45. RZ
God’s created in our own image.
Right now it’s dawn and we’d left the cockroach infested motel. Just in time, before our mugshots are plastered throughout the country in the morning news edition. Jimmy’s hand is on the wheel. With the other, he’s toying with a classic Smith & Wesson Model 3, favoured by the likes of Wyatt Earp, reputable and notorious US lawman of the Wild West. Loaded or not, I’m not sure.
The radio’s on about us.
Cut to commercials. And what I really hear on the FM is that we’re a nation of masturbators searching substandard instant gratification. Our art are replicas. Recycled. Regurgitated copies of an earlier bestseller. Cheap thrills infiltrate the flesh, expires beyond the pores of sin, but never reaching the soul, and leaving the spirit void as usual. Our emotions, parched in a scorched earth. This degradation of desire is worse than selling your birthright for a bowl of stew. The tragedy of Esau; if ever he stands next to us in a police identification line, he’s a saint!
Jimmy complains.
No one’s looking for real art anymore. We only want what the neighbours want. No deep shit, just eye candy to appeal to our carnal and superficial senses. Spiritually brain-drained, Mercedes Benz and a suburban bungalow are the new symbols of our salvation. That’s why god’s disappeared. Swallowed up by rock concert praises, the deity dies, and only loud pop music draped in disco lights remain.
God’s created in our own image.
He’s just what we want him to be. And what we want him to be is to look pretty, or be our sugar daddy.
Lunch time, munching burger bought at a McD’s drive-thru, Jimmy’s now fondling a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Remington Magnum six-shot double-action revolver. Yup, the one made popular by Dirty Harry. Jimmy loves Harry, loves the character, the grit of old action-packed movies; unlike the polished CGI sequences bombarding silver screens nowadays.
After James Cameron’s spectacular Avatar, it was downhill all the way. People don’t even dream in original anymore. Dreaming someone else’s dream. True fact, someone in the motion picture industry’s doing your dreaming for you.
Says Jimmy, statistics show ninety-nine percent of what we see in our sleep has been seen in the movies. Jimmy’s that remaining one percent. That’s according to him.
Jimmy loves 2D. He can watch Hanna Barbera and Looney Tunes for hours. Opens up the child in him; Tom & Jerry and Road Runner are a source of inspiration. Adores how Tom and Wile E. die over and over in the most violent and exhilarating of fashions, and yet, resurrect to consecutively devise a plan, doubly outrageous, which would only end in certain and definite disaster; all in vain attempt to catch a mouse and bird respectively.
Jimmy dreams in animation. And he hates what Pixar and Dreamworks have done. Seducing entire societies toward a total lack of imagination and sedating our diabetic subconscious. What we really need is a good jab of creative insulin. Something to shock the senses awake.
And Jimmy’s got the perfect antidote.
Jimmy says when we die we don’t really die. The sun has set and we’re searching for a place to rest our weary head. Jimmy’s best buddy lives nearby. Indifferent towards DUI laws, he’s chugging down Buds as he drives. In some manner of a juggler’s act, he’s also fingering a shiny Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol.
My boyfriend looks like James Dean. Dresses like one, too. I especially like the all-American faded jeans that hug his toned buttocks. Oh no, they’re making my vulva weep, again. And I’m wondering when he’d put that gun up in me. When would be times up? Now you die...or don’t die.
Loving Jimmy is a Russian roulette.
But who else do I got?
Daddy?
He’s dead and gone.
But no one really dies. Jimmy promises me that.
Or else I would not have shot my father in the first place.
Well, that hypocritical minister’s not much of a role model, you’d say. I agree, but he’s still my daddy.
On Wednesday nights he brings the entire clergy to my room. In guise of a prayer meet, they venerate my naked body. I wonder, those ‘older boyfriends’ of mine, now that their pastor’s a decapitated art piece, are they afraid they’ll soon follow suit? You know, become like exhibited works in a mass grave site?
Jimmy could massacre the entire committee for me. If I want him to.
He’ll do it, `cos he loves me.
When RZ opened the door, mighty hair and beard hid his face. Under cowboy hat, all you see is your own reflection augmented on Ray-Ban specs. Two nostrils are what’re left of his features.
Hungry, I’d asked Jimmy earlier about food. He replied we’d better get takeaway, `cos RZ doesn’t cook. In fact, we shouldn’t even bunk the night. RZ’s the ultimate wild chimpanzee. He intelligently survives on bugs; his own bugs. Ticks he’d pick from his own grizzly coat.
