Mutt eBook

by McKenzie, Shane

  Jesús bent at the knees and leaned toward them with his elbows resting on his thighs. He hopped off the table, walked back and forth in front of them, stopped to peer into their faces one by one. When he reached the girl, he leaned in to her, smelled her neck, her hair, reached around and grabbed her by the ass with both hands, lifted her to the tips of her toes. But she stayed still, her face hard, didn’t even blink. When Jesús stepped back from her, she smiled at him. Whistles and Spanish catcalls erupted from the crowd, followed by laughter and some cheering.

  “Y’all motherfuckas think you got what it takes to run with the Locos, huh? Con Los Reyes?” He stepped up to the boy standing beside Patrick, pressed his face close until their noses were touching. “You got heart, esé?”

  “Si, El Rey. Los Reyes Locos por vida.”

  Jesús snickered, then with a quick thrust, head-butted the boy in the middle of the face. The boy stumbled backward, blood trickling from the gash on the bridge of his nose, but he quickly stood back to attention, eyes forward but watering.

  Then Jesús stepped in front of Patrick, put his hand on his shoulder. “You look strong, esé. We need strong mayates like you.” His grip tightened and Patrick wanted to pull away as his pressure point was compressed, but he did his best to show no pain. “But you too damn pretty. I used to fuck pretty boys like you in the pen, esé. Fuck ’em til they bled, made ’em suck their own shit and blood off my dick when I was finished.” He laughed, along with most of the crowd. “Ain’t that right, homies? We always fuck the pretty ones.”

  “Hell yeah, we do,” a man said.

  “Let me pop this one’s cherry, homie,” another said.

  Jesús chuckled, put his mouth to Patrick’s ear and whispered. “Krystal is special. If it weren’t for her, if she didn’t bring you here, I’d let my boys run a train, esé. You got that?”

  Patrick nodded, couldn’t find any words, was too scared to even make a sound.

  When Jesús walked away, Patrick realized he’d been holding his breath the whole time, and he sucked in lungfuls of air through his nostrils, refused to look at Krystal. He blurred his vision and stared past her, using every muscle in his body to keep the tears that hung just inside his eyelids from falling.

  Did she do this on purpose? Bring me here just to humiliate me?

  Jesús hopped back on the table, put his arms back in the air. “Los Reyes Locos!”

  “Los Reyes Locos!”

  Patrick turned to look at the crowd which grew more anxious with every word Jesús spoke. The tension in the air made it hard to breath, and as he took in each face, one at a time, man or woman, he saw hints of insanity, wide-eyed ferocity. Just before he turned his head back around, he caught Simon’s face staring right at him, a smirk hooking his mouth.

  “Those of you here because you got blood in Los Locos should already know what comes next. But let me just explain for pretty Patrick what’s fixin’ to happen.” Jesús took a seat on the table, his brown boots resting on the bench seat. “My little homegirl here? She’s going to my room. And I’m gonna fuck her. When I’m done with her, my homies are gonna fuck her. She gets fucked in. You and these other jotos? Y’all motherfuckas get beat in. You know what that means, Patrick?”

  “Means we gonna fuck you up, nigga!”

  Patrick didn’t have to see him to know that was Simon’s voice. The crowd responded with more muffled laughter, and Jesús nodded and grinned.

  “You three are gonna stand back to back. And the homies are gonna come at you, won’t stop until they think you had enough. Until they think you got what it takes to run with Los Reyes Locos. But it takes a lot to convince them, ay?” He stood back up, and the men of the congregation began to step forward. “You boys better fight back, too. I see you lie down and cover up, I’ll kill you myself before I let your pussy ass walk outta here. You got me?”

  They all nodded, Patrick included. Jesús jumped back off the table and went straight for the girl, who was still smiling despite what he had said. She didn’t seem troubled at all at the news of what was about to happen to her, and Patrick realized she’d probably known it was coming for a long time, had been warned about it, had worked her courage up for this night. The boys too. Their faces were hard as rock, no sign of fear, no sign of weakness.

