by Unknown
The more electronic stuff you had in your car, the more there was to go wrong, Jasper always figured. Sometimes simpler was best, besides it was all he could afford.
Jasper thought about sparking up.
He still had a small amount of rock left from the party that he could use to make up a joint, and he really thought he needed a smoke right now to calm his nerves, but his cigarette lighter in the car was on the fritz, and even if he hadn’t had his Zippo stolen at the party – sorry, borrowed and never returned, by whom he could not remember, there had been so many unfamiliar faces there he didn’t know – Jasper thought it was probably a good idea if he laid off the gear for now.
Besides, he might need those last few scraps in the morning to help ease the come down from all the dope he’d smoked tonight.
His friend had been right – it truly had been pretty potent and powerful stuff and unlike anything else he had ever smoked before which didn’t bode well for tomorrow.
Or later on today, to be precise, thought Jasper, though the odds were good he’d probably spend most of the rest of day in bed considering he’d pretty much already pulled an all-nighter.
The sound of a car reversing at speed broke him from his thoughts.
A bright light flashed against the underside of the combine he was hiding behind as someone moved a spotlight slowly across the whole of the field that Jasper had turned into.
He closed his eyes and hoped and prayed to whatever god might be listening that his pursuers – for he had no doubt it was them – did not spot his tire tracks across the field and followed where they lead.
At least it had not been wet or rained recently, meaning any tracks he might have left might, hopefully, be faint in this near total darkness.
The spotlight flicked off, ruining his night vision and leaving spots flashing across his eyes.
Jasper knew it would take several minutes before it returned.
He hoped he had several minutes – if his pursuers had worked out where he was hiding, he wasn’t sure how quickly he might be able to pull away. Jasper had the worrying feeling that when he had pulled behind this combine, he had felt his tires sinking into a small indentation in the ground left, presumably, by the very combine he was now hiding behind.
For all he knew, he might be stuck – and would probably need some help getting back out of this field.
He hoped it wasn’t so, but the way his luck was going tonight – drawing the attention of his pursuers for whatever reason and all…
Jasper heard the sound of a car door opening.
Scooting down in his seat, he quietly unbuckled his seatbelt and prepared to make a run for it should it come to that. He was dressed entirely in black, so in this light would be all but invisible if he did a runner and hopefully, might even stand a better than average chance of getting away if his pursuers came for him and discovered where he was hiding.
Opening the car door would turn on the interior light, but if it became time for him to run for it, then that would be the least of his concerns as he would already have been discovered.
Glancing out the passenger side window, Jasper could make out a faint light coming from underneath the combo like that produced by a mobile phone.
Softly, silently, Jasper unwound the passenger window, praying all the time that it did not squeak.
He heard one of his pursuer’s talking into his mobile phone, but could make out little of what was said.
“Click…clacker…click, click…clacker, clacker…,” his pursuer seemed to be making strange sounds into his phone that Jasper assumed must be some kind of language.
If it was, it was like no language he had ever heard before.
“Clack, clicker…clack, clack, clack…clicker, clicker…phsnaw, peshae, pedang- pedang…clicker, clicker…clack…clang…”
Jasper froze in terror, ice water running through his veins.
He did not know why, but he had never wanted to piss himself so much in fear as he did right now – not since he had been nine or ten and Jimmy Mortimer had threatened to kick his fucking head in and assault him with a plank of wood over a perceived slight that now, probably neither of them would any longer be able to recall if they should ever meet.
It took Jasper several seconds to realise the one-sided conversation between his pursuer, and whoever he was talking to on the other side of his hiding place, had stopped.
There was the sound of a car door opening and closing again…and then the sound of a car pulling away and driving off into the night.
Jasper breathed another sigh of relief, and then felt a little bit of piss trickling down his leg as his bladder likewise relaxed.
Quickly pushing open his own car door, Jasper stumbled out into the night – fumbling to undo his belt before he pissed himself any more.
