A Twist Of Noir 532 - Graham Bowlin

WHAT NEEDS PAINTIN’ OVER - GRAHAM BOWLIN

I once been told that I ain’t got no good in me and that I never would. That’s just how she say it. “You ain’t got no good in you and you never will, Charlie Withers,” she say.

See, me and her were gettin’ together and she’s in love with me, and one day, she come to me and say that she was pregnant. And it was mine. So I say to her I’d marry her. That’s all I say. “Well then, I’ll marry you,” I say, just like that.

I went back to my hotel room that night, smoked some shitty dope she’d gave me, and thought real hard about what I’d said. Next day, I told her I was gettin’ the fuck outta town. I had changed my mind.

She cried and screamed and called me a liar. But she wrong. I ain’t a liar. I just change my mind. Simple. Every day, politicians pass laws, start wars, all kindsa crazy shit because they change their mind ’bout somethin’. I don’t get what the big deal was about me changin’ mine. And her feelin’ bad didn’t mean shit-all to me. Way I see it’s like this: you go ’round worryin’ how other people feelin’ and, pretty soon, you be carryin’ around so many other feelins from other people that you ain’t gonna have any room for your own.

People ’round town had started in askin’ a lot of questions ’round then, so it was time to be movin’ on anyway. So I went that night to her Daddy’s store, the one I was workin’ in, and I drilled a hole in the little safe. I got two grand and change, threw it in my duffle bag and got the hell outta town.

I headed from North Carolina down cross the border into South Carolina. There’s three things that South Carolina good for and that’s churches, fireworks, and the dirtiest dime piece strippers you ever gonna find in your life. I love South Carolina.

Now, the last one probably make sense to y’all, but the former might be a bit confusin’. See, I got a very particular line of work. I take things from other people. It’s a great job ’cause I don’t need an office or a tie or any tools or nothin’, ’cept the drill that time and I stole that. I only need one thing: gullible idiots. And after years of research, I discovered that the best place to find those is in a church.

I needed a place to lay low, maybe some more shit to steal. Church was a good start. So I just drove for a while till finally I hit somethin’ I thought looked pretty good. Old rundown piece o’ shit church in the middle of nowhere. It was early Wednesday and the parking lot was full up. It’s good to hit ’em on a Wednesday. On Sundays, everybody’s there ’cause they gotta be. But, on Wednesday, you hit the real holy rollers. The real generous, stupid ones.

I pulled my new Chevy truck over into the gravel parkin’ lot. I had just traded it back at a restaurant over the border. Gave the other sonofabitch a ‘gently used’ Buick Skylark, no extra charge. I liked the truck real well and was glad I hadn’t got the red Camaro. I’d almost gone for it, but it was too flashy and I changed my mind. Let the poor bastard keep taking all those speeding tickets.

As I stepped outta the car, the sun goddamn near blindin’ me, this ancient nigger come walkin’ outta the church on a cane.

“Hello, boy!” he say.

I ignored him callin’ me boy, as me rippin’ his fuckin’ head off wasn’t ’bout to get me anythin’ out of him.

“Hi there, sir,” I say.

“Hi there,” he say back.

And we just stood there in the fuckin’ sun bakin’ like bread, me waitin’ for the dumb old bastard to speak, him waitin’ for somethin’ to come into his fuckin’ head.

I did his job for him. “Sir, I don’t mean to be botherin’ y’all, I know you got a service and everythin’, but I’m lookin’ for some work. Some help, you understand?”

He stared at me for another minute, yellow eyes goin’ all over the place, thinkin’ about God knows what. His eyes settled on my duffle bag.

“You a travelin’ man?” he ask me.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Well, son, I reckon I kin help.”

I spit at the ground, just to show him I’d do it, spit right there in front of him. “Yeah?” I say.

“I reckon, yup. I got this ol’ barn, older’n Christ. I needs to git it painted.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah...” he say.

Ever tried carryin’ on with a nigger ’fore? It’s goddamn near impossible to get anywhere. So I just shook my head and climbed into his pickup truck. Floor was so rusted out I could see the road flyin’ by underneath me as we drove down the road.

“Where ya from, son?” he ask.

He sat there, chewin’ on his lip like he was waitin’ for me to respond but, like I told you, there ain’t no point in tryin’ to talk to them people so I didn’t say nothin’ back. Finally he just shrugged his old shoulders a little bit and stared back at the road.

His place was way out in the middle of goddamn nowhere, took near half an hour. He had a farmhouse, a shed, and a barn. Everythin’ was a real old piece o’ shit, ’specially the barn. I had no idea why anybody would wanna get the thin’ painted up, but there’s no point in trying to get a ’groid to listen to any kinda reason.

We went inside the old house. There was a little living room and a kitchen and a dark hallway that went off somewhere. I look around for some good stuff to steal, but there ain’t much. Shotgun hangin’ above an old television and some Hummels, that’s ’bout it.

