Poopy Peanutz

The Winner: Epilogue

2008-02-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

Everything is dark, then everything is gray, then brighter and brighter still. Suddenly I feel enveloped in light and suddenly I can breathe again. I’m about to yell, but I can’t. I can’t, then suddenly I can and my voice turns into a scream; a bloody, hellish scream.

And then suddenly I’m awake. I don’t know where I am, but wherever it is, it’s hot and humid. My body is drenched in a hot sweat.

I look around to try and get my bearings. It looks like I’m in some sort of cave. Orange light flickers down at the end of it. I’m laying on a dirt floor. The air feels thick and tastes like carbon monoxide. I spit just to get the taste out of my mouth.

The more I’m conscious, the more things come back to me and the more confusing things are. Where am I? The last thing I remember is that I was tied to a bed, bleeding to death while Apple was feeding me my own cock. Oh shit! I quickly reach down between my legs. Wait. Glory hallelujah, my dick is still there. “It was just a dream!” I yell, relieved even though it was a pretty harrowing dream. I start to laugh at that revelation.

A voice from somewhere else in the cave yells, “Shut up.”

“Fuck you,” I yell back. I start to get up only to be yanked back down hard by neck. I hadn’t noticed the metal collar clasped around my throat. I feel around and find it’s attached to a chain that’s embedded into the rock.

“Where the hell am I?”

The orange light at the end of the cave suddenly flares up into a full on fireball and blast of hot air hits me. My skin feels like it’s tightening, like I’m being cooked alive, but not quite. I can now see the entire cave and I’m not just here with one other person. There must be about sixty of us in the cave, men, women, even a few children, all chained by our necks against the wall. We are all naked and covered in dirt and ash.

“Where the hell are you?” a voice booms from the flames. “Hell is where the hell you are, bitch!”

Then I hear cackling and the figure of a gangly black dude limps unscathed out of the inferno with his cane. He’s wearing a big red coat, a red fedora with a black feather poking out of the brim, and has a giant pentagram encrusted with diamonds hanging off his neck by a gold chain. The guy looks like some crazy, demonic seventies pimp.

Someone screams and he yells, “Somebody shut that bitch up!” he yells and the screaming stops. Everyone cowers away from him.

The demon pimp clears his throat. “Okay, so seein’ as you all new intakes here, let me introduce myself. I’m sure y’all heard of me before. I’m motherfuckin’ Satan. I’m da non-white Devil! I’m the Artist Formerly Known as The Prince of motherfuckin’ Darkness! That’s right…I’m the one in charge of this whole motherfucker, and when I talk, j’all shut the FUCK UP!”

Pimp Satan smacks the closet person to him with his cane, hard enough to break his head open and splatter the guy’s brains across the cave. The guy falls dead, and Satan pokes his body with the cane. “Get the fuck back in line, ho!” and the guy slowly gets back to his feet, even though his skull his caved in. Guess you can’t die in the afterlife. Satan starts pacing slowly down the cave.

“Maybe some of j’all be wonderin’ how the fuck you got here! Maybe some of j’all be sayin’ ‘oh, but I was a good person, I don’t deserve to be up in dis place’. Doan come to me wit dat bullshit! I doan wanna hear any of it! All I know is dat j’all led some wicked ass lives and now I got yo ass fo’ all eternity!”

He raises his cane like he’s gonna hit some terrified blonde woman, but he holds back and laughs and pats her on her bare shoulder. “Jus’ fuckin’ wit you. Nice titties by the way. I’ll get ‘atcha later, white bitch…”

Satan continues on, “Lemme clear up another misconception a lot of motherfuckers have when they come down here; that Hell be some ‘spiritual state’ or ‘absence of God’ or some bullshit like dat. Sorry bitches! Hell is straight up fire an’ brimstone and motherfuckin’ crows pickin’ at yo motherfuckin’ guts like they chitlins an’ sardines every motherfuckin’ day. And if you think yo mind is goan git used to it, that at some point all dis sufferin’ will become routine and it won’t suck so bad after awhile, then think again you faggot-ass hoes! I’ll hook you up with a hundred years of bliss and contentment and love just so it feels scary and fucked up again when I throw you back in the rotation! Make no mistake, we some seriously fucked up niggas up in dis place!” he holds up his blinged out pentagram. “See dis? That means I’m the OG of motherfuckin’ evil! Da Godfather of all darkness up in here! Recognize!”

I can’t help it anymore. I start cracking up.

“WHO THE FUCK BE LAUGHIN’?” Satan screams. “WHO THE FUCK THINK IT’S FUNNY WHEN I’M DEEP IN MY FLOW?”

Ever had one of those moments where you just can stop laughing no matter how much you want to? Well, I’m in the middle of one of those moments. Satan shuffles down the cave to where I am at and yells in my face, “WHAT’S SO MOTHERFUCKIN’ FUNNY, YOU BITCH ASS CRACKER?”

“Nothin’,” I say through a stupid grin I just can’t get rid of.

He raises his cane, “Spit that shit, else you goan be spittin’ up yo teeth!”

“It’s really nothing,” I say, still giggling. “I just never thought Satan would look like Flavor Flav…”

Satan’s face lightens up and he lowers his cane. “You pretty funny for a white boy,” he says. “Sheeeit, you goddamn hilarious. You wanna see somethin’ else that’s funny?”

Suddenly, it feels like I’ve been kicked in the balls with a steel toed-boot. I fall over on my side as cold pain shudders through my body. I look down and my cock is split open down the center, like someone stuck an M-80 in my pisshole and lit it. The motherfucker made my penis explode!

“Fuck, not again…” I moan.

“Naw, naw. That ain’t the funny part. Check dis out,” Satan says. Suddenly the pain is gone. I look down and the splattered gore that was my genitals is shifting together, like my dick is reconstituting itself. After just a few seconds, the skin has healed together and my schlong looks good as new and the pain is gone.

Then just as I’m feeling relieved that I’ve been completely healed, it fucking explodes again. The intense pain is making me retch, even though there is absolutely nothing in my stomach to vomit up.

Satan cackles. “That’s da shit right there! What, you doan think dat’s funny? I cuz I think it be fuckin’ hilarious! Goddamn, losin’ yo dick is how you got here in da first place, ain’t it?,” he pokes me with his cane, “By the way, glad to have you here you Poopy motherfucker, cuz of everybody in here today, you deserve to be in here the most!” Ghetto Satan shuffles on down the cave.

“I could fuck with that white boy’s pencil dick all day, but we got shit to do today. All y’all bitches get up!”

The chains attaching us to the stone suddenly break off, freeing us from the stone. One guy at the end tries to run away, but Satan points his cane at him and his head explodes. “Ain’t no escapin’ here! Get the fuck back in line!” The headless body stumbles around before someone pulls him into an empty spot.

“Now let’s get goin’! That way motherfuckers! Step!”

I groan and wonder how I’m gonna be able to walk, but it looks like my dick has healed up and is whole again. My balls still give off a dull ache though. Wearily, I stand up as the two rows of naked people start to walk nervously out of the cave.

Outside is nothing but another huge, subterranean cave. There’s the requisite lava and machinery that is probably only there to add to our misery. We get marched by a pit where some woman and a child are being buried alive by some things that look like zombies. There are people hanging from the walls crucified upside down. On the far end of the cave, there’s something that looks like a hill, but on closer inspection, it’s actually a pile of dead bodies. Mean looking billy goats with three horns munch tear chunks off the corpses.

“Don’t be dawdlin’ to look at da sites, motherfuckers,” Satan says behind us. “You gonna gave all eternity to dwell on dis shit.”

I shuffle on with the rest of the people. I’m sore and depressed, not only that I’m in Hell (personally, I hadn’t believed there actually was afterlife which is probably why I’m here) but that besides Satan being some crackhead pimp type, it’s as cliché as a heavy metal album cover.

We walk over some burning rocks which singe the soles of our feet, when Satan yells at us, “Hold on. Y’all motherfuckers stop up there!”

I really wished he hadn’t told us to stop while we were walking on hot coals, but I guess that’s the point of Hell. I look behind us and Satan is talking to some guy wearing white robes. They’re talking heatedly to each other, then they start walking down the rows of people. The man in white stops and points right at me, “This one…”

Satan slams his cane down on the coals, sending cinders up in the air. “This motherfucker? Naw, naw, there’s gotta be a mistake…”

“Yeah, Lucifer, this is the one,” the man in white says. “What can I say? We fucked up. You know what happens when someone forgets to refresh the database…”

“Refresh the motherfuckin’ database? You work for Heaven motherfucka! Can’t you afford some goddamn software that works?”

The man in the white shrugs, “You’d think. But it’s part of the indulgence deal we made with Bill Gates that we have to use Microsoft products.”

“But I had some fucked up shit in store for this smart ass whiteboy!”

“What can I say? It comes from the top. I gotta get him upstairs, pronto.”

Satan growls, then he looks at me and casts a sinister grin. “Yeah, well I bet yo dumb ass will reincarnate or some shit, then I’ll get another swipe at you. Take it easy, white bitch!”

My penis explodes again and I fall on the hot coals and I don’t know what hurts more, my crotch or my skin frying against the rocks.

“Fuck Satan, was that really necessary?” he snaps his finger and my dick reconstitutes itself again. I hope that Ghetto Satan doesn’t take the opportunity to explode it again. The man in white holds his hand out to me, “Here Poopy, get up. Let’s get outta here.”

Even though my dick is whole again, I still have the burns from where my skin touched the coals. I stumble blindly in pain as he leads me to a place where the rocks aren’t so hot. He pulls a second white robe out of his white robe, “Put this on and come with me.”

He leads me into another cave, this one lit with torches that look like they’re made of human skulls. At the end of it is something that looks like an escalator, flanked by two enormous hellhounds who are fighting over what looks like a severed human leg. As we approach, they drop the leg and start growling at us. The man in white raises his hand, “Relax guys, he’s with me. It was cleared upstairs.”

The hellhounds give us a single, blood curdling bark before returning to their leg. We get on the escalator, which looks like it goes up forever. I don’t feel completely safe until the bottom of escalator is completely out of sight.

“Jesus Christ, thank you for getting me the fuck out of that place!”

“You’re welcome, but I’m not JC,” he puts his hand out. “I’m Cassius; a minor martyr from the late Roman Empire. You can call me Caz. By the way, sorry about the mix up there, but like I was saying to Lucifer, there was a fuck up with the database so you got stuck in the wrong spot in the initial placement. It usually only happens to deathbed converts, or people who convert just prior to being executed, and we figure a day or two in Hell while it gets sorted out is fine for those people. However, you came to the Lord over a year before your death, so this is really inexcusable.”

“Don’t worry,” I say, “It’s cool. Shit, I didn’t even realize I was born again Christian.”

“Yeah, you were,” Caz says. “Our records indicate that you gave your life to the Lord in the presence of your mother in a room at a disreputable motel when your life was at its darkest. It was almost a textbook conversion. We were thinking of adding it to our archives.”

I’m trying to think of when I’d ever believed it Jesus besides a for a little bit when I was a dumb little kid. Then I remember. “Wait, you mean that shit where I was mocking my mother counted as giving my life to Christ?”

He shrugs. “You said the words didn’t you?”

“I did, but it’s not exactly like I was sincerely giving my life to Christ or anything. And it’s not like I stopped sinning. I mean, I cheated on Apple with tons of streetwalkers when I was in Florida.”

“That’s okay, after you convert you could stomp on puppies and you get instantly forgiven.” Caz says.

“What if I stomped on puppies before I converted?”

“That gets forgiven after you become converted. It’s a good deal, and besides, if we only let people who were sincerely in their beliefs and pure in morality into Heaven, the place would be fucking empty.”

“Oh, don’t get wrong here. I’m not trying to talk you out of letting me into Heaven. I just thought it would be more complicated.”

“You’d be right not to, because just like Hell is a literal eternity of pain, Heaven is a literal paradise of unlimited pleasure and love.”

“Well damn, if I’d know the afterlife was going to be so ‘literal’ I would have converted to Islam. That way I’d get a literal seventy-two virgins.”

Caz leans over in says in a shushed voice, “Well, you actually do get some virgins when you go to Heaven. Just twenty though; that’s why we don’t advertise since we really can’t compete with Islam on that level.”

My eyes brighten up, “Twenty is fine by me. I can totally deal with twenty.”

“I’m also afraid that not all of them are really virgins. Some of them have been around the block quite a number of times. I actually think that’s better than just having all virgins. I mean, at least you get some variety. And besides, fucking virgins is overrated. You have to show them everything, where when you ball the slutty ones, they show a few things.”

“I totally agree,” I say. “Well damn then Caz, bring on the bitches.”

And I ride that escalator all the way up into celestial light until it envelops my entire body and being.

The Winner: The End?

2008-02-19T08:36:00.001-07:00

“Good afternoon. Account services. My name is Peter, how may I assist you?”

The voice on the other end of the headset has a heavy Brooklyn accent. “Well, Peter, how you can assist me is to tell me why I suddenly have a seventy dollar charge on my credit card statement from your company.”

I clear my throat and read from the script in front of me. “If you are referring to the bill for services for 69.95 from Hoffman Travel Services, it is our monthly membership charge for our service. Surely you received our information packet in the mail.”

“I vaguely remember receiving something from you people with some coupons for hotels and car rentals. I threw it out like the junk mail it is. You’re telling me you charge seventy dollars a month for that?”

“It is included as a service with the new Citibank Visa you opened on April 12th of this year,” I say. “The membership in Hoffman Travel Services is listed on paragraph thirty of the terms and conditions pamphlet you received with your card, clearly stating that you have up until a month after instatement of your card to decline being enrolled in the service.”

“Look, Peter. I signed up for a credit card, not some fucking travel club or whatever you are. And you will take this charge off my card…right…now.”

“Sir, profanity is not necessary…”

“The fuck it is. I don’t know anything about your club and have never used it so take it the fuck off my bill right fucking now you stupid fucking cunt.”

Stupid fucking cunt? Okay, I’ve tried to keep it civil up to this point. Really, I don’t care whether we refund this guy back his money since we end up doing it for about seventy percent of the people that call here. But he doesn’t have to be such an asshole about it.

“What did you just call me?”

“A stupid fucking cunt. Now take this charge off my card now. You’re lucky if I don’t sue you and you’re whole fucking company.”

Unfortunately, they have disabled the button to hang up on people on my phone console (probably because we get so many of these types of people we’d be hanging up on the majority of them) so instead I say, “Fuck you. I ain’t refunding shit until you apologize for calling me a cunt.”

“What the hell did you say to me?” the caller suddenly screams.

But I’m on a roll here. “I said apologize for calling me a cunt or not only am I not going to refund your money, I’m gonna sign you up for our platinum membership which is a hundred and fifty dollar charge recurring monthly, then I’ll flag your account for possible identity theft which will fuck with your credit rating, how do you like that?”

“You don’t have the balls you fuckin’ pissant,” the voice says. “Now put your supervisor on the phone so I can get this charge taken off and get you fired for fraud.”

“My supervisor is at lunch,” I lie. It looks like my supervisor Ray has actually been listening into my call. In fact, I see that fat fuck waddling from his office over to my cubicle after hearing all the commotion.

“What’s your name then, I’ll call back when he’s done with his lunch. Hell, I’ll call the president of your damn company.”

“My name is Peter. Peter Paulson you stupid piece of shit. Write it down so you don’t forget when you call them.”

“Oh, I won’t forget,” he sneers. “Where you live pussy? Maybe I’ll just show up there and kick your ass in person.”

“Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Come find me motherfucker. You sound really tough over the phone. So does my fucking mother.”

Ray has finally dragged his whole fat ass from down the hall. He yanks the headset off my head sticks it on his own. “Hello sir, my name is Ray, I’m the supervisor at this call center. What seems to be the problem?…Yes, yes, I apologize for his behavior…I will refund the membership fee immediately, the money should be back on your account within two to three days…no, you will not see any more charges from our company on your card…yes, I will be having a serious talk with Peter regarding his conduct on the phone…again, I apologize profusely for his behavior…have a good day sir…”

Profusely? For some reason, that word makes me laugh. Ray leans over so he can reach my computer. The sweat stains under his armpits are inches away from my face, so close I can practically smell the apeish odor of his bacteria. He punches in the reversal of charges on his account, then takes off my headset and places it on the desk. “Peter, can I talk with you for a minute.”

“For you, Ray, I’ve got five.”

Ray is pissed, but he’s trying to keep it bottled in. This is probably the tenth time he’s talked to me about cursing at the customers.

“Listen, Peter. I know that often the people that call in here are tempermental. But you can’t use swear words at them over the phone.”

“Why not?” I say. “You heard him. He was swearing at me.”

“I know he was, but…you still just can’t talk with people on the phone like that.”

“Whatever,” I say.

“Also, what did I tell you about covering up that tattoo on your face. Some of the ladies here have mentioned to me today.”

“Hey, it’s not a tattoo. It’s a disfigurement. Just like this is,” I say, waving my thumbless left hand in his face. “Of course, if you’ve got a problem with it, I could always go contact my lawyer.”

Ray growls. “Listen, why don’t you go take a fifteen minute break and cool off and when you come back, try not to swear at the people on the phone. Seriously.

I stand up and give him a pat on the shoulder. “You’re the boss, tons of fun. Be back in a few.” Then I head off to the break room, leaving Ray to stew.

On one level, this call center job is just as crappy as any other job I’ve ever had. It’s just as shitty except for the crucial difference that I can never get fired from this place. The government set me up with this job as part of my cover, as well as a thousand dollar a month stipend. They also provided me with a house to live in. Unfortunately, the house they gave me was seized by the DEA because it was being used as a meth lab. They assured me it was safe, but the place still stinks of chemicals no matter how much Glade I spray around the place.

It’s well after lunchtime, so there is no one inside the break room. Just me, the refrigerator, the television set to Judge Judy with the closed captioning on, and pile of empty thimbles of half and half and used plastic stirrer sticks next to the coffee maker since the low class trash they employ at this call center can’t even be bothered with tossing them into the trashcan just three feet away from the counter. The half-cup worth of scorched java in the carafe looks about as appealing as drinking hot dog piss, and I’ve got some change in my pocket so I decide to get a Dr. Pepper from the soda machine in the corner.

I walk up to it and dig through my pocket for the dollar worth of quarters I know is in there. I feel it, but I just can’t get it into my hand for some reason…no, I know the reason. I’m using my thumbless hand. It’s strange, but I often forget that it’s even missing. It’s that “phantom limb” syndrome, where the nerves still believe my hand is whole. I make that mistake all the time when I try to reach for stuff with my left hand. It’s the weirdest feeling, especially when it gets an itch. Well, at least I jerk off with my right hand. I don’t think I could get it up if I had to beat off using this scarred old flipper.

I finally get the coins out and drop them down the slot. I press the button Dr. Pepper button, but the LCD screen tells me to “please make another selection” so I end up just getting a Cherry Coke. I lean over to pick the plastic bottle out of the tray and when I stand up, I get a rush of blood to the head. I feel dizzy. I pull up one of the plastic chairs and sit down in it until I can get my bearings…

2.

…I’ve been staring at the heart monitor next to the bed for what seems like forever now. I’ve been on the verge of consciousness for a while now, but I can’t quite make the leap into being fully awake. I don’t think I want to. I need a break from everything and this is it, just staring for minutes, hours, days at the electronic line and the spikes that correspond to my heartbeat. It’s really hypnotic.

However, even as much as I try to keep my consciousness buried down, awareness of my surroundings slowly begins to creep in. I blame the doctor that came in an indeterminate time ago who shined a penlight into my eyes as the starting point to where I began to crawl out of the mind hole. I’m in some sort of hospital room. There is a TV hanging from a rack on the ceiling, but it hasn’t been turned on for as long as I’ve noticed it. I’ve got IV tubes in both of my arms, oxygen being fed into a tube in my nose. I had an itch on my ass and I shifted my hips and that’s when I became painfully aware of the catheter that’s jammed up into my bladder through my pisshole. I try to put that out my mind as best as I can.

At some point, another doctor comes into the room. He pulls out his flashlight and shines it into my eyes again. I squint and turn my head as far as the plastic tubes in my face will allow me.

“Hello, sir,” the doctor says. “Do you know you’re name?”

“Yeah,” I croak. My mouth is practically plastered shut with dried saliva.

“What is it?”

“Poopy Peanutz,” I say. “Get that light out of my eyes motherfucker.”

The doctor puts his penlight back into his breast pocket, then goes back to the door and opens it up. Outside, I see a pair of Marines patrolling the hallway decked out in full body armor and M-4’s. I hear the doctor say something to some men just out of my sight line.

“The subject is awake now. I just checked him out. No obvious signs of brain damage but there’s no way to tell without a full battery of tests.”

The person I can’t see says curtly, “Can he talk?”

“Well…yes. I mean, he knows his name and he did call me a ‘motherfucker’, but that doesn’t mean his motor skills are—“

“As long as he can talk, that’s all we need,” the unseen person says.

“The man just woke up,” the doctor protests, then reconsiders. “You don’t plan on speaking with him for very long.”

“No,” he says. “We just need to speak with him briefly for now.”

The doctor steps aside and two men in the bland suits of government suits step inside. The first one pulls up a chair and sits next to the bed. “Mr. Peanutz, do you remember us?”

The two of them look vaguely familiar, but I can’t place them. Fuck, maybe I am brain damaged.

“No.”

“I’m Agent D’anci and that’s Agent Johnson. We spoke several weeks ago at the police station over the alleged kidnapping of some children.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, you guys…Where the hell am I?”

“You’re at Bethesda Hospital, Maryland.”

I figured as much, then suddenly a freeze. Adrenaline starts coursing through my veins. “You guys need to get me out of here. I’m a sitting duck. Please get me out of here.”

“Peanutz, you’re in no physical condition to even go to the bathroom on your own, much less out of this hospital,” Agent Johnson says. “Please be calm. The FBI has you in protective custody.”

“Wow, that’s reassuring,” I say. “Last time I tried to contact you guys, my lawyer got killed, a baby got mutilated, and I had to stick my arm up another man’s asshole. So forgive me if I don’t exactly feel safe at the prospect of being in your custody.”

Both Agents Johnson and D’anci grimace simultaneously. “Please, Mr. Peanutz. Lay back down and relax. You are being very well protected. Access to you is very tightly guarded. After all, you are at the center of one of the biggest conspiracies in this nation’s history.”

I flop back down on the pillow, since they are right. I am in no physical condition to move. Just the exertion of trying to sit up has left me exhausted. “Look, I’m not at the center of any conspiracy. I’m a fucking patsy. They were forcing me to carry that bomb.”

“Who forced you?” Agent D’anci asks, pulling out a notebook.

“Some Secret Service agent named Burke and that lawyer, Carl Van Hertzwelder.”

“Yes, we know all about them,” he says. “Did they give any indication of who they were working for?”

I shake my head. “No. Besides a few other men who worked for them, I didn’t meet anyone else and they didn’t tell me about anyone else. I’m certain there were others involved though. They couldn’t have done this by themselves.”

Agent D’anci scribbles some more in his notepad.

“You’ve arrested them right?”

“We’ve arrested Carl Van Hertzwelder,” Agent Johnson says. “A member of the Secret Service detail found the tape recorder you used and based on the information on it, we arrested him at the scene. Right now, he’s in a cell somewhere in Pakistan, being interrogated by some people who may or may not be affiliated with our government, you know, to keep the human rights people off our backs.”

“What about Burke?”

“We were about to arrest Julian Burke shortly after we picked up Van Hertzwelder, but he was already put on an ambulance heading towards the hospital from the gun shot wound you gave him. That ambulance never reached the hospital. We found it a few days later abandoned on the street. Both of the EMT’s were dead inside it. One’s neck was broken, the other was strangled to death. Burke is still missing. Just this morning we promoted him to number two on the FBI’s most wanted list behind Osama Bin Laden.”

“Jesus Christ,” I groan. “You can see why I don’t exactly feel safe here seeing as Burke is still at large. Besides, he insinuated that the people he worked for were in almost every branch of the government. They can still get to me.”

“That concerns us a great deal,” Agent D’anci says. “You have been in a coma for four days though. I think that if they were going to get you, they would have gotten you by now.”

“What about my mother?” I ask. “What about Apple? Where are they?”

“Who is Apple?”

“She was the woman whose kids were kidnapped, remember?” I say. “It was Burke and Van Hertzwelder who took them. I couldn’t tell you it was them because they said they’d kill them if I did. That’s why I was acting so…so…”

“Evasive,” Johnson finishes for me.

“Yeah. They were gonna kill them, that’s why I couldn’t tell you. Anyway, listen, this is important. The men who took her children promised to return them to her if I went through with assassinating the president. She went with some of Burke’s men to get her kids back right before I left to go to the country club. Since I didn’t end up killing the president, we’ve got to find them before…you know…the worst happens.”

Agent Johnson walks over to Agent D’anci, whispers something in his ear, then walks out the door. Agent D’anci looks concerned, “After the botched assassination, we did try to contact Ms. Clements since she was a known associate of yours. We were unable to contact her, but finding her was never a priority since we did not believe she had any involvement with the actual attack.”

“She didn’t,” I explain. “She’s an innocent bystander who got caught up in my mess.”

“But let’s be clear, you believe she is in the hands of people who were behind the attack?”

“Yeah. Or, at least, I hope she still is. Has it really been four days?”

D’anci doesn’t answer me. He’s writing something in his notes. “Do you have any idea where Burke’s men took her?”

“No. But the last time she contacted me was at the Greyhound Station downtown. I gave her a bus ticket to Oklahoma and told her to call me from the station. I put the number in my phone so I’d know she’d gotten away. I think they followed her there though. At least, that’s the impression I got on the phone.”

D’anci writes that down. “It’s very likely they did. That’s standard black-ops tradecraft. At least if you say she made it to the bus station, that’s a good lead for us to follow. There are likely several cameras in the facility and many possible witnesses.”

The doctor comes back into the room. “Please, I must insist that you leave so that the patient can rest. He’s just come out of a coma and we need to do a thorough examination of him.”

Agent D’anci puts his notebook away. “That’s okay. I was just about to leave. He’s given us plenty to work on for now. Keep this fellow healthy, doctor. He’s probably the most important man in America right now.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” the doctor says. “Especially considering the number of people you have here to protect him.”

He’s about to leave when I remember something. “My mother, what happened to my mother?”

He turns around. “Your mother is safe and being debriefed at an undisclosed location.”

I sigh. “Good. I was afraid you guys would kill her over that suitcase nuke stunt.”

“We were close,” Agent D’anci says. “From the report I read, a sniper was able to sneak up close enough to her to get a perfect CNS shot to her upper lip, even with her face being obscured by the traditional Muslim outfit. Luckily, the sniper had done a tour in Iraq and when he realized that your mother was pronouncing ‘allahu ackbar’ as ‘all to the snackbar’ he stood down. He figured it was some leftist protest art thing and used his beanbag rounds instead.”

I smile. My mom’s retardedness not only ended up saving my life and the President’s life, but her own. I knew this would happen. “I knew that fake suitcase nuke thing would work like a charm. Christ, I’m so fucking brilliant.”

“Not really,” Agent D’anci says. “I mean, in addition to bomb sensors, Secret Service protocol makes sure there are radiological sensors all over any area the President is expected to be in. I mean, within minutes they were able to tell there wasn’t even an X-ray in that briefcase…”

“So why did they…”

“…as well as the fact that all know configurations of a suitcase nuke are still much too large to fit inside a commercial briefcase. And besides, suitcase nukes are mostly theoretical and that while designs and a few non-working prototypes have been found, there are no instances where…”

I’m feeling deflated enough for right now. “Hey, get out of here and go find Apple and her kids. You heard the doctor, I’m in a weakened state here.”

Agent D’anci leaves and I stare at the ceiling. I have a nagging feeling in my gut that this is all not over with…

3.

I get home a little after seven and the house smells like tomatoes and a rusty air conditioner. Again. I put my jacket in the closet and head towards the living room and nearly trip on a large yellow toy truck one of the brats has left conveniently in the hallway like I’ve told them not to a million times. I guess tonight will be a million and one.

Amy is facing the stove when I walk into the kitchen, stirring a huge pot of something. She’s wearing a orange dress with tacky green flowers all over it and some flip flops she bought at the swap meet when we when went last week. I walk up behind her, put my hands around her waist and kiss the back of her neck. She jumps when I touch her.

“Shit, Peter. You startled me.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I thought you heard me come in.”

She turns around, looking pissed. “How could I hear you over this racket?” She points her wooden spoon towards the living room, where the kids are watching Barney at high volume. I shrug and she turns around to keep stirring the pot. Considering what she’s been through, I guess I can’t blame her for being kinda jumpy.

“What are you making?”

“It’s called ‘Cheesy Beany Pasta Casserole’. I saw Rachael Ray make something like it the other day.”

“Smells good,” I lie. If it’s anything like what she usually makes for dinner, then it’s some combination of stewed tomatoes, kidney beans, egg noodles, cheap hamburger and Velveeta. I love Amy, but she can’t cook a damn.

I go to the fridge, get a can of store brand cola and go sit in the recliner in front of the TV, which the boys are sitting way too close to. Barney has always made my skin crawl, so I change the channel to some news. The boys begin to whine almost immediately.

“Peeeeter…”

“Shut up,” I say. “You two have probably been watching TV all day. Go read a book or something.”

Johnny, the older of the two gets up and mobs me on the couch. “No we haven’t! We haven’t watched any TV today! Change it back! Change it back!”

“It’s my TV dammit,” I say, keeping the remote control out of his reach. “Now, go wash your hands. Dinner’s gonna be ready in a few minutes.”

Johnny pouts and says, “You’re a jerky-face!” before he stomps off to the bathroom.

“Yeah, well fuck you too!” I shoot back at him before I realize how stupid it must look to be arguing with a four year old. Larry, the other younger kid doesn’t move. He stays planted in front of the TV while I channel surf which is fine by me as long as he doesn’t complain. Larry never complains though. He never cries either. Amy and I have been taking him to a psychiatrist that specializes in severe early childhood trauma but he can’t make any headway with him. Considering the terror that Johnny is growing up into, I hope that little Larry stays traumatized as long as being traumatized means he stays quiet. Then again, it does mean I’m gonna have to keep shelling out five hundred bucks a month to keep him seeing the psychiatrist, on top of the ungodly amounts of money I’ve got to spend on prosthetic arms for him, especially since he’s already grown out of one of them in the year since we’ve all been living together.

Amy comes out of the kitchen and says “Dinner’s ready.”

I turn down the sound on the TV, pick up little Larry and take him to his high seat. Amy calls down the hall for Johnny, who stomps over to the table and gives me the evil eye as he sits down. Amy goes around the table and gives the three of us a heaping ladleful of her overcooked, mushy pasta before sitting down herself.

“So how was your day, honey?”

“Same bullshit, different day,” I say through a mouthful of her food, which actually isn’t as bad as I feared (she must have discovered we have salt in cupboard). “My boss is still a fucking cunt.”

Amy winces. “Peter, don’t curse in front of the boys.”

“Gimme a break,” I say, dropping my fork on the plate. “They’re gonna learn curse words someday anyway. Might as well be sooner than later.”

Larry makes my point by saying the first word I’ve heard him speak in days: “Cunt.”

Amy sighs. “Don’t say that word Larry. It’s bad.”

Everyone is silent while they eat for the next few minutes. I polish off my plate and slop some seconds on it. It might not be gourmet, but I’m hungry. Finally, Amy breaks the silence.

“I was looking online on the computer today—“

“The computer being the only way you can get online,” I snap back. I’m in kind of a foul mood now.

Amy ignores me and goes on. “I was looking for hotels down in the Keys we can stay at next week. I think I found one that looks nice and doesn’t cost too much money. You remembered to get time off from work, right?”

“Yes. I put in my request last week,” I say. “I’m happy to take a few days off from that fu…friggin place. You find a place the boys can stay at?”

“Yeah. Tamika who lives down on the corner says she can stay with them while we’re gone.”

“Tamika…great,” I say. “When we come back, Johnny and Luke will either be smoking crack or selling it.”

“Hey, Tamika is nice,” Amy protests. “We’re friends. She’s the only friend I’ve made since we’ve moved here. And she’s doing us a favor. She’s only asking for a hundred bucks to help pay for the boys food for the week. You have any idea what it costs to have a professional nursery look after them for a week?”

I quietly shovel another mouthful of pasta casserole in my mouth. “You’re right. Sorry. Guess I’m just stressed today. I don’t know why.”

Amy puts her hand on my arm. “It’ll be good for us to get away, just the two of us. We haven’t had any time alone together since…you know, we moved.”

I put down my spoon and touch her hand and feel strangely relieved at the prospect of taking a vacation. The past year has been such a blur. First there was the shock of having to completely change our identities, and then try to blend our lives seamlessly into them. And even though I feel like we’ve slipped into the routine of our new lives, there is still something stressful about no longer being myself any more. Yes. This will be good for us.

Johnny takes a drink of milk and sets his glass down on the table with a clump. “Mommy, what’s crack?”

4.

I spent another five days in that hospital bed at Bethesda. The doctors said that though I suffered a severe concussion, they couldn’t detect any permanent brain damage. That was the good news. The bad news was that there was no way they could reattach my thumb. Hell, they couldn’t even find my thumb anywhere at the scene. The bomb blast must have sent it flying deep into the woods and now some squirrel was probably gnawing on the thing. Oh well, it could have been worse. I could have been born left-handed.

I was under heavy guard while I was in my hospital room. The only visitors I had were either FBI agents or doctors, and all of them had to have some high end security clearance to get anywhere close to me. Needless to say, their security precautions didn’t do much to calm me. After all, Burke warned me that the conspiracy had operatives at all levels of government and I had no reason not to believe him after I got burned trying to contact the FBI. If they could get as close as they did to the President, then wiping a flea like me off the map wouldn’t be especially hard.

However, my paranoia began to ease after a few days. Well that, and the doctor started pumping me full of anti-anxiety drugs after he got sick of me insinuating he was trying to poison me every time he changed my IV. And damn was that stuff strong. When I was on that stuff someone could have smashed my face in with a hammer and I wouldn’t have twitched. And seeing as no one actually did when I was in that state led me to believe that I was pretty much safe. I mean, if they were going to risk exposing themselves long enough to kill me, they probably would have done it before I’d told the FBI pretty much everything I knew about their conspiracy.

After the five days of tests and surgery were up, the FBI moved me to a safehouse out in the countryside. I was still pretty weak and spent most of my time in bed watching cable TV. I wasn’t allowed to use the internet, since the agents were worried I might compromise my location. So I convinced one of them to get me a bunch of porno DVDs I could watch to whittle the time away.

Besides that just fucking around, I had to give interviews to all sorts of agents from alphabet soup agencies or special prosecutors. FBI, NSA, ONI, CIA all made the rounds to interview me and I usually had to repeat the same stuff over and over again. At best, they would have me go through photos to identify the different conspirators I came across. It was all incredibly boring, but I did it without complaint since despite the VIP treatment I was getting, I feared that I’d say the wrong thing and be immediately whisked away to some secret prison where I’d never be heard from again.

While watching TV, I never noticed any mention of the assassination attempt on the news. I mentioned this when some agent from Homeland Security had me help him construct a timeline of the events (again). He told me he didn’t have clearance to tell me about that, but later that day, Agent D’anci came to see me and laid it all out on the table.

“Since the majority of press corp was kept away from the golf course, we were able to contain the event to a great extent. Since we were able to exert so much control on this information, it was determined that we would keep the events classified.”

“Why?” I said, munching on some cheddar Bugles.

“One reason was so we might possibly be able to smoke out some more of the people involved with the conspiracy. Secondly, we also feared that making it public might undermine the public’s faith in the personal safety of their leaders. Is that satisfactory for you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t really give a shit either way.”

Agent D’anci nodded, then opened up his briefcase. “Now, there’s another matter I must talk to you about. Namely, what happens to you from here on out.”

I tossed the half empty bag of Bugles on the carpet and sat up. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask about that? What does happen to me now?”

He pulled out a letter from the briefcases and handed it to me. “This is an outline of an agreement being drawn up by the Attorney General that grants you full immunity from prosecution if you agree to testify against Carl Van Hertzwelder.”

