lucked up

Matt showed up at noon, flask-in-hand, and demanded that we celebrate his last night as a free man by going on a bender. He’s sitting in the passenger seat now, that fierce beard blazing outward like the head of a match on his skinny frame. His eyes are glazed and dark, set deep in his head, and every few seconds he tilts the flask back and inhales another draught.

Every few minutes, he takes another bottle rocket from the pack, rips the stick off, lights the fuse, and throws it at a car as we blast past it. He’s either going to get us pulled over or shot, but I guess he figures he’s got nothing to lose.

I’m the designated driver, and that’s why I’ve only had half of a fifth of whiskey and three margaritas. Happy Hour’s over, the sun’s a sliver on the horizon, and I have to piss with the force of a wolf thrashing around in a cage of twigs. It’s fortunate that we’re only a mile away from a rest stop.

We fly in at seventy five, park with one wheel on the sidewalk, and I leave the door open and the radio blaring as I dash through glass double doors. I glance back to see Matt lighting a cigarette. That cat’s like a camel, never has to pee.

You see, tomorrow is the deadline. If he doesn’t come through with 1700 dollars by 5pm, Matt’s going to jail. I suggested that we flee the state, but Matt just ordered another gin and tonic, mumbling something about a plan.

This is the worst restroom in the whole Buckeye State. The floor and walls are covered with a thin layer of dirt, and this urinal’s got a ring of orange powder from having been pissed in by who-knows-how-many people without being flushed. Still, it’s my salvation, a pile of virgin snow I can write my name in.

As soon as I undo my belt, the clasp of my khakis pops off and drops into the yellow, cloudy depths of the water. I stare down at the bare patch of fabric, jaw dropped in shock. These pants were eighty dollars. I need that clasp. It mocks me from six inches below the filmy surface.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, I plunge my hand into the belly of the beast and retrieve it, the need to wash my hands now far outweighing my desire to pee. Trucker’s urine drips from my fingertips, but I’ve got the little metal piece, this shiny component to my favorite khakis.

At the sink, there’s no hand soap. Unbelievable. Unacceptable. I hold my hands under the hot water for what seems like five minutes, making sure they’re scorched if nothing else. I reach into the metal slot to pull out a paper towel, but there are none left. I hold my dripping hands under the sensor for the blower dryer, but nothing happens.

Bastards!

I leave my fury behind in log-form on the floor of one of the stalls.

Matt says we’re close now, and I don’t see how we can be close to anything. The last house was at least six miles ago, and at some point paved roads gave way to dirt ones. I hear owls and picture pekid inbreeds with overalls and no socks crawling on the trees like anoles on Florida walls, stopping periodically to thrust their forked tongues at the moon.

“Turn right here.”

The driveway’s rutted and muddy and winds around several trees. At the end of this grand boulevard sits a tiny two-story house that might be haunted. White paint is subtly hinted at by a handful of remaining flakes, and a rusted-through Chevy of some indeterminate make is fighting a losing battle with weeds and tall grasses.

“Here we are, Angie’s house. You remember what to do, right?”

I see two beacons shine for just a second after I turn off the headlights. They’re coming from the direction of the porch, and as they fade, Angie’s face materializes, bobbing up and down just a little as she rocks back and forth on her chair. She holds a shotgun, but isn’t pointing it at us. It seems she doesn’t even notice our presence.

“Get any squirrels?” Matt asks her.

“Got a possum,” she says with a half-smile. Or rather, the smile is full, but she doesn’t have the teeth to back it up. As we step up onto the porch I notice a lump of animal flesh with flies buzzing around a red wound.
 

“We brought you a party!” is my joyous salutation, and I nod to a plastic bag full of various liquors and wines. Angie rises to show us into her place.

I smell the cats before I see them, dozens of them, of all colors and sizes, a furry army of the undead, a congealing mass of cat which purrs and breathes and focuses upwards of fifty feral eyes on my face.

More horrifying than the cats themselves is Angie introducing us to them the way yuppies introduce you to their seven kids like they’re real people or you’ll actually remember the names.

“Matt, Jake, these are my babies: Clover, Mittens, Cletus…”

I think I’ll take this opportunity to tell you a little about Angie. She was a senior in high school when we were freshmen, always a friend to the drugs but a little too friendly with the acid. It seems that once you take so many hits you can qualify as mentally disabled. She gets 1200 dollars a month from the government and lives out here, all by herself. Unless you count those cats.

“…Mitzy, Reina, Cameron, Lucky, Boxer…”

There’s something else you should know about Angie. Aside from the drugs, her insanity stems from the death of her baby daughter four years ago. Somehow, the girl was boiled alive in a bathtub. By the time the sheriff’s deputy showed up, it was already dead. Angie never recovered.

