The Girl, The Grail, The End (Part Two of Three) (1110 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.93 on 39 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Isaac Bickerstaff (View user info) at 2006-10-09 17:44:08 EDT
The Grail
When there's no more left, I guess you gotta go back, right? A story told from the middle, had to have a beginning, whether you like it or not.
I keep putting it off, forcing the dirty secret further down into the dark pockets of masquerade, hoping I can blaze through the end without ever having the beginning revealed. But that's a fool's game, kid, and let's be honest; that shit always comes out in the wash.
The real first chapter, man, the start of the story, the introductory prelude to the ending so near, starts with a kid named Gus.
Outside was desolate and cold, a desert ghetto vandalized by spiky frigid winds. We were trapped in the interminable period after Christmas break but before summer vacation; and even in the warm weather that would follow, I would always see Gus as a winter cat, a leafless tree druid, a snow angel fucked by mud and piss.
They walked him into our classroom, lead him by the hand. I felt bad for him, the new kid, being treated with such contempt, like he was a child. We were eleven after all.
They introduced him as "Augustus," and he glared at us through narrow eyes, predator eyes, keen and cunning and cutting us into bite sized bits for the jaws of his guile. "Gus," he said, and bobbed his chin up. He walked to the desk next to me and sat down. Without looking up, I guess he could feel my eyes on him; "Cool scar," he said. I knew right then that I would do anything for this guy.
Now don't be a cock and call Gus a liar cause that aint it. Gus was a storyteller, a poet pure and true. By the end of the first summer, I knew every curve of the spaceship that had abducted him. I could describe to you the ghosts he had seen as well as if they lived in my very own trailer. At the end of the day, when he would leave to walk home (a home I never actually saw, but knew every secret passage within, every hidden laboratory,) I would watch him until he disappeared, hoping to catch a glimpse of the leprechauns who would surely leap out, the fairies that would escort him. And even though I never got to personally witness him in the throes of demon possession, I could smell the sulfur on him and was glad he carried that bone in the pocket of his Toughskins: the finger of St. Francis, he'd said; protection from evil.
I can see Gus's world now, far more clearly than my own. I didn't have the lenses back then, brother, the filters that the years have coated on my eyes and heart; the layers of Teflon and callous that insinuate themselves on everything I apprehend on its way into my brainpan, blurring it all to dull shades of perfidy and wretchedness.
His was a world of magic and valor, you cynical fuckers, a long damn way from the drudgery of schoolwork and chores. His grin was a lockpick to the shackles of suburban boredom, the mind numbing ache of parents and the madness they tried so hard to infect us with.
You gotta understand that it happened as it did because he was my best friend. Don't get all disapproving on me until you hear it; I did it because I believed him. I believed every word he ever told me. Every one. And even though the papers called it a heinous crime and predicted the end of civilization, they always do, right? Even the judge, man, the Family Court Magistrate couldn't wrap his brain around it and said it must have been rough play that got out of hand. Imagine that, rough play?
On the first day of Gus's second year at our school, we met Christa Jaeger. Fifth grade had us in a quandary, and we nervously watched as the new phenomenon of girls constantly hugging everybody hello and goodbye seemed to infect everyone we knew, a sweet contagion of baffling choreography. Christa wasn't nearly as pretty as Tina Purcell or even Maite' Garcia, but she had that thing, that sacred peculiarity, that nimble symmetry that would, nine years later, make her a noteworthy whore.
But more troublesome than that was the effect she had directly on Gus; because it was something I had never seen before and armed as I was with the knowledge of Gus's past adventures, I was terrified of this power over him: she made him silent.
Even from forty feet away, a glimpse of Christa would stop Gus in his tracks. His mouth would clamp shut and he'd look at his shoes, the train of his thoughts going catastrophically off track. "Finish telling it," I'd say. "What happened next?"
But the mood would be lost, and Gus would wave me off, sullen and squinty. "Nevermind," he'd mumble, and wander off, balancing haphazardly on the fence between childhood and whatever comes next.
The day he told me, Gus was leaning his back to the church with his hands up in front of him, illustrating with perfect precision the way he'd snapped off the red wire, disarming the explosive in his basement, hidden there by the crime family that wanted him dead. His eyes flicked up and focused over my shoulder and I turned to see across the field, Christa's back to us, her arms wrapped around Carlos Velasquez, his head buried neatly in her hair, his mouth close to her neck. I turned back to Gus, and waited for the shadow to pass away, the silence to slink off.
