She’s a revolver, but her barrel’s unrifled, she can handle .45 longs or 410 shotgun shells. Me, I likes to keep her loaded with 410 .000 – she ain’t gots much penetration at range, but if you aims in they general direction, they goes right down like you tapped them with a magic wand.
Fuck that motion sensor. Fuck that alarm company.
Ellen’s waitin’ so I walks right up to the slidin’ door, expectin’ the light to come on any second an’ for the alarm to start blastin.’ I’s just goin’ in to snatch Ellen away, that’s all the time I’s gonna need to care about.
But the light don’t come on, nor the alarm. I stands at the slidin’ door for a few seconds, peepin’ into the unlit interior. It’s a kitchen in there, with an archway leadin’ to a litup room towards the front of the house.
I put away the Buck, grab the door handle and it opens right up. Good: I woulda kicked it in if I had to, this gave me a bit more time til things went hog wild.
You Spiders like music? You gots you a song, for when it hits the fan?
I gots me one, for when I’s off the meds an’ I starts melting into the windows. Hates when that happens, I punches out windows a lot, dig it?
Used to drive Ellen nuts, it kinda affected the quality of motels we could stays at, right? But hell, any time I’s don’t has to sleep in the dirt, its all gravy to me.
Anyways, MY song is ‘Incense & Peppermints,’ you knows, by the Strawberry Alarm Clock? Hell, how could you knows it, you’s a spider – I ain’t all the way crazy grrl, no matter what they all be sayin.’
‘Incense & Peppermints’ is wantin’ to play whilst I creeps through the kitchen with my Judge in my hand. But I won’t lets it, it ain’t the right time to lets it play. I comes to the archway and walks right through, more concerned about Ellen’s safety than my own I guess.
I’s standin’ in a front room, but no one seems to be to home. The front curtains is closed at the slidin’ door leadin’ to the front deck. The carpetin’ is real expensive, they’s paintin’s and sculptures all about – this place would be a real payday, if that’s what I was here for.
Ellen would waltz through this house like a raccoon on speed, bypassin’ alarms, ferretin’ out the safes and caches of gold coins an’ such.
If the owners don’t show up an’ make a fuss, I just gets to admire Ellen at work. If they do come home early and make waves, then mama gets to her thing while Ellen looks on all admiring.’
But right now, Ellen ain’t here.
They’s a couch with its back to the shut curtain, with a glass coffee table in front of it. They’s a pile of shit in the middle of the table, an’ I walks up to study the pile. I knows this shit came out of Ellen, it was a scat job she was workin’ to case this house.
Ellen’d done scat jobs before: All she had to do was squat naked on the glass coffee table wearin her workin’ spike heels and take a dump on the table while the trick lay on his back on the floor underneath. The trick’d beat off whilst he watched the poop pilin’ up on the other side of the glass table above him. Ellen didn’t hast to let the John touch her at all, an’ she usually walked out with around $500, easy money, a bonus above and beyond what we’d steal later.
Other pervs likes other kinks. Ellen did whatever she has to to distract ‘em – she even had this one fool who liked her to grind the pointy tip of her spike heel shoe into his boner, to the point of drawin’ blood.
Here in the House, they’s an empty condom wrapper on the floor, I can sees it through the glass as I looks down at Ellen’s scat pile. Maybe the john didn’t want his expensive carpeting to get all matted up. The pile of scat is deformed, and they’s smears of shit extendin’ to the edge of the table, like someone was maybe dragged away against they will.
I looks down at the carpeted floor an’ sees a little smear of shit a few feet away from the table. A few feet past that one, they’s another smear. Ellen’s using her head, she be leavin’ a trail for mama, like breadcrumbs or somethin.’
I follows the trail of shit smears around a corner, again lettin’ the Judge be the careful one, tonight I’s gonna shoot first and ask questions later. The trail of smears ends in the middle of the hall, and I walks up to study that last smear better.
I looks down the hall both ways, wonderin’ if maybe the trick finally wised up an’ stopped her from leavin’ the smears. Then I looks at the wall an’ sees a crack there, like a hidden doorway or something.’ Me an’ Ellen had encountered such before.
I presses my ear to the wall an’ listen, but I don’t hear squat. I pulls out the Buck, wedges it into the crack, and I manages to pull the door out from the wall far enough to gets a finger grip on it.
I opens the door a bit and peeps in. I sees a staircase leadin’ down into a litup room, but I don’t hear nothin’ so I opens it the rest of the way an’ steps in, leadin’ with the Judge.
As soon as I hits the top of the stairs I can see them both down there, an’ I freezes.
But they don’t move neither.
