Speculative sullivan the.., p.33
Speculative Sullivan: The Collected Short Fiction, page 33
Maurice put on his rubber gloves and set to work in imitation of the master, God’s chosen, Jack the Ripper. First he dragged the body off the bricks and laid it near the jacks, which he collected. Then he cut open the front of her jacket and blouse. Touching her bare skin excited him, even with the gloves on. He remembered that Jesus had been born unto woman but had resisted the temptations of the flesh.
‘Whore!’ he cried, shoving the blade into her soft belly. He was stronger now, blessed by the Supreme Being. Using every bit of his strength, he sliced all the way to the crotch, filled with joy, cutting right through her jeans. As soon as he finished the long incision, he set the scalpel down and stuck his fingers inside, pulling the skin apart. The intestines were exposed, coiled inside the girl like a big, meaty Slinky. He reached in and pulled some of them out, juggling them from one hand to the other. They were slippery, steaming in the cool, morning air. The powerful odour of her insides was a vapour, an incense to be smelled only by the Chosen One, Jack the Ripper. He was the Ripper now, revelling in his holy work. He had come a long way since the first one he killed, Peggy Nicholson. Her name had been too much of a coincidence to ignore, that was for sure. It was a sign from God. Each time, he had been given such a sign, sometimes just when he felt like giving up on the whole thing. In Georgia there was Carla Edwards, a name close enough to the Ripper’s fourth victim Catherine Eddowes, that there could be no mistake. Before her, in Texas, there was Lizzie Streiz, whose name could not have been more like ‘Long’ Liz Stride’s, the Ripper’s third. And in Japan, another Army brat called Annie Klazewski. (Annie Chapman, Jack’s second victim, had been the mistress of a Pole, Klosowski.) Peggy Nicholson’s name was almost the same as the Ripper’s first, Polly Nichols. Every time, God had given them names similar to the whores Jack had done in. And every time, Maurice got better and better, always finding the ones God wanted him to take.
Before Peggy, he had only killed a kitten, not long after he had seen the movie about Jack. He had petted it out in the back yard until it trusted him. Then he went in and got a big knife from the kitchen drawer and a chicken leg from the fridge. While the little tiger kitty was eating the chicken, Maurice said a prayer and chopped down on the back of its neck as hard as he could. The cat hissed and Maurice cut it some more. It couldn’t even scratch him. It couldn’t do much of anything after the first chop, just lay there on the flagstone and shake while Maurice sliced it up. It was great.
Something moved behind a brick pile. Maurice snapped to attention, heart pounding in his chest. Had someone sneaked into the gas patch while he was preoccupied? He heard only the sucking of his own laboured breathing, and then a scrabbling noise, the same as before. He caught a glimpse of tiny red eyes in the shadows. A rat.
Relieved, he went back to work, remembering that he couldn’t allow his rapture to interfere with what he was doing. He had almost been apprehended in Japan because he was so caught up in the sight and smell and feel of death. He had to be careful. He was getting tired, too, and sweating a lot. This was hard work. Still, the waves of pleasure washed over him as he slashed and sliced.
Mary Jane didn’t have large enough breasts to cut off, and besides, there wasn’t much time until the bell rang at school. That was always the problem, not enough time. Maybe ten minutes more to work. No time to cut out a kidney, as Jack would have. Maurice had to use his imagination. It was his duty to strike as much terror into the hearts of the sinful as he could.
‘I know!’ he said. He could actually get some real knucklebones. Stretching Mary Jane’s limp right arm over the rubble, Maurice placed the left hand palm upward on a brick. He withdrew a blade with a serrated edge from his bag and began to saw.
Pinkish, watery stuff oozed out of the finger. There was no danger of getting it on himself if he was cautious.
Unfortunately, the fingers were harder to cut off than he’d thought they’d be. Maurice had to work even harder to get through the bone, his hands, arms and shoulders ached from his efforts, and he was drenched underneath the heavy cape. He discovered that it was easier, once he’d cut through the skin and sinew, to work the finger joints back and forth until they snapped off.
