The shrill tone of the telephone pulled me from my trance devotion to the TV set in the middle of the living room. I picked the receiver up out of the cradle and pressed it to my ear.
"Hello?"
"Hey Paul, what's up?" Eric's painfully sarcastic tone responded back. Fuck, anyone but him.
"Oh, hey I'm just watchin' some TV with my old man." I glanced over at my father, fully reclined basking in the cathode glare. The mention of his existence didn't stir him. He was as oblivious as ever.
"You're such a fucking pussy, Paul. Fucking Friday night, and you're spending quality time with your daddy. That's sweeter than shit. You ladies resting from doing each other's nails?"
"Look, dude, what do you want? I'm not supposed to be tying up the line right now, he's waiting for a call," Eric could probably tell I was lying, but I was willing to try anything to get out of this conversation. Whenever Eric calls me late in the evening, it usually turns out to be something humiliating, dangerous, or illegal.
"Well, before I let you get back to your Fantasy Island reruns, listen for a second. Meet me behind the Methodist church in the parking lot at midnight, and wear something dark."
"No, I can't," I said.
"Be there, and don't be late. You know better than that, don't you, Paul?" It was a commonly used threat on Eric's part, but it was one that usually worked. He had enough shit on me to get me in serious-ass trouble with a lot of people, even though he had a hand in all of it. If Mayor Hamilton ever found out what we did to his daughter Kayla and their golden retriever Lucky, we'd probably both be in jail right now, with new assholes torn into us courtesy of the Mayor.
What in the hell did Eric want tonight?
He's not what you would call one of my best friends; of course, I really don't have many of those anyway. We grew up together as neighbors, and seeing that we were both total losers, we had to stick together out of necessity to avoid as many ass beatings and tortures as possible from the other kids around town. When we hit puberty, I pretty much stayed the same quiet nobody, whereas he changed. He started hanging out with all the older local heads and fuck-ups (a lot of the same guys who made Eric drink his own piss out of a soda can when he was eight). He picked up all their mannerisms and habits, all the dope and fucking around and being destructive to all those around them. He still occasionally hung around with me, when they weren't around, but I think our quality time together was used for Eric to be as sadistic to me like Rooster and those guys were to him. One good thing about him, though: he turned me on to pot and its many joys. He would usually supply me with weed he had scored from the local schwag dealers here in town. I'd almost always have to beg him for some, though, and getting high with Eric always carried a price. He liked playing subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) head games and fucking with me hard, tricking me into doing things I wouldn't normally do. He has that effect on me.
I sat in my room, occasionally leaning out the window to hotbox a cigarette, listening to old Black Sabbath records I stole off my old man. 11:45 came soon, and I failed to convince myself that I should go meet him at the church. I crept out into the living room to check on my dad. He was as I expected to find him, snoring away, his can of Busch still cradled in his fingers but dribbling out its contents onto the carpet, filling the room with its heady smell. I snuck out the back door and zipped up my black army jacket, and headed for the church.
I could see Eric standing in the misty shadows behind the church, a thin specter lurking there. I saw his nervous face checking to make sure it was me. As I reached him, he handed me a lit joint.
"Here you go, but don't fuckin' slobber all over it, asshole." I put it to my lips and toked deeply, the hot smoke tearing at my throat and lungs. After my fourth or fifth hit, as the J slowly became a blackened roach, I felt like something was terribly wrong, but I'm not quite sure what it was. I felt real high, higher than I've ever been. I wasn't sure if I was making the feeling up in my head. Not sure about anything. Felt real fucking panicked.
"What the fuck is in this shit, Eric?" My heart threw itself repeatedly against my prison cell ribcage. Each beat bounced my body against an unseen wall, I'm not here, but dangling from a long cord in some deep cavern, being jerked to and fro.
I heard from far away, "It's weed, you fuckin' pussy. What the fuck are you talking about?" The sure voice reaffirmed to my rational mind that I was going completely crazy. I looked down into the grass and saw each individual blade wiggle like they were all being pumped alive by electrical current. They all chanted my name over and over, a hypnotic mantra that consumed my consciousness.
