Conscience Read online

  All the way down Lehman Street, she was astounded by how bright everything was. Not just the sun, which had been scorching the poor long-suffering earth with record heat for the last ten days. It was everything: the crisp green and brown of tree and lawn, the white and brick and tan of the houses that lined the street, the multi-colored cars and flowers, the blue and white of the sky. She felt as if a thick swath of tinted film had been lifted from before her eyes. It was almost like tripping, euphoria and all.

  There was a pay phone in the back of Jim & Nina’s Pizzeria. The massive air conditioner on the wall above kicked the 110 degrees around the little room with gargantuan futility, but its pointless roar more than shielded her from the ears of the counter girl. Dottie unraveled the moist strip of paper from her back pocket, slipped a quarter in the slot, and dialed.

  Seven rings later, a man’s voice informed her that she had reached the Channel 8 news department.

  “I’d like to report a fire,” she said.

  august 7

  dear oprah,

  if your reading this, i must be dead. dont feel bad. i certainly dont. death cant be any worse than living has been, and i have a feeling that its gonna be a whole lot better.

  but i want you to know what happened, because i want you to understand. then maybe you can do a show without me, but people will still get the story, and maybe others wont have to do what i did just to let the world know that they cant take it anymore.

  it all started yesterday, when i was watching tv. during the morning, my station is channel 2 from baltimore. it shows you at nine, then phil donohue at ten (i like him, but hes not like you. i geuss its because hes not a woman. sometimes i feel like hes talking down to me, and i get enough of that from dale.) anyway, and then the wheel comes on at 11, and i love pat sajak, i think hes so funny. so i watch straight through to 11:30, and by then dale usually wakes up long enough to choke down some food before passing out again.

  but yesterday, just as they were going into the bonus round, they cut in with a special news report. you probably heard about it. this man named buzz royer shot himself in the head in front of national tv at a press conference. i dont know if you saw it, but it was pretty amazing.

  i mean, here was this poor man, and you could just see how bad he was hurting inside. i think they had caught him stealing money from the government, he was state treasurer or something. anyway, he was in some deep shit, you could tell right away.

  so there he was, standing behind his little podium, and all of a sudden he pulls this gun out of this manila envelope, and everybody starts yelling, and he sticks it in his mouth, and the next thing you know theres this horrible noise and he disappears behind the podium, and before i had a chance to think it was over.

  but you know what i thought when i got the chance?

  i thought i can do that.

  i mean, it was over so quickly. the worst part must have been the press conference, thinking about it, talking to all these people as if he was going to be around to have a drink with them later, pretending that he didnt know that it was all over but the shooting. (bad pun i’m sorry.)

  but pulling the trigger, that only took a second. a second and it was over. i mean, you couldnt even see him, thats how over it was. and i thought god, if thats all it takes, then what the hell am i waiting for anyway?

  the worst part, of course, is thinking about nikki. but i cant help but feel that shell be happier with her real father, or maybe with my parents, or even if somebody has to adopt her. at least she wont be stuck with me and dale any more. and at least i know that i got her away before dale did anything.

  god, if only you coulda seen how dale treated me back when we met. people warned me about him, but i couldnt believe it because he seemed like such a sweet guy. we used to go out drinking and to parties, and then we would come home and make love and just talk for hours and hours. back then he used to listen to what i had to say. i think he was like me, just so blown away by the idea that someone could actually love him that he would have given anything just to be with me. i know thats how i felt.

  but then, once he had me, everything changed. it was like he was scared to be without me, scared that anyone else would find me attractive (ha ha!), scared that i would leave him. and then it got to the point where we would go to a party and he couldnt even drink beer or hed upchuck, but he always had that bottle of cough syrup with him. did you ever see someone just sit there and swig cough syrup? at first its almost funny, and then you realize how sick it is.

  its like that woman doctor said. self-esteem, pure and simple. just like the overeaters, the shoplifters, the adulterers, and even the rapists and murderers ive seen on your show. it always seems to come back to that. if he had any self-esteem, he wouldnt have to put me down. but he doesnt. i think the only person he hates more than me is himself, and if he could just admit that, maybe he wouldnt have to hate either one of us.

  of course, if i had any, i wouldnt put up with him either.

  i geuss i should tell you that dale was a singer. i hear that he was really great, tho hed pretty much stopped by the time i met him. he said he always knew he was gonna be a star, but then he never left town, and after a while he started losing his hair, and his back started to give him trouble, and i geuss he just got tired. but something must have died when he decided to give up, because everyone says that hes been fucked up ever since.

  oh well. at any rate, i’ll be gone some time tomorrow morning, by way of the old buzz royer alternitive. dale and the rest of the world can straighten out their own god damn act. not that i blame him or anybody else. you get born, things happen, and eventually you die. thats just the way it goes.

  i love you, oprah. i wish you all the best. hope to see you on the other side, even tho i wonder if we will wind up in the same place. you know what they say about suicide, after all.

  but i belive that if can hear my angels voice at all, hes telling me that its time to go now.

  goodbye.

  love,

  dorothy abigail neff

  MARK AS EXHIBIT C

  Dale Snyder awoke to smoke and heat and the fog inside his brain. His first reaction was one of muddled alarm: his washed- out red, white, and blue eyes flew open; he began to cough; he fell backwards off the bed. There were a hundred and eighty pounds of him, spanning an even six feet. They hit the floorboards hard. Even through the drugs, it hurt like a bastard.

