By Rich Logsdon
I. At Stinky Pete's
This is a story about Sarah, the greatest teller of stories in the civilized world, and about how she got her start.
II. Meanwhile, back at Johnny Reno's....
It was Halloween. It had been a great night for telling stories at Stinky Pete's, a swank topless club located along the Mexican coast in the savage mountains just northeast of Puerto Vallerta. Aside from vagabonds, gypsies, prostitutes, drug dealers, college professors, writers, and crooked attorneys, few people ever came to this brutal and remote jungle area. It was said that, at night in this area that was thick with jungle growth and man-eating pythons, death hung in the air like an invisible cape. Some people never made it out alive.
Every Thursday night, between six and eight, many social undesirables traveled to Stinky Pete's simply to tell a good story or, better yet, to listen to one. People came from all over the world. The rule was simple: Anyone who had a good story was supposed to tell it to everyone else in the room.
On this night, Halloween, with a full moon overhead--blood-thirsty monkeys screaming in the trees just outside the establishment and poisonous white snakes hugging the dry, cracked earth--an extraordinary thing occurred.
"Listen," a grotesquely fat man sitting near the door and right next to the old juke box bellowed, stumbling to his feet and nearly turning over the table with its dozen or so bottles of beer. "I got a great story, too." The gorgeous redhead who had been sitting on his lap with looked up at him from her new position on the floor in surprise and disgust.
"Shut the fuck up, fat guts," said the one-eyed biker with the satanic tattoos sitting at the bar next to the back door and drinking his eleventh Bud lite. An hour before, the biker had tried to tell a story about how the three duck brothers had tried to drown their crazy Uncle Donald. After five minutes of listening to this crap, many people were yawning. A couple had put their heads down on the tables before them and slept the sleep of the dead. Several people even stormed out of the place. Three of the strippers threatened to quit if the man with the satanic tattoos didn't shut up and sit down. Humiliated beyond words, the biker had flipped everyone off and sat down without finishing his story.
Shaken by the biker's response, Fat Guts tottered. He began to sweat, feared that he was going to lose his lunch, and wondered if he were getting the heebie-jeebies.
"Yeah, sit down, you fuckin tub of lard," said a gorgeous raven-haired woman named Raven66, who sat at a table in the middle of the room surrounded by husky men, all of whom were doing their best to get into her pants. Raven66 was the most obscene of strippers who, within the past three years, had successfully undergone a sex change operation. She was known throughout the civilized world for her expertise in her snake routine. New York bankers and Wall Street brokers loved her. Her tits were huge, her nipples long and pointy. She too had told a story. When the crowd had let her finish her tale about a wolf and three pigs (in her version, the three pigs captured the wolf, tortured his mercilessly for days on end, and then ate him for supper),probably because she was topless and had a beautifully pierced navel, she had sat down to a room of applause. She did not want anyone upstaging her now, least of all a customer the others referred to as "Fat Guts."
This was too much for one man to bear. Intimidated by Raven66, Fat Guts considered calling the whole thing off. He looked around the room for some help. He was sure he had the heebie-jeebies. Then....
"Give him a chance, you bunch of sick worms!" boomed the manager, stepping around the bar and into the middle of the room. The manager was a small bespectacled man who wore a tweed jacket and blue jeans and who looked every inch a college English professor. Anyone who was half way sober, however, could see the manager was carrying a size 34" baseball bat (signature of Ken Griffey, Jr. inscribed on the barrel) and probably meant business. "This my place, and what I say goes. Right?? Fat guts gets to tell his story. Anybody don't like it, they can see me out back. Where I shall pound his face in."
Subdued, intimidated, the meek yet hostile crowd sat back and calmly, patiently seemed to listen.
Fat guts, the man who had bellowed "Listen," relaxed visibly, straightened his brown and blue striped tie, zipped up his trousers, farted loudly, winked knowingly at the owner, and began again.
