BABY WITH THE BEAST

by Naomi West

“My friend thinks you’re Demons!” Shotgun roars, laughing drunkenly. He shoves me away. “This is Sam, Sam, and Sam. How weird is that? They’re brothers from . . . I forget where they’re from.”

  “That’s because you’re blasted. Goddamn. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Would you just calm down!” Shotgun shouts, flapping his hand at me.

  I feel sick looking at this man who was once a father figure to me, who took me off the street and gave me a place in the club. He was once a giant, once a hero, once the bloodiest, deadliest man I’d ever met. I try and tell myself he’s drunk and that’s why he’s acting like this; it doesn’t stick. He’s been like this for a while now. Even before Cecilia, if I’m brutally honest with myself. Maybe he was always like this.

  I grab him by the elbow and drag him to his feet. “We’re leaving,” I tell him, leading him away from the table. “No fuckin’ arguments. If you wanna hate me, hate me when you’re sober.”

  Shotgun snatches his arm away—he’s still strong, even drunk—and walks over to the three men. They’re on their feet now. Their leader, the one with the meanest eyes, takes a step forward.

  “You a Crooked motherfucking Demon, eh?” Shotgun wobbles from foot to foot.

  Somebody switches off the jukebox. The whole place gets tense. A laugh dies. Everybody’s on their feet, watching. I turn to the nearest Sinner, who turns out to be Jerry, and whisper, “Call the cops and tell them there’s a man with an automatic rifle and ten hostages.”

  “But . . .”

  “Either that or a bloodbath. Go, now.”

  Jerry runs toward the bathroom, taking out his cell.

  “And what if we are?” the Crooked Demon says. “What then? Look at you, pal. And you’re the president of this club? Can it even be called a club?”

  “What the fuck’d you say to me?” Shotgun squares up to the man, looking for a second like the old Shotgun. It’s watching a scarred, ancient lion go on one last hunt. For a moment I’m not scared. I feel stupid for being scared. Shotgun’s in charge. Shotgun will handle it.

  But then reality sinks it. We’re still outnumbered. Everyone’s still wasted.

  “What’s going on?” Cecilia cries, when Simone tries to lead her away. “Why is everything so quiet?”

  “You’re on Demon turf,” the leader says, stepping forward so that he’s eye to eye with Shotgun. “You made a big mistake.”

  “A big mistake!” Shotgun pulls a switchblade from his pocket. I try to stop him, but I’m too slow. He stabs the Demon in the chest, blood pissing everywhere, a fountain of it spraying into Shotgun’s face and onto the floor. “A big mistake?” He stabs the man again, and again.

  For a split second, the bar is dead. And then somebody pulls out a gun and fires. The bullet hits Shotgun in the belly, opening him up like some twisted Christmas present, blood soaking into his shirt and dripping to the floor. Maybe they’ll fire another shot. Maybe they’ll finish the job here and now. But then sirens whine, getting closer, and everybody scatters.

  “Get a car!” I roar, catching Shotgun. “Get a fuckin’ car right fuckin’ now! We’re getting outta here!”

  Shotgun smiles up at me, his eyes sleepy. “Was I really shot?” he asks. “I’m dreaming. Is that you, Rocco?”

  Chapter Ten

  Simone

  “Is he hurt? Is he hurt?” Cecilia cries. She’s asked the question about one hundred times, but that doesn’t stop her.

  All I can do is hold her in the front of the car as Shotgun bleeds in the back, the man called Beast driving as Rocco holds onto Shotgun, pressing down on the wound. “Hurry the fuck up!” Rocco roars.

  Beast shouldn’t be driving. He’s just as drunk as Cecilia. But somehow he manages to focus enough not to kill us. He swerves between traffic, heading for the nearest hospital, the GPS on his phone sounding alien and out of place amidst Cecilia’s crying. We almost crash right into a traffic light on a bend, but otherwise we whizz through the city unscathed.

  “We can’t all go in,” Rocco says. “I will, and nobody else. They’ll ask questions.”

