THUGLIT Issue Three Read online

  The dancing had sobered me, but her perfume and the tingle I still felt on my thigh from her rubbing herself there, all of it had me buzzing. “Let’s do take-out,” I said, not wanting to spoil the moment, dying to take her straight back to my room, knowing she was calling every shot. She told me what she wanted as I pulled the car in next to the only other vehicle there, a pickup with double wheels and blacked-out windows.

  I glanced back at her while the clerk put bagels, cream cheese, and a jar of honey into a bag and swiped my card. Her face was lit by her phone again. Checking in? Checking out? What was with people and their phones these days? I hadn’t missed my mobile once since they cut my account for non-payment. The bars I liked still had a phone in the back, and it wasn’t as if anyone was desperate to reach me.

  Trisha took a bagel from the bag. It was fresh from the oven, still warm. She broke it in half and used it to scoop some of the whipped cheese onto one end, dipping it in honey before offering me a bite. “Where’s home?” she asked.

  “We can be there in ten minutes,” I said, starting the car.

  Her mouth full, she mumbled, shook her head, and held up a finger. When she had swallowed, she said, “I mean home. Where you from?”

  “Des Moines,” I said. “But I’ve been here since ’99.” I turned right out of the parking lot and gunned it to make the yellow light. Maybe I could do it in eight minutes—there was almost no traffic. I reached across and slipped my fingers under the bagel bag on her lap. She squeezed my hand between her thighs, then shifted the bag to the floor and leaned her head on my shoulder. Her nails popped open two buttons on my shirt and she reached under to flick my nipple. She pinched it and said, “Hurry.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Where’s home for you?”

  She kissed my neck and ran her tongue up to my hairline, back and forth. She whispered, each word a breath in my ear: “I’m done with home. Take me. Far as you can.”

  I deserved one good fling, didn’t I? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have tried. Busted flat, a pocket full of cash that no longer mattered, and a minx like Trisha ready to ride into the night. If we got far enough, not even Costas would find me. Only so much you can spend chasing twelve thousand bucks.

  A fresh start.

  I nearly took the on-ramp to the I-95. I had the suitcase in the trunk, after all. I had already planned to skip out on this week’s room rental. Hadn’t intended to return to the Seven Oaks at all, though I still had the key. I’d been ducking the day manager since Tuesday. As for the car, it’d be grim justice to have the leasing company send some skip tracer by the house that was no longer mine, hassle the ex to pay.

  Trisha’s tongue was like a toe on my accelerator. Whatever she was running from, she made it clear I was her escape route. I pulled my arm from her crotch to grab the wheel with both hands. I made it to the motel in just under seven minutes.

  Inside the room, she picked up the remote and found a channel playing music. She turned the sound up loud and draped a towel over the screen. I tried to dance with her but she pressed her tongue in my mouth, pushed me onto the bed, and disappeared into the bathroom. I stared at the ceiling, imagined where we’d head. Three days would get us across the country. All kinds of work out west. Or maybe up to Canada? The cash economy was pretty active I’d heard.

  I could hear the shower running. What was that about? What kind of woman drove you right round the bend then left you alone in front of a dimmed television while she took a shower? I thought of her writhing on the dance floor, how her lips tasted, me sweating there with her. If she needed a shower, I might as well join her. I rounded the bed to the door but she had locked it. She ignored my knocks, so I lay down and went back to watching the stucco spin.

  I’d seen the inside of more motel rooms these past four months than my whole life with the ex. She’d always wanted to travel, but I never saw the point. Why cram ourselves onto an airplane just so we could be puked up onto a fairy tale beach and drink watered-down booze? It’s not like we needed to escape some rat-trap apartment. Our house had it all. Hot tub, big screen, king-size bed. Even had a gourmet kitchen, not that either of us could cook. The first few years, we had parties. Friends from work, neighbors who liked a good time. When it all wore thin and I was ready to try one of those last-minute excursions, she was busy freaking out over Final Notice statements and bills stamped Overdue.

