Wrong Thing (7 page)

People were afraid of Crowley because Crowley wasn't afraid of anything. It wasn't that he was brave; it was that he didn't care what happened to him. He was a serious meth-head, but it wasn't the meth that made him the way he was.

He was in his fifties, and he had been who he was for a long time. When he was eighteen, he joined the Army and trained as a Ranger. He didn't have any desire to be a soldier, he just wanted to get away from his father, who beat the shit out of him almost every day. During his training, a sergeant pissed on him. Crowley just took it. There was a “company dildo” that was used to sodomize recruits as part of hazing. Many people quit. Crowley didn't. He became very skilled at killing. They sent him to Vietnam, and he liked it. He won two Purple Hearts, did a lot of drugs, and lost count of the number of people he killed. He was considered a hero.

Then he got blown up by a grenade. Nobody was quite sure how it had happened. It was rumored that another grunt had made a mistake, had dropped the grenade instead of throwing it, and Crowley had been standing nearby. The blast picked him up and threw him like a stone, but his body remained whole. They sent him home and he spent nine months in the hospital.

When he was released, he wanted to return to Vietnam, but the Army didn't want to send him back there. He was given an honorable discharge. He still needed to fight, to be part of an army, so he joined the peace movement. It was no different than the Army. As a veteran who had turned, he was valuable to them, just as he had been valuable to the Army as a killer. But he was still being used, and he was becoming aware of it. When he was no longer useful, the Army did nothing to help him, and neither did the peace movement.

He hung around Albuquerque, his hometown, but he couldn't make any friends. Everything people cared about seemed stupid to him. He'd be watching TV with other people, and a news item about the war would come on. His companions would remark on how awful it was, then start discussing which party or bar to go to. Crowley only related to two things now: drugs and fucking. He took speed every day and picked up women in bars. One woman he fucked got pregnant and gave birth to a daughter. Crowley hardly ever saw her.

He drifted between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, washed dishes, labored, and learned to work on bikes. He met bikers, and became one. Others joined the gang, stayed some years, left, and moved on, but Crowley never did. He was always there.

Crowley was in Albuquerque doing some business. He got word from Santa Fe that someone was looking for him there, but he wasn't concerned. He was sitting in a biker bar in downtown Albuquerque when the bartender gave him a heads-up. He looked and saw a boy, a skinny little Mexican who looked to be in his late teens, walking around talking to people. He realized that the boy was asking for him, but he just stayed sitting at the bar and didn't say anything. Then he saw the boy walking towards him.

“Hey, excuse me. Are you Mr. Crowley?” the Kid asked him.

“You know I am. Don just pointed me out to you. You want to call him a liar?”

“No. I was just checking.”

“You're underage for this place.”

“I ain't drinking. I just heard you were in here.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you about something.”

“You're already talking to me. What do you want?”

The Kid lowered his voice. “About meth.”

“What about it?”

“You're selling it on my old turf in Santa Fe.”

Crowley laughed, showing stained teeth. “Your old turf . . . Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I used to sell, before I got busted a year ago.”

“That's very sad. It must have been terrible for you.”

“I just got out . . . ”

“Congratulations.”

“Now everybody's buying from you, and nobody else is selling because they're scared of you.”

“So what do you want?”

“I want to sell too.”

“You're not real, you're really not real. You think I'm gonna sell to you? What've you got that I need?”

The Kid shook his head. “I don't want you to sell to me. I don't want to work for you. I want to sell for myself. I don't care what you do. You can sell all you want . . . ”

“Thank you. I appreciate your generosity.”

“I'll get my own stuff to sell. I won't bother you, and you don't bother me. I don't want to get in a war with you. I just want to sell.”

Crowley just sat there and laughed, shaking his big shaggy head. “Anything else I can do for you?” he said.

“Yeah. I need some money, till I get set up and start selling. You've been making money off my customers for a year. If I hadn't been gone, they'd have been buying from me and you wouldn't have made the money. So I think you should give me three hundred dollars.”

“Only three hundred? Sure you don't want any more?”

The Kid either ignored the sarcasm or didn't get it. “You can give me more if you want, but I'm only asking for three hundred.”

Crowley picked up the bottle of Budweiser he was drinking and chugged the last of it. “Okay” he said. “I ain't flashing money around in here. Let's go outside and we'll take care of it.” He heaved himself off his bar stool. The Kid followed him outside. People stared at them as they walked towards the door, the Mexican boy with the birdlike frame and big eyes, and the white man with the flabby gut and solid muscles and gray ponytail.

Outside on the street, Crowley said, “Let's go around back.”

There was a small alley behind the bar. When they got there, Crowley reached into a pocket of his denim jacket and pulled out his wallet. He opened it and showed it to the Kid. “Look at this,” he said, flipping through bills. “Near five hundred right here. You want it?”

