Monday, June 14, 2021

The Lost Doreen, fiction by Leonore Wilson

        Warm California night at the end of July. I’m not sure what’s up, what’s troubling my father. He paces. Cigarette stuck to his lip. All we've consumed for days—corn chips, bean dip, peanuts, Slim Jims. He doesn’t want to spend money on anything nutritious. He stops pacing, twists my ear, tickles the hollow of my neck. His eyes, a bleached vacancy.


        “Come on, come on. I know somewhere we can go. The movies. Yea, we’ll see Cabaret. Ah, don’t fathers love their daughters in a special kind of way? Yea, I don’t betray my girl, not like your mother says. We might be divorced, but don’t have a blind spot.”


  Excitement looms large through the teasing. He keeps looking around as if afraid. His right-hand shoots up, fumbles over the top of the refrigerator. Loose change and keys fall with a hard plunk on the linoleum. He gropes as everything slides under the table. He bumps his head, curses. 

My father steers with his elbows west to the outskirts of town. The thief in the night, the thief in the night slipping away unnoticed.

        We plunge into a little valley, down into the sleeve of early evening. Moths stain the street lights. Weasel eyes glow, looking for roadkill. Ringed raccoons, stupid possums. Rank stench of urine, dumped garbage, old pools of diesel. Heavy combines move across dry fields bringing in wheat. Cars don’t race and roar here, don’t hunt us down like bloodhounds.

  The Passion Pit. My father won’t drive-in. Doesn’t want to pay the price of admission, instead grinds the gearshift, parks in a turnout near a pasture of corn and a tall water tower. He turns out the lights, pops a cigar in his mouth, pulls out the little tray, taps in the ash.

        The wide screen’s lit up in the semi-darkness. Oaks, pines raked by brambles flank the lane along with dumped old mattresses, gutted sofas, and chairs. A creek winds off in the distance. Several pastures over where the bushes recede, they had found Doreen. Little black pea coat splayed over her half-buried body. Her body strewn like a discarded doll under a new cloak of stars. At dusk they had found her, the deputy sheriff and his small army of green.

        Sky’s a smooth bruise. I squint at the large screen. Windows roll down. G.I. spits, chews his lip. Others park nearby. Men and boys in the bed of a truck. Eyes lit like Jack-o-lanterns. A figure of a girl in a Corvette leans over between the wheel and a boy’s chest. He laughs, looks ahead. Ever so often I see the girl’s head, how she raises it up and down rhythmically and glances outside. The boy puts his hand on her head to push it down. He leans back, then straightens himself, and walks out of the car. He shuts the door, zips up his pants, adjusts his jacket. 

        Footfalls, low talking, whispers. Breathing and coughing. Taut smell of hay, tobacco, wine. Distilled laughter ripples. Orion steadies his pack in the sky. My father clears his throat. Lopsided smile. A dog yowls. Poor-wills call two notes. Chirp of crickets. Burnt summer hills behind the screen once belonged to my grandparents. Almost were my black sheep jailbird father’s, almost were mine. A land of apples, dates, figs; of strawberries, pears, and plums. Spring field of lupines, scrub grass, clover. Little staircase of stream. Harvest air odor in the surfeit of silence. Here I would roll down to the breach in the trail where I could see the open pasture. Whole herd of wild-eyed shaggy ponies gathered hock-deep in mud. Necks, rumps, and withers begrimed with patches of dung near the slab of a barn where the search party had found Doreen. Men of authority with little girls of their own. Here it had happened. What most can’t imagine. Weeks she was missing. Winter, not spring. Doreen was six. Flesh gray-blue as winter mushrooms. Hair knotted. Little butterfly earrings pinned in her ears. One white sock pulled up to her knee. School lunch pail beside her, plaid thermos empty of milk, half-eaten sandwich, half-eaten apple. Someone had snatched her, some bogeyman.


  Did they think Doreen was a baby calf birthed and left where the morning glories were pushed aside? Where the earth reseeds? Indifferent earth by a creek of cottonwoods and young willows. Did he pull over to the side of the road when he noticed Doreen walking home from school in her blue checkered dress, a flag of black hair flying in the new autumn wind? Did he? No house for thirty yards in any direction. His voice calling out to her, his male voice breaking against the afternoon sky. “Hey little girl! Do you need a ride home?”

  The good shepherd lived on that farm and left his flock to look for the lost Doreen as if for a lost sheep even when others had bedded down for the night. He searched the thickets and gullies while his flock dozed in the dawn, his wool sweater heavy with brambles. 

  Bellow of my father’s breathing fills the car. He tilts his head to indicate he’s thinking of something, so don’t come too close. He might be friendly but so are most snakes. From his shirt pocket, he takes a box of Milk Duds and pours them into my palm. He fishes out a bottle of Bud from the glove compartment, taps the neck against his chest. Drool collects around his mouth, fingers flutter like dirty moths.

        There is no Presley, no Eastwood. No one to fight for, no one to rescue, only a young blonde fingering herself. Eyes black with kohl. I look away. Look. I feel like a gawker. The woman has springy hair-like barbed wire. Her bare legs are splayed, arched apart like a heron’s wings. She leans back on a sheeless mattress. 

        A shirtless man yanks down his jeans, studies her like a vulture over fresh meat. He removes a rag from his back pocket, swirls it like a cowboy riding a bronco. His forefinger traces circles inside her thighs, then stabs her sex, stabs again. I look away, can't help it, count backwards, look down. The sooner I get out of here, the better. But I am under pressure to be a good girl for my father, my incorrigible father who is easy to anger. Why has he taken me here? He is unemployed and taking on debt. He has told me I can't possibly understand. Thousands of dollars, with interest too. It has been terrifying to witness how quickly this happened, a man coming back from war, a shell of who he once was; terrifying to see that nothing I can say or do has the power to bring him back from the edge of his  wilderness. The wilderness, that savage wilderness. I can feel its dark perimeter too as if it’s moving in from the periphery of my being. It's like standing in a vast cornfield and watching a storm gathering strength, its furious clouds whipping themselves into even larger ones, their size and speed doubling suddenly in front of your eyes before they release a lashing rain that races across the field toward you. The darkness inside myself I try to push back, using my will to hold it at bay. This requires mental and emotional control. I'm not numb, but I don't want to cry or look at my father. I am doing my duty. We sit in silence. My spine rigid and straight. I look like a cellist or a soldier. Minutes pass. This feels like an endurance test. I am hanging on the edge of my being. Then my father stares at me, his chin slightly tilted. 

         “I killed the girl,” he says. “I killed Doreen. Our little secret,” he says. “I cracked, I did. But I won’t hurt you. You’re mine. I promise. How could any father hurt his own daughter.” 

         I shift in my seat, speechless. I am a rabbit in headlights, frozen.

 

        I imagine my father squatting on a cow trail with a pint of whiskey. He grips the forestock of a rifle in both hands. He rests his chin on his wrists and spits, looks up at the evening sky where the moon carves the dusk like a white kite. He starts back down the trail. His stomach is empty. He hasn’t eaten all day. He has carried the young girl on his shoulder for half a mile. She had thrashed her body from side to side, clawed him with her schoolgirl nails. Her small frame slammed against a boulder, again and again until her head veered backward, and she grew limp. Through the wild grass and wet weeds, he had taken her and thrown her in a muddy ditch and dug and dug again as a dog hides a bone. He covered her with soft lumps of earth. Did he feel something? Anything? Maybe what it was, he didn’t quite know. It surprised even him. It tasted of freedom; a numbing of pain, something grim, wicked, a thorn jabbed in his heart causing it to rot.

  My father drapes his arm around my shoulder, mutters something intelligible. Stank of sweat.  My scalp shivers. 

        He did it? My father killed Doreen. My own father! She was six when I was six. We were six-year-olds. Once. 

        He spins a 180, aims the Impala like a gunboat south.


