Ryan Jahn - The Last Tomorrow

His arm is still bruised, like someone poked him with a finger, but Sandy doesn’t care. He managed to make a working gun, it didn’t explode in his hand, and he has two bullets left. He plans to use one of them tonight — as soon as his stepfather comes home from the bar. He looks at the clock on his night table.

It looks back at him.

It says tick. . tick. . tick.

It’s just past twelve o’clock in the morning. His mom works nights and won’t be home for hours, so he has time. As long as Neil comes home from the bar early, as he often does, and drunk, as he always does, and as long as Sandy doesn’t lose his nerve, he can do this. He knows he can.

He just waits till his stepfather is sleeping, walks up to him, points, and. .

Yes.

Teddy Stuart looks across the felt-topped game table to the pimple-faced son of a bitch dealing cards. Dead black eyes and hollow cheeks. Face colorless but for the pink acne on his chin and forehead. Hair slicked into place with a week’s worth of unwashed grease. Like all the dealers here he wears a white shirt with an arm garter, a waistcoat, and a black bowtie. Unlike most of the dealers this one’s a mechanic. Teddy’s sure of it. The little shit has busted him five times in a row on hands under fourteen, and that just wouldn’t happen if the kid wasn’t a mechanic.

There’s nothing Teddy hates more than playing smart and losing anyway. He knows that’s why they’re called games of chance, but goddamn it, chance won’t kick you in the balls five times in a row. Only people will do that: only people have hearts that black. Chance is merely indifferent.

He came out to Los Angeles to make a delivery for the Man, and instead of being allowed to blow off a little steam after a cross-country journey, Atlantic to Pacific, and the stressful handing over of a briefcase with more money in it than he’s personally earned in the last ten years — though he’s well paid — he’s expected to sit across from this pimple-faced kid not much older than the turd he squeezed between his cheeks this morning while the little motherfucker deals crooked hands with a straight face.

There are two other players at the table besides, one on either side of him.

Teddy exhales with a sigh and looks at his cards. A six of hearts and a seven of clubs. Red and black. Thirteen.

The lady to his right hit on seventeen and collected an eight of hearts, his eight of hearts. Stupid bitch keeps collecting cards meant for him.

‘If you bust me again. .’

He clenches his jaw and wipes at his mouth with the palm of his left hand. He closes his eyes, trying to keep himself calm. He opens his eyes and taps the table with a dirty, chewed-on fingernail.

The dealer puts down a nine of clubs.

‘You son of a bitch,’ Teddy says, reaching forward to grab the kid, wanting to pull him down by the collar, slam his smug face against the table. But the kid’s fast — faster than Teddy, anyway. He pulls back, dodging the swipe, and next thing Teddy knows he has both barrels of a sawed-off shotgun pressed against his forehead, hello, looks like your brains might be leaving by the back door, and the two other players are on their feet, taking several steps back.

‘I think it’s time for you to leave, friend.’

‘You cheating bastard, do you know who I am?’

‘I don’t care if your name is Jesus Humphrey Christ, you gotta leave.’

‘You have no idea who you’re fucking with.’

‘Theodore Stuart, a numbers cruncher for James “the Man” Manning who thinks just because he works for someone with some pull, that means he has some pull hisself. Well, your boss don’t have as much pull on this coast as you seem to think he does, and even if he did he don’t have no pull with me, and even if he did have pull with me you ain’t him. Far as I can tell, you’re just a fat drunk who can count money okay, but can’t seem to hold onto any hisself.’ He licks his lips. ‘Now, all this conversation is stimulating, I admit, but I got a job to do, which means you gotta leave. Get to it, friend.’

‘Take the gun off me.’

Teddy knows the night is over, knows he must subtract himself from this situation, but something in him refuses to budge while the dealer has the gun on him. He will have this one small victory. He will walk out of here with a little dignity. He will not walk out of here with his shoulders slumped, with his gaze on the floor, watching his feet drag him into the night. He will not walk out of here hating himself. The kid will take the gun off him or Teddy will not move. Not an inch.

Not a goddamned inch.

‘No.’

‘Take the gun off me and I’ll go.’

‘You’ll go anyway, friend. I’m the one at the trigger end of this weapon.’

Herb Boykin, this place’s owner, wearing a well-tailored suit and a hand-painted tie, is staring at them from across the room. Teddy can see him over the kid’s shoulder. Can see him rock back on his heels with his hands in his pockets. Can see him suck on an eyetooth. Can see him rock forward. Can see him walk toward them.

‘What’s going on here, Francis?’ he says as he arrives. ‘Mr Stuart’s out past his bedtime.’

‘You’re making the other patrons nervous.’ ‘Tell em to relax. I only hit what I’m aiming at.’ He says this without taking his eyes off Teddy. Then he says: ‘Are you gonna leave, friend?’

‘Take the gun off me.’

‘Back away and it’ll be off you.’

‘Shotguns are less than — uh — discriminatory, Francis.’

‘It’s pushed against his forehead, sir. I ain’t gonna miss.’ Teddy can feel tears welling in his eyes. Fifty years old and tears welling in his eyes over an altercation with a kid barely out of high school. But he refuses to lose this battle completely. He refuses to leave here humiliated. He blinks. His eyes sting. He knows they’re reddening and knowing this makes him angry. How dare the kid do this to him. How dare he. He pushes his head against the barrel of the gun, making it hurt, wanting it to hurt, wanting to feel more anger and less humiliation.

‘You gonna pull the trigger or put the gun away?’ he says. ‘Your choice.’

‘Take the gun off him, Francis. Mr Stuart’s leaving.’

The kid hesitates but finally does as he was told.

‘That’s right, boy,’ Teddy says. ‘Do what the boss man says.’

The kid twitches at being called boy and mumbles something about not being no spade. This is good. He’s at least gotten under the kid’s skin. It doesn’t release the spring-pressure in his belly, the tension that wants to explode from within him, but it’s good nonetheless. It’s something.

He stands up and straightens his tie. He glances around the large room. Most everyone is looking at him, silent. He recognizes several of them, their white faces like signs showing him their amused shock. He feels tears wanting once more to well in his eyes, but refuses them, blinks them away.

‘I’m sure it was a misunderstanding, Mr Stuart,’ Herb Boykin says. ‘I do think it’s best if you leave for the night, but you’re welcome back. You’ll have fifty dollars in chips waiting for you at the counter.’

‘I’m not coming back here, you stupid son of a bitch. What happened here wasn’t a misunderstanding. Your dealer’s a mechanic. A cheat . That’s a reflection on you. You and your place. So fuck you. Fuck you.’

He hawks up a mouthful and spits it into Boykin’s face. It runs down the man’s cheek like frothed egg white.

Boykin removes a handkerchief and wipes it away. Then he looks past Teddy and nods. Teddy turns around in time to see a large Negro take two steps toward him while swinging a hefty enameled sap. A moment later everything goes bright, like looking into the sun. Then black.