Dark Desert: Ruby's Blood

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.

"A man can dry up into dust and drop away in this rotten desert!" was the silent scream echoing through the dark canyon of Rodney's brain. So long had he abstained from alcohol. Last month was the first anniversary of his third D.U.I. He even had a week and a half sober. Out of sheer self loathing, and a strong affinity for the depths of his own personal abyss, he skipped out on the Alanon Club meeting and was standing in a dark kitchen with a 32 of Schlitz Blue Bull in one hand and a GPC 100 smoking in the other. It was 2:34 in the afternoon.

"Nuttin’ to do in this miserable Morongo Basin! The most exciting thing I can think of is picking up dead bodies, late at night, for 35 bucks a call!" answered Eddie, reading the doom on Rodney's face.

"Is that what they pay you down at the mortuary?"

"Sure as shit!"

"Ever ask for a raise?"

"Yeah, but they threatened to can me if I brought it up again."

"What about the union, man! You could take it up with the union …"

"Don't get all Abe Lincoln on me, dude! Dead men have no unions! Only with God or the Devil or sumpin'. I'm punchin' the clock for the Grim Reaper. And that sum' bitch got my number on his speed dial! Don't rock the boat if you can't swim. That's my two cents and some change on it. Awe, hell ... pass me another can chief, and put a carb on it!"

Rodney opened the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. He took a knife from the drawer and stabbed it repeatedly into the top of the can. He popped the top and slide it down the counter towards Eddie.

As if not noticing the action, Eddie's hand instinctively scooped up the beverage and brought it to his lips. "Did ya’ know it's illegal to cuss in front of a corpse?"

"Does that carb thing really work? I mean, does it really hit you harder? I've known chumps that couldn't chug a beer without a carb in the top. That's just some drunk mythology right?" Rodney took a deep drag off his cigarette then stubbed it out in the sink, ignoring Eddie's question.

"I don't know, man. But this dude down at my work was fired for calling this dead lady a 'shit suckin' son-of-a-bitch'. He was trying to embalm the broad and the fluid wasn't takin’ so he got pissed off and nearly came to blows with her dead body."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Darn' tootin! He got charged with a misdemeanor. Funeral home turned him in. Two counts of swearin' in front of a dead person and attempted aggravated assault or sumpin'. He got ninety days and three grand in fines. The State of California yanked his licence too. That's sum' messed up shit!"

"You tellin' me."

Eddie's roommate Monty walked into the kitchen. He was fresh from sleep and stumbling around in his rainbow Speedos and white dress shirt with sleeves rolled and the first three buttons undone. Hot beams from a smoldering orange sun pushed hard against the glass window in the kitchen. Outside in the mid-October sweat of the desert wasteland there was nothing more then rock and sand and despair. Monty rubbed his eyes and turned away from the window.

"Hey Monty, you out late last night doin' calls?" asked Eddie.

"All night."

"Rakin' in that big money, hey! How many you get?"

"Two."

"Want a beer?"

Monty's eyes were deadpan.

"Take the edge off!" exclaimed Eddie.

Monty walked to the fridge and opened the door. He grabbed a Natural Light and popped the top.

"Dude! You need a carb!" shouted Eddie in excited frenzy. He was waving a kitchen knife in his left hand.

"I’ll pass," retorted Monty. "I ain't in the mood to drink." He slid the beer down the counter in Eddie's direction.

"All you need is one drink to get in the mood."

Eddie picked up the beer. He was double fisting the two cans. Rodney lit another smoke. He stared glumly at Eddie and tipped his Schiltz Blue Bull back. He looked at his watch with vague concern. He wondered if his girlfriend had found him out by now. Monty was in the fridge pulling out a quart of milk. The hour frowned on all of them.

"Monty never drinks," shouted Eddie.

"Mormon?" inquired Rodney.

"Nope. He comes from a strict military upbringing. His Dad probably jacked off to Black Hawk Down every morning!"

Monty scowled in Eddie's direction.

"Marines are pretty hard hitters when it comes to the sauce," said Rodney.

