by John Bruni
She looked at him. No, this wouldn’t do. She had to figure out a way to kill Wayne’s idea, or to at least embarrass him enough to get him to back down. Then, she realized they had one more thing holding them back. “We’re going to have to cover those blotches on your face. No cab’s going to want to take you anywhere with those lesions. I’ll have to use some makeup—“
“Wait, makeup? No fucking way.”
“You want this to work, right?”
Wayne had never worn makeup in his life, and this close to death, he wouldn’t start now. He’d had a few girlfriends who’d wanted to paint his face and make him look pretty, but he’d turned them all down. “Not on your fucking life.”
2
A half-hour later, Stacy stepped back and admired her work. She’d effectively covered any sign of Wayne’s illness. Not a single lesion managed to get through the layers she’d applied to his face. Yet . . . it just did not look natural. Anyone would look at him and know something was wrong.
She explained this and said, “Maybe you should go drag. With your face like that, you could pull it off. That might take attention away from the makeup.”
“Fuck no. I let you do this to me. I’m drawing the line at cross-dressing.”
“What, you afraid someone will think you’re a faggot?”
That was exactly what Wayne feared. Not that he had anything against gays—at least not these days, post-David Nelson.
She saw the resignation on his face and sighed. “Fine. You’re right, anyway. We’d have to wax your body hair, and that will take too much time.”
“Just call the cab, all right?”
3
While Stacy looked up the number, Wayne looked at himself in the mirror. If a younger version of himself had seen the present version, he would have beaten the shit out of himself. His father had always told him to live by the Gregg Richards Rules of Life: Don’t trust anyone with skin darker than yours; if a guy’s sexuality is questionable, you should beat some sense into him; football comes before all other things; and don’t be a fucking girl.
After everything Wayne had been through, he knew the first two rules were bullshit. He didn’t know about the third one, but he still felt that a man should be a man.
Stacy caught him looking at his reflection. “You don’t look so bad. Too bad I couldn’t get you in a dress. You’d fucking dominate the Sleaze Strip.”
“Let’s just get the fuck out of here, all right?”
Stacy suppressed a laugh. “Cab’s on the way. It should be here in ten minutes.”
Wayne looked at himself again and wanted to scrub his face clean. He hoped they could get this shit over with as soon as possible so he could.
4
They got in the cab and saw the driver was an old woman, fat with a slight cinnamon scent to her. She almost looked like a grandmother. “Where to, sugar?”
Neither of them thought it would be a good idea to tell her to drive into the middle of a riot, so Stacy told her to take them to the corner of Bingham and East. Technically, it wasn’t the east side, but it would be close enough to the riot to suit their needs.
“That’s quite a ways,” the cabbie said. “No offense, but it don’t look like the two of you can pay me.”
“Oh yeah?” Stacy offered her left hand, ready for a scan to prove she did, indeed, have money in her account.
The cabbie looked at it for a moment, as if Stacy had offered her a rotten fish instead. She then looked to Wayne and lingered on his face, make-up and all. Somehow she seemed to find that even more distasteful.
“Fine. I’ll take you.” She punched in a few directions into her dash computer. The cab engaged with the track and eased down the street.
Wayne and Stacy relaxed in their seats. The cracked leather didn’t do much to support either of their bodies, but neither of them minded. It didn’t need to be luxurious, just so long as it got them where they needed to go.
“How much time do you think we have left?” Stacy asked.
Ahead of them, the sun slowly rose over the skyscrapers from the tourist part of the city. Stacy looked at the countdown and saw they had little more than eighteen hours to go.
They glided down the Sleaze Strip and saw no one on the street. The fuckslingers had left, and everything was calm before the stores would open their gated doors for business. Daylight had scoured away the iniquities of the night, and soon they would be replaced by dubious people wearing respectable masks. Just until sunset.
Wayne saw the cabbie kept looking into the rearview mirror at him, a look on her face like she needed to take a shit, but she had to hold it. He felt so self-conscious about the make-up that he wanted to rub his coat sleeve across his face.
