"Bullets, Booze and Bastards"

Sample chapter from Hard Bite by Anonymous-9

I like to kill people.

It’s important to admit the truth to yourself even if you lie to others, and I do a lot of lying in my business. Inside my head I try to keep the truth black and white, no gray area: I like to kill. I love to kill people. Certain people.

Sid knows we’re going somewhere tonight because my eyes keep flicking to the clock, and it usually means we’ve got a job to do.

I found my latest target online at a news site. A national story local to Los Angeles. Killing locally is a necessity since I’m not really mobile. A Mac with assistive technologies enables me to work the keyboard.

Assistive technology is a code word for “stuff that helps cripples use a computer.” Easy to understand, right? Because it’s the truth. People have a hard time with truth when it comes bent and deformed, crushed, or hideous—so they invent terms like assistive technologies to sidestep the one word that makes it crystal clear: cripple.

Crippled.

Crippling.

I went from noun to action verb riding a year-long bed of pain. After flirting with suicide, which lost its appeal contemplated deeply, a fresh start in rough justice sounded right. Why settle for cripple when you can be crippling, ha ha.

I admit, I don’t look very imposing. It’s my motorized wheelchair, the steel hand, my pencil neck that looks like it could flop over and crack from the weight of my head. I look useless, you think. You think wrong. And fuck you, by the way, for your perception. I bring righteous vengeance to evil people. I make my way and take care of myself, by myself. What do you do with your life motherfucker???? . . . . . . Sorry, I rant sometimes. Sorry, buddy. Keep reading. Please.

Tonight, I’m meeting the driver of a Mustang who clipped a father of four riding his bicycle on a Sunday morning. There were no paint traces, no witnesses. Mr. Mustang would have gone clean except for a dent he got banged out. Moron told the body shop he’d struck a bicyclist. Illegal employees won’t talk to cops, but they spilled it in Spanglish to me.

Seeing they were so helpful, I let it slip that my passport was for sale. Pasaporte. Vente. Clean, no priors. In case you don’t live in LA, where stolen and counterfeit ID does the briskest trade in the world, let me illuminate you—in LA, stolen and counterfeit IDs do the briskest trade in the world. When the phone rang the next day from a number unknown, I already knew who it was. Mr. Mustang was hot for some new ID so he could be somebody else until things cooled down. I played the stupid, down-on-my-luck loser for him over the phone and by the end of the call had an appointment.

At this point, you’re wondering why I do this—eradicate hit-and-run drivers. At first I called myself an assassin, but Merriam Webster ruined that idea by defining assassination as “killing for impersonal reasons” and that’s incorrect. I kill for extremely personal reasons. Starting with the individual who hit me, shattering my neck, crushing my left arm and feet, and squashing my large intestine to mush. I can’t digest much of anything, but my dick still works. Go figger.

Uh oh, look at that clock. Time’s a-wastin’. One more run-thru before show time.

I drop my right shoulder so my neck is exposed. “Soft bite, Sid.”

Sid scrambles up my body, so light and fast he’s more like a breeze than a weight. His fuzzy blonde head cocks to the side, and his chocolate-brown arms cradle my neck as he locates the bulging jugular vein. He gently squeezes it with his canines. Ever see a picture of a thirteen-year-old capuchin monkey’s canine teeth? They’re about a half inch long, curved and sharp. Sid lets go and gives me a lick.

“Good boy. Get down. Fetch pencil.”

In one spring, Sid is on the desk, expertly plucking a pencil from a cup.

“Here.” I extend my lips like I want to be fed.

Sid puts the pencil in my mouth.

I grip it and say out of the corner of my mouth, “Hard bite.”

He snaps the thing off in one crunch. I taught Sid to bite using varying pressure—from a delicate bite that wouldn’t break the skin on an overripe pear to a vigorous crunch right through wood. Then I got him used to gnawing close to my head and neck. He’s smart enough to make the mental jump and ace a hard bite to a guy’s jugular. This evening, hopefully.

