by Dan O'Shea
“OK. You wanna come sleep at the junkyard?”
Ike shrugs. “It’s still warm at night,” he says. “I’m like one of them cowboys, Denny. I don’t like a roof over my head.”
I scoop Remy into the truck and head home. My junkyard’s back behind the airport where the streets are wide and lined with nothing but rusty fences around towers of empty shipping containers, like giant toy blocks.
I get stuck behind a tractor trailer, and wonder why Sandy, the first woman who don’t run scared of me, knows the only girl I ever done wrong. It’s lonely out at the junkyard, even with the dogs keeping me company. Maybe Train was right, and no woman could love a man like me.
My old truck is slow, and bent in the middle from carrying scrap. A fancy gray car with black windows pulls alongside, and I move over so he can pass.
Except he don’t pass. I wave him along. The window slides down, and I wait for him to show me the finger.
He shows me the barrel of a shotgun instead.
I yank the wheel and stomp the brake. I feel the blast in my chest, it’s so close. Remy yips and tumbles under the dash. The truck gushes steam and bounces into a rut. I jump out and yank a bent length of pipe from the bed, but the gray Benz skips between trailers and roars away.
My radiator’s got a hole in it bigger than my fist. I start walking, but a big hillbilly trucker with a rusty beard pulls over, and gives me a gallon jug of water so I can limp the truck home.
“Your leg’s bleeding, fella,” he says. “You want me to call 911?”
I look down at my overalls, and see the hole. “Nah,” I say, and tie a bandanna around it.
• • • •
Night at the junkyard is cool and quiet, except for the dogs howling. I sit by my friend Earl’s grave. A dogfighter used to own the place. He tried to take little Remy. We got her back, but Earl didn’t make it. The dogfighter didn’t make it either.
Remy runs with the pack, while I dig at my calf with a jack knife. The buckshot is deep. I leave it in there, and clean it out with the hose, the best I can.
One more scar to show to Sandy, if she sees me again.
I sit and watch the dogs and the stars, and listen to the planes take off and land. I think about the gunner in that Benz, and run two fingers back and forth in the chunk missing from the side of my head. It could be anybody. I’ve killed plenty, but left plenty alive, too.
• • • •
In the morning, I lift my weights, and the dogs watch. The wound seeps a little, so I hose it out and tie a clean rag around it. Then I get to yanking the radiator out of the truck, and wandering the junkyard looking for a good one. It takes most of the morning. I have a job cleaning out a house for Abelardo, a Portuguese man who buys them cheap and fixes them up. Most days I go to Sandy’s for eggs and biscuits, but since she’s mad and I’m late, I skip it.
When I pull in front of the house, Abelardo is yelling into his phone, pacing back and forth. Someone else’s truck is parked in front, and four men carry out sinks and cabinets across the lawn.
I drive away, and my boot feels squishy on the gas pedal.
I sit parked outside Sandy’s and watch her morning customers hurry in and out. I catch her big smile through the glass, as she rings up a customer. Remy whimpers with her nose to the window.
I know how she feels. When the last car pulls onto the highway, I soft-step inside, with Remy tugging at my boot laces.
Sandy peers at me sideways as she fries up strips of bacon and drops dollops of biscuit dough on a baking pan.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she says.
“Yeah.”
I fold my hands and watch her work. Her hands are callused and her elbows ashy, but she’s big, strong and beautiful. She always looks like she’s thinking on something. I keep quiet, and Remy whimpers at my feet.
Sandy puts a sausage on a paper plate, and pushes it across the counter, throwing me a look. I set it down for Remy, who barks once and digs in.
“I suppose you’re hungry, too.”
“I could eat.”
“You can always eat,” she says, and ladles scrambled eggs into the bacon grease.
I listen to them sizzle, and watch her think. She stares at the grease stains on the wall like Ike reads the clouds for rain.
“That girl was real cruel to me, when we were coming up,” Sandy says, stirring. “Tanya moved in with her cousins when her folks kicked her out. Rumor was she got in trouble with some boy. Folks said she was a ho, that she was nasty. She didn’t have any friends, and I felt sorry for her. We were friends, or I thought we were. Until the boys came sniffing around. Then she showed her true colors.”
