by Ryan Gattis
Rooster’s standing above me now, not smirking exactly, but almost. Close enough to reach down and choke me, stab me, whatever. My throat’s exposed too. Oh, well, I’m thinking. At least it’ll be quick if he does something.
He says, “How’d you manage not to blow your ass up in Rancho?”
Rancho San Pedro Projects, he means. The safe with the $887,000 and the dynamite dust in it. And I don’t know why Rooster’s playing it like this. Maybe he’s trying to throw me off or something, because this is all preamble. That’s a Frank word. To him, it means a bunch of dummies saying dumb stuff before they finally talk around to the important shit. And me and Rooster both know we’re about to play Let’s Make a Crazy-Ass Deal where I basically give him everything in exchange for going out easy.
“Oh,” I say it muffled, because I’m saying it around the towel. “Was that for me? I’m flattered as hell, man. Thank you.”
I don’t tell him I actually missed the explosives in the safe door the first time, or that Collins had to point it out to me later. Hell no. Besides, there’s no way those Dracula-teeth explosives in that safe were for me. For DEA maybe. For another crew trying to steal, maybe. But no point in coming at me. They know this. Because if it’s not me, it’s Frank or it’s Glenn fucking Rios driving his ass into town from San Bernardino. DEA will always get somebody. They never stop coming.
But Rooster keeps going. “How’d you do it, though?”
I get it. He’s the type that likes to know things, likes scaring people enough to tell him. But fuck him. I pull the towel off my face and more blood just comes out, goes down over my mouth before jumping off my chin. I smirk through it. Not like it’s the first time. Any boxer that ever boxed enough knows what his own tastes like.
“I’m a professional,” I say, and then, under my breath loud enough so everybody hears it, “dumb motherfucker.”
I don’t see the punch coming. I see a flash of black on my right, duck a little but not enough, and my whole world explodes.
I’m flat on my back in an instant. Ears ringing and all.
There’s a banging in my blood as my cheekbone’s screaming red alerts at my brain. I feel the pain bounce around me on my pulse, each and every heartbeat, going as far back as the base of my neck. It’s a fiery thing inside me as I’m rolling over onto my side and pushing myself back up to sitting. I shake my head to get the cobwebs off me, but that just puts more of my blood everywhere, which doesn’t make the pain any better, just makes Terco curse again.
In my peripherals, one of the linebackers is shaking his hand out because it must have hurt punching my hard head, while Terco’s staring death stares at my bloodstains on the carpet. He’s more mad at them than me. Good. Fuck him too.
“No call for that.” Rooster’s sitting back on the couch now.
I say, “You got the blood of an officer of the court all over a known drugs house. There’s no explaining that to them. And why’d anyone even bother with that shit in Rancho? If it explodes, nobody’s business goes good after that. DEA kicks doors for a year on nothing but some bullshit. Smart guy like you, you’d never do that.”
Rooster says to me, “You got a mouth sewn onto you.”
But we both know I’m not wrong.
I shrug. I test my nose. I’m not bleeding as much from there so I bring the towel down and tilt my head back to normal.
“I kill it at parties,” I say.
I’m getting looks now. Like, How can you be so chill? Terco’s wondering. I can see it. Glasses too. The linebackers only wonder if Rooster tells them to wonder.
The answer is, I don’t fucking care anymore.
I’m scared, sure. Scared like I’m wired up and steady electricity’s going through me, but most of what I’ve been scared about my whole life is the unknown. Now I got a bunch of knowns standing in front of me, and I don’t care what they do to me. My body, they can kill. They only have power over my mind and my spirit if I let them. They can never have those. Not even shreds. They can’t take what’s invisible unless I straight up give it to them. And that’s not me being brave. That’s just a truth of human existence. The kind of thing they’ve been saying at group since forever.
Because, see, I already been dying before. Been on operating tables. Been shot. Been chemo-ed. Overdosed three damn times. So, fuck it, I’m thinking, what’s one more? They’re getting me this time, and when they do, it’ll just be doing me and the world a big-ass favor.
