Chapter 8
Needless to say, after the strain and the activity, the day was entirely shot to hell. It was almost five-thirty by the time I had dressed and left the Pervis home to get back into my wounded car and make the long drive back to my apartment in East Hawaiian Gardens.
I had never felt so thoroughly drained and soothed in my lifetime. I had to hand it to Charmane, she had every reason in the world to thank her lucky stars that Shitty Dick had decided in his infinite wisdom to pay her that initial visit. She had been loosened up to the heights of sensual adaptation, and she was enjoying a whole new region of exciting, novel, and satisfying stimulation. I was just the first lucky guy in what would probably be a long chain of anal adventurers in her classy canal.
To be sure, she had been raped, and I'll be the first to admit that I followed suit, and kept true to form with the forced cum shot routine. Brutal, hypocritical, yes indeed, heaven known the slick and sassy little lady had hit the nail right on the head in her appraisal of my fundamental drives. But, in the long run, one might ask, so what?
That's right, friends, so what? So she enjoys a little forced aggravation of the body's tenderest zones. Didn't I enjoy it too? Isn't enjoyment the secret to a long and healthful life? Of course. Everyone worth his weight in vibrators will tell you that it's the truth, especially in this slimy, promiscuous era of our nation's bold history. The contradiction comes about when one sees that being forced to do anything runs contrary to the basic tenents of the liberated, freedom loving lifestyle. It just doesn't seem to fit in-why should swinging, sensuous individuals get off on dredging their Ids and degrading one another by forcing themselves to commit repulsive acts of brutal, sadistic, rapistic animalism?
Simple, especially when one has just succeeded in pulling off a classic cum shot into the face of a gagging, shuddering victim. It gets those deepseated psychic rocks rumbling in their ancient sockets. It works miracles for re-establishing the basic patterns of brute existence in an era that is inclined to wallow and nibble at the upturned toes of the interior decorator. That's the slick truth, friends. We're so lost in our mod consciousness that we really don't know which way we're coming or going, not even in the marital sack, or in the quiet peace of the dimly lit massage parlor.
It's nauseating to see the personal ads in the underground papers, the endless columns of "slaves" erstwhile successful and stable males who offer themselves to dominant females interested in cross-dressing, heavy B&D, Water Sports and the like-males who are so unsure of their own identity that the only time they can really feel secure is when they are in their rubber panties, licking the shit off the shoes of their haughty, black vinyl clad mistresses.
Sickening, eh? Of course it is. Makes a red blooded go-getter whine with rage and hysteria against the tide of unisexual debauchery that runs rampant through all the subcultures of our quickly rotting social system. There's a cure, of course. Not too many have the courage to face up to it, but it's there, for the taking.
Shitty Dick knows the cure-that's why he makes headline news with each new conquest. That's why the local news gives him at least a full ninety seconds per night when he's been inactive, and the lead-off story every time he strikes again. Shitty Dick knows what's happening out there in the sleepy suburbs. He knows that gals like Charmane Purvis are in the toilet all day long, rubbing that hot vaseline over their gushy flaps, inserting their vibrators, their fingers, anything that is longer than it is wide up into their foxholes, reaching for Number Four, straining for Number Five, climbing the walls and coating the ceilings with crusty female starch when Number Six comes thumping up out of their bellies and sets the lights on red behind their eyes....
Shitty Dick, the subhuman superstar. He knew exactly what the folks out there wanted to see, and Shitty Dick delivered. The folks craved a little solid action, a return to primal form, back to basics-Shitty Dick gave them the Cro-Magnon sensibility, and thus he deserved their undying gratitude, their applause, the constant attention lavished on him by the hairsprayed newsmen who followed his stained trail of rectal abuse throughout the city.
There was the feigned protest, of course. Kristine Hundt repeatedly referred to him as the "ultimate chauvinist pig," much as Charmane had referred to me before the completion of the act in the living room. It was lip service, friends, mere feminine guile to bring the beast out of his lair. I wonder whether or not there was any logical sequence between the strident editorials by the hip Ms.
Hundt and the activities of Mr. Dick? I'd have to check on that.
