A Hard Case (Part 7)

“Camera meltdown. Break!”

The words tunneled in through a thick fog. Where and why was life going on? Who revealed its secret? Whoever I was never wanted whatever had happened to end, but it ended anyway.

Life is like that.

Other times, you get stuck in the wrong life for too long. 

Someone threw a blanket on my shoulders. That meant I had shoulders. Or maybe it was a towel. Whatever it was felt soft. Life didn’t have to be hard. Not all the time. 

The world was warm, and dark. The lights had burned so bright. Light needs a rest too. The stars close their eyes when the day starts. 

The light spoke itself alive. “Think you can give us another take in about half an hour?”

“How ‘bout half a minute?”

“Stand by.”

Life doesn’t stand by. Life moves through space and time. Life finishes, especially when you don’t want it to.

The bright lights blazed again.

“There you are.” 

The soft voice cut through the glare. A touch that meant another life was there. Everything became clear again.

“OK now do the scene where you…” the big voice was unsure. “Do whatever you want.”

Another facet of the mystery dazzled. The director knew what we were supposed to do together in the light. He just couldn’t put it into words, at the moment. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was out there in the light.

Light-years flew by in all directions and exploded in liquid heat.

“Got it. That’s a wrap.”

Whichever world this was grew darker and cooler. Time flowed. Breathe in, breathe out.  Someone said, “Listen, you can’t stay here. We need to clear the set for the maintenance crew.”

You find a place where you want to be and then you have to leave. The clothes neatly folded on a folding chair fit. I still knew how to put them on. The gun was a leftover from the wrong job. “I don’t want this anymore,” I said, and handed it over to a young woman with a clipboard at her breast. 

“I’ll take care of it,” she said.

Doris had a car outside. The motor started with no fuss. She let it warm up. 

“Are you from Mexico?”

Usually I was the one who asked questions. The answers were for people who had problems in their lives that made them unhappy. My job was to change that. Or that’s what I thought the job was. “I speak English,” I said, eventually.

She put the car in gear and crawled out of Project X’s lot. The words welded onto the gate sounded familiar.

“Work makes you free,” Doris Frawley said. “At least here it does.”

A green light came on and we drove off together into the North Hollywood night.

A blue light came on, and another one, too bright, both headed in the wrong direction. A siren yawped. We stopped.

“Get outta the car,” a too-loud voice said. “With your hands up.”

A Hard Case (Part 1)

A Hard Case (Part 2)

A Hard Case (Part 3)

A Hard Case (Part 4)

A Hard Case (Part 5)

A Hard Case (Part 6)

Kids

May 1, 2012. Chance-Loeb, Texas. Day.

“Marcus and I will deal with this,” Colt nodded to the mud-filled canoe between us. His dad had built it in a fit of nostalgia two weeks after his last deployment, wore his white sailor’s hat the whole time. Colt rested the backs of his hands on his hips, scrawny arms jutting out awkward like a newborn bird’s. “And you go in and get a plastic spoon from the drawer beside the corn snake.”

The snake was six feet long, and Colt thought it was mean to leave the top of the terrarium shut. I ran. They hadn’t dumped enough mud before re-launch, and I returned to see Colt and Marcus knee-deep in the marsh behind Colt’s doublewide. They heaved the canoe just far enough into the reeds that it couldn’t float away and stripped to striped boxer briefs, algae clinging to their scant leg hairs so that it looked like they’d waded into a leechbed.

“Let’s just fish from the bank.”

Colt taught us how to make rods from downed cypress branches, and we tied off and sat on upturned ten-gallon buckets, fidgeting as the drums’ bottom rims indented our hamstrings. Marcus caught a bream, maybe three pounds, and filled his bucket with water for it. Feeling, for a moment, superior, he pulled a lighter from his pocket and grinned at us.

“Wanna see what my brother taught me?”

The first fuzzy wisps had colonized his pale face a few months prior, and he tore the safety off the top of the lighter and shot a jet of flame so that it barely licked beneath his chin. After a couple swift passes he brushed the charred curls from his neck and winked. “Never have to buy a razor.”

August 5, 2019. Interior, Nursing Home. Dawn.

