THUGLIT Issue One (2 page)

A knock at the door. I check out the peephole. It’s Jesse. I open the door. A miasma of whiskey-stink comes in with him. He looks at Lucy. He whistles a low note.

“She still living?”

“For now.”

“Do what you can, man,” he says. “She’s hardcore. Me likey.”

“She’ll be a hell of dam,” I say. I’m talking too fast. I never was a salesman. “Let’s breed her with that brindle stud that Lopez has…”

“Hell, no, not yet. Bitch has fights in her yet.”

“Jesse, she’ll never come back all the way from this,” I say. “She’s already going to be a legend. Four pounds over and the dead game bitch won. Breed her.”

“She’s going back in the pit,” he says. I chew a chunk out of the side of my mouth.

“That rapper dude who was there, the one who owns Cherry? He wants to match her,” Jesse says. “Shit, man, Cherry’s a grand champion. She’s legit.”

“Lucy’s leg won’t ever heal right. She can’t win another fight.”

“Fuck it, then we lay money on her to lose. It’s still getting paid.”

I don’t say anything. My hands are shaking again. I don’t want Jesse to see.

“Palmer?” He looks at me.

“She can’t go back in the pit,” I tell him. I try to sound calm and steady.

“What’s this
can’t
shit?” Jesse turns his body sideways. It’s an unconscious reaction of a fighting man to a threat. You turn sideways to make your body a smaller target to your enemy. I think about the stories I’ve heard. The things Jesse’s done to men who cross him. Stories with knives in them. Pliers. Heated pieces of metal.

There is a scratch line in front of me.

I do not scratch. I do not fight.

“I’m your dogman,” I tell him. “You’re the owner. You make the call. If she lives, Jesse. Big If.”

His posture goes back to normal. He smiles.

“That’s the spirit. If she dies, she dies. But if not, patch her up and we match her against Cherry. The gate will be enormous. Anyway, I didn’t get into this to be a breeder, like some bored Grosse Pointe housewife with her goddamn Pekinese. I’m in it for the blood. Win or lose it’s a payday, isn’t it?”

I say “Yeah.”

Cur. Goddamn cur.

Jesse leaves. I look towards Lucy. Lucy’s ribs rise and fall so gently. If she lives, she will not recover fast enough. She will lose her next match. Lucy is dead game. She will not quit until she is dead. And Jesse won’t pull her out.

If she pisses, she lives. But then what? She fights. She dies. Dies bad.

I’m saving her life to kill her in a month.

Tough little bitch. Proud little warrior.

I’m sorry I am not as strong as you.

*****

At the bottom of the tackle box is the final treatment. Vets call it T-61. It’s a fatal mixture of narcotics and paralytics, legally available only to licensed veterinarians. If I inject the T-61 into the IV bag, Lucy never has to wake up again. I take the plastic stopper off of the T-61.

The IV continues its
drip-drip-drip
. Lucy stirs. Her legs run in dog dreaming, swaddling up the blanket around her. She snarls. She bites the air. Still fighting in her sleep.

Still fighting.

Ok then. We’ll do it her way.

*****

I carry Lucy out into the parking lot and lay her down. She sniffs the ground weakly. Her paws shake with the effort. She looks up at me with pleading eyes. She knows what I want of her. But she is so very tired. She falls into the gravel. Some of her wounds open up again. Blood drips, but no piss.

I’m talking to her. I don’t know when I started. I don’t know exactly what I tell her, but I know that it is true. The world fades out around us until we are the only two things left in it. I make her a promise. I know that I mean it.

I will not let her die.

Lucy squats. My heart sits too large in my chest. It kicks and kicks. Lucy yelps. She squirts hot amber piss onto the parking lot. A flood of it.

Tough little bitch. Proud little warrior.

When she is done Lucy limps over to my side and leans against me, confused by the noises I can’t help making. I stand in the hotel parking lot and cry over a puddle of dog piss.

I made her a promise. I will keep it. Lucy will not fight again. She’s fought enough. Me? I’m just getting started. If Jesse has a problem with that, he better be ready to scratch.

We’ll see who is cur.

b
y
Jason Duke

Nothing would keep the egg from frying on the sidewalk—Angel Rodriguez was that cocksure about it. He looked to the sky where the smog had turned the desert sky from blue to hazy green. The
noon
sun hung brutal like a furnace over Angel’s head, blasting down on him through the smog.

His homeboy Lauro Cavazos stood next to the gleaming metal statue of the Phoenix (called
Garfield Rising
), the statue donated by the young hipster artists a block up
Roosevelt Street at Alwun House
as a symbol of the efforts to gentrify Garfield district. Their motto: using the power of art to transform community. The metal bird rose from a nest of metal flames, screeching down on Angel like it wanted badly to peck out his eyes.

