by Brian Keene
Kill Whitey
Brian Keene
CEMETERY DANCE PUBLICATIONS
Baltimore
2008
Copyright © 2008, 2011 by Brian Keene
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Cemetery Dance Publications
132-B Industry Lane, Unit #7
Forest Hill, MD 21050
http://www.cemeterydance.com
The characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead,
is coincidental and not intended by the author.
First Digital Edition
ISBN: 978-1-58767-243-9
Cover Artwork © 2008 by Jill Bauman
Digital Design by DH Digital Editions
For Tom Piccirilli,
the best big brother I never had…
Acknowledgements
For this new digital edition of Kill Whitey, my thanks to everyone at Cemetery Dance; Kelli Owen, John Urbancik, Tod Clark, and Mark Sylva; Geoff Cooper, for graciously allowing me to reference the Kwan, and for digging this story since its drunken conception and thinking Kill Whitey was the best title since Fuck Around Quotient Zero; everyone who helped me with Russian (there are too many of you to name here); and my sons.
Author’s Note
Although this book takes place in Central Pennsylvania, I have taken certain liberties with the geography. So if you’re looking for your favorite strip club or industrial park, it might not be there anymore—just like in real life.
one
Her name was Sondra, and when she asked me to kill Whitey, I said yes.
What else could I say? If you could have seen her, if you could have watched the way her pouting, glossy lips formed the words, or if you looked deep into her sad eyes, or heard that sorrow in her sweet, pleading voice—you would have said the same thing.
Yes.
Sondra was beautiful. Her dark hair was so black that sunlight got lost inside it. Her eyes were the same color. Her long fingernails were red, matching her lipstick. She had Russian facial features; a Slavic forehead, chin, nose and cheekbones. She was slim, but had a heart-shaped ass and perfect tits. No boob job for her. No way. Sondra’s breasts were one-hundred percent real. You could tell it by the way they moved when she walked. Or arched her back. Or just breathed.
Damn. That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I hate to make her sound like a piece of meat. She wasn’t. Sondra was much more than that. And I’m not one of those guys, in any case. I respect women. Like the great comedian Sam Kinison used to say—what are you gonna do without women? Give sheep the vote? You’ve got to respect women. And I did. But put that aside for a moment. Sondra was what she was—a surefire cure for erectile dysfunction. She put Viagra to shame. You know those women that you see—the exotic ones that you could never ever get? Not in a million years? She was one of those women. And I got her.
She was the type of woman that men would kill or die just to be with one time. She inspired the imagination. She was who you closed your eyes and fantasized about when you made love to your wife for the five hundredth time. Straight guys wanted to fuck her. Gay guys wanted to be her friend. And women…some women wanted to do both. Well, except for those that instantly hated her—and maybe even some of them wanted to be with her, too.
Sondra was her real name, too. A lot of those girls—especially the Russians—use stage names. But not Sondra. She didn’t have to. Her presence was more powerful than any name she could have taken.
Shit. I’m not a poet. I’m a fucking dockworker. I don’t know how to make it any more palatable for you. I don’t have the words or the ability. What you need to know is this—Sondra was sex, plain and simple. She exuded it. It was in her aura, in her pheromones. It dripped from her pores and followed in her wake like a vapor trail. Sondra was desire and lust, and I wanted her from the moment I saw her.
Was it love? I don’t know. Maybe I thought so for a little while, but even now, after all this time and everything that happened, I just don’t know for sure. I’d been in love before. More than once. I knew what it was like. How it felt. What it did to a man. In the short time I was with Sondra, it certainly felt like that. But it also felt like something more—or maybe, something else.
I don’t know if I loved her, but I was damn sure crazy about her.
And that’s why I said yes when she asked me to kill Whitey.
Saying it, making the promise, was easy. Doing it was harder.
Much harder…
two
“What’s a Blumpkin?”
We were riding in my Jeep Cherokee. Darryl was up front with me. Yul and Jesse were in the back. It had rained all night, and my tires slid occasionally on the wet pavement, so I drove slowly. Darryl kept giving me shit about it, said I drove like an old lady, but I ignored him and concentrated on the road. It was dark and foggy and my night vision sucked. There were still two hours to go before the sun came up.
My iPod was plugged into the stereo and I had it switched to random play, alternating between Mastodon, Suicide Run, Circle of Fear, Retribution Inc., Nighttime Dealers, and In Flames; heavy music for some heavy conversation.
“What’s a Blumpkin?” Yul asked again. “Seriously.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror. Yul looked confused, but Jesse was grinning.
“A Blumpkin,” Jesse said, “is when a girl gives you a blow job while you’re sitting on the toilet.
Yul made a disgusted face. “Jesus, dude, that’s some sick shit! Who would do something like that?”
Jesse shrugged. “Different strokes for different folks. Know what I’m saying?”
“That’s not a Blumpkin.” I glanced in the rearview mirror again. “That’s a Dirty Sanchez. They were talking about it on Howard Stern the other day.”
“No.” Jesse shook his head. “You’re wrong, Larry. A Dirty Sanchez is when a girl eats out your ass.”
