Malobueno

(Jimmy and Renkle on the Road)

by m maldonado

It was all a misunderstanding.

Oh, yeah, they're gonna believe that.

It wasn't me! I had nothing to do with it.

They know it was you. It's always you.

I've never done anything wrong in my life!

You have a record. They can check it.

I've never been to this place! Where is it?

You were born there. It's on your birth certificate.

No, sir, these are the clothes I've worn all day.

You just finished changing them.

How could I have done that? I've never seen one of those before!

You've got one in your pocket. They'll find it. They'll figure it out from there.

You can't do this to me! I have my rights!

You have no rights. You aren't entitled to anything in this world, let alone rights.

I was asleep when it happened.

You don't sleep.

They don't know that.

Oh, but they'll find out. When you start rattling the bars of your cell in the dead of night, clamoring for something to do, for food, for water, or maybe sex--you like sex, don't you?--the idea will be planted in their minds. When you repeat it the next day, it will grow, rising out of the depths of their subconscious. The following day's rerun will allow the idea to sprout leaves; then buds, then a furthering of the roots, and then, when they've grown dreadfully suspicious, they'll start questioning you, and you'll have no answers to give them, and they'll start to wonder: does this man sleep?

And the answer will be no. And then the shit hits the fan.

No. They'll never figure it out.

They will if they catch you.

Then they won't catch me.

How can you guarantee that?

I can't. I just have to take the chance.

You're a fool.

Yeah, but aren't we all?

Damn, it's cold.

I suppose it's to be expected, really. It is mid-January, after all. That's when the snow falls around here. It's funny, if you think about it long enough. You don't get any of the white shit during October, or November, or December (not even on Christmas, what a rip). It's only after New Year's Eve that you get the first flake, spiraling down from the sky, destined to earmark the beginning of the real cold.

Sad, to think that it melts on contact with the ground.

I shifted my feet, the weight of my body making the snow beneath me groan and croak. Around me the snow--probably the beginning of a nice blizzard--whipped to and fro in violent waves. My eyes were in a state of constant blinking against the snow, and my face was surely red from exposure. I couldn't feel my fingers, but I knew the sets on either of my hands were still gripping the straps of my bags.

I took a long, noisy sniff and wished I could dab at my nose. There was a trail of slimy mucus working its way down my upper lip, which was so cold at that point that the heat of the snot seemed to work some life back into it. I would wipe at it with my sleeve, but the jacket I was wearing was real leather, and I didn't want to muck it up with my excrement.

Besides, Renkle had given it to me. I owed it to 'im to keep it clean.

At the thought of Renkle, I peered to my left.

Bare road.

Frowning, I peered to my right.

Bare road and a nice, crushed turtle. I could see its eyes bugging and its tongue sticking out of the side of its mouth. I looked away after a bit and returned to frowning.

He was late. Normally I wouldn't complain, because he's late out of default, but today I was itching to get to it. Today was the day. Today, things would come to their conclusion. The circle would become complete. I would know the meaning of true completeness.

Bwa ha ha. I'm so full of shit.

Damn it was cold.

"Fuck this, Renkle," I muttered. "Get your ass here now."

And suddenly the sound of tires turning on gravel replaced the earlier cold stillness and a battered red truck, probably a Dodge in a past life, but unidentifiable now, rolled into place on the road in front of me. I gazed, amused, at the way the paint had faded to pinkish-red; there were cracks in the windshield that had splintered and spider-webbed the glass. The plastic flooring of the truckbed was cracked, shards of it rattling around even as the truck idled, rumbling like a restrained monster.

The door thunked as it unlatched, and thunked further as it hinged open, slow, so slow, until it came to a stop, and I could see inside the truck.

And there was Renkle. His head turned in my direction and made the smallest of nods. An acknowledgement of presence, nothing more. Renkle had never been one for great, gushing greetings.

