Pink Butterfly (7 page)

“Ouch, that had to hurt,”

“Not as much as what I read next. The fucking bitch had a boyfriend.”

“How did that get past you? I thought you were keeping tabs on her?”

“It was towards the end of the diary, she had only met him a week prior at school. His name was Brent. Seems Brent was tall and cute and all that shit.”

“Sorry dude, that had to suck.”

“I was so pissed, I masturbated with a pair of her panties and left my blow on her pillow.”

“They can do DNA searches you know,” Gunnar stated shaking his head.

“I didn’t care. They never matched me to any DNA in her house. Maybe she thought it was cum from her boyfriend that she spit out and forgot to wash off her pillow.”

“How long did your “observations” go on?”

“I spent the next six months watching her house at night from the alley trying to see if this guy was at her place or not.”

“Didn’t he have a car? Wouldn’t that be easier to look for instead of window peeping?”

“I liked window peeping. I spent most nights jerking off in the bushes pretending to fuck her while staring up at her room. If I couldn’t have her for real, I was going to have her anyway.”

“And no one caught you in the alley jerking off?”

“Does that surprise you?” Melvin asked. “Most people are glued to the television at night, who’s going to go out in the alley and look for strange men with their hands on their cock’s jerking off to a clear window in a house?”

“All this time you were still working at the mall?”

“Five days a week,” Melvin replied.

“Did you every break into her house again?”

“I was getting to that,” Melvin replied.

“Sorry, go on.”

“You won’t believe this, but I managed to sneak in the house with a camera and take pictures of her sleeping.”

“You got balls of steel!” Gunnar stated. “What if she’d woke up?”

“I brought a tire iron with me if that ever happened.”

“You were willing to kill her all along?”

“It was only for an emergency. And if she did wake up, I was only going to use it to buy time to escape. I didn’t want her dead, I loved her.”

“But you did kill her,” Gunnar stated.

“Technically she died of carbon monoxide asphyxiation from being locked in the trunk. I didn’t do to her what I did to her boyfriend. That mother fucker got castrated.”

“Why didn’t you use the knife on her?”

“I wanted the option to come back and save her. If I killed her outright, there was no going back. Over time, I couldn’t find a reason to save her, so I let her stay in the trunk until she was found. She didn’t die from my actions, she died from my inactions.”

“You put her in the trunk,” Gunnar stated.

“Yes I did, but she was breathing. I didn’t kill her, her own breath did.

“You know that saying, “Guns don’t kill people, people do” I think that goes for car trunks as well.”

Just then the waitress stepped up to the table with a bill in hand. “Anything else I can get you boys? “She asked.

Melvin looked up at the woman and checked out her body. She was of medium build, small breasts, shoulder length brown hair and the most fucked up teeth you ever seen. “Are you a meth head?” he asked in disgust.

“Anything else I can get you?” she asked in a more stern tone.

“I heard meth can fuck up your teeth real bad,” Melvin added.

“You can pay your bill at the register,” she replied tossing the bill on the table. In disgust she turned to walk away.

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me,” Melvin said a bit louder.

The waitress turned back around and looked at Melvin waiting for an apology. Melvin sat in his chair and looked back at the waitress not saying a word. She turned back around and Melvin spoke up again, “Have you ever thought about getting dentures?” he asked.

“Now hold on!” the waitress stated in a loud but firm voice. “I don’t have to take that kind of abuse from you, I’ll call my manager in here if I have to and she will kick your sorry ass out of here in a second.”

“I’m only concerned about your oral health,” Melvin said biting his tongue trying not to laugh.

“Maybe we should go,” Gunnar said picking up the bill from the table.

“Yeah, maybe you should,” the waitress said, arms folded and ready to respond to anything Melvin had to say.

“I’m still drinking my tea, I’ll go when I’m damn good and ready to go,” Melvin stated back in a game of tit for tat. “Did you make this tea?” Melvin asked, or do you just wait tables?”

“I don’t have to explain to you what I do mister, all I have to do is what my boss tells me to do.”

“Would that include making tea?”

The waitress stood silent glaring down at Melvin who was sipping on his tea.

“Tastes like shit,” Melvin said in a subdued yet evil tone.

