by Patti Abbott
THUGLIT
Issue Eight
Edited by Todd Robinson
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in the works are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
THUGLIT: Issue Eight
ISBN-13: 978-1493611171
ISBN-10: 1493611178
Stories by the authors: ©David A. Summers, ©Chad Dundas, ©Patti Abbott, ©Buster Willoughby, ©Isaac Kirkman, ©Caleb J. Ross, ©Nolan Knight, ©Mark Pruett
Published by THUGLIT Publishing
Cover design by BETH STEIDLE
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the Author(s).
Table of Contents
A Message from Big Daddy Thug
McFerrin and Black by Buster Willoughby
The Rightful King of Wrestling by Chad Dundas
The Higher the Heels by Patti Abbott
Cocaine Starlight by Isaac Kirkman
Three Days Ahead by Caleb J. Ross
Nothing To Lose by David A. Summers
Extras by Mark Pruett
Not Even a Mouse by Nolan Knight
Author Bios
A Message from Big Daddy Thug
Welcome back, Thugketeers! The summer's cooled off all right, and the season is a' changing. All the telltale signs are here. Crackhouses are taking down the storm windows. Orange and brown hues creep into the chalk outlines on the street.
But that chill you feel? That ain't fall, brothers and sisters. That chill is Thuglit Issue 8.
That sensation creeping into your bones might just be the cold, cold hearts doing their doings in this edition of your favorite magazine and mine. Seeping through the pages… Icing you to your very soul…
Or maybe you're dying of circulatory failure. Who the hell knows. The fuck I look like, Dr. Vinnie Boombatz?
IN THIS ISSUE OF THUGLIT:
— Competition in Hollywood can be murder.
— Art and the Hustle…or the Art of the Hustle.
— Old men bury secrets for a reason.
— He's just not that into you. (I can't believe I said that either…)
— Every scar has a story.
— Bet ya still got one last thing to lose…
— It's all fake…until it isn't.
— Silver and gold turns black and blue.
SEE YOU IN 60, FUCKOS!!!
Todd Robinson (Big Daddy Thug)
10/27/13
McFerrin and Black
by Buster Willoughby
It was a Thursday afternoon, many years back. Jack's pride was shining through his sneer like the bits of yellowed teeth between his chapped lips. "You see McFerrin's haircut?"
I lit my cigarette and looked away from that face I wanted to smash and across the courtyard to the old man with the off-center silver mohawk. He was running his bony hands along the red brick wall. "Yeah, you did that?" I asked.
"Yeah." Jack nodded toward my cigarettes so I held the pack out to him. "Old man needed a new look, you know? Got a light?"
Jack didn't have anything but the desire. He was one of those types that only wanted something when they saw someone else had it. Like a kid who didn't have a sibling until they were already ten years old. "Why did you take this job anyway?" I hadn't meant to make my animosity audible.
"I don't know," the hooks in the question caught on his ego, "they were hiring and I needed a job." He looked at the cigarette burning down between his fingers. There was a quiet moment, and then some part of him remembered how typical human interaction was supposed to work. "What about you, Malcolm? How did you end up here?"
"Working at the jail wasn't really…" I shrugged, "…I don't know, working. Just made me mad all the time." I noticed he was already bored with the conversation. "Just easier not to care working here, I guess."
He nodded along absently for a moment after I'd finished talking. As I started to roll my eyes and shake my head at his civil retardation, I noticed McFerrin starting to shrink away from the wall and groan. I took off across the courtyard as he started shouting at the retirement home. "Can't get me. In that wall," he latched onto my arm. "They're all coming to get me now," he sighed. "They won't get to it. Not in the walls," I marched his twisted and malnourished frame to the sidewalk and we made our way back into the Long Hollow retirement home.
"Mister McFerrin had a bit of an episode outside," I explained to Nurse Meka.
Her chubby face and big lips made an exaggerated frown at the old man, "Were you having a bad time?"
"I had some juice earlier." His sun-downing mind was just grasping for things to say. He'd already forgotten.
"Well, that's good. Juice is good for you." She smiled and made eye contact. I wondered if human beings lost the ability to detect acquiescence when they were senile. "Why don't you go sit down for a little while and play a game."
He kept nodding as I walked him over toward one of the empty round tables. "What game do you want?" I asked.
He mumbled and pointed toward the Connect Four box that had lost all of its contents long ago, "My little angels," he said, looking at the smiling children on the vintage box. I wondered how often the excited boy and girl visited their parents in the old folks home. "Aren't they precious? Those are my kids." McFerrin's cloudy eyes tried to focus on mine.
"So," Meka drug the vowel sound out as she moved toward me to sort of disarm the coming question, "Dad was wondering if you wanted to join us for dinner tonight."
"Oh," I tried to compose myself and let her down gently, "I don't know."
"It's not a big deal if you don't, but he was hoping he could talk with you."
"Well," I looked around for an excuse but only found Jack cocking his eyebrows and firing off a disgusting smile. "I mean, I guess."