"Did you know..." he said slowly, sliding silkily into a different groove altogether. "Did you know..." and I watched his wheels turn, grinding out metal and malignant distortion. He considered, adapted, revised and finally spoke, "Did you know that Carlos is a vampire?"
"Shut up!" I said, and we both paused in the shock of it, in the audacity. Gus demanded absolute loyalty from his audiences, he liked them rapt, wrapped as it were in the tight weaves of his spin. "For real?" I said; an apology of sorts.
"Yeah," he said. "Bloodsucker to the core. I recognized him the first time I saw him, but I didn't wanna say anything, didn't want you to get scared." We both turned to look at Carlos, standing there in his clumsy prelude of unlearned cool, nodding at something Christa was saying. And in a friendly flicker, Carlos's eyes lifted up and he stared past Christa at the two of us clearly checking him out. "Oh, shit!" Gus blared. "Don't look!" I turned away. "Ah, man! You're such a dumbass, staring like that! Now he knows that I know!"
"Sorry," I said. "I didn't think he'd see us..."
Gus sighed. "S'okay, I guess. But now I think..."
"Yeah?"
"Nothing. Forget it. You'll just get all freaked out."
"No I won't, c'mon man, tell me."
Gus looked at me for a long and pregnant moment, the weight of the world slowly settling around us in hardened iron bars of merciless omen. "I just think that now we're gonna have to stake him."
I'd never seen Gus's dad before the trial. Not trial really, cause we were minors, hearing I guess is what it was. But Gus's dad was there in a shiny brown suit and railroad boots. He didn't look at all like the Marquis of Westinghouse like Gus had described, wasn't wearing the family diamond and I couldn't get a glimpse of the tattoo on the back of his neck that Gus told me was there to mark them as a member of the secret society that had been his birthright. He was just a skinny old guy, slumped and somber, withered and beaten by events in his life far before this one. He never spoke, just slouched at me, not really accusing, but not forgiving either. When he left, I couldn't even tell which leg was the robot one.
Gus and I met at the dirt path that went through the desert behind the school, squarely at the crossroads between Gus's world and our own. I got there first, wondering if the story would end soon enough, knowing that it wouldn't. Carlos lived in a housing complex at the other end of the desert stretch, and walked the path on the way to and from school. I crouched in the sand, tried halfheartedly to catch a lizard. Gus came up behind me, his JanSport looked different, droopy and odd.
Silent and ceremonious, he dropped the bag in front of me, and dramatically pulled it open. I leaned over to look inside and saw next to the peeling clear plastic of his Trapper Keeper two long, wooden dowels, sharpened on the end; a small clove of garlic, and, and this scared the fuck out of me, a hacksaw. Gus saw me staring.
"Dude, you don't want him coming back again, do you? We gotta cut the head off and put garlic in the mouth. Here..."
He thrust one of the dowels into my hand and it felt strangely right, this toy, this prop. That's what it was; a prop. We were having a game; it was another tale, and we were playing it out, the same as we would with Transformers and Go-Bots. "Now stand over there and keep it behind your back. He won't see it until you stick him with it." I looked at the dowel and couldn't imagine actually shoving it into Carlos, vampire or not.
"Hey," I said. "What about the sun?"
Gus was busy shoving the bag under a chaparral bush and kicking dirt over it. "What? What about it?"
"How can he come out in the daytime, in the sunlight?"
"Don't be so stupid. It's not like the movies." He finished hiding his bag and crouched down next to it as I mumbled an apology. "Now I'm gonna hide here like this, cause if he sees me, he'll know we're gonna stake him. You just stand there and look, you know, like you."
I looked both ways, up and down the path. I felt the dowel in my hand, bounced it in my fingers. "Feels like a sword," I said.
"A what?" Gus was hunkering down, rolling his head, shaking his shoulders.
"A sword. Like Zoro..." and I thrust it out in front of me in a practiced motion and sliced a quick "Z" in mid air, proud of the whooshing sound it made, a testament to my skills. Gus stood up.
"Look," he said. "None of your girlie ass hero stuff, quit screwing around," and he jabbed his finger at me in the air. "When he comes, you talk all nice to him, and then run him through the heart. Then I'll jump on him from here and we can both stake him together."
