by Tim Marquitz
#
Light from the just risen sun made the closed blinds in the living room glow golden and warm. Jack pulled the blinds open and let loose a riot of long settled dust. He waved his hand and coughed as he looked out at his awakening neighborhood. The light glinted off the high line wires and reflected shale red from the tall warehouses in the distance. Shortening shadows from the houses across the street were slowly pulling back from his home.
Jack turned around and took a long look at his so-called living room. The slatted sunlight revealed nothing but filth and shambles: stacks of magazines and newspapers covered the floor and furniture; plates with remnants of day's old food dotted the coffee table and scattered beer cans stood on every surface. Flies buzzed as an occasional cockroach navigated the garbage maze.
"Damn, I'm a pig," he said, with long forgotten disgust.
With a zest he hadn't felt in years, Jack went to work, filling trash bag after trash bag with refuse. He labored all day, taking time at noon to eat a whole bag of hot dogs, complete with buns and all the fixin's, washing it down with a quart of grape Gatorade.
The afternoon he spent scrubbing, sweeping, and vacuuming. Jack felt that he was not only cleansing his home, but somehow, his life. He felt new, like a moth freshly born from its hairy cocoon. By the time he came to his bedroom he began to feel depleted. Turning off the vacuum, his sat on his fresh made bed, exhausted.
His shotgun leaned in the corner shadow. Jack winced at the sight, the memory of the taste of cold metal still fresh. His tongue clicked in his mouth as he thought back to the day five weeks ago, when in deep despair he placed his mouth over the barrel, finger on the trigger, and yearned for the end. But like most lofty goals, he just didn't have the balls to do it.
Today was different. He felt, dare he think it, happy. This emotion was all together new and he wasn't prepared to let it go. Even so, he felt dead tired, and old thoughts were struggling to the surface. What was he doing? Was all this cleaning worth it? Tomorrow would be the same as yesterday, the depression would set in, and all would return to the way it was.
Jack recalled the events of last night, the horror and the ecstasy. Somehow the film—or something—had given him this boost, like some long acting drug. But how, and why?
After a steaming wash down, he step from the shower and wiped the condensation from the mirror. He examined his face, pulling his beard, contemplating shaving the whole damn itchy thing off. A head tilt and he looked closer. Areas of brown had appeared in his beard and hair where once grey had dominated. His family had all turned grey early in life, and he knew none whose color returned. And the bags under his eyes were gone.
Jack looked—younger.
The doorbell rang. Jack snatched a towel, and wrapping it around his waist, he ran to the front door. He found the porch empty, except for a white, bulging envelope lying alone near the steps. He rushed out, the screen door banging shut. He picked up the package and peered down both ends of the street into the waning light of dusk. Once again, no one. His towel began to slip and he went back into the house.
In the same handwritten ink as the first package, was his address, and down in the corner, 2 OF 2. Again, no return address, and Jack didn't care. It was their mistake (whoever they were), not his.
It was light, unlike the first reel, long, and thick down the middle of the envelope. He ripped open the end of the envelope and emptied it to his coffee table.
The over large glasses case rocked as if impatient. Its pale leather had frayed at the rounded corners. Jack held the case still and lifted its lid. The hinge and spring creaked. Inside, a pair of antique, dark lensed metallic glasses. On the inside of the case lid was written another incomprehensible line.
The words scrawled on the film reel spring to mind. A run and a skid to the kitchen, Jack fumbled through the junk drawer, finding a water stained notepad and half a crayon labeled Red Rose. At the coffee table, he wrote the two lines together…
A life unseen,
But darkly bright,
Lives between
The flickering light.
Jack read it again and looked at the strange glasses. They weren't ordinary, by no means, almost goggles; the lenses were large, round, and appeared to be flat and non-corrective. In his hands, the glasses and wide metal earpieces folded out with a sprung click. The same strange icons that lay inside the film's circle were etched tightly along the outside of the earpieces. Even on the lens rim, Jack could see tiny glyphs.