Just in case, Angel kissed the egg for luck. He said a little silent prayer to let him win the bet with Lauro because money was always at the top of the list of things to pray for. Then he shotgunned the egg so hard at the rusted metal pedestal the
Phoenix
was perched on, he felt the air snap, saw the little sonic boom part the oven heat rising on the air.

The egg sizzled. Lauro stooped to the alligatored sidewalk; put his face near the egg.

But nothing happened.

“It isn’t frying.”

“Just wait.”

The edges fried.

Angel cradled the carton in his free arm, jumping up and down.

“See, I told you! Pay up motherfucker!”

Lauro slapped twenty dollars in Angel’s palm.

Jesus, it was fucking hot!
Lauro thought, squinting at the sun. The fact he was short, stocky, and chubby didn’t help him, not in the slightest.

But hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk?

Lauro would never have guessed it. Now his ignorance cost him twenty dollars.

“What the fuck? That’s some bullshit, man,” Lauro was laughing.

Angel shrugged, “Seeing is believing.”

*****

It was hotter mid-July heat than Lauro had experienced last year, after moving to the desert with his mother. As he squinted at the sun, he considered Angel probably knew exactly how hot it needed to get for the egg to fry. Angel had the advantage of being born and raised in
Phoenix
, living there longer.

They hopped the fence to Garfield Elementary; cut across the sallow playfield. They put as much distance as they could between them and their crime, where the metal Phoenix sat on the other side of the black vertical bar fence.

Like a game of follow the leader, Angel led Lauro through the neighborhood. They kept an eye out for cops; larger groups of teens. They took a shortcut through a ramshackle stucco duplex with a giant banner hung from the side, advertising:
Low rent, low move-in fees
.

On Fillmore
,
the next
street
over, they passed a beautifully renovated pyramidal cottage that had been boarded up and a For Sale sign stuck in the yard. The cottage was wedged into a row of broken-down ranch style homes and empty dirt lots. Another home was boarded up, missing a door, the insides gutted, the copper pipes and wires picked clean. Slivers of shade bordered the sides of the buildings, or under the moribund fronds of wayward palm trees leaning hunched along the broken street like the bowed backs of old, tired men.

Angel was tossing an egg in the air, catching it. Across the street, a skinny girl with ratty matted hair squatted in the feeble shade of the boarded up home with the missing door.

When he noticed her, his first impression was: crack whore squatting to piss. She had a greasy dirt-streaked face, dirty clothes, like she belonged in a third world country—not
America
.

What was she doing there? He wondered if she was really taking a piss.

Maybe he would get a free show.

“You know her?”

“Nope, never seen her before,” Lauro said.

Angel lobbed the egg near her.

She ran to a white mini-van covered in rust spots, missing a rear bumper.

A man, her father by the looks of it, jumped out of the back of van as she got inside with the rest of her family.

They were huddled around ice chests, piles of clothes. Angel saw the black trash bags filled with everything they owned.

The children had their faces buried in their mother’s arms.

He yelled, “Go park at a Walmart!”

The dad got in the van, drove away.

Lauro laughed, uneasily, “That’s cold, man.”

*****

Inside
Verde
Park
, near the
Verde
Community Center
, the preteens were playing, catcalling to Miss Padilla again in their squeaky little voices. “Hey mamacita! I want to do the wild thing to you!”

Another said, “How much for a blowjob, bitch?”

In unsure voices that could crack glass, they catcalled, giggled. They tossed their football back and forth.

Miss Padilla, she couldn’t remember faces anymore. Her life before she got clean last year made it so. But the kids would not let her forget. She still liked to straddle her neck in gold jewelry. She still liked to wear the same hot pink, skin-tight, halter-top dress.

Angel said, “Check out Miss Padilla. Baby got back.”

At a fast clip, she bustled up
Van Buren Street
. Her chest puffed out, tits bouncing all over the place.

He did a little bump and grind dance, dry fucking the air. “I wouldn’t mind riding that train.”

“You’d fuck her? She’s like forty, and she used to be a prostitute.”

“I’m just playin’.”

Lauro smiled, “What’re you getting your mom for her birthday? Something nice?”

“I was thinking of some gold jewelry.”

Miss Padilla wore giant gold earrings that glinted in the sun.

Lauro saw the gold around her neck.

“I fucking dare you! You won’t do it!”

She bustled toward them like daring them to stop her, daring them to do something about it. But without looking them in the eye, she strutted past. Angel grabbed the jewelry from her neck. She started screaming, “Fuckin’ no good rotten kids!” Then she was shouting,
“Fuckin’ no good rotten kids!”

Before they knew it was happening, she had opened her Chanel p
urse, pulled a gun. She boomed
the way thunderclaps rumble through clouds, across the sky, “I’m gonna teach you not to fuck with decent folk!”

