Raoul's First Murders Ch. 01

First, a trigger warning: this series of stories will feature some fairly brutal violence. I shouldn't overstate it — we're not going to chart any territory previously unexplored by the written word, and none of the violence is sexual — but this is definitely not for everyone.

So: caveat lector!

If you've read the "Raoul's 18th birthday" stories, you can skip the rest of this note, as this story picks up where those leave off, but if you've found your way here directly, and don't wish to read those stories first, you might benefit from this introduction.

We begin on Friday, January 2nd, 1987, the morning after Raoul Cock's 18th birthday. (Yes, that's quite a set of coincidences. You are not the first to have noticed.)

He has just ridden away from Easy Riders, a strip club operated by the Khan Nation, an outlaw motorcycle gang whose members are big fans of Boss Badoss, the villain Raoul played in the Jean-Claude Segal Fist Punch movies.

Two of the dancers, powerfully attached to him now because he just rescued both of them from violent attacks, have ridden away with him on his Harley. Emma (stage name "Raven") has been an acquaintance of some of Raoul's sisters and cousins, but now it's fair to call her one of his lovers, as you can tell by the way she hugs his back as she rides behind him. In front rides "Candy," still basically a stranger to him; however, seeing her lean back into his chest and crotch leaves no doubt about her intention to change that status as soon as she can.

Emma is on the skinny side and Candy's a little short, so Raoul looks comical between them: he's 201 centimeters tall (that's 6' 7" for the Yanks) and not done growing. Americans would say he's 250 pounds and communists might round it off at 115 kilograms, but to native speakers of the English language he's 18 stone.

Finely-chiseled stone at that. A star student-athlete at the Essex Academy for Boys (which at this time has not yet formally merged with the Ridgway School for Girls) in Los Angeles, he's appeared in a variety of minor roles on screen and television, including the Fist Punch movies mentioned earlier, but he's currently best known as the face, or especially as the body, of Barry Schwartz's cologne Obsessed for Men.

As the bulge in his tighty whiteys in those ads reveal, they don't call him "Big Cock" for nothing.

If we can venture a slight criticism of our hero, he might've had a bit too much fun at Easy Riders. There was a bit of a melee, actually. A man with a small knife managed to give him a little gash on the left forearm, and sundry other attackers got him here and there with bottles, ashtrays, and who knows what.

He's fine, really; it's nothing that a couple ice packs, a dozen stitches, and a couple of days in bed won't fix.

No, most of the blood you see on him once belonged to other men. Armed with a pair of brass knuckles given to him by the Khans, and with years of experience in boxing and martial arts, Raoul carved a path of destruction through the bar, breaking noses, jaws, and teeth.

In short, he had a romping, rollicking good time without any regard for the consequences that he will now have to face.

Among his least fortunate victims is a man who has turned out to be Emma's cousin Phil. Raoul caught Phil smacking Emma around in the dressing room.

So Phil is dead.

Raoul only meant to beat the hell out of him, but accidents happen when big boys who know how to throw a punch get carried away with brass knuckles.

Still alive, but humiliated and badly hurt, are a trio of brothers led by Phil's friend Todd. Todd was probably the luckiest, having been merely knocked out when Raoul was still fighting barehanded. He's concussed, of course, and still hours away from waking up and wondering where he is, but one of his brothers — the one who attacked Candy with the knife and got Raoul's arm — lost several teeth, and the other brother has a severely bruised kidney. He'll piss blood for a week.

Earlier yesterday evening, before all that fun broke out, Raoul had visited his cousin's sorority at USCLA, Kappa Phi Theta, where he met (among others) a pretty girl named Trang who lives in Little Saigon. She let Raoul know that (like a few of her sorority sisters) her New Year's resolution is to lose her virginity, and you will have to continue reading to find out whether she will be successful. The sorority has invited him to their Chinese New Year's party in a few weeks.

Before that, the family of one of Hollywood's richest executives, whom this narrator dares refer to only as Mr. X, hosted the eighteenth birthday party for Raoul and his twin sisters (together they're triplets) Sam and Reza. Things went so well for Raoul that he ran off just as Scarlett — the darling daughter — discovered Mrs. X naked in a bathtub with Raoul's ejaculate dripping from her face.

Raoul has promised to visit the X family again today to try to calm Scarlett down before she shatters her fragile family, potentially subjecting all of them to an appalling scandal.

