I wake up with a start. I'm in a huge bed with ornate carvings of angels and bearded men in the headboard. The room is enormous with vaulted ceilings and Renaissance paintings on the wall. I've seen it before.
All at once I'm confounded and scared.
I turn, finding a nude woman with long blonde hair draped around her kittenish face as she snores with contentment.
Tatiana.
My heart nearly jumps out of my chest as I tumble out of bed naked.
Oh my goodness. If Vlad finds out, I'll be so dead. What on earth was Conner thinking? It definitely wasn't with his brain.
Searching the room for my clothes, I can't find them. Oh no. I'll have to borrow Vlad's and hightail it out of here. The strange thing is, when I go inside the walk-in closet, all of the clothes are familiar. Like they're mine. It's definitely not Vlad's wardrobe of purples and royal blue shirts.
I dress and run for the stairs like the bedroom is on fire. I come to a screeching halt halfway down the curved marble staircase. Yuri and Razmig are playing cards in the foyer.
"Hey, boss," Yuri says.
Razmig smiles, nodding at me. What's he doing here? Bagrat was his cousin.
Yuri's expression changes. He leaves the card table, bolting up the stairs two at a time.
"Come on, boss," he whispers, grabbing my elbow and leading me up the stairs.
"Boss?" I whisper.
"Yeah, that's how Moscow sees it," he says once we're inside a bathroom. Reaching inside his jacket pocket, he pulls out a wax sealed envelope. "You told me to give you this when you're…you know…not you."
I open the envelope and take out the letter.
Hey Dipshit,
I really hate your existence. If you don't want to die a painful, awful death, you cannot act like Fred any longer. You are now an Avtorityet. That's a brigadier for the Los Angeles area. Vlad and Pavel are dead. You have men who look up to you. You cannot go soft or show weakness. People are watching. We have close relations with AP again. Probably closer than ever. They trust you. Don't blow this with your weak spine. The consequences are unimaginable. Hurry up and give me my body back. Oh, and BTW, you're in a relationship with Tatiana and have been for over a year.
The letter was unsigned. As soon as I finish reading it, Yuri takes the letter, tears it into a dozen pieces and flushes it down the toilet. Slapping me on the back, he smiles with sympathetic eyes.
"You can do this. You really can."
I swallow, trying to look strong and firm. But I don't think it's going to work.
The Night They Burned Ol' Big Tex Down
by Christopher Fulbright
It was dark in the car, so I couldn't see much from the back seat, but I knew she was hurting. He'd given it to her good, but the pain wasn't all in her body. It was in her mind, her heart, her soul, and no amount of booze or drugs was ever gonna erase that. I loved her, I knew it, and so many times I'd almost said it.
We should go away somewhere.
It was just a thought, but I must have spoken the words. Darla-May heard me.
The way she turned around, I wanted to kiss her right there. We'd never touched—but every day, every moment we were close or in the same room, that kind of electric magnetism hovered between us, and I was always this close to touching her. But now things were different. I felt it. She felt it.
"You mean it, Ray?" she asked.
"Sure I do."
And just like that, we were ready to make it happen. Right there, in that car, under the glowing nightscape of downtown Dallas, at the edge of Fair Park, with every manner of scum and detritus floating by us in the night, we were ready to make it happen.
Toby was out there in the shadows just this side of the chain-link fence. He had a little shy of $3,000 on him, and that wasn't no usual thing by any means. He'd been showered with this windfall by the great state of Texas; the Lone Star shone down on him last week when he bought his usual pair of Find the 9's scratch-offs and one of 'em hit the big pot. I'd been there when Toby and Darla-May hopped around with joy, because we'd just got done smoking bong resin to get high and there wasn't much more than a couple PBRs left in the fridge. All that mattered was getting high, really, that's all we had left to do. I admit it wasn't much to aspire to, but that brings me to the way things shaped up at Fair Park that night.
