American Skin

by Ken Bruen

  “And you’ll want to see where that gunfight took place.”

  Jesus, I hadn’t the heart to tell her she’d got the wrong town. Loving someone does mean not correcting them. Shortly before I left, she discovered her error, asked me why I’d said nothing, and I did the one thing she respected most of all, I told the truth, said,

  “I didn’t want you to feel bad.”

  Her expression, of wonder, awe, then she said,

  “So it’s true, there are men who really love women.”

  To change the subject I asked,

  “Are we going to Tombstone then?”

  She shuddered, blessed herself then,

  “Good god no . . . we couldn’t live in a place named after a graveyard.”

  The awful irony is that we may as well have chosen it: Graves were going to be the legacy of the whole enterprise in the fallout.

  “Who by Fire”

  — LEONARD COHEN

  DADE HAD DISCOVERED Tammy Wynette in prison, he’d done more time inside than he liked to remember. As a child, he’d been nourished, cared for, by parents who adored him. He was the exception to the rule that if a child is reared with love and warmth, he’ll be a mature, compassionate adult. But then, Dade was a force of nature, as vicious, cold, and unconcerned as the storms that arise out of nowhere and drown the fishermen travelling on the currachs to the Aran Islands. The islanders are so fatalistic about this eventuality that they never learn to swim.

  Meeting Dade, you were in a similiar position, any survival skills you’d attained weren’t going to be much help. He was the Great White shark of urban malaise: random, ferocious, and struck from the depths of unfathomable darkness. His earliest memory was killing a goldfish; a birthday present, he snatched it from the bowl, threw it in the toilet, watched it swim for a bit, then poured bleach in.

  The tiny creature writhing in agony exhilarated Dade and he took the plunger, poked the fish till it near disintegrated from the cleanser. His mother, discovering the performance, was horrified and gave him a serious talk. He learned to lie almost instantly, claiming he was trying to . . . clean the little fishy.

  Then he immediately learned another vital skill, weeping. As the tears flowed, he felt nothing, save a buzz from fucking with another person. His father was less gullible and Dade noticed him watching him from then on. Next birthday, he got a puppy, a beautiful collie that his Mom suggested they call Lassie. Dade torched Lassie; it took a time and he got bit twice but felt it was a fair tradeoff for the sheer elation. This time, he was taken to a doctor; alas it was too late to take Lassie anywhere save the trash.

  The doctor managed to get under Dade’s skin and for the first time in his professional career, was scared. He’d always taken the view that pure evil belonged to movies like The Omen, to books from Stephen King; he adhered to the theory that nurture and/or chemistry was the root of most psychosis. Dade changed all that.

  Ten years old and the vibe emanating from this child sent shivers up the doctor’s spine. What was worse was the kid knew the effect he had, saw the look in the doctor’s eyes and promised,

  “You send me away, I’ll get out and find you.”

  It was nonsense, a kid threatening a highly qualified physician. But who needed the aggravation? With a bit of luck, the kid would follow his instincts and be locked in a maximum pen for the rest of his life. So he prescribed pills. He did say to the father,

  “That child will need watching.”

  The father stared at the doctor, asked,

  “For three hundred bucks an hour you’re telling me something new?”

  The doctor, sensing malpractice, tried,

  “He’ll probably grow out if it.”

  The father didn’t doubt it, said,

  “I’m sure he will grow, but into what, you want to tell me that?”

  The doctor didn’t.

  The person who benefited from the session was Dade; he learned two things, power and secrecy. The keys to the dark kingdom. As he grew and more animals disappeared from the neighbourhood, he learned to cover his tracks. When he was fifteen, his father, in a last-ditch effort to help his son, took him fishing. Big mistake.

  It took Dade nearly ten minutes to drown his Dad but he did prolong it just a tad, for the hell of it and for payback. He’d mastered the art of mimicry and knew how to fake grief, so to all, he appeared inconsolable. His mother knew but she had found her own dark realm, booze, in the shape of vodka martinis. Get a pitcher of those babies ready by noon and you weren’t hurting at all. She hung herself on Dade’s seventeenth birthday, and Dade hit the road. He’d always refer to his upbringing as idyllic, and it was: If you were a psycho and didn’t get caught, where was the down side?