"Listen," he bellowed in a hoarse voice. "Once I knew a fellow who studied law in graduate school and then married a woman who turned out to be a raving lunatic. Early in their marriage, this couple had two children. By the time they were in high school, the kids Sarah and Justin were as nuts as the old lady. At dinner, night after night, the mother spun a web of paranoia, in which everyone was to blame for everything bad that ever happened to her. The mailman, the women working in the local drug store, the 7-11 clerks, the members of the local professional baseball team, and even people involved in government subsidized television laundry commercials--all were somehow and quite obviously involved in a labyrinthian conspiracy designed to bring the lawyer's wife and kids down to the level of common prostitutes. (Er...pardon me, ladies.) The dogs prowling maliciously in the street, the trees howling just outside the front window, the flowers trying to steal the sunlight from everyone else--everything was involved in an intricate design to make this lady's life, and the life of her children, absolutely miserable. Listening intently, dinner after dinner, the children began to spin their own webs, suspecting all the while (nonetheless) that dear old mom was not like other moms and may be quite off her rocker. One night, an angel appeared at Sarah's window and told the girl that her mother was in league with the devil. Sarah noted that this angel was short, dark fat little runt, not at all like the angels she had read about in the dark literature she ceaselessly consumed.
"The world, the mother, daughter and son had concluded, was just one big gigantic dark, lunatic conspiracy. 'They're out to get us all!' she screamed at her children night after night between bites of steak and potatoes."
Here Fat Guts paused."Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls," Fat Guts suddenly asserted, gaining confidence, "this nonsense had to stop. God has created a just and balanced universe, and something had to be done to restore order. The husband, though a successful attorney, hadn't the courage to stand up to his distraught wife. Clearly, it was up to the children, who plotted day and night against each other, against their friends, and against any adults who happened to cross their dark paths.
"One fine spring day, when the birds were singing and laughter was in the air, after the daughter Sarah's first year in college, when bullets were bouncing off the sidewalks of Cleveland and San Diego, the two kids--now in their late teens--went out to Johnny Reno's for dinner one night and decided then and there that their mother had been absolutely instrumental in a clandestine plot that had resulted, for the last ten years or so, in the kids' being mercilessly persecuted by their teachers and peers. Sure, Sarah and Justin loved their mother, but facts were facts, and Mom was at the core of the very conspiracies of which she accused others of being involved in. Sarah's angel had been correct: Mom was part of a cosmic satanic plot."
III. A comforting voice speaks from the darkness....
Stinky Pete's was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.. Televisions, placed strategically around the room to enable the customers to watch their favorite sporting event, silently glared at the seated and sweating members of the audience.. The moon hung suspended like a noose outside just over the establishment. Minds filled with bloody images, customers could hear the incessant low rumbling growls of beasts of the jungle who had gather in a circle around Stinky Pete's.
Unsure whom to trust, the scantily clad waitresses sat clustered together in a dark corner.. Fearing the proverbial knife in the back, Strippers had turned to stone.. The air was blue with cigarette smoke and the place reeked of tobacco; customers knew they were being suffocated. The all thought of their mothers.
"Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. This place gives me the creeps," said a thin, graying man, who sat twitching nervously at a table near the front. He suspiciously eyed his brother, seated directly across from him, and his brother never took his eyes off the thin graying man.
"I liked the story about the pigs eating the wolf a whole lot better," said the gorgeous blonde sitting at the table behind the man. She reached into her satin purse and wrapped her hand around the small silver pistol she always carried with her. Before the night was over, she knew she'd likely have to kill some one. Everyone in the room had become a potential enemy.
"Let's watch TV," boomed the perspiring owner, fearing a mass exodus and a tremendous loss of revenue.
"Fat Guts" stood at attention, confronting the crowd of faces, wondering if he should continue. He had become, over the years, a legendary story-teller in the area, expert at creating an atmosphere of total paranoia. Many claimed he was possessed, creating a miasma of suspicion wherever he went. Before he could continue, a high pitched yet somehow comforting (because familiar?) voice hissed from the back: " This is the end of created time. We can all feel it. Surely the angel of death is upon us all. Please continue with your story, good sir.."
