Mo & Curio & Old Man Rivers Gimp

"For me, it's just what it is. I don't enjoy it. But if you think my hand will tremble before I shoot you, you are wrong. Ordinarily you would be dead as fried chicken by now, Hugh. I started to empty a clip into the coffin and drive away. I would not have even read the papers around here to see who it was in the box and I wouldn't have gave a flyin' fuck anyway. As it stands, I'm glad I popped the top of the box since I now have the keys in my hand and we are leaving to go walk the earth, hide under a rock or fuck like rabbits."

"Ooo, I vote all of the above, baby." Curio purred, watching Hugh as she sucked Moses ear. "I'm soo fucked up horny wet right now."

"It would have sucked to not known the keys were in there with you. I could have hot-wired it, but that's not a good idea. But, here we are. So, what's it gonna be, Pastor Driscoll? A long life of serving God and watching the kids get old or disgracing the family by dying in a pervert's coffin on your birthday?"

"Obvious choice."

"Thing is, it's my choice. I'm as close to God right now as you'll get in my opinion."

"Blasphemy, sir. You are no God."

"I agree. Except I can lay my vengeance upon thee." He looked at Curio and patted her on the ass. "Ain't she the finest vengeance you ever laid eyes on?"

Hugh Driscoll looked into her eyes, the pupils black as coal from the drugs' effects. He knew he saw evil standing before him clutching a knife. Al's hand on her ass was a leash on a hungry tigress, he thought.

"She is beautiful. You're a lucky man."

"Yeah, I kinda am. You wanna eat birthday cake and soft-serve ice cream at that Big Kahuna Ryan's tonight, you need to understand me very clearly."

"I'm listening." Hugh watched her stare at him as Moses spoke. In the glare of the red light bulb, she did look demonic with her skin soaked red in the light and her black eyes.

She only needs horns...

"It's like this Hugh Driscoll, father of four, devoted husband, sole eyewitness. That buffet and birthday cake can happen for you. No one and I mean no one, knows you're here?"

"Not anymore."

"How many times you been here?"

"Three."

"That's not good, Hugh. Fingerprints are here. You being a vet means you got prints on file. They dust in here, you're gonna probably get a knock on the door at some point."

"I haven't touched anything much."

"Only takes one to put you away, Hugh. But, at least you can have all the man-love you wish in prison. Without holding back in secret. But I suspect you kinda wish to still keep that a secret."

"I do."

"Then the all-consuming fires of hell must wash this sinful place clean. But that's on you. It's your life to do with as you please. I'm giving it to you. Call me a fool, but I tend to think a man in your position will probably have a lot to toss around on his birthday drive home away from this mess."

"Come on, baby. Shoot him. No sense in fucking taking the chance for this weirdo piece of shit. So what if his old lady and the lil angels find out daddy played catch on Saturdays? Serves him right for not being at a hospital checking on sick laymen or writing a sermon. Or actually talking to a dead man walking at the prison instead of fucking some sicko perverts." Curio palmed the knife, a scowl on her face.

"I don't kill just to kill, baby. You know that. I'm just contemplating the if's." He winked at Hugh.

"There is good in you, Al. I don't want to die and I'll do whatever needs to be done to get free of this."

"Good! You see, Hugh, it's the little things that get you busted. It doesn't happen today, it happens a month from now when some random thing like a guy at a gas station remembering a guy in an Oldsmobile from across the river buying a can of gas the day this place burned. Or maybe Peaches talked about the preacher who swallowed his sword to a guy who heard Peaches was found burnt up in a fucked up trailer in Arkansas and drops a dime to Crimestoppers. These are things that you will lay awake in bed and think about a lot."

"I'm sure. You saying I need to burn this place and get gone. I understand and I will."

"One thing you need to remember when you lay in bed sweating it out. If by chance I hear or read about a preacher implicated in a brutal double murder a few months from now, I'm coming for you. And to spare the missus and those kids all that embarrassment about you being a queer and all, I'm sending them to meet the Maker before you have an accident in a shower room in whatever jail you're in. The people I work for find out what happened here, it won't be a quick and painless end for those kids, we'll all be dead. Us and all of y'all. And whoever they send to make sure you stay quiet won't give a damn how they do it."

"I understand."