Glasses leans over Rooster by the couch. They’re taking a timeout for a conversation. Some, I’m catching. Most I’m not. They’re talking about how I’m not the type that gets beat and tells anything about anybody and something-something, I don’t catch the word. And they’re back to talking about how if I was that type to talk, they both figure, Blanco would’ve made me and then he’d have the Rancho money right now to himself. Rooster’s looking at his hat in his hands, and then he’s looking at me. His eyes are saying my life isn’t worth what I owe.
A few whispers go back and forth that I don’t catch after that, and then Glasses steps back and Rooster says, “I need the list.”
I could try to negotiate on this, drag it out. But there’s no point. They’d just shut all their shit down anyways. They’re probably even doing it right now. So I give him the list. One address I struggle remembering. I try to find it in my head, but it’s not there. So to cover up on that, I start spelling street names of the ones I know and get told to shut the fuck up. Glasses writes it all down.
I only gave them three. They don’t ask for more.
After, I say, “I see how you run things here. It’s a good spot. Clean as hell. And I’ve been in a lot of these over the years. Would be a shame not to keep franchising it.”
They’re all waiting for me to get to the point, so I do. “You got a ratón creeping around, telling tales.”
Rooster’s interested. Every boss’s interested in hearing about that, but he’s eyeing me like an actor, all like he doesn’t believe me for the benefit of the rat if he’s in this room right now.
“That’s a problem I can’t help you with,” I say. “I don’t know who it is. But I know this house never gets made without someone telling on it.”
Rooster’s not going to say anything to that.
He’s been thinking it already. I can tell.
“Get him to his car,” Rooster says as he’s turning for the door. “Make him drive.”
56
This is a problem. I had a whole speech planned in my head. About how I was going to convince them to let me drive myself to San Pedro. Because if you kill an officer of the court, I’m on record, and how the authorities don’t forgive that, and how there’s nothing but nonstop running afterward for whoever did it. Because they’ll come for you. And I was going to talk about the ways to avoid that, the ways to give me some freedom, but then Rooster wants me out in my Jeep, and driving for some reason, and to where? And then I have to play it like a rag doll and just go limp on the carpet I already speckled with blood.
Because fuck dignity. ¡Sin vergüenza!
They want to kill me somewhere else, they’ll have to carry me out of here. They might even have to knock my ass out first. It’s not like they can’t do it, though. Not like the linebackers don’t have it in them. But that doesn’t mean I have to make it easy. And for what it’s worth, Lil Garfield’s still in the house, and he comes out of nowhere, because he must be thinking I’m playing or something, so he walks right over to me and stands on my chest. So I pet his bumpy skull. Because fuck it, why not? When am I ever going to get to pet a cat again?
Never, that’s when.
And he’s warm and furry and soft, and I’m memorizing how that feels on my fingers, and watching him closing his eyes like he trusts me, just wanting to chill in this moment and lock it up inside me.
Rooster walks back over from the door, his face going red above me when he leans down and says, “You’re a thinker. You like being one, and you think you’re sma
rter than anybody. So, I got to ask, you spent any of your thought time wondering why I’m still here?”
He opens his eyes wide at me to emphasize how I’ve been an idiot.
And I’m thinking, Shit. I’m thinking, No. I haven’t thought about that.
But I should have.
He keeps going. “Blanco’s gone. Shouldn’t I be? Because what’s left for you is just a cleanup job, no? And you know I’m not about to be near that.”
He’s not wrong.
Things are clicking in my head but not connecting, not falling into place, and all’s I’m coming up with is he’s got something he needs from me. And I know that’s true. The thought falls out of my brain and catches in my throat quick. It goes cold and hard inside my neck, this feeling. Like I swallowed an ice cube and it got stuck.
