by Ryan Gattis
I did that once. I had to sniff half a fucking car mat when we stopped. Now I know better.
Well, maybe I don’t exactly know better. Not on everything.
Cuz people who know better don’t go back to the scene of the crime. That’s what the TV says anyways.
Which is why it’s stupid as fuck for me to go back to Momo’s, seeing as how it was his gun safe I cracked and stole them two pieces out of.
The Glock that Fate probably gave Payasa so she could do business.
And the snub I got in my pocket right now.
So, fuck it. That’s my saying today. Fuck it.
I’m going back. Might as well.
I push that pedal down.
I blast off.
3
I zone the fuck out sometimes. Like, for example, I remember doing the city of Los Angeles a very public service by feeding Garza a bala. I’ll always treasure that shit.
And I remember getting in the van.
And I remember checking that the gas was above half and it was, and then I’m flooring my foot down like my shit was pulling a caper on Miami Device.
And I remember the van smelling like old tortilla chips and like the ceiling would never let go of a million dead menthols.
And I remember thinking that smoking has got to be the worst habit there ever was, and then—nothing.
I rack my brain on that. I ask again.
Like, and then?
But I got no memory.
I don’t remember how I got parked halfway up the curb in front of Momo’s house, stopped a foot from his fucking mailbox, which has a little canary bird painted on it, and who the fuck thought that was a good idea? It definitely doesn’t look like a drug dealer’s house, but that’s the point, I guess. Camouflage.
4
My head hurts right above my ears. But the good-hurt kind. The kind that tells me I’m still here. The alive kind. The ready-to-fuck-shit-up kind. So I hit the gas directly, and the van snaps forward. It’s got some power to it the way it bends the mailbox back, but it don’t crack it or nothing. The thing just comes completely out of the ground like some fucking golfer pushing the pin over at the hole and bringing up a divot with it.
Fuck you, of course I watch golf on TV! What of it? Nothing better getting stoned to. It’s all quiet and green and shit. That’s one mellow high.
So, anyways, I back the van up and run over the mailbox again, and again, until I hear the metal box of it crumple under the tires. Shit, yeah.
By the way, I know it’s really called Miami Vice. I just like it way better as Device. Besides, I use it to fuck with people all the time. All the time.
I run the mailbox over once more for good measures, stop the van, and get out.
Life goes way better when people think you’re estupido. That’s a fact.
It’s like a thousand times easier to get over on motherfuckers when they think you don’t know simple shit.
I want you thinking I’m garbage. Disposable. Invisible. Cuz when I’m that in your mind, I can pull any fucking caper and get away with that shit clean.
But I’m fucking rambling now. Where was I?
Oh yeah, standing in Momo’s front yard with this high grass tickling my ankles and that’s when I learn I didn’t put any socks on before I left. My feet are naked in my black Vans, man. And I squish my toes around a little, and I’m like, huh. That’s weird.
Why the fuck didn’t I put socks on?
This shit is not normal for me on cocaína.
Normally, she’s my best friend. My push. My up-shift to the smooth-talking, fast-hustling, uncatchable me. The fly me. Not like a fucking crazy mosco, not like Ray, but like birds. Like liftoff. Like my whole body is a bomb, and cocaína lights my fuse just the right way. Not too much. Not that I burn too hot. But just right.
Yeah, I think. I’m a fucking bomb.
That thought sticks to me as I cross the grass, get up on the porch, and ring the doorbell like a fucking gee. See, I lean on the bell and I don’t let it go. It dings once and holds. It promises that dong sound, but that shit isn’t coming until I lean off and that’s not happening until somebody opens the door.
Right then I realize I’m standing in front of the peephole and I sidestep cuz you know I need somebody having to open it to find out what’s outside.
And that’s like some Red Riding Hood shit.
That gets me, but I got to hold my laugh in. ’Hood, for sure.
I put my ear to the door. I hear the TV on. I hear little shuffly feet, and I got a feeling—no, I know—Momo isn’t here. He’s sitting on his stash house just like he was last night. More product to protect over there. That’s when I know I gambled right in coming back.
