Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology (28 page)

He kneels in the wood chips and he places one arm beneath Garvey’s legs, and the other behind his neck, and he lifts him. 

It’s all right now, Garvey, he says. You’re home, and I will not strike you again, nor will I let another man ever strike you again.

He carries Garvey up to the house. He has grown into a big man and Charles holds him with all of his strength. Garvey looks up into his brother’s eyes and finds that they are closed. He can hear the wind in the willow trees, and he can smell all the new horses in the barn. The barn. It is rebuilt and larger than it had been before, but it stands upon the same ground. Inside he can hear the horses nickering in their stalls. And that is a sound he has prayed to hear again. Every night for fifteen long years.

——————————

Blood Atonement

by
DeLeon DeMicoli

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.

—Leviticus 17:11

The man stepped into an empty bar.

“We’re closed for the night,” said the bartender.

The man relaxed into a stool. “How about a cold one for the ride home?” The man dug in his pocket and threw a few crumpled up Georgies onto the bar.

The bartender grimaced. “No booze afterhours, sonny, and don’t give me no growl about it either ’cause I’ve heard it all before.” 

The man slapped down a few more notes onto the counter like he was raising the poker pot.

The bartender stood tall with his arms crossed like he’d seen on television when he watched George Reeves, hoping the man would fold. 

But the man remained seated. “Be a pal. I’ve had a helluva day, I tell ya.”

The bartender kept an owl’s stare on the man and slid open the cooler. He pulled out a cold one and placed it on the counter.

The man picked up the ice cold beer and took a long, hard gaze at the bottle like it was the Hope diamond before guzzling it down in one gulp. After, he set the bottle down on the bar and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a gun. “Now hand over the money.”

The bartender raised his arms. He stared at the barrel of the revolver as if it was a growling dog.

The man lifted himself off his stool and leaned over. He yanked out the gun the bartender had taped underneath the counter and placed it inside his coat pocket.

The bartender pointed to the end of the bar. “The money’s in the register. Take it all, just don’t shoot me. I have a wife and child.”

“I don’t want the money in the register. Leave that chump change for the two-bit suckers. I want the money in the safe.”

“The safe’s in the office. I’ll give you whatever you want.” The bartender slid across the back bar to a door that led to the office.

“Hold it there, partner.”

The bartender stopped dead in his tracks, his arms jolted up.

“I don’t want the rolled up coins and petty cash you got in the safe in the office. I want the money you keep in the safe behind the painting.” The man pointed the barrel at the bartender’s head. “Open that safe.”

“How did . . .”

The driveway bell at the gas station across the street rang twice in the distance as a car pulled up to the pump. The neon sign hanging in the front window of the bar blinked in schizophrenic pulses. 

The bartender felt uneasy in his skin as if the inner coating of his flesh was lined with coarse wool. No one knew about that safe, not even his wife. But that was the least of his worries. If the man knew about the safe, what else did he know? And did he tell anyone? No one knew the secrets the bartender kept. The type of secrets that got you two Jack Bennys for the price of one or an all night thigh-hugger if cold hard cash was in hand. He never confided in his friends, neighbors, or pastor. He sinned to keep his sins hidden, or so he thought.

There were many late nights when Missy let that soda bottle figure breathe on the couch in the back office. The bartender stared at her like she was a cherry car. Sometimes she let him take photographs.

The bartender wanted Missy to stay longer, but time was money and he had to pay extra. When he refused, she got angry. But he didn’t care about some floozy. What was she going to do, go to the cops? Not likely.

The bartender turned around and grabbed the gilded edges of the gold frame and pulled it open. The safe was recessed in the brick wall.

The bartender told his customers the portrait was of an ancestor that was a duchess. The truth was the painting had been hanging on the wall long before the bartender purchased the tavern.

The bartender opened the safe. Photographs rested on top of the stacks of hundred dollar bills. 

“She’s a whore and will always be a whore,” he said. 

Bright flashes lit up the room. Glass bottles exploded like a carnival game. The bartender’s life trickled down the floor drain along with his sins.

“Nobody calls my girl a whore,” the man said, and ran out of the bar.

