Wrote a chapter and it turned to mush. The twilight princess line was M.D. Owen's. Before anybody tells me that Merritt is disgusting, I have to say that I love him.
He was even uglier than Raph had anticipated. Ugliness didn't necessarily equate with evilness, but he had to concede that this was a perfect match. Two balanced sides of a hideous equation.
Merritt Hope stood outside of a pizzeria with a signboard that said "$2 Slices – Monday Only!" He was dressed like a lobster and doing a stiff little dance routine for the passing traffic. Raph strolled up to him with his hands in the pockets of his jacket and smirked at the traffic, staring at the freaks in their costumes, earning minimum wage on the street corner. Wasn't it nice of them to let two of them share in their humiliation.
"Hey, douche bag. You're Merritt huh?" Raph looked him up and down. "What happened? Thought you were in jail."
"My shift ain't over till seven, ass, so get you back inside yuh and leave me alone." Merritt had the accent of stupid and it took Raph a second to translate into intelligence.
Raph pulled out a cigarette and lit up. "Thought you would like the company. Man, this job sucks balls. Bet rapists can't get better work."
"I ain't a rapist yuh. The girl lied, homes." He did a stupid dance and waved a claw at a passing semi truck.
Raph waited several minutes and dully counted the red cars that passed.
"Hey! How'd you know my name and shit! And what I was in jail for! You a cop!"
Raph rubbed out his cigarette on Merritt's forehead. He squealed and swatted Raph's hand away. "You got green hands! You an alien! You read my mind to know who I am?"
"I'm a friend of that girl you raped. Thought I'd pay my condolences. Since you'll be dead soon for daring to be alive and that shit."
Merritt leered forward and his antennae drooped. "Like I said! She was fucking me! Said it was rape and nobody can prove different!"
"Guess they did if you were in jail, motherfucker."
The wake of another large truck blew his antennae askew in the wind. "Don't you talk about my mother or I'll go fuck yours! She some big green freak like you?"
Raph reached out and casually gave him a tap of the hand, sending the whining lobster flat on his back, arms and legs flailing in the air like a huge red cockroach. Raph reached out a hand to help him up and received a plush claw. He pulled Merritt into a squat and then let go. "Oops! My bad!"
A child laughed and waved at Raph. Yeah, wave at the costumed freak, kid. Little fucker.
Merritt struggled to his feet and then resumed waving his sign, totally ignoring Raph. He respected his powers of ignorance, since Raph was standing on his foot. Finally, Merritt said, "How you know Shannon?"
"Friend."
"Girlfriend?" Sideways look.
"I said FRIEND! YOU FUCKING DEAF!" He stomped down on Merritt's toes, listening to them crack. Then listened to him scream. A few pedestrians stared, but didn't stop to help the flailing lobster. "You're not touching her again! Got it!"
"Why do you care, freak?" Merritt said as he hopped up and down on one claw. "You fucking her now?"
Raph shoved Merritt down again. He lay on his back this time and cackled, pointing up at Raph as he heckled. "That's freaking great! And her mother said I wasn't good enough for her! Now's she's fucking something as ugly as you?"
His face almost melted from shame. "Want me to skull fuck you? I won't have a problem with it. And don't say that stuff about her! She doesn't fuck anybody! Got it!"
"What do you mean?" Merritt stopped rolling painfully on the ground and looked up at him curiously.
Raph felt inside his jacket for his weapons, rubbing the hilts. "She's not a slut! Like you're making it sound."
"Really?" Merritt propped himself up on his elbow. "I know a secret about her. Want to hear? I know how she tastes and I don't mean her kisses."
He took a few steps and kicked Merritt in the head, a spray of nose blood flying into the air. Curiosity intervened on behalf of Merritt and Raph asked, "Why are you dressed like a lobster when you're selling pizza?"
Merritt sopped up his nose with his clawed hand and said in a muffled voice, "The pizza suit is getting cleaned."
Raph bent down to look Merritt in the face and read cowardice and idiocy in his eyes. "You say any shit like that about her and your dead. Got it?"
"I'll say whatever I want about the little whore."
