TITLE: SAMARITAN

AUTHOR: Gemma

ARCHIVE: Available at the Em City Oz Fan Fiction Archive.

DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere else, just ask first.

RATING: NC-17. Disturbing thoughts and images, sex and violence, Vern-o-vision.

SPOILERS: Season One.

SUMMARY/NOTES: This is an A/U which proceeds from the premise that Beecher transferred out just before the riot. Vern therefore got his parole, and--well, read it or don't.

DISCLAIMER: Oz and its characters belong to Tom Fontana, Barry Levinson, Rysher Entertainment, and HBO. Don't sue me, and I won't cry all over your blue suede shoes.

FEEDBACK: If constructive, yes. If not, no. Life's too short.

SAMARITAN
An Oz A/U, by Gemma

Mid-September, fall sliding fast into winter--damp grey streets slick with rain under a smog-stung haze of soupy inner-city twilight, salt-thick and half-congealed, like blood from the air. Neighborhood's like a half-rotten parody of itself, an endless parade of garbage, immigrants, immigrant garbage; the Old Man's shop's been closed since May, when they levelled that last health-code violation on him, and now its sign swings precarious on one broken length of chain, name half-erased by Vietnamese gang graffitti. Same pattern Vern Schillinger's passed back and forth beneath his whole life, familiar as the lines on his palm: A predestined genetic map of pride and prejudice, bravado and butchery:

(SC--L--NGE-'S -EATS, -CHI--NGER -N- SONS, PROP)

*Sons*, plural. And ain't THAT a laugh and a half--considering Vern, same "ungrateful jailbird bastard" Karl Schillinger Senior used to say he wouldn't spit on if he was on fire, is now the only one of those sons left to carry on his name, keep his shop from falling apart, OR take his sorry-ass old alkie crap in general.

Kinda like you and *your* boys, you stop to think about it, Vern hears a little voice in the back of his head muse, mock-thoughfully...

...not that he DOES, anymore.

(Much.)

Cory in the hospital, emaciated and unresponsive, after one last all-night binge and a two-story fall; Jan in Lardner, half-crazed from longterm use, after a botched liquor-store robbery and a high-speed freeway chase. And Vern, after all those careful sessions of perfectly-faked remorse with McManus, Glynn, Sister Pete, after the riot stretched a three-month wait to an eleven-month-plus slow crawl, after that excruciating parole board shuck-'n'-jive...after a whole half-YEAR spent tracking his wayward children down, desperate to intervene and recompensate, the entire *reason* he wanted out of Oz early, in the first fuckin' place...

...cut off from them both, yet again, by the sudden reappearance of his "dead" wife Rachel: Back from the void, trailing their whole shared history behind her. Standing in that waiting room doorway with one hand on her nigger and the other on that little--*spawn* of theirs--

Rachel's voice, in his mind's ear: *Her name's Jacoba, Vernon.*

The daughter they'd wanted so badly, plucked full-grown from another man's balls. His sainted mother's name, hung on some high-yellow mongrel.

And Vern, shaking, sickened. Whiter than pure-white.

Thinking: Christ Jesus, get me out of here. NOW. Before I--

(--kill all three of them. With my bare fucking hands.)

After five years in Oz, five years as the Aryan Brotherhood's undisputed ruler, he can't ever remember feeling *quite* so enraged, so betrayed. So utterly fucking--

(helpless)

Never. Not even the FIRST time she left him.

But: Screw it, Vern tells himself. She made her bed. And if Jan and Cory would rather lie in it with her, after all the sacrifices he's made on their behalf, the hardships he's endured--the *pain* of serving five years hard time just for standing firm, sticking up for his race and protecting his family by doing what any self-respecting white man should, given the circumstances, without stopping to think twice about it--

(--then screw THEM, too.)

He'd stalked out, wordless, and left them at it: The race-mixing mother and child reunion, like some nightmarish, Jew-written TV sitcom playing itself out right in front of his horrified eyes. Hasn't been back since. *Won't* be.

Which doesn't mean he hasn't kept himself busy, in the meanwhile--the Old Man, with typically convenient timing, having already seen to THAT.

"Fuckin' Jew bankers," he always manages to rasp at least once--between hacking fits-- during Vern's visits, those daily turns playing reluctant nursemaid and verbal punching-bag. "Piss my savings away on some insider trading scam, then tell me I never *had* any; may be sick, but I ain't lost THAT much'a my mind. Yet."

"Yeah, Dad."

"None'a this woulda happened, you'd had the good Goddamn sense to stay the fuck outta *jail* for ten years straight, 'stead'a leavin' ME with those no-good kids of yours. You know that's what killed your Grossmutter, right?"

"Yeah, Dad."

Mimicking, high and savage: "'Yeah, Dad.' 'Yeah, Dad.' What are ya, some kinda broken record? You sound like a fuckin' parrot."

While Vern keeps his head down, smiling grimly, refusing to be provoked. Keeps right on nodding, endlessly--and absently--agreeable: *Oh* yeah, uh huh, you are SO right, Dad. Like always.

(Now do us both a favor and go ahead and *die*, already...or get better, so I can kick your fuckin' ASS.)

If only the cirrhotic old son-of-a-bitch wasn't so damn--terminal, Vern could afford to yell back, *fight* back, give him tit for tat and blow for blow, the way they're both USED to treating each other. 'Stead'a feeling he has to act...*restrained*, all the time.
But picking a fight with a (hopefully) soon-to-be-dead man just seems like an exercise in pointlessness. There's no jizz in it.

So Karl Senior lays up in that apartment above the shop with his liver coming apart one piece at time and jaundice turning everything but the inside of his foul old mouth a *truly* grotesque shade of yellow tinged with green, smelling so bad it's like he's already dead, and just too motherfucking *mean* to stop breathing. And Vern goes back and forth under the sign outside, up and down the narrow stairs to that four-room slice of Hell he grew up in, toting bags of groceries and cleaning supplies--washing his estranged father's dishes and doing his laundry, culling his remaining possessions for sale, storage or junk, keeping his empty shop free of dust and roaches.

Wiping his ass and taking his shit, well aware that the Old Man's natural pissiness is being made all the sharper by almost fifty years' worth of hatred...and whipped to an additional fever pitch, on top of it all, by knowing that he finally needs his long-despised youngest child's help with *anything*, let alone the embarassingly messy process of DYING.

It's a literally crappy job, and Vern doesn't really *have* to do it; could just turn the dessicated old fucker over to the folks down at All-Saints and be done with it, Karl Senior's well-publicized views on "Jew doctors" notwithstanding. But it's numbing enough to take his mind off the rest of his equally joyless post-release life, to exhaust him so that he can actually grab a few hours sleep each night without fear of dreaming of Rachel and waking anger-hard, fists and teeth clenched in loss. Or dreaming of Oz, and feeling a--truly frightening--little hitch of disappointment...

(...when he realizes, in almost the next breath, that he isn't actually THERE anymore.)
Vern slips the shop's back door key into its hiding place above the lintel, ready for tomorrow's friendly little Schillinger family get-together, and starts towards the corner where he'll catch his work-bound bus. And in a crack between SC--L--NGE-'S and the next two empty buildings, that same damn homeless man spins and sings--an annoyingly subhuman blur glimpsed just to the far right-hand limit of Vern's bad eye, braying vaguely familiar words to an off-key, air-guitared tune.

"'...gih ya my worl'...how can I, when ya won' take it fruhmme...'"

Inexplicably drawn, Vern turns his head sidelong like a vulture staking out potential prey, and studies this wreck through the unscarred lens of his left cornea: Face and neck tanned but obviously Caucasian, a mop of hair matted into stiff, dirty brown-blond dreadlocks from bad hygeine and constant exposure, shot through with streaks of grey; similarly grey-streaked scruff of beard, also slightly dreaded. He's dressed in the ruin of a suit, tieless and shoeless, the soles of his bare feet abraded black with dirt, toenails like broken claws. Gesticulating wildly enough to reveal, on the inside of each wrist--almost hidden under grimy cuffs, but gaze-catchingly infection-red--

--a ridged arrow of fresh-sutured scar-tissue, pointing towards the heel of each hand.

Huh.

(Knew to cut the right way, at least. Like he MEANT it.)

So he's still sane enough to see his life's not worth living, Vern guesses, connecting the dots. In between bottles.

(Jesus. Like you got nothin' else to do but analyze *street freaks* all fuckin' night.)

He gives himself an impatient little shake, and starts to step past--only to have the homeless man whip around at the movement, glazed eyes narrowed against the last of the setting sun: Unfocussed but fearless, knife-slits of incongruously pure pale blue.

Thrusting an upturned palm into Vern's personal space--nails grey-rimmed and ragged, sticky with shit knows what--and DEMANDING, not begging, in his eerie sandpaper voice:

"*Change*."

"The fuck for?" Vern snaps, automatically, momentarily on his defensive--and gets nothing but a half-huff, half-snort in reply. Like: Well, what do you THINK, moron?

"*Booze*?" The bum suggests. Acidly.

(Brazen, nutbag motherfucker!)

But: "Fuck you, you fuckin' lunatic," Vern shoots back, poise regained. And keeps on walking.

The homeless man hisses at his back, through discolored kitten-teeth--a nasty, animal sound. Then sneers, weirdly lucid, as the bus pulls up between them:

"*Samaritan*."

(Say...WHAT?)

By the time Vern looks back, however--he's already gone.

*

Work, these days, is an eight-hour janitorial evening shift in the Meteorscan Weather-Monitoring Services building, dumping out shred-baskets and vaccuming office cubicles 'till two in the morning. Couldn't get his old job back down at the Post Office, 'cause they finally started checking people's records--*took* 'em long enough, what with every maladjusted, mail-humping freak in creation turning his pink slip in for an Uzi on what seemed like a yearly basis. And his A.B. contacts, once so seemingly solid, haven't been worth shit since the gates of Oz closed fast behind him: His parole officer, Mr Hamid--some thirty-year-old sand nigger with a grudge who's made it clear he's just *waiting* for a chance to violate him back inside faster 'n' Vern can whistle "Dixie"--has already warned him he won't be allowed to hang with his old crowd anytime soon, even the ones who've never been convicted of more than using harsh language at a pro-Revisionist rally.

Vern's the only white man on his crew, so he tries to make sure his time at Meteorscan involves as little "friendly" chit-chat as possible. Which'd be a considerably easier task if he *weren't* paired with Charlie Cutter, a gangly Chris Rock clone who can't seem to go five fuckin' minutes without opening his big-lipped mouth about SOMETHING--be it the size of his bitch's booty, or the sheer range and volume of stolen goods he sells out the back of his truck over every half-hour break, out in the company parking-lot.

"Exactly what makes you think I wanna buy SHIT from you, you dumb-ass jungle bunny?" Vern growls at him tonight, in *no mood* for this particular brand of bullshit.

o which Charlie responds, blithely--not even insulted:

"Oh, I guess I just wait 'n' see, Adolf, baby. Thass my mot-to: Wait 'n' see."

Throwing back, over his shoulder, as he turns his vaccum into the next cubicle: "'Cause, fact is--when you SELLIN', eventually...*everybody* buyin'."

(Yeah, well.)

"Don't hold your fuckin' breath," Vern mutters, under his. And sees, in the back of his mind, fading in and out like a teasing, repetitive tape-loop--

--the phantom image of that *homeless* man, inescapable as breath--dancing, singing. SNEERING. Repeating, over and over, in his whispery snarl:

...*Samaritan*.

(Whatever THAT means.)

That guy, Vern's brain repeats, moronically, as he scoops and bags, scoops and bags. That guy, that *guy*. That GUY, thing is, he looks--he looks--like...

(spit it out, Goddamnit)

--Beecher.

(*What*?)

You heard me.

The very idea, crazy as it sounds--and IS--brings Vern up short, tongue gone dead like a stone in his dry, dry mouth. Suddenly heart-still.

Thinking: FUCK you say.

Beecher...Tobias? To-by?

(-baby?)

That upscale, kid-killing dipso dipshit Vern'd pragged his first year into Em City, busting--and branding--his pretty blond butt in front of the whole damn quad? That drug-snortin', drag-wearin' little law-boy *bitch*?

(Not LIKELY, it ain't.)

Beecher, educated, rich and spineless; Beecher, who Vern fucked up and over on a daily basis, browbeat and badgered into a submissive parody of wifedom--minus the genuine underlying respect he'd always had for Rachel, of course, even at her most infuriating--
--'till he'd finally blown up from the inside out, pressured FAR beyond his *civilized* boundaries, like some special delivery package from the fuckin' Unibomber.

( Put your eye half-out. Knocked you down with a weight, slammed a bench on your neck, and used your face for toilet paper.)

Yeah. THAT's who we're talking about.

(Riiiiight.)

Ridiculous. The homeless man's a raving nutjob, a walking flea-circus--looks like an upright chunk'a shag carpet, like he's slept under a bridge every night of his life. Nothing like that glasses-wearing, cat-neat, mumbling...*pussy* Beecher, with his clean hands and his soft little desk-job pot-belly--that faint tang of milk-fed goodness to every part of him, from his minty-fresh breath right on down to his tears, his sweat, his sweet, hot spit--

"STOP it," Vern orders himself, firmly, feeling the memory head *straight* for his crotch--and pauses, flushing slightly, to find he's drawing curious stares from his fellow "workmates". Which he meets with a crushing blanket scowl, projecting pure Oz yard menace from every pore: You MIND, motherfuckers?

(Tryin' to have a *private* conversation, here.)

And: Man, Vern thinks, it has been WAY too long since I got laid.

But anyway...

After that pre-riot gym breakdown of his, the hacks'd dragged Beecher away kicking and biting, yelling his chosen mantra for all within earshot to hear:

*Sieg Heil, baby! Sieg fuckin' HEIL!*

Not to the Hole, though; word on the quad was his rich parents'd stepped in, paid off whoever they had to, maybe even bribed ol' Governor Devil himself on their weak wittle baby boy's behalf. So Beecher'd left Oz in a straitjacket, bound for some cushy nuthouse, never to be seen again--and though Vern's no psychiatrist, one thing he DOES know is it's a fuck of a lot harder to get *out* of one'a those places than it is to get *into* 'em, in the first place.

So--it's *not* him. And even if it WAS--

(which it ain't)

--so what? Not like *Vern* cares.

('Course not.)

"Shut UP," he says, then realizes he's just spoken aloud. *Again*.

But this time, when he glances around--surreptitiously--everyone around him already knows better than to meet his eyes.

*

So: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Back to Dad's. Back to work. Back "home" to his empty apartment, a barren room with a mattress on the floor, a cable-less TV in the corner, and all his stuff from Oz crammed into two cardboard boxes by the bathroom door. Lying there awake in front of a screen full of static, looking up at the ceiling and listening to the homeboys outside trawl back and forth with their windows down, blasting duelling rap groups: East Coast, West Coast. Gangsta, New Jack. Back and forth and back and forth and back...

Thinking 'bout what's gonna happen when the Old Man dies--not *if*, not anymore. WHEN.

Thinking: I am *not* gonna spend the rest of my life trashing shredded paper. Or cutting up meat in some fuckin' family butcher shop, either.

(...am I?)

Forty-seven years old. Three years away from fifty, a new millennium, a whole half-century spent on earth. And for what?

No wife, no kids. No job WORTHY of that lingering, stringent German Protestant work ethic he still carts around. And no *power* either, for all his strict adherence to his chosen faith--all the legs he's broken and asses he's fucked, over the years, to keep the A.B. on top: Not out here in the "real" world, at least, this world of compromise and mongrelization--rules and regs, bullshit and back-biting. FREEDOM.

And thinking, thinking...about...

...the homeless guy.

(Beecher?)

Two weeks later:

"Your boss tells me you phoned in sick to work, last night," P.O. Hamid's disgustingly--*American*-sounding voice says, accusingly, the minute Vern picks up the phone.

"Yup."

"Care to explain why?"

Mock-patient: "'Cause I was SICK?"

"Just like your father."

Mmm. Yeah. *Just* like that.

A twenty-four-hour leave of absence, game called on account of "flu". Vern'd spent it leaning in the shadow by his Old Man's back door, staking out the corner. Watching for homeless guy action, after a week and three-quarters of mainly fruitless time spent surreptitiously studying the same area from his father's bedroom window, and finding his initial idle speculations proven beyond a shadow of a doubt: The same drunken wraith, lurching and prowling, accosting passersby between extended acapella solos. Then enticing one guy--cleaner, but equally squirrelly-looking--into an adjascent alley; whispering in his ear, and getting half-forced to his knees before any money even appeared to have changed hands...

Selling himself for a bottle to anyone who seems interested, probably too fucked up to even set the same price twice. And Vern, still standing there, still watching. Feeling this instantaneous, entirely inappropriate surge of--what?

Sympathy? Disgust?

A weird, stab-deep kind of...

(...responsibility?)

'Cause, if it really *is* Beecher, Vern thinks--unable to stop himself--

(--then the little slut was better off with ME.)

"I don't really have to tell you the drill, do I, Schillinger?" Hamid asks him. "One free ride, that's all you get. After the first time, I check up--in person. And if I find out you're lying..."

"...it's back to Oz. Right?"

"BRIGHT boy."

Casting his mind back. Blocking Hamid's patronizing patter out with a sudden flood of memory. That one time when some stupid-ass Spic newbie who didn't know--or wouldn't *learn*--the fuckin' score kept following Beecher with his eyes, and Vern spent a week or so with one eye kept always on his investment, waiting for El Moron to make his move. It was just after the talent show, as Vern recalled, with Beecher parading around in full dragged-up prag mode--hair frosted, lips a downturned scarlet bow; not exactly Vern's favorite look, on *anybody*, but he had to admit he enjoyed the larger overall effect. That sweet misery halo keeping Beecher's eyes meekly lashed, his smart mouth LEASHED for fuckin' once, too embarassed and depressed to say much more than the absolute minimum:

Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir.

(Sir, yes, sir!)

Eventually, Vern'd ducked under the stairwell to find the guy all over Beecher, who wasn't doing much to hold him off--just kind of batting at him, vaguely and ineffectually, as cholo-boy tried to peel his pants down. Muttering--

*C'mon, bonita, be real easy, mammi--jus' gimme a little of that good stuff I keep hearin' 'bout, you pinche wedo maricon...*

Gotta teach you to value yourself a little more, you dumb cunt, Vern remembers thinking, annoyed by Beecher's martyred air of resignation. You belong to *me*, remember?
With Beecher panting, blue eyes wide, pupils dilated. Obviously telling himself the old, old story, a self-hypnotic litany of denial: I'm not really here. This isn't really happening--not to ME. Not *again*.

(Again and again, baby. But not with THIS fuckwad.)

So: Vern'd wrenched El Moron off, briskly, then rabbit-punched him down and laid the boots to him, face-first. Broke his jaw with one good stomp. Then turned back to check Beecher out, rough but expert--for damage. For...devaluation.

Giving him that intimate grin, and rumbling: *Don't say I never did nothin' for you, sweetpea.*

And Beecher, just looking at him--not high, not drunk, just...tired. Too much so to care about the consequences of loose speech.

Snapping back, cat-quick:

*Like that was really about ME.*

Back in the here and now, meanwhile, Vern forces himself to keep his tone calm, level. And tells Hamid, with exaggerated care--

"I *was* sick. And now I'm not. So I'll be goin' to work, tonight--right AFTER I go see my Dad."

"You're such a model son, Schillinger."

Vern bares his teeth, glad his phone doesn't have a viewscreen. And replies:

"Oh, I try."

