by Steve Vernon
“Come on down,” I yelled out.
Markie turned in midair, and poured himself down at me. I didn’t know what I could do, so I just screamed like a little girl. I screamed and Markie shot into my mouth like I was King Cocksucker at the blow job ball.
I felt his spirit cramming deep inside of me, filling every one of my pores.
The world spun out of control, the darkness dizzied all around me. I could feel my pulse screaming in my brain, trying to break free.
I was truly fucked.
And then all at once it stopped. I felt Markie yanked out of me, like a disconnected Christmas tree cord. I knelt on the concrete floor, gasping for my breath. Sucking in broken glass and exhaling barbed wire. Tiny spots of light polka danced in the beer hall of my brain.
Then I looked and saw who had saved me, and how he’d saved me.
There, in the middle of the broken and scattered circle, knelt Amos Briarchild, his lips placed securely over Robert Bruce’s mouth and nostrils like the god of Baywatch life savers, sucking the boy’s airways clean clear out.
He looked like a cowboy in an old western, sucking out a freshly fanged rattlesnake bite. He was drawing the poison, drawing the breath and the memories and the bad dreams that festered deep within the young boy’s heart and soul, but not without a cost.
I watched as Briarchild swelled up, like a balloon left too long on the helium pump. I could see Markie moving inside Briarchild’s skin, forcing his way free. And then Briarchild burst like a pinata full of blood. He soaked each and every one of us, not missing a single soul, his blood touching all.
I looked around, the last survivor of an all you can eat spaghetti sauce shower. I could see what was left of Markie trying to pull himself back together. I could see what was left of Briarchild, sticking to the walls of The Shambles.
And I could see Robert Bruce, lying there on his stolen mattress sleeping like a silent dream. I knew what I had to do. I kicked my shoes off. I stepped over in my socked feet. I didn’t want to wake him up while he was still dreaming.
I picked up the pillow and held it down over Robert Bruce’s unlucky thirteen year old face. He resisted a little.
“Shh,” I said.
I held the pillow down for a very long time.
At the end of it, I almost I let go. A small voice inside my skull reminded me that the boy wasn’t the victim here. That this had happened to him, and all I was dealing with was what was left over from a very unforgivable chain of circumstances.
Chains are awfully hard to break.
I didn’t let go. Not even after I felt his breathing stop. Not even after whatever was left of Markie faded away into a dead boy’s left over dreams.
I still didn’t let go.
There was something in my eyes, but I’m certain it was only blood.
I did not lie to you. I never lied to anyone at all.
I told you I wasn’t one of the good guys.
End
STATISTIC
I live in the city.
I live alone.
Any family I’ve got is a long way from here.
It’s Christmas, and it’s cold.
It’s snowing tonight - heavy wet flakes that clump up quickly, burying all hope. Traffic doesn’t have much of a chance tonight, and I haven’t seen a living soul.
I think I’m just going to stand here for a while, alone on this bridge.
I have always enjoyed the sight of this bridge, arcing high across the harbour, like an inverted smile.
Usually the view from here is breath taking, but tonight you can’t see much of anything at all.
The night spreads out below me like a snowbound chasm.
I lean against the rail and watch the snowflakes drift into their watery bed. A dark wind whispers about my ears, echoing into the blackness of my brain. A foghorn wails, lonely in the night.
A chain of snowflakes hang about my neck and shoulders.
My breath is a trailing wisp of smoke, vanishing into the chill night air.
I can’t even guess how far down it is to the ocean’s surface. From this height a person would hit the water like it was a wet brick wall. That’d be that. A quick drop to a quick burial.
Burial at sea.
It was kind of poetic.
The tide would carry me away. It would drag me to a faraway grave, far from this stinking city.
I wonder how far I could get?
Just that quickly the thought was born and the idea jumped out.
I step over the rail, out on to the catwalk.
Just to see, you know?
I’m curious.
Hell.
I am more than curious. It would be so damn easy. All it would take was just another step and then an end to all pain.
I wondered if it would hurt, falling through the air like that? In my imagination I could picture the wind whistling past my ears, flapping my cheeks like sails on a stormy day.
One more step.
That was as far as I’ll go.
I don’t really want to kill myself.
I was too damn curious for suicide. My entire left was spent waiting to see what was coming next.
“It is a hell of a long way down, isn’t it?” a voice broke the night’s still.
The sudden voice in the night is nearly all it takes. I am so startled I almost jump. Instead, I turn slowly to face the voice, keeping a white knuckled grip on the guy line.
There was an old man in a faded blue parka, standing there watching me like I was some kind of unique specimen.
Bridge police.
I recognize the uniform.
Is he going to arrest me?
I stared at him.
He doesn’t speak.
He just stared right back at me.
Is he here to watch?
“You figure on jumping?” he asked.
“You startled me,” I replied. “I didn’t see you coming.”
He nodded like he understood.
“A fella gets too busy looking down,” he said. “And he is bound to forget the world around him.”
“I was just looking at the water.”
“I know damn well what you were looking at. Let me guess. Are you all alone for Christmas? Or was it a girl?”
