Three Twisted Stories (7 page)

“Why couldn’t he live here?”

“He was filthy.” She lit a new cigarette off the old one, then tossed the butt into the sink.
Charlie waited as she ran water to wash it down the drain. “You seen what he looked like, at the end, right?”

Charlie said nothing.

“It started five years ago. Mel came home from work covered in blood. Said it wasn’t his, which I believed, but then I noticed he’s not interested in any bedroom business, if you get what I mean. That’s not my guy. He’s pounding it to me just about every night. Why do you think I stayed with him for so long?” She took a lungful of smoke and shot it back out. “So, I catch him in the shower one morning. His dinkle’s got teeth marks on it. Teeth marks.” She waved her hand at her lap. “Down there.”

Charlie tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. “Did he say what happened?”

“Like Mel’s gonna tell me anything? My guess is he tried to take out some rent with his cock and the fish weren’t biting. Or, at least one of them bit, which was the problem.” She pushed herself up onto the counter. “It happened fast. The next day, everything starts to get weird. I seen it with my own eyes. Overnight, Mel’s hair grew out. Damndest thing. He was going bald in the back, but not after that night. You saw it, right? Looked like an Afro.”

Charlie nodded. He had seen it all right.

“Then, Mel starts dressing like he’s some kind of J. J. Walker or something. Leaves a pick in his hair. Starts doing this jive-talk bullshit. ‘What it is, mama.’ Like he’s never talked to me before. Turned kinky as a garden hose.” She twisted her lips to the side. “I gotta admit, at first it kind of turned me on. I was always into black guys, even though ain’t a none of ’em knows how to go down on a woman. Ha!” She barked a laugh, like that was funny. “Too bad the fucker didn’t turn black below the belt, if you know what I mean.”

“No,” Charlie said, suddenly prudish. “I don’t.”

She stared at him like he was an idiot. “Do you hate stupid people? Because, if you got the curse, then you’re gonna turn into a stupid person.”

Charlie had to swallow all the saliva in his mouth. He didn’t believe in curses. At least, he didn’t want to. “What happened in between? How did your husband lose everything?”

“I told you, people stopped being scared of him. Nobody wanted to do business with him because of …” Her voice trailed off.

“Because of what?”

“Ain’t you been listening to me, mister? He turned into a darkie. A colored. A coon. A
Negro. A nigger.”

Charlie felt his jaw drop.

She said, “You seen him yourself. You thought he was black, too, right?”

Charlie didn’t know what to say. He’d been listening to her story. Somewhere in his brain, he had put the pieces together, but it wasn’t possible. It didn’t make sense.

She inhaled deeply on her cigarette. “I mean, he wasn’t really black down deep. He was my Melvin and all, but his skin turned dark. The hair—I done told you about that. The way he walked. Had kind of a hitch to his step. People just took him for black. And worse, they treated him like he was black, which was the part he couldn’t stomach. White men making him walk on the other side of the street. Cops giving him shit for no reason. White women clutching their purses like he was gonna rob ’em. Hell, even I made him use the back door. At least until I told him to stop coming around.”

Charlie finally found his voice. “You kicked him out of his own house?”

“I couldn’t have him living here. Sleeping here. How would that look, me living with a black man?” She straightened her maid’s uniform. “I’m a respectable white woman. This ain’t the kind of neighborhood for that.”

Charlie went back to not talking.

“This is what I figger the curse is all about. Think about who you hate. My Mel, he hated colored people. Always did. Said they were shiftless and lazy, didn’t take care of their families. And that’s just the kind of colored man he turned out to be. Slept all day. Gambled away what little money he got. Drank too much. ’Course, it didn’t start like that. He tried to get work, but no one would give him a job. Didn’t have any references. No education to speak of. That didn’t matter so much when he was white. I mean, he was a Jew, he could pass for smart.” She stared out the window over the sink. Her voice turned wistful. “I let him rake the yard sometimes, but being honest, he made me uncomfortable. He always asked for more, you know? Like the world owed him something. Then again, that was exactly what Mel said about them. Always looking for a handout.”

Charlie pulled at his collar. The kitchen was stifling. He couldn’t breathe.

“It’s almost biblical, right? You become what you hate. I don’t know.” She waved her cigarette in the air. “Sounds like New Testament shit to me.”