“You kin sleep onna floor,” he say. “Put yer bags an’ what not ovuh there.”

I dropped my duffel bag on the wood floor by the couch. If there’s one thin’ you can say ’bout a nigger, they real trustworthy. Hell, they ain’t smart enough to trick anybody, ’cept maybe another black. And then, what they gonna steal from ’em? There’s nothin’ to take.

He went into the kitchen and grabbed a paint bucket and a brush, then he take me outside and we look at the barn. It’s all fucked up, painted white in different places, like they was all done at different times. Some people just can’t finish a task.

“So you just paint the barn white, see?” He waved his hand in the air like he’s showin’ me how to paint, like I’m a retard.

“Yeah,” I say.

“All right, dinner seven o’clock. I’m leavin’ now. Goin’ out.” he say. “Oh, and my grandbaby aroun’ here somewhere. She come help you, maybe.”

“Yeah,” I say again.

He turn and goes stumblin’ through the field, all overgrown, back to the house. I pretended to get ready to paint for a minute, pullin’ open the can and what not, when I heard the truck pull away and down the road.

I turned back to the house, goin’ for that shotgun, when I seen his granddaughter. Goddamn, she look good. She musta come out soon as the old bastard left, ’cause she was damn near ten yard away from me, smiling at me. I nearly finish my business right their in my pants, just lookin’ at her.

First of all, she must have had a helluva lotta white in her ’cause she had the prettiest yellow skin I ever seen. Her little titties stood up under her old dress, showin’ her nipples for the whole world.

“Hi,” she say.

I didn’t say nothin’. I kept on staring at her, lettin’ her know I saw how good she looked and I liked it. I could tell real quick that she liked me, ’cause she kept lookin’ at me all nervous, like girls do when they all wet.

“What you doin’ out here?” I say.

“Comin’ to help,” she say.

She laughed, then looked all around to make sure we was alone. She smiled at me, then turned and ran back to the farmhouse, picking her knees up high in the tall grass, her little ass bouncin’ as she went.

I ain’t gotta tell you I sprinted myself after her, and I had her pinned against the wall ’fore the screen door closed shut. I tried kissing her, but she turned her head away and started to push me down onto my knees. She didn’t have to ask my ass twice. I was halfway between pullin’ her dress up and her panties down, so close to seeing that nice little hairy hole, when I felt somethin’ I hadn’t felt in a long time... The barrel of that shotgun against my back.

The girl wriggled away from me real quick. I looked over my shoulder and saw the face of that old nigger, grinnin’ down at me. The girl kicked me real hard in the balls and laughed.

“This one even dumber than the other ones,” she say.

“Stannup,” he say.

I stood up. I looked over at the girl. She was already tippin’ up my duffel bag, lettin’ all the money spill everywhere.

“Damn, granddaddy! This one got alotta money!” she said.

“Good job, baby,” the old nigger said.

My dick was still hard and I didn’t know what to say.

“I thought you was leavin’,” I said.

He snorted at me like he was laughin’.

“I changed my mind,” he said. He cocked the shotgun, said to me, “Now let’s go on out back to the barn. See what needs paintin’ over.”

BIO: Graham Bowlin is a recovering Southern gentleman, currently hiding out in Los Angeles where he lives with a girl, a cat, and a hangover. His stories have been featured in Thuglit, Powder Burn Flash, A Twist of Noir, and others.

A Twist Of Noir 343 - Graham Bowlin

MONKEY BREAD - GRAHAM BOWLIN

“I don’t think I can shit, Am.”

“I don’t think you have an option, Hiram,” Ambler La Bauve said, irritation slowly creeping into his voice like his father into his childhood bedroom at night.

Hiram Arcenaux looked down at his great, bloated stomach, hoping for a rumble but expecting nothing. He had not had a movement since Tuesday. Four days, ten enchiladas, nine chili rellenos, five orders of juevos rancheros, countless beers and cigarettes, and half a kilo of heroin-filled balloons later, Hiram was still constipated. And all the way from a border town in Coahuila to a shithole rest stop outside Louis Armstrong International, Ambler had listened to his complaining.

Ambler finished setting the toilet paper down on the seat. In the next stall over, Hiram had foregone formality and plopped immediately down on the cold plastic. Now he was anxiously tapping his feet, hoping against hope that around $60,000 worth of brown, South American powder would fall out of him. He grunted and groaned, finally pounding on the stall door and interrupting Ambler’s balloon count. He was up to four when he clenched up.

“I can’t do it, Ambler,” Hiram whined.

“You fat asshole, just bear down and get it out. Terry’s gonna be here fucking soon, and then you’ll just have it beat the fuck out of you anyway. Hurry up.”

