Thank you, Penguin Books!
70 short stories collected here by literary hipster and natural born killer storyteller, USA born and bred T. Coraghessan Boyle. What blast-off verbal orgasms, what sublime hallucinogenic hits of imagination, what shadow theater and laser lights of Love, Death, And Everything in Between - the three categories under which the stories in the collection are grouped.
The question hovers: as a reviewer, how to do justice to these T. C. totally cockeyed boiling Boyle tales? A quick synopsis of a baker's dozen? NO! A more elaborate detailed account of three stories? Again, NO! NO! OK, I give up. What should I do? Wait a minute - let me channel Coraghessan for a clue.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Got it! Thanks for the tip, T.C!
I'll simply include one of these tales in its entirety - a piece of flash fiction that will take you no longer than five minutes to read. Nothing like allowing T. Coraghessan's unique voice to speak for itself.
Revel in the dark pulse of this T. C. Boyle bebop smacker where the author catches the cool dude vibe of death-dealing outsider rage sectioned off into slick mini chapters.
THE HIT MAN by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Early Years
The Hit Man's early years are complicated by the black bag that he wears over his head. Teachers correct his pronunciation, the coach criticizes his attitude, the principal dresses him down for branding preschoolers with a lit cigarette. He is a poor student. At lunch he sits alone, feeding bell peppers and salami into the dark slot of his mouth. In the hallways, wiry young athletes snatch at the black hood and slap the back of his head. When he is thirteen he is approached by the captain of the football team, who pins him down and attempts to remove the hood. The Hit Man wastes him. Five years, says the judge.
Back on the Street
The Hit Man is back on the street in two months.
First Date
The girl's name is Cynthia. The Hit Man pulls up in front of her apartment in his father's hearse. (The Hit Man's father, whom he loathes and abominates, is a mortician. At breakfast the Hit Man's father had slapped the cornflakes from his son's bowl. The son threatened to waste his father. He did not, restrained no doubt by considerations of filial loyalty and the deep-seated taboos against patricide that permeate the universal unconscious.)
Cynthia's father has silver sideburns and plays tennis. He responds to the Hit Man's knock, expresses surprise at the Hit Man's appearance. The Hit Man takes Cynthia by the elbow, presses a twenty into her father's palm, and disappears into the night.
Father's Death
At breakfast the Hit Man slaps the cornflakes from his father's bowl. Then wastes him.
Mother's Death
The Hit Man is in his early twenties. He shoots pool, lifts weights and drinks milk from the carton. His mother is in the hospital, dying of cancer or heart disease. The priest wears black. So does the Hit Man.
First Job
Porfirio Buñoz, a Cuban financier, invites the Hit Man to lunch. I hear you're looking for work,says Buñoz.
That's right, say the Hit Man.
Peas
The Hit Man does not like peas. They are too difficult to balance on his fork.
Talk Show
The Hit Man waits in the wings, the white slash of a cigarette scarring the midnight black of his head and upper torso. The makeup girl has done his mouth and eyes, brushed the nap of his hood. He has been briefed. The guest who precedes him is a pediatrician. A planetary glow washes the stage where the host and the pediatrician, separated by a potted palm, cross their legs and discuss the little disturbances of infants and toddlers.
After the station break the Hit Man finds himself squeezed into a director's chair, white lights in his eyes. The talk-show host is a baby-faced man in his early forties. He smiles like God and all His Angels. Well, he says. So you're a hit man? Tell me - I've always wanted to know - what does it feel like to hit someone?
Death of Mateo María Buñoz
The body of Mateo María Buñoz, the cousin and business associate of a prominent financier, is discovered down by the docks on a hot summer morning. Mist rises from the water like steam, there is the smell of fish. A large black bird perches on the dead man's forehead.
Marriage
Cynthia and the Hit Man stand at the altar, side by side. She is wearing a white satin gown and lace veil. The Hit Man has rented a tuxedo, extra-large, and a silk-lined black-velvet hood.
. . . Till death do you part, says the priest.
Moods
The Hit Man is moody, unpredictable. Once, in a luncheonette, the waitress brought him the meatloaf special but forgot to eliminate the peas. There was a pot of gravy on the Hit Man's hood, about where his chin should be. He looked up at the waitress, his eyes like pins behind the triangular slots, and wasted her.
Another time he went to the track with $25, came back with $1,800. He stopped at a cigar shop. As he stepped out of the shop a wino tugged at his sleeve and solicited a quarter. The Hit Man reached into his pocket, extracted the $1,800 and handed it to the wino. Then wasted him.
First Child
A boy. The Hit Man is delighted. He leans over the edge of the playpen and molds the tiny fingers around the grip of a nickel-plated derringer. The gun is loaded with blanks - the Hit Man wants the boy to get used to the noise. By the time he is four the boy has mastered the rudiments of Tae Kwon Do, can stick a knife in the wall from a distance of ten feet and shoot a moving target with either hand. The Hit Man rests his broad palm on the boy's head. You're going to make the Big Leagues, Tiger, he says.
Work
He flies to Cincinnati. To L.A. To Boston. To London. the stewardesses get to know him.
Half an Acre and a Garage
The Hit Man is raking leaves, amassing great brittle piles of them. He is wearing a black T-shirt, cut off at the shoulders, and a cotton work hood, also black. Cynthia is edging the flower bed, his son playing in the grass. The Hit Man waves to his neighbors as they drive by. The neighbors wave back.
When he has scoured the lawn to his satisfaction, the Hit Man draws the smaller leaf-hummocks together in a single mound the size of a pickup truck. Then he bends to ignite it with his lighter. Immediately, flames leap back from the leaves, cut channels through the pile, engulf it in a ball of fire. The Hit Man stands back, hands folded beneath the great meaty biceps. At his side is the three-headed dog. He bends to pat each of the heads, smoke and sparks raging against the sky.
Stalking the Streets of the City
He is stalking the streets of the city, collar up, brim down. It is late at night. He stalks past department stores,small businesses, parks, and gas stations. Past apartments, picket fences, picture windows. Dogs growl in the shadows, then slink away. He could hit any of us.
Retirement
A group of businessman-types - sixtyish, seventyish, portly, diamond rings, cigars, liver spots - throws him a party. Porfirio Buñoz, now in his eighties, makes a speech and presents the Hit Man with a gilded scythe. The Hit Man thanks him, then retires to the lake, where he can be seen in his, skating out over the blue, hood rippling in the breeze.
Death
He is stricken, shrunken, half his former self. He lies propped against the pillows at Mercy Hospital, a bank of gentians drooping round his bed. Tubes run into the hood at the nostril openings, his eyes are clouded and red, sunk deep behind the triangular slots. The priest wears black. So does the Hit Man.
On the other side of town the Hit Man's son is standing before the mirror of a shop that specializes in Hit Man attire. Trying on his first hood.
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