Jack's eyes blurred. A realization crept at the edges of his consciousness: the bound girl, the circle and glyphs, the praying hooded man, the ritualistic knife and murder, the foul presence, his pain and euphoria, and now the strange glasses. It fell together in one intuitive flash.
This was magic, heavy, dark magic, life-giving magic, real and all his.
Jack found his keys and headed straight to the theater. It was time to meet his maker.
#
The after-midnight traffic moved slow and thick in the streets of the inner city. The streetlights and neon signed strip clubs and porn shops reflected and passed like warped, psychedelic visions across his car's windshield. The warm summer breeze coming through his windows was alive with the scents of the streets.
Jack looked much younger now that he had shaved his beard and combed his hair, even handsome. The lines of time had disappeared and he felt the energy of re-acquired youth. He wore an old, but clean, suit jacket, and a tie hung loosely around his neck. He needed to look decent, like some office cubicle type, to help defer any apprehension; street whores where paranoid and he didn't want a struggle.
And there was plenty out for the pickin', like a ripe crop ready to harvest. The whores sauntered the streets among junkies and perverts, in various degrees of undress, their obscene breasts pushed up and their butt cheeks hanging out below short skirts for show and easy access. The display repelled Jack as much as it drew him, like a fly to crap.
A police car stopped at the corner with two whores leaning into the window. Jack sped up and passed them, watchful in the rearview mirror.
No, too many eyes here to catch a car tag or remember a face. These whores may be animals, but they looked out for each other. He turned at the first corner and headed for an industrial complex nearby, populated with lower grade whores, but with fewer tell-tale eyes. Jack was on a mission now and couldn't risk failure. This new life was at stake and his new, generous friend needed much. It was a meeting not unlike encountering God at a cosmic crossroad, where desires were made known and pacts, consummated.
#
Between each frame of a motion picture is darkness, an invisible shadow glossed over by the nature of our sight; eyes that hold each picture in a fraction-of-a-second nostalgia. People gathered in movie theaters felt safe in the soft glow of an illuminated screen, never realizing half the time the room turned cave dark, a darkness where things could lurk among them, hidden between the light.
Watching the film again, Jack had slipped on the arcane glasses. The screen flashed like two alternating strobes of bright image and glowing black-light. Jack felt disconcerted, like he was blinking with sunglass eyelids.
As the hooded man invoked his silent plea, stars appeared in the black-light, scattered like diamonds on velvet. The stars turned, giving Jack a weightless feeling. With the sacrifice gutted and her blood spilled, a dark hole spread open across the stars and the foul smell entered the room, as if a door to an alien morgue had opened, releasing rotten gas. At that moment, it came.
It fell out of the screen with a splat, and stood wavering, un-used to gravity. It was tall, tubular, and eyeless, its black feather-like spikes reflecting unknown colors. A single, thread of a tentacle came from its mass and touched Jack's stomach as he sat on the couch, frozen more in awe than fear. The nausea returned as the thing vacuumed his life energy out through his navel. The tentacle pulsed and flexed. His consciousness spun like a whirlpool, making him retch and convulse. Alien colors moved and shimm
ered across its quills.
The energy flow reversed, the warm, erotic sensation sweeping from his stomach to every cell of his body. Jack's body arched and his eyes fluttered as a seductive locust voice chittered his head.
"I taaake. I giiiivve. Yoouu giiivve. I taaake." It leaned over close to his face and a hole opened in its blackness. Jack stared and fell into the pupil-less silvery eye.
"Weee liiivve."
In his ecstasy, Jack understood.
#
Jack crept the car through the industrial park. Lone whores walked and stood between the barbwire topped chain link fences and brick walls covered in rude graffiti. There was still traffic but not as thick, and lone men trolled for a few minutes of cheap, nameless love. The whores were not as appealing but just as willing. They called at every approaching car and cursed the ones that passed them. To Jack, they were lost, drug addicted, and subhuman, biding their time until someone took them out of their misery.
