Hard Bite and Other Short Stories (2 page)

“
I’m here now.” My van swings into the lot. Another set of headlights flash making the same turn.

“
He’s here. I’ll call you.”

The target parks and walks over. I motion him in the passenger side. Seeing Sid, he shakes his head, makes a face. A sign from me, and Sid rolls down the window.

“
I’m not getting in there with no fucking monkey.”

“
He’s a pet. He’s harmless.”

He gives me the horrified, disgusted look I tend to attract from strangers—I have less visual appeal than Sid, obviously. It hasn’t dawned on this guy that had the father of four lived, he might have ended up looking like me.

“
Fuck this, too weird.” He turns on his heel and starts back to the Mustang.

It’s now or never. I look at Sid, point to the guy. “Hard bite.”

Sid blinks at me. For a second it doesn’t look like he gets it—I’ll have to watch this thug walk away with murder. Sid studies my face. Whatever his simian brain sees there catapults him out the window. In three jumps, he’s across the pavement, and has the guy’s pant leg. A flash, and he’s climbing, canines bared.

The guy screams, arms wind milling, and breaks into a lopsided run. Sid takes a hard slap across the head. I hear Sid accelerate to monkey rage, and the two of them crash into a clump of bushes. I lose sight; all I can hear is bracken crunching, branches whipping, the man screaming over Sid’s guttural grunts and chirps.

All goes still.

My heart hammers. The whole park, quiet as death.

Sid erupts from the bushes, bounds toward the van, and throws himself through the window, dripping blood and goo, wild-eyed.

I hear a long moan from the undergrowth—throw the van in reverse and turn shakily out of the lot. Sid’s in no shape to help, but we have to get a move on.

A few miles down Carson is a nice, suburban neighborhood, not so fancy an old van will be out of place, not so ghetto that people watch every move. I pull in a few streets, cut the engine, and press Cinda’s number. Sid stops bouncing off the walls, now covered with bloody splotches, and curls in a ball on the floor. His fur is shiny and slick with blood. I can’t tell if the blood is his.

“
The guy was alive when I left the park. If Sid just nicked him, he could still spray some blood and be fine.”

Neither of us voices the obvious; if the guy is “fine” my description will be circulating with police soon.

“
You need Sid washed, find out if he’s wounded, and clean the van. Can you find a coin-op car wash?”

“
Hosing Sid with cold water right now might not be a good idea. I’ve got to find a warm place to bathe him.”

Back on Carson, several gas stations turn up, but the ones with bathrooms outside and around the back, don’t have hot water. Restaurants pass by, but the restrooms inside are multi-stall. If somebody walked in and saw a blood-soaked monkey splashing in the sink it would be over. I’m considering the wisdom of ordering about fifty cups of takeout tea at a drive-through, just for the hot water component, and rinsing Sid cup by cup, when I see a sign: 24-Hour Gym Inc.

I leave Sid with the van and roll inside. It’s as busy as you’d expect at nearly one in the morning.

I approach the lone guy at the desk. “How ya doing. I want to buy a membership.” You should see the guy’s face. He’s taking a good look at me; could go either way.

I point to a poster. “Platinum level.”

Interest sparks in his eyes. I continue, “I need a sauna. It’s good for my injury.”

His brain works that around, making sense of me, the crippled guy who likes heat, the commission on a Platinum membership. Ka-ching.

“
You get towel service with Platinum.”

I know this already because it says so on the poster. I also know the facility is handicap access and by law, there has to be at least one shower you can roll a chair into, usually equipped with a hand held shower wand.

“
Would you like a tour?”

“
Nope I just want to sign up and get in there.”

Paperwork and a credit card later, I’m rolling back to the van, supposedly to get my gym bag. I keep an old backpack full of monkey treats in the rear. My plan is to empty it, and convince Sid to get in, so I can smuggle him into the shower.

