Exigencies

by Richard Thomas

  When he briefly touched the wires to the battery, the cork began to spin and the guitar string reciprocated up and down through the pen. “There,” he said, “rotary to linear.”

  He electric-taped the pen to the toothbrush, down the leg of it. He made a final cut so that the end of the guitar string became a needle point sticking about an eighth of an inch out from the pen.

  He said, “The Superman ‘S’ huh? No pentagrams? No devil faces?”

  He dipped the needle into the ink concoction and said, “Okay, so where do you want it?”

  And I said, “On my elbow.”

  He smiled.

  My aunt’s voice drifted in from outside, saying, “If we ever buy another house, it’s going to be as far from the freeway as I can get it.”

  And my mom said, “You live in Southern California, doll, there’s no such thing as a house far from a freeway.”

  “Well, maybe I could find a place that isn’t right in the middle of so many.”

  By the time I was nineteen years old, I could use the veins on the back of my hand to find my way to the old house. It was a freckle off the fifty-seven, between the ninety-one and the twenty-two.

  My brother told me to fold one of my arms so that my hand gripped the shoulder. He said to put my elbow on the table. He said, “This is going to hurt.”

  He said, “A lot. Try not to scream or we’ll both get in trouble.”

  That summer some guy came in from the street and slept on our couch. Someone my brother knew. This guy, he had stubble poking soft and blonde through his scalp.

  He slept on our couch that night because he didn’t have any­where to go, and it was monster season outside. If you traced a straight line up from his hands, you’d find large patches of cough-syrup red beginning just beneath his elbows.

  My brother saw the new tattoos and asked, “Does the red actually cover up the other stuff?”

  The man replied, saying, “Some of the smaller things, yeah. I had to use black for the worst ones though.”

  My brother closed his hands over his shirtsleeves. His gaze lingered on the fabric, as if he could see the marks that his clothes kept hidden.

  The man rubbed his scalp. The television droned on. Then the man spoke softly, “He’s out now.”

  “Who?”

  He nodded at my brother’s arms. “You know who. The artist. Aaron.”

  My brother looked at him for a long time before giving a slight nod. He asked, “Where is he sleeping?”

  “Far as I know, he doesn’t.”

  And my brother said, “I wouldn’t either.”

  Back in the kitchen, my aunt’s voice floated in on the wind. She said, “You ever been to Chino?”

  And my mom said, “The prison.”

  My aunt said, “Of course. Sorry.”

  My brother got up and slid the window shut, locking their voices outside. He sat back down across from me, taking the tattoo machine in his hands. He stared at me for a long time before saying, “Kid. If you put a person in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong state of mind, you can turn them into anything.”

  He said, “If you saw the way they train dogs to fight, you’d understand.”

  He said, “Now, if you ever do this to someone, never, ever, forget how bad it hurts.”

  Then he wrapped the wires around the battery and started trac­ing lines of ink into my elbow. I bit down so hard I could hear my molars groaning over the dull buzz of the needle. Flecks of black spattered over my skin as blood began weeping from the tattoo. The blood and ink mixed into shades of purple while the needle burned. The pain was worse than all the times Mom had to pour peroxide on my scratched-up knees. It was worse than the time I sliced my palm open on the lid from a can of cat food. It was as if every bump and scrape I had accumulated over my twelve years was condensed to a fine point that was now slowly gouging a new wound into my elbow.

  Just a rectangle of skin over bone.

  My brother stopped long enough to touch my wet cheeks with two of his fingers. He said, “You’re okay, kid. You’re doing good. We’re halfway there.”

  He said, “You’re tougher than everyone in Chino.”

  Then he sank the needle back into my skin. Carving the dia­mond shape around the Superman logo.

  When he finished the tattoo, it didn’t look like much. A black smear that went purple in parts. Small enough to rinse off and cover with a Band-Aid. By the time I’d be nineteen, it would be less than that. A memory of a Saturday instead of a tattoo. A light blue haze to remind me of the summer that the Night Stalker murdered an old woman in our neighborhood.

  A woman who lived in a yellow house so close to all those freeways.

  The summer when I asked the girl who cut my hair, “What does ‘sodomize’ mean?”

  The summer that my brother still hasn’t come back from.

  The Band-Aid on my elbow was already catching blue lint that night. After he climbed through the window, after he popped the screen back in, my brother spoke to me through the plastic mesh. He said, “I might not be back before tomorrow morning. Tell Mom and Dad not to worry about me.”

  And then he said, “Love you, kid. Stay out of trouble.”

  I shut the window and locked it.

  That night my dreams were all about my brother getting caught by the killer on his way to Lucy’s.

  That summer, that night, my brother borrowed someone’s truck and drove the freeways. He went past the dairy fields of Chi­no and up into parts of Ontario where they collected broken trucks and burning tires. If you were tracing the veins on his hand, you’d follow the fifty-seven, to the ninety-one, all the way to the fifteen.

  Now it could be a neighborhood full of track homes and high-speed internet. Back then it was a baked field with corrugated-met­al shacks where people would do speed and shoot at the stars. It was where someone named Aaron would sleep, surrounded by his gang of neo-Nazis.

