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  Christmas muzak issued lightly through the store. “Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus…” Garlands of blinking lights extended overhead, while the front windows displayed cardboard holly and giant XMAS SALE signs. She looked down at the row of Casio and Nikon CoolPix digital cameras, only to spy her own superimposed reflection in the glass counter top. Even in this abstract image of herself, as the Christmas lights above blinked down, she could see her aura of faith. Please, God. Give me the strength to steer Mike off his path of error. Let my love be true enough to CHANGE him.

  Mike had promised to take her out tonight—for pizza—and the prospect made her brim with joy. Every so often, she glanced over at him, trying hard to seem nonchalant but it wasn’t easy. He stood over there now in the cellphone department talking with his crony Archie, and every so often his gorgeous, dark eyes would flick over to her, then flick back down. He’s checking me out but doesn’t want me to know, she realized, blushing. Mike was vain, and she knew that sin of vanity came from his GQ good looks—he couldn’t help it. And men so possessed of such sheer handsomeness often played hard to get. No big deal, Veronica thought. Patience was her virtue.

  Aside from her sin of fellatio, she knew she was guilty of a little vanity herself but this, too, God would forgive because it served as a means to a Godly end. You have to keep them interested, she knew all too well, otherwise you lose them in this amoral quagmire we call modern society… She’d just have to keep the faith because, in essence, that’s what God would want her to do. Her nipples tingled beneath the loud, bright-blue employee shirt. The sheer polyester accommodated her ploy quite well…

  She’d deliberately taken to foregoing her bra (I may not have a runway model’s face but I KNOW I’ve got great breasts…) and would several times daily tweak her nipples to make them protrude. Men liked that. She wanted Mike inundated by a positive erotic image of her. Oh, she knew he’d been with plenty of women and was constantly accosted by plenty more every day. But those silly girls don’t love him, and he knows that.

  Ultimately, Veronica was very aware that she was using lust to lure Mike closer into her life, and lust was a sin. But her rationale seemed too honest to be incorrect. It has to be okay to use lust as my bait simply because God knows my eventual intentions are to live sinlessly, in a marriage with Mike. It made sense to her, at least. She got bristly thinking about him, and bristlier still when musing upon such a time when they were husband and wife. Her uncle’s trust fund, she knew, was more bait for the expectation but, again, eventually true love would find its way to his heart.

  Then money wouldn’t matter. Only our LOVE would matter, and upon completion of the thought, a tear of joy slipped from her eye.

  Nonchalant, nonchalant, she commanded herself as she came out from around the camera counter. No customers were present so Veronica used this opportunity to momentarily excuse herself. Mike looked up, then Veronica waved daintily with her fingers and mouthed Little girl’s room, and scurried away.

  Bing Crosby crooned more Christmas rhymes as she hurried to the back, to the employee’s bathroom, because that one had a lock. What would Mike say if he caught me back here! came the alarmed consideration, and then she giggled. Knowing him, it’d probably get him aroused. She wasted no time once she locked the bathroom door. All right, so I’m a little insecure, she admitted. She pulled down her work pants along with the wildcat-red Victoria’s Secret lace panties (Mike preferred quality underthings) and up over her 36C bosom came the blue work shirt. She appraised herself, as she often did, and was quite content with the appraisal. The alabaster-white skin glowed in its own healthy lambency, her abdomen sleek and flat, her full and equally lambent bosom dark-nippled and erect, her almost-bare pubis fecund in its form, vital in its feminine youth, and accentuated by the meticulous half-inch-wide strip of downy, ash-brown hair.

  My body’s almost as good as the girls in the Victoria’s Secret catalogue! she realized, and she thanked God for so bestowing her.

  Next she looked just as honestly as her face. Fine, a little nerdy in the face, but how can I complain? The hair atop her head hung shinily to the middle of her back and shared the exact same interesting hue as her spare pubic hair. The zit on her nose wasn’t very big and would surely be gone in a day or so. And tonight? Mike would be so distracted by her body, he wouldn’t even notice.

