T-SHIRTS OF THE DAMNED

“T-Shirt Babylon, purveyors of the extremely unpleasant...can I help you?” Hays said when he answered the phone. He came up with a new motto every day, much to his own amusement. Yesterday it had been, “T-Shirt Babylon, where the T stands for torture.” Not one of his best ones, but the phone had rung before he had a wittier one prepared.

It was his fiance, Dawn. She wanted to know how late he’d be staying at the shop; his parents were coming to dinner tonight to celebrate their engagement, and he was already forty-five minutes later than he’d said he’d be.

Hays stalked his office with the phone tucked under his jaw, its extra-long cord trailing. He always paced while on the phone, which was a lot, while Dawn handled more of the actual production details. Not that she chose the subject matter of the T-shirts...oh no, that was the most fun to be had, and this was his company. T-Shirt Babylon and Dicky Hays were one and the same thing.

“I’m still waiting for that pinhead LeClair to call me, babe. He said he’d call at four. He better not have forgotten me...that human slime.”

Again Dawn warned Hays of what another dealer had told them about LeClair...that he would buy a fairly small number of shirts, then tell Hays he hadn’t sold them all yet rather than ordering more, when in reality he had had his people copy Hays’ shirts and was selling his own bootleg versions instead.

“Hey...bear in mind too, babe, that Jimmy wants all our business and doesn’t want us sharing with LeClair...right? Of course he’s not gonna exactly tell us LeClair’s the second coming of Christ, is he?”

Hollywood; you were wounder or wounded. But Dicky Hays knew the drill. The street below was filled with the walking wounded, the living dead of deadly living, the human flotsam of many a sunk ship of dreams. But Dicky Hays was nice and dry up here. Sink or swim in this town.

While Hays listened to Dawn persist in her admonitions to be cautious, his eyes idly flowed over the posters filling every available inch of his little office’s walls. Movie posters, old and tattered or glossy new, advertising lurid horror films foreign and domestic. He smirked now at a newly acquired one for an old Mexican horror/wrestling masterpiece. Movies about busty young women in prison. A poster for Eraserhead. That this film was considered by many to be a work of art was of no interest to Hays; it was weird and gross and that was all that concerned him. Hays never tired of his colorful surroundings. How could he? That would be like tiring of himself.

Dawn told him he shouldn’t wait around much longer. Hays replied, “I’ve already called his number three times and no one’s there. Look, if the turd doesn’t call me in an hour I’ll come home no matter what—okay? So what are you gonna make, anyway?”

Dawn laughed. She was going to call in an order of Chinese food. Nothing but the best for his parents, she told him.

Hays was proud. His parents approved of Dawn...they got along very well. He had almost stopped hoping for them to like one of his girlfriends. He didn’t suppose they’d approve of Linda, who he’d been sleeping with lately, but he didn’t suppose Dawn would be too crazy about her either. She was supposed to call soon, too, but he couldn’t tell that to Dawn. He glanced to his watch.

Linda was definitely juicier than Dawn, but he actually loved Dawn. He was probably more shocked when he realized this than his parents were. His friends had teased him. Dicky Hays...in love? Dicky Hays going to get married? He had almost felt like apologizing for forgetting who he was.

And once in a while he found himself washed in a chilly wave of doubt, almost like pre-panic. But he loved her. How often did that happen? And besides, getting his parents to finally approve of him was almost enough incentive in itself.

But he wasn’t married yet and Linda was supposed to call soon...or should have called already, that dumb bitch...so Hays again reassured Dawn that he wouldn’t be much longer. “Love you too, Boobs,” he told her goodbye. His aptly-chosen pet name for her. Hey—it wasn’t just a girl’s personality that got Dicky Hays to the altar.

Hays hung up the phone, his eyes playing across stacks of the new mail order catalogs just in that morning from the printer. The front displayed the “new fashions for spring”...a T-shirt featuring James Dean’s slick little sports car squashed like a pumpkin...a Vietnamese officer shooting a prisoner in the head point-blank...a kitten with the top of its head opened up and wires threaded into the raw wound, from a flier protesting animal experimentation. All these with appropriately hilarious captions, thought up, of course, by Dicky Hays.

His parents didn’t approve. A lot of people didn’t approve. But a lot of people were buying his shirts. And as long as the demand was there, he would be there.

Dawn needn’t worry about his dealings with LeClair. He had dodged and ducked and eluded half a dozen lawsuits already, mostly for using photos without permission. Well, he realized that as he grew he shouldn’t be taking risks like that. Luckily he had recently bought the rights to reproduce anything he wanted from a book on circus freaks and another on medical curiosities, and there was a gold mine of material between those two volumes. It wasn’t easy being an entrepreneur, but these days you had to be one to get ahead, and he had the right mind for it.

Hays was lighting a cigarette when the phone rang. “About time,” he said, meaning it for either LeClair or Linda...those two inconsiderate morons.

“T Shirt Babylon...where the T stands for tawdry trash.” Okay, so that made two mottoes in one day.

