King Me

By Matthew Rowland

K did not want to be King anymore. Not without his mother. And not on his father's terms. But Railroad wasn't called Railroad for nothing. And no was not an answer he would accept from his only son, the son whose duty it was to take over the family media empire. K knew it would have helped to have a plan of his own, a direction, an ambition, anything. And he wished he did. A girlfriend would have been nice too, would have been better than his clumsy imaginary friend Jerry Lewis. But when nothing much seems worth doing, it's hard to have a future worth having. Until one morning, Railroad kicks K out of the house and the family, then somehow manages to frame his son for his assassination. Never mind that the real assassins are as bumbling as the FBI agents trying to catch K.
From that moment forward, K's future is no longer a matter of whether K wants to be King, it's a matter of whether he can slip out of the noose tightening around his neck.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 27, 2009
• ISBN: 9780595619948

Matthew Rowland

Matthew Rowland is a Mid-Westerner who came to Los Angeles to work in the entertainment business. After thirty years of filmmaking, he’s now mostly out of the business. He splits his time between Santa Monica and Ojai.

Book preview

1

K did not believe he was better than everybody else in the world, and, contrary to what his detractors claimed, he had never believed it.

Until people started calling him a spoiled shit to his face, acting like Why Bother? was some kind of declaration of superiority, or arrogance, or proof that he expected to sit on his fat ass while other people did the real work, when all it was was a stupid slogan on a cheap T-shirt, smart-ass, to be sure, meant to ruffle a few feathers, his dad’s mostly, although he’d long since given up thinking anything could pierce the armor-plated hide of Roderick Random Call Me Railroad Henry, when it was never about his feeling superior, that kind of thinking never even crossed his mind, ’cause he wasn’t one of those people who believed it was even possible for a person or people to always be right, but always about trying to have a sense of humor, like the time on the Fourth of July he cracked up when he saw that homeless guy on Venice Beach wearing the same T-shirt, thinking that’s fuckin’ ironic, not that he’d object to Why Bother? being the big question, since he’d be the last one to say that the way things were was be all end all, the last fighting to keep the homeless where they belonged, status quo status quo, since keeping things the same shouldn’t be the point to anyone’s life, least of all his, and he’d be the first to admit that any skepticism about the status quo came partly from all the advantages he had in life, advantages he had had for as long as he could remember, which meant that unlike most people he had the luxury of being skeptical about needing so much luxury, but having advantages did not automatically mean he believed he deserved them, in fact it was the opposite; course one ginormous advantage of his advantages was being lucky enough to see the big picture or as big a picture as any overprivileged, overindulged, overstimulated twenty-one-year-old American living in Los Angeles in the twenty-first century could bring into focus, but he couldn’t pretend that that meant he personally was so great, that he was some kind of exceptional person entitled to lay down the law for everybody else, one of those assholes grabbing more than his share of the pie just because he woke up every morning thinking his shit didn’t stink when in reality there was someone always on his ass pooperscooping it out of sight out of mind.

Maybe, K thought, pretending things like that was something you got better at when you were older, maybe that was what they were really supposed to teach you in college. Well, that was one lesson he wouldn’t have a chance to learn.

K gazed out the window as he tapped the flat, semisolid surface of his Grape Nuts with the bowl of his spoon. The sky was blue and full of little lamb clouds, washed clean of a summer’s worth of smog by last night’s unnatural, fall downpour. The coastline from Point Dume down to Palos Verdes sparkled with easy self-confidence. Catalina was an everyman’s Bali Hai. Today, K thought, promises to be everything Southern California believes about itself: absolute perfection. It should have been an inspiration to urge K beyond the disaster of Why Bother? but instead it only reminded him of how few things in life inspired him.

Christ, how was it all the time about advantages and never about disadvantages, like it couldn’t possibly affect the final outcome that he had the Jerry in him fucking with him every day of his life. How would they like to be stalked by Jerry Lewis for eight plus years, throw that in the balance against appearances, and it wouldn’t be so easy to make him out to be a troubled, would-be criminal, a budding sociopath moments from freaking out on the world, as if they’d do better, as if they’d have no problem with the mortifying clumsiness of a Jerry in him, as if he got what he deserved for spending way too many Saturday afternoons inside watching Cinderfeller, The Delicate Delinquent, and The Stooge on TV instead of shooting bottle rockets at cars or climbing around construction sites or playing in parking garages, which was hardly fair considering all his friends who watched as much TV but weren’t locked in a fight to the death with Wile E. Coyote or Bruce Wayne or Lucy Ricardo, how would they like to wake up every morning wishing that Jerry Lewis had never been born or leastwise had never gotten into movies, how would they like it if that was the best they could do, if their one ambition in life was to strangle Jerry Lewis?