No matter how much the lady doth protest, once she is impaled, wriggling on the meaty hook of her brutal male, her cries seem vainglorious, mere superfluous nonsense compared to the crystalline re-affirmation of basic truth the impalement broadcasts to all who care to watch, or partake in by themselves. Yes, that is the point. Shitty Dick helped heal the wounds of our shattered sexual consciousness. He reaffirmed the ancient role playing in the simplest, most gritty style. All who watched the news, all who read the papers, all of the housewives who peered through the slits in their venetion blinds, trembling, waiting with short breath for the dreaded, and yet secretly craved breaking of the glass marking the entrance of the faceless Violator, all instinctively knew the essential value of his daring role. He was the CroMagnon reborn, and the Primal Ancestor of all of us, cringing in our doubleknits, unsure of whether or not we are male or female. In Shitty Dick, we stared at the brute himself, the self-confident Stalker, the Hunter, the rabid penetrator of the poopchute.
His mystical effect on suburban consciousness had been proved to me beyond a doubt by now. As I torqued in the Dodge down the left lane of the freeway heading for the interchange, I was sure I had the handle on him. I had seen how he had changed Nick Pervis into a Storm Trooper of Sensuality, how he had wreaked havoc on the sensibilities of Charmane, conditioning her in one fell swoop to permanent anal addiction, and I had seen how effective his techniques were in relieving my own grotesque burden of repressed rage and frustration.
I had to hand it to him, the nameless maniac had class. He deserved the attention he got, and it was little wonder that with so very many subconscious allies as he had out there in Television Land, that he was a mighty tough critter to bring to justice.
My job remained at stake, however, and along with my job hung the credibility of the Department. I had to bring him in, loathsome as the task now seemed in retrospect. He who served so well as a catalyst of social sensibility, he who martyred himself so that we could all vicariously return together to those wondrous days of yore, before the Dry Look, before the Glitter Look, before the Unisexual Miasma of the sick present, when men were men and women were mere soft holes floating in the humid matrix of space, eager and passive, to be filled with whatever it was that became tumescent in the dank fetidness of night on the floor of the primal cave, it was he whose active career I had to put to an end if I wanted to keep those weekly checks rolling in.
I snapped out of my reverie when a fully loaded semi went into a tasty jacknifing spin to my right and crushed a pair of ground-scrapping sixty-five Chevvies into scrap metal against the right hand lane divider. I wheeled across four lanes of traffic and geeked the curling clouds of thick, greasy smoke rising behind me in the rearview mirror. Just some illegal alien trash, nothing to panic about. They wouldn't even merit a mini-camera report on the news.
I negotiated the tricky interchange at top speed, and then floored the bloated hulk of shit I was driving when I made the ramp onto the Harbor Freeway. It was clear sailing the rest of the way, with the bulk of the traffic heading downtown, cars filled with eager drivers, ready with cash in hand to deal away their lives on the crisp sheets of the East Hollywood massage parlors, to make their seedy connections with the pusher man, to rampage through the unprotected mail boxes of countless apartment houses, seeking that fat social security check which could easily be redeemed for a plump bag of stale Mexican smack....
The sirens would be loud tonight in the big city, but old Steve Narsky was finished for the day. He had done his duty, had established his priorities, cleaned his tubing, and re-assessed the nature of his sworn foe. He was headed home, ready for a nice hot bath, a cool quart of Bud, and a leisurely evening spent first in front of the TV, and then, when his poor dogs were cool, he'd march his polished butt down the street to Sparkle City, the local bar, to pass the night away, quaffing suds, and watching the bare-midriffed and braless teen strumpets strutting their stuff on the dance floor.
If only things would follow my feeblest plans for once, I could relax, and approach the problem with a clear head tomorrow morning.
Little did I know what fate had in store for me. I had been deluding myself sorely all the while I drove, so hypnotized and calm was I in my postcoital siesta. A curve ball began to break in my direction, and I was too soothed, too slowed down and mellowed out to duck....
