A Long Crazy Burn

by Jeff Johnson

  “The Armenian? Empire of Shit? A ten-thousand-dollar check? A real bank account with—”

  “Yes,” I snapped. “When can I get the money to you?”

  “Right now,” she replied, without pause. “I’m over at the Bonfire, ten blocks from your place. Bring the slutty bathroom chick.”

  “Delia,” I cautioned, “that was my doing. You be nice, understand? You might actually like this one.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, bored now. “Hurry up already. This place is dead.”

  “OK. I have to take a shower and get some clothes on, so—”

  She hung up.

  The shower was still running, so I went into my office and dug the paper bag full of the nasty cash out of the closet, where I’d cleverly hidden it in plain sight. I quickly thumbed out twelve thousand, which took about two minutes, and put ten in an oversized envelope, folded it and put it in the bookcase by the door, then took the remaining two and slid them into the slot where my sketchbook had been. Then I wadded the bag back up and tossed it back in the closet. For some reason I was furtive as I made my way through the house to the bedroom. The water in the shower turned off.

  “Clean towels in the cabinet,” I called.

  “Found ’em,” she called back.

  I took a clean black T-shirt and newer jeans out of the top dresser drawer, then socks and boxers out of the next drawer down. I paused with the boxers in my hand.

  “You need underwear?” I couldn’t remember if she’d been wearing any.

  “Maybe,” she called. “I think you ate mine. Are we going somewhere?”

  I took out an extra pair. Checkered.

  “The Bonfire. I have to meet a friend real quick. Just take a sec.”

  Suzanne came in, towel-drying her hair. She looked moist and sparkly and fresh. I held up the boxers.

  “Cute,” she said, accepting them. “Are you sure you want me to tag along? I can head home or …”

  “A walk through the rain would be romanticky, but you can kick back here if you want to skip it. Lots of books, and my big-ass AM radio. Cats.”

  She smiled. “I’ll come. I’m sort of hungry anyway.”

  She slipped into the boxers and folded the elastic waist over so they fit. I started getting dressed, too.

  “Maybe we can stop at the store on the way back and get more crepe stuff. I was thinking chocolate blueberry earlier, but maybe some kind of banana? I dunno. It’s good to have options unlimited.”

  “OK.” Suzanne pulled her pants on and my heart sank a little. I pulled my jeans on and rolled the cuffs a few inches.

  “So this friend of mine.”

  “Don’t tell me. I’m in for some sort of surprise.” She finished dressing and finger-combed her damp hair in the dresser mirror.

  “Maybe. Sort of. I mean, yes.” I got my third and last pair of boots out of the closet. Old Docs that had gone from black to gray, with a big splatter of fading green paint on the right toe. The cats had been chewing on the laces, but they hadn’t gotten very far. I saw Suzanne look at them out of the corner of my eye. She sat down on the bed next to me and put her arm around my waist. She smelled like my soap.

  “It’s OK.” She kissed my ear. “I’m a big girl.”

  I finished lacing up and stood. Suzanne stood, too, and smiled down into my upturned face. I winked.

  “Let’s rock-n-roll, baby. She’s waiting.”

  After we got our jackets on and I loaded my pockets with smokes, keys, my crusty wallet, and a ball bearing, I ducked into my office while Suzanne waited in the front doorway, gauging the rain. I put the stuffed envelope in my jacket’s inner pocket and stuffed the naked cash in the front pocket of my jeans. It was time, I thought, for the beginning of the end of something.

  A romantic evening walk through the rain with Suzanne was once again the kind of thing I’d never experienced before. Portland was filled with a sort of goth/hippie hybrid type of woman who generally seized that moment to talk about graveyards or the merits of kale juice. I’d also found frequent company with the bisexual but mostly lesbian English major dropout chicks, and their sense of romance generally involved dissecting depressing Tom Waits songs and self-absorbed tirades on how they hated one thing or another, usually their mother or in a vague, hinting way, men, so me. But more often than not, they couldn’t hold their booze and quickly wound up too bitter to make sense about anything.

