I guess I should tell all about my xmas eve and xmas, eh? We had a great time! My sister and brother-in-law came into town on the 23rd. We had them, plus my bro and sis-in-law, my mom, mark, and Keith (kevin's bro) and Julie (and Tyler and Zach) (kevin's sis-in-law & nephews) over for brunch on xmas eve. We exchanged pressies later on that day. It worked out well. We went thru a crap load of breakfast food and 2 bottles of champagne (my mother ... she loves mimosas)
My mom got us all neon lamps ... Velisia got 2 champagne glasses, bob got a basketball player, and we got a martooni glass. Then she got Kevin the LOTR risk board... Jose she got a HUGE cobra knife... she got me an aroma lamp and month python calendar ... and she gave us 100 bucks to go buy the gift we really wanted ... which we'll have to get at a later date cuz it wasn't in stock. We had a gift exchange between the fam... Bob had Kevin and Jen had Jose ... so both Kev and Jose got best guy gift certificates. I got Velisia a GWBush talking doll. He says inspirational and funny sayings. I also got her a Nick Lidstrom stanely cup bobblehead. And Velisia got me ... A TALKING PLUSHIE SCORCHCIO!!!!! Does she know me or what!?!?!?! It's AWESOME!!!
We spent all day xmas even here just hanging out. xmas day we went (early) to my dad's for brunch (again) and gifts. I LOVE denise's cheesy potatoes!!!! We got them a gift certificate for Giovanni's (where Kevin works) and from them we got PJ bottoms and an adorable fleece throw in blue and green plaid with our names embroidered in the corner. I told Kevin now we can't break up :p~
After a few coffees and Bailey's over there, we made our way over to Keith and Karry Ann's for xmas dinner and gift exchange over there. I had Julie and got her a hand held game and candle and bath stuff that i made.... mom and dad bencik had me and Kevin ...Kevin got Pistons stuff and they got me some spa stuff from healing gardens and an adorable maroon sweater with removable collar and cuffs. It's fab!! Kevin had Keith and got him the Hulk game for PS2. The best part was watching the babies with all the presents tho!!! They are so precious!! And, in spite of the fact that I don't get to see them all that often, they seem to know me, which is good. We're supposed to go over to Joe and Julie's tomorrow for the Rose Bowl... should be fun! I really like Julie a bunch and if it means enduring Joey, then so be it. She needs someone to talk to besides those babies and Mom and Dad Bencik... She's young and I'm sure it's driving her up the wall.
Right now I'm just waiting for Kevin to come home from work. Hopefully he'll get here in time for midnight and my kiss *MUAH* I've made sure we have food in the fridge and our cupboards and black eyed peas and buneulos to have when the clock strikes midnight for good luck and prosperity. And I have money to put in his pocket in case he has none. Old things from my Mama i suppose. The Black eyed peas are for good luck... the bunuelos for prosperity ... and you must always have food in your house and money in your pocket when the new year strikes to ensure that you will have both for the entirety of the coming year. I wasn't going to get the b.e.peas or the bunuelos, but that nagging part of me in the back of my head made me....
well... time enough to grab a cigarette and see what's happening on Dick Clark's Rocking Eve before Kevin gets home. *MUAH* In deference of a friend of mine.... To all I say a GOOD NIGHT!!! See you in 2004!!!
12/28/03
Fartimer.com - Funny Greetings, Animations, Fun Pages, and Cute Stuff!
Fartimer.com - Funny Greetings, Animations, Fun Pages, and Cute Stuff!: "Hockey is Better than Sex
It's legal to earn money playing hockey
Many people play hockey even after they're married
The puck's always hard
The protective equipment is reusable
It lasts at least an hour
A two-on-one or a three-on-one is not uncommon
You always know how big the stick is
You can clean your stick in public without anyone minding
You can change players on the fly
You don't have to be embarrassed if you don't get the puck up
Everyone is finished when the buzzer sounds
Your parents cheer when you score
Periods last only 20 minutes
You're sure to get it at least twice a week
You can tell your friends about it afterwards"
It's legal to earn money playing hockey
Many people play hockey even after they're married
The puck's always hard
The protective equipment is reusable
It lasts at least an hour
A two-on-one or a three-on-one is not uncommon
You always know how big the stick is
You can clean your stick in public without anyone minding
You can change players on the fly
You don't have to be embarrassed if you don't get the puck up
Everyone is finished when the buzzer sounds
Your parents cheer when you score
Periods last only 20 minutes
You're sure to get it at least twice a week
You can tell your friends about it afterwards"
12/21/03
OMG! I just saw the most amazing play in football I've seen in a long long time!!! The saints were down by 7... no time left on the clock ... they make a pass... it gets lateralled... then handed off... then lateral again for a TOUCHDOWN!!! Suddently it looks like New Orleans is in the playoffs!!! down by one point!! 19 - 20 ... going into Overtime! All they need to do is make the extra point. And what's an extra point? I mean, in the world of NFL football and NFL football kickers, it's a chip shot! They should be able to do it blindfolded and in their sleep. So out comes the kicking team... They hike... set ... kick.... NO GOOOD!!!!! OMG!! He shanks it to the right!!! I can't believe it!!!! Lemme just tell you that I would not want to be either the kicker or the holder going back to New Orleans. I wouldn't go back to New Orleans. "Just leave me on the side of the road coach."
Those Poor Saints!!!!
Those Poor Saints!!!!
12/19/03
I can't sleep. Things keep running thru my head. I hate when this happens. I'd do something constructive but my xmas cards are all done and waiting to be mailed tomorrow and i can't do dishes cuz the running water keeps Sophie next door awake and I can't do laundry cuz Kevin's sleeping in the bedroom where all the dirty clothes are and we have no light for me to be able to see in there to gather them up anyway. So i guess I play Neopets for awhile.
I've been trying to work on my story, but nothing's been coming to me. I think once the stress of the holidays passed I should be good to go. Of course, once that passes then I got court on the 18th for sentencing. And I still haven't started out patient counselling and I missed my last probation date and haven't gotten anything in the mail about rescheduling. I'm so scared I'm going to be put in jail.
I've been trying to work on my story, but nothing's been coming to me. I think once the stress of the holidays passed I should be good to go. Of course, once that passes then I got court on the 18th for sentencing. And I still haven't started out patient counselling and I missed my last probation date and haven't gotten anything in the mail about rescheduling. I'm so scared I'm going to be put in jail.
Joe R. Lansdale, Totally Free Stories
Joe R. Lansdale, Totally Free Stories
BESTSELLERS GUARANTEED
For Anibal Martinez
Larry had a headache, as he often did. It was those all-night stints at the typewriter, along with his job and his boss, Fraggerty, yelling for him to fry the burgers faster, to dole them out lickity-split on mustard-covered sesame seed buns.
Burgers and fries, typing paper and typewriter ribbons—the ribbons as gray and faded as the thirty-six years of his life. There really didn’t seem to be any reason to keep on living. Another twenty to thirty years of this would be foolish. Then again, that seemed the only alternative. He was too cowardly to take his own life.
Washing his face in the bathroom sink, Larry jerked a rough paper towel from the rack and dried off, looking at himself in the mirror. He was starting to look like all those hacks of writer mythology. The little guys who turned out the drek copy. The ones with the blue-veined, alcoholic noses and eyes like volcanic eruptions.
"My God," he thought, "I look forty easy. Maybe even forty-five."
"You gonna stay in the can all day?" a voice yelled through the door. It was Fraggerty, waiting to send him back to the grill and the burgers. The guy treated him like a bum.
A sly smile formed on Larry’s face as he thought: "I am a bum. I’ve been through three marriages, sixteen jobs, eight typewriters, and all I’ve got to show for it are a dozen articles, all of them in obscure magazines that either paid in copies or pennies." He wasn’t even as good as the hack he looked like. The hack could at least point to a substantial body of work, drek or not.
And I’ve been at this . . .God, twelve years! An article a year. Some average. Not even enough to pay back his typing supplies.
He thought of his friend Mooney—or James T. Mooney, as he was known to his fans. Yearly, he wrote a bestseller. It was a bestseller before it hit the stands. And except for Mooney’s first novel, THE GOODBYE REEL, a detective thriller, all of them had been dismal. In fact, dismal was too kind a word. But the public lapped them up.
What had gone wrong with his own career? He used to help Mooney with his plots; in fact, he had helped him work out his problems on THE GOODBYE REEL, back when they had both been scrounging their livings and existing out of a suitcase. Then Mooney had moved to Houston, and a year later THE GOODBYE REEL had hit the stands like an atomic bomb. Made record sales in hardback and paper, and gathered in a movie deal that boggled the imagination.
Being honest with himself, Larry felt certain that he could say he was a far better writer than Mooney. More commercial, even. So why had Mooney gathered the laurels while he bagged burgers and ended up in a dirty restroom contemplating the veins in his nose?
It was almost too much to bear. He would kill to have a bestseller. Just one. That’s all he’d ask. Just one.
"Tear the damned crapper out of there and sit on it behind the grill!" Fraggerty called through the door. "But get out here. We got customers lined up down the block."
Larry doubted that, but he dried his hands, combed his hair and stepped outside.
Fraggerty was waiting for him. Fraggerty was a big fat man with bulldog jowls and perpetual blossoms of sweat beneath his meaty arms. Mid-summer, dead of winter—he had them.
"Hey," Fraggerty said, "you work here or what?"
"Not anymore, Larry said. "Pay me up."
"What?"
"You heard me, fat ass. Pay up!"
"Hey, don’t get tough about it. All right. Glad to see you hike."
Five minutes later, Larry was leaving the burger joint, a fifty-dollar check in his pocket.
He said aloud: "Job number seventeen."
The brainstorm had struck him right when he came out of the restroom. He’d go see Mooney. He and Mooney had been great friends once, before all that money and a new way of living had carried Mooney back and forth to Houston and numerous jet spots around the country and overseas.
Maybe Mooney could give him a connection, an in, as it was called in the business. Before, he’d been too proud to ask, but now he didn’t give a damn if he had to crawl and lick boots. He had to sell his books; had to let the world know he existed.
Without letting the landlord know, as he owed considerable back rent, he cleaned out his apartment.
Like his life, there was little there. A typewriter, copies of his twelve articles, a few clothes and odds and ends. There weren’t even any books. He’d had to sell them all to pay his rent three months back.
In less than twenty minutes, he snuck out without being seen, loaded the typewriter and his two suitcases in the trunk of his battered Chevy, and looked up at the window of his dingy apartment. He lifted his middle finger in salute, climbed in the car and drove away.
Mooney was easy to find. His estate looked just the part for the residence of a bestselling author. A front lawn the size of a polo field, a fountain of marble out front, and a house that looked like a small English castle. All this near downtown Houston.
James T. Mooney looked the part, too. He answered the door in a maroon smoking jacket with matching pajamas. He had on a pair of glossy leather bedroom slippers that he could have worn with a suit and tie. His hair was well-groomed with just the right amount of gray at the temples. There was a bit of a strained look about his eyes, but other than that he was the picture of health and prosperity.
"Well, I’ll be," Mooney said. "Larry Melford. Come in."
The interior of the house made the outside look like a barn. There were paintings and sculptures and shelves of first-edition books. On one wall, blown up to the size of movie posters and placed under glass and frame, were copies of the covers of his bestsellers. All twelve of them. A thirteenth glass and frame stood empty beside the others, waiting for the inevitable.
They chatted as they walked through the house, and Mooney said, "Let’s drop off in the study. We can be comfortable there. I’ll have the maid bring us some coffee or iced tea."
"I hope I’m not interrupting your writing," Larry said.
"No, not at all. I’m finished for the day. I usually just work a couple hours a day."
A couple hours a day? thought Larry. A serpent of envy crawled around in the pit of his stomach. For the last twelve years, he had worked a job all day and had written away most of the night, generally gathering no more than two to three hours’ sleep a day. And here was Mooney writing these monstrous bestsellers and he only wrote a couple of hours in the mornings.
Mooney’s study was about the size of Larry’s abandoned apartment. And it looked a hell of a lot better. One side of the room was little more than a long desk covered with a word processor and a duplicating machine. The rest of the room was taken up by a leather couch and rows of bookshelves containing nothing but Mooney’s work. Various editions of foreign publications, special collectors’ editions, the leather-bound Christmas set, the paperbacks, the bound galleys of all the novels. Mooney was surrounded by his success.
"Sit down; take the couch," Mooney said, hauling around his desk chair. "Coffee or tea? I’ll have the maid bring it."
"No, I’m fine."
"Well then, tell me about yourself."
Larry opened his mouth to start, and that’s when it fell out. He just couldn’t control himself. It was as if a dam had burst open and all the water of the world was flowing away. The anguish, the misery, the years of failure found expression.
When he had finished telling it all, his eyes were glistening. He was both relieved and embarrassed. "So you see, Mooney, I’m just about over the edge. I’m craving success like an addict craves a fix. I’d kill for a bestseller."
Mooney’s face seemed to go lopsided. "Watch that kind of talk."
"I mean it. I’m feeling so small right now, I’d have to look up to see a snake’s belly. I’d lie, cheat, steal, kill—anything to get published in a big way. I don’t want to die and leave nothing of me behind."
"And you don’t want to miss out on the good things either, right?"
"Damned right. You’ve got it."
"Look, Larry, worry less about the good things and just write your books. Ease up some, but do it your own way. You may never have a big bestseller, but you’re a good writer, and eventually you’ll crack and be able to make a decent living."
"Easy for you to say, Mooney."
"In time, with a little patience . . . "
"I’m running out of time and patience. I’m emotionally drained, whipped. What I need is an in, Mooney, an in. A name. Anything that can give me a break."
"Talent is the name of the game, Larry, not an in," Mooney said very softly.
"Don’t give me that garbage. I’ve got talent and you know it. I used to help you with the plots of your short stories. And your first novel—remember the things I worked out for you there? I mean, come on, Mooney. You’ve read my writing. It’s good. Damned good! I need help. An in can’t hurt me. It may not help me much, but it’s got to give me a damn sight better chance than I have now."
Larry looked at Mooney’s face. Something seemed to be moving there behind the eyes and taut lips. He looked sad, and quite a bit older than his age. Well, okay. So he was offended by being asked right out to help a fellow writer.
That was too bad. Larry just didn’t have the pride and patience anymore to beat around the bush.
"An in, huh?" Mooney finally said.
"That’s right."
"You sure you wouldn’t rather do it your way?"
"I’ve been doing it my way for twelve years. I want a break, Mooney."
Mooney nodded solemnly. He went over to his desk and opened a drawer. He took out a small, white business card and brought it over to Larry.
It read:
BESTSELLERS GUARANTEED
Offices in New York, Texas, California
and
Overseas
The left-hand corner of the card had a drawing of an open book, and the right-hand corner had three phone numbers. One of them was a Houston number.
"I met a lady when I first moved here," Mooney said, "a big name author in the romance field. I sort of got this thing going with her . . . finally asked her for . . . an in. And she gave me this card. We don’t see each other anymore, Larry. We stopped seeing each other the day she gave it to me."
Larry wasn’t listening. "This an editor?"
"No."
"An agent?"
"No."
"Publisher, book packager?"
"None of those things and a little of all, and a lot more."
"I’m not sure . . . "
"You wanted your in, so there it is. You just call that number. And Larry, do me a favor. Never come here again."
The first thing Larry did when he left Mooney’s was find a telephone booth. He dialed the Houston number and a crisp female voice answered: "Bestsellers Guaranteed."
"Are you the one in charge?"
"No sir. Just hold on and I’ll put you through to someone who can help you."
Larry tapped his finger on the phone shelf till a smooth-as-well-water male voice said: "B.G. here. May I be of assistance?"
"Uh . . . yes, a friend of mine . . . a Mr. James T. Mooney—"
"Of course, Mr. Mooney."
"He suggested . . . he gave me a card. Well, I’m a writer. My name is Larry Melford. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what Mooney had in mind for me. He just suggested I call you."
"All we need to know is that you were recommended by Mr. Mooney. Where are you now?"
Larry gave the address of the 7-Eleven phone booth.
"Why don’t you wait there .. . oh, say . . . twenty minutes and we’ll send a car to pick you up? That suit you?"
"Sure, but . . . "
"I’ll have an agent explain it to you when he gets there, okay?"
"Yes, yes, that’ll be fine."
Larry hung up and stepped outside to lean on the hood of his car. By golly, he thought, that Mooney does have connections, and now after all these years, my thirteenth year of trying, maybe, just maybe, I’m going to get connected, too.
He lit a cigarette and watched the August heat waves bounce around the 7-Eleven lot, and twenty minutes later, a tan, six-door limousine pulled up next to his Chevy.
The man driving the limo wore a chauffeur’s hat and outfit. He got out of the car and walked around to the tinted, far backseat window and tapped gently on the glass. The window slid down with a short whoosh. A man dressed in black with black hair, a black mustache, and thick-rimmed black shades, looked out at Larry. He said, "Mr. Melford?"
"Yes," Larry said.
"Would you like to go around to the other side? Herman will open the door for you."
After Larry had slid onto the seat and Herman had closed the door behind him, his eyes were drawn to the plush interior of the car. Encased in the seat in front of them was a phone, a television set and a couple of panels that folded out. Larry felt certain one of them would be a small bar. Air-conditioning hummed softly. The car was nice enough and large enough to live in.
He looked across the seat at the man in black, who was extending his hand. They shook. The man in black said, "Just call me James, Mr. Melford."
"Fine. This is about . . .writing? Mooney said he could give me a . . . connection. I mean, I have work, plenty of it. Four novels, a couple of dozen short stories, a novella—of course I know that length is a dog to sell, but . . . "
"None of that matters," James said.
"This is about writing?"
"This is about bestsellers, Mr. Melford. That is what you want, isn’t it? To be a bestselling author?"
"More than anything."
"Then you’re our man and we’re your organization."
Herman had eased in behind the wheel. James leaned forward over the seat and said firmly, "Drive us around." Leaning back, James touched a button on the door panel and a thick glass rose out of the seat in front of them and clicked into place in a groove in the roof.
"Now," James said, "shall we talk?"
As they drove, James explained, "I’m the agent assigned to you, and it’s up to me to see if I can convince you to join our little gallery. But, if you should sign on with us, we expect you to remain loyal. You must consider that we offer a service that is unique, unlike any offered anywhere. We can guarantee that you’ll hit the bestseller list once a year, every year, as long as you’re with us.
"Actually, Mr. Melford, we’re not a real old organization, though I have a hard time remembering the exact year we were founded—it predated the Kennedy assassination by a year."
"That would be sixty-two," Larry said.
"Yes, yes, of course. I’m terrible at years. But it’s only lately that we’ve come into our own. Consider the bad state of publishing right now, then consider the fact that our clients have each had a bestseller this year—and they will next year, no matter how bad publishing may falter. Our clients may be the only ones with books, but each of their books will be a bestseller, and their success will, as it does every year, save the industry."
"You’re a packager?"
"No. We don’t actually read the books, Mr. Melford, we just make sure they’re bestsellers. You can write a book about the Earth being invaded by giant tree toads from the moon, if you like, and we will guarantee it will be a bestseller."
"My God, you are connected."
"You wouldn’t believe the connections we have."
"And what does your organization get out of this? How much of a percentage?"
"We don’t take a dime."
"What?"
"Not a dime. For our help, for our guarantee that your books will be bestsellers, we ask only one thing. Af avor. One favor a year. A favor for each bestseller."
"What’s the favor?"
"We’ll come to that in a moment. But before we do, let me make sure you understand what we have to offer. I mean, if you were successful—and I mean no offense by this—then you wouldn’t be talking to me now. You need help. We can offer help. You’re in your mid-thirties, correct? Yes, I thought so. Not really old, but a bit late to start a new career plan. People do it, but it’s certainly no piece of cake, now, is it?"
Larry found that he was nodding in agreement.
"So," James continued, "what we want to do is give you success. We’re talking money in the millions of dollars, Mr. Melford. Fame. Respect. Most anything you’d want would beat your command. Exotic foods and wines? A snap of the fingers. Books? Cars? Women? A snap of the fingers. Anything your heart desires and it’s yours."
"But I have to make a small, initial investment, right?"
"Ah, suspicious by nature, are you?"
"Wouldn’t you be? My God, you’re offering me the world."
"So I am. But no . . . no investment. Picture this, Mr. Melford. You might get lucky and sell the work, might even have a bestseller. But the slots are getting smaller and smaller for new writers. And one reason for that is that our writers, our clients, are filling those slots, Mr. Melford. If it’s between your book and one of our clients’, and yours is ten times better written, our client will still win out. Every time."
"What you’re saying is, the fix is in?"
"A crude way of putting it, but rather accurate. Yes."
"What about talent, craftsmanship?"
"I wouldn’t know about any of that. I sell success, not books."
"But it’s the public that puts out its money for these books. They make or break an author. How can you know what they’ll buy?"
"Our advertising system is the best in the world. We know how to reach the public and how to convince. We also use subliminals, Mr. Melford. We flash images on television programs, theater films; we hide them in the art of wine and cigarette ads. Little things below conscious perception, but images that lock tight to the subconscious mind. People who would not normally pick up a book will buy our bestsellers."
"Isn’t that dishonest?"
"Who’s to tell in this day and age what’s right and wrong? It’s relative, don’t you think, Mr. Melford?"
Larry didn’t say anything.
"Look. The public pictures writers as rich, all of them. They don’t realize that the average full-time writer barely makes a living. Most of them are out there starving, and for what? Get on the winning side for a change, Mr. Melford. Otherwise, spend the rest of your life living in roach motels and living off the crumbs tossed you by the publishing world. And believe me, Mr. Melford, if you fail to join up with us, crumbs are all you’ll get. If you’re lucky."
The limousine had returned to the 7-Eleven parking lot. They were parked next to Larry’s car.
"I suppose," James said, "we’ve come to that point that the bullfighters call ‘the moment of truth.’ You sign on with us and you’ll be on Easy Street for the rest of your life."
"But we haven’t talked terms."
"No, we haven’t. It’s at this point that I must ask you to either accept or turn down our offer, Mr. Melford. Once I’ve outlined the terms, you must be in full agreement with us."
"Accept before I hear what this favor you’ve talked about is?"
"That’s correct. Bestseller or Bohemian, Mr. Melford. Which is it? Tell me right now. My time is valuable."
Larry paused only a moment. "Very well. Count me in. In for a penny, in for a pound. What’s the favor?"
"Each year, you assassinate someone for us."
Larry dove for the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. It had been locked electronically. James grabbed him by the wrist and held him tightly, so tightly Larry thought his bones would shatter.
"I wouldn’t," James said. "After what I’ve told you, you step out of this car and they’ll find you in a ditch this afternoon, obviously the victim of some hit-and-run driver."
"That’s . . . that’s murder."
"Yes, it is," James said. "Listen to me. You assassinate whomever we choose. We’re not discriminating as far as sex, color, religion or politics goes. Anyone who gets in our way dies. Simple as that. You see, Mr. Melford, we are a big organization. Our goal is world domination. You, and all our clients, are little helpers toward that goal. Who is more respected than a bestselling author? Who is allowed in places where others would not be allowed? Who is revered by public figures and the general public alike? An author—a bestselling author."
"But . . . it’s murder."
"There will be nothing personal in it. It’ll just be your part of the contract. One assassination a year that we’ll arrange."
"But if you’re so connected . . . why do it this way? Why not just hire a hit man?"
"In a sense, I have."
"I’m not an assassin. I’ve never even fired a gun."
"The amateur is in many ways better than the professional. He doesn’t fall into a pattern. When the time comes, we will show you what you have to do. If you decide to be with us, that is."
"And if not?"
"I told you a moment ago. The ditch. The hit-and-run driver."
Suddenly, Herman was standing at the door, his hand poised to open it.
"Which is it, Mr. Melford? I’m becoming impatient. A ditch or a bestseller? And if you have any ideas about going to the police, don’t. We have friends there, and you might accidentally meet one. Now, your decision."
"I’m in," Larry said, softly. "I’m in."
"Good," James said, taking Larry’s hand. "Welcome aboard. You get one of those books of yours out, pick out a publisher, and mail it in. And don’t bother with return postage. We’ll take care of the rest. Congratulations."
James motioned to Herman. The door opened. Larry got out. And just before the door closed, James said, "If you should have trouble coming up with something, getting something finished, just let me know and we’ll see that it gets written for you."
Larry stood on the sidewalk, nodding dumbly. Herman returned to the driver’s seat, and a moment later the tan limo from Bestsellers Guaranteed whispered away.
James was as good as his word. Larry mailed off one of his shopworn novels, a thriller entitled TEXAS BACKLASH, and a contract for a half million dollars came back, almost by return mail.
Six months later, the book hit the bestseller list and rode there for a comfortable three months. It picked up a two-million-dollar paperback sale and a big shot movie producer purchased it for twice that amount.
Larry now had a big mansion outside of Nacogdoches, Texas, with a maid, a cook, two secretaries and a professional yard man. Any type of food he wanted was his for the asking. Once he had special seafood flown in from the East Coast to Houston and hauled from there to his door by refrigerated truck.
Any first edition book he wanted was now within his price range. He owned four cars, two motorcycles, a private airplane and a yacht.
He could own anything—even people. They hopped at his every word, his most casual suggestion. He had money, and people wanted to satisfy those with money. Who knows, maybe it would rub off on them.
And there were women. Beautiful women. There was even one he had grown to care for, and believed cared for him instead of his money and position. Lovely Luna Malone.
But in the midst of all this finery, there was the favor. The thought of it rested on the back of his mind like a waiting vulture. And when a year had gone by, the vulture swooped in.
On a hot August day, the tan limo from Bestsellers Guaranteed pulled up the long, scenic drive to Larry’s mansion. A moment later, Larry and James were in Larry’s study and Herman stood outside the closed door with his arms akimbo, doing what he did best. Waiting silently.
