The House Page 3

  GONG!

  It felt like a sledgehammer that impacted the top of Leonard's head just two strokes short of dumping the wares of his loins. Paralyzed, he collapsed to the floor, his inane erection still throbbing but his head throbbing too and near the brink of concussion. "Honey!" her voice could be heard from above. "He came onto me! He-he-he...was raping me!" A much more gruff voice responded, "Shut up, ya slut. Fuckin' the help again, Jesus Christ..." Then came a sharp SLAP! no doubt the introduction of an open palm to our hostess' face. "Get outa here before I really get mad." Sobbing, then, and the patter of feet. Eventually, Leonard's vision cleared and, still flat on his back on the floor in front of the salad bar, he looked up and saw the face of The Boss glaring down at him. "Fuckin' my wife, huh?" A shoed foot stomped down on Leonard's stomach. Leonard gagged. "Bet she told ya I was queer, huh?" Leonard's response needed to be decrypted from the paralyzing wheeze, but it sounded something like this: "Nuh nuh nuh..." Then The Boss flipped Leonard over on his belly, and Leonard found he still could not move even a single fiber of muscle. (It was not a sledgehammer that he'd been struck with, by the way. It was a pot pan.) "Sure she did, and ya know something, punk? She's right." A fat hand grabbed a bottle of Progresso extra-virgin olive oil from the salad bar caddy, then squirted it liberally into the cleft of Leonard's buttocks. It was no real surprise what happened then. "Gonna park my car right in your garage," came a rather colloquial promise. The Boss buggered Leonard right there on the salad bar floor, admitting a "car" into Leonard's "garage" that felt not particularly long but admirably wide. A Land Rover perhaps, or a Gremlin. Leonard was squashed flat, a helping hand wrenched into his hair, grating his face into the carpet. "Here's a shit-baby for ya, punk," The Boss then remarked and ejaculated with zeal into Leonard's rectal vault. The soiled penis was then wiped off on Leonard's dishwashers' apron, then he was dragged into the kitchen and out the back door and next thrown into the dumpster.

  "Ever come back here again," promised J—, er, The Boss, "and I'll cut your head off and fuck your neck."

  The restaurant's back door slammed as Leonard's back door effused a slick mixture of extra-virgin olive oil and semen.

  Gee, he thought amongst the garbage. I guess that means I'm fired.

  ««—»»

  A frisky collie named Fred finished the all-critical job. Snowdrop unfortunately remained close to comatose in the b.g. but that was all right. Sissy, on the other hand, managed to reanimate herself sufficiently enough to reassume the task of having intercourse with a dog.

  Using all of her female intuition—or whatever the throes of clinical heroin addiction had left to her—she even managed to sense the animal's impending moment of crisis, pushing away most precisely and, thank the fates, most effectively. Fred the collie then successfully dribbled its ejaculant onto Sissy's blanched belly, providing the absolutely necessary "wet shot" for Leonard's camera.

  "Great, great!" he shouted. "Sissy, you did it!"

  Not caring to share in the celebration, Sissy threw up a few belts of low-grade bile and passed out. Fred, meanwhile, snuffled away, his business finished, and it was then that Leonard gleefully shut down the baking lights. Finally, and at last, he had the entirety of Dog Day Afternoon "in the can."

  It was 2 a.m. now. The editing job would take maybe twelve hours, and with any luck, Rocco wouldn't be early. Leonard rushed to the darkroom and put the last film roll in the Kodak processor, cognizant of the grim, pre-industrial strains of Fripp & Eno's Evening Star from the radio. Then he went to the fridge for a quick bite, forgetting that it had been empty for two days. "Oh, man," he complained to the open Frigidaire. As empty as empty could be. If you looked up the word "empty" in the dictionary, there'd be a picture of this fucking refrigerator. Leonard's gut ached; he hadn't eaten in two days now. Rocco never seemed to bring enough in the way of necessities, be they food or heroin, and Leonard knew that if he didn't get some grub into the old breadbasket, he'd be passed out on the floor along with Sissy and Snowdrop. Then Dog Day would not be ready tomorrow, and that was a consequence he did not care to reckon.

