Big Yellow Taxi
Chapter 35
After his fight with Daryl, Merle left the small trailer they shared and went to stay with a biker friend of his that owed him a favor. He told himself it was because his bedroom window was broken during the crazy fit Daryl threw. But a small part of him knew deep down, even if he didn't want to admit it to himself, that he was also staying away from the place to avoid Daryl. Merle never saw his brother act like that before and it left him feeling unsettled.
To avoid dealing with the situation, Merle then proceeded to get himself drunk. And he kept himself that way. He wasn't sure how many days it had been in a row. He started drinking when he woke up. And he didn't stop until he passed out. He had a few moments of lucidity. But mostly he was content to just let things pass by him in an alcohol induced blur.
Merle shifted his body. He was sitting on a barstool. In some cruddy little biker bar. It looked familiar. Like he had been there before. Or maybe all bars just started looking the same after a while. People were talking and drinking in the booths along the wall. A few men were near the pool tables, wagering on a game of pool. Two barfly sluts were perched on barstools a few seats down from him, sucking on marlboro lights and smearing their cheap lipstick on the edges of their drink glasses. None of what he saw interested Merle much. Until his eyes wandered over towards the dance floor.
The woman stood out to him immediately. Not only was she far more attractive than the worn out sluts at the bar. She also looked out of place. Not the type of woman that would even be in such a seedy bar in the first place. Her red hair hung down her back in a soft silky curtain, falling almost to her waist. Her skirt was short and looked more like a scarf that she tied on and knotted. The long ends of it hung down between her legs, swaying with the rhythmic movements of her body. Her top was strappy and snug. It came down to just above her belly button, revealing a sliver of her freckled midriff. But it was her eyes that held him captive. They were a brilliant green, sparkling even in the dim dirty lights of the bar. Merle wiped at the corners of his mouth as he watched her. She lifted one heel and then the other, her legs and hips following the movements of her feet. Like the music was flowing up through the floor and into her body. There was something distinctly feline about the woman. The tilt of her eyes and the way she kept glancing up at him without breaking the rhythm of her dancing. It was almost predatory. Like a cat creeping slowly through the tall grasses.
The woman seemed vaguely familiar. Merle knew he had seen her somewhere before. But he couldn't drag the information up through the drunken recesses of his mind. At the moment she was only registering in his mind as a woman he might like to get under him. His dick was already hard when he pushed himself up off his barstool, heading in her direction.
Merle didn't have any intention of dancing. But he was more than happy to let the woman press and grind her body against his.
"Maybe we should go somewhere more private?," she suggested, letting the back of her hand graze over the bulge in his pants. Merle ticked his head towards the small hallway that led down to the bathrooms. There was a backdoor at the end of it that led out into the parking lot. That's where he took her. He came on his bike. But there was an old beat up pickup truck next to it. The truck was missing its tailgate. Merle sat down in the bed of the truck, pulling the woman up into his lap. She straddled him eagerly, pushing him down until he was laying in the dirty bed of the truck with his feet dangling off the edge.
The woman leaned down. He expected her to press her lips to his, but instead she leaned in close and breathed in. Her nose wrinkled up like she smelled something bad. She sat up, reaching for the little knot that was holding her skirt together. But instead of untying it, she retrieved something she had hidden inside. The woman had a small knife in her hands. With how much he had to drink, Merle's reflexes weren't exactly top notch. And even if he was sober, the woman's actions were so fast and shocking that she might have gotten the jump on him even then. He gasped in a ragged breath, feeling the wicked sharp edge of her knife as the woman pressed it against his throat.
"Don't you even think about it," she hissed. Merle slid his leg back down. He was going for the knife he kept in his boot. But she was ready for him. Like she knew what he was about to do before he did it. He expected her to make some sort of demands. Or at least to tell him why she was threatening his life. But the woman didn't speak right away. Instead, she let her eyes roam over him, staring at him in disapproval and clicking her tongue.
"For such a small man you sure made one hell of a big mess," she informed him. When she said the word small, Merle had a feeling she wasn't referring to his physical size but her opinion of him. The woman kept the knife to his throat, grasping his wrist with her other hand. She gripped down hard, the skin of her hand was burning hot against his flesh. Merle felt the searing heat travel over his body. And suddenly he was sweating, two weeks worth of liquor and smoke seeping out of his body and puddling under him in the dirty truck bed. His shirt and pants were soaked in it, damp in all the wrong places. And suddenly he was feeling extremely sober. More sober than he had been in years.
"Yer a witch," Merle spit, narrowing his eyes at the woman, "...what the hell didya just do to me?"
The woman's laugh shattered the air around them. Time seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time, the night sky spinning around her halo of copper hair.
"It's not what I did," she cooed, "It's what I'm going to do if you don't clean up the goddamn mess you made of my family." Her knife scraped against his skin, cutting him slightly. A little rivulet of blood snaked down his neck. The word family caught Merle's attention. It was the first context clue he got from this crazy woman as to why she was especially angry with him. He looked her over, sorting out all his misdeeds in his mind. He had a long list of shitty things he did to people. A very long list. But this woman was dressed like one of those hippie freaks. The ones he recently did dirty.
"Which one was yer daughter," Merle asked. "The one I fucked or the one I robbed?"
The woman laughed again, her eyes narrow and catlike as she stared down at him.
"The one you robbed." She licked her lips. "But I don't appreciate what you did to Alya either, you disgusting little pig of a man."
"The money's gone," Merle told her. The moment he said it, Merle looked up at the woman and knew instantly that this wasn't about the money. The money was just the catalyst that set off a long string of tiny explosions, throwing everyone off their rightful paths in life. Merle tempted fate one too many times. And this time fate was going to bite him in the ass. Or more accurately, cut his throat in the parking lot of a dive bar.
"What the hell do you want from me then?," he asked. If she wasn't here for the money, then why was she here?
"I told you. I want you to clean the mess you made." When Merle looked up at her like he still didn't intend to do shit except go back into the bar for another drink once he managed to shake her off, Lola leaned forward. The tip of her crystal brushed against the hard planes of his chest. Then she told him the truth. His truth. The one she nearly killed herself pulling from the depths of his distorted drunken mind.
"You're going to make this right. You're going to get my daughter back for me. Because if you don't, your brother will be lost to you forever."