After working the morning shift at Roxy’s, and then all afternoon on her family’s chicken farm, Carmen longed for liquor, nicotine and sex—not necessarily in that order.
Well, nicotine had to be first, for hers and everyone else’s sake, because at the moment she had a strong urge to smash a claw hammer through someone’s face.
Outside the last chicken house, she had stripped her smelly overalls off, grabbed the water hose—that was curled around a big heap of chicken shit speckled with white feathers—and sprayed herself down.
No time to waste. Noche Diablo was scheduled to play at the Rising Bull and she wasn’t about to miss that killer set. Thoughts of seeing the front man Bishop Lane in his gothabilly cowboy getup made Carmen tingle. Too bad he was married.
After tossing the filthy overalls into the backseat of her ‘96 Camaro, she jumped behind the wheel wearing nothing but a wet bra and panties, both crimson red. An oversized shirt that her on-and-off fuckbuddy Derrick had left in the glove box served as a temporary gown until she could change into her costume of the night.
Living in a small town, a girl had to devise ingenious schemes to keep things fun. For the past few years Carmen had played the “Guess My Costume” game with all the young—and sometimes not-so-young—men at the local nightspot. Any fortunate potential lover boy who could not only guess her costume of the evening, but also answer a few predetermined trivia questions would win...her.
Bastian, the marionette her mother handcrafted for her sixth birthday, rode shotgun. A painted red smile brightened Bastian’s otherwise gloomy face, his expression caught somewhere between a demented mime and a sad prince.
When she’d first received Bastian, she’d flung him across the room much to her mother’s chagrin. But her mother told her that Bastian would be her anjo sonhar—dream angel. Carmen kept the creepy guy around and eventually he grew on her.
Smiling, she straightened his brown robe. “Hey sweetness.”
He peered at her through sorrowful eyes, eyes circled by blackness. Rosy dots blushed his cheeks. He held a red carnation in a stained wooden hand.
Carmen stopped singing with the radio to thank her lucky stars that the Reap’s general store parking lot was vacant. She raced inside with a plastic Wal-Mart bag containing her fresh clothes.
Reap’s was the local family-owned gas station, general store, liquor store and fried food haven of Buckeye and was only a few blocks from the Bull. Without so much as a cursory glance at Paul Reap, Carmen knew his eyeballs were bulged, as they always were when she made a bat-out-of-hell dash to the bathroom wearing nothing but a long shirt. Paul would overlook the No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service sign every time.
Moments later, she exited wearing a black strapless sequin mini-dress, rimmed-glasses and a black cowboy hat plus her mainstay gold hoop earrings. Approaching Paul, she placed a six-pack of Bud down. She clicked her credit card on the countertop while Paul took his time on the register. It was an old-fashioned metal box circa nineteen-fucking-twenty-something.
“What’s it tonight?” Paul asked. “Disco diva?”
Smudges from his chubby fingers spotted his glasses. His amber, scraggly hair was coated in grease. Probably from the deep fried fish, potato skins, taquitos and whatever else they disguised as food.
“I’m Betty Boop, you idiot,” Carmen said.
Paul loomed over the counter, a heated glance up and down her body. “Betty Boop doesn’t wear a cowboy hat or glasses.”
Carmen sneered. “Tonight she does. A pack of wine, wood-tipped Black and Milds, too.”
Paul reached behind. “My shift is over in ten. Want to catch the midnight showing of Rise of The Mages?”
“Sure thing, Paul. Just let me check outside and see if there’s any pigs roosting in the trees.” She gave him a playful wink and silently admired his determination as she left the store.
Outside, Carmen shoved the beer in the backseat next to her overalls and red high heels. In the front seat, she cracked into the thin cigars as she drove from the parking lot. Her phone rang. Carmen glanced at the display. Shane.
She put the phone to her ear. “What’s up, cockbrain?”
“Suck it, bubbletits.”
She let out a clipped laugh between an unlit cigar. With the phone tucked in the crook of her neck, steering with her knee she fished a Zippo from her purse.
“Love you too.”
Part of her did love the jerk, loved him like that annoying brother who knew how to press her buttons. Shane was the only hot man in her life she didn’t want to sleep with.
“I need a favor,” Shane said.
Holy shit, the man had a super sexy voice. Too bad they were just best buds; a dead canary and a rotten squash had more chemistry. Carmen shuddered at the memory of their one and only kiss back when they were both crazed juniors at Buck High. Skid Row on the radio, pot in the air, and a hot sweaty Texas night near a riverbed.
“Lemme guess,” she said. “Amy’s having another meltdown?”
“I think she’s seriously spooked this time. Drop by and check on her.”
A sigh. “But I was just about to hit the Bull.”
“Take Amy with you. Don’t let her sit around the trailer by herself.”