You’d have to be insane to think that anyone with a Jerry in him dogging his footsteps would ever—could ever—think he was better than anyone, let alone everybody.

The unfamiliar sucking slap of cardboard falling on polished granite snapped K’s head around. Gloria, his father’s housekeeper, had knocked a toaster oven–sized cardboard box onto the floor. Without even glancing at K to acknowledge this rare disruption of the rigid order of the house, Gloria carefully replaced the unopened box on the stainless steel counter and resumed her mopping. That Gloria pretended to ignore K was not a surprise to him; that was the way things had been between them from the day K moved back in. Which was why he had been trying to catch her spying on him since he sat down at the table with his bowl of cereal. He was determined to prove that what she was really doing was keeping her eye on him, not cleaning an already spotless, never used kitchen.

It would have been easier to catch her if he could have sat facing in, but K could not bear looking at his father’s kitchen, could not take the unrelenting shine of its stainless steel everything. Nowhere was there a friendly surface on which to rest your eyes. The whole house was like that, which is why K hated having to live there. In addition to the cold, metal kitchen, he hated the sharp corners on the furniture in the family room and the icy granite floors beside his bed, but he hated most of all the absence of fingerprints on the walls and dust bunnies under the couch, the lack of flaws that gave a house some personality and character, the flaws that made you comfortable being there. K could not understand how anyone could think that the pinnacle of human existence was living in the equivalent of a brand-new hotel, a small luxury hotel maybe, many-starred, of course, not a chain, one with the most contemporary styling and electronic conveniences, but a hotel nonetheless, like some mechanically affectionate, high-class prostitute whose love anyone could have for the price.

K also hated his father’s house because it was the disavowal of everything their life had been before his mother died. K remembered how much the dirty dishes in the sink, the dings in the woodwork, the stains on the carpet, annoyed his father; one of the privileges of being rich, his father declared when he started building his new house, was never having to look at a spot or a streak or a stain. Immaculate was the way his father had to have it. That included his housekeeper Gloria, too: an untouchable, Hispanic, virgin goddess, clear-skinned, clear-eyed, like something out of a Renaissance painting, but hot, too, way too hot to handle. K had fantasized about making love to her from the moment he met her five years ago. Gloria was only a few years older than K, but she had always been off-limits to father and son both, because that was what his father required. Gloria understood that very well when she tantalized K with glimpses of her breasts and legs; she knew that in this house the housekeeper must remain as immaculate as the house.

K chewed a spoonful of Grape Nuts and glanced slyly at the toaster oven–sized box, hoping to see something on it that would explain its significance. Why did it seem that it had appeared out of nowhere and at the same time seem so familiar? Why did he have the feeling that he should know what was inside it? Was it simply that it was as out of place as he was? Or was it like the big brown box under the Christmas tree, the one too big for wrapping paper, the one he could not wait to open, the surprise gift he wanted most of all? It was all he could do to stop the Jerry in him from running over and tearing the cardboard to shreds to see what was inside.

He took another scoop of the Grape Nuts and looked down into the cavity his spoon had created. At the bottom, there was one small Grape Nut floating on the surface of a shallow milk lake. That little bastard has no idea which end is up, K thought, same as me. He crunched down on his mouthful of cereal.

It wasn’t like he blamed the Jerry in him for everything. Case in point: Jerry was 75 percent responsible for the Penelope debacle but only 5 percent responsible for his still being a virgin.

The Jerry in him gagged on a Grape Nut. How many times do I have to tell you? You’re not a virgin.

Your word against mine, K dismissed him, and I was there.

I was there, too.

K ignored him.

