A
free sample chapter(s)of my novel, Brick, published by Fithian
Press in October, 1995
The line of cars snaked slowly up the two-lane asphalt highway, barely moving
in the late summer's heat. A slightly shifting sculpture strung out in
a twisting metal line reaching from the blunt, burning hills all the way up
the border crossing with it's great, flat concrete slabs and silently bored,
armed guards. Thick, ugly men drenched with power and the salty smell of their
own sweating fear. JJ and Cherry sat mostly silent, staring straight ahead
as their car, overheating and complaining, made its way up to the windowed booth
and the officious looking ass hole with a badge. It's funny, there must
be a factory somewhere churning out thousands of border guards, all identical
in their humorless self-importance. Legions of faceless, nameless machines stuffed
into sweat stained khaki, smelling vaguely of yesterday's lunch, a fine line
of dried spittle leaking from the corners of their open, stupid mouths.
Every border guard and customs agent from Canada to Italy to Germany to right
here in Ciudad Juarez was an ugly mirror of this proud vacuousness.
This one, his brightly polished badge glinting proudly in
the Mexican sun, looked hard and disapprovingly at both the vehicle and it's
occupants. He’d seen their types before. The couple in The
Datsun beater were a textbook case of drug smugglers. Cherry sat in the
passenger seat, eyes front and feigning indifference as she concentrated on
the burning stub of her cigarette. JJ's thoughts were impenetrable behind
mirrored sunglasses, his fingers tapping a staccato rhythm on the steering wheel.
Cherry, lounging back in the front seat next to JJ with her feat resting on
the dash, smiled straight ahead into the face of the approaching guard.
A smile that went on and on until it seemed tucked in place like the steel bridge
over the Rio Grande they'd passed a few miles back. Her free hand idly
rubbing a spot on the inside of her thigh, smiling to herself as she traced
the purplish bruises and let herself arc indifference into the blinding sun.
The customs agent felt tired and impatient. He hated
this demeaning job. Hated the stupid way it made him act. Hated
the heat of Juarez and the filthy lying people who were constantly scamming
on him. After nine years on the border, he was tired. He longed
to leave this shit-stained little town and head somewhere else. A place
where there wasn't any sand and heat. No empty brown hills and dry riverbeds.
And most importantly, no hordes of scummy, stupid people all thinking that they
ere the first people in the world to try to pull a fast one over on him.
Somewhere green and fresh were the air smelled new and he could remember what
it felt like to be happy to get up in the morning. He frowned as he stepped
out oh his booth for a close look at the couple in the green Datsun.
"All right Cisco and Poncho, get out of the car and proceed
to building C," he said in a dark monotone. Using the exact same
words he had used a thousand times before.
"Which building?" Cherry said, as she pulled herself
up from her seat, making damn sure the guard got a fine view of her torn black
leggings and a hint of the darkness they tried to conceal. Her smile peeled
off and floated for a moment as she shifted and tugged herself back into place.
"I told you. Building C," he spurted without a
trace of emotion. "And leave your keys in the vehicle...and your
coat too and purse too. You won't be needing them for a while."
JJ and Cherry went into building C without further
argument. Cherry walked slowly worrying about the four ounces of mushrooms
they had stashed in the trunk. Wondering if the dogs could smell anything other
than pot and coke. JJ, on the other hand, looked as happy and calm as
a new day during high summer. If he was worried about the drugs in the
trunk, he didn't show it. That would have been out of character.
Cherry walked behind JJ and marveled at the stone quality
of the man. "He doesn't show emotion whether he fucking me or beating me.
Hell, I've never even seen him break a sweat," she told herself in wonderment.
"It must be all dried up in there. Like month old road kill crusting
to a fine patina by the side of the road. Only more dead, colder and devoid
of even the loosest thread of emotional life." But as quickly as she had
this semi-coherent thought, it was gone, and she drifted back into thinking
about what she knew best. About how badly she wanted one of the cigarettes
she'd left in her purse. And if the guard might give her one of his if
she flashed a little tit in his direction.
The pitiless duo made their way up to a counter where
a faceless man in an ill-fitting uniform stood absorbed in his papers.
He ignored them for a long minute, then, without bothering to look up, mumbled
in their direction, "Women to the left, men to the right." When
JJ and Cherry didn't immediately hop-to he repeated, still without looking up
at them, "Woman to the left. Men to the right."