“You’re right.”

“Hello...who is this?”

“I’m not an admirer, Mr. Hays.”

The connection sounded distant, like one from overseas. You could always swear you were hearing the ocean the wires ran under. A man. It didn’t help that he wasn’t speaking loudly, either. Hays squinted, as if that might help him hear better. “Hello. Is it my understanding that I’m speaking to a non-fan who intends to shame me into seeing the error of my ways?” It wouldn’t be the first such call.

“After having the misfortune of seeing your last catalog, I’m convinced you have no shame, Mr. Hays.”

“Hey, you should see my newest catalog just in, if you liked that one...I’ve got a juicy shirt with a dead dog smooshed by a car, in vivid red and black, and...”

“Didn’t you ever have a dog, Mr. Hays?”

“Yeah, as a kid I had several. Did you ever have a lobotomy? Kinda sounds like it, from your voice.”

“Didn’t you feel badly when they died?”

“No...I celebrated, what do you think? Hey, pal, it isn’t that you don’t have a brain...it’s that people like you don’t have a sense of humor.”

“Where is the humor in T-shirts which feature photographs of movie stars as they appear in death...or victims of war and murder...deformed circus performers and deformed children...with captions that make light of death and pain, animal and child abuse...”

“Ah, just a minute, reverend.” Hays was actually smiling as he reached out to flick ash into his waste basket. He loved to take these people on, even if they never did concede to his points, such as the concept of freedom of speech. They called to aggravate him, but Dicky Hays was the master of aggravation. “I’ll bet your parents have taken in a circus sideshow or two in their time, pal. Maybe you yourself...and hey, I didn’t run over that dog. I didn’t start any wars or murder anybody. I’ve never given somebody an extra couple of legs. You wanna complain to somebody about the horrors in the world? Go talk to the president and God, pal...but I suppose the president and God can do no wrong in your book, huh? And of course a guy like you wouldn’t dream of looking at a car accident if you drove by one, right?”

“To be curious about pain and misfortune is natural. To seek to comprehend it and deal with it is natural. To celebrate it and trivialize it is disturbed.”

“Hey, pal, who is really the disturbed one here? I think up-tight frightened little prudes like you are the ones obsessed with death and sin and all that. Have a laugh, guy, live a little. I help people face pain and suffering by getting them to laugh at it.”

“I hadn’t realized your noble intentions, Mr. Hays,” said the distant, softly droning voice. “But I doubt that dog’s owners would have a good laugh to see it on your shirt. Nor would the grieving parents of a deformed dead infant be very amused at your therapeutic T-shirts.”

“Hey, you can’t please everybody, pal. You live your life and let me live mine. I don’t go telling other people how to live.”

“You contribute to the moral climate. You distribute a product to impressionable young people. You have a responsibility...”

“To entertain people. I do sell these things, ya know. And speaking of entertainers, Elvis and John Lennon wanted to be famous and immortal, right? Well, they got it.”

“What about respect for the dead?”

Dicky couldn’t hear what was said immediately following that, as there was a buzzing increase in static which seemed to be full of dozens of incoherent voices, maybe other callers on the same line bleeding through. Sounded like a tape over-dubbed with layers of voices, making for one rasping howl, but through it Dicky thought he heard the caller add, “John doesn’t like it.”

“I think it’s time to change the channel, Mr. Swaggart. Do you have anything to say to conclude your sermon?”

A long pause. Just the diminished but still audible fizz and crackle of the bad connection...those other voices talking in the far distance.

The voice said, “How would you feel if it were you?”

Dicky narrowed his eyes warily. “How’s that, partner?”

“Aren’t you concerned about the consequences of your actions?”

The blood began rising hot into Hays’ face. “Is that a threat of some kind, my friend? Because if it is I’d like you to know that I have a beautiful fifteen-shot Beretta, and if you wanna come around and play games you can be the first person on one of my shirts that I did actually kill myself...understand?”

“I have to go now, Mr. Hays,” the voice on the other end droned.

“Yeah, pal, I think you’d better.” And Hays slammed the phone into its cradle.  Goddamn creeps. Hays liked to engage them but he didn’t like threats, blatant or subtle. Not that he hadn’t had those before.

Probably this clown had a kid with a club foot, or his father had died in World War II, or his dog had got hit by a car. Hey, Dicky Hays wasn’t the master of Fate...he just made some T-shirts.

*     *     *

Linda never called, and her phone went unanswered. To hell with that bimbo. He did finally hear from LeClair, however. Strangely, he flinched when the phone rang, was hesitant to pick it up and even relieved to hear LeClair’s oozing voice. Definitely time to call it quits for the evening. They settled their business quickly and Hays was finally clear to go home.

