Stories (2011) (42 page)

Godzilla feels guilt. He has faint memories of waking up and
going out to destroy part of the city. He really tied one on, but he can't
remember everything he did. Maybe he'll read about it in the papers. He notices
he smells like charred lumber and melted plastic. There's gooshy stuff between
his toes, and something tells him it isn't soap.

He wants to kill himself. He goes to look for his gun, but
he's too drunk to find it. He passes out on the floor. He dreams of the devil this
time. He looks just like God except he has one eyebrow that goes over both
eyes. The devil says he's come for Godzilla.

Godzilla moans and fights. He dreams he gets up and takes
pokes at the devil, blows ineffective fire on him.

Godzilla rises late the next morning, hung over. He
remembers the dream. He calls into work sick. Sleeps off most of the day. That
evening, he reads about himself in the papers. He really did some damage.
Smoked a large part of the city. There's a very clear picture of him biting the
head off of a woman.

He gets a call from the plant manager that night. The
manager's seen the paper. He tells Godzilla he's fired.

NINE: Enticement

Next day some humans show up. They're wearing black suits
and white shirts and polished shoes and they've got badges. They've got guns,
too. One of them says, "You're a problem. Our government wants to send you
back to Japan."

"They hate me there," says Godzilla. "I
burned Tokyo down."

"You haven't done so good here either. Lucky that was a
colored section of town you burned, or we'd be on your ass. As it is, we've got
a job proposition for you."

"What?" Godzilla asks.

"You scratch our back, we'll scratch yours." Then
the men tell him what they have in mind.

TEN: Choosing

Godzilla sleeps badly that night. He gets up and plays the
monster mash on his little record player. He dances around the room as if he's
enjoying himself, but knows he's not. He goes over to the BIG MONSTER
RECREATION CENTER. He sees Kong there, on a stool, undressing one of his
Barbies, fingering the smooth spot between her legs. He sees that Kong has
drawn a crack there, like a vagina. It appears to have been drawn with a blue
ink pen. He's feathered the central line with ink-drawn pubic hair. Godzilla
thinks he should have got someone to do the work for him. It doesn't look all
that natural.

God, he doesn't want to end up like Kong. Completely spaced.
Then again, maybe if he had some dolls he could melt, maybe that would serve to
relax him.

No. After the real thing, what was a Barbie? Some kind of
form of Near Beer. That's what the debris out back was. Near Beer. The foundry.
The Twelve Step Program. All of it. Near Beer.

ELEVEN: Working for the Government

Godzilla calls the government assholes. "All
right," he says. "I'll do it."

"Good," says the government man. "We thought
you would. Check your mail box. The map and instructions are there."

Godzilla goes outside and looks in his box. There's a manila
envelope there. Inside are instructions. They say: "Burn all the spots you
see on the map. You finish those, we'll find others. No penalties. Just make
sure no one escapes. Any rioting starts, you finish them. To the last man,
woman and child."

Godzilla unfolds the map. On it are red marks.

Above the red marks are listings:

N-Town
.
C-Village. W-Trash Enclave. Q-Clutch. Mostly
Democrats.

Godzilla thinks about what he can do now. Unbidden. He can
burn without guilt. He can stomp without guilt. Not only that, they'll send him
a check. He has been hired by his adopted country to clean out the bad spots as
they see them.

TWELVE: The Final Step

Godzilla stops near the first place on the list: N-Town. He
sees kids playing in the streets. Dogs. Humans looking up at him, wondering
what the hell he's doing here.

Godzilla suddenly feels something move inside him. He knows
he's being used. He turns around and walks away. He heads toward the government
section of town. He starts with the governor's mansion. He goes wild. Artillery
is brought out, but it's no use, he's rampaging. Like the old days.

Reptilicus shows up with a megaphone, tries to talk Godzilla
down from the top of the Great Monument Building, but Godzilla doesn't listen.
He's burning the top of the building off with his breath, moving down, burning
some more, moving down, burning some more, all the way to the ground.