Grinning, I tossed both of my bags into the back (wincing as the ice that had gathered around my arms broke and fell away) and climbed into the cab. I reached out--out, out, out--and grabbed the door's inside handle. With a few titanic tugs I managed to pull it shut. It thunked. Heavily. I wasn't surprised.

Outside, the snow began to plaster itself across the windshield. Black rubber wipers flipped up in a semicircular arc, sweeping it away. I watched it build up on the hood, piling upon itself, a vision of cyclical oppression and damnation, a most unpleasant aspect present in many systems.

I blinked and shook my head. I was thinking in philosophical terms again. I get all drowsy and disorientated when I do that. To help tear myself away from the idyllic thoughts suddenly flooding my head, I tapped the dashboard with my fingers in a rhythmic pattern. Middle, index, pointer, pinky, thumb thumb middle index thumb. Repetitive, but simple, and quite distracting in my case. I really got into it sometimes.

"Are we going or aren't we?" I said, not looking at Renkle, my eyes focused on my fingers. Thumb thumb pointer index middle thumb pointer pointer pointer. "Time's a wastin', and wastin' isn't somethin' we're fond of, right?"

"Rrnn." Renkle grabbed the stickshift, put the truck in first, and we were off.

Renkle. Ah, Renkle. He's the best of the best of the worst of them all. You couldn't find a better partner. Trustworthy, faithful, and honest. Like a boyscout, only...not.

He's also the single strangest individual I have ever met. Just look at his truck, for God's sake. Here I am, sitting on a seat made of fine red velvet, leaning on a mahogany armrest, my feet resting on a dashboard made of the same wood, stained cherry and brightly polished. Two speakers sit behind the driver and passenger seats, composed of carved ruby and caged in gold wire. Connected to these speakers was the radio, which sat embedded in the dashboard between me and Renkle. It was a massive thing of baleful red planes and gleaming gold knobs and switches, stretching from the steering wheel to the glovebox and just barely leaving room enough for either. All around me, signs of significant wealth.

Sometimes it makes me wonder. Other times, I just don't give a fuck. It's Renkle's truck. He can make it look how he wants. None of my business.

I glanced at Renkle, then at the speedometer. Ninety-five. Was that it? Damn, we weren't going to get anywhere at that rate!

"Eh, Renkle..." I murmured. "Shouldn't we be..."

"In time, Chimmeh," he said, and I found myself startled--as always--by the thickness of his voice. If cooling tar had a voice, and if it talked out of the side of its mouth in a raspy stage whisper, Renkle is what it would sound like. "In time. Ah feel like drivin' a bit, y'know?" He turned his head to me and grinned, his undersized mouth stretching impossibly so that his smile literally stretched from ear to ear--not that I could see his ears under his mop of lanky, slimy black hair. His tiny eyes peered at me, twinkling and chuckling with their sparkle. "Y'know?"

I swallowed. "Yeah, I know. Keep on truckin', and all that."

The grin widened--I don't know how; it would've made more sense if the top of his head had just flopped off entirely--and Renkle opened his mouth--both sides--and let out a great guffaw. He tossed his head back and just laughed and laughed, his arms jerking up and down in their sockets. His mouth was open so widely I could see inside.

Looking in there, I wished I hadn't; the skin on the inside was black (in contrast to the normal green of his flesh), the teeth bright yellow, and his tongue a writhing red snake dripping with blood.

I looked away from his horribly distended jaws and instead focused on his head--or, more accurately, the hat resting there. It was a top hat that was more tall than wide, a tubular thing much like the cap of the Cat in the Hat. It was battered and stained various shades of brown; I had no idea what its original color might've been. There was a fold in the middle that made the upper half tilt forward slightly. The brim wasn't quite short and not quite wide, and it didn't quite stay the same for any length of time. You'd look at it at and go "Hey, that's pretty wide." Then you'd look later and it'd be three inches smaller. Parts of Renkle did that a lot. Sometimes he'd wave at you with an arm almost as big as himself, or, like now, his jaws would grow huge and his teeth sharp. I don't understand why it happens, but when it does, I tend to be very, very quiet and unobtrusive. I have no desire to become a victim of those massive mandibles or those equally huge hands. The thumb on one of those suckers can get about as thick as my neck.