When the cab reached the street it should have turned down, it continued going straight. They headed down the Sleaze Strip to the end, where not even the strongest sunbeams could dispel the unsavory life.
Wayne leaned forward. “You missed the turn off.”
“Yeah, I know. There’s another way down here. Quicker.”
Quicker? Wayne hadn’t been down this way often, but he didn’t think there was a shortcut back here. In fact, he thought they might be headed for a dead end.
The cabbie pulled over in front of an all night booze store. Henry’s Likkker.
“What’s going on?” Wayne asked.
The old woman turned around, and Wayne found himself looking down the twin barrels of a shotgun. “That’s funny. I was thinking about asking you the same question, faggot.”
Stacy spoke without thinking. “What the fuck, lady?”
The cabbie turned to Stacy. “You poor girl. What did this degenerate cum-sack do to you?”
“Degenerate?!” Wayne said.
The cabbie cocked both hammers, and Wayne instantly shut up. “A man who wears that much make up has got to be a faggot.”
“I’m not a—“
The woman jabbed the shotgun against his chest, and he flew back into his seat. “Shut up, faggot.” She turned back to Stacy. “Well? Did he rape you?”
Stacy thought it wouldn’t be prudent to mention that gay men weren’t very likely to rape women, but something else occurred to her. If the cabbie killed Wayne, it would make things easier. She could probably find Randall and Skank pretty well and off them in the midst of the riot. But she thought she might not be smart enough to find the others.
“No,” she said. “That’s ridiculous. He’s my friend.”
The old woman’s eyes clouded. “Poor girl. Brainwashed her, huh? What kind of deviant sex shit did you make her do, huh?”
Wayne didn’t dare speak.
The cabbie honked the horn quickly, keeping her eyes and shotgun on Wayne. Soon, a large, bald man with tattoos and a wife-beater stepped out of the store. It took a moment for Wayne to recognize the tattoos, and he suddenly knew why there were three K’s in Henry’s Likkker.
“What’s going on, Ma?” Henry asked.
“Look at this sorry sackashit I got. This faggot did all kinds of sex shit to this poor girl.”
“That so?” Henry leaned into the window, taking a close look at Wayne, his jaws flexing as if he were chewing gum. “What’d you do, faggot?”
“Nothing,” Wayne said. “I’ve done nothing.”
“How about it, honey?” Henry touched Stacy’s chin, and she violently drew her head back from him.
“She won’t talk,” the cabbie said. “Brainwashed.”
Henry grunted. “Thought so. Just like the rest of the world, right Ma? They ain’t gonna’ live to take our rights and Christmas away. Heh.” He spat on the ground. “You know what we do to monsters like you?”
Wayne didn’t answer.
This time, Henry shouted. “I said, do you know what we do to faggots around here?!”
Wayne cringed. “No.”
“Well, you’re gonna’ find out.” He turned to the cabbie. “Let’s get ‘em into the store, Ma.”
“You heard my son. Out of the cab
.” She motioned with the shotgun.
5
Henry led them to the back room of the liquor store, where he made Wayne strip down before being tied to a chair. Ma took Stacy aside, but she didn’t point the shotgun at her. Still, Stacy felt the implied threat and didn’t make any sudden moves.
“Be right back,” Henry said. He headed for the bathroom, which was where he’d been going when his mother honked the horn. He unbuckled his pants and pushed them down to his knees, revealing a small nub of a dick without a glans. Carefully, he pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and leaned forward so he could aim. The stream that came out sprayed all over the bowl. He groaned as he leaned over more, shortening the length from his disfigured member to the toilet.
According to his mother, the rabbi who had circumcised him accidentally cut off too much. It made sense to him that a fucking Jew would cut most of his cock off. He thought about all the attempts over the course of history to wipe them off the face of the earth, and he wished they’d succeeded. If they had, he wouldn’t have this mess to deal with.
