by Erb, Thom
My jaw muscles tightened into knots, and my fists clenched. I hated politics and all the evil leeches it spawned. Now I had a fitting face for the dirty stereotype. Only a few more minutes until we land, I tried to convince myself.
I could see Novak and Higdon gauging my reaction, and they tensed for what might be the latest in what they so laughingly termed, McCutcheon’s Fist-of Follies, or my latest fuck up. They'd served with me a long time and knew. However, my career was far more important than letting this pig, or my overactive demons, get the best of me.
Attention: We are about to make our approach to land. So, please be seated everyone and make sure to fasten your seat belts. The Captain’s smooth voice crackled over the speakers of the tension-filled cabin.
“Well, Jesus Christ ridin’ in a sidecar ridin’ down Main Street. She is one hot piece of ass y’all got there, son.” The old man grabbed his crotch, and his tongue lapped the air. His grin looked like it could swallow the entire wallet. His cackle turned into a smoker's cough.
White rage exploded inside me. I took one-step toward the gaped-mouth politician, but halted as my partners matched my movement. “Old bastard is about to resign from office, involuntarily!” I murmured through clinched teeth.
“Take it easy, cowboy. Keep it in your pants. I’m just sayin’ your wife-to-be is one beautiful lady.” The fat letch held up his chubby hand in a halt motion. He flashed a sleazy smile. I wanted to knock his dentures down his whiskey-soaked throat, but stayed put.
“Yes. She…is. Thank…thank you, Sir.” I forced the words through pursed lips. Again, my partners watched me liked overprotective nannies.
“I do have to ask, son, does her pussy taste as sweet as she looks?” The lecherous pig’s tongue jutted out, licked the photo, and grunted as he held it to his slobbering face.
In a flash that even surprised the other Rangers, I lunged and slugged the horned up old man in the jaw, sending him rolling out of his chair and sprawling onto the carpeted floor. I saw Higdon rushing to the Governor's side, while Novak pulled me off and slammed me into the wall. In my rage, I fought back, but Novak had a good fifty pounds on me. The shots of Jameson played into the big man’s favor as well. He was too strong and pinned me down. We’d have a conversation about this later.
“Chill out, Jay. You don’t need this shit-storm,” Novak whispered into my ear. I stared at the bleeding piece of trash on the floor. I really wanted to kill the bastard. I knew my partner was right. The jerk was always right. I relaxed and dropped my arms. The big Ranger lessened his grip, but didn’t let go completely.
“You cool?” Novak asked. His intense brown eyes stared at me, making sure I understood. He wasn’t just pissing in the wind.
“Yeah. I’m cool.” I nodded. We both knew I was lying.
Attention: Take your seats y’all. I’m not sure what's going on back there, but we are about to land, so I suggest y’all take your seats. The Captain’s irate tone broke the volatile silence.
“Good idea. Governor, let me help you up, Sir.” Higdon tried to help the drunken man up.
“Piss off. I can get up myself, for Christ’s sake. I ain’t no damn cripple,” the Governor shouted, and dabbed a handkerchief across his bloody maw. He pushed away the offer for help and struggled back into his leather chair, now covered in whiskey. He tried to straighten his suit and save some dignity, but lost horribly on both accounts. His erection was still standing at attention as he continued to wipe his blubbery face. He shot me a dirty look. A look I'd seen far too often.
After a few heated moments, they were all buckled in and waiting for the plane to make its descent onto the runway. I sat there, and the reality began to hit me. I screwed up for the last time. That was it. No job. No wedding, and no honeymoon…. No goddamn career. What was I going to tell Inez? She would leave me for sure this time and take Bellia with her. I’d be alone…again. And damn well deserve it.
After the San Antonio and Galveston fiascos, I was damn lucky she stayed with my sorry ass that long. I couldn’t lose her and the baby. There’s no way in hell I could live without them. I might as well be dead. At this point, with the federal life insurance and pension, I was worth a hell of a lot more dead than alive. The option was never far from my mind.
I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. I swallowed hard and looked over at the twitching bastard, taking a deep breath.