———

The man was sleeping one off. He was woken up by banging on the door. His head rose off the floor. A string of saliva dangled at the corner of his mouth. He placed both hands on the side of his head, suctioning them against his ears to make the high-pitched siren he thought he heard fade.

The door was kicked off its hinges. Two officers appeared with their guns drawn. The man used his hand to cover his eyes from the bright sunlight.

There were crumpled up beer cans surrounding the man and an empty bottle of booze knocked over on the ground.

The officers put their pistols away and knelt over the man and got him to his feet. They held onto his arms and shoulders until he had the strength to stand on his own. 

“You have the right to remain silent . . . blah, blah, blah,” was all the man heard as he was dragged outside.

His rundown bungalow faced a scrap metal yard. Living amongst the broken down machinery and abandoned cars was a junkyard dog. It jumped up on its hind legs and into the fence, barking terror threats at the police cruiser.

“Shut that damn mutt up!” The man made an attempt to approach the dog, but the officers had a good grip on his arms. They placed him inside the cruiser. He stared at the dog as it barked and showed its teeth. Drool dripped from the corners of its sweaty mouth. 

“Shut up, you stupid mutt.”

“Quiet down back there,” said an officer.

The man wished he would’ve done one last thing after returning from the bar, and that was to shoot that damn mutt and put it down for good. Then he would’ve been able to get a better night’s rest.

———

The prosecutor called on his witness. A young man approached the stand wearing a suit borrowed from his father’s closet. It hung wide and loose on his still growing frame. He made a brief pass at the defendant, but the man was unable to recognize him. 

The bailiff appeared with the good book in his hand. The young boy rested his shaky palm on top of it. 

“You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothin’ but the truth so help you God?”

“I aim to, yes, sir.”

The bailiff returned to his post. The counselor rose to his feet. “State your name and what your current occupation is for the record.”

“My name is Henry Cole and I’m currently employed as a gas station attendant over there on Laurel and Beech. Been that way for a good two years or so.”

“And can you tell the jury what you saw that night, young Henry?”

“Yes, sir, I can.”

That night Henry was seated inside the gas station reading a Doc Savage yarn from off the magazine rack. A car drove up to the pumps. The service bell rang. Henry stepped outside and filled up the man’s gas tank. 

When the car drove off he heard multiple pops that sounded like a pack of black cats exploding in a garbage can. When he turned around he saw the man exit the bar, run to his car, and fish tail it out of the parking lot.

“Who is ‘the man’ you are referring to, Henry?”

Henry pointed at the man seated across the courtroom. 

“Henry, please explain to the jury what you did next.”

Henry hid behind the gas pump until the man’s car disappeared into the night. Then he got up and ran across the street. When he walked into the bar he found the bartender dead. He also discovered a safe hidden behind a painting and when he looked inside it was empty.

“Thank you for your testimony, Henry.”

Henry nodded.

“No further questions, your honor.” The prosecutor sat back down.

The judge looked over at the public defender. “Counselor, your witness.”

The man’s attorney was hidden behind stacks of folders that pertained to sorry chaps that couldn’t afford proper representation. The public defender was an overworked man and didn’t know one defendant from the next. They all seemed to blur into one stupid criminal he tried, day after day, to set free.

The public defender rose from his chair. He looked over the man’s file. “I have no questions, your honor.”

The man turned to his lawyer in awe. He stood up on his own behalf. “I’d like to ask the boy some questions if that’d be all right with you, judge.”

The judge turned to the stenographer. “Let the record show I heard the defendant’s request and have denied him the opportunity to question the young man.” 

The stenographer typed feverishly.

The judge turned to Henry. “You may step down, son.”

The man watched Henry approach the door. Henry stopped at the last row of benches and assisted a woman to her feet. The woman wore a black shawl and cat-eye sunglasses and it appeared she was trying to conceal her identity, but she wasn’t fooling anyone, especially the man. 

———

Missy handed the man a disposable razor. “Shave my legs, sweetie?”

She kicked out her leg and placed it on the rim of the tub. Water dripped onto the cracked bathroom tiles.

