02/07/11

Dust…
The dust shot past my feet as my steps dragged in the red-brown dirt on the shoulder of the road. I walked beside a Texaco station a hundred years ago. I remember it, I remember the sun hammering down on me as I cursed, spitting in the dust…

I remember the dust thrown off by passing trucks and the taste of it on my tongue. I remember the heat both the heat of that miserable sun and the heat of my fury as I stopped and looked around at those expanses that surrounded me.

How in christ’s name am I gonna get out of here…wherever ‘here’is…

It was so long ago, so many miles past, but the fury still burns in me when I see dust thrown past my boots in the hot sun.

I almost laughed when I saw him again, that odious little shit. He was grinning there, with some others, playing at the big wheel, bantering back and forth, tapping fists with each other and leering, talking like weasels on speed. The gold tooth couldn’t fill that black gap in his grin, his clothes, though fashionable still hung on his skinny frame like they were draped there.

I saw him from a distance, in passing almost. I looked up as I walked by in that springtime afternoon downtown. It was always downtown when we met, when we grinned like those others, when we jabbered and high-fived. So long ago, so many trips ago, so many stories ago…

Thirty years ago this car had metallic blue paint. Thirty years ago it rolled out of Detroit, not far from here and was driven home by a grinning young man, so proud of his new car. That was the story I liked to tell myself sometimes as I poured another quart of 30-weight into that grimy engine.

Tired…
Too many trips from here to there, too many miles passing without anyone really knowing they did. I’d tap the metal spout on the valve cover to keep the drips from falling on the hot exhaust manifold and smoking with that sulfurous stink. I’d knock the can off into the trash barrel and hand the spout back to the pimply-faced kid that always came as standard equipment at any gas station on the road to anywhere I was going.

I’d pay him and grab a dripping  bottle of Coke from the water-filled cooler that sat there every single time. I dunno how many places I went or how many things I did, but that old Chevelle took me there. Not like a faithful steed of cowboy heroes, but more like one of those guys inhabiting the passenger seat. Not really a friend, but someone you asked along to where you were going because you didn’t feel like going alone. Who sat there smoking and looking away out their window while you both listened to the radio.

A hundred years ago it seemed.

I didn’t bother to calculate when had been the last time I saw him. I have no idea when the calendar said was the last time I saw that asshole grin. I watched it tear by in a car window, knowing that everything was going with him, and I was staying there in that red fucking dust beside that fucking Texaco station in No-Fucking-Where.

I raised my hand like I was pointing at him. He looked around suddenly and sawme, saw my eyes, I think he recognized me from somewhere. He saw my fist raised to his face. He grinned at me, holding his hands out at his side, showing himself as no threat. It wasn’t necessary, I knew he was no threat when he was looking me in the face. The only time I had to worry was when my back was turned. Today my hand held a .22 automatic. A cheap and crude little weapon but quiet, cheap, anonymous, and disposable. No bigger than my hand. It wasn’t like the movies where someone makes a speech and cryptic words pass between them before something is resolved one way or the other. He grinned that feral grin of his like he always did when things got tight.

I wasted no time though, there were no words to say. There was nothing left….
PAK!
The sound was like a sharp clap of hands and a tiny red dot appeared beside his nose, under his left eye. I remember thinking that the goddamn pistol wasn’t even accurate at 5 feet… but who cares?

It wasn’t like the movies, they pull out a big-bore pistol and blast away like cannons. The bad guy falls and that’s it.

The smell of his shit assaulted me almost before he hit the ground, he lay there twitching, eyes darting as the life raced out of him. Urine darkened the front of his jeans. I lowered the little chrome pistol and pulled the trigger rapidly.
PAKPAKPAKPAK!

It wasn’t about anything noble, it was about money. No more, no less. I had it, he took it, I lost it. I found him, he died.

Short story.

It was simple.

I hadn’t searched for him, I hadn’t scoured the country for revenge.

I saw him in passing, quite by accident.

I found a place, I took a chance.

Little red dots appeared haphazardly over his face, one round went into his mouth and smashed some teeth. Blood drained out of him and soaked into the dust, reddening it before the flies came. .22 hollow points don’t usually make exit wounds.

I knew he was dead, I turned away and dropped the pistol in my pocket.

There wasn’t satisfaction, I expected none. I walked away, my steps dragged a bit and I remembered tasting cold coke at a Texaco station somewhere a long time before.
 
 

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