Todd Robinson - Dirty Words

"Little on the mark there, huh?" Joe finally gets his giggles under control, but the tears won't stop rolling down his face. It feels like the force of his laughter has chipped something else loose.

Quietly, Death says, "What's the matter, Joe?"

"I dunno. It's…I never got to make right." Joe points up towards the heavens. "Y'know? I never…I never got to make Confession or nothing."

"Are you sorry for the things you've done? Are you truly sorry for the life you've led?"

Joe thinks about it, trying to associate the acts most vivid in his memory to an emotional response within himself. He's a little surprised at what he finds. "Y'know what? I am."

Death stands up and opens his suit jacket. With one hand, he reaches in. With the other, he points upward and smiles. "Then He knows, too."

Joe turns his head into the antiseptic smelling pillow and closes his eyes. "I'm sorry. I don't want to see."

"You don't have to. Goodbye, Joe."

"Goodbye."

hissssss -click

hissssss -click

hissssss -click

hissssss -click

Joe Shannon smiles, even though his tears are still flowing.

hiss-pop

And the pain is over.

The visitor buttons his coat back up and walks out of the room. He stops at the nurse's station. "You received the money?"

"Yes sir. Thank you." The pasted smile never moves.

"And tell your fiancée that he's clear of his debts."

"Yes sir."

"You know what I have to do?"

"Yes sir."

"Close your eyes."

She does. The man in the black suit winds up and delivers a vicious punch to the nurse's temple. She crumples to the floor, unconscious, blood streaming along her hairline from the gash his ring made-a convincing enough injury.

He drives back to Southie, parks in front of an Irish Shebeen called Conor's. He knows they'll be in the back room. The red-haired hostess nods at him as he passes. He walks through the kitchen into the room marked Employees Only.

Five old men are seated around the poker table, cards and chips in front of them. One of them has an oxygen tank strapped to his wheelchair.

hissssss -click

The passage of time hasn't been much kinder to the other four. One holds his cards with knobby fingers ravaged by arthritis. Three of them look up at him with glasses thicker than storm windows.

"Is it done?" one asks, his voice still tinged with the light brogue he brought to Boston fifty years earlier from Galway.

"It's done."

The man in the wheelchair starts to weep softly. Arthritis-Fingers lays an arm over his withered shoulders. "He was suffering, Seamus."

"I know. I know." He takes a deep breath, blows it out with a shudder. "It's a good death."

"Damn right," says another old-timer. "Joe Shannon deserved to go out like a man. Not wasting away in cheap hospicthckkk-" The old-timer's dentures catch on the sibilants and are halfway out his mouth before he catches them. "Gawdammit."

Those who can do so, stand. They all raise their glasses towards one of their own. "We'd like to thank you, Mr. Bustimante, for letting us use your man for this."

Sal Bustimante raises his glass of red wine into the air. He's met with four pints of Guinness. " Agli amici più con noi. To friends no longer with us."

To friends no longer with us.

"I got Northern Lights, Grape Ape, Kryptonite, Silk, White Rhino, White Widow, Emerald Gold, Bubble Gum and Double Bubble," Jamie said to the skinny doe-eyed girl leaning on the doorjamb of her apartment.

She bit her lip nodding, mulling over her options. "Don't you have any more of that Kush I got last week?"

"Was Kush in that long list I just recited?"

The girl blinked, confused by the question. "I don't remember."

Jamie gritted his teeth. "It wasn't." Goddamn potheads. Their short-term memory was more often than not blown to the four winds anyhow. Hell, his own wasn't much better. Even though he could feel his patience burning away with the girl, Jamie appreciated the reprieve from the chill fall rain outside…

"Oh. I liked that one. Real mellow smoke." The girl nodded into her statement, like a pecking bird.

"Might have some next week."

"Got any G-13?"

Despite the fact that Jamie hadn't included the pharmaceutical grade strain in his list, he always carried two packets, in case. He just didn't think that this girl, answering the door in her beat up U-Mass sweatshirt, had the scratch to buy the stuff. It was the premier, top of the line weed ever produced. Thank you, Uncle Sam. "Yeah. It's a hundred-fifty."

"Whoa."

He knew it. He'd delivered to this girl four times in the last month and had never sold her anything better than Kryptonite or Kush. None too expensive. She acted like he was one of the Fenway hustlers who sold teenagers baggies cut with oregano. Jamie only sold weed rated from really good up to G-13, but the girl obviously had no idea what the hell she was talking about. "Try the Silk. The high is pretty close."

"To the G-13?" Her eyes widened in hope.

"No, to Kush. Nothing is close to G-13. If there was, you couldn't afford it."

"Fuck you, I can afford it." The girl bobbed her head in an attitude more appropriate for a guest on Maury than college student. From bird to trailer trash in one neck swivel.

Jamie was tired of the exchange. He wanted to make the sale and get out of Dodge. He didn't need to get into an argument with the twit about her budget. "Listen, you buying today, or not?"

"Give me the Silk."

"Fifty." Jamie reached into his pocket and drew out the small bag. The girl handed him a rolled-up mess of singles and fives. She held her hand out impatiently.

"Wait," Jamie ordered as he unfolded the bills and counted. The girl sighed with annoyance. Jamie was ready to chuck the money in her face and walk, if Hugh wouldn't chew him out for blowing a sale. Fifty even. Thank God, Jamie thought as he slapped the bud into her hand. She made no effort to close the door gently.

Bitch.

Jamie waited at Model Bar for his next call, sipping a Heineken. Most days, he didn't mind riding his bike. Some of the other couriers on Hugh's payroll bought themselves scooters or dirt bikes to motor around in. Jamie still liked riding his bicycle. It was slower than anything motored, but not by much. On his bike, he could still choose which traffic laws to obey, which lights to run, any route he wanted. The guys on motors had to be double careful not to catch the cop's attention. That was one thing Jamie was good at. On the street, he was the Flash, the Invisible Man and Keyser Soze all rolled into one. You think he's there and poof…gone.

Except in the rain. And it was cold. Summer rain wasn't so bad, could even be refreshing, but this crap just flat-out sucked. From his messenger bag he pulled out one of his old man's ancient Travis McGee books to pass the time, but the rain had warped the pages. The cigarette-yellowed paper stuck together, making it impossible to read. Jamie thought he could still smell the old man's Camels between the wet pages.

Then his cell phone rang.

"Yeah"

"22 Cabot Street. Roxbury."

"Dammit, Hugh. Don't be sending me to Roxbury in this weather." Jamie thought; Don't send me to Roxbury at all , but didn't say it. The day could have been sunshine and kittens, Roxbury was still a shit run.

"Bring the G-13."

"What? Aw, hell no. Have you looked outside?"

"Apartment 2-E." Click. Hugh didn't argue, much less with his employees. You made the delivery, or you returned to the base, handed over your stash, and never returned.

Jamie was aware of his place. Yeah, he was a scumbag drug dealer, but he was positive nobody ever O.D.ed on what he sold. Gateway drug, my ass. Jamie smoked weed regularly since he was old enough to roll and he never felt the urge to upgrade his high.