I nodded never taking my eyes off the one in front. He wasn’t scared, though. At least not of me. He was looking frantically at Dingo and obviously wanted to get as far away from the restroom as possible. So, the question of the leader was solved, but I didn’t see how that was gonna help me in the least. But you bide, you wait, you see.
Dingo pushed me from behind as Pete made his way to the door, and once there, he peered outside to see if the coast was still clear. I felt the big wad of money in my pocket and again wondered if it had been a good idea to take that off the dead girl. Maybe it was cursed and this was how it made its rounds.
I knew one thing for certain: I couldn’t fight them and win. They were older, stronger, crazy. That was a given. But I did believe myself faster. Only, of course, the timing would have to be right. If it ever came. I’d do what they wanted and keep my nose to the ground.
When we filed out into the sunshine the bus was gone and I cursed the life of the no-good, empty-headed sonofabitch who would leave without taking a goddamn head count. Three fucking people short!
There were a few cars in the parking lot but no cops. Dingo had a vice grip on my upper arm and every once in a while I felt what was undoubtedly the cold, round barrel tip of the gun he’d warned me about poking me in the ribs.
I hurriedly surveyed the area they were steering me toward. The road which ran past the convenience store dwindled off into a heavily wooded track of land no more than a couple hundred yards down. Several steps past the parking lot the asphalt yielded to gravel. What could have been a small feeder road to a trailer park or cotton field cut away to the left.
I tried looking over my shoulder but the steel circle in my ribs pushed deeper and Dingo spat a curse-riddled warning in my ear. I let myself be herded on as I didn‘t see any other option. But the farther we got from the convenience store the faster the two went, so I knew right off they weren’t professionals. Pros never change the pace; that’s part of the secret.
It was also right about then my balls started crawling up into my belly. This was starting to feel less and less like a straight-out robbery and more like…something else. Even then, vague images of the movie, Deliverance, from a few years back, bubbled to the surface. I’d read that book too, and the sodomy scene had been no easier to take there than in the film.
We took the gravel driveway to the left, between two twin oaks that stood sentry to the lot beyond. What I thought must have led into a trailer park was actually the mown entrance to what had once been a great home. Once. It was now rotted to the soul of the timber, though someone had decided to salvage whatever he could. Must have been for the cypress, although at the time I had no idea nor cared in the least. There were two dumpsters arranged side by side near an ancient, gnarled magnolia, and we made our way in that direction. I was scared as hell but maintaining.
Nobody said a word. To this day, that was the creepiest thing of all. Once out of the restroom stall Dingo had fallen silent as a leafless tree on a windless day, barring his one venomous warning. Pete reminded me of a young kid under the influence of the town bully; I got the immediate feeling he didn’t want to go on with whatever we were going on with.
By the time we got in between the dumpsters the sounds from the interstate were no more than a fugue. I had no hope someone would come racing to my rescue. As far as I knew, I was invisible anyway. If blood can actually run cold from a thought, mine turned to ice.
Dingo pulled my arm sharply and I stopped, spun around. He was fucked up, I could see that right off. Eyes red and watery, kind of jittering up and down. He didn’t smell of booze so I guessed pills. But whatever it was gave the motherfucker balls enough to kidnap a fourteen year old from a public restroom in broad daylight. That seemed to say enough in itself. I didn’t let myself forget it. Whether it would have done me any good is a mute point now, but once again, like those maddening snap-shots, the image persists. The mind wanders.
Especially at night.
I’d forgotten completely about the cash. If I could have handed it to the both of them at that second and walked away I would have gladly done so, but that was not an option. I kept my mouth shut and eyes open.
“Whar the fuck ya goin, doll?” the asshole asked.
“Was goin to Little Rock. Don’t know where now,” I answered, as proud of the strength in my voice then as a new father must be proud of his first born. It was one of those Moments.
