Unger House Radicals Read online

  The first time we ever had sex was two days later. Once again it took place in an alleyway. He had me bent double over a trashcan, giving and taking with varied degrees of force until he met the warm sponge of my lower intestine. The first time was, as you’d probably expect, a bit of a slap dash affair. It didn’t last long and he kind of fucked me in a rough blur. The second time, however, was much different. It’s how I knew he loved me back. Swarthy can be gentle too, and I don’t think it’s an act. It was a classic case of Hybristophilia…

  Swarthy treated me less like one of his rape victims and more like a lover. He even started waiting until I came before he finished, whereas before he would shoot his lot and instantaneously extricate himself from me. He grew to appreciate my body. It felt good to be appreciated carnally. We kissed more, touched more. He gave instead of taking. It was remarkable to see the change in him. It did my confidence wonders too, to know that I had made a loving companion out of a monster like Brandon Swarthy.

  Like all whirlwind romances, our appetites intensified and pretty soon we found it difficult to keep our hands off each other. The situations we found ourselves in became increasingly dangerous, but with this danger came excitement—and excitement is a key component to a fulfilling sex life.

  Swarthy enjoyed sex outdoors, in public usually. Even when it was apparent someone had spotted us in the act, it served only to urge us on. We had sex in front of everyone and anyone, we didn’t care. Why censor yourself from your heart’s own desires?

  When I was growing up in the city I penned up all my wants and needs, hid them away ashamedly. I couldn’t express myself properly because I was so painfully shy and introverted. People who knew about my attachments in the Deep South thought me a redneck and the ones who knew nothing about me thought I was just plain weird.

  University was a big eye opener for me. I was encouraged to be different and embrace my weirdness. I did well at university and I know it brought my father a tremendous amount of pleasure to know that his only offspring had finally made it academically. He was kind of obsessed with it. The more pleasure I saw in his reaction to my being there, the less pleasure I got. It felt good to defy him. It felt good to hurt that old redneck sonofabitch in the deepest possible way.

  With Swarthy I had completely let go, accepted who I was. We were going to fuck and kill and eat Caramac bars until our love touched the sun…

  In a way going back to Louisiana, back to Unger House, was a way of confronting a past I’d spent my entire life trying to outrun. I had to exorcise the demon of self-doubt, prove that I wasn’t just a redneck superimposed into an urban environment. My family wouldn’t define me. I was a New Yorker, I’d grown up here. The only way I could get over the stigma of having a hillbilly family was to go back to my roots and destroy everything it stood for with violent art.

  *

  What are you trying to prove by coming here? My walls are old. I stink of wet-rot and murder. The things I have seen and been party to would turn the stomachs of even the most depraved psychopath. I was not designed with evil in mind, but your friend Brandon seems to’ve been built for exactly that purpose. You seem like a decent enough boy, why are you here with him?

  The men who laid my foundations and built me up in bricks and mortar, they were honest, decent men. The Unger boys were candle makers by trade but they were experts in most facets of repair. They made my partitions strong using only the best wooden panels; the craftsmanship was tight, relatively accomplished for the time and their intentions were true—I was to be a family abode, children would run along my hallway and frolic on my porch; contented mothers would feed loved children from their own teat all the while capable, salt of the earth men would maintain my appearance throughout the course. The location wasn’t convenient for tradesmen and eventually the family left me behind and no one came by for a long time after that.

  It wasn’t until years later when Spengler came by with the first girl, I think her name was Clara, that evil truly permeated my existence like a virus infiltrating a weakened nervous system, and refused to leave. He was here for only one night, but I have never been fully able to wipe away the bloody mark he left on me. The little girl Clara was so scared. She was perhaps about 13, a sweet old parishioner’s daughter. Her hair tumbled down to her shoulders in a honeyed throng and her face was round and flat like a plate. I could tell she hated my stench of wet-rot. I wish I could’ve been more homely for her. It was her eyes that leaked fear the most, involuntarily quivering at the duct and gaped wide at the surrounding contour. When I first saw her she was all cried out, but she was still terrified—by contrast, Spengler had periorbital rings around both eyes as if a guilty conscience had kept him awake for weeks on end. They were veiny, dark and leering. The man had no conscience though. Your friend Brandon has the same disturbed look about him, believe me, I know that type of person.

