Tongues, fiction by Paul J. Garth

 

Brandon brought the car to a stop in a sandy wash out on the side of the road between a set of bending trees, their limbs drooping towards the ground as though tired from carrying the weight of the sky. Running his tongue over his teeth while Kent smoked out the window, they listened to engine ticking in the darkness. The cold metal of the .32 digging dug into his back, and, though nothing had happened yet - though nothing would happen if they stuck to the plan - he still felt his heart beating staccato against the ribs. Between the trees, the moon winked out at them, vicious and taunting.

Cool air slipped in beneath Kent's smoke and settled beneath the sweat on Brandon's face. He wiped away the chill and eyed Preacher Ferland’s house. The house was a squat, small mid-century farmhouse, sitting atop the crown of a low brown hill, alone on either side for a half mile or more. “That’s it,” he said softly.

They watched the house and the road and the emptiness of everything in this small out of the way place in silence. Neither said anything, but Brandon was certain that Kent was feeling the same thing he felt. A sense of fear. As though the place had somehow been irradiated by the man who lived inside. On the dashboard, the clock slid later and later. The edge of the coke dying inside him, Brandon turned to Kent. “You ready?”

Kent checked the chamber of his Glock and placed it in the front pocket of his hoodie. “Let’s go.”

They moved together, black hoods pulled up over their skulls, breath hanging fractal in front of their faces like wisping smoke. Above them, stars, ageless and innumerable, lay scattered across the sky, and the winking moon hung high and hysterical. Frosted ground crunched underneath their boots and the smell of cold and rot and dead crop filled their noses as they moved over the withered field, towards the Preacher’s house and the copse of trees that lay behind it.

The night hummed in stillness. No dogs. No cars. No signs of life other than their own footfalls and a porch light that hung next to the front door, gleaming dully in the night and illuminating the dead grass of the hill. Silently, they moved to the edge of the light, then circled the house before consulting briefly in the bones of the trees.

“What do you think?” Kent asked.

"I dunno, man," Brandon said. The cold was all the way in him now, and though movement had numbed his fear to a dull ache, it was still there. But so was the anxiousness of what Kent would think. "I guess I'm okay."

“Yeah. The light being on. Gotta be a mistake. Something he forgot to turn off. He’s gone. I know for sure.”

“Okay,” Brandon said, hyping himself up. Pushing the fear away. “Okay. Yeah. Fuck it, let’s go.”

Brandon took the lead. He kept low and moved quickly. Taking the short back steps in a single stride, he pressed himself against the back door of the Preacher’s house. His ears buzzed with blood. His tongue slid over his teeth, tracing the gaps. His hands were shaking.

He counted to five. Willed his hands to be still. He tried the door. Locked.

Kent rose beside him, hefted the Glock by the barrel, and swung it into the window of the door. Glass shattered and fell into the dark of the house.

Brandon rose, reached in and flipped the lock. The door swung open. Together, they went inside.

The kitchen was small and empty of furniture. Shards of glass covered the yellowed laminate floor, tossing moonlight. The floors were dirty, the cupboards an off-white, and the smell of dull smoke hung in the place, the ghosts of a previous resident.

“Where you think it is?” Kent asked, gesturing around with the gun.

Brandon shrugged. “Could be under the goddamn mattress for all I know.”

“Mattress? Man, you made it sound like this guy sleeps in a fuckin’ coffin.”

“Let’s find it and go.”

They moved into the front room, half-blind except for narrow slats of moonlight sliding through a gap in the curtains.

Somewhere in the back of the house, a board moaned, low and soft.

“Jesus,” Brandon said, spinning around, the barrel of his gun sweeping the dark. His feet backed up, reflexively, and he was almost halfway through the kitchen towards the back door when he felt Kent grab him softly in the dark.

“Stay cool, man. The place is empty. If he was as scary as you tell, He would have been out here already. Would have heard the glass break.” He winked in the dark. "It's just us and the ghosts out here now."

“Don’t say that, man. Fuck.” Brandon shivered. “I feel like I’m robbing the Devil. I mean, fucking snakes, man?”

The Preacher had come at the end of summer heat, blight and infection hot on its winds. He’d stood outside of town and promised forgiveness and deliverance, and the people had come. He handled snakes, they whispered, serpent’s that God protected him from. They claimed he’d cured the sick and offered salvation, not just to the damned, but to the town and the land itself, the vipers in his hands the whole time he spoke.

Brandon had heard the rumors - of Ferland’s Godly powers, of his command over the Holy Ghost, and that, despite the peoples’ interest, the Preacher stayed a mysterious figure, rarely seen by anyone outside his white revival tent on Sundays and Wednesdays. His interest grew with each new outrageous story he’d heard, until he felt compelled to see it for himself.

In the heat of the tent, Brandon had seen the snakes. But worse, he’d seen people he’d known his entire life overtaken by something he could not name, Prophecies of the End Times on their lips, their eyes shining in ways that made his arms burst in gooseflesh.

“They do that shit down south,” Kent said, trying to sound calm and worldly, though Brandon knew the furthest south he'd ever been was to Missouri to buy legal weed and fireworks.

He tried to shake the memory, but the white tent had bound itself to him, and even then the memory of the place and the humidity inside scared him, made the skin around his balls draw up tight and the hair on the back of his neck electric.

Kent started moving, deeper into the house. “Thing I don't get is, why would anyone in Nebraska sign up for that. We're not the south. We do things our own way here. And how does it work? Is God in the snake? What if it bites? That mean God hates the snake handler, or someone in the crowd?”

Brandon thought again of Ferland on his rickety stage, his face whittled into a grin. He thought of how he paced back and forth, rattlesnakes in each hand, the serpents flicking forked tongues and widening their jaws to strike. He remembered how he'd watched and wondered, slack-jawed, the question of what drove a man to do such a thing burning behind his eyes. He pushed the thought away. Focused instead on a different memory, the image of the wicker donation plate overflowing with cash, the Preacher blessing and raising it over his head at the end of every service.

“It's all bullshit,” he said, but even as he spoke he could hear the own rattle in his voice. Could feel the bone in the back of his throat. “None of it works. It just is. Let’s just find the money and get the fuck out.”

They began to walk again, moving deeper into the dark room off the kitchen, floorboards creaking underneath.

From somewhere in the shadows, they heard rattling.

They stopped, trading looks, fear written across their faces. Brandon reached behind him, grabbed the grip of the .32 for comfort. Breathing deep, he reached around the doorframe, found the light-switch, and flipped it on.

Dull, yellow light filled the room, barely pushing back the dark. The room was small. Unkempt. A bookshelf along the far wall filled with religious tracts, books on demonology, screeds against The Pope, and the “Left Behind” novels. A small desk pressed back against the far wall. Next to the desk, on top of an old nightstand, sat a red wooden box covered by a piece of warped plywood, cement bricks resting on either end. Muted rattling came from inside.

Brandon stared at the box, his eyes like cotton, dry and itching. It was the same box he’d seen the Preacher reach his hands into, rattlesnakes wrapped around his wrists as he pulled them back out, their hisses and rattles accompanying his apocalyptic witnessing.

Brandon took a step back. “Oh fuck, man,” he said. His bones had fallen loose inside his skin. Droplets of sweat broke out on his face. He imagined one of the snakes sliding past his teeth and down his throat, it’s tongue flicking the blood from his hammering heart.“I didn’t know he kept them here.”

“I didn’t either,” Kent said. “I thought they stayed at the tent.”

The rattling slowed to a dull drone and then stopped.

Brandon reached out and touched Kent's arm. "I’m not sure I want to do this, man. It was my idea, yeah, but, man, I don't want to be here. I don’t want to rob this dude. A normal preacher or priest of whatever would be bad enough, but this guy is another fucking level. This shit freaks me out too bad.”

Kent looked at him with cold eyes, yellow and slit in under the rooms lonely light. "You know why we wanted to do this, Brandon. Get it the fuck together."