“Absolutely,” I said right off the bat. “No problem. I’ll say whatever you want if it puts that fucker away for good. Shit, I thought for something like this you guys wouldn’t even bother with trials. Besides, aren’t trials public record?”

“Not this one,” D’anci said. “It will be conducted under a secret tribunal authorized in one of the classified provisions of the Patriot Act. No one in the public will know it exists, and in reality, it’s mostly just a formality. After what’s happened, even if Carl Van Hertzwelder was innocent—which, by the way, he’s already admitted he’s not—there would be no way of releasing him without there being some outcry from knee jerk liberal organizations like the ACLU. It is mostly just a formality in order to wrap things up.”

“And maybe to get the other people who were involved in it, right?”

Agent D’anci shrugs. “Maybe. We have made several arrests based on information you’ve given us, and that which was given to us by Van Hertzwelder through coercive interrogation. However, like most terrorist organizations, they are heavily compartmentalized. There is no guarantee that you would be safe, that is why if you agree to this deal, you will also be put into the FBI Witness Protection program. You will be relocated to a different city under a new name, provided with housing, a job, and small stipend for living expenses. Now, I know this all might sound harsh—“

“Not really,” I said. “Sign me up.”

He shakes his head. “What you have to realize is that you can never be yourself again. You will never again be referred to by your real name except for when you appear before a secret grand jury. You can never have contact again with any of your friends or acquaintances…”

“I don’t like my name. I don’t have any friends, I don’t care about my acquaintances. It’s really not a problem for me.”

Agent D’anci nodded. “Well, I there is one other stipulation if you enter witness protection. It has to do with Angela Clements…”

The name sounds familiar, “You mean Apple? You found her? Is she all right? What about her children?”

“We found Ms. Clements a few weeks ago. It was fairly easy using your information. She had been arrested in Oklahoma City for prostitution. Apparently, she needed to get money for a motel room for her and her children. When they ran her through the FBI database, her name came up and we took her and her children into custody within hours. Apparently, the people you sent her off with did what they said they were going to do: they returned her children and let her go.”

“You’ve had her for a week? Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?”

“Frankly, because we were using her to corroborate parts of your story. Poopy, you’re part of one of the biggest conspiracies in American history. You don’t think we trusted you without verifying everything you said ten times over?”

“You trust me now though, right?”

He nodded. “Most of the information you’ve provided us has beared out so you are officially considered a reliable witness.”

“Then what’s this ‘stipulation’?”

“Well, Poopy, we went to Ms. Clements with the same deal we gave you. She agreed to testify and go into witness protection, but only if she could go into the program with you.”

“With me?”

“Yes,” Agent D’anci said. “Now, normally we only do that for married couples. However, Ms. Clements had information that led to the capture of many members of the group, and since she’s a victim in this whole situation we did not have the threat of charges to hold over her, so the FBI is willing to give into the request to secure her testimony. That is, if you’re willing to go through with it.”

What he was saying was so weird, it was making my head spin. “Why would she even want to see me again after what I put her through?”

“I have no idea, Poopy,” he said. “I got the impression from her that she was quite madly in love with you.”

“So we will be going into witness protection as a married couple?”

“Yes, that’s the plan. That’s what I’ve been saying here.”

“Well, can I get a divorce later?”

He looks perplexed, “Not immediately. In fact, there’s likely no chance of it, at least until the trials are over and that might be years.”

I sigh. “Let me think this through. I’ll let you know by tonight.”

“Okay, Poopy. Just call the number on my card there and I’ll get the ball rolling on this.” Then he snapped his briefcase shut and walked out of the room.

I didn’t know what to think. My immediate reaction was that this was a bad idea. After all, how could I expect Apple to forgive me after everything I’d done to her? When she told me she loved me the last time I saw her, I took it as the incoherent ranting of a woman who had just been put through the ringer, both physically and psychologically. I figured that after she had had a few days off the drugs and with her kids in relative safety, she would come to curse the night I happened into her life.

So I laid back down on the bed and took a nap. It wasn’t long, maybe forty minutes at the most and if I dreamed, I didn’t recall it. However, that little morsel of REM sleep seemed to alter my perspective on the whole thing. After all, for everything I’d done to harm Apple, deep down I think I still loved her too. If anything, the ordeal we’d gone through might have brought us closer. After such an intense event, it would feel truly lonely to have no one else in the world you could share that with.

I had no problem with the notion of giving up my name or my identity because, let’s face it, my name sucks and any time I spend reflecting on my life usually ends with me wanting to stick a gun in my mouth. Perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to put that life behind me and start fresh. It would be for Apple too. We could have the life that circumstance had denied to us. In the end, we had no one else in this world than each other.

So I made my decision then, but didn’t do anything about it until after dinner. When I was done wolfing down a soggy club sandwich and some barbeque kettle chips, I picked up Agent D’anci’s card and asked one of my guards for the secure phone.

“I made my decision,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

5.

The air is warm but the twilight breeze is cooling on my sun burnt skin (I neglected to slather myself up in sunscreen earlier when I we were on the beach, as Amy had thoughtfully done). The two of us landed at Marathon Airport that morning, checked in at the hotel that turned out to be under renovations, so they upgraded us to a private bungalow with a kitchenette. We unpacked our swimsuits and immediately went to the beach and when we got sick of the beach, we went for a walk around the town. We did all the clichéd touristy things. We ate greasy Cuban sandwiches for lunch, watched some skinny island kid play the steel drum. Then we went shopping for T-shirts and other souvenirs.

Now, we had just been seated at a beachside table at some restaurant called Hemingway’s Crab Shack. This has got to be fifth business I’ve seen today that uses the name “Hemingway”. Earlier, I got an iced coffee at the local Starbucks knock-off called Hemingway’s Coffee. We got bottled water and mosquito repellent at a convenience store called Hemingway’s Gifts and Sundries. I’m beginning to think that if Ernest Hemingway took a shit on any given block, then every business there got to use his name. I can only drool when I think of how much money his estate must get just by licensing out his name.

Anyway, the waiter (who was black but spoke with a Spanish accent) took our order. We got the Hills Like Scallops in White Cream Sauce appetizer; Amy got The Shrimp Also Rises plate while I settled on The Old Man and the Seafood Platter, and a bottle of the cheapest white wine on the list. It was surprisingly hard to break out of my free spending ways, even a year after I’d been able to dole out money hand over fist. Still, I’d saved up some money for the trip, so I could splurge a little.

After the waiter pours us glasses of wine, Amy holds her glass up. “Cheers, honey.”

We clink glasses and I gulp down a mouthful of slightly sour Chardonnay. I look out over the beach to watch the sun setting on the edge of the ocean. “Wow. That is so beautiful.”

Amy smiles. “So you’re having a good time?”

I nod. “Yes. Most definitely.”

“Good. I was worried you wouldn’t after how stressed you seemed when we were at home,” she says. “I know you really don’t like to talk about yourself much, but was there anything in particular getting you down?”

I think about it, then shake my head. “No. It’s just life and all the daily frustrations of it and you know, settling into a routine after…you know.”

“Yes,” she says. “It’s been hard for me to adjust too. And the boys, though they don’t remember as much as I do. But they’re young, so it’s easier for them to forget.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Sometimes the things that happen to us when we’re young, we may forget them, but they’re still a part of us,” I say. The breeze picks up a bit and blows a strand of Amy’s blonde hair over her eyes, which she brushes away with the back of her hand. “Still, I am having a good time here. It’s good to break out of the routine. Most of all, it’s relaxing. I feel like I can let loose for the first time since we were relocated. Thanks for suggesting this.”

“You’re welcome,” she smiles, and we hold hands like a loving couple and both watch the last bright sliver of sun fade under the horizon.

The patio lights slowly come up and the way the light casts on Amy’s face makes her look beautiful, almost angelic. I pour myself another half glass of this disappointing Chardonnay and say, “Apple…”

Her eyes get large and she quickly looks around to see if anyone is looking. “Peter, you know we’re not supposed to use our real names.”

“I know,” I say, drinking my freshly poured wine all in one gulp. In fact, using your real name or referring to your real past any time you’re in public is considered one of the cardinal no-no’s of being in the program, but I feel free right now. “I don’t care. Just indulge me. I think we’re safe from any conspiracies for the time being.”

“What is it?” she asks in a hushed tone.

“I just want to tell you, as myself, that I love you too now. I know I’ve told that before, and while I meant it I said it more as a matter of routine; because it’s what you’re supposed to do. But right now I mean it so much. I love you. I love as much as I did when I first met you that Thanksgiving I wandered into your strip club. I wanted you so much then, and now that I have you, I want you just as much.”

She looks into my eyes and stays quiet. “I love you too, Poopy. For me, it was more of a…process. But I’ve seen your heart and I know that it’s essentially good and it makes me love you.”

I sigh with relief. That’s what I wanted her to say, but for some reason, I was afraid she wouldn’t. That this was all show and that after being with me for just under a year she wouldn’t feel the same as when she requested she go into witness protection with me.

“Hey, honey,” I say. “What do you want to do after dinner?”

She shrugs, “I don’t know. Maybe we can have a drink somewhere. See some more of this town or something. What did you want to do?”

“Well,” I say coyly. “When we were waiting for the table and I went to the bathroom, I took a Viagra. I heard it takes about four hours for it to kick in.” Though I had never had a problem getting an erection before, ever since we had been relocated I’ve been having problems getting an erection. In fact, I can count the number of times Amy and I had had sex on my mutilated hand.”

Amy grins. “Well, we’ll have to do something about that tonight, won’t we?

Then she rubs her bare foot across my calf. Yes, we most certainly will have to do something about that.

7.

“Where are we going now?” I whined from beneath the shroud. “Can’t we go back to the safehouse yet?”

“Not yet, Mr. Peanutz,” Agent Johnson said. My arm was locked into his like we were walking down a wedding aisle, and though I’m sure it looked totally fucking gay, it really was the easiest way to walk when you can’t see a fucking thing.

“Well, can wherever we’re going, you think we can make a pit stop in the restroom. I’m gonna need to drop a load pretty soon, and you know how well I hold it in.”

I couldn’t see Agent Johnson, but I thought I could feel him sigh. “We’ll take a bathroom break soon, but right now we’ve got people waiting.”

“Can’t they wait until after I take a dump?”

“No, we’re on a tight schedule,” Agent Johnson said. “You’re in for a surprise. I’m sure you’ll like it.”

“I’m sure I will,” I sneer, though the word “surprise” doesn’t sit right with me. Personally, I’m through with being surprised. Being dragged around from place to place blindly had been the story of my life for that entire week. I’d have to wake around seven-thirty, dress, eat a quick breakfast. After that, the shroud goes over my head and I’m in for an hour long ride in either an armored motorcade or a helicopter (which really sucks when you can’t see anything). I take led around like an invalid to some office where they take the shroud off and I’m given a passive response polygraph test, or maybe to some cement room with one-way glass where I’m questioned by people who I can’t see and who use creepy sounding voice modulators. Then the shroud goes back and I’m taken to another room, maybe an office that’s bland and non-descript where I talk with some government attorney. All these places rarely have windows, and besides the sliver of daybreak I see each morning when I wake up, I hardly ever see the sun since it’s dark by the time we return to the safehouse.

Which is why the word “surprise” from Agent Johnson worried me. For one, since it’s my life that’s in danger, I don’t see why it’s necessary to keep me from being able to see where I’m going. It’s not like I’m gonna do something that’s gonna make it easier for me to get killed. And of course, it occurs to me that this is some larger deception. What if these people who are taking me around aren’t government agents? Jesus fuck, I might be in the hands of the conspiracy that Van Hertzwelder and Burke were a part of. Why they would be going to such lengths to keep me in the dark, I have no idea (since, rationally it would be much easier for them just to kill me and be done with it). But I can’t figure half this shit out any more.

Agent Johnson stopped and I heard him open a latch and lead me inside some room. It’s amazing that being deprived of my sight, I sense so much more. From the ambient sound of the room, it’s much larger than the ones I’ve been in so far. And while they’re all being quiet, there’s a lot of people in here too. The room temperature is a few degrees higher from their body heat. What the fuck is this surprise?

“Just a moment, Mr. Peanutz,” Agent Johnson said. He works the snap on the back of my neck and lifts the shroud off my head. I was on the stage of some windowless, presumably underground amphitheater. The seats in front of me were filled with about twenty important looking men and women. In the front row were five men in full military dress. I don’t know shit about how ranks go, but they were all covered in medals, ribbons, and salad clusters that covered half their breasts so I could only assume they were generals. There was a table and a podium with three seats on the front of the stage.

Just then, I nearly get tackled from the side. Startled, I was about ready to punch the shit out of whoever grabbed me, but it’s my mother. “Poopy!” she cried. “Oh my dear Jesus in Heaven, you brought him through his tribulations. Praise be!”

“Fuck, mom,” I said. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Don’t swear, praise be.”

I hug her back just long enough for me to break free from her. She’s crying, but from what I could see they were tears of joy. There’s a big yellow blotch across her cheek which looked like a week old bruise. She was wearing a nice, clean blue business suit with an American flag pinned to her lapel, and her hair done up in some tacky beehive. Other than the bruise and the hair, she looks…well. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to her minus the hundreds of pounds worth of fat.

I was about to say something to her, like “what the fuck is going on here?” when everybody in the room stands up at once and starts applauding. I saw movement at the opposite end of the stage and I see George Bush walk on and give a quick wave to everybody in the room, before walking up to my mother and I. He grabs my hand and gives it a couple good pumps.

“Good to see you, Poopy,” he said as he smiled effusively. “I hope this wasn’t too much of a shock.”

“Yes, it is…” I said, “I mean, no it isn’t…I’m mean…it’s fine. This is cool. Real cool.” I struggle to find the words to say mostly because I could feel my sphincter start to loosen up again and I use as much will as I can muster to keep from crapping myself yet again. I thought I kept most of it in. Still, the sight of the President calms me, since if this was all some mindfuck by the conspiracy, I’m sure it wouldn’t involve him.

The President lets go of my hand and motions for my mother and I to sit down next to the podium. I did so (and that’s when I became aware that I must have left a pretty sizable Hershey squirt in my pants. Those fuckers! I told them I had to take a crap). My mother looked giddy as we sat down.

Bush quickly coughs into the microphone to see if it’s working then begins to speak: “Ladies, gentlemen, and distinguished guests; I know most of you went through great pains in order to attend today and I thank you for respecting the confidential nature of this ceremony. I will keep my comments brief and there will be a small reception afterwards for those who wish to talk afterwards.

“I think that every now and then, as Americans, we need a reminder that freedom isn’t free. Most of you have served this country in ways that will never make the news, but do so with a glad heart to keep our Homeland safe. Since I’ve taken office and since the lessons of September the eleventh, I’ve challenged the American people…”

…and he went on like that for another three minutes, a cut and paste of half-truths and vapid patriotic homilies that could have been spat out by the Random Bush Speech Generator they probably have on his speech writer’s computer. I was starting to wonder what the point of this was until…

“…and that’s why we come here today to honor a son and mother. Though few outside this room will ever know it, this country owes a great debt to these two people; Poopy and Petunia Peanutz.”

The room erupts in applause, which blunted my cynicism from listening to the first part of Bush’s speech. The President lets it go on for a few seconds, then pats his hand to quiet everybody down.

“We can learn a lesson as Americans from these two. They were put in a situation that was grave, forced by the enemies of this country, who used all the dastardly means at their disposal to subvert the government of this country and the will of the American people.

“However, even when things were darkest, these two understood the implications. And when their country called for them, they did not hesitate. They knew right from wrong and with their help, they saved not only my life but they exposed one of the most dangerous attempts at a coup d’etat (he pronounced it ‘coop de tat’) our nation has ever faced. And they did so without the hope of even surviving. Like the passengers of United 93, they put their country before their own lives and they fulfilled the spirit of their fateful words, ‘let’s roll’.”

Now, normally I wouldn’t let George W. Bush drink the sweat from my balls if he was dying of thirst, but I’ll admit his speech had me feeling flattered (at least up to that last cornball line…the only thing I wanted to ‘let roll’ was my eyes). But fuck it; the sentiment was nice.

“…and that is why we are here today, to present Poopy Peanutz and his mother, Petunia, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the second highest honor that can be awarded to an American citizen, and no one has ever deserved it more.”

He holds up the medal which was in a glass case with a blue velvet backing, then he looked down at me. “Mr. Peanutz, thank you for your service to your country. Your actions define what it means to be an American.”

There’s some more applause, and the President motions for me to stand up. My butt cheeks squish together as I get up. I shake Bush’s hand and take the medal case from him. He whispered to me, “Would you like to say something to the audience?”

The audience hushed up and it was almost dead silent. I had no idea what I was supposed to say, so I just said:

“Um…you’re welcome. Where’s the restroom in this place?”

One of the President’s aides came and pointed it out to me and offered to hold my medal while I go. I rushed inside, dropped my pants and let the bottom fall out of the geyser of shit I was holding inside me. Between that the award, that was the more satisfying experience for me. Cathartic almost.

It took me a few minutes to clean up. My briefs were a loss, so I stripped them off and dropped them in the wastebasket, figuring it would be less uncomfortable to just go commando for the rest of the day. By the time I was finished, the President had already presented my mother her medal and had been whisked away by a squad of Marines (guess Dub ain’t trusting the Secret Service so much nowadays…) Everyone was at the reception, which, considering this was some sort of government VIP function, you’d think they could have shelled out for something better than a bowl of fruit punch and supermarket deli tray.

Still, I was starving so I loaded a small paper plate with a bunch of cheddar cheese cubes and a couple slices of ham and dove into it. My mother found me. She was carrying her medal case tucked into her arms and had a huge beaming smile on her face.

“Isn’t this incredible, Poopy? Look at this medal, it’s so beautiful…”

“Yeah, it’s all right,” I said. “What I don’t get is, why we only get the second highest award. What do you gotta do to get the first highest award? Do you have to give the President a handjob in addition to saving his life or something?”

I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Agent Johnson.

“The highest civilian award is the Congressional Medal of Freedom,” he explains. “And if you want to keep something secret, you don’t let congress know anything about it. In fact, I’m afraid you won’t even be able to keep your medals. They will have to be stored in a secure vault at Langley and the record of you receiving it will be classified.”

“Then what was the point of all this if we don’t get to keep it?” I asked. I had been thinking about how much a Presidential Medal of Freedom would get on eBay, but I guess that plan was shot to shit.

Agent Johnson nodded with fake empathy. “I understand your concerns, but unfortunately, allowing you to keep the award might compromise your identity once you’re inside the witness protection program. We are doing it for your safety.”

“You’re going into the program too?” my mother asked (as if I wouldn’t after fucking with a great big government conspiracy). “They’re gonna give me a new identity too Poopy. Guess where they’re going to be putting me?”

She looked at me as if she really wanted me to guess. “I don’t know. Hawaii?”

“I get to live in Virginia Beach!”

“So?”

“That’s where they tape the 700 Club! I might be able to even be on their show.”

Agent Johnson coughs. “Ma’am, I’m afraid the witness protection program strongly advises that you do not appear on any nationally broadcast television programs. And in fact, we must advise you don’t tell each other about which city you’re going to be placed. You will not be allowed to contact each other directly from now on.”

“But what about his birthday? Can’t I see my dear sweet Poopy on his birthday?”

Agent Johnson shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. We can forward correspondence, such as birthday card onto him. And maybe once every few years we can arrange a meeting between you two in a secure location, but other than that you are to have no contact with each other.”

My mother looked disappointed. She looked at me, “I guess this is gonna be the last time we’ll get to see each other for awhile. You promise you’ll write to me and tell me you’re okay?”

“Yes, mom. All the time.”

Her eyes started welling up with tears. “Give me a hug, Poopy.”

I embrace her and she tries to crush my ribcage.

“I love you Poopy,” she whispers. “Go with Jesus for the rest of your days.”

“I will mom. I love you.”

She finally let go after about minute. I looked over at Agent Johnson. “So, are we done for the rest of the day?”

“Yes,” he said. “This is the last thing we had scheduled.”

“I’m feeling kinda exhausted. You think we could go back to the safehouse so I can take a nap.”

“Certainly, Mr. Peanutz.” He pulls out the shroud. “I’m afraid that you’re still going to have to wear this while we leave.”

“I figured I’d have to,” I said, tossing my paper plate on the floor.

Agent Johnson pulled the shroud over my head and snapped the button shut, then he led me arm in arm out of the amphitheater.

But I felt happy. Once my face was obscured, suddenly, a huge, shit-eating grin came over my face when I realized I’d never have to see my mother ever again.

8.

Two hours and three mojitos later, Amy and I are back at the bungalow and I’m fumbling around trying to get the key to the door out of my pocket while she nibbles on my ear. We made out like teenagers in the cab we took to get back here. We just can’t keep our hands off each other.

After a couple of tries, I finally get the door open and we burst inside. Amy is pushing me up against the wall, her face planted on mine. It’s almost like she’s trying to suck my tongue out of my face. She moves her body sexily against the bulge in my crotch. That Viagra I took has really kicked in.

Amy takes her mouth off my face and whispers, “You know what I really want?”

I shake my head.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” she says. She takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom. She flips on the light and tells me, sexily, “Lay down.”

I kick my shoes off and do what she says. Once I’m on my back, she gets on top of me and peels off the top of her dress, exposing her only slightly sagging boobs. I sit up and clamp my mouth on her left nipple while kneading her right one with my hand.

She moans. “Down boy. I’ve got something else in mind.”

I whisper in her ear. “What do you want me to do?”

“You just have to lay back,” she says, pushing me back down on my back. “Since we’re on a holiday, we’re gonna do something kinky…”

She reaches over to the bedstand and pulls out a silk scarf and dangles it between her breasts. “Put your hands above your head and grab the headboard, big boy.”

I do like she says and she leans down and starts tying my hands down to the bedposts. I lap at her nipples while she does this and she coos in pleasure. “You’ve had such a rough time lately, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” I say. “Real rough. Let’s get it on.”

“Well, you don’t have to do anything for the rest of the night. I’m gonna do it all to you.”

She sits up and pulls my fully erect and bulging dick out of my shorts and starts massaging it. I’m so turned on that it only takes a couple strokes before a dot of precum starts oozing out. The great thing about Viagra is that I’ll be able to bust my nut a million times tonight and still be able to keep it up. Why didn’t I learn about this shit before?

“Let’s watch a movie,” she says, getting off the bed.

“Fuck movies. Let’s fuck,” I say desperately.

She smiles. “This is one you’ll like,” she says. “And I’m gonna suck you off while you watch it. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Oh hell yeah,” I grunt. She goes up and turns on the TV/DVD player combo that’s in front of the bed. “Is it Campus Confessions Six? That one’s pretty hot. Kinda tame for my tastes, but the chicks are hot in it.”

Amy sticks a disc in the tray and presses play. “Just watch, honey. You’ll like this…”

…and without another word, she’s back at the bed, her mouth lapping at my schlong. Goddamn, it’s almost too much as she laps at the sensitive part on the top of my dick, but she doesn’t do it for long. Quickly, she takes the whole thing in her mouth, and I mean the whole thing. I can fucking feel her tonsils with the head of my cock. Jesus Fucking Christ, I’m on the verge of blowing an entire geyser of come down her esophagus. It’s mind blowing. I’m seeing stars. I’m hearing gunshots. It’s ecstacy. It’s…

No. Wait, I really am hearing gunshots. They’re coming from the TV. What the fuck is this? This isn’t a porno movie. This looks like a home movie shot outside a Wendy’s or something, with someone screaming “Get the fuck off me man! Do you know who the fuck I am?”

And as soon as I realize what this movie is, that’s when I suddenly feel the muscles in my jaw convulse and hear the electric crackle of a taser being rammed against my neck.

“How you like this honey?” Amy says, jumping on top of me, straddling my chest. “Isn’t this hot?”

She presses the taser against my sternum and I flop around like a fish, screaming, “WHAT THE FUCK? STOP IT! PLEASE STOP IT!”

She stops tasing me for a second, and I try to kick her off me, but with my hands bound it’s close to impossible. She reaches over to the bedstand and I see her grab a syringe. “Hold still, you motherfucker,” she hisses, then she jams the needle deep in my neck and presses the plunger home. Almost immediately I start to have trouble breathing. It feels like someone just sat an anvil on my chest. My vision blurs up and the last thing I see before I pass out are Apple’s tits swinging above my face while she keeps her hand clamped over my mouth.

I have no idea what she injected me with, or how long it is before I swim back into consciousness. I’m still laying on the bed and for a moment, I wonder if it was all just a bad dream.

Then I try to move, but I’m still tied down. Only instead of a silk scarf, now my hands are bound to the bedposts with plastic zip ties. My legs are tied down now too, with two leather straps across my shins and thighs. My briefs are gone but I still happen to have a hard on, my erect dick poking defiantly into the air which is strange since sex is now the last thing I have on my mind. Viva Viagra. This shit really works.

From where I’m laying on the bed, I don’t see Apple anywhere. The television is still on and still playing the video of her boyfriend Luke being tortured and killed. The volume is turned all the way up. His screams are like knives being driven into my still groggy brain.

After a few minutes, I’m conscious enough to scream. “Help me! Someone help me! Some crazy bitch has me tied up in here! Someone help!” Unfortunately, I can barely hear my own shouting over the noise of the television, so I doubt anyone else can hear me either.

I hear footsteps outside the door, then a creak as someone undoes the latch. Apple walks inside. Her dress is back on, and she’s carrying a kettle and coffee cup.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she says. She sets the kettle down on the nightstand and it whistles just a little as the boiling water sloshes on the inside. She turns the volume on the television down. “There, that’s better. Now we can talk.”

“HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!” I start screaming again, hoping with the volume down that will help me. Apple puts a finger up to her mouth.

“Shush,” she says. “No one can hear you. The best thing about these romantic private beach bungalows is that you don’t have to hear your fucking neighbors.”

She picks up the kettle and the cup and pours some of the boiling water. “I made some tea. Would you like some?”

I’m hyperventilating from screaming so much, “What…the…fuck? What are you doing? What is your fucking problem?”

Apple takes a sip of her tea and grimaces. “Ew. It’s still too hot. Better let it sit for a moment.” She puts the cup on top of the TV, then looks at the screen. “How is this movie? Is it any good?”

On the screen, her they are showing her boyfriend being slowly gutted while hanging upside down from a couple of meat hooks. Apple doesn’t even flinch. “What is this?”

“DON’T!” Apple snaps. “Do not even fucking try to tell you don’t know what this is! We both know the truth.”

“I swear I’ve never seen this before in my life. What on earth are you talking about?”

Apple’s eyes screw up into little balls of flaming hell. She picks the kettle up off the nightstand and starts tipping it over me. “Please don’t!” I yell just as she starts pouring the boiling water over my chest, down my belly and onto my exposed penis. I let out an inhuman scream as my skin scalds and turns bright red. I pull at the zip ties until my wrists bleed, but I’m still no closer to getting free. Jesus Christ, I feel like a human lobster. I look down and the last thing I think before I go unconscious is amazement at how I can maintain an erection after my junk is pretty much boiled.

I don’t stay unconscious long though. Apple cracks some smelling salts under my nose and I’m yanked back awake immediately.

“Don’t bother lying to me any more Poopy. These are your last minutes on earth. Why don’t you make them truthful at least.”

“But…I,” I start to say, but it’s really no use. “What do you want me to say? I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

Apple shakes her head in disappointment. She drops the empty kettle on the floor. “You know your ‘friends’? The ones you sent me to to get my children back. They’re the ones that showed me this. And when I first saw it, I didn’t believe you were behind it either…”

“Yes, that’s right! I didn’t do it! Go with that idea!”

“…then they played me a tape of you talking with some Russian. You were talking about having the father of my children murdered in the most painful way possible. I didn’t want to believe it, but it was all right there.”

Fuuuuck…my mind is racing, trying to think through all the pain. How the fuck do I get out of this one? “Listen, how can trust those people? They kidnapped your children! They cut one of your baby’s arms off! You can’t trust people who do that!”

“BULLSHIT!” she screams. “You know what else they told me? They took my children in order to protect them from you! You were the one who cut off little Larry’s arm!” She slaps the television screen and it rocks on its stand. “After all, if you’re capable of doing something like THAT to another human being, what would be stopping you from mutilating a child?”

“I never hurt your kids!” I yell, and this time, I’m telling the truth. “They’re full of shit! Why would I do hurt your kids?”

Apple smiles. She starts taking off her dress again.

“Because you’re a sick man, Poopy. Because you’re a sick, psychotic, sexual deviant who can only feel relevant in this world as you’re inflicting pain or disgust on another person.”

She’s completely naked now and she kicks her dress in the corner. Then, kneels down next to her bag and pulls out a huge bowie knife. “We’re through talking now. Nothing you say is going to change what you’ve done and nothing you say is going to change what’s going to happen to you…”

“What are you going to do?”

“Cut your cock off,” she says. “I’ve read that if a man gets their dick cut off while having an erection, it only takes a few minutes to bleed to death.”

I start to hyperventilate again. I look at Apple and see that she’s calm. She’s not just trying to scare me. She’s dead serious about it. Dammit, maybe I can appeal to her logic.

“Listen, you won’t get away with this,” I stammer. “We’re in witness protection. The FBI will know right away if I go missing and it won’t take them much to find out it was you who killed me. You’ll never see your children again if you do this.”

“I’m not planning on getting away with this,” Apple says, pouring a bottle of rubbing alcohol over the blade. “My children are being driven down here as we speak, and in a few hours all of us will be on a boat. Your ‘friends’ who you alleged kidnapped my children let me know that if I did this for them, they would give us safe passage to Cuba.”

“The only part of Cuba you’re going to is Guantanamo Bay!”

Apple takes goes the bathroom and starts tucking her hair into a shower cap. “I doubt that. We’re not supposed to be back home for a couple of days, so no one will even know you’re missing by the time I’m long gone.”

She gets on bed, straddling my knees. My testicles have successfully crawled almost all the way into my pelvic bone, but my cock is still erect. I can feel the blood pulsing through it as she pushes it back and puts the blade right against the base of my dick.

“Apple! Apple! Please, please wait! Listen, all right! I admit it! I did pay to have Luke killed! I don’t know why I did it! No, I do know why I did! It was because I loved you and I was angry at him for not treating you well!”

She stops for a second. “How do you know how he treated me?”

“I don’t know! But I was stupid! And I was wrong! I was so fucked up when I thought about doing that! I’m sorry! I was sorry even before this! Even before I knew you knew! That’s why I tried to save your kids! I swear I didn’t do anything with hurting your kids!”

“So, you were lying to me about that before,” she says coolly. “Why would I trust you about this?”

“You can trust me or you don’t. But listen to me, Apple. Having Luke murdered changed me. And if you kill me, it’s gonna change you. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. Nothing made me happy. I probably would have ended up killing myself I couldn’t handle it. Don’t do this to yourself, Apple. Please. Sweet Apple, please don’t do this!”

She pulls the knife back from my dick and my chest heaves with relief that she seems to be at least considering it. “Poopy…”

“Yes?”

“MY NAME IS NOT APPLE!”

She picks up the knife again and I feel it digging into the skin under my dick and before I can even gather enough breathe to scream in pain, she’s sawed halfway through it. She yells again, “MY NAME IS NOT FUCKING APPLE!” and a geyser of blood burst out from the hole where my dick used to be and splatters all over her naked body. She holds her hand, filled with wet gore and flesh in front of my face and screams it again as she takes my severed cock and shoves it into my mouth and I can’t even scream anymore because there’s blood everywhere in my mouth on apple in my eyes and I start to convulse and everything is getting darker and things don’t hurt so much and maybe I can just fall asleep and this will all be over yes it’s all over I can feel it…

The Winner: Part Thirty-four

2008-01-23T04:59:00.000-07:00

“You may want to rethink blowing me up,” I whisper back to him.

“I doubt your reason is any good, but tell me anyway. You can consider them your last words.”

I clear my throat. “Well, if you want another chance to kill the President, then you really should leave me alive. After all, if you think his security is skittish now, just think how tight it will be after a failed assassination attempt. I think you can pretty much write off the President be let out in public for the rest of his term.” I pat him on the shoulder. “Also, I’m sure there will be an investigation into how I could get past all their security measures with a bomb, so if you blow me up now, you can pretty much count on Burke’s role in your conspiracy getting exposed. Am I right?”

“And what are we supposed to do? Just let you go?”

“Yes, just let me go,” I say. “As well as Apple and her babies.”

“And you think I believe you wouldn’t talk if we just let you go”

“Listen, I really don’t give a shit if you assassinate Bush or not. I’ll keep quiet about your little conspiracy. Hell, conspiracy theorists are a dime a dozen nowadays, you think anyone would even listen me? As long as the two of us are safe, you can count on my silence. However, should your stupid little plot succeed in getting you on a ballot, I wouldn’t count on my vote.”

Van Hertzwelder laughs. “You think you’re real clever, don’t you? You must have spent a lot of time thinking this through, huh? Got all the angles covered.”

“I think so,” I say, since I have been making most of this shit up as I went along. “Did I miss something?”

“Well, I’m sorry to say that I’m unconvinced by your reasoning Peanutz. First off, we probably don’t even need to assassinate the President now in the light of this ‘suitcase nuke’ stunt. I can only assume you’re the one who’d be so stupid as to think you could derail us by calling in a bomb threat.”

“I didn’t have to call it in,” I say. “It’s just my mom in a burqua standing outside the country club holding a suitcase and yelling ‘allahu ackbar’. The dead man’s stick is just a heavy duty stapler tied to the case with some rubber tubing. The only thing toxic inside that suitcase is a couple pairs of soiled underwear.” I shrug. “I guess that makes it less of a suitcase nuke and more of a dirty bomb.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Van Hertzwelder says. “By the time we get Rupert on it, we’ll have the public convinced it’s a twenty megaton warhead your bitch of a mother is carrying out there. And between a nuclear device on American soil and the attempted assassination of a sitting President, we won’t need to actually kill Bush in order to turn Iran and Syria into sheets of glass by the end of the day. And it can only help my budding candidacy that I narrowly survived the assassination attempt myself.”

I feel deflated. “Shit, I didn’t think of that.”

“Besides, to me at least, whether any of that happens is just the cherry on the sundae. The only thing I really want is revenge for you raping and killing my son.”

“Hey I didn’t kill him,” I protest. “He committed suicide…”

“He committed suicide because you raped him, therefore I hold you responsible. I’m done arguing with you now Peanutz. I only wish you’d die in a more painful manner than what’s been planned out for you.”

“Okay then,” I say as Van Hertzwelder starts backing away from me. “Better hope this gets caught in the blast too.”

So I pull out the mini-tape player I’ve had in my pocket on RECORD, and snap it off. I push the slider to rewind for a few seconds before pressing play and turning the volume all the way up. “…by the time we get Rupert on this, we’ll have the public convinced it’s a twenty megaton warhead…”

Van Hertzwelder’s face turns white as I hold the tape recorder up in the air. I savor it for a millisecond, then say out loud, “Excuse me everyone…I have something you all really need to hear…”

“STOP HIM! HE HAS A BOMB!” Van Hertzwelder screams, apparently louder than me because everyone seems to hear him and not me.

A Secret Service agent trots over to us with his weapon drawn but not aimed at anyone. He is busy talking into the microphone on his wrist, whispering tersely, “Unit twelve…location Bravo…be advised…VIP is reporting a second bomb on the premises…”

Van Hertzwelder begins walking backwards, trying to put some distance between me and him. The Secret Service agent yells at him, “Halt, sir! Where is this bomb located?”

The agent isn’t paying attention to me, but he’s going to soon with all of Van Hertzwelder’s yelling, and good ole’ Carl is quickly getting out of the kill radius of this bomb. I’ll be dead any second unless I do something NOW…

So I drop the tape recorder and stick my hand down the back of pants into the wet, warm, squishy pile of feces that’s collected there. I twist my hand in my ass crack a few times, just to make sure my whole hand is coated and that I have a good handful in there.

Then I turn to the Secret Service agent (who is still distracted from yelling at Van Hertzwelder) and rub a wad of my shit filled with partially digested corn and peanuts into his face. I get some into his eyes, in his nose, and try to get some into his mouth before flinches away and doubles over vomiting into the grass.

