The Early Crap: Selected Short Stories, 1997-2005 Read online

  "Oh my God." Abe. Maybe an ounce of feeling. If I hadn't been cramped, chilled, and covered in my own filth, I would've been touched. "Is he going to make it?"

  Winona said, "Should pass in a few days. But we need to worry about you guys."

  Like he hadn't heard, "A few days? We don't have a few days. Hell, staying here one night is dangerous enough. We need to hit again before the cops get a bead on us."

  "In a couple of days, we'll all be like him anyway, so maybe we should cut our losses and go home."

  Nobody answered. All three standing there staring at me. Winona finally sighed, came over to the bed, and carefully re moved my shoes. She said, "One of you get me a washcloth. Soak it in warm water."

  Lewis nodded, went to take care of it.

  To Abe, she said, "Help me get his pants off."

  "Oh, I don't think so."

  She glanced up at him, withered him. She worked my zipper, and I let her. Felt a little throb in my cock in spite of the embarrassment. Sometimes you're so sick, embarrassment can't reach you. I wasn't quite there yet, but close. Winona and Abe slid my jeans off. I held tight to the gun I'd taken at the store, the only thing propping up my strength—you always feel bigger with a gun.

  Then Winona peeled away my soiled jockeys, sat by my side, and gently wiped my ass clean with the warm cloth. Such a peaceful look on her face too. Maybe she liked living on the edge, but I sensed an angel in there who would help me until the end.

  "Thank you," I said.

  A Mona Lisa grin. "Feels good?"

  Actually, it hurt. My ass was raw and the cloth was rough. "Like heaven.”

  While she took care of me, wheels spun in Abe's mind. Pac ing, pacing. Lewis brushed by him on his way to the sink, set his gun down, and then tore open the soap wrapper.

  "It's too late. Washing might've helped a few hours ago, but not now."

  Lewis kept on. "It can't hurt. I'd rather be clean and sick than not clean and sick."

  Pretty soon you won't have a choice, I thought. It made me laugh. The gun I had taken was pressed against my stomach, cold and cutting. Hurt when I laughed. I pulled it away from my skin. Soon as it was free, another convulsion. Up my throat, out my ass, at the same time. Every muscle tightened. Including the finger around the trigger.

  The mirror over the sink shattered. The bullet had gone right over Winona's shoulder, right through Lewis.

  "Ohgodohgodohgod, no, no, no." He held soapy hands over the giant hole in his chest while Abe and Winona went ape shit grabbing towels, pressing it against the wound. Lewis growing quieter, his wild eyes drifting like he was high, man. I tried to watch but was puking all over the bed, using all my leftover willpower to hold myself up.

  The blood saturated the towels. Winona kept pressing. Her arms were bloody to her elbows. Lewis sank to the bed, then onto his back, a low whine his only sound. Then it stopped.

  Abe shoved the gun at me. "What. The. Fuck?"

  I couldn't speak well. Too much heaving. "Accident . . . sorry . . . accident!"

  He leaned closer with the gun, looked determined, then fell away and paced, ran his hand through his hair. Then came back at me with the gun. "He's gone, man. Oh, we're so screwed. So fucking screwed. Fuck. Ing . . . ssssss. Damn it!"

  Winona was sitting on Lewis's feet at bedside, bloody towels in her lap as she stared into space. Nothing there.

  Abe said, "Come on, Winona, we've got to go."

  "What?"

  "Let's get out of here. No way no one heard that shot. Hurry."

  She lifted her chin at me. "What about him?"

  "Same as before, just a little sooner is all. We don't have time."

  I saw where this was going. He'd wanted it this way the whole time. I wondered if Lewis and I would even have gotten a cut. When I finally glimpsed his eyes, I knew the next shot was for me. He shook his head.

  I rolled onto my back, double-gripped the pistol, and trained it on him. Wavering, little circles. Three feet away and I doubted I could hit him. But I would damn sure try.

  "Take me," I said.

  "Fuck, buddy, look at you."

  "We weren't a part of your plan anyway, were we? Just some warm bodies to help pull off the jobs, and then you and Winona would sneak out in the middle of the night, leaving us stranded or dead."

  The guy took it hard, looked hurt. "Aw, dude. I wouldn't have killed you. If you had tried to turn me in, you'd have been in about as much trouble. How about you take it like a man, see? At least you'll get a free trip to the hospital tonight. You'll feel better."

