thirty

The second film featured a young woman, a girl really, I doubt she was eighteen. She was in a warehouse and there were two men with her and they were both old enough to be her father. I’d rather not get into the details of what transpired in the warehouse but it was ugly and disturbing. I’m guessing it was all consensual and the actors were just pretending it wasn’t. But that’s really more a hope than an assumption. I didn’t want to look but every time I tried to turn away I couldn’t. When the two men finally bent the girl into a particularly vulnerable and humiliating pose, I had seen enough and found the will to turn my head. That’s when everything in the room shifted. Or maybe it shifted a few minutes before the second movie started. I’m not so sure. I got pretty upset when I saw Smitty’s hand on Veronica’s leg. He was touching the stocking of her left leg and rubbing the inside of her thigh, just above the knee. Her legs were spread a little more than I think they were when we first sat down. I was feeling dizzy and light-headed. My pulse was racing and my heart beat fast. My thoughts became suspicious and paranoid. Had I been poisoned? I told myself it was the drug reaching its full effect but I didn’t believe it. Maybe Smitty and Veronica were in cahoots. I touched the necklace Veronica gave me. I was afraid it would start to choke me. My mind went back to the black magic store. Of course. How stupid could I be? Veronica and her family must belong to a satanic cult, Smitty was also a member, and now they wanted to draw me into it as well. Fresh meat, new blood. Maybe they wanted to offer me up as some sort of sacrifice. They did that kind of thing, the cults, didn’t they? I had heard of devil cult rituals that were practiced in the abandoned water tunnel of a heavily wooded park in Yonkers—Oscarmeyer Park, or something like that. I had been there, it was near my cousin Gregory’s house. I never went in so deep but Gregory did and he saw the bloodstained stone altar and the 666’s and upside-down crosses painted on the walls of the tunnel. My cousin said the stuff was painted with animals’ blood, but his best friend Emil’s older brother Gizzy knew some of the people in the cult and he told Emil that there was a big plan among the network of cults in New York and New Jersey to begin human sacrifices in the name of the devil and virgins would be the first to be sacrificed. The girl on the screen looked like she was about to cry and I think the fat man spit on her. Why did Veronica spread her legs even farther? Couldn’t she tell what a piece of shit Smitty was? I was a virgin but Gizzy had told Emil who told Gregory it was girl virgins who would be the sacrificial lambs. Was Veronica a virgin? How could I not know the answer to this question? The girl in the movie was small-framed and narrow-hipped and the men were so much bigger than her. Smitty kissed Veronica and she put her hand on my groin but I didn’t like it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This was not how I imagined it. Did Smitty put something in my drink? Yes, I took the pill but I’d tried a quaalude before and it didn’t do this. Was it LSD, and I was tripping? The cult sold drugs to fund its operations, that’s what Gizzy told Emil. Was Barry the Dogfucker in the cult? That seemed like a satanic thing to do, sex with animals, sex with children, right? Did the girl in the movie get paid or was she just acting like she was being forced? Was she just acting like she was gagging and choking? Veronica’s hand has gone from my groin to my hand and she pulls it to her breast. Smitty is kissing or licking or biting her neck. Veronica guides my hand up underneath her shirt and I touch her breast for the first time with no barrier between my skin and her skin but I feel no pleasure, no lust, no love. I feel only fear and I don’t trust her anymore. I want to get up and leave, both of us should get the fuck out. Smitty has taken off his shirt, his sunken chest and white-paste torso give off a smell like the flame on a stove. The two men have tied the girl’s ankles and wrists with extension cords. They turn her over. Veronica turns and kisses me. I feel nothing. I open my mouth and she’s inside it but I’m not there. I feel like I’m in the corner of the room watching the three of us. Veronica takes off my shirt and throws it to the floor. She pulls my undershirt over my head then twists it tightly so it’s thin, long, and taut like rope. She wraps it around my neck from behind, pulls me to her, and kisses me again. I look down at the hair on my chest and notice it’s about the same amount that Smitty has. He’s watching me. He took his hands off Veronica and though his head is facing the screen, his eyes are on us. Veronica’s skin is white like cream or fancy china or snow before it gets wet. I hate ELO and will despise them forever. The cult has members of all ages and their main focus apart from the cultivation of personal power . . . Wait . . . that’s what Veronica said about witchcraft. It’s all witchcraft. All of them witches. Who said that? Yes. Their main focus apart from the cultivation of personal power was sex, perverted sex, in groups, in rituals, on an altar, in a tunnel, in the woods, or in a church-like setup in someone’s house or basement—best of all would be in a real church if they could find one. Gregory and Emil scared me when they said these things. They said that dogs howled from deep in the woods, they were property of the cult, and they would be sacrificed on certain holidays, not holy