"Don't remind me. We just picked up this pickle jar fresh off the boot camp turnip truck that did ninety miles an hour into a rock wall embankment. The impact and pressure was so severe that he somehow went right out of his seatbelt, through the glass windshield and into the rocks! It was some kinda crazy Houdini shit according to the Deputy Coroner! Still can't explain it to this day. How somebody can come right out of a buckled seatbelt without being spilt in half. Looked like a hunk of chewed meat regardless. Beer cans and condoms and brains spread all over the goddamn road! Terrible."

Eddie fell silent and lifted his beer. He arched his neck all the way back and opened his mouth wide, exposing the weather line of his chapped lips. He took down the entire beer in one swallow. Monty had left the kitchen and returned a few minutes latter fully dressed. He had a black garbage bag slung over his left shoulder.

"Gotta get rid of the evidence," said Monty despondently.

He passed by Eddie and Rodney very slowly. He opened the backdoor in the kitchen and stepped out into the dirt alleyway. The sun was up and relentless. He shut the door behind him. Eddie and Rodney stood juxtaposed to one another in alcoholic consanguinity. Rarely in this life does the vehicle of post-modern man's existence slow down and idle. When the working grind and the flash and tear of electronic images and mass produced commodities spewing neon opiates of Spend! Spend! Spend! delights dissolve and dissipate. In this moment of unadulterated freedom these two men would not be consumed by the minimum wage flame. Having shucked all responsibility, even for a few hours in a solitary day, they knew nothing of time or space in relation to world politics or to the economy. Just two men, standing in a hot, dusty kitchen, somewhere in the Mojave Desert, east of the 21st century, mid-afternoon in the middle of nowhere, disavowing all claim to accountability and throwing off the shackles of everyday convention. Eddie and Rodney tipped back a couple tall cool ones and sucked torrents of nicotine smoke deep into their lungs. They shared an opulent silence. A bond unbreakable. An escape immeasurable. As they both stood there savoring the only moment in their lives that perhaps ever meant anything, they heard Monty outside fumbling with the lid of the dumpster as he lifted then slammed it shut. The occasion was suddenly broken as their incredulous ire was raised.

Eddie opened the back door and stuck his head out. The sharp Mojave sun rays made him squint, "What the hell you doin' out there?"

Monty walked towards the door and pushed past Eddie.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Nuttin'," growled Monty.

Eddie shut the door and grabbed another beer from the refrigerator. "Sure you don't want one?," lifting the can towards Monty.

Monty took the beer. He stood a moment and fell silent. He popped the top and took a deep swallow. He spoke again, but this time the tone of his voice had changed.

"Do you really want to know what the matter with me is, boys? Well then, I'll tell ya'. It's ... it’s … suicide."

Eddie and Rodney stood in dumb silence staring at one another. Rodney lit another cigarette and looked at his watch. The hands had stopped moving. He tapped it hard half a dozen times but it didn't start back up. He looked at Monty who had now leaned back against the peeling paint of the pantry door. Rodney spoke, "Thinking about it or just know somebody?"

"Shit!" cried Eddie. "One minute he's drinkin' milk and the next he's slammin' a Natural Light and talking about offin' himself. Moody sum' bitch ain't he. I know what it is. You got your cherry popped last night on one of those first calls you was doing for the mortuary. I can see it in your eyes. Shit got to you, didn't it!"

"Two suicides in a row," said Monty, lifting the beer can to his lips.

"Damn, that's settin' a new precedent! Two in a row. I'm gonna call you Suicide King from now on, brother!" retorted Eddie, emphasizing his own amusement with a sudden burst of laughter.

Rodney interjected excitedly, "Tell me what happened man! Who were they? How'd they off themselves?"

Monty crossed his arms over his chest and rocked uneasily back and forth against the pantry door. "It was late afternoon when we got the first one. Some old guy had gone out onto his back porch early in the morning and hung himself from the awning over his back patio. Swung in the breeze all day long. Had his porch and front yard all decorated with skeletons and pumpkins. He was totally visible to the adjacent street because his backyard was up on an incline and he had a chain link fence surrounding his property. People driving and walking by thought he was just part of the Halloween decorations. Being that's its half way through the month of October already ..."

