Anonymous Jay

Anonymous Jay sat at his computer writing a story about a woman and child who'd died in a shed fire in Mississippi.

Jay had two deadbolts securing his flat's door, and bars protected the garden-level windows.

The street, a bus stop, and an empty pocket park sat beyond the blackout window shades. The interior had a short breakfast bar separating the kitchenette from the living room. He had a dinky bedroom and a closet-sized bathroom. He'd sparsely furnished these spaces: a dining table, two chairs, a laptop, a couch, a stained mattress, and a rickety bureau.

Anonymous Jay left his keyboard, went to his bathroom, and searched the mirror for Dirty Samantha and the baby. Instead, he saw a man with facial moles, a pitted nose, and a rash of whiteheads. Flakes from his infected scalp covered his shoulders. The man had a speech impediment, and his mumblings were accompanied by a spray of saliva that left specks on the other side of the mirror. You're nothing better than I am, he wanted Jay to know. The strange man dissolved, flames rose, and Dirty Samantha came out of the fire. She floated out of the mirror, lay on his mattress, and pulled her skirt up; Anonymous Jay took his cock out and started wanking.

"Where'd you get that tiny cock, Jay? Look at my twat," she said, pulling her panties aside. "I'm going into the hall to find a real man."

She floated through the wall into the hall with Anonymous Jay following.

A man with big hands and whisky breath cornered her and squeezed her crotch.

Samantha smiled at Jay. "He's going to make me cum if he keeps this up. Oh, don't, mister, my husband is watching,"

But Big Hands squeezed and stroked her pussy, and she had an orgasm. Samantha hiked her skirt, pulled her panties aside, and let him tongue her clit.

She looked at Jay and said, "I'm gonna cum again."

Big Hands picked her up and brought her to his apartment. She sat on a chair, took the cock out, and kissed its head.

"Watch me suck it, Jay."

Anonymous Jay held his hands over his mouth.

Later that morning, Jay peeked out his window while waiting for the bus to arrive, always the same riders, ghosts on their way to the industrial park. He had 90 seconds to grab his lunch of spam, mustard sardines, and olive loaf, throw the locks on his door, then hurry to the bus before it left, leaving him stranded amongst the race mongrels.

He'd climb the bus steps, drop his token, and start down the aisle, a gauntlet of the unwashed. The men pretended gallantry but were jealous of his easy charm. The women suffered apoplectic sexual ardor from a contagion that Jay called his animal magnetism. They were a lot of nobodies, a lot of liars pretending to have good humor, sharing anecdotes or pictures of loved ones as they whizzed along from one bus stop to the next.

On the job, Anonymous Jay was a captain of industry, pushing a cart of ready-to-assemble boxes to the widget lines or hiding in toilet stalls for hours.

Tucked comfortably atop his shitter, he'd scribble a misogynistic dissertation on the walls around him.

Trixie, one of the factory's custodians, often complained about the writing, citing race-baiting and misogyny as a basis for her complaints.

Ilene, a line worker, and Trixie's sister-in-law advised Trixie to steer clear.

"You leave God to sort that man out," she said, "You know, ole' Lester told me that crazy sonofabitch had a sister, but it wasn't any God-given sister because it turned out she was his mother. But that wasn't the end of it. Mr. Jay and his mother were unnatural together, and soon, she had a baby. That baby came out deformed. Then that mother and baby died in a house fire, and Mr. Jay came up from Mississippi, and there was a string of murders in his wake. So here he is in Baltimore. Don't you say nothing to that man. He's screwed up with hatred, miss Trixie. The men hear him scratching away in that stall. He's a sick boy. You know, I saw a movie once that scared Jesus out of me. It was called "White Dog." You know, a hateful man raised a dog to hate any man that wasn't white. That's what Mr. Jay is; he's a mad dog. That boy is crazy as fuck, so don't you fret about it, miss Trixie. He won't be coming to a good end."

At shift's end, Jay rode the ghost-bus home, locked himself safely within the confines of his cracker box, and logged on to an erotic website. He read slowly, mouthing the words while his stalker dragged a finger along the lines, lingering on erotic passages, saying, "That's what your sister did, remember? Call her, Jay. I'm sure she'd love to hear from you."

"Mother?"

"Call the baby, Jay. Do you remember how it smelled with its little claw hands?

Jay smiled and looked beseechingly into a hand mirror.

"Like powder? Powder and gasoline? Mother? No, not my mother. Sister Samantha."

"That's right, Jay. Samantha."

"Mother?"

"Mother and child, sister and little Jay."

"With hook hands?"

"Go to the shed, Jay. Get the gasoline."

"For Samantha?"

"For the clawed abomination. For your mother."