Urinating against the side of the combine, and feeling a dull ache in his groin where he had unknowingly been holding it in, Jasper bent and was sick upon the ground between his feet. He heard the splatter of piss hitting his shoes as he lost his aim and concentrated more on his losing his lunch, vomiting up everything he’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours through fear and fear alone.
When he was finally done, Jasper felt much better.
Empty, but better…
Wanting only now to get home, and trying to work out in his head exactly where he was, Jasper climbed back inside his car.
Despite his earlier fears, the car was not in fact stuck in the ruts in the field, and Jasper was instead able to pull immediately away.
Leaving the farmer’s field and his hiding place behind, Jasper turned around and headed back the way he’d come.
Just to be on the safe side, he thought, he’d find another route home, away from his pursuers and their searching eyes…
***
It was not long before Jasper was aware of being followed again – this time by a totally different car.
He could tell because of the position in his rear view mirror of its headlights – slightly higher up and raised, potentially suggesting a Land Rover or Range Rover of some kind.
His pursuers had obviously learnt their lesson, because this time they were holding further back, but they were definitely still following him, he could tell.
Don’t ask how he knew that, he just did.
Jasper thought about trying to outmanoeuvre them again like last time, but his petrol was still low, and he had left himself now with barely enough in the tank to see him home at this rate.
Another car pulled out of a junction behind him, between his car and the one pursuing him, and Jasper saw them flash their lights at each other – obviously in some kind of coded signal.
He thought that the new car behind him now was the same one as had been there behind him before – that first time back when he had lost them, hiding in that field - but could not be sure for certain in the dark.
Regardless, Jasper knew he had to try and lose his pursuers again – he didn’t want them following him home and knowing where he lived.
No hosey way.
Jasper sped up again – he still had a few tricks up his sleeve, a few short-cuts and side turnings he could take that might help him lose his pursuers.
He just had to keep his nerve.
Jasper began taking turns and side-roads, seemingly at random, but now knowing exactly where he was going and how he was going to lose them and get home.
At night, everything looked different, spookier somehow, and a lot less recognisable than during the day, but Jasper was certain he knew where he was going.
He passed a sign pointing to Swanton Moorehouse in one direction, and Dyreham – his home town – in the other and knew he was on the right track.
His pursuers kept their pace behind him, seemingly more confident now than before that this time they would not lose him.
Wanna bet, motherfuckers? Jasper thought, and grinned to himself in the dark interior of his car.
He began twisting down the windy lanes, taking on
e turning then another, watching in his rear view mirror as the cars behind him got further and further away, leaving them far behind.
A fox ran out in the road in front of him, carrying a small rodent or a rabbit in its maw.
Not realising what it was until it was too late – if he had registered it was a fox, he would probably have kept on going and let the animal take its chances under his wheels – Jasper swerved, too fast, and this time, felt his car going over.
He felt it roll…once, twice…possibly three times…and then end up upside down in a ditch, with him still in it, trapped.
He was hanging upside down, held there by his seatbelt that he had buckled up again before leaving his hiding place back in the field, and thought that he had banged his head due to the blood he felt trickling down towards his forehead.
Amazingly, the airbag on the driver’s side had somehow, miraculously not gone off.
Fucking no-good piece of shit, Jasper thought, cursing his car.
He could have died, he suddenly realised.
In vain, Jasper attempted to undo his belt and release himself, but was all fingers and thumbs for some reason or another and could not make the stupid thing unbuckle.
He heard the sound of at least two cars stopping near his overturned vehicle, and then the sound of two sets of car doors opening.
Frantically, Jasper struggled harder to undo his seatbelt, to no avail.
He could feel himself starting to panic, could feel himself starting to hyperventilate, as he desperately tried to calm himself and regulate his breathing.
It would do him no good to have a panic attack and pass out, he thought.
Then the things…whatever it was they were that had been pursuing him…would get him for sure.
