Zodiac
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Synopsis
Meet Irving Stark. Bird lover. Canasta master. Retired serial killer.
After spending decades murdering based on astrological signs and transcriptions from a strange tome found in the desert, Irv was tired. Now, almost in his nineties, he spends his days in an assisted living home playing cards, taking care of his canary, and being a general menace.
After watching a broadcast about the possibility of a thirteenth zodiac sign, he realizes he may still have a chance at immortality. Maybe the rituals weren’t wrong. Maybe his mentor, Jack the Rocket Scientist, wasn’t wrong. There was only one way to find out.
Irving Stark, bird and oxygen tank in hand, takes off on a quest for eternal life. One last kill. But will he be able to achieve his life-long goal when he runs into a rag-tag occult group searching for the same thing, authorities on his trail, and a body too old to care?
Release date: July 1, 2022
Publisher: Blue Ruin Publishing
Print pages: 100
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Zodiac
Tom Duffy
CHAPTER ONE
Come Fly With Me
Gerry may have been motorized, but I could use my cane as a spear. The son of a bitch spun a one-eighty and headed toward the doors faster than the devil at a hippie circle. My aim used to be better. I still got him good on the shoulder, knocking him off course and into the wall.
“Give me back my winnings, you cheating bastard.” I shuffled his way as he tried to reverse his chair.
He whipped around and held up his hands. I smelled his stank ass urine from where I stood. Yeah, I know I’m too old to be saying “stank ass”, but I heard it from one of the visitors and it gave me enough of a chuckle to keep it in my toolbox.
“I didn’t do anything, Irv, I swear.” He held out his hands toward me as if that would clear things up.
I bent down and grabbed my cane. Felt a little dribble of piss in my pants too, if I’m being honest. I didn’t care about that right now. Besides, at my age, you get used to all parts of your body leaking.
“Gerry, get up off that thing right now.”
“I can’t stand up, Irv, you know …”
“Gerry, either lift your ass off that goddamn seat right now or I’ll hook this cane around your neck and yank you off.” I held the cane an inch from his eyes. He looked at it cross-eyed and back at me before reaching underneath himself and pulling out a three of hearts. I snatched it from him and poked his chest.
“If you ever cheat me at Canasta again, I’ll spike your prune juice with insulin and watch your soul drift off to hell.”
“Do we have a problem here, Mr. Stark?” John Baker was one of the resident assistants at the Pine Hollow Retirement Community. His voice sounded like kerosene igniting inside a tuba. He was also a giant pain in my ass.
“No problem, Johnny. Just making sure Gerry here is alright. Ran right into the wall. These electronic things have a mind of their own. People had to go putting the artificial smarts into them and now look -- we have Gerry colliding with an immovable object. And he ain’t no irresistible force.”
Gerry took advantage of this exchange to wheel out of the common area. I leaned on my cane like Charlie Chaplin and tried on my best I’m-just-like-you smile. John shook his head.
“You should try a little more compassion. Try helping other people out instead of just helping yourself.” John patted me on the shoulder like I was his fucking water-headed kid.
“I’m eighty-nine years old, Johnny. An old dog. You know how the rest goes.”
“It’s never too late to be a better person.”
“From your lips.” I rolled my eyes and walked back to the card table.
John was what most would consider a good man. He probably had a great family, did the church thing, ladled soup at the local shelter during the holidays. Good people annoyed me. Grow a spine. Punch a nun. Steal a box of Girl Scout cookies. Steal a Girl Scout. What is a life untainted by acts of rebellion? A waste.
Four individual sized packets of shelled sunflower seeds waited at the card table. Gerry must have dropped them off during his flight out of the room. He was a bag short of what he owed me, but I’d get it eventually. I picked them up and put them in my pocket. I gathered the cards I had scattered across the table and added the three of hearts back to the deck, along with the two cards I had palmed out during a shuffle.
I’m not a hypocrite. There’s nothing wrong with cheating. It’s getting caught that pisses me off.
I wasn’t sick. I didn’t have family members trying to hoist the responsibility of taking care of me on strangers. I got tired of having to do things all the time. I didn’t want to cook or clean, separate my pills, deal with the lawn. The fucking lawn. I just wanted to relax and not worry about the daily shit.