The man dipped the blade into the warm water, then scraped the blade across his cheek to make sure it was sharp. 

“You know, sweetie, I was never meant to do the nine-to-five grind like the average Dick and Jane. I have ambitions and dreams like those classy dames I’m always reading about at the grocery store, ya know?”

The man was shaving her inner thigh, carefully pressing the blade against her supple skin. It sounded like fine sandpaper polishing a stone. 

“Now, sweetie, you know I love you, right?”

The man washed off the tiny hairs. Steam rose over the bathtub. 

“And I hate to be a burden,” she continued, “but someone owes me some money. I wouldn’t bother to bring it up if it was just a few Georgies, but it’s actually a lot of money and I believe the bartender is tryin’ to put one over on me.”

The man worked over her knee and down to her calf muscle, concentrating on the right amount of pressure to use so he wouldn’t cut her.

“But you know me, sweetie. I don’t jump off the handle over foolish things. You know if I didn’t think it was important I wouldn’t bring it up. But it is, at least to me. And I think for principles’ sake it should be important to you too.”

The man felt like a doctor, shaving the area and prepping it before surgery. He saw it done once before at the hospital when he was a teenager and his brother broke his leg after falling out of the crab apple tree in front of their home.

“Will you do it, sweetie?”

He knew if he didn’t she’d find someone else who would. He had no choice, or at least that was how he saw it. 

He cleaned the blade and began shaving her other leg. 

———

The bulls appeared by the man’s side. “It’s time.”

The man stood up and turned around. He was handcuffed and led out of his cell. 

The man knew Missy was there that night waiting with Henry at the gas station. Their plan was to sneak up on the man, kill him, and steal the bartender’s money. Then place the loaded gun in the man’s hand and place another gun in the bartender’s hand and let the cops sort out the rest. What they didn’t anticipate was the man walking out with nothing. When he drove off, Missy realized they had to come up with a new plan, so that was what they did, or so the man thought.

The man was led to an abandoned warehouse that once served as the prison’s death house back in the 1920s. Twenty-four cells once housed men on death row. Some claimed they could hear inmates scream as they fried on the electric chair. But nothing was confirmed.

At the end of the warehouse was a large curtain serving as a partition. On the other side was a chair surrounded by sand bags. The area was brightly lit by two camera spotlights. Reporters stood at the end of the partition and wrote in small notepads. 

The bulls placed the man in the chair. They grabbed the leather straps and locked in his arms, legs, and chest. Two straps secured his shoulders. One last strap was placed over his forehead. The man took in several breaths and his eyes grew as he stared at the wall in front of him that had gun ports carved into it. Five officers stood behind each gun port and held onto .30-caliber Winchester rifles. One of the rifles had a blank bullet loaded inside the chamber. The officers did not know which gun it was.

“Any last words, son?” The warden was a big thick cut of concrete with a very well trimmed moustache. 

The man tried to move his head to look at the warden but couldn’t do so. “Let’s do it.”

The reporters scribbled in their notepads. 

The warden nodded. He turned around and snapped his fingers to grab an officer’s attention. The reporters quietly walked off into the shadows. The officer flagged his arms out and looked like he was directing cattle into the byre as he led the reporters outside.

A pastor appeared from out of the same shadows and stood next to the man. He held onto a worn copyof the Bible. “Would you like a specific passage read, my son?”

Sweat slowly slid down from the man’s hairline and collected into the leather strap. “Not one in particular, pastor. I reckon whatever passage you see fit to read for the circumstance is fine by me.”

The pastor nodded. He began to read aloud. The officers removed their hats. The warden bowed his head. When the pastor said “Amen” so did the men in the room. 

“God be with you,” were the last words said to the man.

An officer approached the man and placed a black hood over his head. Another officer affixed a cloth bullseye over the man’s heart.

The warden nodded to the officers behind the gun ports. They took their positions aiming their rifles at the man. The warden had instructions on when the men should fire.

“Five, four, three, two . . .”

The officers fired their rifles. It sounded like the ten second warning claps you heard during a boxing match to signal the end of the round.