Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
17 - CONCRETE BLOCKS “Hey, lover, we gonna be late.” I was a million miles away, orbiting a distant sun in my dreams. I fall back into a hotel room at the top of the building in Omaha, and this gorgeous creature has a hand wrapped around my dick. She’s wearing this flowery dress that’s tied up around her neck and leaves her back bare, and it drops to below her knees. She ain’t wearing a bra from the way she’s moving (doesn’t need one), and I’m making mental bets on underpants. Either way wouldn’t surprise me. “Come on, get out of bed. We gotta go.” Janey turns away, and I grab her wrist. “You look good. Good enough to eat.” I move to pick her up and plant her crotch on my face, but she slips away out of reach, laughing. “Later, old man. Look what I got you.” She waves at the table, and it’s a real surprise: clothes. A blue button-down shirt, pleated khaki pants, and oxfords on the floor. Street clothes, not work clothes. “What the hell?” “You like?” “Yeah, I guess.” I can’t remember the last time I wore clothes I hadn’t bought myself or were paid for by the taxpayers. Nobody shops for Tucci. I stand to reach for them, but she stops me with a hand. “No, do it right. Shower and shave.” “Riley ain’t going to be fooled by this.” “Do it for me.”
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Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
I contemplate her dimples as I sigh inside, giving in to the inevitable. “Back in a minute.” It ain’t until the foam is on my face that I see she’s got me doing things the way she wants, and my hand stops as it reaches for the razor. Everything used to be on my time and my schedule. Sleep when I’m sleepy, eat when I’m hungry, fight when I have to, and fuck when I’m horny (not all the time but close). Today I’m doing fancy hotels, wearing good clothes, and even shaving. What’s next? A house in the suburbs with a garden and a couple of rugrats? How did your old life work out for you? Shut up, me. Okay, I’ll shave this time, but next time… You’ll do what she wants because you’re pussywhipped. I ain’t gonna do jack until I get some answers I towel off and go back to the room naked, hoping she’ll change her mind, but she’s still dressed and is pointing at a chair in the middle of the room. “Sit. Need to check your stitches.” Right. She pulls the Band-Aid off my head, humming, and I trail a hand up a bare leg and, yep, a thong. Her ass is bare. I start rubbing and stroking it because we both like it. She ignores my hand. “Nothing’s infected. If you promise not to bleed on your new clothes, you don’t need a big Band-Aid. A small one. You heal quick.” I pull her between my legs, me sitting and her standing, both of my hands on her ass, a finger stroking the thong between her cheeks. “Mutant power.” She looks down at my groin. “You got two mutant powers.”
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Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
“One works better than the other. Wanna see?” “Later. Get dressed.” I do it without putting up too much of a battle, though I’d rather lick her thong. Even the underwear. My fingers fumble on buttons and zippers in unusual places, for me, anyway. I’m liking this new clothes thing. Like I’m putting on a new person, which is good, since I’m not proud of the old person. We look at me in the mirror, and I’m a mature, business-casual middle manager. “Fits perfect. How’d you guess?” Janey points to the stack of old clothes in the corner where I threw them. “Your sizes are on them.” “Right.” A second look at us, and there’s the problem. She’s beautiful and so young in her dress. Me, I stop fooling myself with that “new person” thing. I am what I am, a guy close to his forties who works out and has lived a hard life. The latest scar poking out from under the Band-Aid adds five years. “I look like your father.” She giggles and kisses me on the cheek. “I like older men.” “Yeah.” An arm around her waist, and she gets a long kiss. “Thanks for all this.” “Put on your shoes, and you get your big surprise.” “You?” “You’ll see.” The socks go halfway up my calves, followed by slip-on oxfords. I can’t remember the last time I wore shoes without shoelaces, if ever. Her voice from behind. “Close your eyes, and put out your hands.” I smell it before I open my eyes: expensive leather. It’s a coat cut from the finest cows and treated for all kinds of weather. I stand and slip it on, and it’s perfect, from the
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Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
sleeves to where it stops below my waist. It’s the jacket I’ve wanted forever, even when I was wearing the cheap knockoffs in Detroit. It is one of the most perfect presents I’ve received, so what do I do? Fuck up, of course. “Where did you get the money for this?” “Tucci…” “Come on, this cost a couple of nickels.” Her face turns red at my voice. “Listen, asshole, I’m trying to say thank you for saving my life. Twice, remember?” “There was the screwing...” “In case you hadn’t noticed, dumbass”—she’s on fire because I pushed a hidden button—“I am with you because I want to be. Not because of the dick between your legs and not because you’re a sex machine. I can get laid anywhere, anytime. I could have stayed in Oskaloosa. Susie asked me to, but I stayed with you because I thought you needed me, and you’re pulling this shit on me. I spent real time, real energy, and real money on you. What the hell did I do wrong?” I am a master at fighting with women, and I’m at my best when I’m in the wrong and backed into a corner. They have a hundred weak spots, and I can hit a dozen in one sentence. I’m ready to open up all over her ass, when the tiny voice wakes up. How did your old life work out for you? Two-time inmate. Three divorces. Ten thousand faceless fucks. Not so well. My voice is almost as small as the one in my head. “You did nothing wrong. Nothing.”
