Soul Standard

by Richard Thomas

  “Darrell, what the hell are you doing?” Ma yells at the man.

  I know this guy. He runs things across town. Packages of this, a cooler of that, nothing major. A small time courier that we use now and then, who mostly drinks his profits away.

  “Trevor, Trevor. Got something for you.” He sidles up to me, leaning into the bar.

  “Jesus, Darrell. What’d you do?”

  “Nothing, man. Just, you know, opportunity presented itself to me—I took advantage.”

  “Like a rabid hyena tearing apart a crippled deer, no doubt. Anybody I know?”

  “Nah, nothing like that. You know how it is: fisticuffs, broken bottles, somebody doesn’t get up. I was down in the Financial District…”

  “What were you doing down there?” I ask.

  “Nothing. Running.”

  I sigh and swallow the rest of my beer. It’s warm and salty, like sucking down a mouthful of sweat. “Ma, cold one, refill?”

  “Sure, hon. You still got some credits, you’re good.”

  I turn back to Darrell, his skin becoming translucent. Steam is rising off of his hands, curling into the air. It’s still warm—hot, even.

  “How fresh is this, Darrell?”

  “I got my bike with me, brother. It’s just a quick shot down the road,” he says. “Came straight here.”

  That makes no sense to me—too far. But I take a breath and ask him anyway. “Liver?”

  “Think so,” he says.

  “Think so?”

  “Well, it was dark, and there were a couple other kids in the alley. They wanted the eyeballs, but you know I don’t like to touch them things. Gives me the creeps.”

  “But the eyeballs, Darrell, they always sell. You gotta get over the willies. I can always move those, especially intact. Corneas, all of it.”

  “Right, boss. I know, I know. Can’t.” He opens the dirty rag and the parchment paper like he just got back from the deli, a good hunk of wet meat turning gray, half of a liver, for sure, freshly acquired. I look back at Darrell and he blinks his eyes in rapid succession, forcing a grin.

  “Anyway, here, can you use it? Am I good?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Ma wanders over and studies the organ, her nose twitching.

  “Wrap that back up, Darrell. We’re good,” I say.

  He closes up the parchment, folds the cloth over, his hands sticky with fluid, and places it gently on the counter.

  “Take this for the night run, would you, hon?” I ask her, as her lip curls up. “Just make sure nobody fries it up for dinner, all right?”

  She reaches under the counter and pulls on a pair of yellow rubber gloves. She picks up the package gingerly, and walks to the back of the bar, disappearing behind a set of double metal doors.

  “Gas, grass, or ass?” I ask. It’s my play on it, my way of joking with the man. He has his choices. Cash, if he wants paper money, which still has its place, but not in every circle or every part of town. Grass, or drugs, that’s his call too, whatever gets him off, an extended tab here at the Lamb, a closed tab if he’s running hot, or an assortment of powders and syringes as well. I don’t push the Juice, but that’s my thing, my problem. The ass is always a last resort, flesh for the taking, the girls (or boys) that work in the Red Light, more barter to be pushed around, a chit to turn in for some back-room loving and a bit of warmth. I have no idea what he’s pushing for, but he knows the deal.

  Darrell nods his head and I trace his stare back to the purple bottle over the bar that I’ve been staring at all night.

  “Darrell, no.”

  Ma wanders back in, her gloves gone, but still rubbing her hands, brushing off imaginary dust, wrinkling her nose as she comes back over to stand in front of us.

  “Ma, you’ve got Darrell’s tab, yeah?”

  “Yes, sir, I do. He’s in a bit of a hole—not too big. We wiping that out? Little something extra? I don’t know what the going rates are, big shot. I’m just a mule—just a dumb, lazy donkey.”

  She doesn’t like the organs. She’s pissed at me for letting this bit of dirty business unfold in front of her. She’s no spring chicken, no virgin, but she tries to run a clean bar. At least on the surface.

  “Wipe it, and he wants some Juice.”

  She turns to Darrell, who is busy licking his lips, blinking, rubbing his face with his hands, trying to work up another grin.

  “Darrell, you know how I feel,” she says.

  “Ma, I don’t want to hear it,” he says. “I’m a big boy.”

