by J. C. Allen
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” I offered, daring a peek outside as I stood up to stretch my legs.
The air itself swirled as the blazing sun cooked through it and took a fresh stab at my eyes. The glass felt hot enough to fry an egg. To say that I had stepped into an oven was a misnomer, because an oven provided the good kind of heat—the kind of heat that told you some delicious food was coming.
This heat just told me that a bad fucking day was coming. It was too hot even for the pretty girls nearby to sunbathe.
“Shit…” I muttered.
“Yuppers,” Rooster sang back. “It’s a ‘risk the ride without yer helmet’-sort of day if ya ask me.”
I snorted.
“I didn’t,” I teased, ignoring how I’d gotten to the diner in the first place. “But I won’t, anyway. You know me.”
“Won’t what? Ride with yer helmet? Yeah, we know,” Rooster said.
Just as I had rolled my eyes at George’s voicemail, I knew Roost was rolling his eyes at me right now. I’d be disappointed if he wasn’t. But then again, Roost thought in terms of, like, wanting to live and be happy and stuff.
“Ya think it sends out the whole ‘fearless leader’ vibe, but really it’s just got us taking bets ‘bout when you’ll spill yer stubborn-as-a-mule brains all over the damn streets. Loser gonna hafta clean yer up. I never planned on takin’ over Savage Saviors like this, but ya keep bein’ an idiot…”
I resisted the urge to say “sooner rather than later, I hope”—knowing I’d only be locking myself into a nagging, drawling lecture later for it, followed by some false promises and a repeat of the same cycle a month later—and offered only an “uh-huh” as I motioned for the waitress to bring the check. Honestly, she didn’t even need to do this—I knew I left $15 every day for an $10.87 meal—but I think she liked the idea of keeping some semblance of a routine on her job.
“How we looking?” I said, ignoring Roost’s warning.
“Me, personally? Fucking gorgeous, of course,” Rooster said with a laugh. “I’m always as handsome and rugged as the best of ‘em!”
“Uh huh, as always,” I said. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. Assumin’ ye’re askin’ ‘bout the shipment, it looks like we’re a bit on the shorthanded side.”
Fuck.
Fuck!
Seriously?
I clenched my teeth, pausing in the doorway. First, her. Then the thoughts. Then the heat.
Now this?
“Just how fucking short?” I growled, making sure I’d stepped outside before dropping the f-bomb.
“Whoa there, cowboy,” Rooster said, his voice hurried. “Slow yer roll. I said it looks like we’re a bit on the shorthanded side. Still got a few crates to unload, and I ain’t even got a chance to eyeball the invoice reports. For all I know I fucked up the order—missed a zero or something, or maybe I just flat-out forgot to order—so many things, I could’ve—”
“Be real with me, Roost,” I said, cutting him off. “What’s the likelihood that you fucked up? Be honest.”
Seconds passed. The usual verbose, affable Roost, the one who couldn’t shut up about a thousand… Dwayne Johnsons from the WWE walking down the street, the one who would have suffered if he didn’t talk, went silent.
“Thought so.”
“Look, Derek, it ain’t that big of a deal,” Rooster assured me, the usual talkative parrot resuming his squawking.. “So we gotta pin a few pricks against the walls and remind ‘em not to fuck with us; let it be known that, whether or not the streets are divided, we still got those turkeys by the gizzards. Can’t be that hard. Not like we gonna kill anybody.”
“Yeah,” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “Exactly. Just that easy, right? That’s just all we have to do.”
I coughed and spat in the corner. This time, I made sure to aim in a place I would not step in my own fucking spit.
“Except you know it’s not that easy, Roost; not anymore. Used to be we could just lay a little muscle down on these guys and remind them who they’re working for, but it’s not the case anymore. Muscle don’t mean shit now that the Black Falcons are rolling in and actually taking lives.”
I sighed.
This already shit morning was getting worse, and I didn’t need a reminder that competition had come to town, breaking the well-established rules of this city and raising the bar so high that people would break their necks trying to reach it—literally and figuratively.