I scooted back into my corner of the truck and waited for Renkle to stop laughing while the truck continued to slide sluggishly across the road at a mere ninety-five miles per hour.

Five minutes later, he stopped.

"Oh, Chimmeh, you's so funneh." He gave another cackle. "Heh heh. Truckin'." Cackle. "Ah love it."

"Yeah. Great." I swallowed the tumorous lump that had grown in my throat and chuckled shakily. "What're we doing today?"

"To-night, Chimmeh." He gestured with one hand (oversized) at the road before us. "To-night."

I gazed, nonplussed, at the bright noontime steel-gray sky. "Not yet, it isn't."

Renkle eyed the sun, trapped behind the clouds. "Oh?"

"Yes."

"Then it is time."

And he pulled the stickshift all the way back, passing first and second and third and park and neutral and resting on Progress. Once there, the stick made a clicking sound, spun clockwise, then counterclockwise, and began to glow red. The number 8 appeared on the windshield in luminescent blood, then faded away.

Renkle floored it.

The world outside began to flash by in bits and clips, little snippets of reality, roadside signs and workers in orange vests, minivans and semis and the occasional three-car wreck. Anything that was in our way we just passed through; we were ectoplasm at this point. It all flew by, or, really, we flew by, shooting past in a ghostly truck at eight hundred miles an hour and eighty minutes a second.

Which is why, eight seconds later, we were in Illinois at nighttime. Renkle put the truck back in first and we trotted along down the streets of some elitist neighborhood, full of big houses with double doors and stained glass windows in their parlors. And a lot of Dobermans. That unnerved me.

"That's better," I said with a shaky grin. "Don't you just love Progress?"

Renkle peered at me from underneath the brim of his hat.

"I'll take that as a yes." I twiddled my thumbs a bit, then cracked my knuckles, one at a time. "So..."

Renkle continued to peer at me, his hands busily turning the wheel this way and that.

"So..." I repeated, shifting uncomfortably under his gaze. "So, what's up for to-night?"

Renkle grinned--but this time with only one side of his mouth. The other side remained downturned. He continued to half-grin at me while one of his hands moved from the wheel to the radio. He rapped on the wood three times. A sudden whirring sound filled the cab of the truck, and then a sheet of yellowed paper dropped into my lap. Aha, what service!

I read the sheet, scowling at this line and that line; little details I didn't like. Things like "neighborhood has lots of dogs" or "is awake at night 90% of the time" and "has good hearing". Those kinds of things bother me. They make my job harder. Not that I don't appreciate a good challenge. It's just that the risk of being caught increases with these kinds of variables.

I have a deep dislike of the idea of being caught. It scares the shit out of me. I'm not like Renkle, not yet; I don't have a truck that can zip me from one end of the country to the other in seconds. I don't have the ability to distort parts of my body to grotesquely massive proportions. I'm not deeply mysterious and disturbing. I'm just Little Jimmy Human, perfectly mortal and capable of only the slightest of strange abilities. I'm learning, but in the end it probably won't be enough to save me from Earthly authorities. I can't dodge bullets or crush planets or anything. Well, okay, actually I can dodge bullets. I'm just kinda clumsy at it.

But anyway...yeah. I'm just a little worried for myself. My job isn't the most pleasant, or the safest, or the cleanest, but it's what I love to do the most, and I figure that makes up for all the rest. Besides, I'm performing what could possibly be the greatest service to mankind ever. It's such a wonderful service that I wake up in the morning, think about it, and immediately feel perfectly energized and alive, ready to take on the day. The Regular Joe's deskjob at the local software conglomerate can't even compare.

