THUGLIT Issue Four (4 page)

“You did this, huh?” Ruth asked.

“Yeah,” Herb said, examining the full extent of the damage for the first time. “I guess I did.” He really had fucked up bad. Damn good thing they didn’t have kids. “What a fuckin’ mess,” Herb said.

Ruth put a hand on his arm and Herb ran his eyes over the pile of nothingness. Herb told himself to call his son and apologize in the morning. And to finally le
arn his daughter-in-law’s name.

“Look at me,” Charlie said. Herb and Ruth both turned. Charlie had taken soot from the pile and given himself an Al Jolson blackface. His teeth practically glowed white as he smiled against his pitch black face.

“Oh, brother,” Herb said. He and Ruth got on either side of Charlie and escorted him back to the Four Palms. They were all out of cab fare.

*****

They returned to Herb’s room ninety minutes later and each breathed a deep sigh of relief. By then Charlie had mostly sobered up, but seemed overcome by tiredness.

“Should we get Charlie to his own bed?” Ruth asked.

“No, don’t bother. I’ll take his.” Herb guided Charlie to his own bed and let him collapse. 

Ruth noticed the syringe lying on the dresser top. Herb saw it too.

“After all this,” Ruth said. “Do we?”

“It was a hell of a lot of trouble to go through with nothing to show for it.”

“I wouldn’t say nothing. You got your excitement.”

“Not in the way I planned.”

“You mean not the way you remember.”

“That too.”

Ruth eyed the needle. “Was it really that good?”

Herb smiled. “I’m still thinking about it after all this time.”

Ruth lifted the syringe and held it out to him. “Do you think it will be the same without the blowjob?”

“Probably not, but I’m willing to try.”

“Well,” Ruth said, pushing up the sleeve of her sweater. “Maybe we can do something about that.”

by Christopher L. Irvin

When the last tiny air bubble escapes Tom's mouth, rising wobbly to the surface and then popping with a
splick
, my face flushes as his abs grow taut underneath my ass and heat ripples up my spine. It feels wrong—so much that I taste sour in my throat—but I can't hide the smile stretching across my face. The pleasurable tingle changes to spiders crawling, laying goose bumps under my skin and I shudder. It scares me how much I enjoy the moment, that the space where I should feel sharp pangs of fear and regret is dull and numb. And it's not the first time.

I sit on his stomach
, letting my pale, one hundred-twenty-pound frame hold him under for a few more seconds to ensure he’s gone. Even though the bathwater is almost boiling I feel cold, like a professional behind a computer screen, watching Tom drown at the push of a button. I step out of the tub before he fouls himself.

Tom had said it was the best room in the casino and he wasn't kidding. Water is splattered all over the granite tile. The sink, a mess of towels and toiletries, made it look like Tom had been living in the place for a week, when in reality it was the obsessive need of a drunk man to unpack before inviting me, his guest, into the suite. All it did was make it look like I had wrestled him out of a week's worth of Tommy Bahama before drowning him in the tub. Surrounded by luxury, and all I can think of is the mess.

The bathroom is almost as large as my apartment, the whirlpool tub at its center. I say “my apartment” but it was really Doug's place, and now it belongs to the bookies along with everything else I used to own—with the exception of the six-inch silver heels, the purse and the black strapless dress laying on the bed in the other room. Not my style, but every girl has an outfit for when she's looking for trouble.

The long beveled mirror above the double sink is fogged over, and in the haze of the steam-filled room I feel a strange sense of calm. It reminds me of when I was thirteen, when Doug capped The Streak of '03, winning a gunmetal Mustang convertible at The Mirage. He pulled me out of school and drove us from Vegas to LA, his lucky pockets full of cash winnings. We hit the basin fog and just rolled on through to the coast. Doug wasn't sober for a second of that long weekend, but I didn't care. I was his daughter.

That was the last time I knew where I was going in life. Doug's winning streak came to an end shortly after the trip. He rarely came home at night, and when he did, he reeked of sweat and booze or a woman's perfume, only stopping by for a shower and a change of clothes, or to argue with the landlord over late rent. I learned to take care of myself and kept my father locked inside my heart next to a faded photograph of my dead mother. Doug told me nothing other than she died having me. I don't know if I believe him, but he named me Mirna after her. He called me Mirn when he had something to say, which was hardly ever towards the end.

