At Night She Cries, While He Rides His Steed

by Ross Patterson

  “Those men looked like the guys who killed Totally Fucking Mexico.”

  “They were. Those are the Schläger brothers.”

  “Why didn’t you kill them?”

  “There are at least fifteen more of them. I don’t want to have to put another son in the ground for at least another year. Your mom couldn’t handle that.”

  “Fuck that shit, Dad. We can take them.”

  “I like your language. We’ll have our revenge soon enough. Come on, I want to introduce you to a bald man named Curly.”

  As we walk into the parlor, Curly greets us with a wave and rubs his head again like we’re old bros. He pulls a stick of rock candy out of his pocket that is covered in lint and hands it to Daniel. What is it with old people and hard candy? They love that shit as much as magic tricks. Curly kneels down to Daniel and pinches his face.

  “Is this your boy, Saint James?”

  “No, the dead one is at home. This is another one of my kids: Daniel.”

  Curly leans down to eye level with Daniel and says, “Hey, Daniel, you wanna see a magic trick?”

  What did I tell you? Fucking magic tricks. I tell Daniel to fake a smile and go along with it, because I respect old people. This guy was probably on the Mayflower or some shit, so I nudge Daniel, who looks up at him and nods eagerly.

  “Oh, yes sir! I’d love to see a magic trick!”

  “Okay, watch the casket!” Curly walks over to the first adult-sized casket along the wall and opens it, revealing that there is nothing inside it. He then closes it quickly and pulls a wand out of his pocket.

  “Abracadabra!” he says as he taps it with his wand.

  Curly opens up the casket again, and we see a giant clown jump out holding a live cobra. Daniel screams his face off and runs out the front door as Curly laughs. Even I don’t know what the fuck to say. The clown laughs hysterically, then walks toward the back, shuffling his plastic shoes along the way.

  “Who is that?”

  Curly laughs and says, “That’s my son. He’s hilarious. They grow up so fast; hard to believe he’s forty-nine.”

  “How long has he been hiding in there?”

  “About fourteen or fifteen hours. Totally worth it. You should have seen your faces! Anyhoo, you here for the caskets?”

  “I’m sure as fuck not here for a cobra. I’ll take the two that we were talking about yesterday.”

  I pull out my leather pouch full of gold nuggets and flip him a small chunk. Curly catches it and holds it up toward the light, examining it. He looks at it suspiciously, then turns back toward me.

  “You know, it looks like gold, but it smells like shit.”

  “Since my boy died, I hide all of my gold up my own ass. You can’t be too careful these days. Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. My wife does the same thing with all her jewelry after I leave the house every morning.”

  We laugh and share a moment. Curly is a weird fucker, but I dig his spirit. Peering out the front door, I see Daniel hiding underneath my wagon outside.

  “Curly, will you grab my boy and load the caskets up for me? I need to head down to the printing press to give them my son’s obituary to run for the funeral proceedings.”

  “Of course. Before you go, I want you to pick a card,” Curly says as he pulls a deck of cards out of his suit pocket. Begrudgingly I pull one out.

  “Okay, got it.”

  “Put it back in the deck and remember it. I’ll tell you what it was when you get back!”

  “Can’t wait.”

  I find myself with new life in my step as I head down to Ron’s place of business. I’m excited to see the beating I gave him. From the street, I notice a sign on Ron’s office door that says “Out to Lunch,” but I see that fat little pigshit eating a sandwich alone in the back. There’s no way he’d go out and face the public for lunch after what I did to him. I knock loudly on the window to get his attention.

  “I see you, Ron! Let me in, or else I’ll fucking drag you out into the street and beat you for all to see!”

  When I start to unbuckle my belt, Ron bolts upright from his chair and scurries toward the door. He quivers at the sight of the sunlight; his face is more swollen than Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I smile at him with an “I fucked your wife” look on my face.

  “Hi, Ron, you look well. Can I come in? I need you to print an obituary for my dead kid. You know, the one that you did nothing to help from being murdered?”

  “Okay. Just please promise you won’t hurt me.”