"Run him through the heart?" I said.
"Dude, do I gotta get someone else?" and that scared me into line. The thought of Gus needing someone else was enough to keep me awake at night.
"No." I said.
"Listen, fag, he's a vampire, and we gotta stake him."
Later, during the coverage and family counseling and during the years at Juvi, I would hear the word "sociopath" a lot. They would throw that word around like it was a cure, like hearing that word would make all the adults nod thoughtfully over their dinnertime white zin as if that explained it. That word would paint it all over with the color of clinical normalcy; a tidy scientific way for them to understand how it all had happened, how such "nice boys" could do something so horrible in the nice world they lived in. But we weren't in their world, bitches, that's the part they didn't understand. We weren't in their world, we were in Gus's. We were in the world of stories, and we weren't telling the stories, the stories were telling us.
When Carlos walked up to me, I started to see it all more clearly. His nails were a little long, and I could see his canines hidden neatly behind his upper lip. Wow, I thought, Gus was right; but there was never really any doubt, Gus was always right. "Hey Zach," Carlos said.
"Hey. How was cafeteria?"
"Sucks," and he laughed, we both did. "What're you doin'?"
"Catchin' lizards," I lied, maybe my first one ever. I got better at it over the years.
"My dad has an iguana at home. This big!" Carlos said. "Wanna see it?"
"Nah," I said, my second lie in ten seconds, they were coming easier already. "Hey, man..."
"Yeah?" Carlos said.
"How come you can come out in the sunlight?"
"What's that?" he said.
"How come the sun doesn't burn you up?" I asked again. And Carlos looked at me for a long second.
Now maybe he thought it was racial, that I was making some comment on his ethnicity. Or maybe he just didn't understand, so he defaulted to violence, the setting that kids and politicians always use to solve the tricky bits. But either way, he stepped in and shoved me back, harder than I would have thought him capable of, "Fuck you!" he shouted as I fell backward onto my butt in the dust, the dowel slipping from my hand.
I was embarrassed more than anything, I guess. "Jesus, Carlos, what'd you do that for?" I spit out through the dust and shame. But by the time I looked up at Carlos standing over me, I saw Gus sneaking up behind him, the dowel clenched in his small fist, raised menacingly over both their heads, right before he brought it down into Carlos's back with a low, wet thunk.
Carlos screamed a high pitched yowl, was silent for a breath, and then the crying spilled out of him in thick liquid gusts. He turned and thrashed out, smacking Gus hard across the head, knocking him to the ground. The dowel stuck out of his back at a weird angle and danced around as he moved in spastic jerks, trying to reach over his shoulder to grab it. His sobbing got breathless, a rhythmic tangle of confusion and anguish.
And then Gus was on him, the spidery offspring of ambition and envy. His limbs wrapped around Carlos in stringy meat loops, and the two of them tumbled to the ground in a cipher of gangly legs and red desert powder.
I sat up and looked at the two of them, blood appearing from everywhere at once, covering them both as they rolled in the sand. Gus's arm was slipping around Carlos's neck and face as they struggled for position.
Carlos was crying really hard now, gritting his teeth, his face a burning crimson. They swivelled around with their backs to me, and Gus climbed on top. With one hand wrapped around the vampire's neck, Gus yanked the dowel out with the other, and I started to cry, too, mostly from the shrieking coming out of the smaller boy, his faced pressed into the dirt. Gus raised the dowel up ready to drive it back down; I felt thick tears, forgot the shame of crying, and gave in to my fear and sorrow in convulsive squalls as a stream of hot piss rolled down my leg. But just before the stake came down, Gus's face contorted into a twisted putty, he screamed a long wail and leaped frantically away, clutching both arms tightly together. "Mother fucker!" he yelled, and looked hard at his wrist, clamping the other hand tightly over it as blood seeped from between his fingers and trailed down his forearm, dripping off his bony elbow.
Carlos climbed slowly to his feet, dust rose off of him and blood shown through in dark patches. He looked at us both, failed to solve the puzzle of what had just happened, and ran off toward his house, limping and bawling. I started to call after him, hoping I could still come see his iguana, but then Gus looked at me, snatched up his pack and ran for the church, and I followed after.
