Nancy Goats (Delirium Novella Series) (3 page)

8. Barbequed Woody Woodpecker

From atop the stage of Leather Kitty, Daddy Pain performed, deconstructing friend, lover and stranger alike with the lyrics of a made up song that turned words into action. Anyone and everyone who’d been part of Paco’s life, who’d made him who he’d become, was transforming into something twisted and ruined. Paco’s friends and lovers from West Hollywood had formed a line along with members of his family and neighbors from Idaho, favorite TV stars, comic book heroes and others he’d barely seen but who had somehow made an imprint upon his psyche. The line snaked out the door and around the corner to where the man was offering work for laptops.

One after another and another, they approached, bowed and embraced Daddy Pain, allowing him to twist their humanity away.

One after the other, they gave them their necks, or their wrists, or their ankles, and clapped gleefully as he snap-crackle-popped them through his special brand of salvation.

Once Paco realized what he’d done, he shrieked for them to run, but his voice went unheard beneath the sudden staccato rap of Eminem pretending to be Stan pretending to be Eminem at 200 decibels from forty seven man high speakers shaped like magenta neon cocks, pulsating in rhythm to the backbeat. Paco couldn’t understand why they were willingly sacrificing themselves. He couldn’t understand why they allowed themselves to be changed and refused to fight against the evilness known as Daddy Pain.

Woody Woodpecker from his Saturday morning cartoons came next in line and giggled his trademark laugh as Daddy Pain wrung his neck. Then the body was passed from arm to arm until it reached the rest of Family Pain. In no time, Panther Joey and Dudes 1 and 2 plucked away the feathers. Randy used a chainsaw to slice upon the stomach. Tiny wolves swung down from entrails and scampered to safety. These were ignored as Dudes 1 and 2 used what remained of the intestines to play a game of Cat’s Cradle. Soon Brett had what was left of Woody roasting on a spit above a raging fire, fueled by a hundred Donna Karan, Armani and Stefani knockoffs.

And as Paco’s Mother and Father stripped off their clothes and began to wrestle naked beside Daddy Pain, another line began to form as B.J. handed out plates and bibs, to all those eager to consume BBQ’d woodpecker. Then the creature lifted up his head and stared Paco in the eyes as it offered its trademarked sing-song laugh, over and over and over again.

Paco woke with a silent scream, his throat too raw to break the cloying silence of the room. He lie shivering and soon fell into a deep sleep, where he dreamed of a little boy who liked to dress up as a girl, even after he was caught and beaten by his daddy.

“I don’t ever want to see you wearing this again!”

“But Daddy. I want to look pretty like Mommy.”

The white dress went into the burn barrel, the same barrel that ate his dolls and the family dog when it got hit by a delivery truck in the spring. The same barrel that would eat all of his best things over the years. Had his father known about the dress he kept in the basement, he would have burned that as well. But the little boy still managed to keep some things secret.

9. Trampoline Girl

He woke the next morning to the sounds of elastic springs going
boing
,
boing
,
boing
. He moved to sit up but a bolt of lightning arched from his left shoulder. He lay back and panted, hearing the same sound over and over. He finally determined it was coming from outside at about the same time he noticed that his shoulder had been bandaged and his left arm had been taped to his chest to keep the shoulder immobile. He’d had the procedure done before and knew that it was in his best interests not to fight it. Still, he hated the feeling of forced immobility. It was the next thing worse to claustrophobia.

He let the dreamy cobwebs frizzle from his mind until the need to go to the bathroom became too much. With gargantuan effort, he sat up and trundled through the maze of cots to the hole. Using his right hand, he relieved himself, then returned to his cot.

The
boing, boing, boing
sounds disappeared.

He licked his lips. He wasn’t hungry, but he wanted some water.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Anyone here?”

The room was silent for a moment before he heard a muffled, “No.”

“Who is that…Lily?”

“No, it’s Tiki,” said a voice with a French accent.

“Hi. We haven’t met. I’m Paco.”

“I know.” There was silence for a moment. “You’re new.”

