The Salvation Shark, Chapter 40

Jesse

I'm sitting on a cold bench at the bus stop. Countless names and epithets have been carved into the warped wood. The bolts have broken loose long ago, and the bench is held together with no-longer-sticky splotches of fossilized gum.

No snow yet, but a gray blanket hung in the sky all day. I have my Carhart jacket pulled tight, but my jeans are doing little to protect me from the cold. My ass feels like a block of ice, and doing my best not to shiver. I really want to smoke pot, but I don’t have any money to get some, and don’t work until tomorrow.

Tommy Guilt is picking me up to go to Courtney's, but my phone was turned off last week. He told me he'd be here in five minutes twenty minutes ago. One of them is sure to have something, though I don't want either to think that's the only reason I'm hanging out. Maybe I just don't want myself to know that's the only reason I'm hanging out. If I’m stoned, at least I’ll be able to sleep tonight. Maybe I can just drink myself into unconsciousness. Anything to keep me from thinking about Eva.

“Heavy thoughts?” asks a halting voice behind me. I turn around to a skinny man with pale skin and dark hair standing over me. He is dressed in a black trench coat that is buttoned to the neck, Gestapo-style. It hangs all the way to his black dress shoes. He startles me and I jerk away down the bench. He sits in the spot I vacated.

“It’s been a long life,” I say.

“Mephis Tyr,” he says, holding out a long hand with thin fingers. I don't shake. “Are you from around here?” he asks.

I don't look at him. “Yeah.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not from around here.” He has a voice like a cartoon supervillain's second in command. Snake-like. “I’m just passing through town. My employer had me meeting someone here. Business deal and all.” Usually, if you ignore them long enough, all but the most persistent crazies will get the point.

He seems confused a moment. "I didn't mean here on this bench." I hold out a few seconds before I realize too late he was waiting for me to look at him. “Trust me, I’m not all that excited about being here.” He exaggerates his shiver. “I don’t like the cold at all. Send me back to the warmer climates.” He pushes a blast of air out of his nose that I can only assume is a laugh. “I cannot wait until I’m done with this job." I can only assume that job is smoking crack. "I need to just kick back and do nothing for a while.” He extends his long legs in front of him to demonstrate how he will be kicking back.

I wish Tommy would hurry up and get here, this guy is fucking creepy.

He purses his lips. “It’s a hard job to describe, really,” he says, ignoring that I never asked him to do so. "I don’t have any specific job, I just do whatever the boss needs me to do. If he needs it done right, and can’t get there to do it himself, he sends me.”

“Sounds exciting,” I say flatly. I met a drunk in a bar that claimed to be a body guard for Boys II Men. I assumed this was the only black band he'd expect me to recognize. He made everyone at the table touch the bullet he claimed was still lodged in his calf. He followed when we left and jumped in the back seat of the car I was riding in. We couldn't get him out until someone called the cops on their cell phone, and even then he tried to steal Courtney's purse. I think that was one of the times she dumped me, because I wouldn't chase the dude down the street after she fought her purse away.

“I go all over the globe,” he hisses. “I’ve seen the Sun set on every continent... every continent. I've swam in every ocean, slept with women of every race, sampled every temptation imaginable.” He nudges me and give a suggestive smile.

“And now you’re here.”

“And now I’m here,” he repeats with a sigh. “I’m here in this lifeless, dead, post-industrial, burned-out hole, tramping through snow and ice.” His bushy black eyebrows raise. There hasn't been any snow yet this year. “I can’t even drive my car, because all the salt on the roads will ruin it. When this job is done, I'm buying a lot of drugs and going to Miami for temporary retirement, if you know what I mean.” He elbows me again, so I pretend I know. “Have you ever been to Miami?”

I shake my head. “I haven’t done a whole lot of traveling.”

“It’s beautiful down there, my favorite place in the world. All drugs, violence, and women in bikinis. My employer prefers the beach in Costa Rica, but I’ll take Miami any day of the week.”

Come on Guilty, where are you? “What kind of work does your boss do?” I ask.

“Well, I’d rather not get into it,” he says. “It’s not exactly on the up-and-up.”

“I bet I buy some of it,” I say. Maybe this guy will give me some weed. Tommy's Caddy rounds the corner and stops in front of us. I point to his car. “My ride." I get up. “It’s been interesting.” Before he can respond, I get in Tommy’s car.

“Who was that?” he asks as I buckle myself in.

“Crazy,” I say. “Lock the doors. Drive.” He hits the gas and speeds off, leaving that guy on the bench, still smiling. “That guy was nuts. He wanted to tell me how he was the personal assistant to some major criminal who had him running all over the globe doing all kinds of illegal shit.”

“Yeah, and what was he doing here?”

“Exactly.” I go for the emergency stash that's usually in the glove box, but find only receipts, reminders, and the owner's manual. “He was saying it was because he was sent to meet someone that lives here because this person doesn’t like to be found.”

“Courtney must have something," Tommy says when I close the box. "You know, ever since they let all the nut cases out of the hospital, they just wander all over town and bother people.” He shakes his head. “Like that guy that dresses like a cowboy and walks all over town with cap guns on his hips.”

I smile. “This one time, Mike and I found that guy downtown. We ran into the drug store and bought cap guns to challenge him to a duel. We had a big gun battle on Main Street until a cop came by to yell at the old man. It was hilarious.”