“You do realize the type of guys who go to the Bull, right?” Carmen tapped the cherry into the car’s ashtray.
From the beginning, she had warned Amy to steer clear of Shane. But that was years ago and, as far as anyone knew, Shane had been true, proving Carmen and most everyone else in town wrong. But sometimes Carmen had her doubts. The man was a hopeless flirt.
“That’s why you’re not going to take your eyes off her.” A threatening edge lined Shane’s tone.
“Don’t trust her, huh?”
“I trust her. I don’t trust them. Do it and I’ll owe you big time.”
She took a drag and blew smoke from the corner of her mouth. “What do you have that I could possibly want?”
“Next time they call you into the farm, I’ll take your spot.”
Carmen scanned for police, saw none and whipped a U-turn. “Fine.”
“One more thing, slut.” Shane made obnoxious masturbatory grunts into the phone. “Eat my nuts.”
“Sure assburgular, but not before chewing ‘em like jerky and swallowing hard.”
Amy sat on the front porch stoop, head hung low. Squeezing her eyes shut and covering her ears, she pictured herself on a beach in some tropical locale.
No headless rat spirits looking for vengeance.
No rude voices in her head.
No strange lights and sounds in the woods.
Just the sound of warm waves splashing on a sunny shore. In her mind’s eye, she held a Mojito in one hand and pair of sunglasses in the other. Those sunglasses with the sparkly frames.
The sound of a distant crunching broke her reverie. Carmen’s Camaro rolled up the gravel driveway.
Amy dried her sweaty palms on her shorts and faked a smile before approaching the driver’s side.
The window lowered with a hum. A gust of frigid air and punk music greeted Amy with Carmen’s face hidden behind a cloud of smoke.
Carmen draped an arm over the open window and tipped her cowboy hat up. “Mami?”
Her dress barely concealed her well-endowed chest and shapely legs. Loop earrings—large enough to toss a baseball through—hung from her lobes. Her body was curved in all the right spots where Amy’s was flat as Uncle’s Steve’s fedora after three-hundred-pound Aunt Susan had accidently sat on it.
“Shane sent you,” Amy said.
“Shocker. I know.”
Hands on her hips, Amy frowned. “I can take care of myself.”
“Sure you can, chickie.” Sighing, Carmen gave her a sidelong look. “What’s it this time?”
“Another dead rat.”
“So, bury it. Thought you said that’s all it’d take to keep the bad mojo away?”
Amy rolled her eyes. “Not that easy. I got to bury it whole. Alamo ate the dang head.”
“Let’s blow the stink off you and hit The Bull tonight.”
Amy pulled a leaf from her hair. “I’m a mess.”
“Well, roll on some deodorant, wash your face, throw your hair in a ponytail and sprinkle powder in your panties. Good to go. Ten minutes. I’ll wait.”
Amy looked back at the dug up rat’s grave.
Sighing, Carmen shifted the car into gear. “So be it. You and the rat have fun. I’m going to the Bull.”
“I’ve got bad mojo. You don’t want to be around me right now. It might be catchy.”
“I’ll take my chances.” She waved her away. “Go get ready.”
Amy let out a breath and vanished into the trailer.
She followed Carmen’s instructions right down to the sprinkle of powder in her panties. Clean tank. Clean shorts. Pausing by Carmen’s car, she looked at her reflection in the passenger window. Was she dressed appropriately? Maybe she should fetch one of Shane’s western shirts to wear over the tank. She spun to reenter the trailer but Carmen pounded the horn.
“Okay, fine.” Amy got in the car. Carmen was hanging her sidekick doll from the rearview mirror. Bastian flashed a Joker-smile, as if to say, You’re in for a crazy night.
“I don’t know why he calls me hunny bunny,” Amy thought aloud.
“Better than what he calls me…sour dumpling.”
As Carmen shifted to drive, Amy opened the vial Abe had given her and sipped the dark liquid. The bitter taste used to make her gag, but she coped by imagining it was a drop full of vanilla-scented sunshine. Even if it smelled and tasted like liquid road kill with pulp, she’d never give it up.
Carmen turned onto FM 1085. “Do you even know what’s in that?”
“I’ve been drinking it for years with no side effects.”
“Right,” Carmen said, dragging the word out in a sarcastic whine. “Abe probably has you chugging possum piss and fish shit.”
“I bet it’s something he learned from his Wichita kinfolk.”
“It’s not the Indian side that worries me; it’s the Cajun. Those backward swamp rats got a thing for spice...and those nasty mud bugs and sausage stuffed with pig guts. Probably’d season a deep fried boot full of turds and cayenne pepper.” Carmen shuddered. “And serve it up for Sunday dinner.”
“Would you stop?”
Smoke seeped from the corner of Carmen’s mouth. “We all have our vices.”
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