Rick
told her he’d pick her up at six in the lot of dirt and weeds across the street
from the Coffee Bean. Jordan never knew where he came from or went home to but
she was sure she was in love. He was fancy and had nice cuticles and big pearly
teeth. She’d never been with a white man before, or any other kind, but he said
he had to have her because she was exotic, a goddess, and he couldn’t help his
hungry heart.
She was mostly black but partly
Cherokee; he found her where she worked, the Coffee Bean, and wooed her as he
lingered reading Business Week. He said
women were wisest when young and needed an older man to appreciate them. He was
thirty, though the deep creases in his brow made her think he might’ve been a
few years older; his wife was in a mental home but he couldn’t bring himself to
leave her. When she was gone, which would be soon--her health was rapidly
declining--he’d take his new queen out of Long Beach and bring her back east
somewhere where they could start their new life together.
She gave herself to him the third
week she knew him; his kisses were deep and his embraces were bruising. He’d
take her to palatial hotels perched by the sea in places ruled by white men bronzed
by the sun. When the blood didn’t flow from her womb one month, he assured her
he’d take care of the problem. He told her he’d pick her up at six in the lot
of dirt and weeds across the street from the Coffee Bean, but it was now dusk,
nearly seven, and she knew she’d been abandoned.
Weighed down by the heavy anchor of
her wounded heart, Jordan languidly crossed the darkening street like a blasted
galleon lurching over black water. When she returned to the Coffee Bean, she saw
the owner’s son, Rueben, standing alone behind the counter reading a magazine.
“Hey Jordan. What’s up?” Rueben said as Jordan came in.
“Not
much.” Jordan said.
Rueben was an acne-spackled
ectomorph with stringy black hair and a mangy goatee. “I thought you were done
working,” he said lifting his gaze from the magazine and observing her as she
lugubriously sauntered up to the counter. “What’s wrong? Depressed?”
“Rick stood me up. I’d like to chop his
dick off, but I don’t know where he lives, and his number’s always restricted.”
“I know where he lives,” Rueben said
tossing the magazine aside. “He’s old friends with my dad and uncle.”
“Really?” said Jordan.
“He lives up in Palos Verdes, really
nice place, with his arm candy wife and two or three kids,”
“Jesus.”
“I’m off soon. Want to go up there?
I could show it to you.”
“Yeah,
Rueben, I want to see it.” Jordan said. “Can you be there by eight?”
“Yeah,”
Rueben said as Jordan departed. “I’ll swing by then.”
When
Jordan made it the few blocks to the Rise N’ Shine Senior Apartments she entered
her flat and saw her grandma, as plump and wrinkly as a raisin, plunked on her
Lazy-Boy watching MacGyver and
embroidering a cushion.
“What’s
MacGyver doing?” said Jordan.
“A
man wants MacGyver to help find his son,” said the mesmerized old woman. “But
it’s a trick. The man’s a hit man and wants MacGyver to find his target for
him.”
“Have
you had your medicine?’
“Not
yet.”
“I’ll
get it,” Jordan said crossing the cramped space to the bathroom where she laid
out the medications in a neat row before carrying the tray of pastel-colored pharmaceuticals
out to her grandma. Laying aside the crimson cushion she was embroidering a
gold flower on, the old woman popped the polychromatic pills one after the
other into her abysmal maw. She downed the pink one, the Metformin, for her
diabetes; the sky blue one, the Epinephrine, for her heart condition; the lemon
yellow one, the Niacin, for her liver affliction; and finally, the white one, the
valium, to perk up her spirits and help her go on.
“What
do you want for dinner, Grandma?” Jordan asked as the corpulent septuagenarian
stared at the flickering screen.
“Hungry
Man fried chicken, baby, go make me some.”
Jordan
went to the kitchen and tossed one of the half dozen boxes of Hungry Man fried chicken
entrees into the microwave. As the potatoes, poultry, and buttered corn quickly
warmed, Jordan thought of Rick, and how she’d wreak her vengeance on him. Maybe
she should just pound on his door this very night and expose his adultery to his
wife. She would’ve liked to involve the cops, get him for statutory rape, at
least, but she knew she was eighteen when he first fucked her at the Duke in
Newport Beach.
After
she brought her grandma the Hungry Man fried chicken, and watched the end of
the show, she went to the parking lot to wait for Rueben.
When
the ectomorph arrived in his black Ford truck, she hopped in and they took off.
“How
long have you known Rick?” Rueben asked slipping Jordan a business card. It had
Richard Ryan Owens etched in charcoal
on the egg white face and Vice
President/Wells Fargo written below it.
“Not
long, but long enough; and too long. I wish I never met him,” Jordan said taking
the card. “What’s this?”
