If you haven’t taken the opportunity to check out Richard Godwin’s most recent Chin Wag, you really are missing something.
Gary Phillips is the subject of the interview and, having been a HUGE fan of Gary's work, I know when I found out Richard was interviewing him I had to hit the link pronto.
Among the wide variety of topics discussed the way that E-Books are affecting how writers write (especially comic book writers that are having their material printed via this platform) where it concerns pacing, whether or not sex is a driving factor in crime (and not just in the fictional world) and are writers motivated by death.
You owe it to yourself to have a look.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
Interlude Stories: Christopher Black
DIRTY BEACHES - CHRISTOPHER BLACK
I pick up a broken pebble and start scratching lines into the sand. The sky is a uniform grey, so that you can’t even tell where the sun is. The sea is dirty slate, and as it froths up the beach it pushes around the thorny driftwood, the empty beer cans and plastic bags, forming new patterns to mark its lack of progress. I draw F U C K in the sand, and scuff it out with my palm. Then I change my mind and write the letters again, only this time I add T H I S underneath.
I look at my watch. It’s been two hours. Further along the tideline a couple of gulls are sifting through the trash.
‘Just wait there,’ Jimmy had said.
‘What time are they supposed to come?’ I’d asked.
‘Just wait there until they show,’ he’d said.
‘What if they don’t show?’ I’d said. ‘What the fuck am I supposed to do then?’
I stand up from my rock and shake off the sand. Hell of a day to visit the beach. Still, it could be worse. I glance at the car, parked high up, well away from the crawling, brackish sea.
If the time had gone slowly for me...
My boots sink into the drier sand as I approach the car, pulling keys from my pocket. For a moment I imagine what I’d do if she wasn’t inside, if the boot was empty as I pulled it open, but no, she’s there. Her eyes blink into the sudden light, trying to focus on my shadow looming over her.
Silver tape is stretched across her mouth. The rope around her ankles doesn’t look too bad, but around her wrists it’s pretty tight, chafing into her soft skin. Must be hell on her shoulders, I think.
She doesn’t struggle as I pull her into a sitting position, then heft her feet over the lip of the boot and pull her out onto the beach. Her legs buckle and she collapses onto the dirty sand. She’s only wearing a long Snoopy t-shirt – must’ve been wearing it in bed – and it rides up to show tight orange briefs. I figure shame is the least of her worries right now.
I help her to her bare feet and she starts shifting her weight around, trying to get the blood moving again. I lean her against the car and take a good look for the first time. She’s certainly pretty enough. Her skin is smooth and lightly tanned and pulled tight across high cheekbones and a slim, athletic body. Wavy hair drops to her shoulders. The highlights need touching up, but apart from that, you know. The t-shirt is pulled tightly across her chest, nipples standing firm.
She’s watching me, following my gaze, and I think it’s fear I can see in her big brown eyes. I used to be good at reading faces. Or maybe I only thought I was good at reading faces. I don’t know anymore. Of course she’s scared. Who wouldn’t be?
For a moment I feel the urge to grab those breasts, to force my hand between her thighs, to push her down onto the sand. But I don’t. Jimmy wouldn’t like it if I did. I think there’s another reason, something else that stops me. But I don’t think about it too hard in case I don’t like the answer I find.
Instead, I say, “Would you like some water?”
She nods, and I open the driver’s door and pull the bottle from the passenger footwell.
“Just don’t try anything,” I say, and she nods. “Don’t even fucking speak. Don’t even fucking think.”
I’m playing a little tough now, to balance the fact I’m doing her a favour. I don’t have to give her a drink. I don’t have to let her work off some stiffness in her legs. She’s not going to die in there. But I’m doing her a favour. I can let her drink, or not. I’m going to let her.
The silver tape comes off at the second attempt, and I pull the damp handkerchief from her mouth. I hold up the bottle and pour it towards her lips. She strains at it, gulping at it greedily. I watch her throat pulsing back and forth. A lot of the water spills onto her shirt, but I guess she doesn’t care.
I don’t let her have too much. Just enough to wet her throat and lips. To take away the discomfort. Then I look her over again.
“Better?” I say.
“Thank you,” she says. She really is very pretty. I mean, I guess she’s looked better. But considering everything.
She says, “My wrists...”
I raise my hand and she flinches, turns away. “I told you not to fucking try anything,” I say. But she knows I wouldn’t really hit her. She watches me from under her hair, and I think she knows I wouldn’t hurt her. I think she can see it in my eyes. I hope she can. I hope she can see something.
I pour a little more water over the handkerchief and push it back into her mouth, and replace the tape. She doesn’t struggle too much as I lead her to the back of the car, help her back into place. My hand brushes against her breast, and the image returns to my mind, of her on the sand. I push it away and slam the boot closed, leaving her safe in the darkness.
About forty minutes later, I look up into the grey and follow the calls of the gulls, and see the pair of them circling in the air. Below them on the road sits a Range Rover. It watches me for a couple of minutes, and edges along, down the short path, onto the sand, stopping in front of my own car. The driver is a slim man with stubble. He’s wearing jeans and boots, and a check shirt. Workman’s clothes, for dirty work. The other guy is heavier, with a leather jacket over a t-shirt. I wait for them to step out onto the beach before I stand up, walk over. My arms are open like they’re long lost brothers, but I’ve never seen either of them before today. I’m just telling them I don’t have a weapon. There’s no friendship, just business.
Check Shirt nods towards my car. “She in there?”
I don’t answer but toss him the keys. He looks at Leather Jacket and walks towards the back of the car, opens it, looks down at the girl. I try to remember if I pulled her t-shirt down, to cover her panties.
The two of them pull her out. She struggles a little and falls, her knees and face planted in the sand. Leather Jacket braces against the weight, and hefts her over his shoulder. She kicks a little, tries to lift her head up. I imagine she’s looking for me. She probably isn’t.
He drops her into the back of the Range Rover with a mouthful of threats and curses, and pulls a blanket over her. I figure they don’t plan on driving far, not like that.
Check Shirt pulls a small backpack from the car and tosses it towards me. I watch the sand spray up as it hits. It looks full. He watches me, I watch the bag.
“You gonna count it?” he says.
“Nah,” I say. “I figure I can trust you.”
Then I say, “Of course, if it’s not all there, Jimmy will hunt you down and kill you.”
Check Shirt nods, but there’s nothing more. They climb into the Range Rover, start the engine, pull a tight circle and drive. Back up the beach, up the short path, up the road, disappear forever.
The gulls have gone, too. I look at the bag. Part of that is mine. I think about counting it, but I don’t figure it would help. I sit back down on my rock, smooth over the words I’d written earlier. I should just drive, back to the city. Jimmy will be waiting.
Fuck Jimmy, I think. I pick up a stick and start scratching lines into the sand.
BIO: Christopher Black is an unpublished UK writer. Luckily he doesn’t do it for the money. He procrastinates inconsistently about noir and other things at availableinanycolour.blogspot.com.
I pick up a broken pebble and start scratching lines into the sand. The sky is a uniform grey, so that you can’t even tell where the sun is. The sea is dirty slate, and as it froths up the beach it pushes around the thorny driftwood, the empty beer cans and plastic bags, forming new patterns to mark its lack of progress. I draw F U C K in the sand, and scuff it out with my palm. Then I change my mind and write the letters again, only this time I add T H I S underneath.
I look at my watch. It’s been two hours. Further along the tideline a couple of gulls are sifting through the trash.
‘Just wait there,’ Jimmy had said.
‘What time are they supposed to come?’ I’d asked.
‘Just wait there until they show,’ he’d said.
‘What if they don’t show?’ I’d said. ‘What the fuck am I supposed to do then?’
I stand up from my rock and shake off the sand. Hell of a day to visit the beach. Still, it could be worse. I glance at the car, parked high up, well away from the crawling, brackish sea.
If the time had gone slowly for me...
My boots sink into the drier sand as I approach the car, pulling keys from my pocket. For a moment I imagine what I’d do if she wasn’t inside, if the boot was empty as I pulled it open, but no, she’s there. Her eyes blink into the sudden light, trying to focus on my shadow looming over her.
Silver tape is stretched across her mouth. The rope around her ankles doesn’t look too bad, but around her wrists it’s pretty tight, chafing into her soft skin. Must be hell on her shoulders, I think.
She doesn’t struggle as I pull her into a sitting position, then heft her feet over the lip of the boot and pull her out onto the beach. Her legs buckle and she collapses onto the dirty sand. She’s only wearing a long Snoopy t-shirt – must’ve been wearing it in bed – and it rides up to show tight orange briefs. I figure shame is the least of her worries right now.
I help her to her bare feet and she starts shifting her weight around, trying to get the blood moving again. I lean her against the car and take a good look for the first time. She’s certainly pretty enough. Her skin is smooth and lightly tanned and pulled tight across high cheekbones and a slim, athletic body. Wavy hair drops to her shoulders. The highlights need touching up, but apart from that, you know. The t-shirt is pulled tightly across her chest, nipples standing firm.
She’s watching me, following my gaze, and I think it’s fear I can see in her big brown eyes. I used to be good at reading faces. Or maybe I only thought I was good at reading faces. I don’t know anymore. Of course she’s scared. Who wouldn’t be?
For a moment I feel the urge to grab those breasts, to force my hand between her thighs, to push her down onto the sand. But I don’t. Jimmy wouldn’t like it if I did. I think there’s another reason, something else that stops me. But I don’t think about it too hard in case I don’t like the answer I find.
Instead, I say, “Would you like some water?”
She nods, and I open the driver’s door and pull the bottle from the passenger footwell.
“Just don’t try anything,” I say, and she nods. “Don’t even fucking speak. Don’t even fucking think.”
I’m playing a little tough now, to balance the fact I’m doing her a favour. I don’t have to give her a drink. I don’t have to let her work off some stiffness in her legs. She’s not going to die in there. But I’m doing her a favour. I can let her drink, or not. I’m going to let her.
The silver tape comes off at the second attempt, and I pull the damp handkerchief from her mouth. I hold up the bottle and pour it towards her lips. She strains at it, gulping at it greedily. I watch her throat pulsing back and forth. A lot of the water spills onto her shirt, but I guess she doesn’t care.
I don’t let her have too much. Just enough to wet her throat and lips. To take away the discomfort. Then I look her over again.
“Better?” I say.
“Thank you,” she says. She really is very pretty. I mean, I guess she’s looked better. But considering everything.
She says, “My wrists...”
I raise my hand and she flinches, turns away. “I told you not to fucking try anything,” I say. But she knows I wouldn’t really hit her. She watches me from under her hair, and I think she knows I wouldn’t hurt her. I think she can see it in my eyes. I hope she can. I hope she can see something.
I pour a little more water over the handkerchief and push it back into her mouth, and replace the tape. She doesn’t struggle too much as I lead her to the back of the car, help her back into place. My hand brushes against her breast, and the image returns to my mind, of her on the sand. I push it away and slam the boot closed, leaving her safe in the darkness.
About forty minutes later, I look up into the grey and follow the calls of the gulls, and see the pair of them circling in the air. Below them on the road sits a Range Rover. It watches me for a couple of minutes, and edges along, down the short path, onto the sand, stopping in front of my own car. The driver is a slim man with stubble. He’s wearing jeans and boots, and a check shirt. Workman’s clothes, for dirty work. The other guy is heavier, with a leather jacket over a t-shirt. I wait for them to step out onto the beach before I stand up, walk over. My arms are open like they’re long lost brothers, but I’ve never seen either of them before today. I’m just telling them I don’t have a weapon. There’s no friendship, just business.
Check Shirt nods towards my car. “She in there?”
I don’t answer but toss him the keys. He looks at Leather Jacket and walks towards the back of the car, opens it, looks down at the girl. I try to remember if I pulled her t-shirt down, to cover her panties.
The two of them pull her out. She struggles a little and falls, her knees and face planted in the sand. Leather Jacket braces against the weight, and hefts her over his shoulder. She kicks a little, tries to lift her head up. I imagine she’s looking for me. She probably isn’t.
He drops her into the back of the Range Rover with a mouthful of threats and curses, and pulls a blanket over her. I figure they don’t plan on driving far, not like that.
Check Shirt pulls a small backpack from the car and tosses it towards me. I watch the sand spray up as it hits. It looks full. He watches me, I watch the bag.
“You gonna count it?” he says.
“Nah,” I say. “I figure I can trust you.”
Then I say, “Of course, if it’s not all there, Jimmy will hunt you down and kill you.”
Check Shirt nods, but there’s nothing more. They climb into the Range Rover, start the engine, pull a tight circle and drive. Back up the beach, up the short path, up the road, disappear forever.
The gulls have gone, too. I look at the bag. Part of that is mine. I think about counting it, but I don’t figure it would help. I sit back down on my rock, smooth over the words I’d written earlier. I should just drive, back to the city. Jimmy will be waiting.
