Blood, Guts, & Whiskey

by Todd Robinson

  “If Harold wasn’t with his cousin, where would he be?”

  “If he ain’t there, and he ain’t on the streets committing crimes, then that nigga must be flying in the air or something.”

  “There’s got to be somewhere,” Raymond said.

  “Well,” Marcus said, “his grandmother used to live in this house on Asylum Avenue, before she was kicked out by the bank. He used to go out there and take care of her. Do her shopping and shit.”

  “You remember the address?”

  “Can’t remember any house numbers, but it was on the corner across from a drugstore. It had a big picture window on the side and on the porch. I think it was yellow back then.”

  Raymond thanked Marcus and started walking towards Asylum without saying another word to EZ.

  The drugstore was abandoned, still boarded up with trash strewn all over its cracked parking lot. A realty sign was nailed to one of the plywood panels. There were still a lot of houses and buildings up for sale on Asylum Avenue, but the house that Marcus described had a new coat of yellow paint.

  Raymond walked up the porch steps and knocked on the door. He looked down the side street the house shared, Grant Street, and saw a lot of FOR SALE signs. Something on the ground caught the corner of his eye. He walked over and saw that it was another FOR SALE sign, but this one had a giant SOLD sticker on it. When the lock turned, Raymond’s attention went back to the door. It swung open and a medium-sized man in a wifebeater shirt stood there. Raymond had a good six inches on him.

  “You Harold?” Raymond asked.

  “What you want?”

  “I wanna know if you’re Harold.”

  A car horn blared behind Raymond and he switched his footing so he could look at the car without losing sight of the man in the door. It was a small foreign car with a couple of different colors—bodywork done with whatever panels were available. EZ was behind the wheel. He got out of the car.

  “That’s him, that’s Harold,” EZ said.

  Raymond reached up and took Harold by the throat and pushed him inside.

  “Why’d you kill my son?” Raymond said. “Why’d you have to go and kill my son for?”

  “I didn’t kill nobody,” Harold said.

  “Bullshit,” Raymond said. “You paid some crack whore to poison him.”

  Raymond took the pistol he stole from the trailer out of his pocket and placed the barrel in Harold’s mouth.

  Harold sounded like he was trying to say something, but Raymond pressed the gun’s metal down on his tongue.

  “Wait,” EZ said. “Don’t shoot him until he tells us where the money is.”

  “Don’t care about the fucking money,” Raymond said. “I only care about seeing this motherfucker’s brains on that wall.”

  “Man, that’s just stupid,” EZ said. “Nigga, where’s the fucking money at?”

  “That’s it,” Raymond said. “Say good-bye.”

  Before he could pull the trigger, he felt the metal end of another gun pressed against his ear.

  “We’re gonna get that money first,” EZ said.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Raymond said.

  “You think I was following you around because I cared about Jerome? I barely know that nigga. And yeah, I said nigga, nigga. What are you gonna do about it?”

  “Put the gun down.”

  “Fuck that,” EZ said. “Harold, where’s the money?”

  Harold mumbled something and Raymond took the pistol out of his mouth. “There ain’t no money.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit,” EZ said. “Everyone knows you got that money.”

  “There ain’t any money,” Harold repeated.

  “He’s telling you the truth,” Raymond said.

  “How that fuck do you know?”

  “This house we’re in, it was just bought. Fresh paint outside and a realtor’s sign with a sold sticker on it laying on the lawn.”

  “Shit, a hundred thousand is a lot, but not enough to buy no fucking house,” EZ said.

  “You notice these places around here?” Raymond asked. “Every other one is up for sale. There’s still trash and shit all over the neighborhood. The prices of these places aren’t what they were. This piece of shit just waited until the house went on sale and used the entire bundle to pay for his grandmother’s old place. I bet this place went for real cheap. Ain’t that right?”

  “Something like that, so what?”