“The boys made always fun of me. Called me gorilla girl.” Sandy bit her lip. “but they liked Tanya just fine. She went with every one of them, I heard. And soon enough, she’s making fun of me right along with them.”
Sandy holds her wrist to her eye. I put my hand on her shoulder, and she moves to push it away, but squeezes it, instead.
“Did she talk cruel to you, too?” Sandy asks. “Did you fool with her anyway, because she’s light-skinned and fine?”
“Yeah,” I say. I want to tell the truth, but the shame is too strong. “Wish I didn’t, but yeah.”
She nods, and scoops my eggs on a plate. “Go on, you need to eat something.”
Sandy sits next to me on the stool, puts an arm around my shoulder. “Sorry I was sore at you,” she says. “I don’t blame you for going with her. I went with boys who didn’t respect me, before I knew better. You want to stop feeling so ugly, you know? Be like everyone else.”
I nod, and eat my eggs and biscuits. When Sandy takes my plate, she sees Remy licking my blood off the floor.
“What in hell happened to you?”
“Got shot.”
“Are you crazy?” She takes my arm, pulls me to the stock room, where she’s got a big work sink. Sandy knows I can’t go to no doctor. They call the police.
“Gonna have to get out of those overalls.”
I shuck down to my boxers. My face gets warm when she grins.
“You ain’t got nothing to be shy about,” she says. “Set down by the sink, and get your leg up.”
She pokes around with a short-nailed finger, and finds the lump of the buckshot pellet.
Sandy holds up her purple-handled slicer. “I never done this before, but when my cousin got bit by a canebrake rattler, I cut the bite and sucked the poison out.”
I flush some more. “Do it.”
Remy puts her paws up on a cardboard box to watch.
Sandy opens me up below the diamond shaped muscle on the back of my leg. She sucks air through her teeth, but I don’t budge as she digs around with a pair of needle pliers. The pliers snap shut and the steel BB scatters across the floor. Remy chases it into the kitchen.
“Nothing hurts you, does it.”
Sandy wipes my leg with a wet rag. She takes a sewing kit from her purse, and kneels to sew me up. The muscles on my leg twitch, and I read the boxes, not to look at her.
“There, isn’t that better,” she says, running her finger over it. The corner of her mouth twists into a little smile. I reach for her face, and hear Remy bark outside the door. Then a thump and a whimper.
I stand up, and the door swings open to a thick man with a short-barreled shotgun. He aims it at Sandy, and deepens his frown.
“Out, retard.”
“Put that on me,” I say, and follow him out.
Tanya is sitting spread-legged on a stool, twirling a silver topped cane. She points and laughs at my drawers.
Beside her, a thin man in a fancy suit takes a bite out of a hot biscuit. His face is criss-crossed with pink scars which stretch and crease as he smiles.
“Damn, girl, your biscuits are better than Popeye’s,” Train says, and wipes the crumbs off his split lips. He takes the cane and points it at me. “Tanya told me you found a woman ugly enough for you.”
I strain like a dog on an
invisible leash. My hands ache for his neck.
Tanya tugs Sandy’s slicer from her back pocket. “Looky here. You wanna cut me, Sandy? Cut me loose, like I cut your ugly ass?”
Sandy trembles, and I reach for her.
Train’s angry friend jabs the shotgun at me.
“You Ellis?” I ask.
Train laughs. “Naw, Ellis is dead. This is his little brother Bobby. You remember Bobby. You stuck a rake in his back.”
“Let me kill him, Train,” Bobby says. His knuckles crack on the slide of the twelve gauge.
“He got to suffer first,” Train says, and twists the top off the cane. He slides out a long thin blade. He draws the point down my chest, and blood wells from the cut.
I don’t blink.
“You tough now, but you won’t be when I’m skinning your johnson like a banana. Or slicing her floppy tits off,” Train says. “I ain’t gonna leave you pretty, like me. I wish you’d killed me, retard.” He shakes his head. “All over a ho,” he says, pointing the blade at Tanya. “Her momma kicked her out anyways. Right, Tanya? You found yourself a man to take care of you, put you to work doing what you do best. When I found her working my girls’ piece, I was gonna ramrod her.” He twirled the tip of the knife. “Cut up her shit, so she’d never work again. But she made me think twice, she gives it so fine. I took her into my stable. She’s been my best earner yet. Even with that ugly scar you put on her belly.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Thought I saved you.”