“I’m gonna go do another autopsy. The nice man told me last night.” The man retains something of the aura of intelligence that defined him in his youth, but whatever that something is, it lies. Four days prior, he poured marinara over a shoelace–the twisty kind you don’t have to tie–and chewed it for an hour before a panicked nurse noticed faint choking noises.

That same nurse now places a small plastic cup of pills on his bedside table. He reaches a shaky, liver-spotted hand for it, but his fingers close several inches to the right. The nurse patiently takes the cup, afraid he’ll spill it, and stacks several pillows under his back before feeding him the pills one by one.

“That’s wonderful, Michael. Will it be Kennedy’s again? I recall you were very excited about that one last month.”

“Oh, no, Janet, this one is for a man named Jackson. No, no, it’s Jeremy. I’m sorry. The man came late at night, and I can’t seem to recall our exact conversation.”

“It’s alright, Michael.” She takes special care to emphasize his name. The heirs always hate it when the loved one forgets its name. “Take your time. Tell me, Michael, what did this man look like?”

He cackles weakly. “Well, it was dark, Janet.” Thinking that the overpronunciation of names must be an important custom of this new land, he has taken to mimicking it. “He wore a suit.”

“Did it fit him well?” Preoccupied with thoughts of the besuited man who read next to her on the subway on Wednesdays, she has forgotten that it was dark.

He waxes agitated. “You’re missing the point, Janet. A limousine will be here on Sunday to bring me to the examination. I simply wanted to tell you so you wouldn’t worry.”

She feeds him the last pill and pats his back to help him swallow. She needs to remember to call that speech pathologist. “Yes, I’m sure it will, Michael. I bet you’re very excited.”

May 1, 2012. Chance-Loeb. Day.

Colt built a small fire with the remnants of our rods. He instructed Marcus and I to wrap our single bream in tin foil. No cutting, wrap it whole. We walked to the front yard and played dodgeball with disc golf putters while the fish cooked. Marcus and I had shit aim, so Colt bounded back to retrieve the fish while we gathered ice from a cobwebby cooler in the garage to nurse our bruises.

While we sat on the back of an ancient ATV with Ziploc icepacks on our shins, Colt dashed inside and outside and laid the makings of a veritable feast on the once-white folding table under his dad’s tool rack: A paper bag of fried chicken livers from the Walmart deli, a brown jar of mustard, the unwrapped fish on its foil beside the plastic spoon, and three Dixie plates with purple and green floral rims.

We sat on our respective fishing buckets and Colt slipped into an impersonation of our hunting safety instructor. It had been his running bit for the past month. Thick Cajun golfball-gargling. “Firs’, boys, we clean de piece wi’ de proper tool.” He held the fish by its tail in one hand. In the other he displayed the plastic spoon. “You want to skim just along de surface so you don’ corrupt de riflin’. O’ de flesh, as de case may be. Get buku meat outta lil’ fish iffy clean ‘er right.”

He sloughed off a row of scales and offered the spoon to Marcus and I in turn. We’d left the bream to cook just long enough that the scales slid off with no pressure at all, and Marcus and I each removed thin chunks of filet meat on our first passes. “You wan’ get jus’ de scale, no lagniappe. Go mo’ gennle.”

We fidgeted on the buckets in our boxer briefs for about half an hour of steady scaling and then scarfed the whole spread in fifteen minutes.

August 12, 2019. Interior, Manhattan Medical Examination Facility. Mid-morning.

A long body with a long face lies on a long autopsy table. Naked, its grey body hairs sparkle in thick fluorescent light. The assembled note its egg-shaped penis: Thick at the base, it tapers to a narrow curve at the circumcised glans. The body has died by hanging, so its egg is crusted with semen, like a hard-boiled left too long in brine.

A woman in scrubs reaches for a scalpel, but an elderly man, leaning against his cane on the other side of the table, coughs conspicuously into his mask. The woman jerks her face up and glares at him. “What now, Michael?”

“It’s not time for that yet. Are you sure the rope burn has been thoroughly examined?”

She grits her teeth so hard the squeak echoes. “Five times, Michael.”

“As Chief Medical Examiner, I urge you to examine it a sixth time then check his hands for fibers. If you find matching fibers on the neck and hands, I daresay that’s incontrovertible evidence of suicide.”

“Have you ever seen a hanging victim who didn’t clutch at the rope, Michael?”

