Cutthroat Heroes Read online

  I hit the brakes and sent his head flying into the dashboard. He woke up.

  “My car,” he said. “They ruined it! Bastards....”

  He walked out and found his clothes inside, in the backseat. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out.

  “Did they take your wallet?”

  “No,” he said, counting the money inside.

  I threw my hands over my face and almost cried.

  “Thank God,” I said. “That was a close one.”

  Phil put his stinking clothes on, and we drove off to my place.

  My secret place.

  PHIL

  I remember that road. We had made love there until we got all raw. Sometimes Carmen would run across my mind, ruining things for me. In my imagination, I was pushing her out of our home, yelling at her to leave and never return. She'd be laughing the whole time, wouldn't she? Bet she would be. Laughing about how she had fooled me all this time. She was just using me because I was a therapist. She just wanted a free talk. Hell, I should charge her for all those nights I had to listen to her drivel...her sins. I had to sit through all of it. She was just using me, don't you see? It hurts like all hell – finding out you were being used. I don't recommend it. How could she do that to me? She said she loved me, and I loved her. Didn't I?

  But....

  Why?

  Why did I have those feelings for her in the first place? What attracted me to her? What did I ever see in her? Maybe she really did put a spell on me.

  Each time I thought about Carmen, crazy rage filled my solar plexus. I wanted to vomit and punch something at the same time. Strange mix of emotions. I had to think of Fran – imagine her sweet, nude form – to be at peace again. It was interesting. I started to wonder. How was it that one day you fall in love with someone, only to break up with them later? What happened? Why can't we just stay in love with one person? Makes no sense. Did I just get bored? People fall out of love. People want to experience different things. No one eats the same foods all the time. And Fran? I went from hating her scent to not getting enough of it. I went from wanting to kill her to wanting to make love to her all the live-long day. Amazing! What just happened? All those girls I fell in and out of love with...it was like a simple flick of the switch. BAM. My feelings changed. One day one thing, next day another.

  Carmen was different.

  Something didn't sit right. As much as I despised her – as much as I wanted to see her dead and rotting in her grave for all her lies – I couldn't help shake the sensation that something queer was going on. Even though my brain was screaming with hate...something...deep down...was trying to reason with me. How did I have a change of heart so quickly???

  Did the aliens have anything to do with it? I wondered.

  “Baby, I think those aliens did something to me.”

  Fran shot me a look.

  “Don't call me 'baby'. Call me 'master'.”

  “Yes...master.”

  “Don't talk about aliens. You sound like a crazy person. I want you to be normal. Only talk about normal things.”

  “But I did see aliens,” I said. “They violated me.”

  “No! You didn't see aliens. You're just confused. You were attacked by bears,” she said. “Bears attacked your car. They ripped the roof apart and took off your clothes.”

  “There are bears in Hawaii?”

  “They were imported. They're all over these parts. Don't you watch the news???”

  “....But I don't remember any bears.”

  “That's because you're in shock, you stupid asshole.”

  “Thank you. I deserved that.”

  “Your memory is obviously out of whack. Shock does that to you. Trust me. I'm a veterinarian.”

  Next thing I knew, we were parked outside some gas station. Fran reached into my back pocket and took out my wallet.

  “Now gimme your money,” she said. “My car needs gas.”

  She opened my wallet and smiled at the bills.

  Mmm....That smile.

  God, I loved her.

  “I want to make love to you right now,” I said.

  “Do me a favor, and go into the bathroom and wash the inside of your ass. Your filling the car with funk.”

  She slammed the door and walked away. “YAHAHAHA! I slay me....”

  I laughed too, and slapped my nude knees. Her sense of humor was amazing. Nonetheless, I did as she asked. I'd do a wonderful job. I wanted to impress her. I wanted to make her proud of me.

  I'd do anything for her.

  Anything.

  FRAN

  Guilt?

