Our Blood in Its Blind Circuit

by J David Osborne

  “Yes. Branson Collins killed my friend. Kid was like my little brother.”

  Janairo closed the file. “Oh.”

  “Can I take the diaper off?”

  “Of course. Just, you know. Finish your story first.”

  “They’re trying to clear out all the competition. Myself included.”

  “Are you admitting that you’re a drug dealer?”

  “I’m not.”

  “But you said--”

  “Listen. He killed Hammond, and I told him I was done. But what he’s doing, is he’s making this whole town his, so he can sell it to a national drug chain.”

  Rangitsch raised an eyebrow. “A chain?”

  “Yeah. And once those guys get here, that’s it for you. You’ll be bought off or killed. They don’t play.”

  “Where can we find Collins?”

  “He’s gonna meet up with the Gutierrez crew tomorrow at five o’clock over in the Alabaster Mountains.”

  Janairo checked his watch. “Shit.”

  “Make sure you catch Collins with the shit before he gets to his meet up. If he gets there, those dudes are gonna have firepower. And they’re a lot bigger than any of this.”

  Janairo and Rangitsch left the interrogation room and high-fived. Isassi sipped his Coke and adjusted his diaper and stared at the picture of the penguins and suddenly felt inconsolably guilty.

  John Parks watched the sun go down through the pine and oak trees in the woods below the Alabaster Mountains. He drove along the winding road and ate a bag of Doritos and an orange he’d stolen from the Natural Grocer after the entire store cleared out at the site of a man covered in tittering black spiders. He parked at the base of the mountain and looked out at the prairie dogs poking their heads from their burrows. From beneath the ground he heard a scream rise and the prairie dogs shot from their holes like daredevils from cannons, beating at their heads and bodies and anywhere else the swarm of arachnids found purchase. He sank to his knees, a fountain of poisonous bodies, and looked out at the hundreds of bloated dead rodents.

  Hiking up the trail, he was careful to control the beasts as best he could. His foot was now in full bloom, the petals of his flesh peeled back and dragging in the red dirt, a new spider birthed every ten seconds.

  He heard voices in the dusk and prayed that he wouldn’t see them, wouldn’t accidentally fall upon someone, set the horde on them. Heart sank when he saw it through the clearing: a group of teenagers in facepaint, dancing around a newborn fire pit. The teens talked about the moon and the trees and a girl held up a lunchbox and opened it and streamers and toy cars fell into the fire pit. The kids laughed and did handstands and mooned each other.

  John Parks remembered the first time they’d gone camping, him and Louise. They’d parked out by a rope swing near his uncle’s house and spent the day in inflatable inner tubes catching fish and swimming in the green water. He’d swung out on a rope and nearly landed on a turtle and Louise had been so scared of the helgramites and their big wings and big beaks. They’d slept in a stuffy trailer and they talked about nothing until she’d mentioned that her first date with her first boyfriend had ended similar to this and John Parks could not wrap his head around how a first date might have ended this way. It had made him mad, he’d gone out to the black water and thought about it but when he dipped his feet into the warm river he’d realized that he missed her more than he resented her remark. He’d gone back to the trailer and she had fallen asleep and he was content to close his eyes and commit her smell to memory.

  He smelled it again as the young people summoned the moon and he didn’t want to but he couldn’t help it, the spiders set after them, and the tiny mouths ate the paint from the boy’s smooth faces and turned blonde hair dark and crawled up inside of their screaming bodies and poisoned them until they swelled pink and drooling around a fire now raging against the dried oak.

  A whistle in the dark and John Parks turned and saw a man standing there among the trees, a blonde man in blue jeans and a denim jacket and white as snow. The man smiled all sharp teeth and red eyes and when he approached Parks waved him off, shouting about the danger, about the spiders crawling all over him. The man put a finger to his lips and reached into his pockets. He pulled out crushed sage and stuffed them around the spiders and into Parks’ ears, and the man took out a bag of rocks and shook it and blue sparks shot from the top, shot out to every crawling thing on his skin, and they all died, a flood of eight-legged carcasses rolling down the dirt path, and the denim man told him: “Get to the top and cleanse yourself.”