James was dressed in black again. He still wore the thick-framed sun shades. "You know what I’ve come for, don’t you?"
Larry nodded. "The favor."
"On March fifteenth, Bestsellers Guaranteed will arrange for an autograph party in Austin for your new bestseller, whatever that may be. At eleven-fifteen, you will excuse yourself to go upstairs to the men’s room. Next door to it is a janitor’s lounge. It hasn’t been used in years. It’s locked but we will provide you with the key.
"At the rear of the lounge is a restroom. Lift off the back of the commode and you will discover eight small packages taped to the inside. Open these and fit them together and you’ll have a very sophisticated air rifle. One of the packages will contain a canister of ice, and in the middle, dyed red, you will find a bullet-shaped projectile of ice. The air gun can send that projectile through three inches of steel without the ice shattering.
"You will load the gun, go to the window, and at exactly eleven-twenty-five, the Governor will drive by in an open car in the midst of the parade. A small hole has been cut in the restroom window. It will exactly accommodate the barrel of the rifle and the scope will fit snugly against the glass. You will take aim, and in a manner of seconds, your favor for this year will be done."
"Why the Governor?"
"That is our concern."
"I’ve never shot a rifle."
"We’ll train you. You have until March. You won’t need to know much more than how to put the rifle together and look through the scope. The weapon will do the rest."
"If I refuse?"
"The bestselling author of TEXAS BACKLASH will be found murdered in his home by a couple of burglars, and a couple of undesirables will be framed for the crime. Don’t you think that has a nicer ring to it than the hit-and-run program I offered you before? Or perhaps, as a warning, we’ll do something to your lady friend. What’s her name, Luna?"
"You wouldn’t!"
"If it would offer incentive or achieve our desired goals, Mr. Melford, we would do anything."
"You bastard!"
"That’ll be quite enough, Mr. Melford. You’ve reaped the rewards of our services, and now we expect to be repaid.
"It seems a small thing to ask for your success—and certainly you wouldn’t want to die at the hands of other bestselling authors, the ones who will ultimately be your assassins."
In spite of the air-conditioning, Larry had begun to sweat. "Just who are you guys, really?"
"I’ve told you. We’re an organization with big plans. What we sponsor more than anything else, Mr. Melford, is moral corruption. We feed on those who thrive on greed and ego; put them in positions of power and influence. We belong to a group, to put it naively, who believe that once the silly concepts of morality and honor break down, then we, who really know how things work, can take control and make them work to our advantage. To put it even more simply, Mr. Melford, we will own it all."
"I . . . I can’t just cold-bloodedly murder someone."
"Oh, I think you can. I’ve got faith in you. Look around you, Mr. Melford. Look at all you’ve got. Think of what you’ve got to lose, then tell me if you can murder from a distance someone you don’t even know. I’ll wait outside with Herman for your answer. You have two minutes."
From the March fifteenth edition of The Austin Statesman, a front-page headline: "GOVERNOR ASSASSINATED, ASSASSIN SOUGHT."
From the same issue, page 4B:"BESTSELLING AUTHOR, LARRY MELFORD, SIGNS BOOKS."
Six months later, in the master bedroom of Larry Melford’s estate, Larry was sitting nude in front of the dresser mirror, clipping unruly nose hairs. On the bed behind him, nude, dark, luscious, lay Luna Malone. There was a healthy glow of sweat on her body as she lay with two pillows propped under her head; her raven hair was like an explosion of ink against their whiteness.
"Larry," she said. "you know, I’ve been thinking ... I mean there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, but haven’t said anything about it because ... well, I was afraid you might get the wrong idea. But now that we’ve known each other a while, and things look solid ... Larry, I’m a writer."
Larry quit clipping his nose hairs. He put the clipper on the dresser and turned very slowly. "You’re what?"
"I mean, I want to be. And not just now, not just this minute. I’ve always wanted to be. I didn’t tell you, because I was afraid you’d laugh, or worse, think I’d only got to know you so you could give me an in, but I’ve been writing for years and have sent book after book, story after story in, and just know I’m good, and well . . . "
"You want me to look at it?"
"Yeah, but more than that, Larry. I need an in. It’s what I’ve always wanted. To write a bestseller. I’d kill for . . . "
"Get out! Get the hell out!"
"Larry, I didn’t meet you for that reason. . . "
"Get the hell out or I’ll throw you out."
"Larry. . ."
"Now!" He stood up from the chair, grabbed her dressing gown. "Just go. Leave everything. I’ll have it sent to you. Get dressed and never let me see you again."
"Aren’t you being a little silly about this? I mean . . . "
Larry moved as fast as an eagle swooping down on a field mouse. He grabbed her shoulder and jerked her off the bed onto the floor.
"All right, you bastard, all right." Luna stood. She grabbed the robe and slipped into it. "So I did meet you for an in; what’s wrong with that? I bet you had some help along the way. It sure couldn’t have been because you’re a great writer. I can hardly force myself through that garbage you write."
He slapped her across the cheek so hard she fell back on the bed.
Holding her face, she got up, gathered her clothes and walked stiffly to the bathroom. Less than a minute later, she came out dressed, the robe over her shoulder.
"I’m sorry about hitting you," Larry said. "But I meant what I said about never wanting to see you again."
"You’re crazy, man. You know that? Crazy. All I asked you for was an in, just . . . "
Luna stopped talking. Larry had lifted his head to look at her. His eyes looked as dark and flat as the twin barrels of a shotgun.
"Don’t bother having Francis drive me home. I’ll call a cab from downstairs, Mr. Bigshot Writer."
She went out, slamming the bedroom door. Larry got up and turned off the light, went back to the dresser chair and sat in the darkness for a long time.
Nearly a year and a half later, not long after completing a favor for Bestsellers Guaranteed, and acquiring a somewhat rabid taste for alcoholic beverages, Larry was in the Houston airport waiting to catch a plane for Hawaii for a long vacation when he saw a woman in the distance who looked familiar. She turned and he recognized her immediately. It was Luna Malone. Still beautiful, a bit more worldly looking, and dressed to the hilt.
She saw him before he could dart away. She waved. He smiled. She came over and shook hands with him. "Larry, you aren’t still mad, are you?"
"No, I’m not mad. Good to see you. You look great."
"Thanks."
"Where’re you going?"
"Italy. Rome."
"Pope country," Larry said with a smile, but at his words. Luna jumped.
"Yes . . . Pope country."
The announcer called for the flight to Rome, Italy. Luna and Larry shook hands again and she went away.
To kill time. Larry went to the airport bookstores. He found he couldn’t even look at the big cardboard display with his latest bestseller in it. He didn’t like to look at bestsellers by anyone. But something did catch his eye. It was the cardboard display next to his. The book was called THE LITTLE STORM, and appeared to be one of those steamy romance novels. But what had caught his eye was the big, emblazoned name of the author—LUNA MALONE.
Larry felt like a python had uncoiled inside of him. He felt worse than he had ever felt in his life.
"Italy, Rome," she had said.
"Pope country," he had said, and she jumped.
Larry stumbled back against the rack of his book, and his clumsiness knocked it over. The books tumbled to the floor. One of them slid between his legs and when he looked down he saw that it had turned over to its back. There was his smiling face looking up at him. Larry Melford, big name author, bestseller, a man whose books found their way into the homes of millions of readers.
Suddenly, Hawaii was forgotten and Larry was running, running to the nearest pay phone. What had James said about moral corruption? "We feed on those who thrive on greed and ego . . . once silly concepts of morality and honor break down . . . we will own it all."
The nightmare had to end. Bestsellers Guaranteed had to be exposed. He would wash his hands with blood and moral corruption no more. He would turn himself in.
With trembling hand, he picked up the phone, put in his change, and dialed the police.
From today’s Houston Chronicle, front page headline:
"POPE ASSASSINATED."
From the same edition, the last page before the Want Ads, the last paragraph: "BESTSELLING AUTHOR MURDERED IN HOME." The story follows: "Police suspect the brutal murder of author Larry Melford occurred when he surprised burglars in the act. Thus far, police have been unable to . . . "
"Bestsellers Guaranteed" was originally published in Espionage Magazine. It later appeared in Bestsellers Guaranteed, a collection of Lansdale’s short stories published by Ace Books. "Bestsellers Guaranteed" © 1985 Joe R. Lansdale.
BESTSELLERS GUARANTEED
For Anibal Martinez
Larry had a headache, as he often did. It was those all-night stints at the typewriter, along with his job and his boss, Fraggerty, yelling for him to fry the burgers faster, to dole them out lickity-split on mustard-covered sesame seed buns.
Burgers and fries, typing paper and typewriter ribbons—the ribbons as gray and faded as the thirty-six years of his life. There really didn’t seem to be any reason to keep on living. Another twenty to thirty years of this would be foolish. Then again, that seemed the only alternative. He was too cowardly to take his own life.
Washing his face in the bathroom sink, Larry jerked a rough paper towel from the rack and dried off, looking at himself in the mirror. He was starting to look like all those hacks of writer mythology. The little guys who turned out the drek copy. The ones with the blue-veined, alcoholic noses and eyes like volcanic eruptions.
"My God," he thought, "I look forty easy. Maybe even forty-five."
"You gonna stay in the can all day?" a voice yelled through the door. It was Fraggerty, waiting to send him back to the grill and the burgers. The guy treated him like a bum.
A sly smile formed on Larry’s face as he thought: "I am a bum. I’ve been through three marriages, sixteen jobs, eight typewriters, and all I’ve got to show for it are a dozen articles, all of them in obscure magazines that either paid in copies or pennies." He wasn’t even as good as the hack he looked like. The hack could at least point to a substantial body of work, drek or not.
And I’ve been at this . . .God, twelve years! An article a year. Some average. Not even enough to pay back his typing supplies.
He thought of his friend Mooney—or James T. Mooney, as he was known to his fans. Yearly, he wrote a bestseller. It was a bestseller before it hit the stands. And except for Mooney’s first novel, THE GOODBYE REEL, a detective thriller, all of them had been dismal. In fact, dismal was too kind a word. But the public lapped them up.
What had gone wrong with his own career? He used to help Mooney with his plots; in fact, he had helped him work out his problems on THE GOODBYE REEL, back when they had both been scrounging their livings and existing out of a suitcase. Then Mooney had moved to Houston, and a year later THE GOODBYE REEL had hit the stands like an atomic bomb. Made record sales in hardback and paper, and gathered in a movie deal that boggled the imagination.
Being honest with himself, Larry felt certain that he could say he was a far better writer than Mooney. More commercial, even. So why had Mooney gathered the laurels while he bagged burgers and ended up in a dirty restroom contemplating the veins in his nose?
It was almost too much to bear. He would kill to have a bestseller. Just one. That’s all he’d ask. Just one.
"Tear the damned crapper out of there and sit on it behind the grill!" Fraggerty called through the door. "But get out here. We got customers lined up down the block."
Larry doubted that, but he dried his hands, combed his hair and stepped outside.
Fraggerty was waiting for him. Fraggerty was a big fat man with bulldog jowls and perpetual blossoms of sweat beneath his meaty arms. Mid-summer, dead of winter—he had them.
"Hey," Fraggerty said, "you work here or what?"
"Not anymore, Larry said. "Pay me up."
"What?"
"You heard me, fat ass. Pay up!"
"Hey, don’t get tough about it. All right. Glad to see you hike."
Five minutes later, Larry was leaving the burger joint, a fifty-dollar check in his pocket.
He said aloud: "Job number seventeen."
The brainstorm had struck him right when he came out of the restroom. He’d go see Mooney. He and Mooney had been great friends once, before all that money and a new way of living had carried Mooney back and forth to Houston and numerous jet spots around the country and overseas.
Maybe Mooney could give him a connection, an in, as it was called in the business. Before, he’d been too proud to ask, but now he didn’t give a damn if he had to crawl and lick boots. He had to sell his books; had to let the world know he existed.
Without letting the landlord know, as he owed considerable back rent, he cleaned out his apartment.
Like his life, there was little there. A typewriter, copies of his twelve articles, a few clothes and odds and ends. There weren’t even any books. He’d had to sell them all to pay his rent three months back.
In less than twenty minutes, he snuck out without being seen, loaded the typewriter and his two suitcases in the trunk of his battered Chevy, and looked up at the window of his dingy apartment. He lifted his middle finger in salute, climbed in the car and drove away.
Mooney was easy to find. His estate looked just the part for the residence of a bestselling author. A front lawn the size of a polo field, a fountain of marble out front, and a house that looked like a small English castle. All this near downtown Houston.
James T. Mooney looked the part, too. He answered the door in a maroon smoking jacket with matching pajamas. He had on a pair of glossy leather bedroom slippers that he could have worn with a suit and tie. His hair was well-groomed with just the right amount of gray at the temples. There was a bit of a strained look about his eyes, but other than that he was the picture of health and prosperity.
"Well, I’ll be," Mooney said. "Larry Melford. Come in."
The interior of the house made the outside look like a barn. There were paintings and sculptures and shelves of first-edition books. On one wall, blown up to the size of movie posters and placed under glass and frame, were copies of the covers of his bestsellers. All twelve of them. A thirteenth glass and frame stood empty beside the others, waiting for the inevitable.
They chatted as they walked through the house, and Mooney said, "Let’s drop off in the study. We can be comfortable there. I’ll have the maid bring us some coffee or iced tea."
"I hope I’m not interrupting your writing," Larry said.
"No, not at all. I’m finished for the day. I usually just work a couple hours a day."
A couple hours a day? thought Larry. A serpent of envy crawled around in the pit of his stomach. For the last twelve years, he had worked a job all day and had written away most of the night, generally gathering no more than two to three hours’ sleep a day. And here was Mooney writing these monstrous bestsellers and he only wrote a couple of hours in the mornings.
Mooney’s study was about the size of Larry’s abandoned apartment. And it looked a hell of a lot better. One side of the room was little more than a long desk covered with a word processor and a duplicating machine. The rest of the room was taken up by a leather couch and rows of bookshelves containing nothing but Mooney’s work. Various editions of foreign publications, special collectors’ editions, the leather-bound Christmas set, the paperbacks, the bound galleys of all the novels. Mooney was surrounded by his success.
"Sit down; take the couch," Mooney said, hauling around his desk chair. "Coffee or tea? I’ll have the maid bring it."
"No, I’m fine."
"Well then, tell me about yourself."
Larry opened his mouth to start, and that’s when it fell out. He just couldn’t control himself. It was as if a dam had burst open and all the water of the world was flowing away. The anguish, the misery, the years of failure found expression.
When he had finished telling it all, his eyes were glistening. He was both relieved and embarrassed. "So you see, Mooney, I’m just about over the edge. I’m craving success like an addict craves a fix. I’d kill for a bestseller."
Mooney’s face seemed to go lopsided. "Watch that kind of talk."
"I mean it. I’m feeling so small right now, I’d have to look up to see a snake’s belly. I’d lie, cheat, steal, kill—anything to get published in a big way. I don’t want to die and leave nothing of me behind."
"And you don’t want to miss out on the good things either, right?"
"Damned right. You’ve got it."
"Look, Larry, worry less about the good things and just write your books. Ease up some, but do it your own way. You may never have a big bestseller, but you’re a good writer, and eventually you’ll crack and be able to make a decent living."
"Easy for you to say, Mooney."
"In time, with a little patience . . . "
"I’m running out of time and patience. I’m emotionally drained, whipped. What I need is an in, Mooney, an in. A name. Anything that can give me a break."
"Talent is the name of the game, Larry, not an in," Mooney said very softly.
"Don’t give me that garbage. I’ve got talent and you know it. I used to help you with the plots of your short stories. And your first novel—remember the things I worked out for you there? I mean, come on, Mooney. You’ve read my writing. It’s good. Damned good! I need help. An in can’t hurt me. It may not help me much, but it’s got to give me a damn sight better chance than I have now."
Larry looked at Mooney’s face. Something seemed to be moving there behind the eyes and taut lips. He looked sad, and quite a bit older than his age. Well, okay. So he was offended by being asked right out to help a fellow writer.
That was too bad. Larry just didn’t have the pride and patience anymore to beat around the bush.
"An in, huh?" Mooney finally said.
"That’s right."
"You sure you wouldn’t rather do it your way?"
"I’ve been doing it my way for twelve years. I want a break, Mooney."
Mooney nodded solemnly. He went over to his desk and opened a drawer. He took out a small, white business card and brought it over to Larry.
It read:
BESTSELLERS GUARANTEED
Offices in New York, Texas, California
and
Overseas
The left-hand corner of the card had a drawing of an open book, and the right-hand corner had three phone numbers. One of them was a Houston number.
"I met a lady when I first moved here," Mooney said, "a big name author in the romance field. I sort of got this thing going with her . . . finally asked her for . . . an in. And she gave me this card. We don’t see each other anymore, Larry. We stopped seeing each other the day she gave it to me."
Larry wasn’t listening. "This an editor?"
"No."
"An agent?"
"No."
"Publisher, book packager?"
"None of those things and a little of all, and a lot more."
"I’m not sure . . . "
"You wanted your in, so there it is. You just call that number. And Larry, do me a favor. Never come here again."
The first thing Larry did when he left Mooney’s was find a telephone booth. He dialed the Houston number and a crisp female voice answered: "Bestsellers Guaranteed."
"Are you the one in charge?"
"No sir. Just hold on and I’ll put you through to someone who can help you."
Larry tapped his finger on the phone shelf till a smooth-as-well-water male voice said: "B.G. here. May I be of assistance?"
"Uh . . . yes, a friend of mine . . . a Mr. James T. Mooney—"
"Of course, Mr. Mooney."
"He suggested . . . he gave me a card. Well, I’m a writer. My name is Larry Melford. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what Mooney had in mind for me. He just suggested I call you."
"All we need to know is that you were recommended by Mr. Mooney. Where are you now?"
Larry gave the address of the 7-Eleven phone booth.
"Why don’t you wait there .. . oh, say . . . twenty minutes and we’ll send a car to pick you up? That suit you?"
"Sure, but . . . "
"I’ll have an agent explain it to you when he gets there, okay?"
"Yes, yes, that’ll be fine."
Larry hung up and stepped outside to lean on the hood of his car. By golly, he thought, that Mooney does have connections, and now after all these years, my thirteenth year of trying, maybe, just maybe, I’m going to get connected, too.
He lit a cigarette and watched the August heat waves bounce around the 7-Eleven lot, and twenty minutes later, a tan, six-door limousine pulled up next to his Chevy.
The man driving the limo wore a chauffeur’s hat and outfit. He got out of the car and walked around to the tinted, far backseat window and tapped gently on the glass. The window slid down with a short whoosh. A man dressed in black with black hair, a black mustache, and thick-rimmed black shades, looked out at Larry. He said, "Mr. Melford?"
"Yes," Larry said.
"Would you like to go around to the other side? Herman will open the door for you."
After Larry had slid onto the seat and Herman had closed the door behind him, his eyes were drawn to the plush interior of the car. Encased in the seat in front of them was a phone, a television set and a couple of panels that folded out. Larry felt certain one of them would be a small bar. Air-conditioning hummed softly. The car was nice enough and large enough to live in.
He looked across the seat at the man in black, who was extending his hand. They shook. The man in black said, "Just call me James, Mr. Melford."
"Fine. This is about . . .writing? Mooney said he could give me a . . . connection. I mean, I have work, plenty of it. Four novels, a couple of dozen short stories, a novella—of course I know that length is a dog to sell, but . . . "
"None of that matters," James said.
"This is about writing?"
"This is about bestsellers, Mr. Melford. That is what you want, isn’t it? To be a bestselling author?"
"More than anything."
"Then you’re our man and we’re your organization."
Herman had eased in behind the wheel. James leaned forward over the seat and said firmly, "Drive us around." Leaning back, James touched a button on the door panel and a thick glass rose out of the seat in front of them and clicked into place in a groove in the roof.
"Now," James said, "shall we talk?"
As they drove, James explained, "I’m the agent assigned to you, and it’s up to me to see if I can convince you to join our little gallery. But, if you should sign on with us, we expect you to remain loyal. You must consider that we offer a service that is unique, unlike any offered anywhere. We can guarantee that you’ll hit the bestseller list once a year, every year, as long as you’re with us.
"Actually, Mr. Melford, we’re not a real old organization, though I have a hard time remembering the exact year we were founded—it predated the Kennedy assassination by a year."
"That would be sixty-two," Larry said.
"Yes, yes, of course. I’m terrible at years. But it’s only lately that we’ve come into our own. Consider the bad state of publishing right now, then consider the fact that our clients have each had a bestseller this year—and they will next year, no matter how bad publishing may falter. Our clients may be the only ones with books, but each of their books will be a bestseller, and their success will, as it does every year, save the industry."
"You’re a packager?"
"No. We don’t actually read the books, Mr. Melford, we just make sure they’re bestsellers. You can write a book about the Earth being invaded by giant tree toads from the moon, if you like, and we will guarantee it will be a bestseller."
"My God, you are connected."
"You wouldn’t believe the connections we have."
"And what does your organization get out of this? How much of a percentage?"
"We don’t take a dime."
"What?"
"Not a dime. For our help, for our guarantee that your books will be bestsellers, we ask only one thing. Af avor. One favor a year. A favor for each bestseller."
"What’s the favor?"
"We’ll come to that in a moment. But before we do, let me make sure you understand what we have to offer. I mean, if you were successful—and I mean no offense by this—then you wouldn’t be talking to me now. You need help. We can offer help. You’re in your mid-thirties, correct? Yes, I thought so. Not really old, but a bit late to start a new career plan. People do it, but it’s certainly no piece of cake, now, is it?"
Larry found that he was nodding in agreement.
"So," James continued, "what we want to do is give you success. We’re talking money in the millions of dollars, Mr. Melford. Fame. Respect. Most anything you’d want would beat your command. Exotic foods and wines? A snap of the fingers. Books? Cars? Women? A snap of the fingers. Anything your heart desires and it’s yours."
"But I have to make a small, initial investment, right?"
"Ah, suspicious by nature, are you?"
"Wouldn’t you be? My God, you’re offering me the world."
"So I am. But no . . . no investment. Picture this, Mr. Melford. You might get lucky and sell the work, might even have a bestseller. But the slots are getting smaller and smaller for new writers. And one reason for that is that our writers, our clients, are filling those slots, Mr. Melford. If it’s between your book and one of our clients’, and yours is ten times better written, our client will still win out. Every time."
"What you’re saying is, the fix is in?"
"A crude way of putting it, but rather accurate. Yes."
"What about talent, craftsmanship?"
"I wouldn’t know about any of that. I sell success, not books."
"But it’s the public that puts out its money for these books. They make or break an author. How can you know what they’ll buy?"
"Our advertising system is the best in the world. We know how to reach the public and how to convince. We also use subliminals, Mr. Melford. We flash images on television programs, theater films; we hide them in the art of wine and cigarette ads. Little things below conscious perception, but images that lock tight to the subconscious mind. People who would not normally pick up a book will buy our bestsellers."
"Isn’t that dishonest?"
"Who’s to tell in this day and age what’s right and wrong? It’s relative, don’t you think, Mr. Melford?"
Larry didn’t say anything.
"Look. The public pictures writers as rich, all of them. They don’t realize that the average full-time writer barely makes a living. Most of them are out there starving, and for what? Get on the winning side for a change, Mr. Melford. Otherwise, spend the rest of your life living in roach motels and living off the crumbs tossed you by the publishing world. And believe me, Mr. Melford, if you fail to join up with us, crumbs are all you’ll get. If you’re lucky."
The limousine had returned to the 7-Eleven parking lot. They were parked next to Larry’s car.
"I suppose," James said, "we’ve come to that point that the bullfighters call ‘the moment of truth.’ You sign on with us and you’ll be on Easy Street for the rest of your life."
"But we haven’t talked terms."
"No, we haven’t. It’s at this point that I must ask you to either accept or turn down our offer, Mr. Melford. Once I’ve outlined the terms, you must be in full agreement with us."
"Accept before I hear what this favor you’ve talked about is?"
"That’s correct. Bestseller or Bohemian, Mr. Melford. Which is it? Tell me right now. My time is valuable."
Larry paused only a moment. "Very well. Count me in. In for a penny, in for a pound. What’s the favor?"
"Each year, you assassinate someone for us."
Larry dove for the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. It had been locked electronically. James grabbed him by the wrist and held him tightly, so tightly Larry thought his bones would shatter.
"I wouldn’t," James said. "After what I’ve told you, you step out of this car and they’ll find you in a ditch this afternoon, obviously the victim of some hit-and-run driver."
"That’s . . . that’s murder."
"Yes, it is," James said. "Listen to me. You assassinate whomever we choose. We’re not discriminating as far as sex, color, religion or politics goes. Anyone who gets in our way dies. Simple as that. You see, Mr. Melford, we are a big organization. Our goal is world domination. You, and all our clients, are little helpers toward that goal. Who is more respected than a bestselling author? Who is allowed in places where others would not be allowed? Who is revered by public figures and the general public alike? An author—a bestselling author."
"But . . . it’s murder."
"There will be nothing personal in it. It’ll just be your part of the contract. One assassination a year that we’ll arrange."
"But if you’re so connected . . . why do it this way? Why not just hire a hit man?"
"In a sense, I have."
"I’m not an assassin. I’ve never even fired a gun."
"The amateur is in many ways better than the professional. He doesn’t fall into a pattern. When the time comes, we will show you what you have to do. If you decide to be with us, that is."
"And if not?"
"I told you a moment ago. The ditch. The hit-and-run driver."
Suddenly, Herman was standing at the door, his hand poised to open it.
"Which is it, Mr. Melford? I’m becoming impatient. A ditch or a bestseller? And if you have any ideas about going to the police, don’t. We have friends there, and you might accidentally meet one. Now, your decision."
