Mama Tried (Crime Fiction Inspired By Outlaw Country Music Book 1)

by J. L. Abramo

  I walk, feeling how my walking was gettin’ off rhythm. You know how when you was a baby and learned how to put one foot in front of the other and you’ve used that skill without thinkin’ about it for the rest of your life? I noticed strollin’ through the two yards I gotta go through that mine—wherever my old brain stored that rhythm—is dyin’ off just a tad. Like, if it were a long math problem where the equal sign pointed to walk straight and good, now I’m missin’ a plus sign in there somewhere.

  McCray’s driveway is empty. I’d rather see Riggs’ wheels sittin’ there, runnin’ on idle like he always does. Seems the dude has an allergy against turnin’ off his truck. Just lets it rumble in lots and driveways as he goes inside to conduct his business. But it ain’t there, and that ain’t a good sign for me.

  On the front porch and I can hear voices inside. I knock twice, just the way Riggs does. The door swings open and it’s my lucky day. McCray standin’ there, wife beater and jeans, his long hair tucked back behind his ears like he was some porn star givin’ a blow job and wanted to make sure the camera can see his face.

  “You—ahhhh...” he says, staring at the left side of my swollen head.

  “McCray,” I say. “Riggs around?” And I swing that boot knife right up under McCray’s chin and it don’t stop until it hits the top of the inside of his skull. He twitches but I shove him inside as I yank the pistol out from his waistband. His is the third man’s blood on that blade.

  In the front door and two dudes I ain’t never seen before are on the couch, sharing a joint. They got two fresh beer bottles on the end table in front of them. Point and shoot, point and shoot and two blasts kick them boys back into the sofa. Blood and whining. I shake McCray’s twitchin’ face offa my knife and his skin slides down the blade. He rolls off and I step over him, mindful of how I ain’t steppin’ quite as good as I was. Glad to see I still got my hands.

  Darlene shoots out from around the corner, her sawed-off 12-gauge starin’ me down. “My livin’ room look like some card game to you, you turncoat fuck?” she asks, violence in her tone.

  “Nah,” I say, lumber forward. Them beers look good right about now. “Lookin’ for Riggs is all.”

  Darlene freezes, lookin’ at my face. She musta been in the kitchen when I knocked on the door. The gruff shouts of men dyin’ and the gun shots somethin’ she prayed to avoid but knew would come to her living room one day. Figured she’d go out fightin’. But now, seein’ a man she recognizes, as fucked up as I am, she don’t know what to do.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, nudgin’ the sawed-off at me. Pointing.

  I pick up a beer, swig it long and slow. I feel the booze work around in my mouth and mostly spill out the side. The gunshot numbed that whole half of my face. Hard to drink beer that way.

  “I picked my daughter over Riggs. He executed me and now is goin’ after her. I was hopin’ he was here.”

  Darlene, one of the crew just like I was until the card game, she knows the life. Our life. Crossin’ Riggs was at best, death. At worst, war. I chose war by not dyin’.

  “Yeah, I guess he hinted around to all that over the past few days,” Darlene said, lowering the gun.

  “Thanks for the head’s up.”

  “I got nowhere to go. I ain’t choosin’ against Riggs. I can’t win,” she said.

  “I know.” I finish the beer, best I can. “Know where he is?”

  Darlene looks at me with those unremarkable brown eyes she has, and scrunches those heavy brown eyebrows she has. Right here and now I can see if she had a little different upbringing, she’d never walked our path. Settled for a matchbox house that Riggs used to shelter and move dope. She’s pretty in a way. Condemned to this life instead. Choices. We all make ’em. We all pay for ’em.

  Finally she speaks. “I think...I think he started his rounds over.”

  “So he’s over at Fat Cat’s?”

  She looks at her dirty carpet. “That’s where I always knew him to start, yeah.”

  “Thanks, Darlene.” I turn around shamble a few steps, then stop. Over my shoulder I say, “If I botch this and he comes here, you just say you hid in the kitchen while I whacked these fools and McCray talked. Not you. Got it?”

  “It’ll have to do.”

  Out the door and I do my crazy man shuffle to the cul-de-sac.

  “This is as far as I’m willin’ to go, paid or not, just to be up front about it,” Tony says. His tone’s like what I’d expect a man to use when he’s leaving the mother of his children and expects her not to bug him for help.

