Wear Your Home Like a Scar, page 5
“They get no girl till we get our money—”
“Then they track you down and kill you.”
“Correction.” He dropped his cigarette and it sizzled in some dark fluid. “They track down those two knuckleheads. Why the fuck you think I keep them tweakers on? They got no idea what to do with that much money anyway.”
I rubbed the key tag, bit down on the inside of my cheek. “This is fucked, C.”
“That caper we did with the dogs, it got me thinking, Flaco. Where we went wrong was, dogs have too much shit and not enough pay. This one got some pay.”
“Where we went wrong was stealing shit from people and being shithead dopefiends. It’s got nothing to do with logistics, C. This here?” I pointed at the girl, the mattress. “This is fucked. I got nothing to do with you on this.”
But in my head, I saw a new car. I saw curtains over real windows and not a concrete wall. I saw fists of dope. I saw clothes without holes. I saw a pet Lab. I saw a drawer of burnt spoons. I saw a closet converted into a dark room. I saw gelatin prints. I saw a shelf of Brownie Boxes, Leicas, Landcams.
“This ain’t me anymore, Clarence.”
“Nah, not really. But they know me, then they know you. People get to asking.” He started gesticulating, drawing in the air with his cigarette. “You know, I’m just saying.”
I crossed the room to him, still listening for the girl. “You’re just saying what?”
“All that ain’t important. Water bridges and shit.” He sifted powder down into the spoon again. Asked for my lighter again.
That smell, that gnawing again. “Water under the bridge,” I said.
“What I’m saying is,” he flicked the syringe, squirted out the bubble, “you in or out?”
Back to TOC
Straight Down the Line
Little Carl spit out the window as Betty guided her Dodge truck over to the side of Newkirk Street. The CD started again and opening chords of “Born to Run” crackled from the speakers. She breathed out half a laugh. Without looking, she flicked ash at the coffee cup from yesterday morning’s shift, though most of it landed on the metal plate covering the hole in the floorboard. Out the window she could see cranes unloading faded orange and blue shipping crates from the freighter docked at the Dundalk port terminal on the southeast side of Baltimore.
“You’re leaving me here?” Little Carl slumped forward in the passenger seat, banged his head on the dashboard. “It’s damn near a twenty-minute walk.”
Even from this distance, the rectangular shipping containers dangling in the sky looked like the toys of some great giant. The forklifts scurried back and forth with smaller pallets, ants carrying supplies back to their colonies.
“I don’t want no one to see my truck near here this morning.” Betty sucked on her cigarette, tasted spent tar, then threw it down the storm drain and lit another. She kept her hand covering the side of her neck, the bruise still shifting from red to purple. The ones on her thighs were finally turning yellow and brown.
He noticed she was still wearing her wedding ring and thought about saying something but kept it to himself. “You could just be coming by for Rick. Dropping off his lunch or apologizing or something.”
Betty slammed her palm against the steering wheel. The new cherry fell off, down to the floor. “I ain’t the one who needs to apologize.”
“I know that, baby, I know. I’m just saying, your truck wouldn’t be an odd thing.”
She turned her head slow as the sun chasing shadows, spoke just as slowly. “You in my truck is what I’m worried about.”
“I’ve been friends with the son of a bitch for fifteen years, hon. Wouldn’t be that unusual.”
She took a drag. “Any other day, it wouldn’t be.”
Little Carl pursed his lips and nodded. There wasn’t really any response other than to light a cigarette and watch the machinations of the dock move in their ways. He thought it was funny, seeing that thick gray smoke getting choked out by all that bright blue sky above, like it should be the other way around, but all that beauty just couldn’t help consuming everything. That was a good outlook to have today, and he congratulated himself on it. Didn’t hurt that his thighs were still tingling from the blowjob Betty’d given him earlier. Just blowing off steam, he’d joked. She hadn’t been amused.
