Drawing Dead (18 page)
Authors: JJ DeCeglie
About two hours out, after maybe four and a half of non-stop driving I pulled into a roadhouse and filled the bitch up. Bought coffee, some food for now and supplies for later. Evie lay half asleep in the car. The sun was just starting to give faint light to the horizon without showing any sign of itself. The flat eastern landscapes showing as a black discrete silhouette against the jeweled iridescent blue of the curtain hung as backdrop to it. A fire-lit ocean vertically suspended originating the ceaselessness of space.
If I had had no idea of anything during the dark, I was quite sure the bafflement would only increase in the light of day.
By the time we’d reached where I’d planned everything in the expanse was covered in dew and morning. The dirt was rust red, the grass was white blonde and there was nothing but nothing till you couldn’t see any further. I’d been here before with Lexy. A dreamy, misplaced era of pastels and humid flesh. Her fragrant hair in my face and her insides all lovely encompassing as much of me as they possibly could. This was about as outta the way as you could get in a night and it was gonna be best to lay very low during sunup. Nobody came here if they could avoid it, especially at this time of year.
It was only about just on seven and already the star was aiming its menace upon one’s skin and eyeballs. Searing the dewiness from the already scorched earth. This place was somehow like Mexico. Adobe style chalets. Laziness and dust in the air. The enormous bay just over yonder and in view from the window. Town’s folk watching in suspicion at your every foreign move. Once we checked our asses in we weren’t gonna be leaving the room apart from maybe taking a walk down to the inlet in the evening. Maybe not even that. I left Evie in the car and went to see about a room. It was the same old fuck who’d been running the joint when I came here with Lexy. That was over a year ago, though I think he’d been there since the beginning of time itself. Still sitting there like a Grecian scholar drinking from a glass of what had to be a tepid beer.
A room thanks.
Got a real nice one round back. Vista of the water and all.
Sounds right.
Just yourself huh?
No, my wife’s in the car.
Damn empty up here this time of year you know. Dead.
It’s beautiful though. Some much space.
Scares people I find.
Huh?
The space, the peace, it scares people.
How so?
Just does.
It was bizarre, but I knew what he meant.
Have you been here before son?
No.
Could have swore you have…you came with your sister I think…really beautiful girl, blonde as sunlight itself, blue shining eyes. Girl just bubbled life. It was you with her. You’ve been here before.
Wasn’t me. Must have me mixed up with someone else. This is the furtherest north I’ve ever been. Wish it wasn’t, but it is.
He took a moment. Then slurped loudly from his drink without ever taking his bitter stare off me.
Why you lying to me?
I’m not…look if you don’t want us, we’ll just leave.
I never said that. I’m just saying that you’ve stood there before this time now, and in that time we had ourselves a similar conversement.
Believe this motherfucker.
What can I tell you? You’re pressing me for answers that I can’t give old man. You want me to lie and say yeah I was here, just so as to appease your version of reality. I can do that if you like.
Tell me I ain’t mad.
Just a royal pain in my ass!
I don’t think you’re mad. You’re just mistaken. I remind you of someone else but I’m not that person. It’s fine. But if you don’t mind I think I’d like the key so I can go to my room now. My wife’s been waiting awhile.
He looked at me uncomprehendingly for some seconds and then reached over and got the key, handed it to me and grimaced like he’d smelt something rotten in the air. I rattled the keys as a thank-you and he just took a finishing taster of that warm glass of beer as an evident fuck you Then he wiped his acidic old maw on the sleeve of his flannelette shirt. I signed the forms under a false name (Phillip Marlowe) and left the hundred dollar bond. I walked out without looking back but I heard him shift his weight rearward into the seat and then emit with complete resounding relief an almighty muttered “Bullshit!”, which I was absolutely meant to hear.
And I thought to myself as I hauled my ass out to the car why in hell did you pick this place you scuba-headed son of a bitch bastard.
Of all places...
In all the state.
Come on man.
Why in damned hell?
I whipped the car round and parked it out front of the room. Evie made slow going getting out of the car. She still had on her evening dress and heels. Still looked very good and perhaps even a little sexier than normal on account of her scuffled hair and skewiff clothes and the make-up smudged all over her face. She stood by the car watching me smoke a cigarillo a minute. I was bathed half in light, the other in shadow. She was over there posed in the sunlight proper and when I looked at her briefly she had her eyes closed and seemed to be soaking it in. I paid her no attention mostly. Just leant on the car and smoked and thought.
