Of Daughter and Demon by Elias Anderson

but I burnt him. I put
that flame in between his legs until there was nothing but charcoal
down there, nothing but charred meat. I put the flame in his face,
I boiled one of his ears right off, it bubbled and steamed and ran
down the side of his face and neck, only this one left a trail of
blisters leading back up to a blackened, swollen hole, and this was
all good, but it wasn’t enough.
    He was still alive, still screaming. So I
beat him. I started beating him with that lead pipe, right between
the eyes, I hit him again and again and again, harder each time,
harder and harder until the screaming stopped and then harder still
cuz I knew I finished him too quick, quicker than he deserved,
quicker by years, by lifetimes. But I couldn’t help it. I kept
hittin’ him and the flesh scraped and tore away from his skull, and
when his skull began to crack I threw the pipe across the room and
jammed my thumbs in his ruined eye sockets deep as they would go. I
dug my fingers into that crack in his head until my fingers touched
brain and made his dead body twitch, and I pulled his fucking skull
apart, Alice, it came with a wet cracking sound like I ain’t never
heard the likes of, and splinters of bone shot up and juices and
blood, so much blood. I pulled harder until one half of his burnt
face was hanging down past his shoulder, only held up by the skin
of his neck, I kicked the body over and what was left of the brain
kinda slid out of his head on the floor, just a little, just
enough, and I stomped it and kicked it, this terrible soft machine
that made him do the things he did. It splattered just like kicking
a fresh piece a dog shit on the sidewalk.
    The little hole he lived in was inside an old
empty apartment building, and I cleaned up, went to the car, got
the gas can outta the back, and burnt the building down. The fire
raged, Alice, the building went up quick because it was ready to
burn, it wanted to burn, to be rid a all the terrible things it was
never built to see. Sometimes I feel the same. Hearing him say what
he had done to you made me feel like that, like dying, like I was
ten years past dead. I stood across the street and watched it burn
for awhile, until I heard the first call of the sirens, and if I
didn’t need to find this Father Valentine and this other fella, the
one what killed you, I mighta just walked into that fire and been
done with it.
    It was late and I was tired, I stunk of burnt
puke and smoke, so I went home to the bar. It was oh, almost four
in the morning by now. Fifties Chick had closed shop for me, and I
was happy and surprised to find her asleep in my bed. I sat on the
edge in just my shorts, after taking another shower, and watched
her sleep till I smoked a cigarette to the filter. She’s a angel,
Alice, a angel just like you. On the bedside stand is a picture, I
take it down and look at it. It’s a picture of me, and you, and
your Ma. It was taken the day you disappeared, and until then, I
thought I was doing OK. Sure we was divorced then, but we still got
along well enough when we was around you. Remember that day, Alice?
You laughed when I put that bit of cake on your little button nose?
The years before then, the two years before you was born and the
years until you was taken, those years are the best outta my whole
life. I was happy, and I loved you, and your Ma.
    She was beautiful back when I first met her
at that little coffee shop, back when I fell in love with her. She
never really loved me back though, your Ma. Not as much as I loved
her anyway, but she loved us both the only way she knew how.
Nothing against her Alice, but there was just something in her that
couldn’t love all the way, something missing, she’s said so herself
a hundred thousand times.
    Back then I was still on the force. I didn’t
have the bar then, that came later, but I was happier then, because
of you, Alice. I thought things would change when you come along,
for your Ma, I mean, and they did, a little.