Desert

         

        “Dead men tell no tales. Seeing the gallows from my cell, I tell you friend, that I don’t want my tale to die with me. Transferred me into town, all special like, fo’ the execution. That’s what really drives it home. What’re you in for?”

        “Robbin’ an old lady”

       “Well ain’t that somethin’. Lemme tell you a story.”

        I was born in south ‘Bama, never in my whole life got a lick more than what I had when I was born. I still have the skin on my back, but don’t still have that redemption baptism once promised me. Damn shame if you ask me. I never asked Jesus to absolve me of sin but for one time in my whole life; though I don’t think he ever thought too highly of me anyway.

    

     Gave the whole religion gig up once I hit the road with Clis, though. There was somethin’ of the devil in her; son; you best watch the company you keep. I was born  clean and learned from that woman how to make a mess of trouble, and boy did I live up to my name.

        “Which is?”

        “I’m getting there. You youngin’s are so impatient”

        “And you can’t be a day over twenty-five”

       “Age ain’t nothin’ but a number, if you measure it right. I’ve seen a few things, most definitely. So keep quiet and listen.”

      Pops left as soon as it was clear that Mom was eating for two. I suppose it was for the better; he woulda beat her to death eventually, seeing as he already whooped her something fierce every now and then before she got pregnant. Auntie told me that when she met him she immediately knew he had a temper. But she loved him anyway, because he had his good days, and some people have personalities that just love to be abused. So I know where it comes from when I let Clis walk all over me. But I’ll get to that. Karma grabbed my Pa up by the scruff of his neck, and his truck got into an accident the day I was born. Left him comatose ‘till the day he died, two whole years later. All I’ve ever known of him personally was him being that vegetable, and I s’pose it’s better that way.

        Admittedly Mum didn’t fare much better, fat lot of good that losing that bastard did her. She still loved him, abusive as he was. She wasn’t the same after he left, but she managed to eke out seven years as a loving mother before she succumbed to a heart defect. I’ll always remember the look on her face, gape mouthed, lettin’ the stew just slop out of her mouth. But I also remember goin’ to the park with her, as a single mother struggling to make ends meet she’d still whip up a miracle every Thanksgiving. She was the only one in my life to show me love other than that devil herself, and I just stared at her, sitting there gape mouthed with the stew, beef and carrots, just spillin’ outta her mouth.

       After that I stayed with the only other family I had, my dad’s brother Charles and his wife Maureen. All the way in Walapai, Arizona. Not a pleasant change from the humid south. Something about the weather, threw off my equilibrium. The air is just so arid here. Some days you walk outside and it’s like you just bumped into the devil because the sun is the fire, and you just stepped into hell. Somethin’ about it just threw me off. They had a son and a daughter, one and three years older than me respectively. And yes, we didn’t go to church. The papers got that much right, and if they want to blame my mostly heathen upbringin’ that’s mostly fine by me.

        But I want you to know that what happened isn’t all like what the papers’ve said. They always want to make monsters out of men and men out of monsters. I'm sure you read ‘em 'fore you ended up in this cell block. First off, I didn’t start all of this, and Clarissa and I were never lovers. They got a few things right tho'. Bitch influenced me, oh yes; and yes, I did leave her in the desert to die. She deserved it as much as I deserve it now, and I don’t feel the least bit sorry. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for her. But you know, I don’t s’pose I bear her any ill-will. Those kinds of feelings don’t serve folks well where I am now.

       But I'll get to that soon 'nuff. Auntie, at her best, coulda been called indifferent towards the children in that house. But that'd be leaving out a heckuva lot that she did. Occasionally a fit would take itself upon her and she’d beat us, usually me or Clarissa; worse even was that she ignored us. She ignored what Charles did to Clarissa, and so I to this day believe that she brought what came upon herself. Every night that she let Charles creak open that pink door, drunk to high heaven, she let Clarissa die a little inside. Auntie knew, of course she knew, we all knew. Clarissa knew we knew. So the Elvis posters came down, and Jimmie went up instead. She'd always say "he knew how to live, and he knew when to die. We should all be so lucky."By age 16 she was colder than I knew it was possible for a woman to be.

       I did love her; though not in the way the papers have claimed it. But I never agreed with the way she burnt them both in that bed. Side by side, Auntie Maureen and Uncle Charles were doused in gasoline and set alight. I had known it was coming. Clarissa would talk to me about everything because she couldn’t talk to her brother, and Maureen wouldn’t listen. She told me how she hated him, and how hell wasn’t good enough for him. She’d do it herself. And so when she told me it was time to ago, amid the noxious smoke, I knew. Y’all might wonder why that was the most immediate thought in my mind, but the smile she had on her face spoke volumes.

