THUGLIT Issue Four

by Patti Abbott

  “You got it?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go inside.” Martin looked over the exterior of the Four Palms. Not exactly the retirement palace he expected.

  “I got the money right here.” Herb went for his back pocket. Martin stepped forward and put a hand on his wrist.

  “Yo, fool, don’t go doing that out here in the open. This here is a drug deal, man. Let’s go where we can have some privacy.”

  “The park where we found you is out in the open,” Herb said.

  “I know all the dudes around there. I don’t know shit in this neighborhood. Now you want this or not?”

  Herb led him inside.

  Martin’s face fell when he saw Floyd and all the apparatus. “What the fuck . . .?”

  “Don’t mind him,” Herb said.

  Charlie laid out three syringes they had acquired easily from the supply closet earlier, and a spoon lifted from the cafeteria.

  Martin scanned the room, looking for where a safe might be.

  Herb held out the money. “Here you go.”

  Martin took the stack of bills and handed over a wad of plastic wrap tied off with a rubber band. Inside was a dingy yellow powder. Ruth and Charlie exchanged a look, each one wondering if that is indeed what heroin looks like.

  “You know what the fuck you’re doing with that?” Martin asked.

  “Yeah, sure.” Herb had logged on to the computer in the rec room, the one still hooked in to a dial-up modem, and searched how to prepare and inject heroin. He came out with an alarming number of tutorials. He even found a YouTube video that only took forty-eight minutes to load.

  “Ruth, light the candle,” he said. Ruth brought a lighter out of her cardigan pocket and lit a small votive candle.

  “You can go now,” Charlie said to Martin.

  “No, no. If it’s all right with you, I’ll hang around and watch this shit. Might be good.”

  Herb took the spoon and went to Floyd’s bedside. He pulled the IV from his arm and dripped the liquid into the spoon.

  Ruth said, “Herb!”

  “It’s saline. We need water and this is a pure as it gets. Relax, he won’t miss it. Only ends up here in an hour anyway.” Herb pointed to the dark yellow liquid in a catheter bag hanging off the side of Floyd’s bed.

  As Herb prepared the shot, Martin moved around the room, ignored by the three nervous seniors. He lifted picture frames, opened a bedside drawer by Herb’s bed.

  Herb drew up the first shot and turned to Charlie and Ruth. “Who’s first?”

  “Shouldn’t it be you?” Charlie said. His voice trembled slightly, like a kid being asked to do something he knew broke the rules.

  “I was gonna give you and Ruth the shots before I go. If you’d rather give yourself–”

  “No.” Charlie said, then he licked his dry lips. “Go ahead. I’ll go.” He could see the doubt and fear on Ruth’s face. She smiled at him when their eyes met.

  Herb lined up the needle with a vein. The skin gave way easily and a tiny bead of blood grew from the hole. Herb didn’t ask, he pushed the plunger down and drew the needle out. Herb took Charlie’s index finger and placed it over the new hole in his arm.

  “Hold that there.”

  Herb and Ruth could see when the drug hit his brain. His eyelids fluttered, then dimmed to half-mast. A timid smile crept over his lips.

  “Better get him in a chair,” Herb said. He and Ruth guided Charlie to a seat. “Looks pretty happy, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he does,” Ruth agreed.

  “This is nice and all,” Martin said. “But where’s the rest of the money?”

  Herb and Ruth looked up to see Martin pointing a gun at them.

  “I gave you the money,” Herb said.

  “The rest of what you got. I know that ain’t all of it.”

  “What is going on?” Ruth asked.

  “Shut up lady, you’ll get your turn. Better have some nice jewelry and shit too. There’s fuck-all in this room.” Martin pushed forward, thrusting the gun at Herb’s forehead. Martin bumped Charlie’s knees as he moved. Charlie didn’t care.

  “I don’t have any more money,” Herb said.

  “Bullshit!” The barrel of the gun pressed hard into Herb’s skull.

  “Okay, okay. I have a few more dollars. But that’s all, I swear.”

  “Get it.” Martin spoke in his best bad-guy-from-the-movies voice. “Then we get his and hers.”

  Herb swung out with his right hand. The needle caught Martin in the neck.

