Saturday, October 16, 2010

Sprecata







“It’s not the drugs that I want--” he told him with conviction. “—it’s the money. I want the money. I need the money.”

Yul glanced down at the man’s grimy hands and shook his head. “It’s too costly. I can’t do it. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

The man was desperate – digging through his jacket pockets for anything he could find. His fingers hopelessly picked at the corners of each pant pocket also, finding only lint and a few pence in his right one. He pinched the three or four coins between his middle finger and thumb, smudging over the government-stamped relief that whispered to him softly, “Fuck your needs and your desires. I’m not here to bail you from your fate.”

Mick was fucked. Proper fucked. He removed his hands from his pockets, his body shaking and his face afoul with inner-conflict that tore at his soul. It was only him and Yul in the alley behind the bar, but he couldn’t pull himself to do it. The lock blade in his jacket’s inside pocket was waiting to be sprung – all it took was a quick grasp with his fingers and a flick of the wrist. Before Yul could notice what was going on – he’d be wiggling on the asphalt, blood squirting from his neck and dripping onto his evening attire - his hands gripping tightly around his larynx, hoping to slow the bleeding as it gushed from his insides.

Yet Mick hadn’t pulled the knife just yet. The thought was still brooding in his mind as his legs shook and his head trembled at the predicament in front of him. Yul had put the plastic bag of goods back inside his own jacket pocket, stuffed into the little pouch that rested above his heart, beating at a much slower pace than that of Mick’s. He could sense the agitation Mick was battling with himself. The poor soul wanted to utter what was on his mind yet he couldn’t compose the words that had no connection to the ideas that fluttered about his brain, jumping from cloud to cloud without any sky to juxtapose against. It was a sea of white within his head – truly blank like a proper gallery or a clean canvas ready to be ruined by a simple touch. All that he knew in this moment was that it was one man with another, in an alley, at night, face to face, knife in one man’s jacket, the other man potentially armed - yet on the flipside unarmed – helpless like a sheep in a quarantined space, fenced off from any idea of simple escape or a better life. It was a game of numbers – seconds, minutes – but not hours. Especially not days. What it took in these little seconds was a will to drive himself to someplace better than the predicament at hand. It’s just that it idled on the simple question, “What the fuck do I do?”

His arms slowly raised themselves above his head as a light smile grew across his face. His palms opened up towards the sky, as if to make an offering of peace with the Holy Father - or really whoever would accept it. His legs took short, cautious steps in a backward motion, away from Yul who shared only a flummoxed face and a pair of hands whose anxious fingers wiggled at his sides.

“Oy! Where the fuck you goin’ mate?” blurted Yul with a slight cock of the neck.

His right hand reached behind his jacket for the .45 ACP nestled beween his trousers and button-down, wrapping his fingers around the rigid polymer grip.

“Are we done here?”

Mick didn’t like this, as he expressed with a harsh squint of his eyes and tightening of his fists, now lowered at his own sides. They both were clenched and ready to beat whatever stood in his way to a bloody pulp - yet the problem was that he was in retreat rather than an advance. Yul continued to stand his ground - at the spot where they had been discussing the potential deal that didn’t show much chance of happening anymore.

Yul looked down at this watch, making sure to peek at it for only a second, quickly looking up to see where Mick was slipping away to.

“Are you runnin’ boy?” he blabbed in a mocking tone.

“Ye fuckin’ scared ye fuckin’ faireh?”

There was no response from Mick. He didn’t even look up to confirm that Yul had been the one who continued to taunt him into this shameful display of submission. He didn’t really give a flying fuck – not even a for a second.

“Fuck off you ye fuckin’ poof,” he muttered to himself ever-so-quietly.

“I’ll slit your mother a new one if I had the chance.”

Yul didn’t like getting silence in response. He too had problems with self-control and possessed a relentless necessity of finding peace with himself by degrading others. Violence was his way of communicating with the world – he never was a good schoolboy or one of those twinks that gave too many flying fucks about their coifs of hair or princely accoutrements. The truth is, all of this anger was deeply seeded in his rough upbringing without a father or his brother – both of whom were taken away from him roughly around age three. His mother abandoned him also when she realized that her salary as a chambermaid didn’t do much for herself – let alone the proper raising of a child. So she fled around the time he hit seven, off to live with some well-to-do fuckpot that lives in scenic Yorkshire. Yul was a bastard and he knew it – the problem was he never had admitted to himself that his anger with the world stemmed from this terrible upbringing and shady past that revolved around an irregular schedule of jumping from one foster home to another. He was just as much a fucked up teapot as any other shite on the street. But he didn’t like that, so he lived with a gun in the back of his trousers and a bit of grit between his teeth.