  She felt tickly even before she reached into her purse for the Doc Johnson’s Mini Pocket Wand; she mustn’t take too long—Mike would wonder what she was doing. She turned the wand on low, then stiffened and hissed when she touched its manic end to her right nipple, following the circumference of her areola. Delicious, intense waves seemed to spill over her chest from the inside out. The tender papilla swelled at once, and felt nerve-charged and somehow connected to her awareness. Round and round, the tip went, then to the other breast, then back. In only a minute, the warm spheres of her breasts seemed to beat, the nipples gorging till they stuck out in a manner that was anything but inconspicuous.

  Just what she wanted.

  The groove of her sex began to slicken, yet she never once considered lowering the wand to actually pleasure herself. That would’ve been a sin; and would reduce to falsehood her own morality. In truth, Veronica had never even had an orgasm and this was not due to frigidity at all but via her own force of will. Again, she thought of minor sins allowed to serve a Godly end—and wasn’t this just more proof of her faith? Her entreating of Mike orally was only to demonstrate her own charitability; it was not some lustful need on her part. She knew this, and knew that God knew it too. She was saving her very first orgasm just as she was saving her virginity: something to only be experienced once betrothed in the eyes of God and with Jesus as her witness. Not many women would have such strength, no indeed. There had even been rare occasions when Mike had reciprocated with cunnilingus, whereupon Veronica had only feigned climax, knowing full well that such abstinence only proved more—still more of her faith.

  Content now, and buzzing all over in her secret joy, she went back out to the show room, her nipples now fairly jutting beneath the Best Buys shirt. Mike was on the phone by the check-out. Archie stood on a ladder in the TV department, hanging Christmas decorations.

  Veronica secretly smiled as she eyed Mike’s profile.

  My God I love him SO MUCH…

  However, at this precise moment, Veronica couldn’t have felt closer to her own spirit nor closer to God. Venal sins, be damned! It was only a matter of time before Mike saw the light of Veronica’s love and they were properly wed in the eyes of the Lord. She even dared to think: Maybe he’ll propose to me on Christmas!

  Veronica would be pleased to know that her minor venal sins of fellatio and vanity would indeed be forgiven. But what she wouldn’t be pleased to know was this: she would have to pay for those sins first, and she’d be paying for them in a matter of hours.

  She’d be paying big-time.

  — | — | —

  Chapter 5

  (I)

  “Maw? Maw? It’s me, Helton…”

  Helton sat in the metal chair next to the convalescent bed, looking sorrowfully down at the wizened form of his 80-some-odd-year-old mother, Petunia Tuckton. The stroke last year had landed the noble backwoods matriarch here in the Daisy-Chase Nursing Home, and it was a place Helton could scarcely fathom, part of a system that for some inexplicable reason wouldn’t let dying people die. Upon entrance, he first noticed rows of hoppers heaped high with brown-stained linens. An unnerving silence was periodically broken by inane jabbering, hacking, and lone shrieks. Mostly overweight women who spoke not one word of the English language listlessly pushed medication carts from door to door. Several doors stood upon, revealing shuddering stick-figures beneath sheets, sunken-faced, hollow-eyed: seemingly cadavers that jabbered. No way to live, no sir, Helton thought. In one room, he saw the darnedest thing: a fat nurse in pigtails had pulled up the hospital gown of an absolutely ancient man. Bare, paper-white legs stuck out with knee
s the size of grapefruits. What kind’a pree-vert show we GOT here? Helton wondered, because now the nurse had the old man’s withered dick between her fingers, and what she did next…

  What she did next was she began to insert a long clear plastic tube into the old man’s dickhole!

  She pushed the tube down, down, down, and then, when it must’ve been in the poor old fucker two feet…the tube began to fill with piss. Helton’s astonished eyes followed that piss, which ran all the way down the tube and began to empty into a plastic bag…

  Good God! They steal folks PEE in this crazy place!

  Helton didn’t understand and didn’t want to. His big frame moved on past the nurses station over which hung Christmas decorations. A fella in white clothes sat asleep before a television where a bunch of tall, black fellas in the silliest little shorts and shirts were running back and forth on the wood floor, bouncing a ball. On a cork board, Helton spied an index card that read: HELP WANTED: YOU CAN EARN $10 PER HOUR CUTTING PATIENTS’ TOENAILS! APPLY AT FRONT DESK.

