Soul Standard

by Richard Thomas

  “Here, take this,” she said, her eyes beyond me, set on some distant place where this would be a long-forgotten memory, a flash and a shiver in the middle of the night.

  I held out my left hand and she placed the bloody foot in it, the edges of the flesh ragged and torn, the gleam of the bone making my stomach roll. She was out of the room before I could speak. I dropped the foot like it was a burning ember and turned to ask her something, when again a heavy thud and a piercing scream jolted me out of the darkness.

  I turned to the hallway and headed toward the master bedroom. I eased up to the second bedroom, and peered around the corner. Inside, one of the girls was passed out, lying naked on a slightly less white sheet, a needle sticking out of her left arm. A man sat next to her stroking her other arm, running his hands over her pale body, his finger encircling her nipples, back down to her stomach. He was fully dressed, wearing a dark suit, and it sounded like he was sobbing. When his hand started to head south, I spoke up.

  “Hey. Fucker.”

  He turned to me, pale face and quivering lips glistening.

  “She dead or just nodding off?” I asked.

  His hands shook and he still couldn’t speak. I raised the gun until it was trained on his chest. Couldn’t miss at this range. The girl moaned and shifted, the needle falling out of her arm, a trickle of blood running down her pale skin.

  “You her trick or her boyfriend, what?”

  “Something like that,” he said.

  The girl moved again, slowly opening her eyes.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Raven,” he said.

  “Hey, Raven,” I shouted. Her hollow eyes turned to me. “Is he okay? He with you?”

  She turned to him, looked, considered, looked back at me, swallowed, and nodded yes.

  “Get her the fuck out of here,” I said and turned away. I couldn’t get to the master bedroom fast enough, sweat running down the inside of my arms, and the door was open, a flash of light and a dull glow pushing out of the room. I could see movement, hear laughter, a heavy thud running through the floor and more laughter. I raised the gun again and moved up to the opening, more light spilling out of the room, that burnt smell again, something sizzling.

  It goes slow now, the last remnants of the Juice coursing through my veins, every bit of light leaving tracers on the windows, the walls, my stomach in knots. In the corner sits a naked man, jerking off in a blur of motion, focused on the bed, bugged out, saliva running down his chin, clamps of some sort clinging to his nipples, his right leg severed at the ankle. Lying on the floor is a blowtorch, shooting flames toward the wall, and I can see where his ankle has been cauterized. He is frantic, covered in a dull sheen, moaning gently to himself.

  A half-dozen men stand around the bed in various stages of dress. Some of the pasty white jackals simply have their pants down, while others are entirely naked. A mountain of black muscle ripples in the moonlight, a welder’s mask on his head. He pounds away on the girl in the bed, slamming his giant cock in and out, her hands tied to the bedpost, her legs splayed and fastened down. She is still conscious. Thin red lines run back and forth across her stomach, blood running down between her legs.

  I blink, unsure. I can’t move. I swallow. And then I start pulling the trigger.

  The man in the chair is first, one to the chest, another right next to it, and the rest of them turn to look. The mountain shimmers and turns, and I take a step toward him, making sure I don’t miss, the nose of the barrel against the back of his head, and in one tug I paint the wall with his blood. I can’t hear anything, the smell of smoke and burnt flesh making me cough and I move my arm to the right, pulling, pulling. More screams, chips of bone, splatters of blood and the two men to the right bounce off of each other. I’m too slow when I turn back to the left, they’re past me before I can get them, so I turn with them, turn toward the door and keep firing.

  “Get him off me,” the girl screams. I keep firing, clipping the second man in the leg, but he’s out the door, tumbling down the stairs. I take three steps out the door and lean over the railing, firing again and again, missing them, as they fly down the steps and out of the house. I won’t get them. I never saw their faces.

  The man in the chair is moaning, so I take a step toward him and put one in his head, silencing him as I’m sprayed with a fine mist of his blood. But the girl in the bed is still screaming—she’s still screaming.

  “What the fuck,” I moan, swallowing again to hold back the bile.

  “Get him off of me, I can’t breathe,” she gasps.

