Personal Jesus
Mother warned me about the snow this evening. She said it would turn into a storm—said it would cause me to catch a death of a cold.
Her voice lingered in my head as I stepped out of the shower. The street lit snow reflects through the window onto my wet skin. I pick up the orders with damp hands and let the mission sink in. Since when did the feds want to know what the fags were up to?
The black towel drops from my waist as I pull up a nicer, daintier pair of underwear. I lotion my legs, wrap them tightly in denim, and outfit my feet with motorcycle boots. I choose a t-shirt from the sea of white inside my drawer. I pick up my hooded leather jacket from my doorknob and kiss the dog goodbye.
My car is already waiting for me. It’s just snowing.
I tell the driver, “take me to 14th, between 1st and 2nd”.
Want’n Her Again
The gents line dance back and forth upsetting the layer of bar smoke—a sea trying to calm amidst an ailing and thrashing floor. Laughter coupled with synchronized wooden stomps, dry claps and I’m watching and half impressed—half happy.
I’m broke and drinking the swill they call whiskey. It’s why I’m half happy.
An hour passes, three more shots drank and seven more songs play, four people leave and five people enter.
Someone touches my shoulder. I don’t turn or look surprised or excited. My eyes shift to the side and then up. He asks if I’ve been waiting long. I don’t answer and he laughs asking me if I’m a mute. He laughs again, pointing out my furrowed brow. I haven’t even said hello and I’m already being picked apart. I hate this. Why did I agree to this particular job?
He asks for a dance. I get up to leave and he grabs my arm and with a discretely forceful tug in his direction, reminds me I have an objective and I agreed to do the job.
Talk to Me
We’re waiting outside the bar for the car. It’s still snowing. The sidewalks are covered in busy footsteps and glimmer in shades of flutter brushed rusty orange and pale green. His swept back blond hair shifts in the breeze and catches snow.
He’s talking about his trip here. I’m not paying attention. He moves closer. I can smell whiskey. I wonder if he can smell me.
The car arrives. Essex and Grand he tells the driver. He continues talking. He tells me about his objective. He’s lying. I’m looking out the window, no longer interested and wishing he’d been drunk enough to spill his knowledge. Instead here I sit listening to him shoot the shit about the woes of his very matter of fact lifestyle.
He’s quiet. I welcome the silence, but it’s broken by the sound of skin meeting skin at an alarming rate. The sting sears my cheek and it’s the first thing I’ve felt since I left the house.
He comes closer, quickly, sort of like an oafish spider with an eleventh leg—demanding that I tell him about the mission and that I if I cannot give him the respect he deserves, to at least cooperate for the means of success. I tell him he talks too much and that I’m here to discuss the whereabouts of Alistair. He calls me callous and cold. I ask him when he became the caring sort and I get no reply.
The car slows and we’ve arrived.
“Nice to see you again too.”
Fresh Blood
The car drives away in a black mist and left us in front of a dilapidated cathedral.
“These your digs?” I smirked. “Just the top floor.”
The doors were recently painted, a vibrant blood, not like classic Dracula, more like the way lips used to look when your grandmother was my age—the kind that meant oblivion and sex wrapped into a secretive piece of paper left next to a half empty martini.
He unlocked the door and holds it open for me, gesturing for me to enter. He leads me up a spiral staircase into a large loft with high wooden beams and ancient unfinished floors. A clean kitchenette sat in the back left corner, an ivory tub with large feline feet in the upper right hand corner, and a faded purple fainting couch in the middle of two stained glass windows.
“Make yourself comfortable, you’ll be here for awhile.”
He’s walking to the kitchen and undressing as he goes. I watch him take out a bottle and two glasses and fill them with surprising care.
I remove my boots and jacket and take a seat on the couch, awaiting the warmth of whatever fills the glass. A naked limb weaves into my eyesight and offers me the drink. Whiskey. Real whiskey. I can be happy now.
He lies behind me on his back and lights a cigarette. He has no intentions of talking business, Alistair, or of anything. His heat already branding my back and I can feel his eyes tracing my spine. He’s moving closer now; his breath is hot and laden with alcohol. He ashes and blows the last of the cigarette’s life into our atmosphere.
He’ll have me tonight.
More Adventurous
His hair covers his eyes as he lies in a satiated slumber.
It always amazes me how you’re never the same thing in the spring or never the even the same person by summer. Last spring. I wasn’t taking these types of jobs nor would I have allowed this fool within two feet.
I brush the hair from his face and finish dressing myself. I’d stolen his mission statements in the car. It was time to go.
The red door makes a hushing noise as I shut them quietly—carefully. The car is waiting for me silently. The snow is picking up with the wind. It feels colder now, dryer, and darker. Before I get in, I take a moment to notice the vanity of this rare moment: the red doors, the white cathedral, snow, and my spot of black.
“The piers, please.” Goodbye, cowboy.
Atticus/Running Up that Hill
I can see Alistair on the edge of the boat. His back is turned, but I can feel his smile. I remember the last time I saw him and thinking his teeth looked like glass. So unnaturally white. I need to see how long I can last. I’ve got to get to back to the cathedral.
He turns before I’m close enough to say hello. The wind is too loud now and snow stings my skin and my tears are freezing. I stop for a moment and look at his figure being little more than a tracing against the snow and the speeding winds. My eyes are transfixed on watching him and I’m startled to feel a hand reach from the spectral background.
“Its really good to see you again”, he whispers into my ear.
I can barely hear him, my heart is racing, the wind is howling, and snowflakes are blades to my skin. I part my lips to respond and a gloved finger hushes them.
“I wondered how long you’d play both games, being good sometimes and reveling when you were bad”, he continued. His face never stopped smiling, but his anger was apparent.
“How long have you been sleeping with that common bounty hunter?” His comforting finger had transformed into two leather-gloved hands around my throat topped with a Cheshire cat smile. “You were my agent before you turning into his whore.” He sounds almost as if he were about to cry. His grip tightens and I can’t breathe. I’ve got to make it back to the church. He lifts me off of my feet, I can only see his teeth, glass-like shining through the weather. My vision is blurring and my eyes are darting in a slowed fashion, but to and fro nonetheless. It from this reaction that I noticed the shine of a small firearm, a Browning, I believe and newly polished. It fired a single shot, it rang through my ears, the bullet burned inside me, and I was on the ground just as suddenly as I was airborne. “Give this to him”, Alistair said as he dropped an envelope on me. My vision fades.
St. Augustine
Alistair was gone.
Blood came and stained the perfect white of my shirt. I got myself to my feet and stumbled to my car. I tell the driver to get me back to the church as fast as he can. The green streetlights are flickering with my vision. I can’t speak any more; I’ve got to make it back to the church, got to give him the orders.
“We’re here sir”, the driver announces. I wake up startled and in pain. I wipe the blood from my mouth and try to walk to the red doors again. I fall to my knees immediately and crawl to the doors. I bang three times on the bottom of the door. He’ll find me here and he will take this letter.
I need a nap.
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