  Movies, Dade loved ‘em. Peckinpah, Tarantino, Oliver Stone, those guys rocked. Driving through the small towns of the Midwest, he’d check the local movie house and if one of those guys had a movie up, he’d pull in, buy a ticket, a shitload of popcorn, sodas, do a little crystal, get the mood right. Sitting there, he’d be in hog heaven. Times, too, in those little towns, he’d score some chickie, usually worked the soda fountain or waited tables in the diner. He’d give her his hundred-watt smile, lay all those Elvis-type manners on her, and drive her to a place outside town. If they fought back, he liked it that much better. Left them battered, bruised, and as close to dead as it gets. After, as they crouched, huddled in the road, he’d blow a kiss, caution,

  “You all be careful out there, there’s bad folk riding our highways.”

  Felt he’d aided their growth.

  Above all, Dade loved America, you didn’t need to tell him it was God’s own country. Man, he was out there, proving it and if he was nearer to Satan than the Pale Nazarene, well, it was all part of the same cycle. Rock ‘n’ roll.

  Early on he discovered The Clash . . . Joe Strummer was the man. For a while he adopted an English accent but got tired of it, it was hard to ask for grits and eggs over easy in Brit prissy tone. Plus, some of the good ol’ boys interpreted it as homosexual, and that was not to be recommended in Bible country.

  In Sausalito, Dade came across one of those new age shops. It tickled him that it was spelled Shoppe. He said to the aging hippie who tended the counter,

  “Need to learn to spell, buddy.”

  There was a host of angels on every side, and U2 was on the soundtrack, with “If Will Send His Angels.” America was in the grip of angelic fever then, Danny DeVito had proclaimed his success due to his guardian angel; the bestseller list was full of titles like, Getting to Know Your Angel.

  Dade thought it was full of shit. The hippie stared at him. Dade was wearing a long black duster, his perennial cowboy boots, and a T-shirt with “Never mind the Bollocks . . .” In his waistband was a SIG, locked and loaded. Dade had his Ray Bans on and the guy couldn’t see his eyes, so he didn’t know what he was dealing with, he asked,

  “Do you know the name of your angel?”

  Dade hadn’t yet discovered Tammy or he’d have said her. He looked at the guy, adjusted his Bans, asked,

  “You fuckin’ with me buddy?”

  The hippie, full of love, peace, and other good karma, didn’t cuss or ever raise his voice, had just done a bong and was way mellow, said,

  “My angel’s name is Aine . . . that’s, like, Gaelic.”

  Dade loved this, rarely did he meet an out-and-out fruiter and he sure liked to play, he said,

  “That’s, like, a crock, man.”

  He leaned heavy on the man, get the Woodstock buzz up there. In his head The Clash was unreeling with “Straight to Hell,” and he could feel his mojo pumping . . . he knew “Trash City” would automatically follow. He glanced round the shop, there were lots of Dungeons &. Dragons figurines interspersed with the angels, the hippie was clearly an equal opportunity employer or just lazy. Dade spotted a Buddha, incongruous among the other stuff, asked,

  “What’s with the small fat dude?”

  The hippie sighed, explained,
r />   “That’s Prajnaparamita, who contemplates the essence of nothing.”

  Dade was excited, he didn’t know why but it sang to him, said,

  “How much?”

  The hippy, sensing a sale, got hot, asked,

  “You don’t want an angel as well?”

  Dade could turn on a nickel, one moment, he was your best buddy then he’d a knife at your throat, he was turning fast, asked,

  “You deaf, I asked you the goddamn price you fuck, I want a angel, I’ll reach over, grab me one, I’m getting through to you?

  He was, and the price for the Buddha was steep but Dade had recently hit a 7-Eleven, handed over half the freight. The hippie began to wrap it and Dade snapped,

  “Don’t bother.”

  He set the little fat fella on his dash, made him happy. When he got busted later and did the hard time, the Buddha disappeared but by then, Dade had the concept of nothingness ingrained in his heart, he didn’t need a figurine to remind him.