Those little feet stop at the door. That’s when I know they’re thinking.
They’re thinking about whether or not they should say something, cuz maybe somebody’s got a shotgun or something on the other side.
I hear a voice.
“You know you need to come back later cuz Momo’s not here, and I ain’t opening the door for nobody.”
It’s Cecilia, the fat whore. I love it.
It’s perfect, this setup!
The same bitch that let me in last night when she shouldn’t’ve. The same bitch that passed out on me after taking what I told her was a speedball but was really just crushed-up sleeping pills. The same bitch that doesn’t know I knocked over Momo’s gun safe cuz I locked it back up and everything looks the fucking same in there still. Now I got in last night by playing to her thirst—cuz you know Momo wasn’t stupid enough to leave her with too much to use, she got left with just enough, and you know the second he left she used all of what he gave her and was itching for more when I showed up. Junkies are fucking predictable. And see, that’s exactly how I know I can’t pull the same shit on her twice cuz she’ll get fucking—what’s the word?
Suspicious.
Yeah, that.
So I switch it up. That’s easy though, cuz I’m like a actor sometimes. Pure improv. That means you make shit up in the moment, and go, and go. Basically, I flow.
“Cecilita, it’s me,” I say. “Antonio.”
See, she don’t know me as Creeper. Only as Antonio.
“Toño?” She says it like she don’t believe it’s me at first. She may be a fat whore, but she’s not estupida.
I cough a little. And when I talk, it’s, like, Oscar-worthy. It’s role-of-a-lifetime shit. To the door, I say, “Are you okay, mi angelita? Are you safe?”
That means my angel. Girls love hearing that shit. Especially big whores cuz nobody loves them. Nobody treats them all tender. I use that to my advantages. I don’t got to respect them. I mean, shit, I shouldn’t. But sometimes, I got to be tender. It’s a card to be played, and I play it like a motherfucker—laying it down just right, and I know it’s just right when she says . . .
“Why’re you asking?” And her voice is soft and kind of like maybe she don’t believe me.
I know her eye’s to the peephole. I know she’s waiting to see me and I can’t waste this moment, so I rifle my pockets and by God’s good luck there’s a razor blade in my left hip one. It only clips my pinkie nail as I snatch it up quick.
This kid on my block growing up, his dad used to be a luchador—you know, one of them masked wrestling types—down in Sonora or some shit. The Praying Mantis, he was. Mantis religiosa. Had those weird bug eyes on his mask too. (I hated that shit as a kid. Freaked me the fuck out. I see it in my dreams sometimes, but don’t tell nobody. It don’t pay for fools to know your weaknesses. Not ever.) But anyways, this kid taught me that his dad said nothing bleeds like the forehead. It tricks a crowd into thinking you’re hurt every time. It’s practically a fountain of fucking drama, and it always looks real.
So you know I cut quick on my hairline and a chunk of black hair comes away in my hand when I pull. Shit. Didn’t mean to do that. I stare at it for a second, and then I drop it in the flower bed beside the door, the one with no f
ucking flowers in it, just dirt. It must help that I’m sweating cuz that blood is in my eyes and burning in a second.
I know she’s still looking, so I give it one more second and then step out so she can see me. I hang my head. And then I look up with the best puppy-dog eyes anybody ever did in the history of the fucking world.
That shit’s an instant classic, guaranteed. That’s what Fate would say. Guaranteed. I take it one step further though. I lift my finger off the bell right then too, just to put an exclamation point on that shit.
Dong!
I open my mouth as the sound fades and say, “It’s just that I was so worried about—”
I don’t even have to finish talking before the locks go—one, two, three, and a slider beam goes ksssssss as it slides and bang, it hits the blue tile floor I know too good—and then the door opens so fucking fast that a little gust of wind ripples up my clothes.
It’s like Fort Knox opening its gates for me. No, it’s more like, what do they call it in that one story from them condoms?
Troy. Yeah. The wooden horse one.