  Imagine if the only thing you’d ever known was hard work and happiness and it all suddenly evaporated into Otto Spengler? Can you imagine?

  He did things to Clara in my bed, over my tables, against my walls, spilled blood on my floors and screamed throughout my entire body.

  I saw him head out to town to collect another child, Megan, bring her back here and do the exact same thing he did to poor Clara. Mercifully, he left early the next day—I think people from the town were on his tracks—but he left the stains of his deeds all over me and left the two delicate, broken bodies of Clara and Megan beneath my porch until they decayed naturally over time. I’m still amazed he got away with it. Imagine the frustration of wanting to help but being utterly powerless to do so? I know those two girls weren’t his first or his last.

  When Spengler left, the evil stayed behind too. When someone lives within your walls for any period of time how can you NOT let them become part of you? I am old now, like most old things I have given up the desire to fight or resist the world around me. Now you’re here and I know you have re-introduced a similar malevolence. I am always the reluctant accomplice.

  COMING HOME

  Stepping into Unger House felt like what show-people must feel treading the boards of Broadway for the first time. I thought Swarthy and I were about to burst into tears. It felt like coming home…

  It was dingy but had a real presence to it. Unger House was a narrow rectangular structure, flat-roofed, low-ceilinged with an open fireplace—Swarthy saw this and immediately went over to strike up a match! Wooden brackets were peeling and patches of damp decay and fungi spread high and wide throughout each room.

  There were only 3 rooms in total, all in a row with no hallways; there was no bathroom and no indoor plumbing, although there were a lot of exposed wires poking out of timbre fissures. The rot stink was overpowering. Every single floorboard creaked underfoot. The spirit of Otto Spengler was everywhere too. Swarthy and I both felt it.

  Swarthy came in and dumped our bags in the hall. I told him to be careful with my camera bag but he just grunted in response. It was freezing, but we were sure taken with the old place. It suited us right down to the ground. Once the fire got going we broke the new house in by making love in front of the lapping flames of a hissing hearth. While I was beneath Swarthy, I focused on the cobwebs dangling from overhead beams, observed an unknown vapour that eked out of cast iron vents. I focused on my climax, which was harder to reach when you’re having the slow, intimate kind of sex—but before I could reach it, Brandon pulled out his cock and sprayed me in the face with his seed. I was a little surprised and, dare I say it, a little shocked. He hadn’t been this selfish sexually since the very beginning. I was frustrated but made an exception on this occasion. I told him it was no big deal, but he was far from bothered by his own prematurity. In fact, he was goddamned proud of himself. Oh well, I guess you can only train a stray dog a certain amount of tricks. You have to let it revert back to its natural impulse from time to time. He kindly let me masturbate onto his left buttock. And they say romance is dead…

  We drove to Ibe
rville and enjoyed dinner together. I had the Fisherman’s Stew and Swarthy ate a lobster roll with seared scallops. He wanted to go to a firing range, Swarthy was plum centre with a fire-arm, but I wanted to get back and maybe make love. I watch a Moth’s annihilation into a candle flame and remember that this is a sign. It’s a time of transformation, like the Moth’s transformation into powder. Moths know.

  He’d stopped looking me in the eye at this point. I’m sure I was just being paranoid. I’m sure I’m still just being paranoid.

  *

  We have been here for 2 days already. Today we head out to find our co-star. I can’t wait to get started. I have Michael Jackson songs stuck in my head.