He’s shivering on the front seat. I make a mental note never to travel without a blanket again. He doesn’t look happy, but lets me coax him into the bag with a treat, and zip it over his head. I hear a little monkey sigh something like, “What a frickin’ night.” I pat the bag. “It’s okay Sid. Hot shower coming up.” Too bad there’s no beer, he could use a drink.

The desk guy gets me a towel and doesn’t notice the faint chewing sound coming from the backpack.

Sure enough, in the men’s change room there’s a cripple shower. I pull the curtain closed and unzip. Sid rolls his eyes up like, “WTF?” I get the shower going—a gentle spray, nice and warm, and for once, Sid doesn’t complain about getting a bath. Two liberal soapings, and he’s good as new. Not a mark on him.

I rinse the backpack, intent on drying it at the hand blower before getting Sid back inside. I shove the curtain open, and in the shower opposite, a woman has her back to us. A woman. This is the men’s change room. Curvy hips and nice round butt cheeks, small waist—here comes my hard-on. She turns around. soaping her breasts, and we both scream at the same time. She has a dick. Not a big dick like those operated-on she-males that are just guys with implants—but a real little two-inch soft dick with pussy lips below.

He-she is bug-eyed at a monkey in the room, and my jaw is hanging, looking from titties to dick, dick to titties. We make eye contact. “Excuse me,” we both shout at the same time. She snaps the curtain shut, and I wheel the hell out of there.

Sid and I get back to the van without incident Have to admit, I’m a little shaken. Some people have their bodies altered by accident, like me. Others come out of the womb that way. I’ll remember this encounter next time I want to feel sorry for myself.

Back in the van, I call Cinda.

“
Sid’s okay.”

Cinda makes a relieved sound. “There’s a coin-op carwash at Norwalk and Del Amo.”

“
In Lakewood?”

“
More like Hawaiian Gardens.”

“
Gang Banger Gardens?”

“
Fraid so. I could send you to Cerritos, but there’s more police presence.”

“
I’ll take my chances with the Mexican mafia.”

“
Stay in touch.”

The carwash is a bargain for six quarters and the change machine even works. It’s one of those open air, cement-stall drive-in places where you work the hose yourself. Nobody’s here, no pedestrians, hardly any traffic on the wet streets. I throw the van doors wide, put Sid on my shoulder and turn the high pressure hose on the interior. It’s going to be a squishy ride back to LA. We’re nearly done when Sid does the inexplicable—he leaps away and goes bounding down a back alley.

I roll after him, whisper-shouting his name—the last thing we need is attention from the locals. Grimy, cinderblock garages line the alley. One has the door up; spilling a square of light onto cracked cement. Sid stops in the dingy yellow and cringes, watching. The tortured sound of an animal stands hair up on my neck. A man with his back turned is hanging a muscular pit bull to death. It gags and jerks, drool dripping from the swollen, protruding tongue. Another dog, scabbed and scarred, is tied close, barking like hell—the graceless end of a failed fight dog.

“
Let the dog down!” I hear myself command, immediately thinking what the fuck am I doing? The dog convulses. His executioner, a scrabble-survived son of the third world, whirls, and laughs. “What you going to do?”

I said, “CUT THE DOG DOWN.”

“
Hey man, you look dead already, maybe I help you faster.” He leers in my face, as a rock smacks the bridge of his nose. I don’t have to look—Sid is a sure shot with projectiles. I lash out my steel hand and catch a corner of the guy’s mouth, ripping it open to his ear. He falls, gurgling blood, and I slash the hanging dog free—he thuds to the dirt, hauling great gulps of air. The tied dog gnaws ravenously at his own rope.

We don’t wait to see the credits. Sid leaps onboard as my chair reverses out. The tied pit breaks free. One mighty lunge, and his slavering jaws lock around the fallen man’s windpipe. The snarling and flesh-ripping fades as Sid and I haul ass up the alley.

My van is still okay in the wash bay. We pull out, and the two pits lumber into view, drooling red. They look one way, then the other, deciding on a direction, and head north. We don’t wave goodbye.

