By Jay Nystrom
The rain pelted the sidewalk unrelentingly, the harsh buzzing glow of neon signs reflected in the puddles that gathered in the uneven and unkempt pavement. The streets were lifeless and empty, a storm soaked ghost town with more secrets tucked into nooks and crannies than rats or mice. Make no mistake, the place was crawling with vermin but they all walked on two legs. Jerry Sticks was one such scurrying creature, and right now he was limping from out of a dive bar and into the roadway. Blood fell from his right hand dripping into the water on the ground mixing with the grime and muck. Jerry Sticks earned his name in the tough schoolyards of his youth, he had a penchant for assaulting others with a stickball bat. It had catapulted him up the ranks of hoods that worked for the local families. In the end fate would cross his path with that of a young dancing girl who heard things she shouldn’t have heard, a girl who would find herself on the wrong end of some bad men.
Jerry slowly made his way up the steps of his apartment building, he hated the elevator, it made him feel trapped and vulnerable. With each step droplets of blood left a trail, he was less concerned about being followed than he was about getting the blood to stop flowing from his arm. He fumbled with his keys and made his way to the bathroom, he stripped off his jacket and shirt and started to clean the wound. He swung open the mirrored cabinet and grabbed a bottle of iodine, he soaked a rag with it and held it to his shoulder, he yelped at the stinging. He closed the cabinet and saw her in the mirror, she was soaked from the rain. Her long auburn hair was pasted to her face, obscuring half of it but the pain and anger shone through.
Jerry turned around to face her, he had never seen her before tonight. She had burst into the bar looking for him, this dainty sweet looking little thing. She was only about five foot five, no more than a buck ten in her current water logged condition but damn was she mean. At the bar she had smashed two men to unconsciousness with a pool cue at which point another pointed in the direction of Jerry, that little snitch. Jerry charged her at that point, she pulled a gun and squeezed off a round that caught him in the shoulder. In the chaos and throng of confusion Jerry managed to sneak off into the night, but apparently she was clever enough to follow.
In the bathroom Jerry held up his one good arm in effort to stall her, “I don’t know who the fuck you are bitch, but I will fuckin’ drop you if you come any closer.” A crack in his voice diminished the weight of the threat, the girl didn’t move. He kept rambling, “Listen, I have a lot of money and you can have if you just leave me be. I don’t have anything against you, I’ll drop the whole shooting me thing just like that.” He backed slowly away from her but the bathroom was small and there wasn’t much of anywhere to go, still he bought time as he searched for something to defend himself with.
The girl just stared at him the whole time, she made small movements, just enough to never lose the angle on Jerry. Her chest heaved with each breath, tears filled her eyes as Jerry just jabbered on. “You take me out and you’ll have the whole Sevens crew gunnin’ for you sister, I’m a pretty big fish ya know, not a man to take lightly. Give me a chance and I’ll show you what kinda man I am, catch my drift.” He winked at her, then gave a small grin unsure of what to do next he just sat down on the toilet. “If you’re gonna do something just do it already bitch, I’m tired of this waitin’ game.”
From the sleeve of her jacket a wooden stick slid down, it was covered in dried blood. Jerry flinched at the appearance of the weapon, “Where the fuck you get that? What’s your angle dame?” He was visibly shaken at the sight, but his words continued to have an edge of macho swagger. She swung the stick at him, he managed to dodge the first blow and it chipped the sink countertop. Jerry had lunged to the right and he tried to catch the shower wall with his wounded arm, it didn’t hold and he fell awkwardly to the ground. The floor of the bathroom was now slick with blood and water, Jerry laid there unsure of what action to take next, the last time he was on the receiving end of any beating was by the hand of his father. He had been much smaller back then, just a boy trying to hide the fact that he had broken his Grandmother’s dishes by accident.
The woman stood above him, just out of reach of him lunging. When she spoke her voice matched her appearance, a little mousey, a squeak almost, but her words were cold. “I got the stick from evidence lock, my name is Officer Cara Hayes, Pike City Police Department. You are Jerry Sticks, two bit thug, and soon just a fuckin’ puddle of blood on the floor.” Jerry laughed so hard he started to cough, the wound in his shoulder sprang with new pains as his body was racked by the fit. “Oh that’s fuckin’ rich darlin’” he said, “a pretty little skirt like you is a cop. Wait till I tell everybody that the hot little piece who roughed up the Franklin twins is a copper.” He laughed again, this time without so much gusto. “What’s your stake in this little lady? Why all the aggression for little ol’ Jerry Sticks?”
Cara stepped on his ankle hard, Jerry screamed every obscenity he could think of at her. She swung the stick down and caught him in across the jaw nearly knocking him out. Then she squatted down, she firmly gripped his face and turned it to look at her, “My stake? Her name was Lacey, she was a dancer at the Lion’s Heart club, you beat her with this very stick and left her to die in the fuckin’ street. All because she happened to be around you when you started to run your big mouth, so you ask my stake in this. My stake in this is that she was my wife, my best friend for the last nine years of my life. And you killed her, you sick piece of garbage, I thought about watching you rot in cell for the rest of your life, to bring you in, to uphold the law. But I knew you’d walk, with your connections you’d be back on the street in a few days. Sometimes the law isn’t enough, it’s not this time.”
It only took one more swing to finish him off, Cara knew it wouldn’t be enough, it would never be enough. But sometimes the only way to survive in this cold, cruel world was to let it drag you down to it’s level. In this town it was the only law that ever meant a damn thing to anybody, survival by any means. In the distance sirens started to ring out in the night, a criminals lullaby in a city full of fuckin’ savages.
END
No comments:
Post a Comment