And as fast as we ran, I could feel the story catching up. We could never outrun it, my whole life I've tried. I've tried to get out from under the myth, the feral fucking yarn that knits me in its convoluted patterns. These events that transpire around me, these huge arches of character and plot in which I only play a part, they don't care about me, about what I want. They answer to an older authority, a wild and rustic oracle that plays me like a pawn in a game of sordid stagecraft.
The hearing was much later, and Carlos had grown so much that it was hard for anyone to imagine that Gus had beat him up. But that wasn't really the issue, was it? That part was just a schoolyard fight, maybe a tussle over a girl. Carlos hadn't been able to shed any light at all, said that we'd been friends, that maybe I was mad at Gus because he had started the fight. They tried to ask me all sorts of questions, asked me if an adult had touched me, or if I hated my parents, if there was yelling at home, or divorce or drugs. And all I could tell them was Gus had got bit; right on the wrist, I saw Carlos do it, and I knew what that meant.
They didn't ask about the body they found behind the church sacristy, and that seemed strange to me. Gus's body. Well, and his head. I mean they found them both at the same time, just a few feet from each other, the garlic stuffed neatly into Gus's mouth, like he'd told me. After all, I didn't want him to come back again, did I?
In the world Gus told, it all made sense. We were just players, kid; saying the words and acting out the positions in perfect method, as sure of our parts as the Sunday preacher. We'd watched our teachers do it a thousand times, sacrificing themselves to the story of who they were, making us learn things they didn't believe. Our parents were masters of it, "Because I said so!" was the mantra of the story at work, a glimpse into the green heart of the monster beneath. Nothing else made sense, really; the rules, the wars, the inscrutable behavior, the mysteries of girls and the purpose of book reports. All of it so ineffable, so strange and unreasonable; deep down we knew there was something else at play.
And up until now, I've trusted the story, followed it close, like all of you fuckers; getting strength from devotion. I can make all sorts of excuses for the behavior, kid, we all can and make no mistake. But that's all they are and don't pretend you don't know. Cause deep down it's the story, you know just like me.
But I'm ending it different, I'm changing the rules. The story is coming for me, I can feel its hot breath. It got Gus, right before my eyes, the Cub was next, and then the Girl. But I'm not going that way, brothers and sisters, and believe me when I say it. The story ends now, and I'm writing it different.
User Reviews
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2008-05-09 11:00:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-07-10 13:18:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-05-26 19:32:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by cshape (user info) at 2007-01-10 09:29:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm going out of my mind here, I've re-read most of the stories now.
Fuck me, every time I start to write something, I just think how it doesn't stack up.
I AM FEEBLE I AM FEEBLE
Submitted by cshape (user info) at 2007-01-08 10:40:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Also, when will he be revealed as a real person?
I'm so curious.
Submitted by cshape (user info) at 2007-01-08 10:32:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck me, I can't wait for the finale.
Submitted by theshadypeach (user info) at 2007-01-03 23:32:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I still think it'd reach epic levels of genius if he DOESN'T finish it, leaving us hanging for third part of the trilogy that might never come. Gina's right, it's getting self conscious, and to leave it at the end as a story about a story....it'd be transcendent.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2007-01-03 17:27:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Gina, the Uniter is an edjumcated man, but editing bickerstaff would remove the glory
that is his.
Submitted by gina (user info) at 2007-01-03 17:18:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Okay, okay, I know this isn't Circe. I just liked the drama... Anyway...
These stories, most of which I really like, feel like first drafts to me. Yeah, the imagery is great, there is just too much of it. Yeah, the story is moving, it's just convoluted. Yeah, the antihero is sympathetic and the characters are interesting, it just needs to be paired down. I agree with everyone else that the style is stunningly cool, the first person/present makes the pace downright electric. But all in all it starts to feel sort of self conscious, like I can feel the author peering over my shoulder the whole time, gloating over the musicality of his words.
That being said, the musicality fucking rocks. It all has a strong spoken word feel to it, as if it was written to be performed (not surprising.) You do this thing where you repeat words and phrases within a sentence, as if the author is figuring out how to make his point AS HE IS MAKING IT. I find this really cool, and somehow sexy. The example that comes to mind (I can't remember exactly how it goes or which piece it's in) was something like this, forgive my mangling of it: "The whole room turns sour, like green and fucked up sour, like bile or something, fucking bile ass sour." It feels like the author doesn't really know how to say it, so he figures it out on the spot. Very cool.
