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Title: Down and Out With The Bad Old Bagdad Blues
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Mike came home from the Gulf with a party in his head that only dope took care of. That first curl of harsh sweet smoke hitting his lungs, almost made it all worth it. He could sit then in the lawn chair out back, bottle of beer snugged up against his crotch, cold trickles of condensation sneaking down his thighs and forget that the best part of his life had slipped away. Forget that he lived in Buena Vista Acres now—alone since Jennifer got tired of his “poor me bullshit” and taken her shit and left. Forget that bills are past due and he doesn’t have any way of paying them since that last trip to the casino. Sometimes he even forgot he couldn’t twist off the caps on his beer without bracing it between his knees first as he reached for the cap with an arm that wasn’t there anymore—not since that final mortar round outside of Baghdad. So he sits in the lawn chair, wearing ruts into the crabgrass and drinks and smokes his weed—he’s gotten real good at rolling one handed—and scratches at the shiny smooth scar tissue capping his arm just before his elbow. When it gets real bad and he sits out back long after dark with his rifle across his knees most everyone else knows to leave him alone. But Orli can’t resist pitching empty longnecks out of the window of his pick-up as he roars by. The sound of them smashing against Mike’s trailer blends with the laughter that floats on the night air as Mike curses and staggers to his feet, stoned brain trying to aim the rifle one handed. “You Shithead! I’m gonna kill you for that—know how many A-rabs I killed? One more pussy punk like you don’t make no difference!” Like as not Mike would try one of these days, but at least Orli had the jittery quickness of Meth addiction on his side unlike Mike with his lost red rimmed eyes prone to fixing on odd things like the weeds growing from the crazed cracks in his patio stones for glacial periods of time. He’s sitting out there now, watching the ripped and stained flag wave limply in the hot humid breeze of this June afternoon. He’s hoping the disability check comes today, he doesn’t know how much longer he can put off Vic, the manager of the trailer park, he’s already a week late with the rent as it is. He wonders where Jen is. Last he heard from her she had sent him a note scribbled on motel stationary from the place out near Murfreesboro where she had her latest dancing gig. No Hi or Hello just a terse note telling him to send her all the stuff she wasn’t able to jam into garbage bags and throw into the Mustang when she left. She was going to swing down to L.A. and see if there was any future in “fuck films”. She wrote, “If I have to show my boobs I may as well get paid real good for it leastaways until I start getting real parts in real films, and it’s not I like don’t suck enough cock now”. That was his Jen, pulled no punches and she always had her eyes on the prize. If he hadn’t already pawned or torched most of her shit he almost would have been tempted to send it on to her—all fucked up of course. As it is he contents himself with wiping his ass with her note and muttering “fuck you…” as he flushes it down. He can’t help thinking of those perfect full lips sucking on some other cock and not his anymore—real shame that. But if she does get into skin flicks he may get to see her eat out a chick, maybe an icy looking blonde with small high tits. He gets hard thinking of Jen’s silky brown hair trailing over some other girl’s thigh. Her hazel eyes hungry as she licks and sucks clit, moaning in that whore’s voice of hers. He drains the last of his beers and with the ponderous grace of the longtime drunk stands it up on the rusted out shell of a refrigerator lying on its side half buried in weeds and tall grass. A line of empties sits up there, those precious few he chooses to forgo the return on because he’ll use them for target practice. He’s a much better shot with his pistol than the rifle, maybe tonight he’ll sit outside with the Colt and wait on that pussy gayboy Orli to drive by. He gets a little harder thinking about that. Tires crunch on gravel interrupting his violent daydreams. He turns, adjusting the erection tenting the crotch of his stained jeans. He’s glad his loose and flapping shirt is long enough to cover it; he awkwardly fumbles a button or two closed just in case. Any misplaced concern for modesty dies when he sees who it is.