So, Toby was out there scoring a 'teenth of meth. We were gonna smoke it and snort it and maybe even shoot it. Then him and Darla-May would probably go at it all night again, and I'd lay there in the next room staring at the ceiling romancing her in my dreams. And when he was done riding and she was done doing all the things I imagined she hated to do, I figured he'd come down hard and take it to her again.
And she'd hang around for it, because he was The Connection. Our connection. Because we'd both sunk so low, he was all we had left. And he'd sunk so low, he imagined that really mattered.
"You really mean it?" she asked me again.
"Sure I mean it. You know I do."
She'd turned around, staring at me in the backseat. She always rode shotgun. She was Toby's right-hand punching bag.
I leaned forward and grabbed her and kissed her hard. She sucked me in, and it was a rough kiss, but there was a lot of waiting behind it, a long time wishing things could have been different for us. That we'd met somewhere else, under different circumstances, in another life.
When we came apart, I could smell cigarettes on her breath. I could taste her on my tongue.
"When he comes back, let's play it cool. I'll take care of everything." I said
"What are you going to do?"
"Just stay sharp. Get ready to grab the wheel when I give you the nudge."
"Okay." She turned around and faced forward, staring out the windshield.
My heart was going like a piston in a train. I lit a cigarette and saw my reflection in the glass; four scars along my forehead and down the side of my face. I rolled down the window so I didn't have to see myself. Smoke curled out and disappeared in the wind like yesterday's dreams. The night air was warm for October. It was getting close to morning, so a strange twilight crept over the city. Yet it wasn't strange for us at all to be waiting in an abandoned parking lot, on a run, in one of the worst neighborhoods in Dallas before the break of dawn.
We couldn't see anybody for quite some time. Then, as soon as the morning lightened up the sky, we saw Toby running like an escaped convict for the car.
He jumped in the driver's side and started the car. We caught the pungent scent of freshly-cooked speed on him and realized he had blood all down the front of his shirt.
"My God, Toby, what the hell happened to you?" Darla-May's eyes were big and shiny. They looked back at me and I instantly told her in my mind, Don't look back at me, dammit, don't look back.
"Ain't what's happened to me, bitch. It's what happened to them!" With that, he tossed a sandwich bag half-full of rocky, pinkish-looking meth into her lap. Didn't take either of us long to figure out that was one hell of a lot more than a 'teenth.
A hell of a lot more.
Well, he spent more money, bought more than he planned.
But the gleeful horror of his bloody countenance and the manic air about him said there was more to it than that.
Plenty more.
He screeched the tires of that shitty old Mustang around the nearest corner, and I didn't wait any longer. I should have waited, but I'd already worked myself up so there wasn't any turning back; I reached forward and wrapped my arm around his neck, locking it good and tight.
"What the—?" Toby clutched my arm with his fingers. I could see his eyes in the rearview mirror. His looked like the devil's himself, and mine looked plain scared.
I clenched my grip tighter, getting the hold just right to squeeze off his air. I could see his face turning purple in the dusky light. He clawed at me. The car swerved and hit the curb.
Darla-May was staring at us, that huge bag of meth in her hand, her jaw hanging open.
; "The wheel!" I yelled.
She grabbed it just as the car bounced back into the road. We barely missed a row of beat-up pick-ups parked parallel along the ghetto street. A gunshot rang out, and there wasn't any telling if it came from one of the dilapidated, run-down hovels along the street or from the vehicle chasing us down the narrow lane. Still, she managed by some small miracle to get the thing under control.
I held Toby. He fought me. I closed my eyes and prayed this wouldn't be the night I met my maker, because that son-of-a-bitch wouldn't be any too happy to see me.
Finally, he started to loll in the seat. It took longer than I thought it should, but I feared he was faking, so I held him in the clench, pinched his neck tighter. As his foot came off the gas, the car slowed, and Darla-May steered it into the middle of the street.
Soon the car rolled to a stop.
Toby sagged.
It felt like he was out, but I held him a little bit longer, tighter, squeezing.
I had my teeth clenched and didn't notice. I yanked. There was a snap.
Toby went limp. I held him tighter and wished I could rip his fucking head off.
