CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

 

 

Dusk had settled in a bit, the tired day now ready to slip into something more comfortable, as Trixie rapped her knuckles on Samuel’s front door. Across the street in Graves Park, two homeless men huddled around a weak fire. Undernourished trees surrounded them like scabrous beggars. Broken bottles shimmered across the balding grass. A child’s tennis shoe was wedged within a row of crispy brown bushes, protruding from the dirt. The neighborhood was otherwise deserted, at least to the naked eye. Only Sweetville could manage to be so backwards and chilly on a summer night.

Trixie was insufferably cold. She wished she had remembered at least a light jacket. The crop-cut tee that hugged her body had not been the greatest choice after all. A pair of headphones caressed her neck, sending a plastic tendril down to connect with her Walkman. Insulated music was a great distraction on the bus ride over, but did not make for much of a scarf. At least she had found the sense to wear a warm pair of jeans, though the open-toed sandals more or less cancelled that out.

She waited a few seconds then knocked again, this time more assertive. Loud footsteps from beyond the door, a thump, a mild crash and something breaking, followed by a bout of muffled cursing. A small, stocky man with a bulbous maroon nose and the unfortunate beginnings of male-pattern baldness answered the door. He could have been any age, from any era. A nobody set to blend in to the world unnoticed. The generic, almost pleasant scent of alcohol crept through his teeth, seeped from his lips. Once that effect had worn off, the overpowering stench of seafood and tooth rot came out to party. Trixie started to second-guess her desire to confront The Angelghoul. Even without the halitosis force field, the presence of a chain lock prevented her from shoving her way in.

“Yeah, what d’ya want?” Bulbous Nose sneered at her. He looked like he had been practicing a few intimidation tactics of his own but hadn’t quite gotten the hang of them.

Trixie felt he was more of a jerk-off than a threat. This guy had a lot of work to do before he would be capable of scaring her away. After all, she had nothing left to lose anymore.

She leaned back to double check the apartment number. “Do I have the right place?” she asked.

“Dunno. Depends on what you’re looking for.”

Trixie wrinkled her face into the toughest expression she could manage. “I need to see The Angelghoul.”

Without breaking eye contact, Bulbous Nose squirted a stream of dark spittle through the crack in the door. The salivary slug landed centimeters from Trixie’s feet. Her toes curled as if it were about to sprout legs and start inching its way toward her. “Can’t,” he said, picking at his teeth with a long, grimy pinky nail. “S’busy.”

“I’m not a cop or anything.”

He chortled. A string of goo trickled from his nose like a snot stalactite.

“Wasn’t really worried about that, honey pie. Pigs don’t usually bother making their way down to this side of town.” His eyes wandered, swallowing her body. His failed attempt at a subtle glance at her breasts caused an eruption of gooseflesh on her exposed arms. “Even when they do, they don’t usually look like you.”

“Well, I still need to see him. It’s important. I don’t need any Candy or anything. I just need to talk to him. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

Bulbous Nose snorted up a fresh patch of mucous and swallowed it like precious sustenance. He stared at her for a moment, successfully creating the effect commonly known as awkward silence. Then, “Maybe later. Come back…Thursday. Yeah.” The door slammed. The sound rippled along the street like it was following an invisible bouncing ball.

“Shit!” Trixie plopped down onto the steps. She paused before realizing that today was Thursday. Had he meant next Thursday? It had taken her far too much trouble to track down The Angelghoul’s home. Revisiting old haunts and crevices of the city that were best avoided. Speaking with sketchy souls that controlled the keys to crucial information. Encounters with people she hadn’t seen in years. Encounters that left her owing far too many favors, ones she would never be willing to repay. She couldn’t give up so easily.

The chill of the concrete seeped through the fabric of her jeans, but she decided to wait for a moment regardless, try to think of a way she could convince that ugly toad to let her see Samuel. She had to get in, had to confront that bastard for triggering her relationship’s end. He wasn’t worthy of wielding that power. It was meant to be her truth to tell, and it would have been told.