“Where’s B.J.?” he asked.

Paco received no response so he shuffled over to the other’s cot.

“Stay away,” Tiki said. “I don’t want anyone to touch me.”

Paco stopped, then backed up to his own cot and sat down again. “Are you hurt?”

“Does bear
sheet
on the woods?”

Paco laughed. “You mean shit
in
the woods?”

“Yes.
Sheet in
the woods.”

“How long have you been here?” Paco asked after awhile.

“I’ve heard you ask that before. You should really stop worrying about time. It is forever against you, Monsieur Le Poulet.”

“Sounds like you’ve given up.”

The comment earned him a grudging silence. He thought about asking another question just to keep the conversation going, but nothing came to mind, so instead he stood and walked to the door. He put his ear to it and listened for a moment before trying the knob. To his surprise it was unlocked.

He opened the door, half expecting Brett to be standing there with a baseball bat, but instead he was greeted with an empty hallway.

He heard the rustle of blankets behind him, but ignored them. If the others wanted to find out what he was doing then they’d have to follow him.

He tip-toed down the hall towards the dining room. When he was halfway there, the
boing, boing, boing
resumed. He halted like a deer in the middle of the woods who’d just heard a branch break. What
was
that sound?

It took him a few moments, but he finally started again. When he entered the dining room, he saw Panther Joey sitting at the head of the table in the seat usually reserved for Daddy Pain. The fighter was eating from an immense bowl of Fruit Loops.

“You missed breakfast,” he said.

“Can I have some water?”

Panther Joey glanced around to see if anyone else was watching, then gestured towards the sink with his spoon. “Help yourself. But no fucking around, okay?”

Paco nodded, keeping his eyes on the other’s short face, his boxer’s nose, and his deep set eyes.

“And don’t think of running. This house is locked up tighter than a nun’s snatch. Nothing getting in or out unless Daddy Pain says so.”

“Thank you.”

Instead of responding, Panther Joey attacked his food, his concentration focused on the end of his spoon.

Paco went to the sink. He considered grabbing one of the plastic glasses in the drainer sitting on the counter, but he didn’t want to get in trouble. So he leaned under the faucet and let the water flow over his sandpaper-dry tongue.

When he was satiated, he wiped his mouth and turned towards the floor-to-ceiling window on the other side of the dinner table. The light seeped in from beneath the heavy black velvet curtain. The sounds, whatever they were, had to be coming from the back yard.

“What is that noise?” Paco asked carefully.

“What noise?”

“Don’t you hear it? Sounds like a trampoline.”

Panther Joey looked first at Paco, then towards the window. A pained look was in his eyes.

“I don’t hear anything.”

How could he not hear that? Paco pointed towards the window. “Do you mean you don’t hear that?” The sound of the trampoline was as loud and as regular as a grandfather clock.

The pained look remained in Panther Joey’s eyes.

“You do hear it, don’t you?” Paco shook his head. “Why won’t you admit it.”

“It’s not what you think,” Panther Joey said, swirling the multicolored loops in what remained of the milk.

“It sounds like a trampoline. Is it something different?”

“It’s…it’s…” Panther Joey seemed to come to an internal conclusion. He stared at Paco with flat eyes. “It’s something you should leave alone.”

“Oh.”

“I wouldn’t mention that you know about the trampoline to Daddy Pain, either.”

“Okay.” Paco stood beside the sink wondering what was wrong about the trampoline, but he just didn’t have enough information to form an opinion. The advice to keep it from Daddy Pain seemed sound, though. If Paco had the chance, he’d keep everything from the crazed MMA cult leader. “Where’s B.J.?”

Panther Joey stared at his spoon for a moment before he answered, “You’re full of a lot of questions today aren’t you, goat?”

Paco shrugged. “I was just wondering. I didn’t see him in there and the others don’t seem to know.”

He got only a stone-faced stare as a reply. Paco considered asking again, but knew he’d been understood. A slice of anger cut through his fear. He hated being treated like an object. This goat thing was going too far.

