THUGLIT Issue Sixteen

by Devon Robbins

  Roy rolled over on his back, a beached whale. "Why didn’t you say so?"

  "You didn’t give me the goddamn chance."

  Walter kicked Roy in the shin. All he felt was flesh, the bone buried deep below layers of Big Macs.

  "I never seen you before," Roy said. "I thought you were a pro. Maybe from the city."

  "Well, you could’ve asked."

  Walter checked his hand. He looked around the tiny kitchen for something to wrap it with, but hesitated at the dull grey of the only dishtowel he saw.

  "Twenty-two," Walter said. With his left hand he struggled to pull the scrap of paper out from the pocket of his jeans. With a grunt, he got it out and opened. "Four hundred. Where is it?"

  "Fuck. How did he know?"

  "You really think he wouldn’t?"

  Roy got a resigned look on his face. He knew his game was over. Walter anticipated the moment when he could enjoy the same look on Callaway’s face.

  Walter entered The Bishop’s office minus one pinky finger, but twenty-two thousand, four hundred dollars heavier.

  The Bishop eyed the heavy bandaging on Walter’s right hand.

  "The collection came at a price, I see."

  "I’m not blaming anyone, if that’s what you think."

  "Not even our friend Roy?"

  Walter smiled. "Well, him a little I guess. I meant not you."

  "I understand." The Bishop raised his eyebrows as he shifted his gaze to the plastic shopping bag in Walter’s hand.

  "Oh," Walter handed over the money. "It’s all there. I counted it. Well, I stood by while he counted it."

  "Very good." The Bishop dropped the bag, uncounted, into a side drawer on his desk. Walter felt a modicum of trust between them. "And now for you." The Bishop produced an envelope. Sealed. "Your Mr. Callaway."

  Walter stepped forward and took the envelope. "Thanks."

  "I don’t know if it will make up for your hand."

  "Trust me," Walter said. "I’d lose nine more fingers if it meant a face-to-face with this rat bastard."

  "Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that."

  The Bishop nodded and Walter knew their meeting, and their exchange of services, was done. He was anxious to get things moving with Callaway anyhow.

  Three steps toward the door, Walter turned. "Can I ask for one more favor?"

  It was a two day drive to Detroit. You have all that money and you come here? Walter thought.

  The ghost town qualities started on the outskirts of the city. As the GPS led him into the suburbs, he passed through blocks of blighted and abandoned homes. Graffiti tags less about boastful self-indulgence like in other towns—names, street handles, gang IDs—but more about hope, or the loss of it. Colorful tags reading RESPECT OUR ROOTS and DETROIT DIES HARD. Lots of gothic D's, same as the Lions.

  Walter was curious to hear the story of why Callaway ended up here with close to a half million dollars on the hip.

  He parked the car opposite the house. One of only four still occupied on the block. Three others were being reclaimed by weeds and feral cats. Four lots had been bulldozed.

  Before he got out of the car, Walter took a moment to use his extra favor from The Bishop. He checked his reflection in the rearview as he affixed the borrowed priest collar around his neck. Walter got out, tucked his piece into his belt behind his back, and walked across the street.

  The wooden steps groaned and leaned slightly to the left. Chipped paint flaked off on his shoe. Walter reached for the doorbell, but it was painted over in five layers of gray. When he pressed it, no sound came from inside. So he knocked. Three hard raps on the door frame and he came away with a splinter in his knuckle. As he dug it out, the door opened a crack. Enough for an eye to peek out. Walter heard a deep sigh—a low, resigned sound—then the door opened fully and Callaway was there.

  Callaway had a good poker face, but Walter saw the defeat behind his eyes. His shoulders fell. A blast of medicinal air hit Walter. The inside of the house smelled like a nursing home. Disinfectant and stale air. Meth lab? he wondered.

  Callaway kept a hand on the door. "How’d you track me?"

  "Aren’t you going to invite me in?"

  Callaway pointed at the priest collar, the bandaged hand. "Should I ask?"

  Walter smiled. Callaway sighed and stepped aside. He called back into the house. "Mom, Father Boyle is here."