Each finger took about a minute, so he still had time if he hurried. He broke off eight fingers in all, leaving only the thumbs. Mary Jane looked as if she were wearing red mittens. Staring up at the broken ceiling, unblinking, she was much more beautiful than she had been when she was alive. She would never sin again.
Maurice dropped the fingers one by one into a second plastic bag, taking off the rubber gloves and putting them in with the fingers. He wrapped it all up tidily so that the fingers wouldn’t leak onto the medical instruments or the jacks. He wiped the two blades off on Mary Jane’s blouse and carefully placed them in their niches inside his medical bag. The two plastic sacks went in on top of the scalpels, with the deerstalker cap laid over them, covering it all. He snapped the silver clasp shut and took off the cape, wrapping it around the leather bag. It just looked like he had taken off a tweed coat and bundled it up because the weather was too warm for it.
‘Goodbye, slut,’ he said, carrying his bundle under his left arm and saluting with his free hand. ‘May God have mercy on your soul.’
Whistling, he walked up the hill towards the school, leaving the remains of Mary Jane Toricelli to the rats.
Right after lunch, a policewoman came to talk to Maurice’s science teacher, Mr. Stubbs. The two adults left the room for a few minutes, and the place erupted in a spitball fight. Maurice joined in so that he wouldn’t be conspicuous, while waiting to see what, if anything, Mr. Stubbs would say when he got back.
Mr. Stubbs was gone a long time. Finally, Buddy Hopkins said he was going to find out what was going on. He had to go to the bathroom anyway, so he would check it out.
When he came back, Buddy announced that just about every teacher in the school was gathered in the principal’s office along with the policewoman and a black policeman. ‘This is big stuff,’ he said.
Shortly after that, Mr. Stubbs returned with the policewoman, holding up his hands for order. Something about the way he looked and sounded stopped the spitballs right away, which was unusual.
‘Kids,’ he said, looking even older and greyer than usual. ‘There’s been an accident.’
An accident? What was the old fool talking about?
‘Officer Cooper is here to ask you a few questions. When she’s finished, you can all go home.’
There was some sporadic cheering, but that soon stopped as Officer Cooper commanded their attention.
‘I have to know if any of you saw a girl named Mary Jane Toricelli this morning, between seven and eight o’clock.’
‘That would be just before the first bell,’ Mr. Stubbs interjected.
There was an awkward silence in the classroom, and then a fat girl named Carmen Gifford raised her hand. ‘I saw her on the bus.’
‘Did you see her after that?’ Officer Cooper asked.
‘No.’
‘When you saw her on the bus, who was she talking to?’
‘A couple of girls. She rides with them every morning.’
‘Are they in this class?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know their names?’
‘One of them.’
And so it went. Carmen gave Officer Cooper the girl’s name, Officer Cooper thanked the kids, and Mr. Stubbs, who really looked nervous and sick, told everybody to go home. Ordinarily, the kids would have been making a lot of noise, happy about getting out of school early, but they were strangely silent now as they filed out to their lockers.
‘What’s that?’ Andy McHugh said as Maurice pulled out the bundle and slammed shut his locker door.
‘What?’ Maurice said, playing dumb.
‘That thing you’re holding there, Turner. What is it?-’
‘Oh, just a coat.’
‘Looks like a coat your father would wear.’ Andy kept looking at the bundle. ‘You got something wrapped up in it?’
‘Just some books.’ Maurice lied.
Andy, who was more than a head taller than Maurice and more than two years older, placed one palm on the lockers on either side of Maurice, hemming him in. ‘I know you better than that, Moe-rees.’
Maurice glared at him. He hated to be called that. Andy was making fun of his southern accent, the only kid in school who still did that.
‘The teachers around here might be fooled by you,’ Andy said. ‘But I’m not. I know you’re nuts.’
‘Get out of my way, McHugh,’ Maurice said angrily.
