Spirit in the Night - Part 1

Note: My initial plan was to make this the next CD project, but a few things derailed that idea. One was that the CD I have this song on has a scratch or something on this song only. Two, I think I am going to steer away from Bruce on the CDs I'll make Snake soon after realizing I had a few other groups and songs that I'll try to pitch to him. The last being is that the story isn't going to stretch far enough for an entire CD project, and I don't want have to bend this tale to other songs and lyrics. 

With all that being said, this first part is long as you'll see. I pulled the names for characters out of the song. My inspiration being the way the "Spirits in the Night" can pull people together and what can happen when all these elements are together. The song itself seems to have something nefarious going on underneath or on the edges. ANYWAYS, with no further ado, here it is. 

SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT

PART 1

Link to song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIVbLsU9IR8

Lyric – “Stand up right now and let it shoot through you”

G-Man

G-Man stacked the logs in a pyramid and fantasized about how they would burn. First, they’d smoke a lot cause the damn logs were wet. Like the big idiot he was, G-Man had left the logs outside the night before as a late fall storm rumbled through Lincoln. Being a firebug didn’t exempt G-Man from being D-U-M-B, as Killer Joe would spell out for him several times a day.

“No matter anyhow,” G-Man said to no one as he finished with the logs.  “I’ll get this damn thing burnin’ before Joe and Wild Billy get back from da pokey. I’ll do it dammit. It’ll be cracklin’ and sizzlin’ and every one will see it glow.”

G-Man struck a match from between his fingers and lit the cigarette that had been dangling between his thick lips. He cast an imposing figure as the sun set on sleepy little Lincoln. He wore nothing but a pair of bibs over his huge frame. G-Man stood just a few ticks below seven feet and weighed over four hundred pounds. His pale skin glowed in the sunset beneath the denim bibs and his gray eyes were hidden below a yellow and green soybean cap. He and Killer Joe were hired hands on a half dozen farms around Lincoln. G-Man couldn’t think for himself, at least not since his daddy had punted him in the head as a baby, so Joe set up the work. If somebody pointed the job out to him, he could do all right. Most folks just wanted him to lift things anyhow.

“These logs will burn,” he repeated scratching at his stomach below the bibs. “Oh, they’ll glow.”

He loved watching them glow knowing that he’d released the hidden power within the logs. He was the master of that power. Excitement tingled up his legs and settled in his groin. This would be a small blaze. Not like some of the others he’d done. This was just for his friends. Wild Billy. He was getting out of the pokey. Killer Joe. Hazy Davy. He was a guy they drank with. Good fella, and Davy had a girl named Janey. Joe called her Crazy Janey because she thought she’d get Davy to give up the hooch and settle down.

G-Man liked Janey. He’d like to touch her. He’d like to rub on her. He lit a wad of paper and thrust it into the logs, and adjusted his growing erection before squeezing out some liter fluid onto the logs and the paper. The flames shot out, and the logs started to smoke. Soon they would glow. He thought of Janey’s paper white skin and the glow.

“I said that damn thing would burn.” He said, then masturbated before the smoking fire behind his and Joe’s shack north of Lincoln.

CRAZY JANEY

“You promised no fuckin’ drinking!” Janey screamed over her shoulder before slamming the door behind her. She reached behind her and slid the chain into the door to the apartment above Bowers Pharmacy in downtown Lincoln. Inside, her mother sat still wearing her pajamas underneath a pink bathrobe. She had curlers in her hair and a smoke resting between her fingers. Some smut show glowed on the television set.

“Oh, shit,” her mother sat up on the coach. “You two ain’t at it again. I can’t hear my program with all that racket.”

“Jesus Christ, mom,” Janey put her back against the door. She felt the knob turn and Davy’s weight press against the door. The chain kept it from opening all the way.

“Janey let me in.” Davy’s voice rose from the other side. “I didn’t know Billy was getting out before…”

“Will you two shut up, I can’t hear my program.” Her mother stood up flicking her smoke across the room toward Janey’s feet.