  Walter reached behind him to grip the gun, fearing a signal had just been given. Waiting for trouble, he heard a small voice.

  "Who?"

  "A priest, Mom."

  Walter looked at Callaway, hand still in the small of his back, ready to draw. He mouthed the word, Mom? Callaway nodded.

  "Let him come in," she said.

  Callaway ushered Walter into the living room of the once stately house. The large open space had been transformed into a hospital room of sorts. A frail old woman lay in a hospital bed complete with chrome rails and a power recline feature. An EKG monitor hummed and beeped bedside, an IV drip was attached to her arm.

  Walter looked at Callaway who almost imperceptibly shrugged.

  "Father." Mrs. Callaway held out a hand.

  Walter stepped quickly to take it. He wasn’t sure how long she could hold it up. "Hello," he said.

  "Thank you for coming by." Her jaundiced eyes examined him. "Have we met before?"

  "No, ma’am. I actually came by to see your son."

  "Jimmy? Looking for his confession, no doubt."

  Walter looked at Callaway. Confusion in his eyes.

  Callaway grinned, the upper hand now. "No doubt."

  Walter turned back to the old woman, so thin. Her skin like an onion. Veins pulsing underneath. "I came to see you too." Without realizing it, he’d added a tiny Irish brogue to his voice, falling into the character of Father Boyle.

  She reached out to pat his hand. Walter made sure to tuck his right hand away, keeping the bandage hidden. "You talk to Jimmy. I’ll wait. I don’t need last rites just yet."

  Walter wasn’t so sure.

  He slid his hand from underneath hers. The dry skin feeling less than human. He motioned Callaway into the next room.

  "Right back, Mom."

  Around the corner and out of her sight, Walter drew the gun. "The fuck is that about?"

  "That is my mother." Callaway showed both his hands, but didn’t raise them. He seemed unsure how this was about to go.

  "Yeah, but…what the fuck?"

  "What do you want me to say, Walter? I needed the money." He slowly gestured around at the house, the equipment which kept a constant hum in the air. The very air that held the smells of old age, impending death.

  "Check her into a hospital," Walter said.

  "She doesn’t want to go."

  "She needs professional help."

  "A girl comes by twice a day," Callaway said. "That costs money."

  Walter wanted to use the gun in his hand. He’d been daydreaming of the moment for the entire drive here. Now Callaway went and sandbagged the whole thing.

  "This is why you took the money?"

  Callaway nodded.

  Easy enough for Walter to shoot Callaway, then off the mom. Probably wouldn’t even take a bullet. A pillow over the face. A good, strong BOO!

  "Where’s the money?"

  Callaway pointed at the ceiling. "Bedroom."

  Walter bit his lip and punched the air. "Fuck." He knew what he wanted to do. What he should do. What he had promised himself to do. Christ, what any self-respecting man in his line of work would do. You follow the code of conduct. You don’t steal the take. No matter what the goddamn reason.

  No matter what. He’d completely forgotten his own plan to steal from Callaway and Leon.

  Walter stalked the five paces between him and Callaway. Put the gun to his forehead.

  "I should."

  Callaway closed his eyes. "I know, Walter."

  "I really should."

  "I know."

  Walter noticed the
steady beeping of the EKG was moving at half the speed of his own heart. She didn’t have long, the old lady. She seemed as comfortable as she could be, he figured.

  Walter took the gun off Callaway’s temple. "Show me where the money is."

  Callaway turned and led the way to the stairs, Walter’s gun at his back. "Just going upstairs, Mom. Be right down."

  "Don’t worry about me, dear."

  Walter walked behind Callaway who marched ahead very much like a man headed to his death.

  When he came downstairs, Walter’s pockets bulged with money. He wasn’t sure he could fit it all at first, but Callaway didn’t have an extra bag handy. He made it fit. He wouldn’t have had space for the whole haul, even after Callaway spent a chunk of it already on the nurse and the new bed, EKG and other supplies. But all Walter took was his own share anyway.