The real me is hiding inside the fake me as I feel the living room open up. Stale air hits, and I see the same old familiar green couch, the TV on in the corner, Hungry Man TV dinners posting up on the floor. And there’s no windows open, no air-conditioning even, but it doesn’t smell like a fire in here, not like outside, and that’s good.
I hold my head right then and stumble against the door frame. Cecilia squeals and reaches for me.
Oh, Momo, I’m in. That’s all I can think. You stupid motherfucker, what were you thinking trusting this good-for-nada to hold your shit down?!
I’m fucking in.
5
Cecilia wants to know what happened to me as she pulls me inside. Damn, she’s demanding. She says to me, “Tell me what the fuck happened, Toño!”
She’s not my girlfriend or nothing. She’s just a chick my dealer fucks with, a chick I sometimes fuck with too. The kind nobody knows where she came from, she’s just there one day, and fucked up, and why not, you know?
She presses her face into my chest when she hugs me and it feels good.
She’s got Betty Boop black hair, all short like the tuft on the tail end of a whip, and bangs. Sharp-ass bangs, man. The kind that sits right over her light green eyes. Those eyes kill me.
Sure, she’s got a belly to her, all round like half a good watermelon, but fuck off, man, she’s had, like, two kids! She’s got construction worker shoulders too, but that means she just hugs better and shit—besides, all I can think about is them eyes anyway. They’re green like Gatorade.
I slump into her arms, not busting out of character yet, but wanting to.
Wanting to say, Bitch, nothing’s wrong. Shut the fuck up! just so I can see the look on her face that she knows she did wrong, that oh-shit-Momo’s-gonna-cut-me-up-when-he-finds-out look, and maybe I wouldn’t be able to help laughing at that, cuz knowing Momo, he would cut her too. That motherfucker loves a knife, and seeing blood on it. Loves it almost as much as breathing. But I keep it together.
I don’t say that. I don’t say anything. Not yet.
Cuz, see, she breaks away from me and runs to the kitchen. I see her ass as she goes. I see it flexing and fighting under some dark blue sweatpants and I’m almost sad when she comes back with a fucking fast-food napkin, pressing it to my forehead all sweet like I guess a mama would, cuz I forgot how good that ass was. If there were Olympic ass competitions, she’d qualify. I’m not saying she’d win a medal (fuck, it ain’t bronze good), but she’d qualify and she’d compete. She’d at least get through a heat or two. Definitely.
And right then, I know I don’t so much care about gloating.
I care about one thing and one thing only.
I kiss her hard, and I’m fast at the back-clasping thing of her bra, scissoring that shit open through her T-shirt with a fumbly snap, and she’s backing away, throwing stop signs with both hands (but not worrying about snapping her bra back up and that detail’s important), but she’s saying, “What the fuck, Toño? I thought you were hurt!”
I look at her for a long second. Not the puppy eyes this time.
Different eyes. Eyes that say, yes, I’m hurt but I won’t ever tell you how much, baby. There’s a art to pausing just right. Nailing them in your talk is like nailing rests in music. Without some good fucking pauses, it’s just noise.
When I’ve held quiet long enough, I blink the blood away, what’s left of it cuz I already feel it drying, and I look at the TV, at two dudes on Channel 7 running down a street carrying a fucking giant TV between them, before bringing my eyes back to her and say, “I feel like the world’s ending, like we don’t got much time left. And I got here as fast I could cuz . . .”
I pause on that shit (yes, again, cuz the first one was just buildup, this’s the crucial one), and I let my words hang as I look deep in her bright green ojos and purse my lips a little and say it all deep, “Only thing I could think about was getting to you.”
Damn, I’m good.
Lies are tools. Shit, words are tools, not all that different from guns. I use them to get what I want. Everybody does.
And you know that shit worked cuz her face looks like a bomb went off behind her eyes, blew her all up inside.
