"Bad Juju" Part 16

"Bad Juju" Part 16

Guildy and Ace trudged to the far side of the west cottonfield, all the way to a log-fence. The top of the fence was broken and weathered just enough so it would be flat. Shards of green and amber bottles lay strewn about in the dirt and mud below. Chester searched the ground for a few somewhat intact bottles. He found no whole ones, but a few jagged half-bottles, still large enough to be decent targets.

Guildy began to pick little bits of clingy cotton from the fabric of his skirt. He wadded them all up in a palm-sized powderpuff and playfully shoved it down the neckline of Chester's shirt, just as he was beginning to aim the gun. He jumped, firing a shot off into the air. The plink of a bullet hitting the ground was heard merely feet away, a few seconds later. Chester, Guildy, and Ace began to giggle and laugh at that and nothing else in particular. Chester re-aimed the gun and fired. A bottle shattered seemingly of its own accord.

"You wanna' shoot?" Chester asked Ace. Ace, like any red-blooded male (trapped in the body of a petite lady), heartily accepted.

"Hell yes!" Any sort of Georgia drawl was completely absent, giving way to a Louisiana twang. Chester howled with laughter. Chester gently handed the gun to Ace, who felt his arms sag under its weight. Ace immediately assumed posture and correct stance to shoot (it was ingrained in his knowledge from lord-knows-how-long-ago).

"Well, I'll be damned, Ms. Irving! You're a natural! I shoulda' gone hunting with you a long time ago!" Chester exclaimed.

"Now pull ze trigger!" Guildy urged. He was obviously getting excited, as well. Ace pulled the trigger, feining a bad shot and sending a bullet to ricochet of the bark of a tree in the distance.

"Not bad!" Chester laughed, "Not quite good, but not bad!" The three of them chuckled again, Guildy a little more than the other two, upholding his attempt to flirt. Ace had to admit, despite the circumstances, he was having a great time. He wished, in a way, that he could convince Guildy to allow him more trips to this life, just so he could spend a little more time with Chester. The guy was a hoot to be around, and he was probably ten times better than that when he was drunk.

Chester reclaimed the shotgun and aimed, once more. "Ya' know, Abigaille- er, um, Ms. Irving. I'm really glad you decided to come out here, tonight. I've been meanin' to tell you something," he said absent-mindedly.

"Hm?" It was more of whistle than anything. Chester turned away from the fence and eased down his shotgun. He stared into Ace's eyes, the same colour as the ribbon tying back his curls. Obviously, something of great gravity was approaching, and Ace had a feeling he knew what it was.

"Seeing as my, er, 'vacation' is over in the morning and it's my last night here, n' all, I was wondering if perhaps you'd like to... go with me." Guildy loudly choked on his own spit. He scuttled quickly to Ace's side and stood merely inches from him, so close the hems of their skirts were brushing.

"Zis is ze problem!" Guildy hissed in Ace's pink seashell of an ear. Ace ignored it. Even though he knew he would be leaving, he suddenly felt a great deal of loyalty and unity with Abigaille Irving. He wanted to do something nice for her. He wanted to agree. He wanted to secure some memories with Chester, so he could return to Guildy and be sent back to live... in Mindy's place. It hit him quite suddenly. He was now Mindy, and Chester was Ace. He wanted so desperately to oblige and follow this city-boy back up to Jersey, but knew that he had larger obligations there on the cotton plantation. He wanted to surrender himself to a life of merriment, so he could quite possibly have fun in the future. He made up his mind. The way he saw it, the life of Ace Polanski had already hit rock-bottom. There was absolutely no lower rung it could sink to. So what if he didn't accomplish anything, at this point? So what if he didn't fulfill the purpose of being there, in the first place? He would rather have a life of happiness on his "Cosmic Rap-Sheet" than a life of obligatory misery.

"Uh, Hildegard, could I talk to you for a moment?" Ace found it difficult to remember trivial things like Guildy's female name when he was in such a position. He grabbed Guildy about the meaty wrist and dragged him a few feet out of earshot of Chester.

"You have to refuse him, Ace. Zis is how you muzt fix your karma!" Guildy said urgently. Ace crossed his arms in defiance.

"Well, I hate to tell ya', but I'm not gonna'," Ace said definitively. Guildy looked dumbfounded. His mouth hung open, revealing the only piece of jewelry he was still wearing. "What's with that look? I'm just not gonna' refuse him. That's all there is to it."

"But you have to, Ace! If you pull your life from ze gutter, if you vant to turn your destiny around, if you vant Mindy back!"

"That's just it. I'm not gonna' make the mistake Mindy made. I'm not gonna' sell out just because I think it'll do me good in the future." Guildy was turning visibly red. One of his braids was beginning to droop, but he did nothing to fix it.

"You do not s'ink it vill do you good in ze future! I know it vill do you good in ze future! Zat is my job! I am a pzychic! A shaman! A seer, for ze sake of Chhrrist!" Guildy tossed his head from side-to-side in a violent mockery of the gentle lolling from earlier. The buns on the sides of his head unwraveled completely, the braids untwisting and sending wavy shocks of aburn hair to splay about his velvet-clad shoulders. He stopped dead, as if petrified. "Are you denze?"