“If you want to give it to me, yeah.”

“Sure. I'll give it to you.” Crowley closed the wallet and used it to slap the Kid across the face, hard and fast, once on each cheek. The Kid took a step back and stood there looking at Crowley. “Now get your fucking beaner ass out of here and don't come back,” Crowley said, putting the wallet away. At the same time, the Kid was fumbling inside his jacket. Crowley smiled. “Oh, what's this?”

The Kid pulled the blade out and held it in front of him.

“Gonna cut me?” said Crowley.

“Take your wallet out and give it to me.”

“I already gave it to you. You want it again?”

“I'll rip you open.”

“Go ahead. What's stopping you?”

The Kid came forward slowly, waving the knife in front of him. Crowley's smile disappeared. He watched the Kid's eyes. The Kid lunged, stabbing at Crowley's chest. Crowley stepped to the side and kicked the Kid's legs from under him. The Kid fell, but held on to the knife. Crowley put a foot on his wrist, pinning his arm to the ground.

“Let go of the knife.”

“Blow me, you white trash piece of shit.”

With his other foot, Crowley kicked the Kid in the stomach. It hurt more than anything the Kid had ever experienced, like his insides had been torn loose, but it took so much of his breath he couldn't even scream. His hand lost the knife. Crowley took his foot off the Kid's wrist, and the Kid wrapped both arms around his body, crying, waiting for Crowley to kick him again.

Crowley didn't. He picked up the knife. Then he took a handful of the Kid's hair and hauled him to his feet. The Kid's entire body was shaking, and tears were streaming over his face.

“Look at me,” Crowley said. The Kid got his eyes in focus and looked into Crowley's face. Crowley pressed the knife against the Kid's throat. “Do you hear me? Are you listening?”

“Yeah,” the Kid whimpered.

“If you weren't so young, I'd slice your fucking face off right now. I'll do it anyway if you ever come near me again. Do you hear what I'm saying?”

“Yeah.”

Crowley let go of the Kid, who fell to his knees and rolled onto his side. “Take a warning, okay?”

The Kid nodded.

Crowley walked away, went back into the bar.

The Kid wanted to lie there for a long time. He didn't feel like he could stand up. But he was afraid that Crowley might change his mind and come back for him, so he pushed himself to his feet and leaned against the wall. Then, bent almost double, he limped out to the street where his car was parked. He got in and put the key in the ignition, so he could start it right away if he had to. He sat there for about twenty minutes, trying to figure how badly he was hurt. He didn't feel as though any of his bones were broken, but all the organs in his body throbbed.

Eventually, he started the car. His hands trembled as they held the wheel, but he could drive. He got on the highway and headed for Santa Fe.

It was about eleven at night when he walked into the living room, where Miguel was sitting on the couch, watching a movie. Miguel took one look at him and said, “Oh, fuck. What happened?”

“You were right. The bikers are big on violence.”

“Oh, man.” Miguel stood up, put an arm around the Kid and helped him lie down on the couch. “How many were there?”

“Just one.”

“Oh, man. You want something to drink? Water or something?” “Can I have a beer?”

“Yeah, sure.” Miguel went to the fridge, got two bottles of Samuel Adams and gave one to the Kid. “You need to go to the hospital?” “No. I think I'm okay.”

“I told you, bro. Give it up. There's other ways to make money. No need to get hurt. It ain't worth it.”

Four days later, Crowley was coming out of Evangelo's, a bar just down the street from the Plaza in Santa Fe. The first thing he realized was that someone was sitting on his Harley. The second thing he realized was that it was the Kid.

“You know something? Some little bastards just can't be told,” Crowley said.

“Nice bike,” said the Kid.

“Get your brown ass off of it.”

The Kid obeyed. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a Bulldog 44. He pointed it at Crowley.

Crowley cackled. “New toy, huh?”

“Yeah. Just got it.”

“You know how to use it?”

“Not really. But it holds five rounds. I don't think I can miss you with all of them.”

“That what you're gonna do, shoot me? Right here in the street, in front of people?”

“Yeah.”

“Better go ahead, then.”

The Kid gripped the gun in both hands to steady himself, and squeezed the trigger. The sound of the shot slapped his eardrums. He didn't see where the bullet hit Crowley. It wasn't like in the movies. Crowley didn't cry out or stagger backwards. He went straight down, as if a trap door had sprung open underneath him. He made no sound. He was immediately saturated in blood and red piss.

People passing by on the street, who at first hadn't noticed what was going on, now screamed and ran around. The Kid bent down, reached into Crowley's pocket and pulled out his wallet. It was slick with blood. The Kid holstered the gun, covered it with his jacket and walked away. He walked down to Water Street, where he'd left his car.