The car was in the shop, that brand new hunk of junk. No problem; his apartment was a fifteen-minute walk. A real catch, so close to the teeming action, the gaudy electric life of Hollywood Boulevard. His light jacket slung over his shoulder, Hays started down there now. He knew some of the hookers (not intimately; he couldn’t risk that with Dawn working for him, so close) and exchanged greetings with them. The stars were sticky and ugly with grime under his feet. It made him smirk to think how sentimental morons sniffled over these long-dead people, still had crushes on them. Rotten hideous corpses. Why shouldn’t he show them that? They could use a good slap in the face. Welcome to the real world, pal.

Look at the life here. Rich and colorful and diverse as the life of a neon coral reef. Bikers and teenagers, hustlers and dealers...all richly alive. And on their own terms. But no doubt a repressed little clown like that one on the phone would be only too happy to come down here and tell everybody how they should live and behave.

Up ahead as he lit a fresh cigarette, Hays spotted a knot of teenagers, clustered in the light from a shop like tropical fish in a glowing aquarium, and there looked to be some juicy teen girls amongst them. The yummiest. Linda was just out of her teens. If he had more time he might start up a conversation with some girls like those...mention that acquiring cocaine was no problem for Dicky Hays. But he was in a hurry and they had a couple of tough-looking punk boys with them anyway...

Hays might have just kept on walking past them, but he stole a sideways glance at one girl’s chest, and in so doing got a look at the front of the T-shirt she was wearing.

“Hey,” he said, involuntarily reaching out to take her elbow, turning her toward him a little to see it better.

“Hey,” she said also, slapping his hand away.

“You got a problem you wanna discuss, mister?” sneered one of the thug boyfriends.

“I just wanted to see the T-shirt you’re wearing,” Hays said, staring at it.

“You just want to look at my breasts, I think.” The girl dragged out the word teasingly.

The shirt showed a dead woman, hanging by the throat. Young, pretty—once. Busty. She looked so much like his juicy friend Linda it had startled him.

“Where did you get a shirt like that?”

“From a man. He was selling them in the street today. Don’t ya love it?”

Pretty close competition, both in subject matter and locale. Hays didn’t like it. “What else did he have?”

“All kinds of great stuff.”

“Move along, will ya, mister?” said the sneering punk. “Can’t you see we’re busy over here?”

“What did he look like?” Hays asked.

“He was creepy—like you,” laughed the girl.

Without cocaine and in the presence of the boys, Hays couldn’t say anything to change the girl’s opinion of him, so he just resumed his walking...but with a last, furrow-browed glance over his shoulder at her.

He felt unsettled. Not just because of the competition. That girl on the shirt looked so much like Linda...length and style of hair and all...

The second shirt was worn by a boy with a purple mohawk...such a cliché of a punk teenager that he might have been auditioning for a part in a TV show.

Hays saw the shirt first from a distance, couldn’t make out details, but kept his eyes on it until he was close enough to make it out...and when he did he said, “Jesus!” and took the boy by the arm.

This time he was punched in the mouth for his uninvited arm-touching.

The boy’s friends laughed and pulled the mohawk punk away; they started off down the street. Passing people glanced down at Hays in half-sneering disgust for lying on the star of some dead actress with blood on his chin.

“Hey, kid,” Hays snarled, dragging himself to his feet, “I just want to look at your Goddamn T-shirt!”

“Look at this,” said one boy, pretending to open his fly. The mohawk boy turned to laugh, and Hays saw the shirt again for a moment...

Had it just been a picture of a dead man, propped shot against a wall, who resembled his father, he might accept that. Or a dead woman, also riddled and awash in black ink blood, he could dismiss that, maybe...even if she did resemble his mother. But not both—and in the same picture.

“Kid! Hey—kid!” Hays roared after them. They didn’t look back again; one just raised his middle finger. Hays took a step or two forward and nearly fell...staggered. In falling he had smacked the back of his head on the pavement and you’d better believe that hurt worse than the punch.

Hays wanted to scream a swear after them but was in no condition to fight if they should come back. And in any case, within moments he found himself a new focus to command his attention.

Someone had taken his arm to help support him.

It couldn’t be his parents. Someone else’s parents...

He began to turn groggily to see who had come to his aid.

Couldn’t be Linda. Somebody else he didn’t know...

As he turned he saw the shirt first, because the man was so tall that it was nearly at Hays’ eye level.

It couldn’t be Dawn on the shirt, her arms and legs hacked off, reducing her to a man-made, bogus circus freak—staring glassily out from the shirt so vividly that the image seemed more than a photograph: he had been talking with her on the phone only an hour ago, and that wasn’t enough time...wasn’t enough time for someone...some insane, psychotic monster...to do this...

...someone else’s fiance...not his...

Hays stared at the man’s T-shirt in numb, vibrating awe and terror, then looked up as the man gently holding his arm said in a soft droning voice, “Hello, Mr. Hays...”

The man was a stranger to Dicky, and to California, obviously. He was just much too pale.

Hays’ mouth began to work soundlessly, the pain in his head rushing in as a flood of drowning icy water...

“Fashions for spring, Mr. Hays. Would you care to laugh?”

Hays did, in fact, start to laugh a moment later. And laugh. And laugh...