  Why? It makes no sense. I did nothing wrong. Let me explain before you start hating on me: That was MY life. I did what I wanted, how I wanted, when I wanted to do it. I wasn't born tied to anyone – not to my mom, not to my dad, and if I had kids, not to them either. I'm serious. My life; my rules. I did whatever and whoever my heart desired. Achieving your dreams; doing whatever it takes; saying “F-off” to whoever tries to stand in your way....That takes real power. I was proud of who I was. Who nowadays has the guts to live how they want? To go after what they want? Not my parents, and certainly not my sister. She didn't have to! Everything was handed to her. My parents gave her everything – anything she wanted. Why? I'll tell you why.

  Because she was prettier than me. Simple! People bow down to the pretty ones...give them whatever they want...whatever they desire...whatever makes them happy. It's all true. It's like people are saying, “Let us praise this beautiful person. I like looking at her, because she makes me forget about all the ugly problems in the world, especially all those ugly people. Those creatures depress me. This pretty one is a gift! A treasure! She is like a fine painting – a moving painting made by God. Let's give her a promotion!” And don't give me no lip. Be honest with your pal Fran. You know it's true. You see how unfair the world is? Only the good ones suffer. Only the good ones suffer.

  Growing up, I got no attention.

  Boys at school never looked at me. It was like they could sniff me out – smell my ugliness. I was cursed! The girls would point and laugh at me and pull my hair. The teachers would throw balls of paper at me and make me drag my desk outside of class. Apparently, I made them feel depressed. The principal – Miss Pain – would call me into her office once a week and stand me up against a wall and throw darts all around my head for fun. I never got hit (thank goodness). She made me promise not to tell anyone – said she'd come over my house and pull all my nails out if I did.

  Years, years, years later...I plotted my revenge. I'd get everyone back for making me feel like crap. Everyone was in on it. Everyone was against me. Everyone was gonna hurt somehow. I'd find a way. I'd be persistent. That's the key in accomplishing every goal: Persistence. Things needed time to work, to grow, to get to you. Never give up! Keep your eye on the goal. Visualize it as already done. I was gonna get my good. I loved thinking about revenge, about WINNING. Yesss....I was turning evil, and I liked it. I felt powerful. In control! Control of everything, especially my own life, dammit. My life got real easy once I gave up on people. To Hell with the world. Literally.

  I started studying witchcraft...got really into all that Satanic stuff: Virgin’s blood and goat dancing and candles and lots of myrrh. My confidence was building. Payback. Retaliation. Vengeance. Miss Pain was the first one I “worked” on. When I was out of high school, I went to her house late at night and broke in. I was wearing this devil mask. A real good one, too. It was red with horns, and it looked like I was screaming all the time. I crept upstairs and jumped on her bed and tied her all up and super-glued her lips shut and eyes open. I stood her up in the middle of the room and lit a fire all around her – like I was getting ready to burn a witch. I danced around in my devil costume, poking at her with a trident. A small radio nearby played “jungle music” at full blast. She was sweating like a pig! Her eyes were bursting!

  When the old pig collapsed, I put the fire out and threw her back in bed and got the h
eck out of there. I could hear the neighbors complaining, and I had the feeling someone called the coppers. I left the “jungle music” playing though, attaching big speakers to it to make it even louder. I was running through those woods – a mile away – and I could still feel the bass.

  Next day, Miss Pain was all over the news, all her hair burnt off. They had to cut her lips off so she could whine to the cameras. She complained how Satan was real and how he invaded her home and danced for her. It was a hoot! I felt like a celebrity! I remember being in my bedroom, watching TV and laughing until my sides hurt! I stopped when my back hurt. Too much dancing. Oh, well....I needed rest anyway. I had a whole list of people to torment. All of them were gonna hurt. I'd make their lives a living nightmare. Mom. Dad. All those boys and girls. Those sassy girls. Those popular boys. Carmen. All those guys that liked her – that licked their lips at her. She got all the attention. Always looking at them with her big, painted eyes. Pretty girl. Such a pretty girl. Pretty girls got all the luck. The world loved pretty girls. Ah, such a pretty girl. Look at the pretty girl. Oooh, ahhh. Let's talk to them! Let's help them out! Let's love them!

