A Curse for This Town

A Curse For This Town

By

Matt McGuire

“5 seconds. I’ll give you five goddam seconds to put that knife away before I blow your fucking face out the back of your head.”

It was a hot, blustery August afternoon and the hashish smoke hung heavy (redolent also with the burnt tin, plastic and ammonia smell of the meth amphetamine that the stuff was laced with) in the thick air of Jade’s two-bedroom dive at the top of Hill Street. I had just finished off the last of her Vietnamese hot sauce with a long, liverish drink from a bottle of Bavaria and I wasn’t going to stand for any more bullshit. Troy Bush had come looking to raise some hell and that’s exactly what he found. Fivefold.

“Marko, put that knife away right now, PLEASE, this isn’t fucking happening, this isn’t fucking HAPPENING.”

Jade’s screams seemed to emanate from a vacuum; pathetic little curses and whimpers amidst the soon to be bloodbath about to take place between her cheapish oak veneer coffee table and her leatherette couch that bore the scars of many nights of unbridled tweaker parties. Jade was the half Japanese, half Jewish daughter of an Oriental wine merchant. Her daddy sent her about three thousand a month, most of which she either smoked, sniffed, or shot into her 85 lb body; the rest went for mid grade kind beer and tacos. I, on the other hand, was a half bred Scotch Irish bruiser sick with the savor of the streets and unable to front the cash for a carton of Marlboro’s, much less the twenty grams of meth that Troy had brought to take out in trade with my sometime girlfriend and full time sugar momma.

“PUT THAT MOTHERFUCKING KNIFE AWAY YOU LITTLE JUNKIE BASTARD OR I’LL BLOW YOUR MOTHERFUCKING HEAD OFF. NOW.”

I was not, nor am I now, an imbecile. Yes, I am a bit more cautious today, clean and sober, than I was then. But I know people. I know dogs.

Marko, please, PLEASE, PLEASE, PleAsE GODDAMIT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST PUT that knife AWAY. I don’t care if I have to fuck him. No, don’t. DON’T.”

By this time the sweat was beading on Troy’s brow like May dewdrops and he was starting to shake. He couldn’t look me in the eyes. I held his gaze, oh, about 50 percent, but he kept looking at Jade, shifting, shifting, sweating, and shifting again. I know fear. I know dogs.

Meth amphetamine does one of two things to the average human being: 1. A man becomes a hunter, or 2. He becomes the hunted. Troy was quickly fading into the second category, and all I had to do was wait. The demons in Troy’s mind were at my disposal.
One more shift…

OKAY, THIS IS YOUR LAST GODDAM CHANCE. MoTHERfuckER I ain’t PLAYIN….

The sound of a bitch slap is a beautiful thing. A man is only granted one or two REALLY good ones in his life. This was number three, and the last until this day.
When the gun hit the floor, Jade grabbed it and ran to the kitchen, whimpering like a pride-wounded puppy. She fumbled with the Smith and Wesson .38 for a second or two, and then tried to grind it up in the garbage disposal. Troy Bush had collapsed to the floor in a heap, sobbing and sniffling with snot running down his nose as he tried to light a crumpled generic brand cigarette.

As for me, I took another drink of Bavaria, put my knife back in its sheath, and wondered what the fuck I was gonna do with my life.