Would you look at that—Sid is jumping up and down; body language for let’s roll. Got my passport in my pocket, check. Got the van keys. Sid hops on my shoulder, and we head for the elevator to the parking garage. The plan is really simple: meet in Lakewood, a nice ’burb of Long Beach—at a park. Late, there won’t be anybody around. After Sid does his arterial chomp, the guy should bleed out in two minutes or less, and away we go. That’s the plan, anyway.

—§—

The parking garage is well-lighted and spacious—1970s design. There she is: my chopped ’81 Chevy van with handicap-access hydraulic ramp that extends and retracts out the rear. Sid and I cruise up the ramp through the back to the steering wheel. My chair locks into place. You’re wondering how a guy like me, with one hand and feet that don’t work, got licensed. I didn’t. My driving is 100% illegal. Illegal but not unsafe; there are five hands in my vehicle. One of mine still works, and Sid has four. Even his feet have opposable thumbs. Sid can’t steer, but he hits the signal switch for me and assists with hand controls.

I start the engine, idle it a minute and tell Sid, “Reverse.” Sid hits the stick and we chug backwards out of the space.

Outside, there’s a light drizzle, which is great, because nobody in LA goes out in any kind of wet, especially after midnight. They call this “winter” in Los Angeles. We drive east on Washington Boulevard to Lincoln, head south a few blocks and catch the 91 to the 405. Sid is doing great with the signal switch. Wouldn’t you know my cell phone rings, but Sid is all over it, pressing Call/Ans and Speaker.

“Where are you?” Cinda’s voice is low and steady. Sexy without trying.

“In the van.”

“Are you . . . ?”

“Yes, on my way.”

Another surprise for you: a girlfriend. My girlfriend. A sex worker. A provider. That’s the polite term for it these days. Are you shocked, buddy? Think I could do better? Let me ask you, who would have me? I look like an AIDS patient already, my eyeballs sunk in the sockets, cheeks hollowed out. So what’s the attraction? I guess when a woman’s been kicked around like Cinda, a guy bolted into a wheelchair is a plus.

“Are you in Long Beach?”

“Close to.” I turn into the parking area.

“I’m here now.”

My van swings into the lot. Another set of headlights flash making the same turn.

“He’s here. I’ll call you.”

The target parks and walks over. I motion him in the passenger side. Seeing Sid, he shakes his head, makes a face. A sign from me, and Sid rolls down the window.

“I’m not getting in there with no fucking monkey.”

“He’s a pet. He’s harmless.”

He gives me the horrified, disgusted look I tend to attract from strangers—I have less visual appeal than Sid, obviously. It hasn’t dawned on this guy that had the father of four lived, he might have ended up looking like me.

“Fuck this, too weird.”

He turns on his heel and starts back to the Mustang.

I recall that the family man this walking depravity smashed into fought for his life a long time, hidden in a drainage ditch, while people who could have helped drove on by, not knowing. Dan Marshall was barely cold when a neighborhood search party traced his bike route and found him.

I look at Sid, point to the target.

“Hard bite.”

Sid blinks at me. For a second it looks like he doesn’t get it—I’ll have to watch this thug walk away with murder. Sid studies my face. Whatever his simian brain sees there catapults him out the window. In three jumps, he’s across the pavement and has the guy’s pant leg. A flash, and he’s climbing, canines bared.

The guy screams, arms windmilling, and breaks into a lopsided run. Sid takes a hard slap across the head. I hear Sid accelerate to monkey rage, and the two of them crash into a hedge. I lose sight; all I can hear is bracken crunching, branches whipping, the man screaming over Sid’s guttural grunts and chirps.

All goes still.

My heart hammers. The whole park, quiet as death.

Sid erupts from the bushes, bounds toward the van, and throws himself through the window dripping blood and goo, wild-eyed.

I hear a long moan from the undergrowth—wrestling with the gears—fumble, miss, grind into reverse. Same drill to get it back into drive—fuck these crip hands!—and we turn shakily out of the lot. Sid’s in no shape to help, but we have to get a move on.