And that said nothing about the darkness they had brought me on a personal level.
“What do ya want me to do, Derek?” Roost said, even though he knew I didn’t have an answer then. “Start ordering our boys to slit the delivery guys’ throats? ‘Cause, ‘less ye’re willing to take it to that point, it’s not like we’ve got a hell of a lot to work with to convince ‘em to do things the way they used to be done. It’s just…”
Roost’s words rattled on but my hearing drifted as I moved across the parking lot. The long walk, one I deliberately took to clear my head—no one was that goddamn stupid to steal my bike—instead usually brought me questions like the ones rattling in my head right now.
What would my father do?
Well, for starters, probably wouldn’t have let shit get so out of hand that your own boys decided to run off and start another crew that’s willing to take things this far, asshole. Did you ever think that maybe if you’d just stopped things when they started, none of this would ever wind up as shitty as they are now?
Fair, I thought in response to myself, except that they weren’t my boys when all this went down.
But if you’d caught them soon enough…
How would you ever have caught them soon enough? Are you a psychic? No? Didn’t think so.
There are signs. Like Maggie…
Shut up, Derek.
Then, just like that, my warring thoughts stalemated on the only conceivable deduction, the one that made both logical sense and fit with the emotional narrative I’d formed in the months and years since.
Dustin, my brother, was the asshole that had failed Dad and the rest of the city. Dustin was the one that had led to this city descending into the kind of anarchy the old mobsters would have relished and made fortunes out of.
No, stop it. Don’t fucking blame others.
Especially your brother, the best man in your life besides Dad.
Especially the dead.
Especially since you’re the only living one in the family.
I was the failure and the asshole. It wasn’t like I hadn’t already been wearing those titles. Logic could speak at its podium all day, didn’t change a damn thing.
Bad enough that Dustin’s funeral was still fresh on my mind. It wasn’t fair to go and shit on a fresh grave, let alone one of my brother.
“… Derek? Derek? Still there, Derek?”
“Uh… yeah. Yeah, I’m here,” I answered, struggling to find my voice. Don’t you dare fucking lose it on a phone call. You save that shit for being alone. “Just getting on the bike. Might lose you.”
“What? You talking over a rotary phone or something?” he laughed, providing me momentary relief from the chaos in my head “Since when do phones cut out when ya get on bikes like yers?”
“Just warning you in case it happens,” I explained, but I mumbled “fuck” out of earshot of Roost’s line.
“Uh-huh,” he answered knowingly, but he knew better than to press. “Look, just get yer ass out here, kay? We’ll check over the order—see if anything’s actually worth worrying ‘bout—and discuss the next move depending on what we find. I ain’t think anything of it, but—”
“Got it,” I said, cutting Roost off before he went on another monologue about his own failures and hopeful redemption.
I hung up with yet another eye roll—my temples were already starting to ache and the rest of my head not too far behind—and forced myself not to look back at the diner.
The diner my former wife and I shared.
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But now, we only shared it in spirit. Because she couldn’t share anything more.
Because she was dead.
But then I came to my chopper.
For just a temporary moment, I had enormous relief.
Because there’s no room for irony and regret when there’s iron to ride and pain to deliver.
2
Eve
In a rare moment of silence, in a rare moment under the cracked and fluorescent lights and in front of the aptly named “vanity” mirror, I found myself unable to pull my eyes away from the view.
In the fuzzy and distorted mirror, with a seductive, sensuous move, in what properly straddled between erotic and sexual, an image wavered.
“Goddamn,” I mumbled to myself. She sure is a pretty girl.
Of course, these were words not spoken out of arrogance. My reflection did not bring me the kind of confidence that my thoughts had suggested. Rather, they represented a sort of defense mechanism, a tool I only pulled out in the quietest of moments. I didn’t dare use such a thing when the boss was around—or any of his cronies, for that matter.
