The Dominant Hand Page 7

  I was watching my pawn shop, Oscar’s Buy, Sell & Trade, off Western, just south of I-44, on a Sunday. I got one employee, this woman named Martha. She’s a hard worker; she’s had some hard years like me so I pay her a little more than I really think she’s worth. I don’t mind ’cause I trust her, and that’s worth an extra dollar or two an hour. Sometimes on long nights, we might close up and turn off the lights. I don’t pay her more for that, though I guess if I were a fair man, I should.

  At any rate, I was waiting for Martha to show up so I could get home in time to catch the Cowboys game. My boy was hanging out with me, keeping me company, not many people in the store except this tall, bald guy. He’s some kind of reporter, asking lots of questions and thumbing through our Jim Jacobs collection. I didn’t really mind him being in there, but wasn’t going to tell him shit ’cause reporters don’t ever spend money.

  I looked out the front windows and saw my daughter, who I hadn’t seen in six months. I guess since no one’s reading this but the doc, I can say I was happy to see her. I was going to tear her a new one, though. My wife said that’s the wrong way, said I should be more delicate, but I’m a jarhead, I don’t know delicate. I just got to say it louder, maybe then it’ll sink in.

  She’d just climbed out of this piece of shit jalopy and was walking toward the shop. This lanky worm was with her. He had his frizzy hair all brushed up like an afro, except he was a white boy. Made him look like a lollipop to me, but I don’t know much about kid’s fashions, maybe that’s what girls want these days.

  My daughter was all hunched over like she was cold, except it wasn’t cold outside. I figured she was high, maybe coming to me for money. She wasn’t getting any, and she sure as shit wasn’t leaving with the lollipop prick.

  “Junior,” I called to my boy in the back. He came out with his crutches. “Get the revolver.”

  Yeah, I thought my Baby Girl would rob me, drugs will turn anyone into a thief.

  When she walked in, my boy was just crutchin’ his way out of the back with the revolver tucked in the front of his pants so anyone interested knew it was there.

  “Hey, Daddy,” my girl said.

  Now, I don’t want you to think my girl is young or nothing; she’s thirty. She’s way too old to be pullin’ this crap anymore, but I gave her freedom ’cause I was a fuck up at her age, too.

  “Where ya been?” I asked her.

  “She’s been with me,” the lollipop dude said. “We just got back from the hospital.”

  “Why’s that Baby Girl?” Junior asked, while thumbing the revolver like a damn gunfighter.

  My boy sat on a stool, put his crutches to the side and pulled the revolver out of his pants and held it in his lap. The lollipop dude saw that and I could tell whatever idea he’d had coming in was gone now.

  “Daddy,” Baby Girl said, she was starting to cry.

  I became concerned, she don’t cry easy, no one in our family cries easily. Well, I guess that ain’t true, I had another boy, younger than Junior. He used to cry a lot, but he had his reasons. He ain’t in this world no more.

  I walked out from behind the counter, put my arms around my daughter and pulled her to me. She reached her arms around me and hugged me back. She was sobbing.

  “Pops,” my boy called. “She’s lost a hand.”

  My daughter tried to hang on to me, like if she held me tight, I wouldn’t see and maybe wouldn’t know. Well, I pulled myself free and her left hand was gone with a bandaged stump in its place.

  “What the hell have you done!”

  Any thought of being delicate was gone now. I grabbed the lollipop and threw him down to the tile floor. His head smacked with a hollow thud. I shoved my knee into his chest as my son hopped over on his crutches toward us.

  “It wasn’t me, man!”

  My boy popped him on the head with the butt of the revolver and then pointed the muzzle at his forehead. The man whimpered like a little girl, which pissed me off more.

  “Daddy!” Baby Girl said. “It wasn’t him; he took me to the hospital!”

  “Pops,” my boy said, nodding behind me.

  The tall, bald reporter was standing by the counter watching with a calm, blank smile. He’d stood there through the whole thing and not said anything. Fucking reporters.

