At Night She Cries, While He Rides His Steed

by Ross Patterson

“Your new son. Remember the night Totally Fucking Mexico died?”

  “I knew I got you pregnant! I’m the fucking best.”

  She shakes her head and turns to walk inside, as my new son runs out to pet my steed. I grab Daniel and pull him aside. “Help the Chinamen unload the bricks of opium I brought back and stack them in the barn. Smoke a little if you want to test the merch. I’m gonna go have sex with your mother and try to smooth everything over.”

  “Cool,” he says as he walks over to greet the Asians.

  Louretta seems annoyed as I read the newspaper while she fills up the tub. Sensing she’s nervous about being intimate, I take it upon myself to break the ice. When she goes to retrieve the last couple buckets of water, I use my newspaper and some tub water to create a massive Russian nesting doll out of papier-mâché over my penis. She tries to play it off like she’s not amused when she comes back in.

  “What is that, Saint James?”

  “Sshhhhhhh. Watch.”

  One by one, I pull off thirty individual dolls, before revealing my huge erection underneath. Louretta finally cracks a smile and begins to take off her clothes. It’s time to go to pound town.

  As she undresses, it dawns on me that this is the first time I haven’t bathed with thirty to forty women at the same time in six years. Even though Asian women are great, they lack in the breast department, which is something I sorely missed. I don’t know who said life is all about the small things, but they’re fucking liars. Nothing beats a good old-fashioned set of white woman’s breasts heaving like a fat man jogging.

  Never one to window shop, I get up from the tub and make out with Louretta, slamming her hard against the wall. We crash completely through it, falling down onto Bourbon’s bedroom floor, never breaking penetration. I glance over and see his hobbyhorse rocking back and forth from the force of our landing.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I whisper.

  “That we shouldn’t be doing this in one of the kids’ rooms?”

  “Nope. I’m thinking we should turn that hobbyhorse into a professional horse.”

  “What’s a professional horse?”

  “One that lets you fuck on it.”

  I lift her up and carry her over to the horse and sit down, with her facing me on my lap. With subtle precision, I begin to rock back and forth, gripping the handles on the horse to keep a smooth and constant motion. As we make love over the course of the next two hours, I occasionally look out the window and see the Asians unloading the opium into the barn with Daniel. Also, a few of the Asian chicks I have been banging over the past six years have gathered outside and are staring at me. The whole thing is very erotic, and I find myself looking directly at them as I climax, just as I did in China.

  Louretta holds me like a conversation, squeezing my biceps hard, her nail marks leaving fresh trails of blood. She is no doubt thinking about the new sexual agility I have acquired over the last six years. The air is so thick with the scent of sex and blood that I have to open a window after I finally pull out.

  “Daniel, when you’re done loading that opium into the barn, could you come up here and fix the wall I crashed through with your mom?”

  “Why is it still me?”

  “Because I’m still your fucking dad! Thanks!”

  He shrugs his shoulders and throws down a brick of opium in disgust. I flip him off, double-birding him as I shut the window. Louretta stares at me with a bewildered look on her face, probably because I’m still hard.

  “So what’s your grand plan now that you have all of this opium? What are you going to do with it?”

  “Smoke it. I’m also going into business with it. Do you have any of that money I gave you six years ago?”

  “Yeah, a couple dollars left, I guess. Why?”

  “Good. I’m gonna need it. I’m going into town tomorrow.”

  Louretta follows me as I walk back into our bedroom through the giant hole in the wall. After putting on my jeans, I reach into my pocket gingerly, because this fucking boner still hasn’t gone down. I pat my other pocket and that’s when it hits me, “I almost forgot, I brought something back for you.”

  “Should I close my eyes?” Louretta asks eagerly.

  “No, I want you to see it.”

  Carefully, I begin to pull a beautiful full-length silk kimono out of my jeans pocket. Seeing the happiness in her eyes when I hand it to her, I think back to Curly when he pulled that card out of his chest as he was dying. He probably wanted the same reaction I just received. Oh well, know your audience, I guess. Louretta puts on the kimono and walks over to the window.

