Hold It 'Til It Hurts

by T. Geronimo Johnson

  Pepper finally exited the car. Achilles preferred to think of him as the dealer. Achilles held his breath for two seconds as Dealer walked around the car, as if inspecting it for damage, gesturing wildly at Accomplice, who momentarily blocked Achilles’s views. Sweat stung his eyes, and he took several slow breaths to steady his hands, quickly rearranging himself, tying his shirt around his head to catch the sweat and adjusting the folded gym bag serving as a makeshift tripod. Dealer was now on the phone, pointing at Accomplice as if relaying a message. He smiled as he did this, his gold teeth glinting. How much had those cost?

  In one morgue, a dealer’s teeth had been yanked out after he was killed. He wondered if someone would lay claim to Pepper’s Devil Dog mouthpiece. The thought of putting someone else’s teeth in his mouth was disgusting, even if they were gold. Maybe they would be mounted like a trophy.

  They were now laughing, rapping together, bobbing their heads in harmony, more like friends than employee and employer. Now they leaned silently against the hood, side by side like old buddies. Dealer clapped Accomplice on the leg, saying something that made them both smile. Achilles heard the tap-tap-tap of his own feet against the unfinished plywood. We don’t get mad, we get down. Wiping his burning eyes, Achilles held his breath again for two seconds, and then two more, and then ten, but nothing banished the tremors that traveled from his hands up his arms, down his back and to his legs, or the shameful suspicion that it was tears, not sweat, burning his eyes. He willed himself to pull the trigger. It’s not like he didn’t know exactly what the result would look like.

  He had felt this way after turning a corner and coming face to face with a man holding an AK-47 in one hand and an infant in the other. Achilles had stepped back around the corner, rifle chest-high, and counted to ten. When he’d looked, they were gone, as was Pepper.

  A couple of hours before sunrise, when the streets were quiet, the Hummer gone, and his pants dry, Achilles snuck down to the apartment where they kept the dogs. The eye-watering stench explained why Cornelius lit a cigarette each time he entered the apartment and spat each time he left. Dog crates were stacked in the living room, two rows per side. It was an ugly apartment with exposed block walls and the cheap fixtures found in barracks. A mattress leaned against the wall in the bedroom. The bathroom was relatively clean, save for two dead puppies wrapped in plastic bags in the tub and fast food containers stacked neatly next to the toilet. Rusty surgical implements were piled on the kitchen counter: shears, scalpels, razorblades, a propane torch, a shoebox filled with alcohol and gauze. In the corner stood a short wooden sawhorse with heavy straps attached to each end and padding taped to the spine. At the far end of the counter: Troy’s rucksack, empty except for the remnants of his blue envelope.

  The pits were muzzled and in various stages of modification, some fully processed, others with only tails and ears clipped. A small white one appeared untouched, but when Achilles stepped closer, it hid its face in the back of the crate, revealing testicles bound in a leather strap. There were a few wretched mutts probably used as bait dogs. A terrier mix wagged his tail and followed Achilles’s every move, padding from side to side, panting. Eventually, she would be thrown into the ring with a new fighter to build his confidence. Janice’s brothers made good money from dogs. Pepper was diversified.

  Achilles freed the terrier mix first. It was a scrawny gray dog with big eyes like those greeting cards featuring bug-eyed puppies. He let a tawny pit bull puppy out of his cage and it bolted for the terrier, which ran back to her cage. The tawny puppy whined and pranced. The terrier ventured closer. Soon they were playing, skidding all over the linoleum. Achilles opened the cages one by one, hoping for more of the same, but the fighters herded all the bait dogs. The terrier, whimpering now, hid behind Achilles, and when he turned to looked at her, she pissed. An adult blue nose knocked into Achilles, growling, trying to get to the wide-eyed terrier. Achilles pulled the blue nose away from the bait dog and toward the door. The bait dog went back to playing with the tawny puppy. The blue nose slipped out of his grasp a few times, and every time it did, it ran after the bait dog. Finally, the bait dog retreated to its own cage, followed by the tawny puppy. Achilles ran down the blue nose and pulled it toward the door. It was anxious about going outside, and kept planting its feet firmly in the carpet.