I still have one hand on Lil Garfield. And he’s purring now. I feel the vibrations of it inside my lungs. I wish I could sink into it and disappear. But a new thought won’t let me go. A heavy one.
“You need me for a job,” I say to Rooster. With my free hand, I’m rubbing the cheek that one of the linebackers mashed. I don’t think it’s broken, just about to be bruised purple and swollen two sizes too big. “But I’m not about to be killing anybody. You can just shoot me now if that’s what you want.”
Last, do no harm. I can’t go out any other way.
When I go out, I go out clean.
All five of them laugh right then.
And that’s when the stuff that’s been clicking around in my head actually snaps together into something: Nobody here is stupid enough to kill an officer of the court in a drugs house that’s on the record. That’s never going to happen.
“No.” Rooster’s looking at me like he pities me. “Something else.”
What that something else is, Rooster’s not going to say, and neither is anybody else. It’s one of those things I’ll have to see when I get there.
“Something about to get me out of debt, huh? That’s cool,” I say.
I’m playing, but I’m not. There’s just a little bit of hope in what I’m saying, because I’m thinking that whatever this is must be a big deal, big enough for Rooster to need it, and if he needs it, maybe I got more room to negotiate and somehow twist this back my way.
But all five of them laugh again. Like, No. Like, Forget it. This’s not about to get you out of that debt. Not even close. But you’re doing it even if we have to drag you.
And you know I’m not moving from where I’m sprawled out, so they do.
The two linebackers come over to me, they both take hold, pulling my hands off Lil G and my cheek, and right before I’m lifted into the air, a shocked Lil G opens wide eyes—one green, one blue—digs his claws into me, and jumps off, scratching me good.
I don’t even mean to, but I say, “Damn!”
Because I think he drew blood under my shirt. But that doesn’t matter now.
I’m up and floating and I’m helpless, getting carried through the living room air by both linebackers. This’s what drugs used to do to me, but worse. They’d puppet my ass all over the place. This isn’t the worst it’s ever been for me, I’m thinking.
But it’s really fucking close.
The linebackers have got an arm and a leg each and I got my head all the way back, watching the house upside down through the front door as Terco stays. He’s already got gloves on. And a yellowy sponge. And a white bottle. Bleach.
And he’s kneeling by my blood, about to make it all go away.
57
Outside by the garage, I’m light enough that one of the linebackers drops my right foot, keeps holding the top half of me up with one arm, and opens the driver’s door of my Jeep. Both of them kind of hoist me up and shove me in the front seat after that, but when they do, I just keep doing what I’ve been doing, acting like I never had any bones in my whole life, and I just slide down into the place where your feet are supposed to go.
The back door opens and Glasses gets in behind me. He wants to get this show on the road. Needs to. Because Rooster said so.
You can tell because Glasses hisses right near my ears when he says, “I need you to sit up and be a man.”
I laugh.
He doesn’t like that very much.
See, Glasses must be used to these kinds of things working on people that want to keep living. And I just need to keep making it clear to him that I didn’t care in the first place, and I sure as hell don’t care now, and what’s even funnier is that he thinks I’m just playing tough. I mean, he must be thinking that because that’s when the cold mouth of a pistol that I never even seen him with cuddles up to the side of my head.
It’s a wide O of a mouth. High caliber.
He pushes it into me, right on my temple, hard. Like he’s trying to bruise me with it. Teach me a lesson. I can’t see his face, but I know he’s frustrated and mad.
So of course I laugh again, because that’s me getting to him, and I say, “This’s not about to make me sit up, Gafas. C’mon, man. Act like you done this before. Rooster’s waiting.”
And Glasses has got to know that I’m not about to drive us somewhere quiet so I can get shot through the head and be dead on my steering wheel, honking a horn for people to wake up to. No thanks.
Both linebackers are just staring at me like they don’t know how to fix me and make me obey. I like that. This shit is almost comical.
We pass a few seconds like this, obviously with Glasses thinking about what to do, how to make sure I get where I’m supposed to be, and he must make up his mind about how that’s happening, because the gun goes away.
