Pop the Clutch

by Eric J. Guignard

  “I’m . . . just . . . this is just who I am,” he said. “I am sorry. Should I leave you now?”

  “No!” Julie said, grabbing hold of his cold hand. “Please. Come with me. I don’t live far.”

  Julie stood unsteadily, still holding Phinn’s hand. She gestured for him to rise with her, and the newspaper blanket fell away, exposing her breasts.

  Phinn removed his trench coat and put it around her, revealing his misshapen and scarred torso.

  Julie touched one of his massive pectoral muscles. “You’re so strong,” she said in a whisper.

  Phinn nodded humbly. “We should be careful, so no one sees me . . . like this.”

  “I’ll protect you,” Julie said, leading him out the warehouse and back into the alley, then quickly through strolling pedestrians toward her apartment a few blocks away. Phinn kept the Fedora over his face, shielding the most alarming aspect of his appearance.

  ***

  HER STUDIO APARTMENT was sparsely furnished, equipped with a kitchenette, a tiny bathroom, and a Murphy bed she usually kept pulled out, since it was where she spent much of her time, working for Frank.

  In fact, the boys that had raped her were initially “customers,” but when she rejected a gang-bang, even for cash, they decided to make it a gang rape, without charge. They’d chased her out of the apartment and to that alley, where Phinn had rescued her.

  She considered it kismet, despite the expense of her pride.

  “I’m sorry I can’t offer you some place more comfortable,” Julie said.

  “I am very comfortable,” Phinn said, smiling inwardly, since his mouth retained too much of its original composition for him to actually do so.

  She pulled up one of the cheap wooden chairs from her Formica dining table and sat on it, offering the bed to Phinn.

  “You’d only break the chair,” she said with a grin.

  Phinn agreed and sat on the bed’s edge, which creaked under his weight.

  “Where do you come from?” she asked.

  “That is a long story,” he said.

  “I have time,” she replied. “I don’t have to work until late tonight.”

  So he told her everything. And she accepted it.

  Then she told him all about herself.

  “I ran away from home when I was only sixteen,” she said. “So I know what it’s like to be homeless, like you. My father was . . . like this man, Frank, who owns the bar I work at, though he’s nothing more than a gangster. My father treated me like Frank treats me. Even . . . you know. I loved my mother, but she died a long time ago. So finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I ran away. I’d rather be alone than living with a monster.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, I didn’t mean—”

  “I understand,” Phinn said. “Please continue.”

  “Well, Frank found me one night and at first he was real kind. He offered me food and shelter and a job dancing in his club. And that’s all I did for awhile. Then at a party upstairs one night he asked me if I wanted to try some, you know, drugs, and I was already drunk, so I did, and next thing I know, I was under his thumb. He made me do other things too, that I don’t want to talk about. I’ve been thinking lately I need to get away.”

  She paused, eyeing his reaction, hesitant to continue. But Phinn nodded, so she went on. “Maybe . . . maybe we can go away together. I’ve been thinking of escaping to the San Juan Islands, far up north, and hiding away in a cabin in the woods that my mother once owned. My father never goes there anymore, but if he did . . . well, I have you now, don’t I?”

  Phinn nodded.

  “So I’ve made up my mind,” she said.

  ***

  THE NAUGHTY NAUTICAL’S blue neon sign was a bright mermaid, beaming through the darkness and light rain as Phinn and Julie cautiously approached the nightclub’s rear entrance and snuck in.

  The place was dark and small and loud, over-decorated with “exotic” décor, dangling fishnets and tiki statues and fish float lamps.

  A West Coast Jazz quartet performed on stage in between the burlesque acts, the saxophone player and drummer staying to provide backup music for the dancers while the guitar player and flutist took a break. Frank was hanging out behind the bar with a bartender she recognized as Jimmy Siu. Frank was a real man of talents, Julie thought, watching him snap his fingers to the beat, as besides fronting the club, he also played resident pimp and drug dealer.

  Three years earlier, and taking full advantage of her gullibility and vulnerability, he’d got her hooked on heroin when she was only seventeen. Then he forced her to work the streets.