After a sec I commences creepin’ down the stairs to join them, an’ hits the bottom. I’s in a cinder block underground room, looks rough like a do-it-yourselfer, but I only has eyes for Ellen an’ her trick.
Ellen has her right wrist cuffed to a pipe railin’ mounted on the wall. She herself is slumped on her side on the tile floor with her face all bashed in – I wouldn’t even recognize that pretty face if I didn’t knows it was her. They’s a bloody razor blade clutched between the thumb an’ forefinger of her free hand, the blade she always carries in her mouth when she works a john.
The john is sittin’ against the far cinderblock wall, his glassy eyes open an’ dimmin’ as they dry up all glassy like I’s seen so many times before. The butt of his pants is soppin’ up a puddle of his own blood, but most of the blood is drippin’ down a drain in the center of the tile floor.
His blood soaked pants makes him look like he just had hisself a messy stuck pig of a period an’ neglected the cleanup, or he was a cherry that just pulled hisself a butthole train. Any other time I’d’ve laughed, but right now I’s not what you’d be callin’ amused.
His legs be splayed out an’ spread, one dead hand’s still up at his gashed throat, the front of his shirt’s soaked red too. I looks down to make sure I’s not steppin’ in his blood as I notices his other hand’s on the floor with a bloody billy club still held in it.
They’s lots of appliances danglin’ off hooks on a peg board on the back wall, but I don’t think this trick was into home improvement, dig it?
They’s S&M shit spread out on a ‘work bench’ – whips, gag balls an’ what not. The basement smells of bleach – an’ other smells, the kind I’s never liked no matter what they tells you about me Spider. Looks like this guy was filmin’ his own private home movie version of the Toolbox Murders, an’ he was auditionin’ Ellen to be his latest star.
They’s an intercom mounted into the cinder block wall, an’ they’s a video camera on a tripod next to the intercom, pointin’ at ‘em, its recordin’ light blinkin’ away. I squats on my hams outta its field of vision, considerin’ hard as I was able.
Near’s I can figure, Ellen played along ‘til the piece of shit got her down here, waitin’ on her chance like a good grrl. Maybe whilst he was cuffin’ her to the pipe, maybe whilst he was distracted by somethin’ else, that’s when Ellen took her shot: pullin’ the razor blade from her mouth an’ hackin’ at his throat.
I looks at the John’s throat close as I can without actually touchin’ him or gettin’ in front of that stinkin’ camera. Ellen only nicked him on his jugular, deep enough that even a fool’d know that fountain was unstoppable, but slow enough Shithead had all the time in the world to be grabbin’ up that billy club from amongst his collection of toys, beat her to death with it before he fell down an’ passed out hisself from loss of blood.
I’s proud of Ellen for takin’ him with her, but I’s disappointed that he gots away from me. ‘Incense & Peppermi
nts’ is still tryin’ to play inside my head an’ I still won’t let it, it’d be a waste of that glorious old tune.
Him bein’ dead, it’d also be a waste of good 410 buckshot an’ a waste of my time to point the Judge at his ‘manhood’ an’ watch his sweaty face whilst I pulls the trigger. This Male wouldn’t even feel it if ‘n I skinned the hide right off his own face with my Buck Hunter an’ showed it off to ‘im.
I’s sure they’s nothin’ in his pocket but plastic, an’ they’s no way I’ll leave traces for CSI diggin’ around, especially considerin’ Ellen never had a chance to get his PIN numbers. This was her first time here at this particular house, so she never had a chance to finds out any safe combinations or security codes. They’s nothin’ for me here now but a chance to leave evidence at a multiple homicide crime scene.
I backs my way out, keepin’ myself copacetic an’ cool though I wants to run amuck. I’s gonna grieve for Ellen later, I knows she’d want mama to be safe.
But as I’s headin’ up the stairs, I hears the intercom squawk behind me, an’ I’ll confess I stops like I’s hit a brick wall.
“Aren’t you done with her yet?” this bossy Dom soundin’ bitch’s voice says over the speaker. Almost makes me giggle, knowin’ this dead punk had been a bottom to somebody. “You know I have an early flight. Clean things up NOW, and get your sorry ass up to bed, slave.”
An’ I’s suddenly so happy as I skips up the basement steps like I’s a little girl all over again. I rounds the corner an’ head upstairs towards wherever it is this fool bitch thinks she’s safe at. I gots my Buck in the right hand, the Judge in my left, an’ I’s lettin’ Incense an’ Peppermints play all soft sweet an’ loud inside my old brainpan, makin’ my happiness complete as I goes up to do a little grrl on girl action with the woman of the house.
What’s that Miss Spider? You’s wants me to stop now? Okay, it’s a’ight that you don’t wants to hear the rest, though I’s surprised a spider could be so squeamish.
