Trouble & Strife Read online

  I kept looking over my shoulder with those thoughts in mind. There was no safety. There was just a little burst of quiet. I couldn’t let myself feel like this was over—even when I was over state lines. Even years later. I needed to be vigilant and be miserable forever because that was the life I chose. I decided to call it a penance, a means of making up for years of bringing misery into other people’s lives. It was a good way to rationalize all this shit. It kept me from jumping face first into a pity party that would leave me in the kind of mental state a person needs to be in to quit. I saw that enough times during my collection runs. There was always someone ready to quit—ready to take life on the chin instead of doing something.

  Port Authority was packed with people, but nobody gave me a second look. I bought a cheap bus ticket to Columbus, Ohio. A late-night ride that would get me into town around 3:30 a.m. I decided to figure out what to do when I got there—no need to sweat the details until it was necessary. Maybe I’d wait for another bus and go further west. Maybe I’d stay right there and become a nothing man in a nothing place. Didn’t matter until the choice was there to make.

  The phone in my inside pocket rang. Not my phone. The burner phone.

  I jerked up from my seat. Was lucky enough to get the set all to myself because only five other assholes were traveling to Ohio the same time as I was. I looked out the window and we were at a gas station. Car next to us had Pennsylvania plates. I looked at my watch and it looked like we were only two hours into the drive. Couldn’t understand why the bus had to stop unless someone was whining for a bathroom—cheap bus meant no toilet.

  I pulled the phone from my pocket. That tiny screen on the front said, UNKNOWN CALLER. I didn’t open it. I looked up and realized nobody was on the bus. The lights weren’t on and it seemed the engine wasn’t either. The phone stopped ringing.

  “Ohio wouldn’t be far enough,” a raspy, drained voice from behind me said. “Smarter man would go north. Maybe Canada, maybe Nova Scotia. Nobody ever goes to Nova Scotia.” Once upon a time, there was an accent there, but the life was drained out of this voice. It felt like something spoke to me from the other side of a tomb.

  It was Cosh.

  “I was working off instinct,” I said.

  “And here I thought your instincts were well-seasoned.”

  I went to turn around. Wanted to look her in the eye when I made my case.

  “Bad choice. Eyes ahead, never behind.”

  I stopped and moved my head back to stare at the back of the seat in front of me.

  I smelled cigar smoke.

  “Theodore. The man who gave you that phone. Where is he?”

  “I don’t remember.” My voice cracked. “I was blacked out, Lady Cosh, I didn’t realize I called you until I found the phone.”

  Cosh wheezed but didn’t say anything.

  “I mean, if I knew there was a problem…I wasn’t aiming to offend or do anything wrong, you know me. You know I’m faithful.”

  “But you ran…” she held the ‘n’ as if she was tasting it. “Ran like a coward as soon as word got out I was on my way. Faithful always comes back, faithful doesn’t turn tail.”

  “I slipped. Got scared. Am I wrong to be scared?”

  Cosh made a sound like she was choking—laughter. “I’ve yet to figure that out. What I do know is that we’re not in the business of why. What matters is you made a mistake and then you doubled down on it.”

  I held up the phone. “If you can use it, take it. I promise I got no idea who it was that did this.”

  I felt her hand brush mine as she took the phone. The skin was abnormally smooth. The stories about her—about the burns—they must have been true. “Do you remember what you told me?”

  “No. No I don’t.”

  “You said, ‘Blacky Jaguar says to go fuck yourself.’”

  “I have no idea who that is.” That was the truth. The name was ridiculous. Didn’t sound like anyone in the area or in another crew.

  Cosh sighed. “Theodore, I understand this is very confusing but that name, that name, my how it stings me. I’ve got nobody else to take this out on, understand?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t realize it was you until the next day.”

  “A smarter man would have known from the start. A smarter man would have known better than to drink his mind rotten when surrounded by strangers. What would it say about me, Theodore, if I let that stand? What would it say to others if they knew someone in my crew could be plied with a drink to play a child’s prank on me?”

  “It’s a simple mistake.”