Brandon need cut through his gut, swirling with fear. He thought of the nosebleeds, spilling down into his mouth. Of his gums, too dull to feel themselves giving up the root. He thought of Kent on the ratty bean bag, finally passed out after three days. Of how they always needed more to last them. Of how he’d finally figured a way to get out of the middle of fucking Nebraska and to a place where there was something. Better drugs, better women, better jobs. Something more than a tiny town off the highway that offered only a more bitter, angrier God, shit coke, and the same jobs at the silos. And now he wanted to throw it all away.

Because of the Preacher. Because of Ferland. Not because of the things he'd seen him do, but because of the glow he'd held in his eyes as he'd done them.

Brandon shook his head. “No. Dude. Seriously. I’m gonna wait outside.” He gestured around the room with his hand. “Fuck all of this. You wanna do it? Fine. Don’t even need my split. There are other ways we can get right. Other ways we can start over."

"You always were a pussy," Kent said. "But you better wait at the car. Cause I'm gonna find it.” He turned, walking across the small room toward the small hallway, the kitchen, and the rest of the creaking black house beyond.

Brandon looked away, shame and fear and need all twisting in him now, ringing him out until the sweat slid from his pores and the snakes smelled it and began beating themselves against the slivered wood of the container.

Behind Brandon, just a few steps in to the hall, Kent’s footsteps stopped. And then a scream rose up.

Brandon turned turned, a question forming on his tongue. From the room, he saw Kent raising his hand, the small black Glock swinging up in front of him.

The back half of Kent blew outwards, blood and muscle and bone, the gunshot thundering against the thin wood.

Gore painted the wall next to Brandon.

Iron in his mouth. Smoke burning in his nostrils. His ears went numb. Felt his heart beat through his empty gums. A scream spilled from his throat as he watched Kent’s body tumble forewards, his guts suddenly unzipped, and land face down on the wooded floor of the study, but it died between his teeth.

Brandon fell against the wall, stumbling and sliding on his friend’s blood until he ended on his knees, his eyes searching the dark where Kent had pointed.

The Preacher stood hunched in the dark of the kitchen, a shotgun leveled, a black outline against the dark of the broken back door. The man’s eyes haunted the darkness, reflecting the hoary light of the moon.

Slowly, the shotgun leading him, the Preacher walked into the room.

Brandon’s spine wracked. Fire burned through his brain, screaming for him to reach to the back of his jeans, to the pistol cold against his sweating skin, but he was frozen in place, his veins leeched of heat and blood. Behind him, the snakes in the box hissed furiously and thumped their rattles against the wood.

The Preacher stepped over Kent’s body, avoiding the spreading pool of blood, the shotgun sweeping around Brandon. "Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on when the wicked are cut off," Preacher Ferland said, his voice softer than the rickety accented ever-rising Drone Brandon had heard in the tent. He slipped a foot under Kent's shoulder and kicked the body over on it's back.

Kent’s eyes, stuck open, stared at the bottom row of the bookshelf, a look of surprise and pain knit into his face.

In a terrible moment, Brandon realized that his friend’s twisted body, insides spilling over the wooden floor, looked like a burst snake in the middle of birth, and he fought the urge to vomit. Sweat ran from his brow. Mixed with blood. Stung his eyes. Fear, a deeper fear than he'd ever experienced, spread across the top of his skin and pounded in his skull. And below that, the urge for coke screamed.

He ran his tongue over the gaps of teeth to fight the urge. “It was a mistake,” he said, finally able to slide words from his mouth. “A mistake.”

Ferland stared in silence. Their eyes locked, and Brandon felt something, like the Preacher was probing his soul.

The snakes slowed their mad writhing, and the room became so still and silent Brandon was convinced the Preacher could hear his heart beating, and that, at the sound of it, the man’s tongue had become wet.

“Just let me go!” he screamed.

No answer. The Preacher’s body stood so still it seemed he were carved of stone.

He’d seen the Preacher speak in tongues and exorcise demons and boom to his flock - his voice always loud, musical, trembling with power - that in the very land they worked lived the Devil. But, Brandon realized, he’d never seen the man be still or silent, and in the pale of the room, the Charismatic’s quiet unnerved him even more.

Then, almost imperceptibly, the Preacher began to hum, airy and light, a hymn, like something sung joyously by a choir.

“Just let me go,” Brandon said again, his voice breaking now. He wanted to weep. Pray. Wondered if he would be able to pull out and empty the .32 before the Preacher fired on him. Knew it would be impossible. Crashed his thoughts in to one another, trying to decide if it'd be worth it anyway.

The Preacher stopped humming then. “Amen,” he said aloud, and Brandon realized the humming had been a prayer - a paean, maybe, for forgiveness. He watched as Ferland lowered the shotgun and came to him, his hand out, offering to help him up. “I’m sorry for your friend,” Ferland said. “But he was about to shoot me. I just hope he was right with the Lord. Now,” the Preacher paused, taking in all of Brandon, his ratty jeans, his worm boots, the sweat rolling across his forehead, his twisted and failing teeth, “You need to tell me why you’ve come here.”

“No,” Brandon said. “You killed Kent.”

The man’s eyes took on a determined set, the skin beneath them smooth and tanned. He stepped forward, the shotgun lowered, his hand out.

Brandon looked down and saw Ferland’s feet, slick with Kent’s blood from the spreading pool. “Just let me go,” he begged. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

“Robbery, am I right?” the Preacher said, ignoring the request. “Because of drugs? Or is it a woman you’re stealing for? Either way, a whore has your soul.”

Shame soaked through him, mingling with the pulse inside that begged for a hit. Brandon nodded. “Drugs,” he said, then he reached up and took the Preacher’s hand, warm and somehow clammy at the same time, and brought himself to standing.

A dark humor settled into Ferland’s face. “But you don’t know where the donations even are, do you?”

Brandon shook his head, the bones in his neck grinding on each other. “Please, he begged, “don’t kill me.”

“What do you think of me?” The Preacher stepped backwards, as though he were offended at the thought. “That I judge you as evil for your addiction? Because you have fallen under evil’s spell? No. No, not at all. I believe in forgiveness,” the Preacher’s face grew softer, his voice calming, “I am not meant to kill you,” he said. “I am meant to teach you how to live.”

Ferland paused, then reached out and took Brandon’s hand in his own as though he were a child, the blood on their palms mixing. “In you,” he continued, “I see one of God’s children who has lost his way. That your way to Glory has been blocked by something else. And I believe — I have to believe — that you have been brought to me, delivered to me, so that I can guide you back to righteousness.”

Preacher Ferland leading, they moved across the room together, stepping over Kent’s blood, already gathering the smell of rot. Calmly, the Preacher led Brandon to the red wooden box on the old nightstand.

“It’s in there,” he said. “And you’re going to take it. A sign of God's love. Not blasphemous Serendipity, but something older. A perfect order. I can look at you and know, through His wisdom. That you are a fearful man. But tonight, you shake the fear off.”

Hissing leaked from the box as the snakes came alive again.

Brandon bent at the waist, retching up bile. The Preacher’s hand calmly rubbed his back. “Jesus Christ,” he gasped.

“Exactly!” Ferland clapped him on the back, then raised him back to standing before taking a step away.

“Go on,” he said. “It’s waiting for you.”

Brandon tried to stall, to grab something in his mind that would spare him, but everything slipped under the weight of his need. Of his shame. His fear. The anxiousness he could never seem to shake. “You,” he tried. “You were supposed to be gone.”

Disappointment clouded the Preacher’s face. “No man will know my coming and going. Don’t you recognize that? You? A thief in the night?”

He felt Ferland reach into the back of his jeans and pull the .32 from his waist. His temples hammering in fear, Brandon stepped to the box. With hands quaking, he removed the bricks from the corners, then slid the piece of plywood off, inch by inch.

