Mick starts talking about all the girls he fucked, and I don't want to hear it. I've heard this story about a dozen times and I don't believe a word of it. Well that's not fair. I guess I just don't believe the word "hundreds".
Mick didn't talk at first, and that was nice. I thought we'd be able to just lie here, waiting, in peace and quiet, the only sound our labored breathing, but I guess he tired of that eventually and opened his mouth. He'd asked me if I knew how many girls he'd had, and I told him I didn't. I didn't ask for any more information and he didn't offer it, so we went back to silence, just breathing and waiting.
"Three," he says. After a second I look up at him and he's looking right at me. He gives a little nod and repeats it, and this time I have to ask.
One is some girl I never heard of, not that I should have, as from the sound of her she was just some truck stop whore off the turnpike. I don't know many who paid for their first, and I'm comfortable saying I know less who would admit to it, but there you go.
He tells me about her and honestly he paints a pretty picture. Obviously I got the sense to not fall in love with the first girl to throw a piece my way, much less a whore, but Mick's not the most worldly of individuals, as is becoming clear. It sounds like the cutoffs are what did it for him, what made him pick her out of all the girls working that night, and I guess if he felt like he got his money's worth then that's all right, but I'll tell you, I'll take tight over short any day of the week and not think twice about it. It's entirely likely that says more about me than him, but there it is.
The whore was all right though, he says. She was nice, she was sweet. She kept her bra on and took her shoes off and Mick didn't know which way was up by the end. She had big eyes and dark roots and the way he talks about her you can tell he was thinking about how he's gonna save her from all this and take her away somewhere, give her a good life, make her happy, be the one that she turns it all around for and everything else, every fairy tale his fool head was full of, and she smiles while she smokes, nodding along and "Sure, sure, of course," even while she's pulling those cutoffs back on and when he tells her he loves her and she says it back, walking out that door, he believes her, and I can't help but sympathize. My grin turns into a wince, but he's worse off than me by a long shot.
Donna's the next one, but I knew about that already. In fact, that's the one I did know about, because everyone did, because everyone was there when she came ripping into the shop screaming like hell about she was gonna kill him for what he was spreading around. Never once did she deny any of it, but she swore up and down he'd regret opening his mouth the way he did and I swear to God I expected him to come to heel like a whipped dog, but he just stood there, cool as can be, shrugging it off, trying to calm her down in that way that just makes them madder, until she knocked a socket set down into the Dodge and stormed off, the sockets clinking and clanking down through the guts of the car and into the oil pan beneath it.
Now like I said he was very cool: he didn't rattle. But then again he didn't talk about Donna again, even if someone asked. He'd laugh and say something about how that was nothing and get a load of this, and he'd whip out some other story about some other girl, but none of them ever had that meat, the blood and bone in the story where you know it's in their flesh and coming out their mouth. For all his stories, it was Donna all along: Donna the scene queen. Donna the party girl. Donna the hellion. Donna big tits. And I guess I understand that.
I wonder why Mick's telling me this- I know why he's telling me, I just figured he'd still think he was going to make it out of here: I didn't expect him to figure it out quite yet. I guess he put that quiet time to good use, thinking it over, figuring out the lies, rather than just lying there bleeding. He's come a long way, really. I'll be sure to tell the guys how impressed I was with him by the end.
He starts in on Jen and I go rigid. My vision goes white for a second and fire rips through me. That was stupid of me, but I guess I deserve to get hurt, still keeping her so close. Even now she does this to me. Even now she's got me tearing myself apart trying to make her mine, trying to keep her mine. Years of playing the game, years of the chase and Mick's the one she picked? I'd drag myself over there and choke the life out of him, but that's not the smart play. I need to sit here and breathe and save my strength. That's why I'm making it out of here and Mick's laid out, spilling his guts. I'll outlast him and I'll make it out, they'll come and get me and patch me up and it'll be too late for Mick there but hey, I'm still here and I'll have years yet to make her see me the way I need to. If he can, I can.
Only he can't. Or he didn't, anyway, not that he didn't want to, not that we all didn't. He wanted her bad, he says, yeah, him and everyone else. Legs forever, great figure. She had this hair that was just... He wanted her as bad as me, and by the sound of it, she was about as interested in him as she was in me. Obviously that didn't stop me from chasing her, year after year, trying my damn best. Mick tells me he tried, too. He did everything he knew how, even going so far as to swear off the dozens, scores, of other women beating down his door, if only she'd say yes. I'm confident she saw right through that, but she just laughed that laugh of hers and turned away, gliding.
