I said, “I’m not nervous.”
He said, “Low risk. Don’t worry.”
I said, “I’m not.”
When we got back to Charlie’s, we dumped our earnings on the small pool table in the corner. We picked through the money and divvied it up.
Shane held up a Walmart gift card. “Fuck is this?”
I told him, “It’s got $25 on it.”
“Does it?”
“I think so.”
He handed it to me. “Cash, man. Cash.”
SLOWLY
SLIPPING
I met my mother at Chili’s the next day and after all the small talk she asked me what was going on with me and my wife.
I told her that she said I was an angry person. I told her about how she started to talk to others. I told her that it was a feeling of slowly slipping. I didn’t really know what else to say. She cried and told me that she couldn’t stand to see me that sad.
We finished our food and I told her, “I brought you a present.”
I handed her the Walmart gift card and hoped there was actually money on it.
II
IMAGINATION
Shane and I walked from Charlie’s house to the bookstore next to the Walmart. Along the side of the store a man wearing leggings and a long shirt hopped over a small ditch run through with a trickle of brackish water. He saw us walking in and waved us over.
“Watch this shit.”
He jumped over the ditch.
We didn’t say anything.
“Now check this shit out.”
He jumped back over it.
“That’s the castle and I’m jumping over the moat.”
He wasn’t wearing any shoes.
We went inside. I browsed the shelves and picked out a few books and thumbed through them and went and sat in one of the chairs set up for customers. Shane sat next to me and tore the plastic off a porn magazine.
I flipped through my book and glanced over at him. “You do realize there’s this thing called the internet, yeah?”
He licked his thumb and turned a page. “I’m old school.”
“Old school.”
He tapped his head. “Can’t let the mind waste away. Gotta use the old imagination.”
I saw a picture of a woman having sex with a bedpost. “Imagination.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I read the first chapter of the book. Shane chuckled next to me.
I got up and got some coffee. Sat back down. “So where did you get off to last night?”
“Had a big delivery to make.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep. House out in Turtle Creek.”
“Hood shit?”
“Not really. High school hey-bitches.”
I placed the book in my lap. “High school?”
“Yeah, like fifteen, sixteen. Something.”
“Oh.”
“In the trap, though.”
“I see.”
“Yep. Got like three hundo and a phone full of titty pics. Overall I’d say that’s a win.” He plopped the magazine down on the endtable between us. “What’s that shit?”
I showed him the book I was reading.
“That seems nice. You should buy that and let me read it. I’ve been having trouble sleeping.”
He stuck his tongue out at me. Split like a snake’s.
I said, “Mr. Imagination over here.”
Shane thumbed through the pictures in his phone. “Keeps me out of prison.”
UZI UP
ON INSTAGRAM
Got a text from a number I’d never seen. I told them to meet me at the Cellar. I ordered a Natty Light and leaned against the bar. Few weeks ago they’d done it up for Halloween, rubber rats all along the back bar, skulls with light-up eyes and witches and a mummy in the corner. Taken it all down and replaced it with tinsel and a Christmas tree, but they hadn’t taken the time to get the cobwebs down from the cross beams and the chipped ceiling tiles. I plucked a wisp off my beer and balled it up and dropped it over the side of the bar.
Hank Williams on the jukebox. The old white folks roared and howled. The bartender sat on a stool with her legs crossed, engrossed in her phone.
I looked over at the thin man playing the slot machine in the corner.
“You winning?”
The man blinked behind his round glasses. “It’s not a money machine.”
I took a sip. “I’ve seen you pump a hundred dollars in that thing.”
The thin man pressed the red square. The slots spun on the TV screen. “Twenty maybe.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s my stress relief.”
I shrugged.
“You need some stress relief.”
“I got this eucalyptus candle.”
His face lit up. “Those are good. The three-wick?”
“The three-wick.”
The man nodded at me and pressed the button on his slot machine.
My customer pulled the heavy door back and stepped in. I could feel the cold all the way at the back. He weaved around the pool tables and the cowboy hats that turned one eighty to watch him take his seat and hold up a finger to the bartender.
“And I thought it was white outside.”
I held out my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
He took it and smiled at me. “Richard Beck.”
Beck paid for his beer and the bartender brought him a couple quarters back. He spun one of the coins and leaned back. “I feel like I’m about to be lynched.”
It had gotten quieter. I told him, “Let’s just finish our beers and we can head out to my car.”
He nodded.
We sat in silence for a long time. A talent show on the TV. Big girl belting something out. The jukebox quit and the bar was quiet.
Beck said, “She’ll never make it.”
“Nope.”
“America only has five seats in its heart for fat entertainers, and they’re taken up by Adele and Precious.”
I blew beer out my nose and signaled for another.
“What happened to ‘finish the beer?’”
“Oh shit. Sorry.”
Beck said, “Two whiskeys.”
The bartender handed us two beers. “Just a beer bar.”
