Our Blood in Its Blind Circuit

by J David Osborne

  “Get closer,” Branson Collins said. Haywood stepped forward. “Really look at it. Look at how good she is.”

  She closed her eyes and moaned and reached out and grabbed Haywood’s crotch. Collins smacked her hand away and pulled her down on him until she gagged.

  When Brooke jerked away and gasped for breath Haywood looked at her and she winked at him, and he felt like he needed every beer in the fridge.

  He felt disgusting. Collins tilted his head back and came.

  Detective Alexander Janairo opted to stand. The couch dipped heavy in the middle and the grey stains mottling the chartreuse smelled sweet. Hagar Simpson sat on an overturned crate in the corner. His girlfriend, Jackie, cowered against a wall. TV broken / lightbulb hanging from a wire / stuffed cow crucified against the wall. Janairo hated visiting the homes on streets with letter names. Rangitsch tossed the baseball bat into the far room.

  “What was the bat for, Hagar?”

  The tweaker scratched at the robots tattooed over his arms. “I broke the TV with it.”

  Jackie hollered: “He makes me dance with it. He smacks the ground and yells at me to dance.”

  Janairo observed the smashed tiles. Nodded. “You need to respect yourself.”

  Rangitsch knelt beside Hagar. “This kind of shit makes me very upset.”

  “Y’all DHS now?”

  “We’re drug police.”

  Janairo patted his partner on the back. “That was a joke, Range.” He dropped the baggie of meth in front of the small man. “This isn’t, though.”

  “Don’t you guys have, like, black kids to bust? They love pot.”

  Janairo shrugged. “Normally, yes. But my bosses get upset when this shit starts to turn violent. There was a house shot up a couple days back. Couple of guys selling stuff like this.”

  “Did you talk to the people in the house?”

  “Sure did. Mr. Jerry Isassi. He wasn’t very cooperative.”

  The tweaker shook his head. “I don’t know anything.”

  The cops looked at each other. “So how well do you know Jerry Isassi?”

  Head shaking: no.

  “Where does he get it? Where does he keep it?”

  No.

  “Who’d want to shoot at him? Who’s moving in?”

  No.

  Rangitsch moved toward the door. “Another great lead, Alex.”

  “Fuck yourself, Bob.” The door shut. Turning back to the tweakers. “Ignore him.”

  “No, you’re right. This is a waste of your time. Take me to jail and I’ll do the time. I don’t know anything.”

  Jackie moved away from the corner, “Baby, just tell them what they want to know.”

  Hagar flipped the crate over and put a finger in her face. “You shut the fuck up. You shut. The. Fuck. Up. I’m tired of hearing bitch shit from your cunt mouth.”

  The spirit in Janairo stirred and curled around his soul and growled. “You sit your ass down for just one second.” Hagar felt the power and sat. Tendrils of the beast reached out from Alexander Janairo’s eyes and salted Jackie’s tongue.

  Janairo said, “Why do you let him speak to you that way?”

  Jackie shrugged. “I love him.”

  The detective ignored the filthiness of the couch. “Girl, come sit down.”

  She sat next to him.

  He laced his fingers and propped his arms on his knees. “When you were a little girl, what did you want to be?”

  The corner of Jackie’s mouth twitched. “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do. Everybody wants to be something. Did you want to be a princess? An astronaut?”

  Hagar rolled his eyes.

  Jackie thought about it. “Well. I always wanted to be a firefighter.”

  Hagar laughed.

  Janairo nodded. “A firefighter. That’s good.”

  “It’s whatever.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was in maybe middle school?” She motioned at the bag.

  “And suddenly you liked that more than being a firefighter?”

  “It’s complicated. It was a process.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Hagar yawned.

  Janairo took a deep breath. “Here’s a story. When I was a kid, I really wanted to be a baseball player. Like, more than anything. I didn’t really know shit about baseball, and I never really played it. But I had these cards. My dad was a military man and my mother was depressed and I kind of sucked at everything as a child. But there was something about these cards that I just couldn’t get over. Anyhow, I grew up and realized that I was shit for the sport, whatever. Being Batman was also out of the question.”