days but unholy days. The day after Christmas, I think Emil said. He said they did things to kids too. Smitty was standing near the screen and part of the movie was showing on him. It was the top of the girl’s head and it was almost directly on top of Smitty’s head like a double exposure. She was like a toy, like a doll in the hands of the two men. Veronica put my hand under her skirt where she had rolled down the pantie part of her stocking and I felt her for the first time. Smitty lit a cigarette and something smelled like ammonia. I think I was hard but I was so scared. I was convinced people were coming and once I was unconscious they would put me in a sack, like a mailman’s sack, and take me. Take us. She didn’t know, did she? She couldn’t be a part of it. The girl in the movie looked like she was screaming in pain. Smitty was sniffing from a little dark brown bottle. It looked like a bottle of iodine. He was only wearing underwear now and was touching himself with his head still turned away but his eyes right on us. Veronica was warm between her legs, she was wet between her legs, and I didn’t love her now. Not here. I don’t think she loved me. Her stockings made me feel sorry for her. Is that the same as pity? Is pity the same as compassion? Did her mom buy her the stockings? She brought my fingers inside her and pretended to like what I was doing. Okay . . . now I understood. She was acting. This was a performance for Smitty, that’s what he was paying for. His legs are so thin he must have some kind of disease. I look in her eyes but it’s not Veronica. She is the role she’s been hired to play. I get it. So am I me? This is a better explanation of Veronica’s motives, much better than her being a cult recruiter. But we have proven that she is a witch and has a connection to that underworld. The movie is over. I won’t say how it ended. It’s too repugnant. Criminal. The music is adding to my illness, the harmonies calculated to unnerve me. Veronica is naked now. Smitty’s hand in his shorts moves faster. I’ve never been with a completely naked woman before. Girl. I am a late bloomer but the hair on my chest is almost the same as Smitty’s. Stay awake, don’t pass out. My pants are being pulled down. Veronica took them off me. She tightens the shirt that’s twirled around my neck. It doesn’t hurt and I’m not choking. It’s just tight. The wheels of the projector are still spinning but there’s no image, only dirty white light. Now I don’t see Smitty. I don’t know where he is. Veronica lies back on the bed and pulls me on top of her using the noose that’s around my throat. She tightens it some more and I feel the pressure but I’m not choking. Will this be how they bring me under? Gizzy told Emil that the cult killed a baby that a junkie woman gave them in exchange for a week’s worth of heroin. He said they killed the baby with a silver dagger at midnight before or after Good Friday the thirteenth. Gizzy said they cut her (the baby was a girl) from the vagina to the center of her throat and the leader—the king or high priest—ate something out of the baby’s guts. Veronica bites my neck and I think I feel Smitty’s breath behind my head. Like sour milk and onions. The little bottle smells like ammonia. Veronica shifts her weight, I am inside her and no longer a virgin. I can imagine how wonderful this feels. I can imagine it but I can’t actually feel it. I feel something but it’s not pleasure. I feel pressure and friction, I feel moisture and heat. How old was the girl in the movie? Was that her first time? Was it her first movie? My legs are thin but not as thin as Smitty’s. I’m forgetting to do something. I’ve forgotten something. Smitty’s hand is the claw of a cannibal bird. Veronica turns her head away from me. In profile she looks much younger, like a junior high class photograph. Did I see that picture? There’s something I should be doing or said that I would do, what is it? If Smitty is going to stab me he should do it now while my head is buried in Veronica’s shoulder. I can smell her hair now. I wasn’t able to smell anything coming off her body until now. It’s the one comforting thing. Because everything else is foreign and strange, even the sounds she makes are not hers. They belong to the character. Let’s not forget that she is acting. We are almost finished. She will get dressed and be paid and we will go. I hope Veronica and I will start over from scratch. Not this, not what we’re doing this instant, but all of it, our whole friendship. Like none of today had ever happened. How much will he pay her? Is he paying me? Smitty is wiping himself with a napkin which he then balls up and tosses on the floor. What did they pay the girl in the warehouse? Smitty has backed away, retreated into a chair to get dressed. He’s drinking his drink and looks tired. Veronica has picked up on this. She holds me tight. Something shudders through her like a sob. She releases the shirt from my throat. We both wear the same runic symbols around our necks. “Let’s get dressed,” she whispers in my ear like a conspirator. Smitty coughs and shuts off the projector. The room goes dark but little streams of light sneak in through the window shades and I search for our clothes. I hand Veronica her shirt and stockings but she’s not looking at me. Smitty is almost dressed and stares at the floor. The record hits its last grooves and it’s too quiet in the dim room. My underwear is ripped. Not from today, but because it’s a very old pair. Smitty lights a cigarette and turns on a lamp. I’m not afraid anymore.