(You fuckin' little camel-humper.)

Never got to go the whole interventional nine yards with Jan or Cory, exactly, but he's fairly familiar with the procedure--and no white man should have to live this way, slave to an addiction: Booze, drugs, whatever. Not even an uppitty, over-educated born whore like Beecher. Not even after what he did to Vern's eye, his rep, his good Goddamn name, in Oz and out. Not even if he...

(...*wants* to.)

*If* he wants to.

IF he's really even Beecher.

*

And later that same afternoon, when Vern comes up his father's stairs one last time...

*

...he finds the Old Man sprawled headlong across the kitchen threshold, dead as a fuckin' doornail.

Vern sits down, back against the wall, staring at the corpse. Thinking, numbly:

Well.

(Ain't THIS a dream come true.)

At his OWN place, Vern's subject to spot-checks from P.O. Hamid. But here, as long as he keeps paying the bills and meeting the old Man's rent--here, in this place of weird comfort, this refuge full of remembered pain, familiar as a stroked scab--

Methodically, he rolls Karl Senior in extra sheets of insulation from the attic, duct-tapes garbage bags on top. He takes the bundled body downstairs, and hides it in what used to be the shop's freezer.

Through a half-exposed section of the papered-over front window, Vern watches "Beecher" jig and taunt tourists. He looks thinner, sicker, stranger. A little more crazy, every time Vern sees him. Weather'll turn, soon enough. Fall into winter, snow on the ground under those bare, thin feet.

And: How did we get so far, so fast, exactly? From idea--to impulse--to action--
Must be the trauma talking, Vern thinks. He takes a deep breath, flavored with dust and old grease. Thirty years of meat crammed into one small space, smell laid on top of smell like an olfactory fingerprint.

Already making lists in his head, item by careful item. Tools, for the job ahead.

--A three-foot bike-chain, with a clear rubber casing and a big, sturdy lock.

--Handcuffs--talk to Charlie, that nigger fuck, and don't let him screw you on the price, either.

--Extra sheets. Extra food. Extra fluid: Water, orange juice, Gatorade.

--Extra--duct-tape.

So...what is it you're planning to *do* with all this, Vernon? He hears a voice--

(Rachel's?)

--ask in the back of his mind, half-interested, half-scared. Much the same way HE feels, right now...or would, if he allowed himself to analyze it.

But doesn't. Thinking, instead, in reply:

Whatever...I want.

(Well, *yes*.)

But--what DO you want? Or rather...

(...who?)

Eyes burning from no sleep, a lifetime's worth of unshed tears and WAY too much time spent watching, wondering, wearing himself to a thin red thread over whether or not that weirdo out there is the living ghost of his former jailhouse bitch. And *knowing* full well that this whole dillemma could be solved for good just by getting said nutjob up into the old Man's bedroom, by fair means or foul, so Vern can tie him to the radiator and pull his ragged pants down undisturbed--peel the drawers off his butt, if he's actually wearing any, and check to see if he's got a certain National Socialist symbol crudely tattooed where the sun don't shine. The swastika, Vern's mark of ownership, done with a ballpoint pen and lighter on their very first night alone together.

If he's got it, Beecher. If not--somebody else. But either way:

I AM gonna be a Samaritan, this one time, Vern thinks. I *am* gonna do one more useful thing, before I give up on life outside entirely, and get myself thrown back in where I belong.

And I AM gonna save you, whoever the fuck you are. From the street. >From the booze. From yourself.

Whether you want me to...

(...or not.)

SAMARITAN, Part 2

"How that date go, anyway?" Charlie Cutter calls out, from down the hall, just as Vern Schillinger turns his vaccum off. And snaps in reply:

"That *what*?"

Charlie pops his head out. "Yo' DATE, Moby Dick. One you bought all that e-quip-ment off me for?"

Oh. Yeah.

(*That* date.)

"Man's just out the jug, he can't even remember settin' up to get some pussy." Shaking his head: *Pitiful, ain't it?* "So--y'all get yo' wick dipped, or what?"

"Well..."

(...not yet.)

But--

"Look," he asks Charlie, slowly. "I was, uh, wondering..."

"Well, wonder no mo', Moby. Go on ahead, I's ALL ears."

And: LOVE to, you wanna let me get a word in edgewise every once in a while, Vern thinks, flushing with annoyance. You motormouth coon cock-knocker.

"You call me Moby one *mo'* time, nigger," he growls, "and you're gonna find this vaccum harpooned so far up your ass, you'll be able to suck AND blow at the same fuckin' time."

Charlie, unimpressed: "You an' what lynch mob, Adolf?"

Vern draws a calming breath--then raises his voice, into the roar of Charlie's own machine.

"Look," he repeats. "Just say I...know somebody needs to get rid of a bunch'a--dreadlocks."

The vaccum dies again; Charlie turns, brows hiking. "Take it we ain't talkin' *black* hair here, right?" A pause. "Well, I ask Rolanda--half her clientele gots jungle fever, so she pretty good with all that fishbelly Fly Girl shit. Prob'ly cost you a whole lot less'n the cuffs did, I can tell you that."

Observing, slyly, as Vern gives a grudging nod--

"You just *full* of surprises these days, Adolf, baby."

(For a crazy old Nazi motherfucker.)

And: Sure got THAT right, Vern thinks. Casting his mind back to...

*

...yesterday, outside his Old Man's shop, with the patented Schillinger one-man, ground-level amateur detox initiative all set up and ready to roll: Supplies bought, space prepared, plan (such as it is) firmly in place. Scoop that homeless guy off the street, so fast he doesn't have time to fight back; whack him if he does, hard enough to put him--and KEEP him--down. Then tie him up, dry him out; *figure* out, with one simple move, if he really IS Tobias Beecher--the post-Oz, post-pragdom, post-raving mental breakdown and year-long drunken binge version--

(--or not.)

But catching "Beecher"'s attention soon proves a little more difficult than anticipated, mainly 'cause he hasn't got any. Vern's finally reduced to waving, calling--

"Hey--you!"

At the sound, "Beecher" turns; Vern, standing by the shop's back door again, shrugs his jacket open. Shows him the bottle. Sees those glazed blue eyes squint, then sharpen.
And: *That*'s right, keep a-comin', Vern thinks. Heeeere, nutjob, nutjob, nutjob...

(I mean, 's what you said you wanted, right? The other day?)

That meandering little song, that upturned, dirt-grey palm. That hissed and enigmatic word:

*Sa--MA--ritan*.

Pretty educated turn of phrase, for a guy whose "normal" daily routine, from what Vern's observed, seems to involve panhandling, prostituting himself, drinking 'till he blacks out and crashing in dumpsters.

"Beecher" stares back, desire-caught, but street-trained animal-wary. Jogs up and down in place for a moment, a hesitant little shuffle, weighing his options. And Vern just stands and smiles, benignly--straining to keep his own face calm, unthreatening, enticingly paternal. Like: C'mon, I look like a serial killer to you? Just a friendly dude, lookin' to give some booze away.

Toying with the bottle. Making it--flash.

Watching "Beecher" watch him do it. And watching him touch the very tip of his tongue, automatically, to his flat, cracked, discolored upper lip--a pink, weirdly *clean* little slice of flesh, under that gross scruff of beard--as he does.

(You want this, baby?)

Gonna have to come closer, if ya do...

And now--he is.

(Him and his *stench*.)

Crab-scuttling across the intersection towards the shop, borne on a slab-thick WAVE of something truly rank: Old sweat, alcohol of every possible variety. Vern adjusts his coat-collar, wrapping it high enough to mask almost everything but his eyes, and makes a conscious effort to start breathing through his mouth.

"Beecher" gets about three feet from Vern, then stops, almost within grabbing distance. Pauses, with his feral gaze still on the bottle, still glued to it, like nothing else matters--skipping over Vern entirely, like he's just some vague, phantom...distraction. Clears his throat. And asks, raspily--giving his filth-stiff mane a jerk toward the bottle--

"Fuh--me?"

"Yup."

"Beecher" nods, slightly. To himself: "Huh."

Then shapes a disquieting little half-smile, lowering his head and looking up at Vern through his lashes--those odd, pure, ghost-pale eyes gone abruptly mock-sultry, under knit brows the color of a muddied wheat-field.

Beecher's eyes, maybe. Or *like* 'em, at least. SO like--

--Vern can feel the weight of it hit him right in his crotch, stink and all--hard and fast, like a red-hot hammer-blow.

(Ooogh.)

But: That...is NOT...what this is all about. Is it.

(Well--*is* it?)

Vern grimaces slightly, not exactly sure what he's feeling, let alone how he feels about feeling it. As "Beecher" warns him, meanwhile--subtle as the proverbial heart attack--

"I *don'* fuck. 'Kay?"

Way YOU smell? No friggin' loss.

Vern simply shrugs, allowing himself apparently more than amenable to a simple, unhygenic blowjob-for-booze exchange. And steps back, nudging the shop's door open with his hip. Telling "Beecher"--

"In here."

Head down again, broken teeth bared: Yeah, *right*.

"Don'...think so."

"Hey, I ain't gonna argue--we do it in here, or no dice."

An impasse. "Beecher" looks at the door, then the bottle. Narrows his eyes further, like he's trying to kick-start the fume-soaked mass that used to be his brain. Licks his lip. Then--does it all again.

The door. The bottle. The door.

That *tongue*.

Make up your so-called MIND, freak, Vern thinks, impatiently. Before I have to make it up *for* you.

"Dunno," "Beecher" mutters, half to himself. To which Vern throws back:

"Whatever, buddy; 's not like I got all day to talk this over. Your choice..."

--with the word, that WORD, halfway down his throat before he can catch himself--already breaking between his teeth before he can even *hope* to bite down on it, mangle it literally beyond recognition--

"...sweetpea."

Ohhhhh, boy.

As "Beecher"--shit, guess it really must *be* Beecher, after all--

--eyes flicking up, bottle forgotten, to fix on Vern's and FLARE like twin gas-jets. Recognitive bomb-blast, Ground Zero. A steam-hot geyser of long-buried pain, shame, hatred, all suddenly released at once--distilled, by sheer force of pressure, into three utterly clear...utterly *cold*...words:

"I--know--YOU."

Well...crap.

(*Definitely* time for Plan B.)

Which involves--Vern lunging. Beecher recoiling, hissing, up against the doorpost--whapping himself HARD, snarling a curse, spitting blood. And Vern, since he's momentarily unable to think of any better response, just--

--hauling off and slugging him, right in the jaw.

Beecher folds, pole-axed with a single punch: Not a lot of stamina left over for hand-to-hand combat, these street people. Vern glances around, surreptitiously--scanning for witnesses. Spots none.

So he squats, swiftly--gets Beecher under the armpits, nearly gagging on the close-quarters rush of stink--and hoists him inside, locking the door behind them.

Looking down at his catch's slack, pungent body, laying where it sprawls, he thinks: *'Course* it's Beecher. That pushed-in little nose, that mingy college-boy mouth...who the hell else could it have been? Checking his ASS is gonna be nothin' but an afterthought.

(Not that he's *not* gonna do it, even so)

That familiar sight, a swift mnemonic crotch-tug: Beecher, at his feet. All--limp.

And: "Man," Vern rumbles, aloud, at the same time. "You always WERE... easy."

(ToBIas.)

*

Now, hours later--"home" from work and poking around in the Old Man's kitchen, grilling himself up some bacon and cheese sandwiches while the tomato soup heats on a back burner, Vern keeps a watchful eye on Beecher's back as he sleeps--face-down like a dog, drooling into the Old Man's pillows, clawing and moaning intermittently at whatever phantoms share his nightmares. Naked, too, under that freshly-laundered sheet: Vern had to cut that skanky suit of his away like a husk, using a pair of deboning shears, revealing the print of layer upon layer of dirt like several thin suits of muck. Along with those too-sharp hips, those too-many ribs...those dingy, night-dweller-white limbs, still lightly furred in (very) dull gilt...

Not to mention, when Vern finally kneed Beecher gingerly over--half-expecting vermin to swarm from his creases, like bugs from beneath a rock--

(*his* mark)

--right where he left it.

(My...property.)

Once, yeah. But now?

Vern finishes searing both sides of yet another sandwich, sets it aside to drain with the others, then finds his eyes drawn back to the dim curve of Beecher's shoulders, the knobby trail of his spine. And hears that voice in the back of his mind whisper, from somewhere deep down near the medulla oblongata--the brain's most primitive part--

Remember how you used to treat him, way back when? When he was--

(all yours)

Stroke him, mock him--*play* with him, like he was food. Like when a bear eviscerates its prey, clean its insides out with one good rip, then half-buries what's left and only comes back when it's gone...soft.

Hoisting him up in mid-thrust, from behind, and feeling Beecher's arms come out at angles, awkwardly defensive as a burned corpse's--like if he just held himself stiff enough, *still* enough, he could ward off penetration, even in the midst of the dirty deed itself. And half-hearing, half-*feeling* that steady whine, that wimpy murmur, too heart-sick and dick-whipped to even raise his voice:

*Oh please, don't, please, stop, please--*

*Don't stop? You got it, cupcake.*

(Anything to oblige.)

*Sir, please. PLEASE.*

That magic word, so useless. So...CIVILIZED. While Vern just grinned and hugged him closer, spread him wider. Musing, contentedly:

Aw, baby. You really do beg so *nice*.

Yeah, well, Vern thinks now, equally defensive. LET me, didn't he? Weak little bitch.

(Like you'd really wanna touch him, anyways, the shape he's in--even WITH a ten-foot pole.)

And: Oh, you *say* that, the voice replies. But what about--later? When he starts looking like he did, SMELLING like he did? That prissy, pussy, pansy-ass fragrance, like he's been dry-cleaned all over, or something...

The old Beecher, pre- *and* post-Vern--he wouldn't've lasted five minutes on the street, let alone however long THIS version's been out there. And look at him now: All claws and teeth and stink, a feral animal tease.

Wouldn't be able to get *this* Beecher to lie quiet for a swastika on the butt, choking back tears. This one, Vern can somehow tell--this one doesn't beg, "beggar" or not. Not for...

(*Change*)

...and not for anything else, either.

Still hates his own guts, though, obviously. Enough to dive back into the bottle headfirst, and not come up for air. Slow, enabler-assisted suicide; every American's right to choose their own method of self-destruction, 'specially back in Oz.

But not in MY house, Vern decides, grimly. Not *my*--

(Your WHAT, Vernon?)

Vern turns away, snorting, to move and lid the soup--then hears a clang from the other room, followed by an inquisitive grunt of pain and surprise: Beecher, jerking awake, disoriented, bound wrists lodged uncomfortably above his head.

"--tha' *fuh*--?"

(Rise 'n' shine, Tinkerbell.)

Sandwich in hand, Vern leans back against the doorway, chewing. Watches Beecher try to jack-knife himself into a sitting position--then realize, slowly, that he's been bike-chained to the radiator behind what used to be Karl Senior's bed, with barely enough slack to let him gain his knees, let alone his feet.

Frowning. Bringing his cuffed hands around to touch his lip, split from Vern's blow; tasting blood, and frowning again. Brows--knitting.

See? Vern thinks, encouragingly. Rough it out, honey, step by step. 'Cause I bet you CAN connect the dots like a normal human being, you wanna *try*.

And man...looks like a mind really IS a terrible thing to waste.

(Guess it's now--or never.)

So: Vern clears his throat. And Beecher, hearing his voice--*recognizing* it, instinctively, even without the benefit of actual WORDS--

--whips 'round with his back up tight against the radiator's coils, ragged-nailed fingers already clawed in anticipation of attack--his crazed eyes wide, blue-rimmed black. And gives an appalled, scarily vacant *shriek*, more like a startled crow's caw than any HUMAN sound.

Gasping. Then *snarling*--

"Schillin. Grrr."

Hey...got it RIGHT, for once.

"That's me." Offering him the rest: "Want some?"

Beecher just stares. And whispers, almost under his breath--

"...mother...*fucker*..."

Vern smirks, feeling himself slip straight back into their established pattern--that warm thrum, silk over bile, nastily jocular. "Huh," he says, blithely. "That any way to talk to the guy got you off the street? Ain't exactly been taking care of yourself there, swee--"

"Yooouuuu motherFUCKERRRRRR!"

From a whisper to a full-on HOWL, like revving from twenty to eighty miles per on a residential street, no helmet and no warning: So loud, so unexpectedly startling, that Vern actually finds himself in an instinctive footballer's crouch, poised to tackle. His grilled cheese hits the floor, forgotten, as Beecher leaps *hard*, then jerks up short--strains against the bike chain like a pit-bull on a bad leash, caterwauling loud enough to wake the neighbors, a living air-raid siren. NOT frightened, not as such...just desperate to break free, reach Vern--

(rip his fuckin' HEART out)

Thrashing, spitting, squalling. Frothing at the filthy *mouth*.

"Beecher--"

"--ERRRRRR*AAAARRRRHHHH*--"

Roaring: "*BEECHER*!"

Beecher pauses, panting; Vern pauses too, his own teeth bared. A dog-eat-dog standoff, suddenly big-balled beta to ultra-amazed alpha.

"Sir," Beecher replies, at last. Cold as dry ice.

While Vern thinks: Oh, no. Nooo, no, no.

(That is NOT what I meant. At all.)

But--aw, screw it.

"I *said*," he begins, again--"You want some food, or what?"

Beecher coughs, voice gone hoarse. Manages, with effort: "Fuh...fuck yuh."

"Something to drink. A *bath*."

"Fuck YOU, ya Nazi fuck."

"Well, you're havin' one anyway--gonna be here a while, and you really fuckin' stink."

"...while?"

"'Till you dry out."

At this, Beecher--*goggles*, frankly. Like: Dry OUT? Here? Tied to this *wall*?

(Who're *you* supposed to be, now, Vernon--Oz's own answer to Betty fuckin' Ford?)

"You...gonna take CARE. Uh me."

"Yup."

Beecher snorts. "*Why*?"

A question to which Vern, uncomfortably enough, can currently conjure no entirely--satisfactory--answer.

"So," he says, finally. "Bath first?"

(Choosing to ignore the issue entirely.)

Beecher's eyes flare again. "Fuh--" he starts.

Sharply: "Hey. I am trying to be NICE here."

(*Prag*.)

A twisted smile, lips crooked slantwise. And Beecher, purring back--

"Suuure you are. *Sir*."

"...Vern."

Another pop-eyed double-take. "'SCUSE me?"

Vern grits his teeth. Thinking: Well, let's face facts--if charity was *easy*, everybody'd be doin' it.

"You WANT," he repeats, loud enough to be (hopefully) pretty much unmisinterpretable, "you--can call me Vern."

Adding, after a moment: "Toby."

The pause hold, lengthens--stretches perilously close to some kind of indefinite snapping point, as Beecher swallows, soothing his parched vocal cords. Then opens his mouth, unexpectedly wide, and--

--starts to laugh.

It's an ill, shrill giggle, arcing steadily upwards--a shrieking, echoing bray, contempt mixed with pain mixed with utter incomprehension, (more than) half-insane. And it just goes on and on and *on*, ever louder and ever more out of control, until...

...Vern, goaded beyond his narrow limits, brings it all to a halt with two simple words.

"Shut UP!"

And Beecher falls silent again.

Barking orders. Retaking control, one single-syllable directive at a time.

"Up. Hands."

Unlocking the chain, using it like a lead, half-pulling Beecher up and over to the bathroom door--then kicking it open and continuing, adding a second or third word here and there:

"In y'go. No bullshit. And use *soap*."