"Great," her eyes got wide. "I'll let Mom know you're coming." Her thumbs started bouncing off her phone as she wrote to her mother. "She's making chocolate and peanut butter fudge." Meka and her mom both knew I had no resistance to the sweet stuff. What would've been a trump card if I'd insisted on staying home was now a reward for being sociable. "See you around six?"
"Sure," I nodded. "Six."
It was ten after when I knocked on the door. The cicadas were out and screaming their desperate mating song. A pair of squinting eyes behind correctional lenses opened the screen door. The soured face tried to smile but the sideburns and the mustache had a way of making everything look menacing. "There he is," he called out. "How you doing, Black?"
"Can't complain. How are you Sergeant?" I shook his hand and he brought me in close for a hug.
"I was doing better but I got over it." He let me go and waved me into the house. "How you liking the old folks home?"
"It's alright," I shrugged.
"Part of me wants you back at the jail but then I remember I'll be headed that way myself in a few years and I need someone I can trust on the inside." His joyless voice never hinted at a joke.
"You know I got your back, Schultz." I gave him a pat on the back and he smiled. A little.
"Malcolm," Mrs. Schultz came into the cigar-scented foyer and gave me a hug, "I'm glad you came."
"Well, thank you for inviting me." I was worried I might crush her small body if I squeezed too hard, so I gave her an awkward pat on her back.
"Get off the boy and let him come eat." My old sergeant barked orders at his wife like she was an employee at the jail. One of Meka's kids let out a shrill howl and the three of them came running into the small room. "Hey!" the old man put some bass in his voice and looked down at his bastard grandchildren. "Cut that shit out around the company."
After dinner the sergeant and I went out to the front porch. Steam rolled off the coffee Mrs. Schultz brought out to us. I waited for her to go back into the house before I lit my cigarette. Schultz bit the tip off of his cigar, put the shake tobacco between his gum and cheek, then lit his cigar. He let the porch swing take him back and forth a few times and then he spit into the yard. "Anything good going on at work?"
"Not really," I groaned. "McFerrin has been a handful lately."
Schultz's laugh started with a cough, "Cooky old bastard. His brother used to be Sheriff back when I was your age. Always been a weird guy. Touched, they used to say."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," he paused and cleared his nostrils with a quick and noisy breath, "seriously though, how are you liking it? I talked to the Captain. He said he could pull some strings and get you back on if you wanted. You could come in as a rehire and put your name in for promotion to patrol in January."
"I don't know." I took a drag on my cigarette to stall for time. "I miss having coworkers that were worth a damn but at least at the retirement home, if I have to wrestle somebody who shit themselves, I don't have to put up with a grown man with a healthy colon producing a full bowel movement."
Schultz smiled and shook his head. "Yeah, there's that, I guess."
"Captain really told you that, though?" I had to ask.
"He did." Sarge turned to face me. "Nobody blames you for what you did. We've all wanted to beat the hell out of somebody at one point or another and Carter's at the top of that list for a lot of people. You just shouldn't have drug his sorry ass out in front of them cameras." He pointed at me with his cigar. "Warden told us she could bring you back since the case was dropped."
"Having to put up with the retraining and all the questions and shit," I shook my head, "no thank you."
He let the swing rock him gently back and forth a few times and tried to think of something else to talk about. I knew he wanted to ask me about Meka but I was glad he didn't. "Yeah, old Hank McFerrin. Got into a shitload of trouble about something back when I was a kid. Sheriff's department just bulldozed the whole thing. Story I heard was he was holding onto some money for some characters that robbed a bank."
"No shit?" I tried thinking about McFerrin as a functionally retarded gangster instead of an old man with a mohawk. "Hard to imagine that."
"Yeah, he was playing the game back in them days." Schultz looked down at the paint peeling on his porch and tried to fill in the spaces in his memory. "I don't remember too much about it since I was just a pup back then. What I do remember was when we was teenagers and we'd break into his house after he'd cleared out—we were sure there had to be a stash of money in there somewhere."
"Ever find anything?" I lit another cigarette.
"Nah," he scoffed, "just a good place to drink and hide from the cops on the weekend."
"Nobody ever found anything?"
"Nope," he smiled. "One of those little pieces of the city's history kind of gets turned into an urban legend."
Meka's kids slammed the screen door as they ran out onto the front porch. The noise brought me back to the present day. The oldest kid started scolding the younger two for being in too big a hurry to come outside and give us the news. "Stop it! Mom told me to tell them." The little girl stomped her foot and waited for her little brother and sister to calm down. "Mom said that the fudge was ready and there was more coffee in the house."
"Well, that would be our cue to get in the house, I guess." Schultz and his swing groaned as he got up.
I gave it a few minutes and finished my cigarette. I stopped thinking about riches hidden away in an old man's basement and instead practiced my mental judo in case I had to deflect any awkward questions regarding Meka and myself. I smiled at Amber, the eldest daughter who was waiting patiently at the door for me. I thumped my cigarette out over the front yard and into the highway. She was a ninety-pound, blonde-headed, freckle-faced roadblock. "Finally," she exaggerated the word.