I loved hotels because of this. When you’re staying in one--and I’ve stayed in more than I can count--you feel like royalty. Fresh sheets, fresh towels, the occasional nice roll of toilet paper. This was the same concept, just with a minimum age limit.
I spent most of my days reading, catching up on the books I’d missed because of traveling. I would sit by the window that overlooked the pine forest, cracking it as much as the stoppers allowed, and take in the stories. The smell of pine and grass soothed me. I used to live in a suburban dumpster of an area. It smelled like car fumes and shithole kids. In the winter, it smelled like burning wood.
It was better at Pine Hollow. Cleaner. More sterile. Better meals than I could ever cook and better meds than my doctor prescribed. Hell, sometimes I acted up on purpose to get a couple sedatives to zone out on. Jail in this place was narcotics and a stern talking to.
The only downside was the visitors. I wasn’t jealous because I had no family; I just couldn’t stand the louder noises, the docile residents finding sparks of life buried under their girdles. I’d had close connections during my time outside. I just wanted to end the last couple decades of my life alone, living with daily connections that meant nothing, passing smiles and waves towards people who may go to sleep eternal at any moment.
I wanted to live in a hotel of impending death. There’s comfortability in familiarity.
I opened the window. One of the orderlies always closes the damn window whenever I leave. Seems like there’s no respect for how us old folk want to live out the rest of our lives, even when it comes to fresh air.
Birdie didn’t like it either.
It’s not an original name for a pet bird but go fuck yourself. I moved here to get away from effort.
Taking care of a bird doesn’t take much. You have to clean the bottom of the cage. Every now and then, you have to wash the entire cage. If you have a well-behaved bird, it’s an easy process. Birdie usually stands on my shoulder when there’s no perch to go to. Sometimes she hangs out on the sink while I dunk her cage under soapy water. She tilts her head as if she understands what is going on. Sometimes I think she does.
Other than that, birds take care of themselves. I can watch her preening herself all day. Imagine being an animal that can self-clean. And humans are supposed to be the top of the food chain, the best of the best. Fuck that. We’re not self-cleaning. I think that’s certainly a step towards being superior. We rely on water and bars of soap made from shit we shouldn’t be rubbing over our bodies.
I put my finger through the slats of Birdie’s cage, and she nibbles at the end of it. I don’t have much feeling left at the tips of my fingers, but I like to think she is being gentle. Her little tongue darts in and out as her beak chomps on my flesh. I pull a packet of sunflower seeds out of my pocket, tear it open, and hold one through the bars. She grabs it and jumps up a few perches before twisting it around in her beak and turning it into crumbs. No hands necessary. Another biological advantage in my opinion. Except when it comes to jacking off. But I don’t need to worry about that anymore.
“Come here, Birdie love.” I open the small door and put out my hand. She jumps down the two tiers and lands on my palm. I pull out my hand and she chirps a hello at me. She looks at me side eyed and I smile.
Are you surprised? Of course, I have feelings. Did you think I was some cookie cutter Hollywood bullshit story? Unfortunately, we all have feelings. Only the best of us can really separate emotion from reality. I’m not too proud to admit that I don’t have that much control. You may think differently, but that’s not my problem. I can’t control how I’m splattered with primer after all of this.
Birdie hopped up my arm and landed at my shoulder. She nibbled my ear. I sat on the bed; a double barely big enough to lay in without my feet hanging off. In my younger and heartier days, I clocked in over six feet. Now I’m a couple inches shorter thanks to a compressed spine and a posture similar to someone who hangs out in church towers.
I sprinkled a few seeds on my shoulder and turned on the television. Most of the good channels are blocked, leaving me with the news (waste of time), AMC, which occasionally has a decent picture on it, and the Hallmark channel. Whoever convinced Hallmark to branch out from cards to television should be eviscerated, made to chug Drano, buggered with daisy-chained fishing hooks.
I used to watch the History channel before it became all about aliens. That guy with the hair--you don’t even want to know what I think should be done to him.
Some idiot popped up on the television talking to some other idiot about idiotic things. I changed the channel—a show on how buttons are made, well grab the popcorn and turn out the lights.
Nope. Click.
I paused on Bob Ross. Almost as good as my night meds, but it is still daytime and I don’t nap before lunch.
Next.
“So, congratulations my ex-Sagittarius birth mates, you are now a part of the new thirteenth astrological sign: Ophiuchus. Back to you, Jane.”