“Sir, I want to apolo—”
“Save it, boy! You fucked with the wrong hombre, my friend.” The old man held up a hand and wouldn’t even look in my direction.
Novak, and Higdon, both gave exasperated, apologetic frowns toward me. It didn’t make me feel any better.
“Fuck me running!" I repeated as the small plane made its final decent into the Airport. My stomach and future sank the closer the plane neared the warm, wet pavement.
3.
I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide
Rt. 45 South, Oklahoma
Friday, 8:53 p.m.
The Cadillac roared down the slick road, whipping past trees and telephone poles like they stood still. They'd stopped for gas and more booze at a small town Stop-N-Rob and acquired more than alcohol.
“What’s the word on the puta, McCutchon?” Isandro asked, sipping from a bottle, and rubbing the top of a blonde girl’s head.
“No offense, Boss, but why you have such a hard-on for this guy?” Cahill asked.
The rest of the crew fell silent and stared out the windows. Even Bobby and Manny, who were in the middle of molesting a young bleach-blonde dressed in a high school cheerleader uniform.
“Who the fuck is the pasty-ass, white bread puta?” Isandro held his thin, muscular arms out wide and looked deeply for an answer.
“Hey brother, he’s new. He don’t know what’s goin’ on,” Hector abruptly said from the driver’s seat.
“Yeah, he’s cool, Boss,” Manny added. “Just stupid is all.” They all laughed, and Isandro shot the thin white boy a long, cold stare.
“Sorry…Boss. I was just wond...”
Isandro stared with a fiery glare at the shaking white boy. “They fuckin’ set me up, esé, if ya must know.” Isandro leaned against the backseat of the big Cadillac, while the girl forcibly serviced him.
“Him and that bitch of a District Attorney.” Isandro felt the rage welling up inside him. He took a long drink, but it did little to calm the fire that licked his insides. He knew he was guilty of every charge and even many more that no one knew about. But he would not be controlled or punished by anyone, especially the white law pigs and the traders such as the bitch DA that helped to extradite him for the six cases of murder back in Oklahoma.
Both of those motherfuckers would die painful, slow death. Isandro's grim vow was the only thing that got the brutal killer through each hellish day in the hole.
“The bastard is hard to find. We spent some cake and fount out he's shacked up somewhere in Houston, but that's as far as we got. But, we found him. You'll love this, homes.” Manny chuckled and let white plumes of smoke out with each wheeze. “He’s gettin’ married and has a fuckin’ kid.” The young banger’s shaggy hair covered his bloodshot eyes.
“Oh, hell no.” Isandro laughed, his hand gripping tighter on the girl’s head. He sipped from the bottle and looked out the window at the rain pelting the glass.
“I shit you not. And you’ll never guess who that pussy is getting married to?” Manny took a long drag from the joint, nodding with an illegal smile a mile wide.
“Who?” Isandro rubbed the girl’s head as she continued to blow him. He ignored her sobs and cries for mercy. With a wicked smile, he quickly yanked her hair back.
Manny and the others laughed. “That Santana bitch, esé.”
“Merry fucking Christmas to me,” he stated coldly.
The rest of the crew nodded and smiled with their boss.
“McCutcheon, and that bitch DA, are tying the fuckin’ knot?” Isandro slammed the girl’s face down on his member and bellowed a laugh
that terrified everyone inside the speeding Caddy.
“It’s true, brother,” Hector hesitantly spoke up from the driver’s seat. The rest of the crew followed his lead and the car erupted with raucous laughter and calls for more booze and bloody, violent revenge.
“Conchetumare!”
Isandro slapped the white girl blowing him in the back of the head. “Watch your fuckin’ teeth, puta,” He howled as the skunky pot smoke rolled from his mouth.
The girl's terrified sobs and cries for help fell on deaf ears and only received a devilish grin from Isandro. His cold black eyes stared at the trembling girl. He tilted his head with dark curiosity.
“I didn’t say stop. Suck my dick or suck this.” He shoved the barrel of the .357 into her quivering mouth. The convertible filled with drunken, drug-induced laughter as the terrified girl, who's college ID said was twenty, but she didn't look was lucky if she was a split-second over the age of sixteen, deep throated the big gun. Isandro liked that. She quickly took the stocky Mexican’s member back into her bleeding mouth, and her tears helped lubricate the blowjob.