“…Gunter, Reynold, Melbert, and Lincoln.”

Matt’s already halfway through a beer and hands her one when she plops down next to him. Springs have penetrated the fabric at several points and I’m most shocked by the fact that there’s electricity out here to power the television. If there were a knob, I bet you could even watch something besides the shopping network.

So we drink. Angie giggles. Matt chucks her and kisses her forehead.

“You’re so much prettier than my ex-wife.”

“You’re heaps handsomer than my stepdaddy was.”

I recoil at their exchange and wash away the thought of it with a mouthful of red wine. The box is lighter, maybe half empty, and it doesn’t taste as good in a styrofoam cup, but red wine is still the Cadillac of wines, in my opinion.

The appointed moment arrives, and Matt takes Angie into her bedroom, stepping on a cat on the way. It yelps and the door is slammed shut. It’s all on me, now.

The steps are treacherous, laden with cats, leaving a maze only navigable by expert stair-climbers, such as my liquid confidence leads me to believe I am. By some miracle I’ve made it to the top without falling or getting my ankles chewed through. The hallway is short, with only two doors. The first one is a bathroom, and I really have to pee again. If I flush the toilet, she might hear it and know I’ve been up here, and that is the one thing we can’t have. If I leave a toilet full of pee, that will be a sure signal as well. But I really have to pee…

I decide not to wash my hands this time, opting to use that time to distance myself from the sink. I’ve crept into the upstairs bedroom and the light reveals it to be a nursery. There’s a crib in the corner, and it’s painted pink to match the dresser. The walls are dark red, as if someone got paint and blood mixed up during the remodeling.

I freeze when I hear a scream pierce the floorboards, fearing the worst, but it’s not that kind of a scream. That sick bastard. I need to focus. Throughout the room, lining the walls and on top of the dresser and two little tables are porcelain dolls. There’s probably one doll up here for every cat downstairs. I grab the nearest one, a redhead, and shake its head by my ear. I can’t hear anything, but I can feel it inside.

I take the body in one hand and the head in the other and pull. The stitches that connect the porcelain head with the stuffed body snap and a twenty dollar-bill flutters to the floor.

Jackpot.

I start ripping heads off dolls like kids pop open plastic Easter eggs. A fifty here, seventy-five dollars there, even a few with hundred dollar-bills inside. I lean the bodies against the wall when I’m finished and try to set the heads back on them straight so that a casual glance might not reveal what’s happened here. It takes almost fifteen minutes before I’m sure I have enough, and then I do a quick count to make sure.

Two thousand one hundred and thirty-six dollars.

Some of that somehow finds its way into my wallet and the rest is a wad in my pocket. I tiptoe down the stairs though the cats and plop down on the couch to await Matt’s triumphant return. After a few minutes, the door creaks open and Matt sneaks out, his face a caricature of a person trying to appear stealthy. He motions for me to leave and we do, running the last few yards to the car.

Once we’re out of the driveway and putting space between ourselves and the crime scene, I hand him the wad of bills.

“You know what’s good about girls with no front teeth?”

I shudder, wondering how I ever came to associate with this guy. In the rearview mirror I see two points of light getting bigger in less time than it should take for a car to approach. The shot is loud, and the sideview mirror is cracked. I think she got a tire, too.

Matt is laughing too hard to help at all, and I slam on the gas, trying to get out of range. Her pick-up’s engine roars, and Matt’s car bounces, the left rear rim dragging and sliding in the mud. It’s all I can do to not fly off the road.

Another shot shatters the rear windshield, and Matt’s not laughing any more. He reaches into his bag of fireworks and starts lighting and throwing cherry bombs through the newly-created portal.

They’re loud, but ineffectual. We see her level the gun at us and duck as she lets off another shot. I hear the bits of metal hit the car, but don’t notice any new damage. Matt reaches into the glovebox, producing a revolver.

“You can’t! No!”

He shoots, I’m deafened, and I swerve. I correct my steering, he corrects his aim. He shoots, I’m still deaf from before, and I don’t swerve. Angie is undeterred, and the reports echo through the forest, probably scaring the mutants in the trees.

He misses three more times, and she gets off one more shot just as we turn onto a paved road, buckshot ringing as it hits the stop sign we just ran. His last shot hits one of her front tires, and her truck slides gracefully into a tree. I hear that horrible grinding noise of rim-on-concrete and through the distorted shards of sideview mirror I can see sparks from our rear left wheel. Matt’s laughing again, and he takes another hit from his flask.


(c) j baugher 2006