Janey rolled her eyes and stamped out the remaining orange glow at the end of the butt. She looked down at her uniform – an ugly orange and cream outfit that she hated. That was fine because she hated the waitress gig at Marty’s, but the job had opened the previous fall after that geeky kid stabbed her predecessor. She unbuttoned the top and slipped out of her white sneakers.

“Take another valium,” Janey said leaving the door. The apartment had two rooms. One was the large living room with an attached kitchen, and the other was her bedroom. There was a bathroom off of the bedroom. The apartment was Janeys. Her mother had moved in a year earlier after leaving her father.

Outside, Davy started knocking and said something that was muffled as Janey shut the bathroom door and dropped on the stool. She wiped at her eyes, hearing the front door open. Her damn mother let him in to hear the stupid TV. On the counter, lipstick and bottles of nail polish were strewn. She pulled the tie from her black hair that had red and purple streaks. His boots thumped on the floor of her room.

“Come on, Janey,” Davy whispered through the door. “It’s just this once. Billy’s coming home.”

“There’s always one more time and one more person coming to town,” Julia couldn’t believe she was sniffling.  Her black skirt from the night before was wadded on the floor below the toilet.  Two blouses were draped from the hook on the back of the door.  One was a leopard print. The other was a blue and purple ditty that Davy said made her look like a peacock. Well, her feathers were up now. She rose from the stool with her fists clenched.

“You wanna drink,” Janey mumbled. “I’ll show you drinkin.” 

She washed her face before applying eyeliner. Her rule – when the eyeliner went on, no more tears.

WILD BILLY

He counted the telephone poles alongside Highway 15 like he had counted days behind bars with his teeth clenched and his knuckles itching. There were more poles than the 445 days he spent behind bars, but they passed much faster even after he warned Joe not to drive too fast. He never handled motion all that well, but it was worse after not being in a car for over a year.

But, now he couldn’t wait to get to Lincoln. Not because he missed that piss hole. No, he wanted to ride in tonight and ride out in the morning. He had quick business in Lincoln. The first was a few drinks. He hadn’t had true hooch since he went away. Just a couple hard ones to take the edge off.

After that, he had business with Bruce Page…

“Shit, it’ll be good to have you back,” Joe said. He had some shitty seed dealer cap on turned backward with a toothpick stuck behind his ear. Underneath was a smooth dome. Killer Joe, as he liked people calling him, was a skinhead with all the prerequisite hates and swastika tattoos to prove membership. Billy didn’t go for all that crap, but got along with Joe all the same. “G-Man will have a fire going. Davy will bring the booze. It’ll be tight.”

“You’re still runnin’ with that giant dumbfuck? I can’t believe he ain’t set himself on fire yet.”

“He’s dumb,” Joe said with one hand on the wheel while using the other to take the toothpick from behind his ear to between his lips. “But he knows fire. And he’s good to have around in a brawl.”

“Hmmph.” Billy didn’t give a shit about G-Man, or Joe for that matter. Joe was just his tool for getting him back to Lincoln and back to Bruce Page.

“Hey, Davy has a broad now,” Joe said. “She’s real fine. Real young too. I think we get her drinkin, she’ll be up for some fun.”

That did make Billy smile. It had been a long time since he had any of that too. Of course, he wasn’t going to share it with those bastards. Maybe he’d slit Davy’s throat and Joe’s too for that matter. He wouldn’t go after G-Man. That’s a fight he wouldn’t win, but he could probably keep the big man away by promising a piece of the action after.

“She’s tasty, huh?”

“Oh, real fine. I don’t think she’d fight at all. Fuck, Davy will probably be passed out early enough for us to work on her by midnight, and she’ll need someone cause I doubt Davy will be able to get it up.”