“Rick’s
card. It has his address on the back. I stole it from my dad.”
Flipping the card over, Jordan saw “1272
Mermaid Drive, Palos Verdes,” scrawled in blue felt tip marker.
“You
should take pics of Rick’s house, make it clear you know where he lives, and blackmail
him.” Rueben said maneuvering the truck
nimbly down Ocean toward the 47. “He just used you. You know that, right? Rick’s
been pulling this shit on you Coffee Bean chicks for ages. He used to be a
part-owner with my dad but he sold his half. He still hangs around though cuz
he has a taste for hot young ass. You’re not the first chick who’s worked for
my dad that Rick fucked, and you won’t be the last.”
Rueben
pulled on to the Seaside Freeway and the F-150 roared and hummed as it
accelerated over the dimly glistening asphalt.
“Son
of a bitch,” Jordan said.
“But
he’s really rich,” Rueben continued, “I think I know what you should do. Take a
pic of his address when we get to his house, and send him a letter with the
picture as proof you know where he lives. Blackmail him. Tell him you need
money for rent or food or tuition. Tell him if he doesn’t give it to you,
you’ll tell his wife what he’s been up to.”
“I’d
rather just tell her tonight.”
“But
then you’d lose your leverage over him; and besides, if he finds out I took you
to his house and got him busted he’ll tell my dad.”
When
the F-150 ascended to the zenith of the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Jordan looked
down at the inky sea. “Maybe you’re right, Rueben,” she said. “Maybe I should
just try to get some money out of him.”
“That’s
what Denise did. She worked for my dad a few years back. Rick gave her like
five grand.”
Rueben
pulled off the Seaside Freeway and took Gaffey to 25th street. When
25th changed to Palos Verdes the houses became increasingly nice and
Rueben turned on Mermaid Drive and pulled the truck quietly up to the curb and
pointed across the street to a tan Spanish ranch with a red tile roof and a
well-manicured garden. The lights were on and a blonde, busty woman was leaning
over the sink in the kitchen.
“That’s
his wife. Kind of fine, eh?” said Rueben.
“Son
of a bitch,” said Jordan.
A
brunette man appeared behind the blonde woman and wrapped his arms around her
waist. The man softly kissed the woman’s
neck and Jordan saw he was Rick.
“You
gonna take pics? Blackmail him?” Rueben said turning to Jordan as the couple in
the window disappeared from view.
“He
told me that his wife was in a nuthouse, that she was nearly dead!” Jordan
said.
“Oh,
is he still saying that?” Rueben said with a laugh. “Well, at least judging by
her tits, I’d say she’s in pretty good health.”
With
a sudden burst three small children came tumbling out the front door, playfully
grappling with each other as they scurried over to a black S-Class Mercedes
sedan parked on the smooth stone driveway. There were two blonde girls in
pigtails of perhaps ten and eleven, and a brunette boy of no more than seven.
The car beeped and its lights flashed and Rick and his busty wife bounded out
the front door and hurried to the kids at the car.
“Get
down!” Rueben said slumping in his seat. Jordan slowly slouched beneath the
dashboard as Rick and his family climbed into his car. Oblivious to the snoops
across the street, Rick backed out of the driveway to within about thirty feet
of the hiding spies, and drove down Mermaid into the night.
“Son
of a bitch!” Jordan said as she and Rueben sat up.
“Are
you gonna take some pics of his house, prove you know where he lives, and blackmail
him?” Rueben said.
Jordan
took out her cell phone and leapt from the truck. She crossed the street and came
to the porch where she snapped a few pictures of the sky blue 1272 stretching across
the scarlet door. Just below the cobalt 7, a mail slot got Jordan’s attention. To
her left, not three yards off, she peripherally glimpsed a lime green hose coiled
on a small hook protruding from the stucco wall, and she hurried to it and
carried the spout to the mail slot and put it up to it. Rueben, noticing her
movements from the truck, waved his arms frantically to get her to stop.
Ignoring Rueben, Jordan removed the nozzle from the hose to maximize the flow
of water, threaded the slim tube through the mail slot so that it went far into
the house, returned to the spigot on the wall, and turned the water up to full
blast.
Rueben
swiveled his head like a sprinkler, terrified that someone was a witness to
Jordan’s crime, but not a soul was on the street and the fast-flowing water
made scarcely a sound as it surged through the hose into Rick’s stately
quarters. Rueben spastically gesticulated to Jordan to hurry back to the truck,
but she strolled to it leisurely with a wide, bright smile.
“Jesus
Christ, Jordan. What the fuck?” Rueben grunted trying to be quiet when Jordan
swung open the black door and climbed into the cabin. “You know how much damage
you’ve done? Probably a million bucks.”