  Suzanne was unique in that she hummed some song, so quietly I couldn’t make it out, and she walked like someone who really knew how to walk, with the easy Zen gait that only comes after your first million miles. She ignored me for the most part, but not in a bad way. She was happy outside, as rainproof as a swan in her Gore-Tex. It gave me breathing room to think about what I was going to tell the Armenian, but I found myself mostly quiet, internally. Suzanne’s lilting voice and companionable presence was infectious. It even made me feel briefly young and stupid for never having experienced that kind of casual peace before.

  The vibe was shattered with the intensity of a grenade blowing in a pickle jar as we rounded the corner of Stark. The Bonfire was right there. Delia’s red Falcon was just beginning a block-long screaming slide as she braked at the tail end of a mad race to beat us.

  Suzanne and I stopped as the smoking red Falcon came to a shuddering halt in the middle of the street and stalled. We were the only onlookers I could see from where we stood. The Falcon’s starter ground, loud in the empty night, and the engine turned over after a few tries. Delia pulled into an empty space and killed it, then raced across the street into the Bonfire. She was wearing pink rubber pants, white combat boots, a black bra, and three layers of Hank Dildo’s festive Empire of Shit jacket finery, all unbuttoned and several sizes too big. Suzanne and I looked at each other.

  “Your pal?” she asked lightly.

  “Best one I ever had,” I replied. We started walking again. “You can pick your friends, but not your family? That’s actually the most ass-backward bullshit I’ve ever heard. In the truest sense, that little gal is the only family I have.”

  Suzanne made no reply. The statement might have had a lonely ring to it, but I hadn’t meant it that way. She did look a tiny bit sad as I opened the door for her, and I resolved to start cursing less, at the very least.

  The Bonfire was mostly empty, with two red-faced power drinkers at the bar and one booth taken over by hipster zombies at the brittle end of a coke binge. Delia bounded out of the otherwise empty adjoining room, beaming. Her eyes ran up and down Suzanne and she winked at me, luridly. She stuck her tiny hand out for Suzanne to shake.

  “Why hi there!” Delia began in a thick Louisiana accent. “I’m Lobelia May Bizby, songwriter, and I declare!” She turned her hundred watts on me. “Mr. Holland, this here is the jackpot in the leg department. Who’da thunk yew had it in yew!”

  “What the unholy fuck,” I growled.

  “I’ll get us drinks,” Suzanne offered. She walked quickly to the bar and stood with her back to us. I grabbed Delia by her skinny arm.

  “C’mon, Lobelia,” I said. “Let’s me and you chat.”

  I dragged her back into the adjoining room and pushed her into a booth. She folded her arms defiantly as I sat down across from her.

  “So, Lobelia from Alabama or whatever the fuck you’re—”

  “Just shut up, fool,” Delia spat. “I read your whole vibe in less than a second. Your game is gone. That fucking Amazon has already tamed your inner wolf, you fucking pussy. Right when you need it, too. The world is going to eat your scarred ass alive if you don’t snap the fuck out of it, Darby. Game over. Done. And I’m going down with the ship, you fucking asshole? Fuck you.”

  She was furious. She leaned in fast and landed a solid right hook to my jaw, hard as hell. Delia could man fight. From there it was on. I surged over the table and headbutted her on the way in. I’d aimed for the bridge of her nose, but smacked into her sternum instead as she rose like a striking snake to knee me in the bread
basket. I twisted skin on her stomach as she squirmed and punched me in the side of the neck. Her next punch bounced off the top of my head and I let go and rammed my elbow into her stomach. She got me in a headlock and I elbowed her ribs. The air shot out of her and then I was on top. Her wild eyes flashed over my shoulder and I knew what she was seeing; Suzanne was coming.

  I scrabbled into a sitting position and struck a casual pose. Delia did the same as she sucked in her breath, and then she let out a wild peel of insane laughter. I smiled at my imaginary joke as she straightened her hair.

  “I miss something good?” Suzanne asked. She was carefully carrying a tray with three shots and three pints. I reached out to steady it as she set it down.

  “Darby was list’nin’ to my story o’ all the pig wrasslin’ I did on my holiday vacation. Blue ribbon winnah.”

  Delia and I were on the same side of the booth now. Suzanne settled across from us with a curious half smile. Delia and I were both panting.

  “I do a little stand-up ’tween songs,” Delia gushed. She elbowed me hard in my sore ribs and guffawed with a snort at the end. “Holland here’s mah biggest fan.”

