Brother, what a night it really was
Brother, what a fight it really was
Glory be

"Tourniquet? Yeah, I know it. French for 'Tie it real fucking tight', right? What about it?"

"We're going to do something similar for this motherfucker right here-- Hold him--"

"Don't think he's gonna be running out on us, Jules."

"--Then we're gonna 'Weekend at Bernie's' his ass outta here."

"So we should let 'im bleed out."

"It's a figure of speech."

Vincent put his cigarette out on the table and walked until there wasn't an ounce of space between himself and Jules. "Yeah, it's a figure of speech, but it ain't an accurate one 'til he's a Goddamn corpse."

There was a long pause. "Vincent, this is neither the time nor the place."

"No, it isn't," Vincent agreed. "It isn't." but he stood still.

"Now, listen, this is real motherfucking trivial shit, which is why your ass ain't toast. But lemme tell you straight 'fore you start getting real antagonistic: This is a fight you best not be picking, you hear me?"

"I hear you. I hear you. And I'm gonna back off," said Vincent. He rested his hand flat against his stomach, fingertips just barely hidden beneath his jacket. "But, seems to me, you the one stuck in a bad way. I don't care one way or another he gets outta here alive or don't get outta here at all. You do." Vincent drummed his fingers across his navel. "On that note, I'm gonna take a shit." He held both hands out neutrally before disappearing into the bathroom.

He was reading the start of page forty-five when the trouble went down.

In the days leading up to his death, Vincent Vega would reflect on this incident, and he would begin to suspect God was morally opposed to him reading while he was on the can.

:-:-:

The mess started because Vincent answered the phone in that empty apartment.

That wasn't necessarily true. True in the fact that it started the incident, but not true in the fact it wasn't really the catalyst for all the events that went down. If blame had to fall, it should reason it falls on the right thing. So the truth was this mess started because Vic Vega shot up a jewelry store.

But starting the local mess as opposed to the international mess was the fact that Vincent picked up the phone, said, "Hello?" and distractedly set his gun on the kitchen counter. He listened intently, occasionally interjecting with a question.

"Vincent."

Vincent turned, mouthed, 'I'm on the phone'.

Jules mouthed back something that even Vincent, not particularly good at lip-reading, could see as obscene.

Vincent stared at him blankly, then turned away, deliberately continuing the conversation about the man he didn't know all the way to its inglorious end.

"Did you not comprehend what I was saying, Vincent?"

"Listen, we ain't gonna find this guy. Nobody seen him about a month."

"Pick up. Your Goddamn. Gun!"

"Don't be like that. I give you valuable information, you start hassling me?" He continued in this vein, waving his hand emphatically. Jules overrode him with, "So pick it up." so thoroughly that every nook and cranny of the room was filled with dialogue. "All right. Fine!" Vincent snatched up his firearm; Jules instantaneously fell quiet. Vincent's voice came out artificially loud in the empty house; made loud by the contrasting silence. "I'll pick it up. It's up. You happy?" Vincent was waving his gun around, up, down, on Jules, off him, in the air, to the ground. The only constant was his finger on the trigger. "It's fucking picked up!"

Jules held his hands up and said, "Relax."

:-:-:

It turned out there were no coincidences. It turned out that sometimes you didn't call the cavalry, the cavalry called you. It turned out some people said, "I haven't seen him in a month," not because they hadn't actually seen him in a month but because they didn't want you blowing him up out of the water. It turned out some of these people had more guns than you did.

Well, how about that.

It also turned out there was only so much a person could do to hurry up-- even under the worst circumstances-- when they were smack-dab in the middle of taking a shit.

:-:-:

Vincent didn't relax.

As it turned out, his agitation put him in one of the best positions he'd ever been in in his life: Vincent had no self-preservation. He was inherently lucky, considerably ignorant, and naturally calm in tense situations, which accounted for his general survivability. Self-preservation had nothing to do with it because it was a quality he lacked in its entirety. He lacked reflex. Lacked instinct. Lacked the innate, usually ingrained sense to duck when a gun was pointed at him. The job had nothing to do with his lack of self-preservation; it was his lack of self-preservation that led to the job. There were only two times he considered his mortality: When his adrenaline was already so high he responded to the threat instantaneously and when he had time to realize he was going to die long before it actually happened. In keeping with Vincent's luck, the man they were looking for had walked through the front door during the former of these two options.

