King Scratch Read online

  KING SCRATCH

  By Jordan Krall

  KING SCRATCH

  By Jordan Krall

  Copyright © 2010 Jordan Krall

  Cover Art © William Pauley III, 2010

  Black Rainbows Press

  ISBN 978-0-9556938-6-1

  BOOKS BY JORDAN KRALL

  OUT NOW:

  Piecemeal June

  Fistful of Feet

  Squid Pulp Blues

  Blow Up the Outside World (with Ash Lomen)

  King Scratch

  COMING SOON:

  Beyond the Valley of the Apocalypse Donkeys

  Tentacle Death Trip

  Penetralia

  Your Cities, Your Tombs

  Donkey Djinn

  CONTENTS

  KING SCRATCH

  Appendix I: LINCOLN’S ASSASSIN FACE

  Appendix II: A REPORT OF BIOMECHANICAL EXORCISMS IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

  Appendix III: ASSASSINATION’S SECRET DOMAIN

  Appendix IV: PINK MEAT RISING

  KING SCRATCH

  Prologue

  The stray cats outside were making a racket but Jim didn’t mind. Those furry little bastards loved to hang out in the hallway right outside the door to his apartment. They would meow through the night, waiting for Jim to open the door, let them in and give them some water or, better yet, some glazed donuts.

  Tonight, however, Jim was too busy to take care of them. He was entertaining a woman, a small-time actress named Peggy Entwistle. She had pursued the career for a few years but only landed a small role in low budget mystery that did poor at the box office. It didn’t matter to Jim, though. She was a sexy broad eager for attention and he was giving it to her one inch at a time.

  Little did Jim and Peggy know that a man named Black Boned Keith was across the street, watching them from his apartment window. But little did Keith know that something was watching him from somewhere in his apartment building.

  The whole world: a crude but complex series of voyeuristic actions.

  From the hallway, Jim could hear the grey cat making pigeon sounds.

  “Oh, hell, I’ll do it,” Peggy said, pulling herself off of Jim’s dick. She grabbed an empty pot off of the sink, filled it with water, and opened the door to the hallway. The cats, seeing Peggy’s face, scurried like mice. “Oh, well.” Peggy shut the door and walked back to Jim.

  Across the street, Keith took out a matchstick, sniffed it, and then inserted it into his urethra. It was unpleasant, yes, but it reminded him about life. It reminded him of what the world really was: a crude but complex series of familiar but uncomfortable insertions.

  PART ONE:

  TIP-TOE THRU A CAR CRASH

  “Thrice did I slip backwards into strange forms of myself, and thrice did my Soul save me..” -Austin Osman Spare

  “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions…..” –Joel 2:28

  CHAPTER ONE

  Jim

  I was fucking Peggy when the phone rang.

  This happened way before Peggy went out west to worship that huge Babylonian sign out there in Hollywoodland. It was before she committed suicide by jumping off that very same sign so she was still in one piece. And what a piece it was. Blond hair, breasts like immaculate bubbles and perpetually sweaty skin that I wished I could lick forever. For a small-time actress, she was pretty sexy.

  I listened to the voice chirping through the phone while I stared up Peggy’s nostrils. Her breasts flapped to their respective sides as she still quivered from my wet insertion. The person on the phone belonged to Red Henry, my mentally ill ex-father-in-law.

  “It’s not my fault, no, not my fault!” he shouted. I had no idea what he was talking about. I never do. Periodically he calls me to babble on about something or another. Sometimes the calls last one minute while other times they last thirty. I was too nice of a guy to hang up. Most times I just half-listened while reading the paper.

  “Red, Red, listen. I’m busy right now,” I attempted to get through to him as I gave Peggy a slurping thrust. Her nostrils were wider, like dark, hairy pennies. I smelt the smudged copper aroma and saw Abraham Lincoln himself shudder from my penetration. I was John Wilkes Booth, pulling out of Peggy’s axe-wound and putting a milky white bullet through Lincoln’s crown.

  “Jim, Jim, I have too great a soul to die like a criminal!” Red Henry shouted over the phone as I bled my manhood into Peggy as she snorted and gagged. Her nostrils coughed like Lincoln and then turned black, rusting into shadows of Lyndon Johnson.

  I spoke through my post-coital exhaustion. “What? Red, you’re not a criminal, take it easy.” He didn’t answer me. I’m sure his mind was still racing, skipping past the hundreds of women’s shoes he’s sniffed and then chewed on. I can imagine Red scratching at the pimples on his chin as he counted curls in his pubic mound.

  “I have to go, Red. Call me back later, alright?” I waited a few seconds and then heard a moan of agreement. I hung up the phone.

  Peggy sat up. When I looked at her face covered in blotches of milky goo, I searched around for a tissue, thinking she had a runny nose. Then I remembered the seminal assassination.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, of course. Like I haven’t done anything that before,” she replied with a condescending laugh-cough. I handed her a tissue but she waved it away and used her forearm.

