by Angel Colon
"Oh," I said and looked crestfallen. "Yeah, the detective told me about that, Benny. He said he thought Sal imitated me to get her address. You can understand how I feel about it, Benny. Just awful."
Benny put his big hand on my shoulder and leaned in close. "Nothing you could have done, Donald, buddy. Sal's put away, he doesn't stand a chance at trial."
"He was a maniac, Benny. He'd lost it, you know that."
"He sure did," Benny said. "There's a couple loose ends the cops didn't bother with, but I have some of my boys looking into it. Shelly's neighbor said a cab picked her up that night. Never seen Sal take a cab. Anyway, I know the company. One of our guys owns it. Once we find the driver, hopefully we can figure out how Sal pulled this thing off. Tricked her into that cab. Bring some closure to the family."
"Oh… Well, best of luck, Benny. Lord knows you and your family deserve it. Let me know how it turns out."
Benny put his other hand on my other shoulder, holding me like we were going to hug. "You'll hear about it. I'm sure," he said, then he left with the bell on the door rattling. There wasn't a grin on his face.
I needed a car.
I needed to pack my things.
I didn't bother making my rounds that morning. I walked a mile and a half up to the bank and took out all the money I'd made in the last month. Across the turnpike was a used car dealership. I paid cash for a fifteen year old station wagon with over two hundred thousand miles on it.
Did Benny really suspect me? Would they find the Mexican cab driver? Would he be able to positively identify me? I packed the station wagon full of essentials. Seven boxes of salted crackers, stuff to make peanut butter jelly sandwiches, some jugs of distilled water, four changes of clothes, a hat and sunglasses. I even brought my father's old shotgun that I'd never fired, along with half a box of old buckshot.
I pulled the station wagon around back of the Comfort Lodge by the dumpsters. Then I sat in Sal's old chair, by the red phone, and waited.
A sickness welled up in me. I saw Shelly going limp. Her legs had been twitching. The fat on her rippled and cascaded as she fought. I bet she was wishing she'd gone bowling with that fella. She should have, for her own good. She was okay, but I never thought she was much, and I still didn't. She was like an empty potato chip bag caught on some old barbed wire. Just something worthless stuck in a worthless place where nobody wanted to be. Who could miss her?
Sometimes a man has got to take a risk if he wants to improve his lot in life. This is the one I took and it got me my motel on the turnpike. Folks see murder as a wicked thing, but I only see it as wicked as anything else. What about those businessmen who came in late at night looking for a room? They might have had wives, but at night, all alone out on the turnpike, they'd still find themselves a whore. And that's a wicked thing to do to your wife, and your whore. We all take advantages, just in different ways. How many whores make a murder? Who knows?
Now I couldn't shut my eyes. I couldn't leave either, or else Benny would know for sure I was guilty. Then he'd hunt me down with his boys. I had to play the fool, like I'd always done with Benny. Just a simple housekeeper trying to run a business that was thrust into his incapable hands.
It got dark early, and by eight it might as well have been midnight. A pair of headlights swung into the lot. The engine was cut and two doors opened and shut.
I went to the front desk and waited. My foot was tapping. I became very aware that I needed to piss. The front door opened with a clatter and I saw the Mexican cab driver first. Benny came in behind him.
The Mexican looked at me once, then fixed his eyes on the floor. Benny was all hands and smiles.
"Well, is this the guy?" Benny said to the Mexican.
The Mexican didn't look at me again, he just nodded, yes.
Benny looked at me. "Donald, buddy. You lied to the police. You lied to me, as a matter of fact, and that's a whole deal worse than lying to police."
Even knowing what I might have done to his niece, Benny still thought I was a simpleton. The tone of his voice and the way he looked at me, I might have been a boy misbehaving in Catholic school. That's how he looked until I pulled the shotgun up over the counter, jammed the ass into my shoulder, and fixed it on the two of them.
Benny's big hand dove inside his jacket and the Mexican moved to duck out of the way, but I pulled the trigger and the shot ripped both of them and left ragged holes in the wall behind them. Blood sprayed. The wall looked like modern art.
