by Jane Brooke
Onetta feeling her teeth chattering, watches, thinks.
Ten years of Shakespeare, Miller, art lessons, the horses at Tony’s Jersey Estate, cats, dogs, ‘The Fat Man’ had spoiled her rotten, anything and everything she ever wanted, except her love. French, Italian, even Jap language lessons, poetry this, writers that, painters, dragged to museums, Europe, poor fucking Tony, the bitch broke his balls and his wallet. Then sculpturing tutors, music teachers, on and on and on about some freak named Proust. Onetta has had enough. Get the fuck out of here you crazy whore and never come back.
She wants to shriek, she does not.
She’d rather deal with The Fat Man. The fact that he will probably murder her, cut her tits off, her fingers and toes too, set Bobby Ugo and Dim Dim on her, she cringes thinking about those two monsters. At least Dim Dim keeps his yap shut; at least he’s fucking predictable.
Mandal grifts through her grifter ABC play book. She checks everything twice.
She nods her head, reaches into a drawer, with draws a short barrel Smith&Wesson 44 magnum hand gun. Grabs a box of bullets, winks at Onetta again and slots them in the bag next to her snub nose, private catholic girl 38.
Picking up a floppy hat, she dons sun glasses, leers into the floor mirror. She looks like a fucking Betty Crocker Homicidal killer just let loose from some freak show prime time soap. Nothing she can do can hide her astounding beauty, but it’s an attempt, a good start. She’s so manic her head seems to be boiling and in her mind she looks like she’s a girl going on vacation.
She may be right, a one way ticket to the jaws of a car compactor in an automobile grave yard in Perth Amboy, but she doesn’t think like that.
She’s just a smart kid again, flipping off the nuns, running away from a girl’s school again. What can be the harm in that?
Her brilliant bean is spinning, she is so ready. Grabbing her single black leather valise, she turns, winks at Onetta, purrs. “Good bye Mother, later.”
Two steps, three, four she is out the door.
Onetta fumbles with her cigarette with shaking hands. After a moment of pure will power fueled by fear, she stands, weaves, moves to the window facing the alley down below. Time passes and her heart is pounding, entire body vibrating. She sees her girl, down in the alley now strolling past a dumpster. It makes her cringe. She is positive it will soon be her coffin, disguised as a dumpster.
At a T in the alley the pure predator hesitates, looks this way and that, lights a cigarette and, then is gone into the shadows.
Instantly Onetta crumbles to the floor, weeping, satiated by terror, she vomits. On hands, knees she gawks at the filth that she has only ever known. On a clock face of a life that is numberless, she stands, feels her legs buckle, and presses her hands again the window for support, feel’s hot urine spilling down her thighs.
Nothing to do now except to buckle up, return to her world of problem solver for some of the most fucked up girls in the world. Turning, she moves across the room, out the door, gingerly closing it behind her. She hopes that it is a seal from the eclectic dangerous girl, one she hopes will never be ripped open again.
Unfortunately for her, she forgets that some doors needed to be nail gunned shut. Especially when the gal who just walked through it was the ex whore girlfriend of one of the most dangerous and horrible men on the planet.
Inferno Flats
Texas
THE Indian’s, respected spirits, visions, water, earth and especially their Shamans. Carved, painted Totems, rugs woven of images of their Gods seemingly were everywhere in their pasts and present. Tribes still existed in the Texas desert, mostly modernized, living in poverty. Many were plagued with drugs, alcohol, obesity, sickness, a semi dead tribal welfare system of The Reservation that had raped the Indian Lands, hardly ever remembered any longer by them.
Embedded in their religious and historical DNA, myth, tales, stories, mysticism still lived. Replacing that which surrounded the Indians lives through their lore, was like trying to trade a man’s heart for his blood. One could not survive without the other.
Wild mood swings were the deserts way. One hundred and fifteen degrees in the day, flat dead zero in the night. Winds, thermals, magic and acrid sands made up the rest of it and no one could live in this world; but some Indians did, the old way.