       It didn’t go so well with Ben. Outside I told him that Moms and Pops didn’t make it, and the little fucker wouldn’t stop screaming. I was all out of parental figures, and Clarissa had a lot to think about. We just needed some silence to be able to think. And the little fucker wouldn’t stop wailing about “Mommy this” and “Daddy that.” He didn’t go easily, but even a year younger I was stronger than him. The more he struggled the tighter I clamped my hand over his face. I don’t know when Clarissa started to help me hold his arms down, and I she made sure I didn’t let go once the muffled screaming stopped. I do know that we smothered him dead right then and there, and that she and I took the Chevy and drove all night. She was stronger than I was, for sure, and I admired that hardness. God I wish I had just stayed with that burning house. But I didn’t, so there was no looking back; and quite the scorch would blaze in our wake.

     We sat in that first motel room, the first of countless, and we thought about what we’d done. There really wasn’t any turning back now, we were both as guilty as sin. Or so she told me. I swear I woulda gone back, blamed it all on her, let fate and the legal system take me where it would. But there she was, like a poison drippin’ in my ear. Worst part ‘bout it was that the way she said it was that if there’s no turning back, why not push forward? It was just so convincing, coming from those candy lips, that one more life wasn’t any more damning than the three that ‘we’ already took. I remember how she included her parents as being part my doing, and I let that feeling seep in.Once that happened, I don’t think anything short of death could’ve stopped us. We already were going to hell, so why not have a little fun on the way?

    There was a shop clerk who Clis (as she went by now) shot for giving her a funny look. Or the gas attendant I stabbed for asking me to put out my cigarette. We made money by stealing and from odd jobs; Clis would strut on street corners and rob any john who let her into their car. Those didn’t always go so well, and I know she killed at least a few. But after our faces ended up in the papers, she couldn’t risk putting herself out there like that anymore. We never stayed anywhere more than a night, and didn’t speak to anyone whose throat we didn’t slit. Sounds like it’d be lonely, but she took care of me. I now called myself Sin, and sin we did.

      To say that Clarissa and I had a falling out would be to put it mildly. As much as it would be an understatement to say that I bottle my anger. Since it was just the two of us, she began to grow restless of our constant company. She would criticize everything, the way I talked, the way I dressed, the way I ate, the way that I sometimes didn’t want to live like this. We fought constantly. And so when I awoke with a .357 in my face, I thought I knew what was going to come next. I mean, when you’re living with the devil, it only takes but so long before he wants your soul. Hell, I don’t know why she did it; I just know what I did.

     Unluckily for her though, guns are more effective when farther away than arm’s length. It’s not hard to be taken aback when someone is brazen enough to grab a gun that’s in their face. I didn’t think I had much to lose. She shot me in the hand, and with my other fist I laid a few good licks into her nose. But I didn’t get the gun until I had knocked her out.  I don’t know what it must have felt like to wake up in a car trunk, but if her screams were any indication, I don’t want to find out. Something in me just doesn’t take too kindly to betrayal, and so I don’t think it was the least bit cruel what I did to her. Mostly though, I was mad at her for dragging me into all of this. And with her unconscious, without her sweet whisper to taint me, I knew exactly what I would do. Drove out to the desert, tied her up, and buried her throat deep in the sand. Took most of the night to dig the hole, it did. But watching the sunrise while the devil begs and cries? Well, that made it all worth it.

      Cops were waiting for me when I got back to the motel. Pigs took me by surprise soon as I stuck my key in the door. Talking ‘bout how they caught one of the devil’s twosome, or somesuch names the papers had given us. Call me Sin, I said; I didn’t want to be associated with Clarissa anymore. I didn’t want to be controlled by her anymore. So they roughed me up real good right there on the spot, to try to get me to tell them where Clis was. I couldn’t risk it, because I knew she wouldn’t be dead just yet.

      Should’ve took about two days in the Arizona sun. So I waited a week for good measure. I don’t know how to kill the Devil, but I gave it my best. Spit in the warden’s face and told him to check the desert. They’d only be sending one body home from the gallows, and none of them were too happy to hear I was trying to ruin their show.

     And so I waited. Trial was a month later. Judge took one look at me and wanted me hung. Said I didn’t seem to regret my actions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not glad to be here. Given a choice, would I do it again? Hell no. I do wish I hadn’t a killed all those people. I mean, I don’t figure I coulda changed my susceptible nature, but what little fun I had in letting Clis use my mind it is overshadowed by the damnation I’m ‘bout to meet in hell. If I coulda just not let that succubus’s voice get into my head, twistin’ my thoughts, maybe I woulda had a chance. But it’s still a stupid question, because I sure ain’t getting another shot at it.

      “So, do me a favor if you could? Tell people the way it really happened. Tell people that you met Sin himself and he told it to you. Sure they won’t believe you, but what’s history if not half myth and one quarter truth? Will you?”

     “What does a man with two penises say when his tailor asks if he dresses to the right or to the left?”

      “Son, that is possibly the strangest question I have ever heard.”

      “He says ‘yes’.”

© 2008 Eugene Aarons-Cooke