Nope, Jerry was not responsible for Wren. Jerry was not the one whose sexual hunger would not let Wren off the hook after her own desire, and her genuine willingness, gave way to misgiving and doubt, until against her better judgment, she had passed the point of yes but had not accepted no because of her fear of disappointing him. It wasn’t Jerry who thought that a bright red condom from a dispenser in a truck-stop bathroom, made from something that looked and felt like an industrial glove used for pulling blue jeans from their stone-washed chemical baths was the right way to go; Jerry didn’t get her zipper unstuck and pull her pants off or use the weight of his kiss to get her onto her back; and mostly Jerry didn’t continue to poke and poke with an industrially coated penis at her completely dry vagina like he was trying to ram it through the zipper of her blue jeans long after Wren had given up pretending she wanted him inside her.

Christ, K thought, rubbing his face in his hands, attempting to chafe the embarrassment out of his memory. How can someone who acts like that be better than anyone? There certainly wasn’t anything about him at the moment that qualified him for all he had in life.

This is how I’ll always remember you. His father’s voice slipped in through the scraping of his palms against his almost invisible whiskers.

Buenos días, Señor Rileroad, Gloria offered her greeting like large blocks of sugar for Railroad’s delectation.

K started, dropped his hands, and spun around on his stool as he registered the shock of his father’s presence. K had been doing everything to stay out of his father’s way—remaining in his room until Railroad left for work, coming home long after he was in bed—trying to make his father forget that he was living with an unemployed college washout, but there, five feet away, larger than life, totally out of the blue, bearing down on his son, was Roderick Random Call Me Railroad Henry.

Buenos días, Gloria, his father replied with a stiff half bow, acknowledging the proper order of things before turning to consider his son. K was the doomed deer in his father’s high beams. What’s going on? Why isn’t he at the office? The adrenaline of his panicked thoughts jerked K out of his morning lassitude. I never would have gotten out of bed if I thought he was still home.

Dressed like a bum, doing nothing. Up to no good, Railroad’s tone was weary but firm. I was very clear that I never wanted to see a child of mine wearing that T-shirt, K.R.

But … K stammered, it’s a joke, and besides— Railroad cut him off before K could protest that he had never heard his father say that.

It’s not funny, Railroad sliced the weariness out of his voice. Over his father’s shoulder, Gloria held her nose and scrunched up her face as she pointed at the shirt with her mop.

Railroad put his briefcase and a shiny red shoebox on the counter and held out his hand, Give it to me.

What?

Since I can’t trust you to do anything right, I’m burning it.

K shrugged and took a step toward the door. I’ll change.

Now! Railroad blocked his escape. Give it to me!

Railroad reached out as if he was going to remove the shirt forcibly, but K retreated and quickly peeled the shirt off over his head. Railroad grabbed it from him and angrily wadded it up. K shivered and hugged himself, feeling the outline of his ribs through the rough goose bumps rising across his midsection. Then, as his father’s anger abated, as if he were having second thoughts about a clothing purchase, Railroad shook the T-shirt out and held it up to study the slogan.

Watching him, wondering why his father could not see the harmless humor in the joke, K questioned for the first time how much he and his father had in common. Physically, they were nearly clones: more or less the same height and weight; the same light brown hair and blue eyes; same strong chins and noses, same high foreheads. At the company picnic, their name tags could easily read: K. R. Henry—like father; R. R. Henry—like son. But name tags did not come close to telling the whole story. K knew that some of their differences had to do with age, but he also knew that his father possessed a confidence and certainty that K could neither manage nor imagine wanting. Railroad had an unquestioning sense of right and wrong that he used to flatten everyone, family and strangers, who got in his way. K, meanwhile, had a hard time even questioning his father’s right to mow people down.

I’ve never been a person who saw much point to being the underdog, Railroad mused, but K knew his father never mused for long, since he had no doubt where he was headed. To root for, I mean. Because a true champion must always come out on top, Tiger should win every time he tees off, Chicago should have kept winning championships with Michael until they had to push him around the court in a wheelchair. That’s the natural order of things. People will try to tell you that competition is healthy, but only as long as it doesn’t prevent the right guy or the right team from coming out on top. The right guy is always the champion because he’s already proven he has what it takes. And that’s what most people in their right minds want, too. They don’t want the doubt that the underdog causes; they want to know the champ’s always the champ. That the way things are isn’t an accident. Railroad wadded up the shirt and tossed it onto his briefcase. He looked at his son. That’s what Henrys are: champions, not underdogs. K.R., you were supposed to be a champion.

