Joey Balder hated Marc McClure.
He hated hated hated Marc, it was that simple. Especially after Marc
had called him chicken for not having taken the dare that Marc had put
to him.
When school had gotten out (school
in August was a waste of summer days better spent playing), Marc and Joey
had been biking home when they went past the old green house on Grace and
Holdrege streets in north Lincoln, just blocks down from the Clinton Elementary
and Junior High. Marc had stopped and Joey went back to see what
his friend (what a joke!) was scheming in his nasty little head.
"Dare you to ring the doorbell,"
Marc said straight off. He had never been one to mince words.
"No way," Joey said, shaking
his head tiredly. Marc had problems realizing that this sort of thing
got old and that there wasn't a soul alive who thought daring a friend
(still a joke) was a cool thing to do.
Besides, the house was plain
creepy. It was massive in size, old in age and with the crowded trees
around the yard the house was cast in a perpetual shadow of gloom.
Quite simply, the house was creepy.
"Got no spine, huh?" Marc chided.
"Or are you just yella?"
Joey started to get mad then.
He wasn't going to put up with that kind of crap. Especially not
from somebody like Marc McClure who had all of his father's worst qualities.
Marc was mean, a natural bully and a thick-skulled dunderhead whose grades made Joey look like a genius. Joey didn't really hang with Marc, they just happened to live close to each other and had grown up together. But that wasn't enough to make them friends, at least not in Joey's book it didn't.
"I don't do dares," Joey fired
back at Marc as he turned his bike around again. "They're stupid, childish and I don't need you telling me otherwise, butt-wipe."
Joey expected Marc to keep riding
the subject, but Marc just shrugged and got off of his bike, dropping it to the sidewalk.
"What are you doing?" Joey demanded
in a low, even voice. Marc's antics were starting to get on his nerves and Joey's head was coming up with some wonderful new names and words with which to describe Marc.
"Hey," Marc said chidingly and
shrugging his shoulders. "If you're too chicken to take a dare then I will. Gonna watch me or are ya gonna run?"
"I'm going to leave your shitty
ass here and I hope the owner of the place runs you off with a shotgun," Joey responded acidicly. He turned his bike to go and rode off. He knew Marc was watching him, a sneer on his face.
Joey's irritation was slowly seething into one of his quiet, dark moods. They were moods that most boys in puberty were periodically subject to, but in Joey's case they were different. His mood swings were not of the formless, lost and out-lashing quality which was so prevalent in the era of Generation X.
His dark moods were filled with purpose and sight. Death and mutilation in all of their artistry
whispered their ways into his mind and his fingers would twitch in excitement upon hearing them. People who pissed him off were often subjects of his visions. A vision of Marc crept into Joey's mind now as he biked past the University of Nebraska-Lincoln East Campus, college students, faculty members and pedestrians diving out of his way as he pumped the pedals faster and faster, his backpack bouncing back and forth on his back. A stream of epithets from the pedestrians followed in his wake.
In his mind's eye he saw Marc, his face shrouded in shadow like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. The face was still, quiescent, as if in sleep or death. The eyes were black pits that Joey looked hard at. There were dim twinkles in those eyes and Joey realized that there were lumps of polished coal in the sockets of Marc's skull.
They are eyes that cannot see, Joey thought. Those eyes are as cold as the earth and can see nothing but blackness.
When Joey was in his dark moods his thoughts turned poetic, artistry flowing into him like the breath of a muse.
It was too bad he wasn't on Vine St. Then he could go riding through Wyuka Cemetery where the trees offered cool shade and the silent graves could soothe his roiling rage.
Joey Balder owed a lot of hate
to Marc McClure and some of the memories that compounded that hate came to him. The time when Marc had knocked out one of his baby teeth during a fight. Never mind the fact that Joey had been amusing himself for two days by wriggling the loose tooth with his tongue. What had upset Joey the most was that he had swallowed the tooth and there would be no quarter from the tooth fairy. Even if the tooth fairy was only his mom sneaking into his room in the middle of the night.
Then there was the time Marc had tackled him on the playground and started wrestling with him, though Joey had wanted to have no part of it at the time. The end result had been a broken arm and a cast.