The inside of the box was dark and still, the scales of the rattlesnakes cooly reflecting the overhead light. One of the things knocked its rattle against the wooden side then fell quiet while the other tasted blood in the air with its forked tongue. Their eyes beat black and cold. His legs tingled as if to lead him away, but he could not bring himself to move. A tail slid across the top of an old metal cashbox nestled between the vipers, filling the box with a tinny echo.

“You see it,” the Preacher said, taking a step back. “You just have to believe now. God brought you here for this. Put your faith in Him and you will not be harmed.” He gestured again at the box, an air of weariness flushing across his skin. “But those who don’t believe are punished.” Ferland raised the pistol. Pressed it, softly, against the back of Brandon’s skull.

Brandon stood, staring at the snakes, his vision blurring with darkness at the edges. He tried not to think of the gun at the back of his head. Tried not to think of Kent and all the nights they’d spent on back roads, passing the pipe or the powder between them, how badly he needed it now. Tried not to think of the insides of his friend’s body, now exposed and twisted and leaking on the floor.

His tongue worked the gaps of his teeth.

He thought of getting clean, how he might actually be able to do it now that Kent was gone. He thought of Preacher Ferland’s God, full of wrath and retribution and mercy for those like him, those who had fallen into the dark. He felt the Preacher standing behind him, as though he’d been placed there by God himself, and how he’d seen seen the man plunge his hands into the box, before pulling the serpents out, always unharmed, his face calm, serene, at one with the Maker.

Brandon swallowed. He tried to summon a calmness or faith. Tried to find a way forward without his own fear.

An electricity entered the room, soft but insistent, just over the surface of his skin.

“God is here with us now,” Ferland said, pushing Brandon forward. “You can feel it. Don’t let Him leave you now.”

Brandon raised his right arm and placed it over the top, a half-forgotten Psalm on his lips.

The rattlesnakes began to writhe, their bodies turning and twisting in the shadow of his hand, the ends of their tails rattling, beating against the cheap wood. Forked tongues flicked rapidly, the serpent’s eyes shining sick and wet in the shadows.

He closed his eyes. Tried to picture God and his Kingdom. The peace of it. The bravery. The Power and the Glory and the Joy.

Slowly, Brandon lowered his hand into the red wooden container, prayers flowing from his lips. Behind him, Preacher Ferland joined in, his voice loud and commanding.

The hissing and rattling of the vipers grew louder as he lowered his hand deeper, the tails of the rattlesnakes thumping against the insides of the box. Brandon raised his voice to match the Preacher’s, his eyes clenched shut as his hand descended into the whirling mass of scales and teeth, and amidst the electricity and their voices and the shaking of the snakes tails, the room became filled with a strange uneven melody, like a man speaking in tongues.

Paul J. Garth has been published in Thuglit, Needle: A Magazine of Noir, Plots with Guns, Crime Factory, Tough, and several other anthologies and web magazines. He lives and writes in Nebraska, where he lives with his family. An editor at Shotgun Honey, he is at work on his first novel, and can be found online by following @pauljgarth on Twitter.

Qué Falta, fiction by Jake Stimmel

This place used to be the sea. I sit on a high cliff, overlook the town. Below me the red desert bows under the weight of a lonely city, a copper-stain cluster that huddles against pecan orchards and watches the sky. Twin scars of highway and dry Rio Grande split the downtown buildings. I trace those scars gently with my eyes, following them South to where the land rises up and is returned to the desert.

These cliffs are the highest place I could get to, but over this emptiness you can never see any further. Certainly not to El Paso, where the ground holds saltwater aquifers. This desert is endless rolling seafloor, broken only by ridges that pierce up through cracked dirt like stalagmites. As if brackish water has leeched upwards from the earth. The sky is agoraphobic in its expanse – stare too long and it pins your chest.

A great-tailed grackle leaps out above me, splays iridescent tailfeathers and drafts away from here, stretching toward the sun before flapping twice and twisting to the city below. It will perch on a dive bar, or maybe a limb over the turtle pond on the college campus. Each hexagon of floating turtle shell emerging from the surface will break independently from the surface and then disappear.

There is a remote chance – the hot wind presses the back of my neck – there is a chance my great-tailed grackle will coast low along Valleyview Drive and come to rest on Solitare’s neon road sign. That’s where I work. I sell prefab houses. I am late, but that doesn’t matter anymore. 

#

Solitare’s break room is in the back bedroom of a model home, a one-story ranch which acts as our main office. In the break bedroom, I sit on the starched sheets of an unused bed and listen as my coworker Arturo runs cold water from the bathroom sink tap. We do not have a water cooler.

Arturo returns from the bathroom with his water bottle and asks, what’s wrong with you. I don’t answer. I hold my conical paper cup. We got those. I’m hungover. He knows that. About the money, he knows nothing.

Arturo won’t give up asking about my life. He wants to know about my family, and what family, I ask back. He then says he knows about my family; I already told him when we were drunk and he’s just wondering how they are feeling.

How are they feeling, Arturo? How would I know? Didn’t I already tell you that we don’t talk at all? I hope that’s what I said.

Arturo rolls his eyes. Then how are you feeling? Arturo won’t stop with the questions. I say I’m feeling nothing, he doesn’t really want to know, and instead I ask him about his own family. They’re here and there, he says, one side and the other. Mostly on the other side. I’d like to know which border he’s referring to. He tells me about plastic toys, wax candles and hospital beds.

But I know you’re in trouble, Arturo presses, when we drink enough you start muttering about something you’ve lost and you won’t stop.

What I’ve lost… friends, purpose? I do not say I lost drugs. A lot of them, and not mine, I was buying on the margin to get out. If I am killed for it, they will destroy anybody who might know why. So I don’t say nothing to anybody. I’m already trapped. I don’t even talk to my sister or my mother… although that was a long time ago I decided that. Not like now – now we couldn’t talk even if I tried.

I didn’t think Arturo would ever attempt to be my friend. I offer him some water from my paper cup. I say it’s frigid. I know he likes the word.

Whatever, Arturo says, that shit is room temperature, and he goes.

#

That evening, after work, Arturo and I are getting drunk way in the back of the Solitare’s lot, sitting on the dirt behind a hideous mint green home with off-white trim. Nobody will ever buy this house. We lean against the fence, sitting in an empty backyard, and point a flashlight under the house to search for scorpions. The late summer sky is cold and clear above us and the nighttime desert is growing colder. We mostly do this on Tuesdays and Fridays, and Wednesdays, but it’s a special Monday occasion because Arturo just had a baby.

He says, you know, it felt like I was giving birth, nods like I must know and I really don’t.

I ask him if it hurt and he snorts, but I’m not joking. Maybe family only hurts later for some people, for us. Arturo is my only friend. I think he knows about the money and the rest. Although he has stopped his prying since this morning.

This morning, we were standing at the counter in the living room, we watched leased vehicles with heavy window tint roll past. When he asked me for the third time since they took my family, what is happening, I tell him that what is happening to me could happen to him. That shuts him up. I tilt the flashlight toward white picket fences and the tall chain-links that loom behind.

He doesn’t say anything except that our commission sucks at Solitare’s. I have to leave before I get too slammed and he gets out of me what I was hinting the other night, what I want to say about the money. He almost gets it out of me, that truth. They’ll kill for the truth – the money. With luck they’ll kill him first and not ask any questions, in that way that they ask. So I leave without saying more and drive home, collapse and cry on my buckling pleather couch.

#

The next day I call off work to take a trip. I want to go to the ancient dwellings at Gila National Forest; I want to see more cliffs, have some sort of esoteric and rejuvenating experience. I only recover from the hangover around noon and I don’t have time, really, but I leave anyways.

Before I even get out of town, around 4:30 in the afternoon, I arrive at a bridge across the Rio Grande by Arturo’s house. The river below is dry and the mud is cracked like a calloused heel. I spot a couple of O’Keeffe’s flowers growing pure-white and lovely in the center, and drop down to look. In the center of it all, a cracked skull of a bull. I want to raise it to the sky. I am expecting the head to smell like dust and nostalgia. But when I do, it doesn’t smell at all. And I am a lonely man in a ditch holding bones to the sky.