Eventually.

She had almost been ready, the moment almost ripe, but The Angelghoul had ruined everything.

And Cypress. That Wonder Bread whore would need to be confronted next, with no interruptions. Claws out, the rules of a fair fight torn to shreds and burned. Maybe she was even here now. That would be perfect. A twofer. Trixie wondered what Christopher had ever seen in a girl like Cypress, but then she remembered that Christopher was, after all, a guy.

She pulled her headphones back over her ears and immersed herself in music for a few minutes while contemplating her next move. Lush’s “Bitter” vibrated with beautiful rage. She took out the tape mid-song and switched it with another. Christopher’s mix tape. A priceless artifact made with great care. She could not ignore it and let it waste away in her junk drawer any longer.

Though Trixie had not been initially enthralled by most of the music, she had memorized every note and lyric she could discern over the following weeks, treating each song like a sacred mantra. She knew the music meant the world to Christopher, so she had found her own path to loving it as well. Some of it wasn’t so bad. A few songs were even a decent listen. Quicksand’s “Dine Alone” ended side A as the song cut off when the tape ran out. It was like a sexual act nearing climax that had suddenly been robbed of its orgasm.

She glanced over to Graves Park. The homeless men had left to find another desolate spot. Their hopeless fire had been doused, but not to Smokey the Bear’s standards. The frostbitten wind applied enough pressure to the trees that they seemed to dance a woodland jig. Dead leaves drifted and scattered, covering the ground in a patchwork quilt. Trixie thought about that brief period back in high school when her “secret” boyfriend Aron had brought her here, deep into the forested area, where the chances of another soul occupying the same space would have been highly unlikely. Armed with a few blankets and pillows, a six-pack of lukewarm beer, a condom and some smooth talk, Aron had taken her virginity, robbing her blind of any innocence she might have had left. That relationship had been only the first in a long line of stupid decisions. She chastised herself for a lifetime of repeat offenses.

Suddenly one of the trees in the park moved from its root, which Trixie initially shrugged off as her imagination getting away from her. The tree looked even shorter and skinnier than most of the other neglected plant life in the park. She got up from the staircase and took baby steps across the street to get a better look. Used condoms decorated the sidewalk like snails crushed during a rainstorm. Trixie felt another shock from her past and quickly shook it away.

After a few seconds, the tree moved closer, stepping into the beam cast by a failing streetlight. Trixie realized it wasn’t a tree after all. It was one of the Withering Wyldes, coming toward her whether she liked it or not.

It appeared to be dancing. A horrible, idiotic skipping-to-my-Lou that should have been relegated to a sparsely attended traveling sideshow. She strangely could not recall ever seeing one of them alone before, a deviation that seemed dangerous, similar to a rabid raccoon wandering suburbia in the daylight. She wondered if it felt the same about her, or if it even understood that it was, at least partially, still human.

The Withering Wylde—is it even okay to refer to just one? Trixie wondered—crept up to her on its tippy toes, its fingers held limp in front of it. It looked her up and down as if attempting to absorb her entire history in one glance. A small stack of pamphlets sprouted from a fanny pack clipped around its waist. It cocked its head at her, passed her a pamphlet, pulled a stapler from the fanny pack, attached another to a nearby utility pole without even so much as glancing at it and headed toward Samuel’s apartment.

Trixie did not like to litter but realized rampant rubbish was part of this neighborhood’s décor. She let the pamphlet slip from her fingers and quietly followed the Withering Wylde back to the stairs. It turned around as it reached the door and hissed at her, mumbling something in its indiscernible language. When Trixie showed no fear or intent of leaving, it ignored her and knocked. Its rubbery flesh against the wood sounded like a squid being beaten with a Louisville Slugger.

She patted her pockets for weapons that were not packed. Of course, as usual, she had nothing to protect herself. No shivs, no shanks, not even any trusty pepper spray. So stupid.