Tanya sneers. “Save me from what? You wanted to do me just like the rest. Train told me. You were just jealous I kissed him first. You should’ve got me while you had the chance. Now he gonna cut your dick off and throw it to the dogs.”
Sandy says, “Tanya, I know you ain’t like this. Why you letting him treat you this way?”
“Shut up, you big fat bitch. Train saved me. My momma tossed me out and said I was a ho, and that’s all I’ll ever be!”
I say, “Let Tanya do it, Train.”
“What?”
“Let her cut me.”
Train laughs. “She don’t know nothing about pain.” He sticks the sword point in my cheek. The blood trickles down the blade, and he holds it up in the light.
“It’s my fault,” I tell her. “You were pretty, and I was afraid. Afraid you’d make fun. I should’ve just said hi. I thought Train would help, but he and the boys just wanted your... you know.”
“Your pussy!” Train presses the blade to my neck. “You wanted it too, Denny. All men do. And that’s all this ho’s good for. Say it, or I’ll cut your girl wide open. Say you wanted her pussy, retard.”
I lower my head, and look in Tanya’s old eyes. “Naw,” I say. “I just liked her smile.”
Tanya looks away, squeezes her lips together. Taps the slicer blade against her thigh, just like Sandy did.
“You really are a retard,” Train laughs. “This ho’s smile is only good wrapped around cock. Why don’t you get on your knees and show him, Tanya? Make his bitch watch. See if he don’t get hard. He will, ‘cause you nothing but a--”
“Shut up!” Tanya sinks the slicer into Train’s cheek and rips him a big smile. Bobby aims for her and I grip the stock and slide and tackle him into the counter. Bones crack and the buckshot blows a hole through the refrigerator.
Tanya brings the knife down over and over, even after Train’s blade goes through her chest and out the back.
Sandy grabs a cleaver from behind the counter and hacks Bobby’s arm off at the elbow. I wrench the gun from his hand and crack him in the mouth with the barrel. Rack the slide and squeeze his own finger in the trigger. It takes the top of his head off. His hot blood coats me and chunks of him sizzle and dance on the hot grill.
Sandy and Tanya take Train apart with their blades, cursing and wailing. I pull them away by the shoulders. Train looks like the dogs been at him.
Tanya groans, and tugs the blade out of her chest.
“Don’t, baby,” Sandy says, but it’s too late. The blood bubbles out both holes, and Tanya gasps in her one good lung. Her legs give out and Sandy catches her.
Her mouth moves and no words come out.
“I’m sorry too,” Sandy says, and strokes her hair.
Tanya reaches out to me and smiles, before her eyes go flat and empty.
Sandy shudders and clutches her dead friend close. I find Remy whimpering behind the counter, and scoop her to my bloody chest, in one arm. She licks my face. I hold Sandy to me, and she rests her face against mine.
“You’re a a good man, Denny,” she says, her voice cracking.
No I ain’t.
But I try to be.
A GOOD BOY
Trey R. Parker
Heat cracks the air, a tire iron against a skull. An evap cooler working balls out in the window. Blows blood-stench at him.
Cause they’d fought.
Before she grabbed at her left breast and he’d stared – surprised all to shit – as she’d fallen to the floor in a heap of obese disgustingness, they’d fought. Just a couple of punches, but she’d caught him off guard. Where the hell had she found that punch? Hard and fast and it broke his damned nose.
Favors always repaid in kind, bitch.
Now he watches. She gasps, face bloody, pounding her upper chest. He sits calmly in her chair, watches and waits, and smokes.
“Nobody fucks with me.” He says. “Come after me? I burn you down.” Offers her the cigar. “Wanna pop?”
Her eyes on him, blazing, filled with terror and a certain knowledge. Hard death coming and she knows it. They both smell it.
Her mouth moves. No words, but he damn sure hears when her teeth snap together. Not all of her teeth. Most of them. One broken nose equals two teeth on the floor.
