Dark Desert: Comfortable Illusions
Short fiction from our favorite hi-desert singer/songwriter and funeral director. As with his songs, it's sometimes difficult to know where the fiction leaves off and fact weasels its way in.
Marking time in a deadly game of delusion and misguided acts of the devil, the gray dawn was fading into light. A thin yellowness laid on the ground. The jagged desert mountains jutted up from the earth liked chipped teeth. The newness of day was pushing through. The cut up boys were covered in blood. The action was done and the bodies were reduced to nothing more then lifeless hunks of crimson flesh. Hairpiece and the Creep were sweating like two gorilla pimps in a hot sauna who had been doing the mattress mambo all night long. They emerged from the doorway of a nondescript industrial center on the edge of town. They each carried trash bags. They strode swiftly to a beat up Plymouth. Hairpiece popped the trunk and tossed the bagged mutilation in.
“Fuck Creep, I feel hungry. Choppin’ always makes my dick hard and my stomach rumble!”
“You’re a sick fuck,” replied Creep. The two jumped in the front seat. Hairpiece was behind the wheel. Creep lit a Pall Mall non-filter on the shotgun side.
“My doctor has diagnosed me with chronic hangovers,” laughed Hairpiece. “Yeah! Well he shoulda wrote you’s a prescription for stupid pills to because you chronically retarded.”
“What mothafucka?!” screamed Hairpiece as he rolled through a four way stop at the corner of Pierson Avenue and Indian. A black and white cruiser, setting at a deserted gas station across the street, tore out of the parking lot. The cop dropped his foot down hard on the gas pedal and sped up behind the Plymouth with lights flashing.
“Shit! You brought da’ Fuzz down on us!” yelled Creep. “Dis’ your fault man! You know I’m sensitive to pugs calling me a motherfucker! My therapist tole’ me that I gots to keep my anger in check and let da negative roll off me like …”
“Shit! Watch out!” screamed Creep in a high pitched plea for his life. Hairpiece slammed on his brakes as he steered the car head on into a German Shepherd that was standing idly in the middle of the street. The patrol car following behind slammed fiercely into the back of the Plymouth. Both Creep and Hairpiece were bleeding from the top of the head as they emerged slowly from the smoking car. The dog’s body lay a few feet ahead of them next to the side of the road. Blood was running like a small river into the desert sand. As it co-mingled with the dirt it turned into a dark adobe colored mud. The police officer was all alone and motionless in the front seat of his smashed cruiser. Creep wandered towards it.
“Holy Christ dick! We’s fucked five ways from Wednesday!” moaned Creep as he held his hand against his throbbing forehead. “You really finger fucked this one Piece!”
Hairpiece was standing half slumped on the other side of the Plymouth. “I always told you’s that I can’t stand me a mothafucking dog! Especially sum big ass beast like that! You knows I was mauled by a rabid Chihuahua when I was eight years old. Never quite been the same since.” “What the fuck Piece! Chihuahua’s are little dogs!”
“Yeah but this one had a fuckin’ eatin’ problem or sompin’ cause it musta weighed 60 or 70 pounds. And it was as mean as a rattlesnake on the rag!”
Hairpiece limped dully towards the driver side door of the police cruiser. On the right side of the street was open desert. The left faced a sad and lonely mobile home park. A few other stray dogs ran sheepishly between the tenant’s parked cars. Hairpiece yanked at the door handle of the police cruiser. Crushed metal grating against hinges could be heard as he forced and pulled the door open. He took his hand and pie faced the cop hard until he flopped sideways into the passengers seat.
Hairpiece lifted his head out from under the top of the car, “Hey Creep I thinks he still alive!”
“Oh yeah!”
Creep was standing on the other side of the police cruiser still bleeding from his hairline. He flung open the passenger side door. He grabbed the cop by his bloody matted hair and hoisted up his head. The cops lips quivered and short, sporadic breathes were audible from them. Creep dropped his head back down on the upholstery.
