All Due Respect

Issue #22: February, 2012

2012-02-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

TWO BROTHERS

By Court Merrigan

Narin's bird took a mauling at the cockfights that would require many weeks of close tending to heal. Narin didn't mind. He'd made out well, bills bunched in his front shirt pocket. This bird was a good ringer, putting up a vicious feint and attack show that was nothing but prelude to inevitable defeat, useful for goading new cockers into overconfidence on their birds. Riding back to the freehold on the motorbike, Narin handled the cock with a tenderness due a newborn baby. The nubs of his fingers throbbed but tonight it didn't bother him. He had plenty to tell his little brother Taem.

Now that his daughter Phrae was gone, Taem liked nothing more than to hear about the cockfights. He would nod along, eyelids blinking over empty sockets, jabbing the air with jerky fingers, sucking his teeth and throwing up his arms in a paroxysm of defeat or victory. Phrae used to giggle watching. But she'd left on a bus for Bangkok two months ago, Narin narrating the departure for Taem as the midday sun curled the tar in the joints of the highway.

Taem spent his days perched by a cracked transistor radio, listening to old songs through AM static, rolling palm leaf cigarettes, stroking the birds that wandered the cock house. A dozen times a day, he disassembled a tarnished .38 revolver, laying the pieces out in sequence, oiling the apertures and surfaces. Every so often he would unleash a series of gravelly grunts, keeping it up until Narin took the .38 and fired it. The cocks were used to the racket, didn't even squawk. Taem would quiet and take back the warm piece to stroke and reload.

Narin started substituting blank reloads because he worried Taem would accidentally shoot off his foot or worse. He made two vows in his daily obeisance to the household Buddha: to see to little Phrae's future, and to never see his brother's blood again, not in this or the next ten lives.

* * *

When their father and mother died in a motorbike accident, Narin took over the family barber shop in Prachinburi, two hundred kilometers from Bangkok. Taem, meanwhile, bolted for Bangkok the day after the cremation.

Narin worked the barber shop for nineteen years. Weary of the stinking mound of hair he burned each evening, in 1983 he sold up and moved to Bangkok. There he went into business building steel window frames for shophouses and tract homes. Narin was deft with his hands, long fingers graceful about a welding torch, so the money was steady. He sent for his wife after he fixed up the rooms above the shop. But she was a country girl and balked at Bangkok's smoke and noise and the indecent sitting toilet, so unlike the proper squatter back home. She quickly returned to Prachinburi but the separation was amicable. Narin sent money for a while, then stopped, and they did not see each other again.

A few months later, Taem sauntered into his shop.

"Well, big brother," said Taem, looking at the neatly stacked rows of freshly-painted steel frames. "You're doing well for yourself."

They talked a while about the old days, but soon Taem was going on about his woman, his apartment, his job. He was a deliveryman and he was making out good. One day he'd see his way clear to a detached house and a black car and gold necklaces for his woman.

"What's her name?" asked Narin.

"Samnien," Taem said. "You'll like her. I'll bring her around sometime."

Narin never did meet Samnien, never got one look at Phrae's mother. Later he would try to see her in Phrae's face. He couldn't.

Taem was soon a fixture at the shop, perched atop a steel desk watching Narin work, warbling along to old songs on the radio. He talked to customers. He was good with them. He'd laugh and joke and offer cigarettes and fetch cups of water and if there was a kid, Taem would pull coins and string from their ears and they'd shriek with laughter.

Every hour he made a call on the shop phone and once or twice a day, he'd strap on his green backpack and zip off on his motorbike.

"Not bad work, huh," he said to Narin, and Narin agreed. "Tell you what, you should have seen the last place I had to hang out in. Real shithole. I got it good here, brother."

* * *

Taem was a drug runner, employed by one of the syndicates that had Bangkok divvied up. Pay came in rubber-banded bundles of cash, more than enough to keep Samnien in the two-level apartment but not enough to get her a car. He had to pay off the cops, too, who made a great show of putting him against the wall and patting him down, even though they knew exactly how much they were coming in for. The rates were set by the syndicates. The only annoyance was the occasional necessity to pistol-whip a deadbeat with the .38, kick him to the cops for their monthly arrest quota.

Taem never fired the .38 until that day in mid-1985 when a couple of syndicate members thought he was getting uppity and snatched away his money bundle, and in the close cement room down a back alley three blocks from the Turkish embassy Taem shot both of them dead. Back at Narin's shop Taem made call after call but no one answered. He sat on the desk chain-smoking and ignoring the radio, nearly backhanding some kid who wanted a magic show.

* * *

They came for Taem in the middle of the night. Kicked him in the balls and drug him out of the two-level apartment in boxers, Samnien screaming. They didn't say anything. They knew who he was. They knew just what he'd done.

* * *

When Narin sprinted downstairs into the shop, summoned by Taem's screams, he was invited by the three men standing there to have a seat. He did, and was lashed to a welding table, arms out.

Taem couldn't keep to his feet. The men let him flop to the floor, naked, every orifice bleeding, including the emptied eye sockets. They had used chopsticks and a spoon for that.

One of the men took a snipping tool from Narin's workbench and sheared off both index fingers at the first knuckle. Then the man used a blowtorch to suture the spurting wound. He was skillful with both. He had done this before.

"Now," the man said. "Let's see if you know any more than your brother here."

Narin did not, though he was not believed until the snipping and suturing was repeated on each of his fingers and both big toes.

"Well, boys," said the man. "What the fuck, huh." He steadied Narin's lolling head, whispered in his ear like a lover. "If I were you, I'd get the fuck out of Bangkok."

* * *

Narin convalesced two months at the Sisters of Mercy hospital in Prachinburi, listening to Taem moan, watching him flail and punch air as he tried to ward off invisible attackers in his dark ether. When the nuns finally released the brothers, Narin took the cash he'd plucked from the shop safe and bought the little freehold on a scrap of waste ground deep in the countryside. There he learned with excruciating slowness to utilize his finger nubs, pouring concrete, building the hut and the cock house out of bamboo and palm leaves. He bought Taem the radio and left his little brother listening in the shade of the palm trees.

One day a postcard frayed at the edges found its way to the brothers. It was from Samnien. It had been some months in transit and it said Taem had a daughter.

Narin located the charity hospital in Thonburi, across the river from Bangkok. He found the baby squalling in dirty cloth diapers in a bassinet she shared with two other infants in a vast orphanage hall where hundreds of such infants mewled. The overhead fans had ceased working years before and the swarms of flies were audible from the stairwell. The infant's skeletal body was stippled in sores, her eyes yellow as a Buddha idol. Narin knew the child was Taem's when he saw how she flailed spasmodically every minute or so, as if imitating her father.

The girl was five months old, possibly six, or nine, or eleven. No one knew for sure. The records had been misplaced. Samnien had abandoned the child the day after it was born. One nurse remembered Samnien saying she feared for her life and that the child was cursed.

Narin filled out the forms, named her Phrae, and brought her home.

Both infant and father calmed when Narin handed her over. Narin left them together thereafter, the blind man rocking and singing, the silent infant staring at him. Taem fed her out of his own bowl, mashing fish and rice in his fingers, and slept with her curled into him on a bamboo platform. When nightmares bolted Narin awake in the deep night, he listened to their placid breath until he could sleep again. Between occasional cockfight winnings and day labor, plus the little garden Phrae planted and weeded, they stayed in rice and kept Phrae in school uniforms and books and oil for her study lamp. The whip smart little girl was fast becoming all the brothers could have hoped. She won the top government scholarship of 2003 and now she was in a lonely dorm bed in Bangkok, bright future unfurling before her.

* * *

Narin pulled up at the little bamboo and thatch hut on the freehold. He killed the motorbike and squatted on the slab of rough concrete by the spigot in front of the cock house. He switched on a naked light bulb and rubbed down the cock's head with an old rag, staunching the bleeding about its horny scars, squeezing open its beak with thumb and forefinger and running a feather down its throat to extract blood and mucous. He hummed an old song. The cock was mute.

Squawking came from inside the cock house. It sounded like a couple of cocks were out. Strange—Taem was religious about putting them away in the evening. Narin pushed open the bamboo gate.

"Taem?" said Narin, squinting into the darkness. "Taem?" He found the light switch and squinted into the glare. "Oh, shit, Taem," he said, and kicked aside the two escaped cocks.

Taem lay on his side, putting the .38 against his temple and dry-firing, over and over. He had emptied the chambers earlier that evening, barrel hot to his head. The reverberation of the blank reload perforated his eardrum. Blood seeped from his ears and the two escaped cocks attacked the red rivulets.

Narin gently righted his little brother. Why, he wondered, then stopped. How useless such questions, all questions. He put his brother's head to his chest and murmured one of the old songs.

Court Merrigan has been published widely, including in PANK, Night Train, Spinetingler, Blackbird, Evergreen Review, Big Pulp, Grift, and Shotgun Honey. You can find links at http://courtmerrigan.wordpress.com/short-stories/. He lives in Wyoming’s banana belt with his family.

Issue #21: February, 2012

2012-02-01T19:17:00.000-08:00

ALL MY DIRTY CLOTHES

By Allerton Mead

We rolled into the hills at sunset, passing a bottle of Old Granddad, driving a black Galaxy 500 that Jimmy started with a key I found in the street. Those old Galaxies were some cool-ass cars, and I bet some poor bastard was really going to miss it. Then again, fuck him. The dumb son of a bitch should have known how the tumblers in an ignition will wear down over the years. Motherfucker should have had the sense to buy one of those Clubs.

It was our ride now, and Jimmy turned the wheel with his index finger, stomped the gas and moved us on up. He had the seat pushed all the way back for his long legs, and his head was turned at an angle so his mohawk wouldn't get bent out of shape on the top of the car. It looked real uncomfortable for him, and was probably not something he'd thought of when he insisted on being the one to drive.

At the top of the hills was the top-dollar real estate, and we passed by—several gated driveways with giant mansions set way back from the road. That was what money bought you: privacy and protection. That, and a cool view. We saw that view ourselves when we went along the top of a cliff and looked to the west. That California coast at sunset was really something else. Hills that turned a glowing purple as they rolled out to the sea. Clouds that hung like loose, orange elephant turds in a prune juice sky. Beautiful.

We had climbed to the top of the highest hill when a thin, pale hand with black nail polish slipped out from the darkness of the big back seat. The hand touched Jimmy's shoulder.

"Slow down," said Jet. "That's it on the right."

Jet pulled his hand away, sat back again quiet and creepy, with his long black bangs hung low over his ghostly vampire face.

Jimmy slowed the car down and we came to a stop at the head of a long driveway. At the end was a security gate, which was about twelve feet high and made of spiky, black iron, and was mounted in a gap in a white stucco wall that looked to surround several acres of prime real estate. In front of the gate was a marble statue shaped like a big pineapple. Jimmy stared at the pineapple and gate for a long moment, his eyes squinted in deep concentration. Then he turned to Jet.

"You ready?" Jimmy asked him.

"I am," said Jet.

Jet took the snubnose thirty-eight out of the pocket of his black leather jacket, and Jimmy gave him a handful of shells. Jet fumbled around with the cylinder for a bit until Jimmy took the gun, loaded it himself, and then handed it back.

Jimmy was smart that way, not just because he knew how to handle a gun, but because he knew things about the law. You get pulled over with a loaded gun in a stolen car, you get tossed in Chino for the next year and a half of your life. But you get caught with an empty gun, it's only a months in county, if that. At least that was the way Jimmy explained it, anyhow.

Jet slipped the pistol back into the pocket of his leather, and Jimmy pulled the car up to the Pineapple. It had a speaker and keypad mounted on the side. Jet rolled down the back window, poked at the numbers with his skinny fingers.

"May I help you?" said the Pineapple.

"Open sesame," said Jet.

There was a long pause.

"Who's there?"

"It's me, Franky, from a week back," Jet said. "We're looking to party."

Another pause. "Franky. Oh, yes. Who do you mean by 'we'?"

"Just a couple of friends. They're cool. We're all looking to party. All three of us"

The speaker went dead. The iron gate hummed and swung open. We were inside.

The driveway curved back through a grove of tall palm trees to a tri-leveled, new age castle, lit up white from big floodlights on the lawn. A white Bentley was parked right up front, and a sporty convertible Mercedes, also white, was pulled under an open air garage around the side.

Jimmy parked the Galaxy alongside the Bentley, in front of a pair of tall double doors that were open on the main floor of the mansion. I took a long pull of the Old Granddad, handed the last swallow to Jimmy.

"Whisky," I said, "makes you frisky."

"But crank," said Jimmy, "makes you stank."

Jimmy took the last slug, and tossed the bottle out the window onto the putting green lawn. Then he took a little plastic baggy from the pocket of his studded leather jacket, snorted a pinch like an old timer would do with snuff. Jet and me did the same. God only knew what Jimmy's crank was cut with—powdered glass and dish detergent, probably—but still, it really got us going, put us on a wave of confidence that we would need to ride all the way into the house, if we were really going to pull this off.

This was especially true for Jet. This was going to be an important night for him. It was going to be a big step from giving ten-dollar gummies to middle-aged sickos down on Sunset. The poor son of a bitch walked around constantly with chapped lips and steering wheel bruises on the side of his head. It was a three-day limp if he pulled an all-night trick. Jet was a good guy, though, which was why Jimmy had decided a while back to take him under his wing.

And really, I guess it was a big night for me and Jimmy, too. After what seemed like months of scuffing our knuckles for chump change on drunk GI's and drunker tourists who wandered off the Boulevard in the wee hours before dawn, this was going to be our first actual gun crime. And by the looks of this house, we were going to hit it big. I just wished I was still under 18, so Jimmy would have let me carry the gun.

We got out of the car and followed Jet down the drive and through the open doors. The inside of the house was as white as it was on the outside. White furniture on marble floors, white pillars that held up a vaulted ceiling. The place was so blinding white and squeaky clean, it could have been a movie set for a waiting room outside the pearly gates.

The only thing that threw off the image was a humongous, rectangular mirror just inside the door. Not the mirror itself, really, but what was in it. Our reflections. Against all that white and sparkling cleanness, all I could think was that Jimmy had been right about what he'd said in regards to speed and personal hygiene: they don't mix. Living in an abandoned hotel room without plumbing didn't help much, either. I saw that my 501's had gone to a grimy shade of grey and could have stood up on their own. A week-old malt liquor stain down the front Jimmy's shirt had turned a color that was not likely to be found on any paint chart. Looking at us in that mirror, all I could think of was an underfed, punk-rock version of the Three Stooges. With smell lines coming off our black leather jackets like Pigsty in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

Something about that last image caused that big wave of confidence to drain from my body like a long beer piss in a dark alley.

The mirror seemed to have the same effect on Jimmy. His mohawk, his pride and joy, was listing to port after the long car trip. But he tried to straighten it for only a second, gave up on it and looked away with his shoulders slumped lower than I had ever seen them.

The mirror didn't seem to bother Jet, though. First off, he wasn't quite as dirty as us. Second, I suspected a loaded handgun will do wonders for your self-esteem.

Since this was Jet's second visit, we followed him across the marble floor and through a sliding glass door that led out back. We came out on a huge stone deck on the top of a cliff, with a hot tub and a negative edge pool on the far end. The way the pool was set up, it looked like the water poured right off the deck and down the side of the cliff, onto the sprinkling of lights of the low hills that grew brighter and brighter until they turned into the solid glow of Los Angeles. Out past that was the big, black ocean.

Standing on the deck next to the pool was a middle-aged man, a tall, pear-shaped fucker, with sad, sneaky eyes and a mustache that was somewhere between cop and fag. He was wearing a white robe that was wrapped pretty loose around him, and when he walked toward us a little breeze kicked up to show that he wasn't wearing anything underneath. He smiled at us, and without a word, he led us back inside.

"Stuart," he lisped, once we were back indoors. "But you can call me Stu."

He held out his hand. It was big and limp and clammy, and when we shook I got the feeling he wasn't squeezing near as hard as he could. He shook Jimmy's hand next, and I noticed Jimmy couldn't look him in the eye. Then Stu gave Jet a long, slow wink.

Jet winked back and even managed a grin. That gun had really given him a set of nuts. The plan was to force this rich fuck back into his bedroom to open a safe in his closet, which he had opened the week before, when Jet was in his bed and old Stuart thought he was still sleeping. Jet said he got a good look in there, too, and that there was a brick of coke and several big stacks of bills. Hundreds, most likely. I thought Jet was full of shit when he told us about it, but by the looks of the house and cars, I could imagine this fool would have enough coke and money in the safe for us to rent a real hotel room and live like drug kingpins for the rest of our lives. Or at least for the next couple of months. As for Stu himself, we were planning to shoot him only if he tried something stupid.

Jet stuck his hand in the front pocket of his leather jacket, which was where he'd put the gun. This was it. He shook his black bangs out of his eyes, his hand twitched inside his pocket, and then, right at that very instant, I heard some swishing footsteps behind us on the marble floor. Jet froze in place, the butt of the thirty-eight just barely visible. Things had all of a sudden changed. The old queer was not alone in the mansion. Someone else was with us in the room.

Jet's vampire eyes jumped back and forth between Stu and the guy who had just come in. He was barely five and a half feet tall, but had a rough look to him and the muscles of a professional bodybuilder. He wore a white tennis outfit and carried a tray of drinks. He came across the room and set the tray on a long, low-slung, glass coffee table, and then he swished his way out of there so fast that none of us had time to react.

I looked to Jet. His mouth hung open like he'd been slapped. His eyes started jumping again, this time back and forth between me, Jimmy, and Stu, who by the way had the strangest expression on his face. It was almost like he knew we were up to something, and was just daring us to go through with it. I think it was this look that made Jet lose his nerve. He let out a long, shaky breath and eased the gun back in the pocket of his leather.

If Stu had actually seen the gun, he didn't let on. The slightest hint of a smile crossed his face when Jet, Jimmy, and me reached down and picked up the three tall glasses full of ice and liquor. Stu checked his watch then, a gold Rolex that looked heavy enough to use as a weapon in a street fight, and his smile got bigger when we turned up our drinks. We slammed them down pretty quick, too, nervous as we were, and by the time we were done, Stu had wandered over to the wet bar and asked us if we wanted more. That, and maybe do a line or two of coke on top of it. We did three or four. Unlike Jimmy's Private Reserve, the stuff wasn't cut with anything at all, much less detergent and powdered glass. Afterward, Stu grabbed a bottle of top shelf Scotch and a bucket of ice, and we all went back out on the deck.

* * *

An hour later, and the bottle was nearly gone. Stu sat next to me in a deck chair, watched Jet and Jimmy frolic around in their boxer shorts in his swimming pool. The rich old fruit checked his expensive watch again and stirred the ice in his drink with a long, sausage-link of a middle finger. He turned toward me and slipped the finger in his mouth, pulled it out with a long, slow sucking sound, like his lips enjoyed the sensation and didn't want to let go. He said, "Do you see that room up there on the second floor?"

He pointed back over my shoulder, leaned in a little too close for my liking. "Yeah," I said, pulling away from him, "something special about it?"

"That's the little girly's room," he said.

"OK, man," I said.

He said, "I never go in there, you see."

"Why not?" I asked him. "It's your house."

"Because, young man, it's full of leprechauns."

"Are you serious?"

"Quite," he said. "They'll get you if you're not careful."

He stared at me and he pressed that thick sausage link along one of his eyebrows, molded it high up onto his forehead and dropped the other eyebrow down into a squint.

I felt my flesh crawl and I got up from the chair. I'd drunk more than I thought and was having some trouble focusing. Jimmy and Jet had just climbed out of the pool, and they were both sitting on the edge and breathing hard. I walked over to them and called Jet by his real name and then said "Franky," real loud so Stu wouldn't get suspicious. But it didn't matter anyhow. Stu had already gotten up and gone inside. I could see him through a window, talking and laughing with muscle boy in the kitchen. I got down on a knee next to the pool and spoke in a whisper.

"Let's get this shit over with." I said. "Now. I'm starting to feel sick or something, and that Goddamn queerhole is giving me the creeps."

"Don't worry," said Jimmy, his eyes swimming. "All we got to do is get them in the same room together, and then... then we shoot the motherfuckers dead."

"Dead?" I said.

"You in, man?" said Jet.

"You bet your ass," I said. I wasn't going to let a little death rocker act tougher than me. Besides, at that moment, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Jet laughed like he could read my mind and that the whole thing was all a big joke. He was so fucked up he could barely stand. He put his jacket on without even bothering with his shirt or pants. I had taken my jacket off earlier because I'd felt hot, but now I felt cold all over. I got it off the pile of clothes next to the diving board and put it back on. I felt weak and the jacket felt heavy and bulky. My stomach was doing flips. The three of us stumbled back inside, practically hanging on to each other for balance.

Stuart came mincing back in from the kitchen with his terrycloth robe just barely hanging on him. His cock was rock hard now and the head was poking straight out between the folds.

"I like the look," he said to Jet. "Leather on bare, wet skin."

"I'll bet you do," said Jet. "But you're gonna have to call your buddy in here if you want to get this going."

He then hooked his thumb in the elastic of his boxer shorts and gave Stu a look I would have rather not seen.

Stu's breath came faster, and his eyes grew wide and round. "Of course," he said, and then he called over his shoulder. "Pinochet? Would you care to join us?"

A second later, Pinochet, if that was indeed his real name, came out of the kitchen. He stared Jet up and down like he could have eaten his flesh raw.

"Is this a group party?" Stu said next, eyeballing me first, and then Jimmy.

The second Stu took his eyes off him, Jet moved.

"You bet your ass it is!" he said, his voice full of drama. He then dramatically shoved his hand into the pocket of his leather, and his face went a dramatic shade whiter than it already was. He jerked his hand form his pocket, but nothing was in it. He stared at it for several seconds, and the shocked look on his face was almost enough to make me bust out laughing. It was like his wrist had sprouted a Christmas ham, and that if he concentrated hard enough, he could somehow make it turn back into a gun. He then looked at Stu and Pinochet crazily and started backing away. He made about three steps before his legs buckled, and he fell back on his skinny butt. He shook his wet bangs from side to side as his pale, thin body eased down on the marble floor.

Jimmy made a move, but it was a move to lay back on a white leather couch, close his eyes, and fall asleep. I went after Stu then myself, and as my own knees gave out, it dawned on me that the old homo had drugged the whiskey, and that I was about to go through the glass coffee table with my face.

* * *

What then? Well, I came to in the trunk of a car is what then. Wrapped in plastic. Choking on my own blood. The next couple of minutes were too scary to even remember, really. All that matters is I managed to rip through the plastic and kick down the back seat and poke my head through.

I was alive, but that was about all I could say for myself. My gut was full of rotten liquor, and it felt like some steroid freak cop was knocking me in the back of the skull every time my heart beat. I half-climbed, half-fell out of the back door of the Ford into a sandy parking lot on the beach. When that fresh, west coast ocean air hit my lungs, my stomach flipped and puked for what seemed like an hour straight.

The heaves eased up, eventually, and I leaned back against the wheel well of the car. The sun was just coming up and no one was around to see me, except for a few surfers next to the pier, and they weren't watching. My shaking hands found their way to my belt, to make sure it was still buckled, and that all the buttons were done up on my jeans. They were, and I breathed a long, shaky sigh of relief. My face and neck were stiff with dried blood and it felt like my nose was broken, but I could see pretty clear through both eyes and I checked in the side mirror to see that I didn't have any serious scars.

Thoughts went through my head like ghosts, disappearing when I tried to grab hold of them. The only thing I knew for sure was the gun was still in Jet's jacket, the one I was wearing now, after putting it on by mistake the night before.

I thought about driving the Galaxy back to Hollywood to see if how things had gone for the other two stooges. They were probably both just back at the squat on Wilcox, with no more damage done to them than bad drug hangovers and a couple of really sore buttholes. But when something like that is the best possible case, then the last thing you want is to know the truth.

I tossed the gun in a trash barrel on the edge of the parking lot, pushed some garbage over it so it couldn't be seen. Then I took off the leather, and I walked into the ocean wearing all my dirty clothes.

Allerton Mead lives and drinks in southeast Virginia, where he is very, very slowly finishing a novel about skinheads, punks and murder. His work has also appeared in Pulp Metal Fiction.

Issue #20: January, 2012

2012-01-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

BAD MOVIE

By Pete Risley

It was Saturday night and there was this new zombie movie that was supposed to be a hoot. I didn't want to see it too bad, but Yo did. I just wanted to go out, and he had the car, so we hit the multiplex. The movie started at like 9:15. We did split a 40 on the drive over, and Yo might have had a couple before, but it's not true that we were all drunk and shit.

It was raining and thundering a little when we got out of the car; had to run for it. Inside there was a long line for the movie—all people in high school, pretty much. All the other movies had short lines because there wasn't anything else worth seeing. There were some kids from our school there but nobody who really mattered. It was noisy like usual, people talking in little groups, bullshitting around waiting for the screening room doors to open, and right in front of us happened to be these three stupid kids, like sixth graders. They were all excited, babbling, squealing when they laughed, mimicking voices from TV, jumping around and shit. Real irritating little homos.

Then these babes got in line behind us. There were three; two of them OK but a little skanky, but the other was this bad little blonde. She was like maybe fifteen, big eyes with that raccoon eye makeup, bare midriff with her jacket open even though it was a little cold out, low riders; made her look like a little slut. Which I like, of course. Who doesn't?

I caught her eye, I could tell. A lot of girls stare at me right off because I look good. Hey, I'm handsome, I admit it. Sounds like I'm bragging, but it's just true. People say it all the time. You know that old dead actor named James Dean? His movies suck, but he looks kind of like me, people say. He even makes expressions like me, facial expressions. My sister has a couple of his movies on DVD, and I can look in the mirror after seeing them and make the same faces. Yo, who's a homely-ass mutt, he tried to call me a 'pretty-boy' once. I mean, just once; he didn't say it again when I whacked him upside the head.

See, Yo—his real name was Josh, Josh Yoder—he was a big strong kid, he could kick anybody's ass, and he liked to, since that was about all he was good at, but I could always handle his shit. He wanted to be popular at school but for that he needed me more than I really needed him, never mind his dad's fucking Grand Am. I don't even like Grand Am's, but my folks didn't have a car at all.

Anyway, this little blonde, she was one to pretend she wasn't impressed, an act I was used to. It means they're real interested. She turned her head after our eyes met for a second, put her long blonde hair behind her ear, pouted and started talking and giggling in a cute squeaky voice to this one girl she was with. Cute and knew it; sure, they always know it. Knew I was watching her, too, primping and skipping around to show herself off, practically shaking her little butt at me.

Meanwhile, one of the dweeb kids in front of us, kid with these little rectangular glasses that are supposed to make you hip, was trying to impress his butt buddies by talking like that old vampire dude from the real old Dracula movies. He said like, "the soon-to-be-dead are among us here and now—there, and there and there, and there!" He turned around when he said that and pointed his finger at Yo. Bad mistake.

One of the other kids, the tallest one, almost as tall as me but scrawny, was grinning and laughing like it was a Chuck E. Cheese's birthday party, but when he turned and glanced at Yo and me, the looks on our faces, he clammed up and looked jittery. And he was the tall one, you know?

I mean, he didn't act that scared, but a little was enough, because it didn't take much for Yo to catch that scent of fear and go for it. Plus I wasn't inclined to discourage him right then, because these girls behind us were watching, you know. I'm not sure these little wussy boys had even noticed the girls; they didn't have dicks yet, if they ever would.

The third kid, the littlest guy, he had a black pixie haircut like the Beatles or some shit that his mom probably thought was cute on him. He looked like the wussiest one, but he was just smiling, watching his buddy with the glasses put on his show. The stupid kid who'd pointed, with the glasses, was still rattling on about vampires or some shit with this big grin on his face like he's Jay Leno.

"Kid's pretty funny, huh?" I said to Yo, but loud enough for the girls to hear. The girls snorted with amusement, or one of them did—the blonde, I hoped—and the wusses heard that and all three of them, even Jay Leno, got real still, like hamsters when a cat's in the room.

"Fuckin' smartass," said Yo in this deep voice he always put on when he was fucking with somebody. He put his second finger to his thumb and flicked Jay Leno on the back of the head, hard. Yo had these big fucking hands.

"Ow! Hey!" Jay Leno said, too loud, like a six-year-old would, rubbing his head where he'd been flicked. A girl behind us shrieked with glee, and somehow I knew that time it was the blonde, and a bunch of other people in the line heard it too, turned around to look and were cracking up. "Dat wuz smart," somebody said in a retard voice, and others were mimicking "Ow!" in a high-pitched homo voice just like the wussy kid.

The tall kid looked like he was going to start crying right there—fuckin' chickenshit—and the little pixie guy looked pretty worried too. They all there of them stayed quiet, like they were sad all of the sudden. There was a lot of chatter going otherwise, not because of Yo and this kid anymore, just the usual shooting the shit.

The doors opened finally, a relief to the wusses I'm sure, but this wasn't going to be the end of it.

We all filed in, past the slow-ass ticket-takers in their white shirts and black trou. A loud preview was showing as we walked into the showing room. Yo was headed for seats down front, but I put a hand on his shoulder and pointed to a spot where the wusses had just sat down. Yo nodded and grinned. He always looked like Goofy from Disney cartoons when he smiled like that, even in the weird light from the movie screen.

We sat, and before long I heard the same squeaky giggling as before from the seats in the row behind us. It was my little blonde and her buddies. I turned my head and rolled my eyes, letting my mouth hang open just a little. It was a look I'd practiced at home with this one James Dean movie. Me and the blonde exchanged glances again. She looked real excited now, but again, she tried to hide it, looked away and put on the fake pout. I kept watching, and after a couple seconds she looked right back at me, smiled real wide like she couldn't help it, but then went back to the pout and looked away.

Yo started to bring up his foot, to put it in the face of the scaredy-cat tall kid who was sitting in front of him, but I said, "Be cool, wait for the movie to start." He grinned and nodded.

The previews went on forever, and the movie finally started up. It was the usual thing, a little boring at first but pretty soon had some good zombie attacks with a lot of spurting blood and shit. The zombies in this movie were fast, and did these evil cackling laughs. I let it run on for a good while before I elbowed Yo to remind him of the wusses waiting to be fucked with. Had to elbow him a couple times, I guess he'd gotten wrapped up in the movie.

He nodded, raised his foot and put it over the back of the tall kid's seat into the side of his face, but fixed on the screen again when as a real rotted zombie chomped into a bonneted baby's skull, while everybody laughed and shrieked and shit. Yo was laughing too. He had a real deep retarded-sounding laugh.

"Hey, quit it!" said the tall kid, with a whine in his voice, pushing Yo's foot away. He put it right back, and the kid got up and moved to another seat, way at the far end of the aisle. Yo looked at me and grinned open-mouthed, bobbing his head in a silent laugh.