Fuck Jimmy, I think. I pick up a stick and start scratching lines into the sand.
BIO: Christopher Black is an unpublished UK writer. Luckily he doesn’t do it for the money. He procrastinates inconsistently about noir and other things at availableinanycolour.blogspot.com.
Interlude Stories: Tom Faucett
UNSPOOLED - TOM FAUCETT
“Time of death, 8:38 P.M.”
(Twelve Minutes Earlier)
Paramedics slammed the gurney through double doors; the Israeli ER doctor sprinted alongside.
“White male, 56 years old. Multiple stab wounds to the chest.”
(Seventeen Minutes Earlier)
“Where’s the money?”
“What money?”
“Don’t fuck with me. The money you stole.”
“I don’t have— ” The streetlight caught the glint of the hunting knife as the serrated blade found ribs and flesh.
(Two Minutes Earlier)
Carrying the day’s worth of trash in a Hefty bag, he stumbled out the back door. As he raised the lid of the can, a man appeared out of the darkness.
(Thirty-Two Minutes Earlier)
“Is this Feck?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Quinton Feck?”
“Yes. Who is...”
The line went dead.
(Five Minutes Earlier)
Feck, slumped in his blue leather La-Z-Boy, drained his fourth Jack and Coke. He chewed on a Stouffer’s French Bread Pizza as he watched the Braves’ game. Ever since the death of his wife, he only shopped in the frozen food section. A drunk driver had plowed across the median, smashing head on into his wife’s Explorer. She and their daughter were on their way to a cake tasting for Jessica’s upcoming wedding. Sweet Jessica. He’d planned on walking her down the aisle in a wedding dress, not a casket.
(Two Years Earlier)
Leavenworth Prison, Kansas
His final appeal had been denied. Scrawling a quick note to his brother and only living relative, he fashioned a sheet into a noose, stepped up on the metal bed frame, tossed the sheet around an overhead pipe, secured it tightly and stepped off.
(One Month Earlier)
“Damn, Helms, that’s a hell of a story,” Andre Bibbs muttered, shaking his bald head. “That Feck sounds like a sadistic fucker.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
The two sat in the big yard at Leavenworth. Bibbs was in the homestretch of a seven-year sentence for raping a Venezuelan girl in the parking lot of Cheap Seats, a sports bar in Pensacola.
“A lot of fishes come through here claiming to be innocent, but damned if you ain’t the first I actually believe,” Andre said.
(Two Years Earlier)
Camp Gannon, Marine Corps Base, Iraq
“Captain Helms. Thank you for coming.”
“I came as soon as you summoned, Colonel.”
“I’m afraid we have a situation on our hands. Hoping you can shed some light.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“I’ll be blunt, Captain. The money’s been counted. We’re $400,000 short.”
“But that’s simply not possible, sir.”
“Take him to the brig,” Feck barked.
(Nineteen Hours Earlier)
Helms, in the jump seat of a sand colored Humvee barreling across Iraq, tried to catch some shuteye. The suffocating 120-degree heat, knotted road and constant fear of an ambush didn’t help. A duffle bag jammed full of 600 grand resting at his feet didn’t either.
(Three Weeks Earlier)
“I read your proposal, Captain Helms. It’s very ambitious.”
“We’re here to help, Colonel. The villagers desperately need this.”
“You realize it won’t be easy. You’ll have to trek across Iraq to the Jordanian border to procure the money from the depot and bring it back. Cash. I doubt very much the construction workers and contractors you’ll need to hire will take a personal check.”
“That thought did cross my mind, sir.”
“Very well. I’ll speak to my superiors for approval. I’ll be in touch.”
(Ten Days Earlier)
Colonel Feck, in his early 50s, looked ten years younger. He credited good genes and an intense exercise regimen. As he lay down on the bench to begin his reps, a shadowy figure entered the weight room and dropped a thin stack of 8x10 photos on Feck’s chest.
“What the-?” Feck said, sitting up. He grabbed the glossy pictures, and after quickly scanning them, stared up at the man in abject horror.
“I believe the correct term is ‘Conduct unbecoming an officer,’ sir.”
Feck flushed with rage, “What the hell do you want?”
“I think money is customary in these sorts of situations,” he stated plainly. “85 grand.”
“You blackmailing little shit. I haven’t got that kind of cash. I’ll see you court-martialed.” Feck sputtered.
Smiling, the soldier leaned forward, tapped the photos with his meaty index finger and said, “You first.”
(Five Years Earlier)
Oceanside, California
“Stop fidgeting, you’ll mess up your hair.”
“I just want them to like me.”
“Don’t worry. Mom’s a flirt and Dad’s an old softy.”
Her parents were already waiting in the restaurant foyer when they arrived.
“Mom, Dad, this is Jack.”
“So happy to meet you, Jack. Jessica talks about you all the time. Please, call me Evelyn. And this is my husband, Quinton.”
Jack Helms put out his hand to shake. “Major Feck, it’s a pleasure.”
BIO: Tom Faucett is a copywriter for advertising and design. He lives in Winston-Salem, NC with his wife, two sons, a crazy yellow dog and a hermit crab named Bill. You can find him on Twitter @tfaucett.
“Time of death, 8:38 P.M.”
(Twelve Minutes Earlier)
Paramedics slammed the gurney through double doors; the Israeli ER doctor sprinted alongside.
“White male, 56 years old. Multiple stab wounds to the chest.”
(Seventeen Minutes Earlier)
“Where’s the money?”
“What money?”
“Don’t fuck with me. The money you stole.”
“I don’t have— ” The streetlight caught the glint of the hunting knife as the serrated blade found ribs and flesh.
(Two Minutes Earlier)
Carrying the day’s worth of trash in a Hefty bag, he stumbled out the back door. As he raised the lid of the can, a man appeared out of the darkness.
(Thirty-Two Minutes Earlier)
“Is this Feck?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Quinton Feck?”
“Yes. Who is...”
The line went dead.
(Five Minutes Earlier)
Feck, slumped in his blue leather La-Z-Boy, drained his fourth Jack and Coke. He chewed on a Stouffer’s French Bread Pizza as he watched the Braves’ game. Ever since the death of his wife, he only shopped in the frozen food section. A drunk driver had plowed across the median, smashing head on into his wife’s Explorer. She and their daughter were on their way to a cake tasting for Jessica’s upcoming wedding. Sweet Jessica. He’d planned on walking her down the aisle in a wedding dress, not a casket.
(Two Years Earlier)
Leavenworth Prison, Kansas
His final appeal had been denied. Scrawling a quick note to his brother and only living relative, he fashioned a sheet into a noose, stepped up on the metal bed frame, tossed the sheet around an overhead pipe, secured it tightly and stepped off.
(One Month Earlier)
“Damn, Helms, that’s a hell of a story,” Andre Bibbs muttered, shaking his bald head. “That Feck sounds like a sadistic fucker.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
The two sat in the big yard at Leavenworth. Bibbs was in the homestretch of a seven-year sentence for raping a Venezuelan girl in the parking lot of Cheap Seats, a sports bar in Pensacola.
“A lot of fishes come through here claiming to be innocent, but damned if you ain’t the first I actually believe,” Andre said.
(Two Years Earlier)
Camp Gannon, Marine Corps Base, Iraq
“Captain Helms. Thank you for coming.”
“I came as soon as you summoned, Colonel.”
“I’m afraid we have a situation on our hands. Hoping you can shed some light.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“I’ll be blunt, Captain. The money’s been counted. We’re $400,000 short.”
“But that’s simply not possible, sir.”
“Take him to the brig,” Feck barked.
(Nineteen Hours Earlier)
Helms, in the jump seat of a sand colored Humvee barreling across Iraq, tried to catch some shuteye. The suffocating 120-degree heat, knotted road and constant fear of an ambush didn’t help. A duffle bag jammed full of 600 grand resting at his feet didn’t either.
(Three Weeks Earlier)
“I read your proposal, Captain Helms. It’s very ambitious.”
“We’re here to help, Colonel. The villagers desperately need this.”
“You realize it won’t be easy. You’ll have to trek across Iraq to the Jordanian border to procure the money from the depot and bring it back. Cash. I doubt very much the construction workers and contractors you’ll need to hire will take a personal check.”
“That thought did cross my mind, sir.”
“Very well. I’ll speak to my superiors for approval. I’ll be in touch.”
(Ten Days Earlier)
Colonel Feck, in his early 50s, looked ten years younger. He credited good genes and an intense exercise regimen. As he lay down on the bench to begin his reps, a shadowy figure entered the weight room and dropped a thin stack of 8x10 photos on Feck’s chest.
“What the-?” Feck said, sitting up. He grabbed the glossy pictures, and after quickly scanning them, stared up at the man in abject horror.
“I believe the correct term is ‘Conduct unbecoming an officer,’ sir.”
Feck flushed with rage, “What the hell do you want?”
“I think money is customary in these sorts of situations,” he stated plainly. “85 grand.”
“You blackmailing little shit. I haven’t got that kind of cash. I’ll see you court-martialed.” Feck sputtered.
Smiling, the soldier leaned forward, tapped the photos with his meaty index finger and said, “You first.”
(Five Years Earlier)
Oceanside, California
“Stop fidgeting, you’ll mess up your hair.”
“I just want them to like me.”
“Don’t worry. Mom’s a flirt and Dad’s an old softy.”
Her parents were already waiting in the restaurant foyer when they arrived.
“Mom, Dad, this is Jack.”
“So happy to meet you, Jack. Jessica talks about you all the time. Please, call me Evelyn. And this is my husband, Quinton.”
Jack Helms put out his hand to shake. “Major Feck, it’s a pleasure.”
BIO: Tom Faucett is a copywriter for advertising and design. He lives in Winston-Salem, NC with his wife, two sons, a crazy yellow dog and a hermit crab named Bill. You can find him on Twitter @tfaucett.
Interlude Stories: Patricia Abbott
SHAME - PATRICIA ABBOTT
I watch Guy sleep beside me. Misery, rage, fear flood his face—like waves rushing over sand. Muted shades tint him once the guardedness he wears by day disappears.
His eyelids flutter. I gaze at the rise and fall of his chest. His foot, always the left —the one nearest me—twitches. Rustling beneath the starched sheets he insists on tucking too tight, he sighs. Now he’s turned onto his right side. It feels deliberate—this casting me aside.
No longer hypnotized by the himness of him, I slip the gun under the bed. Metaphorically, of course. The mutual shame, which binds us as tightly as lust or habit might, brings it to mind.
Guy and my sister, Shelley: the two of them that should’ve been together these years. Perhaps what they had would’ve soured by now as so often happens.
For years—seventeen of them—it was my sister Shelley and me. Side by side on her bed—our feet making toe marks on her pink wall, reading the same books, liking the same movies, music. Other girls spilled over us at school, at the pool, but never made much of a claim. Boys, even less. Less than a year separated us. She claimed she waited for me, impatient for her other half.
“I was always looking for someone.”
“You can’t remember that,” our mother said, back to us at the sink.
“I bet she can,” I said.
I liked the idea of Shelley grieving for the sister who hadn’t yet been born. Me. It felt perfect.
Our mother shook her head, finding our closeness cloying. Smiling our secret smile, we turned our faces away.
And then, there was Guy Hansen.
Or Guy Handsome behind his back. I was bewildered at how Shelley had snagged him. Shelley who’d never had a date. The one who’d waited for me hadn’t let on she’d also waited for him.
But suddenly, Guy was standing at our door. I yanked it open expecting a salesman, a Jehovah Witness, Uncle Ted.
“Shannon, right?” he said, flashing his smile.
I was speechless. She’d told him about me, but not me about him—which seemed like a betrayal, treachery. That he deserved more consideration than me. That he was privy to a deeper level of confidence. My halcyon days were at an end.
“Thanks, Shannon,” Shelley said, sidling past me, my gaping mouth. When I still didn’t move, she whispered, “I’ll take it from here.”
I’d never heard that tone before. Dismissed, I sidled off like the rodent I’d suddenly become.
And she did exactly that— took it from there—moved from being captain of the lacrosse team and president of the French Club—to dating the best catch in school. Had she taken a book out from the library telling her what to do? Listened to some talk show offering tips?
Guy was off-limits for discussion.
“So what did you and Guy do last night?”
“Nothing special.” She was fidgeting. “Do you want go in on a present for Mom for Mother’s Day? Maybe a new recording of St. Matthew’s Passion?”
So we weren’t to share Guy. I was filled with rage. Rage that Shelley was lost to me, that she made off with the school’s best offering, that she hadn’t shared her feelings.
When we lay on her bed talking about whether we’d do it with TV stars like Buffy’s Angel or Dawson Leery, she never let on her choice was Guy Hansen. If she’d confided her interest in him, things might have gone differently. If we’d shared her heart’s desire like a sweater, CDs, her deepest secrets, I might have understood.