All Charlie could say was, “I don’t understand.”

“Jesus, you’re slow, mister. What I’m saying is, that’s how it works. Mel hated coloreds more than anything else on earth, and then one day he wakes up and he’s turned into one.” She gave a raspy laugh. “No wonder the dumbass killed himself.”

Charlie sat at the kitchen table in his house on his own. Sue was upstairs in bed watching Carson. Burt Reynolds was on. He could hear her laughing at everything he said. Normally, Charlie would be in there laughing with her, but right now he was on his sixth scotch and wishing to God he had the strength to take the knife out of his jacket pocket and jam it into his heart.

You’re gonna end up just like me
.

“Daddy?” Jenny stood in the doorway. She had her hair up in a ponytail. Her bathrobe was pink terry cloth. Like her mother, she wore pink foam rollers in her hair.

He asked, “Are you too old to get an Easter basket?”

She gave him a funny smile as she crossed the room. “Aunt Stella called looking for you.”

Stella. His baby sister who would steal him out of house and home given the chance. “I’ll call her tomorrow.”

Jenny took a glass down from the cabinet. She turned on the faucet and let the water run until it was cold. Charlie wondered when she had learned to do that. Babies didn’t come out knowing how to do anything but cry, shit, and sleep. Sue must’ve taught her. Or maybe she’d picked it up from watching. She was smart, his daughter. She had the world in front of her. She wasn’t like Charlie’s mother. She would have opportunities.

“Jenny?” Charlie waited for her to turn around. “You wanna go to college?”

She gave him that funny smile again. “Of course I do. I’m already taking courses at the junior college for credit.”

“You are?”

“Daddy, you pay for it.”

“I do?”

She laughed. “Silly, I’ve already been accepted to the University of Georgia. Remember when you gave me money for the application fee?”

Christ, no one told him anything. “I thought that was for ballet lessons.”

“You never listen to me. I haven’t taken ballet in years.” She kissed his head. “I think you need some sleep.”

“Wait a minute.” He stuck his hand in his jacket pocket—the one without the knife—and pulled out the ad from
Cosmo
magazine. “I wanted you to look at this.”

She unfolded the glossy page. “Max Factor?”

“Look at the model. See how she does her eyebrows?”

She stared at him like he was unbalanced, because that’s what all the women in his life did lately.

He said, “Even a pretty girl can do better, right? See how the model’s eye shadow is two-toned? I think you could do something like that and it’d be really nice.”

She nodded as she folded the ad back into a square. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll think about it.”

Charlie sat back in his chair as she left the room. That hadn’t gone as well as he’d thought it would. Then again, nothing was going well in his life lately.

Just like Melvin Finkelmeyer.

Six scotches in, Charlie should have been able to push the dead man from his mind, but the story the widow told him was haunting him.

The truth was, Charlie had thought the homeless guy was black the first time he’d seen him. He was standing in the street dressed like a black man, talking like a black man. Hell, he’d even called himself a black man.

Coward can’t handle takin’ on no homeless brother!

Outside the dry cleaner’s, Finkelmeyer still looked black. He sounded black. The knife even looked like something a black man would carry.

Add to that the fact that the man’s own wife, now his widow, had claimed that he’d turned into a black man. She’d kicked him out of their home for it. She’d alienated him from his children. She’d barely given him scraps from her table.

So Finkelmeyer thought he was cursed. What man wouldn’t? He’d killed himself to end it. Charlie wasn’t going to kill himself. He’d spent his entire life scrambling to survive. No way in hell he’d take his own life, no matter how bad it got.

Honestly, how bad was it, anyway?

Not bad. Charlie could deal with what was happening to him. So what if people were treating him like he was an idiot? So what if blood was coming out of his prick and he felt bloated all the time? So what if his chest was sore, and double so what if it wasn’t really his chest, but his nipples?

Sue’s laughter traveled down the stairs.

Charlie closed his eyes. Instantly, he saw Sue being fucked by Burt Reynolds. He was behind her. His hairy chest was rubbing against her naked back. He squeezed her breasts as he rammed into her. She could feel his breath on her neck. His tight balls slapping her ass. His fingers reached down and touched her between the legs and—

“Jesus Christ!” Charlie jumped up from the table so fast that the chair fell over.

