by Jane Brooke
Tony, a street thug made good, never had met anything like her. Brains, stunning elegance, class as he perceived it, more of that rare commodity than all the bitches he had ever met. She had mesmerized him, hell, hypnotized him, platinum cunt, a pendulum, back and forth, white skin, white hair and a bitch attitude. She had known that, had used it all.
She was voracious, books, art, music, languages, history, all of fucking all of it. The fucking horses out at The Estate. Dogs barking, cats meowing, parrots chirping, she knew she was an impossible whore and abused every moment of it.
He never said no to her, ever.
Dream girl, past, presence, AN EIGHTEEN wheeler slots along side, smoke kicking it out of the twin chrome pipes.
BACK from the past. Blink, blink, she’s back, feels the power wind slashing from the diesel rig. Looks up, sees the guy smiling, hand on the Peterbilt’s horn string. Smiles from her, a bunched gloved fist raised in the wind, a yank from her, just a girl on vacay having a great time.
He grins. “ZOOOOOT...ZOOOOT.” The air horn blasts.
She giggles, winks at him, gets a grin and, then the power tail winds swish as he racks past her.
Blip, blip, blip and a throbbing turn signal.
He swerves gently in front of her, kicking up tornado wind, one more drop of diesel blood moving slag across the arteries of a dying nation.
Another sip, Wild Turkey sizzles down her throat, warm tummy, potato chips chomped along the white pearls, time to smoke again. Zippo flicks, flame dancing in wind, red embers, feel good, very good, smoke lazing out of nostrils, memories materializing out of the haze of gray sky.
SEVENTEEN years old, beat, worn already, motels, quarters in vibrating beds and a year on the make and the road, ending up at ‘The Pony Club.’
Tony had fallen, flipped hard for her from the beginning.
Primal, basic, carnal he was a want when you want it kinda man. Difficult, edgy, violent, spoiled, impossible, smart, way to smart, were her good attributes. Punishment, slaps, beatings when she was bad, seemed to light her up, turn her on. She had laughed in his face, dared him to kill her.
She was way above his pay level in brains, and he knew it. He was hopelessly in love with her.
Men and the women they love; go fucking figure.
Beauty, brains, above all a ‘You can own me, but never really have me’ attitude, mesmerized him.
No bitch had ever captured his heart, scalded his mind like her. He was ‘Old School’.
If ya love someone let them go. If they don’t return, hunt them down and cut their heart out of their body,
Tony was a sentimental guy after all.
He gawked at her like her cunt was paved with diamonds. Go figure. He had a sink hole for her in his fat encrusted beater.
He actually trusted her, a whore, a cardinal rule of NO, NO, NO, never do that. What did she do in the end to repay his love and loyalty? She fucked him, slithering away with well over a half-mil of his money.
It proved an old adage.
A whore is a whore is a whore, no matter how you cut up the pizza and the bitches will rip you off every fucking time.
Tony Uruguay should a known better, but don’t they all say:
“Ain’t love blind?”
Singing along to Madonna rifling into her head phones, Material, Material, she’s a Material girl reality peeks back in, just like the flames of that fucking blow torch if she doesn’t get her shit together and begin getting serious, dead serious.
Even a kinky whore with an IQ north a 170 knew that what Tony owned, he owned for life. And, that all a the kink brains in the world won’t make the pain go away once he did get back what was his.
Still she feels a little remorse, for she isn’t a sociopath.
What she is, is a tortured maniac with a suicidal obsessive-compulsive, manic depressive, violent, masochistic, self absorbed personality.
No one is fucking perfect.
Blink, blink, blink.
Her mind and eyes return back to the road.
Liking the road, she sips at a new bottle of Cuervo she had picked up at a slop stop. Moaning, for she is smoking too much, she vows to quit if somehow she gets out alive. Smoking is the least of her problems.
Again, Interstate sign, South, deep south, then North, odometer clicking away, boot tip rammed to the peddle.
Cough, cough, cough. Sputter, sputter. Shake, rattle and roll.
Her Cadillac is a junkie with the yips.
Winces, worries, fuel finds the carbs, engine levels out, another sip of Gold, she’s on and gone.
