“The problem with you,” Frank whispered in the dark, “is that for you nothing’s ever really touched you. You don’t have any scars.”
He broke Owen’s nose. He waited for the screaming to stop before he spoke again. “That’s how it works out here, Owen. Action, reaction. Good old Newton.
“Can you trust your senses? Can you look at this,” he said, flicking his knife open, “and trust that it is a knife? A real knife, a thing that cuts? And if you don’t trust your eyes, will you trust your nerves?” He moved the knife under Owen’s eyeball, the point just touching the lid under the arc of the orb.
“Is this real, Owen? Is it? Can you feel the rain on your face? Could I scoop out your eye? Does your life feel real?”
A beat passed.
“Is it raining, Owen?”
They sat together, one atop the other, on the wet grass.
“Yes.”
Frank got off Owen. Owen stayed flat on his back, rain beading on his upturned face. Frank knew that Owen was feeling it, every drop as it landed and rolled on him.
“You were right about one thing tonight,” Frank called back. “Sometimes, just being observed can change everything.”
HEART CHECK
Shermer hits the Huntsville yard hard as teen love. He peels off the shirt to let the tats do the talking. Everyone on the big yard knows his jacket the moment he touches turf. Day one and he’s famous. Wait, fuck famous. Henry Shermer is goddamn notorious. Hair-on-the-ceiling, brains-on-the-wall, evening-news notorious. Cons shoot side looks at him—no eyefucking allowed.
His skin is a textbook of white power numerology. A “14 WORDS” inked across his stomach, read as: we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. An “88” on his throat—88 equals HH equals Heil Hitler. Between his shoulder blades, “28” as in BH as in Blood and Honor. An Othala rune like a vertical Jesus-fish swimming on top of his heart. And Shermer knows he has heart—check the five blue lightning bolts on his shoulder. He got them done in county during the trial by a con who’d strung together a sweet homemade rig. Five bolts means five bodies laid low on an Aryan Steel greenlight.
He scans the yard, classifies and organizes. The yard is Mexi Heaven. The Texas Syndicate rules Huntsville. But Shermer isn’t worried about their numbers. They’re too busy beefing with California transplant Eme soldiers to bother a white man. Besides, the wetbacks have mucho splinter factions. Raza Unitas: they look clean and play dirty. Hermandad de Pistoleros Latinos: crazy as anybody, their faces inked with handgun tats.
Scan, scan. Crips hold down the weight benches; Bloods seem at peace in the background. Cocaine money keeps the Mau-Maus from going buck-wild at each other too much these days. They set-tripped on the streets but kept the peace inside.
Scan, scan. White men playing handball. But no go—AB tats on a back show them as Aryan Brotherhood: peckerwoods too fucked up on crank and the rep built by better men to be real soldiers. Perry Mashburn broke with the AB ten years ago, sick of setting up meth deals with wetbacks in the name of the white race. He formed Aryan Steel and they built a castle out of corpses. Browns, blacks, skin-traitors, even screws. Each shank-specked corpse another brick in the wall. Shermer needs that wall. He knows brother Steels are on the yard somewhere—scan, scan, scan.
One of the AB brothers cuts Shermer off in the yard. Two more stand behind him. The ABs scope Shermer out and he sees his jacket write itself on their faces—Shermer is goddamn notorious. Shermer killed on a greenlight from Perry Mashburn himself—Shermer’s name means massacre.
In his cell Shermer has his clippings from goddamn Time magazine. Time knew dick-all. Every white con in the world knows the real score: Zach Dixon got sprung out of Leavenworth owing the Steel money. He’d taken out a loan from Perry Mashburn while doing two years for possession. He’d moved the money outside somehow. Probably the same way he’d moved his meth in: riding the Hatchet Wound Highway under his sister’s skirt on visiting day. Then when the Steel showed up looking for his vig he’d turned rat and moved to protective custody. He rode out the last six months of his bit in Snitch City, where Aryan Steel couldn’t reach him. Perry Mashburn spread the word when Zach got sprung back into the world. The word was greenlight on the skin-traitor, full brotherhood for the trigger. The greenlight had a condition: leave no witnesses.
Shermer was two years on the outside after his first real bit for armed robbery. He was bone-tired of hauling rebar for shit money. Hauling rebar kept his jailhouse swoll on, and real pussy was better than prison-punk chokefucks every time—but life like a civilian bored his tits off. He’d met some Steel brothers on the inside. Even behind bars they’d had something. Call it honor. Call it brotherhood. Something you couldn’t get from wage-slavery. Something Shermer never had in his life. Something Shermer decided he couldn’t live without. He cashed his last paycheck and went hunting.
