Dimebag Bandits

by Craig Furchtenicht

  “Kori, honey...” she started. “You know that we both love you very much.” Kori tried to lock in on his stepfather's gaze, but Clayton's eyes jumped evasively back to the road. She let out an exasperated sigh. “I know that this is hard for you, but we can't just leave you roaming around Des Moines for the rest of the year by yourself, considering your...” She paused, once again weighing her words carefully.

  Kori rolled his eyes. He was twenty-one years old for god sake! He wanted to shake her by the shoulders and scream. Come on Mom, just say it! You don't want your favorite son running around the big city, peddling high grade pharmaceuticals while you and the hubby are off praying for world salvation. What would the neighbors think?

  “Well, you understand. Don't you?” She talked to him like he was still five years old.

  He barely nodded and stared out the window as more cars raced past them. There was no point in arguing with her. It would only get Clayton going about how he had no job and brought nothing to the table. Therefore, he had no right to expect to stay alone while they did “God's work”. Whatever the hell that meant.

  Faye grabbed him by the chin and turned him to face her. Her eyes looked tired and distant. “When we get back this winter, Clayton and Dr. Ross will try to sort this whole mess out with the Dean of Students. Won't you, Clayton?”

  She settled back into her seat and took a hold of Clayton's free hand, which was surprisingly not clutching the wheel in the textbook ten o'clock two o'clock position. He stiffened slightly at her touch. She did not seem to notice.

  “All I have to say is that you should feel pretty darned grateful that Dr. Ross decided not to press charges. Suspension from the University is bad enough, but it could have been...” Clayton cleared his throat and shook his balding head. “Should have been much worse.”

  “Walter Ross is a good man,” His mother said. Clayton shook his head in agreement.

  “We expected a lot more from you, son.” There he went with the son thing, again. “I don't know what you were thinking, pulling a stunt like that.”

  What was I thinking? Kori thought to himself. Well for starters, he was thinking of how he was going to finish paying his tuition after his so-called loving parents went and handed his entire life savings over to some raving heretic. How selfish of me to regard my education over some idiot's fruitless campaign for senate or mayor or whatever.

  The anger built up in Kori's mind as he played out the events leading up to this fateful trip. It had started with Clayton giving away his savings without his knowledge. One day his tuition was covered and the next day he was broke. But the final straw came when the paychecks that he earned from his internship with Dr. Ross started coming up short. Clayton had apparently taken it upon himself to instruct the doctor to deduct half of his pay as charity. That charity being the TEFL, of course.

  So he took it upon himself to start skimming from the meds locker at the Trinity Ross veterinary clinic. The drugs were there for the taking. It seemed like such a shame that some of the finest pharmaceutical substances were being wasted on a few rich people's dogs and horses.

  Drugs that were so easily obtained, given the right set of keys at a reputable veterinary clinic; especially one that catered to the upper crust of the social food chain. Everyone claiming at least six figures a year lined up with their four-legged substitutes for human interaction at Dr. Ross' door. Even the local racetracks and zoos called on Walter Ross when the situation arose.

  For an exaggerated fee, all major credit cards accepted, no luxury was spared at Trinity. A facility that boasted dozens of fully equipped kennels, immaculate stables with fifty acres of sweet pasture, a state of the art surgical center and of course a well-stocked pharmacy that would leave any junkie in awe. Whether it shit in the yard or plowed the field, Walter Ross was the man.

  Many of the drugs that had legitimate uses in the field of animal science were also handy alternatives to their more mainstream counterparts. It was shockingly easy to find an eager housewife or club patron, who was willing to swap out their husband's or parent's hard earned cash for a good buzz.

  Ketamine and Telazol for the clubbers, all in liquid form, straight from the vial they came. Of course nobody wanted to inject the stuff directly into their skin. Vanity dictates that track marks are unsightly and do not accessorize well with short sleeves. Not to mention the stigma associated with the needle itself. It was so much more convenient to stuff something up one's nose than to go through the tedious ritual of loading up a shot.

