by Mark McGhee
“Fucking junky hoping for a big win. So what?”
“He has a kid graduating from Cal State Fullerton tonight.”
“How do you know all this shit?”
“I stay, Paul. You wander around. I have a family here.”
“So what’s good for your family member here?”
“Nothing. He’s broke and probably going to rob someone for a heroin fix.”
“Nice family, Sam.”
“No better or worse than you, or me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you lived differently than I did, Sam, but I didn’t fucking rob people for a fix. I may have done some shitty things, but not that low.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know. I’m sure you were a fine human at one time. Maybe just didn’t pay it forward enough. Who knows?” He laughs and lights a Marlboro from a new pack.
“Fuck you, Sam.”
He laughs again, blowing smoke in a dragon’s plume.
“Sorry, Sam. I have to go. I’ll come back when I’m not so foul tempered.”
“Have a nice day, Paul” He smiles
“Fuck you, Sam.” I laugh. I walk out into NIGHT. I hear him chuckling as I walk off.
Flying low to the ground. Watching. The asphalt speeds by in a blur. 100, 110, 120…climbing. The blur of black, white, and yellow lines weave and spin together. Speedometer is pegged at 140. Too fast. Ease off the throttle. 125, 130. Loosen the grip that’s bad. Don’t fight the bike, let it breathe, don’t freak. Back wheel is starting to swim a bit. Go with it. Go with it. Don’t grip too hard, that causes the rear tire to swim. High speed wobble. Oh shit. Fuck. I’m going down. Time to die. Roll off the throttle. Don’t go down. Tire swimming, swimming, let it go, let it go. Red and blue lights fading back. Lights fading back, no sound, sirens fading. Helicopter lighting up freeway ahead, moving, shifting. Daytime at night. Lay off the throttle. Easy now. Easy.
Lurch forward, fucking 5th gear, no swimming. Off-ramp at Riverside Avenue, 80, 75, take it! Sliding, back, around the corner into the oncoming traffic going north. Through a semi and a car, horns blaring, blinded, I’m still rolling. Throttle, gun it hard. 100, 110, south from Rialto, approaching Riverside, already? Roll off the throttle. Roll off. 80, 70, 60, cruise now. You’re free. You made it. Club 215 strip bar on the left. Too obvious. Whip around the back of Jack in the Box off of La Cadena. Lights to the north. Helicopter making night into day. Red and blue strobes. Dragon fly dancers on the pole. Red and white and blue.
Push my Harley into the bushes. Walk in slowly. Calmly. Breathe.
“Jumbo Jack, fries, and a Coke, please.” I’m sweating.
“You want the combo, sir?” The teenager in the paper-hat looks at me suspiciously. I must look nervous. Calm the fuck down. Stop sweating. Think now.
“Combo? Yes please.”
He eyes me again and looks out the window.
“It’s the same thing you ordered, you just save fifty cents. You okay, dude?”
“Oh yeah, yeah thanks. I almost got in an accident, fucking truck almost hit me.” I smile.
He buys my bullshit.
“Wow, you’re lucky night!”
“You said it, bro.” I take my soda cup and head over to the drinking fountain.
I eat my cheeseburger and wonder if there are eyes on me. I wonder, as I chew, if I am a cruel man. Am I cruel? Have I become cruel or was I always cruel? I guess I have become cruel. I do not think I was always cruel, for I remember, as a child, seeing children doing cruel things, and it bothered me. But, I think, as I stuff five french-fries into my mouth, truly, we are all the cruel for we are human. Maybe it just takes time to really come out. Maybe those cruel children I remember, the cruel kids I remember, the bullies and the shitheads, became better people, while I became cruel and crueler. I have time to muse. Masturbate some. Silently Pontificate to calm myself. I think things over and play little games in my head. It makes me calmer.
In the grand scheme, I think, every second and time that we live as humans, we are cruel. We are always surrounded by suffering that questions our humanity, but we, in large and part, do nothing. I finish my burger and slurp the last of my Coke from the cup.