  As the final moonlets descend, we set off down the luminous estuary and into his own heart of darkness. We head into Baton Rouge to find a girl that fits the bill. She has to be unconventionally attractive; he is very particular about that. Brandon wants everyone in this production to look middle-to-below average. It was a component to Ultra-realism—that the killer be the most attractive person on screen. He will often unilaterally add new rules to the genre. I think he should be granted this liberty for his contribution to the field.

  Brandon rented a cute little light-brown Volkswagen Beetle with plenty of room in the trunk, said it reminded him of someone he used to admire. The thought of Brandon admiring anyone got me curious. It was difficult to imagine an iconoclast like him ever having to look up to somebody. It makes him too human. It’s the monster I’ve fallen in love with.

  It takes us about an hour to reach Baton Rouge and there’s a Mardi Gras parade on. There’s a banner that read The Krewe of Artemis and a crowd of people marvelling at a semi-nude woman dancing atop a float.

  This’ll give us perfect cover - he says between exaggerated chomps of Caramac and pulling slowly over to an abandoned lot. Once the car stops, Brandon ducks immediately out of the driver’s seat and disappears behind the back bonnet.

  I figure I should stay where I am. This is really his speciality, he doesn’t need me fumbling around and making things more difficult than they have to be. But what if he needs help? We didn’t run through anything, we didn’t exactly have a game plan, not really.

  I’ve been sitting anxiously in the passenger’s side for about 10 minutes pondering about whether I should go find him or not, when the driver’s door clicks open and an out of breath Brandon Swarthy spills back in beside me. His hands are stained with red plasma, so is the apron of his t-shirt. There are clumps of hair matted into the blood. He looks at me with a wild stare and says - help me get her in the fuckin back!

  We head to the rear of the vehicle where a squirming body has been half-dumped into the trunk.

  - What’d you think? Her name is Janice…

  Janice has centre-parted, long dark hair. She’s slim and bright looking. Her face reminds me of Princess Diana, after the crash. She’s wearing jordache jeans and a bolero jacket. There is a bite mark on the side of her cheek that she’s nursing with a swollen hand. Brandon is panting beside me in an almost sexual manner and I feel a pang of jealousy and lust. I kick Janice on the shin and she brings her knees up to her chin in recoil. She crams herself in beside a lug wrench, a CNG tank and a protruding fuse box. I slam the hood down and hear the dull thump as it catches her head on its way to locking with the back fender. Travellin’ Song by the Pentangle is playing on the stereo.

  We pull away with such sudden ferocity that all the Caramac bar wrappers fly from the dashboard and flutter around the car interior like a ticker tape parade. How could no one have seen us? We were only a few feet from the parade…

  Brandon starts bashing on the steering wheel in an exhibition of joy. The radio is on, Britney Spears. He screams and rubs the back of my neck with excessive force before bending in to kiss me.

  - I think we found the one - he keeps saying - I think we fuckin found her!

  I ask him what’s so special about this girl and he smirks, as if I’m missing something so obvious that I must be either visually impaired or touched in the head.

  - What’d you mean? She’s perfect! Looks just like Madeleine from Seattle.

  - Who’s Madeleine from Seattle? - I ask.

  - Killed her years back. They found her on Thanksgiving Day in the Wasatch Mountains lying dead by a river.

  - How did you get Janice without being seen?

  He smirks again. I can tell Brandon enjoys discussing his work.

  - I just gave her the old charm routine. Told her I was a lawyer from out of town. She told me she had a gig announcing the ski conditions for the major areas in western Washington and that she was in Baton Rouge to see her grandmother and for the parade.

  I have to admit, Brandon is a fucking genius at this. I feel myself falling deeper and deeper in love.

  *

  I lost my mobile phone before we started filming, guess I left it in Iberville. I ask Brandon if we can head out to town for a look. He tells me so go fuck myself. We have to make sure the girl doesn’t die overnight somehow. I’ve put too much damn work into getting her here in the first place.

