Original story raw draft.
Hello dear reader. Below find a story inspired by the screenshot from the film Jackie Brown that I wrote as a writing exercise. Unedited. Enjoy. Content notes: some mention of childhood abuse and murder.
The press of the gun to his temple was almost gentle, the voice in his ear made him smile. “Hey. You’re late. Drop ‘em.” The man tossed the gun in his left hand, and she laughed. “And your dick knife and the rig in your fat paddle.” Of course, she remembered his habits. He pulled the little push knife out of the waistband of his underwear and reached back under his jacket for the .22. “You know Christina, if I’d realized what it was, I would have worn a better suit.”
Christina frisked him lightly and the gun at his temple went away. “Go sit down, pour yourself a drink. “He did what he was told, still smiling. By the time he sat down, poured himself a hefty four fingers of bourbon she was sitting across from him, beautiful as ever. She let him take her in, she had her graying hair in a soft puff, her face was slightly more lined, but she barely looked older than 40. “You look so good. Mind if I say, it’s true Black don’t crack?”
She smiled, “no I don’t mind. And it is less likely to crack when you know how to moisturize and have a great dermatologist. I got a guy.” He laughed and thought of his own aging. His hair was still thick and luxurious but, was turning white, he had a little paunch and old man balls. “I uh, look Christina don’t think I’m being too forward but, what the fuck?”
With her gun in her lap, her long strong legs crossed and that look on her face she could have been on a movie poster. “What do you know?” He took a drink, hesitated with his hand outside of his pocket, “smoke?” She nodded to the side table, a pack of his brand, a lighter and an ashtray sat waiting. He took his time lighting up, struggling not to squirm under her cat like stare. “I told you to quit last time I saw your ass.”
“I know, what can I say I’m a weak weak man. So, you want to know what I know?” She nodded and poured her own drink; she still drank a vodka and seven. He liked that. He took a deep breath, relaxed in his seat and took a few drags before getting started. It took him longer than he liked to figure out where to begin. The shooting? Prison? “When I got released, I had two things to do. I had to change my face and get to work.”
Christina rolled her eyes. “Not that far back you dick. Where did we leave off?” The man had to work not to giggle or crack a smile. “I know. I’m sorry. Uh, we left it at, you telling me after I got you with that stiletto, about when you shot your father.” She nodded. “Right. You know I have a scar from that. I don’t hate it though, So, where did we leave off?” The man held up two fingers and pulled a bullet out of his jacket pocket.
“You sent me this. Just the one. I know you sent it. Now, this brought me here. I’m here like you wanted and if I know you as well as I think I do, you got something to tell me before we get to the bloody bullshit.” Christina clapped and nodded. “Gotta give it to you, I thought I’d have to send you an e-vite. You asked me when we were stuck in Mexico City why I’m like this. I told you, I’d finish the story.”
She took a deep breath, gestured and he threw her a cigarette. She lit it and took a long hard drag, held it and closed her eyes. “Fuck I missed that. All right. This is the end of the story. You still want it?” He nodded.
“That bullet, was in the gun I used to shoot my father on my 16th birthday. My Pops, he was a real bastard. After my mom got addicted to crack and left, he just went bad. I was I dunno ten maybe and I’d done some dumb kid thing. He beat the dog shit out of me. He went that kind of bad, he would be forever telling me that, he couldn’t let me grow up like Mama.” She trailed off and he winced, “I’m so sorry Christina.”
She waved it off. “It was bad but, I guess now I understand. What happened to my Mama just, destroyed him. Anyway, by the time I was about 12 or so, I swung on him the first time. He was so excited about it. He stopped beating on me and picked me up and loved me. That was life then, his toxicity turned me feral, I guess. I fought him like a grown man. I hit him upside the head with a bat once and he bought me some fucking Jordan’s. Shit was fucked up.”
