By Ryon Moody
Toby walked down the stairs, tripped on the bottom step, and broke the heel of his last pair of "real" cowboy boots. "Shit," he said as he stumbled out to the waiting furniture truck, down a shoe. He hopped on one foot as the noon-day sun beating down on him and the pavement and flopped down on the rust-eaten running board to survey the damage. The well-worn heel had snapped clean off from the tan boot, and he spit out some unfinished gum in disgust.
"Dammit," he said.
Stacy had given him these, at least he thought it'd been Stacy. The blur of selling ten cars a day and running on a bump for breakfast and lunch back then kind of made things fuzzy. He turned the ostrich-skin boots over in his hand and saw the name "Stace" and a heart cut in the arch.
"Solves that mystery," he said to himself.
"What's that gabacho?" Ricky was waiting in the passenger seat, a Spanish romance novel perched on his ample belly.
"Busted my boot," Toby said, tossing the broken shoe behind the bench seat.
"So what you want me to do Chips?" Ricky said. "Give you a hug?"
"Let's go," Toby said, scowling as he slammed the door.
He started up and drove the truck out from in front of the ratty apartment building with a squeal of rubber and bumped over a curb that had been run over by a thousand trucks. They joined the flow of trucks heading South towards Nogales. Ricky said nothing as they sped along the highway, the chairs in the back of the truck softly rattling.
"Hey," Toby said after thirty minutes of silence from the both of them, "you ask your brother about that loan?"
"Nah," Ricky said. "You got no collateral so why bother?"
"I figured."
"You really want to open a furniture store? After driving for all these years?"
Toby said nothing. Ricky shrugged and turned back to his book. Toby thought about getting up in the morning and, instead of going out and trying to start some shit-box panel truck just to jump on the road and dodge traffic for hours on end, starting up a lathe and carefully turning a piece of wood into a graceful table leg.
The road beneath the truck was a clean-cut saw on wood, vibrating his hands on the steering wheel.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Bottle
by Ryon Moody
So what is a stand-up guy like myself doing in a holding cell, politely avoiding the come-hither looks from a large bearded guy wearing oil-stained overalls and probably three day old underwear; sitting on a greasy wooden bench varnished the last time somebody threw up and just kinda wiped it down. Sitting and hoping my brother Blake comes through with the five bills for my bail?
I guess even if I don't want to think about it, it comes down to my car. 1983 Z28 Camaro. My baby. No, not you dude. I ain't calling you baby.
Yeah. It's a beauty. This one time I pulled up to a bus stop, like near a trailer park, so you know the girls there are all over a dude in a Camaro right? Anyhow, I roll up and there are these high school girls sitting there, and I know they're digging me because their pointing and laughing at the dork next to me in his beemer.
I rev the engine, push it up over five grand, then drop it into gear and took off. Left like a quarter mile of rubber. That was so frigging sweet.
Right, right, last night. Heh. So my brother Blake called me up. Woke me up the fucker, before noon even.
"Jay Oh Bee," he shouted into my ear. He calls me Jay because that's my name, and adds the "Oh Bee" because I ain't had one since I got on disability. He's a dick but he's usually holding so whatever.
"What's up brother?" I mumbled as I looked over to the other side of the bed. Guess that threesome with Gillian and Pamela, the Anderson sisters, had been a dream.
"Your unemployment." Like I said, a dick.
"What you wake me up for man?" I said.
"Party over hee-ahh! Tonight, my place. Dave got some old shitty movies and I got two cases to kill. Gonna make a Hamburger Hill behind the sofa."
So the day goes by. Go back to sleep, get up around one, get started on my pre-game by four, and over to Blake's by eleven. He said ten, but fuck him, he woke me up too early. We got going on the beer and the movies.
Somewhere in the middle of some kung-fu flick, I heard some peeling out and a screaming engine. I was curious, and a little bored with the whole shitty movie thing, so I got up and stumbled to the balcony where Dave was smoking a bowl.
We both see these headlights come tear-ass down the street and squeal around the corner down the steet from Blake's place. Now this was gonna get good we knew because the cops know people fly down this side street. Sure enough, there was one sitting just across from the apartment building. So the car comes flying down the street, and two things happen. The cop flicks his lights and the dude in the car tries to slow down. Problem was, he couldn't as fast as he was going and keep on the road.
He slammed right into my car.
I'm speechless. Dave's over there doing the mouth cover thing and saying "oh shit" over and over again. The cop has gotten out; he's walking over. The dude is out of his car, trying to make some excuse, and I'm standing there with a beer in my hand.