I can’t explain why I expected Shelley to want to spend all her time with me. Why it never occurred to me that I wasn’t enough for her. That we wouldn’t go hand in hand through life. I needed preparation for such a thing—a warning.
Funny thing was, Guy and Shelley didn’t do the things—or more precisely the thing—I expected. The thing we talked about doing with Jason Priestly or James Franco.
But I knew something she didn’t know. While she read Middlemarch, I read Mom’s Harlequin romances. Knew boys wanted more than a chaste kiss at 11:30 P.M. when they were seventeen years old. That was where I’d have my in.
“The fireworks on the river are tomorrow night,” I said.
We went every year, taking a quilt our grandmother had made, a cooler with pink lemonade, lemon square cookies.
“Guy has a friend with a boat.” Shelley couldn’t even look at me. I waited for an invitation to join them that never came.
Gradually, and I don’t think I consciously planned it, I began to talk to Guy when he was waiting for Shelley, when he called and she was out.
“Oh, hi, Guy. Shelley’s working right now. Did you like What About Bob? Shelley told me you both did.” This was a patent lie. I only knew they’d seen it because I found the ticket stub in her jeans.
“Oh, yeah! Man, Bill Murray was a knockout.”
My early sullenness with Guy gave way to chattiness. He seemed relieved to have made a friend in the enemy camp where my parents treated him with wariness at best. Once my sister changed her college plans to coincide with his, there was outright hostility.
“I can’t believe you’re throwing yourself away on a nothing like him,” my father told her, looking at her for the longest time in years. “You could go to school anywhere and instead...”
My idea to get Shelley back was this: I’d put Guy in a compromising position and then threaten to expose him for what he was if he didn’t leave Shelley alone. I never doubted I could do this—that I could make Guy accept sexual favors from his girlfriend’s sister. I could detect his weaknesses and was prepared to exploit them. My father was right; she deserved better and I would provide it.
“Guy?” I was calling him from a 7-Eleven two towns away. It was a night when Shelley was babysitting and out of the picture.
“Shannon?” he said. “Hi. What’s up?”
“Wonder if you could give me a ride home. Sort of got marooned out here...”
A ride home from that convenience store, a lift from the pool. Pretty soon we shared the easy rapport of friends. But I couldn’t see what Shelley saw in him. He was ordinary, dull.
Shelley was babysitting forty plus hours a week after losing her financial aid when she switched schools in early July.
“You’ll have to come up with some of this money yourself,” Dad had told her after looking at the first tuition bill.
And then one night—when I’d asked Guy for a ride home from a graduation party—I put my head in his lap and did the down and dirty deed, the one all boys want. At first, he protested, tried to push my head away, grabbed my hair. Muttered something about Shelley.
But, in seconds, he was grabbing my hair in another way, steering me.
“That’s never going to happen again,” he said when it was over, when he’d caught his breath. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”
Strangely, he didn’t blame me, probably believing that such an act could only be a male-generated idea. When I got into my mother’s car and turned the headlights on, his face captured in the light, was filled with revulsion. A look I’d come to know well.
But it did happen again—off and on all July. Neither of us talked about it, silence seemed to be the price he demanded. My plan to expose his lechery immediately went awry as I began to be more drawn to my own awfulness, to the sinister power I wielded. Had this attracted Shelley, too?
I don’t know what I hoped for—did I hope he’d dump Shelley for me—I doubt it. I wanted to puncture the balloon of happiness that floated above her head. Wanted to force him to tell her what he’d done. Confess and take full blame as I knew he would. But not yet.
Early August. I met him at a nice spot overlooking the valley. I climbed into his car and began my routine. Our routine. There was never any kissing and he never touched me more than he had to. Never any words of love—nothing but this amazingly mechanical act. I was disgusted with myself, considering ending it because it seemed like Guy couldn’t stop. I felt shame. I didn’t know much—if anything—about boys, but apparently this could not be turned down. Why didn’t Shelley give him what he needed? Or was it I who’d created the need? Would he have been content with what she had to offer had I not come along?
Suddenly, a face loomed up behind Guy’s head.
Shelley.
I pulled away but not before she caught sight of the look on Guy’s upturned face, his open jeans, my damp face rising. And then, she was gone.
“Guy,” I said, sitting up.
“What?” His voice sounded like my father’s did when he’d been drinking. Groggy, indistinct, hoarse.
“I just saw Shelley.” I was whispering—as if she might be lurking nearby instead of thousands of feet away by then.
“What?” he said, trying to make sense of it now. “Shelley? Where?”
“Just outside. Looking in at us.”
Guy groaned, got himself together, opened the door, and leaped out. “Shelley?”
I climbed out the other side. Shelley’s, or rather my father’s car, was parked behind us. I ran over and pulled the door open. Empty except for her purse on the seat.
Guy’s cries of “Shelley” grew faint as he moved farther away.
I rummaged in the glove box for a flashlight. When I came up with one, the battery was dead. How like my father, I thought despite myself. Throwing it aside, I ran back to Guy’s car, found another one that worked, shed its rather anemic light into the night, and walked carefully around.
I heard Guy shouting. And shouting again—louder this time. Was he shouting for me? Did I have any place in the drama I’d created? Reluctantly, I ran toward the sound—which had become, ominously, the sound of sobbing. My flashlight picked him up finally, standing next to an outcropping just before the trees turned into sloping woods.
“Did you find her?”
He nodded and tilted his head toward the falloff. I crept over and pointed my light. She lay at the bottom of the hill.
I started scrambling down the hill with Guy right behind me. He was trying to talk, but our heavy breathing obscured his words. It took several minutes and a lot of slipping and sliding to reach bottom. We were muddy and bruised by tree limbs by the time we reached bottom.
“Tried to grab her hand and she fell,” Guy finally said. “Dry ground just gave way, dropping into the air, and she fell with it.” He was sobbing.
We could see from the angle of her neck it was broken. Neither of us needed to touch her, but we both did anyway. Tried to breathe life back into her limp body. After several minutes, we both fell silent and still.
“What’re we going to do?” Guy asked. “Call the cops?”
I thought for a minute. “Can you imagine telling anyone the whole story? Telling my parents—the cops—our friends what we were doing? That I was giving you…a blow job?” I winced, but got it out. “How she found us and ran away? How you pushed her off the ledge? Accidentally—but still.”
He was crying again and I resisted the urge to join him. “I didn’t push her, Shannon. I was trying to make her stop running—so I could tell her. Explain it didn’t—”
“And how will that sound? That it didn’t mean anything?”
I was thinking as quickly as I could, trying to come up with an idea before he confessed everything. I’d lost my sister. Suddenly, holding onto Guy seemed important. Guy was all I had of hers.
“So what should we say then?”
His voice had gone quiet, submissive. I could feel him working his way back to the idea of telling the truth. Thinking it might just be simpler.
“Look. Maybe we weren’t here at all tonight—you and me. Maybe she found out about us—maybe that we were eloping— something like that, and killed herself. Drove up to a place you’d come to with her and jumped.”
“Eloping?” Guy said, looking at me with repulsion. “What—and then we didn’t do it after all? Elope?”
“No, we’d have to do it. It’d put us miles away from here.”
“You and me—get married?”
“We wouldn’t have to stay married, Guy. Just long enough to put them off.” But then it occurred to me, if not to poor Guy, that I was only seventeen. I couldn’t get married without my parents’ consent.
“Don’t we need a license?”
“Not in Vegas. You can get one on the spot. It’s only a couple hundred miles away.”
“Drive there right now?” He looked incredulous, but inch by inch he was buying the idea. He was a follower at heart and I was—something else.
“No, we’d have to go home first and get birth certificates. ID, that sort of thing.”
“Won’t your parents wonder where she is?”
“They won’t check. They never do.” And perhaps that’s why we were standing where we were.
So the plan was made. We made sure my father’s car could not be seen from the road, and drove home. He picked me up an hour later and we drove from Bakersfield to Las Vegas, got our license in the courthouse, and got married. Guy never noticed the name on the license read Shelley Witt. Never noticed he was officially married to the girl of his dreams and not her slutty sister. Not until months later.
Only after it was all over, after Shelley’s body had been found, investigated, mourned, buried, did he home to me in our horrible little apartment over the drugstore and say, “I guess we can file for a divorce some time soon.”
It was then that I showed him the illegal marriage certificate, threatening to tell the whole story. “How you used me for an alibi after you and Shelley had a fight. How maybe you pushed her off the ledge. How you made me marry you.”
I could see a million ways he could rid himself of me, refute this sad story, but he couldn’t think of one. It was then I realized my father had been right about Guy. That there wasn’t much behind that smile.
“So you mean we’re just going to go ahead?” he asked me, probably measuring my neck against his hands. “Stick it out?”
“For now,” I said.
I’d gotten used to him and his ways. And, eventually, he to mine.
And so I watch him night after night. Waiting for the day he grows tired of it all. For the day he sends me to join my sister. Or joins her himself. Either one will do. I just can’t live with the shame. Not forever at least.
BIO: Patricia Abbott has published more than fifty stories in literary and crime fiction outlets. Check out more from Patti at Pattinase.
I watch Guy sleep beside me. Misery, rage, fear flood his face—like waves rushing over sand. Muted shades tint him once the guardedness he wears by day disappears.
His eyelids flutter. I gaze at the rise and fall of his chest. His foot, always the left —the one nearest me—twitches. Rustling beneath the starched sheets he insists on tucking too tight, he sighs. Now he’s turned onto his right side. It feels deliberate—this casting me aside.
No longer hypnotized by the himness of him, I slip the gun under the bed. Metaphorically, of course. The mutual shame, which binds us as tightly as lust or habit might, brings it to mind.
Guy and my sister, Shelley: the two of them that should’ve been together these years. Perhaps what they had would’ve soured by now as so often happens.
For years—seventeen of them—it was my sister Shelley and me. Side by side on her bed—our feet making toe marks on her pink wall, reading the same books, liking the same movies, music. Other girls spilled over us at school, at the pool, but never made much of a claim. Boys, even less. Less than a year separated us. She claimed she waited for me, impatient for her other half.
“I was always looking for someone.”
“You can’t remember that,” our mother said, back to us at the sink.
“I bet she can,” I said.
I liked the idea of Shelley grieving for the sister who hadn’t yet been born. Me. It felt perfect.
Our mother shook her head, finding our closeness cloying. Smiling our secret smile, we turned our faces away.
And then, there was Guy Hansen.
Or Guy Handsome behind his back. I was bewildered at how Shelley had snagged him. Shelley who’d never had a date. The one who’d waited for me hadn’t let on she’d also waited for him.
But suddenly, Guy was standing at our door. I yanked it open expecting a salesman, a Jehovah Witness, Uncle Ted.
“Shannon, right?” he said, flashing his smile.
I was speechless. She’d told him about me, but not me about him—which seemed like a betrayal, treachery. That he deserved more consideration than me. That he was privy to a deeper level of confidence. My halcyon days were at an end.
“Thanks, Shannon,” Shelley said, sidling past me, my gaping mouth. When I still didn’t move, she whispered, “I’ll take it from here.”
I’d never heard that tone before. Dismissed, I sidled off like the rodent I’d suddenly become.
And she did exactly that— took it from there—moved from being captain of the lacrosse team and president of the French Club—to dating the best catch in school. Had she taken a book out from the library telling her what to do? Listened to some talk show offering tips?
Guy was off-limits for discussion.
“So what did you and Guy do last night?”
“Nothing special.” She was fidgeting. “Do you want go in on a present for Mom for Mother’s Day? Maybe a new recording of St. Matthew’s Passion?”
So we weren’t to share Guy. I was filled with rage. Rage that Shelley was lost to me, that she made off with the school’s best offering, that she hadn’t shared her feelings.
When we lay on her bed talking about whether we’d do it with TV stars like Buffy’s Angel or Dawson Leery, she never let on her choice was Guy Hansen. If she’d confided her interest in him, things might have gone differently. If we’d shared her heart’s desire like a sweater, CDs, her deepest secrets, I might have understood.
I can’t explain why I expected Shelley to want to spend all her time with me. Why it never occurred to me that I wasn’t enough for her. That we wouldn’t go hand in hand through life. I needed preparation for such a thing—a warning.
Funny thing was, Guy and Shelley didn’t do the things—or more precisely the thing—I expected. The thing we talked about doing with Jason Priestly or James Franco.
But I knew something she didn’t know. While she read Middlemarch, I read Mom’s Harlequin romances. Knew boys wanted more than a chaste kiss at 11:30 P.M. when they were seventeen years old. That was where I’d have my in.
“The fireworks on the river are tomorrow night,” I said.
We went every year, taking a quilt our grandmother had made, a cooler with pink lemonade, lemon square cookies.
“Guy has a friend with a boat.” Shelley couldn’t even look at me. I waited for an invitation to join them that never came.
Gradually, and I don’t think I consciously planned it, I began to talk to Guy when he was waiting for Shelley, when he called and she was out.
