8
Needless to say, the kitchen was pink, but a lighter pink. Berbie doll pink. The large windows admitted a lot of light, and Rupert thought maybe the room had been much pinker, but had been faded by the sun—just like the rest of Florida, and everything in general, heading steadily into a state of extreme decline. Whatever the case, the color was a little less traumatic.
“Hey,” Rupert started as Jesus opened a pantry door and leaned in. “What the hell was all that?”
“Which part?”
The incredulity on Rupert’s face surpassed the average expression and Jesus was impressed.
“Well,” Jesus began. “I’m not sure, but rumor has it that MeeMaw is Bill’s dead grandmother and she used to run a sex/head shop called the Hump ‘n’ High. As a kid, Bill was in charge of the sex toy inventory—”
“Hence the nickname.” Rupert nods.
“Yeah. Don’t ever call him ‘Bildo.’”
“Ahhh yeah, I get it.” Rupert remembered the name—SIKildo Industries. “The name of the organization.”
“Yeah, he hates it. She even capitalized her name and lowercased the ‘ildo.’ That’s some cold shit.”
“Hard to find colder shit.”
“Simón. Anyway, whenever he screwed up, MeeMaw would beat him about the head with that sparkly pink dildo, calling him Bildo and other stuff.”
“That’s pretty messed up.”
Jesus nodded. There was a lull in the conversation as Jesus dug through a wooden crate in the pantry.
“Whose job is it to spray paint everything pink that’s not already pink?” Rupert had to ask.
“Guess.”
“Bildo.”
“Bingo.”
“Jesus,” Rupert began again.
Jesus pulled his head out of the pantry long enough to give Rupert his full attention.
“Yes, Mr. Questions?”
Rupert hesitated.
“Jesus . . . what’s cooncunt oil?”
Jesus leaned back in and continued rummaging through the crate. “I guess they don’t have that up north. Cooncunt oil is the greasy secretion extracted from the vaginas of Florida’s diurnal raccoons. Well, not the vaginas, but that area; I don’t know. I’m not a cooncunt oil expert.”
It was quiet for a long time.
Then Jesus continued: “No, I don’t know how it’s extracted. No, I don’t know what they do with the raccoons afterwards. No, I don’t know if it’s cruelty free.” Jesus went on, still in the pantry. He then emerged with two handfuls of sustainable, recycled shopping bags. “But I do know that it’s non-toxic and latex-safe.”
“Good to know. I was afraid it was something racist.”
“In Florida?” Jesus said. “Racist? Nigga, please.”
“Nigga’s bigga, Beaner.”
“Point taken.”
Rupert liked this easy-going, unoffended chemistry between reasonable people who knew a thing or two. Though, “reasonable” and knowing anything was relative. He’d take it.
Jesus went on: “So, he oils it for two purposes, as far as I can tell: Number One, to preserve the thing, ‘cause it must be at least twenty years old, and Number Two—and this is only speculation based on regular observation—”
“You’re very articulate.”
“You’re pushing it. I got my BA, motherfucker. He does it to appease the spirit of MeeMaw so that she won’t listen to Fulva and rape him in his dreams.”
Rupert stared at Jesus.
“Sidenote: Bill thinks Fulva has magical powers and can communicate with MeeMaw without the Whackin’ Dick totem, and is thus able to control his dreams.”
“So,” Rupert said. “Bill is afraid his dead grandmother will fuck him stupid with a wide array of dildos in his dreams if he doesn’t behave and listen to Fulva.”
“Yes.”
“That is unfortunate for Bill.”
“Bill’s an unfortunate guy. Also, tip: don’t ever bring her the green one,” Jesus said, holding up the bags. “She hates it but won’t throw it away because it’s wasteful. Now, betcha a nickel that when we go back in there, Bill’s semi-comatose in a beanbag killing things on the VMS4.”
“Nope. You’ve got the inside advantage. But seriously—that’s fucked.”
“Fucked in the ass.”
“Like a priest in the rectory.”
“Like sailing the windward passage, ese.”
“Like spearing the chocolate starfish, my friend.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I got on a roll.”
“Damn.”
Rupert felt uncomfortably comfortable with Jesus, and so now became suspicious and nervous.
