Young Americans

by Josh Stallings

  • • •

  Night one, he called like clockwork. He joked about what hicks Breeze had sent along to cover him.

  • • •

  Night two, called again. This time he whispered sweet endearments. Told her when this was over he was taking her to Mexico for a fun and sun vacation.

  • • •

  Night three, she waited all night. No call.

  • • •

  She phoned in sick the next day, sitting by the phone waiting for Callum to call. By the afternoon of day four she knew she was screwed.

  • • •

  Sam called down South. Her brother answered. She said she was coming home for a bit. She played it off as just needing a break from Hicksville. He said he was glad regardless of the reason.

  Everything Sam owned fit into the Firebird, with room to spare. One of two things had happened: either Callum got jammed up by his buyer, or he had stolen the load and left Sam holding the bag. If Callum had screwed her it was maybe to be expected. Hurt, but what was a cat like that going to see in a big girl like her? Hell, he could be boning any Twiggy he chose.

  Regardless of why, she was screwed. Breeze would be hunting her, that was a fact. He might care about her, but cash was the temple at which he worshipped. It was time to run, hard and fast. South.

  She almost made it too.

  CHAPTER 3

  * * *

  “You wouldn’t shoot an 18-year-old girl. Would you?”

  “You bet I would. You bet I would.” —Killer Elite

  “Breeze’s money or his weed. You got to give us one or t’other.” A bicycle chain pinned Sam to the barn’s center joist. Shadows leapt and fell with the gas bursts of the cutting torch. Sam had been filling the Firebird’s tank when they nailed her. A cut-down twelve-gauge in a shaking hand had convinced her to drive to their farm. She knew these guys. Not bad men. Not real bright, but she doubted they were killers. It wasn’t until they chained her to the beam and lit the torch that she started to worry.

  “Don’t make Cracker get down to scorching that pretty flesh of yours.” Sardine was a grimy pig of a man. Sweat and grease stuck his sparse hair to his skull. “Nothing? OK, Cracker, time to put in some work.”

  “Wait.” Sam scrambled to make her brain fire quick enough to save herself. “Breeze, you dumb hick. He hired you to get his money back.”

  “Of course Breeze hired us. So, you gonna give it up, or does Cracker get on with this here BBQ?”

  “I cleared it up. Ask Breeze. He’n me, love will keep us together.” She was tap dancing so fast she was starting to quote Captain and goddamn Tennille. She didn’t have time to think. “I was you, I’d get my ass on the phone with Breeze. We’re together now, Breeze and me. He tell you that?”

  “No, you’re with that Callum fella. He’s who ripped Breeze off.”

  “Was with. Now it’s Breeze and me all the way.”

  “Oh hell, every bitch he bones thinks they is together.”

  “See this ring?” She was twisting to show her finger.

  “Get the ring.”

  Cracker did as told. He pulled at the ring, but it wouldn’t budge, so he pulled harder. It felt like he was going to tear her finger off. Sam tried not to cry out. “It’s not coming,” Cracker said.

  “Then get a hacksaw.”

  “Wait!” Sam said. “Think Breeze will want you cutting up his ring?”

  “Not gonna cut the ring.”

  Cracker spit on her finger. He realized what he’d done, gave Sam an apologetic smile. The ring slid off. Sam mouthed ‘thank you’ to Cracker as he passed Sardine the ring. It was 18k gold. Victorian. It had belonged to Sam’s grandmother. “Careful, been in Breeze’s family forever. And he gave it to me. That sound like he’s mad at me?”

  “A ring, hmmmm? Now that’s a bitch of another color. How do I know? I mean, well, you could be laying down a bullshit trail.”

  “Ask him. But first tell him what you did to me.”

  Sardine furrowed his brow, struggling to think. “I didn’t do shit.”

  “You didn’t rape me?”

  “Wait a minute, slow up.”

  “Because that’s how I’ll tell it. Breeze hates rapists. The pigs will eat your balls for breakfast.”

  “Bullshit. Breeze ain’t gonna believe some Bay City bitch over kin.”