        Thick eucalyptus and pines posted with warning signs: NO FISHING, NO HUNTING, NO CAMPING. Signs shot full of bullet holes. Wild doves whistle. Vermin scatter. Flashlights and lanterns. Men hunch like small-time conspirators around a make-shift arena. Some sit on overturned milk crates; others on hay bales. Coiled orange fire hose and several wire pens next to an old tin shed. Dusty brown Pinto up on blocks. Yellow flames painted on the hood.

        Night breathing, laughter scuffled from the sickle backs. Red ends of cigarettes spark, seem to move by themselves. Disembodied cough. The air’s hot, odorous. Gust of feathers float like spinnakers from a dandelion. Her name floats in the air. Doreen.

        My father rolls down the window, yells to one of the men, “Gallo azure.” The fellow looks over, picks up his lantern and a small rooster. He’s wearing a Giants baseball cap turned sideways. Beat up old sweatshirt with fading white letters, UCLA. He walks with Levis slung low. Face corded as jerky. My father hands him a wad of bills, asks for a swig of his Budweiser. The fellow’s lips curl back and he hacks next to the car. He winks at me and hands my father the liquor. His fingernails are rimmed with blood. His eyes shine like bright copper coins. He hooks his thumbs in his open fly.

        My father takes up the bottle, wipes the rim against his sleeve and guzzles.

        The fellow says, “Whoa whoa, Cheap Charlie, hold it there. La cerveza es cara.”

  My father tut-tuts, tells me to stay in the car and lock all the doors. He leans over, whispers: “Don’t tell me Daniel Boone don’t like his roosters. That’s something for your history, honey pie.”

        He leaps out of the car, nearly trips. Grin like a lizard’s quiver. He takes a leak near a digger pine, trudges through dried stalks. Roosters attack each other. Nervous bandits, they corkscrew away.

        An older man drags a big bird back to the far edge of the circle. A younger man pulls the slower one in. Jets of blood, geysers of fury. Blood flows like a flower blown open, skin splayed like petals in that brief moment. A frantic crowing mangles the air. Doreen, Doreen! One cock has been jabbed so hard its head is nearly severed. The head dangles there like a falling  wristwatch. Blood pools. Some blood stains the man's shoes purple. A metallic smell fills the air. The stunned animal runs in circles. I see myself like that bird. Stunned. Running in circles. Doreen, Doreen. She was the same age as me when he took her. We were six. Where was I? Walking home from school too?

        The men laugh, swig more liquor. I labor to breathe and my heart races. Doreen, Doreen! My stomach spins, but I hold my head straight, acting if I'm not afraid, even though I am. I can't show it because I don't want to seem vulnerable to anyone who might do me harm, especially my father. I have to show I am brave, but in truth, I am scared. I have to protect myself, Doreen, I have no one else to protect me. I am waiting for the next terrible thing to happen. 


Leonore Wilson has taught English and creative writing at many colleges and universities in the greater Bay Area. She has published in such magazines as Quarterly West, Iowa Review, Upstreet, Prairie Schooner, English Journal, etc. Recently her historical ranch and home were destroyed in the Hennessy Fire of Napa Valley. "The Lost Doreen" is part of her novel CHUTE.


Monday, June 7, 2021

An Indiana Grand, fiction by Craig Francis Coates

        It was dumb luck I was even at Clancy's that early, drinking my Sprite at the bar while the girls on first shift danced for the afternoon regulars. Those guys are a whole different breed. They never drink more than the minimum, they never buy a plate for the buffet, they never tip the girls anything. Clancy won't even let them in anymore unless they leave a credit card up at the bar, because these guys were coming in with just a driver's license and a twenty dollar bill to make sure they didn't spend more than what they intended. That's not the way Clancy does business.

But if they follow his rules, Clancy tolerates them, so everybody else follows suit. Down to a man they all want the same thing. They want a place they can go and be recognized, a place they'll be welcomed with open arms and smiles. Maybe that doesn't sound so bad, but it makes us all hate them. I hate them, the dancers hate them, the bartenders and bouncers and DJs hate them. The trouble is if you treat these guys with the warmth that they want, you'll discover it's never enough. These men are vampires. They will latch on to your polite smile and drain you dry of whatever kindness they can.

My girlfriend says it's a boundary issue. Ex-girlfriend. She says these guys don't know where they end and you begin, and they expect you to meet their emotional needs. I don't know about that. If that were the case, you'd think they'd move on because no one at Clancy's is nice to them. They come and they sit, they drink a beer and stare at the girls, then they scowl and complain about bullshit until the sun's gone down and they can leave without turning to dust.

I normally try to avoid them. Which isn't hard. As a driver, there's not really much call for my services at three in the afternoon. Clancy would rather have me around when the club closes eleven hours later to make sure his well-paying regulars get home nice and safe. But that afternoon, I was in need of somewhere to go. Michelle, my ex-girlfriend and still-roommate, was having her boyfriend over, and I didn't want to be around for it. So until I could scrape enough cash together to find a new place, Clancy's would have to suffice.

I was drinking Sprite and playing video poker at the bar when the club's phone rang. I was right in the middle of a winning streak, the kind where you get to put your initials in at the end. I couldn't decide whether to use my own, J-L-C, or go with a classic, like A-S-S. But first, I had to win this hand, and that was taking up all my concentration. That's why I didn't notice right away when the club's bouncer and my best friend, Big Mike, started snapping his fingers. Then he unplugged my machine.

“The fuck, dude?”

He made a scribbling motion in the air. To the phone, he said, “Okay. Where are you?”

“What makes you think I carry a pen?”

Mike widened his eyes, a look that conveyed it was in my immediate interest to stop fucking around. I opened a blank text and handed my cell phone to Mike.

“Yeah, I got it,” he said, thumbs tapping my screen. “We'll send somebody.”

Mike hung up one phone and gave me the other. I read the message he'd typed.

Gas station east washington state street

“Destiny's stranded,” he said, poking a finger at the screen. “That's where she is with her grandmother. You need to bring Destiny here, then take Grandma back home.”

“Her grandmother?”

“Grandma's car is the one that broke down,” Mike said. “Destiny's got repossessed.”

“Clancy should pay the dancers more money.”

“You still living with Michelle?”

“What's that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing,” Mike said. “Just sounded like you had some business advice. Thought maybe that meant you got your money straight.”

“Nice. Thanks, man. Thanks for taking the high road.” I slid off the stool and put on my jacket. Mike shrugged, smiling.

“You're very welcome, Jon.”


*


Destiny was waiting for me next to the payphone at Shell, smoking a cigarette and looking unhappy. She was dressed in baggy gray sweat pants and a Colts zip-up hoodie, but she'd done her makeup before she left the house. I pulled up beside her, and she climbed in the car.

“Hi, Destiny,” I said. “You look nice today.”

“Shut the fuck up,” she said. “What took you so long? Everybody out here's trying to pick me up.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Are we, um … missing your grandma?”

“We have to go get her,” she said, and she pointed up State Street. “I broke down a couple blocks up.”

I followed her directions until we found the gold Neon, Grandma still sitting patiently in the passenger seat. She watched me approach the car but made no motion to move, so I gently eased open the door.

“Hi, ma'am. I'm your driver. I've got your granddaughter with me. Can I help you out?”

Grandma shook her head and climbed up from the seat, using the door frame for support while clutching her purse. I held out my hand and she slapped it away.

Once we got settled back in my car, I pulled up my phone's GPS.

“What's her address?” I asked Destiny.

“She's not going home,” Destiny said. “I need you to take her to the Indiana Grand.”

“You want me to drive her to Shelbyville? That's an hour away.”

“I gave her money to play the machines, so Grandma's going to play the machines.” Destiny's tone made it clear this wasn't an ask. “That's what you want to do, right, Grandma?”

Her grandmother leaned forward and nodded, cloudy gray eyes both hopeful and sad. I was unmoved. I hadn't forgotten that Destiny's car got repossessed.