There were other things as well.
Lots of things, like embarrassing Joey in front of the girls (especially the ones that Joey was starting to like) or ripping up Joey's notebooks or hiding his bike so Joey spent half an hour after school searching for it (praying it hadn't been stolen, Mom couldn't afford a new one, she had made that clear) and a hundred other things that irritated and infuriated Joey Balder.
There was a lot of pain that Joey owed Marc and nothing brought on Joey's dark moods better than Marc did. But unlike other boys who had their mood swings and irrationalities, Joey kept his hidden, never acting them out, never exposing them to people he knew. If they could see what he saw with his mind's eye, they would not only think him weird, strange or queer. They would think him evil.
When Marc didn't show up in school
the next day Joey started to wonder. He knew Marc wasn't sick, so he ruled that out. If Marc's parents cared a whit about their son they might have called Joey's parents last night asking if they or Joey knew where Marc was. They didn't and they hadn't.
By the end of the day Joey had made up his mind and he found himself stopping in front of the creepy old green house on his way home.
Despite Marc's accusations of
being afraid, Joey had no fear of the house or of what was secreted behind its doors, windows and walls. The shade of the trees might have made things gloomy, but it was cool and inviting all the same. The old wooden steps and the boards of the porch were soft and gave slightly even under Joey's meager weight.
The front door had an oval window
set into it. Standing on the tips of his toes, Joey could see the living room. It was dark, unoccupied and looked homey, broken in. There was nothing fancy or exorbitant about the furnishings.
He raised his hand to knock on the door but hesitated. He knew there was no one home. The house was lifeless.
A voice at the back of his head
said, But not empty.
Joey turned and stopped. Standing on the walk was a man, his age thirtysomething, his hair brown and neat. The man was dressed well, looking many times better than his house did. Joey could see that there was something in the man's eyes that made him--different. Joey liked that because it made the man different just like Joey himself was.
"Please don't go," the man said. He closed the distance between them, ascending the steps of the porch, moving with a gliding step. "At least not yet. You came for a purpose and now I'm here."
The man moved past Joey and
opened the door. It hadn't been locked and swung open invitingly.
"Besides," the man said as he
motioned Joey in. "I've got a full pitcher of lemonade in the refrigerator and it would be nice to have someone to share it with." The man continued on through the living room and into the kitchen.
"Did you have lemonade yesterday?"
Joey asked as he stood in the living room. He looked about him at the room. There were plants by the windows and a large Magnavox television set in one corner of the room. The house was cool, even on this warm August day and the windows were open.
"You mean when your friend stopped
by?" came the reply. The man was in the kitchen now and the sound of the refrigerator being opened and the glass pitcher being removed came to Joey's ears.
"Yes," Joey responded. He moved towards the kitchen. In there the man was pouring lemonade into two tall glasses, the sides of the pitcher were beginning sweat with condensation.
"I had lemonade and we both drank some before getting down to business." The man handed Joey a glass, which Joey took but did not drink from. He waited for the man to drink.
"What did you do with him?" Joey asked. "I'm curious."
The man put the pitcher back in the refrigerator and retrieved his glass. He took a long drink that drained half of the glass, his eyes never leaving Joey's face as he did so. Obliged, Joey drank with a slow deliberance, the sweet, cool liquid tingling its way down to his stomach.
"You're not anything more than
curious?" the man asked. "Would you be outraged if I did something to him? If, say, I was some kind of pervert or serial killer?"
Joey shook his head. "No, not really. You forgot homicidal, but then, you really don't look it."
The man regarded Joey through
narrowed eyes. "Then again, my dear lad, you don't look it, either. But you do look the serial type."
"As do you," Joey said in a low voice. "And you look other things as well."
"Do tell."
"You look like the kind of person
who would pick up boy prostitutes off the streets of major cities," Joey said, keeping his eyes locked on the man. It was a contest the two of them waged, neither one willing to let his guard down.
"You look like the boy prostitute
searching for a trick," the man replied, a bemused smile playing at the corners of his lips. "We are getting along quite famously, I must say. Especially considering the fact that we only met five minutes ago. By the way, I'm Woodward. Woodward Carlson at your service," he held out his hand to Joey. "And you would be?"
