Knuckle Balled

by Drew Stepek

  I accidentally rubbed some threads from my mask into my eye. “We’re not. We just don’t have a name.”

  “How about addicts, bro?” he fired back. “Or maybe junkies? How about fiends?”

  I turned the radio off. “You’re giving me a headache, Cody.” I turned the focus back to him. “You have a lot of fucking nerve, you hypocrite. You must run the biggest cocaine enterprise in the South.”

  He started strumming. “I would never have made it where I am without The Program, bro. It’s transformed me into the business man I am today.”

  At the risk of baking my eyes in the sun, I lifted my head and stared at him. “It wasn’t a compliment. Do you know why I ended up at your house?”

  “No.”

  “Because I surveyed all the houses on your cul-de-sac and decided on yours because you’re so fucking stupid that you have a bumper sticker on your car that says, MY KID SELLS DRUGS TO YOUR HONOR STUDENT.”

  He smirked. “Yeah, it’s a good one.”

  “You are a drug dealer, dude. Fuck. How stupid are you? And guess what. You’re no better than me. You’re a sober drug dealer.”

  “Distributor.”

  “It’s the same fucking thing! You have two huge TVs in a garage that is filled with pounds and pounds of cocaine. Said garage is attached to your mansion paid for from getting kids hooked on drugs. Something, I might add, you advertise on the bumper of your truck.”

  “Look, bro. I don’t know where all this hostility is coming from.” He returned to the upright bass and swayed his head back and forth to the beat. “I don’t deal to any kids because I just distribute the drugs to the dealers. Think of me as the car maker and the people who I sell the drugs to as dealerships.”

  I exhaled and slowed things down. “You don’t make the coke, idiot. You’re the dealership and they are car salesmen.”

  He patted me on the thigh. “Sweet, bro. I own the dealerships. Tell me a drug addict who owns a bunch of car dealerships?”

  “I’m sure there are several.” I back-stepped. “Wait? What? No, you misunderstood me.” I literally started banging my head against the dashboard. It felt kind of good to be knocking the pain out of my head. “The whole point of this pointless conversation was to show you that you’re the problem. Whether you’re sober or not, you aren’t a do-gooder because you sell drugs. Those drugs wind up in the hands of kids. Kids take drugs and get all fucked up and then have abortions that turn into vampires… who then sell drugs.”

  “Yeah, I guess you sell drugs to kids, too.” He turned out of his neighborhood onto a busier street. “You’re a drug dealer and a drug addict. I’ve seen it before in myself. I saw a little bit of the old me in you last night, bro. It brought back some really bad memories. I almost drew dicks all over your face.”

  “If you would have drawn a dick on my face, I would have ripped off your actual dick and shoved it in your mouth. Look, Cody, I don’t want to get into a conversation about who between the two of us has slightly higher morals.” I aimed the vent toward me face. I was beginning to sweat under the ski mask. “You’re lucky. I could have killed you the second that you let me into your house and not thought twice about it.”

  “And you’re a killer.”

  “I’m sure someone has died from all the millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine that you have distributed onto the streets.” The wool ski mask started to itch on my face. “You can sit here on your fucking throne all at day and try to get me to praise you for being sober. I don’t care. I can’t be sober. I need drugs and blood to survive. If I quit—”

  He picked up his phone and switched songs. “How would you know what would happen if you quit? You’ve never even given it a shot, bro.”

  “I can’t. I need it.”

  “Who says?” he began. “Do you have some voices in your head telling you that you need to use drugs?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “That’s your addiction talking to you, bro.”

  “I call it The Gooch.”

  He looked at me sideways. “You mean like on that TV show, Scrubs?”

  “Scrubs? What the fuck is that?” I licked around my flakey dry mouth, making it worse. “It’s like The Gooch from Diff’rent Strokes, dude. He was Arnold’s arch enemy.”

  “It’s addiction. I’m sure you only hear it when you’re going through withdrawal. I was in treatment with a bunch of junkies. They all said the same thing, bro. All you need to do is confront The Gooch and you’re on your way to a better life.”