  Jackie nodded.

  “I walked around with a lot of anger after that. I wanted to be on a baseball card so badly. Got to the point where I would actually set a camera on a timer and pose in a uniform, with a bat, and everything. And kind of chop it up and make it into my own card.”

  “That’s kind of sad.”

  “It’s very sad. But you know what? I took all that pent up rage, and I became a police officer. And I’m now allowed to hurt anyone that I like, as long as I’m careful about it. You wanted to be a firefighter, and there’s a good chance it’s a bit late for that, now.” He walked to the back room and retrieved the bat. “But you can still make others hurt. You can still respect yourself for who you are. As unathletic a person as that might be.”

  Jackie took the bat. “So you’re saying…”

  “I’m saying you can beat the everloving fuck out of Hagar here, and I won’t tell a soul.”

  Her eyes lit up. “I can really get him?”

  “If you can’t live the dream, make sure everybody’s in check.”

  She stood up and tested the bat’s weight. Hagar chuckled nervously and stood up. “Now hold on--”

  She took his legs out. Bone snapped.

  He fell to the rank floor and screamed.

  Janairo whispered, “Tell him to send you a picture of him crying, weekly. Or we’ll be back.”

  She screamed, “Take a picture of yourself crying and text it to me.” Smacked him again. Ribs caved in.

  “Now wait a second, girl, I have a question to ask him--”

  “You never respected me,” she yelled as she brought the bat down on Hagar’s skull. Bone fragments and brain matter flung up to the ceiling and over Jackie and Janairo. A chunk of brain dove into an overflowing trash can. “Kobe,” the detective muttered, then, “Well, I’d better be going. I’m a man of my word. Just leave this here and find you a new home.”

  She dropped the bat and cried.

  Janairo whispered, “Respect yourself,” and took one last look at the caved-in skull of Hagar Simpson and shut the door behind him.

  The spiders covered his person and the memories flooded into John Parks’ reality and he experienced them over again from the meager square-footage of his living room. There they were, him and Louise, in Target, and they’re buying underwear, and he tries it on in the dressing room and models it for her and she laughs.

  Sitting on the couch, night after night, making their way through science fiction television shows, him sweaty and quiet after a day of manual labor, her chatty and drinking cheap beer and tickling him whenever he threatened to fall asleep.

  Sea World: they made the trip during an uncharacteristically wealthy summer. They pointed at the dust devils on the side of the road and commented on the frequency and price of the tolls and they ate the best pizza he’d ever had. They wandered into the park and rode the rides and they came upon a crowd pressing against a giant blue pool. A dolphin swam and jumped through the clear water and the ticket holders stretched out their arms to grab a piece of it, just a touch. Louise joined them, she reached her arm out, somehow convinced the ticket price wouldn’t be worth it if she didn’t feel the slick skin of the mammal’s hide on her fingers. John Parks hung back and eventually stood next to his girl and told her that it was time to go, to see other parts of the park, and j
ust like that the dolphin crested the surface, and he was staring right at it. The crowd hushed. He looked into its eyes and it tapped its beak on his nose. He gave it a quick pat and the beast disappeared back into the pool. The crowd looked at him like they might string him up. Louise jumped up and down and told him he was the dolphin whisperer and they hugged and he remembered the smell of hotel blankets fondly.

  His room smelled like urine and booze. Bill Baldwin did his routine, he opened the halfway-open door and said “Goddammit John,” but before he could finish the prone man’s rage was upon him, and the spiders swarmed up his legs and covered him in bites and fell down his throat and crawled into his eye sockets.

  When they dispersed Baldwin was a puffy, bloated corpse and Parks was full of an intense urge to run. He got in his truck, spiders still pouring from the green gaping wound in his foot, and he headed for the mountains, away from the scene of the crime, away from anyone else he might destroy with his loneliness and anger.