“Good point. In that case, give his penis another once-over. I assume you’ve read its psych profile: This was surely the type of loved one who jerked off before he kicked the stool. If you find fibers there, we can call our job done.”

“What if some fell, Michael? Nothing you’ve mentioned is conclusive. Have you not wondered how he found a rope and a stool in a maximum security prison? And enough me-time to rig them up?”

“It’s not our job to speculate. It’s our job to examine.”

A nondescript suited man standing beside the door bursts into vicious laughter, doubled over with his face between his knees. He looks up and finds the woman giving him the evil eye, and he straightens.

“You’re not gonna last long in this line of work, dear,” Michael croaks. “Too many scruples. You know I’ve penetrated the necrotic assholes of JFK and MLK? Marty was tighter. I suspect that Johnny had quite a vigorous priest.”

The woman picks over the loved one’s neck and hands with a magnifying monocle and a pair of tweezers.

“Nothing, Michael. Absolutely nothing. As though he were dead before he hung.”

“Oh? Well, I’d check again. And don’t forget the penis this time.”

“Dammit, Michael, there’s a time limit on this autopsy. We’re not gonna get the body open if we don’t do it now.”

“Why open the body? We’re investigating a hanging, not a poisoning.”

Another squeak. “How do we know if we don’t open the body?”

Michael points to the red marks on the loved one’s neck then folds his hands atop his cane. “This is mildly off-topic, honey, but have you ever had anal?”

The man by the door steps in front of it and crosses his hands over his crotch menacingly.

Watermelon Round-up Run

“Hey man, wake up! Dude, we’ve got a problem. Santiago, Goddamn it hear me? There’s Border Patrol up ahead and they’re searching every car!”

My overexcited companion is Andy, an acquaintance I met in Tucson. He’s a nickelbag, quarter ounce, small-time dealer that for some reason enjoys people being familiar with his activity. It gives him a sense of self-worth for others to know he’s a “dealer”.

Myself, I always made it clear that I was not a dealer. Neither did I sell nor wish to purchase any type of drug, narcotic, or controlled substance in any form. It was a rare instance when I took part in consuming such substances in public. Sure, some had their suspicions but they never voiced them to me. That was just the way I liked it — always keep them guessing.

Now Andy, he had been asking, begging, nagging, and being a downright pain in the ass to accompany me on a run. If it wasn’t for my ex-wife and her mouth of a thousand truths, he would have never even known my vocation. However, when she doesn’t get her way, which according to her is never, every bit of information that can be in anyway harmful to me, she spills. It doesn’t matter where or in front of whom, she reveals privileged and damaging information. In one case, Andy happened to be present during one of her ranting testimonials. Since then, Andy has been a fucking pest. So I allowed him to join me on this mission to Culiacan, Mexico to pick up two hundred pounds of Marijuana, then back across the border loaded down.

I don’t like these border runs myself, but every once in a while, you get chosen, asked, told by “El Jefe” (The Chief) to make one as a favor. It pays very well, and usually Border Patrol has been taken care of ahead of time, guaranteeing safe passage across the border. You’re on your own after that.

We’re crossing at Naco, about eleven miles or so south of Bisbee, Arizona. It is a small border station, manned by only three or four guards, and is less crowded than the Nogales or Douglas crossings. I’m familiar with most of the border patrol officers at this station and have been entering the United States through here for ten years. I am not going to inform Andy of any of this information, however. Figured I’d just let him sweat it out instead.

We’re driving a Ford F-250 pickup with reinforced suspension so the ass end wouldn’t be dragging from the weight of the load. There’s a false bed that has every available inch packed with kilos. Besides the marijuana, we’re carrying close to one hundred and fifty watermelons. It’s back breaking work to unload each individual watermelon to search beneath them. It’s approximately 103 degrees and the sun is brutally scorching the Sonoran Desert countryside. Can’t think of anyone that would want the task of emptying the bed in this heat.

I slide over and switch places with obnoxious Andy, slipping in behind the steering wheel. We’re five or six cars in back of the line to be inspected.

“What the fuck are we gonna do, man?” he asks with a quaver in his voice. “Do we skip out and run?”

“No, fuckstick. First, calm down! You’re so nervous, your shaking is rocking the entire truck. Just have your visa, passport, and Arizona driver’s license ready. Don’t wanna be rummaging around for that shit at the border, in front of the guards.”