  "Oh, man," he said to the panty shelf. The shelf was not empty; in fact, it was loaded up...with dog food.

  All kinds of dog food—Leonard had four dogs to feed. Not even a good brand, he thought. Giant brand. Couldn't Rocco at least have been thoughtful enough to pick up Alpo or Mighty Dog? Well, he'd eaten it before on such deprived instances, he'd eat it again. Let's see. He scanned the rows of cans. Beef & Cheese Flavor, Hearty Chicken Dinner, Big Chunk Beef, Beef & Liver. He chose the latter, hoping the liver might let him think he was dining on foi gras. The label sported a collie much like Fred, dashing happily through a field of grass; the back of the label, however, wasn't promising. INGREDIENTS: WATER (SUFFICIENT FOR PROCESSING), CHICKEN STOCK, CHICKEN FAT, CHICKEN PARTS, RED #4, RED #8, SODIUM NITRITE, SODIUM NITRATE, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, BHT, BHA, ARTIFICIAL BEEF AND LIVER FLAVORING.

  "Where's the beef?" Leonard almost wailed. Even dog food was a rip-off. Ain't life grand? He manually opened the can, plopped its contents on a plate, and began to eat.

  It did not taste much like foi gras.

  ««—»»

  Later, his belly full, he went to urinate. A ring of black fungus marked the waterline in the toilet. Bits of dried vomit flecked about the bowl—heroin addicts threw up a lot. As he voided his bladder, an impulse, then, urged him to feel his scrotum and testicle.

  Not testicles. Testicle. Singular.

  Hence, the happenstance which led Leonard to become deprived of one.

  After his termination of employment at The Widow's Walk, Leonard decided that Annapolis was not the berg that would make his dreams come true. He still had the rickety Chevette and one night on a lark, he shimmied it onto Interstate 95 and kept on trucking till he got to New York City. Annapolis wasn't a film town, but The Big Apple was. They shot all the good shows there: Kojak, Mod Squad, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and Woody Allen made all his movies there. First, he secured his gear in a U-STORE-IT rental facility off of 25th street, and he ditched the car. He found an ideal place to live for cheap rent at what the classifieds referred to as "an artist's retreat" called the Works, and—presto!—he was set.

  He still had most of the petty cash he'd ripped off from Channel 22—that would cover rent and food for a while, but he still needed his production budget.

  Quite by chance, he met a man one day on Amsterdam Avenue. The man was sporty, sharply dressed in a suit and tie, thinning hair and something in his eye that might be described as "shifty." Leonard would pay this man no mind initially; instead he loped dejected down the street, still caught in his desperate muse. "Just four thousand," Leonard was talking to himself in frustration. "Four thousand and I'm set!" Then, of course, he could make his movie—The Confessor—send it to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City Utah, then the cinematic world would see his genius and he'd be rich, copping big Hollywood contracts just like George Lucas had after making Electronic Labyrinth and Coppola after Dementia 13. But it seemed the tribulations of Job just kept landing on his head.

  Or...had they?

  "Hey, kid. Four thou's what you need? Is that what you said?"

  Leonard stopped, turned, and looked at the well-dressed if not shifty looking man who'd spake the strange words.

  "I need it to make a movie," Leonard said without much use. "I've got the script, I've got the equipment. All I need is the money."

  "I can spot ya four thou easy," the man zipped off. "You gotta show me the equipment, though, for collateral purposes. Then I lay four large on ya, cash, but it's a hundred points."

  "A hundred...points?" Leonard asked, not quite comprehending.

  "Interest kid. I lay four on ya, cash, and ya pay back eight."

  Leonard's eyes bloomed. Sure, that was a steep interest rate, but where else would he get a loan? It wouldn't take more than a few weeks to make the movie, and not much more for the money to roll in. He'd clear the debt easy, even be able to pay
it back early!

  "You got a deal, sir!" Leonard enthused. Then he happily led the man to the U-STORE IT! The collateral was proven, and the deal was sealed. Then the man, right then and there, gave Leonard four thousand dollars in cash.

  The man's name was Rocco.

  ««—»»

  Naivete. The oblivion of youth.