  Steve Haywood put on his Dickies and shirt. The “Steve” on the sleeve about ready to peel off.

  Branson Collins fried eggs in the kitchen. Coffee machine like a cat choking on far-off fireworks. Collins stared at the pan. “You good?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We good?”

  Haywood grabbed a fork and stabbed at the eggs. Collins slapped at his hand. Haywood shoveled the eggs into his mouth and said, “We good,” and walked out the door.

  At work, he finished up the bullet holes in the Lumina and grabbed the key and pulled it around the back of the garage. He checked over his shoulder. He dug through the glove compartment and under the seats. Double checking. He knew they were meticulous that night but couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d left something there, couldn’t get it out of his head that Louise might be vacuuming one day and find his ID card or a receipt from the burgers he ate that night or something.

  Of course that receipt is in a dump, somewhere.

  Of course his ID was in his wallet.

  He returned the key to the salesman up front and shuffled into the waiting room to get a cup of coffee. A talk show on the TV: thirteen year old girls who want to be hookers. No sound. An older man with a car magazine open on his lap watched the screen and shook his head and talked to himself quietly.

  Louise stood behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Everything okay?”

  The coffee singed Haywood’s throat. “Yeah, it’s good. Patched her up.”

  She folded her arms and grimaced. “They told me this place was bad.”

  He poured another coffee. Stomach did flips. He calculated how far he was from the bathroom, how much time he’d need if an emergency arose. “The police on it?”

  Louise threw her hand up and sucked her teeth. Haywood couldn’t stop staring at her face. Couldn’t peg it as cute or nice or sexy but he just kept staring. She said, “They don’t know shit. They went to the house that they shot up, that shot my shit up. Talked to everyone there. Apparently the place was empty and the dudes there gave some bullshit name. He pissed someone off, someone came looking. I don’t know. This whole place is fucked.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “The city.”

  Steve Haywood motioned to the orange plastic chairs. They sat. “Why on earth would you come here?”

  “My man. Well, ex-man.”

  “Damn.” Was it her smell? He leaned closer. She smelled normal.

  “Yeah. So, here I am.”

  Haywood wanted to turn her over and press her face into the floor and fuck her stupid. “So what do you do?”

  She rummaged through her purse. “I was a vet. I just got here, so, you know. I’m looking.”

  He motioned towards the shop. “Fuck it, come work here. Change some tires. Get sweaty.”

  She laughed and put on some lip liner. “Yeah, I could see that.”

  “You’d look good with a layer of grease.”

  Louise closed her purse and stood up and walked towards the door. “Well, it was nice seeing you again.”

  He nodded. “You too.”

  Before she got to the door she turned and gave him a look. Thinking. She scribbled her number on the back of a receipt and handed it to him and said, “Text me.”

  Louise left. Haywood crumpled up my paper cup of coffee and stuffed the number in his pocket and felt the previous night’s work swirl around his guts.

  They texted back and forth through the morning. She got too drunk the night before/her man was acting out/he pushed her/she doesn’t know what to do. He zipped lug nuts into wheels and texted and sweated and realized that she was someone he could stand to be around.

  Coworkers yelled at each other and wiped black streaks across their foreheads.

  Louise wrote that she loved her dog.

  That she was hungry.

  That she wanted a drink tonight.

  Haywood thought about Collins spitting in that boy’s mouth and decided then that he’d take her out.

  Home: shower/dress/mouthwash. Later they sat at the bar and he listened to her talk.

  She ordered another drink.

  She talked about friends who talked about her behind her back and her problems with addiction in the past and movie stars she’d like to meet. Haywood recognized it all as that surface level bullshit one comes to expect when there’s nothing between two people but a strong drink. But there was something below the surface: a reluctance, an intelligence. He tried to figure a way to talk to her, to really talk to her, but he couldn’t think for the poison in his brain.

