It was midnight.
The car's headlights were shining right through the trees, scattering nighttime creatures to the left and right, fearful of this roaring mechanical beast that had ruined what, to them, was surely a serene and beautiful night.
In my lap, there was no less than eight pounds of human flesh, wrapped poorly in seran wrap and soaked in it's own bloody juices. Every jilt the car made as it hit a root that stuck itself up or the skeleton of some larger-than-a-rat animal made my stomach a little squeamish. You could hear the person's soul rolling around in there, I swear. In the driver's seat, my buddy -- Lou -- told me not to worry about the smell that would surely come when we tossed this last chunk of Rico Lombardi off into the Handsome River.
It hadn't been too long earlier in the day when I had met Rico Lombardi. A loud man who had no idea how loud he really was. Boisterous. Goddamn, he had knocked over three or four small items in my mother's old house as we wrestled him to the ground, right before Lou had taken that syringe of his and shoved it into Rico's throat. There'd been a few twitches, and then old Rico stiffened like a board.
Wham. The car hit a pile of roots -- almost a staircase of them. I felt the blood swish around as a little bit of what was left of Rico's brain pushed from a hole in the pieces of his skull, some of which were loosely retaining their connection to each other. My stomach rolled with cold air from the inside. I knew right then and there I wasn't going to be able to hold it in.
"Pull over," I managed to get out before swinging the car's door open and throwing my head to the side, sending a little bit of a steak bomb into a furry animal's path, alongside quite a bit more Pabst's Blue Ribbon and just a little bit of Cap'n Crunch.
"Seriously -- you're not built for this man," Lou noted. "I don't know why you come."
Lou was always this good at noticing the obvious. "You always ask me to," I replied.
"That's true." He rolled down his window just a crack and lit one of his old Turkish Royals, and we kept going on our off-road, unmapped path towards the cliffs.
In about ten minute's time, we were there. The moon was high, fat as an old Chinaman's face, almost smiling down at the drudgery of our midnight run. It was like the fates enjoyed this karma -- killing a person can be so simple and clean, but the elimination of the proof is never, ever that simple. And, given the way Lou liked to do things, it never got close to clean. We stepped out from the car, went to the edge of the cliff -- below us, Handsome River's one great load of rapids, five or six whitewashes of water against the sharpest rocks in the entire county of Elias -- roared with a defined and hollow echo alongside the valley walls.
No more than forty or fifty feet, there was the other side of this paper cut in the earth's geography. Tall evergreens stalked us, looking down like the ancient beings they were, the wind's sway giving them an almost human feel -- it spooked me a bit, and I almost dropped the head. Snatching at the wrap, I looked to Lou. His withering expression said more than I needed to know.
"Just toss it," he told me.
So I did.
It made a sickening squirt as it bounced off the cliff wall, followed by another, louder one as it hit the other side. Finally, there was a splash -- and Rico Lombardi could no longer be recognized. His hands, feet, those tattoos on his skin -- they all rolled down with his head, into oblivion.
As we headed back towards the car, I asked Lou what we were going to do about the pounds and pounds of heroin that we had stuck in the trunk of the car before we had made our voyage here.
"Well, I was considering selling it," Lou explained. "But then I figured, why kill more than one person over it? We'll burn it, Hal. You know we're not hurting for money."
"Yeah, I know," I said as we got into the car. "I just wish Dad hadn't sent us to private school in a place where this is the most exciting place to do."
"Well, it was either that or pay a lot more in legal fees some place where people will actually notice that these fuckers disappear."
All I could think of for a response was just to nod.
He turned us around, and we were on our way back to the dorm.
The car's headlights were shining right through the trees, scattering nighttime creatures to the left and right, fearful of this roaring mechanical beast that had ruined what, to them, was surely a serene and beautiful night.
In my lap, there was no less than eight pounds of human flesh, wrapped poorly in seran wrap and soaked in it's own bloody juices. Every jilt the car made as it hit a root that stuck itself up or the skeleton of some larger-than-a-rat animal made my stomach a little squeamish. You could hear the person's soul rolling around in there, I swear. In the driver's seat, my buddy -- Lou -- told me not to worry about the smell that would surely come when we tossed this last chunk of Rico Lombardi off into the Handsome River.
It hadn't been too long earlier in the day when I had met Rico Lombardi. A loud man who had no idea how loud he really was. Boisterous. Goddamn, he had knocked over three or four small items in my mother's old house as we wrestled him to the ground, right before Lou had taken that syringe of his and shoved it into Rico's throat. There'd been a few twitches, and then old Rico stiffened like a board.
Wham. The car hit a pile of roots -- almost a staircase of them. I felt the blood swish around as a little bit of what was left of Rico's brain pushed from a hole in the pieces of his skull, some of which were loosely retaining their connection to each other. My stomach rolled with cold air from the inside. I knew right then and there I wasn't going to be able to hold it in.
"Pull over," I managed to get out before swinging the car's door open and throwing my head to the side, sending a little bit of a steak bomb into a furry animal's path, alongside quite a bit more Pabst's Blue Ribbon and just a little bit of Cap'n Crunch.
"Seriously -- you're not built for this man," Lou noted. "I don't know why you come."
Lou was always this good at noticing the obvious. "You always ask me to," I replied.
"That's true." He rolled down his window just a crack and lit one of his old Turkish Royals, and we kept going on our off-road, unmapped path towards the cliffs.
In about ten minute's time, we were there. The moon was high, fat as an old Chinaman's face, almost smiling down at the drudgery of our midnight run. It was like the fates enjoyed this karma -- killing a person can be so simple and clean, but the elimination of the proof is never, ever that simple. And, given the way Lou liked to do things, it never got close to clean. We stepped out from the car, went to the edge of the cliff -- below us, Handsome River's one great load of rapids, five or six whitewashes of water against the sharpest rocks in the entire county of Elias -- roared with a defined and hollow echo alongside the valley walls.
No more than forty or fifty feet, there was the other side of this paper cut in the earth's geography. Tall evergreens stalked us, looking down like the ancient beings they were, the wind's sway giving them an almost human feel -- it spooked me a bit, and I almost dropped the head. Snatching at the wrap, I looked to Lou. His withering expression said more than I needed to know.
"Just toss it," he told me.
So I did.
It made a sickening squirt as it bounced off the cliff wall, followed by another, louder one as it hit the other side. Finally, there was a splash -- and Rico Lombardi could no longer be recognized. His hands, feet, those tattoos on his skin -- they all rolled down with his head, into oblivion.
As we headed back towards the car, I asked Lou what we were going to do about the pounds and pounds of heroin that we had stuck in the trunk of the car before we had made our voyage here.
"Well, I was considering selling it," Lou explained. "But then I figured, why kill more than one person over it? We'll burn it, Hal. You know we're not hurting for money."
"Yeah, I know," I said as we got into the car. "I just wish Dad hadn't sent us to private school in a place where this is the most exciting place to do."
"Well, it was either that or pay a lot more in legal fees some place where people will actually notice that these fuckers disappear."
All I could think of for a response was just to nod.
He turned us around, and we were on our way back to the dorm.