And I feel good for thinking these thoughts. For a moment, I feel like a better person because, even though I really have done very little to ease anyone’s suffering, I am at least thinking about it. The strange things that fly through the mind when you’ve narrowly slipped by death. Eating a cheeseburger and philosophizing about utter and extreme bullshit. It’s a way to occupy and slow the brain down. Lying to your own brain and playing games like Socratic chess on your morals and thoughts, your own corrupt personhood.
Chopped bobbers. Lots of noise and laughter. ZZ Top is blasting. Live. Not a cover. ZZ Top. Biker sluts and wannabe biker sluts. Real bikers, weekend warriors. Hardcore bikers. Enthusiasts. Bike rallies are like that. A mixture of thug and Joe weekend rider.
“Which guy?” I ask. I look around.
“That piece of shit right there, black and white shirt.”
“Huh, why?”
“You’re asking questions now?”
“Nah, just wondering.”
“Don’t fucking wonder, just go cave his fucking face in, prospect.”
My head starts swimming hard. My adrenaline is pumping. I feel the temples and veins in my head. I feel every rock and pebble crunch under my steel toe boots as I approach. How the fuck did I get here? What the fuck am I doing? I have a career for fuck’s sake.
He is laughing and holding a half gone bottle of Jim Beam. I step up my pace and he catches my eye. He smiles and then, for one split second, I see his eyes change. His brain is numb from laughter and whiskey, but in that last split second, he has a tiny, tenth of a second of clear and concise thought. His synapses fire hard from his primordial brain that teaches fight or flight. He knows. His eyes tell me in that second he knows. But he cannot react. He is slow, and dumb, and happy with whiskey and laughter. And it is too late.
I hit him hard. Perfectly. My leather gloved fist lands perfectly. I feel the cartilage fold into mush. He’s big. Much bigger than me. A scream. Not his. Some bitch. He goes down hard and his blood hits my mouth. I taste the rancid copper taste of his blood on my tongue. Rage swells through my brain when I taste it. Now I want to kill him for my own reason.
The bottle smashes into pieces in his hand and flies in every direction. I hear his body slam onto the pavement in a thud. His breath escapes his body as he hits the ground. People are running now, between Harleys lined up in a row. Someone laughs hard and loud. I want to kill them too.
I walk over and I see his flattened pig of a nose. Slushed up. Oozing snot and saliva in crimson beads. I lean down and spit the copper taste of blood into his face. But the rage isn’t gone. I pull his sour, whiskey stench face up to me and drive my elbow deeply into his mouth. I watch three teeth break off. He gags on them as they rip and cut their way down his throat. I spit into his gaping throat. And I walk away.
“I said knock the fuck out of him, not kill him.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Well, serves the puke right. Get the fuck out of here. Meet me back at the clubhouse”
‘Yeah.”
What happens when you disrespect a club member, a real biker club member. Not yuppie fucking Joe’s weekend riding club. The clubs that police approach carefully. That any motorcycle rider with a brain knows not to fuck around with. Hang around long enough, be hard enough, show you can over and over. And sometimes, even a professor, a doctor, will end up in the club. Rarely. But it happens. And then you’re no longer a professor who likes Harleys. A doctor that likes to ride to Laughlin, Nevada once a year. You’re a member of a family. And that becomes your first identity. Every other identity becomes secondary. And this new life. This new family. It becomes everything. Your old life is gone into flames and ashes. I had that life. And I crossed lines with them. My family. My family that gave everything and exp
ected everything in return.
100, 120 130, the V-twin is pounding my eardrums and I love it. I love the road flying up at me. The blur of the road. I fly through the orange groves in full bloom on Victoria Avenue….slow down, slow down, it’s fucking beautiful. I want to die like this.
Orange blossoms. I roll to a stop and push my Wide-Glide into the dirt road of the orange groves. I am alive. It smells like heaven. This is fucking heaven. The orange blossoms are intoxicating. I lay down in the dirt and suck it all in. Every breath makes me closer to God. I spit the last of the copper from my mouth and lay staring into the stars.
