On the Edge of Wakefulness, Part 2
Chapter 27
Nothin' but a damn shame. Poor fucked-up bastard.
Phillip Manning sat on his haunches at the edge of the wintry forest and, with his foot, moved the body of BB further away from him. He spit out a bit of the apple, looked at it. Rotten shit. He tossed it and watched as waiting black birds fought over it. They picked at it and squawked at each other. Then tore apart their treasure as a fucking team.
"What are you looking at?" Phillip cursed the dead body, eying the still-open eyes of the failed assassin. "I'm not the one who let that ... shit, that ... scum-sucking ... spawn out of my hands! IT WAS A MINOR JOB! ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS PULL THE FUCKIN' TRIGGER!"
Hatred tasted nasty on his tongue. He lit a cigarette. Only hours before, Phillip helped BB escape his transfer to Statesville by plucking the little shit out of the police unit stopped at an intersection outside town. It had been stupid on Llanview P.D.'s part, but BB was being guarded by only one cop. Which made the break easy as pie. Phillip, disguised as an old-fashioned cowboy, dark blue bandana covering his face, matching ten-gallon hat covering his hair, had held an automatic pistol to the cop's head. The guy must have been near retirement - he was old enough - and he had looked at BB in the rear-view mirror, looked at the barrel of the gun, then let the punk out. Drove off.
The kid was happy. He apologized dramatically to Phillip, explained that the Chant target had gotten out of the Detention Center before he could be taken care of. Promised he'd get to him, that he'd finish the job he'd been hired to do. Phillip had driven around Llanview a while with BB, telling him about the classic car, the convertible '58 Chevy, painted yellow. Phillip told BB not to worry, that he knew BB would finish the job. Drove more. Lectured a bit on responsibility, seeing through your commitments, general grown-up stuff.
"I have a cabin up on Llantano Mountain ... come with me. Let's get some food into you. Let's eat."
"I have food," BB had said coolly. Pulled out a sandwich and the... apple. Began eating the sandwich. Phillip had parked the car and started a silent hike up an unmarked road along the edge of the forest. BB followed, munching away on that bologna sandwich, his long dark hair switching in the breeze, his worn shoes padding along the snow. Breathing in the clean air.
He never knew what hit him. Looked up at the clearing sky in the midst of a lunch meat swallow and that was all she wrote. Probably never actually felt the bullet enter his head through his nose.
"Bye-bye. Stupid ... fuck."
The sun was warm, now. Warmed the vermin crawling in and out of the forest floor's underbrush. The sun shined through the trees and it smelled like heaven. Clean and pure. The greens, the browns ... all those … trees. Nature is so beautiful.
The engine turned over after a minute or so and Phillip pressed on the gas, snaking his way back into town. He'd heard some interesting news on Todd Manning. At least, he was pretty sure it was Todd. Heard there was an unfamiliar user hanging out at Toby's shooting gallery. This "newbie" was a heavy user and had a unique scar right across his right cheek.
Phillip's contact said he and his pals were just chomping at the bit to turn this motherfucker out. He had the balls to reject the particular attention of the contact, a more established gallery resident. He was using their shit, their stuff, but was apparently too good to be "nice."
Oh he let some residents play a bit, let them get handsy, mouthy, even gave back a little (which honestly Phillip would pay money to watch in bright light - gotta say, Manning's ease with a dick kinda blew his mind but you know, cool)… but he refused the full Monty. None a'that, oh no, you ain't gonna fuck me. Yeah, when he had enough, even at his most fucked-up, he'd push the established clientele away.
Push, push, push. Get offa' me.
Chortling, Phillip murmured, "What's the matter Toddy? You think you're so good? You think you're so different? You ain't all that. You will… see."
Brandy's new place was smaller than the other one, located in the building next door to her old haunt, but it was cleaner and had been recently remodeled. At least ... as remodeled as ratty housing can be. She chose the building figuring people would assume she and Todd had shifted cities or headed across town, and, as the cliche goes, sometimes the best hiding spots are right under the hunters' noses.
Opening the door to the fourth floor apartment, Brandy stepped inside and turned around, leading Todd in by his cold hands, his eyes directed only at her and not at the dingy surroundings. Peacefulness had been wafting away from him in the chilled walk from Toby's ... he was now managing a very tenuous hold onto it, thinking about dosing up again.
"What you think, baby?! It's got better heating and look!" She dragged him to the windows, letting his hands go so she could stand next to him. "We got a view of the street. We can see the lights of the boulevard as far as ... forever! Ain't it nice? Ain't this great, baby?!"