A hard shove awakened me from this void. Reality rushes back up into my senses. Eric's stared me in the face angrily. "Jesus Christ, Paul. You never smoked weed laced with embalming fluid before? Fuckin' better than the usual shit I get, don't you think? Rooster took an ounce of this shitty dirtweed and hosed it down with this chemical spray he got from his cousin, said it was fucking embalming fluid. I feel like I'm on real intense acid, don't you, pussy? I thought you were gonna shit your pants just now. That was funny as hell." I felt slightly more in touch now with my mind. At least it was only the fucking pot that made me feel that way.
"All right, you gotta get your head together, man. You better not fuck this up tonight. I ain't getting busted because of a piece of shit like you." He began to pull me along by my coat collar.
"Where are we goin'," I asked him, still unsure of the evening's felony.
"Just doin' a job on this guy here in town. Rooster told me he's gone for the week, went down to Texas to do a run. No alarm, no real close neighbors, no one else in the house. Not even a fucking watchdog. We're in and we're fucking out, as long as you don't trip over your own dick."
"What do you need me for, then?"
"Shit, bitch, you just gotta help me carry out the goddamn loot. Rooster said he's got two motherfuckin' kilos of coke in there. If we score that, Rooster said he's give me a good cut of it. I'll be fuckin' set." Eric beamed, like a normal kid would if he made the honor roll.
"What am I going to get out of it?" Sure as hell want a piece of something, too, considering I'm an accessory to breaking into this dude's house.
He stopped and shot me a pissed-off glare. "Don't you fuckin' worry about what you're gonna get. We'll see what we can find in there. Maybe we'll find some porno magazines you can keep, huh? Just keep your mouth shut right now. I gotta think." His pace quickened; I struggled to keep up with him. He was nervous, anxious, jumpy; his gestures and tone of voice were aggravated. I looked him over, analyzing him as we walked through the back yards and over the fences in the darkness of night. He was usually residing in a more lethargic position, bordering on coma, sadistic on occasion as he felt fit. But tonight he's fucking on, like a light switch. Is it that fucked-up weed, I wonder. Or is it because of what we're about to do?
He stopped right in front of me and I bumped into his back. He pointed to the house that is our destination, just your average suburban stoner crash pad. Looks like it could've been a nice place at one time in its existence. We dodged various obstacles like chunks of dead cars and demolished doghouses as we crept through the unkempt backyard. Not a light is on in the house; the moon glares back at us from every pane. Eric paused on the back porch, glanced around, and put his elbow through the window on the door. The shatter was brief but loud, making me spin my vision to make sure no one noticed the crash in the quiet air. Eric fished his hand through and fumbled with the inside lock, then swung it open.
"Ladies first, bitch," he said, shoving me in. "I forgot to bring you a pair of gloves, so try not to touch anything in here, or else it's your ass." His work-gloved hand pulled a heavy yellow flashlight out of his pocket and flicked it on. Aimed the beam at me. "What are you waiting for, man? Start fuckin' looking. We ain't got all fuckin' night." He wandered upstairs as I headed for the living room.
It was so quiet in there it made my ears ache. I felt tense, fighting the urge growing that told me to run home and forget about this place and Eric. I really didn't want to snoop through this guy's shit, but I especially didn't want to leave my prints on anything. I pulled on a dangling light switch that illuminated the living room. Walked over to look at the dude's record collection that was in the corner, on the side of the speaker cabinet. Taking care to wrap my hands inside my t-shir,t I thumbed through the dusty crate. One album caught my eye, an old King Crimson record that had a painting of some guy's screaming face close-up on the sleeve. I dropped it back into the slot where I found it, and weny to pick out another one when I saw two plastic wrapped bricks nestled in between the crate and the wall, smashed in there out of sight. The son of a bitch probably thought nobody'd find his two fucking kilos of coke back here. I ran out of the room to go tell Eric.
Things got real fucked-up when I found the room he was in, and I looked down and saw some guy crouching in the corner, about to spring upon these intruders. Right before he leaped, I noticed he doesn't have anything in his hands, no knife, no heavy weight or bludgeon, must have thought he was some kind of hardass.
Then I started to scream, cause I was scared out of my fucking mind.
