Callisto (43 page)

“Allrighty, then,” says Fogler with this big grin, “Doofus, do you know why you're here?”

“Boxing match?”

“That's exactly right! You're smarter than you look, Doofus. Lyden and Croft here are gonna demonstrate a display of boxing just for you, how about that.”

“Okay.”

“The man says okay! That chair under your ass, that's the spectator chair where the special sporting guest gets to sit and watch what goes on. Pass your hands back here.”

I did it and he locked my handcuffs to the chair frame somehow, so they must be thinking I'll try to escape while everyone is distracted by the boxing match, but I'm not so dumb I couldn't see that was an impossible thing. So now
Lyden and Croft come over and stood in front of me like those gladiators who had to kind of stand and present themselves in front of Caesar before they start killing each other. “We who are about to die salute you,” that's what they say. It was like they're waiting for me to say something before they can start boxing, like I'm Caesar, which I'm not expecting, so I said, “Okay, let's go.”

“You heard the man,” says Fogler.

I knew there's been a mistake when the first blow got flung at me, not at one of the guys with the boxing gloves. It hit me along the jaw and just about sent me out of the chair, which two legs left the floor, no kidding, then back again, just in time to get hit the other way so the same thing happened. When the third punch hit me at the top of the gut and made all my air rush out and none can get back in again that's when I knew this is no boxing match, this is a setup with me as the patsy. That was some nice trick Fogler played. This is the scene where the Nazis try to beat out of the hero the plans for the D-Day invasion, only he won't give them nothing but his name and rank and serial number, so they keep on beating him. This means I am the hero, but I was not happy to be this.

They smacked me around the head and guts mostly but no kidney punches because the chair is in the way. There's a roaring in my ears that won't quit and it gets louder every time they hit me again, like I'm tumbling along underwater in a fast stream and every few seconds I run into another boulder. Then they quit and when I opened my eyes Pitface is standing in front of me with a cigarette in his hands. He taps the ash onto the floor because there's no ashtray on the table, then he says, “Where is Dean Lowry and who are his friends?”

“Dean's dead ...I killed him ...I didn't mean to . . .”

My own voice sounded weird to me, like hearing it on a tape and you never heard it before and you can't believe this is how people hear you.

“And where's the body?”

“I don't know...I buried him but someone dug him up . . .”

“That's no different to the story you've been telling all along.”

“I know . . .”

He turned away and they flung me into that fast stream again. I went tumbling along there a good long while and then they let me surface again with my ears still filled by roaring blood. There he is again, Pitface, asking me about Dean exactly like before, so I answered him the same way again, what else can I do? He's asking me and I'm telling him, but it isn't what he wants to hear, so now I'm back in the stream getting pummeled this way and that and thinking maybe soon I'll drown if they don't quit. Which they did, like they heard me say this. And here he is again with a fresh cigarette spilling ash all over the concrete floor.

“Deefus, can you hear me?”

“Uhuh . . .”

“Tell me what I want to know and this will stop, you've got my word.”

Well, I did not trust this man's word, but I wanted not to get punched around anymore with my hands tied behind my back like this, so I told him, “Okay . . .” I was ready to give him the plans for the D-Day invasion, but only because they're old now so what harm is there.

“Where is Dean Lowry and who are his friends?”

“Dean . . .” I gulped some air awhile.

“Yes?”

“Dean . . .”

“What about him?”

“He's dead . . .”

“Don't fuck with me, Deefus.”

“And I put him in a drainpipe under I-70 . . .”

“Okay, that's good, but that's a long highway.”

“Just the other side of... Ogallah...the west side. A drain-pipe there. He's all wrapped up in plastic bags for lawn grass...”

“Is this true? If it isn't, you'll regret it.”

“It's true.”

He took out his phone and started telling someone what I just told him. I knew then I had made a big mistake and would pay big time for that when they didn't find Dean, but it felt so good not to be punched around. Pitface snapped his phone shut and gave a nod to Fogler. I got set free from the chair, then they tipped me out of it onto the floor.

“Get up!” yells Fogler. “Get up off that fuckin' floor!”

So I did and got taken back to my cell. Taking off my handcuffs Fogler says to me, “I knew it wouldn't take much to bust your balls, man. Soon as I saw you I knew you're a pussy that's gonna rat out his friends the first time he gets pushed around a little. A few taps with the gloves and you started to cry. That's so pathetic. I got no respect for a man does that.”

To be honest about this, neither did I. I did break easy, just to make them quit punching me, but there'll be a bigger test of toughness when they find out I lied. And when I told them the truth again they would believe it even less than before, which will make them beat me all the harder for that first lie
they believed. Punishment was waiting for me around the corner like a big dark monster just waiting for orders to rip my head off. I had done a dumb thing and would pay for that. And knowing this would happen made me afraid. Some hero.

Well, when it happened I would just have to be stronger than today, that's what I told myself. Fogler was still right in front of me on the other side of the bars, still grinning and sneering at me like I'm a piece of shit. I could've reached through and grabbed him and pulled him into those bars to show him I'm not who he thinks I am, but that would mean I got no recovery time between now and when they find out I lied, and I wanted that time to make myself strong. So what I did instead, I winked at him, one slow wink, then a little smile. It made him mad because he doesn't know what it means.

“You like me, Doofus, huh? You wanna buttfuck me? That what you want?”