My off ramp came up shortly, and I motored down the broad, uncrowded lanes with one hand on the wheel and one arm outstretched over the top cushion of the bench seat, cowboy style. I was sitting at the top of the world, enjoying the calm before the storm, the great boiling thunder clouds of certain doom invisible on the smog stained horizon. I should have been alert-I should have realized that the agony was only beginning, that I was headed for the grossest of rude awakenings my state of calm and peace should have been sufficient warning in itself, after all, I was trained to be a suspicious bastard, ever on the trail of trouble, why should it cease to stalk me now? Too Late. The coup had already begun, way back late in the afternoon, no doubt at the precise moment I had achieved my own special form of Satori in Charmane's dripping mouth.
I coasted to the red light, and made the right turn on Enchilada Ave and fishtailed around the corner, steaming straight for home, for the chilled Bud in my refrigerator, for the cool waters of my tub, for the soothing hysteria of the color TV set. I beamed and grinned like a freshly caught trout, eager for the frying pan, the melted butter, the classy place on the plate next to the mound of crisp fries. I had sunk into vegetable consciousness, and I was about to reap the reward for such a lapse in character.
My pecky cedar sheathed apartment complex appeared on the horizon, and I felt the last squiggle of tension leave my body as I floored the pig car and made a beeline for the parking lot. I jumped the curb and brodied to a rest, opened the door, hurling it directly into the side of my downstairs neighbor's station wagon, grinding off the paint down to bare metal, and then I kicked it shut, and with glee, bounded up the wrought iron -lined stairwell to Old Three Thirteen-the homestead.
I went straight for the refrigerator, tearing through the brown lettuce, the clotted clumps of mouldy whitebread and the diseased hunks of BHT soaked baloney and bacon to the back of the shelf where rested the untouched six pack of halfquarts. I stood before the refrigerator and downed one can right on the spot, tore into the next one, and marched out to the living room and turned on the television with a single kick from my right wingtip.
It was early. The news wasn't on yet. They were doing re-runs of last year's top new crime series, "Sty Story," the continuing tale of a mother who had raised fourteen sons to be policemen, her trials and tribulations, the crisis of her menopause, the tragedy and the triumph of each of her brood as they warily left the trough of home, the Sacred Sty where they were nurtured on Law and Order at Mom's greying dugs, and how they fared in the never ending war against welfare chiselers, food stamp suckers, malicious winos, ingrate middleclass marijuana twirps, white-baiting Commie agitators in the ghettoes, all the sundry trash that makes life a morass of unending redtape and paranoia. Just what the folks in suburbia want to see, and deserve to see. A strong, fatherless nuclear family, hell bent on the preservation of order and social stratification-the maintenance of the timeless cheap labor chain, the thin blue line that stands between the two dollar and ten cent an hour bracero termite and the foundations of the split-level condominium in Benedict Canyon.
I switched the stations by remote control and got a tasty shot of an early Merv Griffin kinescope-he was slightly tipsy, and really digging deep in Arthur Treacher's rubbery ribs with all kinds of nasty double entendres about the sexual proclivities of the English serving class. I snorted hot clumps of nasal mucus and poured cold suds down my throat as the senile Briton turned blue with rage, crossing his legs and giving the viewing audience a close-up shot of his fish net nylons and the high heeled women's shoes he was wearing. The stinkin' foreign pervert....
I went round the dial one full time, pausing briefly at the so-called educational TV station to watch in disbelief as a bitch in jackboots with a ducktailed hairdo marched a cadre of uniformed multiracial children around a potted plant, all of them chanting Maoist slogans, and blaming the fern's terminal cause of root-rot on "Imperialist lackies who poison our atmosphere with their gasguzzling Tiger tanks, all for the sake of the filthy dollar." The butch commander then marched in for a close-up and begged the audience to send their tax-deductible contributions to the Beverly Hills Center for the Study of Macrame, Real Estate Zoning, and Class Struggle. I roared with outrage at the sight, spewing hot Budweiser over the carpeting as I yowled and kicked at the remote control device. The fucking nerve of the asslicking Commie perverts! I couldn't believe the FCC allowed such patently vomitous propaganda on the public airwaves. I snapped the set back to the news station, and there was Kristine Hundt, the perfect anchorperson, ranting the pre-show hype.
