At least he shouldn’t be hard to convince. Dick had been a stabilizing presence for him. Metcalf was going downhill fast.
“So, how ’bout it, man?”
Bleary and sullen, he makes you wait.
“Hey!” You slap him to get his attention. “Are you in? I need to know that I can count on you.”
He rubs his cheek and his eyes clear a little. “Yeah, I’m in. Fuck this place, dude.”
Maria sits behind you on top of the table. She plays with the hair on the back of your neck. It’s beginning to curl. She’s singing softly under her breath. The tune is familiar, but the words you can’t follow.
The three of you sit at the picnic table outside the cantina, which closed an hour ago. The wind is fierce tonight. Metcalf’s long stringy hair is whipped into impossible knots, but Maria wears hers in a loose braid. The desert is cold and you lean back into her for warmth.
“Is she coming?” asks Metcalf.
“No. She’d just slow us down. We’ll have to keep moving. Polito’s got reach.”
Maria senses you’re talking about her. She stops singing and rests her chin on your shoulder, waiting for you to repeat what you said.
Metcalf smiles dopily and says, “Yeah, but she speaks Spanish….”
Shit. He has a point.
She’s no prize. Fat and dumb and can’t be a day over nineteen. She’s seen some heavy shit in her time. How, you wonder, in her young stupid life had she arrived in this shit hole? How long could she survive here? She was tough, you had to give her that, and maybe that explained your reluctant affection for her.
Fuck it, she’s coming.
You watch her mending a blanket with an animal grace, which you’d catch every once in a while if you paid attention. When she was immersed in a task, cleaning or cooking or fucking, she was possessed of this. But it disappeared in anything less intimate than your company. She was awkward and slow in society and that translated through any language, but she was comfortable for some reason around you.
“How did you wind up here?”
She looks up from her work, her features spread across her broad face like craters on the moon. Not beautiful. Not to you. Not to a blind man.
“Como?” The hoods of her eyes blink slowly as she waits for you to repeat the question.
“Where is your family?”
She squints, leaning in as if proximity and not language were the problem. You take her hands to hold her attention. “Do…you”—pointing—“want to leave”—your fingers walking—“with me?”—pointing again.
You repeat the whole thing a couple of times, faster.
Still no response.
“Never mind.” You let go of her hands and lie down. A few moments later she lies down beside you. Her fingers reach around from behind you and find yours. You give them a squeeze.
Metcalf is worrying you. He seems determined to kill himself. Before the heist, he’s spending all his money. His reasoning is he’s going to steal it all back in a few days anyway.
Tequila, coke, and blow jobs all day, all night, all week. He’s out of control. Twice, Ramon’s had to throw him out of the cantina and beat his ass. He’s in no kind of shape, but what’re you going to do?
You know what you’re going to do. It’s clear you have to. Doesn’t mean you like it. Doesn’t mean you won’t hate yourself awhile. Doesn’t mean you’ll hesitate. At his best, he’s a liability. Now he’s completely unhinged. What choice, really?
You can’t sleep tonight. You’re up before sunrise. You leave Maria packing a few things. If it goes bad, you don’t want her implicated. That, and you want to spare her what happens to Metcalf. You find Metcalf passed out in the ditch beside the cantina. Let him have a little more sleep.
When the dust cloud appears you wake him up. Takes some slapping, but he’s surprisingly sober and right-headed in less than a minute. You’re the one who feels sickly and when he smiles and claps your shoulder in anticipation, you vomit. His smile turns to alarm.
“You okay, dude?”
“Yeah. Just nerves. I’m fine.”
The truck starts honking its horn a quarter mile out and Ramon is fumbling with the locks and shaking his head clear as it comes to a stop. Ramon and the driver begin bringing in the delivery, their arms full of boxes. Canned goods, sacks of flour, rice, and potatoes, hygiene products, pornography, and scandal rags, a few clothing items, and a first aid kit for a laugh. The bulk of the shipment is liquor. You wait till they’re behind the truck together, lifting a crate; then you slip into the cantina and take positions at the door.