  You wanted to set Dade off, and it wasn’t a difficult task at the best of times, mention Texas. He’d done a stretch, among his first, in Huntsville and learned that the Lone Star State was not kind to inmates. The warden telling him,

  “Y’all the crap I wipe on my boot and you know what, boy?”

  Dade didn’t know squat then, his education was only beginning, and he muttered that no, he didn’t. The warden had given him a full-voltage smile, which Dade was to learn was the worst of bad news. Those guys smiling at you, you were in line for whooping hurt. The warden explained,

  “I’m a good ol’ Texas boy, like to keep my boots spit and shined, you gonna be messing with my footwear while you’re my guest?”

  Dade swore he wouldn’t.

  It was a hard year, he learned the meaning of retaliate first, and it was not something he ever forgot. Leaving Texas, the troopers warned,

  “You don’t come back, boy.”

  He planned on staying the hell away.

  A movie Dade saw, The Stepfather, set off a bomb in his head, not that it needed much to ignite his already frenzied brain, it was about a psycho who literally adopts a family, and becomes the American dream.

  For a time.

  Then he slaughters them.

  Dade wasn’t sure which he liked best, the instant family and all the values he’d never have or the massacre. But the concept lodged. Meet a divorcée with kids, then charm your way in, have the whole package for a few months, play with that gig, and then pull the plug. When he took the heavy fall and did the long stretch, it was this vision that got him through many riots, lockdown behind the walls. He even had a faded snapshot of a woman with two kids, it came with a cheap wallet he bought in Reno, the divorce capital. Somehow, it survived his strip search, the trip to the pen. He showed it to various inmates and it bought him a certain amount of kudos, the most dangerous motherfuckers on the planet got soppy when confronted with this.

  Go figure.

  Over time, he came to believe it was actually real, so when he did meet Karen, it was like he’d had her all those years. Her boy had a baseball mitt and Dade shouted,

  “What about them Mets?”

  Got a blank look from the kid.

  But he learned, took it easy, slow and measured, charm oozing from every pore. The little girl, she never bought his act, plus, she missed her real dad. Glen, her dad, was a drunk but had entered a 12 Step program, was putting his act together, intended reclaiming his family.

  Dade was never, never going to let anyone, anytime, anywhere take something away from him. In prison, they’d taken away near all he put value on but he’d found a whole new set of, if not values, then priorities, and chief among them was, if they fuck with you, you get medieval on their ass. Real simple in Dade’s mind, they didn’t want to live with him, they didn’t want to live.

  Do the math.

  House invasions were becoming increasingly more frequent in the heartland; even Ohio, the setting for electoral confusion and aggravation, saw gangs storming into homes, laying waste. Dade felt he’d brought a new slant to the art: car invasion. Wipe the vehicle, the occupants, the whole nine, clean off the earth. Put that in yer car commercials.

  Dade had come late to Shane MacGowan, the punk era. The Pogues happened while he was inside and the music of the tiers was either Johnny Cash, gangsta rap, or Mex whining. In a diner way down in the Bayou, he’d heard “Fairytale of New York” . . . and been riveted. Kirsty Mac-Coll with Shane MacGowan. Later, he found the video, the black-and-white one with the NYPD singing “ . . . Galway Bay.” Dade knew Galway from shinola but went out and bought a Claddagh ring. Lost the damn thing in a tussle with some bikers near Fresno. They’d been trying to take his finger but settled for the Irish wedding band. Dade hated Angels.

  That one of them was riding low on his bike with Dade’s ring would be a slow and slower burn. When the shitstorm went down later, with the one named Fer, it was real personal for Dade.

  In his mind, the Angels and Shane MacGowan were linked, it made little sense but rationale was never top of his agenda. He’s scoured magazines for references to MacGowan . . . adored a piece he read by Suggs of the group Madness.

  “I remember seeing Shane a few years aback and he said . . . I can’t talk now, I’m doing an interview.”