  Suzanne picked up her shot. Delia and I did, too. My knuckle was bleeding from where I’d scraped it on the edge of the table, so I raised my glass quickly.

  “Suzanne,” I said, dropping her name for Delia.

  “Lobelia,” Suzanne said, smiling and raising hers.

  “Mean Daddy Darby Holland,” Delia chimed.

  We drank. I wiped my knuckle on my pants. There was an awkward silence.

  “So,” Suzanne began, “you and Darby go way back?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said before Delia could launch into something. “Me and this creature”—I punched Delia on the arm—“have some history. On prom night I pried a beer can out of her—”

  “Holland is a hero to all manner of villainous miscreants, great and small,” Delia interrupted. “Why, just today he told me about an incident, where, bless his soul, our own Darby went out of his way to—”

  “We met in reform school,” I interjected. “She was pregnant, of course, though how a white girl can give birth to black Chinese twins is—”

  “Darby was there at the end of his gay porn career, which was unseemly for a twelve-year-old—”

  “She does dogs these days. The things you can sell on the Internet …”

  Silence again.

  “Excuse me,” Suzanne said, rising. “I’m going to get us a menu.”

  As soon as she left Delia pinched me viciously on the arm and twisted. I yanked my arm free and caught her wrist as she swung for a ringing slap.

  “Calm the fuck down,” I hissed.

  “Make me,” she snarled. “Pussy.”

  I rolled my eyes and let go of her. She crossed her arms again. I dug the envelope out and put it on the table in front of her.

  “Ten grand,” I said. “Get some kind of cashier’s check.”

  She took it and stuffed it into her innermost jacket pocket without looking. I took the wad of cash out and slipped it to her under the table. She palmed it and it disappeared.

  “Two more. I need you to fix Dildo and the Empire boys up with waiter outfits. They have to be ready the day after tomorrow. Dye their hair back to some natural color and hose the fuckers down. They need to be convincing. Tell them if they do this, I’ll pay for their 45, recording and pressing, and you’ll do the jacket art. If they say no, you’ll dump Hank and I’ll beat the fuck out of all of them. Two hours’ work, they get a record. Got it?”

  Delia nodded, once.

  “All right. Take the rest and buy that present for the Armenian’s daughter. I need it tomorrow by noon, wrapped, cheesy bow, the whole nine yards. Anything left over is yours. Do you still love me?” It just came out.

  Delia gave me a hard look. Her dark eyes glittered. “Yes.”

  My own face went as hard as railroad steel and my good eye watered. “I love you, too.”

  And then we hugged. I could feel her heart hammering against my chest.

  “Don’t get us killed,” she whispered.

  “I won’t,” I whispered back.

  We let go of each other and Delia wiped her eyes.

  “I better get going. That uniform place over by the liquor store might still be open. Two birds with one stone, considering how drunk they’ll need to be at hair time. Tell Suzanne …” She trailed off. I knew she wanted to finish with “to fuck back off to the sane side of the world for now,” but she didn’t. I got up and let her out. Delia went out the back door without another word.

  When Suzanne got back I was deep in thought, rambling through variables and grim possibilities, casting dice into a dark cave filled with snakes. She sat down with a menu.

  “Where’s Lobelia?” she asked with her special smile, the warm, happy one that made me think of the smell of a heater on a cold morning, or the first glimpse of a distant, grassy hill.

  Somehow, it was the saddest thing I’d ever seen.

  Suzanne and I finished our drinks in silence. The quiet was because she perceived something bad had happened, that “Lobelia” had been a messenger with news relating to my new scars, destroyed business, the forestalled police hunt, and even the boot-heel bruise. She was right, of course. It didn’t take any woman’s intuition to lead her to that conclusion. My flimsy newborn inner peace was gone, the last vestiges of my confusion had vanished, and I could feel my soft parts mummifying right in front of her. I was brooding and I knew it. There was a low-grade hostility radiating from me and there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t even want to. I believed I could fuck Oleg on a train-wreck level and get away with it, and maybe even end up with the Lucky to boot. I was that good at being that kind of bad. I also knew, deep down, that something in Suzanne could make me happy in the kind of way that might make me wise. But I also understood that I couldn’t fit both of those things inside of me.