“Everything’s going to be fine, sweetheart. Trust me.” Carl set his hand on Betty’s, stopped her from picking at the leather braid of the steering wheel cover. “The first step’s always the hardest.”
She sniffed hard, took a drag, and coughed it out.
He slid across the vinyl bench seat, wrapped his arm around her. “You’re still okay with this.” His tone wavered at the end, not asking a question but not making a statement either.
Another hard sniff, and she nodded, brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his split knuckles. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
He put his hand behind her head, keeping their faces together, and kissed her hard.
He got out, closed the door, and started toward the docks. The truck pulled up beside him, a paper bag hanging out the window.
“Forgot your lunch.” She smiled and blew him a kiss. “Don’t get no blisters on your feet.”
Little Carl punched his time card and dropped his lunch into his locker. He shrugged the orange reflective vest on over his flannel and grabbed his hardhat.
Shift didn’t start for another twenty and most of the other stevedores were still outside the trailer bullshitting, their smokes growing shorter as last night’s tits grew larger. He checked the schedule on the wipeboard, glanced each way to make sure no one was inside, then replaced Gimp’s name for the forklift with his own, and switched Terry’s name off his crew for Ricky’s. He poured two fingers of stale coffee, splashed in some of the bourbon from his inside pocket, then went outside. First thing he heard was someone call someone else a cocksucker, then something about circumcising a lion in a phone booth, the dull smack of a fist on a face, then boots shuffling.
Carl ducked his head into his cup and went on.
“If it’s a French boat, why don’t it have a French name, like Pepe or something?” Ricky said. He stood on the prongs of Carl’s lift as they crept toward the loading dock. Everyone called him Ratso Ricko, though usually not to his face. The name was a combination of his nose resembling the Muppet’s and his ability to give up any name needed to get out of Central Booking after he beat on Betty. Carl reckoned the motherfucker kept a notebook folded inside his socks.
“Because it’s not French,” Carl said.
“French flag on it.” Ricky pointed at the side of the freighter, like that should explain everything.
“Remember that Madeline book you used to read to Melanie when she was real little?” Carl said. “That’s a French book.”
Ricky shrugged.
“What I’m saying is, does the flag in the book look like that one on the ship?” He pulled up to overhead crane number five, waiting for it to drop the next container so they could start splitting it and ferrying the pallets away.
“Same colors.”
“Christ on a stick, Rick. It’s sideways.” He took off his wool hat, the anticipation making him sweat enough already. “Does Rotterdam sound French to you?”
Ricky shrugged. “Kind of.”
“Of course it does. You’re an illiterate motherfucker, so of course it does.” Thumbing a smoke to the top of the pack, he watched the crane lower the shipping crate to the dock, consciously telling himself not to check his phone for messages from Betty and just focus on what needed to be done. Manifest said this one held appliances—fridges and stoves and washing machines—and Carl wagered it’d be heavy as the burden on a murderer’s soul. He didn’t know when another like this would come in, and Betty couldn’t go on any longer, so it had to be this one.
Carl took a long pull of bourbon as Ricky cracked open the crate and skimmed through paperwork to see which pallet went to which bay. He pulled the forklift forward and slid the prongs underneath the pallet, then reversed. The refrigerators were bound by a nylon strap.
He hopped off the lift and walked toward Rick. “Hey, double-check the manifest for this, will you? Supposed to be a bunch of dryers going out.”
“Says fridges here.”
“Just do it.” While Ricky had his back turned, Carl flipped the latch on the buckle, the strap visibly loosening.
“Told you,” Ricky said. “It says fridges right here.”
Little Carl held up his hands to apologize. “Must’ve gotten them mixed up.” He hopped back into the seat and raised the pallet. “Oh, hey, Rick.”
Ricky slapped the papers on his thigh. “What the fuck you want?”
“The flag,” he said. “It’s Dutch.”
It only took a little jiggle to topple the refrigerators.
Ricky’s boot sticking out from beneath a door was the only way they knew where his body was.