Shermer knew Zach from back in the day. He asked around and learned the lame bought heavy meth from local peckerwoods with the money he’d snuck out of the joint. Zach knew he couldn’t stay still. He’d loaded up and gone on the run. Shermer followed. He tracked him down I-44 through Oklahoma. Missed him in Okmulgee. Got the story from a Waffle House waitress with a triple chin and death’s-head earrings: every town he went, Zach made the scene at the white power rock shows. He followed Steeltoe H8 on tour, selling meth blasts at the show to pay his way.
Shermer stopped at a truck stop. Grabbed a coin-operated shower, a cheeseburger, and a computer kiosk. He checked the Steeltoe H8 website for coming gigs. He loaded up on black coffee and drove all night. He leapfrogged Zach at Tyler and set up camp in Houston—the local skinheads called it Space City and ate migas while cussing out wetbacks. Typical soft-shell motherfuckers. Shermer knew the warrior blood still flowed through their veins. But it was gone from their faces.
Shermer sat in the parking lot while Steeltoe played their set for a warehouse full of Hammerskins and peckerwoods. Shermer caught sight of Zach. He knew him from his butt-crack chin and his meth-rat eyes. He could have iced him in the parking lot before the show, but the greenlight said no witnesses. Shermer wanted full-tilt brotherhood or nothing at all. The Steel had to know he was a righteous warrior.
He followed Zach from the show to a motel on the edge of Space City. The dude had people inside the room. No witnesses. Fuck waiting. Shermer wasn’t a bitch-made bushwhacker. There was more than one way to leave no witnesses. Shermer mounted up with a shotgun and a head full of Viking dreams. He came through the door with the twelve-gauge breakdown in his hands. Five seconds in, Zach looked like Picasso painted him—head over here, arms over there. Two more pumps wiped out his partners. Shermer breathed blood mist. Some little featherwood just picking up some crank made it halfway out the door; a buckshot rip left half of her in the room and the other half rolling down the sidewalk.
Four bodies, no regrets. He’d heard you felt things the first time. He didn’t feel shit.
He found the featherwood’s six-year-old son hiding behind the shower curtain. Sirens on the highway said hurry. A cop car nearby. Shermer’s bad luck. The kid cried and cried while Shermer reloaded. Perry said no witnesses.
If he was a nigger they would have gassed him for it.
Instead they sent him for a ride at Huntsville that would last as long as he did. Life with no parole. The old cons called it “all day.” All day wasn’t shit. And neither were these AB lames set to give him a dick-measuring right out in the yard. Shermer checked hands. No shanks—didn’t mean shit. Convicts know how to hide, how to stash. Motherfuckers could have a goddamn samurai sword hidden somewhere—Shermer wouldn’t see it until the word go.
Shermer weighed odds—best bet said these peckerwoods were straight-up heart-checking. A yard shank was plain stupid. Shanks don’t have blades, shanks have points. No throat-cut, no slashes, just stab stab stab. Try to stab a man to death—it ain’t easy. Can’t slice open the arteries, can’t dump guts onto the floor. Stab a man a
hundred times and maybe he dies, maybe he doesn’t. Doctors work miracles on septic shock and puncture wounds. Stab a man on the yard, pigs in the tower lay you out—and high-powered rifles do kill easy—and your man spends a month in the ward and walks out good as new.
“What’s up?” The guy in front, billy goat pubes on his chin, drops the words. It’s a greeting, a question, a challenge all in one. Shermer smiles—fuck your sister spelled out in teeth.
They don’t swarm. They just want to see what kind of man he is. They’re fucking lames. They’re heart-checking Shermer.
So Shermer turns it back on them. He drops major eyefucks on them. He dares them to say boo. In a few seconds they’re going to have to tangle just on general principle. Shermer saw plenty of yard stompings in his last bit. He knows he just has to hurt one of them bad and not stop fighting when the stomping starts.
“You kill a kid and still call yourself a white man?”
This shit here is why the Brotherhood ain’t shit. This shit here is weak. Fucking lames. Fucking punks. Shermer can’t say what needs to be said—a Perry Mashburn greenlight gets followed to the letter, and that’s what makes us white men and you shit. Fuck the law, fuck life, fuck dead kids, fuck the whole motherfucking world. It is what it is. Shermer can’t say it—the words would turn to warrior cries in his mouth. These lames wouldn’t understand nohow.