Everyone looked into the darkness in the back corner of the club but could not see who had just spoken.
"This is it, folks, the grand finale," came the high-pitched voice. As the story-teller and everyone else in the place looked into the shadows in the back, they could just make out the form of what appeared to be a very small person. "Let's call the story 'Let's Kill Mom.'"
Suddenly, a small person stepped into the light for all to see. His darkness made him somewhat ethereal. He had close-cropped black hair, wore wrap-around sunglasses, sported a goatee, and wore a black suit and blazing red tie. Clouds of black smoke swirled furiously around him.
"Who the fuck are you?" asked the belligerent but frightened owner, raising his baseball bat and heading for the small man.
"I, my good sir," said the dark and diminutive man, fire spewing from his eyes and mouth, "am the mayor of this town, the king of this world, the angel of darkness and, I might add, the Lord of This Dark Universe. I am also a creation of this story. As are we all. Who the fuck are you?" Thunder was heard overhead, lightening cracked just outside the door, and the building shook to its foundation. A horrible bestial scream shredded the night air of the jungle closing in on the establishment.
Bloody fear spread like typhoid in the dark room Then silence fell like a lead-weight shroud as the story-teller continued. The Lord of this Dark Universe smiled and retreated to the reddish darkness in the back.
IV. Finally, Justin and Sarah put their muddled heads together….
Johnny Reno's was rocking to the sounds of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Men had gathered in the growing darkness around the tables to discuss business deals and favorite strippers. A gigantic black lizard crept across the floor.
"I think," commented Justin, studying his empty plate, his mouth full of cheeseburger, "that we wait until the folks are in bed, then tie the old man up with bailing wire and take the old lady down to the cellar."
"Not bad," said Sarah, obviously impressed with Justin's cleverness. Still loudly slurping her milkshake, she asked, "What we gonna do then?"
"What we gonna do then is you stop slurpin' that fuckin' milkshake." Justin's huge fat fist came crashing down onto the table, spilling his coke all over the table. Sarah stopped abruptly. "What we gonna do is chop that bitch to bits."
"Mom?"
"The one and only, God bless her twisted soul."
"Chop her up? How?"
"With a ax."
"We don't got a ax, dumbbell."
"Knife?"
"You ever sliced up anybody with a knife, shithead?"
"Nope."
"Too messy, retard. You watch the slasher movies. You oughta know."
"Then how about we use a chain saw? Brrrrruum, bbbbrrrruuummm." In his excitement, Justin did his best imitation of his proposed death instrument. He had seen "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" twenty-seven times and counting.
At this suggestion, both teenagers looked up and stared wildly into each other's eyes. Light bulbs of insight and revelation went off. Fireworks lit the night sky. Of course: a chain saw. Their father kept an old Black and Decker in the garage!
"Wow! We can cut the old crow up, stuff her in sandwich bags, and use her for snacks," Sarah crooned, certain now that her brother was one of the smartest men alive. "Chomp, chomp, chomp," she said, mimicking the sounds of eating.
"Egg-fuckin'-zactly," responded Justin with a huge cheesy smile. Onions stuck to his teeth. His shirt was stained with ketchup. "Or we could just have a big ole fuckin bonfire out back. A sort of bon voyage for the ole witch."
"Oooooohhhhh," Sarah squealed, calling the attention of everyone in the restaurant to her, "I likes it, bro. Let's do it."
V. A second story teller emerges....
In the hushed and stunned silence of Stinky Pete's, the story-teller stopped, looked around, took a bow, and sat down. He began to drink from his half-empty glass of Wolf's Head brew, a reddish liquid that was surely warm by now.
The crazed crowd remained silent, the TVs off, the music dimmed. No one moved. All eyes were on the story-teller, who they knew was in league with the dark powers of this world.
"That's it?" asked Raven66. "Just like that? What about the ending?"
"You can't leave us hangin' like that, you fat prick," exclaimed Raven's sister Fox69, the murderous redhead who happened to be sitting at the story-teller's table.