The way everything was playing out in my head we were in the realms of catastrophe, shit outta luck and it was only a matter of time. Sure we could keep driving, but it was nigh on a fact that you got caught running and that the best thing to do was to stay fucking put.
Not here, but somewhere.
Our asses were on fire and I wasn’t gonna make the sucker play and be that asshole saying I think something’s burning friend.
I told Evie to go inside and threw the key over to her. Told her I was gonna take a walk down to the bay and back. She didn’t ask to come and I didn’t want her to. She went into the car and took the vodka bottle with her and it was a good idea she had there so I got one of those warm bottles of white wine for myself. I made sure she went in before I left. She gave me a ‘kiss my ass’ look at the door and I was planning on obliging her soon enough. I moved the money case into the boot and then made my way down to the water. The sun was at its slashing best already. By the time I’d walked the hundred metres smoking and drinking at will I was sweating so as I had to wipe at it with my sleeve. There were rowboats lined up on the shallows moored successively just by a dilapidated jetty. The water itself must have been near a half-kilometre across, and that was just the section I could see.
On my right it kept on running around a giant crag of rocks further inland and then continued onward about the turn of the bend. To the left the inlet went and went and then hit the Indian Ocean. I took a few genuine gulps from the bottle and killed the cigar. When I had been here with Lexy we hardly left the room, if you get my drift. We had a picnic down by the shoreline once but it just ended up like it always did which was back in bed. With us all over one another. That’s how she was, and how we were and not a day goes by when I don’t miss that girl like I would an organ. I drank some more and thought some more too. My supposed planning was being overrun with reverie and that reverie was leading into the strangling abyss. I was beginning to choke on Lexy’s gushing bright blood. It was in my nose and ears and mouth. Neck deep and on the tips of my slipping toes. Bubbling hot and clogged in my throat with her wrist cut halfway to the damned elbow. I could just swim out and sink and let this whole thing be done. Blackness and hush and the snarling drone of the skull-crushing pressure.
I drained the bottle and threw it as hard and far as I could. All I could figure was that I’d probably come here to expire in some thrashing wayward finale. There was no way in hell I was going to jail.
Back in the room Evie was on the bed half-asleep again. I’d placed the gun in the boot with the money. The wine had sparked a partial load in me but I was saving those other bottles for later, darker moments. She had capped the vodka and it lay two-thirds full like a lover on the sheets by her. I sat in a chair situated at the front of the bed and just watched her a minute. Unconsciously took hold of the remote and switched on the television. Like magic there I was looking back at myself. Then whoop-di-whee there was beautiful, glamorous Evie.
We’d made it people.
Big stars on the goddamned fucking TV.
We were murderers we were, cold-blooded killers.
Fraudsters and marauders.
The whole gig was up. On the run, armed and dangerous, if you saw our asses you knew who to call. Oh and best of all Evie had shot Tommy Tallegi. That was great. Nephew of Saverio Tallegi. Entrepreneur, family man, crime boss and vengeful fucking psychopath. I’d heard stories of this guy cutting off your fingers and stuffing them in your asshole. Doing the same with people’s teeth. We were fucked.
Cut and dry.
Plain and simple.
Evie.
She pretended like she didn’t hear me. I was about to punch a hole in the wall.
Evie!
What!
We got ourselves a real fucking problem.
What?
You didn’t just hear that?
I was asleep.
Bullshit she was.
You killed Tommy Tallegi. It’s all over the news. Double homicide. Our faces on the TV. Video footage and mug-shots. You didn’t tell me you had a record.
Nor did you.
She had a point. And she’d fucking heard.
We’re done. If not by the cops than by Tallegi, in fact even if the cops get us we’ll get done by Tallegi. They’re the biggest crime family in town. We’ll be dead before we get to jail.
But this bitch didn’t faze.
There must be something we can do Jack.
We’re cooked baby, done. The amount of money he’s gonna put on our heads. Every crooked motherfucker in this country will turn us over. You understand.
You can think of something Jack, you’ve got us this far.
If you got a plan up your sleeve let me know, or maybe you’ll pull one out that sweet ass of yours, be sure to fill me in though won’t you, 'cause we’re both as good as fucking dead.
I literally saw the idea form in her head. Eyes filled with illumination and that faultless expression went from dread to expectation.
What about that then?
What the fuck about fucking what?