Shermer gets ready to get down. His muscles don’t move. It’s all in the eyes.
“Hey, now.”
The voice comes from behind the AB lames. Aryan Steel—the cavalry has swastika neck tattoos. Four brothers—Shermer counts quick—eleven blue bolts between them. The one in the lead—he’s got a ring of shank scars on his torso like a shark bite. He’s got a screaming eagle tat over his heart. He’s got four blue bolts on his arm. He’s got a name that rings out in every lockdown—Craig Hollington. In the cellblock legends they called him Crazy Craig. Shermer knows the stories. Crazy Craig pushed Blood Nation OG Goldie Webber off a third-floor walkway with a bedsheet noose around his neck—Crazy Craig brought lynching back to Huntsville. He got sprung from death row off some lawyer shit. He rules Huntsville for Perry Mashburn. He’s the thick dick in this yard. A Real White Man. The man Shermer came here to meet.
“He’s with us, y’all hear?” Crazy Craig talks direct to the one with the billy goat beard. Shermer makes sure to remember billy goat’s face—he’ll ask the Steel for details later.
“Fuck it, man, you guys stand up for a dude what kills—”
Crazy Craig gets closer to the AB dudes.
“We take care of our own, dog. That’s how we do.”
The men stare at each other. The yard smells like burnt rubber and sweat. It smells like that Space City motel room. Shermer wants to smash/stomp/kick/gouge. Shermer wants to get down.
The AB dudes step off. They moonwalk back to the handball court. Shermer slaps hands with Aryan Steel. He meets Crazy Craig and Moonie and John-O and Dag. They compare tats. They walk over to the heavy bag—Aryan Steel’s turf. The Steel gather around Shermer. They give him the scoop—long-term truce with the Brotherhood and most of the esses. A war simmers with the smokes—they still got a hate-on for Crazy Craig thanks to Goldie’s swan dive.
“I know you ain’t no fucking lame,” Crazy Craig tells Shermer. “But we got to see what you got, y’all hear? Get on that bag. Let’s see how you gonna take it to the jigs.”
Moonie holds the heavy bag. Shermer wraps his hands with ribbons of cloth. He’s got focus. He’s a wicked street-fighting southpaw. He goes to work. Right-right-left-right-LEFT-right-right. And again.
Jab-jab-HOOK-jab-cross-HOOK-HOOK. Moonie lets the bag hang free. Shermer sets it swinging. Crazy Craig tells him to move his feet. The Texas sun drinks his sweat. His blood thumps in his head. He punches to its beat. Jab-jab-feint-cross-jab-SHOVEL HOOK. The bag hits back on the swing. Shermer’s arms jelly up. He takes a step back to catch his breath.
“Get back in there, son.”
Crazy Craig grins. Shermer reads it: They’ve seen he’s got guns. Now they want to see if he’s got heart. He steps back in low: HOOK. Sounds like a shotgun blast. The Steel whistles and hoots. Minutes pass. Jab-jab-HOOK. They want to see how far he can go.
Left-left-right-LEFT. His pulse so hard his eyeballs throb. Minutes stretch out. No one says stop. He shows the guys more. Jab-jab-jab. He can barely get the arms up. Left-left-left. He trips on his feet. He goes down. He can’t breathe fast enough.
The Steel picks him up. They clap his back. Yard time is over. They walk him down the halls. He still can’t lift his arms. He still can’t catch his breath. Colors come out of nowhere. His heart swells twice as big, and his rib cage feels its every twitch.
“Good job there, Sherm,” Moonie tells him. In a crowded hallway. They stop. Moonie takes the wraps off Shermer’s hands. Shermer’s fingers can’t close. They glow red with rushing blood under the skin. Moonie puts the wraps on himself. He looks at Crazy Craig. Craig nods. Moonie walks down the hall toward the brothers.
“What’s—what’s happening?” Shermer can barely get it out. His lungs feel rusted.
“Part two of your initiation, brother,” Craig says. “You got your blood pumping?”
“Hell—hell, yes.”
“Well, check this shit out.”