"I’m in," Larry said, softly. "I’m in."
"Good," James said, taking Larry’s hand. "Welcome aboard. You get one of those books of yours out, pick out a publisher, and mail it in. And don’t bother with return postage. We’ll take care of the rest. Congratulations."
James motioned to Herman. The door opened. Larry got out. And just before the door closed, James said, "If you should have trouble coming up with something, getting something finished, just let me know and we’ll see that it gets written for you."
Larry stood on the sidewalk, nodding dumbly. Herman returned to the driver’s seat, and a moment later the tan limo from Bestsellers Guaranteed whispered away.
James was as good as his word. Larry mailed off one of his shopworn novels, a thriller entitled TEXAS BACKLASH, and a contract for a half million dollars came back, almost by return mail.
Six months later, the book hit the bestseller list and rode there for a comfortable three months. It picked up a two-million-dollar paperback sale and a big shot movie producer purchased it for twice that amount.
Larry now had a big mansion outside of Nacogdoches, Texas, with a maid, a cook, two secretaries and a professional yard man. Any type of food he wanted was his for the asking. Once he had special seafood flown in from the East Coast to Houston and hauled from there to his door by refrigerated truck.
Any first edition book he wanted was now within his price range. He owned four cars, two motorcycles, a private airplane and a yacht.
He could own anything—even people. They hopped at his every word, his most casual suggestion. He had money, and people wanted to satisfy those with money. Who knows, maybe it would rub off on them.
And there were women. Beautiful women. There was even one he had grown to care for, and believed cared for him instead of his money and position. Lovely Luna Malone.
But in the midst of all this finery, there was the favor. The thought of it rested on the back of his mind like a waiting vulture. And when a year had gone by, the vulture swooped in.
On a hot August day, the tan limo from Bestsellers Guaranteed pulled up the long, scenic drive to Larry’s mansion. A moment later, Larry and James were in Larry’s study and Herman stood outside the closed door with his arms akimbo, doing what he did best. Waiting silently.
James was dressed in black again. He still wore the thick-framed sun shades. "You know what I’ve come for, don’t you?"
Larry nodded. "The favor."
"On March fifteenth, Bestsellers Guaranteed will arrange for an autograph party in Austin for your new bestseller, whatever that may be. At eleven-fifteen, you will excuse yourself to go upstairs to the men’s room. Next door to it is a janitor’s lounge. It hasn’t been used in years. It’s locked but we will provide you with the key.
"At the rear of the lounge is a restroom. Lift off the back of the commode and you will discover eight small packages taped to the inside. Open these and fit them together and you’ll have a very sophisticated air rifle. One of the packages will contain a canister of ice, and in the middle, dyed red, you will find a bullet-shaped projectile of ice. The air gun can send that projectile through three inches of steel without the ice shattering.
"You will load the gun, go to the window, and at exactly eleven-twenty-five, the Governor will drive by in an open car in the midst of the parade. A small hole has been cut in the restroom window. It will exactly accommodate the barrel of the rifle and the scope will fit snugly against the glass. You will take aim, and in a manner of seconds, your favor for this year will be done."
"Why the Governor?"
"That is our concern."
"I’ve never shot a rifle."
"We’ll train you. You have until March. You won’t need to know much more than how to put the rifle together and look through the scope. The weapon will do the rest."
"If I refuse?"
"The bestselling author of TEXAS BACKLASH will be found murdered in his home by a couple of burglars, and a couple of undesirables will be framed for the crime. Don’t you think that has a nicer ring to it than the hit-and-run program I offered you before? Or perhaps, as a warning, we’ll do something to your lady friend. What’s her name, Luna?"
"You wouldn’t!"
"If it would offer incentive or achieve our desired goals, Mr. Melford, we would do anything."
"You bastard!"
"That’ll be quite enough, Mr. Melford. You’ve reaped the rewards of our services, and now we expect to be repaid.
"It seems a small thing to ask for your success—and certainly you wouldn’t want to die at the hands of other bestselling authors, the ones who will ultimately be your assassins."
In spite of the air-conditioning, Larry had begun to sweat. "Just who are you guys, really?"
"I’ve told you. We’re an organization with big plans. What we sponsor more than anything else, Mr. Melford, is moral corruption. We feed on those who thrive on greed and ego; put them in positions of power and influence. We belong to a group, to put it naively, who believe that once the silly concepts of morality and honor break down, then we, who really know how things work, can take control and make them work to our advantage. To put it even more simply, Mr. Melford, we will own it all."
"I . . . I can’t just cold-bloodedly murder someone."
"Oh, I think you can. I’ve got faith in you. Look around you, Mr. Melford. Look at all you’ve got. Think of what you’ve got to lose, then tell me if you can murder from a distance someone you don’t even know. I’ll wait outside with Herman for your answer. You have two minutes."
From the March fifteenth edition of The Austin Statesman, a front-page headline: "GOVERNOR ASSASSINATED, ASSASSIN SOUGHT."
From the same issue, page 4B:"BESTSELLING AUTHOR, LARRY MELFORD, SIGNS BOOKS."
Six months later, in the master bedroom of Larry Melford’s estate, Larry was sitting nude in front of the dresser mirror, clipping unruly nose hairs. On the bed behind him, nude, dark, luscious, lay Luna Malone. There was a healthy glow of sweat on her body as she lay with two pillows propped under her head; her raven hair was like an explosion of ink against their whiteness.
"Larry," she said. "you know, I’ve been thinking ... I mean there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, but haven’t said anything about it because ... well, I was afraid you might get the wrong idea. But now that we’ve known each other a while, and things look solid ... Larry, I’m a writer."
Larry quit clipping his nose hairs. He put the clipper on the dresser and turned very slowly. "You’re what?"
"I mean, I want to be. And not just now, not just this minute. I’ve always wanted to be. I didn’t tell you, because I was afraid you’d laugh, or worse, think I’d only got to know you so you could give me an in, but I’ve been writing for years and have sent book after book, story after story in, and just know I’m good, and well . . . "
"You want me to look at it?"
"Yeah, but more than that, Larry. I need an in. It’s what I’ve always wanted. To write a bestseller. I’d kill for . . . "
"Get out! Get the hell out!"
"Larry, I didn’t meet you for that reason. . . "
"Get the hell out or I’ll throw you out."
"Larry. . ."
"Now!" He stood up from the chair, grabbed her dressing gown. "Just go. Leave everything. I’ll have it sent to you. Get dressed and never let me see you again."
"Aren’t you being a little silly about this? I mean . . . "
Larry moved as fast as an eagle swooping down on a field mouse. He grabbed her shoulder and jerked her off the bed onto the floor.
"All right, you bastard, all right." Luna stood. She grabbed the robe and slipped into it. "So I did meet you for an in; what’s wrong with that? I bet you had some help along the way. It sure couldn’t have been because you’re a great writer. I can hardly force myself through that garbage you write."
He slapped her across the cheek so hard she fell back on the bed.
Holding her face, she got up, gathered her clothes and walked stiffly to the bathroom. Less than a minute later, she came out dressed, the robe over her shoulder.
"I’m sorry about hitting you," Larry said. "But I meant what I said about never wanting to see you again."
"You’re crazy, man. You know that? Crazy. All I asked you for was an in, just . . . "
Luna stopped talking. Larry had lifted his head to look at her. His eyes looked as dark and flat as the twin barrels of a shotgun.
"Don’t bother having Francis drive me home. I’ll call a cab from downstairs, Mr. Bigshot Writer."
She went out, slamming the bedroom door. Larry got up and turned off the light, went back to the dresser chair and sat in the darkness for a long time.
Nearly a year and a half later, not long after completing a favor for Bestsellers Guaranteed, and acquiring a somewhat rabid taste for alcoholic beverages, Larry was in the Houston airport waiting to catch a plane for Hawaii for a long vacation when he saw a woman in the distance who looked familiar. She turned and he recognized her immediately. It was Luna Malone. Still beautiful, a bit more worldly looking, and dressed to the hilt.
She saw him before he could dart away. She waved. He smiled. She came over and shook hands with him. "Larry, you aren’t still mad, are you?"
"No, I’m not mad. Good to see you. You look great."
"Thanks."
"Where’re you going?"
"Italy. Rome."
"Pope country," Larry said with a smile, but at his words. Luna jumped.
"Yes . . . Pope country."
The announcer called for the flight to Rome, Italy. Luna and Larry shook hands again and she went away.
To kill time. Larry went to the airport bookstores. He found he couldn’t even look at the big cardboard display with his latest bestseller in it. He didn’t like to look at bestsellers by anyone. But something did catch his eye. It was the cardboard display next to his. The book was called THE LITTLE STORM, and appeared to be one of those steamy romance novels. But what had caught his eye was the big, emblazoned name of the author—LUNA MALONE.
Larry felt like a python had uncoiled inside of him. He felt worse than he had ever felt in his life.
"Italy, Rome," she had said.
"Pope country," he had said, and she jumped.
Larry stumbled back against the rack of his book, and his clumsiness knocked it over. The books tumbled to the floor. One of them slid between his legs and when he looked down he saw that it had turned over to its back. There was his smiling face looking up at him. Larry Melford, big name author, bestseller, a man whose books found their way into the homes of millions of readers.
Suddenly, Hawaii was forgotten and Larry was running, running to the nearest pay phone. What had James said about moral corruption? "We feed on those who thrive on greed and ego . . . once silly concepts of morality and honor break down . . . we will own it all."
The nightmare had to end. Bestsellers Guaranteed had to be exposed. He would wash his hands with blood and moral corruption no more. He would turn himself in.
With trembling hand, he picked up the phone, put in his change, and dialed the police.
From today’s Houston Chronicle, front page headline:
"POPE ASSASSINATED."
From the same edition, the last page before the Want Ads, the last paragraph: "BESTSELLING AUTHOR MURDERED IN HOME." The story follows: "Police suspect the brutal murder of author Larry Melford occurred when he surprised burglars in the act. Thus far, police have been unable to . . . "
"Bestsellers Guaranteed" was originally published in Espionage Magazine. It later appeared in Bestsellers Guaranteed, a collection of Lansdale’s short stories published by Ace Books. "Bestsellers Guaranteed" © 1985 Joe R. Lansdale.
12/16/03
12/15/03
KRT Wire | 12/15/2003 | One sorry Lion: Next thing Millen says should be `good-bye'
KRT Wire | 12/15/2003 | One sorry Lion: Next thing Millen says should be `good-bye': "Posted on Mon, Dec. 15, 2003
One sorry Lion: Next thing Millen says should be `good-bye'
BY DREW SHARP
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT) - `I apologize to anybody who I offended with that remark' - team president Matt Millen
DETROIT - The words came with equal parts difficulty and discomfort. Those are the consequences when your foot once again lodges in your throat.
An embarrassed Matt Millen took the podium Monday in an attempt to keep his derogatory remarks to Johnnie Morton from snowballing out of control. But instead of controlling the damage, Millen added fuel to the sentiment that the job of rebuilding this franchise might extend beyond his grasp. He basically described the incident Sunday in Kansas City, then made a hurried exit without taking questions.
There's no excusing Millen's tasteless insensitivity when he fired a slur against homosexuals after Kansas City's 45-17 victory over the Lions, calling Morton a 'faggot.' Morton, a former Lions receiver, now plays for the Chiefs. But Millen isn't a player anymore. He isn't part of the locker room, where smack-talk is packaged as camaraderie.
Despite his penchant for wearing Nikes with his sport jacket, he's an executive, and he has to learn to take the higher road. He can't bow to the impulses that settled scores on the field but have gotten him in hot water as the Lions' chief executive.
'I reacted inappropriately and said something I shouldn't have,' Millen said. 'And I apologize to anybody who I offended with that remark.'
Taken on its own, the confrontation with Morton was a momentary lapse. But when viewed alongside Millen's $200,000 fine for violating the spirit of the NFL's minority hiring initiative, "
One sorry Lion: Next thing Millen says should be `good-bye'
BY DREW SHARP
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT) - `I apologize to anybody who I offended with that remark' - team president Matt Millen
DETROIT - The words came with equal parts difficulty and discomfort. Those are the consequences when your foot once again lodges in your throat.
An embarrassed Matt Millen took the podium Monday in an attempt to keep his derogatory remarks to Johnnie Morton from snowballing out of control. But instead of controlling the damage, Millen added fuel to the sentiment that the job of rebuilding this franchise might extend beyond his grasp. He basically described the incident Sunday in Kansas City, then made a hurried exit without taking questions.
There's no excusing Millen's tasteless insensitivity when he fired a slur against homosexuals after Kansas City's 45-17 victory over the Lions, calling Morton a 'faggot.' Morton, a former Lions receiver, now plays for the Chiefs. But Millen isn't a player anymore. He isn't part of the locker room, where smack-talk is packaged as camaraderie.
Despite his penchant for wearing Nikes with his sport jacket, he's an executive, and he has to learn to take the higher road. He can't bow to the impulses that settled scores on the field but have gotten him in hot water as the Lions' chief executive.
'I reacted inappropriately and said something I shouldn't have,' Millen said. 'And I apologize to anybody who I offended with that remark.'
Taken on its own, the confrontation with Morton was a momentary lapse. But when viewed alongside Millen's $200,000 fine for violating the spirit of the NFL's minority hiring initiative, "
KRT Wire | 12/15/2003 | Millen is cowering behind weak apology
KRT Wire | 12/15/2003 | Millen is cowering behind weak apology: "Posted on Mon, Dec. 15, 2003
Millen is cowering behind weak apology
By MICHAEL ROSENBERG
Detroit Free Press
`I apologize to anybody that I offended with that remark' - Lions president Matt Millen
---
Matt Millen thinks what he said was bad, but not so bad that he should have to answer questions about it.
That's a shame. I have a few things I'd like to ask.
1. When you called Johnnie Morton a 'faggot,' were you implying that he is gay? In your mind, is that an insult?
2. How would you feel about an NFL executive who called a player, in anger, the n-word? Would that be an 'inappropriate' comment, or would it be worse? And if you think that's worse, why?
3. You also said that Morton said something 'inappropriate' when he told you to 'kiss my ass.' Is his comment the equivalent, in your mind, of what you said?
4. You are the president and chief executive officer of an organization with almost 200 employees. Supposing that at least one of them is gay, would you say that you have created a fair work environment?
There are more than 3,000 athletes in the four major North American pro leagues. In a given decade, more than 10,000 athletes compete in those leagues.
But in the history of American team sports, no active player has ever come out of the closet. The few who have come out at all waited until long after they retired.
And we wonder why.
It's not because none of these players is gay. It's because the ones who are gay are scared to admit it. It's because they know that professional sports create the most hostile work setting for homosexuals of any mainstream industry in the United States.
If you're a gay teenager in this country, you can aspire to be a firefig"
Millen is cowering behind weak apology
By MICHAEL ROSENBERG
Detroit Free Press
`I apologize to anybody that I offended with that remark' - Lions president Matt Millen
---
Matt Millen thinks what he said was bad, but not so bad that he should have to answer questions about it.
That's a shame. I have a few things I'd like to ask.
1. When you called Johnnie Morton a 'faggot,' were you implying that he is gay? In your mind, is that an insult?
2. How would you feel about an NFL executive who called a player, in anger, the n-word? Would that be an 'inappropriate' comment, or would it be worse? And if you think that's worse, why?
3. You also said that Morton said something 'inappropriate' when he told you to 'kiss my ass.' Is his comment the equivalent, in your mind, of what you said?
4. You are the president and chief executive officer of an organization with almost 200 employees. Supposing that at least one of them is gay, would you say that you have created a fair work environment?
There are more than 3,000 athletes in the four major North American pro leagues. In a given decade, more than 10,000 athletes compete in those leagues.
But in the history of American team sports, no active player has ever come out of the closet. The few who have come out at all waited until long after they retired.
And we wonder why.
It's not because none of these players is gay. It's because the ones who are gay are scared to admit it. It's because they know that professional sports create the most hostile work setting for homosexuals of any mainstream industry in the United States.
If you're a gay teenager in this country, you can aspire to be a firefig"
Gay News From 365Gay.com
Gay News From 365Gay.com: "Detroit Lions Pres. Apologizes For Gay Slur
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: December 15, 2003 8:03 p.m. ET
(Detroit, Michigan) Detroit Lions president and general manager Matt Millen apologized late Monday afternoon for calling Kansas City Chief's wide receiver Johnnie Morton a 'faggot' following Sunday's NFL game.
'I tried to wish him the best and congratulate him as well,' Millen said in a statement released by the Lions. 'When I called out to him, he just kept walking and then he made a derogatory remark toward me, which really upset me.
'Unfortunately, I retaliated with a derogatory term directed toward Johnnie. I apologize if I offended anyone. It was certainly not meant to do anything other than express my frustration and disappointment.'
The two have had a grudge since Millen cut Morton after the 2001 season.
'What happened was I was just walking by,' Morton told The Kansas City Star. 'I wasn't going to say anything to him. I walked past him and he said, 'Hey, Johnnie.' I ignored him. And then he said, 'Nice talking to you.' And I said, 'Kiss my ass.' '
The confrontation was witnessed by several reporters.
Millen then yelled 'You faggot! Yeah, you heard me. You faggot!' at Morton. Both Chiefs public relations staffer Patrick Herb and radio reporter Rhonda Moss told The Star that they heard Millen's comments.
Morton said he was sorry for his part in the exchange, but was angered by Millen's choice of words.
'What he said is demeaning and bigoted,' Morton told The Kansas City Star. 'Jeremy Shockey got in trouble for saying it about a coach (Bill Parcells), and now we have a president of a team making statements like that. It's totally unacceptable. I have gay friends, and I don't "
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: December 15, 2003 8:03 p.m. ET
(Detroit, Michigan) Detroit Lions president and general manager Matt Millen apologized late Monday afternoon for calling Kansas City Chief's wide receiver Johnnie Morton a 'faggot' following Sunday's NFL game.
'I tried to wish him the best and congratulate him as well,' Millen said in a statement released by the Lions. 'When I called out to him, he just kept walking and then he made a derogatory remark toward me, which really upset me.
'Unfortunately, I retaliated with a derogatory term directed toward Johnnie. I apologize if I offended anyone. It was certainly not meant to do anything other than express my frustration and disappointment.'
The two have had a grudge since Millen cut Morton after the 2001 season.
'What happened was I was just walking by,' Morton told The Kansas City Star. 'I wasn't going to say anything to him. I walked past him and he said, 'Hey, Johnnie.' I ignored him. And then he said, 'Nice talking to you.' And I said, 'Kiss my ass.' '
The confrontation was witnessed by several reporters.
Millen then yelled 'You faggot! Yeah, you heard me. You faggot!' at Morton. Both Chiefs public relations staffer Patrick Herb and radio reporter Rhonda Moss told The Star that they heard Millen's comments.
Morton said he was sorry for his part in the exchange, but was angered by Millen's choice of words.
'What he said is demeaning and bigoted,' Morton told The Kansas City Star. 'Jeremy Shockey got in trouble for saying it about a coach (Bill Parcells), and now we have a president of a team making statements like that. It's totally unacceptable. I have gay friends, and I don't "
TSN.ca - NFL - Canada's Sports Leader
Lions' president crosses the line
Canadian Press
12/15/2003
ALLEN PARK, Mich. (AP) - Detroit Lions president Matt Millen apologized Monday for using a derogatory term for gays in a heated exchange with Kansas City receiver Johnnie Morton.
Millen was talking with Kansas City players and coaches outside their locker-room after the Chiefs' 45-17 victory Sunday when he ran into Morton, cut by Millen after the 2001 season.
Millen, also the Lions' general manager, said he congratulated Morton but was greeted with an insult from the player.
``Unfortunately, I retaliated with a derogatory term directed toward Johnnie,'' Millen said in a statement. ``I apologize if I offended anyone. It was certainly not meant to do anything other than express my frustration and disappointment.''
Morton apologized for his part in the exchange, but was disappointed by Millen's choice of words.
``What he said is demeaning and bigoted,'' Morton told the Kansas City Star. ``Jeremy Shockey got in trouble for saying it about a coach (Bill Parcells), and now we have a president of a team making statements like that. It's totally unacceptable. I have gay friends, and I don't even joke around with them like that.''
Last summer, Shockey called Parcells a ``homo'' in a New York magazine article.
Millen has been the focus of several controversies in his three years heading the Lions, who are 4-10 this season.
He was fined $200,000 US this summer by the NFL because he didn't follow the league's minority hiring policy when he hired coach Steve Mariucci.
During the 2002 season, Millen called an unidentified player a ``devout coward.'' Millen later apologized.
Canadian Press
12/15/2003
ALLEN PARK, Mich. (AP) - Detroit Lions president Matt Millen apologized Monday for using a derogatory term for gays in a heated exchange with Kansas City receiver Johnnie Morton.
Millen was talking with Kansas City players and coaches outside their locker-room after the Chiefs' 45-17 victory Sunday when he ran into Morton, cut by Millen after the 2001 season.
Millen, also the Lions' general manager, said he congratulated Morton but was greeted with an insult from the player.
``Unfortunately, I retaliated with a derogatory term directed toward Johnnie,'' Millen said in a statement. ``I apologize if I offended anyone. It was certainly not meant to do anything other than express my frustration and disappointment.''
Morton apologized for his part in the exchange, but was disappointed by Millen's choice of words.
``What he said is demeaning and bigoted,'' Morton told the Kansas City Star. ``Jeremy Shockey got in trouble for saying it about a coach (Bill Parcells), and now we have a president of a team making statements like that. It's totally unacceptable. I have gay friends, and I don't even joke around with them like that.''
Last summer, Shockey called Parcells a ``homo'' in a New York magazine article.
Millen has been the focus of several controversies in his three years heading the Lions, who are 4-10 this season.
He was fined $200,000 US this summer by the NFL because he didn't follow the league's minority hiring policy when he hired coach Steve Mariucci.
During the 2002 season, Millen called an unidentified player a ``devout coward.'' Millen later apologized.
BUMMER
LOST ALL MY COMMENTS :( NOT THAT THEY WERE MAJORLY IMPORTANT, BUT IT'S NICE TO READ EVERY ONCE IN AWHILE. crap. caps lock. mental note... donot type when still tired (:|
LOST ALL MY COMMENTS :( NOT THAT THEY WERE MAJORLY IMPORTANT, BUT IT'S NICE TO READ EVERY ONCE IN AWHILE. crap. caps lock. mental note... donot type when still tired (:|
12/14/03
OMG We CAPTURED SADAAM HUSSEIN!!!!!OMG
Saddam dug hole to hide
From correspondents in Baghdad
December 14, 2003
SADDAM Hussein, trapped in a cellar, dug a hole and buried himself as US soldiers moved into the house where he was hiding, an Iraqi official said today.
"The American soldiers had to use shovels to dig him out," Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi, told The Associated Press.
Qanbar, basing his account on reports from members of the US-led occupation authority, said Saddam had a salt-and-pepper beard when he was captured.
Soldiers photographed him, shaved the beard and photographed him again before running DNA tests, he said.
"The DNA test confirmed 100 percent Saddam Hussein's identity," he said.
Qanbar said the capture took place "in a town very close to Tikrit", Saddam's hometown 160km north of Baghdad.
Saddam dug hole to hide
From correspondents in Baghdad
December 14, 2003
SADDAM Hussein, trapped in a cellar, dug a hole and buried himself as US soldiers moved into the house where he was hiding, an Iraqi official said today.
"The American soldiers had to use shovels to dig him out," Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi, told The Associated Press.
Qanbar, basing his account on reports from members of the US-led occupation authority, said Saddam had a salt-and-pepper beard when he was captured.
Soldiers photographed him, shaved the beard and photographed him again before running DNA tests, he said.
"The DNA test confirmed 100 percent Saddam Hussein's identity," he said.
Qanbar said the capture took place "in a town very close to Tikrit", Saddam's hometown 160km north of Baghdad.
12/13/03
got this in an email today from one of my groups! I totally LOVE it!!!
YULE (by Goði E. Wodenson)
Why do we celebrate a seemingly Christian holiday, "Christmas"
or "Yule", in the religion of Asátrú?
Let us begin by clarifying something... Except for the
Nativity Scene and Christmas Mass, everything celebrated, practiced,
and observed by Christians at the "Yule" season, or so-
called "Christmas", was appropriated from Heathen/Pagan sources, i.e.
the ancient Northern European religion, in its various forms. This is
a fact that any historian, of even mediocre expertise, can discover
by a brief study of the past. This knowledge, although quite common
amongst scholars, is generally concealed from the Christian populace.
Yule or the Winter Solstice is possibly the most important
celebration of the year for those who follow the ancient religion of
Asátrú. It begins on the Mother Night (Dec. 20th) and ends on the
12th Night (Dec. 31st). During these twelve sacred days, Asátrúar
around Vinland, Europe, or wherever they find themselves, celebrate
this special time of the year. Feasting, giving of the gift, tree
decorating, visiting with relatives and close friends, religious
observances and more- are all part of this magical twelve day period,
and have been observed by millions of our ancestors for tens of
thousands of years- long before the appearance of the Judiac-based
religion of Christianity.
Why is Yule so important?
It is an end... and a beginning. Like life itself. The old
year ends... the new year begins, and it is the official beginning of
Winter. A time to take stock of the past, and plan for the future.
Some feel that the 12 days of Yule can be viewed as microcosms of the
previous 12 months, giving the practitioner a chance to review and
meditate upon the current year that's about to end. In this way, the
Trú man or woman can also us this time to lay plans for the coming
year. Hence, the first day of 12 days of Yule, gives us a chance to
review January or "Snowmoon", of the current year, and also lay plans
for the up coming month. This proceeds through the 12 days of Yule
and through the 12 months as well, in miniature, until the last of
the 12 days of Yule, which is also the last day of the month of Yule
and the last day of the year in question. A magical time to end old
things and begin anew!
