LOOSE ENDS - THOMAS FAUGHNAN
When Kev Reevis looked up from his drink and saw Val Dutton standing at his table he damn near wet his pants. THE Val Dutton; a living legend in the Anchorage underworld, a guy that had been pulling jobs since before he was old enough to drive, a Certified Bad Ass.
Dutton slid a chair out and motioned to it. “Mind if I sit down, kid?”
Kev shook his head numbly. In the dim light of the bar Dutton looked younger than he thought he would for a guy with his track record. His cheeks were freshly shaved and his hair neatly combed. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled halfway up his beefy forearms and a gold nugget watch was strapped to his right wrist. The kind of watch Kev was going to get when he made his first big score.
“I been hearing things about you, kid,” Dutton said after sipping on his rum and Coke.
Kev flushed with fear and his sphincter tightened up like the mainspring on an over-wound clock. As far as he knew he hadn’t done anything to piss Val Dutton off but Dutton’s bad side was not a good place to be. There were stories on the street about guys that had crossed him and were never seen or heard from again. Dutton saw the apprehension on Kev’s face.
“Good things, kid, I been hearing good things about you.” He laughed and gave Kev a playful smack on the back. Val Dutton, giving him a playful smack on the back like they were old pals. Kev wished there were more people in Red’s to see it. “Word around here is that you’re a pretty sharp guy.”
Kev was pleased and surprised to hear it. He had always been under the impression most of the guys that hung around Red’s thought he was something of a loser. Last summer he’d tried a smash-and-grab at the liquor store up on Karluk and the sneaky goddamn clerk locked the store behind him after he went in. When he grabbed the bottle of vodka and took off he hit the secured door at a dead sprint, breaking his wrist and knocking himself cold. First time back in the Red’s, drinking beer with his right hand because his left was in a cast, someone had shouted from the bar, ‘Hey, Reevis, it’s called a smash-and-grab not a smash-and-crash.’ Everyone got a good laugh at his expense.
“They say you got a partner you run with,” Dutton went on. “He a sharp guy, too?”
Of all the things Ricky had been called in his life sharp was not on the list. The truth was Kev hung around with Ricky for the same reason so-so looking girls hung around with homely ones in school; it made them look good by comparison. All the guys at Red’s called them Reevis and Butthead. But he didn’t want Val Dutton to think he’d hang with a zero so he said, “Yeah, Ricky’s a sharp guy.”
Dutton nodded as if he’d expected nothing less. He looked around the nearly deserted bar then leaned forward. “I’m putting together a job and I need a couple of sharp guys, think you two might want in?”
Kev Reevis couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Being asked in on a job by Val Dutton was like Rick Swenson asking you to run the Iditarod with him or Scotty Gomez inviting you to skate a couple of shifts. Kev tried to stay cool, act like it wasn’t that big a deal but his nerves got the best of him and when he took a drink of beer he dribbled it all down the front of his t-shirt. Dutton handed him a napkin without comment. “Yeah," Kev finally managed, “me and Ricky are always up for some action.”
“Good,” Dutton nodded. He slid a scrap of paper with an address across the table. “You and Ricky meet me here tomorrow at noon and I’ll lay it all out for you.”
When Kev picked Ricky up from his mother’s ramshackle trailer in east Anchorage the next morning and told him they were going to meet with Val Dutton the first thing Ricky did was ask what kind of trouble they were in. “No trouble,” Kev assured him. “He needs us for a job.”
“Why’s a guy like Val Dutton need us?” Ricky asked. He may have been dumb but he wasn’t stupid.
“It’s a big job and he needs some good back-up,” Kev explained. Ricky had always lacked vision. He couldn’t see that pulling a job with Val Dutton was going to make them, give them some street cred. He was their ticket to the big time.
Dutton let them into his suite at The View Hotel on the first knock. Kev had never seen anything so nice in his life. It was spacious and spotless, nothing like the cramped dump he lived in with his sister and her husband. This, he thought, was the way a man should live. Kev introduced Val and Ricky and while Val got beers for everyone he moved over and looked out the window. They were on the twelfth floor and from there Anchorage looked like the little Tonka Town Kev had gotten for Christmas one year. He liked being up here looking down, it beat the hell of being down there looking up.
Val called him over to the table in the breakfast nook where he had set up shop. “First let’s get one thing straight,” Val began. “Nothing that gets said in this room gets repeated. Not to your pals, not to your girlfriend, not to your mother. It’s nobody’s business but ours and loose lips sink ships, got it?”
Kev and Ricky had no idea what that meant but they nodded in agreement.
“Okay,” Val went on, “here’s the skinny. There’s this old guy, real Alaskan sourdough-type, has a working goldmine up in the interior, somewhere north of Ruby, I think. Works it all summer, closes her down in the fall and sends all his gold to Anchorage via Alaska Freight Flights. Here’s the thing, he’s one of those crazy old coots that don’t believe in banks so he has the buyers meet him at the terminal with a couple duffle bags full of cash, to the tune of about $300,000.”
Kev almost choked on his beer. $300,000 was more money than he could imagine, Dutton might as well have said they were going to rustle a herd of unicorns. He and Ricky’s big score up to this point was the $1500 they had gotten for a boosted car last year.
After pausing to let the number sink in, Val continued, “There’ll be a thirty minute gap between the time the money arrives and the time the plane gets in. One rent-a-cop, two clerks and a manager in the AFF terminal, we go in, you two disarm the guard and cover him and the clerks, I go back in the office with the manager and get the money out of the safe.”
“How you going to get the guy to open the safe?” Kev asked.
Val Dutton smiled a smile with no warmth or humor. “I can be very persuasive.”
Ricky scratched his close shorn hair then asked, “Why don’t we wait til the plane gets there and take the gold too?”
Dutton shook his head. “Too messy. Then you got two more armed guards, the pilot and the old coot, who they say packs a pair of ivory handled .45s, and you need a van for the gold. You’re looking at five more guys to do it right, there’s more chance of something going wrong and everyone ends up with a smaller split. Fuck the gold.”
Kev looked at Ricky like he had asked a stupid question, even though he had been thinking the same thing himself.
“You guys got decent pieces?” Dutton asked them.
Kev pulled out the beater Saturday night special he and Ricky owned between them. There was black electrician’s tape on the broken handgrip, the front sight was bent and the cylinder wobbled a little bit.
Dutton looked at it for a moment then said, “I’ll bring the guns. We meet tomorrow at two in the pits off Sand Lake Road.”
*
Kev ran toward the getaway car with blood spattered all down his left side. He had never seen anything go south so fast in his young life. Everything had been clicking along like clockwork, he had the two clerks covered, Ricky had the old white-haired guard and Val was in the back being persuasive with the manager. They were less than a minute from a clean getaway when the old guy sneezed and Ricky shot him in the head. Blew his fucking brains all over Kev and the two clerks. The two women began screaming and Ricky was shouting, ‘Oh, fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.’ Val stuck his head out of the back to see what the hell was going on and then there was an alarm shrieking from somewhere. Val looked back into the office then raised his gun and fired twice. He dashed into the office and came out with a large duffle bag on each shoulder. “Let’s go,” he shouted and began pushing Kev and Ricky toward the door.
They took a back road out of the airport. Ricky was blubbering like a baby. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he kept repeating between sobs. “I thought the guy was making a move on me.”
“He fucking sneezed, Ricky,” Kev said in disbelief. “He fucking sneezed and you capped the guy.”
“Knock it off,” Val said from the passenger seat. “What’s done is done. When we get back to the cars I’ll take the money with me, you two toss the ski masks, the pieces and the gloves in the trunk of your car. Don’t leave anything in this piece of shit. You wearing anything under that?” He pointed at Kev’s blood soaked shirt.
Kev nodded. “I’ve got a t-shirt.”
“Good. Lose the shirt, too. I’ll go out and up Raspberry Road, you guys go the other way, out to Dimond. I’ll call you later. Stay cool.”
Going out Sand Lake toward Dimond two APD cruisers screamed past Kev with their flashers flashing and their sirens wailing. Staying cool was the hardest thing he ever did.
*
Val called Kev just after six and told him to meet him at The View. Alone. They sat at the table with a couple beers and Val lit up a cigarette. “Your pal Ricky really hung our asses in a sling, kid.” he said.
“He didn’t mean it, Val,” Kev said. “He just kinda panicked.”
Val nodded. “But the guy’s still dead. Ricky’s a stand up guy but it wouldn’t take much, just one little slip and he’d be talking to the cops. They put his nuts in a vise and I think he’d fold up like cheap origami and then we’re all looking at Murder One.”
“What?” Kev asked. “I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“Don’t matter, kid. Happened in the commission of a felony, that makes us all eligible for a lifetime scholarship to Spring Creek, without parole. I don’t know about you but I’d feel better if he wasn’t walking around.”
Kev found it hard to swallow. “What are you saying, Val?”
“Ricky needs to go,” Val said. “You brought him in on the job.”
“Oh, man, Val,” Kev protested. “I can’t do Ricky. Me and him’s been running together since junior high.”
Val Dutton expelled a lungful of smoke straight up and it billowed and roiled in the light over the table. “What’s your favorite band, kid?” he asked.
The question took Kev by surprise. “I dunno. Maybe Satan’s Psychos, I guess.”
“Whatever,” Dutton said, clearly never having heard of the band. “Do you think they’ve been together since junior high?” He shook his head in the negative. “No way. Here’s how it works, in junior high and high school there’s thousands and thousands of garage bands. The guys that are good enough move up to the next level and the guys that aren’t get left behind. You get a little older and the bands are playing school dances, weddings, local halls, shit like that. Again, the guys that are good enough move up to the next level and the guys that aren’t get left behind. And it goes like that right up to the big time.” Dutton paused to let the analogy sink in. “I’ve been watching you, kid, and I think you’ve got the stuff to move up to the next level and the next level, all the way to the big time. But Ricky needs to get left behind; you see what I’m saying?”
Kev took a deep breath and nodded.
“You with me, kid?”
“Yeah, Val,” Kev answered, “I’m with you.”
“Here’s the plan then. You tell Ricky we’re going to bury the money until the heat blows over. Take him, the duffle bags stuffed with old paper and phone books, the pieces from the job, ski masks, gloves, everything, out to Kincaid Park. There’s a spot out on the bluffs above the dunes where nobody runs or bikes. You dig a hole up there, deep enough that the animals won’t get into it.” Val thought for second, “Make it twice as big as you need so it won’t look like a grave to Ricky. Throw everything in and think of some reason to get Ricky in the hole then you do it. Put two in him to make sure. Fill in the hole when it’s done and meet me at the airport.”
“The airport?” Kev asked.
Dutton nodded. “You and I are headed south for the winter, going to lay low until things calm down up here.”
“Where?”
“Costa Rica,” Val smiled. “Sunshine, beaches and more girls in bikinis than even a young stud like you can keep up with.”
“Damn,” whispered Kev. He had only been out of Anchorage once, when one of his mother’s boyfriends, the only decent guy she ever dated, took him and his sister to the fair out in Palmer. Now he was going to Costa Rica with Val Dutton for the winter. Unbelievable. “When?” Kev asked.
“We’re booked on an eleven o’clock flight, I’ve got a couple of loose ends to tie up. First,” he said, clapping a paternal hand on Kev’s shoulder, “let’s take care of business.”
*
When Ricky got in the car the first thing he did was ask, “Is Val pissed?” Kev shook his head. “Like he said, what’s done is done. But we’ve gotta get rid of everything that ties us to the robbery and stash the cash til this thing blows over.”
Kev had been wrestling all afternoon with the idea of killing his best friend. Fuck it, he had finally rationalized, Ricky did this to himself when he lost it and popped the guard. If he had kept his shit together we’d all be going to Costa Rica. He even managed to work up a little resentment toward his friend. If Ricky hadn’t screwed the pooch, they’d been down at Red’s right now throwing around some of their newfound dough, being big shots. As they entered the park, Ricky said, “I was talking to Donnie this afternoon, you know, about Val.”
Donnie was one of the regulars at Red’s and Kev thought about reminding Ricky what Val had said about loose lips but there didn’t seem like much point to it now. He was barely listening to Ricky as he watched for the cut-off Val had directed him to take.
“Anyway,” Ricky went on, “he says when Val come into Red’s the other day he was looking for the two biggest losers in Anchorage. Why do you think he said that?”
Kev was almost to the spot where Val said to leave the car and climb the hill. “Ah, I don’t know,” he said distractedly. “Probably jealous cause Val didn’t ask him in on the job.”
“Yeah,” Ricky nodded in agreement, “that’s probably it.”
“Here we are,” Kev said, pulling to a stop. “Grab the shovels out of the back and I’ll grab the rest of the shit.” When they topped the hill they could barely see the dunes below them or the recessed waters of the inlet in the dusk. Kev found the place Val had described and after twenty minutes of shoveling, Ricky asked, “This good enough?”
Kev shook his head. “We gotta go deeper. You don’t want a bear digging up the money and walking off with it, do you?”
They dug for another twenty minutes. Finally Kev said, “That oughta do it.” He went over to where the duffle-bags, masks, gloves and guns were piled. He picked up a bag in one hand and a Browning in the other. “Clear the back corner out a little more and we’ll be done.”
Ricky jumped down into the hole with the shovel and as soon as he turned his back Kev held his breath and shot him. Ricky grunted and slumped forward and Kev shot him again before exhaling. Then he jumped down to retrieve the shovel and when he turned around, Val was standing at the edge of the pit. Kev smiled up at him, “There’s your loose end, Val, all tied up.”
But Val Dutton wasn’t smiling and there was gun in his hand. “I said loose ends, kid, with an s.” In the millisecond between the pulling of the trigger and the first bullet punching into the center of his chest, it registered what Ricky had been saying.
He was looking for the two biggest losers in Anchorage. And he had found them.
BIO: Thomas Faughnan has been published on Beat To A Pulp and has several other stories pending. He lives in Anchorage, Alaska with the love of his life Sherri, a golden retriever and a cat.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
A Twist Of Noir 335 - Richard Godwin
HOWL - RICHARD GODWIN
They had almost finished eating when he felt it. Like someone pulling at his sleeve, drawing him away from human company into the shadows.
Rachel leant across him, the edge of her blouse brushing his arm and she glanced briefly at him as her breast pressed against him.
‘Lou, would you like more wine?’ she said.
He held her gaze and knew the question that flickered briefly in her eyes and looked over at Don and saw the tired signs of a marriage that had hit sexual zero.
He read her skin like a secret map.
Outside the moon beat light into the room and a beam broke across the carpet.
‘I think I’ll go,’ Lou said standing.
‘Bit early,’ Don said.
Rachel put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Yeah, come on, Lou.’
‘You know, I’ve got things to do.’
‘It’s another woman, right?’ Don said.
Rachel glanced in his direction.
‘Shut up, Don’.
‘No, I really must go.’
He went to use their john and it hit him. The taste of bile like rusting metal in his gut and the shadow of blood across his veiled cyanic eyes in the mirror.
And so he left them standing on the porch staring after him.
He tried to get home knowing he didn’t have much time, not wanting them to see the change and know him, not wanting to be found out by those who dwelt in his day world, the world he tried to navigate as best he could when the sickness was not on him.