His father killed the rabbi, and he got sent to prison for life because of it. That didn’t last long, though. His mother told him a nigger had knifed his father in the joint. A hero! Getting killed in prison by a goddammed spear-chucker! Henry didn’t know what this world was coming to, but he knew what to do about it.
He tore away some toilet paper and dabbed the end of his stub before he pulled up his pants and went out to check on his prisoner. The woman would have to go to some meetings with the rest of his chapter of the KKK in order to return her mind to the right way of thinking, but the fag? Henry knew what to do with their sort.
He stood in front of Wayne. “You know what comes next?”
Wayne couldn’t speak. Fear vibrated in his guts so badly that he couldn’t force any words out. He could only shake his head, trembling. Being naked didn’t help, either. He wanted to fold in on himself to protect his most tender bits.
Henry produced a pocket knife and opened it. “I’m going to make you a woman, just like you want.”
Wayne’s eyes went to the blade like magnets. He felt himself shrivel slightly, and he struggled against his bonds, trying to break free.
Henry knelt down before Wayne’s legs, gazing at what used to be an impressive cock. Seven inches hung down over the edge of the chair’s seat, but lesions dotted the shaft. One on the end of his penis bled slightly.
Henry grimaced. “What the fuck is this shit?”
Wayne felt something rumble deep in his gut. Suddenly, he saw a way out of this, and he felt relief flood his brain. “I have the Red Death. If you get my blood on you, you’ll get it, too. You’ll be just like me.” An exaggeration, of course, but one ignorant assholes could easily buy.
Gurgling in his guts. Something burned inside of him, and he knew for sure what would happen next.
“Ma, you hear of this shit? He telling the truth?”
“Yeah, I heard of it,” she said.
Wayne felt himself loosening up. Any second now, and he wouldn’t be able to control himself.
Henry sighed. “I guess that’s out.” He put his hands on his knees, on the verge of straightening out, when Wayne let go with everything he had. He heard a loud ripping and sputtering sound, and Henry’s face turned brown and red in an instant. Shit dripped down Wayne’s legs and pooled on the chair around his ass. It also caked Henry’s face and eyes and his open mouth.
“Fuck!” Henry rubbed at his eyes, spitting and gagging. “What the fuck?!”
Wayne stared at the blood-stained shit that covered Henry from his bald head to his belt and couldn’t believe he’d just done that.
Stacy didn’t have time to be sick. Instead, she saw her chance. She pulled the gun from the band of her jeans and pistol-whipped the cabbie. “Get down, bitch!”
The old woman saw it coming at the last second, and although she tried to duck the blow, it still caught her on the shoulder. She didn’t go down, but she spun slightly. It took her a moment to right herself, and she brought the shotgun up with every intention of blasting Stacy to pieces.
Stacy quickly recovered and fired twice, sending both bullets into the cabbie’s chest, one of them directly into her heart. Blood oozed from her chest as she fell back into a file cabinet, knocking it over. Still, she stood on her feet with a dazed look on her face.
Stacy fired a third time, and the cabbie hacked up blood before she fell to the floor, the shotgun clattering away from her grip. It had been Stacy’s second kill, and she thought back to the old guy, Wayne’s friend. She remembered how she’d felt when she realized she’d snuffed someone’s life out, but this time? She didn’t feel any remorse at all.
“Ma!” Henry shouted. His eyes squinted shut against the shit on his face, and he lashed out with his knife, trying desperately to find Stacy.
She took careful aim at Henry’s face and fired twice. The skinhead hit the floor without so much as a grunt.
Wayne stared at her with wide eyes, unbelieving. Again, the thought occurred to him that she could kill him without any compunction, and he wondered again if he should be teamed up with her. “Jesus Christ. You’re too good at this kind of thing.”
“They had it coming,” Stacy said. “By the way, that was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. Couldn’t you think of anything better than shitting on him?”