Sure, there's drawbacks. Every job has them. Personally, I don't get insurance for anything, not even dental, and I don't have a 401K, or even a flex plan. No Worker's Comp. Hell, I don't even get paid at all. All I get in return is the satisfaction of a job well done.

And boy, is it done well, I must say. Pardon me for bragging, but the truth be told. Lies aren't my thing, unless I'm applying them to myself. With those lies I can live with; if the truth be told to myself, then my whole world would fall apart. I don't much like that idea, but it's the truth. Ignore the paradox, good citizens; to see it is to see the face of Satan.

I gave the sheet one more look-over, then folded it oh-so-carefully into a square, pressed the folds tight, and dropped it in my jacket pocket, where it joined about half a dozen similar squares. I empty that pocket into a shoebox every Sunday. I've got about six dozen little squares in there. My little collection.

I cleared my throat.

Renkle kept on driving.

I cleared it again, a little louder.

Renkle turned a corner.

I cleared it again, a lot louder.

"An' wha' the fuck deh yeh want, eh, Chimmeh?" Renkle muttered.

"Are we there yet?" I wisecracked, grinning lopsidedly.

He just looked at me.

I swallowed. "Well, are we?" I added, the grin dropping from my face, settling it back into equilibrium. Renkle was no longer in the mood for jokes.

"Yes." He closed his tiny eyes and took a big, drawn-out sniff through his long, hooked nose. "Ah can smell 'im from 'ere. 'E's a meateh one, lemmah tell yeh. Big an' meateh an' sweateh." He fixed me with a look and another of those half-grins. "Like a pig, y'know whattah mean?"

I grinned back, my unease dissipating. "Yeah, I know whatcha mean. Easy pickin's, right?"

"Mebbeh. Mebbeh not. Depends on 'ow yeh play yer cards, Chimmeh." He pointed with an obscenely long finger at something outside my window. "Yeh get in dere an' outta dere in ten minutes, then it's easeh pickin's. Otherwise, yeh got nothin'. Yeh ain't shit if yeh can't make it." His grin widened--only on one side. "Go on, make yer mark, if'n yeh can." And he settled his hand back on the wheel, and turned away.

I gazed at him for a few seconds. I knew, on some instinctual level, that I'd just been asked to prove myself, not merely for Renkle, or myself, but for everyone involved in our Grand Effort.

Today was a day of testing.

"I'm being observed, ain't I?"

Renkle said nothing, did nothing. He just sat there. When Renkle does that, it means yeah, sure, you got me, but I sure as hell ain't fessin' up to it. He's a bit proud at times, but you gotta love 'im.

"Well, Renkle, you can tell 'em for me that they can just sit there and watch me, and see if I don't fuckin' blow 'em away."

Renkle remained silent.

I snorted, shoved the door open, and stepped outside.

Damn, it's cold. Who would've guessed it would be just as cold in Illinois as it was in Colorado? Not I!

I zipped up my jacket. No sense having it flapping around while I did my work. Makes too much noise, and tends to get in the way at times. It's nice to have when you're in a bind, though. Very nice. Oh-so-dark and oh-so-impenetrable, my jacket. I don't know what it's made of, but I'd love to get a pair of slacks and shoes to go with it. Then I wouldn't have to worry about anything anymore. 'Cept my face, though I wouldn't cover that up, no way no how.

Jacket zipped, I turned to face my objective.

Before me lay a house. It looked rather new, but built in the Victorian style, all arches and pillars and overdrawn finesse. It was golden-yellow with lime-green trim; I hadn't encountered anything more ghastly in my life.

Until I got to the massive double doors, where I discovered the twin stained-glass windows. Displayed in them was a field of green grass under a bright blue sky full of fluffy cumulous clouds. Coming out of the biggest of these airborne pillows was a massive golden dollar sign, glowing with holy light. Above this heavenly image were the words

The Almighty Dollar

in great green Olde English lettering.