The light was now surreal and the shadows altered in the trees and he knew he was among the resident forms of darkness and their attendant feasting had begun.
And as he turned the corner the smell of flesh hit him in some avalanche of sensation and the craving was too strong.
He stopped by the bar and the murmur of voices hummed into the street and above them he heard the trill of female laughter.
He found himself among strangers who looked at him with a sullen hostility that he could taste.
‘What can I get you?’ the barman said.
‘I’ll have a Bloody Mary.’
‘Now there’s a man after my own heart.’
He looked at her.
A fading beauty with urgency in her veins, a smile that told of half forgotten pleasures, and he could see the tear marks in her skin and he could smell what it was she was thinking.
‘Mirabelle,’ she said, extending a hand.
‘Lou.’
As he held it he felt the surge of her within him and what it was she wanted to feel and he could smell that she was fertile.
‘I like the name,’ she said, ‘get me another.’
He watched as the barman tipped tomato juice into the vodka and had to still himself, the smell was so strong.
Mirabelle was talking but he couldn’t hear what she was saying and he noticed a guy over in the corner scowl and look away.
He wore a faded denim jacket and swigged his beer with resentment.
And it built in Lou.
Mirabelle was moving her mouth but all he could do was smell her.
‘What do you think?’ she said.
‘Of what?’
‘What I was saying.’
‘I think you’re on heat.’
She burst out laughing and drunkenly wagged a finger in his direction.
‘Now you have a point,’ she said.
The guy in the corner got up and walked out, casting a hostile glance in Mirabelle’s direction as he left.
‘Know him?’ Lou said.
‘Ah, forget him.’
He tried focusing on what she was saying but she was speaking a foreign language and he felt lost among men and hungered for the dark.
It was too much and the blood was rushing into him in a torrent.
He stood up.
‘Where you going?’ Mirabelle said.
‘Outside.’
‘Take me with you, honey.’
She stood up and staggered after him, her heels clopping on the tiles and she found him bent over breathing heavily, hands on his knees.
‘Are you OK?’ she said.
‘Just leave me.’
‘Take me somewhere nice.’
He was about to say something when he heard the bottle smash at the edge of the car park and Mirabelle turned and it was too late because it had started and he could taste the blood and he smelled the woman and the man in the denim was moving towards him with the broken glass in his hand.
‘Git Mirabelle,’ he said, baring his teeth at her and Lou felt it then, seeing his lips curl back.
She screamed but it was Lou she was looking at as the scream rose in her throat and he saw her run from the car park as he heard the swish of bottle in the air. He ducked.
His attacker lost his balance and Lou grabbed him by the throat and saw the ripples of blood gather and trill there in some lunar melody and he tore his shirt from him and tasted him and defiled his body there as the light suffused the car park with some predatory glow.
And he drank of him and rose.
His mouth was awash with the fluids of the man who fell backwards now as Lou sank his teeth deep within his chest and pulled his heart from him and felt its rhythm beat against his teeth, the sharpness of razors in his mouth and some implacable hardness within him that drove him to penetrate deeper.
He held his head back until he did not move and he shook his heart from his mouth.
And then he rose his head towards the gibbous moon that lay lacerated by some trees deep in that alien sky and he howled.
BIO: Richard Godwin lives and writes in London, where his dark satire ‘The Cure-All’, about a group of confidence tricksters, has been produced on the stage. He has just finished writing a crime novel. His writing appears regularly at Disenthralled and Gloom Cupboard, among many other magazines. He has a Twitter account and can be found there under the User Name Stanzazone.
They had almost finished eating when he felt it. Like someone pulling at his sleeve, drawing him away from human company into the shadows.
Rachel leant across him, the edge of her blouse brushing his arm and she glanced briefly at him as her breast pressed against him.
‘Lou, would you like more wine?’ she said.
He held her gaze and knew the question that flickered briefly in her eyes and looked over at Don and saw the tired signs of a marriage that had hit sexual zero.
He read her skin like a secret map.
Outside the moon beat light into the room and a beam broke across the carpet.
‘I think I’ll go,’ Lou said standing.
‘Bit early,’ Don said.
Rachel put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Yeah, come on, Lou.’
‘You know, I’ve got things to do.’
‘It’s another woman, right?’ Don said.
Rachel glanced in his direction.
‘Shut up, Don’.
‘No, I really must go.’
He went to use their john and it hit him. The taste of bile like rusting metal in his gut and the shadow of blood across his veiled cyanic eyes in the mirror.
And so he left them standing on the porch staring after him.
He tried to get home knowing he didn’t have much time, not wanting them to see the change and know him, not wanting to be found out by those who dwelt in his day world, the world he tried to navigate as best he could when the sickness was not on him.
The light was now surreal and the shadows altered in the trees and he knew he was among the resident forms of darkness and their attendant feasting had begun.
And as he turned the corner the smell of flesh hit him in some avalanche of sensation and the craving was too strong.
He stopped by the bar and the murmur of voices hummed into the street and above them he heard the trill of female laughter.
He found himself among strangers who looked at him with a sullen hostility that he could taste.
‘What can I get you?’ the barman said.
‘I’ll have a Bloody Mary.’
‘Now there’s a man after my own heart.’
He looked at her.
A fading beauty with urgency in her veins, a smile that told of half forgotten pleasures, and he could see the tear marks in her skin and he could smell what it was she was thinking.
‘Mirabelle,’ she said, extending a hand.
‘Lou.’
As he held it he felt the surge of her within him and what it was she wanted to feel and he could smell that she was fertile.
‘I like the name,’ she said, ‘get me another.’
He watched as the barman tipped tomato juice into the vodka and had to still himself, the smell was so strong.
Mirabelle was talking but he couldn’t hear what she was saying and he noticed a guy over in the corner scowl and look away.
He wore a faded denim jacket and swigged his beer with resentment.
And it built in Lou.
Mirabelle was moving her mouth but all he could do was smell her.
‘What do you think?’ she said.
‘Of what?’
‘What I was saying.’
‘I think you’re on heat.’
She burst out laughing and drunkenly wagged a finger in his direction.
‘Now you have a point,’ she said.
The guy in the corner got up and walked out, casting a hostile glance in Mirabelle’s direction as he left.
‘Know him?’ Lou said.
‘Ah, forget him.’
He tried focusing on what she was saying but she was speaking a foreign language and he felt lost among men and hungered for the dark.
It was too much and the blood was rushing into him in a torrent.
He stood up.
‘Where you going?’ Mirabelle said.
‘Outside.’
‘Take me with you, honey.’
She stood up and staggered after him, her heels clopping on the tiles and she found him bent over breathing heavily, hands on his knees.
‘Are you OK?’ she said.
‘Just leave me.’
‘Take me somewhere nice.’
He was about to say something when he heard the bottle smash at the edge of the car park and Mirabelle turned and it was too late because it had started and he could taste the blood and he smelled the woman and the man in the denim was moving towards him with the broken glass in his hand.
‘Git Mirabelle,’ he said, baring his teeth at her and Lou felt it then, seeing his lips curl back.
She screamed but it was Lou she was looking at as the scream rose in her throat and he saw her run from the car park as he heard the swish of bottle in the air. He ducked.
His attacker lost his balance and Lou grabbed him by the throat and saw the ripples of blood gather and trill there in some lunar melody and he tore his shirt from him and tasted him and defiled his body there as the light suffused the car park with some predatory glow.
And he drank of him and rose.
His mouth was awash with the fluids of the man who fell backwards now as Lou sank his teeth deep within his chest and pulled his heart from him and felt its rhythm beat against his teeth, the sharpness of razors in his mouth and some implacable hardness within him that drove him to penetrate deeper.
He held his head back until he did not move and he shook his heart from his mouth.
And then he rose his head towards the gibbous moon that lay lacerated by some trees deep in that alien sky and he howled.
BIO: Richard Godwin lives and writes in London, where his dark satire ‘The Cure-All’, about a group of confidence tricksters, has been produced on the stage. He has just finished writing a crime novel. His writing appears regularly at Disenthralled and Gloom Cupboard, among many other magazines. He has a Twitter account and can be found there under the User Name Stanzazone.
It's Alive, It's Alive!
Crime Factory is now up and running with content galore.
Like who, you ask?
How about Ken Bruen, Frank Bill, Hilary Davidson, Steve Weddle and Dave White?
How about features from Scott Phillips and Adrian McKinty, Gordon Harries and The Nerd Of Noir?
C'mon! You know you want it.
Like who, you ask?
How about Ken Bruen, Frank Bill, Hilary Davidson, Steve Weddle and Dave White?
How about features from Scott Phillips and Adrian McKinty, Gordon Harries and The Nerd Of Noir?
C'mon! You know you want it.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
A Twist Of Noir 334 - Paul D. Brazill
WARSAW GHOSTS - PAUL D. BRAZILL
Originally published at Shoots & Vines Quarterly Print Four
A shadowy melody lapped at the shore of Krystyna’s sleep until she awoke drowning in sweat and stained by sour memories. The night air tasted like lead as she sat on the side of the crumpled bed, trying to flush away her doubts and murky thoughts with bourbon.
A sliver of moon garroted the coal black sky as Krystyna’s high heels clipped across the wet concrete, echoing through the deserted old town’s cobbled streets. Her breath appeared and disappeared like a spectre as she stood outside Klub Zodiak, its shimmering and buzzing neon sign reflected in a pool of blood that looked black in the moonlight.
Krystyna felt the cold metal in her fist as she slammed on the steel door of the nightclub until it creaked open. She pushed her way to the bar, breathing in the scent of cheap aftershave, cigarettes and booze. A sultry femme fatale on a chiaroscuro lit stage whispered a torch song that sparked the embers of a dream.
‘Bourbon?’ said Andrzej, the oak of a barman, his eyes as black as bullet holes, his voice like sandpaper.
Krystyna nodded, took off her raincoat and draped it over a bar stool.
‘Is he here?’ she said, downing her drink in one.
‘Of course,’ said Andrzej. ‘Where else would he be? He thinks that the moment he sets foot outside he’s a dead man. The paranoia is eating him like a cancer.’
‘Give him this,’ she said.
The shining wedding ring rattled and rolled along the marble bar.
‘That could be a big mistake,’ said Andrzej.
‘I just want to get clean for once in my life,’ said Krystyna.
‘No one gets out of life without dirtying their hands,’ said Andrzej, pouring himself a large Jack Daniels.
‘No one gets out of life alive,’ said Krystyna as she dissolved into the Warsaw night.
BIO: Paul D. Brazill was born in Hartlepool, England and lives in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He has had stories in Blink Ink, Disenthralled, Six Sentences, Powder Burn Flash, Beat To A Pulp and other such classy joints. He can be found stalking ‘you would say that, wouldn’t you?’
Originally published at Shoots & Vines Quarterly Print Four
A shadowy melody lapped at the shore of Krystyna’s sleep until she awoke drowning in sweat and stained by sour memories. The night air tasted like lead as she sat on the side of the crumpled bed, trying to flush away her doubts and murky thoughts with bourbon.
A sliver of moon garroted the coal black sky as Krystyna’s high heels clipped across the wet concrete, echoing through the deserted old town’s cobbled streets. Her breath appeared and disappeared like a spectre as she stood outside Klub Zodiak, its shimmering and buzzing neon sign reflected in a pool of blood that looked black in the moonlight.
Krystyna felt the cold metal in her fist as she slammed on the steel door of the nightclub until it creaked open. She pushed her way to the bar, breathing in the scent of cheap aftershave, cigarettes and booze. A sultry femme fatale on a chiaroscuro lit stage whispered a torch song that sparked the embers of a dream.
‘Bourbon?’ said Andrzej, the oak of a barman, his eyes as black as bullet holes, his voice like sandpaper.
Krystyna nodded, took off her raincoat and draped it over a bar stool.
‘Is he here?’ she said, downing her drink in one.
‘Of course,’ said Andrzej. ‘Where else would he be? He thinks that the moment he sets foot outside he’s a dead man. The paranoia is eating him like a cancer.’
‘Give him this,’ she said.
The shining wedding ring rattled and rolled along the marble bar.
‘That could be a big mistake,’ said Andrzej.
‘I just want to get clean for once in my life,’ said Krystyna.
‘No one gets out of life without dirtying their hands,’ said Andrzej, pouring himself a large Jack Daniels.
‘No one gets out of life alive,’ said Krystyna as she dissolved into the Warsaw night.
BIO: Paul D. Brazill was born in Hartlepool, England and lives in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He has had stories in Blink Ink, Disenthralled, Six Sentences, Powder Burn Flash, Beat To A Pulp and other such classy joints. He can be found stalking ‘you would say that, wouldn’t you?’
A Twist Of Noir 333 - Mark Robinson
TROPHY WIFE - MARK ROBINSON
The homeowner stood in the doorway blocking the handyman’s only escape from the trophy room. “Are you lost, mate?” The bulk in the doorway, huge arms folded, made the normal-sized entrance seem suddenly so miniscule.
The handyman had no reply; any words bubbling toward the surface were now winded by fear. Even before the interruption, when he was alone in the room, no words in his usual vocabulary fit the scene he saw.
“Let me guess: you’re looking for the bathroom, right?” Taking a step inside, he slammed the door on them with a flick of his wrist. The sudden contact jolted the handyman back toward the arrangement of glass cabinets that lined the walls, housing an array of glittering gold-plated trophies, awards, medals, plaques, plates and statuettes.
Finding his voice, temporarily lost beneath the ringing-echo of over-achievement, the handyman mumbled and nodded; blood welting beneath his face. Two steps and a firm hand across his shoulder, a vast weight buoying him to the spot.
The big man shushed him, patting his back. “Relax, mistakes happen. It’s my fault; I suppose I should’ve locked the door, right?” Both heads instinctively turning to see that the door handle had been tampered with to allow entry. A pat that became a slap; face so close to the handyman's ear that he could feel the prickle of stubble as he whispered, “My bad.”
Leaving the frigid intruder his host surveyed the interior, arms aloft. “So what do you think?”
He was a dead man, that’s what he thought; what kind of psycho kept a woman locked inside a box-room full of awards and called it his trophy room?
“You know who she is, right?” Taking his place alongside the pedestal and picking a piece of lint from her cleavage. “Course you do.” Nodding along with his guest; the missing model was a commodity, a mainstay of tabloid newspapers and glossy magazines across the globe. Her smoky eyes and assured pout made men forget their spouse even had a name.
“Is she dead?” A blurt that came out of his mouth sudden as a sneeze.
Instead of an angry face, the homeowner shot back a huge grin. “Is she dead?” A bubbling belly laugh. “I’m not a murderer.” Beckoning the handyman over with his banana-shaped index finger.
Who, against his better judgement, found his legs obliging; just like they had a week ago when he had cold-called the homeowner on behalf of his double-glazing and door company. Then, again, a few minutes ago when he noticed that this small terrace house had a security door upstairs.
“You see these tubes, here?” Big meaty paws pointing out the transparent coils filled with viscous fluids. “Those are plumbed into her stomach.” Side-stepping another branch of cabling. “And, these here; they’re wired in, keeping her heart going and lungs from collapsing.”
