Blood & Tacos #2 (10 page)

He dug the blade’s point into my skin and carved a long line diagonally
across my chest. He watched my eyes for any sign of pain. I didn’t show
him any; he had taught me too well.

"Damn, Mr. Bread!" 3-D said.

Stevie sliced me again, peeling a large, bloody X on my chest. I didn’t
try to move away. I didn’t even blink. I just took the pain and pushed
it inside.

When we lived with the Junkman, Stevie was the tattletale. When we were punished,
he’d stand to the side and watch us cry. Once he was big enough, he started
helping. At first, the Junkman had him do little things: holding down kicking
feet or snapping Polaroids.

After a while, the Junkman had Stevie doing all the punishments. That way,
the Junkman could sit back and watch.

One day, Stevie showed the Junkman where I hid the sock of loose change I found
in the junkers from the yard.

The Junkman said, "You stealing from me?"

I looked at the floor. "No, sir."

"Everything here belongs to me. It might look like trash, but it’s
mine."

The Junkman grabbed my face and held it so I was forced to look at him.

"People think you’re trash, but you’re my trash."

He sat on the edge of the bed and took a long drink from his bottle. Stevie
sat next to him, smiling. I tried not to look at the barber chair, or the ashtray
and its mound of blackened matchsticks.

The Junkman said, "Take down your pants and get in the chair."

I did as he told me. The barber chair’s seat felt cool and sticky against
my bare legs. The bed creaked as Stevie got up and stood beside me.

Using the Velcro straps, he tied down my hands and feet. I didn’t fight
back. If you fought back, it was always worse.

With the palms of his hands, the Junkman began rubbing his thighs over and
over. Stevie lit a match and held it to the wire hanger.

"I’m a kid just like you," I whispered.

Stevie smiled and said, "You’re nothing like me. You’re weak."

I didn’t cry and I didn’t scream. It was like I floated outside
myself, taking all my hurt and pain and shoving it down where it couldn’t
hurt me anymore.

Still, it was a long time before it was over.

That night, once everyone was asleep, I snuck out into the junkyard. I limped
past the towers of flattened cars until I stood by the yard’s rear fence.
Beyond it, I could see the trees of Otsego Park sway in the midnight breeze.
I sat for a long time, just trying to think. When I decided to go back inside,
something hissed at me from the darkness.

Five feet away, half hidden in shadow was a steel run-through trap. Inside
were two large brown rats, half-starved with their tiny rib cages showing beneath
their fur.

All that pain I had pushed down began to bubble up.

In an hour, I found three more traps around the yard. One was empty but the
other two had one rat a piece. It was pretty easy to get them all in the same
trap.

I salvaged a box cutter and an empty twelve-gallon bucket from behind the office.
A Ford provided its seatbelts. A piece of upholstery from a Chevy’s interior,
some rusty nails, and I was ready.

The moon was high in the sky as I set the bucket and rat trap outside the trailer
door. I sat on the cinderblock steps and took off my filthy Chuck Taylors. Then,
I eased the door open and crept inside.

I was careful not to make a sound.

Once in the bedroom, I carefully tied the Junkman’s feet to the bed’s
legs with long strips of seatbelt. I moved to the head of the bed and got his
left arm tied down. Circling to the other side, I heard the Junkman cough.

He turned his head and called out into the darkness, "Stevie? Is that
you?"

I walked to the side of the bed and the Junkman touched my arm.

"Do you want to sleep with Daddy?"

I grabbed the Junkman’s hand and slipped it into the final loop of seatbelt.

"Hey! Hey!" he shouted.

The bed lurched and creaked as the Junkman struggled. I double-checked my knots,
and then took his keys off the dresser. He cursed me as I shut the bedroom door
and went into the trailer’s living room.

The rest of the kids were awake and gathered there. Their faces sleepy, their
bare legs scarred with angry burns.

"There’s a fire," I said. "We have to get out."

They were scared, but they followed me to the front gate. I took the Junkman’s
keys and sprung the lock free.

I said, "Run!" and slung open the gate.

They all ran, except Stevie.

"Where’s Daddy?"

I ignored him and walked back to the trailer. Outside the door, I collected
my things and followed the Junkman’s shouts to the bedroom.

He struggled, but I sat on his chest and squeezed the bucket over his head.
I had cut a hole in the bottom and nailed the upholstery over it. An X-shaped
cut ensured a tight fit; the nails kept it in place.

The Junkman’s voice echoed from inside the bucket. "You little
shit! I’ll fucking kill you!"

I ignored him, opened the trap, and dumped the scrambling rats into the bucket.
Before any could escape, I slipped on the lid.

After that, I climbed in the barber chair, watched and listened.

Once the Junkman had quit moving, I grabbed the box of matches from the nightstand.
I pulled one across the strike strip and watched it flare to life.

I could still hear the rat’s claws scrape against the inside of the plastic
bucket, along with their hungry gnawing.

I threw the match on the bed. It burned faster than I thought it would.

When I left the trailer, Stevie was on the steps. He was rubbing the palms
of his hands over his thighs. I sat next to him and slipped on my shoes.

He looked up at me, his eyes wet and angry.

"He was my best friend."

I stood up. Flames licked at the trailer’s windows as smoke drifted up
into the starless night.

"Fuck him," I said.

As I walked to the gate, Stevie called out me.

"You’re cruel!"

