In which Quint finds out what it's really like between Heaven and Hell.
CHAPTER 50: IN THE NAME OF THE ROSE
TIME AND LOCATION: 18:20, Heaven and Hell Gas Station
WEATHER REPORT: Cloudy, chance of showers
FORTUNE: "The bull grabs its horns back."
Raging Bull Jack doesn't think of himself as a Greenvale native; more like a tumbleweed that got caught against the side of a fence and stuck there. He coasted through a couple years ago, traveling with the pack: The Iron Rodeo, not so obscure that people didn't know their name, not so infamous that sirens were on their tail 24/7. Just the way Jack likes it. He still has the old hog, too... But now it's a rusted skeleton out back of the gas station, unused since the Incident (he thinks of the word with a capital 'I') that landed him here in the first place.
Does he miss the old days? Riding across states, wrecking mild havoc and causing minor public disturbances... All under the thumb of their leader, Dan "Pale Horse" Robertson, one quart-Cree and meaner than Jack's old man. Difference being that Dan actually shared his beer. That alone was reason enough for Jack to take up with the Rodeo instead of sitting on his ass all day in the garage, wondering when his fairy godmother was going to descend from the oily heavens and offer to turn his dad into a pumpkin and his first wife- a knot he'd tied at age 21-into a supermodel. Never happened. Jack got his nickname and his bike and rode out the next decade in a blur of booze, broads and bail money, until the Incident trapped him in Greenvale for good.
Even though things got marginally better after the Incident, when the Heaven and Hell gas station- and Regina Rose Graceton, who in his mind formed part of the package that had been offered him- fell under his ownership, Jack still sometimes wonders if he isn't still holding out for some miracle... A twist of fate that will give him the satisfaction he can't get none of. Just like in the song.
"Jackie, someone's at the door!" Gina calls from the kitchen. Jack, pancaked out on the sagging sofa in the front room, grunts and raises the volume on the television. Reruns, nothing but reruns. The story of his life.
The knocking continues. "Jackie? Are you gonna get that or what?"
"You get it!" he hollers back. "What do I look like, a friggin' doorman? And grab me a cold one. I'm sweatin' like a jungle pig out here."
Gina, blond and clad in about a square foot of fabric, dutifully sashays around the corner with a bottle from the fridge. She is incapable of walking normally; she's always swaying or cavorting or rocking her hips from point A to B. But lately, even Jack has begun to tire of the sight. She's just repeating herself these days, like the shows on TV.
"I didn't know there were pigs in the jungle, baby," she says, passing him the bottle and making her way towards the pounding at the door. Jack takes a swig and burps immediately after.
"The pigs're the cops. I'm talkin' about the concrete jungle, Gi. 'Sa... Whaddycallit... A met-ee-phor."
"Oh my god," Gina says. "That's so smart. Like, book smart."
"Goddamn right," Jack says with deep satisfaction, and puts his booted feet on the coffee table beside the stacks of bills he's been counting. "Now go find out what the hell whoever's out there wants."
He turns his attention back to the onscreen antics of Bam Margera and Steve-O. He hears Gina opening the busted screen door and exclaim breathlessly, "Well, if it ain't Richard Dunn Jr.! Haven't seen you stop by in a while. How's that rugged old man of yours doin' without the kindness of some female company?" She pronounces "kindness" like "khaaand-ness". Shit like that drives Jack crazy, sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. Today, it's the second one.
"He's doing fine," says a second voice. Young, male and scared. "Is Jack in?"
"He's in the other room, darlin'. Want me to take yer coat for ya?"
"No, I'm good. Thanks anyway, Gina." Footsteps, and Quint Dunn is standing nervously with his hands in his pockets, looking as if he's just invited himself into a grizzly bear den. Jack gives him a lazy stare, not moving except to bring the beer bottle to his lips. Gina drifts by in the background, saying something about breaking out a shrimp platter- the extent of her ability to cook for guests- but neither Jack nor Quint pay her any attention. Jack tips the bottle back and is down to half.
"So whaddya want, kid? I'm busy."
Quint looks down at the table. "That the scratch we made for the last shipment?"
"Yeah, just finished countin' it. Hands off, bub."
"I'm not going anywhere near it, Jack, unless you don't pay what you owe me." Quint holds out a hand, tries to stop it from trembling. "I gave you the Red and I'm assumin' you squeezed out what was needed. Now I want my share."
"What're you in such a hurry for? We ain't goin' nowhere," Jack snorts. Nevertheless, he sits up and starts counting out bills. Quint watches with an expression that loses none of its tension as Jack slowly, painfully slowly, flips each flimsy piece of paper with sausage-like fingers, mumbling numbers under his breath. Gina wanders in with more beer and a half-frozen shrimp ring, which she sets on the table next to the money. A pool of water forms beneath it as the food thaws, creeping towards the stacks of cash, but Jack doesn't seem to notice or care. Finally he holds out a stained roll of bills, which Quint snatches up and feverishly begins to recount.