The next morning went by perfect. It was Friday and all the people on my wing of the home had pancakes for breakfast. After chow was served they all went back to bed and slept in until nine. I had time to walk the maintenance man around and fix leaky sinks and stopped up toilets. Trivial jobs that let me keep my mind occupied with happy thoughts. I dug up McFerrin's records and got his old address. Later, I took the geezers out into the courtyard so I could smoke a cigarette. They collected butterflies and filled the hummingbird feeders while I'll messed around with my phone and found a map with pictures of McFerrin's place. It was a generic two-bedroom but all I saw was a gold mine.
"What you doing?" Meka's voice took my by surprise.
"Nothing." I reflexively jerked my cell phone toward me. "What are you up to?"
"You don't have to hide it from me," she said, agitated.
"Wait, hide what from you?"
"You're talking to another girl." Her voice was hurt.
"What? No, I—"
"You could just tell me if you aren't interested in me," she said, her cheeks flushing.
"Meka—that's not it, I just…" I didn't know what to tell her. "It's complicated. You have kids."
"So?" She demanded an answer.
I tried to remember what line I had prepared for this situation. I couldn't find anything so I just went with blunt honesty and hoped that somehow it might defuse the situation. "I don't know anything about kids. I didn't really have parents growing up and I'm not trying to raise kids up to be like me. I don't make enough money to raise kids. Especially some other guy's kids." I hadn't meant to be so honest with that last part.
"Oh…" Her shoulders dropped but her eyebrows and her voice went up. Her mouth was hanging slightly open.
"Wait, I didn't mean—"
"Don't." She turned back and walked up the sidewalk toward the building. I thought about calling out to her but I couldn't leave the old folks unattended. Some of them were standing around and listening to our conversation. It might have been embarrassing if any of them had the mental capacity to remember anything for longer than a few minutes.
After I'd put them back in their dorm I found Jack and had him stand in for me at med pass. It wouldn't be long before the residents took their naps and I could go out and get some lunch. I manned Jack's post while he and Meka handed out medicine to my wing of the building. I took the opportunity to check on McFerrin. I found him by the window staring out at clouds. "How are you today, Mr. McFerrin?"
"Oh, I popped my knee again. It has a plate in it." He mumbled the last bit, so I stood there nodding until the sentence worked itself out in my brain.
"Why do you have a plate in your knee?"
"It got shot when I was young. Shotgun."
"Really?"
"Took it all away from them fellers and one shot me but I made out okay," he laughed.
"Took it all away? Where did you put it?" I asked.
"Inside that wall. That's why they try to come get me. Can't get out of the bricks." He was whispering so no one would hear.
"What's he keeping in the walls now?" Jack asked, suddenly next to us.
"Oh," I turned to face him but looked away so that I could lie, "he's just talking."
"Heard about your little spat out there with Meka." Jack jerked his thumb toward the courtyard. "Not your smoothest moment, I'm guessing."
"Yeah," I muttered mindlessly. "Hey, I'm going to go grab some lunch. I'll be back in a few."
As I drove through our little town I started to notice how little time had changed things. The buildings and the streets were unchanged since the days back when McFerrin was my age. The old advertisements still painted on th
e red brick buildings downtown. There had been a fire a few years before that had damaged the library. The city never got around to repairing it—but other than that, it was all same.
I came to a stop at the red light before the railroad tracks in front of the bank. Had that been the one? Had some old gangsters knocked it off with the Sheriff's brother—using him as an insurance policy in case they got busted? I watched the color drain away to the history of the town like an old black and white newspaper photo coming to life. I wondered if they planned the robbery so that the police station just a few blocks away would be cut off from the bank by one of the coal trains that divided the town back in those days. I laughed at myself in the rear view mirror. I'd wanted to be a lawman, but there I was glamorizing criminals.
I drove under the viaduct and into the cheap rent neighborhoods. I cruised past the old man's house. He'd never had kids so he still owned the place. The windows were smashed and the roof was caving in. No one bothered to keep up with it, since it'd be years before the banks could clear up the lease once McFerrin passed away. I wondered how many kids had gone treasure hunting in the derelict home—uncertain and gloomy futures looming over them like the desolate buildings just down the road. Somewhere in the dark corner of a leaky old basement there was a fortune waiting to be found and all those impoverished misgivings would go away forever.
I stopped by the steakhouse for lunch. I had a big cut of beef and a couple of cold beers. I lived like I'd pulled off that heist and fixed my own broken life.
When I got back to work, Meka went out of her way to make sure I knew she and Jack were hitting it off. Jack was leaning on the counter that separated him from the nurse's station. He gave me a subtle wave like he'd won some kind of prize from me. I smiled, and when I was out of their line of sight I shook my head with a laugh. I felt like the smartest guy in the room. I had a belly full of steak and beer. I was already on top of the world, and then two of my life's little satellite problems had gotten their orbits tangled up. They could spiral off together into some other distant corner of the galaxy and I wouldn't have to do anything but watch the a black hole form from a safe distance.