The Mess on Rip Rap Road

        She says I scare her when I look at her, that it’s like an animal staring through my eyes. And she’s right, though she’s an animal like the rest of us, too. At least I’m honest. At least I wear it on the outside, in my expression and in the way I move. She puts makeup on it and sells it like a lady. But anyways, she says that I frighten her, that when she catches me staring it’s like something hunting her, like animal eyes, primitive and wild. It’s raining and I’m standing in a phone booth, listening to her not pick up on the other side.

        I hear someone tapping on the glass, and I turn around to glare but it’s some kid. A white kid. I thought only blacks lived on this street, and at first I feel sorry for him but that’s racist I guess so I decide to be annoyed. If it was a black kid I’d be annoyed. I point to my car pulled over on the curb, its emergency lights painting the streets in bursts of orange, and then I get my change back from the phone so I can call her again. She’s not picking up because that’s how she is when we’ve been fighting. I’m not sure which fight’s upsetting her, but I know it’s something. It always is. My new job, maybe. It rings four times and I cradle it before the answering machine picks up. I only have so much change. I wonder how fast the battery will drain with my emergency light flashing like that. I think about the pound of dope burning a hole in the hidden pocket of my jacket.

        Outside the rain moves in heavy sheets like waves. The drainage here is pretty bad, and where the curb is falling apart the water threatens to swallow the sidewalks. This place is a mess. All these houses are condemned, or should be, ancient vinyl siding and crumbling yellow brick. Every three or four mailboxes there’s a church that isn’t really a church so much as it’s a tax break or a crack factory. I’m at the 7-11 on the corner, where most of these people probably do their grocery shopping. I hear more tapping, and I twist to see the little boy still standing there, getting soaked. This time I slide the glass open.

        “Car,” I say, pointing again to my silver Saturn. “Broken.”

        I try not to sound too rude or too polite. I want him to go back to his house, to not be standing in the rain.

        He nods his head, but instead of leaving begins to pace back and forth in the parking lot. She would kill me if she knew I was letting this kid catch his death. I curse and take my change from the phone. Then I slide the glass open and start over toward the 7-11.

        “It’s all yours,” I tell him as I go by. He’s wearing those sneakers that light up red every time he steps. I wonder if it’s dangerous to be wearing electronics while you’re standing in an inch of water. I wonder if anybody will try to steal something from my car while I’m inside the convenience store.

        I have a gun tucked between my jockeys and my blue jeans, in the small of my back. Not that I’d ever use it. Bismark told me to buy it for protection, and so far all it’s caused me is grief. She found it the other day and raised hell. She asked me what I needed a gun for. I asked her why she was going through my jeans. She’s always picking up after me. I wish she wouldn’t do that. She’s not my wife or my mother. I can wash my own goddamn clothes.

        The black lady behind the counter in the 7-11 doesn’t bother to look up from her magazine. It has a picture of some famous rapper or other on the cover, a man with tattoos all over his chest, dark ink on even darker skin. I ask if she has a phone, and she looks over her magazine and gestures toward the phone booth outside. She has pretty eyes. Hazel, I guess. Maybe they’re contacts. I’m nervous, because of the gun, but also because I feel like I’m being watched. The lady’s still reading her magazine, but God, I want to get out of here. I feel like I should buy something. I buy some candy, one of those rolls of hard tablets that make you pucker before they sweeten. Then I’m in the parking lot. Then I’m at the booth again.

        The kid inside cradles the phone but doesn’t look like he’s saying anything. He’s got golden-brown hair, a lot like mine, I guess, but straighter. We’re both soaked, though, and I imagine my hair looks just like his, melted around my face like plastic in the microwave. He’s wearing a wife beater and red basketball shorts. When he sees me standing there again, he hangs up the phone.

        The glass folds open and he looks at me. He’s got stones. He asks me for change.

        “Sorry kid,” I say. The change I have is all I’ve got. Almost as an afterthought, I offer him some candy. I don’t even like candy. I don’t know why I bought it. I had to buy something. He shakes his head and closes the door again. I go to wait in my car.

        When I get inside I try to check my watch, but it’s all fogged up. On the inside, I notice, because wiping it with my thumb doesn’t do any good. It must be past midnight. Closer to one, maybe. Bismark is going to kill me. The other day she was getting on me about the dishwasher. It’s broken, like everything else I own, it seems like.

        “You need to get your ass off the couch,” she said. She was

on me because I lost my job at the shipyard. I told her I had an interview at Virginia Welders. Then she tells me not to look at her like that. Sometimes I think that maybe it’s not the way I look at her, but my eyes themselves. My grandmother told me once that I had eyes like a rat’s. Little rat eyes. I remember, I was stealing money out of her purse at the time. I don’t see anything like that when I look in the mirror, though. I see two silver nickels glaring back at me. Or dogs’ eyes, maybe, like when you catch them in your backyard at nighttime with a flashlight.

        After that fight, I went over to Bismark’s house, and he made me an offer. I told him about my money problems and he told me about what he’s been doing on the side. He told me to buy a gun, and he’d take care of the rest. Now he’s going to kill me, because he’ll think I bailed with his dope when I’m really broken down four miles away on Rip Rap Road. Everything I own is falling apart. I hope this gun works.