JJ and Cherry moved like automatons down the bland gray corridor. Stepping
without thinking over unswept garbage. Past doors with no numbers, windows
devoid of even the faintest silkscreen of light. They moved past two members
of La Migra pulling a handcuffed and shackled Mexican national through a small
door marked only by its incredibly orange, peeling paint. They spoke a few words
of American accented Spanish to the man, who without replying, slumped a little
lower, became even smaller. An already dead, disinterested lump moving
in whichever direction was easiest.
JJ was pointed into a small featureless room; maybe
eight feet by ten, with a rickety table covered in cracked and stained leather,
its only piece of furniture. There were no windows, of course, and he was struck
dizzy by the brightness of the four white walls and the sickly smell of used
disinfectant. He sat on the edge of the table like a good little citizen
and waited.
Not for long as it turned out. The door swung open
without warning and a giant mound of woman heaped herself into the room. She
was an easy six feet and was dressed entirely in white as if in gross parody
of a real nurse from a real hospital. She didn't say a word as she pushed JJ
down onto the table and flipped him over as easily as you might a five-year-old
child. JJ could hear the sounds of rubber gloves stretching over her fat, pink
fingers, her breath coming in little grunts and wheezes.
"Drop your drawers, it's time to play doctor,” she said
while picking him up and making his compliance with the order less than voluntary.
She was then joined by and equally giant customs agent who sidle into the room
and looked annoyed when he didn't see a chair to plop his fat ass into,
"Shit, my feet are killing me. Let's get this over with
quickly, Russo," he said to the big nurse. "It's these damn
shoes the wife buys for me. Plastic crap straight out of K-mart. I keep
telling her to go downtown to one of those fancy Dan stores on Montoya Street.
But no way. No on the chicken-shit wages I bring home, she says. Not going
to happen walking this line. Chasing cheap-shit dope heads like this asshole
we got here." He motioned to JJ.
"Yeah you, asshole." acknowledging JJ's presence in the room for the
first time. "You want to tell me where you're hiding the drugs and save
me some time on my feet and yourself a whole lot of hassle? Or should I let
Russo do her thing? It's your choice, sport. We'll find it either
way. You can have it any way you like."
"I don't have any drugs on me or in my car,” said JJ.
"You're wasting your obviously precious time. You might as well fuck me
and get it over with," he said without turning his face from the wall opposite
the two blandly frowning guards.
"How ever you want it, sport. Go ahead Russo, be thorough
now. Take your time. I think I'll go down the hall and see how the fellahs are
doing with his old lady. Gotta keep an eye on Jenkins, you know.
The guy's a fucking pervert." He winked at JJ as he bustled out the door.
The click of the heavy door and the fat guards fading
laughter were the last thing JJ heard for awhile as he clenched his teeth and
shut his eyes. As if that would help. Russo moved in professionally and smoothly,
only her quickened breathing revealing the obvious pleasure she found in doing a
job well. JJ's body went rigid with pain; his hands gripped the edge of the
table until his knuckles bulged white and thin. His legs extended straight off
the sides of the table and he seemed to balance on a point just below his breastbone.
A lever across a fulcrum. A simple machine functioning in earnest. His
pain crystallized his thoughts and slowed his mind down to a heated crawl, but
it didn't stop him from circumnavigating his pain with pleasure. He enjoyed
his suffering in blissful silence, replacing the welt of Russo with the slaven
image of a blonde, five-hundred-dollar whore, until at last he couldn't stand
it any more without letting something out. He gritted his teeth and looked back
at the sweating, smiling Russo.
"Hey, Russo, honey, find any gold up there and I'll split it with
you fifty-fifty. Ohhh, that's it. Just keep doing what you're doing. Right there
right there right there."
In the next moment JJ almost passed out, seeing nothing
but white as Russo's probing fingers became a fist, ramming all the way up into
him, lifting him five inches clear of the table, her gloved hands leaving no
finger prints.
CHAPTER 2)
Three or four hundred miles roughly north, but closer than
the blink of an eye, Brick stood on the shoulder of highway 40 and scanned the
horizon to the east for any signs of life. The last car to pass by had been
a good hour and forty-five minute ago, and he was beginning to think that it
might have been the last chance for a ride for the night. It didn't matter.
