LITERAL REMAINS

The Official Written Statement

of Jacques de la Coer

I know you guys may think I’m crazy, most of you have already told me so much. But I swear everything I’ve told you is true. I’m not hysterical. Or drunk. Or hopped up; I quit all that shit a long time ago. I don’t know what you think I will change in my written statement that I haven’t already told you, but I’ll damn sure put it down in words.

The park is where I hang out, especially at night. Right at the bridge, under it, in the dark. Most people walking through there at night, and I think they should know better, never know what hits them. You see, it’s dark under there. Really dark, crazy dark. Some of the women never feel it when I cut the straps on their purse. I take it and slide real quiet like back in the dark. You really can’t see shit under there.

Now, I know I’m incriminating myself. But if you want to know the whole thing, you got to know the whole thing. Understand?

I don’t roll everyone that comes walking by. Some nights I don’t roll anyone at all. You see, some nights I just hide down there, off the beaten path so to speak, and watch. If people feel safe, they have no fear coming back by some night. And some night when they come back, it’s the jackpot baby!

This one chick. She was real, you know, like something else. The kind of woman who’s a real woman, see. I’m not saying she was perfect, or anything like that, I’m just saying if she had wanted me to swim the muddy river, for her I would do it. I had half a mind to ask her out instead of robbing her. That’s why I never jacked her. Kind of had a crush on her, I guess. Or maybe it was fascination. But I got the impression if I hit on her, she would’ve said no in a big hurry.

I had seen her come through a few nights, and one night, I swear, it’s the truth, she gave a glance over in the shadows like she saw me. It kind of scared me. Then it kind of, like, excited me. And I got to thinking, maybe it was a wet dream, I don’t know, but I got to thinking, she kept passing through there night after night like she did know I was there, like she wanted me to do something. I for real thought she wanted to get jacked.

And the thought of rolling her, well that really did get my engine going, you know. See, she didn’t carry a purse, so her money or valuables or whatever was either in her leather jacket or in the pockets of her jeans. And thinking of getting that close to her, touching her, running my hands over her….Well, you get the idea.

So I decided to do it. I made my mind up that the very next time she came around for one of her little after-midnight walks, I would make my move. I would grant her wish, her desire for action, her lust to be violated, and rob her. She looked tight, yeah, probably strong willed too, but she was delicate in that way firm women have of being delicate. She looked like the kind of woman that didn’t mind having a man throw her around a little every now and then, if you get my drift. She wanted it. I knew it. She knew it.

So I waited, you know, down there, under the bridge in the park. There weren’t many people out that night, and only a couple of them darted the path under the bridge. It didn’t take long, in real time, but it felt like I waited for her half the night. But she showed, because we both wanted it.

She came walking up the path, tall and gorgeous as ever on the those legs Oh My God!, just like she always did, and it was right then as she passed under the light headed for the bridge, headed right dead on for me, that I knew she knew this was the night. I don’t know if she felt my heart beating. I don’t know if she could hear by pulse thumping, or smell my pheromones or whatever you call them, but she knew this was the big showdown because I could see a small little smile on her eager little lips.

She was there, leaving the light behind and starting under the bridge. I stood up, real quiet like, and stepped up to her. She didn’t hear, I don’t think, and I grabbed her by the arm, spun her around and drug her to the far wall.

She didn’t make a sound, and, for like a second, I didn’t think I could talk either. Because even in that low light that reflected in her eyes, that no light that just barely let basic shapes pop out, she was so beautiful. I’ll repeat that in words you can understand. She. Was. So. Beautiful.

“Give me your money,” I said. But I tried to say it real sexy and manly, but I’m not sure if those two things really go together. I tried to be like James Dean, you know, real cool. God, she smelled good, too.

“Give me all you got,” I said to her, real sexy, real manly.

She blinked in that low light/no light that reflected in her eyes. She wasn’t scared, I could tell that much. Surely she knew it was a mugging. “Come on,” I said to her. I squeezed her arms tighter and shook her a little, pushed her hard against the wall like she probably liked for some guys to do to her.

She blinked three times then. On that third blink, when those dark, gorgeous, gorgeous, eyes opened they were gold. Swear to God, man. Right then, something told me something was wrong with that bitch.

She must have known she caught me off guard because she pushed me back. And so help me, I went back. Flying back like in one of those kung fu movies they play on cable. I shit you not, I went flying back and smacked right into the other damn wall. No lie, man, no lie.

I was a little dazed, I guess. I guess I must have been a lot dazed, you know, or something, I must have hit my head, because it fucked with my ears. I didn’t hear like a ringing or anything, but her breathing sounded all messed up. Real deep, and forceful. Kind of like a train almost. I may have hit my head, I’m not sure. Being smacked up against the wall like that, I hit a lot of things. But in the dark, she seemed to grow. She got bigger. A lot bigger.

“What the hell?” That’s what I said. I don’t know if she had a dog with her, I didn’t see one with her, but maybe it was trailing behind or something and snuck up on us, I don’t know. But I heard something growling. Mean growing. And I didn’t hang around there, no way, I fuckin’ ran. Just as fast as my legs would carry me, I fuckin’ ran. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Man or not, if you had heard what I heard, how it echoed down there under the bridge- you would have ran to, I don’t care what you say.

