Ruthless

CAROLYN’s REPORT

1959

Ialready had two lives and I was only sixteen. They were so different. Two different people who hardly knew each other. In my First Life I was a very innocent girl. I was interested in animals, books and Jesus. I don’t know if I ever was as religious as my mom and dad, or my big sister, Amantha. Certainly, Brad didn’t seem too interested. Brad was my older brother- my hero. But, personally, I think I always liked the idea of Jesus. Because he was the  opposite of Evil. When they killed him, he still went on. I always liked that idea. 

I didn’t think too much about Evil. Not the way it could get into people. It came up in church, sure, but it was just a word. Not until my Second Life started, did Evil look into my eyes. I was fourteen. Glenn and I were looking for his lost dog. Storm was his name. Storm used to chase squirrels in Mattipax. Sometimes they teased him and led him astray.

Mattipax is one of my favorite places of all time. I adored the forests of Mattipax. That’s an Indian name, but I forget what it meant.  It also had this huge lake that went for miles and miles. On that lake I became a heroine, so they said, but if you were there, you probably would’ve done the same as me..  

Glenn Humphrey is a boy I’ve known since we were in the third grade. In our innocent days we were just pals. We raced, we wrestled, we climbed trees, and we talked about the books and TV shows we liked. Well, it’s possible I was really in love with Glenn for a while in those childish times. But I wouldn’t have ever called it love. What would a nine-year-old girl know about love? Love is such an important word. It means a lot of different things to different people. Sometimes it’s just a word. Sometimes it fills your heart and makes you cry. We were really just pals who enjoyed doing stuff together. Playing with our dogs and cats, collecting frogs, and for a while, even riding horses. The horseback riding together only lasted one day.  Glenn gave up on horses because he didn’t like shoveling horse manure. That was the price of our rides. I didn’t mind it. I wanted to ride. Climbing trees was one of our favorite things. In the trees of Mattipax we were so free. There were no mothers and fathers there.

But when he was fourteen and I was still thirteen, suddenly Glenn stopped seeing me. I’d always be seven months behind him, and all of a sudden it seemed to make a difference. We were both in the eighth grade. I could walk past him in the hallway, and if he was with his friends, now his eyes would look right through me. Or he’d turn his head so he could pretend I wasn’t there.

I guess it had something to do with Sex. When my Second Life started I soon had to face Sex. I mean, I couldn’t avoid it, could I? It started to break out all over, although I refused to get pulled into the nuttiness that made so many of my friends act weird.  Glenn hid his feelings, which he was good at, but Sex was driving Glenn nuts, too. I found out later he had seen really weird things he didn’t understand. Now that I’ve seen what I’ve seen, I really can’t blame Glenn for being confused.

I was not ignorant, after all. I had an older brother and sister, and practical parents to explain about the birds and bees. Do you remember that song, Let’s Do It by Eartha Kitt? You know, That’s why the birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. It was a cute song. In my class, I don’t think many people were doing it, but everybody was thinking about it.

It was the summer of 1956. That’s when my Second Life started. It began innocently enough. Looking for Storm. I was happy that Glenn noticed me again. That he needed me. Storm had been missing for over two weeks. Glenn was going to search Mattipax, the last place he had seen Storm. I volunteered to help him. At first he seemed embarrassed, maybe because his father was watching us, but then when we were alone together at Mattipax, he relaxed a lot. It was almost like the old days. Later I found out why he hesitated about letting me come with him.

We shouted and shouted. We listened, trying to hear anything from Storm. A bark or a whine. Maybe he was hurt. Sometimes injured dogs hide somewhere and lick their wounds until they can heal themselves. We heard some dogs baying, but they certainly weren’t Storm. They were somewhere on the other side of the lake. They sounded like big dogs. It turned out they were four bloodhounds, as we found out later when we were trying to escape from them.

But before the hounds came into our lives, and the men who came with them, Glenn showed me one of his secret projects. He and his friends had been building a raft all summer. He had hidden it under camouflage. He was very proud as he pulled off the camouflage to show me. The camouflage was simply made with a bunch of tree branches with leaves that had died and turned brown since the boys cut them. They called it D’Artagnan after the fourth musketeer. The boys loved that movie with all the sword fighting. I guess it was that minute that my Second Life began.