An Apache tribe, mostly of young men and women had drifted out of Arizona decades earlier, shunning the lure of Casino Gambling, and other modern dehumanizing ways. They had opted for a Texas desert, no one wanted.
Deep in the sands of heat, their lives became one with water, spirits, totems, peyote, the wind, horses and of course the land. They also had great wonder for what they could not understand. Thus, their respect and love for a creature, a man really; they were never really clear what he was.
Thus, they had given him the name of ‘Face of Fire’. He was a spirit man, who-road the great black pony, an odd man, of an appearance only Shamans ever held. Fear, in time, had been replaced by awe and understanding of his words.
He became their Shaman, teaching them pride, educating them, counseling them in self-sufficiency of gardens, fish ponds, agriculture, and how to abort the fetal cord from the white man. They had grown to love him for it. He had told them that once his skin had been the color of the bone. Through fate, that had changed and he had become better for it.
A Master of horse, he raced at night when the desert heat could not harm his skin. He rode the arroyos, plains, near the high peaks and, then down into the gullies and the water caves where his skin might cool in the pools from the pain he lived within.
‘Face of Fire’ had arrived long ago within their story. He had been a soldier once, but no longer, though he held the way of the warrior in his soul. The Apache, the young ones had forgotten so much. His black horse, knowledge, words at fist frightened them. Then the moon and her sisters the stars aligned and trust was built as the star light of their ancestors made his word evident and, they had changed.
Often, they watched in quiet, as he rested in solitude, wrote, slept under the water caves that they only knew of.
Decades earlier, the elders had approached him.
At first glance they had known that there was no other like him. In time, as he whispered to them in his gravel voice of the dream world, he taught them of bow, knife, and horse and of course the balance between man and nature.
No Indian had ever seen him within the day light hours and of course every one of them knew why. As whispers traced the burnt skies, 30 years passed, and he became as one with them, yet elevated by them as Shaman. He had changed their lives forever,and now they prospered in simplicity, and to a man, women and child, they would die for him, if need be.
IT IS night, the Moon stark, full, cloudless, a billion stars crush the black sky. The magnificent onyx stallion is crazed. It has abandoned fear as his rider, black cloak streaming in ice crystals of night behind them races along the bank of sand dunes, those that edge the cliffs housing the rain pools.
AT the top, near the cliffs edge, the stallion gulps air, steam blowing from his nostrils, saliva dripping from his snout, chest heaving, as is his masters. The moon illuminates the plateaus. It is a vista locked of mystery, secrets few might ever understand and even fewer might ever live within.
The man, struggling to capture breath realizes that he, as the desert is a vibrant, a living, breathing and thriving organism, only appearing to be a monster like him, yet inside he is a living and vibrant human rift with passion. He understands that as the desert, he is the heat.
His image reflects the vacuous world of cosmetic beauty that the desert will never be, much like he. He understands that he is a painting never started. A statue never touched; a being never loved. A man never cherished. Not for the last time he screams inside for the simple touch of another human being.
His head tilts. From the d
istance he hears the coyotes begging at the moon, the loneliness of their pleas for love strike dread into his poet’s heart. He begins to whisper, glove hand woven in his horses mane.
“The monster slithered within the and about the face of the earth. One moment the beast, then as quickly a child of awe of what God had made and what God had lost among the memories of his reflection in the water pools. A creature of tears, of love, strife and death, metal molten dripping from his heart as mirrors crack, splinter and shatter from his simple glance. He had dies once, and now again he would die alone.”
His gravelly voice soothes from its tremors, it calms his great horse. He reaches down and with leather gloved hand thumps his black friend on his muscled neck. Whispering through a voice as hard and as coarse as Carbon crushed by a billion years of time, he says. “Come Warrior; let us find the pools.”
The stallion, loving his master’s shredded words rips his head up and down in agreement. The man giggles, sitting on the Indian blanket draped across his stallions haunch.
The reigns now, he thuds his moccasins into his ribs. Tight to the leather he smiles as the obsidian runner gallops down the hill, hits the arroyos, and under the heading of the stars he moves towards the ridges where the cold pools are sunk within caves dredged beneath them.