  “The only thing I can promise is that I won’t fuck your wife today if you do what I ask. Now open the fucking door.”

  Ron obliges and lets me in. He walks me to the back of the shop where his workbench is set up. Newspapers are strewn everywhere, and his hands are stained with ink. It’s depressing as shit in here. I bet Ron keeps a pet mouse in a shoebox and takes it out and feeds it sandwich crusts while they talk about great literary works.

  As Ron clears some old newspapers off a chair for me to sit down in, I notice a handful of breadcrumbs under his desk. I fucking knew it.

  “So do you have an obit prepared, or do you want me to write something?” he asks.

  “Well, Ron, obituaries are never really prepared, but yes, I have something written down.”

  I pull a small note out of my pocket and hand it to him. “Please read this aloud.”

  Beads of sweat start to form around his temples as he clears his throat. “Saint James, I can’t—”

  “Read it with precision and passion, Ron! Word for fucking word!”

  “Fine. God.”

  “Totally Fucking Mexico Street James. Born sometime in 1849ish, I think. Died July 18, 1853. Totally Fucking Mexico was four, and he didn’t get to do a lot of shit, so obviously his résumé isn’t that impressive. He was well hung, a trait he inherited from his father. Just like his dad, he had trouble keeping his dong inside a cloth diaper as a baby. He loved to eat gold, so it’s ironic that he died being dipped in it. Our bitch neighbor ‘Ron’ did nothing to stop the gruesome attack and let him die. Ron paid the ultimate price for that, believe me. Totally Fucking Mexico is survived by his six brothers; mother, Louretta; and his father/loving husband/mentor of young women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five/gunfighter/sexual provocateur, Saint James Street James. A memorial service is scheduled for Saturday at 2 PM at the Street James estate. It’s potluck, so bring a dish—a real dish—don’t be the asshole that brings only bread or a fucking condiment. Clothing optional for women. BYOB too. Park your carriages wherever.”

  “What do you think?” I ask him.

  “Um, it’s good. Do you have to put the part in there about the ‘bitch neighbor’?”

  “Yes, it’s mandatory. You’re lucky I didn’t write the part about me fucking your wife in there. Have a nice day, Ron.”

  On the way out, I fake a backhand slap toward Ron just to keep him fearful of me. He cowers like a sniveling bitch. I shake my head and grin at him.

  “I want that obit done in a timely manner. Don’t spend all day making tiny business suits for your fucking mouse.”

  “Mr. Wiggins is a hamster—”

  I slam the door in his face. The second I leave, he immediately locks it and slumps down to the floor. I can hear him sobbing and whispering prayers in Latin.

  Down the street, I notice Daniel and Curly struggling to load the two heavy caskets into the wagon. I’m sure they got it. A whore passes by me and whistles, as I feel the gold in my leather pouch shake in my jeans. She’s a four in the daylight, with the highest possible score being a six in extreme darkness after an entire bottle of pick-your-fucking-choice. Normally I wouldn’t even consider her, but I’ve got some time to burn.

  She grabs my dick over my jeans, leans in, and says, “Heard about your kid. I’m really sorry. You need to take a load off, specifically in my mouth?”

  “How much?”

  “A quarter ounce of Au.”

&n
bsp; I point to a large piece of plywood on the ground with a decent-sized hole in it. “Okay, but grab this plywood, wait two minutes, and meet me in the back alley.”

  A couple minutes later she walks back, awkwardly holding the plywood. I stand it upright on the ground and instruct her to kneel behind it on the other side. She looks at me, puzzled.

  “Why?”

  “It’s obviously because I can’t bear to look at your face.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Surprisingly, she gets where I’m coming from. I unzip my pants, stick my dick through the hole, and fellatio ensues in broad daylight. Side note, there’s nothing better than a blowjob from a four. They’ve always had to overcompensate their whole lives, so they know how to suck a dick. A group of butchers slaughtering a cow stop mid-slice and walk out of their shop to see what’s going on.

  “Hey, man, what the hell are you doing?” one of them asks.