I cocked my head to the side and stared. Then my hands dipped into my jacket pockets, and then right back out again, as if there'd been a snake in each and I'd been bitten.

In my hands were two long, curved knives, their blades serrated on one side, the jagged teeth gleaming in the soft, hazy winter sky-light. One had a handle of cherry-stained wood, the other of shining gold. Gifts from Renkle, of course. I spun them along the axis of one finger, then stabbed both of the windows.

There was no sound of shattering glass, not even a light cracking. Just the barest of scraping shraenks as the blades parted the glass like pig fat. Grinning, I proceeded to slit the glass down, and, withdrawing and replunging, to the right, cutting out clean rectangles of colored glass. These I tossed onto the lawn (not nearly as green as the trim or the words in the glass), where they landed with soft whumpfs and broke into uneven thirds, throwing up flakes of ice off the grass.

I repocketed my knives and snaked my arms into the newly-made holes. Groping, I found the levers for each of the doors and turned them, the locks automatically snapping away as I did so. The sound of it, echoing loudly in the house, didn't startle me in the slightest.

This was not so for the house's occupant. From somewhere deep inside I could hear a chair sliding across a tile floor, the clatter of silverware on fine china, the shuffle of clothing and the huffing, gasping breath of the obese. These were followed up by a soft thunk; I guessed this to be the occupant opening a drawer. The next sound--a gentle, slow scraping--might've been that same occupant picking up a gun. I was pulling at straws, but I was confident in my assertions.

If I was wrong, I didn't have long till I found out. The occupant was approaching--was actually just entering the room, his feet thudding heavily on the shiny wooden floor.

I disappeared from sight.

The Occupant (hereto bestowed a capital O) stepped into the room. His eyes scrambled to take in every inch and every detail, searching for the intruder--me. With myself in absence, he gravitated to the doors, which he gazed at with red fury.

(I must add that, while he looked on with rage, I could clearly see a kind of pathetic sadness in him. It was a look that spoke of material melancholy, the kind of depression a little boy sinks into when his all-new super-duper favorite toy is irreparably broken.)

"What the FUCK is this bull-shit?" the Occupant roared, his mouth growing to take up the entire lower half of his face as he spoke. "What the FUCK?" Long strings of saliva stretched from his upper teeth to the lower. They wobbled violently whenever he bellowed. "Dammit dammit dammit!" He shuffled like a tank out the door, whipping his head from side to side, eyes hunting again. I watched him, grinning like a mad bastard, from my humble hiding place. He was wearing a size Huge business suit, gray, with a ridiculously wide tie the color of piss. I had to stifle my giggles whenever I looked at that yellow monstrosity, wedged underneath his many chins, over which scraggly beard ran (it was so scraggly that it looked as though he'd fallen victim of radiation, and the hair had begun to drop away in clumps). The hair on the top of his head was just like the hair on his chins and remainder of a neck: scraggly, clumpy, pathetic. His face was a sickly yellow broken only by the blood-red patches on his cheeks and forehead. He looked like a clown. Jubbs the Jolly Jaundice Juggler! See him toss ham and steak into the air and then INTO, HIS, MOUTH! Parents, get your kids' permission before you GO, SEE, HIM!

The Occupant (Jubbs from here on, because the name stuck like old peanut butter) thunder-waddled back inside. Now I could see that he had brought a gun, a nice new Magnum, shiny with chrome. Slicker 'n shit. A foine poice o' weap'n'ry cha got thar, Jubbs. Cost cha a proitty penny, eh? Bet chor richa 'an shit, aintcha?

No mind. Guns were not a problem.

To prove this, I shoved one of my knives into Jubbs' foot. He let out an almighty yell, and I took that as my cue to send my other knife shooting straight up, through the floor, into the free air, and right into the fleshy part of his gun hand--not that any part of it wasn't fleshy. Man had the thickest, lardiest hands I'd ever seen.

