God's Business

“The fuck you grinnin’ about?” Jack Gorman turned his head and launched a ball of phlegm out of of the driver’s-side window.


The man in the passenger’s seat stared through the windshield at the rain. “Was I grinning?”


“Fuckin’-A you were grinnin’,” Jack said. “You think this is funny?”


“No, Jack.”


“Get your head in the game. This is God’s business we’re doing...”


The other man nodded. “I hear you, Jack. I know that.”


“You checked the package?”


“Of course.”


Jack laughed. “You look like a faggot in that shirt.”


The other man turned. “My shirt? Shit man, look at yours!”


“How else are we going to get in? French-kiss the bouncer? Tongue his balls?”


The passenger went back to staring at the rain.


“Idiot,” Jack said. He leaned forward and turned on the radio.


------------------------------------




Jack had enough time to think: If only it wasn’t raining...


And then a panel truck hit them. It had blown the stoplight without slowing, and the force of the impact was enough to lift the pickup up off of the ground and send it tumbling. Jack braced himself as best he could, placing his hands on the roof and pressing his feet to the floor. He watched the dark, wet world through spider-webbed glass. It spun, once...twice...three times.


The truck rolled to a stop at the bottom of a ravine that ran parallel to the highway, a bent and smoking mass of twisted steel and shattered glass. Jack could taste blood. He could feel it rushing to his head, into his eyes. It ran up his nose and down the back of his throat.


Upside down, he thought. We’re upside down.


He remembered his passenger.


“Hey.” His own voice sounded strange in his ears. “Hey...you okay?”


No answer.


Jack opened his eyes and closed them against the flow of his own blood. The pickup, he’d had time to confirm, had indeed landed upside down. That explained the blood rushing in his ears. He looked at himself and let out a choked sob. His left arm had broken at the elbow, and possibly at the shoulder as well. It was lodged between his own body, the back of his seat, and the ceiling of the pickup. His legs looked okay, but there was a throbbing, liquid pain emanating from his groin and abdomen.


Oh, fucking hell, he thought. Oh fuck me!


Jack attempted to lift his right arm. The effort sent electric jolts of pain racing to his temples and into the backs of his eyes. His arm responded, though...


“Hey.” He took a deep breath and winced against a sharp dagger of pain. A broken rib, most likely. “Hey. Hold on...” It took effort to speak, and Jack knew that couldn’t be good. “Hold on man…”


Using his right hand, Jack wiped at the blood running into his eyes. He opened them and looked to his right.


He closed them again.


Fury boiled up from deep within him. It radiated out into his extremities. He wanted to scream out loud. He wanted to rage at the universe- to rail at the filthy, disgusting sinners who were the reason he’d been out on the roads tonight.


He wanted to scream at his passenger, for not having fastened his seatbelt...


The body of the other man lay crumpled, resting on its broken neck. The fresh corpse’s head was wedged in the corner of the vehicle’s ceiling and side-window. Its legs were splayed to either side and collapsed at the knees.


Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ!


At least their home-made explosives hadn’t detonated- and thank God for that much. If they had, they’d be finding pieces of Jack and his would-be accomplice scattered over three counties.


Jack Gorman hung upside-down, suspended by the truck’s shoulder and lap-belts, swallowing blood and phlegm. An unsettling thought occurred to him: What if the driver of the panel-van had driven off without calling the cops? What if nobody was coming to help?


And then another thought, one even more troubling. What if the cops were coming?


-------------------------------------------------






“Is that smoke?”


Patrick Anders leaned forward a few inches. He peered through the windshield into the rain and darkness. “Where? I don’t see anything…”


“Right there, baby.” Amir Rajik placed a hand on his lover’s leg and pointed ahead and to the left.


“I still don’t see...”


Amir shook his head. “Are you blind, baby? Look, right over there...”


“Oh my God...” Anders said.


“I think we should pull over...”




-------------------------------------






“Sorry honey, but your boyfriend is dead.”


Jack was in pain and confused, and not entirely sure he wasn’t still unconscious. “What?”