I decide to take tomorrow off as well, plot a different route to fulfillment. I still have time. I’ll sleep early and drive straight to the highway.

#

I mean to sleep and not drink. I can’t sleep, so I drink heavily and then drive through a hazy predawn morning headed for White Sands. The highway crests over the sharp bluffs of the Organ Mountains, my cliff among them, down through lush desert meadows, and is then straight and flat and dead the whole way. “LOAN FULFILLMENT”, an old billboard screams from the highway’s edge. It’s the first sign I’ve seen for miles. Chunks have peeled away from the frame, left the phone number incomplete.

I get to the park entrance and pay, drive some more until I reach the end of the road and a picnic parking area where I step out. The trail is marked by concrete bollards in the dunes. How do they stand straight among all this softness? Curious, I follow them, and the tiny obelisks lead me several miles out into the low, clean, sparkling white dunes. 

I dig my fingers into the hot surface. Just below, the sand is cool and moist. A beach with my sister, tall castles in the sand. I consider digging down for water, to see if I might find some. After a long time searching, the sun comes down again. I hike out and drive back to the mountains and Las Cruces, checking all around for headlights on the dark surface of the empty desert.

#

The next morning, again on my high perch, the sun is high. In patches below, that brown desert is shimmering. This money that I owe, it’s riding around in a car that the driver can’t afford. Or it’s in somebody’s hands, and they’ll spend it once I’m gone. And keep my family. Take Arturo, too. But make no mistake about money, here. It is the only thing that travels with impunity.

So I stand up and look over the cliff’s edge. Far enough down. I could go that way. But this is a religious transaction. The money doesn’t stop with me. Some kid will be in a new sports car that he can suddenly afford and driving down Picacho Ave, looking for me, and I’ll be way down there among the red rocks and scrub brush. He won’t be able to find me. And then he’ll pay my price, too. So maybe I can’t fall far enough down from this place. I look up again. No more blackbirds.

I can still squint out that thin dirt road winding just past where my body would land. It curves left and reappears further down, cresting a low hill before disappearing. On that road I see a glinting dot. Not what I pictured. Not here, and yet here they come.

Only one person has found me up here before, my sister. They are coming to take me back to her. I look once more for a grackle and find only heavy black rainclouds on the horizon. Virga thickens below, curls like steam. My ears are plugged and the cliff starts to lean one way and the other, and there’s no wind. On the road below, I hear my car is coming. I take one last look at that brutal speck beneath towering, rain-swollen horizon. 

He said he was happy, I think. I hope I forget about him… Everything could be forgotten when you look out on this scale, desert, sky, clouds, on and forever. I wait beneath the lingering sun, sit down on the edge of the cliff and scoot forward. I am ready for the blasting rain to fill every empty space, and for the murderers in the SUV. It is large now, an aging black Suburban, yes. Wind presses on my back and I move forward a little more, my tailbone pressing against the edge.

The car drives past. But this feeling, now, death is coming as sure and heavy as the downpour. It will feed the dirt, turn the riverbed to mud and nourish the lost cattle bones I found. A car disappears where highway bridges empty riverbed. I know what I’m doing when I get down from the rock.

#

Arturo’s house is about fifteen minutes away, on the other side of the river. Entering the neighborhoods at the edge of the city, I crank my radio and refuse to look at a mural’s cement fence, blue and yellow and screaming at me to turn around. At a stoplight, I open the glovebox. Of course there is a gun there, a cheap glock.

As I draw closer to Arturo’s house, down on Valleyview, my car passes a large neon sign advertising ATVs and quality firearms. But I don’t need a good one. I got mine for cheap at the recent gun show, at the convention center beside the pond and its turtles.

The rain is coming down hard enough that I stop in a couple places, wondering if the road is overflowing, if it might carry me away. That would be for the best. I consider using the shoulder, must be muddy. Losing control would mean worse for him and his family. The asphalt saves me, bald front tires pulling the back ones free.

Arturo’s house has a literal white picket fence, and I step out of my car and step over the gate. Face up, I clean the tears and sweat from my lips. How can I knock and tell him about the riverbed, those things that may grow after we walk away. Arturo saves me the trouble.

He walks out from his porch with an umbrella, splashes across his muddy lawn and hugs me and as his stubble touches my earlobe, I tell him I want to tell him about what’s happening. And neither of us are crying, his eyes are empty like he knows what I want to do. He doesn’t say anything, just nods, and we walk together. His fingertips touch the cold car door handle, but I splash ahead through the mud.

He follows me and opens the umbrella. The smell of rain and manure is thick in my nose, almost overpowering, so I start to jog towards the river. Arturo drags behind, stepping around one puddle and into another, his tennis shoes must be soaked and so are mine.

We come to the nearest bridge across the river. Water rushes over, around it. You can feel concrete shift beneath your feet. I turn and wait for my friend to catch up. Heavy in my pocket, the gun writhes like a pinned coralsnake, and my mouth is opening wide to shout.

Arturo walks up calmly and tells me that he can’t understand what I’m saying but he already knows, about everything, my family and what happened to them. He’s sorry, he wants to help. Below our feet, the river writhes and rushes, swollen with the power of heavy rain.

What I did, what did I do! What did I do, Arturo, you’re speaking in the past tense and I’m standing right here with this gun.

I take three steps back, pull it and point and Arturo doesn’t run. I don’t yet shoot. Neither of us speaks. If I could see his hazel eyes through the rain, maybe that would change things, remind me of something I’ve forgotten. I desperately want to remember… but no, this is the best thing. It only gets worse.

Again Arturo screams, Maybe they will come back, They will let them come back.

I aim badly and shoot him in the lower part of his face. He falls over, wet hair slack over his forehead, the lower half of his face dangling as he falls and slapping the water as he lands. Rain is pounding down and the wind whips in an awful way so I take two steps forward and shoot him many more times. The wind seems to stop. My teeth begin to chatter.

Up and down, things come and go, shadows of rain like vapor rising, or the sky like the roof of a cave. This world is a paradox, horribly vast and each person trapped in their own cold crevice thousands of feet down. And the cold water rushes on around us.

I haul Arturo’s corpse onto the bridge railing and embrace him. We roll over the side together, we make our escape from the cartel. We are stark flowers among the desiccation cracks by the time they find us, far down the riverbed.

Jake Stimmel is an educator and writer in Minneapolis. He is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Queens University of Charlotte. He is online at jakestimmel.com or, in real life, feeding the cat.

Glass Houses, fiction by Brandon Barrows

We were on the patio by the pool, under a blazing hot sun. Marie sipped a melon daiquiri from a sweating glass, taking a break from reciting the same complaints for the millionth time. Her pretty, heart-shaped face didn’t look old enough to drink, but that was the result of good living and a lot of money. She was almost thirty; she’d been married for ten years and, if you believed her, hated her husband for almost as long. I believed.

“Pete, you haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said.” Some people might have whined, but Marie was accusing. With her self-assurance and confidence she couldn’t be passive if she tried. She certainly would never whine. I wondered what she was like before marrying Albert Dixon and his money; was she born with this haughtiness or did she learn it? She never talked about her past, only how unhappy she was in the present.

“Well, it’s your ass in the grinder if he finds out about us,” Marie said before taking another pull on her daiquiri straw.

“Who’s going to tell him?” I asked. My eyes strayed beyond Marie to where Christopher, the houseman, was peeling an opaque, textured plastic film off of the big glass door that led from the patio to the house’s entertainment room. I’d never seen such a thing until a few weeks ago. When I asked about it, Marie said she bought it online a couple of years before, that it was designed for better privacy with glass doors or windows, but that it was really so her husband would stop stumbling into the otherwise crystal-clear door when drunk. It apparently happened several times, the big inebriated man thinking the closed door was open and walking into it. She didn’t care what happened to Al, but they used the room for parties, and the potential liability scared her.