  He’s so big, I can’t move him, and I feel a string loosen in my skull, something slipping. I drop the gun and lean into him with my shoulder, pushing and pushing, slick with blood, his head gone, the girl still screaming, and I finally roll him off.

  She’s crying now, still tied up, and my arms are shaking. I can’t breathe.

  Her face. I know this face.

  I pull a pocketknife out of my jacket, click it open and slice through the ropes. First her arms flop down and then her legs, and she quickly puts her hands between them and curls up into a ball. I hold my hand out, but I’m afraid to touch her. There is a tattoo of orange butterflies across the back of her neck. I pull my hand back as if it has been burned, a slow moan easing out of me.

  There are gunshots and screams from below, the muffled sounds of car doors slamming shut, and she turns to face me.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I fucked up.”

  Sobbing, I hold her to me, both of us shaking, the heat from her body, the stench of the room—copper and sweet charred skin.

  Rebecca. This is my daughter.

  She called them flutter-byes when she was a little girl. We’d wander the cornfields, the ground covered in freshly cut husks, chasing the monarchs and hiding in the maze that wound its way through the dry, alien stalks. She would hold my hand and look up at the sky, and we’d talk about anything but the truth. How do you tell your eight-year-old daughter that her mother is a heroin addict and would sell you in a heartbeat for the right price, at the right time, as she shivered and huddled under an overpass, lost someplace in the City? I told her it was cancer. I could explain that. And when her mother got thin and slept a lot, when the scabs and scars riddled her arms, I’d sigh and hold my little girl and tell her cancer was a bitch. I never said her mother was a bitch. I never said that.

  When I took her mother into the City for treatment, when she stayed overnight, stayed for days, trying to get clean, we ate our dinner and said a prayer for her. Rebecca would plead to God over mashed potatoes and meatloaf, and I’d choke back the anger and the tears. Eventually it would drive my daughter to strange places, seeking affection from strange men, since I was dead inside on most days. Or gone. This is how she got into the business, looking for a mother in the form of someone kind, looking for a father in the rough hands of authority. But I blame my wife for getting the ball rolling. I blame my wife for forcing me into the arms of hookers, women that would hold me and touch me and make me feel alive while she was slowly dying.

  I don’t say my wife’s name anymore.

  I just don’t.

  It’s early in the morning and I head outside to feed the pigs. The rain has stopped for the moment. The ground is still damp, and corn bends under the weight of the dew. I didn’t sleep well. The wind was full of whispers last night, the hushed pleading of my long dead wife mixed with the angry hiss of my daughter.

  Hands stuffed in my leather coat pockets, I wander down to the end of the driveway to see if I have any mail. I chuckle to myself—it’s an old joke. Sometimes they just drop off canvas army bags; sometimes it’s an old trunk. I’ve gotten thick rugs rolled up and bound with twine. An old swimming pool once, plastic wrapped around bits and pieces, the whole thing held together with chicken wire. The good stuff is always taken first. But the hogs don’t care. They’ll gnaw on anything.

  Today there is nothing but a small blue backpack. These deposit
s always gives me pause. I never know what I will find, and I can’t just dump it in the pen. The pigs could choke on the metal or plastic, tennis shoes and leather purses, wallets and watches. You never know.

  I carry it back to the barn. There is no liquid seeping through, thank God. Whatever’s in here, they’ve wrapped it up right. I have a long table that sits in the center of the barn, railroad ties lying one next to the other, a thin sheet of plywood over the top with dozens of holes drilled through it. The frame is an old watering trough that leaked something fierce. But the metal structure is sound, can bear the weight of it all. It’s seen many a draining out here in the hay dust and pig shit.

  I unzip the bag and open it up. I can’t see what’s inside it, though. There’s nothing large—not a head or two, not a sack of ankles, nothing like that. I know better than to root around in it with my bare hands, so I turn it over and, preparing for the worst, I dump out the contents. Onto the table spill ten, no twenty, more than that, they keep plunking down on the wood, fifty or sixty fingers. And thumbs. Every imaginable shape and color.

  Cleanly snipped, no ragged edges here.