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Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
It takes the wind out of her sails, and she talks in a normal voice. “You’re right.” “Thank you.” “And?” “Sorry.” She hops up, wraps her arms around my neck, and kisses me hard. “Better.” “Can I ask again without pissing you off? How’d you pay for all this?” She gives me the “Tucci is a Neanderthal” look. “I took cash from your wallet and maxed out my credit cards.” She sees the look on my face. “I should ask next time I take money from you, right?” I don’t want another fight. “It’s okay.” “I’ll ask.” I slap her ass. “I said it’s okay.” She changes her voice to a little girl. “Daddy, can I have some money to buy clothes and sex toys?” “You don’t hav...what?” She giggles and points to a bag under the table. “Toys.” “What kind?” “Oh, my favorite vibrator and some other stuff.” This stumps me because women never wanted to use toys with me. I mean, my dick is plenty talented (or so I’ve heard hundreds of times), and women are too excited or too tired to find alternate means of pleasure. The look on my face must have been funny, because Janey giggles. “Never used them?”
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Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
“Well, no.” She takes a firm grip on my very hard dick. “We’ll play later. It’ll be fun. We gotta go.” She releases me, gets her purse and stuff, and opens the door before I can stop her. “Aww.” “Come on, little boy. Behave, and I’ll buy you an ice cream cone.” My blood is on fire, and I’m feeling her up all the way through the hotel’s underground garage, and she’s pretending to fight me off, getting in a few gropes herself along the way. Anyone looking below my belt sees what I have in mind, and if they are looking, fuck ’em. Two people’s opinions matter to me, and none of them are you. “Keys.” Janey tosses them underhand. “Tank’s full.” “Thanks.” “One more surprise.” We climb in, and I’ve no idea what she’s pointing at in the back. “New mattresses.” “Wow again.” “Yeah, they were on sale, and the guys were real helpful.” I tilt my head back and laugh. “You flashed them.” “Maybe.” “Awesome. Thanks.” We’re in a dark corner of the garage. “Come on. Let’s test them out.” She stops me with a hand on my arm as I start to climb over the bench seat. “Tucci…”
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Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
“Yeah?” “No.” Okay, Janey’s turning down sleazy sex. What’s next, politicians making sense? “What?” “Can I say ‘no’?” “Yeah, if you mean it.” She shrinks away a little. “You’re mad.” “No.” I hear the frustration in my voice, so I dial it down. “No, I’m disappointed. There’s a difference. We’re like fucking bunnies. Is something wrong?” She shrugs. “When they took the old mattresses out, we could tell you’ve had a few women back there. I mean, they were stained, and they smelled something bad.” A lot more women than a few. “So?” “I don’t want to be like them, not in your mind. I want it to be different with us. Be special. Maybe it’s weird, but that’s how I feel. You understand?” Women got to make something difficult out of something simple, but no means no. I have never forced a woman to do what she doesn’t want to do. “Yeah, I get it.” She squeezes my arm. “We cool?” In answer, I put her in my lap and get her a long, hot, and patented Tucci tonsil cleansing, with my hands running through her hair and below the neckline. I drop her back on her side of the van, start the engine, and pull out of the garage. She waves her hands at her face. “I guess we’re good. You gonna keep feeling me up and kissing me?” “Think of it as two hours of public foreplay.”