I have my own documents ready at hand: the truck’s registration, insurance, and produce certification all safely packed in one envelope and ready for inspection. I am a professional, after all.

“Now, they’re gonna ask your citizenship. Answer United States, don’t say American.”

“Why not?” he asks. “I am an American.”

“And so are Canadians, Mexicans, Hondurans, Colombians, and a few million more people from any country in North, Central, or South America. Do you get it, dumbshit? Just do what I say and don’t give me any bullshit. Okay?”

“Don’t hand them any documents unless they ask for them, then comply with their request, ya got it? And for Christ’s sake, please stop shaking and looking around. You’re acting all squirrelly and drawing attention to yourself, which looks suspicious, so stop it!”

I turn off the AC, roll down the window, and instruct Andy to do the same. He’s sweating like someone who’s just run a marathon. His shirt is soaked with perspiration. The heat outside instantly pervades the inside of the cab, and soon I am sweating too.

“How are you so calm, man? You aren’t nervous or worried at all?”

“Of course I am, but I figure the worst thing that can happen is going to prison, and there’s three meals a day, a bed, television, arts and crafts, and plenty of guys for establishing new friendships. Shit, sounds so good I just might turn us in! I’m due for a vacation.”

“Don’t fuck around, we’re gonna be okay, right?”

“Only if you straighten up, get your act together, and find some fucking balls.”

We pull into the receiving area and a Border Patrol officer walks up to the window. An Arizona Highway Patrolman sits in his cruiser nearby, notices me and gives a wave. I recognize the officer, Carl Jenkins from Bisbee. I don’t wave back so as not to bring any attention to our familiar relationship.

“Well, what do ya know,” the Border Patrol officer says as he walks up to my window. “Look who decided to honor us with his presence. Are you lost, Santiago, or do have some legitimate reason for showing up in these parts?”

I’ve known Officer Rick Larson since he started as a cop back in Tucson, eight years ago. He’s always been on the take since day one, shaking down drivers for cash to let them go from a traffic citation that in most cases they didn’t deserve in the first place.

“Well, Officer Larson, figured you were missing my company, so I thought I’d stop by and see how you were getting along.”

“What you got in back there? Watermelons, huh. Sure do love me some watermelon, so do my kids.”

“Just trying to make a little extra money,” I tell him. “Gonna sell these at the Swap Meet this weekend.”

“Uh huh, I certainly imagine that’s so!” Officer Rick says with a sarcastic grin.

“Why don’t you grab a couple for your family and the other officers, as well as the State Cop as my gift from Mexico. Hey, by the way, did you get your birthday present from my cousin in Sinaloa?”

“Yes, I received the gift, quite generous. The watermelon is a nice offering, I’ll surely take you up on your offer and grab a few. And your nervous passenger there, looking like a deer in headlights — is he your partner here in this little watermelon roundup?”

“Yeah, that’s Andy. He’s been worried about the sun baking the melons, over-ripening them and ruining their flavor.”

“I’m sure that’s the reason,” Officer Rick says. “Be careful up ahead, there’s a speed trap on Highway 80 just before Tombstone. Have a safe trip.”

And with that, he waves us through.

“Thank you Officer!” I call out the window, after they have grabbed about six watermelons.

“You son of a bitch,” Andy says. “You knew it had been arranged ahead of time all along, that the cops had been paid off in advance, and you just let me freak out back there!”

“First of all,” I tell him, “my mother is not a bitch. She is a very nice lady. Secondly, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. Who paid what to whom, where, when, what? Man, you must think like this is like some TV show…”

He doesn’t have any response to that.

“Andy, best you forget all about our little watermelon run,” I continue. “These people do not fuck around. They’ll kill your dog, cat, children, wife, brothers, sisters — your whole entire fucking family, gone. They leave you alive until last, so you can live with the guilt of having caused their deaths. Then, when you least expect it, BOOM just like lightning you’re dead.”

There’s over 95 kilos (200 pounds) of some high-grade Mexican weed in the false bed of the pickup. It’s got dual gas tanks, so I’m sure one of them is packed with pot as well as the spare tire. No vacant area or empty cavity has been left unpacked with contraband. Now, a rookie working the run would expect payment for only the original 95 kilos. However, the seasoned veteran knows the “trucos” (tricks) that these traficantes employ. There’s probably an extra 35 to 50 kilos hidden away that they assume you’re not aware of and will not have to pay you for. That is somewhere around another 100 pounds of salable product, give or take.

