The Devil's Bastard

The Devil’s Bastard



by Sam Ford

They picked me up in a motel room just outside of Valdosta, GA. Feds, stateys, even the local tan and browns. It was five in the morning, the blue was just starting to break. A lone crow on a power wire shitting his pants over something or other. Stink of fresh creosote on the wood of that utility pole. A gypsy moth smacking against the screen window. Big spotted wings like old bark. Like a nightmare.

They were coming for me. If they weren’t outside already.

I’d killed one a’ those cops in Tennessee. You can slaughter a family. Piss on their graves. Still make a jury bend. You can rape a pregnant woman in broad daylight and be home in time for Survivor. But you kill a badge…That’s the guillotine.


***

Night before I’d gone out, taken it on a bit. Some loose southern shithole called Monty’s. Old pastel exterior. Bar painted black. Filthy brass accents. Condom machine in the back. Statler Brothers on the juke. ‘Tender smelled like too much sport deodorant covering man-stink. Cold sore the size of Gibraltar. He licked it every once and a while. It was like a second mouth.

Monty’s had a woman or two between its walls. Blondes from bottles. TJ Maxx all over their asses. One of ‘em made her way over, sat it on down next to me.

“I’m Felicia,” she said. “Ferocious Felicia.”

I was drinking Gentleman and it wasn’t quite kind enough.

“Come again?”

“Ferocious Felicia. ‘Cause I’m ferocious. What’s your name?”

“Asshole. ‘Cause I’m an asshole.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Ferocious Felicia said. Three of her front teeth were missing. She had a gold necklace with a pendant. The pendant was a word: ferocious. I took a long toss of my bourbon.

***

How did I know the law was creeping up my skirt? That old dirt-doer’s radar. I’d done six years in Jefferson City for armed robbery. Everything about that bid stuck to me. When they threw me inside, I’d developed some sorta’ spider-sense. I could tell when the CO’s were at my gate. I could tell when some fuckin’ long-timer was wetting his chops, looking to throw some Maybelline on me, make me his regular thing. My ears stood up like prairie dogs, my skin tingled like a boy virgin in a whorehouse, and my hands balled up into fists so tight they could crush a mason jar. I vowed I’d never get caught again. In jail or out. And if I did, I’d be expecting it.

***

Ferocious ordered a cocktail off the drink menu. “The Choc Sucker.” Vanilla vodka, crème de cacao, dash of grenadine. She smiled at the bartender, stuck a pinky up her nostril and flicked away what she found in there.

“What do you do for a living?” she asked me, knocking the x-toe of her patent leather cowboy boot against the wood.

“I’ve robbed some people. Cash is best. Jewelry gets pawned. Stolen some cars. Sold ‘em to chop-shops...”

She didn’t believe me and she laughed. It sounded like a toddler farting.

“So you’re a regular outlaw, huh?” she said. Her drink arrived. She put her hands around it, lifted it to her lips, slurped it out of its housing. “Ooohh…that’s real good,” she said.

I was lonely then. Lonelier than most times. It occurred to me that I was missing a person. I was missing any person. Nobody knew me. There wasn’t anybody in all the years and gears, highways and byways and goin’-my-ways?, state lines and road signs, that actually knew me. What a pity.

And what was there to know anyway? “Mama tried.” “I was the only hell she ever raised.” Etc. I’d been hustling and robbing since I could drive a car. I’d laid with some ladies in my time but there wasn’t a permanent finger amongst them. The only folks I could call “friends” were built on fleeting conversations at roadhouses, juke-joints, truckstops, and hash houses all across the fair fifty. Never even got their names.

As for family, well, prohibition was my daddy’s heyday. He liked to compare bootlegging to protesting. Said booze was a human right. He caught the clap at the age of thirteen. Bought a Cadillac at the age of seventeen. Died in prison at the age of forty-three. Apparently his last words were: “Oh shit…I’m fucked.”