The intruder felt sick, reaching out a hand to steady himself against the catatonic centrefold. Her cool, slick skin immediately shocked his hand back; a slight tremor as she wobbled, fixed to the spot.
Big hands steadied the man, one grasping each shoulder tight until the bones rumbled against one another. “You married?” Bored by his trophy wife, instead, peering inside the nearest glass case.
A little breathless, a little nauseous, “Yeah.”
A huge beaming smile of mutual understanding. “Then you can relate? You get home from work after a long day...” Rolling around his wrist, “fixing doors; what if you got home and your wife wasn’t there? That ever happen to you?”
Of course it did, she wasn’t a prisoner in her own home; he thought about screaming it aloud but couldn’t find the traction in his tongue so, instead, just nodded.
“Wife’s not home, food’s not waiting for you on the table; the first couple of times, it’s excusable, you know? The relationship’s finding its footing, everything’s new; personalities clash in the early days until you find a routine, I could accept that to an extent. But, when I find out she’s been at some photo shoot in the buff - you tell me - what would you have done, eh?”
Drug her and keep her prisoner in a display room of insanity, obviously; the handyman kept quiet. All he could do was offer up an empathetic shrug.
The homeowner smiled. “See, I knew it wasn’t just me; you know, you’re all right, mate - I had my doubts at first, but...” A sincere nod of his melon-head. “How’s the door coming along downstairs?”
“Almost done.” Finding his voice and, maybe if he was lucky, a swift exit.
“Fantastic!” Closing in; one arm out toward the door and the other to lead the handyman back out. “You know; you’re one of a kind yourself, mate, seriously. I was beginning to wonder whether you lot were a dying breed.” Door finally open out onto the hallway, light visible from the picture window overhanging the staircase. “You get an unfair rep, you contractors - you and mechanics; they say, once you find one you can trust, you should never let them go.”
Stopping outside another heavily secured door he hadn’t noticed earlier, headed ‘Tradesmans Entrance.’
BIO: Mark Robinson has been published previously in Powder Burn Flash; Unlikely Stories; Static Movement; Blink-ink.com; Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers; SunkIsland Review; Microhorror; Hackwriters; Transmission; Raw Edge; ShortStory Library; Txt Lit; Post Card Shorts; Enigma and the Lulu Anthology Never Hit by Lightning (Edited by Tucker Lieberman & Andrew Tivey).
Forthcoming publications in 2010 include Beat to a Pulp, New Flesh magazine, Everyday Fiction, A Thousand Faces, Delivered, and the LameGoat Press Anthology The Next Time.
The homeowner stood in the doorway blocking the handyman’s only escape from the trophy room. “Are you lost, mate?” The bulk in the doorway, huge arms folded, made the normal-sized entrance seem suddenly so miniscule.
The handyman had no reply; any words bubbling toward the surface were now winded by fear. Even before the interruption, when he was alone in the room, no words in his usual vocabulary fit the scene he saw.
“Let me guess: you’re looking for the bathroom, right?” Taking a step inside, he slammed the door on them with a flick of his wrist. The sudden contact jolted the handyman back toward the arrangement of glass cabinets that lined the walls, housing an array of glittering gold-plated trophies, awards, medals, plaques, plates and statuettes.
Finding his voice, temporarily lost beneath the ringing-echo of over-achievement, the handyman mumbled and nodded; blood welting beneath his face. Two steps and a firm hand across his shoulder, a vast weight buoying him to the spot.
The big man shushed him, patting his back. “Relax, mistakes happen. It’s my fault; I suppose I should’ve locked the door, right?” Both heads instinctively turning to see that the door handle had been tampered with to allow entry. A pat that became a slap; face so close to the handyman's ear that he could feel the prickle of stubble as he whispered, “My bad.”
Leaving the frigid intruder his host surveyed the interior, arms aloft. “So what do you think?”
He was a dead man, that’s what he thought; what kind of psycho kept a woman locked inside a box-room full of awards and called it his trophy room?
“You know who she is, right?” Taking his place alongside the pedestal and picking a piece of lint from her cleavage. “Course you do.” Nodding along with his guest; the missing model was a commodity, a mainstay of tabloid newspapers and glossy magazines across the globe. Her smoky eyes and assured pout made men forget their spouse even had a name.
“Is she dead?” A blurt that came out of his mouth sudden as a sneeze.
Instead of an angry face, the homeowner shot back a huge grin. “Is she dead?” A bubbling belly laugh. “I’m not a murderer.” Beckoning the handyman over with his banana-shaped index finger.
Who, against his better judgement, found his legs obliging; just like they had a week ago when he had cold-called the homeowner on behalf of his double-glazing and door company. Then, again, a few minutes ago when he noticed that this small terrace house had a security door upstairs.
“You see these tubes, here?” Big meaty paws pointing out the transparent coils filled with viscous fluids. “Those are plumbed into her stomach.” Side-stepping another branch of cabling. “And, these here; they’re wired in, keeping her heart going and lungs from collapsing.”
The intruder felt sick, reaching out a hand to steady himself against the catatonic centrefold. Her cool, slick skin immediately shocked his hand back; a slight tremor as she wobbled, fixed to the spot.
Big hands steadied the man, one grasping each shoulder tight until the bones rumbled against one another. “You married?” Bored by his trophy wife, instead, peering inside the nearest glass case.
A little breathless, a little nauseous, “Yeah.”
A huge beaming smile of mutual understanding. “Then you can relate? You get home from work after a long day...” Rolling around his wrist, “fixing doors; what if you got home and your wife wasn’t there? That ever happen to you?”
Of course it did, she wasn’t a prisoner in her own home; he thought about screaming it aloud but couldn’t find the traction in his tongue so, instead, just nodded.
“Wife’s not home, food’s not waiting for you on the table; the first couple of times, it’s excusable, you know? The relationship’s finding its footing, everything’s new; personalities clash in the early days until you find a routine, I could accept that to an extent. But, when I find out she’s been at some photo shoot in the buff - you tell me - what would you have done, eh?”
Drug her and keep her prisoner in a display room of insanity, obviously; the handyman kept quiet. All he could do was offer up an empathetic shrug.
The homeowner smiled. “See, I knew it wasn’t just me; you know, you’re all right, mate - I had my doubts at first, but...” A sincere nod of his melon-head. “How’s the door coming along downstairs?”
“Almost done.” Finding his voice and, maybe if he was lucky, a swift exit.
“Fantastic!” Closing in; one arm out toward the door and the other to lead the handyman back out. “You know; you’re one of a kind yourself, mate, seriously. I was beginning to wonder whether you lot were a dying breed.” Door finally open out onto the hallway, light visible from the picture window overhanging the staircase. “You get an unfair rep, you contractors - you and mechanics; they say, once you find one you can trust, you should never let them go.”
Stopping outside another heavily secured door he hadn’t noticed earlier, headed ‘Tradesmans Entrance.’
BIO: Mark Robinson has been published previously in Powder Burn Flash; Unlikely Stories; Static Movement; Blink-ink.com; Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers; SunkIsland Review; Microhorror; Hackwriters; Transmission; Raw Edge; ShortStory Library; Txt Lit; Post Card Shorts; Enigma and the Lulu Anthology Never Hit by Lightning (Edited by Tucker Lieberman & Andrew Tivey).
Forthcoming publications in 2010 include Beat to a Pulp, New Flesh magazine, Everyday Fiction, A Thousand Faces, Delivered, and the LameGoat Press Anthology The Next Time.
Friday, January 22, 2010
A Twist Of Noir 332 - Richard Godwin
FANCY EATING - RICHARD GODWIN
Whenever I took a piss there, my habit was to stand feet shoulder width, one hand firmly on my dick, the other deep in my pocket. The place had a reputation, and there’d been some shit going down.
Old habits die hard.
I needed that metal touching the tips of my fingers. It’s an inside move. Don’t get jumped while you’re taking a piss.
It’s all in the shoulder roll, you clock him in the tiles, see him move behind you there, you dummy him, spin round and bring it up hitting him in the neck with the blade.
Call it my pocket buddy.
I saw him loitering by the trash outside, a tattoo of a blue tear at the corner of his eye.
He walked past me with the look. Eyes firmly set beneath the eyebrows, head down, prison gait.
Don’t fuck with me, he was saying.
Yeah? Well, don’t fuck with me, asshole.
Except I took a piss and nothing. He came in and was about to make his move and must have seen me clock him and he just washed his hands and went back out again.
Trixy was waiting for me when I got outside.
I can see her now, statuesque, one hell of a woman, red dress, shimmering in the heat like an invitation that carried a warning that said are you man enough?
The sky was a cobalt blue and the air as dry as parchment and we headed to the Jeep.
‘I need a drink,’ she said.
And as I drove to Filthy Jack’s bar, I saw him tail us.
Filthy Jack’s got a reputation for serving the finest burgers round these parts. The meat’s good and deep and the sauces are full of hidden surprises. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.
I knew Trixy could see him behind us.
Saw her fixing her lipstick in the mirror and looking at him hang back a few cars.
I thought of what I’d been reading, guys seen with a black woman on their arm slashed to ribbons.
We went inside and I ordered our drinks.
‘Jack, Trixy,’ I said.
‘Pleased to meet you, Trixy.’
I could see him giving her the eye but she wasn’t interested. I don’t think she liked his look.
We sat down and she sipped her highball.
‘What is that on his lip?’ she said.
‘Jack? Oh, it’s his pussy tickler moustache.’
‘Well, I think it’s disgusting.’
‘Don’t tell him that. He thinks it’s a big hit with the ladies.’
‘Honey, I’m hungry,’ she said.
‘You’re insatiable.’
‘No, I don’t mean that. Take me somewhere fancy to eat.’
‘Somewhere fancy?’
‘Yeah, you know the kind of place.’
Jack was polishing glasses and I shouted over to him.
‘Jack, fancing eating?’
‘No, I had a couple of tacos earlier.’
‘I’m asking you to recommend somewhere.’
‘Fancy? Fuck, who knows?’ he said.
It was hot, so hot the chilled glass oozed drops of condensation and my beer turned warm in my hand and I just had to get this thing done.
So I headed to the car park and the bloodbath.
Some guy was lying there with his head caved in and his wife was screaming.
‘He came at us from nowhere,’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘Big guy, shaven head.’
‘Tattoo here?’
She nodded and stood there shaking and trembling. I took her in with me and caught a flicker in the mirror over the bar as Jack went out back.
Trixy had got up from the bar and was over by the window getting some breeze and he stood a few feet away from her.
‘Hey, bitch, you like white meat?’ he said.
She gave him a look of such disdain it could have cut glass and said, ‘You ain’t got what it takes.’
And as I moved to them, he leant into her and she brought her stiletto up so fast he didn’t see it coming, the point ending right in his crotch.
I can still see it, her perfect calf leading out from the hem of her tight skirt and the red shoe connecting with him in ways he’d never imagined, his face crumpling like a piece of soiled paper.
He pulled himself up just as I got between them.
‘You like it dark?’ he said to me. ‘Like a lot of gravy?’
‘Fuck you, man.’
And I slipped him the blackjack.
It’s handy and it’s got a good spring action and his head spilt apart and lay open with this gash there right over his eye and he punched out at me but it was wild and I caught him with a right hook as he was coming up for air.
You could reach a finger into the hole I’d made in his head and a little spurt of blood was pumping away there.
‘You screw with me, I’ll fucking end you,’ I said.
He wasn’t moving much as I took Trixy’s arm and walked her outside.
I didn’t need a murder charge and figured he’d learnt his lesson.
The woman was gone and we walked to the Jeep and I got Trixy in.
But, as I turned, I heard a scuffle and saw him moving towards us, his head awash with blood.
Then I heard it.
The blast was ear shattering.
She must have gone back to her car for the weapon. She stood some way off but it was a perfect shot.
The first bullet opened him up like a piece of steak.
And she emptied the rifle into him as though she was fucking him, her legs astride, firing away without mercy, each bullet tearing a bigger hole than the last one. The middle of his chest opening wider and wider with each impact which made him leap forward across the car park until he was a bitter picture of ripped skin and lay there in a pool of his own blood.
I walked over to her.
‘Nice shooting.’
‘Motherfucker, who he think he is?’
‘Well right now I think he’s dead.’
She put the rifle down and started shaking.
Jack was coming out from the bar.
‘What the fuck’s going on here?’ he said.
‘Where are you when we need you?’
‘Getting some barrels at the back.’
‘Can you dispose of this lady’s weapon and this asshole?’
He looked down at the body.
‘Good size,’ he said. ‘Cutter John’s coming over later, I reckon we could use him.’
The lady looked at him.
‘For what?’
‘Hamburgers, honey.’
‘Need me to help you clear up?’ I said.
‘It’s all right. There’s a few there on his shanks and you know me, I never waste an ounce of spare flesh, thanks for the delivery.’
‘You’re more than welcome.’
I saw the lady to her car and Jack went to get his hose. Her man was bleeding but would survive.
Then I drove Trixy out of there.
She’d calmed down and I looked at her sitting there in the passenger seat and she was just shimmering.
‘Fancy eating?’
BIO: Richard Godwin lives and writes in London, where his dark satire ‘The Cure-All’, about a group of confidence tricksters, has been produced on the stage. He has just finished writing a crime novel.
Whenever I took a piss there, my habit was to stand feet shoulder width, one hand firmly on my dick, the other deep in my pocket. The place had a reputation, and there’d been some shit going down.
Old habits die hard.
I needed that metal touching the tips of my fingers. It’s an inside move. Don’t get jumped while you’re taking a piss.
It’s all in the shoulder roll, you clock him in the tiles, see him move behind you there, you dummy him, spin round and bring it up hitting him in the neck with the blade.
Call it my pocket buddy.
I saw him loitering by the trash outside, a tattoo of a blue tear at the corner of his eye.
He walked past me with the look. Eyes firmly set beneath the eyebrows, head down, prison gait.
Don’t fuck with me, he was saying.
Yeah? Well, don’t fuck with me, asshole.
Except I took a piss and nothing. He came in and was about to make his move and must have seen me clock him and he just washed his hands and went back out again.
Trixy was waiting for me when I got outside.
I can see her now, statuesque, one hell of a woman, red dress, shimmering in the heat like an invitation that carried a warning that said are you man enough?
The sky was a cobalt blue and the air as dry as parchment and we headed to the Jeep.
‘I need a drink,’ she said.
And as I drove to Filthy Jack’s bar, I saw him tail us.
Filthy Jack’s got a reputation for serving the finest burgers round these parts. The meat’s good and deep and the sauces are full of hidden surprises. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.
I knew Trixy could see him behind us.
Saw her fixing her lipstick in the mirror and looking at him hang back a few cars.
I thought of what I’d been reading, guys seen with a black woman on their arm slashed to ribbons.
We went inside and I ordered our drinks.
‘Jack, Trixy,’ I said.
‘Pleased to meet you, Trixy.’
I could see him giving her the eye but she wasn’t interested. I don’t think she liked his look.
We sat down and she sipped her highball.
‘What is that on his lip?’ she said.