‘Chill out, kid,’ Andy said, stepping back to let him go. ‘I only want to know what you’re up to. Got any more of those chopping things like you had yesterday?’
‘No, Mrs. Rainey took it when I was sent to her office.’ Maurice started walking. ‘I gotta go.’
‘You sure you don’t have something in there?’ Andy demanded.
‘Nope. Nothing.’ Maurice was almost running now, out the front door and into the street, leaving Andy McHugh and his prying questions behind. He ran around the corner, past Popi’s and a row of brownstones. When he was quite sure he was rid of Andy, he walked to the stop where kids who were unlucky enough to live in the Army base housing waited for their bus. It was only a little past noon. He would go to the Greyhound station, ditching the stuff he was carrying temporarily in a locker there, and walk the few blocks to the base to see his Dad. Maybe he could get some money out of the old man. It usually worked.
Everything went without a hitch at the bus station, and the guard at the base was so used to seeing him that he didn’t even have to show his ID to get through the gate.
He found his Dad in the officers’ mess, the bars on his uniform shining brightly, as he drank coffee at a table with a couple of other men. He seemed like a different person than he was at home. Kind of relaxed and important around the other officers. If only they knew what he was really like.
‘Hello, son,’ his Dad said, and the others said hello to him too. ‘What are you doing here on a schoolday afternoon?’
‘They let us out early today . . . on account of an accident a girl had.’
‘Well, that’s too bad about the girl.’ Dad frowned. ‘But I guess you aren’t too unhappy about getting the afternoon off, huh?’
Maurice said nothing. His Dad got out his wallet and gave him twenty dollars. ‘Catch a bus for downtown and go to that movie we missed last night . . . but don’t mention it to your mother.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ Maurice said. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t say anything.’
His Dad winked, and the other men all laughed. Maurice said goodbye and was off to catch his bus.
It had been a pretty good movie, entitled Maimed, with plenty of gory violence. It was about a guy who had been mutilated in an accident. When the people responsible got off scot-free by bribing the judge who heard the case, he went around killing them all, saving the judge for last, using chainsaws, buzz-saws, butcher knives, straight razors, and even a Veg-O-Matic. No one under 17 was supposed to get in, but the sleazebag behind the ticket window didn’t even look at him, just tore up the ticket and that was it.
It was 3.30 when Maurice emerged, blinking, into the daylight. He was still exhilarated from doing the Lord’s work this morning. Unless Mary Jane had told one of the girls on the bus, he was home free. He had the bundle with him, which he had picked up at the Greyhound station after leaving the base. He’d better catch a bus for home right away. If his mother was there when he got in – and not on her prayer planet – he’d catch hell for being late. He wished that he had left the bundle in the locker.
Maurice got off a block from the house. When he got home, he didn’t go right in. Instead, he crept up to a window. His mother was turning off the TV, no doubt having just watched The 700 Club or one of the other evangelist programmes. She walked toward the back of the house, probably to the kitchen. She might stop him when he came in and demand to see what he was carrying. He had better find some place to hide it.
Around the side of the house, Maurice was surprised to see the car in the driveway. He checked his watch and saw that it was almost 4.30. No, it wasn’t that unusual to see his Dad home this early, now that he thought about it. Maurice was the one who was late today. There was no way he was going to get the bundle past both his mother and his father.
Maurice tried the car door on the passenger’s side. It was unlocked. He opened it as quietly as he could and placed the bundle on the floor of the back seat. Squinting with concentration, he closed it again, barely making a sound. Then he walked back around the front of the house, keeping his head down.
‘I’m home,’ he said as he walked in the front door, deciding to take the bull by the horns.
‘We’re in the kitchen,’ his Dad called to him. Maurice didn’t like the sound of his voice. ‘Come on back. We want to talk to you.’
Maurice did as he was told, finding them sitting at the kitchen table. His mother was staring at him angrily, and there on the table between her and her husband was a box. Not just any box. The box that had Maurice’s Jack the Ripper books and magazines in it.