I just kept smiling until he went away, then I lay on my bunk and wondered how many hours I had left until the big dark monster would be let into my cell for a meal. My head and upper body ached and throbbed from all those punches, but at least it hadn't been iron bars they hit me with. That most likely would come later, and I would have to be ready this time for pain and suffering to make today's little sparring match seem like a hug and a kiss. I had stopped fooling myself I was in America anymore. This was some other place where life the way they showed it in the movies, with good guys that always win and bad guys that always lose, that life was a joke. By lying to them I had made an appointment with Real Life. I closed my eyes and wished like never before that there really
was a God who could give me strength, but knowing I would have to do this all by myself. It was so awful to think about this that I fell asleep, which is something I do when I'm afraid, how about that.

T
hose Kansas cops worked fast looking for Dean, or maybe there aren't any drainpipes under the interstate just west of Ogallah, because even before suppertime I had Pitface come visit me. He stood by the bars and just looked at me for the longest time. I looked back at him wondering if his face ever looked different, like if he'd smile at a kid's birthday party or whatever. This guy has got a face carved from rock.

“Deefus,” he says, “you made me look bad. You told me a lie and I passed it on as truth. This goes into my record. My record is a precious thing to me and you have gone and Fucked It Up.”

I almost felt sorry about that, then I told myself this is not a good person that does good things, so why should I care about his record? I said to him, “You wouldn't believe me when I told you the truth, so I told you a lie.”

“Yes, you did.”

“If I tell you anything else apart from what I told you in the first place, it's a lie. I just want you to know that. You're gonna have me beat so bad I'll say whatever you want to hear, but it's all gonna be a lie because I already told you the truth and you had me beat up for it. Everything I know I already told it to you and Kraus and Deedle, only none of you want to hear it, you want to hear something else, something like I told you today. You can beat me up all you want, it doesn't change anything. This is the truth about the truth I'm telling you.”

He looked at me a long time, so long I'm thinking he's turning it over in his mind and slowly accepting it because for me to be saying this now doesn't make any kind of sense unless it's true, which it is. Then he says, “You worked all that out, did you? Made a little speech about truth, very sincere, very direct. You want me to believe you because you're actually telling me the actual truth, is that the message here?”

“Yes.”

He smiled at me. So his carved rock face can change after all. It was a terrible smile, like when a crocodile opens its jaws. “I don't buy it,” he said, and that's when I knew Pitface is another crazy person like Lieutenant Harding. And I knew that everything I was not looking forward to, the big dark monster, it would be worse even than I figured it will be. That was a bad feeling when I knew that. But I didn't let him see, because what would be the point? I already let him see me tell him the absolute truth and he let it bounce off his rock face like a blind man. My truth was not his truth. You would think that the truth is the truth, like a broom is a broom. Two men could stand either side of a broom and agree it's a broom because there it is – a broom. But the broom I'm looking at
isn't what Pitface sees. He sees a garbage can instead. And there is nothing I can do about this, which is the really bad part.

He says, “I'll be waiting for you.”

He went away down the corridor towards the romper room. I had to take a bunch of deep breaths then because I knew in a few minutes I will have pain shoved down my throat like a fist and I better be ready, which I was not, even if I had been trying real hard all afternoon. When Fogler come along with the handcuffs and two soldiers with sidearms it was almost a relief to have the waiting over with and the pain get started.

This time the two boxers are already waiting in the room along with Pitface. I didn't see them walk past my cell so this place is bigger than I thought, with other entrances than the one I saw when I got delivered. It makes no difference to me how big. There are only two rooms in this entire building that matter – my cell and the romper room. I was expecting to be sat on the chair again but Fogler says, “This time it's more interesting than before. This time you get to move around and defend yourself. You know how to do that, Doofus?”

What he said made me feel a little better. This time I could fight back, I thought, and even if I'm not much of a fighter I'm big and can maybe land a few lucky punches before Lyden and Croft tear me apart between them. But that was not what Fogler meant. This is what happened. He left me with my wrists handcuffed behind me, then he put a black bag over my head. I hated that, hated that black bag the second it cut me off from the room, from everything. There is nothing worse than a black bag over your head.

Then they started punching me. They could punch me wherever they wanted, whenever they liked. They liked the kidney punches they couldn't do this morning, but they also liked a head punch or a belly punch in between. I staggered around the romper room, not knowing what kind of punch was coming at me next, or from what direction, only knowing there's plenty more on the way. Sometimes I hit the wall with my shoulder I'm lurching around so bad, and one time with the side of my head, which I fell down when that happened and they backed off until I'm on my feet again. I was grateful to them for backing off and not kicking me when I'm down, isn't that strange, really grateful for that little piece of mercy before they started in again.

They were not pulling their punches because I can hear them puffing and panting through the bag, in between my own puffing and panting. It's hard to breathe inside a bag, and I passed out once I think from lack of oxygen inside there. They backed off like the last time until I can get on my feet again, only this time I'm not feeling grateful about that. I'm not feeling anything that you could call an emotion or whatever, just concentrating now on getting enough air into my mouth inside that bag to keep on going in circles like a punching bag on legs. That's what I am now, not a man anymore, not to them, just a thing to be hit over and over till I break.

When I went down the third time it felt like I'm drowning because I just cannot get enough air inside of me to keep alive. Then this voice says in my ear, so he's bending over me on the floor there, he says to me, “All this can stop. Tell me the truth. Make it stop.” His cigarette breath come to me even through the bag, that's how bad it is. There's nothing I can say
to him because I already said everything there is to say about what he wants to know. I just sucked air inside myself while I'm in between punches on the floor, taking advantage you might say, but pretending to be thinking about his offer, which is no kind of offer at all on account of his craziness.