  “I’m not leaving him!” Cecilia protests, sobbing into my neck so that her words are slurred.

  “Simone!” Rocco growls. “This is the way to keep him alive. Don’t you fuckin’ die on me, boss. Goddamn it!”

  Beast pulls up outside the hospital.

  “Wait for me down the street!” Rocco snaps, kicking the car door open and lifting Shotgun out of it. He hefts him over his shoulder and carries him into the hospital, disappearing into the bright white lights.

  Cecilia tries to follow them, but I hold onto her tightly as Beast drives us to the end of the street and parks in an alleyway. “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead,” Cecilia moans. “He’s dead and you won’t let me be with him! What’s wrong with you? I always hated you. Ever since we were little girls I hated you, Mona. I never wanted to be your sister. When people said we were sisters I laughed in their faces because I knew it was a stinking lie and it could never be true. It could never be true!”

  “Hush.” I wrap my arms around her, bringing her close to my chest, pulling hard when she tries to resist. She sobs violently, soaking my dress with tears.

  I’m still in a state of shock. I’m still at the bar, trying to get Cecilia to leave. Nobody’s been stabbed. Nobody’s been shot. It can’t be real. Violence can’t happen like that, so quickly. In the movies there’s always a buildup, dramatic camera angles. There are reaction shots and the viewer, most of the time, knows it’s coming. It wasn’t like that at all. One second I was scared, but not terrified. The next, blood was everywhere and I was dragging Cecilia from the bar, digging my fingernails into her wrists too hard by accident, making her bleed. How did everything go so wrong so quickly?

  I’m sober now. At least I think I’m sober now. But maybe I’m still a little drunk because I can’t shake the idea that sleeping with Rocco and Cecilia’s tears are connected in some terrible way. If I hadn’t slept with Rocco, then he would’ve been in the main bar area, and if he’d been in the main bar area, he could’ve intervened before everyone got too drunk. He could’ve stopped it, and then Cecilia’s world wouldn’t be breaking apart. Part of me knows that this is unfair to myself, but a larger part keeps thinking, sleeping with Rocco was a mistake. What the hell is wrong with you? And that’s the part that’s winning. When Cecilia cries, it’s like I can feel her pain in my chest, a heavy weight. I just want her to stop.

  “I remember when I met him at a club and he came over and he smiled and he said I was pretty. And I smiled back and then we kissed and I know Mom and Dad will come around eventually. I know they will because Sam is a good man—we can call him Sam when we comes to dinner, so Mom and Dad will like him. I know they’ll like him, won’t they? Tell me, Simone!”

  I stroke her hair. “They’ll like him,” I say, my belly acidic with alcohol and guilt.

  “I know they will.”

  She quiets down until Rocco returns. Then she pushes away from me. “Where is he? Is he alive? What’s happening? Tell me! He’s your boss and I’m his woman so you have to tell me!”

  Rocco stands at the driver’s door, talking with Beast, ignoring Cecilia for the time being. “Give me the car,” he says. “I’ll take the women home and then ditch it.”

  “Boss.”

  Beast steps from the car.

  Rocco climbs in and starts the engine.

  “Tell me!” Cecilia demands.

  “He’s breathing,” Rocco says, carefully backing out of the driveway. “I bribed the doctor so there ain’t any trouble about insurance or shit like that. But that bullet has done some serious work on him. They don’t know if he’ll make it.”

  “Oh, oh, oh!” Cecilia howls, sounding like a grieving wolf. “How is this . . . How is this . . . I don’t understand! This can’t be happening. Where is Shotgun? Bring me Shotgun!”

  “What’s your address?” Rocco asks me.

  He looks sick in the face, al
l the color drained out of his cheeks. His voice has a faraway quality, as if he’s not really here. I tell him my address, and we drive to my apartment building.

  “I’m taking you upstairs now,” I say to Cecilia.

  “Why are you talking to me like I’m a little baby? I’m the older one, Mona. Don’t forget that.”

  “Okay, okay. But we need to go upstairs.”

