The Bighead (2 page)

But for now…

The idea captured her.

Tomorrow,
Charity Wells thought, gazing out her apartment
window,
I’m going home.

(III)

The article should be the only thing
on her mind. $1500 the paper was paying her, and another thousand
once she’d turned the pieces in. That was good money for a
specialty assignment, and her base salary wasn’t too shabby either.
“Keep your mind on your business, Jerrica,” she muttered
aloud.

The row she’d had with
Micah—Jesus! He just wouldn’t let go. “You really do have a
problem, Jerr,” he’d said the night he’d walked in. Jerrica had
been in bed with not one but two men at the time.
“
This
is what you
want?” he’d asked, unabashed by what he was witnessing. The two men
had pulled their clothes on in record time, had left. But Micah
remained. “
This
gives you fulfillment? Picking up stray men in a bar, and—and
having—
threesomes?
”

“
Fuck off!” she’d shouted,
but that wasn’t really what she’d wanted to say. What else
could
she say, though? It
was—well—it was embarrassing, being caught like this.

“
And what the hell are you
doing in my apartment anyway!” she shouted further, drawing
besmirched sheets to her bosom.

“
You gave me a key,
remember?”

“
Well…”

There was really little else she could
say. What? I can’t help it? I can’t help myself? I’m sorry? With
Micah, that might work, but she just couldn’t say it.

I’m sorry,
she thought.

“
You need help, Jerr,” he’d
proclaimed. “I mean, do you even
know
those guys?” He’d frowned then.
“Don’t answer. All I’m saying is I still think we have a pretty
good thing going, and you’re going to destroy it all.
Why?”

Why?
How could Jerrica reply? Especially now, with semen in her
hair and her vagina so sore she’d probably have trouble
walking?

“
Get out!” was what she
said, because it was the only thing she could think to say that
wouldn’t completely decimate her pride. “Just get out!”

He’d moved away, so slowly it seemed
forlorn. Micah loved her, she could tell, and no other man in her
life ever really had. Nevertheless, he didn’t storm out, as most
men would.

“
I love you, Jerrica,” he’d
whispered, only half his face peering past the bedroom door. “We
can work this out if you want to.”

It took everything, then, every bad
spirit in her soul to answer.

“
Get out.”

So he did.

What’s wrong with
me?
she asked herself in the mirror. She
was twenty-eight but she still looked a decade younger. Flowing,
silken blond hair, all the right curves in all the right places, a
firm, high bosom. Micah was a good man. What was she looking
for?

She shrugged in the mirror, beads of
shower water still glinting on her tanned skin.

I need
help
, she agreed with Micah. She knew she
did. But what? She saw a counselor twice a month for $75 an hour.
What? She was supposed to go to Sex Addicts Anonymous? No way she’d
subject herself to that freak show again. Beat cocaine addiction
had been tough enough, but
sex
addiction?
I just have to
sort things out myself,
she deluded
herself.

I’ve got an assignment.
I’m going to the Appalachian Mountains tomorrow. I’m going to have
a good time, and I’m not going to worry about Micah or men, or
myself or anything else,
she
determined.

Jerrica Perry slipped on her robe. She
sighed, even wiped a tear away.

Then she began to pack her
bags.

(IV)

But, lordy! today musta
been The Bighead’s day ’cos no sooner had he stomped a mile after
that last splittail (see, that’s what Grnadpap had always called
gals, splittails, on account’a you look at ’em bass-akwards an’
their tails ’er kinda split), he spotted hisself another one, a
cute little brownie-head pixie squatin’ to pee by a stump just off
the this fairly big road he come across. She was barefoot an’
bright-eyed, wearin’ just the purdiest tight little scrap of a
dress Bighead ever did seed, (a fuchsia shade, not that Bighead
were well-read enough ta know what tha fuck fuchsia was) and this
dress he just up an’ ripped right off her purdy back ’fore she were
even finished with her pee. She didn’t scream much, no sir, on
account of it were differcult ta scream when yer throat was tored
out. See, Bighead didn’t bother layin’ no pipe ’cos he seed her
pussy whiles she was peein’, and it was plain as barn paint she
didn’t have no slot on her that could take The Bighead’s thang.
So’s he just kilt her, just like that, and had hisself a quick jack
on her titties. Second nut of the day always felt the best, just
like Grandpap always tolt him. The Bighead about grunted like a
Berkshire hog humpin’ a sheep. Got hisself off a
nice
nut, yes sir, whiles
the gal gargled her own blood in pretty red bubbles. Went down on
her too, whiles she were still dyin’, just to have hisself a lick
of her girlystuff. Seemed a waste not to. She tasted fierce:
pussystink, fresh pee, and, a’corse, sheer fuckin’ terror. It all
kinda mixed together down there for a tasty lick, and Bighead liked
that. His big lopsided red eyes slitted in satis-er-faction. Then
he were done an’ he moseyed off inta the brambles, away from The
Low Woods, and—

Out toward the World
Outside.

Bighead figgurt it wouldn’t take him
too’s long ta git there.

—
| — | —

TWO

(I)

Joyclyn, look!

I know. He’s waking
up!

Giggles seemed to chitter, a suffusion
unreal as the grains in the air. The priest moaned into his
pillow.

This is going to be so
much fun…

The pallor of dawn licked his brow
with pasty sweat; he felt emslimed, his face gnawed on by
misgivings, his eyes pressed in to the bursting point by small
phantasmal thumbs. Exhausted from the vigors of nightmare, he
looked up to the foot of his spartan rectory bed.