As he relocks the chain to the shower-curtain rail, their shoulders accidentally brush; Beecher recoils, snarling--

"You fuckin' TOUCH me--"

(And *what*?)

Caught off-guard, his patience exhausted, Vern feels himself jerk hard again at the very tought--a painful pulse, dark and deep. And turns on Beecher, looming large as his extra bulk will let him. Telling him, scarily quiet--that "normal" threatening rumble FULLY back in place--

"Don't get your skinny alkie ass in there, right damn now...and I *will* touch you, Bitch-er. BELIEVE me."

(Alllll over.)

And...you don't want *that*. Do ya?

Thought not.

A minute later, Vern's back in the kitchen, pouring tomato soup to the sound of running water. Crumbling crackers and poring over the long-lost vagaries of the Schillinger family code of conduct, osmotically learned--as much by experience as by example--long before Vern ever hit the yard at Leeman Juvie, Oz, Lardner, Oz. Grossvater and -mutter's old country wisdom, vs. Karl Senior's drinking, whoring, beatin' on Mom like a Goddamn drum for every reason he could think up, but none in particular.

The unspoken rules. You protect women, but not whores; protect your wife and kids--'long as they don't talk back, act up, question in any way, shape or form your God-given authority as head of the sacred family unit. Follow the American Way, just like (Nietzsche's) Superman, and protect the weak...poor people, old people, animals...

(...unless they *also* happen to be niggers, Spics, slants, Wops, Micks, Jews, FAGGOTS)

In a world this complex, this essentially corrupt, only simplicity--purity--brings peace. You gotta parse things out, know exactly what you're dealing with. Know your purpose, your chosen Cause. Your *standards*.

'Cause if you don't know THAT--

--then how can you ever be sure you know...anything? At all?

(Can't. Not *really*.)

When he was inside, these rules'd been suspended--temporarily, he'd told himself, at the time--in favor of basic prison etiquette: Front hard, take what you want and keep what's yours, stand up for your kind and never back down. Get on top, and *stay* there, by any means necessary. But now that he's back in the world, no longer having to worry about getting shanked for seeming weak, he might actually be able to...possibly...INDULGE himself. Do something genuinely unselfish, for genuinely unselfish reasons; invest hist time, strength, money in someone who really needs it--really needs *him*--

Jan. Cory. Rachel, even. Or so he'd...hoped.

(...Beecher.)

--and *not* because he expects to get anything in return.

The water-sound trails off, becomes an intermittent drip. From the bathroom, Beecher's dry voice issues: "'M ready."

Vern scoops up a load of clean clothes, already laid out--old workout stuff, mainly: Socks, a too-big t-shirt, a pair of drawstring shorts.

"You brush your teeth?" He calls.

Snide: "Yeah, DAD."

From murderous to snide, in just under an hour; soundin' more like the Beecher Vern *knows* by the second. Maybe this whole freaky-ass project'll be simpler than he thought.

(Maybe.)

And in the back of his head, that voice again: An unseen narrator, facelessly familiar. Half-observing, half-predicting, with God's own sarcastic insight--

(Yeah, RIGHT.)

SAMARITAN, Part 3

"Haven't been around much lately, have you, Schillinger?" Parole Officer Hamid asks,
from where he sits oh-so-comfortably ensconced in the sole kitchen chair of Vern Schillinger's "real" apartnent. "I mean, sure, you turn up for scheduled appointments--"

(thus robbing you of yet one more opportunity to bust my big Aryan ass back to Oz)

"--but whenever I do a drive-by just on my own recognizance--morning, noon, nighttime, whatever--you're never here. Care to tell me what gives?"

*Care* to? Well...

...no.

Vern just shrugs, and keeps on twiddling the knobs on his crappy-ass TV, flipping from station to static-choked station in search of something OTHER than Oprah, or that equally hefty Mick bitch who spends her whole show promoting an endless string of pansy/Jew Broadway musicals. Snapping it off, finally--with an annoyed huff--and rumbling back:

"My Dad--"

"--is sick, right, I actually got that part the first time you used it as an excuse." A pause. "This the same Dad you threw down the stairs, back when you were nineteen?"

(Christ Jesus.)

Vern casts a cold blue eye back at Hamid--Goddamn arrogant, all-"American" dune coon desk jockey hack. Kinda guy who's got that moral ruler of his shoved so far up his chute, it's a wonder he don't spit shit; kinda guy goes through somebody's file, counts their tattoos, measures the growth of hair on the back of their fuckin' *scalp*, and thinks he knows 'em inside-out. Who reads about how Vern treated poor li'l Tobias Beecher, back on the mean, plexiglass-walled streets of Em City, and gets all misty...even though all his prayer-rug bitin' relatives probably wanted him to get his university degree--

--Sociology? Criminology? LAW?--

--tattooed on *his* butt, so he could flash it at anybody who asked to see his credentials.

This is the U.S. of A., Sheik. How many Dads you think I *got*?

"What can I say?" Vern replies. "That...was then."

(And where I GO, outside'a when you tell me I gotta turn up *here*--is none of your fuckin' business.)

But this, as Vern well knows--having already bluffed his way past a parole board crammed with people just as anally self-righteous as Hamid himself--is NOT how you play it. Not if you don't want somebody grilling you on a daily basis, always on hand to poke your life with a stick and see what crawls out.

He can see Hamid watching him now, carefully, turning over possibilities. Has Vern been consorting with other ex-cons, known felons, or indulging in any of the other passtimes--drink, drugs, crime, gun ownership--that could automatically overturn his parole, sending him back to do the rest of his sentence? Is this perpetually ill father figure of his just a ruse, a cover for stuff he's too secretive--or ashamed--to want some uppity Arab like Hamid let in on? Is he, could he be...

...in LOVE?

Vern snorts at the thought--then muffles it behind his hand, turning it into a fairly convincing cough halfway through.

Momentarily, an image of what might happen if Hamid's attention became SO fully engaged that he couldn't go back to late father's place at all...*ever*...intrudes, jump-cut fast: A scratchy flash of Beecher's starved, rotten corpse, sprawled out on Karl Senior's former bed, still chained to the radiator.

(Yecch.)

Three weeks, as of yesterday, since Vern first tempted his former prag in off the street with the promise of (nearly) free booze, then punched him out and dragged him upstairs to start his very own one-person drug- and alcohol-addiction intervention. And since then, Beecher's cringed from every touch, however brusque or businesslike, refusing to speak unless barked at; just crouches sulkily in the bed's farthest corner and follows Vern's every move with his eyes, staring through his tangle of overgrown bangs like a cat caught in a thicket. More blue than pupil showing, now, but still not exactly *trusting* enough to do much more than pick away at his meals, half-finicky and half-feral, all those pretty college-boy manners of his LONG gone: Shredding his sandwiches with both hands, slurping his tomato soup straight from the bowl and then licking it clean--

(with that...*tongue*)

Trying to trim those broken nails, cut those claws on his feet, soak his head in that de-dreadlocking gunk Charlie Cutter sold him--and Beecher, fighting him at every turn. Snarling: "*I'll* do it. I'll DO it. Fuck, I'll fuckin' do it myself, *Vernon*!"

As Vern thinks: Well, then just do it, already, TOBY--you ungrateful Goddamn...

(...bitch.)

But--he can't afford to think of Beecher like that. Not right now. 'Cause that's just *asking* for trouble.

Only as he's gotten progressively sicker, shaking and sweating from DT fits that leave him too limp to argue, has he slowly started allowing more and more physical contact--letting Vern feed him, strip and reclothe him, even bathe him (though not *everywhere*). Come, however gradually, to accept it--*expect* it, even.

Lying there, languid, between bouts. Dependent on Vern in a way nobody's been for years--not since Rachel ran off. Not since--

(HIM. In Oz)

All of the power, and all of the responsibility. Be so...easy to abuse it.

('Cept I *don't*.)

Even though you could.

(DON'T.)

...could.

Pretty hard to feel anything but a certain abstract--pity, Vern guesses--what with Beecher over the toilet every five minutes, hurling long and loud. Jonesing HARD, sick as a dog, vomiting 'till there's nothing left in his stomach but bile, spit, foul-smelling *air*. And Vern left holding back his hair, struggling to keep making that comforting mental connection between Beecher and Cory, who went through a phase ('round when he was four, or maybe six) where he always seemed to be pukin' over something or other--
A sick child. A sick *animal*, all pretense at superiority stripped away by the blistering heat of his own addiction: Fractious, messy, pissy, desperate. Surfacing, eventually--as the gag reflex slacks off, temporarily deadened by overuse--to grate:

"'M sick. Need--"

"No booze."

"'M *sick*. Yuh Nazi...ME-fucker."

"And whose fault is that?" Vern snaps back, unsympathetic.

Beecher stares at him, gaze dull with loathing. "*Yours*."

Yeah. Right.

(Like *I* put the first drink in your hand, you fuckin' lush.)

Like *I* made you screw your job, your wife and kids. Your LIFE. Like *I* steered you at that kid. Like *I* sent you to...

(me)

...Oz.

Actually trying to make him feel *bad* about it, little bastard. Which is just so, so damn--

(unFAIR)

I mean, wanting to look after somebody, not wanting to see them hurt themself more'n they absolutely have to--to do unto friggin' others, for Christ's sweet sake--that's a *good* impulse, right? Isn't it?

(Well...ISN't it?)

And Rachel's voice, chiming in from where it lurks at the back of his own half-fevered brain--so cool, so distant. Pointing out, with typical pleasure:

Not if you have to make sure the other person stays weak and broken--needing help, needing fixing--just so you can keep on doing it. And feeling oh-so-GOOD about doing it, you big ol'...Samaritan, you.

(Talk about *bitchy*.)

But: I protected you 'cause I LOVED you, he thinks back, fiercely. Like I love my boys, my Brotherhood. My *race*.

Do unto others. Do as you would be done by. Tit for tat.

I protect you, and you...

...*pay* me.

To which Rachel replies, unseen: That doesn't sound much like LOVE, Vernon. Sounds more like--extortion.

Then again, though, that always was the root of their problems, wasn't it? The plain and simple fact that for Vern, according to her, being "nice" revolved around ownership: MY sons, MY wife, MY rep, MY property. MY being nice to YOU.

('Cause you're *mine*, damn it!)

Well, fuck...

(...you WERE.)

Internal debate sliding to memory, scarily fluid. Beecher, sniping, even through a mouthful of mush--

"You find me, you get ta keep me, that how't works? 'Cause you already *own* me."

Vern turns on him. "LOOK. Have I made you--do anything?"

Balefully: "Not yet."

"Just...keep quiet."

"Ohhh, ya gonna threaten me again? Thass how it goes down at the *real* detox, I betcha--shape up, or get FELT up."

Vern sighs, suddenly tired beyond belief. "You got to where you can joke about it, you MUST be feelin' better," he offers.

And: "*No*," Beecher hisses back, flat cat-face gone all white and wet with fresh nausea. "I am NOT."

Reeling along as Vern puppets him, gingerly, back to bed--still using that bike-chain and cuffs restraint system he rigged up on Day One as a kind of a leash, careful not to get too close: Just good sense, really. Stoned, after all, this wreck once nearly put Vern's eye out; sober, he knocked him prone and took a crap on his face.

"I'm helpin' you," Vern tells him, decisively. Adding: "Sure can't help YOURSELF."

Beecher curls up, hugging himself. And moans back, thinly--his dry sandpaper voice still somehow managing to drip with sarcasm--

"...gee. *Thanks*."

In the real world, meanwhile, Hamid clears his throat, apparently bored with waiting for Vern to elaborate.

"Schillinger. You still with us, or what?"

Vern straightens, turns. And growls: "We 'bout done here?"

"When I SAY we're done."

"Your call, boss." A shark's fixed, narrow grin. "'Course, I don't show up for work, gonna get pretty hard for me to comply with the terms a'my release."

('Less...that's how you *want* it, maybe.)

They look at each other, for a long moment: Hamid, caught on the ragged cusp of blurting out just how much Vern disgusts him--not to mention how far he'd be willing to bend his own, reflexively all-inclusive code, just to make sure HIS neat-'n'-orderly little city didn't have to include any big, bald cracker motherhumper walking around with black S.S. lightning-bolts on his arms, or a big Third Reich eagle on his chest.

And Vern, standing there with his arms folded, expressionless--unafraid, unashamed. Just being...himself.

Musing, silently: So I'm repulsive, huh, *Officer* Raghead? Well--

(--you already know what I think about YOU.)

"Get out of here," Hamid says, finally. Not *quite* able to make it sound like an order.

And: "Whatever you say," Vern replies, equitably.

(...cupcake.)

*

Dinner that night is pizza, picked up after Vern gets off-shift at Meteorscan and reheated in the Old Man's oven. Vern slides Beecher's over with one booted foot, only to have it ignored; ungrateful little prick keeps on lyin' there like a lump, sweat-slick and trembling--his eyes, rolled back to thin blue slits, cast up in the general direction of the ceiling.

So: "Beecher," Vern rumbles, through a mouthful of crust. "*Beecher*."

"...yuh..."

"Been wonderin' something, maybe you could enlighten me. How'd you get outta that loony bin they put you in, anyway?"

Beecher lets his head fall to one side, giving Vern a narrow, horizontal glare. And answers, forcing himself into what seems like a careful parody of lucidity--

"I. *Told* them. Whah they--wanted."

(Just like I used to do with YOU.)

"That easy, huh?" Vern takes another bite. Chewing: "Then what?"

Beecher sighs, noisily. "They sen' me back tuh my parents. Gimme...drugs."

"Bet *that* really helped."

The prone version of a shrug, supremely uninterested.

"You had a wife, though," Vern reminds him. "Kids."

Mumbled: "...kihself."

"'Scuse me?"

"My wife. She. KILLED. Herself."

Well...*whoops*.

Continuing, into the silence, as Vern pauses to absorb this news: "Kids're with the grandparents--hers, nuh mine. Don' want 'em anywhere NEAR *me*. 'Cause 'm not...fit."

(Not for MUCH, you're not.)

Vern considers Beecher, briefly, and gets a moment's rush--scarily immediate--of the man he *used* to be laid on top of this wasted shell, like some sick "before and after" photo exhibit: The neat, clean, street-stupid Ghost of Toby Past, with his spotless shirt and his gold-rimmed specs, drifting around loose for anyone to snag, his smell alone--

(that SMELL)

--enough to put every other predator on the quad instantly on point.

But *I* got there first, Vern finds himself thinking, weirdly proud. Didn't I, sweet cheeks?

Like shooting fresh fish in a fuckin' barrel, THAT little coup. So easy it hardly seemed worth the effort.

(At the time.)

Staring. Taking stock of what's left, baffled and a bit--

(sad?)

--and commenting, at last: "Jesus. Really did a Goddamn number on yourself, didn't you? ToBIas."

Hoarse: "Looh who's...talking..."

Vern flushes, mouth twisting. "Fuck you mean by *that*?"

While Beecher, unmoved and unmoving, simply shrugs. Again.

"You." He says. "Me. Oz. You 'member?"

Em City. *Your* pod. How I went in, versus how I came out. And...

(...everything. In between.)

Vern's flush spreads, deepens. As he replies--a bit TOO quickly--

"Maybe I was tryin' to teach you something."

(Yeah. 'Cause that's...likely.)

To which Beecher nods. Suggesting, sweetly: "How to bend over."

"How to be a *man*," Vern snaps.

Another nod. "Instant macho, jus' add...water. An' wear lipstick. An' suck your DICK."

(Man. Same world, another fuckin' planet.)

Vern exhales, slowly; clenches his fists, and carefully turns his back. Exercises restraint, Goddamnit, the way he told himself he would, whenever things got tense. And will, still--whether or not Beecher ever becomes capable of understanding just *how* restrained he's actually being.

But: All the while hearing, in his head, words to match that *look* Beecher insists on wearing, even as Vern struggles to stay true to his own good intentions--the ones that ask him, gently: Are you thinking you did me a *favor*, back in those good old good ol' days? Is THAT how you tell yourself this story?

You fucked me. And you kept other people from fucking me. So YOU could keep fucking me.

That's it. That's all.

(Pretty simple, really.)

Well--when you put it *that* way...

And what's worse, Vernon? He finds himself wondering, vaguely. That you DID it to him, at all? Or that--he didn't really *mean* anything to you, when you did? That he was just a--toy, a receptacle, some kind of human cum-rag: Whip it out, use it all up, and throw what's left away--

From behind him, now, Beecher's real-life voice. Breaking in to remind him:

"'Sides--I AM a man. *Sir.*"

(Always was.)

And the punchline, left similarly unspoken: So...

...what's that make YOU?

*

Later, outstretched in his Dad's La-Z-Boy, Vern finds momentary escape in dreams of his ex-wife Rachel--part by part, fully and painfully familiar: Those wry, smiling lips, those deft little hands. She straddles him, so close he can taste her Tequila-fume breath, then traps his tongue between her teeth and hikes her skirt; slides down onto him without preamble, atypically dry yet oh-so-typically tight and hot. He feels her nipples scald his palms, senses rather than sees her pupils dilate and fix beneath the blank flash of her lenses, as a blush boils up across her pale skin from cleavage to hairline. Humps up into her with all the deferred desire of seven years apart, and feels his heart swell with love and murder, hammering against his ribcage like a clock set for Doomsday...like some bomb, long-buried, now unearthed--undefused--and just about to burst...

In the dream, he looks up to catch her hovering on the edge of climax, her dull gold mane hanging wild around them both. And thinks, with impeccable dream-logic--the kind that connects the dots your waking mind has always been far too...*preoccupied* to connect by itself, but gives no particular emphasis to any one piece of the puzzle--

--boy, she looks like Beecher.

Then adding, at (almost) the exact same time:

No. 'Cause what you *mean* is...BOY, but Beecher looks like Rachel.

(Funny how you never noticed before, though. Isn't it?)

Coming awake all at once, rigid and leaking, shaken and aching. His head still full of images, flipping back and forth: Rachel. Beecher. Beecher. Rachel.

Beecher...*as* Rachel.

And: Just can't believe I never saw it before, Vern thinks, embarassed by his own amazement. So damn obvious--that snub nose, the hair. That blush. Those *glasses*.

(The DRINKING.)

Well, but why would you? The voice in his head asks, impatiently. Hadn't seen her in...how long? And then you're in Oz, and Beecher's a--guy, and all--

*Fuck*.

Vern catapults upright, searching around wildly for something to distract himself with--his scalp fairly crawling with a hooked-on medley of tangled emotions, too confused to sort but far too uncomfortable to stand. He steps sideways, stumbles into the bed and recoils, too slow to cue Beecher's answering murmur. Mind working feverishly, a hurricane of prospective damage control scenarios: Don't second-guess yourself, just clear your damn head, 'fore you do something REALLY dumb. Hit the bathroom, be quiet and quick--whole thing'll be over in under five minutes.

Or, his mind whispers, suddenly--

(blabbermouth fuckin' body-part)

--take it over there, while you're still thinking straight...and stick it.

(Into Beecher.)

I mean, that's what he's *there* for. Right?

(*Right?*)

...uaaaAAAgggh, JESUS...

Twisting like some lynched race-traitor hung in a high wind, unable to pick a direction. And hearing Beecher mumble, pushing himself into a half-crouch--chain rattling, as he thumbs the sleep from his eyes--

"--needa pee. Lemme..."

Barking: "You HOLD it a minute."

"I needa *pee*."

