Drawing Dead

by JJ DeCeglie

  She only heard what she wanted to. Or wanted me to think that she had, biting that swollen bottom lip, messing her hair about with one hand and taking mine across the table in the other. She rose up like the full moon and then came at me like a shot. Sitting back into me languidly, as if I were her favourite chair. Her back rested against my chest, the stubble from my chin getting caught in her shortened perfumed curls. I couldn’t fit her breasts in my hands entirely, there was just too much of’em.

  I think you got pretty much all I had in me this afternoon baby.

  And I was, it had been a torrid, exhausting affair, what one would call an epic. She just nuzzled her warm ass into me like a mother duck would do her cache of precious eggs. There cannot be many things better than this.

  I’m sure we can find some more.

  Be my guest honey.

  She did. She created a way, found some spare; she was just that kinda girl. She took pride in the matter. And together we once more invented a translation of torture and delight, a postponement to opinions about death, a rearrangement of senses and stresses. I had next to nothing left when we were done. Only flesh and apprehension.

  We went to bed together but I couldn’t find sleep and when she’d drifted I got up again. Threw on some trousers, said fuck you to shoes and went out to the car and got one of the remaining bottles of wine. While I was out there I wandered over to the Visitor’s Centre and snatched the most detailed map I could find. Got back inside. I took mouthfuls of the dreadful stuff and looked the thing over thorough. My half-assed plot could work. Pigs could also fly. Navigation could be a problem; I figured I’d pick up a compass when I went for supplies in the morning. I joked to myself that if we got lost in the desert and food ran out I’d just eat Evie. Her succulent ass alone had enough meat on it to keep a man fed for days.

  So yeah I couldn’t sleep. That afternoon siesta had fucked with me. Instead I drank and had a meaningful exchange with myself. Went like this.

  Real nice plan shit for brains, got about as much chance of working out as I do becoming fucking Prime Minister.

  You gotta better one do you asshole?

  Yeah, go get the gun out the car and kill yourself right now.

  I just might, wouldn’t have to listen to your complaining ass no longer.

  I don’t complain, I assess, there’s a vast and defined difference; it’s just that in your damned case you forever fuck everything up and are constantly turning out a loser. Hence praise is rarely required with you, more so it’s the constant need for you to be called an asswipe that persistently comes to the fore.

  You really are one hell of a cocksucker you know that?

  Call’em as I see’em is all.

  I fucked her pretty good though huh

  That sir, I must say, without a doubt now, you did do. Better than good. That was sublime. It was excellent and then a little bit more.

  Wasn’t it though.

  Won’t do you any good now.

  I’m gonna bask in fucking glory of it anyhow.

  You would.

  Fuck. You.

  You think she’s up for this?

  Am I?

  I reckon you are, you have been so far, and the rest of your existence says nothing but yes to me.

  Atta boy, keep the compliments coming…could get used to this!

  Quit fucking around, she’s a snake and you know it.

  I don’t know shit. I don’t even know why I’m here. What this is? How I got to it? What you are? Who I am? Where I’m from or going. I’m smart enough to know that I don’t know nothing. That I never have or will. It was shit before we started, ain’t nothing turned to it, it already was and is.

  Just an excuse to keep her pretty ass around and on your dick a few more days I believe.

  Put it whichever way you like motherfucker. Say what you damned will.

  Ok. You’re an asshole of the highest order. Not to mention a degenerate gambler, alcoholic and sex fiend. A real true to life piece of fucking work.

  Word it at will amigo, it don’t matter a lick to me. We’re gonna play this thing out to the end me and her, to the romantic or murderous crescendo.

  You’ve fucking flipped kid. Unhinged. No coming back from where you’ve gone. Only direction is downward and to hell.

  Sit back and enjoy the ride.

  As soon as the sky commenced from black to blue I determined to get going. I’d only drunk the one jug and had spent the rest of the night smoking the two small cigars I had left and was waiting for daylight to get happening. My top had buzzed internal throughout and I was sick of sitting and just had to get the fucking day moving. I went inside and sat by Evie. She moved about some but didn’t stir from her slumber. Slept naked too. Like I needed that. I had to tell her what I was gonna do. Didn’t want her to go into a panic when she woke and me, the car and money were gone. I knew she wouldn’t like it. That she’d kick up a fucking stink. But I’d decided that this way was best, and the fuck if she didn’t think so.

  I put my hand gently onto the hair she’d cut and coloured. Kinda took her entire skull in my hand and gently squeezed. I ran my other hand, well the back of it along her fine left cheekbone and chin. Her eyes flicked open as if a switch had been hit.

  Hey there baby…I’m gonna go and get the supplies and then go on some more and bury them and the money…you dig?

  She just looked at me, now and then blinking in a pleading, saddened manner, like what I had said to her was completely unknowable. I repeated myself; now she got it, I think the first time she may have thought she was dreaming.

