Body of Immorality (34 page)

*

After the morning of April 17
^th
—when he saw her in the hallway—he performed the ritual: tune out the rest of the world, heavily imbibe. He’d been drinking from morning until night for days now. The carpet moved in watery motions to his thoughts, a swirling vortex, like a whirlpool of blood. Was the apartment about to capsize, or was that the carpet making tempestuous waves? Funny how drinking made him feel he was on the ocean. Richard chuckled at the irony.

Already, he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten or taken a shower. The bathroom was off limits anyway.

No trespassing,
Richard thought.
Danger Zone.

He was lucky he wasn’t living on the streets.

That will come soon enough,
he thought.

Richard opened his red-rimmed eyes. Alcohol oozed pungently from his skin. His veins opened wide, making his blood run faster.

The room shifted again. Half of the apartment rose violently upward while the other dropped hellishly low. The beige carpet (now blood) swirled under him like a whirlpool.

Any minute now,
he thought.
This is what we’re waiting for. To drown in the living sea.

Mr. Fyuesterman would stop by before long, wondering why he hadn’t paid the rent. He’d been through all this before with other apartments, other landlords, the eviction notice taped to the door demanding he vacate the premises.

I will see you on the street, my lady,
Richard thought, and giggled. He laughed so hard, he tipped to the side. He clutched the bottle, righted himself, and took a drink.

The cubicle at work, where he took calls for Axes Company customs, was also a thing of the past. Had they tried to get a hold of him? Didn’t he have a paycheck waiting for him still?

He couldn’t get to the door even if he wanted. It didn’t matter. He had only enough strength to tip the bottle back, so that was what he did.

Just the remedy, doctor, when I can lie flat on my back. Will you take me to the liquor store?

Quality meant nothing. He couldn’t afford it. Going cheap always lasted longer.

Put those things in a great big box and get me a carton a’ smokes, will ya?

The cure for his derangement, the gift he sought in the eternal round of fate, a simple chemical to abate his torture…

People are affected differently by the same thing,
he thought.
My happiness is otherwise unobtainable.

He was thankful for small miracles: a few more bottles, the blackness of sleep…

Strength to live. Bring me wealth and fame. Take my troubles away. I always wanted to be a…a baseball player.

Richard smiled, toasted his newfound obsessions, and lifted the bottle to his lips.

*

The demon came with reckless abandon. Trauma often followed the drunken haze. Was that what they meant by withdrawals? Why
was
he drinking again? Was it simply addiction, or was there another reason? It was hard to tell anymore. Not that he worried about it. A few simple meetings would cure him.

“Hello, my name is Richard Korbett, and I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hello, Richard!”

He fell through eons of space. He wondered if
she
were in the background (she and the beast) waiting for him to fall. Was she smiling?

A snap went off in his brain when he went back to his old self. She forced the door open, prying it from its hinges. Sometimes, she came with ease. When he managed to put his life back together—when he managed to salvage the miracle of priority, responsibility, and care—she materialized again. It was as if she didn’t want him to get comfortable in his daily, normal routine. When he started dating again, she beckoned from the shadows, her smile stretching wide—revealing maimed bloody teeth—beyond the crypt in his brain.

I am always here, Richard,
she seemed to say.
I’m not going away.

She had control. Yes, the puppet again. He loved and despised her at the same time. She tormented thoughts and spirit. Then, when she’d had enough, she went away long enough for him to put his life together again. When he grew comfortable in his routine, she appeared. It was a vicious cycle.

He knew life (in a manner of speaking) was over. Work wasn’t an option. Taking showers, too, was pointless. In order to withstand the trauma, he
had
to drink. In drink, he could withstand anything.

Ah,
he thought.
Private isolation. The unending supply to obtain oblivion.

He didn’t have to travel far. World gone. Forever. He took the phone off the hook, not that he had to worry. He hadn’t friends or family he could call.

During his stupor, he often looked over, seeing the boxes of whiskey, still full. The sight gave him reassurance. He could relax knowing all those bottles were waiting for him still. His concern was
not
to run out of alcohol.

