Deadly Short Stories Read online

  MVP

  Outside, the clouds clear, almost all gone. The sky fills with a dark navy blue, the first stars glistening in the rain-washed sky.

  A blast from a horn forces Bennett to glance out the window, where the traffic light changes from red to green. I know this because I make out the colors reflected on his clammy skin.

  He shifts his attention back to Del as the apartment fills with darkness.

  “I ain’t wasting no more time talkin’,” he growls. Bennett raises his gun and places the barrel against Del’s forehead, execution style.

  In a wedge of the room where you might not notice someone, someone is there. Someone who might be considered only an old has-been. Not a threat at all. An old player who went to retrieve his 1954 Louisville Slugger from the darkness of the far corner.

  He emerges, a shadowy figure, like a ninja or a ghost. But neither a ninja nor a ghost. Because that someone is me, silently sneaking up on Bennett’s blind side.

  I wonder if the man gets a tingle on his neck. I imagine he does. Because he freezes up. So do Del and I, as if we’re all part of a new diorama at the Natural History Museum. Only this one depicts an important period in my personal history.

  This image gets me to thinking. If they ever put together the Atram “Blind Eye” Wink Museum, this night needs to be in it. I’m okay with a Blind Eye Wink wing of the Brooklyn Dodgers Museum, as long as it’s got the best moments in my life laid out as dioramas.

  I just love dioramas.

  LADIES AND GENTLEMAN!

  Batting cleanup!

  At 5'8" and 196 pounds, averaging .308 . . .

  Right fielder, Number 13 . . .

  The big fella, Atram “Blind Eye” Wink!

  Bases are F.O.B. (full of Brooklyns) and Mister Wink is sittin’ in the catbird seat.

  With every muscle flexed, I step up to the plate. Left leg outstretched, right leg in support. Reaching way behind my head to get maximum strength, I bring my bat around with a solid swing. Right on the money.

  Here’s the pitch, swung on, belted... it’s a long one...

  back, back, back . . .

  back, back, back . . .

  This one is GONE!

  It’s OUTTA here!

  Game OVER!

  Let’s hear it for dem Bums!

  My swing against the skull of Conrad Bennett is perfectly executed. He’s out before his crushed face smacks into the pile of broken fortune cookies on the kitchen floor.

  “Home run, motherfuckuh!” I say, towering over Bennett.

  In all my eighty-six-and-a-half years, I’ve never smashed a man’s skull before tonight. I don’t know what my thoughts will be on it someday far from today, but right now, right here, I gotta admit: Feels pretty damn wonderful!

  It’s been good to step up to the plate again, to make the final hit of the game.

  Just like the old days with “dem Bums,” who happened to be my best friends.

  CHAPTER 9

  White

  I chew Chiclets. It’s my thing. I’m not into tattoos or nose piercings or other so-called body art. But I do believe in self-expression and I’m known for my yellow Chiclets box. It rattles in my back black jeans pocket when I walk and jump and chase.

  I slip the slim cardboard box out when I’m with the cool crowd. I shake it like a Polaroid picture until I get their attention. Out of the mouth of the box slides each little white tablet, like a clean loose white tooth, only without the blood.

  I salivate, thinking of biting into its hard alabaster shell to lick the soft, chewy center, the snowy mint shooting across my tongue like the happy spray of moist love. It’s what sets me apart from the pack, my pack of gum. It keeps me fresh, new, popular.

  I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t snort. But I do chew Chiclets. We all have our vices.

  I’d offer the babe in the short leather skirt a bright white Chiclet, but I’m sure she wouldn’t take it. Probably just laugh. Well, she can’t chew it, anyway, her pouty mouth being bloody and swollen like that, her teeth kicked out, her chained to my bed. She might appreciate a nice Chiclet—but no!

  It’s my thing, my trademark, and I don’t like to share.