The Mexican toppled over bleeding and groaning. He crawled across the linoleum, leaving heavy red trails. Benny staggered around, refusing to fall. As he was prodding himself for his gun, I went around the counter, flipped the shotgun in my hands, and smashed him in the head with the stock. He fell over quietly, slumped against the wall with his mouth open. Then I cracked the Mexican in the back of the head as he was scooting like a slug around the corner into the hallway. I went into the back office, unplugged the red phone, wrapped it up, and tucked it under my arm.
I took the station wagon south on the turnpike. There was no way to know how many of Benny's men knew about me. They would come for me when they found Benny and the Mexican bled out dry in the lobby of Comfort Lodge.
The turnpike at night is lit by dull yellow streetlamps and a heavy beam of moonlight. When the stars are out, you might as well be driving through space. There's nothing to hear but the hollow sound of tires on road. Twenty four miles south of Comfort Lodge, I got a room at Mountain Valley Motel. I was used up. On the run. A tired high school kid with a mask of acne checked me in.
I ate a whole two stacks of salted crackers in bed and threw the plastic wrappers away in the little trash can. Then I masturbated matter-of-factly, without passion, and turned over to sleep. Whoever cleaned out the trash in the morning would know some of my story.
But they couldn't know everything just from those things. And I didn't leave my watch behind, either.
In the morning, I went out looking for housekeeping work.
Bear Mountain
by Angel Luis Colón
"You want in on this?" He's smoking a wrinkled Parliament and leaning against a tree with such ease, you'd think we're old friends. 'This' is an unconscious girl, no older than sixteen, sprawled out on the dirt.
Me? I'm only walking back to the cave I've called home these days. Have a plastic bag with the day's haul—unfinished fast food—enough for a solid dinner and breakfast. This is the first time I've bumped into anyone off the trail while living out at Bear Mountain.
"You hear me, boy?" He has a drawl, and his way of addressing me pegs him as one of those good ol' boys I always hear about. Never see much of those types in the Bronx, though there are plenty of other racist assholes.
My answer's a shake of the head and a beeline past the trees.
"I asked you a goddamn question." He steps in front of me. Nothing but a boy thinking he's a man.
"Just passing through." I'm hungry. I want to go and have dinner and sleep it all off.
He grabs me by the shoulder. "Passing through? I'm supposed to believe that?"
They told me what to do in these situations. They said whenever I felt the blood rush to my head—whenever the heat was enough to singe the tops of my ears and my cheeks—to count.
So I count in my head…one, two, three…
"Answer the fucking question, boy."
The girl moans. Sounds like she says "Help me."
A knife flashes into view and he gives me a grin to match. "One last chance."
"Please…" She sounds so young.
"God damn it, she's waking—"
I cut him off with a sucker punch and he drops like the punk I knew he was.
"Shit…shit…" I rub the knuckles of my hand. They're split open and bleeding. There isn't time to waste. I walk over to the girl and give her shoulders a little shake. Her eyes snap open so fast, I nearly fall back.
There's something in those eyes—older than the baby fat on her cheek
s. She gives me the same kind of grin I got from Good Ol' Boy. "Fooled you."
It's too late for me to turn around. Too late to catch that Good Ol' Boy had done a little acting. I know this the moment I feel something cold and hard against the side of my head.
The rest is darkness.
"Wake up, wake up, wake up." Her voice is shrill—slightly off rhythm.
I open my eyes and a thousand knives wake up behind them. Face is wet. I taste blood. I smack my lips and shake my head. Bad call. Feels like my brain's rattling in there. I never was bright. I try to grab onto the whats and hows.
What got me here?
I said no to a cigarette? No, not just that. It was her—her and the peckerwood. They fucking jumped me. Who the fuck jumps someone in the goddamn forest? Too many questions and a headache that I can tell is going to overstay its welcome is setting in.
She's sitting with her legs crossed in a dirty wicker chair. I can tell we're inside a room—the floor is cold linoleum against my bare feet. The only light is coming from a fireplace to my left. Good Ol' Boy is nowhere to be seen.