  Though Peggy would end up dying in L.A., we were far, far away from the glitzy latrine of that showbiz world. We were in a tiny, pay-by-the-week apartment in South River, New Jersey. I had a room above a bar and I was constantly serenaded by a cacophony of voices, clanking glasses, and muddled music at all hours. After about two days, the soundtrack was like a soothing ocean, lulling me to sleep with the occasional yelp of “Rack ‘em up, bitch!” or “Yeah, I fucked her”.

  As Peggy was putting on her bra and panties, I wiped my penis with a pillowcase. There was a smell in the room, something like flowers and feces, not totally unpleasant. Peggy was carefully putting on her pantyhose when the phone rang again.

  “Yeah?” I said, assuming it was Red.

  “Jim, is that you?” It was my ex-wife, Laura. I didn’t even know she had the number. In fact, I asked the landlord to put the phone in for me two days ago. Cost me an extra seven bucks a week. Local calls only. But it was worth it.

  “Yeah, it’s me. What is it, Lore?” I asked, gently but playfully spanking Peggy on the ass.

  “My dad just called, he’s freaking out. Did you talk to him?”

  “Yeah, I just talked him. He was rambling on. You know how he is.” I tried to sound annoyed.

  “There’s someone at his house. I heard voices in the background and he didn’t sound right. Something’s wrong. Did he say anything to you?”

  “Yeah, just the usual stuff. Honestly I wasn’t listening, I was busy.”

  “I’m sure you were,” she said. “What’s her name?” She was taking her role as the wise old mother figure again.

  “None of your goddamn business.” I said, not really meaning it. I really wanted to brag about Peggy. I wanted to impress my ex-wife with the top-notch pussy I was getting after our divorce. Hey Laura, I creamed this girl real good. A real looker. She’s younger than you, too.

  “Well, can you please just go by his place? I’m leaving now, I’ll meet you there.” She sounded like she didn’t care about who I was with anymore. That bothered me. I wanted to tell her. Christ, Laura, you should see Peggy. Areolas like two little fried eggs. Tasty!

  “I dunno, maybe.” I was tired and honestly didn’t think Red was in any danger.

  “Just go there,
please,” Laura pleaded and then hung up.

  “Goddamn,” I said, slamming the phone down and watching as Peggy sat on the nightstand, smoking a cigarette. I could see up her skirt.

  I quickly got dressed while convincing Peggy to go along with me. She agreed and we got into my car, a souped-up beast that I drove when I ran moonshine out of the Pine Barrens.

  As we made our way through the next town and headed for Old Bridge, Peggy counted the matchbooks on the dashboard. I sort of collected them. I don’t know why. Though I tried to start a conversation on the ride over, she just kept counting.

  “89, 90, 91…..” she said and that’s when we hit the deer.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Black Boned Keith

  Keith put his binoculars down. He had watched as Jim and Peggy left the apartment and hopped into that loud rust-bucket that Jim called a car. Keith stood in front of the window, naked.

  He swayed from side to side, his flaccid penis a pendulum with a matchstick peaking out. Keith got a cigarette from a crumpled pack on the windowsill and put it between his lips. He grabbed the pack of matches and then grabbed his member. With a half-smile, Keith flicked the tip of his penis against the matchbook. He bent down and lit his cigarette. The lit match then fell to the ground as Keith waddled to the other side of the room, puffing smoke as he went.

  The smoke lingered around the floor and crept up the walls, disturbing the squid. It slid out from underneath the bed, riding on its own juices. It fluttered at Keith’s ankles.

  “I told you, Smitty. This is my last pack, I promise,” Keith said, puffing on the cigarette. The squid leaned to one side as if to say “I don’t believe you” and then slid back underneath the bed. Keith heard a sound like a tape recorder being rewound.

  He opened the door to his apartment and listened. In the hallway, Keith could hear the yapping of televisions, radios, and bedsprings. The girl in 2A was begging for junk again, pleading and crying to someone over the phone. Keith imagined the girl’s dealer coming over to bring the heroin. The girl shoots up. The dealer, clad in black leather gloves, uses a straight-razor to split her skin. Hundreds of intersecting lines bleed, criss-crossing until the girl’s flesh resembles Christmas ribbon. The dealer-assassin leaves her dissected body on the living room floor and walks out of the apartment.

  His daydream was interrupted by an odor of shit that appeared like a ghost, slowly making its way past Keith’s nostrils. It’s probably that asshole next-door, Keith thought. The man in the next apartment was a weirdo who dressed up like a baby and hired prostitutes to play the part of mommy. On several occasions the baby shit his diaper and the mommy of the day refused to change it and left the apartment, shouting obscenities.

  Keith walked out naked and stood in front of his neighbor’s door. He pounded his fist on it.