  “How long are they going to be here?”

  “If all goes well, they should be gone by tomorrow afternoon. A few months tops, maybe four years at the most.”

  “What?”

  “Relax, they’re all self-sufficient, and I’ve obviously instructed them never to come inside our house. Plus, I bet they could help you out with that bullshit starter-kit garden you got out there.”

  “That garden fed us for the entire six years you were gone!”

  “And I commend you for it. You’re a good woman, and I’m gonna feed your mouth forever with what I’m about to do . . . but Daddy had a long journey, and I need some form of meat. I’m sure Daniel has some bald eagles stashed away. Prepare me some dinner; I gotta go check on my Chinamen.” I kiss her on the cheek and walk out.

  Later on at night I sit down and eat a home-cooked bald-eagle dinner with my family. My boys have outgrown their whiny bitch stage and they aren’t crying or shitting in cloth diapers anymore; instead they have manners and respect. Even the new one is cool, whatever the fuck his name is. I meant what I said earlier about my wife being a good woman. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to cheat on her every chance I get; I’m obviously still a man, and she knows that, but I have a newfound respect for her as I stare at her across the table.

  “You’ve done a great job with these boys the last six years, Lou. Raising these little fucks without me must have been hard.”

  She seems genuinely touched by this. “Thank you. Do you want to help me put them to bed after dinner?”

  “Not really. But I’ll do a walk-by after they’re down and fire a couple invisible six-shooters their way as I pass. I’m going to go have a cigarette on the porch.”

  Daniel perks up. “Can I come too, Dad?”

  “You sure that little brush above your lip won’t catch fire? Kidding. Come on out, son.”

  A full moon lights up the Coloma sky on this beautiful night as the two of us share a smoke and catch up. “I actually missed this place,” I thought, as I look out at the grave site where I fucked a stranger on top of my dead kid’s casket. There are a lot of great memories here.

  “So what’s been going on the last six years?”

  “Just partying and bullshitting. The usual. I lost my virginity a few weeks back,” Daniel says nonchalantly.

  “Did you pay for it?”

  “No, it was my teacher at the schoolhouse.”

  “I bet your grades improved.”

  “All As. Ma has never been prouder.”

  I pat him on the knee. “That’s great. That’s really fucking great. How’s the town?”

  “The town is good. It’s really changed, you’d hardly recognize it. The Schläger brothers run everything now. People dress up when they go to town. All the men wear suits and the women wear these big, poofy dresses.”

  “Get the fuck out of here.”

  “There’s even a mayor now. There was an election and everything.”

  “Who’s the mayor?”

  “Mr. Van Buren.”

  “Of course. I’m sure that was an honest election. That bastard is going to love me being back. How’s your shooting, by the way?”

  “I’m the best there is. Been practicing every day since you left.”

  “All right, tough nuts, we’ll see. You want to come into town with me tomorrow?”

  “Hell yeah! I ev
en got my own steed now.”

  “What? Where did you get a horse?”

  “It was the strangest thing. Mr. Paulson brought it over and left him when he was a foal. He seemed angry about it. It wasn’t too long after you left.”

  I cough up smoke and laugh. Holy shit, I had forgotten that I let my steed fuck his gimpy horse. Classic Saint James. This father-son moment is perfect, until I see Samantha’s uncle shitting inside our drinking bucket. He waves at me and flashes a big, toothless smile. Most of his pube beard is still intact. I wave back at him and lean over to Daniel.

  “Clean out that drinking bucket when he’s done shitting, okay?”

  Daniel rolls his eyes as I walk into the house and upstairs to do the walk-by of my boys sleeping. The first two look so peaceful in their beds that checking on the rest of them seems unnecessarily boring. Instead, I blow out my lantern and dip into my bed, putting my arm around Louretta, whispering sweetly into her ear, “Let’s bone in the morning before I leave. Love you.”