I forgot about everything, just saw that dude looking at my car, its crumpled bumper, the insurance deductable I couldn't cover floating before my eyes. I wind up, drunk logic taking its course, and as Dave is reaching to stop me I flung the bottle as hard as I could.
It arced through the air slowly because of booze time and, seeing the way it was moving, my realizing I'd over-thrown it. The cop was in mid stride, thumbs casually in his Sam Brown belt in that cop way, and happened to be looking up just at that moment to see if any witnesses might have seen what happened to corroborate his account. Which meant the nearly-full bottle caught him right smack in the face.
He went down like a sack of cement just as his partner happened to get out of the car. I didn't hink they wasted two dudes on one speed trap, but there you go. He wasn't too happy about it, since the dude who'd hit my car realized he was scot free the moment the cop hit the ground and jumped in his car and ran off. The second cop started screaming at us, and Dave, the eternal asshole, just about threw me off the balcony. Still owe that prick a punch in the face for fucking holding me on the floor until the cop got upstairs.
So here I am. Stuck in jail. That's my story, and I hope I never see that car again.
So what is a stand-up guy like myself doing in a holding cell, politely avoiding the come-hither looks from a large bearded guy wearing oil-stained overalls and probably three day old underwear; sitting on a greasy wooden bench varnished the last time somebody threw up and just kinda wiped it down. Sitting and hoping my brother Blake comes through with the five bills for my bail?
I guess even if I don't want to think about it, it comes down to my car. 1983 Z28 Camaro. My baby. No, not you dude. I ain't calling you baby.
Yeah. It's a beauty. This one time I pulled up to a bus stop, like near a trailer park, so you know the girls there are all over a dude in a Camaro right? Anyhow, I roll up and there are these high school girls sitting there, and I know they're digging me because their pointing and laughing at the dork next to me in his beemer.
I rev the engine, push it up over five grand, then drop it into gear and took off. Left like a quarter mile of rubber. That was so frigging sweet.
Right, right, last night. Heh. So my brother Blake called me up. Woke me up the fucker, before noon even.
"Jay Oh Bee," he shouted into my ear. He calls me Jay because that's my name, and adds the "Oh Bee" because I ain't had one since I got on disability. He's a dick but he's usually holding so whatever.
"What's up brother?" I mumbled as I looked over to the other side of the bed. Guess that threesome with Gillian and Pamela, the Anderson sisters, had been a dream.
"Your unemployment." Like I said, a dick.
"What you wake me up for man?" I said.
"Party over hee-ahh! Tonight, my place. Dave got some old shitty movies and I got two cases to kill. Gonna make a Hamburger Hill behind the sofa."
So the day goes by. Go back to sleep, get up around one, get started on my pre-game by four, and over to Blake's by eleven. He said ten, but fuck him, he woke me up too early. We got going on the beer and the movies.
Somewhere in the middle of some kung-fu flick, I heard some peeling out and a screaming engine. I was curious, and a little bored with the whole shitty movie thing, so I got up and stumbled to the balcony where Dave was smoking a bowl.
We both see these headlights come tear-ass down the street and squeal around the corner down the steet from Blake's place. Now this was gonna get good we knew because the cops know people fly down this side street. Sure enough, there was one sitting just across from the apartment building. So the car comes flying down the street, and two things happen. The cop flicks his lights and the dude in the car tries to slow down. Problem was, he couldn't as fast as he was going and keep on the road.
He slammed right into my car.
I'm speechless. Dave's over there doing the mouth cover thing and saying "oh shit" over and over again. The cop has gotten out; he's walking over. The dude is out of his car, trying to make some excuse, and I'm standing there with a beer in my hand.
I forgot about everything, just saw that dude looking at my car, its crumpled bumper, the insurance deductable I couldn't cover floating before my eyes. I wind up, drunk logic taking its course, and as Dave is reaching to stop me I flung the bottle as hard as I could.
It arced through the air slowly because of booze time and, seeing the way it was moving, my realizing I'd over-thrown it. The cop was in mid stride, thumbs casually in his Sam Brown belt in that cop way, and happened to be looking up just at that moment to see if any witnesses might have seen what happened to corroborate his account. Which meant the nearly-full bottle caught him right smack in the face.
He went down like a sack of cement just as his partner happened to get out of the car. I didn't hink they wasted two dudes on one speed trap, but there you go. He wasn't too happy about it, since the dude who'd hit my car realized he was scot free the moment the cop hit the ground and jumped in his car and ran off. The second cop started screaming at us, and Dave, the eternal asshole, just about threw me off the balcony. Still owe that prick a punch in the face for fucking holding me on the floor until the cop got upstairs.
So here I am. Stuck in jail. That's my story, and I hope I never see that car again.
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