  “Get out of here,” I growled.

  “Yes, sir,” he smirked, as he slid past us on his way to the door.

  I pulled the lollipop up onto his feet.

  “Go get a chair, Baby Girl,” I said, smiling at the dude, who was scared shitless.

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “My girl is staying here,” I said to the lollipop. “You know that, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do you want?” Junior demanded. “You didn’t bring her out of the kindness of your heart, did you?”

  “Sir, I just thought that …” he stuttered, but stopped. Baby Girl put the chair beside him.

  “Sit down,” Baby Girl whispered to the lollipop. “Junior, put the gun up, please.”

  I leaned back against a display case and stared at the lollipop. He had that stone face, the one that people who’d used drugs for too long get. Makes them ugly and hard, like their soul had frozen inside of their skin. Baby Girl was starting to get that look too.

  “I’ve had hippies like you steal from me before,” I told him. “Your kind’s been stabbing me in the back since I got back from Vietnam. So, how much do you want? How much will it take for you to leave?”

  “One hundred dollars?” the lollipop mumbled.

  “Should we pay him?” I asked Junior.

  “No.”

  I clucked my tongue in my mouth and shook my head. I pulled out a small matchbox from my shirt pocket and took out one wooden match. I like to chew on matches instead of tooth picks, they got this taste to them, maybe the sulfur, I don’t know. It don’t taste good, but it also don’t taste bad. It helps me stay calm though.

  “Naw, this guy did us a favor, Baby Girl would be dead if it weren’t for you, right?”

  “I would be daddy; I’m not lying,” Baby Girl said.

  I studied the lollipop, looking for any bulges that might be a pipe, gun or a knife. Luckily, he’s one of those dumbasses that wears those really tight women’s pants. Makes his legs look as thin as arms. At any rate, he didn’t come here with nothing.

  “When’s the last time you ate something?” I asked him.

  He didn’t answer; he didn’t trust me. I guess I can’t blame him for that.

  “Thank you for bringing my girl back,” I said to him. “Who took her hand?”

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled.

  “Maybe we should start cutting off his fingers, Pops.”

  “Goddammit, Daddy!” Baby Girl screamed, storming out the front door.

  “Baby!” I called.

  “I’ll get her,” Junior said, but I waved him back. She needed to blow off steam.

  She took off down the strip mall toward the Big Lots store. She was just mad. I could tell when she wasn’t coming back. She wasn’t mad then, just sort of sad like she gave up on me.

  “Where did she lose her hand?” I asked the lollipop, while I watched Baby Girl until she stopped farther down in the strip mall. She slunk down against the wall and curled up into a ball.

  “She was in the woods,” the lollipop said. “There are a bunch of crazy people out there, cults and shit.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “So, one of them took her hand?”

  “Yeah, there’s a group of them out there that are really crazy,” he answered. “They think they are warriors …”

  “Yeah, well I’m fucking Marine!” I growled.

  I got to thinking about Baby Girl, and how me losing my temper was what usually got me and Baby Girl fighting.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “You were trying to score drugs and you came up on my handless daughter?”

  The lollipop thought about it, pr
obably not sure he wanted to admit to it. He nodded eventually. I looked over to Junior, who shrugged.

  “Okay,” I said. “You have any drugs on you now?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m going to pay you then. I’m going to take you back to my house and feed you, give you a place to sleep tonight. In the morning, we’re going to drive out to the woods where you found her, and I’m going to find the fucker who took her hand.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is that car stolen?” I asked him, motioning out to the purple Ford Escort they drove up in.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any drugs in it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I patted him on the back and walked over to Junior.

  “Go ahead and call the cops, tell them some Mexicans left a car here. We’re not sure who it belongs to, but the Mexicans left.”

  “Don’t you think that’s racist?” the lollipop asked in that condescending hippie tone.

  “What the fuck?” Junior snarled, crutching over to the lollipop.