“Can you pay?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Upfront?”

“Fuck you,” Destiny said. “You don't think I can pay?”

“I didn't say that. I just like to get paid upfront, especially if I'm driving an hour outside of–”

She hit me in the head with a roll of quarters, then dug through her purse.

“How much? How much do you want?”

“Jesus, I'm just saying, I–” 

She threw a fifty at me, which didn't hurt nearly as much as the quarters. It fell into the crack between the seat and the door, and I had to dig down to retrieve it.

“Yeah, get that money, you little bitch.”

“Okay, we don't need to start with the names.”

“Aw, boo fuckin' hoo,” Destiny said.

Sometimes you just have to know when to shut the fuck up. And I did know—I should have stopped talking ten minutes ago. I found the bill, shoved it in my pocket, put the car into gear, and then drove.


*


By the time we reached Clancy's, Destiny's mood had improved. She helped her grandmother into the front seat, adjusted her safety belt, then kissed her forehead. To me, she said, “Can you bring her home around midnight?”

“It'll be another fifty to go down and get her.”

“Aren't you going to stay with her?”

I didn't really know how to answer. Obviously not? That's an eight-hour shift of babysitting? But I bit my tongue. How else was I going to spend that time? If I came back to Indy, I'd spend it trying to get A-S-S into the video poker leader board. If I went to the Indiana Grand, I'd probably find a lot of people who needed a ride. If I stopped moping around, I could start banking money.

“It's still another fifty to bring her back,” I said, and this time Destiny did not throw it. She got another bill from her purse and held it out past Grandma. As I took it, I asked, “How'd your car get repossessed?”

“Because I'm not paying for that piece of shit,” she shrugged. “And it's not my name on the loan, so fuck it.”

I glanced at Grandma, but she seemed unfazed. I guessed the loan wasn't in her name, either.

I headed out to Southeastern and took that until it became I-74. Now and then, I tried to make conversation, asking Grandma about her car and where she was from and whether she had any other grandkids, but she wouldn't bite. Still, I could see her coming alive as we got closer to the casino. She sat up straighter, tapped her hands on her knees, and once the place was in sight, she started to hum. I couldn't help but feel jealous. When was the last time I looked forward to anything half as much?

We got to the casino, and she opened her purse to produce a handicap placard for my rear-view mirror. I saw no reason not to accept. I figured I'd only be staying a minute until she got settled, then I'd open the rideshare apps on my phone to start looking for fares. Now that I'd got past my inertia, I was actually looking forward to making some money.

“Do you have a phone?” I asked once we were in. Grandma nodded. “What's your number?”

“I don't call myself.”

“Okay,” I said, “well, can you call me?”

“Why?”

“So you'll have my number in case that you need me.”

“I won't need you,” Grandma said. She must have seen I wasn't thrilled about this because she squeezed my forearm and explained, “I think you're bad luck.”

“Right. Of course.”

She smiled, pleased I understood. Then she let go of my arm and made her way across the ugly red carpet to find the nearest machine. Everywhere I looked, people were transfixed by the slots, and some of them even got paid. But the charm of this place was as thin as an eggshell. It was just like what I saw at the club. Turn off the music and turn up the lights and there's nothing sexy about the place; it's just four cinder block walls with a cheap stage in the middle. Likewise, I get no thrill at casinos. Places like this have about as much intrigue as a conference room at the Radisson.

I walked around until I found the bar, and I ordered a Sprite. The bartender let me know via facial expression that I was now his lowest priority. I drank my soda and pulled out my phone, and thumbed open my apps. I figured I'd done my part for Grandma, so I was off of her clock and back onto mine.


*


First fare. Walter. Heading to the casino from Kroger.

“Are you Walter?”

“That's me.”

“You sure you don't want to swing by home first? Drop off your groceries?”

“They'll keep — I do this all the time. The only exception's when I buy something perishable.”

“Milk isn't perishable?”

“Hey, man, trust me. I know what I'm doing.”

“I'm surprised they'll let you walk around with those bags.”

“They peek inside, but the main thing is they know I spend money. And trust me, this is the least of their worries. They've got much bigger problems from people sneaking in babies and dogs than a guy who comes in with his groceries. I seen one guy push around a mannequin in a wig like she was supposed to be his wife, asking what she wanted to play. The Grand attracts all types, man, all types for sure. Do you gamble?”

“I can't afford it.”

“Eh, anybody can afford it. Look at me. I go and spend whatever's left after groceries. It's a great budgeting tool. I take out a hundred dollars a week in cash, make it go as far as I can at the Kroger, then bring the rest here. Play responsibly, you know? And then if I win, I set that money aside and play it the week after. That's how you grow your nest egg. A quarter won is better luck than a quarter earned. You ever heard that before?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“It hasn't caught on. But it's true, Jon. I'm telling you.”

“Got any lucky quarters tonight?”

“Not tonight, brother. Tonight I'm on my own. Trying to win some money to take my wife on a trip. I think I've got her talked into Nashville. She's a little agoraphobic. Not diagnosed, but I think that's what it is. She got anxious after her mother died, started calling me five times a day. I'm trying to help her get through it. You married?”

“No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“No.”

“You paused.”

“I … live with my ex.”

“Ah, shit. Is she with somebody?”

“Yeah.”

“Ha-ha. Jesus, you've got to get out of there. Ha-ha-ha. Sorry, I don't mean to laugh, that's just the kind of mistake you make when you're young. Does she bring the other guy over?”

“He's over there now. Ha-ha.”

“I'm sorry, brother. Now I wish I did have some winners on me — I'd give you one. You should play the slots, maybe you'd win enough money to find a new place. I know this doesn't pay shit, does it?”

“Not much, no.”

“Gig economy, man. Can I tell you what I think about people your age?”

“Sure.”

“You guys are fucked.”


*


Second fare. Dana. Heading home from the casino.

“Are you …?”

“Yeah, that's me. Sorry, I need to update my picture—I shaved off the goatee. Here, see, I've got you on my phone too.”

“Okay. Yeah, cool, I see it now. Thanks.”

“How'd you do tonight?”

“Sorry?”

“On the slots? Do you gamble?”

“Oh. No. I'm on staff. I don't … I don't wear vests in real life.”

“...”

“...”

“Do you want the radio on or anything?”

“No, that's fine. Sorry, I'm … sorry, sending a text …”

“You're fine. I talk too much, that's why I'm rated three stars. My low reviews all say I'm too chatty.”

“Seems like you can't help yourself.”

“...”

“That came out wrong. Sorry, I'm having a fight …. Brave new world, right? Leave the house, take the fight with you. Really convenient.”

“Ha-ha. I really can shut up.”

“It's fine, I need the distraction. If I'm distracted enough maybe I won't murder my roommate tonight.”

“Give yourself credit, you seem like a very capable person.”

“Let me ask you a question. If you broke up with your … girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend, and then your roommate slept with her, would you really give a fuck if they told you right after?”

“In this context, if I'm giving a fuck, does that mean I'm mad? Or am I giving her credit for telling me?”

“You're mad.”

“Yeah, I'd be mad.”

“Fucking thank you! She's acting all aggrieved that I didn't just instantly forgive her. Now she says … do you care? You think this is stupid.”

“It's not stupid. What's she say?”

“She says I have no right to be mad in the first place because she and my ex are both consenting adults, and she only told me as a courtesy, not an apology. Is that not the most passive aggressive thing you've ever heard?”

“Maybe not the most. But it's bad.”

“I'm moving out. I have to move out. Wouldn't you?”

“...”

“What? Tell me. As an outside observer. Wouldn't you?”

“I think if you can, you know, find a way to live with it … It's complicated. You shouldn't have to uproot your life. Is that even what you really want?”

“...”

“I mean, I'm not taking her side. It's just, objectively, if you could set your feelings aside, would you really be happier if you left? And if you two were friends before, isn't it worth trying to salvage some part of that relationship?”