Marie twisted in her chaise to see what I was looking at. As she did, Christopher started cleaning the window with a spray-bottle and rag. “Don’t worry about Chris. He knows where his bread’s buttered.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“You should be.” Marie picked up a tube of suntan lotion and began spreading the creamy goo first on her arms and then across her chest. “Not about Chris, but when Al’s drunk, he’ll fly off the handle about any little thing and he’s jealous as hell. These last couple months with you have been wonderful, but it’s only a matter of time before he catches us. Want to hear what happened to the last guy?” She flashed a smirk like a mean little kid, handed me the tube and turned over, exposing her back, bare except for the tiny strip of white stretchy material keeping the bikini top in place.

I didn’t bother responding, just rubbed lotion between my hands then began massaging it into her skin, burned golden by the sun, feeling its silkiness and the smoothly taut muscles beneath. Finally, I said, “I think you want to be caught, having me in the house like this all the time.”

Marie’s head whipped around, anger in her eyes. “Maybe I do. Al’s got me trapped with that damned pre-nup. He knows I don’t love him, and he doesn’t care, but if I divorce him, I’m out on my butt without a dime.”

“And a pretty little butt it is, sweetheart.” I patted her rear.

“I’m serious, Pete. If he divorces me, I’d at least get alimony, but that’s chump-change. Maybe it’d be worth it, but most of the time, I’d rather put up with him than even think of living like some broke-ass. What I really want is to see him dead.” She turned back over, to better pin me with her glare. “Then I’d have plenty, even if I did have to split the money with his sister.”

“What’s she like?”

Marie waved a hand. “I told you before, I don’t know the bitch. Al invited her to the wedding, but she never showed – just sent us a card and a god-damned Cuisinart. I guess they talk sometimes, but they never really got along and we never see each other. I don’t know why he keeps her in his will.”

I shrugged. “Family’s important.”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Even with the drinking, Al’s healthy as a horse. He’ll probably outlive us all, unless one of his drunken little accidents finally does the trick.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about, baby: accidents.”

Marie scoffed, looking at me like I was the biggest idiot she ever met. “An accident? You’re out of your mind. The cops know every trick in the book. Believe me, I’ve watched enough Investigation Discovery to realize that. Get this into that handsome head: it’s impossible to fake something and get away with it.”

“Sure,” I agreed. “Impossible to fake.” I looked past Marie, letting a smile play across my face. Christopher was examining the sliding glass door. He nodded in satisfaction, then picked up his bottle and rag and went inside. The plastic film he removed before cleaning the door was conspicuously absent.

“Does he always do that?” I asked, jutting my chin towards the house.

“Do what?” Marie turned to look and saw instantly what I meant. “Oh, the privacy film?” She looked to me. “Sure, he gives the window a few hours to dry before putting it back on so no moisture gets trapped. Why?”

“Give the man the rest of the day off, and I’ll tell you after a little more thought.”

Marie frowned. “I can give Christopher the day; I don’t really need him anyway. But why can’t you tell me what you’re thinking now?”

“Because, baby.” I leaned forward, tilted her chin up and lowered my lips to hers. Her mouth opened beneath mine and I felt a little shiver go through her as my tongue darted inside her mouth, then back out as I pulled away. “I’ve got other things on my mind right now.”

Her face flushed and her voice was husky as she said, “Let’s go inside.”

*

Later, we lay in bed. I was flat on my back, watching the tendril of smoke from Marie’s cigarette crawl towards the ceiling. I hated the smell of the thing, and I hated tasting it in her mouth, but it was a small price for all the benefits I was enjoying now and those still in the future.

“It’s just wild enough to work, Pete.” Her weight shifted and I felt the softness of her breast against my shoulder. “People have been hurt, or even killed, like that. Mostly little kids, I think, but I read about a woman in India who died in some bank running into an electronic door that wasn’t working right. She went clear through it.”

“Uh huh,” I said. “And Al’s already got a history with your door, right?”

“He gave himself a bloody nose last time. He’s lucky. He might have crashed right through it if he was moving any faster. Christopher cleans it so well, you can’t even see it at night. That’s why I got the—“

She cut herself off, sitting up straight and gripping my shoulder tightly. “The film. Christopher took it off to clean the glass. That’s why you had me give him the rest of the day off, so he’d forget to put it back on.”

I grinned up at her, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to.

“And tonight’s Al’s poker game with all his stupid little buddies. He won’t be home until one or two in the morning and he’ll probably be smashed.”

“You said he always has a nightcap when he comes home?” There was an extensive bar in the entertainment room. Standing at it or sitting on one of its high stools, the room was designed so you had a perfect view of the pool through the sliding glass door.

“Uh huh,” Marie said. “He can’t sleep without one last drink, the god-damned lush.” Her brow wrinkled; fine lines appeared around her eyes and mouth, making her look closer to her age. “But why would he go out to the pool? He can swim, but he hardly ever does, and never at night.”

“Easy.” I shifted to a sitting position, my back against the padded headboard. “We wait ‘til he’s at the bar, drinking his schnapps or whatever, then you scream and throw yourself straight into the deep end. He’ll hear you and go smashing through the door to save you from drowning. He would save you, right?”

“He’d try.” Marie sneered. “He likes to take care of his property and that’s all I am to him.” She took hold of my shoulder again, gripping so tightly it hurt. There was a mixture of excitement and worry dancing in her eyes now. “What if it doesn’t work, though? What if he remembers the door or accidentally touches it first or something?”

“So we muff it, that’s all. He yanks you out of the pool and he’s your big, strong hero-man for a day or two. We’ll just have to wait, figure out something else, and try again.”

Marie stubbed the cigarette out in the nightstand ashtray, a thoughtful look on her face. After a full minute, she said quietly, “It’ll work.” She turned to me, wearing a grin of sly anticipation. “It’ll work, Pete. He’ll be drunk and he’ll either be flying high from winning at poker or he’ll be looking for a way to redeem himself if he loses. You know, boost his self-esteem. Either way, he’ll hear me scream, see me splashing around out there, and go crashing right through the glass trying to play Mister Hero. He probably won’t even think about the door, not with it freshly cleaned and the film gone. And if he thinks of it at all, he’ll just think the door’s already open.

“You’ll need to be there, though, Pete.” She took my hand, lacing her long, delicate fingers through mine as she pinned my eyes with hers. “Just stay in the shadows by the cabanas and once he’s through the door, you’ll have to pull me out, all right? You know I’m not a strong swimmer, and the deep end makes me nervous.”

“Sure, I know,” I told her. She owned more bathing suits than any woman I ever met, but I never once saw her in the water.

“If it does work, you’ll have to be a witness. We’ll tell the police that you were having a drink with Al at the bar, and you heard me scream, and Al rushed right out through the door before you could stop him.” She paused. “And Pete?” She was studying me now, looking at me as if she could see inside me, like she was searching for something.

“Yeah?”

“You know if this only sort of works what you’ll have to do, right? Are you sure you have the stomach for it? I mean, if he breaks the door, but he isn’t…”

She didn’t have to finish. If Albert Dixon didn’t cut his own throat smashing the glass door to pieces, would I be capable of picking up one of those jagged shards and doing it for him? I didn’t answer, not with words, and I don’t know what she saw on my face or in my eyes, but I knew what I was thinking and somehow, she did, too. Her gaze jerked away, and her fingers untangled from mine.

I gave her hand a squeeze, surprised at how cold it felt when it was so warm a moment earlier. “Relax. It’ll work out,” I told her. She nodded and forced herself to smile, but still pulled her hand free.

*

It worked perfectly, everything exactly as I planned.

