Hashbrown thumbed his nose and sniffed back hard, "Nah," he answered, his eyes scoping out the room, "Don't drink no more. But, hey, if you're laying money down I guess I could drink a Dr. Pepper if they got any."
I flagged the bartender and a minute later the bartender brought another pale ale for me and a warm can of Dr. Pepper and a tumbler of ice for Hashbrown. With great care Hashbrown poured the Dr. Pepper over the shifting ice in his glass and watched the fizz settle.
"Been a long time," Hashbrown said.
I noticed that Hashbrown kept one boot planted on the floor, cocked.
"Almost eight years," I answered.
"Eight years? Holy crap. Has it really been eight whole years? Fuck...."
I started slow and kind of filled him in on things. I told him about my time overseas in the Persian Gulf and at the VA Hospital up in DC, how I ended up with my job as an orderly at an assisted living facility there on the Outer Banks. Hashbrown nodded a lot as I talked and he seemed to be fighting a wormy inner itch when the details got too many to digest. When I paused he started right in.
"So, I guess you've heard all about my colossal fuck-up, huh?"
"Yeah. I'm real sorry."
"Biggest mistake of my life, man, that robbery," Hashbrown groaned, "If you don't mind, I'd rather not get into all that if that's okay with you. It's kind of embarrassin'. Let's just say I'm out, I'm clean without Christ and that pretty much covers all I want to say about it," Hashbrown chewed the plastic straw from his soda relentlessly and narrowed his eyes, "So, you're doing what exactly again?"
"I said I'm working at an assisted living facility."
"That's an old folk's home, right?"
"They don't call them that anymore, but yeah."
"Man, got me a hard time picturin' you wipin' some old geezers's crack."
I worked some pale ale down my throat, "It's not all that bad," I countered, "Most of the time I'm just wheeling the patients around and helping them with their therapy. Money is pretty solid. Keeps me fed and pays the bills. Plus my boss? She's pretty cool."
"Still, I can't picture it. My old bro Rob...a goddamn nurse."
"Dude, I'm not a nurse. I'm an orderly."
"Splittin' hairs."
"Did I mention that I'm also studying to be an EMT?"
Hashbrown arched his eyebrows as he considered this, "An EMT? No kidding? Oh, well, I guess that's cool then. That's sort of respectable."
"So, what's up with you? Are you working now that you're out?"
Hashbrown grimaced uncomfortably, "Yeah. They got me on this state-run placement program. Got me a slot a quick lube over in Greenville. Kind of sucks, but it'll do for now. Once I'm totally clear I'm gonna come out here like y'all and try to get some dock work, maybe get on as a mate down around the inlet. My cousin says he can hook me but he also says I got to be done with my parole obligations first. Figure after that maybe I can get a place instead of checkin' in all the time with my case officer and watchin' my back at that rat hole they assigned me to. Everybody in that halfway house looks like they're ready to explode and the group meetings, shit, they are like fuckin' MMA. Hey—y'all still playin' guitar?"
I waved a hand, "Not really. Some. I got a beat up Fender acoustic that I sometimes strum to unwind, you know. Neighbors kind of frown on that as it is."
"Jesus. Don't everybody got a complaint...."
I shifted my weight on my stool, "So what're you doing way out here on the Banks, man? I mean, when you called me the other night and said you were cruising out here from Greenville I was kind of surprised. I mean, I don't how all that parole stuff works, so no offense. Is that stuff even allowed? "
Through his beard Hashbrown flashed a shrewd smile and for the first time since he sat down I got a real good look at his darkened teeth. More than a couple were missing.
"No offense taken," he answered, "It's the holidays so they kind of relax some. I borrowed a Dodge and as long as I check in with my case officer I'm cool. Gonna roll back out there later tonight anyway."
Even though he was dismissive, the twitchy look in his eyes gave me a bad feeling. A couple of pretty girls in sheepskin boots wandered by us just then and we both gave the girls an appraisal as they passed. I noticed Hashbrown's eyes quickly washed from soaking pleasure to bitter petulance as the girls didn't bother to look at either of us at all.