“The tea comes prepackaged, we don’t add anything but water.”

“We?” Melvin asked. “So you did make the tea.”

“Why do you want to know if I made the tea so bad?” she asked.

Melvin took the last sip of his tea and dumped the rest of the glass on the table. Laying before everyone was a single yellow rotten tooth with a filling hanging from the center. The waitress stepped back in horror, her eyes wide open and put her finger in her mouth feeling around for a missing tooth. Gunnar gagged and threw up in his mouth and was able to swallow what came up but couldn’t look back at the tooth on the table.

Finding a gap where the tooth came from in her mouth, the waitress ran back to the kitchen and disappeared from the dining room.

“Did you know that tooth was in your glass the whole time?” Gunnar asked in shock.

“No, not until I was down to my last third of a glass,” Melvin replied.

“And you kept drinking?”

“Pretty fucked up isn’t it?” Melvin asked with a laugh.

“I’ll say, I think that electric shock did more to your brain than just give you some amnesia.”

“You’re a pussy,” Melvin said. “This is nothing, back in the day I used to work in a hog processing plant. Once you do that job, nothing shocks you anymore. I’ve seen things that would make you question your humanity.”

“Like what?” Gunnar asked.

“Like one time I was on the line butchering hogs when a few bones came out of the carcass that didn’t look like hog bones. Looked a lot like chewed up human bones.”

“Don’t they feed hogs all kinds of shit? Including bones?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a fucking hog farmer. Anyway, turns out there was a missing guy from the hog farm where these hogs came from and they couldn’t find him anywhere.”

“I think I know where this is going,” Gunnar said.

“Nope, they found him a month later held up in a hotel in Dallas.”

“Then what is the deal with these chewed up human bones?” Gunnar asked.

“It was his girlfriend. They got into a fight, he killed her, took her out to the hog farm and let the hogs eat her. Hogs are very efficient eaters you know.”

“They shut down the line I’m sure right?”

“Oh yeah, but by then so much of her was processed and distributed that even with a recall, they couldn’t get her all back. Turns out she ended up in a bunch of breakfast sausages and stuff. What a way to start your day?” Melvin said with a smile.

“That’s fucking gross,” Gunnar replied.

“Do you want that tooth?” Melvin asked pointing at the yellow cracked rock on the table.

“No, I don’t want that tooth,” Gunnar replied.

Melvin picked up the tooth and placed it in his right pant pocket.

“Why?” Gunnar asked.

“I didn’t want to just leave it there,” Melvin replied. “How often do you find a rotten tooth from a meth head waitress in your tea? I think it’s a souvenir of the occasion. Sort of a birthday present on my first new day of life.”

On the television behind the cash register, the movie was interrupted for a special news bulletin. Gunnar and Melvin both took notice when the music changed and a very average looking woman appeared on screen with the words “Urgent News” running across the bottom of the screen repeatedly.

“What’s this?” Melvin asked digging for his wallet.

The woman on the screen fumbled with her papers and then said in a nervous yet excited tone, “We have breaking news just in. The body of convicted murderer Melvin Skankmeyer has been stolen from the O’ Grady funeral home in Benton Iowa by one of the assistant morticians Gunnar Biermann. An anonymous tip has led the police and law enforcement officials to raid the funeral home and search for the missing body. At this time, the police are on the lookout for a grey F-250 Ford pickup truck with Iowa plates, Caucasian male driver, in his mid-thirties, short brown hair, around 250 lbs. Police suspect the body of Melvin Skankmeyer is in the bed of the truck so do not approach if you see this truck. If you do, call 911 and give them the information. At this time there is no reward for the return of the body, but be on the lookout. If you were unaware, Skankmeyer was put to death by electrocution last night for the slaying of Cindy Moore and her then boyfriend Brent Clark. Clark was killed at Moore’s apartment and Moore was later found in Skankmeyer’s trunk dead of asphyxiation.”

“Holy shit,” Gunnar said under his breath, eyes locked on the television screen. “That fuck called the police.”

“Who called the police?” Melvin asked.

“Todd, my salesman,” Gunnar replied.

“You sell dead bodies?”

“No you dumbass, we sell coffins and shit like that. He works in sales.”

“How did he find out about me?”