  “Open the goddamn door, asshole,” Keith said. He heard a whimper, a squishing sound and then a wooden thump. “Christ, at least clean up the shit,” he said, this time raising his voice. The smell of the man’s shit made Keith’s penis and balls shrink. He imagined the man-baby sitting in a playpen, brown leakage on his thighs and a thumb in his mouth. A bloated prostitute in her mid-forties lay strangled to death on the couch. She had refused to change the diaper and so the man-baby threw a tantrum, strangling mommy to death while he sucked on his brown thumb.

  Keith knocked again but got no response. He turned to go back to his apartment when he glimpsed someone down the hall. They were hidden in the darkness, the light bulb having burned out weeks ago. The person was tall and Keith could see something shimmering. Was it jewelry? A knife? Keith leaped into his room and locked the door behind him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jim

  The car was totaled.

  My head was caught in the steering wheel. Peggy was next to me, unconscious, tongue hanging out of her mouth. Smoke rose up from the front of the car like a fog. I got myself free and staggered out. Surveying the damage, I knew my bootlegging days were over. There was no way I could afford to get the car fixed.

  The deer was mangled so badly it looked like it was part of the car. Pieces of glass and metal were embedded in its body as it trembled. The poor thing was starting to make me sick so I walked around the back of the car and pulled Peggy out. She woke up and vomited.

  Peggy’s pantyhose were shredded from my dragging her to the side of the road. I stared at her legs and for a few seconds I wanted to put my nose up to them and sniff. I guessed they’d probably smell like sweat, nylon and asphalt.

  “Jim, what happened?” Peggy said through vomit-spittle.

  “We hit a deer. Car’s wrecked,” I said. Peggy’s vomit was now a small pond of chunky, green-purple sludge. I smelt it from where I was standing.

  “I think I need an ambulance,” she said softly, gagging.

  “Okay.” I walked over to the road. I stood there ready to flag down the next oncoming car. I saw headlights in the distance, coming down fast.

  I waved my arms in the air. The car pulled over and a door opened. Out stepped a black man in a tattered suit. He took a few steps and then whistled.

  “Quite a crash. You okay?” he said, a huge grin covering his face.

  “Yeah, I think. I don’t know about her though,” I said, walking over to Peggy.

  “Those damn deer come out of nowhere,” he said. His hands fiddled in the pockets of his tattered trench coat. I nodded while nudging Peggy awake.

  “Would you mind giving us a ride to the hospital?” I asked.

  “No, not at all. Just give me a second.” He walked back to his car. He started taking things out of his backseat and putting them into his trunk. I grabbed Peggy and helped her to the man’s car.

  “Howdy, miss, real sorry about your accident,” the man said. Peggy nodded.

  We all got in the car. I noticed that the man had shaving cuts all over his face as well as ugly stubble. I realized I didn’t introduce myself. I could almost hear my dad’s voice saying “Jimmy, be a gentleman.”

  “Oh, by the way, my name’s Jim,” I extended a hand.

  “Hi Jim, I’m Fred,” he replied and shook my hand.

  “I really appreciate this. I just hope she doesn’t get sick back there,” I said, glancing at Peggy who was looking green and ready to burst.

  “Aw, it won’t matter much. There’s been so much disgusting shit in the backseat, no one would know the difference,” Fred laughed. I looked over my shoulder and tried to imagine the disgusting shit that Fred mentioned. Images flooded my mind. Twenty-dollar whore excretions smeared with lipstick and moist cocaine. I envisioned some sort of semen-fueled Black Mass, filth and fuckery to the sound of prayers chanted backwards. Pentagrams drawn in black shoe polish on the sweaty, nervous back of a virgin hitch-hiker.

  When Fred laughed I noticed that he was missing some teeth on the right side of his mouth. It was creepy and made me think he was going to go ahead and bite something, maybe my face or Peggy’s. He had a glimmer in his eye that I didn’t like.

  “You know where the hospital is, right?” I asked. I wanted to make sure the trip was going to be as direct as possible.

  “Sure do, on Main Street, by the donut shop,” Fred assured me. Meanwhile, his smile lingered for a few seconds longer than I thought necessary. I noticed that he didn’t blink but instead just stared straight ahead to the point where I was expecting his eyes to start watering. They didn’t.

  Fred’s hands on the steering wheel were starting to quiver a little but he didn’t seem to notice this. I looked back at Peggy who was in an accident-induced stupor. I nudged her and her eyes opened wide but I could tell she didn’t know what the hell was going on.

  “Quite a piece of pussy you got back there,” Fred said, turning his head. His unblinking eyes faced me while his hands still shook. I got nervous.

  “That’s a little out of line, Fred,” I said, not wanting to start trouble. Again, my dad’s voice: “It’s best to use a man’s name when talkin’ to him. It ma
kes him feel at ease.”