  She purses her lips and turns her back on us. In the corner is a special hand-carved stick with a sleeve of rubber running across the Y-gap. She picks it up with a muffled groan. Her arms tremble a bit as she reaches for the bottle.

  “You got it?”

  “Dammit, I’m fine, Trevor. Shut it.”

  She lowers the bottle and sets it on the bar. Darrell is sweating now, and I’m getting warm myself.

  She reaches over to uncork the bottle. “You okay, Trevor?”

  It’s a wide bottle, fat at the bottom, with sharp triangles running up the edge, carved glass, with a stamp in the middle, a raised circle with a plus sign beveled into it. There is no name brand, no label—this is not your store-bought liquor. This is a mean home brew, synthetic in structure, layers of chemicals stacked one on top of the next. There are rumors to the recipe, but I can’t confirm or deny them. Part absinthe, a sprinkle of meth, a dash of mushrooms, compounds stepped on compounds, opium and corn oil, boiled down and run through one screen after another, powders mixed in at the last minute, lavender crushed into grapes. The tongue goes numb so fast that there’s hardly any taste. It’s sweet and bitter at the same time. But I know the key ingredient, that’s for sure. It’s what little I have to offer the world.

  Ma uncorks the bottle and pulls a tall, thin shot glass from under the bar. It is made of silver, and there is only one in the bar, to my knowledge. She pulls out a box of dusty brown sugar cubes, takes one between the teeth of the tongs and walks to the kitchen to burn it over a flame. She dusts it with saffron and places the smoking hunk of rust delicately into the bottom of the glass. She pours the purple liquid over the top, the inside of the metal glass cracking and popping, tiny bubbles spitting out over the rim.

  Nobody says anything. Darrell picks it up, and wanders over to a row of faded booths on the far side of the room. Ma eyeballs me, still holding the bottle, but I shake my head no, and hunch back over my beer. We don’t watch Darrell. Or at least I don’t.

  “Put some fucking music on, wouldja,” she says at last, re-corking the bottle, slowly raising it up high, arms shaking again.

  I wander over to a pane of glass the size of a large flatscreen television set, three inches thick, back in the corner, between two floor-to-ceiling speakers. There is a greasy handprint on the right-hand side. I place my palm on it, and the sheet of glass starts to glow a dull yellow, lighting up the back of the bar. I finally pick a somber tune, turn back and steal a glance at Darrell.

  At his feet is a puddle of blood.

  “Dammit, Darrell,” I shout, running over to him. His eyes are wide open, white, not moving. His mouth is a crooked gap, the tip of his tongue sticking out—purple. The long red seam down the front of his gray sweatshirt spreads wider the longer I stand there. Down his jeans and over the edge of the booth is a rivulet of red, drip, drip, dripping onto the floor. I pull up his sweatshirt. His stomach, hastily stitched together with what looks like catgut or maybe fishing wire, has split open.

  “Darrell, what the fuck did you do?”

  Ma stands next to me, silent, the music throbbing in the background. Darrell’s face is frozen is what almost passes for a smile. He looks at peace.

  “Close his eyes, wouldja, Trevor?” Ma says.

  I place my fingers on his warm face, and slide his lids shut. Ma’s hand is on my shoulder, and I push the tip of Darrell’s tongue back in and try to close his mouth. It pops back open, the tongue startin
g to swell, pushing out even more now, and I try again. I can feel the cold air where Ma used to stand, as she walks away from me, away from this mess.

  “I’ll put him in the back.” I feel my jacket pocket for my scalpel, patting the leather with one hand. “Looks like the night run is going to be a full one. Dammit, boy, you’re gonna make me some money tonight.”