“No liquor?”
She stared at him. “Well, it’s just a beer bar.”
I said, “I’ve seen tons of liquor in this place.”
The bartender’s eyelids went sharp and she put her hands on her hips.
Beck turned to me. “Bro, please.”
I began chugging my beer. Beck followed suit.
As we caught our breath we watched a man in a velvet tie-dye sweatsuit talk to a pool stick. Tipped his tie-dye cap back and rubbed chalk on the stick’s end. Still whispering to it.
Beck grabbed my shoulders in mock panic. “Save me from these honkies.”
We headed out into the snow and watched our feet.
Beck tapped my shoulder. “Sample.”
I gave him one.
He made a face. “Hate dry swallows.”
My car was parked in the alley behind the bar. We got in and I turned the car on and blasted the heater. I gave him the pills and he gave me a roll of twenties.
The speed started to take effect. He talked a mile a minute. He asked me if I rapped, and I told him no. He asked me if I knew anyone who rapped. I said no. He asked me if I had an Instagram.
I said, “I know what it is, but I don’t have one yet.”
He reached into his pocket and took out his phone. “I’m gonna show you some shit, my friend.”
“I don’t really have the eye for it.”
“Hold up. Hold up. Check this shit out.” He held out his phone. “Scroll through.”
A picture of an Uzi.
“That’s my Uzi.”
“You put a picture of an Uzi on Instagram?”
“Hell yeah. I got my boy to set it up. It’s like, triple locked or some shit. He knows computers and phones and like, t
echnology. It’s all good.”
I scrolled. Three men in ski masks. They didn’t have shirts on. They were standing in front of a table holding up several pounds of cocaine.
“Real shit.”
I scrolled. There was a video of five men beating a man. The man was holding his head and screaming at them to stop. They yelled back that this is what happens when you’re a pussy-ass bitch.
“Put that nigga in the hospital. Look at his shoe fly off! His shoe done ran for help.”
I scrolled. A woman fellated the cameraman. In the background, on a mattress, a girl lay prone. Several men stood over her. One man crouched behind.
I handed the phone back. “They’ll shut down your account for shit like that.”
Beck looked at me like I was crazy. “No one’s gonna report shit. This is like a documentary.”
“It’s very raw.”
“Straight raw, man. Everything on this earth is straight raw.” He glanced down at his phone. The video was still playing. He laughed. “This bitch needs better friends.”
DISC GOLF
There was a disc golf course down the road from Charlie’s house.
Shane tossed his disc and it went wide and hit a tree. The branches shook and ice sloughed off them to break on the hard snow. We gave him shit and he flipped us off.
“Can’t wait for those biscuits,” Charlie said.
“The biscuits are the best part,” I said.
“I’m not buying either of you biscuits.” Shane stepped aside so Charlie could throw.
His disc landed near the goal.
Shane frowned. “Shit.”
I geared up for mine. Did a couple practice tosses. I hurled it. It hit the very same tree and landed next to Shane’s.
“Maybe we’re both buying biscuits,” I said.
“We can’t both lose.”
We hiked down to our discs.
Shane said, “I ran into five-oh last night.”
Charlie’s eyebrows raised.
“Nothing happened. I was just going to sell. It was like two, two-thirty. When I got there cops were everywhere.”
“So you dipped?”
“I asked them what was going on.”
I blinked. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
Charlie said, “You have got to be some kind of retard.”
I said, “What was going on?”
Charlie put his hand on Shane’s chest. “If you bring that shit to my house, I swear to god.”
Shane picked his disc up and brushed the snow off. “No one’s bringing anything to your house.”
I asked again: “What was going on?”
Shane tossed his disc. It landed wide. “I don’t know. Something about a guitar and nunchucks.”
BEAST
Charlie’s house was packed again.
Same shit.
Shane looking at me, telling me, “I do believe we have gotten silly again.”
Me sitting with the two of them, going on about how we could take this even further. The money was good now, sure, but we could take it up a notch. Hire folks to do shit for us. There wasn’t a reason not to, I’d say.
Charlie humored me and Shane didn’t understand what humor was, same as most people who laugh too much.
He took me aside and told me, “I’ll work on it.”
A cheer from the garage.
A group of folks I didn’t know were out there smoking cigarettes and this big Samoan kid was hitting a punching bag so hard the damn thing went near perpendicular to the wall. He stepped away from it and said, “I’m a beast,” and we all told him he was a beast. A tweaker took me aside and started up. His girlfriend was pregnant and he was scared. “I’m looking forward to being a dad, I’m gonna be the best dad ever,” he said, “but I don’t know.” He bit the inside of his cheek and shifted from foot to foot. I tried to focus. He went on about his own father and how he wouldn’t do that, and I nodded and paid attention though my mind was thirty places at once.
Most notably my attention was on the girl on the couch.