A bunch of people chortled, but Yo seemed to lose his amusement all the sudden. Zombies on the screen were now running down the aisles of a nursing home, carrying chain saws and decapitating old folks in wheel chairs, while more zombies came up behind them, catching the old wrinkled up white-haired heads and stringing them together by the hair as they ran, with the heads still screaming as the zombies strung them together. It was pretty cool.

Yo bent over to ask me right up in my ear, "You think heads could still scream like that?"

"Naw," I said, "only in movies."

"Not even for, like, a second?" I just shook my head no, 'cause I wanted to watch the movie myself at that point.

Yo laughed heartily again as a zombie attacked a fat black custodian carrying a vacuum cleaner, backing him into a corner, taking the cleaner away from him and beating his wide-eyed terrified face all bloody with the base of it. Then the zombie used the vacuum to suck the guy's face completely off, his eyeballs too, which came out of the sockets with a pop. Everybody in the theater went nuts over that. The zombie himself did this real insane laugh all through it. It was real funny how Yo's laugh sounded just like the zombie's laugh, only deeper, which got me and other people nearby to chuckling along.

After awhile though, the carnage onscreen all seemed about the same, and I wondered if the blonde girl was still thinking about me. I heard some murmuring, and turned around in my seat to see, to my dismay, that she and her girlfriends were talking to some guy sitting behind them. I turned back around, annoyed.

But then somebody tapped me on the shoulder. It was her. First time I got to look right in her face. She was really cute, close up even, and acted a little nervous. "Scuse me, would you like this popcorn?" She held up a large, half-empty tub of dry, unbuttered corn.

"Don-naaa," said one of her friends, as if surprised at her.

"You don't want it?" I said.

"No we don't want it," said the blonde. Donna.

I didn't want it either, but took it, of course, exchanging smiles with Donna. When I turned back around, I had an idea. "Want some?" I said to Yo.

"Yeah, great," he said, putting the container between his knees and digging a big handful out.

I leaned toward him. "Hey, Yo, we're neglecting the sideshow, man," I said.

"Wha' sho'?" he said, with his mouth full, munching.

"The wusses. Why are we letting them live?"

"Th' whosis?"

"Them." I pointed.

"I don't fuckin' care," he said.

"We could decorate them a little." I mimicked taking a piece of popcorn and tossing it unto the head of the Jay Leno kid, who was sitting in front of me. I noticed even as I did this that the pixie kid had gotten out of his seat, excused himself past a couple people and walked back up the aisle. Might have heard me talking and was going to tell on us, but might also just be going to the bathroom.

"Yeah, I guess. Popcorn's greasy anyway." At that, he started tossing the popcorn onto the kid's head. He frantically brushed it off, whimpering a little. A girl behind us squealed out a laugh, but another said, "It's not funny."

"Cool it for now, we might have a little snitch on our hands," I told Yo, but, amused by the wusses' reaction, he kept tossing.

A light went on at the side of my face, a flashlight. One of the ushers was pointing it, a big older guy. He spoke sternly, though in a low voice. "Excuse me, sir. You and your friend will have to leave. Right now."

"Why, we're not—"

"Right now, or we'll have the police here in two minutes. You've disrupted the show enough already. Out." The pixie was standing beside him, with a big snotty scowl on his face. Fuckin' snitch.

"I didn't do anything," said Yo.

"Ahhhh," I heard a girl say, "that's not fair." It was my little babe Donna.

"Good riddance," said another. That was that one friend of hers. Cunt.

"C'mon, let's split. Movie sucks anyway." I got up, and Yo groaned and got up after me, and we trudged up the aisle with the usher walking behind, none too fast so that it didn't look like we were intimidated. We chuckled a little, too, I did anyway. People we passed glanced at us warily, though the movie got loud just then, sounded like machine-gun fire. Yo stopped for a second and looked back at the screen. I could tell he was bummed. I think somebody in the audience said "asshole," up near the exit, but they probably meant the usher rather than us.

Once we got to the lobby, the guy with the flashlight stopped and stood with his arms folded watching us leave, like he was the sheriff running us out of town. A couple of the other ticket takers, girls, came up and joined him, glaring at us. I wondered which girl the fucking jerk was trying to impress. I was going to flip him off, didn't bother, just turned around and smirked at him as we reached the doors.

We went outside. There was a brisk wind, felt good after the rain. The puddles bobbed with light from the tall parking lot lamps. Made me want to do something, get some fucking kicks before the night was over. To see that Donna, talk to her, maybe get her in the car even. Hell, the night was young. I checked my watch, it was after 11. We were in there longer than it seemed, the movie would be almost over.

"Fuck, man, I wanted to see how the movie ended," said Yo.

"Yeah, me too," though I didn't really. "You wanna wait and see if those fuckin' wusses come out? It's about over."

"Yeah, let's do that. I'm pretty pissed off. Fuckin' seventeen dollars to see the movie." Actually, it was eight-fifty a ticket, but he'd paid my way 'cause I was broke. "You know what, man? This fuckin' pisses me off the more I think about it," he said.

"Little fuckin' wusses, man," I said. "Did you see that one who went and got the usher to throw us out? Looked like the mean guy from the Three Stooges. Ever see the Three Stooges?"

"I feel like kickin' somebody's butt, man," Yo said, lighting up a cigarette. "I'm serious. Watch the whole movie to almost the end and don't get to see it. People fuck with me they get fucked up, man. You know?"

"I know it," I said. This was just vintage Yo-man.

"After they come out an' shit, we'll go back to my place and get some more beer," he added. "My dad's got a bunch in the garage."

"That’d be cool. Hey look, here comes some people, must be over." I didn't see the wusses, or Donna, among all the kids coming out the entrance. I looked around the parking lot. "Let's get behind that pickup over there, if they see us they'll just run back inside."

We did so, and pretty soon the wusses came out among the crowd, the pixie, the tall one and the one with glasses, not looking very happy and walking fast. Maybe they figured we could be waiting. And there not far behind them was my little fox Donna and her two skanky friends.

The wusses were probably headed into the mall to get picked up by their mom, but as it happened they walked right by us. "Hey, buddy," said Yo in his menacing voice, stepping out. He was talking to the pixie, glaring at him.

"You guys better leave us alone," said the Jay Leno one, his voice getting high like with helium. They all looked scared, especially the tall one; he was shaking like a chihuahua.

"You didn't have to run and snitch like a little fuckin' girl," said Yo, as if he was seriously scolding the kid. "You could of just said 'quit throwin' popcorn on me,' and I would have."

"We don't want anything to do with you," said the pixie. His voice wasn't shaking, but you could see from his eyes he was about pissing his pants.

"It's not cool to be a fuckin' snitch, man." Yo grabbed the kid by the collar, put his foot behind his ankle, tripped him, and sat on him. "I don't like fuckin' snitches, man." He backhanded the kid across the face. I could see this was going to be bad. Yo was real pissed about the movie, I guess. These kids' parents might be there screaming any minute.

The kid, to my surprise, tried to punch him back. Yo grabbed the kid's wrists, turned his head and said "Didja see that? Tried to suckerpunch me!" People were gathering around the two of them and me, some glaring at us, some smiling because they liked to see a fight, like I usually did, but not now. Yo was getting all carried away.

"Let him up, Yo, we gotta go," I said. "Let's go."

To my surprise, Yo punched the kid in the middle of his face, pretty hard. You could hear a crunch, and the kid started to shriek. His nose looked squashed, there was blood coming out of it. He hit him again.

"Stop it! Stop it!" a girl standing by kept saying, like a tape loop. I started worrying somebody in the crowd might jump in to be a hero. I saw Donna then, in the back of the crowd, craning her neck to see.

"Jesus fuck, man, c'mon!" I grabbed at Yo's arm, and at that moment, the kid tried to punch him back again, a straight-up punch, missing his face and hitting him square in the throat. I guess he was strong for a little guy, or else hit Yo just right. I heard this loud snap.

Yo made a long weird bellow, rolled off the kid and curled up sideways on the asphalt. He put his hands around his throat and pumped his legs real hard, shuddering more and more, and the bellow turned into this awful snorting sound. He snorted faster and faster, couldn't seem to stop.

He looked up at me, his eyes begging, but there was nothing I could do. The snorting got more and more hoarse, 'til it was just a hiss. His face was getting dark, like bluish grey, you could see it changing real fast, just darker and darker. Girls in the crowd watching, maybe guys too, started to scream and cry.

The usher who'd thrown us out was there, talking on his cellphone, putting it flat on his shoulder as he yelled at the crowd to stay back. Then Yo, his face shiny and almost black even under the bright light of the lamps, made another sound, like he was gargling some mouthwash, only harsher. After a few more seconds, it ended.

He still seemed to stare back at me, and his tongue was sticking out of his mouth, bunched up real thick. I hate to say, but he looked even more like Goofy that way. I couldn't look at him anymore. I heard a faraway siren.

I don't know what was happening right after that, it's kind of a blur. There was some old fat guy with a chin beard and glasses yelling at me and crying. I don't know how I know this, but I'm pretty sure he was one of the wusses' dads, probably there to pick them up. I decided not to talk to him.

Somebody yanked me by the arm and led me to sit down in a car. I thought it was Yo's car, but once inside I heard this staticky talk from the dashboard, and thought, when did Yo get a shortwave radio? But it was a squad car. A cop was asking me some questions in a loud slow voice like he was talking to an idiot, but the questions didn't make too much sense. It was like a dream where slow, stupid stuff keeps happening and you get all frustrated.

The one thing I recall clearly was looking out the window and seeing Donna, a little distance away, talking to another cop. "We were there, he didn't do it, it was the other guy," I heard her say a couple times, while her girlfriend who didn't like me was pulling at her, saying "Donna, Donna, my God."

Maybe it was because my heart was going fast, but it was like what I was seeing before me was galloping, like a movie that's out-of-kilter, so that light from the lamps reflected in rain puddles kept jumping around real frantically in a pattern. It felt like I was getting hypnotized.

They left me alone for a minute, and as I sat quietly in the squad car, there was Donna again. Her friend was gone, and she was all blonde and pretty, standing a few feet away right under a light pole so the light shone down on her and brightened up her hair to almost white, just like an angel or something.

She cocked her head to one side, smiled real sweet and waved at me. Damned if I didn't wave back like everything was cool, automatically doing one of my James Dean faces. It's crazy, but I remember thinking that it was just fate, destiny, that this was supposed to happen, my days hanging with Yo were over, and now there'd be Donna. But what would I do for a car?

I was out of my head. It turned out it didn't matter, anyway, because I never did see Donna again.

Pete Risley is the author of the novel Rabid Child, published by New pulp Press in 2010. His short stories have appeared in Thrillers, Killers and Chillers, A Twist of Noir and Pulp Metal Magazine. He lives in Columbus, OH.

Issue #19: January, 2012

2012-01-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
by John Kenyon

Janice and I were just getting into bed when I remembered I still had Lenny’s body in my trunk. You’d think you wouldn’t forget something like that, but it had been a long day.

It was like one of those hourglass things where the sand falls from the top to the bottom. When Mr. Sharp put a bullet in Lenny’s head, the top was at least half full, maybe more. After that came a bunch of payment pickups, roughing up that Pakistani convenience store owner, getting groceries so Janice didn’t kick my ass and then a late dinner.

The last grains of sand were falling as I drained my third beer, hit the can and then climbed the stairs to the bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed, about to pull my shoes off. That last grain of sand teetered on the brink, ready to slip through to the bottom as my head hit my pillow. That's when I remembered Lenny.

I laced my shoes up again and pushed myself up off the bed.

“Where you goin’?” Janice said.

“I just remembered some stuff I gotta do for Mr. Sharp,” I said. “Don’t bother waiting up.”

"Right," she said. "Mr. Sharp. Why don't you just call him Uncle Florian?"

"I don't want to get into that now. I gotta keep work and homelife separate, you know that."

She knew the drill, even though we had never talked about what exactly it is I do. I was her second husband, and was well into this before we even met. She chooses to look the other way and accepts that she doesn’t have to work.

I went out to the garage and keyed the trunk release. The lid popped up a couple inches. I’ll admit that I jumped back, thinking for a split second that Lenny was gonna come up out of there and tackle me. ’Course, if the guy could survive a slug in the brain, I guess he deserved to take a swing at me. Nothing moved, so I lifted the lid the rest of the way.

Lenny was wrapped in a canvas tarp that had been in my trunk; he looked like the big bag of softball bats I carried around when I was coaching Janice’s kid, back before he went to live with his dad. If those kids only knew what I did with those bats between practices.

I probably had enough gas to get to the station down the block, but I had coasted into the garage on fumes and didn’t want to risk getting stranded and having a cop show up to help me. Or worse, standing at a gas pump to fill up and have Mr. Sharp or one of the other guys drive by. That would lead to an inspection of my trunk and the very physical expression of the resulting disappointment.

You might think it was overkill, but Mr. Sharp was specific about some things. He’d had his attorney come into the copy shop that was our front to give what he called a “tactical seminar.” Basically, he told us what we could and couldn’t do if we ever got pinched.

This one had been Lenny’s fault, actually. He was with Phil, driving someplace to get rid of another body – we don’t make a habit of whackin’ guys, but sometimes people get out of line. Phil was speeding and he got pulled over. The cop asked if Phil knew why he had been stopped and Lenny leaned over and said, “It probably has something to do with that body in the trunk.” He was trying to be funny, figuring he’d have a good story to tell when they got back from the dump. As we learned later, he had instead given the cop probable cause, and because the cop had a hard-on for Phil – something about an old high school grudge over a girl, if I remember – that meant a search of the car, discovery of the body and 10 to 20 for Phil. Lenny somehow avoided doing time, and in hindsight, assuming you can reconsider from beyond the grave, he probably wished he’d been in prison instead of on the wrong side of Mr. Sharp’s Glock.

So, Mr. Sharp would not be happy if he found out I’d driven around all day and come home with Lenny’s body in my trunk. That left one option: I had to bury Lenny in the backyard.

It had started to rain, which I took as a good sign. Wet ground is easier to dig than rock-hard dry stuff, right? Wrong. I was in the darkest part of our yard, behind the detached garage in a little space bordered by thick bushes on two other sides. No one was likely to see me. My neighbor to the north, Bill, was a sheriff’s deputy in the next county over. He didn’t have jurisdiction over much of what we did, or even his own neighborhood, but I didn’t need him seeing me bury a body. I actually liked having him next door. Mr. Sharp never came to visit, and neither did any of the other guys. My home was my sanctuary.

Two spadefuls in, I realized the wet dirt was going to stick to the blade, essentially doubling the time it would take to dig a decent-sized hole. I rationalized that a half-decent hole was good enough, got about two feet down and threw Lenny in. The canvas came loose, leaving him sprawled there face up. I covered him with dirt, stomped it down good and then spread some leaves and wood chips over the space. The shadow of the garage keeps grass from growing back there, so I wasn't tearing up pristine lawn to bury the idiot.

It was after 3 when I got back in and later still by the time I’d showered, put on fresh boxers and a T-shirt and crawled into bed. Other than change the pitch of her snoring as she shifted to accommodate me, Janice didn’t acknowledge my return. So much the better. I felt halfway through the next day’s ration of hourglass sand, and needed to catch some sleep without answering questions.

When I came down later that morning, Janice was already gone. I had a bowl of cereal and stale coffee from the pot she’d left on the burner, and then called in. Carl told me Mr. Sharp needed a ride and that I should come in.

As I poured the rest of the foul coffee into the sink, I looked out and saw that the spot where I’d dug the night before was easy to see. I’d have to deal with that when I got back. Janice was a go-along to get-along kind of gal, but even she would wonder about a fresh hole in the lawn.

As I backed the car out, I heard a yelp and then a crunch. I got out and saw Toby, Janice’s old Labrador, wedged under my back tire. The old bag of bones must’ve been sleeping in the driveway, trying to grab some heat from the sun-baked pavement. He was deaf and half-blind, so he probably didn’t even notice that the car had started. I got in and pulled forward a couple of feet to get the wheel off of Toby's body.

I thought about loading him in the trunk, taking him someplace and then telling Janice that he must have run away, but the last thing I needed was a dead dog in the trunk when I picked up Mr. Sharp. Then I got an idea. I’d bury him with Lenny. Janice would still be sad and/or pissed, but at least it would explain the hole in the ground.

I called Carl and told him my car wouldn’t start. That would cause headaches, too, but I’d rather deal with that than the alternative. I steered a wheelbarrow out from the garage, loaded up Toby’s body and carted him around back. I dug up the hole, uncovering Lenny. I couldn’t stand to look at him in the daylight, so I quickly threw Toby in on top of him, and filled in the hole.

I hosed off the shovel, leaned it against the house to dry and went back inside to shower and change again. I called Carl back, and he told me to head to the copy shop to pick up Mr. Sharp. It was a pretty uneventful day, and knowing that my trunk was devoid of dead bodies – human, canine or otherwise – I was able to relax.

When I got home early that evening, Janice was standing at the sink, drinking a glass of lemonade and looking out the window into the backyard. Without turning, she asked, “What were you digging up last night?”

“What make you think I was digging anything up?”

“Do we have to play this game? You disappeared for two hours last night, and now there is a bare patch of dirt at the back of the yard.”

“OK, Columbo, so I was digging. But it was this morning. Last night I was just doing some stuff for Mr. Sharp, like I said.”

“What, you're suddenly a gardener?” she asked.

I told her about hitting Toby and burying his body out back.

“I knew you’d want to be a part of that, but you can’t just leave a dead dog lying around,” I said. “I figured you’d want him close, so I put him in the back yard. I thought we could go out there tonight with candles and say something about him. You know, like a service.”

I thought sure she’s slug me for killing her dog. Proving I know nothing about women, she instead grabbed me in a hug and said, “That’s sweet. You really did like him, didn’t you?”

That night, candles in hand, we stood next to the final resting place of Toby and Lenny. Janice nudged me, and I realized she wanted me to say something.

"Well, um, Toby, you were a great old dog," I said. I couldn't keep from thinking about Lenny. "And, ah, you made some dumb decisions, but I hope you're in a better place."

Janice scrunched her face in confusion and looked at me. I shrugged and raised my candle as if giving a toast. She said a few words about having had fun with Toby over the years, and then blew out her candle. I did likewise and we went inside.

The next couple of days were uneventful. Workwise, anyway. Janice and I actually got along better than we had in a while. If I’d known a dead dog could lead to some action in the sack, I would have run over him a long time ago.

I came home one evening that week to find my neighbor, Bill, sitting on a lawn chair on my deck, drinking a beer. Another bottle sat at his feet, a puddle of condensation showing he had been there a while.

“Hey, hope you don’t mind,” he said. “Thought I’d catch you.”

“No problem,” I said, taking the beer from his outstretched hand. I wiped the sweat off on my pants, twisted the cap off and took a drink. “So, what’s up?”

“I wanted to borrow your shovel,” he said, pointing to where it was still propped against the side of the house. “Sally's been wanting me to plant some hostas. She's at her mother's for a few days, so I thought I'd surprise her. I busted the handle on mine and haven't had the chance to get a new one."

“You putting them up by the house?”

“No, out in the back corner. I hate hostas, but I guess out there they'll be all right. Damn things spread so much, I’ll have hardly anything to mow back there in a couple of years.”

I took another sip of beer and then grabbed the shovel. As he reached out to take it, he gestured with his other hand to the spot in our yard where I had buried Lenny and Toby.

“Did you bury something? Looks like you’ve got a little burial mound out there or something. You finally do something with that bare patch and you make it more obvious?” he said, ribbing me about a sore subject.

He was right; there was a pronounced hump there, like a pitcher's mound. I knew the ground had been flat when I’d buried Toby. This wasn’t good.

“It’s Toby,” I said. “Hit him with the car a couple of days ago. Janice was pretty busted up about it.”

“Oh, wow. I guess I haven’t seen him around in a while. Well, did you just open a hole and throw him in? Probably bloated on you in this heat. If you want, I can help you dig him back up and put him deeper.”

“No!” All I could picture was him putting a spade into Lenny’s gut and me headed to prison. “I mean, you don’t have to do that. I’ll take care of it.”

“Well, I’d better leave your shovel then,” he said.

“OK,” I said, patting him on the back. "Thanks."

I thought I’d wait until dark, but Janice came home and immediately noticed the hump.

“What’s that,” she said when she got out of the car. “Why is the ground all raised up like that?”

I told her Toby had probably bloated and that I was going to wait until later in the evening to take care of it.

“Why would you wait until you can’t see? Just do it now. Dig him back up and see what you can do.”

“Because, I, um, I don't want you to have to see that," I said. "You need to remember Toby the way he was."

I looked up to see if she'd bought it, and was relieved to see that she had.

"I think I know how to fix this," I said. "Why don't you go inside?”

"Even better; I'm going shopping." She went and got her purse, got in her car and headed out.

I went to the garage to find what I had in mind. After a couple of minutes of digging around, I unearthed a ski pole. I pulled off the plastic tip and took it out into the yard. I held it high above my head like a sword and drove it as hard as I could down into the ground. It went in about an inch and the force of it hitting the dirt made my hands slip halfway down the shaft, scraping my palm on the handle. I pulled it out and tried again. I didn’t hit the same spot, so I ended up with another hole about an inch deep and sore hands.

Bill must have heard me, because he came around the corner of the garage and said, “Need any help?”

I figured that as long as Lenny was underground, I was safe. And, I could use the assistance. I came around the garage and explained the situation with Toby. I asked if he had any suggestions.

“Why don’t you just dig him up?” I expected it this time, and didn't protest too much when it came.

“No, I would imagine he’s pretty ripe by now. I’d rather keep him under there if I can,” I said.

Bill nodded. Then he rubbed his chin as if in thought.

“I know. Hold on a minute.” He went back to his place and into the garage. He came out a couple of minutes later with an old metal stake used to prop up overgrown tomato plants.

“Why don’t you try this? You probably only need to get one good hole in there, I mean, him,” he said. "But if you do, back up quick, 'cause that'll be one little stink volcano you've unleashed."

I took it. It was about four feet long. I looked at Bill with a raised eyebrow. He wagged his chin toward the hump. I grabbed the stake tightly, raised it, then plunged it down and pulled it back out. Nothing. I did it again, and still nothing. It slid pretty easily into the dirt, so I kept doing it. I didn’t notice it at first, but each time I thrust the skewer down, I shouted, “Ha!” like a tae kwon do master. I felt like I was hitting something, but I couldn’t be sure. I tried to step onto the dirt to get it to go down, but nothing happened.

The last time I stuck the pole in, I came out with a twenty dollar bill on the end.

“Whoa!” Bill said. “That’s never worked for me before. What do you have down there, a money well or something?”

I looked at it for a minute, then realized it must be Lenny’s. I probably stabbed through his pants pocket and speared the money. I tried to think fast.

“I, uh, buried Toby with it,” I said. “He, uh, he was supposed to get a new bowl that day… that’s where I was going, actually, when I hit him. So, I thought I’d drop the money in there as kind of a way to say I was sorry.”

Bill was looking at the bill. He pointed. “What’s that?”

It was a red stain on the underside: blood.

“Wow, I must have got him then, huh? Why don’t I just wash off your stake and get that back to you and--”

“I don’t remember Toby being that big,” he said. He pointed again, this time at the ground. “You were sticking that thing all over. You were over here when you started,” he said, pointing a few feet away from where we stood. “And you speared that money over here,” he said, pointing at our feet. “Did you chop him up before you buried him or something?”

I felt a line of sweat forming at my brow and on my upper lip. "What? Ha ha, no!" I couldn’t let this thing unravel. I pretended the cell phone in my pocket was vibrating, and pulled it out. I flipped it open. “Hello. What? OK, I’ll be right there.” I hung up and told Bill that Janice needed me to check something for her and that I had to go.

“Well, go ahead and keep the stake for now. I’m not sure I’m going to want that back.” He walked backward for a few steps, keeping his eye on me, then turned and walked slowly to his house.

I ran to the house and called Mr. Sharp. This was a desperation move, I knew, but I needed help. I might get iced myself, but he also might get me out of this and keep me out of jail.

He and Carl came out about 20 minutes later. I brought them into the kitchen to survey the situation. Mr. Sharp had questions.

“You carried Lenny around in your trunk all day?”

“Yes.”

“You buried him in your own backyard, not in the place we had talked about?”

“Yes.”

“You couldn’t even be bothered to dig a deep enough hole that he wouldn’t be found?

“I guess not.”

He furrowed his brow and looked down at me.

“I mean, yes. Er, no. I mean--”

He put up a hand to shush me. “Enough. You screwed up. You know that. And you have placed this problem at my feet.”

They walked out to survey the spot. Mr. Sharp walked in a slow circle around the grave, then tapped his wingtip on the raised mound of dirt at the center. He walked over to Carl and whispered something in his ear, then came up to me.

"Go get your shovel and dig all of this up. The only way to fix this is to start over."

"But my neighbor is—"

"Tommy, just do what I say."

So I went up to the house, grabbed the shovel, and came back to start digging. It took about an hour, Mr. Sharp standing next to the hole the entire time, for me to get it all dug out.

"Now, please remove the dog and Lenny and get in there to dig it out deeper."

"You want me in the hole?"

"Yes, Tommy. You need to go down farther. It's the only way."

I reluctantly jumped into the shallow hole and began digging it deeper. As shovelful after shovelful was moved from the bottom of the hole to the grass above, I began to shudder as if cold. This was beginning to look like a grave built for three, or at least two men and a dog. I began to whimper a little bit, trying to keep quiet.

At one point, Mr. Sharp told me to stop.

"I'm not going to cap my sister's kid, no matter how stupid you are, so quit blubbering," he said quietly. "Now climb out of there and put the dog and Lenny back in."

I scrambled out as quickly as possible and did as he instructed. Standing on the edge of the hole, I panicked, waiting to feel a gun barrel pressed to the back of my head.

I turned as I heard Carl return. Bill was with him.

"You wanted to see me?" he said to Mr. Sharp.

"Yes, Deputy, look at this," he said, pointing to the hole.

"Oh my God," Bill said. "Tommy, what is this?"

He knelt down and reached a hand out to Lenny when Carl came up behind, pressed a silenced pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. There was a soft "pop" and then Bill pitched forward and into the hole. Mr. Sharp nudged me and I fell down after him.

"Arrange their bodies with the dog on top," he said. I pulled Bill's body over so it was next to Lenny, then grabbed Toby and laid him over top of them.

I climbed out before Mr. Sharp got any ideas, and stood next to him. Carl, with Bill's tomato stake in his hand, jumped into the hole and jabbed it into Lenny, Bill and Toby.

"That'll keep 'em from bloating," he said, sounding like he was talking from experience. He then pulled out a knife and began hacking at Bill.

Mr. Sharp put his arm around my shoulder and steered me away from the hole.

"Stop doing dumb things, Tommy," he said.

"But what about my neighbor? The sheriff isn't just going to let one of his guys disappear."

"It will be taken care of," he said.

A week later, I was sitting on the porch with Janice. She was thumbing through the paper, reading bits and pieces to me while I drank a beer.

"Oh my God," she said. "Bill is dead!"

"What?" I said, "How did you know?"

"It says so right here," she said, pointing at the paper. "His hand washed up on the shore of Lake Bernard.'The sheriff's department would not confirm rumors that Deputy Vincent had run afoul of the Luchese crime family after a recent investigation.' Do you know any of those Luchese guys?"

"Me? No. They're the real deal, Jan. Cold-blooded."

"That's so sad. Bill was a good neighbor," she said.

I nodded in agreement.

"He would have been surprised that you finally did something back there," she said, nodding toward the patch behind the garage. "He always gave you such grief about that."

I had planted a honeysuckle on that spot. They're supposed to do well in the shade, and I knew its blood-red berries would add a nice splash of color to the yard.

"Well," I said. "Maybe Bill is somewhere where he can admire that bush."

"First the gardening, and now you're getting spiritual on me, too?" she said, punching me lightly in the arm. "The way that thing is growing, it's obvious you have a green thumb."

"Yeah," I said, draining my beer. "Something like that."

John Kenyon's stories have appeared in Pulp Modern, Beat to a Pulp, Shotgun Honey, ATwist of Noir, Thuglit and elsewhere. He is the editor of Grift Magazine (griftmagazine.com), and writes the blog Things I'd Rather Be Doing (tirbd.com). He lives in Iowa.

Issue #18: December, 2011

2011-12-01T12:07:00.000-08:00

BROKEN PLAY

by Matthew C. Funk

Donald had what he needed—his robe, the butcher knife, baby Walter cradled in his arm—everything but a sense of where he was. He just knew why he was here—to buy something orange for Sally. Tide detergent; that was it.

But what he saw around him didn’t add up: A glass door with iron bars over it was behind him. A stainless steel box with a plexiglass porthole to his right was around him. Shelves with Mac ‘N Cheese, Cup ‘O Noodles and other small, bright boxes of snacks were ahead. Was this a convenience store? Was it a bank? It seemed neither.

Donald was sure he should know the answer. He’d almost certainly been here before. But it didn’t add up to one place—just pieces of other places. Things were so much easier when he’d been starting Quarterback at Carver High.

“Hey.” Donald yelled above baby Walter’s wailing and above the sharp edge of the knife. “Is this a bank here? I need to buy some Mac ‘N Cheese.”

Something was wrong about what he’d said. A lot had been going wrong since he’d started smoking all that crack.

“Hey, can I get some help here? This baby needs some Tide.” Donald called. He heard women yelling back, but didn’t see them. Maybe his eyes didn’t work. He could see a metal gate lowering in front of him clearly enough, though. It was cutting him off from the shelves, sealing him in the steel box.

Donald told himself not to panic. He didn’t want to scare baby Walter any more. Walter squirmed like the bags of warm water Donald used to lay under Granma’s feet when her gout got too bad. Much more fragile than a bag of water, though. Much more delicate than a football.

Fragility reminded him this was an emergency—the scaled gate was almost shut ahead. Donald waved the knife around to show he meant business. This was going all wrong.

What did Coach Farris call it when a plan went wrong? A broken play. Yeah, Donald knew, this was a broken play.

He slashed the knife at the steel and it sparked like floodlights. Jesus Wept, crack made life exciting. But Coach had taught Donald not to panic during a broken play. He just had to audible.

Football was so simple. “Rolling right!” Donald yelled to his linemen, though he couldn’t see Sammy or Big George anywhere. He staggered right and banged his shoulder into the steel wall just below the plexiglass porthole. Donald almost fumbled the football.

No, he realized—he’d almost fumbled the baby. Donald gaped down. Who was this baby? Walter, he remembered. His girlfriend Sally’s baby.

“What the fuck you doing on the football field, Walter?” Donald wondered. He wondered why Walter had a spidery strand of drool dripping onto his brow. Was that Donald’s drool? He figured it must be. Uh oh.

“Where’d we end up this time, Walter?” Donald got no answer but raw-throat wails. He hadn’t sworn this time, though. Sally scolded him when he swore around Walter, even though Walter was a baby and didn’t know a fingertip from a titty anyway. And besides, it was hard not to swear, frustrating as life was now.