  CHAPTER 10

  Rat Trap

  When we moved the rats to the back of the store, the end was as obvious as Jack-in the-Box sauce on a napkin. Kids want rabbits, kittens, gerbils. Foremost, pups. Rats had had their day in the sun and now they’re having their day in a dark corner. Mr. Pastranamus keeps a clean—if smelly—shop, and his decisions are final, ruling as he does, iron-fistedly.

  I watch him picking at his teeth with his pinky nail, palm up. Like a reverse dive off a diving board—an unnecessary level of difficulty. I keep sweeping, but I keep an eye on him too.

  Mr. Pastranamus abruptly leaves his stool. He actually hops up to hop down; he’s a short man and smells of green onions. I have him pinned to the corner of my eye as he heads to the back.

  I push my broom to the shadows in the far corner. Where we keep the waterproof tarps, chicken wire and bleach. And now rats. That’s when I notice the cages are empty.

  Rats are clever; they can squeeze through the tiniest of openings to be free. They’ve survived for thousands of years that way. I can hear Mr. Pastranamus struggling with Mother Nature in the bathroom, flushing and cursing, again and again.

  The pipes must be acting up; they sound like they’re squealing.

  CHAPTER 11

  Ashes to Ashes

  PART ONE

  The three brothers awoke, one by one, and picked up where they’d left off the night before. Drinking tequila shots from fish-themed paper cups in the bathroom.

  “Hand me that towel,” Jeff croaked to Casey, pointing at a damp face towel on the floor.

  Casey, the one with the beard, tossed him the towel. Jeff spit into it, wiped his mouth, and threw the cloth out into the hallway. The black fabric hid the blood well.

  Casey poured three fingers into a paper cup, the liquid splashing beyond the rim, and tossed another shot of tequila back.

  Then he got to his feet, stretched, and peered out the window at the empty streets below.

  From the floor, Alan creaked to his feet next. “That was one hell of a wake,” he said, his voice a barely-audible growl.

  He ran his hand through his curly, red hair then stopped and stared at his palm, studying something he’d pulled from his hair. Alan shrugged and stepped over Jeff—who was still on the floor—and walked out of the bathroom toward the kitchen.

  Jeff stood up last—he always was the last to get up. Maybe from being the youngest, or maybe from being the skinniest.

  Jeff grabbed the sink to steady himself and felt vomit pumping up to his mouth from below. First, he spat a bit of blood into the sink. Then, he closed his eyes tight and forced the vile pulp back down, gritting his teeth and muttering.

  Then Jeff left the bathroom, too, heading toward the gurgle of coffee being brewed in the kitchen. He entered the room and sat in the first available chair.

  “Not so much a wake, as a celebration,” he said. He coughed into his hand and said nothing more.

  Casey strolled in next, wrinkled boxers riding up in the back, and nothing else on. “Love you,” he said to Jeff. He massaged Jeff’s shoulders for a second as he navigated around him.

  Casey made his way up to Alan at the counter—who was pouring a coffee for himself from the pot he made—and put his arm around him.

  “It’s been a good weekend, seeing you again. Both of you.”

  He turned to smile at Jeff, then sat down at the table on the chair closest to the window.

  The sun had climbed high in the summer sky, putting the time somewhere near noon. The clangs of the city drifted through the open kitchen window like a drunken one-man band.

  From four stories below, someone pressed their apartment number. Jeff death-marched to the intercom and held the buzzer down to let whomever it was in, no questions asked.

  “Here w
e go,” Casey said when Jeff returned, handing him a chipped, brown mug of coffee.

  Back at the table, Alan held his face over his own cup, trying to steam away his hangover.

  Casey took his mug and headed back towards the bathroom. “I’m taking a shower. Stay out except for emergencies. And they’re damn well better not be any emergencies.”

  PART TWO

  The sound of Casey’s shower sprayed loudly in the background as Alan opened the door. A priest dressed in a black suit smiled back: Father Callahan—aka brother Frankie.

  “Frankie, what the hell? Good to see you,” Alan said.