“Talk to you for a sec Mike?” No more Sgt. Vartan or Sarge even plain old Mr. Vartan, nowadays its just Mike. Contempt has bred familiarity. “Sure—let’s go inside. Heat’s ‘bout done me in and I hafta piss anyhow.” May as well be hung for a goat as well as a lamb. The trailer is explosively hot inside and smells like last night’s dinner—Mike cranks open a few windows but there’s no real breeze, there never is. Sweat gathers on his chest and slides greasily down his spine. “Sit down, I’ll be right back.” Mike saunters down the dim hallway without waiting to see if he does. Vic stands uneasily in the kitchenette and looks around. It’s a bit of a surprise inside, there’s a general air of neglect, a film of dust coats everything, the calendar page is still showing April but there’s no clutter, no dishes in the sink; at least military efficiency hasn’t been shed like a skin along with everything else. Everything is squared away, everything except the items sitting on the formica table, a cheap brand of rye and a large plastic bottle of cola, both partly empty. A jelly glass with a sticky swirl of residue in the bottom mute testimony to the expert drinking that’s gone on. He drags out a chair, seat much mended with duct tape and sits down. He lights up a cigarette and taps the ash into the jelly glass while he waits for Mike to finish in the bathroom. Mike frowns when he sees Vic using the glass but doesn’t say anything, merely slides an ashtray across the scarred table towards him. Vic’s smile is a touch nasty as he grinds his butt out in it. “Mike, you know why I’m here right?” Mike says nothing, merely sits himself down in the opposite chair and waits patiently—bloodshot eyes blinking slowly. “Rent’s overdue hoss, any plans on paying it anytime soon?” Vic’s voice holds no sympathy just the grim cheerfulness of one good old boy who has another firmly by the balls. “Now no disrespect intended, this country owes a great debt to its veterans—hell we’d be all overrun by commies and foreigners, well more than we already are if it weren’t for boys like you…” Vic pauses and gestures to Mike’s arm. “Where’d you get that—Desert Storm?” Mike nods, matching Vic’s smile with a chilly one of his own. “Last thing I remember is hauling ass with my unit down some shitty little street after some sand-niggers and then I woke up in the hospital like this…” He raises the stump; the scar tissue has healed pale and clean, drawing down into a neat knob of flesh where the humerus bone ends. Jen told him once it looked like a nipple, all “pink and sticking up like that, just like on a titty”. She’d bitched about the black eye he’d given her but never mentioned it again. “Can I touch it?” Probably the last thing Mike expected to hear coming from Vic’s mouth. Indeed he almost sounds eager, lips shiny with spit as he licks them. “I guess…” Part of him feeling like he’s a girl who’s just given the go-ahead to her date for some under the clothes action, a little slap and tickle in the back forty. Vic’s grip is firm as he strokes his fingers along the flap of skin where the army medics have made a neat tuck before beginning to sew. Fingertips dip into the tiny dents of stitch marks. Mike has to look away. “Damn! Those bastards sure did a number on you, hoss…” Vic’s voice is full of admiration. Aware that he’s been touching him a bit longer than curiosity should warrant, Mike straightens out of Vic’s reach, tucking his arm tight against his side. The heat weighs him down, pressing him into his chair; beads of perspiration dot his lip. He is pleased to see a slick sheen of sweat shining on Vic’s forehead. Beginning to think the prick wasn’t human… “Look, Vic I expect to get a check from the government any day now,” Mike doesn’t want to but he can’t help but hear the undercurrent of whine in his voice. “Just as soon as I get it I’ll be over with the rent money okay?” He tries to smile but his mouth insists on another arrangement; he’s baring his teeth like a trapped animal. Vic leans back in his chair, very much aware who has all the aces in this card game. “Well now, if this was only the first time Mike I wouldn’t have a problem with that. No sir not one problem at all…But it isn’t the first time, is it now?” Mike’s jaw clenches but he won’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. No matter, Vic’s just getting warmed up, a schoolteacher giving a favorite and familiar lecture. “And it’s not you. Hell no. Guy gives his arm in service for our country least I can do is give him a bit of a break. But there’s standards to maintain, appearances must be kept…” Mike bites down hard on the urge to offer the opinion that this was Buena Vista Fucking Acres and that community standards here dictated such niceties as shirts are optional when the cops bust your Crank lab and often as not pants are too. But he’s not in the position to be anything less than diplomatic. So he forces a nod while furious blood beats in his veins. “So what I am supposed to do here?” Vic waits. “Look, it’ll just be a couple more days, I swear—“ Vic holds up a hand and Mike falls silent, trained dog performing a neat trick. Vic lights another smoke and drags deeply, pluming smoke from his nostrils as he exhales. “Where’s your wife to Mike?” He looks around the trailer as if noticing for the first time Jennifer’s absence pretending ignorance of her screaming, spitting, snarling departure less than three weeks ago that had all the residents spellbound, a little drama in their day, or just a sense of relief that today it was someone else’s problem and not theirs on display for all to see. “She’s away for a while—dancing.” “That’s right. She’s a stripper. Saw her up at the Brass Rail, some nice tits on her Mike. You’re a lucky man.” Vic is jovial, grinning and nodding in shared guy confidences. If they were in-country, out in the desert, Mike would have gut shot him and left him to die. Maybe set him on fire too. He closes his eyes and