UNGLUED - TOM LEINS
The long, hot afternoon yawns in front of me. The barrio crackles with gutter trust and wracked trauma. It’s warm out here, but not warm enough for the fuckin’ trash to smell. Not yet. The sawn-off baseball bat itches in my hand. I taxed it off Elmo Slocum two years ago and caused a thousand dollars worth of malicious damage to his property whilst the life oozed out of him. All I wanted was my fuckin’ sweetheart back. Elmo was eating hospital food after a week, but everyone knows I broke his guts good and proper. Susie moved away shortly afterwards. I guess small town savagery only gets you so far. I wasted time stealin’ cars and beatin’ hookers, but there’s only so much dustbowl psychosis that one man can take.
*
Now all I want is my fuckin’ sweetheart back. Not Susie, she croaked from liver failure last Christmas. She used to drink so much for breakfast that even her sex smelled of cheap gin. Now, I only have sins for Rosa. The first time I went down on her in the backroom of her Daddy’s pawnshop I knew that Rosa was worth leaking blood for. She was different from the other girls. Cleaner. Smarter. I like lickin’ the taste of skunk pussy off my lips as much as the next man, but only Rosa offers me glimpses of something a bit like love. Gary offers me a dirty picture of Rosa from his grubby stack. I gaze into her black eyes, and feel something rotten stirring in my gut.
“You know, Daddy, all this happiness could kill you.”
“Sure as shit gonna kill someone, boy.”
BIO: Tom Leins is from Paignton, UK. His short stories have been published online at 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, A Twist Of Noir, Beat The Dust, Straight From The Fridge, Savage Manners and Muzzle Flash Fiction. He is currently hard at work on his first novel, Thirsty & Miserable. Get your pound of flesh at www.myspace.com/tomleins.
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