I’d had a brother’d gone to Vietnam but he took a punji stake through the intestine and came home horizontal. My mother’d been committed to an open unit back in Nebraska, the state she hatched me in. I guess her husband being a fornicating ex-con, her one son dying in Pleiku to defeat communism, and her other son being a career criminal were enough to send her to the loony bin.

Ferocious finished her drink. It turned her tongue brown.

“I’m gonna’ use the shitter, Mr. Outlaw,” she said. “I hope you’re still here when I get back. I like you.”

She clip-clopped and sauntered off. I heard a man whistle and figured he musta’ been blind. The bartender moved toward me. He was sweating.

“Get you another?” he mumbled.

“Sure. And get yourself one.”

“Thanks but I’m nursing a hangover.”

“Ain’t a believer in that ol’ hair a’ the dog?”

“Yeah. Not for me.”

He filled my glass and took five from a stack of bills I’d placed on the damnwood. I realized how fuckin’ hard it was to make friends out in the world. You either said too much or too little or the right thing that made ‘em feel stupid or the wrong thing that made you feel stupid. You couldn’t win. I guess that’s why I took to breaking the law.

I ran the back of my knuckles across a clean shave. It was getting late and I wasn’t there to get shitty. I just wanted to be out in it a little bit. For a moment I considered sticking the place up but figured it’d be fruitless. It’d be more outta’ boredom than anything else. And I don’t believe in boredom.

I got outta’ there before Felicia got outta’ the can.

***

I walked it on back to the motel. It was a hot limp Dixie summer. I had a little over four grand back in the room. My suitcase had two half-full boxes of CCI full metal jackets, two changes of clothes, a hunting knife, a carton of Marlboro Reds, a beard trimmer, and a couple of porno mags. I thought about Mexico maybe. Senoritas and sunsets. Tacos and tequila. But that faded quick enough. One thing I’d learned about myself was I was real good at spreading some thick romance on stale bread to make it taste better. I pulled a pack of those red fingers from my shirt pocket, pulled one out, lit it and smoked it like a teenage girl’s thigh.

And I was biding my time. I knew the bloodhounds were on my scent. Didn’t expect the federalies to get involved, but shit, you never do know how bad you are until you see who shows up to take you down.

This was ‘cause of Memphis. While I was locked up in Missouri I’d caught wind of a North Memphis pimp and drug dealer called Silly P. Silly’s story was he’d been born and raised in Frayser, done his dirt up there, and then “retired” to Germantown. He was letting his people on the street handle the grunt work while he sat back getting the perpetual blow-job. The brothers on the inside loved jawing about this guy. The color of his Lexus, where he liked to party, his favorite gangster movies. But the thing that stuck with me most was that he always kept at least five thousand dollars on him; a clean roll of hundreds. He also carried to twin Glock 17’s in shoulder holsters. Apparently nobody fucked with this guy. I decided I might color myself the exception. I wouldn’t be in town long enough to feel the aftershocks.

When they finally turned me loose, I decided to take a little journey down Memphis way.

***

On the approach to Memphis, I stuck up a convenience store in Blytheville, Arkansas with a Lorcin .25 I’d bought from a trucker in the lot of a Flying J. He was a few eggs short of an omelette, but I needed a gun so we worked out a deal. I jerked him off, read him Horton Hears a Who twice, and gave him 20 bucks. He gave me the pistol, some extra shells, a cheap bowie knife made in Pakistan, and a lift to Blytheville.

The clerk at the Yellow Bird Food Mart was a sweet-faced looking kid reading an issue of X-Men. Acne scars dented his cheeks and made the peach fuzz on his chin look sad. I was grateful to see him and not some fuckin’ Punjab with a quick temper and a 12-gauge behind the counter. I hustled into the place wearing a black bandanna around my face, four dollar truckstop shades, and a Cardinals hat. The little Lorcin looked ridiculous in my hand but at least it didn’t have any orange plug in the barrel. It spooked the youngster good enough. He cracked the register but didn’t have the combination to the safe. That bothered me. So I took his car.