        I’m wondering if the pistol could misfire, if I could shoot myself in the ass when the kid steps out of the phone booth and into the downpour. I get out of the Saturn and make my way across the parking lot again. He watches me as I move.

        “Something wrong, kid,” I ask, mostly because he’s making me uncomfortable. He shakes his head and shifts his weight from foot to foot, the red lights dancing in his shoes.

        “You got any change,” he asks again.

        I tell him no and pat my back to make sure the pistol has stayed in place. I’m nervous about things like that. Whenever I wear it, I’m afraid it will fall, or slip down my pants leg.

        “Where do you live,” I ask, thinking of her, what she would say. Instead of answering he raises one, bare arm and points toward the bridge. He could be pointing to the house across the way or to North Carolina, for all I know. I ask him why doesn’t he go home.

        “It’s pouring,” I say. “Ain’t it kinda late for you to be out, anyway?”

        “I’m waiting,” he answers. He doesn’t say for what.

        I decide to call Bismark.

        “I’m broke down,” I say when he picks up the phone. It sounds like a circus on the other side. It’s his sister’s birthday.

        “You better be. First impressions, man. You’re pissing all the wrong people off.”

        The rain is pounding on the metal top of the booth.

        I say, “I’m soaked. Can you come get me?”

        Bismark doesn’t answer for a second. I can hear him talking to someone else, but I can’t tell what he’s saying. The television at his house is turned up real loud. It sounds like boxing.

        “I said can you pick me up?”

        “You know I don’t got no car right now. Why do you think I got you making deliveries for me? Cause I’m lazy?”

        I kick at the glass, and it makes a hollow thud like a base drum. The boy looks up from the puddle he’s kicking around outside.

        “I don’t know,” I say, “Borrow your sister’s truck. Jesus, man, you want me to get killed? Get the truck.”

        When I hang up I catch my reflection in the glass. I look hungry, desperate even. Like an animal. The lady from 7-11 with hazel eyes is emptying the trash can by the door. She shouts to me, asking if I want her to call a tow truck. I tell her no and she goes inside again, but there’s something about her manner that I don’t like. Maybe she’s frightened by the look in my eyes, too. The little boy asks if I’m okay. He calls me ‘mister.’ I like that he calls me that. I smile for the first time in I don’t know how long.

        The girl with hazel eyes is talking on the phone. For some reason, this makes me angry. She keeps glancing at me as she speaks. She doesn’t think I can see her, but I can. I wonder if she thinks I’m a skin head. No, that’s silly. But a racist, or a robber. I don’t know how long I’ve been out here—my watch is fogged up. It feels late. The parking lot smells like ozone.

        I make for the 7-11 and she’s definitely frightened. She stops talking when I walk in the door, and the electronic bellthat rings when I step on the rubber mat fills the room.

        “You know,” I say, “maybe I’ll call that tow truck after all.”

        She doesn’t say anything. She’s staring at me with her pretty eyes, her glossy brown lips round, and open, and beautiful.

        I say, as calm as I can, “May I see that phone, please,” and I take it from her. She has long artificial nails with palm trees painted on them.

        On the other end of the line is a man’s voice. He says:

        “Hello, Ma’am? Would you like us to send someone? Here, stay on the line while I transfer you to—”

        I hang up. I panicked, I guess, because now I’m pointing the pistol at her. I don’t even remember reaching around to get it. I ask her what the hell she thinks she’s doing. I ask her what she told them. She’s too scared to answer my questions, so I tell her to get down, get down on the floor. I don’t know why. I’ve never done anything like this before. When she’s down I lean over the counter, right on top of the magazine with the rapper on the cover, and pull the phone cord out of the wall because it seems like the thing to do. Then I back out of the door.

        I try to lock it behind me but it’s a dead bolt that can only be latched from the inside. I turn to run for my car and almost knock the little boy over. He’s seen everything, and here I am waiving my gun around like an idiot. I stuff it in my pocket, fumble for my keys. When I get into my car the windows have fogged up and it still won’t start. Then there are headlights right on top of me, and I bolt into the street, only to see Bismark burning holes in me with his eyes, burning holes in me from over the dash of his sister’s ’94 Chevy. The gun is in my hand again.

        “Jesus Christ,” he yells, craning his neck out of the window.

        “We gotta tow my car,” I say, frantic now.

        He shakes his head, dread locks swinging.

        “No way,” he says, “we gotta get the hell out of here.”

        I run around to the back of the truck and draw the hook from the spool beneath.

        “Jesus, the cops are on the way, man.” I’m pleading.

        Bismark cusses up a storm, but pulls around front of me and I start attaching the chain. On my knees, the water a quarter of the way up my thigh, I set the gun beneath the driver’s seat and put the car in neutral. I’m ready to blow, but Bismark is out of his truck now. He’s standing in the rain. He wears shades, even though it’s gotta be sometime after one in the morning, and his muscles are taut. I’m sure that underneath his glasses his eyes are like mine, that they’re hungry, desperate, insane. He’s staring at the boy. The kid steps back, puddles coming ablaze in red beneath the rubber soles of his shoes.