Yul put his hand over his mouth. He looked like he might throw up. Jesse was still grinning. Beside me, Darryl shook his head.
“That’s not a Dirty Sanchez,” he said. “That’s called getting your salad tossed. I saw it on HBO. They did this documentary from prison. Some crazy shit. This inmate was talking about how he liked to get his salad tossed. He put jelly on his asshole first. Then his cellmate licked it out.”
“Jelly?” Jesse laughed. “Who the fuck puts jelly on their salad?”
Darryl turned around. “Motherfuckers in prison, obviously.”
I frowned. “Well if that’s salad tossing, then what the hell’s a Dirty Sanchez?”
“I don’t know,” Darryl admitted. “But I guarantee you it’s something you white motherfuckers invented. Ain’t no brother gonna ask his girl for a ‘Blumpkin’ or a ‘Dirty Sanchez’. We just want to bust a nut. And if we did ask for one, the sisters would kick our ass.”
A tractor-trailer blew past us, spraying water and road grit all over my windshield. I flashed my high beams in annoyance and then turned on the windshield washer to get rid of the grime. It left streaks on the glass.
“Was that one of our guys?” Yul asked, watching the truck’s taillights fade into the distance.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think it was.”
“Asshole,” he muttered.
All of us nodded in agreement. Our drivers were assholes, for the most part. Most of them were two-week trucking school graduates who got their CDL licenses from the bottom of a cereal box—death on eighteen wheels. They drove around hopped up on speed or meth or tremendous amounts of
caffeine, and they didn’t give a fuck about the other drivers on the road. Accidents waiting to happen…
There weren’t a lot of jobs in our part of Pennsylvania, so we were grateful for ours. We worked for GPS—Globe Package Service—specifically, at their distribution center in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania. The center served as a hub for all of the mid-Atlantic region, as well as much of the East Coast and southern states. We were only a few hours drive from New York, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Trenton, Richmond and elsewhere. Because of this, our center was always busy. Darryl, Yul, Jesse and me worked the 4am to 8am shift. We called it the night shift, even though it was early morning when we came in. Only four hours of labor, but at sixteen bucks an hour and with no union dues to pay, plus health insurance once you’d passed your ninety-day probationary period, it was just like holding down a full-time job but on part-time hours. Darryl and I worked in Load Area Seven, loading packages into tractor trailers bound for Virginia. Yul was in Sorting Area Two, scanning the bar codes on the package labels and sending them down the correct conveyor belt so that they ended up in the right truck. Jesse worked out in the yard, jockeying trailers from one Load Area to another. Yul’s job was pretty easy, although he had to be quick and accurate and make sure packages went down the right conveyor belt. Otherwise, a box meant for Baltimore could end up in Boston instead. Jesse’s job was a piece of cake. He had lots of down time and plenty of cigarette breaks. You’d often see him hanging around in the break room, drinking coffee and shooting the shit. Darryl and I had the back-breaking positions. If you weren’t in good shape when they assigned you a Load Area, you would be by the end of your first week—or else you’d be dead. I’d been there almost a year, and had lost fifteen pounds. My beer gut turned into abs, and my muscles became hard and lean. No need to join the gym when you did what we did for four hours a day.
That night, we’d only worked half an hour. Started our shift at four in the morning. Twenty minutes later, the power went out through the whole facility. One moment, we’re busting our ass loading boxes into the trucks, and the next, everything got pitch black and quiet. The silence was the weirdest part. No conveyor belts rumbling or rollers squeaking or people shouting orders or forklifts beeping as they raced around. It was actually a little scary, though I’d have never admitted it out loud. These days, you just never know. Life is unnerving. Terrorists or disgruntled nutcases who want to shoot up their workplace lurked around every corner.
But it wasn’t either of those. We found out later that a car had skidded off the road because of the rain and hit a major power line. Our maintenance guys couldn’t get the back-up power going, so instead of paying us to stand around and do nothing, the company sent us home early. Despite the loss of hours, that was okay with us. People fucking cheered and shit. It was Friday. Even better, it was payday. And since GPS insisted on direct deposit for all of their employees, the money was already waiting for us in our checking accounts. All we had to do was hit an ATM.
Three day weekend, cash in pocket. Life doesn’t get any better than that. Thank you, whoever the hell it was that wrecked his car and got us out of work early. Hope you didn’t die in the process.
The strip club was Jesse’s idea.
Once we found out that we could leave, the four of us met up in the parking lot, debating what to do. The worst of the storm was over. A fine mist fell from the sky. Not enough to count as rain, but enough to be an annoyance. With the power out, the overnight security lights weren’t working and the only light was from the car headlights as our co-workers raced past the guard shack and down the road. Most of them were probably heading home, or to parties at friend’s houses. At that time of morning, the bars were closed.
“Early start to the weekend,” I said. “What should we do?”
“We could hit the Knotty Pine,” Yul suggested. “They got an after hours license.”