Bulbous Nose answered the knock. Without a word he released the chain lock and opened the door wide for his guest. The Withering Wylde glided in as if the ground beneath its feet was merely a formality.

Trixie took her chance and dashed past Bulbous Nose, elbowing him in the gut before he realized what had happened. She darted straight for the hallway and heard a shrill whistle behind her, Bulbous Nose doing his best attempt at an alert. But she was in, and she would damn well have her say.

The apartment was cramped, loaded with frayed and filthy furniture that you couldn’t pay someone to take away and donate to Goodwill. Barely acceptable enough for bonfire fodder. Trixie had seen closets that were bigger than the living room space—the Zane Brothers’ multiple walk-in wardrobes didn’t count, though. That would just be unfair. A man was sprawled on the floor near a dilapidated loveseat, the stains beneath him like a chalk outline formed from sweat and other bodily fluids. Trixie wasn’t sure if the man was a corpse or just in a junked-out funk. The flies that circled his body didn’t help matters much.

A rickety staircase sat a few steps from the front door. Trixie took advantage of her long legs and sprinted up the stairs two at a time. The wood screamed beneath her feet, begging her to stop. At the top was a hallway blanketed in a dull haze that seemed to grow darker the farther she looked. She entered the first room to her right and slammed the door behind her.

She was not expecting to end up in an abattoir’s toolshed.

Every sharp utensil and instrument of slaughter imaginable hung from the ceiling and walls like deadly decorations. From marrow spoons to meat hooks, some gleamed so brightly that Trixie could have done her makeup in their reflections. Others were old, dull and rusty—at least she hoped it was rust. The effluvia in the room was like a mix of loose change, barbecue residue and disinfectants. A table sat in the far corner. It looked as though someone had spilled a bowl of fruit punch on both its surface and the surrounding walls. White plastic buckets filled with a strange, clear gel were labeled with marker and masking tape as Numbing Agent.

Without looking, Trixie grabbed the tool nearest to her and left the room as quickly as her body allowed. She could hear Bulbous Nose oafishly ascending the stairs. She could barely see two feet in front of her, but she needed to keep moving. There was only one direction to go: down the hallway into darkness.

She felt against the wall until her fingers found another door. She flung it open. The light inside was shockingly bright. A small bedroom with no furniture and a kitchenette off to the side. A woman in a pantsuit, her hair pulled tightly back, turned around and glared at her. She held a butcher knife, wet with visceral juices.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked. She stared at Trixie with cold, dead, fishlike eyes. Trixie caught a glimpse of her cutting board on the counter. Shining, jiggling organs. Something that looked like, but couldn’t possibly have been, a navel. Without a word, Trixie slammed the door.

A few steps further into the darkness of the hallway and she tripped on something. A crack, a bunched up rug, her own feet—she couldn’t be certain. She threw out her hands to catch herself and unwittingly dropped the weapon she had earlier procured. She heard it bang against the floor twice before it slid off into the black.

At the end of the hallway, a weak light emanated from the open doorway into the last room on the floor. It had to be the one she was looking for.

And it was.

Inside, Samuel Haines sat in a plastic folding chair with a TV tray in front of him. His face was glued to the television set, a small black-and-white machine long past its date of use that offered the only illumination in the room. There was movement somewhere in the faint light behind him.

Samuel’s mohawk was deflated. He was hunched over a ceramic plate, savoring small slivers of meat. It looked raw. Smelled fresh. His lips were smeared red with blood. He looked like a child experimenting with his mother’s lipstick.

In the time since Trixie’s truth had been revealed, during the long, late nights she had searched for Samuel’s apartment, she had asked around town to learn more about Eaters, especially The Angelghoul himself. Still, even with this knowledge, the sight of him partaking in his holy supper was repulsive.

Two tumorous knobs protruded from his back. Pus and blood drizzled out of dry cracks. Some of the fluids were fresh, others crusted and in dire need of medical attention. His failed wings. Word on the street was The Angelghoul had contracted the equivalent of an STD from one of his recent Taste Subjects. Judging by the way he looked, Trixie was ready to believe that rumor.