Body bag blues, a Wise Guys ex girl, on the lamb.
Welcome To Wonderland
WELCOME TO KENTUCKY.
She eyes the Interstate sign as she whizzes past.
Wondering if the dogs have been unleashed yet, she glances at her new military watch, Army Salvage store, strapped to her tiny wrist. A girl needs to keep track of time, especially when it’s clicking down to a concrete street tomb if she’s careless.
“Fuck him.” She whispers through cigarette smoke.
Gas gauge dipping, needle killing empty, tired, dirty, hungry, nerves burning off adrenaline, off ramp, time to get off of the Interstate anyways. Swings right, slows, hits the stop sign, obeys the rules, cops are bad, blinker throbbing, right turn, country road, accelerates, better, she thinks.
Inhaling her fatigue, she breathes, a sign of life as she presses shaking fingers to her eyes. The world changes, the south is like that. A country road, blacks, poor whites, shanty’s, stoops and porches, folks sitting, kids running, playing, creeks, rivers, a few overall black kids with fishing poles, it’s the south after all.
Nodding her head, fighting sleep, her nerves on tilt, she notes a bill board on the side of the road.
BILLINGSLEY GAS and GENERAL STORE...BEST GRITS in KENTUCKY.
“Okay.”
She plucks a cigarette from her lips, watches the butt spark on the road behind her, it is night.
“It’s cool.” She whispers, calming her mind, “I’m okay.”
More denial as a sliced in half sun burns orange setting behind her next to the green and the mountain she had passed an hour ago.
“So far, so good.”
More mumbling just to get rid of the terror.
She slows, dozens of signs posted into the earth. Bait, ammunition, beer, home style cookin’, lead fer yer scatter gun, gas, oil fer yer motor, turkey hocks, best in the south, plastered three feet high on sign sides.
Smiling, panic causes that, she swings left, insects squished on her dolls windshield, chrome bumpers, chrome grill, taxies up, landing the boat along a gas pump, promising best prices on Ethel gasoline in Elwood County.
Groaning, she twists the key, motor dies, coughs. The Caddy rattles, loses its breath and falls to sleep. So far so good, she’s still alive.
Vast dirt parking lot, soiled in oil, off of the country store. Big rigs, motor homes, some campers bellied down on the beds of pick-up trucks. Off shoot of the yard, scattered, rusted chassis, skeletons of cars, trucks, tractor axles, naked motors, body parts, cadavers of steel once gleaming, now dead and in crusted in rust.
Trying to level off, warmer now, no hat, blond short hair, shades, trying to get her brain back to cruise control, not feeling that bad really. She sees a red headed teenager, bib overalls, wiping grease from freckled hands, smiling, walking towards her; white skin like Wilhold glue. Seeing him, she slots her Boston Socks hat on her noggin, anything helps, leaks a look at the front porch of the Country store.
Southern men, old Negro men, remnants of the past, white men, mostly old, mostly overalls, fat men; their woman feed them right down in the south. They look like a tight knit group out of some old southern past nobody wants to remember. Their pushi
ng checkers, hop scotching along the red and black squares, drinkin’ beer, hard moon shine liquor too, some laughs and a lot a fucking stares, right at her.
“Fill her up fer ya, Mamm?”
Groaning, she winces. She might as well be wearing a Goodyear Blimp blink sign, saying “Mandal Here.”
Blond, striking, old flash Caddy, why did she even bother? White fingers, black sweat shirt on the De Ville’s passenger seat. Under the Hoodie, Bowie knife, cocked 44 Python Magnum, six in the chamber. Leave it alone for a while, she thinks.
“Some Ethel, Mamm.”
“Huh.” Minds clicks, burns, have to remember where I am filters in her head.
Blue eyes look up, frantic eyes, shades covering them, kids grinning through bad teeth, seems friendly and all though.
“Ahh, yes, please, fill her up. Cold drinks inside?” She already knows the answer to that.
She is spooked. She’s trying to get it together.
“Yes Mamm. Best selection on this here stretch a road. Ya jest go right on in there. Earlene I’ll help ya.”