Todd stared numbly at the low-lit afternoon, saying nothing. In the reflection of the window, he could see the emptiness of the apartment. He could see that it was devoid of all Brandy's pretty things. Same kinda crappy furniture, the bed covering was the same, but her personal touches were gone.
The observation was interrupted by a sudden blooming of soreness in his arms, of his injection sites, and he rubbed his arms to try to lessen the pain. Then he glanced over at his Johnny-girl as she stared at the street. Her neck was bruised, she'd uprooted herself, and where was the vanilla scent of her skin? Where were the candles and vases with red plastic flowers? The lace on the windows? Where were her things? Where had SHE gone?
Soul poacher, light-in-the-eyes snuffer ... don't you know where your sister has gone? How many days of heaven did you get from her? How many days of hell did she endure for your days in paradise? How many days of hell have they all been living while you roll around in heaven?
He looked directly at her and asked softly, "Brandy ... where's your stuff?"
She swallowed hard and looked around, "Got rid of 'em. You the only thing I need."
Todd took her hands into his and offered a twitch of a smile, shaking his head. "But I'm nothing. That stuff was nice, it was you. You." After a few seconds, he added, "Did I make you get rid of it? Is it 'cause of me that it's all gone?"
"No. Now you shut-up and let's take a bath. You a dirty thing. Come on, baby."
Brandy walked away from him at that, knowing his eyes were still on her. She stepped into the bathroom and chattered about how all the bathrooms in the building had been re-done, how it wasn't perfect but it was clean. And the tub was new: white and unpolluted. She ran the bath and continued her echoing talk on how she found the place.
Todd started taking off his clothes, feeling strange and foreign in his own body. Soul poacher, he kept saying. The jacket made a crumpling sound as it fell; he had had cash there, but it was gone now. A lot had gone to L'il Toby but the rest ... he seemed to recall someone going through his jacket at the gallery. He had a vague body memory of being shifted and adjusted. Yeah ... somebody had taken the little money he'd had left.
And other shit that played peek-a-boo with him.
Distracted by the sudden realization that he was dead broke, his heart sped up in panic, but then … Brandy said she had some stuff. But what about the days after that? How was he going to get some cash?
His chest hurt ...
He took off more clothes, stripping to nothing. Looking down on himself, there was no doubt he was dirty. Dirty, wasted, ruined. His clothes were filthy, too, disgustingly filthy. But what good would water be for a soul poacher, for a killer of light? What good would soap be? This was the kind of dirt that got in a person's blood.
Out of the bathroom came a bare yet cheerful Brandy, heading towards him, completely unashamed, like a little dusty sparrow, waiting to bathe in a bird bath. Todd took in a sharp breath when he saw the additional damage to her, more than bruising, more than a few red spots.
"Brandy… whatcha do to yourself?" It had kicked him hard, seeing her that way. One thing was himself, he was used to his own self-mutilation but her ...
Brandy covered herself up with her arms, feathery wings moving protectively. The little bird had forgotten what it was like to be noticed.
"It ain't nothin' ... it ain't ..."
"Oh fuck… it was Toby, wasn't it?"
She glanced away and shrugged.
Todd got close to her and wrapped his arms around her. "Brandy, no more, ok? Don't you let them do that to you ..." He was shaking with a mix of revulsion and horror at what she'd done for his addiction, and for her own.
Yeah, something clicked and he understood what her salvation was, her addiction. And it had been so obvious from the beginning: abuse.
His Brandy, his Johnny-girl, was addicted to being abused. She wanted it ... she ... maybe even ... liked it. Maybe, it was all she knew, the only way to feel like she existed. She couldn't stop herself.
A perfect pair we are, he thought. A perfect ... fucking ... pair.
The high he'd been riding for the past several hours vanished in a brilliant whoosh. He held her tighter to him and looked out the window, then closed his eyes, wishing to disappear. Wishing to re-open his eyes as a different person, in a different place, because there were rumblings within his psyche of something else ... something … hellish ... misdirected ... misfiring ... seeing that boy ... that boy that would just lie there and get abused ...
"MY sister," he said in a low tone, his hands pressing her to him tightly. "What do you feel when they do that to you? What do you get out of it?"
"Nothin'. I don't feel nothin', I don't get nothin'."
"Nothing ... you feel … nothing?"
He wasn't feeling nothing, however. In fact, the nothingness was quickly being filled up, inked with something frighteningly real and old. He bent and gently kissed her neck, kissed the blackness there, as if there was actually something healing about his kiss. Pretending it was. He licked her skin, dragging his tongue across the delicate width of her neck like a cat would, like a mother stray. Or perhaps it was more like the cat would lick the dead mouse after he killed it.