No screams from my childhood. No daggers in my brain.

A reptilian monster with radiation under its scales crept across the carpet. It crawled into Richard’s skin and made a home in his bowels. The beast raped him from the inside out. After a time, it moved
outside
his body and physically abused him.

A dried urine stain patched the rug beside to him. A splash of vomit crusted the couch. Discharge had hardened on a pair of sweats lying in the corner of the living room. He was too drunk to worry about any of these things now. He was merely helping the beast gain power.

The smell, however (with the windows closed) was an entity itself. It grew sharp, virtually tangible like the beast.

He didn’t care. He basked in the glory of midnight catatonia.

“Give me my medicine!” Richard hollered, and laughed.

It was a love affair, and he savored every second.

Go sun! Run behind the clouds! Darkness here and nothing more.

He’d made the decision. Drink was magic. Life had granted something he could rely on.

What laughter?
he thought.

He didn’t dream of building kingdoms. Life wasn’t that precious. His claims to beauty had turned to dust.

My blood is spilling all over the place. It has never been so much
outside
of me.

“To Oblivion,” Richard said, and raised the bottle, back against the entertainment center.

His savage experiences washed away in the living sea…

*

From the front door, a ceaseless knock startled him, rousing him from his fever. Richard jerked bolt upright and opened his tired eyes.

“Mr. Korbett!” Mr. Fyuesterman shouted from the hallway. “Mr. Korbett, are you
in
there? The rent is past due, Mr. Korbett! You’re several weeks late, you know?”

Did he? Wow! Several weeks! This had already gone on longer than he’d thought.

But he couldn’t get up from the floor! How was he
supposed
to pay his rent? Richard leaned over, giggling at the thought.

“Mr. Korbett!” Mr. Fyuesterman went on. “I’ll have to put an eviction notice on your door if I don’t hear from you by the end of the week! The sheriff will stop by inevitably, Mr. Korbett!”

Like the sea,
he thought.
Inevitable. Like the sea.

The current pushed him under. It, too, had a ceaseless rhythm.

Mr. Fyuesterman made several more attempts before giving up (at least for the moment).

Richard raised the bottle, nodded, and toasted Mr. Fyuesterman.

*

It was ridiculous, laughable even, the way it all began…

He’d gone to the bathroom after his mother demanded he take a shower. She was a giant rolling pin with arms and legs threatening to crush him, brown eyes furrowed in a declivity of anger. The sight of her alone made him tremble with fear.

When he looked back (a man in his mid-forties), Richard couldn’t help but laugh when he thought about it. Mother was nothing compared to
her.

Oh, momma, what I could do to you now. You were really nothing, momma.

What boy did
not
have it hard, he thought?

(Many,
he thought, thirty-eight years later.
Many have it pretty damn good.)

But not you, Richard, my little lamb.

Wendall Talbott, Richard’s best friend in the third grade, owned an uncanny ability to tell stories. Richard had been easily influenced. Wendall held power to mesmerize. He retold stories he’d heard or seen on television, adding flair to make them more compelling, more horrifying, or entertaining: storylines from old movies, stories he’d read in comic books.

Wendall’s older sister, April, had been babysitting him the night his parents had gone to see
Psycho.
Wendall waited all night for his mom and dad to come home, hoping to hear bits and pieces of the movie through his bedroom door. Everyone was talking about
Psycho,
it seemed.

Wendall was lucky to be awake, he told Richard, when his parents came home. He beamed, listening to them as they stood in the hallway. Wendall had kept his ear pressed to his bedroom door. As luck would have it, they were still talking about the movie when they came home:

“Don’t take a shower, honey,” Wendall’s mother said. “You don’t know
who
might be in there.”

“No more scary movies for
you,”
his dad said.

“Knifed her to death,” his mother continued. “Dug up his own mother just to have her near. What a fruit-cake.”

“You mean, psycho.”