  “DOTTIE!” he yelled, dragging himself to hands and knees. His voice felt like stars of burning glass in his throat. “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? DOTTIE!”

  There was no answer, just a dull rumble of voices from somewhere in the house. Dale struggled to his feet, murkily assessed the state of the room and his own chances of survival. So far, it didn’t look too bad. There were no flames in the room; just a fair amount of smoke rolling in under the door. He eyed the open windows for a second: in a pinch, they’d be all he needed for escape.

  But first, he wanted to check the rest of the place out. There was a good chance, he reasoned now, that Dottie simply fucked something up. She never cooked, so that couldn’t be the problem; most likely, she had dumped a hot ashtray into the trash, or maybe passed out with a lit cigarette. Whatever it was, the dumb cunt was about to become very sorry, there was no fucking doubt about that.

  His toes caught on last night’s discarded underwear, and he slipped them on awkwardly; he didn’t want to be caught with his balls hanging out if the fire trucks showed up. Then, his confidence bolstered, he made his wobbly way toward the door.

  The knob was room temperature. That was good news, at least. He fitted his sweaty palm around it and twisted. It opened, no problem; the fleeting paranoia that she might have been trying to burn him alive vanished as quickly as it had flitted through his mind...

  ...and his mind was a madhouse, he hated to admit it but it was the fucking truth and had been for quite some time, this early in the morning it was a wonder that he could think at all, much less absur
d he couldn’t shake the idea that she had planned this, she had something up her sleeve, it would have been better if he really had killed her last night, or the night before that, or maybe even a year ago, instead of just beating her around all the time; it would have been better if he’d listened to the voice that never never wanted to stop...

  ...and then he was in the hallway, and it was both better and worse than he had expected. The stretch between front door and back was relatively clear of everything but smoke; but there were licks of orange light in the kitchen, casting inverse shadows.

  And the living room wall was lined with flame.

  He stood there, indecisive, in the broiling hallway heat. The noise of voices was clearer now, clearly coming from the front. Maybe it was firemen. Maybe it was pigs. He was surprised to hear women’s voices, but these days you never knew.

  Then the laughter began, and the theme music kicked in, and Dale’s vision went as red as the reflections on the wall before him.

  It was the fucking TV.

  It was the fucking TV, and Dottie was probably passed out in front of it, curled up in the old brown ottoman with her big tits scraping the air, her wide mouth open, and her already useless brain turned to punk wood by smoke inhalation. It made him crazy just thinking about it.

  And that was the weird thing. He knew he should be gearing up to save her, to grab her ass and cart her off to salvation. The good guy side of his brain knew just what to do, rationale complete down to the little tin Good Citizenship medal affixed to his righteously thudding chest.

  But there was another voice in his head: one that slid more easily through the codeine and percodan murk. It was the one that could describe, in tiny detail, what her face would look like as it was held down to the flames. Her eyelids would be shut, of course, but he was willing to bet that the balls beneath would start to sizzle something fierce once those little flaps of skin baked away. Her hair would be a bicentennial celebration of colorful sparks by then; and with all the goddam fat in her cheeks, the odds in favor of an unquenchable grease fire were good, very good indeed...

  ...and the good guy voice told him to shut up, reminded him of why he hadn’t killed her yet or taken out a little frustration on her bitch of a daughter; and that reason was the law and the way it had of taking things into its own long arms. The law could fuck up your life forever. The law could bust right in through the door. All dipshit morality aside, the law was a very good reason to play nicey-nice and just keep smiling.

  But the pictures were too clear.

  He started thinking about his hands, what would happen to them if he held her down in the flames that long. Damage: that was what. Serious damage. Maybe it would be better if he kicked her into the flames; on the other hand, where was the fun in that? You wanted to see. You wanted to feel...

  There was a half-sane voice in his head, more biology than logic. It moved him forward, along the wall that was not burning. It moved him to the lip of the living room, bid his head poke around the corner and survey the scene.

  He could not believe what it bade his eyes see.

  Because she was not frying in the ottoman, though the ottoman was burning up a storm. She wasn’t even fucking asleep. She was just standing there, by the open front door, with nothing but screen door separating her from the great outdoors. In her left hand, she clenched her pocketbook tightly.

  In her right hand, she held his gun...

  …and they hadn’t come, they still hadn’t come, nearly fifteen minutes later and still the Channel 8 news team had yet to appear. She had run the three blocks back from Jim & Nina’s, hastily checked to see that Dale was still out of it, and then doused strategic portions of the house with lighter fluid. The first match had been the hardest to light, but once things got going, it was hard to stop.

  Which was why the place was now getting hotter than hell.

  Which was why she wished they would please God hurry.

