Shot of Tequila (5 page)

He unlocked the door and announced himself as he always did.

“It’s me, China.”

China poked her large black head out of the kitchen and smiled at Tequila.

“How was work, Mr. Abernathy?”

“Fine. And you?”

“Sally wet the bed again. She don’t like falling asleep when you ain’t home. I changed her, and put on fresh sheets. She sleepin’ now.”

“Thank you, China.”

Tequila hung his coat up in the closet and walked into the kitchen, taking the apple juice from the refrigerator. He poured himself a glass while the overweight care-giver watched.

“It’s getting late,” Tequila said after downing the juice. “You can stay the night if you’d like.”

“I just might do that, Mr. Abernathy.”

China pulled herself up from the confines of the kitchen chair and walked out of the kitchen with precise, petite steps, wool slippers already on her feet. Whenever Tequila worked late, it was a given that China would stay over. But she always waited until asked. He’d tried more than once to hire her as a live-in, but China insisted on her independence.

“Got to be able to do what I want to,” she said time and again.

Yet for the last four years, her sole job was taking care of Sally. She had no family that Tequila knew of, and the one time he followed her home—a small bit of surveillance to make sure he knew what kind of person she was before he hired her for Sal—he found she lived alone in a tiny apartment that bordered on squalid on Chicago’s far west side. Nothing the slightest bit homey, or even pleasant, about the place. But at least once a week she would trek back to that apartment, even though almost all of her clothing, her possessions, and even her pet goldfish was here.

Freedom is an important thing, noted Tequila, even if it was only symbolic.

Tequila went to the fridge and poured himself another glass of apple juice, emptying the bottle. He put the cap back on and placed the bottle in the plastic recycle bin under the sink. Then he hit the release button and tugged his guns from his shoulder holsters, setting them on the kitchen table.

In a cabinet next to the dishwasher Tequila removed a metal box the size of a portable television. He unlocked the box with a key on his keychain and flipped the top open. His keychain only held four keys. One for the box, one for the car, one for the apartment, and one for
Spill
. Also on the ring, next to his car alarm remote, was a small Swiss Army knife and a yellow metal smiley face Tequila had gotten from Sally as a birthday present. It hadn’t been his birthday, but he accepted it as if it was. Sally gave him birthday presents many times a year.

Tequila removed several metal trays from the box until he got to the one he wanted. In the partitioned slots of the tray were gun oil, a wire brush, a chamois, and several long metal tubes with threaded ends.

He picked up the first of his .45s, a custom-made pistol that incorporated parts from several gun manufacturers. It had, among other things, Novak night sights, stippled grips, a beveled magazine well for speed reloading, a wide competition trigger, a lowered ejection port, a ramp and throat job for the use of hollow-point bullets, and a contoured hammer. The gun had also been dehorned, a process that involved beveling every sharp edge so it didn’t snag clothing or holsters.

Stripping the weapon, Tequila cleaned and oiled every moving part with attention bordering on intimacy. When the last traces of its recent usage had been polished away, he replaced the barrel with a new one from his metal tray. The barrel on any weapon was its signature. The rifling—the twisted grooves inside the tube that made the bullet spin—marked that bullet in a particular way, as unique as a fingerprint. Replacing the barrel was like having an entirely new, and consequently clean, weapon. The old barrel went into the recycle bin under the sink, to be disposed of the next time he went out.

Tequila reassembled the pistol, and then repeated the procedure with its twin. China came into the kitchen during the process to bid her goodnight.

“I’ll just sleep in the guest bedroom.”

Tequila nodded, concentrating on his work. China’d been sleeping in the guest bedroom for four years.

Completing the task, Tequila made sure both safeties were on and then put the guns back into their holsters. The holsters were a piece of work in themselves; a criss-cross leather rig custom-made to perfectly fit the .45s. It weighed almost three times as much as a normal dual holster set-up, and under casual inspection the holsters appeared to be too long for the guns. That was because each contained a ceramic magnet and a battery. Wires ran from the batteries through the leather webbing and to a hidden button in the center of the outfit. When pressed, the button engaged, juicing the magnets and holding the guns in their holsters with more than three hundred pounds of pressure. Depressing the button allowed the guns to slip out easily.

It was a safety feature that not only prevented his guns from being taken from him, but was also necessary with Sally in the house. She was under strict orders not to touch his guns, but strict orders only worked with people who understood them.

Tequila put the tray back into his box and locked it. Then he washed out his juice glass, dried it with a hand towel, and replaced it in the cabinet. He brought his rig—the guns safely magnetized in their holsters—with him into his bedroom.

The bedroom was different from the rest of the apartment in that it completely lacked any decoration. The walls were bare. The furniture consisted of a bed, a dresser, and a small valet stand next to the bed. The decorator charged by the room, and a ridiculous amount at that. So Sally had a nice environment, Tequila paid that ridiculous amount, but he stopped when it came to his personal living space. The minimalism of the room suited him fine. He shut the door behind him.

The alcohol had almost worn completely off, and Tequila decided on a quick workout before retiring. He placed his holsters on the valet next to his bed and stripped the shirt off of his developed upper body. Then he took off his cowboy boots and the white athletic socks he wore under them. The boots went into his closet and the socks and shirt went into his hamper. Still wearing pants, Tequila dropped down to the floor and did three hundred push-ups. His chest and arms burning, he stood on his hands and walked on them over to the wall near the bedroom door. Feet against the wall, he did fifty vertical push-ups, his crew cut kissing the floor every time he lowered himself down.

His thoughts when exercising were always the same, even though it had been almost ten years since he’d competed. It was a mantra for Tequila when he worked out. With every strained breath he softly chanted it. A single word. Once syllable. Three letters.