  Delia was right. It had all started when Oleg hired Ralston to blow up the Lucky and pave the way for the bright Starbucks and art loft future for the blight that was Old Town. I’d been factored in as a thing that had to go and I’d decided not to. Every single facet of the plan based on that decision was illegal, and the reason for that was, I knew, that at heart I was a criminal, too, a card-carrying member of the element society rightly tried to exterminate. It didn’t matter in the least that the same society, with its mazes with no end and tests with no answers, had gradually forced me into that position, and the comfort or sense of achievement I got from being a creature refined by darkness, grown powerful and cunning enough to murder a pimp and potentially flush a power-crazed Russian mini-tycoon down the crapper without getting busted, was bullshit when it came to Suzanne. I could never tell her any of it. She’d believe I was insane by her standards, and if I took her through my life, step by step, to guide her to an understanding of what I’d become and why, all I’d be doing was talking her out of being in love. Fact.

  “I have a job interview tomorrow,” Suzanne said eventually. She’d been toying with her tumbler and watching me. I tried to perk up.

  “Really? I have job-related shit tomorrow, too.”

  “Maybe I should head on home.”

  “Let’s have one more,” I said. I forced a smile I didn’t feel at all. Maybe, just maybe, everything in the next few days would come off without a hitch, and it was possible I would be able to live with all the lies I would have to tell afterward, and all the lies that would come after those. Forever. She didn’t buy the smile either way.

  “Something’s changed,” she said. “Is that woman your girlfriend? Ex-girlfriend? Something like that?”

  “She should be,” I confessed. “I’ve been waiting to love her, and don’t get me wrong, I love that little mutant like the rising sun. But not in that way.”

  Suzanne let that sink in.

  “The bad news is this,” I continued. “I told you that all kinds of awful shit has been going on in my world, and the rea
son I couldn’t be specific is the same reason I still can’t be. It’s bad. And here’s the truth. We all know raw shit goes down in the world around us. Most people read about it in the papers. Movies get made about bikers and gangsters and tons of other stuff. Right now, I live in that shit for real. You don’t. The next few days? People are probably going to try to kill me. Real people. The police, like that pig you were jabbering with on my front porch? Jacob, I think he called himself? He wants to hang me out as a target. This is the second time he’s tried. They’re going to try to arrest me if using me as bait doesn’t pan out. And me? I’m in my endgame, and if I make it, I not only get to live, but I might prosper and grow into something that, to you, might be more objectionable than what I already am. So I’m kinda wondering if I’m wasting your time.”

  Suzanne frowned in a way I hadn’t seen a woman frown since I was a boy. Not sour or condescending. Disappointed, slightly impatient, wistful, and with a little tired disbelief.

  “Darby,” she began, shaking her head. “Look. Listen. Try to hear me. I already know you’re up to your neck in quicksand. But let’s be clear and get everything out on the table, right now, before you piss me off to the point where you totally blow it. And I’m moderately pissed off already, so let’s start there.”

  Here it comes, I thought. The beginning of the end I was predicting, just a different prelude to the same conclusion I was expecting.

  “Drinks!” Suzanne roared. The lazy bartender peeked around the corner. I held up two fingers and looked apologetic.

  “To start with,” she began, “I want you to understand exactly how much shit I’ve put up with from men in general. I’m fucking beautiful and I know it. I have a career. I have interesting things going on in my life. I’m a righteous score, if you pitiful jackasses could look past the fact that I’m six foot five. The percentage of men my height or taller, as in the ones who feel comfortable with me, is like 1 percent. A tiny group to choose from. All extreme shitheads so far. It makes me fucking sick. And you, you! With your scars and your ridiculous personality crisis, which you’re rudely having right in fucking front of me, you think I don’t know what’s going on here? You think I’m stupid? Then fuck you. You fuck like an animal. You have so much passion for everything it makes you seem insane to other people, and now you even believe them. You don’t fit in and you never will. Ever. Just like me. I could give half a shit in the end about all the crap you get up to in the course of a day. If you think it’s that horrible, then be a real man and bottle it up. I’m applying for the girlfriend position, but I can tell you have some baggage in that department and it’s tripping me up. I’m not going to bother with being your judge and jury. And you know why? Can you even guess? Because I’m a woman, not a girl. Which means I’m actually too fucking busy.”