This is my chance. While the agent is puking, I pry the automatic pistol out of his hand. This snaps him out of his nausea, and he rubs the shit out of his eyes and looks like he’s about to pounce, but not before I kick him in the face, which sends him falling backwards on his ass.

I don’t stop to see if I laid him out. I start running after Van Hertzwelder as fast as I can. He’s running towards the edge of the golf course where Burke is patrolling. He’s got about a twenty meter head start on me, and for an old man, he runs very quick. I don’t think I can bridge the distance so I aim the gun at him and shoot as his leg…

…and being a crack shot, I miss him completely, the bullet doing nothing more than kicking up a clod grass in front of Van Hertzwelder, who stops running on tries to cover his head with his hands so I guess it does the trick. I bridge the distance and punch Van Hertzwelder in the back of the head before putting him in a headlock with my shit covered hand bracing him just under the chin. I put the barrel of the gun in his ear and turn around towards the legion of Secret Service and SWAT team members racing towards us, guns drawn.

“STOP!” I yell at them. “COME ANY CLOSER AND I’LL BLOW HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF!”

They screech to a halt, but keep their guns trained on me. There at least six glowing red dots from their laser sights running over my chest, so I let Van Hertzwelder out of the headlock with my gun pressed against his temple the whole time and put him in front of me, where they won’t have as easy of a shot.

I look over my shoulder and try backing up as close to Burke as I can, but he backs up just the same, just out of bombs presumed blast radius. “Burke, toss the detonator on the grass. This is over.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he says. At least I see both of his hands since their both keeping his Sig-Sauer trained on the back of my head.

“Alright then, Tupac, let me spell it out for you. If you blow me up now, you’ll kill Van Hertzwelder too and you’re whole plan goes to shit. Toss the detonator on the ground and get away while you still can.”

Burke gives a little chuckle. “My dear Poopy, you’re mistaken. The events of today are larger than all of us. They are certainly larger than Van Hertzwelder. I’m sure my superiors will consider him acceptable collateral damage.”

“WHAT?” Van Hertzwelder yells in disbelief. I half expect him to shit in his pants himself. “You…you can’t do this! The whole point of this is to get me elected to office!”

Burke shakes his head. “The whole point of this is way larger than a moron like you, Carl Van Hertzwelder, could possibly understand.” He drops his hand into his pocket to trigger the detonator. “Goodbye.”

I let go of Van Hertzwelder and whip the gun around and shoot at Burke. I fire about half the clip but it only looks like I hit him once in the bicep. It’s enough to keep his hand away from his pocket for the moment. Burke dives towards the ground and lays prone.

I’m about to unload the rest of my bullets into him and kill this motherfucker once and for all when I feel a bullet cut hot air next to my ear. I pop off two of my bullets towards the crowd of SWAT and Secret Service behind me and they dive for cover. This gives me the bare opportunity to dash off into the wooded area around the golf course.

I get a few meters inside the woods when they start shooting at me again. I get behind the biggest tree I can, and stop. Bullets fly past me or pock against the tree, sending splinters and pieces of bark flying everywhere. Goddammit, I’m pinned down.

And even worse, the explosive watch on my wrist starts to vibrate. Oh shit…I’ve got maybe a few seconds before the binary explosive mixes and I’m dead.

I struggle with the clasp, but it’s locked down on my wrist. I try to pull my whole hand through the band, but my fucking thumb is in the way. I won’t be able to get it off me in time.

There’s only one thing left for me to do.

The one good thing about being put in these life and death situations is that it doesn’t give you much time to think about the horrible choices you have to make to preserve your own life. The best part of it is that even if you fuck up, you’ll be dead anyway, so it’s not like you’ll have to beat up on yourself a whole bunch.

So I pick up my handgun, stick the barrel against the heel of my hand and pull the trigger.

Droplets of my own blood spatter my face and get in my eyes, but I don’t have time to wipe it away. I barely feel the pain in my hand, just a vague sort of heat down there. I look and see that at least the bullet did what I wanted it to: my thumb is hanging from my hand now by nothing but a thin strip of flesh. I drop the gun and yank what’s left of my thumb off and toss it on the ground. If I live through this, maybe I can get it reattached, but judging from the shape it’s in, it’s probably not worth the trouble.

I grab the watchband and slide it down my hand again. It goes down farther without now without the thumb to get in it’s way, but my hand is still wide enough that it doesn’t go easily. My hand sings in pain as the band rubs against the pulpy knot of gore where my thumb used to be.

I scream and pull one last time.

The watch comes free.

I immediately toss it as far as I can into the woods.

It doesn’t even hit the ground before it goes off.

I feel the explosion more than I hear it. I doubt I’ll be able to hear much again after the thunderclap of pressure hits my eardrums. All the air gets sucked out of my lungs and I feel a great heat before I’m lifted from the ground and tossed through the air like a half full sack.

Luckily, I go unconscious before I feel myself hit the ground face first.

The Winner: Part Thirty-Three

2008-01-21T04:41:00.000-07:00

The golf cart hits a bump on the green at about fifteen miles per hour. It’s enough to lift me out of my seat and bang my head against the plastic roof. I have the great pleasure of driving out to my execution with Buck, who is driving the cart like it’s a bronco or something.

“Whoo-we!” he yell before spitting a black stream of tobacco spit out of the cart. “Looks like I got ya good there Poopy!”

“Jesus Christ, are you trying to kill me?”

“Aw jeez, Peanutz, I thought you were a good ‘ole boy. No it ain’t like I did that on purpose.”

I call bullshit on this cousin-fucker. I may be dumb on many levels, but I can always recognize when someone is sending out waves of contempt towards me. I’ve been sending them back. It doesn’t matter. Since it seems as if my plans are quickly going to shit anyway, I will soon be dead. If there is any silver lining to this, at least Buck will likely be killed in the blast as well.

How could I be so naïve? Did I really think that Burke’s men were just going to let Apple go away scot free with her kids before the assassination? Now, I guess I just have to trust that they will let her go after it’s done, a possibility that is probably just as unlikely. Though I won’t be alive to even know what happens, I’m sure in a day or two, someone is going to stumble across Apple’s body stuffed somewhere in a dumpster with a double-tap gunshot wound in her head. Maybe the bodies of her children will be with her as well. It would be best for them not to leave any loose ends.

Sorry I failed you, Apple. You will never know, but at least I tried…

The other two carts are already at the first tee when Buck screams up to it, hitting the brakes suddenly, which causes me to nearly fly out of the cart. “Well, was that fun for you Peanutz?”

The combination of this cart ride, the brandy, and the asthma medication (not to mention the fact that I’m supposed to assassinate the President) has made me nauseous. I stumble out of the cart and grab my bag of golf clubs. Why do I have to lug these fucking things around? Horace and the President are taking some practice swings to loosen up. Van Hertzwelder is setting his ball up on the tee.

“Anyone know what the par for this course is?” the President asks.

“Five,” Horace says. “Try and get your ball as far over to the left as you can. There’s a sand trap right around those trees.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” the President says.

“Yeah, thanks for the tip,” Van Hertzwelder says. “I haven’t played this course for almost a year now. Have any of you checked out the ones they are building in China? They put about eighty percent of the courses in the US to shame. You just have to put up with the hordes of nattering Japs that infest the place.”

Buck shrugs. “Better there than here.”

Van Hertzwelder sets up, takes a deep breath, then swings, his club cutting the air and scooping the ball into the air with a crisp thwack. He puts his hand over his brow while he tracks where it lands. “It went a little farther than I wanted it to. I keep forgetting about how thin the air is in the this state.”

“I, for one like it,” Bush says, setting up his own tee. “My strength on the initial drive is kinda low, so it should help.”

He sets up next to his ball and swings. It lands and bounces to a halt a good fifteen yards short of where Van Hertzwelder’s ball landed. The three of them give a smattering of golf claps.

“Excellent position, George,” Horace says. “What you lack in distance, you make up for in accuracy.”

“Thanks, Horace. I try to play to my strengths.”

Fuckin’ sycophantic pussy. I know nothing about golf, yet even I can tell that was a weak swing. Tiger Woods our Commander and Chief is not.

“Whose up next?” Bush says, taking a swig off a water bottle.

“Let’s let Mr. Peanutz go next,” Buck says. “See what the newcomer is working with here and whether the rest of us should be worried or not.”

I pull a club out of my bag and resist the temptation to beat Buck over the head with it for the condescension. I pick a ball and a tee out of the side pocket and walk up to the box. I kneel down and start setting the ball up. “Umm, Poopy…” Horace says.

“Yeah.”

“You probably want to use a driver for this first shot.”

“Gee, really. Thanks for letting me know,” I sneer. I’m having trouble sticking the tee in the grass so it sticks straight up. My fucking ball keeps falling off. It can’t help that I’m even more distracted, now that I notice Burke standing guard by some trees, scanning the perimeter of the course like he’s looking for threats when he knows damn well I’m the only threat anywhere close to here.

“I’m just saying because you grabbed your sand wedge. Your ball isn’t going to even get half way down the course if you use that.”

I finally get the ball to stay on the tee, so I get up, go back to my golf bag and replace the sand wedge with a different club. I go back to the tee box and start to set up.

“Um, Poopy,” Horace calls out from behind me. “That’s a nine iron. The driver is the club made out of wood.”

I turn around and snap, “Look, asshole. I play my way, you play yours. If I wanna use a nine-iron I’ll fucking use a nine-iron. Okay? It’s called ‘thinking outside the box’.”

Horace slinks back. “I’m just trying to help. No need to get snippy.”

I turn around and try to look like I know what I’m doing. Not that I even give a damn if I win this, I just hate being made to look like a fool. I’m sure Van Hertzwelder is having a blast watching this.

I raise up my club and swing as hard as I can. It feels like a good swing, but all it accomplishes is wacking a large clump of turf about ten feet away from me. Buck and Van Hertzwelder are behind me, giggling like schoolgirls. I set up and try again. I swing the club again and miss the grass this time. Unfortunately, I miss the ball as well. I look down and see it sitting on the tee, and then, as if to mock me, it falls off.

“Here, Poopy,” the President says. “Since you’re new to the game, I’ll give you some pointers.” He sets his water bottle down on the cart and comes up behind me. As in right behind me. As in if this bomb goes off now, his guts are gonna be spread out across this entire golf course before my mom can come to my rescue.

“First, you want to keep your feet at about shoulder width,” Bush says, arranging me close to the ball. I look over to where Burke is standing and I can see that he sees how close Bush is to me. I can’t see Van Hertzwelder, but if he’s smart, he’s probably meandering out of the bomb’s radius just about now.

“Then, you want to keep your left arm straight as you swing. That will give your swing better accuracy…”

I’m fucking shaking. I see Burke reaching into his pocket, probably to activate the detonator. I’m out of time, I’ve got to do something now or I’m dead, the President is dead, and Van Hertzwelder and his fucking conspiracy wins.

So I do what I do best…

“Now, you don’t have to muscle the club. Just use the natural momentum and…”

Suddenly the President jumps back from me. “What’s that smell? Poopy, did you just fart?”

I shrug, trying to put some discreet distance between myself and the President. “I don’t know. It was probably you. You know what they say, ‘he who first smelt it, dealt it.’”

George looks around, incredulous. “I didn’t do that. That wasn’t me. That was most definitely you.”

“What the fuck?” Buck yells, his face screwing up into a rictus of disgust. “My God! Look at that! Peanutz just crapped in his pants!” He uses his club to point at the tan-brown stream of liquid shit running out of the cuff of my pants leg and pooling next to my shoes.

As soon as Buck points this out, all four of them back up quickly in disgust. “Jesus Christ that smells,” Horace says, holding his nose. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

I grin. Normally, shitting your pants in the presence of the President would be quite possibly the most embarrassing thing that could happen to a person. However, in this case, it works completely to my advantage. Van Hertzwelder looks disgusted, just like everyone else, but I also see the undercurrent of rage at his plans quickly coming apart. This makes me grin even more.

“Sorry fellas,” I say. “Guess someone should take me back to the club house so I can get changed up. Maybe I can catch up with you guys on the next hole.”

“Next hole?” Buck says. “Fuck that. I ain’t spending my afternoon playin’ golf with some asshole who ain’t even potty trained.”

“Hey,” I say, pointing my nine-iron at him. “I donated a half-million bucks so I could play with Shrub here, and I plan on getting’ my money’s worth.” Actually, I don’t care if I finish up the game since as soon as I’m out of sight of Burke, I’m telling the first Secret Service agent I see about the bomb on my wrist and getting out of this for good. But I gotta keep up appearances for the time being and besides, giving Buck a heart attack would be a nice side bonus.

“Who gives a fuck?” Buck snaps, spraying spittle as he screams. “I’ve donated ten times that much money to the Party over the years and if they want to see another dime from me, they’re gonna make sure I don’t see you ever again in my whole fucking life you incontinent bastard!”

I almost don’t notice it over Buck’s tirade, but the Secret Service members are suddenly going apeshit. The three members closest to the President grab him by the arm and say urgently “Mr. President, we’ve just had a report of a code red threat in the vicinity. We have to evacuate you to a secure location immediately.”

“Code red?” Bush says. “What is it? What’s the threat?”

“Apparently we have a possible female Muslim extremist suicide bomber on the premises, claiming to be carrying a suitcase nuke.”

“Don’t you have snipers? Shoot her before she can set it off.”

“We can’t risk it,” the agent says. “It appears she’s carrying a deadman’s stick. If she’s shot and releases the pressure on the handle, we’re afraid the device will go off. Please Mr. President. We’ll explain this all to you once we’re at minimum safe distance. But we have to leave right now.”

Thank god. My mother seems to be doing

I nearly laugh as the agents practically drag the President onto the closest golf cart and race towards the contingent of SWAT team members who are already setting up a perimeter for an armored car just down the range. Less than ten seconds later, the President is nowhere close to the bomb on my wrist. The three people of my golf party, as well as two Secret Service agents are all that is left on the golf range. I look over at Van Hertzwelder, and just wonder how he must feel to see his plan all come apart.

I imagine he’s about ready to scream, but instead, he gives off a mean, sinister looking grin. The rest of the party is distracted by the commotion of the President’s detail, so he walks over to me and whispers in my ear:

“Nicely done, Mr. Peanutz,” he says, almost congratulatory. “Doesn’t matter though. You’re still fucking dead.”

The Winner: Part Thirty-Two

2008-01-14T04:53:00.000-07:00

I tense up and wince almost uncontrollably. My knees are shaking under the table. This is happening too soon. Way too soon. My life saving plan isn’t going to go into effect for another twenty minutes. Apple’s bus isn’t going to leave for another fifteen. I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m fucked.

Then I calm down. No, I’m fine. Van Hertzwelder is way too close to me for Burke to detonate the bomb on my wrist. This is confirmed by how relaxed Van Hertzwelder looks as he stands up to greet the President. “Terrific to meet you again George. It’s been a hard year for you,” he says in a completely natural way.

“It’s been a hard year for America,” Bush says.

He makes his way around the group to Buck, who grabs Bush’s hand in his meaty paw and starts pumping it. “Glad to see ya ‘gain George. Hope life up in Washington hasn’t been too hard. I know how us Texas folk cotton to too much of that politickin’ and like wise.” I want to groan. I half expect Buck to fucking let loose a hee-haw after he says that.

Bush’s voice instinctively gets a twang when he responds. “Tell me ‘bout it. I got ‘nother two years of doing the Lord’s work before I can go home and clear brush in Crawford. Nothin’ is more relaxing. It’s like clearing the mind.”

“Provided that cunt Cindy Sheehan isn’t within twenty miles of the county,” Buck quips.

Bush chuckles. “Thankfully, she’s been leaving me alone for awhile. Off crying to her dead son at her communist party rallies I suspect.”

Another round of chuckles go around the table and I do so as well so I don’t look out of place. I’m the only person who hasn’t greeted the President yet. In fact, I’m still frozen in my chair. He comes around to me, smiling in a friendly, affable way. “And I think you’re the only one here I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet.”

He holds his hand out to me and I shake it. I’m in a cold sweat, still wondering if the bomb is going to go off now that I’m right next to Bush.

“Boy, was you born in a barn or something?” Buck loudly barks at me. “Ain’t you got no manners? Stand when you greet the President of the U-nited States of ‘Merica!”

Fuck, he’s right. I’m looking totally flustered here. I get up, my knees still shaking. “I’m sorry.” Once I’m on my feet, I shake the President’s hand again. “Hello Mr. President, I’m Poopy Peanutz.”

The President gives me a kind, smile. “I’m only Mr. President to my staff and to the press. Here you can call me George…”

I probably shake his hand a little too long, but I quickly let go. “Sorry if I seem nervous here, Mr. Pres…I mean, George. It’s just I never imagined I’d ever get to meet you, you know…in person.”

“Don’t worry, Poopy. I can call you Poopy right? Behind all the pomp and circumstance, I’m really just a normal fellow just like you.”

“Just like me,” I repeat. “Yes. I apologize for acting so nervous.”

“Nervous?” Buck says. “More like shellshocked. You’re shaking like you just saw Hillary Clinton’s snatch. Have another brandy, willya?”

Bush shoots him a look, “Now Buck, be nice. Poopy here just isn’t used to running in the same circles as you and I.” He pulls out the chair next to mine. “Let’s all sit down and have a quick brandy before we go do our thirteen holes.”

I’m too fucking terrified to be seriously angry, but dammit, if this bomb does end up going off I really hope that faux cowboy Buck gets killed in the blast too. Or maimed. Yes, maimed would be better. Get half his face shredded off and maybe his hand fused into his thigh in the blast. Maybe get his balls blown off too…

I keep thinking progressively worse and worse fates for Buck, even though in the end I want none of them to happen since that would mean I’d have to die. Still, this cold anger is calming me, focusing me, which is something I dearly need. The President is sitting right next to me, ordering a brandy from that gangly waiter. Van Hertzwelder is still at the table with us. I hope hope HOPE he doesn’t get up to use the bathroom or anything, since Burke will surely set this thing off if he does. Please, at least not for another twenty minutes.

The next round comes to the table. The President lifts his snifter up, “Well, gentlemen, I’d like to propose a toast, namely to all of you who have contributed so much money to the cause of the freedom in this country when it is in such desperate peril from enemies foreign and domestic. Cheers…”

Bush then upends the entire snifter, swallowing the whole thing in one gulp. Everyone else does the same except me. The last four glasses are starting to catch up with me so I can only get down a quarter of an inch without gagging. Bush puts his snifter down and gives off a loud belch. He waves one of his aides over and says, “Have the waiter bring us another round. Whaddya all say, let’s get one more in before we hit the course?”

Grunts of agreement go all around the table. Something doesn’t feel right. I look over at him and ask, “Say, I thought you didn’t drink. Didn’t you have to stop because you got a DUI or something?”

Bush raises his eyebrow, “I don’t drink?” He looks around the table, pauses, and then breaks into a hearty peal of laughter. “Listen here, Poopy. It is almost physically impossible for someone to be President and not drink. The demands of the job are such that if I didn’t let off some steam and get drunk on a daily basis, I’d have nuked half the countries in the world just for the fuck of it. Of course, I tell the public that I’m a teetotaler, but that’s just because the evangelicals are uncomfortable with the conspicuous consumption of alcohol.”

I think I get that. “Oh-kay.”

“Okay. You tell anyone you saw me drinking, of course, I’ll deny it. Then I’ll sic Rove on you, have you smeared in the press, put on the no-fly list, and have your taxes audited every year for the rest of your life. Not to mention you won’t get invited to any more of our little golf outings,” he claps his hand on my back. “But you’re a smart fellow, Poopy. I’m sure I don’t need to spell this all out for you.”

“Right,” I say. “Don’t worry, Prez. You’re secret is safe with me.”

Now drink up so we can play. I’ve gotta be in Fresno for a dinner with the South Korean Ambassador by tonight, so we can’t dawdle in the club for too long.”

I sip at my brandy some more, mostly just enough to coat my lips. Van Hertzwelder speaks up, “Yes, we should finish and get on the course quickly. Gentlemen, I’m afraid that my incompetent secretary managed to schedule a board meeting two hours from now, forgetting that I had this game today. I’ll be able to play one hole with you fellows, then I’ll have to be going.”

“Oh Jesus, Carl,” the President whines. “Couldn’t you have told them you were meeting with the fucking President? I’m sure they’d reschedule for that.”

“I would, but these guys are on a flight to Beijing to talk to work on the contract tonight. I absolutely can’t get out of it. Don’t worry, I’ll probably have some free time in August and we can meet again down at your ranch.”

Bush lifts his refreshed snifter to his mouth. “Well, it’s up to you. As long as the party can keep the donation you gave us.”

“But of course,” Van Hertzwelder says. He looks at me and smirks. This is good to know though. He is going to be close enough to me that Burke won’t be able to detonate the explosive without getting him in the blast as well. At least until we finish up the first hole. This actually is good news since I’m sure my mom will come into play before we even reach the first hole.

Then I feel something buzzing. I’m certain it’s the bomb being primed to explode, but it’s coming from my pocket, not my wrist. Yes, it’s just my cellphone. I pull it out and the caller ID says it’s the phone from the bus station. I flip open the phone, put it to my ear and turn away from the table so I can talk semi-discreetly.

“Poopy,” It’s Apple’s voice on the other end. She sounds calmer than she did when I spoke with her in the locker room. “I’m calling you, just like you said you wanted me to.”

“Yes. Did you make it over there all right?”

“Yes. I’m fine. All three of us made it over here okay.”

“Do you still have the bus tickets?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Get on there now and don’t talk to anyone until you get to Oklahoma City.”

“I will.”

Something doesn’t feel right. She doesn’t sound normal.

“Apple, are you sure no one followed you to the bus station?”

“Yes. I’m sure, Poopy. Everything is all right.”

I’m not convinced, but I don’t know what else I can do. “Okay, well. Good luck Apple. And I’m truly sorry about everything that has happened to you and your children. I never meant for you all to get caught up in my mess.”

“It’s okay, Poopy. I forgive you. I’ll see you on Friday.”

I’ll see you on Friday. Oh shit…

“Wait, Apple, what did you just say?” but she’s already hung up and I’m just talking to dial tone. I slowly snap the phone shut and stick it in my pocket. Buck seems to notice my change in demeanor.

“You look a little green around the gills there, Poopy,” he says. “You drink too much brandy, or did you just get a bad call from your hedge fund manager?”

I suddenly feel sick. Things are spinning out of control, but I take a deep breath and get a handle on myself. “I’d…rather not say. It’s personal.”

“Suit yerself,” he says, then goes back to talking with the President.

Van Hertzwelder raises his brandy to me and smiles.

“Cheers, Mr. Peanutz.”

The Winner: Part Thirty-One

2008-01-13T03:44:00.001-07:00

“Waiter,” I yell over to the skinny, bowtied twerp in the corner who is there just to serve our table. “I’m empty.”

He comes over and takes the empty brandy snifter from in front of me and scurries off to the bar to get me a refill, my third in fifteen minutes. The other three fellows at the table are talking some stock market shit I can barely follow and don’t pay me any mind. Van Hertzwelder leans over to me and says quietly. “You should slow down on those. Remember, you have a job to do.”

I belch in his face. “I can blow up just as good drunk as I can sober. I just won’t mind so much drunk.”

Van Hertzwelder visibly winces when I say the words “blow up” even though the other three haven’t heard me. “Yes,” he says. “You most certainly did blow up your stroke count the last time you had four brandies before a game. Care to wager on again on the likelihood of that happening again?”

“Stroke what?” I slur. Van Hertzwelder gives me a slap on the back and one of those artificial, upper class chuckles, then goes back to ignoring me and praying I don’t say something stupid.

Really, I’m acting a lot more drunk than I actually am since I know it will piss Van Hertzwelder off. Sitting here, trying to act nonchalant with a bomb strapped to my wrist, four snifters of brandy is barely dulling my edge. Between that and the asthma medication I took earlier, I doubt the liquor is gonna have much of an effect on me.

So I won’t get drunk, but I might choke to death off the cigar smoke at this table. Some butler looking guy passed around a box of Cuban Cohibas when we first sat down (“Please don’t worry about their legality. There are certain rules that can be bent here, especially during diplomatic functions…”) but I declined. The only cigar I’ve ever smoked was a Swisher Sweet I shoplifted from a 7-11 when I was fourteen, and that one made me puke for an hour. I feel on the verge of puking from smelling the four of these assholes smoke theirs.

One of the President’s twenty year-old aides walks up to our table and says in her perky, Christian fat-girl voice, “Hello gentlemen! I’m just here to inform you that the President will meet you all out on the course in about fifteen minutes. He just needs to finish a conference call and he’ll be with you.”

“Good,” the member of our party who introduced himself to me as Buck Hargrove says. “I’m itching to get out on those links, see if George has improved his game since the spell we played in his first term.”

There’s a series of grunts of agreement around the table. The scrawny waiter finally brings back my brandy. This one looks about an ounce and a half lighter than the other three, but I don’t waste time telling him to take it back and top it off. Even if I didn’t have a bomb strapped to me, being in the presence of these jerk offs would make me want to drink. Like this fucking “Buck” character. His fake cowpoke accent makes him sound like the product of breeding too close to the gene pool, but I doubt the guy ever worked a day on a farm in his life. Shit, I doubt the guy ever really worked a day doing anything in his life. His hands were softer than a six-year old girl’s when I shook them. Despite that, he says he’s the CEO of some construction outfit with a couple billion dollars worth of no-bid contracts in Iraq. He was quite shameless about saying how he’s here to (as he said in his own words) “butter up Dub,” so he could get a few billion more to build schools in Anbar province that he never completed the first time.

The fellow he’s talking, whose name is Horace or something to looks more like just a straight up, evil middle aged white man. He’s got a bit less good ole’ boy bluster than Buck, so I have no idea what he’s here to do. Seeing that I’m the sole person who hasn’t jumped in on the conversation yet, he politely tries to include me. “So, Mr. Peanutz, how is your game? Have you played this course before?”

I’m too busy checking out his watch, a gold Rolex similar to mine. Well, similar in everything except that mine could wallpaper the room with the flesh of every person sitting at this table. I quickly realize he’s addressing me and say, “Sorry, what was that?”

Horace clears his throat. “I asked if you’d played this course before. I mean, looking at the layout for the first hole, I can’t believe that it just has a par of four.”

Great. Golf talk. What do I say to this? I decide to shrug and just tell the truth. “I’ll be honest here fellas, I haven’t ever played golf in my life unless you count the miniature golf I played at the rec center for my birthday when I was ten.” I could add that that was the only birthday my mother ever did anything special for me, but I don’t think these guys want to hear that Dr. Phil bullshit right now.

I thought that this Horace fuck would be taken aback by this, instead he just smiles. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about that today,” then he leans in closer to me. “If you say I said this, I’ll deny it. But even having never played golf before, you’ll still likely give the President a run for his money. George seems to populate his staff with nothing but sycophants that shield him from the reality that he can’t play golf worth a damn. I admire the fact that you’re honest about it though.”

“Well, I’ve always said honesty is the best policy,” I lie as I take another sip of my brandy.

Horace lets loose another insincere chuckle. “Cliché’s are cliché’s because they are true, my dear man. Since we’re being honest with each other, I’d like to talk with you about your prison privatization ideas.”

“Prison what?…oh, oh yeah,” I’d totally forgotten my the story I’d used for my cover. Probably not a good thing at this point. “How did you know I was here about that?”

Horace smiles. “My dear sir. A man in my position does his best to know as much about the people he’s paying a considerable amount of money to meet as he can before he steps in the room with them. Now, I know what Mr. Hargrove here is about. He wants to snatch up as many no-bid contracts as he can so he can purchase a yacht before we’re finally forced out of that Iraq mess. Carl Van Hertzwelder wants to make the jump directly from law to a Senate seat this election cycle and figures getting as much face time with the powers-that-be will help him. I myself am trying to lobby a plan to privatize the intelligence field as a way to supplement the CIA, NSA, and ONI, but really more to supplant them. Kind of like what groups like Blackwater are doing with the military.”

“Oh, and here I was thinking you were just another Jesus freak,” I say snidely, motioning towards the gold cross he’s wearing around his neck. Horace, however, seems non-plussed.

“My Catholic faith is important to me, yes. But the defense of free market capitalism means so much more since that is the only way to true religious freedom. I digress though. You, Mr. Peanutz, are something of a cipher. All I’ve been able to find out is that you’re hear to lobby the President about the privatization of prisons. Now, I’ve been able to put together that you’ve been in prison yourself and that you’ve come about your windfall from winning the state lottery.”

“Wow,” I say, gulping the rest of my brandy. “You’re good. I’d totally turn over the nation’s intelligence services over to you.”

“So why are you lobbying for more privatization of the prison system?” Horace comes out and says. “All the analysts I’ve read say that the prison privatization boom ended at least five years ago. And if anything, sentencing guidelines in the courts have been lightening up, meaning that privatized prisons are a low growth market. So my question is, why would you spend so much to try and lobby for such a low growth market?”

I glance briefly towards Van Hertzwelder, but he doesn’t seem to be too concerned that I’m talking to some wannabe spook (or at least just hides it well). Shit, if he can’t even see through the holes in my cover story, he can’t be that good at his job. So I tell him, “Well, I just happen to have some inside information that you don’t know about and I’m not really at liberty to tell about, so that’s that.”

“Very well, Mr. Peanutz,” Horace says. “If I can’t bend your ear as to what you’re up to now, perhaps sometime we should talk about what I do believe is a growth area. Privatized black sites in nations with few human rights laws. It will be the future of the intelligence industry as I see it. Nations typically can’t torture suspects without much public outcry, but companies within companies which are subsidiaries of companies owned by shell corporations would have fewer such restrictions.”

I’m kind of amused by the conspiratorial tone that Horace has taken with me, especially considering the fact that two of the people he’s sitting with are part of a bigger conspiracy than he could even comprehend. However, I don’t want to continue talking to him in case he isn’t a total dumbshit and puts two and two together, so I dismissively say, “Have your people talk to my people. We’ll lunch.”

He grins and claps me on the back, “Believe me, you’ll want to hear what I have to say. Remember, anything not done for the profit motive is inherently socialism. National security is no different.”

Horace pulls away from me and suddenly stands up. “Mr. President, how good to see you!”

In my peripheral vision, I see the President’s personal detail move in around us. They are all dressed in casual clothing, but their stern visage makes them unmistakably Secret Service. Then, I hear his voice, the voice I’d only heard filtered through news broadcasts or Internet clips of him flubbing some common homily: “Hey there, Horace, good to seeya again!”

George W. Bush is fucking standing right behind me.

The Winner: Part Thirty

2008-01-02T04:38:00.000-07:00

I don’t even notice there is another person sitting in the back of the towncar until my butt is planted on the black leather seat. Not only has Burke decided to show up for this golf game, Carl Van Hertzwelder is sitting there as well.

“Come on, Mr. Peanutz,” he says. “We mustn’t keep the President waiting.”

Burke slams the passenger door shut and gets in the driver’s seat. He adjusts the mirror, then holds his wrist up to his mouth. “Unit Twelve to Candlestick, second VIP is in the box. We are proceeding to primary location; over.”

The car starts moving and I look out the window, watching the buildings pass by. Van Hertzwelder nudges me. “Are you surprised to see me Peanutz?”

I nod. “Yes.”

He chuckles. “Well, I hope in your shock seeing the both of us, you will still be able to complete your task. You know what’s on the line.”

I smirk. “Look, I’m surprised, but I’m not shocked. Let me guess, Burke is your inside man with the Secret Service.”

Van Hertzwelder nods. “It’s good to see you’re not too slow on the uptake. Maybe you’ll have the brains to see this through after all.”

I give him an insincere smile to go along with his backhanded compliment. “Well, since I figured that out, you care to shed some light on why you’re accompanying us on this little coup d’etat?”

“Absolutely,” Van Hertzwelder says. “Two reasons actually. One is, I really, really, want to be there when your faggot ass gets splattered all over the links.”

I grunt. I’m getting real sick of everyone thinking I’m gay just because I did what I had to do in prison. “What’s reason number two?”

“Reason number two is that the cabal believes it would be advantageous to my impending campaign if I’m present during the death of the President. Think Guiliani on 9/11, or Jesse Jackson on the balcony with Martin Luther King. We believe my being present will instantly put me in the public consciousness and give me enormous name recognition.”

“Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention during nigger history month, but I didn’t realize Jesse Jackson was with Martin Luther King when he got offed.”

“Peanutz, what did I tell you about using the N-word?” Burke growls at me predictably.

“Fuck you, you can’t do shit to me now and you know it, nigger. Nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger. I’m sure your cabal wouldn’t take too kindly to you fucking up their well laid plans just because I went all Michael Richards on you.”

Burke growls, “I’m gonna enjoy watching you die, Peanutz.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll have cornbread and grits when you join me in hell...nigger.”

“That’s enough, Peanutz!” Van Hertzwelder yells. “You’d better get your act together, after all, you do still have something to lose here. The stripper doesn’t get her kids back until we say so.”

“If you don’t give her kids back, I’ll tell every Secret Service guy at the golf course that isn’t Burke about what you’re up to. It’ll be kind of difficult for you to contain that, won’t it?”

“Peanutz, you’d better keep in mind that we have left nothing to chance here,” Burke says.

I smirk, since I’m pretty sure they have no idea what I have in store for them here.

Anyway, I quiet down for the time being. It’s time to quit fucking with these two and focus. I hadn’t figured on Van Hertzwelder being here, but the more I think about it I realize this makes my plans that much easier. In fact, it makes my plans too easy. “Van Hertzwelder, you fucked up. You do realize that as soon as you put the bomb on me, I’m gonna make sure to detonate it when I’m standing right next to the both of you.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Burke says. “Especially since I’ll the one with the remote detonator. I’ll be sure to that both myself and Mr. Van Hertzwelder are well out of the device’s kill radius before I set it off.”

I shrug, “I guess that makes sense, for you at least.” I knew they couldn’t have been dumb enough to overlook that. Well, at least I know what I’m working with here.

The Cherry Creek Country Club is only a ten minute drive from downtown, so we arrive there pretty quickly (which is good since I’m sick of being in such close proximity to Burke and Van Hertzwelder). I’d driven or taken the bus past the country club almost all my life, but I never imagined I’d be going there, or, more accurately, I never cared about going in there. Golf was never my thing and I never planned on taking it up, even after receiving my windfall from the lottery. Now, of all ironies, my life has a serious chance of ending here. However, the past month of living with this has made me kind of Zen about it all. Even with all my preparations, if my plans do not go off precisely the way I intend them, I’ll be dead by the end of the day. Strangely, it doesn’t bother me too much. Considering what an admittedly self-serving bastard I am, I’m more concerned with making sure Apple and her children are safe and that Van Hertzwelder’s plans go to shit than I am with preserving my own life.

Burke drives the towncar up to the roundabout in front of the country club. He mutters some more of his Secret Service codeword gibberish into his wrist mic, then flashes an ID through the window to some other agents who step up to the car carrying some rather large PDAs. There looks like what must be an entire platoon of Marines patrolling the grounds, their M4 carbines hanging against the chest plates of their body armor.

“It’s time, Peanutz” Burke says ominously. “Play it cool.”

“Fuck you,” I say, then I step out of the car with a big shit-eating grin to the Secret Service agents outside. “Hi fellas! Cold enough for ya out here?”

They don’t seem to have much time for pleasantries. They hold the PDA up to my face, “Sir, please look directly into the camera and hold still for five seconds.”

I do like he says. Van Hertzwelder gets out of the car and the other agent does the same to him. After examining the PDA, the agent goes, “VIP is authentic. Clear for entry into the grounds.”

Burke has gone around to the back of the car and popped open the trunk. I stand there for a minute and look at him, expecting him to get my clubs for me. After a few moments of standing there, he impatiently motions for me to pick them up. I guess it’s too much to expect him to play caddy for me. Once I’ve got mine, Van Hertzwelder hefts up his bag and Burke shuts the trunk. “If you would both follow me…”

We walk into the country club. The interior is very lush, all velvet drapes, burnished wood, with game trophies on the walls and what I swear are endangered birds of prey stuffed and mounted in every little nook and cranny around the damn place. Besides staff members and Secret Service agents patrolling the hallways with MP5s, it looks like we are the only people inside the country club. Burke walks up to one of the other agents, whispers something in his ear, then turns to Van Hertzwelder. “Agent Simmons here will escort you to your private locker room. Mr. Peanutz, I will show you to yours.”