  All that was about to change, Julie decided. The rape, as physically abusive and psychologically traumatic as it had been, finally gave her the inner strength to stand up to the bastard, especially now that she had Phinn for both emotional and physical support.

  She led Phinn quickly through the club, guiding him as he kept that hat over his face. They made their way past a few patrons sitting at tables watching the voluptuous dancer that had just taken the stage, went up the dark stairs, and into Frank’s office.

  “Wait for me here,” Julie said after she let Phinn inside. He nodded.

  Then she went back downstairs and to the bar, where she confronted Frank, as he sipped a martini, a triple from the looks of it. Jimmy Siu the bartender scowled at Julie and looked to say something, glanced at Frank, then decided to keep his mouth shut and suddenly got busy wiping down tumblers.

  “Hey, you’re up next!” Frank waved a menacing finger at her. “Get into costume, so you can get back out of it!”

  Him and Jimmy shared a real hearty laugh over that.

  Frank was a large man, though not nearly as large as Phinn, with slick black hair and a gut like a wine barrel. He had a greasy, pockmarked face and cold eyes as dark as coal, and he seemed to perpetually drool from the left side of his mouth. Everything about him disgusted her, and yet she’d allowed him to have his way with her more times than she liked to count, in exchange for drugs.

  But never again.

  “I’m quitting,” she said resolutely. “We can talk in your office if you want. But I want my pay, then I’m gone. For good.”

  Frank laughed harder till he realized she was serious. “You know what this means?” he said, pantomiming a hypodermic needle shot into the right sleeve of his shiny silk suit.

  “I’m done with that too,” she said. “All of it.”

  Jimmy snorted, trying to suppress his amusement, but when Frank began chuckling, they both shared another laugh.

  “Sure toots,” Frank said. “Like you said, let’s go upstairs and work this out . . . ”

  Julie couldn’t miss the big wink Frank gave Jimmy before he followed her up to his office.

  Before Frank noticed someone else was in the room, he’d shoved Julie to the ground and slammed the door behind.

  “What the hell do you think—” he began, then stopped short when he saw Phinn rise behind the desk, bristling and clenching his giant hands into fists.

  Frank’s jaw fell open. A little gasp escaped, before he composed himself enough to demand, “Who the hell are you?”

  “This is my friend, Phinn,” Julie said confidently, standing back up. “I brought him along to make sure you don’t try any funny business. Not that I’m joking, either. Now give me my money, we’ll leave, and you’ll never see us again.”

  “’Zat so?” Frank said, his gaze still deadlocked with Phinn’s, even as his knees knocked.

  “Yeah,” Julie responded resolutely.

  Frank seemed to strain in his efforts not to break, but he lost that brief showdown of wills fast enough against Phinn. Frank went to the wall safe, spun the knob, opened it, and removed a stack of bills, tossing it at Julie with contempt.

  “Lucky you caught me in a good mood,” Frank said.

  “Yeah, you’re a real jovial Gus.”

  “Take your pet monster and that smart mouth and get the hell out of my sight.”

  With a trium
phant smile, Julie nodded, gestured at Phinn, and they left.

  ***

  BACK AT HER APARTMENT, Julie celebrated by making Phinn a seafood dinner and drinks. She mixed her own Mai Tais, using the same recipe she’d learned from The Naughty Nautical, and they sat listening to her transistor radio, without speaking, just comfortable in companionship. Phinn had drank plenty of wine and bourbon when living with the doctor, so alcohol was not unfamiliar. Fact was, he rather enjoyed its intoxicating effects.

  Finally, as Bobby Darin was singing “Dream Lover,” Julie stood up, went over to Phinn, and kissed him passionately on the lips until the song’s final crescendo. Phinn lifted her and carried her to bed, following his own primeval mating instincts.

  After they made love, Phinn held Julie in his arms and fell asleep, dreaming of a lonely, prehistoric place that was growing dimmer and dimmer in his memory. He’d never known such peace.

  She made him breakfast the next morning, a shrimp and crab omelet that he consumed with relish, and they sat and talked about their future together, perhaps in the San Juan Islands, or even farther north.