This is the time of the Winter Solstice... An astronomical
event that has been preceded by a period of lengthening nights and
short, dark days. A time of deep darkness and cold. In fact, on the
actual day of the Winter Solstice, there are fewer minutes of
daylight than on any other day of the year. A very dark time for our
ancestors, and dim light- exactly the opposite of Mid Summer
Festival. However, on the day after the 21st (Winter Solstice), the
daylight begins to lengthen, only by seconds at first, but now the
Sun, the giver of life, is returning and it is a time for
celebration! It is a testimony to our ancestors intelligence and
awareness that they were able to pinpoint this particular occurrence,
and realize the significance of this time of year. You can't grow
crops in the dark, shortened days of winter... you can't plant seeds
in the frozen ground. All of this was cause for tremendous
celebration when the Winter's back was finally broken, and the warm,
green days of Spring lay just ahead!
It was also a time for contact with those who had gone
before. With the dead ancestors of the celebrant. Maybe its the
extreme length of darkness each night, maybe it's the cold, death-
like grip of Winter. Maybe its the fact that "death" reins supreme at
this time of year, as all the plants of summer have either died or
become dormant. Whatever the reason, those who follow the old
religion know, from personal experience, that is a time of magic, and
contact with the spirits of our ancestors and even the gods and
goddesses themselves. It is a good time to cast the runes for the
coming year. It is an end, like the end of life. And it is at the
same time a beginning, like birth. A magical time!
Why do we feast so much at this time of year?
The idea of the Yule Feast is to celebrate the return of
light and warmth is obvious... but there is more. Before canned or
frozen food... before Super Markets... before 5,000 acre farms...
long before all of this modern technology, our ancestors had to be
very careful, or they just might succumb to the cold and dark of
Winter. Food had to be harvested, in one way or another. Then it had
to be stored. The Folk had to plan carefully for the whole winter.
Sure, they might get a deer or elk, during a Winter hunt, but they
needed other provisions as well, and a perilous Winter hunt wasn't
always a guaranteed source of food. Winter was a difficult time for
our ancestors, and often they did not survive the dark and cold. So
why the feast? Simple... if they had survived to the Winter Solstice,
then they would likely make it till spring... it was the halfway
point of the cold and the dark, and the beginning of the returning
light and warmth- they had crossed a major milestone of the year! Now
the remaining provisions were easier to ration out for the rest of
the winter. Whereas they might have been holding back on the
consumption of their precious food stores before the Yuletide, now it
was a time to celebrate with a Feast!
Why do most Asátrúar eat pork or ham at the Yule Feast?
Originally this was a time to sacrifice to the god Frey for a
bountiful Spring and eventual harvest. Our ancient ancestors did this
by ritually killing a wild bore. This was one of the main aspects of
the Mid-Winter Festival in Northern Europe. Its cooked flesh was then
eaten at a great Feast. This activity was often combined with the
burning of a giant Sunwheel, which was then rolled down a hill, to
entice Sunna to return. This Pagan practice continued, in Europe,
well into the 12th century C.E. When the wild boar began to vanish,
they were replaced with domestic pigs, of which there was ample
supply. Eventually this was replaced by a token offering of a Boar's
Head, and apple or an orange in it's mouth. To this day, this ancient
heathen tradition is still observed by many Christians
at "Christmas". Many colleges in Europe present the "boars head" at
the Yule Feast, as a long standing tradition. Today most Asátrúar
will simply have a slice of ham at the Yule Feast, but in doing so
they are keeping alive a tradition that goes back for many thousands
of years... when to chew on a juicy piece of pork, was to ensure that
Nature would become bountiful once again.
Why do we give gifts at this time of year?
Besides the obvious feelings of joy and jubilation at the
impending return of light and warmth... a great gift granted by Sunna
herself, the Giver of Life to us all... it was a time to give to any
Kin who might be short on provisions. Who might not have enough to
survive the rest of the winter. Many were not always successful at
the hunt or the harvest, while others did well. It was common to
share your provisions with your blood relatives and "tried friends",
at this time of the year... especially if they came up short on
supplies. It was a matter of survival. Obviously, you would not give
gifts to an enemy or to outright strangers. That kind of action might
endanger the future of your tribe. It was a time to share, and
thereby ensure the future of your clan. This was often the food given
and used at the Feast. Another reason to Feast! Over time, the items
given as gifts, increased and began to include things other than
food. In ancient, Pagan Rome, gift giving became extremely elaborate
and superstitious at the Winter Solstice. So much so, that failure to
give certain gifts of quality and substance, could mean bad luck in
the coming year! After the arrival of the "Christ", the early
Christians tried desperately t suppress the giving of gifts at the
Yuletide, because of its clearly Pagan origins. However its appeal
was too great, and they failed repeatedly to stamp out this Heathen
tradition. Finally, as they always do, they gave up and absorbed it
into their religion... made it their own. Twisted it around until it
no longer appeared to be Pagan. So next time you see all those
people, lined up at the check-out counter of the local department
store... their arms filled with gifts, chocolates, wrapping paper and
more... a week before Yule... remember- they are participating in an
ancient Pagan tradition!
This was also a time to share something with the "land
spirits". Beings who could often effect the success or failure of the
tribe... especially where crops and domesticated animals were
concerned. Unlike the gods and goddesses of Asgard, these "lesser"
deities, or spirits, were strictly known on a "regional" or tribal
basis. Each tribe or clan were aware of the land spirits of their
particular area and knew of their abilities or attributes. The giving
of gifts, in the form of food, to the land spirits, at this time of
the year, was to assure a bountiful harvest next fall... to ensure
the continued good luck of the clan. This practice was quite common
throughout all ancient civilizations, and is till practiced today in
many areas of the world. In modern-day Asátrú it is common for
Asátrúar to offer nuts, fruits, cookies, mead and other treats who
occupy the land where they live. This is another example of gift
giving at Yuletide.
Why do we decorate a Yule Tree in our house?
The decorating of the Yule Tree, is also related to the land
or "tree" sprits. The purpose was to assure that the spirits that
attached themselves to the trees, would not leave because of the cold
and dark of winter. The sacred Oak, Elm, or Ash were probably the
original trees for Yule decorating. But, with the appearance of
Christianity, this activity was greatly discouraged by the Christian
monks & missionaries. They soon realized that they would not be able
to stem this ancient tradition, so they changed it, and convinced our
ancestors to decorate an evergreen tree instead of the Oak, Ash, or
Elm. This tactic worked but it's success was limited. As we know from
the ancient Sagas and Eddas of our Folk, the evergreen tree is
Sunna's promise that she will return, that summer will come again.
All the other trees have lost their leaves and appear to be dead...
but not the evergreen! At this point in our history, many of our
ancestors switched from the Oak, Ash, or Elm to the evergreen, as the
main tree of the Yule season. By decorating that "always green" tree,
our ancestors assured that the spirits associated with it would not
succumb to the winter's spell and abandon the trees, which could mean
bad luck for the clan. By decorating the trees with bits of food,
colored cloth, carved runes, small statues of the gods, etc., our
ancestors soothed the feelings of the tree spirits, made the trees
more attractive, and assured the spirits continued presence. Thus the
Christian Monk's attempt to remove a Pagan tradition, backfired, and
it continues to this day.
With the dominance of Christianity in Northern Europe, our
Heathen Ancestors were eventually forced "underground" or indoors...
and they brought their tree with them. Of course, as we all know,
this tradition was eventually adopted by the Church, after they
realized that they could not rid the population of this "disgusting
pagan habit". Only then did they adopt it as their own, and thereby
set the stage for duping our ancestors into becoming part of their
Judaic-based religion.
What about Santa Claus, Father Christmas, and Old Man Winter?
In ancient times our ancestors found it difficult to deal
with the harsh Winter season... obviously without the modern comforts
we all enjoy. A mild winter was always something they longed for, and
they often tried to appease the forces of Nature with various
religious activities. The pagan Vikings would dress someone up to
represent Old Man Winter, and then make him as welcome as possible.
The British eventually adopted this custom, and after the advent of
Christianity, called him Old Father Christmas. He was welcomed into
each household to enjoy all the Feasting and festivities. He was
piled with mead and food to try and keep him in a good mood. It was
hoped that these activities would make for a mild winter and a good
spring. Much later, this ancient heathen figure, was confused with
Santa Claus, and today most think of them as one and the same.
Actually "Santa Claus", as he is most commonly known, started out as
a Christian Monk who died in 345 C.E., and who eventually gained
sainthood. Needless to say, he eventually became more popular
than "the Christ", and was burned in effigy by the French Clergy in
the middle part of the 20th century! Finally in 1969 C.E. Pope Paul
VI demoted him to non-saint status! Today the fat, jolly, red suited
Old Man is actually an invention of the Coca-Cola Company. Strange,
but true! In 1931, Coca-Cola hired an artist to redesign Santa Claus
for their winter advertising campaign. Red and white are the official
colors of Coca-Cola, hence the Old Man's new outfit. Since that time,
the look of Santa Claus has been carved in stone. Years ago Father
Christmas or Old Man Winter, would appear in green, purple, blue,
blue-black, or even brown, often trimmed with brown, black or white
furs. Sometimes even covered head to toe in fur or skins. But no
more! True to Corporate America's goals, now all see him as the fat,
jolly man in the red suit, with lots of goodies from everyone.
Before Clement Moore wrote his famous poem in 1822, Father
Christmas traveled by food or by giant white horse (Odin's horse
Sleipnir?). But Moore, a very learned man and professor of
Literature, changed all of that forever when he introduced the idea
of reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh. This was not done on a casual
whim, but came from an ancient Finish legend about "Old Man Winter".
The ancient Finns believed that Old Man Winter drove the reindeer
down the mountains, into the lowlands each year with the coming of
the cold (food source?). Moore grafted part of this Finnish legend
onto existing Father Christmas. Why eight reindeer? Some scholars
have speculated that the professor was having some fun with the
general populace by perking up his tale with a scholarly reference to
Odin, who rides an eight legged horse. As well known author, Desmond
Mooris has stated: "Odin's horse carried the god around when, clad in
a large cloak and hat, he set out to meet his people, dispensing
rewards and punishments as they were due. There are clearly elements
there suggesting that Odin was a precursor of the Father Christmas-
Santa Claus figure, and it may have amused Moore to incorporate at
least on Odin feature in his new creation." So again we find that
much of what we consider to be strictly Christian phenomenon... is
again based in pagan reality.
Why do Christians celebrate the birth of Christ during the Yuletide?
In the fourth century C.E. Pope Julius I officially set the
date of Christ's birth to December 25th, after a brief investigation.
The truth is, no one had the faintest idea as to the actual date of
his birth... they weren't even certain about the year! All of which
lead to endless arguments amongst their faithful. Today scholars know
on thing for certain- the Christ was not born in the year 0, on
December 25th! That they all agree on. Many had speculated as to
the exact date of birth of this religious figure. Some say they have
proof that he was born in May... others have suggested April. Still
others have championed January... March... and September. In reality
no one knows- and they never will! But certain historical evidence
has shown that he definitely was not born during the Yule Festival.
So why December 25th? Again... it was that old "if you can't
beat them, then convert them by deceiving them." By placing the birth
of their Christ in the middle of the ancient Mid-Winter heathen
festival, the church hoped to convert, and thereby absorb the Pagans
into their belief system. It was a limited success. For although the
Yuletide became "Christmas", all the Pagan traditions stayed on. and
the Nativity ended up taking a back seat to the rest. The ancient
heathen practices never died out, but lingered on right up to the
present time- lucky for us! And the traditions of Feasting,
drinking, dancing, gift-giving, the lighting of fires, the holding of
parties and general merriment and revelry... stayed on in their
mostly original Pagan forms, with very little change. Over the years
the church tried to stamp out the celebration of Christmas or Yule,
and even made it illegal to observe it, at various times in history.
It was officially abolished in England on the 3rd of June, 1647 C.E.!
The puritans couldn't stand all the Pagan revelry, obviously having
nothing to do wit the birth of their "Christ", and so they too tried
to stamp it out! When that failed, they tried to make the whole
Christmas idea non-appealing and eventually illegal! However, this
attempt to remove the Mid-Winter Festival from the hearts of people
failed. And there were even riots against this law. It got absurd to
the point where the mayors of cities, were forced by law, to go out
an burn all Yule decorations they found! But the law could not remove
it and it went underground, and was practiced behind closed doors. In
1660 the puritans were ousted and the Festival was returned to its
former glory. The same thing happened in what would soon be the
United States of America, and the observance of "Christmas" was
banned, by law, between 1659 and 1681 C.E.. Again, this attempt to
suppress the celebration of the return of the light and warmth of the
Sun -failed!
The Christian attempt to change, by deception, the "rebirth of the
Sun God" into the "birth of the Son of God", was never complete. And
it only goes to prove that is ingrained so deeply in the hearts and
spirits of the people, that is derived from their natural history,
their ancestral faiths will always prevail!
Today...
Today the Yule Festival is observed by Asátrúar and Odinists
with much Feasting and revelry. Blot (ritual sacrifice) is
traditionally performed to one of several gods. Some believe Thor is
the god of the Yuletide... some think Balder, as the god of light...
Some feel that Odin is the original Old Man of Winter, and therefore
the god of Yule. We know for certain that Frey was honored at this
time of year by our Heathen ancestors. But whoever you choose as the
god of the Mid-Winter Festival- observe it well. For it is certainly
one of the most potent times of the year. Feasting, giving of gifts,
tree decorating, visiting with relatives and close friends, religious
observances and more... fill the twelve days of Yule with as many
special activities as you can. Rediscover the joy and anticipation of
this wonderful time of year. Watch the Christians around you, as they
go about, unknowingly performing ancient pagan rites... and
celebrate! Realize that the excitement that everyone feels at this
time of the year has nothing, whatsoever to do with the birth of the
Son of God... but rather, has everything to do with the rebirth of
the SUN GOD!
Fara med godanum!
Goði Frank P. Coleman
"He knows alone who has wandered wide,
and far has fared on the way,
what manner of mind a man doth own
who is wise of head and heart." - Havámal 18
The Michigan Vitkarian Circle:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MIVitkarianCircle/
YULE (by Goði E. Wodenson)
Why do we celebrate a seemingly Christian holiday, "Christmas"
or "Yule", in the religion of Asátrú?
Let us begin by clarifying something... Except for the
Nativity Scene and Christmas Mass, everything celebrated, practiced,
and observed by Christians at the "Yule" season, or so-
called "Christmas", was appropriated from Heathen/Pagan sources, i.e.
the ancient Northern European religion, in its various forms. This is
a fact that any historian, of even mediocre expertise, can discover
by a brief study of the past. This knowledge, although quite common
amongst scholars, is generally concealed from the Christian populace.
Yule or the Winter Solstice is possibly the most important
celebration of the year for those who follow the ancient religion of
Asátrú. It begins on the Mother Night (Dec. 20th) and ends on the
12th Night (Dec. 31st). During these twelve sacred days, Asátrúar
around Vinland, Europe, or wherever they find themselves, celebrate
this special time of the year. Feasting, giving of the gift, tree
decorating, visiting with relatives and close friends, religious
observances and more- are all part of this magical twelve day period,
and have been observed by millions of our ancestors for tens of
thousands of years- long before the appearance of the Judiac-based
religion of Christianity.
Why is Yule so important?
It is an end... and a beginning. Like life itself. The old
year ends... the new year begins, and it is the official beginning of
Winter. A time to take stock of the past, and plan for the future.
Some feel that the 12 days of Yule can be viewed as microcosms of the
previous 12 months, giving the practitioner a chance to review and
meditate upon the current year that's about to end. In this way, the
Trú man or woman can also us this time to lay plans for the coming
year. Hence, the first day of 12 days of Yule, gives us a chance to
review January or "Snowmoon", of the current year, and also lay plans
for the up coming month. This proceeds through the 12 days of Yule
and through the 12 months as well, in miniature, until the last of
the 12 days of Yule, which is also the last day of the month of Yule
and the last day of the year in question. A magical time to end old
things and begin anew!
This is the time of the Winter Solstice... An astronomical
event that has been preceded by a period of lengthening nights and
short, dark days. A time of deep darkness and cold. In fact, on the
actual day of the Winter Solstice, there are fewer minutes of
daylight than on any other day of the year. A very dark time for our
ancestors, and dim light- exactly the opposite of Mid Summer
Festival. However, on the day after the 21st (Winter Solstice), the
daylight begins to lengthen, only by seconds at first, but now the
Sun, the giver of life, is returning and it is a time for
celebration! It is a testimony to our ancestors intelligence and
awareness that they were able to pinpoint this particular occurrence,
and realize the significance of this time of year. You can't grow
crops in the dark, shortened days of winter... you can't plant seeds
in the frozen ground. All of this was cause for tremendous
celebration when the Winter's back was finally broken, and the warm,
green days of Spring lay just ahead!
It was also a time for contact with those who had gone
before. With the dead ancestors of the celebrant. Maybe its the
extreme length of darkness each night, maybe it's the cold, death-
like grip of Winter. Maybe its the fact that "death" reins supreme at
this time of year, as all the plants of summer have either died or
become dormant. Whatever the reason, those who follow the old
religion know, from personal experience, that is a time of magic, and
contact with the spirits of our ancestors and even the gods and
goddesses themselves. It is a good time to cast the runes for the
coming year. It is an end, like the end of life. And it is at the
same time a beginning, like birth. A magical time!
Why do we feast so much at this time of year?
The idea of the Yule Feast is to celebrate the return of
light and warmth is obvious... but there is more. Before canned or
frozen food... before Super Markets... before 5,000 acre farms...
long before all of this modern technology, our ancestors had to be
very careful, or they just might succumb to the cold and dark of
Winter. Food had to be harvested, in one way or another. Then it had
to be stored. The Folk had to plan carefully for the whole winter.
Sure, they might get a deer or elk, during a Winter hunt, but they
needed other provisions as well, and a perilous Winter hunt wasn't
always a guaranteed source of food. Winter was a difficult time for
our ancestors, and often they did not survive the dark and cold. So
why the feast? Simple... if they had survived to the Winter Solstice,
then they would likely make it till spring... it was the halfway
point of the cold and the dark, and the beginning of the returning
light and warmth- they had crossed a major milestone of the year! Now
the remaining provisions were easier to ration out for the rest of
the winter. Whereas they might have been holding back on the
consumption of their precious food stores before the Yuletide, now it
was a time to celebrate with a Feast!
Why do most Asátrúar eat pork or ham at the Yule Feast?
Originally this was a time to sacrifice to the god Frey for a
bountiful Spring and eventual harvest. Our ancient ancestors did this
by ritually killing a wild bore. This was one of the main aspects of
the Mid-Winter Festival in Northern Europe. Its cooked flesh was then
eaten at a great Feast. This activity was often combined with the
burning of a giant Sunwheel, which was then rolled down a hill, to
entice Sunna to return. This Pagan practice continued, in Europe,
well into the 12th century C.E. When the wild boar began to vanish,
they were replaced with domestic pigs, of which there was ample
supply. Eventually this was replaced by a token offering of a Boar's
Head, and apple or an orange in it's mouth. To this day, this ancient
heathen tradition is still observed by many Christians
at "Christmas". Many colleges in Europe present the "boars head" at
the Yule Feast, as a long standing tradition. Today most Asátrúar
will simply have a slice of ham at the Yule Feast, but in doing so
they are keeping alive a tradition that goes back for many thousands
of years... when to chew on a juicy piece of pork, was to ensure that
Nature would become bountiful once again.
Why do we give gifts at this time of year?
Besides the obvious feelings of joy and jubilation at the
impending return of light and warmth... a great gift granted by Sunna
herself, the Giver of Life to us all... it was a time to give to any
Kin who might be short on provisions. Who might not have enough to
survive the rest of the winter. Many were not always successful at
the hunt or the harvest, while others did well. It was common to
share your provisions with your blood relatives and "tried friends",
at this time of the year... especially if they came up short on
supplies. It was a matter of survival. Obviously, you would not give
gifts to an enemy or to outright strangers. That kind of action might
endanger the future of your tribe. It was a time to share, and
thereby ensure the future of your clan. This was often the food given
and used at the Feast. Another reason to Feast! Over time, the items
given as gifts, increased and began to include things other than
food. In ancient, Pagan Rome, gift giving became extremely elaborate
and superstitious at the Winter Solstice. So much so, that failure to
give certain gifts of quality and substance, could mean bad luck in
the coming year! After the arrival of the "Christ", the early
Christians tried desperately t suppress the giving of gifts at the
Yuletide, because of its clearly Pagan origins. However its appeal
was too great, and they failed repeatedly to stamp out this Heathen
tradition. Finally, as they always do, they gave up and absorbed it
into their religion... made it their own. Twisted it around until it
no longer appeared to be Pagan. So next time you see all those
people, lined up at the check-out counter of the local department
store... their arms filled with gifts, chocolates, wrapping paper and
more... a week before Yule... remember- they are participating in an
ancient Pagan tradition!
This was also a time to share something with the "land
spirits". Beings who could often effect the success or failure of the
tribe... especially where crops and domesticated animals were
concerned. Unlike the gods and goddesses of Asgard, these "lesser"
deities, or spirits, were strictly known on a "regional" or tribal
basis. Each tribe or clan were aware of the land spirits of their
particular area and knew of their abilities or attributes. The giving
of gifts, in the form of food, to the land spirits, at this time of
the year, was to assure a bountiful harvest next fall... to ensure
the continued good luck of the clan. This practice was quite common
throughout all ancient civilizations, and is till practiced today in
many areas of the world. In modern-day Asátrú it is common for
Asátrúar to offer nuts, fruits, cookies, mead and other treats who
occupy the land where they live. This is another example of gift
giving at Yuletide.
Why do we decorate a Yule Tree in our house?
The decorating of the Yule Tree, is also related to the land
or "tree" sprits. The purpose was to assure that the spirits that
attached themselves to the trees, would not leave because of the cold
and dark of winter. The sacred Oak, Elm, or Ash were probably the
original trees for Yule decorating. But, with the appearance of
Christianity, this activity was greatly discouraged by the Christian
monks & missionaries. They soon realized that they would not be able
to stem this ancient tradition, so they changed it, and convinced our
ancestors to decorate an evergreen tree instead of the Oak, Ash, or
Elm. This tactic worked but it's success was limited. As we know from
the ancient Sagas and Eddas of our Folk, the evergreen tree is
Sunna's promise that she will return, that summer will come again.
All the other trees have lost their leaves and appear to be dead...
but not the evergreen! At this point in our history, many of our
ancestors switched from the Oak, Ash, or Elm to the evergreen, as the
main tree of the Yule season. By decorating that "always green" tree,
our ancestors assured that the spirits associated with it would not
succumb to the winter's spell and abandon the trees, which could mean
bad luck for the clan. By decorating the trees with bits of food,
colored cloth, carved runes, small statues of the gods, etc., our
ancestors soothed the feelings of the tree spirits, made the trees
more attractive, and assured the spirits continued presence. Thus the
Christian Monk's attempt to remove a Pagan tradition, backfired, and
it continues to this day.
With the dominance of Christianity in Northern Europe, our
Heathen Ancestors were eventually forced "underground" or indoors...
and they brought their tree with them. Of course, as we all know,
this tradition was eventually adopted by the Church, after they
realized that they could not rid the population of this "disgusting
pagan habit". Only then did they adopt it as their own, and thereby
set the stage for duping our ancestors into becoming part of their
Judaic-based religion.
What about Santa Claus, Father Christmas, and Old Man Winter?
In ancient times our ancestors found it difficult to deal
with the harsh Winter season... obviously without the modern comforts
we all enjoy. A mild winter was always something they longed for, and
they often tried to appease the forces of Nature with various
religious activities. The pagan Vikings would dress someone up to
represent Old Man Winter, and then make him as welcome as possible.
The British eventually adopted this custom, and after the advent of
Christianity, called him Old Father Christmas. He was welcomed into
each household to enjoy all the Feasting and festivities. He was
piled with mead and food to try and keep him in a good mood. It was
hoped that these activities would make for a mild winter and a good
spring. Much later, this ancient heathen figure, was confused with
Santa Claus, and today most think of them as one and the same.
Actually "Santa Claus", as he is most commonly known, started out as
a Christian Monk who died in 345 C.E., and who eventually gained
sainthood. Needless to say, he eventually became more popular
than "the Christ", and was burned in effigy by the French Clergy in
the middle part of the 20th century! Finally in 1969 C.E. Pope Paul
VI demoted him to non-saint status! Today the fat, jolly, red suited
Old Man is actually an invention of the Coca-Cola Company. Strange,
but true! In 1931, Coca-Cola hired an artist to redesign Santa Claus
for their winter advertising campaign. Red and white are the official
colors of Coca-Cola, hence the Old Man's new outfit. Since that time,
the look of Santa Claus has been carved in stone. Years ago Father
Christmas or Old Man Winter, would appear in green, purple, blue,
blue-black, or even brown, often trimmed with brown, black or white
furs. Sometimes even covered head to toe in fur or skins. But no
more! True to Corporate America's goals, now all see him as the fat,
jolly man in the red suit, with lots of goodies from everyone.
Before Clement Moore wrote his famous poem in 1822, Father
Christmas traveled by food or by giant white horse (Odin's horse
Sleipnir?). But Moore, a very learned man and professor of
Literature, changed all of that forever when he introduced the idea
of reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh. This was not done on a casual
whim, but came from an ancient Finish legend about "Old Man Winter".
