The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

by Norman Partridge

  So when a friend offered to make Joe a partner in a custom cabinet shop, he jumped at the chance. Only problem was that Joe didn’t have enough green to buy his way into the business. So he decided to cash in his savings, make a run up north into marijuana country like he had in his college days, grab some quick profit on a larger scale than he’d ever tried before. But his old contacts steered him in the wrong direction, and he ended up in a Portland bar looking for a friend of a friend, and a short time after that he ended up on the wrong end of Larry Oates’ shotgun, and now his future doesn’t have anything to do with the life he wanted to make.

  Now his future is all about death.

  “You’ve got to listen to me, Joe. You can’t do this.”

  “It’s the only way. Either I do it or I crawl back into that hole in the ground. It’s that simple.”

  “But that waitress. The one who’s going to find the money… she doesn’t have anything to do with any of this.”

  Joe’s anger flares. “She poured Oates a cup of coffee, didn’t she? Brought the bastard his breakfast while I was digging my way out of a grave like some goddamn gopher. She flirted with him and bought his dope and put money in his pocket that’ll maybe buy more shotgun shells he can use to put some other poor bastard six-feet under.” Joe snorts laughter. “Hell, Jessie, that little waitress gave Oates everything but a sweet little cherry on top.”

  “But that’s no reason to kill her!”

  “You’re right.” Joe glances at his wristwatch. “But in just a little while she’ll be picking up nine hundred bucks that can buy another chance at life for me, and that’s all the reason I need.”

  “But why does she have to die?”

  “That money was taken in blood. Blood is the only way to get it back.”

  “And what about me?” Jessie asks. “I’ve got your money, too. When you finish with the waitress, will you come after me with Larry Oates’ shotgun?”

  “Jesus Christ, Jessie.” Joe sighs. “When I’m done with the waitress, it’s over. That’s what this thing in my gut tells me. I get that money back and I’m alive again, for keeps.”

  Jessie doesn’t say anything.

  She swallows hard. Up ahead, the road is dark.

  Lightning flashes. A rip in the sky that’s too wide and too bright, like the polished blade of a butterfly knife.

  Joe breaks the silence. “Don’t you want me to have another chance, Jess?”

  ‘Yes. Of course I do.”

  “Then you have to let me do this thing.” Joe nods at the shotgun, waiting on the back seat. “And I have to do it this way.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “I’m not. This is wrong. Everything tells me that. Even if we could turn back the hands of time, if everything could really be the same as it was, I couldn’t pay the price you’re asking. Because if we pay that price, things won’t ever be the same as they were. You’re not a killer, Joe. You never were. Not alive, and not in the dreams I had for us. If you become one now, you might get a second chance, but what kind of a chance would it be?”

  Joe shakes his head. “Remember what your mother used to say, Jess? About the way you saw things, I mean?”

  “She said I had a special kind of eye. She said other people didn’t even know how to look at the things I could see.”

  “Your mother was wrong. At least on one count. See, I know exactly how you see the world. I know how you see it when you’re awake. I know how you see it when you’re dreaming. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not the man you used to see in your dreams, but your dreams aren’t the same as they used to be. They’re not even dreams anymore. Think about that, Jess.”

  “There’s got to be another way.”

  “If you think of one, be sure to tell me about it. Until then, the clock is ticking.”

  Up ahead, thunder rumbles. Loud. Getting louder.

  When it comes again, Joe’s voice isn’t any more than a whisper. “It’s about time for us to say adios, Jess.”

  Jessie opens her mouth. She can’t go now. Not yet… not until she convinces him she’s right.

  Joe shifts gears, and the engine roars, and so does the thunder. Before she can so much as whisper, lightning tears Jessie’s world in half.

  The next part takes only a second, maybe two. But to Jessie it seems to last forever, like crawling up a rickety set of cellar steps with a couple of broken legs.

  Out of the dark, into the light.