  “Have you ever been to Vancouver?” she asked. “My mother is from there and took me to visit her parents when I was a child. We grew up in Tacoma, which isn’t far from here. Anyway, Vancouver is very nice too, but there are a lot of people there, and it’s cold. You probably prefer someplace warm and tropical, right?”

  Phinn shrugged. “Anyplace with you will be . . . paradise,” he said.

  She smiled. “Maybe Hawaii. It’s going to be an official state soon!”

  For once, the possibilities seemed limitless. She could relate so much to Phinn’s isolation from the rest of her own race. She’d always felt like she belonged to a different species, undefined, but distinct from everyone else she ever knew. Until now.

  LATER THAT EVENING she took him to a drive-in where they watched a double bill: Elvis Presley’s latest movie, his last before being inducted into the Army, King Creole, plus I Married a Monster from Outer Space, though the two of their lips didn’t pay much attention to either one.

  By the time they got home, Julie was getting ill, feeling the withdrawals of quitting her addiction so suddenly. She writhed on the floor, sweating and coughing and crying, finally vomiting in the kitchen sink.

  Phinn took her in his arms, rocking her until the convulsions passed. He tucked her into bed and they lay together until she finally fell asleep. Hours passed, and then—

  ***

  THE DOOR TO HER APARTMENT burst open and Frank barreled in, his face showing matched parts fury and disgust at the sight of them in bed together. Beside him were two henchmen who grabbed Julie while training their guns on Phinn.

  “I’ll take care of you later, freak,” Frank said as he yanked Julie out by the hair.

  Phinn knew they were going back to the nightclub, and once they left, he raced after them hoping to intercept.

  He got to the club fast enough, but outside were two ugly mugs guarding the door, both big and looking anxious. Phinn quickly disposed of them, fatally but quietly, before sneaking past the other henchmen inside and up to Frank’s office.

  Phinn broke through Frank’s door, just as Frank had earlier broke through his own, only here the results were grimmer: Frank sat on top of Julie, pummeling her face with his fat fists. Phinn rushed Frank and quickly subdued him.

  Frank was accustomed to imposing his will via intimidation rather than direct violence, since most of the time, his flunkies did his fighting for him, if it came to that, and it rarely did, since they carried guns that warded off physical interaction. Most of the time. Now Frank was experiencing exactly the type of painful punishment he once promised to inflict on his enemies if they didn’t obey his whims. Now he understood why they chose compliance over conflict.

  Phinn didn’t offer that option, though. It was too late to negotiate.

  Lifting Frank high above his head, Phinn threw the gangster through the window, spectacularly smashing the panes. Frank fell with brutal force into the alley below, where his screaming body bounced off of a fire escape before landing with a loud thud on the edge of an open garbage dumpster, then falling to the wet ground like a broken doll.

  Phinn turned to see Julie lying dead on the ground from Frank’s vicious beating. He’d been too late to save her. After Phinn kneeled and lifted her up, she dangled limp and lifeless in his powerful arms. He wept for a moment, then roared with all the primeval anger left him before setting her back down gently on the floor.

  ***

  PHINN WENT BACK DOWN and rampaged through the nightclub, ripping chairs, tables, and bodies into pieces. Blood splattered, bones and wood splintered, bottles of booze shattered.

  Frank’s two henchmen opened fire with machine guns, riddling Phinn’s bodies with bullets. The barrage slowed him down, but did not stop him. He ran toward them and ripped each of their heads off, keeping both of his slightly webbed hands busy, tossing their decapitated craniums aside like softballs.

  Jimmy Siu was not an enforcer, just a bartender, so his only defense was to throw bottles of precious booze at Phinn. Drenched in premium alcohol, Phinn picked up Jimmy and shook him like he was mixing a human cocktail. Jimmy’s guts splashed around like the ingredients of a complex recipe inside a fragile cocktail shaker. The liquid blend burst through its fleshy container and spilled all over the bar. Phinn tasted some of his unique creation, the “Jimmy Siu.” Not bad.

  Wracked with pain and weak from blood loss, Phinn staggered out into the night, heading toward the Sound and its soothing waves.