"Shut your doors, turn off the lights and huddle about your TV sets, ladies and gentlemen," she hummed in her professional, dramatic monotone, "The maniac rapist has struck again! Full details in a moment, and more, including a frightful accident of the Barstow-Tujunga Freeway involving a semi trailer and two, mind you, not one, scrape racin' Chevvies. The gory details, and lots more, weather, sports, mild B&D, Greek, French, and special report from Rex Phlegm on the plight of migrant ass-lickers in the scumbag fleatraps of West Hollywood. Stay tuned."
I froze in my sweat stained slacks. I coughed suds up through my snout and seared my larynx in humiliated rage. Shitty Dick had struck again, a second blow in one week. I was in for it tomorrow morning. Milhaud would be sitting there, waiting for me with my traveling papers and the gelding knife. I would be unfit to take any job other than as janitor for the Beverly Hills Macrame Institute. I wiped the dribbling snot and beer off my upper lip and began to weep bitter tears of emasculated humiliation as some ball-ripping piece of foxmeat demonstrated the use of a hair-removing chemical on the insides of her thighs.
Another commercial segued out of the fox's central duct, and asswipe was being licked and fondled by dotty housewives in the aisles of a supermarket. More mundane crap came on, all of it extraneous, off the mark, out of the question-totally distracting from the real news, the events of the day, the latest notch on Shitty Dick's warty appendage. I blubbered in maniac frustration as the commercial rolled on, prolonging my agony, forcing me to see all that I would never possess once Milhaud had busted me down to toilet licker, and the fat paychecks disappeared for the duration.
Ms. Hundt came back on finally, after the mandatory soul-music segue into the newsroom scene. I listened with reptillian concentration, hunting for clues, for the faint hope of redemption amidst the condemnations and catastrophes of the moment.
"Start practicing your karate, gals, and guys, get the shotguns out of the closets, because the mad rapist is back again, the second time in one week, a new record for the sodomistic sadist. Yes, folks, after six months of intermittent attacks, the darling of the depraved set has broken his own record and scored two victims in one week's time. The first, Charmane Purvis of North Cudahy, is now recovering from gross shock and wounds in the comfort of her own home. As you remember, our Johnny on the Spot, or Johnny on the Pot, if you like, Rex Phlegm, interviewed Lieutenant Milhaud of the Detective's office yesterday and confirmed our suspicions that Ms. Pervis was indeed the wife of one Sgt. Nick Pervis, a detective assigned to the Rapist detail!
"Today's news only compounds the irony of the situation the police find themselves in, for the sodomistic sadist has once again struck behind the lines, this time, where it really hurts. Although the police offer their usual pansy no comment, we at NoseWitness News have learned that the latest victim was none other than Lieutenant Milhaud's own seventeen-year-old daughter, Debbie Milhaud."
I sprayed hot vomit all over my lap and chewed right through the top of my beer can. I stood up and took off my coat and tried to choke myself to death with it on the spot. What was the use? He would simply shoot me down the second I stepped into his office in the morning, and as far as I was concerned, he'd have every right to. Tears of hysteria and mortification ran down my cheeks as I shook and twitched with self-loathing and fear. I had no choice but to listen.
"Lots of citizens are just plain outraged that the police seem to be totally ineffectual in their efforts to nab the nasty marauder, and we here at NoseWitness News feel the same way. We're on your side folks. We don't cotten to ass-raping chauvanist pigs in our neighborhoods, and we've decided to do something about it.
"We sent our own investigative team out today to the degenerate flat lands of West Hollywood to search in the fleatraps and scumbag motels for the anal rapist, knowing full well that such a mindless piece of male-aggressive crud would have to be hiding out near an adult bookstore or a massage parlor. Rex Phelgm headed up the team, and here's his report. Find any stains, Rex?"
The camera beamed in on the sharply dressed and neatly hairsprayed Rex Phelgm, standing in front of the Institute of Anal Lust on Santa Monica Blvd. He began in the high-pitched nasal wail that all of the Nose-Witness Team has perfected to a tee, even the sultry unisexual Ms. Hundt.
