Saturn in Retrograde 2:11

Eleven

The cop had not stopped.

“God damn that was close. Man, that was really fucking scary.” The joint had been lifted back up, tensely, and toked a few more times. “Okay, now…we have shit to do. Keith, my man…this has been good.

Gary slapped his hand. Keith’s hand was an immensely gnarled, knotted piece of flesh that was, also, heavily tattooed. He rolled the window down slowly, letting the pot smoke drift out.

People nearby would smell the heavy funk of it, and know what had just taken place. But not the cop, thought Gary, and that is good too. He found the word good was a hundred miles high and a football field long in his mind. He began to giggle. He was stoned.

“Okay, Gare, let’s do it. I’ll get the matts if you just worry about the dishes. We’ll bust the bitch down in no time.”

They got out of the car, slammed the doors, and started to walk across the parking lot. Around them, standing on balconies overlooking the lot, richer than thou girls and their paramours yelled a few loud, half-hearted inanities and whoops to the drunken still-dark morning. Music--- loud, pumping, strummed, blasted, and or otherwise---seemed to be coming in from all different directions. The sidewalks were still teeming with floating university fodder.

“It ain’t church time yet, is it Gare? Hour of the wolf.”

Gary shot his head back suddenly and did a werewolf howl. Laughter and Keith Decker followed him into the side door of Delcino’s. Back to the kitchen that still had to be cleaned.

Suddenly, Gary’s buzz disappeared completely. There was something wrong. He could just feel it in the air. Out in the bar, a dull roar of voices still partied, still drank, still enjoyed being young. The bartender, Sykes, was popular, quick, and good looking. The waitresses had all either split, or were out in the crowd at a table, working off the stress of the evening. Nothing was wrong. This was the way it had been ever since he started here, and he had been working here for four years.

Yet, something was wrong. Or, was going to be. He could feel his chest start to heave.

“Y-you all right, buddy?” Keith Decker was busily folding a towel around his hand, getting ready to clean the grill.

“Yeah…I, just, all of a sudden…”

He grabbed his chest.

“Dude…it’s just the bud man. It’s stronger than what I said. Shit just hit you hard. Why don’t you sit down for a minute?”

Keith actually looked very perturbed for a minute, as if to say, don’t you dare fucking freak out on me and have to go to the hospital or some shit, man.

“No, no, I’ll be fine. C’mon. We gotta get this shit done.” Gary started to pick up dishes and load them in the washer.

He moved as quickly, under the circumstances, as it was possible for him to do. Still, he couldn’t shake the menacing vibe of evil that had steeled over him. He felt like he might keel over in fright.

***

Sabrina, Tanner, Milt, and Patricia all went like some sort of mad posse out the front door, down the alley, and all of sudden realized they were actually headed in the wrong direction.

They had parked across the street.

“W-what the fuck are we doing? We didn‘t park in the back lot.”

Sabrina pivoted like a top and the rest stumblingly followed. Before they could take another step, they were met by two men who had just walked into Beowulf’s, seen that whoever they were supposed to meet was, in fact, not there, and left.

The two were very large, had clean-shaven heads, and were wearing barely readable tee-shirts covered in gothic lettering. One of them had been the man that had sucker-punched Tanner the night before.

“Well, well, well…it’s, what’s your name?”

The two men were standing directly in front of them. They seemed to take a position of barring any passing.

“Hey man, we’re just trying to go home.”

“If I wanted any shit from you, I’d squeeze your head.”

The man that had sucker-punched Tanner at the Saturn in Retrograde party the night before strolled up to them casually.

They must have been a pretty sight. His friend hovered to the side.

He figured they could finish up Tanner right in front of his stupid friends, and probably make off with the hot girl he was with. Then they could take turns fucking her all morning. She would like that.

“Hey honey, why are you with these jerks? Why don’t you try a real man?”

