“Well, hi there, handsome!” I said.
Our first words! I was all a-flutter!
Mr. Punch’s eyes rolled up to meet mine, peering through that screaming yellow hair. Golly wow! It was love at first fright. My boy was burnt all over. Burnt in patterns, burnt on purpose, fulla welts in spirals and angles and dots. And the biggest, prettiest, thickest scars ran down from the corners of his mouth to the bottom of his chin, just where a wooden puppet’s mouth would hang open. I love me a burnt man! His bloody eyes burned too, scrapin’ over my fac
e, blown pupils snapping in, into focus, into hot, tight, unstoppable awakeness. And then he smiled wide and wicked and fanged and needy. Mr. Punch hissed right at me:
“If I had all the wives of wise King Sol, I would kill them all for my Pretty Poll.”
That’s a quote, that is. Some old-school noise from jolly old London-town. If a man’ll rhyme for ya, he’ll do just anything. From that second, I was Pretty Polly forever and ever amen. I went hot and wet as Mrs. Sarkomand’s mermaid cunt all over. My heart had a party dress on. Play it cool, Polly!
“Time for your medication, Mr. Punch,” I said softly. But soft wasn’t the way to Mr. Punch’s hard wooden heart. His pupils melted out again, the arson in his eyes snuffed. He started coughing. His phlegm looked like anybody else’s phlegm. Dunno what I expected. Liquid gold or lava or tainted heroin.
“Sorry, Doctor,” he slurred. “Thought you were someone else.”
I started to tell him not to be such a silly-head. The little girl giggle started in the back of my throat, a fat wad of demureness ready to hack up out of my lungs. But Bad Daddy didn’t raise no dumb dolly! Never give up an advantage once you’ve got it in your briefcase. I brushed some imaginary lint off my white jacket and settled down in the next chaise. Handed Mr. Punch his strings. Open wide, let Doctor Polly see that you swallowed up all your tranq-tastic medicine like a good boy!
Now, I ain’t sayin’ I’m any great shakes as an actress. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s how a shrink talks. I can do it all day long. I can do ya Freudian, Jungian, Gestalt, a little Cog-Bee, a little Hypno-whatever, pick a card, any card. Tell me about your mother. What comes to mind when I say the word match? I put on my Big Girl voice. Betcha didn’t think I had one, huh? Well, fuck you, watch this:
“No trouble at all, Mr. Punch. A growing ability to retain facial awareness from one day to another is an excellent sign of progress. Shall we pick up where we left off?”
“Don’ ’member,” Mr. Punch warbled as his cocktail kicked in. It was just sick, I tell ya, seein’ a man like that laid low, blubbin’ and stutterin’ like he belonged here, like he wasn’t a panther under that Haldol haze. Like he wasn’t a beautiful monster just like me.
“That’s perfectly all right. We’ll start fresh. The basics. The root of the issue.” I leaned in close. He smelled like sour sweat and bile and puke—but under that, he smelled like home. “Why are you here, Mr. Punch?”
Mr. Punch’s furioso eyes went bloody knifepoints again. I could hear his heart start up insida him like a boiler comin’ on in Hell’s basement. He grabbed my wrist, dug his nails into me. Don’t tell Daddy, but I almost came right there. Mr. Punch snarled one big, black word:
Grimdark.
The word went echoin’ round the Pool, down into the deep end and across the bathing beauties of Club Meds. All the other kittens picked it up, tossed it around, gnawed on it, spat it out again. Every wrinkled cock in the place got rage-hard.
Grimdark.
The reason for the season! That big loser ox in body armor who knocked me on the head and dumped me in here. Dumped us all in here. In Sarkomand. In the Pool. In Dr. Leng’s Easter basket of bad eggs. Ain’t no bunny in the place didn’t know that emojock leather-queen fuckmuppet. Oh, wasn’t life grand in Guignol City before the big fella came along? A girl could burn down City Hall in peace! A boy could really express himself artistically—splice his genes with a crocodile’s or ’roid out on space-testosterone or just put on a spangled mask and haunt the shadows, followin’ his bliss. I grew up in that Guignol. Sure, it’s not great for the tax base, but the culture, you know? I miss that. I miss the old neighborhoods before Grimdark made the mean streets safe for foreign real estate investment. Now it’s like New York after disco hit the skids. Now it’s brunch and boutiques and artisanal babies born with a silver EpiPen shoved up their asses. Now this hunka Kevlar and meatheaded super-dickery comes along and decides it’s his job to clean up the place. Who asked ya, buddy? Who the shit d’ya think you are? Except no one knows who he is, because of course they don’t. God, it’s just so paint-by-frickin’-numbers. We all hate him—but it’s not what you think! We don’t hate him for beatin’ us or for fightin’ for his goody-two-shits section four point zero one of the penal code idea of justice. A nemesis gets your blood goin’ in the morning! Archenemies beat coffee every day of the week! Naw, we hate him ’cause he’s boring.