  The following morning we do bone indeed, before I head out with Daniel into town. It’s strange riding alongside him all grown up on his own horse. Luckily, his horse got my horse’s genes, and it’s a pretty decent steed.

  Trotting down the main road into town, I’m truly taken aback by how much it has changed. Daniel wasn’t bullshitting. The buildings are bigger, and the makeshift Schläger Brothers signs on every storefront are now professionally hand-carved, neatly hung above the shops. The population has almost doubled in size, and everyone is dressed to the nines. All the men are wearing tailored suits, while the women wear dresses with corsets. Daniel and I look like a couple Mexican strawberry pickers compared to everyone else. People start ogling and pointing at us like we are the goddamn help.

  For the first time in my life I feel like a lower-class citizen. Not one woman stares at my cock. Why? Because women don’t stare at a poor man’s cock. They know they can fuck a poor man anytime, but a rich man, you have to stare at his cock and let him know you’re there.

  I might as well have ridden into town with the crotch cut out of my jeans, because these women don’t even glance below my belt. If you ask me, that’s the real poverty line. With my anger boiling, I instruct Daniel to quicken the pace so we can get to the deed office faster.

  Once we make it in safely, I am amazed by how much this place has changed as well. It is a real bank inside, and the stink is gone. People are actually conducting business in here, instead of bartering for shit. Meanwhile, I’m standing here with two wadded-up dollars in my hand, looking like a beet farmer who has taken his mildly retarded son into the big city for the first time. Someone even hands Daniel a nickel on the way out like he is Tiny Fucking Tim.

  After about twenty awkward minutes of our standing here feeling out of place, a nebbish teller with glasses comes over and walks us over to his desk. He motions for us to have a seat and checks his watch, as if we are taking up his precious time. Daniel nudges me, annoyed.

  “Dad, why don’t you just blow a hole through the roof like the old days and tell everyone to fuck off?”

  “First of all, there are two armed Schlägers working security at the exit. Second, I need to keep a low profile until I’m able to open up shop. You understand me?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Do you want some bread, son?” the teller asks Daniel with pity.

  “What the fuck? No, he doesn’t want any bread. We’re here for business. I’m Saint James Street James!”

  “I know who you are. You used to run this town back in the day. The only reason I even brought you over is out of respect for who you once were.”

  Infuriated, I lean down to Daniel and say, “Remember when I said I was going to keep a low profile earlier? That just went right out the fucking window.”

  I pull out my guns and twirl them swiftly before laying them down on the desk, pointed directly at the teller. Daniel taps his pistols as the two Schlägers go for their guns. I smile calmly through clenched teeth and remind the teller who the fuck I once was.

  “Since you already know who I am, I’m surprised you don’t remember that I’m the fucking stone-cold killer who will not hesitate to rip out your eye and skull fuck you in front of all your coworkers. I’ll rape your mind so hard they’ll be able to hear what you were thinking at age nine.”

  He stares at me in shock, and quickly tries to backtrack. “I’m sorry, I’m so—”

  “Let’s also not forget your place in the world versus mine, shall we? You may be able to buy a fancy suit, but you’ll never be able to buy courage or a set of dick and balls like these.”

  In one swift move, I grab his hand off the desk, stand up, and jam it down the front of my jeans. His hand is holding my entire dick and balls. The whole place gasps in horror, and the Schlägers rush over toward me. Daniel rises up and draws his guns with lightning-fast skills, aiming them at both their heads. He really is fast as shit, and they back off.

  “What do you feel down there?” I ask the teller in front of everyone.

  “I don’t know. A man?” he says.

  “A man with what?”

  “A man with a real set of dick and balls?”

  “That’s right, I’m a man with a real set of dick and balls! Don’t anyone fucking forget it!”

  Looking each and every person in the eye, I pull his hand out of my jeans and slam it back down on the desk. The teller quickly wipes it off on his slacks and adjusts his glasses, which have fogged up with moisture from his tears. I throw a handkerchief directly into his chest and motion for him to clean his shit up. Realizing the situation isn’t going to escalate, the Schläger brothers back off and Daniel stands down. The teller tries to regain his composure.

