Victor Gischler - Gun Monkeys

“I can’t talk now,” she said curtly. “We’re on.”

“You left this in the can.” I held out the purse.

Her eyes softened. She took a step down. “Thanks. I appreciate it.” She grabbed the purse, but I hung on to the other end.

“Do you know a band called Spanklicious?”

“Yeah. They come through every few months. Sounds like somebody throwing glass bottles into a buzz-saw. What do you want to hear them for?”

“I’m not a fan. I’m just looking.”

“They usually play at Café Blitzkrieg. It’s a bottle club on 4th, or was. It burned down- shit- maybe a week, ten days ago. They always got shit bands. I don’t think anyplace else in town would have them.”

I let go of the purse. “Sorry to trouble you.”

She looked at me sort of weird, curious. “No trouble.” She took the stage, and the band jerked to life with “Hit that Jive Jack.”

When I got back to Lou, he was having some hard words with one of the frat kids. Another came up behind him and broke a beer bottle at the base of his skull. Lou teetered, and the frat guys saw their chance. About eight dove on him. The guy behind the bar yelled. The band played louder, segued into “Sing, Sing, Sing.”

Lou kicked out with a big boot and caught one in the stomach. The kid folded good, hit the floor hard. Lou grabbed a fistful of one’s shirt and tossed him over the bar. The other guys were landing solid blows into Lou’s midsection. They might as well have been punching a dump truck. I moved in to help, but I didn’t hurry.

One of the bigger frat guys threw a wooden chair. Lou ducked, and the chair sailed over the railing and down into the dance floor. It obliterated a couple who’d been swing dancing pretty well up till then. All hell broke loose. Screaming. Some afraid. Most angry. A tiny girl heavy with rhinestones scooped up the chair and hurled it back. It landed on a crowded table, spraying beer in every direction. The guys at the table jumped the rail and waded into the swing kids.

The bouncers arrived, two fat guys who didn’t know where to start. They looked at Lou. They looked at the brawl on the dance floor. I guess they weren’t ambitious enough to tackle Lou, so they headed for the dancers. The band had abandoned the set list and dove into a quirky cover of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Around the Old Oak Tree.”

Lou looked happy. He had a very picturesque dribble of blood in one corner of his mouth, and he planted a fist in the face of anyone who dared come within range. I picked a random kid and popped him in the mouth so I could feel involved.

His buddy aimed a fist at my nose. I turned and took it on the cheek. Then I leaned in with an uppercut that rattled his teeth and made the cartoon songbirds circle his head. He went down.

“That’s enough, Lou,” I shouted over the din. “Let’s go. Cops!” I didn’t really see any, but that would get him moving.

“Right behind you, man.”

He hammered one last kid on the top of his head with a meaty fist and kicked his limp form under a table, then followed me to the exit. The guy on the door looked nervous, held up a hand wondering how he was going to stop us, figured out he wasn’t, and ducked behind the cash register.

In the parking lot, I backed the Suburban into a Mazda by accident in my hurry to leave before the cops arrived. I didn’t hear any sirens, but it would be soon now.

“Fuck, man,” said Lou. “Watch your driving.”

“Thing’s the size of a battleship.”

I got us away, pointed us toward the Interstate.

“Well, shit,” said Lou, who grinned like he’d just won the Nobel Prize for kicking ass. “I guess we showed ’em.”

We drove into a cluster of restaurants and hotels where Interstate 75 intersected with 200. I got us a couple of rooms at the Best Western.

In my room, I flipped on the light over the twin sinks, poked at the swollen area under my left eye where the kid had nailed me. I’d had too much beer, gotten careless. A watery punch thrown by some college kid. Should have seen it coming. Stupid.

I flopped down on the bed, grabbed the phone, and dialed Marcie’s number. She answered after eleven rings. “Yes? Hello?”

“You sound out of breath.”

“I ran in from the garage.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Working. I have three howler monkeys on ice.”

“You have three- what’re you doing?”

“I got them from the Sanford Zoo,” she said. “They were free. Can you believe it?”

“Dead monkeys. That’s quite a deal.”

“Ha, ha. You think it’s a big joke, but a friend of a friend owns an alternative art gallery in Jacksonville. You know Minnie Shwartz?”

“She owns the gallery?”

“Minnie? No. Minnie owns squat. But she knows Naomi. Naomi runs the gallery.”

“Noami who?”

“Naomi nothing,” said Marcie. “It’s one of those one word names. Like Cher.”

“Or Zorro.”

“Hilarious.” A pause. “You okay?”

“Holding my own.”

“Why’d you call?”

“Just to hear a friendly voice.”

“And I’m as good as anyone?” Her question was only half playful.

“You know that ain’t true.”

“So you like me best, huh?”

“I like you best. What are you going to do with the monkeys?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’d better get started before they start going bad.”

“You could do one of those see no, hear no, speak no evil things,” I suggested.

She laughed. “You’re wonderfully silly and cliché. I have to go.”

“Be careful. Don’t dead animals have parasites or ebola or something?”

“My monkeys are melting.”

“Bye, baby.”

“Bye.”

We hung up.

I thought about calling Ma, but it was getting late. I went back to the mirror and checked my bruise again. Stupid.

I’d bought a toothbrush and some toothpaste and deodorant at the 7-Eleven a block from the hotel. I scrubbed my teeth. I’d forgotten to buy a razor. My stubble was thick and dark.

There was a hard knock on the door. I opened it, and Lou was standing there shirtless with a little syringe sticking out of his upper arm like a stray pub dart. He was red faced, strands of blond hair matted to his forehead. His face was crinkled up like an actor’s in a laxative commercial.

“I need you to push it in, man. Make the juice go in.”

“Are you on the junk?”

“I think I stuck it in a nerve or something. I can’t get my other arm up to push it in.” It was true. He tried to bring his other arm around but it froze up halfway like Frankenstein playing the violin.

“If you’re shooting junk, I swear I’ll fucking put a bullet in your face right now.”

“It’s not dope, man. It’s- It’s part of my muscle building regimen.”

“Steroids.”

“It hurts, man.”

“I hear that stuff shrivels your gonads.”

“Will you just push it in!”

I took hold of the syringe gently and thumbed down the contents.

“Take it out.”

I pulled the syringe out of his arm and dropped it on top of the television.

The arm was his again. He rubbed it, flexed. “Yeah, man. Yeah!” He slapped his muscles, flexed some more and dropped to the floor where he began doing push-ups. “Feel the burn. Ride the burn. Oh, yeah.” It didn’t look like he was going to let up anytime soon.

“Could you shout slogans and sweat in your own room?”

“It’s not even midnight. We got to find Spanklicious.” He kept on with the push-ups.

“That’s a bust. I talked to the girl in the band.”

“Too skinny. No rack.”

“She said the joint they play in burnt down.”

“Burnbabyburnbabyburn- now what?”

“We know where they’re going. Tomorrow night.”