“Look motherfucka … he got to get out of here quick!’
Hairpiece shot back, “What we gonna do with this pork steak?!”
“Handcuff that shit turd and put em’ in the back of our trunk!’
“Right!” coughed Hairpiece as he held his own chest feeling for broken ribs.
The pair limped back to the Plymouth. The rear end was completely crushed. Hairpiece went to put the key into the lock. He grimaced disconsolately when he found the key hole to be smashed and mangled up into the painted blue metal of the trunk.
“What the fuck we gonna do now?!”
“Dunno.” “Well … you better figure it the fuck out quick, Creep!”
Hairpiece kicked violently several times at the car trunk with his red leather embossed lizard skin loafers. The violent action had no effect.
“Those are some dumb ass shoes to be doing this type of work in,” observed Creep.
“What the fuck … fuck you!” screamed Hairpiece. “What kinda of goddamn shoes you got on, dickhead! Velcro sneakers! Shit! We ain’t got time for no goddamn fashion tips. What the fuck we gonna do about the 5-O back there bleeding to death? We gots to put that shithead cop into this goddamn trunk with all those fuckin’ bags of body parts! We can dispose of em’ all together at da rendezvous point! But we need to get this motherfucker open! Look … the shit’s all crushed!” “Go start the car, Piece,” growled Creep in a low, dark melodic tone, “I’ll take care of him.”
“The fuck you will Bella Lugosi!” roared Hairpiece “Don’t you see all dem’ mother fuckin’ senior citizens watchin’ us from across da street!”
Creep looked up and over towards the mobile home park. Two old ladies and a crippled man propped up by a silver walker were standing near the road.
“Do you boys need help?” cried a white haired women in a shrill voice.
Hairpiece cuffed his hands around the edges of his mouth and began to shout back to her from across the street, “No mama! We got everything under …”
Before he could finish his sentence deafening shots rang out and reverberated through the open desert. The smoke from the gunfire swirled ghostlike from back behind the Plymouth where Creep was standing. He slowly lowered his .45 down towards the ground. Hairpiece turned his bewildered glance quickly towards him then back across the street where all three seniors laid on the ground dead and bleeding. The silver walker still stood upright in the dirt.
“What the fuck was that! Creep! You dumb son of a …”
Hairpiece was cut short again as another gun discharged from behind. The cop was hanging half way out the drivers side door of his police cruiser. He had an unsteady bead on Creep and was only able to knick his shoulder. A light spray of blood was caught in the desert breeze and drifted down onto the back window of the Plymouth.
In a matter of seconds Hairpiece had his metal out. With one shot he split the cop’s head right down the middle. Pale pink brain matter and freshly squeezed blood spilled out onto the pavement. As the echo of the gunshot died off in the distance a final silence sucked the air out of the scene. An eerie, ethereal stillness unfolded. It was almost as if you could hear the cop’s soul being vacuumed up into the heavens.
“I’m hit!” squealed Creep.
“Good,” rumbled Hairpiece, “I should leave your dumb ass here. Shooting defenseless senior citizens and shit.”
“They would’a squealed!” pleaded Creep as he winced in pain.
“Yeah … yeah! Sure they would’ve! Probably too old and blind to even make you out.”
Hairpiece stumbled over to the front of their car and opened the driver’s side door. He ducked down into the vehicle and stuck the keys into the ignition. The old, blue battle scarred Plymouth spurted a few times then suddenly came to life. Holding his shoulder tenderly, Creep limped over to the shotgun side. He opened the door and slid in. The faint spiraling cries of sirens could be heard off in the distance. Hairpiece laid a heavy foot on the gas and sped away. The bald tires of the Plymouth kicked sand up into the air. A faint layer of dust sprayed the dead cop hanging halfway out of his cruiser. Across the two lane street a few stray dogs hungrily licked at the bloody faces of the dead senior citizens. The warm rays of the desert sun glistened off the silver walker still standing upright next to them.