Heaven, Hell, or Houston

by Erb, Thom

  There were four of them. Two were big mothers with more ink on their bulging arms than in my entire comic book collection I had when I was a kid. The other two were a couple. A tall lanky dude with long blonde hair that hung down to his dirty blue jeaned ass. The other was a chunky chick with just as much ink and arm meat as the big guys. She was cat calling just as loud and dirty as the other shit-bags.

  The drunken bikers were shoving each other and whistling at the young girl. She ignored them and dumped a handful of change on the bar. The light from the Pabst Blue Ribbon sign caught a glint of tears in her big brown eyes, as she talked with the old bartender. He shook his head, and she pleaded with him. He turned away, snatched a bag of potato chips from a stand on the back bar, and tossed them toward her. The action was so cold it even made my old, jaded soul flinch.

  I was getting a bit annoyed and downed the shot, following it with a sip of the cold beer. My old instincts were rising. I knew I should let it go and just try to call Inez again. Although I knew it would end the same way the past five calls had. The same cold answering machine echoing my own voice, giving me the brutal answer I didn’t, and couldn’t, face or accept. Suzie returned and put a shot and beer on the worn wooden tabletop. My eyes never lost focus on the laughing bikers.

  “Here ya go, sweetie. Need anything else?” She smiled and winked, one hand back on her jutted out hip.

  “Yeah. Tell that prick of a bartender, that I’ll cover whatever that girl in the green coat ordered.” I leaned to look around the waitress. The girl snatched the small bag and shoved it into her backpack. She headed back toward the bus exit. The hooting bikers followed the girl out through the hallway to Bus Entrance.

  “Shit…Never mind.” I jumped up—kicking the chair backward—and followed down the dimly lit hallway.

  9.

  Arrested for Driving While Blind

  Rt. 45 South

  9:45 p.m.

  The Caddy created a wide wake down the empty highway, spewing a yellow-colored wash behind it as it sped along into the Texas night. The strange haze was starting to freak Hector out as he drove through the torrential downpour. It wasn’t just the fucked up colored rain that gnawed at his booze-filled gut, no, it was Isandro. He was different. His brother was a ruthless killer well before this last prison stint. There was something about his eyes. They were like dark caves. His shit wasn't wired tight and the way his brother was poppin' caps in civilians wasn't right. Not right at all. It was fucked up, and he didn't know what to do about it.

  In the rearview mirror, he caught Isandro and his crew taking turns with the girls. Hector knew he was no angel, by any stretch. He'd stood side by side with his twin brother while they killed rival gang members and even gang banged bitches, but this was bordering on too much for even him. Hell, they'd just risked it all to break his ass out of prison, and now, he's killing and screwing anything that blows passed him, with no care in the fucking world. That kinda shit ain't right and is going to get them busted before they even get close to the Mexican border. He knew he should say something to his brother, but felt his tattooed chest tighten every time he considered it. He watched him and the others in the rearview mirror, and found himself confused. Half of him wanted to make the bitch, white-boy drive, so he could join in on all the partying, but the other half—the gnawing, guilt side—made his stomach turn. Sure, he loved nailing girls, but what Isandro was doing was bad shit, and far worse than he'd thought his brother would ever do. A screaming siren and red and blue flashing lights startled him from his dilemma, and he fought to keep the Caddy on the rain-soaked highway.

  Hector watched as a Texas Highway Patrol cruiser flew by and quickly disappeared into the jet dark night.

  After a few miles, flashing lights and bright red road flares split the night. As the Caddy drew closer, there were several Texas State Trooper cars and an overturned gas tanker, along with what looked like a Chevy Chevette. The car was much smaller and now crushed into the size of a grocery cart. One trooper stood in front of his cruiser. It's lights nearly blinded Hector as he shouted for the rest of drunk crew to shut the hell up.

  Getting closer, the cop motioned for Hector to take the detour off the highway to his right. Hector let out a deep breath.

  They made it through the accident scene, and now headed down a dark stretch of road that would still lead them to Mexico, it might just take them longer.