‘Jack? Oh, it’s his pussy tickler moustache.’
‘Well, I think it’s disgusting.’
‘Don’t tell him that. He thinks it’s a big hit with the ladies.’
‘Honey, I’m hungry,’ she said.
‘You’re insatiable.’
‘No, I don’t mean that. Take me somewhere fancy to eat.’
‘Somewhere fancy?’
‘Yeah, you know the kind of place.’
Jack was polishing glasses and I shouted over to him.
‘Jack, fancing eating?’
‘No, I had a couple of tacos earlier.’
‘I’m asking you to recommend somewhere.’
‘Fancy? Fuck, who knows?’ he said.
It was hot, so hot the chilled glass oozed drops of condensation and my beer turned warm in my hand and I just had to get this thing done.
So I headed to the car park and the bloodbath.
Some guy was lying there with his head caved in and his wife was screaming.
‘He came at us from nowhere,’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘Big guy, shaven head.’
‘Tattoo here?’
She nodded and stood there shaking and trembling. I took her in with me and caught a flicker in the mirror over the bar as Jack went out back.
Trixy had got up from the bar and was over by the window getting some breeze and he stood a few feet away from her.
‘Hey, bitch, you like white meat?’ he said.
She gave him a look of such disdain it could have cut glass and said, ‘You ain’t got what it takes.’
And as I moved to them, he leant into her and she brought her stiletto up so fast he didn’t see it coming, the point ending right in his crotch.
I can still see it, her perfect calf leading out from the hem of her tight skirt and the red shoe connecting with him in ways he’d never imagined, his face crumpling like a piece of soiled paper.
He pulled himself up just as I got between them.
‘You like it dark?’ he said to me. ‘Like a lot of gravy?’
‘Fuck you, man.’
And I slipped him the blackjack.
It’s handy and it’s got a good spring action and his head spilt apart and lay open with this gash there right over his eye and he punched out at me but it was wild and I caught him with a right hook as he was coming up for air.
You could reach a finger into the hole I’d made in his head and a little spurt of blood was pumping away there.
‘You screw with me, I’ll fucking end you,’ I said.
He wasn’t moving much as I took Trixy’s arm and walked her outside.
I didn’t need a murder charge and figured he’d learnt his lesson.
The woman was gone and we walked to the Jeep and I got Trixy in.
But, as I turned, I heard a scuffle and saw him moving towards us, his head awash with blood.
Then I heard it.
The blast was ear shattering.
She must have gone back to her car for the weapon. She stood some way off but it was a perfect shot.
The first bullet opened him up like a piece of steak.
And she emptied the rifle into him as though she was fucking him, her legs astride, firing away without mercy, each bullet tearing a bigger hole than the last one. The middle of his chest opening wider and wider with each impact which made him leap forward across the car park until he was a bitter picture of ripped skin and lay there in a pool of his own blood.
I walked over to her.
‘Nice shooting.’
‘Motherfucker, who he think he is?’
‘Well right now I think he’s dead.’
She put the rifle down and started shaking.
Jack was coming out from the bar.
‘What the fuck’s going on here?’ he said.
‘Where are you when we need you?’
‘Getting some barrels at the back.’
‘Can you dispose of this lady’s weapon and this asshole?’
He looked down at the body.
‘Good size,’ he said. ‘Cutter John’s coming over later, I reckon we could use him.’
The lady looked at him.
‘For what?’
‘Hamburgers, honey.’
‘Need me to help you clear up?’ I said.
‘It’s all right. There’s a few there on his shanks and you know me, I never waste an ounce of spare flesh, thanks for the delivery.’
‘You’re more than welcome.’
I saw the lady to her car and Jack went to get his hose. Her man was bleeding but would survive.
Then I drove Trixy out of there.
She’d calmed down and I looked at her sitting there in the passenger seat and she was just shimmering.
‘Fancy eating?’
BIO: Richard Godwin lives and writes in London, where his dark satire ‘The Cure-All’, about a group of confidence tricksters, has been produced on the stage. He has just finished writing a crime novel.
A Twist Of Noir 331 - Walter Conley
PRINCES - WALTER CONLEY
(for Miss Alister)
A woman at the bar said, “It’s not my blouse that smells like mothballs. It’s my bra. The...”
“Cup?”
“Cup. Cup?”
“Cup,” I told her.
She sighed, looked at the row of bottles along the wall, made a face, then shook her head. I thought she might collapse, so I eased back to give her room.
“Hey.”
The speaker tapped me on the shoulder. It wasn’t a friendly tap, either; more like a fingerpad jab. I turned to find Michael A. looming.
“Who brings their mother into a place like this?” he said, nodding at the woman.
“She ain’t my mother.”
“Must be somebody’s mother.”
“How should I know? Why don’t you ask her?”
“You,” he said, giggling.
I leaned toward the woman and nudged her. “Hey, lady. You got any kids?”
“No kids,” she said. “Only grandkids.”
“How can that be?” Michael asked.
She turned to him and said, “My kids are dead.”
“Jeez,” Michael said, almost under his breath. “I’m sorry.”
I let him know what I thought of him with my eyes--and it wasn’t that he was cute.
He looked back at the woman, opened his fat stupid mouth and said, “How’d it happen?”
“Don’t ask her that,” I whispered.
“I already did.”
“It’s all right,” she said, waving her hands. “In a place crash. Last year. One of those little ones that goes between Boston and New York, with business people on it.”
“Your kids were business people?” Michael asked.
“No. They were coming in from Arizona. For some reason, they had to go to Boston, instead of New York, and then fly back.”
“Where,” he said, “did they go down?”
“They made it to Deep River. And then they crashed in that big empty field by the high school, where they have the carnivals and stuff?”
“No kidding,” Michael said. “You’re not going to believe this...”
“Knock it off,” I told him.
“What?” she said.
“My friend’s father is a cop,” Michael said. “Police photographer. He showed me a couple polaroids of these fucked-up people who died in a plane crash.”
“Mister--”
“One of them had his leg on backwards.”
“Stop,” she said.
“What?” he said, like he didn’t understand.
“Please.”
“What?” he said again.
And while his mouth hung open from that last What, I drove the lip of my G&T right into it. He cartwheeled backwards, his sideshow head bouncing off the floor. Dazed and bleeding—realizing he was helpless—Michael raised his hands in front of his face. I got off my stool, picked it up by the legs and swung the edge of the seat into the top of his head. He bucked off the floor, out before he touched back down.
The bar went quiet for a minute. I could feel everybody staring at me. Then the talk started up again, the TV came back on, somebody opened the door to the kitchen.
“I can’t remember the last time anyone stood up for me,” the woman said.
“I owed him money,” I said, shrugging. “He was going to hurt me, bad kind of hurt, as soon as he quit bothering you.”
I tossed a five on the bar, lamenting the waste of a good Gin & Tonic, then shuffled out through the uncaring crowd for some much-needed sunlight.
BIO: Walter Conley was a founding member of the Inkpunks. He has written for a variety of media, with online work appearing recently at Blink-Ink, Danse Macabre, 6S and Gloom Cupboard. Walter is a Contributing Editor at Full of Crow and currently publishes the ezine Disenthralled.
(for Miss Alister)
A woman at the bar said, “It’s not my blouse that smells like mothballs. It’s my bra. The...”
“Cup?”
“Cup. Cup?”
“Cup,” I told her.
She sighed, looked at the row of bottles along the wall, made a face, then shook her head. I thought she might collapse, so I eased back to give her room.
“Hey.”
The speaker tapped me on the shoulder. It wasn’t a friendly tap, either; more like a fingerpad jab. I turned to find Michael A. looming.
“Who brings their mother into a place like this?” he said, nodding at the woman.
“She ain’t my mother.”
“Must be somebody’s mother.”
“How should I know? Why don’t you ask her?”
“You,” he said, giggling.
I leaned toward the woman and nudged her. “Hey, lady. You got any kids?”
“No kids,” she said. “Only grandkids.”
“How can that be?” Michael asked.
She turned to him and said, “My kids are dead.”
“Jeez,” Michael said, almost under his breath. “I’m sorry.”
I let him know what I thought of him with my eyes--and it wasn’t that he was cute.
He looked back at the woman, opened his fat stupid mouth and said, “How’d it happen?”
“Don’t ask her that,” I whispered.
“I already did.”
“It’s all right,” she said, waving her hands. “In a place crash. Last year. One of those little ones that goes between Boston and New York, with business people on it.”
“Your kids were business people?” Michael asked.
“No. They were coming in from Arizona. For some reason, they had to go to Boston, instead of New York, and then fly back.”
“Where,” he said, “did they go down?”
“They made it to Deep River. And then they crashed in that big empty field by the high school, where they have the carnivals and stuff?”
“No kidding,” Michael said. “You’re not going to believe this...”
“Knock it off,” I told him.
“What?” she said.
“My friend’s father is a cop,” Michael said. “Police photographer. He showed me a couple polaroids of these fucked-up people who died in a plane crash.”
“Mister--”
“One of them had his leg on backwards.”
“Stop,” she said.
“What?” he said, like he didn’t understand.
“Please.”
“What?” he said again.
And while his mouth hung open from that last What, I drove the lip of my G&T right into it. He cartwheeled backwards, his sideshow head bouncing off the floor. Dazed and bleeding—realizing he was helpless—Michael raised his hands in front of his face. I got off my stool, picked it up by the legs and swung the edge of the seat into the top of his head. He bucked off the floor, out before he touched back down.
The bar went quiet for a minute. I could feel everybody staring at me. Then the talk started up again, the TV came back on, somebody opened the door to the kitchen.
“I can’t remember the last time anyone stood up for me,” the woman said.
“I owed him money,” I said, shrugging. “He was going to hurt me, bad kind of hurt, as soon as he quit bothering you.”
I tossed a five on the bar, lamenting the waste of a good Gin & Tonic, then shuffled out through the uncaring crowd for some much-needed sunlight.
BIO: Walter Conley was a founding member of the Inkpunks. He has written for a variety of media, with online work appearing recently at Blink-Ink, Danse Macabre, 6S and Gloom Cupboard. Walter is a Contributing Editor at Full of Crow and currently publishes the ezine Disenthralled.
A Twist Of Noir 330 - James McGowan
GREG’S DEAD, BABY, GREG’S DEAD - JAMES MCGOWAN
I killed my stepfather when I was fourteen. Nobody saw it coming especially him. He was a retarded fucker especially by the time I finished with him.
His name was Greg and I called him egg ’cause I hated them and him. Eggs come out of arseholes and Greg was Mister Arsehole. Eggs are great environments for culturing viral throwbacks. Greg was a fucking throwback. To the sixties, to mantras, to tofu sandwiches, to yoga, to TM, to pillow talk, to angst cubed, to fucked up hair, to unkemptness if that’s even a fucking word which I doubt but I couldn’t be fucking arsed to look it up MAN! Greg would be proud of that Man man. If his thick head wasn’t at 180 degrees to where it should be. But let me backtrack.
I just did it. Ten minutes ago. So the energy is still flowing through me - quantum energies of destruction careering through my bloodstream. Looking for a way out. Remembering the Greg rout. The shout. The clout.
Greg was into Ki energy and bullshit. My mother fell for it. I couldn’t stand for it. The first time I met him my mother invited him around for tea. Myself and my brother stood inside the hallway door as my mother introduced him. I just kept looking at him. With high beam cold eyes that my father had given me. Trying to break him down before he even started.
Be nice boys, my mother said.
We were - we didn’t stab him in the groin, for instance.
My brother Sid just turned around and walked into the dining room. He had a searing intelligence that had begun to burn some of the neural links so he didn’t waste time on pleasantries or shit shat as he called it. He was a laugh a minute. He studied books on mnemonics, UFOs, levitation, psychic surgery, and forensic pathology.
Greg watched Sid’s retreating figure and started to sweat a little. His sangfroid was out the fucking fenestre, baby! I was learning French in school so I could join the Foreign Legion and come back to impress les filles.
My mother shoved past me. Pliant as always, I just went with the flow. And followed them into the dining room.
I knew by the way they talked it was serious. I have a sixth sense for potential disasters. If they had me when the Hindenburg was landing I could have saved lives. Or at least not cried on the live broadcast from New Jersey. I thought they were supposed to be tough over there.
Tea was a fraught affair old chap. I said nothing to him but just looked at him. Occasionally and discreetly I stuck my tongue out when I had a full mouth of masticated Brennan’s Bread. My brother just read An Encyclopedia of Executions.
Greg was one of those new age liberal types that I instinctively want to hatchet. I must admit he did not seem to be phased by the partially dissolved rice and beans but I knew he had to be sweating. He tried to engage me in conversation but I ignored him. He talked about auras, etc., till I was hoping that fire from heaven would envelope him. Spontaneous combustion is rare but maybe he was dry enough to affect it.
Halfway through lunch Sid got up and left the table and said nothing. Greg looked up, disconcerted, and tried to keep talking, eating and not bursting into flames. My mother told me I could leave the table but I just sat there absorbing as much bullshit and Ki energy as possible. They eventually finished and went into the TV room. Greg looked at me and said toodle pip.
Toodle pip - what a prick, I thought. A real English greeting for ponces. His self importance and feigned patience over-floweth, I suppose. Unlike his medulla. After a few minutes I joined them. I rarely watched TV except for the World at War and other documentaries on blitzkrieg, for example, or, for light entertainment, F Troop, Get Smart and Green Acres.
Those programs were distilled genius. A bit like myself I suppose. Agent 99 proved to me that women were smarter and nothing has changed my mind since. She was a good role model for the women’s movement especially since she was very smart (unlike Smart) and could use a gun. She would be perfect in a Chandler book or one of mine! If I ever write one.
I loved Corporal Agarn in F Troop and the shortsighted corporal who fell into the well at the beginning and the inept lieutenant and his girlfriend with the tassels. I could not figure out how she was attracted to him when I was available. My age, eleven years, and the cathode ray tube barrier curbed my longing however. Even Corporal Agarn was a better option for her. And he
was worse than Greg.
Tarantino made Arnold the pig famous but I recognized him as one of the better actors on TV. His owner Mr. Haney was a match for Ava Gabor. I loved how she threw the dishes out the window when they were finished breakfast. I tried it myself and it is a good feeling. I stole the dishes from the local hardware store for a few months. Nobody ever expected crockery to be stolen so security was minimal and I had the field to myself for a while. Eventually they redeployed their forces - I got that from the World at War - but by then I had moved on myself.
Anyway, my mother and Greg were whispering when I came in and sitting close together but they moved apart. Carry on I said and picked up the Victor. They had some good reconstruction of Banzai charges on Iwo Jima even though I knew it backwards. At irregular intervals I would lower the Victor and look over the top of the comic at the courting couple. They pretended to be watching TV but I knew their gonads were aflame like the tip of the cigarettes they were smoking. Continuing my campaign of psychological warfare, I winked when I was sure Greg made eye contact. That’s ophthalmic-wise not higher self-wise.
When the Fugitive started, I was interested and threw the Victor across the room. My mother shouted, Viktor, pick up that Victor.
I think it’s fair that everyone should have a comic named after them.
It wasn’t me, I said.
Of course, it was you.