  That’s what it’s like. Because things start to come together for Jessie. The things Joe said about the way she sees things, about her dreams… and the way they’ve changed since Joe died… and the way Joe has changed, too…

  A lightning crack as Smitty slaps her one more time, and Jessie’s eyelids flutter open. She’s on the floor of Oates’ barn. Her boots are by her head. Smitty looms over her, clutching her leather jacket in one hand, a fistful of dollar bills in the other.

  He’s raided Jessie’s wearable bank, and he’s not happy. “I know how much money you had,” he says. “Seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven dollars. There’s nine hundred missing, bitch. I swear you’re going to give me every penny.”

  Jessie rolls over onto her elbows. Her wrists and ankles aren’t bound anymore, but she can hardly move. Her right eye is swollen shut. Her lips are bruised and puffy, like a couple banana slugs glued to her face, and there’s a sound in her head that she can’t escape.

  A sound like thunder.

  Smitty pulls her to her feet and shoves her against the truck. For the first time, Jessie realizes they’re not alone. There’s a car parked over by the workbench, the one littered with beer bottles and ashtrays and guns. It’s a Mercedes. Oates is stretched out on the hood, his shirt skinned off, his skin nearly as white as Joe’s. There’s a man bent over him — he’s got to be the doctor that Smitty phoned — and his hands are covered with blood.

  Oates screams, his body bucking against the hood of the car. Smitty whirls and yells something. The doctor swears and snatches up a syringe. He drives the spike into Oates’ pale flesh. The killer bucks again and falls back, his head striking the Mercedes hood with a hollow sound like a coffin lid slamming closed.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor says. “I swear to God, Smitty, I did everything I could.”

  Blood pumps under Smitty’s skin. He drops the money on the ground and stares straight into Jessie’s eyes. “Seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven bucks,” he says. “Seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven bucks.”

  Jessie tries to run, but she can barely walk. Smitty slaps her hard and… Joe slams the door of the Mustang. Heavy rain washes the last of the gravedirt from his face. He studies the parking lot. A couple logging trucks. An old Ford with a camper shell. A waitress dancing in the rain with a roll of soggy twenties and tens locked in her palm… and five hard knuckles pound Jessie’s belly. Smitty punches her once, twice, three times... four shells, five, and one more fed into the shotgun as Joe watches the waitress rush into the restaurant… and Jessie drops to her knees… reaching out, grabbing Joe, pulling him close so that his cold belt buckle burns against her cheek. “Listen to me,” she says. “That money cost us everything, and now it’s going to cost us even more.” Joe grabs her, pulls her to her feet… and Smitty drags her across the barn, to the Mercedes where Larry Oates rests in tortured repose, his face frozen in a grimace of agony, and Smitty grabs Jessie by the hair and shoves her head close to the dead man’s, so close that their lips nearly touch… and Joe’s dead lips are just as close but he says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but you see how things are now. You see that every time you close your eyes.” And he stares across the parking lot, the shotgun in his hands, and Jessie screams at him but he won’t even look at her. He’s looking at the restaurant, at that waitress on the other side of the glass, and his eyes are cold and green and full of need for all the things that have been taken from him and all the things he knows he can never get back no matter how hard
he tries… and Smitty pushes Jessie nose-to-nose with the dead man… and Joe Shepard swallows hard and takes his first step forward.

  Larry Oates’ eyelids look like little marble slabs. Jessie stares straight at them. She doesn’t even blink.

  She can’t see Joe anymore, and she can’t see her dream. She knows she had one once, but she can’t see it at all. It’s like Joe said — she doesn’t even have a dream anymore.

  But even though her dream is gone Joe is still part of it, the same way he’s still a part of her world. Jessie can never forget him, so he’s still alive in that most essential part of her, that thing-that-used-to-be-a-dream-but-isn’t-anymore.

  She understands that now. He’s trapped there, and he wants a second chance at a dream that’s dead. He’s trying for it, trying the only way he knows how. Listening to something in his dead gut, cradling it there like a precious spark, allowing it to drive him forward.