While Jubbs was moaning and screaming and wetting himself, I was crawling out from underneath the floorboards, where I'd been hiding with the spiders and the termites. I managed to escape that dark recess with some manner of finesse and grace--not that Jubbs noticed. He was too busy gaping stupidly at his new piercings to see me.

I watched his mouth flap open and closed, his bugging eyes fixed on the knives and the blood streaming from the new wounds. So much like a fish out of water.

"Hey, asshole."

His shoulders and elbows jerked to meet one another, his whole upper body twitching and his eyes swiveling in their sockets to stare mindlessly at me. Somehow his jaw dropped even lower. It was so low that I almost convinced myself that he'd managed to unhinge his jaw, and his lower mandibles were slowly sliding out of his skull. I watched and waited for them to drop to the floor, and was disappointed.

So I half-bent over, drew my knives, spun them once more (for good luck), sheathed them, and kicked Jubbs right in the stomach.

He went flying backwards, crashing into the double doors and breaking them off at the hinges, which went up in sprays of splinters. They parted in the air for him, spinning on a point at either side of the doorframe before falling with heavy clatters and musical tinkling. Jubbs himself rolled in the air, doing aerial cartwheels the likes of which Barnum, Bailey, and all the clowns under the bigtop could never compete with. I could hear him screaming as he twirled over his porch. I listened right up until he impacted with the pavement, at which point he made a squelching sound and his limbs flailed like a doll's.

And he laid still. Yet he still breathed. I could see it, puffing in the air above his head.

Persistent little bastard.

I trotted out there--with a bit of haste, because the clock was ticking--and kneeled next to Jubbs. He continued to stare at me while he drew ragged inhalations through his shuddering, bleeding mouth.

I brought out the knives again, and it began.

"I cast away your tongue, for all the lies you have told...I cast away your eyes, for all the evil you have seen and done nothing about...I cast away your hearing, for all the times you have played deaf to the pleas of the needy...I defile your hands, for all the wrongs they have committed...I remove your feet, because they have walked the path of the unrepentant...I extract your stomach for all your gluttony…I castrate you in the name of those violated under your hand...your brain I scramble, for it is the operator of all your vileness...

"I cut this sham of a heart out of your chest and dice it, to insure that it will never, ever fuel the desires of one as corrupt as you, Senator. May you forever rot on this Earth, in body and in spirit. I pray your suffering never ends."

With that done, I wiped my blades off with Jubbs' expensive silk handkerchief, returned them to their sheathes, and walked back to the truck.

On the way there, I glanced at the lawn, and stopped short. Lying there, in the carefully cut grass, was one of the horrendous stained-glass squares. I raised my foot and let it drop down to crack the glass--

--I stopped, and looked again. It now read:

he might Do

I snorted. "Well, of course I might," I muttered, and returned to the truck.

"Good chob, Chimmy."

"Thaaaaank you," I drawled, grinning. "I think the Administration will take me in without trouble."

"Absoluteleh."

I gave Renkle a little half-bow. "And thank you again, for teaching me all you know...or, at least, all that you'll tell me." I glanced at his hands, which were huge again. "I still wanna know how you do that."

Renkle whole-grinned. "Maybeh when ye'r older."

I laughed, and we drove on into the night.

You weren't caught.

I told you I wouldn't let 'em.

But what about next time?

Next time will be no different.

Oh, really?

Yeah. A kill's a kill, in the name of justice.

Is it really justice that you serve?

Truly truly.

Just what are you, Jimmy Nolastname?

I am the man with the plan. I've got all the answers, right here. I know right from wrong. I know who's been naughty and who's been nice. I check my list thrice, because if I fuck up, it's not just my record that gets screwed up, it's my soul. I'm the one you see in the shadows when you've done something wrong. I am he of the knives.

I am the Butcher.

~end