“Come back here you fuckin’ fish licker!”

“You suck dicks just as well as your mother did to me last night!”

“Oh fuck off you fuckin’ spit roasted queef,” Mick spat feebly.

“I’d slice your shit in a quick second if you weren’t so fuckin’ full of yeself.”

Dominic had been waiting in the car this entire time, the engine still running patiently as he hummed off-key in the driver’s seat. Dominic was quite the character himself - a sex-addict odd-fuck that only knew how to drive cars because he pictured himself as a Le Mans pilote champion that deserved to have his winkle tickled on a daily basis. But really, nobody was tickling his winkle on any basis. In fact, Dominic was as big of a creep as Yul, chosen to drive him throughout his day because they both understood each other in some offbeat, fucked up relationship that required them to share grilled cheese and tomato soup lunches every Wednesday. To Mick, Yul and Dominic were beyond worthy of a quick punch to the lung or even something more damaging than that - they was low-brow scum compared to him. So really, maybe he should give them a quick jab or two with the lock blade – he’d be doing the world a favor. But then again, he didn’t have idea that he’d run into Dominic so soon.

As he backed into the passenger’s side of Dominic’s vehicle, the driver pulled his hand from his trousers, quickly glancing over to his right.

“Oywhatthefuckisyefuckinproblemyefuckinbitchofafuckinshitmotherfuckinshitfuck?”

“My apologies mate - I didn’t see ye car in the fuckin’ way,” Mick trickled out.

“I didn’t mean ta do it, I best apologize for my wrongdoin.”

“Of course ye better apologize you fucked twat,” Dominic gushed as he zipped up his trousers.

“You done fuckin’ caught me slickin’ me piece for a goodnight ye goddamn piss-wad. You must be a fuckin’ shite faireh I do admit.”

Unwilling to listen or pay attention to the driver’s Cockney rubbish, Mick drunkenly reached downwards towards his right boot. Dominic peeped towards the passenger’s window, still strapped in by his seatbealt within the driver’s seat.

“What’s ye pullin’ out twat?” he asked of Mick. “Ye plump dick for me to suck?”

“Nonya fuckin’ business ye fuck. So do me a fuckin’ favor and suck ye own dick ye feg!” Mick uttered as he pulled a .38 Special from his boot.

“I got a question though,” he directed towards Dominic.

“Can ye take me to the closest corner shop aroundabouts here?”

Dominic looked straight ahead through the windshield, then back at Mick.

“You mean to ask me you want me to drive ye somewhere?”

“No not that,” Mick shared.

“I just need to getouttahere.”

“You fuckin’ serious? I dun drive yer arse ye piece o’ shit – I drive Yul ye dumbfook.”

Mick looked vexed. He glanced towards the alley, wondering where Yul might be.

“You were in the meeting right? The one with Yul?” Dominic asked with a bit of concern.

“Yeh for a sec,” Mick nodded. “Just a short bit.”

“So why you leavin’ so soon? Ye scared? Somethin’ wrong?”

“Nah. It’s not that. It’s just I gots to go for certain reasons and a meetin’. What’s with the fuckin’ Q and A?” Mick snapped.

“I got some fuckin’ cash I can give ye if ye stop using ye fuckin’ piss-sized brain and get me the fuck outta here ye hear?”

Dominic had only been Yul’s driver for the past month – the last one had been shot when a deal went south with some Peckham Boys. He was basically clueless as to how the social networking of the city worked. For him, it was nothing more than key and an ignition, a foot and a pedal, a bed and a woman. His mentality was that as long as he had money to pay for his gas into the city, the food on his plate, the clothes on his back and the woman in his bed – he was a happy man. The ambitions that defined his life were far more simplistic than the people he dealt with on a daily basis – and he didn’t care. Instead, what he learned from the folks he served every night is that no one man lives the same life - and that no one man can prove that his or her course of action is the best. Instead, he came to accept that it’s what makes one happy and keeps them motivated that results in the finest way to go about. And in Dominic’s case – he was a driver and just that. Yul was an unhappy educator that still needed to teach himself - yet couldn’t bring himself to do it. He liked pretending he knew his shit and when to push others’ in. And that was okay with the others – so he told himself. But for Mick, as he stood there wondering why he was being delayed by some idiot of a driver when he could be exiting the area, he accepted that maybe Dominic wasn’t as fortunate as him growing up. Maybe he didn’t have a proper education. So he proceeded to grab the man through the window, drag him onto the sidewalk, and commanded him to describe in full detail why he was being such a prickly cunt. Of course, Dom was unable to do so as he pissed his pants, coincidentally as he was subjugated to the stiff tip of Mick’s .38.

