Blanched

Those fucking terrorists would pay, Raph thought as he swung out of the barge, lightly fell into the water and hid under the gangplank. Maybe it would wash off the accumulation of sweat and sea air. He'd been on the boat for over a month. Sitting in the hold with the rats and holding his sais with tight knuckles.

Leo was somewhere in Mexico, held hostage by terrorists from a drug cartel. Why couldn't he leave fuck alone? He always has to be the cowboy.

And now Raph stood in a port in Miami, dripping wet next to a dive bar with corrugated metal siding covered in rust. He needed a drink. Whiskey. Lots and lots of whiskey. His numb toes burned and the ache of knowing that Leo was probably somewhere in Mexico being mutilated made the rest of him cold too.

What would he do to them when he found them? He crept through the shadows of a warehouse with 75% of the windows blown out, looking up at the palm trees. Never seen those before. Not nearly as nice as good old pine trees. Give Raph an oak any time. These things didn't look like trees.

He wore a black trench coat with a hoodie underneath and hoped he was covered sufficiently or else that everyone else would be too drunk to notice any green skin.

Then he heard a voice like Vivien Leigh saying, "Get your hands off of me, you hairy ape!"

Instincts took over and guided him back to the alley. He glanced overhead at the Rust Anchor sign as he passed and caught a glimpse of another sign that read "Dorothy Zbornak, performing every Friday."

In the shadows of the alley an older woman with obviously dyed dark hair wrestled a man wearing a decent suit. It looked something from Miami Vice, but it must have cost some money, as ugly as it was. The lady wore a sailor costume with a fluffy white skirt.

Raph took a few steps into the alley and knocked out the sucker with one hit. Not at all satisfying. The lady straightening her tam and said, "Well, you just rescued me from that brute! That Sam Wilcox! See if he ever gets me to play Sailor Girl and the Sea Monster with me again!"

Then the lady reached out and took a hold of his arm. He was too entranced by her sailor costume to make a proper and hasty retreat. She smirked and dripped charm like maple syrup, jutting out her hip at him as she squeezed his arm and said, "Well, your arms are just like steel, aren't they? What's your name, darlin'? I want to show my knight in shining armor how grateful I am."

"Uh…" Raph's eyes widened slightly, wondering what kind of gratefulness she had in mind. "Raphael."

"Oh, why are you wearing all black like that? Makes you like a criminal."

Raph growled out, "I ain't a criminal," as he turned to leave.

"Oh, don't leave, Raphael! Oh, I love how that sounds. Are you Hispanic?"

"I'm… leaving." Raph's feet hesitated as he moved back towards the door of the Rusty Anchor. It didn't seem right to leave this old lady in the fetish costume wandering around by herself. "What the fuck are you doing out here alone dressed like that? Even ladies your age can get raped, you know."

"I know that I do look stunning for my age. I can't help it if men are overcome by my dazzling looks at the ripe old age of thirty-eight."

He sighed heavily and closed the coat tighter to hide his sais. "Look, lady. I've been at sea for over a month and I want…"

Her voice rose at least an octave. "Oh, at sea! So you're a sailor? Well, it so happens that I'm a sailor too."

Raph sneered as he looked her up and down. He had to admit; she did have good legs for an old lady.

"Don't you want to spend some time with a fellow longshoreman and we can talk about our trade. Like knot tying and singing shanties and… oh, I don't know… swabbing the deck.. or swabbing other things." She giggled like a sixteen year old debutante.

He wasn't quite sure what she was insinuating, but he took an awkward step backward anyway and stumbled into a trash can. It clattered loudly and sent a stray cat screaming out of the alley. "Lady, I'm not… you don't want me swabbing you okay. I'm… not legal…"

"Oh, I don't mind if you're an alien. I'm very open minded about other cultures. I eat Korean food all the time." She straightened her skirt and wiggled her hips.

"Ugh. Lady." His face was going red and he was glad for the concealment of the coat and hoodie. "I'm not… on the market. Sorry."

"Really? Oh, well. Let me buy you a drink at least." She instantly broke eye contact with him and pulled out a compact and powdered her nose. "I at least want to do that. What would it look like if word got round that I was stingy with men who rescue me? Come on, Raphael."