  “Simple mistakes grow like weeds.” Cosh let the words hang a moment. “It took me far too long to learn that.”

  A pop. Loud. Set my ears ringing almost immediately. All the air left me. I felt like I’d sprinted for a mile, my chest burned so bad. Went cross-eyed for a second before the headrest on the seat in front of me went from three back to one. Couldn’t catch my damn breath. Couldn’t feel my hands.

  The Lady Cosh stood beside me. I turned to her and couldn’t make out the details. Felt her smooth hand on mine.

  “An example must be made.” Cosh dug her other hand into my pockets. She lifted the billfold I got from Hector. “How much does he owe after this?”

  I blinked. The math should have been easy. “I…” I licked my lips; my tongue was so dry. “I think another two or three large. Didn’t count.” I felt exhausted. All this running—this stress—was wearing me down.

  Cosh counted the money. “Three hundred dollars. You trusted too easy, Theodore. Let your desperation blind you.” She placed a hand on my head. Her thumb between my eyes. “Now rest boy. You played your part. Rest easy knowing what comes next is not your fault.”

  The Lady Cosh walked away. I watched her tiny frame disappear from the bus. Nobody came back, and I couldn’t catch my damn breath. No matter how deep I breathed, it just wouldn’t come back.

  Back to TOC

  Dicky Dirt

  Inspired by the Rhyming Slang for Shirt

  Johnny Shaw

  Ross Hartshorne didn’t like Tanya Morgan. He didn’t find her attractive. She had stringy hair and dead eyes. Her laugh grated on him and she laughed all the time. At all the wrong things. She had a nasty tongue and could be downright mean. He had once seen her kick a dog. Ross really couldn’t stand the woman.

  But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to have sex with her.

  Ross believed in seizing opportunities when they arose. That’s how he found himself on a Tuesday night on top of Tanya Morgan pumping away like he was trying to snake a clogged drain.

  It had very little to do with her. Nothing really. Her husband, Craig Morgan, had given him a brutal beating twenty years earlier when they were both in the tenth grade. Ross had never avenged the humiliation of that moment, but had thought about it regularly.

  Someone famous in some movie once said that revenge is a cold dish. That’s the way Ross saw it. The years didn’t matter. By banging his wife, Ross was hitting Craig Morgan over the head with a bowl made of ice. But only in a covert way, because if Craig Morgan found out, he would kill Ross. The revenge had to be Ross’s secret with himself.

  Craig hadn’t gotten any saner since high school. To be honest, he was a straight-up psychopath. Getting on his bad side was dangerous. Even Craig’s good side could get you hospitalized. He beat the shit out of Doc Proctor just for accidentally playing the wrong song on the jukebox with his quarter. And they’re best friends. Although it probably won’t be the last time someone got a beat down for playing Mr. Roboto in a desert bar.

  Maybe if he had the chance, Ross could tell Craig on his deathbed. Although he didn’t really see a scenario where he would be invited to that event.

  Whatever the opposite of guilt was, that’s what Ross felt. Ross didn’t believe in bad choices. What he did was what he did. There wasn’t any upside in second guessing something once it was decided. All of Ro
ss’s choices were good choices. He didn’t make mistakes.

  “Are you almost finished?” Tanya said, her voice flat. She stared back at him with those dumb, dead eyes.

  “Yeah, I guess. I’m getting a little raw.” Ross gave a couple courtesy pumps and rolled off her. He stared at the ceiling, catching his breath. “You’re sure Craig won’t be back until morning?”

  “Probably. He usually stops at the casino when he works in Indio.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m going to take off. Unless you want to cuddle.”

  Tanya stared at him. She found her phone on the nightstand and looked at the screen.

  Ross waited for a moment, then got the hint that this interaction was over. He got out of bed and looked for his pants.

  “I’m going to have to tell him, you know,” Tanya said, matter of fact.

  “Tell who? Tell Craig?” Ross said. “Why would you do that?”

  “I like it when he gets jealous and hurts people. It feels like he loves me.”