  I kept aiming. I had to admit that his friendship wasn't a complete disaster. He did keep us in pizza and video games, beer and cable TV. He was always there to urge me on, tell me I should try harder than I did. Even said he'd have been a character witness at my hearing on the sexual assault, as long as it wasn't before ten in the morning. But to bring me in on some thing like this, something I never would've imagined commit ting in my wildest dreams unless it was on an Xbox, then double-cross me? Fuck that noise.

  My body answered for me in the end. Arms throbbed, chest ached, and the bubbles were growing faster. More sickness on its way up.

  "You son of a bitch," I said as the gun fell beside me on the bed. Winona got to her knees and reached for it, cradled it, be fore climbing to her feet.

  Then Abe was aiming again, not so confused this time. Determined. Drawing down on me. What could I do anymore? Lying in a puddle of my own mess, exhausted, a newly initiated killer. Abe said, "If it were only the money, I'd trust you could keep your mouth shut. But with all this, well . . . that changes the deal. I can't risk it."

  "You said so yourself. You can trust me." Fighting to stay up on my elbows.

  "I don't know what to think anymore, man. I've never been in so deep before. For fuck's sake, why'd you have to go and get sick?"

  "You can't blame me for getting sick."

  "It doesn't matter." Steel nerves. Brass balls. He had what it took to shoot me.

  When it came, it was Winona doing the shooting. Right into Abe's neck. A gusher. He strangled on a K as he fell, cupping his palms around his throat, trying to hold in the life that was leaking out too fast and warm and slippery to control. I looked at Winona, gun loose in her fingers, one bloody hand over her mouth. When she pulled it away, she looked like a horror movie zombie, a red print across her mouth and cheek.

  She peered down at Abe until he stopped croaking. Then she cleared her throat, turned her face to me. I reached for her hand.

  "It's okay," I said. "You did the right thing."

  "I know," she said. Weak, though. As if it hadn't mattered either way. "I couldn't let him kill you."

  It warmed me to hear her say it. A reason to fight, a reason to live. She did care after all. All those late evenings, early mornings, confessions, "true friend" talk, had been building to this.

  "You made the right choice, sweetie. Please, hand me my jeans and let's go."

  She snapped to attention, started looking around. "What?"

  "I can wash up at the next stop. I'm feeling better."

  She kept looking around, grew frantic, then found what she was looking for. She knelt at the foot of the bed so I couldn't see her. I sat up, the stomach growing restless again, to find her yanking the bag of money from beneath Abe's body. He'd died with his eyes shocked open.

  "Baby? Winona?" I scooted towards her. "We're going to be all right."

  Winona must've sensed me moving. She leapt up with a sharp intake of breath and bug-eyed me, holding the pistol and the money to her chest. We were like that a good minute or two. I reached for her again. This time she reeled backwards towards the door. Soon as she was flush against it, someone started banging on the outside. Freaked her out, looked like a scared ferret.

  "Everything all right in there? Were those gunshots? Are you okay?"

  "Winona? We can do this," I said.r />
  She shook her head. Not a word. Not even the courtesy of one word. She reached for the doorknob, opened the door, and pushed past the manager who had been banging.

  He said something to her but she kept going. Then he looked in the room—Abe, me, then Lewis, then the cracked mirror, then me again. I grinned at him.

  Two dead guys and some loon naked from the waist down, covered in shit and vomit. I said, "A little food poisoning, that's all."

  I heard a car engine turn over; then the room was bathed in headlight glare. The manager turned to the parking lot. I didn't have to see for myself to know it was Winona's car.

  "Hey! Get back here! Hey!" The manager took off after her, leaving me alone. It was a safe bet. Even my sense of survival was sick at that point. I fell back into my puddle with a loud plop, thinking that maybe after they let me out of prison, I could be a massage therapist. I'm telling you, if the girls would just let me rub their backs, they'd never want anyone else.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Anthony Neil Smith is the author of Psychosomatic, The Drummer, Yellow Medicine, and Hogdoggin’. His fifth novel, Choke on Your Lies, was published as an e-original for Kindle and Nook earlier this year.

  He is the publisher of the noir webzine Plots with Guns, and is the Director of Creative Writing at Southwest Minnesota State University.

  Visit him at http://anthonyneilsmith.typepad.com and http://plotswithguns.com

  Follow him on Twitter: @docnoir.