Someone was talking outside his car.
Several somethings, in fact, he could hear them.
Communicating in those strange *clicks* and *clacks*he had heard the first one speaking in when Jasper had heard it talking on the phone earlier that evening, morning, whatever – making no more sense now, than before.
The…things…were closing in, surrounding him, and cutting off his escape, even if he could make it out of his upturned car.
I really should not have smoked that last joint earlier…Jasper thought again, but it was too late now.
It was the last conscious thought he ever had.
THE SIGN OF THE FRIDGE
Dani Raschel Jiménez
The beer can fell to the floor, so El Gordo fell to his knees. Inner thighs waggling, he scuttled toward the empty can, aluminium accented by moonlight sifting through the blinds. El Gordo grabbed for the can. Lifted it. Tipped the mouth toward his mouth. No use. There was no more. Not one drop left of fermented yeast. Even though it’d break his balls, he’d have to see Gus.
El Gordo turned his face towards a painting of Juan Diego kneeling before the Virgin Mary. Right hand curved, thumb tucked into palm, El Gordo touched his forehead, then brought his hand to the top of his belly, crossed upward to his left shoulder, and finished by touching the right shoulder. “Maria, help me,” he uttered. His meaty forearm swept aside sweat dotting his forehead. Would holy water work? He’d never tried it, but didn’t Gus say he was God’s messenger? Tossing holy water on Gus might increase the price of penance for El Gordo. But only penitent men get Heaven.
Head fuzzy, the fat man stood. He needed a drink. He needed it bad. If Dorothea were here, she would have had a bottle—only drunks drank out of cans, and she’d made sure El Gordo was no drunk— readied for him. She was a good woman, his Dorothea, with her earthen brown hair she curled daily, just for him, and those eyes. Those all-knowing eyes. She knew, with one look, if his jefe had gipped him out of some overtime. If the other güeys on the job had laughed at the hundredth showing of his ass crack. If her enchiladas had given him the runs, the ones he couldn’t stop eating ‘cause they were just so damn good. Jesus, what good was Heaven if there were still memories to fight with in this Hell?
El Gordo spanked his mouth. He’d just taken the Lord’s name in vain. Did Gus know that? Gus would know that. Gus would punish him. But El Gordo should be able to grab another beer if he needed it. And he needed it. El Gordo nodded, one chin pushing back into the other, the confidence that comes from desperation building. Yeah, that’s right. He paid the rent. Paid for Gus’s electricity. His house. His rules.
El Gordo crept through the living room and around broken furniture. The lamp with a torn shade here. The table with off-kilter drawers there. Eventually, he made his way into the kitchen, then flipped on the light switch.
Litter greeted him. Slivers of onions and pickles spilled out of fast-food hamburger wrappers. On the counter, an old Subway bag with letters that couldn’t be read anymore, hid decomposing, moldy bread. A black-and-white cookie jar stood next to the banana tree, two bananas blackening on the hook. El Gordo, his fat side nudging into the corner where two pieces of the granite counter top met, skipped his fingers over a black peel.
Confidence deflating with every flicker of the ordinary bulb above his head, El Gordo allowed his eyes to dart towards the fridge. Had Gus noticed him yet?
The fridge hummed. “Really? A banana? Fat fuck. God, you wouldn’t know a banana from the dildo you stick up your ass.”
“God’s messengers don’t use the Lord’s name in vain!” The fat man knocked the bananas off the counter. He wheeled around towards the fridge. Dorothea had left their child’s alphabet magnets on the doors, and if El Gordo wasn’t mistaken, tonight, Gus was using an X and a V for eyes.
“You’re not real.” He’d shouted out the “You’re,” but had dropped his voice to a whimper by “real.”
“What are those on your arms?”
