Gyp couldn't stop scratching her pookee.
Nor did she want to.
She lay on the couch in her apartment with the stereo on, while Brant scrounged in the kitchen for something to eat.
She'd been a scratcher for as long as she could remember. It had become such a central part of her life that she didn't think it was odd, but she knew it wasn't exactly an acceptable form of public expression either. In her early years, she'd wait until she was alone, but it got more difficult to wait as she entered her teens, and she soon became adept at scratching on the sly. She'd developed a sixth sense for getting caught and became quite content with the delicate balance that had become her life. She engaged in this most private form of self-gratification in the most public places, and still she kept the whole thing internalized. No one ever saw her, and she never told anyone.
"Gyp, we're awfully low on munchies." Brant called out from the kitchen. "And I'm starved!"
At the sound of his voice, Gyp reflexively pulled her hand up past the elastic waistband on the back of her shorts, but then she heard a spoon clang against the countertop and other kitchen noises, and she instinctively resumed a nice session that had begun thirty minutes earlier.
The importance of scratching rose in proportion to the amount of stress in her life so, in the past few days, she'd nearly scratched herself raw. Gyp closed her eyes tightly to block out the memory of yesterday's events with Tsang, and made a last few furious wiggles with her index finger as she sensed Brant was about to come into the room.
"Gyp, I'm tired of Split Enz." Brant called out. "Why don't I put on the Butthole Surfers?"
Butthole. Gyp cringed at that offensive word. When she was a girl, Gyp named her most special place Sally. There was a girl she knew named Sally, and "Sally" made her think warm thoughts, so "Sally" it became. When she got a little older, she went through a phase where she felt herself to be too sophisticated for Sally, so in her mind Sally was replaced by Guinnevere. That's also when she began growing her nail.
Her fingernail grew and grew, but her sophistication didn't last, so after she met a boy who made her laugh, Guinnevere became Squint.
Squint was a silly name to match her silly disposition at the time, and it painted an accurate mental image of the subject (though Gyp rarely looked Squint straight in the eye).
When the boy moved away, Squint just seemed dumb, so Squint became Mookie. Gyp had seen a baseball player named Mookie, and she liked the sound of it. It combined the warmth of Sally with the humor of Squint. But she didn't want to think about that black man in the baseball cap every time she scratched herself, so she changed it to Pookee.
"The only things edible in that fridge were apples and ice cream," Brant said, shuffling into the living room with two bowls and a tray. Gyp pulled her finger out just in time.
"Really, we ought to go shopping."
"Huh?" Gyp straightened up. "Brant, we've got more important things to worry about than shopping, don't you think."
"Don't worry, baby. I have everything taken care of."
Gyp looked skeptical.
"Here, eat something," Brant said. "Have an apple."
Gyp took a small bite out of the large, red apple and began munching.
"When you look at it, we've really come out of this thing looking pretty good." Brant said. "We got most of your grandpa's stuff out of the '69 Charger. The stuff Tsang didn't wreck anyway. And he had all those brand-new DVD players in his trunk. Those have to be worth a couple thousand. And look at all this blow...." Brant motioned toward the baggies on the coffee table.
Brant took a few spoonfuls of ice cream, pushed his dish away, and picked up an apple. "Oh, crap, I don't have a knife," he said, wiping his hands on his pants. "You know I don't like the skin."
"Here, give it to me," she said, and Brant handed her the apple.
"You sure you can get rid of all that stuff?" Gyp said, as she began digging her nail into Brant's apple.
"Yeah, no problem. Varsho's gonna have a guy call me. Another ballplayer. These guys can fence anything, just like that!" Brant snapped his fingers for emphasis.
Gyp had set right to work on Brant's apple, and he marveled at the effortless work she was making of it. Long red strips were peeling off beneath her touch, as Gyp quickly and uniformly shed the fruit of its membrane.
"That's quite a potato-peeler you've got there," he said. "I still can't get over how long and sharp your nail is...and on just that one finger. It must be two inches long. Why do you do that?"
Gyp looked uncomfortable, as she finished skinning the apple. "I just like it, I guess. It's what makes me unique."
"Well, it sure came in handy last night."
"Shit! Don't talk about that!" "All right, all right."
"Just eat your ice cream." Gyp said. And she went back to work on the apple.
With the peelings lying on the plate, Gyp took the apple and pierced it down through the center with her fingernail — right down through the core — and then slashed outward three times quickly as the fruit fell into quarters. She picked up one of the slices and held it out for Brant to eat. Brant obliged, sucking the juice from Gyp's finger as he took it into his mouth.
The phone in the kitchen rang and Brant stood up, licking his lips as little bits of apple flew out of his mouth. "That must be the guy."
Gyp could hear Brant talking on the phone. The music had stopped playing, so she switched on the TV — and she returned to her scratching.