“Delightful,” Van Hertzwelder says, then looks at me. “If we have some time before the match, perhaps you’d join me and the other members of our party for a cigar brandy at the bar.”

I’m about to say “fuck off” to him as well, but I gotta stay in character here. “Yes yes, good sir. That sounds absolutely, well, scrumptious, if I do say.”

Van Hertzwelder looks at me funny, but then says, “Very well then,” and goes off with Agent Simmons. I follow Burke down the hallway to my own dressing room. He’s nice enough to open the door for me as I step inside.

“How am I doing?” I say, loosening my tie. The fucking thing is choking me.

“Fine, Peanutz,” he says, opening up a fancy schmancy wooden locker and pulling out some clothes. “You are well on your way to being the one of the most notorious men of the twenty-first century. Here’s your clothes. I believe we got them in your size.”

I take them, pause, then say, “Do you mind if I have a little privacy here?”

“I’m afraid not,” Burke says. “As much as I don’t want to see you naked, I do have to ensure that you don’t try to do anything to undermine our plans.”

I groan. “Not that there’s much I could do at this point, but fine, have it your way.”

I strip off the suit and don’t bother to fold it or anything. I just leave it on a heap on the ground since this is the last time I’ll ever be wearing it. Unfortunately, when I look at the clothes Burke brought for me, I think I would be more dignified to die in that suit. The pants are polyester of the most hideously colored plaid, along with a salmon colored polo shirt and a white golf cap. This shit was probably Van Hertzwelder’s idea, to humiliate me even further in my death.

“This stuff is real nice,” I mutter, looking at myself in the full length mirror in the room. “Real stylin’. This shit looks like something my color blind grandpa would wear.”

“You have obviously never played golf before,” Burke says. “Those clothes are from very high end sporting stores.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” I snort. “I don’t see Tiger Woods wearing crap like this.”

“I also don’t see Tiger Woods walking around with a brown cumstain on his slacks,” Burke sneers. “At least with those pants, no one could tell if you decided to masturbate all over yourself like you usually do.”

I turn and face him. “That mean you don’t mind if I rub one out here really quick with you watching, Mandingo?”

Burke smiles but doesn’t answer me. He pulls his phone out of pocket and checks his messages. “Okay, Mr. Peanutz. It looks like we’re ready to get to business. My associates have just informed me that they have given your stripper friend back her children and she is ready to talk to you now.” He presses a button on the phone and speaks into it, “Put her on now…Ms. Clements? Yes, has everything gone to your satisfaction?…Please calm down ma’am…please be quiet for just a second…Perhaps Mr. Peanutz can explain that to you…” Burke hands the phone over to me. “Here’s your chance to talk with her, like we agreed…”

I take the phone from him and put it up to my ear. “Apple...”

I don’t get a chance to say more than that before she starts babbling hysterically into the phone. “Poopy, what’s wrong with Bubba? Where’s his arm? What happened to my precious little Bubba’s arm, Poopy?”

“Apple, calm down. Do you have the kids? Are they alive?”

Apple is crying too much to say anything, so prod her again and finally she says, “Yes, they’re alive but…Bubba…he’s deformed!”

“Goddammit, they told me they wouldn’t do anything to them,” I say, trying to act like I didn’t know this had happened all along. “Don’t worry, Apple. Because they did that, I’m not going to pay them everything I said I would. I’m gonna take that money and send it to you so you can buy him a prosthetic arm. Is that better?”

Apple says nothing, she just keeps crying into the phone. Obviously the prospect of getting extra money doesn’t dull the pain of seeing her child mutilated. “Apple, the people who met with you, have they let you go yet?”

“Noo,” she sobs. “They’re still here. They have gunnns…” she says, then I hear her protesting as the phone is taken away from her.

I hand the phone back to Burke. “Tell them to let her go.”

Burke holds up a shiny looking gold Rolex watch. “Put this on.”

I take the watch and put it on my left wrist. It feels heavier than a typical watch, and the band feels a couple of links too tight for my wrist. Burke watches me do this and says into the phone, “Okay. Let her go. Don’t trail her, just go to your secondary location and wait for instructions. Over.”

He snaps the phone shut, and I fiddle with the clasp of the watch, seeing if I can get it into a position where it’s not cutting off the circulation to my hand. He screams, “DON’T DO THAT!”

I’m taken aback, but I take my fingers away from the clasp. Burke sighs with relief.

“Mr. Peanutz, don’t try and take that off again. If you attempt to remove it, the circuit will be broken and the explosive will go off.”

“Jesus Christ, you could have told me that before I put this thing on you know.”

Burke puts the phone back in his pocket and pulls out his own pocket watch. “I have the detonator on me here. It’s a one time use, neutron burst transmitter. The signal cannot be jammed and does not need line of sight to work. It can set the explosive off even if it’s behind ten feet of steel and concrete, so don’t think you can save yourself with any sort of stunt.”

“I’m not planning on it,” I lie. “You kept your end of the bargain, I’ll keep mine.”

“Very well then,” Burke says. “The device on your wrist is a binary explosive. Wherever the President goes, the Secret Service places bomb sniffers that will detect all conventional explosives in the area. The binary explosive uses two chemicals that are inert until their mixed, which will trick the sniffers. However, it takes about five seconds from the moment I press the detonator for the chemicals to mix before it goes off. It will begin making a noise and vibrating when it’s been set, so be sure to have the President close by when you feel it. The effective kill radius is ten feet, but the closer you are to him, the better.”

I nod. “Any idea when you’re going to set it off?”

“I’ll do it when Van Hertzwelder and myself are out of range. I am assigned to guard the inner perimeter of the VIP party, so I will be close, but not too close. I will be far enough away that even if you decide to charge at me once the bomb is set, you will not be able to take me with you.”

“I told you, I’ll keep up my end of the bargain,” I say. “Though, since you’re the agent assigned to search me before the game, it’s gonna look awfully suspicious if you let a fucking explosive strapped to my wrist get by you.”

Burke nods. “It will look bad for me, but we’ve got this figured out so it will look like mere incompetence rather than being complicit,” he grins. “I’ll be reprimanded, demoted, suspended, probably placed on a Treasury detail checking the serial numbers on one-hundred dollar bills in some remote office. And after a year or two, when the entire mess has settled down, I’ll call in my favors, retire from the Service and get cushy work as a well paid security consultant for some of the companies that will benefit from today’s events.”

“So it won’t bother you that you’ll be one of the worst traitors in American history? That’s not going to bug your conscious in the least.”

“Mr. Peanutz, myself and the people I work for, we are not traitors. In fact, we are quite the opposite. Despite the circumstances in which you are recruited, I want you to die knowing that in the end you really are helping your country by doing this. You and I both know that if there was any president just asking to be assassinated, it is this one.”

“I don’t care,” I say. “It’s not like I’ll be around to benefit from it.”

“That you won’t,” Burke looks down at his non-explosive watch and sees the time. “Now, we have to leave if we’re going to keep the schedule. Mr. Peanutz, please follow me…”

Again, Burke holds the door open for me and I step out into the country club’s lush hallway. He leads me down a different hallway, past more Secret Service agents coolly surveying everything behind their dark glasses.

He takes me to a spiral staircase that leads up to the club’s bar. I hear a distant beating noise which seems to come closer and closer. The game trophies begin to rattle on the wall as the noise becomes louder. It sounds like a chopper is landing outside. I hear one of the agent’s radios squawk out orders.

“Marine One is wheels down. All sections, alert condition alpha. Tumbler is on premises, repeat, Tumbler is on the premises. Stand by.”

The Winner: Part Twenty-nine

2007-12-26T04:55:00.001-07:00

The cell phone Burke gave to me has been ringing for some time, but I’ve just been staring at it in a half-asleep, half-awake daze. I set the ringer to the Beethoven’s Ninth ringtone. I must have been in an ironic mood when I set my harbinger of doom to the “Ode to Joy”.

Anyway, the electronic classical abruptly ends. A few seconds later it announces NEW VOICEMAIL, and 3 MISSED CALLS. Then it stays silent for maybe thirty seconds before another incoming call starts the music again. This time, I drowsily pick it up and press the SEND button. “I’m sleeping.”

“It’s nine-thirty,” Burke says. “You can’t afford to be asleep or to dodge any more of my calls. All I have to do is press send on a text message I’ve already got punched in and you, the stripper, her children, and your mother will all die.”

“You’ve told me that a million times already,” I cough. My mouth feels dry, like it’s glued shut with saliva. “Just let me sleep another fifteen minutes.”

“Seeing as this is the day you’re going to die, I figured you’d want to savor every last breath. I figured you’d at least like to see one last sunrise.”

“What’s there to savor about life?” I grunt, sitting up in my pile of blankets I have laid out across the floor. “As far as I’ve seen, life is a great big steaming pile of shit.”

Burke chuckles. “Haven’t you ever heard the old maxim that the world is what you make of it?”

Har-de-har-har. “Well, it’s too late for me to do anything about that now, isn’t there?”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Burke says. “Listen, I’d love to talk with you, the condemned, about life the universe and everything, but it’s the big day and we’re on a tight schedule. I’ve sent some men to pick up the stripper at your apartment. They will be at your door in twenty minutes to escort her to an undisclosed location where her children will be released to her.

“Five minutes after the men have left, go downstairs from your apartment. The limousine the Secret Service has sent to pick you up will be there to drive you to the country club. Please take a quick shower and shave and dress presentably. You will be provided with casual wear at the club to wear on the course.”

“Don’t worry. I shaved and showered the other night and I’m gonna wear the suit you assholes left for me at the Brown Palace,” I say. I don’t tell him that the pants of that suit have a huge cumstain next to the crotch. However, you can’t really see it when I button up the jacket, so I didn’t waste money getting it dry cleaned. “So I guess I’ll be downstairs in twenty-five minutes, dressed and with my golf clubs, ready to go. Oh wait…I don’t own any golf clubs. It looks like your plan is fucked.”

Burke laughs. “Oh my god! Six months of meticulous planning and I forgot one little detail that will bring everything to a crashing halt! What am I gonna do, massa? Slap my ‘fro!”

That sonofabitch is mocking me. Well, we’ll see who has the last laugh today.

“Just do as your told, cracker boy. Be ready. It’s game time.”

And the phone goes dead. It’s game time…what a fucking homo, but I’m still too sleeper to properly sneer at his idiotic phrase.

As I climb out of my nest of blankets, I go into the bedroom where Apple is sleeping. Or at least is supposed to be asleep. She’s sitting in the chair, staring out at the window at the midmorning sun. I hadn’t bothered tying her to the bed last night. I was betting that her desire to get her children back would keep her from running off and telling the police. Guess it paid off. I pick up the last dose of methadone from where I hid it in the corner, as well as the bottle of asthma medication.

“Apple…”

Her head snaps in my direction, like I’ve startled her. “What? What’s going on?”

“It’s time. The men who are going to take you to get your children are going to be here real soon.” I pop open the childproof cap on the bottle and shake out five pills. She needs to be awake, but not jittery. “Here. Take your medication.”

She pops all of the pills right away, then washes it down with the thimble of methadone. “Do you have a shot?” she asks after swallowing the pills. “I could really use one right now? I’m so scared.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m all out. Besides, you need to have your head clear to get through today. Now, you remember everything you have to do, right?”

“I get my kids. I take a cab to the bus station. I call you by two-thirty from the payphone in the corner. If anyone is following me or forcing me to do something, I say ‘I’ll see you on Friday’ into the phone. Then, I get on the bus to Oklahoma and call you again when I get there so you can send me some money. Is that everything?”

“Yes. Very good,” I say as I pet the back of her head (although the part about me even being able to send her money when this is all over is pretty much a no-go at this point). “Here, get dressed. Those people are going to be here real soon.”

I start getting up when Apple suddenly snatches my hand. “You promise this is really gonna all be over after today?”

“Yes,” I say reflexively, although that’s more of a hope than a promise at this point. All the pieces are in place. There’s nothing more that can be done except to see this through and hope that everything happens as I planned it. I will either be dead or spending the rest of my days in a cell in Guantanamo Bay. And while that hardly sounds like an ideal outcome to most people, at this point, it sounds almost relaxing. I’ll have no worries except my day-to-day existence. No future to worry about, no past to worry about catching up to me since it will have already caught up. At least on this trip to prison, I won’t have to deal with being butt raped since the terrorists locked up in there don’t seem to hyped on the man on man thing.

Apple still hasn’t let go of my hand while I let my mind wander through my future of open-air cells in sunny Cuba. “Poopy, I have to tell you something.”

“Well, hurry and tell me because they’re gonna be here soon.”

She takes a deep breath. “I hate you…”

“Thanks, is that it?”

“No, let me finish. I hate you, but it’s more than that. Since you came into my life, everything seems to be going bad. I lost my job as a stripper, my boyfriend went missing, my children were kidnapped. I can barely even remember the last few weeks. Just a few days ago, I wanted to do nothing more than die. But I had a thought last night. It was one of those big thoughts, you know, an important thought…”

“An epiphany?” I say. I want get this maudlin shit over with so I can get ready.

“Yeah, what you said: an epiphany. I realized that my life was shit long before you ever came into my life and the more I thought about it, it’s been shit for as long as I remember. And when you came into my life, it was like you broke the dam of shit that has been building up in my life…”

“Okay,” I say, not knowing where this is going. “And?”

“Poopy, you made me realize that I’m shit. I’m a shitty woman. I’m a shitty mother. I lead a shitty life. I’m less than garbage. And while part of me hates you for showing me that, another part of me wants to thank you for showing me what I really am. I just don’t know what to feel any more.”

She starts crying. Fuck. I gotta say something so she can pull it together. Those guys are gonna be here soon.

“Apple, you’re not shit. You just got stuck in a shitty situation. I feel bad about what’s happened, even though most of it isn’t my fault, but I want to help you…you know…climb out of the shit and continue on as you did before. Maybe you can redeem yourself and maybe stop being such a shitty person. Which is not to say that I think you’re nearly as shitty as you keep saying you are but…aw fuck…I’m just talking in circles here. Listen, just get through today and everything else afterwards should be peachy keen, okay?”

“You…you promise?”

“Yes. For the second time, I promise you everything will be fine. Now will you please get up and get dressed? You’re gonna have to go soon.”

Apple keeps on crying, but at least she does get up and starts to put on the clothes I have laid out for her. I throw on the suit. Since it’s the last decent thing I have to wear any more, I left it folded neatly so I wouldn’t have to pay to get it pressed. Besides the cum stain on the front, I think it should look acceptable enough to not throw up any red flags. I still feel sluggish and barely awake after I put it on. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to dash out to Starbucks and waste the last five dollars I have to my name on some burnt, overpriced coffee, so I take four tablets of the asthma medication I’ve been feeding Apple to get her conscious and dry swallow them. It feels like they only get half way down my esophagus before getting stuck, so I start swallowing my spit trying to force them the rest of the way down into my stomach.

I hear a knock at the door to the apartment. Has it really been twenty minutes already? I look over at Apple who is pacing the carpet in front of the window. “They’re here. Are you ready?”

“I think so.”

“Do you remember everything you’re supposed to do?”

“Yes.”

I wave her over to the living room. “Come on then.”

Whoever is at my door keeps pounding incessantly. “I’m here! Fucking quit it!” I yell as I slide off the chain and undo the bolt. The door opens before I can touch the knob and in strolls the goatee guy and his buddy from the car.

“Please, come in,” I say as I close the door behind them.

I look at goatee guy and say, “Long time, no see,” then I stick my hand out to him. He instinctively reaches out to shake it, until at the last moment he pulls away, remembering where that hand was the last time he saw me. I grin at his disgust.

“Is this the woman?” the goatee guy growls.

“What? No ‘Hello’, ‘How have you been?’”

He is not taking kindly to my fucking with him, and he shows it by opening up his jacket and unholstering his Sig Sauer with a silencer screwed into the barrel. His thumb brushes the safety menacingly.

“I’ll ask you again, is that her, Mr. Peanutz?” he says, gesturing towards Apple.

“Who the fuck else would it be?”

Apple speaks up. “Are you gonna take me to my kids?”

Goatee guys says nothing. With his other hand, he pulls a black shroud out of his jacket pocket and tosses it at Apple’s chest. “Put that on and we’ll go.”

I snort. “That’s a bright idea. I’m sure no one will notice you leading a woman with a black hood over her head out of an apartment complex at gunpoint.”

“Let us worry about that, faggot,” he says, then looks over at Apple. “Put that on now or I’m leaving and dumping your kids in the river in a Hefty bag, bitch.”

Apple winces at the thought. She finds the opening to the shroud and starts putting it on her head. Before she pulls it down over her eyes, she looks at me says quietly.

“I love you Poopy Peanutz.”

At this point, I figure I should say something like, “I love you too” but I’m too speechless. Of all the things I expected her to say to me at this moment, this was the one I never expected her to say. She pulls the shroud over the rest of her face and Goatee guy sticks his pistol back in his holster and marches over to her. He grabs her by the elbow and starts leading her through the door. I think she’s about to lose her balance, but after stumbling a few steps, she’s walking just fine and goes up and out the door. I listen to their footsteps as they walk down the hall and the ring of the elevator as they call it to our floor.

I feel something swelling in my chest, realizing that this will be the last time I will ever see Apple. I’m so absorbed in this thought that I don’t realize that the driver is still in the room with me.

“Remember to be downstairs in five minutes, Peanutz,” he says. He walks to the door, then reaches down to the side and lifts a large bag and places it in the room. “When you go, take these with you.”

It’s a bag of golf clubs. Go figure.

The driver leaves, graciously closing the door behind him. I look at the LCD clock on the microwave just as the minute changes. I’ve got four minutes now. What do I do with these four minutes? Well, I really have to take a piss, so I go walk back through the path of trash in my apartment to the bedroom, unzip and let it loose. I don’t even bother to lift up the seat since I’m never coming back to this place again. I only bought this place a few months ago and I already miss it.

I finish up and shake the last few droplets of urine off my schlong (they inevitably miss the toilet bowl and end up as tiny dark wet spots on my trousers). Looking at the toilet, my guts start growling and I realize I could really take a dump right now as well, even though I can’t. In fact, if I even hope to survive today, I’ve got to hold off on that part, at least for the time being.

I hoped that taking a piss would eat up more time, but when I walk back in to the living room, the clock says it only took me one minute. Even though when I leave here, it inevitably either means my death or permanent imprisonment, I still feel anxious to leave. I stand there and the clock ticks off another minute. I pick up the golf clubs and step out the door. It will take me at least a minute to take the elevator downstairs.

I take it down to the first floor, then walk out of the lobby and onto the street. It’s nice and sunny and warm out here; a terrific spring day. It’s almost as if nature is mocking me. Or maybe I was just me hoping somewhere deep in my soul that it would snow today so they’d have to call off this fucking game. No such luck, and in fact, just as I step outside, the towncar that’s supposed to drive me to the golf course pulls up. Such perfect timing.

The trunk pops open and I walk over and throw my clubs inside recklessly. It lands on top of another golf bag and probably nicks the wood on the clubs, but fuck it and fuck them. I pull down the trunk and I think I have it close but the latch doesn’t take and it pops up again. I grab it and shut it again, this time with all the pent up aggressiveness I can muster. I shut it so hard that the rear shocks of the towncar groan a little bit.

“Please sir,” I hear a familiar voice in front of me. The driver of the car has gotten out to help me, “You don’t need to slam it.”

I’m about to yell fuck off, until I realize it’s Burke. Burke? What the fuck is he doing here? He opens the passenger door of the towncar and gestures for me to get inside.

“Please sir, we are on a tight schedule today.”

I look at him incredulously. “What are you doing here? What’s going on Burke?”

He smiles, showing off the contrast of his gleaming white teeth to his dark skin. “Please Mr. Peanutz, I need you to get inside,” he says. “And today, please call me Agent Burke…”

The Winner: Part Twenty-Eight

2007-12-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

“Why are we here?” Apple moans as I walk her through the doors of the Greyhound Station. I have one hand planted under her armpit to keep her from falling over or stumbling away from me. I really could have used another day or two to get Apple into a condition where she can be out in public. However, since my big day is tomorrow, I’ve got to jump the gun on rehabilitating poor Apple.

“We’re just gonna be here for a few minutes,” I say, and she doesn’t protest. She probably can barely process what’s going on. In order to get her on her feet, I’ve had to feed her about half a bottle of asthma medication loaded with pseudo-ephedrine. That got her conscious, but made her jittery and nervous and worst of all, unpredictable, so I feed her a couple Xanax that I’d stolen from my mother’s bag of medicine. I stuck her under the shower to hose off a couple weeks worth of grime off her body, then dressed her in a sweat shirt and jeans I picked up at Goodwill. I thought the garments I picked would roughly fit her body type, but she’d lost so much weight since I’ve had her bound and drugged at my apartment that even these size four clothes were hanging off her like sails. A cheap pair of gas station sunglasses covers the dark raccoon pits of her eyes. I figured if any authorities stopped me and questioned me about her, I’d just say she’s drunk and that I’m trying to get her into a program…blah…blah, and hope that Apple has enough sense to keep her mouth while I do the talking.

However, any fear I have of looking suspicious dragging around a half-conscious woman with me immediately goes away when we step into the bus terminal. I know that somewhere deep in my childhood I’d taken a bus cross-country with my mother to meet some obscure relative in some state I don’t remember (in fact, the only thing I vaguely remember about the trip was this obscure relative kicking us out of their house after just two days for reasons I was too young to understand). There is some disconnect between the bus station of my youth, which was fairly impressionless, versus the pit witness when I step inside. The first thing we’re greeted by is the sight of a homeless stewbum laying across a row of six plastic chairs. There is drool leaking out of his mouth, and on closer inspection, his mottled purple dick is hanging out of the fly of his stained and soiled pants. A tiny but insistent stream of urine dribbles out of it, soaking the front of his clothes and making a puddle on the finished concrete floor. You would think that there would be some sort of security here to toss the alcoholics out of the place before they made a disgusting mess like this, and there is. There are two young black guys wearing Wackenhut Security khakis standing off in the corner. Unfortunately, they were too busy playing the Area 51 and cursing at each other in ebonics to be bothered to move this drunken piss fountain somewhere where I don’t have to see or smell him.

“Nigga, I says you gots to lemme get da auto shotgun diz time!” One of the security guys yells at his partner holding the other gun. “I always get died by that alien motherfucka behind dat crate witout da auto shotgun.”

“Dat’s cuz you cain’t aim, cuz,” his slightly slower game buddy says. “Yo hole family cain’t aim. Dat’s why dey either in wheelchairs, in Heaven, or on da fuckin’ cellblock D!”

“Fuck you nigga!” the smaller, wiry one says, then tries to pistolwhip his shit talking partner with the plastic light gun. He dings him pretty good on the forehead, but rubber cord connecting it to the machine prevents him from doing much follow through and doesn’t do much more than piss his buddy off, who after the initial shock of the blow grabs the guy by his ears and drives his whole forehead into his face, splattering his nose flat and dropping him to the floor like a sack. Of course, the guy’s friends take that opportunity to swarm him and start kicking the shit out of him while he’s unconscious and on the ground.

Well, if that’s how the security here acts, I guess I won’t look too out of place here with Apple. I scoot her carefully towards the line at the ticket window, nearly tripping over some three year olds running around on the floor, screaming at each other in Spanish while their mother changes a baby diaper. Once we get in line, some impossibly thin teenager with a Mohawk comes up and tugs on my sleeve.

In a voice that comes somewhere between a cry and a whine, he begs, “Please sir, can you spare me a couple bucks? I’m not from this city and I haven’t eaten in three days. Please, sir, please…”

The kid is shaking, and from observing Apple for the last few weeks, I can easily conclude that the kid is dope sick and not starving or lost from home. I’m about to tell him to fuck off, when suddenly, an idea occurs to me.

I pull a five out of my pocket and say to him, “I’ll give you this if you go over to that bank of payphones over there and write down the number on the one closest to the Pepsi machine and bring it back here to me.”

Sounds pretty easy to me, but the kid whines, “But I don’t have a pen. Why can’t you just give me the money?”

Lazy fuck. I pull a pen and Burger King receipt out of my coat pocket and slap it down in his palm. “If you want this money, go and write down that phone number and bring it back to me. If the number you give me rings that phone on the end, I’ll give you this. Otherwise, try your luck scrounging up pennies from the other winners in this place.”

The junkie talks the pen and paper and grunts like he’s the one doing me a favor. I try to watch him out of the corner of my eye and he indeed goes to the phone I told him to. I turn Apple around and whisper in her ear. “See that junkie who just talked to us…”

Apple perked up. “You think he’s got some?”

“No,” I say dismissively. “Just watch which phone he goes to. This is important.”

The junkie seems to have to concentrate quite hard just to copy down a fucking phone number. Finally, he finishes up and heads back to me in the line. “Here’s your stupid phone number, yuppie. Now give me my five bucks.”

No wonder this shithead is out on the street. I snatch the phone number from his hand, then toss the five dollar bill on the floor. “Fascist fuck…” the junkie screeches as he snatches the money off the floor. I was worried this asshole might try and punch me, but he scurried towards the exit doors real quick, probably to get some more drugs.

I guess I could have gone over to the phone myself and copied the phone number. I could have saved myself the harassment (as well as five bucks). However, I pretty sure I’m still being followed. Their surveillance has become much more discreet. They probably swapped out Goatee guy and his driver once it became too obvious that I made them. Hell, they probably don’t even need to follow me any more. I’ve become so paranoid that I see them everywhere. Then again, with their plans so close to fruition, wouldn’t it make sense to keep an eye on me?

I figure it’s best to play it safe. They’re watching, but they can’t be watching too closely and stay anonymous.

Anyway, it’s our turn at the ticket window. There is a fairly clean-cut man behind the counter, maybe a few years older than me, with the smile of the thirty-something customer service representative that has lost all hope of ever getting out from behind the counter. “Hello, sir. How may I be of assistance.”

“I need a bus ticket for tomorrow,” I say.

“Okay, what’s your destination?”

“Well, here’s the thing. I need your help with that,” I say, leaning in closer. “I need a ticket on the first bus you’ve got leaving for the state line around two pm tomorrow. It can be going anywhere, I just need for her to leave exactly at three.”

The customer service guy types something into his computer and scrutinizes it for a moment. “We’ve got a bus leaving for Oklahoma City leaving at two-thirty and one leaving for Lincoln at three fifteen.”

I look over at Apple. “Which one do you prefer?”

“I don’t want to go to either place,” she whines.

“Well, if you had to choose, which one sounds better?”

“Oklahoma City I guess. My father lived there the last time I heard from him.”

I look at the ticket guy and tell him, “I’ll take that ticket to Oklahoma City.”

He types some more. “How many tickets you need?”

“Just one. For her. Or wait, how much extra is it for children.”

“Twelve and under is thirty-five dollars. Under two is free.”

“She’s got two kids under two. Is that still free?”

“Yes,” he goes back to his computer. “The total will come out to seventy-five dollars. Do you want to pay cash or charge?”

I’m about to dig out my credit card when I realize that it’ll just come back declined. The cashiers at McDonald’s won’t even take it as payment any more. I don’t know why I even carry the fucking thing with me. I start picking through the dwindling cash in my wallet. The ticket costs seventy-five dollars and I have exactly one-hundred in there. Paying that fucking drug addict five bucks to write down a phone number and curse at me now feels insanely extravagant. I pick out four twenties and hand them under the cashier’s glass. He takes it, types something else in his computer, then prints out the ticket and pushes by change back out the slot.

“Have a nice day sir,” he says. I take the ticket and start leading Apple away from the line and look for a nice quiet corner where I can talk to her unobserved. I luckily, after only having to shuffle around the station about three times, I found an area between a generic soda machine and some white trash guy sitting drunkenly on the floor with his backpack in one hand and a fifth of Black Velvet in the other (I figure he’s too loaded to overhear us, and I’m seriously doubting he’s one of Burke’s hatchetmen. I turn us so just our backs are facing out, just in case.

“Okay, Apple. Let’s go through the plan again…”

“What…plan?”

Goddammit. I’ve been repeating the whole thing to her for hours now. I’ve told her in detail what she has to do so many times some idiot with severe Down’s Syndrome could probably repeat it. “Come on, Apple. What were we talking about in the van over here?”

I’m shitting my pants that a whole lot of my plan hinges on her being able to follow my instructions. Luckily, with just a little prodding, her face lights up with recognition. “Oh yeah. That stuff about tomorrow. I have to come here tomorrow.”

“After you do what?”

She thinks about it for a moment. “I have to come here after I get my children back from the kidnappers.”

“Correct,” I say, since it’s almost just as simple as that. “You don’t need to give the kidnappers anything. I’ve already paid their ransom. What they will do is give you the kids, then have you make a call to me telling me you have them. After that, you get to this bus station as fast as you can,” I tell her, handing her the bus ticket, as well as a twenty dollar bill I had put away for just this. “Use this money to take a cab down here as fast as you can. Remember, this bus leaves at two-thirty in the afternoon sharp.”

“But Poopy, I don’t want to leave this city,” she whines. “I have nothing. Nowhere to go, no one to go to. I can’t leave my trailer. That and my kids is all I got anymore.”

I shake my head. “I know. But listen, the men who have your kids…well, I don’t think they’ll stop just because you’ve gotten them back. Some serious shit is going to go down tomorrow…”

“What kinda shit?”

I sigh, “Just trust me. By tomorrow night, you’ll know everything. It’ll be the only subject on every news channel in the country, I guarantee it. And then you’ll understand why you have to fly under the radar from now on if you want to live. Change your name, change your life, do whatever you can to stay out of the public eye. These men…let’s just say that they don’t like loose ends.”

“But how?” Apple protests. “I don’t have any money. You’re rich. Can’t you give me some money at least so I can move to a different town with my kids? I could do it if I had money. But this…” she holds up the twenty I just gave her. “This won’t get me very far.”

“I know,” I say sympathetically, though I don’t know how I can break it to her that there is no money left. That twenty she has in her hands makes up the bulk of my money in this world. Still, I have to tell her something. “Listen, once you get to Oklahoma City, give me a call and I’ll wire ten-thousand dollars to you. You can probably get set up somewhere pretty well with that.”

“Why can’t you give it to me now?” she says, her voice rising. I shush her with my finger.

“People are watching me. Just like the people were at the police station. I can’t withdraw much of my money now, but I will be able to after tomorrow, after this is all over. Please, you just have to trust me. The less you know, the less likely these people will need to come after you.”

“Okay,” Apple nods in resignation. “I’ll call you as soon as I get off the bus. I’ll need money right away or I won’t have any place to sleep.”

“I will, Apple. I promise.”

She smiles. She must believe me, that everything will turn out okay, and that just makes me feel worse for lying to her. Even if my plan goes off perfectly, Apple and her children will still be penniless, hungry, homeless, and hunted. At least they will be alive, which is probably the only thing I can ensure now.

I snap out of my daydream of my thoughts. “Apple, do you remember which telephone that junkie went to five minutes ago?”

“Um, he went to that one down at the end there,” she says, raising her hand to point at it. I pull it back down.

“Good,” I say. “Now, this is important. Once you’ve gotten your kids back and have gotten here to the bus station, you need to call my cell phone from that same payphone. Do you understand? That exact same pay phone. I’m gonna have the number programmed into my phone, so I’ll know it’s you.”

“Why does it gotta be that phone?”

“So I know you have gotten to the bus station safe,” I say. “Now, this is the most important part. If everything is fine, call me and tell me whatever. I don’t care. However, if you think you’ve been followed or you’re telling me everything is fine under duress…”

“What’s that?”

I sigh. “If someone is forcing you to say something, like if the kidnappers don’t give you your kids back or are still holding you, then I need you to say ‘I’ll see you on Friday.’ Can you remember that?”

“I think so,” Apple says. She stumbles into me while were standing there, and that doesn’t fill my heart with optimism.

“Seriously. If you feel there is anything wrong or you’re in danger, say the phrase ‘I’ll see you on Friday’ so I know what’s going on and I can do something to help you.”

“’I’ll see you on Friday’”, she repeats. “I got it. Can we go home now?”

“We can’t go home yet. I’ve got to see my mother first.”

Apple starts to whine as I lead her out of the bus station. The wino sleeping by the front is still pissing all over himself and the floor. How much urine can one human being hold? Even the diesel fumes of the buses smell sweet compared to inside of the bus station.

The minivan is parked around the corner in a no parking zone. Even though we’ve only been away for maybe fifteen minutes, there is already a ticket stuck under the wiper blade. I pluck it off my windshield and toss it into the gutter. If there is any privilege to it being the (possibly) day before the last day of your life, it’s that stuff like parking tickets don’t matter in the least. Besides, this car is a rental.

After getting Apple into the van (which is more difficult than it sounds, since I guess taking lots of Xanax fucks up you motor coordination), I drive down to the Lucky U Motel, carefully. Though I can I deal with parking tickets, I’d rather not have to deal with getting pulled over and having Apple blurt out something stupid. I watch all the cars in my rearview mirror, trying to see if any were familiar. I’m convinced there’s a white Ford Focus following me, but at a signal it turns into the drive-thru lane at Arby’s. I’m sure they are following me somehow. Maybe they have a GPS device on the van or something. Anyway, it doesn’t matter at this point. I have to keep plowing on.

I approach the Lucky U cautiously. I don’t want to run into Sergei and waste time stalling him. I don’t see his rickety, tricked out Civic anywhere, so I figure the coast is clear. I pull into the lot and park in a space close to my mother’s room.

“Wait here in the car,” I tell Apple. “I won’t be long.” She says nothing. She’s obviously pissed at me. She’s gonna be even more pissed when I tell her we’re gonna have to walk back to the apartment from here. I pop the rear hatch and pull out a brown paper grocery bag filled with some clothes and food I bought earlier today.

I walk up to the door and give the secret knock so she knows it’s me. We figured it out the last time we met. Since she’s not too bright, I made it just a simple “Shave and a haircut” with the “bits” left off at the end. My mother has done like I asked her and left the blinds drawn so no one can look inside. After a second, I hear the door unlatch. I quickly open the door as little as I can and get inside, latching it behind me.

“Hi mom,” I say. “How are you doing?”

“Okay, I guess,” she shrugs.

Actually, from where I’m standing, she looks more than okay. Most of her scars and sutures seem to have healed and her skin seems to fit her now. I was kinda pissed when I first brought her home from the airport. For all the money I spent on her surgery, I thought she came out looking like a space alien. Now with some time to recuperate, she looks good. In fact, for a forty-seven year old lady, she looks damn good. Then I stop myself and realize this is my mother I’m talking about and immediately I feel a little sick.

“Did you bring me any food?”

“Yep,” I say, reaching into the bag. I pull out a Styrofoam clamshell and some pita bread wrapped up in wax paper. “I got you some hummus.”

“Hummus? What’s that?”

“You’ve never had hummus before?”

“I don’t know what hummus is so I don’t know if I’ve ever had it before. What is it?”

Her logic perplexes me, so I simply tell her: “It’s kinda like bean dip for sand niggers. It’s pretty low in fat, so I figured you could eat it.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Couldn’t you have gotten me some more of that sesame seitan salad?”

“No mom,” I say. “I didn’t have time to swing by that hippie restaurant you always make me go to.”

“But their food is so goood,” she whines. “And it’s so low in calories.”

“Look, I’m not coming back here, so eat it or starve,” I grunt. “Don’t worry, it tastes good. Besides, eating some middle eastern cuisine might get you into character.”

I pull out the other contents of the bag…a big black cha’dor I bought at the Arab store I go to from time to time when I crave a gyro sandwich. The owner is a big, hairy, Lebanese dude who takes his sweet time making my order and always forgets to leave off the onions, but his sandwiches are pretty fucking stellar, so I put up with it. Thankfully, they also sell some traditional Muslim clothing at the store, since I don’t think there’s enough of a sand nigger community in this city to justify a Burqas R’Us.