RZ’s glad to meet us. He’s heard much about me. Hands opened wide, but Jimmy and I are not too keen on a group hug.
Digging hand into caveman moustache, RZ asks how things are. Says we can stay if we like. Jimmy looks at me, then to RZ who was now twisting beneath his chin.
I said, no offence, but no thanks; and RZ says he understands, twitching something out of his facial fur.
Jimmy says before we leave he would like to see some art. For inspiration. RZ replies, no prob; and he’s sucking fingers.
Munching whatever’s caught between thumb and index, RZ says to us to follow him.
The basement holler of animals sounds like the nagging rhymes of rap artistes. RZ’s abode reeks of packed flesh crammed in tiny crowded spaces. He says if PETA finds him out, they’re gonna get upset. Those animal activists, they’ll grab him by the balls and stone him with his own testicles, RZ chuckles, chomping on another flea. According to him, insects have the highest nutrition count. Forget about the government’s incentive with regard to vertical farming, planting crops in urban buildings to feed city folk. All you need is body hair creatures can call home, RZ burps.
Jimmy’s eyes dilate.
RZ’s testing on animal dreams. Cages are filled with the souls of dogs, cats and all other vermin and strays people would be happy to rid. Perhaps, animal lovers wouldn’t kidnap and behead him on primetime TV after all; instead, society will reward and knight him for his good deed.
He’s skinning anesthetized beasts alive with electrodes embedded in their poor numbskulls, and output is to a labyrinth of screens. Distorted images are jumping in and out of the monitors, the severed last thoughts of canines, felines, rodents and reptiles during a drowsy death ritual. As the numbing potion wears off, and the cacophonous pain kicks in, Jimmy’s and RZ’s pupils are glued to the VDUs. I didn’t catch a thing, but the two boys are ecstatic seeing solid colours flashing on and off, turning the laboratory into the bowels of the hippest clubs in town.
When the flickering charade dies, RZ whispers, watch for the surprise. The hirsute madman had implanted tiny time-bombs in the intestines of those poor creatures. Well, of course Jimmy and I did not know that till the messy explosion occurred.
I screamed. Jimmy, as usual, was just stoic. The blasting innards smashed onto black crepe, a guided trajectory, for what was now revealed where shiny blood hit was a majestic galaxy. And we had the best seat. At the centre, staring up at this marvellous splendour; what was once unclean flesh was now glorified beauty.
Now observe, RZ stated. The cluster of stars began to rotate. They began to orbit. Round and round the minced meat went, and Jimmy was reminded of ancient faiths teaching about spirits leaving dying bodies to become stars; celestial implants nip-tucked in zodiac constellations.
The Bible too may have mentioned that a star is an angel; and here we have it, RZ proclaims, a dog-star or a seraph-serpent, his hand pointing at a twinkling light; here lays Pooch, his favourite pup.
Argue how you want, but RZ’s given them a better home.
Amazing. That was the only thing Jimmy had to say. On and on, he chanted this mantra in the car. Seeing how animals are sacrificed for a greater good has wetted our appetite. It made sense. Poultries, abattoirs, forced-fed delicacies and laboratory test-tube Frankenburgers, these are all shrines in RZ’s interpretation. Fast-food chains are churches people go to worship the abundance these creatures have provided for our satisfaction. Of course the common consumer is oblivious to this cosmic connection; but for us who are enlightened, sweeter is the taste of Big Mac, more succulent that fried chicken, juicier when a serrated knife saws into a medium-rare t-bone steak.
Filling our tummies, giving praise, we communally offer our tithes and offering to the Trinity - our Colonel, Clown and King.
It’s past midnight, past a meal of saturated fat. Jimmy can’t stop flattering RZ. Says he’s the best there is, the most original. Makes Da Vinci a copycat retard.
Frankly, I got a little annoyed. I want Jimmy to make love to me. So in pretence I say I wanna pee. Leaving the isolated car to a shrub, I remove my jeans and pink baby-t instead. What I’ve got on inside makes me feel sexy. I’m sure it’ll make my man horny.
When I come back to the Cadillac, Jimmy’s started without me. Enraptured in an orgy with his harem of guns and ammo, Jimmy’s eight-inch single-shaft solid weapon is inserted deep in the barrel of one of his babies.
I turn and leave. Jimmy stuffing Dirty Harry’s piece up his anus, like fowl filling, makes me honestly prefer an uninterrupted solitary pee.