  I motioned for Junior to calm down, and then I walked back to the hippie.

  “Listen, son, we’re trying to help you out here,” I said. “I’m amazed you managed to drive that car through Norman all the way up to Oklahoma City without getting the cop’s attention. You get caught with a stolen car with drugs in it, you’re going to jail for a real long time. I ain’t got nothing against the Beaners, but I just don’t want the cops looking for you.”

  The lollipop refused to look me in the eyes, which pissed me off. I had to remind myself the prick did save my Baby Girl.

  “Boy,” I called back to Junior. “Tell the cops it was high schoolers, dealing drugs or something.”

  I tapped the lollipop’s chin to get him to look at me.

  “That better, or am I now being ageist?”

  “That’s fine, sir.”

  I sighed and walked past him to the window. I saw Baby Girl talking to that tall, bald reporter. I started to walk out when my girl gave him a hug, then turned to come back to the shop.

  “Boy, you still got that revolver?”

  “Yeah, Pops.”

  Baby Girl was crying again, but she was doing it while walking back to the shop. I met her outside. When she got close, she ran into my arms, almost falling against me. She hadn’t done that since she was six.

  “What did that guy say to you?”

  “To go home, Daddy.”

  ******

  I was cooking some steaks, taters and some veggies on my grill. Junior kept telling me it was going to rain, but he’d been in a desert for so long, I think he forgot the difference between a rain cloud and just overcast.

  My dogs were jumping around like crazy bastards, just as much from the smell of steak as from seeing Baby Girl home again. The pit bull’s name was Sadie; the Labrador was named Butch. Every dog I ever had went by either Butch or Sadie. I don’t like coming up with new names every time one runs off or dies.

  The lollipop seemed pretty good with the dogs, which made me like him a bit more. I thought of offering him a job, but quickly thought better of it.

  “So, where are your parents?” I asked the lollipop.

  “They live in Edmond,” he answered.

  I tapped my tongs against the grill and stifled some mean words that wanted to jump out of my mouth. Instead, I just chewed on the match.

  “So, your family has money?” Junior asked.

  “I guess so,” he mumbled while scratching my pit bull’s belly.

  I laughed and flipped over the steak.

  “So, you’re going to ruin your life just to show them you can?” Junior asked, but the lollipop didn’t respond.

  “How do you like your steak?” I asked.

  “I’m a vegan sir.”

  “Yeah, and that doesn’t seem to be working for you,” I answered. “So, how do you like your steak?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable eating another living thing …”

  “Listen up!” I growled, turning toward him. “Every time you take drugs, you are eating all the Mexicans who died bringing that shit across the border, you’re eating all the kids who don’t have a good mommy and daddy, you’re eating all the innocent people killed by drug lords in third world nations. When you eat a steak, you’re eating one part of one goddamn cow.”

  The lollipop didn’t say anything.

  “How do you want your steak?” Baby Girl asked him softly.

  “Medium well.”

  I turned back to the grill to tend to the meat.

  “Do your parents love you?” I asked.

  “I guess,” lollipop answered.

  “Don’t give me that,” I said. “You know if your parents love you or not.”

  “No, they don’t,” lollipop grumbled. “I’m just a thing to them, like a couch or a TV.”

  “And they threw you out when you no longer matched the drapes?” Junior chuckled.

  Lollipop smirked and nodded.

  “Do you want me to tell you a secret?” I said, turning toward him. “Close your ears, children.”

  “Roger that,” Junior replied.

  “I can tell you this for certain ’cause I got kids, too,” I said. “I had to raise these two on my own for a while, and I can say sometimes parents just don’t know what the hell they’re doing. You sound like you got some crappy parents; I was a shitty dad. Even so, I still love these kids. Your parents may not like you, but they do love you. You just might have to be better at being a son than they can be as parents.”

  Lollipop didn’t look up from the dog, but I could I tell I hit the mark with that one. His lips did a girlish tremble.

