He turned to me but didn't say anything. Scuffing his feet through the black mud. I tapped the pipe against the wall and put it in my pocket. He spat a half-tar stream on the ground and turned to me.
"Just two people in the vet; The fat guy and the kid. And the guy in the cage"
I stepped out into the tar and we walked down the middle of the alley.
"And the rest?"
We stopped at a cross-street and listened. The street was silent but for my ragged breath and the tar gently breaking over the rooftops.
"The bony woman came back and sat with Jesus and the other one. The big guy came in a little later. He didn't sit down, just paced around the room. I couldn't make out what they were saying. After they left I followed them until they went into your bar and then came to get you."
I worked the blue out from below my tongue and swallowed what was left of it. I could see the warm lights of the Animal Hospital along the alley.
"Alright. This should be quick. Hide somewhere you can see through windows and I'll gesture if I need you."
Fats was still sitting in front of the cages. He had pulled his chair up to the feral and he was smoking and speaking in a low voice. The feral had propped himself up against the back of the cage. I couldn’t tell if he was listening or if he was even awake.
The Kid was upstairs. He cut a silhouette against the building across the alley. I looked for a foothold but the building was just shallow cement over brick. The cement crumbled away when I put my boot to it.
There was a dimly lit foyer at the front of the Animal Hospital. One open door led to the room with the cages and a stairway led upstairs. The wide double-doors at the front of the room were barred from the inside, but the window was wide open and had no bars or boards or glass.
I peeled off my jacket and slipped out of my shoes. I bundled both of them against the wall beneath the awning. The jacket was already soaked through. I scraped the tar from my hair and wiped my hand on the wall.
I waited for a wave of tar to pass and pulled myself over the windowsill. My belt-buckle scraped against the wood and I froze - waiting for a sound from inside. Silence but for the low murmuring of Fats to the feral.
I lowered myself into the room and backed up into a corner.
The room was warm and smelled like black tobacco and stale water. The wallpaper had been clumsily salvaged and the walls below were a rich brown. The familiar human figure had been painted on them - over and over, some small, some large - a surreal evolution of technique. The tar had eaten into the walls and the lines were barely shadows on the drywall.
The carpet was patchy - a dull red over splintering floorboards. I put my weight against the wood and the boards creaked. Looking through into the next room, the floor was covered in a gray linoleum. If I could make it over the floorboards without being heard - I would be able to put the iron to Fats without a sound.
The feral would be a wildcard.
The stairs leading to the second floor were the same splintering wood. They had been carpeted at one stage - they were lined with rusted nail-heads - but it had long been salvaged or rotted away. The stairs would be unforgivably loud.
The tar in my hair boiled in the low light of the lamps. It hissed steadily and I flattened myself against the wall and waited for it to pass. The boiling of the tar and the beating of my heart seemed to travel through the wall and echo in the crawlspace. I held my breath. It was probably just the vibration of my jawbone and paranoia.
I could hear a faint, rhythmic tapping from upstairs. The Kid was probably rocking on a chair or tapping his foot on the floor.
I timed my footsteps to the waves of tar against the roof and worked my way to the open door. Fats had his back to me. I couldn’t see the feral. Fats had stopped talking and was blowing slow, thick clouds of smoke into the air.
There were two empty jars and a once-white ceramic ashtray on the table. It was full of brown liquid. The linoleum was carpeted with soft grey ash.
I crept into the room. My ankles cracked but Fats didn’t respond. I could smell his skin, his sweat. The row of cages rocked softly. Fats said something I didn’t catch. I took two long strides around the table and kicked him in the back - a long, meaty kick that threw him off the chair and face-first into the cage doors.
The bars rang metallic and the cages crashed against the wall. Thunder.
The wires bent inward but the feral’s cage door held. I took the ashtray in my fist and grabbed Fats by the back of his shirt. He wheezed and tried to catch his breath. His arms flailed out and searched for something to grip.
I hit him in the back of the head. Brown tobacco water ran down my arm. His breath was louder than the rattling of the cages or the bizarre throaty growling of the feral.
I hit him over and over. His shoulders slumped. The ashtray didn’t break. His scalp split and dark brown blood ran down his neck. His body poured itself onto the floor like water. I let him fall and hissed at the feral, turning to face the door. Fats was still alive, his back shook with every breath. I nudged his face with my foot but he was out cold.
I listened.
I could hear my heartbeat. The ragged breath of the feral. Fats softly convulsing on the floor.
The vague tapping upstairs had stopped.
The stairs creaked. I crouched and moved beside the doorway, pressing myself against the wall. I still had the ashtray in my hand. My palm was bleeding. The droplets sounded like gunshots against the linoleum.
Silence. I turned to the feral. There was no way to convey what I needed to say. I put my fingers to my lips and smiled. It felt wrong.
The stairs creaked again. I couldn’t place the height.
I would split the difference. Say the next step would put him on the final stair.
The wait was agonizing. I put my fingers to my neck and searched out my pulse. It was all blood and sweat and the echo of my breath in my bones.
There was no creak. The floorboards went silent.