My mother eyes the cha’dor nervously. “Poopy, I don’t know how much in character I want to be. I mean, I’ll do this if it’s gonna save your life, but I don’t want my soul damned to Hell for doing this.”

I roll my eyes. “Mom, you’re not actually going to be a Muslim. You’re just acting like one. You know, like how people act like different people on TV?”

“Poopy, I’m not retarded.”

I nearly say, that she sure could fool me on that most of the time, but I bite my lip. “Look, you need to wear this for my plan to work. You’ll should also say ‘allahu ackbar’ a couple times just so you come off even more convincing.”

“’Allahu ackbar’,” my mother says a couple times, trying to get her mouth around the syllables. “What does it mean?”

“I think it means, ‘God is great’ in Muslim.”

My mother claps her hands over her mouth like she just told a priest to go fuck a refugee child. “Oh my God, Poopy. I can’t say that. I’ll go to Hell.”

“No you won’t. You still love Jesus. You’re just acting like a Muslim. You’re not really gonna be one.”

“You know Mohammed was a child molester,” she says indignantly. “Did you know he married a nine year old? That’s so sickening.”

“Mom, back in Koran times people only lived until they were in their mid twenties anyway. Girls were old hags by the time they hit nine years old. It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re just playing a Muslim, you’re not going to be one. You have to do this or else I’m gonna die. Do you understand that?”

My mother sighs. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna do it. But instead of that ‘allahu ackbar’ thing you want me to say, can’t I say something like ‘all to the snackbar’? You know, so I won’t have so much to atone for to my Lord.”

I am constantly amazed by the depths of retardation people who believe in religion are capable of. “Fine, just say it quick so no one can tell the difference.”

I pull out my car keys and a slip of paper with directions from the Lucky U to the country club I will be going to tomorrow. I put them on the bed next to the cha’dor. “Now, are we clear on the plan? You know what time to be there and exactly what you’re going to say and do?”

“I do Poopy. I’ve been going over it in all my spare time here. Do you think I’m gonna get in trouble for this?”

“No, mom. You’re doing something good. Not only are you gonna save your son, you’re gonna save the President too. Why would you get in trouble for that?”

Of course, I don’t mention to her that the odds are pretty damn high that she might get killed in the process of saving my life and the President’s. But she probably wouldn’t help me if she knew how dangerous what I need her to do is.

My mother picks up the van keys off the bed. “This van is an automatic right? I don’t know how to drive anything with a shifter.”

“Don’t worry, it’s an automatic. It’s only got a quarter tank of gas too, so don’t drive it around too long before going to the country club.”

“What should I do with the car when I’m done with it? Should I return it to the rental place?”

“I don’t care,” I say. “Return it, keep it, or just dump it on a street somewhere and forget about it. In twenty-four hours, people are gonna have bigger things on their mind than a rental minivan…”

The Winner: Part Twenty-Seven

2007-12-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

“Apple, wake up,” I say. The only time she’s been conscious all day is when I shot her with heroin this morning. Pretty much the only thing that even lets me know she’s even alive is watching how her nostrils flare whenever she tries to breathe. I jar her some more. “Wake up, you have to wake up.”

She finally starts to come conscious. When she draws a full breath, it almost sounds like a death rattle. “Wha…wha’s goin’ on?”

“Apple, wake up. It’s Poopy. I need you to wake up.”

She slightly lifts up her head. “Wha…da…fuck…do you want? Do you have another shot?”

“Apple, I need you to listen closely to me. The people who have your children have contacted me again…”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about anything any more.”

I was afraid this would happen. I grab a small cup filled with some clear fluid from the nightstand. “Drink this, it will make you feel better.”

I put the cup to her chapped lips and pour it in, being careful that all the methadone went in her mouth. I had to spend all morning huddling with a line of junkies outside the methadone clinic on Baker St. just to get this stuff. Of course, they would only give me a single dose, but I was able to trade the rest of the heroin I had for a couple of the other junkie’s methadone doses, so I have enough now to keep Apple from going crazy from withdrawal.

Of course, it would be easier to just keep shooting her up with the heroin I already had, but for the next few days, I need to keep her lucid if my plan is going to work.

After she’s had the entire cup, I wait for a second. “Do you feel any better?”

“No. I still feel like shit. I want my shot.”

“Just wait for a little bit,” I say, caressing her scabbed up arm. “Apple, I have some good news. The people who have your kids contacted me again. They said they’re going to give them back to us in a few days.”

“I don’t care any more. They’re probably dead.”

“No,” I say. “They’re probably alive…”

“Probably?”

Dammit. “They’re going to send us a video proving that they’re still alive. Then, I’m going to pay them the ransom they want and they’re going to return them to us. Isn’t that some good news?”

“I told you. I don’t care any more. I don’t care about anything. I just want to die.”

She lays her head back down on the pillow like she’s going back to sleep. Those words she just said send put me onto instant boil. I fucking slap the side of her junkie face.

“How dare you? Do you know how much shit I’ve had to go through just to keep your fucking kids alive? Do you know how much easier these last few weeks would have been if I just was like, ‘fuck your kids’ also? I’ve been through a living hell and back trying to get them back! I had to stick my arm up some dude’s…well, you don’t want to hear about that. But I’ve been through a whole lot and spent my entire fortune trying to get them back.”

Of course, my whining about how bad my life has been probably doesn’t register with Apple since she just lays her head back down and mumbles. “I don’t care any more. Kill me.”

I get off the bed to keep myself from beating her senseless. I walk out of the bedroom and try to figure things out and realize that her attitude isn’t that big of a problem. I’ll just let the methadone work on her for a second and calm her nerves. Besides, I bet if she sees her children alive, she will come around.

So I wait. I wait about twenty minutes until I don’t hear Apple bleating in the bedroom for me to give her more heroin. Once I’m pretty sure the methadone is doing its job, I get the cellphone, cycle through to the last received call and press SEND.

I let it ring three times then end the call. Almost immediately it starts vibrating, the call coming in from a different number with an area code I can’t identify. Burke is on the other end of course.

“Hello Mr. Peanutz, are you ready for the uplink you requested of us the other day? We have a webcam set up on the stripper’s children.”

“Yes, I’m ready,” I say. “I’m going to need you to do something when you have the video stream going.”

“What do you want now?”

“I want you to throw up the west-side hand sign in the middle of the video.”

“West-side?”

“Yeah, you know. It’s that gang sign that you, um, African-Americans like to throw up. You know, to your brothers. To show that you’re down.”

“I wouldn’t know, since contrary to your bigoted worldview, I didn’t grow up in a ghetto,” Burke says. “And why would you ask me to do this, besides just to piss me off?”

“For a really good reason actually,” I say. “Mainly so I know that the video is live and not something you taped weeks ago in case I asked for a proof of life. You don’t have to be on the camera, just your hand.”

I hear Burke chuckle. “Looks like you’re getting smarter Peanutz. I just hope you don’t think you’re too smart for us because you’re not.”

I roll my eyes, but of course, he can’t see it. “So are you going to do it or not?”

“Sure. I’ll do it. I’m sending the stream to you now. Your phone should get a connection bar on it. Just press accept when you’re ready for the stripper to view the video.”

The phone goes dead again before it starts buzzing again. This time, the screen says “IN COMING VIDEO UPLINK…DO YOU WISH TO CONNECT?” I accept, just like Burke said. The phone’s small screen goes black, then the camera pans in a jagged, lagged motion to show what are presumably Apple’s two kids in the frame. The older one is in footie pajamas with his hands zip tied in front of him and a gag. For being bound and gagged, the kid looks remarkably calm. I bet after weeks of this treatment though, his mind is just dead. The other kid, the baby, is wrapped up in a blanket like a newborn, probably to keep his mom from finding out he is now deformed. The baby looks asleep. I’m thinking he might be dead, but the people behind the camera probably know I’m thinking this since one of them comes up and kicks the baby lightly with the toe of his wingtip loafer. He must have hit the raw stump since the baby starts to scream in pain.

That’s when a hand, a black hand, Burke’s hand, rises up into the foreground with its middle and ringfinger crossed, west-side style. The hand waves mockingly in front of the camera for a few seconds before he uncrosses his fingers, leaving only the middle one up, flipping me off. “You motherfucker,” I sneer, gripping the phone even tighter. When this is all over (provided my plan works of course, which is a big provided) I’m gonna make that nigger do his Tupac impression again, only at gunpoint, and afterwards I’m gonna shoot him in the balls, just like Tupac, then I’ll let him writhe on the floor for a couple minutes before I put another one in his…

…But I can’t get too ahead of myself. They aren’t gonna keep this video uplink going forever, so I rush into the bedroom and put the phone in front of Apple so she can see the screen.

“Tell me, are these your kids? Look closely.”

Apple rolls her head listlessly to the side, ignoring me. Fuck. I grab her by the hair and lift her head up so she has to watch.

“Look dammit! Are these your children?”

At first, it looks like I might as well be showing her the business pages of the newspaper for all she reacts. Then, suddenly, I feel her head shaking. She’s not so much crying as convulsing.

“Kev-in. Bubba. They’re alive. They’re still ALIVE! OH MY GOD! WHERE ARE THEY? POOPY! TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE? PLEASE! I NEED THEM BACK SO BAD!”

I let go of her head, and although I haven’t been all that rough with her, a disturbing amount of hair comes off on my hand when I let go. It must be from the malnourishment these past weeks. Apple keeps yelling hysterically at the sight of her children. She starts to hyperventilate.

I can’t hear anything except for her in this room so I go back outside and dial Burke’s number again. No one answers, so I let it ring and finally hang up after letting it go for about a minute. No response. I dial the number again and let it ring. After I hang up again, wondering if he’s ever gonna answer, the phone buzzes again with an incoming call. It’s Burke.

“What do you want now, Peanutz? Are you satisfied that the stripper’s children are still alive now?”

“Yes,” I say. “She confirmed it. By the way, kicking a baby is kinda fucked up.”

“You’re one to talk,” Burke says. “You know what else is fucked up? Cutting off a baby’s arm. Haven’t we convinced you yet that there is no length we won’t go to to ensure your cooperation?”

“If you’re so hardcore, why don’t you go saw off his other arm?” I say reflexively. I hear Burke draw in his breath over the phone, and he is correct so I quickly add, “Just kidding. You don’t have to do that.”

“Very well. Then is there anything else?”

“Yes,” I say. “Now we’ve got to work out how you plan on returning them to their mother.”

“We will return the stripper’s children after you’ve killed the president, just as I’ve promised.”

“Well, if this all goes off like you planned it, how will I know you won’t just kill them?”

“I assure you Mr. Peanutz, it would be pointless to hold the children after you’ve completed your task, since that’s our primary leverage against you.”

“No. It would be pointless for you to give them back alive if I’m already dead. After all, I’m sure that Apple won’t be happy with you returning one of her children minus one arm. She’ll probably get the authorities to come chasing after you guys afterwards.”

Burke chuckles. “I can also assure you that she will have even less luck trying to alert the authorities than you did.”

I grit my teeth since of course he’s right. “Listen, I’m not getting anywhere near the president until you’ve given Apple back her kids. You have to give them back before I do anything.”

“Well then instead of just killing her children, we’ll kill her and your mother as well, as well as yourself. You understand we cannot return the children before, since you would then have no incentive to actually go through with it.”

“And you understand that you have no incentive to risk exposing yourselves after I’ve killed the president, so I might as well just go back in the bedroom and shoot Apple in the head before killing myself because, if I’m gonna die anyway, I much prefer doing it in such a way that it totally fucks up your careful planning.”

A pause, and then Burke says, “I need to speak with my associates. Hold on for a moment.”

“Don’t cut off any more baby arms,” I sneer, but Burke must have already muted the phone. I keep the phone glued to my ear and pace around the room anxiously. I stub my already sore toe on piece of wood that used to be the base of my calfskin recliner. I trip and fall to the floor, banging my back against the remains of my IKEA coffee table. The splintered wood tears a hole in the back of my shirt and I’m pretty sure it tore through a nice little patch of skin as well. Here I go threatening to kill myself and then I nearly impale myself. If Burke still has cameras in here, I’m sure he’ll get the point.

After a few minutes of keeping me on hold, Burke finally comes back on the line…

“Mr. Peanutz, we’ve decided that we will do as you request and return the children before you complete your task. However, we will only do it once our man on the inside has attached the explosive device to your body. Will that satisfy you?”

Well, I was hoping they would be stupid and do it even sooner. That would have made my job easier, however my plan doesn’t depend on it. “Here’s my stipulation, I will only put on the bomb if I get a call from Apple afterwards telling me she has them and they are all safe. I will only go through with it after they’ve been released. Then I suppose I might as well go through with it. I mean, it’s not like I like George Bush or anything.”

“Very well, Mr. Peanutz. Tell the stripper that we will have people come over and pick her up shortly before you go to the country club. They will take her to the place where her children are once you are at the site and our mole is ready to prep you for the assassination. So you might want to untie her from that bed sometime in the next day or so. Oh, and don’t plan on telling her to stall since if you do we will just kill her and her kids right there.”

“Fine. You have a deal.”

The phone goes dead without Burke even issuing me a polite “goodbye”. Oh well, fuck him. Everything is starting to click into place now. If my plan goes as I have arranged it, then by this time next week, that nigger and his massa Van Hertzwelder will be spending most of their time in stress positions in one of the deepest, darkest dungeons of Guantanamo Bay. I picture in my head them screaming as some intelligence spook waterboards the fuck out of them, and the thought makes me giggle…

And if the plan goes wrong?

Well, my remains and my reputation will be fused together with one of the most controversial men of the twenty-first century and I will live forever in infamy.

At least Apple will get her kids back…

The Winner: Part Twenty-Six

2007-12-02T02:01:00.000-07:00

Two hours later, I’ve gone from the five-star luxury of the Brown Palace to the five crack pipe squalor of the Lazy-U. I see Sergei on the sidewalk just outside the front office, talking to some guys with buzz-cuts and track suits that just scream Russian mob underling a mile away. I don’t think he notices me as I pull into the lot in the minivan. I don’t wave to him or say hi as I open the door to get out, but he has crept up on me.

“Mr. Poopy!” he says. “So glad to see you! Why you come visit us today?” He’s his usual stupid, jovial self, but I can tell he has something else on his mind other than how I’m doing today.

“I’m just here to see my mother,” I say. “Gotta help her change her bandages and stuff.”

“Definitely. I understand. One must take care of the woman from whose loins they’ve emerged.” Sergei looks down and shuffles his feet. “Mr. Poopy, I have something I need to ask you. It concerns your mother.”

I look at him in a state of panic. “She hasn’t been out of her room, has she? Tell me she hasn’t left the room!” I’m worried because my plan to get out of this mess partially depends on that.

“No, no. The maid doesn’t even go to clean her room. She just leaves fresh linens outside her door. I haven’t so much as seen her go to the soda machine.”

“She wouldn’t go to the soda machine,” I say. “She’s on a diet.”

“No. The problem is…well, you know how I run this place for my uncle Igor?”

I nod.

“Well, the credit card you gave me to hold your mother’s room has declined every time we’ve run it these past two weeks.”

“Don’t worry, Serg,” I say, trying to think of something I can string him along with. “I’ve been having some problems with my card lately. I had my identity stolen by some asshole who opened up, like, ten cards in my name and maxed them out in a couple of days. I had the bank cancel all my accounts until I get it cleared up. Apparently this is done by guys who specifically target lottery winners.”

Sergei smiles. “I know your good for the money. It’s just my uncle, he goes over the books and sees I’m letting a room go without payment for a couple of weeks. I try to explain him, ‘this room is for Mr. Poopy’s mother and Mr. Poopy is rich’. But he say, ‘if Mr. Poopy is so rich, then how come he don’t pay for the room?’”

I shrug. “I don’t know Sergei. You know I’ve got the money to cover it, my bank is just dragging their feet. In fact, I’m going right over there after I’m done here to scream at them until they get this shit taken care of.”

Sergei lights up. “So you think you could have some money for me today?”

Fuck, that’s not what I meant, but I try to go along with it. “Yeah. I’m gonna tell them I either want my accounts re-opened or I want someone’s job. I’m not taking shit from these people any more. However, on the off-chance they don’t budge and I have to call my lawyer…”

“You mean Hirsch?” Sergei says, excited. “You talk with him then?”

I gotta stop digging myself into a hole. “Yeah, Hirsch. I finally got a hold of him. You want to know what that prick is doing? He’s overseas, blowing all of the retainer I gave him in Thai whorehouses. After giving him all that money, he actually had the balls to leave me a voicemail telling me not to bother him until he’s back in the states on the twenty-fifth. That guy’s a piece of work. I’d hire someone else if I had enough money for another retainer.”

“Really,” Sergei says. “He’s always been reliable for us. A bit too much of a workaholic actually. We’ve always said the guy needs to take a break sometime.”

Shit. “Well, he’s taking one now. Anyway, if the bank people don’t budge, you think you can hold your uncle off for another week.”

“My uncle can always send some of my little cousins to the bank,” Sergei says. “My cousins might be even a bit more convincing than a lawyer.”

I shake my head. “You can’t be sending thugs to the bank for me. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

“Yes, but they are preventing you from paying us, so it is our problem as much as it is yours.”

“Come on, Sergei,” I say. “My bill can’t be much more than a grand. Your sneaker collection probably costs more.”

“You cannot put a price on honor,” he says.

“Seriously, Sergei. If they don’t budge, I’ll call you. Otherwise, just let me handle it my way. Now I really have to tend to my mother. She gets a rash if I don’t get fresh bandages on her daily.”

“Very well, Mr. Poopy. You will keep me informed,” Sergei says. I’m a bit distressed that his usual genial suck-up ness has eroded somewhat during the course of the conversation. Still, I’m not too worried. It’s not many people who are in such deep shit that they can say that the Russian mob is the least of their worries.

Once Sergei has turned away and is heading back to his buddies by the office, I reach back into the car and pull out a large suitcase. I purchased it at the mall before I came over to the Lazy U. It’s not fancy, but is very well made and sturdy (and cost me about three hundred dollars which was the lions share of the remainder of my money, so I’ll have to live on ramen and mac and cheese for the next few days). I set it on the ground and lock the minivan, then take it up to my mother’s door and rap on it with my knuckles until I hear the deadbolt slide back.

“Poopy,” my mom says. “I was wondering where…”

I plow through the door, pushing her back into the room and I slam the door behind me. She starts to protest, but I put up my finger to shush her. Then I go to the TV, turn it on and crank the volume up uncomfortably loud.

“Mom, I have to ask you something. Have you left this room for any reason in the last week?”

“No, Poopy,” she says. “You know I’m in no condition to go anywhere.”

“Are you sure? Nobody knows what you look like now? You haven’t talked to anyone?”

“No. But my skin is feeling better now, see…” She peels off the bandages on her face and it’s true. The swelling and inflammation have gone away. The sutures where they cut and tucked away her skin are fading into mere creases that you almost have to squint to see. Whatever those Body Eternal people were up to, their plastic surgery seems to be top notch.

“I saw this thing on the TV about a Christian singles gathering next week, and I was thinking that if I keep making progress, I might go to it. Maybe get you a new daddy. I think the source of a lot of your problems is that you never had a good father figure in your life.”

I could scream at her for an hour about that subject, but I’m too busy searching the room for bugs or hidden cameras to even listen to her. I’ll have to believe her that she hasn’t left the room, and that would make it very hard for anyone to wire up the room. I see a takeout bag with some plastic containers of sprout and kale salad and the idea that someone might have bugged the takeout bag goes through my mind, so I pick it up stick the bag in the shower and turn it on. Hopefully, if the bag was bugged, the water shorted it out.

“Poopy! What on Earth are you doing?”

I take a second to breathe. Okay, this is paranoia. I try to remind myself that Burke has more control over me by giving me the impression that he can be everywhere and anywhere. Unfortunately, much of that paranoia seems to be justified, but I’ll just have to take my chance if I’m gonna get out of this.

“Mom, sit down. I need to talk with you. I need your help. I’m in big trouble.”

“Of course. But you should turn down the TV first, I can barely hear you.”

“No,” I say, sitting on the bed next to her. “I have to take precautions. You’ll know why when I explain this all to you.”

“Poopy…you’re not going to have to go away to jail again, are you?”

“No. It’s much worse than that. I might get killed.”

My mom gasps and looks like she’s about to scream, but I quickly put a hand over her mouth. “Now, when I tell you everything that’s happening, it’s going to sound insane. Don’t say anything until I’m finished. You’ll just have to believe that it’s the truth and if I’m going to get out of it, I’m going to need you to help me and trust me and not make a sound. Do you understand?”

My mom nods, but I can see the terror in her eyes. I slowly take my hand off her mouth, and while her lips are quivering, it looks like she’ll be able to hold in her scream.

I put my hands in my lap and rub my palms together and begin. I run down the basics of my dilemma: that I’m being blackmailed by a conspiracy that wants me to use my newfound wealth to get access to the president so that I can kill him. I tell her Apple (although in the version I tell her, she’s just my girlfriend: I leave out the part about hiring Sergei to kill her boyfriend of course) and I tell her about how they kidnapped her babies and said they would kill them if I didn’t do what I say. I don’t mention to my mother that they plan on killing her too, since that would just freak her out and make her useless. I tell her that things are already set in motion and that I’ll be going to see the President in just a few days and that if I’m gonna get out of this, it’s gotta be now.

All in all, I think my mother took it okay. She gasps from time to time when I go through my horrific story, but she doesn’t go completely apeshit and break down like I thought she would. “Poopy…” she says like she’s gonna hyperventilate. “Why don’t you just go to the police?”

“I tried to tell the FBI. They cut off one of the babies arms and sent it to me in a box for even trying,” I tell her, exasperated. “These people have moles in every agency of the government. Going to the police is not an option, mother!”

“But how are you going to get out of having to kill that wonderful man George Bush?” my mom sobs.

“I told you mom, I have a plan and I need you to help me.”

“But your plan won’t work, Poopy. I know it.” Now she starts crying for real.

“You haven’t even heard it yet, how do you know?”

“Because you’re not smart, Poopy. You’re going to faaaaaiil!”

I jump off the bed and start screaming. “Dammit, mother! Why do you have to do this shit? You don’t know, maybe I’ll pull it off. I know I’ll fail if I don’t do anything! You’ve never had any faith in me!”

“No, Poopy,” she says. “I don’t have any faith in your schemes. I have faith in the good things, you and my lord Jesus Christ.”

“Oh, you have faith in Jesus. Nice…” I say, rolling my eyes. “Well then, oh wise one, what would Jesus do if he was put in this situation? Walk on some fucking water? Burn a fucking bush? You think that will convince these people?”

“I think Jesus would have you try and reason with those men,” she says, quietly. “You said this man, Von Hortzmeister hates you…”

“Hertzwelder, mom. Van Hertzwelder.”

“Did you ever think that maybe all he really wants is an apology?”

I start to laugh in her face. “An apology? Yeah. I just go up to him and say, ‘hey, sorry I killed your son. My bad. Think you can let me off the hook?’ That will work.”

“You didn’t really kill his son…did you?”

“No! Of course not. How can you even ask me that? I guarantee you can look at the death certificate on him and it will say ‘by self inflicted wounds’. I had nothing to do with killing him because he wasn’t killed. He committed suicide.”

“Then that’s perfect,” she says. “Just get the death certificate and show it to him and then he’ll know you didn’t do it and maybe he’ll be more reasonable.”

I shake my head. “No. He knows his son died because of suicide. He thinks he committed suicide because of me. He thinks I raped him while we were cellmates.”

“You didn’t rape him, did you?”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it rape. He got something out of it too.”

My mother doesn’t respond. I look over at her and see her jaw has dropped. “What?” I sneer.

“P-poopy…you mean you’re a…homo-faggot?”

Why the fuck did I even decide to open my big mouth today? “No. I’m not gay mom. You know that.”

“But you just said ‘he got something out of it too.’ Did you have homo-sex with that boy?”

How the fuck am I gonna explain this one? I sit down next to my mother. “Look, mom. You don’t know what it’s like on the inside. I didn’t see a woman for months. You don’t know what it’s like when you can’t even jerk off in private. I had to do what I had to do while I was in there. It doesn’t make me gay. I assure you, I was on the giving end of that stuff.” I won’t make explaining this harder by telling her about how I was on the receiving end of a lot of it with my next cellmate.

“But if you have sex with a man, that makes you a faggot. That’s what James Dobson says…”

I groan. “That guy is a moron and he’s never been in prison either. When you’re locked up, you have to do what you have to do and the only people you have to do it with are other dudes, so that’s what you do.”

My mother buries her face in her hands and begins sobbing hysterically. It’s different than the crying she did earlier. These are hopeless tears that make me want to die a little inside. I let her do it for awhile before I put my hand on her shoulder. She flinches away from me.

“Come on, mom. Talk to me.”

“My…my son is a diseased homosexual and he’s going to Hell…”

“I told you mom. I’m not gay. It’s not like I have sex with dudes when there’s women available.”

“It doesn’t matter…” my mom protests. “You’re gay and you’re going to Hell. Oh Lord! What did I do wrong?”

I’ve been trying to keep my composure, but I finally just go nuts. “What did you do wrong? What the fuck did you do wrong? You really need god to tell you what you did wrong with me?”

She doesn’t respond. She just keeps crying and I keep ranting.

“Well, I’ll tell you then. Let’s start with how for most of your life you couldn’t be bothered to put down a whiskey bottle long enough to hold down a job. No, wait. You did have a job some of the time. You were able to make some decent money fucking guys for money while I played in the other room. You didn’t try very hard to hide that from me. Hell…you used to make me FUCKING WATCH YOU!”

Through her tears, she struggles to let out an “I’m sorry…” But I ignore it and go on.

“Eventually you had to stop even doing that because you got so fat that guys wouldn’t even pay you half a pack of cigarettes for sex, so you just sat around collecting welfare and drinking even more. Remember when I had an accident in my pants when I was five? Remember how you shoved a broom handle up my ass and made me sit with it there for an entire day because you thought it would keep me plugged up so I wouldn’t do it again? Remember that, because I sure do. In fact, I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO SHIT STRAIGHT AGAIN BECAUSE OF THAT. I’M TWENTY-SIX AND I’M FUCKING INCONTINENT!”

“BUT POOPY!” she says. “I WASN’T SAVED BY THE BLOOD OF CHRIST THEN!”

I start to laugh cruelly at her. “Oh, yeah. Getting ‘saved by the Lord’ fixes fucking everything. All giving you’re life to god ever did for you is get you to watch the 700 Club instead of Ricki Lake while you got drunk and sat on the couch all day. That and give you some misplaced moral righteousness towards everyone around you.”

“STOP IT POOPY! PLEASE STOP IT! I’M SO SORRY!”

But I don’t stop. I couldn’t stop it even if I tried. The stress of everything that’s happening to me, as well as over twenty-years of pent up anger is flowing out of me like a flood.

“Do you think, ‘I’m sorry’ will cut it? Do you think that people should just let shit go just because you tell them you’re sorry? You know, maybe you are right. Maybe that’s the solution to all my problems! Let’s give it a shot…”

I drop to my knees on the brown shag motel carpet, clasp my hands together and squeeze my eyes shut.

“Oh Father who art in Heaven! Please forgive me for all my sins! I am but a lowly sinner and I beg you to let me be born again, just as your Son who died for my sins. I accept Jesus into my heart oh heavenly Father! Take my life and make it yours oh Lord!” I fling my arms up into the air dramatically and wait for the spirit to take me, not that it does. Not that I was expecting it to. I look over at my mother. “Oh. Nothing’s changed. I’m still neck deep in shit with no hope of getting out of it. So I guess your idea for making everything better is completely fucked, mom. Just like you. JUST LIKE YOU.”

Perhaps watching me lose control has helped my mom regain it somewhat. Her tears seem to have dried up into just sniffles. “Poopy,” she says earnestly. “That’s not how it works…”

“How’s it supposed to work then, mom? How is anything in this fucked up world supposed to work? And don’t you dare try and give me an answer since you’re the cause of so much of the fucked-upness of this world. You and ignorant, gluttonous, hate breeding scum just like you!”

My mom doesn’t flinch away from my tirade. Instead, she puts her hand over my head, running her fingers calmly behind my ear. The effect, strangely enough, seems to blunt some of the rage I feel.

“Poopy. I know I haven’t done right by you,” she says. “I know you’re not hearing it, but I really am sorry. I’m sorry about all the things I did to you growing up. I know I wasn’t a perfect mother…”

“No, you were light-years away from being a perfect mother…” I start, but she keeps touching my head and I don’t continue on with my rant.

“You’re right. I was a horrible mother. I’m surprised that you even speak to me, and I thank the Lord that He has blessed me to keep you in my life, no matter how angry you are at me.”

“There’s nobody keeping you in my life,” I growl. “Mom, no God or bullshit in the sky is keeping me around you, and personally, I think I should have my head examined by still talking to you.”

“It doesn’t matter Poopy,” my mom says, soothingly. “However He has put the universe in order, God has played a hand in keeping you with me, and I’m grateful because it gives me a chance for redemption.” She pats the bed next to her. “Sit up here with me.”

I’m still pissed at her, but I get off my knees and sit up on the bed next to her anyway. She puts her arms around me and hugs me tight against her. Despite how disgusting I find her bandages, I don’t back away. In fact I hug her tight too. Goddammit, I’m even starting to cry.

She whispers. “I love you Poopy. Even if you are a faggot.”

I’d protest, but I feel too weak to. Eventually, she lets go of me.

“Now, what do you need me to do to help you get out of the mess you’ve made?”

I breathe for a second. I’d almost forgotten about all of that. I look over to the empty suitcase sitting on the bed and pull it over to me.

“Okay, mom. I know my idea isn’t perfect, but this is what I need you to do…”

The Winner: Part Twenty-Five

2007-11-21T04:08:00.000-07:00

I am now dressed in an expensive gray pin-stripe suit with a cornflower yellow silk tie. It even has a silk hankerchief with my initials embroidered on it. I’m sitting on the edge of the hotel bed with a pillow top mattress, watching CNN on the 42 inch plasma and eating an eight dollar jar of peanuts that I snagged from the mini-bar. Since this room is going on Van Hertzwelder’s tab, I’m planning on emptying the fucking mini-bar, as well as ordering a feast from room service once this stupid interview with the Secret Service is over. A last meal for the condemned if you will.

According to the time on the TV, the Secret Service should be here in about five minutes. CNN goes to commercial and one of those annoying Head-On ads starts blaring so I mute the TV and look over the sheet of instructions that Burke wanted me to memorize. It’s nothing too complex. A fifth grader could recite this crap. If the Secret Service can be fooled by this shit so easily, then I wonder why Burke is so skittish about me meeting them.

Anyway, almost exactly when the time on the television turns to three o’clock I hear a knock on the door. These bastards sure are punctual. I quickly hide the sheet with Burke’s instructions on them under the bed, then walk over and open the door. There is a late twenty-something woman just outside.

“Hello Mr. Peanutz,” she says. “I’m Agent Barrett with the Secret Service, here for the meeting we scheduled with your assistant.”

I try not to look puzzled since up to this point, I didn’t know I had an assistant. I really wish Burke would let me know more about his labyrinth schemes so I won’t look stupid like this. “Of course,” I say. “Come in.”

I let Agent Barrett in and take a long look at her perfect, dew-drop ass as she walks past me and to the desk on the far end of the room. She’s dressed in that conservative, businesswoman garb that looks fucking sexy on the right chick. Agent Barrett is most definitely that chick. My dick starts to harden up for the first time in…fuck, how long? I don’t think I’ve even bothered to jerk off for weeks now since this whole assassination bullshit has been on my head.

I follow Agent Barrett to the desk and sit down across from her, crossing my legs to hide my hard-on and steepling my fingers together, trying to look suave (which shouldn’t be too hard since this is a nice suit and I’m freshly showered).

“How can I help you, little lady?”

Agent Barrett tries to brush off the “little lady” comment and opens her briefcase that has a small laptop in it. “Mr. Peanutz, this interview is the final step we have to take in the process of allowing you security access to the President. Basically, we have been conducting an investigation of you since the President’s Chief of Staff cleared you for the meeting and we just need to verify with you if the information we’ve uncovered is accurate.”

“Ask away, sweetie,” I say.

Agent Barrett ignores me and waits for her laptop to boot up. Unfortunately, she positions it so that the screen blocks my view of her tits. I’m most definitely have a date with some Kleenex as soon as we’re done here.

First, she verifies my full name and Social Security number, date of birth, place of birth; all the typical bullshit. “Mr. Peanutz, do you have any siblings?”

“No. At least none that I’ve met. My mother might have squirted out a couple here and there that she left on a church doorstep somewhere.”

“About your mother, Petunia Peanutz was out of the country recently, is that correct?”

“Yes,” I say. “I sent her to a health resort in Argentina a few months ago. She just got back last week.”

Agent Barrett twists the screen on the laptop (it’s one of those that doubles as a computer pad). On it is a digital picture of an old driver’s license photo of my mother. She looks so much different now than she did in that photo.

“So Mr. Peanutz, this is the photo we have on file of your mother, Petunia Peanutz. Is this picture accurate?”

“Yeah, that’s her. Good old mom.” While the screen is turned around, I take another glance at her breasts. I didn’t know they let Secret Service agents wear blouses that were so low cut…

She quickly turns the screen around, blocking my view once again. She quickly types something into the computer. “Have you been in contact with her since she has returned to the United States?”

“Yeah, I see her every day.”

“Has she mentioned any foreign nationals that may have attempted to contact her while she was abroad?”

“No,” I say. “I mean, just the people at the resort. She had kind of a crappy time there.”

“And it’s true that you don’t know the wherabouts of your father? Your birth certificate does not have your father’s name on it.”

“I never knew my father,” I say. I try to crack a smile. “My mother used to be a prostitute. She always told me the reason she had me is because she could charge extra if she let her johns bareback her.”

“Bareback?”

“Fuck her without a rubber.”

Agent Barrett looks uncomfortable at this revelation. I can see her mind racing for something tactful to say. “That’s…a rather sad thing to hear from one’s mother.”

I shrug. “It could have been worse. At least she blew all that extra money on booze instead of an abortion.” Which might have been better for everyone here if she had, but I cut myself off before I say that last part.

“I’m surprised that you have a relationship with her now, considering your past.”

“Well, I’m trying to get over it. Be forgiving and all. She found Jesus and if he can forgive her, then I can as well.”

Agent Barrett smiles at my insincere little homily. “So to your knowledge, your mother does not have any immediate relatives in countries hostile to the United States?”

“No ma’am,” I say. “The Peanutz are a proud all-American family from Georgia.”

“To your knowledge, is your mother involved in any domestic groups hostile to the United States government?”

“Well, she did say she was supporting Operation Rescue by eating three large Domino’s pizza’s a day for awhile. Does that count?”

“No. In fact, people who supported Operation Rescue in the past are considered great patriots by the government now.”

“Awesome,” I say. “I wouldn’t want that to jeopardize my chances of meeting the President.”

“That would not be an issue,” Agent Barrett says. “The more troublesome thing about your background is that you were released from prison less than a year ago. I need to ask you some questions about your time there if I could…”

“Go ahead,” I say. “I’m an open book.”

She types something quickly into her laptop. “First off, what was the offense that got you sentenced to a year in prison?”

The instructions that Burke left for me were quite specific in that I was not to tell them I was sent there for assaulting a police officer (though I hardly consider accidentally ejaculating a cop’s face “assault”). The Secret Service is extremely suspicious of anyone with even a hint of a violent background having access to the President. Burke’s instructions claimed that their inside man had already changed my file to reflect a different crime.

“Fraud. I’d been stealing credit card numbers from my employer at Subway and using them to finance my sexual addictions. I was also sentenced for adulterating the food there. A few people got sick as a result of what I did.”

“What were your motivations for such an act?” Agent Barrett asks. “Were they political or anti-consumerist in nature?”

I want to blurt out what is political about pissing a jar of pickle slices? But I keep my cool “No. I was just an angry young man; with myself more than with society,” I sigh. “That’s why I’m actually very grateful I was finally arrested and sent to prison. The experience turned me into a better person. I found the Lord Jesus while I was in the prison infirmary. He showed me the way to kindness and forgiveness.”