Panther Joey finished his cereal and took his bowl to the sink.

Paco took advantage of the moment, slipped into the living room and approached the sliding glass door. The constant
boing, boing, boing
was like poison ivy to his psyche and he just had to scratch it.

The back yard came into view as he neared the glass. Across a flagstone patio covered with expensive furniture was an expanse of manicured grass that sloped slightly upwards until it abruptly ended at the rock wall of a garden, which crept up the hill and out of sight. But a different object drew his attention and captured it. There, in the center of the back yard was a trampoline. A young blonde girl in a white sun dress jumped up and down to the metronomic sounds of
boing, boing, boing.
But there was something strange about the sight and it wasn’t until a few seconds had passed that Paco noticed that the fabric of the trampoline was flush with the ground, so that every time the girl descended, part of her lower body disappeared, hidden by the horizon of the lawn.

The image of the girl was so out of place and asynchronous in this crazy place that he stopped breathing as he watched. One moment she was staring into the sky, her arms out as if begging the sun to take her, and the next her body was piercing the earth like a drill rupturing the dirt over and over as she rose and fell.

“Who let you out of the room?” came a voice from behind him.

The spell broken, Paco spun only to catch a fist between the eyes. He bounced against the glass, then fell to the floor. His vision swayed as a carnival-version of Randy weeble-wobbled towards him. Then Paco realized that he was the one weeble-wobbling. A foot came up and knocked the lights out, but not before it hurt real bad.

10. Pain Management

The cycle of pain continued that afternoon as Brett rolled the floor with him. Paco let their momentum carry them as he was pressed into different positions, ever aware of the uselessness of his right arm, which was still bound to his chest with a length of Ace bandage. Although it was awkward, he went with the flow, allowing Brett the chance to show his father that he could exert power over a goat without the need to kill him. Still, it was an exercise in pain management, not to allow himself to be so entirely dominated that he was going to get another injury.

One thing Paco realized was that he was a better wrestler than Brett. Sure, the other knew Brazilian Jujitsu and some sort of kickboxing and clearly had the edge in those disciplines, but when it came to straight leverage and classic Western-style wrestling, Paco had a distinct advantage. And it was that advantage that allowed him to keep himself relatively safe.

Relatively.

It also helped that Paco had successfully broken the last two toes of Brett’s right foot the previous day. They were bandaged together to keep them from being flexed, but that didn’t stop Paco from
accidentally
brushing up against the black and purpled digits when he found himself in a jeopardized position.

That he was the lone goat in the room was a little unsettling. B.J. was nowhere to be found and the other goats remained hidden beneath their blankets. For whatever reason, Randy and Panther Joey had decided to take turns wrestling each other instead of one of their goats. Dudes 1 and 2 were nowhere to be found.

Paco supposed even goats needed a day off. The reason that Paco wasn’t given the same perk was probably a combination of Brett being in the doghouse with his father and having to fight his way out and Paco being the newest member of the goats, and therefore he hadn’t achieved the tenure of the others.

Still, he would have liked to see some of his fellow goats. Especially Tiki. Paco was a sucker for accents and couldn’t wait to see what exotic features were responsible for the lilting speech of the French-speaking goat.

Paco snapped back to the present as he suddenly found his right arm gathered into a chimera. The pressure on his bone went from slight to incredible in the blink of an eye. He bit his lip to keep from screaming and kicked out with his foot until he hit Brett’s broken toes.

Brett let go of the move and cursed as he got to his feet. He glanced around to make sure Daddy Pain wasn’t there, then went over to the wall and leaned against it. He stared back at Paco with a petulant gaze.

Paco wasn’t sure what to do. He was just laying there in the middle of the floor. Should he get up? Or would he get beat down for daring to stand? What about the others? Glancing at Randy and Panther Joey, he was surprised that none of them were making a move to wrestle with him. After a moment, Paco realized that there must be some unwritten rule about wrestling someone else’s goat. Otherwise he wouldn’t be lying in the middle of the floor like a dying cockroach with no one willing to step on him.