  The ugly ones just grew up sad and pathetic – sat in the corner, in the dark, weeping until their lives melted away. Not I. Your pal Fran here had goals.

  No one was gonna get in the way of my happiness, my freedom. That's what life was all about to me. Freedom. To be free to do what you want. I wanted to eat exotic foods, wear fancy clothes, and go to peculiar places. And that takes money. And my boy Phil had lots of it.

  No guilt there. He was happy to give me everything – whatever I needed to be free.

  Bless his little heart.

  Or I should say, bless my ghost in his little heart. Ha!

  Oh, I loved the look on Carmen's face when she saw my tongue all up in Phil's mouth. You could see it: You could see her whole life just burn, burn, burn...crumble and get blown away – ashes in the wind. My soul was lifted when she cried and drove off. It was like God breathed into the core of my very being. Ah! I was revitalized. She may have had the looks, but I had the brains to win. As for Phil...I knew I'd get bored with him eventually. Little sex here and there, a lot of spending his money here and there. Usually, as we all know, things get boring after those first three months. Then it would be time for me to go hunting for someone else. No way was I going to “stick with it”. What was I? A masochist???

  I strove to maximize my net pleasure. Life was about having fun! It was my time. I needed to be at peace, to be merry in the world. Guilt? Their feelings? After what humans did to me for so long, for so many years?

  Damn how they felt.

  Hell with them all.

  CARMEN

  The first thing I did was drink. I got hammered drunk, and then I ran into the woods and wept and screamed. Neighbors were far off, so they didn't matter.

  “Whyyyyy!?!?!” I screamed. “Phil! My love!!! Whyyyyyy??? Come back! Come back! OH-GOD! HELP ME!!!!”

  A plane flew over the trees – one of those fat jets. I yelled at it – yelled through its loud engines.

  “He left me! Left meeeeeeeeeee!”

  I leaned against a tree, blowing my nose on a leaf. My throat hurt. I was spitting blood. Good! I liked seeing my blood. I deserved to bleed. To hurt. I messed up real bad. I messed up the one relationship that mattered in my life. I should have loved him hard enough. Should have kept my problems to myself. Should have made him happier. Of course! Made perfect sense....

  I ran through more trees, breaking through some branches, finding myself at the edge of the mountain. I could see the city lights below me, and I threw my empty beer bottles at all those happy people scattered all over Honolulu. I screamed as loud as I could, cried as loud as I could. I felt like a crazy person, but damn if each scream helped a little. I drank some more, then some more. I didn't want to think, or feel, or whatever. I wanted to pass out. Pass out in the woods – in nature like the animal that I was. The world spun, and I fell down on the wet grass. Something told me to open my eyes.

  Fran was standing above me.

  “I win,” she was saying. “I have him. I WIN.”

  And then I jumped up and took a swing at her, but she vanished. Jesus! I was losing my mind.... Get a grip, girl. Get a grip. Is it wrong to wish your sister dead? Your own flesh & blood? Did the quality of her meat really matter??? Do the world a favor. Inject the venom. Just get rid of all the evil people, that's what I thought. Electrocute them! Do us good souls a favor....Make them go away. That included my sister, too – get rid of her. Kill her. Make her go away.

  She was always the bad egg.

  When Mom gave birth, Fran came out in a black sack made of skin. When they cut the thing open, smoke came out, and all the doctors said it smelled like someone died. As a baby, she cried all the time. Alllll the time. Drove us nuts. My mom turned to the drink; and dad turned to the drugs. Right then, even at that young age, I thought, My life will be so much better with this thing gone. No?

  Then Fran grew up. Then her jealousy showed. Did she go into her ugly duckling rant? Don't feel too special. She says that to everyone. She always complained that I was prettier. Total confusion. I never understood what she was talking about. Honestly, she looked attractive enough to me. If boys didn't look at her, it's because she never looked at them.