  “Let me talk to Breeze, get this straight. Or call him yourself. Don’t forget to mention I’m chained to a goddamn barn post and getting splinters up my cooch.”

  “You still want I should light her up?” Fire danced on Cracker’s childlike face.

  “No. Not yet. No. What I want from you, what I need, is ten seconds of silence. Think! Think!” Sardine started pounding his own forehead with the palm of his hand.

  “You want help?” Sam said. “Give me a shovel and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Damn, damn . . . win, lose, damn. OK burn her. No, stop. I’m calling Breeze.”

  “Wha, what about the rape thing? You didn’t rape her did you, Sardine?”

  “What? You haven’t left my side. Been like a third tit since we snatched her, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then when exactly would I have raped this bitch?”

  Cracker was trying to puzzle this out.

  Sam worked her arms straining against the chain. It cut into her wrists. She knew sooner or later these boys would melt down.

  “Keep an eye on her. But don’t speak to her.”

  “Where you goin’?”

  “The house, make a call. You, bitch?” Sardine gave Sam his full tough guy stare. “Don’t try nothin’.”

  Blood was running down Sam’s wrists, but one hand was free. The chain hung loose, still attached to her left hand. She looped it once over her knuckles and watched Sardine walk out. Cracker turned around, looking her over. “Never did get to see you dance up to Rapunzel’s.”

  “Didn’t miss much.”

  “I bet you was good. Kinda hope I don’t have to fire you up.” He was moving in on her, the torch in his hand hissing. “Don’t be afraid. Like you said, Breeze will straighten this out.” He looked from the torch, up to her. “You ain’t gonna’ tell them lies about rape and all.”

  She mumbled a response. He leaned in. The chain took him in the temple and almost popped his eye out of its socket. She stepped into the second blow, this time using her chain-knuckled fist to break his nose. He was howling, blood smearing his face. His upper lip quivered as he swung the torch at her. Flame singed her spikes as she leapt back. Working the wound, she swung the chain again, hitting the growing hematoma over his temple. His eyebrow burst. The blood blinded him. Reaching to clear the blood, he took off his eyebrows with the torch. He squealed and dropped it. The dry hay around him exploded to life.

  Sam was out and gone before Sardine cleared the farmhouse’s front porch. The Firebird spat up a rooster tail of gravel and dust as she bounced away. In the rearview mirror she saw Sardine grabbing a garden hose and spraying his brother’s burning shirt. Hitting asphalt, she slid sideways until the T/A radials hooked up and she was gone into the night.

  • • •

  One hundred feet past the Humboldt County line was a liquor store/gas station. She did not buy skunk weed from the kid selling it out of his wizard-painted van. She did make a phone call.

  “Breeze?”

  “Where you calling from? I don’t hear flames and moaning, so it looks like I’m going to have to send you to hell myself.”

  “Hey, I know it means shit and all, but I had no idea that dick was planning to take you down.”

  “Your vouch, your debt. Don’t play dumb. Cash, grass or ass, and as fine as your big ass is, it ain’t worth no twenty grand.” Twenty grand. He could have said a million, wouldn’t be any easier to get.

  “What happened to the boys you sent with him, why aren’t they on the hook?”

  “James bros. Dead.”

  “Damn, I liked them. Breeze?”

 
“Yeah, Sam?”

  “You see any plan where I don’t end up dead?”

  “Not yet. But I’m ruminating my ass off. I like you girl, fact. But I let this pass, every hick with a gun and some balls will think he can take me down. They will come at me hard if I don’t make an example out of you.”

  “Breeze, we are both fucked here.”

  “You, little girl, you are fucked.”

  “I’ll get you your money, you know I will.”

  “Twenty large, plus five for the barn. Due, um let’s see, hmmm, how about we say . . . now.”

  “It’s going to take time, but I’ll get it, promise I will.”

  “Or die trying. Look, call me in two days, I may have a gig that could square us.”

  “Breeze?”

  “Yeah, kid?”

  “We had some fun didn’t we?”

  “Sure did. Gonna’ miss you down at the club.”