Ramon’s short bat for you and a bottle of Jack for Metcalf. Ramon comes through the door first, backing up. In the split second it takes for him to register surprise, Metcalf has broken his jaw with a wicked two-handed swing. Following suit, you take out the driver, stepping into the doorway. The crate of liquor crashes to the floor, just missing your feet.
Metcalf falls upon Ramon, straddling his chest and concussing him well beyond the point of necessity. You’ve never seen him alive like this, having his pathetic revenge. A wave of nausea washes over you and you wipe your palms on your shirt and get a good grip on the bat.
Metcalf slows down, panting and happy. Still on top of his victim, he wipes his bloody hands on Ramon’s shirt, then runs them over his face and through his hair.
He lets out a whoop. “Yeeeaaahhh! How you like me now?”
Laughing, he turns his face up to look at you. You lay the bat across the bridge of his nose. It smashes like a ripe plum. He’s dead before he falls.
You stop in front of her hut and she scampers aboard like an excited puppy. That changes when she sees you. The hard look of violence still on your face, blood on your clothes, and no Metcalf. The truck lurches forward and she’s thrown back against the seat. In the rearview, you spot a couple of Marias running after you and others out staring, not understanding what’s happened. You mutter, “Kiss my ass, Politoburg.”
The cab of the truck is awash in emotions. Maria stares at you, waiting for an account of the blood and missing Metcalf. You smile at her, annoyed that you have to remind her to be glad to be gone. Timidly, she smiles too, but the question doesn’t leave her eyes.
You feel a conversation coming on.
YOU. Look…he’s not coming…. We’ve got to take care of each other now.
HER. What happened?
YOU. It was bloody. I told you it would be bloody. That’s why I made you wait for me in the hut.
HER. What did you do?
YOU. What I had to. What I’d do again.
HER. Do you love me?
YOU. Are you serious? Let’s not have this conversation. Ever.
She sits there watching you have this conversation, all by yourself this time. She senses its conclusion and sets her eyes on the horizon, where they belong.
You abandon the truck a couple miles outside the city and hike through the hills surrounding, looking for a spot to sleep. It’s a few hours before midnight and the lights look delicious. It’s hard not to go down and find a drink and a meal and spend some of your cash on a hotel, but you’ve got to play this smart.
Maria sleeps with her head in your lap. The night is cold, but the exhilaration of freedom warms you, though you don’t join her in slumber. Tonight, you confess your sins to her. All of them.
When lights begin coming on again, you wake her up and the two of you make your way down the hill, towards the harbor. Maria understands what you want when you put cash in her hand.
You watch her work out passage for the two of you on a fishing boat for South America. She looks over her shoulder and smiles when she catches you staring, her tongue goes to the gap between her front teeth, and you call the feeling in your gut devotion. You know it’s just a by-product of circumstance, two souls shrugging the weight of a common oppressor, but it’s there.
All day you sit on the deck, watching the sea.
That night you rock to sleep in your cramped cabin
that feels like a five-star hotel. The ocean smell sears the dust from your lungs. Maria hums a lullaby and your dreams are filled with the future instead of the past for the first time in years.
It’s past midnight when they come for you. You wake up a second before they burst into the room, suddenly aware that you’re alone and it’s about to go bad. Four sailors haul you from your bed naked and kicking up to the deck.
You scream her name every second, but you can’t locate Maria.
On the deck the captain is waiting. She is at his side.
“If you touch her I will fucking kill every last one of you!” you yell as they drag you to the rail. The stars provide the only illumination, but it’s bright enough to cause the blade to glint an instant before the pink mist and the hot rivulets rush down your chest.
The world tilts and you hit the water with a smack you can’t even hear. The salt water fills your gasping mouth and when you break the surface you struggle to see the deck, wondering if she’s to join you in your grave.
As your strength fails and your vision dims, she appears at boat’s edge, looking for you. She’s alone and unmolested. She’s wrapped in a blanket against the chill. She’s not screaming. She’s calm and she’s free for the first time in her life. She waves to you once and watches serenely and without malice as you go under for the last time.
Good for you, honey.