It was then, Mick says, that he made his decision. He went out and he found a girl with that same look: tall and strong, deep, dark eyes and a neck that was just so, and I guess she did the trick. This one he doesn't have much to say about. She was a looker, obviously, but even he knew it wasn't the same. In a way that probably ruined it for him, and were he a thinking man he would have known that, recognized the shame for what it was, and known the disappointment was in himself. Instead he took it as enough of a victory to move on, satisfied he'd put that dream to rest in a manner close enough to the ideal as to make no difference. That doesn't sound half bad.
I try to keep pressure on the hole in my side like you're supposed to, but it hurts too bad. It's starting to get dark, but that's okay, it can't be much longer now. Mick's lying there, pale, looking at me with glassy eyes, and I can't help but pity him. He's gonna die here with that story on his lips, and I'm gonna get out of here and make that girl mine.
Mick laughs a little and looks away.
24 May 2012
May 24, 2012
May 10, 2012
A father in the wastes
I put two feet of steel through his belly; that seems to shut him up.
His friends are up immediately, reaching for their irons, but none of them quite makes it. They're looking at me, looking at him, looking at each other, and none of them's moving. The room's silent, went quiet when I cut that last word out of this boy leaning against me. They're all watching, waiting, the whole world holding its breath.
I slide my eyes across the men at the table, standing over fallen chairs, hands hovering, unsure above their weapons. Some of them meet my eyes, some watch the lifeblood of their compatriot drip drip drip off my blade, still in him, clean through him. Some of them look away, chewing their lip, hating me for all the times this has happened before, trying to curse themselves into action, not realizing, perhaps, the value their fear has.
In the end they're cowards, all of them, but even cowards have their moments. One of them will have his today: he'll follow me outside after failing to goad his companions into action. He'll fly out that door, his blood hot in his veins, and he'll know that he'll kill me, that he'll set things right, and every time he woke up gasping, clutching at something, anything, in the dark will be washed away. He'll be a new man, a strong man, and it won't all have been for nothing.
He'll know these things, somewhere he doesn't know how to look, and when he comes through that door, all fire and vengeance, and he points his weapon at my back, he'll be the man he was always meant to be, for that moment, and I'll take it all away for him in one screaming second.
The boy's knees are going and he's batting at me feebly, like a kitten. I let him go and he slides down off the blade. Nobody moves to catch him, or to see to him once he's fallen.
I turn to leave and stop, my hand on the door. I look back at him, the one in blue, the one who'll come out after me, and he meets my gaze. I think I envy him his moment.
The battered ceiling fan spins on overhead.
10 May 2012
His friends are up immediately, reaching for their irons, but none of them quite makes it. They're looking at me, looking at him, looking at each other, and none of them's moving. The room's silent, went quiet when I cut that last word out of this boy leaning against me. They're all watching, waiting, the whole world holding its breath.
I slide my eyes across the men at the table, standing over fallen chairs, hands hovering, unsure above their weapons. Some of them meet my eyes, some watch the lifeblood of their compatriot drip drip drip off my blade, still in him, clean through him. Some of them look away, chewing their lip, hating me for all the times this has happened before, trying to curse themselves into action, not realizing, perhaps, the value their fear has.
In the end they're cowards, all of them, but even cowards have their moments. One of them will have his today: he'll follow me outside after failing to goad his companions into action. He'll fly out that door, his blood hot in his veins, and he'll know that he'll kill me, that he'll set things right, and every time he woke up gasping, clutching at something, anything, in the dark will be washed away. He'll be a new man, a strong man, and it won't all have been for nothing.
He'll know these things, somewhere he doesn't know how to look, and when he comes through that door, all fire and vengeance, and he points his weapon at my back, he'll be the man he was always meant to be, for that moment, and I'll take it all away for him in one screaming second.
The boy's knees are going and he's batting at me feebly, like a kitten. I let him go and he slides down off the blade. Nobody moves to catch him, or to see to him once he's fallen.
I turn to leave and stop, my hand on the door. I look back at him, the one in blue, the one who'll come out after me, and he meets my gaze. I think I envy him his moment.
The battered ceiling fan spins on overhead.
10 May 2012
May 9, 2012
Arrowhead
Tony pulls his head out of the toilet and he sprawls backwards, gagging and vomiting up toilet water and piss as he tries to scramble back out of the stall, splashing across the tile floor. He whips his head around, looking for a way out, I guess, but in front of him's Tony and behind him's me and even though he's soaked I can see he's crying because he knows as well as I do that he's not getting back up off that floor anytime soon. It's a pathetic sight, really, but I look up and Tony's smiling, so I guess it can't be that bad.