“...”

“Isn't it?”

“... You can let me out here.”


*


Fare three. Cliff. Leaving the casino behind.

“You showed up fast. Busy night?”

“Yeah. Well, no. I've been staked out here all day, and you're only my third rider.”

“I'm not surprised. Nobody in there understands limits. A guy drinks too much in a bar, he probably knows not to drive. Gamblers? Not on your life. God grant me the confidence of a drunk with a gambling problem.”

“Did you do well tonight?”

“Eh. I came out to watch the races, but my game is poker. You ever play?”

“A little.”

“You can't drink and play poker. Well, not if you want to win. That's why I'm still sober, a buddy of mine's hosting a game tonight. You said you play a little. You know Texas Hold'Em?”

“Yeah. Me and everybody else.”

“Hey, it's popular for a good reason. And tonight, I'll tell you, tonight's going to be fun. We've got some fresh meat there tonight. Easy money if you know how to play.”

“How easy?”

“You want in?”

“I shouldn't. I should really keep driving.”

“Workingman. I respect that. But to answer your question, very easy, if you're any good. The guy who runs the table always drums up some suckers, guys just dying to get out of the house and drink a few beers, smoke some nice cigars, and lose a whole lot of money. I know this sounds like bullshit, but it's like these guys want to lose. Proves they're the man of the house, I think. They'll be giving up a grand, and someone will ask, 'What's your wife going to say?' and the asshole will go, 'Who cares? It's my money.' And I'm just thinking, not anymore it isn't. Ha-ha.”

“Jesus. I wish I could piss money away.”

“Hey, don't we all. But listen, I can invite you in if you want. It's five hundred bucks.”

“...”

“Ha-ha. Take a deep breath, man, I'm not going to force you to come. But I tell you what. I'm not going to tip you. Instead I'm going to give you an address my cell number. If you decide to show up tonight, send me a text, I'll make sure you get in. Okay? Five hundred. That'll seem like chump change by the time you walk out.”

“If you say so.”

“Suit yourself, friend. More money for me.”


*


I had $373.89 in the bank. Not enough to buy in on the game, but I still couldn't stop thinking about it. Since Michelle and I broke up, I had one number in my head: fifteen hundred. That would be the first month's rent plus a security deposit on the cheapest place I could find, with a little left over to keep on the lights. If I could just bank that, I could leave.

Back inside the Indiana Grand I sat alone at the bar with my phone. Fares kept popping up, and I kept dismissing them one after the next. They were all small potatoes compared to the money flowing free at Cliff's table.

Just to see what would happen, I texted the number Cliff gave me. I didn't have the five hundred, I said, but I still wanted in. Maybe he could float me the rest?

Nobody's that broke, Cliff texted back.

Did he think I was trying to haggle? I looked around the room and weighed my options. I was in a casino, for god's sake, how hard could it be to win the money I needed? But the slots wouldn't do it and I don't know anything about horses.

I was starting to feel desperate. I pulled up my bank balance and took a screen-shot, then sent it to Cliff, throwing myself on his mercy.

Well goddamn. Guess you proved me wrong. There was a pause, then another message buzzed through. We'll figure it out. Bring what you have. But come soon

I was out of my seat in a second.

Maybe I should have checked in with Grandma, but I'd be lucky if she pulled herself away from the slots long enough to hear me explain where I was going. So long as I was back by midnight I figured she'd be none the wiser. I took out as much as I could at the casino's ATM, $360 in twenties. That figure didn't look like much on my phone, and in my hand it looked like even less. I shoved the cash in my pocket, went outside, got in the car, and drove.

Shelbyville's not somewhere you spend too much time unless you live there. With the casino built right off the highway, not even the gamblers have much reason to visit. The city was all new to me, but it didn't make much of an impression. Fast food, gas stations, open fields. I passed a few neighborhoods, a few drags of strip malls — all the standard sights of the American Midwest.

I don't like driving these areas because they don't make any sense. Indianapolis is laid out into orderly grids, its heart crossed with an X through the center. But small towns and suburbs have their own kind of logic, which is a nice way to say they have none. Even though my GPS told me which direction to go, I never once felt like I knew where I was.

Finally, after maybe five miles of driving, I reached the neighborhood I was looking for. The house hosting the game was at the end of a cul-de-sac, and it wasn't well lit, but it was far enough from its neighbors you couldn't make a mistake. That was one point in favor of living out here. A guy gets to enjoy some elbow room.

There were two men on the porch smoking cigarettes, and they watched as I pulled into the driveway. They were slim guys, but the way they held themselves reminded me of Mike, and I figured they served the same function. I put the car in reverse and sent Cliff a quick text.

I think I'm here. Two guys on the porch?

Can't be too careful, Cliff wrote back. Say you're with me.

I parked and got out of the car. Both men faced me with their hands to their backs, so I stuck mine straight in the air.

“I'm with Cliff! I'm here for the game!”

They exchanged a quick glance, then one waved me forward. What did this call for, exactly? I felt like an idiot holding my hands up, but I didn't want to make either one jumpy.

“You got the money to buy in?”

They were off the porch now, moving closer. I felt a few pinpricks of sweat.

“Yeah,” I said. My interrogator looked skeptical. “Tell Cliff, he'll know who I am.”

“Let's see it.”

“Ah,” I said. “Okay. I have some money, but let me explain.”

I reached into my pocket, wondering if they'd even believe me. If they would just go talk to Cliff ... The shock of a sucker punch doubled me over. Then came the boot, stomping on the side of my hip while I was gasping for air in the grass. After that, they took turns. You can't really think in situations like that. It's fetal position every damn time.

I didn't realize they had my money until they stopped all the kicking, and they only did that to complain.

“Man, what the fuck? You come here short?” one of them asked. 

And then the kicking resumed.


*


Cliff's profile was gone from the app by the time I crawled back to my car. I couldn't even leave him a one-star review, let alone scrape anything useful. The two guys from the porch had long since gone inside. I guess they figured I wasn't the Rambo type to go after them.

Well. They figured right. I turned on the radio and started the drive back to the casino. Somewhere along the way, I turned on the heater, but I wasn't shaking from the cold. The GPS kept on pinging, and I followed along with it mindlessly, feeling steadily worse the closer I got to the Grand.

Grandma was right where I left her, bucket between her knees while she fed quarters into her machine. She seemed okay. The bucket, at least, was half full.

“Hey, Grandma. It's time to go home.”

“No, it's not.”

“I've got to get back.”

        “No, you don't,” she said. “It isn't midnight.”

“Fuck's sake, Grandma, if you don't come with me, you can find another ride home.”

She turned to snap something back, but as soon as she got a look at me, she stopped. Then her lip curled up and she started shaking her head, like she was watching a dog take a shit on the carpet.

“Bad luck,” Grandma said. Then she stood up from her seat and picked a coin from her bucket. “Spin.”

“What?”

“Spin the reels.” She patted the stool's vinyl cushion. “Try to get the triple stars.”

I sat down, and Grandma leaned over my shoulder so that I was nearly suffocating in the fresh linen scent of her laundry detergent. She fed in the coin but made me pull the lever. Just that effort made me wince, pain radiating out through my body. The machine whistled and dinged, but we did not hit the triple stars. We didn't hit anything.

“Again,” Grandma said, and she gave me another coin.

“Listen, you might want to keep your money,” I said. “I don't think I'm a winner tonight.”

“But I am,” she said.

“Grandma ...”

“Again,” she barked. “If you're going to drive my granddaughter home, then we have to break your bad streak.”

Her eyes were more clear than I'd seen them before. We wouldn't be walking away. 

“Did you win all those?” I asked, looking at her bucket of quarters.