"Baby," she calls out into the dark behind her, "he's awake." She licks her lips and wipes her nose. The edges of her nostrils are flaked with dry skin and raw red. What I thought was her natural skin tone looks to be sloppily smeared bronzer. The tops of her arms and feet are lily white. "You hear me? The darkie's awake."
Darkie.
The word gives the feeling of a brick going from my throat and down into my gut. That heat builds again and I can't find it in me to do any counting this time.
"Well, damn. Took long enough." He comes traipsing out of nowhere with a plastic jug of vodka. "Have to apologize about your head there, but that should be the least of your worries." He takes a long pull from the jug. I can read the label, but could never pronounce a word with so many vowels in it. "Can't find my fucking knife." He looks down at me. "You started hitting me and off it went into the brush. No biggie. We got more toys."
I finally get enough clarity to realize I'm sitting on a cheap lawn chair with my hands tied behind my back. I don't struggle, twist my fingers a bit to get a feel for the knot they tied. The smile that wants to show up on my face is swallowed back. The knot's some rookie bullshit—easy enough to get out of. I decide to wait it out in case there's a gun somewhere in the equation.
The girl bounces up and down like a preschooler. She's all arms and legs and built like a beanpole. "I can't believe we're gonna do this, baby. Told you it'd be easy."
"Keep your head, sugar."
"It's so exciting." She smiles up at him and bats her maniac eyes. "I'm already thinking about the next one. Told you we were gonna have some fun."
So she's the crazy brains of the outfit. Makes sense. A girl that young with a scrambled head like that would make any man a fool for her. Seen it more than enough in my time. Happened to me more than enough too. I cough, mostly because my throat's dry, but it ruins their moment. "I get a choice in what's coming?"
"Not really, son—price of being a Good Samaritan and all." Good Ol' Boy gives me a shit-eating grin and passes it over to his crazy lady friend. "Baby, go out back and get my bag out of the van."
She claps and lets out an idiot's squeal. Last time I seen anyone so excited, I was selling them a few grams of rock. "I am so glad we did this, baby." She hops up on a leg and kisses him sloppy—the way a kid does when all they've had is movies for training. Her eyes stay open and locked on me, daring me to do something about it. After she gives his crotch a long squeeze, she's off into the black like a bolt of lightning.
She's the dangerous one, but I'm not too sure who in the room should be worried.
"I assume you folks are gonna hurt me?" May as well pass the time with conversation.
He takes a seat on the wicker throne. "Like I said, luck of the draw. Woulda been you, woulda been a jogger. All the same."
"So you two cold-blooded like that?"
"Not yet."
"What's that mean?"
"It means you're special. You're the first."
I let that simmer for a minute. "Stewart," I say.
"Sorry?"
"My name's Stewart—friends call me Stew. You can call me Stewart, though."
He laughs. "Well shit, we're getting formal. I'd offer a hand, but you're a little inconvenienced there."
"You got a name?"
He leans back and smirks. "And why would I tell you that?"
I look around the room. "I got anybody to tell it to?"
"I guess not, Stew, I guess not." He places his jug of vodka on the floor at his feet. "Name's Riley Owen."
"You saying it backwards, like a telephone book?"
"No sir, Riley Owen."
"Huh."
"What's that?"
"With that accent, figured you'd be more like a 'Bubba' or some other Larry the Cable Guy shit."
Riley laughs again, real deep, straight from the gut. "You're a funny motherfucker, huh?"
"Only when my ex-wife reads the amount on the checks."
He gets a kick out of that one. "Regular fucking Richard Pryor here."
"Well, now you're insulting a dead man. I'm more of a Hicks fan either way."
Riley chuckles. "You ask either of them then when you get to the Hereafter. Bet they'll agree."
"No way to win that bet unless you come along."
"That a threat, Stew?"
I try to take in my surroundings, but there ain't much to see. "Nah, these are just jokes from a funny man."
He shifts in his seat.
I can see I struck a little chord with him, so I decide to keep chipping away. "What's that little young thing you got hanging off your balls?"