Jack laughs hoarsely. "Whatsamatter? Can't trust 'ol Raging Bull with his own dough?"
Quint pockets the bills. "Jack, I'm gettin' out."
"Then git already and leave me and Ben Franklin alone. Jackass is on."
"You don't get it. I quit."
"What?" Jack says.
"Huh?" Gina adds, for emphasis.
"I quit," Quint repeats, wondering if his voice is shaking as much as it sounds to his ears. "I can't do this any more. The Basket's empty, the product's all dried up. No supply left."
Jack just stares at him with empty eyes. "Y'know," he says ponderously, "there was this FBI cop who stopped by th' station coupla days ago. He tol' me all about economics, Dunn. About supply and... uhhh... demand. An' word is there's plenty of demand, which means more Ben Franklin, which means we need to keep the supply goin'. I like that rap, Dunn. You gonna screw this up for me or somethin'?"
"I... I don't have more! Are you insane? I just told you-" Quint breaks off as Jack stands up from the couch. "Hey, now, Jack- Please, just listen-"
"Shaddap, craphead," Jack says, and the frightening thing is that his voice is the same dull, unmodulated sneer it's always been, no change in emotion that Quint can discern. His heart sinks as Jack goes on:
"I got truckers comin' in through this town every week and they want more of that powdered red stuff you been comin' up with. They say it ain't cocaine, ain't crystal meth... Had one bozo try to tell me it was plant-based, but who the hell cares, 'long as the truckers and the dough keep rollin' in! Got a few guys even willin' to change up their regular routes to pass by the Heaven and Hell, just for a hit of Red."
The ex-biker throws up his arms in triumph. "It's like we're goin' inter- friggin'-national!"
"My Jack's a regular 'ol businessman, ain't he, Quint?" Gina says liltingly behind him. He feels trapped by the cloying stickiness in her voice.
"Jack, I honestly don't have any more! Wherever it came from, whatever it's made of, it's gone. My supplier left town and didn't tell me where he was going. I swear I'm telling you the truth," Quint lies desperately. "What do you expect me to do, hunt him down? I didn't even know his real name!"
"I jus' want my Red," Jack says with a kind of dull, mindless persistence. "An' I want it by next weekend."
"No! I can't!"
"You're gonna give it to me, or else you owe... Uh... What's he owe us, Gin?"
"Twelve grand, at least!" Gina says, that purring Southern accent sounding strangely high-pitched and harsh. "To make up for all those, uh, whatchamacallits?"
"Financial losses. From da truckers." A stained sneer. "Makin' up for wastin' all them potential customers, is what I call it."
"Yeah!"
"Plus, they ain't gonna be too happy when I tell 'em you couldn't pull through for us, kiddo," Jack rumbles. "They might just get a little upset! An' when I tell 'em where you live, maybe that skinny chick you're always hangin' with too, I dunno what might happen. But nobody'd ever know about it, 'cos truckers, they're just like tumbleweeds, blowin' in and out the other side 'o town. See what I mean?"
"You can't threaten me like this!" Quint cries. "The FBI is in Greenvale and he knows about the Basket! How are you going to hide all this from him?"
"My hubby," Gina says proudly, "don't talk to no cops. And you don't either, do ya, Quint?"
Jack ambles up, his beer gut preceding him, until he and Quint are nearly face to face. His breath is a suffocating waft of beer and cigarette smoke.
"That's right," he whispers, "and it ain't the pig you oughta be worried about, craphead."
Quint feels tears welling from someplace dangerously close to the surface of his being; a terrified, animalistic part of his soul that is screaming without reason for him to run, run, run away. Just get on his bike and finally do what he'd been wanting to do ever since his parents divorced: Keep going down the road until he hit either the ocean or the answers. But he knows that's not going to happen. Sometimes, to run away from something takes more courage than sticking with it. And he is stuck, man, like a fly in a spider's web.
And Becky. What will he do about Becky?
"Have a seat, kiddo," Jack is saying, gesturing with mock grandeur towards the couch. "And I'm gonna tell you what we're gonna do... We're business partners after all, right? We gotta work together."
Quint stands there, and as he stands there he feels another spider behind him, and its name is Gina. She sidles up and gives him a little push towards her husband, and even though he can't see her face, he knows she's smiling that glassy, vapid smile of hers, her pink bow lips hiding little sharp teeth like mandibles. Her breath pools sinuously on the back of his neck.
"C'mon, baby," she croons. "Do it for me... Do it for the Rose."
And he does.
George writes questionable fanfiction about his favorite soap opera, Agent York dates men for Vincent Price, a lawyer talks to his carrot cake, and someone with a rather ashen complexion is terrorizing the people of Greenvale once more... Just another day in the Sinner's Sandwich RP. Want to join in? Character applications accepted any time!
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