  “Son,” I said to lollipop, and he finally looked me in the eyes. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be, kids being stronger than their parents, but sometimes that’s just the way it is. I know I had to depend on these kids more than any kid should have to put up with.”

  Lollipop smiled as Sadie licked him in the face. He stood and walked over to the grill. I could smell his fucking hippie body odor even over the BBQ smoke, but I decided not to say nothin’ considering me and lollipop just shared a goddamn moment.

  “It smells good,” he said.

  I grunted while I flipped the meat over and stabbed my tongs against it to see how much blood was still in it.

  “Are you really going to try and find the guy?” he whispered.

  I glanced over at him.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll go with you, but those people are crazy,” he said, turning back at Baby Girl to make sure she wasn’t listening.

  “Hell, boy,” I chuckled. “In case you hadn’t noticed, so am I.”

  Mitch the Witch

  October 25 0300

  Source: dictated from a podcast found on www.mitchthewitch.com.

  “You’ve got Mitch the Witch shootin’ out over the internet ether, squeezing through the keyholes, hiding behind the bushes, fallin’ out of cupboards, scarin’ the children. I sprouted out of the Earth somewhere amidst this vast wasteland of wide-eyed believers, babbling sheep, talkin’ heads and your usual assortment of know-nothing, do-nothing, head-in-the-sand cowards that slurp up whatever lies the government oozes out through the radio, television, corporate newspapers or your mainstream sources of online news.

  “Well, maybe I’m not drawing millions of listeners, but I’ve got quite a few and they’re growin’ and I gotta tell you that it does my heart good to think that these strong-minded citizens have their ears perked and their eyes opened, knowing that something more is going on out there than what the mainstream media releases in soundbites, videobites, and carefully crafted talking points. Somebody has to blow the lid off this façade we call ‘reality’, and I’m just the guy to do it.

  “So, to the fan mail…(Grunt, hack and what sounds like he is taking a drag from a cigarette.) We’ve got your normal hate mail, love letters, some dude who says he’s with the official government agency, Alternative Medi
a Bureau, which doesn’t really exist, of course. This muckety muck crafted a cease and desist letter, misspelled ‘desist.’ I always wonder when I get these, if it’s a fan trying to pad my ego, makin’ me think that the government’s listenin’ in and crappin’ their shorts. Well, I know I got some ears on me, makin’ sure I don’t spill something sensitive, maybe waiting for me to threaten the President so they can arrest me.

  (Laughs, hacks and takes another drag.)

  “I got an interesting email this mornin’ from some dude sayin’ the universe is falling apart and that he’s got the proof. I’ve got myself a trac phone under someone else’s name, so I’m gonna give this citizen a call and see if he’s talkin’ the truth or just wants attention. Remember listerners, never close a door until you’re sure you really want it closed. (Sound of ringing. Anonymous voice is distorted, but is clearly an older male voice. His comments are in Bold.)

  “Hello?”

  “This is Mitch the Witch, is ‘Apostle’ there?” (chuckling.)

  “That’s me, thanks for calling. I’m really glad to get the chance to get this information out to the public.”

  “Yeah, yeah, why don’t you start by tellin’ us why you think our universe is fallin’ apart. Why should we believe you?”

  “I don’t expect anyone to just take my word for it, but they can find out for themselves.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I have a clock that measures time to the millisecond and I’ve measured time in different parts of the country, and have found that time is literally moving slower the closer we get to one central location in the country.”

  “What? Time is moving slower? Like a black hole kinda thing? Where’s this epicenter?”

  “In a forested area east of Norman, Oklahoma.”

  “Oh, I see. Are you one of those Jim Jacobs freaks?”

  “No, well, I wasn’t until I found this anomaly, and I don’t think there is anything going on like what Jim Jacobs described, but there is something going on in those woods that is affecting time.”

  “Interesting. So, you’re saying that if we get some sort of super clock, like one of those laser clock things they use in space, then we could register this difference as well?”