Haermund Hardaxe Was Here
Allan Guthrie
The following story is inspired by graffiti inscribed on the walls of the prehistoric chambered cairn in Orkney, Scotland, known as Maeshowe or Orkahaugr. The inscriptions, circa 1150, are thought to have been written by Viking crusaders. More info here: http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/maeshowe/maeshrunes.htm
Hours had passed since we crawled into the gut of this Orcadian burial tomb. The tunnel opened into a high-ceilinged central chamber where Tholfir Kolbeinsson, Einar Orkisson, and Ofram Sigurdsson now lay sleeping. In the lightflicker, Arnfithr Steinsson carved letters in the stone.
Inside the mound of Orkahaugr, we sheltered, warm inside its flint-raked walls. While outside, snow fell thick as flour shaken from a thousand sacks.
I listened to the scratch of Arnfithr’s words until sleep stole my soul.
The wind moaned. It howled.
Flames swathed my thigh. Fiery droplets skittered down my calf. Neck-split, Erlingr lay death-still where he fell. The Damascene arose, a hole punched in his chest, and kissed my bleeding lips.
I cried aloud and woke, shivering. Cold sweat pooled above my buttocks.
I stretched my leg. The lazy clink of sword and axe, the scrape of hide on bald clay, stirred no one. Piecemeal, the snuffle and snort of my band of sleeping Jerusalem-farers soothed the dream-lashed weals of my mind.
My tongue flicked over ever-foul lips.
Arnfithr still wrote. He glanced my way yet did not speak.
“Are you telling of our deeds?” I asked.
His smooth-skinned arm dropped to his side. “I am the man most skilled in runes in the Western Ocean. Yet I have no stomach for those tidings.”
“What are you writing?”
“My name. That I was here.”
“Carve something for me.”
“What shall I say, Hardaxe?”
I thought for a moment, my fingers probing the hollow chambers of my axe. Sockets pocked the shaft where once gleamed jewels. I gripped the handle and squeezed. I smiled. “Say: Ingigerth is the most beautiful of all women.”
Arnfithr roared. His laughter brought Tholfir scrambling to his feet.
Nervous Tholfir. A good soldier. He hid his fear.
I spoke to him now as I spoke to him in the dusty heat when our skins burned and blistered and burned again. “It’s okay,” I told him. In some ways, despite his thirteen years, he was still a child.
He lay down, nestled against me, and was asleep again before Arnfithr had stilled his shaking shoulders.
“Be serious, my friend,” Arnfithr said. “These ancient walls want to know what Haermund Hardaxe has to say.”
We trudged over ridges of drifted sand. Waded though this great ocean of ill-tinted sea. A coating of finest sand layered our tongues. We plodded footsore and back-weary towards the distant mountains.
At length, the terrain hardened. Beneath our feet, the earth had baked.
In Iberia promises of plunder had girded our loins. After our failure in Damascus, the glow of adventure had dimmed. And now, riven from the fleeing Franks, our mercenary band of five staggered and weaved in the hostile sun with thoughts only of staying alive.
“We should find shelter,” I said, squinting in the sun’s glare. “It is too hot. We will travel under the stars.”
“Might we steer our path back to the City of Blood?” Arnfithr’s eyebrows rose.
“You jest.” Damascus. The very name means “dripping with blood.” But I too thought of the orchards of fruit trees and my mouth watered. Trees wreathed the city. Mud-walled orchards lined the stream hugging the eastern wall, enclosed the western wall, and stretched five miles to the north towards Lebanon. Within the walls, narrow paths snaked through ample trees of violet damson.
When our army marched forth, the Damascenes, hidden in the thickets, repelled us with ease. Inside the orchards were many walls, behind which lingered spearmen who thrust their weapons through thin slots as we passed and stabbed without fear of harm at our crowded number. From tall houses arrows rained on our heads.
Shouts and screams pulsed all around us.
I clutched the helve of my axe and trampled over a fallen body.
Erlingr turned and faced me, an arrow cleaving a path through his neck. A rattle in his throat. On his knees, he swayed.
By my side, Tholfir paled. “My stomach,” he said. “I think, I think…” He bent over and heaved.