  “So, you had my son killed for this house,” Raymond said. “Every memory, everything he was, it’s all gone so you can have some dumpy house that someone you used to know used to live in. It ain’t nothing but plywood and paint, but my boy was a good person. He may have fucked up a time or two, but he could have still gotten away from people like you. He could have left this godforsaken place and become something, instead of a piece of meat on some coroner’s cold slab.

  “Now, I gotta ask you, was this place worth it? Was this place worth my son’s life?”

  “Place got memories for me, man,” Harold said.

  “Well, you only got so much longer to remember them before I kill you,” Raymond said.

  EZ backed away from Raymond, but kept the pistol pointed at him. “You ain’t killing no one until—”

  “Until what?” Raymond asked as he moved away from Harold. “That money you keep thinking about is in the hand of some lowlife real estate guy who’s picking up percentages off people’s devalued property. There’s nothing here.”

  EZ stepped forwards again, but Raymond pulled out his knife and hit EZ’s gun arm. EZ dropped the gun and grabbed his forearm. Raymond picked the gun up and pointed it at both EZ and Harold. He looked around the room and saw an electric drill attached to a long extension cord.

  “EZ, take that extension cord and tie up Harold.”

  EZ did as he was told, tying Harold to the staircase.

  “That little bitch Jerome was talking shit,” Harold said. “He deserved it, saying about how he knew about the money and was going to take it from me. Can’t let shit talk like that go ignored.”

  “You heard him say this?”

  “Nah, it came from EZ here. EZ was the one told me.”

  “He’s lying to you,” EZ said. “Why would I say something like that?”

  Raymond grabbed EZ by the collar and slammed his fist into the little prick’s stomach. EZ went to the floor.

  “To get Jerome killed,” Raymond said. “You knew about me, about my reputation for dealing with people. You knew I’d go looking for Harold, and you served him right up for me. All you had to do was follow me.”

  “I was going to give you a cut,” EZ said. “But I didn’t say nothing to this motherfucker about Jerome.”

  “Bullshit,” Harold said.

  Raymond tied EZ next to Harold, ignoring EZ’s insults. He went outside and unraveled the garden hose, cut the metal end off, and then cut off a piece of hose about six feet long. He took empty paint cans from the porch and took the hose and can to EZ’s car. He unscrewed the gas cap, placed one end of the hose into the tank. He put his lips around the other end and sucked up the gas. As soon as it hit his tongue, he placed the end of the hose into the metal can and spit. When the can was full, he pulled the hose out and went back inside.

  He dumped the gas all over the living room floor and then went back out for another can. He splashed gas all over the walls in the small dining room and on the staircase. When Raymond stepped into the kitchen, he found the girl who slipped Jerome his deadly shot. She was sprawled on the linoleum, still wearing the nursing scrubs she had on before. Rubber tubing stretched tight over her bicep and a needle hanging out of the crook of her arm. She could have been dead or alive; Raymond didn’t care. He splashed gas around her and then spit in her face. She didn’t move.

  Raymond grabbed an empty Coke bottle from the kitchen counter and stuffed a piece of newspaper into it with just a little bit hanging out at the top. He walked onto the porch and took out his
lighter. He lit it, watched the paper burn into the bottle. He then threw it in the middle of the wooden floor. The glass broke and the fire ignited the gas-soaked floor and walls in an instant of intense heat and flame.

  Raymond walked away from the screams coming from EZ and Harold and headed across the street to the abandoned drugstore. He sat on the cement bench that was on the side of the building and watched that yellow house burn and burn. Each second he didn’t hear a siren was better than the last.

  Fool in Search of a Country Song

  Andy Turner

  No matter what you tried, you could bet your ass mud had your name on it in the parking lot of Hank’s Gentleman’s Club. It could have been bone dry for a month or more, but Hank’s would still have deep, black holes filled to the tip-top with thick-ass mud, willing and waiting to claim your tires or your shoes. My truck landed in one of them holes when I missed Hank’s entrance, flying instead over the curb and into the lot.