And there I was, sure as shootin’, puttering down I-55 in a Toyota Tercel, cumshot white with no air conditioning. I figured I’d slip that state line before I ditched the piece a’ shit in a lot somewhere and found something a little bit more in line with my demeanor.

I did just that. Left the Tercel behind a Wal-Mart and found myself a Ford Ranger with Mississippi plates. I took the Tercel plates and put ‘em on the Ranger. Threw the Ranger plates under the shotgun floor-mats. I had the Lorcin in the back pocket of my Wranglers. What cash I had in the front pocket. I lit a blood red and took a moment for myself. It was getting on midnight at that point and I figured I’d do best to find myself a cheap room somewhere, bed it on down till morning, make my move on Silly P the following night.

***

The shat-hole I checked myself into was the Super 7 Inn on East Brooks Road, Memphis, Tennessee. I’d heard of the Super 8 but never the Super 7. I guess they were too fuckin’ cheap to make up the difference. They put me in room 12, smoking w/ king, on the bottom floor. It smelled like an old man’s asshole.

I went out and had it my way over at the Burger King on East Brooks. Whopper, fries, and a vanilla milkshake. It damn near made me puke right there on the linoleum, but I held it together, made it back to room 12, passed the hell out, and dreamt me some 80’s Basinger.

***

I woke-up with the realization that I was gonna’ need some more firepower if I was gonna’ try to squeeze Silly P. I decided I’d try walking into a gun shop and leaning on the clerk a bit. See if I could get him to sell me something outright. It’d worked before in my time. You get the local dealer who needs the money, hates the government, etc. Maybe he’s looking to unload something.

I cracked open the yellow pages and turned to the firearms section. I found one that sounded about right. Phil’s Sport & Militia. I made a phone call:

“Phil’s…”

“Howdy, is Phil around?...”

“Speakin’…”

I hung-up and looked over the area map in the front of the phonebook. I figured out the directions to Phil’s from where I was. 10 minutes tops. I checked out of the Super 7. I left the Ranger in the parking lot and sped off in some poor sucker’s ’94 Honda Accord.

***

Phil’s was a house off Highway 61. A faded plastic sign outside read: “Phil’s Sport & Militia / Guns-Ammo-Hunt-Fish-Archery”. I pulled up and parked out front.

The inside was smaller than I thought. Three racks were mounted on the wall. Shotguns of various actions and gauges rested in them. Most of them looked used. A single glass cabinet had two shelves worth of handguns and one shelf worth of knives. There was some fishing gear in an adjacent room as well as two or three compound bows hanging on another wall in a corner. A barrel filled with arrows sat in the same corner. The plastic neon fletchings were dirty and old.

The whole place had a musty quality to it. I was where I needed to be.

Phil was there behind the counter, smoking a Swisher, wearing a Panhandle Slim snap-button western shirt that hugged his gut like a latex glove. An off-white Bailey U-Roll-It sat atop his silver haired head, and a gold plated arrowhead bolo tie rested inside his collar. He looked up at me. I figured him for 62. And no sheriff’s friend.

“Help yeh?” he said, the cigar jammed in his mouth.

“Well I surely hope so,” I said with a touch a’ the ol’ Cheshire Cat.

“How’d that be?” he said.

“Whaddaya’ got in the way of small arms?”

I approached the cabinet and had a peak. Nothing looked new. That was a good thing.

“Ain’t got much,” Phil said.

I spotted a Browning High-Power. 9mm. 13 in the butt, 1 in the gut. Wood grips. Looked like it was in halfway decent shape.

“How much for that Belgian beauty?” I asked.

Phil looked down, not knowing which pistol I was referring to.

“Which one’d ya’ say now?

“The nine-millimeter Browning.”

He peered through the glass. I pointed to it. He followed my finger, pulled the gun off the shelf. It had a tiny tag on it, hanging from the hammer by a string. Phil read it.

“Five-hundred,” Phil said. He coughed hard for a minute, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and yanked out a wedgy.