  Just that fast Jessie realizes what it is Joe’s listening to.

  He’s listening to the only thing that survived the death of her dream.

  He’s listening to her nightmare.

  Jessie’s eyes are wide open. She’s wide awake. She’s not dreaming. But she’s not in Larry Oates’ barn, either, though that’s where her body stands. No. She’s not standing there, face-to-face with Larry Oates’ corpse. Not really. Instead, she’s standing in the only place she can possibly belong anymore — in the deepest, darkest pocket of a living nightmare, with a man who was once the biggest part of her world.

  But Jessie and Joe aren’t alone in that nightmare.

  In a nightmare, there’s plenty of room.

  Jessie sees that, too.

  Staring down at Larry Oates’ dead face, Jessie sees that clearly.

  Just that fast, Larry Oates’ eyelids flash open.

  The dead man gets up.

  The doctor runs for it. Smitty grabs him.

  “First thing you’ve done right all day,” Oates says.

  Smitty swallows hard, and the doc’s shaking like he’s in the throws of the DT’s. “This is impossible,” the little man says, staring at the rope of intestines dangling from Oates’ belly. “It can’t be happening. He’s dead.”

  Oates doesn’t pay the bastard any mind. What the doc says doesn’t make any difference to him. Hell, he knows he’s dead.

  Or at least he was a minute ago. Now he’s back. He doesn’t know exactly why. Doesn’t much care, either. Hell, it could be he’s some kind of immortal. Or it could be his barn was built on top of some old enchanted Indian burial ground. Could be one of his spacy new-age girlfriends put some kind of mystic spell on him without him even knowing about it. Hell, could be a lot of things.

  Maybe Oates could figure it out if he really wanted to. Tug at that rope of intestines sticking out of his belly, pull out his own entrails and read ’em, discover the mysteries of the ages in his coiled guts. But he can’t quite see the percentage in that.

  Why he’s come back doesn’t much interest him.

  What he can do now that he’s here does.

  Oates’ right hand slices the air, palm up and open. Smitty just stares at it, like he expects to see something there.

  Jesus, Oates thinks. Like he expects magic. Like he expects something to appear out of nowhere.

  “The money, idiot,” Oates says. “Give me the money.”

  Smitty’s a couple sandwiches short of a picnic, but he gets the message. He hands the wad to Oates. The dead man starts counting it, and he feels a little better already. There’s something in his gut talking to him, and it ain’t a butterfly knife. No. It’s something down deep, something that tells him everything will be okay if he has this money in his hands —

  Only problem is, the money isn’t all there.

  Oates remembers now. The restaurant parking lot. The little green jellyroll…

  “We’re a little short,” Oates says.

  Smitty swallows hard. “Nine hundred bucks. Gotta be that the girl’s got it, but she won’t tell me where it is.”

  A quiet voice from the other side of the barn. “You’re never going to know,” Jessie says. “Neither of you.”

  Oates blinks at the shadows. The little chick’s over by the workbench. She must have slipped over there while everyone was marveling at his Lazarus act. That wouldn’t be so bad in itself, but she’s holding one of his shotguns. It’s just like the gun he used to cut down her boyfriend, only this hogleg is sawed off.

  “You put that down,” Oates says. “I’m already dead. I don’t figure you can kill me twice in one day.”

  “Take a step,” she says, “and we’ll find out.”

  Oates smiles. He feels pretty good, actually.

  “Have it your way,” he says, and then he takes a step forward. Jessie raises the shotgun.

  Oates takes another step.

  Shivering, Jessie watches the dead man come.

  She can see him, all right. She sees Larry Oates all too well. After all, this is her world. She knows that now. She made it, this thing-that-used-to-be-a-dream-but-isn’t-anymore.

  Dead men live here because she can’t let go of them.

  Joe Shepard walks here because she loves him.

