Let's Get Out Of Here, Baby [TCD2018]

Like DBCowboy, I followed at dark muse on my writing competition entry.

I am too lazy to read the T&C’s and the plain truth is that I am not sure that my story won’t get me banned from ATS. It contains sexual and violent elements, and after editing my story again and again to reign the content into what I can only inadequately describe as the realm of the “tastefully perverse”, it still might be disturbing to certain sensitive readers.

I emphatically and unequivocally appeal to you to use discretion, and if you believe that you will be offended, please, navigate away from this thread. With no further ado, Dictionary of Excuses presents...




PS - I really want to achieve "writer" status. If you enjoy reading my story, please flag and star, star, star away.

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

LET"S GET OUT OF HERE, BABY

or

Lots of People Do Far Worse

Crawl and stop. #No# Crawl and stop. #No# Crawl and stop. #No#

Staring fixedly at my computer screen, a vertical procession of poorly-lit thumbnails – tawdry grins and pushed-up breasts – oozes down the computer screen. The pictures stop. My pulse crescendos as I squint my eyelids, narrowing my gaze.

Promising.

The cursor lands on the miniature image, instantly transforming from arrow into Mickey Mouse glove. Click.

#...a wise man measures twice…#

The page loads, the full ad appearing on the screen along with several additional photos. Her name is “Charlene” and her listed age is 45, which means that her actual age (as of the time that the pictures, taken at an angle to accentuate her pendulous breasts, were new) was no fewer than 50 – likely closer to 55. Her wavy, dyed red, shoulder length hair stylishly frames her softly wrinkled, tastefully fake-tanned – but pretty – face. Among the several additional images, one shows her daintily tracing her cleavage with a wad of cash as she gazes lustfully into the camera with puckered red lips.

#...that he may make but one cut...#

I breathe in slowly through my mouth, my eyes darting from computer to phone, computer to phone, thumbing in the number, area code, prefix, relay. #Lots of people do far worse# I hit send and raise the phone to my ear.

The voice is probing, slightly unpleasant. “Hello.”

“Hi. Hello. Charlene?” I speak in a low breath. My throat tenses.

“Yeah.”

I clear my throat. “I was wondering if you’re still hanging out with...are you still...I was wondering if you’d like to hang out?” My voice cracks just slightly.

Her voice changes instantly. “mMmmyeah baby. I would looOOoove to hang out with yOOoo.” Damn. She was good.

“Great,” my voice slightly softens, “can you host?”

“mMmmSure but listen baby, we gotta meet in public first mkayhnn.” She giggled a warm, feminine, playful giggle. The type of giggle – attempted and failed 100% of the time by younger women – earned upon graduation of cold, giggle-free years. “I gotta make sure you’re not a psycho baby. That okay baby?” She was very good.

“Where do you have in mind?”

“You know your way around town?”

“Sure.”

“Well...ummHmm...you wanna meet for drink or two at Rococo?”

“Ok.” I feel as if my voice is under it’s own control...can I possibly be having this conversation, saying these words, contriving this plan? “An hour?”

“I’ll be on foot in a black skirt with a white top. mmMmmsee you there, baby.”

#Lots of people do far worse#

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses
I pull my car over to the curb, park, and kill the engine. Rococo is on east side of Main Street between a lawyer’s office and a yarn shop. There are only two other vehicles parked on the entire block and they are in front of the bar. The first car – almost certainly the bartender’s – is an early 2000s Impala with a dented driver side door and passenger side headlamp covered with crudely sized, heavy-gauge clear plastic secured by duct tape. The second is an enormous white Ford pickup from after-market hell: a lift-kit accommodates Monster Truck tires, and decals affixed to the entire rear of the vehicle makes it appear to be fashioned after a Stromtrooper.

