With Sails Like Dragon's Wings

         So the first thing you see is a derelict of a ceiling fan grinding its miserable existence away with a rusty chatter. The ceiling is dark and cobwebbed, with ruddy shoe-print water spots. On a radio somewhere in this hellhole is a mandolin plucking away in some kind of demented sorrow and you roll over to escape the noise. The first sensation is the arm you slept on screaming for air, and when you try to get up it doesn’t hold you and you smash your forehead against your sleeping girlfriend.
         “Ow,” she mutters as you spin away drunkenly and grab for the Marlboros on the cardboard box that happened to be close enough to use as a nightstand. In the dawn’s half-light the flash of your lighter is blinding, the smoke acrid but somehow necessary.
         In this room you have to remember to be careful standing; the bed you and the bitch share is a bunk bed with the top bunk covered in boxes from the hasty move. You kick away the Corona bottles on the floor and they clatter like evil bells or masonry; the girl in your bed rolls over, awake now and irritated with your noise. For the first time you notice the cheap faux-leather belt around her arm from the night before. Your cheap belt. Fucking bitch.
         You find the bathroom a nightmare of syringes and razorblades, you wipe white shit off of the mirrors to see your own reflection and you don’t remember why you even wanted to see yourself when your image is visible. The gaunt, pale figure that stares back with sleep on his face and cold sweat on his chest, the smoldering cancer-stick in his mouth and those dark circles under his eyes, the shitty skull tattoo he got when he was seventeen and lied to a shitty artist. You reach for a brush for your cheek-length bleach-blond hair and find it half-in an old spray of vomit.
         Fuck this place, you think. Not for the last time.

         So you’re in your eighty-something Ford piece of shit, rolling out of the driveway with a slug of Jack for breakfast, wearing a fraying grey sweater and the dark sweatpants you slept in and the first thing you notice is how empty this place is, with its knee-high brush all frosted over and mountains in the distance. The dirt roads will be trouble by midday, but right now they’re frozen. Your car stinks like vomit, sex, your shaving cream. In the rear you can see the exhaust smoking away. Behind you the sun is rising, painting the desert a natural orange unparalleled in beauty to anything currently in your life. Looking at this grey-blue dashboard you wonder what you’re doing here, you wonder what the fuck happened, why the hell you’re going where you’re going.
         This town hasn’t changed in years. You notice the mannequin still hanging from the oak tree outside a house that hosted a haunted house when you were in grade school. You notice the first speed-limit sign in town still shot gunned and unrepaired. The same pothole is still after the first stoplight; no effort was ever made to fill it in. The town center is still just a handful of dead or dying local businesses; the pulse of the shit-hole, a fucking Stater Brothers. Miserable, all of it, you think as you pass patches of snow and steaming chimneys. This morning is chill, the kind of dry, awful chill that chaps your skin and jangles your nerves. The sky is absolutely clear, a rare crystal blue and the bright orb climbs higher.

         So you walk back behind the Circle-K and the first thing you see is Chico, round Chico dressed like Chico is always dressed, as in, like an ass. The first thing you hear is Chico’s foul-smelling joint hitting the pavement after one last drag and then Chico’s Tijuana whine slurring the words together as he says something profoundly stupid like, ‘you still driving that hunk of shit, man?’
         “Good to see you too, asshole,” you answer. This is a typical conversation with Chico.
         “Got another one for you,” Chico says. You produce a Marlboro and work your lighter for a moment before the flame appears. Chico looks on with sudden envy and says, “Can I get one of those, man?”
         “Fuck off,” you answer. “What’ve you got for me this time?” Chico hands you a package and you open it and leaf through the contents: pictures of a heavyset man, late forties.
         “Ugly mother,” Chico puts in, slipping his hands into his parka and looking nervously around. “Local family wants this asshole clipped; they say he did something to them; like he threatened them or he beat some fucker up. I didn’t ask much about it because you don’t care.”
         “I don’t care,” you agree, studying a little map of the area where the fat fuck lives. Somewhere on the street a rig passes and ACDC is screeching out a tired riff. Chico visibly starts and begins searching the terrain behind him.