At one-thirty-one the next morning, Albert Dixon came home from his poker game and went right into the entertainment room for a final drink before bed. From the darkness around the cabanas, I clearly saw him pour himself a big drink from a little bottle and swig half of it down in the first gulp. He was just lifting the glass to finish it off when Marie’s scream ripped the night apart. It was followed instantly by a splash. Al’s head whipped around, the glass, forgotten, dropped from his fingers, and he charged towards the pool.

First, the sliding door shattered with a sharp crack, like splintering bone, and then there were almost-melodic sounds as thousands of razor-edged shards tinkled to the concrete of the patio. Al Dixon’s form, already bloodied from dozens of cuts, went sprawling face-forward into a heap of deadly debris. The spurting blood, bright against the gray-white concrete, quickly pooled around his head, shining dully in the light spilling from the house. I was glad that his face was turned away.

Keeping to the shadows, I moved towards the nearest edge of the pool. It was maybe twenty seconds since Marie threw herself into the deepest part, but she was already struggling to keep her head above water and as I watched, she was quickly losing the battle. She screamed, she spluttered, she called out for me. All I could think was that my guess was right. She wasn’t a weak swimmer; she couldn’t swim at all.

Marie went down one last time. I stood watching for a few minutes more, but the night was already reclaiming its calm. The Dixons’ property was a couple acres and surrounded by both hedges and white-washed fences, so I wasn’t worried about nosy neighbors. I was just glad that it was finally over and taking a moment to regain my own equilibrium.

Finally, I let myself out of the back gate, walked through a short stretch of woods to where I left my car, parked on the side of a little-used dirt road. Driving back to my hotel, I thought over the last several hours. My only regret was for Christopher, who would probably feel personally responsible when he found the scene in the morning. After all, his not replacing the door’s privacy film was the direct cause of this tragedy, of the death of a man killed while rushing to save his poor, drowning wife.

In my hotel room, I packed my things. It would be good to finally go home, to see Allison again. It was only about nine weeks, but it was the longest we’d been apart since we were married the year before. Even with Marie to distract me, I missed my wife more than I would have thought possible. I needed to see her, to hold her in my arms, to feel her love again. This was all her idea, but she would be eager to have me back, too. Especially now – she would need someone to provide comfort in this time of grief. Even if they didn’t like each other, Albert Dixon was still her brother and no matter the time or distance, family is important.

Brandon Barrows is the author of several novels, including THE LAST REQUEST published fall 2023 from Bloodhound Books. He has published over one-hundred published stories, mostly crime, mystery, and westerns. He is a three-time Mustang Award finalist and a 2022 Derringer Award nominee. Find more at http://www.brandonbarrowscomics.com and on Twitter @Brandon Barrows 

The Deep Drive, fiction by Roxanne Patruznick

Lorraine was still groggy at five as she stepped out of the shower and began her half-hour makeup ritual before work. She dressed in her uniform, tucked her small gold cross under her button-up blouse, put on her Leggs pantyhose, and her comfortable, white shoes. They needed a polish. She didn’t look forward to being on her feet all day. Lorraine opened the small planner her husband got her as a stocking stuffer. Under the date, February 15, 1984, she scribbled, “afterwork gym, groceries, and pick up Olive from daycare.” Her husband and her daughter were still asleep as she stole a few sips of instant coffee from her thermos. She shoved a day-old muffin and an orange in her overstuffed purse and was out the door by six.

It was Lorraine’s least favorite time of year when the sky was the deep color of night as she left the house. The short walk from Loraine’s apartment to her car was generally uneventful, an hour before anyone else on the block was up. Sometimes she saw an old man who lived up the street walk his dog. Other times she saw someone on their way home from being out all night, coming from god knows where, doing god knows what.

She saw two young men across the street either coming or going and didn’t think much of it. The darkness softened as the streetlamps went out. The sun was waking, but not soon enough for Lorraine. Feeling a chill in the air, she shivered under her knit sweater. At least it wasn’t snowing or icy like back east, where she was from. Soon she’d be at work. Soon the sun would rise and turn the frost to liquid and the liquid to steam and everything would be warm again.

Lorraine stood in front of her 1972 Dodge Dart, her fingers cold, as she fumbled with the keys. She dropped them, laughing and muttering “butter fingers,” under her breath. She picked up the key, and as she stuck it in the lock, she heard a voice behind her. A man’s voice.

“I have a gun.”

She felt something hard at her back. Her hands went up reflexively. The keys remained stuck in the lock. She caught the reflection of two men behind her in her car window.

“We need your car,” the other man said.

“Take it,” she said, shaking.

She saw the two men look at each other in the reflection of the glass. She shut her eyes and whispered, “I have a daughter. Please.”

The man with the gun opened the car door as the other man lifted her purse from her shoulders, placing it in the back seat. She felt her body go numb. Could this be the end?

“Get in,” said the man with the gun.

Lorraine’s body tensed. She glanced around hoping there was another way, that maybe someone else was on the street and saw what was happening. No one, nowhere.

“Get in,” the man repeated.

He forcefully shoved Lorraine inside the front of her Dodge. She slid all the way to the passenger side. She had a fleeting fantasy of pulling up the door lock and trying to escape, but the gun would go off before she even pulled the lock. In that moment she was alive.

The engine started and they were off.

The man in the driver seat was a young black man in his early twenties. He had dark wavy short cut hair, full lips and red-brown eyes, which rested behind glasses. The man in the backseat was white, about the same age with dirty blonde hair and steel blue eyes. He was the man with the gun and held it in one of his hands as he rummaged through Lorraine’s purse.

Lorraine grabbed the cross around her neck and whispered a prayer.

The two men exchanged glances.

“I hate religious people,” muttered the driver.

“You don’t believe in God?” asked the man in the back.

“Nope. I don’t believe the people who believe in God.”

“I thought all you Negroes were super religious and such.”

“That’s a misconception. Not all African-Americans swallow the white man’s colonial bullshit.”

Tears ran down Lorraine’s cheeks. She tasted them in her mouth as they pulled onto the freeway on-ramp. They passed a billboard of Ronald Reagan smiling and a quote about lowering taxes. Lorraine passed by that billboard every day and never thought much about it. She wondered if this would be the last time she’d see it.

“I need you to stop crying,” said the driver. “I can’t take crying while I’m driving.” He gestured to the man in the back. “Is there anything in her purse to make it stop?”

“I’ve got something that’ll make it stop.” The man in the back cocked the hammer of the gun.

Lorraine sucked in her breath, trying to stop the flow of her tears.

“No,” said the driver.

The man in the back un-cocked his gun, reluctantly setting it to the side. He dug around and found some tissues and handed her a bunch. She turned around grabbing a few tissues and saw the arms of the man, covered in prison tattoos. Her eyes flashed up to his large bicep and saw a swastika. She caught her breath and quickly turned forward. She dabbed at her eyes.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” she begged. “I won’t say anything. I swear. Please, let me go.”

“I need silence,” said the driver. “No talking and no crying.” He gripped the steering wheel tight in his hands.

The guy in the back found the day-old muffin in Lorraine’s purse and handed it to the driver. The driver broke the muffin in half and handed half to Lorraine, whose stomach was growling. She could only eat a few bites. The muffin tasted like glue in her mouth. The guy in the back peeled the orange, tearing off sections one at a time and popping them into his mouth.

“Do you think we’ll make it to the spot on time?” the guy in the back asked.

“I’ll do my best, but I can’t go any faster without drawing attention.”

“You know what happens if we don’t make it, right?”

“I can’t think of that right now.”

“Where are we going?” asked Lorraine. “Maybe you could just let me go?”

“Shut up,” said the man in the back. “We’ll let you go when we feel like it.” He leaned forward and whispered in the driver’s ear. “You know we gotta get rid of her. She’s dead weight. Pull over and I’ll do it quick.”

“Enough. You’re giving me a headache. Shut up for a while, both of you.”

The man in the back pressed the gun against the back of the driver’s neck. “Don’t tell me to shut up, nig…”

The driver slammed on the brakes causing Lorraine and the man in the backseat to lurch forward violently. The man in the back lost his grip on the gun. It fell on the floor and slid underneath the driver’s seat.