"What the fuck you doing yelling Paul somebody's gonna-" that was all he got out before the guy tackled him like a football player, snapping Eric's head back to smack loudly on the floor. The flashlight he had flew up in the air, spinning its shine everywhere. It landed on the carpet, pointing at them wrestling on the carpet. I picked it up so I could aim it better at them, to view the struggle. They fought like rabid dogs. The man was clearly dominating Eric, landing punches and headbutts onto his face, pressing his weight down on Eric's scrawny frame. The sick motherfucker actually stuck his head down face to face with him and bit down on lip, taking a piece of Eric's bottom one, exposing his clenched teeth before spraying blood upwards into his face. The shower distracted him for a moment as Eric's hands worked their way up and started gouging wildly at the man's eyes, as his left index caught under an eyelid, pulling hard away from his face, scrapes of skin getting caught under the fingernails, both figures bleeding freely. The guy started to scream and yell and began to drive knee after knee into Eric's balls. Eric answered back with a deafening response of his own.
"Fucking Paul, man, help me. HELP ME!" His voice was cracking and pained. I just couldn't seem to tear myself away from viewing this violent ballet that was taking place before me. Of course, I did realize that when this guy was finished with Eric, which looked like soon, he was gonna come after me. I swung the flashlight, hard, into the man's face, catching him in the mouth and on the chin. The impact crumbled his teeth as they broke apart like chalk, tearing into his tongue, which was poking out viewing the spectacle. I tugged the flashlight away as the red provided an overwhelming contrast to the yellow handle. The next blow fell upon his right eye. After that, every subsequent hit blurred together in my mind, a slowly unfolding montage of brutality that I was the star of. I realize he was not moving anymore. I was soaked with his blood.
"Hey motherfucker, say cheese," it was Eric, a flash of light that for a second exposed the mess that I had created there, then the brightness was gone the second it left, submerging the room in darkness again. I was disoriented, like before when I first got high, not sure where I am. Eric found the light switch as finally the light came back. I wished it had stayed dark in there. I was not hallucinating. This was really happening. Eric stood there stupidly cruel, a big black Polaroid camera in his hands. He must have had time to collect himself and find it in the room as I killed the guy. Blood was still running down his chin, but he didn't seem to notice.
"Yeah, I must have never told you that I was sort of an amateur photographer. Shit, I could probably get this published in the paper, maybe even on the six o'clock news." He waved the picture in the air to speed up its development. "Exclusive crime scene photograph, catching killer in action. Fucking excellent."
"You asshole, give me that," I demanded as I lunged for him. He pulled back from me as he shoved me away with his free hand. I looked up and caught a glimpse of it, clearly capturing what I had done. Shit.
"Hey Paul, just think of this as insurance in case you ever try to rat me out, you know, we can go and tell the pigs what you did." He had me by the balls. And I fucking saved his ass by killing that guy. I just wanted to fucking kill him right then, just to shut him up. He noticed my anger and put the picture into his pocket.
"You know what, Paul, this gives me a great idea. You take the camera and fire off some pictures of me and our friend over there. I want to have a memento of the occasion, my best buddy's first kill." He pressed the bulky Polaroid into my hands and walked over to the body. He stood over it, apprehensive to touch it outright. "Jesus fucking Christ, you really fucked this guy up, man. My God, he doesn't even have a face anymore. Did you see what this bitch did to me, Paul? Fucking bit me on the lip like he was trying to kiss me! Fucking piece of shit!" He kicked the corpse for good measure.
I looked around the sparsely furnished room. The only decoration was a series of Polaroid photos thumbtacked up on the wall. All are of some empty-eyed, slack-faced chick strung up in a harness, receiving various forms of discipline by a fat, leather-clad dominatrix with long red hair. The tied-up girl with a ball gag in her mouth looks about how I feel. Eric finally lifted the corpse's head and looked closely into its rearranged face.
"Man, this ain't even the guy who lived here, I don't think, it don't really look like him, but how can you tell after what you did to him, huh? Hey dude, smile," he lifted the head close to his and mugged at the camera. I hesitated, then squeezed off the shot.