Maybe there’s a camp or a seminar or some religion or something that could teach me what it takes. K could not stop himself. That’s what you want, right? You want me to have what it takes.

Cut the crap. You know you already have what it takes.

What if I don’t?

Out of the question. You’re a Henry, although you don’t seem to want to accept that.

Maybe not, K thought as a shiver rose up out of the floor and shook him until his teeth clacked. He wrapped his arms tighter around his chest to keep from being shaken to bits.

Turning away with visible disgust, Railroad began taking everything from his briefcase and piling it up on the counter. Gloria hurried to help, first by picking up the papers that had slipped onto the floor and then by prying the case from Railroad so that she could pick out all the fuzz balls and stray paper clips.

Don’t be here when I get home, Railroad said quietly, sweeping the papers into the trash.

I haven’t been, K spoke quickly, his teeth still clacking, unaware of where his father was headed. I’ve been trying to stay out of your way, Dad. If I had known you weren’t going to work this morning—

Stop whining and listen to me, Railroad interrupted. I’m not talking about today. I’m talking about tomorrow and the next day and the next. I want you out of my house, out of my life!

K gulped for air. He could not speak, but the shaking stopped.

I can’t abide you any longer. In spite of everything I’ve done for you, you’re a class A, irredeemable fuck-up. I can finally see that. I can also finally accept that there’s nothing I could have done to prevent it, either. You’re not my problem anymore. This T-shirt is a drop in the bucket when it comes to your failings.

K choked out a desperate That’s crazy. It’s a joke.

No, it’s not crazy. Because what’s finally clear is that you hate me—me and everything I stand for. You don’t become as rich as I have by being an idiot. I know hatred like I know what’s right and wrong. Right and wrong, good and evil, love and hate: those are the immutables. Maybe it’s natural in some families for a son to stab his father in the back, but it’s not for the Henrys. Henrys don’t sweat blood to hand their sons the good life on a silver platter only to watch that ingrate shit on that platter.

Come on, Dad, things can’t be that bad. You said it yourself. I’m a Henry.

Not good enough, not anymore. Not as far as I’m concerned. As for what you should do, I would suggest you consider some deep, deep therapy to deal with your problems; Henrys by virtue of their superior stock don’t need therapy, but I think you somehow were corrupted so you probably could actually benefit from it. Maybe if you remove the cancerous hatred of all that is good and true from your mind, you stand a chance of making a small contribution to the world in the form of living a normal, decent—albeit pathetic—life.

Railroad paused to worry the frayed leather edges of a worn-through corner of his now-empty briefcase. I once imagined I would be handing down my briefcase to you—on the day when you took your rightful place in the executive suite of Random Incorporated. Railroad gestured to indicate that was impossible now. He turned and handed the briefcase to Gloria. Can you give this to some deserving immigrant who can put it to good use?

Muchas gracias, Señor Rileroad. Gloria hurried off like a squirrel with an acorn.

But I do have one thing for you to take with you. Railroad picked up the shoebox and held it out for K, who accepted it automatically. It was your mother’s. Her things are in there—letters, stuff, I don’t know exactly. Anyway, she wanted you to have it when you graduated from college. But now that we know that’s never going to happen, it seems like the last day you’re a Henry is a good enough substitute.

The last day I’m a Henry, K choked on the thought.

Without another word, Railroad picked up the toaster oven–sized box, grabbed the T-shirt, and headed toward the garage door. I’m sorry, but this is not what I had in mind.

K’s mind smoked like a tree that had been struck by lightning. How could his father say those things? How could he even think them? Never mind the how—K fought for clarity—but why? Why would Railroad want to be certain about something so awful? Cracking wise wasn’t the same as shitting on your father’s platter. Making immature mistakes was not the same as hating your father. K was stung, close to emotionally terminal, but he was also on fire. And determined to do something. Wait, Dad. Wait! K would not accept that one degrading lecture was all it took for him to be kicked out of the family. He ran toward the garage door. Only later, when he had time to reflect, did it seem that things would have gone better if he had been wearing a shirt and shoes.