  He knew he'd have to do something soon, but now wasn't the time. He flicked the rearview mirror away from his brother, and tried to focus on the slick road speeding toward him at one hundred miles an hour.

  10.

  Fool in the Rain

  Moe Whiskey's Bar B-Que and Bus Depot

  I slammed open the door to the bus parking lot. What felt like a midwinter wind smacked me in the face. Stinging rain was its cold twin, and I had to shelter my eyes from its watery assault. I couldn’t see the girl or the bikers, as the white wash of rain created a veil in the night, but could hear some laughter from off to the right—behind the idling bus in the parking circle. The yellow glow from the parking lot lights couldn’t penetrate the pelting, driving rain. I followed the sound of commotion around the bus.

  The hooting and hollering grew louder as I came up to a blue and white 1970’s pickup and a black Olds Cutlass. The big bikers and their old ladies had the girl pinned up against the tailgate of the Chevy. The one biker had a cheap black tattoo of a cobra coiled around his left arm, and it was ‘Cobra’ who had the girl pinned against the tailgate while he sipped deep from his beer bottle. The other biker with long blonde hair stood behind him, patting him on the back as he laughed like a rabid hyena. The chubby biker chick held the girl’s hair and was kissing her on the cheek. The whole lot of 'em were piss-drunk. It didn’t change a damn thing in my mind and that was about to turn out bad for the rowdy bikers. The other couple stood behind them, laughing and cheering them on.

  “Texas Ranger, on the ground, now!” I bellowed so they could hear me over the storm. I felt a smirk crease my wet face. The rain intensified and blurred the scene as they froze in place.

  “Hooolleeeee sheeeeit. 'The fuck you be, hoss?” The muscle bound biker paused from licking the girl’s ear and smiled at me. Their faces washed in yellow of the parking lot lights.

  “See now, what we have here is a Texas Ranger. A hero.” The big man let loose the girl’s hair and stared straight at me; sizing me up. He finished off his beer and tossed it into the misty night. The breaking glass smashed the silence.

  “Angie, don’t let this tender bitch go. I’ve got plans for her. But first, looks like I need to take out some trash.” The biker wiped his bearded mouth on his arm and walked slowly toward me. I didn’t move a muscle.

  “The way I see it, pig, is you're outnumbered here. Now, you gotta ask yourself, is this stray dog worth getting your dumb-ass head knocked in?” The big biker smiled with a broken grin that would have made a jack-o-lantern jealous. He started to flex his tattooed arms as he circled around me.

  “That so?” I said, and slowly lowered my right hand to where my service revolver would normally have been. Shit, I thought, when my rain-soaked hand met nothing but more rain and wet jeans. I'd left the fucking pistol in the 'Cuda. And my back-up was in an ankle holster. No way in hell I was going to be able to reach it in time. “Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome,”I bitched to no one and took a defensive stance, waiting for the drunken biker to make his move.

  The oaf did. He shouldn't have.

  The big man's swing was slow and sluggish. I easily sidestepped the clumsy blow, and then grabbed his arm, swept down to my side—cradling him against my waist. I took my left hand, placed it on his shoulder and pushed, while I twisted the lower part of the thug's arm away from his body. His shoulder made a wet, sucking sound as it popped out its socket. They big guy made a noise no man should ever make. He sounded like a six year old girl seeing a spider for the first time. I laughed at his pain as his slack body fell to the wet blacktop.
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  I lunged on top of the crying biker, driving my knee into the prone man's back. My hand swiftly found purchase on the handle of the Gerber Mark II knife, strapped to the inside of my boot, and I swept it around toward the rest of startled bikers.

  “Let her go, and y'all can walk away.” My words weren’t an option. I knew if they went for me, I’d be screwed. But, this was the hand I was dealt and was used to not being lucky, so I hoped for the best. I held the blade in front of me and stared at the tall blonde, waiting for a response, good or bad.

  “NOW!” I ordered, but somehow the impact was lost in the whipping wind and driving rain. The large woman stepped back and held her hands up. All the drunks did was glare through the fog as the girl ran behind me.

  “Screw this shit. C'mon, Ross, let's get outta here,” the tall guy said.