She smiles, likes the friendly boy. He’s got a nice demeanor, couldn’t hurt a fly, an Innocent kid.
Earlene. REALLY?
“Can you watch my stuff while I do a little shopping? Please young man.” She’s looking for fucking Tennessee Williams to walk out of the stores door any sec.
“Sure. Ya just take yer time, Mamm. “I’ll check your fluids too.”
He’s lookin’ hard at her. Never seen such a beautiful lady before. He’d never forget a lady like that.
More smiles, she climbs over the closed door, tight jeans, all world body and steel toed boots making her taller, odd, Boston ball cap, blond hair, thin like no women in Kentucky he ever has been. All sexy and such like he done seen at the movies, Rialto theater over there, Overton City, Cineplex Screen, real nice, he gawks.
She groans and suddenly realizes she looks like a fucking alien to this boy. Glances to the stoop, Good Year Blimp, throb, throb, throbbing.
“Come look at me. I’m Mandal”.
Men gawking at her, chewing tabac, whispering, jabbin’ elbows into fat ribs, innuendos strip mining her brain. She’s fucked up again, she knowed it, knowed it real good? Fuck she’s even starting to think like them.
“Thank you, young man. Be right back.”
Lots a grin’s, back and forth, stoop men, the kid, gas handle, porch, red head grinning from ear to ear, his freckles melding into his white skin. Gosh what a swell gal, he thinks as he begins to pump some high octane gas.
Lester Goine’s
TEN MINUTES later, she walks from the store, nudges, grins, whispers following her. Glances, down the road, nothing, she exhales, standing under the neon, she is still alive. She looks at the checker players, their fans, wonders.
She knows that over decades epigenetic changes in primal Nematode Worms had evolved them, in a matter of generations. If so, what happened to these fucking people? This is how she thinks, a revolving cistern of information only she wants. Her question, well, something else to ponder later, if she does not have her eyeballs drilled out from a thug in NJ.
Over to the Caddy, she gasps, the car was moleculed with dead squished stuff, windshield a battlefield of Kamikaze insects and Turnpike rubber and dirt; now it shines like a brand new penny.
Kid materializes out of nowhere, startles her, big grins, friendly, wiping grease from hands with a red rag, chewing gum, head like one of those Bobble Head things, proud a what he done on his face.
“She’s runnin’ pretty good, Mamm, best as I could a seen. Radiator, leaks some, ain’t bad. She don’t burn much oil, ole girl. Checked her out, ya may be needin’ a fan belt pretty soon. Best ya check on that.”
Grin’s, her receptors, reeling, picking up true life in a black hole of space called her mind. She gawks at him like he just showed up from one of those 5 billion year old Dim-mass-runt stars, Red Dwarf’s, the kid is just so plain rare.
“Don’t have one in stock, I checked fer ya. Could have one in the mornin’ from Elwood, if yer settlin’ in at the motel tanight. Mamm?”
Mandal looks around, Uncle Jeb’s son, the porch, she expects some retarded kid to start playing the banjo like in Deliverance.
No incest yet, she peeks across and down the road. Blue neon, lights throbbing Blue Moon Motel...’vacancy’, some cars strewn around, some diner snuck into a slot next to the Blue Moon. She groans and looks back at the kid.
“Thinks’, I think I’ll mosey down the road a bit more tonight.”
She winces, mosey? Who in the fuck is she? If she only knew.
Boy nods, more grease on that red rag.
“Plenty a motel’s down yonder, best get that fan belt before too long though.”
Mandal ticks her head, feels weird, wired, checks the dimmer switches in her head, gamma ray bursts, strange, just plain fucking odd. She’s waiting for some guy to come out in a ripped up t-shirt screaming, Stella, Stella, he don’t, she winces; doll needs leaving real bad.
Bending to the driver’s seat, she leaves Mr. Smith & Wesson intact, underneath the sweatshirt, reaches into the back seat, rummage sale of girl weapons, cold cash, pulls out five twenties, turns to Miss Ellies son, asks. “How much?”
“She’s a guzzler Mamm, no doubt bout that. sixty-nine fifty, full Ethel top off.”