Copyright © 2016 Connor Mays. Please note further copyright information on the last page.
Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
“Asshole.” “No argument. Which way do I turn?” Next thing I learn about Janey Robinson: she can’t navigate worth shit. Getting to the hotel was easy because it was a block from the freeway, but we get lost three times on the way to the mall, with the phone six inches from her face. We almost end up at the Air Force base south of town, but we get turned around by a friendly native and make it to where we were supposed to be with minutes to spare. As malls go, it’s big and bright from the outside, with lots of stores, and I can pretty much buy anything here for Janey with the hidden cash in the trunks. As it is, there’s two bundles in my pocket, one for petty cash and one for Riley if he needs it, which he usually does. Inside, there’s the usual crowd of old folks and teenagers walking around and not buying anything. The security dudes on their little hand scooters tower over us, and they’re keeping an eye on the punks. The kids are circling around, thinking of ways of getting in trouble, like I used to when I was their age twenty years ago. We find the food court, and there’s a few tables here and there with diners, but none are my son. I point to a table in the corner with a full view of the place. We’ll see him when he walks in. Janey tries to make conversation. “What does he look like?” “No idea. Been years. He never visited. Turned nineteen last year and got out of his grandparents’ house not too long after. Sam told me the last time he visited me in prison.” “You got a picture?”
Copyright © 2016 Connor Mays. Please note further copyright information on the last page.
Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
“In the van.” I go on to say he reminded me of his mom: blond, blue eyes, tall, thin, kind of nervous. It’s like my Wop genes skipped him by. The thing is he doesn’t look like Sammy, I say. She gives me a look, and it’s not hard to guess what she’s thinking. “Yeah, I know, but he calls me ‘Dad,’ so I tried. It was hard for both of us with me being me.” There’s nothing to say except for her to reach over and put her hand in mine. My thumb rubs her palm again, and it’s all good. We’re watching the crowd, and the guys are checking her out as they walk by, giving her the long side-eye. The punks do it, too, and three of them take a seat a few tables over, not even pretending to look away. They’re typical “all balls, no brains” kids with their colors and swag and cocked caps and cell phones. I could break them in half for what they’re thinking, but I’ll let them live. Janey’s leaving with me. My phone pings: I can’t meet you. We’ll try again later. Goodbye. I slide the phone to Janey, and she nods. “You want to go find him?” “Nah.” I’m not surprised, but it doesn’t mean I’m not hurt, because I am. I want to punch something hard. Better tell her. “I’m pissed, Janey. Beyond pissed.” “Why do you think?” She’s shrinking me like the therapist back in prison, but I asked for it. “I wanted to do right by him tonight, be his father. He slammed the door shut before I got a chance.” She nods. “Could be something else.” “What?” “It’ll piss you off more.” “Maybe not.”
