Her
limbs thickened. Leda raised her head and screamed at the melting of her
bones. She fell away, rolled, and forced change
away.
She
stood naked and cold in the dim light. The knife went up. This would be the
third and final cut.
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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