  Ruth threw her hand up to cover her ears as Martin yelled. Martin slapped a hand to his neck and turned, ripping the syringe out of Herb’s hand. Herb already slid his hand down Martin’s tattooed arm and gripped the wrist above the gun. He spun Martin’s wrist with sixty-year-old U.S. Marines training and had the arm pinned behind his younger attacker in a second.

  Charlie moved his head like he was watching a tennis match, the look on his face unsure if this was real or the drug.

  Herb shoved Martin and the drug dealer fought back. They tumbled across the room, Herb too afraid to let go. Martin’s face bounced off the chrome railings on the side of Floyd’s bed and Herb pushed down. As their bodies slid the length of the bed, Floyd’s catheter bag caught on Martin’s knees and came loose, spraying cold piss over the fight and onto the floor.

  “Ruth, help me,” Herb said. She stood still, in a panic.

  Martin’s head went down and Herb nearly rode up on his back. He could feel himself losing his grip on the younger man’s arm. Carrying the old man’s weight on his back pushed Martin forward and his head wedged in the opening where Floyd’s bed was raised. Herb pushed harder to keep Martin’s head in the small triangle of space, like a rat in a trap.

  “Here, push,” he said to Ruth, kicking out with his foot and sending the remote for the reclining bed to her. She lunged forward and grabbed the box swinging on the end of a cable. She got it in her hand and jammed the toggle forward with her thumb. The bed began to flatten.

  Martin’s screams became louder as the electric motor drove the bed frame closed around his neck. Herb wasn’t sure how long he could hold the man there. His arms were already rubber and sweat rolled off his forehead. He thought of his drill sergeant barking insults over his shoulder, used the deeply ingrained Marine determination that never left his bones.

  Ruth looked away, but kept her thumb on the button.

  The motor ground and protested at the object blocking the way. Martin dropped the gun and it rattled on the linoleum floor. Floyd did not stir. No staff member came to the rescue.

  “Cook another shot,” Herb said to Ruth.

  “What?”

  “Cook another shot. Give him all of it.” Herb dripped sweat onto Martin’s back and into his own mouth. Ruth handed him the remote and he kept his thumb on the toggle, despite the grinding motor. Martin’s struggles were weakening.

  Charlie tried to stand, took two steps and fell onto Herb’s bed. He kept his fingers on his vein the entire time.

  Ruth spit into the spoon, poured the rest of the powder in, heated the mixture over the candle the way she’d seen Herb do it, then uncapped a syringe and drew up as much of the liquid as she could.

  By the time she turned, Martin stopped moving.

  Herb huffed deep, struggling breaths. The bed’s motor clicked in a steady rhythm, unable to move against the solid block of Martin’s head. Ruth saw blood dripping beneath the bed mixing with the piss from the now-empty bag.

  A deep retching sound came from across the room and Charlie leaned over the side of Herb’s bed and vomited on the floor. He fell back into position on Herb’s pillow.

  “Do you still need this?” Ruth asked as tears formed in her eyes. She held the syringe out between them.

  “No,” Herb said between breaths. “I think we’re okay.”

  “But he’s . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  Herb let go and bent down to pick up the gun. His arm could barely lift it.
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  “What now?” Ruth asked.

  Herb looked around the room. The pool of blood, the spill of vomit, the syringe in her hand filled with piss-yellow liquid. The never-ending pulse of Floyd’s breathing apparatus droned on.

  “We clean up.”

  *****

  Forty minutes later the room was disinfected and mopped cleaner than it had been in years. Charlie curled in a ball on Herb’s bed, asleep and twitching every now and then.

  Martin’s body was rolled in a sheet on the floor, looking like a giant cocoon. They used one of the sheets with a rubber barrier against bed wetting. It kept the blood pooled inside and away from their spotless floor.

  Herb took a moment and leaned against the dresser. He watched Floyd as the machines breathed for him, drained the piss from him, and kept the reaper at bay. The old bastard with the scythe had to settle for a substitute this night.

  “What do we do with him?” Ruth asked.

  “We could dump him in Roy’s old room,” Herb said.