“Hmmph.” Billy went back to counting the telephone poles thinking about this girl and booze, but before long his mind was back on Bruce Page. That fucker. The girl and the booze didn’t matter, but he did have a date with the guy that put him away.

“Hey, Billy,” Joe said. It must not have been the first time, because Joe was looking hard over at him.

“What?”

“You know, we can have a good time tonight. Just like the old times. We can get fucked and screw around with the girl. We don’t need any other trouble, right?”

Billy smiled.

“Right.”

HAZY DAVY

Davy dropped down on the couch next to Janey’s mother, took out the flask for a swig and offered it to her. Janey was still in her room getting ready for the night. Peg grabbed the flask with one hand and rested the other on his thigh. He brushed it away.

Peg snorted and brought the flask to her mouth. Inside was vodka – no aftertaste, no smell. Janey wanted more than anything for him to stop drinking, and part of him wanted to do just that for her. They had met at Marty’s six months earlier, and he had been sure to stop there every day since either for breakfast before his shift at Lincoln Manufacturing or afterward for supper. The factory was the first job he had kept for more that a few months in his life.

She was the reason. He no longer drank all night, every night. He didn’t drink a beer when he rolled out of bed, and didn’t sneak his first sips until his shift was over in the afternoon. But he still needed the flask, and he emptied it every afternoon before dinner. After that it was a six-pack of beer, twelve if Janey had a late shift at the restaurant.

It was one of the late shifts that had got him into the trouble with Peg. He had drank too much at the bar, got into a brawl and then stumbled to Janey’s apartment instead of heading to his place on Horizon Avenue just off Thunder Lane. He didn’t have a license, and he hated walking down Thunder Lane alone at night. That street was old, and full of old spirits as his drunk of a father used to say. That had stuck with Davy, and maybe it was the booze, but he felt those spirits every time he was on the street.

That night, two months earlier, he was drunk and disappointed that he’d let Janey down by getting into such a state. But mostly he was scared. As stupid as it was for a 30-year old man, he was scared to walk home. Sometimes on dark nights, he thought he heard voices from that street calling him to visit. He didn’t want to, but the call was very strong.

So he stumbled to the apartment above the pharmacy, and she was there. Not Janey. She was working till close at the diner. Peg. Wearing not much more than a bathrobe, smelling of cigarettes and the cheap wine that comes out of boxes. He was weak, and she was lonely. The rest of the story is old and familiar.

“You still think about it,” Peg said. “Was it that good?” Peg smiled taking out another cigarette.

“Shut up woman, “ Davy shot back. “I don’t even remember it much. I hate lying to her. That’s all.”

“Just like you lie to her about this?” Peg picked up the flask again and took another drink to drive home the point.

“I’m trying.” Davy said, taking the flask and draining the last half of it in one gulp. It didn’t even burn anymore going down. He had started drinking hard alcohol with his dad when he was 14. The beer had started years earlier.

“You men are all the same, always trying, never doing,” Peg said. “Janey’s daddy was the same. His was the gambling though, not the drinking so much. Always going to the casinos that Frankie. Lost all our money. Every dime.”

“I’m not Janey’s daddy,” Davy said. “I’m stopping. I just can’t do it all at once.”

“Hmmph,” Peg picked the remote up to turn the TV’s volume up again. “Well I ain’t going to tell her, if that’s what you’re worried about. She’s my angel, and I’d never hurt her like that. She’s all I got.”

Peg clicked the volume button and the characters on the screen were screaming at one another. They sat there silently for a few minutes before Janey came out in her black skirt and the peacock blouse. She had too much makeup on and her hair was teased about to look like she hadn’t spent the last 20 minutes on it. That was her look though. She’s so young, Davy thought. Barely out of high school really.

“What you two been talking about,” She put her hands on her hips, and something in her eyes sparkled, and that sparkle screamed of trouble. Part of Davy wanted to skip the get together with the boys because of it. He felt in that instant the same way he felt about Thunder Lane. Something scared him in the look.