He’s tortured. He’s mysterious. He can bench-press his mommy issues one-handed. He wears all black—not a spangle or a crocodile scale or a measly pop of color in sight. Grimdark isn’t special—not like Miasma or Doctor Nocturne. He just works out a lot and bought the whole Sharper Image catalog in one go. He’s the rich kid in school who whacks ya in the nose and tells the teacher you started it. Well, maybe you did and maybe you didn’t, but honestly, Grimdark just likes punchin’ things, and that boy was gagging for an excuse.
But punching is all he wants to do! All foreplay and no big, final thrust-n-shudder. He’s got a Saturday morning cartoon for a moral compass, so he’ll beat ya till your kidneys give out and your bones snap like glow sticks, till you’ll never look the same again, till a prizefighter’s brain scan looks nicer than yours, but he won’t kill ya. As if noble Mr. Grimdark’s somehow in the clear if a fella bleeds out at the hospital, just so long as he didn’t actually shoot the poor bastard in the face. For Chrissake, at least Mr. Punch’ll putcha out of your misery! But no, he just sticks us all in here, in Sarkomand, because he’s such a fantastic genius that tucking all the wickeds of the world in bed together seemed like a super-spiffy idea. That 1% bro-fund manager protein shake addict swoops and swaggers around Guignol City like he owns us all, barfin’ up Hallmark-card poems about JUSTICE and REVENGE and DARKNESS along with some seriously freshman poli-sci haiku that sounds super deep and means jack except that a rich man’s gonna make a poor man bleed. As if the mutant league of law and order didn’t already have the game fixed; now they just don’t bother with innocent until proven guilty. These days, it’s innocent till we call Grimdark. Listen up: if Meanie Mussolini were kickin’ around today, he’d be a superhero. Trust me.
Grimdark.
FUCK THAT GUY. I wanna talk about me. This is about me. You have to listen to me! You have to see me. I’m smashed in here between Grimdark and Mr. Punch like the world’s worst threeway, and yet somehow I never get mine. I pulled off the greatest heist in Guignol City history! I stole Mr. Punch’s attention. D’ya know what it takes to get a supervillain to open up, talk about his feelings, and explore his vulnerability in a safe, healthy environment? It’d be easier to steal the Constitution or burn down Buckingham Palace or whatever boring thing the kids are planning these days. Yeah. It ain’t nothin’!
Grimdark.
The red-light district in Mr. Punch’s eyes closed up shop again. I felt his forehead, still in Doctor Polly mode. Skin-to-skin contact is very important in establishing a patient bond or some shit. His hair felt like lacquered lightning. Mr. Freud says boys gotta talk about their mama. Mom, Mom, Mom, it’s always Mom at the bottom of a rotten soul! But Mr. Ziggy Stardust of the Austrian Amygdala didn’t know a damn thing about people like Mr. Punch and me.
“Tell me about your nemesis,” I whispered.
Mr. Punch reached one long hand up and stroked the side of my face. It was more like love than anything I’d ever dug outta the bargain bin. It’d been way longer than five minutes. And Mr. Punch was still lookin’ at me like I was madea marshmallows and he was starvin’ to death.
• • •
I kept him hopped up pretty good on Klonopin and Haldol and whatever the little pink ones are. Mr. Punch got pink ones and I didn’t. Boo. Nurse Happy was delighted to let me take over the candy distribution for the really ugly cases. But after a while, it was just no fun having a Mr. Punch doll who couldn’t hardly walk or talk or use his kung-fu grip. Bad Daddy always said I got bored of my toys too easy. Sign of a frivolous brain. But I say toys oughtta step up their game if they wanna stick around! Who can be bothered with the same old dumb dolly day in, day out? Swap out those button eyes for lifelike blinking action and laser-sighting! Stick that plastic pupper down the garbage disposal and gimme a Good Daddy.
I palmed the pink ones first.
“Where were you born?” I asked Mr. Punch. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. It always looks très professional. I am HERE for this business now that I’ve got that loose hair taken care of!