  I can’t talk about the babies unless I talk about the girls. The whores. It’s not such a bad gig, if it’s done right. Fifteen minutes of glossy flesh, let a man inside you, and you’re done for the night, free to drink and smoke and dance with your friends. We moved it around, this party, because the fat cats in the Financial District always wanted to stick their snoot in, come in for a free ride, gunk up the works with their heavy laughter and thick bullshit. So we decided to keep the whole thing mobile. Out of the City, away from the Red Light district where the obvious pimps hung and sold, away from the standard johns with their hundred-dollar blowjobs, wives at home all bitter and angry, vowing never to put their men in their mouths again. That wasn’t what we wanted to do. No dime bags; no small-time operations. We wanted to make it an experience, a memory they could jerk off to once they went back home, something to fuel the fire. And bring them back for more. Two buxom blondes going down on you, one hot mouth wrapped around your cock, the other breathing fire down your neck, one leg slid over yours, fingers inside her as the gasps and slurps and moans fill your head with static and cotton and the inevitable explosion. No, you wouldn’t find this supernova at home with the wife.

  For a short while we moved it to the barn. Security was set up at the end of the gravel road, two black pillars of muscles with dark sunglasses and earbuds plugged into cauliflower flesh. Helicopters descended into freshly mowed circles of corn, a ring of lights dotting the fences, the sky wrapping around us like a glove.

  The only reason I took it over, pig farmer that I am, is I knew the area. I was already here, and there had been some recent liquidations. I never spoke to management. Not me. Small-time, that’s who I was. The less attention, the better.

  Pizza guy to runner to bag man to pimp.

  Father to phantom to victim to gimp.

  Don’t ask me how, or why. Place a brick on the ground and all you have is a brick. But slowly, over time, place another brick next to the first one, start stacking them up higher and higher, and before you know it you’ve got a wall. And what’s the thing about walls? Nobody gets out, and nobody gets in. But what’s that glow just over the top? What are those sounds, the vibrations, the squeals of delight? You want in, right? You want to be here, be a part of it—the show, the spectacle, the heat.

  No. You don’t.

  The barn was filled with perfume and glitter, music threatening to shake the rotten wood to the ground. The girls danced, a single bulb hanging down from the rafters, spots of red and orange burning in the corners, fires crackling in metal tubs. A steady stream of men wandered in the front door, bathtubs filled with bottles of beer. The back porch of the house held nothing but hard liquor, one long stretch of plywood and pigtails, a dull haze drifing out of the windows, as the cut-offs and knotted-up tops displayed long legs and glistening curves. Nothing was too much. A circle of men stood by the cornfields passing a joint the size of cigar. On the kitchen table there was a substantial pile of powder, metal straws hand forged for the occasion and scattered around the room, an eternal series of men and girls bending over and inhaling the coke.

  One fee got you in. There was a list. I didn’t make it. Every fifteen minutes I was called to some point on the property. Most often it was the front, the fence and muscle down by the road. I looked at the list, gave the men a once-over, a look, and if they were trouble, I sent them away. Didn’t matter if they bid it up to five grand, or if they were standing there with a kilo of pot, they were out. Nobody liked to get rejected. The professionals at the door tolerated nothing. They were quick to throw a fist, quick to beat the men down, take their admission anyway, and roll the lifeless bodies into the dirt.

  An old man I’d seen at the Slaughtered Lamb drove a flatbed up and down the road, and the rejects were tossed on the back of this platform. Some men out cold, some pouting with their arms crossed, a few with a hole in their skull and not coming back for the next one. I didn’t care. I was Juiced up, and everything felt good. Every tiny hand on my arm, every set of pouting red lips at my ear, every warm hand grabbing my ass or running up my thigh to squeeze my cock was another notch in my belt, another line up my nose, another boost to my ego.

  The other point of entry was for the VIPs. When a helicopter landed I made my way to the cornfield, to meet and greet whatever jackass hopped out into the night. They were the least of my worries.

  As the night expanded and the property vibrated with pulsing beats, and an endless coupling of bodies writhed in the dirt, people started to disappear. Mostly it was the girls pairing off, trying to hold on to some sort of romance, squinting their eyes under the watchful moon, cornstalks pressed into their naked backs, the sting of skin being lost. On their bruised lips, they asked for more pain. Hands slapping, fists pushing into necks, the only bit of life left in them buried so deep it needed to be shocked to the surface. I couldn’t keep up with the girls. One after another came to me, bruised and cut, tears brimming their eyes, sometimes in pairs, holding each other, fingers pointed this way and that.