  Fran always walked with her head down, hair over her eyes...always wore these long “church dresses” from the 1800's that never showed any skin. There was a time when I tried to dress her up, but she just stared at herself in the mirror for a long time. Then she threw a piggy bank at her reflection, and glass flew everywhere, all in my hair, in my mouth, all over my room. I started yelling at her, shaking her, asking her why she did it – why she would do such a crazy thing. Fran just shrugged and laughed. She said she felt better. I kept trying to help her – kept trying to make her prettier by painting her face, cleaning her up, dousing her with the finest perfumes. She'd always burn the clothes in the bathtub and wash off what she called, “that darn stink juice”. I knew it was a bad idea to begin with, but what the hell. I wanted to help her. She was my sister. I even tried to get her to join me in cheerleading. Of course, the very idea made her puke. She gripped her stomach and went all over my feet. She then ran all through the school, crying, to the girls' bathroom...busted all the mirrors with a sock full of quarters. She told the police that the girl in the mirrors wouldn't stop laughing at her. One cop said he found a doll's head in the toilet, its eyes colored black with a marker.

  Another time, again in school, I walked into the bathroom and saw Fran on the sink, real close to the mirror with a switchblade to her face. She was cutting herself...said it made her look better. I slapped the thing away and tackled her to the floor and called for help. Mom and Dad said that our great grandmother did the exact same thing. She was the same way.

  “Gross insecurity,” they said.

  In time, with Fran, that turned into gross insanity. Fran felt the world was against her. I know this, because I used to hear her screaming in her room, “THE WORLD IS AGAINST ME!” There would always be these banging sounds, eating sounds, tearing sounds, whining sounds. I started fearing for my safety. One time, I walked into her room and saw pictures of dead animals and people – pages ripped from magazines – all over her bedroom walls.

  I told my mom, and Fran got a good beating for it.

  Maybe that's when she started really hating me.

  I woke up. The sun burned my eyes out.

  I stood up and looked at the city. Everything was in a hurry: Highways bleeding traffic. And then there was Diamond Head, way off in the distance. That extinct volcano gave me the creeps. For some odd reason, I thought it would erupt then and there. I'd feel a big rumble, and that would be the end of everything. Total eruption, just to spite me. Just because I was looking at it. Because it hated me. Everything hated me. Bad luck. Dangerous, bad luck. Everything hated me. Life hated me. God hated me. He took Phil away from me. Just...gave hi
m to Fran. For a second, I felt what she must've felt all her life.

  The world, against you.

  I wiped the morning drool off my mouth and walked through those woods, massaging my shoulder.

  Back home, I opened the refrigerator and drank more beer and smoked more cigarettes. I felt better.

  Alcohol & cigarettes. My heroes.

  ….Ate my Spam and eggs breakfast...drank some more. I kept drinking until I knocked out and woke up in the closet for some reason. I was covered in roaches. Oh, no...was I sleeping with my mouth open? It was ten at night. Something like eleven hours went by. I had slept through it all, and my body ached, muscles complained. Drinking more beer helped to numb me. I walked through the house and saw Phil in every room, waiting behind every door. He was even in the shower, just standing there, lips moving, no sound coming out. He was dead each time – rotting – huge cuts all over him – blood came out of his holes – his eyes – his nose – his pores....

  His chest.

  It had a huge hole.

  Darkness in there. Just nothing. Nothing.

  In that bathroom, I just stood there staring at him for a long time. Can't be real. Are you a ghost? Phil? Say something....

  It was like he was looking right into my soul – eyes dead-set on mine. I ran to hug him, and he was gone. I lost it then...ran downstairs and drank all the alcohol, even all the hards. The house turned into a circus. Other realities invaded my mind. My soul went from one world to another every five seconds. I even went to Heaven; but the angels there kicked me out; called me a phony....

  My face was on the floor, and I was moving around like a weird person. I couldn't stop throwing up. I did it so much, my belly hurt. Trouble breathing. Much blood. It was an adventure just to get to my cell phone and dial 911.

  “I think I drank too much,” I said. “Please advise.”

  Then I slept for a bit.

  A deep, dead sleep.

  I was dying.

  I woke up in the hospital. A doctor was standing at the foot of my bed, just standing there, staring at me with a big smile.

  “Good morning,” she said. “How are you feeling?”