The Kid caught me completely by surprise - his hand shot out from behind the wall and his fingernails dug into my cheek. I could feel the skin tearing away and gathering under his nails. I dropped the ashtray and caught his wrist, pulling him off-balance over my outstretched leg and sending him sprawling over the table.
He was fast - he spun around and shot a foot out into my crotch but it was too late - I was blind with pain and anger. I threw myself on top of him - the table broke below us. I held his skull by the temples, my thumbs along his eyebrows, his teeth gnashing all yellow and fractured.
He bucked his hips and threw a blind hook that caught me in the throat. I pushed my knees into his shoulders, tightened my grip on his skull and lifted his face toward mine.
“You weren’t my first choice. And I don’t really have a problem with you. But you’re part of this whole different thing.”
I tried to shrug but my shoulders were preoccupied.
I smashed the back of his head against the broken tabletop. His eyes rolled and sprung back, pupils dilating, locked onto mine. The sharp report of bone on wood gave way to a mute, wet thud but his eyes continued to spring back to life.
My breath was coming in fast and shallow.
I dropped his head and raised my fist. His eyes were dead pin-pricks. My bloodied palm had left a red handprint over half his face.
My fist hung limp. Frustrated.
I rolled off his chest and slid away from the body. His chest didn’t move. His spine would be liquid by now.
I stood up; staggering a little - catching myself against the wall. Fats was still slowly expanding and contracting in a wet lump on the floor.
The feral stared at me from the cage with dead eyes. His face was wet.
“I’m going to let you out, now. You’re free to go. If you do me one favor. Can you do that?”
He stared at me without reacting. I moved closer to the cage and put my face in line with his.
“I am going to open this door. Nod if you understand.”
He nodded.
“If you help me carry this body outside…”
I pointed to the Kid.
“…then you can go home and I will not hurt you. Nod if you understand.”
He nodded.
I wiped my palms on my pants and took out the tyre iron. My chest was covered in blood. My face pulsated. I must have looked broken.
“Shuffle back a bit.”
I wedged the iron behind the padlock on the wire door and levered it against the bottom of the cage. The row of cages rocked and started to tip forward; I put my boot up against the stack to hold them in place.
The metal twisted and snapped sharply and the cage door swung open. I took a few steps back and gestured to the Kid with the tyre iron.
He dragged himself out of the cage and crumpled to the floor beside Fats. His spine was bent at a sharp angle and his knees snapped back when he tried to stretch his legs.
I offered him my hand. He looked at it and shook his head, clawing at the cages until he was on his feet.
I stood over the Kid. His eyes were wide open and wet, tears crept down over cheekbones. I put my bare foot on his chest but I could feel no heartbeat and no breath.
The feral gradually straightened and shuffled to the body.
My heart was still beating fast, my blood felt cold. Refreshing.
"Have you got a name?"
He looked at me and then down at the body. His eyes were grey and vacant.
I nudged the Kid with my foot.
"Grab this and drag it out into the alley. Do you know where they put your gear?"
He bent down and grabbed the body by the wrists, shaking his head without looking at me.
"Okay. Fine."
I had no idea how long I had been there. I didn't want to be there when Jesus returned. Too messy. Too loose.
I met the feral in the alley. He'd done his job; the Kid was stretched out in the tar and the dragging of his heels had left two deep trenches through the mud along the alley. I scuffed them out with my bare feet and extended my hand to the feral.
"Good work. You're free"
He looked at me without expression and slowly turned away. I licked the blood from my palm and swallowed. It tasted hot and sweet.
His limbs were still rusty - he moved in jolts; awkward and sharp.
A little less than a day ago I had put the tyre iron to him as he stood at the bar, shanghai stretched across his torso. I'd been beaten and head-butted and cut up with glass. And now the tar was covering us in gentle waves and the open sky was shining against his skin.
My feet slapped the ground and his body tensed - jerking his shoulders up around his ears.
He turned a quarter-circle before I landed on him, my knees in the small of his back, and brought the tyre iron down in a perfect vertical slice.
The crown of his skull cracked and fell open. A hot, rancid cloud escaped into the air. The tyre iron slipped from my bloody palm and shot out across the alley, churning spirals in the mud.
I knelt on his back and pushed his face into the tar until the frantic bubbles stopped and we were left silent on a carpet of foam and blood.
The sky had escalated from dark purple to vibrant blue. My palm was hot with blood. The tar had worked its way into the open wounds on my face. My pulse began to slow and the pain faded in - an ice cold twisting feeling that seemed to throttle the raw nerves.
I looked at my palm in the light of the blue sky. It was raw and red and showed no sign of healing. My lip had fallen open and my mouth was full of bile and blood.
The Tarboy appeared silently and held the tyre iron to my face, handle first. I snatched it away and rolled off the feral’s corpse. I wiped my face with the back of my hand and it came away red and bright.
“Your hairball looks like bullshit, to me.”
His face was in shadow and I couldn’t see his expression.
I pushed the tyre iron through my belt and gathered my jacket and boots. The jacket felt cold and wet. I slipped two blues into my mouth and bit down on them. My saliva was sweet and filled with sediment.