  “There, there.” Achilles petted it between the shoulders. It was a regal, full-chested, bowlegged dog with a lustrous silver-gray coat. Achilles scratched it under the chin and tickled its thin pointy ears. Each time Achilles grazed the left ear, the dog sneezed and shook its head. When it was calm, Achilles straddled him. His heart knocked against its ribs and Achilles felt every breath on his thighs. Gripping the scruff of the neck, Achilles yanked him up on hind legs, took one of the razors, and stabbed the blade into the dog’s throat. He whimpered and twitched. Pinching the blunt end tightly between his thumb and two fingers, he drew the blade across the throat. The blade was not as sharp as he would have liked, and Achilles pushed hard to penetrate the hair and skin, thick as auto upholstery. It was like cutting leather with safety scissors, the line ragged and rough, more hacked than cut. The dog kicked and squirmed free, knocking the razor loose when Achilles was only half finished. The dog coughed through the wound, hyperventilating, its scrambling feet kicking the razor under the sawhorse as it ran for its cage. Achilles slipped in the blood as he yanked the dog out of the cage by the hind legs, half walking it, half dragging it to the kitchen, where the other instruments were. He finished with a straight razor. Throat clean open, it ran to the corner and dug its head into the carpet, legs running at full speed, like it could push itself through the wall. After half a minute, its legs slowed, then stopped, twitching only occasionally, like dogs did when dreaming. Achilles wouldn’t have believed so much blood was in a dog, or a person, if he hadn’t already known.

  The first was the hardest, and he didn’t do a good job, but he warmed to the task, as if someone he didn’t know had stepped out of the shadows and taken over while Achilles sat on the counter to take in the view.

  The other dogs were writhing over each other like maggots. He felt stronger, like he had absorbed their spirit. It was as if his entire body was expanding and contracting with their every inhalation. He selected the largest of the dogs, a pit-Rottweiler mix with short ears, a brown snout, and a black brow. To keep it still, he dragged it to the kitchen and used his knees to pin it against the cabinets. The dog shook its head wildly as Achilles plunged the blade into its throat and pushed through. It broke loose and ran into the bedroom, hiding between the mattress and the wall. Achilles tackled it. The dog turned over and scratched him. He was strong. Achilles tucked his head into his arm to protect his face and shoved the scalpel into its eye, up to the hilt. Warm urine and blood pooled at his feet and quickly soaked his shoes. It expelled its last breath and its head lolled to the side, the good eye following Achilles.

  The third was easier than the first; its skin was thinner. They wore fear and confusion like long overcoats restricting their movements, dragging behind them, tripping them up. Achilles’s every hair danced like an antenna. The air was water, each breath wind and wave. He felt their motion from across the room, sensed which way they would turn, where they would run.

  The fourth he barely saw, automatically squatting a little to drop his center of gravity so he could easily work his forearm under the neck, stabbing and cutting simultaneously, like slicing a tire. It struggled beneath him, the writhing between his legs no more than eddies in water, like he was standing in a river that would soon run dry. As it did, he lay it down gently.

  The fifth he chokes with his belt.

  He heard a noise in the hallway, stepped back into the shadow of the kitchen, and leveled the rifle at the door before realizing it was only children in a nearby apartment arguing. There was one adult fighter left, and Achilles had just grabbed it when the front door was kicked opened, and a high-pitched voice yelled, “Use the force, zigga!”


  A young boy stood in the threshold. Judging by his expression, he’d expected to find someone else in the apartment. He was little, no more than six or seven. He looked at the panting dog at Achilles’s feet, at the rifle, at the other dogs scattered around the room like soldiers dropped where shot. The kid might have felt the way Achilles did when they stormed the Al-Jok stronghold to find it silent, save for the flies, and empty, save for the scores of corpses scattered in the courtyard, like a scourge had run through, like God had delivered some old-time religion, as Jackson put it. That was his saying when someone was dying for a bullet: they were itching for a switching or praying for some old-time religion.

  “Where’s Cornelius?” asked the kid. “I thought I heard shots.”

  “He’ll be right back.”

  “They sick?” asked the kid.

  Their eyes met. Achilles nodded “Real sick.”

  “All of ’em?”

  “No.” Achilles pointed to the bait dogs and the three pit bull puppies, and a dog he hadn’t noticed, the same brindle he’d seen the white kid in the hooded sweatshirt walking a few days back. He picked up the tawny puppy and fondled its ears. “These ones are okay. In fact, they’re going out for a break. You wanna help?”