  Sam hung up. Breeze was the swinging dick in Humboldt County. Owned cops. Any pussy or pot got sold he was sure to get his taste. Did his power extend down the coast? She didn’t think so. She hoped she was right.

  Sam shoved Ziggy into the 8-track. Cranked up “Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide.” She sparked a Marlboro and mashed down the gas pedal.

  Owing Breeze big money had never been Sam’s plan. Hell, stripping hadn’t been in the cards either, but life did what life did, she was just along for the ride. Pulling alongside a VW bug, she saw it was driven by a handsome young man. His girlfriend leaned into him, twirling his long hair in her fingers. An “HSU Rocks!” bumper sticker pegged them as students. This happy little picture pissed Sam off. Fuck did they know about real life, living on daddy’s dole. They were blissfully stupid sheep to be sheared.

  At heart, Sam was a thief.

  Fact.

  By fifteen she had formed her own crew. Candy, her best friend, was her partner in crime. Bobby Willis, sixteen, was a druggy and a bit of an idiot, but he had a car and driver’s license so they used him. In trade for head, Bobby taught Candy how to boost cars. As it turned out, she was a natural. When Bobby fell in love with Candy they cut him loose. But with her looks they never had trouble finding meatheads for grunt work.

  The baby bandits, as Sam’s grandfather called them, pulled small-time scores, mostly creeping houses while the owners were away on vacation. Sam would scan the want ads for folks wanting pet sitters, or even better, plant tenders. No one needed their plants tended if they were going to be in town. They were never even close to being caught. Sam had two skills. Yes, she could finesse a lock, be it a dead bolt, safe or padlock, but she also was a hell of a heist scriptwriter.

  By seventeen, they started to feel invincible. Creeping houses started to lose its thrill, was becoming a job. So they upped the ante. Took more risks. They traveled down to San Jose to pull their first armed robbery. A liquor store. Sam had cased it. It went down slick, but they only cleared a couple hundred bucks apiece. The risk to reward ratio was out of whack. They decided it had been a thrill, but going in armed made no real sense.

  It was time to return to what they knew. Fate sent Valentina their way. Sam and Candy met her at Taxi Dancer, a gay disco in the city. They were seventeen, flying on fake IDs and grown-up attitudes. Valentina knew lots of rich men with lots of pretty things she didn’t mind helping Sam steal. “Girl, they have massive in-sure-ance. ’Sides, they will never miss what crumbs we take. Them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall steal.”

  The added danger of alarm systems and guard dogs perked Sam and Candy up. They’d still be at it, but two weeks before Sam’s eighteenth birthday her father was arrested. The cops found him with sixty thousand dollars in gems from a jewelry store heist. His inside man sold him out. “You think you’re bulletproof. You’re not,” he’d told Sam. He was out on bail awaiting trial. If convicted it would be his third fall and they would treat him as a habitual offender. He was looking at a long, long sentence. “You’re almost an adult, kiddo, no more juvie or community service. Time you hang up the picks and become a citizen.”

  “Someone has to earn,” she said.

  “True, but you’re no good to your mom or brother if you’re locked down. You’re a clever girl. Find another way.” It took some work, but he ultimately made Sam promise to go straight. She was stoned at the time and never meant to keep her word. Then a week later he was killed by a drunk truck driver and she figured she had to do right by his memory.

  Admittedly, stripping was a fucked up way to do it.

  She spent her high school years high, drunk or on a heist. It hadn’t prepared her for a lot of straight gigs.

  • • •

  The sun was coming up when the Firebird crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. Fog-shrouded girders disappeared above. The city was mysterious and magical, always had been for Sam. For this moment, her spirit rose. She would find a way to get straight with Breeze. Or she would leave him hanging. She would find a better way to knock out the bills, a way that didn’t involve letting hillbillies ogle and touch her. In this city, at this moment, everything was possible.

  CHAPTER 4

  * * *

  “Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.” —Queen

  Mountain View.