“A thirteenth zodiac. Talk about being born under a bad sign,” Jane said.
There was more banter between the talking heads. I don’t remember what they said, I was too busy reaching for my oxygen.
Everyone moved in slow motion. I knocked Betty Dyson into a door handle and burst into the computer room, ignoring Betty’s moans behind me. She had turned down a dance in the sheets with me. Something about being still in love with her dead husband. Fuck her.
How management thought seven dinosaur-age computers for the entire building was appropriate was beyond me. Not that I spent any time sitting in front of the nerd’s equivalent of a boob tube. That’s not the point. When I did decide I needed to go onto the interwebs, there was always a wait and, as I looked around, panting, I saw that each station was occupied.
“Ellie, I need to use the computer.” I walked up to the closest station.
“I’m writing my grandchildren, Irv. You can use it when I’m done.” Ellie didn’t bother looking at me. She continued typing with two fingers, like a selfish Andy Rooney in a wig.
I moved to the next station.
“Jack. Computer. Please. It’s important.”
“Remember when I asked you to pass the salt and you tossed it over your shoulder?” Jack turned and looked at me. “That was important too.” He looked back at the computer screen. Fucking trains. He was looking at fucking trains on the eBays. I took a breath and moved on.
“Carl, you almost done? I really need to … send a letter to my grandchildren.”
“You don’t have any grandchildren, Irv. Everyone knows that. You throw that tidbit in our faces every time someone mentions how much they miss theirs. What was it? Something about not having to worry about tiny abortions breaking your heart?” Carl shook his head at me--my judge, jury, but sure as shit not my executioner.
I grabbed the sign-in clipboard from the table and, as I twisted back, smacked Carl across the side of the head. His ear turned from rhubarb red to beet purple. His hands cradled his head and he stood up, swaying, eyes glassy and wide.
“You son of a bitch, Irv. You miserable son of a bitch. I’m getting Baker over here. Get your ass kicked out of here for good.” Carl took his hand away from his ear and looked at it. “I think you popped my eardrum.”
“Oh bullshit, you couldn’t hear out of that ear anyway. And go ahead and get Johnny Boy. I saw him over by the pool. By the time you get over there, I’ll be long gone. Hell, by the time you get over there, the world may be long gone.”
Carl mumbled something under his breath and left.
I sat down at the computer and clicked on the Google picture. The search bar came up and I froze, my fingers hovering above the keyboard.
Fuck.
All this hassle to get in front of the screen and I forgot the zodiac name.
“What was it, goddamnit?” I typed Awfulmucus. Everything I wanted to know about phlegm popped up. No thanks. Searching for Offalfugueus just brought up a suggestion for Offal Fugue. I took a short detour down that route just to see what the hell it meant. It brought up a link to a song called Fermented Offal Discharge. I filed that into the back of my head for later.
I tried ‘new zodiac sign’ and slapped the desk when it came up. Ophiuchus. There you are, you bastard. I clicked on the link, some news site in Australia, and scrolled past the flashing ads, accepting something that wanted to give me cookies just to get it out of the way. My breathing sped up as I read.
According to NASA’s new blog post, there are now 13 Zodiac signs, not 12. Their discovery of a new constellation, Ophiuchus, throws the entire astrological calendar into the ether. According to the blog, it is the star sign for people lucky enough to be born between November 29 - December 17. The blog explains that, according to the Babylonians, there were originally 13 constellations in the Zodiac. This announcement has caused what amounts to a massive uproar in the Astrological community. Ophiuchus is represented by a man grasping a snake, replacing Sagittarius’s centaur archer. People born under the new sign are said to have an eagerness to learn, great sense of humor and a strong family structure.
I stopped. I didn’t need to read any more. I needed to…
I pulled Ellie’s cannula off her face, stuck it in my nostrils, and jacked the oxygen tank up. She yanked on the tubing, but I outweighed her by 50 pounds and still had decent upper body strength. She knocked the tank over. After a few more pulls on the oxygen, I tossed the tubing back to her and walked out. I needed my room. I needed quiet, a place to think.
I wasn’t wrong. Jack wasn’t wrong. After all this time, I was only misinformed. Hope flooded into me like a perforated bowel. I slapped Carl on the back as I passed him and wished him well on his quest to find Baker.
I wasn’t wrong. Fuck.
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