"That's enough for tonight, I believe," responded the fat story-teller, draining his glass of reddish beer, picking up his brief case, and rising to his feet. The damage had been done.
The crowd was outraged. As disturbing as the story seemed, as sickening as Sarah and Justin had become, the audience demanded an ending, however artless or tasteless. In fact, as they saw the story-teller headed for the door, brief case in hand, one person said, "Stop him. Now!" Another screamed, "Let's cut off the bastard's dick!" Of course, not willing to risk involvement, no one made a move.
When the story-teller had left, all three hundred and fifty pounds of him, the man with the biker's tattoos raised the question that was on all their minds: "Just what the fuck we gonna do now?"
Stories have a kind of magical charm, even the sickest of tales, and this one demanded an ending.
Therefore, forty minutes of complete, brain-numbing silence ensued. Everyone sat and thought. Then, the dark dwarf stepped forth into the light and, hands behind his back, took one quick glance around the room. "You finish it," he said to no one in particular.
For forty more minutes, the crowd sat, thinking. People looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. It seemed absolutely hopeless. Apparently, no one could think of an ending. Life as they knew it would be over.
Then, a petite but strikingly beautiful brunette stepped into the light. Though obviously a dancer--she wore a black net blouse that clearly exposed her breasts and a very small blazing red g-string--no one could remember seeing her. "I have a[sic] ending," she said, and all eyes turned towards her. Her reddish hell-bat eyes fixing on various people in the crowd, she began to conclude:
VI .Bloody Sarah speaks....
The moon rose full and bloody in the east the night of the killing. Halloween, I think. Clouds seemed to swirl madly through the night sky and desert vampire bats glided by overhead as Justin and Sarah cautiously approached the garage hand-in-hand. Mom and Dad were sitting in the living room inside, watching "Flipper" or "Gilligan's Island" or some such shit designed to put the minds of Americans to sleep. I forget which.
An hour before, getting the cellar ready for their mother, in the presence of Sarah's angel, the two had made a blood oath. Using one of their mother's huge carving knives, each had sliced a hand. Blood flowed like water from a mountain spring down the arms of the siblings as they brought their crimson hands together, pledging eternal fidelity to each other, calling upon all the powers of darkness to sustain them through what they now viewed as an inevitable ritual.
Now, walking through the side door into the garage, they flicked on the dimming light and searched for their killing instrument. They didn't have to look long. There, on the wall just above their beloved father's tool bench hung the blood-red chain saw. To Sarah, it hung in the sign of the cross, surely a good omen. The chain saw was good news.
Taking the saw down from the wall, Justin removed the gas cap to check the tank. Because it had been two or three years since the saw had been used, the gas tank was as empty as most of the characters in this incredibly twisted little tale. But Justin and Sarah knew their father kept a can of gas in the garage for the lawn mower. Thus, as Justin held the chain saw, the cap off, Sarah picked the gas can, slowly opened it, and poured in the fuel.
When she was done pouring and Justin had put the cap back on, she asked, "Think it'll work?"
Justin looked at his sister, his dark beady eyes blazing red dots. To Sarah, he looked delightfully possessed. Maybe both were possessed. "Fuck yeah, it's gonna work. Now we wait."
Like good children, Justin and Sarah crept back into the house, walked together down into the cellar, where they left the saw on an old couch, and then walked up the stairs and gaily into the living room, where for the next four and a half hours they sat in somber, bewitched semi-satanic silence, watching mindless sitcom after mindless sitcom, both having reached the conclusion that tonight they would be doing Planet Earth one huge favor.
Finally, after a half hour of Jay Leno's inanities, insults hurled directly at the audience, the father pointed the clicker toward the TV and pushed the button. The picture on the tube vanished. "Time ta hit the hay," said dear ole dad. This is what he always said just before he and his lovely wife went to bed. It was a statement that, in the father's opinion, was least likely to elicit a response from his schizophrenic wife, like, "What do you mean by that?"
