A DARKNESS PALE
CUT
…Husker was stalking a lady, the thought being that if he killed her he’d prove to himself and the world he was a full fledged psychopath… Sort of fulfill his psychopathic potential…
Cut
Jacob Sundry made the scene with the Moluxhc crowd of Pet Shop, a gay bar on the corner of 30th and Stark, by shooting his stinger and covertly spitting it out in the glass of water he pretended to chase it with. He let his eyes roll back a bit, like, oh wow, the combination of booze and THC were actually teasing him into the realm of Moluxhc, or whatever that trippy hippy bullshit was about.
He also wasn’t gay, but he still needed to network, so he played along. He paid way too much for another stinger, continued with the eye nonsense and acted smug and complacent like everyone else, waiting for action and reviewing his progress. His life goal was The Studio Deluxe. The studio would be part hair salon, part recording studio, part art space. It would be whatever the fuck he wanted. He would be completely in charge and create whatever he wanted whenever he wanted and all the bitches of the world - because the world was all bitches - would kiss his ass.
He’d been working his goal since he was seventeen. Seven years working his three skills: cutting hair, fucking, and mind control. He’d land in a city and network as a guerrilla hair stylist. When the word got out about how he was the primo shit he’d bag a bitch with means. The removal of wealth - that was the challenge he still hadn’t vaulted. On the last try, in Reno, he got tagged for felony kidnapping when he’d driven a bitch over state lines into Tahoe so she could hook him up with some jewelry from her family’s ski cabin. It put him in the Lompoc Federal Correction Institution, from which he got released early thanks to the LIFE NOW amendment.
At the RRC in Santa Barbara there’d been a dorky old bitch who liked to spin all these tall tales insinuating he was a legendary badass. Jacob knew the bitch was desperate for attention, and gave him some to see what he might get. Sure enough, the bitch started telling stories about how he’d gamed some death quake assistance loophole and fenagled a mansion in Portland. Jacob said, let’s go, bitch.
Four months later he’d cut a few bougie heads but nothing had led to nothing as of yet. It was frustrating. The bitches should be coming at him by now. He was the dream. He had this sick fifty-minute routine he did with a kitchen chair every morning that left him insanely ripped. He kept his luxurious milky brown hair styled like Clark Kent. His skin was as flawless and lustrous as a hazer baby’s ass. No, there was something about Portland that wasn’t game. Life Now and the Moluxhc shit were particularly out of hand here. Made the scene aloof and boring and dumb, exemplified by all the weird Victorian or whatever fashion shit. His roommate, Husker, was also driving him crazy. Free lodging and food and the occasional loan had been awesome at first, but the price was a marathon hang every night with Husker spewing all his self serving grandiose bullshit. It was getting to be too much to pay.
“Hey lover.” Someone on a barstool, getting right in his personal space. Patrick. Jacob sort of remembered sucking his cock when he’d first infiltrated the scene.
“Hey bitch, back for more?”
Patrick under a resin sealed top hat, with an artfully overgrown orange beard, his white shirt buttoned way up, one of those frock coats folded over his arm, and looking all Moluxhc numb with that haughty tranquility. “You and your wild tongue. I got a head for you. She saw what you did with Lavender – remember her?”
Jacob matching Patrick’s general slack, nodded. “Oh yeah, I cut that bitch divine, but I ain’t doing no more gratis.” He shrugged.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Reba’s stacked. But you want to watch out, she’s a head, and she’s also a fucking head case. She’s been banned from most of the salons.”
Could this be the edge he was looking for? Jacob perked up and pretended otherwise.
Her front door was painted fire engine red. He knew the color meant it was one of those flipped houses, nice in a boring kind of way, two stories and cozy, and a fancy tarp covering the roof and dangling down the sides like drizzled black cake icing. There was money here. This year, with the chemicals in the snow eating wood and whatever else, it was all about the tarp.
“That was fast,” Reba said, letting him in.
She showed him where he could take off his boots and visor and hang up his treated coat. Jacob noted a set of men’s boots and a man’s coat, both dry. Nothing trendy, all practical. “I got lucky – there was a carriage right outside the bar.”
“Oh yeah, what kind of car was it?”
“Nissan.”
“That’s so cool. I’m so into the whole car/carriage thing. Hey, and thanks again for coming out.”
She was smiling good naturedly, her big rosy eyes projecting a sort of too enthusiastic, nervous/excited energy that fit with a fucking head case. Those who were wired differently. Familiar territory. And gosh, she was a big blonde bitch, too. His age. Healthy skin loaded with tattoos.
She brought him into a living room filled with simple, expensive furniture, Jacob offering pure indifference, smelling the money more strongly and not seeing any Moluxhc nonsense. Jacob feeling opportunity more and more. He rolled up a scratchy rug and made her sit in a chair in front of the stove with a kitchen towel around her neck. From his green leopard skin fanny pack he removed his scissors and comb.
Her hair was a long layered nightmare. He pondered, his free hand at his hip so she could get a good look at his bulging bicep. He said, “Girl, you’re lucky you found me. I hear you’re a rude bitch, but you’re going stay fucking quiet and I’m going do what I do.”
She started to say something and he said, “Uh uh, you shut the fuck up and take it.”
…Husker executes his kill plan… Jacob has trouble surfing Husker’s bullshit…