“Give you four hundred for it. Plus this little twenty-five auto I got here.”

I pulled the Lorcin from my jeans and put it on the counter. Phil wasn’t impressed.

“That thing still got the serial number on it?” he said.

“Why wouldn’t it," I said, my shit-eating Kool-Aid grin still intact.

“I seen more a those little turds come through this place than you’ve seen in a lifetime a' trips to the captain’s chair. First off, them things blow up in yer hand after fifty or so rounds. Second, the only sombitches comin’ in to buy ‘em are them goddamn monkey gang members without any real money to spend. So I ain’t interested.”

I looked back down into the cabinet. Three Lorcins sat there in a row. Phil took a hard tug off his Swisher. I’d forgotten how rancid that tobacco was.

“Well, sir,” I said, “that’s fair enough. But I’ll tell ya’, I’d sure like to have that Browning there. I’m happy to pay you five hundred dollars cash for it. Only thing is, I’d like to walk out with it today.”

Phil folded his arms over each other and let them take a siesta on that big belly of his. A twinkle somewhat akin to piss hitting a mirror appeared in his eye. His smile was yellow and it added two more chins.

“Is that right?” he said. “Well you just tacked on another three hundred to the price tag, my friend. Instant grafistation costs extra.”

“Then that brings the price up to eight hundred, sir?” I said. “That’s a bit outside my budget.”

“Afraid I can’t help you then, partner,” Phil said. “You’re asking me to break the law for free. I’m still an American, y’know. I gotta’ get somethin’ for it.”

I looked back down at the selection of handguns. Nothing else looked appetizing. A couple of single-action revolvers. Those other .25’s. An old black powder replica. A cheap .380 with oxidation issues. It was the Browning or nothing. And I didn’t wanna’ spend the whole day trying to pull a rabbit outta’ the hat. Phil was the guy. I just had to talk him into it. Or kill him.

“I can understand that, Phil. I can understand I’m asking you to do something a bit outta’ bounds.” My eyes narrowed and I cast them downward. I made my voice crack ever so slightly. Touched my forehead with my hand. Tucked my upper lip inside the lower one. Continued: “You remember those ‘monkey gang members’ you were referrin’ to?”

Phil’s face already betrayed a look of concern. He swallowed and nodded.

“Well. Those…motherfuckers…they attacked my wife last week while she was on her way home from work. She’s a nurse. Pulled up at an intersection at the corner of…at an intersection…and…they car-jacked her. Held her at gunpoint. My wife she’s…she’s a tough gal. She refused to give them the car. They pistol whipped her. Dragged her outta’ the driver’s seat. Left her lying in the middle of the road. Two way traffic, Phil. She got hit. She’s in the hospital as we speak. The hospital she works at. Coma. So I’m sorry if I walked in here with a bit of a weight on me. You seem like a good man. Lord knows I’ve tried to be one my whole life. And I’m sure Memphis PD’ll do their damndest to catch the…scoundrels who did this. But in the meantime…I gotta’ start thinking and acting for myself. Know what I mean? So I turn to you. I’m not sayin’ I’m gonna’ walk outta’ here and turn into Chuck Bronson. I’m just sayin’…it’s my wife, Phil. Can you understand?”

“My wife walked out on me fifteen years ago.”

“So you know what I’m sayin’?”

“I…yeah. I guess, yeah…I do. I do understand. It’s the feelin’ of pain. Pain that’s deep in the heart.”

“Yeah. Deep as it gets.”

We stood there in silence, looking in separate directions. Phil's eyes got cloudy. Tears came. I was truly the devil’s bastard.

“So, Phil,” I whispered. “I got five hundred dollars in my pocket. It’s cash. Most the ATM machine would let me withdraw. I wanna’ give it to you. I’ll take that pistol there. Not for the sake of revenge. Not for the sake of violence. But for the sake of love.”

Phil wept. I touched him on the shoulder. He pulled a used tissue from his pocket, used it more. His crying subsided.

