The Bad Seed BOOK - Demo by Ivan Cuadros

Degas is the bastard step-brother of James Alexander Kunt, whose unlikely victory in the previous day’s Presidential Election had opened the floodgates of bigotry. Prior to the election Kunt, a master manipulator of public opinion had been both bought and sold.

When Degas discovers that Kunt had disinherited him through fraud, he vows to bring him down no matter the consequence, no matter the cost, and together, Degas and Monica take on Kunt, the powers that be and the conspiracy that we were never supposed to see.

by Adam KIDRON art by : Ivan Cuadros

THE BAD SEED

An Elia Degas Conspiracy Theory

Chapter 1 “Déjà vu” all over again.

WEDNESDay 11 - 09 - 2016

Outside the store, a snarling, disappointed crowd, partially sheltered from the incessant light ice-rain by a blinking store sign that protruded a couple of feet over the sidewalk, window-watched recaps and analysis of James Alexander Kunt’s ‘surprise’ victory over Scorned Cunt in the previous day’s Presidential Election, on a checkerboard of large flat screen TV’s tuned left, right and center. On Fox News, a beaming Sean Hannity, took credit for the win as he fawned over Kunt’s first Tweet as President Elect — a promise that the forgotten men and women of America would never be forgotten again.

88.4% of the forgotten people of the Bronx had voted for Scorned Cunt, but neither candidate meant much to me. Scorned Cunt, the tone-deaf spouse of a philandering President, acted like a despot high on drone-strikes when she acted like Secretary of State. Acted like a Play-Doh Democrat on the campaign trail. Now, she acted like we should give a fuck she’d blown her inheritance. Lying Kunt, the toadstool[ii] dick equipped, draft dodging son of a demagogue, acted like a xenophobic white-Jesus as he acted out for the TV news cameras that fed his famished white working-class base. Acted like a pussy-grabbing asset stripper behind the imperial doors of his gaudy estates. Acted like a Play-Doh Republican on the campaign trail. Now he acted like 25.7% of registered voters was a mandate, having won the Presidency while losing by 2.9 million popular votes.

“Mandate my ass![iii] ” I mumbled at the cover of Gil Scott Heron’s classic, It’s Your World, double-album which was propped up against a speaker, first among equals among a sprawl of albums by Pink Floyd, Santana and The Notorious B.I.G.

So, I picked up the stylus and dropped it midway through Side C, track-2 and I closed my eyes and soaked in Bicentennial Blues — life being a carousel, the blues being eternal and déjà vu all over again you know.

“And it’s a blues year all over this country America has got the blues And the blues is in the street looking for the 3 principles Justice, liberty, and equality We would do well to join the blues looking for justice, liberty, and equality The blues is in the street America has got the blues But don’t let it get by us”[iv]

Kunt, who was clearly a world-class-narcissist, had already gotten past us and was turning to faciasm to achieve immortality. The question now was how long would he last and how much damage would he do along the way? Was he a B-Movie actor playing the-buck-stops-here? Or was he a tyrant, in the mold of Putin, Mao, Stalin and Hitler --- LIFE BEING A CAROUSEL, THE BLUES BEING ETERNAL AND DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN YOU KNOW?

Opposite Radio Shack on the east side of Broadway, a frayed white Baptist church smoldered in the dusk, the last gasp of a blaze that tormented the firefighters of Ladder Company Six and Engine Company Eighty-one with its resilience.

Madam Esmeralda Ramos’s forty-berth brothel had occupied the old redbrick tenement next to the church since the mid90’s. Her girls worked fourteen-hour shifts in cubicles little bigger than their beds. They were expected to service at least six Johns a night and comp a 50th Precinct copper. Consequently, the brothel had never been busted. The Johns paid Esmeralda, a gaudy old owl with a heart the size of your wallet, $150 and up, depending on the length of the session and talents of the girl you chose –- harder-core wants like bare-back and anal, were exchanged for tips. The girls were mostly illegals from Central America, Africa and the Caribbean. If you were fortunate enough to get one just off the boat, the experience was equivalent to anything you might or might not get for free, but without the emotional rope. After a month or two, when the first STD’s had come and gone and come again and a prince still hadn’t shown up to save them, the girls hardened and gave you exactly what you paid for, or less. I’d been with Esmeralda when the fire started at around 7pm. She’d been charged along with her three stepsons, of conspiring to defraud the IRS of more than $2,500,000 from 1992 through 2012, and I was handling her flimsy defense. I’d just persuaded her to cop a plea, when oily black smoke begun to seep through the floorboards. We scurried to safety down the rusting fire escape at the side of the building, whores and their Johns’ spilled out of the brothel and out onto the sidewalk in various stages of undress, as if Caligula had come to Broadway. Last one out was a skinny cop in red fishnet stockings, searching for a place to hide as he took catcalls like punches to the whip-scared copper-brown skin stretched tightly over his six-pack abs. The fire had left the sidewalk carpeted in soot, which now, sixteen hours later, was being washed away by icy, sulfur-rich, rain, which had begun to play on my office window like a detuned xylophone.

