Phoenix Noir

This would be it, then. The truck lurched into the ruts of the road we’d just traveled, pointed back toward Phoenix. I was looking for something to say, anything, but not one word came to me. There wasn’t anything but the smell of ozone and fear, and the small vivid details that I knew I’d remember forever because they were the last things I’d see: the cracked gray dash, a plaid dish towel somebody’d left on the seat, the coyote’s wrist watch, a Swatch with a green metal band.

“You got a phone? Leave it on the seat.”

I fumbled it out, dropped it on the seat, and following the motion of his gun, opened the door into the rain. Run, I thought, putting a foot on the side board. Drop, roll, stand up, and run. I couldn’t make it, I knew that. But I’d try.

“Hey,” he said behind me, softly. I glanced over my shoulder, and he tossed something at me. I caught it by reflex. The orchid, in its burlap wrapping.

“Name it for your girlfriend, okay?” he said, and gave me a very small smile. His feet came up and hit me in the ribs. I fell out and landed on my knees in the mud. An arm wearing a Swatch reached out, grabbed the handle, and pulled the door shut. The roar of the engine shocked me out of numbness and I stumbled to my feet just in time to avoid being run over.

The truck bumped slowly away.

I stood there with lightning striking all around me, and watched him drive off. One more of all those wonderful people out there in the darkness.

GROWING BACK

BY ROBERT ANGLEN

Apache Junction

Eddie Keane came screaming out of the motherfucker of all bad dreams. He could still feel the blood coating his belly, arms, and face. A dry and crusty scab, it filled his mouth with copper, sealed his eyelids, glued him to the bed sheets. Eddie lay trembling on the narrow bunk. He couldn’t get over how real the shit seemed, like this meth-and-dust concoction he’d once needled off a biker’s spike. Toxic crystal kept him bouncing five days straight and some freakish creatures had gotten into his skull before he crashed.

Eddie figured this was worse. His brain was stuck on sleep, caught in the bloody cocoon of his subconscious. He waited for the dream to die. Except it didn’t. Slowly, he became aware of the stillness around him, the strange and utter silence. Not possible. Noise was built into this place; it lived in the walls. The rattle of pain, fear, and tormented prayer hummed 24-7 through the tiers of steel cages, a living current fed by 450 inmates locked into a brutally dull routine.

Now nothing. Dreamland. Then a crazy thought. Maybe this wasn’t a dream. Eddie panicked, struggling to get up, wake up, seized by the conviction that if he rolled over and opened his eyes he would no longer be in his jail cell. He’d be home again, lying in bed next to the body of his wife. Same as the night he beat her to death with a bottle of Old Granddad.

Eddie remembered the white-hot hatred pumping through his veins. Her lying there, head propped on one hand, as if what she’d said wasn’t the whackiest thing to ever come out of her mouth.

“You pregnant, Cheryl?” Eddie’s high instantly lost. “That it?”

“No, honey. I’m just saying, wouldn’t it be nice? Us making something good.”

Good? Two hours ago she’d been fucking an aluminum pole at a Van Buren syphilis shack, working her cooze overtime to snatch up dollar bills from businessmen too shit-faced to tell talent from tweak.

Now she was talking about wanting a kid.

“That’s speed talk, Cheryl. Nonsense,” he said. “You’re too stupid to breed.”

Her expression crumpled into a humiliated wad. She sat up, smearing a tear track. “Goddamn. Why you gotta be so mean?” She struck him loosely. Spat. Hit him again. “Admit it. You’re just afraid. Of what will come out. Well, you oughta be. Cause ain’t nothing good’s ever coming out of you.”

Eddie finally understood what the jigs were always going on about. She’d gone Oprah on him. Well, he knew how to change the channel on that action.

Cheryl’s eyes went double-ought, her mouth still working but no sound coming out, the red imprint of his hand fading across her cheek. Thing about cunts, no matter how many times you smack them, they always look surprised the next time.

Eddie lay back and groped around for the whiskey bottle on the floor. Cheryl would suffer him out for a few minutes, then she’d do that stupid laugh thing, make like she’d been pulling his chain. He would apologize. They would fuck. Love all around.