“Some of them,” Grandma said, and she gave it a hard shake so that I could hear the full jangling chorus. I wondered if the quarter in my hand was one that she'd brought or a coin that she'd won from the machine. Maybe it was lucky. I pressed it into the slot and pulled down the lever. This could be it; this could be where my luck finally turned. And as long as those reels kept on spinning around, who could be sure that it wasn't?

 

Craig Francis Coates lives and writes in the Midwest. Find him online at BleakFrancis.com

Monday, May 31, 2021

To Die For, fiction by Larry Thacker

Part I

        “Jerald always did like it real hot, but there ain’t no food hot enough to stop his damn heart, I don’t care if they were the ‘hottest wings in West Virginia,’ which I doubt they are.” 
        Mabel was talking like she was trying to be quiet, but loud enough to be heard. It was one of those things. Emmy and Mabel were standing in the parking lot of Freddy the Wing Man’s Hottest Wings in West Virginia out by the hand-painted sign that said so. 
        They’d just finished the all-day drive from down in southeast Kentucky.
        Mabel sniffed. 
        “You smell that?” 
        Emmy sniffed. 
        “Barbeque?” 
        “No,” Mabel said, quieter now. “I smell a rat.” 
***
        They strolled into Freddy’s as if they owned the place, just like they’d talked about doing on the way up. Confidence, that’s what Emmy said they needed to show when they got to wherever they were headed. The Google map hadn’t said they were headed that far back into BFE, but hours and hours later, here they were, smack dab in the middle of it.  
        “Pick a table, any table, and sit, just like our names were engraved on it,” Emmy laughed. But she was quite serious about the job at hand. 
        “That’s what we’ll do,” Mabel agreed. 
        “And we’ll order without looking at the menu,” Emmy continued, pretty happy with her plan. 
        Mabel wasn’t so sure about that level of confidence. 
        “What if they don’t have what we order? We’d look stupid. We’ll have to say we thought we were somewhere else.” 
        Yes. Emmy agreed. 
        “On-line menu?” 
        “You’re so smart,” Emmy told her sister.
***
        Sure enough, Freddy’s had a website, albeit one a fifth-grader probably designed, but a website nonetheless. Typical fare. Pulled pork barbeque. Brisket sandwich. Homemade french-fries. Soup beans. Corn bread. Hushpuppies. Cheeseburgers. “Hottest wings in West Virginia.” Regular and boneless. Etc.
        “And a large order of a bunch of damn liars, I betcha,” Emmy sneered. 
        “Yep. Shoot. I’m hungry now,” Mabel said, staring at the menu as her stomach growled. 
        “Hey now, I hear that,” Emmy shot back, “we can’t enjoy a meal here, remember? They killed Jerald. Probably.” 
        Mabel huffed. “Well, maybe he did have a massive heart attack from this place’s hot-ass food. He was on cholesterol medicine, wasn’t he?” 
        “That and who knows what else.” 
***
        They strolled in like they ate there every day. They picked a booth right in the middle of things so they could watch the whole place coming and going. The entrance. The restrooms. The bar. The kitchen window and swinging door. The register. Where the waitresses hung out. All three of them, by the back door they had cracked open so they could smoke. The joint stank in that good way, all built-up with that incense of cheeseburgers, ancient grease, burnt in cigarette fumes, vinegar, and barbeque smoke from the drum cooker out back. A slick film covered the laminated menus like morning dew. Sweat trailed the inside corners of the windowpanes. It was a tacky dump, but comfortable enough. 

        “Which one you think he hit on first,?” Mabel asked Emmy, glancing at the three waitresses by the door, a blonde, a redhead, and a brunette. 
        “All of them, eventually. He wouldn’t discriminate.” 
        The redhead tossed half a smoke out the door with a bothered smirk and walked their way. 
        “Hey, y’all.”
        “Hey.”
        “Hey.”
        This was Carrie. 
        “My name’s Carrie, I’ll take care of y’all, know what you wanna drink?”
        She gave her opening in one long statement without taking a breath. 
        “Coke.”
        “Water.” 
        “Only got Pepsi products.” 
        “What I meant, honey.” 
        “You do got water, without lemon?” 
        They were off to a good start. 
***
        Another girl, Sandy, the blonde, took care of them after that. She was a little older. Seemed a little less easily shaken up. 
        “Y’all ladies know what cha want?”
        They didn’t look at the menus. Hadn’t looked at them. 
        “Brisket sandwich,” Emmy said. “Fries. Half the salt.” 
        “Pulled pork. No bun. Onion rings,” Mabel said. “Side salad. Honey mustard.” 
        Sandy didn’t write anything down. She walked over to the bar and yelled back their order. “One slab, drop some fancy fries, pull the hog without the bread, drop some crybabies, toss the lettuce!” 

        The food was out quickly. Bella, the brunette, was up. Sandy was nowhere to be found. 
        “Enjoy, y’all. Just yell if you need anything.” 

        They took the place in as they ate. 
        “You think he was at the bar when it happened?” Emmy wondered.
        “Probably. That way he could talk with the girls as they worked.” 
        “Bet he liked the brunette.” 

        Bella came walking back. 
        “Good Lord, Emmy whispered, “It’s like that same woman but a little older every time.” 
        “Bet they’re sisters,” Mabel agreed. 

        “How ‘bout some dessert? Got any room left?”  
        She slid the ticket on the table between the girls. 
        “No.” 
        “No.” 
        “Nothin else?” 
        “Actually,” Mabel blurted out, shooting Emmy the look, “we’d like to know just exactly how our brother, Jerald, died.” 
        Bella was stunned. 
        “What now?”
        “Our brother. Jerald. Died in this very restaurant a month ago. I guess from eating your’all’s hottest wings in By God West Virginia.”
        Sweet sarcasm dripped from Mabel’s voice like pulled pork after-breath.  

        Bella blinked. 
        “Sandy, honey, you and Carrie wanna come over for a second?”  
        Emmy figured Mabel had screwed up. Too soon, she thought. They were in trouble, whatever that might look like. The other two bebopped over. 
        “These two ladies say they’re that fella’s sisters, the one that died doing Freddy’s Fiery Fifteen. Remember, girls?” 
        “Oh?” they both said, more curious than territorial. 
        “We’re real sorry about your brother,” Carrie offered. The others nodded. 
        Mabel just wouldn’t quit.
        “Yeah, thanks. So, what the hell is a Freddy’s Fiery Fifteen?” 
        “Freddy’s Fiery Fifteen?” Carrie asked. 
        “The hottest fifteen wings in West Virginia?” asked Sandy.
        “AKA, fifteen minutes in hot chicken hell?” asked Bella. 
        “I reckon all that, yeah,” replied Mabel, beginning to lose patience. 
        “Oh, it’s famous. That’s the Wall of Wing Wonders over yonder,” Carrie offered, pointing toward the corner near the dead jukebox. “Jerald was a-trying to get on that, plus get a free t-shirt, when, uh, the thing happened. Freddy said we should give it to him anyway, so Jerald ended up being number twenty-eighth, post-humanly.” 
        “You mean, posthumously?” Mabel corrected. 
        “What’s that?’ 
        Sandy was apologetic. “We called Rex at the paper about a news photo, about Jerald going for the record and all, about the time he was half through the pile, but by the time he got here all he managed was a shot of the ambulance in the parking lot. So that’s all we’ve got for him right now, photo wise.”  
        Bella asked sheepishly, “Y’all wouldn’t happen to have a photo of him, would you? For the wall?”
        Emmy was beginning to wonder if these girls were kin. 
        “You sisters or something,” Mabel asked.
        “I was wondering the same thing,” Emmy said. 
        “Naw, but we act like it when we ain’t arguing over men or something else stupid,”            Sandy laughed. “That’s Freddy, back there a-cookin. He’s the owner, but I guess you knew that figuring his name’s on the building and all.”
        “And the hottest wings belong to him, too, right?” Emmy said. 
        “He’s proud. Ain’t cha, Freddy Jo?” Carrie yelled back.
        The man in the back, slapping around pans and making things sizzle, glanced out to them and nodded. 
        “He ain’t much for words. He likes to express himself through his culinary adventures,” Bella offered. 
Emmy asked, “Any you all kin to him?”
One responded, “Probably. Never checked.” 

