“I think this conversation is rigged.”
Leonard pulled up next to my car.
“Well,” he continued, “I like a big dick. Think about it. A big tit really doesn’t do you any good. You get to suck on it, or whatever you heteros do. Roll it around in your palms or rub your head with it. Whatever. Frankly, the thought of it kind of disgusts me. You’re not accomplishing anything there. Just buy a beach ball.”
“It’s not like that, Leonard.”
“Now, a dick, there’s somethin’s got a purpose.”
“I’ll be going now, Leonard.”
I opened the door, got out of the pickup. Leonard punched in his Johnny Cash cassette, waved at me, and drove off to the sounds of “Delia.”
Just as I unlocked my car door, tossed my cap on the seat, and was about to climb inside, I heard a weak voice in the nearby patch of woods beyond the fence.
“Help me.”
2
The voice had come from the trees beyond the great chain-link fence that surrounded the parking lot. Nothing else was said, but I could hear a whimper, as if a puppy were dying under an automobile tire.
There wasn’t much of a moon, but besides the whimper I could hear and see movement in the trees. I just couldn’t make out exactly what it was. I opened my truck door and jerked on the headlights, and what I saw horrified me.
Between two trees a young man was looking at me, startled, like a deer caught in headlights. His hair was mussed and full of pine straw and leaves, his face was smeared with something. He had hold of a woman’s wrist. She was on the ground, nude, her head turned slightly toward me, her dark hair spread out like a stain on the leaf mold. After a moment of glaring at me, the guy turned his attention to her and began stomping her, like he was trying to smash an insect. It was a horrible sound, way his booted foot came down on her soft face.