There was the rent to sweat and the power bill to pay and the dishes to wash and his busted knee to coddle and the crack, of course. More and more crack by the day, and no matter how much Donald smoked, it just didn’t help his knee like it used to.

“Goddamn broken play.” Donald slung the football under his arm and looked around to see what formation Coach Farris was calling from the sidelines. He caught sight of a bass-mouthed white face staring at him through the porthole. Distortion made it look like it was pasted on the glass with a paint roller, but Donald knew it was some real dude’s face.

This was definitely not the Carver High field. It was some steel box with a white dude shaking his head at Donald. His knee ached something terrible—felt like the sack of fluid and splintered bone it’d been since Larry “Razorback” Randall laid him out in the second-to-last game of the senior season. But no, this wasn’t football.

Where was he, really?

He’d gone out for something orange that Sally needed. Probably orange juice. Orange juice and milk. That seemed right. Though it probably wasn’t, really.

Nothing had been right since school nurse Linda and Coach Farris took him into the locker room and checked out Donald’s knee and pronounced it wrecked. He was supposed to go on to a top-ranked football school, scholarship all paid and everything. He was going to be a Miami Dolphin or a Tampa Bay Buc—someplace warm, with banana trees just like his New Orleans home town, but with air that smelled like tanning oil and bikini-clad pussy rather than refinery fumes.

“Where’s my scholarship now, you cheap bastards?” Donald waved the knife around. He had the knife to show he meant business. Nobody took him seriously otherwise. His Carver High teammates had bailed to their colleges, his friends avoided the shame of his company like a rash. Even Sally laughed at Donald, the way he’d wet himself from the pain of his knee or would wake up calling for Granma to turn on the nightlight.

They’d take him dead seriously now that he had a butcher’s knife. Donald would set things right.

Crack made things right. They called it rock, but it felt like a gem to him. So firm but so light in his palm. That kitchen-fresh smell to it before it burned. And the sizzle of it turning to smoke, an electrical noise, making the pull of it into his lungs seem like hooking up to Heaven’s circuit board.

Everything would be alright if he could just get a hit of crack. He smiled at the thought. His happy reverie had a break in it—Walter was wailing himself bloody, foam popping from his tomato-red face.

“What’s wrong, Walter?” Donald couldn’t think of a damn thing that was wrong. Except that he wasn’t high. Not really high. He’d smoked some before he went to the Louisa Mini Mart, but not enough.

That was it—Donald was at the Mini Mart to get some Tide. He looked at the steel gate that barricaded the rest of the store. They must be closed. Oh well, win some lose some—he knew all too well that’s how life worked. Time to go home.

He pushed the barred glass door open. Humidity bathed his eyes in summer’s molasses. Through his squinting, Donald saw a shiny-head dude in a cop’s uniform standing in his way, right where the parking lot sloughed into the busted pavement of Louisa Street.

“A cop in Desire?” Donald chuckled and flashed the grin his Granma always called his Go Fish Grin—the one he’d put on when he knew he was going to win a hand.

The man didn’t grin. He raised a gun at Donald.

“Put your hands down!” The cop yelled.

This was definitely a broken play. Donald drew his arms in, expecting to get hit. The baby socked firm against his chest; the knife lay against the baby. His robe licked his naked waist, reminding Donald he had no padding on. Getting hit would hurt.

“Man, I got to roll right.” Donald explained. He had to holler above the roar of the crowd, or of the baby. Whichever.

“I said put your fucking hands down!”

Donald began to shake. The knife shaved up the pasty pools of puke and grime on Walter’s one-piece. No time to worry about that now—he knew he had to do what the cop said.

“I’m getting some orange juice.” Donald yelled. “Sally needs some orange juice to wash Walter’s clothes, man. He’s dirty as shit.”

“Put your hands down, goddammit, or I will drop you!” The cop sounded afraid and his head creased like a deflating football. What the fuck he was afraid of, Donald couldn’t figure. He was the one with the gun.

“Man…” He worked at the words to express all that, but they felt as spongy and shattered as his knee.

“Hands fucking down!”

Donald wished he could, but that order made no sense—his hands were attached to him. As much as he would like to set them on a table and then go sit back in his Uncle’s recliner, he couldn’t. For all the trouble they’d caused him, he thought he might be better off putting them down at a bus bench for someone else to use, then walking off. But he couldn’t—his wrists held firm and he had no idea how to detach them. He was desperate to comply all the same.

Donald began to cry. That only made the cop more desperate.

“Jesus, man,” Donald explained. “I need to be at Miami Beach. This ain’t right. I’m going to be a Dolphin.”

No sooner did he say it, Donald knew it would never be true.

“Knife down! Just put the fucking knife down.” The cop had tears in his voice too—Donald could hear them, bright noises, like the sequins on Granma’s funeral dress.

“I can’t.” Donald began.

“Put the knife down, Donald!”

Again, he couldn’t. He’d thought this through: Knife down meant driving it into little Walter. The knife had to go sideways.

The spiders crawled sideways, the knife had to go sideways, and this morning, the sun was shining sideways, across the face of the world and burning, chasing Donald down like a fireball after Tom Cruise. And it occurred to him that life went sideways—not forward like people thought, not from point-A to point-B by way of intention. No, life aimed at point B from point A, but then slid sideways, always sideways, into whole other alphabets. And by the time you learned those alphabets, it had already begun sliding into a new one.

“I don’t understand the choice,” Donald whined and hated the sound of it. It sounded awful, echoing in the locker room. And the last thing he wanted was for Coach Farris—his only real father; more than a father than that perfume-smelling pimp locked up in Angola—to hear his star quarterback whine.

But he had to whine—had to have some escape, even if it was through crack. He hadn’t understood the choice. He understood plays—choosing between throwing to one open receiver or another; choosing to run if the defense came at him on an outside blitz; choosing to fall on the ball if he was sacked. Donald could choose between two decisions he knew the outcome of.

“Goddammit you fucking crackhead maniac fuck, put the baby down and put the knife down, or I swear I will put what’s left of your brains through that fucking door.” Coach yelled at him, jabbing with the gun.

It was the outcomes you didn’t choose that really decided your life.

“No, this ain’t going to do, Coach.” Donald moaned and sweat under the floodlight sun and almost dropped the football.

If Donald had been given a choice between a healthy leg and a loose bag of fluid around two matchsticks rubbing their heads together, he knew he’d have answered, “Leg, Lord. Thank you, but I’ll take a leg!”

But he hadn’t been given that choice. He hadn’t chosen Sally and her drug fiend friends. They’d chosen him when all his friends went off to colleges. He hadn’t chosen to need crack so badly—need it more than his teeth, more than emptying his nuts, more than sleep. Crack had chosen him.

“Man, I got to the get the fuck out of here.” Donald started to shuffle away—anywhere else but here, a place he’d never chosen to be.

Donald had chosen to read aloud to Granma from the Reader’s Digest until she could sleep through her gout pain. He’d chosen to strain through two-a-day practices and bust his bones to sawdust in the weight room to become the best quarterback in the history of Carver High. He’d chosen the Dolphins.

But Granma had died of the diabetes and was buried in her sequin dress. Donald couldn’t even run anymore on his knee. Miami was another planet.

Donald had to go.

The cop stepped in his way.

“One more step and I will shoot you!”

And the crowd gasped—a flock of fat women and skinny boys on Louisa Street. Donald knew it was crunch time. This was the fourth quarter. The next inches would decide the whole game.

Donald raised his face to the floodlight sun. Crack buzz clicked down like a dying scoreboard. He sweated. He drooled. His knee wept inside its puckered skin.

“I’m done.” Donald decided.

Fuck football. He wanted out—wanted back; back before football set his dreams up like a good hand of Go Fish, only to rob all his cards in one run; back when Granma was the one who read to him and there were no savage suns like this, only nightlights.

He tossed the football down. It screamed on the way down. The crowd screamed. The baby stopped screaming when he bounced, rolled, swelled and bruised like a busted knee.

Donald would make the crowd stop screaming too. He turned the knife on them. He meant business.

The next thing Donald knew, he was hit—he was down; his ears were ringing. Damn, Larry had put him down hard. He tried to spring back up, but his entire body felt like a bag filled with bad water. And the bag was leaking.

“Shit,” Donald felt blood running from his smile. It smelled orange. Nightlight orange. The buzz in his head felt better—bigger, brighter—than crack. “Miami here I come.”

He couldn’t breathe. That was all right. He needed the buzz more than he needed breath. And the buzz from this hit felt so big that Donald was sure it could last forever.

Matthew C. Funk is a professional marketing copywriter and social media consultant, a writing mentor and the author of several manuscripts that illuminate the beauty of human extremes. A graduate of the Professional Writing MFA at USC, his online work is featured at sites such as Beat to a Pulp, A Twist of Noir; Thrillers, Killers and Chillers; Flash Fiction Offensive; ThugLit; Powder Burn Flash; Pulp Metal Magazine and his Web domain.

Issue #17: November, 2011

2011-11-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

DEVIL'S FORK
by Marie Shields

Today I received an invitation to my thirty-year high school reunion. My initial thought, as it was twenty years ago, and ten before that was, What could I possibly have in common with anyone from Devil’s Fork, Texas? But today another thought crosses my mind. Besides being raped by Deputy Witherspoon.

The night it happened, I was working the late shift at Frenchy’s truck stop about a mile out of town and got off at eleven. We wore white nylon nurse’s dresses that came above the knee, black aprons edged with white lace, an uncomfortable bandeau to match in our hair. It was the owner’s idea of how a French maid would dress, but in truth we looked like women with bad fashion sense. I wore canvas tennis shoes without stockings to work, as did the other girls. The older women, whose arches had already fallen, wore practical oxfords and support hose.

The deputy’s car pulled up beside me. He rolled down the passenger window and in his best Texas friendly way, said, “Hop in and I’ll drive you home. Young girls shouldn’t be out walking this time of night.”

He was an authority and a police officer. I hopped in.

He called his police car Trigger. He patted the steering wheel and said, “Yep, old Trigger and me give many a young lady rides home when they out alone at night or about to get they self in trouble.”

He took the next side road off the highway. When I asked why, he said he thought it was a nice night for a moonlight ride.

“Y’all got yourself a boyfriend?” he asked.

My face felt hot and I was sure I was blushing, although he couldn’t see it in the dark. “No. Mama says I can’t date until next year.”

“Betcha when that time comes, ever boy in town gonna be after you, fallen in love. Don’t I know, ever time I see you, I think, ‘now there’s a girl I could love.’ You about the prettiest girl this town ever seen.”

He pulled off into a grove of cottonwoods and parked. Slide the seat back and put his arm around me. “You ain’t shy now are you, Sugar?”

It was then I noticed his rifle wasn’t in the gun rack. He wasn’t wearing his uniform or the heavy belt with his pistol, hand cuffs and night stick attached. He had on blue jeans and a cowboy shirt with the sleeves cut off. Not so unusual. The sheriff and his deputy had full personal use of their police vehicles and could make arrests in or out of uniform.

His hand hovered over my right breast. I turned toward him so he couldn’t touch it. Even though I’d necked with a couple of boys, I never let them touch my heavily padded bras.

He pulled me closer and kissed me. I let him, flattered a grown man would be attracted to me. He was probably in his mid-thirties, with muscles high school boys hadn’t yet developed.

When he slid his hand under my skirt, I pushed it away.

Then he raped me. Pushed me down on the car’s bench seat, roughly spread my legs apart, and jerked the crotch of my underpants aside with a two finger hook. It was over so fast the pain didn’t register until he was sitting up adjusting himself. It felt as if he’d ripped open everything from my navel to my tailbone. Then, the cramping started. I’d heard horror stories about the birthing of a child, but nothing could possibly compare.

“Ain’t no girl in this town ever been with old Deputy Whit and remained a virgin,” he said.

With another notch in his gun belt, he drove me home as he said he would.

I stumbled into our house and ran a bath as hot as I could tolerate, eased into it and turned off the cold and let the hot continue to trickle into the tub. Scrubbed every inch of my body and hair and rinsed. Again and again. By the time my mother came in to use the toilet, the water was tepid and had gone from bright red to a pale pink. The cramping was easing, but I was dizzy and felt weak, afraid my legs wouldn’t hold me up if I tried to get out of the tub.

“Why in the name of God’s good grace are you taking a bath at this hour?” Then she saw my bloody uniform and panties on the floor. “God have mercy. Now you done it. Who was it?”

I’d been crying before she came in, now I cried harder. “Deputy Witherspoon. He raped me, Mama.”

“Don’t try to use that as an excuse. If you wasn’t leading him on with your bare legs and short skirt, this don’t happen. Men know. They can smell a slut jest like a dog smell a bitch in heat.” Mama pulled up her pajama bottoms, flushed the toilet, sat back down on the lid. Then she started to cry. Between sobs she sputtered, “How could you do this to me? I’ll never be able to hold up my head in this town again. Don’t you never ever tell anyone about this. No decent man will marry you now. Don’t you know that?”

Three months later I graduated from high school, picked up my diploma from the principal’s office and boarded a bus to Los Angeles with the $874.16 I’d saved from my job and the $2000 Grandma Phyllis gave me to further my education. College in California was practically free at the time. I got my degree and taught elementary school for twenty-five years.

For the past five years I’ve been Dean of a private school; am happily married to the owner of a small chain of gourmet grocery stores. Our son works with his dad and we have a daughter still in college.

I’ve never been back to Texas, but as far as I know, no rapes were ever reported. My mother wasn’t the only mother who believed in the value of virtue. The sheriff, his deputy, the mayor, and the judge were above the law. There were few trials by jury.

No, there’s nothing I want to be reminded of or have in common with the folks back in Devil’s Fork.

IT PAYS TO BE A SAMARITAN
by Marie Shields

The next group was called for jury selection and the last two people at the table where Marlene was sitting left the room. She started to move to one of the more comfortable chairs. Her ankle twisted as she stepped on something beside her chair; looking down she didn’t immediately see what she’d tripped over…a wallet. She set her purse on the floor, looked around the room to see if anyone was watching her, and stretched as far as she could. She touched it, but couldn’t grab hold of it. She kneeled down, put her hand on the wallet, scooted back and pushed herself to a standing position with a grunt.

A man at the next table covered his mouth. The girl sitting next to him giggled. Marlene bit her lower lip and clump-clomped after the handsome man who’d been sitting next to her.

“Excuse me,” she hollered. “Sir. Sir…you…”

He turned halfway around and said, “Jesus, Lady. Give it a rest. I’m married.” He hurried after the group who’d been called.

The bailiff was standing at the door of the juror’s waiting room. Rushing around like this made Marlene sweat profusely. She could smell her own foul odor and the wet trickling down her back and sides and worse, between her legs. Knowing it looked as if she’d wet her pants, she covered her crotch with her hand and the wallet.

“Excuse me,” Marlene held out the now damp wallet, “that man…he dropped his wallet.”

“What man?”

“He was sitting at the table where I was sitting…”

The bailiff cut her off, “I don’t have time for this. Turn it in at the information desk in the lobby. And you can go. We won’t be calling anymore jurors today.”

“Should I come back tomorrow?”

“No.”

Marlene was sure they’d let everyone else come back, just not her.

As she headed for the elevator, some of the other potential jurors rushed past. The elevator was nearly full by the time she got there and squeezed in. Oh, my god. She felt it coming, there was nothing she could do to stop it. One loud smelly wet fart. She stepped back and waddled as quickly as she could toward the ladies room.

Inside the stall, she opened the wallet; five fifty dollar bills, four twenties and some fives and ones. She shoved the bills into the pocket of her sweat pants, wrapped the driver’s license and everything else in the wallet in a copious amount of toilet paper and stuffed it in the sanitary napkin receptacle. She wrapped the wallet in toilet paper too, put it in her purse and on her way out of the building, dropped it in a garbage container.

SLOE-EYED WOMAN
by Marie Shields

“There ain’t nothing in the world like a slope-eyed girl. Oh, she steal my money, but she calls me Honey,” Richard sang in his reedy voice.

Ahn Thi stood close to the front door, holding her car keys, her purse on the table beside her. She felt safer here, less likely to be trapped. Two hours ago she’d picked Richard up at the airport, home from his latest tour of combat duty. They’d stopped at the commissary so Richard could get a bottle of Maker’s Mark 46. He’d opened it in the car and babbled on about how you couldn’t get it ‘over there’, how many of the guys he’d gone over with had returned, how many hadn’t. She hated hearing it. When she’d first come to the United States with him, she spoke almost no English and nothing he said bothered her. He said everything with a grin on his face so she didn’t have a clue.

On the drive to base housing, Richard gesticulated wildly, bottle of Makers in one hand, as he spoke, “These fucking rag-heads come over this rise, see, twenty or more a them bastards. I raise my M-16, an got every god-damn one them fuckers. Then we charge that hill - -”

Ahn Thi tuned out. She’d gotten the call that his unit was on their way home on the day she’d started a letter to him to let him know she was moving out of base housing and filing for divorce. It had been a hard letter to write, but not nearly as hard as telling him in person was going to be.

He poured two large glasses of the bourbon and held one out for her. She shook her head. “We need to talk now.”

“How about some sucky dicky long time for the old man?” he said, setting both glasses on the table and reaching for his zipper.

“You’re an idiot,” said Ahn Thi.

“Yeah. But you love me anyhow.” He slapped her butt. “Now, my slope-eyed girl, she is just a pearl.”

“Shut up.”

He slipped his arm around her waist, took her hand and tried to waltz her around the room as he continued to hum his tuneless song.

She put both her hands against his chest and shoved. “Leave me alone. I wish you never come back.” She was crying now.

“What did you just say to me?” He straightened his uniform jacket and touched the fruit salad on his chest as if to remind himself who he was. “You stupid little slope. I married you. Brought you here. You owe me big time.”

“The price is too much.”

“What’s your problem, Ahn Thi?” Richard sat on the sofa, slumped over as if burdened by a tremendous weight. He covered his face with his hands for a moment. Looked up at his wife. “This is one hell of a homecoming.”

She watched him open the drawer of the end table. He pulled out his old service revolver and the cleaning kit. Richard never cried, never yelled, never hit. He made jokes. When he was angry, upset or when his nighttime terrors of battles and men lost under his command became too much, he cleaned his gun.

He was still slender and rock-hard. Ahn Thi noticed a little gray in his blonde crew cut now. She fell in love with him because he brought happiness and laughter into her ‘Sucky dicky long time. Five dollar’ world. Would she still love him if he hadn’t done this last tour of duty in Afghanistan? If she hadn’t fallen in love with someone else? Someone who treated her with dignity and respect. She no longer thought Richard was funny. He was a buffoon and she had been the butt of his jokes for more than thirty years.

“I am not a slope-eye girl. Not a zipperhead. And I am not your little frog. I am Eurasian woman.” She turned her back to him. “And, I want a divorce.”

He said nothing. He began to reassemble the gun. He watched his wife open the front door and get her purse. She put her house keys on the table. The front door closed.

She did not hear the gunshot as she pulled onto Olive Street.

For the past eight years I’ve been a full time fiction writer and student, writing, loving, cooking, and living in the Pasadena area with my husband Michael. My short stories and novel chapters have won awards and contests, been published in anthologies, print, and online journals. The New Short Fiction Series http://www.newshortfictionseries.com/ will present an evening featuring several of my short stories May 2012. mizshield@gmail.com

Issue #16: October, 2011

2011-10-01T09:38:00.000-07:00

MANTRA
by Jodi MacArthur

One, two, three…
Nails and teeth go beneath.
Hair and gums, unbecomes.
Legs and fingers, let them linger.
Heads and tails flip for sells.

Sometimes, Rhiannon repeated the rhyme in her head over and over. Other times, she hid in the closet, pulled the string light bulb and wrote it on the walls, carefully, inside squares. It calmed her before a big pitch or after one. The sale didn’t matter, it was her nerves, the panic she could feel like an entity. A worm crawling from the front of her skull to the back of it, writhing, wriggling like the legs of a spider after its abdomen had been crushed.

Rhiannon had been to the doctors. They gave her meds. And what did the meds do? Made her put on weight, gave her zits, made her hair fall out, and gave her massive bouts of gas. This made a drastic impact on her sales.

So she’d dumped the pills down the toilet. The sales improved as did her figure, but the worms crawled worse. In fact, they crawled out of her ears at night and had begun to disturb Derry. They told him bad things about her, lies.

***

Rhiannon stood in her bedroom in a black bra and panties, looking at her face in the mosaic mirror on the wall. She’d made a big sale today. Autumn sunshine streamed in through the window. She should have felt happy. But she didn’t.

She felt hollow. Hollowed out.

A drop of blood appeared on the mirror. She dabbed at it with her index finger wondering where it came from, and as she did, her green eyes transformed in the mirror. They grew long and oval, pinched in the middle like an hourglass.

She drew her fingers to her trembling lips. The hourglass ovals shifted to square blocks sinking deep inside her forehead.

She heard footsteps. Derry’s head moved behind her in the mirror. She wanted to move, but couldn’t. Paralysis. Her own sunken eyes held her captive. She felt a familiar movement in her forehead, a pain, and then the whispers started. Dream or real? they asked.

Rhiannon’s eyes slid forward, taking a new form. Round. The pupil widened, then narrowed into a sharp slit like a serpent’s. Dream? although posed as a question, the worms demanded an answer. They began to crawl.

Perhaps she was dreaming? She hated doubting herself. She hadn’t made it this far by doubting.

A classic Derry fart ripped from the bathroom, then a healthy stream hit toilet water. It was then she knew she was real, here. Rhiannon breathed a sigh of relief even as the worms screamed. Derry kept her real.

“Rhi? Whe’re’s the spa’re bla’nkets?” His Kentucky drawl used to be endearing. “This pl’ace never w’arms up. Brrr… ”

Another drop of blood appeared on the mirror, then another. Derry was moving towards the closet. Rhiannon willed her lips to speak, her arms to wave, but the worms wouldn’t let them. More blood splatters hit the mirror.

Rhiannon heard the closet door open. The worms laughed at her. They laughed in a high pitched scream.

“Wh’at the hell is this all over the w’all, Rhi? One, two, three, n’ails and teeth…” his voice tapered off.

She blinked once. Twice. Thrice. Suddenly, she was free and the worms were silent.

“I can explain it, Derry! It’s just a little rhyme.”

Derry slowly turned. He glanced her up and down, his eyes lingering at the cleavage in her bra. He shifted his pants and met her eyes. “I know you were hear’ang some things awhile b’ack and went to the doct’or. But this shit’s just… cr’azy.” He shook his head, slowly, pointing inside the closet. “It’s the last dr’aw.” The look in his eyes spelled disgust, easily imitated from many daytime drama shows.

“Derry,” Rhiannon licked her lips. If there was a sale to make, it was now. “You…” She paused. “You make me feel… here. What they’ve told you is lies. Don’t leave me now. Don’t leave me alone.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Who’s told me lies?”

Rhiannon shifted uncomfortably, then lowered her voice, “The worms. They’ve told you lies about me at night while you sleep.”

“Ok’ay.” He nodded his head and looked as if in thought.

Rhiannon felt a surge of hope.

Derry tipped his head towards the closet. “Sorry, d’arlin. The last dr’aw. You need to go back to the do’ctors and get re-pre’scribed.” He drew his drawl out to make his point, then turned and went down stairs.

From the stairwell he said, “I’m gonn’a have a beer, then split th’is joint.”

“Damn it. Damn it.” Rhiannon had to do something. She couldn’t just let Derry leave. Sure he was unemployed, mooched off her money, and sat on his rumpus all day watching The Price is Right and Oprah. But there was something calming knowing he was a real lump of living flesh sitting in the Lazy Boy when she came home at night. Everybody needs somebody and she didn’t want to be alone. Not with worms crawling in her head! He kept her real. Why couldn’t he see that? She tiptoed downstairs, watched him opened one last can of Bud Light and flick Dr. Phil back on.

She didn’t know what to do, so she sneaked to the kitchen, crept up behind him, and hit him over the head with a frying pan.

“I think you’ve made the right decision,” affirmed Dr. Phil. Rhiannon agreed and turned the TV off.

***

What to do. What to do. The worms were crawling, crawling, crawling. Rhiannon snatched a pencil from Derry’s crossword puzzle and ran up to her closet. She wrote the words over and over in their little squares. Her daddy once told her that if she ever got in a pickle to pick up a pencil and write the first thing that came to her mind and that would solve the problem. He also said that if writing didn’t work to pick up the Bible, close your eyes, and wait for the Holy Ghost to fill you up. You’d know that the Holy Ghost was filling you up because it was like a little wiggle in your soul, and that meant that Jesus loved you. You opened up your Bible and pointed at scripture. And whatever scripture you pointed too, that was the Holy Ghost guiding you to your life’s purpose. Daddy had hanged himself with his bed sheets from his third floor balcony when she was twelve. All they found was his Bible on the dining table. A verse circled in red where Judas had hanged himself. Rhiannon had been in and out foster homes after that.

Rhiannon didn’t care for the Holy Ghost or the Bible, but she liked to write. She made good grades in college, and she had landed herself a top sales position at ‘Just Skank It! J. K. Crack’s Clothing Massacre’. The stock had doubled since they had brought her aboard five years ago. Doubled! Stores had gone up in every mall across the country. Rhiannon was invaluable.

Heads and tails flip for sells.

Her scribbling became faster, and she tried to slow so it wouldn’t be sloppy. Her greatest fear, if she were to admit it, was the worms in her head were Jesus, but this made her laugh every time. Jesus wasn’t a worm on a cross! And Jesus wouldn’t tell her to flip heads or tails for sales. No sir. He’d tell her to pray. She laughed as she wrote. She laughed and wrote, laughed and wrote, until she calmed. Suddenly, with amazing clarity, she knew what to do. Derry would never leave.

She dressed and went downstairs. He still slept. Rhiannon tied and gagged him, and hit him again with the frying pan. Then she retrieved her purse from the counter.

Rhiannon went to Lowe’s and bought an electric saw and a filet knife.

Dumping Derry out of the Lazy Boy into the wheelbarrow wasn’t much of a problem. Figuring out where to filet him was. Rhiannon hadn’t a basement. But, the little Yardman 2000 shed did just fine. She had a woodstove and a small vegetable garden for the leftovers, the parts that weren’t in her rhyme. She called in sick to work the next morning. The neighbors thought nothing of her using the electric saw out back. It all worked out just fine. And afterwards, Rhiannon carefully placed each body part in its jar, box or shelf in her closet. Then she retrieved Derry’s pencil and carefully wrote each in its own square:

One, two, three…

Nails and teeth go beneath.

Hair and gums, unbecomes.

Legs and fingers, let them linger.

Heads and tails flip for sells.

As she finished up and closed the doors, the phone rang in the kitchen. She put on her slippers and made her way down the stairs, feeling much better. The message machine picked up. “Derr’ay? It’s your Ma. Where’s m’ay sweet little birthd’ay boy?”

Ma’s Kentucky drawl was annoyin’ as all get out. Rhiannon poured herself some coffee. Black. She thought about her closet.

“You’re alw’ays home,” Ma pouted.

Derry’s little ol’ Ma lived in Kentucky, eons from Washington. They had never met. Ma was frail, sick, practically on her deathbed, at least that what’s Derry had told her. Rhiannon wouldn’t have to worry about her.

“I wanted to sing Happy Birthd’ay to my little pumpkin pie cake.”

There’s no such thing as a pumpkin pie cake, MA, Rhiannon thought. The worms, awake again, gathered in the front of her head. Gnawing. Gnawing. She spat the coffee out in the sink.

“I’ll just sing it right he’re… Happy Birthd’ay to yoooou!”

The worms gnawed, chewed, their way to the back of Rhiannon’s mind. Tears streamed down her face. She fell to the kitchen floor. She pulled her knees to her chest and rocked herself like a newborn. They ate through gray matter, asking questions. Was this what death felt like? Was she alive? Dreaming? She needed to make the sale, dammit. Needed to make a sale. She wanted Derry back in the living room watching The Biggest Loser and munching Cheetos. She’d know then that she was alive.

“Anyw’ay, I expect you to call me back str’aight aw’ay. Love you, pump’kin.”

The message machine cut off.

A slight knock on the door. “Sweetheart? It’s Mrs. Doober from next door. I brought you some flowers from my garden.”

Rhiannon wiped her tears. She whispered her rhyme. She had an idea.

***

Business had picked up. She had a pitch this morning. Where had the week gone? Rhiannon carefully brushed her hair, swept it up in a twist and clipped it. She put in her green contacts and layered on thick eyeliner. She examined herself in the mirror. Serious. Scary. Her eyes shifted feline and her teeth pointed. Her body grew slender like a snake. She closed her eyes and shook her head. Opened her eyes, looked in the mirror again. She looked like her average aging self. Then she felt them, the worms writhing from the front of her skull to the back. Eating away her brain, leaving holes, asking questions. Did the Holy Ghost ask questions? She shivered and shook it all off.

Focus. Concentration. Lipstick.

Rhiannon’s hands shook as she applied the red lip stain. Big sale to make today. Big sale to loose. Heads and tails flip for sells. She thought of what was in her closet on the shelf. Rhiannon turned and threw up into the toilet. She grabbed her lipstick and ran to her closet. Underneath her old hat box, she grabbed a satchel of fingernails and tucked it into the vest of her business suit, breathing deeply. She began to relax. She turned up a notch in her lipstick and wrote:

One, two, three…

Nails and teeth go beneath.

A brisk knock on the front door broke her concentration.

Rhiannon dropped the lipstick.

Froze.

Another knock. The doorbell rang.

It was probably just the mailman. Her eyes flicked inside the closet. No, she supposed it wouldn’t be him. Perhaps it was Chloe, her secretary from work. Although, she’d very specifically asked her to call if she had any updates on the meeting this morning. She’d told them all Derry had left her quite suddenly and she needed to be by herself in the house. No guests. No guests at all.

The worms crawled. They writhed. They asked questions like the Holy Ghost. “The Holy Ghost doesn’t ask questions,” she whispered.

Are you dead? they asked.

“Daddy’s dead. The Holy Ghost told him to do it. A wiggle in his soul.”

Are you alive? they asked.

“Yes, yes of course I’m alive. I’m going to make the sale.” She touched the satchel of finger nails.”

Are you dreaming? they asked.

“Shut up. Shut up.”

The doorbell rang insistently.

Rhiannon closed the closet and leapt down the stairs.

“I told you to call me!” She unlocked the door and flung it open.

A little old woman adorned in a paisley dress stood on the porch. Her body was bony, face pointy and beaked like a bird’s. Gray eyes magnified by glasses that took up half her face said who she was even before she spoke.

When the old bird opened her beak, the drawl confirmed everything. “Derr’ay! I want to see my pumpkin pie cake.”

The worms writhed. They screamed. Rhiannon grabbed her head.

