troysherdahl

    I roll over on to my belly. All of a sudden, I’m awake. Something isn’t right and isn’t because I have to pee. I lift my head to get some bearings. I’m in the dame’s bed, she’s in a pile beside me, snoring. I try to lay my head back down and that’s when I feel it, there in the pillow under my cheek.

    It creeps me out and I thrash at it, “What the hell?!” My fist smashes at it! Now I know what it is. That damn stuffed monkey of hers! Then I hear that sadistic laugh from beside me.

    “Jesus!!” I yell at her.

    “You sap!” she sputters between bursts of teasing laughter. “Did you think it was a tarantula or something, Sherlock?!” She’s having a great time.

    I roll off the bed. “Fuck me!” I’m pissed and now I have to take one.

    The blackjack caught Big Al in the kidneys, real hard. He went down on to his hands and knees with an agonizing grunt. I moved in behind the big man and kicked him squarely between the legs, like I was punting on 4th down. Big Al screamed like a little girl and collapsed on to his puffy face. I was enjoying this. Maybe too much. It was time to end it.

    I bent down to one of Al’s hairy ears and said, “If you ever come at me again, I’ll kill you, you whimpering pollock! Tell Chang, he better watch his noodle.” Then I picked up Al’s head and bashed it on that bright pink linoleum floor. 

    That was it. It was lights out for Big Al Kropelniski and I needed that cheeseburger.

Bamboo Chopsticks Restaurant, Toledo, Ohio – 1954

     I tried desperately to swallow a forkful of Hau Long’s so-called, ‘Special’. There was nothing special about it. The Koreans had made better slop out of dog, during the war. I knew most old opium smokers made better chow than this crap.

    “What is this, cat or rat?” I barked at Hau, who was sitting in the booth behind me.

    “It pawk, not rat!” Hau barked back. “You want rat, go next door,” Hau cackled hysterically.

    “Hey, Hau Long? How long til you get some real food in here?!” I laughed back.

    Hau got up to face me, “You don’t rike, Ruvery, puck you!” Hau shook his chopsticks at me. “Order cheeburger next time!”

    It’s a ’50 Buick Super Riviera hardtop with fat whitewalls. It has a Fireball straight-eight with a smooth Dynaflow transmission and I baby every square, red inch of it. I love the waterfall of chrome teeth in the grill and the low ride of it. Cars and dames. They’re connected somehow. I like how they both make me feel. The guy who designed this car must’ve been thinking of a woman.

    This is a long red light.

    The kid in the jalopy next to me revs his flathead and hollers at me: “Hey, square, wanna race?”

    The red-headed doll beside the kid, giggles. “Yeah, pops, wanna bend a fender?” 

    I sneer, finish my cigarette and flick it toward the kids Duece. “Beat it, Brando.”

    The kid looks angry now. More revving and the girl sticks her fat tongue out in my direction. The light turns and the kid lays a smoking trail of black bias ply down the intersection of Broad and 5th.

    I flip them the bird as I turn left on to 5th. “Punk kids…”

    If it isn’t the mob, the Chinese gangs or the cops; it’s these hepcats buggin’ my ass—

    It’s damn hot. I can’t look at the stinking corpse of Saul Blatter anymore. Maggots are crawling out of Saul’s dead, open eyes. Maggots, for gods sakes! 

    I’m squatting four feet away, having  just thrown up. I take my freshly lit cigarette and melt an ant. Might as well torture another creature to get my mind off of what I imagine has happened to poor old Saul here—