Читать книгу Crawlspace - Lonni Lees - Страница 7

CRAWLSPACE

If there’s one thing life’s taught me, it’s that life ain’t fair. If it was I wouldn’t have been sitting in the slammer waiting out a five year stint for robbery with nothing to read but the Bible and inspirational, self-help bullshit. One thing I learned from the Bible was that any one of those guys could have been my cell mate. That Cain guy murdered his brother. When Lot’s wife got zapped and turned to salt, he did the nasty with his own daughter. I could go on and on, but you get the point. And I had to keep an eye on my backside, even while I was sleeping. The bastards put me away on nothing but one near-sighted eyewitness who couldn’t have seen a damn thing. At trial, he pointed his finger at me like he’d actually seen me commit the crime. I stared him down, but he must’ve felt safe up there on the stand. Shit. Like I said, there was no evidence, no loot, no proof. Nothing but my extensive resume. What’s fair about that? A long rap sheet always makes you the patsy. The cops and the courts take the easy way. They just haul you back in whenever somebody snatches an old lady’s purse or poisons somebody’s rat-mutt for yapping at midnight. The lawyers get paid, win or lose, so they don’t give a shit. Especially those lazy, fucking public defenders. I feel bad for all the innocent dupes that get put away like I was—for nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ll bet there’s plenty of ’em, too. Every thug and small time crook in prison swears he’s innocent. Maybe, just maybe, a few of them are.

Some people might call me a loser. I never saw it that way. The night before my ma’s man left for ’Nam, she asked him to give her something to remember him by. She probably wanted an engagement ring... nine months later she got me instead. She never heard from him again, never knew if he was killed in action or just another run-off asshole. But what the hell, it got me into this world, didn’t it?

It’s funny how things play out.

I lived for Gloria’s monthly visits. I could have set my watch on them, if I’d had one. That last time was a real corker. She sauntered in, her size-too-small dress clinging in all the right places. As she walked toward me, her hips churned like she was having sex. She sat down and picked up the phone so we could talk through the glass barrier. Her fingers slid up and down the receiver like she was playing with my poodle-dink. That wicked little wink told me she knew exactly what that was doing to me.

Damn, but she could tease.

“I miss you, baby,” Gloria whispered. Her voice was like a smoke-filled barroom at midnight, fuzzy and filled with promises of drunken, dirty sex. We small-talked, but I was focused on those full, moist lips that could send me straight to heaven—and getting my walking papers. I wanted to screw her until she couldn’t walk, just like in the old days.

Every visit Gloria’d tell me she was faithful—just waiting for the day I’d get out. I pretended I bought it, but I knew better. Gloria couldn’t spend one night in an empty bed. It was how she was made, but that’s what attracted me to her in the first place. She was eager and easy and I was willing and able. The down side was I knew she’d been out there straddling anything that was still breathing, but it don’t matter that much. Once I got out she’d be all mine, just like before. I’d see to that. I might have to rough her up some before she got the idea, but she’d learn all over again. The occasional gut-punch works wonders for fidelity.

“I’ve decided to sell my house and find us better digs,” she said, throwing me into panic mode.

“You can’t do that.”

Gloria looked startled. So I calmed my voice, and my heart-beat, before I continued.

“I get out in just over a month, Gloria.” Her puzzled expression told me I needed to think fast. “I’ve spent five years thinking about the day I can walk up to that house with you greeting me at the door. It’s what’s kept me going.” I hoped I was convincing. “Let me have that moment, baby. Then you can sell it.”

I’d guessed she bought my line, blind to the wheels turning behind those baby blues.

I always underestimated broads, even the dumb ones.

They always meant trouble.

But every time they get me in the sack I forget every lesson I’d ever learned. I think with my dick. It’s just my nature.

“Anything you say, baby,” she said.

And like I said, she was easy.

