Never Fear (65 page)

He knocked several McDonald’s cups
over. The foul stagnant fluid spilled onto the
nightstand.

“
Fuck!” he yelled as he
slammed his fist onto the table. More plastic drink cups jumped
into the air. The sticky fluid splashed on his bed. Darren flicked
the liquid off his hand and dried it on his bed sheet.

He stood and stretched before picking
up a piss-stained pair of underwear off the pile of trash at the
foot of his bed. He pulled them on and walked out of his room. His
feet crunched across an open bag of Cheetos in the hallway. Darren
lifted a leg and blasted a foul cloud of gas.

“
Ha!” he laughed
aloud.

Darren descended the stairs toward the
sound of pans banging in the kitchen. He rounded the corner,
scratching his chest. His mother, Cyndi, was bent down reaching for
a rusted frying pan in the lower cupboard.

She was dressed in her whore outfit
again. Cheap, overly tight, torn-crotch, blue jeans. She wore an
open-top, low-cut shirt and, of course—like a true whore—no bra. It
might have been fine if she was twenty, but she wasn’t. She was
fifty-six years old.

“
Jesus Christ, Ma... Put a
fuckin’ bra on. Your tits are hangin’ like oranges in tube socks.
You ain’t turnin’ nobody on with them things!” he
ridiculed.

She turned her head and looked back at
him, a look of disgust emblazoned on her face.

“
Look who’s talkin’. Looks
like you rubbed a stick-o-butter on them undies,” she fired back.
“Ain’t you gotta work?”

He did have to work. But
it wasn’t his normal job. It was Christmas Eve. He had his
other
job.

“
Yeah. Not ’til late
though,” he confirmed.

“
Good. So you have time?”
she asked.

Without waiting for a reply, she moved
toward Darren. She kneeled in front of him and gently tugged his
underwear down. She took him into her mouth—

Why...? I don’t like
this... I don’t like this... I don’t like this... Fuck! Why am I
getting hard? This is so fucked! I never should have let this
happen. I was so young though. Is this MY fault? I know she has
been lonely since Dad left her, but come on.

Sucking and fucking and
doing this shit with your son is so—FUCKED! Why did he have to
leave? He was an asshole, but at least he never did this! Why is
this exciting me? I shouldn’t be so turned on.

Fuck. Why am I letting
this feel good? Why did it feel so good when I was fourteen? Why
did she have to ruin Christmas? A blowjob is not a gift for your
son... If I could have just told her no then... Maybe she wouldn’t
have kept doing this. Maybe... Oh...

Maybe if I hadn’t let her
do THIS, then I wouldn’t have a fucking kid with my mother! Oh...
Oh... Fuck...

“
I’m g-gonna—” he
stuttered and took hold of her hair. He pulled her in
tightly.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG
WITH ME?

*

Cyndi pulled up his underwear and
stood. She returned to her duties as though nothing disturbing had
taken place at all. Disgusted, Darren walked out of the kitchen and
hurried to his room. Tears rolled down his face and dripped across
his crooked smile.

Looks like it’s gonna be
another fucked-up Christmas.
Walking back
to his room, he picked up the bag of Cheetos. Grabbing a fistful,
he opened his mouth and tossed them in. A cockroach crawled out
from inside the bag onto his wrist. Darren flicked it away and
continued eating.

He dressed, no shower, and returned to
the downstairs.

“
I’ll be back later,” he
said to his mother before closing the door.

There, in the driveway, sat his
1970-something Ford Econoline van. It was a putrid, light pea-green
color. Well, the parts that weren’t rusted were anyway. He kicked
through the December snow and shuffled his way to the driver’s
door.

It opened with a loud
creaking noise. Darren entered and started the engine.
Time to go see what the day brings.
He fastened his seatbelt, put the van in drive,
and pressed down on the accelerator.

The van lurched into the
street and he drove off toward the local Walmart. Walmart had been
a favorite place of his to go “looking” for his special
projects.
The beautiful thing about
Walmart is the goddamn place never closes. So where else would I go
to look for some shit-ass parent that waits until the last minute
to go out and buy presents?