  Through trial and error, Kori found ways to compensate for this. A thin layer of dope on a cookie sheet in the oven at the lowest temperature possible turned the liquid into a nice marketable powder in less than an hour.

  He soon discovered it was best to leave the room with a few windows cracked during this process. In an early experiment, he foolishly tried to hasten the drying time with his mother's microwave on defrost. He left the house and had forgotten about the batch for a few hours. He returned home to find the old Guatemalan lady, who cleaned the house on Tuesdays and Thursdays, passed out on the kitchen floor in a puddle of her own piss. The microwave was open and the dope had burnt to a smoking leathery crisp.

  He supposed that some people had no tolerance for quality chemicals.

  The housewives went crazy for Diazepam, the same stuff that Dr. Ross prescribed in combination with corticosteroids to treat the “little white shakers” syndrome in Maltese and West Highland white terriers. They were a favorite reality break for the ladies after all of the good talk shows went off the air. Most of the women on his parent's block could not see straight until they had downed a fistful of those babies. It was also a powerful appetite stimulant in cats, which explained why half of the neighbors were pushing two hundred plus.

  Equipoise was definitely the bread and butter of his short lived enterprise. For every person in Polk county looking to get high, there were five more looking to get big. It was the magic potion that muscle heads swore by, the Cadillac of all anabolic steroids. They asked for it by name and he delivered. Kori had never lifted so much as a weight in his life, yet everybody in the gym knew him by name when he walked in.

  Rehabbing racehorses for the local tracks was a lucrative venture for the Ross Trinity clinic, therefore a very profitable one for Kori as well. That was until some meaty freak showed up in the ER with a boil the size of a golf ball on his ass.

  As with most injectable steroids, Equipoise is oil based. That explains why so many bodybuilders develop acne on their backs and legs. The best way to inject it is into the tissue of a large muscle. The ass seems to be a popular one for some reason. The problem is that the drug absorbs into the body fairly easily, but the oil base does not. Repeated injections in the same area can lead to a buildup of oily deposits faster that the body handles them. Having nowhere to go, those deposits eventually develop into boils or cysts.

  The worst part is that most of those guys ignore the problem at first. They simply use the bump as a reference point for their next dose. A half inch to the left of that ugly sore, then to the right. Never minding that it was getting bigger by the day until their girlfriend begs them to let her drive them to the emergency room.

  This particular girlfriend left the hospital in hysterics as her beau's ass boil was getting lanced and drained. She came back in later with two half empty vials in her hand, vials that had been purchased from Kori. This may not have been a problem if the nurse had not handed them to the staff physician, who in turn called the police.

  On the back of each vial were a set of numbers, known as lot codes. These numbers can be used to track down customer shipments in case of a recall. The drugs were traced to a Dr. Walter H. Ross at the Trinity clinic. Of course being the keeper of the keys, Kori was outed immediately after Ross talked his own skinny butt out of going to jail.

  Within a matter of hours, Kori was out of a job and a source of income. From what his mother was eluding to, he was also indefinitely suspended from Iow
a State as well. He had spent the greater part of the summer stealing drugs to pay for classes that he was now barred from attending. Now he was banished from home and condemned to the purgatory of Cedar Ridge.

  His only real regret was neglecting to scratch off those damned lot codes. In hindsight, he probably should have warned the meat head to alternate ass cheeks as well.

  Kori bit his tongue and swallowed his anger. There was no use in arguing with Clayton or his mother. Their minds were made up. He was going to spend the next three months swatting flies and dodging rednecks in a place that he and his mother had spent so many years trying to forget. He may have grown up in Cedar Ridge, but it was by no means home to him. Clayton knew that all too well. Surely that was the reasoning behind his decision to leave him there.

  He slumped down in his seat and watched his part of the world sailed past him, one mile at a time. At a conservatively safe rate of speed of course.