  John Parks stomped the hard carcasses of his former captors and set up the hill, looking for the summit, doing his best not to scratch the open wound in his foot.

  Louise threw on a t-shirt and jeans. She grabbed her purse from the end table and waved goodbye to her new roommates and her dog and stepped out into the heavy heat. She met Haywood at the miniature golf park. She quieted down when she stepped to the green, tongue poking slightly from the side of her mouth, and hit a par. Haywood hit the ball hard and it clanked off the edge and bounced into the grass and they laughed.

  She liked him alright. She wanted to get out of town as soon as possible, wasn’t interested in starting anything serious, but she got lonely in her apartment. She got tired of painting and rewatching television shows and thinking about John, about how he was certainly setting about destroying himself over her decision. She liked the easy talk, the casual laughter, how it took her mind off of things.

  John had put her belongings in a box in the lawn and she was determined not to go to them, even though she knew there were things in there she’d miss. She had to prove a point.

  Haywood seemed oddly distant today, and his unease made her stomach twist up. He seemed nervous and jittery, moving around the miniature golf course like he was ready to have it over with.

  They went out for drinks and after that he took her home. They undressed in his room and she put him in her mouth and wondered exactly how she should suck his dick: she had been with John so long that she knew what got to him, but wasn’t sure if that meant it was any good. She tried different techniques. He tossed her on the bed and put a condom on and when he pushed himself inside of her there was that brief blast of color, the creation of something new that soon faded into a kind of repetitious pumping. She didn’t care for the condom or how he fucked her fast. She focused on his body, on his sounds, but never on herself. Neither of them finished but they both lay there, spent.

  She stared up at the ceiling and wondered if this is what her life would come to, miniature golf dates and awkward sex. She curled up and fell asleep and when she woke up early the next morning Haywood was dressed and ready to go. He handed her a plate of eggs and his roommate peeked in at her and said, “She’s gotta go. It’s time.”

  Haywood sat on the edge of the bed and started shaking. She didn’t feel particularly close to him, but she held him all the same. When the tears started dripping on her forearms, she decided this would be the last time she saw the mechanic. She dressed and turned her car on and went to Starbucks and ordered a coffee. She went home and hugged her dog and opened the paper and looked for jobs, anything to save up a little money to move away, maybe move back with her mother, but anywhere that wasn’t here, this awful town and its sad people.

  Alexander Janairo forgot his sunglasses at the office. He turned the radio up and squinted. Rangitsch leaned his head against the window and watched the buffalo eat as they drove further into the refuge.

  They pulled down the long smooth driveway into the visitor’s center and parked and walked quick to get out of the heat. The air conditioning hit them and they both sighed quietly. The building was quiet. The counter had fliers in plastic holders detailing the beasts and fauna of the Alabaster Mountains. Janairo picked one out, glanced at it, then balled it up and tossed it at the wastebasket by the glass door. It bounced off the edge. “Kobe,” he pouted.

  The desk behind the counter: a computer n
ext to a half-full cup of coffee. The police detectives crept around the counter, calling out “hello” and “is anybody here?”

  After a few moments they found the sole employee struggling to dig himself out of a vicious k-hole that had him spread eagle on the floor of the janitor’s closet. The man had his long hair tied into a bun that acted as a pillow. He tried to mouth words but the cops could make nothing of it. They walked out of the closet and back through the waist high swinging door and sat down in the hard plastic chairs and waited for the horse tranquilizer to loosen its grip.

  Janairo checked espn.com while Rangitsch read the Wikipedia article on ketamine.

  After about an hour, they heard a groan. They pushed themselves out of the ass-punishing bucket seats and walked to the body’s side. He worked his dry lips and rasped, “I’m in a k-hole.”

  Janairo nodded. “We know.” Then Sasha Fierce took over. “You need to respect yourself.”