  “I’m just fine, Cody.”

  “You keep telling yourself that. Or, better yet, have The Gooch keep telling you that.”

  I wanted to cover my ears to shut out him and his horrendous music but that would have meant that the things he was saying were ringing true. He was a ridiculous piece of Texas trash. Probably literally fell off a turnip truck. More likely his parents were these rich oil tycoons who ass fucked him with a silver spoon. “How about this? We stop talking for a while,” I finally said.

  For the next fifteen minutes, I sat with my head down and endured his excruciating snake handler music. One thing was for sure, it was better than listening to his uninformed sermons about what it was like to be me.

  At the first measure of the third or fourth or fifth uninterrupted banjo-pickin’, finger lickin’ song, he pulled into an alley. An umbrella of shade filled the car and I lifted me head.

  I scratched my face under the mask. “Are we here?”

  He dropped a business card in my lap. “Yeah, we’re here. Go through that door and take the stairs to the sixth floor.”

  I picked up the card. It had a jet ski printed on it and it said: Cody Walker. CEO. BROSKIZ. Below that, his phone number 1-855-BROSKIZ was listed. “Thanks for the ride, and everything else, Cody.”

  He put out his hand to shake. “My number is also in the contacts on your phone. You know. If you want to talk to someone or you’re in trouble.”

  “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” I added as I shook his hand.

  “Remember, I’m here if you need me” He winked. “I’m concerned about you. Next time you talk to The Gooch, tell him I said ‘hello’.”

  I didn’t respond again, but I waved him away as his truck backed out of the alley, giving me one last look at the bumper sticker that brought me and Cody Walker together. As I made my way through the door, I dropped his card in a garbage can and made my way up the stairs.

  “BROSKIZ. With a Z,” I said to myself as I shook my head in disbelief.

  On the sixth floor of the garage, I tapped my heel against a cement pylon, wanting desperately to take the wool mask off my face. However, my plan was to walk out of the shadows, then slip off the mask, revealing that I was Linnwood Perry’s old nemesis from Los Angeles. So it had to remain on. The reveal might have been a little dramatic—on the sixth floor of a nine-floor parking garage near sundown—but the payoff of Eldritch and I mashing what was left of the Blue Blooded Perrys into pieces deserved some theatrics.

  I looked at my phone. Eldritch still hadn’t responded since I suggested that he tie Pinball up or stuff her in a closet. He had to have wanted this payback just as badly as I did. Not only did the Perrys fuck me over, they also got Eldritch involved. Well, technically that was me, but this vengeance was for the greater good. I actually enlisted Eldritch to help get the stolen heroin back onto the streets.

  It wasn’t even for the greater good. It was stupid and a lot of people died because we took the heroin. If anyone was to blame for that it was clearly Linnwood Perry and Dez. Linnwood constructed the double-cross with King Cobra and Dez double-crossed King Cobra. I decided that everything could be traced back to Linnwood because he is where it began.

  Maybe it was the leftover buss of blow giving my muscles, but I felt like a fucking badass. I backed my foot up against the cylinder I was leaning against and lit a grit. Even though I decided—after coming down—that I wasn’t going light them up with gas a
nd matches or throw flaming playing cards on their graves, I was going to fuck them up. Wipe them out.

  I looked at the lock screen on my phone. Jesus. It was close to seven. No Eldritch? No BBP?

  The elevator light dinged as someone exited onto the other side of the garage. I shook the coke twitches out of my calves and forearms, counted to ten and then re-took my stance. This time I leaned against a black muscle car, careful not to set off the alarm. I dug into my nose and scraped some dried boogers off the edges.

  It was a false alarm. Just some sap getting off work for the day.

  I rolled up the ski mask on the top of my head and took another drag from the cigarette. “Evening.” I saluted him. I must have looked pretty shady because he didn’t respond and rushed to get into his car.

  He slowed as he drove by and rolled down his window. “Get out of here, you creep.” He gave me the finger.