Eric contorted himself and his friend into various juvenile poses. I kept snapping the pictures, part out of wanting to oblige him so we could get out of here, part growing interest in the macabre, disturbing scene in front of me. I still didn't want him having that one of me.
"I want that goddamn picture, Eric. I don't want anyone finding it. Asshole, listen to me!" I continued to yell at him, but he didn't seem to notice. He was having fun. He giggled like a Mongoloid as he made the limbs dance with his own, shuffling the body along, doing a crude tango. He became a ventriloquist, pulling the jaw to mimic speech, making low-blow, childish cracks about the man's demise and present condition. I dutifully took the pictures, lining one after another against the wall, facing the series across the room.
"Hey Paul, how many pictures you got left?" He made the body stand on its knees but he still had to support it with a steady hand on the shoulder.
"Uh, I think one more," I was very out of touch right then, bordering on what I felt was pure screaming psychosis, a kind of calm before a raging storm. Anything could have happened, and I would have believed it to be true.
"All right then, dude, get a close-up on this one. This is gonna be the keeper." He began unbuckling his jeans, undoing them with one hand. Eric eased them down his hips, trying to shake them off, getting them down far enough to expose his genitals. He grabbed his half-hard cock, pulled it tight from the bottom to make it stiffer, its head veiny and purple. His hand supporting the body shifted, so he held on by the top of the hair, the weight dangling like a heavy pendulum. Eric moved his dick closer, trying to work its way in to the corpse's mouth, through the fragments of jagged teeth, making tiny splatters of blood down his open jeans. The bloody mouth accomadated him, swallowing the sex organ whole. Eric groaned in pleasure, grinding the corpse's mouth closer in mock porno gyrations. I couldn't take it anymore.
I dropped the camera, staring at him in hysterical disbelief.
"Come on, dickhead, pick up the camera. I want a picture of this."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I screamed and raged at him, dizzy and insane from the atmosphere in the room. "Look at what you're doing! You're fucking sick, man, SICK SICK SICK!" His expression changed, but not because of my impassioned presentation. He looked down and found his penis gone, not where he had grown accustomed to seeing it for all his life, there was nothing there, just flat skin and pubic hair and a bloody gap where his dick used to be. He saw the corpse's jaw locked firmly in a spasm, separating Eric's penis from him with a row of clashed tight teeth. Blood pumped up to the injured surface, the wound freeing it to splash out down his thighs and the face before him. He let go and the body fell, as Eric fumbled for it.
"Jesus fucking Jesus NO!" One hand clutched his bleeding crotch as the other hand tried to force its way into the corpse's mouth, looking for his lost cock.
"Oh Paul please fucking help me Paul please!" I knew right then what I had to do to make the situation better.
The flashlight was sticky from the congealing blood all over it. Still, I used it again, with a much more methodical fashion than before. Firm, strong, direct strokes, all upon Eric's crying face, special attention paid to every important area. I really put myself into it the second time around. Eric looked worse than the other guy.
He really deserved it. I was tired of the way he treated me. He wouldn't be able to fuck with me anymore.
I bent over and pulled my picture out of Eric's pocket. It was all bent up and wrinkled and bloody, but I didn't want to leave it here. I scooped up the rest of the shots that I had lined up against the wall. They were coming with me, as was the last one of the series of the S&M photos, as I realize that those were taken in here also. The trussed-up girl, a close-up of her face contorted in a mixture of pain and ecstasy, smeared with sweat and what looked like shit.
One more thing, though.
There was one picture left in the Polaroid.
The two slack bodies fitted nicely together, like adjacent puzzle pieces as I squeezed them into the frame of the picture, embracing in a post-mortem 69. It was actually kind of erotic, seeing them like that. Maybe I'm more like Eric that I realized.
Flash!
The cops would never figure out what happened here. They would never understand. I wiped off the flashlight and the Polaroid, getting rid of any loose fingerprints I might have left, just in case. That guy will be suprised when he comes home from Texas, won't he? They'll probably put him away for this, considering he wouldn't be able to use his going on a drug run as an alibi. Maybe he will, though, I just don't fucking care. I wanted out of there.
Washed my hands, then went and got that coke. I'll need something to do so as to fill the void now that Eric's gone.
I don't know if I'll miss him or not.