  I eased off ‘Ross’ and let his buddy cautiously approach and help his now gimped up pal off the wet pavement. I stepped back. The drunk bikers knew this was a lose-lose situation and helped the big man with the broken arm to his feet. They shot sharp looks of payback's a bitch at me and disappeared into the cold, stormy night.

  The cold rain painted the parking lot in a veil of mustard mist. I was damn grateful because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to arrest the scumbags, and the best course of action was to let them go. I counted myself damn lucky. The whiskey was on their side, and I knew too well I'd be on the losing end of that fracas.

  “You okay, kid?” I slid the knife back in it's boot sheath, my eyes never left the retreating dirt-bags. I knew my words slightly slurred, but didn’t really give a shit. I asked over my shoulder, not looking at the kid.

  “Yeah...uh, yeah. I'm good,” she said as I slowly turned toward her. The young girl's curly black hair was soaked with rain and smothered her head like a blanket. She took a breath and stepped back away from me, toward the awning of the bar. “Thanks. Thanks so much,” the girl in the faded green Army jacket said.

  “Good,” I said as we moved underneath the rusty awning of the bus depot. I tipped my hat at the young girl and headed toward my car. I’d stopped too long as it was and needed to get the hell out of there.

  “Wait.”

  The girl's panicked voice stopped me in my tracks. Oh, hell. I didn’t need this shit. I’d done my good deed for the day, and the last thing I needed to do was to be driving around with an underage girl in the middle of the night.

  I let some cold moments pass as I mulled over the options. There weren't many. I hated the thought of leaving her here, but dammit, she could be a whole load of trouble. I was starting to really dislike myself even more as I took in a deep breath of the foul air. The strange rain slapped the parking lot of the old bus stop. But…I stopped anyway.

  Take a day off, asshole, I cursed and exhaled.

  “Mister, where you headed?” she asked.

  It sounded more like desperate pleading, and again, I felt my jaw flex and clench. I drew in another deep breath, scratched my forehead, and knew damn well I was going to regret whichever words came out my half-drunk, tired mouth. But yet, the words still came.

  “Houston,” I shouted over my shoulder. I kept thinking though, Ah, shit.

  “Any chance I could catch a ride?” Her question came out tired, yet defiant.

  “No,” I said, as I walked away from the dryness of the awning. I didn’t give two dead armadillo asses about the rain or the cold.

  I was dead-ass tired, but after the shit-storm with the Governor, I didn't need any extra heat because of those biker scumbags. I needed to hit the road before this went any further south than it already had. The adrenaline was coursing through me, and I couldn't sleep if I tried. Staying here would be a bad thing, so getting home was a much smarter choice.

  I should have known better.

  “Ranger, I...I, have nowhere to go. No money an…” The teenager's voice fell to pieces, and I could hear her deep sobs through the drumming thunder and jolting lightning.

  Day off, huh? I roughly rubbed my jaw and spun back toward the crying girl. Fuck me. I walked quickly to her, pulled a crinkled wad of cash from my wallet, and gave her a twenty. I adjusted my Stetson and turned away from the young girl.

  “Stay safe,” I said, pivoted on my booted heel, and headed toward my car.

  “Please, I...I… Don’t have anyone.”

  The girl’s voice entered my ears like some twisted, guilt-ridden whisper. I imagined it would be how Bellia would sound if she were a teenage runaway. I stopped. I knew I was screwed. I couldn't leave her here—all alone.

  Fuck me.

  “Get in the car,” I said as I opened the door to the 'Cuda.

  11.

  Old Man

  Somewhere along Rt. 14

  Cahill watched the rainy night fly by, and drank and smoked, but felt Mother Nature knocking on his back-door for over an hour. He saw an old abandoned rest stop that must have been there before the big Route 45 was built. He didn't care about all that shit. He needed to go. Hopefully, the place still had a toilet he could at least squat on. He hated dumping in the woods.

  “Yo, bro. Ya gots to pull over, now.” Cahill had to take a shit and could feel it getting dangerously close. The last thing he needed to add to the long list of things the Crew busted his balls about was him shitting himself. So far the quiet twin-brother of Isandro was a little bit nicer than the other. He heard Isandro's voice from the back seat, and it made him smile and relax.