I ran towards the city traffic, you know, get in public, lots of people around, safety in numbers. That’s all I could think, get to where people are. One good thing about living in the big city, always people hitting the streets. But I don’t know what good that would have done, I’m sure they would’ve all run too. I heard it running, tearing through the bushes. You cops saw the ground all tore up, it wasn’t no on-going landscaping project like you say. It was that…that big ass thing. I just wanted to get to safety.

I had to get out of the park. I didn’t look back not once. Like I said I was scared. I heard that damn thing coming for me. My pop used to say you can’t outrun the Devil. But I sure as hell was going to try.

Do you know what it’s like to hear the Beast coming for you? It’s not fun, I’ll tell you that.

I ran like I had never ran before, and, you know, I knew it was useless the whole fuckin’ time. I could see the street lights, shining right there, right down town, but I knew I wasn’t going to make it. My heart was going like THUMP THUMP THUMP like those jackhammers they’re using on East Street and Mediterranean Blvd. to tear up the pavement. I got that picture in my head of when old Mark Petrie got hit and run on Church and wasn’t nothing left of him but a bucket of fuck. I knew I was going to be like that, just as soon as she or it or whathaveyou got paws and claws on me.

So I’m all elbows and asshole through the park and that’s when God smiled on me, man, He parted the night sky and smiled on me, swear to God He did.

The maintenance shed was right there. Right there. I knew they locked that damn thing at night too so that’s why I didn’t try the doors I just jumped straight through the damn window. I got cut up pretty good, but, get it, thank God for making me a little Yankee, you know.

So there I am, hiding in a corner like I used to when I was a kid hiding from pop, you know, and just like when I was I kid I was crying. Snot on my face and already pissed my pants, too. I’m not ashamed to tell you. I was scared.

I looked around, you know, for a weapon but I just wasn’t thinking straight like I think I said before and I didn’t see anything that looked like it would bring down a damn buffalo, much less freakin’ Frankenstein Meets the Wolf-man. But the buggy was parked right there. That golf cart looking little shit with the Parks and Recreation logo on the side. It wasn’t much, but I would have tried anything.

Again, Heaven was on my side because the keys were in the ignition. So I slid right in behind the wheel, wiped the blood out of my eyes and started that sweet sounded little baby up. I gunned it and hit the doors. The doors didn’t budge, just stopped me in my tracks and shot me forward, busting my head like a human battering ram. So there I am, sprawled out on the front of the cart propped on the doors, head busted open and bleeding worse fumbling with the knobs trying to figure out how to unlock the doors.

Luckily, the big ass beast just ripped the doors right off their hinges and tossed them to the side. And even with blood in my eyes, I saw it. If it was her, and I’m sure it was, she got real fuckin’ ugly real fuckin’ quick. I know you don’t believe me when I say she was a werewolf, but she sure as hell wasn’t no pussycat.

She howled. The werewolf howled. Whether she/it was a she or an it, or it had been her and was nowit, the thing is the big damn thing howled and I pissed a little bit more right then. It wasn’t until I was in the holding cell I realized I had shit myself. Even then I didn’t know it until my cellmates told me.

So while she (it was her, believe me, men know these things especially when there’s a good chance they are going to die) howled, I somehow pushed myself back behind the wheel and started that cart up again and gunned it again and shot out of their like a streak of lightening moving in slow motion across a high definition t.v. screen. It could be a trick of my mind, but she kind of like barked, but it really sounded like she was laughing. If, you know, things like that laugh.

So there I am, I shit you not, cruising along, trying to get every ounce of speed out of that fuckin’ cart and I look back and see her. She’s just jogging along beside me, tongue flapping. Playing with me. Just having fun with me, like I’m some kind of crazy wind-up toy let loose for her enjoyment.

And then I hit the park bench. Of course I went falling out of the damn getaway cart. The little cart sped off and sputtered into the ditch. I was lying there with this great big pain in my chest, thinking I was having a heart attack. And she was standing over me. Big. And ugly. And she smelled a little.

I looked down, and I saw it. The boards of the bench had busted thanks to the cart and one of those damn pieces was sticking out of my chest pretty as you please.

“Great!” That’s what I yelled.

The world got really dark then. And she knelt down over me, big ugly herself, and I wasn’t sure which was worse: dying from being impaled on the board or from having her rip my face off. I prayed that was all she was going to rip off. At least until after I was dead.

I think I went blind. It’s like the world went black. All you guys think I blacked-out. Maybe I did, or maybe I died, I don’t know. But the truth is I was headed for that Big Hacienda in the sky. And my fears came true. She opened that big mouth of hers and sunk those wet razor teeth across my neck.

That was the last thing I remember. Until I woke up the next morning in a doorway by the bodegas and the lights of Upper Broadway. I got up and came straight here to the station.

You think I’m crazy. I know none of you believe me. Because all my injuries are gone. No scars. Nothing. My tattered clothes aren’t evidence enough for you. But I’m warning you, it won’t be long and you’ll believe me. Tonight, I can feel it, you’ll believe.

I don’t know why she spared me. I don’t know why she saved my life.

If you’re smart, you will lock me up.

If you’re smart, you will throw away the key.

the_novacula