  Rangitsch stood up and walked to the door and stared out at the brown grass and the blue sky. “Let’s just forget it,” he said.

  Sasha stood up. “Fuck you, Bob.”

  Rangitsch sighed. “Yeah.”

  “I’m not gonna let a dissociated hater keep me from closing this case. I don’t have time for this.”

  The employee got himself into a sitting position. “I am starting to feel my hands.”

  Janairo knelt next to him. “Have you seen any suspicious activity in this area this morning?”

  The employee thought about it for a long time. “I did see a bunch of Mexican dudes pull down the Scissortail Trail a bit ago.”

  Sasha Fierce nodded. “Point me in that direction.”

  John Parks ascended the small mountain. He dug his fingers into the small hairs of a cactus and tore it open and frowned at the small brown droplets of water already evaporating from the ground. A rattlesnake shook in the bushes and he knelt down and held his arm out and the thing struck and dangled from his forearm. He pulled it off and tossed it as far as he could and felt his blood thicken and the wound in his foot go from dark green to black.

  Climb.

  He got near the top. He remembered Louise, how she looked when the moonlight hit her and she turned to him with tears in her eyes and told him that she loved him, but she didn’t like him anymore, how he’d stood up from the bed and paced and when she stood up to hold him he’d pushed her against the wall and knocked over the alarm clock. She’d run out and he’d plugged the clock back in, it blinking twelve AM at him and he thought about buying a gun.

  Parks took his shirt off and ran up the slope. The poisons fought for control of his thick blood.

  Haywood and Collins met Gutierrez at the crossroads of Scissortail Trail and Buffalo Hills Trail. The drug lord dressed in a white t-shirt and cargo shorts. He checked his Facebook and dropped the phone in his pocket and turned to one of his guards and slapped the man across the eyes. The guard fell to the ground and held his face and stood up and adjusted his sunglasses and assault rifle.

  “Quit tagging me at your barbecues,” Gutierrez said. “My Facebook page is private for a reason. If you or your wife or one of your fucking kids takes my picture, that’s cool. But don’t tag me.”

  The guard sniffled. “Sorry, boss.”

  Gutierrez took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I got mad.” He lit a cigarette. “So what’s the deal, kiddos?”

  Collins stepped forward. “We took care of our shit. We’re the only ones selling anything in this town, and that’s a guarantee.”

  Gutierrez said, “We have your word on that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Haywood hung back and looked at his feet. Gutierrez looked around Collins. “You. You willing to bet your life on this?”

  Haywood said, “Yes.”

  Gutierrez shrugged. “Well, lets do it, then.” One of the guards opened the door to the Escalade and brought out a heavy bag full of cash. “There’s a lot of money there.” He checked his phone. “Holy shit, look at this dog riding a motorcycle!” He showed it to his henchmen. They chuckled. “Fucking dog on a motorcycle. Fucking great.”

  Collins picked the bag up. “I appreciate your business.”

  Gutierrez waved him off. “It was a really good idea. Hopefully we can do it again, if you ever want to make a little more.”

  Collins nodded. “Sure.”

  Janairo and Rangitsch lay flat on their bellies in the scrub just south of the crossroads. Janairo whispered, “We have to bust them, Range.”

  His partner looked at him sideways. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “No.”

  “They have assault rifles.”

  “I see that.”

  “We have no backup.”

  Janairo frowned. “You sound like a little bitch, right now.”

  “Alex, please…”

  “Don’t you say my name.”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “We’re doing this. Now.”

  Janairo jumped out from behind the scrub and pulled his piece and yelled “POLICE.” Rangitsch cursed and followed suit. The guards turned to the two men and casually lifted their rifles. They opened fire. Rangitsch’s head exploded and his brains hit the dirt and his body flopped and convulsed. The bullets ripped through Janairo, and as he fell to earth he saw his fingers and pieces of his torso fly up in front of him and he died before he hit the ground.