She rose to leave and leaned forward until her face touched the glass. She opened her mouth as if to kiss me, then ran her tongue up the length of the barrier as if it were my cock. The paper thin dress fabric between her and the glass wiped up the dampness as she rose. Wet spittle outlined one perfect nipple. Gloria could tease a man to torment. She turned, tossing her bottle-blonde hair as she wiggled that tight ass of hers toward the exit. Every guard and inmate within sight of her had a hard-on, but mine ached beyond belief.

* * * *

I stood outside the gates, the barbed wire fences and bad food behind me, fifty bucks in the pocket of my cheap prison-issue suit. I took a deep breath as I got onto the bus, inhaling the morning air and bus fumes. Simple things become precious when you don’t have them. Air, good eats, simple freedom. I hadn’t seen Gloria in a month and was heading straight for her house. She wasn’t the only loose end I’d left when the cops snatched me from her porch, threw me in the squad car, and drove me straight to hell.

The bus pulled into the train station, brakes screeching like a two-year-old brat in a shopping cart. I got off and bought a ticket to that shit-hole town in Nebraska where Gloria would greet me with open arms and an open door. She’d stir up a home cooked meal like some frenzied June Cleaver on crack. She was my ideal and my whore all wrapped into one steamy package. It was gonna be a long ride, so I picked up a magazine to see how the world had changed, had kept spinning while I’d rotted in limbo. It wasn’t fair. It was hard not to hold a grudge, so I held it tight against my heart. I nurtured it and let it grow like black mold on old cheese.

* * * *

The train sped through the darkness, a cold steel snake, it’s forlorn whistle cutting through the night like a sharp blade through soft flesh. The vibrations and jerks of wheel against track were hypnotic and sensual, taking me to those places every man goes who’s been alone too long. I placed the magazine discreetly across my lap. I ached for Gloria’s touch against my aching joint, erasing five years of fantasy stoked by imagination and memory—and my own hand. Hours later, I awoke to the moan of metal grinding against metal as the train pulled into the station. It was that eerie time of morning when darkness and day fight their battle of lights and shadows. The sun was hunkered down just below the horizon, a hungry cat ready to pounce. I never bought into that new day, new beginning crap. There was no such thing as a day that didn’t get fucked up. God, if there was a god, got off on playing practical jokes. He laughed a lot. They say laughter is good for your health, so if he’s up there he’s gonna be there for a long, long time.

Anyway, it was six a.m. in the boondocks—the beginning of my first full day of freedom. I was feeling optimistic, all things considered.

I walked through the station carrying my small brown bag and my magazine. They hand you back your stuff when you leave prison. I had my toothbrush and the prison-issued clothes on my back. I tossed the magazine to the floor and walked through the door to the dusty street. It was a three mile walk to Gloria’s place. In less than a mile the cheap shoes raised heel blisters and some stranger offered a lift as I limped along. He pulled his pickup to the shoulder. Lucky day. I stood at the end of Gloria’s driveway in no time.

Damn, I was excited. Good shit comes to he who waits, right?

The closer I got to the door the more I got that feeling, like worms with sharp teeth gnawing at my stomach lining. It felt familiar and I didn’t like it. The prison shrink called it panic attacks, but he’d never give me any happy pills to make it go away. On the outside some good “Irish” burning down my throat always helped some. As a kid, my mother called those knots my guilty conscience, but all she ever gave me for it was a hard swat up side the head. She’d say it was for one of the things I didn’t get caught for. And there was plenty. There ain’t nobody can see through a kid like his mother. I’d sneak into her whisky stash when I could and drink myself stupid. Self-medication is the stuff of the angels. I guess this time those nasty knots triggered when I saw the unfamiliar car parked out front. Things change in five years, maybe she’d bought a new one, but it didn’t feel right. I was going to barge right in, catch her in the act—maybe beat up some poor jerk before I slapped her around, then forgave her. Stuff like that helped the gut knots go away. And Gloria got off on the drama. It made her hot—we fed off each other—the perfect match. Damn, I’d missed her. Ordinarily I don’t like confrontation this early in the morning. It’s something you gotta work up to, you know?