Emmy asked the obvious question. 
“So, where’d it happen? Where’d old Jerald bite the dust? Or the hot wing, rather.”
All three of the women turned at once, but in three different directions before Sandy spoke up and pointed to the bar area. “Second to last on the right.”  
Bella said, “He was a character. Telling jokes and stories. Flirting.” 
“Yep, that’s our Jer,” Emmy said. 
Mabel added, “Jerald ran the roads. Nobody knows why he was this far up into West Virginia anyway. He retired from the mines early, so he didn’t have anywhere to be. He’d go out driving and not come back for a week. He called us from Vegas once, saying he’d onewon five-thousand dollars and wasn’t coming back ‘til he was broke.” 
Carrie laughed and said, “Yep, sounds like him,” but shut up real fast when she got side-eye from Bella who then offered, “We didn’t know him that well, of course, but he seemed like the adventurous sort, yes.”  

The side door, where the women smoked, creaked open. A girl, in her twenties, peeked in. The women noticed. 
“Hold on, honey,” Bella told her with a wave of the hand.  
“Freddy, you got lunch ready for Rachel?”
Freddy clanged around another minute and called out, “Order up!” sliding several to go boxes up on the pickup window. 
“Who’s that,” Mabel asked, nodding at the waiting girl. 
“Oh, that’s just a girl from down the street picking up an order. She’s shy,” Carrie said.  

But this girl was more worried looking than shy, Emmy thought. She raised a brow to her sister, a hint that they ought to pay attention to the girl. At this point, everything was important. Bella was handing over the boxes of food to the girl. She didn’t pay. They whispered at each other at the door. The girl shot Emmy and Mabel a quick glance, as if Bella had mentioned the customers. 

Mabel was already laying down thirty dollars. “That’s for the tip, too, y’all. We’re heading out. C’mon Em.” 
        Mabel was already standing up. “Appreciate y’all.” 
        “Why’d you rush us out like that?” Emmy wanted to know.  
        Mabel had Emmy’s hand, leading her across the parking lot. “Get in,” her sister ordered. 
        Mabel had the car started, in drive, and was pulling out before Emmy could get buckled. “Hush for a minute,” Mabel ordered, straining to see across the lot and past the restaurant up an alley. She pulled out quickly but quietly, out of the lot and into the alley. 
There she was, the girl from the side doorway, carrying three stacked Styrofoam to-go boxes. Her jet black hair was back in a ponytail showing off naked shoulders from a tight red tube top showing skin from her ribs to her low slung blue jean cut off shorts.
        “What’s that look like to you, sister,” Mabel asked, keeping back so the girl didn’t notice them. 
        Emmy laughed. “A hooker getting takeout,” she joked. 
        “Exactly,” Mabel said. 
        Emmy quit her laughing. “You serious?” 

        The girl kept on then made a right down a dirt lane. She apparently didn’t live “down the road” as much as she did out back.
        Mabel parked and they watched. 
        The set of three tiny trailers she was headed for were practically in the backyard of the restaurant. The trailers were singlewides from back in the seventies. Hardly any room in between. Lots of dirt patches, not much grass. A girl stuck her head out the door of the first one and yelled. The girl reached up and handed her some lunch. Another girl popped her head out from another trailer. Same thing. 
        Emmy offered, “Maybe she’s just the cute little delivery girl?”
        The girl then made her way to the last trailer and let herself in. 
        “Guess not,” Mabel said.   

        Emmy, always willing to offer the benefit of the doubt and never rushing to judgement too quickly, said, “You don’t think that’s what it might be, do you?”
        Mabel, the oldest of the two, usually the most cynical, and usually the first in line to call things like she saw them, said, “Yep. Them there’s some tramp trailers. I bet they glow bright red at night.” 
        “Really?” Emmy asked, definitely the most gullible of the two. 
        “I betcha. And they’re probably on springs.” 

        They drove back around a little before sundown. Parked where they had a good view and hunkered down. 
        Eventually the door of the middle trailer creaked open. A man stumbled down the two concrete steps to the gravel and dirt. A girl in a black silk housecoat waved him off. He meandered over and went to knocking on the third trailer’s aluminum door. He yelled for someone. No one answered. He sat in a sun lounger at the head of the trailer, looking like he’d drift off. 
        Another man eventually exited the third trailer. The girl they’d followed earlier came out with him and walked him down. They both looked at the man, now asleep in the lounger.
        They shook him by the shoulder. He stirred and got up. They all talked for a minute before the two men walked down the dirt lane and away from the little trailer park. They were both a little drunk. 
        “They either just got done visiting with their girlfriends or they’ve been spending a little payday cash,” Mabel whispered. 
        Emmy replied, “It is the first of the month, ain’t it?” 

        They positioned themselves up the alley the next day and waited on the girl, hoping to catch her if she came around again for lunch. Maybe that was the routine, they hoped. That she picked up lunch everyday for the others. 
        Sure enough, like clockwork, the girl exited her trailer and strolled out to the alley and toward them. She was a pretty girl. Yep, mid-twenties? Long black hair that could use washing. Strong jaw. Dark eyes. Curves you could see from down any road. 
        They looked away as she got closer. She was on her phone. 
        “Time for lunch, I guess,” Emmy whispered.   
        “Hey, they need their strength, right? They burn the calories, I bet.” 

        Mabel and Emmy had helped themselves to two sun loungers in front of the girl’s place by the time she returned. She’d noticed them as she turned the corner carrying lunch, so after stopping off at the first trailer the girl wasn’t alone. Another girl was with her now and they were headed their way. 
        Mabel and Emmy stood. 
        “Do we need to call Freddy back here?” the delivery girl asked with some attitude. 
        Mabel shot Emmy a look. That might have answered a lot of questions right there.            Mabel spoke up. “I don’t reckon Freddy’s got anything to do with why we’re back here.”
        “Y’all wives or something?” the new girl from the first trailer asked, also with attitude. 
        “Naw, Melissa,” the first girl said, “these are that fella that died’s sisters, come to investigate.” She said investigate sarcastically. 
        So people were talking? 
        “I didn’t realize we were causing a problem?” Emmy offered. 
        “Don’t reckon I see anything that could cause a problem,” the second girl said, with more attitude. 
        Mabel and Emmy were out of their depth.  
        “Listen,” Mabel said, trying another angle, “we’re only here to figure out what happened with our brother.”
        The second girl said, “Oh, he’s the one that had the heart attack up in the restaurant a while back?” 
        “That’s what we were told, yes,” Mabel answered. “We’re his sisters. I’m Mabel, this is Emily.” 
        “Rachel,” the delivery girl said.
        “Melissa,” the second girl said.
        “You remember anything other than him having a heart attack,” Mabel asked. 
        “Other than that, we ain’t got nothing to tell you about it,” Melissa claimed. “We weren’t even around when it happened, ain’t that right, Rach?
        “Right.” 
        Melissa liked to do most of the talking. 
        “We went up when the ambulance came.” 
        “Surprised you could get off from work,” Mabel let slip. 
        They all went quiet. 
        “I don’t reckon you know us good enough to talk about how we make a living,” Melissa snapped. 
        “Y’all sure were making a living last night, huh?” Emmy laughed. 
        “Y’all ain’t got escorts where you’re from?” Melissa sniped.
        Mabel chimed in, “Where you escorting to, your living room to your bedroom?” 
        “…all the way to the bank…up high,” Melissa yelled offering a high-five to Rachel, trying to do the funny. 