The car was stopped in the far-right lane. Fortunately, no cars were directly behind. Traffic moved around them.

“Don’t you ever call me that, you fucking Hitler-loving Nazi! Don’t even think it!”

“Isn’t that reverse racism?” asked the guy in the back. He contorted his body in an unnatural shape, rooting around for the gun under the seat.

“No such thing as reverse racism, dumbass.”

“Don’t call me a dumbass, you nig…”

The driver whipped around, pointing the gun at the man. “Say the word and it’ll be the last thing you say.”

“Okay, okay, sorry. Geez, Frederick. I just got a little angry is all.”

“I can’t believe you said my name, asshole!”

“Sorry, brother.”

“We are not brothers.”

Lorraine’s heart hammered in her chest. She pressed her body against the passenger door, dreaming of being courageous enough to escape.

“If we weren’t pressed for time, I’d take you outta this car and kick the shit out of you.”

“I said I was sorry, man. Can I have my gun back?”

“I think I’ll hold onto it for a while.”

“I thought you didn’t like guns.”

“Your gun privileges have been revoked for the time being.” Frederick placed the gun in the inside panel next to the driver seat. “If you’re good and quiet for a bit, I’ll give it back to you.”

They drove in silence for a long time. The architecture around the freeway transformed from tall buildings to sprawling hills and farmland. The colors of the hills went from green to gold, the vegetation all scrub with an occasional palm tree. Along with the landscape the number of cars on the road thinned out. The farther they went, the fewer cars they passed.

The man in the back continued rummaging through Lorraine’s purse. He found a Tootsie Pop and stuck it in his mouth. Then he found Lorraine’s small notebook planner and looked at her plans for the day. He ripped the page out of the planner, crumpled it and threw it on the floor of the car. There was an extensive amount of makeup, four different kinds of lipsticks. He unrolled one of the lipsticks and spread it across his lips.

“Hey Freddy, look how pretty I am.” He chuckled while Frederick glared at him through the rearview mirror.

The man in back found more: a few feminine products, two different kinds of headache medicine, some birth control pills, more candy, and even more makeup supplies. Frederick tuned into some music on the radio to offset the silence. A Michael Jackson song came on and Lorraine started to cry.

“Stop it,” said Frederick.

“My daughter loves this song,” she whispered. “She makes dance routines to it.”

“She probably doesn’t even have a daughter,” said the man in the back.

He found Lorraine’s wallet and thumbed through a few small photos inside behind the plastic. “I stand corrected. She does have a daughter.” He handed the wallet to Frederick who glanced at a picture of a young girl with big bushy hair.

“Is this your daughter?”

“Yes,” said Lorraine.

“What’s her name?”

“Olive.”

Frederick thumbed through the photos of Lorraine’s wallet as he continued to drive, glancing back and forth between the road and the photos. He came across a family photo of Lorraine, a young girl and a man.

“Is this your husband with the two of you?” asked Frederick.

“Yes,” said Lorraine. “That’s my husband and my little girl. Please don’t…”

Frederick shushed her studying the photo for a long time. He glanced a few times back and forth from the family photo to Lorraine. Lorraine had long, straight, sandy blonde hair. The man in the photo had brown, straight hair and the little girl had thick, kinky hair and a flat nose.

“Is she adopted?” he asked.

“What? That’s none of your business.”

There was a tense silence that followed. Lorraine was shaking. They’d been driving for hours going deeper and deeper into the desert with no end in sight.

“You and your husband are white, but your little girl is a sister,” said Frederick.

“No way,” said the guy in the back. “She looked white to me. Jewish or Italian or something?

“My name is Lorraine,” she said. “I’m just a waitress, a nobody. You can take my car, my money, but please don’t hurt me. You can drop me off here and I’ll find my way home. I won’t tell anyone. I love my daughter…”

“Enough,” said Frederick, sighing. “I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“I want to hear more,” said the man in the back. “I’m bored.”

“Drop it, Ruben!” yelled Frederick.

“Dude, you just said my name. Now she knows both our names!”

A heavy silence filled the car and was suddenly broken by Ruben. “So, if she’s not adopted, how come she don’t look like you? Is she from a previous marriage or old boyfriend or something?”

Lorraine sweat from nerves and the heat. The air conditioning in her car was broken so she cracked the window and took a breath.

Frederick glanced at Olive’s photo as he drove. “She looks a little like you but that’s definitely not her daddy.”

Lorraine silently clutched her gold cross wishing she could change the subject. If this was hell, she was now in it.

“What happened to her real daddy?” asked Ruben. “Is there a photo of him in there somewhere?”

Lorraine didn’t answer and stared straight ahead mumbling a few prayers under her breath.

“You fucking hypocrite,” whispered Frederick.

“Frederick is a beautiful name,” said Lorraine attempting to change the subject.

“I was named after Frederick Douglass.”

“Who’s that?” asked Ruben.

“He was a former slave, abolitionist, and poet.” Frederick glanced at Lorraine clutching her cross with tears in her eyes. “You don’t know who that is either, do you?”

Lorraine shook her head trembling all over.

“It’s so easy for you two white people to be happily ignorant. You can do whatever you want without consequence.”

“Hey, man, I grew up poor,” said Ruben. “I had it just as hard as you.”

“Don’t even compare our situations. I have to work ten times harder than you for everything. Your ancestors didn’t build this country and get lynched as a reward!” Frederick crushed the steering wheel in his hands.

“Slavery is over man, let’s just move on already,” said Ruben.

Frederick pulled over to the side of the road. “Get out!” he yelled at Ruben.

“We don’t have time for this, Frederick.”

Frederick pointed the gun at him and Ruben reluctantly obliged.

“I know I’m not gonna teach you or the lady in the car anything about racism but I’m gonna kick your ass anyway. Because maybe it’ll make me feel better for five minutes.”

“Look, brother, we’ve got to work together. Let’s get back in the car and finish this thing.”

Before Ruben could say anymore, Frederick landed a right hook. “That’s for your fucking swastika tattoo, asshole.”

Ruben’s nose burst as blood ran into his mouth. “I’m not in the KKK. Those are from prison. I had to get them, or I’d have been killed!”

Frederick punched him in the gut and another hook to the jaw. Ruben landed on the dirt ground with a thud. “This isn’t a fair fight, man. You got the gun.”

“Oh, it’s not fair, huh?” Frederick pulled out the gun from the waist of his jeans. “You wanna talk to me about fairness?” He cocked the gun and pointed it at Ruben’s head. “Open your mouth. Say one more stupid thing. Give me a reason.”

“If you kill me or her, it’ll be worse for you. I know you don’t want that?”

Frederick caught himself. The real reason he didn’t like guns was that he knew if he used them and got caught his punishment would be ten times more severe for him than Ruben.

Lorraine was not in the car. She found some courage from somewhere and ran while the two men fought, but she didn’t get far. Frederick saw her in the distance and fired the gun in the air. She froze. He caught up to her.

“Get back in the car,” he said.

***

They drove in silence. Ruben sulked in the back seat wiping the red lipstick from his mouth. He looked at his face in one of Lorraine’s compact mirrors and swore under his breath when he saw the black eye Frederick had given him. The gas tank was almost empty, and Lorraine had to use the bathroom. Frederick pulled into a rundown desert gas station.

“Gas, snacks, water, and bathroom breaks,” said Frederick. He glanced at Lorraine. “Don’t try anything. I will use this if I have to.” He motioned to his gun.

All of Lorraine’s courage was gone as she walked to the bathroom, accompanied by Ruben. She spotted a public phone booth from the corner of her eye before opening the restroom door. But Ruben noticed and shook his head. “No way, no how,” he said.

