Stephen King meets the late BettyJo Lemongello and is none too pleased

God spoke to me from time to time. Now was one of those times.

You done fucked up, son.

I was staring down at the kitchen floor, looking at the corpse of my dead stepmother, BettyJo Lemongello; the makeshift noose still hugging her purple bloated neck. Now, while this might have just been a simple case of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone awry, well; the voice of God suggested otherwise.

"I do have an alibi, y'know..." I suggested to to God.

Yeah? And I got a three billion year old hemmy on my sphincter that I'm liking more than you at this particular moment in time.

"What? Yer sayin' I drove her to this? Yeah. So maybe I did. But you said it was, and I quote, 'jake the snake,' to murder those deserving so long as I had an alibi."

Yeah, but, kid....

"What's with the but? You never had a problem when I killed before. Did you?"

Yeah, but.....

Oh my Fucking God.

"Just spit it out, wouldya? I know you got something you wanna say."

Well, you know how you were always wishing you weren't an only child?

"Oh fucking Jesus Christ. If you're gonna tell me she was knocked up I'm definitely gonna be bent."

Well, sort of...

"Sort of? Sort of pregnant? Really?"

God smiled sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. This was some fucked up unholy shit right here.

"Oh, ok. So when you say, I fucked up, what you really mean is, you fucked up?"

Hey. You fucked up. I fucked up. We fucked up. Let's just split the difference, kid. Bottom line is this fucking unholy cunt of a corpse was carrying an innocent life. Now, if'n you remember the rules of my little game it ain't cool to kill those undeserving anymore than it's cool to NOT have an ALIBI.

"So what the fuck do you want me to do about it? The purple cunt's D.O.A. I think I'm a little outta my depth on this one."

God gave me that look I had come to know so well. There was more. I'd learned to wait him out. Fortunately, this time it didn't take long.

She wasn't just pregnant with any old child.

"Yeah, well, we both know it wasn't Herman's."

For years the mad hanger upper had been terrorizing the household of Herman and it drove him crazy. Now, since I was only a "guest" in his house according to BettyJo fuckface, it didn't bother me in the slightest.

"Who the fuck keeps calling and hanging up. Every fucking night!?!?!?!?!?!"

I looked at Herman and replied, "You gonna pass that fuckin' thing or marry it?"

Herman looked down at the still burning, half smoked J of Maui Wowie.

"Oh," he said passing it to me.

I took a big old hit and said, "Maybe its The Shadow."

Herman just clucked his tongue.

"Hey, listen Dad," I said taking another puff. "I need some money for tuition. My financial aid and shit is all red taped up and I'd kinda like to continue my, ahem, higher education..."

"I don't have any money, kiddo."

"What? Did you not just pay for BettyJo's tuition?"

BettyJo had many failed career launches. Makeup artist. Pastry Chef. Rock & Roll singer. Massage therapist. Hair Stylist. Now she was back at community college studying to be; well who the fuck really cares?"

"Yeah, but."

"But what? I'm your only son and I got a 3.6 GPA and work two jobs and BettyJo just lays about like a fucking sack of lazy shit and you got money to pay for her school and not mine? Is that what I'm hearing?"

"Hey, you gonna pass that back?"

"Not unless you find a better station in the rattletrap piece of shit radio you call a brain."

I took a theatrical hit on the joint that was intended to convey spite.

"BettyJo said there's lots of kids at the community college who have jobs and apartments and cars and pay their own way. She says I should show you, 'tough love,' so that you can learn to be independent."

I could only think one thought. Don't murder the paternal unit. It'd be too easy. It wouldn't even be like shooting fish in a barrel. It'd be more like shooting the barrel.

I passed the joint to Herman.

"All right, Pop. If that's how ya wanna play this one."

"BettyJo says it's for your own good."

I let that one go. In this world it is often wise to choose your battles.

Well, it turns out that that very same night, while I was roaming through the streets of Greenwich Village with all my boys, looking for adventure and whatever comes our way, a very curious thing happened.

I was in the midst of arguing with my roommate, QP that, yes, License To Ill was indeed the greatest album ever produced in the history of mankind, and further, that Bon Jovi, with whom he tortured my eardrums with on a regular basis, was a little fuckin' cry baby bitch, when I saw something that made my head spin.