  Maybe Trisha would enjoy an island vacation. We could fund two or three months on thirteen thousand bucks. Longer if we went to Nicaragua or Belize, I bet. We could lie on the beach and plan a future together, take our time deciding where to go. Anywhere but here.

  The LED on Trisha’s phone splashed blue across the ceiling every ten seconds. I picked it up and read the text on the front screen: Where r u now????

  I pressed a couple keys, thinking I’d flip a smart-ass reply to the loser on the other end, but the thing asked me for a password and offered up an Emergency Call. I put it back on the nightstand, next to her purse, where she’d left it.

  By the time she stepped from the bathroom, I’d dozed off. I peeled my eyes open and craned my neck as far as I could. She stood there a moment, silhouetted by a fluorescent shimmer, a towel held up by her breasts, not quite covering her body. Her hair was dripping, hips flared wide, knees parted, and the sliver of light at the top of her thighs backlit her mound, still wet. I reached for her as she bent over me to pick up her phone.

  She coiled away from me and hammered at the keys.

  “Jesus, what now?” I said.

  “Never mind.” She finished and dropped the phone next to her purse. “Just telling the bastard to leave me alone.”

  I stepped into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. “I looked at your phone,” I said, coming back into the room. “I shouldn’t have.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said.

  “What does he want? Assuming it’s a he.”

  “What he says is his,” she said. She got up on her knees, pulled down the bed cover and tossed the towel aside. “Turn off the light and come here.”

  Trisha gave me more that night than I’d ever had before. If I thought her fingernails felt good on my nipple… her mouth, those tiny teeth were electric. She tore my shirt and flipped my belt buckle open like a pro, pulling me out hard, then yanking my pants to my knees and kicking them the rest of the way off with her feet as she buried me in her mouth. She drizzled honey on her nipples and made me lick her clean.

  We fucked on the bed, bent over the chair, standing up with her slick back pressed against the wallpaper, making new stains. At some point, we must have knocked the towel off the television screen because I remember staring at a grainy Eddie Money video while her hips slammed me back against the vinyl headboard.

  The last time she took me, I was flat on my back, wasted. She turned on the light and stared at me, going slow now, and her eyes in that moment were clear. No more hurt. No more cry for help. Instead, I saw something like grace, a flicker of sorrow. I ran my hands down her sides as she collapsed against my ribs, shivering. We were both soaking wet. I dragged the sheet up with my foot and draped it over us as she drifted off. I pulled the light by its cord, trying to turn it off without disturbing her. It fell to the floor and went dark, and Trisha stirred and pressed her nose deep into the space between my chest and my arm. I reached for the remote and killed the television.

  The drapes were parted barely an inch, just enough that I could see the night sky and the flicker of headlights passing on the highway. We could sleep a couple hours, then get up and still leave before the day manager began his shift. I fell asleep to the gentle rhythm of Trisha snoring through her shifted septum, knowing I could listen to that rustle for the rest of my life.

  When the door banged open, sunlight burned into the room. I hid my eyes with my forearm and scrambled to my feet, tripping myself in the twisted sheets and winding up splayed across the carpet. The day manager’s
loafers were inches from my nose. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m here for the rent.”

  I started to my knees, and felt a boot land on my chest, bending me flat backward. Something was going to snap, and I couldn’t tell whether it would be the tendons in my knees or whatever the hell was making my back spasm. Muscles tearing, I flung myself to the side and drew my legs out from under me. I still couldn’t see for the blazing white light, but someone other than the manager had me pinned to the floor with his foot.

  “Nine-thirty, asshole. You’re late.” God, how I detested his voice. Costas lifted his boot and I shielded my eyes with one hand, blinking hard, wishing to hell I wasn’t naked, knowing he didn’t care. The manager had stepped out of the Greek’s way and was watching Trisha pull her dress over her head, scratching his jaw with the room key.

