Demons of the Border by Z. Goldstein

Demons of the Border

by

Zachary L. Goldstein

Nihilism:
1.
Total rejection of established laws and institutions.

2.
Anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity.

3.
Total and absolute destructiveness toward oneself and the world at large.

4.
Annihilation of the self or the individual consciousness.

“I was born a Texas boy, Terrell James to them that know me, and nobody’s business to them that don’t. I suppose I lived a pretty regular life up until I was about 19 years of age. I’d gotten into some trouble with the law now and again, been to jail a few times but then, I ain’t never had too much respect for authority figures, seemed all one and the same to me—ignorant bastards just itchin’ to break the teeth of any man, woman or child who won’t stand in line behind ‘em. It was ‘bout that time I reckon in the summer of ’71 that I fixed to leave sorry little Odessa an’ make my own way. My father always said I should go to school, get a degree in somethin’ or other, said it was the way of the future, everyone’s doin’ it, but I never saw no real cause behind it. I don’t need to give my bank to some soppy tenured professor up north just to get a damned piece of paper that says I know how to live now.

“So I went down to talk to the wise man of the town, ask him where I ought to set off to. He says to me head west: follow the border right along into California. He called it the golden land, said it was where all races and cultures were welcome. He said it’s where your dreams come true. He called it the land of stars and angels. Hell, what was I s’posed to say to somethin’ like that? I didn’t know no better. Either way, neither me nor that bald old wise man had any idea what I was in for.

“It wasn’t two days on the road ‘fore I met Grace. I never really knew her name was Grace until I saw it on her death bill, and that’s a helluva way to find out someone’s real name. She said she never liked her real name, said she let people pick a name. I chose one, though it don’t matter much now for the telling. We was at a gas station, I remember, right up parallel to the Arizona-Mexico line. First thing you noticed ‘bout Grace was that she always carried a handgun, strapped right up ‘round her waist like she was some kinda... outlaw vixen or somethin’. Like she didn’t need no man. Hell, I think she proved that fair enough.

“’Course, Grace herself was a disturbed individual. Not 16, when I first met her. Now when I say disturbed, now gather round, it’s important that you recognize the implications of the word. She’d tell me she was a nihilist, said she didn’t believe in nothing. Her father had beat n’ raped her from the time she was about 12, or so she said. It took her not two years to pump his heart full of lead and set his body all aflame. She said she just watched it burn, said it made her happy to watch him just burn.

“Wasn’t the handgun, though, that did her daddy in. She always had more than one gun. Said daddy had taught her to use the shotgun, even showed her how to saw it, make it into a killing machine. She said that’s what her daddy called it. Killing machine. She said it did its job, said it was his own damn fault, not for raping her, mind you, but for teaching her how to use that god damn shotgun. She said she was lost, said her soul was cursed. She said if there’s such a thing as a God, he’d send her to Hell, but since there ain’t, all’s left is to burn or go beneath the ground. She said she could be as much the devil as she wanted to be, said she fucked demons in her sleep. Hell, I ain’t never heard no other gal talk like that.

“She always said she was gonna commit suicide. I suppose it’s not so much that I didn’t believe her, as that I didn’t want to. One morning October 1973 I walk into the kitchen to find her with a handgun in her right hand. Then she says to me: “I’m going to do it, and you’re going to watch me do it.” She put the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. When the law came, I’s afraid they wasn’t gonna believe me, think I was just one of them psychos runnin’ amok, killing pretty innocent young girls. But they knew who she was, said she had a history. Lawman told me she was first arrested at 7, for beatin’ on a young girl with a folding chair, and the like. Said the girl had insulted her name. Said that was the only reason.

“Hell, folks today still ask me what it’s like to watch somebody die, don’t even realize that I’ve been a killer myself. Six men in the ground ‘cause of me. Four of ‘em deserved it. The other two? Well, the time was just up, nothin’ we can do about that. Last boy I killed I just watched him bleed. Just watched. My daddy once said you’ll never get through life without killin’ or getting’ killed. Guess we know which ticket I pulled.”