But that is probably everything you need to know to pick up where this story begins. If you want a general introduction to Raoul and his family, you can find that in the first chapter of the "Raoul's 18th birthday" stories, titled "Shona and Coach Roberta," but you can probably get by without it.

So we resume as Raoul, Raven, and Candy are riding away from the club in the steel blue light of an LA dawn.

—————————————

Candy turns out to live in a little old rusty mobile home in a lot that looks like a junkyard, accessed by what looks like an alley through a junkyard.

This is the real Compton, Raoul thinks, and probably one of the worst parts of it. He's never really been in it before. Much worse than anything he experienced in Harlem or Brooklyn as a kid. Everything is rust, broken glass and concrete, stubborn bits of old paint clinging to warped wood, cardboard in windows, weeds growing around cars stripped for parts.

It's interesting, but his mind is elsewhere.

"It's nicer inside," Candy says, getting off to unlock the gate when they arrive at her house. "Just pull right on up next to the porch. Don't worry about the grass."

Raoul follows her instructions, barely aware of what she's saying or what he's doing.

His heart is pounding, his whole body is shaking. His mind wrestles with the question: Did he really kill people?

He tries to anticipate what the consequences will be. Will the Khans, as Scott promised, really be able to protect him from the police? Will they actually even try?

What should he do? Should he run? He could be in Tijuana in two hours. But then what? He may not be really famous, but he's been in ads, tv shows, movies — he's not that famous, but he's far too famous, and far too large, to hide.

Should he turn himself in to the cops, then, and hope the law will be merciful? He didn't intend to kill anyone. Will that matter?

But he shouldn't have been fighting. He shouldn't have worn the brass knuckles.

Surely he didn't kill anyone, he hopes, briefly.

But no. He definitely killed Phil. He remembers hearing the bones in Phil's face break. Remembers feeling them shatter as his fist moved through Phil's cheek and jaw. He remembers how Phil's body hung limp when he held his head by the hair, how the body fell to the ground when he dropped him, how the face bounced off the floor.

Some part of his mind knows he killed Phil.

And maybe other men — maybe several others. He tries to replay the fight in his mind, over and over, trying to remember how his fists hit each man, and how they fell. But he can see only individual moments, as if in a strobe light.

"Alright," he thinks. "Alright. I killed Phil. Maybe others." He breathes deep. The question is what to do next.

He needs to clear his head, to think clearly. But he needs to think quickly too.

He parks his bike right in front of the steps to the mobile home while Candy locks the gate behind them. Looking around, he manages to realize that he doesn't want to leave his bike parked in this neighborhood very long, even inside that locked gate, and he decides that as soon as he gets cleaned and bandaged he'll be on his way again.

Candy leads them inside and talks to her mother in Vietnamese while Raoul and Emma wait in the doorway. Her mom was asleep on the living room floor and although Raoul cannot understand Vietnamese, her mother is obviously very upset. She physically bars them from stepping further into the house, afraid to look up at Raoul but subjecting Candy to a ruthless barrage.

"No, Mom, I'm totally fine," Candy says in English. "Calm down."

Her mother yells short, angry words at Candy, who yells back in English:

"It was just a little fight! None of this is my blood! He totally saved me from a guy with a knife and now he needs help. We've got to take care of him."

That was apparently for Raoul to hear, because she follows it up with probably the same thing in Vietnamese.

Then her mom says something in a quieter voice.

"Oh my god! We don't have time for that right now, mom!"

As her mom disappears down the hall, Candy explains, "She wants us to stay here a moment. She's getting us towels to wipe ourselves off so we don't get blood all over the house. Also," she nudges Raoul, "she says you're hot."

Raoul smiles down at her, barely aware of what she's saying. Candy's still wearing his coat, and all of them are covered in dried and drying blood. The two girls have pressed themselves into him, as if they still feel they need his protection, and he has his arms around their shoulders, as if he could pull them inside himself so they could take away his guilt, regret, and fear.

What he's thinking:

Years in prison. Life in prison. Maybe even the death penalty. Electric chair. Firing squad.

He can't turn himself in. He has to take his chances. He'll run if he has to.

His mind is racing: Mexico to Cuba to the USSR. One of the Central Asian republics. He could be okay in, say, Kazakhstan. Get a job. Disappear.

