Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste - Lester Bangs [184]
“I once got gang-banged by a PLO batallion,” she said.
He didn’t say anything. Ernie.
“The 43rd guy, after all that nightmare with the 42 before him, excited me more than you.”
And even better if he could have Ernie for vice president as well! Though Bert did have his good points. The only thing he couldn’t figure out was what excuse he could contrive to keep watching the show. Amy had long since outgrown it, it was a ritual between the two of them, and she was starting to give him weird looks.
“Another time I was caught in a napalm attack on a Vietnamese village. I ducked inside the nearest hut. There was a Cong crouching there in the shadows, black pajamas and all. He was terrified. He thought the Americans were going to bomb everything that moved, then land their planes and machine gun everything else, down to the newborn babies, dogs, and cats. ‘Search and destroy’ he kept saying, his voice breaking, till it sounded like a mantra. ‘Search and destroy’ They were the only three words in English he knew. He was trembling more violently than I’ve ever seen anyone shake before or since in my life. I moved into the corner with him, somehow signaling that I meant no harm even though I was obviously American. I began to caress him, first the hair behind his ears, the light fingertips down his sides under the pajamas, trickling along his ribcage, then up again. With what was probably the gentlest gesture of my life I brushed the tips of my three most prominent fingers on the left hand against his lips, for one second only. Then I kissed him on both eyelids, because his eyes were closed. He was sure I was going to kill him. Just another American trick, I could read his mind, it was too easy, so easy it was pathetic. A sluice of napalm hit the other side of the tent and tore away half of the whole dwelling in one bite. I looked out. You could see fires and hear screaming everywhere. Right across from us a man was burning to death. But he wasn’t screaming. He didn’t make a sound. He just stared at us with no interest, we just happened to be in his line of vision. There was a mound of molten rubble beside him with a few hairs and some shards of skin beside it. He kept picking at it, the base of it, with his fingernails, digging away. Eventually what was there became visible. It was the head of a little girl, I guess his granddaughter. Squashed flat, mulch of brain, blood, flesh oozing out the sides. Like a deflated tire almost, except with eyes. But they were closed. The rest of her was under the rubble. The hair kept falling out of her head into his palms, he was grabbing up huge hunks of it that he didn’t seem to know what to do with. He looked at them. They didn’t register any more than we did. I looked around us once more. In every direction, everything around us seemed to be on fire. A strong fierce white fire, not about to go away, thick steady stalks of white flame poised over razed houses, shattered bodies, broken bicycles, bits of metal and brick and glass and flesh. I turned back to my prisoner. He was somewhat calmer now. I looked into his eyes and he looked back, quizzically for sure. He was still ready at any second for me to kill him. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to do that, I love you!’ He didn’t understand a word of it, of course. I felt like a prize fool. I felt the most intense shame commingling with the most overpowering lust. I slipped my hand into his pajama bottoms, and—ha! Sure enough, he was hard! Faker! Playing games, just like any asshole in New York! With my other hand I took one of his and guided it down a bit, then he took the cue, began to stroke me between my legs, occasionally sticking a finger, sometimes two or three into the hole, I was wetter than I was hot, I mean we were in the middle of an inferno, and I felt kind of guilty with so much