"The Shotgun Rule" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huston Charlie)
From Fighting With Chain
Their eyes adjust to the darkness inside the house.
Paul leans his bike against the wall.
– Fucking A.
The livingroom is littered with the mutilated carcasses of several dozen bikes.
Hector picks up the gear assembly from a ten speed.
– It’s a fucking chop shop.
Paul kicks a milk crate full of pedals.
– Bike thieves suck.
Andy bends and lifts his own bike from where Timo dumped it on the floor.
– That’s a movie.
They all look at him.
Paul starts picking through the pedals.
– What the fuck are you talking about?
He’s inspecting his bike, searching for outward signs that Timo has ridden it. Marks he’ll have to avoid looking at for fear that they’ll remind him of what a dildo he was, not locking up his bike.
George lifts the edge of a blue plastic tarp to look at whatever is tented beneath.
– They show movies in Humanities? Fuck, why didn’t we take that class?
Paul chucks a rusty pedal at Andy’s foot.
– Because we’re not super mutant brains like your mutant brother.
Andy ignores the pedal, clutching both the brake levers on his handlebars, making sure the action has stayed springy in the two hours the bike was gone.
– It’s not that brainy of a class. Just reading and talking and stuff. Writing a few papers.
George shakes his head.
– And watching movies. Only movie we ever got to see was the car crash movies in Driver’s Ed.
Hector is squatting next to a snaked pile of chains. He finds a broken one and unclasps the master link, leaving himself with two lengths, neither the perfect eighteen inches he prefers.
He chooses the shorter of the two and drops the other.
– It is a good movie?
George stares at him.
– It’s a bunch of people who got creamed on the highway.
– No, the movie Andy’s talking about, the bicycle thing.
Andy remembers the movie, the way it made him feel.
– Yeah, it’s, you know, it’s sad, depressing. But it’s a good story. Black and white. It’s in Italian. You have to read the subtitles.
Paul has picked out two matching chrome pedals. He drops them back in the crate.
– Black and white movies give me a migraine.
Hector whips his piece of chain back and forth a couple times. It’s a little rusty. He wraps it around his hand, over the scratches and thin white scars on the backs of his fingers that come from fighting with chain. He flexes his encased fist.
He walks over to Paul.
– Everything gives you headaches.
– Fuck you, they’re not headaches, they’re migraines.
Hector punches the wall, cracking the plaster and leaving a series of deep parallel tracks.
– Whatever, your head’s always hurtin’ and you’re always whinin’ about it.
– You ever had one you’d know the fuckin’ diff.
He turns and jabs Hector’s forehead with the tip of his index finger.
– And I don’t whine, fag.
Hector slaps the finger away and takes a boxing stance.
– Whiner.
Paul slaps at his head.
– Fuck you, puss.
They spar for a minute, Hector jabbing, Paul letting him hit his shoulders and chest and reaching out to deliver open hand slaps to the side of Hector’s head.
Hector goes up on his tiptoes.
– Fuck you, mama’s boy.
– Hey.
They look as George whips the tarp away and reveals the final product of the Arroyos’ chop shop.
Resting on top of several flattened cardboard boxes are two custom BMXers built around Mongoose frames. The bikes are flipped upside down, balanced on their handlebars and seats, the brake cables unattached but the other hardware in place.
Hector squats next to the electric blue one and runs a finger over the graffiti lettering that runs down the crotchbar.
– Oh, man, this is trick.
Andy looks over his shoulder.
– What’s it say?
– Chupacabre. It’s like a Mexican demon.
Paul picks up a box cutter from the floor and slips the blade in and out.
– Fuckin’ bike thieves still suck no matter how good they put shit back together.
George takes a look at the yellow bike with the chopped forks.
He points.
– The blue flames are rad.
Paul clicks the box cutter all the way open.
– We should trash that shit.
Andy looks at his own piece of shit bike and then at the two works of art.
– What?
– We should trash ’em. Teach the Arroyos’ a fuckin’ lesson for stealin’ bikes.
He takes a step toward the BMX chopper, box cutter in his hand.
Andy gets in front of him.
– No, man, leave ’em alone.
Paul points the cutter at Andy’s bike.
– Fuck do you care? They would have done that shit to your bike, chopped it up and used it for someone else. ’Cept your bike is so lame they probably only could of used like the sprocket or a couple spokes. They stole your bike, man. Let’s do something about it. Don’t puss out.
– I’m not pussing, I just. You know, we should just get out anyway, they’re gonna be back.
– Fuck that. They stole your bike, we’re not going anywhere until we do something about it.
Paul’s voice is rising, his face turning red.
Andy sees him wince.
– You OK?
Paul closes his eyes.
He breathes. He turns his back to his friends, lets his mouth drop open, relaxes the muscles in his neck.
He dreams.