She sat looking off while she finished her cigarette. “I started planning to kill him right after I turned fourteen. He’d been drilling it into my head that I had to be prepared to let any mother fucker have it. He taught me most of what I know about all this shit. So, I had a plan. I bought a Raven.22 from a fucking smoke shop for forty goddamn dollars. The owner wouldn’t sell it to me unless I fuckin’ put out and paid extra. Unfortunate what happened to him later.” The man snorted, felt bad and tried to cover his snickering.
“Did you plan to leave and become a merc?” She shook her head, “fuck no. I wanted to marry a rich man, be a trophy wife and shit. I wanted to be a kept woman. Maybe pop out a few kids. Be that. But-” She shrugged and shook her head. “My plan was to shoot him and burn the house down. Make it look like an accident. Remember back then, nothing was flame retardant and by then everybody knew Pops was a drunk. A suicide followed by the fire. I had a place to go, I had saved up something like 600 bucks. I think he knew something was up. I’d started to hate him by then. He’d get real drunk and hold my face in his hands, Babygirl, I see what you got in them eyes. Is today the day?”
“Shit. Look, you don’t really have to tell me all this.” She gestured for another smoke and shook her head, “if not you who? The day of my birthday I stayed at school long enough to know he was probably drunk. I walked in the front room, and he was in his chair, drunk as shit. He was awake, and I remember thinking, knowing if I didn’t kill him right then, he was going to kill me. I saw what was in his eyes and when he stood up, I pulled that fuckin Raven and shot. What I didn’t know at the time was Ravens were shit. I fucking missed and hit him in the thigh, clean through and through and then, the shit jammed.”
He watched her seeing it in front of her face and he waited, he was already planning to see if he could find the man for a little talk. “So, I realize I’m fucked, and I get ready. Fists up just like he taught me. He stumbled, looked down at his thigh and the son of a bitch started laughing. He laughed. He laughed until he fell back in his chair, he wept. He told me to get a towel. I patched him up and he kept laughing, he’d look at me and lose it. Shit was fuckin weird.”
Christina shook her head, “I patched him up and had to go shower and change my clothes. He had an envelope and a goddamn checkbook. It had my name on it and ten large in the ledger. He said, today you’re a woman babygirl. I can’t keep you here no more, I taught you all you need to know. Go on and get you an apartment, don’t drop out of school. I love you, Chris.”
She smiled a little, “for all the bullshit, I still loved him. How fucked up is that? I kissed him on the cheek, got my bag and left. I took a bus from LA to New York, found a sugar daddy and made him enroll me in high school. He was a gangster and got a kick out of having him a little moll. I learned. I listened and when it was time, I let him go and went into business for myself. Now, here we are.”
The man poured himself another drink and tried to process it. “I saw him one more time. He was dying and I heard about it through the grapevine. I went back to LA to see him. He hardly knew who I was, called me by my Mama’s name and told me how much he loved me. Told me that our daughter was a bad mother fucker. He kept tabs on me for years, I guess. I sat and held his hand, I told him I forgave him, and he died.”
“I don’t know what to say Christina. If I’d known what he did to you-” she shook her head. “It is really okay. He was a damaged, person who had a twisted idea of how to raise a child. But I tell you all this because I told you I would, and we got business.” The man nodded, he knew what was on his head and he’d rather it not be anyone else.
“So, you bring what I told you to bring?” He pulled a baggy out of his pocket and shook it. “Yes ma’am. My busted teeth. There are no recent dental records. I got my store-boughts in Moscow. My house is like I left it; my car is outside.” Christina’s smile lit him up. “Good. Now let’s go down into the basement.”
The man wanted to be scared. He wasn’t. After the life he’d lived, the shit he’d done he deserved worse. She flipped the basement light on, and they walked down the stairs in silence. He made a face, “is there a fuckin’ crematorium down here?” Christina chuckled, “yeah. Okay over here. Okay, give me your hand.”
There was in fact a makeshift cremation chamber where the furnace should have been. It was blazing hot and stank to high hell. Then he got a little scared, his balls retracted, and his most primitive self was screaming to punch her in the face and run. He fought the fear and did as he was told, under the light she held his hand palm up and before he could say anything, she pulled a blade from between her tits an slashed his hand deep, she turned his hand.