But Vern's already on the bathroom's threshold. Throwing back--

"I SAID fuckin' *hold* it, you freak!" Adding: "And if you piss that bed, you WILL lie in it all day."

"Rapist asshole," Beecher mutters, under his breath. And sinks back, hugging himself; clutching the chain's lock in both cuffed hands, as though for comfort, like some hard steel teddy-bear.

While Vern, safe behind a locked door, thinks: Oh, sweetpea. If you only KNEW.

*

And--on some level, Vern could almost swear, he does. Sniffing the air like some mongrel dog, like he's tracking the trail of Vern's growing arousal; *tuned* to it, somehow. A frequency on the two of them share broadcast rights to.

Him, and Beecher. And--Rachel, probably.

(Ugh.)

Days at the old homestead, trying to look enough like an occupant to keep Hamid off his back; nights at Meteorscan, marking off time 'till he can punch back out and go change Beecher's bucket--listening to Charlie Cutter chatter on, and on, and ON, as the two of them hump load after load of shredbasket leavings out to the parking lot for the recycling trucks to pick up. While simultaneously nursing the worst case of blue balls since *last* night--

(and the night before. And the night before THAT)

These non-stop dreams of Rachel, so scarily immediate. And the lure of Beecher, crazy as he is, hard as he'd fight if Vern ever tried it. Beecher, already tied down, ever more pliant with illness...

Pressure, building. Nowhere to drain it off, aside from--the obvious. Which Vern will *not* do. Not if--

(--he can help it.)

*

Sometimes, on--very--rare occasions, it occurs to Vern that he's gotten away with quite a lot in life: Beat-downs and blindsides, pragging prey, ordering take-outs, cutting his own little pureblood swathe through this mongrelized world he's trapped in. He's always worked, always made enough money to provide, never drank, never polluted himself with drugs, never fucked around. Snagged himself a blonde, blue-eyed college girl like Rachel Renton to share his bed and bear his boys, solely on the basis of an attraction both of them found all but impossible to justify or explain, even to each other. With barely a complete high-school education, he's pulled himself clear of the Old Man's hereditary morass and redirected his own destiny down paths Karl Schillinger Senior wouldn't've taken on a dare--been able, through sheer force of will, to organize a position of power for himself almost everywhere he's ended up, inside OR out. Taught himself how to read people, good as any Jew shrink--

(better)

But if there's one single thing Vern's long and varied life experience has proven, it's that what you really obsess over are the things you *don't* get away with. Brothers missing in action, sisters run away, mothers bleeding out in your arms as the ambulance siren keens. Lifting your father by his worthless fucking throat and hurling him down so hard you can hear his ribs crack, then ending up in Oz...

(the FIRST time)

...for all your trouble.

Allying yourself with the Aryan Brotherhood in order to survive 'till parole, then gradually moving from just parroting the party line to almost halfway believing it yourself, after you discover your tats and your record have basically discredited you with everyone *but* the kind of scum and idiots you thought you were going to leave back in jail. Working double shifts for ten years plus down at the Post Office, only to see your promotion go to somebody less qualified--somebody who just happens to be some more... politically convenient...color. Having your smart, sexy, formerly rich bitch wife run off--

(with a nigger)

--LEAVE you--

(*for* a nigger)

--with two kids, a job that doesn't pay enough to keep from involving the Old Man in your business, and a fire in your blood that never seems to cool. Not even when it reaches the boiling point, and explodes in an unplanned, uncharacteristically STUPID orgy of violence: That dealer scum, *his boys*. The tire iron. And...Oz.

(Again.)

Victories? Vern's forgotten his share. All that A.B. plotting and counter-plotting, the rebellions he's stifled, the "demonstrations" he's supervised--preaching to the converted, getting his back scratched and his will done, all fake-jocular pack leader posturing and street-level mind-game manipulation. Couldn't name a good seventy percent of the guys he'd tricked into becoming his bitch, year after year, before Beecher came along...'cept maybe that natural-born slut Chris-to-pher Keller, up at Lardner...

But then again, ol' Chris always WAS the kinda guy who left an impression. One way or another.

Victories pass through, briefly enjoyed, rarely retained. But defeats--*they* rankle.

(Forever.)

Signals misread, mistakes made and compounded. Your chosen plaything turning on you, too sudden to stop--turning in your hand like some broken tool and slashing you down to the bone, like a "pet" gone rabid and biting deep. Your cornea scratched, your eyelid left scarred and drooping. That smell. That--TASTE.

Public humiliation. Private hatred. And memory, that endless curse, replaying the whole thing over and over, no matter how far away it all gets. Dull rage in your chest, choking you like heartworm, gathering behind your tongue like a poison you can *never* puke out.

(...Beecher.)

Vern snort. And thinks, tartly: Well, 'course.

(I mean--who fuckin' else?)

Beecher, still stuck working through his own litany of defeats after a lifetime spent getting off easy: Out on the street, dancing and snarling in his dirt-stiff suit, trying to drink himself to death over that little girl he squashed and the fallout from his time inside. Trying to blunt the pain of finding out he wasn't quite so *civilized*, after all--not when push came to...shove.

Beecher, who you owned, and fucked, and lost.

(Like Rachel.)

Beecher, who looks--

(--just LIKE Rachel.)

Beecher, who you've got upstairs at the Old Man's, right now. Doped up, tied down, his protective shell of scum all boiled away. Still feral, but lucid enough fear you--'specially since he can already see what you're really thinking of, underneath this whole...Samaritan...routine of yours.

Staring up at you with those wide, blue eyes. And smelling--

--*good*, damnit.

(just like you knew he would)

Musk, soap, sleepy baby-scent seeping up from beneath the lingering bile-stink, now his DT fits are getting further and further apart. Even the sweated-out booze aftertang clinging to his skin seems medicinal, like a cleaned wound.

(Upstairs. Right NOW.)

Ahhhhuhhhmmm...

But: Fact is, Vern tells himself, with a much calm logic as he can muster--fact *is*, you're not gonna do shit about Beecher, not "right now", and not later, either. Even with him restrained. Even with YOU--

(supposedly)

--on top.

'Cause when it comes to Beecher, my friend, YOU have a bad fuckin' history of *not* getting away--

(--with anything.)

*

Brave words. Good advice. So Vern takes it--for a few more days, at least.

And then--

*

--then it's a week later. And Vern's standing in his Dad's apartment doorway, honest-to-God *gawking* at the sight of Beecher snagged tight in his own harness, one hand swollen bruisy-purple from hours of maneuvring and tugging--of straining to somehow work his scraped and bleeding fingers free, while his thumb bends ever closer towards potential dislocation.

Staring, mouth sprung open with equal parts shock and bemusement. While Beecher just sits there, sullen, lower lip provokingly puffed--exhausted, in pain, yet utterly unrepentant. And snaps back, before Vern even gets a chance to react:

"So what did you think I was gonna do, just sit here waiting for you to work out how it's okay for you to fuck me? *Those* days are over, VERNon."

Wow. So very nice to see you too...

(...*counsellor*.)

Vern shuts the door, slowly. Put down his groceries, and rumbles--voice gone dangerously deep--

"Should just leave you there, 'till you fuckin' hand drops off. UnGRATEful little..."

"You knocked me out. Chained me up. Fucking *kidnapped* me."

A half-huff, half-snort. "Please. PEOPLE get kidnapped, cupcake. What I did to you? That was more like--garbage collection."

"Yeah? Well, we'll see what the courts have to say about--"

To which Vern narrows his eyes. And replies:

"WILL we, now."

They lock glares, pale blue to even paler--classic Oz eyefuck, cut with an (un)healthy dose of growing realization: Escape attempt in *progress", Toby. Not complete.

(Not yet.)

On the strength of which insight, Beecher makes a visible effort to claw his way upright, ignore his wounds--breathe out, quietly, through his nose--and...change the subject.

"I'm...okay now," he says. "Okay? I'm clean. *Sober*. Which means you got what I guess you want, so--you can just let me go."

"Yeah, right; 'go' straight down to the corner, and blow some guy for a bottle."

"Rather I blow YOU, right?"

Vern flushes, equal parts annoyed and--

(caught)

Caught, like a worm on a hook--shit, now *there*'s an image. And...TWISTING.

(From the inside out.)

But scoffing openly nevertheless, a study in self-denial. Growling:

"Like I'd wanna put my pipe anywhere NEAR your scum-hole, you fuckin' Yuppie fleabag."

"Good," Beecher shoots back, toneless. "Because if you ever try...*again*...I'll bite it off."

He snaps his discolored teeth together, neatly, for punctuation--a wickedly sharp CLICK. Bridgework still strong enough to maim, even in decay's earliest stages.

Shit, Vern thinks, surprised. Little bitch might actually *do* it.

It's enough to put his burning groin on hold a moment or two--long enough for him to take a cautious stride towards Beecher, who holds his ground. And begin--lowering his tone, keeping it gentle--

"Listen. You been on the street for 'bout, what, a year?"

"Are you gonna undo these cuffs?"

"You gonna try and run?"

Another exhalation. Beecher considers Vern, hovering bulkily between him and the door. Then glances down at his own half-maimed hand.

The door. The hand.

Vern.

Finally:

"'Long as you don't try anything?"

(Like WHAT, exactly?)

"I won't," Vern promises, with his best wary prag-soothing smile--probably a miscalculation, there, seeing how it makes Beecher shudder. But half-effective, all the same, since the next words out of his mouth--strained though they sound--are:

"Then...no."

Vern nods, rummaging in his pocket for the key. Then sidles a bit closer, frees Beecher's hand--drawing a muffled groan--and continues.

"All I'm saying, ToBIas--took maybe a year to get where you were when I found you, right? *Right*?"

"...right..."

"...but take you off the sauce for three weeks straight, and look at you now: Back where you were when you started, with no harm done. Sorta."

Now it's Beecher's turn to snort, hugging the offending limb to himself. And reply, sardonic--

"Not--as such."

(Yeah, well.)

"You're still a young guy," Vern tells him. "The drinking, the drugs--it's all reversible, you just have a little--"

Sweetly: "--discipline?"

The same flush, but deeper. "You got a DISEASE. That's all. Treat it, it gets better."

(*Leave* it, meanwhile...)

Beecher's eyes flare. "You think this is news to me? I'm a drunk. I was a drunk a fuck of a long time before we ever met."

"And you knew it, huh?" A pause. "Still ran over that girl, though, didn't'ja?"

Hissing: "YES. I *did*."

Vern sees Beecher's bruised fingers clench, automatically, as though trying to form claws--and feels his own bad temper rising, equally automatic, to the challenge.

"So what were you doin' out there, dumb-ass?" He barks. "One hitch in Oz not enough? Or did you just wanna kill your--"

He stops short, as Beecher chuckles, nastily. And turns his hand in Vern's direction, palm up--WRIST up--to display the pinky-white seam of scar tissue where his watch should be.

"No, Vern," he says, glacier-cold. "*This* is what happens when I want to KILL myself."

Some party-trick, that one; a real potential conversation-stopper. But its effectiveness gets more than slightly defused when Vern just stares back, haughtily. And comments:

"Yeah...you fuck it up. Just like the fuckin' little spoiled alkie brat that you are."

(*Sweetpea*.)

Beecher's face convulses, sharply. Goaded beyond his fairly--limited--current limits, he gives another of those eerily inhuman little shrieks of his, and PUNCHES at Vern with his wounded hand, before he can think better of it. While Vern--

--just catches the punch mid-move, contemptuously easy, and fists it *hard*--squeezing down, so deliberately painfully that Beecher's glazed eyes practically bug from their sockets.

Growling: "You wanna *play*, Bitch-er, that it? How ya like THIS for a dance-move, partner?"

"LegGO--"

"Naw, don't think so."

Forcing him onto one knee, steadily--coughing snot and helpless, agonized tears--all the more humiliated by his own uncontrollable reaction. And Vern, feeling that well-remembered, satisfactory rush, sparking from bicep to crotch like a corrupt electrical current. Thinking:

Not so smart NOW, huh, cupcake? *Some*one's holdin' you in the palm of their hand, all right, and it ain't GOD, either...

As Beecher *screams* up, bent almost double now but still defiantly undeterred--all red in the face like Jan used to get when the BAD tantrums hit, deprived of toys, TV, his miscegenating cunt of a Mommy--

"Fuck YOU, you fuckin' FUCK, if I wanna end my WORTHLESS FUCKING LIFE, I WILL--I'm free, white and over twenty-one, I'm a free fuckin' *MAN*, Vern-baby! YOU DON'T OWN ME--"

(anymore)

And Vern, pausing, lit from within. Knowing the truth of Beecher's words, deep in his own gut--but holding on, anyways. Tight.

(*Tight*)

With Beecher adding:

"--and what the fuck do YOU know about living with an addiction ANYWAY, you CLEAN-living, ASS-fucking, PURE Aryan *HYPOCRITE*?"

(What do I know)

What do *I* know?

(You're askin' *me* what *I* know about *drunks*?)

Ohhhh, you fuckin', fuckin'...FUCKIN'...

But: No more words, now. No point. Time, instead, for a much-needed little--
--*object* lesson.

Using Beecher's trapped hand like a lever, Vern whips his prisoner 'round and wedges his shoulder under Beecher's free arm, shifting his primary grip to the short hair at the nape of Beecher's neck and propelling him up, forward, onto his feet--holding the flailing, spitting former lawyer safely away from his own torso, firmly pinned but slightly distanced, the way a vetrinarian carries an angry cat. Pulling him bodily back towards the apartment door--*heave*, spin, *heave* again--kicking it open, then dragging him headlong down the steps into Karl Senior's former shop, bumpitty bumpitty bump. Then whirling again, sighting the freezer--digging his nails into the scruff of Beecher's neck and THROWING him like some human football pass, face-first, into the huge steel door--

(owww)

Beecher bounces up, lip split, only to collapse back with both hands to his nose-- sputtering a wet string of curses--as Vern steps over him to wrench the freezer door open with a piercing squeal of half-rusted hinges. He reaches inside, grabbing for one end of a long, dark green plastic-wrapped cylinder, and hauls it out, letting it sprawl practically on top of Toby-baby--holds him down with a knee to the small of the back as he tears through layers of garbage bag and duct tape, through the bright pink insulation beneath, to reveal the REAL surprise at the centre of this treat--

--the Old Man's waxen face, all yellow-green and bloodless white, mummy-dessicated from a month in its airtight tomb: Room was *built* to keep meat from spoiling, after all, refridgeration or no refridgeration.

Beecher gasps and recoils, gratifyingly shocked. Then cries out again, as Vern slips one arm across his throat from behind, forcing him to stay put--and the WORLD's best move that ain't, exactly, now Vern comes to think...feeling himself jerk and swell against Beecher's squirming body, resisting the growing urge to rub, and pump, and urRRRgh...

But fuck it. Fuck *him*.

(Bad turn'a phrase, there)

"THIS is what I KNOW, ToBIas," Vern hisses, in his ear. "So take a look, a nice, *close* look."

Coughing: "Let--me--*guh*--"

"Know what this is? *This* is a man who drank himself to death. Took my whole Goddamn life, but he finally fuckin' did it. And one day? One day...THAT is gonna be YOU."

"--nuh--"

"*Yuh*. Like it?"

"--uh, nuh, NUH--"

(...maybe not.)

Stink of slow-rotting flesh in both their nostrils, strong as some (dead) animal's spoor. Beecher spasms, trapped in Vern's embrace, desperately trying to propell himself away from that livid profile: A stranger's corpse, made hideously familiar by all those teasingly recognizable Schillinger characteristics. Vern's leonine nose, blurred with broken veins; Vern's grim mouth, dewlapped with years upon years' worth of wrinkles. Those staring eyes, once pale blue, now cataract-milky under faint grey brows...

While Vern himself, enraged with arousal, keeps on cutting off Beecher's remaining air --crushing him towards his Dad's shed husk, like he's going to rub Beecher's FACE in it, or something. Tough love from hell, the ultimate aversion therapy. Ordering:

"C'mon, you cunt, take a good look, a good long look--a good, long, *close* fucking LOOK!"

"--*NUHUUGGGHHHH*--"

One last, frantic jerk, spine arched and locked like a bow, and Beecher's eyes roll roofward. He lets go, goes slack. Blacks out.

Leaves Vern with an arm-full of unconscious "patient" and a bad, bad taste in his mouth...one which has almost nothing to do with his dead father's smell, and everything to do with that voice at the back of his skull--

(Rachel's, naturally)

--that whispers, sadly: Well, you really showed him, huh? Really taught HIM a thing or two. You big ol'...

And: "Don't," Vern tells her, aloud. "Don't even *say* it."

(Heard enough of THAT word to last me a fuckin' lifetime, thank you very much.)

Looking back down, catching the Old Man's fixed, fish-like eye--that rictused mouth, stretched in what almost looks like a--

(grin)

"Fuck YOU lookin' at?" Vern rumbles. Then shoves his Dad back inside, slamming the freezer door--and turns for the stairs, one careful, overloaded step at a time.

Taking Beecher with him.

*

Hamid's warning notwithstanding, Vern calls in sick to work, and spends the evening getting Beecher bandaged, tied back down and cleaned back up--turns out the freak shit his shorts somewhere during the whole process, which makes Vern more than a little queasy: Man, I was practically dry-humping his diaper-needin' ass!

Beecher, meanwhile, stays sunken deep inside himself, too far gone to even whimper and scrabble through his normal nightmares. He lies there comatose, so silent Vern finds himself periodically pausing to check his chest's shallow rise and fall, the dim, throbbing pulse at his throat's tender curve...

Around one in the morning, though, that all changes. Vern's in the kitchen, thumbing his way through a tabloid, when he hears that same chain-on-radiator clang, and thinks: Well, hell. SOMEBODY's awake.

(Shades of their *first* night together.)

He takes his time getting out there, putting a bit of a swing in his stroll, prepared to enjoy a fine little ego-boosting smirk at Beecher's expense. But Beecher, annoyingly enough, isn't even looking in his direction--just staring fixedly at a point somewhere near the room's lefthand corner, his eyes so wide both blue orbs seem rimmed with white.

"Hey, Tobe," Vern calls out, affably. "Sleep well?"

But: "Keep her away from me," Beecher whispers back, gaze still on the corner. Not in reply, so much, as--

(entreaty?)

Vern catches himself sneaking a brief glance in the same direction, and snorts at his own gullibility: Nothing. Nothing at all.

(As though there WOULD be, for Christ's sweet sake.)

"Keep who, exactly?"

Beecher gulps, scratchily. "*Her*."

Impatient: "WHO?"

But Beecher's not listening. He gives a squeak, comically high, and plasters himself back against the radiator, as though trying to avoid the approach of something which, frankly, seems to scare the unholy *crap*--

(--what's left of it--)

--right out of him.

Panting and straining, worrying at his cuffs. TEARING at the bike chain with his splinted fingers, oblivious to how much doing so must hurt--

And all the while mumbling, grunting, pleading with--who? Vern? Himself?

(God?)

"No, please, no, I'm sorry--I didn't, couldn't, I tried, I *tried* to--Christ, I'm sorry, Christ, PLEASE--"

"Beecher, stop that. Right now."