  Reiss, it must be his doing. He likes to mess with me. There’s little value in the fingers. Nobody wants them. Livers, sure. Eyeballs, definitely. Lungs, hearts, sometimes intestines, but the appendages? Most of that scrap wants to be gone.

  I push the digits around on the surface, looking for information. There is a ring finger with a black band tattooed on it. Most of these look white, some of them tan, only a few of the darker skin, and they stick out like a sore thumb. Sore thumb, I chuckle. Sick old bastard, that’s what I am. And the payment for this service, for knowing that these fingerprints won’t show up on any police scanner, the rewards for disposing of these piggy finger foods, is one gold band on a long tan ring finger and one platinum ring with a stone still resting on a short, thick pale female finger. I hate those the most, the women. I shudder and pull the jewelry off anyway. It’ll get me a little something down at the Slaughtered Lamb. God knows I’m down there enough.

  The hogs are at the fence snorting and bumping into each other, hooves coated in mud, snouts turned up to the air.

  “Hey, guys, before I give you breakfast,” I say to them, “mind if I check out the pen real fast?” Nobody objects too strenuously, a lone squeal in the back the only complaint. I rake through the mud and waste at least once a week. They often leave the larger bones behind—the skulls pushed around like some barbaric soccer game, scrapes across the round part of the bone, lines where their teeth dragged across the top. The femurs sometimes, splintered maybe, or a humerus. Sometimes they leave them behind. On the angry days, when the wind blows hard and the pigs snap at me, long grasses off the road waving back and forth, on those days they’ll chew on anything, grinding the bones down to dust.

  I pull a long metal rake off of the wall and walk over to them. I can stroke their heads and pet them sometimes, but when they’re hungry like this, eager for the skin and bones, it’s in my best interest not to take any chances. I know that they’d just as soon devour me in a frenzy of pink and brown leathery skin. Even though I’m their keeper, and the last meal they’d probably ever get. Stupid hogs.

  I walk around the perimeter of the fence, the pen, looking for anything out of the ordinary. I’m looking for a skull. Or a large bone. Ribs, maybe. Spine, hipbones. I never know what I might find. We haven’t had any large shipments lately, so I’m not expecting to find much. I run the metal rake through the muck, walking ahead of them, finding nothing. They follow me around the fence and back to the barn, hoping I’ll finish up soon.

  Nothing. The big boy must not have made it out this way. Maybe he’s still walking around.

  Then again, maybe not.

  I lean the old rake against the barn and grab a handful of fingers. I walk over and fling them into the pen and the pigs scatter, grunting and squealing, snapping at each other.

  “Don’t worry, there’s plenty for everyone.”

  I go back and scoop up more fingers, tossing them into the pen. Again and again, I pick up the digits, until there are none left to feed to the low beasts at my feet. It’s too early to head down to the bar, but I’m starting to get twitchy already. Maybe it’s time to head into the City. I still have a few friends left in town. It’s risky. I’ve still got some credit scattered across a few random brothels, and I haven’t seen Ruby in a while.

  It’s a long walk, but I have nothing but time. It’ll take me hours to get there, but what do I care. I walk the gravel for two miles until I get to a bus shelter in the middle of nowhere, little protection from the wind. The rain has held off for the most part, so I’m only damp, not drenched. I lean up against the metal frame and wait for the visions to come.

  There is a semi barreling down the highway, and I’m sitting in the front seat, Caterpillar hat on, blending in, Johnny Cash crooning out of the dash. Dale is driving, a large man in overalls and a white T-shirt, bushy mustache and hands the size of dinner plates. We’ll be at the warehouse soon. Our destination is in the meatpacking district, but I’m not looking forward to the delivery. Dale’s chewing his cud, bloodshot eyes fixed on the road. My hand wanders up to my chin, gently touching the weeping gash that runs down the side of my face. Dale looks over and grins, but says nothing. A series of potholes jostle the cab and a low mew of shrieks comes from the back of the trailer. You’d think they’d be used to it by now.

  It’s about what I expected.

  Skinny, angry Russian whores.

  Skinny, angry Polish whores.

  Skinny, angry black whores with attitude.