The ancient Finns believed that Old Man Winter drove the reindeer
down the mountains, into the lowlands each year with the coming of
the cold (food source?). Moore grafted part of this Finnish legend
onto existing Father Christmas. Why eight reindeer? Some scholars
have speculated that the professor was having some fun with the
general populace by perking up his tale with a scholarly reference to
Odin, who rides an eight legged horse. As well known author, Desmond
Mooris has stated: "Odin's horse carried the god around when, clad in
a large cloak and hat, he set out to meet his people, dispensing
rewards and punishments as they were due. There are clearly elements
there suggesting that Odin was a precursor of the Father Christmas-
Santa Claus figure, and it may have amused Moore to incorporate at
least on Odin feature in his new creation." So again we find that
much of what we consider to be strictly Christian phenomenon... is
again based in pagan reality.
Why do Christians celebrate the birth of Christ during the Yuletide?
In the fourth century C.E. Pope Julius I officially set the
date of Christ's birth to December 25th, after a brief investigation.
The truth is, no one had the faintest idea as to the actual date of
his birth... they weren't even certain about the year! All of which
lead to endless arguments amongst their faithful. Today scholars know
on thing for certain- the Christ was not born in the year 0, on
December 25th! That they all agree on. Many had speculated as to
the exact date of birth of this religious figure. Some say they have
proof that he was born in May... others have suggested April. Still
others have championed January... March... and September. In reality
no one knows- and they never will! But certain historical evidence
has shown that he definitely was not born during the Yule Festival.
So why December 25th? Again... it was that old "if you can't
beat them, then convert them by deceiving them." By placing the birth
of their Christ in the middle of the ancient Mid-Winter heathen
festival, the church hoped to convert, and thereby absorb the Pagans
into their belief system. It was a limited success. For although the
Yuletide became "Christmas", all the Pagan traditions stayed on. and
the Nativity ended up taking a back seat to the rest. The ancient
heathen practices never died out, but lingered on right up to the
present time- lucky for us! And the traditions of Feasting,
drinking, dancing, gift-giving, the lighting of fires, the holding of
parties and general merriment and revelry... stayed on in their
mostly original Pagan forms, with very little change. Over the years
the church tried to stamp out the celebration of Christmas or Yule,
and even made it illegal to observe it, at various times in history.
It was officially abolished in England on the 3rd of June, 1647 C.E.!
The puritans couldn't stand all the Pagan revelry, obviously having
nothing to do wit the birth of their "Christ", and so they too tried
to stamp it out! When that failed, they tried to make the whole
Christmas idea non-appealing and eventually illegal! However, this
attempt to remove the Mid-Winter Festival from the hearts of people
failed. And there were even riots against this law. It got absurd to
the point where the mayors of cities, were forced by law, to go out
an burn all Yule decorations they found! But the law could not remove
it and it went underground, and was practiced behind closed doors. In
1660 the puritans were ousted and the Festival was returned to its
former glory. The same thing happened in what would soon be the
United States of America, and the observance of "Christmas" was
banned, by law, between 1659 and 1681 C.E.. Again, this attempt to
suppress the celebration of the return of the light and warmth of the
Sun -failed!
The Christian attempt to change, by deception, the "rebirth of the
Sun God" into the "birth of the Son of God", was never complete. And
it only goes to prove that is ingrained so deeply in the hearts and
spirits of the people, that is derived from their natural history,
their ancestral faiths will always prevail!
Today...
Today the Yule Festival is observed by Asátrúar and Odinists
with much Feasting and revelry. Blot (ritual sacrifice) is
traditionally performed to one of several gods. Some believe Thor is
the god of the Yuletide... some think Balder, as the god of light...
Some feel that Odin is the original Old Man of Winter, and therefore
the god of Yule. We know for certain that Frey was honored at this
time of year by our Heathen ancestors. But whoever you choose as the
god of the Mid-Winter Festival- observe it well. For it is certainly
one of the most potent times of the year. Feasting, giving of gifts,
tree decorating, visiting with relatives and close friends, religious
observances and more... fill the twelve days of Yule with as many
special activities as you can. Rediscover the joy and anticipation of
this wonderful time of year. Watch the Christians around you, as they
go about, unknowingly performing ancient pagan rites... and
celebrate! Realize that the excitement that everyone feels at this
time of the year has nothing, whatsoever to do with the birth of the
Son of God... but rather, has everything to do with the rebirth of
the SUN GOD!
Fara med godanum!
Goði Frank P. Coleman
"He knows alone who has wandered wide,
and far has fared on the way,
what manner of mind a man doth own
who is wise of head and heart." - Havámal 18
The Michigan Vitkarian Circle:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MIVitkarianCircle/
12/12/03
Reclaiming Home Page
Reclaiming Home Page
This is a cool cool site and a cool cool idea! Makes me want to look into something like this around here again. I miss Sorcsia sometimes. I miss her alot actually, but she would totally do something like this with me. Thanks Doreen for showing this to me *hugs*
This is a cool cool site and a cool cool idea! Makes me want to look into something like this around here again. I miss Sorcsia sometimes. I miss her alot actually, but she would totally do something like this with me. Thanks Doreen for showing this to me *hugs*
12/11/03
Joe R. Lansdale, Totally Free Stories
Joe R. Lansdale, Totally Free Stories: "Cowboy
I got off the plane at Atlanta and caught the shuttle to what I thought was my hotel. But there was some kind of mix-up, and it wasn’t my hotel at all. They told me I could go out to the curb and catch this other shuttle and it would take me over to another hotel in their chain, and that it was a short walk from there to where I wanted to go. I thought that was okay, considering I had gotten on the wrong shuttle in the first place.
I sat outside the hotel on a bench and waited for the shuttle. It was October and kind of cool, but not really uncomfortable. The air felt damp.
I had a Western paperback and I got it out of my coat pocket and read a few pages. From time to time I looked up for the shuttle, then at my watch, then back at the paperback. It wasn’t a very good Western.
While I was sitting there a little black boy on skates with an empty toy pistol scabbard strapped around his waist went by. He looked at me. His head was practically shaved and his snap-button cowboy shirt was ripped in front. I guess he was about eleven."
I looked back at my book and started reading, then I heard him skate over in front of me. I looked up and saw that he was looking at the picture on the front of the paperback.
"That a cowboy book?" he said.
I told him it was.
"It any good?"
"I don’t care much for it. It’s a little too much like the last three or four I read."
"I like cowboy books and movies but they don’t get some things right."
"I like them too."
"I’m a cowboy," he said, and his tone was a trifle defiant.
"You are?"
"You was thinking niggers can’t be cowboys."
"I wasn’t thinking that. Don’t call yourself that."
"Nigger? It’s okay if I’m doing it. I wouldn’t want you to say that."
"I wouldn’t."
"Anyone says that they got me to fight."
"I don’t want to fight. Where’s your pistol?"
He didn’t answer that. "A black boy can be a cowboy, you know."
"I’m sure of it."
"They weren’t all cooks."
"Course not."
"That’s way the movies and books got it. There any black cowboys in that book?"
"Not so far."
"There gonna be?"
"I don’t know," I said. But I did know. I’d read a lot of cowboy books.
"White boys at school said there weren’t any black cowboys. They said no nigger cowboys. They said we couldn’t fight Indians and stuff."
"Don’t listen to them."
"I’m not going to. I went over to the playground at the school and they took my pistol. There was three of them."
It came clear to me then. His shirt being ripped and the gun missing.
"I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice."
"They said a nigger didn’t need no cowboy gun. Said I needed me a frying pan or a broom. I used to ride the range and rope steers and stuff. They don’t know nothing."
"Is that all you did on the range, rope steers?"
"I did all kinds of things. I did everything cowboys do."
"Was it hard work?"
"It was so hard you wouldn’t believe it. I did all kinds of things. Cowboys don’t call one another nigger."
"Do your mom and dad work on the range with you?"
"No, my mama has a job. She does clean-up work. My daddy he got killed in Vietnam. He got some medals and stuff. He wasn’t a cowboy like me."
I looked up and saw the shuttle. I picked up my suitcase and stood.
"I got to go now," I said. "I hope you get your gun back. Lot of good cowboys lose fights from time to time."
"There was three of them."
"There you are. Adios." As an afterthought I gave him the Western book.
"It hasn’t got any black cowboys in it I bet," he said, and gave it back to me. "I want one with black cowboys in it. I’m not reading any more of ‘em unless they got black cowboys in them."
"I’m sure there are some," I said.
"There ought to be."
I got on the shuttle and it carried me to the other hotel. I got off and walked to where I was supposed to be, and on the way over there I put the book in one of those wire trash baskets that line the streets.
"Cowboy" was originally published in 1997 in The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent, a collection of Lansdale’s short stories published in a limited-edition hardcover by Subterranean Press. "Cowboy" © 1997 Joe R. Lansdale.
I got off the plane at Atlanta and caught the shuttle to what I thought was my hotel. But there was some kind of mix-up, and it wasn’t my hotel at all. They told me I could go out to the curb and catch this other shuttle and it would take me over to another hotel in their chain, and that it was a short walk from there to where I wanted to go. I thought that was okay, considering I had gotten on the wrong shuttle in the first place.
I sat outside the hotel on a bench and waited for the shuttle. It was October and kind of cool, but not really uncomfortable. The air felt damp.
I had a Western paperback and I got it out of my coat pocket and read a few pages. From time to time I looked up for the shuttle, then at my watch, then back at the paperback. It wasn’t a very good Western.
While I was sitting there a little black boy on skates with an empty toy pistol scabbard strapped around his waist went by. He looked at me. His head was practically shaved and his snap-button cowboy shirt was ripped in front. I guess he was about eleven."
I looked back at my book and started reading, then I heard him skate over in front of me. I looked up and saw that he was looking at the picture on the front of the paperback.
"That a cowboy book?" he said.
I told him it was.
"It any good?"
"I don’t care much for it. It’s a little too much like the last three or four I read."
"I like cowboy books and movies but they don’t get some things right."
"I like them too."
"I’m a cowboy," he said, and his tone was a trifle defiant.
"You are?"
"You was thinking niggers can’t be cowboys."
"I wasn’t thinking that. Don’t call yourself that."
"Nigger? It’s okay if I’m doing it. I wouldn’t want you to say that."
"I wouldn’t."
"Anyone says that they got me to fight."
"I don’t want to fight. Where’s your pistol?"
He didn’t answer that. "A black boy can be a cowboy, you know."
"I’m sure of it."
"They weren’t all cooks."
"Course not."
"That’s way the movies and books got it. There any black cowboys in that book?"
"Not so far."
"There gonna be?"
"I don’t know," I said. But I did know. I’d read a lot of cowboy books.
"White boys at school said there weren’t any black cowboys. They said no nigger cowboys. They said we couldn’t fight Indians and stuff."
"Don’t listen to them."
"I’m not going to. I went over to the playground at the school and they took my pistol. There was three of them."
It came clear to me then. His shirt being ripped and the gun missing.
"I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice."
"They said a nigger didn’t need no cowboy gun. Said I needed me a frying pan or a broom. I used to ride the range and rope steers and stuff. They don’t know nothing."
"Is that all you did on the range, rope steers?"
"I did all kinds of things. I did everything cowboys do."
"Was it hard work?"
"It was so hard you wouldn’t believe it. I did all kinds of things. Cowboys don’t call one another nigger."
"Do your mom and dad work on the range with you?"
"No, my mama has a job. She does clean-up work. My daddy he got killed in Vietnam. He got some medals and stuff. He wasn’t a cowboy like me."
I looked up and saw the shuttle. I picked up my suitcase and stood.
"I got to go now," I said. "I hope you get your gun back. Lot of good cowboys lose fights from time to time."
"There was three of them."
"There you are. Adios." As an afterthought I gave him the Western book.
"It hasn’t got any black cowboys in it I bet," he said, and gave it back to me. "I want one with black cowboys in it. I’m not reading any more of ‘em unless they got black cowboys in them."
"I’m sure there are some," I said.
"There ought to be."
I got on the shuttle and it carried me to the other hotel. I got off and walked to where I was supposed to be, and on the way over there I put the book in one of those wire trash baskets that line the streets.
"Cowboy" was originally published in 1997 in The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent, a collection of Lansdale’s short stories published in a limited-edition hardcover by Subterranean Press. "Cowboy" © 1997 Joe R. Lansdale.
Joe R. Lansdale, Totally Free Stories
Joe R. Lansdale, Totally Free StoriesMASTER OF MISERY
To the memory of my father, Bud Lansdale
Six o’clock in the morning, Richard was crossing by ferry from the Hotel on the Quay to Christiansted with a few other early-bird tourists, when he turned, looked toward shore, and saw a large ray leap from the water, its blue-gray hide glistening in the morning sunlight like gunmetal, its devil-tail flicking to one side as if to slash.
The ray floated there in defiance of gravity, hung in the sky between the boat and the shore, backgrounded by the storefronts and dock as if it were part of a painting, then splashed almost silently into the purple Caribbean, leaving in its wake a sun-kissed ripple.
Richard turned to see if the other passengers had noticed. He could tell from their faces they had not. The ray’s leap had been a private showing, just for him, and he relished it. Later, he would think that perhaps it had been some kind of omen.
Ashore, he walked along the dock past the storefronts, and in front of the Anchor Inn Restaurant, the charter fishing boat was waiting.
A man and a woman were on board already. The man was probably fifty, perhaps a little older, but certainly in good shape. He had an aura of invincibility about him, as if the normal laws of mortality and time did not apply to him.
He was about five-ten with broad shoulders and, though he was a little thick in the middle, it was a hard thickness. It was evident, even beneath the black, loose, square-cut shirt he was wearing, he was a muscular man, perhaps first by birth, and second by exercise. His skin was as dark and leathery as an old bull’s hide, his hair like frost on scorched grass. He was wearing khaki shorts and his dark legs were corded with muscle and his shins had a yellow shine to them that brought to mind weathered ivory.
He stood by the fighting chair bolted to the center of the deck, and looked at Richard standing on the dock with his little paper bag containing lunch and suntan lotion. The man’s crow-colored eyes studied Richard as if he were a pile of dung that might contain some kernel of rare and undigested corn a crow might want.
The man’s demeanor bothered Richard immediately. There was about him a cockiness. A way of looking at you and sizing you up and letting you know he wasn’t seeing much.
The woman was quite another story. She was very much the bathing beauty type, aged beyond competition, but still beautiful, with a body by Nautilus. She was at least ten years younger than the man. She wore shoulder-length blond hair bleached by sun and chemicals. She had a heart-shaped face and a perfect nose and full lips. There was a slight cleft in her chin and her eyes were a faded blue. She was willowy and big breasted and wore a loose, white tee shirt over her black bathing suit, one of the kind you see women wear in movies, but not often on the beach. She had the body for it. A thong, or string, Richard thought the suits were called. Sort of thing where the strap in the back slid between the buttocks and covered them not at all. The top of the suit made a dark outline beneath her white tee shirt. She moved her body easily, as if she were accustomed to and not bothered by scrutiny, but there was something about her eyes that disturbed Richard.
Once, driving at night, a cat ran out in front of his car and he hit it, and when he stopped to see if there was hope, he found the cat mashed and dying, the eyes glowing hot and savage and terrified in the beam of his flashlight. The woman’s eyes were like that.
She glanced at him quickly, then looked away. Richard climbed on board.
Richard extended his hand to the older man. The man smiled and took his hand and shook it. Richard cursed himself as the man squeezed hard. He should have expected that. "Hugo Peak," the older man said, then moved his head to indicate the woman behind him. "My wife, Margo."
Margo nodded at Richard and almost smiled. Richard was about to give his name, when the captain, Bill Jones, came out of the cabin grinning. He was a lean, weathered fellow with a face that was all nose and eyes the color of watered meat gravy. He was carrying a couple cups of coffee. He gave one to Margo, the other to Hugo. He said, "Richard, how are you, my man."
"Wishing I’d stayed in bed," Richard said. "I can’t believe I let you talk me into this, Jones."
"Hey, fishing’s not so bad," said the captain.
"Off the bank at home in Texas it might be all right. But all this water. I hate it."
This was true. Richard hated the water. He could swim, had even earned lifeguard credentials as a Boy Scout, some twenty-five years ago, back when he was thirteen, but he had never learned to like the water. Especially deep water. The ocean.
He realized he had let Jones talk him into this simply because he wanted to convince himself he wasn’t phobic. So, okay, he wasn’t phobic, but he still didn’t like the water. The thought of soon being surrounded by it, and it being deep, and above them there being nothing but hot blue sky, was not appealing.
"I’ll get you some coffee and we’ll shove off," Jones said.
"I thought it took five for a charter?" Richard said.
Jones looked faintly embarrassed. "Well, Mr. Peak paid the slack. He wanted to keep it down to three. More time in the chair that way, we hit something."
Richard turned to Peak. "I suppose I should split the difference with you."
"Not at all," Peak said. "It was my idea."
"That’s kind of you, Hugo," Richard said.
"Not at all. And if it doesn’t sound too presumptuous, I don’t much prefer to be called by my first name, unless it’s by my wife. If I’m not fucking the person, I want them to call me Mr. Peak. Or Peak. That all right with you?"
Richard saw Margo turn her face toward the sea, pretend to be watching the gulls in the distance. "Sure," Richard said.
"I’ll get the coffee," Jones said, and disappeared into the cabin. Peak yelled after him. "Let’s shove off."
The sea was calm until they reached the Atlantic. The water there was blue-green, and the rich purple color of the Caribbean stood in stark contrast against it, reaching out with long purple claws into the great ocean, as if it might tug the Atlantic to it. But the Atlantic was too mighty, and it would not come.
The little fishing boat chugged out of the Caribbean and onto the choppier waters of the Atlantic, on out and over the great depths, and above them the sky was blue, with clouds as white as the undergarments of the Sacred Virgin.
The boat rode up and the boat rode down, between wet valleys of ocean and up their sides and down again. The cool spray of the ocean splattered on the deck and the diesel engine chugged and blew its exhaust across it and onto Richard, where he sat on the supply box. The movement of the water and the stench of the diesel made him queasy.
After a couple of hours of pushing onward, Jones slowed the engine, and finally killed it. "You’re up, Mr. Peak," Jones said coming down from his steering. He got a huge, metallic chest out of the cabin and dragged it onto the deck and opened it. There were a number of small black fish inside, packed in ice. Sardines, maybe. Jones took one and cut it open, took loose one of the rods strapped to the side of the cabin, stuck the fish on the great hook. He gave the rod to Peak.
Peak took the rod and tossed the line expertly and it went way out. He sat down in the fighting chair and fastened the waist belt and shoulder straps and put the rod butt in the gimbal. He looked relaxed and professional. The boat bobbed beneath the hot sunlight and the minutes crawled by.
Margo removed her tee shirt and leaned against the side of the boat. The bathing suit top barely managed to cover her breasts. It was designed primarily to shield her nipples. The top and sides of her bathing suit bottom revealed escaped pubic hair, a darker blond than the hair on her head.
She got a tube of suntan lotion out of a little knit bag on the deck, pushed the lotion into her palm, and began to apply it, slowly and carefully from her ankles up. Richard tried not to watch her run her hand over her tanned legs and thighs, finally over her belly and the tops of her breasts. He would look away, but always his eyes would come back.
He had not made love to a woman in a year, and for the first six months of the year had not wanted to. Now, looking at Margo Peak, it was all he could think about.
Richard glanced at Peak. He was studying the ocean. Jones was in the doorway of the cabin, trying not to be too obvious as he observed the woman. Richard could see that Jones’s Adam’s apple rode high in his throat. Margo seemed unaware or overly accustomed to the attention. She was primarily concerned with getting the suntan lotion even. Or so it seemed.
Then the line on the rod began to sing.
Richard looked toward the ocean and the line went straight and taut as the fish hit. The line sang louder as it jerked again and cut the air.
"I’m gonna hit him," Peak said. He tightened the drag, jerked back on the rod, and the rod bent slightly. "Now I’ve got him."
The fish cut to the right and the line moved with him, and Peak hit him again, said, "He’s not too big. He’s nothing."
Peak rapidly cranked the fish on deck. It was a barracuda. Jones took hold of a metal bar and whacked the flopping barracuda in the head. He got a pair of heavy shears off the deck and opened them and put them against the barracuda’s head, and snapped down hard. The head came part of the way off. Jones popped the head again, and this time the head hung by a strand. He cut the head the rest of the way off, tossed it in the ocean, put the decapitated barracuda in the huge ice chest. "Some of the restaurants buy them," he said. "Probably sell them as tuna or something."
"Good catch," Richard said.
"A barracuda," Peak said. "That’s no kinda fish. That’s not worth a damn."
"Sometimes that’s all you hit," Jones said. "Last party I took out, that was it. Three barracuda, back to back. You’re next, Mrs. Peak."
Jones baited the hook and cast the line and Margo strapped herself into the fighting chair and slipped the rod into the gimbal. They drifted for an hour and finally Jones moved the boat, letting the line troll, but nothing hit right away. It was twenty minutes later and they were all having a beer, when suddenly the gimbal cranked forward and the line whizzed so fast and loud it sent goosebumps up Richard’s back.
Margo dropped the beer and grabbed the rod. The beer foamed out of the can and ran over the deck, beneath Richard’s tennis shoes. The line went way out. Jones cut the engine back plenty, and the line continued to sing and go far out into the water.
"Hit him, Margo," Peak said. "Hit him. He’s not stuck, he’s just got the bait and the line. You don’t hit, the sonofabitch is gone."
Margo tightened the drag, pushed her feet hard against the chair’s footrests, and jerked back viciously on the line. The line went taut and the rod bent forward and Margo was yanked hard against the straps.
"Loosen the goddamn drag," Peak said, "or he’ll snap it."
Margo loosened the drag. The line sang and the fish went wide to starboard. Jones leaped to the controls and reversed the boat and slowed the speed, gave the fish room to run. The line slacked and the pole began to straighten.
"Hit him again," Peak said, and Margo tried, but it was some job, and Richard could see that the fish was putting a tremendous strain on her. The sun had not so much as caused her tanned body to break a sweat, but the fish had given her sweat beads on her forehead and cheeks and under the nose. The muscles in her arms and legs coiled as if being braided. She pressed her feet hard against the foot rests.
"It’s too big for her," Richard said.
"Mind your own business, Mr. Young," Peak said.
Young? How had Peak known his last name? He was pondering that, and about to ask, when suddenly the fish began to run. Peak yelled, "Hit him, Margo, goddamn you! Hit him!"
Margo had been working the drag back and forth, and it was evident she had done this before, but the fish was too much for her, anyone could see that, and now she hit the big fish again, solid, and it leaped. It leaped high and pretty, full of color, fastened itself to the sky, then dived like an arrow into the water and out of sight. It was a great swordfish, and Richard thought: when we drag him onto the deck, immediately it will begin to lose its color and die. It will become nothing more than a dull gray dead fish to harden in some taxidermist’s shop, later to be hung on a wall above a couch. It seemed a shame, and Richard suddenly felt shamed for coming out here, for wanting to fish at all. At home, on the banks, he caught a fish, it got eaten. Here, there was no point to the fishing but to garner a trophy.
"I want him, Margo," Peak said. "You hear me, you don’t lose this fish. I mean it, goddamnit."
"I’m trying," Margo said. "Really."
"You know how it goes, you screw it up," Peak said. "You know how it works."
"Hugo... I can’t hold him. I’m hurting."
"You’ll hold him, or wish you had," Peak said. "You just think you’re hurting."
"Hey," Richard said, "that’s ridiculous. You want the goddamn fish, take over."
Peak, who was standing on the other side of Margo, looked at Richard and smiled. "She’ll land it. It’s her fish, and she’ll land it."
"It’s ripping her apart," Richard said. "She’s just not big enough."
"Please, Hugo," Margo said. "You can have it. It could have been me caught the barracuda."
"Look to the fish," Peak said.
Margo watched the water and her face went tight; she suddenly looked much older than she had looked. Peak reached out and laid a hand on Margo’s breast and looked at Richard, said, "I say she does something, she does it. That’s the way a wife does. Her husband says she does something, she does it."
Peak ran his hand over Margo’s breast, nearly popping her top aside. Richard turned away from them and called up to Jones. "Cut this out. Let’s go in."
Jones didn’t answer.
"He does what I want," Peak said. "I pay him enough to do what I want."
The boat slowed almost to a stop, and the great fish began to sound. It went down and they waited. The rod was bent into a deep bow. Margo was beginning to shake. Her eyes looked as if they might roll up in her head. She was stretched forward in the straps so that her back was exposed to Richard, and he could see the cords of muscle there; they were as wadded and tight as the Gordian knot.
"She can’t take much more of this," Richard said. "I’ll take the fish, if you won’t."
"You won’t do a goddamn thing, Mr. Young. She can take it, and she will. She’ll land it. She caught it, she’ll bring it in."
"Hugo," Margo said. "I feel faint. Really."
Peak was still holding his beer, and he poured it over Margo’s head. "That’ll freshen you."
Margo shook beer from her hair. She began to cry silently. The rod began to bob up and down and the line on the reel was running out. The fish went down again.
Jones appeared from the upper deck. "I’ve killed the engine. The fish will sound and keep sounding."
"I know that," Peak said. "It’ll sound until this bitch gives up, which she won’t, or until she hauls it in, which she will."
Richard looked at Jones. The watered gravy eyes looked away. Richard realized now that not only was Jones a paid lackey, he had actually made sure he, Richard Young, was on this boat with Hugo Peak. He had known Jones a short time, since he’d been staying on St. Croix, and they had drunk a few together, and maybe he’d told Jones too much. Not that any of it mattered under normal circumstances, but now some things came clear, and Richard wished he had never known this Captain Jones.
Until now, he had considered Jones decent company. Had told him he was staying in the Caribbean for a few months to rest, really to get past some disappointments. And over one too many loaded fruit drinks, had told him more. For a brief time, two defenses, he had been the Heavyweight Kickboxing Champion of the World.