“Why you bring Terry up, Am? Now I’m more nervous. You tied my guts all up.”

“I can’t go with you talking in my goddamn ear,” Ambler said. He closed his eyes and focused. Five, six... “You know what’s a good cure for what you got?”

Hiram shrugged and then, realizing he couldn’t be seen, responded verbally. “No.”

“Fuckin’ suicide, that’s what. Put a bullet through your head right now, you’d shit everywhere.”

“That ain’t true.”

“It is true.” Ambler sighed. Seven... “My mother was a nurse, so my drunk fuck perv father didn’t have to leave the house. She told me that EMTs used to carry around string and cotton balls, so when they’d get somebody that died they would tie off their dicks and put cotton in their asses so they wouldn’t piss and shit on the floor.”

“What do they do now?”

“What?”

“You said they ‘used to’. So, you know, what do they do now?”

“What? I dunno. I assume they do something else now. It was a long time ago. Now pinch off that loaf before Terry gets here.” With a final spasm, Ambler dropped the last balloon. He smiled to himself and reached for the paper.

“Aw...” Hiram whimpered as he thought of Terry. Terry had beaten the living hell out of him several times before just for being a dumbass. If he couldn’t get the balloons out, it would be a lot worse this time.

If Ambler wasn’t lying to him to be mean, which he sometimes did, then maybe he should just kill himself, Hiram thought. Anything would be better than this. What if he never shit again? Was that possible? Was it possible that people shit their pants when they died? Did his Mom shit her pants? He was working with Ambler when it happened, so he wasn’t around to see it. If Ambler was right, he was glad he hadn’t been there. That would have been awful.

Suddenly, the door swung open and the familiar sound of clinking spurs echoed through the room.

“Monkey bread,” said a gravelly voice.

“Monkey bread,” Ambler replied.

The password. Terry had arrived and Hiram hadn’t moved a single balloon. He desperately squeezed down with everything he had.

Though not quite done wiping, Ambler pulled his pants up and stepped from the stall, trying to buy Hiram some more time.

Terry stood in the middle of the small bathroom, his stance calmly suggesting that no one attempt to exit the room. An unlit cigar rolled back and forth between his lips, framed by a bushy mustache. One look at him, and Ambler could tell that Terry was pissed.

Ambler was right. Terry’s day had begun with waking up to his girlfriend’s period blood soaking his sheets, an angry call from his boss on the way to the store, and some spic kid getting in his face as he waited in line to buy tampons. Terry would have murdered the kid in the parking lot, but he was in a hurry to meet two chuckleheads in a rest stop bathroom and had to stop back by his house to deliver the tampons. Needless to say, Terry was royally pissed.

“I’m all through in there, but Hiram’s, uh...”

“What?” Terry spit on the floor.

“Constipated,” Hiram muttered, embarrassed, from behind the other door.

“You fuckin’ kiddin’ me?”

Ambler shook his head. Terry grabbed him by the collar and threw him up against the door.

“Guard the door,” Terry growled.

In two steps, Terry was at Hiram’s stall. With a third he kicked it open. Instinctively, Hiram moved to hide his manhood, though his gut covered it all up anyway.

Ambler’s hand tightened into a fist. If there was one thing he hated it was a man who didn’t respect the privacy of another man’s locked door. There was never any excuse for that.

Hiram looked up at Terry, tears of humiliation brimming in his eyes. “I just can’t go, Terry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“That’s a quick fix,” Terry said. With a single fluid motion, Terry reached into his polyester, western cut suit coat, pulled out asilenced .38 special revolver, and put two bullets into Hiram’s chest.

Hiram looked down in surprise as the bullets ripped through him, spraying blood from his chest in a fine red mist, like fireworks in the night sky. He’d never seen anyone get shot before and he was fascinated by it. He slumped backward on the toilet as his hands began to go slack. As the last synapse fired in his brain, he wondered if Ambler had been right about the death shit.

He had been.

Terry turned around and slid the gun back into his blazer, shrugging at Ambler. Ambler looked down at the floor. He suddenlyrealized that he couldn’t stop blinking. He then tried to stop, but just kept going.

His boss pulled a pair of rubber gloves from another pocket and held them out. “I’ll guard the door. Sorry, but you’re doing double duty for your friend here.”

Ambler didn’t move.

“Dig around in this fat fuck’s crap, you shithead.”

Without a word, Ambler took the gloves from Terry. Terry leaned against the door.

“Oh!” Terry exclaimed. “I brought two pairs, so you can double up if you want.”

Ambler shook his head and opened to door to Hiram’s stall.

BIO: Graham Bowlin is a dirty young man from a clean North Carolina town. Currently, he's writing like a madman and dreaming of bigger and better depravities on the West Coast. He has two stories forthcoming in Thuglit and Powder Burn Flash. His blog is The Pulp Primer.