Kong shows up and cheers him on. Kong drops his walker and
crawls along the road on his belly and reaches a building and pulls himself up
and starts climbing. Bullets spark all around the big ape.

Godzilla watches as Kong reaches the summit of the building
and clings by one hand and waves the other, which contains a Barbie doll.

Kong puts the Barbie doll between his teeth. He reaches in
his coat and brings out a naked Ken doll. Godzilla can see that Kong has made
Ken some kind of penis out of silly putty or something. The penis is as big as
Ken's leg.

Kong is yelling, "Yeah, that's right. That's right. I'm
AC/DC, you sonsofabitches."

Jets appear and swoop down on Kong. The big ape catches a
load of rocket right in the teeth. Barbie, teeth and brains decorate the
greying sky. Kong falls.

Gorgo comes out of the crowd and bends over the ape, takes
him in her arms and cries. Kong's hand slowly opens, revealing Ken, his penis
broken off.

The flying turtle shows up and starts trying to steal
Godzilla's thunder, but Godzilla isn't having it. He tears the top off the
building Kong had mounted and beats Gamera with it. Even the cops and the army
cheer over this.

Godzilla beats and beats the turtle, splattering turtle meat
all over the place, like an overheated poodle in a microwave. A few quick
pedestrians gather up chunks of the turtle meat to take home and cook, cause
the rumor is it tastes just like chicken.

Godzilla takes a triple shot of rockets in the chest,
staggers, goes down. Tanks gather around him.

Godzilla opens his bloody mouth and laughs. He thinks: If
I'd have gotten finished here, then I'd have done the black people too. I'd
have gotten the yellow people and the white trash and the homosexuals. I'm an
equal opportunity destroyer. To hell with the twelve step program. To hell with
humanity.

Then Godzilla dies and makes a mess on the street. Military
men tip-toe around the mess and hold their noses.

Later, Gorgo claims Kong's body and leaves.

Reptilicus, being interviewed by television reporters, says,
"Zilla was almost there, man. Almost. If he could have completed the
program, he'd have been all right. But the pressures of society were too much
for him. You can't blame him for what society made of him."

On the way home, Reptilicus thinks about all the excitement.
The burning buildings. The gunfire. Just like the old days when he and Zilla
and Kong and that goon-ball turtle were young.

Reptilicus thinks of Kong's defiance, waving the Ken doll, the
Barbie in his teeth. He thinks of Godzilla, laughing as he died.

Reptilicus finds a lot of old feelings resurfacing. They're
hard to fight. He locates a lonesome spot and a dark house and urinates through
an open window, then goes home.

The line into the Starlight Drive-In that night was short.
Monday nights were like that. Dave and Merle paid their money at the ticket
house and Dave drove the Ford to a spot up near the front where there were only
a few cars. He parked in a space with no one directly on either side. On the
left the first car was four speakers away, on the right, six speakers.

Dave said, "I like to be up close so it all looks
bigger than life. You don't mind do you?"

"You ask me that every time," Merle said.
"You don't never ask me that when we're driving in, you ask when we're
parked."

"You don't like it, we can move."

"No. I like it. I'm just saying, you don't really care
if I like it. You just ask."

"Politeness isn't a crime."

"No, but you ought to mean it."

"I said we can move."

"Hell no, stay where you are. I'm just saying when you
ask me what I like, you could mean it."

"You're a testy motherfucker tonight. I thought coming
to see a monster picture would cheer you up."

"You're the one likes 'em, and that's why you come. It
wasn't for me, so don't talk like it was. I don't believe in monsters, so I
can't enjoy what I'm seeing. I like something that's real. Cop movie. Things
like that."

"I tell you, Merle, there's just no satisfying you,
man. You'll feel better when they cut the lot lights and the movie starts. We
can get our date then."

"I don't know that makes me feel better."

"You done quit liking pussy?"

"Watch your mouth. I didn't say that. You know I like
pussy. I like pussy fine."