Trained in Kenpo and Tae Kwon Do, he had gone into kickboxing late, at thirty, and had worked his way up to the championship by age thirty-five, going at a slow rate due to lack of finances to chase all the tournaments. It wasn’t like professional kickboxing paid all that much. But he had, by God, been the champion.
And on his second defense, against Manuel Martinez, it had gone wrong. Martinez was good. Real good. He gave Richard hell, and Richard lost sight of the rules in a pressed moment, snapped an elbow into the side of Martinez’s temple. Martinez went down and never got up. The blow had been illegal and just right, and Martinez was dead and Richard was shamed and pained at what he had done.
He had the whole thing on videocassette. And at night, back home, when he was drunk or depressed, he sometimes got out the cassette and tormented himself with it. He had done what he had done on purpose, but he had never intended for it to kill. It was an instinctive action from years and years of self-defense training, especially Kenpo, which was fond of elbow strikes. He had lost his willpower and had killed.
He had told this to Jones, and obviously, Jones, most likely under the influence of drink, had told this to Peak, and Peak was the kind of man who would want to know a man who had killed someone. He would want to know someone like that to test himself against him. He would see killing a man in the ring as positive, a major macho achievement.
And those glowing yellow shins of Peak’s. Callus. Thai boxers built their shins up to be impervious to pain. Used herbs on them to deaden feeling, so they could slam their legs against trees until they bled and scabbed and finally callused over. Peak wore those shins like a badge of honor.
Yeah, it was clear now. Peak had wanted to meet him and let it lead up to something. And Jones had made at least part of that dream possible. He had supplied Richard, lured him like an unsuspecting goat to the slaughter.
Richard began to feel sick. Not only from the tossing of the sea and the smell of the diesel, but from the fact that he had been handily betrayed, and that he had to see such a thing as a man abuse his wife over a fish, over the fact that Peak had caught a lowly barracuda, and his wife, through chance, had hooked a big one.
Richard moved to the side of the boat and threw up. He threw up hard and long. When he was finished, he turned and looked at Peak, who had slid his hand under Margo’s top and was massaging her breast, his head close to her ear, whispering something. Margo no longer looked tan; she was pale and her mouth hung slack and tears ran down her face and dripped from her chin.
Richard turned back to look at the sea and saw a school of some kind of fish he couldn’t identify, leaping out of the water and back in again. He looked at the deck and saw the bloodstained shears Jones had used on the barracuda. As he picked them up, and turned, the line on the rod went out fast again, finishing off the reel. Peak began to curse Margo and tell her what to do. Richard walked quickly over to the rod, reached up with the clippers, and snapped the line in two. The rod popped up, the line snapped away, drifted and looped, then it was jerked beneath the waves with the fish. Margo fell back in the chair and sighed, the harness creaking loosely against her.
Tossing the shears aside, Richard glared at Peak, who glared back. "To hell with you," Richard said.
Two days later Richard moved out of the Hotel on the Cay. Too expensive, and his savings were dwindling. He got a room over a fish market overlooking the dock and the waters of the Caribbean. He had planned to go home by now, back to Tyler, Texas, but somehow the thought of it made him sick.
Here, he seemed outside of the world he had known, and therefore, at least much of the time, outside of the event that had brought him here.
The first night in his little room, he lay fully dressed on the bed and smelled the fish smell that still lingered from the closed-up shop below. Above him, the ceiling fan beat at the hot air as if stirring chunky soup, and he watched the shadows the moonlight made off the blades of the fan, and the shadows whirled across him like some kind of alien, rotating spider.
After a time, he could lie there no more. He rose and began to move up and down the floor beside the bed, doing a Kenpo form, adjusting and varying it to suit the inconvenience of the room’s size, the bed, and the furniture, which consisted of a table and two hardback chairs.
He snapped at the air with his fists and feet, and the fan moved, and the smell of the fish was strong, and through the open window came the noise of drunks along the dock.
His body became coated with sweat, and, pausing only long enough to remove his drenched shirt, he moved into new forms, and finally he lay down on the bed to try and sleep again, and he was almost there, when there was a knock on his door.
He went to the door, said through it: "Who is it?"
"Margo Peak."
Richard opened the door. She stood beneath the hall light, which was low down and close to her head. The bugs circling below the light were like a weird halo for her, a halo of little winged demons. She wore a short summer dress that showed her tan legs to advantage and revealed the tops of her breasts. Her face looked rough. Both eyes were blacked and there was a cut on her upper lip and her cheeks had bruises the color and size of ripe plums.
"May I come in?" she asked.
"Yes." He let her in and turned on the bare bulb that grew out of a tall floor lamp in the corner.
"Could we do without that?" she said. "I don’t feel all that presentable."
"Peak?" he asked, turning off the light.
She sat on the edge of the bed, bounced it once, as if to test the springs. The moonlight came through the window and settled down on her like something heavy. "He hit me some."
Richard leaned against the wall. "Over the fish?"
"That. And you. You embarrassed him in front of me and Captain Jones by cutting the line on the fish. He felt belittled. For a moment he lost power over me. I might have been better off you’d stayed out of it and let me land the fish."
"Sorry. All things considered, you shouldn’t be here. Why are you here?"
"You didn’t work out like he wanted you to."
"I don’t get it."
"He wants to fight you."
"Well, I got that much. I figured that’s why Jones got me on the boat. Peak had plans for a match. He knows about me, I know that much. He knew my last name."
"He admires your skill. He has videos of your fights. It excites him you killed a man in the ring. He wants to fight a man who’s killed a man. He thought he could antagonize you into something."
"A boat’s no place to fight."
"He doesn’t care where he fights. Actually, he wanted to get you mad enough to agree to come to his island. He has a little island not far out. Owns the whole thing."
"He thinks he can take me?"
"He wants to find out... Yes, he thinks he can."
"Tell him I think he can, too. I’ll mail him one of my trophies when I get home."
"He wants it his way."
"He’s out of luck."
"He sent me here. He wanted you to see what he’d done to me. He wanted me to tell you, if you don’t come to the island, he’ll do it again. He told me to tell you that he can be a master of misery. If not to you, then to me."
"That’s your problem. Don’t go back. You go back, you’re a fool."
"He’s got a lot of money."
"I’m not impressed with his money, or you. You’re a fool, Margo."
"It’s all I’ve got, Richard. He’s not nearly as bad as my family was. He at least gives me money, attention. Being an attractive trophy is better than being your father’s plaything, if you know what I mean. Hugo got me off drugs. I’m not turning tricks anymore. He did that."
"Just so he’d have a healthy punching bag. A good-looking trophy. 'Course, he’s not treating you so good right now, is he? Listen, Margo, it’s your life. Turn it around, you don’t like it. Don’t come to me like it’s my fault you’re getting your ass kicked."
"I could leave a man like Peak, I had another man to go to."
"You sound like you’re shopping for cars. You see what kind of money I got. You’d leave Peak for this? You want a dump like this? A shared toilet?"
"You could do better. You’ve got the skill. The name. You’ve got the looks to get into movies. Martial arts guys can make lots of money. Look at Chuck Norris. Christ, you actually killed somebody. The media would eat that up. You’re the real McCoy."
"You know, you and Peak deserve each other. Why don’t you just paint bull’s-eyes on yourself, give Peak spots to go for next time he gets pissed."
"He knows the spots already."
"Sorry, Margo, but good-bye."
He opened the door. Margo stood and studied him. She moved through the doorway and into the hall and turned to face him. Once again the bugs made a halo above her head. "He wants you to come out to his island. He’ll have Captain Jones bring you. Jones is taking me back now, but he’ll be back for you. It’s a short trip where you need to go. Hugo told me to give you this."
She reached into a loose pocket on her dress and brought out a piece of folded paper, shoved it toward him. Richard took it but did not look at it. He said, "I’m not coming."
"You don’t, he’ll take it out on me. He’ll treat me rough. You see my face. You should see my breasts. Between my legs. He did things there. He can do worse. He’s done worse. What have you got to lose? You used to do it for a living. We could do all right together, you and me."
"We don’t even know each other."
"We could fix that. We could start knowing one another now. We knew each other, you might not want to let me go."
She moved toward him and her arms went around his neck. He reached out and held her waist. She felt solid, small, and warm.
Richard said, "I’ve said it. I say it again. You can leave anytime you like."
"He’d have me followed to the ends of the earth."
"I’d rather run like a dog, than heel like one."
"You just don’t know," she said, pushing away from him. "You don’t know anything."
"I know you’re still turning tricks, and Peak’s a kind of pimp, and you’re not even aware of it."
"You don’t know a goddamn thing."
"All right. Good luck."
Margo didn’t move. She held her place with the bugs swarming above her head. Richard stepped inside his room, and closed the door.
Richard lay on the bed with the note in his hand. He lay that way for a full fifteen minutes. Finally, he rolled on his side and unfolded the note and read it in the moonlight.
MR. YOUNG:
COME TO THE DOCK AND TAKE JONES’ BOAT BY
MIDNIGHT. HE’LL BRING YOU OUT TO MY ISLAND.
WE’LL FIGHT. NO RULES. WE FIGHT, IT’S BEST FOR
MARGO. YOU WIN, I’LL GIVE YOU TEN THOUSAND
DOLLARS. I’LL GIVE YOU MARGO. I’LL GIVE YOU A
RESTAURANT COUPON FOR FIVE DOLLARS OFF. YOU
DONT COME, MARGO WILL BE UNHAPPY. I’LL BE UN-
HAPPY AND THE COUPON WILL EXPIRE. AND YOU’LL
NEVER KNOW IF YOU COULD HAVE BEAT ME.
HUGO PEAK
Richard dropped the note on the floor, rolled onto his back. It’s that simple for Peak, Richard thought. He says come, and he thinks I’ll come. He’s nuts. Margo’s nuts. She thinks I owe her something and I don’t even know her. I don’t want to know her. She’s a gold digger. It’s not my problem she hasn’t the strength to do what she should do. It’s not my fault he’ll kick her head in. She's a grown woman and she has to make her own decisions. I’m no hero. I’m not a knight on a white charger. I killed a man once by accident, by not staying with the rules, and I’ll not fight another man without rules on purpose. The goddamn sonofabitch must think he’s a James Bond villain. I won’t have anything to do with him. I will never fight a man for sport again.
Richard lay in the dark and watched the fan. The shadows the fan cast were growing thicker. Soon there would be no shadows at all, only darkness, because the moonlight was fading behind clouds. A cool, wet wind came through the open window. The smell of the fish market below was not as strong now because the smell of the sea and the damp earth had replaced it. Richard held his arm up so that he could see his watch. The luminous dial told him it was just before ten o’clock. He closed his eyes and slept.
When he awoke, rain was blowing in through the window and onto the bed. The rain felt good. He didn’t get up to shut the window. He thought about Hugo Peak, waiting. He looked at his watch. It was 11:35.
Peak would be starting to warm up now. Anticipating. Actually thinking he might come. Peak would believe that because he would consider Richard weak. He would think he was weak in that he wanted to protect a woman who had no urge to protect herself. He would think Richard’s snipping the fishing line was a sign of weakness. He wouldn’t think Richard had done it to make things easier on Margo. He would think he did it as some sort of spiteful attack, and that Richard really wanted to fight him. That was what Peak would be thinking.
And Richard knew, deep down, Peak was not entirely wrong.
He thought: If I were to go, I could make it to the boat in ten minutes. It’s not that far. I could be there in ten minutes easy, I walked fast. But I’m not going, so it doesn’t matter.
He sat on the side of the bed and let the rain slice into him. He got up and went around the bed and opened the closet and got out his martial arts bag. He unzipped and opened it. The mouthpiece and safety gear were there. He zipped it back up. He put it in the closet and closed the door. He sat on the side of the bed. He picked the note up and read it again. He tore it into little pieces and dropped the pieces on the floor, frightening a roach. He tried not to think about anything, but he thought about Margo. The way her face had looked, what she said Peak had done to her breasts, between her legs. He remembered the eyes of that dying cat, and he remembered Margo’s eyes. The same eyes, only she wasn’t dying as fast. She was going slowly, piece by piece, committing suicide. He remembered the horror of killing the man in the ring, and he remembered, in some hidden, primitive compartment of himself, the pleasure. It was a scary thing inside of him; inside of humankind, especially mankind, this thing about killing. This need. This desire. Maybe, he got home, he’d go deer hunting this year. He hadn’t been in over ten years, but he might go now. He might ought to go.
Richard got up and took off his clothes and rubbed his body down with ICY-HOT and took six aspirin and downed them with a glass of water. He put on a jockstrap and cup and loose workout pants and pulled a heavy sweatshirt on. He put on his white tennis shoes without socks and laced them tight. He got his bag out of the closet. He walked to the door and turned around and looked at the room. It looked as if no one had ever lived here. He looked at his watch. He had exactly ten minutes. He opened the door and went out.
As he walked, the ICY-HOT began to heat up and work its way into his muscles. The smell of it was strong in his nostrils. Another fifteen minutes, and the aspirin would take effect, loosen his body further. The rain came down hard as steel pellets and washed his hair into his face, but he kept walking, and finally he began to run.
He ran fast until he came to the Anchor Inn Restaurant. He slowed there and went around the corner, and there was Jones’ fishing boat. He looked at his watch. He was right on time. He walked up to the fishing boat and called out.
Jones appeared on the deck in rain hat and slicker. Water ran off the hat and fell across his face like a beaded curtain. He helped Richard aboard. Jones said, "It’s just that I needed the money. I owe on the boat. I don’t pay on the boat, they’re gonna take it away from me."
"Everyone needs something," Richard said. "Take me out, Jones, and listen up. After this, you better hope I go home to Texas. I’m here, walking around, I see you on the dock, anywhere, you better start running. Got me?"
Jones nodded.
"Take me out."
The wind picked up and so did the rain. Richard’s stomach began to turn over. He tried to stay in the cabin, but he found that worse. He rushed outside and puked over the side. Finally, he strapped himself into the fighting chair and rode the boat like a carnival ride, taking great waves of water full blast and watching lightning stitch the sky and dip down and touch the ocean in spots, as if God were punishing it.
It wasn’t long before the lights of the boat showed land. Jones moved them in slowly to the little island, finally came to a dock and tied them up. When Richard went to get his bag out of the cabin, Jones came down from the wheel and said, "Here, take this. You’ll need it for strength, all that pukin’ you done."
It was a thick strip of jerky. "No thanks," Richard said.
"You don’t like me, and I don’t blame you. Take the jerky though. You got to have some kind of energy."
"All right," Richard said, took it and ate. Jones gave him a drink of water in a paper cup. When Richard was finished, he said, "Water and jerky don’t change anything."
"I know," Jones said. "I’m going back to St. Croix before it gets worse. I’d rather be docked there. I think it’s a little better protected for boats."
"And how do I get back?"
"Good luck," Jones said.
"So that’s how it is? You’re all through?"
"Soon as you get off the boat." Jones stepped back a step and produced a little .38 from somewhere under his shirt. "It’s nothing personal. It’s just the money. Margo was pretty convincing too. Peak likes her to be convincing. But it was the money did it. Margo was just a fringe benefit. The money was enough."
"He really wants to fight to the death, doesn’t he?"
"I don’t ask about much of what he wants. You got to see it from my side, taking big shots out in boats all the time, getting by on their tips. It costs to take out a charter, wear and tear on the boat. I’m thinking about doing something else, going somewhere else. I might hire some goon like me to take me out fishing. I might go somewhere where the biggest pool of water around is in a glass."
"You’re that easy for money?"
"You bet. And remember, I didn’t make you come. Get off."
Richard went out of the cabin and climbed down to the dock. When he looked up through the driving rain, he could see Jones looking down at him from the boat, the .38 pointed at him.
"You go up the dock there, toward the flagstones. Follow those. They lead around a curve through the rocks and trees. Where you need to go is back there. You’ll see it. Now, go on so I can cast off. And good luck. I mean it."
"Yeah, I know. Nothing personal. Well, you know what you can do with your luck." Richard turned and started up the dock.
The directions led him up through a cut in the rocks and around a curve, and there, built into the side of the mountain, was a huge house of great weathered lumber, glass, and stone. The house seemed like part of the island itself. Richard figured, you were inside, standing at one of the great windows, on a good day, you could look out and clearly see fish swimming deep in the clear Caribbean waters, see them some distance off.
He followed the trail, tried to get his mind on what it was he was going to do. He tried to think about Thai boxers and how they fought. He was sure this was how Peak had trained. Peak’s shins were a giveaway, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t done other things. He might like grappling too, ground work. He had to think about all this, but mostly, he had to think about the Thai boxing. Thai boxers were not fancy kickers like Karataka, or Kung Fu people, but they were devastating because of the way they trained. The way they trained was more important than what they knew. They trained hard, for endurance. They trained themselves to take and accept and fuel themselves off pain. They honed their main weapons, their shins, until the best of them could kick through the thick end of a baseball bat. He had to think about that. He had to think that Peak would be in good condition, and that, unlike himself, he hadn’t taken off a few years from rigorous training. Oh, he wasn’t all washed-up. He practiced the moves and did exercises and his stomach was flat and his reflexes were good, but he hadn’t sparred against anyone since that time he had killed a man in the ring. He had to think about all that. He had to not let the bad part of what he was thinking get him down, but he had to know what was bad about himself and what was good. He had to think of some strategy to deal with Peak before Peak threw a punch or kick. He had to think about the fact that Peak might want to kill him. He had to not think too hard about what kind of fool he’d been for coming here. He had to not think about how predictable he had been to Peak. He had to hope that he was not predictable when they fought. He had to realize that he could kill a man if he wanted to, if the opening was there. He’d already done it once, not meaning to. Now he had to mean to.
At the top of the slope there was an overhang porch of stone, and a warm orange light glowed behind the glass positioned in the thick oak door. Before Richard could touch the buzzer, the door opened, and there stood Margo. She had on the dress she had worn earlier. Her hair was pinned up now. She looked at him with those dying cat eyes. The wind and the sea howled behind him.
"Thanks," she said.
Richard stepped past her, inside, dripping water.
The house was tall as a cathedral, furnished in thick wood, leather furniture, and the heads of animals, the bodies of fish. They were everywhere. It looked like a taxidermist’s shop.
Margo closed the door against the rain and wind. She said, "He’s waiting for you."
"I should hope so," Richard said.
He dripped on the floor as he walked. She took him into a large, lushly furnished bedroom. She went into an adjacent bathroom and came out with a beach towel and a pair of blue workout pants and kicking shoes. "He wants you to wear these. He wants to see you right away, unless you feel you need to rest first."
"I came here to do it," Richard said. "So, the sooner the better." He took the towel and dried, removed his clothes, except for the jock, and, paying Margo no mind, dried again. He put on the pants and shoes.
Margo led him to a gymnasium. It was a wonderful and roomy gym with one wall made of thick glass overlooking rocks and sea; the windows he had seen from the trail. There was little light in there, just illumination from glow strips around the wall. Hugo Peak sat on a stool looking out one of the windows. He was dressed in red workout pants and kicking shoes. His back, turned to Richard, held shadows in the valley of its muscles.
"He’s waiting," Margo said, and faded back into the shadows and leaned against the wall.
Richard turned and looked at her, a shape in the darkness. He said, "I just want you to know, I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for me."
"And for the money?" she said.
"That’s icing. I get it, that’s good. I’ll even take you with me, get you away from here, you want to go. But I won’t argue with you to go."
"You win, I might go. But ten thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money. Not considering the way I can live now."
"You’re right. Keep that in mind. Keep in mind that the ten thousand isn’t yours. None of it is. I said I’d take you with me, but that means as far as the island, after that, you’re on your own. I don’t owe you anything."
"I can make a man happy."
"I got to be happy somewhere else besides below the belt."
"It’s not fair. You win, I go with you, I don’t get any of your money, and I don’t get Hugo’s."
"Then you better root for Hugo."
Richard left Margo in the shadows, went over and stood near Peak, and looked out the glass. The sea foamed high and dark with whitecaps against the rocks. Richard saw that the dock he had walked along was gone. The sea had picked it up and carried it away. Or most of it. A few boards were broken and twisted on the shore, lodged between rocks. The great windows vibrated slightly.
"There’s going to be a hurricane," Peak said, not looking at Richard. "I believe that’s appropriate."
"I want you to write the ten-thousand-dollar check now," Richard said. "Let Margo hold it. I lose, she can tear it up. I win, we’ll see someone gets us off the island. Jones isn’t coming back, so it’ll have to be someone else."
"I’ll write the check," Peak said, still looking out the window, "but you won’t need to worry about getting off the island. This is your last stop, Mr. Young. You see that prominent rock closest to the house, on the left side of the trail."
"Yeah. What about it?"
Peak sat silent for a long time. Not answering. "Did you know, in the Orient, some places like Thailand, India, they have death matches? I studied there. I studied Thai boxing and Bando when I was stationed there in the army. I’ve fought some tough matches. People brought here from Thailand, champion Thai boxers. They came here to win money, and they went home hurt. Some of them crippled. I never killed anyone though. I’ve never fought anyone that’s killed anyone. You’ll be the first. You know I intend for this one to go all the way?"
"What’s that got to do with the rock?" Richard said.
"Oh, my mind wandered. At the base of it, Hero is buried. He was my dog. A German shepherd. He understood me. That’s something I miss, Mr. Young. Being understood."
"You’re certainly breaking my heart."
"I think maybe, since you came here, on some level, you understand me. That’s something worth having. Knowing a worthy opponent understands you. There aren’t many like you and me left."
"Whatever you say."
"Death, it’s nothing. You know what Hemingway said about death, don’t you? He called it a gift."
"Yeah, well, I haven’t noticed it being such a popular present. Shall we do it, or what? You were so all-fired wanting to do it, so let’s do it."
"Warm up, and we shall. While you start, I’ll get a check."
Richard began to stretch and Peak came back with the check. He showed it to Richard. Richard said, "How do I know it’s good?"
"You don’t. But you don’t really care. This isn’t about money, is it?"
"Give it to Margo to hold."
Peak did that, then he began to stretch. Fifteen minutes later, Peak said, "It’s time."
They met in the center of the gym, began to move in a circular fashion, each looking for an opening. Peak stuck out a couple of jabs, and Richard moved his head away from them. He gave Peak a couple with the same results. Then they went together.
Peak threw hard Thai round kicks to the outside of Richard’s right thigh, tried to spring off those for higher kicks to the neck, but Richard faded away from those. Thai boxers were famous for breaking the neck, Richard knew that. He was amazed at how hard the kicks were thrown. They were simple and looked almost stiff, but even though he managed to lift his leg to get some give in the strike, they still hurt.
Richard tried a couple of side kicks, and both times Peak blocked them by kneeing Richard’s shin as the kicks came in, and the second time Peak blocked, he advanced and swung an elbow and hit Richard on the jaw. It was an elbow strike like the one Richard had used when he killed Martinez. It hit pretty hard, and Richard felt it all the way down to his heels. When he moved back to regroup, he looked at Peak and saw that he was grinning.
Then they really went to it. Richard threw a front kick to get in close, nothing great, just a front kick, more of a forward stomp to the groin, really, and this brought him into Peak’s kill zone, and he tried a series of hand attacks, from backfist to the head, reverse punch to the solar plexus, an uppercut up under Peak’s arm, solid to the ribs. It was like hitting a hot water heater.
Peak hit him with another elbow shot, jumped, grabbed Richard’s hair, jerked his head down, brought his knee up fast and high. Richard turned his head and the knee hit him hard on the shoulder and the pain went all the way down Richard’s arm, such pain that Richard couldn’t maintain a fist. His hand flew open like a greedy child reaching for candy.
Richard swung his other arm outside and back and broke the grab on his hair, but lost some hair in the process. He kicked Peak in the knee, a glancing blow, but it got him in to use a double swinging elbow on either side of Peak’s head, and for a moment, he thought he was in good, but Peak took the shots and did a jumping knee lift, hit Richard on the elbow, and drove him back with a series of fast round kicks and punches.
Richard felt blood gushing from his nose and over his lips and down his chin. He had to be careful not to slip in the blood when it got on the floor. Damn, the man could hit, and he was fast. Richard already felt tired, and he could tell his nose was broken. It was hot and throbbing. He had been a fool to do this. This wasn’t any match. There wasn’t going to be any bell. He had to finish this or be finished.
Richard kicked twice to Peak’s legs. Once off the front leg, followed with a kick off the rear leg. Both landed, but Peak twisted so he took them on his shins. It was like kicking a tree. Richard began to see the outcome of this. He was going to manage to hit Peak a lot, but Peak was going to hit him a lot too, and in the long run, Peak would win because of the conditioning, because he could take full contact blows better to the body and the shins.
Richard faded back a bit, shook his injured arm. It felt a little better. He could make a solid fist again. The storm outside had gotten busy. The windows were starting to shake. The floor beneath them vibrated. Richard began to bob and weave. Peak held his hands up high, Thai boxer style, closed fists palm forward, set that way to throw devastating elbows.
Richard came in with a series of front kicks and punches, snapped his fingers to Peak’s eyes. Managed to flick them, make them water. That was his edge, a brief one, but he took it, and suddenly he was in with a grab to Peak’s ear. He got hold of it, jerked, heard it rip like rotten canvas. Blood flew all over Richard’s face.
Peak screamed and came in with a blitz of knees and elbows. Richard faded clockwise, away from the brunt of the attack. When Peak stopped, breathing hard, Richard opened his fist. He held Peak’s ear in his hand. He smiled at Peak. He put the ear between his teeth and held it there. He bobbed and weaved toward Peak. Richard understood something now. Thai boxers trained hard. They had hard bodies, and if you tried to work by their methods, fists and feet, and you weren’t in the same condition, they would wear you down, take you.
