Jose Rodriguez - Snapshots of Modern Love

"No good woman, was getting too friendly with the cops."

Ortega held a glass full of Bourbon, which he offered to Ken," Have a drink. You will get over it, plenty of pussy out there."

Ken drank his bourbon in one gulp, his throat burning in a slide of fire. He watched Ortega' s crew wash Sonia' s blood away by splashing bucketfuls of seawater on the deck. Youngstown with its parade of wrinkled, weathered faces didn' t seem so unsavory now.

Erich breaths in short gasps. In and out. Debbie moans in pain as Erich goes in and out. Another round of forced anal sex, no Vaseline either. Bastard. In and out. Debbie wishes she had diarrhea so she could explode all over the bastard. In and out faster and faster.

Two days with Erich, and she has hated every minute. Erich from Arkansas, an inbred bastard, for sure, thinks Debbie sitting cross legged on the passenger side of Erich' s Seville, miles going by, country music rising from the radio to fill the smoky interior.

"I' m gonna make some good money in this trip," says Erich.

"So happy for you," says Debbie staring straight over the hood. She smokes in long puffs.

"First thing I' m gonna do when I get back West, is get my self two young China whores, you know, real nice and tender like chicken nuggets." He laughs at his own wit.

"I thought that you people would rather fuck your own relatives, like little nieces," says Debbie. "Or you don' t like fighting it out with your brothers?"

Erich pulls his nine-millimeter Glock from under the seat and points it at Debbie' s head. "You' re fucking funny, aren' t you?" He pokes the muzzle at Debbie' s temple, every time saying "Aren' t you?" Poke," aren' t you?" Poke," aren' t you?" Poke.

Debbie remains cool, staring straight. It didn' t matter one way or another. Erich puts the pistol back under the seat, then leans over her side and slaps her face. It burns but Debbie shows neither emotion nor pain. Been there, done that.

"I' m gonna dump your skinny ass once this deal is done. Fuck John and fuck you, you hear me? You' re riding the bus back little miss. I can get my own pussy." He pauses. As he looks away he mutters," If I haven' t killed you by then."

Debbie feigns hearing nothing, but her muscles tense and her already heightened survival instinct kicks into high gear.

"This mother fucker is up to no good," she thinks. John had asked her to accompany Erich in this trip so she could introduce him to his dealers. Erich showed them a briefcase full of money, from "West Coast investors," so the money part didn' t seem like bullshit, but the bastard, ponders Debbie, wasn' t right in the head, like he had watched too much TV or he had been dropped when he was a baby. Maybe it was the way his crooked smile seemed to hang from his face as if ready to spill from one side; and playing around with his gun. He couldn' t get a hard on if he didn' t have that thing pointed at her while she was giving him head.

She would be glad when they reached the end of this trip. Let John' s friends handle the hick bastard, bring him down a couple of notches, the hard way.

Her cigarette grows too short. She sticks the smoldering butt in the ashtray under the dashboard and squashes it by turning it in her fingers like if she were trying to drill a hole through the metal. From her purse she gets her pack and lights another one.

"What a fucking trip," she says aloud, as if speaking to herself. Erich ignores her, too busy picking his nose.

As Ken' s pick up crossed the Florida-Georgia line northbound on I- 75, a slight relief came over Ken. But he knew the relief would never be complete until he delivered the Adidas bag sitting beside his own bag on the floorboard.

"I need you to do me a favor," Ortega had asked back in Miami.

"Si," said Ken. "What is it?"

"I have a little bag of merchandise that needs to be delivered in Atlanta."

"Have one of your guys do it."

"I need an honest, white face like yours," had said Ortega. "Cops are too suspicious of us, more if we are driving expensive cars, or rental cars."

"Get yourself an old car."

"It' s good money. Easy work."

Ken took the job, but it wasn' t for the money. He had plenty of that. This job gave him the opportunity to pack his things and leave town without suspicion, for good. The good part Ken kept from Ortega as Ken didn' t want to get in an argument with him, like Sonia did.

Ken didn' t want Ortega chasing after him either, so he would do as told, deliver the bag, collect the money and deliver it to Ortega by FedEx, and then disappear for good. No hard feelings.

Ken slowed down as he looked for the right house. The maples aligned on the street made it hard for him to seethe numbers over the porches. A blue house with white trimming, Must be that one . He slowed down because a delivery van in front of him had stopped in front of the blue house, blocking the road.

Ken was ready to blow the horn when the van' s side door opened and a S.W.A.T. team rushed out and stormed the house.

"Police! Police!"

The house’ s door went down and cops burst in. It was over in seconds. Ken found himself surrounded by flashing red and blue lights that had poured from every alley and side street. The cop driving the van came out and motioned Ken to go around the parked van. Ken smiled, maneuvered his truck around the van and waved to the cop as he drove away. His hands trembled and his butt hole strained, ready to pop. Enough of this shit.

"I have a message for Mister Ortega," Ken said from the pay phone. "He needs to call me at this number." Ken gave the pay phone number to the old Cuban guy on the other side of the line, wondering if the old cog understood a word he said. Ken repeated the number in his mauled Spanish. "It' s important, im-por-tan-te, O.K?"

After three hours of waiting in his truck parked beside the phone booth, the phone rang. Ken reached across the window and picked the receiver up.

"Hello."

"Ken! So happy to hear from you!" came Ortega' s voice across the hissing line.

"Hey Mister Ortega, that little place of yours… it' s out of business, you know."

"Yeah, shit happens, you know."

"I got your stuff. What do you want me to do with it?"

"Let me make a couple of calls and I will call you right back, O.K.?"

"I' m at a pay phone, middle of Nigger town."

"Don' t worry. I' ll call you right back." The line went click.

Ortega didn' t own a phone, too risky he said. He used a network of pay phones and friends' phones scattered all over Little Havana. He had an almost psychotic fear of wiretaps, and he relied on his men to deliver his messages around town, or to make calls for him from pay phones. So Ken knew he would be sitting in his truck for hours with a bag full of coke while black faces looked at him with mistrust.

Two hours later the phone rang.

"Hello."

"Ken, I want you to take the stuff to this guy, and get my stuff from him," said Ortega without hissing noises on the back ground this time.

"Ortega, I' m not a muscle man to be delivering this crap and collecting your shit. Jesus, they are going to roll me."

"You' re all I have, so just do it."

"Fuck no! Listen, I' m giving this shit back to you. Better, I' m gonna dump it somewhere and your guys can come and collect it," said Ken without any sense of carefulness left in him. "I' m out of this business! Almost got busted this morning, you know!"

Silence came from the other side of the line. Ken heart was beating to break from his chest. Ortega' s voice came again, smooth and jovial.

"Hey Ken, I think it' s in your best interest to help me out. After all, your dad in Youngstown, and that dog of his, what' s his name? Rufus? Yeah, Rufus, cute little fellow." Ortega let his words sink in. "He needs the money as much as you do, you know, to pay for the new pick up and to finish fixing up that old house in Maple Street."