“Trying to say something?” Leans toward her. Eats the pain from his broken nose. “Apologize, maybe?”
Then she’s gone. That simple. Here. Gone.
This hadn’t been the plan, but….
Her house is quiet. Filled with knickknacks and pictures of her son doing this and that, graduating high school and college, country-fied hearts on crocheted doilies, painted pictures of angels from starving artists’ sales at the county fairgrounds. Suddenly quiet.
Dials her phone. “911…what is your emergency?”
“Send an ambulance to…to 4720 Crockett Street. I think there’s a medical problem.”
“Sir, what is your – “
Hangs up. To his car, hit the gas and slide on down the road.
Except – Shit. Back into her house, the smell of death heavy, and look for the letter. Not on the couch. Not on the desk. Not in her hand.
In the distance, the ambo siren.
“Come on. Snatch the letter and get out.”
Scrambling now. Gotta be gone. Should’a already been miles away.
“Where. The. Hell.”
Sees her dead face and remembers.
She’d fallen on it. Took his punch to the mouth, grabbed her chest, hit the floor hard.
With the letter under her.
“Fuck.” Voice high pitched, almost hysterical. Drops to his knees, shoves at her. Three-hundred plus pounds. Now, literally, dead weight.
“No, no.” Shoves, pulls. Grabs a hand and yanks and – - the ambo closer now – - she never moves.
“Goddamnit.” Thinks, but can’t get anything in his head except the shriek of the ambo.
Leave it. Didn’t sign it. Didn’t use letterhead. Leave it.
Breath tight in his chest, slips into his car and away. Doesn’t look back, tries not to give her another thought. She’s dead and that’s just fine with him.
• • • •
Benske drinks. Cheap whiskey.
Hates being in Mama’s house. Hates seeing Mama’s belongings. Hates seeing his elementary school art projects still on her walls and shelves. Hated her taste in décor back then. Hates it now and that makes him feel like an asshole. She’s dead, not even 12 hours planted, and he
’s dissing what she loved.
What a good boy.
Not quite the boy Mama had wanted. Now she’s gone and guilt fills him fast and hard.
Left home hours after high school. Kept moving after college. A thousand miles an hour out of west Texas. Found a decent future history in Rock Island and stopped cutting. Came back home…what? Twice? Eight years since floating out of college and back exactly twice.
And cut both times.
“You’re such a good boy, Benske.”
What she always says. Ends every phone call with it, writes it in every email.
“Thousand miles away while she had a heart attack.”
“Wasn’t no fucking heart attack. You really that stupid?”
Turns toward the voice, hands curled to tight fists. “The hell are you?”
Old man, skinny like a fashion model, huffs on a cigarette just as skinny. Faded tattoos fill his arms and the right half of his neck. A scruffy soul patch ends his chin. Entire body is washed out. Beaten. Tired and stooped over with age.
But eyes are bright and sharp.
“I’m French.” Laughs in the doorway. “Name, not nationality.”
“And?”
“Ease up, young buck. Friend of your mother’s.”
He reeks of booze and habits, of experiences and knowledge far beyond Mama. Benske doesn’t see them as friends.
“She had a heart attack, yeah, but that ain’t how this whole bullshit started.” Yanks pix from his pocket. “Know me a nurse in the ER. Your mama knew her, too. Michelle. We was all…uh…friends. Michelle took these. Told me to give ‘em to you.”
“What? Are you kidding?” Benske snatches the pictures.
French startles. Cranks his battered frame up tall and straight. “Told you once, boy, ease the fuck up. I’ll allow that because you have no idea who I am and you’re grieving your mama, but you do that to me again and I’ll leave you as dead as her.”
Squares up. “Get to it, old man.”
French stares. Spits a harsh laugh. “You just about straight up, ain’t you? Ready to war.” Doubles over, laugh becomes a ragged cough. “Your mama never said you was tough. Said you was kind of…well…pussy.” Hacks another cough. “My word, not hers.” Claps Benske’s shoulder. “You seem plenty tough. Wasn’t gonna fight, though, I’d just shoot you. Lot easier and only cost me a bullet.”