  Chapter 5

  Cedar Ridge looked exactly how he had remembered it. All of the houses on the short road leading to his father's property looked abandoned. The only indication that there were actually people living inside of them was the wood smoke billowing from the chimneys. Many of the yards were populated with dogs, cats and an assortment of poultry. The former ran down the lanes toward them as they passed. The latter scattered for safety under the abundant cover of junk vehicles that each place seemed to have.

  Occasionally, one of the locals standing in the yard stared at their unfamiliar vehicle as it passed by. It struck Kori as odd that each one of them mustered a polite wave of acknowledgment. Of course Clayton stared straight ahead and ignored them. Kori waved back and smiled. Eventually he grew tired of the exchange and resigned to just staring again.

  The next house they encountered had an old man standing over a small grass fire in the ditch. His gaunt frame leaned over some sort of garden tool that he used to keep the flames under control. When he saw Clayton's vehicle approaching he stood as upright as he could and smiled. At close proximity Kori realized that the old man had to be at least ninety, if not more. His face resembled that of an Appalachian apple doll, sun stained and full of wrinkles. The old man shifted the tool from one hand to the other and waved.

  Kori was too mesmerized by the man's ancient appearance to wave back. He shifted around in his seat as they passed by, watching him through the back glass. He turned just in time to see the smile fade from the man's wrinkly face and the kind wave transforming into a fist with the middle finger prominently sticking upward. The old guy continued to flip them off and started groping the crotch of his loose trousers with the other hand. Stunned, Kori turned back in his seat and decided that it was best to avoid making eye contact with anyone else they encountered.

  It did not matter, though. A few minutes later they were pulling into the driveway of his father's place. It took him a moment to merge the faded memory of the place with the idea of seeing it in real life. What he had spent so long trying to forget, he now had to strain to remember.

  His mother stepped out of the SUV first. She snarled her tiny nose at the unkempt yard. A few chickens that were pecking aimlessly in the tall grass started to work their way closer to where she stood. A look of panic washed over her and she stepped back to the door of the car. She shooed them loudly and they scattered in four different directions.

  Clayton stayed in the vehicle and continued bitching about the higher gas prices in the eastern half of the state, as he had done since they passed the last gas station ten minutes earlier. He looked around nervously as if expecting Joe Woodson to come out of the house at any minute and beat him senseless in a fit of drunken rage. He pushed a button and the trunk door popped open.

  Kori unloaded his bags into the lawn and stared at the house. Brenden walked out to greet them, or at least him. He barely acknowledged that their mother was there. The only words that he spoke to her were when she inquired about his father's whereabouts. He told her that Joe had an appointment at the VA and would not be home until later. She did not attempt to hide her relief. As soon as Brenden saw it on her face, he was done with her. He collected Kori's belongings and carried them to the house.

  Her eyes welled up a bit and she started back for the SUV, staring back at Brenden and then to Kori. She never told him that she would miss him as she climbed back inside. No sweet lies today. She only offered one last piece of advice through the window. “Don't let your brother get you into any more trouble than you are already in.”

  Before he could respond the screen door on the house banged shut behind him. It startled them both and they turned to look. Standing on the front porch was a scrawny little guy dressed in nothing but a pair of underwear that looked as if they had not seen their original state of whiteness for many years. They were several sizes too large and as many shades darker than the pale skin of his body.

  He grinned and waved. “Hey, Mrs. Woodson. Nice to see you again.” He giggled and nervously shifted his weight from one bare foot to the other.

  “Oh, Lord,” his mother muttered softly.

  Someone yelled from inside the house and he quickly hurried back inside.

  His mother looked him over once more and brushed away the tears from her eyes. Clayton rolled up the window between them from his control panel, cutting the moment short. The SUV pulled away with his mother staring hopelessly back at the house. A house that she had walked away from seven years earlier with her then “just a friend” Clayton Cole behind the wheel of a different shiny gas guzzling car. The only difference was that Kori was in the backseat that time. This time they rode alone, with his mother crying and Clayton still bitching about four dollar a gallon gas.