The funeral passed without event, Betty showing the appropriate tears when required, Carl holding her up as expected by a close friend of the deceased. Terry’s wife Megan told Betty she was lucky to have such a good man to stand beside her in her time of need, and if she needed anything else, don’t hesitate to come across the street and ask. Betty’s small living room felt like a closet with all the flower arrangements piled around. Carl had no idea Rick had so many acquaintances, much less friends, to send their condolences. Hell, him and Carl were only friends because of proximity. Their fathers drank heavily together after shifts at Beth Steel, so it only followed that their kids would pal around. Carl couldn’t really even remember liking Rick that much, but more that they carried the same miserable load. Betty told him later that most of the guests were from the unions. Word had spread he’d been crushed and none of the Locals, from Norfolk to Philadelphia, wanted to appear unsupportive for their flattened brother. In a similar gesture, the union arranged to give Little Carl two-weeks’ bereavement time, full pay, and offered counseling, should he need it. Carl bit back his smile.
By the time Little Carl could be alone with Betty again, all the flowers had wilted and turned brown. They met behind Royal Farms on Ponca Street and fucked in her truck for the first two songs of Human Touch. He threw himself between her legs and she swallowed him whole. She damn near exploded after not having any contact for such a long time, her heel slamming against the rear vent window so hard it dislodged the glass from the weather stripping. They rested for another song or two; then she mounted him and rode him hard for the whole second side of the tape.
After they finished, he lit a pair of cigarettes and leaned back against the window. They blew smoke toward the front window, watched steam rise from their heads. The shaft of his cock burned.
“Damn I missed that.” She pulled at the hairs of his forearm. “Been too damn long, baby. We can’t let that pass.”
“I know, darling, I know. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices, though.” He took a long pull, let the smoke fill his voice. “We’ve come too far to fuck it all up now by thinking with our dicks. Or, well,” he smiled, motioning at her waist, “the other appropriate parts.”
She readjusted in the seat, pulling her skin off his and letting it rest against the vinyl seat. “You could come over nights, you know. I’ll leave the back unlocked.” She glanced down at her waist. “Both of them if you’ll come.”
Carl scratched his crotch then searched the floor for his briefs, picked them up by the torn elastic band. “What about Melanie?”
“I’ll tell her to spend the night somewhere. Down Jessie’s or something.”
“How many eyebrows you think that’d raise, me showing up like that?”
“Don’t care.”
“Yeah, well.” He snuffed. “I’m the one who squashed the dearly departed, so I do care.”
“I just miss you, baby.” She let her hand fall in his lap, licked her lips. “All twelve inches of you.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it, then shuffled on his jeans, tucking his erection beneath the waistband. Betty just sat there, visible for all creatures of the night to leer at. He picked up her bra and draped it over her shoulder. The shadowed cab blurred her bruises.
“I should get going,” he said.
Back in his rowhome, Carl stood in the middle of the dark bedroom and peeled off his clothes. He went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and, in the reflection, found the tip of a red gash crawling over his collar bone. Hunching his shoulder down, he caught a good four inches of exposed skin, saw another two beside it. Fingernails, looked like. He bit down on the toothbrush then flipped on the overhead light, snatched his T-shirt from the floor. Three streaks of blood stood out against the stained fabric, like lighted buoys warning homeward ships of the shallows.
On his first day back, Gerry called Little Carl into his foreman’s office as soon as he walked in. He nodded at one of the two vinyl chairs before his desk.
“How you doing? Want some coffee or anything?”
Carl held up the Styrofoam cup in his hand.
“Yeah, right.” The sound of Gerry’s fingernails scratching his stubble was audible from across the desk. “So. How are you?”
Carl cleared his throat, took a sip of coffee. He thought of the pink flush of Betty’s neck. He thought of the splash of red on his back. “Good as I can be, I guess. How are you?”