“He was there when we brought you in. I wasn’t sure about that fucker anyway. When we were talking about switching you out for a sack of potatoes, he got really weird and quiet. I never should have trusted that asshole.”

“So now what?” Melvin asked.

Gunnar sat and thought for a long time. It was getting near four in the morning and he was dog ass tired and had a hard time thinking straight. “This was a huge mistake,” he said rubbing his eyes. “I should have called the police as soon as you woke up on the slab.”

Melvin shifted in his chair nervously and his heart began to pound. “It’s a bit late now to be discussing what you should have done, now we have to deal with what’s going to happen.”

“I should cut my losses now and turn myself in,” Gunnar said deflated. “You can do whatever you want from now on. I can tell them you beat me up and left me, hell, you can take my car and I’ll say you stole it.”

“Where the fuck am I supposed to go?” Melvin asked pissed. “I’ve spent the last decade in a prison cell. I don’t have any friends out here. Once the gas runs out, I’m screwed.”

“Then turn yourself in,” Gunner replied trying to keep his eyes open.

“Easy for you to say, then they strap me back on the chair and shoot me at the same time so they know I’m dead!”

“You have two choices, one, take my car, two, turn yourself in,” Gunner stated firmly.

“I need a third choice, both of those suck ass!” Melvin replied gritting his teeth in anger. Just then Melvin noticed a group of young women walk by the entrance to the diner and into the women’s bathroom. They were dressed like hookers but seemed out of place even for an interstate truck stop. On the back of one of the women’s shirts, a logo read, “Porn on Parade” with a drawing of a naked woman getting nailed from behind by dog or very small man. “What the hell is going on?” he asked checking out the girls.

“Looks like a tour group,” Gunnar replied. “Must be stopping for gas.”

Melvin looked at Gunnar and a glimmer of hope sparked in his eye. “I think my third choice may have come a knocking.”

“What are you? Never mind, if I don’t see you again, have a nice life,” Gunner said as Melvin stood and walked away from the table without as much as a goodbye or thanks for saving his life.

Melvin stepped out of the diner, walked down the hall from where the girls had come from and pushed open the side door to the truck stop. Before him was a huge touring bus pulled up to the gas pump with the words, “Porn on Parade” stuck on the side in huge letters. All around the logo were scantily clothed women in various sexual positions. A short fat man stood at the gas pump tapping his foot reading the meter as the bus took on fuel.

“Howdy!” Melvin said loudly as he approached the man pumping gas. “What do you have there?”

“Cross country road show tour,” the short fat man replied.

“You the driver?” Melvin asked.

“Yep,”

“Must be the best job in the world,”

“Nope, sucks shit. I have to sit in the bus while the girls are out doing the show. My life is driving, gassing and more driving.”

“If you sit in the bus while the show is going on, who makes sure the girls are safe?” Melvin asked.

“That would be security,” the man replied. “Don’t suppose you know someone who needs a job?” the driver asked. “Our security guy is in jail.”

“Did he kick the ass of some guy getting out of line?” Melvin asked.

“No, he got caught with twenty pounds of cocaine stuffed in the storage compartment of the bus three days ago. We got pulled over by the state patrol and the dog hit on his stash. Had to cancel a show because of that bastard and now we don’t have a security guy.”

“It just so happens I’m looking for work right now, what’s all involved?”

“When the girls are on stage, you make sure nobody touches them. If they do, you kick their ass.”

“Don’t these places have bouncers?” Melvin asked.

“Never trust a local bouncer from a club. They never pay attention or do the right thing. That’s why we provide our own.”

“Sounds like an easy job to me,” Melvin replied.

“That’s not all of it.” When the girls run out of Tampax, you have to get more, if they need bra’s and make up, you get that too. Basically your job title is security, but your job is to be a slave to these bitches. They’re the ones making the money for your paycheck.”

“What’s the pay?”

“$250 a week plus a sleeping bag on the floor of the bus.”

“All I have is what I have with me now,” Melvin stated pointing to his dirty clothes.

“Better than the last guy, he was a fucking loser,” the driver replied. “What’s your name?” the driver asked. Melvin thought for a second and decided to use the name he had when he was dreaming about killing his dream wife. “Jeff Delgado, what’s your name?”