  Rocco, as you may have guessed, was, among other things, a loan shark for the Mob. Leonard supposed he knew that but saw no good reason to consciously acknowledge it. None of that mattered. Only the movie mattered, for the movie was his dream. Leonard knew he'd been put on earth to make movies. And he shot the movie—the rough cut—in three days. You see, luck continued to pour forth from the sky like rain in Seattle. Not only had he gotten his loan as quickly as if he'd summoned a genie from a lamp, some sympathetic tenants at the Works attended the City College's drama classes, and they eagerly had helped him out—for title credits, no money—and—more, more luck!—it just so happened that the City College Drama Department was in the middle of an adaptation of Macbeth. When the Tawes Building closed for the night, Leonard snuck in with his pals and, utilizing the impressively crafted "witches' scene" set, along with a terrific dry-ice fog generator, he was able to put the whole thing in the can in three nights. The costume department provided the Confessor's black raiments, while the Confessor himself was played by one of Leonard's new-found neighbors. As for the role of the truth-seeking writer...Leonard played the part himself while yet another buddy ran the camera. This seemed to add even more verity to the heart of the creation.

  Three days and—boom!—it was done. In a manic spurt, he then edited the movie and processed the sound in another 48 hours. The postmark deadline for the Sundance Festival was just another day away, yet Leonard managed to mail the final cut of The Confessor in just a nick of time. Ten months from now he'd be rich, and he had a year to pay back the loan, and better yet, the total production costs—thanks to the "borrowing" of the set from the college—came in at a scant $700. This enabled him to maintain rent at his cheap room at the Works and not worry about a job. Instead, he began his followup script so he'd have the next one ready for Hollywood when The Confessor won Sundance and then went on to Cannes.

  It was a wonderful dream.

  Then came a knock on the door. Just a few days later.

  "Hi, Rocco!" Leonard greeted his friend. "I shot the movie already! It's going to be better than The Tenant!"

  "Great, kid," Rocco cordially remarked. But behind him stood a man who had to be bigger than Bill Brundige. Bill Brundige was a defensive end for the Redskins, and he was, like, six-foot-five, 270, which meant that the guy behind Rocco was even bigger, and that was big. Big jaw, big nose, big arms, big everything. And the same shifty, beady kind of eyes that Rocco had.

  "Kid, this is Knuckles. I bring him along as muscle on pickups. Knuckles, meet Leonard."

  When Leonard shook hands with this suited giant, something in his stomach seemed to drop. Why are they here?

  "Glad to hear about your movie, kid," Rocco commented, "but we gotta a bunch more pickups today. So let's have the dough."

  "The. Dough." Another drop—PLOP!—in Leonard's belly.

  "You got the dough, right kid? Please tell me you got my eight large."

  "I. Uh. Eight large."

  "Yeah. Let's have it."

  He was joking, of course! Right?

  These guy's didn't look like they were joking. "Wellawellawella," Leonard attempted.

  "I gave ya four on a hundred points. Ya owe me eight. Like we agreed."

  "Wellawella-uh-uh...that was an interest rate based on a year, right?" Leonard said. "You know, like the banks?"

  Rocco and Knuckles busted out laughter.

  "Do I look like Suburban Trust? Kid, don't fuck with me. It's a week. Everyone knows that. Points tabulated on a weekly basis."

  Only now did the mammoth Knuckles speak. "He ain't got it, Roc."

  Rocco's leer spiked Leonard in the face. "Well, do ya, kid?"

  "Nuh-nuh-nuh, no," Leonard blabbered.

  Silence, then.

  "This is why we call my pal here Knuckles. Knuckles, show him."

  WHAP!

  Suddenly, Knuckle's ham-hock-sized hand was queerly covered by a black glove that had protruding knuckles. These were knuckle saps, or sand mitts, not that Leonard particularly cared what the implements were referred to as. He went down like the clichéd ton of bricks once the knuckle saps were introduced to the side of his head. Half-conscious, half-paralyzed, much like when J—, er, The Boss at The Widow's Walk had gonged Leonard's cranium with the pot pan while Leonard was two pelvic thrusts short of ejaculating into The Boss' wife. Only this seemed a bit more severe.