  That summer, that night, while the killer was sodomizing the old woman down the street, my brother was carrying the tattoo machine we had made. The next morning my dad would say, “Have you seen the cough syrup?”

  And my mom would say, “Do you know where Jack is?”

  Somewhere between driving down the freeway and a fifty-year prison sentence, two bodies were found: The old woman that Ramirez had murdered, and a skinhead named Aaron. A man who we later learned had a reputation for torturing other inmates at Chino with a home-made tattoo gun.

  When they found him, his eyes were tattooed through their lids. The head of his dick was shriveled up and mangled like hamburger meat. The circle around his asshole was traced cough syrup red. Every part of him was covered in fresh tattoos, down to the last square inches of flesh covering his elbows.

  Just skin over bone.

  And when they found him, my brother was still on top of him, squatting over his body with the tattoo needle shoved up Aaron’s nose, almost deep enough to reach his brain. Bubbles of blood foamed out from his other nostril while the man screamed as loud as the shredded remains of his throat would allow.

  Even today, you can still see my tattoo. A black smear that was supposed to be the Superman “S.” Most of the time when people ask about it, I just tell them it’s an old scar

  Ask me if it hurt and I’ll tell you yeah.

  Yeah, it hurt. Sometimes it still does.

  joshua blair

  studied writing under chuck palahniuk, craig clevenger, and will christopher baer. as a journalist in southern california, he’s interviewed rock stars, professional athletes, and the high priest of a satanic coven. his three novels are resurrecting daphne, martyr, and the dancing willow. he’s currently researching standup comedy and the death of elisa lam in preparation for a novel tentatively named five minutes on the dead girl.

  CAT CALLS

  REBECCA JONES-HOWE

  The girl is on the Skytrain again. Her red raincoat always pulls my gaze. She smiles through the window. Today her dark hair’s tied back.
Her lashes are curled and her eyes are lined in black, catty. My fingers tighten around the handle of my briefcase. I swallow before I board.

  “You’re wearing those pants again,” she calls. “I always thought they defined your package real nice.”

  The other passengers look up. They look at her and then at me, at my black pressed slacks. My throat tightens. My gaze drops to the floor and I take a seat. I set my briefcase over my lap.

  “Why don’t you sit over here?” the girl asks.

  The train starts, its moan filling my ears. It always sounds like a ghost getting off. I lean back against my seat and stare out the window as the train passes through the city and the rain. Then the bells chime and the speaker announces the next stop.

  The next station is New Westminster.

  The girl gets up. She’s all legs under her raincoat. Her thighs are smooth and her calves are lean. Her platform heels click across the floor.

  The bells chime again and the doors slide closed. The train starts. The moan continues.

  “You never want to talk,” the girl says.

  My fingers tense and I meet her gaze. “Look, I’m married, alright?”

  “That’s okay,” she says.

  “It’s not okay,” I say. “You’ve been bothering me all week. I’m just, I’m not interested.”

  She puts her hand on her hip and her raincoat rides up, revealing the hem of her dress, floral fabric with blues and yellows, baby bedroom colours. She steps forward and straddles my leg. Her thighs rub against my slacks.

  The next station is 22nd Street.

  The girl leans forward and pushes her knee against my briefcase. The handle digs into my stomach. New passengers board the train, their eyes immediately on me.

  “Maybe you should move your briefcase,” she says.

  I shift and draw a breath, looking up. Her eyes glisten. She bites her lip.

  The next station is Edmonds.

  “There’s a war in your head, isn’t there?” She braces her hands over my shoulders, pushes me back against my seat. “It’s okay to admit it,” she says. “There’s a war in every man.”

  The train slows and I turn my head. Outside, the rain patters against the glass.

  “You get off at Commercial-Broadway, right?” She massages my shoulders, her grasp tight, kneading pressure, an ache in my head.

  I tighten my fingers around my briefcase.

  She leans in closer, her breath hot against my ear. “You wanna get off now, don’t you?”

  At work, the reception area is decorated with balloons and banners. Everybody jumps out from behind front desk and they yell, “Surprise!”

  I hold my briefcase in front of me like I’m still on the train.

  Everybody sings Happy Birthday and they give me a card filled with handwritten jokes and sentiments about being over the hill. At lunch, they serve cake in the break room. I bring a slice back to my office but I eat my sandwich instead.

  Dick walks past the open door. “Are you not going to eat that?” he asks, looking at the cake on my desk.

  I shake my head and he takes the plate. He slices a fork through the red velvet and talks through mouthfuls. “Leslie have plans for you tonight?”

  “I don’t think so. She’s been so preoccupied with that house lately.”

  “The heritage Victorian on Fourth?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “She showed it to some buyers who seemed interested. She’s been spending all her time working things out.”

  “That’d be a nice present, hey? A big commission check.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She must make more money than you, Jason. You can quit your job and live like a kept man.”

  “That’s not funny,” I say.

  He laughs anyway, and I look over at the phone, remembering how Leslie used to sound when she called, the need that registered in her voice after the failure to conceive, the IVF treatments, the miscarriages, the debt. She used to spend every day at home in her blue bathrobe. It used to be I’d have to spend every lunch hour in my office so she could call. Her voice always shook over the line.