It wasn’t me.
It was you - there is no one else here.
What about Greg?
What about Greg?
Exactly.
How could Greg do it - he is sitting here beside me?
What about all that Ki energy and stuff?
Greg looked pale and was getting paler and sweating. Spontaneous combustion was now impossible.
Greg, don’t mind him, my mother said patting his hand.
No problemo.
Holy Godo, I thought - as in Beckett not the Testament.
Greg?
Yes, kiddo? I had to admire his tenacity.
He looked at me with such sincerity and openness I thought I would laugh. My mother seemed to relax as well.
Greg, how does the one armed man clean his arse?
My mother stood up and pulled me up from the floor.
Get out of here, you crazy bastard - a tad harsh I thought.
I picked up the Victor. At the door, I turned.
Toodle pip, I said but didn’t wait for an answer.
When I got upstairs to our bedroom, Sid lay on the covers reading. I told him what happened. He laughed. I laughed as well and I ran towards the bed whooping, jumped and landed on top of him. He tickled me and wrestled me and when I fell asleep I dreamt of the one armed man strangling Greg.
Greg came back at the weekend for another tea time get together. While he was having tea I went outside. I was interested in low intensity warfare – cf again World at War. When I noticed the petrol cap was loose I decided to piss into the petrol tank. It was difficult to piss up and produce an arc that would go into the opening. But males have an innate ability at this from centuries of practicing, I suspect. They have a dominant gene for piss-arcing and flourishes. My mother called me in for tea.
Urine, Madam? I asked from the rear of the car.
She didn’t notice that I was just finishing. She didn’t wear glasses on her dates. When they came into the TV room after their tea, I went out and ran through the autumnal evening – full of half light and shadows.
When I got back, Greg was standing beside his car while the AA man hooked it up to tow it away. My mother looked dismayed and I could see Greg was annoyed. Bad etheric neighborhood I said as I walked past them into the house. I ran upstairs to tell Sid. He loved it, especially the urine part even though he did talk to me at length then about the qualities of
urine and its purity unless you have a kidney infection or syphilis.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Seriously, though.
I know, Sid, piss off.
*
Greg didn’t come back again until they were married. Greg was a street angel and a house devil. The mantra intoning new age façade was just that. All for show. And the façade faded fast. That’s alliteration for you. He started small.
Listen to me, bucko - those whatever – Sunday roasts, baked beans, jumpers, shoes, socks, Jack’s paper etc don’t grow on trees, you know.
Yeah, I know. He hated that.
Starving Black babies in Africa would love that whatever – Sunday roasts, baked beans, jelly and ice cream, salmonella.
It’s semolina actually.
They have salmonella already. He really hated that.
Eventually Greg started to hit me when my mother wasn’t there. I didn’t respond. I took the blows and got up from the floor and faced him again. I looked into his eyes urging him to hit me. And he would. Sometimes I would sidestep his blows so gracefully I impressed myself. I showed him I could avoid them any time I wanted but usually I just let them land. I wanted to incubate that pain. Just like cultures humming and billowing into monsters inside nutrient rich albumin.
Greg’s reaction to me was fuelled by my ability to ignore him even when he was admonishing or hitting me. I learned not to respond to any blows. I just smiled back at him or just stared into those grey Greg eyes of his.
His glancing blows to my head and ears left little evidence but were fiercely painful. His full contact punches to my back and stomach left bruises but these were faint. When my mother commented on this, he attacked her.
Large fists swinging through the air, hitting her on the side of the head. Clatters they are called in Ireland. Portent and intent enfolded into the aural effect of the word. Loud grunts from him and muted grunts from her when the blows landed and she was knocked against the door or into the TV or onto the floor. I would attack with my fists, milk bottles, the poker, tins of beans. I stuck the kitchen knife in his shoulder blade once. I had to jump up to reach it. The pain was enormous if his bellowing was any indication. Sid was away in med school cutting up dead bodies but Greg was one live body I wanted to cut up. I felt my time would come. And it came the eve of my fifteenth birthday.
I was leaving my bedroom when I saw him coming out of theirs. He was stretching his arms and yawning and heading towards the bathroom. I could have done this on other occasions but my intellect always overruled me. But not today. I was going to be fifteen.
As he passed the top of the stairs, I ran the length of the landing and, with a perfect two footed flying kick, caught him in his lower back and he tumbled down the stairs without even trying to fly.
Greg realized the danger just at the last minute when his peripheral vision caught a movement that was high and fast, too late. I landed perfectly on the balls of my feet at the top of the stairs- a ten - perfect score if flying kick assassination was an Olympic event. Ease of difficulty – high and I watched him tumble down the stairs breaking the upright struts of the banister as well as his neck. It sounded like the ultimate chiropractic adjustment. He shouted in alarm as he fell but there was no one at home to hear him except me.
If he knew the least thing about aerodynamics, he might have made some minor adjustments to his flight path to save himself. However he didn’t at all.
I walked down the stairs and leant down close so he could hear what I said.
Listen here to me, fucko – do you think those banisters grow on trees?
But of course he didn’t listen to me at all. He just stared up at me and blinked once or twice. Blood ran from his ear across the polished hardwood floor. The light reflected off the shiny surface of the blood as it rolled across the floor and pooled near the doorway.
Greg’s big dead head.
Then I fled.
Greg bled.
The blood is on the mat.
Or at least soaking into it.
That is that.
Happy birthday Victor.
I kicked his head and it flopped over like it belonged to a broken necked chicken, which he nearly was. Eggs to eggs, arse holes to arse holes.
I shouted out, Toodle Pip. Then I closed the door behind me and Greg. And went out into the cold dark evening heavy with black rain clouds hugging the houses of the grey town.
BIO: James McGowan is a noir fiend out of and has been published in Plots with Guns, Thuglit, Demolition, Hard Luck Stories and Powder Burn Flash.
I killed my stepfather when I was fourteen. Nobody saw it coming especially him. He was a retarded fucker especially by the time I finished with him.
His name was Greg and I called him egg ’cause I hated them and him. Eggs come out of arseholes and Greg was Mister Arsehole. Eggs are great environments for culturing viral throwbacks. Greg was a fucking throwback. To the sixties, to mantras, to tofu sandwiches, to yoga, to TM, to pillow talk, to angst cubed, to fucked up hair, to unkemptness if that’s even a fucking word which I doubt but I couldn’t be fucking arsed to look it up MAN! Greg would be proud of that Man man. If his thick head wasn’t at 180 degrees to where it should be. But let me backtrack.
I just did it. Ten minutes ago. So the energy is still flowing through me - quantum energies of destruction careering through my bloodstream. Looking for a way out. Remembering the Greg rout. The shout. The clout.
Greg was into Ki energy and bullshit. My mother fell for it. I couldn’t stand for it. The first time I met him my mother invited him around for tea. Myself and my brother stood inside the hallway door as my mother introduced him. I just kept looking at him. With high beam cold eyes that my father had given me. Trying to break him down before he even started.
Be nice boys, my mother said.
We were - we didn’t stab him in the groin, for instance.
My brother Sid just turned around and walked into the dining room. He had a searing intelligence that had begun to burn some of the neural links so he didn’t waste time on pleasantries or shit shat as he called it. He was a laugh a minute. He studied books on mnemonics, UFOs, levitation, psychic surgery, and forensic pathology.
Greg watched Sid’s retreating figure and started to sweat a little. His sangfroid was out the fucking fenestre, baby! I was learning French in school so I could join the Foreign Legion and come back to impress les filles.
My mother shoved past me. Pliant as always, I just went with the flow. And followed them into the dining room.
I knew by the way they talked it was serious. I have a sixth sense for potential disasters. If they had me when the Hindenburg was landing I could have saved lives. Or at least not cried on the live broadcast from New Jersey. I thought they were supposed to be tough over there.
Tea was a fraught affair old chap. I said nothing to him but just looked at him. Occasionally and discreetly I stuck my tongue out when I had a full mouth of masticated Brennan’s Bread. My brother just read An Encyclopedia of Executions.
Greg was one of those new age liberal types that I instinctively want to hatchet. I must admit he did not seem to be phased by the partially dissolved rice and beans but I knew he had to be sweating. He tried to engage me in conversation but I ignored him. He talked about auras, etc., till I was hoping that fire from heaven would envelope him. Spontaneous combustion is rare but maybe he was dry enough to affect it.
Halfway through lunch Sid got up and left the table and said nothing. Greg looked up, disconcerted, and tried to keep talking, eating and not bursting into flames. My mother told me I could leave the table but I just sat there absorbing as much bullshit and Ki energy as possible. They eventually finished and went into the TV room. Greg looked at me and said toodle pip.
Toodle pip - what a prick, I thought. A real English greeting for ponces. His self importance and feigned patience over-floweth, I suppose. Unlike his medulla. After a few minutes I joined them. I rarely watched TV except for the World at War and other documentaries on blitzkrieg, for example, or, for light entertainment, F Troop, Get Smart and Green Acres.
Those programs were distilled genius. A bit like myself I suppose. Agent 99 proved to me that women were smarter and nothing has changed my mind since. She was a good role model for the women’s movement especially since she was very smart (unlike Smart) and could use a gun. She would be perfect in a Chandler book or one of mine! If I ever write one.
I loved Corporal Agarn in F Troop and the shortsighted corporal who fell into the well at the beginning and the inept lieutenant and his girlfriend with the tassels. I could not figure out how she was attracted to him when I was available. My age, eleven years, and the cathode ray tube barrier curbed my longing however. Even Corporal Agarn was a better option for her. And he
was worse than Greg.
Tarantino made Arnold the pig famous but I recognized him as one of the better actors on TV. His owner Mr. Haney was a match for Ava Gabor. I loved how she threw the dishes out the window when they were finished breakfast. I tried it myself and it is a good feeling. I stole the dishes from the local hardware store for a few months. Nobody ever expected crockery to be stolen so security was minimal and I had the field to myself for a while. Eventually they redeployed their forces - I got that from the World at War - but by then I had moved on myself.
Anyway, my mother and Greg were whispering when I came in and sitting close together but they moved apart. Carry on I said and picked up the Victor. They had some good reconstruction of Banzai charges on Iwo Jima even though I knew it backwards. At irregular intervals I would lower the Victor and look over the top of the comic at the courting couple. They pretended to be watching TV but I knew their gonads were aflame like the tip of the cigarettes they were smoking. Continuing my campaign of psychological warfare, I winked when I was sure Greg made eye contact. That’s ophthalmic-wise not higher self-wise.
When the Fugitive started, I was interested and threw the Victor across the room. My mother shouted, Viktor, pick up that Victor.
I think it’s fair that everyone should have a comic named after them.
It wasn’t me, I said.
Of course, it was you.
It wasn’t me.
It was you - there is no one else here.
What about Greg?
What about Greg?
Exactly.
How could Greg do it - he is sitting here beside me?
What about all that Ki energy and stuff?
Greg looked pale and was getting paler and sweating. Spontaneous combustion was now impossible.
Greg, don’t mind him, my mother said patting his hand.
No problemo.
Holy Godo, I thought - as in Beckett not the Testament.
Greg?
Yes, kiddo? I had to admire his tenacity.
He looked at me with such sincerity and openness I thought I would laugh. My mother seemed to relax as well.
Greg, how does the one armed man clean his arse?
My mother stood up and pulled me up from the floor.
Get out of here, you crazy bastard - a tad harsh I thought.
I picked up the Victor. At the door, I turned.
Toodle pip, I said but didn’t wait for an answer.
When I got upstairs to our bedroom, Sid lay on the covers reading. I told him what happened. He laughed. I laughed as well and I ran towards the bed whooping, jumped and landed on top of him. He tickled me and wrestled me and when I fell asleep I dreamt of the one armed man strangling Greg.
Greg came back at the weekend for another tea time get together. While he was having tea I went outside. I was interested in low intensity warfare – cf again World at War. When I noticed the petrol cap was loose I decided to piss into the petrol tank. It was difficult to piss up and produce an arc that would go into the opening. But males have an innate ability at this from centuries of practicing, I suspect. They have a dominant gene for piss-arcing and flourishes. My mother called me in for tea.
Urine, Madam? I asked from the rear of the car.
She didn’t notice that I was just finishing. She didn’t wear glasses on her dates. When they came into the TV room after their tea, I went out and ran through the autumnal evening – full of half light and shadows.
When I got back, Greg was standing beside his car while the AA man hooked it up to tow it away. My mother looked dismayed and I could see Greg was annoyed. Bad etheric neighborhood I said as I walked past them into the house. I ran upstairs to tell Sid. He loved it, especially the urine part even though he did talk to me at length then about the qualities of
urine and its purity unless you have a kidney infection or syphilis.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Seriously, though.
I know, Sid, piss off.
*
Greg didn’t come back again until they were married. Greg was a street angel and a house devil. The mantra intoning new age façade was just that. All for show. And the façade faded fast. That’s alliteration for you. He started small.
Listen to me, bucko - those whatever – Sunday roasts, baked beans, jumpers, shoes, socks, Jack’s paper etc don’t grow on trees, you know.
Yeah, I know. He hated that.
Starving Black babies in Africa would love that whatever – Sunday roasts, baked beans, jelly and ice cream, salmonella.
It’s semolina actually.
They have salmonella already. He really hated that.
Eventually Greg started to hit me when my mother wasn’t there. I didn’t respond. I took the blows and got up from the floor and faced him again. I looked into his eyes urging him to hit me. And he would. Sometimes I would sidestep his blows so gracefully I impressed myself. I showed him I could avoid them any time I wanted but usually I just let them land. I wanted to incubate that pain. Just like cultures humming and billowing into monsters inside nutrient rich albumin.
Greg’s reaction to me was fuelled by my ability to ignore him even when he was admonishing or hitting me. I learned not to respond to any blows. I just smiled back at him or just stared into those grey Greg eyes of his.
His glancing blows to my head and ears left little evidence but were fiercely painful. His full contact punches to my back and stomach left bruises but these were faint. When my mother commented on this, he attacked her.
Large fists swinging through the air, hitting her on the side of the head. Clatters they are called in Ireland. Portent and intent enfolded into the aural effect of the word. Loud grunts from him and muted grunts from her when the blows landed and she was knocked against the door or into the TV or onto the floor. I would attack with my fists, milk bottles, the poker, tins of beans. I stuck the kitchen knife in his shoulder blade once. I had to jump up to reach it. The pain was enormous if his bellowing was any indication. Sid was away in med school cutting up dead bodies but Greg was one live body I wanted to cut up. I felt my time would come. And it came the eve of my fifteenth birthday.
I was leaving my bedroom when I saw him coming out of theirs. He was stretching his arms and yawning and heading towards the bathroom. I could have done this on other occasions but my intellect always overruled me. But not today. I was going to be fifteen.
As he passed the top of the stairs, I ran the length of the landing and, with a perfect two footed flying kick, caught him in his lower back and he tumbled down the stairs without even trying to fly.
Greg realized the danger just at the last minute when his peripheral vision caught a movement that was high and fast, too late. I landed perfectly on the balls of my feet at the top of the stairs- a ten - perfect score if flying kick assassination was an Olympic event. Ease of difficulty – high and I watched him tumble down the stairs breaking the upright struts of the banister as well as his neck. It sounded like the ultimate chiropractic adjustment. He shouted in alarm as he fell but there was no one at home to hear him except me.