A few steps down the short hallway that led to the garage, Gloria pounced on him out of nowhere, planted her shoulder in the middle of his chest, and blocked him backward into the laundry hamper. Then, without giving him a chance to regain his footing, she wielded her mop better than Alan Hale did his quarterstaff, raining soggy blows and abrading him with its leading edge as she drove him backward into the kitchen. She had nearly completed her rout when she attempted the coup de grace of swiping the scouring pad across both his nipples. Initially, the searing pain that shot through K doubled him over and halted his retreat. Gloria lifted her chin, posed in victory with the staff flung out at a jaunty angle. But then K, secretly unvanquished, grabbed the handle of the refrigerator and ripped it open, thereby launching the contents of the door at her. A barrage of eggs, buttermilk, cream, ketchup, Coca-Cola, and applesauce exploded in an instant slimy mess around Gloria, forcing her backward and changing the course of history. If it had been up to him, K would have used this legitimate act of self-defense to leave the field with honor or, more important, to outflank Gloria’s position and advance on his original objective, the dispelling of his father’s condemnation, but K knew it was hardly ever up to him. He also knew that the Jerry in him could never resist a food fight.

Wearing a huge grin, he scooped up handfuls of edible muck and pelted Gloria, who dropped her weapon to shield her face. Then, before she could recover, he scooped up more muck and skated toward her, firing at close range. K had to admit it was fun, even though he knew it was not advancing his cause—his right to remain a Henry. But then as he circled around to reload, Gloria unexpectedly whirled, clamped her hands on his ears and began furiously shaking his head. The Jerry in him did not panic but quickly began tickling her sides so decisively that she had to release her grip. But Gloria, a natural opportunist, simply windmilled her arms around and clamped her hands on his balls.

Their faces close enough for K to steal a kiss, she leered at him, her triumph final. Unfortunately, the pain that shot through K’s groin at the first tug made him slip and lose his balance, so instead of surrendering, the Jerry in him sat down on the crisper, pulling Gloria over his shoulder, face-first, into a bowl of rice pudding on the bottom shelf.

His balls freed on impact, K scrambled to his feet and in the process cracked the back of her head on the shelf above her.

Ju goo fur nuthin’ lazy sheet! Now Gloria was really mad. Face covered with pudding, she crawled through the muck to reclaim her weapon.

K looked at her across the foaming muck: she has ketchup and egg white and pudding in her hair and eyes, he thought, and she’s still hot. No way she’s a virgin. Then he wondered if the whole Hispanic virgin off-limits thing applied if you weren’t a Henry. Thinking maybe it was time for a truce, K reached out his hand to help her up, but Gloria would never accept a draw; she started kicking out at K, smashing her heel down on his bare foot and opening an inch-long gash. K grabbed the wound and hopped out of the kitchen on one foot.

Fortunately the Jerry in him had had enough fun, since Gloria came through the swinging door in hot pursuit. K ran for his bedroom but then stopped on the threshold and threw himself at her with his arms flailing madly. He quickly got inside her defenses and prevented her from following him in, but before he slammed the door in her face, she jabbed the ammonia-soaked mop end down into the cut on his instep. K screamed and fell backward onto his bed; it felt like someone had driven a nail through his instep.

A few minutes of wrestling with himself later, K managed to pin Jerry and force him to agree to stop trying to pull K’s instep up to his mouth so that Jerry could suck the ‘poison’ out. But then, with K’s shot at redemption looking less and less likely as each minute passed, Jerry insisted on dressing K like a terrorist/riot policeman before he would allow K out of his room again.

But my father’s getting away, K groaned.

It’s for your own good, Jerry put his foot down. Clearly I’m the only one who cares about you in this family.

So K stopped fighting him and put on the ski mask because he knew he could never defeat Jerry and Railroad at the same time.

2

Even taking as long as it took to find the right outfit, when K was finally standing in the open door of his bedroom, ready to launch his counterassault, he had to admit that Jerry was right. He felt strong in all his improvised body armor—the stiff, black Carhartt jacket, the steel-toed boots, bulky ski gloves and ski mask. He felt good taking matters into his own hands. He could be confident. He could be sneaky. He could be invincible. He could take all comers: Gloria, Roderick Random Call Me Railroad Henry, Penelope and her self-important boyfriend, those cover-your-ass chickenshits on the UCLA Administrative Board.

