Eric Dimbleby - White Out

“I haven’t seen it. But you best believe I’ll keep my eye out. I love these kitties as much as you do.” Once I turn on that charming motherfucker I keep buried deep inside me, sometimes I can’t turn it off. What I really want to tell her is that she and her cats are going to be dead soon, unless they shape up and get in line with my new vision for this here world we created around us. I’m looking to settle in and settle up , like I said a million times before.

“My sweet, sweet Cherry Pie,” she sort of moans beneath her breath, wringing her tiny hands together. Marianne is probably in her early forties. She looks like she’d be hot as hell, if she didn’t live in Piss Plaza and if she stopped wearing those stupid sweaters (the last one had the whole fuckin’ alphabet on it, like she was seven years old or somethin’).

“Where oh where is my sweet Cherry Pie?” she calls out, sort of mewing like one of her cats now. People always say that folks start to act like their pets after being around them long enough. Truer than true, I say. In fact, I bet she licks herself when it’s time for a bath, probably starts with her bushy crotch. Zing .

She’s up and moving again, still mourning, making another one of those awful fuckin’ shakes for me, so I tell her that I am already well fed and I don’t need any more. She insists on it though, as she wades through the cluttered kitchen, rinsing out the blender and sobbing over her kitten. I can see cat hairs clinging to the mouth of the blender, but those don’t seem to bother her. I found a furball in the vegetable drawer the other day. Big old clump of hair, right next to the carrots and cabbages, sorta like it belonged there.

“Cherry Pie, where oh where have you gone?” she mumbles to herself as the sound of the blender drowns out her despair. Good Lord, I can’t take it anymore.

It never gets any better than this. I’ve seen it before and I’ll see it again. This is as good as people get. This is why I’m a wanderin’ man. One joker after another in this world, the way I see it. They all act the same when it comes right down to it.

“ Fuck your Cherry Pie,” I say. Them there words escape my mouth so quick that I can’t snatch them back. I didn’t want it to go down this way, but shit happens when shit is ready to happen, that’s what I say. The dam is broken, so I hurl another cuss at her, “You make me sick, you fuckin’ twit.”

“Oh dear,” she says, stopping the blender, turning to look at me with big moony eyes, unsure of how to respond to what I said. “That vile language. My kitties don’t like swearing. Please don’t do that around them.”

“Your kitties are fuckin’ worthless. They should be drowned in the bathtub, every last one of ’em. I’ll do it for ya’, just say the word and I’ll make them screech and scratch til they sink to the bottom of your tub.”

“Oh dear,” she repeats, wiping her hands on a dishrag. Looks a bit like she’s shakin’ now, sort of tremblin’ all over. She keeps cleaning her hands cause she’s so nervous. This gesture is the closest thing I have seen to her bathing herself like a proper human being. “Oh dear, you’re horrible.” She don’t sound like she’s all that convinced of that. Wishy washy as all hell.

“Wanna know where Cherry Pie is? I buried her in the snow. I drowned her in it, actually, right outside your bedroom window. She fought like a fuckin’ tiger and now she’s dead.” I’m not sure that the one I killed was actually Cherry Pie, it’s not like I checked her nametag, but it felt good to make Marianne upset, to break her down, just ‘cause I could.

“My precious kitties,” she says. I ain’t sure she actually even believes me. Maybe she’s in shock.

“Here’s the plan, Silly Sweaters. I’m gonna kill all these here cats, and if you get in my way, I’m gonna kill you too. Got that?” I pause, waitin’ on a response to the question but she don’t give one. “And while I’m puttin’ my boot to these here cats, I want you to clean this house up like you ought to have done a long time ago, if you even know how to do it. I want you to scrub out all the cat piss, from top to bottom. If I can smell one hint of it, I’ll cut you up into tiny pieces and flush you down the toilet. You hear me?”

“Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. My precious babies.”

And that’s it. The tippin’ point.

That’s where I lose control. Sometimes it wells up inside of me, like I can kinda keep it in its place. I know I’m gonna do it even before I do it, but it still feels like a surprise when it happens. Ka-bang . My Mama said I had the Devil inside me.

I once told her I don’t have the Devil inside me. I got Jesus inside me, but sometimes he gets actin’ like the Devil. My God is a God that gives out justice when justice needs givin’. My God don’t like flippy-floppy dummies like this one. I get to thinkin’ that she is wearing a sweater with a Christmas tree on it, and it’s got big silver, jingly bells hanging off it. I get to thinkin’ that she’s gonna die in that fucking sweater and it seems real fittin’.

“My Cherry Pie!” she wails now, falling to her knees. I’m not even sure she’s thinking on what I just told her, about how she needs to clean up all the cat piss. She’s still just whining over Cherry Pie.

She doesn’t resist when I get closer to her, because she’s so damn shocked by the Devil that jus’popped out of my skin. I wonder if I look different when I get like this. I wonder if Jesus can see me when I turn into this new thing. I can barely remember what happens after I’m done with the deed. It must be pretty bad, because when my brain comes back to planet Earth, there’s blood everywhere. It’s kinda always like this for me, not just with Marianne, but with all of them I killed before. I shake my head back and forth, trying to dig up the last thing I can remember.

Somebody on television once said there’s this thing called am-neesh-uh . Which means you forget things sometimes. Like big things, like when you kill somebody who’s wearing an idiotic sweater.

I look at the mess all around me. Must have been some serious am-neesh-uh .

Marianne’s head is detached from her neck, and it doesn’t look like the Devil in me did it very cleanly. I think he used a dull knife—maybe a butter knife. Her head isn’t completely detached though. One little strand of meat still connects it to the rest of her, which is sort of pushed over to the side of the kitchen. The meat coming out the top of her neck sort of has the color of a real hotdog, pinkish and juicy.

Her face is stuck in this crazy grin. I wonder if she enjoyed it (whatever it is I did) in some way. Some people welcome death. Marianne was probably lonely as all hell… I think most chicks are when they don’t have a proper man in their life, so maybe I did the crazy bitch a favor.

I wonder how the Stupid Fucking Sweater industry will do now. They might go out of business, I think, and that makes me laugh a little.

All the cats come running into the kitchen, climbing all over Marianne’s body. What’s left of her body is slumped against the kitchen cabinets. They start licking the blood and I laugh at that too. I shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as I am, but it’s fuckin’ priceless.

They never gave a shit about her. I bet they hated her as much as I did. I’m thinkin’ they just wanted food. She controlled the food, so they played their little game, kissing her ass and such. Sort of like me, when I tell people what they want to hear instead of what I’m really thinkin’ inside my sick head. These cats are nothing but schemin’ Devils, just looking for a bloody neck to lick on.