  The men circled them now, the crowd thick, dense with brown tattooed skin and contorted faces of rage. Patrick tried to find Krystal among them, but couldn’t see her. That fucking bitch, he thought. This whole fucking thing is a setup. Patrick already felt like falling on the ground and squeezing himself into a tight ball, but he pressed his back to the other boys’ and breathed heavily through his nose.

  “Is this for real?” Patrick whispered. But the boys either didn’t hear him or refused to acknowledge the question.

  And then the horde of thugs rushed in like bloodthirsty rioters.

  Patrick quickly squared up, but it only took another second before a sloppy right hook was thrown at his head. He dodged left, slammed his fist into the man’s head. Patrick thought the man fell, but he didn’t have time to look before another ball of knuckles was flying in from above. They caught him in the right temple, blurred his vision for a moment, but he answered back with a left jab, then sharply turned his hip and hit someone with a hard right. He knew it was solid by the crunch against his knuckles, but his victory was short-lived as a flurry of blows rained down on him.

  He heard the grunts and groans of the other boys as the rampaging gangsters beat the shit out of them. Their backs collided with Patrick’s, but they stayed on their feet, and Patrick concentrated on doing the same.

  He covered up, continued to try and dodge, but it was useless with so many punches being thrown all around. The only thing he could do was blindly fight back, stop trying to pick single fighters out of the crowd and just start throwing. So he did, started with a left, left, right combination that landed on someone, then brought up a hard uppercut that split the bottom lip of a middle-aged man with a thick handlebar mustache.

  When the next fist slammed into his jaw, Patrick stumbled backward, but was held up by the other boys. Whoever had thrown it hit hard, and just as Patrick thought it, another caught him in the center of the face and blurred the attacking thugs into a swimming mess of brown, black, and red, a vibrating sea of flesh and knuckles.

  Patrick’s punches didn’t matter anymore as fist after fist slammed into his head, face, and body. Blood filled his mouth, rushed from his nose. A sharp pain erupted in his left side, then a hard punch caught him under the chin, making him bite down on his tongue. It felt like his teeth had loosened, smothered with blood. His left eye started to close up, and his nose was too clogged with blood to breathe with.

  He stumbled back again, nearly tripped over one of the boys’ motionless bodies. Boots slammed into the fallen kid’s back, kicked him in the face, even though he was powerless to protect himself. Patrick started to wonder if this was a death penalty, if him and the other boys never had a chance to begin with, if Los Locos were using them as some kind of sacrifice.

  It wasn’t long before the other boy joined the fallen recruit in the dirt, his face a mess of blood and teeth. Patrick remained on his feet, though his knees started to wobble. It wasn’t until just then that he heard the laughter from the attackers, and it filled him with enough rage to throw another punch. He screamed, blood spraying from his lips, turned his hip hard and hit someone square and true, but it was met with a rainstorm of blows, and the next thing he knew his face was bouncing off the ground. Feet stomped him, and he tried to cover himself, but it did no good.

  At the last second, he glanced up, and framed by the full moon above his head, Simon peered down at him, his nose crooked and bloody. Patrick hoped he had caused that, but in the next second, Simon’s foot collided with the side of his face, and the lights went out.

  The splash of cold water brought him gasping to c
onsciousness. Patrick blinked away the water and the fogginess of sleep, and the pain was there to greet him. It felt as if every bit of him throbbed with agony, and he moaned, hissed, tried to sit up, but decided to just lay there in the dirt.

  The other boy moaned as well, muttered something in Spanish and whimpered. But the third boy still lay motionless.

  “Levántate, puto!” The voice came from above them, and Patrick tried to turn his neck toward it, but the light from the moon sent fiery needles into his brain. He managed to turn his head toward the motionless boy again.

  A shirtless man, ink covering his torso, prodded at the bloodied boy with the toe of his shoe, then finally leaned down and turned him over. The kid’s face looked caved in from where Patrick lay, and blood poured down the sides of his cheeks as the man held him by the back of the head and inspected him. The eyes remained open, glassy and unmoving.