  “I’m getting my dick sucked through this hole.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s a four.”

  They all nod knowingly. “Smart. That all makes total sense. Have a good one,” one of them says.

  The hooker stops blowing me for a second and turns around. “If you boys want, you can all line up and stick your dicks through the hole. I’ll suck off all of you for the same price!”

  It’s hard to turn down a cheap beej, even from a four. A line quickly begins to form behind me. Look, I’ve invented a lot of great things in my life, but to this day, I’m still most proud of inventing the first glory hole.I After we all get sucked off, we laugh and share a bottle of whiskey together. At the heart of it, a glory hole is a communal entity that is meant to be enjoyed by a group.

  Our jovial celebration is cut short by the sounds of gunshots, followed by a loud scream. I race around the corner and see a dead clown shot in the chest, lying facedown in the street in front of my wagon. It’s Curly’s son. His eyes are closed, but ironically there are open eyes painted on top of his eyelids. It’s pretty fucking creepy.

  The two drunk Schläger brothers from earlier are tugging on the coffins, trying to rip them out of my covered wagon. I see Daniel lying on top protecting them from being taken.

  “Give us these coffins, boy! We’re gonna bury you and your daddy alive!” one of them shouts.

  The other Schläger pulls out a gun and aims it at Daniel. I quick-draw my pistols and shoot both of them down in the street. Pedestrians scramble and run for cover as I run over to Daniel. Moments later, Curly comes running out of the funeral parlor. His face is painted like a sad clown with fake tears streaming down his cheeks. He leans down and holds his dead son in his arms, screaming skyward.

  “Why did you have to take him? Whyyyyyyyyyyy?”

  Suddenly, Daniel’s eyes grow wide. He pulls out both of his guns and aims them slightly to the sides of my head, firing two shots behind me. I turn to see two more Schläger brothers fall to the street, dead. In the distance I see the remaining thirteen coming out of the whorehouse.

  Within moments, we’re about to be in an all-out street war. Imagine being in the middle of a gunfight against seventeen dudes and realizing that your only backup is an almost-eight-year-old boy who has just fired a gun for the first time in his life and a seventy-year-old man with his face painted like a sad clown. Holy shit, we’re fucked . . . or so I thought. I am about to learn firsthand what “old-man strength” is.

  For you novices, old-man strength is something that can’t be taught. It’s not something you’re born with. There is no amount of weight you can lift to achieve it. And it’s the only thing in this world that can’t be bought. Old-man strength is a certain strength that is acquired over a long period of time, typically by men who have seen some hard-ass shit in their day. The Pilgrims had it. Men of the Revolutionary War had it. The men of the gold rush definitely have it, mixed in with a dash of insanity as well. There is nothing to do out here, so you do any fucked-up thing you can think of to fight off the boredom of living in mostly undeveloped land. Only one thing in this world trumps old-man strength, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

  Curly shows me exactly what old-man strength truly is. With the Schläger brothers rapidly approaching, I draw my own guns and look over at Curly to warn him of the imminent danger. He nods and shakes his head with a look of rage I have rarely seen in a man’s eyes. Kneeling down, he kisses the forehead of his dead clown son.

  “Grab your boy and stand back,” he says to me in a deep, guttural voice.

  With that kind of look in his eyes, I don’t even question him. I grab Daniel out of the back of the wagon and pull him down to the ground. Faster than a goose shits, Curly unhooks my steed from the wagon, then grabs a wheel and lifts the entire thing up above his head. He flips it over on its side, shielding us from the Schläger brothers’ line of fire. That’s old-man strength, son. That wagon probably weighs four hundred pounds, and that motherfucker just dead-lifts it without even chalking up first.

  I tell my steed to run for cover as the three of us sit behind the wagon as shots are continuously fired at us. Curly pulls out two sawed-off street howitzers and begins loading shells from his vest pockets. He doesn’t even look while he’s loading; instead he’s focused on us. I don’t even know where the guns were hidden on him, that’s how fucking boss he is.

  “Cover me, I’m going out there!”