  “Yeah, pull over. I need to piss like a racehorse.” The words from the leader made Cahill and his ‘turtlehead- poking out’ very, very happy. The car pulled off into the wooded rest stop. Cahill kicked the door open and ran to the small building that housed the restrooms. He skidded to a stop on the wet black top in front of a large padlocked wire gate. Looking closer, Cahill saw signs of renovation. Cool. He thought.

  A hand-painted sign hanging from the fence, read the last three words he wanted to see:

  ‘Closed for Renovation’

  “Ah, shit.” Cahill punched the sign and almost lost his load right there. He hopped and danced around, looking for plan B. He could hear the crew howling with laughter as he waddled cautiously around the side of the building where he saw a dirt road. He hurried down the rotted leaf-covered dirt path to whatever shitting spot he could find.

  The gangly kid was pinching his pale ass cheeks together as he searched for the best spot, far away from the watching, joking eyes of the brutal gang members. It was getting close, and he felt the ‘turtle-head’ poking out. He was seconds away from making brownies in his boxers. He found a fallen tree in a little canopy made by the leaves and pulled his jeans and boxers down. The tree truck provided a place to sit. Thanks went up to God as he finally took his dump.

  “Damn, I got to stop eatin' Hector's bitch’s burritos.” Cahill grunted out a laugh and stopped quickly as he heard a loud hissing sound coming farther on down the dirt road. He finished and wiped his ass with big maple leaves, tossed them to the ground, and then noticed the deep tire ruts in the mud.

  “What the hell?” he mumbled, stood and yanked his pants up, following the ruts. He walked into a clearing, and that's when he came upon a wrecked Lincoln Continental.

  He slowly approached the car. It was impaled on a sturdy oak that would have needed another ten Lincolns to take the ancient tree down like a stack of marshmallows on a stick of maple. He paused, seeing the driver's side door wide open like a giant dove with a broken wing.

  The storm raged, and the sporadic lightning flashes painted the trees in a wash of dark greens and grays, as Cahill bent down and cautiously peered into the dark shadows of the Lincoln. The rain pounded down on top the car like a thousand machine guns laying waste to the sheet metal roof. Cahill bent down to peer into the deep shadows of the car.What he saw made the burritos want to spew from his churning gut. Inside the smashed car, slumped over in the passenger seat, was an old woman, or what he assumed was a woman, whose entire face had been ripped and sm
ashed into ribbons by the splintered windshield. Bright red blood mixed with huge chunks of broken white bone and shredded flesh. It reminded Cahill of the BBQ open-face sandwiches he loved. The sick thought made the contents of his stomach to hurl onto the side of the white car, covering it in chunks of reds, browns, and yellows. The sight dropped Cahill to his knees as rain washed the puke from the car.

  He struggled back to his feet and wiped the puke from his mouth on the sleeve of his red Adidas track suit. He leaned apprehensively back onto the car. The dead woman was the only person inside. The coppery smell of blood mixed with shit and piss, forcing him to reel away and paint the tire with the remainder of his stomach.

  Three things happened to Cahill simultaneously. He heard impatient shouts from the crew back at the Caddy, the sudden realization that there wasn't any sign of the driver, and lastly, the feral snarl coming from behind him. He really wished he'd caught the last event first.

  His scream was silenced by the pounding of thunder as an old man lunged and pinned Cahill against the side of the Lincoln. The man was surprisingly strong, and the clicker-clack of the old man's dentures filled Cahill's ears.

  What the...? Panicked thoughts raced through the young kid's mind. The old man was trying to bite the gang-banger, and it took all he could do to stop the flailing bastard from taking a chunk out of his face.

  Cahill felt his sneakers slip in the mud. They both splashed down into the rainy muck of the road as the old man's full weight forced him down. His heart felt like it was about to explode into a million meaty shreds, as he struggled to fend off the bigger man's attacks. The old fuck's gnashing teeth were mere inches away from Cahill's throat, and he cried out, but it was lost amongst the din of the raging storm.