  Ok, just give me a minute.

  Here we go.

  I’m gonna go alone Evie.

  What? Why?

  Told your asses didn’t I.

  They’ll be looking for two of us. And I’ve got plenty of experience doing this kinda thing. It’s part of my job to travel incognito. It’ll be safer and quicker, and if I get caught you can still do like I told you and maybe get outta the country.

  It sounded like a bunch of bullshit even to me. She kept at it.

  But you said it was me and you, you said we only had each other.

  We do, but you gotta trust me Evie.

  I’m frightened.

  Of what?

  That you won’t come back.

  Don’t think the consideration hadn’t frequently crossed and crowded my mentality.

  I’ll be about three hours, four tops. Trust me Evie. Trust me.

  She made an attempt to draw me down into the precious snare that was her blanket warm bonfire of a body. Entrap me with her fleshy construct. I shook her off like a man coming out a lake would a leech. She gave me eyes meant to injure. I took the vodka bottle from the bedside table. I’m pretty certain that as I went out the door she swore under her breath a robust line of resentment. I won’t repeat the word, but only say that she had one, and that I’d spent most my days since I was about thirteen seeking them out.

  I switched license plates with what must have been the old man’s car. Took all of five minutes with the spanner I’d whipped out from under the case full of money in the boot of my own. Things would have been much easier had we dumped my vehicle and stolen or bought a new one on the way here but this was how it was and I just had to live with it.

  As I drove the sun started burning lemon and peach over the eastern perspective in sliding shafts of thaw. You could smell the dew aflame and dissolving off all things and it gave that earthen fresh trace to the air. I followed the map and knew it was about a seven click motor over to the roadhouse. I eased it in. Rolled through the stretching shadows of the scrubland. Watched the light go from fluid to clear, the sky from a fading cobalt stain to an overflowing azure hue. When I got there I went to it. There were trucks and their drivers about the place. Pacing the cement and smoking their asses off. Neon orange dots in the waning dim. I put my cap on and pulled that mother down as low and protective as I could. Parked as far out back and out of sight as the place would allo
w. Inside I brought up plenty of food and plenty of water. Some medical and comfort supplies. A compass. A newspaper. Some tourist type shirts and hats for our asses to change into. Heavy duty canvas bags. Two of. At the counter and this country bumpkin motherfucker wants to converse a little. And I had to play the game like I meant it.

  Where you headed?

  He was about forty. Slim and tall. Seemed nice enough, perhaps somewhat of a simpleton, but a polite enough fella all the same.

  Just driving really.

  North?

  Yeah...well, might head east a tad, what’s the next town if head in that direction?

  Big one or any one?

  Any.

  That’s be Moderna. Bout eighteen kilometres north-east. They got a road block though.

  As he was gabbing he was working, tallying things up on a notepad. They were living in the dark ages up this way. Didn’t even have a calculator this asshole.

  A roadblock?

  Yep. Trying to trap some murderers I hear. From the city. Both ways are blocked. North and north-east. And there ain’t no other way through. I don’t know much about it. Just that the roads are blocked. Police sitting there waiting about two kilometres outside the town. They’ll stop you either way.

  I was getting a kick outta this. Mine and Evie’s picture was on the front page of the newspaper I was buying. He was too dumb to know he was aiding and abetting.

  Murderers?

  Yep. Cold-blooded too they say. City people are all mad you know. Too much to do and have down there. Too much in general. But what do I know?

  Very fucking little.

  I think you’re onto something there.

  I know I am.

  How much do I owe you?

  He tallied it up. I’m pretty sure he fucked that up and undercharged me too. No way what I’d bought added up to what he told me. Thicker than full cream. What did I care? I walked and threw the lot of it into the boot with the money and gun. Got in and sat a second. Braced myself. Leant back and seized that booze I'd thrown back there and took a decent hit. Capped the bottle, hurled it back where I’d got it, then started wheeling with sharpened watchfulness toward hell or Moderna.

  I consulted the map as I drove, watched the odometer tick over, another five clicks up the road there was a dirt track that went left and went deep. I found it easy enough and followed the sonofabitching thing until its crunching, pot-holed conclusion. It ended in an opening up of space, a plaza of red dirt and rocks. A nice marker to aspire back toward. From that clearing it was just under six clicks directly down and to the left to where I was planning to clamber out the water and scale that crumbling semi cliff face then scramble crossways over the bush land. I knew it was gonna be a real bitch but it was just dawning on me now how tough this could actually get. Hacking through virgin green, sun screaming, sweating, swearing, Evie in tow moaning and crying. It was a batshit wild plan, crowded to the brim with adversity and disorder, but I had no other one man!