#Christ. What a senseless goddamn waste#

I wait, and finally appear the black skirt and white top, filled – slightly fatter than the pictures – by Charlene. I get out of my car and she notices me instantly. We both assume the ancient invisible mask of battle, afraid of what we were getting ourselves into but not, even for a millisecond, letting it show.

“Hey baby,” she raises her arm for a hug. “Nice to meet you…”

We come to a stop in front of each other on the sidewalk in front of the bar and I let her hug me, making sure to maintain proper, social pelvic distance. “I’m Joe.”

Our hug dissolves and I make convincing, warm eye contact. “Pleased to meet you, Joe. Care to buy me a drink.”

“The pleasure would be mine.”

We turn and walk through a steel purple swinging door into an average dive bar. The bar is in the front of the house and the bartender behind it is in his mid-30s, but dark circles under his eyes and a bloated gut clothed in a gray shirt with words on it betray a careless lifestyle led by an utterly hopeless buffoon. Charlene, glancing at me once to cock her eyebrows, and I walk straight to be the bar and order two whiskey and colas.

After the bartender turns to pour the drinks, Charlene and I stand nervously. Luckily, the conversational hiatus was softened by a man – surely the owner of the Stromtrooper truck – and woman singing awful karaoke. Springsteen. Born to Run.

The bartender returns and sets our drinks on the bar. “Nine bucks,” says the bartender, ogling the bulldog eyes in his perfectly paunchy poker face from me to Charlene and back to me. I put $13 on the bar and nod to the bartender, picking up my drink.

In unspoken agreement, we sit at a table in the back near the karaoke singing couple. It takes a lot of the pressure off the tenuous situation. (“Baby weweh bOorn duh ruuUuUuUuUnnnn”...Electric guitar [in Solfeggio]: DO – la FA MI LA – DO RE DO.)

“You’re cute, hun,” she takes the lead. Maintaining direct, deep eye contact, her lips go from smiling to being wrapped around the neon green straw buoyed in her drink.

“You’ll make me bashful,” I say, slightly turning my face away with a slight grin. The music stops and Madonna goes to the bathroom while Stormtrooper goes to the bar to pay their tab.

“I’ll be right back, I need to freshen up.” Charlene also goes to the bathroom swinging her sexy ass and tossing her dyed red hair.

#Now or never#

Reaching into my jacket pocket and removing a small, opaque brown glass bottle...reaching across the table for Charlene’s drink. #If you act shady, you’ll be noticed. If you act cool, everything goes# Minding my posture and keeping my eyes focused on the task, I squeeze the nipple and unscrew the dropper. I fake cough into my right elbow, emptying the dropper into the drink as I lower my arm. After vacantly mock-studying the Michelob Light clock, in a darting movement I screw the dropper back on the bottle and drop the bottle back into my jacket pocket. #Lots of people do far worse#

“Ay pal.” I turn in my chair to see Stormtrooper scowling down at me. “Wuddyoo poot’n ‘er drink pal?”

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses
My face burns and every nerve and channel in my body swells to three times normal. I spin to look at the bathroom door for Charlene. She’s already been gone two minutes, maybe three. She was probably texting her pimp to tell him I was cool and everything was okay. She’ll be back any second.

#Get. Rid. Of. Him. Now#

I shoot from my chair and thrust my face within six inches of Stormtrooper’s, locking eyes. “Who. are. YOU?,” I hissed, “And,” moving an inch closer, “who forgot to tell you that in this town, nobody #s with me. Not the mayor, not the police, and certainly not a grown man who pays other grown men to put stickers on his tiny-dick-on-wheels. Walk. Away.”

#Lots of people do far worse.#

Stormtrooper shrinks to half his original size and was failing hard at keeping his testicles from blasting from the Earth of his scrotum into the vacuum of his abdomen. I don’t stop staring at him until he’s turned, shuffled across the floor, and out the door. As the swinging door finally comes to rest, I let out a heavy sigh.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I detect the smell of cheap perfume the moment before Charlene returns from the bathroom. She sits down heavily in her chair and lets out an unconvincing sigh. Glancing down and seeing my drink full, she cocks her head to the side. “You gonna drink that or what?”