Samuel glared up at her, finally acknowledging her presence, annoyed with the interruption of his sacramental meal. He shook his head at her without lifting his face from the plate of meat and wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin. The effort barely made a difference in the mess on his face.

Bulbous Nose appeared in the doorway, shifting back and forth from left foot to right, ready to bounce Trixie if given the order. He was wheezing heavily from his flight up the stairs. Samuel attempted to wave him away.

“You’ve got a customer here,” Bulbous Nose said. “It’s one of them.”

“That’s fine, Rudy” Samuel said. “They can wait until I’m finished Eating. You should know how to deal with this already. Go make a wheatgrass smoothie for it or something. I don’t care.”

“But—”

“Do you want to continue to learn the ways of the divine or do you not?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry to have questioned your authority.”

Rudy attempted one last sneer at Trixie before leaving. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Pledges. What a headache,” Samuel said to himself before turning back to Trixie. “Yes?”

“You know why I’m here.”

“I assume it’s because you’ve decided to take me up on my offer. As you can see, though, my meal plan is stable for the time being. But we can reschedule. I’d be more than happy to accommodate.” His smile stretched and she could not tell where the deep red of his lips ended and the streaks of blood began.

“I know you’re not that big of an idiot.”

“Would you prefer to speak somewhere more private?”

“Like where? The bathroom? Seems like every room in this place is so tiny you could probably hear a mouse fart in the next room over.”

The Angelghoul stood up. Trixie could now see behind him the shape of a man leaning back on a chaise lounge that was ready to collapse at any moment. The man appeared to be breaths away from the end of his days.

“You were foolish to come here alone.”

Trixie lunged forward and snagged the steak knife from Samuel’s tray. She poked it in his direction.

“Stay the fuck away from me,” she said. “Not even one step closer or I swear I’ll gut you.”

Samuel held his hands in front of him and cringed in faux fear. “You know,” he said. “You’re a bit outnumbered here.”

“Remember that big hunk of man meat back at Club Club who almost kicked your ass into next year?” Trixie noticed the legitimate concern in Samuel’s eyes. “Yeah, that one. If he doesn’t get a phone call from me in thirty minutes, he’ll be here to finish what he started that night, and it won’t be fucking pretty.” It was an off-the-cuff bluff, but effective enough. She wished to God Mace was here backing her up. Even Steve would have been better than nothing.

The Angelghoul sat back down in his folding chair. “Well, go on,” he said. “Spit out whatever the hell it is you have to say to me. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Trixie ignored Samuel and met the gaze of the man behind him. There was something familiar about the face peering at her through the darkness, but her rational side refused to acknowledge it. The man on the chaise lounge made a failed attempt at a laugh that came out more like a weak snort.

“You two know each other?” Samuel asked.

“Thomas?” the man mumbled.

The name formed immense hands inside Trixie’s mind, grabbed her, shook her and choked her, just like this man’s real hands once had.

Five years.

Five years had passed, and it looked as if he had aged a full lifetime and then some. His receding hairline had become a crescent moon of fuzz at the far back of his head. Bags hung under his eyes as if they were designed to catch tears to be transferred to a public well for future consumption. His body had morphed from average build with optional beer gut into a shapeless blob, someone who had given up caring about appearances long ago. Skin bronzed by jaundice. He smelled of urine, garlic and badly aged cheese.

Portions of his flesh had been removed from the fat of his upper arm. The slices formed an almost pitchfork-like pattern. Some of the same clear gel Trixie had seen in the first room coated his wounds.

“Well, oil me up and fuck me with a cucumber. It’s really you, isn’t it?” the man asked, his voice laced with shrapnel, his expression almost pleased.

The steak knife slipped from Trixie’s hand.

“D-dad?”