He shut his eyes tightly and fought a sensation of nausea, fought an overwhelming urge to add to the bruising on her skin. Oh yeah. That's what was coursing through him. Old sickness. Old highs.
"No, baby ... I don't feel nothin' ..."
Forgiveness is an impossibility ... Sister ... oh Great Spirit!
"You lie, Brandy, you lie when you say that … I hate liars."
"No, baby ..."
As quickly as pain for his twin-whore's destruction had appeared, hatred fast replaced it. She was so ... easy ... so .. fucking victimized. She had put herself out there to be abused and had gotten what she'd asked for.
He backed off her and turned away so she wouldn't see his rising anger, or his rising cock. That little boy, he couldn't forgive him! The poor little damaged creature just lay there on the bed or the floor or wherever it was Peter Manning had chosen to corner him ... getting beaten and butchered and eventually, at some point, liking it.
Responding to it.
FIGHT! Get up, get away from him, hit him, bite him … ANYTHING! Fight ... GOD ... PLEASE! RUN AWAY BEFORE YOU START WANTING IT! Change the pathway, derail the train…
But, no ... no ... the child just took it. Went away in his head. Flew around in that red airplane stuck to the fan, tethered to the abuse. Watched from the cockpit in dead silence the murder taking place beneath him ... watching in dead silence the violent birthing process of pure hatred, pure ...unadulterated hatred.
"Baby?"
Brandy's voice echoed off the empty walls of the apartment, the sound of the bath water running serving as musical accompaniment to her fragile chirping. The musty carpet reeked to him, his feet and toes rubbing the used fibers. Mildew, paint, cigarette smoke, the smell of sweat, of fresh ... heated ... sweat ... it choked him. It filled his lungs and suffocated him.
She ... Brandy ... had just let someone tear her to pieces under the guise of saving someone else, as some means to personal salvation. She had let someone hit her ... and ... and... let him deplete her of her self-worth, her humanness, her fucking soul, because she was addicted to that shit; because with each beating, she was closer to heaven.
She should not have done that, she should have had a sense of value, something. She should have fought, she should have left Todd to die in that shelter.
And all this ... meant ... maybe ... maybe ... the boy was addicted to being abused, too. He wanted those things. He consented to those things, said yes, Daddy, yes, here I am, come get me. He gave himself up volun-fucking-tarily. A goddamn sacrificial lamb.
Todd swung around and quick as light put his hands around Brandy's throat, her eyes widening in surprise. He wouldn't let go of her and his own throat constricted as he tightened his grip, growling out a strained, "Why ... do you do that? Why ... how can you TAKE that?! You stupid ... fucking ... whore. You deserve what you get, you deserve the pain and the hate being shoved at you, up into you. I hate you ... I hate you... do you understand? I HATE YOU!"
Brandy couldn't breathe and therefore couldn't say anything in response to him. She simply closed her eyes and felt the lack of air, felt his muscular grip of her. Raising her hands, she placed them lightly on his rigid biceps. And ... went away just enough, separated her mind from her body so she could not feel the pain. It's okay, she thought, it's okay, you need this, you need to get rid of that hurt, baby, so go ahead and use me.
I am yours.
She opened her dark eyes slowly and looked into his light ones full of shining accusation, managing to say to him wordlessly...
Sacrifice me because I am your lamb, I am your offering to him, to your savior. I mean something to you. So I will die for you.
She smiled the barest of smiles.
Todd took a sharp breath and pushed her away, backing up, falling onto the bed behind him, shaking with hate and truth and excitement he couldn't control. Brandy gasped and coughed, bent over. He leaned forward, holding his head in his hands, bombarded by memories of the women he harmed, of the times he had been so cruel to them. Téa and Blair, Nora, Marty, Carol, the cheerleaders. But then he wandered to men. Kevin, Jedediah, countless others. And of course… himself. And now Brandy.
Starr would be next, eventual. Just like Peter said.
He startled when Brandy touched him moments later.
"It's all right, baby," she whispered. "It's all right. Come to the bath ... it's nice and hot. I'll hold you ... I'll let you do whatever you want ... you want me underneath that water ... I will let you put me there. You want me not to breathe with you, I will not breathe. Only you from now on, no one else. I won't let anyone else hurt me. Just regular plain old stuff. I promise… no more ... I won't, baby."
Todd grabbed onto her, as hot undefined tears rolled down his face, grumbling how much he hated her, that she deserved everything she got. Like the boy ... like that stupid ... stupid boy.