The unfortunate thing was that the man had drawn before the fight had dissipated enough for either of them to pay him any attention.

The fortunate thing was Vincent shot first.

Jules turned around. From where he was standing, he could barely see a pair of sneakers and ankles laying motionless on the carpet. "That the guy?"

"Ain't nobody else lives here," said Vincent.

Jules stilled himself, catching Vincent's gaze. When Vincent offered no alteration or expansion to this account, Jules straightened his lapels. "Better hurry up 'fore the nigger expires."

"He ain't gonna 'expire'. I winged him." Vincent flanked Jules obediently. When they drew to a halt, the man lay writhing between them, blood spreading across his shirt in slow, pulsating intervals.

"You want to die?" Jules asked the dying man. Leaned in close and shouted in his ear, "Do you want us to waste your ass?"

The dying man shook his head lamely from side to side.

"Then I suggest you slide that weapon you got to my man Vincent's feet."

He obeyed.

"Damn, that woulda fucked up my day," Vincent said as he picked up the gun. He set it aside. "You know what I heard yesterday?"

"What's that?"

"They don't even let you have guns in Amsterdam."

"You're kidding." Jules gestured Vincent closer. "Lift up his arms. I'll get his legs, we carry him to the bedroom 'til we see what's what."

Vincent shrugged, hoisting the man by his armpits; Jules picked him up by the knees. They shuffled slowly across the floor.

"So, no guns in Amsterdam?"

"No, man, and I'm not talkin' no fucking Rambo shit, neither. I'm talkin' nine millimeters. You get five years just for holdin' one." He paused, reconsidered, "I ain't saying you can't get hold of 'em. You want it you can get 'em, illegal's illegal so criminals are criminals, but it ain't even worth it."

Jules shook his head through this whole speech. "And you're still thinking of going?"

Vincent chuckled amiably. "I know, baby, I know, but guns ain't really my scene, anyway." These were the idle words of an equally idle drug user, to whom Amsterdam seemed the perfect place to go to but always too far to actually go to.

They stopped when they stood between two off-white walls, a door on both.

"Which one's the bedroom?" Vincent asked.

The dying man pointed to the door on the left.

:-:-:

Vincent reloaded his gun. He also decided that if the dying guy had a cavalry, he needed to wrangle up some Indians. He dialed quickly; his luck held; Marsellus answered almost before the first ring had ended.

"Listen, I don't know what the fuck's going down. You hear that? You hear that?" he held the phone out for a second, letting the gunfire deafen the man on the other end. "You better get your ass down here fast, I mean fast, 'cause all I know is we're getting slaughtered here."

"How's Winnfield?"

"I don't know how the fuck he is! I can't see him! I can't see nobody! You better be sending backup, I swear to God, or I'll--"

"It's already taken care of."

This quieted Vincent immediately.

Marsellus continued, "Have you secured Madison?"

"Fuckin'…Marsellus! He's here if he ain't been blown to pieces!"

"You in a safe place?"

"Now, yeah, but I'm--I'm going out there."

"You sit your ass down and stay put. People're coming."

"I'm fucking going out there."

He hung up his cell phone, pocketed it. Breathed, listening to the rapid-fire popping outside. He unlocked the door; turned the handle; pushed it just a fraction of an inch; breathed again. He slid to the side and kicked the door open.

:-:-:

"You remember the first guy you killed?" Vincent asked. He used his gun to move the curtain out of the way. He peered outside. The street mimed a ghost town perfectly.

"By name?"

"Yeah." He watched a second longer, then let the curtain fall back into place.

"No."

"Me, neither." Vincent pushed his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other. "You think they deserved it?"

"Folks we took out?"

Vincent nodded his head.

"Well," Jules said. He sank back on the bed, his fingers crossed over his chest. "That depends upon your perspective. I would say so, yes, but you ask those dead motherfuckers I got stuffed in my closet, I think they'd be pretty argumentative about the justification of the situation."