  The spirit inside of Alexander Janairo curled away from the bullets and evacuated the body through the mouth. It took one last look at the dead body and took off into the sky. It sensed the fear coming from the two unarmed men and it looked into each of their souls. It could not figure which one it desired less: the brutal man with a penchant for destroying and humiliating those around him, or the small man too afraid to do anything about it. Sasha Fierce decided that the murderer was less worthy, and it flew down into Steve Haywood’s eyes and his spirit was so paralyzed by fear he didn’t have the will to fight any kind of intrusion. Haywood leapt into the bushes as the cartel trained their guns on Branson Collins, he rolled and got up and did not look back to see his friend torn to pieces under the muzzle flashes. A bullet knicked his calf and he tumbled over the dirt and down a slight incline. He grabbed at the wound to stem the blood and the spirit in him made him stand and hobble, anything to survive.

  John Parks reached the summit of the mountain and he looked out at the hawks circling and he heard the gunfire down below. He breathed in the fresh blue air and looked out at the mottled hills and felt all of his problems disappear. The sage in his ears vibrated and he could hear all the spirits around him, and they closed the snakebite and the spiderbite.

  Childhood: He won the spelling bee in fourth grade. He scored a goal in soccer and he learned how to tie a perfect fly and he learned that he could talk to people and that they might just like him, maybe. He won employee of the month at the restaurant and he picked up the tree business quick and he could do anything he wanted to. The negativity escaped through his anus, a large purple cloud, and it rolled down the mountainside to the bottom, where it pooled like a great fog. Gutierrez and his men ran over to the side of the small hill and trained their weapons on Steve Haywood when the purple fog wafted over them. All the bad moments of John Parks’ life seeped into their brainpans: he was humiliated after school by the boys in the aqueduct, they chased him with bats and they shot him with a blowgun. He once drove a girl home and took his dick out and she laughed and ran inside. He couldn’t hold down a job and he was getting old and he wasn’t sure if he had anything of value to offer the world. The woman he loved, he spent hours talking to her on her couch and with his arm around her he could smell her but he forgot that smell, and he’d never know it again, she would never come to pick up the box outside of his home. All that purple negativity overwhelmed the drug men and the henchman turned their guns on themselves, painting Gutierrez in blood, and the drug lord took out his phone and wrote a suicide note on Facebook, then picked up a rifle from the cold hands o
f his dead friend and shot himself, too. The spirit inside of Steve Haywood swelled to a blue fierceness, and the negativity rolled around and off of him.

  John Parks descended the mountain a new man. He was quenched. Alive. He investigated the bodies at the crossroads and found Steve Haywood pale and shaking in the brush. He picked him up and carried him down the dirt path, away from the carnage, to where he’d parked his truck ages ago.

  He set the dying man in the passenger seat and started the truck and sped off down the road.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  John Parks brushed the hard spider corpses from Steve Haywood’s face, and he plugged in the address of the hospital into his GPS.

  GRITTY

  Sam Titiriga is 100% blue fuck positive he can whip anyone’s ass, and he says as much over the beer he’s drinking in a small bar that’s got a jukebox and a pool table and probably a bunch of cars parked on gravel out back. He’s from the south which is mostly just dirt roads and people who smoke a lot of methamphetamines and let’s face it, I mean, if you’re from an area like that there’s not much to do except whip a lot of ass.

  Sam spent most of his time robbing people with a sawed-off shotgun. He’d park outside of motel rooms for hours. Hookers worked at most of these motels, which never had names, just big “motel” signs that were faded from the hot sun. So yeah, you’d see hookers going into motel rooms to do all manner of disgusting sexual things with men who are no doubt married. These women shoot crack at the dinner table while their feral children eat cockroaches out of cereal boxes older than they are because the profession they have chosen has robbed them of any ounce of humanity and if you gave them half the chance they’ll tell you how little they care about you, how little the whole thing means to them, and how your efforts to save them are precious but man are they ever world-weary and so not here for your bullshit.