It was BettyJo fuckface and she was not flying solo. She was holding hands with some stupid looking guy, looking all goofy with the love bug.

"Dude. Fucking Bon Jovi rules. I can't believ-"

"Hey! BettyJo! BettyJo Lemongello!" I shouted, interrupting the music misappreciation monlogue QP had embarked upon.

BettyJo and the stupid looking guy turned around. BettyJo looked more confused than usual which was definitely not a sight for sore eyes. The stupid looking man attached to her right hand stared at me agressively.

"Yo! Who the fuck you talkin' to?"

"Well, since your name ain't BettyJo fuckface that sorta narrows down the possibilities don't it?"

BettyJo just stood on the sidewalk looking like a deer in the proverbial headlights. The big stupid guy disentangled his hand from BettyJo's and got in my mug. He had about a foot on my 5' 8", but I was pretty sure God was on my side on this one.

My boys, numbering well over a dozen, approached. They were drunk as shit and noisy as hell.

Vlad, a new addition to the crew, recently emigrated from The Ukraine, walked up to him and said, "Hey. Big man. I vanna tell you something." BettyJo's stupid date looked at Vlad and the rest of the dudes, who by now, had him fully surrounded. He was trying to maintain his macho facade but it appeared to be an exercise in futility.

"What? What do you wanna tell me punk?"

"No," continued Vlad. "Come closer."

He got in Vlad's face. Vlad looked up at him and said, "Your mother's pussy smells like Lysol toilet cleanser...."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. That's vat I just said, no?"

"Oh, yeah?"

"Whoah," said Vlad, jerking a thumb at BettyJo's big stupid date. "This guy, he is vizard of the vord, no?"

"Oh, yeah?"

I sighed. This wasn't going to end well.

BettyJo just watched the whole exchange wordlessly. She was all dolled up with heavy makeup and her hair was teased about a foot higher than her stupid skull. She was wearing a pair of red fuck me pumps and a paisley miniskirt that looked like it was cut from the remnants of some bargain basement wallpaper destined for the color blind.

Vlad looked at all of us and graced us with a drunken, all knowing grin. He made a deep snorting sound that signified the sincere intent to mine the motherlode of all Ukranian mucous deposits. Time stood still until Vlad returned from Urkranian mucous mine. BettyJo's dumb date continued to try to out-tough Vlad which was about as effective a strategy as trying to out-crazy, old Charlie Manson.

Vlad smiled at us a final time and then spat a ginormous loogie right between BettyJo's dumb date's narrowly spaced peepers. It smattered in a mostly even distribution and promptly succumbed to gravity; sliding down his nose and pockmarked cheeks, shimmering in the sodium haze of the 6th Avenue streetlights. My boys, for their part, remained dignified.

They let out a collective, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! Didja see that!?!?! Right in his fuckin' face! Yo! He fuckin' spat right the fuck in that cocksuckas ugly face!"

Yeah. They were yukkin' it up in the fast lane till BettyJo's mucous sportin' date decided to choose his battle; with all my boys. I could say he got a shot in but I'd be lying. Guys from Brooklyn rarely fight fair. Somebody hit him in the head with a bottle of OE 800 and he went down like a blind roofer on quaaludes.

QP, who I coulda swore just five minutes ago lacked the requisite appreciation of The Beastie Boys awesomeness surprised me by yelling, "Kick it!"

Apparently the boys agreed with his lyrical homage because they started collectively kicking the living shit out of BettyJo's date. The sight of BettyJo's boy toy doing his best impression of a 6' 8" fetus snapped her out of her daze. As for her confusion, that was a permanent affliction.

She ran over to me and took my hand in both of hers.

I looked at BettyJo's stupid mime painted whore face.

"Please, Danny. Don't tell your father."

And all this time I thought mimes kept their yaps shut.

"Please Danny! I-I-I love you," she pleaded.

Yeah, and I was born last Tuesday.

Somewhere in the distance I heard a siren approaching. I placed the tips of my ring finger and middle finger together. I inserted the digital ring in my mouth and blew the Brooklyn whistle. It got the boys attention.