"--PLEASE, PLEASE, I'm SORRY, I *SWEAR*--"

"Right *now*, Bee--"

But he's cut off, halfway through, by a moaning howl of absolute horror. Beecher, flailing and spasming again like a man having an epileptic seizure. Wailing:

"DON'T LET HER *TOUCH* ME, PLEEEEASE--"

Vern makes it to the bed in two quick strides, wrapping Beecher--close as all his strength can get him--in a modified clutch, half bear-hug, half fireman's carry. Presses a hand on either temple, trying to hold Beecher's wildly whipping head steady, and discovers the son of a bitch is seriously burning *up* with fever: Hallucinating, probably. And babbling, even now--

"SORRY, I couldn't SEE you, I TRIED to stop, I TRIED--"

(the kid)

*That*'s what he thinking of. That girl, one he plowed into, juiced outta his Harvard-educated mind on a week-night...and what the fuck was her name, anyways? Karen, Katie--

"Kathy Rockwell," Vern says, aloud. And feels Beecher shudder at the sound, twisting in his arms--bury his face in Vern's wide bull-neck, all cold sweat and hot breath. Whispering again, voice gone hoarse from shouting:

"--touch me, she wants to, Daddy, *please*--"

(DADdy?)

So close Vern can't tell if that moisture's from his tongue, or his words' condensation. Or--

(or, or--I don't even *know* "or"...what)

So close it's like he's under Vern's skin, thrumming, word by word. Like the thumping, irregular beat of Vern's own heart.

"Don't let her," Beecher murmurs, and lets out a long, slow breath--relaxing, going slack again, all over. Folding himself into Vern like a tired child.

And Vern, taken completely aback. Thinking: This is a joke, right? Some kind'a plan? Direct approach didn't work, so he fakes a breakdown--gonna get me all...whatever, then crack me over the head and take my keys, stick a pillow over my face and PUSH--

Sighing into his collarbone, now. So soft. So...*trusting*.

(Christ Jesus, help me THINK)

And oh, *God*--the feel of him, Tobias Beecher--

(that freak, that bitch, that junkie Yuppie whore)

--curled up close enough that Vern can hear HIS heart through that old workout shirt he gave him, using *Vern* like some kind of human fuckin' teddy bear--a source of comfort, a shelter FROM fear. Acting, for all the world, like what happened between them never happened. Like he actually--*wants*--to be there.

(Because he thinks he's somewhere else.)

WANTS to be, Vern's mind repeats, stubbornly. With--me.

(Because he thinks you're some*one* else.)

The hot, snuggled weight of him, soothing and sweet--a bit like holding Rachel in the morning, before the alarm goes off. But more like holding Jan after he's squalled himself into exhaustion, or Cory after he's gone limp during a juvenile asthma attack--except that Vern never got a damn *hard-on* doing either of THOSE good services, let alone one *so* hard it seems to be sucking every last drop of blood from his aching, straining, edge-of-similarly-feverish brain...

(Thank GOD.)

Leaving him unable to think anything but a single, incoherent word, over and over and over:

Mine. MINE. Mine, mine, *mine*...

This mantra of ownership. The possessive's code.

As though somehow able to hear it, Beecher stirs, slightly. Burrows into Vern's shoulder, and sighs--into his twitching jawline--

"...just couldn't--*see* her..."

And Vern, hugging him harder, stroking that wet, dull gold hair. Telling him to--

"Shush."

(Toby.)

"Shush, go 'sleep now. Go 'sleep."

Blue eyes staring up at him under heavy lids--so calm, so pure, so myopic-blind. Regarding him with a kind of stoned grace, a beatific forgiveness Beecher would *never* offer, ever, if he wasn't too damn fucked up to even know who Vern WAS.

Like I'd want him to, Vern's brain scoffs. And the voice, replying, coolly:

Well, you'll never know now. Will you?

And the pain in his pants, getting worse by the second. Fly zipper like a sharp new vein along his rigid, ticking length.

(Aw, c'mon, man. You're not *really* gonna...)

With Beecher too lulled to notice, Vern finds pops his top button and frees himself, steathily, one tiny set of teeth at a time--

(...never mind.)

--and starts rocking back and forth, infinitely gentle. Performing the double trick of keeping Beecher comforted and avoiding a possible cerebral haemorrhage--by rubbing himself off, surreptitiously, against the sturdy curl of Beecher's hip.

Not letting himself think about it. But thinking, all the same:

Mine. For me. All for me...

With Beecher snoring, mouth open, into the unshaven side of Vern's chin, their lips almost touching. While Vern moans, breathless, struggling to keep his movements slow, small, light--until--

(...all for me, me, *me*...)

--he SPURTS, red-hot and lava-thick, hissing through his nose--spraying them both with a load of sticky seed, and gluing them tight together. Hugging Beecher, as aftershocks blaze like sheet lightning up and down his body--holding him like the world's most tangled a combination of kid, wife, pet, prag. And promising him, weirdly fierce--

"Nobody's gonna hurt you, Toby. *Nobody*."

Nobody--

(--but me.)

SAMARITAN, Part 4

"You *did* something. Didn't you?"

"Like what?" Vern snaps. Only to have Beecher reply, vague but infinitely suspicious--

"Like...something."

(Well. THAT's specific.)

It's eleven or thereabouts, the morning after Beecher's big breakdown--first official day of winter, grey sky edging into dirty white between lowering clumps of clouds. Three hours since Vern woke with a crick in his back from sleeping upright, stiff-muscled but deliciously refreshed, with Beecher still dead asleep in his arms and drooling against the side of Vern's shirt-collar. And actually caught himself thinking, just for a fleeting, futile second:

Be sorta...nice if we could stay like this--huh, Toby?

"Mmmph," Beecher seemed to agree, tucking his ruffled gold head into the soft spot beneath Vern's jaw--and Vern felt himself stir again, reflexively, wanting to groan aloud at the way his traitorous genitals sparked and flared at that unconscious touch.

(Ohhhh, *Jesus*.)

The whole apartment stuffy with stale sweat boiling off of both of them, plus the not-exactly-stink of Beecher's post-sickness musk--a pungent morass, smotheringly hot and close, enough to raise the hair (what there is of it) on the back of Vern's neck. Every limb slack, like he was cooking in some fuckin' soup of posessive arousal, liberally spiced with a weird, unmanly, unmanning kind of--tenderness, almost.

It's that same thing Vern always feels, looking at Beecher: His trapped catch, his unwilling slave, his half-broken, half-unbreakable former toy. His current, oh-so-"charitable" project, same alkie, druggy, rich-boy *brat* also just happens to be his best, worst, once--

(--and future?--)

Yeah, probably. Considering who we're talkin' about.

--enemy.

Watching Beecher doze, his blond brows contracting and twitching with dreams, arms wrapped tight around that sturdy, slow-breathing body. And thinking, stubbornly: But this is MINE, it's part of me--I own it already, damnit, so what's wrong with wanting to repossess it? 'Specially the way *he* takes care of himself...

This need, this weakness running through him like his very own personal fever, infuriating as its source. It makes Vern tremble all over, even now, like a teased dog shown a whole bag full of juicy bones; makes him want to grind his back teeth, make fists 'till his knuckles crack, *do* something--anything--before he loses what's left of his mind.

But: Peeling himself gingerly free, instead. Laying Beecher to rest in that rucked cradle of sheets, gently as he could--backing away, tucking himSELF away. A few hurried minutes spent holed up in the bathroom, trying ineffectively to sponge last night's excess sperm from his clothing with a wet facecloth before finally giving up, stripping off and stalking naked to the hallway closet. Warning himself, even as he did, to not, *not*, NOT look back--not even once, if he knew what was good for him...

(*if*)

Hand already on the closet door, pausing. Already--

--doing it, anyways.

(Of course.)

The sight of Beecher, lying there with one small, square fist to his lips, gold-furred legs outflung as if in--holy living fuck!--*invitation*, or something--

HEEL, boy, Vern told himself, sternly. Biting his lip. Yet wanting, at the exact same time--too fiercely to deny, even to himself--to lie back down between his ex-prag's spread knees: Kiss him hard and deep, over and over again, 'till those dazed blue eyes came open in slow recognition. See him stiffen and jerk awake, ready to fight, then laugh in his face and pin him by the wrists, cracking his thighs even wider; crush that uppity Yuppie whore into Karl Senior's mattress with all his prison-bred bulk of muscle and flab alike, no time for spit--and force himself inside, cram himself full-length into that sweet, tight heat and *pump* 'till the blood flowed like lube...

Back and forth, halo-bearing little angel Vern (HA!) on one lightning-bolted shoulder, horny little jack-booted Nazi devil Vern on the other: C'mon, go ahead and do it, big guy--he *wants* you to, you KNOW he does--

No. He *doesn't*.

(Freak doesn't know WHAT he wants. Never did.)

Yeah, sure. But *you* do...don't you?

(uuuurrrrghhhhh)

And thinking: God. CHRIST. What *are* you, sixteen? Some fuckin' hormone-drunk teenager? Have some pride--

(Old Man.)

The hell?

Well, that little voice in Vern's head reminds him--if your Dad's dead, then...that'd be YOU, now, wouldn't it?

(*Wouldn't* it?)

...guess so.

And ain't THAT a disgusting thought; better than a pitcher of ice-water in the crotch, any damn day.

Which brings us to a few minutes back: Beecher surfacing, slowly--groaning--as Vern worked a fresh, *non*-cum-stained t-shirt over his head. Peering up, eyes sulky blue slits under sleep-heavy gilt lashes, and grumbling:

"My...hand hurts."

Vern, pulling the shirt back down, briskly: "Better take some a' these, then."

Tapping some Tylenol from a full bottle, handily laid out by his elbow, and passing them over. As Beecher responded, grudgingly:

"...thanks."

Must have done SOMETHING wrong, though. Let their fingers brush, briefly, as he dropped the pills in Beecher's palm; paid a little too much attention as Beecher gulped them down, studying him sidelong, too proprietary to be entirely trustworthy.

Because even assuming Beecher's fever left him too fucked up to remember exactly what *did* happen while he was hallucinating--what he did, what *Vern* did--which, as far as Vern can tell, does seem to be true--

--he still knows. Just...KNOWS, somehow. Anyways.

"Why'd you change my clothes?" Beecher asks, suddenly. Squinting at him, myopically--while the little voice chimes in, like a gleeful chorus:

Oh, that's 'cause I jerked off on you, cupcake. Your fault, really--

(like always)

See, you were huggin' me and calling me Daddy, and it got me all excited; just couldn't...help myself.

Rumbling back, defiantly, meanwhile--aloud--

"'Cause you crapped your pants like a little girl when I showed you my Dad?" He busies himself with the breakfast dishes, avoiding Beecher's eyes. "I'd've known you were gonna take on this way, believe me, I wouldn't'a bothered."

Not even vaguely placated, however, Beecher insists. Repeating:

"I *know* you did something, Schillinger--while I was...out. You think I can't *tell*?"

(By now?)

Vern groans, internally, feeling his cock jump again. Thinking: Awwww, *you*, you--

(prickly little SLUT)

--and turns, eyes flaring. Barking:

"'Kay, great, fine--so what? You think I *took advantage* of you? 'F I had, believe me--"

"I'd know? I know!"

Vern hisses, goaded well beyond the official limits of his patience. Then bends close, looming over Beecher. "You," he begins. "You, just...shut your mouth, all right? Or I *will* shut it for you--WITH something, maybe."

(Threats of amateur circumcision notwithstanding.)

Beecher snarls at the idea, bristling--his whole carefully "re-civilized" persona cracking away once more, under pressure, to show the feral street person beneath. Wrinkling that snub little nose, showing those kitten-teeth: The ruin of a lifetime's good dentistry, yellowed as old ivory.

But Vern just crosses his arms, unimpressed. And growls, self-righteous--feeling uncharacteristically guilty for what he did do, but waaay too defensively pleased with himself about what he *didn't*, when he had the chance...flip Beecher over and screw him like an Ikea desk-set, for example--

"Very impressive: I'm a-shakin', sweetpea." Anger mounting, already-deep voice roughening commensurately: "You WANT me to, that it? That the best way to shut you the fuck up? After all I've done for you, you spoiled rotten little son of a..."

"...*bitch*?" Beecher suggests, right on cue, voice sing-songing "gay"ly. And gets in one good eyelash flutter, snarl sliding to smirk, before--

--Vern hits him, WHAP! Right in the kisser.

Feels so good, he does it again, backhand. And again. And again.

Until--

He stops, at last, panting. Watches Beecher swallow blood, cough a wad of pinkish spit, plus what looks suspiciously like a fragment of molar; stare back up, demurely unsurprised, like he's just had a pet theory proven. And comment:

"Ah, see--now, *that*'s the 'Vern' I know best."

A statement to which there is, of course, no answer...easy, or not.

Turning away, eyes anywhere but on that unforgiving, flat blue gaze: CHRIST, it's hot in here. Vern leans his forehead against the window's cool glass, briefly, yearning to wrench it open--to let some of that winter breeze outside in, some of this desperate confusion building inside him out. And finds himself recalling, at the same time--with a wistful kind of nostalgia--the days when knowing Beecher hates him worse than poison still gave him a warm little thrill, instead of this dark, slightly...

(hollow)

...feeling he's--feeling--now.

"Why," he asks, slowly--and so quietly, the words emerge almost under his breath--"does it always gotta be so fuckin'...HARD with you?"

Not waiting for a reply, particularly--but already hearing Beecher's retort, in full detail, before the little bastard even has time to voice it: You mean, why can't I just be a *good* little cellblock 'ho, SIR? Why can't I ever just fawn and flirt and do your chores, dress up pretty and act real nice, assume the position whenever I hear my master's voice, do what you want and at least *pretend* to enjoy it?

Hang on your every word. Kiss you, without being ordered first. Offer backrubs, blowjobs, tea and fucking sympathy, like we're--MARRIED to each other, or something?

(Or...something.)

Yeah, that's it, Vern thinks, automatically. Then: But--no.

'Cause, fact is...I don't even know, anymore, just--

(*what* I want)

--from you. Exactly.

(Besides...the obvious.)

Ahhhh, *shit*.

A long pause, during which none of this--unexpectedly enough--gets said at all. Then, just as quiet...from down by Vern's feet, where Beecher lies slumped on his side, holding his freshly-bruised face in his hands...

"...dunno."

Huh: THAT's different.

More silence. The window's temperature rising, steadily, under the smudge left by Vern's brow. And down there, on the street--

(Do I *know* that car?)

"Just wanna help you, is all," Vern says, aloud. Knowing immediately that this is the wrong sentiment to voice, at *exactly* the wrong time--a split milisecond before he even draws the resultant sharp little sidelong eye-flick, accompanied by this (equally cutting) reply:

"Help me. Right." Sweetly: "Now...is that help me up the ass, or down the throat?"

Man. You try to be *nice*...

"Fuckin' nutjob," Vern growls; "Fucking Nazi," Beecher snaps back. To which Vern raises a barely-there brow, and rumbles--humorlessly humorous--

"Yeah, well--when you gonna learn I don't consider bein' called that an insult, ToBIas?"

Peering directly out at the car in question, now; squinting hard, and rummaging through his memory. Someone from work? Coon-of-all-trades Charlie Cutter, maybe, in that old junker he favors when the van's startin' to look a little bit conspicuous?

No.

So--

(--*who*, damnit?)

Back on the bed, Beecher's sitting up again. Got that "I can be civilized, I went to HARVARD" look on his face, like he's hard at work planning a whole damn summation out in his head; used to get it back in Oz, now 'n' then. Not that Vern couldn't usually knock it out of him, fast enough, whenever he *did*--

(One way. Or another.)

"You wanted me dried out--that's what you said, back when. The whole point of this...exercise?"

"Pretty much."

"Well, I'm dry. So we're done."

"When I SAY we're done."

Beecher's eyes spark. "Yeeaahhh, 'cause you're my savior, right, Vern? Took me in, washed my disgusting beggar feet, annointed me with unguents, all that good shit--"

"Unguh-*what*?"

"'Catholic fairytale crap', like you always used to say." A pause. "'Course, I'm Episcopalian, in actual fact...but I guess a good stormtrooper WASP like you can't really tell the difference, can you?"

(...maybe not.)

"Anyway..." He looks away, studying the radiator's coils. "Don't get me wrong, okay? I didn't really *like* being a Looney Tunes piece of street trash, all that much--fucked up on booze, sucking guys off FOR booze. But what am I supposed to be thanking you for, here, exactly? Face it, Vern--your idea of the Twelve-Step Program looks a hell of a lot like being right back in Oz, like all those...good, *good* times we used to have, you and me. Like the first time you ever said 'open wide, baby'? And I couldn't get my lips over my teeth fast enough, so you went down too far, too fast, past my gag reflex--and then you held my nose shut, to make sure I'd have to swallow..."

Vern shifts stance, uncomfortably, while Beecher takes a long, ragged breath. And finishes:

"...and by the time you finally started to come, I was already choking on my own puke." A pause. "Remember THAT?"

Vern--shrugs, slightly. Beecher gives a cold, red-tinged smile.

Toneless: "Thought so."

Adding, after a moment--

"But then, you always did like it like that. Still do, I guess."

Vern flushes, unspoken implication like an anger/arousal two-shot, groin and medulla oblongata both going off at once: Liked it *so* much you had to build yourself your own mini-Oswald, didn'tcha, even after McManus and company were dumb enough to let you back out into the world--a jury-rigged little pod built for two. You and me, owner and prag, all-Alpha male MAN and jailhouse substitute...

(wife)

"I kept you *safe*," Vern points out. "Niggers would'a gang-banged your narrow lawyer ass every night, my mark wasn't on it."

Beecher nods. "And then...you just threw me away. Anyhow."

Head down, de-dreadlocked mop of hair hiding his face. Hugging himself, shoulders hunched and--trembling?

(Just a little.)

Same way he used to sit around during those first few weeks in Em City, that all-important--"settling in" period. Like he got kicked in the gut, a while back, but couldn't quite get over just HOW bad it actually felt.

And: Well, what are you--hurt? Vern thinks, flush getting deeper. Still stewin' over me deciding Scott Ross was a better bet than some sulky, horse-snortin' stick-up-the-butt who can't even pick out a love song to sing me without makin' it into some kinda comment? "I Got It Bad", my big Aryan *ass*.

'Sides which--fucker ended up dead so fast, when the riot rolled around, I never even got a chance to try and run my moves on him. So believe me, it ain't like he took your PLACE...

(...not for long, at least.)

You really wanted to keep my "protection", To-by, then maybe you should'a shown me a little more affection, a little more loyalty, a little more Goddamn respect. Not run around with that Mick fuck Ryan O'Reilly behind my back, or rushed off to spill your guts to Spic Sister Peter Marie every five friggin' minutes. Been a bit more... accommodating, generally.

But: That was then. And this is now. And--

"I'm not lettin' you go," Vern tells Beecher, firmly. "Not 'till--"

(--I'm...done. With you.)

He lets the rest of the sentence trail away, unspoken. And hears Beecher complain:

"Can't just lock me up in here..."

Vern snorts. "Please. What've I been doin', genius?"

Mockingly: "Keeping me 'safe'?"

Vern gives a too-loud huff, and returns his attention the window, the street below, that car. As Beecher curls up on his side again, muttering peevishly to himself--his voice muffled by bedclothes--

"--*you* were what I needed to be kept SAFE from. You fat, fucking, Nazi-- motherFUCKER."

(...that car...)

Sudden click of connection, a slap across the mental face: P.O. Hamid, sliding into an empty space right beside Charlie Cutter's lunchbreak booty-'n'-"booty"mobile. That same babyshit-yellow paint-job, same U.S. flag decal in the front window's left-hand corner.
That's him, and he comes up here, and he sees...all this, Vern thinks, and I am--fucked. Beyond all possible HOPE of unfuckedom.