“DAMMIT, EVE! HURRY YOUR TIGHT, PINK KIESTER UP!”
Ahh, well, there went my peace and quiet.
My roommate, my confidant, one of my true few allies, Crystal screamed through the bathroom door, giving it a few hearty whacks for good measure. Her voice and the violent knocks accompanying it were enough to cut through my aerosol-induced haze and wake me up.
Just a little, at least. In my life, I didn’t get much good rest, leaving me in a perpetual haze of awake and asleep, but at least it got me going some.
“Shit,” I mumbled, knowing that the chances of us being late were greater with Crystal’s shout. She didn’t shout like this without reason—she could be dramatic and hilarious, sure, but she didn’t shout like this without a reason.
I quickly used my forearm to sweep my makeup off the counter and into my waiting bag. I took one last glance in the mirror. The figure, the one I had, the thing that made me call myself beautiful and pretty, was replaced by a single word, one that defined my job, my sense of self, and how the world probably saw me at this very moment.
Whore.
Sure is hard as fuck to appreciate your beauty when it’s nothing more than a product and a marketing tool. Television can’t compete with a naked female body. Just…
Sure wish I didn’t have to be drawing these analogies. Not with the way my life has gone down the shitter.
I just thought of what the advertising campaigns would look like around my body. It gave me a morbid laugh.
“INSTANT CASH! JUST ADD FISHNETS AND CORNY PICKUP LINES!”
“MAKE MONEY TODAY! STROKE A MAN’S EGO AND THEN STROKE SOMETHING ELSE!”
“MAKE DOZENS OF DOLLARS! SUCK UP TO YOUR BOSS, AND THEN SUCK OFF YOUR CUSTOMERS!”
Too bad it doesn’t come with the box of tissues for the silent, hidden tears and a bottle of mouthwash to get rid of the taste of latex.
With a sigh and an outward adjustment in attitude and appearance, I threw the door open.
An immaculately manicured and perfectly tanned forearm hung inches from my face, a fist that was, for lack of a better word, perfect and handjob-ready. It had never met a cock it couldn’t make come, and I didn’t think it was going to happen tonight—not that I ever wanted to know.
It was also poised to start banging on the door again. Crystal nearly wound up delivering a few of those aggressive knocks directly into my forehead. I figured I would have had it coming for hogging the bathroom for so long.
Especially given the dire consequences for being late. Especially given that it would mean she wouldn’t look as pretty, which might have meant fewer men, which might have meant fewer dollars, which would definitely mean more beatings from the boss’ associates.
But, luckily, Crystal didn’t hit me. She only smiled a perfect, pearly-white smile and tossed a bundle of curled red hair over her shoulder before saying, “From now on, I go first.”
Hard to argue with that. She was as beautiful as could be, but when she spent the time to get ready, she would look nothing short of a model. Men always imagined whores and streetwalkers to be trashy, in fishnets, with obvious cold sores, and a dozen other “delightful” features, but Crystal was the outlier; she was the one that broke the mold and busted the curve.
Still, even her without makeup was still someone at the top of most men’s wish lists. With this in mind, I rolled my eyes at her, moving to step aside so that she could pass.
“Like you even need it,” I countered. “Look at you! You’re perfect!”
“Perfect is who’s talking, girl,” she said, gliding into the bathroom like good sex—the sort of sex we’d likely see none of that night.
It was just the reality of being a hooker in this town. The odds of getting good sex were less than the odds of me being able to go back to my old life. The intellectually stimulating one. That one, the stimulation was real.
This one? The stimulation was physical, and it was… well, actually, every one off, someone would get me very close to the edge, but for the most part, it was hard to get aroused by fat johns, old johns, and desperate, awkward johns.
“This mug represents about an hour’s worth of hard labor in my room,” Crystal continued. “But if I don’t powder my pussy before hitting the streets then I wind up walking like a bad Western hero for a few days.”
I stared after her, speechless, as she opened the cabinet under the sink and retrieved the baby powder. Even after all this time with her, the adjustment period was still…
Let’s just say ongoing.
