Josh Stallings - Beautiful, Naked and Dead

Back in East LA I had a neighborhood kid hook me up with a car stereo for forty bucks and a six pack of tall boys. If I was going to be rolling long and wide I needed tuneage. He cut a piece of plywood to fill the gaping dash and bolted it in. Like everything else in the Ford it was all go, no show.

My house felt empty with Angel gone. Silly, I hadn’t had her that long but I missed her wagging tail and sloppy face. This is no time to go soft and cuddly so I loaded a Mossberg twelve-gauge riot gun, a Colt.45 1911 automatic, my S amp;W.38 and boxes of shells for all into the trunk of the Crown Vic. I didn’t know where the trail would lead, but I knew I should pack heavy just in case it turned ugly. I filled a gym bag with jeans, tee-shirts and socks. I took out my one and only nice suit. It was gray gabardine with black piping on its country western yoke. I added a white western shirt with pearl buttons, a scorpion bolo and a pair of black Tony Lama boots. Packed and ready, I was almost out the door when I noticed the Marilyn cookie jar with the charm bracelet wrapped around the handle on its lid. If I found Kelly’s sister, she might know what to do with Kelly’s remains. I set her in the back seat and rumbled out of town.

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros kicked a beat to my retreat from the city. Fuck Mick Jones, Strummer’s drunken growl will always be the heart and soul of the Clash. The only blessing in his death is the world will be spared an embarrassing oldies tour. I almost threw up when I heard Johnny Rotten and a less Vicious Sex Pistols played Trump’s place in Atlantic City. In case there was any doubt that the go-go 80’s had killed punk, that show put the nail in the coffin.

The Crown Vic took to the freeways like a duck to water. It was still early enough so that the quitting traffic hadn’t clogged the road. In San Berdo I took the I-15 toward Vegas, up over the mountains and then a gentle sweep down into the desert. I had made this run enough times in my life, I probably could have done it with my eyes closed. Vegas had been my Camelot, the land where all the rules were clear and fair. Less than a tank of gas from LA and I was in a whole ‘nother world, one full of beautiful women who brought you drinks, lit your cigarettes and laughed at all your jokes. One good run at the blackjack table and I drove home with shiny new boots and two months rent. And if I lost, I’d had one hell of a time doing it. The main difference between Bob the bookie and a Vegas pit boss was, Bob would let me lose more than I had, in Vegas when I was broke, I was broke. I might have to hock my watch for gas money, but that was the worst it could get.

Pushing the accelerator down an SUV full of college kids pulled over to let me fly by. One of the added benefits to driving an ex-cop car is when the other motorists see that familiar silhouette in their rear view, they get instant guilt and slow down to let you pass. Cruising along at a safe eighty miles an hour I had plenty of time to think. I had lived my life to this point without direction, letting the currents take me where they would. I was a ship without a rudder, and a questionable moral compass to guide me. My childhood was something I didn’t like to dwell on. A violent father who had skipped when I was six, and a mother who mixed equal parts gin and televangelism, she could quote all the parts in the Bible that made you feel shitty and small. Most afternoons she would fly into rages and tear the house up, by night she would pass out in front of the TV set while some preacher droned on about the cash he needed. My older brother Luke and I mostly raised ourselves. It wasn’t all bad, we had nothing to judge it against so it seemed like our lives, nothing more nothing less. We didn’t know that other kid’s moms tucked them in at night, or that their moms didn’t wake up every day with bloodshot eyes and sick headaches. We lived in a small two bedroom bungalow in a court of other paint chipped bungalows up on the sad side of Altadena. The court was populated by the retired, the recently rehabilitated and those like our mom, who lived on permanent disability. Luke and I were the only people under thirty so we kept to ourselves. In school we had a reputation as wild boys, probably well earned but it kept most of the parents from letting their progeny hang with us. That was fine by me, screw the squares if they don’t want to be with us. Luke and me were a tribe of two, or we were until he grew hair on his nut sack and discovered that being a bad boy got more girls to lift their skirts than driving a BMW or living in a mansion up on the hill. So he deserted me for gash and I waited alone for the mystery to take hold of me. At fourteen I lost my cherry to a thirty five year old pro who had gentlemen callers as she called them into her bungalow across the brown patch of grass from our front door. Right after I came I had two contradictory ideas, what was all the talk about? Getting laid wasn’t all that big a deal, in fact it was kinda nasty. At the same moment I heard a much deeper voice saying when do we get to do this again? I spent the whole summer doing odd jobs around her place, working on the barter system.

My brother left when I was sixteen. He just packed up his ’56 Ford and moved to Texas. He said it was where our roots were, our old man had been a Texan, and I guess that was all the excuse Luke needed to put three thousand miles between himself and our childhood. Whatever his reasons were, he left me alone with the care and feeding of the monster. I still haven’t forgiven him for that. She was getting crazier by the day, bouncing between DT’s and liver meltdown. Her skin had taken on a greenish yellow color and a dull shine like wax. Her hearing was shot so she always had the Bible Boosters on full blast overdrive.

I stood it for two long months, believing Luke would roll up with a beer in one hand and a Texas cheerleader in the other, and our life would go back to the dull crazy I had always known. But he didn’t, so I lifted his birth certificate and an old driver’s license and enlisted in the Marines.

Six weeks later, I graduated boot and was shipped out to Lebanon. President Ronny that actor fuck sent us a televised message. He was proud of us upholding the Marine tradition of protecting the innocent. Our mission as he outlined it was to show the world our support of the legit Lebanese government. How that translated into a battle plan was a bit sketchy. They posted some bullshit called the ROE, rules of engagement, we were never to carry a round chambered in our guns, we were only to fire if in direct and imminent danger. Under no circumstances were we to give chase or fire upon the enemy unless they were firing on us. It was pure political bullshit and we knew it.

WELCOME TO THE ROOT, was chalked in tall uneven letters on the landing strip where our transport chopper landed. The Root, Beirut, or what was left of it stretched out before us, the night sky lit up with green tracers and the city rocked from mortar fire.

Me and a twelve-man squad were assigned to checkpoint 79. It was down in an East Beirut ghetto we called Hooterville. The first time a sniper fired on us I about shit myself. Rounds burst open our sandbags and we dove for cover. Most of the time they were bad enough shots so that it became more of an irritant than any big danger.

I had only been in country about a week when the Shiite militia drove a truckload of explosive into the American embassy killing 17 Americans. The press blamed the marine guard, but what the hell were they supposed to have done? By the time they saw what was happening and chambered a round it was too late.

That’s when we decided to change the rules of engagement. The Gunny had us rake a 50 caliber machine-gun across an apartment building where ten or so snipers had been harassing us. The big bullets ripped glass, curtains, plaster, wall studs, whatever came into their line of fire. Me and two other sharpshooters lay on a rooftop across from the building. When the Muslim fighters came running out into the street, Gunny blew a whistle. We rose up and tore the surprised sons of bitches to shreds. Blood and bone chips and pieces of cloth flew in all directions. One of the militia spun trying to aim up at us, through my scope I could see the stupid shock on his face as my bullets ripped him apart.