Curio was at his throat with the knife suddenly. Her tiny nose pressed against his bulbous snout. "You better fucking understand. I don't know why in the fuck he's letting you go. I defer to him but I don't fucking agree at fucking all with it! Right now, I gotta pee, and I want to go home!"

"I won't talk, Lisa. I just want to go home, too."

"Yeah, well that's all fine and dandy. But the next time you watchin' some movie beatin' off and see some big buck nigger getting ass raped, before you get wood and think to yourself, hey, that's gotta be some kinda fun, Hugh, I suggest you turn the fuckin TV channel over to PTL or that old nun channel and do some goddamned praying. You're a sorry piece of shit excuse for a husband and even worse as a man to be looked up to...Precious!"

Hugh wondered how a beautiful young woman could have such a dark aura about her. He was about to lecture her on the pot calling the kettle black, but relented.

Curio kissed him softly on his sweaty forehead and whispered, "Go with God, my faithful and humble servant." She reared back on her haunches as Moses handed her the handcuff keys. She popped the lock and put the handcuffs in her pocket.

"These are too cute. I'm taking them." She stood up. "And by the way, Daddy-o, don't be too much of a..." She imitated outlining a box to Hugh. "square."

Hugh scooted up and lifted himself from the coffin. Moses offered a hand. When he stood up, they could see the leather leggings the O-ring harness was attached to was ass-less. His hairless and flabby white cheeks glowed a hot pink in the red light.

"Jesus." Moses chuckled and stuck the pistol in his waistband. "Hang in here for a minute, you two. I'm gonna get the boat secured." He handed Curio her Luger and glared at Hugh Driscoll as he stood in the coffin, unsure what to do. "Now Hugh, I cut the phone line. Near as I saw, there ain't no one within screaming distance and I doubt even if you're hiding a portable telephone up your ass it don't get no juice out here. This girl is about half-nuts on the most mundane of days and all fucked up like she is, if you get out of line, she'll gut you. I mean that. She will gut you. She wasn't treated too good by those heathen Catholics priests you probably talk shit about with your Protestant brethren so you best shut up and sit tight til I get back."

"I understand. I'll be still. I promise."

"Sit here." He offered the stool. Hugh sat on it.

"Lisa, chill out with him. He gets up or spits on the floor too fast, plug him." Curio nodded and sat back on the futon, knife gripped tightly in one hand, the pistol in the other. She grimaced as she settled her leg.

"I'm headin' out. Hugh? For a man who insists on following commandments as a vocation, I'm commanding you to sit down and shut the fuck up. You still ain't past the point of dying, understand?"

"I do."

"Alright." Moses walked over and kissed Curio. "I'm scuttling the boat and getting the bags." He whispered. In the next room, the song, The Righteous and the Wicked began playing aloud. "When I get back, we're leaving in a hurry." She nodded subtly, eyes closed as she sucked her teeth with her mouth closed. "You okay? Still with me?"

"Yeah, I'm coming down I think. See if there's something to drink. I can't remember what was in the kitchen. I'm feelin' shitty."

"Okay, baby. We almost gone from here. Hang tight." Moses pointed once more at Hugh with the Colt. "Don't move, shitbird." And then he left the red-lit room.

Sweating, Hugh Driscoll sat facing the wall between Curio and the closet by the coffin. He said nothing. Finally, Curio wiped her sweaty face with her palm and sighed as she tucked her chin on her hand. She half-smiled at Hugh, the Luger dangling from her fingertips loosely, swinging.

"This was fucking trippy ain't it, Precious? Quite the pickle."

"I was told to keep silent, Lisa."

"Then will you silently listen to my confession?"

"I'm not a priest, Lisa. But if your heart is burdened, perhaps I can listen and give you some comfort. Despite what you may think of me as a man, as a member of the clergy I do have close to forty years of counseling those in need."

"Yeah, I was kinda thinkin it's a lil bit of physician heal thyself about you. But I'm a little fucked up right now and what can I say? X makes the mouth run. All that hug-drug empathy and all. Plus, I don't get to chat with a lot of folks nowadays. Ain't seen a preacher in years. Since we are in a unique situation just sittin' here and all, let's talk a bit."

"I've been told that about the ecstasy. I've never done drugs in my life."

"Not even a beer with the sailors? Cigarettes?"