When I am hired on for an undertaking such as this, I always prefer to get compensated per package instead of the entire load. It always works in the wheelman’s favor to request that type of compensation. Otherwise, they may throw some cocaine in with the load, maybe some speed, ice, crack, or any variety of prescription drugs as well. Some knock-off watches, clothing, shoes, purses, and all types of extra shit that you are basically transporting for free. I name my terms of the contract, and because of my sterling reputation, seldom is there any protest.

They’d originally offered me the run at $30.00 per pound. Over the border runs are much more risky than a standard one, however. There are so many other factors that could come into play and contribute to a tragic outcome. “Nunca” (never) accept the first offer if you’ve been employed by the organization for a reasonable length of time or have a strong, righteous relationship. My price was $50.00 per pound or a discount at $100 per kilo, which El Jefe readily accepted, and we drank a shot of Mescal to the agreement. Roughly calculated, it came out to around $15,000 in profit, including the hidden stuff. Most of the produce would be donated to the Tucson Community Food Bank and Salvation Army.

“Hey Santi,” Andy says, “I don’t need to get paid for coming along with you. And as I told ya before the trip, I won’t say anything to anybody, I promise.”

“I don’t remember offering any kind of payment,” I reply. “Tell ya what, I’ll throw a couple pounds your way as a gift for your company and towards hoping I never have to spend this much time with you ever again! You drive me out of my fucking mind. You’re like a child with all your dumb questions and stupid comments!”

“Sorry,” Andy says, “didn’t mean anything by it. Maybe we could stop in Tombstone for something to eat and a couple of beers. What do ya say?”

“Maybe I should just drop your ass of in Tombstone and be done with you. We’re an hour and a half from Tucson, seventy miles or so, and you wanna stop for food and beer? Best keep to selling nickelbags, Andy. No, I am not going to stop for lunch and especially not for fucking beer! I’m working, understand? We’ll need to stop for gas soon, and when we do, you can grab something from the station.”

“Jesus Christ, ya don’t have to holler…”

“Don’t use the name of other people’s deities in vain. And how many times have I told you, no drinking or drugs while on the clock?”

“Your clock is always runnin’, man. It sucks!”

I pretend to slap at him in anger but end up laughing instead. He starts yucking it up as well.

We reach Tucson and I drop him off at 1st and Prince, near his house. No way I was taking him to the drop house with me. The Mexicans there would cut my balls off and use them in albondigas soup. I was going to have to backtrack to Pueblo Gardens at 36th and Campbell. Thought it would be best not to drive immediately to my destination, just in case I had been tailed. Also, this kept Andy from putting together any clues himself.

“Hey Andy,” I say as he gets out of the truck. “Grab a couple of watermelons for your girlfriend and her kids. I’ll give ya a call tomorrow, concerning your compensation that we talked about. Okay?”

“Yeah, but what about the pot you said you’d lay on me?”

“Really? I will call ya tomorrow.”

He walks off with a watermelon under each arm.

As I drive away, I notice his ID and other items still sitting on the dash. I shake my head in disbelief and throw it all into the glove box.

He got busted three days later with the kilo I gave him, selling half a pound to an undercover cop.

Who didn’t see that one coming?

The Girl Next Door

Seven heists in seven days—in seven different cities. And Danny O’Day felt amped as he wheeled the clacking Samsonite up the brownstone steps. Twenty-five rigorous years in business, and he’d just stolen his last paintings. Fuck, yeah, hallelujah. Only forty-three—and officially retired.

He entered the marbled foyer: where his eyes embraced a series of extraordinary curves ….

“Hey—look who’s back.”

She’d lived across the hall for six months now. Only twenty-six. And he didn’t see her often. But Danny had a type. And knew that he was smitten.

“Indeed I am. So how ’bout dinner? My place? Eight o’clock?”

“Yes, yes, and yes—but right now I need to run.”

Danny didn’t believe in kismet. But he couldn’t combat the notion that the two shared something cosmic. While both Chicago natives, here they were in Boston. And beyond that he discovered, they read the same authors. Enjoyed the same movies. Even hated the same foods.