They’s comin’ for me now, anyways. All those piggies an’ whatever bible thumper’s on duty, comin’ to escort me to my date rape with Mister Needle.
Don’t cry Little Spider. I knows it’s the warm place for me, but that’s gotta be where Ellen is waitin’ for mama, right?
I’s gonna be with her soon enough, dig it.
* * *
END
Pearce’s first novel STREET RAISED is also available for the Kindle at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0050JL0IM):
“When Speedy raises from prison, he hitchhikes home to Oakland only to find his brother Little Willy a homeless crack head and his best friend Fat Bob bouncing in San Francisco's underground hardcore clubs. When two of their childhood homeboys get wrapped in chains by Mexican slangers and thrown in the American River alive, our heroes somehow get it together enough to plot revenge.”
“Sure, it maybe takes the edge off Speedy's game a little when he starts playing house with beautiful phone psychic Carmel, and it complicates things a bit more when Louis, the same cop who put him in prison, starts dogging their steps like an unwelcome relative. But when a racist coven of skinz comes howling for Speedy & Carmel's blood, and a serial killer with a monster in his head decides Speedy is the answer to all his unholy prayers, things get really interesting . . .”
Here’s some of the blurbs & reviews STREET RAISED has earned to date:
Ken Bruen (author of London Boulevard, soon to be a major motion picture, Oscar winner William Monahan (screenwriter of The Departed) to write & direct): "One of the best writers I know. Imagine James Ellroy coupled with George R. R. Martin and overseen by Charles Willeford. But Pearce really needs no comparison to any other writer; he’s created his own compelling dark universe that ratchets up noir to an astonishing level.”
“True noir has finally received the rightful heir to the Dark Kingdom. Hail Pearce Hansen. The heir to Vachss.”
Joe Lansdale (author of Bubba Ho-Tep starring Bruce Campbell): “STREET RAISED is a scar of a book, but it's a beautifully healed scar. Gutsy, fast-paced, written in an electric style. Recommended.”
Eddie Muller (founder and President of the Film Noir Foundation, in his San Francisco Chronicle review): “A fast, ferocious and often ugly ride through the East Bay's feral underground. Hansen's tale is a curious blend of drug culture minutia and a story line that's more a cranked-up fable than a traditional crime story. In its best passages, STREET RAISED suggests a contemporary version of Jack Black's classic 1926 memoir of itinerant criminal life, You Can’t Win – albeit a heavily armed, hyperviolent update.”
Jason Starr (bestselling author of The Pack): "STREET RAISED is a full-tilt, dead-on descent into the Bay Area underworld, with lovably flawed characters and stunning dialogue. Every page, it seems, has something to marvel at. This is literary crime of the highest order, on par with the work of the great Eddie Bunker. Pearce Hansen is a major new talent.”
Laird Barron (author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation) at his Domination of Black website: "This novel is a beautiful and horrifying proposition. Hansen’s writing evokes an almost paralyzing aura of authenticity. His depiction of human predatory wildlife is sharp, yet neither glorifies nor condemns its subject. More like he’s simply clicked on the camera and the secret microphone and allows nature to take its course. All told, this novel contains more bloody darkness in one pinky than ten times its weight in typical category horror fare. I’m one jaded fella when it comes to shocks in literature, and I was gratified at how many moments Street Raised raised my hackles or caused me to reread a paragraph because I couldn’t quite accept that I’d seen what I’d seen. Hansen's delivery is nothing like Cormac McCarthy's, but this novel possessed a few visceral and nasty surprises that put it in the same territory of viciousness and macabre grandeur as Blood Meridian.”
“There is something of Michael Shea’s street beat poetics in Hansen’s rhythmic prose, and maybe a tab or two of whatever psychedelic Cody Goodfellow mixes into his morning joe, and maybe even a slight hint of what it would look like if Wambaugh stopped giving a rat’s ass about anyone else in the entire world, hitched up his suspenders, spit into his cupped palms, and then grabbed an axe and started in with blood in his eye.
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Table of Contents
Girl Crazy (A lost STREET RAISED story)
I Was A Psychic Friend (No Really, I WAS)
Far, Far Away
The Greedy Depths
The Storm Giants
Girl’s Night Out
Greater Than the Sum
We Are the World
The Day He Raised (The First Chapter of STREET RAISED)
Where the Heart Is
Tom Ripley: A SPECTRE Profile
Church Social
Blind Date
Community Property
Good to Be a Man
Paraplegic Killer Chimp
Carny Love (A Chapter Deleted From STREET RAISED)
Last Trick
Gun Sex Page 17