        “That didn’t amount to a hill of beans,” Emmy said, once they were in the car. 
        “We know more than we did. Freddy knows about what they’re doing back here. He’s probably their pimp. BBQ by day, pimp daddy by night.”
        Mabel was pulling out when something banged on a backdoor window. It startled them and they yelled out. “What the hell!”
        It was Rachel clamoring to get in the car. “Go,” Rachel whispered loudly, ducking out of sight. “I hope she didn’t see me take off after y’all.” 
        After putting a few quick miles between them and the restaurant, they pulled over.            Mabel and Emmy turned to Rachel. “Talk,” Mabel ordered. 

        “I knew Jerald. I knew your brother,” Rachel said, lowly. 
        “What do you mean, knew him? Like the one time he was here eating wings?” Mabel asked. 
        “Before…you know what happened?” Emmy followed up. 
        “Yes…long before that.” Rachel said, blushing. 
        It struck the girls that this woman knew, knew their brother. 
        “You mean biblically, knew?” Mabel asked, feeling a little squeamish. 
        “I don’t know if he was religious or not, but what I’m trying to say is, that Jerald…was a regular.” 
        “Oh, shit.”
        “Oh, shit.” 
 
        So, this was one of old Jerald’s stopping off spots, huh? Apparently, everyone here, the waitresses, Freddy, the “girls out back,” even some of the regulars at the restaurant, knew him by name. Some even called him “Jer” for short. 

        “Let me ask you this. Straight up, sweetheart. Did a bunch of hot wings really kill Jerald?” Mabel asked. “We don’t think a few wings could have done that. That’s why we came up all this way.” 
        Rachel paused. 
        “No. I guess he really did have a heart attack. But he could eat Freddy’s wings all day long. It wasn’t the wings that killed him.” 
        Emmy asked, “Well, what did, honey?”
        Rachel was tearing up. “I did.”
        “What?”
        “I killed your brother. I’m so sorry!” 
        “What do you mean, you killed Jerald?” 
        “Well, he could usually take it!” Rachel sobbed. 
        “Oh, shit.” 
        “You fucked Jerald to death?” 
        “He blacked out right at the end.”
        “Hope you got yours at least.”
        The girl blushed a deeper red. “Yeah. He was a very giving lover.” 
        “TMI,” Emmy yelled, “I shouldn’t have brought it up!” 
 
        On the day in question, Jerald had actually downed a “Fiery Fifteen” for about the tenth time during all his visits, so there wasn’t much fanfare. He’d outdone everyone on the Wall of Wing Wonders so many times, he’d been crowned “King Wing.” 
        “More like Cock of the Walk when he was around,” Rachel said. “He liked everyone to know he was a confident guy. He hardly let me leave his side. He’d pay for my company as much as anything else.” 
        “I could see Jerald doing all that,” Mabel offered. 
        “I loved seeing him pull in. He kept saying he’d take me with him, get me outta all this, but he’d up and be gone and I’d only end up hoping for next time maybe.” 
        “You poor thing,” Emmy said, patting her on the shoulder.  
        “That Jerald,” Mabel said, shaking her head.   

        Rachel and Jerald had retired “out back” for some celebrating. An hour later and Jerald was gone. 
        “I didn’t know what to do. I just ran and told Freddy. He sent the girls back, the waitresses. Freddy closed up. Me and the girls carried him back to the restaurant and we tried to figure out what to say.” 
Mabel was a little miffed at this. “Why not the truth?”
“And get us all in trouble. It’s hard enough staying in business as it is.”
        “And it was all believable, I guess? We fell for it.”
        “After I’d took a big bite of a hot wing and kissed him on the lips for the last time it was. He reeked of sauce then and I thought I was gonna be sick. I hate spicy food.”
        “How dedicated,” Mabel mumbled. 
        “But hell, the coroner’s a regular, too, so it wasn’t no big deal to fudge the paperwork to say it happened in the restaurant.” 
“Poor Jer,” Emmy said. 
“Yeah. Poor Jer. I kinda loved him,” Rachel muttered. 
  
        Mabel and Emmy exchanged a look. They were both on the same page with this one. 
        “Go get your stuff packed up. We’ll be back in an hour,” Mabel said. “One hour. No more, no less.” 
        Rachel didn’t argue. She knew she was done with this place, one way or the other, by talking to them about Jerald.    

Part II 

        An hour was too long. They knew that as soon as they drove down the road a piece, parked and had waited fifteen minutes. 
        “This is too much time, ain’t it?” Emmy said. “Yep, I think so,” Mabel agreed, “anyone can pack to get the hell outta dodge in twenty minutes or less.” “Why didn’t we think of that?” Emmy asked, “Let’s go back, she might be done.” 
        They went back and cruised by the restaurant and down the alley and on through to the dead end. No sign of Rachel. They came back out slowly. No sign. Up to the intersection along the restaurant and the main road. Nothing. They took a slow drive across the restaurant lot. 

        Emmy saw her first. Rachel was alone at a booth. The door sign was flipped to closed. Odd since it was lunchtime. No one was in the restaurant but the three waitresses. They were leaning against the bar. Freddy was standing amongst them talking. 
        “Oh, shit,” Emmy said. 
        “Oh, shit’s right,” Mabel said. 

        They parked. Everyone inside noticed them. Rachel didn’t look up. 
        “What do we do?” Mabel wondered. 
        “Think she’s caught?” Emmy asked. 
        After a minute, Mabel turned off the car, unlatched her seatbelt, and said, “Let’s get some lunch.” 

        Freddy watched them like a hawk, all the way from their car to the front door. 
        Bella met them, unlatched the locked, and barely opened the door. 
        Mabel said, “Y’all forgot to turn your sign! Thought we’d grab lunch again! You are open, right?” 
        Bella looked back to Freddy. He was still watching them. 
        “Y’all sure you wanna come in right now? Really sure?” 
        They nodded. Bella let them in. 
        No one said a word. No one made a move. 
        Mabel said, “Hey, y’all, we’re back.” 
        Freddy tongued his cheek. “Yep.” 
        They got closer to Rachel. They acted like they didn’t know her. She didn’t look up. 
        Something in the air caught in Emmy’s throat and made her choke a little, almost tearing up. 
        “Whew! That’s strong, whatever that is,” she said, as they took a seat at the same table they’d been at the day before. 
        “Must be Rachel’s lunch there,” Freddy mumbled. It was the most they’d heard him say. 
        They looked around, trying to guess who Rachel was, then noticed the only “customer” and the huge platter of darkly sauced wings sitting on the table in front of the girl. 
        “Lord, that’s not Freddy’s Fiery Fifteen, is it?” Emmy wondered out loud.
        Freddy and the waitresses laughed. “The very ones,” Freddy said, walking over and clicking the front doors locked. Freddy was a big, round man. Six-foot. Bald. His chef’s apron hardly covered him. The worn-out lettering said: Kiss the Cook (or else). He wore cut-off jean shorts and high-top sneakers. A stained black t-shirt. His beard was patchy. Hardly the look of a pimp. 
        He strutted back to them and Rachel. 
        “Seems our little Rachel here,” he continued, “decided to retire from a-whorin, ain’t that right, Rachel?” 
        Rachel didn’t look up. 
        “Ain’t that right!” he screamed. 
        Everyone jumped. Mabel and Emmy. The waitressed. Rachel gripped the table. Who knows how long she’d been there. 
        So Freddy was the pimp.
        “The problem is, they don’t clock out ‘til I say so,” he said. “Sexin’s just about 24 hours a day, as far as I’m concerned.”
        Tears streamed down Rachel’s cheeks. Probably from the fumes in her face as much as her being scared to death.  
        “Yep, ladies, she was apparently about to fly the coop for good. Thanks goodness Melissa back there caught her packin.” 
        Mabel spoke up. “What’s this got to do with us, Freddy.? We’re just here for some lunch. We don’t need to know your business.” 
        “You’re right. You don’t. But I need some witnesses, you see,” Freddy said. “I’m willing for little miss better than us to catch her ride with whoever was helping her out, on one very strict condition.” 
        “Well, we’re curious now,” Mabel said, “aren’t we Em?” 
        “Wings. She’s got to earn her ticket out of here by eating that there plate of wings.” 
        All the waitresses giggled their asses off at that. 
        “And if I do say so myself, those are some spicy masterpieces of my culinary prowess.”
        He looked at Rachel. 
        “Unfortunately, poor little Rachel there’s not a big fan of hot food. I got a feeling she’ll be staying with us.” 
        That was it. Rachel’d had enough. She pounded both fists on the table, rattling the silverware and coffee creamer, and shot Freddy the Pimp the God awfullest hateful look. 
        Freddy said, “Looks like somebody’s ready for lunch.” 