  Costas stepped toward her and she covered her face with both her hands, one of them clutching her panties.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” Costas said. “You lie to me, tell me you’re up north then stop texting me? Like I’m gonna give you a phone and not set up the Find Me?”

  “I’m sorry, Costas. I was drunk.” Trisha’s eyes were all “Help me” again, with a shitload of fear mixed in. She didn’t even look at me, like I wasn’t there. “The money’s here, Costas. It’s there, in his pants, or his jacket maybe.”

  Costas rifled through my pockets and pulled out my stake, crumpling the envelope and tossing it in the corner. He finger-counted what I owed him, shoved it in his jeans, and looked at the rest.

  “Gotta charge you another day’s vig,” he said. “It’s past nine o’clock.” He pulled six more fifties and slipped them into his pocket. “How much he owe you, my fine friend?” he asked the day manager.

  “Four-twenty,” the guy said. Then, looking around the room, “Plus a cleaning fee.”

  “Call it five,” said Costas. He handed him the bills and said, “Now get lost.”

  The day manager slipped two fifties in his pocket, wrapped the rest in his fist and took a long look at Trisha before leaving. Watching him walk out, I saw him pass the grill of a massive black pickup, one wheel on the curb outside the door.

  “What’d I say I’d pay you for keeping an eye on this guy?” the bookie asked Trisha. She was shaking, holding one hand to her cheek, the other arm wrapped tight around her waist, still holding her panties.

  “Never mind,” she said.

  “No, really,” said Costas. “I’m a stand-up guy. Not like this puke. What’d he say? He’d take you to Vegas or something? Be the big spender?”

  My eyes had adjusted to the light and I watched him take two bills, fold them between his fingers and run them up and down the side of Trisha’s nose before shoving them down her neckline. Turning to me, he had one bill left in his hand. He screwed it into a ball and threw it on the carpet in front of me.

  “Get yourself a decent breakfast,” he said. “On me.” He walked out the door.

  Trisha slipped on her shoes, tucked her panties in her purse and bent her face down to mine. She sucked my lip, gentle this time. “No ducking fate,” she said. Her eyes told me I looked like I needed help. “Hope you feel lucky.”

  Wakey Wake

  By Nathan Pettigrew

  Bottom line: the man was no longer Roland’s father. He was chewed gum, blue and mangled, devoid of flavor. You could see the gash marks in his neck, and his hands crossed at his chest were fuzzy and peachy from too much makeup turning his flesh to wood. Even his three-piece navy suit appeared stiff with cardboard-looking flaps for lapels.

  “They did a piss-poor job with him,” said Roland.

  “I’m sure they did the best they could,” his mother said.

  “But Mom, his face is blue.”

  Sobs seized control of her breath while Roland’s meds failed to numb the sharp plunge of weight in his thigh; he clenched his teeth and gripped his crutches.

  Around the casket and covering the closed bottom half were his father’s favorite flowers. Soft white mums, the wild disk florets like flakes from a mustard center. Dark red carnations next to a mixed batch of yellow, white, and orange. And then a third bouquet exclusive to his father’s ultimate favorite—the Southern Blue Flag—commonly known as the iris. Only these particular ones were more violet with purple and gold leaves in the shapes of swords.

  The scent from the flowers was overpowering, a sweetness redolent of root beer.

  Roland’s mother wept while wiping the muddy streaks of mascara from beneath her eyelids, her dress two shades of dark green, both blending well with her hair that somehow had stayed dark in her fifties.

  “We don’t have much time, Mom.”

  “I know,” she said. “I should get to the bathroom before everyone arrives.”

  She reached into her purse for another tissue.

  “Wait.”

  Her attention turned to the flowers. “What?”

  “Me and you. Are we okay?”

  She shook her head. “It’s all so sudden, Roland, and—”

  “I know, Mom. It’s sudden for me, too. I can’t even… I can’t sleep. I can’t sit still, and I keep thinking—”

  “Let’s talk about this later, okay? Guests will be here any minute.”

  “You feel safe with me, though. Right?”