"Joseph Jeremy Balder," Joey replied, shaking the proffered hand. "But just call me Joey, never Joe."
"Well, Joey Balder, please never call me Woody and I will never call you Joe. Now then, just how interested are you in finding your little friend, Marc McClure?"
"I wouldn't call him my friend,"
Joey said. "Though someday I might call him my victim."
Woodward put down his glass of lemonade on the kitchen counter and took Joey's face in his hands. The fingers that had curled around the glass were cold and wet on Joey's cheek. Joey stared into Woodward's eyes even as Woodward stared into his.
"You definitely have the look in your eyes," Woodward said, a grin tinged with malevolence twitching his lips. "But it is not the look of a simple child prostitute. No, it is much more. Be assured that that foolish boy who came here yesterday didn't have it in his eyes. Come now and I will show what has become of Marc McClure."
Releasing Joey's face the man
led the way to a basement door and then down it into the dark.
What Joey saw when Woodward flicked a switch and dim light seeped into the room was a row of display cases that ran along the walls of the basement. There were many rooms down there, just as there were up above in the house proper. There were no doors and whereever there might have once been wall space was now covered by the display cases.
In the newest case was Marc and the sight of him halted Joey in his tracks. It was not the fact that Marc was obviously dead that halted Joey, it was the way Marc looked. Marc looked exactly the same as Joey's inner eye had envisioned him. The light that shone from the floor of the case was dim, casting only weak brushings of light on Marc's face. He was dressed completely in black, even his hands were gloved in some kind of material that essentially ate the light.
There was only the pale face to look at and it drew Joey's attention. He stepped closed to Marc's case and looked up at the eyes. There were lumps of coal in his eyes, just as there had been in Joey's visions.
"These are eyes that do not
see," Joey whispered.
"Do you like it?" Woodward asked,
his voice low, matching Joey's own.
"How did you know?" Joey asked,
casting his eyes back at Woodward.
"Hmm?"
"How did you know what it was that I envisioned? This is exactly how I thought of Marc yesterday when he pissed me off and now this is how I see him. Did you read my mind?"
"No, Joey Balder, but you may have sent me the thought. As I said, you have the look. You have the look of one who does not share his innermost mind with others because he does not want them to discover what it is that he hides deep inside. You hide a disquieting desire, a disturbing penchant to want to do--unsavory, unholy things to people. Not just because they upset you, but because you think it would be--beautiful. Come, let me show you some of the others."
Woodward put an arm around Joey's
shoulders and led him about the rooms.
"This is one of my greatest masterpieces," Woodward said, pride in his voice. He motioned to
one of the display cases and the boy within.
Joey was awed by what he saw. The body of the boy was covered from head to toe in shining safety pins. The pins were of differing sizes, from small to medium to large. Woodward had made numerous patterns from the placement and sizes of the pins.
"Yes," Woodward said to Joey's
unasked question. "He was alive through most of it. But I had
paralyzed his motor movements. The drug I used eventually paralyzed his respiratory functions as well. The look in his eyes as I placed the pins was--exquisite. I've been thinking of doing a similar project, just to recapture the feel and the emotions of doing this one."
Joey looked at the boy in the display case again. There was not a single area of exposed flesh on him, even the buttocks and groin, as well as the organs of the groin, were covered and gleaming, casting out thousands of shining stars as the light of the case was reflected off of the polished surfaces of the safety pins. Only the eyes were spared and they were open, their glassy, dull surfaces looking at nothing.
More of the safety pins formed
daisies of the nipples, aligned in a neat pinwheel. Around the navel were concentric circles of pins, staggered between large and small, forming a starburst. Rows of the pins marched up and down the sides, some of the rows slanted, others vertical instead of horizontal. Joey found that it was hard to tear his eyes away from the symmetry. If Woodward had not been there to guide him along he could have spent hours following the courses of the pins over the flesh.
Joey and Woodward continued their tour of the basement. In one case was a pregnant woman, her belly cut open to expose the womb and the baby within. Another held the skins of dozens of faces, no eyes or sockets but only flesh that had been cured and stretched wide with hooks and chains, tufts of stiff hair crowning the masks.