"I tried smoking as a teenager, sure. But I didn't like it. Never drank a drop though."

"I quit smoking. Kinda wish I hadn't sometimes."

"There's no solace to be found for a troubled soul in the methods of man, Lisa. Only in the arms of the Lord."

"Really? Only in the arms of the Lord?" She nodded in mock acquiescence.

"No intoxicant can free a soul from the chains of despair man has been shackled with since the days of Genesis."

"Kinda takes the edge off though, don't it? You surely get high off the sex don't you? I mean," Curio beamed at him, her fellow catcher and winked. "We don't do it because it sucks, right? Gettin' off is a real nice thing. I'm thinking you need a little more than a simple pump and spurt to get the jewels to feelin' right though. I mean, obviously. Look around."

"It is. But it's an empty feeling when it's done. I cannot explain the allure of it. I despise it, actually. Yet I seek it and always have. For years, you know, I prayed and prayed for some other calling to draw me as sharply as the sex. The service, the pulpit, missionary work, my marriage, my children. I do all those things and they define me. They make me proud. Yet here I am."

"You are as God made you, maybe?" Curio shuddered, a flashback jiggling her spine. She clenched her eyes shut.

"I don't believe that. Look around this room. Does any of this speak of the Lord? It's the devil's work."

"You know I was raised Catholic?"

"I heard a tinge of a Cajun accent on you. It made sense you might be Catholic, yes. Do you still have your faith? Do you still practice it?"

"Not in many years."

"You don't look that old, Lisa. Many years cannot have been a long time ago. How old are you?"

"Twenty-one."

"When we you last active in the church?"

We are as God made us, my child. That's what he said before he pushed my head to his crotch.

She flinched as she thought of her last day in the hands of her church.

I am the Father and you are my fallen girl...who will seek her salvation in my flesh...

"Until I was twelve. I was raised in Catholic school because my mother was a doper. I was a charity case from the day I was born, you might say."

"And did something happen at twelve to make you doubt the true word of God?"

"I nearly bit off a priest's dick." Curio stared at Hugh's reaction, gnashing her teeth and faux snarling. Surprisingly, he had none. Only calmness and even a hint of pity.

"He molested you? I'm sorry to hear that, Lisa."

"Oh, he tried to molest me. Caught me in his office one day when I was on detention duty. Gave me a glass of sweet tea and told me how I was growing to be such a pretty woman and all. Tellin' me how he heard I was being immoral, his term, with the boys and how that was a sin that only he could absolve me of. Dick." Curio sneered imperiously. "I'm bettin that fuck hasn't tried to pop no more cherries since that day though. He had a long recovery and a transfer up somewheres in Illinois after that day."

"That sounds typical of many child molesters. It's abhorrent for men to take advantage of the young in such a manner."

"It got me kicked out of school. And then Mama got shot in front of me by some gangbangers so I lived with an aunt a while. But then she started trippin about me having boyfriends and my attitude or whatever. So then, it was foster homes. And that didn't end up too well. They talked about an orphanage and I said fuck that. So I hit the streets." Her lips quivered just slightly.

"Life has been hard for you, Lisa. Such a horrid life can drive one insane. I've seen many such cases in my time. Most do not end well because they grow comfortable eating whatever drivel the wages of sin see fit to bestow on their plate, never questioning if the portion on their plate is poisonous for them or not. They just take it all in because it's there. But you need not have to, Lisa. The next day you draw a breath on this earth offers a chance to come back to sanity, to come back to the arms of a loving God. The Lord misses you always when you are far from him. He misses your love and he wants you to find him again."

"You don't miss him but just a little bit when you got a key to a coffin lock tied to your cock, Precious? He can always be put on hold for just a lil while, can't he? Right?"

"I know it must seem that way."

"It is that way, Preacher Precious. If I was a devout man of God, a true believer in Hell and eternal damnation, there's no way on God's green earth I would do what I do...in your case. The thought of an eternity as such would keep me a humble servant of him. But because he is intangible and in my opinion just a means to keep the sheep from jumpin the fuckin fence with too reckless an abandon, you can always tell yourself somewhere deep inside that hey, it's probably much ado about nothing."

"That's not true. God is not intangible. He is all around us. He is in every breath you take."