“Nothing, sweetie,” Peg said. “Don’t you look just beautiful?”

BRUCE PAGE

In the dream, the phone rang dozens of times before he picked it up. After about the fifteenth ring, it sounded more like an alarm clock’s high-pitched beep. His hand went to the receiver just as it had two days earlier as he tended the station, and his voice followed.

“Oly’s full service, Bruce speaking.”

“Two days fucker.” The voice at the other end said.

“What’s that?” Bruce asked, knowing full well who was on the other end of the line.

“Two days, and we’ll settle this once and for all.”

“Yeah, well. You just try. This time I’ll be ready. I’m warning you. No surprising me at work with your buddies. I’ll be ready.”

“Two days.” The other end of line went dead, but the dull dial tone was replaced by the sound of an alarm clock. This, of course, was just a dream. He woke.

Above him, the paint was peeling on the ceiling of his trailer. He had sweated through his wife-beater and his drawers were wet. He rolled to the side of the bed and reached for the wood cane propped against the wall. He used the cane to stand and support his right leg. That was all thanks to Wild Billy Hawthorne. Wild Billy had cut a nine-inch ridge with a bowie knife from Bruce’s hip down his thigh the last time the two had met. The wound left Bruce’s right leg nearly useless, making him a 25-year-old, 120-pound cripple.

Growing up, Bruce had been the target of bullies. He was short, skinny and had a nasally voice that other boys love to mimic. It only got worse when he turned 14, and everyone in the class seemed to pick up on the fact that Bruce Page was a homosexual, just like the one’s on TV. Hell, Bruce thought some of his classmates knew he was gay before he even knew he was gay.

Well, that just made the beatings come more often and more vicious from the homophobic population of Lincoln High School. Even the girls got involved a couple times. The worst came from Wild Billy Hawthorne, a boy a few years older than Bruce who had lived but a few houses down for all of Bruce’s young life.

When he graduated, Bruce took the job at Oly’s Station on the west side of Lincoln in hopes of saving enough money to get out Lincoln as soon as possible. The popular notion around town was that he gave blowjobs to truckers in the bathroom for extra cash. The truth was that he wasn’t smart enough for college, and his parents sure weren’t going to help out their queer son when they had the perfect cheerleader daughter to dote on. He’d yet to get on his knees for one trucker, although he wondered if there was an actual market for such talents.

So, he rented a trailer on Grease Lake from the owner of Oly’s and started to put away cash. Of course, that was until Wild Billy and his boys showed up drunk one night last year at the station. After that particular incident, his extra dough was lost on medical and lawyer bills. The only relief being that Wild Billy had gone away.

But, he was coming back, as the phone call two days earlier had confirmed.

Bruce walked out of the trailer and around to the back to take a piss in the lake. The sun was setting on the outskirts of Lincoln, and he knew that meant his time was running low. Sometime tonight Wild Billy was going to come. He shook his cock twice before turning away from the dirty water and limping back up to his lime green trailer. On the backside, someone had spray painted the word “QUEER” in uneven black letters. That was as imaginative as the artists got in Lincoln.

Bruce didn’t care, especially tonight. He went around to the front. His rusted out Lumina was parked in front. He supposed he could drive away. He had enough money to get out of the state and probably stay a night or two at a cheap hotel, but then what.

No, Bruce Page was tired of being bullied, tired of being beat. He opened the door to the trailer and walked inside passing the kitchen counter on his way back to the bed. He needed a little more rest, and he knew it’d be late before they would arrive. They’d drink awhile to get their courage up and then come looking for him. They’d probably try the station first. The manager was working tonight. Bruce sat back down on the bed, propped the cane against the wall, and dropped his head down on his pillow. Soon he was snoring lightly and in his dream the phone was ringing again.

On the kitchen counter next to the sink, an old revolver rested. Next to it were six bronze bullets, a flashlight and a pack of smokes.