"Cheese it, Yo! The cops are coming!"

Vlad launched a final Air Jordan in BettyJo's date's mucous and now blood covered excuse for a face. We made like Michael Jackson and beat it.

The next morning BettyJo poked her head in the guest room and said, "Danny... Wake up sleepy head. I made you your favorite, scrambled eggs with Country ham and homefries. And I remembered to butter your toast just the way you like it...."

I lifted my head from the pillow, took a look at BettyJo and tried to go back to sleep.

"Danny? Are you gonna stay in your bedroom all day?"

My bedroom. Since I was 6 years old it was always the guest room. Now; it was suddenly my room. I shook the malt liquor and marijuana cobwebs out of my head and sat up.

"I'll be there in a minute. Just close the door wouldja?"

"Of course, sweetums," she said in that saccharine sweet little girl's voice that made me wanna push her out a Vermont window. I cracked my neck and lit a butt. I recalled the previous evening's festivities and debated the best way to handle this potential bombshell.

I went into the bathroom and performed my morning ritual of the four holy S's, which is to say I shit, shaved, showered and smoked a J from Herman's stash.

At the breakfast table Herman and BettyJo were stuffing their stupid faces with eggs and ham and washing it down with coffee. I took a seat and BettyJo promptly handed me a cup of coffee.

"Two sugars and half and half. Just the way you like it, kiddo."

"How was your night, kiddo?" Herman asked. "Didya do anything fun?"

"Not really," I said, trying to blink away BettyJo's egg and shit filled piehole. "Just watched the boys roust some knucklehead who didn't like the way I talked to hisslutwhorebitchcuntfuckfacegobblecock girlfriend," I said, looking BettyJo dead in her stupid peepers. "But other than that, it was pretty blasé blasé," I added with a shrug.

Later that afternoon, while BettyJo was out, who the fuck cares where, I got Herman alone.

"So listen, Dad. I wanna talk to ya about-"

"Look, kiddo, I know what you're gon-"

"Dad. List-"

"Now I'm getting pissed, Danny. I told you I ain't got no money for your school books or whatever the fuck it is you need this time. So just fucking put a sock in it fer Chrissakes!"

I looked at Herman's stupid face. I shrugged my shoulders and just said, "If you say so...."

Anyway, in case you forgot, God and I were somewhere about here in our convo:

She wasn't just pregnant with any old child.

"Yeah, well, we both know it wasn't Herman's."

That ain't what I mean, kid.

"All right. I'll play your little guessing game. What ever do you mean, God?"

I mean it was the second coming.

I looked at God. Oh, this was rich.

"You tryin' to tell me you put the messiah in her stupid womb?"

I'm not trying. I just did.

"Well, fuck me sideways with a stickball bat. What the fuck didja go and do that for?"

I work in mysterious ways, kid.

"Yeah, that's one way to put it."

I looked down at dead BettyJo. Yeah, it was probably my fault. Now that I knew who the mad hanger upper was, I hadn't given BettyJo fuckface a single moment of peace. I held my knowledge of her wanton ways over her head, like the Sword of Damocles, forever threatening to rat her out to stupid Herman and otherwise cramp her whorish style.

She had come to me just two days ago, crying hysterically, and swearing that her affair was history.

"He left me. He has another woman and he won't even take my calls. It's over, Danny."

"Well, that's a real sad song you're singing there, BettyJo, but I think you got me confused with someone who cares."

"You don't understand, Danny. Your father. He's like Hitler. He doesn't let me do anything."

"What? Like paying for your school and stupid makeup and girly magazines while you moonlight as the neighborhood pump?"

"You don't understand!"

"Well, shit, BJ. Sounds like you got no reason to go on..."

BettyJo tried to cry on my shoulder some and the way she was hugging me made my Spider sense tingle. Her hand fell to my thigh and I got the fuck outta Dodge.

Now I was looking at her and her dead baby bump on the kitchen floor. Herman was outta town trying to score a few more pounds of the Maui Dubya and I was seriously considering catching the 5:15 back to school. Let Herman clean up this dead fucking bitch on the floor.

God said:

Get a duffle bag and a screwdriver, kid

"Oh, fuckin' Christ, God."