If he knew the least thing about aerodynamics, he might have made some minor adjustments to his flight path to save himself. However he didn’t at all.
I walked down the stairs and leant down close so he could hear what I said.
Listen here to me, fucko – do you think those banisters grow on trees?
But of course he didn’t listen to me at all. He just stared up at me and blinked once or twice. Blood ran from his ear across the polished hardwood floor. The light reflected off the shiny surface of the blood as it rolled across the floor and pooled near the doorway.
Greg’s big dead head.
Then I fled.
Greg bled.
The blood is on the mat.
Or at least soaking into it.
That is that.
Happy birthday Victor.
I kicked his head and it flopped over like it belonged to a broken necked chicken, which he nearly was. Eggs to eggs, arse holes to arse holes.
I shouted out, Toodle Pip. Then I closed the door behind me and Greg. And went out into the cold dark evening heavy with black rain clouds hugging the houses of the grey town.
BIO: James McGowan is a noir fiend out of and has been published in Plots with Guns, Thuglit, Demolition, Hard Luck Stories and Powder Burn Flash.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
A Twist Of Noir 329 - Matthew McBride
MR. PARKER AND THE GUN - MATTHEW MCBRIDE
Sid held the pedal down with all his weight, like he was trying to push his foot through the floorboard. The big engine screamed as the orange needle on the tachometer raced to the right and the tires left twin black marks across the lot. The back window shattered as the slug from a 9mm passed between them, punched a hole in the windshield, then took a small chunk of metal off the hood.
“Fuck,” Sid’s partner, Johnny No Nuts, screamed as he slipped onto the floorboard on the passenger side. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he yelled, as he fumbled with the action on his piece and looked into the passenger side view with great caution as a thick trail of blood ran down his cheek onto his shoulder.
More gunshots followed, then a bullet struck the dashboard. Nervously, Johnny fired out the window without putting it down and it broke into a thousand pieces, his face peppered with shards of thick glass. More blood. A lot more.
“Fer fuck’s sake,” Sid yelled in his thick British accent from behind the wheel. He slid the Impala to the left with the ease of a seasoned veteran. “Put down the window, you stupid bastard.”
But No Nuts wasn’t listening. He fired straight through the open window into a vacant building, then he shot a parked car.
“Johnny, they are BEHIND us, you dumbfuck!” Sid lost his cool, something that never happened. “Behind us!” he yelled again.
Johnny was fucked up in a bad way and Sid could see this. Johnny was silent, something else that never happened. His t-shirt looked like it had been soaked in tomato juice and his eyes were bleeding.
“Aw, fuck. You with me, Johnny?” But Johnny wasn’t with him. Not really.
Sid flew through an alley, narrowly avoiding a collision with a hearse, of all things, hung a very hard right onto Broadway, crossed two lanes of light traffic, blew through a red light, then made a quick left behind a brick building some asshole was just letting sit there and go to waste. No Nuts always said it would make a good bakery. He slammed the Impala into P and took a good look at his partner.
“I’m done, Sid, I’m done.”
Sid wanted to agree with Johnny and tell him that, yes, he was indeed finished, but the thought just seemed to cold to bare. Even for Sid.
“You’re fine, Johnny, you are. Now let’s just get you out of this piece of shit and into the clean ride.”
That was the key to a successful robbery. Multiple getaway cars.
Sid walked around the car and opened Johnny’s door, but Johnny wasn’t moving. “C’mon, asshole, get up!” Sid yelled. He should’ve just pumped one final round into Johnny’s worthless shell and be done with it all, but Mr. Parker loved Johnny No Nuts.
He’s the one that tagged him with such a fine moniker in the first place, because Johnny was a gutless turd. But, at the end of the day, he was funny. Damn funny, and that very reason alone was the only thing that had kept him alive this long. He was a comedian.
“I think I shat my pants, Sid,” he was saying, as Sid pulled him from the car. He was talking funny. A closer inspection revealed part of his mouth was missing, right where his upper lip connected to his lower and Johnny's tongue kept sliding out of his face. ‘I shat myself, Sid,’ but it sounded more like ‘I thaat ma shelfth, Thid.’
Sid had Johnny’s arms now and he pulled him to the passenger side of the Taurus.
“You shat your pants?” he asked, trying to take Johnny’s mind off the hole in his face. “Or did you shit your pants, because I believe ‘shat’ may actually be used past tense in this situation.”
“Uhhhh!” Johnny yelled as Sid wrestled with the door handle, then held the door open with his right leg.
“Have a seat, Johnny. It’s cool, brother,” Sid said, but all the while he was looking around for the fuckheads that did this to poor No Nuts. He thought he may have lost them, but he wasn’t sure.
“The gun,” Johnny said, or trying to say, as he grabbed Sid’s shirt with his hand, the only part of his body that wasn’t bleeding. Sid nodded and tried to brush his hand away, but Johnny’s grip was strong. ‘Gun,’ he said, but it sounded more like ‘gum.’
Sid continued to nod as he slammed the door. “I got it, Johnny,” Sid said but Johnny didn’t hear him.
Sid was cautious as he squirted a highly flammable premix he concocted from an empty bottle of dish soap into the blood stained interior of the Impala. He douched the passenger seat with a little extra, took three steps backward and struck the match.
POOF! A loud and fast concussion of wind and flame as the seats went up in fire. Sid jumped behind the wheel of the Taurus, covered in sweat.
As he tore across the lot in reverse, Johnny fell forward and crashed into the dashboard, leaving fresh smears of blood across the airbag.
“Well, fuck, Johnny,” Sid said. Johnny yelled something back, but it was impossible to understand him. He left the lot in a hurry before the car blew.
Sid caught the green light as his phone rang. It was the call he’d been expecting. On the third ring, he slid the lock across and said, “It’s done.”
Mr. Parker remained silent for a second, but Sid could hear him breathing through his nose, as was his custom in these situations. Sid flipped on his blinker and switched lanes. Johnny No Nuts just groaned and bled.
“The eagle has landed?” It was a question.
“Uh, yeah, the eagle landed, alright.”
Mr. Parker was obsessed with spy novels and always managed to speak in codes, however obvious they may be.
“I trust you have the package.”
“Affirmative, sir. We do have the package,” Sid replied, feeling ridiculous.
“Where’s No Nuts?”
Sid looked over to his right at Johnny, who had his back up against the window, staring him down. You could see his bottom set of teeth when his tongue wasn’t in the way.
“He’s right here,” Sid said and held the phone toward Johnny.
“You tell that short fat fuck he better not have fucked anything up, Sid. You hear me?”
That was Mr. Parker’s way of joking, but Johnny wasn’t laughing. Just slobbering, and bleeding, and letting his tongue slide through that hole.
“I’m dyin’, Sid,” Johnny moaned but Sid just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head from side to side.
“What’s this shit I hear across the scanner about a shoot out?” asked Mr. Parker.
Fuck.
“Johnny had to put a guy down, but it’s cool,” Sid said, as he pulled onto the entrance ramp of the expressway. Johnny sat up a little straighter and yelled something useless.
Blood was starting to pour from that hole now and Sid didn’t like it.
“Well, what the fuck happened back there, Sid?” Mr. Parker demanded. “I told you to keep an eye on that retard.” Mr. Parker's way of telling Sid that he was responsible. “All you had to do was get the gun.”
Mr. Parker had already forgot to use his own preposterous codeword for gun.
“You mean the package,” Sid corrected.
Before Parker could respond, the Taurus was rammed from behind by a Dodge truck and Sid lost control of the wheel. It was ripped from his hands. The car swerved hard to the left and bounced off a van that said Drysdale’s Electrical. Sid regained dominance over the vehicle and Johnny went back into the dashboard, then onto the floorboard.
“You bloody cocksuckers!” Sid yelled, his eyes pinned to the rear view mirror. “They found us, Johnny.”
But Johnny didn’t care. He was too busy dying.
Sid drilled the accelerator as hard as he could and the little turd bogged down, but not much happened. The back bumper of the car was dragging along the highway and the truck was picking up speed.
The Taurus could only withstand one, maybe two more hits before it would shit out.
Quickly, and without warning, Sid cut the wheels hard to the right and the engine raced, and the tires screeched, and the front left hubcap abandoned the wheel and raced across the hammer lane into the median.
Sid clipped the front bumper of the car beside them with what used to be the rear bumper of the Taurus, then crossed into the far right lane and plunged off the shoulder of the road.
The Dodge got stuck between vehicles and couldn't make the fast exit.
Sid kept the gas pedal hammered as the car burst through the remnants of a chain-link fence, jumped a curb, then blended in with traffic on Wells Lane before taking a left on Haley and disappearing into the late afternoon sun.
BIO: Matthew McBride writes fiction on a farm outside the beautiful wine country of Hermann, MO. Follow him on Twitter @ matthewjmcbride.
Sid held the pedal down with all his weight, like he was trying to push his foot through the floorboard. The big engine screamed as the orange needle on the tachometer raced to the right and the tires left twin black marks across the lot. The back window shattered as the slug from a 9mm passed between them, punched a hole in the windshield, then took a small chunk of metal off the hood.
“Fuck,” Sid’s partner, Johnny No Nuts, screamed as he slipped onto the floorboard on the passenger side. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he yelled, as he fumbled with the action on his piece and looked into the passenger side view with great caution as a thick trail of blood ran down his cheek onto his shoulder.
More gunshots followed, then a bullet struck the dashboard. Nervously, Johnny fired out the window without putting it down and it broke into a thousand pieces, his face peppered with shards of thick glass. More blood. A lot more.
“Fer fuck’s sake,” Sid yelled in his thick British accent from behind the wheel. He slid the Impala to the left with the ease of a seasoned veteran. “Put down the window, you stupid bastard.”
But No Nuts wasn’t listening. He fired straight through the open window into a vacant building, then he shot a parked car.
“Johnny, they are BEHIND us, you dumbfuck!” Sid lost his cool, something that never happened. “Behind us!” he yelled again.
Johnny was fucked up in a bad way and Sid could see this. Johnny was silent, something else that never happened. His t-shirt looked like it had been soaked in tomato juice and his eyes were bleeding.
“Aw, fuck. You with me, Johnny?” But Johnny wasn’t with him. Not really.
Sid flew through an alley, narrowly avoiding a collision with a hearse, of all things, hung a very hard right onto Broadway, crossed two lanes of light traffic, blew through a red light, then made a quick left behind a brick building some asshole was just letting sit there and go to waste. No Nuts always said it would make a good bakery. He slammed the Impala into P and took a good look at his partner.
“I’m done, Sid, I’m done.”
Sid wanted to agree with Johnny and tell him that, yes, he was indeed finished, but the thought just seemed to cold to bare. Even for Sid.
“You’re fine, Johnny, you are. Now let’s just get you out of this piece of shit and into the clean ride.”
That was the key to a successful robbery. Multiple getaway cars.
Sid walked around the car and opened Johnny’s door, but Johnny wasn’t moving. “C’mon, asshole, get up!” Sid yelled. He should’ve just pumped one final round into Johnny’s worthless shell and be done with it all, but Mr. Parker loved Johnny No Nuts.
He’s the one that tagged him with such a fine moniker in the first place, because Johnny was a gutless turd. But, at the end of the day, he was funny. Damn funny, and that very reason alone was the only thing that had kept him alive this long. He was a comedian.
“I think I shat my pants, Sid,” he was saying, as Sid pulled him from the car. He was talking funny. A closer inspection revealed part of his mouth was missing, right where his upper lip connected to his lower and Johnny's tongue kept sliding out of his face. ‘I shat myself, Sid,’ but it sounded more like ‘I thaat ma shelfth, Thid.’
Sid had Johnny’s arms now and he pulled him to the passenger side of the Taurus.
“You shat your pants?” he asked, trying to take Johnny’s mind off the hole in his face. “Or did you shit your pants, because I believe ‘shat’ may actually be used past tense in this situation.”
“Uhhhh!” Johnny yelled as Sid wrestled with the door handle, then held the door open with his right leg.
“Have a seat, Johnny. It’s cool, brother,” Sid said, but all the while he was looking around for the fuckheads that did this to poor No Nuts. He thought he may have lost them, but he wasn’t sure.
“The gun,” Johnny said, or trying to say, as he grabbed Sid’s shirt with his hand, the only part of his body that wasn’t bleeding. Sid nodded and tried to brush his hand away, but Johnny’s grip was strong. ‘Gun,’ he said, but it sounded more like ‘gum.’
Sid continued to nod as he slammed the door. “I got it, Johnny,” Sid said but Johnny didn’t hear him.
Sid was cautious as he squirted a highly flammable premix he concocted from an empty bottle of dish soap into the blood stained interior of the Impala. He douched the passenger seat with a little extra, took three steps backward and struck the match.
POOF! A loud and fast concussion of wind and flame as the seats went up in fire. Sid jumped behind the wheel of the Taurus, covered in sweat.
As he tore across the lot in reverse, Johnny fell forward and crashed into the dashboard, leaving fresh smears of blood across the airbag.
“Well, fuck, Johnny,” Sid said. Johnny yelled something back, but it was impossible to understand him. He left the lot in a hurry before the car blew.
Sid caught the green light as his phone rang. It was the call he’d been expecting. On the third ring, he slid the lock across and said, “It’s done.”
Mr. Parker remained silent for a second, but Sid could hear him breathing through his nose, as was his custom in these situations. Sid flipped on his blinker and switched lanes. Johnny No Nuts just groaned and bled.
“The eagle has landed?” It was a question.
“Uh, yeah, the eagle landed, alright.”
Mr. Parker was obsessed with spy novels and always managed to speak in codes, however obvious they may be.
“I trust you have the package.”
“Affirmative, sir. We do have the package,” Sid replied, feeling ridiculous.
“Where’s No Nuts?”
Sid looked over to his right at Johnny, who had his back up against the window, staring him down. You could see his bottom set of teeth when his tongue wasn’t in the way.
“He’s right here,” Sid said and held the phone toward Johnny.
“You tell that short fat fuck he better not have fucked anything up, Sid. You hear me?”
That was Mr. Parker’s way of joking, but Johnny wasn’t laughing. Just slobbering, and bleeding, and letting his tongue slide through that hole.
“I’m dyin’, Sid,” Johnny moaned but Sid just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head from side to side.
“What’s this shit I hear across the scanner about a shoot out?” asked Mr. Parker.
Fuck.
“Johnny had to put a guy down, but it’s cool,” Sid said, as he pulled onto the entrance ramp of the expressway. Johnny sat up a little straighter and yelled something useless.
Blood was starting to pour from that hole now and Sid didn’t like it.
“Well, what the fuck happened back there, Sid?” Mr. Parker demanded. “I told you to keep an eye on that retard.” Mr. Parker's way of telling Sid that he was responsible. “All you had to do was get the gun.”
Mr. Parker had already forgot to use his own preposterous codeword for gun.
“You mean the package,” Sid corrected.
