Charlie Huston - The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

– I'm cool, I'm cool.

I stood again, slower this time, and went over to the mirror on the wall and looked at my face.

– Crap.

There was a knock on the door. Chev opened it and his apprentice Dina stuck her pierced face in.

– Hey I'm doing this.

She held out a stencil of a little pitchfork-wielding devil.

– What should I use?

Chev looked at it.

– Loose seven for the line work. Straight seven for the color. You need a machine?

She squinted, smiled a little.

– Can I?

He picked up a small plastic case from the desk, undid the clasps on the side and took out a chromed tattoo gun and handed it to her.

– Got to get your own gear, lady.

She took the machine from him.

– I know. I'm saving. Thanks.

She started to close the door, saw me and stopped.

– Fuck, Web, what happened? Looks like you got beat up.

I pointed at my split swollen lip, bloody nose and the gash in my forehead.

– Is that what it looks like, Dina? Because I'm afraid you're mistaken. Wounds like these, you only get them one place. Between your mom's thighs when she crosses her legs too fast.

She flipped me off on her way out.

– Fuck you, you dick.

The door closed and Chev faced me, flicking ash on the floor.

– Feeling all better?

I ripped the paper wrapper off a gauze pad.

– I'm getting there.

He stubbed his butt in a tin ashtray with a Hamms label enameled at the bottom.

– Good. Because seeing as the topic of your dickness has come up, I thought we might talk about you being such a huge fucking phallus to Dot.

I pressed the pad over the oozing gash.

– She call you or something?

He fingered another smoke from his pack.

– Yeah, man. She called me. She called to tell me the homeless couple was screaming in the alley for help and that you were all fucked up down there. She hadn't called me, you'd still be there, asshole. And, by the way, she added that you flipped out on her and said some fucked up shit about me.

I used another pad to wipe dry bloody snot from my upper lip.

– Yeah, well, I may have been less inclined to say fucked up shit about you if you hadn't been talking to her about shit that's none of her business and that you should know better than to talk about with chicks you're nailing and that you know damn well you're gonna kick to the curb next week.

He was quiet for a moment, listening to the high buzz of Dina hitting his machine, tuning the power. He put his head out the door.

– Dina, baby, no higher than ten volts on that machine. It'll get squirrelly

He pulled his head back in and closed the door.

– I'm not gonna be kicking Dot to the curb next week.

– Fine. Week after next.

He lit up and blew smoke.

– I like her. I'm not kicking her anyplace. She's cool and she's gonna be around for awhile. Adapt to the concept.

I looked for my Mobil shirt.

– Fine. You adapt to the concept that you shouldn't be talking about some things to chicks you've been fucking for twenty-four hours. No matter how much you're deluding yourself about the longevity of your affections for her.

He leaned his back on the door and folded his heavily decorated, gym-enhanced arms over his chest.

– Web, with all due respect and love, you are not the only one who's dealing with that shit.

I stopped looking for the shirt.

– What?

He raised a hand.

– Look, man, I'm not saying it's the same thing, but we live together. You know? And you're my best friend. And this shit ain't easy. I mean, all this, this whole asshole of the year thing you're doing, it ain't easy. Someone, someone I like, asks me why you're such a dick, that's a complicated answer. Because I want her to know that you're not a dick. Well, not just a dick. That you're cool. So I have to tell her some things. And seeing as how we are best friends and seeing as how we live together and seeing as how because of that, what happens to you has a tendency to rain shit all over me, I don't feel too fucking bad about telling Dot what the hell the deal is.

I touched my swollen lip. It hurt.

Chev moved away from the door.

– Cuz the thing is, man, it's not just you. I mean, I may be about the only friend you got left willing to put up with your shit, and I got to tell you, man, it ain't fucking easy. It is trying, man. It is hard work. And I appreciate you leaving some of Thea's cash this morning. And I think it's great you're doing some work for Po Sin. And if you can't be fucking civil to my friends, I can deal with it. But you have to cut me some slack on how I deal. Cuz like I'm saying, this is not just your thing.

He put a hand on my shoulder.

– OK?

I nodded. I looked at him. I tapped the middle of my forehead.

– You got something here.

He put a hand to his own forehead.

– Here?

I nodded again.

– Yeah, you got a big weeping vagina that's whining meeeeeeee, ooooooh meeeeeeee.

He took his hand from his forehead.

– Not cool, man.

I brushed his hand from my shoulder.

– Where's my fucking shirt?

He went to the deer antler coatrack in the corner and tossed me my shirt. I snagged it from the air and the hundreds I'd stuffed in the pocket slipped out and fluttered to the floor.

He looked at the cash.

– Been slingin’ dope?

I fiddled with my shirt, picking at some dry blood on the collar.

– No.

He pointed at the money.

– Where'd that come from? Thought your note said Thea sent an ascending sequence.

– She did.

– Thought your note said it ended in nine.

– It did.

– That's like a grand there.

– Yeah.

– So where's it come from?

I didn't look up.

– L.L. gave it to me.

He didn't say anything. I looked up. He stared at me, the muscles under the MOM and DAD tattoos centered on either biceps tensed.

I pointed at the money.

– I didn't ask for it or anything, man. He just, he gave me a book and the money was in there. I. I just went to see him. I needed to. Chev, I haven't seen him in two years. I wanted to see if he was alive for fuck sake. I just. Shit, man.

– Get the fuck out of my shop. Pick up that money and get out.

I squatted and started collecting the money.

– I need to use the phone. I have to call Po Sin.

He crossed to the door.

– There's a payphone on the corner.

I stood, the money in my fist.

– I wasn't gonna spend it, Chev. I was gonna give it away. I didn't even know I had it. He put it in a book.

– Web.

– Yeah.

– I love you, man.

– I know.

He opened the door.

– But if you don't shut up and get out of here right now, I'm gonna love you a lot less, you son of a bitch.

I could have said something else. I could have said something so unbelievably dicky it would have made him laugh. I could have torn the money into little pieces and went and flushed them down the can. I could have done a lot of things. But it was kind of a delicate situation. And I don't have a good track record with doing the right thing in delicate situations.

So I just got the fuck out.

Cuz down to one friend in the world, you tend to get anxious about how long you can hang onto him before you fuck up and do that one last thing that can't be forgiven and you get left all alone for the rest of your life until you die on the toilet in a stinking SRO apartment and no one finds your corpse till it swells up and tumbles from the can and bursts open and even the maggots have had enough of you and move on.

Besides, he had a right to be pissed.

After all, my dad did kill his parents.