“Okay now, sprinkle them pearlies on the floor in the blood. That’s it. Good.” He stood dumb founded, bleeding and staring down at his own broken teeth on the floor. “Uh, Christina what the fuck?” She smiled at him again, the kind of ever patient smile women give men they love but think are stupid. “Well smart guy. You are dead. You laid there with your teeth knocked out and then the Mena brothers, chucked you in the fire and probably jerked each other off until you stopped screaming. Then they left. But they didn’t quite hook things up right and that lil baby is going to burn this mother fucker down.”
The man let her wrap his hand with a hanky. “Okay, so I’m dead? And the Mena brothers did it and what are you doing here?” She ginned even wider, “well I got pissed off those fucks stole my bounty and their heads are being messengered to a man who really wanted them dead.” As if on cue her phone dinged and she looked at it, “okay. Well, there’s that. Come on. Drop the glass on the floor and let’s go.
She took him by his good hand and lead him upstairs where she picked up her purse. She had a car parked behind some bushes and ushered him inside. He sat staring at the dashboard, he was so confused. For five years, since they’d last seen each other and he’d left her in the middle of the night in a hotel room in Mexico City, she’d told everyone that when his number came up, he was hers.
It had become a bit of a running joke. A lot of men in the business thought she was a witch and called her Gold Dust. After that song and they’d tell him when he met them for business meetings that he was gonna get got by the Gold Dust Woman. Others in their line of work claimed she carried gold dusted guns, some even said she had a cache of gold bars somewhere. The punchline was always, that he was gonna get got by the baddest bitch in the business.
After a few minutes of tortured silence on his part he couldn’t play along anymore. “Christina, what the fuck woman?” She chuckled. “Look. Aside from telling you I was going to slit your throat, what did I tell you in Mexico?” He shifted, “you said as long as we were both in the business, we couldn’t be together. And then you called me a white devil.” She nodded, “right. And retiring is not really an option so, when I got the call, I made a plan.”
“You made a plan. Now I’m dead.” “You’re right. You’re dead. I just pulled the biggest bounty of my career. I stomped out two roach mother fuckers and you and I are going to get on a private plane, we’re going to London first then to a beautiful apartment on Bondi beach where we will live in matrimonial bliss.” He coughed, “did you just fuckin propose to me?” She stopped at light and turned to look at him, one eyebrow arched, “well?”
He watched her face; he had told her he loved her in Mexico City. She’d stood on the little balcony off their hotel room and cried so hard he was afraid she’d fall off. He knew every inch of her face, the chicken pox scar on her cheek, the way she narrowed her eyes when she’d had enough, everything. He’d been devastated to leave her then, had considered himself dumped and his life over. Then she schemed for five years, killed him and gave him a chance for a new life.
“Yes. I’ll be Mr?” Her smile hit him in the gut, “I was thinking Mr. and Mrs. Caruso. That was your favorite teacher’s married name? The one who took you in when your folks died right?” He took her hand and kissed her palm, “it was. Christina and James Caruso. Your Pop loved Star Trek.”
With his new face, new teeth and new name the man he was, was finally dead. The man who wept at the little feet of a woman as deadly as a viper, the man who thought he’d lost everything the morning he left her was gone. For the first time in years, he felt free and at peace. She flipped on the scanner, and he leaned back, watching her profile as she drove.
As they pulled into a tiny airport, an airstrip they parked and listened to the scanner. It took almost an hour for the calls to come in, the little house was fully engulfed and falling in on itself. Christina leaned over to kiss him long and sweet. “Happy Birthday James T. Caruso.” He rubbed his nose on her soft cheek, “let’s go to London and get hitched Christina Caruso.” Her laughter filled the hole in his soul with pure golden light. He wasn’t sure if they’d live long or have to run but, in that moment it didn’t matter. None of it except the prospect of making her laugh like that for as long as he could mattered, and it felt like beauty. He was dead finally and gone to heaven.