“Oh, hi, Guy. Shelley’s working right now. Did you like What About Bob? Shelley told me you both did.” This was a patent lie. I only knew they’d seen it because I found the ticket stub in her jeans.
“Oh, yeah! Man, Bill Murray was a knockout.”
My early sullenness with Guy gave way to chattiness. He seemed relieved to have made a friend in the enemy camp where my parents treated him with wariness at best. Once my sister changed her college plans to coincide with his, there was outright hostility.
“I can’t believe you’re throwing yourself away on a nothing like him,” my father told her, looking at her for the longest time in years. “You could go to school anywhere and instead...”
My idea to get Shelley back was this: I’d put Guy in a compromising position and then threaten to expose him for what he was if he didn’t leave Shelley alone. I never doubted I could do this—that I could make Guy accept sexual favors from his girlfriend’s sister. I could detect his weaknesses and was prepared to exploit them. My father was right; she deserved better and I would provide it.
“Guy?” I was calling him from a 7-Eleven two towns away. It was a night when Shelley was babysitting and out of the picture.
“Shannon?” he said. “Hi. What’s up?”
“Wonder if you could give me a ride home. Sort of got marooned out here...”
A ride home from that convenience store, a lift from the pool. Pretty soon we shared the easy rapport of friends. But I couldn’t see what Shelley saw in him. He was ordinary, dull.
Shelley was babysitting forty plus hours a week after losing her financial aid when she switched schools in early July.
“You’ll have to come up with some of this money yourself,” Dad had told her after looking at the first tuition bill.
And then one night—when I’d asked Guy for a ride home from a graduation party—I put my head in his lap and did the down and dirty deed, the one all boys want. At first, he protested, tried to push my head away, grabbed my hair. Muttered something about Shelley.
But, in seconds, he was grabbing my hair in another way, steering me.
“That’s never going to happen again,” he said when it was over, when he’d caught his breath. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”
Strangely, he didn’t blame me, probably believing that such an act could only be a male-generated idea. When I got into my mother’s car and turned the headlights on, his face captured in the light, was filled with revulsion. A look I’d come to know well.
But it did happen again—off and on all July. Neither of us talked about it, silence seemed to be the price he demanded. My plan to expose his lechery immediately went awry as I began to be more drawn to my own awfulness, to the sinister power I wielded. Had this attracted Shelley, too?
I don’t know what I hoped for—did I hope he’d dump Shelley for me—I doubt it. I wanted to puncture the balloon of happiness that floated above her head. Wanted to force him to tell her what he’d done. Confess and take full blame as I knew he would. But not yet.
Early August. I met him at a nice spot overlooking the valley. I climbed into his car and began my routine. Our routine. There was never any kissing and he never touched me more than he had to. Never any words of love—nothing but this amazingly mechanical act. I was disgusted with myself, considering ending it because it seemed like Guy couldn’t stop. I felt shame. I didn’t know much—if anything—about boys, but apparently this could not be turned down. Why didn’t Shelley give him what he needed? Or was it I who’d created the need? Would he have been content with what she had to offer had I not come along?
Suddenly, a face loomed up behind Guy’s head.
Shelley.
I pulled away but not before she caught sight of the look on Guy’s upturned face, his open jeans, my damp face rising. And then, she was gone.
“Guy,” I said, sitting up.
“What?” His voice sounded like my father’s did when he’d been drinking. Groggy, indistinct, hoarse.
“I just saw Shelley.” I was whispering—as if she might be lurking nearby instead of thousands of feet away by then.
“What?” he said, trying to make sense of it now. “Shelley? Where?”
“Just outside. Looking in at us.”
Guy groaned, got himself together, opened the door, and leaped out. “Shelley?”
I climbed out the other side. Shelley’s, or rather my father’s car, was parked behind us. I ran over and pulled the door open. Empty except for her purse on the seat.
Guy’s cries of “Shelley” grew faint as he moved farther away.
I rummaged in the glove box for a flashlight. When I came up with one, the battery was dead. How like my father, I thought despite myself. Throwing it aside, I ran back to Guy’s car, found another one that worked, shed its rather anemic light into the night, and walked carefully around.
I heard Guy shouting. And shouting again—louder this time. Was he shouting for me? Did I have any place in the drama I’d created? Reluctantly, I ran toward the sound—which had become, ominously, the sound of sobbing. My flashlight picked him up finally, standing next to an outcropping just before the trees turned into sloping woods.
“Did you find her?”
He nodded and tilted his head toward the falloff. I crept over and pointed my light. She lay at the bottom of the hill.
I started scrambling down the hill with Guy right behind me. He was trying to talk, but our heavy breathing obscured his words. It took several minutes and a lot of slipping and sliding to reach bottom. We were muddy and bruised by tree limbs by the time we reached bottom.
“Tried to grab her hand and she fell,” Guy finally said. “Dry ground just gave way, dropping into the air, and she fell with it.” He was sobbing.
We could see from the angle of her neck it was broken. Neither of us needed to touch her, but we both did anyway. Tried to breathe life back into her limp body. After several minutes, we both fell silent and still.
“What’re we going to do?” Guy asked. “Call the cops?”
I thought for a minute. “Can you imagine telling anyone the whole story? Telling my parents—the cops—our friends what we were doing? That I was giving you…a blow job?” I winced, but got it out. “How she found us and ran away? How you pushed her off the ledge? Accidentally—but still.”
He was crying again and I resisted the urge to join him. “I didn’t push her, Shannon. I was trying to make her stop running—so I could tell her. Explain it didn’t—”
“And how will that sound? That it didn’t mean anything?”
I was thinking as quickly as I could, trying to come up with an idea before he confessed everything. I’d lost my sister. Suddenly, holding onto Guy seemed important. Guy was all I had of hers.
“So what should we say then?”
His voice had gone quiet, submissive. I could feel him working his way back to the idea of telling the truth. Thinking it might just be simpler.
“Look. Maybe we weren’t here at all tonight—you and me. Maybe she found out about us—maybe that we were eloping— something like that, and killed herself. Drove up to a place you’d come to with her and jumped.”
“Eloping?” Guy said, looking at me with repulsion. “What—and then we didn’t do it after all? Elope?”
“No, we’d have to do it. It’d put us miles away from here.”
“You and me—get married?”
“We wouldn’t have to stay married, Guy. Just long enough to put them off.” But then it occurred to me, if not to poor Guy, that I was only seventeen. I couldn’t get married without my parents’ consent.
“Don’t we need a license?”
“Not in Vegas. You can get one on the spot. It’s only a couple hundred miles away.”
“Drive there right now?” He looked incredulous, but inch by inch he was buying the idea. He was a follower at heart and I was—something else.
“No, we’d have to go home first and get birth certificates. ID, that sort of thing.”
“Won’t your parents wonder where she is?”
“They won’t check. They never do.” And perhaps that’s why we were standing where we were.
So the plan was made. We made sure my father’s car could not be seen from the road, and drove home. He picked me up an hour later and we drove from Bakersfield to Las Vegas, got our license in the courthouse, and got married. Guy never noticed the name on the license read Shelley Witt. Never noticed he was officially married to the girl of his dreams and not her slutty sister. Not until months later.
Only after it was all over, after Shelley’s body had been found, investigated, mourned, buried, did he home to me in our horrible little apartment over the drugstore and say, “I guess we can file for a divorce some time soon.”
It was then that I showed him the illegal marriage certificate, threatening to tell the whole story. “How you used me for an alibi after you and Shelley had a fight. How maybe you pushed her off the ledge. How you made me marry you.”
I could see a million ways he could rid himself of me, refute this sad story, but he couldn’t think of one. It was then I realized my father had been right about Guy. That there wasn’t much behind that smile.
“So you mean we’re just going to go ahead?” he asked me, probably measuring my neck against his hands. “Stick it out?”
“For now,” I said.
I’d gotten used to him and his ways. And, eventually, he to mine.
And so I watch him night after night. Waiting for the day he grows tired of it all. For the day he sends me to join my sister. Or joins her himself. Either one will do. I just can’t live with the shame. Not forever at least.
BIO: Patricia Abbott has published more than fifty stories in literary and crime fiction outlets. Check out more from Patti at Pattinase.
Interlude Stories: Tom Pitts
LIKE CAVEMEN - TOM PITTS
“It’s a high tech world, so we gotta be like cavemen. You understand?” asked Tony. “That means no phones. No cell phones. No pay phones. No phones period—ever. That means those goddamn pay-as-you-go phones, too. They got ways to track everything nowadays–—and it’s always changin’. It’s hard to be invisible. You gotta be on top of things. You wanna fly below the radar? You gotta know what the fuck radar is. Am I right?”
“Absolutely, Tony.”
“Are you listening?”
“Yes, Tony, absolutely,” said Tim.
“Are you? ’Cause it looks to me like you’re watchin’ that bitch’s ass bounce up the street. Should I stop? Do I need to stop so you can go to the fuckin’ bathroom a minute, so you can concentrate?” Tony’s face was starting to turn red. There were tiny beads of sweat on his fat nose.
“No ... no, Tony.”
Tony stood there breathing hard. They waited. All Tim could hear was Tony breathing, wheezing. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal and the red color faded from his face.
“I mean, we’re not kids here. This ain’t penny ante shit, you know. We handle the hard work and we are fuckin’ good at what we do, you understand?” Tony always felt the need to clarify what he was saying. Only thing was, it what hard to tell just what he was saying. He implied, he gestured, he omitted. Tony was old school and believed that there was always someone listening. In his time he had seen the methods and laws change so much that now his paranoia was starting to seem grounded.
The two of them were walking down Mission Street. They turned onto Russia Street and began trudging up the hill. Tony liked the neighborhood, it was his neighborhood. Tony’s lungs began to whistle and he waved for Tim to stop. Tony reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a half crushed pack of Marlboro Reds. They were both silent as Tony stood trying to light his cigarette in the wind.
“You think you know technology?” he continued.
Tim didn’t say anything.
“You don’t know shit. It changes by the goddamned day. By the minute. These assholes are using shit we don’t even know is invented yet. Tapping phones without wiretaps. Who needs a fucking warrant when they’re pulling shit out of the air?”
Tim wondered if this was true. He tried to remember something his lawyer had told him, but couldn’t. He must have taken his eyes off Tony for just a second.
“Hello, you listening to me? Maybe you’re wearing a fuckin’ wire and you just wanna play this back later? Listen to me then?”
“Aw, come on, Tony.”
“Stop makin’ me waste my breath, kid. You think I’m nuts? You think I’m paranoid? These cocksuckers read lips. They teach ’em all how in Quantico. I’m serious.”
Tony spat on the ground to underscore how serious he was.
“Some guys around here like to use technology. Get them before they get you, kinda thing. We ain’t those guys. We are the guys who ain’t fucking worried, because there ain’t shit down anywhere, so there ain’t shit to worry about.”
First day on the new job was always tough. It went on like this for twenty minutes. Tim started to wonder if maybe Tony was crazy. Everybody that Tim dealt with was a little nuts, but maybe Tony was a little extra. The advice went on and on.
“Your money, it goes under the mattress. No banks, no bank accounts, nothing. Safety deposit boxes? Fuck no. Listen to what I’m telling you kid and maybe you’ll last more than a few weeks.”
Tim sat there stone-faced, trying as hard as he could to wear the mask of attention. The aroma of the sausage Tony had eaten for lunch made an appearance, mixing with Tony’s sweaty cologne. Tim was glad that they were out in the open air.
“You got credit cards? Stop using ’em. Keep one, use it for alibis, shit like that. Personal use will fuck you up. Give ’em a fuckin’ road map to your life, why don’t cha.”
Tim was getting tired of Tony’s tirade. It was tough focusing on Tony’s face. When Tim looked at him, his head seemed impossibly huge, too big for his body. The head seemed to pulsate. Tony’s voice drifted off, replaced by a loud hum. Tim wondered if he was going to faint.
“If you need to reach me, don’t fuckin’ call—ever. Do it in person. Take a cab. Don’t call for one, then they got a record, just fuckin’ flag one. Okay? ... okay?”
The silence snapped Tim out of it long enough to manage a response. Then there was a pause and Tim thought he was done. Then Tony fired up again. “And get out at least two bocks away, not on the fuckin’ corner. You got it? Good. You got a car? Yeah? Get rid of it. Sell it.” Tony paused for a moment, like he’d lost his train of thought. He flicked his cigarette on the sidewalk and continued.
“Remember what I said about credit cards, no nothing. I don’t care if they’re not yours, if you know they’re good, whatever, I don’t care. Do not fuckin’ use ’em. You gotta be invisible, a caveman. You can’t just be low key; you gotta be the fuckin’ Unabomber.”
“Didn’t they get the Unabomber?” Tim immediately regretted deviating from his agreeable responses.