No time to plan ahead. Just step back, attract Beecher's attention with a light kick to the shoulder, and order:

"Gimme your hands." Beecher just looks at him, mutinously. "*Hands*, Beecher," Vern repeats--adding, impatiently: "Now, Goddamnit."

"I won't try to run."

"Yeah, and I'm Morgan fuckin' Freeman. Give--me--your--HANDS."

There's a struggle, mercifully brief; Vern only has to *start* to squeeze Beecher's raw right wrist and thumb before he feels the former lawyer go limp, moaning in defeat. He snaps on the cuffs, secures the bike-chain, turns for the apartment door--then throws back, over his shoulder: "Look, I just gotta--check something. You'll be fine."

"...broke my fucking FINGERS..."

"I did *not*." He opens the door. "Just...trust me, 'kay? That so much to ask?"
Once more, Beecher casts him a furious glare of despair mixed with disgust. And then--he starts to laugh...a weak, rhythmless kind of laughter, like gasping, or retching. Or, possibly--

--sobbing.

The sound of it follows Vern down the stairs, only trailing away when he reaches the storefront proper--and passes the freezer door, behind which his Old Man's corpse still lies locked, fixed and fallen eyes open to nothing but hollow darkness.

*

Almost an hour slips by, with Vern sitting at attention by that one uncovered window-panel, watching "Hamid's" car. The windshield is covered in a light dusting of early snow, impossible to read. Shadows inside, but no movement.

*Could* be him, Vern guesses. But, then again--could be...ANY fuckin' body.

Those bozos down at Meteorscan have probably fired his ass by now; Vern sure would, in their place. Doesn't necessarily mean they called Hamid, though. Most of their staff is made up of ex-cons, and most've *them* are dirty, far as Vern can tell--but as long as they show up and book off on time, nobody seems to give much of a good Goddamn what else goes on...on site, or off.

A mnemonic snapshot, in and out, flicker-fast: Charlie Cutter, giving Vern the first day tour--like Em City's bullshit "rules" rap, withOUT Guard Whittlesey's bony rack to look at. "Yo, man, y'all jus' outta stir? Where you gots all that ink, right, them funky swas-*tee*-kas? You one bad mother, for sure. 'Course, drop ALL our records on one nigga's head, stone *crush* the mothafucka flat--y'all know what I'm sayin', Adolf, baby?"

And Vern, just studying him silently, like some exotic variety of bug: Something he's never seen before, and hopes--devoutly--to never have to see again. But knowing, with a sick certainty, that experience will prove that hope a lie.

Almost two-thirty, and the car still hasn't budged. Vern checks his watch, gives it five more minutes, then takes the stairs two at a time. Unlocks the door again, and opens it--whistling cheerfully--

--onto what's gotta be the *worst* reek he's smelled since using Karl Senior as an instructional aid: Something burnt AND rotten, like...Thanksgiving turkey carcass left to soak, then forgotten in the wake of too much eggnog.

(The fuh--?)

Eyes following nose, scenting before he sees. Then *seeing*, all in one breathless rush: Blood on the radiator, literally cooking--heat's been turned on, and the room's such an oven already Vern didn't even notice--while Beecher, source of all that stinky red stuff, crouches far away from those searing metal coils as the bike-chain will let him get, mouth still glued to his bad wrist. He's worried through one healed suicide scar with his lower teeth, using them as a blunt enamel saw; dark red bibs lips, wrist and teeth, like someone's forced him to eat a whole tube of lipstick.

Holy...fucking...SHIT.

Later, Vern won't be able to remember covering the distance between them, let alone popping the lock on cuffs OR chain. Just how white Beecher looks, wet teeth chattering, as Vern rips his own sleeve to tourniquet the wound. And the sound of his own voice crooning, pleading, *threatening* Beecher, in an endless, half-whispered mantra:

"Oh you fuck, you cunt you, don't you dare, don't you--FUCKING--*DARE*..."

Wanting to grab him and snarl at him: *Look*, don't--

(go)

"--don't you DARE die on me now, you cowardly fuckin' *fuck*--"

And Beecher, ears perking like a dog's--tuned somehow, as always, to that frequency they share, the unspeakable--inadmissable--current of Vern's...

(...need?)

Grinning back at him, teeth black with his own blood. And slurring:

"Guess--ya--don' geh ta save me--af'er all."

Don't you--

(leave)

--me.

SAMARITAN Part 5.1

The rest of the night goes by in a blink, punch-drunk and panting. Vern can't remember moving this fast since that time Cory fell off the jungle-gym. Whipping around in mid-thought, already launched without even knowing what his target was, lost in the first frozen note of Rachel's scream; no thoughts, no plans, just pure momentum. Something's wrong, so GO, you shit-for-brains--find it, fix it, and fuck whatever's in your way...

One more list, ticked off in breathless increments. Down the steps and out onto the street, too fast to register how winded he already is; drag-hauling Beecher's bleeding, barely-conscious body headlong over to All-Saints--not all that far away, thankfully for Vern's already-aching back--and dumping him unceremoniously in front of the hospital's admissions desk as the nurse on duty jumps to her feet, yelling for security. Then slipping clear somehow, losing himself in the crowds outside, running like a rat right on back to his home sweet hole of choice: SC--L--NGE-'S -EATS, his dead Dad's shop, site of Vern's recent, oh-so-UNsuccessful amateur intervention into his former prag's new career as a booze-crazed bum. And empty, now, of everything *but* Schillinger Senior's insulation-wrapped corpse...give or take the ruin of a few "good intentions".

Upstairs again, scanning the room with almost automatic care; knowing he has no time, but taking it all in anyway. Sucking the scene of the crime up in jagged little flashes, observation cut with memory--sheets in a stained tangle, cuffs lying empty on top, plastic-slicked length of bike-chain still cooking against the blood-splattered radiator behind them...

And Beecher, superimposed on all of it, like a (hopefully) living ghost: Staring up at him, blue eyes dark with grim amusement. His mouth still clamped, way too tight, to one bitten-out wrist.

*Guess--ya--don' geh ta save me--af'er all.*

Well, guess NOT.

Vern gives his head a quick, savage shake, trying to clear it. But catches himself musing, nevertheless--

Just can't believe he'd DO that. I mean, shit--like I'd ever even think he could, let alone *would*...

('Cept that he DID.)

Yeah. Except for that.

White face, cold skin, sweat-soaked and slippery under Vern's fumbling fingers. That stained grin. Those black, wet kitten-teeth.

"Always gotta get the last word, don'tcha?" He asks the room, aloud. "Fuckin', crazy--crazy, fuckin' little--"

(*bitch*)

Screw all that, though. Time to get busy, while Vern still can--clean up this mess, lit and fig, work out a plan for damage control. 'Cause this a pretty lose/lose situation he's got himself into here, after all. Worst-case scenario shoots it right on up to felony murder if Beecher spills his guts about getting "kidnapped" before dying, parole violation on a truly *serious* scale. Then arrest, conviction, back to Oz forever, and not spent playing Munchkin in Tim McManus's Emerald fuckin' City, either. Gen Pop, survival of the fittest, the same old jungle and the same old rules: Eat the weak, keep to your kind, do what you gotta to get what you can. Which *ain't* gonna be quite the cakewalk it seemed last time 'round, either, considering how--

--you, my friend, Vern thinks, grimly, are NOT as fit as you used to be, any more. Are you?

(Old MAN.)

Half an hour later, he's just dragged the unsalvagable mattress--still stiff with Beecher's blood--down a shallow hill into the garbage dump full of rats, trash and dozing junkie scum that used to be his childhood baseball sandlot. Place always has at least a couple of cans of flaming debris handy; easy enough for Vern to tip the nearest one over onto the evidence, then leave it there to burn.

Watching the fire rise and spread, chin sunk collar-deep, hands in his pockets. Trying--with as much cold logic as possible, under the circumstances--to run through all his remaining options, one by one by one. And feeling, as he does...

...an idea begin to form.

Back at the ranch, Vern pulls his father's body from the freezer and up to the apartment proper, where he unwraps its jury-rigged garbage-bag coffin, lays it on the bare-springed bed and scours the kitchen for cleaning supplies to use on radiator and bed-frame alike. Stowing the cuffs, the chain and the rags in a handy plastic bag, he roots around further; finds a last pathetic pair of untapped bottles shoved in the back of what used to be his mother's closet...

(Stolnichaya, typically enough--cheating fuckin' lush couldn't even get *drunk* on something better than this Commie swill)

...then turns the gas on. Gives the house an hour to fill. Stuffs a leftover rag into one bottle's top, lights it--

--and heaves the resultant Molotov cocktail through the shop's front window.

Place goes up like a torch and keeps on going 'til morning, according to the next day's papers. Not that Vern stays to see.

*

Vern spends the next month fronting to Hamid, getting an even CRAPPIER asshole job (stomping around town with a pack, distributing flyers--guess all that mailroom experience finally paid off, huh, Schillinger?) to fill the void where Meteorscan used to be, pretending to look surprised when the insurance investigators come calling. There's some kind of bullshit pending in terms of the Old Man's coverage, which he frankly lets wash over him; just makes sure to nod in all the expected places, then goes right on back to what he was already doing. Biding his time, rebuilding his life, in the wake of his brief excursion into "charity" work--this inexplicable, haphazard, self-defeating-stupid impulse to do something...

(*anything*)

...for the same impossible-to-please former Yuppie lawboy slut who almost lost him his eye, almost cost him his parole, took a shit on his face in front of half'a Em City, while mongrels like Alvarez and O'Reilly hooted and hollered appreciatively: *Do* it, Beech, baby! Knock that fuckin' Nazi down, tie him up and oh my GOD, be fuckin' *serious* here--

Then fast-forwarding ahead, (relatively) distant past seguewaying neatly into far more recent experience. Their next-to-last face-off, just before all that hallucinatory shit hit the fan and Vern finally gave in to his more--*instinctual* instincts: Beecher, fever-crazed and fractious, throwing his captor's half-assed attempts at unselfishness right back in his face. Shrieking like a toddler about how if he wants to end his USELESS FUCKING LIFE, he *WILL*...

Yeah, well; feel friggin' free, cupcake. Don't let ME stop you.

(Not that you ever *did*.)

'Cause...I guess you really WERE broken beyond repair a long time 'fore *I* ever came along. And dumb-ass me for ever thinking--

(hoping)

--I could fix you.

Beecher, Tobias, Toby. Who left him aching and half-blind in the growing cold, this scratched cornea of his rendering him unable to get either a trucker's license OR a job that makes anything close to decent money. Who could send him back to Oz with a single word, assuming he even survived his own little "wolf with its paw caught in a trap" imitation...

But hasn't, so far. Hasn't done *anything*, that Vern knows of.

(So FAR.)

But: You'd be able to tell if he was dead, that internal voice whispers, weirdly intimate. Just *feel* it, somehow. And since you don't--

--since I DON'T, so fuckin' what? What am I s'posed to be here, some kinda human Beech-hound?

Say he's still kicking, then. Should Vern worry? Not like he's made any great effort to cover up his trail, after all. Still at his old "real" address, still listed in the phone-book...

...but even if he wasn't, lawyers have their little tricks, even *ex*-lawyers. EVEN nutbags like Beecher.

Waiting. Wondering. A slow drip, softening his typical wary resolve into fitful sleep, lulling him into a false sense of--if not security, then...apathy, maybe. Beecher'll be back or he won't; Vern'll do something about it if (or when) it happens, do nothing 'till it damn well suits him. Que sera sera, and all that good Spic shit.

Until--

*

The phone starts up just as Vern comes through the door, dumping tomorrow's load of badly-printed bumf next to yesterday's load of still-unsorted laundry. He whips it up on the third ring, jamming it into the crook between collarbone and ear, and barks: "What?"

"Vern?"

...Rachel?

For maybe a minute, he just stands there--her voice rippling through him like a pacemaker's current, making his heart throb and trip with energy both infinitely familiar, and almost unbearably painful. Listening as she feels her way, slowly sketching out a one-sided conversation: Tells him how Cory's getting so much better he spoke a whole WORD yesterday, how Jan's joined some detox program up at Lardner, how the nigger and that little--daughter--of hers...

(Well, maybe not.)

Trailing off, finally, as she registers his total lack of response. And asking, hesitantly--

"Vernon--Vern, can you *hear* me, or what? You're still THERE, right?"

Yes, sweetpea.

"I mean..." A pause. "Just, look--are you...okay?"

Oh and sure, Rachel, he wants to snap back, without even thinking--I'm great, I'm fine, I'm fuckin' *lovely*. Wife ran off with some Afro-American monkey-man, my junkie kids hate my guts, just got back from a five-year tour of JAIL...

But: "My Old Man died," Vern hears himself say, instead. And feels the words strike like a pick to his chest, cardiac-immediate--a jabbing, invasive, white-hot sudden pain--
--as something crack wide, deep beneath his breastbone. Something goes all shamefully soft and wet, a limp, liquid centre under nearly fifty years' worth of carefully built-up scar tissue armor. Something on his face now, hot and running and shit, is that--are those--could those be...

(...*tears*?)

FEELING it, all at once, like he never did before: Not when the bastard actually died, and not after, either. As Rachel's dimming voice repeats, over and over--that lying, nigger-loving, lawfully-wedded bitch of his, book-smart enough to get through university by correspondence, but never once common sense street-smart enough to know when to *shut the fuck UP*--

"...okay? Vern?"

"No," he says, dully. And hangs up.

Alone in his one-room apartment, phone falling forgotten from one nerveless hand, Vern Schillinger takes a good, long look around; cocks his half-bald skull sidelong for the full effect, then swipes fiercely at his face with the other, hearing mucus rattle.

Spots that second bottle of Karl Senior's vodka, the back-up cocktail he never quite got around to throwing out. Uncorks it. Takes a long swig.

And keeps on drinking, shedding clothes steadily, even though he never drinks--*never*, as a point of pride. A point of pure Aryan honor in this honorless, colorless, puke-grey mixed-race world he's trapped in, mud people multiplying like a landslide and crushing what few ice people still remain so far beneath the dirt they couldn't pull themselves up again with a fuckin' fork-lift, even if any of 'em still had balls enough to TRY--

--'till he passes out himself, face-down, on his empty bed.

*

In the dream that follows, washing over him like some deep, warm tide of memory-turned-fantasy, Vern's back in Oz, like always: Mid-route, delivering mail to Cellblock Three, aka Fag Central--a task he usually farms out to anybody handy, since AIDS is one of his few true phobias and these death-sentenced cocksuckers crowding 'round him now make him far more nervous than he likes to admit, awake OR asleep. But here he is anyway, steering his truck past rows on row of cells crammed with grinning, flirting, lipstick and mascara-layered faces--and there's Beecher in the next cell over, trying on that same hideous dress he wore at the Talent Show, with the Em City bitch-queen Vern paid to give him a makeover archly playing bridesmaid...

Hoo, man--talk about fashion disasters. 'Cause skanky hooker-red just ain't your color, is it, Tobe?

*He'll look better with his warpaint on,* Queenie suggests. While Beecher just sits there, shoulders drooping, wearing that some sullen no-look Vern's come to know so well. Glancing over the "guy"'s shoulder, one brow faintly quirked, his thoughts flaring like invisible ink beneath that spreading, inevitable flush: Think THIS'll put the "romance" back in our relationship, *sir*?

(Well...could do.)

Moment overlaid on moment, peeling away like skin; a sharp little twitch at his groin as he gets a brief flash-cut of Beecher appearing at the pod-door in full prag drag, heralded by Scott Ross' erupting hoot. And Vern, blinking mildly up at this apparition of his will made flesh. Drawling:

*My God. You look...even prettier'n I thought you would.*

But he doesn't want to *laugh*, not this time. Not...exactly.

Squinting at him, and thinking--that same damn dream-logic as last time in action once again, connecting dots and taking names in the twisty underground maze of Vern's traitorous subconscious--

Bridesmaid. Bride. Beecher.

(Rachel.)

All dressed up and ready to go, tricked out--not that *he*'d know--like an inadvertant parody of Vern's "dead" wife. Same pale skin and ice-blue eyes, same dull gold mop of disordered hair, same snub nose upturned in instinctive contempt for that frilly horror of an outfit. Kinda sexist little number Rachel'd never wear, just flat-out NEVER--not even if Vern...*asked* her to...

(Aw, Christ.)

So ask yourSELF, Vernon--deep in your drunken stupor, safe from commentary or interference, down here where the only rules are the ones you make for yourself: Was that what you wanted, right from the start? That why you kept on pushing, kept on prodding and poking and hiking the bar of allowably submissive behavior ever higher, when Beecher'd already rolled over and flashed you his soft underbelly--

(*under*belly, mmMMmm)

--too many times to count?

Such a tangled fuckin' mess of a marriage, with its fallout left preying and festering on the back of Vern's mind long after Rachel was nothing but a long-gone bad judgement call, her entire existence erased and denied. And Beecher, with his unwitting resemblance, waking some kind of need in Vern that went FAR beyond the normal parameters of punkdom; the desire for someone he could push around, pose and preen, reward or punish as the impulse took him. Someone *like* Rachel physically, even mentally--addiction-prone, intellectual, an uptown "girl" with a serious downtown jones--but incapable of inspiring the passion behind Vern's betrayal, that baffled, yearning inability to OWN every last hidden part of her.

That hot spark, that self-inflicted wound, that Goddamn lunatic *love*. Same thing made him give her so much rope on the leash that she could just cut and run like the bitch she really was, leave HIM hung out to dry 'stead'a having the common fuckin' decency to hang *herself*...

...bringing us back to Beecher, shivering silent in his fishnet-trimmed gown: Caught fast on the same leash, basically, for all Vern's since pulled it choking-tight. And unable to see, not now, not ever--that if it hadn't been Vern's leash, it would've been somebody else's. Somebody--worse.

(Maybe.)

Never would've been *no* leash, though, not for a born toy like Beecher. Not in Oz.
Vern considers him, closely, his own pale eyes narrowed against the cell light's glare. And finds himself wanting, so badly it's like he's still too damn drunk to even care about how much jizz he's gonna leak, if anyone but the fags around him catch him doing it--

Wanting to see Beecher transfigured, for real, this one brief time. To make that game face slip, see that teasing flush mount and spread...see those china doll's eyes glaze over, sweat starting at his wrists, throat, temples...

*You MIND?* Vern snarls at the makeover bitch, who shrugs elaborately. Then sidles away, hips swinging, content to leave Vern and Beecher to their own--devices--

Running exploratory fingers down the front of Beecher's dress, Vern takes his time unhooking it clip by patient clip--slides the straps off those surprisingly broad shoulders and lets it slip, open, to Beecher's hips: White chest, dull gold fur, that fat-sleek little office-worker's gut. A pink nub peeking through on either pec, already stiffening with unexpected cold.

(Huhhhh.)

He lays his open mouth against the right one, experimentally. Breathes out, hot and moist, just to feel Beecher shiver--then bites down, hard, to hear him try...and fail...not to hiss out loud, like a cat in fuckin' heat.

(Not so prim NOW, are ya, pussy-boy?)

But: Toby, he thinks--

(*baby*)

--and slides a hand up under that hooker-red skirt.

Groping for evidence, and finding it easily: You DO like this. Don'tcha, slut?

(Well, *don*'tcha?)

THOUGHT so.

Gnawing delicately at first one nipple, then the other, 'till both are equally tender and swollen. Leaning Beecher steadily back against the bunk 'till he arches like a bow, legs folding around Vern's waist--moans and squirms and blushes deeply enough to (almost) match his dress, apparently helpless *not* to push himself up against Vern's wounding, punishing, lion-hot mouth, again and again and again...