‘What is this?’ his mother demanded icily.
Maurice shrank before her withering gaze. He had left the door to his hideaway ajar, and his Mom had gone snooping in his room and noticed it. She must have made the old man crawl in to see what was in there.
‘Answer me!’ she screamed. ‘Answer me in the name of Jesus!’
Maurice’s throat felt as if it were filled with marbles. He tried to speak. ‘It’s just . . . just. . . .’
‘Just trash, just the Devil’s own trash? She reached into the box, pulled out a magazine and slapped him across the face with it.
Maurice knew better than to say anything now. He was going to get it and get it good, and the less he said the better. Did they suspect what he had done this morning? Would they turn him in?
‘Look at this!’ his mother raged. She held up a Playboy magazine. ‘Nine years old and he already desires to see the naked flesh of women! Filth in the eyes of God! Whores! Sluts!’
‘Look at this, George!’ she screamed at her husband, holding up a copy of Gallery. ‘Unadulterated, sinful garbage!’
Suddenly Maurice realized that she was raving about the skin magazines, not about the Ripper material. In her religious fervour, she didn’t see what was right under her nose. Maurice couldn’t suppress a smirk at this turn of events.
She smacked him with a magazine and then brought it back across the other cheek. ‘How dare you laugh!’
‘I wasn’t laughing, Mom,’ he whined. ‘I’m sorry, honest.’
‘Sorry! I’ll teach you what sorry means.’ She turned on her husband. ‘You’ve been too permissive, George. How many times have I told you not to spoil this boy?’
‘Maybe, you’re right, Rayette.’ Maurice’s Dad shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, I know.’ She threw the magazines back into the box. ‘We’ll take these down to the basement and bum them in the furnace.’
‘No, Mom? The words were out of Maurice’s mouth before he could stop them. Maurice knew that he had made a terrible mistake. Her wrath would be all the more terrible now. But what could he do? His collection was the most important thing in the world to him.
‘You vile little monster,’ his mother said coldly. ‘Order me not to destroy this Satanic rubbish, will you?’ Her hand shot out like a claw and grabbed hold of his wrist. She began to drag Maurice behind her, her free hand opening the basement door. ‘Bring that box with you, George.’
The wooden stairs creaked under the weight of three people, and Maurice was pulled along so roughly he thought he would fall. But he somehow was still standing when they reached the concrete floor of the basement. His mother flung him away from her, and his back struck the wall, knocking the breath out of his lungs. Maurice wanted to run, but he would never get past them. Their shadows stretched towards him across the concrete floor, cast by the light coming from the kitchen door.
‘Punish him,’ his mother said.
George hesitated. ‘How?’
‘Take your belt off and whup it out of him,’ she said, her lips curving in a cruel smile.
‘Rayette, I don’t – ’
‘Do as I say!’ she screamed.
George reluctantly unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the loops with a slithering sound. ‘Son, I . . .’
‘Do it!’
‘Bend over, Maurice,’ his father said.
Having no choice, Maurice did as he was told. At that moment, his mother opened the furnace grating and began to feed the magazines and books to the blue-yellow flames inside.
The belt bit into Maurice’s buttocks. It stung so bad he jumped. A second blow descended, and then a third. It really hurt. Maurice didn’t think he could take it. Through his tears, he saw his mother looking down at him as she crumpled pages and stuffed them into the furnace, the firelight flickering across her face.
The belt landed a little low, wrapping itself around Maurice’s thigh like a snake. Each time his father hit him, it felt as if the fire were burning him, instead of his magazines and books. He screamed.
The beating stopped.
‘What are you doing?’ his mother demanded. ‘Whup him some more.’
‘Rayette,’ his Dad said imploringly.
‘Do as I tell you.’
George did as she told him. The stinging tongue of the belt whipped across Maurice’s backside again and again. The beating continued until there was no more paper to bum.
‘Come here, Maurice,’ his mother said when it was over.