“No, no, I mean, you can’t be great, you know. Just, you know, asking.” Gerry arranged the pencils on his desk then scooped them up and set them in an unused coffee mug. “There’s a man needs to talk to you today. I tried to give you as much time as I could, but OSHA works on their own timeline.”
Rising from his seat, Carl gave a little nod of thanks, threw back the rest of his coffee, and crumpled the cup.
“Carl,” Gerry said. “We can give you union representation, you know.”
Carl just shrugged. “Don’t need protection if I didn’t do anything wrong.” He opened the door of Gerry’s trailer and stepped out to the lot. A group of stevedores were huddled together to fight back the wind. The murmur of conversation petered out when the door slammed shut and they looked up at Carl without looking up.
“Boys,” he said with a nod. Terry and Gimp waved and started to call out, but Carl turned away before they could speak. He pinched a cigarette between his lips, cupped his hand around it and smelled, trying to bring back Betty’s musky scent, then lit the cigarette. He headed across the concrete toward the government sons of bitches.
He thought about how soft the insides of Betty felt as he walked, nodding or waving at a few men who passed through the terminal on forklifts or in semi cabs. There was damn near no satisfying her and while it’d never been a problem before—really, Carl’d looked at it as a challenge he was glad to take on—her nuclear libido was rapidly shaking cracks into the foundation of his plan. Straight on down the line was all good for her, as long as that line led to her clitoris a couple times a day. Little Carl almost had to laugh about it: Ricky being at the bar or blacked out on the couch when Carl’d come and go had caused fewer problems than now that he was dead. I’m not a man for irony, Carl thought, so irony can suck my chafed cock.
When he passed crane five, he paused, staring at the ground. Most of the concrete was smooth gray, but golf-ball-sized divots remained tinted red. Carl chained a smoke from the one between his lips and knelt before the area. He ran his hand over the surface, letting his fingers linger inside the divots like the cups that held holy water in Saint Stan’s. On his thighs, the ghost of Betty’s fingers gripped, pressed, scratched. He picked at the rough patch, chipped away a flake of tinted concrete and rubbed it between his fingers, watching the dust blow away in the harbor breeze.
The door swung open before he could reach out and touch it. Two men in woolen sport coats and wrinkled ties stood in the doorway, ushering him in with soft hands. They sat at one end of an oval pressboard table with notepads and pens; he sat at the other with his pack of cigarettes.
For most of the interview, Carl leaned over the table and conjured up the same expressions from the funeral. Sorrow, condolence, head-shaking.
“I understand it’s hard for you, but can you go over it just one more time, step by step?”
He let go a big sigh, thought about a double-bourbon at The Pine Box, then reverse-cowgirl with Betty, then ran through his spiel again, re-emphasizing how Ricky must’ve forgotten to tighten the strap or how he loosened the strap or how he did some stupid goddamn thing that resulted in this awful tragedy.
“So, I got to ask,” the jacket on the right cut him off. “Why did Mister Frankowski mess with the straps anyway? The pallets—and correct me if I’m wrong—but most times the pallets come off ready to move, right?”
“That’s right.”
“So why’d he mess with the strap in the first place?”
Carl inhaled, exhaled. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you two right now, would I?”
“Why didn’t you stop him?” the other one said. “If you were the operator, why didn’t you secure the load before moving?”
He tried his best to light the cocksucker on fire with a glare. “I really need to answer that?”
“It’s just a question,” the first one said.
“It don’t need an answer. And—all due respect, sir—fuck you for asking. When you leave here today, go run over your best friend and I’ll come by and interrogate you for a while.” Carl thumbed out a smoke, tapped it on the table then tucked it behind his ear. “Maybe then you can come up with an answer.”
After another ten minutes of detailed strap-related questions, they shook Carl’s hand and bid him good day.
As Carl laid hand on the door, one of the men called out, “Just one more thing, Mr. Kohoutek.” Carl turned around, raised an eyebrow.
