The piece of shit just kept gurgling, trying to reach for his neck to stop the overflowing blood, but couldn’t gather the strength. “Your friend pulled a gun on me, man, and I pulled one on him.” I shrugged. “Simple as that. Ain’t my fault I shoot faster, and he shoots like a blind bullfrog.”
There was a helpless groan from the mound of dying pulp. “No need in you exerting yourself like that. You’re a water sprinkler at this point. You’ve got penetrating neck trauma.” I took a small drag from my cigarette and tapped the ashes on the floor. “Pharynx damage. I bet there’s some vascular troubles, larynx disruption… maybe even trachea and esophagus hemorrhaging, too. I got you pretty good if I say so myself, but it’ll take a full exam to be sure. I should’ve been a doctor. Don’t you think so, too?”
I laughed as he lied there, desperately trying to live, grasping for his last breaths.
“If another one of you shows up, and I ’spose one, two, or three will, I’ll deal with them, too. Y’all think you can come here and get one over. Think a country boy like me is going to be ill-equipped or run scared. I ain’t running from shit. This is my turf.” I casually glanced at my watch, then reached for a tiny bottle of whiskey—one of those cheap ones from the liquor store that fill a big bourbon barrel next to a display of loosies and no-name cigars. Cracking the tin cap, I tossed it aside and chugged it down. When I was finished, he wasn’t moving anymore.
His eyes were fixed on me, and mine on him. His fingers no longer trembled and twitched, and his mouth was ajar. Spit and blood poured from between his lips, blending with the blood all around him. I sat on that mattress for at least another twenty minutes, stroking my beard and yawning before reaching for my phone and making that call.
“This is 911, how may I help you?”
“Howdy, ma’am. My name is Axel Hendrix. I got a property over here I’m fixin’ up on 1872 Banks Street. An intruder entered this home tonight, so I sent him home, too. To meet his maker. Please send the police when ya can. Thank you, kindly…”
Chapter One
“I don’t need it.” Axel snuffed out his cigarette in the black plastic ashtray, hacked, then sat back down in his brown leather recliner. Grabbing the remote control, he scrolled the channels until he found the basketball game he wanted to watch. His nostrils flared as he inhaled hard. The room smelled of smoke and freshly brewed Colombian coffee. It felt nice to settle down in the living room of the house he’d worked so hard to obtain. It was a modest sized dwelling, newly built on a large plot of land. Now, his peace had been interrupted. Mama was on the warpath.
“Axel, you call to see if they have that prescription ready right now! You’re fixin’ to send me to an early grave. I thought you’d outgrown this crap. First you had that situation with that man at your job, now this.”
“I’m not about to stand there and just take a bullet, Mama. What d’you expect me to do? Try to dodge it like I’m Neo from the Matrix?’”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“Well, it sure sounds like it.”
“I thought that Keno Wreath guy’s name was Nemo in that movie?”
“Naw. Nemo is a cartoon fish. And it’s Keanu Reeves…What other options did I have though, Mama? Got nothin’ to do with outgrowing anything. It’s about survival.”
He untied his long, dirty blond tresses from the low bun, tossing them over one shoulder. His hair came down to the bottom of his back and required more shampoo than he cared to admit.
“I wish you didn’t have this company, Axel. It’s attracting the wrong folks. I’m proud of ya, don’t get me wrong… you went ’nd got training, and started your own company, made somethin’ of yourself. But it’s a gruesome profession that wears you down. All that death. It’s not natural.”
“Mama, ain’t nothin’ more natural than births and deaths. It’s part of life.” He shrugged. “You get used to it.” He looked at the television but didn’t focus on the screen.
“You should never get used to a thing like that. Just like when your Uncle Ronnie came back from the war in Iraq. He was never the same.” He smacked his lips and closed his eyes. “If you think about it, you got the same thing going on, only you ain’t out in a foreign country, honey. It’s in your own backyard.” Here she goes being dramatic… “Things was bad enough when you were growin’ up, and now, you get calls all times of the day to go trouncing around the ’Ville, cleaning up blood and guts. That has to wear on you.”