  “I’m glad you drove me this far,” I say. I’m about tired of watching the haggard world pass by through these finger-smudged windows anyhow. I stick my hand into my jacket pocket gain and feel it start to tremble like electricity’s starting at my elbow and sparking at my fingertips. I don’t like that. Harder to shoot well. Behind my eye I got shooting pains and a pulsing sensation. My mouth’s gotten dry. Tacky, wanna-close-your-throat-off dry. “I don’t think I gotta ’nother trip in me anyhow.”

  “Get out quick, okay?” Tony says as he pulls right up in front of Fat Cat’s house where Riggs’ wheels are parked. In my pocket I pinched the two last bills—both sporting Mr. Franklin on them—and toss ’em up front with the others. It bothers me to watch how my arm warbles as it moves. No good.

  I step out. Tony’s quiet. So am I. No need for last words. Parkin’ this close is goodbye enough on his part; two hundred dollars in exchange for risking his life was mine. My feet on the driveway and Tony’s nearly to the next block. I didn’t notice ’til now but he doused his lights at some point.

  Riggs’ wheels—a souped up two-door truck with the flashy paint and chrome add-ons—is idlin’ in the driveway. Idiot. Five-gallon can of gas in the bed amongst trash.

  I touch it, try to wiggle it. It don’t want to. Full. I hear that voice right then. His voice. I try to duck, don’t do it very coordinated. Hit my head on his wheel well and jiggle that bullet in there. It sends a surge of agony down my spine and I can feel it trace out along all the nerves branching off, hitting every fiber of what God stitched me together with. I want to cry, but my eye is too mangled up to make a tear. I piss myself, though. Can’t have shame when you’re walkin’ around with your brains for the world to see.

  Fat Cat’s back door, some cheap metal screen door, slams shut. Fat Cat and Riggs outside. When they smoke rock they go outside. Fat Cat lives with his grandma and that woman straight up calls the cops when he smokes cigarettes in the house. She don’t care that he sells dope for Riggs out of her house, but she’ll be damned if he smokes anything inside. People are the strangest.

  I get an idea.

  I managed to slowly, steadily walk my way along the side yard, still hearing Riggs and Fat Cat make their slow, crackling inhales as they smoke up.

  That lighter poised under the spoon, staying lit to melt the rock. Me trying very hard to not spill as I round the corner. Inch by inch. There they are, one guy smoking and the other guy stuffing his hands in his pockets in the cold.

  My vision’s gone real bad, but I think I got it. I wait until one silhouette passed off the spoon to the other. I figure the other’s gotta be Riggs, and before anything can foil my dumbass plan I move.

  Life freezes in time. Both dudes stare at me, not moving an inch but realizing what’s happening. Maybe it’s that Riggs sees me and knows he shot me dead a few hours ago. Maybe Fat Cat does the same. Maybe it’s the empty one liter soda bottle I pulled out of the trash in Riggs’ truck bed, cut off the top and filled with gasoline.

  Maybe it’s when I toss that whole bit at them.

  Only problem is I don’t see the gun come out of Riggs’ coat pocket. His hands are free. Fat Cat is smoking, that big, bright lighter still sparking under the spoon. Just as all that gasoline splashes Fat Cat and makes out with his fire, Riggs yanks that trigger. A bunch.

  The world gets warmer as Fat Cat torches up. My guts get warmer as bullets pass through
them. Fat Cat screams and scrambles, a burst of oranges and reds engulfing his chest and face, him hitting Riggs and they both fall over.

  Riggs hollers frantically, trying to roll the burning guy who has earned his plump nickname off him. I collapsed. A different kind of fire in my belly. Whatever time I had left just got cut down to a few minutes. I can feel the loose blood filling my guts, swelling. I have a wild fantasy about kissing Emilina’s forehead one more time. The damage to my brain probably helps me think it was decent idea to begin with. But I have it anyways. My lips caressing her gentle skin, that bit of love that goes between her and me when I do. Never said I deserved her. I don’t. But I got her. I want to kiss her again. I wanted that one more time. Maybe before I go to hell, God will let my soul kiss her.

  “Fuck you,” Riggs says. I lean over to where I can see him. Fat Cat ain’t movin’. He’s still on fire just enough to keep Riggs warm through the night, but his bulky ass ain’t goin’ offa Riggs. Some crackles like the crisp skin on a burnt hog. The smell is bad. Meat and burnt fabric. Glad I’m over here.