He wasn't really going anywhere anyway. He kicked idly at a thick white
rock and thought for a second about picking it up, before deciding against it
and moving a bit further down the road to kick at the next rock to hold is attention.
Well, goddamn it anyhow, he thought for the ten thousandth time. Brick
is a stupid name, and don't I know it. But it was better by far, he figured,
to let people have a small chuckle at his expense than to let them in on the
heavily abbreviated hunk of shit his parents had saddled him with; Orville Walter
Butts Jr. A name too ridiculous to even begin to imagine having to carry
around, handing it out to new acquaintances like a load of dirty laundry.
He had the nickname Brick bestowed on him centuries ago while growing up in
the dusty back streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he discovered his first and
probably only great talent: Young Orville had arguable the hardest head in northeastern
Oklahoma. This fact came to everyone's attention when, during the course of
one of Orville's many fights defending the meager honor of his name, his sociopath
opponent cracked him square across the forehead with a big chunk of cinder block
masonry. Instead of knocking him out, or even killing him, the concrete
block crumbled and broke into dozens of tiny pieces. Orville just stood there
momentarily stunned, blinking stupidly and wondering what the stars were doing
out so early in the afternoon. When his opponent saw that his best effort hadn't
knocked the fight out of Orville, he ran like a crazed dog, muttering like a
born again drunk, "A brick. A fucking brick. I hit him with a fucking
brick and he just stands there looking at me like I kissed him on the forehead.
His head's as hard as a brick. A goddamn brick."
The newly christened "Brick" became instantly
famous for his solid head, never again to be called Orville. He also never had
to fight again, as rumor of his talent spread far beyond his immediate reach.
Every once in a while, some kid from another school, sometimes from as far away
as Oklahoma city, would drive into Tulsa on a Friday night, eager to take on
the semi-legendary kid. Brick, really didn't look like his name.
He wasn't very ferocious looking, barely pushing five-foot-nine and a hundred
and thirty scrawny pounds. It didn't matter so much. Most of the confrontations
played out in a pattern returned to again and again. The teenagers would drive
around Tulsa until they tracked down Brick, usually finding him at on of the
local fast food places, hanging out for no particular reason. Must another
bored-to-death Tulsa boy counting the minutes until something happened. There
would be the briefest of ritual of the male adolescent testosterone dance, with
Brick being pushed around and called out to fight. The ending was so much the
same it could have been scripted in stone. Brick would never say a word. Never
had to lift a finger to defend himself. He just picked up something solid. The
first thing he could lay his hands on. Usually a glass root beer mug or an ashtray.
Without smiling or looking in any way mean, he would stare straight into the
eyes of his tormentors and bash the ashtray as hard as he could into the his
forehead. He never blinded. Never showed an ounce of emotion.
Hell, he probably didn't have any. He would just star stupidly at his
attackers, blood running down his face and little chunks o glass sticking out
of his forehead. The challenges never stuck. Nobody wants to fight a
madman. Not even bored, half-drunk Okie Teenagers.
Brick never really had any friends his own age.
You've got to have more to offer a friendship than an ability to take large
helping of pain, even if that pain is the baggage car of legend
And beyond Brick's one trick, there didn't seem to be much else ticking. By
the time he reached the tender age of seventeen, he had virtually no friends.
And those he tricked himself into thinking were his friends were not of his
own age nor from the usual well of school and neighborhood. He spent most of
his considerable leisure time hanging around the Saddle Bag, a tiny, wood-floored
biker bar in south Tulsa. It would be a waste of time to describe the
Saddle Bag to you, because there are identical fleabag biker bars anywhere you
look in any town in this country. And Oklahoma bikers are indistinguishable
from bikers in California or Texas or New Mexico or New York. Hell, most
bikers come from Oklahoma. The long expanses of flat dirt roads and inbred
little hick towns make a perfect breeding ground for lumbering, greasy thugs
with attitudes.
For some reason, Brick fit in with the bikers. Probably
because he was more than a little bit of an outsider and tended to keep his
mouth shut. A fine trait. Kept him out of all sorts of trouble. There
was some debate during slow moments as to whether the name Brick was meant to
describe the relative thickness of his cranium or the dimness of his thoughts.