“I’m Derr’ay’s Ma and I demand to see my Derr’ay!” Ma squeezed past Rhiannon and marched into the kitchen.

Rhiannon closed the door. “Wait, hold up, Ma. Derry isn’t here anymore. We broke up last week.”

The worms moved to the back of Rhiannon’s head. Slowly. Eating. Munching. Asking questions.

“I don’t believe you. My son would have c’alled me.”

Rhiannon rushed after Ma around the kitchen. As they passed by the knives, she drew the butcher knife from the block. Ma marched through the living room. Rhiannon followed her. “Don’t you see, Ma? We weren’t getting along anymore. He wasn’t happy here. So he left.”

Ma stopped and turned.

Rhiannon hid the knife behind her back.

Ma held up her nose and pushed her glasses back, inspecting Rhiannon’s face. “Where did he go then?”

“Texas.”

“Why Tex’as?”

Tears streamed from Rhiannon’s eyes. The worms screamed in her skull. Dead? Living? Dream? I don’t know, she shouted back at them, then looked at Ma.

Ma waited patiently for an answer.

“Um, I, he… met someone,” Rhiannon said.

Ma squinted her beady, gray eyes. “I don’t beli’eve you.”

She turned and headed towards the stairs.

“Stop, please, stop,” Rhiannon whispered. They all asked at the same time in their own needy voices. She wanted to bang her head against the wall. She needed to make the sale to prove it to them. Then they’d be quiet.

Prove it. Prove it. Prove it, they replied.

She had to deal with the old bird first.

Calm. Rhiannon needed to be calm.

“Liar! Liar! Liar!” screamed Ma from upstairs.

Rhiannon raced up the stairwell to find Ma digging through Derry’s closet. Rhiannon cursed herself for not burning his clothes and shoes. This week had been so overwhelming. She couldn’t remember most of it.

Dead? Alive? Dreaming? demanded the worms.

Ma grabbed a shirt off the hanger and approached Rhiannon. “Liar! You bi’atch. Tell me where my son is or I swear I’ll…”

Rhiannon opened her own closet doors, pushed Ma in, and shut them. She sank back against the doors and let her head rest against her knees. There was a delicious pause. Rhiannon tried to think. Think. Think.

And then, Ma’s voice started as a whisper, building to a high pitched crescendo scream a heavy metal band could never even hope to reach. “They’re dead. They’re dead in here. They’re dead. They’re dead in here. They’re dead! They’re dead in here! THEY’RE DEAD! THEY’RE DEAD! THEY’RE DEAD IN HERE!”

Rhiannon glanced around the room and eyeballed her window. She leapt to the blinds, cut the cord with the butcher’s knife, and jumped back to the closet doors. Just as Rhiannon wrapped the cord over and around the doorknobs, securing them, Ma tried to open the doors, then pounded her fists against them.

“Heads or tails! Make some sells!” Rhiannon said.

“Let me out. Oh, please let me out!” And then, just so Rhiannon knew for sure, Ma said, “They’re dead in here!”

Rhiannon marched up and down the room with the butcher knife as the old woman screamed.

The worms crawled in her mind. Up and down, in and out. As if she were dead already. How did that old child’s rhyme go? The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. The worms play pinochle on your snout.

Dead? Alive? Dreaming? A nightmare, a horrible nightmare like in Halloween with Jamie Lee Curtis. She’s stuck in the closet screaming, “They’re dead! They’re dead in here!”

“Prove it,” Rhiannon whispered to herself. “Prove it. Prove it. Prove it.” An idea came, a way to prove that she was dead, alive, or dreaming. She carved it out on the bedroom wall with the butcher’s knife as she repeated her mantra, her little rhyme.

One, two, three…
Nails and teeth go beneath.
Hair and gums, unbecomes.
Legs and fingers, let them linger.
Heads and tails flip for sells.

Calmer, Rhiannon went downstairs, out the patio door to the Yardman 2000 shed, grabbed the filet knife, ran back inside, upstairs, and opened the closet door.

Ma was still screaming. “They’re dead! They’re dead in here!” She held two heads by their hair.

“You’ve got Derry, and… oh, Mrs. Doober!” Rhiannon said with a bit of surprise as she reached in and pulled Ma out. “I was busier than I thought.”

Ma shook and shivered. Rhiannon grabbed the heads from her hands and tossed them back into the closet. Briefly, she saw the writing on the wall, and this assured her what must be done.

Rhiannon held the butcher’s knife to her throat. “You need to pull yourself together, Ma. Do you feel a wiggle in your soul?”

Ma cried and shook her head.

“Damn it, Ma! Look for it. Look for the wiggle. This is a matter of life and death and dreaming. Do you feel the wiggle in your soul?”

Ma’s beady eyes grew wide. Her glasses fell lopsided. She gulped and nodded.

“Good. That’s the Holy Ghost. And you’ve got to do what the Holy Ghost says.” The worms screamed in Rhiannon’s head. “We never met, but your son and I were together for many years. I think it’s time to get personal. He’s dead as you found out.”

She let out a wail. Ma’s legs gave, her paisley dress fluttering.

Rhiannon caught her, being careful not to cut her with the knives, and pushed her up against the wall. “But you can still live. Do you want to live, Ma?”

Rhiannon had already missed her sales meeting, but she had this one last chance to make a pitch, to make the sale. “There’s something you need to do.” She put the filet knife in Ma’s hand.

Ma whimpered and dropped the knife. A wet stain streaked her dress.

“No, no, it’s time for courage, Ma! Courage. Now, I need to find out if I’m dead, alive, or dreaming. There’s this poem I made up a long time ago when the Holy Ghost told my daddy to kill himself. I thought it was like a rhyme or a mantra. But I had it all wrong. The worms inside my head, they helped me realize the words are instructions. I want you to do as I say. And when you’re all done, I need you to flip my heads and tails before dialing 9-1-1, because that makes the sale.”

Ma shivered and hippo tears streamed from her eyes. She wasn’t going to do it. The worms laughed at Rhiannon.

You’ll never know! they said. You’ll never know!

Rhiannon went for the kill. “I gagged your son in front of the TV, Ma. He was to going leave me and I couldn’t let him do that. I filleted and sawed him up into tiny little pieces while he was alive and preserved the best parts. You found them in the closet there. His head? You were holding your pumpkin pie cake’s head, bitch.”

Ma glanced at the closet. When she turned back to Rhiannon, her gray eyes were stone.

She nodded. Just once, then removed her glasses and tossed them to the carpet. Her small, birdish body assumed a warrior’s stance.

When Rhiannon offered her the knife the second time, Ma took it in hand.

Rhiannon smiled. She had won. She’d made the pitch and sealed the sale. “There’s a little killer in us all, ain’t there, Ma?”

Sweat dripped down Rhiannon’s forehead. Mascara streaked like evil down her cheeks. Worms squirmed in her skull like death. They should have stopped by now. They always stopped after the pitch.

Rhiannon wanted to end this nightmare, this life, this death. Whatever this was or was not. “Now do only as I say, Ma, no fast moves or stabs. Only as I say.”

Ma was shifty. Unafraid.

The worms crawled. Rhiannon didn’t trust Ma. She clutched her butcher knife in her own hands. Ready to thrust it if she needed too.

Ma’s face had turned hawk. Predatory. Her arms open wide. Ready to strike.

Rhiannon wished she could write the “game plan” out for Ma.

One, two, three…
Nails and teeth go beneath.

First the nails and teeth, obviously. It would be painful, but it was the only way to know if she was truly dead, alive, or dreaming as the worms taunted her. The nails and teeth had to be put underneath the old hat box in her closet. Rhiannon smiled and patted the satchel of fingernails still sitting in her vest. Next would be the hair and gums, both of those unbecomes, therefore needed to be buried in the garden or if Ma wished could be burned in the woodstove. She’d offer the choice to Ma. The problem with this “game plan” was that everything had to go according to instruction, according to her rhyme.

“Ma, you must follow my instructions exactly. Do you understand?”

Ma nodded, yes.

Liar! The old bird lies! the worms cried.

To the right of Ma’s shoulder hung the mosaic mirror. Rhiannon saw herself in it. She was slender with green, feline eyes and pointed teeth. Poisonous.

Both women faced each other. Hawk and Snake.

“Derr’ay,” said Hawk.

Snake hissed, “One, two, three… Nails and teeth—”

The bird’s beady eyes twitched. Her talon swung out.

The snake struck faster.

They stabbed each other at the same time.

Rhiannon’s butcher’s knife sank in Ma deeply, as Ma’s filet knife did in Rhiannon. There would be no fingernail filleting or gum slicing. Not this time.

Rhiannon tried to keep calm waiting for the dream to end, life to begin, or death to arrive. She heard Ma gasping for breath, gurgling Derry’s name over and over. That was her mantra.

Rhiannon had hers.

The worms slowed. Darkness seeped in like a wiggle in her soul. Jesus loved her. Rhiannon whispered the Holy Ghost a lullaby.

One, two, three…
Nails and teeth go beneath.
Hair and gums, unbecomes.
Legs and fingers, let them linger.
Heads and tails flip for sells.

Jodi MacArthur lies buried in metaphors. She resurrects through your fragmented reality. Discover more at www.jodimacarthur.blogspot.com

Issue #15: September, 2011

2011-09-01T05:34:00.000-07:00

THE PEEPER
by C.J. Edwards

Jimmy Wade had been watching her for a month. She had smiled at him when she had walked her small poodle around her front yard as the movers hauled her things into the renovated double. He hadn’t been sure what to do about that. Pretty girls never smiled at him. His pudgy frame and pimple-scarred features didn’t inspire smiles, even from the homeliest of girls. Living with mother after the age of thirty didn’t help much either. So when those bright even teeth framed by plump lips flashed in his direction he had turned away to hide the crimson sheet that flashed across his face, and the erection that sprung up against his sweat pants. He almost didn’t make it to the mini-barn behind the house, to spill his junk into the oily rags piled behind the John Deer riding lawn mower.

From then on he had taken every opportunity to catch a glimpse of her. From her mail he had discovered her name, Carley Jacobs, and from the White Pages online her phone number. Her Facebook account had provided him with a wealth of knowledge, even some shots of her in a bathing suit from a spring break spent in Cabo. They now hung on the wall in the back corner of the mini-barn. He didn’t dare keep them in his room for fear that his mother might find them. She had discovered him in the bathroom once when he was thirteen with a Victoria’s Secret catalog swiped from a neighbor’s mailbox.

“You filthy little animal,” she’d screamed at him. “I’ll not be having such dirty sin in this house.” Then she snatched away the catalog and proceeded to beat him with it as he fled outside. All the while she screeched her condemnation of the foul nature inside the souls of all men. Banished to the barn he could still hear her calling on the Lord to save her from having to witness such abomination.

After that first month of watching Carley from afar, glimpses of her from his bedroom window as she walked her dog, or as she mowed her lawn, Jimmy finally worked up enough courage to take a peek in one of her windows. They were quick and furtive sorties at first. Her half of the double had a single stretch of a privacy fence separating it from Mrs. Jeffries’ house next door. Mrs. Jeffries was Carley’s landlord, and Jimmy did odd jobs for her from time to time. The fence didn’t fully enclose the yard, and there wasn’t a security light.

Darts across the street turned into strolls, which then became lingering skulks in the shadows beneath her windows. As spring grew warm Carley would often leave her windows cracked open to let in the evening breezes. Sometimes Jimmy was treated to phone conversations between Carley and her girlfriends. He became intimate with the sound of her voice, especially her laugh. Boldness, nurtured by continued success, led to his first extended peek into the living room.

It was a Wednesday night. He had crouched just below the open window listening. The TV was on, and he could hear Ryan Seacrest hosting the latest American Idol. During commercial breaks, Carley would call her friend Amanda, to discuss the performance of their favorite contestant.

“Did you see their faces when he hit that high note? … Oh my god I know… He is so hot. Too bad he’s gay…He is too…Okay, yeah whatever…”

After another commercial, Jimmy finally worked himself up enough to raise his eyes level with the window sill. Another male crooner was belting out a remixed Michael Jackson eighties hit when his eyes collided with the sight of Carley’s bare legs as she sat on her faded couch painting her toe nails. He could smell the tang of the polish that she spread across each nail with a red stained brush. His body began to shiver as blood rushed to his groin. She had just finished with her right foot, and was preparing the left when Carley’s poodle perked up his ears and growled. Jimmy ducked as the curly haired dog bounded to the window.

“What is it Max?” Carley said.

Jimmy ran. This time he didn’t make it to the mini-barn. He was forced to climb up to his room to change his briefs. As he stripped off the sticky underwear, heart still pounding from almost getting caught, Jimmy realized that he had to do something about the dog.

The next couple of days Jimmy kept to his room, plotting. By the weekend he had a plan. When Carley went to work the following Monday, Jimmy walked over to the window where Max had almost exposed him. It was cracked as usual, security pegs preventing it from being opened all the way. A crack was all he needed, for now. Sliding up the screen just enough, Jimmy set two moist doggy treats on the sill and waited. He was rewarded by Max’s snuffling nose followed by his pink tongue licking up the tiny treats.

Jimmy returned two more times that day with offerings for the little pooch. On Tuesday he followed the same schedule. Wednesday he began feeding the treats directly from his fingers to the poodle’s mouth. Before the week was out Jimmy and Max were good friends. Jimmy almost felt bad about what he was going to do next.

On Friday nights Carley would usually go out. She would sleep in the following morning. On these occasions she would let Max out into the small fenced in area behind her half of the double, and then go back to bed. After a week of making friends with her dog Jimmy watched from his bedroom that Friday evening. He had seen Carley come home from work, and three hours later watched her red Honda back from its parking space into the alley and pull away. Before going to bed, Jimmy set his alarm to wake himself at six A.M.

* * *

Strangling Max turned out to be easier than expected. After luring him from the yard with more treats, he took the dog to the min-barn. Inside, while Max gobbled up a pile of the meaty bits, Jimmy looped a thin cord around the dog’s neck.

“That’s a good boy, Max.”

He tied one end to the bottom of the mower, then took a firm grip on the other, and jerked. Afterward, Jimmy pushed the lawn tractor to one end of the barn’s interior, pried up three of the floor boards, and dug a shallow grave.

When Carley had knocked on his door later that afternoon, for a split second Jimmy thought he had been found out. He stood, face frozen and mute, staring at her. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and a lonely trickle snaked its way down his spine.

“Hi,” she said. Her smile was thin. “I live across the street. I was wondering if you might have seen my dog Max today.” Her hand reached out. In it was a lost dog poster with a picture of Max’s curly haired face set in the middle of the paper. His little head cocked to the side, his open mouth made him look like he was smiling.

Relieved, Jimmy took the poster. “Um, no. I haven’t seen him.”

“Okay. Thanks anyway. Please, let me know if you do.” She turned to go.

“I could take a few more of those,” Jimmy said, and pointed at the stack of posters in her hand. “Maybe post a few for you?”

“That would be so sweet. Thank you,” She said.

With Max out of the picture, Jimmy resumed his visitations. He overheard the tearful conversations Carley had with her mom, then her sister, about poor old Max. Different emotions flitted across his mind. He sampled each one as he watched and listened to her distress. Guilt was never a good flavor. Guilt was what he felt when his mother chastised him for some new offense, or filthy male habit he had acquired. Sadness worked all right. When he saw those tears trickle down her soft cheeks he could almost taste what it would be like to sit down beside Carley, put his arm around her, and squeeze away her pain with his urgent fingers.

After savoring each, Jimmy settled on satisfaction. He could still feel the rough cord tight against his hands, vibrating between his fingers while Max had flopped, then twitched, eyes bulging, his little teeth snapping at the still air inside the barn. The thrilling satisfaction reminded him of the feeling he got while jacking off into the dirt outside Carley’s window, while he watched her folding laundry in a t-shirt and shorts.

The weekend following Max’s disappearance, Jimmy began to realize that the relationship between him and his beautiful neighbor must progress to the next level. She needed him closer, so she could finally get over her lost pet.

Lifting the spare key to Carley’s house was as easy as switching it with the same brand of key he had purchased from ACE hardware when he stopped over to see if Mrs. Jeffries needed anything. Now, all he had to do was wait. The following week seemed to drag as he anticipated Carley’s Friday girls’ night ritual.

In his darkened room the following Friday, Jimmy watched until Carley’s car made its backward turn into the alley and drove away. Not able to contain his anticipation a moment longer, he pulled on a black windbreaker and skipped down the stairs. Before he made it to the door his mother called to him from the front room where she was hunched over her bible.

“James Lester Wade, where are you going?” Her steal eyes probed his face. “Out to do the devil’s work?”

“No mother.”

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you.”

Jimmy turned and raised his head from his chest where it had fallen when his mother had called to him.

“You’re up to no good. I can smell the sin on you boy.” She pointed her bible at him. “Just like your father, always thinking your dirty thoughts. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re always doing out in that shed.”

His face boiled red. His mother cackled. She made him think of sour milk.

“God will send you to the roasting pit for it. You, and your filthy little hands!”

Jimmy bolted from the door. His mother’s laugh chased him from the porch. It wasn’t until he reached the shadows beside Carley’s house that he unclenched his fists. He felt a stab of pain in his right palm where the spare key had jabbed deep into his skin. He felt the blood recede from his face. His heart rate and breathing returned to normal.

When he fist inserted the key into the lock on the back door it stuck. It was a copy, and hadn’t been used much. He pulled it out, put it back in, and jiggled. The lock turned. Jimmy stepped into the kitchen. After the door was closed and locked behind him, he turned to face the short hallway that lead to the front of the double. The smell of roasted chicken hung in the air, fading into the underlying scent of candles, and the slightest hint of perfume. He stood there for a long time in the light of a single florescent bulb left on over the sink. Jimmy closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He listened to the silence, wallowing in anticipation.

The digital clock on the stove had read 9:45 when he had let himself in. A loud hum shook itself from the refrigerator. He flinched, and opened his eyes. Jimmy looked at the clock. It was 10:10. He moved towards the living room, glancing around at the familiar furnishings as he went. Not able to wait any longer, he climbed the stairs, passed the bathroom door, and approached Carley’s bedroom. Jimmy’s fingers brushed a towel draped over the dresser as he entered. It was still damp. The smell of perfume was stronger here, coiled around the aroma of moist fabric.

Jimmy’s knees shook. He crossed to the unmade bed and sat down on its edge. The soft sheets and comforter invited him to stretch out on them. He pressed his face into Carley’s pillow. The rest of his body shook. He reached a hand down into the front of his sweat pants.

There was a click. Jimmy froze. He felt his blood crash to his chest as it fled from his extremities, leaving the prick of needles on his skin. His ears strained. Someone had opened the back door. Footsteps tapped on the white linoleum, then disappeared when they reached the carpet of the living room.

Rolling from the bed, Jimmy peeked through the window that looked out over the back yard. Carley’s Honda sat in her parking space idling. The parking lights spread an amber glow over the gravel.

“Fuck,” he whispered. If he hadn’t been so turned on, he might have heard the car pull up.

A creak announced Carley’s arrival at the stairs. Jimmy’s head snapped back and forth as he looked for a place to hide. There was no time to get out a window, or hide in a different room. The closet was an open cutout in the bedroom wall across from the bed. It didn’t have a door, and it sunk about two feet deep, with two foot wings stretching to either side of the opening. He crossed the room in two strides. The left cavity was filled with extra blankets, pillows, and shoe boxes. The right had only an umbrella and an extra curtain rod next to it. Brushing past the clothes, he squeezed himself as best as he could into the tight space.

Carley reached the bathroom. Jimmy could hear the sink faucet come on, water making gulping noises as it found the drain. The water shut off. Maybe she’d just needed to use the sink and whatever she had forgotten was downstairs. Maybe she wouldn’t come into the bedroom, or at least not to the closet.

Light flooded the bedroom. Jimmy shut his eyes. He had read somewhere that if you didn’t look directly at someone they might not realize you were so close by. There was a sound of clothes rustling. A shadow fell across Jimmy’s face as Carley’s body blocked the light from the room from where he crouched in the closet. He could feel her next to him as she began picking through the clothes on their hangers. The light taste, almost memory of her fragrance, was replaced by a heady sledgehammer of her perfume and bare skin. It was too much. Jimmy’s eyes wrenched themselves open.

Carley stood mere inches from the tip of Jimmy’s nose. The bedroom light fell in a halo onto her blond hair. She was shirtless. When he saw her breasts loosely bound in her black lace bra, he gurgled deep in his throat. His hand rose to cover his mouth. For a moment Jimmy held onto the hope that she wouldn’t notice him, that she would select a new top, and leave him undiscovered.

Carley scrunched her lips into a delicate pout as she picked through the hangers. Jimmy didn’t know whether it was the sound in his throat, or the movement of his hand that alerted her to his presence. It probably had been a combination of the two. In the end it didn’t matter. What mattered was the look on her face, and the sound of his mother’s voice in his head.

“Now you’ve done it, you filthy boy!” he heard his mother trumpet. “I always knew you’d get into trouble. Just like your father.”

For the smallest of moments, Carley’s face didn’t register anything at all as her eyes met Jimmy’s. Then the gravity of what she was seeing washed across her face. It started in her eyes. Those thick eyelashes rose, pulling the lids high. Wide pupils dilated even more until they banished all of the blue from her eyes. The carefully prepared blond hair tossed. Her nostrils flared.

The head toss trickled down through her chest. Her arms came up. Her hips squared toward him, and then her knees sagged, almost collapsing with shock. Carley’s feet writhed while they fought with the decision of whether to fight, or make a run for it.

As Jimmy took all this in, something occurred to him. For the first time in his life he felt… powerful. The terror taking shape on Carley’s face and spreading across her body was because of him. Someone actually feared him. His chest filled, blood exploded through his muscles. Adrenalin stabbed at his heart, flooding his veins with a lustful inferno. He saw everything clearer and brighter. Under Carley’s perfume he could smell new sweat spring to life along her skin, her hair spray, soap, the leather of her belt, and the musk between her legs.

Carley’s lips peeled back as a scream built in her chest. Jimmy burst from the closet. His heavy frame slammed into Carley’s tiny one, his hands clamped over her mouth with stunning force. He heard the hiss of air forced from her lungs as one of her high heels gave way and her back struck the floor with Jimmy’s weight pressing down upon her.

Jimmy felt Carley’s teeth sink into his palm. To avoid being bitten again, his hands slid beneath her chin onto her throat. At first he just wanted to keep her from screaming, but then his grasping fingers severed Carley’s lungs from her air supply. Jimmy found that he liked the way her eyes bulged, and the pretty purplish color that spread from his hands up to her hair line as he choked her. He clamped down harder and her body began to writhe beneath him. The sound of her heels stomping up and down was muffled on the carpeted floor. Manicured nails clawed at his fingers as Carley tried to buck him off with her hips. Jimmy got hard again.

White splotches were now splattered across the purple skin of her face. Her mouth gaped and her teeth bit at the air that couldn’t reach her lungs. She looked like a goldfish, Jimmy thought. The one he had as a child. He would pull it from the water to watch it twitch and squirm. Heat stained Jimmy’s sweats as Carley urinated. It washed across the skin of one of his thighs. He came as Carley’s body stilled. Her pupils opened wide, and the sea blue color of her eyes disappeared.

Jimmy was panting like a dog when he rolled off of Carley’s limp, lifeless body. He lay staring up at the blank ceiling for a while, and attempted to process what he had done. When his breathing steadied, he rolled over onto his side, propping his head up on one hand. A silky smile grew on his lips. He stared at Carley’s face, now blooming with tiny red dots from neck to eyebrows. Her features gazed at him and he could see the whites of her eyes turning crimson. Now she was even more beautiful, he thought.

* * *

The next morning Jimmy stepped out of the mini-barn and wiped sweat from his face. His hand left muddy smears across his nose and cheeks. A couple houses down he heard a car horn blare. He walked around to the front of the house and glanced across the street. Standing next to a moving truck was a large breasted girl in a tight t-shirt and shorts with the word PINK stenciled across the ass. She turned. Her long red hair flicked over her shoulder. When she saw Jimmy looking at her she waved.

C. J. Edwards has been a police officer for the Indianapolis Police Department for eleven years, and is currently assigned to investigations. His non-fiction short story can be found in American Blue: Real Stories by Real Cops from Varro Press. This is his first fiction publication.

Issue #14: August, 2011

2011-08-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

THE PERFECT DAY
by Patricia Abbott

The door flew open, striking the wall with a force that brought the sleeping boys to a sitting position.

“What time is it?” Greg asked, throwing an arm over his eyes. Across the room, Charlie moaned softly.

“Six o’clock,” their father said, yanking the curtains back and letting in a blast of sun. “Get a move on, fellows.”

Denny—in his head Greg never thought of him as Dad— must’ve been up all night— Greg remembered the brown-checked shirt and tan slacks. Only the substitution of sneakers for the scotch- plaid bedroom slippers of last night seemed new.

Two weeks out of the slammer and Dennis Batch was already antsy.

“Where’re we going?” Greg asked, looking around. There were no packed bags so it wasn’t a hasty move to dodge the rent today.

“The shore. As long as we’re up, we might as well beat the crowd.”

“The shore?” Greg echoed. Had they ever gone to the shore before? “Is Mom going?”

Charlie sat up, finally awake. “Mom’s going too?”

“Of course, she’s going.” Denny Batch said this as if the customs of family outings were firmly established. “Come on, guys.” He was struggling with the sash. “Try to give you two a treat and—”

“What beach, Dad?”

Charlie stood flat-footed in front of his father now, wearing a pair of footed flannel pajamas that should’ve been packed away months ago. Most of his toes had wormed their way through the flannel.

Dennis usually took a question like this one as a wise-mouthed remark and Greg could hear him catch his breath.

“We’re going to Wildwood, Charlie. Wildwood has the best beaches.”

Both boys nodded thoughtfully, though neither had heard of Wildwood’s superior beaches before.

Denny left the room whistling the theme from Bridge on the River Kwai.

“Do we have to wear our swimming suit?” Charlie was hunting frantically through his bureau drawer. “Or do we just take it with us.” A detail like this could be crucial to the day’s success.

“Put it on under your clothes,” Greg advised. “Dad’ll probably make us strip right out in the open. Tell us real men aren’t ashamed to be naked.”

Charlie shivered audibly.

Head down, Greg ransacked his drawer, finally coming up with the suit he’d worn for his seventh- grade swim class, two years ago now.

“You can’t wear that thing, you fruit loop,” he said when Charlie triumphantly pulled out a tiny white suit with a bobbing whale.

“It’s the only one I have,” Charlie said, struggling to push his legs through the tiny holes, footed pajamas still on.

“No way you’re getting your butt into that.”

Greg went back to his drawer and came up with an older suit of his, wondering all the time what this trip was about. “There you go.”

Charlie grabbed it midair.

And their mother was going.

In the kitchen, Billie was dragging on her Salem and drinking a cup of tar black coffee. She wore a faded black and white striped swimsuit with a floppy red belt at the waist. It looked like a maternity swimsuit and neither boy had the courage to look at her.

“You two have me to thank for this little trip to the shore. He’d never have thought of it on his own.” The smoke funneled up above her head. “The thug.”

Neither boy commented on this because five minutes from now she could be slipping Denny the tongue in the back hallway.

“Better grab some food fast ‘cause he’s ready to take off.”

Greg grabbed the Cheerios and poured two bowls.

“Are we going to be gone all day?” Charlie asked, his mouth full.

“Cause shouldn’t we be packing stuff to take along?” Greg added.

“What stuff?” Billie took a sip of her coffee, made a face, and then dripped more milk into the cup. She blotted up the spilled drops with her forearm.

“An umbrella. Towels. Maybe a beach ball or a shovel for Charlie.”

Charlie nodded his approval.

“We got plenty of towels. The rest we’ll get there.” Billie rubbed out her cigarette and stood, her arms raised in a lazy stretch. “What kind of holiday is it if we have to spend all morning packing? We can rent chairs,” Billie added, “cause I don’t think we have any. Right?” Her head swiveled back and forth between the two boys. “Does anyone remember sitting in one? All right then. Can’t bring what we don’t have.”

She slipped out of the room and Greg rinsed out her cup and dumped the ashtray. Both boys looked up when they heard the sound of Denny starting up the car.

“It sounds like it’s farting,” Charlie said.

“It needs a new muffler.” Greg pressed him toward the door. “Don’t say anything to Dad though.” He paused. “About anything.”

Trouble could come from many fronts in the Batch household.

* * *

“Sit up front, Greg,” Billie ordered. “You can help your father find the bridge. I didn’t want to lug along my glasses.”

She opened the door and waved him in. Thankfully, she’d thrown an oversized Phillies’ tee shirt over her swimsuit. Her brown vinyl bag, the strap replaced with Denny’s old belt, swung wildly from her shoulder. Out in the light, Greg could see dark roots climbing down her blonde head.

“I don’t need anyone’s help,” Denny said.

He was wearing an extremely tight pair of swimming trunks, and a yellow linen shirt, reading Havana Hilton in red script, was stretched across his middle. “But as long as you’re here, Greg, you might as well see if we have any maps in the glove box.”

The box was full of empty cigarette packs, books of matches, lottery tickets, race track paraphernalia, betting slips, envelopes with lists of numbers, and circulars for various food franchises—but no maps.

“Hey, be careful,” his father said, grabbing a few fallen circulars. “Sometimes I use this car as my office.”

In the rear, Billie hooted and Denny turned around and gave her the evil eye.

“Take the Tacony Palmyra, Dennis,” she said. “That’s the bridge my stepfather always took. Would somebody put the radio on?”

“Mickey took the Tacony to Wildwood? Why would he cross the river up there? Better to use the Ben Franklin and take the Atlantic City Expressway.”

“Then you’re gonna have to drive through the whole fuckin’ City,” Billie reminded him. “Think about the traffic.”

“Don’t I have to drive across the whole fuckin’ City in the other direction to get to the lousy Tacony?” His voice was getting a curl in it.

“The Tacony’s only a nickel,” she pointed out fearlessly, her elbows resting just behind Denny’s head. “Greg, would please you get that radio on.”

Greg obliged.

“Think I care about a lousy nickel toll,” Dennis said, immediately switching it off. “I’d spend more on gas going your cockamamie way.”

“Go however you want, you big—” Billie said, her final noun either lost or unuttered. She sat back, her arms folded across her chest. “Wake me up when you can smell the salt, boys.” She slid her sunglasses down and promptly fell asleep.

“Greg, you got any idea how to get to the Ben Franklin?” his father asked in a lower tone, adjusting the mirror. “Else we’ll have to go to the Sunoco and get a map.” He shook his head like going to the Sunoco was the worst thing in the world.

“I only remember going to New Jersey once,” Greg said, “and we took the Tacony.” Even the word “Tacony” felt strange in his mouth. Was it some Indian name?

Denny’s eyelids fluttered thickly, “Okay then, tell me how to get to the Tacony.”