Jordan
threw back her head and laughed as Rueben turned on the ignition and sped from
the crime scene with his wheels screeching.
“I
hope nobody saw me parked on the street.” Rueben cried turning sharply on Palos
Verdes. “What if somebody got my license plate?”
“No
one saw shit.”
“If
the cops find someone who saw my truck and blame me for it, you’ll have to own
up. I didn’t know what you had planned. I was an unwitting accomplice.”
“No
one saw shit, you little bitch.”
“What’s
your fucking problem, Jordan?” Rueben exploded. “Now you can’t blackmail him.
You know that, right? He’s gonna figure out it had to be you who flooded his
house. He’s gonna want to know who the fuck gave you his address after he
dumped your ass, and I’ll be the chief suspect!”
“He
won’t do anything. If he does, I’ll say he started fucking me when I was
sixteen.”
“Is
that when he started fucking you, you filthy whore?” Rueben said.
“That’s
what I’ll say.”
“He
got sick of your black ass real fast, huh slut?”
“Fuck
you, faggot.” Jordan said folding her arms.
“Oh
I’m a faggot, eh bitch?” Rueben said reaching into the center console with his
right hand and retrieving a black rectangular device a few inches long.
“Rueben?
What the fuck?” Jordan cried when she realized it was a stun gun.
Lunging
across the console, Rueben zapped her naked left thigh just below the cuff of
her shorts. Jordan recoiled from the shock, unclicked her seat belt, and
pressed herself against the passenger door panel as far from him as possible. She
pulled on the handle but the door was locked. The F-150 purred like a kitty
when Rueben accelerated on the Seaside Freeway. At the zenith of the Vincent
Thomas Bridge he lunged across the consul and zapped Jordan’s left thigh again,
and she screamed and spasmed in pain.
While
threatening her with the zapper in his right hand, Rueben deftly captained the
truck with his left one. He merged on to Ocean, turned on Long Beach and took E.
Anaheim to an alley behind Cherry Street, where he parked his truck in the lot
of dirt and weeds across the street from the Coffee Bean.
Though
the lights went dark when he turned off the ignition, Jordan could still see
through the bulge in his jeans that Rueben had an erection. The ectomorph
lunged at her with the stun gun once more but she was able to karate chop his
noodle arm with the side of her right palm, knocking the stun gun to the
passenger seat where she snatched it with her left hand.
“I
was just kidding! I was just kidding!” Rueben shrieked recoiling back to the
driver seat.
“Open
the fucking door, Rueben!” Jordan demanded turning on the stun gun and causing
its neon volt to surge. “Open the fucking door or I’ll shock the shit out of
you, motherfucker!”
He
still had a boner. The purple helmet of his warrior was peeking out just above
his waistband.
“If
you say anything about this, I’ll tell the cops what you did to Rick,” Rueben
said turning on the ignition and pressing the driver power door lock switch to unlock
the passenger door.
“Go
fuck yourself, loser!” Jordan cried pushing open the door and leaping from the
truck with the stun gun still clutched in her hand.
When
she slammed the door behind her, Rueben lowered the passenger window, and
yelled: “Go fuck yourself, too, you fucking whore!”
Jordan
picked up a plum-sized rock and tried to throw it in the cabin at Rueben as he
drove off down the alley, but she was still dazed and discombobulated by the
stun gun attack, and missed wide to the left.
Leaving
the abandoned lot, Jordan lumbered toward home through the dark night holding tightly
to the stun gun like a talisman. Making it the few blocks to the Rise N Shine Senior
Apartments, she went into her flat where she saw her grandma on her Lazy-Boy
watching Matlock.
“What’s
Matlock doing?” said Jordan.
“Defendin’
some bitch who says she killed a mobster in self-defense. But her story don’t make
sense.”
Jordan
put the stun gun in the drawer and sat on the sofa next to her grandma. “Did
you take your Ambien, Grandma?” she said. “The doctor said to take it an hour
before bed.”
“I
haven’t taken it yet, baby. Go get it.”
Jordan
crossed the few paces to the bathroom and grabbed the Ambien bottle, but when
she twisted its top to open it, she felt a sudden pang in her midsection and a
gush of blood rushed from between her legs. Pulling off her shorts in horror,
she saw a great red spot on her white panties that reminded her of the flag of
Japan. Taking off her undies and tossing them in the corner, she reached up to
the cabinet for the valium bottle and swallowed several of the little white
pills. With her fist perched on her chin like the Thinker, she sat on the
toilet and spontaneously aborted. As the blood of her womb dripped ever so
softly into the rosy water, she thought of Rick’s flooded house, and like Mona
Lisa, she smiled a secret smile to herself.
Conor
O’Brian Barnes
Tags:
Short Fiction