I heard those bloodhounds getting closer and I looked across the lake. I saw Hollis fall from the top of the cliff and drop into the lake. Glenn saw him, too. He was just a dot when he hit the water. But we could tell that he was alive. He was trying to swim across the lake. Some men joined the bloodhounds at the top of the cliff. At that moment of time I really didn’t think about the possibility that they were the police. And with the police came the first big Evil. Maybe if we knew who was up on that cliff chasing Hollis, we would have turned around and taken off. Well, no, I guess not. Glenn and me—we always thought we’d never be cowards. We believed we were Good Samaritans.  I guess you could say that’s what we were, but maybe not everybody would agree.

We had a raft and that swimmer looked like he would drown. We did the Christian thing. We rescued Hollis. Just before he was drowning. It turned out that the police couldn’t see us because the islands in the middle of the lake blocked us from their view. Glenn was unbelievably brave. He jumped in the lake with his clothes on. Somehow he found Hollis. I helped lug him onto the raft.

Glenn can make me mad about a lot of things. He used to swear a lot. He was a little bit sneaky, too, which has gotten him into some trouble. Sometimes I think he’s too proud of himself, but he says that’s my problem, not his. But I shouldn’t complain about Glenn; he risked his own life to save Hollis, not once but twice. As you will see, he even saved me from Evil, but he does some things in the oddest way. Glenn, as my brother Brad said, has a flair for the dramatic. He’s also lucky.

I’m good at biology. I want to be a vet. I knew about life and death. I just hadn’t quite thought too much about death happening to me. Not until my Second Life. Into my new life came Hollis Cooper. He was sixteen then. The first love of my Second Life. Now he’s in the Navy. And now I’m sixteen.

Until my Second Life, I never even spoke to a policeman, except for Wes Warren, the police chief in West Palmerton and a friend of my father. I never disobeyed the law. I never stole a thing. Or lied. Right from the beginning of my Second Life, I did them all.

Later I forced Glenn to show me the photos he stole from Mr. Nash’s summer cottage. Before the police or the FBI took them as evidence. After all, I deserved at least that much. Considering I’d never wanted to think very much about sex and the things people could do to each other’s bodies. I thought what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me. After all I still had time, didn’t I?

Not much time, it turns out. You might have heard that high school kids have swimming holes in different places on Lake Mattipax. It’s illegal to swim there, but it’s such a big place that a lot of people sneak in and do it. The night of the day we rescued Hollis, it turned out that Glenn’s parents grounded him, so we couldn’t go back to Mattipax together. His dad actually struck him for the first time in his life. He slapped him in the face. That was for Glenn breaking into Mr. Nash’s place. Our plan was to get some food and clothes and sneak back to Mattipax to help Hollis get away. But I had to go alone. My parents were already in bed. And they trusted me. I felt terrible, but I had my mission. It was around midnight. I never dreamed I would dare do such things. But if I’m honest about it, maybe I would have done anything to see Hollis again. To make sure he never went back to that horrible place.

Hollis was such a beautiful and gentle person. I can’t tell you exactly what he said to me the night he escaped. I mean, he was sixteen and I was just – well – like I said before, not quite fourteen. It wasn’t anything actually romantic, the way you might think about it. He had a younger sister who he tried to save from a terrible father. That’s how Hollis got sent to Sherman School for Boys. His father got him sent there so nobody could stop him from doing those things to Elise. Elise is Hollis’s sister, and she was eleven back then. At Sherman, he got into trouble with Mr. Nash, who had that sex ring that Glenn and Hollis ‘exposed,’ as the newspapers said. Brad thought that was the perfect word for that mess—‘exposed.’ You know, meaning about all the naked photographs they had in court.