Win
.

He never stopped to reflect that the word no longer held any meaning for him.

Pushing off from the wall into a back bend, Tequila held the bridge momentarily to stretch out his spine, and then shifted his weight and pulled up to his feet. His breathing was hard but controlled. He considered doing some squats, but decided to jog tomorrow instead. He was supposed to be at work at nine o’clock. If he woke up at seven he could get in a few miles beforehand.

He stretched his arms over his head, flexing his fingers, when he heard the cry.

“Kill-ya!”

It had come from Sally’s room. Tequila went to his dresser and took out a towel from the top drawer, using it to wipe the sweat from his face and upper body.

“Kill-ya!”

Hanging the towel over his shoulders, Tequila opened the bedroom door and walked down the hall to his sister’s bedroom. China was already bedside, trying to shush Sally down.

“Kill-ya!”

“I’m right here, Sally.”

She smiled at him, her tongue protruding from her mouth. Her chubby cheeks and almond eyes shone in pure joy.

“You gotta get to sleep, Miss Sally,” China chided. “You got school tomorrow.”

“I want to show Kill-ya my pit-chur.”

“You can show him tomorrow dear.”

“It’s okay, China,” Tequila said. “What picture, Sally?”

“I made a pit-chur of you.”

She reached behind her, under her pink pillow, and removed a crinkled piece of notebook paper covered with crayon scribbling, holding it out to Tequila with triumph.

Tequila took the paper from his big sister, staring at it hard. It was done in green and blue, and if he squinted and looked at it sideways, it slightly resembled a stick figure, except for the three arms.

“It’s you, Kill-ya!”

“I can see that. It’s like looking into a mirror. Thank you, Sal.”

“It’s good?”

“Very good.”

“Good as a girl who don’t have Down Sin-dome?”

“As good as any girl who doesn’t have Down Syndrome, Sally. I’m going to hang it on the refrigerator right now.”

Sally beamed, clapping her chubby, curved hands together.

“I love you, Kill-ya!”

“Love you too, Sally. Now it’s bedtime. You have school tomorrow.”

“Night-night, Kill-ya!”

“Night-night, Sally.”

Tequila nodded goodnight to China, who was already tucking Sally into bed. He walked back down the hall and went into the kitchen, hanging the picture up on the refrigerator with a magnet. He stared at it again.

The expression on the stick-figure’s face was blank. The mouth a simple straight line. The eyes two blue dots. Six strands of hair stood up from the head like embedded arrows. Other than the third arm, it was probably the best picture Sally had ever drawn. And she’d drawn hundreds over the past thirty years.

Tequila’s first memory of his sister was from infancy. He’d been six or seven months old, and Sally, four years his senior, was trying to help him walk. She would hold his hands up over his head and walk behind him, keeping him on his feet when he started to fall.

She called him Kill-ya because she couldn’t pronounce Tequila. She probably could now, but there was no real need to correct her. To Sally, he had always been Kill-ya, and always would be.

Tequila walked back to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. He lay down in his bed and locked his fingers behind his head. During the day, Tequila maintained focus on whatever job was at hand, his self-discipline almost military strict. But at night, just before sleep, his focus slipped, and Tequila’s mind would wander. Like he did most other nights, he closed his eyes and thought about the past.

“S
houlda killed the little retard at birth,” their father would often say about Sally. Sometimes to her directly. Tequila had begun defending his sister from their dad when he was around six years old.

“Don’t call her that,” he’d reply, his face as serious as any Kindergartener’s could be.

“And what you gonna do about it,
Kill-ya
?” his father would mock. “You’re a runt even for a six-year-old. You don’t talk back to me till you’re man enough to back that shit up.”

And then Tequila would get swatted across the room with a hard slap. Sometimes, if the old man was drunk or in a particularly bad mood, he’d get whipped with the belt.

But the beatings didn’t stop Tequila from talking back. Every time the old man called Sally a retard, Tequila would tell him to stop. He also took Sally’s punishments as well. The old man didn’t care if Sally was mentally handicapped. If she crayoned the wall, he beat the shit out of her. Tequila couldn’t take that. Sally screamed for hours after a beating, which usually prompted more beatings because she wouldn’t be quiet.

So Tequila claimed responsibility for every mishap that happened in the household.

The name-calling, and the abuse, continued up through his teenage years. By then they had taken their toll. Tequila had no friends in high school. He was too cold, too introverted. He did mediocre in classes, scoring well on tests but rarely completing homework because he spent most of his free time with Sally. He also got into a lot of fights, defending himself when bullies picked on him because of his height. On the fourth trip to the principal’s office, Tequila was threatened with expulsion unless he calmed down. The principal suggested he focus all of that energy on something constructive rather than destructive. He all but ordered Tequila to join a sport.

Tequila enrolled in gymnastics because it was the only sport open to him with his small size. He excelled immediately, coming in third on floor exercise at Nationals at the age of fifteen. But it was at a sacrifice. His training meant time away from home, which meant no one to care for Sally except for whatever floozy their father had living with them at the time. And whoever the floozy was, she didn’t care a bit about Sally, which meant Sally would get into trouble without Tequila being there to take her punishment. Often Sally would wet the bed, and then try to hide her dirty clothes somewhere in the house. When the old man found them, he’d have a fit.

“That’s why your bitch mother left. Because she couldn’t handle looking after no retard and no preemie.”

“Stop calling her a retard,” Tequila warned. “Maybe if you sent her to school she could take better care of herself.”

But their father, even though he earned enough as a factory foreman, refused to send Sally to school.