J. Osborne: Black Gum

Most notably my attention was on the girl on the couch.

When the garage party dissipated, Shane went back inside and looked back at me and mouthed the words “next level” and then it was just us and I sat across from her. She had a bunch of holes in her jeans and I told her “I can see your pussy through those rips,” and she spread her legs a little wider and she smiled and got up and left.

I ignored the texts from my wife.

I ignored the texts from my mother.

I shut down all my social media accounts.

I woke up to the powder and I fell asleep shaking.

The ink had started to take and so Shane’s gums turned black.

He handed us each a button of peyote.

The temperature had dropped that night. The snow came down. The three of us huddled in the tornado shelter in Charlie’s backyard. We had 40s and a case of beer and a bit of pot. There was a sac of black widow eggs in the far corner and we contemplated leaving, but eventually we convinced each other that black widow babies aren’t born under snow.

Shane lit a cigarette and handed one to me. I crushed the menthol ball in the filter. Snow flurries whipped down the concrete steps and we closed the top and breathed in the dirt and the mint smoke.

Shane said, “Last night I was so high I could see around corners. I want to say that I was blackout drunk, too, but I don’t think that’s right because I can remember things.”

The light from the lone bulb hanging cast shadows over his face. His tattoos moved down his forehead, across his cheeks, dripped off his chin.

“Started off at the Dragon.”

“The Dragon!” we echoed, and raised our beers.

“I met up with Cassandra there. She was dancing. I made it rain.”

“Cassandra,” Charlie said. He made his hands into claws and held them out in front of his chest.

“Oh yeah. So I get a private dance and we’re talking about this and that. It’s almost like a checklist. Boyfriend problems, drug problems, on and on. While she’s telling me this, though. She starts choking me.”

“Choking, like…your dick?”

“My throat. She’s choking me. Fucking strangling me. But I rolled with it. It was kind of nice. I saw stars and passed out and when I came to I felt a lot better about life in general.”

The shelter was my ribcage and it was moving.

“I went back to her sister’s place. They were gone for the night. She gave me a tuggie in her niece’s room. That was weird. Toys everywhere.”

“Did you skeet on the toys?”

“I skeeted on her.”

Charlie said, “Good man.”

“So after that, we went over to her neighbors house and smoked meth in their basement. I gave them a ride to the casino. They were these old-ass Indians. The woman had a face that looked ready to fall off. We went to the casino and they gambled and I gambled a bit too. Lost like fucking two hundo on that shit. But the old Indian chick had this prosthetic leg, and she’d sit at the blackjack table and she’d try to use her leg like a sword. Tried to knight the dealer. When she was at the slots, she’d try to knight the slot machine. The place was mostly empty at this time of night and it was weird quiet. I got on my knee and I let her knight me. Then the stripper hey-bitch and I went to her dealer’s house and he fucked her in this room and I just went through all his shit. Got cash, I got a machete.”

“I’ll trade you for the machete.”

“I gave you the railroad knife.”

“I’ll trade you that for the machete.”

“I made that knife. I put care into it.”

“But I’ll trade you.”

I thought of using a machete to hack through thick ferns and at the center of all the trails I met a jaguar.

“I got this, too.” Shane reached into his pocket. A Ziploc bag. He took out the sheet of acid and tore it into ten-strips and dropped one each into our respective 40s.

We chugged the malt liquor.

Charlie said, “That’s a crazy story, man.”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t believe you got a squeezer from Cassandra.”

Outside was like staring into a chasm. The snow had dusted the backyard and underneath it there was a black earth shifting. A possum clung to the chainlink fence. We all took a good look at it but the thing didn’t move.

We wondered if it was dead.

We wondered if it was real.

I picked up a stick to poke the thing.

Shane said, “Don’t poke the possum.”

I walked toward it, holding the stick like a lance. “I’m gonna poke it.”

Shane stepped in front of me. “Don’t poke the fucking possum.”

I put the stick down. “All right. Jesus.”

We all kind of stood out there for a moment. Then we went back inside.

We smashed all the potted plants in the house. We lay on the floor and bit into Keystone cans and poured the beer on our faces. We stripped naked and stood in the kitchen. There was a standing inch of beer on the linoleum and there were purple and green layers to it and I dug my toes into it like sand.

Charlie and Shane melted and stepped out of time and space.

Shane yelled, “I’ve got the big one coming. The big job. The big money.”

I went into the guestroom and lay on the floor. My asshole felt very warm. I put my palm between my butt cheeks and looked at it, checking to see if I’d crapped myself.

I shivered and the spackle in the ceiling bled and dipped.

Two aliens appeared before me in the corner. Their heads shaped like windmills.

Purple fog at their feet. They dressed in shirts that hung off one shoulder and I could see their bra straps.

They showed me the weapon of the apocalypse. Three shapes.

I shut my eyes and went to the deepest door in my brain and opened it and touched the darkest ink. They told me if I didn’t get away, I would die.

I checked my ass again.

For as long as I was awake, I was convinced that I was shitting on the floor.

I woke up and stepped out onto the porch. The ice in the trees let light through and skeletons coming up over the tops of the section 8 housing was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I felt new.

Charlie was leaning into the guts of the Mustang. Hood propped up and buckling with the wind.

When he saw me he stopped what he was doing and turned.

“What’s the big thing?”

“What big thing?”

“Shane. What Shane was talking about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Whatever it is, don’t do it.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious. I love my cousin. But that motherfucker is nuts. Before you met him, he was in prison. Do you know why he was in prison?”

I just wanted to look at the ice on the trees. “No.”

“He came home one day. He had this big pit bull. While he was gone, the pit bull had eaten a chunk out of his drywall. So he dragged the thing out onto his front yard and beat it to death.”

I kicked a rock off the porch. I suddenly realized how cold it was.

Charlie wiped his black hands off on a rag. “Be careful. That’s all I’m saying.”

Last Call hosted a fake orgasm contest.

We got drunk and headed over. Shane entered and sat down looking pleased with himself. I tried to picture him murdering a dog. He stuck his split tongue out at me. I could maybe see it. Charlie had been quiet all day. He kept with that vibe at the bar.

Shane said, “I found out this morning that Cassandra’s boyfriend has been beating on her.”

Charlie said, “She’s a stripper. That’s part of the job.”

Shane said, “I invited the entirety of the Comanche bloods over to his house tonight. Told them it was a big party. Lots of beer.”