Inside the convenient store Frederick went up and down the aisles getting a few things. All the while, the fat, old white man eyed him from behind the counter. Frederick was used to white people’s suspicions. His whole life he’d been looked at, followed, mistrusted, and feared. People made assumptions because he was black, assumed he was dumb or uneducated. But the one thing they got right is that he was a criminal. He put down the water, soda, and snacks and paid for the gas while the store owner leered. “You’re not from around here, are you boy?” said the man.

Frederick didn’t answer, grabbed his stuff and left.

***

Back on the road, Lorraine forced herself to eat and felt a little better, at least physically. Ruben ate his sandwich slowly, as his jaw was sore.

“So, tell me about Olive’s dad?” said Frederick.

Lorraine put her sandwich down and swallowed the chunk in her mouth. “He’s at home, he’s…”

“I mean her real dad. Her biological father. Like, why isn’t he in the picture?”

Ruben was reclining in the back seat but very much awake. “Yeah, I wanna hear. Tell us, Lorraine.”

Lorraine hoped that they’d forget about the topic of Olive’s father. “I don’t know. It didn’t work out I guess.” Lorraine drank her cheap gas station coffee like it was water. It calmed her down. She was one of those people who had a love of cheap coffee. She could drink it all day long. And she could drink it at night and have no trouble sleeping. It was her superpower.

“Why didn’t it work out?” asked Ruben.

“It didn’t work out because he’s black,” said Frederick.

Lorraine shut her eyes. “What more do you want from me?”

“What does your daughter think of him?”

“Can we talk about something else?”

“No.”

“It happened before me and Ronald married, but I was dating him at the time. Dating both of them. Ronald and Charles.”

“Charles is the biological father?” asked Ruben.

“Yes,” said Lorraine. “But I was living with Ronald. And then I met Charles…” she trailed off.

“So, you chose the white guy,” said Frederick.

“They were both so different. I was so young, barely twenty.”

Ruben chuckled from the backseat. “That’s how old we are.”

“I went to a family gathering at Charles’s house about a year after Olive was born. I was the only white person there. I felt like a foreigner. I received strange looks from some of his family. Someone made a joke about passing the white meat, and it seemed like they were referring to me.”

Frederick glanced at her. “And then what?”

“I wasn’t strong enough,” Lorraine had tears in her eyes again. “On the drive home from the gathering, Charles asked me if Olive was his.”

“And?” said Frederick.

“I told him she wasn’t.” Lorraine couldn’t look at Frederick and felt his judgment like a heavy weight.

“So, Olive doesn’t know about her father?” asked Frederick.

“No,” she whispered.

“That’s so fucked up,” said Ruben.

“You should’ve told her,” said Frederick gravely. “She has a right to know who her real father is.”

“Her real father is at home,” Lorraine said.

“When we let you go, will you tell her the truth?” asked Frederick.

“I don’t know,” she said looking down at her empty paper coffee cup.

“We’re almost there,” said Ruben, eyeing Frederick in the rearview mirror.

“I know,” said Frederick.

The car turned onto a deserted road and finally stopped. Frederick and Ruben got out and argued as Lorraine sat in the car.

“We have to get rid of her,” whispered Ruben. “I’ve done it before. It sucks, but it must be done.”

“I’ll do it,” said Frederick.

“Are you sure? It’s a shame. She seems like such a nice Christian lady and all.”

Lorraine couldn’t hear what either of them were whispering, but she knew what was coming.

Ruben walked around to the passenger side door, opened it, and said, “It’s time to go, Lorraine.”

Lorraine had a hard time getting her body out of the car, but she managed it. “Where are we going?” she asked breathlessly.

“You’re going with him.” Ruben leaned against the car and pointed to Frederick.

Lorraine felt lightheaded and heavy at the same time as she walked towards Frederick. A few tumbleweeds were kicked up by a breeze as Frederick directed her to walk ahead. Frederick held a water bottle in one hand and a gun in the other. He took a few sips from the bottle as they walked. They walked for about ten minutes, but to Lorraine it was the longest most agonizing walk of her life. Then they stopped.

Ruben hung back by the car observing, appreciating the distance, grateful that it was Frederick doing it instead of him. He lit a cigarette as he watched the two of them talking. He wondered what they were talking about, but glad he didn’t have to hear it. He imagined Lorraine begging for her life, which most people did. After you take someone’s life, memories of their desperate pleas haunt your dreams forever. The price you pay for killing.

Ruben took another drag on his smoke. They seemed to be done talking. The air was dead around the car as Ruben blew out smoke. He watched as Frederick threw Lorraine to the ground firing three shots into her body. Ruben became ridgedrigid at the sound of the gun. He saw Frederick kneel to the body and then walk back towards the car.

Frederick slid inside the Dodge Dart. “It’s done. Let’s go. We’re slightly late, but I think it’ll be okay.”

Ruben had underestimated Frederick. He was more coldblooded than he realized.

***

Lorraine and Frederick stopped. She looked back toward her car. Ruben leaning against it, watching.

“Are you letting me go?” asked Lorraine.

“No,” said Frederick.

“I won’t tell anyone. Please, I’m a mother!” Tears streaked her eyes. She started praying.

“Shut up with that Jesus shit,” yelled Frederick pointing the gun at her.

“My daughter,” she whispered. “She’ll never know the truth if I’m dead.”

“You had your chance.” He cocked the gun.

“I know. I’m a terrible mother. I’m a hypocrite. I’m all the bad things, but if I had another chance…”

“If I let you go, would you tell your daughter about her father?”

“Yes, I would. I will.” Her voice was raised. She looked back at the Dodge. Ruben continued watching.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t understand,” Lorraine choked back tears as she spoke. “Why is this important to you?”

“I never knew my father. I had to figure out who I am on my own.” He sighed. “Olive will never know who she really is unless she knows about her dad. Her real dad.”

There was a deep pain in Lorraine’s eyes and with it a realization. What was greater, her fear of dying or the shame she carried about a secret she wished she could smash?

“I don’t want to tell her, but I will. If you let me go, I promise to tell her about her father.”

He pointed the gun at her.

“But if you kill me, the secret dies with me. Please!”

“Enough!” Frederick shoved her to the ground and fired three rapid shots.

Then he leaned down next to Lorraine’s body. “You’d better keep your word,” he whispered. “You’d better tell her about her black daddy.”

Lorraine, full of adrenaline thought she had been shot, but Frederick fired a few feet from her body. Her ears rang, but she heard everything he said.

“Stay down and don’t move for at least twenty minutes,” he said before he stood and walked away. He left her the bottle of water.

Lorraine lay on the desert ground for a very long time. Weeping. She thanked Jesus for saving her and was glad for the water that Frederick had left her. Making her way to the highway she walked for hours until a car picked her up and took her to a payphone.

Months went by and Lorraine and Ronald agreed that it was best not to tell Olive about her biological father. It just seemed too complicated; Ronald had told her. Lorraine was relieved because she didn’t really want to tell Olive about Charles. She wanted to forget about the whole thing and maybe if she prayed hard enough, she could release some of the guilt she felt.

Six months after the kidnapping, Ruben and Frederick were caught and Lorraine had to testify. She pointed them out in court. They were so young, barely men. She had a hard time looking at Frederick in the courtroom. When the sentences were handed out Frederick was given much more time in jail than Ruben.

That same week Lorraine took Olive to a park after church. They walked together along a duck pond. Olive had turned eleven. She was big for her age, already developing with kinky hair that Lorraine didn’t know what to do with other than straighten. Lorraine bought Olive an ice cream and they sat on a bench. A couple holding hands walked past them, a white man and black woman. Olive watched them as she licked her cone. Lorraine watched too.

“Olive.”

“Yes, mama?”

“There’s something I have to tell you.”

Roxanne Patruznick is a writer and visual artist who lives as a nomad, traveling the world with her husband. She’s lived in over a dozen countries in the last 5 years. When not painting, Roxanne is hard at work on her urban fantasy novel. You can find her art at www.gummyempire.com. THE DEEP DRIVE is her first published short story.