  The boy nodded. “This is like a war movie.”

  “Right. Do you want to be in it? Can you be my lookout?” asked Achilles, hoping to keep the kid close until he left.

  “For ten dollars.”

  A rectangular bulge pressed through the kid’s front pocket. “Are those cigarettes?” asked Achilles.

  “One dollar,” said the kid.

  They smoked, the kid taking surprisingly deep drags, Achilles looking at the carnage, wondering if he could add two more bodies to the pile. After stubbing out the cigarette, Achilles opened the bedroom window and gently dropped the remaining dogs outside. When they were done, he paid the kid an extra fifteen dollars for what remained of the cigarettes, because kids shouldn’t be smoking. The kid thanked him. “Now I can buy three packs.”

  He considered snatching the money back, but there was no point. He put his backpack into Troy’s rucksack, slipped the rucksack onto his back, and stepped out the window. Outside, the white kid in the black hoodie chased breathlessly after the dogs.

  On the way to his car, he passed the same prostitutes. They straightened up at his approach, walking tall, kicking their legs forward like swimmers leaning against the side of a pool. The fat one had thick lips and a tempting smile, an inviting moon face and rich brown skin the color of Naomi’s, skin you wanted to lick. Her full and snug breasts sat side by side instead of leaning out for air, but her belly was low and hard, like she was pregnant, too pregnant to fix it. As they passed, the thin one winked. Achilles turned in the trail of their perfume and slipped into a shadowy doorway to watch them. They paraded a few more steps before the thin one looked back and whispered to the pregnant one. They dropped their shoulders, shortening their stride, no longer high-stepping. The one with the belly put her hands to her back, kneading the area around her kidneys. She stepped gingerly. As they turned the corner, she cupped her hands under her belly and whistled. She was definitely too pregnant to fix it. Where would that kid end up?

  Back at the hotel he showered, washing the blood off his face and chest and hands and wrapping clean socks around the cuts he hadn’t noticed at the time, the scratches on his hands and arms, the gouge above his eye. He looked almost as bad as the night Bethany tended to him. He slipped into bed, Ines turning at his touch, pressing into him. He gently pushed her onto her stomach, lifting her ass as he straddled her. He emptied the tube of hotel lotion on his dick, spread her cheeks, and plunged into her ass. She tried to pull away. “Why didn’t you warn me!”

  Sammy flopped in his bed. She switched to a hushed tone.

  He slipped his arm around her neck. “Don’t fucking move.” He worked his way in deeper, his dick growing harder every time she flinched. “Tell me you like it.”

  She mumbled and bit his arm. He tightened his grip on her neck, pinching the skin in the crook of his arm. “Tell me you like it.”

  She started breathing slower and deeper, her ass relaxing.

  “Tell me you like it.”

  “I love it.”

  The dogs run through his head. Ines bucks back, pressing the top of her head into his neck, her body rippling beneath him, her legs kicking out as she collapses onto her belly. He yanks her hair like a bridle, jerking the reins of the chariot, pulling until her back is arched and her tits jet out like the figurehead of a ship. She snorts, sharp exhalations in short breaths.

  “Harder!” she breathes. “Harder! Faster! Faster! Faster!”

  The more she says “Faster!” the less excited he becomes, rushing to finish, pace quickening, his eventual grunt of relief lost in the clapping breasts. He collapses. Every time he thinks he’s pushing through a wall, he’s tumbling over a cliff, like that last kid in the music video.

  “Is that it?” she asked. He clasped his hands together to keep from punching her.

  After sex, she usually lay on her side and pressed her cold feet to his warm belly, and he rubbed them. He reached for her feet, and she jerked away.

  As she turned over, she asked, “What happened to your face?”

  “I was mugged.”

  She sniffed. “By a pack of cigarettes?”