Jack pulled to the curb as one called out and turned around, shaking her ass. She stepped up to his passenger window and leaned in, her ample breasts spilling into the car. She was tall, meaty, and perfect.
"Are you the popo?" she said in a slurred, gravel voice.
"What?"
"Are you a cop?"
Jack smiled. "Uh, no."
"Are you a pimp?" She chuckled, looking him over. "Ah, no you ain't. Ain't no pimp dresses like that."
Jack looked down at his suit, not knowing whether to feel insulted or not.
She waved her hand. "Ah, I'm just playin'. Don't feel bad. You look nice to me," she said, batting her eyes in fake seduction. "You lookin' for a date? Listen, baby, I'll make you feel like you never felt before." She lifted her breasts with both hands, blowing kisses at them.
Jack laughed under his breath at the irony.
"I bet," he said. "How much?"
"Well, that's all according to what you want. Whatcha want? Tell your mama." She smiled, flashing half-rotten teeth.
"All that you can give," Jack said.
Her head popped back. "Oh baby, that'll cost more than you got."
Jack reached into his chest pocket and flashed a dollar-sized roll. Andrew Jackson looked at her with disapproval. The whore's head popped back and her eyes widened. She opened the door and plopped in the passenger seat. The cushion sighed and the springs squeaked.
"So, let's get started," she said. "And show me handsome Andy again."
Looking around, Jack dropped the roll back in his pocket.
"Not here. Let's go to my place."
Her smile left and she looked him straight in the eye. "Look, it's either here or in the alley. That's the only place I do my bizness." Her hand went to the door handle, ready to escape.
Jack reached out, touching her arm. She looked down at it and cocked her head.
"I'm just a little shy," he said, pulling back his hand, lest he lose it. "And this is my first time to do, you know, this." He made a frustrated gesture.
"I'm just one lonely guy looking for a night of companionship and I'd feel more comfortable at home. It's not far, really." He patted his chest pocket. "And I'll be very, very grateful."
The whore's hand left the door handle and her face softened.
"Well, okay. I guess you look harmless enough. I have a good eye for people. I'm practically a social worker." She cackled at her own joke.
Jack grinned, relieved. He put the car in gear and drove from the curb. The whore looked back at her corner as the lights of the park faded in the distance. Jack breathed in deep, satisfied at his skill. It was good to have someone, or something, to live for. He turned and looked at the whore with a glint in his eye.
"So, do you like movies?"
The Right Hand Man
J.S. Reinhardt
“Hey, Ray.”
Charlie walked in behind a cloud of cigarillo smoke, flicking the half-finished butt to the curb. Just a block from his front door, this dim bar was like home to him, no matter the time of day. Sharpie’s Pub consisted of a pool table, a couple of booths, and a long slab of oak where everyone knew which seat was Charlie’s.
It was a place for guys like him, and nobody else.
Ray slid three fingers of Powers into place as Charlie settled in at the crook of the bar.
“Hey, Charlie. How’s it hanging?”
“Fair to midland, Ray.” Charlie lifted his rocks glass, cocked it toward the bartender in a one-sided cheer, and threw back the cheap Irish whiskey with a single swallow. Without a word Ray refilled the glass. The first drink had done its job so Charlie let this one sit. He watched the cubes of frozen water bob and settle, a swirling sheen of frigid water mixing with that golden elixir of the fiscally challenged. Life had slipped into this routine for Charlie Burke so long ago he couldn’t remember exactly when there was more to do than drink his days away.
Originally from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Charlie hadn’t wanted to be some toady like his old man, busting his ass for dirt pay in some textile plant. His cousin Ian was a player in Boston’s Irish mob. He would drive up from Southie in his big red Caddy, wearing his leather jacket, and flashing rolls of cash. Charlie’s father and him had something going on. They would argue about the boxes Ian would leave in the garage, but in the end his father always kowtowed, and Charlie and his sisters got new clothes or toys, or they all went out for a fancy dinner.