  “Fine!” she snaps. “Do you know I never loved you, ever, not once? On our birthday I’d blow out my candles wishing we weren’t sisters anymore.”

  Her words shouldn’t hurt me, not under the circumstances. I know she’s just lashing out. And yet as I help her into my building and into the elevator, Rocco standing beside us, I feel out-of-place pain. I force it down. This isn’t the time or place to get offended at anything she’s saying.

  I give Rocco the keys to my apartment and he opens the door. Together, we carry Cecilia to the couch. She can hardly walk now. It’s like her distress is a bullet in her belly as painful as Shotgun’s. She clutches onto it, moaning wordlessly, head hanging as if she can’t support it herself. Rocco and I lay her down on the couch, on her side just in case she’s sick, and then I kneel down next to her.

  “Everything’s going fuzzy,” Cecilia whispers. “I don’t think I want to be an Ericson anymore. Do you remember when Miss Hayworth snapped at me and told me I was just a spoiled rich girl and Mom heard about it and came to school and embarrassed us? I think Miss Hayworth was right. I wish I was born poor like Shotgun was.”

  “The police will get the man who shot him,” I say, hoping to give her some hope.

  “Not the police,” Cecilia says. She looks over my shoulder, at Rocco. “You have to get revenge on those monsters. Shotgun talks about you all the time. He tells stories about when you first joined and how happy he was and—You have to get revenge on these monsters, these animals. Who busts into a party like that? Promise me.”

  “The police will—”

  Rocco interrupts me. “I’ll get revenge on those bastards,” he says. “If it kills me, I will.”

  I stroke Cecilia’s hair until she falls asleep and then pull a blanket over her. She sleeps fitfully, making scared groaning noises and kicking her legs as though running.

  “What was that about?” I ask, joining Rocco in the kitchen, which is open plan so I can still watch Cecilia over the room divider. “Won’t the police . . .”

  “The police won’t get involved in club shit. They never do. We pay them not to. And anyway, what’re they going to investigate? An abandoned club with blood on the floor? They won’t take the time for that. No, it has to be me.”

  “Do you think he’ll be okay?”

  Rocco’s face has that colorless look again. He swallows, and then shakes his head. Speaking quietly, he says, “No. I don’t think he is. I’ve seen wounds like that before.”

  “Don’t you want to be with him?” I whisper.

  “He made me promise to stay with the two of you tonight. He was talking, mumbling as I dragged him in there. He made me promise, Simone. I don’t know what to do.”

  I touch his face, stroking his chin. “Go to him. He didn’t know what he was saying. Go now, before it’s too late.”

  Rocco stares at me for a moment, and then nods shortly. “Simone,” he says, before leaving. “Tell me tonight still meant something. I don’t wanna sound like a goddamn woman, but tonight’s gotta mean something.”

  “I—” But I can’t say it. I can’t give him what he wants. “Go to your friend,” I tell him. “We’ll talk later.”

  He opens the door, looks at me one last time, and then leaves.

  I go into the kitchen and pour a glass of water. I down it, and then pour another. I down that one, too. Four pints of water later, belly bloated, I sit down on the armchair and watch Simone, waiting to properly sober up. Tonight has been one wild ride, I reflect.

  I wonder if it will all seem real in the morning.

  Chapter Eleven

  Rocco

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t let you in.”

  I stand outside Shotgun’s hospital room, the nurse blocking me even if she’s half my size. The blinds are drawn but I can hear somebody snapping at somebody else, the humming of machinery, a beep-beep-beep which is getting quieter and quieter. Shotgun is dying and I have no choice but to back away and slink to the waiting room, drop into a plastic chair and stare at the floor. Shotgun is dying, and there’s nothing I can do.

  I think about getting a coffee, but I stand at the machine for a minute or two and then go back to the chair. There are a couple of other people in the waiting room, an elderly woman who knits like she doesn’t know how to stop, and a middle-aged man looking just as lost as me. We sit and wait to the click-click of the elderly woman’s knitting. I think about the time Shotgun and I went riding together when I was seventeen and he was in his twenties, how he’d dart between the cars like a man with all the power in the world. It can’t be the same man, I tell myself. It just can’t. Not in there, not dying. That man can’t die.