I seethed and raged at our blindness and the blindness of those who had ordered us forward. I could bear no more of this folly. “Get the fuck out of here,” I yelled at my men.
I bent, scooped up Erlingr, hoisted him over my shoulder. I barged through the crunch of surging bodies. Some turned and joined me. Others shouted curses in a tongue I barely grasped.
For the briefest moment, the world was still.
A silence shrouded us.
And then, all around, men dropped their weapons and began to dance. Faces gnarled, strangled voices singing, they batted urgent rhythms with arms winglike, flightless birds in this Muspell, this World of Fire. Above our heads, bronze tubes that lanced the peepholes of a tall building hurled jets of liquid flames into our midst.
Greek Fire. A noxious brew of sulfur, naphtha, and quicklime. It grabbed my leg and clung with burning fingers. I stumbled and fell. Erlingr lay still, his blond beard stained dark red, blood no longer spurting from his slack mouth.
Arnfithr hauled me to my feet.
“Erlingr,” I said.
“Leave him.”
I wiped the sweat from my brow. Ahead, at the top of a slight incline, a shelf of crumbling rock promised shade. “A good place to rest,” I said.
We laid our weapons on the ground and curled up beside them. Helmets covered our faces, shielding our eyes from the rising sun. Arnfithr lay next to me. I listened to his restless breathing. After a while he brushed my arm. I turned, uncovering my face, and nodded.
We rolled up our blankets while our sleeping colleagues whistled into their helmets. We wandered towards a distant row of juniper bushes. A screen.
We unrolled our bedding and stripped. The fire in my loins burned as hot as the fire in my leg.
I fucked Arnfithr.
Then he fucked me, whispering the name of Ingigerth, his betrothed, in my ear.
Afterwards, I slept soundly.
I awoke with a start. A hand was clamped over my mouth. The high sun blinded me. Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the light and I saw Arnfithr crouched over me. “Quiet,” he whispered. He stabbed his finger at the camp two hundred paces away.
Nine.
I counted them. Nine jeering Damascene soldiers grouped around our startled brothers. Drunk with discovery, the band of infidels prodded and poked our rudely awakened men. An anger swelled in my belly. Arnfithr grasped my wrist. Fiercely calm, he said, “Hardaxe, we have no weapons.”
I was sickened. Like fools we had left our weapons at the camp. We could do nothing but watch.
Rousing cries spewed from the Damascenes’ mouths. They frolicked like children with new toys. Living toys. Was this the best Nour Ed-Din had to offer? Had the new ruler of Damascus sent this rabble to hunt for stragglers from the retreating armies?
More likely they were scavengers.
I tried to spot their leader.
The one with his hair scraped back? The one strutting around Einar? The ox about to strike Tholfir in the face? How could I tell?
Tholfir staggered backwards, fell. After a moment he turned where he lay and began to scramble across the cracked ground on hands and knees. The Damascenes laughed, pointed, circled him, kicked him, spat on him.
Ofram broke free of his captors, bolted towards Tholfir. A tall Damascene stepped in his path. Raised an axe. Ofram stopped. He cried, “Hardaxe,” and folded to his knees. He looked towards us for an instant. He may have smiled. Huddled behind our needle-leafed shield of juniper, his expression was hard to read. He yielded to the tall Damascene, wrists held out for binding. The Damascene lowered his axe. The handle glinted.
Him. He was the leader. The axe in his hand was mine.
We watched and waited. No one was gravely hurt. The Damascene soldiers rounded up our ragged threesome and tied them up. After they’d tired of kicking and spitting and slapping and punching, they dragged our men down the slope and out of sight.
I turned to Arnfithr and swore. Arnfithr moved like the earth was burning the soles of his feet. I grabbed our blankets and hastened after him. My leg stung. The wet cloth swathed around it to keep it cool had dried out as we’d slept. Not for the first time, I brooded on the moment the fire had burned my skin. A sickness buckled my legs. I picked myself up, slung the blankets once more over my shoulder, and scurried towards the camp.
Sex, Thugs, and Rock & Roll Page 20