On a flat screen above the bar The Weather Channel was running the hearing-impaired blocks of text. A low was churning out of the southwest. Hashbrown saw me looking at the screen and flicked his eyes up. The Weather Channel is always on in the Outer Banks.
"Getting any surf?"
I frowned, "Who has the time? But, yeah, sometimes I head out when the weather is nice and it's not so cold. Got an old beater fish for screwin' around on. I still totally suck and need to drop fifteen pounds. How about you?"
Hashbrown's face snapped dark. His voice tensed.
"Y'all fuckin' with me?"
"What? Fuckin' with you? No, man. No."
"Boy, you think I got leisure time on parole? You think after being inside with all those crazy nigger motherfuckers I want to be out there in the water with a bunch of half assin' kooks and soft boy wolfpack wannabes? Hey, look at me when I'm talkin' to you, bitch. Why do you have to be like that, man?"
"Dude, I was just making—"
Hashbrown stomped a boot on the floor and I jumped a little. His eyes sparkled. He cackled.
"Ha! I'm just messin' with you, bro. Just messin' with you. Damn, Rob, guess I scared you a little bit there, didn't I?"
I chugged the rest of my pale ale.
He did.
* * *
I didn't hear from Hashbrown for a long while after that night and felt significant relief thinking he'd moved on.
One balmy afternoon in late March a south swell was happening so I finagled an excuse with my boss and blew out of work early to go surfing. I was alone and the lineup was pretty thick so I just kept my distance, paddled out, and picked off some scrappy leftover rights. A couple of heavies threw some stink my way a few times but I ignored them. After about an hour of chasing short rides the conditions tanked. I'd had about all I could take anyway so I headed in.
Walking back to my truck I stored my beater fish in the bed and was about halfway through peeling out my wetsuit and sandy boots on the tailgate when I heard somebody walking around my pickup from the front.
I looked up. It was one of the heavies who had been throwing me bad looks out in the water, the thick-necked one. I didn't see the second guy when he punched me in the throat and knocked me to the ground. A follow up shot chopped into my kidney and I stayed down as they both went to town on me, kicking and spitting. The two dragged my board from the truck bed and tossed it into the street. They stomped on it, snapping off the four tail fins. When I got to my feet ten minutes later my assailants were gone and the hood of my truck was keyed.
* * *
My girlfriend Sarah was finishing her face in the bathroom when Hashbrown pounded on my apartment door a week after my post session beat down. It wasn't exactly raining outside yet but the early Spring sky was full of pewter and black boulders. I finished buttoning my shirt and opened the front door.
"Rob-bo. Roberto. His Robness...."
I tried to contain my unease but my tongue felt thick.
"Hash? Jesus, what's up, man? What're you doing here?"
Hashbrown swayed from side to side on the landing. He'd shaved off his beard and was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, sunglasses, dirty jeans, and Redwing work boots.
"Thought I, y'know, stop by," he replied, "Sunday mornin' I figured y'all be crashin' in late. Got us some doughnuts."
I looked at the waxy bag in his hand and then looked up.
"How'd you know where I live?"
"Come on, man. It may be short a few million brain cells but I still have a brain."
I stepped aside, "Well, come on in then I guess. I was just going to make some coffee."
Hashbrown looked around at my meager furnishings, "So this is what the nursin' dime gets a Navy man."
"Dude, I told you. I'm not a nurse."
"Right...."
Hashbrown drifted into the living room. In a corner I'd propped my broken surfboard next to a bookshelf where I kept some CDs. He took one look at the snapped off fins and cracked fiberglass before he shot me a bewildered look and chucked the bag of doughnuts onto my couch.
"Dude, the fuck is up with this?"
I shrugged and traipsed to the kitchen to start the coffee, "Yeah, that. Couple of hard cases Jackie Chan-ed me a while ago ago post-sesh. Locals."
"Locals? What the fuck, man? You're a local now. You, like, live and work here and shit. Where was this?"
"Down in Avalon."
"Where exactly?"
"Near the fishing pier. Keyed the hood of my truck too."