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Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
“Okay, here goes.” She takes a deep breath. “A young man out on his own, not sure what to do with his life, and the old man drops in after a few years, wanting something. Stop me if this sounds familiar.” She was right. I’m more pissed. “You’re saying I’m my dad.” “No, but there’s things in common here, and maybe your subconscious is picking up on them.” My mouth runs away with itself. “You don’t know shit.” “Prove me wrong.” I’m holding on to my temper, but I’m close to cutting loose. I never, ever touched Riley in anger. How do you tell someone in the middle of an Omaha food mall of the abandonment, the shit sandwiches, the beatings, everything fucked up in my life, and how it all began with my father? She reads me right. “Yeah, you’re pissed. I’m going to the can. Take a minute to cool off, okay?” She’s gone before I can say anything. I try to step back and take an objective look, because Janey’s more right than wrong. There are a lot of things in common between my son and me growing up: a distant and absent father, relatives who didn’t care, and no direction in life other than to get laid. Well, that last part is me. No one’s ever said if Riley had a serious relationship or not. The hair at the base of my neck stands up. Some people say your sixth sense is a combination of signals from your other five senses. I dunno if it is, but there’s this danger signal built into me for when something’s wrong. It’s like I can tell there’s a cop nearby because my sixth sense sees
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Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
people are driving the speed limit before my eyes figure it out. The warning signal ain’t perfect, but I’ve learned to trust it. It takes two seconds to figure out what’s going on. The punks at the table are gone. They were there before Janey went to the bathroom, but they’re not there when I turn in my chair. Maybe it’s nothing, but let’s pretend it’s something to be safe. I run to the bathrooms, and they’re at the end of a long grey hall, the one between stores they use for deliveries. A few of the lights far overhead are working, and there are no cameras. It’s deserted. I knock on the door to the women’s bathroom and hear nothing, so I peek inside. Empty. A loud noise from the men’s room farther down the hall, like a yelp, before a mouth is covered. Heard it plenty of times myself. I take a heartbeat to cuss myself because I got nothing in the way of weapons and no time to get any. No choice: be quick, be quiet, be clean, be fatal, and be gone. I don’t fuck around, letting my training take over. I hit the bathroom door with my shoulder at full speed, and it slams into a human body driven into the wall. One of the punks. Janey’s falling to the floor, and she tries to roll away, giving me room to operate. My momentum helps me turn and grab the second punk by the side of his head and drive his face into my rising knee, feeling the crunch of his nose giving way. I spin and throw him into the third kid, his buddy, who has a hand in his pocket. Could be a gun.
Copyright © 2016 Connor Mays. Please note further copyright information on the last page.
Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
I slam a palm into this kid’s throat, hard enough to stun his vocal cords but not break them. It hurts like hell, and he takes his hand out of his pocket to clutch his throat. I grab his shirt, and his face gets slammed into the sink. Two down, but the first punk behind the door is on his feet, and I hear the knife open behind me. I turn to step back, but Janey’s in the way on the floor. I don’t fall on her, but I can’t move to avoid the blade, either. He slices my jacket with a long, hard sweep of his hand. He tags me, too, but my fantastic jacket takes the worst of it. The world goes red, and there’s no coming back. “YOU ASSHOLE! This is brand fucking new!” He takes another swipe at me, but I’m ready this time, catching his arm. I break his wrist, and the knife drops into my other hand. I pull his body towards me before I slam him against the wall, his breath whooshing out. I visualize driving the blade upward through his neck into his brain. He looks in my eyes, and the blood drains from his face. “NO!” Janey’s on her feet, and she’s got my arm. “Don’t kill him. Don’t!” My arm twitches at the word “kill” because it’s what I want to do. The side of her face is crimson where’s she’s been slapped, and she’s scared, for me or them, makes no difference. They hurt her and, oh, I want to end them so bad. Twist their necks and hear them pop like chicken bones. Give me five more seconds alone, Janey, and there will be three corpses in here. From the first time in Houston to the last time in Chicago, the one constant is I was made to kill.
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Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
She puts a hand on mine, the one with the knife, and pushes it down. “I’m okay. Not today. Not here. Please.” The other hand is stroking my face, my body, like a lion tamer calming her carnivore. It works. She keeps talking as the heartbeat in my ears fades away and the fury disappears from my eyes, and I look at the punks. They get it. They’re seconds from being dead, and there’s nothing to save them except their intended victim. It’s pathetic how they want to yell for help when they were King Shit two minutes ago. “Wallets,” I growl, and they scramble to throw them at me. As I put them in the pockets of my torn coat, I lie to them. “I’m a Special Forces veteran, and I have killed more ragheads with my bare hands than you can count.” I pat the pockets with their wallets. “I know who you are and where you live, and I’ll be watching. If you fuck up one time, I will find you. You hurt another girl, and I will feed you your sliced-and-diced balls. You can’t hide. You can’t run. I will always be in your rearview mirror. You believe me?” They nod like their heads are on a stick, and I have a thought. “Which one of you slapped my girl?” They don’t answer, terrified, so I look at Janey. She looks at the owner of the knife. Before he can move or talk, I spin him around and slam his face in the wall. He screams as I drive his knife into his right asscheek, careful not to let him bleed on me. By the time his buddies get him help, my fingerprints will be gone from the handle. Justice. Janey and I are in the hallway before he hits the ground, my hand under her arm. We turn away from the mall and fast-trot through the other doors, the exit to the outside world. The cool night air helps clear my brain.