But sometimes he felt eerie: some strange sense of deja vu. And oddly, Danny noticed … she never spoke his name.

***

Danny read the New York Times: where he’d made the news again. Back in ’95 the FBI dubbed him Houdini—he made paintings disappear—then disappeared himself. The press loved the moniker. And the silly name had stuck. But just like he suspected, the piece proved short on facts.

Since he’d been out-of-town for weeks, Danny knew the fridge stood empty. Deciding to cook a pot roast (along with all the fixin’s), he snagged a cab to Muldoon’s Market. Besides selecting a prime roast, he grinned wickedly at the high school clerk, and asked for a box of lambskins.

“And what dish would you cook with lambskins” she asked, her cheeks still burning crimson.

“The kind you heat with your eyes—and eat on the kitchen floor.”

Though Danny felt confident with women … he knew nothing about relationships. There’d only been one girl he’d slept with more than once. They’d dated for two years. But that day when she discovered her boyfriend was a thief? She dropped his sorry ass like a bloody hot TV.

Jilted over ethics, rather than see her every day, Danny ditched school as well. He would’ve rather wanked his carrot then spend prom night with some floozy … like Donna “Wanna” Johnson—better known as Carrot Top (not just for her orange hair). So before the year was over, he boosted a car and drove to Boston—where he hooked up with a crew.

He’d never returned to the Windy City. But inevitably (so it seemed) every woman he’d ever bedded bore a semblance to her.

***

Danny answered her firm knock at eight o’clock sharp—

Goodbye, girl next door. Hello, slinky minx. No dull flannels or denim blues tonight. A spaghetti-strap blouse of silky cherry red perfectly matched her lipstick, and enlivened her brown eyes. Danny leaned in … and kissed one rouged cheek. Which afforded a tourist’s view of yawning blue-veined cleavage—a canyon that surely put Arizona’s grand to shame. Right hand tucked below the waistband of her taut black pencil skirt, he guided her to the dining room: her modest four-inch pumps tapping a sultry rhythm on his oak hardwood floors.

Seating her at the table, he laid a hand on her shoulder. Ultra-sensitive touch was one of Danny’s many skills. And letting his fingers graze the hollow (at the conclave of her throat) he detected the slightest flinch; a sudden flutter in her pulse …. Though she garnered her composure: caught his gaze and smiled.

He’d encountered this before—in women that men had battered. Perhaps a secret reason why she’d left Chicago.

They went easy on the wine, but remained relaxed through dinner. Though just as he intended, she couldn’t stop glancing at the boxes he’d arranged on the table to her left.

They’d played this game before.

And she quite enjoyed the ritual.

Meanwhile he tried his damndest to stop glancing at her tits.

***

As Danny made and served espresso, she opened each white box; and smiling … but almost teary-eyed—lined each snow globe on the table.

Brattleboro, Vermont.

Rochester, New York.

Gary, Indiana.

Biloxi, Mississippi.

Hartford, Connecticut.

Baltimore, Maryland.

Buffalo, New York.

Mementos from seven cities. In the order he’d pulled the heists.

“Thinking of snow, I’ve leased a suite in Amsterdam overlooking the Amstel River. I’m flying there for Christmas. And I won’t be coming back. I know it’s rather sudden—but I’m hoping you might join me. And at the very least, perhaps, stay thru New Year’s Day.”

She briefly touched his hand; he marveled at its heat.

“I think if you’ll excuse me … I need to use your bathroom.”

He pondered her response; watched her navigate the hallway.

Just his imagination? Or was the poor girl reeling? He fingered the lambskins in his pocket. And wished he could steal her heart as easily as a painting. He heard the toilet flush. But then five minutes passed … his hopes slipping with them.

“O’Day!”

Startled he stared down the hall.

Propped in his bedroom doorway—

She wagged a beckoning finger … and twirled her lacy black bra.

Dear sweet wonderful Jesus. She’d finally said his name.

Yeah, she’d used his last name. But, hey, it was a start.

Springing from his chair, he tripped on the maple table leg … mother fucker… and fought the urge to run.

Finally scooping her by the ass, Daniel O’ Happy Day ran his tongue across her neck, and set her on the bed. What a way to start retirement.