         “Palmdale,” you say, reading the man’s address. Tommy Helton, of Palmdale California. “I didn’t feel like driving to Palmdale today.”
         “It’s only an hour, motherfucker,” comes Chico’s nervous reply.
         “You gonna pay for my gas?” You ask pointedly.
         “Fuck you,” Chico says, getting annoyed.
         “Speaking of payments,” you begin.
         “Two thousand,” Chico mutters, looking back at the Circle-K.
         “What the fuck, Chico? You want me to wax a fucker for a couple of peanuts?”
         “Not so loud,” Chico hisses, looking around again. “That’s the highest they’ll go.”
         “You dropped your fucking rate again! I don’t understand why you don’t just go do it yourself! That’s fucking pocket change for that kind of job.”
         “You should be happy I could get you that much.”
         “How the fuck am I supposed to live on that, Chico? Have you seen the shit I live in now?”
         “How is your life my fucking fault?” Chico is shouting now, his Hispanic visage going red. “As long as you sit and rot you’ll be in the same shit. You’re doing shit work, you get shit pay. And your head is too far up your ass to change that. So it’s two or jack shit, take it or leave it.”

         The first sound you hear when you get into your car is the explosive impact of the heavy packet on the passenger’s seat as you throw it down and slam the door in disgust. In the bitter chill you rub your hands together to no avail and try the broken heater in some absurd hope that it fixed itself. The sudden rush of air brings dust and grit out of the vents with hot air still missing in action and eventually you shut it off again. Sitting in your car, you watch Chico’s peeling El Camino slip out of the Circle-K’s small parking lot and roll south on Sheep Creek, toward the Cajon. Bastard. Tommy Helton stares back at you from the passenger’s seat. Tommy Helton, a nameless, faceless person you might have never met had it not been for your shitty situation. Tommy Helton, with his five-o’-clock shadow and mole on his right cheek, grinning at some unknown photographer who-knows-when. Was Tommy Helton thinking about his shirt, with the unruly collar, or who would get a wallet-sized and who would get the eight by ten? Does this photo fill a spot on Tommy Helton’s wall in Palmdale? Does a girl somewhere have this same picture with this big, goofy bastard grinning at her by her bedside, warming her heart before she drifts off to sleep? One of the first things you notice about Tommy Helton’s big dumb mug is that you somehow envy him. Or maybe it’s just the suppositions you envy, maybe his world is like yours, or even worse. Yet somehow in your mind you cannot see Tommy Helton wiping cocaine off of a dirty mirror every morning, or randomly blasting a fucker to oblivion for a few clams. Don’t let me down, Tommy, you whisper to the portrait, don’t let me down.

         So she’s moving against you now, her greasy hair in your face and her hard nipples scraping your chest and the first thing you want to say is, ‘here she goes again.’ Somewhere in the house a Danzig song begins and you shift uncomfortably, studying the music. You picture the fingers working the strings of some fantastic guitar somewhere far away; stage lights gleam on polished wood and catch beads of sweat on the lead’s skin. The sound is broken by the bitch’s labored breathing, her breath tasting of sleep and Corona.
         Her head is pillowed in your neck, her breathing and movement harder and faster, she’s whispering, ‘oh God,’ and you’re miles away in Palmdale, wondering what Tommy Helton is like, how he walks, if the story is even true. Does Tommy Helton own a dog? You feel her stomach spasm, her back arches and you think, what the fuck? I never used to care.
         The bitch settles onto you again and you wonder when you can get out from under her, when you can get away from this shit. And where’s the gun? Her breathing relaxes a little while you imagine the muzzle-flash on your nine-millimeter and Tommy Helton staggering back in agony, collapsing to inglorious ruin on some random rug in his Palmdale house. Tommy Helton staining some stupid Wal-Mart rug pattern with his heart’s last spurts. Is that dismay you feel? Is that picture somehow sad? What’s different, then, about Tommy Helton? Why care now?