He followed her into the Rusty Anchor, hovering behind her, his hands in his pockets. All the men in the bar turned towards them and his shoulders hunched down. They all said, "Hi, Blanche!" in unison.

"Hi, boys! This fine young stallion, Raphael, just rescued me from a rude man who was trying to take advantage of me and I want you all to be nice to him. He's my special guest of honor. Now you give him any drink he wants, Gary."

Three hours later, Raph and Blanche sat at a table in the back of the bar. Raph threw his head back and bawled out a laugh.

"And then my sister Charmaine said, 'Blanche, you knew Billy Joe belonged to me.' And I said, 'Yes, I know that, but aren't sisters supposed to share?'"

He shoved away one of the empty glasses with his elbow and it shattered on the floor. "Oh, ninja reflexes!" he yelled.

Blanche didn't pay attention to his outburst and continued, "I never got along with my sisters. I only really got along with Clayton. We used to have such similar ideas and tastes. Same taste in music. Same taste in movies. Same taste in men."

Raph cocked his eye ridges slightly. Then he cried out, "Your brother's gay! That's fucked up!"

"It is nothing of the sort," she said, sticking her refined nose in the air.

He smiled and turned his cup around. "I got fucked up brothers. Leo's missing. I got to rescue his punk ass again." The idea of rescuing Leo from a filthy dungeon actually made his heart warm with nostalgia and he sniffed.

"Your brother's in trouble?" she asked, taking a dainty sip of her drink, holding out her pinky.

He growled to himself.

"Oh!" She held out her hand to him, as if to stop him from moving. He looked back and forth in confusion. "That sound you just made. That… manly groaning."

"What about it?" He leaned back in his chair, fighting off offense.

"Why, you must have women all over you. A rugged and masculine thing like you. With your rough, streetwise mouth and your sensitive eyes and arms like ropey pythons and your thighs that could strangle an elk." She fanned herself with a napkin.

Raph thought he may be able to strangle an elk with his thighs, but wasn't sure how Blanche knew that. He scoffed in his throat. The sound disgusted him and he swallowed. "Not really. I'm not… well… I'm ugly."

"Ugly?" she exclaimed and giggled. "Sweetheart, you are not ugly. I don't have to see you to know that. If there is anything Blanche Devereaux knows, it's men. And I know you're a handsome devil. You won't give me a peek under that coat?" She went slightly cross-eyed. Raph presumed she was mentally undressing him.

"You need to get spayed, Blanche. What's with all this talk about sex and shit? I think about it as much as the next guy who can't get laid, but fuck, woman. Get a new hobby." Raph tossed back the rest of his whiskey and enjoyed the little bit of burn he could still feel as it went down. "Well, it was nice talking to you, but I got to get back to the boat."

"FUCK!" Raph screamed into the balmy tropical air. It sounded a little different than when he normally screamed obscenities into the damp frozen air of New York. He had stayed at the Rusty Anchor too long and now the boat glided along on the dark ocean, headed towards Mexico.

"Oh, honey, it'll be fine. Your brother'll still be in jail waiting for you a day later. Just get on a plane…"

Raph pushed her aside and stormed into the protection of darkness, leaning against the brick wall as he opened his jacket and pulled out his sais, even though there was nothing to fight here. "You don't fucking get it! He'll be dead! He ain't some stupid college kid that got drunk in public on Spring Break!"

"You're really worried, aren't you?" She took a hold of his arm and he pulled away with a loud growl, hoping she couldn't see inside of his jacket. "Well, I can get you to Mexico, if that's what you need. Just call the Ambassador at the U.S. Consulate and tell him you're a friend of Blanche Devereaux and make sure to tell him that I say he's a bad man and deserves to be spanked." She looked Raph up and down as his thick chest rose and fell heavily and a little burst of anger forced one of his sai points into the wall, the force of it nearly dislodging a brick. "On second thought, I'll call him and tell him that myself, sugar."

Within ten minutes Blanche had arranged for a man who owned his own chain of funeral homes to pick him up in a hearse and drive him to the airport. Another man named Enrique Mas paid for his plane ticket. He sat in the cargo hold, staring at his first class ticket through the whole flight, wondering exactly what kind of favors Blanche had performed to get it for him and secretly thought he knew the answer.