Without thinking, Angel ran. It didn’t register in Lauro’s mind right away that Angel had run. Lauro bolted a second later, as fast as his fat little legs would carry him. He was too slow, and it was all the excuse she needed to shoot him twice in his back with the .38 snub-nosed revolver. Like a spoo
ked stampeding cow, Lauro belly-
flopped into the ground. The momentum of his dead weight carried him skidding across the scarred pavement on his chin.

She boomed, squeezing off the last four shots in the revolver,
“Fuckin’ no good rotten kids!”

She waved the gun, blasts cutting the palpable heat rising on the air. Inside
Verde
Park
the kids screamed, fell, one by one as the errant bullets struck them.

Fuckin’ no good rotten kids!

Angel didn’t look back. He just kept running all the way to
Washington Street
where the metro light rail thrummed in place, its doors open. Had the train been waiting for him? He didn’t have time to consider it. Not that he cared, and jumped inside.

*****

The Ikea was both colossal and confusing. There was so much shit to buy, Brandy Ashton didn’t know where to begin. Some of the displays looked very modern to her, and hinted of a future that would leave her behind in the dust unless she bought something. Also, she noticed the only way to get through the store was by taking the longest route possible.

Brandy realized what the mad architects behind the maze were cleverly doing; resented them for it. Though it was her first visit to the store, she wondered why she had even bothered.

Finally, she settled on a Bolman 3-piece bathroom set, a Svalen bath towel (the one with the angry fish with the sharp teeth), and an Idealisk corkscrew. She had been saving an exquisite bottle of Beringer White Zinfandel all month, and bought some brie that morning to pair with the wine. Thinking on the wine paired with the cheese, she tingled.

But then she thought of the long bus ride home. The #65 bus she had taken from the metro light rail—how she would have to wait another ungodly amount of time on the bus going back. She thought again of the wine, the cheese, and everything was okay.

“Excuse me?” Brandy said to the girl at the work station. Her name was
Eric
a according to her nametag.

Sullenly,
Eric
a looked at Brandy.

“Can you help me?” Brandy finally said, wondering if she broke a two-by-four over
Eric
a’s head, would it wake her up? “I have a question about that entertainment center over there.”

Eric
a glanced back at the copy of
Cosmopolitan
(underneath:
Rolling Stone
). She closed the magazine, as if helping Brandy was a waste of her time. The disdain was written on her pretty, young face: how dare she be bothered.

Brandy said, “How much is it? There’s no ticket on it.”

“Two hundred and twenty-
five dollars.”

“Is it available?”

“Yes, but we don’t have the bottom doors in,” motioning to the bottom cabinets. “They won’t be in until Saturday. You’ll have to come back if you want them.”

“Is there any way to have the doors delivered?” Brandy asked.

“No.”

Surprised, Brandy said, “There’s no way to have them delivered? What about the floor model, is it for sale?”

“No,” said
Eric
a, annoyed, trying to hide it.

“Is there a manager available?”

Eric
a gave a look that said: I can’t believe you’re wasting my time with this. No longer trying to hide it, she said annoyed, “Why do you want to talk to a manager?”

“Why do I have to explain myself to you?”

Now
Eric
a had the look of a person holding their breath: that frozen, bated breath expression when something totally unexpected is said and they are trying to figure out what to say next, how to respond.

More than anything, Brandy hated dealing with these kids. Spoiled, bratty kids who acted like they were owed the world.
Eric
a looked fresh out of high school—young, pretty; but Brandy knew, attitude trumped looks, any day. She had at least fifteen years on
Eric
a, and still, she looked just as good. The only difference were the little crow’s feet growing at the edges of Brandy’s eyes that perhaps betrayed her age.

She waited for
Eric
a to say something. Finally, she said, “Because you’re not being very helpful. Maybe there’s something the manager can—”

Eric
a talked over her, “We can deliver the doors. Where do you live?”

“The west valley.”

“We can deliver them, but it’s going to cost you eighty-nine dollars.”

“So they can be delivered? Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? I still want to see the manager.”

So, little
Eric
a made the call. Talking a few minutes on the phone, she said, “The manager will be here in ten minutes, if you still want to wait.”

Go fuck yourself.

That was the look on Brandy’s face.

Jesus, she hated dealing with these kids. She wished she had that two-by-four. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to bash in
Eric
a’s pretty little face.

The gold chain called to Brandy, from her neck. The same simple gold chain her mother had passed to her when she was a little girl.

Momma Ashton—on her deathbed, dying of cancer—had passed the heirloom to her only daughter the way her mother, and
her grandmother, and her great-
grandmother had done generations past, all the way down the family
line, to the very first Ashton
s that had settled in the northeast (what possessed them to move and settle in Arizona, she would never understand).

When the first Ashton
s arrived penniless in
America
, they kept the gold chain no matter the indigence or hardship, as a symbol of providence, and reminder that fortunes were made through diligence and hard work.