My world contracts to a tunnel as I look down at my drink and panic ignites, but a panic different from the moment before. Beads of sweat clinging to the glass. Bubbles breaking free from the bottom of the glass...racing to the top...fulfilling their only imperative of equalizing their internal pressure...POP.

#If you don’t drink, she’ll know something’s up#

“Just waiting for you.” I smile and pull the glass toward me. For an eternal second I stare into the whiskey, and in this moment I think about how this woman is someone’s daughter, how this woman deserved to love and be loved, how I – #Goddamn it, drink the drink# I remove the straw and lift the glass to my open mouth, chugging the pint down in several seconds. The moment is over.

Leaning forward in her chair and again wrapping her lips around the straw, Charlene finishes hers. “Let’s get out of here, baby mmMmmmhmhm.”

The alcohol affects me sooner and more intensely than usual. I'm fine for now. She’ll be out of it soon, but I still have to act fast.

We ride in my car to her apartment, luckily not far from Rococo. I park the car on the street and we make our way to the door. “Try to be quiet,” she whispers, fishing lazily through her purse for her keys. “I gotta a bocksa wine.” I sigh and roll my eyes. #Ten minutes and she’s out like a light#

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses
The apartment smells like cigarettes and cat piss and is dimly lit by a strand of christmas lights. She takes my hand and pulls me down the hall. I see down two half-flattened pizza boxes stacked on the range as we pass the kitchen. We enter the main area of the studio apartment. There is a futon opened up with a blanket strewn across it. Charlene lets go of my hand, and in spite of breathing heavy and wobbling back and forth, is completely undressed in ten seconds. Staggering to face me, she puts her hands on my shoulders, leans in, and gives me a soft, deep kiss. Before I know it, I am undressed and we are going at it hard and steady, the cheap futon frame creaking in rhythm. Amazing as it feels, I shake my head and remember that I must stay on track. Whenever I need to focus during times of extreme distraction, I call up the image of Peter Ainsley, the hemophiliac from 6th grade who died of AIDS contracted during a routine blood transplant. He didn’t deserve to die.

#Lot of people do far worse#

Charlene’s soft body sinks further and further, her breasts sagging lower into my face, greasing streaks across my glasses. Still inside, I roll her onto her back, snoring. #Might as well finish. Won’t take long#

I unburden myself and take an economical breath, unsheathing myself and leaping up to find my clothes. My heart is racing and as I zip up my pants, I spot the box of wine. Pink. I pull my shirt on and cross the room. I pick up the box. I put the plastic spout to my lips. #For the nerves# I cough and wince after a long pull, slam down the box, and drag my fingers through my hair. #Go#

I find her purse and pry it open expectantly. Bingo: Cash. Lots of cash. (#Stupid, ten-a-penny whore#) Phone. An unusual object of considerable mass. A revolver. #Take it all#

I don’t have time to argue. She could come out of it any second. I take the revolver and put it in my jacket pocket along with the cash and phone. Dropping the purse and glancing at Charlene once more – she’s still snoring – I ninja-step down the hall toward the door. As I pass the kitchen, I notice, mounted on the wall – can you believe my luck? - a rotary, landline phone. #No time#

I slip into the night, across the cracked, uneven sidewalk, into my car, down the street. #The phone# Once I am several blocks away, I pull the car over and put it into park. I open the door and hop out of the car, dropping Charlene’s phone and stomping on it like an angry upstairs neighbor at the end of his rope. The glass crunches to a grainy dust, I’m back in the car and speeding down the street again. #Backroads#

I drive the car toward the old county road, noticing for the first time that I was drunk. An image flashes in my mind’s eye, Superman drowning in Lex Luthor’s pool, kryptonite chained about his thick, muscular neck. #No#

