Tales of Jack the Ripper (9 page)

Everything about them begs… rip me.

You want to oblige the filthy little pigs. It’s a need growing in your guts, in your mind; a misplaced fetus with a mouth full of teeth. And you know, as the anniversary of Sickert’s first “event” approaches…

…you
will
oblige them.

You have (them) one
allllllllll
picked out. Ha. Ha. And you’re going to give it to her. You want to keep the ritual—29 thrusts—but you don’t know if you’ll be able to. Your chest’s a kettle and your blood is whistling. The wad of flesh God cursed you with (cursed him, Sickert, with too) is hot in your pants. A straining, pulsing lump that sickens you.

But the blade…

(draw it from its sheath; the scrape of steel on leather)

…the blade is perfect.

Harder than hard.

Eight inches.

Beveled.

(the fine, fine rasp of flesh as your finger moves along the razored edge; Papa always said a knife wasn’t sharp till you could run your finger along it and bring it away wet and sticky as fresh pussy)

You pull the greasy satin panel back from the window. Dusk. Street still teeming. You look down on them.

The blade, ever-hard, in your hand. Gleaming like purest silver in the un-whole light.

You look down on them.

It’s August 4th.

Two more days.

Only two.

2:00 A.M. August 6th. The Day of the First Event.

You call this THE WILL TO KILL.

You’re ready.

Clothes dark and tight out of necessity. To hide staining blood. To minimize the whore’s purchase. Naughty whores will grab, you bet. Fight for their miserable whore lives. Wouldn’t you? Even if you were the filthiest of filthy animals? Even if you sucked dicks for pounds? Wouldn’t you fight for your life? For your survival?

Even the most trusted dog will bite if you kick it hard enough, long enough.

And there isn’t a whore in all the world as good as a good dog.

High Street is intermittently dark. You imagine it by gaslight. The smell of the coal-gas. You imagine the stench of East London, East End, a hundred twenty-five years and however-many-tens-of-thousands of bodies less foul. You imagine what it must have been like: a Jewish ghetto
in the midst of the Second Industrial Revolution; God’s chosen children, the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob crowding the storefronts, the flats, the streets, forever seeking Salvation from the Oppressor; forever in Exodus. You stop on the south end of Whitechapel High Street, step back into the doorway of a Pakistani-owned grocery store. The red Perso-Arabic script against the white of the store sign stands out like blood runes in the window. You wipe sweat from your forehead with the sleeve of your shirt. The fabric’s synthetic. It doesn’t do much good. You turn your attention across the street. The White Swan isn’t the White Swan anymore. It’s a private pub, now. The Visage.

2:08 A.M.

She’ll be coming soon.

Your
Martha.

A Martha Tabram for the post-millennials.

The street is empty. Empty of eyes that care. The Rule of Law is as blind as Justice here. Both are impotent. The Metro only sees aftermath. Reports it. Catalogues it.

The unseasonable heat is the breath of an angry God; an Old Testament God; a God of the desert.

Your sweat doesn’t cool, it just saturates your shirt. Slides down your temples, down your neck, into your collar, beads on the fabric (but finally takes, wet on wet). The knife is on your belt, hid in its black leather sheath, handle wrapped in electrical tape. Slung round your neck by its cord is the gender-neutral plastic mask you formed yourself in your kitchen. It’s translucent. Almost pearlescent—something bad in the mix—but it’s plenty serviceable. Across the mask’s forehead you have written CRIME in Sharpie, mimicking Tenniel’s famous cartoon,
The Nemesis of Neglect
(There floats a phantom on the slum’s foul air).

She’s coming. She’s here.

Martha.

Her name’s not Martha, of course. Which is unfortunate. But everything else…she’s so
close
. The similarities between this woman leaving The Visage, today, and the Victorian “unfortunate” who left The White Swan on the arm of Walter Sickert (dressed as a Grenadier; Saucy Jack did so dearly love his costume) in the August chill more than a century ago, are astounding. Delightfully perfect. As if she has been offered up by the Universe to be your victim, your sacrifice. You can feel the cosmic strings, knotted in your balls, flying up through your body, your arms, out into the Ether to this woman, and from her…to Beyond.

Her real name (Pauline Nizza) is not important. Not yet. It won’t matter to anyone till you kill her. Death is the price of her immortality; however ironic, it’s the best offer she’s going to get out of this life.

You put the mask on. Snug on your face; like it’s your own; it’s better than your own. You draw the knife…

(oh, that cutting whisper of steel)

…
your
knife.

The steel in your hand is the unfeeling steel inside you.

THE WILL TO KILL.

You pace her. Watch the rhythmic turn of her ass in its tight vinyl skirt. Legs perfect pistons of flesh in the lift of her heels. Meat. Meat and holes. She’s perfect. Perfect whore.

The heat in your chest, in your pants (worthless), it disgusts…

(do it, do it, rip her, honor Walter Sickert, be Jack, rip, shed the Boss in you)

…and thrills you like nothing else.

Your oxblood gloves tighten, creak, on the knife hilt.

You’re almost there: George Yard Buildings.

She senses you. Senses those cosmic strings that connect you to her. Senses the oncoming rush of immortality.

“Martha…” you say.