  “Fuck.” The man laid the boy’s head back down in the dirt, gently, wiped the bloody strands of hair from the dead boy’s forehead. There were footsteps all around him now, and more of Los Locos walked toward the corpse, knelt down and stared into the boy’s face.

  Grimacing, clenching his teeth until he thought they would break, Patrick managed to sit up. He could barely see out of his right eye, but he watched as the men seemed to be saying a prayer over the body, each of them with their heads lowered.

  A dark-skinned, thick-necked thug walked forward, a dark brown stocking cap on his head. He dropped to his knees, sniffed, ran his forearm under his nose. The other men laid their hands on his shoulders, his back, patted him, spoke gently to him in Spanish. He reached toward his back pocket, yanked out his brown bandana.

  Jesús walked into view, wearing only a pair of white boxer shorts and tennis shoes. His face was emotionless as he stepped forward, his men parting for him, making a path stra’ight to the mourning thug. “El vio su vida para Los Locos, mi hermano.”

  The thug nodded, wiped the blood from the boy’s face with his bandana, then wept into it for a second before pocketing it, taking a deep breath, and standing to join his gang. As one, they turned to face Patrick and the other recruit, who had muscled his way to a sitting position as well.

  Oh shit, they’re going to kill me now. They kicked the shit out of me for fun, and now I’m going to die.

  Jesús stepped forward, a gold-plated rictus shining from his face. Music still blasted from inside of the house, and Patrick couldn’t help but wonder how many times that poor girl had been raped by now. It was clear Jesús was done with her, and he stepped into the bloody dirt between Patrick and the other boy, kneeled down.

  “Welcome, hermanos. You’re family now.” He stood, both fists in the air. “Los Reyes Locos!”

  The other men whooped and hollered, laughing and clapping. Patrick saw a few of them wore swollen eyes, busted lips.

  “That pinché cabron can hit, man. Knocked my fuckin’ tooth out,” a man said, pointing at Patrick, then spat a wad of blood to the ground.

  Jesús laughed as he helped the other recruit to his feet, then moved toward Patrick and held his hand out. Patrick reluctantly took it, though his body shrieked as he was lifted to a standing position. His knees threatened to buckle out from under him, and he nearly fell backward, but Jesús reached out and caught him, wrapped his arm around his neck and faced the group of thugs. His left eye socket was swollen, and it hurt to blink, but he could see out of it okay.

  “You did good, homie. I was watching from the bedroom window before I dug that bitch out, and I saw you. Almost took Chancho’s head off, man.” He pointed toward a man whose face was purple and who held himself up by the shoulder of another man. Chancho muttered something indistinguishable, and Jesús only laughed harder. “You see? You got some fight in you, and we need that.” He motioned for the other boy to join him and Patrick, and when the boy reached them, Jesús wrapped his other arm around his neck, kissed him on the forehead. “You did good too, Ramón. Took it like a man.”

  Patrick still wanted nothing more than to go home, to see his mother’s face. But there was a part of him that felt proud of what he’d done, and he could see in the way the men looked at him that they saw him differently now. There were no more scowls, no more up-and-down looks. There was respect, there were smiles and nods of approval.

  He was one of them now. But he stayed on the defensive, wasn’t convinced it wasn’t all a show and they really were about to kill him.

  “Just one more thing to do, little homies.” Jesús walked them toward a table by the house where a man in a wheelchair waited for them. “Ralph, ink these little mayates and make this shit official.”

  Ralph smiled, gave the tattoo gun in his hand a buzz, then patted the seats beside him. He wore a white wife beater and a brown wide-brimmed hat, a fat joint hanging from his mouth. “Ándale.”

  Patrick had never gotten a tattoo before, but after the beating he’d taken, he didn’t think anything would ever compare in pain again. Ramón went first, was handed the joint by Ralph, winced as the black crown was dug into the flesh on the back of his hand between his thumb and index finger. He handed the joint back, smiled and admired his ink. It didn’t take but a few minutes to do, and when Ramón stood up, he was greeted by the men, all clapping him on the back, hugging him, hollering and cheering for him.