“Charlie?” Sue called, worried.

“I’m—” Charlie had to clear his throat to bring his voice down a few octaves. “I’m fine.”

Hell yes, he was fine. He was hard as a fucking rock.

Charlie picked up the chair off the floor and righted it. He sat down with his legs wide apart. His pants were tented up like Ringling Brothers. He hadn’t been this hard in twenty years.

Charlie laughed. What a dumbass he was. That stupid Jewish slit had him thinking he was turning into a woman. He could say the words now, if only to himself. The widow claimed Melvin Finkelmeyer had turned into the very thing he hated most. Charlie didn’t hate women. As a matter of fact, Charlie
loved
women.

He laughed again. You didn’t see a woman walk around with a boner like this between her legs.

He shuddered at the thought.

And then he listened.

Sue was chuckling at something on TV. The floor creaked as Jenny walked from the bathroom back to her bedroom. He heard her door shut.

Slowly, Charlie unzipped his pants. He stared at his cock like it was a long-lost friend. Jesus, it was magnificent. Not as big as most, but he could do a lot with it. Charlie spit in his hand. He wrapped his fingers around the shaft. He gave it a gentle stroke.

His cock came off in his hand.

Literally.

His entire cock and balls unplugged from his body.

Charlie stared at his genitals. He raised them to eye level. He turned them upside down. There were two thick prongs like an electrical plug on the bottom.

He felt between his legs. Two sockets. Or maybe not two sockets. The one in back was definitely his asshole. Which meant the one in front …

Charlie thought about that for several minutes.

He licked his fingers and stuck them into his vagina. Charlie hadn’t put his face near one of those things in years, but the smell was familiar. He slowly pulled out his fingers and traced them up the inside of his slit.

“Shit!” he gasped.

Who the fuck knew that thing was there?

Charlie touched it again. An electric jolt went through his body. He played around, trying to get the touch just right. Oddly, lighter was better. He guessed that made sense. The little flap of skin was sensitive. Charlie remembered his girlfriend asking him to touch hers, but he didn’t have the patience. Put one of these on a man and he’d have all the patience in the world. Jesus Christ, it felt like a thousand butterflies giving him a blow job.

He closed his eyes as he touched himself. His tongue darted out between his teeth. His toes gripped at the floor. He thought about his girlfriend. Then he thought about his wife. He forced himself not to think about Burt Reynolds.

That guy probably knew where to put his fingers. Charlie probably would’ve too, if he’d had the time. He was always rushing around trying to work, trying to take care of his family. Shit, he should probably be at work right now. He still needed to process the paperwork on Commissioner Ballantine’s Cadillac. He needed to go back to the mall and get underwear. He’d take a hundred-dollar bill and shove it in Judy’s face. Let her tell Mabel about it over lunch. And he should probably get Jenny that Easter basket. College! Who knew his baby was going to college? She’d need all kinds of things. Sheets for her bed, posters for the walls, and he wasn’t going to send her to UGA without buying her a new wardrobe. How much was that going to cost? Charlie would have to talk to his sales team. The quotas were going to go up. They couldn’t coast anymore. Maybe he should fire some people to put the fear of God in the rest of them. Deacon should be the first one out the door. The way he had talked to Charlie today like he didn’t know his own mind.

Charlie realized his hand had stopped.

What the hell? He couldn’t concentrate long enough to diddle himself. Normally, he clocked out the minute his dick got hard, but now he felt overwhelmed with things he had to do. He needed to make a list.

Charlie stood up. He opened the junk drawer, but it was so messy he couldn’t find
anything. Sue had left the supper dishes drying on the rack. He should probably put those away. Had she ironed his shirts yet? He couldn’t show up at Mike Thevis’s wearing a wrinkled shirt.

“Shit.” Charlie sat back down in the chair. This wasn’t him. What did he care about ironed shirts and clean dishes? He was a man.

He said the words, “I’m a man, goddamn it.”

Charlie grabbed his cock off the table. He crammed it into his vagina. It caught on the sides, but he breathed through the pain, shoving it up to his balls. He wriggled his hips. There was still some room in there. Charlie pushed harder, but apparently he had an unnaturally long vagina.