“Sounds like you two have some catching up to do,” Samuel said. “Get Out of Jail Free card for me. We’ll talk later.” He dabbed the corners of his mouth with the napkin again, stood up and zipped out of the room. After a few seconds of fleeting footsteps, Trixie heard the front door slam. The Angelghoul, that chickenshit little bitch of a man, was suddenly the least of her current concerns.

“What in the hell are you doing here, Hank?”

Her father belched and shifted in the chaise to face her. It appeared to take every ounce of his strength.

“I should ask you the same thing.”

“None of your fucking business, really.”

Hank chuckled. “Ran out of options, I guess. Life’s a bitch that mugs you for your wallet.”

For perhaps the first time in Trixie’s life, she shared common ground with her father.

Hank looked at her with supreme disappointment. “Don’t know how I even managed to recognize you underneath all of this bullshit.” He waved his hands at her. “Decided to go full-blown queer, huh?”

Trixie suddenly felt sixteen again and weak all over, remembering why she hated that almost forgotten era of her life. She clenched her fists, ready to battle both the regression and the human cause of it.

“Ah, well. What the hell does it matter anyway? I guess a man can never really forget what his son looks like, even if his son now has titties.” Hank attempted to laugh again, but it came out as a barely controllable hack. “God damn. What do you think your mother would say about this?”

“Hank, you need to shut the fuck up. Now.”

Hank’s head bobbled. “Well, look who finally grew a pair. Or did you cut those off? Hows about you let your dear old Dad take a look.”

Trixie took a step forward and slapped her father across the face. No hesitation. Hank’s color swelled into a dark pink, and he patted his cheek with Play-Doh fingers.

“You know,” he said, “if I wasn’t so fucking fat and old right now, I’d make mincemeat out of you, you little, ungrateful son of a bitch.”

Trixie laughed, releasing fierce bellows like she was auditioning for a sitcom laugh track. “You’re a real peach, Hank. A complete joke. Why did I ever think for a minute you were capable of being a parent? Why was I even afraid of you?”

He had no answer.

“You’re just a pathetic pile of shit,” she continued. “I hope The Angelghoul gets even sicker from eating your rotten flesh, and that you catch something from him, too. I never want to see you again.”

“The way things have been going, I don’t imagine you will. But hey, there’ll be a decent chunk of change left over if Mr. Angeltool convinces me to go all the way with his little Eating project. You might as well come back and try to claim it when he’s done. He’s an honest businessman…I’ll give him that. Not like I’ve got anyone else to leave it to. Maybe you can buy yourself a brand new collection of porcelain fag dolls.”

Trixie had heard whispers about the amount of money The Angelghoul paid his Taste Subjects. If the rumors were truths, the money he was paying Hank could be life changing for her.

“No. Fuck your money. Fuck you. Not that you would, not that you even thought about it after I left home, but don’t come looking for me. Ever! Have a beautiful, lonely funeral.” Trixie left the room and headed for the front door.

Downstairs, she saw Rudy and the Withering Wylde exchanging cash and small plastic bags of pills. She exited the building in a rush and almost ran chest first into a familiar body.

The olive pea coat, the pork pie hat, the elevator shoes, the gaudy rings.

Kast.

The dwarf looked up at Trixie and smiled, his busted teeth and gingivitis-ridden gums shifting like the jaws of a goblin shark. He placed his rough hand upon hers. Even though it felt like he was wearing gloves made of reptile skin, it was a gentle, almost loving touch.

“Trixie, my dear,” he said. “So long since we last met. You’re looking so lovely, pet.”

“Wh-what… But how did you know—”

Kast squealed with delight. “Don’t be silly, my sweet. This is sheer serendipity, is it not? Have you thought about my offer? I’ve left more messages than I care to count. Surely you’ve received them, yes? I’ve been hoping to get a call from you. Why haven’t you come to see me yet?”

Sometimes the opportunities one wishes for require years of struggle to achieve. Other times the dominoes fall into place far too easily to be ignored.