  And yet after half an hour of waiting, a nurse comes and stands over me. She’s a short, redheaded woman with a cross dangling outside her scrubs. “The doctor will see you now,” she says quietly.

  I feel like I’m in a dream as I walk through the hospital. I don’t even have the certainty of being able to find comfort in Simone, I reflect. When I find out this news, I don’t even have that. I walk slower, hoping to delay the moment. Shotgun’s too strong to die. A bullet can’t kill a man like that.

  But then the doctor is standing in front of me, a tall man wearing horn-rimmed glasses with a professional look on his face. “How do you know the patient, sir?” he asks.

  “I’m his son,” I say, the first thing that comes to my mind. In many ways it’s true even if Shotgun would have been ten or eleven when he had me.

  The doctor clearly doesn’t believe it, but he ignores the lie. “I’m really sorry to have to tell you . . .”

  I barely hear the rest of his words, the normal shit they tell you when a loved one dies, condolences and offered support and blah-blah-fucking-blah. They ask if I want to see him and I say yes, of course I do. I won’t believe it if I don’t. I expect to find him all twisted and ghostly, something out of a horror movie, but all I see instead is Shotgun with a pale face and his eyes closed. He doesn’t look like he’s sleeping. He doesn’t look dead, either. But maybe that’s because all the dead men I’ve seen have been like something out of a horror movie.

  I sit next to him and take his hand. I never took his hand in life, but now that he’s dead it seems appropriate. “One hell of a night, boss,” I say.

  Shotgun’s never looked so young or vulnerable as he does now, just lying there. I keep expecting him to sit up and say something funny, or tough, or anything at all which will make him lying there dead bullshit. He can’t be dead, I repeat to myself again and again. There’s no damn way Shotgun’s dead. I want to laugh about it, but I can’t get a laugh out. My mind keeps returning to Simone, to how she looked at me just before I left. I’ve lost two parts of my life tonight. That’s a selfish thought. But I can’t stop thinking it. Maybe I’m wrong about Simone. I know one thing for sure, though. I’m not wrong about Shotgun.

  “Do you remember when you caught me snorting coke?” I say. “I was seventeen and you went ape shit, really goddamn ape shit. I remember being scared of you back then, boss. I can’t say I was scared of you much after that, but back then I was scared. You told me I always had to stay focused. I could never let my mind wander to this sorta shit. That’s what you told me. You were a good father, boss. I just wish we’d met when I was six, not sixteen.”

  I pat him on the hand and stand up. I’m not crying. I reckon I should be crying. You don’t know a man for over a decade and then not cry when he dies. But I can’t cry. I can’t even remember the last time I cried. Maybe when I was a little kid in the foster home. Now I just feel numb, and beneath the numbness, rage work
s its way through my body.

  I turn away and walk into the hallway. When the nurse mutters something about funeral preparations, I snap, “Send the body to the Seven Sinners’ clubhouse.” I give her the address.

  Outside, I ditch the car and walk through the streets, hands in my pockets, feeling like a stranger in the city. I’ve lived here a long time and yet I’ll never get used to all these lights, flashing nonstop like this is a landing strip but the plane ain’t ever going to land. I smoke a few cigarettes, but all they do is make my mouth feel stale, my throat scratchy. I can’t stop thinking about Simone, which makes me damn guilty. I should be thinking about Shotgun, and only Shotgun. But Simone keeps appearing in my mind, the way she just stared at me . . .

  After a few hours of walking, I end up at the clubhouse. My legs are sore and my feet ache in my boots, but I hardly feel the pain. It’s nothing compared to the pain of a bullet in the gut. I picture Shotgun’s pale, dead face and wonder if the boys are going to care as much as me. I can only hope they do. Shotgun deserves to have people give a damn that he’s dead.