Darla-May was all that could get back to me. She dialed me back in. My vision had kind of left me, but when I saw her again, her skull-thin but beautiful face was staring at me with shock and fear.
I realized Toby was dead.
I hopped out of the car. I rolled him out of the seat into the road.
"The money!" Darla-May yelled, and I rifled the bastard's pockets to find the cash before we got back in and took off.
I was in the driver's seat. I tossed Darla-May the cash and the meth. I looked over at her and laughed. It was a gleeful laugh, a crazy laugh, and I knew from the sound of it that I probably looked bad, insane, but it felt good, it felt right, and I kept on laughing.
She looked at the drugs and the money, then she turned around.
A car was behind us. It was coming up on us fast.
Cops, I thought with a pang of dread.
Our back windshield webbed into a shattered mess. Two more shots followed. When I dared look back, I could see the car rolling up on us was a black shiny Hummer with chrome and bulletproof windows. A Mexican hung out the passenger window firing a pistol at us.
The shots were like firecrackers. One bad turn and we were done.
They shot out the rear wheels.
When the tires blew out, Darla-May screamed and I yelled at her to shut up and took a sharp turn to the left, headed back toward the fairgrounds. The skyline of Dallas emerged from the trees, rose over us like stolid gray witnesses to our crimes. The green outline of the Bank of America Plaza was like a massive neon bar, the glowing ornamented ball at the top of Reunion Tower like the lights of a Christmas I'd never see again.
We'd gotten turned around on Fitzhugh in my dizzy effort to lose them, and as soon as I saw the grounds of Fair Park, I cut the wheel sharply. The vehicle jerked us as we hopped the curb. I tried to steer, but there wasn't much to do at that point but hope my aim had been good enough.
We flew between two trees, headed for the wide-open public parking area for the fairgrounds. We slammed into the black steel fence protecting Fair Park from the neighborhood around it. Two sections of the fence shuddered and fell before us, and we drove as far as we could with the metallic grind of the wheels on asphalt, dragging a length of fence behind us, before the car just wouldn't go anymore.
The headlights of the Hummer came down Fitzhugh. I jumped out of the Mustang, grabbed Darla-May's hand, somehow managed to make sure she had all the shit and the cash, and we ran like hell for the hulking shapes of the Ferris wheel, the Cotton Bowl stadium, and the vision of 52-foot-tall Big Tex beyond them, black and looming like some grim cowboy god in the oncoming dusk.
We ran. The sound of the Hummer's tires squealing was followed by the bump as they drove over the curb and the downed fence. The engine roared as they bore down on us. For the first time in my life I wished for the cops.
I clutched Darla-May's clammy hand in mine and we ran like cheetahs toward Gate 9 and the Midway beyond. A sign advertised that this was the last weekend for the State Fair. A hell of a way to go out.
We ran down the Midway, a long row of booths covered by blue pavilions that later on would be filled with folks shilling their wares, hocking their games, and playing the arcade. The Texas Sky Ride ran above the walkway, another time it might have been a silent and awesome thing to be here like this in the still-dusky moments before sunrise. But not now. Now it seemed too big. Everything seemed menacing. The Sky Ride swayed in a light breeze far above. The wind moaned through the Midway. The bleak structure of the Cotton Bowl for which we headed was like the Roman Coliseum through the eyes of a man condemned to die by lions.
Gunshots popped. Slugs sang through the air. The men behind us had struck out on foot and were coming up fast.
I yanked Darla-May around a corner, out of the line of sight. We took a winding way through the pavilions and ended up near the towering front gates of the Cotton Bowl Plaza. One section of the stadium was open to the boulevard that surrounded it, with just rails and runners between the sidewalk and the catwalks inside.
"Come on," I said, but she was right with me, knew right what to do. In those moments we were one, and I could almost let myself believe that if we got out of this, we could have a beautiful life together. That something would work out for us, things could turn around and we'd be all right.