Before Parker could respond, the Taurus was rammed from behind by a Dodge truck and Sid lost control of the wheel. It was ripped from his hands. The car swerved hard to the left and bounced off a van that said Drysdale’s Electrical. Sid regained dominance over the vehicle and Johnny went back into the dashboard, then onto the floorboard.
“You bloody cocksuckers!” Sid yelled, his eyes pinned to the rear view mirror. “They found us, Johnny.”
But Johnny didn’t care. He was too busy dying.
Sid drilled the accelerator as hard as he could and the little turd bogged down, but not much happened. The back bumper of the car was dragging along the highway and the truck was picking up speed.
The Taurus could only withstand one, maybe two more hits before it would shit out.
Quickly, and without warning, Sid cut the wheels hard to the right and the engine raced, and the tires screeched, and the front left hubcap abandoned the wheel and raced across the hammer lane into the median.
Sid clipped the front bumper of the car beside them with what used to be the rear bumper of the Taurus, then crossed into the far right lane and plunged off the shoulder of the road.
The Dodge got stuck between vehicles and couldn't make the fast exit.
Sid kept the gas pedal hammered as the car burst through the remnants of a chain-link fence, jumped a curb, then blended in with traffic on Wells Lane before taking a left on Haley and disappearing into the late afternoon sun.
BIO: Matthew McBride writes fiction on a farm outside the beautiful wine country of Hermann, MO. Follow him on Twitter @ matthewjmcbride.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
A Twist Of Noir 328 - Eric Beetner
PRAYER FOR A DYING MAN - ERIC BEETNER
Thinking shit through is not my fucking strong suit so forgive me if I tell you that even I think things got a little out of hand. But what’s a man to do when this guy, Luther Soulman (fucking stage name) completely ruins my home? Not my home like my house but as in the Biblical sense, which is how he talks about everything being an evangelist and all, meaning he fucks my wife and steals my money.
He’s clever; I’ll give him that.
First came the wife fucking and she’s just as goddamn implicit in that as he is and I’ll deal with her later after I clean up this mess I got myself into. But his silver fucking tongue talked that stupid vulnerable woman into selling him half the business out of from under me, which was really 51% of the 5-store hardware business that her father left her but that I damn well run day-to-day. Didn’t even sell it to him – GAVE him all 51% of it but not to him to his corporation - LivingJesusMinistry.com Incorporated. Can you beat that? He got off scott free. Nothing I could do about it. Now half the business goes right into his ministry and that fucking Sunday morning talk show Jesus-fest that he’s got over on channel 9.
Not one month after getting the keys to my kingdom does he decide that that hardware business is going ‘in a different direction’ and he squeezes me out. What he means is that the money is going in a different direction, as in not into my pockets but into his. Meanwhile I’m still trying to reason with Carol, trying to get her back in my bed and trying to tell her that Jesus is not coming back any time soon and she should not rid herself of all worldly possessions and she should stop fucking the preacher. All of this she says is God’s will. Making love with Luther, she says, is like making love to the lord. To which I say, ‘So you’re fucking God.’ And then she tells me not to blaspheme and then that’s another two-hour argument and the short story is I moved out last week. Fucking house is in her name too, since her daddy bought it for her.
So, okay fine, I’m not the first guy to get fucked over. Probably not even the first guy that Luther has fucked over. But I am not one to sit idly by and take it and like I said before, I am definitely not big on thinking things through to their full conclusion. That finds me here at half past two a.m. in some field of what kind of crop I can’t tell. Something low-growing and foul smelling although that might be the manure they spread for fertilizer. It’s early spring so these probably just went in not too long ago so in addition to the more obvious crime I have on my hands here, I have ruined some day laborer’s work. Maybe two rows got torn up, fifty feet each I’d say, no big deal. An hour’s work for him to plant, three hours of sweat and cursing the lord’s name for me to trample over.
Look, I don’t drink much. I like to have a beer or two while I’m watching the Daytona 500 or something. I’ll make one Bud light last through an entire football game, so you’ve got to know that earlier, when I went to his house, I was not in the right state of mind because I hadn’t had Jack Daniels since high school – and then I puked it up all over my junior prom date. (Whom I subsequently married and led me into this shit. Never turn your back on a bad omen.)
So when I show up at his house, it’s more of a compound really, he agreed to see me only because I was making such a racket out front he didn’t want his stuck-up white Jesus freak neighbors to hear me keep screaming about how he fucked my wife.
I had a plan but I can’t say I had planned it out. Is that too subtle a distinction for you? You know what I mean. About thirty minutes before, I had driven over to the old rail yard and crawled through the hole in the fence that has been there since I was about 16. We used to break in there to go drinking, which, seriously I didn’t do much of, and make out with girls (which I did).
So I go in and walk right up on two kids having sex such as it was. Two horny teenagers are like two bucking broncos trying to mount each other in the ring at a bull ride. They didn’t notice me at first and he was either doing real good or killing this girl the way she was screaming. They saw me as I passed and I didn’t look back to see which direction they ran.
I found what I was looking for and after considerable effort, despite my trips to the gym, I managed to get them into the car. Two big fat railroad ties. They smelled like tar and got my clothes filthy from carrying them. And shit were they heavy. I felt like that scene in Rocky 2 or Rocky 3 where he’s training by running up hills with big logs tied to him and stuff. Real old school workouts and that Russian dude is all hooked up to machines and stuff but Rocky still kicks his ass. You know the one?
They barely fit in my car and still stuck way out the back hatch so I had to keep a close eye on how wide I could turn which was not easy to do when you’re drunk and not used to being so drunk. I guess if the cops in this town were doing their fucking job then they would have picked me up and I wouldn’t be in this shit now.
So I’m sitting in Luther’s living room in my dirty clothes on his white couch and I can see him just cringe. All the furniture has, like, gold leaf on it and tacky crap like that. For a guy that spends so much time talking about how much he hates gays, he sure does decorate a lot like Liberace.
Well, I say some shit that probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but he gets the drift because, after all, he’s fucking my wife and stealing my business. I get the sense that he’s feeding me some kind of rehearsed dialogue that he’s used a hundred times before so I get pissed, right? I’m staring at this big statue of the Virgin Mary, I mean this thing is three foot high I swear, sitting on the side table behind his head. He’s feeding me this line of total bullshit and I keep expecting laser beams or some shit to come out of her eyes and strike him down, right? Over the fire place is a big picture of Jesus and in my head I’m screaming at him and saying, “Jesus Christ, Jesus! Why don’t you do something about this guy! He’s fucking other men’s wives in your name. If they think they’re fucking you, shouldn’t you at least get laid?”
“Jesus never got laid. Don’t be crude,” Carol used to say.
“I know,” I would counter. “That’s because he’s a character in a book and he gets killed off pretty early on so all the fucking had to be done by other characters because everyone knows you put all the good smut at the end of a book because if people climax too soon they stop reading and just go back over and over the dirty parts.”
She used to huff at me in a way that would kill lesser men.
So there’s Mary not doing a goddamn thing and there’s Jesus looking down at him with some stupid frozen look on his face and I’m thinking, I gotta do something because these fuckers aren’t going to. Well, really what I’m thinking at first is, How do they really know what Jesus looked like? And who poses for these pictures? Does a guy get royalties every time a Jesus picture is sold? Why is it when something good happens it’s a miracle and when something bad happens like a tsunami or earthquake it’s an act of God? Aren’t miracles acts of God too? So, if they’re one in the same, then a tsunami that kills 200,000 people is a miracle!
But the short-term reaction I have is to pick up the Virgin Mary and bash him on the head with it. Which I do.
Now I have a broken Virgin Mary and an unconscious wife-fucking son-of-a-bitch on my hands. I contemplate jerking off on the Virgin Mary statue and saying something like, ‘There! Now who’s a virgin?’ but I decide I don’t have the time.
Getting him into the car was almost as taxing as moving those railroad ties. Carol is having sex with this guy? He’s fifty pounds heavier than me! That will show you what the gift of gab can do for you. Lots more women have been talked into bed than went there because of money or how good a guy dances.
This guy could sell shit to a pig. He had it down on his Sunday morning show. He’d rile up the people and send them into a Jesus-induced euphoria and then, and only then, he’d get to the part about how much he needed their money to help spread The Word. Which, as far as I can tell, meant putting up a website to solicit more money.
I drove out onto Highway 3 because I knew that would take me away from people. I had no idea where it lead to but that’s just the sort of road I was looking for. Luther was coming to in the backseat probably from the smell of tar where his head was leaning on the railroad ties. Tying his hands and feet was a good idea.
I learned something about Luther Soulman in that moment, or in that half hour it took to get out good and far away from any lights; he’s not such a smooth talker when he’s not in control.
“What the fuck are you doing to me? Let me go, you Godless fucker.”
“Now, Luther, I’m pretty sure that cursing is a sin. But really, what isn’t to you people?”
“I know you think you’re being funny but this is a felony. This is kidnapping!”
“What do you call you stealing my wife and my business?”
“I didn’t steal anything. Carol sold me interest through a lawyer. It’s all by the book and if you don’t believe me you can take me to court and find out. I’d love to sic my lawyers on you and have them rip you a new a-hole!”
“Legal definitions aside, isn’t that something you’re going to have to reconcile with your God before you die?”
“Don’t talk about my God. You know nothing about my God! You’re the one who has to worry about Hell fires, not me!”
“I forgot, you can be as big of shithead as you want for your whole life but then all you have to do is apologize on your death bed and you get to go to Heaven, isn’t that right?”
“We’re all sinners. I will confess my sins and receive absolution just as everyone of the faithful will, and in the right time.”
“If I were you, I’d start thinking about what you’re gonna say.”
That shut him up for a while. I assumed he was thinking of ways to escape or thinking about how he was going to wait until just the right instant and then jump me. I didn’t have the radio on so I don’t fault him for needing to occupy his mind.
It had been about five minutes since I’d seen any lights and about ten since a car had passed, so I chose this right here as the spot. I pulled up on the soft shoulder and was careful not to let the car go too far into the gravel for fear of not being able to get it back out. The Jack Daniels had receded now into the back room of my brain to rough up my vision and my stomach. I paused as I got out of the car to see if I was going to throw up or not but it passed soon enough. I saw it as a preview of tomorrow morning but that’s still a long way off.
I went to the hatch first and dragged out the first of the railroad ties. It fell off the back bumper with a crash and this prompted a steady stream of obscenities and hollering from Luther than I dare not repeat but would make you blush hearing them come out of the mouth of a man of God. Engaging in dialogue with him at this point seemed a fruitless affair, plus his shouting was giving me a headache so it was best to stay away from direct proximity of his bellowing.
I crossed the second fifty feet, tearing up low plants as the butt end of the railroad tie gouged the brown, smelly soil. I thunked it down on top of the first tie and could see my makeshift cross for the first time. If I had carving tools I could have made it properly but that all goes to not thinking ahead. Plus, who has the time to really carve wood? I had brought the hammer. That much I planned for.
I used my foot to kick around the tie balancing on top so that it was more or less squared up with the other, then I went back to get Luther. He had calmed down a little, or maybe had just realized that no one was going to hear him all the way out here. I’ll give him credit, he was quiet from here on out. Praying to himself, I suspect. He had a lot to think about right then and there. A lot to reconcile. I kept away from his feet, which could still kick out at me. I was very leery of giving him that perfect chance to lash out and overtake me and maybe even turn the tables. When I had dragged him over to the cross, more or less walking the path of a ditch I had already carved out, I dropped him heavy in the dirt and took a moment to catch my breath. As I sucked in the manure I could see that his eyes were closed asking for absolution. It must have been a long damn list.
I tried breathing through my mouth only but the smell was already in my nostrils and caked to my lungs. This time I did throw up. I was glad to get any of the Jack that might not yet be absorbed by my body out onto the dirt. Surely if cow shit made plants grow this couldn’t do it any harm. One good heave and I was done and I had that euphoric rush that you get right after you puke so it made my task easier for a few minutes. I used that adrenaline to take my precautions before untying his hands. I walked six steps over to Luther and, his eyes still closed, hit him in the jaw with the hammer. He didn’t go out like a light but lay there on his back, stunned and in pain. He coughed and choked like a fat guy in a restaurant who needs the Heimlich. Two big hacks and a tooth that had been clogging his windpipe flew about two feet out of his mouth and got lost in the dirt.
I undid the ropes around his hands and was a little surprised he couldn’t have done it himself with my shitty knots. He groaned a little as I dragged him through the cow shit and laid his hands on the cross. I dug into my side cargo-pants pocket and got out the nails. Not thinking ahead meant that I had not imagined what this moment would be like and whether I would be squeamish or not. Turns out not as I set the nails in the center of his palm and whacked without hesitation. One shot and it went all the way through to the wood. I kind of thought it would give a little more resistance. A second whack and it was deep into the wood and the blood was pooled in the cup of his hand.
There was a haze around him as he tried to cry out in pain but I guess the pain in his hand was not as bad as the shattered jaw that would have burned like fire if he had opened his maw in a giant howl.
Speechless. I made him speechless. Now that’s an accomplishment.
The other hand went just as well. Two hammer hits and then a third for safety. The two railroad ties rocked and bucked underneath him. It would have been better to do it like the Romans and really make this thing official but why go to all the trouble when who’s really gonna see it but some migrant worker, his boss and the sheriff.
It’s entirely possible and more than likely that the worker in this corner of the field is Mexican. That would mean it was a good bet that he was Catholic. Now can you imagine when he returns to see his field all cut up but before he can curse the bastard who did it, he sees a fella crucified!?He’d probably drop to his knees and thank Jesus for the sign, then he’d return to his family back in Yucatan and tell them the tale of how he was visited by Jesus in the fields and Jesus told him to go back and plant his own crops and they would be nourished by the blood of Jesus Christo! Now imagine his surprise when he plants three acres of soybeans and they all die in the hot Mexican desert because there is no Jesus and even if there was he certainly ain’t stopping by for a visit in your field today. Now you have a guy who walked away from a decent paying job in the States and ruined his family by wasting all their money on a false prophet. Goddammit, Luther; that’s two people’s lives you ruined.
Nailing through his feet was a damn sight harder, a big part of which was the fact that my nails weren’t long enough. That’s when I started to have doubts about the validity of this plan. What exactly had I hoped to accomplish out here? The cross is way too heavy for me to ever try to stand up. The two railroad ties aren’t even attached to one another anyway. Now I got a guy who is severely injured but still days away from death who thinks that he’s made peace with his God because he apologized for his sins. He’s not even scared! He’s just waiting to be taken home to the Promise Land.
It took two nails and I bent a third, which I pulled out causing a small bubbling over of blood that looked like the opening of the Beverly Hillbillies. Of course that was black and white but, really, standing here in the light of my cars headlights, the blood is almost black.
I really do appreciate how quiet he is being. He rolls his head from side to side. I’m sure it hurts like hell. Now my work is done and I’ve run up against the limit to my thinking ahead. What happens now? I wasn’t thinking of the hangover when I kept going back to that whiskey bottle. I wasn’t thinking of this moment now when I stole those railroad ties. I guess I thought it would be funny. Shit, this is probably how he wanted to go. I’ll go home and clean up and then this weekend I’ll sit and watch as the donations pour in in record numbers for the lost soul of Luther Soulman. I’ve created a martyr. Of course that’s if he dies. If he doesn’t, then it’s worse maybe. Sure he can I.D. me and I’ll go to jail but think of how much more powerful he’ll be if he stands up in the pulpit and tells about how he himself was crucified. That’s not a martyr – that’s a Goddamn messiah!