  Skinny white chicks in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Dale and I stand in the middle of the warehouse, arms crossed, watching them unload. Our weapons are back in the cab. These men are part of our extended family, and this is simply the handing off of a baton.

  The girls step off the back of the truck and down the long metal runway as if this were Paris, the warehouse now the fashion district. They know they’ve been bought and sold, but this is a step in the right direction. Wherever they come from, potato soup and rocks, bitter winters and rivers of vodka, this is a chance at something real.

  Heroin and AIDS, broken noses and bashed-in skulls, they’re willing to take the chance. It’s the handful of freelance talent that always makes this an interesting show, the girls that got caught in the net. Smart-talking a pimp, stealing cash or drugs—those crimes will get you sold in a minute. It’s a short skirt shaking an ass on the dance floor, and then it’s your arm wrapped in a meaty fist, a syringe in the neck, waking up on a cold concrete floor. It’s stepping out of a dressing room, your boyfriend no longer seated in front of you, a hairy beast with arms crossed—and the tears start to flow in heavy rivers. It’s a bag of money and you running for the edge of the world, a bus stopped in the middle of nowhere, your name announced over the speakers for all to hear, your gut twisting in knots.

  The girls continue to unload, and they stand in groups. The guy with the suitcase nods at me and I walk over.

  “Pick one,” he says.

  “What for?”

  “Just do it.”

  It’s the usual mix of thugs—large men with guns, skinny men with bushy hair and hawkish noses holding briefcases, a handful of black muscle and rednecks for flair. The last of the girls walk down the runway—the white girls timid and blinking in the light. A brunette in tattoos is the last to walk off, her gaze lingering on me, dark and cold, her nose twitching, lips pursed. Rebecca. In order to buy her back, I first had to sell her, but she doesn’t understand that now. Her smart mouth, her quick hands and sticky fingers, they’ve already sentenced her to a life on her back. But I think I can get her out.

  “Pick one?” I ask again. Doesn’t feel right. It’s a trick.

  “Something you like, my friend. A little bonus to ride in the cab with you and the huckleberry there. Consider it my gift to you, comrade.”

  I walk over to the wh
ite girls, to Rebecca, but stop short before I get there. A thin Russian blonde with long red nails, her arms crossed, glares at me. Her hands found my face earlier, and her nails are still holding onto my skin.

  I stand in front of her and look her up and down. This has to look legit.

  “This one I kind of like,” I say, and she opens her mouth to speak, but I shake my head back and forth. “Kind of a big mouth, though. Bit lippy, if you know what I mean.”

  The man with the briefcase walks over, hands it to me, and inspects the girl.

  “Nice choice. She has a big mouth, you say?”

  He reaches around to the back of his suit coat and pulls out a blur of black, centers it on her forehead and pulls the trigger. The girls scream and look around, unsure of how to react. One girl pisses down the inside of her leg. The men with the shotguns take a few steps toward us, but the little guy holds out his hand.

  “Shut up,” he yells. The girls quiet to a whimper. I wipe the spray off my face, tacky and warm, and rub it on the leg of my jeans. “Next time you make me wait an hour, it’ll be two of them, got it? The briefcase is a little light now, you understand. I don’t buy defective products, and this one,” he says, nudging her lifeless body with the toe of his shoe, “is definitely not working right.”

  I nod my head, glancing at Rebecca. I’ve told her to stay away, but she keeps getting into trouble. I only have so much pull, and some days it feels like nothing at all.

  “The Juice is loaded in the truck,” he says. “Have a safe trip back.”

  There’s the blare of a horn and my head snaps up. The bus has finally arrived. I blink and take a deep breath as the doors hiss open, and I step inside.

  “Downtown,” I say, slipping a five-dollar bill into the slot, stepping toward the back of the bus, all the way to the back. Maybe I can get some rest now, before we get to the train, before Ruby.

  And I wish Rebecca had listened.

  Halfway there, the last stop of the bus is a hub that is still miles from the center of the City. Scattered across the metropolis are several hubs, and from each of those there are bus lines that extend in every direction, far into the barren wastelands and forgotten cornfields that have been left to rot as the world moves on. The City is where the action is.