“Backseat,” Glasses says to the linebackers as he gets out.
He’s switching to the front, about to be the one driving instead of me. I don’t have much time to celebrate that little victory because I’m getting yanked out and thrown in the back, smashing my leg on the doorframe in the process. It hurts like a little explosion in my kneecap but I don’t say anything. Don’t give Glasses the satisfaction. I just slide right back down again, holding my cheek where I caught that punch.
“Make him sit straight,” Glasses says to the bigger guy.
The door across from me opens and the dude gets in. The only way he can think to sit me up is to grab me around my shoulders like he’s half hugging me. I slump against him. I can tell he hates it but he does it. He snags my keys from my pocket too, hands them between the seats, and Glasses starts her up.
The beginning of “Demolition Girl” jumps on the speakers. The Saints.
It’s the beginning bit right after the one, two, three, four all good punk songs need to have.
Lyrics come in, all about how I’ll be so sad I was Rose’s. How she’ll make me cry. How she’ll make me wish I could die.
All of it was true.
All of it except the line about how she wouldn’t let go till she was through. That never happened. When she was through, Rose never let go of me. She stayed with me. On magnetic tape. And inside me. All this time.
“Hey,” Glasses says from the driver’s seat, “I bet you wanna listen to this, huh?”
My heart spikes up quick inside me, thinking how if I show him it means anything to me, he’ll destroy it, throw it out the window or something just to get at me, so I don’t move.
I just meet his eyes in the rearview, right where he’s staring at me, trying to see if he can find another way to fuck with me, to hurt me.
And I don’t say shit.
I just smile. A real one. One, like, You can’t hurt me. Like, You can’t touch me. I’m here and I’m not here, my eyes are saying. And I’m just trying to stare into whatever soul he has till Glasses blinks at me and looks away, uncomfortable.
“Whatever,” he says.
The tape goes off, the radio comes on, and we drive.
Glasses
Monday, September 15, 2008
Late Evening
58
Him saying in the house that somebody was a rat, him laugh
ing at me, him knowing my name or just getting lucky, his Jeep blasting that loud-ass screamy music the second I turned the key, man?
I swear, in my whole life, I never wanted to blast somebody so much as this motherfucker right here in his own backseat. Having the gun on his head like that, it felt good to me. If felt like it’d only be a little thing to pull the trigger.
Hey, if anybody deserved to take him out, it should be me, that’s what I was thinking. I wanted to make him true to his name so bad, and I would have too. The only thing stopping me was Rooster, how he’d feel about that if I did it, how he said he needed him alive, and how he’d know for sure I was the traitor for doing it.
I bet I could just say Frank’s name and Ghost would straighten right the fuck up, but I can’t do it. And that’s messing with me. I know keeping that information in my back pocket is smart, but I’m also caught up in something that’s feeling like respect, seeing as I’m still tripping on how Blanco sold him out, how Ghost looked like he expected it and still made it out of there alive. That shit was a miracle.
I’m hearing Leya in my head now. How I need to quit with the cursing. How I need to slow down. How I need to watch and think.
There’s a tap at the driver’s-side window so I roll it down. It’s Big Danny.
He says, “You good?”
When I nod, he gives me a address and tells me to follow the 300.
Lonely says if I lose them, he can navigate me. He knows the spot. He’s been there before. I haven’t, which makes me wonder what it is exactly and why Lonely’s been there but I haven’t.
I say, “What type of spot is it?”
“Storage.”
This could mean anything, prolly even that Lonely’s hauled stuff there before, but rather than ask for more, I let it drop. I’m too busy adjusting my glasses on my head and pulling out on Clark.
The ROAD CLOSED sign and cones have been taken away and the brake lights of the 300 look super shiny in the night. Already I feel a headache coming on, so I close my right eye. It’s not good for depth but it’s good for me actually being able to get us somewhere.