What happened to Hollis and me and Glenn right after I brought Hollis the food and clothes I took from my home didn’t get into the newspapers. If Mr. Nash was the first Big Evil, specially for Hollis, then Blair and Bruce Benedict were the Second Big Evils for me and Glenn and Hollis. Blair almost killed my brother Brad a couple months later, except that Brad knew tae kwon do and he was a weight lifter, so luckily he could protect himself from Blair’s knife. Even so, he got cut pretty badly. What happened that day at West Palmerton HS led to all the stuff I’m going to tell you about.

First, what happened the night Hollis escaped was that Blair and Bruce were skinny-dipping at Mattipax. They had two friends with them. One was a girl, whose name I didn’t know then, but I do now because once she called me. I’m not gonna say her name, because she felt terrible about happened that night. They all had drunk a ton of beer. She said Bruce and Blair were drunk out of their minds. But that’s not an excuse for what they did.

They were going to drown Hollis, and probably me, too. I don’t want to mention what else they might’ve wanted to do with me. Just for fun. I know how much Blair hated me. He hated lots of people, but he didn’t know exactly what to do with his feelings. People figured he’d end up in prison. Evil blazed like a fire inside of him. Some kids even saw him burn cats alive! I won’t kid you that I wasn’t scared out of my head the night that my Second Life began. Blair and his brother were powerful like drunken gorillas. If Glenn hadn’t escaped from his house, I probably wouldn’t be here today to tell you my story.

Blair

Blair cursed the day that he allowed Peter Niskanen to set him up in the Navy. He hadn’t dreamed that he would end up in a place like Korea. Prison might have been better. He could’ve learned some useful things. One time Blair heard some characters on TV say ‘kill or be killed,’ and he thought, yeah, that’s me. Instinctively, he had long realized that there was no greater power than supremacy over life and death. People feared you when they thought you had that kind of clout. Blair figured he had that kind of clout. He scared most people.

He wore his tough face as he sat at the bar on Texas Street in Pusan. He saw a guy come in who he thought was a Russkie. The guy sat at the far end of the bar, a sour expression on his face, drinking vodka. Isn’t that what Russkies did, drink vodka? Blair was on his third beer, wondering how to best tell Russians apart from the other Europeans who now jammed Korea. America was defending South Korea, the skanky midgets, from the commie north, but these gumby Euro dickheads were crawling into town to do their slimy deals with the even slimier slits.

But the Russkies were our enemies. And here they were, skulking around the streets of Pusan, mean-looking fuckers, manhandling the pussy, drinking their pissy vodka, talking their loud, harsh language, acting like they could whip American butts, anywhere, anytime. Even their haircuts looked painful. Blair jerked his head at Squinty Sam, signaling his desire for another beer. His fingers unconsciously dropped to his ankle. They felt the leather handle of his butterfly knife, strapped to his leg under his Navy whites. When he came out at night, he always imagined someone would attack him before he got back to base. Paranoia could have been Blair’s middle name. All these fucking foreign languages. People jabbering with fluty voices He imagined his four-inch blade slicing someone’s gut. When confronted a few times late at night on a dark street, Blair had whipped out the knife when the slits got too close, but no one yet stayed around to test his abilities.

The stool to Blair’s right had emptied a few minutes earlier. A sailor had departed quietly with a hooker he had been plying with whiskey for the past half hour. Sometimes these Korean whores lost track time if you got them plastered. Maybe you’d get more than you paid for, and sometimes you’d wish you hadn’t.

Another sailor slid onto the stool. Blair glanced at him through the corner of his eye. He was short, but not a skinny shit like the Koreans. Maybe 5 foot 8 or so, but muscular, a weightlifter. Muscles shaped like potatoes under his skin on his arms. This was a Navy bar, but Blair hadn’t seen this guy before. Maybe a newbie. Pusan was primarily Army. Navy was mainly there to check the boats bringing cargo into Korea. This guy was smiling to himself. Blair thought that was weird, walking up to a bar smiling at nothing. The guy didn’t look like a faggot. If a faggot tried anything, Blair had his ways. The brawny little sailor ordered a double scotch with a beer chaser. Winked at Squinty Sam, who gave him his best deadeye look.