When the garage party dissipated, Shane went back inside and looked back at me and mouthed the words “next level” and then it was just us and I sat across from her. She had a bunch of holes in her jeans and I told her “I can see your pussy through those rips,” and she spread her legs a little wider and she smiled and got up and left.
DAY-TO-DAY
I ignored the texts from my wife.
I ignored the texts from my mother.
I shut down all my social media accounts.
I woke up to the powder and I fell asleep shaking.
POSSUM
The ink had started to take and so Shane’s gums turned black.
He handed us each a button of peyote.
The temperature had dropped that night. The snow came down. The three of us huddled in the tornado shelter in Charlie’s backyard. We had 40s and a case of beer and a bit of pot. There was a sac of black widow eggs in the far corner and we contemplated leaving, but eventually we convinced each other that black widow babies aren’t born under snow.
Shane lit a cigarette and handed one to me. I crushed the menthol ball in the filter. Snow flurries whipped down the concrete steps and we closed the top and breathed in the dirt and the mint smoke.
Shane said, “Last night I was so high I could see around corners. I want to say that I was blackout drunk, too, but I don’t think that’s right because I can remember things.”
The light from the lone bulb hanging cast shadows over his face. His tattoos moved down his forehead, across his cheeks, dripped off his chin.
“Started off at the Dragon.”
“The Dragon!” we echoed, and raised our beers.
“I met up with Cassandra there. She was dancing. I made it rain.”
“Cassandra,” Charlie said. He made his hands into claws and held them out in front of his chest.
“Oh yeah. So I get a private dance and we’re talking about this and that. It’s almost like a checklist. Boyfriend problems, drug problems, on and on. While she’s telling me this, though. She starts choking me.”
“Choking, like…your dick?”
“My throat. She’s choking me. Fucking strangling me. But I rolled with it. It was kind of nice. I saw stars and passed out and when I came to I felt a lot better about life in general.”
The shelter was my ribcage and it was moving.
“I went back to her sister’s place. They were gone for the night. She gave me a tuggie in her niece’s room. That was weird. Toys everywhere.”
“Did you skeet on the toys?”
“I skeeted on her.”
Charlie said, “Good man.”
“So after that, we went over to her neighbors house and smoked meth in their basement. I gave them a ride to the casino. They were these old-ass Indians. The woman had a face that looked ready to fall off. We went to the casino and they gambled and I gambled a bit too. Lost like fucking two hundo on that shit. But the old Indian chick had this prosthetic leg, and she’d sit at the blackjack table and she’d try to use her leg like a sword. Tried to knight the dealer. When she was at the slots, she’d try to knight the slot machine. The place was mostly empty at this time of night and it was weird quiet. I got on my knee and I let her knight me. Then the stripper hey-bitch and I went to her dealer’s house and he fucked her in this room and I just went through all his shit. Got cash, I got a machete.”
“I’ll trade you for the machete.”
“I gave you the railroad knife.”
“I’ll trade you that for the machete.”
“I made that knife. I put care into it.”
“But I’ll trade you.”
I thought of using a machete to hack through thick ferns and at the center of all the trails I met a jaguar.
“I got this, too.” Shane reached into his pocket. A Ziploc bag. He took out the sheet of acid and tore it into ten-strips and dropped one each into our respective 40s.
We chugged the malt liquor.
Charlie said, “That’s a crazy story, man.”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t believe you got a squeezer from Cassandra.”
Outside was like staring into a chasm. The snow had dusted the backyard and underneath it there was a black earth shifting. A possum clung to the chainlink fence. We all took a good look at it but the thing didn’t move.
We wondered if it was dead.
We wondered if it was real.
I picked up a stick to poke the thing.
Shane said, “Don’t poke the possum.”
I walked toward it, holding the stick like a lance. “I’m gonna poke it.”
Shane stepped in front of me. “Don’t poke the fucking possum.”
I put the stick down. “All right. Jesus.”
We all kind of stood out there for a moment. Then we went back inside.
We smashed all the potted plants in the house. We lay on the floor and bit into Keystone cans and poured the beer on our faces. We stripped naked and stood in the kitchen. There was a standing inch of beer on the linoleum and there were purple and green layers to it and I dug my toes into it like sand.
Charlie and Shane melted and stepped out of time and space.
Shane yelled, “I’ve got the big one coming. The big job. The big money.”
I went into the guestroom and lay on the floor. My asshole felt very warm. I put my palm between my butt cheeks and looked at it, checking to see if I’d crapped myself.
I shivered and the spackle in the ceiling bled and dipped.
Two aliens appeared before me in the corner. Their heads shaped like windmills.
Purple fog at their feet. They dressed in shirts that hung off one shoulder and I could see their bra straps.
They showed me the weapon of the apocalypse. Three shapes.
I shut my eyes and went to the deepest door in my brain and opened it and touched the darkest ink. They told me if I didn’t get away, I would die.
Black Gum Page 4