Chapter 7
The man is good I know this. He makes big jugs of Hawaiian punch for all of us dusty poor kids. He has puppies. “You want a puppy, kid?” He hands me a black, brown, and white crested puppy. I look into his brown puppy eyes and I know. This is the best puppy that ever lived. He’s King. My first puppy. My first dog. King. A rustling in the orange trees. I slip my hand into my leather vest and release the safety of my .45 auto. I place it into my mouth and taste the oil. I feel the cold steel and run my tongue over the front sights. I press my thumb and forefinger over the secondary safety and press the right amount of pressure on the trigger. This could be it. The final one tenth of pressure I need to end this hell.
The familiar pant.
He trots up to me and licks my face. King. My best friend. King.
I release the hammer slowly. Not tonight. Not quite yet.
She’s staring at me with rage again. Contempt. Anger. It makes my dick hard as it always does.
“Where’s your wedding ring?”
“What do you care?”
“We were married. I put that ring on your finger.”
She smiles and it is evil. It is contempt. It fuels me with rage and desire.
“I pushed it up my pussy. I pushed it as far as I could. I came hard fingering it up. My slit was wet, oh my god. It was so wet. I just pushed it up there as far as I could.”
“You’re a sick cunt.”
“And I let him suck it out. I told him it was in there. He sucked and sucked. He licked and pulled on my pussy so hard. I can come right now thinking about it.”
“You’re a rotten filthy cunt.”
“Oh yeah baby. It makes me hot thinking about it. He sucked it right out of my pussy.”
“And what did he do with it?”
“I gave it to him. A gift for making me cum so hard, baby.”
I walk over and reach inside my vest. Feel the .45 auto. Maybe just put a slug in the whore. End it now. Get it over with. I walk back and look at her lying there. I might as well fuck her one last time if I’m going to do it.
“I will kill you, cunt. Not now. But I will kill you and haunt your filthy soul.”
“Bring it baby. Bring it. I just want you back inside me.”
I take her hard and drive it deep into her with fury. With anger. We fuck hard and violent. After I shoot I keep pumping. I don’t go soft for her. Never have. I pump her slower. Almost like love making. An hour later she cums again. She falls asleep and I keep pumping her. Little drunken snores. And I finally collapse in a heap of sweat. I can’t cum again. I think of rolling her over and fucking her ass. She likes it. She can take it up the ass hard and come just as hard. I decide I don’t care anymore. Don’t need to come again. Don’t even want to. I roll off of her. She wakes from her little drunken fuck nap.
“Mmmmm. Couldn’t nut again?” She giggles. “Fuck me in the ass. You’ll nut in my tight ass.”
I reach under the bed as she lights a cigarette. Grab my 8 inch Buck knife. Maybe stab her in the neck. I wipe my dick off with a towel. I’m still hard. I pull my jeans on, my boots, and grab my jacket.
“That was good, baby….sorry I fell asleep. I came hard the second time.”
She pats the bed.
“Come on. Come fuck my ass, baby.”
“Nah. Had enough slut on my dick for one day.” I smile.
She pouts. Thick sweet red lips. Long thin limbs, small perky breasts. Bright apricot colored nipples. Her long torso and neatly shaved pussy. Tiny pussy. Shapely ass. Too big for that skinny and long frame. That’s what made it so irresistible.
I strap on the shoulder holster and throw on the leather vest cut over my jacket. Slide my knife into the sheath.
“Come on, baby. Don’t go.” She pouts more.
And I want to fuck her again but it hurts too much.
I walk out as I hear a vase smash against the wall.
I stop.
“Get the fuck out of here! Fuck you. I gave my ass to all your friends!”
I finger the silenced .45 auto in my holster and walk to my Harley.
On the bike and ride.
Ride to a warm place.
Burning hot
Warm
Calm
Fire
Whiskey
Drink in deep. Drink it warm. Go away die.
Go away kill
Go away stab
Away fight
Warmth
Drink
Deeply
God of comfort
Refuge
Tree planted by the water
Whiskey in a warm place
So many times I had dreamt of and planned my death. I had nestled, kissed, and caressed the thoughts in my mind. Over and over I made love to these images in my head. The cold barrel in my mouth, the taste of gun oil. The lovely click and roll of the cylinder. Waiting for the moment of pressure. One pound of courage. One pound of pressure. The touch of a single action trigger. Feel the tiny touch. Explosion of orange and red.