I only close my eyes for split second to shake my head and compose myself; when I open my eyes the lights are flashing behind me. My heart leaps into my throat like it’s Yosemite Sam’s freshly charred ass and I’m paralyzed momentarily by another fleeting mental image, that of a nuclear blast, the one I remember seeing on a reel movie in 5th grade. #No choice#

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses
I pull the car over. The cruiser door opens, closes, and footsteps crunch nearer on the pock-marked asphalt; the officer’s shadow – statuesque – falls gracefully down the wispy, nearly dimensionless cedar boughs hanging over the road. I roll down my window, and lower my hand to my lap, coming to rest on an usual object of considerable mass in my pocket. The revolver. #Are you a man or a mouse? A shanty or a house? Itty-bitties or big ‘ol knockers in a blouse?#

“How are you this evening, sir?”

“Oh, you know. Gettin by.”

“You’re driving a little fast for these roads, and you had a couple deep swerves. Are you doing ok?”

My chest lowers as a breath chatters up my windpipe. #Do it. NOW.#

Scrunching my eyebrows in a confused affectation, I look into the officer’s eyes, then scan the surrounding woods, then gaze non-chalantly past the flashing lights and into the dark of the night, an enveloping darkness, a fetal darkness, a darkness that actually *absorbs* light.

“You must be new around here. It’s ok. Don’t happen often, but, believe it or not, this ain’t my first rodeo, as they say.” I check up and down the road for headlights, seeing none. “You see, I ain’t swerving, officer, I’m taking evasive action. Myeah. Thing is, there’s snipers in these woods. Don't you know?”

Hesitation is a killer. In the split second the officer’s face contorted quizzically, I draw the revolver out of my pocket, and, jaw clenched, not even aiming, the officer’s eyes splitting open into unabated horror, I pull the trigger, the blast bouncing off neighboring hills: BAM-am-am-am.

The red, fleshy opening at the officer’s right temple is only visible in the flashing lights for a second. His face and shoulder twist forty-five degrees to the right and his right arm instantly hangs limp. He is frozen in this posture for a second, then, like the world trade center buildings, collapses completely into himself - an inside job.

#Oh jeez. It happened again. Go. Now.#

I black out, partly from the alcohol and partly from shock. Suddenly I’m parking the car at my apartment, exiting the car, looking around for witnesses, wiping down the gun and burying it in the dumpster beneath bags of trash that felt like Charlene’s body – heavy, moist, warm, soft, revolting. #Good#

Panting out of control, I let myself in through the sliding glass door to our apartment, fall on the couch, and sleep. #Lots of people do far worse#

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses
“I thought you were gonna stop sleeping in your clothes, baby?” Kayla. My eyes snap open and I shake my head, passing a controlled yawn through my nose and rolling my neck.

God. Last night.

#Lots of people do far, FAR worse#

I am on my feet and across the room in three seconds, peering at the parking lot at the dumpster through a crack in the blinds. All clear.

“Baby, are you okay? You look like you’re expecting trouble.”

“You know me.”

“Well,” Kayla’s footsteps pat gingerly toward the kitchen, accompanied by a yawn, a giggle, and the sounds of coffee-making ensue, “you better tell trouble to reschedule.”

I pull my finger out of the blinds and they snap shut making a tinfoil sound. Closing my eyes, I take a studied draw of cool air into my nose, and opening my eyes, turn, smiling warmly, toward Kayla.

“You tryin to tell me you’re in shape to deal with trouble?” I let the muscles around my eyes soften, lending the smile a degree of verisimilitude. It is a hard loan to secure. I barely have the credit. “You shouldn’t even be drinking that coffee, little missy. Doctor said it’s not good for the baby. How’s the kicking?”

Kayla smiles as she looks down and rubs her belly lovingly. “This little fellow is a mover and a shaker.” She keeps rubbing her belly but raises her eyes toward me in a sexy sideways glance. “Takes after daddy...”