  Leon wasn’t coming for his share, so Walter left it behind. Her share now.

  They didn’t head for the door. The deal wasn’t done yet. Callaway had accepted terms. Walter felt they were equitable. He wanted to see her first, before his business was finished with her son.

  "Good to see you, Mrs. Callaway," Walter said. "You’re looking well."

  She smiled a sweet, yellow-toothed smile. "Father, don’t you know lying is a sin."

  He shared a sly grin with the old woman. Then he and Callaway adjourned to the kitchen.

  Stepping out onto the front porch, Walter checked the street in both directions. Last thing he needed was to get jumped by some street gang with over a hundred grand in his pockets. Even more valuable to him than the cash was the prize he clutched in his good hand. It wouldn’t replace the one he lost, but Callaway’s pinky felt almost as good as his own used to.

  Part of the deal. Callaway had taken it like a man, too. One cut and done, then he handed over the trophy. Walter promised to never let this one go.

  Alchemy and Atrophy

  by Devon Robbins

  January 1999

  By the time the officers arrive, the fire has punched a hole in the roof of the cabin. Flames dance around inside the black smoke, coughing out embers as if newborn stars. A dog barks somewhere in the distance. Violent and hard-hearted. And I keep waiting, for the strength to pull myself out of the snow. To see myself in third person, a ghost, stepping away from my burned and battered body.

  Pain can only grow to a certain point before it disappears. Then it’s only there when you move. When the charred strip of muscle in your tricep tears as you try to reach out to a passing officer.

  He tells me to stay still, his hand hovering over my chest, afraid to touch the blisters.

  "Is there anyone else inside?"

  The snow beneath me has turned to ice now, as if lying on a bed of broken glass. The officer repeats the question. I try to answer, but I can’t breathe. Don’t have the capacity to form words. Just primitive murmurings of pain in different shapes and shades.

  The officer stands and disappears. His partner is on the radio. Barking orders into the microphone. AM-BU-LANCE. Each syllable its own word.

  Sirens are everywhere. Two paramedics with bags in hand and the sound of a stretcher rattling across the frozen ground. This woman, she cradles the back of my skull in her gloved hands. She won’t tell me that everything is okay, that I’ll be fine. But I need her to. I need her to hold me in her arms. To kiss the parts of my face that aren’t burned. She angles my head back and takes pieces of me with her as she pulls her hands away. The man on the other side of me puts his latex fingers in my mouth. I try to spit them out. Push them away with my tongue. And the woman isn’t as gentle as before, shoving a plastic tube into my throat.

  Tears roll toward my ears. Salt in the wounds. And the woman is breathing for me now. Disgusting false breaths from the bag valve in her hand, force-feeding me air I’m not ready to take. The dirty jeans are grafted to my thighs like a thick new skin, and lifting my shaking body onto the stretcher is a delicate procedure. There are more hands now. Half a dozen voices, speaking in tongues.

  In the ambulance, I’m shivering on the gurney like a madman. The air is all singed hair and burnt meat. The woman drapes layers of white sheets over my body and readies a bag of saline. She takes my right hand and everything dissolves. She’s experienced with a needle. With the morphine. The great disconnect.

  Close my eyes, but the white light bleeds through the thin tissue. Orange and silver. The siren outside is a warm guitar, sliding through the high notes of a melody just for me. And I’m floating, in utero, sifting through burnt memories. Delicate pictures that, once touched, turn to ash. Jeremiah, smiling at me with his mouthful of broken teeth. And he’s laughing, holding my hand. Our skin melting together as he lights his cigarette with the burning fingertips.

  Bright white of artificial light. Shadows and machines. They beep and tick at random, speaking an intricate foreign dialect. Blood pressure. Oxygen level. Heart rate. Two bags hang from a shining steel stand next to the bed, its hose hardwired into the vein in the crook of my arm.

  A young girl drifts past the foot of the bed with a clipboard. It’s as if I’m watching her through water. Her body seems to melt in the sterile air, her long brown hair playing catch-up, following a half step behind. The colors are brighter than they should be. Her lips are rose petals. Emeralds for eyes.

