Forbidden Fruit
REMINGTON GRAVES
Three ghastly and grunting goons glided towards him giving him the googly eyes that promised pain and punishment. The leader of the punks pensive and poignant then shifting to pugilistic putrid ploys, whispered an archaic word into the dank distance between them.
He could almost hear his own heartbeat through the burning in his ears as the monstrous mits of the other two men pressed down on his shifting shoulders, one at each side. The leader twisted on his mustache as the lights above shined on his balding widows peak.
“They created that crime, man. They did!”
”What the hell you talking about, Bub? Don’t try and sweet talk to me now, you’re a goddamn degenerate.”
”They set me up-I swear. For television ratings, man. Honest. I was done with all that. Years and years and I hadn’t even thought about doing it. For the love of all that’s good fellas, you gotta believe me!”
”Grab him, Terry, and make sure he don’t scream—this ain’t gonna feel nothing nice.”
In the warden’s office Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida blared through cheap stereo speakers as the warden himself rubbed on his crotch while staring at a clothes catalogue for young girls, shifting in his cheap office chair.
With blood pouring from his mouth and nose, he kept saying, “ I swear….I swear…they placed it there…I was done with all of that…you gotta believe me…”
As they emptied his pockets and took off his shoes one of them finally asked, “So, what he do, Sonny? Must of been pretty nuts for you to ice the guy.”
”He ate an apple.”
”That’s it?!”
”You godless turd…that’s God’s forbidden fruit. I don’t care if them t.v. folk set him up or not. He walked into that park and saw that apple sitting on that bench and he took a bite. See, that’s why you heathen atheists are without morals. You fuckers are lucky there’s god-fearing people like us still left in the world. Now, dump the body in the laundry room and don’t forget to get my smokes from Grumpy on the way back to the lunchroom.”
”I never cared for apples man, have you?”
”Shit, I don’t know if I ever had one—last they were around, we were all kids. Kind of tasty-looking though in some of them old magazines they didn’t find during the Old Sweep.”
∞