  Just tell me everything will be okay.

  I look up but Dick’s already gone.

  The crumbs of my sandwich fall on my lap.

  The next station is 22nd Street.

  The next station is New Westminster.

  The next station is Columbia.

  It’s dark by the time I get off the train. On my way back to the apartment, I walk past Leslie’s heritage Victorian. Her picture’s on the For Sale sign. She’s smiling, blonde hair curled, lips painted red, powerhouse.

  My ears start to ache.

  Leslie’s already asleep when I get home. She’s in her baby blue bathrobe, the bedsheets kicked around her feet. Her lamp’s still on. It’s almost like it used to be, except she’s got housing contracts on the nightstand instead of the stack of pregnancy books she used to read.

  I crawl beside her and kiss her forehead, her cheek. Her hair smells like lavender. I wrap my arms around her. I press my lips to her ear.

  “I love you,” I say.

  She moans in her sleep. She nudges me with her elbow. She pushes me away.

  I write strata notices over lunch. Dick walks in and stares at the crumbs on my ledger. “Jesus,” he says. “Can’t you give yourself a break? It’s depressing enough just looking at you.”

  He drags me with him to the bar after work. He orders a round of Caesars. “If you’re man enough, you don’t give a shit that it’s a cocktail,” he says.

  I stare at the glass, red thickness like clotted blood, test tube baby waste that goes down salty. Dick flags the waitress and orders us a second round. He looks her over when he orders a third, leans in too close when he orders a fourth. The taste of the Clamato juice settles in my gut.

  “How’s Leslie?” he asks.

  “She was asleep when I got home last night.”

  He laughs. “You didn’t even get laid on your birthday?”

  “Why would I care about that?”

  “Hey, before Alice and I split, birthdays were about the only time we ever had sex.”

  A Skytrain passes on the tracks outside the bar, its moan filling my ears.

  “I don’t really think about things like that. I can’t.”

  Dick looks over.

  I shake my head and blink, lightheaded. “All that shit, you know, not being able to conceive. It’s kind of insulting. You just, you spend all that money to jack off into a bottle and then they just make a baby in a dish?” My throat tightens. I clear my throat. “Leslie painted the spare room blue and yellow. She always wanted a gender-neutral nursery.”

  Dick lifts his glass and takes a drink.

  Another train passes outside, going the opposite direction. Its ghostly echo haunts like Leslie’s voice when she called me at work the first time. She sounded so hollow, so dead.

  Jason?

  “She wasn’t even herself the second time.” My gaze drifts to the red mess in Dick’s glass. “She called me every day when it got worse, you know. Then I got home from work and she was hunched over the counter.”

  Dick sets his glass down. He scratches his brow.

  “Seeing her go through all that, I just, I did what I could.”

  “She reinvented herself,” Dick says, staring down at the table, his fingers flinching. “You have to, after something like that.”

  “Yeah.” I shake my head. “It’s just, she didn’t even tell me about becoming a Realtor until she got her license. She just said she was going to make the spare room her office. She painted the walls grey.”

  I sway on the platform until the train arrives. The first thing I notice is the raincoat. The girl is slouched in her seat. She tugs at the zipper, opens her coat to reveal her tight dress, her figure. I avert my gaze and slump into the nearest seat, setting my briefcase on the floor. The train starts and the briefcase tips over. I pick it up and set it on the empty seat beside me.

&n
bsp; The girl walks up. She pushes the case aside and sits down.

  “You’re drunk,” she says.

  “So what?”

  The train is nearly empty, just a handful of students with headphones in their ears. I stare at the reflection in the window of me slouched in my seat, her beside me. She crosses her legs. Her skirt rides up. She’s wearing black panties. They’re lace.

  “What were you drinking?” she asks.

  My ears throb to the pace in chest.

  “Caesars,” I say.

  “That’s not a very manly drink.”

  “So?”

  She puts her hand on my thigh. “I like you better this way,” she says. “You’re a white flag.”

  The taste of the Caesar lingers in my throat. “What do you want?” I ask.

  Her fingers tighten. “Tell me something,” she says. “Tell me a secret. Drunk men always share secrets.”

  My gaze drifts to my briefcase. “I turned forty this week.”

  She draws a breath and her grasp moves from my leg to my hand. She touches the ring on my finger. “Did your wife give you birthday sex?”

  “No.” I pull my hand away.

  “Why not?” she asks. “Married men still like pussy.”

  The train turns a bend, squealing on the tracks.

  She leans in, her lips against my ear again, her voice a whisper. “How big is your dick?”

  My head hurts too much to answer.

  The next station is Columbia.

  Her fingers trace along the crease Leslie ironed into my slacks. The train slows and the doors open. I reach for my briefcase.

  “You’re losing,” she says.

  “Losing what?” I ask, stumbling to a stand.

  She glances at the briefcase. “You always look so miserable carrying that thing.”

  I stagger out of the train before the doors close. She smiles through the window. The train pulls out of the station and I blink, trying to rid the stain of her raincoat from my gaze.