Moonie walks into a crowd of Bloods and swings—a perfect punch, a tripod of feet, fist and skull. The Bloods step back—Moonie stomps—the blacks swarm him. Shermer understands. Moonie’s a distraction. For whatever Shermer’s next test is. His guess—they want to see him kill. They still got to see his heart. He tries to pick out the biggest smoke in the room for his victim. He hopes his battered hands can still handle a shank.
The guards swarm. They toss Moonie and his opponent to the floor. Before Shermer can see if Moonie is in one piece, Crazy Craig puts a hand on his shoulder, leads him down a hallway Shermer hadn’t seen before. John-O and Dag are at his back. He can still hear the hacks screaming, trying to get control.
Shermer calls the distraction accomplished. Now it’s his turn. Initiation.
“Y’all got heart, brother,” Crazy Craig tells him. “You truly do. Perry Mashburn sends his regards.” Shermer stands exhausted, triumphant. Ready for baptism in blood. Ready to be born again in brotherhood.
“But,” Craig says, “he says you shoulda known better than to kill that kid.”
Shermer sees John-O and Dag coming at him. Warrior instincts kick in. He grabs for them. Useless. A waste—they’d made sure Shermer had punched himself out. Shermer’s mind churns. What are they thinking? He’s goddamn notorious. He left no witnesses. He lived the code.
Crazy Craig brings out the shank—looks like a railroad spike. He sticks Shermer in the center of his Othala rune. Under the spike, his heart still beats crazy mad.
“Fuck you!” Shermer says.
“Some other day, some other dude, maybe fuck me. But today it’s you.”
Craig hammers down the shank with his palm. It splits Shermer’s heart. He sees blood hit the ceiling. His brothers drop him to the floor and he sees nothing at all.
ALWAYS THIRSTY
Tommy dreamed of whiskey sweet as Southern tea. The dream had no sense of place or sound. Just a bottle at his lips and swallowing. Great gulps filled him with booze until he was liquid too. He drowned in himself.
He woke up gasping, a man breaking the surface of a lake after a deep dive. He found himself in his bedroom. The sort of thing that shouldn’t be a surprise. The sunlight came in low. It pulled shadows across the room. Dusk or dawn? He looked at the alarm clock. Saw the red dot. Dusk. Shit. He had to get ready. He had to get . . .
Geat.
Tommy listened. Nothing but the sound of blood rushing hard and loud in his head. The last time Geat had come up to St. Louis and crashed on Tommy’s couch, his snores had woken Tommy up in the next room. But now nothing. Tommy got up slow. The ache of his hangover went deeper than bone. He checked the couch. Maybe the gods who
took care of drunk fools had put Geat there in the night.
No.
The blood in his head got louder.
Tommy covered his face with his big hands. They stank. He dug them into the hollows of his eyes. Tried to blot out the world. He took in air and tried to piece together what parts of the night he could remember.
He’d met up with Geat at the Pickled Punk the night before. Geat, the finest watchdog in the Ozarks. The two men had worked together plenty over the years. Folk in the bar gave them a wide berth. Two great big sons of bitches radiating bad motherfucker.
They took a table in a dark corner. Tommy talked quiet as the jukebox let him. He walked Geat through the job.
Geat had done a little work for Lambert before. He didn’t need much to get the picture. Lambert bought junk from the Bosnians in South St. Louis. He stepped on it and sold it to the black kingpins in North St. Louis. Good clean business. Tomorrow night was the re-up. Tomorrow night, Tommy and Geat would take a duffel bag full of money down to Little Bosnia and pick up a duffel bag of junk and drive it back to Lambert’s no-name bar on Dirtnap Avenue.
“I never dealt with no Bosnians before,” Geat said. “What’re they like?”
“Same as anybody else,” Tommy said. “They won’t fuck you over, long as you don’t give them a chance to do it.”
Geat got it. He was a pro like Tommy. He knew a watchdog was like the man in the circus who worked with tigers. Everything goes fine, long as you never let them see you as a piece of meat.
They set to tearing the night down. One, two, three, four shots and a couple of beers. Nikki, the owner of the Punk, had laid one hell of a stinkeye on Tommy from behind the bar while she poured the last round of shots. But so what? She didn’t have a say in his life. Not anymore.
They rode together in Tommy’s truck to the Broadway Athletic Club. They watched kid boxers from folding chairs—the back row, close to the bar. Tommy switched to pale whiskey and Cokes. After the fights Tommy and Geat wandered onto the redbrick streets of Soulard. The night had rolled for them then. Like the world was fitted with ball bearings.
Love and Other Wounds Page 10