  Sam was exhausted when she pulled the Firebird into the Creekside Apartments visitors’ parking. The long, two-story, L-shaped stucco building sat across a drainage ditch from the 280 freeway in Mountain View, California. Nestled amongst high-power lines and other equally shabby apartment buildings, it lacked both a mountain view and a creek. What it did have was apartment 3B, Sam’s family home. Or the home they’d lived in for the longest stretch—two and a half years and counting. When your dad is a thief and a gambler, the family income fluctuates with his luck. When he was up, they rented nice houses in Palo Alto. Other times they rented a double-wide in Watsonville. Now that he was dead, it was Creekside. Sam lived in the crap shed in Humboldt while most of her cash flew south to help her mother cover the bills. She didn’t begrudge the money sent. Sam understood there was us and them; she took care of us, and clipped them whenever she got a shot.

  At the front door, Sam took out a leather case, in which was a set of lock picks she made with her grandfather when she was eleven. They took apart a bicycle wheel and flattened several spokes with a hammer and anvil. With a file and needle-nose pliers they shaped the picks. It wasn’t long before she could open any keyed lock faster than it took most people to find their keys.

  The apartment was silent. The living room was trashed. On a wall hung a torn sign that said WELCOME HOME SAM! Empty beer and whiskey bottles littered the countertops. Ashtrays overflowed. The rhythmic clicking of a record needle playing the empty final groove over and over droned on infinitely.

  • • •

  Sam crept into her little brother Jacob’s room and flipped open the curtain.

  Sunlight exploded through the window, popping Jacob’s eyes open. He leapt up, striking a cheesy kung fu pose. The room spun and he fell back on the bed, fighting down the bile.

  “I’m gonna puke.” Jacob grabbed for a trash can, leaned over and after a moment sat up. “False alarm. Pukeus interruptus.” He let out a loud laugh.

  “Shut the fuck up, you little freak, you’ll wake Moms.”

  “She’s in Mexico with Karl.”

  “Oh, yeah. With Karl? As in dating?”

  “Are you asking is she boning the honorable Karl Fuckwad? Just thinking about it makes me want to pull an Oedipus Rex and stick a needle in my eye.”

  “Me too, kid.” Karl was a lawyer. A shady lawyer. He’d been on retainer for the family as long as Sam could remember. Looked like he’d swooped in and started dating their mom. “She left you alone?”

  “No big. Terry’s been here, a lot.”

  “I feel so much better then. Two teenage boys with no supervision, what could go wrong? You keeping up with school?”

  “Winter break. And I’m eighteen. Can legally buy smokes or enlist and go kil
l me some nice little brown people.”

  “Right, point made. I don’t have to worry about you, do I?”

  “No.”

  “Couldn’t she do better than Karl?” Sam chewed on her inner lip.

  “Guess not.” Jake thought for a moment. “Is switching out a thief for a lawyer trading up or down?”

  “Pop for Karl is a definite down turn.”

  “Yeah . . . Sam?”

  “What?”

  “We had a party for you.”

  “Did I enjoy it?”

  “You weren’t here. Were you?”

  “That fucked up, huh? No, just got in. Bet it was a blast. Valentina hit on Terry?”

  “Of course.”

  “He’s passed out in the living room and Val’s in Mom’s bed with Candy, so I guess she failed.”

  “Doomed. He’s straight.”

  “So you keep telling me.”

  “He is. You OK?”

  “Just rode hard and put up wet. Be fine with some sleep.”

  “Are you lying?”

  “Probably.”

  “Sam?”

  “Yeah, Jake?”

  “I missed you.”

  She gave her brother a smile and a tired headshake. Sam was home, Jacob was massively hung over and all was right with the world.

  • • •

  By one that afternoon, Sam was rested and hungry. It was time for breakfast and a massive injection of coffee. Of course the only thing in the fridge was either booze or mixer. Stepping into the harsh daylight, Jacob saw the Firebird and let out a low whistle. “Tight short. The Valiant?”

  “Died an ignoble death.” Sam unlocked the driver’s door.

  “Where did this beast come from?”

  “It was payback from a douche I’d rather not talk about.”

  “A douche you were banging, yes?”