* * *

Neither boy had seen anything like it: miles of beach with a boardwalk stretching most of the way. Charlie’s head hung out the window like a dog’s.

Twice, Billie had yanked it in. “Want to get your block knocked off.”

“How will you know where to stop, Dad?” Charlie asked, trying to rake down his windblown hair. “Do you have a place you go?”

Dennis shrugged. “One thing that’s gonna factor in here is if there’s a good place to park.”

Billie made a strangled sound. “He means free. Good means free.”

Denny suddenly put his foot on the break, shifted the car into reverse, and backed into a spot in three quick moves.

“You sure you’re allowed to park here?” Billie asked. “Seems funny that it’s sitting empty. Matter of fact,” she said looking around, “there’s a bunch of empty spots.”

No one noticed a street sign or anything forbidding parking; there were no meters, no attendants.

“I don’t know why you couldn’t just park in a lot—but okay,” Billie finally conceded. “Ocean at Juniper. You boys remember that in case I get frazzled by the sun.”

The boys looked at each other. It was more likely to be booze that frazzled their mother.

They’d started to walk toward the beach when Greg suddenly said, “We better get some supplies, Dad.”

“Supplies?” Denny asked, whipping around. “Didn’t you bring anything, Billie? No spread, no cooler, no suntan lotion? Couldn’t someone have packed a lunch for pity’s sake? A can or two of ginger ale?”

“We don’t have any beach stuff to bring,” Billie said. “When’s the last time we went to a beach? That’s what I was saying last night. You’re just a big, cheap—”

She was already heading up the steps to the boardwalk—to a shop called Big Bob’s Beach Balls. Bob’s had a large, red plastic crab on its roof and the theme song from Gilligan’s Island played inside. A bunch of rafts were stacked in front of Big Bob’s, and before anyone could stop him, Charlie threw himself on a purple raft with a huge chartreuse octopus crawling up the middle.

“I bet I could ride all the way to China on this one. Can I have it, Dad?”

“Every house has beach stuff,” Dennis said, ignoring his son. “Just have to know where to look. Did you look in the cellar? I know I saw an umbrella down there.” He shut his eyes, remembering. “And was it too much trouble to throw a spread in the trunk?”

“If we ever did have any beach things, they’re gone now. How many times have we moved? And all our spreads are on the beds.” Billie was already fingering a wide-brimmed straw hat. “What d’ya think?” she asked, looking in a mirror.

“Good, Mom,” Charlie said. “Can I have this raft?”

“You can’t even swim,” Billie said, eyeballing him in the mirror. “You’d better be looking for one of those itty bitty inner tubes to keep you afloat.” She pointed to a pile clearly meant for toddlers.

“You could have thrown a spread from Charlie’s bed in the car,” Dennis thought aloud. “Sand shakes right off.”

Charlie’s lip turned down. “I bet Greg could teach me to swim in about a minute,” He waved his arms and legs and the raft he was bellied on moved incrementally across the wooden planks of the boardwalk. “See! I’m doing it already.”

“Kid’s a freaking loon…” Denny started to say.

“We can both use the raft,” Greg interrupted, taking pity on his brother,

“No rafts,” Denny said, yanking Charlie to his feet. “I got a cash flow thing going on right now in case you hadn’t noticed.” He turned away from their down-turned faces. “When would we ever use a raft again? You can’t use a thing like that in Glenside Pool. You’d take up half the space.”

He was making his case for the ladies at the cash register. They nodded sympathetically and one of them said, “I think you can rent rafts on the beach.”

“See,” Denny said, smiling.

They finally stood at the cash register with a bottle of Coppertone, a woven mat, a pail and shovel, and a pack of Winston cigarettes—Denny’s brand. At the last minute, Billie showed up with her straw sunhat, a can of Tab, and a Cosmo magazine.

“We could have spent this money on a great dinner if you’d have come prepared.” Denny was pulling out his wallet though.

* * *

“We’re gonna fry,” Billie said a minute later.

“Christ, you haven’t been out here five minutes,” Denny said, examining her pinkening nose with interest. “Sit under the boardwalk, why don’t you?”

“Last time you told me to sit under the boardwalk, I feel asleep under the men’s restroom and got peed on.”

“Christ, Billie, it was a leaking faucet,” Denny said. “Are you gonna tell that story till you dying day? Not like it puts you in a good light.”

“Look, Mom, nobody’s sitting under that umbrella,” Greg said suddenly, pointing to a red and white striped one.

“Grab it, hon,” Billie said, breaking into a run and throwing down their mat with a proprietary finesse when she reached the umbrella. All four sat down, bottom to bottom.

“Do I get to go into the ocean?” Charlie asked.

“Do you think I’d bring you down here and not let you go in the ocean? I’m catching my breath.”

Denny reached into the shopping bag and took out the pack of Winstons. Billie joined him with her Salem. It was an oddly peaceful moment despite the tangle of smoke.

“Come on, Chas, I’ll take you in,” Greg slid his shorts off and removed his shirt, folding them into a tight bundle.

“Will you look at the neat freak? You’ll make your drill sergeant happy some day,” his father told him. “Don’t pay to be too fruity.”

Charlie scrambled out of his clothes too and a second later, the brothers ran down to the water. “Is this all you do? Jump over the waves?”

“We’re getting used to it,” Greg said.

“Used to what?”

“The temperature.”

Some people were lying on their stomachs on rafts, but lots of people just jumped over each wave just before it hit the beach. No one was swimming.

“I guess it’s hard to swim in oceans,” Charlie said.

They stood studying the actions of the other bathers, trying a few moves of their own, watching the lifeguard direct the action with his whistle. Its shriek cut through the din every few seconds.

“Maybe we’ll get to see them rescue someone,” Charlie said.

“Maybe.”

“Do they swim out or use the rowboat?” Charlie asked, nodding toward the peeling vehicle propped up against the stand.

“I guess it depends on how far out the person is.”

“Hey, let’s get our bucket and shovel,” Charlie suggested, and spotting their umbrella in the distance, they headed back.

A kid wearing an apron over a pair of shorts was standing next to it. Dennis and Billie were both gone.

“Look, kids, these umbrellas are for rent. You can’t just toss your blanket under one. It’s three-fifty a day.”

Greg leaned over and pulled the mat away from the umbrella.

“Better move it a little further,” the guy said, scratching his stomach sleepily.

“Good thing Dad wasn’t here,” Greg told his brother. “He’d put up a fight.”

“Oh, boy,” Charlie said. They both paused to contemplate the possible scenario. “How long were we gone?”

“Twenty minutes tops.”

Charlie eyes brightened. “Maybe they went to get us some lunch. I saw a hotdog stand.” He hand-visored his eyes, scouting the boardwalk.

“Can you really picture them going off together to buy us lunch?” Greg shook his head thinking Charlie might never wise up to the state of things.

“They’d have sent us for it. Right?”

“Right. I think I know where Mom is.”

He’d spotted a spot called the Atlantic Breeze. A fancy umbrella in a frothy drink festooned the sign. Dad’s whereabouts were more unpredictable. Was there an arcade nearby? A casino?

Charlie began to dig in the sand. “Hey, how do you build one of those sand castles?” He was straddling the small mound, trying unsuccessfully to hold it together with his legs.

Oh, what the heck. It was better than cruising the boards for their parents.

“You need wet sand. Go fill your bucket with water.”

The boys spent the next half hour constructing a castle, Charlie ran up and down the beach looking for scallop shells, discarded straws, and other found objects to decorate it. His best find was a rhinestone earring that he set on top.

“I think it’s pretty good,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “For our first one.” He looked at Greg. “Or did you build some castles before I was born.”

“Not that I remember.”

“Think we’d better go look for them?” Charlie asked. “I’m getting pretty hungry,”

“Yeah, but put your shoes on,” Greg said. “I think you can get splinters up there.

They left their socks hidden under the overturned bucket and climbed the steps.

“Let’s try that place.” Charlie nodded and they walked across the planks to the Atlantic Breeze. They hadn’t put two feet inside when a fat, bald man in an apron rushed over.

“What d’ya think you’re doing. No kids allowed in here. Especially no sandy-assed kids.” “We’re looking for our mother,” Greg said.

The man sighed, “Who isn’t? He turned back, letting the door slide shut. “What she look like?”

“Short frosted hair, Phillies tee shirt, real skinny.” This wasn’t the first time Greg had given a description of her.

“Drinks seven and sevens?”

Greg nodded. The guy opened the door and went back inside. Cool air, old smoke, and stale beer eased out.

Billie flew out a minute later. “Come on, boys. Let’s grab a dog. It’s lunchtime, right?” She was blinking fast, trying to get used to the ferocious August sunlight but pretty steady on her feet. “Where’s Denny?”

“You were both gone when we got back to the umbrella.” Charlie said without thinking. “And then some stupid kid said we had to rent it.”

Billie wheeled around. “I came up here to make a phone call.” She looked at the nearby booth. “And then that public one chewed up my dime.”

Excuses exhausted, she stepped up to the hotdog stand. The man dug three dogs off the grill and slathered them with yellow mustard.

“Oh, here’s your father now.” Billie grabbed half the napkins from the holder and patted her face.

The boys turned. Denny was marching down the boardwalk at a good clip.

“”Let’s go,” he said when they were in earshot. “Step lively now.”

“Back to the beach?” Charlie asked, mustard dripping from his chin. “I made a sand—”

“Never mind that,” Denny said, “What street was the car on again, Billie?”

“Juniper,” Billie said, stuffing the rest of her hotdog in her mouth. “Juniper at Ocean.”

“But our stuff’s still down there,” Greg started to tell them. “We don’t even have our socks.”

“And you didn’t even go in the ocean, Dad,” Charlie added. “We gotta a surprise for you too. We built a sand castle with a sparkling diamond on top.”

“Stuff’s just junk,” Denny said, pushing them toward the steps. “Who needs that kinda crap in the city? Socks probably have holes the size of Texas in ‘em. Leave ‘em go out with the tide.”

When they arrived at the car, Juniper Street was half-submerged in water.

“High tide,” Billie said under her breath. She sloshed through it and the boys followed. Only Denny seemed flummoxed by the situation. He stopped, removed his loafers, paused a second, looked around nervously, and then wadded through the water too.

“Be careful of the brakes,” Billie said. “They could be spongy.”

He pumped the brakes a few times experimentally and then put the car into drive and eased out. The Olds, tank that it was, glided through the water and the boys hung out their window, listening to the engine’s groan.

“The Olds is like Dad. It doesn’t like water either,” Charlie giggled. “Hey, there’s a man waving at us from the boardwalk. We must have forgotten something.”

Denny threw his arm out the window and gave him the finger.

“Ha, ha,” Denny said, once they rounded the corner.

“Big man,” Billie said. “Did you have to pull a stunt today? This was supposed to be our day at the beach. Our perfect day.” She was sitting in the front seat, applying a new coat of lipstick. “You never even put a toe in the water.”

“I didn’t notice you frolicking in the ocean either. The only liquid you enjoyed was in a glass. See anything funny going on behind us?” Denny’s eyes were on the rearview mirror. All three turned around. “Don’t be so obvious about it,” he hissed. “Just take a quick peek.”

“The guy in the Buick behind us has a little kid next to him,” Greg said.

“Good deal.”

“And behind them there’s a Coca Cola truck.” Billie added.

“Okay then,” Denny said, slowing down. “Who’s up for a seafood dinner?”

* * *

The restaurant sat on the pier. A row of men fished along each side. “What are they catching?” Charlie asked. “Can we try it?”

“Maybe flounder,” Dennis said, pausing to watch. “Too shallow here for blue fish. We don’t have any gear, boys.”

He put an arm around both of their shoulders and directed them toward the door. Billie was already inside, looking out of place in her tee shirt and skinny legs. Most of the people were dressed in regular clothes. The hostess took them to a booth in the back and handed them four huge menus.

“Just here for lunch,” Denny said, handing it back.

“Lunch’s on the back,” she told him, flicking some dry sand off the tablecloth.

“Right.” Dennis flipped it over, scanned the offerings and let out a whistle.

“If you’re not the cheapest man in the world,” Billie said. “He wasn’t always like this,” she said to the boys. “He used to be a big spender.”

“Mr. Roper,” Charlie said suddenly. They all looked at him. “Mr. Roper is the cheapest man in the world.”

“Who the fuck is Mr. Roper?” Denny finally asked. “Is he that guy on TV in the cardigan? What a twerp!”

“No that’s Mr. Rogers,” Greg said.

“I bet he’s that guy down the block who mows his lawn in a sports coat,” Billie guessed.

“He’s talking about Three’s Company,” Greg told them. “You know.”

“When did you start watching that?” Billie asked. “I don’t think that’s much of a kid’s show,” she added, looking accusingly at Greg.

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Denny said. “You can’t compare me to a person on the box. Things are a little tight lately. You know. With inflation and other stuff. You’ll understand it better when you’re grown up.”

“And don’t forget your recent gambling losses,” Billie reminded him, turning her menu back to the dinner entrees. “Well, I’m having lobster” She put the menu down. “Who comes to the Shore and eats a grilled cheese sandwich?”

“I’m not saying you have to order a grilled cheese sandwich, but the menu doesn’t even list a price for lobster,” Denny moaned. “That means they can look us over and name any price they want.”

“Then it ought to be a pretty cheap lunch.What do you boys want?”

Both wanted a clam roll. “First bring us our drinks” Billie told the waitress. “I’ll have a seven and seven and my husband wants a Bud. Give the boys a Coke.”

“I think I saw someone I know going downstairs to the men’s room,” Denny said when the waitress left. “Let me just run down and say hello.”

“Oh, Key-rist,” Billie said, “can’t you let it rest?”

“Easy for you to say. I don’t notice you bringing home a paycheck to help out. The best you can do is drink mine away.”

“Oh, just forget it. Go do whatever it is you’re gonna do. Two months out and you’re dying to go back.”

Billie lit a Salem and blew a stream of smoke at her husband. It was hard to believe a ninety-pound woman could extract so much smoke from a cigarette. It billowed around their table like the special effects at a magic show.

“I’m not running out of here like a fool cause you can’t pull off a good grift anymore,” she finally added, looking him up and down. “When I met you, women used to fall down at your feet.” She exhaled another stream of smoke without having inhaled one. “Now…” she shook her head. “That why you’re going after the old guys?”

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” he hissed, smoothing down his shirt. “Boys, I’ll be right back.”

He didn’t come back till his fish plate was ice cold and Billie was working on third drink. On the ride home, nobody said a word for fifteen miles. Finally, Billie switched on the radio. An Elvis Presley song was playing.

“Did anyone notice that blue Torino following us before now,” Denny asked. All of them agreed after a now-practiced glance that they hadn’t noticed a blue Torino before but they did see one now.

Dennis watched it another minute or two. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m gonna pull off the Parkway at the next exit. I saw a Kmart there on the way down. Now I’m gonna pull in, park a way back from the store, and then turn off the car and head for the main door.” He paused again. “Everyone with me still?” They all nodded. “As soon as I go through the door, start watching for the blue Torino. If a guy gets out of the Torino, a big burly guy probably, you take off as soon as he’s inside the store.”

He looked at Billie. “Remember how to drive?”

“Of course, I remember how to drive.”

“Right. Anyway, I only need you to drive across the road to the rest stop. All of you go inside but leave the door unlocked. Park it on the far side where the car isn’t noticeable from here. I’ll make a beeline out as soon as it seems fitting and hop in the backseat.”

“What if we don’t see the blue Torino?” Billie asked.

“Then someone come in and get me. But be sure he didn’t sneak in. These guys can be crafty.”

“But not as crafty as you. Right, Dad?” Charlie said.

“It sounds like a crackpot scheme.” Billie rolled down her window. “Why are they playing Presley again? Is it his birthday?”

“Forget fucking Presley.”

“Just what did you do in that restaurant in Atlantic City?” Billie asked, her voice flat.

“Look, it’s got nothing to do with A.C.!” Dennis said. “Just stop asking questions cause we’re about to arrive.” He cruised off the exit ramp at the posted speed, slid past the rest stop and into the Kmart lot and stopped.

“Perfect,” Denny said, easing out of the car. They watched as he tried to move as nonchalantly as possible across the parking lot.

No blue Torino showed up.

“Think we waited long enough,” Greg asked after about ten minutes.

Billie opened an eye. “Go get your father.”

Greg found Dennis eating a piece of cherry pie in the cafeteria. “All clear?” he asked his mouth half full. Greg nodded, and his father rose and paid the bill.

When they got the car, Billie was sobbing. “Elvis is dead,” she bellowed. “That’s why they’ve been playing his songs.”

“I never knew you even liked Elvis,” Denny said, looking shocked. Billie hardly ever cried. “How did he die? Drugs?”

“He wouldn’t have been that fat if he did drugs.”

“The guy on the radio said he was on the hopper,” Charlie said.

“Anyway, no sign of the Torino, huh?” They drove home listening to a medley of Elvis songs, Billie crying softly in the rear.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Denny finally said. “Turn off the waterworks.”

They got home at four. The blue Torino sat in front of their house. No one was in it. “Uh oh,” Denny said, turning the engine off.

“What now, Dad?” Charlie asked, hiding his eyes with his arm. “What’s the plan now?”

Patricia Abbott is the author of more than 80 stories that have appeared in literary and crime fiction venues. She is the co-editor with Steve Weddle of the ebook DISCOUNT NOIR. An ebook of her stories, MONKEY JUSTICE AND OTHER STORIES will be published by Snubnose Press. Forthcoming stories will appear in DEADLY TREATS, PULP INK, GRIMM TALES, PLOTS WITH GUNS and D*CKED. She won a Derringer for her story "My Hero."

Issue #13: July, 2011

2011-07-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

MUTINY ON THE PIMP WAGON
by Copper Smith

It wasn't exactly a dream job. After seventeen years in the navy it was kind a step down to become the 'first mate' for a hip-hop superstar named D-Boss on a 60 foot blinged-out mega yacht he called the Pimp Wagon. The gig paid well enough, but Goddamned if he didn't stress me into a stroke with all his crazy demands:

Late night skeet shooting from sideways slanted pistols. A steering wheel centered by twenty-four inch backward spinning rims. Twelve-foot speakers mounted on the stern that sent the vessel rattling like a giant egg timer.

Then there was the night he wanted entertainment but the stripper got seasick and spent the evening bent over the starboard rail.

"Yo, Navy Boy!" he called. I slumped inside the rec room, packed with bodies decked out in glittering chains and day glow blue. The air too thick to count the eyes aimed my way, D-Boss somewhere in the back behind those mirrored sunglasses and Cuban cigar.

He wanted some navy songs, whatever that meant.

"I'm sorry, Boss. I don't sing."

"What you mean, you don't sing?"

"I mean, I am here to steer the yacht. I am the captain. I am not the entertainment."

Then came the crumpled up dollars and jeers…

I chose Anchors Aweigh, all three verses, then slumped outside.

"My man talking about 'I don't about sing.' You remind a motherfucker who's in charge, and they sing," D-Boss bellowed just loud enough for me to catch on my way out.

With this move he had pushed himself into a whole new category of annoying. He was now more that just a pain in the ass. He had become a guy who'd better watch his back, what with those suitcases of cash he lugged around, impressing the strippers and drug dealers and hustlers known to set sail aboard the Pimp Wagon. He'd become a guy who might lose a suitcase or two if he wasn't careful. Or maybe even wind up with a bullet in his skull.

After a week or two of plotting, the plan seemed to make too much sense to shrug off as a hot-headed revenge fantasy. And the sidekicks I needed to pull it off were already in place – they just didn't know it yet.

* * *

I knew it wouldn't take much to nudge Brodey into my plans. A Townie from Natick, this pale, overworked 'domestic assistant' spent too much of the last four years cleaning up after weed-scented parties and drunken fistfights. Raised by parents who spent the seventies seething over what was happening to the neighborhood, Brodey's blood simmered at just the temperature needed to serve as an accomplice. He was a hate crime waiting to happen.

"God damned bling monkeys," he growled, slinking out of the bathroom with a mop. "Fuckers don't even aim for the toilet anymore."

I offered a smile that went unreturned, then tossed him a beer.

"Job can't be that bad. You've stuck it out for four years," I said.

"Four years of looking for something else and finding bupkis. I guess the missus just picked the wrong time to have twins."

"Brodey, my friend I get the feeling your luck is about change. According to my crystal ball there's a very good chance you're going to stumble into big money this weekend."

He lifted an eyebrow and leaned in. "Yeah?"

"You know what's happening Saturday night, right?"

"Weed supplier making a visit," he sighed. "That means strippers, messy sheets, loud fights."

"It also means suitcases full of cash."

His already guilty eyes darted across the hull.

"It'd be a shame if something happened to one or two of those suitcases. Wouldn't it?" I offered.

He smiled, lifting that angry red mask he was seemingly born with. He didn't say it and I didn't have to ask. But I now knew I had a teammate in this plan.

* * *

Things with Ruthie were a little more complicated. At least a decade too old for this shit, she cooked for D-Boss and played forgiving grandma to her demanding employer without once letting that winning smile slip away. Nothing wrong with the boy that a trip behind the woodshed with a switch couldn’t cure as far as she was concerned.

I always wondered what kind of rage bubbled under that matronly grin. But there were questions you didn't ask Ruthie because there were answers you didn't want to hear. There was an icicle dangling from that genteel drawl that told me she didn't spend her early years getting dressed up for debutant balls.

And here she was in her sixties, serving D-Boss on bended knee like a medieval serving wench. We were sailing through the Mediterranean, just past The Greek Isles, but maybe she hadn't traveled that far from Birmingham Alabama of the fifties after all.

"Rough day, Ruthie?" I greeted her as she hobbled to a seat on the port deck.

"Chile', they all rough at my age. But you ain't gon' hear me sing the blues."

I was at the wheel. Her gaze stayed locked on the horizon and the breathtaking landscape that floated past us at a glacial pace. It was stunning enough to make her forget where she was. Until the next meal's demands would drag her back in.

"Tonight looks like it'll be even rougher," I announced.

"Yeah, we gonna get company tonight," she said. She was humming to herself now.

"Our boss better be careful with those suitcases," I said, offering the bait. "It'd be a shame if something happened to one of them. Or maybe both of them."

Nothing. Not a sound, not a nodded head, not a single unspoken desire bobbing to the surface. Just more humming.

After dinner, she found her seat again, fanning herself and humming the same song as if to tell me that nothing had changed.

But then a familiar baritone whipped through the Mediterranean air:

"Yo, navy boy! We need some entertainment!"

An idea:

"Ruthie, can you go see what he wants? Tell him I'm kind of busy at the wheel."

Ruthie found her legs and shuffled into the rec room. She didn't like this order, but she did as she was told – a reflex, I guess.

I could hear everything from the deck, not that I needed a play-by-play to guess the outcome. Every word yanked a cringe from me: D-Boss's urging for some 'church music,' Ruthie's polite refusal. Then her surrender. Then her song:

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,

With the cross of Jesus going on before.

She released this in a siren-like wail that soared miles above the humiliation of the moment, aimed at a world well beyond the adolescent antics. She was free from the nonsense, immune to the nakedness the mock applause sought to create. Or was she?

The smile was still there but only to those not really paying attention.

I was paying attention.

I could see that she emerged from the rec room a different Ruthie. Not an angry one, exactly, not seething with a hunger for vengeance. Just exhausted, ready for a change no matter where it took her. She was determined, striding. Marching as to war.

* * *

The staff bathroom was cramped with three occupants: Brodey, Ruthie and me. We moved quickly and quietly, awaiting the next order and plotting the first strike.

"Step one, we wait till everybody's asleep," I said. "We check the rec room, the guest suites, the bathrooms, the deck."

Brodey nodded. Nothing from Ruthie, but in this case, nothing meant everything was cool.

"Step two…"

I reached into my bag, grabbed a pump action shotgun, showed it to Brodey. Placed a .45 in Ruthie's shaking hands, then pulled it from her uncertain grip.

"We do this right, we don't have to use these."

Brodey released a disappointed sigh.

"Step three, you follow my lead. I'll have the life boat ready for us seconds after we scoop up the cash. Then I'll make an anonymous call to the coastal authorities, tell them we've been hit by Somali pirates. By the time they arrive, we're gone, presumed to be dead."

A hush fell over us. Then came my question:

"Are we ready to do this?"

One head nodding, the other frozen.

Brodey was born ready for this. So my question was really for Ruthie. And her answer:

A half-hearted nod, her eyes tumbling to the floor, her lips locked tight, determined to keep every clue concealed.

For the moment that would just have to do.

* * *

As the sun crept over the rocky outline around us, I could feel it was time to strike. We'd been up all night, buzzed by the thought of our upcoming payday and unable to sleep anyway with all the shouting matches, vomiting and the bass pounding and pounding like The Gestapo on their way up the stairs.

After a nod to Ruthie and Brodey, I made the rounds.

Guest suite one: two sleeping bodies – a nude stripper stacked atop a fat rapper-wannabe from the Philippines named Quan Quan.

Guest suite two: four bodies, all sleeping, all naked.

Guest suite three: empty. Or maybe not. On second glance that stack of coats on the chair is really a matching set of twin strippers handcuffed together but somehow lost in slumber anyway under a blanket and sheet like this kind of thing happened all the goddamn time.

Deck: empty.

Bathrooms: empty.

Rec room: I found D-Boss with two suitcases, quickly confirmed to be full of hundred dollar bills. He had company – two strippers – but nobody was awake and nobody seemed in a hurry to get there soon.

With a wave to my teammates, everything sprang into motion. Brodey grabbed the cash as I scurried across the hull to get the lifeboat. Ruthie gave me the self-assured nod I was hoping for the night before, then drifted into place. It was all too easy. Until I heard the gun shot.

It came from the rec room – and not from Brodey's shotgun. I charged inside, tugged in by the loudest, angriest squeal ever made by a mammal. It might have been a good idea to have my gun drawn.

Because there was D-Boss, pistol raised and stylishly tilted.

"Wha's up, navy boy!"

Nothing to do here but raise my hands and hope he gets a clean shot to my head. No slow, agonizing death for me, thank you.

"Can you think of a reason why I shouldn't pop a cap in yo' ass?"

Nothing came to mind. And damned if I wasn't searching.

But it wasn't a real question anyway. It was banter. It was pre-gunfire tough talk from a guy who'd seen too many Hollywood movies where nobody just shoots anybody. They need a catch phrase first, or a joke, or a bible verse.

My eyes scrambled around, aching for a way out, anything. On my left was Brodey, close to death and praying to get there soon. On my right, the strippers. One somehow still asleep, the other high, and only slightly kicked off balance by what was unfolding.

"Navy boy, you better tell me something quick if you don't want to wind up with some lead in yo' ass."

"What can I tell you D-Boss, we fucked up. I'm sorry."

Not good enough.

"Get yo' ass down. On yo' knees!"

I complied and prayed for no more tough talk. I wanted this over quickly.

And I didn't expect that clack out of nowhere. Neither did D-Boss.

The smack to his head with Brodey's shotgun came from Ruthie, sending D-Boss to the floor, his gun to the bed in front of the strippers.

I spun, shot the stripper before she could find the gat's handle. Turned and shot D-Boss before he could club me from behind.

Then I dragged a stunned Ruthie out of the room. It was time to move.

The boat shook with the kind of bustle you'd expect with this gunfire erupting.

With the suitcases at our feet and the lifeboat yards away it all seemed so simple. So what happened next didn't even begin to make sense.

"Uh-uh, I'm not gettin' in that thing!"

"Ruthie, that was the plan! Come on!"

The lifeboat was tiny, the sea huge and scary. But this was ridiculous.

There was no time to argue. I grabbed the suitcases, sprinted to the lifeboat. To hell with Ruthie.

I almost made it to the rail before I heard a shot. Brodey's shotgun.

It was a good shot for a beginner, damn near perfect. It sent my left arm spinning across the deck and knocked me face down, ass up, finished.

In the distance I could see a ship, not a friendly one. Bad news. They were Somali pirates closing in on the Pimp Wagon, probably already tallying up the booty.

With the air easing out of me and my brain fluttering off to nowhere, I turned with everything I had left and caught a glimpse of Ruthie's mercenary glare as she gave the shotgun a defiant pump. One final thought snapped into my head:

Those Somali pirates don't have a prayer.

Copper Smith is a pseudonym for a Minneapolis writer who's currently working on an erotic thriller called 'Catch a Scoundrel by the Tail.' You can follow him on something the kids call "The Twitter" @UppercutAvenue

Issue #12: June, 2011

2011-06-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

SEVERANCE
by Jim Wilsky

Friday afternoons at Speery Lance Investments corporate headquarters were typically very slow and this one was no different. By four-thirty that afternoon, the parking lot had only a few scattered cars left and the building was almost empty. The last few diligent workers were finally heading out.

Peeking from the restroom door opposite the elevators, Abbott watched the uniformed guard get up from his desk in the middle of the lobby and walk slowly to the back wall of windows. The view was gorgeous from there, overlooking a large terraced patio and two acres of manicured grounds. He could see that the old man was lost in thought. The guard just stood there staring out at nothing, hands on his hips.

Henry Duggart was one of the few employees at Speery that Abbott had ever really respected. The old man was a loyal worker who had worked for the company for almost thirty years and he was a solid family man who never complained. He was probably thinking about having dodged the inevitable for another week. Abbott knew the man had to be aware that the cutbacks and downsizing were going to get him sooner or later.

“Henry?”

Startled, the old guard turned to Abbott’s voice which was right behind him now.

“Henry, look, I don’t want to do this but I don’t have any choice. Believe me, this isn’t about you. Not about you at all.” As Chris Abbott was talking, he shrugged off his overcoat and let it drop to the floor. The guard looked at the coat and frowned, his gaze drifting slowly back up to Abbott’s eyes.

“Mr. Abbott? What, but, what’re you doing here? Whatcha’ got there?” Henry asked him and pointed at the long skinny Fed Ex box Abbott was holding.

Abbott smiled at him.

“Mr. Abbott?”

The former Speery exec still said nothing but took the box and set in on the floor, standing it straight up. He took tape off the end, reached in and pulled out a long sword. It reflected the lobby lights off its gleaming blade. It was slightly curved, with a gold and white handle. There were ornate designs at the hilt and on the hand guard, with a braided blue and crimson tassel.

“It’s fuckin’ beautiful isn’t it? It’s called a Mameluke. Marine Officers saber, passed down to me from my Grandfather.” Abbott gazed along its shining length and then smiled over at Henry. Abbott’s eyes were burning way too bright, like two little suns.

Henry tore his look away from those terrible eyes and stared at the sword.

“Mr. Abbott, you don’t want to be doin’ this. Whatever it is you’re up to. Y’all put that away and just go on now. Ain’t no need for this, jist head to the house.” The old man’s voice was a whisper and Abbott felt sorry for him. He was just trying to do his job and keep this from getting any more out of hand than it already was.