"What?"

"I said, are you denze? Mentally incapable? Dim? Ztupid?!"

"Why the hell do you say that?!" Ace was practically screeching. He never would have believed it, but he was beginning to feel hate for the once-jolly Dutchman. He felt his fingernails digging little moon-shaped slivers into the soft, sweaty palms of his hands. He just wanted to ball up one of his fists and sock the area of velvet skirt below the ring of gut bulging from under the corset, praying that Guildy might still be masculinely endowed enough to feel it.

"You are forgetting who you zpeak to! I can zee your thoughts, Arlington Polanski, und I can zay for a fact zat, no! If you do not refuse Chester right now, you may not come back to me und regress to zis life so you may bruise your karma even fur'zer! I vouldn't do zat for ze devil if he used his regression to become a zaint! Much less vould I do it for you!"

"You'd do it if I paid ya', Jew," Ace was ready to sling every insult he had in the book.

"Have you conzidered ze fact zat zis zort of s'ing is taxing on me, as vell? Zis iz ze hard part of my job! I do not do zis every day! It takes a lot of energy from me und it tires me! I zleep for days after zis zort of s'erapy! You had better make it vorth my time, mijn vriend!"

"What are ya' gonna' do if I don't?" Ace challenged. Guildy flung his hands upward to show their backs. The crimson sleeves of the dress had fallen slightly to reveal swirls of raised purple henna on the white skin there. Many rings were still present, although the bracelets were not (Ace didn't think he could handle the jingling, at that moment in time).

"I am a shaman. I can make your life any zort of hell I vant to," Guildy's voice hissed eerily. It truly sounded as if he was housing a family of rattlesnakes in his larynx. Ace tried to brush it off with a laugh.

"You are such a moron," Ace said condescendingly. At this point, no name was too horrible for Oktober Guildenstern. He was a faggot, he was a kike, he was a fatass, he was a dick, but most of all, he was fucking self-centered. He was more concerned about the effort his lazy ass had to exert doing basically nothing than about the satisfaction of his customers. Ace knew guys that slung tires, hauled rocks, poured concrete, and did it all in the 110-degree Louisiana heat. However, they still did their jobs for the betterment of others. Guildy, however, must have just watched them from his chintzy little cat-piss-reeking appartment while he sat around naked, eating bon-bons, and fantasizing about shoving his head between the thighs of other men.

Guildy began to fume. He must have heard that, and Ace was glad that he did. His broad shoulders heaved and he snorted with each breath. His lips peeled back into a snarl, showing his teeth, which looked like yellowed, broken tile-squares ringed with moldy grout. If he was odd-looking before, he was truly ugly when he was angry. Chester watched the whole spectacle from a distance. He most likely could not hear the exchange but for a few angry vocal noises.

"Do not push me any fur'zer, Arlington Polanski. I did zis, all of zis," he flung his arms about, "zo imagine vot else I can do!"

"Selfish. That's what you are," Ace shook his head, before adding after a Mudd-like pause, "you ugly queer." A low rumbling emanated from Guildy's general area. He opened his mouth and let the rumbling turn to a thunderous battle-cry, the likes of which Ace had never heard, not even in prison. Before he knew it, Ace's small, frail, female form was flying backward after being knocked into the air by the heft of a larger body. Those huge, solid, globular breasts were pressed hard against Ace's chest and windpipe. He fell onto a pallet of densely-distributed cotton plants, their little pointed spires ripping the soft linen of his dress. He looked up to see Guildy straddling him, dappled with little white fluffballs of cotton.

"I am zelfish?! Look at you!" Ace was terrified. Never in his life had he been overpowered or dominated. If female Abigaille could not fight off female Guildenstern, then Ace somehow doubted the situation would be any different if reenacted by their original forms. "You s'ink your life has gone to ze shits. You s'ink you have it ze worzt of anyone yust because your girlfriend left you und your parents zold your car! Zat zort of ztuff happens daily! It happens to anybody! Und may I mention zat it's all your fault?! You vent to prison because of s'ings you did, und yet you expect ze vorld to move around you to accomodate you und comfort you!" Guildy was on a tirade. His clipped words fell on Ace's submitting ears like the blows of a sledgehammer. "And zis is not mentioning ze grief it iz causing zose around you! Your poor Mama! She is afraid to go to her bridge club anymore because she iz ze one vith ze delinquvent zon! Und your Father! He ztays up at night vondering vhere he vent wrong! It keeps him avake! Not to mention Mindy! She cried to me, Ace Polanski. She shed tears of vorry und sadness over you! At least zat girl vas not so headztrong und stubborn!" Ace looked up at Guildy. The only things he could compare the current sight to, ironically, were the old filmreels of Adolf Hitler, bellowing and pounding his fist on the podium. "She vas villing, she zaw zat her current life would lead her into danger! Vhile it vas fun zen, it vould do her not one bit of good in ze future!" Guildy paused. His nostrils flared with each hissing breath. It wasn't easy to tell if he was done or not, so Ace stayed silent.