“Hey, fuck you. There was a rat. His own fuckin’ brother ratted him out, and that was the only way they got him. Someone should have a talk with his brother just on fuckin’ principle.” Tony looked out of breath. He’d forgotten where he was in his training speech. These little fuckers always had something to say, thought they knew better. Tony hated bringing on new guys to this job.
“You lead a different life now. Fuck how you were doing things before. Fuck your life.You thought you knew what you were doing. You didn’t know shit, not for us, not for how we do shit. We do shit different for a reason. We have fucking discipline, understand? We been doing this shit for fucking centuries—centuries. The reason we’re still doing it is ‘cause we’re doing it the same way for centuries. We are fucking cavemen my friend.”
Tim wasn’t chosen because he was smart; he was chosen because he knew how to do the work. The heavy work. Tim could take apart a body. Not everybody had the stomach for that kind of thing. Those who could didn’t have the discipline. Tim had the ability to compartmentalize. He didn’t have the dreams. He didn’t have any dreams. He didn’t need the blow; some guys needed to numb their brains afterword.
It was the money that Tim loved, but there was only so much you could spend your money on. He didn’t even know why he wanted more. He didn’t care. It just felt like he was beating someone, something. The whores were good. The whiskey was good. The food was good. But it didn’t matter, none of it. He didn’t mind shitty whiskey, and, honestly, he kinda liked ugly whores, too. To him, it was the work. The kind of thing he knew that no one else would do. The kind of thing Tony couldn’t do.
“There is absolutely not one single set of balls in this town,” Tony continued, “You cannot count on one fucking douchebag in this entire city. I guarantee you; they are all lay-down-sally motherfuckers. Do not treat friends like friends, even if you’ve seen ’em hanging down at the club, or if they seem close to me, don’t matter, they ain’t shit.”
Tim knew his life expectancy was limited. That there was no way a lifestyle like his could be maintained. Call it karma, call it the law of averages, call it Murphy’s Law, he knew that sooner or later he wouldn’t be the one calling the shots.
The wind had begun to pick up. They zig-zagged along the residential streets of the Excelsior district, pausing only when Tony was out of breath. They stood together on the sidewalk, far away from the earshot of passers by, the wind cutting right through Tim’s clothes. The wind never stopped in this city, it just got colder, thought Tim. He was a long way from the central valley, where he grew up. Not long enough, thought Tim. He knew that the abuses he’d faced as a child gave him the special skill set he needed in this business, so he didn’t dwell. It was a dark blessing, an evil inheritance.
“First thing you gotta do is see the guy downtown, the guy next to ‘you know who.’ He’ll give you the details. You know who I’m talking ’bout, the little guy. He’ll let you know about this kid. He’s the first one you’re gonna do, that fucking kid. Don’t even get me started on that piece of shit.”
Tim knew that God worked in mysterious ways. That’s why God had taken his conscience, his fear. Tony was different. Tony knew fear. He feared prison, he feared death, he feared losing his power. Tim had seen guys that sounded a lot tougher than Tony break down and weep, weep like children.
Tim knew it was all relative. He could die in prison; he could die on the street. He could sit in prison; he could sit on the beach. Happy, sad, rich, poor, it made no difference to him, really. The experience of life was just that, only an experience. He moved through it, he was not attached to it. Life held no sentimental value. To him, if you had just fucked a thousand dollar whore on silk sheets or just jerked off in a prison bunk, it made no difference. You just rolled over and went to sleep. You still had to piss, shit, eat, yawn, and wait to die.
“The long and the short of it is this, kid, we gotta be like cavemen. The only time I wanna ever hear your voice or see your face is when you’re standing in front of me, okay?”
“Okay, Tony. No problem.”
“And don’t ever use my name. I’m one motherfucker who is not offended by being called ‘hey you.’” Tony smiled for the first time. Tim figured that meant he was wrapping up.
“After this, you go see that guy we talked about and he’ll let you know how to find that asshole. Just follow the rules and you’ll be swimming in cash before the end of the summer.”
“No problem, I’m on the way.” Tim was relieved the conversation was ending. He was looking forward to getting back to work, to doing what he did best. He turned his back on Tony and walked straight down hill toward Mission Street.
As Tim followed instructions and flagged a taxi, Tony was catching his breath on the doorway of his club. Tony waved to Sammy, his closest confidant. In typical fashion, he said nothing, only pointing toward the street so Sammy would follow him outside to talk. When they were far enough away from the club Tony turned and said, “Look, after this new kid deals with that asshole downtown, and after we know he’s done a good job, I want you to put two in his fucking head and leave him in the street. He’s got a shitty attitude.”
The instructions hung there. Sammy was surprised, but not too surprised. He knew Tony, and how Tony operated. He knew better than to say anything.
“Oh, and I don’t wanna hear anything more about it; you know me, I don’t like to get my hands dirty.” With that, Tony began to laugh. The laugh quickly became a cough, the cough became a choke. It was the first laugh Tony had enjoyed in a week. He could barely suck in a breath.
BIO: Tom Pitts was born in Calgary, Canada before relocating in San Francisco in 1984. After the disintegration of his band, Short Dogs Grow, and two critically acclaimed albums on Rough Trade Records, Tom got his education in street life first hand while enduring long and near fatal bout with heroin. He remains in San Francisco with his wife; working, writing, and raising his three children. His work has appeared in Junk (a literary fix), Helix, and the upcoming Sims Review He has also read numerous times for the popular San Francisco series Lip Service West.
“It’s a high tech world, so we gotta be like cavemen. You understand?” asked Tony. “That means no phones. No cell phones. No pay phones. No phones period—ever. That means those goddamn pay-as-you-go phones, too. They got ways to track everything nowadays–—and it’s always changin’. It’s hard to be invisible. You gotta be on top of things. You wanna fly below the radar? You gotta know what the fuck radar is. Am I right?”
“Absolutely, Tony.”
“Are you listening?”
“Yes, Tony, absolutely,” said Tim.
“Are you? ’Cause it looks to me like you’re watchin’ that bitch’s ass bounce up the street. Should I stop? Do I need to stop so you can go to the fuckin’ bathroom a minute, so you can concentrate?” Tony’s face was starting to turn red. There were tiny beads of sweat on his fat nose.
“No ... no, Tony.”
Tony stood there breathing hard. They waited. All Tim could hear was Tony breathing, wheezing. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal and the red color faded from his face.
“I mean, we’re not kids here. This ain’t penny ante shit, you know. We handle the hard work and we are fuckin’ good at what we do, you understand?” Tony always felt the need to clarify what he was saying. Only thing was, it what hard to tell just what he was saying. He implied, he gestured, he omitted. Tony was old school and believed that there was always someone listening. In his time he had seen the methods and laws change so much that now his paranoia was starting to seem grounded.
The two of them were walking down Mission Street. They turned onto Russia Street and began trudging up the hill. Tony liked the neighborhood, it was his neighborhood. Tony’s lungs began to whistle and he waved for Tim to stop. Tony reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a half crushed pack of Marlboro Reds. They were both silent as Tony stood trying to light his cigarette in the wind.
“You think you know technology?” he continued.
Tim didn’t say anything.
“You don’t know shit. It changes by the goddamned day. By the minute. These assholes are using shit we don’t even know is invented yet. Tapping phones without wiretaps. Who needs a fucking warrant when they’re pulling shit out of the air?”
Tim wondered if this was true. He tried to remember something his lawyer had told him, but couldn’t. He must have taken his eyes off Tony for just a second.
“Hello, you listening to me? Maybe you’re wearing a fuckin’ wire and you just wanna play this back later? Listen to me then?”
“Aw, come on, Tony.”
“Stop makin’ me waste my breath, kid. You think I’m nuts? You think I’m paranoid? These cocksuckers read lips. They teach ’em all how in Quantico. I’m serious.”
Tony spat on the ground to underscore how serious he was.
“Some guys around here like to use technology. Get them before they get you, kinda thing. We ain’t those guys. We are the guys who ain’t fucking worried, because there ain’t shit down anywhere, so there ain’t shit to worry about.”
First day on the new job was always tough. It went on like this for twenty minutes. Tim started to wonder if maybe Tony was crazy. Everybody that Tim dealt with was a little nuts, but maybe Tony was a little extra. The advice went on and on.
“Your money, it goes under the mattress. No banks, no bank accounts, nothing. Safety deposit boxes? Fuck no. Listen to what I’m telling you kid and maybe you’ll last more than a few weeks.”
Tim sat there stone-faced, trying as hard as he could to wear the mask of attention. The aroma of the sausage Tony had eaten for lunch made an appearance, mixing with Tony’s sweaty cologne. Tim was glad that they were out in the open air.
“You got credit cards? Stop using ’em. Keep one, use it for alibis, shit like that. Personal use will fuck you up. Give ’em a fuckin’ road map to your life, why don’t cha.”
Tim was getting tired of Tony’s tirade. It was tough focusing on Tony’s face. When Tim looked at him, his head seemed impossibly huge, too big for his body. The head seemed to pulsate. Tony’s voice drifted off, replaced by a loud hum. Tim wondered if he was going to faint.
“If you need to reach me, don’t fuckin’ call—ever. Do it in person. Take a cab. Don’t call for one, then they got a record, just fuckin’ flag one. Okay? ... okay?”
The silence snapped Tim out of it long enough to manage a response. Then there was a pause and Tim thought he was done. Then Tony fired up again. “And get out at least two bocks away, not on the fuckin’ corner. You got it? Good. You got a car? Yeah? Get rid of it. Sell it.” Tony paused for a moment, like he’d lost his train of thought. He flicked his cigarette on the sidewalk and continued.
“Remember what I said about credit cards, no nothing. I don’t care if they’re not yours, if you know they’re good, whatever, I don’t care. Do not fuckin’ use ’em. You gotta be invisible, a caveman. You can’t just be low key; you gotta be the fuckin’ Unabomber.”
“Didn’t they get the Unabomber?” Tim immediately regretted deviating from his agreeable responses.
“Hey, fuck you. There was a rat. His own fuckin’ brother ratted him out, and that was the only way they got him. Someone should have a talk with his brother just on fuckin’ principle.” Tony looked out of breath. He’d forgotten where he was in his training speech. These little fuckers always had something to say, thought they knew better. Tony hated bringing on new guys to this job.
“You lead a different life now. Fuck how you were doing things before. Fuck your life.You thought you knew what you were doing. You didn’t know shit, not for us, not for how we do shit. We do shit different for a reason. We have fucking discipline, understand? We been doing this shit for fucking centuries—centuries. The reason we’re still doing it is ‘cause we’re doing it the same way for centuries. We are fucking cavemen my friend.”
Tim wasn’t chosen because he was smart; he was chosen because he knew how to do the work. The heavy work. Tim could take apart a body. Not everybody had the stomach for that kind of thing. Those who could didn’t have the discipline. Tim had the ability to compartmentalize. He didn’t have the dreams. He didn’t have any dreams. He didn’t need the blow; some guys needed to numb their brains afterword.
It was the money that Tim loved, but there was only so much you could spend your money on. He didn’t even know why he wanted more. He didn’t care. It just felt like he was beating someone, something. The whores were good. The whiskey was good. The food was good. But it didn’t matter, none of it. He didn’t mind shitty whiskey, and, honestly, he kinda liked ugly whores, too. To him, it was the work. The kind of thing he knew that no one else would do. The kind of thing Tony couldn’t do.
“There is absolutely not one single set of balls in this town,” Tony continued, “You cannot count on one fucking douchebag in this entire city. I guarantee you; they are all lay-down-sally motherfuckers. Do not treat friends like friends, even if you’ve seen ’em hanging down at the club, or if they seem close to me, don’t matter, they ain’t shit.”
Tim knew his life expectancy was limited. That there was no way a lifestyle like his could be maintained. Call it karma, call it the law of averages, call it Murphy’s Law, he knew that sooner or later he wouldn’t be the one calling the shots.
The wind had begun to pick up. They zig-zagged along the residential streets of the Excelsior district, pausing only when Tony was out of breath. They stood together on the sidewalk, far away from the earshot of passers by, the wind cutting right through Tim’s clothes. The wind never stopped in this city, it just got colder, thought Tim. He was a long way from the central valley, where he grew up. Not long enough, thought Tim. He knew that the abuses he’d faced as a child gave him the special skill set he needed in this business, so he didn’t dwell. It was a dark blessing, an evil inheritance.
“First thing you gotta do is see the guy downtown, the guy next to ‘you know who.’ He’ll give you the details. You know who I’m talking ’bout, the little guy. He’ll let you know about this kid. He’s the first one you’re gonna do, that fucking kid. Don’t even get me started on that piece of shit.”
Tim knew that God worked in mysterious ways. That’s why God had taken his conscience, his fear. Tony was different. Tony knew fear. He feared prison, he feared death, he feared losing his power. Tim had seen guys that sounded a lot tougher than Tony break down and weep, weep like children.