“No way.” Darryl lit a cigarette, shielding it with his hands so it wouldn’t get wet. “My ex hangs out in that place. So does her new man. We go there, I goddamn guarantee you they’ll want to start some shit and break bad on me. Prove he’s got the bigger dick. I ain’t in the mood for that tonight. Dude gets up in my face and I’m gonna knock him the fuck out. Don’t feel like going to County tonight for some bullshit.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.”
“The Tourist Inn?” Yul said.
I shook my head. “They’re closed for the night. Last call is at two.”
“What about Thads?” Darryl exhaled a puff of smoke. “They can serve people after hours, too.”
Jesse groaned. “Thads—the gay bar? Fuck that shit. I ain’t drinking in no mother fucking gay bar, even if they do have an after hours license.”
I sighed. “You know, dude, just because you have a drink with some gay guys, that doesn’t mean you’re gay. Why you gotta be homophobic and shit?”
“I ain’t homophobic.”
“Yes, you are.”
Darryl nodded in agreement with me. “That’s some racist shit, Jesse.”
“Being gay ain’t a race.” Jesse sighed. “It’s a sexual orientation. And besides, I’m not a damn racist like those Eastern Hammer skinhead and Sons of the Constitution motherfuckers. You’re black, Darryl. Yul is Asian. I hang out with you guys, right?”
Darryl took another drag off his cigarette and glared at Jesse. “Is this the part where you start listing all your non-White friends?”
“Fuck you. That ain’t what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?” Darryl asked.
“All I’m saying is that I ain’t homophobic.”
“Well,” I said, “then what the fuck? It’s 2011, dude. You work alongside gay guys every day. You can’t drink a fucking beer with them after work?”
“It ain’t that,” Jesse said. “I got nothing against gays. I’m just in the mood to see some pussy.”
Darryl smiled around his cigarette. “Well shit, why didn’t you say so? Now you’re talking.”
Jesse returned the smile. “If I wanted to see dicks, I could just hang out in this parking lot with you guys.”
Somewhere in the dark, a fire siren wailed; probably another accident on the highway. I shivered, wishing we could decide soon so that we could get out of the damp air.
“What are you thinking?” I asked Jesse. “Where to? The Foxy Lady?”
“No. Too many gang bangers and slingers hang out in there. Fuckers got no respect for anybody. Been that way since the Italians sold it. You look at a stripper wrong and they’ll be up in your face. And besides, Foxy Lady closed at two. Ain’t got no after hours license. How about the Odessa, instead?”
The Odessa was a strip joint off Interstate 81, just south of Harrisburg and Camp Hill. Open nineteen hours a day, six days a week, according to their commercials on the radio. Closed on Sundays and a few hours each morning for shift change and clean up. Darryl, Yul, and I had never been there. Jesse went all the time, and never hesitated to tell us about it. It was one of his favorite hangouts.
“Sure.” I shrugged. “I’m down for that. Been meaning to check that place out.”
“We can’t drink there,” Yul said. “They don’t serve beer. It’s BYOB and we don’t have shit. I thought you guys wanted to get drunk.”
Jesse shook his head. “Man, fuck getting drunk. We’re gonna see some pussy, Yul. You like pussy, don’t you?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, okay then.”
Darryl flicked his cigarette butt into a rain puddle. “I’m in. Let’s do it. I drink too damn much anyway.”
“I don’t know,” Yul said. “I’d better not go.”
Jesse rolled his eyes. “Why not?”
“What if Kim finds out that I went there? She’d be pissed as shit.”
Kim was Yul’s girlfriend of two months, and lately, his world seemed to revolve around her. He spent less and less time with us after work, and more time with her. Apparently, Kim didn’t think ve
ry much of us—especially Jesse. She thought that Darryl and I were bad influences and that Jesse was the fucking devil. She controlled Yul in a way that none of us liked. Strings attached, like he was a puppet or something. Lately, Yul couldn’t do anything without checking with her first. To be honest, the rest of us were getting the shits of it. Or maybe we were just jealous, because Yul had somebody in his life and we didn’t.
“So don’t tell her, dude,” Jesse advised. “It’ll be our little secret.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Some things should just stay among friends.”
Looking back now, those words haunt me. Some things should just stay among friends. When I think about them for too long, I start to cry. If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have sided with Yul—insisted on going to Thads, or maybe suggested we all just head back to my place and finish off the half case of Yuengling Lager that was in my fridge. We weren’t supposed to be drinking it because a few months earlier, the Yuengling brewery had busted its union and the Teamsters were calling for a boycott of all their products. We were supposed to stand firm alongside our fellow working men. Solidarity forever and all that bullshit—even though we didn’t have union jobs ourselves and worked for GPS. But I still had a case of the stuff at home. And we could have ignored the boycott and drank it.
Yeah, we could have.
Instead, we went to the Odessa.
And that was where I met Sondra.
three
The Odessa was busy, even at that time of morning. The parking lot was packed with cars, and I had trouble finding a space. I ended up squeezing the Jeep between an SUV and a tractor trailer parked out back. We got out of the Cherokee and I thumbed my remote, locking the doors behind us. The electronic chirp of the power locks was almost drowned out by the muffled music drifting out of the building. Hip-hop or trance, I couldn’t tell which. All we could really hear was the bass line. It rolled like thunder.