“See, you just need to know how to train these putas.” Isandro yanked the girl’s hair, and he laughed as she whimpered. He took a swig from the Tequila bottle and poured it over the crying girls head. The laughter only got louder. It had been a long 72 hours and much blood had been shed and lives lost, but Isandro thrived on that shit—lived for it. And the more mayhem and chaos he created, the harder his dick got, and the darker his aspirations became. The bloody trail of carnage began in McAlester, Oklahoma, and only grew more brutal and deadlier the farther along he and his circus of drug-induced insanity traveled.
“Can ya save some of that tasty ass for me this time, Issie?” Cahill begged from the front seat.
Isandro glared at the punk. “Wait your fuckin' turn, bitch. Besides, she's too fine to waste on your pasty-white ass.”
“Ah, hell, nah...man.” drool slipped from Cahill's slack mouth onto the leather seat as he rubbed the small aching in his worn, blood stained Wranglers.
“Keep that shit to yourself, man.” Isandro glared, trying to ignore the kid.
The night sped by like a movie in fast forward as the angry Mexican spilled his load inside the terrified teenager’s mouth. He pushed her toward his anxious flunky and wiped his cock in her hair. He took a sip from the bottle as he shoved his prick back into his pants. He owned the world, and he planned to rape it of all he could. Breaking out of prison wasn’t easy. When you are part of one of the most powerful gangs in the country, if not the world, you can get away with shit like that.
Isandro lost track of the mangled bodies he left in his wake. He didn’t give a shit either way. He had spent nine hard years in an Oklahoma prison and only had one thing on his mind. Well, maybe more than one. You can only fuck and drink enough before that gets old. No, his sights were set on Mexico. His family was there, waiting. He had missed most of his kids’ lives, and he wasn’t wasting any more time. He didn’t care how many cops or innocents he had to kill to get there. He was going to take what was coming to him...
Freedom.
He was damn tired of being the world’s bitch. He had taken the fall for the Crew, and he was damn proud to do so. There were far too many pussy’s running the show down in Mexico. They all needed a kick in the ass. If that didn’t work, a bullet to the bean would train them pendejos damn quick. He took a swig from the bottle of Tequila and watched as the twitchy white boy and Manny took turns pounding the young white girl. It made him laugh as she cried out for help through a spit, blood covered mouth. It made his dick twitch and made him think about sticking it in her ass one last time. However, the sudden need to piss washed that urge away.
“Hector, pull over man. I need to piss,” he ordered.
“Got it, el hermano.” Isandro’s twin nodded from the driver seat.
The old Cadillac veered off the rain-soaked road and pulled in behind a closed McDonald’s. The steam rose off the hot pavement like a steak sizzling on a grill. The moon was soft and glowed an anemic yellow as the big car came to a stop behind the overfilled dumpster. The strains of Mariachi music bounced off the clay red, yellow, and white bricks of the fast food joint and the dumpster as Isandro staggered out of the back seat. In one hand, he held his stiff prick, and in the other, his loaded revolver. He looked ready to use both.
Groans of orgasm followed Isandro as he found a place to let his piss flow and have a break from the rutting hogs in the Caddy. He leaned against the rusty blue dumpster, and even his piss fled his body with anger. He was once a kid on the streets who loved to help the old women of the town and all that shit, but once you get stabbed and shot a few times by so-called ‘family,’ you learn fucking quick that trust is hard to come by. That very thought had helped him carve his way from Oklahoma to this shitty, rain soaked parking lot, filled with used rubbers and dirty heroin needles.
The light from the Caddy’s headlights danced across the sparkling broken glass blacktop. He motioned with the pistol, and Hector knew exactly what he meant. The rain poured down and danced as Isandro’s goons yanked the young blond girl from the idling car. She screamed and pleaded for help, but the raging thunderstorm, and the Mexican gangster’s lack of giving a fuck, washed it all away like the early spring’s torrents. Two of his crew threw the hysterical girl onto the yellowing blacktop in front of their boss, who was rubbing the revolver against his stained zipper.