Tim knew it was all relative. He could die in prison; he could die on the street. He could sit in prison; he could sit on the beach. Happy, sad, rich, poor, it made no difference to him, really. The experience of life was just that, only an experience. He moved through it, he was not attached to it. Life held no sentimental value. To him, if you had just fucked a thousand dollar whore on silk sheets or just jerked off in a prison bunk, it made no difference. You just rolled over and went to sleep. You still had to piss, shit, eat, yawn, and wait to die.
“The long and the short of it is this, kid, we gotta be like cavemen. The only time I wanna ever hear your voice or see your face is when you’re standing in front of me, okay?”
“Okay, Tony. No problem.”
“And don’t ever use my name. I’m one motherfucker who is not offended by being called ‘hey you.’” Tony smiled for the first time. Tim figured that meant he was wrapping up.
“After this, you go see that guy we talked about and he’ll let you know how to find that asshole. Just follow the rules and you’ll be swimming in cash before the end of the summer.”
“No problem, I’m on the way.” Tim was relieved the conversation was ending. He was looking forward to getting back to work, to doing what he did best. He turned his back on Tony and walked straight down hill toward Mission Street.
As Tim followed instructions and flagged a taxi, Tony was catching his breath on the doorway of his club. Tony waved to Sammy, his closest confidant. In typical fashion, he said nothing, only pointing toward the street so Sammy would follow him outside to talk. When they were far enough away from the club Tony turned and said, “Look, after this new kid deals with that asshole downtown, and after we know he’s done a good job, I want you to put two in his fucking head and leave him in the street. He’s got a shitty attitude.”
The instructions hung there. Sammy was surprised, but not too surprised. He knew Tony, and how Tony operated. He knew better than to say anything.
“Oh, and I don’t wanna hear anything more about it; you know me, I don’t like to get my hands dirty.” With that, Tony began to laugh. The laugh quickly became a cough, the cough became a choke. It was the first laugh Tony had enjoyed in a week. He could barely suck in a breath.
BIO: Tom Pitts was born in Calgary, Canada before relocating in San Francisco in 1984. After the disintegration of his band, Short Dogs Grow, and two critically acclaimed albums on Rough Trade Records, Tom got his education in street life first hand while enduring long and near fatal bout with heroin. He remains in San Francisco with his wife; working, writing, and raising his three children. His work has appeared in Junk (a literary fix), Helix, and the upcoming Sims Review He has also read numerous times for the popular San Francisco series Lip Service West.
Interlude Stories: Bobbi Lurie
ASSIGNMENT - BOBBI LURIE
The way old people look: comical and useless.
I love looking at young girls. I no longer expect them to have sex with me. But I still look.
When I see an older woman, I feel repelled. Their flabby bellies, jiggling upper arms, swollen legs, drooping faces, covered with make-up.
I really shouldn’t blame it on older women. Even when I was a young stud and some broad got all dolled up for me so I’d fuck her, I’d try and sneak out before morning so I wouldn’t have to kiss her bad breath mouth or see her without make-up or make small talk at breakfast.
Still, older women are disgusting. I have to write about this because I think it might be an enjoyable part of this essay for that bitch who runs the show. She’s just like them, wearing long, shabby dresses, hair obviously colored or else the gray coming through like in “The Bride of Frankenstein.”
I see old women walking with their daughters. Their sons can’t be bothered. I mean let’s talk about sex. No, let’s not. I can’t have sex anymore myself. I can’t afford Viagra.
Oh shit, writing this, I’m sick of what appears to be reality.
My daughter tells me I’m a disgusting chauvinist but she isn’t looking too good either. Not since she had those brats. I begged her not to have kids, to keep her youth. But she knows she’ll be an old lady someday in some rest home and she’s probably just planning ahead, hoping for visitors. What she doesn’t know is: it isn’t our kids we want to visit us. Children are nothing better than any other relatives we couldn’t wait to run away from. Now my daughter wants me to act like a loving grandfather to the brats she gave birth to. Just like my dead wife: they all want you to be happy for the thing you didn’t want them to do.
The preservation of the human species is not something I’m interested in. The sooner we blow up the planet, the better.
My parents sent me to church. Sure did. Jesus died for our sins. Yeah. Yeah. All that crap about eternal life. Eternal life is exactly what I don’t want. My mother could never stop herself from talking about it, how our whole family would be reunited and live together forever with Jesus. Living with my family forever is the greatest torture I can imagine and being preached to by Jesus...
I hope to go to hell. That gives me a lot of leeway. I feel like an ass writing all this to nothing and no one. The poetry person in the prison is forcing me to write about my crimes. I can’t stand her or her class and she knows it. She disgusts me. It’s more painful than being raped to sit beside her and be forced to listen to all her optimistic crap about humanity and art when she is such a pathetic part of the shit hole.
Her poetry class and her do-gooder attitude plus this thing she has about the power of personal expression, lines and stanzas and rhymes or whatever. It was more than disgusting watching the guys who tried to rape me reading their poems about feelings. Even if they did it in what she called slam, it was still a bunch of self-pitying shit by some morons. As if you could slam your way through everything by screaming. Power is the name of the game. Not words. I have no power and it’s embarrassing writing all these words with this chewed-up pencil.
So this do-gooder with the body of a stuffed sofa, glasses, no make-up, this sexless dog who calls herself a feminist, lost her cool and told me to sit in the interrogation room and “write about your crimes if you can’t get into creativity and saving your soul through poetry. Poetry is like religion. It is holy. It could save you.” There we were again: a woman talking to me about religion.
O.K. so I was arrested for indecent exposure. I know I’m a bow-legged old fart, far from being the stud I once was. It probably was indecent being as I know how bad I look but every man knows what it’s like to show a woman his cock. I don’t care if my ass is hanging down to my ankles now or if my body is ugly as sin. I wanted some attention. It was for my mental health.
I know I’m not going to turn this paper in. Those assholes could send me back to isolation for my “bad behavior.”
Nothing is spoken straight here. It’s ridiculous that they hired this poetry bitch to squeeze the truth out of us...as if.
Even the psychiatrist is a liar. These pills are not helping me at all. They only make me tired. They blame everything on depression and maybe they’re right but I don’t know how a pill can help a man who has lost everything he ever lived for.
I was helped by wearing the proverbial raincoat and letting all the little girls see my pee pee as they might still call it. It’s like sex. It’s like having a hard cock with an unwilling virgin. All shock.
Let their boyfriends know he wasn’t the first one. That was my anti-depressant. No way they can make it up to me with pills.
I’m looking for a rope so I can hang myself in my cell but the guards are always watching us and my fat, smelly roommate is there with me 24 hours a day except for the hour with his therapist but then we often go to our therapists at the same time to talk about bullshit so it’s hard to find the time to do the deed and be done with it.
Actually, my life is easier in the cell than it was “out there” where I couldn’t afford the rent or anything else.
My daughter came to see me once. We didn’t talk. We spoke a few lame words and then she just gawked at me as if I wasn’t her father. She stayed five minutes tops and said she couldn’t leave her brood of crude little creatures at home alone with a babysitter for too long.
She had all the kids write me a card saying “we love you grandpa.”
What a pile of crap.
BIO: Bobbi Lurie is the author of three poetry collections: Letter from the Lawn, The Book I Never Read, and Grief Suite. Her poetry has been published in numerous print and on-line journals, including, Gulf Coast, New American Writing, American Poetry Review and Otoliths. She has published numerous short stories, essays, art, book and drama reviews in both Great Britain and The United States.
The way old people look: comical and useless.
I love looking at young girls. I no longer expect them to have sex with me. But I still look.
When I see an older woman, I feel repelled. Their flabby bellies, jiggling upper arms, swollen legs, drooping faces, covered with make-up.
I really shouldn’t blame it on older women. Even when I was a young stud and some broad got all dolled up for me so I’d fuck her, I’d try and sneak out before morning so I wouldn’t have to kiss her bad breath mouth or see her without make-up or make small talk at breakfast.
Still, older women are disgusting. I have to write about this because I think it might be an enjoyable part of this essay for that bitch who runs the show. She’s just like them, wearing long, shabby dresses, hair obviously colored or else the gray coming through like in “The Bride of Frankenstein.”
I see old women walking with their daughters. Their sons can’t be bothered. I mean let’s talk about sex. No, let’s not. I can’t have sex anymore myself. I can’t afford Viagra.
Oh shit, writing this, I’m sick of what appears to be reality.
My daughter tells me I’m a disgusting chauvinist but she isn’t looking too good either. Not since she had those brats. I begged her not to have kids, to keep her youth. But she knows she’ll be an old lady someday in some rest home and she’s probably just planning ahead, hoping for visitors. What she doesn’t know is: it isn’t our kids we want to visit us. Children are nothing better than any other relatives we couldn’t wait to run away from. Now my daughter wants me to act like a loving grandfather to the brats she gave birth to. Just like my dead wife: they all want you to be happy for the thing you didn’t want them to do.
The preservation of the human species is not something I’m interested in. The sooner we blow up the planet, the better.
My parents sent me to church. Sure did. Jesus died for our sins. Yeah. Yeah. All that crap about eternal life. Eternal life is exactly what I don’t want. My mother could never stop herself from talking about it, how our whole family would be reunited and live together forever with Jesus. Living with my family forever is the greatest torture I can imagine and being preached to by Jesus...
I hope to go to hell. That gives me a lot of leeway. I feel like an ass writing all this to nothing and no one. The poetry person in the prison is forcing me to write about my crimes. I can’t stand her or her class and she knows it. She disgusts me. It’s more painful than being raped to sit beside her and be forced to listen to all her optimistic crap about humanity and art when she is such a pathetic part of the shit hole.
Her poetry class and her do-gooder attitude plus this thing she has about the power of personal expression, lines and stanzas and rhymes or whatever. It was more than disgusting watching the guys who tried to rape me reading their poems about feelings. Even if they did it in what she called slam, it was still a bunch of self-pitying shit by some morons. As if you could slam your way through everything by screaming. Power is the name of the game. Not words. I have no power and it’s embarrassing writing all these words with this chewed-up pencil.
So this do-gooder with the body of a stuffed sofa, glasses, no make-up, this sexless dog who calls herself a feminist, lost her cool and told me to sit in the interrogation room and “write about your crimes if you can’t get into creativity and saving your soul through poetry. Poetry is like religion. It is holy. It could save you.” There we were again: a woman talking to me about religion.
O.K. so I was arrested for indecent exposure. I know I’m a bow-legged old fart, far from being the stud I once was. It probably was indecent being as I know how bad I look but every man knows what it’s like to show a woman his cock. I don’t care if my ass is hanging down to my ankles now or if my body is ugly as sin. I wanted some attention. It was for my mental health.
I know I’m not going to turn this paper in. Those assholes could send me back to isolation for my “bad behavior.”
Nothing is spoken straight here. It’s ridiculous that they hired this poetry bitch to squeeze the truth out of us...as if.
Even the psychiatrist is a liar. These pills are not helping me at all. They only make me tired. They blame everything on depression and maybe they’re right but I don’t know how a pill can help a man who has lost everything he ever lived for.
I was helped by wearing the proverbial raincoat and letting all the little girls see my pee pee as they might still call it. It’s like sex. It’s like having a hard cock with an unwilling virgin. All shock.
Let their boyfriends know he wasn’t the first one. That was my anti-depressant. No way they can make it up to me with pills.
I’m looking for a rope so I can hang myself in my cell but the guards are always watching us and my fat, smelly roommate is there with me 24 hours a day except for the hour with his therapist but then we often go to our therapists at the same time to talk about bullshit so it’s hard to find the time to do the deed and be done with it.
Actually, my life is easier in the cell than it was “out there” where I couldn’t afford the rent or anything else.
My daughter came to see me once. We didn’t talk. We spoke a few lame words and then she just gawked at me as if I wasn’t her father. She stayed five minutes tops and said she couldn’t leave her brood of crude little creatures at home alone with a babysitter for too long.
She had all the kids write me a card saying “we love you grandpa.”
What a pile of crap.
BIO: Bobbi Lurie is the author of three poetry collections: Letter from the Lawn, The Book I Never Read, and Grief Suite. Her poetry has been published in numerous print and on-line journals, including, Gulf Coast, New American Writing, American Poetry Review and Otoliths. She has published numerous short stories, essays, art, book and drama reviews in both Great Britain and The United States.
Friday, September 30, 2011
A Twist Of Noir 689 - Cormac Brown
BACON - CORMAC BROWN
Go over what went wrong in your head all you want; it won’t change a damn thing. You gave a well-rounded and nuanced performance. You lived it, you breathed it, and hell, you probably could’ve taught Stanislavski a thing or two about “The Method.” You didn’t go over the top the way that Brando or Dean would have, but no one hands out acting awards for this kind of thing. Instead of an Oscar, you get to live another day, and instead of fame, another thug goes down.