I’m admiring my work as she tries to catch her breath. I’m like that Warren Beatty motherfucker. I went Bugsy on her shit. Just give me that fucking Oscar right now cuz that fat whore’s on me so fast that we’re already falling, already down on the carpet and getting burns on our elbows before I even knew what hit me.
Her shirt practically takes itself off, the sweats too. Like magic.
With the TV going in the background, with people lifting stolen lawn chairs over their heads and going crazy in front of cameras and shit, I fuck her so good, man.
It’s the best kind of coke fuck. Like birds fighting, loud and wild and you can feel everything, except the slaps and the scratches don’t quite touch you.
Only the good gets through.
Only the good.
And she’s yelling at me to stick her from behind, going crazy, grabbing my balls and shit, telling me to bite her earlobe, to dig my fingers deep into her hips like I mean it, to slap her face—slap her hard. And you know I do. Shit. I aim to please.
We only have to stop once for a cocaína break. I sniff that shit off her right nipple and it’s like a minipancake it’s so wide and dark. I tongue it clean before she bumps her hit off my dick in one long line.
Where it goes from there, just imagine the craziest shit you got in your head. Shit you always wanted to do with a black-haired bitch with a big ass, a bitch that gets down and flexes all the way. Like, picture her doing some splits on you and sucking your index finger like it’s something else, all moaning, eyes rolling so far back in her skull you’re scared she’s having a seizure.
Yeah, like that.
Shit so good even panocha-licking Payasa would get off on it.
6
After’s when the questions start. Cecilia’s sitting on top of me like a cowgirl or something and, man, does she ever look pissed. I don’t hear her words at first. I don’t hear nothing, really. But as I lean forward and try to pick my head up off the carpet, words kick in and sync up with her mouth like somebody just turned my sound on.
It rushes at me.
“What the fuck, Toño? You passed out on me?! What, you got a concussion or something? And who hit you anyway? Some looters or some shit? Are they the ones that cut you?” And that’s not the end of it. It goes another minute.
I don’t remember passing out. Shit must’ve been better than I thought!
Nothing like a mad Latin woman though, man.
Nothing.
I finally find my tongue and turn it over. It’s dry as fuck and thick in my mouth, but I manage to say, “Bitch, nothing’s wrong. Shut the fuck up.”
Her eyes go big when she hears that. And yeah, that right there is when she knows sh
e made the biggest mistake she ever made opening up that door.
Cuz I’m already inside the house. Isn’t there something people say about not letting wolfs in or something? Cuz that’s me right now.
And Cecilia would run, but my hands are in her hair, slamming her back down, and she’d get up, but I flip her too fast. I’m on top, smashing my knees into her armpits and pinning her arms underneath her as I grab my jeans next to me on the carpet and dig for the spy-pockets only I know are sewn on the inside, the kind where you can only get what’s in them by reaching down behind the zipper. It’s in one of them pockets that I find the syringe, already loaded up with heroin I don’t know how old.
But it’s still liquid when I tap one of my nails against its plastic, splik-splik-splik, and I shake it and I see the smallest swirl and that’s good, I think.
Good for Cecilia anyway.
But she doesn’t seem to think so. She’s shaking her head as I dig my knees harder into her armpits. Veins jump up on her neck as she struggles, and I’m thinking, That’s good. That’s just fine. Cuz that’ll save me finding one in your arm, baby. Keep struggling. That’s good.
The needle’s still good too, not busted off or anything, but dull maybe. A little anyway. And shit, maybe only used once? I tease the tip of it into the biggest, meanest-looking neck vein she’s got just to test it, but it goes in pretty easy so I just push the plunger down.
Even she’s too smart to fight when I do that.
She knows what happens when you pull veins up. That shit’s serious.
She’s crying when she takes it, cries quiet tears when I get the plunger down to the bottom and already I’m starting to think about it better, like, how big was that fucking hit anyway?
I give it a second, but I get nothing.
Cuz I got no clue.
I don’t even know if I loaded it last night or this morning.
I can’t help laughing at that, cuz, man, do I feel bad. I almost blurt too. Almost say, Oops! Almost say it all loud too, but I don’t.
