happens tonight?”
Lana didn’t answer and Jacob didn’t either. He pushed me down the hall, past the foyer, and into a room with a large television hooked to a DVD player.
“Wait till you see this,” he said, wheeling me into place. Then he turned on both the TV and the DVD player with a remote. “You’ll love it.”
Chapter Nine
J acob had stood witness while Brian murdered a man, as if it were no big whoop. He fornicated (or whatever he called it) with the woman who had ordered it done. The same woman who, whilst fornicating (or whatever she called it) had yelled out crazy stuff like “kill me” and “stab me.” Jacob had beaten her black and blue with a rubber club. They had a whipping wall in their room with an easy-to-clean concrete floor. And they were business associates (or whatever they called it) with Ernest Prescott, whose writing was so sadistic and hateful it turned my stomach in a way commonly reserved for Hallmark stores and vegetables. And now this same Jacob, willing participant to all that awfulness, wanted me to watch movies with him.
He slipped a DVD from a clear plastic case, confirming my worst fears.
“Home movies?” I said.
“Better,” he said, and put in the disk.
Strapped down and trapped, unable to scratch my itchy nose and wondering what would happen when I needed to use the bathroom, I sat in my chair and wondered what a guy like Jacob thought Ernest Prescott would find enjoyable.
The scene opened to darkness, then the cheerful sound of Brother Bones whistling Sweet Georgia Brown. Very creepy. Just as I wondered if it was simply a bootleg Globe Trotters’ video, the screen brightened and the camera zoomed in, leaving nothing to the imagination. What followed were depictions of torment and barbarism, savage and raw, exposing the limits of human endurance stretched to the breaking point. Unlike the events in Sliced , this was real. There was choking, there was pummeling and blood, there was violation and agony and humiliation and grief, each scene more shocking than the ones preceding it, building again and again to the same predictable climax where the victim was forced to hang his head while Jacob raised his fists in victory, howling like a maniac.
That’s right: Jacob was playing me his extreme fighting videos. His videos, because he was in every one.
“Wow,” I said at one point. “You sure hit that guy.”
Jacob faced me with a condescending smile. “Oh yeah, Ernest the karate fighter. Just be glad I wasn’t there when that asshole pulled his knife. I’d be in jail and he’d be dead, know what I mean?”
Coming from anyone else, I’d have figured it for bluster. With Jacob, it was probably the closest he came to modesty.
The video kept playing, fight after fight, and despite myself I was getting into it. It was something to do. Also, years ago, back when extreme fighting first got popular in the U.S., I’d rented the first five or so pay-per-view specials.
There’s something about two people battling it out that triggers our survival instinct. And even though I’m technically dead most of the time, my survival instinct carries with me, such that two people duking it out on the mansion’s big screen TV easily became the most interesting thing in the room.
In that respect it was a little like watching Sliced, and I wondered what that said about me, that I could enjoy the one while condemning the other.
Watching Jacob’s videos, I found myself flinching and wanting to punch the air, despite my restraints. But after a while, it got tiresome watching Jacob win every fight. I kept hoping for the other guy to choke him out, like Royce Gracie did over and over again in those early extreme fighting championships … but no, Jacob kept knocking everybody out. He was a hitter, not a grappler. He had no style or finesse, only brute strength and aggression. Royce Gracie liked to grab his opponents around the middle and hold on for fifteen minutes while they
Lana didn’t answer and Jacob didn’t either. He pushed me down the hall, past the foyer, and into a room with a large television hooked to a DVD player.
“Wait till you see this,” he said, wheeling me into place. Then he turned on both the TV and the DVD player with a remote. “You’ll love it.”
Chapter Nine
J acob had stood witness while Brian murdered a man, as if it were no big whoop. He fornicated (or whatever he called it) with the woman who had ordered it done. The same woman who, whilst fornicating (or whatever she called it) had yelled out crazy stuff like “kill me” and “stab me.” Jacob had beaten her black and blue with a rubber club. They had a whipping wall in their room with an easy-to-clean concrete floor. And they were business associates (or whatever they called it) with Ernest Prescott, whose writing was so sadistic and hateful it turned my stomach in a way commonly reserved for Hallmark stores and vegetables. And now this same Jacob, willing participant to all that awfulness, wanted me to watch movies with him.
He slipped a DVD from a clear plastic case, confirming my worst fears.
“Home movies?” I said.
“Better,” he said, and put in the disk.
Strapped down and trapped, unable to scratch my itchy nose and wondering what would happen when I needed to use the bathroom, I sat in my chair and wondered what a guy like Jacob thought Ernest Prescott would find enjoyable.
The scene opened to darkness, then the cheerful sound of Brother Bones whistling Sweet Georgia Brown. Very creepy. Just as I wondered if it was simply a bootleg Globe Trotters’ video, the screen brightened and the camera zoomed in, leaving nothing to the imagination. What followed were depictions of torment and barbarism, savage and raw, exposing the limits of human endurance stretched to the breaking point. Unlike the events in Sliced , this was real. There was choking, there was pummeling and blood, there was violation and agony and humiliation and grief, each scene more shocking than the ones preceding it, building again and again to the same predictable climax where the victim was forced to hang his head while Jacob raised his fists in victory, howling like a maniac.
That’s right: Jacob was playing me his extreme fighting videos. His videos, because he was in every one.
“Wow,” I said at one point. “You sure hit that guy.”
Jacob faced me with a condescending smile. “Oh yeah, Ernest the karate fighter. Just be glad I wasn’t there when that asshole pulled his knife. I’d be in jail and he’d be dead, know what I mean?”
Coming from anyone else, I’d have figured it for bluster. With Jacob, it was probably the closest he came to modesty.
The video kept playing, fight after fight, and despite myself I was getting into it. It was something to do. Also, years ago, back when extreme fighting first got popular in the U.S., I’d rented the first five or so pay-per-view specials.
There’s something about two people battling it out that triggers our survival instinct. And even though I’m technically dead most of the time, my survival instinct carries with me, such that two people duking it out on the mansion’s big screen TV easily became the most interesting thing in the room.
In that respect it was a little like watching Sliced, and I wondered what that said about me, that I could enjoy the one while condemning the other.
Watching Jacob’s videos, I found myself flinching and wanting to punch the air, despite my restraints. But after a while, it got tiresome watching Jacob win every fight. I kept hoping for the other guy to choke him out, like Royce Gracie did over and over again in those early extreme fighting championships … but no, Jacob kept knocking everybody out. He was a hitter, not a grappler. He had no style or finesse, only brute strength and aggression. Royce Gracie liked to grab his opponents around the middle and hold on for fifteen minutes while they
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