Ben is a kind and well liked 27-year-old heterosexual male. He does not suffer from toxic masculinity. He always votes for the Democrats. He cares that the homeless and drug addicted suffer daily and volunteers at soup kitchens. Ben proudly wears his rainbow bandana and obliges folk’s preferred pronouns. He never raises his voice and has never been in a fight. He avoids conflict at all costs.
Ben has been called a pussy by some. He does not care. Because he is attractive and funny he gets a lot of pussy, and he knows those things are tough and can take a pounding.
To his male friends Ben is a cool and likeable dude, and to all his many ex-girlfriends he was sweet and sensitive and a devil in the sack until they tired of his aloofness. Ben’s major malfunction is his driving. It is shit. Not because he drives like a maniac, but because he drives like he lives; easily distracted and all over the place and not caring what he leaves in his wake.
Ben likes to use his phone while driving. The phone has a special little cradle on the dashboard pointed straight at his face and easily within reach. Ben reads and responds to texts at intersections, making him slow to move when traffic lights change. At stop signs he just sits forever until he is done texting or someone honks. Usually Ben smiles and waves, genuinely trying to show that he is sorry. He is not sorry; he just thinks that. If he truly was concerned how his cellphone use affected others, he would stop doing this.
Another thing Ben does while texting and driving is eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. He constantly reaches to the passenger seat or the passenger footwell to grab napkins or food items that fell off the seat.
Merging onto the interstate is something Ben has never mastered. Drivers are supposed to use the onramp to accelerate until their speed matches that of the flowing traffic, then look for an opening, and adjust their speed to merge. Not Ben, no! He eats or texts or makes phone calls when he is supposed to accelerate. Only in the last few car lengths before he reaches the interstate does he accelerate, arriving at the interstate going way too slow. Ben also mistakenly believes others need to make room for him when he merges, often cutting people off.
Ben is a distracted and inattentive driver, ignorant of the many rules and regulations of the road. Ironically, every day he is so saddened to see how rude and inconsiderate other drivers are.
Jerry is the complete opposite of Ben. He does everything by the book. He knows all the rules and regulations because he bought the book, and he read it cover to cover so many times that he memorized most of it. Jerry is a stickler for regulations, and working for the DMV is absolute heaven, a dream come true!
The department of motor vehicles, also known as Hades, the place of the dead, or more accurately, the place where people go and watch their souls die. The DMV is hell; hell with paperwork and too many rules and regulations, and the employees are evil demons that use this bureaucracy to torture and levy fees on those that dare enter. At least this is what Jerry’s mother always said.
Jerry adores the DMV. He has learned all the rules, he knows all the forms, and he can make any poor soul that has the audacity to show up with missing documents wish they had never been born.
Jerry hates people that break rules. He hates them with a smoldering fury that makes him daydream about ways he can torture and murder them. So far this week he has been able to keep this fury at bay by taking his frustration out on those unfortunate enough to end up at his desk.
Today Jerry is fuming longer and hotter than normal. No number of snide remarks, sarcasm and outright rudeness aimed at his patrons has quelched this rage. For the second time this week some idiot cut in front of him on his morning commute, merging too slow and without looking. Jerry had right of way because he was already travelling on the interstate, and those who wish to join must do it according to the rules! The driver of the lime green Mini Cooper was obviously a first-class fuck, disrespecting Jerry and ruining his day with his disregard for the law! Jerry has an intense interest in people that behave like this. He has a few theories as to why these shits behave is such ghastly ways, and he keeps a journal about his efforts to prove his suspicions.
Jerry noted the license plate number and looked it up. Ben Dunn, age 27, with a long list of moving violations collected over the last few years. According to the database this little shit is also currently uninsured! The temperature of Jerry’s rage goes up by a few degrees. He took a photo of Ben’s address with his cell phone. He will pay Ben-the-shit a visit and find out just what makes him such a cunt.
At the end of the workday Jerry is up and away the moment the clock strikes five. He has no problem giving exactly eight hours to his employer. This is required by the rules, and the world will be chaos without rules. In the parking lot Jerry squeezes into his Toyota Sienna, his seat is moved all the way back, and he just fits when he pulls his head into his shoulders. Jerry is a large man, built like a bear.
He lives in a well-maintained house on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by 12 acres of woods. The house is a lovely Country style home sitting on a manicured half acre lawn, with many well-tended shrubs and bushes separated by multicolored perennials. Jerry loves his house and garden. This is his kingdom where he makes and enforces the rules, and one of those rules requires that everything be kept neat.
Keeping a schedule makes the world work. Jerry parks his minivan in the attached garage and starts his evening. He showers and changes into comfortable sweat pants and a t-shirt, hangs his dress pants in the closet, and tosses his dirty clothes in the washer. While the washer takes care of today’s clothes he cooks his Thursday meal; wild rice with sautéed vegetables and salmon, followed by a slice of lemon meringue pie and sweet strong black coffee.
The washer stops almost exactly at the same time he finishes his dinner, and he starts the dryer and go to the kitchen to do the dishes. Jerry likes a neat home with everything in its place. He settles in his oversized recliner with his iPad and googles Ben-the-shit’s address. The little tosser lives just a few miles east in a small village, explaining why Jerry encountered him twice this week. He uses the same interstate to get to the city. Getting him might require Jerry to go to the village, and since there is no time like the present, he decides to do it tonight.