When they returned with the shopping bags, Bill was shaking and weeping in a large beanbag chair in front of the VMS4. Somehow, Rupert didn’t think playing a few levels on the Virtual Murder Station during what appeared to be a psychotic break was the best idea ever, but he supposed everyone had their comfort activity. Right now, his comfort activity would be to get the fuck away from these people. He saw Fulva’s meditation mat was empty. Now that he could see behind it, he saw a small shrine erected with bowls of egg-shaped vibrators, burning incense, and a large framed picture of a person whose features were hard to make out—a disturbing, rubbery-looking, androgynous face, but blurry and distorted, not as if there had been a problem with the camera, but a problem with the subject. He elbowed Jesus and gestured to it.
Jesus looked at Rupert, then at the photo, then looked away quickly and drew in a quick breath through his teeth.
“Nope. Don’t ask.”
“Well, now I have to.”
Jesus sighed and his entire demeanor fell to a defeated slump. “Derek Peterson.”
“Holy shit. I don’t know who that is.”
Jesus pointed to the stack of books Rupert had noticed on the way in.
“I still don’t know who that is.”
Jesus pointed to the couch. “Sit.”
It seemed like sound advice, so, despite not wanting to touch the couch, Rupert sat. Jesus sat on the other end, sighed again, and gathered his thoughts. He took off his sunglasses and pushed his bandana up, just a bit. This was the first and last time Rupert ever saw his eyes, which were green, like the bandana.
“This is the legend, as I’ve heard it,” Jesus said.
“An actual legend, huh?”
“Once upon a time, there was this guy—”
“Peterson.”
“No. Not exactly,” Jesus said. “Don’t interrupt . . . there was this guy. He was physically a big guy, but emotionally, very small. He was part of a group of creative types who inwardly and rightfully judged their own work inferior to the work of better creatives, so they called themselves “fringe,” formed their own clique, and produced and consumed each others’ work, despite the fact that they weren’t very good.”
“Sounds like a circle jerk.”
“Correct. Anyway, it’s one way people ignore their weaknesses and instead of strengthening them through adversity, they settle and play up their faults as virtues.”
“That’s very astute.”
“Well, that’s just one way. A social way. Then there’s another way. An anti-social way, and this guy indulged in that as well. He would feed his emaciated ego by selecting individuals whom he would spend a tremendous amount of time and energy on, making them feel very special and somehow elevated, even above the circles in which he generally ran. He would do this over an extraordinary length of time, because the more thoroughly he had his victim hooked, the greater the payoff.”
“Peterson?”
“Shut it. No, not Peters—just let me finish.”
Rupert held his hands up and mime-zippered his mouth shut.
“He did this when his self-loathing got to be too much, so every few years. It was a lot of work. He’d select them, befriend them, and bring them to the pinnacle of their own self-esteem, pull them so close, it seemed only a membrane separated them; as if they were twins of the same womb—building them up and up and up, and then, when the time was right, and he felt he was about to disappear into the void of his own sense of nothingness, instead of losing himself in that void, he’d throw them in instead. He would abruptly swing to the opposite end of the spectrum, degrading them, telling them how terrible, worthless, and downright malevolent they were.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Yes, it is. Like, gaslighting, except not over time—just one fell swoop.”
“A gas explosion.”
“Precisely. Anyway, it would psychologically and emotionally wreck his victim—the pain of that kind of betrayal is palpable. You can almost touch it. And he would consume it till his ego was big, and fat—a disgusting, corpulent, cancerous mass, which he fed till it might burst. He reveled in that power, and it would last him a couple years until, incapable of regularly feeding his ego in a healthy, nondestructive way, he would wither again and go in search of a new victim.”
“What the fuck—?”
“Right?”
“No. What the fuck does this have to do with Derek Peterson?”
“Getting to that. So, his last victim was his worst—he’d really outdone himself on that one, and when he let the boot drop, the pain and confusion was so extreme, so delicious, he did feed until he burst. Perhaps he underestimated the degree of damage he’d inflicted this time, but he fed as if it were like any other, until it was too much, like accidentally snorting heroin instead of the cocaine you think you’re putting up your nose.”
“He . . . actually burst . . . ?”
Jesus gave Rupert a look, like: Come on, man.
Rupert shrugged.
“No. First, he dissociated. His identity winked out of existence and he had no memory, no coherent thought, no idea what to do, and no idea where he was. He didn’t know who he was. But soon, that dissipated—he came back to himself, but he felt different. He felt as low as he’d ever felt when he reached what he’d thought was his lowest, but leagues beneath that. It was like floating in the infinite space of the bottomless pit, the fall of which you know will never end, and the hope of climbing back up entirely absent.”
“The abyss.”