“Forgive me,” he said. “Yer story brought somethin’ outta’ me. Well…I reckon we can make a deal here.”

Phil had a Leatherman clipped to his belt. He extracted the file from it and started rubbing the serial number off the Browning. I admit, the sound of it was somewhat disturbing. It sounded like exactly what it was. A man forgetting himself.

Maybe it’s easy to make a man forget himself. But sometimes I’m of the mind that all men want to forget themselves. They just need an excuse to do it.

After he was confident the pistol couldn’t be traced back to him, he handed it over to me with a box of full metal jackets and an extra box of .25 shells for the Lorcin. He took my five hundred dollars regretfully.

***

From what I’d heard in lock-up, Silly P favored a club called Dirtee Catz on Jackson Ave. Apparently he had some stock in it and was there on a nightly basis. Come one in the morning, I pulled up across the street from the place. I could see clearly enough who was walking in and out of the place and had a solid second-hand description of Silly. The knuckleheads inside described him as a “fat bald nigga with a limp.” That was good enough for me. I figured he’d be well-dressed and put together based on his rep. I staked Dirtee Catz out, chain smoking and nipping from a bottle of 101 Turkey I’d picked up at a discount liquor store.

Come 1:30 in the morning I saw the man walk out. He wore a cream colored suit, cream colored derby hat, and cream colored loafers. He solved his limp with a cane and wore his sunglasses at night. His gold ’03 Lexus was waiting for him in front of the club. He opened the door and the car seemed to swallow him as he barreled his way inside. He pulled off and I followed him.

He drove slow. Windows open. Chronic smoke floating out. And that deep southern rap music sounded like mortar rounds flying from his trunk. His license plate spelled his name. People on the street slowed down as his car passed by. Some waved at him. Some ran away. I was asking for trouble fucking with this guy. But with me it’s never really about asking for trouble. It’s about taking it.

***

Silly P pulled into a late night Kentucky Fried Chicken, parked and pushed himself out of his Lexus. It was like a Rottweiler squeezing through a mailbox. He hobbled his way toward the KFC entrance. I pulled into the parking lot. Cut the headlights.

I wanted his roll. Five thousand greenbacks could last me a good stretch. A nice long shit-kickers ramble. Maybe I’d get me a mail-order bride and try to get it right for a while. Maybe he had more that five large on him. What if he had seven? What if he had ten thousand goddamn dollars in the pocket of those silk trousers? I’d get the clerk to pop the register for me too.

The air was quiet. The stray pedestrian appeared here and there but it wasn’t anything that was gonna’ keep me even. I yanked a round into the Browning’s chamber. Did the same with the little Lorcin. Cardinals hat. Sunglasses. Bandanna. I don’t get bored.

There were two kids working in the KFC. A boy and a girl, both black. The girl screamed as soon as she saw me walk in. The boy hit the deck. Silly didn’t even bother to look my way. His big bear’s hands reached between his armpits for those two Glocks. I was hoping I’d get the drop. No bullets. Just threats. That wasn’t gonna’ work for Silly. I let one go from the Browning. It got him in the shoulder. A pebble hitting a mountain. He got one of those Glocks out. It was ready. He fired thrice. I dove behind a table. Glass shattered. More screaming. I shot back. He was quite the target. One in the gut. He felt that one. Grunted. Staggered.

“You fuckin’ dead, muhfucka!!” he shouted.

He got the twin out. Bullets flew from both of his hands. I was pinned down. I thought of my brother and suddenly felt a wave of guilt crush me like a preacher’s voice. I took out the Lorcin and crawled forward, hiding myself beneath a bolted bench. Silly made no effort to move. He stopped firing. I could tell he was holding his stomach. Cops’d be showing up soon. Then it’d be Beirut. I had to get out or finish the fuckin’ thing.