There were a series of bodies given the heads and characteristics of animals. One man bore the
head of a stag, complete with horns. Soft fur extended down to the chest and the legs, and the area from the thigh on down had been replaced with those of the stag as well. The next was a small boy, no more than two or three, who had the face of a woeful-eyed puppy and paws for hands and feet. Joey looked closer and found the tail grafted to the boy's coccyx just above the top of the buttocks.
Next was a woman's body, her age in the late thirties or early forties with the head of a hyena, the mouth gaping and the eyes gleaming as if in laughter. It seemed to laugh at its own aged and sagging body as well as the pale complexion of the skin.
"She really looked like that before I made the changes," Woodward said. "It was amazing. If I were to put her real head back on you couldn't tell the difference."
Joey suppressed a laugh at the
thought.
In another case was a human pin cushion with pins of all sizes sticking from his flesh. He had been in his late teens or early twenties when Woodward had done this. Slender needles protruded from the man's eyes. Lines of needles traced the jaw and cheek bones. The mouth was zippered shut with them. Along the body Woodward had used acupuncture needles, following the ancient practice of the Chinese healing art. At the man's feet were charts that proved Woodward's accuracy in placing the needles.
"By the time I stopped his heart,
he was feeling no pain and his body was completely paralyzed. I didn't have to use any poison or drugs, either. A needle placed in the right spot between the vertebrae of the neck kept him completely motionless." Woodward rubbed the back of Joey's neck, tracing his spine and the bumps of vertebrae. A thrill rushed through Joey's body at the touch. It was a thrill that combined both fear and an ecstatic desire to learn the same artistic techniques.
They continued onwards on their tour. Woodward had switched body parts on some of his subjects, putting legs in the shoulder sockets, growing a foot from an ear. One display offered a view of only buttocks for a body and pairs of legs growing from both top and bottom.
The next case held two faces that had been spliced together. There were different eyes, cheek
bones, ears, hair, nose, lips and teeth for each half of the face. The confusion of both halves showed in the eyes.
One case held the heads of dead babies, their eyes and mouths sewn shut, the needles and threads still dangling from the corners of their eyes and mouths.
Another held only hands, complete
with their rings and disfigurements. The hands were taken from babies, children, adults and octogenarians. Some of the fingers were long, others were short and stubby. The hands of the arthritic were swollen or permanently bent at an angle.
The case that Woodward and Joey
finished at held the body of a young child, no more than eight or ten. His hair fair and shaped in natural curls that cascaded down his neck and framed his face. He was held suspended by two spikes that protruded from his chest, having pierced the lungs. Dried and caked blood formed rivulets down the body, making small tributaries into the little groin and spreading into a webwork of lines all around the legs and feet. At the bottom of the case was more of the dry blood, formed into conical mounds beneath the toes where the blood had continued to drip for hours on end until the source had dried up. The gentle curve of the boy's lips were flecked with the dried blood as well and spots of it had dripped onto his chest. A finger had stirred the blood that had dripped to the chest and written a single word with it: Love.
"You loved them all, didn't you?" Joey asked, looking up into Woodward's eyes.
Woodward nodded slowly. "I did and I do to this day. This child most of all. He came from an abusive home. His father was a violent drunk and his mother had grown fat from alcohol and smoking. She had a voice that croaked like a sick frog. The boy wasn't happy at home. He would wander into my yard from time to time and I would play with him. At first I had no thought of making him part of my collection. But in time I learned his secrets and his deep despair. How is it that one so young could have been so hopeless?
"I showed him my collection one day, it was a great risk. But he admired what I had done and a resolution filled his eyes. He asked me, 'Will you put me in your collection some day?' I was flabbergasted, not by the question, but by the tone of his voice. He wanted to be put here. Do you understand what I mean?"
Joey nodded his response to his new-found friend. "I've felt the same some times. But I change as the moods change. I don't want to be part of your collection, Woodward, but I will help you add to it."