  A week later, Ross wasn’t thinking about Tanya or Craig Morgan, other than to occasionally bask in the glow of his secret revenge. The sex had been bad and he had gotten a speeding ticket driving home, but there were no clouds on the horizon. No reason to expect a storm.

  Ross put on his best Hawaiian shirt, the one with the images of topless hula dancers, and strolled over to Boog’s for their monthly luau. As luaus went, Ross didn’t think it was authentic, but he had never been to Hawaii, so he couldn’t judge for sure. Cultural accuracy wasn’t on his list of reasons for attending. Two-dollar mai tais were high on the list. There were always a couple drunks that ended up putting on the coconut bras and fake grass skirts. And the Mexican that played Don Ho songs in the corner was good, even if he sang all the songs in Spanish.

  He dropped a five on the bar and ordered his drinks. Strolling through the small bar, he two-fisted a couple of mai tais in plastic cups. He took sips from each one, making it clear that they were both his. He wanted to get a little more drunk before he socialized, so he posted up near the back door to watch the show. A bunch of desert rats squirm-danced on each other like Axl Rose to Pequeñas Burbujas.

  When Craig Morgan walked in the door, Ross involuntarily pooped a little. More like a prairie dog poking its head out and returning to his tunnel, but it counted.

  Craig did not look like he was there to party. He looked like he was there to hurt someone. Someone named Ross.

  Craig had worked labor jobs most of his life. A body lumped with muscles and an off-putting asymmetry like a hunchback bodybuilder. He wore thick glasses with black frames, his cross-eyes never quite looking at the person in front of him. The vertical indentation between his eyebrows was so thick with hate that it looked like a knife wound.

  Before Ross could hide, Craig was halfway across the room heading in his direction. He shoved men and women out of the way, brushing them to the side like they were tall grass.

  Tony Alvarez took umbrage at getting shoved and hit Craig with a haymaker across the jaw. It turned Craig’s head and his glasses flew off his face and landed somewhere behind the bar.

  “Shit” was all Tony Alvarez said before Craig caveman-punched him right on top of the head, buckling Tony’s knees and sending him crumpling to the ground.

  Ross didn’t wait to see the remainder of Tony’s fate. He was out the back door and into the night.

  The moment Ross stepped into the back patio of Boog’s, he remembered that there was no back exit. Three tall stucco walls surrounded him, razor wire at the top because of that time Gweez Rodriguez tried to sneak a cougar into the bar as a gag. There would usually be smokers out back, but all the smokers had migrated to the front after a sewage pipe broke and made the ground swampy and the whole area smell like the dysentery ward of a shitting hospital.

  Trapped and frantic, Ross looked for a place to hide. He didn’t even consider fighting Craig. The man was a force of nature.

  “Hey, Ross.”

  Ross jumped. Dicky Dirt walked out of the shadows in the far corner. He zipped up his fly, wiped his hands on his pants, and reached out to shake. Ross took his hand out of instinct. It was wet.

  “Dicky Dirt,” Ross said.

  “Nobody calls me that no more. Only you call me that.”

  Dicky Dirt had been in Ross’s class in grade school all the way through high school. He had been skinny as a kid, but had filled out, about the same size as Ross now. He wasn’t much to look at, his only distinguishing feature his huge Adam’s apple.

  Ross glanced at the backdoor, knowing that at any moment it was going to fly off its hinges and Craig was going to rhino-charge him.

  “That’s a pretty sweet shirt you got there,” Dicky said.

  “Where’s your Hawaiian shirt?” Ross asked, quickly looking over his shoulder. “It’s a luau.”

  “I don’t need one. Nobody cares.”

  That’s when it hit Ross. Dicky was about the same size as Ross. Same hair color. Similar build. Craig was blind with his glasses. It was dark out back.

  “Where’s your spirit?” Ross unbuttoned his shirt. “I’ll trade you.”

  “Really?”

  “I was leaving soon anyway,” Ross said. “That was a thing. People making fun of your clothes when we were kids. So mean. This way you can fit in.”

  “Actually,” Dicky started to say.