  Hours later, the interviewer staggered out, having been drowned in about nineteen bottles of wine, his bag hanging open and fuck all in his notebook. Dade would have given a lot to see the bold Shane in concert but The Pogue’s heyday was nigh done when Dade got out of the penitentiary. Still, he imagined what it would have been like to attend concerts such as the infamous one titled Hell’s Ditch Party.

  That Dade would relinquish Shane, and others like Johnny Cash for Tammy Wynette was a remarkable about-face, even for a chameleon like him. A bottle of tequila and a botched attempt at housebreaking were the catalysts that brought Dade to his love of the blond singer.

  “Buying the farm” was a euphenism for death that Dade liked, had used it his own self, going, dude bought the farm. The Farm in Angola would rid him of that. When he was sentenced there, the guys in the holding pen with him, said,

  “You’re dead, motherfucker.”

  The stories of rape, brutality, murder, were legion and that was just from the Guards. The inmates were the meanest collection of dangerous men ever assembled in one place. Dade’s lawyer, one of the free legal aid brigade, suggested to Dade the night before he made the trip,

  “Try and get hold of a rope, or some sheets.”

  Dade, confused, asked,

  “You think I can escape?”

  The lawyer, young but already with eyes of glass, said,

  “No, I’m saying you should take the easy way out.”

  Over the years on The Farm, there were a lot of times that Dade regretted not taking the advice.

  He went in there with a very dangerous past, a liking for violence of the extreme variety. When he finally got released, that was still in place but the difference was, it was honed, focused, and oh, so very lethal.

  LAND OF THE FREE,

  HOME OF THE BRAVE

  E.B.WHITE WROTE of New York:

  “No one should come to live in New York unless he is willing to be lucky.”

  Man, I was willing and I was certainly dressed for it. Wearing a lightweight navy suit — cost an arm and a leg but guaranteed not to crease. I wanted to hit American Immigration like a citizen. Post 9/11, checks were going to be intense. Got the flight from Galway to Dublin first, packed with French shooters. Yes, armed French folk: They’ve been coming for years, weapons to the teeth and systematically decimating our wildlife. Another year, there wouldn’t be a bird left in the countryside.

  I was glad to lose them at Dublin and headed for duty free, bought a bottle of Bush, then filled out the forms for Immigration. Into the bar for a final pint of Guinness, the barman was a pro, let it sit for a good five minutes before he creamed it off. I’d just taken a sip when the announcem
ent

  “U.S. Immigration is now open.”

  The old saying, If you leave anything behind, make sure it’s dark. I felt a wave of apprehension, if they turned me down, I was in deep shit. But it went like a breeze, the officer asked,

  “Business or vacation?

  I said vacation and got the 90 day visa with,

  “You have a real good trip.”

  I had two Vicodin, the bottle of Bush, a shitpile of cash, how could I not? I said,

  “Thanks very much.”

  I’d been tempted to go first class but had to keep a low profile, so economy it was. The seats were narrow, your knees jammed against the one ahead. If they let it tilt after takeoff, I’d be sandwiched. A nun took the seat beside me, a large silver cross dangling on her front. I never know how to address them, “Sister” sounds like Boyz in the Hood, keep it neutral, went,

  “Good afternoon.”

  Got a brief smile. Suited me, I didn’t want chat. The stewardess gave us the safety drill and seemed very angry in her delivery, probably as we weren’t listening. Then we were airborne and I looked out the window, wondering if I’d ever return, decided to try my new accent, said,

  “Gee, Ireland is so green.”

  She was surprised, asked,

  “You’re American?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I didn’t know if a nun was a good omen or not. If we crashed, at least I was next to a silver crucifix. The drinks cart came. It was no longer free, you had to pay and through the nose. The nun was looking longingly at the display but the tariff had caused her to demur. I used the moment to dry swallow a vike, asked,

  “Ma’am, I’d be honored to treat you.”

  Her face lit up but still,

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  I went for the sucker punch, said,

  “I sure as shooting hate to drink alone.”

  A line the French might appreciate.

  Cringed a bit, I was too eager, overdoing the accent and worse, my Irish was leaking all over the intonation, needed work. If she’d picked up, she didn’t comment, said,