Tom had called me Mirn too. If there had been anything heavier than a hairdryer in the bathroom I would have beaten him to death. But I gritted my teeth as I stripped off my dress and tied my hair back into a short, tight ponytail. I teased Tom into the tub filled to the brim with screaming hot water. I giggled when I knocked him in and the water scalded his skin. But Tom was not as drunk as I thought he was. That, or his adrenaline overcame the combination of heat and the half-bottle of Bulleit he downed after stumbling to the hotel room less than an hour before. I thought about wiping down the walls but they would dry, leaving little sign of struggle. It's not like I slashed his aorta and he sprayed crimson all over the bathroom.

Not like my father.

I picked Tom out of the crowd around one of the many craps tables at the Bellagio. I'd just dropped off three thousand to the bookie's men and received a black eye for the effort. I hadn't stepped foot on a casino floor in years, and yet I'd been on two in less than twenty-four hours. I felt the family itch coursing through my veins, an addiction not only to the game, but the environment, the shows, the crowds. All gilded over a rotten core.

In five minutes of my eyeing him from across the table and cheering with the raucous crowd, he had won over three grand. Tom was well into his fifties. His voice hinted at years of smoke-filled rooms, and when I squeezed in close to him, he smelled of cheap body spray and bourbon. He handed me a free Jack and Diet from a cart, clinking glasses. Cocking his head to the side, he put a hand on my lower back and told me my black eye was cute in a "you remind me of my daughter" kind of way. His eyes crinkled when he smiled. He could have been a father of five but I convinced myself he was a bad man. Tom had won over twenty grand last night and the casino had given him one of their top suites for the remainder of the week. Three hours later, I had him drunkenly cashing chips and heading for the room.

I feel the night of free drinks squirm in my stomach as I stand dripping in the bathroom. For a brief moment I feel faint and need to brace myself on the counter as the scene takes its toll. Tom's lifeless body reminds me of Doug, minus the slashed wrists and blood. Doug had done it right—doped himself up and taken a pair of my nice scissors deep and horizontal—not like the paper cuts you see in the movies. I found him three days ago on a scorching Friday during my lunch break from the hair salon. The air conditioning had been turned to MAX and I hurried to crank it back down. I wasn't made of money then and I'm sure as hell not now.

I froze in the doorway when I saw Doug in the bath. In my head, I was packing a bag and sprinting back to work, but I found myself kneeling down next to the tub. The blood was so dark that it was all I could take in at first. Then the slow drip of the faucet, matching every few beats of my thudding heart. I studied his pale face, the dull burst capillaries, his blond wispy hair. I imagined that he had left an explanation in a folded note on the sink: black ink on fancy cream-colored paper, like he'd really prepared for the moment.

I wanted the note to say:

Sorry for coming drunk to elementary school Father-Daughter Day.

Sorry for never buying you new clothes, Mirna Foul-smell.

Sorry for being such a fucking embarrassment
.

But I probably wouldn't have gotten to read it anyway.

When he fluttered his eyelids, I yelped and pulled my hands to my chest. I couldn't stop the tears. I had nothing but anger left for this man and yet I'd lost control. I wept as he struggled to speak in a raspy voice so hoarse it sounded like he had been lost in the desert for days. But I didn't listen. I didn't want to hear any of it. Our father/daughter relationship had hit rock bottom and I wouldn't risk a whisper burying me deeper. All the good memories that I'd ever have were locked tight inside me. Nothing could change the addict before me, not even death. So when he mouthed,
I'm sorry
, I put two hands on his chest until he was under and all I could see were my arms disappearing into the murky red. Then I lost what little toughness I had left, along with my breakfast, on the floor. The wooden bat to the stomach when the bookie's men found me didn't help either. I guess in my shock I didn't hear them kick in the door. It's a shitty apartment and it came right off the hinges.