  “Let’s swap.”

  They traded shirts. Ross was dancing a little in anticipation of Craig’s inevitable arrival.

  “Do you got to piss or something?” Dicky asked.

  Very loud crashing and screaming rose from the bar. Ross and Dicky turned at the same time.

  “Yeah, I do.” Ross walked quickly to the corner, as deep into the shadows as he could.

  The backdoor flew open. Craig Morgan stepped outside. He saw Dicky Dirt right away, standing in the middle of the closed area.

  “You’re a dead man,” Craig shouted.

  “Why?” was all Dicky was able to get out.

  To say that Dicky Dirt took a beating would not do justice to the extent of his dismantling. When it was all over, his body lay twisted and writhing on the ground. His breathing sounded raspy and damaged. Small moans followed even the smallest movement. It looked like he had been dunked in a vat of beet juice. Whatever wasn’t bloody was bruised. One of his shoes had come off.

  When Craig eventually walked back into the bar, he left Dicky Dirt on the damp, stinking ground. The sewage seeped up from the ground and soaked Dicky’s clothes from the bottom up. A beating was one thing, but nobody deserved an infection.

  Ross laid out a couple beach towels before he helped Dicky Dirt onto his sofa. The couch was old, ragged, and babyshit green, but that didn’t mean he wanted blood all over it.

  It hadn’t mattered. The moment Ross set him down, Dicky vomited all over himself, Ross, and about a third of the living room.

  “Sorry,” Dicky said through his busted mouth.

  Ross wiped the puke off his face and walked into the kitchen. He dry-heaved once but kept it down. It wasn’t the first time someone vomited on his face. At least this time it wasn’t during sex. He rinsed off in the sink and grabbed another towel.

  Dicky Dirt was a mess. His nose was broken. The swelling on one eye looked like someone adhered a plum to his face and then stepped on it. His lips were double-sized and split in places. There was a lump on his forehead that was damn near an antler. Under his clothes, Dicky was most certainly purple with bruises.

  Ross couldn’t help but feel partly responsible for Dicky’s condition. It made him feel weird inside. Regret or guilt or empathy, he didn’t know which, as those were words he had seen and knew the meaning of, but had never bothered to experience.

  “What happened?” Dicky said. Or at least, that’s what Ross assumed he said. It was mostly spitty, juicy sounds in the shape of “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Ross said. “Craig Mo
rgan lost his shit. He went berserker on you. Did you do something to piss him off?”

  Dicky shook his head, but froze when he cringed at the pain. He shrugged, but that looked like it hurt too.

  “You must have done something,” Ross said.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re at my place. Boog didn’t want cops or an ambulance showing up again. Wanted to keep his current streak going. Six days might be a new record.”

  “Can’t afford anyway.”

  “Who can? You can stay here for a bit. If you’re pissing blood after two days—’cause you’ll definitely be pissing blood today—then you should probably get to the doctor. Internal injuries don’t always fix themselves.”

  “Thanks, Ross.”

  “Anything for Dicky Dirt.”

  Dicky stared at him. Ross took the look in his eye to be gratitude for his kindness. Ross started to feel better about things. None of that guilt or whatever. He was kind of a hero, if he thought about it.

  Dicky had gotten so much hell in high school. Bullied by everyone. A pizza-faced geek with a huge Adam’s apple, but his real sin was that his family was dirt poor. It wasn’t like the small desert town had debutante balls, but there was still a social strata between the poor and the really poor. He was an untouchable.

  He never had new clothes, always decades-old hand-me-downs. And those clothes were never clean. That’s how he got his name. Ross doubted that he had running water inside the trailer and probably used the camp facilities.

  Ross could remember at least three times when Dicky Dirt got the stuffing beat out of him for no reason other than existing. People chanting his name while someone used him as a punching bag.

  The least Ross could do was help out the poor guy.

  Two days later, Dicky said he felt better. The swelling had gone down on both his eyes and his lip. The purple had become a rainbow of yellows and greens. He could talk better, although he still drooled out of one corner of his mouth.