I had nothing pressing. The only other case I’d been working, had collapsed when my client, an underachieving Rapper, admitted that the bites he’d inflicted on his 15-year old protégé’s augmented breasts, were caused by his uniquely angled golden molars. So, I occupied myself by following the progress of a Pretty Lady as she floated down the west side of Broadway, wrapped in something precious, lugging a saddle brown tote-bag, and protected by an attitude that devils like me care about and the umbrella she held in her left hand.

She was swiped away by the 9 train, clattering north along a rusting, cast-iron skyway, high above Broadway, on its way from Manhattan to Van Cortland Park, the end of the line. From my perch, a tired second floor office above Broadway. I was directly opposite the train. Through its scratched windows, I watched as a crew of ‘Showtime Kids’ flipped in place, spun around poles, and cartwheeled up and down isles that had cleared to greet them — immersing riders in gravity-defying magic for an occasional cash donation. A whoosh of air brakes and the train squealed to a stop tossing sparks into the gloom like a Catherine-wheel. As the train doors struggled apart, I pulled my gaze away from the endless shuffle of passengers trading places, searching for another distraction from a career going nowhere and the stack of bills on my desk that I couldn’t afford to pay.

The Pretty Lady stood framed by my doorway shaking out her umbrella; speared it into an ornate mahogany stand I’d lost track of, tossed her mane like a conjurer performing a signature trick, and surveyed me like she was assessing a distressed property. The Pretty Lady stood framed by my doorway shaking out her umbrella; speared it into an ornate mahogany stand I’d lost track of, tossed her mane like a conjurer performing a signature trick, and surveyed me like she was assessing a distressed property. I snatched my reflection in her expression. The suitcases under my eyes were same shade of grey-brown as was my unruly, three-day growth of stubble. My bespoke, grey, Harris Tweed, double-breasted, wool suit was tight everywhere, and had been pressed so many times that the pants had multiple crease lines. My white shirt had been whiter. My brogues had been re-soled so often they’d webbed at the balls of my feet. But I’m six-three and reasonably self-sufficient and largely drug free, which excuses a multitude of sins. The Pretty Lady offered up a slim right hand, like it was something special. When I took it, the platinum Tiffany Three Stone

Her mahogany eyes were prettily framed by eyebrows that made elegant arches. The eyes themselves were expressionless. Ink on the side of her neck suggested she’d been manufactured on Christmas Eve, 1986. So, she was 31 years old. “Take a seat,” I said grandly. With a sharp tilt of the head, she drew my attention to two worn dark-red leather club chairs at the client side of the desk. They were piled high with manila files. I ran around the desk, pumping my arms like a sprinter, grabbed the files, and piled them on the desk on top of others. My wit may or may not have been lost on her. I couldn’t tell. It didn’t show on her face. Nothing much did. The files were piled too high and the top file slid open, spilling polaroid snaps of a boney middle-aged white woman and plump young black girl screwing out over the desk. She arched her brows higher, spread the snaps like a deck of cards, and picked out her favorites. “Very nice,” she said dryly, as if she’d seen better. “The groom didn’t think so.” I growled. “Why? Did he want to be in the picture, or was he just trying to stop the bitch having fun?” She decanted ‘bitch’ carefully – calling someone else a bitch soothed her. “The old man was looking for an economical way out of a relationship that had gotten stale. I found him one.” I jabbed back. She let the snap flutter back to the desk, shrugged minimally, clapped derisively, and purred: “A dirty job that you were just compelled to do?”

“Lady,” I snarled, “The sign on the door says ELIA DEGAS, ATTORNEY AT LAW in big, expensive, black and gold, letters. I defend thugs with drugs and mugs on drugs equally, so long as they pay upfront in cash. I write wills to protect the wishes of the dead from the greed of the living. I separate small men from wives they do not love so that they can spit money on whores. I free women from men that mistreat them so that they can roll the dice again. Occasionally, I get lucky and a poor fuck with a limb in a cast hobbles in off the street and tells me they tripped and fell, were rear-ended by money, or injured at work --- If you’re looking for a lawyer to save you from your sins or those of others, then you’re in the right place, but if its salvation you seek, hunt down a priest.”