When I turned, too late to see the commotion, wiping the back of my sleeve over my mouth, the skinny one rammed me in the stomach like he was driving home a bayonet, expecting my guts to spill all over the floor. I'd seen people like him before, stalking the losers on the Strip. It was always the little guys with the baseball bat or flashlight, an extension of their dicks they could swing around in their hands. I doubled over, dry-heaving, my freshly manicured nails grasping for purchase on the linoleum. They laughed at the sight of Doug, like it was the funniest thing to hit Vegas in years. The Bat called him a bitch and said he took the easy way out. It hurt to agree. I knew Doug was broke. I'd paid the rent for the past two years. But I didn't know he was in deep with a bookie.

I stared up at the two men with blurred eyes bleeding mascara, recognizing that part of me knew this day would come. Doug had dragged me down into the gutter and now his dead body was chained to my ankle. I grew up around men who called themselves professional gamblers. I should have known. I'd seen Doug's friends fall to drugs and drink. Show up at the apartment with broken hands and busted faces. When it got bad, some cheated. And when it got worse, they turned to other sources of funds. Anything to get another shot at the money. Anything to feel another stack of chips.

The other thug I recognized. His fat head and braided goatee were unmistakable, even with the large 49ers cap pulled down low. My eyes must have given it away because he seemed startled all of a sudden and his face darkened. He worked security at Mermaid's, a dive casino located a few blocks off the strip where Doug had moved after he was no longer welcome at the major Vegas institutions. I'd been to Mermaid's a few times when Doug couldn't find his keys, let alone his feet.

The Bat grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked. The fuck already had my attention; now he was just playing with me. He gave me the short: Doug owed the bookie over one-hundred grand, and since I was family, I now owed the bookie over one-hundred grand. I'd challenge his bullshit definition of family and began to say something snippy to that effect, but he cut me off with the back of his hand. He told me I should be thankful he didn't use the bat.

While the Bat was giving his spiel, the Bouncer took to the rest of the apartment. I could hear drawers being emptied, the bed being tossed. The place wasn't big and he was through with it in under five. I got the sense he knew what he was looking for. The blood drained from my face when he returned with the thick roll of bills.

When I was sixteen, I caught Doug stealing from my ceramic piggy bank. He'd smashed it on the kitchen floor and was bent over, groping at the money. I moved to stop him and he struck me. It was a light, drunken punch, but it stung. I gathered two handfuls of cash and ran out the door.  I wandered until my feet hurt and ended up outside of a Quick Cuts hair salon. I thought I saw one of Doug's gambling buddies so I ducked inside and sat down in the waiting area. It was cool, clean and smelled of cherry shampoo. I didn't realize I was still clutching the crumpled sweaty bills when the owner walked over to me.

She took pity; I could see it in her eyes. I wanted to run out the door but I was too hurt to be embarrassed. She coaxed me into a chair and gave me highlights and cut it into a short bob. She got me to open up. I told her about the gambling, Doug, the money. She listened without saying a word. When she spun me around in the chair and I saw my reflection, I could barely breathe. I felt alive. There was no way I could repay her, but I told her I'd help out after school. She eventually took me on as an assistant. It wasn't much but I saved every dollar I could toward an education that would get me the hell away from Vegas.

It hurt more to see the cash in the Bouncer's hands than seeing Doug in the bath. Almost five grand for the Academy of Hair Design; I'd even sent in the application. He tossed the roll to the Bat who caught it and gave it a look like he'd rather light my dreams on fire to see me squirm than turn it over to his boss.

They dialed 911 for me and watched as I told the operator about Doug. The Bat cackled as they walked out with the money, issuing threats on my life and friends; they knew about the salon. When I watched the first cop who showed up outside the apartment complex fist-bump with the Bouncer, I knew I was in deep shit.

*****

I look out at the bright lights of the Vegas Strip through the large frosted window of the bathroom and I feel powerful, like I can take back this city and my life. I wonder if this feeling is what Doug was chasing after. I pull my dress on and stuff close to fifteen thousand in my purse. It's heavy, like the addiction I feel pumping in my veins. I walk out of the room like I've started my streak and I can see the Mustang down the hall. This is just the beginning.