"Well, Kristine, we spent the entire day up here in the asshole of the Universe, and I've just got to say right off, you folks living out there in the comfort of Simi and the splendor of West Anaheim, well, you just have no idea how lucky you are. Just take a look behind me. See that? That's deca dence, folks, that's puking Commie social engineering and permissive free-lance dogshit. The Institute of Anal Lust, a perfect front for an assraping son of a bitch like the maniac who nailed the Lieutenant's daughter today. We went inside the Institute, and we went into every fleabag fag bar, every dyke hole, every semi-hip doughnut stand and every service station toilet in the area, looking for the telltale signs of sodomy and forced anal attention.
"We found buckets of slop in the bedrooms of this area. We opened up trashcans and found shit stained condoms stacked three feet deep inside. We visited massage parlors and talked price with the hot chippies inside, and our cameraman Ted Turk even risked venereal disease to have a socalled half-and-half with a pair of spaced-out runaways from Acne, Kansas. We looked in every nook and cranny, and we found pubic hairs, bloody kotexes, empty syringes, roaches, soiled issues of Women's Wear Daily and After Dark, not to mention many a rolled up and half shit-stained copy of the Daily Worker. If we can do it, if Rex Phelgm can do it, why the fuckin' hell can't the goddamned cops do it?
Kristine cut in here for a moment to calm the frothing reporter down.
"Cut the four-letter words, Rex. A lot of our viewers are members of the Big Three, Protestant, Catholic, and Arab, not to mention all of our crippled viewers, the nose-pickers, the twirps, the pansies, the aged, the infirm, ones with boils, warts, lesions, terminal crotch rot, and the like. These folks don't have to be upset while they're busy swilling down their soy extract and their nice, tall glass of refreshing tit juice. What else is new, Rex?
Rex made his famous dryheaving throat scrape and continued on, feathers still ruffled with outrage, but cooler, more collected.
"Christ, Kristine," he began, gesturing wildly to the big neon sign behind him, "It's obvious that the anal attacker is holed up in one of these sordid dens of debauchery, sniveling over his hardcore glossies, his polaroids of his victims, probably he's even watching right now, reveling in the misery and humiliation he's wrought on our community, relishing the pain and confusion he's inflicted on innocent people everywhere. All I have to say to him, if he's listening, is that we're gonna get you, you sickening little jackoff artist. We're following in your slimy tracks, and no matter how long it takes, white American males are going to get you. We're going to hang your sick gourd out to dry, and we're going to parade your nauseating corpse through the streets of Pacoima and Torrance when we've got you. It may take days, it may take weeks, but even if it takes years, remember, you barbarous little bastard, we'll get you, and you'll wish you'd never been hatched out of your egg when we do."
Back to Kristine.
"Coming up, the story of the Last Pachanga. Four illegal aliens, crushed to a revolting pulp beneath the wheels of an out of control truck on the Barstow-Tujunga Freeway. Details after these important words from our sponsors."
The thick, semi-colloidal slop was crusting in my lap as I sat there and listened to the dying echoes of Rex Phlegm's report. There was more than irony at work here. What of Marc Fenton? Did they search his station toilet? Did they find the slinky starlet and the hag, in the midst of their exciting act? How did Marc know that it was from the media that I would get my leads? I began to snarl in unutterable hatred for him, my informant, and the wise-ass way that he had told me to watch the TV news. How did he know the next attack would be coming? How did he know that Rex Phlegm would be covering it in detail, or did he know? Was it a lucky gesture, a wise-ass remark that somehow came true?
I thought, dribbled more barf, and then the phone rang. My heart tried to leap out of my left ear. I knew who it was. I began to blubber again, and walked across the carpet to answer it, as if on my way to the executioner's block.
I picked up the receiver and remained stone silent-I would not assist in my own deserved, but highly undesired assassination.
"Steve? I say, Steve, old buddy?"
My nose twitched in rodent fear-the voice, sweltering and floundering in a thick bath of put-on charm and folksiness though it was, was entirely recognizable as that of Lieutenant Milhaud. He was preparing to both kick me while I was down and to prolong my agony-he was going to give me a complete and highly professional demonstration of the twin American Caucasian fine arts of soul torture. I clicked the thick, heavy heels of my wingtips and wheezed a noncommittal reponse.