You grab her. She tries to scream. You cover her mouth. She bites down, perforating flesh even through your glove. You don’t feel it because you’re all-over heat. A fire. A living, breathing, walking, killing, consuming fire. The struggle. (Horripilation.) Muscles battling muscles. (Ecstasy.) The animal fear. Yours. Hers. Mingling. Sharp. You can smell it. Feel it like an electric current. She claws at the mask. Scratches your throat. You feel the skin peel away. Know it’s under her nails. Hyper-aware. Even through everything else. Evidence. You file it. The knife. You stab. Resistance. The muscle, so hard. Hard as you. Then it gives way. The blade slides into the softness of organ. Soft as her softness. (Orgasm.) The hilt of the knife, blade buried in her like some lethal divining rod, telegraphs every movement; within, without. Telegraphs the beat of heart, the rush of blood through vein and artery. Trembling. You’re both trembling. You pull it out. You stab. Pull it out. Stab. You choke back a cry of rage, release, relief. Stab. You stab. (Divine.) You stab over and over and over and over and over…

It must have taken unparalleled devotion, you think. For Sickert. How many papers and clippings did he collect? Scrutinize? He must have tried to collect every detail; he must have tried so vainly.

The sense of power, you know now, is undeniable. You know what no one else knows. In this, in these acts, you are God. The only one with perfect knowledge. But this is the Information Age, isn’t it? The world is a Global Village. Home to the interminable, digital galleries of the Library of Babel. Knowledge is instant. Power without sacrifice. The Internet makes your work almost…mundane.

It’s been nearly a month since you ripped her. Your Martha (poor stuck Pauline Nizza).

The police are apathetic. Disinterested. Murder is murder. In Whitechapel a knifed-up whore is just as much news as it was in Sickert’s day. Which is to say, it isn’t news at all. Just another brutal killing. Ho. Hum. Ha. Ha.

You maximize
The Independent
article on your laptop.

Victim identified in George Yard Stabbing

By Kevin Stevens

Thursday 21 August 2013

The young woman found brutally stabbed to death at George Yard Buildings in East London on Wednesday, August 6th, has now been identified by police as Pauline Nizza, 40, a resident of Pimlico Heights.

Dinesh Ongezni, 25, discovered Pauline’s body on the 1st floor landing of George Yard Building at approximately 4:30 A.M. after returning from a stay with family in South London.

A student at The University College London, Dinesh told the Independent, “There was a lot of blood. You wouldn’t think the body could hold so much blood, you know? My cousin (Dinesh’s flat mate) rang the ambulance. I don’t know why. She was already dead. Whoever did it, they carved something in her forehead…”

Martha, you think. I carved the name “Martha” in the whore’s pretty skin.

“…but I couldn’t make it out.”

Metropolitan Police sent officers to the scene at 4:50 A.M. that Wednesday. A murder inquiry was opened and forensic tents were erected in the building. No arrests were made and police continue to appeal for witnesses. No other information has been released to the public.

You laugh at the computer. Turn to the easel at your back. You’re still painting the acrylic base the oils will be laid over. Your Martha, in repose on a couch with a man you assume is her estranged husband, a little girl on her lap that you know is her daughter. The work is little more than an Impressionistic blur of colors, the shape of things to come still rude in composition. The photo you took from her flat before you “met” her on High Street is taped to the upper right corner of the canvas. You have admired it these past weeks, but you admire the faceless blurs of paint you have created more.

Whores don’t deserve husbands.

Whores don’t deserve children.

Whores don’t deserve faces.

You pick up the remote to your stereo.

PLAY.

Morrissey blares, mid-tune, filling the flat with bleak, lover’s tones.

You paint.

The detail of the oils over the acrylic is exquisite.

The oval of untouched canvas that is (and will remain) Pauline Nizza’s face is like the clean hole you have left in the world.

This is your Mary Ann Nichols. Canonical victim #1. Dear, sweet Polly, as she was known on the streets Sickert prowled.

HUFFINGTON POST UNITED KINGDOM

Community “not surprised” over new stabbing death

By Roxanne Zulkowski

1 September 2013

The body of Patty Williams, 37, was discovered on Durward Street in Whitechapel at approximately 4:00 A.M. this morning by sanitation workers.

We mustn’t forget to put out the trash, you think. Ha. Ha.

According to Muham Choudbury, one of the men who discovered the body, “POLLY” was scrawled on a wall behind her in chalk. “Her throat was cut up. Somebody had taken her pants off and her shirt was lifted up. Her…her guts were hanging out of her. What is wrong with people? It’s these kids. These gangs. You hear about that attack in the Heights? No. Not the woman that was killed. The one where those boys knifed that girl when she got off the bus. Stuck her like she was nothing better ’an a pig. Right sick, innit?”

Detective Chief Inspector Edgar Lyons described the victim as a known and convicted drug user, and related that she had been detained recently in the investigation of a prostitution ring. “Frankly, I’m not at all surprised to have found her killed,” Lyons said.

The Metropolitan Police are appealing to the public to come forward with any information that might be relevant to the investigations.

This is your Annie Chapman. Dark Annie. Canonical victim #2; what do
they
know?

HUFFINGTON POST UNITED KINGDOM

Third woman found stabbed to death in Whitechapel

Press Association

8 September 2013

Metropolitan Police and London Ambulance Service were called to Hanbury Car Park at 5:50 AM, where the body of an unidentified woman was subsequently pronounced dead.

A postmortem will take place later today at Greenwich mortuary.

Detective Chief Inspector Edgar Lyons, leading the investigation, said: “Another senseless killing. We’re working now to identify her. There was nothing found on her person but an odd assortment of items. I urge anyone with information about this incident to come forward. If they prefer to remain anonymous, I ask that they contact Crimestoppers.

I know people locally are going to speculate about the fact that this murder took place in the same location Shawn Chambers was killed in September, but I would like to make it clear that we do not believe there is a link between the two incidents aside from the location.”

They give no name? No mention of the clues you left? Are they beginning to understand?

THE GUARDIAN