But surely, his mind shifts, surely he didn't actually kill anyone. Back and forth his mind goes: Phil is dead, Phil might not be dead, maybe only Phil, maybe others.

"Do you think he really killed anyone?" Emma has whispered.

Raoul begins to listen carefully, as if he might learn something useful from them.

"I don't know," Candy shrugs. "I've never seen anything like it. It was fucking amazing!"

"What happened?" Emma asks.

"You weren't there?"

"No. Phil came with Todd an' them to bother me."

"Wait. Phil knows Todd?" Raoul asks Emma.

"Oh yeah. They're both regulars. Fuckin cheap."

"Phil takes all her money," Candy rolls her eyes. "He buys himself tricks with her money."

"Shut up!" Emma cries.

"It's not your fault," Candy shrugs. "He's just an asshole. Did you see what Raoul did to him?"

"Why was he hitting you?" Raoul asks Emma.

"He was trying to take your money," Emma looks up at him.

"My money?" Raoul has no idea.

"That I'd promised to give back to you."

"Oh. Well, that was yours. I told you —"

But he suddenly has no idea what he told her. What are they even talking about?

"I know, but I wanted to give it back to you."

Raoul just stares at Emma, so she turns to Candy.

"He was pissed. He said that money, the money Raoul gave me, belongs to him. He even accused me of having Raoul come in to beat Todd up when Todd was the one that started the fight."

Candy's mom reappears with about ten towels, all dripping with very hot water. Raoul bends down so the girls can wipe his head.

The amount of blood on the towels shocks them but he doesn't care. He's still just lost in his own incoherent, circling thoughts.

Phil's certainly dead. Others too. He felt the bones shattering in their faces.

Is it too late to go back to try to hide the bodies? Maybe the cops didn't get to Phil's body yet.

No, of course it's too late. Jesus, what stupidity! He should've carried Phil's body out at least, rode off with it, thrown it in a dumpster somewhere and lit the dumpster on fire.

No, that's stupid too. The only way to be sure people would look in a dumpster would be to set it on fire.

But a bum would look in there anyway. It'd start to stink eventually.

But even when they see the bodies, will anyone know it was him?

But of course they will know. They all know who he is. Boss this, Boss that. Everyone saw the fight.

But it's too late anyway. He can't throw anyone in a dumpster now.

Maybe the cops won't bother him. Maybe the Khans can protect him. What had Scott said about the cops?

One of the girls tenderly wipes his arm with a towel, and he flinches. The sting pulses from his hand to his shoulder, jolting his mind back into the present moment.

"You're gonna need stitches," Candy tells him, looking up meekly, apparently afraid he might strike her for hurting him.

"We'll see." He doesn't want to go to a doctor's office. Doctors might call cops, he fears.

"No, she's right," Emma agrees. "Jesus."

"We'll see. Do you have a dryer?"

"Like a hair dryer?"

"No, for clothes."

"You want to wash your clothes here?"

"I can't go home like this."

"What are you going to wear?" Emma asks.

"I don't care if I wear anything here, but I can't go home all covered in blood." He can't let them know he's thinking of running, so he needs an excuse. "If my sisters find out I was in a fight, they will never let me leave the house again."

"You can't just go around naked with my mom here," Candy giggles.

"I'll take a long bath while you wash them. I could use a bath. How about that?"

"What about your jacket?"

Jacket? Then he realizes she's still wearing his black leather jacket — it's like a dress on her — and it's covered in blood.

"Just wipe the blood off with a wet towel. It'll be fine."

Emma looks across at Candy. "But what actually happened out here? I was in the dressing room the whole time. I just heard a bunch of shouting, and when I saw Phil back there I knew the bouncers were busy."

"Raoul was whoopin' ass," Candy replies, eyes wide. "J. B. — that's Todd's brother," she explains to Raoul, then back to Emma, "I was dancing for Raoul and he came at me with a knife."

"At you?"

"At me! But Raoul just pushed me away and put his arm up. J. B. got him but then Raoul, like, I don't even know, it was so fast. I could barely see, I was hiding under a table. I just saw J. B. fall down like Raoul had killed him, and one of his teeth rolled out of his mouth toward me so I had to scoot away because I didn't want it to touch me, and when I looked up again I saw Raoul just going through the room. They had knives and bottles and shit, but he was just...." She shakes her head at the ineffability of what she witnessed. "One punch each. Pow, pow, pow! Like a superhero. Everyone just falling down until they got the idea and started running away."

