Joe Lansdale: Bullets and Fire

I put that all out of my mind as the crowd back there broke off and I got a really good look at the guy they were surrounding. He was a little blonde guy with a burr hair cut and he came strutting around one of the racks of weapons. He was covered in weapons himself. He had holsters filled with automatics all over him, and his eyes darted from side to side. He was as paranoid as a staked goat at a Fourth of July picnic. And like the goat, just because he was paranoid didn’t mean they weren’t out to get him.

“You’re the Headmaster,” I said.

“They call me that,” he said, and he didn’t offer me his hand when I offered mine. I put my hand away, feeling as if I had offered him a fish. He looked me up and down. He was short, but he was broad and he had legs like tree trunks. They were supported on little feet in little black boots with silver tips; with those things he could kick a cockroach to death in a corner of the room.

“I got some word you done some things,” he said.

“You mean the girl?” I said.

“I mean the girl. You hit her good?”

“Yeah. I broke her little nose.”

“That shows you got some grit. I’m not saying it takes anything to beat up a little girl, but I’m telling you it takes balls to do it.”

I had already heard this from his guys, but I didn’t say anything.

“We need guys like you, can follow orders, do what needs to be done.”

I said, “Okay.”

“Those heads you’re looking at,” Headmaster said. “They strayed. They started trying to hustle their own business, our drug business and their piece was enough. They wanted more. They wanted to sell a little pussy on the side. The pussy is in the river, these guys, well, you see what’s left of them.”

“Run a pretty tight ship,” I said.

Headmaster laughed. “That I do.”

“What we got to do, man, is we still got some things to try with you.”

“Try with me?”

“Yeah,” Headmaster said, “come back here.”

There was another room beyond this one and I let the Headmaster lead me back there, and when he did, his guys followed me in. Juan hit me a hard one behind the head and made my sight go black, and then my vision jumped back with white dots in it, and I staggered a little. Then someone I didn’t see, kicked me up under the butt from behind and got me in the balls.

I swung out and hit someone, and then the Headmaster, he was on me, slamming one in my stomach, and I guess instinct took over, because I kicked him in the groin and stepped forward, popped my palm against the side of his head and he went down.

I whirled then, and tried to hit another guy with a jab, but he slipped it, and I caught one under the belly. I jammed an elbow into the back of his neck as he stooped, and he grunted, and I slapped my hands over his ears, and he screamed and turned away. I kicked out at Billy’s knee, and he screamed. I hit Juan in the throat and he dropped, and I smelled shit on the air.

I hit another one of the guys with a knee to the inside of his leg, and that dropped him. I poked my fingers in another guy’s eyes, not enough to blind him, but enough to make him less interested in kicking my butt.

And then the Headmaster yelled, “That’s it, that’s enough.”

He got up holding his nuts with one hand, grinning at me, holding his other hand up in a stop motion.

“All right,” he said. “All right, you got what it takes.”

I wiped blood off my mouth.

“We got to see you can take it same as dish it out, and man, you can dish it out. Can you teach that chop socky to the rest of us?”

“So this was a test?” I said.

“Big time,” Headmaster said, and then he frowned and looked at Juan. “Man, you shit your pants?”

Juan nodded.

“Go get some fresh drawers,” Headmaster said. “Damn, Juan, he didn’t hit you in the belly.”

“When you get hit hard, throat, any kind of place,” I said, “you’re carrying a load, you’ll drop it.”

“Ain’t that something,” Headmaster said. “I’ve seen and smelled them do it when they’re shot, but I didn’t know about the hitting. That’s some shit you got there.”

“No,” I said. “It’s Juan that’s got the shit.”

Everyone, except Juan, who was waddling out of the room, laughed.

· · ·

I GOT RESPECT when everyone in the bowling alley heard about how I had fought, though truth was, had they fought back a little more persistent, martial arts training or not, I would have been toast. They weren’t willing enough. Me, I thought I was in for it, like maybe I was just a test for them, way the girl was supposed to be for me, so I was fighting back big time. Them, they were just testing. I was glad they quit when they did, cause I felt like my balls were trying to crawl out of my asshole from that kick I got.

Anyway, I was in.

So, I guess a week goes by, and I’m doing some little things, like I had to break a guy’s leg to get some money that was owed for something or another the gang had going. I don’t know what. I didn’t ask. I didn’t care. I just stomped the side of his knee with my foot and it cracked like a fruit jar tossed on the sidewalk and he gave up the money. He was ready to give anything up. I asked him to suck my dick and lick my nuts, he’d have done it. Anything to keep me from breaking his other knee.

Another week and they gave me permission to go in the gun room, cause you had to have one of the main guys open it with a key, and you had to have permission to go in. They took me in there, Headmaster, Billy, and Juan. They gave me a gun, or rather they told me to pick anything I wanted. I picked an automatic pistol out of the pile, and I pulled an AK-47 off the rack. I got some ammunition. Clips for the AK-47 and the automatic pistol. I should have got more clips, but I was nervous. I ended up with an extra load for the AK-47, one for the automatic.

“You’re gonna need that shit,” Headmaster said. “Things we got going. We got a little gang on the other side, bunch of spicks—”

“Hey,” Juan said.

“Not our spicks,” Headmaster said, and then he looked right at Juan, “and thing is, I don’t care to please you anyway, beaner. I’m the man here, and that makes you the boy, you got me, you fucking pepper gut?”

Juan made a face that looked as if he had just been handed a dead rat to eat. He had been using that kind of talk all along, but it had caught him funny going right at him and mad like that.

Headmaster leaned forward till his nose was almost on Juan’s. “I said, you got me?”

Juan nodded. “Sure, man. I got you. No hard feelings.”

“If there is, you’ll live with them,” Headmaster said. He turned to me then, said, “We’re gonna have to cut down on them spicks from out and away. I thought you ought to get your shot to get some blood in, you know. Something serious, not poking some little girl in the nose or breaking a leg. Something serious.”

“All right,” I said. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re gonna get you and Juan and Billy to saddle up, go over there and take a little cruise by, spread some lead. These guys, they got them a little meth thing going, and that’s our finance, baby, and I don’t want them sucking any of our chocolate.”

“A drive by?” I said.

“That’s what I said, only more than that, really. We’re gonna drive by, and then when they think it’s over, we’re gonna come back on them.”

“They’ll be ready,” Billy said.

“What about civilians?” I said.

“Hell,” Headmaster said. “There ain’t no civilians. They're the same as that girl you popped, the shit these guys nailed and burned to get in the gang. There’s us and there’s them. You pop a few wives, girlfriends or kids, that’s the price of doing business, price of fucking on turf ain’t yours.”