We huddled into an alcove near the railings, backs pressed against concrete, trying not to breathe, trying not to move. We heard the footsteps and yells of those guys chasing us. Or could they be security guards or cops responding to the chase and gunshots? God help us just once, I thought, there's gotta be some cops.
When I looked over at Darla-May, she had the money in her fist, flipping through it.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I whispered harshly. Her eyes were wide when they settled on mine. I'd never seen them so clear or sober in all the time I'd known her.
"It's all here," she whispered.
"What?"
"All the money. He didn't pay for the drugs, he…he must have stole that bag of speed!"
Oh jeez, she was a genius, just now putting it together. I felt bad for thinking it, but couldn't help being pissed all the same. No kiddin,' Darla-May, I almost said. He’d come back to the car bloody, with more drugs than he could afford in ten years.
"Maybe if we just give them the drugs back, they'll let us go," her eyes were full of more hope than they had a right to be.
"Holy…" I shook my head. "Darla-May, it ain't just the drugs they want, it's blood. Toby had blood on him, and they're comin' for theirs. They won't stop until they see us dead, plus get the money and drugs, and don't think for a second—"
It was my fault. Too much talk. Too many whispers near a concrete alcove that carried echoes into the still morning air.
I saw the figure too late. The Mexican emerged from the shadows, and those stark few seconds froze like my worst day in Afghanistan—the time I'd seen three of my pals mowed down in quick succession, and I rolled down a hillside with four bullet-grazes across my skull and face. They'd only left me there because I bled so much from the head, they thought I was dead.
This wasn't Afghanistan. It was worse. That single moment was worse than anything I'd felt before. Before then, I wasn't sure how much feeling I really had left in me. Turns out, it was too damn much.
The gun fired. Its loud crack rang like a metallic strike against the rails where we sat.
Darla-May looked at me like she was suddenly sliding down a cliff. The bills in her hand unrolled as her fist loosened. An area of blood soaked the front of her shirt where the bullet hit her chest.
I cussed and grabbed her and the money, and we broke away across the boulevard. I carried her on my back and ran and ducked behind everything I could find that would protect us from a bullet. I ran around the Tower Building through the food court and came up on Big Tex Circl
e. Everything in me sang a song of fire and fury, humming with white-hot energy that drove me on. I felt the warmth of the blood of my last great love soaking my back as I ran.
I made myself stop for a second to gather my wits. We had to cross a wide-open expanse. I needed a minute. I just needed to look at her.
The bullet wound was in a bad place.
"Jesus, Ray," she said to me. And I looked down at her, and she looked up at me.
"Come on. You can make it." I hauled her arm over my shoulders. They were still coming.
Ol' Big Tex stood as he had done for the past fifty years over the state fairgrounds, tall and bold and creepy as ever. He stood above us as the sunrise broke, and the way it shone behind him you'd think he was Paul Fuckin' Bunyan come like the Calvary over the horizon. Only he wasn't, and we were on our own, and those rotten SOBs just kept coming.
I saw a door at the bottom of Big Tex's boot, so I went around the back of his feet and kicked the thing until it rattled on its hinges. A few more gunshots came at us, sending ricochets into the night. Darla-May got a little heavier. I looked down at her. I touched her chest, just small breasts, but I'd always loved them. She was malnourished, yeah, but so was I, ribs visible through junkie-yellow skin, and I thought, Oh my God, she's going to die, but I wouldn't let it be true. Not yet. Not now.
My hand came away from her wound slick with blood. It was like watery syrup that got sticky fast. Her eyes met mine and she said, "Thank you," real quiet so I could barely hear her.
"No," I said. I kicked the door again and it finally gave. The heel of Big Tex's boot opened and it was dark in there and smelled like an old factory with lots of oil. I pulled her inside. It was gloomy and there were stairs and that was perfect.
I dragged her up the stairs, one by one. I was suddenly weak, but I hauled her up behind me like I hadn't spent the last six years of my life destroying all the brain cells and muscles in my body with whiskey and junk. I pulled her and held her, and felt the warmth of her blood soaking through my own clothes.
THUGLIT Issue Twenty-One Page 5