  These men weren't pissed off restaurant owners.

  They were loan sharks. Gangsters.

  And it was then that these gangsters crouched down. Words floated like big wobbly bubbles in a fish tank. "Tough luck, kid. Ain't got time to fuck around with small-timers. We gotta kill ya..."

  Leonard, then, mercifully passed out.

  ««—»»

  More words wobbled amid the fuzzy, stygian scape of what Leonard presumed was heaven, hell, or some manner of afterlife. It was not Rocco nor Knuckles who'd spoken the words (it was a man named Leon Askin, in case you're interested). The words recounted in a high, squeaky German accent, and the words were this:

  "Klink. Shut up."

  But when Leonard awoke in a moment or two, he wasn't dead. "Why didn't I think of that? Shit, Knucks, you gotta sliver of brain." Rocco was commenting and hanging up the phone. "Yeah," Knuckles said. "I gotta good idea every now and then."

  "Now all I see is a colonel about to became corporal!"

  Leonard's eyes opened, roved, looked at them. The TV was on, and Knuckles was watching Hogan's Heroes. "Klink, I'll have you court martialed, shot, and sent to the Russian Front!"

  "Hey, kid," Rocco said upon noticing Leonard's return to consciousness. "You lucked out."

  "Yuh-yuh-yuh—yes, General Berkhalter!"

  "I'm...not dead," Leonard mouthed.

  Rocco snickered. "Kid, you were one dick-hair short of checking out but just before Knuckles was gonna crack your neck, he got an idea. So I called Vinch."

  "Vinch," Leonard mouthed.

  "Yeah, Vinchetti, as in Vinchetti ‘The Eye.' He's district boss at headquarters in Jersey. Me and Knuckles are on his crew. And Vinch loved Knuckles' idea. See, kid, we had this joker up at one of our joints shooting flicks but he, like, fucked up real bad so Knuckles and I had to do the job on him. That's why we ain't killed ya."

  Leonard stared through a headache like lasers drilling his brain. He didn't know what Rocco was talking about.

  "See, kid. Instead of killin' ya, you're gonna work for us for a while. Vinch says do a good job for a year and the dough you owe'll be paid off."

  Only now did some semblance of sentience return to Leonard. "You're...offering me a job?"

  "That's right, kid." Rocco inspected his fingernails. "You're gonna work for us doing what you do best. Making movies."

  Leonard's head craned up off the floor. "Movies?" It sounded absurd but then Leonard wasn't going to complain or ask any burdensome questions. He was alive.

  Rocco's lip twisted, and a brow arched. "That's the good news. The bad news is Vinch wants a nut."

  A nut. Leonard reflected. A hazelnut? Planter's?

  "You know, to keep ya in line. Punishment for going bad on your marker," Rocco said.

  A nut.

  "A...nut?"

  Then he knew when Knuckles pulled down Leonard's pants and snapped open the angel-blade.

  "Don't sweat it, kid. We're only taking one. Why do ya think God gave ya two?"

  Rocco and Knuckles busted out laughter.

  And Leonard screamed—

  "I see nothing, nothing!" Sergeant Schultz assured.

  ««—»»

  Leonard groped the single testicle a moment more, as if to verify that it
was an aspect of reality. Then he zipped up his fly, flushed the toilet, and finished the final edit of Dog Day Afternoon.

  ««—»»

  More exposition. The night that Leonard had been divorced from his left testicle, Rocco and Knuckles loaded up the car with Leonard's film-making gear and then, with somewhat more difficulty, loaded a shock-eyed, puff-faced Leonard into the same car. The car was a '69 Cadillac Deville, gray. Nice leather seats. "Knuckles, give the kid a rag so he don't bleed on the leather."

  Later, Leonard would discover that it was not a terribly savage job that Knuckles the Bill-Brundige-sized gangster had done on half of his reproductive potential. The giant, peninsula-jawed man had expertly slit the scrotum, popped out the raw ball and—snick!—severed the vesicular cord. One, two, three—done. Surgically precise for, after all, Knuckles had had a lot of experience cutting things. He had cut off arms, legs, heads, faces—you name it, Knuckles had cut it.