Clawing at his shirt … Danielle shoved him on his back. Zing—she whipped off his belt, and lashed him to the headboard. Panting, she straddled his waist. And hiked that pencil skirt. Eyes tracing those milky-white legs, Danny’s eye popped. Enviously nestled on her glorious right thigh perched a black lace bulldog holster.

And rather than flashing her top, she slid a sleek Beretta artfully from that holster—and flashed a badge instead.

“Tell me Houdini,” she gulped—swiping her wet neck with a Kleenex.

“Was that any way to treat your daughter?”

Flare-Up

There’s blood in the spider ivy by the bay window when Dale gets home. Blood splotches on the jamb, blots on the carpet. Boisterous blood drowning out the mechanical drone of television from another room.

“Charlie?!”

“Dad?” an adolescent voice calls from the bathroom.

Dale drops his hardhat and lunchbox, hurrying to the bathroom. His son’s sitting on the edge of the tub, naked, back to his father, ankle deep in lukewarm bathwater. It smells like raw porkchops turning seasick green. “Charlie? What’s wrong?”

“The armpit rash,” Charlie says, speaking towards the pale tiled shower wall.

“From that new deodorant?”

Charlie twists towards his father, his torso warped with blood and abscesses. A deep hole stretches from chest to shoulder, exposing muscle and sinew.

“Oh my God, son!”

“It started burning so I tried to open a window to air it out, but it’s getting worse.”

Dale flips on the shower. “Rinse it off, we’ve got to get you to the hospital!” He reaches for his phone, but it’s not in his pocket. Fuck. The lunchbox, it’s still in the lunchbox. “I’m calling an ambulance.” He scrambles to his lunchbox, fumbling with the piece-of-shit latch that hasn’t worked right since he dropped a hammer on it a few years back.

Come on, open! You fucking thing.

He crushes it open, lunch wrappers spilling out onto the matted carpet. He snags his cell phone, slams the 9-1-1 emergency call button.

Beep—beep—beep.

Fucking busy signal?!

Charlie screams—a hideous squeal. Dale crashes back into the bathroom, finding his son squatting and whimpering in the tub. The armpit rot’s spreading, revealing bare shoulder bone, flesh turning putrid and flaking away, muscles withering and peeling from tendons like carved meat.

“We’ve got to get you to the ER,” Dale says, grabbing a nearby towel. “Come on.” He pulls Charlie to his feet, fetid skin shifting when touched like it’s a sheet draped over muscles, and helps him pass the barrier of the tub, cold shower ricocheting everywhere, fleshy pulp spattering all over the walls, floor, ceiling—morsels of his little boy dripping from Dale’s face.

Portions of ribcage start to show, seeping pus and muscle mucous. Chunks of Charlie flopping into the water below.

Dale’s stomach whips as he covers Charlie in the towel, wrapping tightly to keep his body from crumbling. The rot has already crept up his neck, part of his jawbone now visible. They hustle past the spilt lunchbox towards the door, towards the old Chevy work truck, towards help—Charlie slowing with each step.

“Dad?” Charlie’s voice sizzles, his breath like vocal cord decay.

“It’ll be okay son, you’ll be okay!”

Slices of Charlie’s scalp shed from his skull, bloody crumbs of cartilage from his nose and ears stick to the towel. His legs stop responding as the rot rips towards his feet. Dale drags his son towards the door. “Come on, Charlie. Stay with me!” Charlie doesn’t respond. Teeth tumble from his mouth, flesh drizzles off his fingers.

Dale’s dragging a corpse by the time they get to the entryway.

“Charlie?” he yelps, eyes gushing with grief. He coils into a fetal crouch near Charlie’s body as the world twists and compresses, strangling the breath from his lungs. Bile and stomach acid surge up his throat, rupturing from his mouth.

Dale pleads to his God.

Wrapped in tears, blood, and vomit.

Until the tingling on his palms start to burn. Carnage and boils consume his hands, skin-rot sinkholes slashing through intrinsic muscles and tendons. He sways to his feet, towards his Chevy, towards the hospital—ignorant to the newscaster’s warning from the TV in another room.

…pheromone-induced chemical reaction to a new deodorant product…flesh-eating fungus…highly contagious…hospitals overwhelmed…stay inside…keep away from others…