        “Who’s the punk,” Bismark asks.

        I climb into the truck and slap at the metal door.

        “Come on, man, we got to get.”

        Bismark doesn’t move, though. He pulls out his own gun. He speaks without looking at me.

        “I asked who this punk kid is.”

        The boy doesn’t move, either. He’s standing there, hair plastered to his face. His eyes are closed. If he’s scared, he sure doesn’t show it. He’s got stones.

        I’m scared. I can feel the candy in my pocket.

        “He’s some kid,” I say. “He didn’t see anything.”

        Bismark cocks his pistol. I can’t take my eyes off the kid’s shoes, unlit because he’s not moving a muscle.

        “Come on, man. He’s—he didn’t see anything!”

        “He sees my weapon,” Bismark says. “Don’t you, kid?”

        Everything’s falling apart. Bismark is angry and frightened and the boy is frightened and I can smell my own sweat and the cigarette stench of Bismark’s sister’s truck. Behind them, in the 7-11, the girl with the pretty lips and eyes is on the phone again, looking frantic. I should have taken it with me. I should have smashed it to pieces.

        “Bismark,” I shout, “we got to go. The cops—”

        But he’s not moving. I get out of the truck because I’ve got to get the gun in my car. I’ve got to convince him we have to go, now. And the boy called me ‘mister.’

        There are sirens. Far away, but they’re getting closer. God, this whole thing’s a mess. Bismark hears them too. He tells the kid to get in the truck. I open my door and reach beneath the seat for my gun. I point it at Bismark and tell him the boy stays here.

        “Fuck you,” he says, but the sirens are getting so loud, and we both make for the truck and take off. The Saturn swings around hard behind us but stays attached. I watch the kid in the rear view until he disappears from sight. He doesn’t move. We’re home in six minutes. Together, we manage to push the car into my back yard. Then he asks for the dope in my coat and I give it to him. It feels good not to have it on me anymore. Then he tells me what we have to do tomorrow. I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is, I guess. I remember to thank him for coming to get me. He doesn’t answer. He walks straight back towards his house.

        When I get inside she’s asleep on the couch. It’s dark. She’s curled up in the fetal position, and I stay quiet because I don’t feel like answering any of her questions. I’m soaked. I strip down and wring out my clothes in the sink. The candy falls out of my pocket, and I leave it there, its soggy wrapper coloring the metal pink and blue. Then I hit the shower for a long time.

        When I come out she’s waiting for me in the bedroom.

        “Where have you been?” she asks, but I ignore her while I towel myself off.

        She walks around the bed and crosses her arms beneath her breasts. She’s giving me doe eyes.

        “I called Virginia Welders,” she says. “They said you never showed up. Where did you go today?”

        I give her a hard stare. I’m angry and naked, and I don’t feel like talking. She tells me not to look at her like that. She threatens to leave. I stare, because she’s not going anywhere. We sit for a few moments, listening to the rain pound away at our roof like a wild beast.

        “Are you having an affair?” she asks at last, but I don’t answer.

        I throw my towel on the floor, and she moves to pick it up but I yell at her to leave it where it is.

        “Jesus Christ, you’re not my mother. I’ll pick up my own goddamn towel when I goddamn feel like it.”

        She turns on the water works. Her face is all red, and her eyes are swollen like maybe she’s been crying all day. She falls on her knees and grabs my ankles. That’s when she tells me she’s late. She tells me it was supposed to come last week. Our dishwasher is broken, and our car. And now this.

        Tomorrow, Bismark says, I have to go talk to all the wrong people. He says I’m in their pocket now, like it or not. And in addition, now I’m responsible for a situation, a big fat mess on Rip Rap Road, and I’m going to owe them even more, that is if the cops aren’t knocking on my door in the morning. And I know the people I’m going to talk to will have a new job waiting for me. And another after that. I’m in their pocket. My hands are shaking, and I watch as goose bumps blossom all over my body. I can’t find my voice. I can’t think about it at all.

        I pick her up and we move to the bed together. I want to cry with her, to bawl because I my mind keeps on the candy in the sink, and shoes that light up red, and the boy who called me ‘mister.’ But I don’t have any energy left, so I cling. I cling to her with whatever’s left like strength in my arms. My hands become claws, and soon her clothes disappear and we are animals for fifteen minutes, and then she’s asleep and I’m listening to sirens wail through the streets of Hampton, and though none of them draw any nearer I lay awake. I listen. We are naked, and hungry, and clinging to each other for warmth.

        We spend the night just like that.

Michael Pilola earned his degree in Creative Writing last year from Virginia Tech, where he received the Fiction Award for his body of writing as a student. Over the past three years, he has published several poems and one piece of short fiction, "Driving Self Destruction," in the Brush Mountain Review, a small circuit magazine run by the English Students' Society of Virginia Tech. He currently resides in Hampton Roads, Virginia, drinking ridiculous amounts of coffee, writing stories about people he observes at Denny's, and working towards admission into an MFA program in the near future.

Email: Michael Pilola

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