This is the part where he tries to reason with Tony, to talk his way out of this hole he didn't even know he was in. He's sputtering, like they always do. He needs time, he needs help, he needs another chance. They all need something, but at the end of the day, I've never seen one of their little speeches work. Tony gets what he wants, or as close to it as he's willing to settle for for the time being, and we go on our merry way.
I met Tony when I was fourteen. He was kicking the shit out of a guy I was trying to deliver a sack of brown to. He didn't seem to notice me at first, so I just stood there in the doorway, watching Tony beat on this guy. All things considered, I should have bailed the minute I saw what was going on, but something made me stay. It couldn't have been what Tony was saying, because he wasn't saying anything at all. And it wasn't that I'd never seen a hellacious beating before, because that's not exactly a rare sight down here. I didn't know what it was, and I think I still don't, but I stayed there, watching this guy get his ass kicked, knowing there wasn't any reason to stay, knowing he wasn't going to have anything left to pay me with when it ended (if it ended: I've never known Tony to tire, or bore, easily.) and that the maniac bouncing his head off the radiator would almost certainly proceed to help himself to any cash and whatever else I was carrying once he noticed me, but I stood there and watched.
When Tony did look up from the guy he asked me if I was confident I was making the right decisions. I didn't have an answer then and I don't have an answer now, so I guess the years haven't changed everything. I've been watching Tony hand out beatings all up and down the highways and byways of America for some time now and while it started as one thing, it's become another, and suddenly I'm not entirely sure this is where I want to be. Not in this bathroom, watching drops of piss and tears drip off this guy's face, not sleeping in bucket seats and waking up with every muscle in my body making a fist, not forever following, lacking the conviction of the man who's leading. I'm not entirely confident I'm making any decisions anymore.
Tony drags the guy across the tiles back into the stall and leaves him there, crumpled on the floor. He turns to me and tells me it's time to see my stuff.
The guy cringes away from me but I get my hands around his neck all the same. I don't really know what I'm doing, but as I press my thumbs into his throat I realize that it feels right. I start to squeeze and the guy's barely fighting when Tony steps back in.
"Not like that," he says. "I'll show you."
9 May 2012
This is the part where he tries to reason with Tony, to talk his way out of this hole he didn't even know he was in. He's sputtering, like they always do. He needs time, he needs help, he needs another chance. They all need something, but at the end of the day, I've never seen one of their little speeches work. Tony gets what he wants, or as close to it as he's willing to settle for for the time being, and we go on our merry way.
I met Tony when I was fourteen. He was kicking the shit out of a guy I was trying to deliver a sack of brown to. He didn't seem to notice me at first, so I just stood there in the doorway, watching Tony beat on this guy. All things considered, I should have bailed the minute I saw what was going on, but something made me stay. It couldn't have been what Tony was saying, because he wasn't saying anything at all. And it wasn't that I'd never seen a hellacious beating before, because that's not exactly a rare sight down here. I didn't know what it was, and I think I still don't, but I stayed there, watching this guy get his ass kicked, knowing there wasn't any reason to stay, knowing he wasn't going to have anything left to pay me with when it ended (if it ended: I've never known Tony to tire, or bore, easily.) and that the maniac bouncing his head off the radiator would almost certainly proceed to help himself to any cash and whatever else I was carrying once he noticed me, but I stood there and watched.
When Tony did look up from the guy he asked me if I was confident I was making the right decisions. I didn't have an answer then and I don't have an answer now, so I guess the years haven't changed everything. I've been watching Tony hand out beatings all up and down the highways and byways of America for some time now and while it started as one thing, it's become another, and suddenly I'm not entirely sure this is where I want to be. Not in this bathroom, watching drops of piss and tears drip off this guy's face, not sleeping in bucket seats and waking up with every muscle in my body making a fist, not forever following, lacking the conviction of the man who's leading. I'm not entirely confident I'm making any decisions anymore.
Tony drags the guy across the tiles back into the stall and leaves him there, crumpled on the floor. He turns to me and tells me it's time to see my stuff.
The guy cringes away from me but I get my hands around his neck all the same. I don't really know what I'm doing, but as I press my thumbs into his throat I realize that it feels right. I start to squeeze and the guy's barely fighting when Tony steps back in.
"Not like that," he says. "I'll show you."
9 May 2012
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