El Gordo didn’t have to look to know what was there. Bruises. Six of them. Three on the left. Three on the right. He half-smiled. Once, he’d left bruises on Dorothea’s body. They were sixteen and doing the down and dirty in the back of his dad’s Chevy Nova. El Gordo was thin, then, and could twist his body into a pretzel if need be for the dirty. Afterwards, his fingerprints had dotted her forearms. The first time, he’d apologized, but she told him it was okay. They didn’t hurt her. He could never hurt her, she’d promised.
She’d never said anything about not hurting him.
“Hey, Fatty. You gonna answer or just diddle yourself?”
El Gordo shook. These bruises were different. Gus had made him do it. Gus, with his light that never turned off. The food keeper. God’s messenger.
“That’s not my name,” the fat man whispered.
The V magnet shifted to the right. It looked like a hungry alligator, mouth wide open. “I blind? That’s not the country of El Gordo standing there? Right there?”
“It’s Razz. Erasmo Contreras.”
The fridge laughed. “If you were carrying 300 pounds in your dick, maybe you’d have a name. Hell, you’d get laid more. But no. Look at you. Fat face. Fat arms. Legs. Even your fat’s fat. You’ve owned El Gordo.”
El Gordo began shaking, withdrawals kicking in. He licked his lips. “One sip. Please. Just one. I’m trying to get Heaven, but Heaven’s not here. I need to forget Heaven—it’s not here.”
The open mouth of the V narrowed, and the hum of the fridge lowered. “You accused me of lying. Worse—you’ve committed gluttony again. Get the can opener.”
“No—not that. Not—”
“The can opener!” the fridge roared.
El Gordo rambled towards the miscellaneous kitchen utensil drawer. He drew the can opener from its place between the scissors and meat tenderizer. Its silver blade caught the glow of the light overhead. An everyday tool by day. But now, what weapon would Gus make out of it?
Last time, the fridge had asked El Gordo to make penance by whipping his forearms with the round blades tucked into the opener’s handles. Another time, El Gordo had jabbed the handles into ass. Afterwards, shitting hurt for a week.
But that was the price one paid to be a glu
tton. First, El Gordo had lost Dorothea. Sammy. Now, God had sent Gus to secure penance. Only penitent men get Heaven.
The fat man ambled back towards God’s messenger. The V magnet was no longer on its side. It faced upwards now, alert and eager. The X had widened, too.
Gus urged, “Drop ‘em.”
El Gordo tugged down his sweatpants. Gray cotton pooled around his ankles.
“Not what I mean, Dumb. Fat. Fuck.”
Eyes shut, El Gordo swallowed. Penitence. The price of sins. “Nothin’ in this world’s free.” That quote wasn’t from the gospel of Mark. It was more like the gospel according to El Gordo’s Momma. But the Bible did say, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Repent. Penitence. Only penitent men get Heaven.
El Gordo yanked off his underwear, leaving his penis peeking above the hair around his balls.
“Pump it. Stretch it.”
El Gordo didn’t like where this was going. Masturbating was wrong. “I can’t spill seed in vain,” he quoted.
“You questioning God’s wants? Even Mary opened her legs for God. You better than Mary?”
“The Holy Mother?” El Gordo rapidly jerked out the sign of the cross. “No, never! I’m sorry. Yes, yes. God’s ways are mysterious.”
“That’s right, Fatty. Tug now. Just enough to get hard.”
El Gordo gripped his cock and tugged. At first, the feeling was foreign. No one had spread like peanut butter for Gordo in years. His penis stiffened, extended to its full four-inch length. As he continued, his hand found a rhythm, and he almost forgot he was hunched over, dirty sweats and undies bunched around his cankles, in front of the refrigerator with cockroaches roaming across strewn hamburger wrappers. El Gordo was so close to finish. He couldn’t finish. It was wrong. Wrong. Oh, so wrong. But he was oh-so-close.
He moaned. Semen shot from his dick onto the refrigerator doors.
“Do I look a whore’s tits?” Gus roared.