She types something into her keyboard. “It says here you were critically wounded during the riot at the prison last year. A deal you made with the state was what prompted you to receive reconstructive surgery and secured your early release.”

“That’s correct.”

“I’d like to ask about that tattoo on your cheek.”

My hand instinctively goes up to the skin graft on my jaw, my fingers outlining the scar where the skin was attached. “What about it?”

“We need to know, are you a homosexual?”

“Fuck no!” I blurt out. I take a breath and calm myself down and remember Burke’s instructions. “No, I am not a homosexual. However, I was raped several times by one of the prisoners inside. I have gone through extensive Christian therapy to make sure that the incident did not turn me gay. In fact, it has probably done more to convince me, once and for all, of how it is truly Satan’s hand behind those disgusting practices.”

I smile after I say that because smiling is all I can do to keep myself from laughing at that bullshit I just spouted off. Oh well. Burke’s instructions said to pretend that I was Jesus freak as much as possible, as people of faith tended to have easier access to the President. It would also whitewash my time in prison if I told them I found God while I was on the inside.

“I’m very sorry to have brought that up Mr. Peanutz,” Agent Barrett says coolly. “Unfortunately, we’ve had many homosexuals or members of deviant groups attempt to make contact with the President in an attempt to embarrass him in the eyes of the public, therefore we must be wary.”

“I guess I see your point,” I mumble. “Just know, that I haven’t lived a perfect life, but God has shown me the way. He brought me to rock bottom to humble me when I was in prison. When I got out, he suddenly blessed me with millions in order for me to do His work.”

“I see,” Agent Barrett says. More typing into the laptop. “In regards to your donation to the RNC, according to our records the amount you donated corresponds to the last balance of your account. Why did you decide to donate all your money to the party?”

“Like I said—God blessed me with that money. The money wasn’t mine, it was His. If I do right with it, He will provide.”

Jesus fucking Christ I can’t believe the amount of religious bullshit coming out of my mouth. I wouldn’t fall for this crap in a million years, yet the Secret Service agent just nods and continues typing into her laptop. She seems to be buying it. This country is in serious trouble if people who spout off garbage like I am get access to the government. Maybe Burke is right. Maybe I would be doing the country a favor by blowing this sonofabitch up.

“Okay, Mr. Peanutz,” she says. “May I ask for you to expand on that response?”

“Expand?”

“If you donated all of your money to the party in order to gain an audience with the President, then it must have been for some reason. We must know that reason in advance since it is our agency’s charge not only to protect the physical safety of the President, but to safeguard him from any potentially embarrassing situations as well. So we must know what you plan to speak with the President about?”

“I don’t know. I just want to meet the man. Give him my thanks in how he’s protecting the nation from terrorists.”

Agent Barrett looks unconvinced. Then I remember what Burke’s instructions said to say if I was asked this question. “Oh, and I also want to see if I can have his support in the privatization of more prisons. I think that all the problems I saw with violence and homosexuality during my time in prison could be easily solved if those institutions were changed to a faith-based, for-profit model.”

“Ahh, I see…” she says, then types some more into her laptop. “We’ll have the President’s staff collect some policy papers that he can review regarding the subject before the game. I will also have to ask that during your conversation with the President that your subject not stray from what you have just told me.”

“So I can’t talk to him about golf or the weather or stuff like that?”

“You may make small talk with the President. In fact we encourage it as a way of creating camaraderie. However, if you are planning on using your meeting with the President as a way of engaging in a political argument, you will be immediately escorted away and your file will be red flagged. And I must warn you, most people with a red flagged Secret Service file end up on all sorts of other nasty things like No-Fly lists as well.”

“Geez,” I say. “I guess those liberals must really be sneaky when it comes to embarrassing a great man like President Bush.”

“We’ve only had one or two problems of this type during his entire term in office, but we must remain vigilant.”

Then she continues typing a whole string of stuff into her laptop for a good minute. When she finishes, she turns it off and places it back into her bag.

“Since this is your first time meeting with the President, I will give you an idea of our protocol. Your game with the President will take place at the Southland’s Country Club next Wednesday from between one o’clock and three o’clock and no longer. We tell you this only so you can review the course and must ask that you inform no one else of the location of the game in the meantime. This is a private game between you, the President, and four other people who made similarly large donations to the RNC for this particular fundraiser.”

“Got it,” I say. “I won’t tell a soul.”

“A car will arrive at the residence we have on file at twelve fifteen sharp. It will be driven by a Secret Service agent and will return you to your residence after the game is over. When you arrive at the country club, you will have a chance to change in a locker room we will have secured. You and your clubs will be subject to another search before the security detail escorts you to the green for your game with the President. There will be refreshments available during the game, as well as alcoholic ones. However, we must ask that you do not become visibly inebriated during the game. You will be subject to removal if that happens.

“This is a private game, so we do not anticipate any media at the event beyond the usual press corp that covers the President’s comings and goings. They will be kept away from the event, so feel free to speak as candidly as you with about the subject you gave us. Remember though that there are four other donors also at the event, so try not to monopolize all of the President’s time. His assistants will facilitate the time you spend with him. We also ask that you do not share any snippets of conversation you may catch from the other donors with any members of the press.”

“I can’t imagine why I would want to,” I say.

Agent Barrett smiles and then rises from her chair. “I know it all sounds very structured, but we try to make the experience as enjoyable as we can,” She hands me a business card. “If you have any questions between now and then, you can contact us at that number and we can clarify things. Oh, and also report to us anyone suspicious who may try and contact you before your meeting with the President, no matter how innocuous it may seem. I repeat, do not tell anyone of the exact location between now and then.”

“No problem,” I say to her tits.

She packs up her laptop and tries not to look visibly uncomfortable while I leer at her. I follow her to the door and open it for her. I have a strong urge to slap her on the ass as she passes by, but since she’s a Secret Service agent, she’s probably got a gun so I don’t.

I go back and sit on the bed. I wonder if Burke is going to call me now that this is over to tell me I’m free to leave. I lay back and go over the meeting again in my head, only this time, after Agent Barrett interviews me, I punish her anally with a monsterous dildo while she gags on my cock. It takes me a depressingly short time to blow my load, especially since I wanted to savor my first jerk-off in a while. I must be pretty backed up since a heavy stream of my man chowder shoots out of my dick. It splatters all the way up to my shirt. Fuck. I’m gonna have to clean up before I leave her to make sure I’m not covered in come when I leave.

Before I do that though, I just stare at the sticky, pearly goo on my hands. Swimming around in that are tens of thousands of little Poopies that will never be. I’ve never been big on the idea of procreation. In fact, little children disgust me and I’ve always thought it was cruel to bring another human being into this foul, fucked up planet of ours. However, staring at my semen running over my fist like a glove, I slowly begin to wish there was a little me running around some place. Something that would take my place after I die, which looks imminent. For the first time in a long time, I start to cry. And not just tear up a little. I start to bawl like a faggot who just lost his favorite buttplug.

After I’ve cried enough tears to make two wet spots where my eyes are on the bed’s comforter, I realize the cellphone is ringing. Burke’s cellphone. I fumble around and pick it up with my left hand since that was the one that didn’t have my come rapidly drying to it.

“Hello, Poopy.”

It’s Burke. “I’m at the hotel. I just finished talking to the Secret Service agent. I told them everything you wanted me to tell them. What the fuck do you want?”

“I know that. I heard and saw everything you said in the room?” he says. “By the way, did you have a ‘good cry’?”

I should have known that fucker would have the room bugged. I start shaking with incoherent rage.

“I just called to tell you that you performed to our expectations. Keep playing it cool and you will get the stripper’s children back, mostly intact.”

“How do I even know they’re still alive dammit?” I scream. “For all I know they’ve been dead this whole time.”

“Where would we have gotten the arm then?”

“Maybe you cut it off after they were already dead. Or maybe you took it off some baby in a dumpster. I don’t know, but since they’re the only reason I’m going through with all your bullshit, I need to know they’re still alive.”

“Don’t get all righteous, Mr. Peanutz. I highly doubt the children are your main concern. I would put it second to the months, no, years of torture you yourself will go through unless you do exactly what we say.” Burke sighs. “However, I will grant your request. We will provide you with a proof-of-life by this evening.”

“You don’t need to provide it to me,” I say. “I don’t even know what these kids look like. I’ve seen them all of once and all snotty little sprogs look the same to me. I need Apple to get that proof of life so she can verify that it’s really them.”

“You would be putting her in danger to let her know too much.”

“She’s already in danger and she already knows her kids have been kidnapped. She doesn’t know anything about the assassination because she doesn’t have to. Think about it, that would probably be the last thing she’d come up with as a motive. She still thinks I’m still rich and just won’t pay you guys the ransom.”

“That can be done,” Burke says. “Your cellphone is equipped to receive video so we’ll stream you live video of the children. Then, will you be satisfied?”

“Yes,” I say. “And when you do it, you might want to do whatever you can to cover up the way you disfigured one of them already. Apple isn’t exactly in great shape right now.”

“We will soften the impact as best as we can. Tomorrow afternoon, when you’re ready, redial the number I called you on and let it ring. We’ll set up the video stream then,” Burke says. “In the meantime, keep playing it cool. We’re in the home stretch now Poopy and too many important people have invested too much into this action for anything to go sideways now.”

“Very well then, I’ll call you tomorrow fucker.”

“Oh and Poopy, you can keep the suit, so you might want to get the semen dry cleaned off of it at your first opportunity.”

I’m about to yell at the phone again but he hangs up. I’m so angry I nearly chuck it at the muted TV. On it, is a picture of George W. Bush stumbling his way through a press conference. How ironic. I stop myself since I’m gonna need the phone tomorrow. I need to keep my rage in check if I’m gonna make my way through this. Fuck it. I’m not gonna stay in this room where they can watch me any more. Besides I need to go see my mother so I can change her bandages…

Then, it hits me. A crystal moment of clarity. Then I start laughing. It was so obvious, I didn’t even realize it. This isn’t over, not by a long shot. I’m not a dead man walking.

I suddenly have a plan on how I can get out of this whole mess and fuck Burke, Van Hertzwelder, and all their neo-conservative buddies for good.

But first, I’m gonna need to see my mother…

The Winner: Part Twenty-Four

2007-11-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

“Poooopy,” Apple is cooing from the bedroom. “Pooopy. Where are youuu?”

I’m in my trashheap of a living room trying to get some sleep. I’ve cleared out a space amongst the garbage where I can lay out a blanket and use one of the shredded up couch cushions as pillow. A fucking homeless squatter lives better than I do.

“Poopy…it’s time. Are you there, Poopy?”

Yes I’m here. I’ve been listening to her call for me for the last hour or so. The heroin must be wearing off, again. It sucks how quickly she’s developed a tolerance for the stuff. When I started, one shot would keep her knocked out for the whole day. Now, I have to inject her with twice as much to get her half as knocked out and I have to do it every six hours or else she starts going into withdrawal.

“Please…please someone help me here! Poopy! Anyone! I need help! My bones are cold!”

Dammit. I get up and gingerly step through the heaps on the floor, trying my best not to impale my foot on a splinter like I’ve been doing almost daily. I only have enough heroin to last for the rest of the week at the rate I’m giving it to her. She starts begging after about five hours. At six, she’s screaming and I have to give it to her or else she’ll wake up the neighbors.

When I appear in the doorway, she gasps. “Oh thank god! Where have you been?”

“I had to go out for a bit,” I say. “You know I’ve got things I have to do.”

Apple gives me a relieved smile as I come up to the bed, exposing a mouth filled with yellow, broken teeth. I replaced the sheets I used to tie her hands to the bedposts with plastic zipties I got from the hardware store. I should probably replace them with new ones since her wrists are chafed, rubbed raw through the skin. White pus dribbles down her arm from where it collects in sores around her wrists.

“So, are you gonna give me my shot now?” Apple asks anxiously. “Please, I need it. I’m getting really cold here. I could really use a shot.”

“Hold your horses,” I say, as I pull out the needle and get to work. The smell in here is atrocious. Apple has been pissing in the bed since, of course, I can’t risk taking her to the bathroom to do her business. I got a bedpan from a medical supply store to take care of this, I’ve just been too distracted to let her use it on a regular basis. Thankfully, heroin makes you constipated, so I haven’t had to deal with too much shit.

Probably the other reason I’ve been avoiding using the bedpan too much is that Apple is getting some serious bedsores from being tied down to the bed for weeks, and I’d have to lift her up to scoot the pan under her. The festering smell of infection and rot in this room would choke me up if I wasn’t so used to it.

Anyway, I cook her up a huge shot of heroin, then I kneel by the end of the bed and inject it in the web of skin between her big and middle toe. I can’t risk moving her, but the least I can do is rotate the places where I inject her so she doesn’t get too many track marks. I’ve already flubbed up injecting her enough to leave dark veins showing through the skin of both of her arms.

I push the plunger home and a couple seconds later, Apple gasps as it hits her bloodstream.

“Is that better?” I ask, pulling the needle carefully from her foot.

“It’s perrrrfect,” she says, melting into the bed. “It feels like heaven.”

I look at the rotted state she’s in. Apple looks emaciated and must have dropped fifteen pounds off her already very skinny frame. Not that I’ve been trying to starve her, but the only food she seems able to keep down is cold chicken broth.

If this feels like heaven, then I’d hate to know what hell is like. Thank god I don’t believe in that religious voodoo.

I ask Apple, “Is there anything else you need?” but she’s already too far gone in a heroin daze to even respond. I put the needle and the heroin away, stash it back under the bed and leave the room. I can’t stand to be in here for too long. The whole scene looks like some serious, serial killer shit is going down. I guess it’s appropriate since I’m going to be the man who murders the president.

I feel sorry for Apple. I wish I could let her go and I wish I could afford to pay for the rehab clinic she’s going to eventually need to go to, as well as years worth of therapy. But I have to keep telling myself, this is the best thing for her. If I wasn’t doing this, Apple would probably be running around, asking questions, and likely be killed by Van Hertzwelder. This all looks cruel, but I’m doing it so that eventually she can be reunited with her children, maimed though one of them may be.

There’s a buzzing noise somewhere in living room. It’s coming from my pants, which are laying in a heap in the little nest I’ve cleared out. It’s the phone Burke left for me. I put it onto silent alarm. I must have not heard it for awhile, since there’s a text message on it saying simply: ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE PEANUTZ.

I click the SEND button and grunt, “What?”

“Why haven’t you answered your phone?” the voice on the other end is electronically masked, but I can still tell from the clipped, wanting-so-hard-to-be-white diction that it’s Burke.

“I slept through it.”

A disappointed sigh on the other end. “It is important that you answer your phone whenever we page you. Especially today since we have something for you to do.”

“Well, quit whining and spit it out, jigaboo.”

Another sigh on the other end. “Peanutz, I realize you’re under a great deal of stress because of our arrangement, and not inclined to like me whatever my race may be. But if you refer to me as a jigaboo, nigger, spearchucker, jungle bunny, or any offensive slang term for an African-American again—even colored—I’ll have another arm cut off of one of Apple’s poor, helpless children,” Burke says. “Do you understand me you fucking whitebread, peckerwood, honky piece of shit?”

“How do I know they’re even still alive?” I ask. “You can’t even shake a baby without killing it. Chopping off their arm has got to be even worse.”

“It was done surgically,” Burke says. “The baby was unconscious the whole time. We did it to the younger of the two, figuring he would have more time to adjust his new disability, therefore making it slightly less traumatic. After all, we are not complete sociopaths.”

I guess I’ll have to take his word for it. “Okay, then what do you want me to do now, you fucking queer.”

Burke growls on the other end. “Be careful, you’re treading a fine line Poopy. I need you to go to the Brown Palace downtown, room 413. The room is in your name, so just present your ID to the desk to get a keycard for the room. You have to be there in an hour…”

“I can’t be there in an hour,” I say. “I have to go see my mother in an hour. I have to change her bandages.” Well, I didn’t have to be there in exactly an hour, I just had to go over to the motel and help her change them once a day. Thankfully, the inflammation along her sutures was going down, and she says she will only have to do it for a few more days. Compared to the monster I’ve been slathering up in medical jelly for the past week, I have to say she is starting to look normal again. Or at least, not nearly as disgusting as she had been. Good, after paying a quarter of a million dollars in surgery, she better have not come out looking like Frankenstein.

“Seeing as we’ll kill her if you don’t do as we say, in a sense you are helping her.”

I could continue to protest and be a pain in the ass, but we both know that in the end, I’m gonna do exactly what he says. “Continue.”

“The Secret Service advance team needs to do a face to face interview with you before you can meet the president. We chose that hotel because, frankly, your apartment is a wreck and will throw up a huge red flag for them should they see it. There will also be a change of clothes and some time to take a shower before they come. Please take one since you tend to smell pretty bad from what I gather.”

“Fuck you, nig…” I catch myself. “…fucker.”

Burke chuckles. “There will also be instructions for exactly what to say to the Secret Service agent who will come to interview you. Do not deviate from them for any reason. We have gone through great trouble to clean up your record enough so that the Secret Service would even consider letting you within twenty feet of the President. If you spook them in any way, or god forbid, try to tip the agent off to the plot, we will know even faster than when you tried that stunt with the FBI. Remember, we have a highly placed mole in the Service.”

“So you keep telling me. Is there anything else?”

“No. That’s all for now,” Burke says. “Cheer up. This will all be over about a week. You can take comfort in knowing you will die one of the most notorious men of the twenty-first century. Some misguided communist types may even consider you a hero.”

“Fuck you,” I hang up the phone, drop it on the ground and then start screaming at it. “YOU FUCKING NIGGER! FUCK YOU AND FUCK THAT NAZI FUCK VAN HERTZWELDER AND HIS FAGGOT KID TOO!”

I punch the wall, but I’m such a pussy I barely dent the plaster and just scrape all the skin off my knuckles. I scream, “FUUUCK!” for about a minute, holding my bleeding hand. Once I get it out of my system, I pull some pants on and head downtown towards the hotel.

The Winner: Part Twenty-Three

2007-11-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

Five days later, I’m sitting in some uncomfortable plastic chairs across from the duty-free stores at the airport. According to the arrivals monitor, her flight landed forty minutes ago, but there’s still no sign of her anywhere. I unenthusiastically pick through a copy of Penthouse I bought at the newsstand, just to pass the time. The goatee guy is standing across the concourse, acting like he’s reading a copy of Harper’s. Why does he even act like he isn’t following me? He might as well just handcuff himself to my arm, it’ll make it easier. I’ve seen this motherfucker every place I go. He knows it, I know it. His presence annoys me more now than it scares me.

Of course, my presence at the airport probably isn’t raising any red flags with them. It wouldn’t be too hard to find out today is the day my mother is returning home. Besides the money I was ordered to donate, I haven’t bought any plane tickets, withdrawn any large sums of cash, or even spent anything besides renting a minivan for a couple days so I can drive my mother home from the airport.

After I recovered from the shock of seeing that dismembered baby arm (and threw the damn thing in a dumpster several blocks away from my house while wearing gloves to make sure my fingerprints were nowhere near this thing since they’re on file with the state) I found a liquor store, bought a bottle of whiskey and went home. I’m not much of a drinker, but I did three shots in a row before my gag reflex started working. I don’t know how alcoholics can guzzle this stuff like water. I followed the instructions on the piece of paper the fake FBI agent gave me (or perhaps he was a real one who was yet another mole for Van Hertzwelder’s conspiracy) and wrote a check out for half a million dollars to the Republican Party, along with a letter that coyly insinuated that I’d like to meet the President when he came to town in the next few weeks for a round of golf. I’ve never even played golf in my life. Not only will I die, I will die looking like a douchebag.

So now I’m back to square one. No, more like I’m back to square negative one. Or maybe negative one-hundred; I doubt the malaise I feel can even be expressed mathematically. Three months ago, I had more money than I could even dream of earning in a lifetime of working the shitty, dead end jobs I always seem to end up in. Not only am I going to die, I’m going to die broke. A loser. A nothing. Over the past few days, I’ve tried not to think about it. I try to keep myself wrapped up in my routine: eat, sleep, shoot Apple up with more heroin to keep her quiet, maybe go for a walk, eat some more even though nothing tastes good anymore.

In the last few days or so, I mulled over what Burke told me in the limosine a few weeks ago. That I’m a piece of shit and this is my one chance to make a mark on the world. There could be worse fates than dying and taking the life of one of the most hated presidents in American history with me. I started to take perverse joy in my impending notoriety. My entire life would be picked apart, psycho-analyzed. Every place I’ve gone, every person I’ve known would be considered a piece of a puzzle to conventions full of conspiracy nutjobs for decades to come. Kids would learn about me in school. They would have to those annoying interview assignments where they go to their parents and ask them, “Where were you when you first heard that Poopy Peanutz blew up George W. Bush?” I’m seriously thinking of trying to write a “manifesto” in my last few weeks on this Earth, knowing that my words will be dissected for a long time after I’m gone.

Of course, my ego is always brought back down when I realize that I won’t be around to enjoy my notoriety. I guess if I believed in some sort of afterlife, it might seem less cold. But since even with my end coming near I still can’t bring myself to believe in any of that religious bullshit, any pleasure I can take from the aftermath of the assassination just rings false. I try to make my peace with the inevitable, but I can’t.

Maybe I should start using my middle name. It seems like all proper president killers should have three names…

A porter walks up to me and asks, “Are you Mr. Peanutz?”

I’m zoning out on all my thoughts, so he has to ask twice before I snap out of my funk. “Yeah, that’s me. Mr. Poopy Patrick Peanutz. I’m him. Yesseree…”

He looks at me weird since I’m acting weird. He motions his arm behind him. “Your mother has just cleared the concourse. She’s ready for you.”

“Okay, thanks,” I say. I roll up the Penthouse, stick it in my back pocket and follow the porter over to where my mom is waiting.

“Poopy,” my mother whispers in a dazed voice. “It’s so good to see you again.”

At first, I wonder if this is supposed to be some sort of joke. The thing sitting in that wheelchair looks more like a mummy than my mother. In fact, I wouldn’t have even thought it was my mother if I hadn’t recognized her voice. She is wrapped up in a layer after layer of gauze, with just small holes for her eyes, nose, and mouth. Some clear, yellowish substance is weeping through the layers of bandages like she’s sweating Vaseline. She has the crisp odor of institutional cleaning products all over her, the kind they use to overpower nasty things just underneath. Fuck a mummy, she looks like a goddamn third degree burn victim. Mummy, burn victim, whatever; at least she looks about two hundred fifty pounds lighter than she used to be.

Slowly and weakly, she raises her arms up towards me. The bandages around armpits make a cringe inducing slurping sound as she moves them. “Here my dear Poopy, give me a hug…”

“Hi mom,” I reply nervously. There’s no fucking way I’m giving her hug, so I give her a pat on the shoulder, and even that is pretty unpleasant since it feels unnaturally squishy underneath and my hand comes away with a film of…something on it. I wipe my palm off on my slacks, then pull out my wallet and hand the porter a twenty. He thanks me and scurries off, then I feel like a schmuck for giving him so much since for the first time in months, I’m on a budget.

I push her wheelchair out to the baggage claim. Since it has been so long since the plane unloaded, her one bag was one of the few still circling around the metal ramps. I snatched it away from some wetback airport employee who was about to stick it in the unclaimed section before the load from the next airplane was about to start rolling off the conveyor belts.

“Here we go,” I drop the bag on my mother’s lap (she let’s out a surprised grunt), then I grab the handles and start pushing her out to the short term lot. I’ve been parked there an hour and it costs about twenty bucks every fifteen minutes, and I don’t want to have to shell out for another fifteen minutes. Christ, I’m becoming a cheap bastard again.

But despite being a cheap bastard, I would have given the valet another twenty bucks if he would have come out here with us and put my mother into the rented van. The squishyness of her skin just under the gauze, combined with the medicine smell of her body was unnerving, especially since I had to get her arm over my shoulders to lift her up with her bandaged tits barely inches from my face.

I guess I should put this in perspective. This isn’t nearly as bad as sticking my arm up another man’s ass. And also, even though it isn’t pleasant to lift my mom into the car, it is easy. Before her trip, lifting my mom into anything would likely fuck up my back for life. Now, she weighs about as much as Apple does. Good, because I’d be severely pissed if the hundreds of thousands of dollars I spent for her to go to that overpriced fat camp only shaved off thirty pounds.

Once she’s inside, I fold up the wheelchair and stick it in the back and toss the bag in afterward. “Poopy,” she moans. “Before we go, can I have a pill? I’m starting to feel itchy again, and the doctor says if I scratch myself, I’ll pop my sutures.”

I grab her bag again and unzip it. There’s several different bottles of pills inside, as well as other containers and another huge roll of gauze. “Which pills do you want?”

“The ones with the yellow top. I can take those in the day time.”

After prying open the child-proof cap, I put on her hand. She looks at me expectantly. “Do you have anything to drink?”

“No.”

“I need something to drink if I’m gonna take my pill.”

I zip the bag back up. “I’m not walking all the way back to the terminal just to buy you a Coke to wash it down with. Either dry swallow it or wait until I get you home.”

“You’re mean,” my mom pouts. I get into the van and fire it up and start driving towards the parking lot’s main gate. My mom starts to make some hocking noises, like she’s trying to summon up enough saliva to swallow her pill. I look in the rear view mirror and am disgusted to see drool running down her chin as she pops the pill into her mouth and makes an overstated gulping noise.

“Oh God, Poopy. That was so hard. I hope I don’t choke to death just because you couldn’t get me something to drink.”

I groan. “Mom, if you were choking right now you couldn’t whine about how you were choking. Now shut up.”

When I get to the window, I search around for the ticket I took from the machine when I came in. I can’t find it anywhere, even after turning my pockets inside and out. I look through the entire glove compartment twice before the car behind me starts honking his horn. I end up having to pay the Mexican booth attendant fifty dollars for a “lost ticket fee” before they’ll lift the gate to let me out. Fuck. I think of all the things I could have used that money for.

I try not to think of how in a just a week, I won’t need any money.

My mom makes small choking and gagging noises on the entire drive into the city. She isn’t really choking, she’s just trying to make me feel guilty. I drive her down to the shitty part of town, where the Lucky U Motel is. Sergei is gonna let my mom stay here and out of my hair while I try to figure things out. Besides, it’s probably not a good idea to have my mom around while I had Apple tied to my bed and shot up with a bunch of heroin. Sergei was eager to do it, trying to curry favor with me anticipating more high money favors from me. I’m sure if he knew I was pretty much broke now, he’d probably tell me fuck off.

I park in the lot next to a pickup truck that’s more rust than metal. “Poopy. Where are we?” my mom mutters.

“Um, you’re gonna stay here for awhile. Don’t worry. I know the owner. He made sure to give you a room that doesn’t face the freeway.”

“But Poopy, I thought you said you bought a house? I thought I was gonna stay there with you.”

“It’s not a house. It’s a loft. Besides, you can’t stay there. I…I hired some fag interior designer to fix up the place. I having the whole place renovated. There’s shit everywhere. You don’t want to stay there.”

I open up the side panel, pull out the wheelchair and then proceed to lift my mom out of the car. It’s not quite so bad once you get used to doing it I guess. I have to push her down to the end of the row of rooms to get to the handicapped ramp. Her room is on the first level, just next to the Pepsi machine that has been broken for as long as I’ve known of the place. I get the key Sergei gave me and open up her door.

“I don’t see why you can’t get me a room at the Marriott,” my mom grumbles. “Or maybe even the Brown Palace. It isn’t like you can’t afford it.”

“No, this is better,” I say, wedging the door open with my hip until I can pull the chair inside. “This is closer to where I’m staying, so I’ll be able to see you regularly and you’ll have your own space.”

“I bet you’re staying someplace nice…”

“Well, if you don’t like it, feel free to check out and find some other place for yourself.”

“But I cannnn’t,” my mother whines. “I’m still in recovery and you’re the one with all the money. Can’t you get me a credit card or anything?”

I’m half tempted to just blurt out to her that I’m broke because I’m being extorted by a conspiracy to kill the president and that the quality of her fucking hotel room ought to be the least of her concerns. But telling her might get her killed. Then again, if she keeps this up, that might not be such a bad thing.

Once she’s completely into the room, I go back to the van and get her bag. She’s still sitting the middle of the room when I get there, gagging and choking again after a brief respite to whine about where she’s staying.

“Poopy, please can I have some water now? I’m dying…”

I drop the bag on the bed, grab one of the Styrofoam cups off the counter and go into the bathroom to fill it in the sink. I notice a used condom dried to the edge of the toilet and peel it off, tossing it into the bowl and flushing it. Thankfully, I caught that in time before my mom saw that. I’d never hear the end of it if she did. I think about washing my hands afterwards. Instead, I stick my fingers in the cup of water, hoping at least a few particles of dead dry sperm, or bacteria, or germs float off and make it down my mother’s throat. It would serve that bitch right.

After letting my fingers steep in the water for about fifteen seconds, I wipe my hand off on my pants, go back into the bedroom and hand it to her. “Here you go, mom.”

She takes the cup and doesn’t even say thank you. She gulps down the water, crumples up the cup and drops it on the floor. “Thank God,” she gasps. “I think I’ll be okay now. A little longer and I would have passed out.”

I roll my eyes. “Good then. Well, here’s forty bucks. The number for Pizza Hut is on the ad on the cover of the phone book. I’ll call you in a couple days to see how things are going. Later…”

“Poopy,” my mom calls out before I can reach the door. “Don’t go yet. I need your help.”

I slowly take my hand off the doorknob and say through gritted teeth, “Only if it’s quick, mom. I have places I need to be.” I didn’t really; I just didn’t want to hang out with my mom any more than I had to.

“I need your help changing my bandages. The doctor says I need to change them twice a day for the next week or I’ll get an infection.”

Fuck. If I still had any money left, I’d just hire a nurse to do this for her. I guess the task is now on me once again. “Fine, as long as it doesn’t take too long.”

My mom slowly gets up out of her wheelchair. She’s as wobbly as a doe that’s just been squirted outta momma deer’s cunt. She starts pulling at the metal clasps that are holding the bandages shut. She hands a few of them to me. “Don’t lose those.”

The bandages make a sickening slurping sound as she peels them off. She lets them drop in a heap on the floor. Underneath, she’s naked. My mom no longer looks like a mummy, she looks like fuckin’ Frankenstein. There are purple scars where her excess skin was cut away and sutured together. Even with the skin tightened, it still looks unnatural. I don’t know if it’s the weird jelly she’s been packed in, or just the fact that her skin has been stretched out for years, but her whole body has this weird, shiny sheen about it.

She does look thin though. Thinner than she’s looked in, well, since I’ve ever known her. Hell, if it weren’t for all the scars and the unnatural skin, she might even be hot. She looks like a beast that’s been stitched together from the chopped up parts of dead supermodels. If anything, that makes this experience all the more worse.

“Poopy,” she says, pointing at her bag on the bed. “Get the jar of medicated Vaseline out of there. I need to put a fresh layer on my stitches so they don’t get inflamed.

I get the jar and hand it to her. She twists off the cap and scoops out a big handful. She starts slathering it all over her shoulders, arms, tits, and stomach. She hands the slimed jar over to me. “Can you rub this all over my back and legs? I can’t quite bend down very easily…”

I shudder. I take a finger dab and start rubbing it into the flesh of her thigh.

“No, no. You have to use more. You have to cover all my skin or else it will dry up.”

Dammit, I can’t half ass this. I take a big scoop of this nasty smelling goo and knead it into my mom’s thigh and buttocks. This is worse than fist-fucking that faggot back at Alley Cat’s when you factor in the extreme Oedipal shit going on here.

I rub some of shit into small of my mom’s back and accidentally tear open a small blister of skin next to one of her stitches. A small bit of pus squirts on my mouth and I jump backwards, spitting it out on the carpet and wiping my whole face with the back of my arm.

“Come on Poopy,” my mom says. “It’s not that bad.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ mom! This is in the top ten nastiest things I’ve had to do in my life!”

“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain, praise be.”

“Not with the Jesus shit again!” I groan. “I thought the people at the spa convinced you that that stuff is all bullshit.”

“Oh no, Poopy,” she says. “Yes, they tried their best to strip me of my faith. They locked me in rooms and gave me drugs trying to get me to renounce the name of my Lord. They said that unless I gave up such superstition, I would never be able to be truly thin, in body as well as soul.”

“Whatever,” I say, going over to the sink and drinking some water right out of the tap to wash the pus taste out of my mouth. “It sounds all creepy and culty, but it’s essentially right.”

“No it isn’t,” my mom says calmly. “The counselors there did their best to convince me there was nothing but this world. I even had to renounce the name of my Lord in front of everyone to end their torments. But it just made my faith in God stronger. I learned that speaking the name of the Lord is one thing, but keeping him alive in our heart is another. If anything, it made my faith in God stronger. More real. That was probably more important than the transformation of my body. The experience, the tribulation, the thing it transformed the most was my heart.”

I shrug. “Well, whatever. I paid for you to get thin and I guess they did that, so I’ll mark satisfied on the comment card.”

My mom looks at me and shakes her head. “Poopy, I really wish I could show you what I know. That there’s something beyond this world, something larger than all of us.”

“Mom, I’m not getting into a religious discussion with you,” I bark. “You know how I feel and I’m not changing my mind just because you think some asshole with a beard lives in the sky.”

I wipe my mouth one more time, hoping that I’ve got all the pus out of there. “Okay, you’re covered in goo. Can I go now?”

“Well, the part I really need help with is putting my bandages back on. Otherwise, I’ll dry out and I can’t do that until I get full blood circulation back to my skin.”

“Once I put the bandages back on, can I leave?”

“Oh, and I can’t eat Pizza Hut. I have a very specific diet of greens, kale, and sea weed I need to consume every few hours to stay healthy. After you spent so much to make me thin, I can’t go back to my old ways.”

This just keeps getting better and better. “I’ll find some vegetarian restaurant you can order that crap from.”

“It’s not crap,” my mom protests. “You just have to train yourself to believe that vitamins are yummy.”

“Did Jesus tell you that?”

“Don’t blaspheme, Poopy.”

It takes another fifteen minutes to get my mom wrapped up in fresh bandages and looking like a mummy again. After I’m done, I deliberately neglect giving my mom a kiss goodbye on the cheek and take the sodden, pus and goo covered bandages out to the dumpster behind the motel. The dumpster smells like a dog crawled in there and died. I toss the bandages in there and back away. If there was one sense I wish I was without, it would be my sense of smell.

As I walk back to the van, Sergei dashes out of the office. “Hey, Mr. Poopy! How it hanging G-loc?”

“What was that Sergei?” I say, annoyed. “I don’t speak nigger.”

“Hey, my uncle wanted me to ask you; have you heard from Hirsch lately? He has some business associates that have a case he needs to look into.”

Hirsch is probably chopped up and buried deep in a landfill somewhere, but of course I can’t tell Sergei that, so I just say. “I haven’t heard from him in a week. He was supposed to call me about my case. If you hear from him, tell him I need to talk to him.”

“Versa vice, Mr. Peanutz,” Sergei says. “Why you driving this soccer mom piece of shit, Poopy? Where’s your Mercedes?”

“It’s in the shop,” I say. “I’m getting some work done on it.”

“Terrific,” Sergei says. “Hey, I have a friend that can get you some neon-trim on it, as well as a spoiler. He can do it cheap, only a few thousand. You interested?”

“No Sergei,” I say. “Besides, who the fuck would put a spoiler on a Mercedes S-Class?”

“I would,” he says instantly. “You know; ‘Fast and Furious’…”

“Right…” I say. “It’s been nice talking with you. I but I gotta run.”

“Cool homey,” Sergei says. “Don’t you worry about your momma. I take good care of her, like she was my own momma. Don’t worry about a thing!”

I think snidely, if she was your mother, you wouldn’t be some Rusky who thinks it’s cool speaking Ebonics. You’d be a fucked up piece of shit like me.

I wonder if I should warn Sergei to get out of town. Go back to whatever cold, gray Russian town he hails from. After all, he has helped my ass quite a bit. I’m sure if this whole assassination plot goes down the way Burke and Van Hertzwelder want it to, Sergei is gonna get snapped up and sent to Guantanamo Bay where he’ll never be heard from again. But he’s already asking questions about Hirsch. Telling him to get out of town will make him even more suspicious. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find some way of warning him.