“Patty Davis and I were there one day, and he comes up to us, telling her she looks like Thumbilina. Freaked her out.”

I nod. “Cute girls are Thumbilina, everyone else, man or woman, is Linda Blair.”

“Have you seen that one guy that just wanders around and swears?” Tommy asks. “I ran into Shawn and Sheryl one night, and while we were standing there, he rounds the corner, screaming, ‘Fucking pieces of shit! What the fuck are you looking at, goddamn motherfuckers!’ I thought he was talking to us, and I was afraid to look over at this guy for fear he would freak out on us. I asked Sheryl, and she said he was just yelling at the voices in his head, and that he did it all the time.”

We pull up to the curb in front of Courtney’s apartment, and Tommy turns off the car. If he keeps his dumbass mouth shut about what I did last night, I might even might even manage to bone Courtney. We're not officially together, but we have fucked in the last week, and somehow, I don’t think she would like the idea of me scrumpin’ garlic with random girls at parties.“So,” he says with a laugh. “You want me to wait here for ten or fifteen minutes for you before I come up?”

I chuckle.

“You’re right, five minutes, but try and hurry, it’s cold out.”

“Let’s go,” I say. I slam the door too hard when I get out. One of these days, the door is going to fall off that piece of shit Cadillac. “M’lady is waiting for us,” I say, hardly able to suppress a smile at the corner of my lips.

“Hardly a lady,” Tommy says as he presses her doorbell. He presses the buzzer. We wait about a minute, and I’m just about to ring it again, when the door buzzes and unlocks. I head up the stairs to the door on the first landing. It’s slightly ajar, so we just walk in, catching a brief glimpse of Courtney in a towel, dashing into her bedroom.

“Sorry guys,” she calls out. “I wasn’t ready, grab some beer out of the fridge.”

I take a couple High Lifes and hand one to Tommy. I sit down on her futon, which Tommy won’t sit on, because he says he won’t sit on anything that Court and I ‘soiled.’ Of course, the recliner isn’t safe either, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Courtney comes out in a couple minutes and sits down on my legs. “How are my boys today?” she asks, resting on my shoulder.

“Shitty,” I moan. “I have to work this afternoon.” I pout and sip my beer.

“Aww, poor baby,” Courtney coos. “Does that mean I’m stuck with Guilty tonight?” Now Courtney does have what they call 'loose morals,' but Tommy is totally not her type, a scrawny drunk, short and twitchy. I think screwing my best friend is beyond her. Even if it wasn’t, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. I’m vaguely sure she has fucked other guys, but I guess I can’t complain, as we aren’t really together, and I did do the same thing last night. We’ve been dating on-and-off since high school. I know I can’t trust her, but I keep coming back. This is what I deserve, Courtney is what I get. She is here to remind me about humanity, here to remind me what the whole world is like.

“Tommy has nothing to do,” Tommy says, finishing off his beer. “Can I get another?” he asks Courtney. When she nods, he goes to the fridge, not bothering to ask if I want my nearly empty bottle replenished.

“Court,” I ask, rubbing her stomach. “You got any pot?”

“I have a lot of pot,” she says. “When do you go to work?”

I look up at the circular clock on the all that says it’s almost one. “Two hours,”I say. “Then I’m there until seven, so I don’t even get anything but the regular drunks who don’t tip.” I sigh. “I don’t even want to bother going in. It’s not like Kevin can’t cover me.”

She gets off me and goes into her bedroom. Tommy sits back down, and Courtney returns with a bowl and a bag of weed that looks big enough to be a body pillow for a Barbie Doll.

“That is a beautiful sight,” I whisper reverently.

She sits down Indian-style on the floor and pulls out a juicy bud the length of a baby's arm and packs a bowl from it with care. She hits it first and passes it to me. I take a Herculean hit, hold it, exhale, and sink into the couch, handing off to Tommy.

“Ohhhh,” I moan. “That’s exactly what I needed.” I feel the weight of the world lifting from my shoulders. The responsibility of my existence is being cleanly swept away, and billions of voices crying out my name, and I can’t wait to take another hit so I can’t hear them.

“Baby, don’t go to work,” Courtney coos, rustling my already messy hair. “Don’t leave me alone with Tommy, there’s no telling what he might do!”

Tommy gives me a sheepish smile, telling me that he wouldn’t do a damn thing, but I really wouldn’t put it past Courtney to jump on him as soon as I’m gone.

“If I don’t go to work, I don’t get to eat,” I tell her. “My cupboards are bare.”

“But don’t you want to give Mother Hubbard a bone?”

“God, you two make me sick,” Tommy says, and sucks on the pipe.

“Is poor Tommy jealous?” she asks. “Do you feel left out?” She smiles wickedly. “Do you want Jesse to give you a bone too?”

We laugh, I can’t keep mine from sounding forced. Anymore, it seems like every minute I’m around her is spent wishing I wasn’t. Courtney is like a punishment for me, she is my martyrdom, my karma. Here I am, thrown into this ugly world, reeking of broken dreams and corruption. My mother was good, but poor. I never met my father, who is rumored to be locked away in some prison in Texas. I have a shitty job, a sort-of girlfriend, a group of friends that are pot-heads and slackers. This really is the life fit for a king.

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