Raph tried to nut him, but the padded suit protected his testicles. So he gave him a last kick in the head and left him rolling around on the sidewalk.
"Honk if you think that guy is a moron!" Raph yelled at traffic.
Honk.
The life of Merritt Hope seemed about as exciting and varying as the lines on a highway. He lived in a little house with a bossy old woman that Raph presumed was his mother. Raph didn't pay her much attention, but decided she was a lovely and wonderful lady after he sat outside the living room window that night, hidden in a bush.
The living room light glowed onto the lawn and Raph could see the dull orange of the seventies reflected out the window. The eleven o'clock news chimed and Merritt's Mama bellowed, "Merritt! What are you doing? Put that damn shovel back, you little pissant!"
"Ma! I dig graves! So shut up! You wanted me to have a job!"
"I meant Wendy's! What am I supposed to tell the ladies at bingo? My son shakes his ass by the highway dressed like a vegetable and buries dead bodies?"
Rummaging as Merritt dug out a shovel from a closet. "Tell them nothing! None of their business yuh!"
Rustling of a newspaper. "You ain't been over to see Shannon have you? Cause if have, I'll dropkick you into next week!"
"Why would I want to see that lying bitch?"
Raph rubbed the hilt of his sai and ground his teeth.
His mother grunted as she moved off the couch or her chair or whatever she was sitting on. "She's got some kind of mental problems. You were taking advantage of her. And she's a real nice girl. I been over there to see her while you were rotting in jail like a reprobate. Make me a sandwich before you go."
The fridge opened and slammed shut with more force than people normally use to retrieve cheese slices. "Make your own damn sandwich." Raph could hear a jar open. "You seen pictures of our kid?"
"No, she don't have any. They didn't let her see it before the new parents took it away. Tried to get her to keep it, but her mother said she shouldn't so she didn't. That Mrs. Massey-Darling is an A1 bitch. No pickles."
"She was whoring around with lots of guys. Ow!"
Raph grinned to himself as Merritt's Mama slapped Merritt upside the head.
"That mean you gotta join in? And she doesn't seem like a slut to me. More like she's slow and don't know better maybe."
Okay, that wasn't so cool. Raph went back to massaging his sai.
After several more minutes of bickering, Merritt headed to the cemetery. Raph decided that Merritt was just a waste of humanity. How did this man get instant respect as a member of the human species? A small cat rushes out in front of Merritt and he jabbed the shovel at its neck. Raph imagined some poor little child finding a decapitated kitty on the sidewalk the next day. Actually, the child looked a lot like Mikey and the cat looked a lot like Klunk in his mind's eye.
Merritt whistled a tune as he climbed over the locked gate. Britney Spears? Merritt was humming Britney Spears? Raph leapt over the gate with one effortless jump and then climbed into a nearby tree. Raph imagined a decaying hand reaching out and grabbing Merritt by an ankle. Or Merritt just falling into the earth. But Merritt went to an open grave and jumped into the vault. He could hear him straining to pry off the lid with the shovel. A grave robber. Lowest of the low. Lower than a rapist.
What was he doing now? Oh, hell no. Oh, fuck no!
Raph jumped out of the tree and pulled Merritt out of the grave. Merritt yelped and zipped his pants.
"You come here and you…" Raph mouthed silently, no words vile enough forming in his brain.
"Yuh. Why do you think I liked Shannon so much? She has a cute tight ass, but that wasn't it. I got tapes of her in the shower if you want them."
He mouth worked uselessly, then he spun around and kicked him in the face. Merritt flew ten feet away. "Don't kill me!" he said as he sat up, nose bleeding again. "You broked my nose earlier at work and they fired me!"
"I'll break more than that, you… ugh… this lady's dead!" Maybe he had some kind of brain damage and didn't know.
Merritt sneered at Raph's discomfort as he shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. Merritt said, "Yeah, Shannon was like an all you can eat buffet yuh. Could do whatever I wanted and she was still warm and pretty. I was into drugging for a while, but they wake up. Plus, I couldn't afford the stuff. First I licked her breasts…" Merritt's stupid grin grew wider and wider until it could have devoured his face. "…soft like a peach."