  “Piss off, asshole,” I hollered as I tried to flick the rest of my smoke into his car. He peeled away and the lit cigarette got a twisted around and singed my hand.

  I tapped on the phone with my thumb.

  Besides a few cars with more day workers that passed by me in the garage, it seemed to be empty. At seven thirty I sat down and decided to give it ten more minutes. I would have sucked on a few more Oxy pills, but that would have made me slow and less hungry.

  I texted Eldritch again.

  Where are you?

  It wasn’t like him to not respond to me if he knew I was walking into a possible situation—especially with a gang as dangerous as the BBP. More so, it wasn’t like him not to want to hear himself talk or think. Him not responding, to me, meant something was wrong.

  I’m getting kind of worried. About you. Also about me. I didn’t get wasted before coming here so, yeah. Here at the old garage. Some prick almost drove over my foot and called me a creep. Must have been freaked out by the ski mask that I’m wearing.

  I decided that joking around with him might get him to respond.

  What are you wearing?

  For a split second, I noticed that he might be responding because a little word bubble with three dots appeared at the bottom of our conversation. Then it disappeared.

  C’mon. You know you want it. You want all of this good shit.

  I pulled the camera away from my face, snapped a picture and sent it.

  You like that shit? Check this out.

  I maneuvered my body so I could fit the phone down my pants and took a picture of my dick. I pulled it out, approved it, then sent it.

  Again, I saw the little word bubble appear. I’m sure he thought me too much of a philistine to figure out good dick pic techniques.

  The bubble disappeared again.

  I know you’re there, Eldritch. Fucking answer me.

  No bubble.

  If you and the kid are in trouble, you need to tell me where you are.

  It was time to call it, I decided. I hadn’t concluded whether Cody wanted to get rid of me because I was a liability around his drugs, whether Eldritch and Pinball were in trouble, if the BBP were uninterested in “altering their deal”, or a combination of the three, but I knew that I was sick of waiting. At the risk of believing that I was wronging Bait, I realized that it was time to start leaning toward the alternative to getting rid of Pinball. I didn’t mean to think crass thoughts, but if this Rodderick guy wasn’t going to respond to any of our communications, Eldritch and I needed to decide. Being a ward of the state was a much better fate than being the mascot for two drug addict abortions who likened themselves to supernatural creatures. I hated to think about it, but maybe we could hand her over to the Minutemen. I never had parents. I lacked the ability to understand any connection to anything besides drugs and Bait. Difficult decisions needed to be made.

  And then, in the middle of my bombshell, I heard the rattling engine of an antique car a few floors down. It had to be them.

  I scrambled to get back into position by taking my stance against the muscle car and pulling the ski mask that was drenched inside over my face. After I lit the last cigarette from the pack that Cody happily blood-dipped for me, I crossed my arms. I needed to be aloof, so I dug one of the tips of my boots into the cement.

  A vintage Mercedes Benz limousine rounded the corner onto level six of the parking garage. The engine made an old fashion tinkering sound instead of purring like a modern stretch. All the windows were blacked out, but knowing the Perrys for as long as I had, there was no question as to whether it was them or not. I never knew how these other gangs—or Eldritch for that matter—got their hands on all such cool vehicles and costumes and shit. I had taken the bus since I was on the street and I wore the same gross jeans and ripped up t-shirts every day.

  I held my ground. There was no telling how many Perrys were in the car. Things would have gone so much smoother had Eldritch showed up. The limo spun in sideways and chugged to a stop about twenty feet in front of me. My phone buzzed, but I didn’t look at it. The Perrys were here.

  The engine cut and the thumping music inside stopped. The driver-side door opened and out marched their prim and proper chauffeur. My eyes slid sideways in his direction. He was suited in a black tuxedo and patent leather cap that had a checkered band around the middle. The hat covered his blonde shelf haircut that made him instantly recognizable as a Perry or Perry apple polisher. It also made him a dead ringer—with the outfit and the hair—for Watts from Some Kind of Wonderful. I hid my mouth behind my hand and giggled. “Haaa. Watts.”