“Can the world even tolerate another little fellow like me? Let’s sincerely hope not.”

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses
#Keep your nerve. Lots of people do far worse things#

I test the padlock on the trailer, and tiny bits of gravel crunch under my feet as I walk slowly to the front of the car, stopping to kick the tires along the way. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out and flip it open. #Smile#

“We’re gonna get you, you piece of...”

“Hi Daniel. Yep, I’m sorry I didn’t pay storage rent. It’s been hectic at the office and it’s one of many things that’ve slipped through the cracks...I’ll stop by today with a check. mmMhm. See you then.” I flip my phone shut, drop it on the ground; it’s annihilated in one decisive stomp.

My attention is diverted to the overflowing green dumpster at the opposite end of the parking lot. Even at seventy-five feet, the fitful, erratic flight and the buzzing of a swarm of flies – enough flies, in my estimation, to carry me into to the sky, blacking out the sun – are detectable. Several large, black, beak-punctured trash bags have been discarded hastily on the grease-stained asphalt, and pigeons, bicking and bocking and flapping their wings, seemed to grow in number by the second...pigeons from Waltham, pigeons from Braintree, pigeons from Chelsea and Everett and Back Bay. My attention is again diverted by the distant sound of the commuter train to Boston, announcing the ineluctable fulfillment of its servitude with the usual doleful moan, like the sound of a prison door slamming shut but sustaining...growing...louder...closer.

Overcome by a chill, I open the driver door, hop in the car, and slam the door in one fluid motion. Less than a second later the car coughs to life.

“Who was on the phone?”

“Landlord at the new apartment. Called to say the new carpet’s in.”

#Alright. Compose yourself. Everything’s gonna be cool. Here’s to new beginnings#

I glance at Kayla. Radiant, beautiful, innocent Kayla, and soon to be newborn son. I'm going to change and Kayla and I are going to make it, by hook or by crook.

#Let’s get out of here, baby#

“Let’s get out of here, baby.”

I pull the car out of the parking lot and onto the street. We are driving for thirty seconds when we pass a homeless person defecating on the sidewalk, smiling and waving hysterically at passing motorists. Kayla’s eyes open wide and she covers her mouth in shock with both hands.

“Look. At. That. Criminal!” Kayla squeaks. “Oh my god! What is the world coming to!?”

The homeless man (and his anus, worm-bitten as a fallen crabapple) disappears in the rearview mirror and the pregnant silence comes to term when I finally break the silence.

“Well.” I toss my head from side to side in thought. “In defense of that criminal, lots of people do far worse.”

#Now you're learning: Lot’s of people do far worse#

I steer the car onto the interstate and let my foot fall on the pedal and watch Boston shrink away in the rearview: the happiest sight ever to grace my eyes. I am not happy about what I did, but I really do need this money. That's all not I'm relieved about: I’d be long gone before anyone found my wife and kids’ bodies.

THE END. THANK YOU FOR READING.

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

A dark twisted tale!

Awesome!

Like something from the mystery & crime anthologies back in the day. 👍

a reply to: DBCowboy

Thanks DB! Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

If you don't mind, I'm going to go tremble in the corner of my room now.

originally posted by: The GUT
Like something from the mystery & crime anthologies back in the day. 👍

Yeah I got a Philip K Dick vibe as well.

a reply to: The GUT

If I trust anyone, I trust you, GUT.

Thanks for reading and your kind compliment.

Glad you enjoyed!

a reply to: The GUT

double

triple

Quadruple

#Lots of people do far worse#

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

Nice job !

S&F

Hooked!

:

a reply to: auroraaus

Thank you for reading aurora! Glad you liked it!

It's a well written story. Easy to visualize the characters and scenes.

A nice surprise ending that reinforces how evil the main character is.

Sort of reminds me of one of those Alfred Hitchcock stories that I see on late night MeTV.

Nicely done!

-dex