An instant of acrid smoke, sulfur, flash of light, release.
Peace and relief.
The beauty cannot be described.
Every second of thought orgasmic, hot flash, free, lovelier no other thought, no feeling to describe, release.
These thoughts I had nurtured and loved. These images I had held secret and dear. Sweet as the caress of a new lover
As love
As care
As need
As desire beyond all other
to squeeze this trigger and to taste sound
To arrive here without that kiss. It is bitter and horrible. I was robbed of a thousand dreams and told my lover was fake.
A cheating whore
A cum soaked slut
A Lying fucking bitch
Nothing and none of it
You teased me
You taunted me
You took me to the brink of orgasm
So many times
And time fucking again
Sweet orange orgasm of fire
And explosion
And sulfur.
Lying whore
Every image nurtured
And worshipped
Held with the sincerest desires of my heart
The secret places I held for you, whore!
You cheated me
You lied
You stole my deepest desires
You spit in my face
And laughed
When the time, came I was given nothing but a nod to a parking lot where I watched the blood seep from my temple and it was nothing.
I hear your mocking laugh in the shadows
And sometimes
I laugh with you
Whore
Sometimes I laugh with you
I’ve been walking the sleep for a very long time now. Slipping. In the fog. I snap to. Groggy. Angry.
Terrified but AWAKE.
I’m on the pier.
San Clemente.
I’m AWAKE and I’m on the pier. And it’s DAY.
She’s staring at me. Lovely brown eyes. Long and slender. Her sun dress blows in the ocean breeze. The ocean breaks behind her. Children laugh and the sun shines on her golden brown skin. She smiles at me behind her sunglasses.
I pull myself. I need to talk to her. She stays. I thought I was dreaming but she’s here now. And I’m awake. A
nd I need to talk to her.
“Why are you happy here?” I ask.
She smirks again and I feel myself waking. I’m waking. I’m clear.
“I’m sorry…I walk the sleep.”
She smirks but it isn’t mean.
“I know.” She says.
That voice. I know that voice. My heart is racing.
“Why don’t you?” I ask.
She smiles and looks at a little red headed girl tossing tortilla chips off the side of the pier. The chips catch air and spin as they descend to the currents. Little cornmeal helicopters in the sun. A seagull eagerly sucks them out of the water and throws his head back up in anticipation for the next. The little girl giggles. The woman giggles with her.
“You can hear me.”
She giggles again. The little girl runs down the pier. She is gone.
And she is turning
And walking.
And my heart aches.
And I cannot stand.
I crumble onto the bench
and watch the tortilla chips spin
and glide
and I feel something like hope
and it vanishes into the throat of the seagull
he sucks it up
and swallows it
She walks away. Down the pier and onto the beach. It is a beautiful summer day. But I am falling and slipping into NIGHT. I am slipping and falling deeply into the sleep.
And I will walk and I will wake again somewhere. I always hear the ravens coming. They want to peck at my soul and tear at the shards of my brain. They want to laugh at me, rip my hair, and pay me back. They are coming after me. They do not forgive. I hate them and they hate me. And I feel them watching me as I slip, slip, slip. Walk the sleep. Walk the sleep. A darkness is falling over me. A walking of darkness and despair. Descent into the abyss. I am falling.
To kill another person, even inadvertently, this is a horrible thing. Call it what you want. Manslaughter, accident… murder. I always come back to involuntary manslaughter through gross negligence….I read that. I have that blood and that soul on my hands. He would have been alive were it not for me. For my actions, for my stupidity. I robbed a man of his life. I robbed a family of their father. I robbed a mother of her son. I walk this curse. I haven’t seen him here. I look all the time but I never see him. I might never because I have no sense of him here either. Justifiably, I should never be able to seek his forgiveness. I should never be given recompense for my wrong. I see now that as I slip, I slip, I slip, that I am faceless and soulless as I walk the sleep. A thousand souls may cross my path. DAY. A thousand souls may cross my path. NIGHT but I don’t know in the sleep. I try harder not to walk it and I fall deeper and deeper into the NIGHT. I fall deeper into the sleep.