  Since I woke up this morning something felt different. It still feels different. Brandon has changed. Since we arrived at Unger House he’s been tetchy, unaffectionate. We haven’t had sex at all. I’m worried about him. Paranoia quickly descends upon me. Suddenly I’ve brought into question whether he really loves me or not. I’m sure he does. You can’t begin to understand the depth of a man like Brandon, not to mention all the identities he’s had to assume over the years. He must be so lost and confused all the time. I’m worried the history of this house is starting to rub off on him somehow. I don’t know. We’ll see how he is at dinner tonight…

  We eat in front of the fireplace. Janice is passed out in the corner of the room, hog-tied limbs resting limply at her knees. Our meal consists of a noodle salad with chicken and cilantro that we picked up in Baton Rouge. It’s easy to prepare, especially when there are no ovens or cooking utensils at hand. Brandon hardly touches his meal. He’s too busy staring intently into the burning embers of the fire. He hasn’t spoken to me in about an hour. This is the most withdrawn I’ve ever seen him—I guess no one could ever comprehend that mind and its inner collusions. But I want to understand it. I want him to share his darkest fantasies with me. Perhaps he thinks I’ve already been privy to a lot of sensitive information about him. I suppose most serial killing starts as a consequence of a fantasy, refined over time. I was part of his fantasy. Isn’t that enough? I’m sorry to say, but no. I want more. I want everything Brandon has to offer. I want it all.

  I know this is dangerous thinking. A man like Brandon can be easily scared off by such possessiveness. He has to shoulder the role of a lone wolf, even if I know deep down that he is as dependant on me as I am on him. These are the little games one has to play to keep a man like Swarthy—offer submission when they need it, offer domination when they need it. Serial Killers are fundamentally selfish human beings, more selfish than I! They need to be the centre of attention, loved, adored and left to their own devices. It’s not easy, but I’m sure I can keep it going. I can tell he appreciates my patience and affection. I’m worrying over nothing, acting like a dumb teenager enmeshed in my own insane obsession. A car whizzes by outside. Dark Driving by Cave-In is audible through some punk’s speakers.

  Brandon brings out a folded piece of paper. I ask him for a look and he tilts it in my direction—a sketch of his face, poorly rendered, too wide in the cheeks and too bulbous at the forehead, but it’s undeniably meant to be him. Looks a little like Tom Hanks.

  - An artist’s impression - he scoffs and tosses the piece of paper onto the fire. It curls into a black sliver. At least he’s communicating again.

  - You keep a police artist’s composite of you?

  - Sure. It was from years ago. After I killed that girl Madeleine, remember the one I told you about?

  - I remember.

  - Just reminds me that they never caught me. No o
ne ever got close.

  - Why’d you burn it?

  Brandon doesn’t reply. He watches the image of himself bounce around the flames.

  - We better get some sleep. Shooting starts late morning tomorrow - he says after a few minutes.

  - Tomorrow I’m going to go back into town to see if I can get my cellphone back, is that ok? I’m not going back to Baton Rouge, just out to Iberville.

  - Do what you want, just don’t be too late.

  *

  Vincent enters Unger House. When he enters the door he sees Swarthy sitting on the floor heating the bases of his palms by the fire.

  - Couldn’t find my phone.

  Swarthy grunts and doesn’t move. Vincent is visibly anxious by his lover’s disconnectedness.

  - Where’s Janice? - he asks. Swarthy remains still, silent.

  Vincent places a hand on his broad shoulder and applies a comforting pressure. Swarthy shrugs him loose.

  - Is everything alright Brandon?

  Swarthy stands up, his back still facing Vincent. He speaks in a bassy snarl.

  - I think we should think about starting this film. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.

  - I think you’re right, but we have all the time in the world. I…

  Swarthy swings round to face the boy, waits a moment, before drawing back his giant ham-hock fist and crashing it into Vincent’s cheek. He careens backwards onto the floor.

  - What was that for?