  Larry Oates walks here because she hates him.

  And money controls everything, because money drove both men to their deaths.

  Oates smiles at Jessie, his guts hanging from his belly like coiled snakes. He opens his mouth, and he’s smirking while he does it, and Jessie’s afraid that she’ll see a forked tongue flick over his lips while he brands her with words that will surely burn like hellfire —

  Jessie swallows hard. She never imagined that a nightmare could talk, but she knows that it’s possible now, the same way she knows that Oates’ words will change her forever if she hears them.

  Oates takes a breath. Fills his dead lungs. He’s ready to tell Jessie something.

  But Jessie doesn’t plan on listening.

  She opens her own mouth.

  She screams Larry Oates’ words away.

  Oates starts to laugh, but Jessie can’t hear him. She can’t hear anything. She’s still screaming.

  Her finger tightens on the shotgun trigger.

  Quite suddenly, she realizes that she knows how to kill a nightmare.

  You kill one the same way you kill a dream.

  Jessie doesn’t know how many times she fired the shotgun. All she knows is that Larry Oates isn’t moving anymore, and what’s left of his head wouldn’t fill a sock.

  Jessie pries the money from Oates’ dead fingers. Smitty doesn’t say a word. Neither does the doctor.

  She looks both men in the eye.

  She thinks about that little tie-dyed waitress.

  She points the shotgun at the doctor.

  “Give me your keys,” she says.

  He opens his mouth, ready to argue. Then he glances down at what’s left of Larry Oates, and a second later his keys hit the ground at Jessie’s feet.

  Jessie pockets them. She finds a roll of duct tape on the workbench and tells the doc to get busy. Before long Smitty is on the ground, half-mummified in silver tape. Then she gets her boots and jacket on, as fast as she can.

  “Head for the highway,” she tells the doctor, aiming the shotgun his way. “My advice is this — leave town and don’t look back.”

  The doctor knows good advice when he hears it. He grabs his coat and hurries into the storm.

  Jessie climbs behind the wheel of the Mercedes and backs out of the barn.

  Raindrops pelt the bloodstained hood, washing Larry Oates’ blood over the fenders, into the mud.

  Jessie only has one place to go.

  She drives fast. She keeps her eyes on the road, but her thoughts travel elsewhere.

  To Joe. She can’t see him now. She can’t see what he’s doing… or what he’s done. But she can still see the last vision she had of him in her mind’s eve.

  Joe Shepard standing in that restaurant parking lot, swallowing ha
rd, taking his first step forward with Larry Oates’ shotgun gripped between his dead fingers.

  She wonders how long it would take Joe to cross that parking lot. It wasn’t what you’d call a long trip. Not really. Not if you measured it in footsteps. But measured another way, it was the longest trip imaginable. Because Joe was walking in a nightmare, not a dream. It was a nightmare that belonged to the woman he loved, and he knew all too well how she felt about the things it demanded of him.

  Still, even if he hesitated, it would only take him a minute or two to cross the parking lot. Jessie wonders if that might have been long enough. She tries to remember the things that took place in Larry Oates’ barn. She tries to put everything into perspective.

  Oates returned to life about the same time that Jessie regained consciousness. She grabbed the shotgun off the workbench… and then Oates walked across the barn, came at her, ready to tell her something —

  That couldn’t have taken very long, could it?

  A minute? Maybe two? But maybe that was long enough. Maybe she had fired the shotgun in time. Maybe Joe was still walking across the parking lot when she killed the walking nightmare called Larry Oates —

  Maybe killing Oates had changed everything.

  Maybe. If killing a nightmare could restore a dream.

  Maybe. If second chances — the kind worth having — existed in her world.

  Maybe…

  Jessie doesn’t know, but she’s about to find out. The restaurant is just ahead. She turns into the parking lot. The rain is really coming down now. She can’t see very far at all.

  She pulls to a stop, throws open the door, steps into the downpour.

  It won’t take her long to cross the lot.