I shrugged.
He was right on both counts, but it’s not his business.
“Whatever the reason it is just not good enough. Believe me, it’s a long cold drop to a hungry old sea. Tomorrow may seem like a long way off, but it always comes around. Why don’t you stick around and see if I’m right?”
I give him another shrug.
It’s a good movement, and I don’t have to let go of the guy line to perform it.
Only he’s not done talking.
“Just take a look at the statistics. Christmas time, folks just seem to want to kill themselves. If you hold on until the new year, things will look a hell of a lot brighter.”
I shake my head.
“You’re wrong about the statistics,” I said. “I have wasted enough years as a psych major to know them. There are more people kill themselves after Christmas then before it. Santa jumps down the chimney, and the Times Square ball drops off a building. You do the math.”
He grinned at that.
“Then forget about statistics,” he said. “They’ll only give you a headache and depress you enough to make you want to kill. Come on. There are a lot of reasons to live for.”
“Look,” I said. “I was just curious was all. It comes from being a psych student. Even if I wanted to do it, I’ve got every right. I’ve been bouncing off the walls of an empty apartment for the last six months. The woman I figured I’d marry ran off with some asshole with a beard and a briefcase full of bad poetry.”
The waves are singing to me now, and I’m thinking about a dance club. A little music, a little mindless shaking, and a little alcohol might be just the ticket.
The night wind howls across the guy wires like a maddened harpist which was
probably worse poetry than that bearded asshole could ever dream of. I could feel the wind humming and thrumming through my winter gloves. My feet are getting tired, and it was just too damn cold to stand here forever.
The old man grabs me by the shoulder.
“You think you got it bad? Do you see any crowds hanging around me? I’ve been living alone for a hell of a lot longer than any six months. Try six years, and you’re close. I’ve seen a hell of a lot of people take a flyer off this bridge, and most of them had better reasons than you.”
I pull myself loose of his grip.
“What the hell is this,” I asked. “Tough love?”
The old guy laughed.
“Love hasn’t got nothing to do with it. I’m just being practical, is all. Just give it until the New Year. If by then your mind hasn’t changed, you can come on back. The bridge has been waiting a hell of a long time. The ocean has been waiting even longer. Neither of them is going anywhere.”
I’m getting bored with this any way.
I hadn’t really planned on jumping.
This was just an experiment.
A private joke.
A trick.
The old guy extends his hand. I reach for it, swinging my leg over the railing.
For just a moment I am off balance.
He catches my hand and holds it fast.
A smile slices across his face, and in the dim sodium light I can see his eyes gleaming like a small boy at play.
“Fooled you,“ he said, and pushes me backwards.
My arms swing wildly, penduluming in a vain search for lost balance. My feet slide away from under me, betrayed by a patch of hidden ice.
All at once I am airborne and falling fast.
I see the old man laughing, holding his sides in near hysteria. I hear my own scream racing past my chillblained ears.
I smell the sea’s salty dead breath and feel....
*
Back in the toll booth the old man’s partner hands him a cup of coffee. He does this without looking up from a three year old National Geographic.
“Another leaper?” the partner asks.
The old man hides his smile in the coffee cup before answering.
“Yeah, another leaper.”
SOUL SURVIVOR
“Two, four, six...,”
I’ve been counting them for the last five years. Once a week, usually on Sundays.
They keep vanishing.
“...eight, ten, twelve...,”
I count them twice today.
Twice to be sure.
“...fourteen, sixteen.”
One can’t be too careful with one’s socks.
I insert the necessary silver. The third coin jams. It’s like some kind of anti-charm, it is always the third that jams.
I curse and I bang the coin slot, freeing the offending bit of lucre. With a satisfied belch the dryer rumbles into action. Leaping like caged salmon, the damp clothes begin their slow caper.
I find a seat.
I take shelter behind a tattered yellowing copy of National Geographic.
When I look up I see her standing there, just as she recloses my dryer door. I couldn’t say how I’d missed her approach, but there she stood. A hag, ancient and wrinkled as my unstarched shirts, standing in front of my dryer with two soggy unmatched socks.
“Stop!” I shout, vaulting over the magazine rack and the woman bending over in front of the magazine rack..
Like a crippled cat, I almost land on my feet, skidding in a pool of liquid detergent, falling face first into a basket of unsorted laundry. I am interred beneath soiled sweat socks, tainted underwear and a small child’s suspiciously stained trousers.
The hag ran for the door while I was trying to stand up. The owner of the basket, the woman whom I had vaulted over, gave me some assistance with a few well aimed kicks.
Fortunately she was wearing soft sneakers.
I pushed past the kicking woman and I grabbed the hag, who has paused long enough to reach into someone else’s dryer. Leaning with my weight, I slammed the dryer door against her arm.
But she was stronger than she looks, and apparently ambidextrous. With her free arm she catches hold of my throat, nearly ripping out my Adam’s apple.
“Help me,” I call out to the Laundromat patrons, but to no avail. The kicking woman has returned to her washer. The attendant is calling out for someone to cover his bet on the hag.