         “God, that was beautiful,” comes her emotion-thickened voice and you have to laugh. Beautiful: sweaty bodies, one needle-ridden and painfully thin, the other drunk and not mentally there, their sweat and juices stinking; beautiful? You snicker at the total fucking absurdity of it all. She moves to kiss you and you catch her face in your hand and push her away, getting out of the small bed and feeling the ceiling fan’s tiny gusts starting to dry her mess on your skin.
         “What the fuck is wrong with you,” she shouts suddenly, her voice is hoarse and angry.
         “I think you’re what’s fucking wrong with me,” you answer with a smile she can’t see. You’re pulling on a beat-up sweater now, torn jeans already in place.
         “Why?” She’s screaming now, up and out of the bed, her bare breasts swinging crazily as she spreads her arms and shouts again, “What the fuck did I do?”
         “You don’t do shit,” you answer. “You spend all day baked out of your fucking skull in this pile of shit you call a house, you haven’t showered in a week, there’s puke all over the floor in the bathroom from God-knows-when!”
         “You just fucked me,” she says, “so it can’t be that bad.”
         “Well,” you say, lacing up the second hiking boot, “if it’s free.”
         A Corona bottle scythes through the air and shatters against the far wall. Ducking your head, you’re already headed out the door as a second bottle clips your heel and the bitch’s voice follows you, screaming something like ‘you’ll be back.’ And you can’t help but think, fuck, she’s right. All my shit’s here.

         So you’re on the one thirty eight doing at least eighty and the Killian’s in your system makes the road rushing under your car feel like a dream. Large black shapes go suddenly green and reveal themselves as junipers and Joshua trees by the hundreds as your one crooked headlight illuminates a useless line off into the brush. In the full moon, you might as well turn it off and drive by the blue-grey glow that bathes the landscape. Another Call Box post zips past, reflecting blue with white lettering. Tommy Helton stares at you from under your nine-millimeter on the passenger seat. Tommy Helton with his possible photo arrangements, possible good life, good house, good girl; his possible fucking dog. You’re going to die tonight, Tommy.
         You hit the eject on your tape player and a cassette spits out of the dark panel. The intent was to drive in silence, but the radio takes over and a choir is singing in Latin somewhere where you’ve never been. A soprano’s angelic voice plucks you out of the driver’s seat, sends you soaring among the countless cold stars of the desert sky. Thousands of them fill your eyes, blue and white and steady. There are no city lights to snuff them here, the constellations are bold and distinguished. And whirling, now, the music pulls you down into the sea, where boxy ships with sails like dragon’s wings make way with what seems to be deadly purpose and the sun sets behind them. But . . . the sun? Weren’t there stars not moments before? You open your eyes and it’s not the ships or the stars, just orange and pink clouds and the endless Mojave. The front end of the car seems somewhat elevated and when you glance out of your side windows you see that the road is some distance away and your car is in a ditch.
         Fuck.
         It doesn’t take much to determine the car is going to stay where it landed as long as you’re without a tow truck. You shoulder your sweatshirt and pocket the nine. The road is empty at this early hour, the newborn dawn just starting to radiate heat. Walking with a steadily growing resolve, you go to move the hair out of your eyes and find some of it glued to your brow. You check your hand and find a dark brown crust on your fingertips. During the night you must have bashed your head on the steering wheel. No ill effects, it seems, and you walk a little faster now.
         Your boots are hitting the road, it’s later in the morning. In your head you’ve got the business end of the nine in Tommy Helton’s mouth and you’re rehearsing your lines, you’re saying something like, ‘you don’t know what I went through to find you,’ or, ‘I’ve had a really shitty day and you’re about to make it better.’
There’s a sound like tires on the pavement behind you and when you look it’s a long white car you can’t immediately identify and the passenger window is rolling down.
         “You need a lift, man?” comes the masculine voice from the interior.
         “If you’re going to Palmdale,” you answer, ducking down to look at the driver. It’s a dark-haired man wearing sunglasses and the way he’s dressed you can tell he put some thought into his outfit.