  “Hey, man.” The priest hugged Alan as he stepped in, slapping him hard on the shoulder. Alan closed the door and the priest loosened his collar. “So, how’s Ma?” Frankie said.

  “What do you mean?” Alan asked. “You know she’s dead.”

  “Her remains. The ashes, you dolt.” Frank collapsed into the sofa and pulled off his shoes. He unbuttoned his pants and put his feet up. The move knocked a stack of worn Maxim magazines off the coffee table. No one cared.

  “Get mea culpa, will you?” he said to Alan. This was Frankie’s religious joke. Me a cuppa/mea culpa.

  It wasn’t funny ten years ago when Frankie started saying it. No one noticed any more.

  “So . . . ?” Frankie said.

  “The ashes? I don’t know. They’re here somewhere,” Alan said.

  Alan dragged his ass back to the kitchen to retrieve a coffee for Frankie.

  “The Runt went to the funeral home to get them yesterday,” he called from the other room. “I was too drunk to notice he’d even left.”

  Frankie turned his head to address Jeff, who lay on his stomach on the living room rug. “So, you skinny runt, what did you do with them?”

  “I put them in that urn you got, Alan,” Jeff shouted, ignoring Frankie to address Alan in the kitchen instead.

  “What urn?” Alan called back, shaking the last of the coffee into a DePaul U mug.

  “The urn you picked up. In the garage sale. Last month,” Jeff yelled.

  “Duh,” he added as an afterthought.

  Alan shuffled back in and handed the mug to Frank. “Wait, what? Runt, that vase? I bought that to um, like, using it to, well, piss in.” He scratched at his bundle of red hair and stared at Jeff, surprised by the confusion. “It’s just a beat-up old vase.”

  “What the fuck . . . ?” Jeff turned over on his side and looked up, propping his head on his hand. “It was for Mom’s ashes.”

  “Look, there’s only one bathroom,” Alan said. “When people crash here, someone almost always hogs the bathroom. Sometimes they pass out against the door and you can’t get in. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Seriously?” Frank said. “Are you serious right now?” Frank said.

  “The rule is no peeing in the kitchen sink. With people eating and all. It’s what we agreed on.”

  “Jesus,” Frank said. He was after all, Father Callahan.

  “So, I kept the thing in my room,” Alan went on. “I always poured the ‘liquid’ down the toilet, of course. Once a week.”

  “That is so disrespectful,” Frank said.

  “Not my fault,” Alan said. “I didn’t expect my pee pot to be used as Ma’s last resting place.”

  “Not my fault either,” Jeff said, sitting up and clasping his knees in his arms. “I mean, an urn is an urn. And an urn is for ashes. Except around here, apparently.” He glared at Alan as if Jeff had been the victim of his pranking.

  “Okay, whatever. You girls can fight it out later,” Frank said. “We need to focus on putting the ashes in a respectable container. First, dry them out. Then pour ‘em into a clean, normal container of some kind.”

  Frankie took a deep breath.

  “So,” he continued, “where’s this urn now?”

  Alan and Jeff stared at each other, their faces blank as wallpaper.

  Casey padded wetly out of the shower, clouds of steam billowing behind him.

  He held a towel around his middle with one hand. “Yo, Frankie, how’s it hanging?”

  “It’s hanging with the Lord, my brother,” the priest said. The two brothers bumped fists.

  “Amen,” said Casey.

  “So, Case, y’know anything about the disappearance of Ma’s ashes?”

  Casey’s eyebrows arched high. “What are you talking about now?”

  “Seems our little brothers have screwed up. Yet again.” He waved over to the two. “They appear to have placed our dear mother’s ashes in kind of a port-a-potty.”

  Casey rolled his eyes.

  “It gets better,” Frankie said. “They’ve misplaced the potty.”

  “Shit,” Casey muttered as he scrubbed a second, smaller towel across his hair and over his beard. “Figures.”

  PART THREE

  The four men stepped out on the sidewalk outside the apartment. The steaming air hit them like an abusive parent.