Monty fell silent again. After another swig off his beer he spoke again, "Somebody finally went up for a closer look at the hanging man 'cause they thought it was so damn clever."

Eddie began to convulse and beer foam shot out of his nostrils. He fell back against the kitchen sink in crippling hysterics.

"Damn! I wish I was on that call!" he squealed, attempting to compose himself.

"The coroner made us cut him down. Chuck and I rolled the gurney underneath him. Chuck stood on a chair and went at the rope with his pocket knife. Just as it was about to snap he yelled, 'Now grab his waist and slide him on!' Went pretty smooth, I guess."

Rodney was reeling from the dizzying effects of multiple beers drunk in succession. He thought the hanging man's situation was amusing but did not openly laugh. The faint glimpse of stewing madness in Monty's stare made him uneasy. Eddie sucked at his beer can and chuckled between swallows. Monty pushed his body weight even harder into the pantry until it almost seemed that he and the wooden door fused into one. He crossed his arms even tighter, tucking his hands deep into his armpits, as if to purposely restrict his own movements.

"Goddamn! At least you didn't drop em'. I dropped this dead guy down the stairs the other day, right in front of his family and …"

Monty burst out loudly, cutting Eddie off in mid-sentence, "Let me tell you! There was a second suicide last night! A second!"

The kitchen fell silent. Mid-afternoon was moving into evening and the deranged, desert sun no longer scorched the window pane with the sweltering beams of its molten breathe. A shallow darkness invaded the room.

"Would you like to know what was in the trash bag?" whispered Monty, unfolding his arms.

Half jokingly, Eddie replied, "What?"

Pausing a moment, then craning his head to one side and re-crossing his arms, Monty disclosed, "Bloody clothes."

In silence, Rodney and Eddie lifted synchronized beer cans to their mouths and drew hard. One of them lit a cigarette. Monty continued, "I got a page sometime after three in the morning. Coroner call. A suicide east of 29 Palms. Out towards Wonder Valley. I recognized the name right off. Ruby Willis. My stomach nearly dropped through the floor. I was tied up in so many knots as I drove down to the funeral home to meet Chuck, I nearly ran off the road three or four times. I just talked to her on the phone a couple nights ago. Shit. I heard the subtle tones of desperation in her voice. I begged her to cut out and come back to me. But, she couldn't leave him."

Monty went silent again. His beer can magically reappeared in his right hand and he savagely drained its contents and tossed it to the floor. He continued, "She left me for some two bit speed freak. Some cheap punk that deals bathtub crank to all the high school kids down by the Jelly Donut on Saturday night. I told her my circumstance had changed. That I needed her back with me desperately. But, things had changed for her too. She had gotten too far into the life. The dope had gotten right on top of her. Livin' in some rundown trailer off Goodwin Road out in the middle of BFE. Spun out day and night. A real messy situation."

Monty cleared his throat and spit on the ground, "I loved her over and beyond anything else in my life. And there she was on the floor of the trailer in front of me. Her brains blown out the back of her head. The cops had hauled that geetered-out douche bag of a boyfriend off for possession. The Coroner told me, according to his statement, that they had gotten into a verbal altercation earlier that evening and Ruby had gone and locked herself in the bedroom for about an hour. Eventually, she came back out with the shotgun her boyfriend kept under the bed and walked over to where he was sitting naked on the couch. She told him, 'I'll show you asshole!,’ stuck the barrel in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Bird shot and brains sprayed over the entire room."

Monty's countenance began to betray him. He wiped vacantly at his moist, reddening eyes. He rocked back and forth listlessly. His two interlocutors leaned against the kitchen counter in forced repose.

"Dude. I don't know what to say," started Eddie.