Woodward stepped behind Joey and started massaging the boy's neck and shoulders in a tender way. "I will make you my apprentice, Joseph Jeremy Balder, and you shall do the hunting for me. You can read the eyes and faces of others and you will know who it is that should come into our collection."
"Where did you learn all of this?" Joey asked. He was relaxed, letting himself be handled by
Woodward's expert hands as the man continued to massage his back and neck. It was the most affectionate thing that Joey had experienced in years and a new place opened in his heart for this man who understood him, liked him, and who shared with Joey his secrets.
"I learned it from some friends
in Baltimore," Woodward said, bringing his face closer to Joey's, his lips tickling the back of Joey's left ear. "They are the masters of this art, to whom I am still a mere neophant. They have been in existence longer than the civilizations of man. They call themselves the Exotics and someday I will return to Baltimore and complete my learning from them. I will take you with me when I go."
"I would like that," Joey said in a dreamy voice. He was already thinking of the things that he would soon be doing. The visions and will of his mind's eye would become reality and he would finally find purpose, direction and fulfillment in his life.
"First answer me this question, do you know what Times Square is in New York?" Woodward's lips were still close to Joey's ear, the moist, warm breath tickling Joey.
"Yes," Joey said.
"What do you find in Times Square?"
"Flesh," was Joey's immediate
response.
"Elucidate."
"Flesh of every age, shape and gender. Flesh for sale, flesh for eating, flesh for viewing and flesh for the canvas of art. Boys and girls of all ages and ethnicity. Men and women of the same, their faces and ages varying. Flesh that has been unsexed by the hands of man, or by careful deception."
"Very, very good, Joey. Now close your eyes and look with your mind's eye and tell me, do you see their faces?"
Joey did as he was instructed
and he cast out into the darkness with his mind's eye until he found the scene of central Manhattan, calling up everything that he had seen, heard and read about it. He nodded as he recognized the arcades and shining facades of Times Square and the grit that lay beneath the neon and the rage and absolute despair hid there as well. He felt also the desire, the need and the emotional bubble that expanded, threatening to burst. This was New York and the faces that hid these qualities and emotions came to Joey.
"I see them," Joey said in a harsh whisper. "I see them."
"Very good, Joey. You've passed one of my little tests. When we come back from Baltimore we'll swing through New York and Times Square and there I will give you some special education. Have you ever killed anyone, Joey?"
Joey gave a slow shake of his
head.
"You've never put your hands around someone's neck and squeezed?" Woodward asked. He demonstrated now as he put his hands around Joey's neck and tightened their grip for a moment. Joey gasped and felt his body sing to life as the fear raced into his veins along with the vibrant rush of adrenaline.
"Well," Woodward continued,
loosening his grip and sliding his hands down Joey's chest until they came to rest, one hand on Joey's belly and the other resting ever so lightly over Joey's groin. "In Times Square we'll find you a whore about your age and size, boy or girl, it's your choice. And when the two of you are alone, flesh on flesh and your breath is caressing each other's cheeks, then you will put your hands around their throats and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until they're dead and the trust they gave you and the affection that they gave you is betrayed. But it won't actually be betrayal, it will be your exotic love."
Joey felt his prick become thick
and start to stiffen between his legs. He bit down on his lip to
keep the visions of ecstasy at bay. That night he would experience one of the most explosive wet dreams he had ever known during his short journey through puberty.
"And afterwards we'll go to the Golden Cup," Woodward continued, his hands stroking Joey. "That's where all the prostitutes, especially the child prostitutes, hang out and we'll window shop for our next exotic tryst."
Then the lips grazed the back
of Joey's neck as Woodward kissed him and Joey's body shivered at the caress.
He knew that from this day on his moods and his visions had finally found a release, a way to be expressed.
But that didn't mean he trusted
Woodward Carlson. Oh, no, not at all. Joey would always be
on his toes with his teacher and mentor. Even if Woodward became
lover, that still would not gain Joey's trust.
As they stood there, Woodward with his arms around Joey, his hands stroking ever so gently over the boy's body and Joey leaning into the touch, surrendering a small part of himself to the man, they both thought the same thing.
Don't ever turn your back on
me, or I'll put you on display.