“Some say,” Jesus agreed. “He was empty, and not in the good, Buddhist way of being “empty.” And he intuited that, no matter what he did from this point on, he could never come back from this. He would never feel whole again. Then, the nightmare. He turned around and there was Derek Peterson.”
“What? Where’d he come from?”
“Man, he came from inside this guy—this was the ego this guy had been feeding and nurturing through the pain of other people, all those years, popped right out of his revolting psyche and was now loose, running amok.”
Rupert stared at Jesus. “Then what . . . ?”
“What do you mean, then what? That’s it. That’s the legend.”
“But . . . who was that guy? The sociopath?”
“No one remembers.”
“What happened to him?”
“Lived out his life in obscurity with his group of mediocre underachievers.”
“That doesn’t seem fair. Seems like he got off scot free.”
“Oh no, he didn’t. Inside, every minute of every day was plagued with self-hatred and suicidal ideation.”
Well, that sounds familiar. Rupert frowned.
“Why didn’t he just do it, then, if it was so bad?”
Jesus smiled and shook his head. “Because his worthlessness would always be a fraction of a degree stronger. Ultimately, he was a coward. He couldn’t even gather enough internal fortitude to save himself by ending it. Trust me—he didn’t win that one.”
Rupert nodded. “What happened to Peterson?”
“He is a physical presence now, on this plane of existence, and an embodiment of severe psychological derangement, adept at charming the weak, and acts of destruction of unparalleled proportions. Obviously, he took to writing books.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Story goes, he spent the ensuing years doing time in prison and brothels, which he considered identical. He also rides the Galloping Horse.”
“What?”
“Scag.”
“What?”
“Heroin, man.”
“You forget, I just got here today.”
“True. Anyway, Fulva sells it to him half price in exchange for . . . services. Comes by here on occasion, you know, when Bill’s off cookin’ in one of The Gorge (Fine Men’s Clothing)’s shitters. Gets high, fucks Fulva flat, and then lounges around the room naked shooting Dooley and drinking Ting—”
“The orange-flavored drink originally designed for astronauts?”
“—you got it . . . lecturing everyone on the ins and outs of the Pennsylvania penal system between bouts with Fulva, which . . . ” Jesus leans forward and lowers his voice to a whisper. “He does not seem to enjoy.”
Rupert smiled. “How do you know?”
“Calls it ‘walking the beaver ditch.’ I see him leaving sometimes. I won’t look directly at him—not at his face—but he looks like a broken man after a visit to Segue-La.”
“Why not his face?”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Know what? What he looks like?” Rupert pointed over his shoulder in the direction of the photo on Fulva’s Peterson altar. “But it’s right there, how could you not know?”
“I’ve never looked directly at that picture and I never will. And if you’re smart, you’ll forget what you saw.”
Oddly enough, Rupert had already forgotten what he’d seen. Tempted to turn around and refresh his memory, Jesus’s vague warning checked him.
“Why?”
“From what I’ve heard, Derek Peterson doesn’t have his own face.”
“He doesn’t look like the guy he came from?”
“Apparently not. I understand that whomever looks upon the face of Derek Peterson sees not Derek Peterson, but a reflection of their own worst nature.”
“Like a warning? Like—”
“Like the inscription on a gravestone—beware, friends, as you pass by, as you are now so once was I . . . ?”
“That’s a Metoollica song.”
“It’s both. But, yes. And no. You could read it like that, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t intend it that way. More like, ‘Look at what you are, you scumbag motherfucker. You should kill yourself.’”
“Hmm. Wait, how does Fulva . . . ?”
Jesus heaved a final sigh.
“This is why I don’t fuck with Fulva. Fulva has been known to remark on occasion, when Bill isn’t around, that fucking Derek Peterson is like fucking a massive, masculine version of herself. And she loves it.”
“She just sees her own face . . . ?”
“Unadulterated.”
“I think that’s the most fucked up part of this story.”
“Agreed.”
“That was a long story. How long have we—?”
Fulva sprang out of a back room, startling both Jesus and Rupert. She had changed into a new pair of yoga pants which featured Derek Peterson’s shapeless face screen-printed over the crotch, from which both Rupert and Jesus averted their eyes. She also wore a superfluous pink feather boa.
Jesus leaned up to Rupert to whisper: “He also has a line of yoga pants for women. It’s called Little Girl.
“Time to go shopping!” Fulva squelched. “Jesus, get back behind the FFG and sell some goddamn tickets. Rupie, come with me.”
Sock it to me...