Ugh! K gave a muted, manly grunt as he dropped to his belly, then slithered down the hallway toward the living room, snaking past imaginary landmines of insult and contempt without breaking a sweat.

See, television is as good as basic training! K congratulated himself when he was safely behind the small, black granite love seat in the front foyer. Without Combat! he never would have known how to navigate a minefield. He held his breath and slowly poked his head up to look for signs of the enemy. This may not be a good place to sit or make love, he thought, but it’s definitely a great place to hide. He reconnoitered slowly, mindful that whether or not she was a virgin, his opponent was capable of masterful duplicity. The house was silent. Apparently, he had not lost the element of surprise.

Unless it was a trap. Unless Gloria was luring him out of his room and then out of the house so that she could slam the door and lock him out forever. It would be like her to think it was her housekeeper duty to rid her employer’s house of all undesirable elements. But let her, decided K. Little does she realize that her trap is exactly what I want. Because he could never stand idle and accept the injustice his father was trying to impose on him. He had to go down to Random and get to the bottom of this attempted disowning. The living room or the kitchen or the garage might yet prove to be K’s Rubicon, but there was nothing he could do about crossing what had to be crossed.

K popped up onto his hands and knees, forsook the safety of the loveseat, and spidered at double time through the living room toward the kitchen, only to slam face first into a woman’s bare foot when he rounded the stainless steel and black leather arm of the couch. Surprise remained on Gloria’s side, K admitted. He reared back onto his haunches, then panicked as he immediately lost sight of the leg. He peered desperately through the eyeholes of his ski mask, expecting the worst. It had felt like a kick, and any second he could be squashed like a bug. But then a flawless big and first toe delicately tweaked his nose and guided him to the shapely brown foot a few inches from his face. Wild-eyed and confused, K traced a long, brown leg, still splattered with the muck he had been hurling at her not so long ago, until he arrived at the unimaginable image, displayed on the couch before him, of the Hispanic virgin, naked underneath mounds of muck and whipped cream which had been artfully arranged to cover her virginity. K initially gagged at the thought of eating his way through this toddler mud pie to arrive at Gloria’s indescribable, glorious nakedness. But then her lips parted; her tongue searched the edge of her teeth; she writhed and moaned softly. K swallowed hard as he felt a stirring in his groin. Clearly this was a trap he liked, even if it was not the trap he wanted.

Eez simple, Gloria continued to writhe on the leather couch, bringing her mountains of cream closer to his mouth and then pulling them away. Chu satisfy Gloria, Gloria satisfy chu.

They both knew very well how Gloria could satisfy K, but he had no idea how to hold up his end, unless she was a secret nymphomaniac. He did not have long to wait to be illuminated.

Gloria cry for sonny boy cannot be next Railroad, she began with a soft sibilance.

K found that hard to believe, but he kept listening.

So Gloria and sonny boy make a baby for next Railroad. Make everyone happy: El Jefe get son he want, Gloria get to stay LA, and sonny boy get all this when his father pass. Win win for each man. And we have some fun … sonny boy like to have fun, no?

Oh, thought K, she’s not a nympho, she’s the Virgin Gold Digger; she wants the jism of an overprivileged young American male to assure the financial future and social dominance of her and her progeny. Clearly, the easiest path to fame and fortune in the US is becoming the parent of a billionaire’s illegitimate child, or in this case, grandchild. She’s nine months and a DNA test from proving that he/she/it is the rightful heir to all of Railroad’s empire.

Les have zee sperms, she purred and writhed, zo Gloria can make chu zee happiest man in America.

But K instantly knew he would not. And not because he did not want to be the happiest man in America, which he was confident from his fantasies he would be, but because he had decided that what she proposed was not right. K refused to be another spoiled rich kid using his economic power to get his rocks off. He swore to himself that even the prospect of scoring some hot immigrant pussy could not make him change his mind. Once fantasy sex became reality exploitation, K swore to prevent injustice.

I’m sorry, Gloria … K started to get to his feet.

Sorry, no sorry, her heels on his shoulders kept him on his knees. Whachu mean ‘sorry’? Gloria not hot enough to stiff you lil’ poker?

You know I think you’re hot, look … he nodded toward his already stiff erection.

So why ‘sorry’?

I won’t exploit you.

Exploit, who exploit? she giggled, you crazy. She swiped some whipped cream off one of her breast mounds and pushed it into his mouth.