  Chapter 6

  Kori had never considered himself to be claustrophobic. He always felt that he was pretty cool and level headed under pressure. So when the car made that last turn onto the dark side street known as Gilbert Court, he was surprised to find an uncomfortable sense of fear wash over him. He could not quite put his finger on the source of his new found trepidation. It could have had a lot to do with the fact that he was stuck in the back of the filthiest vehicle that he had ever been in. Maybe it was because he was sandwiched between two guys that were obviously tweaked out of their minds, or at least well on their way.

  The street itself played a good part in his apprehension. For starters, the absence of streetlights became quite apparent when they rounded the last corner. In contrast to the highly visible and well maintained environment of Kirkwood Avenue, this street was little more than a glorified alley. It ran parallel to the train tracks for a couple of blocks and then ended as abruptly and rudely as it started. It was a cancer plagued appendage of more viable streets; possibly once alive and thriving, but now quickly decaying.

  Kori suddenly became aware that all conversation in the vehicle had ceased as the Impala slowly chugged down the street. He looked around from person to person and noticed that everyone except Soup, who was driving, had their attention fixed on the end of the dark street. Soup fumbled with the visor above his head, searching for something.

  A small bar sat haphazardly to the right. Its exterior was grossly decorated in an unusually large amount of mismatched Christmas lights. A purple and pink sign flickered above the doorway, displaying words that he could not yet make out. The whole place had sort of an oasis feel to it in a cartoon like way.

  Aside from a handful of empty storefronts the only sign of life that the street had to offer was the bar. It reminded Kori of the small redneck dives that were found in nearly every backwoods river town in Iowa. Soup let the Impala roll to a stop just short of the entrance to the parking lot. Like the street, there were no overhead lamps in the lot. The only illumination was from the bar's exterior décor.

  As his eyes adjusted, Kori was surprised to find the parking lot was nearly full. The cars that occupied the lot were mostly newer sporty models. They seemed out of place among the dumpsters and railroad junk. The neon sign was easy to read now and it be
came all too clear that this place was no redneck joint.

  His earlier anxieties were now justified.

  It was beginning to feel as if he were part of an untold sophomoric joke. Five straight guys pull into the crowded parking lot of a local gay bar. He laughed to himself. It was not funny but he could not think of how else to react. What the hell was his brother thinking, taking him to a place like this?

  He wondered what his mother would think of him now, sitting in the parking lot of that very proverbial place that her dumb ass husband had so often pounded his fist into the pulpit over. The place that he had warned his faithful flock as they nodded their empty heads and mumbled in agreement. How would his mother feel, knowing that within four hours after she had dropped him at his Dad's doorstep, he was riding in the back of Soup Campbell's Impala along with his hell bound brother and two of his closest junkie friends? Heading to a bar that went by the name “The Glory Hole” of all things.

  He shook his head and wished that he had opted to stay back with his father and watch reruns on TV Land. Better yet, he wished that he could have successfully managed to convince his mother and Clayton to let him stay home in Des Moines, while they roamed the country saving people from their own godless selves.

  Soup carefully backed the Impala into a stall close to the street. He deliberately chose one of the few stalls with an empty space flanking either side. It seemed like an unnecessary precaution for a car that looked as if it would be more at home parked in front of a government subsidized housing project. God forbid if someone were to come staggering out and get some of their brand new Lexus paint on his rusty door panel. Brenden leaned his head out of the passenger side window in mock concern for Soup's vintage ride.

  Kori quickly assessed the layout of the establishment and developed an appreciation for the chosen location. The proprietors had apparently intended to provide their clientele with a sense of privacy as they climbed back into their vehicles after a busy night of depravity. One could discreetly drive away under the cover of the unlit street, making their way back to the more populated ones and blending back in with the rest of society. A world where their friends, their bosses and their families were none the wiser to the fact that they had spent the better part of the evening in a place so aptly named the Glory Hole.