Soon they will be hidden from the world, a complicated globe of creatures he never wished to be a part of to begin with. Even sooner, his life will change and within that moment he will find his dreams and again death will find him as if it had never left at all.
The Get-Go
AT 4 AM the Greyhound bus had diesled out of Atlantic City. Hours passed, night faded as morning winked in. The bus wings it way past Philly, next stop, York, PA. Rain had come, gone away; sitting in the back of the Bus is a solitary figure.
Scattered in the liner a soldier sleeps, a young couple, runaways, clutching hands. A rural farmer and his wife try to sleep, find it difficult for headlights from semis and cars keep illuminating their worn faces.
Bus travel, busted dreams, the bottom rung in people movement, last ditch ride for the undercarriage of American society. It is the reason Mandel has opted for it. Grinding headlights in her face, shadows return. She lights a cigarette, revolves her Zippo in her hand, trucks pass, more shadows join her. She is a shadow, or so she hopes.
Men will be looking for her, Bobby Ugo, the sadist Bobby, Toni’s number #1 and the hulking Dim-Dim, Bobby’s monster enforcer. Blow torches, wire cutters, other implements will be used if they catch her.
They will check airports first, trains second, probably in an after birth thought, the buses.
She is a spoiled whore; to a man they know that.
Snail mail had been her choice. That simple kink in thought, most likely saved her life. She had hoped the black wig, flop hat, sun glasses, non descriptor clothes, might have disguised her, given her a chance. Nothing could disguise her beauty; that was part of the turf she was. So be it.
Window of opportunity a small one, maybe several hours at best, eyes lit from passing cars, she is scared, really scared, more than that terrified and electrified. Over and over her mind replays Anthony Uruguay face; it is a recollection of horrific proportions.
An acidic taste belches into her pretty mouth. She feels like throwing up, fear does that to a gal no matter how fucking smart their mouths and brains were. She hopes that there were no CCTV cameras at the station.
She hadn’t seen any. Not a fucking thing she could do about it now. If there were, Bobby Ugo would have them soon, horrible Bobby, backed up by the giant, violent, numb Dim Dim. She didn’t want to think about Tony’s second in command killing reaper, or his loyal monster, Dim Dim. She forces their images out of her frying head.
Toni’s image, like a knee jerk, in the guts, brings her back to a sickening way.
In the end, this end, this beginning, she had decided any part of the pig’s world, unacceptable, really a no brainer at all. Her flight was a Lotto ticket ready to be punched. If she made it out; well maybe she would have a life?
If not, murder, torture, fingers in a Cuisinart, a drill bit in each blue eye, one of Bobby’s favorites. That was the prize, the payout, her own destruction at the hands of sadists; fucking so-be it.
Of course, there is another little matter that had sent her to the mattress. Things she has done, in the end, the unforgivable and vile final act had made her flee. Sitting there, puffing away, she forces the memories from such ugliness from her brain. She must, for if she does not, she cannot live and will seek death, instead of running from it.
“Pardon Ma’am.”
Mandal hears a voice, southern and accented pinging somewhere in her sonar brain.
She comes back, eyes crinkling; she stares at her own long legs spread across the aisle. Blue eyes, focus, she wonders if it is Tony, he has come, it is not. It is the young Marine, smiling; there is nothing that can hide her beauty.
Slowly, legs so thin and long creep back, no emotion on her face, cigarettes smoke clouding her face. He lingers, a bit too long, his leer unnerves her. A brick smile from under the hat brim. More smoke, ferocious hard Sapphire orbs wipe thoughts of romance from his brown eyes.
Gulps from soldier boy.
He passes, glad to be past her, it, whatever, finds the urinal door and enters, snaps it shut behind him.
Her face lowers, smoke, light from a passing big rig, darkness returns, motor humming, wining; diesel power is like that. Her hand below the magazine on her lap as she slowly moves the 44 magnum, black iron, she glances at it, un-cocks the hammer, places the magazine back over it. She would have used it, no doubt.