“I’m gonna make ye wish you never met me fucker,” Mick spat out with hasty agitation.

“—and fuck yer friend Yul – that sonofabitch.”

Mick had never killed a man before and his trembling fingers said so. He was merely a suburban-born junkie that hadn’t fully come to terms with his sad life that sat before him – stuck in some limbo where he was somewhat willing to change himself, yet unwilling to actually go about it. But he was sure of himself – he was sure that he had some sort of moral compass and some grasp of what was right or wrong. He was smug because of this – but without validation. He had fallen into an abyss of smug idiots that had no reason for being smug other than the point of being smug just to be smug. It really didn’t make sense to anyone – other than themselves – but that’s all that mattered. He had a steady job for now, he told himself. Instead of living a life of selling plastic bags of blow in dark alleys, Mick actually enjoyed his newfound life – that of a “moral man” – just waiting to begin his detox and cleanse his former life as a pusher.

“Should I do it man?” he asked the sky above him, littered with stars that flickered against the drunken expanse of dark ink.

“What’s me reasoning behind it?”

As Mick stood there wondering what it is that defined him as a person, Dominic pissed his trousers some more via a visibly wet right thigh – facedown, soaked in his own urine and shameful self.

“You disgust me mate,” Mick told him.

“You digust me just like all those other self-righteous pussywinkles that puts themselves above others.”

Dominic said nothing. His whimpering tears collected around the concrete patch kissed by his lips.

“Ye could’ve been somethin’. Ye coulda been a man or a proper gent. But ye put me here and made me do this ye shite. Ye fuckin’ forced me to hate the world I live in. Ye fuckin’ forced me to put this slug of shite through your feeble little brain. May God have fuckin’ mercy on ye-self and bless ye for yer sins committed. I’m a good man ye know. I’m a fuckin’ changed man. Ye hear me? Ye fuckin' hear me??”

“I dun know what yer talkin’ bout mate! I got nuthin to do with yer life and I mean no harm! Jus let me go and it’ll be alright!”

“I got a family ye know – a fuckin’ family!”

“Fuck yer family and yer life,” Mick sneered. “That’s the worst excuse anyone could give me at this moment.”

“How can ye fuckin’ say that ye fuckin’ twat? It’s me own flesh n’ blood! Me own kin!”

“Well what ye got to say about me own kin? Me own flesh n’ blood? You and Yul - ye fuckin’ twinks – you’re the reason why so many goddamnofus are goin’ polo and gettin’ slashed! You think me mum and me dad wanted this for meself? You think he wanted me pointin’ my piece at anyone I want to put down? This goes beyond ye own life Dom – this goes beyond fuckin’ Yul and his bald head and pushy ways. It’s just bees to you and Yul – just a bunch of fuckin’ fluff that does nothin but tear at the seams that keeps this godawful world together. Well ye know I’m dun with this shite. I’m dun with this fuckin’ werk and this fuckin’ life where I can’t see the end of the day without pissin’ meself or pissin’ on others just so I dun do it to meself. I’m gunna kill ye Dom, and I ain’t gonna feel remorse about it because I know Yul dun gunna give two shites about it either. We’re replaceable Dom, we’re fuckin’ less important than a shekel to a four by two or a fuckin’ drop of rice to bathroom tap. It’s shite we’re dealin’ with and we luv it. It’s our fuckin’ base to live off of and our fuckin’ happiness in ye pants. And what for? So I can wake up as the sun swings over the hill? So I can burst another pool of shite on a poor lass? Fook man, there’s nothin’ to it. There’s just nothin’ fookin’ to it. Fook yer shite Dom. Fook yer fuckin’ life. Fook this fuckin’ life.”

-B.J.H.

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