It's all a little too hard boiled for my taste, and I did get tired of his whining about the past. If I had to hear one more gripe about scars and blisters, I was going to shoot myself. But by and large, the past is left nebulous enough to keep in interesting.
Lastly, the crazy dichotomy that exists in the naration only sort of works. At one point, he is crafting a metaphor about Medea, and the next he is talking like he has 8 I.Q. points to his name. I'm all for the warrior/poet mystique, but come on. I know PHD's who don't make as many literary references as this guy does, and they haven't been smacked in the head their whole lives.
I'm looking forward to the end. I hope you finish it as well as it started. I think with a couple passes by a competant editor, this could be a really valuable piece of writing. Maybe the Uniter will do it for you.
Submitted by Snare (user info) at 2006-12-19 02:51:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Our Bickerstaff, who art in heaven,
pummelled be thy name.
Your stories come,
your audience is done,
On Uber, as it is in your mind.
Give us this day our end of series,
And forgive us our shiteness,
As we forgive those who -2 us.
And lead us not into anticipation,
But deliver us from salivating in exquisite unfinishedness.
For thine is the hard-boiled,
the noir,
and the intense,
for the end of thy series,
Isaac.
<hung up on the vinegar strokes of your work>
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2006-11-16 13:22:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2006-11-16 13:10:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2006-10-09 21:39:31 (#)
Ranking: 0
Worth reading, but I think you could simplify what is an interesting premise and make a better story out of it. This one, in particular, would be better standing alone and unpretentious.
Your presentation overwhelms the story.
I suppose you must finish this epic in 'style' for the ignorant masses.
Too bad the 'style' is so terribly overwritten.
-----------------------------------
this guy is an asshat.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-11-16 13:03:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-11-16 12:40:26 (#)
Ranking: 2
Did you post this at a weird time?
It seems to have fallen through the cracks. I didn't even know it was posted till just now...
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-11-16 12:40:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Did you post this at a weird time?
It seems to have fallen through the cracks. I didn't even know it was posted till just now...
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-10-15 22:44:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Ragman (user info) at 2006-10-15 22:34:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
nice, just dark enough to remind me of all the terribla things i did as a child
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2006-10-15 22:00:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Uniter is a shitty cock-smakc alter.
Submitted by theshadypeach (user info) at 2006-10-15 21:41:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2006-10-10 10:24:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-10-10 08:51:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
WTF I'M NOT READING ALL THAT
Pshaw, just kidding, you know I did...
BIIIIIIICKERSTAAAAAAAFF!!!!
Submitted by creep_firebombing (user info) at 2006-10-10 07:09:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2006-10-10 03:34:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment Needed.
-Dave
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-10-10 02:40:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Oliver Sachs would be proud.
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-10-10 01:43:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
blah... you make me wish I wasn't real
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2006-10-10 01:23:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very slick.
Submitted by Chroniclysm (user info) at 2006-10-09 23:55:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
*shakes head*
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-10-09 21:54:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2006-10-09 21:39:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Worth reading, but I think you could simplify what is an interesting premise and make a better story out of it. This one, in particular, would be better standing alone and unpretentious.
Your presentation overwhelms the story.
I suppose you must finish this epic in 'style' for the ignorant masses.
Too bad the 'style' is so terribly overwritten.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-09 20:27:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by madddonkey255 (user info) at 2006-10-09 19:13:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Always a classic
Submitted by BananaPhone (user info) at 2006-10-09 19:12:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"It seems these days the kids have to save themselves, because the adults have no idea."
Auto +2 for knowing what's going on.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2006-10-09 19:07:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Auto +2 for Ike Bickerstaff.
Now, I'll read this motherfucker.
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2006-10-09 18:35:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
excellent
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2006-10-09 18:23:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Just great...looking forward to part 3.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-10-09 18:19:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Far from your best, but still great.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-10-09 17:57:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
perfect timing.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-10-09 17:48:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
yeah.
yeah, that's how its done, motherfuckers.
<looking at you>
Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2006-10-09 17:48:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
M-M-M-MONSTAHKEEL!!!!1!
Glad to have you back, Mr. Bickerstaff.
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2006-10-09 17:46:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Auto +2Bickerstaff