Exactly

Forty minutes later I was driving a boosted Beemer up I-95 with BettyJo fuckface's corpse and the messiah fetus in the trunk and God riding shotgun.

Have no fear for God is your co-pilot, kid.

"So, what's the game plan G?" I asked, popping in my beat up Licensed To Ill cassette with a frazzled forefinger.

No. Sleep. Till. Brooklyn - Or in this case, Bangor.

"Who ya gonna bang?"

No, kid. Bangor. Bangor, Maine.

"What's in Bangor, G?" I asked.

"We're going to see a man about a plot."

"You making a movie, G?"

No, kid. A cemetery plot.

"Why couldn't we just bury the bitch in Brooklyn?"

This is not your average cemetery, kid. Fear not for The King will explain everything when we get there.

"It's your thang. Do what ya wanna do..."

I put a cigarette in between my big ass lips and felt my MC jacket up for a lighter. God looked at me sideways and snapped his fingers. My cigarette caught a fire and I took a puff. God turned up the volume way past ten. God, I and The Beasties were On It; bobbing our heads all the way up I-95 to Bangor.

I pulled the Beemer into the long driveway and killed the ignition. I sighed and got out. I walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

I heard footsteps approaching and somebody eyeballed me through the peephole. I tried to look non-threatening.

A few seconds later I heard a bunch of locks tumbling and the door swung open revealing Stephen King.

"Yeah? Whaddya want?"

"Mr. King?"

"It ain't James Brown," he said grinding his teeth. "So, again I ask you. What. do. you. want. Question mark."

"God sent me," I said as I'd been instructed to. I got my Air Jordan ready.

King sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He knitted his brow and began to close the door. I stuck my foot in the jamb.

"You mind removing your foot?"

"Look, Mr. King. I'm serious as a heart attack. I got a dead bitch in my trunk and I just drove up I-95 with God as my co-pilot. He says, and I quote, 'Tell Stephen, Operation Lazarus is in effect.'"

"Oh, fuck me twice in the goat ass," he said with a sniff and a wipe. The door opened back up and I was in like Flynn.

"Follow me," The King said more than mildly annoyed. We climbed a bunch of stairs and walked down a hall to a door. On the door was a big sign that said, "This room guarded by Smith & Wesson four nights a week. You guess which." He opened the door with an antique key and told me to take a seat.

The King's office was a bloody fucking mess with crumpled up pieces of paper every goddamned where. I pushed a few off a chair in front of his desk and took a seat. He sat down behind his desk and said, "Now, tell me exactly what, 'God,' told you, kid."

"He said, 'Operation Lazarus is in effect. Stephen will take care of the rest.'"

The King took off his spectacles and rubbed a set of bloodshot eyes.

"So whatcha working on? I fucking LOVED, 'The Shining!' 'Heeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnnnny!'That shit KILLED me!"

"Look, kid. If, 'Operation Lazarus's" in effect that means you'll be wanting a favor. And that means I'm gonna be giving you that favor. But it doesn't mean I gotta like it. So, why don't you give me the long on the skinny and tell me what I can do you for?"

"You mind if I smoke?" I asked, unable to help but notice the three big ashtrays overflowing with butts.

"Only if you don't offer me one, kid."

I proffered a pack of Marlboro Reds at The King and he took one. I took one myself. He whipped out a Zippo and I leaned in to get my cigarette going. He lit his own and snapped it shut with a practiced flourish.

"So, it's like this. I-"

"Hold on a minute. You wanna line?"

The King reached under his desk returning topside holding a mirror whose topography boasted a big pile of the Yayo. It glistened in the moonlight. He picked up a credit card off the mirror and chopped four big lines up. He patted his chest down then fished a rolled up Benjamin out of the breast pocket of his work shirt with long nicotine stained fingers.

"Batter up," he said.

The King stooped over the mirror making two quick passes accompanied by resonant snorts. When he was finished with his vacuuming his big head did a fairly impressive impersonation of a Jack In The Box.

The King stared at me for a moment all bug eyed and then flashed me a joker's grin and said,"Heeeeere's Johnnnnnnnny!"