It was true that Brant had never noticed the length of her fingernail before. She had been effective in keeping her private world private. But the nail was longer and sharper now than it had ever been before. When she wasn't scratching, she was usually whet stoning. She needed to, because as the years had gone by, Pookee had built up resistance to the scrapings of her nail. Gyp could only attain the intense pleasure if she scratched with a razor-sharp instrument. But the sharper her nail became, the tougher the tissues became surrounding the pookal opening. Still, sometimes she scratched so long and so diligently that even the course, calloused tissues would become tender. In times like these, she would treat herself to a little bit of luxury: She'd slip into her silk nightie and she'd powder her pookee. Gyp could hear Brant's conversation coming to a close, so she removed her finger once again.
"... don't forget, this is real important, I need to hear from you," Brant was saying. "Call me, Ismael." And he hung up the phone.
Brant came back into the room. "That was Valdes. Nice guy. He's still pitching for the Angels, but Varsho's already got him in the racket. I guess, his future in pro ball doesn't look real bright. What's on TV?"
"They're talking about the Cubs, like usual," Gyp said.
"Those suckers are gonna blow it. Kotsay dropped that pop fly in New York, and now they're down 3-2. The Yankees don't need Jeter, as long as the Cubs play like the Cubs."
"Brant, how can you think about baseball?"
"Baby, I'm in the clear. That was a World Series game. It's all on Kotsay now. Who's gonna remember that stinking ball in Milwaukee? No one, that's who."
"But you're acting so casual, you seem so...happy. Do you realize what we did?"
"Hey, you're the one who told me not to bring it up."
It was true. Gyp didn't want to talk about it or even think about it. She had been staring at a coffee table covered with cocaine all morning, but she couldn't bring herself to indulge in it. One snort, and all the details of last night would come flooding back. She wanted to scratch, but Brant was settled in next to her sucking on his apples, and he wasn't going anywhere soon. She needed some kind of release.
Gyp's addiction was too powerful. The line that she had laid out earlier was still waiting for her. It looked a little lumpy in spots, so she chopped at it with her fingernail until it became a fine powder. She put the straw up to her nostril and in a moment she felt that familiar cool draft. Her eyelids popped open and she saw Grandpa's bathroom. There was blood everywhere....
Gyp picked herself up off the bathroom floor. Tsang was not a large man, but he was terrifically strong, and he had reversed positions with Brant. The drug dealer had the full weight of his body centered on Brant's groin, as his right knee wedged down against Brant's remaining nut. He was gouging at the ballplayer's eyes with his knuckles and, when the opportunity presented itself, biting down on Brant's neck. Brant was trying to get one arm free so he could hurl the other man off of him. But Tsang was using his left leg to block the motions of Brant's arms and hands.
Gyp came to his aid, trying to pull Tsang off, but she had never been strong, and Tsang barely took notice of her. Then she remembered Grandpa's bat.
It was 1972, and Gyp hadn't had her fourth birthday yet. The Cubs had a Sunday doubleheader against the Pirates, plus it was Bat Day. The first ten thousand youngsters through the turnstiles would receive a Ron Santo autographed bat. Grandpa wanted that bat. "Gyp, I'll buy you all the cotton candy you want, if you give me the Ron Santo bat," he had told her.
Gyp left the two men grappling and cursing at each other in the tub, and raced down the hallway to the den. The bat lay horizontal in Grandpa's display case, with the trademark and signature rotated toward the front. He probably hadn't touched it in twenty-nine years, as the glass doors were locked shut.
Gyp could hear Brant screaming in the bathroom, and she tried not to panic. She rifled through the desk drawers but she couldn't find the key. She had heard that you could pick a lock with a safety pin, but Grandpa didn't have any pins lying around. Then she remembered her nail-she had just sharpened it to a fine point yesterday. She inserted the tip into the keyhole and the doors swung open.
When Gyp ran into the bathroom, Brant's face was purple. Tsang had gotten a hold of Brant's throat and was slowly strangling him. She lifted the heavy wood bat up to her shoulder, but the thought of cracking it down over Tsang's head sickened her. She was not a violent person.
Gyp walked up to the tub and swung the bat. At the last moment she aimed away from the head and it landed somewhat gently on Tsang's shoulder. It fell out of her hands and rolled across the tile floor. Tsang lost his grip and Brant screamed out in terror, "Jesus, Gyp do something!" In an instant, Tsang recovered and he dug his thumbs back into Brant's windpipe. His eyes rolled back in his head.
Gyp knew she had a weapon that she hadn't used yet, and she couldn't let Jesus, Gyp do something! echo for the rest of her life. She stepped up behind Brant's tormenter and slashed down at the side of his face with her finger. Tsang howled in pain and reflexively covered his eyes with his hands. Brant gulped in a mouthful of air and lifted himself up on the palms of his hands. Tsang sat back on his haunches. "You bitch, I'm blind!" Gyp could see blood trickling down his sideburns into the sparse black hairs that Tsang kept as a beard.