God, I beg of thee,
he thought,
I’m so
scared! Protect me!

Perhaps God did, then, because the
fear, which made the priest feel as though he were drowning in a
hot tarn, subsided.

But the vision…

Christ…

The aftervision didn’t subside just
quite yet.

The two nuns stood looking down,
chuckling munchkin-like. In a patina of dim morning light, they
grinned. Their eyes were dull as death, their mouths like thin
slashes in gray meat. Then they lifted their black clerical
skirts—

God in Heaven…

—
and began to
urinate.

Right there on the rectory carpet, in
hot, steady steams, their fingers forked against their pubic
mounds, baring tender, tiny urethras…

Their high, witchy chuckles faded, as
so did their images, as the priest came fully awake.

Fuck,
the priest thought.
Fuckin’-A…

But there was something else, only for
a split-second.

An image lingering in the space of a
blink.

A black maw stretched wide as a
garbage-can lid, full of teeth sharp as ice-picks…

(II)

“
Well, it’s nice to meet
you,” Charity said once she’d loaded her bags into the tiny trunk
and got in.

“
Nice to meet you too,” the
blond woman said. For some reason, Charity couldn’t remember her
name. Jennifer? Jessica?

“
And I like your car,”
Charity added, for lack of anything else. It was a bright-red
Miata, a two-seat convertible. It was nice. Expensive too,
probably.
One day I’ll own a car like
this,
Charity swore to herself.
Once I get my degree…

“
It was great that you put
that ad in,” the blond woman said. “It was perfect. I mean, how
many people need to take trips to the sticks?” Then she paused, her
face tensed. “I’m sorry. You’re from around there, right? I didn’t
mean to say that your home is the sticks. It’s just a figure of
speech.”

“
Don’t worry about it,”
Charity said. The little car bolted off onto the beltway, and at
once her long, curly dark hair lifted in the breeze. “It
is
the sticks. Simple
people, simple ways. Actually, it has it’s advantages.”

“
Tell me about it!” The
blond woman erupted, then honked at a black Fiero that cut her off
on the exit. “I’ll bet they don’t have people who drive like
that!”

Charity smiled.
High-strung,
she
determined very quickly.
And… Jerrica!
That’s her name! Jerrica Perry.
“So… I
don’t quite remember. You’re a writer?”

“
I’m a journalist for
the
Washington Post,
” Jerrica corrected behind the padded steering wheel. “Local
Section. Been there four years.”

“
Wow. A newspaper
writer.”

“
It’s no big deal. But
every now and then one of the senior editors’ll assign you a good,
high-paying piece. That’s what happened to me. They gave me a
three-part article on Rural Appalachia. Good money,
too.”

Charity wondered how much. Good money
to Jerrica was probably outstanding money to Charity.

“
So what’s this about your
aunt?” Jerrica asked, heading up the beltway toward the Richmond
exit.

“
Well, she kind of raised
me, up until I was eight. Then…” Why should she be embarrassed
about the truth? “Her boarding house ran out of money, and I got
put in an orphanage.”

“
Jesus, that’s
tough.”

“
It wasn’t too bad,”
Charity lied. Actually it had been
quite
tough. She felt like a misfit
to the world. But why go over all that with a woman she’d just met
today? She’d turned out all right.

“
I got out at eighteen, got
two jobs, got my G.E.D. Now I’m working at the University, and I’m
taking night classes, because they pay half of the tuition. I want
to be an accountant.”

“
Sounds good. Good money.”
Everything, for whatever reason, with Jerrica, was
money.

“
Anyway,” Charity went on,
“my aunt invited me up, and since I don’t have a car yet, I put the
ad in the papers.”

Jerrica lit a cigarette, it’s plume of
smoke sailing away. “And your aunt, you say she runs a boarding
house?”

“
That’s right. It went
under for a while, but then she got it back on track.”

“
You think she’ll give us a
good rate?”

“
Oh, I think so. I don’t
think she’ll charge us at all.”

“
That sounds
real
good. The paper’s
paying for me, but the more I save, the more I can spend on other
things.”

Charity couldn’t imagine what Jerrica
expected to spend on “other things,” not in Luntville, not in
Russell County. But something distracted her just then, a golden
glint.

A ring.

Charity couldn’t help but notice the
diamond ring on Jerrica’s finger as she steered up the long exit to
I-95.

“
That’s beautiful,” she
said. “You’re engaged?”

Jerrica seemed to suck her cigarette
hard at the question. “Sort of,” she answered. “I mean, I don’t
really know now.”

Charity felt captured, but she knew it
was really envy. It wasn’t just Nate and all the other men—it was
more conglomerated than that. She wanted someone to love her,
and—

Nobody even calls me back
after a first date…

It’s a beautiful ring,” she said. “I
hope he’s a nice man.”

“
He is,” Jerrica said,
though it seemed like she’d said it too quickly. “But… I guess the
engagement is off.”

“
What went wrong?” Charity
dared to ask.

Jerrica didn’t flinch at
the personal question. If there was one thing Charity could tell
about Jerrica, it was that she
liked
personal questions. “Don’t
really know. Me, probably. Maybe I’m just not ready for that scene.
I
want
to be, but…
It’s hard to explain. And you’re right, Micah is a good guy. He
works for a big genetic company, makes good money. And—well,
there’s nothing bad I can say about him. It’s all me, I
guess.”

Charity wilted a
bit.
All me.
How
much of her own failures in love had been—
All me
? How could she ever really
know?