  “Pinned?” I ask.

  “You better hope you’re dead before I get up from under here, you piece of shit.”

  “That’s the Riggs I know.”

  He squirms and tries to roll. Burns himself on Fat Cat’s smoldering coat. Shouts a bunch of swears. Settles down, lying on his back with a dead man on top of him like they was forming a cross.

  “How’d you live?” he asked, out of breath. “I saw your brains fly out when I shot you.”

  I try to laugh. It don’t sound good. “Not enough, I guess.”

  “You’re dead now.”

  “Yeah. But Emilina is goin’ be okay.”

  Riggs laughs. “You think I’m goin’ die here too? Bullshit. And when I get up here in just a minute, I’m goin’ tell McCray he doesn’t need to kill that tard daughter of yours anymore. I’m goin’ do it myself.”

  “You told McCray to do it? It was his gig?”

  “McCray wanted it,” Riggs said. “Wanted to prove he could take your place in the organization.”

  Now I laugh for real. I can’t describe the relief. It gives me strength and I wiggle around the corner of the house just enough to grab the stuff I stashed there.

  “McCray ain’t gonna be much good to you now, Riggs.”

  “Why is that?” he asks, scooting enough of Fat Cat around to add a strong drop of boldness to his voice.

  “Same reason you ain’t gonna touch my little baby.” I get up on an elbow, ignoring how my vision had dimmed down to a pinpoint and I can’t get enough air anymore.

  “Tard baby.”

  “Babies are babies. They’re wonderful. Emilina is wonderful. She’s perfect.” And I use every last ounce of my life to throw the rest of that five gallon gasoline can at Riggs. The nozzle off, fuel spilling everywhere as it closes the gap.

  Riggs starts to say something as that liquid heat splashes across his face, his eyes. In his mouth. Some bit of it somewhere touches the remaining fire on Fat Cat and that paints a line to the rest and with a whoommffttt Riggs is screaming and whipping around and beginning consumed in a blanket of flame.

  “I’ll be damned if that don’t do it,” I say. I fall back. Let Riggs lay to rest in his own grave. I ease down into the cold, bitter dirt of Fat Cat’s backyard and think about my perfect baby and hope she’ll get something better than me when I’m gone.

  I hear the sirens coming, and they follow me down into my resting place as I go.

  Back to TOC

  COPPERHEAD ROAD

  Ken Lizzi

  “Well, ain’t that some shit,” Earl Stevens said to no one. He clicked off the TV news, the anchor silenced in mid-sentence after delivering the disconcerting report.

  “Legal? Fuck me.” Earl digested that, easing back into the creaking leather of his dad’s old recliner. Oregon voters had legalized marijuana. What was a pot grower to do? A conundrum. One probably best tackled with a bit of herbal assistance.

  He worked his way noisily from the depths of the recliner, fixing to roll one. He paced through the wood-paneled living room, past the wet bar that retained his dad’s shrine to Rainier, Oly, and Henry Weinhard’s, and across the swept clean, but dingy linoleum of the kitchen. Earl had almost reached the basement door when he heard the gunshots.

  Earl flung himself down, sliding along the floor atop an oval rag rug. The basement door brought him up short.

  “Shit,” he said, disgusted with himself. It was only pistol fire from somewhere. He wasn’t taking incoming from jihadists in Ramadi. Probably one of the neighbors breaking in a handgun. “Get a grip, Earl.”

  He made his way back to the living room and out the front door. Don’t be a pussy. Scared of something? Face it like you’ve got a pair in your Levis. What his old man would have told him. And hell, he wasn’t scared. Reflex was all. Get shot at enough, you learn to duck.

  Earl left the white-washed house of clapboard and river rock his great grandfather had built in the early 1900s. A long gravel drive led out to the mailbox along Aldershot Road. The gunshots, still popping off in ones and twos, came from Earl’s left. The Mikovsky place.