“He said your boyfriend is dead,” another, deeper voice said.


Jack wondered if the voices, which he didn’t recognize, were referring to his late-accomplice. The idea brought with it a stab of panic. Had he been arrested? Was he in an interrogation room? Pressure and pain were the major part of his world now, though, and it was hard to gather his thoughts. He opened his eyes and the light hurt. He fought to keep them open, but it was a losing battle. “Where am I?”


The owners of the two voices laughed. A third voice joined them. He didn’t recognize the third voice either.


“Well you sure-as-shit ain’t at that lace-panty night-club, faggot.”


Okay, so not cops...


Someone kicked him in the side and there was more laughter.


Tears born of pain streamed from Jack’s eyes. They joined the rivulets of snot and blood running from his nose. He shook his head and the pain made him nauseous. “Not...a fa…”


“What? What’d you say?” The speaker leaned in close and Jack could smell liquor on his breath.


The simple act of respiring was excruciating. “I said...I’m not...a faggot.”


“Oh no? Then what are you doing with Neal and Bob over there?”


Jack’s head swam. It hurt to think. “What?” He managed to say.


Another kick to the side, and this time Jack heard, as well as felt, his rib crack. It sounded like a boot stepping on a mostly-dry branch.


“Your buddies over there! The Christ-killer and the fucking towel-head!”


Could he still be unconscious, Jack wondered, and be dreaming all of this? He didn’t have any Jewish friends, that was for sure, and he’d have sooner kissed Hillary Clinton’s puckered asshole than have anything to do with a Muslim.


He tried again to open his eyes and this time his efforts met with moderate success. A blurry and frustrating minute or so later and his eyes had adjusted to the light. He took in his surroundings.


There were no visible windows, and Jack got the distinct impression that he was in a basement. A large confederate flag covered most of one white cinder-block wall. Three plaques advertising Coors, Budweiser and Miller Genuine Draft respectively, adorned another. Jack saw a crucifix and a Pirelli pinup calendar.
.
Hell, these are just some good old boys! If he’d met this lot hunting, or at the range, Jack suspected, they’d have likely gotten on famously. How in the world, though, was he going to explain that to them?


He looked to his left and there was the far wall, peppered as it was with stuffed and mounted animal heads and Lynyrd Skynyrd memorabilia. Jack liked Skynyrd too. He looked to his right and saw two men, one white and one darker-skinned, that looked somehow familiar...


The white guy was slumped over, his head resting on his shoulder. His blue-jeans and briefs were gathered in a pool at his ankles. There was a large-caliber hole in the orbit once inhabited by the man’s left eye. The darker man by his side was dazed, possibly in shock. He was conscious, though, and he didn’t look conspicuously injured.


Vaguely, Jack remembered the young men. They’d been at the scene of the accident. They’d rushed to help, if he wasn’t mistaken. He couldn’t remember any more than that, but judging by what his captors were saying, the young men had given him a ride. If they hadn’t, he realized, he would be either dead, or in jail right now.


Either of which, Jack reflected, would actually be preferable to his current condition.


He looked back to his captors. “Guys…” he began, and then he saw the gun and words failed him. It was huge. Jack guessed it was a forty-five, but Jesus, the thing looked like a surface-to-air battery in the man’s giant fist. “Whoa, whoa...fellas, wait a second…” Jack said.


The man with the gun, a mountain of a creature with a bald, broadly tattooed head, leveled his weapon. “Shut up.”


I’m going to die... Jack realized. There’s no way out of this, and I’m really going to die…


Holding the gun level with one hand, the tattooed behemoth let the other hand fall to the buckle of his belt. It was a nice buckle, Jack noted, not unlike one of his own. It depicted a bald eagle clutching a rifle in one hand, a cross in the other.


“Please…”

The man regarded Jack with a look that approached pity. “Don’t take it personally, buttercup.” He cocked the hammer on the giant gun. “This is just business. God’s business.”


J Robert Kane
Nov 2016