Yeah, yeah. I know. They
are doing their best to provide for their children. Maybe they
can’t afford to buy presents or food or whatever. I’m not Barack
mother-fuckin’ Obama. And I sure ain’t that saggy-titted bitch
Hillary Clinton. A parent’s got a responsibility to take care of
their child. They have to put them first. Not sometimes. Not once
in a while. All the fucking time! I am so sick of shitty parents
taking advantage of their kids.

“
No, Jimmy, you can’t have
that Transformer. No, Bobby, you can’t have that Butterfinger. Come
on, Darren, just relax. It will feel good, just relax for
Mommy.”

NO! Never again! Not this
year. I’m gonna find her and I will teach that bitch a
lesson!

Darren mashed the gas pedal to the
floor. The van coughed out a cloud of black smoke and sped faster
down the street. In no time he found himself arriving at Walmart.
As he pulled in, he looked for a parking space that would be
sufficient, one that had a good view of people arriving and one
that would allow him to not stick out like a sore thumb in his rust
bucket of a van.

That was not going to be easy. The
parking lot was packed with herds of cars. Nearly every make and
model was represented in the lot.

Darren circled the rows
like cowboys wrangling cattle. He inspected each vehicle and looked
for signs that the owner was—
Holy
Shit!

There it was, just sitting there! A
piece-of-shit fuckin’ beater van. It’s fucked-up paint fit right in
at the parking lot in Walmart. The afternoon sun was setting, so
Darren drove the van around to the front. The van sat parked in a
clearly marked handicapped spot. No handicap plates, no handicap
placard.

Even from his own vehicle, he could
see that there, in the third row seat, was an unfastened child
seat. Just sitting there. He backed his van into a parking space
that bordered the lot’s edge and turned off the engine. Darren
reached under the seat and retrieved a small, black CaseLogic
cassette case from under the seat. He fumbled with the
zipper.

Once open, he selected a
cassette labeled “Christmas” and slid it into the in-dash cassette
player. Bing Crosby’s voice broke the silence as he sang,
“
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like
Christmas
.” Darren leaned back in the
van’s bucket seat and began to bob his head along with the music.
He faded into thought, remembering the first time—

*

“
She had been such a foul
cunt, the way she glared at her kid. She was supposed to love her
child. Like a mother should. Instead, she looked at her with
disdain. She walked out of Walmart, practically dragging her
youngest by the arm. The small girl couldn’t have been more than
seven.

The news announced later that her name
was Suzy Stephens and her mom’s was Hollie Winters. The fucking
bitch couldn’t even keep her legs closed long enough to land a
husband. Hollie jerked little Suzy’s arm a few more times, dragging
her to the car. She puffed on a slim cigarette and blew the smoke
right at Suzy. What a bitch.

She pissed me off so much... I got out
of the vehicle when I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted her dead
right there, and I didn’t give a shit who saw. I stormed right at
them as they walked to the car. I reached into the back of my
pants, grabbing hold of the K-Bar knife that I had tucked in there
earlier. I was on them in no time.

I went to draw the knife. This was it.
I was going to help this poor child. I made one last step toward
Hollie. She didn’t even see me. I could have stabbed her ten times
before she knew what hit her. That is, if it wasn’t for the
ice.

During that last step, I slipped on a
sheet of slick, black ice. My shoulder collided with Hollie’s. I
shoved the knife back into the sheath just before I smacked the
asphalt, hard! I was embarrassed, but what pissed me off more was
what that bitch said.

“
Watch where the fuck you
are going, dipshit,” she balked. “Dumb-ass.”

Right there, I knew: this bitch had to
die! I watched from my back as she jerked Suzy’s arm and drug her
to her van. I had been too distracted by rage to notice that Hollie
was dressed very nicely, and poor Suzy was wearing clothes that
were much too small for her. She looked so cold. Hollie really
didn’t give a shit about her.

This year
had
to be Suzy’s best
Christmas. It HAD to be!