  My foot splashed down in a mud puddle soon as I stepped out of my truck. I still had on my steel-toed work boots, so I didn’t give a monkey’s ass about getting mud all over them. For a second before going on, I stared at my breath in the air. It was a little after eleven. I could hear the jukebox wailing as soon as I got near the door. Hank fired the DJ a few weeks back for trying to spy on the girls while they were changing. Hank said damn DJs cost too damn much when you got a perfectly good jukebox that makes money instead of damn costing money and trying to sneak a peek at the girls. Damn pervert.

  About ten guys were inside, most of them sitting by themselves at tables. Two of the dancers were sitting together at a table, waiting to go on, sucking on Newports and talking about George Clooney’s ass.

  Ed Looney was sitting at the runway with his dollar bills clinched tight in his hands, eyes intent on the dancer as she was shakin’ it every which a way. Ed was always at Hank’s, always at the same seat, eyeballing the dancers, always wearing a black shirt and black jeans. I stared at the dancer while she was flopping around. The lights flashed against her shiny body. Red, purple, then pink. She was wearing two pink tassels across her nipples and had on a matching G-string. She was older than the rest. Heavy in the ass and big, fat lips. As I stared up at her lips, she licked them, first the top, then the bottom. I stopped staring.

  Hank’s was beer only. People turn mean on you when they get liquor in ’em, Hank said. Pain in the ass to get your liquor license back, Hank said. Just make sure the damn stall door is closed before you open the bottle, Hank said.

  “Blue?”

  “Yep,” I told Hank, giving a buck and getting a frosty cold Pabst Blue Ribbon and a mason jar to pour it in.

  “What’s the story?” he asked, wiping his hands on his shirt that read, “Every time I get my shit together, I step in it.”

  “Not nothing. Just tickled as shit to be off for the weekend.”

  “Boy, you got a gravy job, what you complaining about? The shipyard ain’t shit. You should try running this place. Horny, drunk bastards.”

  “You’re full of it, Hank.”

  “Sheeit. Last night I caught some twisted son of a bitch trying to squirt off right there at the runway. Tried to hide the shit with a copy of goddamned Soldier of Fortune magazine. Beating off at the damned runway. People wouldn’t used to even think about doing something like that. How would you like someone to come down to the shipyard and slap their pecker right where you were working?”

  “Well, I ain’t as attractive as you, Hank.”

  “You got that right, smartass.”

  I sipped on my beer and took in Hank’s from my spot at the bar. A “Gentleman’s Club.” Horseshit. Hank calls it that, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in Hank’s who calls himself a gentleman. Sure as shit ain’t gonna find anyone out there calling us that.

  “Another one?” Hank asked as I downed the rest of my Pabst.

  “Sure. Cindy won’t be home before three anyway.”

  It had been that way for six months or more. I worked until five at night, and she left at five and didn’t get home until after three in the morning. I was normally either asleep or passed out by the time she got home. I went to Hank’s a few nights a week, always on Friday. Cindy and I might see each other for a little while in the morning, but normally I was doing stuff outside and she was inside cleaning or watching damned Judge Judy. The rest of the time? Hell, we’d just argue. We’d stopped screwing. I’d touch her and she’d kinda twitch up. Wouldn’t even bother to tell me she had a headache. Just say, “Naw, my back’s been acting up again.” What was she doing to her back?

  A young girl, couldn’t have been a minute over eighteen, came onstage. She reminded me a little of Cindy when she was that age. Straight brown hair that just nibbled at her ears. Brown eyes the color of MoonPies. I thought about Cindy as I watched her dance. I remembered when shit was better. That’s what fools do instead of trying to change anything. When we were in high school, Cindy and I would spend whole afternoons at her parents’ house with our tongues down each other’s throat. One of those times we jumped in the shower with all of our clothes on, ripping them all off until we were both naked. That was our first time. I was so scared her dad was gonna bust in and shoot off my dick. I didn’t know what I was doing. My hair was long then, and the water had caused all my hair to fall down on my face. I remember trying to push it back, trying to keep up with what was going on.