Well, that really broke em up. Dingo looked at Pete, loosened his grip on my shoulder a skinned second and laughed a fatal blast at his henchman. Of course, that loser marked him stroke for stroke. I used the instant to look around and develop strategy. One thing was instantly clear: right here between the dumpsters was definitely not the place to be. Pete had a beer-gut and I didn’t worry much about outdistancing him when I made my break. Dingo, on the other hand, was the scary one. He had on a biker’s jacket with the sleeves cut out and a tank top T-shirt. Fucker looked like he wrestled cows for a living. He was also missing a couple teeth, but that didn’t hold back his smile at all. Jailhouse tattoos decorated him like a cheap cartoon. And worst of all there was a madness in his eyes I’ve rarely seen. I recognized it then because once at the zoo with Grandma I’d watched, amazed, as a gorilla went berserk on one of its rivals. We’d been watching them from across the fence and lagoon, and even though most people had been drawn to the one putting on the show, I hadn’t. I’d been watching the one curled up by the tire swing, his eyes riveted to the back of his capering foe, the one hamming it up for the crowd and the females. The second before the animal had snapped, the same look I saw on Dingo had appeared in its eyes. Even from a distance there was no mistaking it.
Straight ahead past the dumpsters was a tangled mess of underbrush gone wild, and helter skelter piles of rotten timber and other demolition trash. It was a damn sight forbidding, especially when I factored in the additional bonus of having two lunatics chasing me, at least one with a gun. I didn’t think the petty theft god could do much good here, and I wasn’t real sure God Himself would take time to listen. I’d done some pretty rotten shit and I kinda figured this was how I was gonna end up paying for it.
As fast as they started laughing, they stopped. Dingo turned his attention back on me. “Well, well,” he said with a mocking nastiness. I could see the naked gun barrel peeking through a hole in his jacket pocket. He was sweating like a madman, smelling worse. I swear even Pete backed away from him a step. I noted it and prayed to use the advantage. Then I stared hard at Dingo, wondering what other crimes he’d committed and what quirk of nature allowed him to walk the earth. It was just my fuckin luck to met up with this bastard.
He leaned into my face and his breath was the reek of tombs, barnyard neglect. I actually teared up from the assault and he turned to Pete, that ghastly smile stretched ear to ear now. “Lil guy’s gonna cry, Pete,” and he laughed. Pete managed a strained smile in return. Dingo gave him a withering look before pressing on, “We saw ya in BR, sittin there lak ya owned the fuckin worl.” He laughed again while I tried to imagine what depth of delusion he possessed to think that. The smile vanished as his eyes glazed over, reptilian. “Sa how much uv it do ya?”
I could feel the twenty-three dollars throbbing like an open wound in my pocket. I should have left the goddamn money…I knew it but still—
--He punched me in the face and I went down hard, my head hitting a glancing blow off the closest dumpster. I tasted blood and tried to sit up, spitting out a chip of tooth. I’ve never been hit that hard before, ever. For a moment I couldn’t even make out the forms of the men above me. The right side of my face felt as if Mount Rushmore had been screwed right into my cheek. I blinked but it did little good. But my ears worked just fine.
Dingo was upbraiding Pete about something, puffing himself up while his doleful Yes man grunted in all the right places. My head was an agony, void except for a high-pitched whine whistling through my ears. Sparkles of light danced around the periphery of m
y vision and I could barely move my jaw, but at least the motherfucker hadn’t blinded me. Or at least not yet.
Dingo stopped shouting and by the time I was able to focus well enough to make him out, he’d taken his jacket off and his shirt followed. When he was bare from the waist up, he handed the gun to Pete. And by that time it didn’t take a genius to figure out what he had in mind. My balls had known it long before my brain, and my asshole was just beginning to get the message.
Pete held the gun a few feet away from me, but you could tell he wasn’t comfortable with it. His eyes read fear. I pretended to be more confused than I actually was. Dingo stared down at me with his feral eyes, unbuckling his belt. He still had his boots on and I didn’t think he’d be one for much formality. Then he let them fall and I saw the hard-on straining against his yellowed underwear. He had a nasty Jack O’ Lantern smile on his face as he rolled them down and started to masturbate.