holds onto that image. “See now, if she was here. We could have come to some kind of arrangement…” Mike hears Vic’s words coming from the twisted blackened lump he has become in his mind. Die you motherfucker, just die! Mike opens his eyes to find a hale and hearty Vic looking thoughtfully at him from across the kitchen table. “My wife keeps a good house, but frankly when it comes to the—bedroom stuff” Oddly Vic is flushing, ruddy brick glow climbing out of the starched collar of his work shirt. “Well she don’t go in for some of the more…exotic stuff.” Mike gazes at Vic and longs for just one or two really good hits of some quality shit to take the edge off the audacity of this bastard’s proposal. “But my wife—my wife” And oh the anger that he can’t quite keep out of those words “is an old hand at the ‘exotic stuff’ you’re telling me?” Vic had the grace to look sheepish when he caught the heat of Mike’s words, but then he remembered who he was talking to. “Any dirtbag with a twenty and the will to spend it coulda had your wife rubbing herself against his hard-on when she was working—she’s a stripper, hoss. I’m just taking things to the logical conclusion.” The most infuriating thing is that Vic is ready for him when Mike launches himself across the table at him. Vic grips him in a bear hug and wrestles him to the ground easily, laughing like a schoolyard bully. Rage chokes Mike to the point that he can only utter breathless shrieks, high screaming sounds of fury. He bucks and twists under Vic, but too much weed, too much rye, too much sadness can’t stand against the meaty solidity of Vic’s three squares a day and sense of moral superiority. Vic straddles him and holds him down, unyielding flesh pressing the breath from Mike’s chest until he lies quiet and panting under him, anger burnt out and surrendering to inevitability. “Getting soft there in retirement Mike.” Vic pokes a finger into a small swell of belly that was not too long ago all smooth skin and hard muscles. He grabs the end of Mike’s stump; the feeling is as shocking and as intimate as if he had cupped his groin. “Course kinda hard to seriously fight with a one-armed man, like fighting a woman…” He squeezes the smooth cap of flesh, thumb rubbing over the ribbed knots of scar tissue. Vic’s voice is throaty and his eyes are full of dark need. “Did she like it—your wife—did you touch her with it?” He keeps stroking, Mike can feel the hard lump of Vic’s erection pressing into his gut. He feels slightly sick when his own cock jumps and swells in response to Vic’s words, his touches. “Nah—“ He can’t talk. “Nah she thought it was gross, she didn’t like the feel of it.” Vic nods, “Chicks huh? Everything has to be hearts and flowers, sometimes they don’t get that guys need different things…” Mike can only stare up at Vic like a trapped rabbit, he licks his lips. “Yeah. Different things—sure.” Then Vic’s mouth is pressing on his, warm and smooth, chin scratchy with stubble. Mike wants to scream again, to fight, kill this man, anything but what he is doing, which is opening his lips to Vic, sucking eagerly at his tobacco flavored tongue, mewling like a girl under him. He doesn’t protest when Vic makes him get on his knees. Now Vic’s hand is cupping his cheek, smoothing his hair while the other is reluctant to let go of the remains of Mike’s arm even while he fucks him in the mouth. Vic grips and squeezes his stump, fingers playing with every dimple in the proud new flesh, grunting in appreciation when Mike gags a little, throat closing, because his cock has slid a little too far in. “Like that? Like that huh?” Mike groans in answer. He remembers when he was on the receiving end with Jen—how her moans worked on him while he was stroking in and out of her mouth, soft cries that sank into him like hooks until he was pulled into the world of flesh. He wonders if she ever closed over him as eagerly, licking and sucking like this—he can’t remember. His world is filled with Vic, the secret musk of his skin at the base of his cock, the line of hair tracing the smooth curve of his belly, the hard plane of his thigh as his muscles work his hips, driving them forward, the firm and implacable grip on his truncated arm. It’s almost as good as being stoned—no thoughts, no regrets. Just being completely in the moment. And like all ways of forgetting, it ends. Mike has tasted his own come on Jen’s mouth when she had kissed him after sucking him off but this is different. He couldn’t have been more surprised when Vic spasms and Mike feels him spend himself in his mouth. It’s raw and unexpectedly hot and bitter. He swallows from reflex, throat working, still can’t quite stop a trickle of come from leaking through his lips onto his face. Vic catches it with his thumb; the hard pad of skin rough on his lips when he slips it into Mike’s mouth. Mike sucks on it, sharp salt sweat blending with the taste of semen. Vic’s smile is soft and unfocused and almost kind. He steps away from Mike and tucks himself back into his pants and zips them up. “We’ll call it square for this month hoss, but mind you don’t be late next month…” Mike’s mind can’t process, his thoughts are curled around his own need and desire, hard and aching within him. He remains kneeling on the floor—sticky in the heat, and how long has it been since he scrubbed it anyway?—watching Vic leave. In moments he’s gone, spinning tires sending a racket of kicked up gravel as he drives away. The taste of Vic in Mike’s mouth curdles into something nasty as he kneels there. Mike wonders if the rye that’s left will be enough to wash it away because he’s fresh out of dope at the moment. As a last resort there’s always the metallic barrel of his service revolver and the taste of the cold steel coating his tongue before his finger finds the trigger to take his mind off things. Wearily, Mike sits at the kitchen table and pours himself a drink.
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