         “It’s on the way,” he answers, and unlocks the door. As you enter the car you put a hand on his shoulder, then shove him hard against his door and smash the pistol against his temple. In the small interior of the car the noise is incredible as you yank back the trigger and a spray of bone and meat goes out the open window. With a grunt you open the door and kick the corpse out onto the street, then slam the doors and stomp the gas. The appropriated car leaps at your touch and you’re on your way again.
         With a small amount of irritation you sponge at the grey matter on the steering wheel, thumb away a spot of blood on the windshield. The former owner had been listening to hip-hop and you’re stabbing at the radio to turn it off. Between your feet the ejected brass is rolling with the movement of the car; the shell is bumping against your heel with the timing of guilt’s insane clock.
         Fuck you, your mind shouts suddenly, viciously, fuck you! You slam on the brakes and haul the car to the side of the road. Throwing the door open, you stomp out onto the empty road enraged, seeing the brilliant crimson smear on your door. You want fucking guilt? You put your hand in the blood-slick and feel in coagulating on your fingertips. Feel fucking guilty! Suddenly the pressure from some sad last piece of your conscience is still trying to function, like there seems to be a thousand eyes on you and you want to flip off every one of them.
         Who the fuck are you kidding, you ask yourself. You’ve been trying to get out of this Tommy Helton since it began, starting all this bullshit about not caring. You care. You know you care. You do stupid shit like blowing away this random dude to try and change your own mind, but you know. You try, but you know good and well this Helton stiff is innocent, just a regular guy and you’re jealous. You envy him. There’s no going back to a psychotic bitch for his things, there’s no shit jobs, no killing, there’s a minor disagreement and someone somewhere is overreacting.
         In your mind’s eye, Tommy Helton opens the door to your murderous intent with his arms around his daughter. It’s afternoon and he’s walking his dog, checking his mail and jogging neighbors wave to him as he ascends the walk to his picture-perfect house.
         You’re staring at the pistol in the street and you’re absently wiping the blood off of your hands and onto your white tee shirt. Tommy’s just waking up, you think. He’s making coffee, turning on the TV and watching something about a shooting on the one thirty eight, police photos of the black shine of blood on asphalt and an awkward shape under a yellow tarp. He’s watching my dumb ass being loaded into a CHP cruiser and he thinks, ‘man, I’d hate to be that fucker.’
         I can’t, you whisper to nobody. I can’t kill him and expect to handle it. Not for a few meager bucks. Resolute, you step back into the car and set the nine on the seat next to you. Tommy Helton, with his possible photo arrangements, possible good life, good house, good girl, his possible fucking dog. You’d better appreciate your life, Tommy. I almost killed your ass.

         So you’re sitting outside Tommy Helton’s house in Palmdale because curiosity got the better of you and you’re glad it did. Because the first thing you notice about Tommy Helton’s house in Palmdale is what an absolute shit-hole it is. With its piles of months-old trash and three cars in various stages of demolition it makes the shit you left look like the Ritz. There’s movement by a long-dead planter and a pitiful dog emerges, starved and flea-bitten, his eyes set in deep hollows and staring haunted at the street. You can tell from the street that his paws are bloodied and there are several deep scars on his back.
         All this doubt, you whisper. All this talk. All this guilt. Rage blossoms in your chest and your knuckles whiten under the car owner’s blood. Throwing the car door open you storm out and begin up the driveway. You can smell pot now, cheap shit like burnt cilantro, old stale smoke and other people’s cooking. You can smell rot and decay and vomit and the clouds in your mind explode into inky blackness as you kick the dog out of your way and pound on the door. It’s quiet inside. You pound again harder. There’s a rustling; the door opens timidly. A girl stands behind it in a loose shirt and you can’t tell what’s underneath it. You shove past her as she feebly tries to restrain you.
         “Who the fu-” she starts, but you interrupt her by smashing your forearm into her mouth and she tumbles backward.
         A ceiling fan is churning away with a rusty squeak high above the disaster of a room, filled with blankets and pillows and one beat up chair. Somewhere in the house a radio with lousy reception is trying to get a Nirvana song out of its blown speakers. The room smells heavily of vomit and weed, and it’s almost enough to deter you. Almost.
