Richard Lange - Dead Boys - Stories

We proceed wordlessly on watery legs into the market. The devil floats at our backs, reeking of sweat and chemicals. Mr. Ho is lying facedown in front of the meat counter with his brother and son and nephew. A second devil stands guard over them, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His shotgun swings up to wink at us, and he yells, “On the motherfucking floor.”

I’m thinking, Not here, not in these clothes, as I lower my cheek to the gritty linoleum. The box boy pauses on his knees, hands clasped, a prayer burbling out of him, until the first devil kicks him the rest of the way down and tells him to shut the fuck up.

Mr. Ho says, “I take you to safe. No problem. Don’t hurt nobody,” and the devils let him stand. One of them twists his arm behind his back and jams a gun into his neck. He pushes Mr. Ho toward the office so fast, Mr. Ho stumbles and almost falls. They round the end of the aisle, the squeaking of their sneakers fading quickly. The pin that fastens my badge to my shirt is sticking me in the chest. I hear a hiss and smell something funny and see that the devil left to guard us is hitting a pipe. This is a bad sign, what with the trigger of his gun curled so comfortingly around his finger. It’s made to be pulled, it’s begging to be pulled, and the last thing anyone wants to do when he’s high is say no to a friend.

The box boy’s watch is close to my ear, and I count the seconds thudding by to keep from screaming when the devil pulls a roll of duct tape from his pocket. He kicks the bottom of my foot, tells me to get up. The tape screeches off the roll, and I use my teeth to tear it as the devil hovers over me, tapping me with his gun. The tape fouls in my shaking hands. It twists and curls and sticks to itself, and I have to toss aside the first few strips. The devil taps me harder, in a new spot each time, and says, “Somebody’s fixing to die.”

I start with Mr. Ho’s brother, his wrists, then his ankles. When I get to Mr. Ho’s son, he begs me not to cover his eyes like I have the others’. He makes me feel awful for doing the devil’s bidding, for not even contemplating a refusal. They’ll die hating me for this, I think, and then I realize I’ll be dead, too. Mr. Ho and his devil return just as I’m finishing up. I’m shouted to the floor again, but I’m barely on my knees when Jim charges out into the aisle from behind the beer cooler. His little pistol clicks once, twice, then discharges, and the shots are like hammer blows on concrete, sending up sparks that set the air ablaze.

I scrabble through the conflagration, past the blind men wriggling and screaming behind their gags, to the meat counter. Up and over is the plan, and I make it up but not over before a thousand steel bees swarm and shatter the glass of the case and dig their white-hot stingers into me. I fall back to the floor in an avalanche of pig parts. Will I taste the blast that takes off my head?

Scarlett glides through the rising smoke to crouch beside me, and the mess I’ve made flattens and recedes and turns into television. Her nose crinkles at the stink of gunpowder, and I can tell she’s worried about ruining her new shoes, but that doesn’t stop her from crouching beside me. As the echoes of the last shots carom up and down the empty aisles of the store, she takes a tissue from her purse and wipes the drool from my chin.

“Aren’t you pretty,” she says.

“You didn’t leave.”

“Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not,” I say, and I’m not.

My shoulder is a gory snarl of meat and muscle and yellow fat, but it doesn’t hurt much unless I look at it, and the only time it really pumps blood is when I curl my fingers to see if they still work. Some of them do.

One of the devils is sprawled on the floor. Scarlett and I watch as he jerks himself into a ball and dies. The other sits with his head between his knees until Jim nudges him and he flops onto his side, his ski mask flushing a deeper shade of red. Mr. Ho is busy untaping his relatives and the box boy, who, as soon as he’s loose, begins to pray again. The Chinese stand together like football players in a huddle, crying into each other’s hair.

Jim comes over to check on me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t even notice you weren’t around.”

“I was watching the whole time, my brother. I wasn’t going to let them take you out.”

He examines my wound with a grimace, then begins clearing away the pig parts.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I think it’s okay. Just be cool.”

Scarlett snuggles closer. She asks if I want a piece of gum.

The cops arrive, and Jim rushes toward them, yelling, “What took you so long? My partner’s fucking dying.” They order him to shut up. He hurls his gun deep into the store and presses his palms to his temples. I guess it’s sinking in now, what he had to do. The floor is wet with the devils’ blood, twin lakes of it that the cops tiptoe through to yank off their masks. Jim tries to stop them, but they ignore him. The devils turn out to be a couple of kids, sixteen, seventeen. Crazy fucking kids. Jim moves off to sit by himself, folding his body in half like his stomach hurts.

“Jim,” I say. “Buddy.”

He looks over at me.

“Listen.” An awful Muzak version of “Heart of Gold” is blasting over the store’s speakers. Scarlett and I watch as Jim begins to mouth the words, and I promise myself I will never laugh behind his back again.

“He seems nice,” Scarlett says.

She sits with me until the paramedics arrive and walks beside the gurney, holding my hand, as they wheel me out to the ambulance. Just before they load me up, she gives me a quick kiss, which is soured by the rain on her lips.

“Well, bye,” she says.

“Could you stay?” I ask. “I know this isn’t your life or anything, but it’s starting to hurt a little.”

She looks away like she’s thinking it over, then turns back to me and nods. She climbs into the ambulance and slides in next to me, and I begin to believe I just might see morning.

Whatever wonderfulness the paramedics have doped me up with has me smelling incense and hearing hymns. I feel as if I’ve been lanced and drained, and I don’t hate anyone anymore. I cough up a mouthful of blood, but big fucking deal. There exist certain wildflowers that must be burned in order to bloom, and who’s to say I’m not one of them?

The siren bawls, announcing my departure, and I wave out the windows, flashing everyone the thumbs-up, all the strangers who have lined the rainy streets to see me off, at last, at last, the gracious Grand Marshal of my very own parade.

WHEN DID EVERYONE GET MARRIED? WHEN DID THEY all have kids? Suddenly there’s no room for me. I spend an hour on the pay phone trying to wrangle a couch to crash on, and all I get is “Sorry,” “Sorry,” and “Really sorry.”

Fan-fucking-tastic. In-fucking-credible. The cops show up to put me out of the apartment, and it starts to rain. I can’t hold a thought in my head. My unemployment has been used up, and I’ve sold everything but my television.

The bartender gives me a look when I come dripping in with my suitcase, the Zenith twelve-inch tucked under my arm. I put the set on the floor next to my stool. It’s just past noon, and I’m down to my last fifty bucks.

“Bring it on,” I say.

For every three drinks I pay for, the bartender slips me a freebie. I buy him a few, too. He warms to me when he realizes I’m not a bum. The day passes at a slow trot. I’m up, then I’m down. A good idea, a fresh start. Something. Anything. Please.

I drink through happy hour, the shift change, the after-work rush. Nobody knows me here. I go to put a dollar in the jukebox, but one of the regulars reaches out and grabs my arm and pleads, “No, man, not now,” and what can I do? It’s his hideout.