Seth tha’s na consensthual ith exploitathion. K had a hard time defending his position while she thrust her finger in and out of his mouth. But Gloria understood.

Gloria consent. She let her eyelids droop. All my peoples consent.

The sweat poured off his head and dammed up around his eyes because of the ski mask; K blinked back the flood. He wanted to rip off the mask and all his protective clothing, but he was pretty certain that that would start him down the road of massive injustice. The only things preventing him from exploiting her were keeping on all his clothes and sobering glances at the unappetizing muck around her belly button.

K pulled her finger out of his mouth. But you can’t consent. The exploitee cannot give her consent to be exploited. The exploitee is a child who does not know what’s right or wrong. The child depends on the exploiter to protect her from exploitation.

K pushed her heels off his shoulders, but then Gloria unleashed her ultimate weapon. C’mon, sonny boy, zis not pussy of a chil’.

She slowly opened her legs so that K, kneeling a few feet in front of her, was treated to the optimum view of her Brazilian wax. Apparently virgins have no pubic hair, K thought. He had seen pictures of women’s genitals before, even ones without hair, but he had never seen a pussy in the full light of day and never, ever known how much evolution made man need to eat it. Economic principles were pointless in the face of this Darwinian certainty. He crawled forward as Gloria pulsated with her illegal immigrant’s dream come true. He gently spread her legs as he brought his mouth closer to her spectacular pussy. Gloria closed her eyes in anticipation. Fah me, fah me, fah me, she moaned, sounding like Fa from Day of the Dolphin. And K probably would have. But then, before he could even taste the nectar of Gloria’s flower, the Jerry in him prematurely ejaculated.

Oh fuck! K jumped up to try to cap the geyser. Unfortunately, the Jerry in him did not let go of Gloria’s legs, which meant that K lifted her up and flipped her and toppled the couch back onto the granite. He heard the slap of bare flesh on stone and panicked. Forget win win win, K told himself. She’s probably unconscious, if not seriously hurt. Holding his wet crotch, K waddled double time toward the garage.

Floor it! the Jerry in him shouted as he edged behind the wheel of his blue Mustang convertible and sped out of the driveway.

What if she’s dead? K could not help thinking the worst. Or crippled?

What if? It’s too late for what if. Just be happy knowing she died without being exploited. Jerry looked for the bright side.

Killing someone does not have a bright side.

No kidding, Jerry yo-yo’d. You should have gone ahead and fucked her.

Prolonged virginity does not turn a person into a necrowhatchamacallit.

If that person were a virgin, Jerry sounded like an exasperated parent.

Oh, forget it, K shut Jerry up. The couch broke her fall. Worst case she’s banged up. Nothing he could do to change that. Going back to check on her would not help either one of them.

Besides, he was well away from the scene of the crime, already cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway toward Santa Monica. Houses and restaurants flew by, pastel-colored shacks, some mansions, but most looking like they had already lost their fight to hold on to their infinitesimal million-dollar slices of beach. To K, they looked as run-down as the worst, overcrowded slums of the industrial revolution with their paint peeling, boards rotting, and walls out of square—a line of decrepitude that walled off the city from the beach. But the thousands of cars, hanging off their streetside facades like suckling pigs, told him he was in the minority. Apparently dirty, overcrowded beach was better than no beach.

He plucked at his crotch trying to break up the sticky crust forming in his pants and underwear as he accelerated south, enjoying the power of his late-model Mustang’s engine. At another time in his short life, the euphoria of surviving two of Gloria’s assaults, coupled with the astonishing beauty of the weather, would have made K crank the radio, pull a U-turn, and joyride into the wilds of Malibu. But that would have to wait. Strange looks from the line of motorists heading north reminded K that he was still dressed like a terrorist. He pulled off the ski mask and threw it out of the car over his head. He turned to watch as it sailed up and away over the houses toward the walled-off water, like a crippled black bird, flailing erratically on an updraft, caught between free fall and free flight in the wind tunnel formed by the cliff faces of the Palisades and the ramshackle beachfront property.

Virgin, get behind me! K laughed, relieved to have left Gloria in the dust with his ski mask until he turned back to the road and spotted a raven flying slightly ahead of his Mustang, seeming to track his progress as it rode the same mysterious current as the