  He walked around to the other side of the car and opened the two back doors. Then, as a proper servant should, he stepped aside. One-by-one, five almost identically dressed Perry’s stepped out of the car. They all had on tennis sweaters, some over oxfords, some lightly tossed over their shoulders and one wrapped around a waist, covering the backside of a pair of loud, checker-patterned madras golfing slacks. One of them stretched and yawned as his neighbor swatted him on the chest and pointed in my direction.

  After the driver was sure that they were all standing outside, he closed the door. Then, he stepped toward the front passenger side door and opened it. He faced me with his arms behind his back as the glorious Linnwood Perry set his white leather tennis shoes on the floor of the garage and crouched under the car’s doorway. He didn’t immediately look in my direction. Instead, he headed back to his disciples. He walked to the Perry wearing the gaudy pants and straightened out the collar on his shirt. Linnwood patted his friend on the cheek, revealing that he had a set of spike brass knuckles on his right hand.

  As I casually lifted my boot out of the cement, I turned to face them. I curled my fingers in and out, preparing for a beat down.

  He walked down the line of his boys. He stopped at the last one and turned him around, lifting up the back of his sweater. Making sure I could see it, he pulled out a handgun. “You’re a good kid,” Linn told him as he unlocked the clip from the gun, checked it to make sure it was loaded.

  I continued to crimp my fingers and then started bobbing my head back in forth like a boxer.

  Linnwood pounded the clip back into the handle of the gun and turned toward me.

  I guess I had spent too much time preparing my stance for when they showed up because I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do.

  “So, Mr. Cody Walker. The BROSKI,” he stated as he twirled the gun on his finger. “We’re here. Why?”

  The posse continued giggling and swatting each other. Linnwood remained serious. He waved the gun behind his head. The other five silenced. The driver remained emotionless.

  I searched for what to say, but before I decided on anything, he continued. “You know my time at South by Southwest is very valuable to me.”

  I nodded my head up and down and grunted out, “Yeah, bro.”

  He chuckled a bit and turned to his sidekicks. “Then, what am I doing here?”

  I didn’t respond again.

  One of the others called out, “Why are you wearing a ski mask?”
>
  I started lifting the mask off my face when another said, “Bitchin’ Mustang. Where did you get it?”

  “Now, now, boys. I’m sure Cody here has something important to tell us.” Linnwood pointed the gun at my head. “Isn’t that right, Cody?”

  With the ski mask resting halfway up to my nose, I opened my mouth to begin the big reveal but something didn’t feel right.

  He beat me to words again. “Before you take off your silly mask, I want you to know that I could blow your worthless little head off right now. I mean, you are human, after all. We could just eat you here and now.”

  Three more pulled out guns and instantaneously cocked them. Sure, they were acting like typical chicken shit Perrys, but I always wondered why more vampire gangs didn’t carry guns. Like the McCoys for instance. Those assholes had, like, Garden Weasels and shit.

  He smirked. “It seems we have you outnumbered, Cody.”

  I took a step toward them and grabbed the bottom of the mask. Before I lifted it over my face, one of them cried out: “Keep Austin Weird!”

  Linnwood stumbled backwards and fell onto the chauffeur. “I can’t,” he said as he broke into hysterics. “I can’t fucking do this anymore. This is too classic.”

  My stance went limp as I finally pulled the mask off my face. I looked at my phone. Eldritch texted me back.

  Alas, I cannot come.

  Linnwood lifted his beat red face off of the shoulder of his driver, who had broken character to join in the party. He paused for a second and looked me up and down. He looked back at the rest. “Oh my goodness, boys. It’s our old friend from Los Angeles, RJ Reynolds. But I thought we were here to meet Cody Walker, the jet ski king. What kind of black magic is this?” He waited a beat and then unable to contain his laughter, erupted, yelling, “Keep Austin Weird!” The thunder of all seven Perrys echoed through every level of the parking garage.

  I tugged the sweatshirt over my head, threw it onto the car and inflated my chest, prepared for a fight.