“Gruesome. Then dressing up in his mother’s
clothes...”

“Gives me a few ideas.”

Wendall’s mother giggled.

He asked his parents about the movie later, but they were reluctant and overprotective. He was too young, they’d said.

Wendall could imagine worse anyway.

He divulged the story to Richard the following Monday at school, making up a different plot, and embellishing the scene in the shower. They were in the library at school.

At the desk, Miss Mitt, a pencil-shaped librarian, drummed her fingers along the counter, looking at the boys with disapproval. Miss Mitt peered over silver-framed spectacles, gray hair tied back in a painful-looking bun. Miss Mitt reminded Richard of an underfed vulture.

The boys ignored her. Richard listened to Wendall’s story with rapt attention. The movie unfolded brilliantly in his mind. The way Wendall related the tale, Richard couldn’t imagine the movie being any better.

(Years later, he told himself, it couldn’t have been that simple. He never pictured Norman Bates dressed as a woman. What he saw was something worse. Maybe he hadn’t heard Wendall correctly?)

It stayed with him over the years. He remembered the posters advertising
Psycho.
Bloody bathroom scenes came to life in his mind, a lunatic woman holding a knife.

He had no explanation for why his imagination had gotten the best of him. All he knew was how unnatural it felt.

He was eight-years-old when Wendall told him about
Psycho.
For two years afterwards, whenever he stepped into the shower, the lights dimmed. The bathroom turned into a stage of horrors.

He imagined worse already…

It’s just your imagination,
he thought at the time.
You know that. It’s not real. Her holding the knife isn’t real. It’s just a picture to scare you.

When he shut his eyes to wash his hair, however, it
was
worse. He saw almost
too
well! Damn Wendall!

All he had to do was close his eyes.
Knowing
he had to close his eyes (because the shampoo would sting them if he didn’t) terrified him. The horror materialized with more power behind his lids. The shower—as a boy—was the worst place to be.

Richard anticipated ablutions with horror. Wendall’s story had become an entity.

At eight-years-old, his life began to unravel. But when he was ten, the real horror began…

*

He was running around the bases after classes let out. It was a beautiful, warm day in May. He was ten-years-old now. Wendall’s tale had softened over two years, but Richard thought of it often. It was more a fading dream—the monster standing in the shower. In all actuality, it was biding its time, growing more intense as the years went by without him knowing.

It isn’t real,
Richard told himself.

No time for batting cages. Today was the day his life took an inevitable, dark turn. Today, she wasn’t just a thought, a vision. Today, she came to life…

Crazy like a fox,
he thought.
Black love like death, love.

Two girls carrying schoolbooks giggled at Richard from the behind the backstop, but he wasn’t paying attention. He had a game to win, a
series!
He was batting for the championship! The day was perfect for it. One of the reasons he was here now. The grass was lush and green in the outfield, the sky a perfect blue. Large clouds floated lazily by.

“Korbett steps up to the plate,” he said, spitting onto his palms. He rubbed his hands together and grabbed an imaginary bat. “
Here
comes the pitch! Korbett swings! It’s a deep fly ball to center field! It’s
back-back-back!
Holy
cow!
It’s
outta
here!”

He trotted around the bases, putting his hands to his mouth. He made loud, cheering noises from an imaginary, jam-packed stadium.

“Korbett has
won
the game! Richard Korbett puts game seven in the palm of his hand, and the Dodgers
win
the series! Can. You. Beeee-lieve it?”

Richard didn’t trot across home plate. He
slid.
He was an original. He’d been sliding into every base (including first) since school had let out that day. He’d worn his only pair of white pants. The pants reminded him of the white pants baseball players wore, and that’s why he was here now with the girls laughing at him and the entire city of Los Angeles (even though he was in Colorado, and they didn’t have a major league team then, and his father had always been a Dodgers fan) going crazy!

His clothes were filthy. Streaks of dust and dirt covered his face. His dark hair had lost its shine. The girls behind the fence still laughed and giggled, making fun of him, but Richard ignored them.