  The day stealing a million dollars of someone else’s money was easy, was the day whores starting fucking for free. I didn’t even have a knife on me. I stared back through the bush, shook my head and spat; it was gonna be a virtual shitfight in there. At least with a blade if it got too much I could have killed her and then myself soon after…Lexy, goddamn! Not fucking now son. Not now. I remembered I had the gun. Yeah that was much easier, and more efficient too. Bang and then bang. I stopped kidding about and got to work. I got the canvas bags and laid them on the ground and then started transferring the money over to them in bundled double handfuls. From a quick guess I’d’ve said there were about two hundred five grand packs. So it took me a good quarter-hour of work. I’d never seen so much money collected together at one time. Expected I probably never would again. I placed the supplies on top of the cash and zipped up. Pocketed ten large for expenses and then with the jack from the boot and down on my knees I dug out two shallow holes, cursing myself for not having bought a spade at the store. I sat the two bags there, each to its own grave and then covered them with debris. Got that juice back in my hand and took a much deserved jolt.

  If this thing I had planned worked out I was gonna be pretty damn proud of myself, if not I was gonna be in jail or dead, or the first awhile and then eventually the other, ah we’re all gonna die someday anyhow.

  A lamenting riot of a requiem for the loser if you could sir.

  23

  It was maybe eight in the morning when I pulled back into the hotel. Callous cold-blooded sunlight still in reign. I got out the car map in hand and purposeful, resolute to fuck Evie a couple more times and then to run over this jackass scheme of mine a few minutes before we tried the bastard on. All in all everything was skipping along and the nonsensicality of the design and tightness of the rope garroted round my neck was pale in comparison to insurgence and mutiny in my heart and loins. I took the last of the fermented fluid as an acknowledgment to the arriving clusterfuck and as a dirge to life in general. I was gonna march in and lay assault to her ass, let loose so as she loved it and then we were gonna stride out and in all probability give up the ghost together.

  Yee-haw!

  When I got inside, Evie was hog-tied on the bed with black tape. Face first, wrists to her ass and ankles to the roof. A neat little package if ever there were one. As much as I wished she’d gone and done it as a splendid surprise for my twisted tastes I knew a person couldn’t pull that off themselves. Took at least one man, plus the victim, to do. With two it was easier, the second held’em down if they squirmed you see, and they usually did just that.

  Again though, I’m off track.

  I stood in the doorway a second trying to make a decision, should I go for the gun in the boot, or go and see if she was alright. Got made for me though. Heard it before I saw it. A beast with its great bulky ass hanging out my car window. A bear foraging for food perhaps, a golem come to life and tearing after his beloved.

  No such luck.

  Motherfucker popped the boot. Hoofed over to it. Beat his chest with Evie’s gun in hand and then made for the place I was standing. I tried to evoke what to do when under attack from a beast of this magnitude.

  Stand still?

  Act mad?

  Run downhill?

  Play dead?

  All of the above?

  Instead I just did as he said and ambled backward one foot after the other with my hands in the air. The pull-tie had left his neck red and black and blue. Man I wished I had some of those right here and now, and that this animal hadn’t have shown up; Evie would be getting what for and then some. Rob still had on his leather pants and denim jacket and I could tell he wasn’t happy with me by the way he crashed the gun into the side of my head and sent me stumbling back into the room proper.

  He had determined he owed me some more, and in fairness he did, and he went about delivering on the owe with a series of exploding kicks and detonated stomps. He left me in a heap and went over and closed the door. Motherfucker still hadn’t said a word. He didn’t have to though; the taste of blood in my mouth and the gun in his hand said it all. I felt nauseous from the impact. Didn’t stop me getting up and taking a swing at him. Which missed by a mile, and led to a further bombardment of blows.

  Settle down there Jack.

  Evie had been whimpering the entire time through an apple stuffed in her mouth and kept there with tape. Like a piglet ready to eat. I’d bought that apple, and couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of doing the same thing yesterday when I had her all tied up myself. Had no tape though. Rob went on with the speech he’d prepared.

  If you play it smart Jack you might live through the day, I'm not promising anything now though, 'cause I'd just be plain fucking lying, course you’re gonna have to tell me where all that money is.

  Evie kept yelping. I wished to hell she would shut the fuck up. Rob kept on with the talk.

  If you’re lucky you’ll end up like that friend of yours, I borrowed his car, nice guy, found him at
your office, Larry right, a tough son of a bitch; I had to beat the living daylights out of that motherfucker. He eventually gave you up, hard as a coffin nail though…was pretty difficult to understand him in the end, I’d broken his jaw, badly too, I think maybe he said hi.

  It was a bullshit pitch. Chenko had no idea where I was headed, fuck he didn’t even know I was gone. And he’d never be dumbass even to go to my office with heat enough to singe your eyebrows on this entire damned circus we’d created. I played along.