Cinda and I spend a sleepless night, while Sid snores on the couch. We surf for news and avoid the subject of traceable evidence. Cinda creates the perfect distraction by splaying her legs on my desk so I can roll in close, and get her in the mood to reciprocate.

At 6 a.m. we turn on the TV news.

“
Two men are dead after a series of animal attacks in Long Beach last night, one in Lakewood Park and another a few miles away in Hawaiian Gardens. Both victims had their throats torn, consistent with dog attacks. It’s not known if the same canines were involved in both deaths. Last night’s rainfall has made tracing difficult, say police.”

A grin spreads across Cinda’s face, and mine is pretty wide, too.

“
What direction did you say those dogs headed?”

“
North.”


“
Hope they’re still running.”

“
All the way to Canada, baby, all the way.” †

Tequila Spike

I prayed for help, but help never came. By the time you read this, I’ll be dead. I’m going to kill her first...and once the kid is safely on the bus...I’m going to finish me. I’m writing this to prove that if you were in my place, and saw what I saw, and knew what I knew, for sure, for sure...you’d kill her too.

“
Thweeeeeet...”

The door sensor goes off as a woman enters the store towing a little kid. It’s my first week as a clerk, and I still pay attention to faces. Anyway, she’s pretty in a messy kind of way, wearing sweats that’ve been around too long, and smoking a super-long menthol. Her makeup looks fresh, even though it’s pretty thick for ten in the morning. She says hi in a raspy voice, not loud. The kid, a girl about five years old, doesn’t look at me, and goes straight for the donut case.

“
She’s going to pick out what she wants to eat,” the woman says. Her name is Chloe.”

She sticks out her hand. Like I said, I was still pretty new, so I stretch my hand across the counter and shake. I catch the kid’s name but not hers.

They come in every morning for donuts and soda. Chloe’s always quiet; no acting up. They never try to steal anything but I figure something’s off when the mom starts a story and never finishes before beginning another...like she’s topped up with secrets, but holding back. Says she’s on disability but not what for. Something about the social worker doesn’t know she has Chloe and it’s better that way because she doesn’t want interference.

If she stays too long talking at me in that crackly, rapid-fire whisper of hers, it makes me dizzy.

I sort of notice she’s dragging the kid around at all hours. Says Chloe has insomnia, just like her. I don’t know, the kid sure looks sleepy to me. I feel worry take root inside my gut, which bothers me because it’s pointless. What can I do?

She starts asking me to baby-sit. Chloe and I go to the park and play sand castles with empty ice-cream containers. We glue popsicle sticks together and make picture frames. I have a room at the back of the store. Everything is calm back there and daytime quiet. Sometimes I leave the back door open so Sacramento sunshine throws a big yellow square on the floor. Chloe lays inside it and puts puzzles together. Finished, she turns her little face up and says, “Did I do good, Bebbie?” My name is Bebbie, like Debbie only with a B.

I tell her, “Yes, Chloe, you did good. You did very. very good.” We kick back and float on the day, suspended in time and sunbeams.

Was I lonely before Chloe? I never thought so. But now, when she’s not with me, the time just seems so...empty.

“
Thweeeeet...”

A boyfriend starts showing up with the mom. A white guy with a black eye, fading. He fondles the mom’s ass right in front of everybody. I pretend I’m straightening packs of cigarettes, so my face doesn’t show my disgust.

I’m glad men don’t notice me. Mousey brown hair, tied back. Bangs always flipping the wrong way, no matter how hard I fight them. My store apron doesn’t help my figure much. It bunches up and cuts me in two, like a bed pillow tied in the middle. But I have to wear it; and they didn’t hire me for looks. I make the cash work out, end of every day.

The next time they come in, Chloe has strips of a sheet tied around her feet. I don’t hide my face this time.

The mom declares, “She got burnt on the pavement. It was hot.”

“
How did it happen?”

“
We were hitchin’ a ride and got into a fight with the driver, so we had to get out. I didn’t know the pavement was hot. And Chloe was in bare feet. Got the hotfoot, didn’cha Clo.”

“
Has she seen a doctor?”