“I wasn’t thinking. It just happened. Sorry, all right?” But he didn’t feel very sorry. He wanted to hurt her in some way, and being disgusted seemed to do it. He thought about Old Shit and reminded himself that he needed her around. Besides, hadn’t she just saved his life? “I wish we didn’t have to kill them, though.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. That guy wanted to cut your dick off. They would have killed you. Us. But instead, I killed them. They were assholes. End of story.” She took Henry’s knife and cut Wayne’s bonds. She put the blade in her pocket, since they could use all the weapons they could find. “At least we have their shit now. You know how to program a cab?”
Wayne rubbed his wrists. “Yeah. Well, I used to. I’m sure nothing’s changed over the last few years.”
As he got dressed, Stacy took the old woman’s shotgun and checked to see if it was loaded. Satisfied, she looked for more ammo in the cabbie’s purse, and then her pockets. Nothing. She only had one bullet left in the pistol and an extra clip, so it would have been nice to have more ammo for the shotgun.
Wayne went to the bathroom to wash himself off in the sink. He didn’t have much to go on, but even more than the shit clinging to the inside of his thighs, he wanted to get rid of the make up. If he hadn’t been wearing it, they wouldn’t have gotten into this mess.
When they both were ready, they checked on the cab. Locked. “Fuck,” Wayne said.
Stacy looked at the thumb plate that would open the car. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where—“ But Wayne stopped himself. He knew the answer, but he didn’t want to hear it.
Stacy came back with the cabbie’s severed thumb. She pressed it against the plate, and the door opened up. She slid inside, but Wayne stared down at her.
“Well?” she said. “Coming?”
He nodded his head and got in the back. He wanted to say more, but he couldn’t bring himself to get into another argument.
Stacy pressed the thumb against the plate by the dash computer, and the cab roared to life. “Now what do I do?”
Wayne told her how to use the touch-screen to program their destination, but when she entered it in, the system wailed. An alert appeared. “What’s it say?” he asked.
“It’s about the riot. It’s warning us not to drive there.”
“There’s got to be a bypass.”
“Uh . . .” She stared at the screen for a moment, then pushed her finger down on it. The warning disappeared, and she tapped the screen again. The cab moved down the street with purpose.
“Thank Christ,” Wayne said. “I don’t know how
to rewire this thing. That was lucky.”
She shrugged, still not happy with driving into a riot. Still, she felt better about having extra firepower with her. By the time they reached the end of the block, she’d completely forgotten about killing Henry and his ma.
Chapter 12
1
Skank and Necro Cock spent the hour drinking beer and listening to Shakespeare on Acid’s mellow, half-hour song, “Dead Friends,” in honor of Nutsack. They remained silent, Skank lost in her memories and Necro trying to come up with a plan. When the song ended, Skank wordlessly pressed the reverse button, and the song began again.
Necro stood and went to a blank wall, one he’d been saving for a punk mural he wanted to buy. Taking up a marker, he began to draw some kind of design. Skank watched without questioning him, and soon she recognized it as a map of the rich neighborhood on the east side.
Just before “Dead Friends” ended again, their fellow soldiers filtered back in. Most arrived with baseball bats and chains, some had knives, and a couple even had handguns. C arrived with a lighter and fluid.
“What the hell’s that going to accomplish?” Necro asked.
“I’ll fill my mouth with fluid,” C said, “light up, and I’ll be able to spit flames.”
“You . . . you’re just going to burn your face off. Besides, that’s not a very quick weapon. You have to take the time to fill your mouth first, and by then, someone will probably plug you in the guts with a bullet. It sounds dangerous and stupid.”
“Nah, I saw it in a movie. It’ll be cool.”
Necro Cock rolled his eyes, disgusted. Then, he went to his room and came back with a baseball bat for Skank and a shotgun for himself.
When everyone arrived, Necro and Skank looked over the crowd, marveling at how many had showed up. There had to be a hundred people packed into his loft, elbow to asshole, raring for a fight. They had themselves a regular army.