Raph pinned him against a tree and took the belated opportunity to nut him, then watched him roll around on the ground, cupping himself. "Are you a fucking moron? Ninja here. Great idea to piss me off."
"Why… ow… you pissed yuh? Not your girl…"
He left Merritt to have sex with the dead. It wasn't like they could feel anything. What if it was his relative in that grave? What if it was April? He took out his phone and called the police and then watched Merritt run home like a clumsy gazelle as the sirens approached.
"Two more zombies and then I own your ass!" Mikey said as he stuck his tongue out at an angle and blood splattered the screen.
"Yeah okay." Raph watched a zombie's head explode and didn't give his usual shout of "Take that, bitch!"
A radioactive puss cloud filled the corridor and their characters hid for safety. Mikey took the break in carnage to ask, "You okay?"
"Caught somebody out… uh… it's pretty gross…"
"Psssht," Mikey sensitively said. "What is it? Why is this freak running towards the cloud? Whatever. He's on the other team. I bet he's a stoner in California or something. I kinda love online play."
"Caught somebody fucking a corpse in the cemetery."
Mikey gagged and dropped his controller. "What? Why?"
"Why do you think, dumbass? He likes dead people. Sicko." Raph shot NecroLover13 in the back.
A dialog box popped up from NecroLover13 saying No way yuh you killed me again. I'll have your ass on a platter and serve it to Satan.
Mikey typed back You just want his sexy ass for yourself. Then he said, "What's up with that guy? Just play. Don't talk."
Raph scratched his head and then laughed. Hey Merritt so you fucked any dead girls lately?
Merritt intelligently responded No I'm grounded for getting fired.
"How do you know that guy?" Mikey asked as he used a cheat to freeze his little pixilated zombie killer so he could chat without dying.
Raph didn't know the cheat and watched ButchBigDawg get his brains blown out.
How is your girlfriend? Still taking back shots?
"What are back shots?" Raph asked Mikey as his character spontaneously regenerated in a new area of the hotel.
"You don't know?"
"No! That's why I asked!" Killed a guy and tried to change his gun. Went past the desired .22 and had to cycle through the entire arsenal. "Hey, I have a pipe bomb. I forgot."
"That's like sodomy right? I thought you were the one with all the porn."
His face lit up red and his little vigilante died again as he typed You shut your fucking mouth! She is not a slut!
Gonna jump out of the screen and get me? Oh I'm so scared.
Raph growled as he typed. I know where you live moron. You even type like a fucking moron. YUH
Mikey scratched his head and shoveled Fritos into this mouth. "Who's she? He's not talking about April is he?"
I fucked your girlfriend before you. Might pay her a little visit.
"Grawrg!" Raph said as he hammered on the controller. Nobody sees her that I don't want seeing her.
"Uh," Mikey said, eyeing him as if he were about to spontaneously combust. "April has a boyfriend."
What you do with her yuh? Not like she can talk. She's retarded. She's a good lay though. Guess that's it. Nice and tight.
Raph threw a beer bottle at the other wall before huffing and puffing. Mikey raised his eyeridges.
Mikey typed Retarded is as retarded does.
Pause as Merritt tried to work out Mikey's sentence. What does that mean?
I don't know. I thought it was my turn to say something.
Raph pounded on the controller in response, his nostrils flaring. Let's play for it. I win and you can't see her. You win and I can't see her.
Mikey shrugged and picked up a controller.
He knew it was a bad idea to play for Shannon as if she were a car given away on The Price is Right, but he couldn't resist the opportunity. Especially since the greatest gamer in the state played on his team.
Raph sneered as Mikey offed NecroLover13 within the first minutes of play. Raph said to Merritt What's wrong? Gotta play with one hand cause of those sexy ass zombie bitches?
You know it homes.
"Ew!" Mikey said, wrinkling up his face.
He smiled with satisfaction as NecroLover13 died over and over and then fantasized about killing him in real life. This guy was too pathetic to kill. Just a useless mama's boy who had to take advantage of girls who couldn't fight back to get a date. At least Shannon actually wanted to touch Raph of her own volition. He felt a surge of pride and then whipped out the pipe bomb and blew NecroLover13 into catfood.