I picked myself up off the ground and
carefully walked back to my van. Hollie drove past me and added
insult to the ordeal by flipping me off. I was gonna make that
whore eat those fingers. I brushed the snow and gravel off my
backside and got in the van.

I turned the key, it roared to life,
and I slammed it into gear. I couldn’t risk losing her. I tailed
her from a distance so she wouldn’t see me. I felt like MacGyver or
some shit. My heart pounded in my chest. It was exhilarating. I
trailed her for a few miles until she made a left turn into
Rosebloom Trailer Park. What a dump.

I could see that the complex was very
small. Bags of trash were scattered across “lawns” like ornaments.
I didn’t want her to see me, so I parked at an apartment complex
across the street and watched to make sure she didn’t leave. I
waited until the sun went down. Then, it was time.

I had worn the brown Carhartt overalls
and matching jacket I bought with the money I stole from Ma’s
purse. Snow had started to fall again. This was exactly the white
Christmas I had hoped for. It took ten or so minutes to find the
vehicle that Hollie had drove off in. It was parked in front of a
dilapidated trailer.

Blackish-gray shutters hung loosely
from the un-curtained front window. They occasionally slapped
against the trailer’s aluminum siding. As I peered through the
window, I could see clearly that the noise didn’t even draw
attention. I was sure that would work in my favor.

I took refuge in a row of bushes and
spent some time watching the goings-on inside. Hollie could be seen
shuffling through the house wearing only her bra and panties. What
a slut. She walked to the refrigerator and removed a box of Franzia
wine.

She poured herself a plastic NASCAR
cup full of it. The box was obviously reaching empty, as Hollie
tipped it, draining all of the remaining contents into the Jeff
Gordon cup. She took a long drink from the glass and retrieved a
candle from the drawer next to her. As she lit the candle, she
twisted the holder. Two wings of four candles came into view. A
menorah? She was using a menorah for candlelight? Jesus
Christ...

I felt sick watching that
bitch. She reached over to the shelf next to her and picked up a
book. I strained to look at it. It was obviously one of them dirty
chick books.
Golden
Surrender
. It had that Fabio guy on the
cover right under the name Heather Graham. That guy really needed a
shirt! Nipple man! Ha! Yeah, I was a bit terrified that I knew who
Fabio was but, fuck off. I was more surprised that she could
fuckin’ read than of what happened next.

She leaned back in her chair and
unsnapped her bra. Uh... What the fuck was going on? The bra slid
loosely down her arms as her breasts popped into sight. The worst
thing came next, though. That filthy slut took a Jew candle from
the middle of the menorah and shoved it right inside her pussy. The
damn windows were open! Anyone could have seen!

That was it. It was my time to move. I
sprang to my feet and ran across the street until I reached the
bottom of the steps. I removed a paint scraper from my back pocket
and quickly shoved it into the door jam. With one stiff smack of my
hand on its butt, I was in.

I moved rapidly across the room.
Funniest thing I ever saw. When I got to her, I punched her in the
face as hard as I could, but she was still fuckin’ herself with
that Jew candle. HA! It popped out of her crotch like a cork from a
pop gun. I almost pissed myself.

Anyways, she slumped right away and I
put her in a headlock and drug that bitch out of the trailer.
Little Suzy never even knew I was there. I got her outside. That
was the hard part, until I realized that I’d parked the van across
the street and forgot to move it here. FUCK!

What do I do? What do I
do?
I freaked the fuck out. I had this
naked bitch in a choke hold, standing in the dark outside. There
was a small snow bank next to her steps, so I punched her a few
more times to make sure she was out. If she woke up, I could still
bail, I supposed. And I ran for the van.

My heart raced as I jumped in the
driver’s seat. I turned the key and the engine came to life. I
hoped that she didn’t do the same! I drove as inconspicuously as
possible to the trailer. When I got close, I saw she was still in
the snow. Part of me wanted her to be gone ’cuz that would be a
great news story. “Someone broke in my house—while I was fuckin’
myself—with a big ’ol Jew candle—” Ha! That would have been so
awesome.