The guy downed the first scotch. Slightly turned away from the newbie, Blair watched the Russian out of the corner of his eye. They usually came in numbers. Two or three. That’s what the Captain had cautioned them. These Russkies, they had guys watching guys. Maybe he had comrades sitting somewhere else in the bar. Big, sturdy bastards, he thought, though at 6 feet tall and 225, Blair was no midget. The Russkie was occupying Blair’s imagination while he waited for Candy Wing’s time slot to open up for him. Candy usually treated him like cold turd, but he somehow strangely enjoyed her mockery. She’d flip her distain into some kind of bleating subservience, which excited the 20-year-old Massachusetts boy in ways he could not understand. Blay-uh, Blay-uh, you smell me pussy—you eat me pussy... She became an exceptionally desirable lay. How did they learn that, Blair wondered. None of his girlfriends in West Palmerton, the few he was able to fuck, were as creative as Cindy Wing. He smiled to himself, hearing her shrill harangue as she flung off her clothing. He spent a lot of his money on Candy Wing. The Navy wasn’t paying him enough to keep up with her often enough. He’d take her home with him when his tour was done. He’d pimp her out. No he wouldn’t do that, he reconsidered. She’d piss out on him,, Make a fool of him, like girls always did. Go to Little Korea in some city like New York.

What the fuck? The sailor on his right was knocking on the bar right next to his elbow. Like knocking on the door.  Blair’s space. His door.

Hey, swabbie.

Yeah? Whut’s happenin’?

That’s what I wanta know, man. Where’s the action?

The action? Blair scratched his chest, thinking of an answer. It’s where yuh make it, man. You new?

Bout a month. Buy ya a drink?

Blair didn’t know it until much later but Zip Romek almost always lied, except when he told the truth. He lied with purpose, not because he needed to conceal the truth, but because he wished to blur the lines between fact and uncertainty. No one knew where Zip stood, least of all Blair in the days to come, even though Zip frequently did actually tell Blair the truth.  He quickly learned that Blair needed a certain dram of truth or he was liable to fuck up. Blair wasn’t bright enough to pick up Zip’s nuances. Zip had actually been in Korea eight months and had a sideline operation well underway. Let Blair assume he was a greenhorn.

Seaman Benedict, huh, Zip said, looking at the name on a strip of cloth above the pocket on Blair’s uniform.

Yeah. You’re Romek, huh? Blair could read, too.

Call me Zip.?

Zip? Whut fuckin kinda name is that?

Zip means quick. Zip-zip, y’know? In ‘n out.

Blair gave him a blank look. You’re a fuckin’ nut, right?

Zip gave him a sly smile. More like a cocky smirk. Blair was often to see it in days to come. Not always was it reassuring. Yeah, I’m a fuckin’ nut. What should I call you. You look like a fuckin’ bear.

Blair was amused. That’s pretty close, Zippy. I’m Blair.

Blair the bear, huh?

Whatever. So what do you do, zip-zip? Zip. Like a zipper, huh?

Stay away from my zipper, man. Nobody touches my zipper, ‘cep me an my lady.

I could give a shit about your fuckin zipper. 

Zip downed another Scotch. Blair asked him, where you from?

Poplar Bluff. That was closer to the truth than Zip usually offered. Just for the hell of it, he’d recently told somebody Miami. He’d been there, too, but hadn’t stayed very long. The guy asked him too many questions about Miami that he couldn’t confidently answer. Zip should’ve known better. The guy was a Spic. So, he stayed closer to the truth with the bear. They were both in the Navy. Zip worked in Personnel. He knew where everyone’s records were, and he made sure his own weren’t in the right place. Zip believed very strongly in misdirection. He liked to be hard to track.

Where the fuck is Popular Buff?

Poplar Bluff. The Ozarks. You know about the Ozarks, bear?

Oklahoma or some shit like that? Blair downed the rest of the beer Zip had bought him. Hillbillies, right?

Those are the Okies, bear. I’m Cherokee.

Whatta you mean? You’re a redskin?

Half breed. My mom was full-blooded Cherokee. My dad was a white trail o’ tears.

My dad’s a gravedigger, Blair told him. Me too.

Buddy Benedict had, in fact, worked with his son in the West Palmerton cemetery, but he also mowed all the town’s grass. Blair enjoyed mentioning the part about burying bodies to get a reaction.