Weeknights Ben stays in, usually with a few beers and a pizza for dinner. On weekends he sleeps very little, enjoying as much of his weekend away from work and rules. He has a date with Cecelia tomorrow night! Beautiful busty Cecelia! If all goes well, he will keep her awake for most of the weekend too. Ben smiles thinking about the things they will do. He is still imagining a naked Cecilia straddling him when someone knocks loudly. Ben stuffs the last piece of pizza crust in his mouth and gets up to open the door. He opens the door to the largest man he has ever seen, and the largest fist he has ever felt fills his vision before it all turns black.
Jerry backed his minivan into a parking spot right in front of the little shit’s apartment. He has learned that trying to be stealthy makes him stand out, as opposed to him just being confidently present like he belongs there. People are naturally suspicious animals, and those that act suspiciously are seen and observed with suspicion, sometimes even filmed on a god damn cellphone. The little cunt opens the door chewing something, his head turned away as he watches something on TV. The moment he turns his head back from the TV, Jerry punches him with a quick hard jab right on the chin. Ben-the-shit collapses like he has been shot and Jerry slips in the door and closes it behind him.
The apartment is a fucking mess. Clothes are strewn about and draped over furniture. Dirty clothes by the looks of it. Jerry resists the urge to tidy up the place, from experience he knows this is a supremely bad idea. People like Ben-the-shit receive visitors at all hours of the day, so it’s best to collect him and be on his way.
Ten minutes later Jerry checks his surroundings and finds it all clear. Everybody is inside watching the Thursday night football game. He carries a bound and gagged Ben under his arm like the dog he is and opens the Sienna’s tailgate remotely. Ben is tossed inside like a sack of potatoes, and after Jerry squeezes into the driver seat they are on their way back to Jerry’s place for a night of education.
Ben comes to when he is unceremoniously pulled from the back of the minivan by his feet. He has a few seconds of shocked clarity, remembering the giant at his door before he is knocked out again when his head strikes the garage floor.
Ben hears someone whistle a tune. It sounds familiar and he tries to remember the name of the song. He blinks up at the harsh light above him, and as his vision becomes more focused, he looks down at himself. He is tied to a metal table, currently at an angle, affording him a gregarious view of a large naked man’s behind. Realization hits and Ben screams, or tries to scream, his mouth tapped shut. The naked giant turns around, and Ben notices he is as hairy in front as he was in back. The man is wearing a white jock strap and pink flip flops. He has one of those flip up plexiglass visors on his head that people sometimes wore during the pandemic, currently in the upright position.
‘We are finally awake!’ the giant says jovially, walking over and putting his hands on Ben’s shoulders, leaning closer until the visor he has on his head almost touch Ben’s hair. He looks into Ben’s terrified eyes like he is looking for something. ‘Strange’, he mumbles as he turns away to grab something from a table. It is a set of stainless steel long nosed pliers. ‘I can usually see Astaroth clear as day, but there is nothing here. It must be behind the eyes with this one. Hold still for a moment bud.’ Jerry puts his left hand on Ben’s head and holds him in place while he digs Ben’s right eye out using the pliers. He leaves it hanging by the optic nerve and vascular tissue. ‘Nothing there’ he mutters as he stands back and scrutinizes Ben. A dark stain spreads on Ben’s jeans as his bladder lets go. ‘Astaroth, where are you?’ he asks himself.
Jerry turns back to his worktable, slams the pliers into a bucket of water and consults a large binder lying open next to an array of other tools. Ben sees the hammers and knives and his bowels let go. ‘You have the demon of ignorance in you son. Makes you a curse for those around you. I am trying to save you. Trying to remove that fucker so you can see clearly! Well as clear as you can with one eye that is.’ Jerry moves closer and pushes the dangling eye back into its socket. Ben shrieks and pees a little more. Unbelievably this hurts more than when the eye was removed!
Jerry knocks against Ben’s forehead with a thick finger. ‘Shit I am sorry son! The fucker must be deep inside that thick head of yours. Time to dig’. Jerry pulls a leather strap across Ben’s forehead and ties it down. He produces a battery-operated shaver and cuts Ben’s hair as far back as he can reach. ‘I developed this stencil over the years’ Jerry says conversationally as he lays a thick plastic cap on Ben’s head and draws a bunch of lines with a sharpie. ‘There! Ex marks the spot! Let’s get that fucker out’. Ben loses consciousness when Jerry starts cutting his skull along the drawn lines.
Hours later Jerry sits on a stainless-steel bar stool, looking at the mutilated body of the late Ben-the-shit. Ben did shit himself, like they often do. Jerry is again disappointed to have found nothing, not a sign of any possession.
This kid must have just been a fucking dumbass.
Well, there is always tomorrow, and another chance to find this elusive demon. The way people behave one of them will eventually produce the fucking thing.
Jerry gets up and stretches with his arms above his head, his hands touching the ceiling. Time to clean up his tools and worktable, plant Ben’s remains in his ever growing flowerbeds, then shower and sleep.
He will find what he is looking for, he is convinced of that. He just has to keep on looking in all the places, until he finds the right place.
Tales from my head 
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