I couldn't help but notice that The King had what appeared to be a rather large piece of spinach lodged in his front teeth.

The King passed me the mirror. I didn't comment on the spinach. With The King you couldn't really ever be certain green shit would be kosher.

"Yer up, kid."

When in Rome, or Bangor for that matter....

I snorted up the two lines and my head exploded though not necessarily in an unpleasant way. I returned the mirror and paraphernalia to The King and took a drag on my cigarette.

One hour and eight lines apiece later I had told The King all about Dead BettyJo fuckface and the messiah fetus.

The King cracked his big knuckles and blew a smoke ring that wafted up in the air and out into the night. I looked out the window and noticed the moon was full.

Spooky

"Okay, kid. I owe the G big time. So I'm gonna tell you what we're gonna do." And that's exactly what he did.

"Hey. You're not gonna help?"

"The King ain't no ditch digger, kid."

An hour and a half later I was standing in the moonlight, smoking a butt and admiring a very large hole in the ground that The King had watched me dig by my lonesome. It coulda been worse. He told me a verrry creepy story while I dug that hole that made the small hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. But, that's not my story to tell so I'll get back to the one that is.

"All right, kid. Now ya just gotta stick her in the ground and cover her up."

"Ya gonna help this time?"

"The King don't fill in ditches neither, kid."

I got BettyJo fuckface outta the dufflebag. She was starting to smell something awful. I rolled her to the edge of the hole and pushed her in with the tip of my Air Jordan. Then I covered her up. I looked at The King standing in the light of the full moon and said, "What now?"

"What now? I'll tell you what now. We're gonna get in the car and your gonna drive me home. Then you're gonna get on I-95 and find your way back to Brooklyn and forget you ever met me. That's, 'What now?'"

Ten minutes later The King was getting out of the hot Beemer. He turned to me and put his big hand out. I took it.

"Well, it was sure great to meet you, Mr. King!"

"Was it, kid. Was it really?"

"Well, except for you making me bury that dead bitch all by myself, yeah; all in all I'd say 10/10."

"Well, thanks kid. Don't take any wooden nickels. And tell God, I did exactly what you asked, wouldja?"

"No problemo."

The King closed the door and I drove back to Brooklyn sans God but not necessarily The Beasties. I was still chronic from The King's shit so you can say, "No sleep till Brooklyn," was a foregone conclusion.

I was spending the night at Herman's. I was supposed to drive to Daytona with my boys the next day but Herman said he needed to see me. He was all busted up about BettyJo going all milk carton and shit.

"She just up and left, kiddo. No note. No nothing."

I smoked some of Herman's weed and nodded sympathetically.

"It hurts, kid. I love that sweet woman. She's the best."

"Well, she's something all right," I said, mostly to make conversation.

Herman was about to resume his pussy man whine-a-thon when the doorbell rang.

"Can you get that, kid?"

I took a hit on my doobie and said, "I think you better get it, Pop."

Herman clucked his tongue and got up to go answer the door. I stood at the other end of the hall and watched. Herman stuck his eye in the peephole.

"Holy shit!" he exclaimed. Herman fumbled to unlock the door then swung it wide open excitedly.

In the doorway, looking indescribably worse for the wear, sporting twigs and leaves in her ratnest hairdo, stood none other than BettyJo fuckface; back from the dead and sporting a very noticeable baby bump. I could smell her funk from twenty-five feet away. It smelled like tequila, death and sour pussy.

"Buh-Buh-BettyJo!" Herman stammered.

BettyJo opened her stupid pie hole and said, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeere's BettyJo!"

With the stench of death and madness singeing the hairs of my nostrils I knew what I had to do.

I grabbed my dufflebag, the one that BettyJo had rode up to The King's house in, and got the fuck outta Dodge.

I heard Herman calling after me, happier than a kid with an ice cream cone, "Where ya going, kid?"

"Daytona. This one's got you written all the fuck over it. I'm outta here like Vladimir."

Herman didn't protest. Somehow I imagined he and BettyJo had a lot of catching up to do. After all, there was going to be a new edition to la familia de locos. I vaguely wondered if BettyJo was gonna start putting out, and if so, would that make my father a necrophiliac....

From Crucifiction by Krafto Matix.