“Please…. don’t,” the blonde quivered.
“Don’t what?” Isandro knelt down.
‘I…I did everything you wanted. Please don’t…”
“Bitch, you keep sayin’ don’t, so what the fuck do you NOT want me to do?” Isandro smashed the bottle over her shivering head, and her blood instantly mixed with the pouring rain. He stood and put the large revolver to her sobbing head. The cheerful mariachi music and raging storm almost washed away the gunshot that sent the girl’s brains across McDonald’s empty parking lot.
“Hector, let’s get the fuck outta here,” Isandro said. The girl still lay twitching on the cold pavement, as he got back into the Caddy and slammed the door.
“Next?” Isandro said.
4.
Going So Good
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Parking Garage
Friday, 9:01 p.m.
The landing and uncomfortable disembarking was the longest thirty minutes of my sad life. The Governor finished the bottle of whiskey as we waited to land, and I knew damn well there was no talking my way out of this one. Part of me knew the sick bastard had it coming and didn’t feel bad about knocking him on his old ass. In fact, I wished my partners would've let me finish the job. That was what my therapist called my ‘self-destructive rage’ pouring out. Fuck that overpriced money grabber and her damn labels. I chewed on that thought as we made our way to the long black limousine idling at the level A Concourse.
The long concrete hallway funneled us toward the awaiting car. My chest squeezed like a vice, and my stomach wanted to burst out through my goddamned belly button. I had to try one last time to save my career; ah, who was I kidding? My entire damn life. The Governor was about to enter the limousine as I rushed past Novak, who tried to stop me, but I jerked my arm away. I grabbed the door before one of the Governor’s aides could close it, and put myself between the door and the old man.
“Governor, I just need a second. I cannot tell you just how sorry I am for overreacting the way I did. I was way out of line. Will you please just let me explain myself?” I spat out in one breath, and inside, prayed to a God I'd never had known, and up until this very moment, didn’t give two-shits to know. Now…I was beginning to believe. At least, pretended to. I swallowed hard and stared into the drunken politician’s unblinking eyes. The Governor waved the driver to hold for a moment, turned back to me, and just stared, silently, impatiently waiting for my groveling to begin.
The storm clouds that had followed the plane from D.C. took up staunch reside
nce over the cold airport and shut out any possible light the moon tried to offer. I took a deep breath, and could see my partners off to the left, as I turned to the irritated Governor, who was pouring a drink inside the limo.
“Sir, see, my wedding is in two days. Inez, my fiancée, has me all stressed out with all the planning. We’ve been on duty for over 72 hours with minimal sleep. I know that’s no excuse for hitting you, Sir. I…I just snapped,” I said, as a cold wind whisked down into the cement tunnel of the garage.
The old man didn’t seem impressed and glared at me, sipped at his whiskey, and leaned back into the leather seats.
“Sir, Ranger McCutcheon is a highly decorated officer, and he really—” Novak interjected, and the Governor waved him off.
“I am well aware of Ranger McCutcheon’s so-called service record. It seems I wasn’t the first victim of your anger, was I, son?” The Governor continued to stare at me, and a slight smirk appeared on the old man’s weather worn face. That just fueled rage, and I was about ten seconds from pouring the old man's face across the expensive leather. But I again prayed to any damned God that would listen. The incidents the drunken governor was talking about were many, but all were justified, at least to me. Besides, they were a long time ago, and I was a changed man now. Hell, I was a work in progress. The brisk motion to the driver from the placid Governor stopped my bad memories.
“But Sir, please.” I reached out and grabbed the man’s sleeve of his wool coat and was met with a glare of contempt.
“Sir, I…I be...beg of you. I will lose my job. You will end my career. Can you please?” I felt the honest tears slipping from my usually tight, denying tear ducts, but knew it was all I had left in the tank.
The Governor’s fat face turned into a slab of granite and stared out the front of the idling limousine. He held up a pudgy palm in my face. I choked back tears.
“There is nothing I can do for you, son. I will be speaking to your superiors in the morning, and I will be asking for your badge.” Just then the dark sky opened up and cold rain fell from it like an ebony piñata.