  She didn’t hear the footsteps behind her until it was far too late. Between the crackle of flame and the laugh of Oprah Winfrey, she didn’t have a chance. The grip on the gun barrel had twirled her around before she could start to turn on her own.

  Any illusion of control vanished in an instant.

  As her boyfriend began to scream...

  ...and then he was hitting her, backhanded slaps to the face, the way he usually started. She fell back against the door, and it started to open, and before he could catch her she had hit the concrete step outside, her purse flying off into the yard. She made a bad sound in landing, and her eyes unfocused, but it did not occur to him that she might not be able to hear what he had to say next.

  “WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU!” he bellowed. He bent over her, and the hand holding the gun came back across her lips, moving fast. He felt something give, and marveled at the sensation: he had never taken out teeth before, or made flesh tear to quite that extent. She coughed, and the blood sprayed back at him; he caught it on his tongue, and the taste wasn’t bad.

  “YOU HEARD ME, YOU COW!” he screamed again, and her eyes seemed to struggle toward focus. He was smiling now, he couldn’t help it, he had gone too far and there was no question of turning back, so he abandoned himself to the will of the voice, the voice that did not want to stop, the voice that said now, baby, now...

  ...as the van pulled up to the curb and made its screeching halt. Dottie saw it upside-down, a vision that fought its way through the blankness. She saw the words CHANNEL 8 stenciled across its side, saw the two figures scurrying out the doors, saw the video camera that one of them hoisted to its shoulder...

  ...and she realized that this was it, except that maybe it wasn’t, the gun was no longer in her hand and she was choking on something hard and sharp, and the part of her brain that was not going into unprecedented spasms suffered a sudden and keen sense of loss as she was hoisted upright, and her eyes went back to seeing nothing again...

  ...and Dale put two and two together. It did not spell four. It spelled something better. For the first time in too long to count, he thought that maybe Dottie had something there, she wasn’t just the utterly stupid twat that she’d led him to believe she was. Maybe she’d gotten a glimpse of what it took to hit the big time after all.

  You start a fire. The news team comes.

  You die in public.

  A star is born...

  “This is great!” he gushed. “This is fucking perfect! You stupid fucking bitch, you UNDERSTAND!”

  It was the chance of a lifetime.

  Now it was simply a matter of making it all pay off.

  He had dragged her inside, where the flames were mounting. Those pretty old pictures of her still remained. He saw a can of lighter fluid, and the scenario was complete. He let her drop.

  Picked up the can.

  Spritzed her good.

  And kicked her into the flames.

  She came up quickly, animate and ablaze. She did a quick spin and collapsed at his feet. He flipped her over with his foot, and her face was on fire: the black hole of her open and screaming mouth was the only thing unlit. “Wee HAH!” he enthused. “ Thank you, baby!”

  Then he kicked her sparkling ass out into the yard.

  The camera missed nothing within its range. It locked on the crawling, burning body. The door opened again, and the skinny balding crazy man in the white BVDs came staggering out of the house, waving a gun, yelling something that the mic couldn’t quite pick up. The gun was aimed and fired; a red explosion cascaded down from the flaming belly.

  Still the body continued to crawl, close enough now to distinguish as a woman. It reached out its hand to the camera lens, stretching fingers of fire from ten yards away. Then the man fired again, and its head came apart in black smoking chunks.

  The camera’s perspective began to back away, its operator’s voice droning omigod, omigod. Too late. The man was running now, eyes huge and smiling triumphantly as he screamed, “OH NO YA DON’T! MY NAME IS DALE SNYDER, AND I’M A FUC
KING STAR...!”

  Then the man began to sing, aiming his gun at the camera.

  When the camera moved, he fired again.

  MARK AS EXHIBIT D

  Two things:

  When the pain was gone, the angel was waiting on the other side. It patted her on her little head and said it’s okay, Dottie. You made a couple of wrong turns, but I still love you.

  Then it sent her back to do it again.

  Until she got it right.

  And meanwhile, back in Hell, there was a film at eleven: substantially edited down, of course.

  For the sake of the children.

  And the meek in spirit.

  INTRO TO ALL THIS AND HEAVEN, TOO (1996)

  And now: A DIRTY JOKE!

  But seriously, folks! (Insert rim shot, here.) This next one is just flat-out pornography, which is why it’s so much fun.

  It was originally squirted out - in one twelve-hour sitting - for an anthology of horny ghost stories called SEDUCTIVE SPECTRES (no relation to my ex-writing partner), edited by Amarantha Knight. It was inspired by some filthy conversations with the great Kelly Nichols, a major porn star of the 80’s who has wound up being one of the best, most important people in my life.

  THANK YOU, DARLIN’!

  Noted sexologist Susie Bright liked it so much that she included it in her BESTAMERICAN EROTICA 1999. (Thank you, Susie!)

  Most of all, I’d like to thank Chris Miller, whose astonishing short stories in the 70’s National Lampoon have inspired me ever since.

  Not only did his Tales of the Adelphian Lodge beget the classic film ANIMAL HOUSE, but he was the first guy I ever read who’d write about a bass player named Boom-Boom, getting a blowjob from his drooling phone, as part of a startling payment incentive program from Ma Bell.