"Whoa. Aren't we fussy? Way you talk, you're trying to
convince me. Maybe it's butt holes you like."

"Goddamnit, don't start on the butt holes."

Dave laughed and got out a cigarette and lipped it. "I
know you did that one ole gal in the butt that night." Dave reached up and
tapped the.rearview mirror. "I seen you in the mirror here."

"You didn't see nothing," Merle said.

"I seen you get in her butt hole. I seen that
much."

"What the hell you doing watching? It ain't good enough
for you by yourself, so you got to watch someone else get theirs?"

"I don't mind watching."

"Yeah, well, I bet you don't. You're like one of those
fucking perverts."

Dave snickered, popped his lighter and lit his cigarette.
The lot lights went out. The big lights at the top of the drive-in screen went
black. Dave rolled down the window and pulled the speaker in and fastened it to
the door. He slapped at a mosquito on his neck.

"Won't be long now," Dave said.

"I don't know I feel up to it tonight."

"You don't like this first feature, the second's some
kind of mystery. It might be like a cop show."

"I don't mean the movies."

"The girl?"

"Yeah. I'm in a funny mood."

Dave smoked for a moment. "Merle, this is kind of a
touchy subject, but you been having trouble, you know, getting a bone to keep,
I'll tell you, that happens. It's happened to me. Once."

"I'm not having trouble with my dick, okay?"

"If you are, it's no disgrace. It'll happen to a man
from time to time."

"My tool is all right. It works. No problem."

"Then what's the beef?"

"I don't know. It's a mood. I feel like I'm going
through a kind of, I don't know, mid-life crisis or something."

"Mood, huh? Let me tell you, when she's stretched out
on that back seat, you'll be all right, crisis or no crisis. Hell, get her butt
hole if you want it, I don't care."

"Don't start on me."

"Who's starting? I'm telling you, you want her butt
hole, her ear, her goddamn nostril, that's your business. Me, I'll stick to the
right hole, though."

"Think I don't know a snide remark when you make
it?"

"I hope you do, or I wouldn't make it. You don't know
I'm making one, what's the fun in making it?" Dave reached over and
slapped Merle playfully on the arm. "Lighten up, boy. Let's see a movie,
get some pussy. Hey, you feel better if I went and got us some corn and stuff .
. . that'd do you better, wouldn't it?"

Merle hesitated. "I guess."

"Back in a jiffy."

Dave got out of the car.

* * *

Fifteen minutes and Dave was back. He had a cardboard box
that held two bags of popcorn and some tall drinks. He set the box on top of
the car, opened the door then got the box and slid inside. He put the box on
the seat between them.

"How much I owe you?" Merle said.

"Not a thing. You get it next time . . . think how much
more expensive this would be we had to pay for her to eat too."

"A couple or three dollars. So what? That gonna break
us?"

"No, but it's beer money. You think about it."

Merle sat and thought about it.

The big white drive-in screen was turned whiter by the
projector light, then there was a flicker and images moved on the screen: Ads
for the concession. Coming attractions.

Dave got his popcorn, started eating. He said, "I'm
getting kind of horny thinking about her. You see the legs on that bitch?"

"Course I seen the legs. You don't know from legs. A
woman's got legs is all you care, and you might not care about that. Couple of
stumps would be all the same to you."

"No, I don't care for any stumps. Got to be feet on one
end, pussy on the other. That's legs enough. But this one, she's got some good
ones. Hell, you're bound to've noticed how good they were."

"I noticed. You saying I'm queer or something? I
noticed. I noticed she's got an ankle bracelet on the right leg and she wears
about a size ten shoe. Biggest goddamn feet I've ever seen on a woman."

"Now, it comes out. You wanted to pick the date, not
me?"

"I never did care for a woman with big feet. You got a
good-looking woman all over and you get down to them feet and they look like
something goes on either side of a water plane . . . well, it ruins
things."

"She ain't ruined. Way she looks, big feet or not, she
ain't ruined. Besides, you don't fuck the feet . . . well, maybe you do. Right
after the butt hole."