        Rachel grabbed a wing and shoved the whole thing in her mouth, gripped the end a little harder and pulled, de-sleeving the meat from the bone in one slick movement. She never lost eye contact with Freddy, even when her eyes completely filled with tears. She chewed three times and swallowed. She closed her eyes. She might have been praying. 
She picked up number two. Same thing. 
        Then came the hiccups. The runny nose. The labored breathing. This was only number three. 
        “Oh, my God,” Rachel coughed. 
        “No milk. No ice cream,” Freddy ordered. “Maybe some water. Tap.” 
        “Dick,” Mabel muttered.  
        Numbers four, five, and six. She could hardly breathe, let along speak, but she managed a gravely, painful version of her voice. “My lips are numb. My nose. It’s in my eyes.” She’s chew and swallow, chew and swallow. 
        “Don’t take all day, honey,” Freddy poked, “your ride might show up!” 
        Numbers seven and eight. Gone. Sweat was in her eyes. 
        “I don’t think she’ll do it,” Freddy jested. “I think she’s getting sick.” 
        Rachel cleaned wing number nine, licked her middle finger and waved it at him. His eyes got big as soup bowls. 
        “I think she’s got her second wind, Freddy Jo,” Bella said loud enough for everyone to hear. Rachel managed a grimaced smile. 
        Ten and eleven almost made her puke. Twelve helped keep them down. Thirteen brought the hiccups back.    
        Carrie started rooting her on. Freddy didn’t like that. 
        “Might remember which side your Texas toast’s buttered on, baby,” he snarled. 
        Bella joined in, keeping an eye on Freddy. “C’mon, honey. No use getting this far and giving in. Two more.” 
        Rachel belched. 
        “Whoa! I’m having flashbacks to ole Jerald!” 
        Mabel turned to the pimp. “What’d you say?” 
        “Well, I guess we’re getting to know each other a lot better by now, huh? I was just thinking how your brother used to slam down those wings like they weren’t nuthin. I guess the girls weren’t really up front with y’all yesterday, were ya, girls?” He looked to Carrie, Sandy, and Bella. “Course they were only doing what I told them to. Yeah, Jer used to swing around all the time, didn’t he, Rachel, baby?” 
        Rachel was hardly paying attention, pounding her fists on the booth table and gasping.  
        “He was the best of the best when then came to hot stuff…” 
        Number fourteen went down, but barely. Her neck and ears were flushed red, like the heat was trying to escape from everywhere. 
        “But it wasn’t that kind of hot stuff that done him in, was it?” 
        He was staring a hole through Mabel and Emmy. Rachel gave out a little growl. 
        Rachel was giving that last hot wing the evil eye as well. Holding it in front of her face, poised, but not ready. Determined. Faint. 
        Freddy strutted over, bent down right in her face. 
        “Last one. Mmmmm. Smells like you got maced. Looks like it, too. Ya know, why don’t you quit. That’n there might be the one that makes you bad sick. We’ve had plenty got the ER after just a few.”
        She bit it, taking her time. Freddy looked around, at all the girls. He huffed and laughed, went dead in the face. She stripped it clean with a lippy smack. 
        “Do what you want. But did you actually think you got to break our deal just because you ate a few shittin wings?” 
        He was proud of coming off so cleverly. He stared and smirked. Straightened up tall and turned to walk off.  

        Freddy kept a plastic spray bottle of oil and pure Capsaicin extract to mist his wings with a final Scoville punch. Anything not to have to give away too many t-shirts. Around the ninth wing, when everyone but Freddy had recognized Rachel’s determinedness, how sitting there chewing on those hell bites was the most any of them had ever stood up to that POS Freddy, was when Sandy had snuck into back and grabbed that bottle when no one was looking. She knew how strong its contents were. Even Freddy had told them, “If anyone gives you problems, hit them with a few shots of this. They’ll wish it was only police mace. I carry this in the woods in case I run up on a bear.”  

        As he turned, as Rachel swallowed down her last bite of the challenge, Sandy hit him in the face with his Capsaicin spray. Who knows how many Scoville units were in a single trigger pull of that bottle. Why bother counting after ten-million. 
        No one had ever seen anyone’s eyes swell shut in real time before. His did. As fast as he could holler and stumble around and grab out for wherever the assault was coming, his eyes were swollen shut like an MMA fighter had taken him out back for a few minutes of well deserved attention. 
        Mabel and Emmy stepped to Rachel. Rachel was dizzy, but got up and stood with them. The waitresses stepped back from Freddy’s flailing. He screamed curses and sounds they’d never heard in their lives. If he started calming down, Sandy hit him with another squirt. He’d yell and go on like he was dying. Bella grabbed the bottle. There was plenty in it. She hit him once. Again. Right in the nose and mouth. He was bent over. A foot-long string of saliva dripped off his lips. Now Carrie had the bottle. She got him in both ears. His skin was on fire. 
        The air in the restaurant was getting a little hard to breathe by now. The girls fought the urge to rub their eyes but resisted.  
        Emmy started to grab for it, but Mabel stopped her. 
        “We came to find out what happened to Jerald, honey. We found out. That’s enough for us. You go ahead, baby.” 
        It was Rachel’s turn. She gripped the bottle with both hands, like a pistol. Looked at Freddy, clawing at his skin and eyes. Spitting. She got him in the face, then the neck. He was more or less blind by now. Unless he accidentally got hold of one of them, he was helpless. 
        He’d taken off his apron in the back. Rachel adjusted the spray to jet and aimed for his crotch. It splattered. Soaked through his jean shorts. 
        It took a moment, but it saturated in enough to hit skin. He grabbed his crotch and scratched. Squeezed. Grimaced. Screamed, “I’m gonna kill every one of you.” Then he pissed his shorts. 
        Rachel’s aim was getting better. She got him dead in the mouth like a bullseye, back of the throat. He choked harder than ever. Cussed harder than ever. Even prayed, maybe for the first time in a long time. He was faint, on the verge of blacking out. His screams had turned to whimpers.   

        The girls quietly made their way to the front door. Bella had a key. She locked up, made sure the sign was turned to closed. 
        They left him there. Blind. Agonized. On the floor and alone in his restaurant. 

        Carrie, Sandy, and Bella were glad to be done with Freddy. Done with West Virginia’s hottest wings. Done with watching him pimp, feeling only a degree away from doing the same for him if things didn’t work out waitressing. 
        “Can’t say I’ll miss this place,” she said to the waitresses as she gave them hugs. 
        “Can’t say we’ll blame you,” Bella laughed. “You got room for three more?” 

        Rachel left with Mabel and Emmy. 
        As she got in the back seat she said, “Sorry I’m late.” 



Larry D. Thacker is a Kentuckian writer, artist, and educator hailing from Johnson City, Tennessee. His stories can be found in past issues of Still: The JournalPikeville Review, Fried Chicken and Coffee, Feed, Vandalia JournalGrotesque Quarterly, and Story and Grit. His books of fiction include the short story collection, Working it Off in Labor County, from West Virginia University Press, and the forthcoming short story collections, Every Day, Monsters, from Unsolicited Press, co-written with C.M. Chapman, and Labor Days, Labor Nights: More Stories, from Bottom Dog Press.