His vision became hazy and soft. He was crying. Not even he knew a lot of this stuff. A thousand secrets and a thousand more tears were locked up in the tiny apartment of Oktober Guildenstern. Ace wondered how many other disasters he elicited in the lives of others. He wasn't about to ask, however. He couldn't handle it. He thought to the life of Abigaille. He could just see the white-haired Mr. Irving, sitting on the porch in his rocking chair at three in the morning, watching the rain come down and forlornly wondering if his brightest prospect would ever return home. He thought of Hiram DeLouise and pretty Mrs. DeLouise, watching their estate crumble and their slaves be auctioned, all because of the plantation-merge that never happened. His thoughts immediately turned to his own Father, lying in a hospital bed back in Amaranth, illuminated green by the light of an EKG. His Father, bald, cold, and alone, about to die and regretting whatever it was that he did or didn't do that prevented Ace from being a functional, normal human being. Ace thought of his Mother, also lying in a bed just as alone, thinking about how much lonlier she would be once Mr. Polanski passed away and Ace was locked up for good. And lastly, Ace thought of Mindy, probably awake with a textbook on her lap, the pages blotchy with salty water-spots, blooming roses made of tears and toxins. So many people, so many worries, all because of the dumb choices made by one soul, whether the body be a scruffy past-inmate or a delicate southern belle.

Ace gazed upward at Guildy, who seemed to be winding down from his adrenaline trip. "You really think this'll help?" Ace said softly. Guildy looked to be crying, too, but more from his adult temper-tantrum than anything. He snorted wetly and wiped the black rivers of mascara from his cheeks.

"I know it vill," He said. The tempest was dying down. Suddenly, a loud crack rang through both bodies.

"What the hell is goin' on?!" Chester yelled and rushed over. Guildy pushed himself off of Ace and patted his skirt, sending dust-clouds radiating from him in all directions.

"Not a s'ing. Yust a disagreement, zat is all," Guildy sniffled again.

"O, well, I'm sorry," Chester extracted a scrap of cloth from his pocket, "Use my handkerchief." Guildy smiled and politely took it before totally massacreing it with a honking blow of his nose. "I didn't know girls could fight like that!" He grinned and whistled through the hole in his teeth. Guildy turned about and extended a fat, purple-streaked hand to Ace. Ace once again hesitated before taking it. After a second or two of deliberation, he grasped the warm palm and fingers and was easily yanked upward. Guildy lovingly dusted the plant detritus and dirt from Ace's skirt, much in the way a mother would.

"Ve vill be yust fine. Yust fine indeed," Guildy said reassuringly.

"So, what do you think, Abigaille?" Chester asked, suddenly.

"What?"

"About coming with me? Leaving here and following me back to Jersey?" Ace looked into Chester's warm smile, then into the makeup-streaked face of Guildy, framed by unruly locks of braid-kinked hair. He took a deep breath.

"I'm so sorry, Chester, but I'm already to be married to Hiram. You got to me a little late," Ace said apologetically. Chester looked absolutely crushed. His arm hung limply at his side, causing him to drop his shotgun to the ground with a heavy "clunk." Ace turned back at Guildenstern, who had a look of relief so sweet and so genuine that Ace was immediately ready to take back the things he said before (except for "Jew;" that was undeniable and could not be changed).

"So, I'll be leaving alone?" Chester said sheepishly. Guildy's eyes widened and shifted in his direction. He whipped around and stooped to grab Chester's dusty hand. He made sure to make the gesture with extra energy so his breasts would jiggle and bounce right in Chester's line of sight.

"Not nezessarily," Guildy purred sweetly. Chester raised a confused eyebrow in Guildy's direction. There was a short, yet awkward, pause. Ace cringed. Chester burst into a laugh, once more.

"Bully!" Chester clapped Guildy on the shoulder, sending another plume of dust into the evening air. So, Guildy wouldn't make a pleasure-trip-to-the-past for a demon with good intentions, but he'd most certainly do it for the occasional fling with a Victorian city-urchin. He was selfish, after all. That bastard.

"Hildegard? I think it's gettin' dark. Maybe we should head in?" Guildy was still in mid-flirt with Chester, puckering his plump lips for a kiss. Ace added, "So you can rest up before your, erm, trek, tomorrow?" Guildy spun about at the suggestion.

"Vonderful suggeztion," he said, breaking his hand's alliance with Chester's. Ace suddenly felt a wave of fatigue come over him. It was as if a hurricane had passed, and the only thing left was overcast lull, punctuated by thin strings of sunlight that illuminated rent metal signs and driftwood. His eyes began to droop. "I do believe ve should carry her, Chester," Guildy said softly. Ace submitted to the suggestion and nearly fainted. He fell backward into a stretcher made of hands, forearms, and elbows. He felt heavy and tired, but most of all, peaceful. It would be alright, after all.