I drive the van back to my apartment. I have it rented out for the next two weeks. I don’t imagine I’ll be alive after that.

The Winner: Part Twenty-Two

2007-11-04T03:39:00.000-07:00

I run furiously, avoiding the sidewalks and streets and taking the alleys whenever I can. I want to put as much distance as I can between myself and the sodomite bathhouse that my beloved Alley Cats has become. If I’m going to lose Burke’s men, it is going to have to be now.

So I run and run until my lungs feel like over-inflated balloons and I’m dripping sweat. I have to stop for a moment to catch my breath and am depressed by the fact that I’ve only made it four blocks from the porn store. Fuck, I’m so out of shape. I’m also horrified to find that I’ve neglected to remove the gimp-mask those leather-fags made me wear. Way to keep a low profile, Poopy. Way to go…

I yank the leather mask off my face, the crisp spring air feeling extremely cold on my sweaty face. I toss it into a nearby dumpster, then do my best to wipe the slime of blood, shit, and Crisco off my arm with a dry old newspaper. Once I’ve gotten enough of that crap off me that it didn’t look like my arm was absolutely covered in gore, I grab my 32 karat gold Rolex out of my pocket and look at the time. I’ve got twenty-five minutes to make it Sixth avenue.

Still winded, I get onto the sidewalk and start walking at a normal pace (which was really all I could do at this point), figuring I’d stand out more if I were running. I still would have to hump it. Sixth Avenue was pretty long ways to make it on foot in the time I had. I could try and take a taxi, but didn’t want to get off the side streets onto the major roads to try and hail a cab. Looking around, I didn’t see the goatee man or the black car or really sense anyone following me. I didn’t want to risk them picking up my trail again what I had to do to lose them.

So I keep walking towards Sixth. When I look behind periodically to see if I’m being followed, I see a bus ambling up in the direction I’m heading. I hustle up to the stop at the end of the block, winding myself again. The bus pulls up just as I get there, waving my hands around for it to stop.

The doors open up and I’m digging through my pockets for change for the fare when the bus driver stops me.

“Hold on, buddy. We’ve got some handicapped people we’ve got to let off first.”

I roll my eyes and jump back onto the sidewalk. The bus driver starts operating the hydraulic lift that lowers wheelchairs down to the curb. Some cripple with a disease that twisted his body into all sorts of inhuman positions pilots his wheelchair over to the ramp with his claw of a hand and joystick. It takes him two minutes just to get his wheelchair in position on the lift. Then another minute to lower it to the ground. Once cripple boy has finally made his way off onto the sidewalk, I start up the steps to the bus. The bus driver holds out his hand once more.

“Wait, we got one more rider we’ve got to unload.”

“What the fuck?” I yell. “I have places I gotta be, goddammit.”

“You and everybody else, buddy. Just stand back. This will only take a moment.”

Of course, it took longer than a moment. This was a female cripple this time. She must have had the same disease as the guy before her, but it took her even longer to use her joystick to get her wheelchair in position.

Finally, I explode: “Look bitch. Would you please hurry it up? Normal people here have someplace more important to go to than a fucking sponge bath.”

Her numb face doesn’t even register my comment. The other cripple bumps me from behind with his wheelchair.

“L-l-leave her alone. Th-that’s my wife, j-j-j-jerk.”

Great, these people are breeding now. I’m furious, I grab him by his chair and look straight in his lopsided face. “Or else what motherfucker? What are you gonna do? Roll over my foot? I’ll say what I want to whomever I want to. Got it?”

The cripple backs his chair up and starts stammer at me. “Y-y-you’re a p-p-p-prick. And you sm-smell like sh-sh-sh-it.”

“Whatever. At least I don’t need a ramp to get into my house, dickhead.”

After what feels like an eternity, the cripple’s wife finally rolls off the hydraulic ramp. The second she rolls off, I try to get on the bus, but the driver snaps the doors shut on me.

“Get the hell off my bus,” the driver sneers. “Catch the next one you prejudiced asshole.”

“No! I have to take this one! You’re required by law to give me a ride! This is discrimination!”

“Bullshit. Get out of here your prick.”

The doors start tightening on my chest and finally I have to pull back. The bus starts immediately rolling forward. From behind the windows, I hear the other passengers start cheering the driver and flipping me the bird. Scumbags. This must be what Rosa Parks felt back when the niggers started getting uppity about their rights.

I turn around to continue walking when the cripple cuts me off with his chair, the wheel running over my foot with the broken toe. I bolt of pain tears through my leg and I fall to the ground.

He stutters at me, “F-f-fucker…” before he and his cripple wife start rolling down the sidewalk at top speed. Not that I could catch up to them with my foot in this much pain. Besides, I had more important things to do than kick the shit out of some handicapped people. When I can finally stand on it again, I continue on down the street towards Sixth Avenue. I had only ten minutes to get to my meeting with the FBI. I limp along as best as I can.

Of course, I don’t make it to the Wilshire Apartments on Sixth in ten minutes. By the time I was able to limp the entire way there, I was about twenty minutes late and fucking exhausted. Fuck it. Twenty minutes is well within the realm of fashionably late. I just hope the FBI thinks that way too.

They must, since when I get around the back there to the area with the loading dock, I see a non-descript gray van parked there by itself. I head towards it cautiously. When I’m within twenty feet, the panel side slides open and there’s a man wearing a sharp gray suit and an earpiece.

“Are you Poopy Peanutz?”

“Yes, that’s me,” I say, hobbling over to them. “Sorry I’m late, but you wouldn’t believe the shit I had to do just to get here.”

“Tell us about it in the van,” he says, waving me forward. “Our time window is slipping and we don’t want to compromise our position.”

As soon as I jump into the van, the driver (whose wearing blue coveralls) starts up the van and starts backing out of the space. The inside looks like what I’d assume is surveillance van from what I’ve seen in the movies. There’s a bench with a laptop bolted down as well as several TV monitors. Besides the agent in the gray suit, there’s another agent sitting down with his coat off and his sleeves rolled up.

“Have a seat right there. There’s no seatbelts, so hold on using that bar right there.” I do as he says. “I’m Agent Allen, this is Agent Smith. We’re both with the Bureau’s Corruption and Ethics squad.”

“Pleased to meet you guys,” I say. Between these two agents and the two I met at the police station, it feels like I’ve met half the FBI in the past couple of days.

The van peels out of the lot of the apartment building and I can feel it heading down the street, though the windows in the van are non-existent so I don’t know where we’re going. Agent Allen leans forward, “So, Mr. Peanutz, we heard through our liason in Organized Crime that you need desperately to talk to us. We’re talking with you because you claim to have information on Carl Van Hertzwelder that may be of use. Do you mind if we record this conversation?”

“No, go ahead,” I say. Even though I don’t like the idea of having my words recorded, I figured consenting would make me look like less of a crackpot. “Look, it boils down to this: Carl Van Hertzwelder is involved in a plot to kill the President of the United States.”

Agent Allen looks over to Agent Smith, but says nothing. “That’s a fairly serious allegation you’re making Mr. Peanutz. To be quite honest, the Bureau thought that this probably had something to do with you having gay sex with him in a bathroom somewhere, or some sort of blackmail.”

“Fuck you,” I say. “I’m not a fag.”

“The information in your file would seem to say otherwise Mr. Peanutz. For one, we do know that you were cellmates with Van Hertzwelder’s son when you were doing a year up in Canon City. Second of all, while it can’t be proven in a court of law, you were also cellmates with Armando Herrera. Very close cellmates we heard. It looks like you were being passed around quite a bit in there.”

“Fuck that! I was the pitcher, not the catcher! You haven’t had to go for a year without busting a nut. I did what I had to do while I was inside, but I haven’t fucked any guys since I’ve been outside. I’m straight, and I’ve got references.”

“Very well,” Agent Allen scribbles something onto his PDA. “So do you have any evidence of this alleged plot that Mr. Van Hertzwelder is involved in to kill the President?”

“Yes. I was forced to meet with him a week ago. He was there with two other people and they told me all about their assassination plot!”

“Do you have any other evidence besides your own personal testimony that this exists?”

I think for a moment. “I guess I don’t. Wait! Yes! There’s was a kidnapping! This stripper got her children kidnapped. That was how they got me to meet with them!”

“Yes,” Agent Allen says. “When we pulled up your file, we did notice that your name came up in the investigation of a kidnapping of the children of one Angela Clements. Why didn’t you mention all this to Agent D’Anci and Johnson when you met with them?”

“I was afraid the interrogation room was bugged. Or maybe that they were double agents or something. Van Hertzwelder told me not to tell anyone or they’d kill me and Apple’s children. I figured I’d be much safer telling the FBI through back channels. From what they were telling me, this conspiracy goes into the highest levels of government.”

“I see,” Agent Allen says. He scribbles some more stuff into his PDA. “Why would a high level government conspiracy tell you about their plot to assassinate the president, if one did in fact exist?”

This fucker obviously doesn’t believe me, but I tell them anyway. I tell them about how Van Hertzwelder blamed me for the death of his son and that they were blackmailing me into killing the president as a way to stage a coup in American politics. I told them about Burke and how the entire military-industrial complex was involved in this.

“Very well,” Agent Allen says. “You do realize how completely ridiculous all this sounds and that it is a federal crime to threaten the life of a sitting president?”

“No shit, Sherlock. Look, I don’t want to kill the president and I’m taking some serious risks in order to tell you this shit. I’m being followed by men in black cars constantly. Like I said before, you don’t want to know what I had to do to throw off their surveillance just to meet with you guys! Fucking hell! I could get killed for giving you guys this heads up!”

“Calm down, Mr. Peanutz,” Agent Allen says. “We’re not saying we don’t believe you or that we’re not taking you seriously. It’s just that we need to make this sound believable for our bosses. Listen, I’m gonna call them right now and see what we can make of this information.”

Agent Allen pulls out his cell phone and starts talking discreetly into it. I look out the front of the van and see we’re pulling up to my apartment building. I bound out of my seat up to the driver and yell at him, “Get out of here! The conspiracy has people watching my apartment twenty-four seven! If they see me here talking to you guys, we’re fucked! Keep on driving you stupid son-of-a-bitch!”

I feel a hand yank me back into my seat by the collar, followed by the unmistakable cock of pistol. I turn my head to protest when I see the barrel of a silencer Agent Smith is holding just inches away from my eye.

“Everything is fine here, Mr. Peanutz. Please, calm down,” Agent Allen says. He speaks into the cell phone again, then hands it over to me. “I have someone here who would like to speak with you.”

I carefully take the cell phone from Agent Allen. I put it up to my ear and hear a familiar voice.

“Do you know who this is?”

“This is Burke, right?”

“Correct.”

“Mr. Peanutz, you’ve not been following our instructions,” Burke says. “We told you not to tell anyone about our little arrangement or else there would be serious consequences.”

My eyes dart between the two agents and silenced pistol being aimed at my head. “Well, since these guys work for you, I technically haven’t told anyone else about your plot. So I haven’t really told anyone else.”

“Yes, that is technically correct,” Burke says. “In fact, the reason you’re not dying in an inimaginably painful way right now is that you’ve not leaked our secret in any way that isn’t one-hundred percent containable.”

“Okay, so no harm no foul. You have my word, I won’t do it again.”

Burke laughs. “Mr. Peanutz, we both know that your word isn’t worth the breath you used to give it to me. No, we need to teach you a lesson that will hammer home how serious we are.”

My eyes dart between the two “agents” in the van with me. “You really don’t need to teach me any lessons. I double-dog swear I won’t tell anyone about you guys again!”

“No, you do need to be taught a lesson. We’ve been onto your half-assed plan to inform the authorities since almost before you even thought about it. If we wanted to nip this in the bud, we could have done it days ago. However, we figured it would be useful to let you think you were getting away with something for a brief time, if only to bring to light two points…”

“Can’t you just tell me those two points? You don’t need to, um, ‘hammer them home’ so to speak.”

“Mr. Peanutz, calm down. These men will not be inflicting any physical harm,” Burke says, then adds: “On you at least.”

“Agent” Allen leans over and turns on the laptop, types a few things and a photo-slide show pops up. The first one is a grainy one of the inside of my apartment. Allen cycles through various freeze frames of me destroying the place, looking for this camera that, from the angle the photos seem to be coming from, the tract-lighting above right next to the loft; an area that was out of convenient reach for me to check.

“First of all, Peanutz, don’t bother trying to find them again now that you know roughly where they are. My men have gone inside your apartment during this time you’ve been trying to evade our surveillance and removed the devices. We didn’t learn much from anyway. We found the cameras are more amusing than informative.

Apple… “But, what about…”

“Don’t worry, we did not disturb the drugged out stripper you have tied to your bed. In fact, we’re quite pleased that you did that. You plugged a potential hole that we didn’t have to.”

Agent Allen clicked to advance to the next picture. This one was a picture of Hirsch, tied to a chair. He looks angry and is yelling at the camera. Men dressed in black gloves are behind him.

“That Jew lawyer you hired was a great help to us. We picked him up within a day of when he contacted the FBI trying to find someone to talk to you. Of all the people you talked to, he knew the most. He was also the most helpful in telling us about your plans. We didn’t even have to torture him to get him to talk. He gave you up only on the promise of quick and clean death…”

Allen clicks forward to another picture of Hirsch, this time he’s slumped in the chair with a flower of blood on his shirt right over his heart.

“We are nothing,” Burke says. “If not men of our word.”

Allen clicks forward again, this time to a picture of two men in suits hung by their neck in some wearhouse. They have signs on them in hastily scrawled Spanish. It takes me a second to recognize them. It’s Agent D’anci and Agent Johnson, the two FBI guys who interrogated me back at the police station.

“We made their deaths look like retaliation from a Salvadorian gang they are—I mean, were—investigating. They didn’t know much of anything. Thanks to us, they never will know anything.”

Click forward. The next picture is one of the two cops that arrested me in the park that night getting into their cruiser. “We haven’t done anything about these two yet. Tonight, they’re going to get a call for a domestic violence dispute. Something will go wrong and they will both end up dead during this call. These two cops likely don’t know a damn thing, but we’ve got to close up any loose ends that might arise. Cops sometimes have a tendency to get nosy,” Burke clears his throat. “I don’t need to remind you that there will be torture involved should you try to warn these two cops of their fate.”

“That’s cool,” I say. “I’m not all that big of a fan of the police to begin with.”

“Good to see you’re becoming a team player, Mr. Peanutz,” Burke says. “That’s the end of our slide show. The second point I’d like to make is that I hope it’s clear that even if you were to slip past us and speak to the authorities behind our back, your story is completely nonsensical. In fact, our plan was designed that way. If you tell the police, they are more likely to throw you in the loony bin than the will able to stop us. We’ve got moles in the FBI, CIA, NSA, and every other alphabet suit government agency you can think of. They are all experts of information containment. You’re pleas will not get very far. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Good,” Burke says. Agent Allen hands me a slip of paper. “In the meantime, you will cut a check to the organization on that piece of paper for a half-million dollars. For a donation of that size, you will be invited to play a game of golf with the president, as well as donors who have given similar sized gifts. That will be where you will murder the president. Further instructions will be forthcoming, just be sure to send that check tonight.”

“A half-million dollars?” I say. “I’m not sure I even have a half-million dollars left in my account thanks to you assholes.”

“We’ve noted that you seem to have problems keeping track of your money. You have exactly five-hundred two-thousand seventeen dollars and sixty-two cents in your account Mr. Peanutz. After cutting that check, you will have more than enough left over to pay for groceries and basic, incidental needs for the next two weeks. However, you won’t have enough to do anything stupid like flee the country or hire any more lawyers or mobsters to do your dirty work.”

Considering the shit I’m now, the last thing I should be worried about is my fortune. But still, the thought of having to use it to seal my own doom raises a sliver of defiance in me. “What if I don’t do like you say and just fly out of the country tonight motherfucker? I’m sure a half-million bucks could last me a long time in some third world beaner shithole.”

Burke sighs. “You know what will happen. We have ample resources to kill both the president and you anyway. And before you die, you will also have the deaths of everyone you love and the stripper’s two children to boot.” He clears his throat, then adds, “I thought we already went through this.”

I’m still angry though. My back is against the wall and my instinct here is to fight. “How do I even know you even have those kids, asshole? For all I know, they’ve been in a daycare this whole time.”

“Well, if you really need convincing. Allen, show him the last picture.”

Allen clicks forward. The screen shows a photo of two babies bawling in a crib with masked men over them. One of the men is holding up a newspaper. The date on the paper is from two days ago.

“I don’t see why you think we’d be bluffing on such a matter, but there’s your proof that we really are holding Ms. Clement’s offspring.”

The picture of the two babies kind of deflates whatever defiance I have in me. I mutter into the phone, “I’ll have the check in the mail tonight.”

“Very good. Just follow the instructions on that piece of paper and nothing else will happen to them.”

“’Else’? What do mean ‘else’?”

“Mr. Peanutz, though dealing with your recent insubordination has been trying this past week, I must say, I do admire your guts in trying to do something. You obviously have some big, swinging balls on you; that’s not in dispute. But what I really want to know now is, how big is your dick?”

What the fuck is he talking about. I start to get snotty again, “Why does that have to do with anything you nigger faggot?”

“Just humor me…how big is it?”

“It’s the size of a baby’s arm holding and apple. What. Is. The. Point?”

Burke laughs. “Well, you’ll see. Now get the fuck out of the van and go home, like a good little boy.”

I’m about to unleash a flood of curses on him, but the phone cuts out immediately and Agent Allen and Smith simultaneously grab my shoulders, slide the panel door of the van open and toss me onto the asphalt on my back, the impact winding me. The van starts driving off and I just barely get my leg out from under its tires before I get crushed.

I stay laying on the street until the van turns the corner. Then I lay there for another minute until I can get up again. I’m exhausted. It is the exhaustion that comes from struggling fruitlessly against fate. I wallow in it, since that seems to be the only thing I can do with my fate.

When I can’t stand it anymore, I finally pick myself back up and begin limping towards my apartment building. I hear a car pull up on the street behind me. I turn around and see the black car that’s been tailing me, right back in position. I swear I can see goatee guy in the passenger seat through the tinted windows. I’m pretty sure he’s smiling at me. I flip him off, then turn around and go inside.

After digging around forever for the keys to my building, I finally just follow two of my neighbors in. They look at me even more distastefully than usual. I probably look even more hellish than I usually do, with chunks of grit from the street sticking in the back of my neck. The three of us ride silently on the elevator. I get off on my floor before they do.

As I walk down the hall towards the door to my loft, I notice there is a box laying in front of the door. It looks like it could have been left by the mailman, but there is a note on top, the letters cut and pasted from newspapers like a ransom note in a movie.

POOPY…OPEN ME.

I pick up the small cardboard box and feel the weight shift around in it. It’s sealed with masking tape. I unlock my door, then skip around the rubble of my apartment and put the box on the island countertop. I take one of my kitchen knives, made of heat-tempered Japanese steel, quickly slice through the tape and open up the cardboard flap.

I recoil in disgust and shock, leaping backwards and banging the back of my head against the shelves of my cupboards (I’d removed all the doors in my search for surveillance devices). The knife falls from my hands and sticks tip first into the linoleum of the kitchen floor. I’d been on the verge of it all day, but finally I have to throw up.

Inside the box is the severed baby arm. It looked like it was in the first stages of decomposition, with the veins turning purple through the rapidly graying skin. The cut looked clean and not jagged though, as if it was done with a jigsaw.

But the big fuck you was what it was holding in its hand, the tension of the tendons being kept in place with what looked like construction staples…

A big, red, Washington apple.

The Winner: Part Twenty-One

2007-10-25T15:27:00.000-06:00

Alley Cat’s used to have one of the biggest xxx movie arcades in the country (or so its sign proclaimed). Aisles upon aisles of video booths for dudes to spank the monkey in. Most of the booths have been removed and in their place a bunch of cheaply built particle board rooms are in their place. One aisle of booths remain, but the TV’s have all been taken out. The sign above them says “Holes of Glory”. Out of one stumbles some fortyish, balding guy wearing a halter top and shorts so high you can see tufts of ass hair growing out the sides. He wipes his thick mustache with the back of his forearm, then gives me a coy grin. I shudder in disgust.

My expression must have registered with him since he flips his wrist at me and mutters “Bitch,” at me in a voice that’s way too high and squeaky. Those shorts must be cutting off the circulation to his balls to make him talk that way.

I take one more step and my foot slides out from under me. I catch myself with my hand before I fall completely to the ground and am disgusted with how sticky the floor is. I look on the bottom of my shoe and see that I slipped on a used condom, covered in fresh semen and dark flecks that look suspiciously like fecal matter. I drop it and wipe my hands off on my pants. The floor is littered with them, and I’m careful not to step on any more as make my way across the room. Used amyl-nitrate poppers crunch under my shoes like hoarfrost. The atmosphere is a humid cauldron of hormones, lubricant, pine-cleaner, and shit. It makes me gag just a little.

I used to think fondly of this place where I must have milked a gallon of jizz out of my dick to the movies of whatever porn-star was hot at the moment. Now, this is taking me to a bad place. I think I’m suffering from PTSD. Sure, I’m unfortunately not a stranger to man-on-man sex, but that was when I was in jail. I hadn’t had sex with a woman in literally months and had to get my rocks off somehow. Plus, the experience of being turned out into a prison bitch must have been much more traumatic than I remembered.

Maybe Chad Van Hertzwelder knew that this is what life would be like after being turned out. Maybe he was right to rip through his skin, veins, and tendons with his own teeth rather than live like this. That, or maybe it was wrong for me to have turned him out in the first place. But I shunt that thought to the back of my mind. Now is no time to think of my moral culpability in my situation. I had things I needed to do.

I look around, trying to ignore the distinctly male grunting all around me with the occasional moan of “Pound my ass hard, fucker!” and look for a fire-exit. There had to be one here. All this shit going on here had to be crazy illegal. They had to have a way to escape if the cops came to raid this place. I glance around, trying not to make eye-contact with anyone and see a door with an exit sign above it. I start going as fast as I can while avoiding the used condoms on the floor at the same time.

Just then, I hear the jarring buzz of the entrance to the Man Hole being unlocked. I turn around and see the goatee guy walking inside. Our eyes meet, and this time, he doesn’t turn away. He wants me to know I’m being followed. Burke’s men are right on me today. Maybe they know about the FBI meeting? Shit! There’s gotta be some way to I can throw him off here.

I turn around and look for the first room I can duck into. None of them have doors on them though. Maybe I can pretend like I’m there to screw guys and goatee guy will go away long enough for me to slip away. I just need a little time to think of something.

“Oh hey boys, looks like we got a new playmate today…”

I turn around and there’s three other men packed into one of these small rooms. They are all dressed up like the fucking biker from the Village People. There’s a fourth, hanging naked from the ceiling from some nylon sling with a ball-gag in his mouth. His hands are chained to the straps, and smaller chains are pulling on his nipple rings so hard it looks like they are gonna be yanked out. Another cord from the ceiling is tied around his balls, yanking them upwards so hard they were turning purple from lack of circulation. Whatever these fags were into, it was some hardcore S&M shit for sure.

“Hi,” I stutter. “Can I hang out here for bit? Is that okay?”

“No one gets to watch for free,” the biggest biker dude says in his girly voice. He gets so close to me that the brim of his leather captain’s hat touches my forehead. “You gotta participate if you’re gonna be in here.”

I glance over my shoulder. Goatee guy is just outside the room, fending off some queer in a leather thong whose trying to grab at his balls. He’s positioned himself so he can see me inside the room. Dammit, it’s fight or fuck time. I look back at the biker guy.

“Umm, okay. I’ll participate.”

He give off a great big smile, showing a mouth full of chipped teeth under his thick mustache. “Terrific! You can be the gimp!”

Before I can even ask what being “the gimp” entails here, he’s got a leather S&M mask over my head. I start to spit out, “What the fuh…” when he zips the mouth hole shut, muffling my protest. He pats me on my now leather clad cheek and says, “Stay here, we’ll be back to you shortly.”

I do as he says and stay with my back against the flimsy wall of this room. I turn again and still see goatee guy outside the room. He’s talking to someone on his cell phone. He looks to be a medium build and someone who could hold his own in a fight. I might be able to knock him down if I can get a sucker punch in, and that’s exactly what I plan to do if being the gimp means I gotta get buttfucked by these leather bound, macho HIV factories.

The leather biker who stuffed the mask on my face goes back over the man swinging from the ceiling. “Did you hear that? We got a new bitch to punish you. You’ve been a bad bitch, and you’re gonna get it real bad from him.”

After issuing his ridiculous threats, the leather gets on his knees and starts licking the swinging guy’s butthole. I really wish I wasn’t watching this. In the meantime, one of his buddies comes over to me with something under his arm.

“Time for you to get greased up,” he says. He plops a big tub of Crisco into my hands. “Oh, and undo your cufflinks and do your whole arm. Bitch-boy here likes it elbow-deep.”

It takes me a second before I realize what they want me to do. I unzip the mouth hole on the mask. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. I’ve never done this before. Will it even fit?” I say, even though I’ve seen enough video-clips on the internet to know that, yes, it will fit.

“Well, you either do this or you get out. Your choice.”

Goatee guy is still watching me from outside the room with his cell phone glued to his ear. I have to go through with it or else my whole plan is blown, so I take off my Rolex, stick it in my pocket, and then start to roll up my shirtsleeve. All in all, I guess this beats being gang raped by these faggots. I peel the lid off the tub of Crisco and start slathering it all over my hand and up and down my forearm. I try not to think of when my mother used this stuff to keep cookies from sticking on the pan.

The swinging bitch-boy is moaning with pleasure through his ball-gag as the leather biker tosses his salad. Once my arm is all greased up, he looks up, and mutters, “Now yer gonna get it. This is what ya really want, ain’t it?” He gets up and looks over at me. “On yer knees gimp. Give it to him.”

I get positioned so I’m almost eye level with bitch-boy’s hairy butthole. I take my Crisco slicked hand, make it into a fist and give him a good punch in the ass. My hand doesn’t go in. Instead, bitch-boy grunts through his gag as the momentum tugs at the chains on his nipples and around his balls.

“Dammit, gimp! That’s not how you do it!”

“Give me a fucking break! I told you, I’ve never fisted anyone before.”

The guy who gave me the Crisco comes over. “Look, just stick one finger at a time in there. Once they’re all inside, then your hand will naturally curl up into a fist.”

I sigh. “Okay, take two…” I stick my index finger in bitch-boy’s butt, then my middle and so forth. One finger at a time, it all seems to go in quite easily. This may be my first time fisting, but this obviously wasn’t bitch-boy’s first time being fisted. His distended butt hole spread open quite easily. Before I know it, my whole hand up to my wrist has been swallowed up this guy’s sphincter.

“Now go slow. Move your arm back and forth and slowly go deeper.”

It feels disgustingly mushy in there. I slowly start to go deeper in there. My knuckles rub up against the ring shaped muscle that leads into the lower intestine, but it quickly loosens and my hand slides farther in. The side of my hand is rubbing against something hard, probably his pelvic bone. I’m glad I have this mask on, so the leather bikers can’t see the disgusted grimace I have in my face.

“You like that bitch, don’t’cha? Don’t’cha?” the first leather man coos in bitch-boy’s ear. He lets off an anguished grunt of agreement through the gag. “Give him some more, gimp! Don’t stop till yer up to your armpit!”

I’m already close to vomiting and my arm is only mid-forearm deep into this sicko’s anus. I keep pressing and feel something soft streaming over my fingers as I go deeper. I get even sicker when I realize it’s bitch-boy’s undigested shit I’m packing into the back on his lower intestine. Jesus Christ, how can doing this not completely fuck up a person’s digestive tract for life?

Bitch-boy is squirming all around and I can’t tell if he’s in massive pain or if he’s getting off on this (I suspect it’s a little of both). “Deeper…deeper…” the leathermen chant as I work my arm up his ass. I hit a knot which must be the point where bitch-boy’s large intestine ends and his small intestine begins. My elbow gets swallowed up by his anus without too much pressure. Goddamn, this guys butthole must be more stretched out than the fucking Goatse man’s.

My arm is so deep in there I can’t keep my balance anymore. I stumble forward before I can get a knee under me and bitch-boy grunts in surprise I slide further inside him. His butthole is tightens around my bicep in twitches. It’s almost like I’ve got my arm in one of those blood pressure cuffs they have at the drugstore.

“Yeah bitch,” the leathermen lisp. “You like it deep like that, dontcha?”

Though I’m sure this has to hurt worse for him, I can’t say that fisting is particularly pleasant for me either. Fuck…it’s creepy to have your arm up another man’s guts. Even if I wanted to go deeper I couldn’t since the angle my arm is at, bitch-boy’s pelvic bone is blocking my elbow from going any further. The shit smell is horrible and I turn my face away in disgust. From the way my head is turned, I can get a look at the door. Goatee guy is still watching, but his expression has turned from cool and disinterested to visibly disgusted. If it looks that bad watching, just think what it’s like actually doing this shit…

Bitch-boy is flailing his head in ecstacy. I can’t fathom how this can feel good to anyone. One of the leathermen comes behind me and touches my shoulder. “Alright gimp, that’s enough. Time to give another one of us a chance to mine in this sweet little ass.”

Thank god! I start the process of trying to extricate my arm from this guy’s butt. It’s not coming though. Oh shit. I’m stuck. My elbow is caught up on some ridge of pelvic bone. This is a rather embarrassing way for my plans to all go to shit. God help me if they have to call a doctor to get my arm removed.

“I’m stuck,” I say. The leathermen don’t hear me, so I repeat. Finally one hears me and kneels down to instruct me.

“Just keep working it out. Just be sure not to go too fast. There’s no rush.”

Great advice you sick fucking homo. I keep doing as he says, but my arm hasn’t slid out even an inch. I try wiggling my fingers, but that does nothing to loosen things up. I get off my knees and get my feet under me so I’m squatting. I start to pivot my shoulders and I can feel my arm coming out little by little. There must be a ton of suction up in there. There’s a horrible splorting noise just to get about four inches of arm out.

Goatee guy is still watching, disgusted. This is great. I go through all this disgusting weird sex acts and I couldn’t even shake my tail. I guess I’m gonna have to go with plan B and try and get the jump on him…

“Come on, nice and easy does it.” The leatherman comes behind me and grips my bicep, trying to help me wiggle my arm out of bitch-boy’s ass. Unfortunately, this has the effect of throwing off my balance. I almost catch myself, but my shoe lands in a dab of Crisco that’s on the floor and fall backwards all the way onto my butt, hitting my head against the bed with rubber sheets that’s been bolted to the corner. I black out for a moment, but shake off the stars soon enough. The leathermen are in a frenzy, mincing around the small bathhouse room in a panic.

“Ohmygod, Sean…. SOMEBODY CALL AND AMBULANCE NOW!”

The good news is my arm is now free of bitch-boy’s guts. The bad news is that his rectum prolapsed in the process and about three feet of his lower intestine are now hanging out of him, all still attached to my arm like a sock. Bitch-boy is flailing all around in his leather swing in great pain. There’s a ploink as one of the chains attached to his nipple rings pulls free from his chest, a little chunk of pink meat still attached.

“WE NEED A DOCTOR! OH PLEASE SOMEBODY CALL A DOCTOR NOW!”

I start to panic when I see the length of prolapsed intestine hanging on my arm. The purple veins on it are beginning to break and blood is seeping out and turning bright red when it hits the air. With my free hand, I start to peel it off, inside-out. It feels like a fucking sausage casing. I finally remove it completely. My arm is covered in a slime of shit, blood, and Crisco.

The leathermen are so wrapped up in their panic over their “bitch” that they forget me for a moment. The other people in the bathhouse are coming to the door to see what the commotion is. Through them, I see my goateed surveillance finally start to lose his lunch. He cups his mouth trying to hold it in and rushes off. Through all the yelling, I think I hear the buzzing and clicking of the latch of the bathhouse being opened. That’s probably him. Thank providence, here’s my chance to get away…

I stand up and almost pass out again from a rush of blood to the head. Once I’ve finally get my senses back, I turn and head towards the door of the room. One of the leathermen grabs my shoulder roughly, trying to stop me.

“Where do you think you’re…”

I stick my blood and shit slimed hand in his face and rub the mixture all over. This makes him gag and loosen his grip on my shoulder. I push my way through the crowd of concerned faggots congregating there. I look around quickly and don’t see goatee guy there at all. With any luck he’s doing exactly what I think he’s doing and blowing chunks all over the sidewalk out front.

I spot the fire exit door in the back and literally charge it. I bust out into the alleyway and sunlight and fresh air and almost trip over some wino sprawled out next to a dumpster. There’s no time to even be traumatized by all that has just happened. I only have thirty minutes to get across town to meet with the FBI.

The Winner: Part Twenty

2007-10-18T16:12:00.000-06:00

The next day, I’m sitting in my destroyed living room eating a sandwich from Subway that I had left over from a few days ago. I barely enjoy it. All I can think about is all the things I used to do to the sandwiches when I worked there. I half expect to get a clump of pubic hair in my mouth every time I bite down on it. I force myself to eat it anyway, if not for enjoyment, then at least for sustenance.

“Poopy,” I hear Apple whispering from the bedroom. “Wuz, goin’ on…here?”

I toss the last bit of stale bread from the sandwich on the floor where all the rest of the trash is piling up. It doesn’t really matter to me anyway. I stand up, brush the crumbs off my pants and walk into the bedroom.

I moved Apple from the chair into the bed last night and replaced the sheet with some zip ties I bought last night at the hardware store. Both her wrists and her ankles are secured to the bedposts. There are red marks where the plastic has chafed her skin.

Right now, she’s in a daze. I pet her hair and take a Kleenex to wipe away some of the drool that is running out of her mouth. I cleaned most of the blood off her face, but there’s still dried flecks of it in the creases of her face.

“Poopy, I feel cold,” she mumbles. “My bones hurt.”

“It’s okay,” I say, petting her hair some more. I reach under the bed and grab a black leather pouch from under the bed. I set it on my lap and unzip it and pull out a tangled length of rubber tubing and a hypodermic needle. “You’ll feel better soon.”

I set the rest of the contents of the pouch on the cardboard box I’m using as a nightstand for the time being. This idea came to me last night when I was thinking of ways to keep Apple quiet while I kept her tied up in my house. I’d shoot her full of heroin.

I went out to Baker Street, where all the homeless people, druggies, and prostitutes hung out. On my way there, I kept my eye out for the black car and those guys who had been following me. I didn’t always see them, but every once in awhile a black car would pass me, or I got a strange sense of deja-vu from some person who passed me on the street. This had been going on for the past week, but tonight, I tried to pay attention to exactly what the guys who were following me looked like; what make and model their cars were.

When I got to Baker Street, I paid some junkie three-hundred dollars to find me some heroin, as well as sell me his “works”, which included a couple of hypodermics wrapped in plastic from the city needle exchange program, a bent up, discolored spoon, and a small bag of cotton balls. He also found me a three day’s supply of heroin. “’Dis is da good shit right here,” the junkie told me. “You could smoke this shit and be flyin’. But if you mainline it, you’ll be out for the count. I guarantee.”

We went into an alley and I let him shoot up from my stash, just so he could run me through how it’s done, seeing as I have no fucking clue how to shoot heroin. Sure enough, after he injected a syringe full of this stuff into a puss filled sore on top of one of his rotted veins, he nodded off and didn’t say another word. A piano could have fallen down next to him and he probably would flinch, and this guy is a hardened user. I’m sure it would be enough to shut Apple the fuck up.

Of course, the thought of reaching into the junkie’s pocket and taking my three-hundred bucks back occurred to me. In his state, he probably would even care and I’m sure he overcharged me for this stuff. Still, I didn’t want to burn any bridges in case I needed more of this stuff.

As I left him in the alley, I noticed a guy watching us out of the corner of his eye, smoking a cigarette and trying to act nonchalant. At first, I figured it was just another junkie in this shooting gallery, but I got that sense of deja-vu from him that I’d been feeling tonight. I’m sure it was one of Burke’s men who was tailing me. I stood up, acting like I didn’t notice him and headed back to my loft.