“Okay so. There’s a fat guy inside and he’s still alive. Leave him. This guy here…”
I kicked the feral. His head was wedged firmly in the mud and didn’t move.
“…hide the body. Just so he’s not found for a day or so. And this guy over here…”
I walked to the Kid and gestured with my toe. I couldn’t bring myself to kick him. I felt like his eyes would spring open at any moment.
“…he goes to the meatbin. And quickly. Double quickly. Before they get back.”
I leaned against the wall and searched my pockets for smoke. They were all tar and dust.
The Tarboy threw the feral over his shoulder and jogged away. I felt a distant pang of envy and bit down on my cheek.
My neck was aching, my stomach still felt numb, and the blues were starting to feel thin and meaningless.
I’d started the process. There was no going back now.
I forced a smile; peeling my lips back over two rows of crooked teeth in an attempt to telegraph to the world…
“I’m back.”
I had emptied the meatbin and stacked the meat around the corner, in the footprint of a half-broken awning. The Kid was pink and fresh and alone in the bin. His face was black and purple - I'd closed his eyes and he was barely recognizable through the tar and blood and the smirking lines of the tyre iron.
Lamplight slipped through the cracks in the poorly-boarded windows, I could hear the Doctor moving from room to room. He never slept. The exhaust pipes leaked invisible fumes into the alley. The air shimmered gently. It smelled like metal and gasoline.
I tucked myself against a rotting down-pipe and watched the road. Tarboy was watching the Animal Hospital. Fats would be needing the Doctor. They would have to drag his bloated body six or seven blocks, through the constant sheets of tar. The Tarboy would arrive first, which would give us a solid lead on whoever would be dragging Fats and his shattered head.
The sky was dark but the grainy blue was starting to warm to red along the seams. The tar had worked its way into the cuts on my palm and I could feel it puckering the skin along the trenches in my cheek. The blood had hardened to a thick black skin. It flexed neatly when I balled my fist.
I had expected them to arrive by now. It would be morning soon. I was covered in tar and I wouldn't be able to hide in the light. I couldn't be outside when the tar started to boil.
I could feel the Doctor's heavy footsteps through the wall. It smelled like he was cooking blues.
I still had the screws and nails from the bartender. The coil of copper wire had fallen through a hole in my pocket and was loose in the lining of my jacket. The paper I'd wedged into my pants was soaked through with tar and worthless. I threw it on the ground and pushed it into the mud with my heel.
Inside the building something metal clattered to the floor and the Doctor spat some curse that traveled through the downpipe but lost all meaning in the process.
Two voices carried from somewhere across the road but I couldn't place them. I crouched and moved into the middle of the alley, trying not to cut a silhouette. There was a flash of white skin between the tar - a few hundred feet away, cutting between buildings. A wide shadow limped around a corner. It looked like two people struggling with a broad silver mass that would be the injured Fats.
They were moving slowly but they were close. I couldn't see the Tarboy. I backed up the alley, straining to catch sight of them - but they were gone. I couldn't wait any longer.
The meatbin bell rang out and slapped the walls - echoing along the street until it faded into a jagged, low hum. The silence returned and felt twice as heavy. The Doctor swore but didn't sound like he was moving.
I rang the bell again - hard. The bolt strained against the bricks. Black-stained mortar crumbled over my fist.
"Goddamnit, you son of a bitch!"
The Doctor's voice cut through with the light b
elow the door and sounded worn and dry.
I started kicking the meatbin, over and over, ringing the bell every time my boot hit the metal. The bin shuddered; hollow and grating - and shifted inch by inch through the mud.
"I'm coming, Christ I'm coming - and you're going to get a faceful of gravel!"
He slammed something down and his heavy feet fell quickly toward the door. I slipped around the corner and pressed against the wall.
The door scraped open and he groaned - a wet sound that complimented the tar.
Silence.
Four or five tentative footsteps.
Silence.
He pushed the meatbin back against the wall and whistled between his teeth.
"Fresh."
He clambered into the bin and hefted the Kid out into the mud. Somebody beat against the front door - an angry sound that shook the building.
The Doctor kicked the meatbin and swore. I could hear him dragging the Kid inside.
"Coming, goddamnit. I'm coming."
He barely raised his voice. He sounded deflated.
I cut around behind the neighboring building and came out on the street. Muscles and Junior stood at the door. Fats was sprawled out on his face between them. I crouched against the wall and watched Junior beat the door with his fist. Muscles stared out into the street. His eyes turned to me and I froze. He showed no sign of recognition. He turned back to the door and kicked it.
The door opened and warm light stretched out onto the street. Fats was pale and wet in the light, twitching like an air-drowned fish.
They dragged him inside and the street was dark again.
“Lay him out on the floor - I’ve got somebody on the slab.”
I stood by the front door, away from the boarded windows, and tried to slow my breathing. The voices were muffled by the tar-eaten wood.
“What happened to him?”
Glass rattled - it sounded like the Doctor was cleaning him up.
“We don’t know. We had a feral locked up. We had been over at the bar - when we got back… he was on the floor, the feral was gone and the room was smashed up. It looks like he escaped somehow.”
Blue Meat Blues Page 11