  “You can’t go out there alone, Curly, there’s too many men, goddamn it!”

  “They just killed my only son, Saint James. I don’t have anything else to live for now. Either you’re in or you’re out.”

  I look over at Daniel and nod, then say, “The Street James boys are in.”

  He nods back appreciatively, then slowly stands up from behind the wagon and walks out into the middle of the street. The Schläger brothers stop firing for a second and admire the bravado of this man. Also, it’s pretty fucking shocking to see a seventy-year-old dude painted like a sad clown walking down the street with two loaded shotguns. Curly pulls the hammers back with his thumbs and yells, “These are the tears of a clown, motherfuckers!”

  He unloads both shotguns into the chests of two brothers. In unison, Daniel and I stand up and start blasting the shit out of as many brothers as we can. Curly recocks and blows the fuck out of two more as we keep firing. Six brothers are down, but there are eight more left, and Curly is out of ammo. Sven steps out of the shadows with a huge smile on his face. He pulls a shotgun out of his overcoat and aims it at Curly. Daniel and I try to fire at him, but we’re out of bullets too. All we can do is stand there and watch as Sven takes his time cocking his gun.

  “Let’s turn that frown upside down,” he says.

  Sven calmly blows Curly away with a shotgun blast to the stomach, which causes him to fly backward out of his boots. No lie, the man is physically blown out of his boots. As I watch his shoeless body fly back in the air, all I keep thinking is what a shitty line that is to die to. The last thing this hardcore SOB dies to is a phrase that was used by a local toy store down the street? Fuck that. Curly deserves better, and I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to let him go out like that. I reload as quickly as I can and ask Daniel for his guns so I can reload his as well.

  “Come on out, Saint James! I’ll tell you what. If you come out peacefully and surrender, we’ll just hang you and let your boy go. Hell, for all you’ve done for this town, we might even name this here road after you. Main Street James has a nice ring to it!”

  My temp begins to rise. Now he’s trying to kill me to a shitty pun as well? Nope. Not this guy. And not in this fucking lifetime. Sven fires a shot at me as I try to steal a quick glance over the top of the wagon. I duck at the last second, narrowly avoiding it. As I observe my surroundings, there’s only one way out of this, and it ain’t pretty. I walk out into the street and start firing with both guns blazing, trying to take out as many as I can.

  Daniel’s voice suddenly cries out, “I got your back, Dad!”

  “Stay there,
Daniel!”

  By the time I look back toward him, he’s already sprinted out in front of me in the street, blasting both guns. This crazy son of a bitch wasn’t kidding; he’s using himself as a human shield. We’re killing a lot of Schlägers, but Daniel is getting lit up faster than a spliff on April 20 at 4:19 PM. As a father, it’s a hopeless feeling when you realize there’s nothing you can do to help your child in a moment like this. At least I bought two caskets, so I’m cool on that front.

  I scoop up his lifeless body and retreat behind a large wooden post in front of Curly’s Parlor. Peering out, I see only one Schläger still standing, and it’s Sven. He fires a shot at me that hits the post and ricochets off into the distance. I lean down and kiss Daniel good-bye on the forehead and look up toward Sven, filled with the same rage Curly had. One-on-one, this man is going to fucking die, so I might as well put on a display of dominance for the entire town.

  “Seven, it looks like it’s just me and you now. How about we just settle this out in the middle of the street like gentlemen?”

  “That’s fine by me! And it’s Sven, by the way. You keep throwing an extra e in there!”

  “Really? I’m not hearing it.”

  Once I’m finally reloaded, I peek out from behind the post and see him slowly walking out toward the middle of the street, where I casually join him. Patrons also start to walk out of businesses and line up to see this epic showdown. Sixteen dead Schläger brothers litter the street, and Sven and I are literally stepping over bodies to get closer to one another.

  We eventually end up about twenty yards apart before we stop. Staring each other down, both of us put one hand on our guns. I notice a slight twitch in Sven’s right index finger. It’s evident that he’s nervous from everything he’s heard about me. I would be too. Time to add water and make my legend grow.