With his free hand, Abbott pulled out the Beretta from a shoulder holster under his left arm. The barrel of the gun was extended by an expensive suppressor, an added accessory that he had bought only a week ago.

“Not much time for chit chat Henry. I’m sorry, I really am, but I gotta’ go.”

Henry’s eyes opened wide and he stepped back slowly. Still smiling pleasantly, Abbott raised the pistol to the security guards waist.

“I saw his Jag in the lot but just to be sure, he’s still up there right? The hard working CEO, waiting until everybody else is gone to make it look good.” Abbott’s voice had a quivery sound to it. Excited and terrified at the same time. Even he noticed it. It was almost like he was teetering on the edge of a very deep drop. That couldn’t be though, his mind’s voice told him. Hell, I already fell off that ledge.

Abbott giggled at the thought and then he laughed out loud. It came out as a short bark.

He’d been told two months ago that the company had decided to go in another direction. ‘The next level’, ‘a new focus’, ‘changing course’ and all the other empty corporate fucking phrases had spewed so naturally out of Bettencourt’s chubby little pink mouth. Well today was game point, set and match.

“HENRY! Goddammit man, pay attention, I asked you a question!” Abbott was grinning even more now, showing perfect teeth.

The bank of elevators dinged twice and two different doors opened.

The five people walking out of the elevators filed out, not looking back to where Henry and Abbott were. They were only looking ahead, out the front doors, and two days of freedom.

Both men watched this small group of employees head out the front lobby doors.

“Now look here Mr. Abbott, Missus Bettencourt came and picked up her husband. They was headed out to do somethin’. Spur of the moment. ‘Bout an hour ago. That’s why his car is still out there.” The guard’s eyes stayed on the sword.

“Henry, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I really do. Now I need you to walk into the men’s room over there. Quickly. Do it right now. Just gonna’ tape you up, I promise that’s all. Gotta’ keep you quiet for a bit.”

“I can’t do that. Put the gun down Mr. Abbott. You ain’t no killer.” As he had been speaking, the man was reaching slowly for the safety snap on the .45 automatic on his hip. A gun that had never been drawn, let alone fired.

“Well Henry.…as it turns out I think I am.”

Just as the guard managed to unsnap the holster, Abbott squeezed off two quick shots which sounded like loud coughs. The old man fell sideways, hitting a chair and then glancing off a low coffee table on his way down to the floor. He was holding his stomach tightly but he’d also been hit farther up the chest, near the heart. There was a lot of blood on the marble floor already.

Abbott looked down at him for a moment longer. The guard’s eyes were staring up at the ceiling and he saw him blink once, then once again more slowly. His bloody hands were now sliding away from his stomach wound.

The sudden buzzing of the lobby desk phone jerked Abbott’s attention away from watching the dying man.

He trotted quickly over to the elevators and pushed the up button.

The phone at the guard’s desk stopped, and then started again.

Abbott watched intently as the digital numbers above the mirrored doors of the middle elevator kept coming down.

He was sweating heavily now and it was stinging his eyes. He swiped at his face with a sleeve and held the sword pointing down, snug against his right leg.

The elevator dinged.

Swishing doors opened and there stood Hugh Davidson, a senior accounting manager. A mid level fucker and always would be, but he was also a terrific brownnoser if there ever was one. Davidson was laughing about something with Marcy Gotts, the little queen bitch from Human Relations.

They both looked at him for only a moment with frozen smiles, then jaws dropped and mouths slowly opened as they recognized him. Davidson saw the long barreled gun first and he actually pointed at it like the idiot he was.

Abbott put a foot forward and blocked the elevator door.

Davidson blubbered something unintelligible and frantically pushed the button to shut the door anyway. It bumped Abbott’s foot and opened again.

“Hey gang, TGIF!” His voice was loud and unhinged. He smiled at them and they both stepped back to the far wall of the elevator.

“Mr. Abbott, I don’t know what you think your doing but you need to leave the premises immediately.” Marcy Gotts stuck her chin out and up, evidently deciding this had to be handled firmly. It was HR 101; take control of the situation, simple as that.

“Is that right MARCY?” His voice was just under a shout. The gun swung her way.

“Abbott, please, look, just…” Davidson held a hand up as he finally found his voice. The accounting manager gave Gotts a quick look that said please shut the fuck up Marcy and then glanced back to Abbott.

There was a long silence as they both stared at Abbott. She was just starting to say something again when Abbott decided he had heard enough out of Marcy fucking Gotts. The Beretta reported with that same loud popping sound. The bullet went almost perfectly through her left eye, blew straight out the back of her head and made a clean hole in the elevator wall.

Amazingly her body stayed upright for a second, as if she’d been somehow nailed to the wall. Abbott thought she looked like some sort of one eyed zombie right out of a movie, complete with blood streaming down her cheek and a gaping mouth. Finally though, the purse she’d been holding plopped down at her feet. Slowly the body sagged and slid downward, ending up in an almost perfect squatting position, with her head lowered between her knees.

A dark wet stain had spread quickly down Davidson’s pant leg. Apparently the accountant couldn’t bear to look at Abbott, so he stared at the floor and squatted down too. His hands were held out in front of him.

The elevator to Abbott’s left dinged and he quickly stepped in with Davidson, pushing the seven button once and then again. Just before the doors slid shut, he caught a confused sideways glance and double take from Kevin Portman as he walked by.

Portman, from Sales and Marketing wasn’t quite sure what he’d just glimpsed in the elevator, but whatever it was, it hadn’t looked good. He kept walking towards the front doors, although his walk was a little quicker. He fumbled for his phone and then dropped it twice while trying to dial.

On the way up, Abbott stepped around the crouched body of Gotts, put the long barrel directly on top of Davidson’s shaking head and shot straight down. As he passed the fourth floor, Davidson’s body was still jerking as he put another round in the accountant’s right ear.

He slapped a fresh clip in so he’d be good to go if he needed it. Holstering the Beretta, he looked at his watch. It was 4:51 and he still had plenty of time. Bettencourt never left until at least five thirty on a Friday.

Holding the sword at the ready now, he didn’t even notice that the entire floor of the elevator was a shallow pond of blood.

***

Richard Bettencourt loosened his tie and stared at the ceiling of the boardroom.

“Is that it then boys and girls? Are we done here?” He was having a conference call with the west coast division managers on speaker phone.

The phone on the table beeped and Bettencourt looked at Meghan’s light blinking.

He put her into the conference call purposely, just to make her a little more uncomfortable.

“I said no interruptions but I suppose we’re about done here Meghan, what is it?” His tone was pissy and curt.

“I need you in your office immediately Mr. Bettencourt. It’s a personal matter, can you switch to line three please?” Her voice had a little quiver to it.

After making it clear that no, he would not fucking switch to line three, he told her to meet him in his office. Bettencourt signed off with everyone on the conference call. He stood up stiffly and straightened his pants, brushing them off and fussing with the creases. He wondered just what the hell this could be about.

Meghan never spoke in that matter, so he had known immediately that it was probably something serious. Could be business, but it could be his bitch of a wife, his wild ass daughter or the new little slut he’d been seeing lately. It might be any of those, or all of them combined.

He stalked over to the door that connected the boardroom to his private office and opened it up with a rush. Jeannie stood there waiting, nervously clicking her pen.

Her eyes were like saucers and he noticed she was almost looking over his shoulder, not directly at him.

“What the hell is so important Meghan?”

“I’m very sorry about this Mr. Bettencourt. I just, well….” she looked sideways and down. Her hand went to her forehead.

“WHAT, what is it goddammit?” he almost yelled the question.

“Someone needs to talk to you right now.”

“So, are we playing twenty fucking questions here or are you going to tell me who?

“A woman named Taylor called for you, Ms. Taylor Breen. She said you had her number and to call her right away, right now, or she was going to do it. No more threats she said, this time she’s promising she’ll do it.”

He looked at his watch.

“It’s almost five Meghan, why don’t you go on home. I’ll make the call and see what this all about.” His voice and tone had suddenly changed and he was almost pleasant about it.

He ushered her out of his office, shut the door and sat down slowly in his chair. He really needed time to think this thing out. That stupid little slut, just who the fuck did she think she was?

A moment later he heard Meghan scream. It was a shrill and awful warble that seemed to go on and on. Then there was nothing. Bettencourt stood shakily and spread both hands on the desk for support. He had no intention of going to out there of course, Meghan or no Meghan. Something fell and shattered out in the foyer and he stared at the closed door. There was another scream but this one had no force to it and it ended abruptly.

Ten seconds of stone silence ticked by, then there was three quiet knocks on Bettencourt’s door.

“Taylor?” his legs failed him just then and he sat back down hard.

“TAYLOR?”

The door opened and Abbott stuck his head in.

“Ohhh no, it’s much worse than that, it’s me! Is this a bad time RICKY?”

Bettencourt noticed a thin spray of blood that was misted across Abbott’s forehead, nose and cheek. There was a red glob on his chin too, almost ready to drop off.

Frozen in body and mind, Bettencourt had no words.

“Good, won’t take a second.” Abbott stepped in grinning, almost cordial. He held the dripping sword casually and walked to the big desk. There was a good amount of blood on his shirt as well.

“I only have one quick item on the agenda today—Severance Packages.” He cocked his head then and rolled his eyes upward. “Sirens, Ricky. Hear ‘em? Still a long ways off though. Never make it in time.”

Bettencourt cleared his throat but couldn’t manage to say anything.

“Anyway, I’ll be brief. This not my cheap-ass severance package, or even severance packages in general we’re talking about. No, I want to specifically detail your severance.”

“Now then. Chris. I – now, hold…just a moment here.” Bettencourt choked out this meaningless bluster, raising his left hand as a traffic cop might.

“Just a moment here,” Abbott giggled. “Oh man, Ricky, that’s so perfect, so you.”

The horizontal swing was textbook, swift and perfectly delivered. At first, Bettencourt just stared at his left hand without any real comprehension. It had flopped awkwardly over to the very corner of his desk. It fascinated him for a second and he didn’t really comprehend what had just happened until he looked at the resulting stump at his wrist. It was pumping blood like a garden hose. His high scream easily eclipsed Meghan’s.

After that it got very sloppy. Abbott missed several times. He had to chase, stab and slash quite a bit more than he wanted to. All the while, Bettencourt was crying, pleading and slip sliding around on his own blood. Finally though, the job was done. It was a good thing, too, because Abbott could hear them getting closer and closer.

The first SWAT guys that came in ready to rock and roll, found Abbott with his hands up in the air, sitting at one end of the large conference table. The sword, slathered in red, and the gun lay on the other end. In the middle of the table was a centerpiece that was somehow balanced upright but leaning precariously to the right.

Its mouth was forever puckered in an o shape and the eyes were almost comically frozen wide in shock. It was a little nicked up a bit to be sure. The right ear was missing as was most of the nose, but Abbott was so pleased that it hadn’t flopped over yet. That would’ve ruined the entire effect. Hopefully the forensic guys would get a good shot of it.

Jim Wilsky is a central Illinois native with a lifelong passion for writing and storytelling. He has written short stories of crime, suspense, mystery, westerns, and historical fiction. His work has appeared in A Twist of Noir, Beat to a Pulp, Yellow Mama, Pulp Metal, Plots With Guns, Shotgun Honey, Flash Fiction Offensive, Darkest Before The Dawn, Powder Burn Flash,The Medulla Review, Mystercial-E, Hardluck Stories and others, including several print anthologies. He is supported and strengthened by a wonderful wife and two beautiful daughters. You can find him hanging around here http://word-counts.blogspot.com/.

Issue #11: May, 2011

2011-05-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

THE CACKER
by Barrie Darke

He didn’t want to go ahead with it at first, Rick. Wasn’t all that keen, which is fair enough, it must’ve been a strange thing, hearing it for the first time. I could see on his face, halfway through, he wasn’t sure. He got this unusual expression on it, and it took a while to think what it reminded me of. It was like an old woman hearing her granddaughter swear for the first time, with her daughter saying nothing about it. I wasn’t worried though.

We were in his flat. I’d gone round specially – I didn’t think it was appropriate for talking about in the pub, since you run the risk of someone always listening in. The telly was on, some stupid quiz or other. I wanted to sit forward in the chair, turn it down, but that would’ve made it all too extreme, which wasn’t the way to handle him. Just give a basic introduction to the idea, trying to keep it a picture he could see in his mind, so he could see himself in there. I knew that was the best way.

After a while, even with that granny look on his face, I thought I could leave it. We carried on talking about other things, none of them important, then watched the telly in peace. I forget what was on. It wasn’t long before I said goodnight and was walking home. I was enjoying myself on that walk. It’s surprising how long the novelty lasted, walking home in the dark, when you’re not long out of HMP Durham.

***

I got the idea from this documentary that was on the week before. I personally think it’s important to watch documentaries now and again, not always quizzes and rubbish like that. I can’t remember much about this one now, to be honest, but I got something out of it, so what else matters?

It was about things in Shakespeare’s time. Don’t ask me the exact dates, since I won’t be able to tell you and it’s beside the point anyway. The important word to remember is ‘abtam’. I went so far as to get up and write it down.

‘Abtam’ means a person in the criminal world who does this thing where – Say you have two pickpocket type of thieves. Well, one of them has the job of throwing a fit like some kind of headtheball. Rolling on the ground, babbling gibberish, maybe even spraying spit, all those things people think of when you say total lunatic. While all this is going on, the other one’s also going berserk, except it’s in people’s fucking bags.

As soon as I saw it, I couldn’t wait to tell him.

***

Rick’s from Leeds, but don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying he’s not thoughtful about the right things. I knew he would’ve been thinking about it ever since I mentioned it, and the next time I saw him I was proved right.

This actually was in the pub, which I was quite uncomfortable about, but never mind. Sometimes he liked to take chances like that. We were in a corner, it was fairly quiet, and the jukebox was on, some poodle metal band, I forget which.

He said hello (‘Owahyuh?’), asked what was going on if anything, but all he really wanted to talk about was the idea. People, especially ones who’ve been in HMPs, don’t want you to know they’re enthusiastic about anything apart from football, drink, drugs and of course women. I was a bit like that myself.

‘So it’s about being a cacker, is that right?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ I said. Cacker was his word – maybe all of Yorkshire’s word – for someone so gone in the head they could shit their pants and not be ashamed. ‘Just for three minutes or so.’

‘Where’d you get the idea from?’

I nodded. ‘Read it somewhere.’

He looked confused. ‘What, in magazine or …?’

‘In a book,’ I said carefully, looking at him.

‘Fuck me pink,’ he said. He took a long drink. When he put his pint down again, he was swallowing and shaking his head. ‘There might be a problem wi that.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked. I frowned, but really, I thought I had everything covered.

‘Well, think about it. If you read it, somebuddy else might’ve read it an all. Just teks one of them in crowd and that’s that, we’re fucked.’

‘It was a pretty old book,’ I said, having to improvise a bit. ‘Very obscure sort of thing. I wouldn’t worry.’

‘But I do worry, Carl, I do. Since I’m sposed to end up on’t floor, I better ad worry. I tek it it’s me on’t floor?’

‘I reckon it should be yee,’ I said. ‘Yee’d be much better at it than Ah would.’

‘Ow’d you figure that then?’

I shrugged. ‘You’re a better liar than Ah am, aren’t y’? By fucking far.’

He couldn’t deny the power of that. ‘Well I might be, Carl, you’re probly right. But this in’t lying – it’s acting, is this.’

‘Same difference.’

Another drink, then, ‘Why dun’t we toss forrit, like?’

I shook my head. ‘Mate, it’s far too important to be left to chance.’

‘At least ave a practise then. See oo’s best.’

I shook my head again, more tightly this time. ‘Practising’s the worst thing y’ can dee, they reckon in this book. Y’ shouldn’t knaa what ya ganna dee. Just hit the deck and see what happens. The, the adrenalin of the moment, that’s what counts. It’s like a footballer in the box, or chatting up a lass. Instinct is what gets y’ the best results. And you’re better at aal that than me.’ Which was true, except I hadn’t had a clue I was going to say any of that.

It got him thinking anyway. His lips went thin, his eyes went faraway, and he tapped his feet without realising he was doing it. He put his head down and scratched the back of it. He laughed a bit. ‘You’ve thought about the where and the when, ave you?’

I nodded. I had. ‘Thursday neet,’ I said. ‘Late night shopping. Not too busy, not too quiet, everyone a bit tired and a bit slow.’

‘Where though? They don’t ave late night Thursday shopping all over’t place.’

‘I think they dee. Late night Thursday shopping is … it’s a universal thing.’

‘We’ll ave to check it,’ he said.

I nodded. That was just his natural born stubbornness. It was all right for me to sit back from it a little bit now – let him think he was taking control. We had a few more drinks, and he was quiet in a good way. Thoughtful. He drank quite slowly, he was so thoughtful.

‘Dun’t matter about other places wi late night shopping,’ he said after a while. ‘We shouldn’t go elsewhere, uz. Do it right fucking here, lad.’

I didn’t disagree. We went on to get pissed.

***

There’s a lot of things I remember about that next Thursday, and I’ll get to them in a minute, but the first thing was how pretty the street looked. I never used to notice much of that stuff, in fact I would go out of my way to ignore it since it does you fuck-all good when you find yourself banged up every eighteen months, but something about it struck me that night.

The light was on its way out of the sky by the time we got there, only different shades of dark blue left, like deep and cold lakes, and the streetlights were just coming on. You know how they glow weak red, orange, for a bit. There was that, but the main thing was the shop fronts, the big windows and displays. All the light they were putting out was … phenomenal. I’d never even seen it like that before, never mind ignored it. Big golden swoops of it on the pavement, the shadows on either side. It was like Christmas, it was like a hundred years ago, it made you think of the brave little things people could do. It could make you a bit weepy, all that, if you looked at it long enough, so I didn’t. I didn’t mention it to Rick, either.

***

We came on the bus, since neither of us could drive, or had cars. Rick was due to get on a couple of stops after me. I never thought for a second that he wouldn’t get on, that he would leave me looking like a dicksplash, but his face wasn’t overflowing with happiness. Part of me expected him to say he wasn’t going to bother, so that was that.

‘Let w’ gan for a drink first. Y’ look like y’ could dee wi’ one,’ I said.

‘No, no, I’m reet, I’m reet.’

‘Y’ haven’t been practisin on the sly, have y’?’

‘I an’t, I an’t.’

As I’ve mentioned, he was a good liar, but there was something in that that made me totally believe him. His face was open like I’d never seen it before. It took years off him.

Neither of us felt much like talking, so we went the rest of the way with our faces shut. I looked out of the window, and it was the same thing as when I was a kid – the bus went past all these people, and I wondered if they would be heading for the same place as me later on, even though I knew the chances of that were stupid. It got so I tried to lock a face away in my memory, to see if I could see it later.

We got off, walked a little way, and came to the main shopping street. He might’ve noticed me looking at the lights, come to think of it, but he wasn’t going to say anything. I didn’t look at them for all that long anyway.

I put some distance between us, walked off to one side, and turned away from him. I made it look like I was on the mobile, though I did more ‘listening’ than ‘talking’, and tried not to stare into people’s faces.

It wasn’t a long wait before I heard him hit the ground. He must’ve thrown himself down with some fucking energy. People around me got a fright, flinched back, made small moaning noises. I had a long few seconds where it looked like no one was going to go over to him, and I thought, fucking great, this is what society’s come to. But then some did, and I could head over myself.

He was on his side, facing into the main part of the street, where he could see me, in theory anyway. Right in one of those pools of light, though whether that was deliberate or not, I couldn’t say. You should’ve seen him thrashing his legs about him – it was the full-on screaming ab-dabs. My first thought was that it must’ve been shocking on the joints, though that old adrenaline of the moment would have some say in that. He was kicking himself round a bit too much, I thought as well, he would end up going in a circle if he wasn’t careful, which would be funny more than anything else. His hands were clutched into his chest like a Tyrannosaur’s arms.

When I got close enough to see his eyes, that’s when I started to go drymouthed. My body tingled, I can’t explain it. They were like meteors, his eyes, they were flying through space, they’d never be back. He was making mumbling, bubbling sounds. That was bad enough, but then he started saying things. I hadn’t really expected that side of it. Someone, a middle-aged, heavy blonde woman, was going in to crouch down beside him, maybe touch him on the shoulder or something, but she soon stood up straight again when he started saying things.

‘Oh come on come on cannons and sharks in foul weather wi stars on Sunday say thanks a million it’s a crying match is this.’

Someone laughed nervously, a young woman by the sound of it. She was probably ashamed of herself for it, but no one was taking any notice of anyone else.

‘Shock time thrown off a mountain big day it’s a big day in rapid city there in’t no cooling off where there’s a substation Friday night pay night.’

He fell over on his back, keeping his feet drumming.

‘They’re in the night it’s the baby wasps the baby wasps you’ve got some of the outside inside stuff washes ashore the rush is on.’

One hand pointed up to the sky now.

‘Rolling forward the maps the top of the hour collecting in the food rove around the names drop down they fall off the roof take it out take it out heads and the fog see where it’s been where the spray hits forward march the chute and the tunnel what for the glass is out the door is here things that creepy crawl around find the juice the juice the juice.’

He slowed down after that, and got quieter, repeating the word ‘juice’ till you couldn’t hear it anymore. When his mouth stopped moving, so did his legs, and he pushed himself up so he was sitting still. He shook his head, like he was clearing it. Then he could look at everyone looking at him.

‘Ahh shit the bed, it an’t appened again, as it?’

‘Are y’ aal reet, mate?’ someone asked, a hard-looking bloke.

‘Bugger it.’

‘Do y’ need to get someone here?’ the middle-aged blonde asked. ‘Is there anyone at home?’

He stood up, shaking his head to say no this time. ‘Sorry everybuddy, sorry about that. It appens now and again, that, dun’t worry about it. I’m all right now, thank you very much.’

He walked off, limping a little, which I didn’t know if it was put on or not. He was scratching at the back of his head. People looked at each other, not sure about this. Some of them even looked at me. Then we all went away.

***

He was waiting for me at the bus stop, his jacket off. You’d be surprised how much of a difference things like that make. His eyes had calmed right down also.

‘That were fucking great,’ he said. ‘Ow’d we do?’

I just looked at him.

‘Oh you fucking fannypad,’ he said, and it didn’t recover from that.

***

We stopped working together, stopped going for a drink, stopped seeing each other. A nod if we passed on the street, that was the extent of it. It was entirely mutual. Soon, I heard anyway, he got himself a woman. Good luck to the both of them, that’s what I say.

Barrie Darke lives in the UK, where he has some track record as a scriptwriter, working for a few theatres and the BBC now and again. But he thinks prose is the main thing.

He has recently been published in the UK by Byker Books, New Writing North and Sentinel Literary Quarterly; and in the USA by Menda City Review, Nossa Morte, Demon Minds, Infinite Windows, Underground Voices, Big Pulp, Pseudopod, Inwood Indiana, Bastards and Whores, Onomatopoeia, Orion Headless, Xenith, Otoliths, Fiction365 and An Electric Tragedy.

He also teaches Creative Writing, when and wherever possible.

Issue #10: April, 2011

2011-04-01T00:46:00.000-07:00

HOODWINKED
by Nigel Bird

John Campion was always going to do well for himself. Everyone knew it.

Day he packed up and left for college we didn’t reckon on seeing him ever again, not if them tutors could get him to tell stories the way he did down at the tavern. Like he’d swallowed the blarney stone and digested the whole darned thing. Couldn’t burp without embellishing facts and when he puked he threw up a thesaurus.

“Truth be stranger than fiction,” he’d say before he started. The words “I ever tell you about…” always got us in a huddle.

Never had to pay for a beer his whole life far as I know.

***

Turned out we was wrong about never seeing him again.

It was Easter.

He showed up on the mountain without sending word to man nor beast. Carried the rucksack he left with and a bag of books to give to everyone. Signed the copies. JC’s very own novel.

Wasn’t alone neither. Had a woman with him. Film director. Wore her hair long and her smile wide, just as I like them.

Word got round about the movie they was planning to make. Based on that novel of his it was. Had the place buzzing like a saw. Biggest news in the hills since McGregor turned on his wife and kids and swallowed the barrels of his gun.

JC and Eve stayed for a couple of weeks. Chatted to just about everyone.

Eve was nice. Kind of lady you’d like to get into the sack. A little modern maybe, a head full of crazy notions, but it didn’t stop me or nobody else taking a crack at her.

We was all spraying the wrong tree anyhow. Only had eyes for the female variety, so JC said.

***

They came back six months later, heading up a party of caravans and trucks that carried an army of crew.

Had everything a man could want right there with them, down to the kitchens and the food.

Right off they set to auditioning folk.

My brother Paul got him a part. All he had to do was pretend to fill cars at the gas station. Could have trained a chimp to do that. Wasn’t even going to get to say nothing which was probably for the best.

Meant I had to stay home and look after the birds, set them flying for anyone who’d pay to watch.

First thing Paul did with his dough was to head on in to town. Came back with a brand new pair of jeans and a mobile phone. Looked mighty fine, I told him, but wouldn’t be no good to a hungry man.

Had a fancy camera in it.

Ask me a phone’s a phone. No need to go putting things together that don’t fit.

***

Lead actor was Johnny ‘Cupcake’ Owens.

Night he showed up, pretty much all of the females in the county got themselves hysterical.

Even old Mamma Creek left the house for a look – first time she’d left her porch since Jacob passed away the year before. He was got by the cancer. A seven year old girl managed to lift him from his bed when the tumour was through with him.

Almost as light as one of my birds he must have been.

Biggest I’ve got is Philly.

10 pounds is all she weighs. Sits on my glove like she weren’t nothing.

Finest monkey eating, ball sucking eagle in the country, that’s for sure.

***

I drove Marlene and the kids down to see ‘Cupcake’. She’d have broken my nose if I hadn’t. Queued for an hour to get his autograph and shit.

Hardly recognised him up there on the platform. Didn’t look anything like Commander Scott in that ‘Warzone’ movie. Like someone had taken his ass and shaved off a few inches here and there. Felt good knowing I could take him without breaking sweat.

That wife of his looked pissed off by it all.

Three months gone she was. Got the feeling she wasn’t going to like being out of the city, not one bit.

***

For the next couple of months you couldn’t move for bumping into one of them actors or key-grips or whoever.

Not that I was complaining.

Got so I was wearing them birds out. Flew the falcons three times a day. Almost killed them.

Kept the bank happy with all the trade we was doing.

Paul was having a ball. Couldn’t get enough of being under the lights.

Got so he didn’t take off the make-up after his shots. Wore it like a badge. He’d a been better off in a dress, you ask me, even with a beard longer than Santa’s. But it was nice to see him happy. Like he’d found something to be proud of.

***

Maybe his taste for the high-life was what did for him.

Even if it was, doesn’t make it right.

A few weeks before the end-of-filming, Paul came back like he’d won the Oscar for best pumper of gas.

Pulled out his phone and showed me.

Johnny Cupcake’s white ass shining like the moon. Nothing wrong with that. Except it was framed between the legs of one of the Creek twins.

Couldn’t be sure if it was Amy or Mary he was screwing from the angle, not that it mattered much either way. Certainly wasn’t Mrs Cupcake and she definitely wasn’t old enough for a knee-wobbler behind an oak tree with an older guy.

***

Plan made sense, pretty much.

Send the photo on to Johnny, make sure he knew it was real. Ask for a bag of cash to keep it from the press and give him the phone in return.

Didn’t want to be greedy, neither. Not so much to make him think too hard, not so little to leave us short.

$20 thousand we decided, a fart in a warehouse to a star like Cake.

Enough for us to set up a little concern of our own. A hunting and fishing shop to go alongside the ‘Birds Of Prey Experience’.

***

I dropped Paul off just down from the pond where they was to meet.

Pulled off nice and smooth and never looked back.

Cake might be rich, but he was also careful. Didn’t want no one getting wind of any of it.

Smoked near a half pack of tobacco waiting for that brother of mine to show.

Ruby closed the diner and came and sat for a while. Told me how she was going to change the menu soon as the film came out. Name the burgers after the stars. Was even thinking of changing the name of the establishment.

I said she should hold her horses. Wait till the film was really a film before she did any such thing. Besides, ‘Skin and Bone’ didn’t seem the right kind of handle for a place you go and eat, but what the fuck did I know?

We changed the subject and climbed into the back seat for a little hot-loving. Sure does know how to please a man does Rosy Ford.

After we was done, I drove her home and circled back.

Still no sign of Paul.

Got it into my head that he’d run off on me, him holding all the cards like he did.

Did my best to find the bastard. Fumed over it for days. Practically had a heart attack just thinking about it.

***

By the time they found him the film crew were long gone, leaving nothing behind but a couple of broken hearts and a whole load of dreams for folk to cling to.

Paul didn’t even look human after two weeks in the water. Only knew it was him on account of what was left of the tattoos he wore on his arms.

Something had been taking bites out of him. Nibbled away his privates. Had to bury him that way, like he weren’t even a man no more, just a sexless slab of fish-food.

How the hell was I going to let the scum away with that?

***

I followed the news of Johnny Cupcake for months. Weren’t difficult. What with him being a star and his wife giving birth to a baby girl and all. They were in every magazine on the stand.

Spent my time training the birds. Put them through their paces.

Spent most of my time working Philly. Getting her to do a few new tricks to keep her mind off losing her favourite owner.

When it was time, I packed everything I needed and headed over to California to get me some of that revenge I was owed.

***

Johnny, Betty and baby Oregon lived on a huge chunk of land, in a house bigger than my school.

Found myself a vantage point. Weren’t difficult on account of the land being in a valley. Trees on the slopes made hiding easy.

Philly was glad to get out the back of the van. I gave her a little fly when the sun went down then tethered her up for the night.

Me, I didn’t sleep much. Too many things rattling in my head. I’d tried to work a way to keep the bird safe, but I guessed that was something I had to leave in the hands of the gods.

Guess Betty hadn’t slept too well either. Her and Oregon were up at the crack of dawn and out on the lawn by mid-morning.

Cupcake wasn’t quite so eager. Didn’t see him till past noon. Idle sloth was still in his dressing gown. Way he looked I didn’t reckon there was even enough going on to get Mamma Creek excited.

I watched it all through my binoculars.

Soon as they set the baby in the pram, I took Philly from her stump.

Felt the strength of her claws on the back of my hand through the leather of the glove.

Gave her back a stroke, the feathers soft and smooth. Like I was saying goodbye.

She wasn’t going to budge an inch till I took off her hood, like she was royalty perched there on my arm.

I thought about it. Considered putting her back in the cage and heading home.

Didn’t though. Instead I pulled off the hood and threw her into the air.

She was straight up there feeling for currents, waiting to ride the air so’s she could save on her energy. A thing of beauty, she was, circling above me like she expected me to get out a chunk of meat and the lure.

When she ran out of patience, she headed out over the valley.

I watched her all the way.

That span of hers, bigger than a man, threw a shadow onto the ground like she was a bomber plane ready to drop.