The two guns pointed at you get the adrenaline going, and you think faster, maybe even a little clearer. Ah, maybe it was something you said when you were trying to win Mad Dog 20/20 over and he saw that cop.
“Let’s get out of here, 20/20. Cops are like roaches. You see one, that means there are a dozen more hiding out nearby.” You oversold that one, and just when he was finally going to let you call him “Mad Dog,” instead of 20/20. Street names are supposed to strike fear, but his just makes you think of passed out bums.
So, he picks you up from your other apartment, before you get a chance to grab your gun or call anyone on the phone. You get into that hoopty because you have to earn trust in this business, even if it means that you might disappear off the face of the Earth. The two of you wind up at a deserted factory on the outskirts of town, with not a soul in sight. You have company when you get there and 20/20 may be a mad dog, but it’s the other guy that angrily eyeballs you.
This new guy says, “He’s a narc.” You want to say that this nut is on crack, but he holds up a picture of you getting that commendation just before you made detective. You want to claim that it's Photoshopped, but it’s over. That look, now you know why he’s called “Mad Dog,” as he aims the 9mm right between your eyes.
Blam-blam-blam!
Three shots in quick succession. Maybe the first bullet was a kill shot, because you don’t feel anything. Is death this peaceful? Apparently not, as Mad Dog dies painfully, and the other guy kicks Mad Dog’s gun away...like a cop would. You’re dazed, and you wonder if the next bullet is for you.
The shooter takes the gun that he shot Mad Dog with and he puts it in your hands. He cups his gloved hands over yours and he forces you to squeeze the trigger. The shot goes off into the dark distance. This unknown man drops the gun on the ground. He opens the bag lying at Mad Dog’s feet, and in it is a shitload of money. The fucker counts the money, and you pick up the gun when he counts the money again.
“How much is your life worth to you, Detective William Moran?” he asks with a grin. He puts the money in the bag and he adds, “I’m guessing $16,755. I saved your life, but only you and I need to know that.”
“Who do you work for?” you groan.
“My jurisdiction is none of your business. You will find a suitcase with a kilo of ecstasy inside of it and Mad Dog’s fingerprints on the outside. I can see your report now; how you have killed a major drug dealer in self-defense. This was just a meeting between you and him, and there won’t be any mention of me.”
You fire the gun at him and click, it’s empty. He pulls a backup .32 from an ankle holster.
“Always check your ammo, Bill. You don’t want to wind up getting killed in the line of fire because you don’t have the bullets to back it up. Be the right kind of hero, Moran. The kind that’s smart enough not to get in over his head. The type that knows when he’s goddamn lucky enough to be alive and that he should be grateful. So long, Bill.”
So long, asshole. We’ll meet again.
Go over what went wrong in your head all you want; it won’t change a damn thing. You gave a well-rounded and nuanced performance. You lived it, you breathed it, and hell, you probably could’ve taught Stanislavski a thing or two about “The Method.” You didn’t go over the top the way that Brando or Dean would have, but no one hands out acting awards for this kind of thing. Instead of an Oscar, you get to live another day, and instead of fame, another thug goes down.
The two guns pointed at you get the adrenaline going, and you think faster, maybe even a little clearer. Ah, maybe it was something you said when you were trying to win Mad Dog 20/20 over and he saw that cop.
“Let’s get out of here, 20/20. Cops are like roaches. You see one, that means there are a dozen more hiding out nearby.” You oversold that one, and just when he was finally going to let you call him “Mad Dog,” instead of 20/20. Street names are supposed to strike fear, but his just makes you think of passed out bums.
So, he picks you up from your other apartment, before you get a chance to grab your gun or call anyone on the phone. You get into that hoopty because you have to earn trust in this business, even if it means that you might disappear off the face of the Earth. The two of you wind up at a deserted factory on the outskirts of town, with not a soul in sight. You have company when you get there and 20/20 may be a mad dog, but it’s the other guy that angrily eyeballs you.
This new guy says, “He’s a narc.” You want to say that this nut is on crack, but he holds up a picture of you getting that commendation just before you made detective. You want to claim that it's Photoshopped, but it’s over. That look, now you know why he’s called “Mad Dog,” as he aims the 9mm right between your eyes.
Blam-blam-blam!
Three shots in quick succession. Maybe the first bullet was a kill shot, because you don’t feel anything. Is death this peaceful? Apparently not, as Mad Dog dies painfully, and the other guy kicks Mad Dog’s gun away...like a cop would. You’re dazed, and you wonder if the next bullet is for you.
The shooter takes the gun that he shot Mad Dog with and he puts it in your hands. He cups his gloved hands over yours and he forces you to squeeze the trigger. The shot goes off into the dark distance. This unknown man drops the gun on the ground. He opens the bag lying at Mad Dog’s feet, and in it is a shitload of money. The fucker counts the money, and you pick up the gun when he counts the money again.
“How much is your life worth to you, Detective William Moran?” he asks with a grin. He puts the money in the bag and he adds, “I’m guessing $16,755. I saved your life, but only you and I need to know that.”
“Who do you work for?” you groan.
“My jurisdiction is none of your business. You will find a suitcase with a kilo of ecstasy inside of it and Mad Dog’s fingerprints on the outside. I can see your report now; how you have killed a major drug dealer in self-defense. This was just a meeting between you and him, and there won’t be any mention of me.”
You fire the gun at him and click, it’s empty. He pulls a backup .32 from an ankle holster.
“Always check your ammo, Bill. You don’t want to wind up getting killed in the line of fire because you don’t have the bullets to back it up. Be the right kind of hero, Moran. The kind that’s smart enough not to get in over his head. The type that knows when he’s goddamn lucky enough to be alive and that he should be grateful. So long, Bill.”
So long, asshole. We’ll meet again.
A Twist Of Noir 688 - Patricia Abbott
WILLIS DUMPHREY AND CARLA BATISTA STABBED IN AN EARLY MORNING HOLDUP - PATRICIA ABBOTT
The only convenient— no, make that the only possible time—for them to have sex was before eight A.M. And to top it off, they had to do it on a narrow cot in the boss’s office. It took Carla back to her high school days when she made love on her mother’s double bed when Mom was at the Chrysler Plant on Jefferson. Travis kept the cot for similar purposes if that was Vera Wang perfume in the fiber. If their wages were any indication, Travis was too cheap to spring for a room.
Travis Gallagher, former ballplayer and now businessman, never came in much before nine, and most days didn’t show up at all. He was about to run for City Council or so the Metro paper said. He never confided in his bartender and cook. Sometimes she worried the scent of their mornings would seep into the room and trip them up, but at some point in the past, it’d become part of it.
The two of them were supposed to come in before nine to set things up. The bar attracted an early lunch crowd—people from downtown offices, the courts, or the stadiums if there was a game. The waitresses and dish-washer started work at ten when things picked up, giving the lovers a nice chunk of time. Carla and Willis finished their shift at six and went home to their spouses. But there was this first—this magic—and almost every day.
It was not a love affair exactly or if it was she was kidding herself. It felt more two lonely horny people taking comfort in each other. Too bad it had to be at this hour, though at some point, it began to seem right. When one of them took a vacation or got sick, the other one grew antsy. Making love with her sixty-year old husband at night twice a month—that’s what seemed odd now. That’s what seemed cheesy or stale.
“You’re going to invite Sweetie in here while I’m gone, aren’t you?” Carla asked, curled up in Willis’ arms. Sweetie was a waitress who’d just turned 22. Willis laughed. They were dressed now but couldn’t quite say goodbye. They had a few minutes. She was going to Lapeer for a few days to help her daughter out with her new baby. It’d be her first grandchild if the kid ever got itself born. Trixie was a week late and showing no signs of an imminent birth and going bonkers waiting. Of course, there was no husband on the scene to calm her down. The lunatic father had hit the road long ago.
Willis was about to say something funny—she could tell from the smile that was beginning to form on his lips—when the door to the office swung open and two men wearing masks pushed into the room, obviously startled to find the two of them. Carla started to scream but then thought better of it. The larger man shrugged and without saying a word, yanked the cord from a lamp, motioned for them to get up, and herded them toward the cold storage unit down the hallway. They could hear the other man rifling the safe as they moved in single file down the hallway. Once inside the storage room, the man inadvertently rubbed up against Willis and his mask slipped down. They saw it was Travis and glanced at each other in shock.
“Too bad,” he said. Just those two words. Looking indecisive for a second or two, he shrugged, pulled a knife from his pocket, and quickly stabbed Willis in the chest and stomach. Willis slid to the floor as blood spurted. His eyes went blank in seconds.
“Travis,” Carla started to say. “You don’t...” She could see terror in his eyes, but also heartlessness. The coldness shut her mouth.
“Money for a campaign’s hard to come by.”
His arm rose over his head as it came down hard into her breast. His ballplayer days were behind him, she thought as she died, but he still had some power in those arms.
BIO: Patricia Abbott has published more than fifty stories in literary and crime fiction outlets. Check out more from Patti at Pattinase.
The only convenient— no, make that the only possible time—for them to have sex was before eight A.M. And to top it off, they had to do it on a narrow cot in the boss’s office. It took Carla back to her high school days when she made love on her mother’s double bed when Mom was at the Chrysler Plant on Jefferson. Travis kept the cot for similar purposes if that was Vera Wang perfume in the fiber. If their wages were any indication, Travis was too cheap to spring for a room.
Travis Gallagher, former ballplayer and now businessman, never came in much before nine, and most days didn’t show up at all. He was about to run for City Council or so the Metro paper said. He never confided in his bartender and cook. Sometimes she worried the scent of their mornings would seep into the room and trip them up, but at some point in the past, it’d become part of it.
The two of them were supposed to come in before nine to set things up. The bar attracted an early lunch crowd—people from downtown offices, the courts, or the stadiums if there was a game. The waitresses and dish-washer started work at ten when things picked up, giving the lovers a nice chunk of time. Carla and Willis finished their shift at six and went home to their spouses. But there was this first—this magic—and almost every day.
It was not a love affair exactly or if it was she was kidding herself. It felt more two lonely horny people taking comfort in each other. Too bad it had to be at this hour, though at some point, it began to seem right. When one of them took a vacation or got sick, the other one grew antsy. Making love with her sixty-year old husband at night twice a month—that’s what seemed odd now. That’s what seemed cheesy or stale.
“You’re going to invite Sweetie in here while I’m gone, aren’t you?” Carla asked, curled up in Willis’ arms. Sweetie was a waitress who’d just turned 22. Willis laughed. They were dressed now but couldn’t quite say goodbye. They had a few minutes. She was going to Lapeer for a few days to help her daughter out with her new baby. It’d be her first grandchild if the kid ever got itself born. Trixie was a week late and showing no signs of an imminent birth and going bonkers waiting. Of course, there was no husband on the scene to calm her down. The lunatic father had hit the road long ago.
Willis was about to say something funny—she could tell from the smile that was beginning to form on his lips—when the door to the office swung open and two men wearing masks pushed into the room, obviously startled to find the two of them. Carla started to scream but then thought better of it. The larger man shrugged and without saying a word, yanked the cord from a lamp, motioned for them to get up, and herded them toward the cold storage unit down the hallway. They could hear the other man rifling the safe as they moved in single file down the hallway. Once inside the storage room, the man inadvertently rubbed up against Willis and his mask slipped down. They saw it was Travis and glanced at each other in shock.
“Too bad,” he said. Just those two words. Looking indecisive for a second or two, he shrugged, pulled a knife from his pocket, and quickly stabbed Willis in the chest and stomach. Willis slid to the floor as blood spurted. His eyes went blank in seconds.
“Travis,” Carla started to say. “You don’t...” She could see terror in his eyes, but also heartlessness. The coldness shut her mouth.
“Money for a campaign’s hard to come by.”
His arm rose over his head as it came down hard into her breast. His ballplayer days were behind him, she thought as she died, but he still had some power in those arms.
BIO: Patricia Abbott has published more than fifty stories in literary and crime fiction outlets. Check out more from Patti at Pattinase.
A Twist Of Noir 687 - Michael A. Gonzales
ONE MORE CHANCE - MICHAEL A. GONZALES
Everybody remembers the first time they had a gun pointed at them. Although it’s been months, sometimes I’ll be lying next to my woman and suddenly flashback to that black nine millimeter aimed at my skull.
It was the summer of ’88 and I was still living uptown where shattered glass crunched underfoot and the bustling boulevards were electric with vice. To strangers unfamiliar with the wildness of Harlem, my decaying tenement on 145th might’ve looked dangerous.
Yet, no matter how many crack cowboys and toothless hookers sat on the stoop, I was never scared. My girlfriend Zoë was a different story. Every time she came to Harlem, she acted as though poverty was contagious.
Zoë and I were 22-year-old seniors at the School of Visual Arts. Wanting to be the next Robert Mapplethorpe, but without all the dicks and homo shit, I was a photography major. Zoë was an abstract painter with a loft on Gramercy Park.