So, okay, thinking ahead. Get in the car. Drive back to town. Turn the radio on this time to get your mind off it. Go see Carol. That broken Virgin Mary statue gives me an idea or two. The rest will work itself out.
BIO: Eric’s crime novel One Too Many Blows To The Head, co-written with JB Kohl, is available for purchase. Check out Eric Beetner, Author for more information.
Thinking shit through is not my fucking strong suit so forgive me if I tell you that even I think things got a little out of hand. But what’s a man to do when this guy, Luther Soulman (fucking stage name) completely ruins my home? Not my home like my house but as in the Biblical sense, which is how he talks about everything being an evangelist and all, meaning he fucks my wife and steals my money.
He’s clever; I’ll give him that.
First came the wife fucking and she’s just as goddamn implicit in that as he is and I’ll deal with her later after I clean up this mess I got myself into. But his silver fucking tongue talked that stupid vulnerable woman into selling him half the business out of from under me, which was really 51% of the 5-store hardware business that her father left her but that I damn well run day-to-day. Didn’t even sell it to him – GAVE him all 51% of it but not to him to his corporation - LivingJesusMinistry.com Incorporated. Can you beat that? He got off scott free. Nothing I could do about it. Now half the business goes right into his ministry and that fucking Sunday morning talk show Jesus-fest that he’s got over on channel 9.
Not one month after getting the keys to my kingdom does he decide that that hardware business is going ‘in a different direction’ and he squeezes me out. What he means is that the money is going in a different direction, as in not into my pockets but into his. Meanwhile I’m still trying to reason with Carol, trying to get her back in my bed and trying to tell her that Jesus is not coming back any time soon and she should not rid herself of all worldly possessions and she should stop fucking the preacher. All of this she says is God’s will. Making love with Luther, she says, is like making love to the lord. To which I say, ‘So you’re fucking God.’ And then she tells me not to blaspheme and then that’s another two-hour argument and the short story is I moved out last week. Fucking house is in her name too, since her daddy bought it for her.
So, okay fine, I’m not the first guy to get fucked over. Probably not even the first guy that Luther has fucked over. But I am not one to sit idly by and take it and like I said before, I am definitely not big on thinking things through to their full conclusion. That finds me here at half past two a.m. in some field of what kind of crop I can’t tell. Something low-growing and foul smelling although that might be the manure they spread for fertilizer. It’s early spring so these probably just went in not too long ago so in addition to the more obvious crime I have on my hands here, I have ruined some day laborer’s work. Maybe two rows got torn up, fifty feet each I’d say, no big deal. An hour’s work for him to plant, three hours of sweat and cursing the lord’s name for me to trample over.
Look, I don’t drink much. I like to have a beer or two while I’m watching the Daytona 500 or something. I’ll make one Bud light last through an entire football game, so you’ve got to know that earlier, when I went to his house, I was not in the right state of mind because I hadn’t had Jack Daniels since high school – and then I puked it up all over my junior prom date. (Whom I subsequently married and led me into this shit. Never turn your back on a bad omen.)
So when I show up at his house, it’s more of a compound really, he agreed to see me only because I was making such a racket out front he didn’t want his stuck-up white Jesus freak neighbors to hear me keep screaming about how he fucked my wife.
I had a plan but I can’t say I had planned it out. Is that too subtle a distinction for you? You know what I mean. About thirty minutes before, I had driven over to the old rail yard and crawled through the hole in the fence that has been there since I was about 16. We used to break in there to go drinking, which, seriously I didn’t do much of, and make out with girls (which I did).
So I go in and walk right up on two kids having sex such as it was. Two horny teenagers are like two bucking broncos trying to mount each other in the ring at a bull ride. They didn’t notice me at first and he was either doing real good or killing this girl the way she was screaming. They saw me as I passed and I didn’t look back to see which direction they ran.
I found what I was looking for and after considerable effort, despite my trips to the gym, I managed to get them into the car. Two big fat railroad ties. They smelled like tar and got my clothes filthy from carrying them. And shit were they heavy. I felt like that scene in Rocky 2 or Rocky 3 where he’s training by running up hills with big logs tied to him and stuff. Real old school workouts and that Russian dude is all hooked up to machines and stuff but Rocky still kicks his ass. You know the one?
They barely fit in my car and still stuck way out the back hatch so I had to keep a close eye on how wide I could turn which was not easy to do when you’re drunk and not used to being so drunk. I guess if the cops in this town were doing their fucking job then they would have picked me up and I wouldn’t be in this shit now.
So I’m sitting in Luther’s living room in my dirty clothes on his white couch and I can see him just cringe. All the furniture has, like, gold leaf on it and tacky crap like that. For a guy that spends so much time talking about how much he hates gays, he sure does decorate a lot like Liberace.
Well, I say some shit that probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but he gets the drift because, after all, he’s fucking my wife and stealing my business. I get the sense that he’s feeding me some kind of rehearsed dialogue that he’s used a hundred times before so I get pissed, right? I’m staring at this big statue of the Virgin Mary, I mean this thing is three foot high I swear, sitting on the side table behind his head. He’s feeding me this line of total bullshit and I keep expecting laser beams or some shit to come out of her eyes and strike him down, right? Over the fire place is a big picture of Jesus and in my head I’m screaming at him and saying, “Jesus Christ, Jesus! Why don’t you do something about this guy! He’s fucking other men’s wives in your name. If they think they’re fucking you, shouldn’t you at least get laid?”
“Jesus never got laid. Don’t be crude,” Carol used to say.
“I know,” I would counter. “That’s because he’s a character in a book and he gets killed off pretty early on so all the fucking had to be done by other characters because everyone knows you put all the good smut at the end of a book because if people climax too soon they stop reading and just go back over and over the dirty parts.”
She used to huff at me in a way that would kill lesser men.
So there’s Mary not doing a goddamn thing and there’s Jesus looking down at him with some stupid frozen look on his face and I’m thinking, I gotta do something because these fuckers aren’t going to. Well, really what I’m thinking at first is, How do they really know what Jesus looked like? And who poses for these pictures? Does a guy get royalties every time a Jesus picture is sold? Why is it when something good happens it’s a miracle and when something bad happens like a tsunami or earthquake it’s an act of God? Aren’t miracles acts of God too? So, if they’re one in the same, then a tsunami that kills 200,000 people is a miracle!
But the short-term reaction I have is to pick up the Virgin Mary and bash him on the head with it. Which I do.
Now I have a broken Virgin Mary and an unconscious wife-fucking son-of-a-bitch on my hands. I contemplate jerking off on the Virgin Mary statue and saying something like, ‘There! Now who’s a virgin?’ but I decide I don’t have the time.
Getting him into the car was almost as taxing as moving those railroad ties. Carol is having sex with this guy? He’s fifty pounds heavier than me! That will show you what the gift of gab can do for you. Lots more women have been talked into bed than went there because of money or how good a guy dances.
This guy could sell shit to a pig. He had it down on his Sunday morning show. He’d rile up the people and send them into a Jesus-induced euphoria and then, and only then, he’d get to the part about how much he needed their money to help spread The Word. Which, as far as I can tell, meant putting up a website to solicit more money.
I drove out onto Highway 3 because I knew that would take me away from people. I had no idea where it lead to but that’s just the sort of road I was looking for. Luther was coming to in the backseat probably from the smell of tar where his head was leaning on the railroad ties. Tying his hands and feet was a good idea.
I learned something about Luther Soulman in that moment, or in that half hour it took to get out good and far away from any lights; he’s not such a smooth talker when he’s not in control.
“What the fuck are you doing to me? Let me go, you Godless fucker.”
“Now, Luther, I’m pretty sure that cursing is a sin. But really, what isn’t to you people?”
“I know you think you’re being funny but this is a felony. This is kidnapping!”
“What do you call you stealing my wife and my business?”
“I didn’t steal anything. Carol sold me interest through a lawyer. It’s all by the book and if you don’t believe me you can take me to court and find out. I’d love to sic my lawyers on you and have them rip you a new a-hole!”
“Legal definitions aside, isn’t that something you’re going to have to reconcile with your God before you die?”
“Don’t talk about my God. You know nothing about my God! You’re the one who has to worry about Hell fires, not me!”
“I forgot, you can be as big of shithead as you want for your whole life but then all you have to do is apologize on your death bed and you get to go to Heaven, isn’t that right?”
“We’re all sinners. I will confess my sins and receive absolution just as everyone of the faithful will, and in the right time.”
“If I were you, I’d start thinking about what you’re gonna say.”
That shut him up for a while. I assumed he was thinking of ways to escape or thinking about how he was going to wait until just the right instant and then jump me. I didn’t have the radio on so I don’t fault him for needing to occupy his mind.
It had been about five minutes since I’d seen any lights and about ten since a car had passed, so I chose this right here as the spot. I pulled up on the soft shoulder and was careful not to let the car go too far into the gravel for fear of not being able to get it back out. The Jack Daniels had receded now into the back room of my brain to rough up my vision and my stomach. I paused as I got out of the car to see if I was going to throw up or not but it passed soon enough. I saw it as a preview of tomorrow morning but that’s still a long way off.
I went to the hatch first and dragged out the first of the railroad ties. It fell off the back bumper with a crash and this prompted a steady stream of obscenities and hollering from Luther than I dare not repeat but would make you blush hearing them come out of the mouth of a man of God. Engaging in dialogue with him at this point seemed a fruitless affair, plus his shouting was giving me a headache so it was best to stay away from direct proximity of his bellowing.
I crossed the second fifty feet, tearing up low plants as the butt end of the railroad tie gouged the brown, smelly soil. I thunked it down on top of the first tie and could see my makeshift cross for the first time. If I had carving tools I could have made it properly but that all goes to not thinking ahead. Plus, who has the time to really carve wood? I had brought the hammer. That much I planned for.
I used my foot to kick around the tie balancing on top so that it was more or less squared up with the other, then I went back to get Luther. He had calmed down a little, or maybe had just realized that no one was going to hear him all the way out here. I’ll give him credit, he was quiet from here on out. Praying to himself, I suspect. He had a lot to think about right then and there. A lot to reconcile. I kept away from his feet, which could still kick out at me. I was very leery of giving him that perfect chance to lash out and overtake me and maybe even turn the tables. When I had dragged him over to the cross, more or less walking the path of a ditch I had already carved out, I dropped him heavy in the dirt and took a moment to catch my breath. As I sucked in the manure I could see that his eyes were closed asking for absolution. It must have been a long damn list.
I tried breathing through my mouth only but the smell was already in my nostrils and caked to my lungs. This time I did throw up. I was glad to get any of the Jack that might not yet be absorbed by my body out onto the dirt. Surely if cow shit made plants grow this couldn’t do it any harm. One good heave and I was done and I had that euphoric rush that you get right after you puke so it made my task easier for a few minutes. I used that adrenaline to take my precautions before untying his hands. I walked six steps over to Luther and, his eyes still closed, hit him in the jaw with the hammer. He didn’t go out like a light but lay there on his back, stunned and in pain. He coughed and choked like a fat guy in a restaurant who needs the Heimlich. Two big hacks and a tooth that had been clogging his windpipe flew about two feet out of his mouth and got lost in the dirt.
I undid the ropes around his hands and was a little surprised he couldn’t have done it himself with my shitty knots. He groaned a little as I dragged him through the cow shit and laid his hands on the cross. I dug into my side cargo-pants pocket and got out the nails. Not thinking ahead meant that I had not imagined what this moment would be like and whether I would be squeamish or not. Turns out not as I set the nails in the center of his palm and whacked without hesitation. One shot and it went all the way through to the wood. I kind of thought it would give a little more resistance. A second whack and it was deep into the wood and the blood was pooled in the cup of his hand.
There was a haze around him as he tried to cry out in pain but I guess the pain in his hand was not as bad as the shattered jaw that would have burned like fire if he had opened his maw in a giant howl.
Speechless. I made him speechless. Now that’s an accomplishment.
The other hand went just as well. Two hammer hits and then a third for safety. The two railroad ties rocked and bucked underneath him. It would have been better to do it like the Romans and really make this thing official but why go to all the trouble when who’s really gonna see it but some migrant worker, his boss and the sheriff.
It’s entirely possible and more than likely that the worker in this corner of the field is Mexican. That would mean it was a good bet that he was Catholic. Now can you imagine when he returns to see his field all cut up but before he can curse the bastard who did it, he sees a fella crucified!?He’d probably drop to his knees and thank Jesus for the sign, then he’d return to his family back in Yucatan and tell them the tale of how he was visited by Jesus in the fields and Jesus told him to go back and plant his own crops and they would be nourished by the blood of Jesus Christo! Now imagine his surprise when he plants three acres of soybeans and they all die in the hot Mexican desert because there is no Jesus and even if there was he certainly ain’t stopping by for a visit in your field today. Now you have a guy who walked away from a decent paying job in the States and ruined his family by wasting all their money on a false prophet. Goddammit, Luther; that’s two people’s lives you ruined.
Nailing through his feet was a damn sight harder, a big part of which was the fact that my nails weren’t long enough. That’s when I started to have doubts about the validity of this plan. What exactly had I hoped to accomplish out here? The cross is way too heavy for me to ever try to stand up. The two railroad ties aren’t even attached to one another anyway. Now I got a guy who is severely injured but still days away from death who thinks that he’s made peace with his God because he apologized for his sins. He’s not even scared! He’s just waiting to be taken home to the Promise Land.
It took two nails and I bent a third, which I pulled out causing a small bubbling over of blood that looked like the opening of the Beverly Hillbillies. Of course that was black and white but, really, standing here in the light of my cars headlights, the blood is almost black.
I really do appreciate how quiet he is being. He rolls his head from side to side. I’m sure it hurts like hell. Now my work is done and I’ve run up against the limit to my thinking ahead. What happens now? I wasn’t thinking of the hangover when I kept going back to that whiskey bottle. I wasn’t thinking of this moment now when I stole those railroad ties. I guess I thought it would be funny. Shit, this is probably how he wanted to go. I’ll go home and clean up and then this weekend I’ll sit and watch as the donations pour in in record numbers for the lost soul of Luther Soulman. I’ve created a martyr. Of course that’s if he dies. If he doesn’t, then it’s worse maybe. Sure he can I.D. me and I’ll go to jail but think of how much more powerful he’ll be if he stands up in the pulpit and tells about how he himself was crucified. That’s not a martyr – that’s a Goddamn messiah!
So, okay, thinking ahead. Get in the car. Drive back to town. Turn the radio on this time to get your mind off it. Go see Carol. That broken Virgin Mary statue gives me an idea or two. The rest will work itself out.
BIO: Eric’s crime novel One Too Many Blows To The Head, co-written with JB Kohl, is available for purchase. Check out Eric Beetner, Author for more information.
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