Over the fence she went, right by the security hut and the man at the gate. I watched her shadow pass over the roof and saw her closing in.

By the time she swooped, there was nothing anyone could do.

She was going straight for the baby just like she’d been trained.

Cost me plenty replacing them plastic dolls we’d practiced on, but I didn’t mind.

Only thing I didn’t know was how good a grip she was going to get. Could take her real high with a good connect, might not even get her off the ground if her claws didn’t stick.

I held my breath as Philly closed in. Right between the parents she went and hit the target. Bull’s eye.

I could see them throwing their arms about and screaming, running about like headless chickens, but Philly was too high to notice.

Must have been a hundred feet in the air when the grip gave.

Oregon accelerated downwards like she was in a hurry to get back to her folks.

Philly took off with the blanket dangling like a flag, not that it was going to be much use to her out in the wilds.

I’d seen enough. Didn’t even wait for the kid to hit the ground.

Got behind the wheel and drove off with my eyes pointing straight ahead.

Sure, I didn’t feel good about what I’d done. No mother should have to grieve the way she was going to and no kid taken before their time. But there was nothing I could do. I needed paying back. My ma and pa and Paul needed paying back.

I guess after what happened we was just about even.

***

Ma only cries if she’s peeling onions. Didn’t so much as sniffle even when we discovered those McGregor kids all blown to pieces, but that night, when Paul appeared on the screen, I could feel her body sobbing like she was a car doing kangaroos.

Her hand looked like a glove of bones shaking at the end of her arm.

I tried to take hold.

She slapped me hard.

Didn’t hurt none, at least not on the outside, but it was enough to let me know that she was ashamed of herself.

***

All those days of filming and he was only in a couple of scenes.

Give him his due though. He served those customers like he’d been doing it all his life.

He stood tall. Like he might just walk out of the screen at any moment. Was worth all the dressing up and fancy talk we had to sit through before the movie.

Johnny Cupcake sat on the front row. Didn’t move a muscle the entire show. Not even when Paul stared right into the fucker’s eyes.

When the lights came up and we were waiting on the speeches, he passed a note over to one of them Creek twins. Reckon it were Mary, but couldn’t be sure.

Eve stood up on stage and called Johnny up.

The whole crowd stood and whooped and clapped like they was dying seals. Couldn’t blame them neither. Folk from the mountain don’t get out much, not like that.

He thanked everyone and said a few things about how we’d changed his life for ever. Then he winked down at someone near the front.

To see him, aged twenty years in only two, you had to wonder what had been going on in the man’s life. I confess I was glowing inside.

One thing for sure, he weren’t going to be getting any of those action parts no more.

Soon as it was over I got myself ready to leave.

Ma though, she weren’t having any. She was off down those steps waving her stick, making sure she got to him first.

Couldn’t remember the last time she’d moved so quick.

Mounted the stage like an athlete.

Straight over to him she went, pointing and shouting.

Might have been easier to understand if she’d been wearing her teeth.

She jabbed her arm out suddenly, real impolite.

Johnny Cupcake didn’t even flinch.

Took the pen she waved.

Signed everything she put in front of him.

Nigel Bird has given up just about everything since hitting 40, everything except his job, his family and his writing. You'll be able to see his work at A Beat To A Pulp. He'll also have work out in a holiday-themed anthology at Untreed Reads, at the Dark Valentine Christmas special, as number 667 at A Twist Of Noir and in MiCrow Magazine. 'He recently released a collection of stories called Dirty Old Town as an ebook. His Dancing With Myself series is scorching the earth. In 2011 he'll have a story in 'The Best British Crime Stories' anthology by Maxim Jakubowski and he's also hoping to finally nail that novel of his. He's very grateful to all those who've helped and supported him along the way (thanks).

Issue #9: March, 2011

2011-03-01T07:49:00.000-08:00

LET'S MAKE A DEAL
by Scotch Rutherford

The Glitz Bus ran twice a day, Anaheim to the Neon City. It was a four and a half hour trek, and at $69.95 round trip with comps included, it was a real steal. There was always a 60 minute window between the arrival of the junket dropping off, and the one picking up. Most of the clientele were elderly, and filed into the coach a half hour early, so it was always within ten minutes of the top of the hour that the west bound driver received the cash on delivery.

Leon Diggs watched as a non-descript elderly gentleman loaded the black rollaway bag into the side luggage compartment of the coach. The old man walked away as the driver snapped the luggage bay shut. As the driver entered the coach, he felt the cold steel hard pressed against the back of his head near the brainstem.

“Hit the release switch for the luggage bay, or you’ll be staring at your brains on that dash.”

The driver hit the switch, and Leon nodded to his partner Jesse; both were wearing trucker hats and sunglasses. Jesse grabbed the rollaway bag and checked it; black on the outside, green on the inside. He didn’t count it, but to him it looked like 40 grand. Leon kept the barrel on the driver, as he backed away.

“Don’t turn around.”

Then he and Jesse made their escape. But even after he knew they were gone, the driver didn’t reach for the phone, or call for help. He didn’t dial the PD or anyone else; he didn’t have to.

*

Leon sat comfortably in his Lazy Boy recliner in front of the TV watching Let’s Make a Deal, as he cleaned his father’s Navy issue Colt .45, nursing a cold Bud Lite. He watched Wayne Brady call on a platinum blonde in a devil costume.

“Now you’ve got $400 right now, or you can let it ride on what’s behind door number two.”

“I think I’ll take the 400 bucks, Wayne.”

“Stupid cunt”, Leon grunted.

His father had been a long time fan of the show since back when Monty Hall had the helm, and they’d never missed an episode. 5 out of 10 times people would take the money.

“Anyone with a pair of balls knows they’ve got a 50/50 chance, so it’s worth a shot”, his old man would say. Half the time they’d end up with a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax, the other half would win a new car, or a Carnival cruise.

“Let’s see what’s behind door number two”, Brady said.

“It’s a full size custom Airstream RV, complete with a 5 day 4 night stay at The Sunset by The Sea—south coast Florida’s premier luxury RV park”, rattled off the announcer to the blonde devil’s dismay.

“A Florida trailer park by the sea—that’s one way of finding oil”, Leon chuckled to himself.

“Baby, that’s where we need to live. It’s a decent place to raise a family”, Luanne said.

She was prego. Only eight weeks, but on her tiny frame it was already starting to show. It had happened the night he’d finally hit her button—three days later, she was late. Leon had been her first. They’d hit it off right away, when her step dad; Leon’s cousin Jesse had introduced them. At the time she was far from legal; but Leon had done the right thing, he’d put it in her ass all the way up to her 16th birthday.

“Rent’s due in three days. Teddy upped it to twelve hundred”, Luanne said.

Teddy Bixby had doubled the rent park-wide at the King’s Court Mobile Home Park. For most people it wasn’t worth it to pay through the nose for a park-owned trailer on a poorly maintained lot. People were packing up daily, and the park numbers were down to a single digit retention rate. This had weighed in heavy on Leon’s mind. Not to mention that his Chevy S10 pickup had been repossessed and he’d been stuck driving Luanne’s shit box Dodge Neon. Luanne was a sweet kid, but sometimes she didn’t know when to shut the fuck up.

“Shut up, will ya? I told you I got it covered. Fuckin’ inbreeder”, Leon said.

“Fuck you, you fucking piece of shit”, she snarled, slapping his wrist, almost knocking the .45 out of his hand.

Luanne had indiscreetly given her cousin a blowjob on his 18th birthday.

“I told you that wadd’nt even sex—I can’t believe you brought that up.”

It was time to go.

*

It felt good to get out of the house. Leon’s trailer didn’t have AC, and August in The Neon City was no joke. The Fresh Produce section at Albertson’s was a nice escape. His shopping cart glided smoothly between isles of fresh fruit, until it ran into the bottom of an expensive sole of Italian design.

“Leon, what’s crackin’ homes?”

Frets Findlay was a grifter and a knee-capper, who worked for the designer dope man himself, Max Castle. Leon made like he didn’t know, but he knew.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Tough guy, huh”, barked a foul breathed chicone with a clean shaven head, four inches from Leon’s face, as he knuckled onto the side of the shopping cart. He had cold dark eyes, like a shark’s, sporting jailhouse ink, and looked fresh out of Warm Springs.

“Chill Diablo, Leon’s just a little confused”, Findlay said, leaning in over the front of Leon’s shopping cart. You owe a certain associate of my employer some money. Does the name Ray Copperhead mean anything to you?”

“Copperhead’s dead”, Leon said.

“But your debt ain’t. It dies when you do, not him. Max handles all Ray’s action now—and don’t even start with that Max who stuff. And Leon, you can forget about those bullshit two points—it’s now 5 percent. You got five days before we come around looking for payment,” Findlay said, as he backed away from the cart.

“Maricon”, Diablo barked four inches from Leon’s ear, rattling his cart.

“That’s what being a gambling junkie will get you, before two broken knees”, his old man would say. Leon was glad his old man wouldn’t be around to see that.

*

Luanne figured winning the bingo tourney at the Holy Christ Church in Henderson was the best way out of their financial problems. At least, for the ones she knew about. Leon had other plans. Luanne was a devout member of the church congregation, and was a lot more comfortable committing sin in God’s house, rather than inside a casino, or out on the street. Leon was indifferent.

Luanne sat directly behind her lucky treasure trolls, amidst a sea of blue hairs, pounding her daubers to paper; sometimes three sheets a game, for nearly four hours, until she watched some tweaker beat her and the geezers for just under two grand. Leon had seen enough, and was already outside. He thought about Findlay, and how he’d gotten the name “Frets”; clocking roulette wheels, until the boys got wise. This was back in the 80’s, before it was all corporations—so he walked away with his record untouched, and a broken hand. Then Leon thought about all the other goldbrickers that ran a gambit on the so-called above board houses that shafted the everyday sucker, and how all those grifters had gaffed the slots and the table games and gotten away with it. There were more than a few that had dodged Gaming Control, and the Leviathan Black Book. But none of them, none of them had taken a shot at bingo.

“How ‘bout I just end your miserable life right now”, Leon said, jamming his father’s Korean War issue Colt .45 against the tweaker’s frail ribcage.

The guy was a three time loser, and more crooked than any cop in Clark County, so no mask was needed.

“Hand it over.”

“What the fuck man, I just won this fair and square.”

“Fuck it”, Leon said, as he cocked the hammer.

“Okay, okay—listen, I got the 411 on a serious fuckin’ score, man.”

“I’m listening”

“There’s this gambling junket out of Anaheim—”

The tweaker laid it all out. Leon lowered the .45 and listened.

“Now that’s a good fuckin’ tip on a score. C’mon man, let me keep half.”

“Fuck you. Hand it over, you junkie piece of shit”, Leon said pressing the barrel of the .45 against the tweaker’s sternum. Leon took the bankroll, and slipped it into his pocket, still holding the pistol firm. “Now hand over your stash.”

*

That night they ate dinner in silence. Luanne was still worried about the rent, and Leon was yet to share the news of his new found wealth. He waited until she was in the bedroom, with the door shut, and the light out, before he stepped outside, took out his cell and dialed up Luanne’s old man; his cousin Jesse. They arranged to meet at Terrible’s Town Bowling Alley and Casino off Boulder Highway.

“Forty grand—are you sure?”

“That’s the average. Sometime’s there’s more.”

“They’re running powder out of a fuckin’ junket—are you sure?”

Jesse watched Leon’s ball roll down the lane, almost veering off into the gutter, before righting itself.

“No, but that shit bag tweaker I rolled told me how it’s gonna go down. The way I see it, if a lone geezer puts a single rollaway bag in the luggage bay of the outgoing Junket, 50 minutes before it boards; then we move on it”, Leon said, nailing a strike.

“Well shit, it’s worth a case I guess. But right now, I need some of that high elevation you promised.”

“I got your lift ticket right here, cuz”, Leon said, slapping his pants pocket. “So where’s my snow bunny? I’m not tryin’ to hit the slopes without getting my cock sucked.”

“Hey, can I bowl a frame?” chirped an adorable teeny bopper in skin tight jeans, and what looked like a belly shirt spray painted over her perky breasts.

“See, what’d I tell you?” Hey cutie, where’s your friend?” Jesse asked.

“She got grounded”, the teeny bopper replied.

“Grounded?”

“Yeah, she still in high school”, she said talking in that homey slang, the way most white girls her age did.

“Oh, but you’re past that, right?” Leon asked, ogling her c-cup bust.

“Actually, I dropped out. And Jes,” she said, turning to him, “If it’s all the same to you, I kept her half, so I’m down to blow his horn, while you tailgate me”, she said, before her lips curled into a shit eating grin.

“Here that? Jesse said. “She’s down to play bumper cars.”

“In that case, we’ll flip to see who gets to rear-end her first.”

*

Jesse met Leon at The Eiffel Tower Experience, in front of The Paris hotel, half a block down from a place they called The Four Corners; where the Flamingo met the strip. Jesse pulled up in a Honda Prius he’d stole out of Long Term Parking at McCarran Airport.

“Put these on”, Jesse said, as they waited at the light, handing Leon a trucker hat, and a pair of wrap around shades.

The vast front lot at The Mandalay Bay hotel always had heavy traffic rushing in and out, especially mid-day, when congestion was high. Once they found The Glitz Bus junkets, Jesse pulled into a space with a great vantage point of both the glowing chrome shuttles, from behind tinted glass.

“Here we go”, Leon said, glancing at his watch “It’s ten past.”

They watched the elderly courier step out of the incoming junket, and walk the black rollaway bag up to the luggage bay of the outgoing shuttle.

“That’s our cue”, Leon said, re-tucking the .45 under his un-tucked tee shirt. Jesse pulled up close enough to make a quick escape, as Leon dashed out the passenger side to make his move on the driver. The junket driver snapped the luggage bay shut as Leon power walked in his direction. When he stepped back on the coach, Leon followed, jamming the .45 against the back of the driver’s head.

Jesse heard the loud snap of the luggage bay release, and quickly moved in to snatch up the rollaway bag. He checked it for cash, and gave Leon the nod.

“Easy money”, Jesse said, as Leon dove into the passenger side.

“This is a great tune”, Leon said, as Jesse peeled his trucker hat, and gunned the yellow light.

They both were surprised at how smoothly the whole thing had gotten off, as they tore out of the lot onto Vegas Blvd South, to the FM sounds of Molly Hatchet’s Flirtin’ With Disaster.

Jesse dropped Leon off at The Last Chance car lot at the crossroads, where Blue Diamond crossed the 15, then drove off to ditch the Prius. Leon picked out a pristine cream colored ’68 Continental. It was puff, and the dealer wanted 100 yards.

“Make it 95 hundred. All I’ve got is cash.”

Leon picked up Jesse a couple miles down the road, a few blocks from where he buried the Prius.

“68 Continental”, Jesse said, and remarked on the suicide door, before it slammed shut behind him, the way a car door should. “This thing rides smooth. You should have gotten a Caddy, though. They’ve got a better cruise.”

“Don’t start with me”, Leon said.

“What are you doin’?”

“Gotta make a call”, Leon said, pulling to the curb. “No cell phones.”

He pulled out a powder white business card from the bottom of his pants pocket, lifted the receiver, and punched in the numbers.

“Hello”

“It’s Leon.”

“Oh, hello Leon. You better not be calling about an extension.”

“Nah, I got the whole thing.”

“The whole five percent?”

“No. the whole thing. The principle and the interest.”

There was a pause on the other end.

“Oh yeah? How soon?”

“As soon as you want it.”

“You know The Key Club on the north side?”

“Yep.”

“Eight O’clock”

Leon and Jesse snorted some dust, and took a long ride through the desert to kill time. But no matter how smooth the cruise, or how high he got, Leon just couldn’t take the edge off. Not to mention he’d been backed up since the day before.

“You look like you’re wound pretty tight. You want me to go in with you?”

“Nah, I got it covered”, Leon said, pulling the .45 from his waistband, and dumping it in the glove box. “Just leave it running. I’ll be back in 20 minutes.”

*

He recognized the doorman when he walked in. “Diablo, right? I’m here to see Frets.”

“Turn around.”

Diablo patted him up and down, and Leon thought he spent a little too much time frisking his ass.

“Looks good to me”, Diablo said, tipping his head to the right. “In there.”

Leon walked past three topless dancers gyrating mindlessly to electronica; meeting Frets Findlay on the opposite side of the tri-corner stage. He sat coolly in a leather upholstered booth, with bling around his neck and ice on his fingers, sucking an oyster off a half shell.

“Leon, my man. Whatchu got for me?” he said with a smug grin. Bronze tanned with a high forehead, Findlay had the kind off off-white look that could’ve passed him off for anything, with beady black eyes that narrowed when he smiled. Leon figured him for Filipino.

“I’m impressed Leon’, Findlay said, counting the kale, as Leon laid the scratch on the table. “Looks like it’s all here”, he said, digging back into his plate of half shells, without looking up.

Leon held out his hand. Findlay raised an eyebrow when he glanced up at it.

“So this is it—I’m square, right?”

“You certainly are”, Findlay said with a snicker, and shook Leon’s hand. “Come back any time. Your credit’s always good here”, Findlay said, as Leon headed for the door.

*

Paying Findlay off should have been a relief, but Jesse could see Leon was still backed up like the Hoover Dam, as he slumped into the passenger side.

“I know what you need”, Jesse said, as he pulled away from the curb.

That night Jesse hired the same teeny bopper he and Leon had double tapped the night before, but this time she brought a friend. They hit the Motel 6 by the airport, and set up pretty maids in a row, snorting line after line until they ran out of coke; passing the teen pros back and forth between them.

*

It wasn’t until the next morning that Leon realized he’d started to come down. His eyes were heavy, and the fatigue from being up two nights running had set in, as he stumbled from the car back to his trailer on lot 142. As he struggled with the lock, he realized his appetite was back, and he was ready to move his bowels. He tossed the rollaway bag with what was left of his half of the 40 grand in the stand up closet by the door, and headed for the porcelain throne.

No sooner had he gotten his pants around his ankles and pressed his ass to the seat, the bathroom door was flung open.

“You were out all night.”

“Yeah.”

Here we go, Leon thought. Since she’d been pregnant, Luanne practically never left the house, and never dressed past a pair of panties under one of Leon’s undershirts. Her eyes kept a serious pitch, but her mouth curled into a disarming grin.

“You won a jackpot didn’t you?”

Leon was tongue tied.

“I knew it. You gonna drive us to Florida in your new car with all that cash you got in the closet, aren’t you?”

“That’s the plan. And who knows, maybe we’ll make it official—maybe I’ll start screwing you straight”.

To that tune Luanne peeled Leon’s undershirt, letting her perky D-cups breath, before she got down on her knees, taking Leon’s length into her mouth. Soon after that Leon felt the ultimate release. As soon as he felt regular—he went, and at the same time he came; her little head bobbing furiously under his palm. And she swallowed it all down as Leon moaned. Then he reached for the TP.

Hours later Leon awoke in his recliner to more of the same. Then Luanne zipped up his pants, wiped her chin, and brought him a cold beer.

“Take this over to Teddy”, Leon said, pulling the wad from his pants. “We’re gonna need another month to sort things out before we go.”

Luanne took the cash, slipped on a pair of flip flops, and left to pay the rent without any questions.

Leon waited for the front door to slam before he cracked open his beer. For once, the place was quiet, and so were his thoughts. He’d only managed one sip of his Bud Light, before Let’s Make a Deal came on. He put down the beer, and picked up the phone.

“I need your half of the money.”

“You’re still high, aren’t you?” Jesse said.

“Look, you trusted me before.”

“Jesus fucking Christ—”

“Look, Findlay’s tapped into you know who—we can triple our money. The stuff’s so primo it’s gotta be cut three times before sale.”

There was silence on the other end.

“Did I lose you?” Leon said.

“I’ll be over in the morning. No guarantees though.”

After Luanne made dinner, Leon took a ride. He drove Boulder Highway, until he found the closest roadside payphone.

“Hello.”

“It’s Leon. I want to make a deal. I’m interested in a diamond.”

“You’re interested in a diamond?”

“Yeah”

“I’ve got half karats, one karats—what are you looking for?”

“One karat”

“One karat—okay, the price is 3-4”

“All I’ve got is 2-53”

“It’s flawless—the price is 3-4”

“You said I’ve got good credit”

“After 24 hours—you’ve got some balls—you—”

He could hear someone call to Findlay in the background, then a slight rumble as the mouthpiece of the receiver was muffled. Leon waited.

“Leon?”

“Yeah”

“Hey, 2-53 is fine. Remember where you met me the other day?”

“Yeah”

“Be there same time tomorrow. It’s a go. Okay buddy, see you then.”

Buddy? Leon wondered why Findlay had become so chummy. 2-53 was wiretap code for 25 and three zeros. And as much as he wanted to put a ring on Luanne’s finger, the diamonds were Max Castle’s premium synthetic mother of pearl; so in essence, the best cubic zirconia money could buy. Now all he needed was Jesse to come through with the money.

*

It was early Monday morning when Leon heard the loud knock at the door, and his heart jumped out of his chest. Then he glanced at the alarm clock; it was 8:35. It couldn’t be the cops, the dawn patrol always showed up before 6 AM. He slid on a pair of pants, and pulled the .45 from the night stand, and made his way to the door. When he looked through the peep hole, he saw three ruggedly built cholos he’d never seen before. Leon cocked the .45, holding it at the ready, parallel to his thigh, pointed at the deck. Before he could ask, the guy closest to the door held out a jumbo Ziploc of powder, stating his business without a word. Luanne appeared in the bedroom doorway, looking like she usually did.

“Go put on some clothes, hon. We’ve got company.”

Leon un-cocked the .45, and slid it into his waistband, then pulled his un-tucked tee over it, obscuring the weapon.

“You guys friends of Findlay’s?” Leon said, with the door open about halfway.

“Yeah man”, replied the guy with the jumbo Ziploc.

“I wasn’t supposed to meet him ‘til tonight”, Leon said.

“He goin’ out of town, so he told us to come early. Catch you before you left for the day. You still interested?”

Leon thought about it

“Yeah. I don’t have all the money just yet, but you’re welcome to wait inside.”

*

The guy with the powder introduced himself as Octavio, as he perched a pair of red lens sunglasses over a head full of sun browned black hair tied back in corn rows. He didn’t offer the names of his two associates. One looked stoic behind big framed sunglasses that hugged his face like a windshield, the other had crazy eyes when he half-smiled revealing a mouth full of gold teeth.

Leon offered Octavio a seat on the sofa closest to his Lazy Boy recliner, as he sat down. The other two took seats without being offered. Leon heard the hum of a phone on vibrate, then fished around in his pocket for his cell.

“Must be yours”, he said, as Octavio pressed his Blackberry firmly against his ear.

As he listened intently to the party on the other end, Octavio gestured with a chin bob to the guy with the gold teeth, as Leon glanced out the window in the opposite direction. The guy with the gold teeth asked to use Leon’s bathroom, and Leon pointed him towards the back.

“When can we expect your friend?” Octavio asked.

“He said morning, so I assume any time now.”

“Look what I found”, Gold Teeth said, with the barrel of his 9mm tight against Luanne’s cheek.

Leon felt his heart jump, then a driving pressure in his temple, as Sunglasses jabbed his 9mm up against it, and cocked the hammer.

“Whatchu got?” he said, patting Leon down before pulling the .45 from his waistband

Then he and Gold Teeth zip tied Leon’s ankles and wrists to his Lazy Boy recliner.

“I’m only gonna ask you once, you little white cunt”, Octavio said to Leon with a steel trap glare, before glancing over at Luanne. “Where’s our money?”

“My cousin—”

“Your cousin got more of that same bullshit. We ain’t after no bullshit. They sweatin’ my boy over at the bank right now over your bullshit.”

The little tweaker must’ve tipped the junkets off. Should’ve let the little junkie keep his stash, Leon thought.

“Now look, if you got someone you can call, if you got some of the real deal stashed somewhere—you better let us know right now.”

“Look, we put down a score—I didn’t know it was fake. I know better than to pay you guys back with phony bills. C’mon, you gotta believe me—I didn’t know”, Leon said.

“But you know what’s gonna happen next, don’t you?” Octavio said, as Sunglasses peeled a 9 from his waistband. Luanne shrieked as she watched him blast both Leon’s kneecaps.

“Shut the fuck up bitch”, Gold Teeth said, ripping Luanne’s head back, gripping a handful of her hair. Then he pulled the 9mm away from her temple, un-cocked it, and slid it back into his pants. Then he reached around, and undid Luanne’s jeans. But when he fished his hands into her panties, she grabbed his arm and bit it. Then he grabbed her by the throat, and punched her so hard, he knocked out her front row of teeth.

‘Where’s our fuckin’ money?!” Octavio blasted six inches from Leon’s face. Leon was going out of his mind the pain was so intense.

As Luanne spit blood, hugging the floor, Gold Teeth grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanked it back and said, “Now you can’t bite me.”

What happened next was hard for Leon to watch. Before they’d even started their gruesome violation, Luanne had pissed herself. The look on her face was a look of horror that slowly paled to blue, as Sunglasses grunted with pleasure. When she started to shriek in pain, Gold Teeth started face-fucking her.

Leon sat helplessly, strapped to the recliner, with two shattered knees, bleeding copiously through his jeans. His face tightened, and his eyes clamped shut. He would’ve given anything in that moment, even the chance to trade places with her. And if there had been any doubt before, he knew then that he loved her.

Sunglasses moaned as he came, cursing “fucking” back and forth between “whore” and “cunt””, as though he had Turrets.

“Okay, that’s enough”, Octavio said. “Yo, we don’t need dude’s boy jumpin’ our shit. Somebody post oustside.”

Sunglasses did up his pants, and walked out the door, as Gold Teeth took his place at the mound, pushing his way inside.

Two shots rang out and everybody froze—nobody knew who dropped the hammer. The sound of tires spinning and the roar of a high performance engine in first gear gave way to a loud knock at the door.

“Leon”, yelled Jesse’s familiar voice, “How many?”

Gold Teeth kept his gun on Luanne, and Octavio put his gun on Leon, who didn’t dare speak. Then both men opened fire on the door, as it swung open. Jesse aimed for the gold teeth, as he squeezed the trigger eye level with the top step, below both men’s line of fire. Then he tipped the barrel to the left, and shot Octavio dead. He ran over to the recliner, and cut Leon’s zip ties. But when he hovered over Luanne’s tiny violated body, as she convulsed on the floor, he caught two 9mm slugs in the head and dropped.

Leon watched the shooter with gold teeth gurgle his last breath, closing his crazy eyes; but the damage was done. He pulled himself to the floor, screaming in pain when his bloody knees rubbed raw, dragging his weight using his elbows, all the way over to Luanne. He found her shirt on the floor, and slid it on her, then pulled up her jeans, and zipped up the front of her pants. She was trembling, and wasn’t able to speak. He put her hand in his, and squeezed until his knees went numb. Then the whole scene became like a lucid dream, until the picture went flat and everything faded to white, as Leon let go.

***

Scotch Rutherford writes about dark corners between the bright lights. His work has appeared in Pulp Metal Magazine, The Flash Fiction Offensive, The Battered Suitcase, Voices from the Garage, and Darkest Before The Dawn. Links to his work can be found at: http://www.myspace.com/scotchrutherford.

Issue #8: February, 2011

2011-02-01T07:57:00.000-08:00

SLAY RIDE
by Mark Joseph Kiewlak

She was tied up on the seat next to me. Her legs were handcuffed. The car was moving fast. I think her name was Lily.

"Don't be afraid, Lily," I said. "I won't let them hurt you."

One of them smirked. The one on the passenger side. Outside, scenery flew past. Trees. Rocks. We were in the mountains.

"Don't go gettin' all heroic," the driver said to me. He was short and had all the cuddly warmth of a fireplug. He was smoking an unfiltered cigarette.

I struggled against the cuffs. Another layer of skin got peeled off my wrists.

"Ho ho ho," the passenger said. He was big all around. His head nearly touched the roof. He was wearing a pea green jacket that he couldn't have zipped up if he wanted to.

"What are you," I said, "the fucking potbellied giant?" "Watch your language," the driver said. "There's a kid present."

I looked over at her. She must have been all of eight. Her wrists were so small they'd tied her up with phone cord. Me, they used handcuffs. Rope on my ankles. Smaller cuffs on hers. No sense to it. No rhyme or reason. About what I'd expect from a pair like this.

"Where we're heading," I said, "my language is the least of her problems."

Potbelly half-turned in his seat. "You think you know where we're heading, smartass?"

"Can't be anywhere good," I said.

More scenery rolled past. My ears popped. We were heading downhill now. It was starting to snow.

"You guys got the money," I said. "Why not let the girl go?"

"What do you think, we're fucking stupid?" Potbelly said. "We let the girl go she'll tell on us."

"Look at her," I said. "She's terrorized. She's in shock. She's not going to remember any of this."

"They got sketch artists. They got hypnotists," Potbelly said. "She'll tell."

"You're not worth a hypnotist," I said.

The girl still hadn't moved. She didn't struggle. She didn't even look scared. I leaned over and narrowed my focus to just the two of us. "I got hired to find you," I said. "To protect you. And to bring you home. I'm going to do all of those things. You just don't be scared, okay?"

Her expression was blank. She had no coat but she wasn't shivering. Her Mickey Mouse sweatshirt was a little ragged around the edges.

"If you kill her," I said, "they'll never stop looking for you. If you let her go, all they lose is money. They won't be as interested in finding you."

"They'll be interested," Fireplug said.

"They've got all the money in the world," I said. "But only one daughter."

"We can't let her go," Potbelly said. "Not now."

I looked at Lily. There was a tear running down her cheek. She didn't seem to notice. I looked again. Her sweatshirt was way too big for her. Her pants were too short. Her socks didn't match. They weren't her clothes.

"You fucking scum," I said. "What did you do?"

Nobody in the front said anything. The air got thick.

"You fucking scum, answer me."

Potbelly was turned away. Fireplug held the wheel with both hands. "We can't let her go," he said quietly.

"Fuck you," I said. "Fuck the both of you bastards. I'm going to fucking kill the both of you."

No one else said anything. The snowfall was increasing. The car was picking up speed. All I could see was red. It's not that I never ran into this before. But you never get used to it. If you get used to it you're a monster.

I slammed myself against the door. It wouldn't open. I fumbled behind my back to grab the latch. There wasn't any.

"This used to be a cop car," Potbelly said. "Those doors only open from the outside."

"Shut your fucking mouth, you fucking pervert," I said.

The girl hadn't moved during any of this. The road was all hairpins and narrow. We skidded more with each turn.

"You don't care, do you?" I said. I addressed myself to the driver, Fireplug. "You don't care what happens to us. To any of us. You don't care if we crash."

"What are you talking about?" Potbelly said.

"He feels guilty," I said. "That's why we're out here in the worst possible weather on the worst possible road. You could've shot us and dumped us anywhere. Even that warehouse where I found you. This is something different. Your buddy wants us all to die."