She whispered, "I will let you do what you need."
"Let me? Let me? God damn it. Fucking stupid bitch."
All of sudden, he pulled at her, slamming her onto her back on the bed. Single drops of water spilled onto the bath water and resonated throughout the small apartment. Steam poured out of the bathroom. He spread her legs and pushed his weakened erection inside of her, his flesh hardening with the friction though, huffing loudly with each thrust. He rolled over and moved her on top of him, a strain of violent urgency to his efforts, his eyes never leaving hers. There was nothing to say ...
Except ... he breathed in her ear, "Fight me, Brandy ... tell me, no... don't just let me ..."
"I won't ever fight you, you jus' do what you need, baby," she said faintly, further infuriating him.
"Fight me, fight me…"
But she wouldn't.
He held her by the hips and kept up the violent noisy fucking, her body draped on him. She lay her head on his shoulder, so he couldn't see her eyes, so he couldn't see her drifting away again.
"Fuck you, you fuckin' stupid whore," he groaned, consumed with a sickening mix of fury, hate, endless hurt that refused to vanish.
His opiate-soaked system made the completion difficult for him and the longer it took, the more intense his thrusts became because he wasn't going to stop ... he would finish ... he would prove he could finish ... that he was a man in every way Peter said he wasn't. He bit down on her shoulder, tasting skin and blood and he knew it hurt her but also knew she wouldn't fight and he groaned into the wound, heightening the sensation in his cock. He groaned more and louder, his feet scraping the carpet, fingers digging into her skin at her hips, his lips pressed hard on the bite.
That did it for him. He exploded with an intense orgasm, he burying himself deep within her, wanting to go further inside of her than he could. He punched hard into her until the spasms stopped. And then he felt her open her legs further and she moved on his still-hard flesh, slow circles of her hips, a low cat-like moan filling the room before she finally shivered with an obvious jerking climax.
All that violence and hate… it made her come.
She his sacrifice, he her killer; she his willing victim, he the abuser. A fucking perfect pair.
He fought off memories as he recovered, fought off the past like a matador fights off a bull. Brandy made him look at her, because she was afraid of what sometimes happened to him, how he wasn't able to control his mind the way she could. After a while, when she saw he would be ok, she lifted herself off him and pulled him to his feet, walking to the bathroom with her eyes directed towards her feet, watching herself take one pained step after another. He'd hurt her. She rubbed the bite on her shoulder, tasting the blood off her fingers. She reached in between her legs and rubbed her injured thighs.
He followed her weakly, drained of every sense of dignity, of ... hope. He felt even dirtier than before as he got into the tub, felt even more ruined, even more alone ... again ... utterly hopeless. And he saw her in the same light, filthier, more ruined, more abused.
He wanted a hit; he needed it. THEY needed it.
I hate you ... I hate you, little boy, lying there and accepting the damage, not fighting that abuse, that immeasurable, permanent hurt. I hate seeing you on your back, with your legs kicking, dreaming of freedom from beneath glass, so deprived, so empty. I hate you.
So the two strays silently washed themselves in the vanilla-less water, cleaning themselves up. Plain old soap and plain old shampoo. Painfully they attempted to humanize themselves, knowing that most likely such humanization wasn't really possible, because their humanness had been taken away from them long ago.
Todd drained the water, watching it disappear, then filled the tub again with clean water that couldn't possibly stay clean, not with the two whores. Nothing was clean around them. He lay back in the tub and she lay back on him. They were quiet ... saying nothing for a long time because there was nothing to say. He smoothed the bite on her shoulder with his fingers. But then he needed more so he made her lie on top of him, so he could lick and taste and suck on the bruising bite and she reached in between them and felt what the cut had done to him so she stroked him and he just took it, like the good boy he was. The water splashed and the noise they made echoed in the bathroom.
When they both settled, Brandy then asked, "Baby ... why ain't you with your wife?"
Todd swallowed a lump in his throat. Jesus ... all that violence and she asks about Téa. Just another fucking day. He looked away, looked at the ceiling. He almost laughed, if her question hadn't hurt so much.
How many times had he mindlessly played with his toys after Peter had hurt him, played almost happily? How many times had he read his books about planes by the light of a flashlight afterwards, or if what had happened had been during the day, how many times had he chattered with his mother and smiled at her as she sewed or cooked or watched television? The two of them pretending that he wasn't sitting there with a tooth missing, with a swollen mouth, with black and blue markings or welts or burns or wounds nobody could see. No ... no ... that little boy hadn't had those things on his body ... no. Let's just pretend it hadn't happened, that we're just living another day, another night.