  Blake Matthews, a one hundred and ten percent asshole I knew in high school, stumbled in while I was looking at the jukebox, trying to make up my mind as to whether I should play Merle Haggard or Willie Nelson. As “Pour Some Sugar on Me” played, I blew Blake a kiss; he gave me a dirty look. I picked Hag. I was in a Hag mood. I decided to play pool and pretend like the ball was Blake’s head. I wrote my name on the board. No quarters on the table.

  “Show me them titties,” was how Blake introduced himself. Hank eyed him.

  The game ended as the one guy sank in the eight ball. He had a smile that told me he was gonna kick my ass good in pool.

  “Rack ’em up, Junior,” he said, extending his slender hand for me to shake. “My name is Cooper, but you can call me Cooper.”

  Cooper was a skinny guy with long, greasy red hair that dripped out of a Rusty Wallace racing cap. The whole time he talked he rubbed his chest square in the center. He lit a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth before rubbing more chalk on his hands. Chalk was all over his shirt and pants.

  “Don’t think I’ve seen you in here before,” I told him, chalking my stick.

  “First time. I live in Carolina. Came up here ’cause my friend told me he was gonna hook me up with some action, you know. Shit fell through, so I came here to look at a couple few titties.”

  He moved around the table, knocking in three low balls without even looking up at me.

  “Besides, this ain’t far from where I live. My house is right on the border. In fact, I can piss across my ditch into Virginia. Not that I do—necessarily.” Another high ball dropped in the corner pocket. And he just kept going.

  “Damn. Looks like I’m screwed.”

  “Don’t worry, Cap’n. I’ll use Vaseline,” he said, knocking in the last, lonesome solid but scratching in the process. He had gone on for so long that the cigarette that hung from his lips was half ash.

  I knocked the cue ball off the table and it landed under a chair by the runway. Someone in the back yelled, “Another one dollar in the jukebox.” As I picked it up, I noticed a guy wearing a Dale “The Intimidator” Earnhardt jacket and snakeskin cowboys eyeballing me like I’d just banged his grandmother. Dale was a tall bastard with a Tom Selleck mustache growing above his lips, which turned to a smile when he noticed I was looking at him.

  “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink” came on the jukebox, so I felt obliged to get another Pabst for me and Cooper after tossing the cue ball back on the table. Cooper thanked me for the beer, took a sip, nodded at the right corner pocket, and knocked in the eight b
all.

  “Shit.”

  “Play again?”

  “Nah, I think I’m just gonna finish my beer and head home.”

  “Suit yourself, ace.”

  Melanie came onstage to dance. She ran her hands through her hair before walking up the steps to the runway. The little she had on was all black.

  Merle sang, cutting through my insides like a honky-tonk surgeon.

  Blake was getting drunker and more obnoxious. Ed Looney sat beside him, not saying a word, looking up at Melanie. Blake kept jumping up and down in his seat, knocking into Ed and spilling his beer all over him. Nothing. Ed was quiet. John Lee Hooker came on the jukebox. Boom, boom, boom. Melanie grabbed hold of the pole, a confident smile sliding off her lips. She teased a young guy who had leaned in close to the runway, dipping those blond curls on his face, tickling his eyeballs.

  “Hey, Melanie. You and me after you get off. What do you think? Sound good, honey?” Blake yelled at her, spilling more beer.

  Nothing.

  “You hear me?”

  Still dancing. “C’mon, baby.” Boom, boom, boom.

  “Don’t try to ignore me. I know you hear me. Slut.”

  It was like something ripped. Ed rose from his seat, giving the meanest look to Blake I had ever seen one man give another.

  “I’m trying to look at the titties,” was all he said.