But that was the advantage that a system like karate had. He was trained to use his fingers, use specific points, not just areas you could slam with kicks and elbows. True, anywhere Peak kicked or hit him hurt, but no matter how tough Peak was, he had soft eyes, ears, and throat. The groin would normally be a soft target, but like himself, Richard figured he had on a cup. That wouldn’t make it so good to hit, and there was the fact a trained fighter could actually take a groin shot pretty well, and there was that rush of adrenaline a groin blow could give a foe, a few seconds of fired energy before the pain took over. It was like a shot of speed. Sometimes, that alone could whip you.
Okay, watch yourself–don’t get cocky. He can still take you out and finish you with one solid blow. Richard glanced toward Margo. She was just a shape in the shadows.
Richard spit the ear out and they came together again. A flurry. Richard didn’t have time to try anything sophisticated. He was too busy minimizing Peak’s attack. He tied Peak up, trapped his hands down, but Peak shot his head forward and caught Richard a meaty one in the upper lip. Richard’s lip exploded. Richard shifted, twisted his hip into Peak, turned and flipped him. Peak tumbled across the floor and came up on his feet.
And then Richard heard the great windows rattling like knucklebones in a plastic cup. He glanced out of the corner of his eye. The hurricane was raging. It was like the house was in a mixer. The glass cracked open in a couple of spots and rain blew in.
"None of that matters," Peak said. "This is the storm that matters." He moved toward Richard. The side of his head leaking blood, one of his eyes starting to close.
Richard thought, Okay, I do better when I don’t play his game. I’ll look as if I’m going to play his game, then I won’t. Then suddenly he remembered the ray. How it had leaped out of the water and flicked its tail. It was an image that came to him, and then he knew what to do. The ray’s tail reminded him of a flying reverse heel kick. In a real fight, the jump kick wasn’t something you actually used much. No matter what the movies showed, you tried to stay on the ground, and you kicked low, and Peak would know that. He would know it so strongly he might not expect what Richard could do.
Richard threw a low front kick off the front leg, followed with a jab as he closed, followed with a reverse punch, and then he threw his back leg forward, as if about to execute a leaping knee, but he used the knee to launch himself, twisted hard, took to the air, whipped his back leg around into a jump heel kick, whipped it hard and fast the way the ray had whipped its tail.
He caught Peak on the side of the head, above the temple, felt the bones in Peak’s skull give way to his heel. Peak fell sideways like a dipping second hand, hit the floor.
As Richard stepped in and kicked Peak with all he had in the throat, the windows blew in and shards of glass hit Richard, and a wall of water took the room and all its occupants, carried them through the other wall as if it were wet cardboard. Richard felt a blow to his head, a timber striking him, and then the water carried him away and everything was dark.
When Richard awoke he was in darkness, and he was choking to death. He was in the sea. Under it. He swam up, hard, but he couldn’t seem to make it. The water kept pushing him down. He continued kicking, fighting, and finally, when he thought his lungs would explode, he broke up and got a gulp of air and went under again. But not so far this time. A long, dark, beam of wood hit him in the head, and he got hold of it. It had been an overhead beam in the gym. It was thick, but it floated just fine. He realized the storm had struck and moved on, like a hit-and-run driver, leaving in its wake stormy seas, but an oddly clear sky lit up by a cool, full moon that looked like a smudgy spotlight.
Richard looked down the length of the beam and shuddered. The beam had broken off to a point down there, and the point was stuck through Margo’s chest, dead center, had her pinned like an insect to a mounting board. Her head was nodding to one side, and as the water jumped and the wind lashed, her head rolled on her neck as if on a ball bearing, rolled way too far and high to the left, then back to the right. It was like one of those bobbing, toy dog heads you see in the back of cars. Her tongue hung out of her mouth as if trying to lick the last drop of something sweet. Her hair was washed back from her bruised face. A shard of glass was punched deep into her cheek. Her arms washed back and forth and up and down, as if she might be frantically signaling.
The beam rolled and Richard rolled with it. When he came out of the water and got a grip on it again, Margo’s head was under the waves and her legs were sticking up, spread wide, bent at the knees, flopping, showing her panties to the moonlight.
Richard looked for the island, but didn’t see it. The waves were too high and choppy. Maybe the damn island was underwater. Maybe he was washed way away from it. He had probably gone down below and fought his way up a dozen times, but just didn’t remember. All reflex action. God, he hated the sea.
And then he saw Peak. Peak was clinging to a door. He was hanging on the door with one hand, gripping the doorknob. The door was tilted toward him, and Peak looked weak. His other arm hung by his side, floated and thrashed in the water, obviously broken. He didn’t see Richard. His back was to him. He was about ten feet away. Or he was every few seconds. Waves would wash him a little farther away, then bring him back.
Richard timed it. When the waves washed Peak away, Richard let go of the beam and swam toward him, then when the waves washed him back, Richard was there. He came up behind Peak, slipped an arm around Peak’s neck, and used his other to tighten the choke. It was the kind of choke that cut the blood off to the brain, didn’t affect the wind.
Peak tried to hang on to the door, but he let go to grab Richard’s arm. The waves took them under, but still Richard clung. They washed up into the moonlight and Richard rolled onto his back, keeping Peak on top of him. He held his head out of the water with effort. Peak’s hand fluttered weakly against Richard’s arm.
"You know what Hemingway said about death," Richard said. "That it’s a gift. Well, I give it to you."
In a moment, Peak’s hand no longer fluttered, and Richard let him go. Peak went directly beneath the waves and out of sight.
Richard swam, got on top of the door, clung to the knob, and bucked with the waves. He looked for the beam with Margo on it. He spotted it far out, on the rise of a wave, Margo’s legs dangling like a broken peace symbol. The beam rolled and Margo’s head came up, then it rolled again, went down into a valley of waves and out of sight. Nearby, Richard saw the check Peak had written ride up on a wavelike a little flat fish, shine for a moment in the moonlight, then go down, and not come up.
Richard laughed. He no longer felt frightened of the sea, of anything. The waves rolled over him with great pressure, the door cracked and shifted, started to break up, then the knob came away in his hand.
"Master of Misery" was originally published in Warriors of Blood and Dream [Avon/Nova Books]. It was later included in the Lansdale short-stories collection, A Fist Full of Stories [and Articles], published by CD Publications. "Master of Misery" © 1995 Joe R. Lansdale.
To the memory of my father, Bud Lansdale
Six o’clock in the morning, Richard was crossing by ferry from the Hotel on the Quay to Christiansted with a few other early-bird tourists, when he turned, looked toward shore, and saw a large ray leap from the water, its blue-gray hide glistening in the morning sunlight like gunmetal, its devil-tail flicking to one side as if to slash.
The ray floated there in defiance of gravity, hung in the sky between the boat and the shore, backgrounded by the storefronts and dock as if it were part of a painting, then splashed almost silently into the purple Caribbean, leaving in its wake a sun-kissed ripple.
Richard turned to see if the other passengers had noticed. He could tell from their faces they had not. The ray’s leap had been a private showing, just for him, and he relished it. Later, he would think that perhaps it had been some kind of omen.
Ashore, he walked along the dock past the storefronts, and in front of the Anchor Inn Restaurant, the charter fishing boat was waiting.
A man and a woman were on board already. The man was probably fifty, perhaps a little older, but certainly in good shape. He had an aura of invincibility about him, as if the normal laws of mortality and time did not apply to him.
He was about five-ten with broad shoulders and, though he was a little thick in the middle, it was a hard thickness. It was evident, even beneath the black, loose, square-cut shirt he was wearing, he was a muscular man, perhaps first by birth, and second by exercise. His skin was as dark and leathery as an old bull’s hide, his hair like frost on scorched grass. He was wearing khaki shorts and his dark legs were corded with muscle and his shins had a yellow shine to them that brought to mind weathered ivory.
He stood by the fighting chair bolted to the center of the deck, and looked at Richard standing on the dock with his little paper bag containing lunch and suntan lotion. The man’s crow-colored eyes studied Richard as if he were a pile of dung that might contain some kernel of rare and undigested corn a crow might want.
The man’s demeanor bothered Richard immediately. There was about him a cockiness. A way of looking at you and sizing you up and letting you know he wasn’t seeing much.
The woman was quite another story. She was very much the bathing beauty type, aged beyond competition, but still beautiful, with a body by Nautilus. She was at least ten years younger than the man. She wore shoulder-length blond hair bleached by sun and chemicals. She had a heart-shaped face and a perfect nose and full lips. There was a slight cleft in her chin and her eyes were a faded blue. She was willowy and big breasted and wore a loose, white tee shirt over her black bathing suit, one of the kind you see women wear in movies, but not often on the beach. She had the body for it. A thong, or string, Richard thought the suits were called. Sort of thing where the strap in the back slid between the buttocks and covered them not at all. The top of the suit made a dark outline beneath her white tee shirt. She moved her body easily, as if she were accustomed to and not bothered by scrutiny, but there was something about her eyes that disturbed Richard.
Once, driving at night, a cat ran out in front of his car and he hit it, and when he stopped to see if there was hope, he found the cat mashed and dying, the eyes glowing hot and savage and terrified in the beam of his flashlight. The woman’s eyes were like that.
She glanced at him quickly, then looked away. Richard climbed on board.
Richard extended his hand to the older man. The man smiled and took his hand and shook it. Richard cursed himself as the man squeezed hard. He should have expected that. "Hugo Peak," the older man said, then moved his head to indicate the woman behind him. "My wife, Margo."
Margo nodded at Richard and almost smiled. Richard was about to give his name, when the captain, Bill Jones, came out of the cabin grinning. He was a lean, weathered fellow with a face that was all nose and eyes the color of watered meat gravy. He was carrying a couple cups of coffee. He gave one to Margo, the other to Hugo. He said, "Richard, how are you, my man."
"Wishing I’d stayed in bed," Richard said. "I can’t believe I let you talk me into this, Jones."
"Hey, fishing’s not so bad," said the captain.
"Off the bank at home in Texas it might be all right. But all this water. I hate it."
This was true. Richard hated the water. He could swim, had even earned lifeguard credentials as a Boy Scout, some twenty-five years ago, back when he was thirteen, but he had never learned to like the water. Especially deep water. The ocean.
He realized he had let Jones talk him into this simply because he wanted to convince himself he wasn’t phobic. So, okay, he wasn’t phobic, but he still didn’t like the water. The thought of soon being surrounded by it, and it being deep, and above them there being nothing but hot blue sky, was not appealing.
"I’ll get you some coffee and we’ll shove off," Jones said.
"I thought it took five for a charter?" Richard said.
Jones looked faintly embarrassed. "Well, Mr. Peak paid the slack. He wanted to keep it down to three. More time in the chair that way, we hit something."
Richard turned to Peak. "I suppose I should split the difference with you."
"Not at all," Peak said. "It was my idea."
"That’s kind of you, Hugo," Richard said.
"Not at all. And if it doesn’t sound too presumptuous, I don’t much prefer to be called by my first name, unless it’s by my wife. If I’m not fucking the person, I want them to call me Mr. Peak. Or Peak. That all right with you?"
Richard saw Margo turn her face toward the sea, pretend to be watching the gulls in the distance. "Sure," Richard said.
"I’ll get the coffee," Jones said, and disappeared into the cabin. Peak yelled after him. "Let’s shove off."
The sea was calm until they reached the Atlantic. The water there was blue-green, and the rich purple color of the Caribbean stood in stark contrast against it, reaching out with long purple claws into the great ocean, as if it might tug the Atlantic to it. But the Atlantic was too mighty, and it would not come.
The little fishing boat chugged out of the Caribbean and onto the choppier waters of the Atlantic, on out and over the great depths, and above them the sky was blue, with clouds as white as the undergarments of the Sacred Virgin.
The boat rode up and the boat rode down, between wet valleys of ocean and up their sides and down again. The cool spray of the ocean splattered on the deck and the diesel engine chugged and blew its exhaust across it and onto Richard, where he sat on the supply box. The movement of the water and the stench of the diesel made him queasy.
After a couple of hours of pushing onward, Jones slowed the engine, and finally killed it. "You’re up, Mr. Peak," Jones said coming down from his steering. He got a huge, metallic chest out of the cabin and dragged it onto the deck and opened it. There were a number of small black fish inside, packed in ice. Sardines, maybe. Jones took one and cut it open, took loose one of the rods strapped to the side of the cabin, stuck the fish on the great hook. He gave the rod to Peak.
Peak took the rod and tossed the line expertly and it went way out. He sat down in the fighting chair and fastened the waist belt and shoulder straps and put the rod butt in the gimbal. He looked relaxed and professional. The boat bobbed beneath the hot sunlight and the minutes crawled by.
Margo removed her tee shirt and leaned against the side of the boat. The bathing suit top barely managed to cover her breasts. It was designed primarily to shield her nipples. The top and sides of her bathing suit bottom revealed escaped pubic hair, a darker blond than the hair on her head.
She got a tube of suntan lotion out of a little knit bag on the deck, pushed the lotion into her palm, and began to apply it, slowly and carefully from her ankles up. Richard tried not to watch her run her hand over her tanned legs and thighs, finally over her belly and the tops of her breasts. He would look away, but always his eyes would come back.
He had not made love to a woman in a year, and for the first six months of the year had not wanted to. Now, looking at Margo Peak, it was all he could think about.
Richard glanced at Peak. He was studying the ocean. Jones was in the doorway of the cabin, trying not to be too obvious as he observed the woman. Richard could see that Jones’s Adam’s apple rode high in his throat. Margo seemed unaware or overly accustomed to the attention. She was primarily concerned with getting the suntan lotion even. Or so it seemed.
Then the line on the rod began to sing.
Richard looked toward the ocean and the line went straight and taut as the fish hit. The line sang louder as it jerked again and cut the air.
"I’m gonna hit him," Peak said. He tightened the drag, jerked back on the rod, and the rod bent slightly. "Now I’ve got him."
The fish cut to the right and the line moved with him, and Peak hit him again, said, "He’s not too big. He’s nothing."
Peak rapidly cranked the fish on deck. It was a barracuda. Jones took hold of a metal bar and whacked the flopping barracuda in the head. He got a pair of heavy shears off the deck and opened them and put them against the barracuda’s head, and snapped down hard. The head came part of the way off. Jones popped the head again, and this time the head hung by a strand. He cut the head the rest of the way off, tossed it in the ocean, put the decapitated barracuda in the huge ice chest. "Some of the restaurants buy them," he said. "Probably sell them as tuna or something."
"Good catch," Richard said.
"A barracuda," Peak said. "That’s no kinda fish. That’s not worth a damn."
"Sometimes that’s all you hit," Jones said. "Last party I took out, that was it. Three barracuda, back to back. You’re next, Mrs. Peak."
Jones baited the hook and cast the line and Margo strapped herself into the fighting chair and slipped the rod into the gimbal. They drifted for an hour and finally Jones moved the boat, letting the line troll, but nothing hit right away. It was twenty minutes later and they were all having a beer, when suddenly the gimbal cranked forward and the line whizzed so fast and loud it sent goosebumps up Richard’s back.
Margo dropped the beer and grabbed the rod. The beer foamed out of the can and ran over the deck, beneath Richard’s tennis shoes. The line went way out. Jones cut the engine back plenty, and the line continued to sing and go far out into the water.
"Hit him, Margo," Peak said. "Hit him. He’s not stuck, he’s just got the bait and the line. You don’t hit, the sonofabitch is gone."
Margo tightened the drag, pushed her feet hard against the chair’s footrests, and jerked back viciously on the line. The line went taut and the rod bent forward and Margo was yanked hard against the straps.
"Loosen the goddamn drag," Peak said, "or he’ll snap it."
Margo loosened the drag. The line sang and the fish went wide to starboard. Jones leaped to the controls and reversed the boat and slowed the speed, gave the fish room to run. The line slacked and the pole began to straighten.
"Hit him again," Peak said, and Margo tried, but it was some job, and Richard could see that the fish was putting a tremendous strain on her. The sun had not so much as caused her tanned body to break a sweat, but the fish had given her sweat beads on her forehead and cheeks and under the nose. The muscles in her arms and legs coiled as if being braided. She pressed her feet hard against the foot rests.
"It’s too big for her," Richard said.
"Mind your own business, Mr. Young," Peak said.
Young? How had Peak known his last name? He was pondering that, and about to ask, when suddenly the fish began to run. Peak yelled, "Hit him, Margo, goddamn you! Hit him!"
Margo had been working the drag back and forth, and it was evident she had done this before, but the fish was too much for her, anyone could see that, and now she hit the big fish again, solid, and it leaped. It leaped high and pretty, full of color, fastened itself to the sky, then dived like an arrow into the water and out of sight. It was a great swordfish, and Richard thought: when we drag him onto the deck, immediately it will begin to lose its color and die. It will become nothing more than a dull gray dead fish to harden in some taxidermist’s shop, later to be hung on a wall above a couch. It seemed a shame, and Richard suddenly felt shamed for coming out here, for wanting to fish at all. At home, on the banks, he caught a fish, it got eaten. Here, there was no point to the fishing but to garner a trophy.
"I want him, Margo," Peak said. "You hear me, you don’t lose this fish. I mean it, goddamnit."
"I’m trying," Margo said. "Really."
"You know how it goes, you screw it up," Peak said. "You know how it works."
"Hugo... I can’t hold him. I’m hurting."
"You’ll hold him, or wish you had," Peak said. "You just think you’re hurting."
"Hey," Richard said, "that’s ridiculous. You want the goddamn fish, take over."
Peak, who was standing on the other side of Margo, looked at Richard and smiled. "She’ll land it. It’s her fish, and she’ll land it."
"It’s ripping her apart," Richard said. "She’s just not big enough."
"Please, Hugo," Margo said. "You can have it. It could have been me caught the barracuda."
"Look to the fish," Peak said.
Margo watched the water and her face went tight; she suddenly looked much older than she had looked. Peak reached out and laid a hand on Margo’s breast and looked at Richard, said, "I say she does something, she does it. That’s the way a wife does. Her husband says she does something, she does it."
Peak ran his hand over Margo’s breast, nearly popping her top aside. Richard turned away from them and called up to Jones. "Cut this out. Let’s go in."
Jones didn’t answer.
"He does what I want," Peak said. "I pay him enough to do what I want."
The boat slowed almost to a stop, and the great fish began to sound. It went down and they waited. The rod was bent into a deep bow. Margo was beginning to shake. Her eyes looked as if they might roll up in her head. She was stretched forward in the straps so that her back was exposed to Richard, and he could see the cords of muscle there; they were as wadded and tight as the Gordian knot.
"She can’t take much more of this," Richard said. "I’ll take the fish, if you won’t."
"You won’t do a goddamn thing, Mr. Young. She can take it, and she will. She’ll land it. She caught it, she’ll bring it in."
"Hugo," Margo said. "I feel faint. Really."
Peak was still holding his beer, and he poured it over Margo’s head. "That’ll freshen you."
Margo shook beer from her hair. She began to cry silently. The rod began to bob up and down and the line on the reel was running out. The fish went down again.
Jones appeared from the upper deck. "I’ve killed the engine. The fish will sound and keep sounding."
"I know that," Peak said. "It’ll sound until this bitch gives up, which she won’t, or until she hauls it in, which she will."
Richard looked at Jones. The watered gravy eyes looked away. Richard realized now that not only was Jones a paid lackey, he had actually made sure he, Richard Young, was on this boat with Hugo Peak. He had known Jones a short time, since he’d been staying on St. Croix, and they had drunk a few together, and maybe he’d told Jones too much. Not that any of it mattered under normal circumstances, but now some things came clear, and Richard wished he had never known this Captain Jones.
Until now, he had considered Jones decent company. Had told him he was staying in the Caribbean for a few months to rest, really to get past some disappointments. And over one too many loaded fruit drinks, had told him more. For a brief time, two defenses, he had been the Heavyweight Kickboxing Champion of the World.
Trained in Kenpo and Tae Kwon Do, he had gone into kickboxing late, at thirty, and had worked his way up to the championship by age thirty-five, going at a slow rate due to lack of finances to chase all the tournaments. It wasn’t like professional kickboxing paid all that much. But he had, by God, been the champion.
And on his second defense, against Manuel Martinez, it had gone wrong. Martinez was good. Real good. He gave Richard hell, and Richard lost sight of the rules in a pressed moment, snapped an elbow into the side of Martinez’s temple. Martinez went down and never got up. The blow had been illegal and just right, and Martinez was dead and Richard was shamed and pained at what he had done.
He had the whole thing on videocassette. And at night, back home, when he was drunk or depressed, he sometimes got out the cassette and tormented himself with it. He had done what he had done on purpose, but he had never intended for it to kill. It was an instinctive action from years and years of self-defense training, especially Kenpo, which was fond of elbow strikes. He had lost his willpower and had killed.
He had told this to Jones, and obviously, Jones, most likely under the influence of drink, had told this to Peak, and Peak was the kind of man who would want to know a man who had killed someone. He would want to know someone like that to test himself against him. He would see killing a man in the ring as positive, a major macho achievement.
And those glowing yellow shins of Peak’s. Callus. Thai boxers built their shins up to be impervious to pain. Used herbs on them to deaden feeling, so they could slam their legs against trees until they bled and scabbed and finally callused over. Peak wore those shins like a badge of honor.
Yeah, it was clear now. Peak had wanted to meet him and let it lead up to something. And Jones had made at least part of that dream possible. He had supplied Richard, lured him like an unsuspecting goat to the slaughter.
Richard began to feel sick. Not only from the tossing of the sea and the smell of the diesel, but from the fact that he had been handily betrayed, and that he had to see such a thing as a man abuse his wife over a fish, over the fact that Peak had caught a lowly barracuda, and his wife, through chance, had hooked a big one.
Richard moved to the side of the boat and threw up. He threw up hard and long. When he was finished, he turned and looked at Peak, who had slid his hand under Margo’s top and was massaging her breast, his head close to her ear, whispering something. Margo no longer looked tan; she was pale and her mouth hung slack and tears ran down her face and dripped from her chin.
Richard turned back to look at the sea and saw a school of some kind of fish he couldn’t identify, leaping out of the water and back in again. He looked at the deck and saw the bloodstained shears Jones had used on the barracuda. As he picked them up, and turned, the line on the rod went out fast again, finishing off the reel. Peak began to curse Margo and tell her what to do. Richard walked quickly over to the rod, reached up with the clippers, and snapped the line in two. The rod popped up, the line snapped away, drifted and looped, then it was jerked beneath the waves with the fish. Margo fell back in the chair and sighed, the harness creaking loosely against her.
Tossing the shears aside, Richard glared at Peak, who glared back. "To hell with you," Richard said.
Two days later Richard moved out of the Hotel on the Cay. Too expensive, and his savings were dwindling. He got a room over a fish market overlooking the dock and the waters of the Caribbean. He had planned to go home by now, back to Tyler, Texas, but somehow the thought of it made him sick.
Here, he seemed outside of the world he had known, and therefore, at least much of the time, outside of the event that had brought him here.
The first night in his little room, he lay fully dressed on the bed and smelled the fish smell that still lingered from the closed-up shop below. Above him, the ceiling fan beat at the hot air as if stirring chunky soup, and he watched the shadows the moonlight made off the blades of the fan, and the shadows whirled across him like some kind of alien, rotating spider.
After a time, he could lie there no more. He rose and began to move up and down the floor beside the bed, doing a Kenpo form, adjusting and varying it to suit the inconvenience of the room’s size, the bed, and the furniture, which consisted of a table and two hardback chairs.
He snapped at the air with his fists and feet, and the fan moved, and the smell of the fish was strong, and through the open window came the noise of drunks along the dock.
His body became coated with sweat, and, pausing only long enough to remove his drenched shirt, he moved into new forms, and finally he lay down on the bed to try and sleep again, and he was almost there, when there was a knock on his door.
He went to the door, said through it: "Who is it?"
"Margo Peak."
Richard opened the door. She stood beneath the hall light, which was low down and close to her head. The bugs circling below the light were like a weird halo for her, a halo of little winged demons. She wore a short summer dress that showed her tan legs to advantage and revealed the tops of her breasts. Her face looked rough. Both eyes were blacked and there was a cut on her upper lip and her cheeks had bruises the color and size of ripe plums.
"May I come in?" she asked.
"Yes." He let her in and turned on the bare bulb that grew out of a tall floor lamp in the corner.
"Could we do without that?" she said. "I don’t feel all that presentable."
"Peak?" he asked, turning off the light.
She sat on the edge of the bed, bounced it once, as if to test the springs. The moonlight came through the window and settled down on her like something heavy. "He hit me some."
Richard leaned against the wall. "Over the fish?"
"That. And you. You embarrassed him in front of me and Captain Jones by cutting the line on the fish. He felt belittled. For a moment he lost power over me. I might have been better off you’d stayed out of it and let me land the fish."
"Sorry. All things considered, you shouldn’t be here. Why are you here?"
"You didn’t work out like he wanted you to."
"I don’t get it."
"He wants to fight you."
"Well, I got that much. I figured that’s why Jones got me on the boat. Peak had plans for a match. He knows about me, I know that much. He knew my last name."
"He admires your skill. He has videos of your fights. It excites him you killed a man in the ring. He wants to fight a man who’s killed a man. He thought he could antagonize you into something."
"A boat’s no place to fight."
"He doesn’t care where he fights. Actually, he wanted to get you mad enough to agree to come to his island. He has a little island not far out. Owns the whole thing."
"He thinks he can take me?"
"He wants to find out... Yes, he thinks he can."
"Tell him I think he can, too. I’ll mail him one of my trophies when I get home."
"He wants it his way."
"He’s out of luck."
"He sent me here. He wanted you to see what he’d done to me. He wanted me to tell you, if you don’t come to the island, he’ll do it again. He told me to tell you that he can be a master of misery. If not to you, then to me."
"That’s your problem. Don’t go back. You go back, you’re a fool."
"He’s got a lot of money."
"I’m not impressed with his money, or you. You’re a fool, Margo."