Liking the kid, can’t wait to evacuate a surreal stellar sea of just crazy, hands the kid four twenties, mistake again.
“Keep the change, you done good.”
She groans, thinks maybe she should join the boys on the porch, do some jawin’, some whitlin’; fucking forget about it. The kid does a double take; chaw suspended in mid chew, gawks at her, starts chomping again, smiles.
“WOW, thank ya Mamm. Thanky.”
She can see that he’s as happy as if he just got a new squirrel gun fer his birthday.
Mandal groans. I f the goddamn kid calls her Mamm one more time, she’ll whip it out her 44 and blow a vacuum cleaner through his head.
Simply nodding, she grimaces, for she might as well of shot a flare gun into the air announcing her arrival. This time, lady like, she opens her door, sits proper like, a class dame, peek-a-boos the rearview mirror and sees the ogling Jaspers.
“Fuck.” She groans.
Key twist, engines rumbles, coughs once, in gear as she edges out of the station, mind blistering, turn left, and begins to head south.
Day dreaming, she doesn’t notice the Kentucky State Police Cruiser bearing down on her.
Instantly, peripheral vision clicks in, sees the Cruiser, slams the brakes, does a complete 360, jacks to a stop, skids, tires smoking, aiming into the direction she had just come from. The Cruiser, tires locked, twists, screeches, slides onto the dirt shoulder, jolts, shudders, dust mingling with the moon beams.
Her pulse rampaging, she whispers. “Fuck.”
Eyes frantic, they tick at a huge African American Cop leering back at her through a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Though night, some cops never veer far from the role play.
“Party over.” She murmurs.
She bends, digs into her glove box, fishes around her 38, finds her license, registration, wondering about the 44, if now is the time to use it.
Hell, she has done that before, hasn’t she?
A twinge of pain rips her up, she can’t remember, again, if she has murdered before.
Denial is not a river in Egypt
With a crowd of mountain folk watching her like she’s a circus act, she thinks it through, grabs her documents, peeks at her sweatshirt, 44 resting, cocked under it.
No not now, maybe.
The Trooper is tall, powder blue uniform, cartridge belt, mace, bracelets, black iron, 357-magnum, gnarly, kind of gun that can stop a Cadillac with one in the eng
ine block.
He’s got one of those Canadian Mounties’ kinda hats layering now on a shaved pate; good looking man, she thinks. Tug on the black leather gun belt, once, begins to amble with purpose across the street, towards her.
Looks, back at the store, everyone is gawking at her. She groans, so much for disguises, brains and The Great Escape.
She might as well be fucking featured on COPS.
Play it out. Use it.
One bullet in a cop’s skull can change a girl’s life foreeever.
She thinks, reverting to someone else, actress, absent-minded beauty. In truth that is what she is, part of what she is, maybe a murderer too.
44, cocked, on the passenger seat, sweat shirt, she shoves Id’s, papers under it, 38 in the glove and a 8 inch blade in her boot. Open bottles of Wild Turkey, Cuervo Gold, seven hundred thousand gees of stolen mob money in a valise. Various knives, hatchets, stabbing and bludgeoning instruments, gun powder, base ball bat, she doesn’t look like a ball player, maybe the B Sox hat, on her locks will help.
“Perfect.” she murmurs
She wonders how she missed having a dead body stashed in the trunk.
She, smooth, pushes the Turkey and Tequila bottles under the sweatshirt, takes a scoop of breath and exhale’s.
She’s still taking oxygen, that’s a good thing.
Temples pounding and her eyes jacking off at the secret 44 under her hoodie.
Time to be a good girl, lost girl, frail girl, fucked up girl and maybe a girl with a gun.
She turns, looks up, way up at a black cop with mirrors on his eyes, standing, hand on his walnut pistol
grip. He’s staring at her license plate, which thank fucking God is legal.
Plan time:
Use it, all of it, a game plan, one which involves zero help from weapons.
Don’t want to go there, might, no, use what always works, your phenomenal beauty.
Cops eyes hitch, looks, at her, car, license, he’s alongside now, big man, blocking out the moon with shoulders like girders, hand still massaging the walnut stock of his cannon. No smiles yet, soon she hopes.