Coming from Detroit, her rich mother paid the bills. Though she proudly talked about, “Da D,” it was obvious from her Goth make-up and all-black wardrobe that she was more of a Depeche Mode suburban chick than an inner city Motown girl. “I don’t know why you can’t just let it go, Andre. Your old neighborhood died years ago. There is no renaissance, only ghosts. You should just move downtown with me.”
“You don’t understand, I was raised up there. Uptown, that’s where my peoples at.”
“Your peoples?” Zoë laughed, shoveling the last piece of sushi in her mouth. “Why you always talk like you’re more street than you are? When we met, you were reading Kafka and talking about Wim Wenders. Now, you Mr. Ghetto? Mr. Keeping It Real.”
“I’m just saying, it’s going to take more than a few whores and dope boys to make me move.” After knocking back a few sakes, I stumbled to the A Train and nodded out until reaching 145th Street.
According to the subway station clock, it was almost midnight. Walking the two avenue blocks to my building, I was shocked when I ran into my old buddy Darryl Jenkins sitting on the steps of the abandoned school PS 186. Recently graduated from Syracuse University, Darryl was one of the few old friends not in jail or the graveyard.
“Man, so good seeing you,” I said.
“I just came down for a few days. Figured if I hung out in front of this dump long enough, I’d run into you.”
Darryl pulled out a phat sack of weed and a few Phillie blunts. Like old times, we decided to go to my building and smoke.
Standing in front of the door, I realized I’d left my keys at Zoë’s and randomly pressed the intercom. Somebody buzzed us in and we ran up the back staircase; since I rarely wore sneakers, my hard-bottomed dress shoes click-clanked on the marble steps.
Sitting on the top stair rolling the blunt, I faintly heard something downstairs, but when I looked over the banister there was nothing. “Ain’t even smoked and already paranoid,” Darryl laughed.
Lighting the blunt, I thought I heard creeping footsteps, but before I could say jack, a midget murderer everybody called Inch was aiming his burner at my head. “Word, Gotti, you got to stop ringing my bell! I thought you assholes were cops.”
We had all grown up together, but last I heard, Inch was serving a stretch in Rikers for blasting three drug dealers a few years back. Word on our street was he dragged the corpses into the closet and stole a suitcase of bloody money. How he got out so fast was beyond me.
“Yo, we’re sorry,” I stuttered. Darryl was silent. “Believe me, it was an accident.” From the way Inch’s left eye blinked, it was obvious he was doing everything in his power not to kill us. Blinking a few more times, Inch finally put the gun down.
Scrambling down the stairs, I ran to the payphone. Fishing a quarter out of my pocket, I dialed Zoë. “I changed my mind,” I yelled. “I’m moving downtown. Tonight.”
Everybody remembers the first time they had a gun pointed at them. Although it’s been months, sometimes I’ll be lying next to my woman and suddenly flashback to that black nine millimeter aimed at my skull.
It was the summer of ’88 and I was still living uptown where shattered glass crunched underfoot and the bustling boulevards were electric with vice. To strangers unfamiliar with the wildness of Harlem, my decaying tenement on 145th might’ve looked dangerous.
Yet, no matter how many crack cowboys and toothless hookers sat on the stoop, I was never scared. My girlfriend Zoë was a different story. Every time she came to Harlem, she acted as though poverty was contagious.
Zoë and I were 22-year-old seniors at the School of Visual Arts. Wanting to be the next Robert Mapplethorpe, but without all the dicks and homo shit, I was a photography major. Zoë was an abstract painter with a loft on Gramercy Park.
Coming from Detroit, her rich mother paid the bills. Though she proudly talked about, “Da D,” it was obvious from her Goth make-up and all-black wardrobe that she was more of a Depeche Mode suburban chick than an inner city Motown girl. “I don’t know why you can’t just let it go, Andre. Your old neighborhood died years ago. There is no renaissance, only ghosts. You should just move downtown with me.”
“You don’t understand, I was raised up there. Uptown, that’s where my peoples at.”
“Your peoples?” Zoë laughed, shoveling the last piece of sushi in her mouth. “Why you always talk like you’re more street than you are? When we met, you were reading Kafka and talking about Wim Wenders. Now, you Mr. Ghetto? Mr. Keeping It Real.”
“I’m just saying, it’s going to take more than a few whores and dope boys to make me move.” After knocking back a few sakes, I stumbled to the A Train and nodded out until reaching 145th Street.
According to the subway station clock, it was almost midnight. Walking the two avenue blocks to my building, I was shocked when I ran into my old buddy Darryl Jenkins sitting on the steps of the abandoned school PS 186. Recently graduated from Syracuse University, Darryl was one of the few old friends not in jail or the graveyard.
“Man, so good seeing you,” I said.
“I just came down for a few days. Figured if I hung out in front of this dump long enough, I’d run into you.”
Darryl pulled out a phat sack of weed and a few Phillie blunts. Like old times, we decided to go to my building and smoke.
Standing in front of the door, I realized I’d left my keys at Zoë’s and randomly pressed the intercom. Somebody buzzed us in and we ran up the back staircase; since I rarely wore sneakers, my hard-bottomed dress shoes click-clanked on the marble steps.
Sitting on the top stair rolling the blunt, I faintly heard something downstairs, but when I looked over the banister there was nothing. “Ain’t even smoked and already paranoid,” Darryl laughed.
Lighting the blunt, I thought I heard creeping footsteps, but before I could say jack, a midget murderer everybody called Inch was aiming his burner at my head. “Word, Gotti, you got to stop ringing my bell! I thought you assholes were cops.”
We had all grown up together, but last I heard, Inch was serving a stretch in Rikers for blasting three drug dealers a few years back. Word on our street was he dragged the corpses into the closet and stole a suitcase of bloody money. How he got out so fast was beyond me.
“Yo, we’re sorry,” I stuttered. Darryl was silent. “Believe me, it was an accident.” From the way Inch’s left eye blinked, it was obvious he was doing everything in his power not to kill us. Blinking a few more times, Inch finally put the gun down.
Scrambling down the stairs, I ran to the payphone. Fishing a quarter out of my pocket, I dialed Zoë. “I changed my mind,” I yelled. “I’m moving downtown. Tonight.”
A Twist Of Noir 686 - Laurie Powers
MOVING DAY - LAURIE POWERS
Art used to read the foreclosure notices in the papers like other people read box scores. Then he’d do a drive-by. After the owners left and before the banks came in, we would swoop in and strip out all the security systems, built-in electronics, copper wiring. These houses in Malibu were full of them.
When he told me about the job in Topanga, I swore it would be my last, but Art had me by the balls and he knew it. The race track had not been good to me lately. I had lost my own house a few months ago.
“What time will we be done?”
“I dunno,” Art said, mouth full of burrito. “How the hell do I know? Why do you care?”
“Post time.”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “You really should watch that gambling.”
“Maybe you should shut up.” I wanted to take my piece and splatter his brains out.
The house was on a lockbox, which are about as secure as luggage locks. We picked it, pulled the keys out, opened the front door lock and stopped short. The place was full of furniture.
“What the fuck?”
“Man, these people must have been in a freakin’ hurry to get out.”
Art’s plans changed instantly. “We’re gonna take the furniture,” he said, licking his lips.
We started with the sofa. Art in front, me behind. Art opened the front door. There stood the realtor, holding the open lockbox like a dummy.
The two looked at each other for a second, startled. What a pair. The realtor, a puny little guy with greasy hair and Art with goatee, glasses and a western shirt with long sleeves to hide the track marks.
I dropped my end of the couch, the heavy thud reverberating on the wood floors.
“Hello?” More of a question than a greeting from Mr. Realtor.
“Hi there,” Art said, recovering. “We’re the movers for the bank. They want all the furniture out of here.” You gotta hand it to Art; he was fast on his feet.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Oh, that’s ok,” Art said, smiling. Probably the first time someone had apologized to him during the middle of a break-in.
“I had an appointment to show the house?”
“Oh, okay.” We all stood there. Mr. Realtor and his client, carefully casual in his polo shirt and khakis. Couldn’t hide that freakin’ gold Rolex, though.
“So, if you don’t mind, we’re going to continue working here, if that’s ok?” Art asked.
“Oh, sure.” Mr. Realtor, feeling magnanimous.
“Let’s go.” Art turned and gave me a look. “Let’s go, Mike.”
We hefted up the couch and continued out to the truck.
“Com’on, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“No fucking way, Mike. I want that big screen!” Art was already striding back.
We began to cart the T.V. through the living room.
“Yeah, you guys need some help?” This from Mr. Casual walking by.
“Actually, we probably could use an extra set of hands,” Art responded, grinning.
What the fuck, Art? I glared at him.
“Not at all,” Mr. Casual said, glad to be one of the boys. He trotted over and picked up the middle section of the big screen. Mr. Realtor stood by, not really quite certain what to do with a client that bonded with the help.
“Careful, now.” Mr. Casual couldn’t resist giving directions. He must have been some kind of CEO.
“Hey, thanks, man,” Art said after it was loaded. They shook hands. Mr. Casual went back in.
“NOW can we go?” I asked, climbing in the cab.
“Wait a sec,” Art said, pulling his piece out from behind the driver’s seat. “Be right back.” I heard two pops inside and knew my life had just taken a big dump.
Art opened up the driver’s door and tossed the Rolex in. “Score!”
“Not this time,” I said, pointing my own piece between his eyes and firing. He dropped like a ton of bricks.
I pocketed the Rolex before sliding over and slamming the truck into gear. There’s a good pawn shop on Pico on the way to the track.
Art used to read the foreclosure notices in the papers like other people read box scores. Then he’d do a drive-by. After the owners left and before the banks came in, we would swoop in and strip out all the security systems, built-in electronics, copper wiring. These houses in Malibu were full of them.
When he told me about the job in Topanga, I swore it would be my last, but Art had me by the balls and he knew it. The race track had not been good to me lately. I had lost my own house a few months ago.
“What time will we be done?”
“I dunno,” Art said, mouth full of burrito. “How the hell do I know? Why do you care?”
“Post time.”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “You really should watch that gambling.”
“Maybe you should shut up.” I wanted to take my piece and splatter his brains out.
The house was on a lockbox, which are about as secure as luggage locks. We picked it, pulled the keys out, opened the front door lock and stopped short. The place was full of furniture.
“What the fuck?”
“Man, these people must have been in a freakin’ hurry to get out.”
Art’s plans changed instantly. “We’re gonna take the furniture,” he said, licking his lips.
We started with the sofa. Art in front, me behind. Art opened the front door. There stood the realtor, holding the open lockbox like a dummy.
The two looked at each other for a second, startled. What a pair. The realtor, a puny little guy with greasy hair and Art with goatee, glasses and a western shirt with long sleeves to hide the track marks.
I dropped my end of the couch, the heavy thud reverberating on the wood floors.
“Hello?” More of a question than a greeting from Mr. Realtor.
“Hi there,” Art said, recovering. “We’re the movers for the bank. They want all the furniture out of here.” You gotta hand it to Art; he was fast on his feet.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Oh, that’s ok,” Art said, smiling. Probably the first time someone had apologized to him during the middle of a break-in.
“I had an appointment to show the house?”
“Oh, okay.” We all stood there. Mr. Realtor and his client, carefully casual in his polo shirt and khakis. Couldn’t hide that freakin’ gold Rolex, though.
“So, if you don’t mind, we’re going to continue working here, if that’s ok?” Art asked.
“Oh, sure.” Mr. Realtor, feeling magnanimous.
“Let’s go.” Art turned and gave me a look. “Let’s go, Mike.”
We hefted up the couch and continued out to the truck.
“Com’on, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“No fucking way, Mike. I want that big screen!” Art was already striding back.
We began to cart the T.V. through the living room.
“Yeah, you guys need some help?” This from Mr. Casual walking by.
“Actually, we probably could use an extra set of hands,” Art responded, grinning.
What the fuck, Art? I glared at him.
“Not at all,” Mr. Casual said, glad to be one of the boys. He trotted over and picked up the middle section of the big screen. Mr. Realtor stood by, not really quite certain what to do with a client that bonded with the help.
“Careful, now.” Mr. Casual couldn’t resist giving directions. He must have been some kind of CEO.
“Hey, thanks, man,” Art said after it was loaded. They shook hands. Mr. Casual went back in.
“NOW can we go?” I asked, climbing in the cab.
“Wait a sec,” Art said, pulling his piece out from behind the driver’s seat. “Be right back.” I heard two pops inside and knew my life had just taken a big dump.
Art opened up the driver’s door and tossed the Rolex in. “Score!”
“Not this time,” I said, pointing my own piece between his eyes and firing. He dropped like a ton of bricks.
I pocketed the Rolex before sliding over and slamming the truck into gear. There’s a good pawn shop on Pico on the way to the track.
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