Hashbrown was uncomfortably loud, "They WHAT?! No way! They keyed your fucking truck? Oh, man, that is so not right. That is so not cool. What a bunch of dicks. What a bunch of four-flushin', motherfuckin', ass-licking peckerwoods."
I shook some coffee into a paper filter and took the glass carafe to the tap, "Hey, it was a piece of junk board anyway."
Behind me I saw that Hashbrown had picked up the board and was examining the extent of the damage when my girlfriend Sarah breezed in from the bathroom. Her skin glowed fresh from her shower and she flipped her brown hair back with a hand.
"Hi," Sarah said.
Hashbrown looked up at Sarah as she tugged a skinny purse strap over her shoulder. Hashbrown gazed at Sarah for about ten seconds as if she didn't appear real. Then he looked at me and then back at her.
"Hash, meet Sarah. Sarah, Hash."
Sarah draped out a hand and after another unsteady moment Hashbrown braced the broken board on his hip and shook hers.
"Nice to meet you. Sarah was it?"
"Yes. Sarah. Nice to meet you too."
Sarah glanced at me. I knew from her wary look that she saw the heavy prison eighty-eights on Hashbrown's neck. Her voice pealed uneasy.
"So, uh, you're a friend of Rob's?"
Hashbrown crossed the room and leaned my surfboard up against the bookcase, "Yep. Me and your boy Rob here go way back. Ain't that right, Rob? About a thousand years ago we used to play in a band together back in Virginia Beach. But hell, he probably hasn't mentioned me."
"No, he hasn't."
"Well, that's par for the course."
Sarah tittered, "You were in a band, Rob? I mean, I knew he played guitar, but you two guys were in an actual, like, band-band? Like real gigs and stuff? That's so cool. What kind of music did you guys play?"
Hashbrown shoved his hands in his front pockets, "Kind of garage surf, some ska but more with a classic southern rock bent. Pretty original all in all. We were workin' out our sound but then we just kind of fell apart. Lost our drummer because his momma got sick and Nurse Ratched over here decided to join the Navy and be some global force for good, whatever the fuck that means."
"Were you in the Navy too?"
Hashbrown bugged his eyes and scoffed, "The Navy? Sister, my bones have been so far from the Navy it ain't even funny."
After a few awkward minutes I joined them in the living room with mugs of coffee. We made vague small talk for a while before Sarah passed on a doughnut and said she had to get going. She asked me to text her later and I said I would.
After Sarah left it felt like the air in my apartment had grown taut like someone had sucked out half the oxygen.
"She seems nice," Hashbrown said, "so is sweetness and light a nurse too?"
"No. Sarah manages a cell phone store in Nags Head."
Hashbrown nodded, "Oh. A cell phone store. Man, how long have you been poundin' that action?"
"Hey, man. That's my girlfriend. Be polite."
"Be polite he says."
"We've been together for a month or so."
"Lucky man...."
Outside the rain started and a gust threw some against the front windows with a sizzle. I drank my coffee and it tasted like wet, hot ash on my tongue. The doughnut helped dull the taste.
"Must be nice havin' a piece of ass who smells so fine," Hashbrown said as he took his doughnut, a pink-frosted with rainbow sprinkles, and dunked it in his mug. He finished the doughnut off after a few slurping bites and changed the subject, "So these Avalon meatheads...what happened exactly? Snake them on a couple of mushburgers or what?"
I wearily filled him in on what had happened as we finished our second doughnuts and summed the whole mess up with a shrug.
"Localism," Hashbrown said sourly as he licked some pink frosting from his thumb, "Never understood it, never will. Bunch of tools thinkin' waves have some actual value in this world, the dicks. If you want I can show those pussies what messin' with an amigo really means. Seriously. No one will see a thing. Whup their butts but good."
"Forget it."
"That's a hard thing to forget, man. A hard thing to forget."
"I'm over it," I said and looked at my watch, instantly regretting the gesture as Hashbrown looked annoyed at me for doing so, "Look, Hash," I continued, "I can only hang out for a bit because I'm doing a second shift at the assisted living facility in a few hours and then I have to study."