Normal ... so tell me, what happened with your wife, Todd?
"I was so sure, baby ... that everything was going to be all right for you," Brandy added sadly, her hand making small circles in the water next to his bent knees. She had turned over again so she now was on her back, lying against his chest and in between his thighs, his arms encircling her.
Todd shrugged, said nothing. The braids had come out of his hair with the washing and he wanted them back. He wanted Téa to put them back, wanted to crawl on HER, he wanted to love HER. For real love her. He wanted to feel her love him back.
But how could she? After what he'd done to her ... after what he continued to do to her every moment of every day of his life, how could she possibly love him? How could she stand the sight of him, a poacher with the skins of the people he had robbed, had snuffed out, as his clothing. How ... indeed?
I know ... that you don't ... you can't ... love a monster, an insect, a soul poacher. I know that. And ... that's all right. It's the least a trapped cockroach can expect, to be kept caged in, to live a life the exact opposite of its desires.
"Tell me, baby ... tell me what happened to you."
He shrugged a shoulder, not planning to say anything, but then he heard his own shadowy voice say, "I got scared. They cornered me ... they lied to me."
"Lied? What they lie about?"
"They said they wouldn't hurt me ... but they did ... Tim, Doctor Graham ...mySuperman ... he ... uh ... he took me down to the floor ... took me down ... he hurt me."
Brandy said nothing.
"There were cops there, too, and they said there wouldn't be ... but I saw them ... saw the biggest fucking cop there and they were all coming after me ... and ... and they lied to me. Liars ... fucking liars. I got scared. I ran ... I just ran."
"But they love you, baby. I saw it—" Todd's hand clamped down on Brandy's mouth and pulled her head back onto his chest, pulling her closer to his face. Brandy could tell he was crying, hearing his strangled breathing, sniffling.
"Don't ... don't talk anymore," he whimpered, "I don't want to ... talk about it... please ... please ..."
Brandy raised a hand to his and he let go of her.
"I'm sorry, baby," she said softly, "... you too tired ... they hurt you bad ... your heart ... it can't take too much, can it?"
Todd shook his head and he muffled a cry. Brandy turned over in the bath and lay on top of him, gripping his body with her knees, knowing that the story he told made no sense. She knew his wife loved him more than life itself. Knew the doctor had loved him in his own way, too. Something had gone horribly wrong at the hospital but he was just too tired ... to talk about what it was.
On the other hand ... maybe ... that's exactly what it was. Maybe ... her baby just got scared. And she knew above all, how skittish stray cats could be.
The water splashed against the sides of the tub as they moved in the water, as Brandy tried to comfort Todd who couldn't stop the pain from pouring out of him. His body just couldn't contain it and all the drugs in the world didn't even seem an option anymore. She whispered words and made promises ... she knew that hurt so intimately ... and soon cried with him. Her own pain making its way to the surface.
Listening to Brandy's rare tears, Todd said wetly, "I'm sorry ... I'm so sorry for everything I do to you ... I'm sorry… I don't know how to fix things ... "
Brandy sighed and put her hand over his mouth, "You shush ... you just shush. It ain't nothin' and ... it don't matter to me. I love you ... baby ... I love you ..."
He shook his head, moaning, her hand slipping away, "Oh no ... no ... we don't love, Brandy ... you can't love someone who is destroying you ... please ... please ... don't say that ..."
She put her head on his shoulder, whispered, "But ... you's different. When you ... hurt me, it's because you care about me ... it's because ... I mean something to you, I stir something in you and I ... ain't never meant anything to nobody before. I thought Paulie and I ... but he never hurts me ... so he must not care much about me ... so ... what else can this be, but ... love?"
Hearing Brandy's version of ... love ... was too much for Todd. He wanted to throw up. He said nothing, his eyes burning with unshed tears of utter and thorough contempt, tears of horror and recognition. Leaning back against the tub, he resisted the temptation to finish both of them off there in the water, not because of any burst of reason, but because the tub was too small. Because ... at the very moment, there was no way to off both himself and her without some Herculean effort.
Had they been in an ocean, had they been in a lake or a river ... a rushing river, he would have done it. For the better of society, to prevent him from doing any more damage to anyone else, to stop the monster walking any further in Peter's footsteps, to end the victim's suffering, to stop her pain, their pain, he would have fucking done it.
You can't love your killer, little girl. Don't you get that?
How many days had it been? How long ... how far ... how many more would it be before he could go home?
To be continued...