Spare Change
I blow through the city like a leaf. My mass is so insignificant that I am only swept aside in its merciless, indiscriminating tantrums. I float on where a more substantial object would be smashed.
The priest shoots a small, silenced pistol twice and two men slump to the floor. The high ceilings swallow the sound. I sit in plain sight, but he is more or less alone. I am about as present as a ghost.
The change from one dead man's pocket spills onto the floor and the clamor is louder than the muffled gunshots. Blood pools over the coins and touches the side of my sneaker.
I pick up a red quarter and flick it into the air with a bandaged hand. Blood flies off in a tiny spatter pattern as it glimmers silver and red, silver and red. Then it lands in the cupped-hands of a statue, a saint waiting to receive something from God.
I move down the pew so my shoes aren't in the blood. Through my sunglasses, I don't really look at anything.
The priest goes on like his words over the dead men are a sermon.
"Every soul who sins against God will feel his holy and righteous anger," he tells me like I'm listening, "and my body is a vessel for his will." There is a silence like I'm supposed to respond. The blood is still spreading red across the floor. I move to sit perched on the back of the pew with my feet on the seat.
He lets out a satisfied sigh and closes his eyes in rapture like he was meant to be a killer. "Just as the first born sons of Egypt were taken in the night—so shall the Angel of the Lord come for the first born of Basin City. The murderers, rapists, child molesters, homosexuals…" I stop hearing his list.
The wild blood color spreads over the inside of the entire church. The priest's mouth keeps moving and he's just a darker silhouette against the red.
My right hand seeks refuge in my jacket where it closes over the cool steel handle of the knife. Heart pounding like a jackhammer, I pull thick, red oxygen into my lungs. When his mouth stops moving, he looks at me like he expects something. I take off my sunglasses and really look at him for the first time.
"The money," I say. Fingertips clinging to the last edges of my reason are the only things that keep him alive long enough to get it for me.
"Oh, of course," he replies in a smaller voice. His humble priest look returns as flawlessly as a porcelain mask.
The Bicyclist
I don't know why the priest pays John.
And I'm not interested.
I take the briefcase back to his place as the sun rises. I don't go out in the daylight much. The part of it that I don't sleep through, I spend working out in John's exercise room. When he gets back, he comes in and stands at my side. I lie with my right arm loosely gripping weight bar above me. I can't bench anything with the stitches. He sets a healthy slab of cash on my stomach and leaves the room without a word.
Later, I go with him to Club Pecos.
John navigates through the dim tavern to a ragged booth. I breathe in a cocktail of cigarette smoke. Under it all I smell sweat. As we sit down, his eyes are drawn like a magnet to the gyrating hips of a dancer elevated in the center of the joint. Her name is Nancy and she's dressed like a cowgirl. The whole place, it just doesn't do it for me. They play country music here.
John orders a drink and asks me if I want anything, on him, but I don't drink right now.
"So, how did it go?" he asks.
"That priest is a fuck," I tell him. We don't make eye contact while conversing. Half focused on Nancy, half on his drink, John gives a detached chuckle.
"Yeah, I know," he says. "Sometimes I wonder if it's just his fanaticism or some kind of actual brain problem," he focuses on the drink and me now, "I can't stand to even go to a church in that district. On Christmas and Easter, Theresa and I always have to go out of our way to avoid that bastard because she can't stand the church that's near us either."
I don't say anything.
"How's the shoulder?"
"Great," I tell him just to say something.
"It won't get infected; don't even worry about that." He orders another drink from a half-naked waitress and never even looks at her face.
I finger the knife in my jacket idly for a while. When I leave, insisting that I can find a cab or something, John looks mildly dejected. I might have been his designated driver.
I throw open the back door and go down the alley. The horrible music and smells fade behind me like a distant mirage. The air outside is cool and carries the musk of the city.
I step off the curb spiritlessly.
A bike bell chimes in panic just behind me. A bicyclist grazes the jacket fabric on my left arm. He swerves a little as he looks back and his eyes flash as they catch the yellow light from a lamp behind me.
"Watch it, you fucking dyke!"
I throw him off the bike before he even realizes I caught up to him. He hits the sidewalk like a dead weight. Never saw it coming. His bike is in the street, the front tire tipped toward the sky and still spinning like a roulette wheel.
"Say that again," I tell him in the nicest tone I can manage. The material of his sweatshirt stretches as I pull him up with both hands. My left shoulder screams.
"W-what?" he gasps with eyes that flash all over, startled and dazed. He's about my age. His legs don't support him when I let go and he collapses.
"Say it again," I manage between my teeth, my jaw clamped like a vice.
"I didn't say anything!" he tries to shout at me, but can't put the strength back in his voice.
"Say dyke again," I growl.
"I didn— " his skull bounces against the pavement after I clout him. My right fist rises and plunges into him over and over. I remember the priest. I remember all the things I've heard before. When I stop, he's hardly conscious and his breathing makes a bad sound. He'll never look the same.
"Say it, you fuck," I snarl. Even without being very awake, he shudders.
I take his bike, leaving him in a heap on the sidewalk. My bandaged fists grip the handlebars, the right one covered in blots of bright red blood.
I buy some new bandages.
Becky (III)
The back of my jacket whips behind me in a fury as the bike flies down the hill toward Old Town. The shapes of women and girls and their clients appear before the front tire even hits cobblestone. I coast down the main street fast when the ground levels beneath me.
Through the stream of curvaceous leather and skin on either side, I see Becky's silver crosses reflecting. Her blue eyes are already following me.
I turn and skid to a stop in front of her, one leg down to support myself. A man in a suit stands beside her like he's waiting for something. He looks me in the eye and backs away without drawing attention to himself. He knows he wouldn't be the first bastard smashed tonight.
"Hey, Babe," Becky says. Her smile and blue eyes shine.
"Hey," I say back to her. She approaches me, loosely gripping one side of my jacket near the collar. Once she's too close to maintain eye contact, her eyes avert to the ground.
"Can I help you?" she teases quietly. She's so close to me it's like I'm breathing her. For a moment my lungs catch.
"Yes," I say and lean in. She kisses me like nothing she's done before matters.
"Anything you want," she says and rests against my shoulder, nuzzling just below my jaw line.
"Your place?" I suggest.
"Whatever," she repeats comfortably as she steps away from me. Her hand trails down my right arm, but I step back off the bike to pull away before she touches the bloody bandages. She strides backward with deliberate steps and I walk the bike as I follow.
"Anyone you know want a bike?" I ask. Her brow tenses; it's cute. "Free," I add and she laughs.
"I'm sure I know someone who does," she says through a smile.
In the entry they pat me down to take my gun and knife and be sure I have cash again. Considering my face, I don't think the woman is surprised to feel the pack of bandages in my jacket.
I go with Becky in the elevator.
"How's your …um," she pats on her own left shoulder. I make an honest so-so motion with my right hand. She sees the blood. "And that?" she adds soberly. The doors open.
"That's not mine," I tell her.
END