Fuck you I'm gonna go fuck your twilight princess yuh you fucking frog! I'm gonna ass rape her in front of you Kermit!
Raph responded with Whatever.
A pleasant day for a carjacking, Raph thought as he sat in the backseat of Merritt's minivan. He tried not to look at the earth covered shovel a few inches away on the floor. Then the door opened and Raph gagged back a laugh.
The minivan had Lamborghini doors. They slid up into the air and only left half of the door space free for Merritt's skinny body to slither into the seat. He shut the doors and turned the ignition.
Raph tapped his foot to the music playing in his ear from the fuzzy stereo and as soon as Merritt hit a steady speed, he jumped forward and held his sai to his throat. Merritt screamed like a little girl and nearly swerved into oncoming traffic.
"I thought we could have a nice long chat. So you think you're gonna go raping her again huh? That's not going to happen."
Merritt's voice quavered. "Why not? You think you can stop me?"
"Yeah." Pushed the point of his weapon deeper into his flesh.
"That thing ain't even sharp."
Raph laughed deep in his throat. "I don't need it to be sharp."
They rode in silence while Raph held him at sai point, occasionally telling Merritt to keep going or make a turn.
"Where are we going? I'm running out of gas!"
Raph didn't answer, but smiled widely.
Then Merritt suddenly said, "You think she's yours now? She's never gonna be yours. She feels sorry for you. Every time she touches you, she'll think me."
Raph conked him over the head. "Just keep driving."
Merritt whimpered like a frightened puppy until the van stalled, rolling to a stop on the side of the road next to a green hillside covered in trees with no gas station on the horizon. "We're out of gas yuh you big green freak!"
"Stop calling me a freak! You're the necrophiliac rapist! How am I the freak here?" He grabbed Merritt by the collar and pulled him over the front seat and out the side door.
Merritt fell to his knees like a beggar. "What you gonna kill me now yuh? You should keep me around to ask what your slut likes before…"
Raph pulled a small video camera out of belt and sat it up on the van seat, aiming at Merritt.
"Whatcha doing?" Raph put an arm around Merritt's shoulders and shook him hard. Merritt made a little squeak and said, "Don't touch me! Now I gotta bathe in Epsom salt to get the stink off!"
He couldn't resist poking Merritt's crotch with his sai and laughing. "Bet there's nothing there to take off anyway. Now you tell the camera and your mama and the nice people of New York what you like to do in your spare time."
"Play video games," he muttered.
"Wrong. Try the next door." Jabbed his crotch again, the temptation building.
Merritt leapt in the air three inches. "I been fixing my car yuh. I got some rims for…"
Raph said, "No, no. I think the eligible ladies of the state want to hear what kind of stuff you're into. I mean, you're hot stuff, slick shit." He grabbed Merritt's face like a horse and squeezed his cheeks. "So what can a lady expect to do with you on a date?"
"Nothing," he grunted.
"Might be cause she'd be dead first right? Oops! Did I say that out loud?" Raph couldn't help himself any longer and pulled down Merritt's pants. His sai point made it through the fly of his shorts and Merritt screamed. The voice echoed all over the trees.
He pulled the sai back and scoffed. "Don't want to get your syphilis on my weapon." Then he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him into his face, scowling his death look. Usually men who saw that expression didn't last to describe it. "You will not see her or touch her again? Got it! I won. You're nothing!"
Raph didn't even talk that loudly. And didn't even have a weapon, but he smelled something familiar and looked down to find a large wet stain forming in Merritt's shorts. He shoved him to the ground, laughing.
Merritt sniveled in the dirt and said, "I'd rather be with a corpse than some bitch that likes a monster like you."
"Normally, I'd fuck you up for that, but you're not worth my time. Bye, asshole." He closed the video camera and took off walking past the brush line, out of sight of traffic.
He stashed the motorcycle behind an abandoned gas station and congratulated himself. And Leo thought he had no long term planning capability. They ran out of gas only two miles from his estimate.