  Roy kicked off last month. Natural causes, they said. The ones who could hear would tell you he called out to the staff for an hour that night. When he finally went quiet everyone assumed he gave up. In a way, he did.

  “Won’t they find him?” Ruth said.

  “Yeah, that’s no good.” Herb ran his hand over his head, his scalp clammy with sweat. Another day in this hellhole and it’s gone shittier than usual. And all he wanted to do was have some fun, just like the night of the fire. Can’t an old man enjoy a goddamn cigar anymore? Was it his fault he fell asleep? Was it his fault they didn’t have a goddamn fire extinguisher?

  Ask his son and he’d say yes. That bitch of a wife would say Si.

  “I got an idea,” Herb said.

  *****

  Distracting the cab driver had been fairly easy for Ruth. She let the men get the “luggage” while she explained where they were headed. Getting Charlie awake enough to help stuff the mummy-wrapped body in the trunk had been harder.

  He moved underwater-slow, his eyes always at risk of falling shut. They let him sit against the open window as they drove in case he needed to puke again, and maybe the cold air would sober him up.

  When they pulled up in front of the address the cab driver asked, “This is where you want to go?”

  Herb said yes and made Ruth pay the man as he and Charlie retrieved the luggage.

  Two years on and the house was still nothing more than a pile of old cigar ash. The char-blackened chimney bricks still stood, so did much of the back porch, but the bones of the house stuck out of a charcoal pit like a dozen burnt matchsticks shoved into the earth.

  The cab pulled away and they dragged Martin’s wrapped and ready body into the pile of ash, smoothed over a coating of camouflage to last at least until the next rain.

  They all stepped back to the sidewalk, clapping soot from their hands. They turned to face the nonexistent house.

  “You did this, huh?” Ruth asked.

  “Yeah,” Herb said, examining the full extent of the damage for the first time. “I guess I did.” He really had fucked up bad. Damn good thing they didn’t have kids. “What a fuckin’ mess,” Herb said.

  Ruth put a hand on his arm and Herb ran his eyes over the pile of nothingness. Herb told himself to call his son and apologize in the morning. And to finally learn his daughter-in-law’s name.

  “Look at me,” Charlie said. Herb and Ruth both turned. Charlie had taken soot from the pile and given himself an Al Jolson blackface. His teeth practically glowed white as he smiled against his pitch black face.

  “Oh, brother,” Herb said. He and Ruth got on either side of Charlie and escorted him back to the Four Palms. They were all out of cab fare.

  *****

  They returned to Herb’s room ninety minutes later and each breathed a deep sigh of relief. By then Charlie had mostly sobered up, but seemed overcome by tiredness.

  “Should we get Charlie to his own bed?” Ruth asked.

  “No, don’t bother. I’ll take his.” Herb guided Charlie to his own bed and let him collapse.

  Ruth noticed the syringe lying on the dresser top. Herb saw it too.

  “After all this,” Ruth said. “Do we?”

  “It was a hell of a lot of trouble to go through with nothing to show for it.”

  “I wouldn’t say nothing. You got your excitement.”

  “Not in the way I planned.”

  “You mean not the way you remember.”

  “That too.”

  Ruth eyed the needle. “Was it really that good?”

  Herb smiled. “I’m still thinking about it after all this time.”

  Ruth lifted the syringe and held it out to him. “Do you think it will be the same without the blowjob?”

  “Probably not, but I’m willing to try.”

  “Well,” Ruth said, pushing up the sleeve of her sweater. “Maybe we can do something about that.”

  Bet It All On Black

  by Christopher L. Irvin

  When the last tiny air bubble escapes Tom's mouth, rising wobbly to the surface and then popping with a splick, my face flushes as his abs grow taut underneath my ass and heat ripples up my spine. It feels wrong—so much that I taste sour in my throat—but I can't hide the smile stretching across my face. The pleasurable tingle changes to spiders crawling, laying goose bumps under my skin and I shudder. It scares me how much I enjoy the moment, that the space where I should feel sharp pangs of fear and regret is dull and numb. And it's not the first time.