Potbelly looked unsure of himself. He gazed at his partner. Fireplug kept his eyes on the road.

"That true?" Potbelly said. "You trying to kill us?"

No answer.

"You trying to kill us 'cause we messed with that girl?"

No answer.

"Just 'cause we messed with one lousy little piece of rich white ass? You trying to kill us for that?"

The car skidded heavily into a turn. My stomach dropped out. We sideswiped the guardrail a bit before he got it back under control.

"Stop the fuckin' car," Potbelly said. "Slow us the fuck down and stop the fucking car."

I moved as close to Lily as I could. I reached behind and got hold of her wrists. I started working to tear loose the phone cord.

"We shouldn't have done it," Fireplug said.

"Stop the fucking car," Potbelly said.

"We shouldn't have done that to her."

Potbelly had a gun out. It was pointed at his partner.

"Don't make me shoot you, Lonnie. I don't wanna fucking shoot you."

The car slowed down a bit. I had Lily's arms free. She didn't try to move them. I needed her attention but she was blank. Just blank.

"What's wrong with you, man," Potbelly said to his partner. "It was just fun. It was just a little fucking entertainment to pass the time. Christ."

The car was almost at a stop. Outside was nothing but swirling white. A few bare tree trunks told me we were still on the mountain.

Lonnie the Fireplug put it in park and turned to his partner. "Put the gun away, Francis."

"I can't," Potbelly said. "I can't trust you no more."

"Put the gun away right fucking now."

The larger man, Francis, did as he was told. I tried to get Lily's attention on my ankles. On the rope that was keeping them tied. She wasn't looking. At anything.

"Now get out of the car," Fireplug said.

"Here?" Potbelly said. "We're gonna do them here? Right on the side of the road?"

"Get out of the car," Fireplug said.

Potbelly opened his door. Both men got out. An arctic blast of air swept through the car. Lily didn't react to it at all.

"Now get them out," Fireplug said.

Potbelly opened the door on Lily's side. When he took her by the arm he noticed her hands were loose. He didn't seem to care. And she had no reaction to his touch.

"You fucking twisted scumbag," I said. "You fucked her up good, didn't you?"

"Get him out too," Fireplug said.

Francis the Potbellied Giant took out his gun and pointed it at me. "Slide out of there," he said.

I climbed out of the car and stood in front of Lily, shielding her between myself and the car. We were all on the same side with the car between us and the road. Over Fireplug's shoulder I could see the shiny gray guardrail and how the land dropped away from that point.

"Give me your gun," Fireplug said to his partner.

"My gun? What the fuck's the matter with your gun?"

I felt something at my ankles and looked down. It was Lily. She was trying to untie the rope.

"Just give me your gun, Francis."

"I don't trust you, Lonnie."

"Give me the gun."

"I don't trust you no more."

The wind was whipping flakes into my face. I could barely keep my eyes open. My cheeks were numb.

"Francis."

"What, Lonnie? Fucking what?"

"The gun."

Francis the Potbellied Giant reached over and handed his gun to his partner. Fireplug took the gun and shot Potbelly six times in the chest. The sound of the shots seemed to echo forever on the deserted mountaintop. Potbelly landed on his back near the guardrail. He wasn't moving. Fireplug still had his back turned to us. Lily had loosened the rope enough so that I could kick one leg free. I charged at Fireplug through the snow with my head down and my hands still cuffed behind me. I hit him at full stride with my shoulder just as he was turning. The force of the impact drove him backward toward the guardrail. I kept pushing with my shoulder and he stumbled backward over the railing taking me with him. I hit the snow and slid on my back, picking up speed until I slammed headfirst into a tree and caught myself on one of its broken branches.

I tried to catch my breath. I looked for Lonnie the Fireplug. There was nothing but a deep groove and a trail of broken branches disappearing out of sight down the mountainside.

I turned over on my back. My hands were still cuffed. I began very slowly to push myself upwards, digging my sneakers into the snow as best I could, steering toward tree trunks and upturned roots whenever I could. My hands were useless and numb. My wrists were scraped raw.

It took a long time. When I reached the guardrail I saw that Lily was still standing by the car right where I had left her. Francis the Potbellied Giant was dead. The snow had turned red all around him. I crawled over to his body and ordered my hands to search his pockets for the key to the handcuffs. I couldn't feel the key but I saw that I was holding it. I dropped it once. Then again. It disappeared in the snow and I started to lose consciousness. Then Lily was there beside me. She took the key and unlocked the cuffs. I looked down at her ankles. They were bleeding from where the cuffs had scraped her. I searched Potbelly's pockets again but I couldn't find the key to her ankle cuffs. I got to my knees. Then to a wobbly stance. I lifted her in my arms without feeling it and carried her toward the car. It was still running and warm inside. I got the door open and tried to place her down on the front seat. She wouldn't let go of me.

"Home," she said.

I got in the passenger side and pulled the door shut behind us. I turned the heat on full blast and held her to me until feeling returned to my body.

"That's right, Lily," I said. "I'm taking you home."

Mark Joseph Kiewlak has been a published author for nearly twenty years. Recently his work has appeared in more than thirty magazines, including A Twist of Noir, Hardboiled, Plots With Guns, Pulp Pusher, Thuglit, Crimespree, The Bitter Oleander, Mysterical-E, and many others. His story, "The Present," was nominated for the 2010 Spinetingler Award: Best Short Story on the Web. He has also written for DC Comics.

Issue #7: January, 2011

2010-12-31T22:44:00.000-08:00

The Ballad of Jimmie Jazz
by Tony Deans

“The fucker cut off his ears then chopped off his head”. The words rang sharply through the ears of Jimmy Jazz. Jazz was a tall man, slowly riding the train of time to middle age. A dirty fighter, he had only ever lost one fight and that was when his father left the family when Jazz was twelve. So he grew up tough on the streets of Glasgow, dealing smack to his friends and fighting winos in the boxing ring for money. Eventually his father returned thinking that time would heal all wounds. As his son slowly choked the life out of him, he probably realised that coming back was a big mistake.

Jazz and his partner in crime Rudy Smith stood over the decapitated head of their coke supplier and both let out a sigh. Together they pretty much controlled the supply of drugs coming into their city. Jazz never touched any stuff himself, the power he held over the junkies begging him for a hit was sufficient enough. Rudy however would sample the product, claiming to do it in the name of ‘quality control’. The death of the coke supplier was bad news for multiple reasons. One reason was that it meant that they had lost someone they could rely on to bring in a steady supply of drugs for them to flood the streets with. Another was that they now had to find a different, more expensive supplier. Most importantly it meant that someone was trying to muscle in on their business.

“So who do you think done it?” asked Rudy. Jazz stayed silent, instead opting to concentrate on his driving. “Maybe Thompson or Davies?” Jazz decided to speak, if only to get some silence from his partner to allow him to think. “Probably both. If not someone new on the scene”. Silence then enveloped the car, with Rudy resting his head against the window and Jazz staring ahead, smirking, safe in the knowledge that the road he was driving on belonged to him. Rudy awoke to find himself outside a bar. He got up, loaded six bullets in his gun and got out of the car. As he closed the door behind him, the cold wind hit him in the face, shocking him. He looked at his watch and noted the time. 3 O’ Clock. He realised that Jazz wasn’t going to allow him to go home until they had settled the score with the killer of their coke supplier. He placed his head in his hands due to the knowledge that Jazz only accepted retribution in the form of one thing – Blood.

Rudy entered the bar; it was mainly empty apart from a boy and a girl playing pool and the bartender sitting on a stool flicking through the channels of the television. Rudy took a seat at the bar; this action caused the bartender to get up and ask Rudy what he wanted to drink. “A Manhattan” replied Rudy in a voice that sound cracked and hoarse, like someone had made him eat gravel. “On the house” said the Bartender as he handed Rudy the drink. “Huh? What makes me so special?” responded Rudy; “On account of my boss and your buddy becoming best friends” announced the Bartender. He then walked away and sat on his stool, picking up the remote control and flicking through the channels, pausing briefly for the reports of child prostitution rings found in London and the increasing amount of people on the dole. Rudy heard a door open. Jazz approached him clutching a brown paper bag which he placed next to Rudy. “Well this resolves the problem of finding a new supplier” laughed Jazz. “What you found someone new already?” replied Rudy despondently. “Yup”. “How you do that?” enquired Rudy. “That’s for me to know and for you to ponder” answered Jazz.

“Oy, you Hootie and the blowfish, you fancy being the first testers of an amazing new product, soon to be sought after by every cokehead, from Chalmers Crescent all the way to Glenconner Close?” shouted Jazz to the couple playing pool. “No thanks mate.” replied the boy, trying to cut the conversation short. “It’s one hundred percent free boyo” responded Jazz sharply. “No offense intended mate, but I wouldn’t go within a hundred miles of that shit” Jazz went silent upon hearing this. He opened the paper bag and placed the coke on the table; he tore open the plastic packaging covering the snow and stood up from his seat. He approached the boy who sensed danger and swung a pool cue in Jazz’s direction. Jazz caught it. The punch that followed winded the boy, allowing Jazz to grab him by his hair and drag him along to the bar. The girl screamed, tears streaming from her eyes as she saw her boyfriend’s face being forced in the white powder. The man then threw her boyfriend to the floor, and rubbed his right hand in the powder. The right hand stuck the coke up the 18-year-old’s nose before forcibly opening his mouth and rubbing the white particles on the boy’s gums. Jazz laughed. “Go wrong ‘em boyo”.

Rudy and Jazz left the bar and drove away in the car that needles and pound notes purchased. “Where we gonna go now?” enquired Rudy. “To get some information” answered Jazz. The duo arrived at Stephan Coyle’s apartment; they made their way up the stairs and knocked on his door. A young girl, no older than fifteen answered. Her left eye was black and her lips were pale. “We’re here to see Stephan”. The girl remained silent but opened the door as to allow the pair to enter. Inside, the dirty rooms were full of young girls and clouds of smoke filled the apartment. They entered the room where Coyle was. Coyle was a skinny, red-haired old man, with track marks on his left arm. Beside him sat a teenager, exposed for all to see. Her mind and will broken. “All right Jimmy?” asked Coyle sincerely. “Tom was killed last night, and I want you to tell me who done it.” “How should I know?” “Well they cut of his ears and chopped off his head, Stephan, a man of your experience should be able to tell me who would be capable of something like that”. A pursed expression developed on the old man’s face. “Well my memory’s a little hazy, it’s all these fumes you see” Jazz was not amused. “Well mine’s sparkling clear, and it remembers the fact that I supplied these fumes to you for a small price. And that I could make all these fumes disappear. Then all your employees wouldn’t be so out of it, and they would remember that there is a lot more of them than there is of you. You know what they’ll do? They’ll take one of your boys, then the other before taking your tiny wrinkled pecker and then make you eat the lot. And th-““Alright, fucking hell, Jazz, I knew you were a sick bastard, but geez. Davies likes to do them like you said. He’s the one who killed Tom, probably”. A smile spread on Jazz’s face.

On the way to Davies home, Rudy made Jazz stop at a McDonalds to get a Big Mac. Whilst Rudy was ordering, Jazz sat at a table. He looked outside, the rain starting to pour down. On the grass he saw two magpies; beside them in the road was a squirrel which had been run over and killed. Both birds walked into the road and started pecking at it. When a car came one bird walked back onto the grass whilst the other just stared before being run over. The other magpie paused for a second before flying off into the distance.

The pair arrived at Davies house with murder on their minds. They waited outside until the bedroom light finally went out. They briefly discussed their plan before getting out of the car. They knocked loudly on the wooden front door. “Shoot whoever answers” whispered Jazz. The door opened, prompting Rudy to fire a shot into the dark doorway. As they burst in they made their way into the living room, ready to ambush whoever came down the stairs. As Rudy looked around the room, he noticed children’s toys and DVDs spread across the floor. As his mind tried to decipher as to where the child was, he heard a woman scream. He made his way into the doorway only to find himself viewing a young blonde-haired woman cradling a small body. A Child. The trauma of this scene negated any sense of feeling within Rudy’s body. He never even felt Davies knife plunge into his abdomen. Rudy slumped to the ground.

“Is Jazz with you?” demanded Davies. Rudy didn’t answer. “Fuck it”. Davies entered the front room with caution and switched the light on, only to find the room empty. A loud gunshot engulfed his ears, his wife’s crying cut short like a scratched disk. Davies entered the doorway, only to be greeted by Jazz standing tall, brandishing a gun. “Why are you doing this?” asked Davies. “Cause you killed Tom” sputtered Rudy. “No I didn’t, why would I kill him for?”

“This conversation is over” declared Jazz, putting a bullet between Davies eyes. “I need help,” pleaded Rudy, unable to move. Jazz simply replied “I’ll get you some in a minute”. “I think we’ve made a mistake here Jimmy, I don’t think he killed Tom”. “Tell you a lie Rudy, I know for a fact he didn’t” announced Jazz crouching down to face Rudy. “Who did it then?” “I did”. Before Rudy could ask his partner for the reasons why, Jazz killed him.

Jazz stood up and wiped himself down before leaving the house. Only Thompson was left but he wouldn’t be a problem, once he was gone Coyle would be next and pretty soon he would have full control of the city’s underbelly - controlling who or what came in. On the drive home Jazz stopped at a park where he knew there would be drunks lying about, waiting for the pubs to open. He got out of his car and opened the park gate. He walked around for a while looking for any signs of life. “Damn it”, Jazz groaned. He would have to go home, however just as he was making his was back to the car he started to hear a faint sobbing. He followed this noise only to find much to his surprise the boy he had drugged earlier shaking uncontrollably and panting hysterically resting his head on his girlfriends lap. “Still tripping I see?” exclaimed Jazz. The girl turned around wide eyed and fearful. “Just leave us alone” pleaded the girl, the sheer desperation of the remark made Jazz laugh loudly. The girl broke down at Jazz’s reaction. “Well I hate to kick them when their down but I’m going to kill you”. “Why?” Jazz remained silent to this question. “Tell me why you son of a bitch, why are you doing this?” Jazz moved forward and stood over the girl. “Because I can”. These were the last words the girl heard. The boy just started whimpering once the blood of the girl dripped down into his face. “Well I can’t go to prison now can I boy?” The boy looked up at Jazz. “I’ve got a city to run, you’re going to have to take my place” The boy could only muster a stuttered no. Jazz wiped the knife down removing any fingerprints; then dropped it by the girl’s body and walked off back to his car, leaving the boy stammering and shivering, in the frame for the murder of his girlfriend.

Jazz arrived home about two hours later and walked up to his front door, before entering he looked around and withdrew a gun from his ankle holster and shot a bullet into the dark October sky. He made his way up to the bedroom and fell onto the bed. As he fell asleep he smiled and whispered “God, once I’m done with this world, I’m coming up there to destroy that one as well.”

Tony Deans is a young writer from London, UK. You can contact him and read more of his stories at http://www.writerscafe.org/Tonydeans/writing/.

Issue #6: December, 2010

2010-12-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

***Winner of the 2011 Spinetingler Award for Best Short Story on the Web***

TIMES PAST
by Matthew C. Funk

Alvin knew even before Jay’s body had stopped shoving blood onto the asphalt that he had to get up. Jay’s dead limbs and the stink of new murder and the heat were heavy on Alvin, but he pushed hard to get up, not even knowing where it was he had to get to. Pain bleached his memory. He only knew he had somewhere to go and a life to save by getting there.

Alvin pushed and the gunshot wounds in his belly and chest pushed back. They pushed like expanding sponges, not painful so much as hot; the kind of heat that put the fricassee of New Orleans’ surrounding summer to shame.

His canvas shoes slipped in the blood of his friends’ three bodies as Alvin got his bearings. What survived of his thoughts stripped the necessary from the inconsequential.

He checked his Rolex. It was 12:02. This mattered.

“Motherfucker,” Alvin croaked. “Ain’t got long.”

The triggermen had long since peeled away in their car: A Cadillac. No, a Civic. No, not a Civic—a Rav 4; Dirty-30 thugs drove Rav 4s. No, it didn’t matter. What make and model had done Alvin’s boys in and nearly finished him off didn’t matter. Wondering on why this happened wouldn’t make a difference—living on the corners and project blocks of Desire District built up more reasons for murder than for survival. Only that they had been here and were now gone mattered—that meant he could get away. Alvin had a chance to get where he was going.

Alvin set to running. This mattered—he had to get to her.

To Marinette. He had to get to Marinette.

Alvin’s shoes left brushstrokes of blood in a staggered line down Law Street. It was 12:03. He had only an hour. Maybe less if his wounds were doing as quick a work as they felt.

“Come on, motherfucker.” Alvin snarled at himself. “Step it up.”

Alvin shook his head, dreadlocks blending afro-sheen with the sweat on his face. He would figure out later why he thought he had only an hour. For now, he had to keep going. He had to get to his girl.

***

12:10. Alvin made it to the end of the block and turned down Piety Street.

Impressions staggered around him like the footsteps: The warp of sirens, lurching in and receding. Shotgun houses of clapboard and radiant color shuffling by in tight rows. Advertisements painted on buildings with an inexpert hand that spoke modestly of ‘Cold Beer’, ‘Crawfish by the Pound’, ‘Jazz’, ‘Cards’, ‘Gas’, all the rough diet of New Orleans.

Worst of all were the faces—faces he thought he should recognize, but that turned away from him with a common cruelty; with the refusal to recognize him or his pain.

Maybe it was the cruelty that made them familiar. He had seen that look every day of his life in Desire District. Those looks had watched Alvin take punches and deal drugs and pull triggers and they had not cared then. They did not care now.

Marinette had cared. Alvin’s mind stitched together their shared history in the skips and drags of his wounded feet.

Marinette’s fingers, spreading like breath as they covered him with her bed sheet. Marinette, watching Green Acres on Nick At Night, her body sown with Alvin’s, as he watched what fantastic things her scent did to his mind. Marinette like a glass of coffee, standing by the barred window of her house, waiting for him.

Alvin knew she was waiting. He could not fix on why. He just knew she was in deadly danger.

He put more speed in his stumbles. That put more blood out of the holes in his gut and chest. And it stood to reason, Alvin figured, that those that had done dirt to him and his crew today would be a threat to her.

That was it, yes, Marinette’s life was in danger. He remembered that much now.

It was 12:12.

“Just fifteen more blocks to go.” Alvin said to the sun. The sun squatted, mean and big, on his face. New Orleans summer carved the wet out of his pores and gave it to the Mississippi air. Alvin spat at it and his spit came with blood.

“Ain’t nothing going to stop me.” Alvin swore. “I’m coming, baby. Don’t you worry.”

***

12:20, Alvin felt his feet floating in his shoes. The canvas was a cask of his blood, coughing it up with each step.

“Floats are for Mardi Gras.” Alvin had said to Marinette when she asked him to buy her a Coke float on their first date. “Gangsters live on the O.E.”

Dragging his left leg down Piety Street, Alvin tried to remember if the faded yellow-and-blue coffee hut he passed was where they had shared that first float.

“Is that what you think you are, Alvin?” Marinette had asked, giving him a look that could disprove gravity.

“Straight up. I’m all gangster.”

“Then you got it all wrong.”

“How you figure?”

He had taken a step back from her then, even as his fingers spread out for her with a thirst he hadn’t known existed until she stood by him.

“You got a mind and a heart bigger than any meanness you think you got to do.” Marinette had said. “I can see it in your eyes, trying to get out.”

“Maybe you need a closer look at my eyes.”

Maybe, Alvin wondered, that first date had been up on Humanity, at the grocery. Maybe it had been up at the Saint Roch Seafood and gas station, where the Interstate roared a promise of escape so amazingly vast and so out of reach.

“Maybe I do.” Marinette’s answer had brushed his chin for the first time. The look she put on him brought a new and necessary music to his heart.

The presence of that first date echoed around Alvin—he could not find it in one place; only in everywhere around. It was a vast and terrifying Interstate all its own, its traffic conducting what was left of him back to her.

“You sure?” He had asked her then. He had been afraid then. Alvin had been more afraid than he had ever been—more afraid than manning a corner, all alone with the police cruisers and the scowls of passing rival soldiers; more afraid than when his friend Deucy took one in the back of the head by the lockers between Remedial Math and English; more afraid than he could imagine himself to be.

He was sure now.

Marinette had put her lips on him then and from then on, Alvin had been surrendered to needing their return more than he needed breath.

“I’m sure.” Alvin spoke now, to keep his left foot sliding forward through all that heaviness.

Alvin was sure he needed Marinette’s lips, her fingers, the holiness of her watching him, than he needed anything—more than he needed to be bigger than the Projects; to be richer than his family’s food stamps and his stolen Rolex; to be feared.

His only fear now was that he would not reach Marinette in time, before the boys who shot him would knock her door in with bullets and not stop shooting until she was lost forever.

“I’m sure.” It kept Alvin’s legs moving with all the heat in them, all the heat leaking into his shoes, all the clustering heaviness.

He had to get back to feel those lips one last time before he gave up on breath.

***

12:30. Delirium would be a problem, Alvin knew.

Alvin talked to Marinette, her memory throbbing around him, as he lurched on, ten blocks to go.

“I ain’t fixing to die yet.” Alvin whispered to Marinette. His fingers worked the empty air and felt the gorse of her hair. “Don’t you fret about that.”

Marinette had been so long in replying then—they had been curled on her back porch, watching the night tint the June sky with flowery color, and its colors had been vivid as a plasma screen, putting on a program just for them.

Marinette had studied that program and spoke like reading its dialogue perfectly. “I’m just as worried about you killing part of yourself and going on living.”

“I gots to do what gots to be done, if I’m to stay alive.” Alvin had stumbled over those lines.

He stumbled now, the colors of the Piety Street houses pulsing around him: Pink and sea foam green and daffodil and dun. The smell of his blood, ripening the white cotton of his shirt, had a dark color all its own. It smelled like that night on her porch.

“You really believe walking away would be more trouble than pulling a trigger on that Dirty-30 boy?” Marinette had said.

Alvin felt regret as he recited what he had said to her then.

“What Parnell say need doin’, it’s as good as God’s own law.”

“You really believe that?” Marinette had kept reading the sunset, even as badly as Alvin needed her to look at him.

“Damn straight.”

“You telling me that Parnell’s bigger than this?” And her fingers fit in his with perfect mathematics.

“No.” Alvin had said, overcome by the sum of those fingers.

“You telling me that you would let a little thing like God keep us apart?”

“No.”

12:33, and Alvin knew that his left leg had already died, but that he would not let a little thing like that keep him from Marinette. Not now. Not before saving her. Not before one o’ clock. Not before her lips. Not ever.

Alvin clenched his fingers as he walked. It kept his heart pumping and his heart kept his good leg moving. That kept him moving toward Marinette, through times past, to a time when his grip could add itself to hers and never fear letting go.

12:34. Alvin whispered to Marinette through the blaze of sunset red that lidded his eyes. “I ain’t fixing to die yet.”

***

12:40. Five blocks to go, Alvin felt the urge to beg grab the base of his throat and pull.

His insides were cold now. His skin was sautéing in the hot blanket that the Mississippi smothered his skin with.

“Fuck the French Quarter,” Alvin sang to the slideshow of colorful houses. “Fuck those honky tourists. Fuck the Zulu King. We gonna make our own Mardi Gras here, better than any spectacle white folk come to take pictures of.”

Alvin had given Marinette a mask then and another mask every month after. Marinette had given him a Valentine’s card in sixth grade—a puppy with a full heart in its paws—and even then, it had felt like a promise shiny as gold and scarier than the streets ever could be. Alvin had given Marinette her first Mardi Gras mask that day in March and had hung beads on her naked body.

“This is just for us, baby.” Marinette had told him, tucking the words into Alvin’s mouth with her tongue.

“Just for us.”

12:42. Delirium summoned the smell of what that Mardi Gras spent alone had brought to her bedroom. Alvin pushed his nose toward it down Piety Street and kept his body following in step. The tempo of his steps echoed the mournful time of a jazz funeral.

One o’ clock, Alvin reminded himself—he had to get to Marinette’s by one o’ clock. It was life or death. The convulsive grasping of his fingers seized on this fact. He tried to remember why.

Those boys who shot him—that was why, Alvin thought; his fingers were to blame. Alvin sobbed out a blossom of blood as he remembered why.

He had let her fingers go that night on the back porch and he had let them pick up a gun. He had made them pull the trigger on C-Dog, the Dirty-30 boy Parnell had demanded that Alvin kill.

“Just for us.” Alvin whispered through the screen of blood.

But it had not been for Marinette and him. And watching C-Dog’s head open like a can of corn, his brains spraying out all yellow and gray, Alvin had felt sadness close him in its tomb. He had felt that boy’s death bury Marinette and him. In the silence after that gunshot, Alvin had heard the Interstate and the music of Marinette’s look and every promise their joined skin exchanged all close away.

That was why he had been shot—revenge from the Dirty-30. That was why he had to get to Marinette before one o’ clock. At one o’ clock, Alvin was certain without really knowing why, she would be dead.

It would be too late, just like the silence after the gunshot promised.

12:45.

“Just for us.” Alvin tried to say, unable to form words with all the blood running from his mouth. He had two blocks left to go.

Alvin turned the corner at Clouet Street as the bass beat rumble of gangsters in a Rav 4 rose up behind him.

Alvin coughed with effort as he tried to turn for the cover of a nearby house.

He heard the window of the Rav 4 whirr down.

He heard the rubber of his limbs wail as he tried to run.

He heard the car speed up and feared his heartbeat was too slow to jump out of sight in time.

***

12:50, Alvin came back to consciousness to find himself caged by the sword grass of an alley way. A sense of dread hunkered on his chest, as big and as cruel a prison as ever lay over Desire District.

Alvin tried to place it as he shook upright.

Was it the grass? Marinette had a garden—a precious patch of honeysuckle and lilies that she fed and defended against the crush of wild growth that choked every space in Desire Distict.

“Baby girl,” Alvin muttered. “You forgot to trim the grass.”

Yes, Marinette’s garden needed her to tend it—Alvin remembered this—but that wasn’t the source of the dread. And yes, now his skin felt overgrown with running liquid—with seeds of sweat and blood hatching so fast he couldn’t hope to contain them. But no, that wasn’t the dread.

“Shit, baby, where you at? Why you let the garden get this way?”

Alvin remembered

It was nearly one o’ clock. That was it. One o’ clock meant Marinette was dead.

That was enough to get Alvin on his feet again, and to get those feet moving fast, burping blood from his shoes.

12:52. Three steps on, Alvin slowed, finding the sense to listen for the Dirty-30 before stepping onto the street. He picked up the rumbling wash of bass beats, rolling up and down Clouet street.

“I ain’t fixing to die yet.” Alvin promised Marinette, turning for the other end of the alley, where backyards collided in flaking chain link and spills of sword grass.

Alvin picked up speed toward Marinette’s house, stumbling over the low fences and under the sagging clotheslines, making for her backyard.

His thoughts felt slippery. His muscles wanted to slough from the bones. Alvin kept them moving, dread pushing his heart and his heart pushing what part of him was still alive.

He had let Marinette’s fingers go then. He would not let her go now. He would not let it be too late.

***

Marinette was not waiting in the window. The seat on the back porch they had shared was smothered in the scent of refineries and river water that stuck to everything in the Desire District summer. Alvin dragged himself up to the door and banged on the bars with a gripping hand.

No answer came. Alvin checked his watch as he leaned his arm on the door.

12:56. He banged again.

“Who the fuck creeping up back there?” Marinette’s mother’s voice came from inside.

“Open up!” Alvin croaked. “You got to open up! It’s urgent!”

“Alvin?” Marinette’s mother sounded more sad than worried—sad and bitter. “Why you come around here, boy?”

“Please open up, miss.” Alvin moaned. “I got to get in to Marinette and get us out safe!”

12:57. Marinette’s mother was working the locks so slowly. By the time she drew out the last bolt, Alvin couldn’t keep his feet. He tumbled in as the door opened.

Marinette’s mother’s body staggered back as they collided.

“Jesus wept, boy. What happened to you?”

Alvin felt more embarrassed than almost anything—more than anything but the fear he might be too late. He tried to peel himself off of the woman and stand, but the hot sponges inside him had soaked right through to his bones. Alvin could only lean into her embrace and leak what was left of him.

“Marinette, miss.” Alvin gasped. “I done wrong.”

“I know, boy. I know.” She held him but her hands didn’t move; didn’t dare comforting him.

“I done wrong and now they come for her.”

“Alvin…” Marinette’s mother said, the despair welling up into her mouth. He wanted to see her face—to make sure she understood the urgency. All he could see was the color of sunset now.

“I had to get here by one. One o’ clock, Marinette gonna be dead.”

“One o’ clock’s come and gone, Alvin.”

A last reflex of disbelief shook through his pain and got Alvin to lift his arm. It couldn’t be too late. He tried to see his Rolex. He couldn’t—he could only see the blood red blindness.

“Nah,” Alvin gave up on seeing his watch but would not give up on looking for Marinette. He had to see her—to see her looking at him and to feel that music again. He had to get to her. It had to not be too late. “Nah, it’s minutes before one.”

“Alvin, that one o’ clock has come and gone, son. You just rest.”

“What?”

“You just rest now.”

“No,” Alvin tried to struggle but could only move the remains of his voice. Everything else seemed to be bleeding out—running out of him like the colors of the passing houses had, like that past sunset had, like he had let Marinette’s fingers slip from his. “No, I got to be here at one. One o’ clock, my Marinette’s dead”

“One o’ clock, a week back, was Marinette’s funeral, Alvin.” Marinette’s mother was stroking his face now. She wiped the blood away from his eyes but could not clean them of its color. “You were there, remember?”

12:59, Alvin remembered. He remembered arriving a week ago to find a house inhabited by the same endless silence that had begun when he pulled the trigger on C-Dog—a silence only cracked by the teary whispers of Marinette’s family and the click of tea cups like the phonograph hiss beneath an old Blues recording. He remembered how Marinette’s smell had been shrouded by the mothball stink of fine black clothing. He remembered standing there, stiff in that smell, knowing that Marinette’s murder was the work of the Dirty-30 and knowing that it was just a matter of time before they would finish him.

He remembered needing for it to not be too late. He remembered the promise of Marinette’s lips, louder than the Interstate and still so alive. Alvin had only stared then, trying to see the flowery colors of their shared sky in his future.

“Ain’t nothing going to stop me.” He tried to tell them.

1:00. Alvin stared into those colors now. Now and forever.

Matthew C. Funk is a professional marketing copywriter and social media consultant, a writing mentor and the author of several manuscripts that illuminate the beauty of human extremes. A graduate of the Professional Writing MFA at USC, his online work is featured at sites such as A Twist of Noir; Thrillers, Killers and Chillers; Flash Fiction Offensive; ThugLit; Powder Burn Flash; Pulp Metal Magazine and his Web domain.