"Is he an energy field that flows through us, guides us and gives us strength to do great things?"

"Perhaps that's one way to see Him."

"Then when do I get my lightsaber to go with that force, Padre? Opening doors with a wave of the hand would be a most useful gift for me and my man to have. I'd fuckin love to get me a lightsaber. A nice big red one. A laserbeam phallus. It'd be way cooler to wave around on a sidewalk preaching to the masses than a bible. Motherfucker sees an old dude with a book screaming about the glory of God, he just laughs. Motherfucker sees a hot chick going jedi with a lightsaber, they'll come to hear anything she has to say! And then I use the jedi mind trick on them and tell them to give me money." She snickered, her youth suddenly evident in the laughter.

"You should not belittle God in such a manner." Hugh nodded and flipped a finger at her cautiously. "Maybe not today, young lady, and maybe not by me and my example, but one day, you will see the power of Him." He pointed a sermon finger to the sky. "I hope you will see that power in the form of his unceasing love for you, Lisa. I really, sincerely do and I will pray for you. But the path I fear you and Al are walking will not carry you in God's arms and never shall it be able to. Everyday we get on earth is a blessing from the Lord, Lisa. By the looks of you as you sit there, today could've been your last. Were you to have perished, would you burn or be blessed? That is the question which I ask of myself as I sit here and of you."

"Difference being, Padre. I don't ask myself those questions. I just am. I save the thinking for Al. He's the thinker. He's the soul. Me? I'm the body that belongs to him. I willingly accept that any day might be my last and I cherish everyday I get now because I get to spend them with him. Ours maybe a thing far beyond your understanding, though because you are obviously a man driven by the carnal nature you may actually understand me more than you would understand him. Before him, I was lost. Probably woulda just ended up cut up or choked someplace, dead in a rathole motel or a gutter. Ended up a true junkie, some useless whore like my Mama. Just a piece of trash that no one noticed. Now I'm found. I have a purpose. I have a lover who would strip naked and duck walk his hanging balls through hell's fire to save me from singeing my fuckin hair. I have a soulmate, for lack of a better term."

"That soulmate almost got you killed today through his fucking up." Their heads snapped as Moses walked through the door, toting two duffel bags and Cletus slung over his shoulder. Hugh gulped. "And maybe Lisa doesn't need to talk to Hugh too much more?"

"We ready, baby?" Curio jumped up gingerly, smiling and winking at Hugh.

"We're gone. The boat is about to go boom in a bit. We're outta here."

"Goody! My leg hurts again."

"Got that covered, too." He nodded at a bag then turned his leg toward her. A Schlitz beer, already sweating in the room's dry heat, was in his cargo pocket. He flipped it to her.

"Thank you! Fuck, I'm cottonmouthed like a motherfucker!" She popped the tab and slurped down a huge foamy gulp.

"Damn, that's good!" She coughed as a bit went down the wrong pipe. She held up the cold can to Hugh Driscoll. "Never had a drop, huh?"

"Never touched the stuff." Hugh shook his head.

"Then I'll guess you'll never get a chance to know how good a cold beer is on a hot summer day when you're thirsty as hell."

"It's the staying out of hell part that concerns me most, Lisa."

Cocking her head in bewilderment at the oddity of a tee-totaller standing firm in his beliefs despite the absurdly pink and ass-less chaps, Curio smiled at him as she raised the Luger abruptly and aimed at him.

"Yeah, good luck with that, Pastor Precious." She shot him in the forehead. "See you soon, God willing."

"Talked too much about you, didn't you?" Moses winced yet smiled as the body tumbled from the stool.

"Nah, not really. But ya know, fuck him, right? Pervert bastard. What kinda dickhead of a Father goes ass-fucking in a gimp suit on his fuckin birthday? Let's go, baby. This place is depressing me. How the fuck can I be depressed on X? Don't make sense."

He sighed and hoisted up a gas can to his hip. "Get the car started. I'm getting' it lit up and I'm right behind you."

Curio kissed him on the cheek. "I love you, Pumpkin." Limping slightly on a duct-taped bullet wound, Luger loose in her hand, she shuffled down the hall toward the living room.

Moses watched her as she left and shook his head in amusement.

"I love you, honey bunny."

He began dousing things with kerosene as he backed out of the trailer.