Peckman's Model

to the reader: Following is a copy of the transcript from a recent police interrogation. It fell out of the pocket of a local detective who was taking a cab ride home to his wife, after a long night on the town. The cabbie was nice enough to send it our way. The questions have been edited out.

I first met Richard Peckman when we were bike couriers. We called him Peck, Heck, Hecky, Pecky. Called him Pecker behind his back. We called him Heck after Richard Hell, because he was such a dark son-of-a-bitch sometimes.

He had gotten a Multi-Media Art degree, and worked as a messenger while getting a Master's in some sort of Bio-chemical Engineering thing. He did it pretty slow, it took him a long time. We were pretty good friends for a time, but then he met Molly. Molly Sindretta. With an “S”, I think.

He had just graduated, and he was acting like some golden boy. He was high out of his tree. We had done some partying while he was in school, but this was like all-natural, through the roof. I don't blame him, we lived like dirty dogs for years, we were always filthy then. (Laughter) Yeah, thanks pork-pie.

I was there when they met, him and Molly, that was a wild night. I was there with some other people, the place was packed. I don't know, some summer... I don't know which year, I was hammered.

Peck comes down to bitch someone out, I forget who or why. Had a shot, did his bitching, and went off to the back of the bar, by himself and nursed a beer. I had seen Molly earlier, across the way, sitting like the ice princess she is, or was. I couldn't get anything going with her, never could on the other times I'd seen her there.

I see her look at Peck though, and he catches it, and goes limp like a goose with a rung neck. I see him rolling gears in his head, like he's trying to work up to chatting her, like he always had to. He makes like he's going to, but I know he's just going to get another shot. She wags and curls a finger, and points to the seat next to her, and like a fool, he sits down. He never stopped doing whatever that itchy finger required.

Anyway I start seeing him rarely, if ever, and he's always got some big ideas, real hare-brained stuff. She's got a Fine Arts degree and they do some joint art projects, or some such thing, together. I never understood the stuff, it was way over my head.

They get this gallery going down on Pittsburgh Street. Yeah, where you busted up the party tonight, where you busted me. That was the chick’s pot, not mine… The bassist from the punk band… I thought I'd get lucky, I don't know… What’s the matter with her?... You don’t know that!...

Anyway, they hook some freaky patron, some French faggot, and get offered some wacky gig in Paris. The get married before they go, kind of elope. Too good to be true? That's right, her hooks were in him so hard, so quick.

Next time I see him in is in the bar… Yeah, the same one… Well I guess you'll always know where to find me then… To let you know that that cheap tie doesn't go with that even cheaper suit.

I see him in the bar and he looks worked… Not more than a year-and-a-half ago. Molly's left him and he's not too clear on why. He looks like hell, like he's taken it real hard. And he admits it too, "but not to worry" because he's got some big stuff rolling. I don't hear from him for a long time.

I was down on Pittsburgh awhile ago… Like six months ago… Making a drop at some photographer's place in that same building… Yeah, that's him… Yeah, in Peck's building.

I see Peck's name on the mailbox, so I drop in on him, ring his bell. And he looks worse than when I last saw him…

Nah, I don't think so… I mean we had a couple of beers that day, but I don't think he was using drugs; he was just a weird fuck.

He's got these weird wire form sculptures going. They have like eight arms and legs, and some weird mechanics that make it undulate all around. And he's got all these still video images posted all around from some interracial bang-bang porno movie… I don't know if he's into that, and who am I to criticize?... None of your business!

But then I hear this noise coming from behind some white folding screens. A kind of chick's moan. He sees I'm wondering about it, but he's reluctant to show me. But he wants to show me, you know.

He pulls aside the screen, and it’s some woman, but not really. It’s definitely a female torso, and it’s mounted on the wall, with a head and no arms or legs, and blue skin. It’s naked. It’s got all these tubes and wires going into the stumps of the arms and legs, and into the head. Everything is all connected to pumps and tanks, and some computer. No, it didn't look like her— well, maybe— nah, not at the time

"Here, let me turn her on," he says, and steps up to her— it. He grabs it in the crotch, kind of like this, with a couple fingers slightly in it, and his thumb on the buzzer. You know making that kind of international "gimmie-the-money" gesture. You've never done that? But he cocks his head to one side, with his ear to it, like he's fiddling with a combination safe. He must have hit the hidden switch, because the thing just explodes with movement and noise.

She just starts gyrating, all wiggling and swaying, like she's busting off a high, hard one. And she's making all the noise to boot. "I call it ‘Vivisected Woman in Orgasm’," he says, stepping back to admire his work.

It was horrifying; all blue and amputated. All the pumps and tanks, like hospital equipment, making a racket, and she's sort of screaming to be heard above it. The printer on the computer is going crazy, like its showing some serious output. But she's just moving her hips and back like, with her face all scrunched up— hate to say it, but it was a real turn on. And it just kept going on and on. It was mesmerizing.

Yeah, I knew you guys wouldn't understand, but you wanted to know what I knew, and you got me by the shorties, so I'm cooperating. Hey, I'm an art lover. And I love broads, too, so don’t think anything different.

I don't what happened the rest of that time I was in his loft.

But tonight I was at the bar again, kind of saucy, you know kissing the girls on a Friday night. when one asks if I'd go with her to a party on Pittsburgh. We go to a packie, and make our way down there, kissing on the Fort Point Bridge… Because I like the view.

We get there and it’s in Peck's loft, a couple of bands and his art. And his art is like these super realistic motorized mannequins going at it hardcore. Every way you can think of and then some. On all fours, on their sides, against the wall, in a swing. But they all look like healthy consenting adults, so it’s like, no big deal… What, like you've never witnessed a good rut in person?...

The bands were pretty cool too. And that chick playing the bass for the last band was pretty hot.

So, Peck decides to unveil that chick sculpture piece, and when he does, there's just silence, well except for her just going off like she's supposed to.

It occurs to me to me then, that the sculpture is a dead ringer for Molly, so much so that it makes me nauseous and I have to get outside. Then all pandemonium breaks out and things get real ugly, real fast. I met that bassist chick on the stairs, and chatted her up a bit. She offered to smoke a bowl.

While we were smoking her pot in her bowl, she says "Isn't Richard so disgusting? I mean, why can't he just get over Molly?"

I said, unconvincingly, that Peck was just crazy, and if it wasn't Molly, it'd be something else.

"You know Molly has been missing for, like, eight months, right?" My jaw must have dropped so hard, because I was in a fog, and I didn't even see you guys pull up; the whole cadre of you.

She was going to tell me more, but then I asked one of your boys if it was legal to just walk into the building. That must've curled your tails, because then you had to hassle me, and the bassist's pot fell out of my pocket.

So I was one of the only two people you had to bust, and toss into the wagon. You want to know what he said to me on our ride to the pig-pen, don't you? But first you have to tell me, are you going to bust him for disturbing the peace, public display of obscenity… or murder?

(Tape indistinct.)