  Let her leave. Why was he ever worried about her? He went to the bathroom for a wad of tissue to wipe the shit off of his dick. He hadn’t felt a thing at the time, but saw that his face was scratched much worse than it was at the camelback. Bethany would have taken care of him. The mirror framed a slice of Ines, glowing under the hot blade from the vanity bulbs. She had gained weight, and the freckles made her skin look splotchy in some areas. In others, he wasn’t sure if it was pimples or freckles he saw. She was a stranger to him, which made him feel a stranger to himself, like he was scattering, becoming smoke, like he needed her to touch him all over to reconnect the parts, to make sure he was all there. He needed a message; she would agree. But he couldn’t ask. It’s easy to take what’s wanted, not ask for what’s needed. Sammy was snoring, a million miles away. A bomb could hit, catching them all in this dream. They’d never know.

  CHAPTER 18

  IN THE FIFTH-GRADE PRODUCTION OF BILLY GOATS GRUFF, ACHILLES WAS CAST as the troll, a role Troy reprised two years later. On the opening night, nervous Achilles forgot his lines. The stage manager whispered them from the wings, but Achilles couldn’t hear under the green wig, so he edged closer to her, and in doing so upset the bridge and the kid playing the youngest goat. After the show, his mother said, “You’re too handsome to be under a bridge anyway.” His father said, “Son, you were great. So you made a little mistake. That happens to everybody. When you make a mistake, you have two choices. You can ignore it and go on with your life. Or, you can acknowledge it and go on with your life. So what if a whiny little goat falls off a paper mâché bridge? Sometimes the screw-up is the best part of the show.”

  But his father never explained what to do if the screw-up hurt somebody, and the shit floated downstream, which Achilles feared was the case the next morning. For a long time he lay under the covers listening to Ines snap at Sammy. Ines’s walk held the key to her mood. Her steps were slow, heavy, dragging: announcing anger, disappointment, and hunger.

  Next thing he knew, he heard a yelp and peeked out to see Ines shaking Sammy by the hair. Sammy was yelling about a Mrs. Babcock. Ines screamed, “No one volunteered for this! In elementary school, no one said they wanted to be homeless or on crunch or stuck on a fucking bridge to die of dehydration!”

  Ines jerked Sammy with each word she yelled. The drapes were twisted around her arms, and as she shook him the curtain rod quivered and finally collapsed, flooding the room with light and silhouetting them against the window like paper dolls. Sammy had one hand to his neck and the other on Ines’s arm. She slapped him four times in quick succession before pushing him to the floor. Sammy
emitted one high-pitched squeal, hugged his knees to his chest, and rocked back and forth, whistling like a teakettle.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Ines kept saying, dropping to her knees and reaching out to Sammy, who scurried away, squeezing himself between the chair and the wall as swiftly as a salamander. He started babbling. When she reached for him again, he squealed like a gerbil; this time so loud and sustained that Achilles had to cover his ears and the guests in the room next door stumbled out to the hall, mistaking the sound for a smoke alarm.

  Ines was crying silently, mouth open, body heaving, gasping for air. A string of saliva ran between her lips as she pointed to the television. On the screen, images of New Orleans underwater flashed by. People stood atop the arches of undulating highways rising from the murky waters like the humps of mythical beasts. Achilles held Ines until her breathing steadied. With his other hand, he rubbed Sammy’s neck and back while Sammy rocked back and forth chanting, “It’s O.K. Mommy’s here. Come to Mommy. It’s O.K. Mommy’s here. Come to Mommy. It’s O.K. …”

  Sammy peeked out from behind the chair and Ines turned away, motioning for Achilles to do the same thing. Ines and Achilles remained facing away from Sammy for fifteen minutes, silent, until Sammy fully emerged and climbed into bed.

  Achilles helped Ines up to the chair and kneeled at her feet. He took off his shirt and wiped her tears. “What happened?”

  “The news. It’s terrible, Achilles. Bodies are floating down the street. People are stranded. And Sammy said, ‘They were warned. Sometimes people are in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ Apparently it’s something his teacher, Mrs. Babcock, said. I lost it. Maybe you can talk to him when he wakes up. He’s always hearing it from me. He should hear something positive from a black male.”

  It was late afternoon, the streets quiet, as if all Atlanta were inside watching storm coverage. Sammy had slept for three hours, which Ines explained was normal after an attack. Until that afternoon, Achilles hadn’t believed that Asperger’s was real. He assumed it was like ADD, that Sammy needed a father to kick his ass. But the distant gaze and eerie tone when mimicking his mother had convinced Achilles otherwise.