He’s dreaming about Chargers and GTOs and Mustangs. He’s dreaming about driving. He’s dreaming about the four of them piled into a black ’72 fastback with red detailed louvers over the sloped rear window and a fat yellow racing stripe down the middle of the hood. Dreaming about laying rubber out the exit of the bowling alley. Dreaming about speeding after a European sports car full of fucking jocks and cutting it off and piling out the doors and fucking them up because they can’t just drive away after they scream shit at them on the sidewalk. About nailing chicks in the backseat.
He’s dreaming about walking out the front door of his house and getting in a badass set of wheels and driving it away and deciding never to go home and no one ever being able to catch him.
Andy touches Paul’s back.
– You OK?
Paul turns and slaps his hand away.
– Don’t touch me, puss, I’m fucking fine.
He drops the cutter.
– So leave the bikes alone, whatever, but I’m robbing these motherfuckers blind.
And he sets off down the hall toward the bedrooms.
Andy looks at George and Hector, points at the door.
– C’mon, guys, we got to get out of here.
George and Hector look at one another.
And they follow Paul.
– Fine. Whatever. I’m getting out of here.
Andy goes to the window and looks out. The girls are back across the street, playing on the sidewalk. He touches his bike, imagines the havoc if the Arroyos come home with them still in the house. Imagines the feeling if something were to go down without him being there, and then he goes down the hall.
He watches the doorways as they toss Fernando’s and Ramon’s rooms and sees Hector find the fistfuls of stolen gold and silver chains hidden in the body of a donkey pi#241;ata. Sees Paul sweeping Fernando’s dresser top clear of combs and hairnets and bandanas and a small shrine of the Madonna, sees him finding the rolls of singles and fives and tens stuffed to the back of the underwear drawer. He goes back into the hall and opens a door and finds the closet Timo’s been dumping his stuff in and picks through it, taking a single photograph and walking away and pulling open another door and looking into the garage.
– Hey, guys!
They all come out into the hall.
George moves toward the bikes.
– They back?
Andy is still looking in the garage.
– What is this shit?
George comes over.
– Oh, fuck.
Andy looks at him.
– What is it?
George looks over his shoulder at Hector and Paul.
– What’d you think?
Paul takes a look.
– Fuck me.
Hector moves Andy aside so he can see.
– What? Oh fuck.
They stare at trash bags spilling hundreds of empty cold and allergy medicine boxes, bottles, and foil packets; at gallon jugs of iodine tincture lined against the wall; heaps of matchboxes with the strike surface cut off; various cans and bottles of acetone, Red Devil Lye, methanol, muriatic acid, and Coleman’s camp fuel. A pingpong table in the middle of the garage is covered with an assortment of PVC fittings, flasks, Pyrex bowls, and pie tins. Baking sheets line a catering table against the wall, and two blow dryers are plugged into sockets next to a toaster oven with a shattered glass front. The row of tiny windows in the garage door are taped over with the same lowrider and skin magazine posters that cover the walls.
Paul takes a step forward.
– Fuck. Me.
George hooks the back of his shirt.
– C’mon, man, this shit can blow up.
Andy squeezes past Hector.
– What is it?
Paul jerks free of George and looks at the baking sheets, all of them covered in a coarse powder.
– Looks like the Great Brain doesn’t know it all. It’s a crank lab, man.
– What?
George grabs his brother’s shoulder.
– Stay out of there.
Andy shrugs him off.
– Fuck you.
He goes to Paul, points at the powder on the sheet.
– That it?
Paul shakes his head.
– No, man, that’s like a stage you go through. Jeff told me about it.
Hector steps into the garage, toes the plastic jugs next to the wall.
– How’s he know?
– Working for Security Eye. He was guarding that house out in Springtown for an insurance company, the one that burned down. That was a crank lab that blew up. He talked to a detective or something. Guy told him.
George steps into the garage.
– See, the shit blows up, that’s what happened to Richard Pryor.
– That was freebase, fuckwad.
– Same thing.
– No it’s not. Freebase is smoking coke. Crank is crystal meth.
– Fuck you.
– Fuck you. I know.
– I don’t give a fuck what it is, let’s get out.
Hector whips his new chain at one of the lowrider pinups, ripping it through the middle and leaving a gash on the dirty drywall behind it.
– Arroyos are dealin’ crank. Bikes must be a fucking hobby.
Paul rummages in a cardboard box. Dirty kitchen utensils, tangles of rubber bands, newsprint coupons for Mountain Mike’s Pizza, more bits and pieces of bicycles and PVC.
– Maybe. Might just be making it. Selling to a dealer.
George is looking at the homemade chemistry set cobbled together on the table.
– Jesus, they’re making a lot.
Andy opens a paint smeared Kelvinator refrigerator in the corner.
– Yeah, they are.
Paul is fingering a rusty Buck knife with a broken tip, he looks up.
– What?
Andy points at the contents of the fridge.
– They’re making a lot.