  “What can I do for you today, sir?” he asks.

  “I need to buy some property in town. Something I can build a business on.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid everything in town has been bought up by the Schläger brothers and Mayor Van Buren.”

  He reaches into his desk and pulls out a new map containing all the property lines. I rip the monocle attached to his coat clean off, and examine the map for myself. This bastard isn’t lying; they really have bought up everything in town. Every inch of the downtown grid and all the mines have been purchased by the Schlägers, except for one plot of land with a big pig head drawn next to it. I smile to myself, remembering what Manny told me years ago. I press my index finger down on it.

  “What is this? Why is there no name next to this property?”

  “You don’t want this property. Matter of fact, no one wants this property.”

  “Why’s that?” Daniel asks.

  “This is the property next to those filthy Chinamen who feed dead people to pigs when they can’t afford funerals. It’s disgusting. They do serve exquisite squirrel di though.”

  I flash a grin at him and ask, “How much is it?”

  “Um, it’s two whole dollars, sir,” he says, like I probably can’t afford it.

  I pull the two dollars out of my pocket and throw them in his face. “Sold. Draw up the fucking deed.”

  “You can’t be serious. Why do you want this property?”

  “Do you want to feel my dick again while I explain to you why, or are you going to draw up the deed?”

  “I’ll draw up the deed.”

  “Smart man.”

  I pick my guns up off his desk and put them back in my holsters. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Mayor Van Buren walk in and casually greet the townspeople milling about. As much as he pretends that he’s just popping in to say hello to everyone, I know he’s here to see what I’m up to. He politely tips his hat toward me as he walks over.

  “Mr. Street James, good to see you back around these parts,” he says, smug as fuck.

  “It’s good to have my parts back around here again.”

  “What brings you in today?”

  “Spell the word ‘deed’ backward, and that’s what the fuck I’m doing here.�
��

  He nods sarcastically and then pulls out his own monocle, examining the grid. Jesus, everyone has a fucking monocle now. The teller points to the property I’m purchasing, and Mayor Van Buren raises an eyebrow curiously. He shakes his head incredulously and puts his monocle away.

  “Are you crazy buying that property? It’s directly next to the Chinamen who feed dead poor people to their pigs. They do have the best squirrel di in town, but what on earth do you hope to do with that property?”

  “To build an outhouse and fuck your mom in it . . . or I’m going to open a business there. Haven’t decided yet.”

  “Pray tell, what kind of business?”

  “Leisure,” I say as I stand up and light a cigarette, exhaling it in his face. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I grab the deed from the teller and walk out. Daniel also gets up and smiles in his face. I can feel Van Buren eye-fucking me as we stroll out. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of “the look back” over the shoulder. Instead, I keep going and cop a feel of a tit off an unsuspecting woman walking in. Saint James Street James is back, motherfucker.

  Chapter Fourteen

  DRUGS ARE FUCKING AWESOME, AND EVERYONE WANTS THEM

  Over the course of the next two months, the Chinamen work in split crews of thirty apiece. While one crew is setting up rice paddies on my never-ending estate so they can feed themselves, the other thirty work under a veil of secrecy constructing my new business next to the pig shack. They cut down trees from my property and turn them into building supplies and melt down copper they find to make nails. I have so many people working in unison that my hard costs are nothing.

  Curiosity begins to spread amongst the townspeople as to what kind of establishment I’m building, and I never say a goddamn word, which only creates more interest. I’ll give you a hint, it rhymes with “schmopian schmen.” Since the Schläger brothers have shut down my ability to mine gold, it’s time to become a hard-core drug dealer.

  There are only a couple ways to be rich in my time: gold and drugs. Even being a doctor or a lawyer is more of a novelty or hobby. Don’t even think about being a dentist. If you can tie a piece of string to the back of a doorknob, congrats, you’re a fucking dentist.