If we were already dead. You could kill us, you did it before, you could do it again. Both of us this time.
I thought about a minute. She got to her knees on the bed and slinked on over.
It could work Jack.
Nobody would ever think we’d be stupid enough to pull a stunt like that twice would they.
I was talking to myself really. What she’d said made sense. There wasn’t an asshole in the world dumb enough to try it.
You’d have to be fucking crazy to try it on twice. Have to be fucking nuts.
Me there again. Convincing the unbeliever.
That’s why it might work.
I made eyes with her. Blazed a straight up ‘ oh you're in for it now honey' stare. She was still there on her knees. Now on the bed’s edge having crawled all the way over. Ass up and head down with her look submitting to me as best she could, which was better than most. I got up out the chair and stood tall there over her.
There might be a way Evie. I’m sure I can come up with something.
She didn’t speak but instead pushed her shoulders into the bed further accentuating her ass to the heavens, an offering of sorts to me, her God in this capricious moment. With the sacrificial nature of her backside came the rolling of her eyes back into her head as she looked up at me from oh so far away. I put my hand on her head and pushed it into the mattress. Shoved my thumb in her mouth and then drove her head as far the springs would allow, holding there until she yelped. I lashed off my threads and took the belt from my pants. Man, I wished I had those pull-ties. Had to make do though. I ripped those stocking from her legs. Just tore them off of her. Ah the sound of pinging material, how it rushes with warmth through my dedicated veins. I tied her left wrist to the same ankle and did the same with the other leg and arm. Used clothes for the tying. She was face first and squirming, her ass her highest point and more mercurial than a subsequent sun. I knelt down by her face just to make sure she was wondering what in hell she’d gotten herself into. There it was. That look of lusty regret and impending horror.
It’s coming baby, don’t you worry it’s coming real soon.
Jack…be nice.
Jack’s gonna do whatever in fuck he pleases.
I put three fingers in her mouth to shut her up. Then with my free hand pulled that dress back to her ribs to expose those silken knickers. I had to take my fingers out her mouth to move to her rear so as to loom there, filling her with brimming dread and some gratuitous expectancy.
Jack…Jack…please…
I ran the belt along one cheek of her ass and she whimpered a little. I had it doubled over in my right hand and gave it a shake cracking her across both portions of that splendid spread flesh. She screeched and I’d had enough of it. I looped the belt and instead of noosing it round her neck I let it settle where her mouth was. She tried to resist but I got that maw open and then pulled it tight round her head. She was gagged good, real good. And tied real nice too. I was in a right position of influence over her now. Any disobedience and I just yanked on the leash and her head snapped back like a lid. That said I had her pretty much chin-up most of the time anyhow. You had no choice if you wanted that proper arch in the back that really gave precedence to the exquisiteness of the ass. With things as there were I had no choice but to tear those knickers off with my bare right hand. Leash tight fisted in the other. Snapping twang of elastic and twine. Music to my genitals and heart. She made my dead veins bleed again. And when I felt for it the weather was perfect. Conditions could not have been better. Oh son, did we had ourselves a time. A right rollick and romp. Her there and me here and the muffled shards of screaming. Transcendence took preference with time. It swallowed us whole over and over and over.
Exaggerated, enclosed and falling. Filled, stuffed and attractively helpless. Longing nightmares intermingle, idyllic imaginings cough up blood. I stumbled about the chaotic fretting, around this darkened vista, with my head hacked off, with me hunting like a damned madman for it. Yelling insane slogans, beating my loosened skull against rocks. She is my prisoner and I am hers and together we will die slow deaths of alien syndrome. And if she goes first I’ll cut off her breasts and use them for earmuffs. There just isn’t any other way.
When we were done and I’d let her free she lay with her back to me for about fifteen minutes. I dozed some and awoke with her naked and clinging to my side. We slept some more and then woke when the sun had swung west and was fighting a losing battle. She eased herself up and straddled me, kissing me with her hands holding either side of my face. There was no clear vision to it really, only sensation and feeling. She tasted like sweet water, felt like warm sunlight. She just started up without a word and it all went about as easy as it possibly could. Inside of her was the very mystic effortlessness with which a man could not find or have the words for ever. We made love as the setting sun decanted through the window orange as a Van Gogh wheat-field. Then we did that again. A sprawling, somehow concentrated edition of that lovely just done time. After that there was nothing one could do but come apart as much as was possible. And when done with that, to sleep.