  I close my eyes and the world doesn’t wait for me to open them again. The sun is burning through the drawn shades now and I’m not alone. The visitor surfs the television waves on mute. Where there should be pain, there is nothing. I’m all numb. Just consciousness, trapped in the body on the bed. And I wonder if this is what dying is like—the moment when the soul leaves the body.

  Tell the fingers to move. The wrist. My joints are those of a rusted machine, dried up and seized. The voice of a child carries through the corridor, crying. The sound peeks under the door and I clear my throat to cancel it out.

  I’ve been sleeping for what could be minutes or days. Yawn and my face tries to split into pieces. The visitor tosses the TV remote on the bedside tray, just inside the periphery of my vision. He pulls the chair closer and sits with his elbows resting on his knees, asks if I know where I am.

  It’s a silly question to begin the affair. I adjust my neck. Pull my head off center to get a better look at him.

  His crowbar-black hair is parted on the right and glued to his skull in perfect eighth-inch strands, as if painted on. He wears a five o’clock shadow and has eyes that shift from brown to black in the light. His hands are empty. Fingertips touching between his knees, relaxed.

  I try to tell him I’m in a hospital, but the words come only half-formed, the rest of them lost in the burnt airway as I get the hang of expressing myself with scorched vocal cords.

  "You’re at South Valley Regional," he says. "Staff says you’re lucky to be alive."

  I want to ask him what his definition of luck is. If this particular luck is good or bad. But all that comes out is, Okay.

  "I’m Detective Draper." He takes a notepad from his front pocket, slides the pen free. He adjusts his hips and scribbles some precursors at the top of the paper. "I need to ask you a few questions."

  He stares at my eyes, which are fixed on the television. A TV doctor teaching housewives the fundamentals of healthy weight loss. Draper shoots a string of yes-or-no questions. Your name is Jacob McKinnon? You live at 1255 South, Black Hill Drive? And you live alone?

  All of them, yes.

  "Is there any reason why someone would want to hurt you?"

  "I don’t know," I lie.

  "Interesting. This is a small town." He inserts some authority in his voice.

  My body feels like one giant scab, tearing at the edges with any movement. "You ever use that?"

  He looks at the pistol holstered on his hip then back at me. "Once or twice."

  He's lying, too.

  His demeanor changes, flexing as he leans forward and locks his eyes to mine. "The way this works is I ask questions, and you answer.
If you choose not to answer, you are choosing to obstruct."

  "Isn't there some place in there where I have the right to an attorney?"

  "Do you need one?"

  "I don't know. Am I under arrest?"

  He grabs the remote and switches the set off. Tosses it on the floor. "You're in a trauma center, sixty-one percent burned. Our records show that you have no living family, no job, and no criminal record. You're just a name on a few pieces of paper that don't add up."

  "I don't know what you want me to tell you."

  "I want you to tell me who did this to you."

  "His name is Jeremiah Page."

  Draper pauses, staring at my eyes, then scribbles the name on the notepad. Circles it twice, cutting off the hook of the J. He lowers his hands. Leans back in his chair. "And why would this Jeremiah Page want to do this to you?"

  The nurse knocks on the door and lets herself in. I stare at the blank TV screen, at the mostly black and white reflection of Draper's back. At the bandaged body lying in the bed. The nurse peeks under the gauze on my ribcage, gentle as a lover, and checks the bags of fluid. She checks the machine readings and records the numbers on the clipboard at the foot of the bed. She asks if I am in pain, hungry, if I need anything, then tells me the doctor will be in to discuss my options.

  Draper watches her—slapping the end of his pen against the notepad—until she leaves.

  "Well?" he asks.

  "I want to talk to a lawyer."

  September 1997

  2:15 A.M.

  The bags are packed and Marcy is crying on the bathroom floor. Has been for half an hour. She made sure I saw her carry the pistol in there with her, as if that changes something. I press my forehead to the door and say her name. Shake the locked doorknob. "We don't have time for this shit, Marcy. We've got to go."