Interestin. Zip pondered his drink.

Blair thought it was much more than interesting. Death staring you in the face. Burying your own mother.  Your own dad digging the same hole with you. Stiffs you used to know. Got drunk with. Lying there. Stiffs. Babies. A lot of babies. You wouldn’t think so in a small town like West Palmerton.

You ever see the size of a Korean’s dong?

Huh? Blair wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

They got bigger dongs than other Asians. They’re hung like niggers.

How the fuck you know that, man?  You checkin gook cocks?

Hey, bear, doesn’t your bitch tell you?

Tell  me? Tell me what?

Maybe she don’t wanta hurt your feelings. He rubbed his finger and thumb together. Keep her sugar daddy dumb an happy.

It seemed that Squinty was covertly observing him from the other side of the bar, that he had gotten the gist of the conversation. That he thought Blair was an asshole. That his mouth actually twisted a little bit into something like a smile. I know your secret, you white piece o’ shit. The fact was that Blair himself was dissatisfied with the size of his cock. It was not something he ever discussed with anyone. His whole life his fraternal twin brother Bruce had a bigger dick. Bruce, the good-looking twin, could get it up to ten inches. Blair had never managed much more than six inches. The book had said six was average. How could twin brothers have a four-inch difference? A few years back Blair used to have recurring nightmares where he sliced off his brother’s cock.

But Candy Wing worked him long and hard, said his dick was so big it choked her. Candy Wing blamed him for his big cock, said she’d kick him out before it killed her. He had enjoyed Candy Wing, her filthy mind and her earthy ways. Just her sucking on his toe made him shoot off one time. He had never enjoyed any American girl this way. Of course, most American girls preferred Bruce. Blair usually got the slags back in the U.S of A.

Now this jerk off who called himself Zip was tellin’ him some bullshit that Korean men had unusually big zongs. Blair gaped at Squinty who had moved off down the bar. The shriveled runt, who could be somewhere between 50 and 65; how could it be possible? Blair couldn’t imagine Candy Wing sucking off someone like Squinty with dick as long as his leg. He didn’t dare ask Candy. What if it was true?  If he buried one of them, he’d find out, wouldn’t he?

Carolyn

Last time I told you a little bit about Hollis. Doctor Hermansen tells me it’s good to talk about those times. Even write about it. Which is why I’m doing this. I know I want to write more about Brad, too, but I’m afraid to do that. Maybe later I’ll tell you more about my wonderful brother, even though I know I’ll start crying.

Hollis is further away now. I haven’t even seen him in almost two years When I think of him my heart sort of smiles and cries at the same time. He was funny and kind and very handsome. He could be a James Dean if he wanted to. But instead he joined the Navy. It scared me to think that my dad made Blair join the Navy, and that Hollis and Blair could have met up again some day. I won’t think about that. Brad said too bad Dad didn’t get Blair into the Infantry, where maybe he’d get shot the first day. I think Brad was kidding because he doesn’t really believe that sort of thing. But we aren’t in a war now, so I don’t know that it makes any difference.

Hollis’s sister, Elise calls me sometimes, or I call her. She lives in Fitchburg with her aunt. Elise calls me her big sister. She’s got a real big sister, but she’s married and lives in Texas. Elise even took a bus to West Palmerton one time and we talked.  I took her to Mattipax where Hollis and I first met. She told me Hollis’s still stationed in Yokohama. Blair was in Korea, my dad says, so I guess they never met again.

It doesn’t bother me that much that Hollis never writes me, except at Christmas. I understand better than a lot of people how life works. Boys don’t write letters that much. Even though Brad went off to the University of Maine and now Amantha attends Webster State Teachers, I know I always have my family who loves me.  I told you how Hollis was running away from the bloodhounds and Mr. Nash and the State police, and he fell into Lake Mattipax. Glenn and I rescued Hollis from drowning with his raft. When we did it, even Glenn didn’t know who we had saved. As soon as Glenn saw Hollis’s face while he was lying there on the raft, he got white as a ghost. Quick, paddle! Glenn yelled at me. I didn’t know