One summer morning in 1974, with Ian’s address and phone number culled from his mother’s address book, Charlie took his snow shoveling money, a small folding knife, and hitchhiked to Boston. Standing in Downtown Crossing that evening, Charlie hopped on the red line headed for Broadway station. Emerging from the train, he was surrounded by the sights, sounds, and smells of a hot city night.
That summer had been the beginning of the best years of his life.
Ian answered the door sporting track pants, a wife beater, and a shiner that covered the right side of his face.
“What the fuck you doin’ here?”
It was the greeting Charlie expected, and when his cousin cut off his explanation, Charlie wasn’t fazed.
“Shut up. Get in here, kid.”
Charlie saw the revolver in Ian’s hand as he stepped into the ground floor hovel. Kiss blared from massive speakers. Two half naked broads sat on a dingy low-lying couch, snorting white powder off a mirror they passed between them. Two televisions, their volumes low, had porn movies running.
Charlie was mesmerized by the flicker of electric sex.
The impact of Ian’s hand on the back of his head snapped him out of it.
“So I ask again, what the fuck are you doing here…what is your name? You’re Marge and Petey’s kid, right?”
Charlie nodded, fixated on the gun Ian waved around as he talked.
“You got the attention span of a fucking nat. Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Ian pushed the revolver’s snub barrel between Charlie’s eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Charlie. I’m your cousin. I wanna be a gangster!”
Ian looked at him, the seriousness dropping from his face as he doubled over with laughter. When the women on the couch started laughing too, he wheeled around and pointed the pistol at them.
“You fucking bitches shut the fuck up! Get outta here, you fucking skanks!”
“But Ian—”
“I’ll give you the butt of this fucking pistol. Get yer shit, and get the fuck outta here!” He pushed one girl out with his foot, and the other scurried past, muttering about what an asshole Ian was.
Charlie had never seen anything as cool as what just happened.
“Goddamn whores, kid.”
“What?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, do I have to say everything twice with you?” Ian whacked him upside his head again. “Goddamn whores, is what I said.” Ian lit a cigarette, drew hard, and exhaled a billowing cloud of smoke as he shook a finger at Charlie. “So you want to be a gangster, huh? What makes you think your cousin Ian here is a gangster?�
��
“Your car—”
“Fuckin-A, kid. Sweet El Dorado, right?”
Charlie nodded.
“And the way you dress, and how you talk to my dad, and the boxes—”
With a flash Ian’s hand was around Charlie’s neck.
“What the fuck do you know about them boxes, kid?”
“Nothing!” He choked out.
“I’ll fucking whack you if you mention them again, you got that?” Ian tapped the revolver against his forehead in time with his cadence to drive the point home.
“I don’t know nothing about them, just—”
“Fucking hell, kid!” The revolver began tapping on his forehead again, harder this time, “Don’t. Mention. The. Boxes!” Ian pushed him back, flopped into a ratty armchair, and drew heavy on his cigarette again. “So you want to be a gangster. Well, you came to the right place. Your cousin Ian is gonna hook you up, kid.”
It turned out Ian did hook Charlie up with connections to the mob, but not in the direct way that Charlie had expected. Ian was bottom rung; a hustler, skimming off jobs that he was pulling for a mid-level Winter Hill player. By the time Charlie’s 18th birthday came and went, he was a known entity to those Winter Hill players. His natural ability to get in and out of any place without being detected started to gain him the favor of some big names.
Ian became agitated that his nobody, small-state cousin was becoming better known and respected than himself. It all came to a head one night when, in a coke-induced fury, Ian beat Charlie to a pulp on the street. He probably would have killed Charlie if Seamus McLennan hadn’t happen to walk up. Charlie didn’t see him, his eyes were swollen shut. But over the ringing in his hears, he knew exactly who was talking.
“Hey, let up off the kid, Ian.”
“Fuck you. He’s my blood, I’m gonna fucking kill him.” Another kick impacted Charlie’s side. The next thing he heard was a home run crack, and a crumpling thud. Two more wet impacts, and Charlie was being helped up and put into the backseat of a car.