VII. [At which point the teller excuses herself to go to the toilet]
VIII. The grim but ultimately satisfying finale....
As Mom and Dad headed for bed, I looked at Justin and smiled. He smiled back. I think we were actually in love with each other at that moment. Certainly, we had had sex with each other frequently through the years of our troubled adolescence.
Then I looked to the window. There stood my angel, a short dark thing, smiling hugely, dressed in a red and black gown. I wanted to make things right with the invisible powers that ruled our lives.
Justin and I sat in the darkness of the living room as we listened to our parents prepare for bed. Worse that some of the sitcoms they watched, the ritual seemed to go on forever. First, they undressed and got into their pajamas. Then, they brushed their teeth. Then, Mom took her pills. Then, Dad took his pills. Then, they said evening prayers. Then, they got into bed and fucked, I guess. Then they were out like lights.
First we had to make sure our dad, brave soul, didn't wake up. Knowing that Mom had taken enough sleeping pills to kill an elephant, I gave Justin the large pillow that he held over father's face. With Justin's nearly four hundred pounds on top of him, Daddy could barely move. He gave a couple of muffled yells, kicked wildly for a minute, then all was still. His breathing had stopped, and Justin pulled the pillow back. Because we [I, actually] thought our father might still be alive, Justin pulled him into a sitting position and, sobbing, with one swift and sickening twist, broke father's neck. I heard it snap.It was neat work.
Now it was mom's turn. Mom had slept like a baby so far. Justin pulled back the covers, picked up Mom like she was a rag doll, and carried her out of the room. Carrying Mother's body, he followed me down the stairs and into the cellar.
By the time we reached the bottom of the stairs, Mom was somewhat awake. Groggily, she asked, "Wh...wh...where we goin', lamb chops?" She always called Justin lamb chops, a name he loved.
"Now, now, Mama," Justin whispered soothingly, "we're just going to help you sleep a little more soundly than you do. We love you so."
I saw Mother give a stupid smile. She breathed "Mama loves her lamb chops," closed her eyes, and drifted back to sleep in her giant son's arms.
"We can't kill her like this," bawled Justin, setting Mom gently in an old cushioned rocking chair that my grandparents had given her and dad as a wedding gift. "She's sleepin' like a baby lamb."
I grew impatient with my brother's gentle giant routine. "That's just the point, dumb ass. That is precisely the fuckin' point of what we are doin' tonight. We take her out of this life and usher her into the next precisely when she is sleeping like a baby. If we kill her when she is innocent, she'll go to heaven. It'll be all right. God told me so. Let's bloody the bitch."
"Look, Fuck Brain," I added, figuring I couldn't handle the saw, "Dad is already there waiting. At Heaven's Gate. You don't wanna make the ole man sad, do you? You wanna be the one fucks up?"
Tears streaming down his fat face, Justin looked at me with his tiny beady black eyes. I didn't know if Justin would buy what I had just said. But Justin surprised me, at lest for the moment. "Just tell me what to do, sis," he requested between huge gasping sobs, and at that moment I loved Justin more than anybody in the world.
Following my instructions, Justin pulled the chord that started the grinding death-whine of the chain saw. Then, grabbing hold of Mother's long and stringy black hair, I held the woman's head steady and told Justin to start with the head. "Hit the neck first, then go to the arms and legs, and then the smaller stuff," I confidently reassured my brother.
Meekly, a servant doggedly doing as he was told, Justin forced himself to work. His first attempt was amateurish: as soon as the chain hit bone, blood spurting like a geyser, he jumped back like a sinner scorched by the fires of hell.
Mom, a huge bloody cavity in her neck, was trying to say something. Her mouth formed into a dark round O. "Oooooohhhhh," she moaned. Her eyes were wide open, fixed on my angel, who stood directly across from mother. Christ, it was an awful moment.
"Hey, shit for brains!" I exploded. "The fuckin' jobs not done!! The fuckin' job's not done. Fuck!! Fuck!! Look at this, lard butt; she's alive. Bleedin' but alive!!!"