  A dense, diarrhea-ish odor followed Helton to his mother’s room.

  It pained him to see her like this, and pained him more to notice one of those bags of discolored urine connected to her bed as well. God in Heaven—they’se are even stealin’ my OWN MAW’S pee… Six-motherfuckin’-thousand-dollars a month is what this creepy, feces-smelling hell-hole cost, but Petunia had wisely never kept her cash in the bank; indeed, she remembered the “Bank Holidays” of the Great Depression and “that connivin’ closet Commer-nist FDR!” Too many good folks had lost everything back then, all because they trusted their government. Petunia knew better, which is why she kept all of her money hidden in a secret place. Fuck the government. This way, Medicaid got stuck with the six-motherfuckin’-thousand-dollar-per-month nursing-home fee, and this was Helton’s good fortune now. He’d never before asked his mother for money—money was something he rarely needed—but he knew she’d understand once he explained the complexion of the matter.

  He kept gently nudging her. “Maw?”

  The withered face looked like something trying to suck in on itself. Flap-like eyelids fluttered; then a rheumy gaze found Helton’s face.

  “Helton, my wonderful son,” the voice creaked like old boat timbers. “It’s heavenly to see ya but—oh, dear, son—ya know I asked ya not to visit me. I just cain’t bear fer no one to see me like this…”

  Helton squeezed her ancient hand. “I knows, Maw, and I’se terrible sorry fer not abidin’ by your wishes, but see…see… Somethin’ happened…”

  Old and dilapidated as the woman was, her senses immediately seized on her son’s words. “Aw, Lord Almighty…is it my great grandson Crory?”

  Helton swallowed hard. He could still hear the monstrous sounds from that DVD machine, the sounds the poor tot’s head made whiles goin’ in and out, in and out. “Yeah, Maw,” was the only reply he could muster.

  The vigorless woman seemed to age another year just in the next few seconds; wells of tears magnified the cataracts in her eyes. “What yer face is tellin’ me, son, is my wonderful grandson is dead—”

  Helton nodded.

  “—and it weren’t by accident.”

  Helton had to steel himself. “No, it weren’t—it were cold-blooded murder, Maw, of the horriblest kind. S’matter’a fact, what they done to Crory was so awful, I couldn’t never tell ya ’bout it, never.”

  The old woman’s breath rattled in her sunken chest. She made a despairing nod. “I’se understand, son.”

  “I knowed ya would, Maw. Ain’t no recourse but ta git our proper revenge, and with God’s help, I think I can.” He looked deeply at her. “See, Maw, what was done ta Crory was so devilsh, there ain’t but one way ta deal with it…”

  Petunia Tuckton brought a crabbed hand to her bosom and moaned. “Aw, son, I know! I know what yer talkin’ ’bout! Thought them days was done, but I guess that were just wishful thinkin’. The world don’t get better, it just gets eviller. And I trust in yer judgment so’s…you do what’cha must.”

  “I gots the truck, and Dumar’n Micky-Mack’re with me to help. But, see, we’se gonna have to be on the road, maybe fer a spell. We’se gonna have to go out inta the world, Maw.”

  The woman nodded knowingly. “So’s you’ll need money ta do that, I know.” With great effort, then, Petunia leaned up, grabbed Helton’s collar, and pulled him close to whisper, “Ya gots my permission ta take as much as ya need.”

  Helton knew he’d have to keep his voice down. If the folks here found out his mother had a stockpile of cash, then that six-motherfuckin’-thousand-dollar-per-month nursing-home bill would surely be levied against the Tuckton family.

  Fuck that.

  “Thanks, Maw. I’ll leave ya now, so’s we can go’n fight fer the family’s dig-ner-tee. When it’s all done…I’ll come back’n tell ya…”

  “My wonderful, wonderful son,” the old woman wheezed. “It ain’t natural fer no one ta be livin’ in the wretched state I am—ain’t what God intended, these nursin’ homes. And I know my time’s near.” The claw-like hand grabbed Helton’s. “Ain’t nothin’ more important than family, son, so you do what’cha need to so’s ta restore the family name. God be with ya, and if’n I move on to the Firmament’a Heaven a’fore your tasks are done…just know I’ll be smilin’ down on ya the whole time…”

  Choking up, Helton kissed his mother on the cheek and left.