  Louise talked at length about the ex, about their engagement. She seemed to actually be upset, the way she talked about it. There was a distinct change in her demeanor: her shoulders slumped and her voice lowered and her eyes stayed trained on the drink. Normally this would make Haywood lose interest, this clear affection for someone maybe not yet out the door. But tonight he felt himself nodding with her, tuning the music out as best he could, trying his best to give advice, to help her.

  After a few hours Haywood’s cell phone rang. He picked it up and put a finger to his other ear. Collins said, “They came at us.”

  “What?”

  “They came at us. At Hagar.”

  “Hagar?”

  “Big customer, Steve.”

  “Okay.”

  “Someone caved his fucking skull in with a bat.”

  “I’m assuming this guy maybe didn’t have the greatest friends?”

  “Don’t talk back to me. Get your ass to the Burger King.”

  “Maybe we should--”

  “We’re not talking about this. Get over here, now.”

  Haywood hung up and paid the bill and told her that he had a good time. The disappointment on her face made his dick scream from behind its denim.

  Louise ordered another drink. She put her hand over his. “I had a really nice time.”

  Haywood wanted to grab her by her hair and drag her someplace dark.

  The bar lights reflected in her pupils and he wanted to touch her hair.

  He patted her hand and left the bar and walked home. A homeless man yelled at his bike and lifted it in the air and threw it in the street. He ran out to it and cradled it and cried. Folks barbecued in their backyards. The night dark blue and sick orange.

  The Burger King parking lot was mostly empty. One van in the drive-thru. Haywood and Collins linked up in the bushes and saw Hammond push through the door, take his hat off, and turn to go. They followed him until he rounded the corner to his home. Collins grabbed him by the back of the neck and pushed him down a small gravel road bent out and potholed from years of neglect. He kicked Hammond’s legs out from under him and pushed him against a fence, big piles of brush sticking out on either side of him. Collins reached in his pocket and when his fist came out it was ringed in brass knuckles.

  Hammond said, “Wait,” and Collins smacked him in the mouth. The boy spit blood and teeth and crumpled over.

  Haywood pulled his friend back.


  Jesus fucking Christ.

  Collins pushed him off and straddled the limp body. The sharp clanking of metal on bone.

  Wesley Hammond’s face folded in on itself. His eye socket cracked open and the wet orb spilled out, a tangle of nerves leading back to his skull.

  Collins wrenched his fist from the black mess.

  Haywood stepped back and kept his insides inside.

  Collins wiped the blood off his face and stood up and handed Haywood a ten dollar bill.

  “Go get Brooke some fries.”

  Haywood held the bill at his side. “Seriously.”

  Branson Collins towered over him. Grinding his jaw. The moonlight on his teeth. “I am the provider.”

  Rangitsch set a Coke in front of Jerry Isassi. The interrogation room was stark but for the inspirational posters hung on each wall. The south wall featured a cat hanging from a tree. The north wall had a gorilla holding a deer. The west wall had a tiger with a bunch of cubs. The east, penguins. The captain had odd ideas about interrogation. “Bring them back to grade school,” he’d said.

  Isassi shifted in the cold metal chair. “This shit is mad uncomfortable.”

  Janairo looked up from the perp’s rap sheet. “What? The diaper?”

  ‘Yeah. I don’t really understand it.”

  “Well, we know about your problem. Your mother told us all about it.”

  Isassi turned red. He flexed. Tattoos on his neck shifting under big purple veins. “This is bullshit.”

  Rangitsch pointed at his face. “Quiet down, young man, or we’re taking away your soda.”

  The criminal sipped his Coke and hushed.

  Janairo cleared his throat. “Well it seems here, young man, that you’ve been very naughty.”

  “The fuck.”

  Rangitsch flung his chair back and came around the table. He tilted Isassi onto the table and smacked him on the butt. “You watch your mouth, mister.”

  “Oh my god. What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on, is that you’ve been fighting with other boys on the playground.”

  Isassi threw his hands up. “I came here to give you guys a tip.”

  The cops glanced at each other. Janairo: “Wait, you came here voluntarily?”