  Frank squinted, slipping a pair of Ray-bans on his face. Alan pulled the rim of his Cubs baseball cap even lower.

  Jeff, the “Runt,” peered at the ground to avoid the sun, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

  Casey—a former star athlete—remained coolly unaffected by the sun’s glare.

  “Where do we start?” Alan asked, keeping his head bowed.

  Casey looked over at his little brother.

  “Do you remember what you did after you picked up the ashes, Jeffy-boy?” he said.

  “Well, I stopped at Murphy’s.”

  “Why did you have to do that? We have plenty to drink at home. Always. You’re so dumb.” Casey lips were drawn tight.

  “That’s home. Blocks away. I wanted a cold one then.”

  “Really?” Casey pushed his smaller brother. “Was that the smart thing to do?”

  Jeff bundled his fist and prepared to punch back.

  “All right, all right,” Frank said, stepping between them. “Enough.” Blessed is he who maintains the peace.

  For a few seconds, the brothers shuffled about then returned to the quest.

  “It’s a start, anyway,” Frankie said. “Let’s get our asses over to Murphy’s.”

  They marched on ahead.

  After a few minutes, Jeff fell out of step on purpose. He leaned over and spat on the road, the mucus gray and stringy.

  When the wad hit the street, it sizzled.

  PART FOUR

  “Boys!” Murphy greeted them. “What’ll it be?”

  “Guinness all ‘round,” Frankie said.

  “Guinness ’tis, Father Callahan!”

  The brothers sat in a row at the bar, like Russian dolls: from tallest to shortest. Casey on the entrance, Jeff at the bathroom end.

  “Hey, Murph, we need to ask you a, um, delicate question,” Casey began.

  “Sure. What’s up?” Murphy set up the first glass for a slow pour.

  “You know Ma died, right?”

  “My wife catered the wake. So, yeah, I know.”

  “Yeah, right. Anyway, the Runt here,”—Casey shoved his thumb toward the end of the bar—“was in charge of bringing her ashes home from the funeral parlor yesterday.”

  “Well, there’s mistake number one.” Murphy laughed.

  He pulled the first completed Guinness out from under the tap and let it set while he started the next.

  “You ain’t kidding,” Casey went on. “Well, he’s lost the thing. We were hoping you’d seen it.”

  “What did it look like? A jar or something?”

  “Actually,” said Alan, jumping in. “A nice chamber pot kind of thing, y’know?”

  Murphy shrugged.

  “White like, with purple irises or something all over. Know where I got it?”

  “Doesn’t matter where you got the thing,” Casey said through gritted teeth.

  “Picked it up at a garage sale.” Alan beamed in triumph.

  Murphy raised an eyebrow and started to rinse a couple of glasses.

&
nbsp; Casey attempted to regain the floor. He turned back to Murphy.

  “Anyway, Murph,” he said, “have you seen it?”

  Murphy put a wet glass on the drying rack. “Can’t say that I have. I don’t think I’d miss something like that.”

  He returned to the Guinness tap and pulled a third drink, the two other full glasses resting.

  Before much longer, the brothers had identical pints of Guinness in front of them. Shortly after that, a matching set of empty Guinness pint glasses.

  “Well, if the vase shows up, let us know, all right?” Frankie said.

  “Of course. ‘nother round?”

  “Is the Pope Catholic?”

  “Father Callahan, really . . . ”

  The second round became a third, the third a fourth.

  Then the fifth and sixth, the seventh and eighth.

  FINALE

  Back outside, the sun was already setting.

  “Hey! I’m feeling a lot better,” Jeff said.

  “Good,” Frankie said. “Any chance your memory has returned?”

  “Believe it or not, yes. Follow me as I retrace my steps,” Jeff said as he wobbled around the corner and down an alley.

  He came to an abrupt stop.

  “There,” he said, proud as a dumb peacock. “I give you: Ma’s ashes.”

  A small, white urn lay overturned on its side at the back of the alley against a large greasy dumpster, a dog peeing on it.