Vincent, with the air of someone who, even having asked the question, didn't much care for the answer, nodded again. He gestured to the bloody, dying man. "What's your opinion on how we handle this guy?"

"Nigger's been drained white. Don't think he's going to get more cooperative 'til he's colored up again. I'd say we get outta Dodge--" Vincent leveled his gun between the man's eyes. Jules interjected, "But. This ain't exactly a populated area. Nobody seen him a month, a couple hours won't be a drop in the bucket. Operating under the presumption he got shit to say we ought to know, might as well make a couple'a calls 'fore we go tagging his ass. You know anybody local can get him back to tip-top shape?"

"Maybe. Gotta check my connections. We outta luck if he croaks on us, or there a way around this?"

"I don't want it to come to that--It's a motherfucking detour, but, yeah, there's a way around it."

:-:-:

"Vince?"

"I'm here. I'm here. How many you see?"

"Six, but I wasn't caring 'bout counting that accurate."

"Six? Shit."

"I'm pulling out on three. You ready to go to work?"

"Ready."

:-:-:

Vincent knew Nice Guy Eddie through Vic. Namely, Vincent knew Nice Guy by tagging along on a ride to break a couple of kneecaps with his brother. He remembered only two things about their meeting that night. One was a brief snippet of conversation, low-key and forgettable enough that he couldn't help but remember it:

Nice Guy: "There's this guy, he works for Daddy, he's called Patty, and--"

Vic: "He Irish?"

Nice Guy: "No, motherfucker, not 'Paddy'. 'Patty'. Long for 'Pat'."

And two was getting the Cabots' information:

"Here's our number. You ever need a job, you call and you talk to Dove. Tell him you're Vic's brother, he'll patch you right through to me or Daddy."

Nice Guy Eddie was, through this meeting he could barely remember, Vincent's sole route to a local nurse that was willing to patch up criminals without turning them over to the cops. Unfortunately, Dove relayed to Vincent, Nice Guy Eddie was also dead and in no condition to be answering a telephone, much less arranging rendezvous between nurses and shot-to-hell gangsters.

Vincent said nothing for a long, long while after he was finished talking on the phone. He paced restlessly until he could take it no longer.

"Let's take the fucking detour," he ventured then. "I gotta walk. I'm gonna lose my mind."

"Chill. We'll walk--"

"Don't tell me to chill. I mean it, just don't. You patronize me, just--heads are gonna roll, all right? All right?"

"We're walkin' out of here right now. We'll take our friend here with us. See if we can't get his dumb ass to a better place before he gets to a better place by himself."

"How you suggest we do that?"

"Well, I only got one suggestion, that don't work out, I don't know what we gonna do."

"And? That is?"

"You ever hear of a tourniquet?"

:-:-:

They landed together, pressed against a wall, a table tipped in front of them. Thick splinters exploded into the air as bullets burst into the wood.

"You out?"

"Empty," Jules confirmed.

"What we gonna do?"

"Well, we can only play the cards we're dealt."

"Fuck you mean?"

"What I mean is, our asses are gonna have to get downright savage we want to get out of this."

"Give me somethin' to work with, I'll work with it," Vincent said. "I was fucking hoping fucking Marsellus would be here by now." He dropped his gun. "You sure you want to play it this way?"

"Sure, I'm sure. I don't got much, but bringing down mean motherfuckers wanting to kill my ass is somethin' falls right in my repertoire."

Vincent smiled to himself; Jules had style. "Just checking."

There was, in fact, a certain distance from which, even with nothing, you could overcome an armed man if you rushed him. Vincent and Jules both knew this, and they both knew it wasn't an exact science. But there was a better guarantee of not being shot when you rushed an armed man than there was if you sat in a corner and waited for him and his friends to do their thing. So they stretched the cramps from their legs, bent, and prepared to run like they were on fire.

This was when the Indians rode in; the light they let in blanched the room until they blocked it out en masse.

Whether this saved their lives or not, they'd never know, but Jules and Vincent calmly sat back and let the Indians wipe out the cavalry with no complaints.

Marsellus didn't come by until later, later. Way down the road when he knew those who were expendable hadn't actually been expended.