“C’mon guys we just want to go home…”

Suddenly, before Tanner even realized what had happened,

blood flew up, spattering them. The bully looked down at a long, beautiful hand holding a smoking gun to his belly. He suddenly yelled, keeled over, and nearly fell in a crouched, fetal position.

There was blood oozing out of his teeth. He looked with rabid eyes up at the little group. Stunned, almost angrier than anything, he kept saying, “You bitch…you fucking bitch…you shot me. You shot me. I can’t believe you fucking shot me.”

Sabrina looked over at his friend. The man completely lost nerve, jittered in place for a moment, as if his legs didn’t know what to do with themselves, and then said, “I-I’m sorry, I’m really fucking sorry man.”

He booked.

The bully was still crouched low in front of them, on one knee. Suddenly, he looked at them, his face imploring. “C-could you please call an ambulance? Please. Could you call an ambulance?”

Sabrina spit, “Call one yourself.”

He fell flat. He was bleeding profusely. The four of them stood there a moment. He was dying. The shock was so numbing, it was anti-climactic.

Tanner suddenly realized something.

There had been no report. No sound from the gun.

It had been a completely silent shooting.

“What the fuck did you do, Sabrina?”

Tanner said it slowly as if he couldn’t quite put it all together.

“It’s easy…she just killed a man.”

Pat Ireland suddenly crumpled against Milt’s chest, breathlessly weeping.

“Ohmigod, Milt…why’d she do that? I can’t believe it she just killed him in cold blood oh my god Milt how could anyone…”

And on and on.

“It was easy for her Pat. She’s a monster. We’re her prisoners. Isn’t that right, Tanner? Haven’t you realize that yet? No. You were too stoned to take tonight seriously.”

Sabrina stepped away from them and turned suddenly saying, “We have got to get the fuck out of here, folks. Now. Before somebody comes out here and sees this shit.”

Suddenly, something exploded in Tanner’s head. An idea. A vision. He knew what to do now. It was as clear as day.

In one quick move, he lowered his body, and like a charging bull drove his tough little skull directly into Sabrina’s gut. He was surprised at how thin, how spent she seemed. How easy it was to just bowl her over.

She fell back, sprawled across the alley, and Tanner jumped on top of her. He suddenly had the gun out of her hand. He held it out on the end of arms that felt as heavy as lead bars. Suddenly, everything began to move at a blur. Milt and Pat wanted to go inside Beowulf’s and get help. Sabrina rose shakily to her feet, and looked at Tanner as if to say, and this is how you repay me? For all the fun we’ve had tonight? Bastard.

Tanner would have none of it. Now, for the first time tonight, he had the gun. He was in charge. There was a dead man laying in the alley in front of them, and any minute the place was going to be swarming with drunks, cops, curious people. He wasn’t going down like that.

He commandeered them all out of the alley, and across the street as quickly as their legs could carry them. Then, making sure to keep the gun poised upon her right cheek, he told Sabrina to start driving.

“Tanner…” She said, looking at him, half-smiling.

“Tanner, do you even know how to fire the motherfucker?”

“My dad was in the army. He use to take me to the rifle range all the time. Do you want to find out if I can the hard way?”

Pat Ireland was still sobbing madly, and it became even louder, more grotesque with the car doors shut.

Milt suddenly reached over in drunken fury and slapped her. Hard. Violently.

Tanner told him to fucking stop.

Sabrina smiled.

Tanner put the tip of the gun to her temple.

The car screeched away in a squeal of burning rubber.

Minutes later, two men exited the bar, turned down the alley and discovered the man that Sabrina had shot.

He was laying on his stomach.

In the darkness, it was impossible for two drunks to see a pool of slick blood under a man.

“Ha! He fucking passed out here. Boy, is he gonna be in for a surprise when he wakes up tomorrow.”

They both continued walking, past the back parking lot, through the fast-decaying neighborhoods that had once known opulence.

On the way back to their mutual home, they talked about Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Saturn in Retrograde by Tom Baker