  ***

  HE WAS ABOUT TO WADE into the water and just let himself drown. But then he remembered Julie’s face, her touch, the short ray of hope she had given him, and the alleviation of his lifelong loneliness, if only briefly.

  The image of her smile made him stop short. He decided to swim along the surface, despite his badly leaking torso, north to the San Juan Islands, the place his Julie had called a future home for them both.

  Now he’d just live there alone, like he was back in the Amazon’s lagoon. At least in the wilderness no one could hurt him anymore. He’d get there, he resolved, or die trying.

  A honking sound followed by wild whooping noises broke the somber contemplation of his future life.

  The truck pulling up fast behind him was full of the same delinquents that had gang-raped Julie. Phinn recognized them right away, but in his weakened, injured state, he was in no position to fight them all over. As the truck careened to a stop, he recognized the song blaring on the radio, “Be-Bop-a-Lula” by Gene Vincent. It was something he’d listened to with his old doctor friend, another reminder of happier times he couldn’t get back.

  The four teenage thugs jumped out and surrounded Phinn, only a few feet from the Sound’s shore—and freedom—brandishing bats and chains. They hooted and jeered something about having driven around looking for him ever since that night, ready to dole out violent vengeance.

  In the darkness of the alley they’d apparently not got a really good look at him. Now that he was exposed in the moonlight, they were both shocked and amused.

  “Look at them fat lips!”

  “And them little beady eyes!”

  “And that bald monkey head!”

  “He ain’t nothin’ but a bleached nigger, all right!”

  Phinn was tired, passive as they beat him to the ground with their weapons, then tied him up with rope and threw him in the back of the truck.

  They drove him to a remote corner of Lake Washington in Magnusson Park, while Phinn thought back on his days, his misfortunes, his triumphs, his lives—all of them—since that black lagoon so long ago.

  When the truck ground to a halt, he knew it all mattered not, just one more bruise, one more knot on his existence. The thugs dragged him out and threw him on the ground beneath a large tree next to the water. They used the rope that entangled Phinn to string him up on one of the stronger branches, and an old produce crate to ke
ep him stable, for the time being.

  “Any last words, nigger?” the leader of the mob asked him as Gene Vincent’s song died out in the background from the truck’s radio.

  After a pause, Phinn said, “It was not my choice to be brought here to walk among you. I meant you no harm. I only wished to assimilate and be left alone to live my own life, in peace. Now you choose to destroy me. Why?”

  The four thugs stared back at him, seeming dumbstruck into silence. Phinn could almost see the confusion, maybe even comprehension, wash over their faces.

  Then “Endless Sleep” by Jody Reynolds came on the radio, breaking the moment.

  The leader grinned and kicked the crate out from under Phinn’s once-webbed feet. He could no longer swim against the tide of his own fate.

  * * *

  WILL “THE THRILL” VIHARO is a pulp fiction author, cat daddy, dog walker, and lounge lizard at large. For many years he was the producer and programmer of the cult movie cabaret Thrillville, featuring classic B films in 35mm with live burlesque acts all around the Bay Area and beyond, which he presented with his wife, Monica “Tiki Goddess” Cortes Viharo. Currently he is host and organizer of Noir at the Bar Seattle. His “gonzo grindhouse” novels include A Mermaid Drowns in the Midnight Lounge, Freaks That Carry Your Luggage Up to the Room, Lavender Blonde, Down a Dark Alley, Chumpy Walnut, and Love Stories Are Too Violent For Me. Swing by his cyber pad anytime for virtual cocktails at www.thrillville.net.

  * * *

  I WAS A TEENAGE SHROOM FIEND

  by Brian Hodge

  He was the last greaser in a world of hippies . . .

  * * *

  NOBODY MEANT FOR THE PIGGLY WIGGLY TO burn down. Or any of the rest of what ended up turning to smoking rubble, not exactly. So let’s clear that up right now.

  You never really see these things getting out of hand until after they do. Up to then, it’s all just normal stuff, going about your usual day. Like any other typical late Friday afternoon, me and Maddox in his old Dodge Coronet that looked like a rocket ship, with the huge fins and the four taillights poking out like shooting flames, making his rounds as his customers got fortified for their weekends.