"Sssssaaaayyyyy."
I could feel the smile of sadistic delight at the other end of the line. Milhaud puffed himself up, and then poured on the charm.
"Hi, Steve. Say, boy, I sure hope you saw the news tonight. You see what your pal done this time?" he asked, fully aware that I knew what he was talking about, and more than fully aware that I was suffering the heights of incompetence hysteria and the depths of depression and frustration.
He had me with hook set in jaw, and he was yanking his pole.
"Gee, Lieutenant," I smarmed back, "I'm awful sorry about what happened to Debbie, and if there's anything at all that I can...."
He cut me off quickly. It was his show, after all.
"Never mind, Steve. The girl's already coming out of it. She'll have to stay flat on her belly in bed for a week or so, but she can talk now. I'll take the responsibility of getting her story on tape-I think that's only right that the father should hear her story first. Can't argue with that, can you, Steve?"
I wasn't going to argue. AH I wanted to do was have my passport renewed, head for the bank, and take off the next morning for an extended holiday tour of my genetic homeland, Poland. I said nothing.
"Listen, Steve. What I called to tell you is this. Seeing as how we've had two incidents this week alone, I think it's best if you stay out on the streets, actively looking for your man. I don't think either of our purposes will be served if you come in to the station till Monday. Are you following me, Steve?"
I was following like a poodle might follow the scent of Alpo directly into the jaws of a dog-raping wino. Milhaud knew that if I set foot in the precinct office, there was nothing anyone could do to prevent him from using his Magnum on me right then and there. Milhaud was exploiting the time honored skill of defensive driving-he was strategically eliminating the possibility of himself being brought up on charges of abusing another officer to the point of death. The Lieutenant was allowing me full responsibility for bringing in "my man," and at the same time, he was justifying the brutalities he would inflict upon me whence Monday morning rolled around, and I finally showed up, sans Shitty Dick, and sans my own pathetically shriveled and dessicated organ of reproduction. I now understood the coolness of his demeanor.
"Yeah," I said, realizing that tape-recorded grunts do not hold up in a court of law.
"Fine, fine. So tell me, Steve, what do you think of the way the NoseWitness Team got into depth tonight, covering the massage scene, the toilet scene, the Anal Institute scene? Put us to shame, didn't they?"
What was I supposed to do-argue with him? I tried.
"I was up there too, chief. I saw my contact, Marc Fenton, grabbed some hot leads."
I heard a snarl through the receiver that told me Milhaud was at the breaking point, that if the conversation continued much longer, he would be bellowing at me over the phone, roasting my ear with the blowtorch of his hatred.
"That is swell, Steve. I certainly hope those leads turn out to be fruitful come Monday morning. I sure would like to see them bear some fruit. Do you get my meaning, Steve?"
I got his meaning, his sick little puns. He'd turn me into something less highly evolved than a fig or a peach if I showed up empty handed on Monday. I had to admire Milhaud's restraint.
"Sure thing, Lieutenant," I replied, maintaining the vague stance.
"Great, Steve. Did you happen to go by Charmane Pervis's home this afternoon, Steve? Remember, you were supposed to make the courtesy visit on behalf of the precinct. I realize you are busy on the case, but I think it's only proper that you make the visit. After all, Nick was your best friend, not to mention, your partner. Right, Steve?"
"Gee, Lieutenant, I couldn't make it over there today, but I'll try it tomorrow." I said, waiting for the telltale snicker from the unseen Milhaud that would inform me that he had my afternoon escapade down on video-tape, and was replaying it in slow motion for himself at the very moment, on his home equipment, in the den.
"Wonderful, Steve," he snarmed again, his voice soaked in thick, sweet Knott's Berry Farm syrup, "Glad to have such a considerate, sensitive man on the force. Judging from my daughter's condition, Charmane could probably use a heating pad, some nicely boxed chocolates, and maybe even a few slick magazines, you know the type, Beaver, Young and Hung, maybe even People's World, just to keep her mind off the traumatic events of the past few days."
"Sure thing, Lieutenant," I replied, now impatient, nervous, and sure that Milhaud was going to maintain the tension to the end. He would not go apeshit-he would prolong my agony till Monday morning, and then he would unleash the vast reservoir of hostility and rage in one awful flood of bile and spleen.