"When I grabbed her arm I could tell she had been down for at least 36 hours. Her rigor was easily broken. I placed one hand under her elbow and the other on top of her wrist and bent it back into a normal position. That low down, lying tweaker! He stayed in that trailer for hours with her laid out on the floor like that! Just pacing back and forth. Snortin’ line after line. Hittin' the glass pipe. Trying to figure out a likely story tell the cops. Goin' over it in his mind a hundred miles a minute. I just know it! The bastard! And all the while, my beautiful Ruby's blood soaking down into the dirty carpet!"

Monty stopped to catch his breathe, wiped his nose, then continued, "So, Chuck spread out the yellow body bag on the gurney and we lowered it down next to her. I went around to the other side of her and kneeled down to grab her under her arms and around the shoulders. I started to lift her up onto the gurney but I just couldn't. I held her bloody torso tight against my chest and began sobbing wildly. I wouldn't let go. The Deputy Coroner had to get down and wrestle her away from me. He was pissed. Chuck eventually lead me outside. He went back in and did the rest. I just sat there on the bumper of the first call van, like a zombie, covered in Ruby's blood. After a few minutes I noticed something in my hand."

Monty reached gingerly into his pant pocket and brought out a tattered envelope with dark brown stains around the edges. He held it out before Eddie and Rodney. With his left hand he removed a piece of paper from it while his right hand simultaneously let the envelope drop to the ground. He spread it open and read:

"I knew it would be you. That would come for me. I knew it deep down in the dark reaches of my hell ravaged heart. I have been forced from sleep for days. There is no worse darkness my soul could traverse. Damn him who sits out there naked! Damn him who sits out there chewing his lip and jerking off! DAMN HIM TO HELL! Dope fiend junkie prick!

I knew you would come for me in my most depraved hour of longing. You once said to me - The golden splendor in your eyes makes peace with my soul between the dark and the dawn. The golden splendor of your lips burns within my heart between darkness and light. The golden splendor.

But, M. are you too late to bring me home?

Yrs Truly,

Ruby"

Monty stopped. He brushed his fingers through his sweaty hair and folded the note into his hand. He appeared beyond reticent, almost in tears, but forced himself to speak, "I … I, must've grabbed this from her bloody jacket as I held her in my arms."

All three men stood in the dim staleness of the smoky kitchen. There was a suffocating silence between them that seemed to swallow the entire world.

"Brother, what you need is a cold beer with a double carb!" exclaimed Eddie as he rushed to the refrigerator for another Natural Light. He took one for Monty and one for himself and got down to stabbing the cans with a rusty steak knife.

Rodney examined his watch again. The hands remained frozen. He looked up at Monty, "So, like, what was in that trash bag you tossed into the dumpster?"

"I told you," said Monty despondently, "Bloody clothes! My bloody clothes! The final evidence of me letting her down. I stand before you convicted of betrayal!"

Eddie walked over to Monty and stuck a beer in his hand. An oppressive darkness crowded the entire kitchen as day gave way to night. Rodney opened the lid to his pack of GPC 100's and lifted out the last smoke. He stuck the filtered end into his mouth and bit down hard with his lips. He lit the other end. To no one in particular he said, "I gotta get movin'. My girlfriend's gonna shit if she don't hear from me soon."

Awkwardly he strolled past Monty who was still slumped against the peeling paint of the pantry door. Rodney put his hand on his shoulder but did not look directly at him. "Sorry man," were the words that left his lips as he opened the back door and vanished into the alleyway, walking quickly past the dumpster. Eddie and Monty stood in the kitchen for a few moments listening to Rodney's brisk footsteps slowly fade from earshot. Suddenly, there came a loud beeping noise from around Eddie's midsection. He dropped his beer can to the floor in startled alarm and began fumbling with his shirt and belt. His pager was lit up like a Christmas Tree. He struggled to silence it.

"Goddamn! Another first call down at da’ funeral home. Wanna go wit’ me? I's too drunk ta be drivin’," slurred Eddie at the shadow figure of Monty standing directly across from him. The desert was out there buried in the dusk of new darkness. And the dead still had many tales to tell.

#shawnmafia #darkdesert #rubysblood #desertfiction