"Gimme that," Brant said, as he hauled himself over the edge of the tub. Gyp stood still looking on in horror as Brant retrieved the bat from underneath the washbasin. Brant was on his knees with the bat in his hands. "I was a shitty fielder, but I still know how to use one of these," he said, as he gripped it with both hands just beneath the trademark.
The sound of a bat hitting a ball is one that baseball players hear every night in their dreams. This was a sound for nightmares. Gyp leaned over the edge of the toilet gagging as Tsang dropped face first, his nose landing hard against the bathtub drain.
"I didn't drop this one," Brant said, still clutching the bat in both hands.
He and Gyp were sitting on the floor of the hallway, Brant's back up against the bathroom door.
"But what are we going to do with him? He's not dead. If he gets out of here, he'll come back for me." Gyp's eyes were round with fright.
"That's why he's not getting out of here."
"Oh, Brant, we can't do that. They might say we murdered him."
"Look, Gyp, it's not murder because he deserves it. And, besides, no one's gonna find out."
Gyp spoke in a whisper even though Tsang was comatose behind the door. "How can you be so sure? Those cops have ways of finding stuff out."
"You've talked to the cops before. It's not so bad. How about the other night, after that Erection guy blew his brains out."
"Yeah, but we didn't kill Mr. Erection. This would be different. I'd be nervous."
"Look, baby, no one's gonna find the body, and we're not going to leave any clues." A plan was forming in Brant's mind. "The cops only catch people who aren't smart. We're going to do a clean job."
"What's a clean job?"
"No weapons, no accessories, no blood."
"How do you think you can pull that off?"
"Look, shithead in there is lying face down in the tub, unconscious. That's the perfect place for him to be. Usually, guys dump the body in the tub after they've turned it into a mess. They've tracked evidence all over the place just to get it into the tub, where they can slice it up. With us, he's already there!"
Gyp was in shock. Looking into Brant's eyes was like looking into the eyes of a professional killer. "How are you gonna do it?"
"I'm not gonna do it...you are." Gyp couldn't believe it. "Why me?"
"Because I don't have a stiletto growing out of the end of my finger." Gyp touched her nail nervously.
"That's the damnedest thing I've ever seen. You cut that guy's face up with just one swipe. And that's exactly what we need right now."
Gyp started to cry. "Oh, Brant, you do it. Use a knife."
"No, baby. You have a weapon that no one will find. It's better this way."
"Why don't we just leave here and see what happens?"
"I'll tell you what'll happen: The cops will find this guy in your Grand-Pap's apartment, and within minutes we'll hear a knock at our door. Besides, he probably left his car right downstairs. We'll sell the Charger, and we'll get all your grandpa's stuff back."
"Then let's just take the car and forget about Tsang."
"Then Tsang makes a miraculous recovery and tells the police that we lured him in here to kill him for drugs. You're an addict, so it's a reasonable story."
"But he wouldn't tell the cops that he sells me drugs."
"He would if it got him off of breaking-and-entering, burglary and attempted murder. Besides, if we get his car, and the cops can't trace it to us, who knows what's inside of it. Maybe more than Grandpa's toaster. This guy's a drug dealer after all."
Gyp needed cocaine. Everything else was confusing, but she was sure of that. And Brant reassured her that he would take care of the body.
She got up and pushed the bathroom door open. Tsang hadn't moved. Gyp knelt down close to the man who had supplied her with drugs the last eighteen months. He wasn't bleeding much, but the hair on the back of his head was matted, sticky and red. There was an indentation where Brant had smashed his skull in.
"We've got to strip him." Brant said.
"Why?"
"I don't want blood on anything."
Brant got down beside Gyp and struggled to pull Tsang's shirt over his head. The man was dead weight, and the tub was confining. The shoes and socks came off easier. Still, the man hadn't moved on his own. "Oh, Brant, I think he's dead," Gyp said, hoping it was true. At that moment, Tsang expelled a mild gush of air, which was not quite a cough.
"Does that answer your question?" Brant said. "Look, we have to roll him over to get the pants off." Brant straddled the tub, putting his left foot on the far edge of the tub. He grabbed Tsang by his jeans and pulled up. Tsang slumped over onto his back.
Gyp looked at the face. Blood trickled from his nose and his eyes were open. She had done more than just scratch him with her nail; a deep crevice ran the length of the left side of his face, from his whiskers to his eyebrow. She couldn't see the pupil of the left eye, and she wondered why. She looked closer. The eyeball was completely red-not red like a bloodshot eye-but entirely red. Then it moved. It seemed to be bobbing in the small pool of blood that had gathered in the eye socket. It was rolling forward impossibly far as if it were about to invert itself. Then Gyp saw the pupil appear at the top edge, like a ship appearing on the horizon. Gyp gasped. She had been looking at the back of his eyeball!