Then, without a hint of shyness, she swung one of her stilettoed feet up onto the counter, yanked her panties to one side, and squeezed a healthy cloud of the stuff between her thighs. Still unabashed, she worked the dusting around until all trace of the whiteness was but a memory. Then, humming with satisfaction, she set her panties back into place, thought better of it, and pulled the fragile-looking band up enough to bury the material between folds of flesh.
It made me wonder if the johns we got paid by ever knew that they were just as likely to be sticking their dick into powder as they were anything else. They could have gone to the store, gotten some talcum powder, and then masturbated with it and it would have approximated half the experience for a tenth of a cost.
Well, then again, if men knew what we did to keep ourselves up, no one would probably ever have sex.
“There,” she mused, though she seemed to be talking more to herself than to me. “That’ll work! I’ll be walking like a classy lady now! Ain’t no skanky walk coming from this girl!”
I tried to speak, found my throat dry, and forced myself to clear it. This, Crystal mistook as a call for attention, and she glanced back at me with a beautifully tweezed eyebrow curved inquisitively. God, even I found her quite attractive, and I was as straight as an arrow.
“Hmm?” she asked.
“I… uh,” I said, catching myself stealing a glance at the baby powder, still sitting on the counter. “Why did you do that?”
It just seemed so… casual. It was like she decided that she wanted a cookie, so she had gotten one. Except in this case, the cookie was powder, and instead of her mouth, it was between her legs.
How could I not ask why she did that?
Crystal probably wondered the opposite, given that she let out a half-scoff, half-hum. Why did I ask that?
“Nearly four weeks living and working with me,” Crystal scolded in her suddenly maternal tone. “And you’re still sashaying the streets like a pretty girl at prom. Seriously! Eve, I love you, but this ain’t even college anymore. It’s a job, girl! Men got hardhats and gloves and aspirin for their tough gigs; we got our own tools for the trade. I ain’t here to do anything other than pay my bills, make my bosses happy, and live to see another day.”
She held up the powder and began shaking it, as if to make a point. Not sure what that point was, but it was getting
some kind of message across.
“Now, plenty—PLENTY!—of girls go out and sell tail, but most don’t have a damn idea about how to do it. They think they can just fuck, collect, and repeat. They have no idea that just like any business, we got ‘admin’ work to do. Shit, most wouldn’t even own up to selling in the first place. But, make no mistake, Eve, any girl you see in a tight little number and wagging what her momma blessed her with in a club or bar is most certainly a saleswoman in her own right. At least, the ones that stick around long enough to pay a bill.”
I stifled the urge to giggle at that—I still hadn’t gotten used to Crystal’s preference for calling those in our line of work “saleswomen.” I mean, to be clear, I hadn’t gotten used to the bluntness of 99 percent of what came out of Crystal’s mouth, but that one in particular made me feel like a teenage boy trying to shout “penis” at the top his lungs without getting in trouble.
“Sure, sure,” Crystal said. “The ones in the clubs are not always down to get down, but they’re putting on the same show—same exact song-and-dance—as us when we’re on the corner. Only difference is they’re working for drinks and free rides in fancy cars and we’re cutting straight to the nitty-gritty: cold… hard… cash. We ain’t pretending about nuttin, girl, and you shouldn’t be either.”
The ones in the club… so like strippers? Or just anyone in Vegas? So anyone?
“So you’re saying all women are either whores or gold diggers?” I said.
Crystal shrugged and checked her eyeliner in the mirror. I might as well have asked her what flavor of cookies she wanted.
“Not all,” she admitted. “Some girls are good girls. Those ones are in convents. At least they’re not like the priests who can’t keep their hands off of little boys.”
“Now you’re just being crass.”
“Says the college girl ready to join my fine ass on the corner,” she countered.
Touche. But…
“I’m not exactly doing this by choice. You know that.”
I found myself lowering my voice almost by default, even though I had every reason to know and believe we were alone.