"Jesus!" Emma gasps. "I wish I could've seen that."

"Let's tell the story in the bathroom," Raoul says, irrationally afraid someone might be listening outside. He pulls his shirt over his head, imagining someone with their ear pressed up against the trailer's screen door.

As soon as Candy's mom sees his abs and chest, she lets out a brazen whistle.

"You hulk," she says, flexing her own muscles. "Superman."

Candy snaps at her, Candy's mom snaps back, and an argument ensues, during which Raoul learns that apparently the Vietnamese words for "Barry Schwartz" and "Obsessed for Men" sound a lot like they do in English.

"Ladies," Raoul interrupts. "I need that bath."

Candy snaps at her mom once more, pushing her out of the way and pulling Raoul toward the bathroom.

"Thank you," Raoul tells her mother as they pass.

"Very welcome, very handsome man," Candy's mom gushes. "Tall handsome," she explains, pointing up and down his body.

"Ask her to watch my bike," Raoul tells Candy, and Candy yells something over her shoulder.

"I watch your bike," her mom agrees.

Candy was right about the house being nicer on the inside, though. There's almost no furniture — apparently they live on the floor, Asian style — and everything is immaculately clean. The house smells like spring in the forest. He doesn't see a television but every room seems to have a little radio playing Christian hymns in Vietnamese.

He can't go to Mexico. They'll look for him there. Even Russia would turn him back over to the States. No, Canada is better. There's a lot of forest up there. He'll drive his Jeep to the end of the most remote road he can find and set off from there. He'll get a fishing pole, live on fish. Smoke fish for the winter.

While the tub fills with hot water, Raoul strips down, giving his clothes to Candy.

"Jesus," she says when she sees his cock. "Emma said you're part black, and now I know which part!"

Raoul has heard it all before, so he ignores them while he imagines his life in the far north. He'll need an axe to build a simple little cabin. Mud between the logs. Something to sleep on, to keep him off the ground. He could trap some animals. He'll need a coat, a knife, books about how to do things....

"I know," Emma says. "They used to call him Big Cock."

"Really?" Candy eyes Emma skeptically.

"His last name is Cock," she explains.

"Really?" Candy eyes her even more skeptically.

"But that's not why they call him Big Cock," Emma laughs. She grabs Raoul's dick and gives it a bit of a shake. "This is."

"Has everyone seen it?"

"Everyone has talked about it," Emma says, massaging it in her hand. She looks at Candy. "Wait till you see it hard. It gets even bigger!"

"I didn't think size matters, but... maybe it does!" Candy reaches out to touch it too. "His last name is really Cock?"

"Raoul Oscar Cock," Emma confirms.

Hearing his name draws him back into the present, and he blinks at the two girls holding his dick.

Remembering that Emma is called Raven at the club, he asks, "Candy, what's your real name?"

"In English, Sophia."

"Nice to meet you, Sophia."

He gives her shoulder a squeeze.

"Nice to meet you too," she says, playfully shaking his dick as if she were shaking a hand. "I need to get rid of my mom," she declares. On her way out, she solemnly warns Emma, "Don't do anything till I get back."

"What do you think she meant by 'anything?'" Emma teases when they're alone.

"I need some alcohol on this," he says, opening the cabinet while Emma continues to play with his dick.

Not seeing any alcohol, he settles for hydrogen peroxide. With shaking hands, he barely manages to get the lid off the bottle, and then he just spills it on his arm.

"I bet that hurts," Emma comments, but somehow it feels good to Raoul even as it brings tears to his eyes.

Raoul gives her the bottle. "Pour some more on there."

So finally she lets go of his dick and begins to tend to his wounds. In between applications to his arm, she applies it to various other little cuts he apparently has all over his face and neck.

Nauseous and lightheaded, he sits on the toilet with his eyes closed, holding the counter of the sink to prevent himself from losing balance, appreciating the sting of the peroxide in his wounds.

It's the drinking, he thinks. All that beer. The sidecars. Before that, the punch at Kappy.

Then he realizes Emma's trying to get his dick hard again.

"Emma, I really need this bath," he pleads. "If you'll have Sophia and her mom make me something to eat, I'll do anything you want after that."

"Anything?"

"But you need to tell me about Todd and your cousin. Everything about them."