  Her blackened soaked eyes took hold of his stare, widening. “You’re asking if I blame you?”

  “I mean… I’m the one who’s responsible.”

  “Don’t say that, honey. You wouldn’t have been put in that situation if I had gone with him to pick you up. But I just, I had no idea. He seemed sober when he left the house.”

  “This isn’t your fault, Mom.”

  She wiped her nose before refocusing her attention on the irises. “I used to worry so much about you when you were growing up. You have the same temper he did. The same exact temper.”

  “I know, Mom. Question is, what does the rest of Bayou Blue think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just didn’t know if they thought that maybe I could’ve done something differently.”

  She squinted at her son. “Honey, do you really think that anyone blames you for this?”

  Father Tremblay entered the chapel through the wide double-doors.

  “You have guests arriving,” he said, bending over to prop the doors open, his gray balding head reflecting the ceiling lights in chrome polished fashion.

  Then the faces appeared, multiplying and forming a line within just seconds. A few Roland recognized from the halls back in high school, but most were older and there for his mother, all of his close friends long gone, either dead or in jail from stupid accidents all related to alcohol. One suicide.

  No, the faces in line weren’t even faces—just apologies.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Please. Anything we can do. Just let us know.”

  “We were devastated when we heard the news.”

  Strong fragrances from the women left Roland with a taste for citric fruit. Among them, his old babysitter. Julie. Julie Fitchburg, he presumed, seeing he hadn’t heard anything about a divorce from Steven Fitchburg. Ol’ Steven Fitchburg from down the bayou who’d turned out to be a wife batterer.

  Along with her husband, age had not been kind to the woman. Her black hair was streaked white like a skunk’s, her matching black dress too tight, revealing more bone than body.

  “It’s so good to see you again,” she said, her eyes holding the same sparkle that once made Roland dream of the years beyond his boyhood.

  “Yeah. You too, Julie.”

  Her thumb caressed the veins around his knuckles.

  “What a man you’ve become,” she said, her smile showing yellow teeth between plum lipstick.

  Her left cheek and her nose twitched, and then again. A nervous tic of some sort. The wrinkles beneath her makeup were more evident now, the lines around her eyes having doubled since the last time Roland had seen her.

 
“You remember Steph. Right, Roland? My friend who used to come over sometimes?”

  Stephanie’s pale face was familiar, fatter, but free of wrinkles.

  “Oh sure. How are you?” He accepted her hand, going from one Southern belle to the next.

  “We’re just so sorry,” she said.

  “Thank you. Thanks for coming.”

  Waiting in line behind Stephanie was Sheriff Kwanyay. Last of the Houmas Indians. Elected to Sheriff’s Office by the Cajuns of Bayou Blue for three consecutive terms.

  He nodded. “Roland.”

  “Sheriff.”

  His grip was firm, his spiked black hair cut short, his other hand holding his straw hat with the white and brown speckled feather against his side. His eyes were serious, gray and made of concrete. His dark and muscular facial features, however, were a far cry from the belly pushing out from his beige coat.

  “How’s the arm?” he asked, without so much as a glance at Roland’s bandages.

  “Better.”

  “And the leg?”

  Same thing: his eyes ignored Roland’s leg, though the bandages around Roland’s thigh weren’t visible through his pants.

  Roland nodded, and their eyes remained locked. The good sheriff from down the bayou could’ve been a man in Roland’s corner, as he seemed to be, or a man who believed his father’s death to be an accident that could’ve been avoided.

  With a badge, though, it was better if he believed that Roland did everything in his power to avoid tragedy while defending himself against a drunken distortion of the man who raised him. Anything—any sign would do.

  But the sheriff gave him nothing. His stare stayed cold, steady, and then finally, looking at Roland’s mother, he moved ahead to shake her hand.

  “Hi, Fran. How are you?”

  Roland loosened his tie, and after setting his crutches aside, he hopped backwards into the pew and sat. His mother could handle this, and his leg needed to rest—like his father—resting in peace.