"Well, Steve, I've got those tapes to make. Never a dull moment in law enforcement, not even at home! You take it easy tonight, old buddy, get your beauty rest, and tomorrow morning, after you've seen to Charmane's needs, you spring out of your corner like a light heavy-weight, and go out there and get your man. You hear me, son?"
I glanced over at the TV set. Kristine Hundt was narrating the accident film, the choice footage of the meat wagons towing away the four charbroiled illegal alien corpses. I grunted in response to Milhaud's sarcastic words of encouragement.
"Good boy. We'll see on Monday morning, then. Good luck. Ten four."
I stood there, vomit and curdled beer running and crusting on my shirt, the receiver buzzing in my hand, the voice of Kristine Hundt attaining the heights of nasal penetration as it evoked minutiae and detail concerning the deserved fate of those who dare to encroach upon our freeways without first attaining the prerequisite status of true citizens.
Milhaud's call had been the kiss of death. The precision timing of events, the tryst with Charmane while Shitty Dick was simultaneously impaling young, pert Debbie Milhaud on his stained organ across town, was beyond the ken of more-or-less normal cognition and tolerance-it bordered upon a psychic phenomenon, a synchronicity that stank to high heaven of conspiracy. Who was out to get me-Shitty Dick? Milhaud? Fenton? Charmane? Wanda? Who the fuck was it? Why me?
I whined out loud, and replaced the phone on its hot pink Princess stand, and went into the kitchen to fetch another beer. I padded humbly across the carpeting to the refrigerator, got my suds, and padded out again to the living room to wallow in the vicarious thrill of NoseWitness journalism. After the news, I would thoroughly re-examine my options. After the news, I would embark upon setting down my own strategy of self-preservation. I would not go down without a fight. I would avenge myself upon the pervert who had caused me so much bitter travail. Death to the Dung stained Dick and all he stands for, I said to myself, as I sat in my chair, unmindful of the puddles of intestinal sewage that lapped about my sweat-socked feet.
Kristine Hundt was delivering the mandatory cute wrap-up story. It was a classic, as one has come to expect of the NoseWitness News Team.
"We have an interesting and heart-warming final story for tonight, Rex, Dr. Fishbreath, fellow members of the Team. It concerns a Dr. Pavel Stenclick of the Tito Institute for the Study Of Primate Hygiene, and his latest invention. It seems that Dr. Stenclick, an expert in the field of that commonplace twentieth century problem, dysfunctioning, has received thousands of letters and cards from drag queens and their burly partners all asking for and demanding some way of making their mating a more authentic parody of the classic, but totally obsolete heterosexual pattern. Dr. Stenclick worked on the problem for months, in his primate laboratory, trying out different solutions-the male Kotex pad, the anal dilator, the hormonal reduction of penile growths and the like. His patients enjoyed them all, but something totally new and profound was sought, something that would give modern gay blades that chilling and tempting sense of fear and imminent disaster that always holds sway in so-called "normal" sexual conquests. Dr. Stenclick believes that he has come up with the answer, in the form of what he calls the Interanal Contraceptive Device, or the Fruit Loop, for short.
"The way it works is simple. Before settling down to nice sweaty night of illicit buttfuckery, the twisted couple must first insert the Fruit Loop deep in the drag queen's asshole. Then, they go about their perverted way with that all important sense of security and conception defying technocratic dependence upon a useless appliance that transfigures their passion into an authentic parody of the basic married couple. Sounds great, doesn't it, Dr. Fishbreath?"
The camera swung over to the good doctor, who avidly picked his nose and flailed his weather pointer about the room.
"Gollygosharooty, Kristine, Fruit Loops for male hormonesexuals! A contraceptive device for those who really have no use for one. That is swell, and it just goes to show how lucky we all are to be living in the twentieth century, with science standing next to our beds, ready to assist us whenever we feel those wimpy urges to dysfunction at the critical moment."
"That's right, Doctor," smiled Kristine, "I don't know how they got along before the invention of the Fruit Loop, but now, rest assured, thanks to Dr. Stenclick, there will be a lot fewer divorces up in Hollywood!