"It’s all I’ve got, Richard. He’s not nearly as bad as my family was. He at least gives me money, attention. Being an attractive trophy is better than being your father’s plaything, if you know what I mean. Hugo got me off drugs. I’m not turning tricks anymore. He did that."
"Just so he’d have a healthy punching bag. A good-looking trophy. 'Course, he’s not treating you so good right now, is he? Listen, Margo, it’s your life. Turn it around, you don’t like it. Don’t come to me like it’s my fault you’re getting your ass kicked."
"I could leave a man like Peak, I had another man to go to."
"You sound like you’re shopping for cars. You see what kind of money I got. You’d leave Peak for this? You want a dump like this? A shared toilet?"
"You could do better. You’ve got the skill. The name. You’ve got the looks to get into movies. Martial arts guys can make lots of money. Look at Chuck Norris. Christ, you actually killed somebody. The media would eat that up. You’re the real McCoy."
"You know, you and Peak deserve each other. Why don’t you just paint bull’s-eyes on yourself, give Peak spots to go for next time he gets pissed."
"He knows the spots already."
"Sorry, Margo, but good-bye."
He opened the door. Margo stood and studied him. She moved through the doorway and into the hall and turned to face him. Once again the bugs made a halo above her head. "He wants you to come out to his island. He’ll have Captain Jones bring you. Jones is taking me back now, but he’ll be back for you. It’s a short trip where you need to go. Hugo told me to give you this."
She reached into a loose pocket on her dress and brought out a piece of folded paper, shoved it toward him. Richard took it but did not look at it. He said, "I’m not coming."
"You don’t, he’ll take it out on me. He’ll treat me rough. You see my face. You should see my breasts. Between my legs. He did things there. He can do worse. He’s done worse. What have you got to lose? You used to do it for a living. We could do all right together, you and me."
"We don’t even know each other."
"We could fix that. We could start knowing one another now. We knew each other, you might not want to let me go."
She moved toward him and her arms went around his neck. He reached out and held her waist. She felt solid, small, and warm.
Richard said, "I’ve said it. I say it again. You can leave anytime you like."
"He’d have me followed to the ends of the earth."
"I’d rather run like a dog, than heel like one."
"You just don’t know," she said, pushing away from him. "You don’t know anything."
"I know you’re still turning tricks, and Peak’s a kind of pimp, and you’re not even aware of it."
"You don’t know a goddamn thing."
"All right. Good luck."
Margo didn’t move. She held her place with the bugs swarming above her head. Richard stepped inside his room, and closed the door.
Richard lay on the bed with the note in his hand. He lay that way for a full fifteen minutes. Finally, he rolled on his side and unfolded the note and read it in the moonlight.
MR. YOUNG:
COME TO THE DOCK AND TAKE JONES’ BOAT BY
MIDNIGHT. HE’LL BRING YOU OUT TO MY ISLAND.
WE’LL FIGHT. NO RULES. WE FIGHT, IT’S BEST FOR
MARGO. YOU WIN, I’LL GIVE YOU TEN THOUSAND
DOLLARS. I’LL GIVE YOU MARGO. I’LL GIVE YOU A
RESTAURANT COUPON FOR FIVE DOLLARS OFF. YOU
DONT COME, MARGO WILL BE UNHAPPY. I’LL BE UN-
HAPPY AND THE COUPON WILL EXPIRE. AND YOU’LL
NEVER KNOW IF YOU COULD HAVE BEAT ME.
HUGO PEAK
Richard dropped the note on the floor, rolled onto his back. It’s that simple for Peak, Richard thought. He says come, and he thinks I’ll come. He’s nuts. Margo’s nuts. She thinks I owe her something and I don’t even know her. I don’t want to know her. She’s a gold digger. It’s not my problem she hasn’t the strength to do what she should do. It’s not my fault he’ll kick her head in. She's a grown woman and she has to make her own decisions. I’m no hero. I’m not a knight on a white charger. I killed a man once by accident, by not staying with the rules, and I’ll not fight another man without rules on purpose. The goddamn sonofabitch must think he’s a James Bond villain. I won’t have anything to do with him. I will never fight a man for sport again.
Richard lay in the dark and watched the fan. The shadows the fan cast were growing thicker. Soon there would be no shadows at all, only darkness, because the moonlight was fading behind clouds. A cool, wet wind came through the open window. The smell of the fish market below was not as strong now because the smell of the sea and the damp earth had replaced it. Richard held his arm up so that he could see his watch. The luminous dial told him it was just before ten o’clock. He closed his eyes and slept.
When he awoke, rain was blowing in through the window and onto the bed. The rain felt good. He didn’t get up to shut the window. He thought about Hugo Peak, waiting. He looked at his watch. It was 11:35.
Peak would be starting to warm up now. Anticipating. Actually thinking he might come. Peak would believe that because he would consider Richard weak. He would think he was weak in that he wanted to protect a woman who had no urge to protect herself. He would think Richard’s snipping the fishing line was a sign of weakness. He wouldn’t think Richard had done it to make things easier on Margo. He would think he did it as some sort of spiteful attack, and that Richard really wanted to fight him. That was what Peak would be thinking.
And Richard knew, deep down, Peak was not entirely wrong.
He thought: If I were to go, I could make it to the boat in ten minutes. It’s not that far. I could be there in ten minutes easy, I walked fast. But I’m not going, so it doesn’t matter.
He sat on the side of the bed and let the rain slice into him. He got up and went around the bed and opened the closet and got out his martial arts bag. He unzipped and opened it. The mouthpiece and safety gear were there. He zipped it back up. He put it in the closet and closed the door. He sat on the side of the bed. He picked the note up and read it again. He tore it into little pieces and dropped the pieces on the floor, frightening a roach. He tried not to think about anything, but he thought about Margo. The way her face had looked, what she said Peak had done to her breasts, between her legs. He remembered the eyes of that dying cat, and he remembered Margo’s eyes. The same eyes, only she wasn’t dying as fast. She was going slowly, piece by piece, committing suicide. He remembered the horror of killing the man in the ring, and he remembered, in some hidden, primitive compartment of himself, the pleasure. It was a scary thing inside of him; inside of humankind, especially mankind, this thing about killing. This need. This desire. Maybe, he got home, he’d go deer hunting this year. He hadn’t been in over ten years, but he might go now. He might ought to go.
Richard got up and took off his clothes and rubbed his body down with ICY-HOT and took six aspirin and downed them with a glass of water. He put on a jockstrap and cup and loose workout pants and pulled a heavy sweatshirt on. He put on his white tennis shoes without socks and laced them tight. He got his bag out of the closet. He walked to the door and turned around and looked at the room. It looked as if no one had ever lived here. He looked at his watch. He had exactly ten minutes. He opened the door and went out.
As he walked, the ICY-HOT began to heat up and work its way into his muscles. The smell of it was strong in his nostrils. Another fifteen minutes, and the aspirin would take effect, loosen his body further. The rain came down hard as steel pellets and washed his hair into his face, but he kept walking, and finally he began to run.
He ran fast until he came to the Anchor Inn Restaurant. He slowed there and went around the corner, and there was Jones’ fishing boat. He looked at his watch. He was right on time. He walked up to the fishing boat and called out.
Jones appeared on the deck in rain hat and slicker. Water ran off the hat and fell across his face like a beaded curtain. He helped Richard aboard. Jones said, "It’s just that I needed the money. I owe on the boat. I don’t pay on the boat, they’re gonna take it away from me."
"Everyone needs something," Richard said. "Take me out, Jones, and listen up. After this, you better hope I go home to Texas. I’m here, walking around, I see you on the dock, anywhere, you better start running. Got me?"
Jones nodded.
"Take me out."
The wind picked up and so did the rain. Richard’s stomach began to turn over. He tried to stay in the cabin, but he found that worse. He rushed outside and puked over the side. Finally, he strapped himself into the fighting chair and rode the boat like a carnival ride, taking great waves of water full blast and watching lightning stitch the sky and dip down and touch the ocean in spots, as if God were punishing it.
It wasn’t long before the lights of the boat showed land. Jones moved them in slowly to the little island, finally came to a dock and tied them up. When Richard went to get his bag out of the cabin, Jones came down from the wheel and said, "Here, take this. You’ll need it for strength, all that pukin’ you done."
It was a thick strip of jerky. "No thanks," Richard said.
"You don’t like me, and I don’t blame you. Take the jerky though. You got to have some kind of energy."
"All right," Richard said, took it and ate. Jones gave him a drink of water in a paper cup. When Richard was finished, he said, "Water and jerky don’t change anything."
"I know," Jones said. "I’m going back to St. Croix before it gets worse. I’d rather be docked there. I think it’s a little better protected for boats."
"And how do I get back?"
"Good luck," Jones said.
"So that’s how it is? You’re all through?"
"Soon as you get off the boat." Jones stepped back a step and produced a little .38 from somewhere under his shirt. "It’s nothing personal. It’s just the money. Margo was pretty convincing too. Peak likes her to be convincing. But it was the money did it. Margo was just a fringe benefit. The money was enough."
"He really wants to fight to the death, doesn’t he?"
"I don’t ask about much of what he wants. You got to see it from my side, taking big shots out in boats all the time, getting by on their tips. It costs to take out a charter, wear and tear on the boat. I’m thinking about doing something else, going somewhere else. I might hire some goon like me to take me out fishing. I might go somewhere where the biggest pool of water around is in a glass."
"You’re that easy for money?"
"You bet. And remember, I didn’t make you come. Get off."
Richard went out of the cabin and climbed down to the dock. When he looked up through the driving rain, he could see Jones looking down at him from the boat, the .38 pointed at him.
"You go up the dock there, toward the flagstones. Follow those. They lead around a curve through the rocks and trees. Where you need to go is back there. You’ll see it. Now, go on so I can cast off. And good luck. I mean it."
"Yeah, I know. Nothing personal. Well, you know what you can do with your luck." Richard turned and started up the dock.
The directions led him up through a cut in the rocks and around a curve, and there, built into the side of the mountain, was a huge house of great weathered lumber, glass, and stone. The house seemed like part of the island itself. Richard figured, you were inside, standing at one of the great windows, on a good day, you could look out and clearly see fish swimming deep in the clear Caribbean waters, see them some distance off.
He followed the trail, tried to get his mind on what it was he was going to do. He tried to think about Thai boxers and how they fought. He was sure this was how Peak had trained. Peak’s shins were a giveaway, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t done other things. He might like grappling too, ground work. He had to think about all this, but mostly, he had to think about the Thai boxing. Thai boxers were not fancy kickers like Karataka, or Kung Fu people, but they were devastating because of the way they trained. The way they trained was more important than what they knew. They trained hard, for endurance. They trained themselves to take and accept and fuel themselves off pain. They honed their main weapons, their shins, until the best of them could kick through the thick end of a baseball bat. He had to think about that. He had to think that Peak would be in good condition, and that, unlike himself, he hadn’t taken off a few years from rigorous training. Oh, he wasn’t all washed-up. He practiced the moves and did exercises and his stomach was flat and his reflexes were good, but he hadn’t sparred against anyone since that time he had killed a man in the ring. He had to think about all that. He had to not let the bad part of what he was thinking get him down, but he had to know what was bad about himself and what was good. He had to think of some strategy to deal with Peak before Peak threw a punch or kick. He had to think about the fact that Peak might want to kill him. He had to not think too hard about what kind of fool he’d been for coming here. He had to not think about how predictable he had been to Peak. He had to hope that he was not predictable when they fought. He had to realize that he could kill a man if he wanted to, if the opening was there. He’d already done it once, not meaning to. Now he had to mean to.
At the top of the slope there was an overhang porch of stone, and a warm orange light glowed behind the glass positioned in the thick oak door. Before Richard could touch the buzzer, the door opened, and there stood Margo. She had on the dress she had worn earlier. Her hair was pinned up now. She looked at him with those dying cat eyes. The wind and the sea howled behind him.
"Thanks," she said.
Richard stepped past her, inside, dripping water.
The house was tall as a cathedral, furnished in thick wood, leather furniture, and the heads of animals, the bodies of fish. They were everywhere. It looked like a taxidermist’s shop.
Margo closed the door against the rain and wind. She said, "He’s waiting for you."
"I should hope so," Richard said.
He dripped on the floor as he walked. She took him into a large, lushly furnished bedroom. She went into an adjacent bathroom and came out with a beach towel and a pair of blue workout pants and kicking shoes. "He wants you to wear these. He wants to see you right away, unless you feel you need to rest first."
"I came here to do it," Richard said. "So, the sooner the better." He took the towel and dried, removed his clothes, except for the jock, and, paying Margo no mind, dried again. He put on the pants and shoes.
Margo led him to a gymnasium. It was a wonderful and roomy gym with one wall made of thick glass overlooking rocks and sea; the windows he had seen from the trail. There was little light in there, just illumination from glow strips around the wall. Hugo Peak sat on a stool looking out one of the windows. He was dressed in red workout pants and kicking shoes. His back, turned to Richard, held shadows in the valley of its muscles.
"He’s waiting," Margo said, and faded back into the shadows and leaned against the wall.
Richard turned and looked at her, a shape in the darkness. He said, "I just want you to know, I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for me."
"And for the money?" she said.
"That’s icing. I get it, that’s good. I’ll even take you with me, get you away from here, you want to go. But I won’t argue with you to go."
"You win, I might go. But ten thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money. Not considering the way I can live now."
"You’re right. Keep that in mind. Keep in mind that the ten thousand isn’t yours. None of it is. I said I’d take you with me, but that means as far as the island, after that, you’re on your own. I don’t owe you anything."
"I can make a man happy."
"I got to be happy somewhere else besides below the belt."
"It’s not fair. You win, I go with you, I don’t get any of your money, and I don’t get Hugo’s."
"Then you better root for Hugo."
Richard left Margo in the shadows, went over and stood near Peak, and looked out the glass. The sea foamed high and dark with whitecaps against the rocks. Richard saw that the dock he had walked along was gone. The sea had picked it up and carried it away. Or most of it. A few boards were broken and twisted on the shore, lodged between rocks. The great windows vibrated slightly.
"There’s going to be a hurricane," Peak said, not looking at Richard. "I believe that’s appropriate."
"I want you to write the ten-thousand-dollar check now," Richard said. "Let Margo hold it. I lose, she can tear it up. I win, we’ll see someone gets us off the island. Jones isn’t coming back, so it’ll have to be someone else."
"I’ll write the check," Peak said, still looking out the window, "but you won’t need to worry about getting off the island. This is your last stop, Mr. Young. You see that prominent rock closest to the house, on the left side of the trail."
"Yeah. What about it?"
Peak sat silent for a long time. Not answering. "Did you know, in the Orient, some places like Thailand, India, they have death matches? I studied there. I studied Thai boxing and Bando when I was stationed there in the army. I’ve fought some tough matches. People brought here from Thailand, champion Thai boxers. They came here to win money, and they went home hurt. Some of them crippled. I never killed anyone though. I’ve never fought anyone that’s killed anyone. You’ll be the first. You know I intend for this one to go all the way?"
"What’s that got to do with the rock?" Richard said.
"Oh, my mind wandered. At the base of it, Hero is buried. He was my dog. A German shepherd. He understood me. That’s something I miss, Mr. Young. Being understood."
"You’re certainly breaking my heart."
"I think maybe, since you came here, on some level, you understand me. That’s something worth having. Knowing a worthy opponent understands you. There aren’t many like you and me left."
"Whatever you say."
"Death, it’s nothing. You know what Hemingway said about death, don’t you? He called it a gift."
"Yeah, well, I haven’t noticed it being such a popular present. Shall we do it, or what? You were so all-fired wanting to do it, so let’s do it."
"Warm up, and we shall. While you start, I’ll get a check."
Richard began to stretch and Peak came back with the check. He showed it to Richard. Richard said, "How do I know it’s good?"
"You don’t. But you don’t really care. This isn’t about money, is it?"
"Give it to Margo to hold."
Peak did that, then he began to stretch. Fifteen minutes later, Peak said, "It’s time."
They met in the center of the gym, began to move in a circular fashion, each looking for an opening. Peak stuck out a couple of jabs, and Richard moved his head away from them. He gave Peak a couple with the same results. Then they went together.
Peak threw hard Thai round kicks to the outside of Richard’s right thigh, tried to spring off those for higher kicks to the neck, but Richard faded away from those. Thai boxers were famous for breaking the neck, Richard knew that. He was amazed at how hard the kicks were thrown. They were simple and looked almost stiff, but even though he managed to lift his leg to get some give in the strike, they still hurt.
Richard tried a couple of side kicks, and both times Peak blocked them by kneeing Richard’s shin as the kicks came in, and the second time Peak blocked, he advanced and swung an elbow and hit Richard on the jaw. It was an elbow strike like the one Richard had used when he killed Martinez. It hit pretty hard, and Richard felt it all the way down to his heels. When he moved back to regroup, he looked at Peak and saw that he was grinning.
Then they really went to it. Richard threw a front kick to get in close, nothing great, just a front kick, more of a forward stomp to the groin, really, and this brought him into Peak’s kill zone, and he tried a series of hand attacks, from backfist to the head, reverse punch to the solar plexus, an uppercut up under Peak’s arm, solid to the ribs. It was like hitting a hot water heater.
Peak hit him with another elbow shot, jumped, grabbed Richard’s hair, jerked his head down, brought his knee up fast and high. Richard turned his head and the knee hit him hard on the shoulder and the pain went all the way down Richard’s arm, such pain that Richard couldn’t maintain a fist. His hand flew open like a greedy child reaching for candy.
Richard swung his other arm outside and back and broke the grab on his hair, but lost some hair in the process. He kicked Peak in the knee, a glancing blow, but it got him in to use a double swinging elbow on either side of Peak’s head, and for a moment, he thought he was in good, but Peak took the shots and did a jumping knee lift, hit Richard on the elbow, and drove him back with a series of fast round kicks and punches.
Richard felt blood gushing from his nose and over his lips and down his chin. He had to be careful not to slip in the blood when it got on the floor. Damn, the man could hit, and he was fast. Richard already felt tired, and he could tell his nose was broken. It was hot and throbbing. He had been a fool to do this. This wasn’t any match. There wasn’t going to be any bell. He had to finish this or be finished.
Richard kicked twice to Peak’s legs. Once off the front leg, followed with a kick off the rear leg. Both landed, but Peak twisted so he took them on his shins. It was like kicking a tree. Richard began to see the outcome of this. He was going to manage to hit Peak a lot, but Peak was going to hit him a lot too, and in the long run, Peak would win because of the conditioning, because he could take full contact blows better to the body and the shins.
Richard faded back a bit, shook his injured arm. It felt a little better. He could make a solid fist again. The storm outside had gotten busy. The windows were starting to shake. The floor beneath them vibrated. Richard began to bob and weave. Peak held his hands up high, Thai boxer style, closed fists palm forward, set that way to throw devastating elbows.
Richard came in with a series of front kicks and punches, snapped his fingers to Peak’s eyes. Managed to flick them, make them water. That was his edge, a brief one, but he took it, and suddenly he was in with a grab to Peak’s ear. He got hold of it, jerked, heard it rip like rotten canvas. Blood flew all over Richard’s face.
Peak screamed and came in with a blitz of knees and elbows. Richard faded clockwise, away from the brunt of the attack. When Peak stopped, breathing hard, Richard opened his fist. He held Peak’s ear in his hand. He smiled at Peak. He put the ear between his teeth and held it there. He bobbed and weaved toward Peak. Richard understood something now. Thai boxers trained hard. They had hard bodies, and if you tried to work by their methods, fists and feet, and you weren’t in the same condition, they would wear you down, take you.
But that was the advantage that a system like karate had. He was trained to use his fingers, use specific points, not just areas you could slam with kicks and elbows. True, anywhere Peak kicked or hit him hurt, but no matter how tough Peak was, he had soft eyes, ears, and throat. The groin would normally be a soft target, but like himself, Richard figured he had on a cup. That wouldn’t make it so good to hit, and there was the fact a trained fighter could actually take a groin shot pretty well, and there was that rush of adrenaline a groin blow could give a foe, a few seconds of fired energy before the pain took over. It was like a shot of speed. Sometimes, that alone could whip you.
Okay, watch yourself–don’t get cocky. He can still take you out and finish you with one solid blow. Richard glanced toward Margo. She was just a shape in the shadows.
Richard spit the ear out and they came together again. A flurry. Richard didn’t have time to try anything sophisticated. He was too busy minimizing Peak’s attack. He tied Peak up, trapped his hands down, but Peak shot his head forward and caught Richard a meaty one in the upper lip. Richard’s lip exploded. Richard shifted, twisted his hip into Peak, turned and flipped him. Peak tumbled across the floor and came up on his feet.
And then Richard heard the great windows rattling like knucklebones in a plastic cup. He glanced out of the corner of his eye. The hurricane was raging. It was like the house was in a mixer. The glass cracked open in a couple of spots and rain blew in.
"None of that matters," Peak said. "This is the storm that matters." He moved toward Richard. The side of his head leaking blood, one of his eyes starting to close.
Richard thought, Okay, I do better when I don’t play his game. I’ll look as if I’m going to play his game, then I won’t. Then suddenly he remembered the ray. How it had leaped out of the water and flicked its tail. It was an image that came to him, and then he knew what to do. The ray’s tail reminded him of a flying reverse heel kick. In a real fight, the jump kick wasn’t something you actually used much. No matter what the movies showed, you tried to stay on the ground, and you kicked low, and Peak would know that. He would know it so strongly he might not expect what Richard could do.
Richard threw a low front kick off the front leg, followed with a jab as he closed, followed with a reverse punch, and then he threw his back leg forward, as if about to execute a leaping knee, but he used the knee to launch himself, twisted hard, took to the air, whipped his back leg around into a jump heel kick, whipped it hard and fast the way the ray had whipped its tail.
He caught Peak on the side of the head, above the temple, felt the bones in Peak’s skull give way to his heel. Peak fell sideways like a dipping second hand, hit the floor.
As Richard stepped in and kicked Peak with all he had in the throat, the windows blew in and shards of glass hit Richard, and a wall of water took the room and all its occupants, carried them through the other wall as if it were wet cardboard. Richard felt a blow to his head, a timber striking him, and then the water carried him away and everything was dark.
When Richard awoke he was in darkness, and he was choking to death. He was in the sea. Under it. He swam up, hard, but he couldn’t seem to make it. The water kept pushing him down. He continued kicking, fighting, and finally, when he thought his lungs would explode, he broke up and got a gulp of air and went under again. But not so far this time. A long, dark, beam of wood hit him in the head, and he got hold of it. It had been an overhead beam in the gym. It was thick, but it floated just fine. He realized the storm had struck and moved on, like a hit-and-run driver, leaving in its wake stormy seas, but an oddly clear sky lit up by a cool, full moon that looked like a smudgy spotlight.
Richard looked down the length of the beam and shuddered. The beam had broken off to a point down there, and the point was stuck through Margo’s chest, dead center, had her pinned like an insect to a mounting board. Her head was nodding to one side, and as the water jumped and the wind lashed, her head rolled on her neck as if on a ball bearing, rolled way too far and high to the left, then back to the right. It was like one of those bobbing, toy dog heads you see in the back of cars. Her tongue hung out of her mouth as if trying to lick the last drop of something sweet. Her hair was washed back from her bruised face. A shard of glass was punched deep into her cheek. Her arms washed back and forth and up and down, as if she might be frantically signaling.
The beam rolled and Richard rolled with it. When he came out of the water and got a grip on it again, Margo’s head was under the waves and her legs were sticking up, spread wide, bent at the knees, flopping, showing her panties to the moonlight.
Richard looked for the island, but didn’t see it. The waves were too high and choppy. Maybe the damn island was underwater. Maybe he was washed way away from it. He had probably gone down below and fought his way up a dozen times, but just didn’t remember. All reflex action. God, he hated the sea.
And then he saw Peak. Peak was clinging to a door. He was hanging on the door with one hand, gripping the doorknob. The door was tilted toward him, and Peak looked weak. His other arm hung by his side, floated and thrashed in the water, obviously broken. He didn’t see Richard. His back was to him. He was about ten feet away. Or he was every few seconds. Waves would wash him a little farther away, then bring him back.
Richard timed it. When the waves washed Peak away, Richard let go of the beam and swam toward him, then when the waves washed him back, Richard was there. He came up behind Peak, slipped an arm around Peak’s neck, and used his other to tighten the choke. It was the kind of choke that cut the blood off to the brain, didn’t affect the wind.
Peak tried to hang on to the door, but he let go to grab Richard’s arm. The waves took them under, but still Richard clung. They washed up into the moonlight and Richard rolled onto his back, keeping Peak on top of him. He held his head out of the water with effort. Peak’s hand fluttered weakly against Richard’s arm.
"You know what Hemingway said about death," Richard said. "That it’s a gift. Well, I give it to you."
In a moment, Peak’s hand no longer fluttered, and Richard let him go. Peak went directly beneath the waves and out of sight.
Richard swam, got on top of the door, clung to the knob, and bucked with the waves. He looked for the beam with Margo on it. He spotted it far out, on the rise of a wave, Margo’s legs dangling like a broken peace symbol. The beam rolled and Margo’s head came up, then it rolled again, went down into a valley of waves and out of sight. Nearby, Richard saw the check Peak had written ride up on a wavelike a little flat fish, shine for a moment in the moonlight, then go down, and not come up.
Richard laughed. He no longer felt frightened of the sea, of anything. The waves rolled over him with great pressure, the door cracked and shifted, started to break up, then the knob came away in his hand.
"Master of Misery" was originally published in Warriors of Blood and Dream [Avon/Nova Books]. It was later included in the Lansdale short-stories collection, A Fist Full of Stories [and Articles], published by CD Publications. "Master of Misery" © 1995 Joe R. Lansdale.
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