I knew it was now or never. My head was still spinning but in another couple of minutes I knew that wouldn’t matter. I don’t believe I’ve ever moved faster. Pete didn’t even have time to register surprise when I rolled over and crab-crawled across the short distance between us before leaping straight into his chest. The gun glanced off a rib on my right side but the sonofabitch didn’t go off; I swear I heard a fucking click but nothing happened. He didn’t drop it, though, and while he flailed and the curses rained down from behind us, we went to the ground in a dusty tumble.
It’s amazing how fear and fighting for your life can clear the head. A bobcat would have had a hard time stopping me that day. A single bobcat. But I was looking at a stacked deck. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Dingo jumped in, so I focused every ounce of strength and madness I possessed on getting that goddamn gun.
My initial charge had landed Pete on his fat ass but he hadn’t dropped the gun. I buried two roundhouse punches into his soft gut and then grappled madly for the gun. But in another moment Dingo was on my back.
Desperation.
I leaned in and bit the living shit out of Pete’s cheek. He howled like a woman and I tasted blood at the same instant my hand found the gun. I twisted it back as hard as I could and forced my finger into the trigger well and began firing. I didn’t care who got hit; it went off twice.
Suddenly I felt the tension on the gun go limp. Pete stopped struggling and I tried to roll away, the gun somehow getting knocked from my hand. I just wanted one chance to run for it, figuring Pete, at least, was out of the race now. Of course I still had the worst of the two and as if to confirm this Dingo kicked me solidly in the stomach, screaming at the top of his lungs. I rolled a few feet over and crawled to my knees, my brain still spinning. But at least I was more in control of my senses.
I saw a flurry of activity around Pete, blinked my eyes trying to clear the dust. And a moment later is when I caught what felt like a school bus in the chest. It lifted me completely off the ground, landing me hard on my back, my feet straight up in the air. My right knee caught me square on the chin and stars flashed back across the screen of my vision. Only this time I could hear just fine.
“FUCKWAD!! YA KILT PETE!!”
I strained to focus, searching for the source of the screams. Before, I’d thought both these punks were crazy, with Dingo at the top of the list, but I’d been off by a little even with that. What I saw now made what I’d thought before pale underneath my reality. Madness was far too light a word to describe ole man Dingo. Satanic only touched it. He was standing by the prone, dirty body of his accomplice and his pants were up now, his belt buckled. I remember thinking that must have been what allowed me the time to deal with Pete: the motherfucker had been pulling his pants up. I wouldn’t have thought that.
He drilled me with his eyes and I saw the gun in his hands. I groaned and turned over, pushing myself frantically to my feet. Then the gun drew a lead line to my face, Dingo still cursing a blue streak as I looked him directly in the eye. He pulled the trigger, and I remember thinking, This is it.
The hammer came down with a dry click.
Dingo’s eyes grew wider (it must have been a trick of the light because I don’t see how that was physically possible) and he pulled the trigger again.
Another dry click.
And with that I turned and ran like hell for the back of the rotten house. As I neared the edge of the sagging porch a blast ripped the air and a quarter-sized chunk of wood fragmented off a supporting two-by-four. I ducked, throwing my hands up wildly (as if that would somehow stop the bullets) and crab-ran now across the weedy backyard to what looked like a solid wall of waving grass and brambles at the properties’ border. Two more bullets whistled by close enough to kill my shadow.
I dove into the grassy border like an Olympic diver going off the high board.
I tore through a seemingly solid wall of vines and thorns before hitting the ground and rolling to my feet, and began thrashing my way deeper into the morass. Razor grass and wild rose thorns gashed and tore me from everywhere, but the threats and gunshots from behind worried me a helluva lot worse.
I kicked and fought through the brambles, saw-grass, thorns, and cat tails for the better part of a year it seemed, or at least until the screams from behind were only faint, dying wails. And by then I was gasping for air. I could barely see out of my left eye (I had no idea how bad the right was), and my sides were cramping as if I’d swam on a full stomach. Dingo’s maniacal insults and demands faded completely and I stopped.