Snuffling Beecher's scent, marking himself with it like a dog, rolling his pounding forehead in the hollow of Beecher's throat; glutting himself, drunk and crazy, on the milk-fed smell of Beecher's skin--

--and see? He wants to whisper, into the pinkening curl of Beecher's ear, as he licks up over the flat curve of one cheekbone. It doesn't *have* to hurt, not if you don't MAKE it. Could always be this way, you'd just settle the fuck down and let me have what I want...

Be my protected helpmeet, my pampered pet. Let me play husband, treat you right and keep you safe. Call me--Daddy.

(again)

Still, there's that VOICE again, chiming back:

Too bad he doesn't want this, though, huh? Not this way, and not the other. He just doesn't want *you*.

Never did. Never will.

And there's NOTHING you can do about it.

But: Screw it, Vern thinks, grimly. *I* want this. You're mine, and I'll do what I please with you. Anything. Everything.

Even--

(love)

Dangerous territory here, Vern. Almost, kinda--well.

Fags all around him, watching through the bars; Queenie and company, giggling at the sight of that big, macho Nazi from the post office grabbing this year's prag by the ears and trying to suck his rough little pink tongue out by the roots. Bumping uglies with Beecher, hot flesh leaking against his zipper, crushed up too close for comfort against an answering erection. And knowing full well in his heart of hearts that this is NOT Rachel, not in any way, shape or form--but not giving much of a runny shit whoever *else* knows it, not 'till he's got what's comin' to both of them...

I mean, Jesus, what's it matter? Not like any of this actually HAPPENED, much as you might'a--

(wanted)

--it to.

He lets the tongue go, fastens in on Beecher's lower lip and worries it. Glances up just in time to see Beecher clap his palms over his rolled-back eyes, like he's trying to hide from his own arousal--yet *still* spread himself wider, splayed and quivering, every dull gold hair on end...

And hears himself again, growling loud enough to make his real throat thrum with effort: *No, you STAY--stay right here, right fucking now. No goin' away, no pretending like this isn't happening, 'cause it sure as hell *is*--you got that, bitch?*

(I'm not really here. YOU're not really here. You're not really doing this, not to *me*...)

Oh, no. 'Course not.

A thumb biting into either wrist, forcing Beecher's arms out at right angles, like he's Christ on the cross or something. Vern fixes him with his fiercest glare, repeating:

*Keep those eyes open wide, on ME. And stay, stay, *stay*--*

*

At which point, before he can reach the end of that highly important statement--Vern JERKS awake in mid-sentence, growl becoming a gasp; pain in his side from what feels like the proverbial swift kick making him recoil and *heave* himself over onto arms already wedged uncomfortably behind his back, bound tight together with the same shirt he collapsed in. Trying for a roar, but managing only a winded yelp--realizing all at once that the room is full of a light, drifting fall of snow from a window he can't remember opening, that he's nearly naked (boxers, undershirt, pants tangled down around his boots like an extra set of cloth manacles) and still embarassingly excited, the precum wet-spot at his fly already half-frozen--

Vern blinks up, knocks his fuzzy head against the floor, strains to identify that figure leaning over him. But can't, no matter how he tries...not until it speaks, words filtering
down through clinging layers of sleep. That familiar voice, sober the way he's NOT, all cold and clear and mocking--replying, almost conversationally:

"Oh, don't you worry, 'cause *I*'m not going anywhere. Not 'till we get a few things settled, you and me..."

(...Vern-baby.)

*

They pause for a moment together, caught between frames: Vern genuinely shock-stiff, world turned abruptly bass-ackwards--peering up as Beecher smirks down, taking obvious pleasure in this whole role-reversed tableau. Hasn't reverted to his old ways, either, that Vern can see: Hair cropped and face fresh-shaven, that pansy-ass Gap For Men scent Rachel's nigger always seems to wear coming off his clean new clothes like some personal halo. Got a little cloth cast on the wrist he slit, bulky and stiff with bandages, plus a shiny new pair of glasses to mask his eyes. And he just STANDS there, hefting Vern's discarded bottle in one hand, refusing to give even the simple satisfaction of a one-liner, an insult, a how you been, you asswipe Nazi bastard...

Well, okay, then. Want me to make the first move, you got it--

(--Toby.)

But: Easier said than done, in the wake of--last night's? Still dark outside, not like that proves anything--booze-up. Vern squints again, trying to marshall his thoughts into some recognizable form, still half-befuddled by the vodka's after-effects, a throbbing band of hangover headache pulled down over his bleary eyes. Then clears his throat, slow and easy, careful to keep his tone regular enough not to imply anything that might be even mistaken for fear--telling himself, at the same time, to look at the bright side, trust in his own natural-born upper hand.

While Beecher keeps on studying him, smirk ripening to sneer--face just beginning to flirt with that same edge-of-crazy look Vern's trying his best to keep himself from seeing: That old, familiar...chair-hoisting look of his.

(You mean face-*shitting* look, don't you?)

...hope NOT.

For Chrissakes, though--it's just Beecher, right? No cops for back-up, nothing like that. Went to the trouble of tying you up before he WOKE you up, so he must still be afraid of what you might do--to him--if he went one-on-one with you, like a real fuckin' man...

Opening his mouth, already bracing to defuse the situation with a cutting, rumbled comment. But finding himself blurting out, instead, at the very last moment--alcohol short-circuiting his brain once more--

"I *knew* you wouldn't tell."

A weird sense of complicity in his voice. Beecher nods, obviously--maybe--

(--feeling it. Too.)

Replying, coolly:

"Well, really--what was I gonna say, I DID go to the cops? This guy hauled me off the streets, cleaned me up, got me all detoxed...yeah, they'd really knock themselves out trying to track down a--Samaritan--like that."

Huh.

(You put it *that* way...)

Casting the bottle in his hand a wistful little glance at the same time, though--like he's eyeing up some old girlfriend he doesn't trust enough to let her near his heart, or his wallet. And Vern, catching the look, shooting back:

"Still a little left there, looks to me." A pause. "Soooo... want a snort?"

It's a fair blow, considering what little he has to work with. Hits right where he's aiming for, all the way below the belt; guy'd still be dancing on street-corners and stinkin' of booze, after all, if it weren't for Vern putting himself out waaay beyond the boundaries of good sense--

And in the back of his mind, his Dad's voice--resurrected by surprise, shooting shoulder pain, post-alcoholic stress, whatever. Whispering:

--like anything 'bout you and Beecher's ever been SENSIBLE.

(Shut the hell up, dead man.)

But Beecher--plain doesn't respond, not a flicker. Just comments, with a kind of sad affection:

"Stoli. Now there's some good shit to get drunk on."

"Guess you'd know."

"Well...guess I WOULD."

Beecher grins at the thought, dryly. Then glances back down at Vern's crotch, like he only just now noticed what there...*is* to notice.

"Gee, look--the Viking Punishment Rod, large as life and twice as ugly. Been dreaming of the good old days, that what did the trick?"

(lucky guess, just a lucky fuckin' guess)

Frustrated equally with his former prag's newfound unflappability and his own uncheckable responses, Vern struggles for dismissive but winds up settling for snide--a subconscious imitation of Beecher himself. Snorting--

"You wish, freak."

Sharper: "You WISH I wish."

(And: Ohhh, you bitchy little bitch, bitch, *bitch*.)

Vern shifts, straining to stay calm--but hears his pinned arms pop as he does, rotator cuffs wrenching, and feels rage immediately sweep up over him like a red-hot wave, frighteningly disproportionate. Unable to stop himself from barking back:

"Just what the hell do you want, anyway, ToBIas? Seemed pretty desperate to get away from me *last* time we played this kinda scene, you--ungrateful, little--"

Cheerfully: "--cunt?"

Got that I'm-so-clever note back in his voice, now he thinks he's on top--same one's always made Vern want to grab him by the neck, and shut him up with his tongue. Still does, actually--even now.

Cold air from the open window raising gooseflesh everywhere BUT his lap, where Beecher's familiar heat hovers. And that intermittent puff of minty toothpaste breath, lighting Vern's cheek again and again, almost...caressingly...

'Cause: *You* are getting turned on by this little two-step, Rachel's voice whispers. Aren't you, Vernon? Just a bit.

(Well--maybe more than a BIT.)

And how fucked is that? Exactly?

(Pretty fuckin' fucked.)

"Hmmm," Beecher muses, as he taps the bottle repeatedly--absently--making it ring like a faraway liquid bell. "What do I want. What *do* I want..."

...then SMASHES it against the wall behind him, spraying them both with booze and glass, and drops down onto Vern's waist in the blink of a half-dazed eye--shockingly heavy, his unexpected weight forcing all Vern's breath out in a single concentrated grunt.

To himself: "Man. That feels so--damn--good."

Vern wheezes beneath him, trapped with nowhere to run and nothing to do but clench his Adam's apple against the bottle's broken neck, a sharp shard of glass grazing the skin over his jugular. While Beecher, leaning in close enough to warm Vern's mouth, now--all trace of the stinky, too-proud-to-beg beggar Vern once took in apparently washed away like dirt down a hospital shower's drain, along with every last shred of amusement from his voice--

"What I *want* is for you not to move any way but how I tell you to, or you're dead. SIR."

(Ohhhh ho, boy howdy, I do NOT think so)

Spurred on by a visceral spasm of--*something*, he doesn't even want to take the time to figure out what--Vern tries to rear up, knowing in his bones this'll be his last and only chance to break free, to throw Beecher off with one good HEAVE. But Beecher just presses the glass deeper, cautioning:

"Ah ah AH, wouldn't if *I* were you--"

"Get off'a me, fuckwad--"

"Magic word, Vern-o."

"--fuck YOU, get *off*--"

A crowing snarl: "Nooo, that ain't it!"

Vern pauses, panting. Clears his throat again--drier, this time. Managing--

"You wouldn't--"

Crisp: "Oh, I think it's pretty much pushing your luck to bet on what I 'wouldn't do', don't you, Vernon? Plain fact is, after Oz..."

(...after YOU...)

"...*I* don't even know what I wouldn't do, most days."

And then, not waiting for a response--which is good, 'cause Vern can't really think of one right now, off-hand--Beecher slides just that bit further down, studying Vern's bad eye at too-close range as his bottle-hand plays nasty little games with the hinge of Vern's jaw. Presses his chest to the Nazi eagle's wing, letting their heartbeats sing along together for a moment or two, before rising up to lay the glass-edge lightly against that scarified nick in Vern's lower lid and inquire--all polite smoothness once more, like they're sharing coffee-cake confidences at some garden fuckin' tea party--

"Never did get around to asking...'bout how much *can* you see out of this eye?"

Dipping closer still, almost cheek to cheek. "Or, to put it another way--how far you think you'd be able to see, if I popped the other one like an egg?"

And: FUCK, he'll do it, you *know* he'll do it--

(Did it BEFORE)

Continuing, tapping gently at that same dead spot, mock-playful: "Y'know, just made a little incision, say--HERE, for example--"

--and suddenly, Vern can feel a hot, wet tickle streaking down along his cheek. Blood from where Beecher's obviously pressed just that last tiny bit too hard and cut him, somehow, without even knowing it. Without even seeming to notice.

Liquid, plus a subtle sting, only recognizable now Vern *makes* himself recognize it. Plus something Vern hasn't felt in years--or admitted to feeling, at least--

(Fear.)

He tries not to show it, now more than ever. Struggles with it manfully, 'cause he's such a...man, after all...

...but he can't actually STOP it. Not--entirely.

Through dry lips: "You're gonna do something, then go on ahead and *do* it."

"Don't you. Tell me. What to DO."

More taps, harder still, for extra punctuation. More...tickling.

"You look a little scared, sweetpea," Beecher observes. Voice gone all cheerful again.

Vern swallows again, gives a truncated shrug--as much of one, at any rate, as his position allows for. "Be stupid not to be."

"Uh huh. So why am I still feeling your dick against my ass?"

Carefully: "Have to take that up with my *dick*."

(Fuckin' thing's always had a mind of its own.)

Beecher sits back. Looks at the bottle-neck. Looks--down. GRINS.

And suggests, silkily:

"How do you know that isn't what I had in mind?"

(*Cupcake*.)

But meanwhile--

"So here's what happened after you left me at the hospital, just in case you've been wondering," Beecher begins, detouring briskly back into "normalcy".

Vern, muttering: "I'm all ears."

"Well, good, 'cause it's kinda choice. I wake up, and the cops are there, and my mother is there, my grandmother--hell, my DAD's there, and he didn't even come to see me in Oz. And they're all like oh Toby, it's been soooo long, we thought you were DEAD..."

"Dead in a ditch of AIDS, with your fuckin' liver exploded--"

Beecher flushes. "Says the man I found lying in a drunken stupor."

"That's different."

"Oh, yeah. Always is."

And now it's Vern's turn to flush--not as prettily, but then, he doesn't have quite the same material to work with.

"Look," he snarls, before he can remember to censor himself, "my damn WIFE called me, all right? And she--"

(--aw, fuck.)

Beecher frowns. "Your *wife*? From where, beyond the grave?"

Vern just looks at him, silent. Knowing he's already said too much.

Connecting the dots, then, his blue eyes slanting with outrage: "Oh, man. She's not even dead, is she? You big, fat, fucking--LIAR."

And: Gee, sweetpea, Vern thinks, snarkily. Almost sounds like you're--

(--*jealous*.)

"Lying, fucking, closeted Nazi shit..."

"Closeted?" Vern snaps.

"As in--in the closet?"

"I. Am NOT a fag."

Never have been, never will be. Inside, out, where-fuckin'-ever.

(No matter *what* my Old Man might'a said--almost every other day--back before I wrapped him in plastic.)

Beecher nods, understandingly. "A fag being best defined as...a guy who screws other guys."

And: Not if they're on TOP, Vern thinks, automatically. Snapping back, at the same time--

"Fuck--"

"--me? Well--there's your problem in a nutshell, isn't it?"

Back into his story, then, with Vern left fuming, still too well-pinned to thrash his anger away. And Beecher's hoity Yuppie voice, droning on and on and on...

"So there I am, lost and found again: Lawyer turned con turned raving homeless drunk makes miracle recovery, film at eleven. And I'm lying there in bed, telling everybody who asks that I don't remember one single, solitary thing about it, any of it, because I'm just so damn *grateful*--remember that word, SIR?--to be the hell away from you. From anywhere near you, anywhere you can be--near--me...

"And then, after I've been resting for a while--I start to think."

(Never the world's best idea, when we're talkin' 'bout *you*)

Vern makes no particular effort to look interested, even when Beecher throws him another glance--narrower, more pitiless. Continuing:

"See, it's that word. 'Grateful.' Must've used it ten times if you used it once, and I have to wonder: Do you truly just not GET why I, still--why *you*--"

He pauses for a moment, gathering his breath; Vern can feel a shiver pass through him, shifting thigh against thigh, the bottle-neck stirring scratchily beneath Vern's chin. Then asks, suddenly--shifting mental gears yet again--

"You remember when I had to go see Mrs Rockwell? Sister Pete tells McManus and McManus tells me, *after* he's already got the whole thing set up--gotta take responsibility for my own actions, 'cause 'you're not the only victim here, Tobias'..."

"Fuckin' McManus."

Agreeing: "Oh yeah, fucking McManus--'cause for once, the self-righteous son-of-a-bitch was RIGHT. Killing Kathy Rockwell, that was *not* all about me, any more than what happened with you and me was all about YOU."

(And that...would mean...?)

"I mean, I get out of the bin and my wife's already dead, for *real*; she runs a hose in through the car window, and my kids find her, and she leaves a note saying's it's all my fault. And me, I do what I always do, man--I start drinking, hard. All day, all night, mixing it up with those drugs they gave me, 'till I can't even remember WHO I am anymore: Not the lawyer, not the killer. Not your prag. Not Gen's husband. Not the biggest fucking failure on the face of the fucking earth...

"I'm out, and I'm gone, and it feels so *good* to be gone without a trace I can't even tell you, Vernon. Until--YOU come along."

And it's true, Vern knows it's true: Couldn't just keep on walking by, could you, like any *normal* person? Throw him a coin or don't, shrug past him every day--not after you thought you knew who he...*was*...

'Cause once something's "yours", you can't EVER leave it alone. Even if it--

(he)

--*wants* you to.

"So what happens then? Apparently, you feel BAD. Because of..."

...everything I did. To you.

But: Call bullshit on that, Vern catches himself flaring, even with the sharp edge to his jugular. 'Cause the REAL deal is, Toby--baby--

--whatever got done, you did it to yourself.

(And me?)

You just let *me* help.

"You feel bad," Beecher repeats. "To which I say congratu-fucking-lations, 'cause it doesn't change a thing and I'm the guy should know. You can feel SORRY 'till the cows come home, but Kathy's still dead and I'm still fucked, and you're still you and I'm still me and--never the twain shall meet."

(Never?)

Well...hardly ever.

Leaning closer: "And let me tell you something else, now I've got your--undivided attention, for once--"

Like I could *stop* you, Vern thinks. And remembers, with a wrench, his OWN voice saying--something, fuck, what *was* it, anyway? Something so...similar:

Could always be like this, you dizzy little 'ho, if you'd just give me what you know I want, 'stead'a always making me TAKE it.

Just tell me I'm top, I'm the best, I'm king; tell me I'm strong, I'm generous, I'm better than you deserve. Tell me you WANT to be here, with me. Tell me you love me, like you mean it. And then--

(--*mean* it.)

'Cause it's all gonna happen anyway, right? I'm just gonna keep on *doing* it, over and over, whenever the fancy takes me. Right?

Riiiight.

"After all this time," Beecher explains, "I finally do understand that you must've thought I was AGREEING to what happened, when I asked McManus to put me in your pod. You 'save' me from Adebisi, I give up my booty; fine, I get it--*now*. Though how you could've thought I understood back *then*, when the whole concept was so totally beyond my experience up to that point..."

(...well, that's a whole 'nother question.)

Dipping closer still, now, his cheek almost on top of Vern's--staring into the same eye he damaged, face deformed by perspective. And lowering his voice even further, whispering--

"You keep calling me 'ungrateful' because I get a little queasy around the guy who raped me, *repeatedly*. But look at it my way, for fucking once: If you wanted me to feel something more than hate and anger and repulsion when I think about you, then maybe you just shouldn't've gone at it that way, know what I mean? Let alone did all that...*other* stuff."

"I looked after you. I kept you safe--"

"You *fucked me up the ass*, Vernon."

Vern hisses through his nose, alight with almost equally intense--though far more repressed--rage. Thinking: Shit, I remember that first time I saw you drifting through the quad, staring at the place where your watch used to be--stunned little bunny, to arrogant to ask directions, waiting around for the next pair'a headlights to come mow you down. Nodding and smiling at everybody you met, up to and including that fuckin' jig-on-wheels Hill, like you knew for sure you could get something for nothing if you only acted polite enough. Talk soft, be nice, say 'please' and 'thanks', ring up charges 'till the cows come home and never have to deliver--

And: "Well, that's just the way it WORKS, *Toby*," he snarls back. "In--"

(Oz)

"--the *real* world."

They stare at each other again, busted back down to pretty much where they started out. With Beecher so near that Vern can feel the heat pouring off of his reddening skin as that flush mounts to his hairline, trace the sparkle of fine blond stubble along his jaw as he thrusts that lower lip out in a thwarted teenage hooker's pout...