The top shelf of the fridge is loaded with six large Ziploc storage bags, each stuffed full with yellow crystals.
Hector, about to slash a
– Shit. Holy shit.
Paul drops the Buck knife and comes over. He picks up one of the bags.
– Man. Oh, man. Fucking A.
Andy picks up a bag.
– How much is this?
George grabs the bag and puts it back in the fridge.
– It’s a fucking lot. C’mon, let’s go.
Paul opens his bag.
– I don’t know, man. A quarter gram is like this much.
He holds his thumb and index finger about an inch apart.
– That costs twenty.
He hefts the bag.
– This is like, man, gotta be a pound. How many grams in a pound?
Andy blinks once while his brain arranges the numbers and they appear on the inside of his eyelids. He reads them off.
– Four hundred fifty three and a half. Well, a little more than a half. Like point five nine and change.
– Four hundred fifty three, point five nine and change times four?
– Eighteen hundred fourteen, point three six.
Paul licks his lips.
– And that times twenty?
– Thirty six thousand two hundred eighty seven, point two.
Paul squeezes the bag, it rustles, and the crystals crunch.
– That’s a car, man. That’s the most bitchin’ car ever. Fuck, man, that’s four decent cars.
George takes the big bag from Paul and hands it to Andy.
– Put everything back like it was, man. This is not a car. It’s fucking crank and you have to sell it to get the money to buy the car and you don’t know how to sell it and you get busted and end up in Santa Rita playing bitch to some fuckstick like Ramon.
– Fuck you, man. What’s easier than selling drugs? Your aunt deals pills. She does OK.
Andy finishes arranging the bags and steps back.
– That’s it.
George looks.
– You sure? It looks different.
– Maybe move that one on the end to the right a little.
George pushes the bags around. Hector’s found a can of WD40 and is using it to loosen up his chain.
Andy looks at his brother’s back, nudges Paul with his elbow.
Paul gives him a shove.
– Knock it off, fag.
Andy rolls his eyes, nudges him again.
Paul raises a hand to give him a slap.
– What did I just fucking?
He sees the bag of crank Andy is holding behind his back.
George closes the fridge and turns.
– That shit’s more trouble than it’s worth. I told you that story about that guy.
He has told them the story. They’ve all heard the story from last summer when he was making pill runs for aunt Amy.
 |
He was dropping a vial of ludes with a guy who needed them to come down. A crankhead who’d been binging for like a week. George went in the guy’s apartment and the guy wouldn’t let him go.
George was still freaked hours later when he told them the story.
And he’s been down on crank ever since.
 |
Paul holds up a hand.
– OK, man, whatever.
Through the garage door they hear a car pull into the driveway, the sound of Fernando screaming at his younger brothers, then the two of them screaming back at him as “Beat It” blares from the Impala’s stereo.
Paul makes a face.
– Fucking Michael Jackson.
By the time the Arroyos are coming in the front door the guys have run out the back with their bikes, thrown them over the rear neighbor’s fence, and gone over after them. Their pockets crammed with the money, jewelry, a bag of loose joints from Timo’s stash, a pearl handled switchblade, a box of Trojans, and a few copies of
By the time the Arroyos have stopped screaming at each other and Fernando has broken Timo’s nose for being a smartass and squared off with Ramon in a no holds barred fistfight that has Timo hiding behind the legless couch, by the time the fight is over and Timo has gone for a doobie to kill the pain of his throbbing nose and found everything trashed and told his brothers and they’ve run to the garage and found that a half kilo of crank is missing and Ramon has gone for his little chrome.22 automatic, by that time the guys have cleared the neighbor’s yard, ridden to the Senior Taco in the P amp;X shopping center, and ordered sixteen tacos with fries and milkshakes.
 |
They know being a rat sucks, but the Arroyos are gonna know who robbed them and if they don’t do something those crazy fuckers will. Paul’s ready to do it. It was his idea they rob the place, if someone has to rat the Arroyos, it’s him.
But as they’re talking and waiting for their food, Andy gets up and makes the call. Not that he still wants revenge for the stolen bike he’s leaned against the phone booth, but he does want to make the call himself. He just can’t help it. Finding the school picture of Alexandra when he was digging through Timo’s shit was too much; the little photo clipped from a large sheet of them;
So he dials 0 and asks for the cops and anonymously reports a disturbance at 1367 North P Street. Some kind of fight or something.
The cops know that address. Small town heat that they are, they like nothing more than to bust the chops of the local spic hooligans. So they send a couple cars right over there.
Paul has just grabbed the last taco from the pile in the middle of the table and peeled off the grease stained orange paper and crunched into the taco, biting it in half, when a few blocks away the cops arrive at the Arroyos’ just in time to see Ramon stepping out the front door, tucking the bright silver.22 into his waistband.
They don’t bother telling him to drop it.
| © 2025 Библиотека RealLib.org (support [a t] reallib.org) |