I am briefly tempted by the odds he is offering, but for the moment I was too busy strangling to death.
Then I thrust my entire weight against the dryer door, like a renegade slam dancer, vainly trying to break the hag’s arm.
“Stop, stop,” I croak.
I sink to my knees.
I nearly black out.
The hag frees her arm and pulls a knife from beneath her skirt. She’s making a very determined effort to simultaneously throttle and eviscerate me, when I choose the better part of valor and yield.
“Take the socks,” I say.
She turns for the door, socks in hand.
No one tries to stop her.
“Wait,” I rattle, reaching out one weak hand to clutch at her bony ankle. “Just tell my why you need them so badly?”
“Oh I don’t need them,” she replied. “These are for my master.”
“Your master?”
“The devil. He buys all the socks I can sell him,” She shrugs. “It’s honest money.”
“Why would he need so many socks?”
“Hooves are hard on socks, not to mention the hellfire. That’s what the devil’s really after. Soles, not souls. The other stuff about souls, that’s just propaganda, started by you-know-who.”
“Why doesn’t he just sew up the old ones?”
“Who has time for darning, when you’re too busy damning?”
“Okay,” I said, trying to clear my throat. “But why the odd ones?”
“The devil’s work,” she explained. “He just loves to see misery spread.”
And then she swung the knife.
She had amazing aim, and a sense of humor to boot.
When she left someone was kind enough to call an ambulance.
I guess I was bleeding on their laundry.
Well, I guess she fixed me for sure, but I still can’t keep from laughing. I’m one of the few living men who has truly beat the devil. He can have all the odd socks he wants from me.
I’m not miserable.
Still, I wonder who finally opened that dryer door, and found what the hag left there?
It’s one thing to find an extra sock in the dryer.
But when that sock has a foot in it...?
DOPPLE DRIBBLE
His name was Adam Kyler. He had eyes as black as jujubes and a curl on his forehead that reminded me of Superman. He was nine years old. It wasn’t his fault he was standing in the alley, but I shot him just the same.
All I saw was a shadow, you understand – from somewhere out of the corner of my instinct. Just the impression that someone was standing there, watching me run out from where the bodies of the three men I’d just shot lay dying.
The boy didn’t hear a thing. The silencer I’d jury rigged on to the end of my Glock had that much shush left. He didn’t hear the bullet that blew his voice box right out of his throat. He died quickly enough, I suppose. Just shush-bang, and then it was over, nothing left but the sound of the basketball that he’d chased into the alley way - thump, thump, thump.
*
It was supposed to be an easy deal. Bing-bang, in and out. I mean, how was I supposed to know that Chico Fat would have inspired that kind of loyalty in his bodyguard?
Here’s how it all started.
Chico Fat ran the crookedest poker party east of Poughkeepsie, and I played patsy to his take-me-card, big time. I was into Chico Fat for more than I could pay him off in a couple of lifetimes.
So I decided to kill him.
It should have been easy, like I said, but should-have
, would-have, and could-have were the three stooges of destiny, always hungry for another ripe fall guy.
Namely me.
*
I walked in through the front door, cool and calm and ready to bounce. I had it all down by the numbers. I’d stick my gun in the big man’s face, and we’d reason.
And then I’d shoot him.
He was supposed to have been alone, only he wasn’t. He was with a customer. Some guy with a tattoo of Jesus on the cross carved on the back of his shaven skull bone. A string of purple barbed wired dangling from his left ear lobe. He looked like he probably answered to the name of Screaming Pig-vomit.
Pig-vomit had a pretty good set of reflexes. He spun around in his chair when I kicked down the door. The next thing I know the guy jumps at me. I mean he freaking came out of his chair like he was part Doberman, going straight for my throat.
Then things got real slow. I could see Pig-vomit floating towards me like a playful helium filled guided missile, while Chico Fat’s bodyguard was stepping out in front of Chico Fat’s desk and dragging a pistol out from under his extra-extra-large dirty gray sports jacket. At the same time Chico Fat was standing up and pulling out a sawed off shotgun that was big enough to blow away half of Cleveland.
It happened so fast and so slow that all this time I still kept thinking how easy this gig was supposed to go down. The next thing I know I’m staring at Pig-vomit’s ugly face down the barrel of my Glock. I squeezed the trigger and things got real fast again.
Silenced or not, the bullet sounded loud to me, BOOOOM, and I wished I’d thought to bring ear plugs, only it must have been twice as loud to Pig-vomit. At this range it blew clear through Pig-vomit’s skull cap, blowing half of Pig-vomit’s meager brain mass into and onto the bodyguard’s left shoulder.
Which is a good thing for me because at this point the bodyguard has his pistol out. From this close up it looks like the pistol has got a barrel wider than the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. What was left of my first bullet and Pig-vomit’s brains slow him down just long enough for me to get a bullet into his chin.
Which makes a hell of a dimple and causes him to sink to his knees, which was why his face disappeared when Chico Fat blew his wad and fired his shotgun through his own bodyguard, straight at me.