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Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
“Slow down,” I tell her. “We’re two people walking back to our car. Nothing’s wrong with the world.” Janey slows, not knowing I’m lying to her. My side’s stinging where the kid got me, and I’m using my free arm to hold the pieces of my coat together. She’s still freaked out, so she hasn’t picked up on my wound yet, but she does when I hand her the keys to van. “You drive.” “What’s wrong? Oh, sweet Jesus, there’s blood on your pants. He got you.” “Not bad, but enough. Susie said you were going to be stitching me up someday.” I’m trying to joke, but she’s horrified. “We’re going to the hospital.” I jerk her to me hard and put my face two inches from hers. “Stop it. Get a grip. We find a drug store, and you get what we need. This ain’t bad.” “Tucci…” She stops talking when I put my hand under her chin, turn her face, and kiss her on the red cheek. “Sorry I was slow. Getting old.” She pulls me down, and we kiss longer. “Young enough.” The drug store isn’t far. While she’s inside, I’m in the captain’s chair in the back, stripping to the waist. The coat and shirt are trash, and the pants will be in a few minutes. The three wallets contain no surprises: licenses, cash, one has a picture of a cute girl. I add their stuff to the stack of bloody clothes in the middle of the floor, including the IDs, keeping the cash. Nothing wrong with folding money.
Copyright © 2016 Connor Mays. Please note further copyright information on the last page.
Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
Janey opens the door, and she sucks in her breath as she sees my bloodied side. I wave her off and take the bag from her. If I’ve done this once, I’ve done it twenty times. Antiseptic to clean and sterilize the skin under and around the long diagonal cut on the left side of my ribs. It’s not deep. Looks a lot worse than it is. Once everything is wiped clean, I hold the sides together while Janey uses the liquid bandage to seal things up. We work together to cover it with adhesive pads and a bandage to keep the dirt out. I dry swallow aspirin and Advil to take the edge off. When we’re done, we toss everything in one of the garbage bags she bought, including the punks’ wallets and my bloodied clothes and leather coat. While I dig “fresh” clothes out of a footlocker, Janey drives us up and down random streets until we find my old friend, the big Dumpster, and we bury the evidence. The drive to the hotel is quiet. We’re almost there when she asks, “Why’d you dump their licenses?” “Playing it safe. Nothing can be traced back to us. They’ll lie if anyone asks how they got hurt, say they were jumped by another gang or something. Teenage male pride. No way they’ll say it was one old man.” She rolls her eyes at me but lets it go. “You think they’ll behave?” “Gave them a lot of reasons to. We won’t be here to find out.” “We’re leaving?” “In the morning.” We arrive at the hotel, and she’s quiet as she parks the van underground as we ride the elevator to our floor. When we’re in the room, I stop her before she turns on a light, wrap my arms around her waist, lift her, and kiss her hard. I ignore the pain in my
Copyright © 2016 Connor Mays. Please note further copyright information on the last page.
Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
side, but the one inside my chest ain’t so easy to overlook. I don’t tell her how scared I was there back in the bathroom, seeing her on the floor. I don’t tell her I won’t let it happen again. Maybe I should have. When we stop, she puts her forehead on my shoulder. “Thank you. Again.” “Janey…” “Yeah, Tucci?” “Can we go to bed? I’ve had a long day.” She laughs as I set her down, and we take each other’s clothes off and crawl under the covers naked. We spoon again, this time with her body wrapped around me, and I fall asleep with her lips kissing me between the shoulder blades.
Copyright © 2016 Connor Mays. Please note further copyright information on the last page.
Love and Death on I-80 West by Connor Mays
This serial and book are solely owned by its creator, Connor Mays (a pseudonym). Copyright © 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This creation of literary art was drafted and edited via public wi-fi networks. The owners, operators, and employees of these networks have no ownership claim in any form of this work or the residuals, if any. For more information and permission requests, the author may be contacted via email only: connormaysbooks at gmail dot com. Website: http://www.connormaysbooks.com
Copyright © 2016 Connor Mays. Please note further copyright information on the last page.