  Bud Mikovsky and Elvin Stevens had been old, on-again off-again friends as long as Earl could remember. They’d be drinking buddies for months on end, then Bud would discover a few of Elvin’s plants on his land, hidden beneath a trellis of hop vines. Bud would come over and bitch out Elvin, not talk to him for weeks. But he’d never call the cops. Elvin would shrug, explain later to Earl as how copper choppers couldn’t spot the pot beneath the hops, and point out how the two plants were actually related. Bud and Elvin were on good terms when the emphysema gummed up Elvin’s lungs permanently, sent him to meet the previous Stevens generations, the old man fear-eyed and clawing uselessly at his chest while Earl watched helplessly, pressing the call-nurse button and yelling for help.

  Elvin’s on-again-off-again friendship with Bud was a pattern he’d repeated with Earl’s mom, Stacy. The two fought and separated as often as they made up and cohabited. The final separation occurred when Stacy took up with a Hell’s Angel for what would probably have only been a fling had the biker not ridden his Harley Davidson into an oncoming log truck while Stacy sat helplessly behind him. Bud had been there to provide what clumsy, stoic comfort he could to both Elvin and Earl. Earl owed him for that. Always would.

  Earl hiked through the ankle high fescue of his front lawn, cutting across to the Mikovsky place, toward the sound of gunfire. Faster than going out to the road then over to Mikovsky’s driveway. Not a long walk, really, but it would add a couple more minutes. Not that he was in any hurry. Earl remembered hiking out to Aldershot Road to join his old man at their roadside fruit stand, Elvin Stevens half-stoned, taking the occasional surreptitious toke while he waited for a carload of day-trippers from Portland to drive by. Earl liked to think of him that way, content, maybe even happy. Would that make him happy as well?

  He wondered if Elvin’s death had triggered fears of mortality in Bud Mikovsky. Mikovsky had changed, no question. He’d sold off the hops entirely, moving on to chicken farming, then trying his hand at raising rabbits for the pot. Like he was trying to find something easier to do, but unwilling to cash in his chips and retire. Despite knowing there ain’t nothing easy about farming or ranching. His latest project was alpacas. And heavy drinking. He was doing better at one than the other.

  Earl felt a twinge of guilt. He’d not been over to see Mr. Mikovsky in weeks, the stench of despair coming off the man pushing him close to his own bout of depression. That slick-walled, grim pit lay too near as it was, his discharge and his dad’s death following one after the other, leaving Earl at loose ends. Easy to misstep and fall right in with nothing to occupy the mind but memories. And the recent ones mostly bad.

  A closely spaced rank of hemlock trees marked the property line. Earl could smell the tang of gunpowder and hear the pop-pop of side arms. He heard laughter as well, raucous, male.
And something else. A mewling. Extended “emmmm’s,” like children crying.

  He crouched, duck-walked to the tree line. He thrust his head between two hemlock trunks, keeping beneath the lowest boughs. A half-dozen men leaned against the cheap wire fencing—a bare step above chicken wire—that Bud Mikovsky used to corral his alpacas. The men dressed alike, in a sort of uniform of filthy denim jeans and dark brown leather vests adorned with some insignia Earl couldn’t make out. Most had a pistol in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other.

  Small, crumpled, furry heaps interrupted the clean swath of close-cropped grass within the corral. A couple of the heaps still thrashed about, emitting piteous bleats. Three alpaca remained on their feet, darting about the confines of the corral while tufts of grass erupted around them from missed shots. Two of these were already bleeding, dark red staining the cream-white of their fleece.

  “Motherfuckers,” Earl muttered. He looked about for Bud, didn’t see him. Lights were on in the house, but that told him nothing. A section of Mikovsky’s drive was visible past the corner of the house. Earl saw a pair of motorcycles, and what could be part of a third. Hogs, not rice racers.

  Another alpaca went down on its back, legs kicking, still crying that almost human “emmmm.”

  “Motherfuckers,” Earl said again.

  “You think you’re getting another fucking beer, think again,” Charlene said. “Keep up your bitching, see if that’s gonna help.” She wrinkled her nose. “Fuck, you smell like piss.”

  Bud Mikovsky sat in a recliner, his arms and legs duct-taped to the plaid fabric upholstery, the seat cushion urine saturated. A hard-plastic baseball hat fitted with cup holders on either side rested on his head, two empty beer cans in each, flexible rubber straws swaying against Mikovsky’s unshaven jowls. The chair faced the television in the corner. The remote control lay on the floor by the recliner where it had slipped from Mikovsky’s hand earlier that afternoon.