I didn’t look back.

Stevie hadn’t changed. Sure, now he was built like a tank and had seven
hundred dollars in gold chains, but behind his eyes, I could still see that
little boy.

He leaned down and grabbed my ear.

"I’m gonna make you scream."

I strained against the shoelaces, but it only made the knots pull tighter.

As Stevie scraped the blade through my flesh, my fingers brushed against something
smooth on the floor.

I cupped the shard of broken light bulb between my fingers and sawed at the
shoe laces. I didn’t scream, not even when Stevie stopped cutting and
tore the top of my ear free.

He held it up, admiring it.

I felt the blood as it streamed down my neck and over my chest. The piece of
light bulb cut into my fingers, but I kept sawing.

Stevie said, "Doesn’t that hurt, bitch?"

I felt the shoelaces pop loose and said, "What’s that? I didn’t
hear you."

He leaned closer and grabbed my other ear.

I slammed my fist into Stevie’s balls as hard as I could.

He staggered back, his mouth hanging open, his hands cupping his nuts. I grabbed
the nunchucks off his neck and bolted for the door. My cuts burned and I felt
a little faint, but I pushed myself up the stairs. Below me, I heard Stevie
shouting and the rumble of pursuing footsteps.

At the top of the stairs, I crashed through a door marked "Roof."
The sky had grown dark with gray rippling clouds. In the distance, a universe
of lights glowed across the bay. Beneath me was a six-story drop to the parking
lot.

"Nowhere to go, asshole!"

I turned around. Stevie had the .38 in his hand. Beside him were 3-D, Charlie
Brown, and Sello.

I held up my hands as Stevie pointed the gun at me. He pulled back the hammer
and licked his lips.

Hollow points are nasty bullets. They’re designed to explode, spreading
like shrapnel, inflicting massive tissue damage.

It helps if you put them in the right gun.

When Stevie pulled the trigger on the .38 there was a loud bang and a flash
of flame. He fell to his knees, the fingers he had left dangled by strands of
skin.

I twirled the nunchucks like a buzz saw and flung myself at them, inflicting
maximum damage.

After a while, my arm got tired.

On the roof around me, Sello and his gang moaned, clutching at broken arms
and fractured ribs. Stevie had gotten it worse.

His face was a wheezing red pulp and his limbs all extended at odd, broken
angles. I dragged him to the ledge and pulled him up on my shoulders. My cuts
roared with pain, but I pressed him over my head and howled.

Stevie fell face-first into his Corvette, crumpling the roof and blasting the
glass from the windows.

In the distance, sirens cut through the night. I walked past Sello and his
gang and limped down the stairs.

I kept in the shadows and staggered north. At Victory Boulevard, I climbed
a fire escape of a clothing warehouse and waited for the next train to rumble
past. Twenty minutes later, I was on the other side of the island.

In the morning, Milo picked me up and brought me back to the arcade. He didn’t
ask any questions, just sewed up my cuts and made me chicken noodle soup.

I spent a few weeks in bed, until Milo accused me of being a lazy hippy. My
ear is fucked up and I’ve got some nice new scars. But honestly, it only
makes me look more wicked.

The pigs never came to question me, so I figured Sello and his gang had kept
their mouths shut. Besides, they had enough problems with the cops finding shit
in their apartment.

I kept expecting to see Hector again. I thought he’d tell me how he had
learned to stand on his own and how life was better, but he never came back
to the arcade. I had almost forgotten about him, until one Sunday a couple months
later, I was on 98th Street grabbing a slice from Rose’s Pizzeria.

Right down the street was Sello’s friend in the 3-D glasses. He saw me
and crossed the street, but I followed. After a half a block, he wheeled around
and held up his hands.

"Jesus, man. What do you want?"

I said, "Where’s that kid Hector?"

3-D looked down at his shoes, absent-mindedly rubbing at the arm I had broken.

"He’s in ICU at Saint Vincent’s. Can’t talk or move.
They say he’s got brain damage."

I grabbed him with both hands and shoved him against the wall.

"Was it Sello? Was it you?"

"It wasn’t us, man! We were trying to help him!" 3-D squeaked.
"He fell. Hit his head or something."

"Fell?"

"My homeboy said it was Hector’s old man. Said he’s a total
hard ass. My homie told me people heard Hector’s dad screaming at him
for coming home late. I know Hector was afraid of his dad. That’s why
he wanted to join the Threats. Sello said that if he passed initiation, we would
take care of things for him."

I let 3-D go.

He shrugged his shoulders. "The pigs don’t give a shit. Why should
they? Just another beaner to them. Hector’s father didn’t even get
questioned."

I put a hand over my eyes and pushed the darkness deep into my gut.

"You OK?" 3-D asked.

I had him follow me back to the arcade and told him to wait outside. I threw
some duct tape and road flares into a backpack. At the bottom of the stairs,
Milo asked where I was going. I told him I was going to do some repairs, fix
something that was broke.

When I came outside, 3-D was still waiting.

I asked, "You know where I can find Hector’s dad?"

"Yeah."

"Show me."

THE END

Frank Larnerd
is currently a student at West Virginia
State University, where he has received multiple awards for fiction and non-fiction.
His first anthology as editor,
Hills of Fire: Bare-Knuckle Yarns of Appalachia
will be released in the fall of 2012 from Woodland Press. Frank lives in Putnam
County, West Virginia.