Brick didn't care. As long as he was left pretty much to his own devices,
he was happy. He was a quiet, misshapen boy and considered the bikers
to be only slightly larger versions of himself. Mutants. He knew without
thinking about it too much that that was why they accepted him, tolerated
him. What he hadn't figured was the reality that they hardly gave him
a second thought. He was little more than another piece of furniture in their
bar, one small amusement, a tiny break in the monotony of their short, violent
lives. Nobody noticed when he stopped showing up at the bar. It was like
he never was. Sometimes one of the regulars would remember, vaguely, some silent
kid that used to amuse them by busting beer mugs and ashtrays on his forehead.
But that thought would quickly be pushed out of mind by their primary preoccupation
with bikes and pussy.
Brick hitchhiked out of town just short of his eighteenth
birthday. He was headed west, a direction chosen mostly through the impetus
of boredom rather than by any degree of determination. Brick had been
to the east coast once to visit his mother's sister when he was fifteen.
He didn't like it. Didn't connect with what he perceived as the arrogance
and pretension of the other kids he met. What he took as snobbery was
in reality gross indifference. Like most people, and teenagers in particular,
Brick didn't realize how small a shadow he sometimes cast. We all figure that
the moment we leave a room, we become the main topic of withering conversation.
Not true unless we've just done or said something amazingly stupid. The
majority of people are so caught up in their own miserable lives that they don't
have time to think about anybody else's problems. Except, that is, when
they can use someone else's degradation to reinforce their own fine feeling
about themselves.
People didn't react well; in fact they hardly noticed
his one great trick. And when they did deign to notice, it was with the
recoiled horror generally reserved for Aqua Boy, at the carnival. In Brick's
open prairie of a mind, the east coast became synonymous with cold, uninvolved
people. So when Brick looked out at the world one bright seventeen-year-old
morning and saw only the wet skyline of Tulsa, he stuck his thumb out toward
the west. Like generations of rootless people before him, he headed to
what he thought would be the land of dreams, some scattered some granted. But
mostly he chose his direction for the warmer climate he thought he might find
in San Francisco or L.A. He had a lot of vague ideas about the west coast.
He hoped he might blend in better there, might find some piece of himself that
hadn't had room to exist in Oklahoma.
He left town with the clothes on his back, a torn backpack,
and maybe two hundred crumpled dollars in his pocket. Savings from his
afternoons and weekends job in the pig slaughterhouse on Bishop Street in South
Tulsa.
Brick thought about how much he would miss that job. He
loved working on the killing floor. He had started out just like everyone
else, pushing the thick pig blood into the narrow trenches in the steaming concrete
with long-handled wire brushes. Trying like Hell to stay out of the way
of the strippers with their long razor knives. Brick proved himself to be a
natural at the slaughterhouse game. Another potential Tulsa factory lifer.
He threw himself into the work, gravitating quickly to the job of bashing the
poor frightened piggies over the head with a twelve-pound ball peen hammer.
His co-workers thought his strange. The only time anyone had ever seen
him smile was long hours into his shift, when the piggies were coming down the
chute like stock car racers at the state fair. When Brick could stare into the
face of each little honey-baked ham-to-be, watching its frightened eyes cross
as he smacked it square between the eyes. It was one of the few things
he had ever done well, and now, standing in the thickening dark on this lonely
stretch of Interstate 40 just west of Tucumcari, he missed it.
He sighed again at the empty horizon. It had been almost
two hours since he'd seen any cars, and he was just about resigned to spending
another long night sleeping in a ditch by the side of the road, sharing his
one grimy blanket with whatever snakes and lizard and spiders might come along.
It didn't much matter to Brick. He kind of enjoyed the lack of company.
Preferring the dull blankness that was the fireless night. You can't always
recognize your friends, so you pretty much have to take what comes along.
By morning he'd have given names to all the critters that scurried in the dust
around him, amusing them by busting rocks and dirt clods against the flat of
his head. The lizards and spiders would scamper away at first, then return transfixed
by this strange alien. Brick would feel like a god.
But the sun hadn't completely dropped from the sky,
so Brick kept walking. Ever to the west. Content to feel the weight
of one foot following the other, the desert spreading out before him like a
parched promised land, frozen in place in its hour of antiquity.
------
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This page created by Rupert Pupkin, Canyon,
CA 1998