  Patrick scooted beside Ralph, was handed the joint and puffed on it, stinging his lips and the inside of his mouth. His eyes moved to the dead boy behind the congregation of celebrating thugs. It was as if the kid had already been forgotten, as if their little initiation didn’t just cost him his life. The thick-necked thug, obviously kin to the dead boy, cheered along with the others, but Patrick saw him glance toward the body a few times.

  The weed smoke filled Patrick’s lungs, and he held it in as the needle touched his skin. It didn’t hurt as bad as he always thought it would, and he watched as Ralph inked the crown into his hand with steady precision, and when he was done, Ralph reached up and plucked the joint from Patrick’s lips, then patted him on the side of the head.

  “Bien venido a la familia, esé.”

  Patrick stood, faced the men of Los Reyes Locos. Jesús stood in front and waved him over, and as Patrick stepped toward them, they erupted with whistles and shouts came at him in a wave, Ramón amongst them, and patted him, embraced him as one of their own.

  As good as Patrick felt, despite the throbbing pain pounded into his flesh, he couldn’t help but wonder what they would do if they found out who he really was. If they ever found out he was just some Korean mutt with dark brown skin. Would he be a corpse in the dirt like that other boy?

  They’ll never find out. I’ll make sure it never happens.

  Patrick recognized a few faces from the crowd. Jaimé squeezed him in a tight hug, kissed him on the forehead and cackled. The man from the grocery store patted him on the shoulder, nodded and smiled. The guy that was outside of Harry’s selling drugs wrapped his arm around Patrick’s neck and congratulated him. But when he saw Simon, there was no smile, no pat on the back. The scrawny, bald-headed thug smoked a cigarette, a few feet apart from the group, and stared him down.

  Patrick watched as the men scooped up the dead boy’s body and put him in the back of Jaimé’s Lincoln. The thick-necked man got in the back seat with the corpse, and the car crept away and disappeared down the street.

  Patrick had no idea what time it was, but he didn’t care anymore. He sat on the ground, leaning against the house and drinking warm beer from a plastic cup as he continued to get congratulatory pats from the others. His body begged him to sleep, begged him to let it rest, to recuperate, but the reality of what had just happened kept him up, had him wired. The only thing he could think of was going home and melting into his bed, but he felt nailed to the ground as he watched the red tail lights of the car disappear. He’d never seen a dead body before, and knowing that boy died right beside him, fightin
g for his life just like Patrick had been doing, twisted his guts like a wet dish towel.

  “You all right?”

  He had wondered where she’d gone off to, and though he told himself he hated her, that he never wanted to see her again after what she put him through, he turned toward her and shrugged. “I got the shit kicked out of me. What the fuck do you think?”

  “What, you mad now? You came, man. You knew—”

  “I knew? You said we were coming to a party! Kind of forgot to mention I was getting fucking initiated into the fucking gang. You know they killed that boy?” He took another sip of beer, wrinkled his nose, and tossed the cup to the ground. “Didn’t even know his name.”

  Krystal leaned down, grabbed his face with both hands, and kissed him.

  Patrick’s anger tried to hang on as her soft lips pressed against his and her left hand reached around and squeezed his neck, but it didn’t stand a chance compared to the lust swelling within him now. He slid his hands to her hips, squeezed her there, kissed back despite the searing pain in his lips and face.

  She pulled away, licked her lips, smiled up at him. “You’re one of us now, Patrick. You don’t have nothin’ to worry about no more.”

  One of us? What the fuck does that even mean!

  “But… aren’t you with Simon?” Patrick figured she only kissed Jesús because he was the leader, that maybe he had special privileges or something.

  “With him?” She chuckled. “Doesn’t work like that. But Simon… he’s, I don’t know, kind of has a thing for me I guess.”

  “What do you m—”

  “We don’t have couples here, esé.” Jesús stood in the back doorway of the house, leaning against the frame with a lit blunt between two fingers, smoke swirling from his mouth. “We share.”

  Patrick frowned, forced himself to his feet, turned to look at Krystal who only smiled and nodded.

  “And now you’re family, homie. Ramón’s already upstairs getting his dick wet. What the fuck you waitin’ for?”