  Even the muscle started to disappear. Not the front door, or the helipad, but everyone else, they were gone. It was too much for them—the girls and the liquor, the coke and the opportunity. They vanished into the dark fields, eager to get theirs as well. So I took it on, these rabid dogs, full of righteousness and the somber tears of one girl after another—I went looking for wrongs to be righted. The violence in the air was contagious.

  It started with a couple of drunks, tall lean men laughing into their beers. I pressed the taser into the first one’s neck, and he collapsed into the grass, still shaking.

  “Pick him up and get out.”

  They didn’t move. Holstering the device, I reached inside my jacket to the other holster and pulled out the black metal, cocking it once. Some hybrid of steel and plastic, long thin bullets running down the inside of an extended clip, I pulled the trigger and shattered the knee of the man on the ground. Bone shrapnel and a dotting of blood, and they jolted to attention, their buddy twitching on the ground.

  “Get him out of here. Now.”

  Now they move. Where seconds before there was a half-circle of laughter and bravado, now there was only an echo and the wind. The two girls that approached me earlier disappear into the house, waving me in. I glanced around the party as it was winding down, and everything seemed to be in order. The gun hung at my side, heavy. A large security guard appeared at the edge of the cornfield, half dressed, but I waved him away. He nodded, but stood still, watching me. A slow line of johns and girls crept toward the front of the property. I wasn’t sure if they were easing away from me or just calling it a night.

  I walked over to the front porch, a countrified girl standing there in short-shorts and pigtails, chewing on a fingernail. I grabbed a bottle of some amber liquid, swallowed, and set it down.

  “You cool?” I asked.

  She nodded, leaning toward the door.

  “Inside?” I asked. She nodded again. “Go on,” I said. “Get out of here.”

  I stepped into the kitchen and three brunettes were bent over the table, fighting over the small pile of coke. Their raccoon eyes darted up to me, caught in the garbage can, teeth bared to the dim light behind lipstick snarls. They eyed me but didn’t move, until they saw the gun in my hand.

  “Upstairs?”

  Boots tromped across the ceiling, a dull thud and a high-pitched squeal. Not pleasure, not laughter, but pain.

  “Out. Get out. That’s enough for tonight.”

  They scattered like cockroaches. The last one, shadows under her lids and a dull sheen pasted onto her face, she reached back and grabbed as much as she
could of the blow, stuffing it in her jeans pocket, as she darted out the front door. I could hear blades whipping the night air into a frenzy—a mumbling toward the front of the house, cars and voices echoing.

  Into the front hall, and a man staggered down the steps, zipping up his pants, a smear of blood across his white button-down shirt. He took one look at me and turned to vomit into the large, round planter of a nearby ficus tree.

  “Wasn’t me, man,” he said, standing up. “Wasn’t my idea.”

  Part of me wanted to grab him, ask him to explain. He needed to stay behind, right? I opened my mouth to ask him his name, to tell him to sit down and wait, when I was interrupted by another scream, this one louder and more urgent.

  “I better not see your face again,” I said, and he ran out the front door.

  One boot in front of the other, I climbed the steps. Shadows danced on the walls—high, up to the ceiling, candles tipped over onto the floor, wax pooling. There were three bedrooms up here and a bathroom. It sounded like the party was in the master bedroom, but I took my time anyway. I raised the gun to waist level, hand trembling, and used it to divine my way through the hall and on to the bedrooms.

  The first room was empty—the bedding pulled back, a clean white sheet exposed. And then I saw her, one of the girls, cowering in the corner of the room, crouched in the fetal position. I didn’t know her name. I didn’t know any of their names.

  “Sweetheart, you okay?”

  “He asked me to do it,” she mumbled.

  “Who did, baby? One of the men?”

  She nodded, rocking back and forth. When she turned to face me there was blood smeared across her mouth.

  “You wanna go now, wanna leave? It’s okay. I’m one of the good guys.”

  She nodded again, and slowly stood up. She was in nothing but black lace panties and a matching bra, her tits pushed up almost to her neck, a smear across them as well. Dark handprints ran a ring around her waist. Outside I heard a door slam, and the smell of burnt flesh drifted to me. She walked toward me as if she were on stilts, wobbly legs long and disjointed, something in her right hand.