I laid the Lorcin on the floor and took aim with the Browning. I let off five rounds, three of which tore into Silly’s ankles and feet. He let out a bonafide moan and came crashing down like an old Las Vegas Hotel & Casino. That was that for Silly P. I fired three more times. One missed him. One hit his neck. One hit his head. I got to my feet and walked over to Silly. He was still lying there, dead as Elvis. I went into his pockets. Sure enough, a healthy wad of rubber banded Franklins found their way into my life.

I looked around for the two kids but assumed they had gotten themselves out somehow. Maybe a back entrance. I was grateful for that. Killing people ain’t a pastime for me. Sometimes it happens. I feel better when it doesn’t.

I had left the Honda running and quickly realized how smart a move that was ‘cause as soon as I opened the door to exit the KFC, a black & white pulled in, punched the brakes hard, and two of Memphis’ finest flung the doors open and took cover behind them. I was shooting immediately. Slugs tore at the hood, doors, and windows of the squad car. One of the officers let out a scream. I’d hit him. Those CCI’s musta’ torn right through the exterior. I heard more sirens. The slide on the Browning slammed back and stayed there. I thumbed the release and kept firing the Lorcin. It was enough to get me into the Accord. I tore ass away from that Kentucky Fried Chicken like it was wired.

***

It wasn’t long before three squad cars were after me. Not up my kiester, but close enough. I knew soon they’d have a chopper spotlighting me. It wasn’t fun, this.

I had the Browning’s clip in between my thighs and was loading it with one hand while I drove. It was rather difficult. I found myself really wanting a Bonnie at about that point. Just someone to steer the ship while I fucked up our lives.

I made I-40. Red lights flickered behind me in the distance. Sirens. I was doing a buck-forty. The needle was buried. The engine sounded like an elderly woman climaxing. I had to ditch the Honda. I had to be on foot. I had to run. Into the woods. With trees I could hide behind. I needed God to do me a solid.

I pulled the Accord over on the shoulder, jumped out, and ran into the woods. I heard the Crown Vics rip by and then all screech to a halt in unison. I ran and ran as hard and as fast as my Marlboro Reds could carry me. I was heaving, gasping. My chest was erupting. I threw-up as I ran.

It was a half-moon. I heard an owl. It wasn’t comforting.

I made it to a town called Dancyville. There was an old auto repair shop off the main street. Old domestic beaters sat parked out in front. Some had for sale signs. Some were rusted beyond repair. I opened the rear door of an ’85 Lincoln Town Car Limo, crawled inside, and laid myself across the seat. The windows were tinted. I cocked the Browning’s hammer back and waited for what I hoped would be nothing.

***

The sun split open the sky and I realized I was as close to heaven as I’d ever get. I peered out the window of the Town Car. I figured it for 5:30, maybe 6. All was quiet. Miracles do happen.

I got out of the Town Car and roamed the lot looking for a vehicle I might commandeer for my journey to salvation. Wherever the fuck that might be. All the while the Browning stayed firmly in my hand. I was gonna’ be somebody’s paranoid lamming son of a cunt for longer than I’d be proud to admit.

An ’87 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme looked respectable but I got nervous when the door opened as easily as my hand could thumb the latch. Nonetheless I climbed in and ripped open the housing beneath the steering column. My favorite kind of pasta spilled out. Yellow to yellow. Black to yellow. Blue to black and yellow. The Cutlass roared to life and I pulled the blue starter wire away from the others.

“Take me to the River, you grumpy old cocksucker.”

I threw her in drive and drove.

***

Alabama was a day. Took her down and crossed the state line under the stars. I slept in the car just outside of Atlanta. Woke up and headed south. Florida sounded good. Warm. Palm trees. Dinner at four in the afternoon. Maybe I’d get a boat somewhere. Cuba. Freeport. Fuck it.

I got the room in Valdosta to shower, shave off my handlebar, cut my hair and dye it. I found myself in a Walgreen’s perusing the hair coloring section. I selected the Revlon Colorist Expert Color and Glaze System in Blue Black. I figured it’d be a far cry from my graying locks. Bought a mustache trimmer. A Gillette Mach 3 razor. A bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade. A pack of peanut M&M’s. A carton of Philip Morris’ finest.