"Brant! Oh, my God."
Brant reached down to close Tsang's eye, and in his haste he poked it with his finger. The eyeball tumbled out of the socket, rolled down past the nose, and plopped onto the porcelain. The pupil stared up at Gyp.
"Settle down, baby, I'll get it."
The eyeball lay motionless for a second, but then it got caught up in a small stream of water that had been in the tub. The eye floated past its owner's face, setting a course for the drain opening. Brant grabbed at it, but it squirted out between his fingers. It was an inch away from going down the drain when Brant delicately plucked it up between his thumb and index finger, and set it down on the soap dish.
Gyp sat forward on the toilet seat and wept. She put her face in her hands and cried uncontrollably.
"C'mon, Gyp. Pull yourself together. You can do this."
Brant had removed Tsang's pants and briefs. He put his arm around her and kissed the tears running down her cheek. Gyp shuddered as she nuzzled up against Brant's chest.
"You remember that hockey game, where the goalie almost bought it?" Gyp just kept crying. "Honey, this is important. ... You remember that? His throat got cut by some guy's skate. That was the jugular. The guy would've died fast, if the doctor hadn't been right there." Brant snapped his fingers. "That's what we're gonna do."
"Now, look, his neck's right there down by the drain. This'll be a clean job. All the fluids will flow down into the sewer, and I'll take care of the solids."
Gyp knelt before the tub in a daze. The hysteria had passed and shock was settling in. But she was still fully aware of the horror of what she was about to do. Brant had turned the face away so she couldn't see Tsang's good eye, and he had taken the other one out of the soap dish. He said he knew how difficult this must be.
The body was naked, and since Gyp had become so familiar with a certain appendage during the course of her drug addiction, she took one last glance. Amazingly, it was erect. Somehow, the guy knew she was there, and despite his impending death, subconsciously he was stiff for her. The nerve!
Gyp took a deep breath and grabbed Tsang around the throat. She found the spot that Brant had pinpointed, and jabbed with her stiletto down to the hilt. The mouth opened, and a wheezing sound emanated, but she hadn't found the vein.
"C'mon, Gyp, it's right there," Brant said, impatiently.
"Leave me alone!" Gyp pulled her nail back out and tentatively stabbed at another spot. Blood oozed up out of the wound. "I felt something. Did I get it?" she asked.
"No, you're not doing it right, there'd be more blood."
"Jesus, Brant, it's not like popping a balloon. Some of the stuff in there is rigid. I don't know if I can do it."
Brant swallowed his anger and said, "Sure you can, baby. Just take your time."
Gyp slid her nail back into the puncture wound she had just made and felt around inside Tsang's neck with her fingertip. She couldn't slide her finger freely, and she didn't know the parts of the anatomy, but she came upon a long, slender piece of tissue that felt like a blood vessel. Wouldn't the jugular be wider than this? Then she felt a pulse. If she jabbed down right on the spot where she felt the pulse, maybe that would do it.
Gyp wiped her brow with her free hand and glanced at Tsang's erection for motivation. Determined to do the deed, she puckered her pookie and stabbed at the pulse. Nothing happened for a moment, then the lazy river came flowing out of the wound. A gurgling sound came from the man's throat, and his limbs went into a spasm. Gyp pulled her finger out of the hole, and the dam collapsed. Pints of deep black blood came shooting up in rapid fire directly at Gyp's torso. Before she could dodge out of the way, her blouse was soaked through.
"Turn him, turn him!" Brant was yelling. "Keep it in the tub!"
Gyp just fell back and let Brant take it from there. He was frantic; he was insane. Brant turned Tsang's body, keeping the geyser within the tub. Then in an instant he was pulling off Gyp's shirt. She could feel him unsnapping her bra in back. When she looked down she saw him lapping the blood out of her navel. It was all over his nose and chin as he took her breast in his mouth and suckled the nipple.
"Look, they're showing it again, Gyp."
Gyp glanced up from the coffee table and breathed in deeply, setting the drug on its voyage to her brain. She heard the TV like it was on the bottom of the ocean.
Mark Kotsay jeopardized every Cub fan's dream Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium with this misplay of Jorge Posada's fly ball.
"Give it to him, Giangreco," Brant said. "Give it to him like you gave it to me."
In other Cub-related news ... Would you want your child sitting on this Santa's lap? Look closely, baseball fans. Yep, that's former Cub Brant Brown behind the whiskers. We've blurred the photo below the waist, but yes, he is doing what he appears to be doing. Apparently, he's not master of his domain. Now, there's one for the "Where Are They Now" file.
"Oh, man," Brant groaned, "wait 'til Mr. Pink sees this. There goes my job at Nordstrom's."