  The truck waited outside in the parking lot: a 20-year-old behemoth of a step van nearly twenty feet long. Helton and Dumar’s know-how of engines and such kept the corroded rattle-trap in fine working order, though they rarely used it for anything more than transporting firewood. The door on either side slid open, quite like that of a UPS truck.

  “How’s Grandma?” Dumar asked behind the wheel.

  Micky-Mack looked up from the back, hope in his eyes.

  “Best we not speak of it, fellas.”

  A short drive past Crick City took them to Petunia’s fine, old log cabin, and it only expended minutes for Helton to retrieve $50,000 in banded $100 bills. Best to have more’n we need than not enough, he reasoned. But now further provisions would be required…

  “Where to now, Paw?”

  “Boys. I’ll ‘splain more as we go,” Helton said, fairly dreading what came next. “Life has it’s travails, as my Daddy used to say. We ain’t city folks but I’se afraid we’se gonna have to go to the city now. The big city…”

  Dumar and Mick-Macky cast Helton beseeching looks.

  “Pulaski,” Helton finished.

  In their youth, Dumar and Micky-Mack were excited by the prospect; it was very rare that any of them left their backwoods domain. Helton could see the evil of the city, could see how cities changed folks in their hearts. Traffic lights, shopping malls, cars and trucks going this way and that, folks honkin’ their horns’n givin’ each other the finger… Surely, city life stifled the natural good will of humankind. Helton had seen too many fine men fall prey to the lie. But it didn’t take long to arrive in Pulaski where the first thing they saw were streets lined with buildings—all crammed together—and bigger buildings in the background, apartment buildings, no doubt, where folks lived all hemmed in like chickens in a coop stacked on top of one another. “Watch these blasted traffic lights, son. If’n ya drive through one that’s red, a poe-leece man’ll make ya pay money.”

  “Dang! Just fer drivin’ on the street?”

  Helton nodded, already disheartened. “This is the world outside’a where true folks like us don’t live.”

  “Ain’t been here in so long,” Dumar muttered. “Looks even bigger now.”

  “It’s what they call progress…”

  “Unc Helton! Cousin Dumar!” Micky-Mack blurted in excitement. He pointed in awe. “Lookit that! A real, live subway station!”

  All of them peered at the squat, yellow-roofed building with the SUBWAY sign. “I heard’a subways,” Dumar said.

  Helton frowned. “Ju
st more’a the outside world gettin’ inta folks like chiggers.”

  Micky-Mack was beside himself. “I heard a subway’s like, a train, but one that runs underground!”

  “That it is,” Helton said disapprovingly. “Ain’t nothin’ natural ’bout underground trains.”

  But Dumar was squinting at the queer building. “So the trains…are underground?”

  “Yeah, they is, son. That’s why we cain’t see ’em.”

  “But, shit, Paw. Don’t look to me like they’se selling train tickets in there. Looks like all’s they’re selling are sandwiches,” Dumar said of customers exiting the building as they munched on big long sandwiches.

  “Guess they’se fixin’ ta eat them sandwiches while they’se ridin’ the underground train,” Micky-Mack speculated.

  Helton nodded. It had been quite a while since he’d been here, but his memory remained keen. He directed Dumar around several more turns. “Nice Christmas decorations,” the younger man observed of the blinking wreaths atop the street lights. “But, ya know, it just don’t…,” and his words trailed off.

  How’se can we enjoy the spirit’a Christmas time, Helton realized, after seein’ what happened to poor li’l Crory…

  Many of the street posts, however, had signs on them. NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME WATCH, one read, and another: THIS IS A DRUG-FREE ZONE. To divert his souring mood, Helton turned on the radio. Intermittent Christmas music leaked between bars of static, evangelical outbursts, and annoying music. Then he finally found a station with decent reception, a news station.