The girl behind the counter was chubby and pale. Glasses. Curly brown hair. She rang my stuff up and smiled.

“Starting yer own salon?” she asked.

“That’s right. Can’t do it without Gatorade, chocolate, and cigarettes.”

She snickered, a goddamn sweet little geek of a girl. She was 26 and had probably never been laid. Actually, that’s bullshit. I was in Georgia.

***

Looking back on it now: could it’ve been her? Me with my change-yer-whole-appearance-in-an-afternoon set of purchases. Her with her American Justice TV marathon and her quiet, thoughtful eyes.

“Valdosta police department…”

“Hi, this is Jane over at the Walgreen’s on North Ashley Street.”

“How’re you doing today?”

“Oh I’m fine, thank you. I was just callin’…it’s probably nothin’ and it may seem really weird, but a man just came in here and bought some hair dye, and a razor, and a beard trimmer and whatnot…”

“Yes…”

“And well…I mean it was women’s hair dye, like permanent hair dye, and it was a blue black color like a black person would get. And to buy a beard trimmer and razors. It just seems like he’s really intent on changing his appearance, y’know what I mean? I mean…I mean I know it’s probably nothin'…”

“No, go on…”

“It just seemed really strange to me.”

“Did he pay by credit card?”

“No sir. Cash. A hundred dollar bill actually.”

“I’m gonna’ send an officer over there to ask you some more questions, miss. Maybe show you some pictures. Thanks for callin'.”

And even if it wasn’t her. I slipped. ‘Cause see…I ain’t no pro. I’m just an American. There are others like me. And some not like me. Dumber than me. Smarter. Wealthier. Poorer. Taller. Better. Better at living than me. I ride the wind. Someday I’ll be gone and it’ll be like I was never here.

***

Whoever was on the bullhorn introduced himself a federal agent. I poked an eyeball through a slit in the blinds. He was small and bald. He had his Sig P-228 in his lefthand, the talk switch in his right. A fuckin’ southpaw. I killed a cop.

Georgia SWAT was out there too. I pictured those blue boys back in Tennessee. All wanting a piece of me. Pissing themselves that the easterners were gonna’ get to take me down.

The Browning and the Lorcin were on the bed. Staring at me like two puppies in the rain.

“Hard to be a Butch without a Sundance,” I told them.

I’d taken to talking to myself.

I should’ve brought Felicia home. At least then I would’ve had a hostage.

“COME OUT, JOHN! THIS IS THE ONLY WAY! WE’VE GOT THE AREA COMPLETELY SURROUNDED! WE’RE NOT GONNA’ HURT YOU!”

I sat on the bed. Sharpshooters on the rooftop across the highway. Those SWAT sombitches flanking either side of the door. Oh shit, papa…I’m fucked.

“COME ON OUT, JOHN! WE’RE HERE TO HELP YOU!”

What’s the difference between a government man and a confidence man?

One gets paid in cash.

“JOHN…”

They were getting ready to move. Maybe there’d be some young hotshot Memphis defense attorney that could turn it all upside down. Get me off on insanity. Smear the police department. Throw me on a throne:

*** Vigilante Angel Kills Notorious North Memphis Criminal and is Subsequently Attacked by Police ***

The loudspeaker was quiet. I thought of prison. Trying to play every side. How hard that was. Minding my neck. Working. Killing whoever tried to fuck me and fuck with me.

I was a boy once. But what man wasn’t?

***

They had me interlock my fingers. Turn around. Walk backwards toward them. Get on my knees. I felt boots on my spine. Handcuffs imported from China ensnaring my wrists. Somebody spit on me.

That badge is a brotherhood. My brother died.

It was a perfect summer morning. A light, balmy breeze slipped through the air and tickled the live oaks. The crow on the wire had been replaced by a robin. She sang for a new day. There were tears in my eyes. And the sky was so blue I had to smile.







for Ryan Judd



NYC, NY (12/22/07)