:-:-:

Vincent, with falsely calm hands, rolled a cigarette. The dying man was dead, and all the information he had had sat heavy and quiet in the heads of three people: Vincent, Jules, and Marsellus. Vincent liked it infinitely better this way, knowing the things he had to know with only an intimate and trustworthy few in on his secrets. He felt old, old, old, and looked older when he looked to Jules and asked, "You want to have a beer with me?"

"Not that thirsty," Jules said. "Bought a Pepsi inside."

Nevertheless, he went.

It wasn't much fun; once it got to the point it would have been at all entertaining, Vincent started going on and on what Dove said about his poor baby brother, Vic, in ways that ranged from heartbroken to pissed off.-- "I sure as hell didn't know nothing about him shooting up store clerks.", which was, in itself, critical in an indescribable way. Jules, for his part, was unresponsive, hunched over his bottle as he mulled over the events of the day. Then, later, Vincent broke in with: "Now I know I'm fucking going."

"Where? Amsterdam?"

"Yeah, Amsterdam. Too many Goddamn..." He leaned forward heavily, eyeballing a man sitting across from him. "You want to keep your eyes, keep 'em to yourself, would you?" Then he muttered something so low that Jules couldn't hear it.

By the time the bar closed, both of them were drunk enough not to care about their company. Vincent offered to take Jules back up to his place for a nightcap of something better than alcohol-- not coke, he didn't like shit up his nose-- and Jules accepted the offer thoughtlessly. How many mistakes were right there? Rookie, stupid mistakes. You don't get intoxicated when people are seeking vengence, and even when they aren't, you don't invite your profession into your home. Jules may have even mentioned this, sometime.

In an act that was part bona fide mystery, part their lack of inquiry, they never would find out how they actually got to the apartment; they would only know they didn't drive; Vincent would find his Malibu just in time to put it into storage.

:-:-:

"You know why I like workin' with you, man?"

"Why's that?"

Vincent smiled slowly. "Because you're dependable."

"Dependable? What, like, 'Lexus' dependable or 'your mother' dependable?"

"Just dependable. Look. I'm not saying you're my mother, I'm just sayin'," Vincent wiped his nose with the back of his thumb. His sock-covered toes bumped against Jules' thigh as he shifted awkwardly, "Even my brother ain't--I love him to death, right--but he ain't dependable. Not like you sit thinking he's gonna fuck you over or something, but that don't make him dependable. You know? He's unreliable in other ways. Little ways. Not like squeezing toothpaste from the middle or something, bigger'n that, but you know." He looked away uncomfortably. It was uncertain whether he was coherent enough to remember the conversation he had earlier that day or incoherent enough to not remember the conversation he was having then. "Anyway, you ain't."

"Uh-huh."

"You listenin' to me?"

"Just 'cause I got nothing to say doesn't mean I'm not listening. In fact, I should think it means the opposite. Continue."

Vincent grabbed his beer bottle between two fingers and twirled it 'round and 'round lazily by its neck. "I think I'm finished."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Hey. You ever shoot up?"

"Fuck, hombre. You never been in my neck of the woods. We the place Will Smith had to get his ass out of."

"Yeah, but, recently."

"No. Not recently."

Vincent successively prattled off that he got this shit for free, it wasn't much and it wasn't good, but he got it for free, do you want any, --Jules shrugged an affirmative.-- he'd have to go see his people in a day or two, but he had enough for tonight, so he'd be fine with sharing what he had left--"But lemme do it. I don't want you wasting it."--He was already fixing it up with calm, broad hands by the time Jules said:

"Cool by me." with his jacket sliding easily down his shoulders.

The concoction bubbled quietly. "I'll do you first."

"Go on."

"Don't rush me."

Vincent held the needle flush against Jules' skin.

The needle breezed in, smooth and easy, just the way doctors always say they'll be and just the way they never are. Riding down the quiet highway of vein instead of crashing and burning in the muscle below. It filled him with such an instant rush of euphoria, and Vincent was still holding onto his wrist just so, and Vincent's toes were still digging into his thigh that way, and Vincent's breath was out-in-hot-cold on his arm, that this entire situation was far too erotic for his taste. Vincent said something stupid, stupid, stupid before plunging the same needle into his own arm. Vincent's eyelids flit-fluttered.

And that was it, man.

That was it.