Jim's Big Night Out by Keith Rawson

Jim’s body ached; dull and constant, begging for relief.

He’d swallowed a whole bottle of Tylenol he’d gripped from Wal-greens in the last two hours, but still his body throbbed like a carpenter’s blackened thumbnail. He stared down the street at the black kid, Albert.

Fucking little shit

Fucking little whore, his sagging jeans stuffed to over flowing with those gorgeous little vials waiting to go into Jim’s pipe. That is if Jim still had a pipe; the shit heels at the rehab center had confiscated his bubbler and two spares. They made him smash his glass beauties, grind them under his foot until the residue yellowed glass resembled nothing more than a handful of sand.

Fucking Sandi

Stupid fatty bitch Sandi, her eyes full of tears, her mouth trembling, screaming at him to think of their children:

“Think of the children, Jim!” He looked at her like she was retarded.

The kids were all in their twenties, starting families of their own, getting ready to graduate from college. The kids could give two shits how their old dad, who they only bothered talking to once or twice a year during the holidays, was spending his time and money. Only Robby—his oldest—had expressed any concern, and Jim figured the only reason Robby was so worried was because dad was smoking up the inheritance.

Fucking dead beat Robby and his get rich quick, lazy dumbass schemes.

Robby was there standing strong next to Sandi, a comforting arm draped over her narrow shoulders as the rehab orderlies dragged Jim from his own house—a house he’d bought and paid for with his sweet and blood, with his years of toil—as he spit curses at Sandi. Robby shaking his head, eyes downcast, ashamed at what his father had become.

But Jim had shown those assholes at rehab, hadn’t he?

The night orderly was such a cocky little motherfucker, with his bulging steroid crafted muscles. Thought he was so tough pushing around a sixty-six year-old man; the dip shit wasn’t expecting Jim to smack him upside the head with the bed pan and keep hitting him until his brains were leaking out of his ears.. Jim had stripped the night orderly after the beating and walked right out of the center using the big freak’s pass keys. He looked funny as hell in the orderly’s tent like white uniform, but no way the rest of the night staff would let him pass wearing his assless paper gown. But despite the ill fitting clothes and his jaundice yellow skin, he walked away without anyone batting an eye and came straight to Albert.

Fucking Albert, it was all his fault Jim’s life had turned into such a cesspool. He started moving towards the skinny boy, his grey eyes narrow and bloodshot.

Jim had met Albert was out cruising one night for a blow job. It wasn’t that he liked screwing boys or any shit like that, Jim just liked getting his dick sucked and over the years he’d discovered that boys charged far less to hoover the old meat popsicle than girls did. The way Jim looked at it, once his eyes were closed and his pants were puddled around his ankles; a goat could be tonguing his schlong for all he cared. When Jim pulled up alongside the boy, he’d thought Albert was a hustler, which he was, but it was a side business. When Jim pulled his Caddy into an alley and started to unzip, Albert stopped him and loaded a pipe. Jim remembered cringing at the sight of the boy lighting up the rock in his car; the acidic smoke filling the air. He remembered wanting to kick the boy out and then stomp in his ribs once he was laid out on the asphalt.

He almost did it.

Albert saw that Jim was getting all worked up, eased him down, and then offered to suck Jim off for free because he was making Jim so damn nervous. Albert also offered up his pipe, telling Jim it’d probably loosen him up if he tried it. Jim narrowed his eyes again, fists curling, but instead of smacking Albert’s teeth out of his head, he snatched the pipe and put it to his lips and took a huge lung full as Albert put the torch to it and the world exploded

That was two years ago and Jim kept coming back to Albert. The blow jobs became a thing of the past and all Jim wanted was a glass dick clamped between his teeth. Two years, the 401k was gone, and Jim was thinking about remortgaging the house. It would’ve all been fine if Sandi hadn’t picked up the line when Chase called about the cash advances Jim had been taking out on their platinum card. From there it became screaming, tear filled accusations and Jim’s one way trip to a rubber room. But now he was out, nobody new where he was at and all he needed now was what was stuffed in the pockets of Albert’s saggy drawers.

He stood behind Albert, his breath coming in ragged puffs. The boy turned, a wide smile stretched across his brown face.

“Mr. Jim, where ya been—?”

Jim drove his hands into Albert’s pockets, his fingertips brushing against all those beautiful little vials. He took the first punch to the ear; the second connected with his jaw; bone shatter, teeth flew. His knees hit the concrete, and three sets of hands snatch him up and dragged him into the alley behind Albert’s corner. Six fists, six feet beat the living hell out of him.

One lead pipe took care of what were left of his teeth.

Four of the hands held him as Albert unbuckled his belt.

“Open up, Mr. Jim. Time fer ya ta get a taste of what I’m packin’”

Jim stared up at Albert with glazed eyes and spat at him.

“Gimme the crack first!”

Keith Rawson is a little known pulp writer who lives in the alkaline desert
wastelands of southern Arizona with his wife and very energetic three-year-old
daughter. His stories have appeared in such publications as Plots with Guns,
Pulp Pusher, CrimeWav.com, Bad Things, Powder Burn Flash, A Twist of Noir, Beat
to a Pulp, Needle Magazine and many others. Keith is a frequent contributor to
BSCreview, (www.bscreview.com) a staff writer at Spinetingler Magazine
(www.spinetinglermag.com) and along with Cameron Ashley and Liam Jose he edits
and publishes Crimefactory magazine (www.crimefactoryzine.com) You can also find him stroking his overinflated ego at his blog, Bloody Knuckles, Callused
Fingertips (http://bloodyknucklescallusedfingertips.blogspot.com/)