A dead cigarette butt under a dead shoe heel.
Digging in her blazer, she nabs a crumpled up pack of Chesterfields. Move now, have to smoke, ignore the sign; calm the nerves. In the valise, dig around, past the 38, way past the 8 inch, serrated hunting knife. There it is; another pack.
She rips the cellophane, finds the butt, white, no filter dug out of the pack. Zippo flint, clicks, sparks, flames, ignites, puffs, striking lips, smoke, inhale, anything to chase the yips away.
Options limited, drift, fast, move across the south, move North, hit up Las Vegas, dissolve into its hideous Eco system of depravity and filth.
She is human garbage; it shouldn’t be that fucking hard.
Boom or bust. Dear or alive. Piece by piece.
The outcome would soon be showing its face, one way or another. Her life now a fate-coin flips.
Heads she makes it. Tails she dies, flames out.
So was her life at the moment. Lucky whore, dead whore, butchered whore. In the end game of life, really, nobody gets out alive.
So be it, again.
York PA
INDUSTRIAL, gray, depressing, drug addled, York, PA. is waking as a Greyhound Bus rumbles in, mixing black diesel smoke with pollution. Lefts, rights, bad part of town, the Hound finds the station, opts for a slot, stalls out between the white lines, motor kicks out.
Not a happy place, no joy, not much different than any other forsaken terminal in the system. Bus departure time, mixing to mix with the weary masses, boat People Refugees of an American Economic
Miracle none of them have ever seen.
Mandel exits, ruminates eyes around.
Babies crying, mostly brown skinned, Spanish being spoken, druggie girls and boys hitting up other victims for change. They are meth kids, dumb kids, street wise kids, dead soon from an over dose. Poverty, everywhere as other squalid families fight to keep it together, just barely.
A Vegas starlet hopeful, bleached hair, 16, Phat, tight hip hugger pants, skin tank, cheap leather jacket, Payless shoes. She’s lookin’ for fame in Vegas; a bus ticket a last hope chance from a father that sodomized her.
Mandal in a hurry, grabs her bag, eyes jerking off everywhere, at everything
.
Two men, big, swarthy, folds of black hair, look Italian, she doesn’t know, staring, her blood ices over.
Swallowing, a gush of relief, girlfriends arrive, men’s smiles, kisses are exchanged, they rush off, kids just having a good time.
Eyes under the brim of her hat, now, eyes peering at her, men can’t help themselves. She feels something, she turns, sees the ticket puncher, behind the bars, ogling her and gawking her down. Lowered head, adjusted sunglasses, a turn of the neck, she swallow her fear, twists, walks out the double glass front doors. She fucked up, she knows it. Her brain knows it.
Where is a fucking taxi when a girl needs one most?
At the curb now, frantic and trying to keep her thundering heart from tearing apart. No opera in her brain, pretty paintings, just thoughts of snap, snap, snap, the sound a bolt cutter makes, snipping of knuckle after knuckle, glee on Bobby Ugo’s sadistic, grinning face.
Taxi time, luck holding, cab, yellow and blue, pulls to the curb. She waves him off, opens the door, slinks in, bag on her lap, fumbles with a cigarette, fingers shaking, flames it out, inhales, so far so good.
Face behind her shades, eyes covered by her wig and hat brim. She tells the tired hack what she wants and where she wants to go, maybe. He nods, checks her out in the mirror, likes what he see, slaps the taxi in gear, blinker going, blink, blink, blink, throbbing in her temples like blips of fire.
Time moves, a non descriptor part of York, where nothing is beautiful, special, concrete strip malls, convenience stores. It’s the usual stuff keeping the poor alive.
Pay off the nosy cabbie, she does not like the way he is staring at her. Closed door, yellow and blue zooms away, she turns, inhales, blows a flute of smoke out of her nose. Across the street, BIG JIM’S WESTERN WEAR & GEAR, neon, some light bulbs burnt out beckons her.