I didn’t hear anything as I approached the door to my place, so I must have had her gagged well enough to keep the neighbors from hearing. I quickly went inside and to the bedroom. Apple had managed to knock the chair she was in over and scooch herself about a foot across the carpet despite being tied down. When she sees me, she tries yelling through the gag again, pleading this time. Her grunts sounded like something to the effect of “let me go” but it could have been “you sonofabitch”.

It didn’t matter. I went back to the living room where I could prepare a shot out of her eyesight, just like the junkie showed me. I palmed the needle, doing my best not to stick myself, then I went back into the bedroom and walked over next to Apple. She started grunting again, then let out a surprisingly loud scream when I stuck the hypodermic into the meaty part of her shoulder. Of course, this was a pretty ineffective place to inject heroin, so it took about ten minutes before it started to work on her. I paid close attention to her as she started to wind down, hoping I hadn’t given her too much. This fear was got even worse when she started to wretch. I knelt down and started tearing the duct tape from around her head, taking off large clumps of her blonde hair as I did it. When I pulled the washcloth from her mouth, a stream of gray vomit followed it. Then I grabbed the chair and set her upright so she wouldn’t drown on her own puke. A couple more heaves pretty much emptied the rest of the contents of her stomach onto her blouse. I cleaned off her chin and got her a cup of water from my Brita filter to wash out her mouth. Her eyes were rolling into the back of her head.

“Poo-py….what did…you…give to me?” she moaned.

I dabbed more of the vomit away from her mouth with some napkins. “Just relax. Everything is gonna be okay. Don’t you worry about your babies. I’ll get them back in just a little bit.”

Apple kept moaning, but it became increasingly incoherent as the heroin got absorbed into her bloodstream. Finally, when she was knocked out, I transferred her over to the bed and sat down on a clean place on the carpet. Now that Apple was taken care of, I had time to concentrate on my other problem, which was getting to my meeting with the FBI without Burke’s men knowing.

I was only able to think about it for about half an hour before I fell asleep on the carpet, but the more I thought about it, the bigger the problem became. I had to lose them without looking like I was trying to lose them. I’m pretty sure that they were aware that I was aware I was being followed and who was following me. If I was too obvious about trying to lose them, I’d open myself up to all sorts of retribution.

So I kept thinking about it all morning, until I had a loose semblance of a plan. The rest of the afternoon I spent trying to work up the nerve to actually do it, which is a lot different than the cerebral plotting I’d been doing before.

Anyway, I cook up another shot of heroin for Apple. I tie the rubber tubing around her forearm, tap out a vein and carefully stick the needle in roughly the same spot I stuck her the night before. She lets out a small yelp when I slide the needle in a pull the plunger back, drawing some blood into the syringe to make sure I hit a vein. Then I slowly pushed the solution into her bloodstream and undid the tourniquet. Apple gasped, and then seemed to melt into the bed. I pulled the needle from her vein and a small ribbon of blood leaked out of her arm. I dabbed at it with a corner of the bedspread until it the hole clotted.

“Cotton…” she moaned. “I feel like…cotton.”

“Just sit tight here, everything’s gonna be okay.”

I stayed with her for a little longer, just to make sure she was breathing okay. I looked at my 32 karat gold Rolex watch. It was two-thirty. If was gonna lose Burke’s men in time to make it to the meeting, I had to leave now.

After making sure my door was locked, I got into the elevator, took it to the ground floor, exited the lobby. The black car was right there across the street like it always is. I pretended not to notice it. Did they know that I knew they were following me? I was curious, though it wouldn’t really make much of a difference with my plan.

I walked out of downtown towards Downing Street. There was a porno video store slash-xxx arcade, live dancer booth type place down there called Alley Cat’s that I used to frequent back in the days before I could easily score porn on the Internet. It wasn’t a place that would be unusual for a porno-junkie like me to stop in, so hopefully it wouldn’t trigger any alarms with my followers. I figured I’d pay the ten bucks it cost to see a video in it’s entirety in one of the booths, then slip out the back door before anyone could follow me in. I’d have to pick a long, compilation video to give me enough time to make it to the FBI and back before they noticed. Alley Cat’s has one of the largest porno arcades in the state, and it did seem like these guys used some discretion in their surveillance. It would probably take them at least a half-hour before they even checked to see what I was doing in there.

As I made the long trek to the porno store, I mentally checked off all the ways my plan could fall through. If they immediately watched the fire exit on any place I went to, I’d be screwed. If the adult bookstore laws had changed since I last frequented the places and they made them take the doors off the booths so dudes couldn’t jerk off with privacy inside, I’d also be fucked. This could be likely since the neighborhood around Downing Street was rapidly being gentrified in the last few years. It used to be just your average, lower class, downtown crack neighborhood. Then it became popular with the typical, lazy, bohemian expressionist painter and noise band types. Now it was becoming popular with yuppies who were being priced out of downtown, where only people with money like me could afford a place any more. Just a couple months ago, they ran a report on the news about how the police were cracking down on vice in the area because they just opened an exclusive private school down there. Hopefully, the neighborhood hadn’t changed too much. I did know at least that Alley Cat’s was still there, thanks to a quick Google search I did the other night.

I crossed my fingers, hoping that things wouldn’t go wrong but fully prepared to improvise should something go sideways. Fuck, my whole life has gone out of control in just the last year and a half. I should be used to this shit by now.

Anyway, I get to Downing Street and the corner that Alley Cat’s Adult Book and Video Emporium was located and was relieved to see that the crusty old yellow and red sign was still there. They must not have changed it since the fucking seventies or something. I open the opaque that says MUST BE 18 OR OLDER TO ENTER ABSOLUTELY NO DRUGS ON THE PREMISES and step inside. I’m immediately greeted with the familiar dull glow of florescent light and smell of antiseptic cleaner from the jizz buckets I used to remember. The smell brings me back more than anything. They say that smell unlocks memory more effectively than almost any other sense.

The cashier desk is right by the turnstile. Some bored guy flipping through US Weekly doesn’t even look up to tell me: “Five dollars to browse. Entrance fee refundable if you buy something.”

I take out my wallet and flip through the bills until I found a five and put it on the counter. Without looking up from his magazine, the clerk sticks it in his register, then presses the buzzer to let me through the turnstile. It must have been a long time since I’ve been in here. It used to be only two bucks to browse. Fucking inflation…

Still, while I’d love to go through memory lane in this place, I had dire business to attend to. I immediately pass the glass case filled with leather straps, paddles, and enormous dildos and head over to the videos to start looking for one that has a lengthy running time. The first section I come to ends up being the gay section. I pass it by, after I look around for a little bit, I come to the realization that the entire store is a gay section. Dammit! I want to scream “No!” like Darth Vader when he learns that Natalie Portman is dead. Is nothing holy anymore? This used to be a respectable heterosexual porno store. The fucking fags want marriage, now this? What is the world coming to?

I stay cool though and remind myself that I’m not here to hang out. This isn’t really a crink in my plan since Van Hertzwelder already thinks I’m gay for what I did to his son when I was in jail. Being in here shouldn’t raise any red flags. So I start looking through the videos again, trying to look for the longest one I can find and ignoring all the extremely gay box art.

“Five dollars to browse. Entrance fee refundable if you buy something.”

I look up from the copy of “Stud Ranch 14” I have in my hand to see who is coming in. Shit! It looks like the guy who I saw in the alley last night. I recognize his goatee and everything. He hands the cashier his money, then starts looking over at me. I turn away quickly and try to act like I haven’t noticed him. Dammit! These fuckers are on me like a goddamn tick on a mangy dog. I thought I’d have a few minutes before they’d even come in here. I’m gonna need ninja skills to get out of here without them noticing.

“Stud Ranch 14” only has three scenes. Probably not long enough to cover me. The goatee guy walks around to the opposite end of the video stacks and starts acting like he’s browsing for videos too. I start to look through them desperately. Finally, I find one: “Dick Stretchy: The Compendium”. The cover is nothing but a picture of some impossibly buff gym rat with a penis that hangs halfway down his thigh, but that’s not the part that interests me. The dialogue box above Dick’s head saying: “Check this out guyz! Over three hours of footage from all my greatest scenes!” does. I nonchalantly take the video up to the counter. The clerk puts down his US Weekly and starts tapping numbers into the register.

“That’ll be twenty-six thirty two.”

“I don’t want to buy it,” I say quietly, hoping that the goatee guy can’t hear me. “I just want to view it in one of the booths.”

The clerk rolls his eyes. “We don’t have video booths here. Our DVDs are only for purchase.”

Okay, I’ve officially come to problem with my plan.

“Didn’t you used to?”

“Yes, but we had to get rid of them. Too many homeless people were using them to sleep in at night.”

I glance over to the door that used to lead to the movie arcade. There’s a big wooden door on it now with a sign that says “NO DRUGS OR NO SEXUAL ACTIVITY PERMITTED BY STATE LAW. SEE CASHIER FOR ENTRY.”

“What’s in there?” I ask.

“That’s the Man Hole,” the clerk says. “It’s twenty dollars to go in, forty per hour for your own private room.”

A light of hope here. I pull out my wallet, “I’ll take a private room for three hours.”

“I’m sorry, unfortunately all our rooms are occupied until five o’clock. I can put on a waiting list though if someone finishes up early.”

“No! I can’t wait!” I almost yell. Then I say five words that I never thought I’d say and never hope to repeat: “I need gay dick now.”

The clerk shrugs, “Well, just pay the entrance fee then. It shouldn’t be too hard to get an invitation into someone’s room. Those boys in there are always looking for smooth bottoms, cocksocket.”

I scratch the graft on my cheek, then pull out a twenty and hand it to him. “Okay, let’s do it.”

He puts the bill into the register then hands me a five back. “Your refund for the entrance fee. Go over to the door and I’ll buzz you in.”

I walk over there, feeling more than a little dirty. I try to glance over at the goatee man, but he’s across all the stacks of videos. I see him touch his ear and mumble something to no one. No doubt, he’s been listening to everything that’s been said. Still, I don’t think he knows my intentions just yet.

I stand by the door and there’s suddenly a jarring buzzing noise. The heavy lock on the door comes unlatched and I step inside. There is a neon sign on the inside that gaudly states:

“WELCOME TO MAN HOLES”.

The Winner: Part Nineteen

2007-10-11T16:48:00.000-06:00

Five-days later and the rash on my ass still burns. I’ve tried every sort of cream and ointment I can find in the drug store, but it does nothing but numb it. Note to self, quit walking around with soiled pants for hours at a time. I’d make the time to see a dermatologist if I even thought I had a future anymore.

My house is destroyed. It looks as bad as my mother’s house was, maybe worse. I haven’t taken the trash out in ages. There is a mountain of empty takeout boxes piling up in my kitchen, all filled with rotting food since I only seem to be able to keep down maybe half of the food I order before I feel nauseous. I feel like I’ve lost ten pounds in just the last week. Then again, I could stand to lose about twenty more. Perhaps it’s a side benefit of being followed by a vast conspiracy.

Besides the mountains of trash, building up in my loft, every bit of furniture is destroyed. I hacked through the cushions of my Italian leather sofa with the largest of my set of Japanese steel kitchen knives, searching for bugs, cameras, anything that could be watching or listening to me. I’ve pulled up the carpet and hacked up the floorboards with an axe to see if anything had been placed there. I used a metal pole to poke holes in my ceiling, looking for cameras. Every nightstand or dresser or hutch is in a pile of splinters. I know they are watching me in here, I just know it. Why wouldn’t they be? I do it just to be safe. Fuck it, it’s one of the advantages of owning over renting that I can tear the place up so much and not worry about losing my deposit.

Of course, I don’t find anything resembling a microphone or a camera in the piles of splinters and plaster all over my house, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Those things are fucking tiny now. I could be being watched by a camera the size of a pinhole or a piece of wire and I wouldn’t know it. Even after literally destroying my house, I’m sure the bugs and cameras are still there, I just missed them. I try to find every possible blind spot there could be in my house. I sleep in my closet, figuring that it’s one of the more unlikely places that would be under surveillance. I realize that all this is doing me no good. After all, after destroying my house, they can just sneak back in and replace a bug and it would be harder to find with my place being so trashed.

But it isn’t just unfounded paranoia. I know for a fact they are watching me, at least when I’m outside. The black car I noticed on the curb the night Hirsch dropped me off hasn’t moved. Occasionally, it’s a replaced by a black SUV, but I still see the ubiquitous silhouettes of two men in it each time. Every time I leave my building (usually just to the drugstore where I can stock up on industrial sized bottles of Advil which I’ve been eating like Tic-Tacs lately now that I always seem to have a headache), the same black cars are always in the parking lot. I see them pass me as I walk down the street. I walk everywhere now. I haven’t even bothered to get my Mercedes out of the impound yard, even though I can afford it. A car is just another thing that they can bug or track.

Yes, I’m thinking in terms of “they” now. “They” are always watching. “They” are everywhere. This must be what schizophrenia feels like. I’m never alone. I must always be on guard. The people who have planned this have far too much at stake to not know where I am or what I’m doing at all times. I must presume that they have left nothing to chance.

Still, I try to bring some optimism to all this. After all, “they” cannot be totally omniscient. If they knew that I was having Hirsch try and get me in touch with the FBI, I can only assume that they would have killed either me or him by now. I call Hirsch every day much to his annoyance, usually on the pretext of the arrest I had last weekend, but mostly just to make sure he’s still alive. The fucker hits me up for more money every time, telling me the “complexities” of my case are taking more billable hours than he expected. I don’t care. If he can’t do what I asked him to do then I’ll be dead anyway. I can only assume that if “they” knew what the two of us were up to that we’d both be dead.

The cellphone that Burke left in my apartment hasn’t rung the entire time I’ve had it. That’s even more maddening. I don’t know what is going on, what plans are in the works that I have no idea about but will end with me killing the president. I guess it would be stupid to let me in on more than I needed to know. To me, “their” entire plan sounds kind of stupid.

Anyway, I’m in the bathroom, trying to apply more ointment to the rash on my ass. It doesn’t make the burning go away, but does reduce it to the level of just a bad sunburn. I’ve gone through two tubes of the stuff in the past week. I’ve just squirted a fresh line of it on my index finger when I hear my doorbell go off. I don’t answer it, I just continue to apply my ointment. But whoever is at the door keeps hitting the buzzer and won’t go away. Dammit. I wipe the remaining ointment off on some toilet paper, pull up my pants and hobble with my ointment slicked buttcheeks over to the door. If someone let a Jehovah’s Witness into the building, I’m gonna be fucking pissed.

I yank the door open, ready to yell, but I stop when I see Apple standing outside.

“Poopy, are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m fucking fine,” I sneer. I’m still kind of pissed at her over the scene she made at the police station.

“Can I come in?”

“If you want to,” I say. I stand back from the door and let her inside. The swelling in her face has gone away. The bruises are changing from purple to yellow. She’s taken the bandages off her cuts, which are scabbing over. Still, it doesn’t look like Burke and his crew did any permanent damage to her besides her teeth. She looks officially like some hillbilly chick now, and not in a good Daisy Duke way either. Why the fuck did I get myself into such a mess over her?

“What happened here?” she asks, surveying the trash heap my apartment has become.

“It’s a long and unimportant story. Why are you here?”

But of course, I know why she’s here. She tells me anyway.

“Poopy, I want my babies back.”

“I’ll get them back for you, I promise. Just lay off me.”

Apple just nods. She backs up, opens up her purse and pulls out a Walther PPK, which she aims at my face.

“I’m through laying off you. Where are my kids?”

“Chill out,” I say, putting my hands up as if that will help. “I don’t know where they are right now. I’m working on it, I swear.”

“I covered for you with the police,” she says. “I told them I made up the whole kidnapping story for you. Now I’m in trouble with them and they’ve sent social workers to my trailer looking for my children. I told them they’re with Luke, but I don’t think they buy it. I’m in deep shit because of you and I want some answers.”

“Look,” I say. “I’ll tell you everything that’s going on, I just can’t tell you here. Let’s go someplace else, like the park or something. It’ll be safer.”

Apple shakes her head. “Someplace where I can’t keep a gun on you, huh? That’s convenient. Where else can you tell me what’s going on Poopy?”

“Not…here,” I repeat. “’They’re listening.” I cup one hand to my ear and wave my finger at the ceiling, but she doesn’t seem to understand what I’m pantomiming.

“No more games. Start talking or I’ll blow your head off.”

I smirk. “You won’t kill me. That gun you’re holding is nothing but a bluff—“

BANG! I feel a searing heat and pain in the side of my neck. I fall to the ground and land on a splinter that digs into my thigh. That fucking bitch shot me!

I clasp my hand to my neck and I feel blood running through my fingers. I can still breathe though, and there’s not too much blood (I figure if she hit me in the jugular, it would be coming out like a firehose), so she must have just grazed me. Still, if that bullet had been just a couple centimeters to the right, well then this story is over. I look up and she still has the gun trained on me.

“Start talking or I’ll shoot you again you sonofabitch!”

“I can’t! I swear!” I say. Dammit, one of my neighbors must have heard that shot. Then again, it’s one o’clock on a weekday and they all have to work. Besides, I’ve been making such a commotion tearing this place apart that even if they did hear it, they probably think it’s just me destroying another piece of furniture looking for microphones.

Apple orders me to get up, which I do. “Turn around,” she says. “Now go to the bathroom,” she says. I’m about to turn around and ask her why, when she prods me between the shoulder blades with the barrel of the Walther. “Move.”

I step over the piles of rubble and go into the master bathroom where I’d been applying my ointment just a few minutes earlier. Once inside, she shuts the door. “Lay down on your back in the tub you bastard.”

I do as she says. It only occurs to me after I’ve complied that she’s probably doing this to make it easier to clean up the blood if she decides to kill me.

But that’s not what she has in mind. As soon as I’m in the tub, she gets in with me, standing over my head. I can look up her skirt and I see she’s not wearing any panties. She’s let her pubic hair grow out into a wild and wooly bush since she stopped working at the strip club. She hikes up her skirt and squats down over my face. Sensing this is my best chance to overpower, I start to sit up. I stop when she jams the barrel of her gun against my crotch, digging it into my balls.

“Where the fuck are my babies, Poopy?”

“I’ll tell you! I just can’t tell you here! Please!”

Her butthole starts undulate and she lets out a mini-fart. A tiny squirt of liquid shit comes out. The smell is horrible.

“I’ve been wanting to pay you back for the time you did this to me for weeks now you sick fucker. Tell me what happened to my children and I’ll take a raincheck.”

“I’m serious! I can’t! They’ll kill us both if I tell you!”

Apple lets fly another fart; a louder one this time. There’s something nasty up in there. I start to gag at the smell.

“I think I should tell you that I’ve been eating off the value menu at Taco Bell all afternoon to get my shit smelling nice and stinky. Gave me kind of a tummy ache. But that’s the way you like it, right Poopy?”

I’m about to open my mouth and say something when a geyser of liquid shit hits me in the face. Some of it gets in my mouth and my nostrils. The stench is so overwhelming that I literally can’t smell anything anymore. My mind just shuts that part of the five senses off. Unfortunately, my sense of touch is still very active and I can feel the diarehea drip all over my face. I try to sit up, but a Apple just squashes the gun against my balls even harder. They feel like they’re gonna burst like grapes. I’m able to move my wrist up to wipe some of the shit out of my eyes. All that does is make it so I can see the snake of solid fecal matter coming at me. I’m able to shake my head enough so the initial bit of it just slides off my face, but the rest settles on my upper lip and balls up on my upper lip like warm, soft serve ice cream.

“For the last time! Tell me where my kids are or I’ll blow your balls off!” I hear the ominous click of her turning off the safety on the Walther. I don’t even open my mouth to protest, for fear of the any more of the shit getting in my mouth. I do grunt a bit though.

Then there’s a dinging sound. It’s my doorbell. I start grunting louder, but Apple barks at me: “Shut up.” I lay there, perfectly still. The doorbell rings again. Apple prods me with the gun again, to make sure I stay quiet, but whoever is there rings it again. They aren’t going away.

Apple jumps off me and turns around, keeping the gun on me. “Are you expecting someone?”

I don’t answer her, I just push off the pile of shit off my face and try to start spitting the taste of fecal matter out of my mouth.

She tosses me a towel. “Answer the door and make them go away. We aren’t done here…”

I take the towel and frantically try and wipe as much of the crap off my face as I can. I get up slowly since my balls are aching terribly. I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and despite the little bit of clean-up I was able to get done, I still look like something a dog shat out…so to speak.

“Don’t do or say anything stupid,” Apple says. She keeps the gun on me as we head towards the door. She stands next to the entrance where she can’t be seen from the outside.

The doorbell rings once more before I unlatch it. Outside is some Mexican teenager whose face scrunches up when he gets a look (or just as likely, a whiff) of me.

“Uh…sir, is your name Poopy Peanutz?”

A bit of liquid shit I missed with the towel trickles from my forehead and into my eye. I wipe it off using the back of my wrist.

“What do you think?” I sneer.

The kid backs away from the door some. “Hey, I was told to give you a message.”

“Who told you?”

“Some old dude. Said he’s give me twenty bucks to tell you personally,” the kid says. “He told me to tell you ‘The meeting you wanted will happen at four tomorrow in a gray van behind the Wilshire Apartments on sixth. Don’t be late.’”

“You positive?”

“Yeah. The guy made me repeat it a bunch of times to make sure I remembered.” The kid fidgets around. “Say, am I supposed to get my twenty bucks from you or from him, ‘cause he didn’t really explain—“

I shut the door in his face. After a second, I hear him mutter “Pendejo” on the other side and his sneakers clop off down the hall. I keep my head close to the door until I can hear that he’s completely gone. Apple moves in closer, aiming the gun at me from her hip.

“This ‘meeting’ has to do with my kids, doesn’t it? Are they gonna be there, ‘cause if they are I’m going along—“

I yank the door back open and it connects with her face with a solid CLUMP. Apple falls to the ground and I jump on her, grabbing her gun and trying to pry it from her fingers before she can pop off another shot. She’s dazed, but not unconscious. I manage to bend her wrist back far enough to yank the Walther out of her hand.

“Poopy!” she screams. “I just want my…” I bring the butt of the pistol down on her face twice and she’s knocked out cold. Blood streams from her nose. At least she’s still breathing.

I keep the gun trained on her until I’m certain she’s not gonna get up. Then I tuck it in the back of my pants, then start dragging her across the apartment into my bedroom, where the one chair I haven’t destroyed (mostly because it’s made of some fairly strudy stainless steel) and do my best to prop her dead weight onto it. She lets out a groan. I pull the pistol out, ready to knock her unconscious again, but she’s still not really awake.

I yank the sheets off my bed and tie her wrists, legs, and torso to the chair. She groans again as I pull it tight around her chest. When I’m done, it looks like she’s wrapped in some thousand-threadcount toga. Not really artful, but it looks like it will keep her down. I find a washcloth from my bathroom that hasn’t been soiled and stuff it in her mouth, then I grab a roll of duct tape and wrap it around her head to keep it in place. Blood starts bubbling from her nose. Fuck, I hope she can breathe since I’m pretty sure I broke her nose when I hit her. I watch her for a few minutes, making she I didn’t strangle her. When I’m convinced this won’t kill her, I go back into the bathroom to wash myself up a bit better and throw on some clean (or at least, cleaner) clothes.

After I’ve freshened up, I go and sit by the balcony window and look down to the street, Walther PPK in hand. The ubiquitous black car is still stationed down there in the same spot it’s been almost every day this week. These guys aren’t being particularly subtle about keeping me under surveillance. I have half a mind to take the gun, go down there and shoot every person in that car in their fucking face, get sent to jail again and be done with this whole thing. Or, maybe I should just put this gun in my mouth and blow my brains out. But then I’d be condemning Apple, her children, and my mother to death. For some reason, that bothers me now.

I shouldn’t despair though. Hirsch came through for me. If I can only convince the FBI I’m not full of shit tomorrow, perhaps I’ll pull through this. Maybe I can get them to give me witness protection and I can leave this whole life behind me. Start fresh and maybe become a better person. I don’t want to be me any more. I hate myself more than anything else in this world.

The Winner: Part Eighteen

2007-10-04T18:30:00.000-06:00

I spend the next two hours sitting in the interrogation room, bored out of my mind until the lawyer Sergei got for me arrives. A short, fat, sweaty Jewish guy storms in with Agent D’anci in tow.

“Sir, I must implore you to give us at least one more hour with Mr. Peanutz. The lives of two children might be at stake.”

The lawyer sticks his hand out to me, “Mr. Peanutz, I’m Simon Hirsch, your attorney.” He gives my hand one firm pump, then turns to back to Agent D’anci. “If you want any more time with my client, then I’m afraid you’re going to have to charge him. That is, if a crime was even committed. Didn’t Ms. Clements just give a statement to the affect that this kidnapping did not even occur and was just a way to seek revenge from my client because of some personal redress?”

“She told one of the officers that,” Agent D’anci says. “But we suspect that it was given under duress. Until we have actually seen that the babies are safe, we’re going proceeding as if they are still in danger.”

Hirsch shakes his head, “Mr. D’anci, the only proof that this crime even happened came from Ms. Clements statement. Now that Ms. Clements is backing down from it, what makes you think her inconsistent statements are more valid than my client’s inconsistent statements. Mr. Peanutz, please get up. We’re leaving.”

“We are permitted to detain Mr. Peanutz for at least four more hours.”

“For a crime that may not have even been committed? Unless you let me and my client out of this station now, I will file a formal complaint with the Justice Department in the morning before I go do twelve holes on the links with this district’s federal prosecutor. He owes me ten-grand on our last golf game and I’ll see if there’s a different way he’d like to fulfill his debt to me. Good day.”

Hirsch grabs my hand and starts leading me out of the police station. My fucking angel, swooping down and rescuing me from the cops. At least I now know that Apple did like I told her to do and tell the cops she was lying. They don’t believe her, but it gunks up their case enough that they don’t know what to do now.

After stopping at the window to sign out the rest of my belongings (basically my car and house keys and the receipt for the BB gun from Wal-Mart), Hirsch takes me out to his car, a late model BMW sedan.

“Get in here, Peanutz. I’ll give you a lift home.”

He unlocks the doors with his remote. I hop in the passenger side. “Thanks for giving me a lift home. Goddamn I’m tired.”

“Don’t thank me,” Hirsch says, jamming his keys in the ignition and gunning the engine on. “Because when I get you home, you’re gonna march right upstairs and cut me a check for four-thousand dollars.”

“Four thousand?” I gasp. “Sergei told me this would only be two grand.”

“Two grand is for waking up in the middle of the night when I’m home asleep with my wife to get some schlmeil out of jail for a DUI. Four grand is for when I go to the jail and find out he’s not there for a fuckin’ DUI but that he’s caught up in a federal kidnapping investigation!”

To punctuate his displeasure with me, he takes the next corner hard to the left, pushing me up against the door.

“You stupid fuck,” Hirsch goes on. “When I found out what you were really in there for, I nearly turned around and walked out the door. Your lucky I’m fuckin’ brilliant, otherwise those feds would keep you detained long enough to charge you. They still might unless I start preparing a half dozen motions to drop off in the federal prosecutor’s office first thing Monday morning…”

“Well, I appreciate the effort…”

“Fuck the effort!” he screams. “Tomorrow is the Sabbath. There’s only two things I do on the Sabbath; synagogue and golf! My wife is gonna kill me! She’s gotten on this orthodox kick lately. She’s making me fuck her through a sheet for the last six months! A fucking sheet! She won’t even let me do that if she finds out I’m working on the fucking Sabbath!”

I’ve had enough of this hebe. “Hirsch, would you do me a favor?”

“What now?”

“Shut the fuck up. I could care less about your wife or whatever Jew problems your having. I’m your client now and you’ll spend whatever time it takes to get your paperwork done.”

Hirsch hocks a wad of phlegm out the window of the Bimmer. “I’ll wait until I have a check that I’m sure won’t bounce in my hand before I consider you a ‘client’.”

“Did Sergei tell you who I am?” I snap back. “I got all the cash I’ll ever need.”

“As a matter of fact he did. You’re that guy who won the lottery a couple months ago. So fucking what? I’ve been an attorney for twenty years. I’m sure my net worth is at least three times what yours is. Your just a flash in the pan who’ll be broke and working some shit fast-food job this time next year.”

Hirsch is really starting to piss me off. “Well excuse me for arguing with a Jew over money…”

“Shut the fuck up you Hitler-loving cunt before I strangle you and leave your body in a fucking dumpster.”

I roll my eyes. Whatever. Hirsch looks like he’s gonna have a heart attack behind the wheel of the car, but at least he shuts up so I do the same. As we drive along, I suddenly have an idea. It’s probably a bad idea, but it can’t be worse than any of the other ideas I’ve had in my life.

When we pull up to my building, Hirsh looks at me scowling. “Peanutz, I’m waiting here until you come back with my check made out to four thousand dollars. If I have to come up there to get it, I will beat your ass to a fuckin’ paste and let the FBI have you.”

I’m exasperated, “Relax, I’ll get your money you…” I was about to add something like “Christ Killer” but I bite my tongue. Part of my bad idea does involve making nice with this tempermental jerk off.

Anyway, I step out of his Nazi-sled and unlock the front door of building’s entrance. I go up to my apartment, write out Hirsch’s check, then come back downstairs to his car. He’s left the engine running, I lean in the window and hand him the check.

“Here you go,” I say.

Hirsch looks over it, then his eyes widen. “Whoa, Peanutz. I said four thousand dollars. This check is for ten thousand. What gives?”

“Besides being fucked over by them, I haven’t had much experience with lawyers. Is six-thousand dollars enough of a retainer so I can take you on as my attorney?”

“Yeah. Six thousand is good start. For six thousand, I won’t only file with the prosecutors. I’ll try and get your record expunged.”

“Actually, I have something else in mind,” I say. “Do you mind if I we go for a quick ride around the block so we can talk?”

“Why can’t we talk here?” Hirsch asks.

“I don’t feel safe talking here. It’s better to do it elsewhere, if you get my drift.” After all, I’m pretty sure Burke has some guys if not following me 24/7, at least staked out and doing surveillance on my place.

“Whatever you want. Get in.”

I get back into his car and Hirsh starts to drive around with no real purpose. I lean over and turn the radio on just high enough that it might screw up any bugs that might have been put in the car. I also keep an eye out for cars that might be following us.

“So, what’s going on here?” Hirsch asks. “First off, are you involved with this kidnapping? We’re under attorney client privilege now and I really don’t care whether or not you are. I work cases for the Russians all the time. I got fucking Boris Davidovitch cleared off a RICO case for christssake.”

“No,” I say. “I’m not involved in the kidnapping. Or at least, I’m not involved in that I didn’t kidnap the children myself or have anyone do it on my behalf.”

“So how are you involved?”

“I can’t tell you. And believe me, you wouldn’t want to know. The less you know, the better.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“I need you to arrange a discreet meeting between me and the FBI in the next couple of days.”

“What the fuck?” Hirsch yells. “I just spent all night getting you away from the FBI. If you wanted to talk to them, why didn’t you do it at the police station when they were questioning you?”

“I can’t tell you why, but I couldn’t talk to them there,” I say. “Listen, just believe me that it’s important that I talk to them and that it will help get Apple’s children back as well as prevent a whole bunch of other shit from going down.”

Hirsch looks at me suspiciously, then takes another corner just a bit too quickly (for which I’m glad, it should be easier to spot someone following us if he turns often and suddenly). “What are you supposed to be, Peanutz? Some sort of spy or informant or some shit?”

I roll my eyes. On the other hand, giving that impression might make it easier for him to handle this with some discretion. “Sir, the less you know the better off you are. Just make sure this is handled as anonymously as possible. I don’t even want to know where I’m meeting these people until the last minute. You don’t realize, I’m being watched all the time.”

“Watched by who? This doesn’t have to do with the Russian mob does it? I’m their lawyer, I can’t go against them.”

“Look shithead, use your head. If I was trying to bring down the Russian mob, would I have called Sergei?”

“You and I both know Sergei isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. You could be using him…”

I groan. “This has nothing to do with the Russian mob. I’ve got nothing against them.”

“Well, then who is it? I know you don’t want to tell me but if you think the FBI is gonna meet an alleged informant just because he says he’s got supposedly got something important to say, you’re on crack. For all I know, you’re gonna give them a copy of Loose Change or claim to know about the alien landings at Roswell or some sort of conspiracy crap.”

I sit, staring out the window for a moment. Hirsch is right; I gotta tell them something to make them believe a meeting with me is worthwhile. “Do you know who Carl Van Hertzwelder is?”

This seems to wake him up. “Carl Van Hertzwelder? Of course I know him. The guy is the ultimate shyster of the rich and powerful. The guy makes me look like fucking Thurgood Marshall for chrissake.”

“Well, I have information that implicates him and several high level government officials in crimes against the United States. I’m talking shit that goes all the way up to Oval Office, you understand?”

Hirsch doesn’t say anything.

“Did you hear what I just said?”

“I think someone is following us,” Hirsch says.

“SHIT!” I mutter. I start turning around to look for myself, but Hirsch shoves me back in my seat.

“Don’t turn around, just look in your window. Black car. It’s been following us for the last three turns. I’m gonna try to lose him.”

“Don’t bother,” I say. “If they know enough to be tailing you, then there’s no point in trying to hide now. But do you believe what I’m saying to you now? I’m in some serious shit here and I have to talk to the FBI.”

Hirsch nods. “I believe you. Just promise me two things, you’re not gonna spout off some 9/11 conspiracy bullshit when you meet these people and two, you won’t implicate the Russians.”

“Done and done,” I say. “And you promise me you’ll be as discreet as possible.”

“Yeah, I can do this quietly. I know a few people at the Bureau that can fasttrack a request. It’s not like I haven’t fed them info in the past.”

Hirsch makes another turn and try to look out the side mirror to see if I can spot the car following us, but I can’t. I’ll just have to take his word.

“What should I do now? Should I just drop you off back at home?”

“Yeah, might as well. No point in trying to shake them, though you might want to if you don’t want them to know where you live.”

“If they have enough resources to put a tail on you, then they can probably find out where I live. Luckily, my neighborhood has a gate and some pretty good security so I’m not too worried.”

We haven’t driven too far away from where I live, so it only takes about ten minutes to get back there. I get out of his car, then poke my head back through the window. “When you contact me with the time and the place of the meet, don’t do it by phone. I think they have my phones tapped. And no emails either. Write it on a piece of paper and leave it some place I’ll find it.”

“No problem,” he says. I start to walk away and he calls out, “Oh and fuck you Peanutz. If this shit you’re into ends up blowing back on me, I’ll fuckin’ turn on you like that.”

I don’t say or do anything. Fuckin’ asshole. I just handed him ten-thousand dollars and he’s gonna talk shit to me like that. I deserve a little bit of respect. Well, maybe not. Fuck it.

I go back into my building, take the elevator up to my floor and go to my door. I go inside my loft and turn on the light. There’s something on the floor in front of me. It’s a cellphone, just like the one that Burke gave to me. Under it is a typed note:

I see you lost your phone Mr. Peanutz, after I told you not to. Well, here’s a replacement. Lose this one and there will be dire consequences. We hope you haven’t done or said anything stupid.

I pick up the phone a quickly check each room, every closet, under the fucking bed to make sure there is no one in the house. My paranoia has just shot up another notch. While I’m sure that it’s probably a trivial thing to break into my loft (I suspect they’ve probably done it before today if they are watching me this closely) it still doesn’t make me feel good. This invasion is putting me off kilter. They are sending me a message, they can get to me any time, any where.

When I’m fairly certain that I’m alone, I turn off the lights and look out my balcony window. I’m four-stories up, but my balcony faces the street. I get on my hands and knees and peer down.

I’m upset to see exactly what I expected to see: a black car, windows tinted almost opaque. It hadn’t been there when Hirsch dropped me off. I’m almost certain this is the same car that was following us earlier. I’d never noticed it before. Had it been following since before even today? Fuck. All this is really screwing with my head.

I lay on the floor, watching this black car for hours until I fall asleep. I don’t wake up again for almost twenty hours.