         In a corner sprawls Tommy Helton. Tommy Helton, unconscious, bleeding from his nose with puke on his shirt and a needle still in his arm. Tommy Helton, the great and infallible, the oh-so-innocent. You start for him but then the girl is on you again, grabbing at your arms. You bat her away and grab her around the neck with the crook of your arm and begin to pull her to the kitchen.
         “You his girl, bitch?” you hiss, fishing a knife out of the sink. The light glints darkly on the blade and catches strings of old meat, a smear of juices from God-knows-when. Her only reply is a strangled squawk. You catch her by the hair and pull her head back. There’s no picture of him on your nightstand. You’re not dreaming of him at night; your life’s not brightened by his smile. You’re just another fucking sponge. The blood that follows the arc of the blade spatters the kitchen window and her breath bubbles out of the slash in a red mist. Savagely you slam her face into the counter and she rebounds onto the floor. You throw the knife onto the ground and turn your back on the writhing body as you step toward Tommy.
         Tommy seems to be aware that something is wrong. Tommy seems to be able to connect you to the trauma. But Tommy just isn’t with it. He’s looking at you and he’s wishing he could scramble back somehow. His body isn’t answering.
I had faith in you, Tommy. I talked myself out of killing you because I thought you might be better than me. You were an inspiration to better myself. I thought about the other people in your life, how they would feel. I listened to my own conscience for the first time in years. I had guilt over this job, Tommy. But I try to find out just how right I was about you and you’re just as useless as I am. Fuck you, Tommy. Fuck you for making me care. Fuck you for making me believe in you, with that stupid picture making me think your fucking smile was genuine. Tommy Helton, he’s cowering now, too twisted to move and the muzzle flash makes shadows leap for one fantastic microsecond. Waving away the blue smoke, you lean over him. You can see the messy hole punched through his shirt and the dark stain spreading.
         “I imagined you walking your dog, Tommy. Has your dog ever seen a leash? Did you even feed him? Looks more like you beat the shit out of him than anything.” There’s a second shot and Tommy seems to be finding his voice now. He’s not using it to talk, though.
         “I imagined you had a wife or girlfriend or something, I imagined her loving you. I imagined that stupid picture I had of you on her bedside, or in your parent’s wallet or something. And shit, maybe it is. But I can’t imagine why anyone would try to remember you.” You fire a third round into his torso. “I’m gonna do my damnedest to forget.”
         Tommy’s squirming, gasping with a thick, wet choke like a fish out of water. Those fingers of guilt or pity are grasping in your heart again, seeking for purchase in the slippery darkness, and it enrages you. Not now, you think, not today. Pity fucking betrayed me. There’s no stopping now. You level the nine at Tommy’s face and pull the trigger one last time. His head snaps back and grey matter spatters the wall behind him. Somehow, it’s like putting a bullet in your conscience. Somehow, you can breathe again.

         The air hits your bare skin and cools you, the fan still chatters like it did when you left this morning. She’d cleaned up the broken glass, but the beer bottles were still on the floor and you can smell ganja somewhere in the house, the good shit. She’s never smoked anything less. You kneel gently in your bed, putting your arms around her to gently wake her. As she stirs you feel her exhale and see her eyes glint as they open to focus on you.
         “Hi, baby,” you whisper, stroking her soft hair.
         “Honey,” she whispers, pulling herself up to hold you. “I was so worried.”
         “Don’t worry sweetheart,” you breathe as she starts to cry. “I’m never going anywhere again. I’m sorry.” You feel her nod against your chest, and you have to smile. Then you grab the pillow out from under her head and mash it down against her face, whipping the nine up and crushing it into where her head should be. It’s over before her body even thinks about screaming, the trigger is pulled and dark color is pooling out from under the pillow.
         Laughing now, you rush from the room, practically diving into the white car with a fate for it in mind; you can already see it burning magnificently in the night while you trudge away with only the clothes on your back; and where then, who can say? You can hardly wait for the ensuing adventures. Only God knows what they’ll bring.