In late January of 1978, with football season over and hopeful Christmas tree lights throughout the vast northern winter darkness switched off in defeat, full-time cabdriver, sometime card shark Keith Waverly witnesses the violent abduction of a local street hustler. Later, when the man is found with his head ventilated by bullet holes, Waverly is dragged into a world of high-rolling gamblers, crooked politicians, violence and really bad weather, with only his wits and his new girlfriend to pull him out.
CHAPTER 8 – Acid Reflux
Excerpt 4
I leaned against the side of a house and pushed my hair back off my forehead. I bent over at the waist, pressed my finger to my nostril and blew out bloody snot. Down the alley a neon-bathed rat scurried across the damp pavement.
After a moment of reconnaissance I cut through several backyards of garbage cans and rusty autos and moved quickly across the street, doubling back to my car. Beaten and kicked—kicked and beaten. Needles and pins-a.
I couldn’t make myself drive so I sat there and squeezed the steering wheel while my head reeled and whirled. Eventually I settled down a little. I found a long butt in the ashtray and fired it up. Nicotine narcosis, baby, let’s have it.
Violated and dominated and kicked around like a diseased rodent—not to mention getting fucked in the ass—that shit will linger with you for awhile. That’s the shit I couldn’t take. That, and about five hundred other goddamn things, that were struggling to the surface like a swarm of pissed-off rattlesnakes. I couldn’t stand for any more abuse. Time to get even before the game got over. Time to stop running. You can only run so far before you realize you’re running from yourself.
I still had the stamp on my hand from the bar.
I tried in vain to figure it all out. What the hell do I get for trying to help somebody? My goddamn ass kicked. I should’ve gone to Jamaica.
Yeah, you shoulda, asshole, but it’s too late for that now. You’re in too goddamn deep.
Maybe I could live in my car for a while. The automobile is like a rolling womb. You got wheels. You got door locks. You got the radio, heater—storage space in the trunk. You can sleep in your car; eat in your car, fuck in your car. Americans learn how to live out of their cars as teenagers. Why couldn’t I do it? Shit, I could park wherever I wanted. Go wherever I wanted. If anything bothered me I could just drive away.
Just me and my womb on wheels.
A man needs something to drink if he’s going to live in his car. So I struggled over to the now painfully throbbing Viking Liquor sign, went in the store and bought a pint of Windsor Canadian and a pack of Kools from the thick-haired clerk. I didn’t even like brown liquor and I was trying to quit smoking so clearly this was some kind of self-destructive urge like all the cool rock stars had. The clerk gave me a funny look for a second, like maybe I smelled bad, which I probably did. Looked like hell, too.
(To be continued)
Dead Low Winter available on ebook at all online bookstores.
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