  I sit on his stomach, letting my pale, one hundred-twenty-pound frame hold him under for a few more seconds to ensure he’s gone. Even though the bathwater is almost boiling I feel cold, like a professional behind a computer screen, watching Tom drown at the push of a button. I step out of the tub before he fouls himself.

  Tom had said it was the best room in the casino and he wasn't kidding. Water is splattered all over the granite tile. The sink, a mess of towels and toiletries, made it look like Tom had been living in the place for a week, when in reality it was the obsessive need of a drunk man to unpack before inviting me, his guest, into the suite. All it did was make it look like I had wrestled him out of a week's worth of Tommy Bahama before drowning him in the tub. Surrounded by luxury, and all I can think of is the mess.

  The bathroom is almost as large as my apartment, the whirlpool tub at its center. I say “my apartment” but it was really Doug's place, and now it belongs to the bookies along with everything else I used to own—with the exception of the six-inch silver heels, the purse and the black strapless dress laying on the bed in the other room. Not my style, but every girl has an outfit for when she's looking for trouble.

  The long beveled mirror above the double sink is fogged over, and in the haze of the steam-filled room I feel a strange sense of calm. It reminds me of when I was thirteen, when Doug capped The Streak of '03, winning a gunmetal Mustang convertible at The Mirage. He pulled me out of school and drove us from Vegas to LA, his lucky pockets full of cash winnings. We hit the basin fog and just rolled on through to the coast. Doug wasn't sober for a second of that long weekend, but I didn't care. I was his daughter.

  That was the last time I knew where I was going in life. Doug's winning streak came to an end shortly after the trip. He rarely came home at night, and when he did, he reeked of sweat and booze or a woman's perfume, only stopping by for a shower and a change of clothes, or to argue with the landlord over late rent. I learned to take care of myself and kept my father locked inside my heart next to a faded photograph of my dead mother. Doug told me nothing other than she died having me. I don't know if I believe him, but he named me Mirna after her. He called me Mirn when he had something to say, which was hardly ever towards the end.

  Tom had called me Mirn too. If there had been anything heavier than a hairdryer in the bathroom I would have beaten him to death. But I gritted my teeth as I stripped off my dress and tied my hair back into a short, tight ponytail. I teased Tom int
o the tub filled to the brim with screaming hot water. I giggled when I knocked him in and the water scalded his skin. But Tom was not as drunk as I thought he was. That, or his adrenaline overcame the combination of heat and the half-bottle of Bulleit he downed after stumbling to the hotel room less than an hour before. I thought about wiping down the walls but they would dry, leaving little sign of struggle. It's not like I slashed his aorta and he sprayed crimson all over the bathroom.

  Not like my father.

  I picked Tom out of the crowd around one of the many craps tables at the Bellagio. I'd just dropped off three thousand to the bookie's men and received a black eye for the effort. I hadn't stepped foot on a casino floor in years, and yet I'd been on two in less than twenty-four hours. I felt the family itch coursing through my veins, an addiction not only to the game, but the environment, the shows, the crowds. All gilded over a rotten core.

  In five minutes of my eyeing him from across the table and cheering with the raucous crowd, he had won over three grand. Tom was well into his fifties. His voice hinted at years of smoke-filled rooms, and when I squeezed in close to him, he smelled of cheap body spray and bourbon. He handed me a free Jack and Diet from a cart, clinking glasses. Cocking his head to the side, he put a hand on my lower back and told me my black eye was cute in a "you remind me of my daughter" kind of way. His eyes crinkled when he smiled. He could have been a father of five but I convinced myself he was a bad man. Tom had won over twenty grand last night and the casino had given him one of their top suites for the remainder of the week. Three hours later, I had him drunkenly cashing chips and heading for the room.

  I feel the night of free drinks squirm in my stomach as I stand dripping in the bathroom. For a brief moment I feel faint and need to brace myself on the counter as the scene takes its toll. Tom's lifeless body reminds me of Doug, minus the slashed wrists and blood. Doug had done it right—doped himself up and taken a pair of my nice scissors deep and horizontal—not like the paper cuts you see in the movies. I found him three days ago on a scorching Friday during my lunch break from the hair salon. The air conditioning had been turned to MAX and I hurried to crank it back down. I wasn't made of money then and I'm sure as hell not now.