"That's it for the News for now. Stay tuned for a special NoseWitness News Report on Poodle Care for the Crippled, coming right up. For Dr. Fishbreath, Rex Phlegm, and Poteet Smidgen, our Sportsperson, this is Kristine Hundt reminding you to catch us at eleven o'clock when we'll rehash the same garbage over again, dwelling on the nauseating details of the Sadistic Sodomite in depth. For all of us here at the NoseWitness Newsdesk, I say goodnight, and good luck, and for Christsakes, keep your windows and doors shut, keep the TV on, and keep your nose clean, or you'll wind up on the police blotter with a microphone stuck through the bars on your cell door and a NoseWitness Newsperson on your sick case."
I used the remote button to circle the set rapidly a few times, and then I shut off the sound and just let random images of pantyhose, feminine hygiene spray, dog food, asswipe, discount carpeting, Datsuns, and hemorrhoid remedies sock into my smog-wrinkled retinas as I went over my own dilemma in a state of hypnotic confusion.
I had to have a lead, and I had to have one fast. I could be dead wrong, but I was almost certain that the case of Shitty Dick, the Sodomistic Sadist, was more than it appeared to be from my point of view, and even from the point of view of the News people. It wasn't the isolated case of one clever maniac wreaking a trail of ass-pinching terror over the city. He had to be motivated. He had to have inside knowledge of the police operation, of the men assigned to his case. It had to be an inside job.
It certainly wasn't Milhaud. Raping his own daughter? Incestuous anal rape? It was beyond the ken of the imagination, or at least my imagination.
Merc Fenton? Merc had earned himself a thorough investigation by his sarcasm alone. The fact that it was he who had told me to "watch the News" sealed his fate as far as I was concerned if he wasn't the Sadistic Sodomite himself, then he had the inside track on the scurvy bastard and he was thus withholding prized information from the authorities. Merc Fenton had earned himself a visit from me, and that visit was going to be consummated pronto.
I switched off the set and went into the bathroom and ran cold water in the stall shower. I had to freshen up-I had serious thinking to do, and I had even more serious action to take. I wasn't going to sit still and let the forces of chance and conspiracy work together to barbeque my ass. I was going free-lance, tonight, back up to Hollywood, back to see Marc Fenton, back into the turf labelled so clearly as the Asshole of the Universe by Rex Phlegm. I was going to teach Merc a lesson in obedience, and I was out to track down the poopchute pariah at the same time. I would stalk him in his own ecological niche, among the garbage pails filled with used Fruit Loops, the toilets harboring hideous scenes of debauchery, in the sick mauve shadows of the Institute of Anal Lust on Santa Monica Boulevard. He would not escape me-he would not run free to humiliate and degrade another frustrated housewife again. It was up to me, and as the cold water soaked through the crusted barf on my shirt and sluiced it down the drain, I felt up to the task, ready to meet him on his own terms, and ready to make an example of him for the rest of his kind to see.
When I got hold of Shitty Dick, he would learn the fine art of respect. He would learn it, or he would eat hot dum-dums, on the spot, courtesy of Steve Narsky. If Shitty Dick turned out to be none other than Merc Fenton (my first choice), respect would come after the dum-dum din-din. No one had ever fucked with me the way Merc had fucked with me that afternoon, when he turned me on to the sideshow in the service station toilet. If Merc had been a wise-ass the whole time, if he had known that the anal paraside was busy at work while I fucked about looking through the keyhold, and in spite of it all he had failed to warn me, embarrassed me, humiliated me, risked my job for the sake of prolonging my agonies over capturing the slimy cretin, then Marc Fenton was headed for a short, brutal end.
If Merc was innocent, however, if he had only a premonitiion, or worse, had made a lucky guess that the shit-sucking ass-fucker was going into action that very afternoon, and the results of his actions would be reported that night on the news as a mere matter of course, well then, the most I could do would be to jam a high pressure air hose up his ass and give him a taste of his own, practical joke style medicine. If Merc was innocent, I was in deep trouble again, for I would be no closer to the truth, no closer to getting my man, no closer to saving my ass on Monday morning.