Ahhhhrrrrr.

Finally casting him a--swear to Christ, it looks like *flirty*--little sidelong glance, from under his lowered gilt fringe of lash; stirring restlessly in Vern's lap again, apparently intent on finding the least comfortable possible position for both of them. And observing, to himself--

"...still can't even look at me, without that thing of yours pumping up like a Goddamn car jack..."

Vern bristles. "Like you're such a fuckin' prize. 'Sides--"

--what the fuck's THAT--

(*thing*)

--rubbin' up against my inner thigh?

Beecher catches the implication; looks down, then up again, with a stylish little flip of his head: Oh, *that.* Half-straightens his (no doubt cramped) legs, deliberately, making the crotch of his nice new silk-weave suit-pants...flex.

And: "Vern," he says, mock-sadly. "You really think that MEANS anything?"

Trained response, baby. Just like--

(--*this*.)

"You ticklish, Vern-o?" Beecher asks, suddenly, out of nowhere in particular.

"The fuck THAT's got to do with any--"

Reaching down: "Well, let me see."

Two stiff little fingers, hooking up under his waistband; Beecher's cast scraping along the wet, freed head, letting Vern's stupid-assly still-rigid cock thwap up HARD against white cloth and velcro. And giving that cat-sneeze laugh of his as he does it, with just a hint of nutty titter thrown in for bad measure, while Vern twists beneath his touch--teased, scalded.

"Naaah, thought not. 'Cause if you *were*, you'd know that when someone you tickle happens to laugh, it's usually NOT because they think what you're doing is *funny*."

Vern gulps one more time, aroused to the point of pain, throat so dry it scratches. But can't stop himself from growling--

"Never heard you complaining."

"Yeah, well," Beecher snaps, that feral gleam back in his eyes, "you never ASKED."

Flicking Vern's ruck-hooded flange with his nail and drawing a fresh snarl, along with an embarassingly slick drip of lube. And cooing--

"So how's that feel, huh? Like you wanna *laugh*?"

Not...exactly.

"Just WHAT are you--"

Another flick, plus a deft, full-body undulation--Beecher's got a knee on either side of Vern's thigh, now, half-draped over the rest of his ex-"owner"'s bulky, outstretched body like a human electric blanket, new pockets of sweet fire blooming everywhere they connect. Digging his stubbly chin into Vern's collarbone and murmuring, into the heaving side of his neck:

"Doing? Oh, I'm paying you back, Vern, that's all--for all the many, many things you've done for me, 'ungrateful' pussy-bitch prag that I am. 'Cause, to be frank...I don't want to *owe* you anything. Anymore."

Vern bucking one last time, feeling his rotator cuffs blaze, hearing what must be a piece of glass crunch as he squirms uncontrollably, trying to unseat his tormentor. And Beecher laughing, contemptuously--pressing him back with casted hand and bottle-neck alike, rubbing and humping against him like a dog, piston-thrusting as his clothed crotch jousts for precedence with Vern's--UNclothed one--

Beecher's buried voice thrumming through the flesh below Vern's clavicle as his fingers dip lower, busy themselves up and down Vern's shaft. Noting: "Sure seems like you want me to keep on doing what I'm doing, SIR..."

"This--" Vern grits, "--is a simple--physical--fuckin'--response."

The same 'understanding' nod. "Just like how I used to get hard, make like I was enjoying myself, buck and moan and fucking *come*, and the whole time I was begging you to stop." Another thrust. "'Member? Which I guess must mean...*I* didn't want it, either."
And Vern can sense his smile, skin-smothered, a toothy, derisive grin. Like: *Whoops*.

"Arrrr, go screw your--"

Thrust. Jerk. Fire where they touch. Flame rising, unstoppable, behind Vern's eyes-- lids squeezed shut, bloody sting forgotten--broken bottle-edge pressing, Beecher's cast dirtying itself on the cold wooden floor beneath them both. Pins and needles, glass-dust driving itself deeper beneath his skin like a rash, hangover headache, bloody lip, back and forth like the bruising beat of a drum, and--

"NO," Beecher hisses back, practically into Vern's mouth. "This is me screwing *you*, Vern-baby, ME using YOU--gonna get my nut, then get the fuck out. So how's it feel, you being the one on bottom for a change? How's it fuckin' well *feel*?"

"Ah, uh, huh, huhrrrRRRRR--"

--feels so, feels, so, God--damn--

(RIGHT)

This muffled, strangled noise, breaking from Vern's mouth and disappearing between Beecher's lips--a keening cry, half moan, half--

(that wouldn't be a *squeal*, would it, Vernon?)

More like a whine. Or even a...

(...sob.)

As Beecher's teeth meet his, triggering a final explosion: Gulping in Vern's climax like mouth-to-mouth in reverse, a cat sucking a baby's breath.

Then silence, broken only by ragged breath. Wet mess everywhere, already turning cold. And Vern, lying there limp and shaking, aching with self-hatred--all fucked out with nowhere to go, and no one to blame but himself, damnit...

Beecher pulls away, orders himself somewhat. Pokes Vern in the stomach, and demands, without preamble:

"Your parole officer, what's his name?"

"...Hamid. Roshan, Rushan, Ramon, somethin' like that--"

"Phone number?" Vern reels off a string of digits, only stumbling once. "*Thank* you."

Question left hovering, unsaid--what are you gonna DO with it, Toby? More revenge?

(Do I really want to know?)

...well, it'll wait.

Post-come lassitude already kicking in, apartment blurring around the edges. Going down hard, and--happy to do so, truth be told. *More* than.

But: Beecher, back on his feet, leaning down once more--one last time. To say--

"So here's the really funny part, SIR. The big joke--and it's a doozy, 'specially in context--"

And Vern, fading fast, faster, fastest. Thinking, Jesus--

--can't you *ever* figure out when to shut the fuck UP, you fuckin' little prep-school debating team pansy?

(Unless *made* to?)

"I'm in Oz, I just killed somebody, my life as I know it has just been hung by the neck 'till dead dead dead; Gen and I were probably going to get divorced anyway, no matter what. So you come around, doing your Big Daddy thing--all that bullshit sympathy, the arm on the shoulder and the big old smile: *Sucks*, don't it, buddy? And it's not like you have NO charm, when you put your Hitler-sodden old mind to it. You could've seduced me, gotten me used to the idea, broken me in easy--hell, I might've even thought I loved you, after a while. That's just how fucked up I was.

"But noooo. Not like you started and then you stopped--*you* never even tried. And why is that, huh? I mean, you let on like you're some kind of Aryan king shit, some pure-blood measure of a man...but deep at heart, I don't think you think anyone'd be CAPABLE of loving you--"

(Shut up. Shut *up*. Shut UP, *shut up*, *SHUT UP*)

"--whether you let them, or not."

Vision narrowing, inexorably, bad eye first: Beecher shrinking to a backlit line, his face a dull gold corona. Blue eyes peering down through the haze, as this *pressure* pulls Vern further and further beyond where he can summon enough interest to care about what just happened, let alone figure out what it might mean.

A hand touches his forehead, smoothes his lids shut, the whole room disappearing right before his mind's startled eye: A heart attack, a pulled plug, a brain tumor scraping away at his last conscious thought. Peeling it free and wiping it out from the bottom up, like court testimony taken on some kinda cosmic etch-a-sketch pad.

But: "Thank you anyway, Vernon," Beecher's voice seems to tell him, right next to his temple--vowels and consonants crushed flat by the weight of encroaching blackout, a bare articulate sigh. "For..."

(everything)

*You're so very welcome, sweetpea.*

Then darkness, to the almost infinite power. A whole lot of nothing. Just Beecher's voice, singing softly--

*Ohhhhh...Lord above me, *make* him love me, the way he SHOULD...*

After which Vern wakes up, a whole day later--hands unbound, head clear, alone in his glass-filled bed. Same bed, same place, same empty, Beecher-less, post-Oz LIFE he's now gonna have to lie in, whatever might--

(or might NOT)

--come next.

'Cause, like the old song says, you got it bad. And...

*...tha-a-at...

...ain't...

...good.*

SAMARITAN--Epilogue

Three months later...

...and Vern Schillinger's lying flat on his back on the concrete floor of--*his*, by Christ --new garage, taking a deep breath of bright Spring wind as it spills through the open door and tasting it like a sharp tang at the back of his throat: Fresh motor-oil, sun-warmed metal, thawed sidewalk grit and garbage. Lightning-bolted biceps aching comfortably as he makes transmission adjustments on some Jap piece-of-shit Kawasaki, while lending half an absent ear to the low rumble of profanely amiable, profoundly aimless conversation leaking over from those three bikers in the far corner checking out that newest Harley: That super-

(over-)

-customized one with all the chrome and flash. Vern could take or leave the thing, himself--he far prefers the solid, no-bull power of far older models. But seeing how pose-happy dipshits like these are the ones payin' his bills these days...

(his CLIENTELE)

Yeah. *There*'s a word.

...he's willing to make an exception.

After the fire at his Old Man's place, followed by Beecher's little midnight visit, Vern spent the next few weeks bracing himself for imminent re-arrest, a return trip to Oz-- not that that's happened. Instead, the same insurance adjustors he'd been valiantly trying to pretend didn't exist tracked him down in mid-flyer distribution, and told him the fire's origins had finally been traced back to a combination of "natural" factors: Grease layered on grease, twenty years deep; his Old Man's broken bottles; a cigarette or two--

(or twenty)

--consumed so completely in the blaze they left no forensically-detectable trace of their presence behind; hardly surprising, since Vern'd actually set the Goddamn thing himself.
(But it wasn't like he was gonna tell *them* that.)

So the Old Man's insurance--of which he'd had a truly surprising fuck of a LOT, it turned out, for a near-penniless tightwad--reverted to Vern, dumping him right into a figurative pile of disposable income. Thus, the garage, and the shop it was attached to: VERN'S BIKE REPAIR--new, used, whatever. Trading on his biker connections to jump-start a customer base, he'd actually been running in the black by the time Spring finally broke--pretty good, especially in this mongrel-infested town where most new (*white*-run) businesses go under before they make their first month's rent. Even dear old P.O. Hamid didn't seem to mind Vern's sudden surge of entrepreneurial initiative, much as it routinely takes him dangerously close to his old community: Doing straight business with possibly crooked people just managing to skirt the ragged edge of ignorable lapse rather than violation-worthy offense, apparently--'specially since Vern's success probably ends up counting as a career feather in Hamid's figurative turban.

No hanging with other ex-cons, no "criminal fraternization": The primary rule of parole, every previous time Vern's been forced to play buddy-buddy with the concept. But as a *business*man, Vern's biker contacts become a customer base, not a liability. So why NOT let it slide, considering you can't actually do diddly to stop it?

Vern allows himself a brief, grim smile. Thinking--

Well, RoSHAN, 's been a slice. Nice to know this prejudice thing runs both ways...
(...not that I ever really suspected it *didn't*.)

So: Kiss and say goodbye, in between obligatory monthly office check-ins; you got your quotas to meet, I got mine. And from now on, we respect each other's space about it, like REAL people. Like *citizens*.

(You arrogant, morally certain little raghead prick.)

Not that running his own shop had exactly been a walk in the fuckin' park, thus far, equipment and supply prices being what they were; one of the nastier surprises of the free world, after eight years in Oz. So eventually, in order to conserve a little of his own venture capital--

(Talkin' like a boss already, huh, Vernon?)

--he'd ended up having to call in the services of someone whose big-lipped face he'd hoped...fervently...to *never see again*.

"Hey, Moby--missed you down at the ol' homestead," Charlie Cutter had lied, brightly, goggling 'round the garage as Vern glowered down on him--shamelessly aware his old pal "Adolf" obviously didn't yet have the savings to pass up his "special" suppliers' rates. "Maaaaaan! Bet you feel like you done fell right on yo' feet in a kennel built fo' one, dog."

"Don't call me a--"

"Figure'a speech, Daddy Doggy. Jus' a li'l pet name 'tween friends, no *in*sult inTENded. YOU know..."

A pause; then, more pointed than Vern would've given the annoying little ape credit for knowing how to be--

"...like--nigga."

And that's how it's gone, ever since: Cutter showing up with truckloads of miscellaneous (but extremely affordable) bike-related shit off the backs of countless other trucks, Vern looking askance and then--looking the other way. Doesn't want to know where it came from, and the con-artist coon ain't exactly been volunteering. Which still doesn't mean he keeps his big mouth *shut*, as such...

"Yo, Adolf. Got your monthly here. Take it out back?"

"You know anywhere the fuck *else* I'd want it?"

A grin. "Man, c'mon; that shit is just TOO easy."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ins and outs, backs and forths, give and fuckin' take. A new power-base to forge and maintain, a new rep to carve, a brand new face for an (almost) brand new game; everything negotiable, and nothing at all for free. Just like Oz, really--

(except...not.)

Vern pauses between thoughts, frowning slightly; leans back against the floor again, and feels his lats pop. Takes a minute to remind himself just how lucky he's been, all told: Making money, losing weight, working hard, sleeping well. Going home to a full range of channels and a six-pack like any other normal American working guy, plus the occasional date with Huguette, that affable slut of a French-Canadian waitress down at the Slapshot Bar and Grill--same one with the red-black dye-job and the sweetly-quirked mouthful of crooked teeth, who'll scribble her number at the bottom of the check for any guy who looks like half-decent Green Card husband material...

Bed made, lying in it and feeling just fine, thank you VERY much. No more late-night calls from Rachel, no more unscheduled drop-ins from Hamid. No dreams, most nights--not that he can remember, anyway--

(*most* nights)

Feeling his ears flush bright red, meanwhile, before he can clamp down on the memory QUITE fast enough to keep himself from having it. Waking next to Huguette, only to have her ask, sleepily--

"So, dis To-bey, c'est ton mari, eh? De 'ex'."

"...Rachel?"

"TObey, Vehrnon. Dat one you talk about, in your sleep."

(I was NOT talking in my...)

Adding, pointedly, at his baffled sidelong stare: "La *biche*."

...aw, crap.

Over and over, with her or without, in all his most unguarded moments: The second just before his alarm clock rings every morning, for example, or the minute after unconsciousness washes over him at night, pulling him down and under like some blood-warm tide. That's when he can still feel ex-lawyer, ex-prag, ex-homeless freak Tobias Beecher's wounded ghost curl up close beside him, snuggling into his arms like a sleepy child; feel Beecher's rough pink tongue lap at him, questingly; feel the delicate touch of Beecher's ruffled hair beneath his chin, brushing at the pulse of his throat...

Murmuring: Oh, sir. Vernon.

(...Daddy.)

Huhrrrr.

About once every day since the morning after his last, uh--ENCOUNTER with the ungrateful little turd, when he woke with a throbbing skull, a clench-frozen jaw, glass-burn just about everywhere the floor could touch and a lap-full of dried-on sperm--Vern's amused himself by running his own version of Beecher's fantasy appeal to the cops: "Yeah, that's right, Officer, I *do* want to lodge a complaint: Guy broke into my house--*

(--while I was too fall-down drunk to stop him--)

*--tied me up, held a broken fuckin' BOTTLE to my face--and then, uh...well...*

(...he jerked me off.)

And who was this, exactly? Oh, nobody special. Just some guy I know--

(from jail)

Well, yeah, we were--*room*mates, him 'n' me, but we're not--*I*'m not--HE's not, my...*anything*...

(Not--anymore.)

Jesus. Might as well call *himself* the nuthouse wagon ahead a'time, and save the State the fuckin' quarter.

Thankful for what coverage the 'cycle's shadow can provide, Vern feels his frown deepen further, twisting into an outright grimace. Hearing Beecher's voice, now--NOT the Old Man's, or Rachel's, for fuckin' once--chiming in from the back of his head and reminding him, mockingly:

*Could've seduced me...hell, I might have thought I LOVED you...*

...that's just how fucked up I was.

Vern gives a grim non-smile at the echo, lips quirking in rictus, bad-smell-sharp: Yeah, riiiight. *Love* Beecher, for fuck's sake. BE loved...by him...

(Oh, be serious.)

The old refrain, a litany learned by rote, utterly automatic: Beecher can't love *himself*, let alone anyone else. He hates his own fuckin' guts, so much so that he'll mainline poison just to get out of his own head; ran over a little girl, then tricked Vern into punishing him for it, 'cause he was too much of a fuckin' arrogant coward to do it himself. He's a spoiled pussy bitch, a black hole maw, sucking everything around him inside, dragging it down to his own dead level. Like every Goddamn Liberal, he doesn't know what he wants, just doesn't want what he's got.

(*Ever*.)

And, shit: Is that what *I* want? Is THAT what I *want*? How fucked up would I have to be, exactly, for *Tobias fuckin' Beecher* to be what I WANT?

Because--

--he *is* what I want.

(Most definitely.)

So bad, sometimes, it's like Vern's fingers knit and his toes curl, his hair--what little there is of it--raising up like quills. So bad it's like it chokes him; the simple thought of Beecher, part by part--Beecher the last time Vern saw him, with his slick new 'do, his clean new citizen's clothes. His glasses. His *suit*.

Beecher, free from the Old Man's radiator and safely back in his old, familiar world of privilege, brief jaunt on the streets no doubt all but forgotten: The stink, the dreads, the daily round of sucking off passersby for whatever bottle came cheapest. The way he'd still be, Vern hadn't found him, grabbed him, held him down 'till his habit was all sweated out--not that he really seems to *remember* that particular fact, ungrateful little--

(cunt)

--that he always was.

Always will be, wherever he is now. Whatever--WHOever--he's...

(doing)

Still: This *thing* remains, deep inside Vern like a cut full of dirt, packed too full to heal. Want, like an open, twisting hole. Want, need, whatever...

First rule of business, in Oz or out: Can't NEED--anything. Can't even want anything too hard, you wanna stay--

(safe)

But: Welcome distraction finally breaks the chain of "logic", thank Christ, taking the form of a shadow by the open door and an uncertain, yet oddly familiar--*female*--voice:

"Uh...Vern?"

He flips the wrench aside, rearing up. Rumbling--

"'S what it says on the door, swee--"

--oh, what the HELL.

(Rachel.)

Rachel, hovering hesitant in the doorway: Glasses on but squinting nevertheless, brows knit; back straight, arms crossed, worried face backlit by her hair's upswept halo. The very sight of her taking Vern's breath away with one contradictory mental gut-punch, way-too-welcome pleasure/pain run through every part of him at once: *My BABY* on the one hand, *that fuckin' race-traitor SLUT* on the other--

--but there's no time to think about that, any of it; not how she found him, what she's doing here, just what the *Christ* she thinks it's gonna accomplish for them to be suddenly back face-to-face without a shred of decent warning, after lo these many months of rancorous avoidance. Because behind her, something--someONE--else lurks, smirking, whose mere presence is enough to send Vern's train of throught rocketing right back off the tracks in the exact opposite direction. A dapper figure in neat, clean, upscale clothes, grey-gold hair set off with a pale goatee, eyes similarly lens-shaded: Eyes Vern dare not meet in dreams, let alone expect to lock with over an open can a' motor oil and the bikers' oblivious background chatter...

("la *biche*")

Lawyer, prag, "project" past; bad dream, worse memory, constant phantom present. Fate's own Venus Flytrap. Synaptic feedback loop from Hell. Never-ending, ever-repeating, human friggin' carwreck made flesh--

(Jesus shit, God Almighty, FUCK)

Or, to put it another--but equally fitting--way:

*Beecher.*

(To be continued)