For a moment.
Then I moved on, half-heartedly flailing at the wall of weeds and thorns with my bare arms. I heard no more gunshots.
Chapter 11:John
I awoke face-down later in darkness, one leg soaked to the knee in a pool of stagnant water that had leeched in a long, fat finger from a nearby ditch. Everything hurt. For a long, lost moment I wondered if Dingo had killed me and I now lay in some distant hell waiting for the torture to come on in full. I could see a little out of my left eye, but it took me awhile to make out anything concrete. But since it was cool I began to question whether or not I had indeed found my own private hell.
I moved and it really hurt, continuously, but even so I rolled over on my back and tried to smooth out my knotted muscles. I breathed slowly in and out, gradually taking the air into my lungs deeper and deeper, trying to convince myself I was still alive, waiting for the tell-tale stab of excruciating pain that would signal a punctured lung. Miraculously it did not come. I gradually began to make out stars overhead--a vast, high multitude, and for awhile I lay still, watching them, half-expecting some sign from those icy depths. None came. I tried to open my mouth and my head almost split open from the effort. I gingerly raised my hand and ran it over the goose egg my right eye had become. I hadn’t the slightest idea how it had happened. I didn’t remember the punch, only my knee connecting with my chin and the monstrous, bus-kick to the chest. Every breath hurt like hell, but I used the pain as evidence there was still enough life left to matter.
Finally, tired of staring at the opinion-less stars, I worked myself into a sitting position. It was like pushing a boulder uphill and I used a mound of dirt close by to support my back. Then I waited, tense with pain, several long moments for the new-found screams of bruised and inflamed muscles to die off and the fresh, ripping welts to ooze more blood. I closed my eyes and concentrated.
I was alive, by God. Alive. This was not hell.
Not in the best of shape, but still breathing. Pain could not stop the unbidden grin of relief. The scene with Dingo and Pete ran brokenly through my head, the sound of the two dry fires with the gun leveled at my chest, and I could not believe I’d actually gotten away. I thought again of those twenty-three dollars, the poor girl in the ice chest.
It had not damned me.
As surprising as that seemed, somehow I’d managed to shake free of the Reaper. But I also knew to the depths of my soul those bills would never be spent (I’d kept them separate from the rest like some ill-tho
ught-out talisman). They deserved a decent burial of their own and I would keep the driver’s license like a revved-up St. Christopher’s medal. My religious icon a woman I’d never known, killed for a reason that would probably never be discovered. Regardless, some more deserving people had lesser legacies.
The only thing that didn’t hurt was the soles of my feet and the tips of my fingers. Even my hair weighed a fucking ton, felt like it was stretching my scalp. Had that child-molesting motherfucker pulled it? Unclear, but it felt like it. I examined my face and hoped nothing was broken. I could only pray my eye was okay somewhere down in the depths of that huge lump. So, no doubt I was a mess but bruises would fade. I felt the lump in my pocket and knew the money was still there. And that was the hardest thing to believe; after everything, they hadn’t even robbed me. Goddamn, fucking amateurs.
But the question remained: What the hell was I going to do? I didn’t remember much of the mad dash from Dingo; there was only an image of the morass of stinging grass and thorns, and looking around it was clear I’d not broken completely free of that wilderness yet. What I had taken for a ditch—that which I was now staring into--was in fact the crooked remains of a creek bed that held but a dribble of water. I scrabbled over painfully and used it to clean my wounds as best I could. After which I was keenly aware of my pervasive exhaustion. I was powerfully hungry too, but there was no ready remedy for that. I couldn’t eat grass, or mud. I had to be thankful my pants leg was the only thing wet I had on. The rest was dirty, filthy even, and sliced to ribbons, but it was better than nothing. I was just lucky it was too cool for mosquitoes because they’d put a true hurting on me.