"Jan? Met her on the internet." He smiles to himself, cat that got the canary style. "We share…common interests."
"Like kidnapping old black men and killing them without a reason?"
"We like Led Zeppelin too."
I laugh out loud. "See? You're a funny redneck motherfucker yourself." I clear my throat. "She looks young as shit, though. Seems to me you're already breaking laws."
Riley raises his hands up in mock surrender. "You ask no questions, I tell no lies."
Jan barges in out of the shadows dragging a plumber's bag full of tools. She looks jittery and like she walked out of a pool. Somehow I don't think lugging that bag was the reason.
"Where you been?" Riley starts sifting through the bag. I see a plumber's wrench and assorted metal implements. These kids got some high-fallootin' ideas about how shit like this goes. Too many goddamn movies.
"Took me a while to find the fucking bag's all." Jan wipes her nose and the side of her finger comes back red. She jumps and wipes the evidence on the back of her pants, eyes me. "What the fuck are you looking at?" The look in her eyes—the lights are on, but the bulbs are about to go out.
I shake my head. "Nothing much."
She throws herself at me like a rat on a ham sandwich—fists flailing and making noises that have no right coming out a girl her size. Can't understand a word she's saying. Sounds like one of those beat poets my little girl used to watch. I turn my head to the side and let her have a go at it. Maybe she'll burn off some of whatever chemical is boiling her brain.
"Easy, darling." Riley scoops her up with one arm. "Take it down a notch." He rests her on the wicker throne and goes back to the bag. "Well, shit."
Jan sniffs. "What?" If her eyes could burn a hole through my face, well, I'd have a hole in my face. "What's the problem?" She shifts back and forth between the balls of her feet and spits by my boots. I half expect her to sprint straight through the wall, she's so cheesed up. Can't see why her beau don't see it.
"Where's my smokes and the rest of the vodka?" Riley goes through the bag and frowns. "Damn it, there was a paper bag with two packs of smokes and another handle."
"It's in there." She doesn't bother to look over to him. "I know it's in there because you told me they were in there. Don't try and act like I'm stup
id enough to have forgotten."
"No, they're not."
Jan pouts and slumps in the wicker chair. "Baby," she whines, "I know it's in there." She leaps to her feet. "Can't it wait until we're done with him?" She waves at me like I'm a fucking pet.
Riley shakes his head. "I'd like a smoke—I'm a little on edge." He gives me a crooked smile. "Bet Stew here could use one too, ain't that right? Last requests and all?"
"I can think of a lot of things I'd like right about now."
Jan darts over and leans her face close to mine. "You watch your fucking mouth. The more lip I get, the worse it's gonna be for you."
I can smell her sweat. She ain't nothing more than a junkie brat with something to prove. "I hear you, miss. Was stating the obvious."
"Yeah, Stew's a comedian, babe. About as funny as Richard Pryor."
"Who the fuck is that?"
Riley frowns. "Before your time, I guess. What's closer, like a Dave Chappelle?"
She stares at me and nods. "I know him," she says softly. "He's funny. This one ain't funny like him."
"We'll have to agree to disagree, sweetness. Now please—smokes." Riley snaps his fingers.
Jan turns and growls like a stray. "Don't you order me around."
"I said please."
Her eyes go blank a second and she nods. "Fine. When I get back, we start this. I got first dibs."
"Whatever you want."
Jan giggles like a toddler and slinks off again.
"She's coked up to the gills, you know." I twist my wrists and begin to go at the poor man's knot they thought could hold me. If there was a gun, it would've been pressed against my forehead by now.
"Nerves is all."
"Nerves making her nose bleed around the edges? Better check your ol' lady, Riley."
He leans in and gives me a sharp right hook across the jaw for that one.
I see stars and spit at my own feet. Can't tell if there's bleeding on account of the low light, but I sure as shit taste more metal at the back of my tongue. Son of a bitch knocked out a filling. "My apologies." I spit again and the filling bounces off the floor. "Didn't know this was the fairy tale kinda romance."