Justin just looked at me, holding the howling chain saw to his side. I was afraid he was going to cut off his leg, so I let go of Mom's bloodied head, which flopped limply and bloodily to one side, and screamed at my dear brother, "Here, ass!. You hold Mom and I'll take the fuckin' chain saw!!!!"
I don't know where I found the strength, but when I seized that humming saw from Justin, I felt renewed power and, as weeping Justin held Mom's head, I completed the task. Severing head from trunk was like cutting bread. Like rain in refreshingly violent thunderstorm, blood sprayed everywhere as I took Mom apart piece by piece. From the head, I went to the arms, then the legs, and then her torso. Once , Justin started screaming like a baby in pain.
"Justin," I screamed in a rage, "I am losin'' all my fuckin' patience!!! I am fuckin' losin' it, sweetheart. I am fuckin' losin it, bro!!"
"Sorry, sis," he sobbed, clearly humiliated by his failure of nerve, "but somehow I don't feel real good about this." He rubbed his meaty bloody fists in his red eyes.
"What did you say, you enormous fucking meat pie piece of dog shit? What the fuck did you just say to your older sister??" Now I was screaming. "You'll feel good about this, you son of a bitch," I angrily muttered, easily separating Mom's hands from her arms, "or I'll cut you in two, baby guts!!"
Drenched in Mother's blood, Justin finally got a hold of himself. He had to. Drenched in blood myself, I would have killed him. "Turn on the TV while I finish up," I said, motioning for him to take a seat on the old couch. An old TV from Mom and Dad's college days stood in the corner of the cellar. Justin sat down and used the old flicker to turn on the TV. I think an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon was on.
After I had cut up and bagged Mom, I went up stairs, dragged the second corpse down into the cellar, and cut Dad's body into little itty bitty pieces. Then, not missing a beat, a good environmentalist to the bloody end, I held the purring chain saw to Justin's neck and forced my blubbering brother to bury the pieces of Mom and Dad in the garden out back under plants and bushes that had grown there for fifty years. Then, after Justin and I got cleaned up, I used the money I had made dancing and whoring to get us on a plane to Mexico the next day.
IX. God bless you, Bloody Sarah....
"...to get us on the plane to Mexico the next day," Bloody Sarah (the petite dancer, for it was no other than she) concluded, her voice a severe monotone. In the satanic silence, they all could hear rain pounding the corrugated tin roof overhead. The drought was over. Primed for a blood feast, beasts awaited them all right outside the door.
The story was followed by five or ten minutes of stunned, sickened, frightened silence. No one knew what to do next. All but Sarah could feel the flames of Hell licking the soles of their feet. Sure that judgment had come, the biker and Raven66 held hands, knelt together by the door and said a series of "Our Fathers" and "Hail Marys."
Coming to Stinky Pete's to listen to a story about how the little pigs ate the wolf or about how his nephews turned on Donald Duck and fed him to the sharks was one thing. But this devilish story, told by the demented chain saw murderer herself, went far beyond the writer's code of etiquette. Indeed, the story seemed to be nothing more than a murderous assault upon the intelligence, emotions and imagination of every person present. And therein lay the secret to the success of this story,
After all, one must never over-estimate one's audience. Thus, as the little dark dwarf took his position next to the story-teller, putting one arm around her waist and raising the other in the air, the crowd broke into thunderous, wild applause. Fears slowly retreated like beasts returning to their dark lairs in the jungle outside. They had loved the story, an abrogation of good taste and decency, a potential best-seller, and told the dark dwarf(none other than Sarah's angel)that they wanted more. They begged her forgiveness for they way they had treated "Fat Guts," who(of course) was none other than Justin. Graciously, in the manner of Mary, the Mother of God, Sarah granted total forgiveness with wave of her hand and the jiggling of her tits. Which were beautiful.
And that was how Bloody Sarah, soon to become a major cultural figure in all civilized countries, got her start as a brilliant teller of bloody tales.