"But it's Sunday."
"I know, but I need the overtime and I really do have to hit the books. Anyway, you're welcome to hang out for a while if you like. I mean, I won't be back until after ten or so but there's sandwich stuff in the fridge, some orange juice, and I've got all the HBOs. Are you going back to Greenville later?"
Hashbrown crossed into the kitchen and poured some more coffee into his mug. His back was to me.
"I'm all done with Greenville," he answered, "Yours truly is a free man now."
Quick math in my head told me that didn't figure at all.
"You need a place to crash?" I asked.
Hashbrown shuffled back to where I stood in the living room, "Actually, I sort of do. I mean, I was fixin' to ask y'all if I could, y'know, but your little fuck bunny was here. I just need to rack out for a day or so if you can swing it. I'm movin' south."
"South?"
"Yep. This state is really gettin' to me. All these Yankee transplants and their fancy vacation homes. Hell, it's like goddamn New Jersey."
"How far south you moving?"
"Florida."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Wow."
Why the hell would Hashbrown come all the way out there to see me in the Banks if he was moving south to Florida? Just to say goodbye? Sure, but a straight shot down Interstate 95 would have been more direct from Greenville and why not a phone call? More math that didn't figure. Suddenly my stomach felt very, very cold.
"Yeah," said Hashbrown, "My cousin knows a guy north of Miami who's got a slot open on his charter, so I'm thinkin' cool, a fresh start. New place, new people who ain't privy to my personal disasters. Reef fishin', bottom fishin', rig trollin'...I mean, I know I got to pay my dues and all, but I'm an animal once I fix my sights on a goal. Just like back when we were playin' gigs together before things got all gunked up. I was so sure that if you and me and Donnie worked at our music with the right break in front of the right people we could've made that leap. But all that's gone now. We ain't kids no more but bet your sweet ass I'm still an animal, dude. An animal."
"You got wheels?"
Hashbrown's eyes didn't waver from mine.
"Parked right up the street. Piece of shit Toyota but she'll do."
I was real nervous but I went to get my stuff and left a short time later anyway.
I guess I sort of deserved it for bei
ng so stupid and trusting whatever tenuous bond we had as old friends. When I came home Hashbrown had taken just about everything I owned that was of any value. My old laptop. The television. My iPod. The Fender guitar. Some spare cash I stashed in a shoe box in the top of the closet. He even took my wetsuit but left the boots behind. When I left the apartment earlier to head in for my shift thankfully I had the presence of mind to go to the bedroom and stuff my nine millimeter Browning into my knapsack and take it with me. Hashbrown found the spare ammunition for my nine so that probably tore it for him because the bullets were scattered about the bedroom and there was a raging set of craters in the drywall, with each hole the size of his fist.
Hashbrown didn't get far. A patrolman saw him lifting himself into a vacation home down in Myrtle Beach and when backup showed those cops took him down with five crisp shots. The reports say he was armed, but I don't know.
All I know is it wasn't my gun.
In 2010 and 2011 Kieran Shea was nominated for the Story South's Million Writers Award and didn't win, not that he's bitter about it or anything. He divides his time between 38°58'22.6"N- 76°30'4.17"W and 39°17'N -74°35'W and is now hard at work trying to write the longer stuff.
.38 Special
Amy Grech
"Let's play a game, Charlie," Heather Moore whispered, her breath hot and quick in his ear. She kissed him roughly in her husband's bed without regrets. Charlie Dent kept Brad's side warm whenever he went out of town and Heather wanted some company.
He held her tight and ran eager fingers through her curly red hair. "Sure. What do you have in mind?"
"You'll see." Heather reached over, opened Brad's nightstand, and pulled out the shiny, steel blue .38 snub-nosed Smith & Wesson revolver. It was his spare, tucked away for safekeeping. Heather handed him the gun, and Charlie took it without hesitation.
"Do you know how to play Russian roulette?" She ran her fingers playfully across Charlie's hairy chest and he shivered.
He leaned over and kissed her perky breasts. "Show me."
BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled Page 10