The door was locked.

So I knocked.

Really hard.

The guy that opened the door stood there in his bathrobe and looked at me like a tattered question mark, probably trying to place my face in his memory bank.

“Where’s Gloria?” I bellowed, trying to push through him and past him.

He was strong for an old guy and was on me like a toad’s tongue on a swamp fly before I knew what hit me. It was his fist. But it hurt his hand as much as it hurt my jaw, so I landed a good one below his rib cage while he paused to shake his aching hand. I lost my balance—landed on the hardwood floor with an undignified thud. That pissed me off, as you can imagine. He dove after me and I managed to trip him. He fell to the floor. I got myself upright before he could. Then I lost it. I kicked the holy shit out of him. He cowered in a fetal position and I didn’t stop until he stopped moving. My stomach felt better already. He was still breathing as he looked up at me. He groaned something so muffled I could barely hear him.

The words finally registered.

“I bought this place a month ago,” he’d said, then passed out.

That’s when I went totally bug-shit.

I ran out the front door to the side of the house, kicked the lattice away and wiggled into the crawlspace, through the dust and spider webs and empty, rusting paint cans. I hate to say I was bordering on frantic, but that’s what I was and there isn’t a better word for it. I was so frantic that I dug in the dirt until my fingers bled. I was still digging long after I knew that the loot I’d hid was just as gone as Gloria. I’d never told Gloria I’d really done it. A guy has gotta cover his bases, right? But, even dumb as she was, she must have figured things out back when I told her not to sell the house. She’d probably gone through every square inch of the place until she found it. Female greed and pure determination won out. In my mind, I saw her on some tropical island, drinking something sweet and strong with a little pink umbrella in it, boasting a tan and laughing at me.

She was probably getting serviced by some gigolo with a moustache—named Julio or Enrique or something like that.

The heartless bitch.

I didn’t like being laughed at.

Everything that happened, up to that and after that, was all Gloria’s fault. I’ve got nobody to blame but her.

My bloody fingers were still digging through dirt when the cops pulled up. I froze in my hiding place, stopped breathing, but eventually they spotted me. They pulled me out kicking and screaming and babbling, covered in spiders and sweat and dirt and my own piss, devoid of all dignity.

One more trip in the back of one more squad car. Hell, it was probably the same one. The scenario was getting too familiar. Like I said, there’s no such thing as a perfect day. Seems the guy I’d roughed up came to long enough to dial 911 before he passed out again. Just my luck, right?

They grilled me for three days and nights. The dumbest question, the one that drove them nuts, was what the hell was I doing digging in the crawlspace? Damned if I would tell them. Then they’d know I was like every other con who’d swore he was innocent. It was the mantra of the incarcerated. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of telling them the loot had been under their big, flat feet all the time. Of course, if they hadn’t figured I was guilty from the get-go, I wouldn’t have been put away for that robbery in the first place. The snakes were squirming around in my stomach again and I had no way to let off steam. My thought processes were starting to fog. Interrogations do that.

The morning of day four it hit the fan. The bastard I’d beaten up had died from his injuries. Things got fucking serious after that. The son of a bitch, I didn’t hit him that hard.

Anyway, I’ll spare you the details of the trial, the ankle chains, the long, boring ride to the penitentiary. For me it was just business as usual.

God sure as hell gave me the middle finger this time.

Thanks a lot, Gloria.

So, here I sit in a smaller cell in a bigger prison, reading the same old crap and sleeping with one eye open so I don’t get it from behind, if you know what I mean. I’ve got lots of time to think. The rest of my life. Some things I still don’t have quite right in my head. I wonder sometimes what I really miss the most—losing the loot—losing my freedom—or losing Gloria.

Damn, I just don’t know.

But I sure as hell miss her visits.