Dead- Girls Shame

Dead Girls Shame

"Now you've done it, Amy," came a voice crawling out the dark, seeping from the bloody gash in the side of my once beautiful and pristine head. I've always had a big mouth, the PMS kind, only I wasn't just bitchy one week out of the month, more like three hundred and sixty three days out of the year. Halloween and St. Pats day I am quite charming, a pleasant gal.

His name is Gary, the twat that all but buried a short handle axe in the side of my skull. Who does that shit? Gary Trammel that's who! He's a bit of a piece of shit. A Creve Coeur rich boy that lost his entire trust fund to blow and the dot-com boom and has a fondness for giving head to the south county boys down by the Arch for a little extra dough. A real stand up guy.

As likable as he is, I DID have a soft spot in my heart for him. I've always enjoyed the fatal flaws in others. Like a dead star, shown and shimmering in the night sky, and when that fatal light reaches it's end, it's already too late and forgotten. Just another tragedy.

Gary, as far as I can tell, has no sexual preference. He's not much of a talker, I like that. A time or two, ( maybe more) I've let Gary take me in the beer cooler, straddled and spread me over some light beer keg and let him go to town. It's wasn't sexual, just a thrill, desperate men pound a little harder. Enough Malibu rum (yeah I know) and I'll open up for just about anything.

It all started with the chain smoking hag at the end of my bar. She has a way of getting my panties in a twist and not the simple kind you just pull and release, but ones that take some digging. She's always sits in the same bar stool, shifting and squeaking her way into my head. Reeking of perm, she picks the hairs out from underneath her fingernails after a long day at the salon and stacks them in little piles for me to clean up. Sipping her crème de menthe and milk from my only martini glass she snorts and cackles at the fuzzy reception of old I Love Lucy reruns. She is truly a disgusting human being. What my father ever saw in her I will never know. He died long ago, so I can never ask. I'm a daddy's girl after all.

This particular day, Gary strolls in with O, my older brother. An impromptu family reunion. O is fired up on amaretto sours, I can see the cherry swirling in his absent eyes. We are a family of serious drinkers, the liquor just goes to our heads. Anyway, he's here to quarrel with mommy dearest. God knows what Gary has his head swimming with now, I said he's a bit of a piece if shit. I wasn't kidding.

"I need to talk about father," O slurred.
"For Christ sake O, not again," I laughed.
Gary held up his hand as to shush me. The hag caught my rage about to spew and beat me to the punch that would have landed Gary on the floor.
"O, we've been through this before my love. I did not murder your father. It was his addiction that proved fatal for him." For a withering, frail old woman, with teeth stained green from mint liquor, she spoke with elegance and speed.
"Come, let Amy make you a drink and let's forget about this absurdity."
I was one step ahead of her as the ice clanked into the glass.
"Lies, you always speak in riddles and lies," O shouted.

It's seems like spontaneity, but this was a very predictable scene, ritualistic almost. Sometimes he goes on about being kicked out when he was seventeen, sometimes it's that she never wanted him and wished he was dead. I'm not saying he has it all wrong. Witch, hag, slut...mother is all of these and has always had an agenda of her own. O's accusations, they're, well old fucking news. Water under the bridge. Move on already. Our family is fucked the fuck up. Move on big bro.

I splashed the glass with sour mix and slid it down the bar, skipping over the warped and alcohol soaked finish and right into O's hand like a champ. He cursed me with a smile and then took a hero sized swig, swishing and rolling it around in his mouth like a cow chewing cud before choking it down. The taste seemed to pacify his thirst and slake his temper. The hag lit another slim while the other one burned with half life. She exhaled in Gary’s direction and I saw him snap before I heard the crack. It came, surfacing and rushing up from the depths of a detestable fucking mute, “Better to make enemies, than offend the gods.”
“Gary, what the fucking fuck are you talking about,” I spouted. “Have those little boys been paying you in Go-Go Juice again?”

“Shut the fuck up Amy!” His tone startled me, stern yet flimsy, like a devil grabbed hold of his balls and released the roar and ferocity of a mouse. “You did this, you put this in his head first. You know the truth as I do. She had your father murdered and you ignore it now?”

He was right! I knew it. We all knew it. The truth always had a way of grinding my teeth. And I was not about to let a drugged out, piece of shit like Gary Trammel, huge cock or not, call me out like that. I freaked. The four foot high and three foot deep bar was no match for me. I leaped like a jaguar on the hunt, ready to dissect Gary into little pieces. I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the nearest support beam and proceeded to choke what little life he had left out of him.

It was with one fluid motion that it all happened. I never saw his arm raise or notice prior why or where the fuck came to acquire a hatchet. In his defence, I attacked him. All five foot five and hundred and eight pounds of pure rage. His eyes went wide when he had realized what had just happened. I felt the warm trickle of blood run down my face before I felt the pain. All I could think was, “Now you’ve done it!”

“Oh my god Amy, what have I done?” Gary said collapsing at my side and resting in the fast flowing blood and goo.

“You’ve split my head in two you cock sucking moron.” I wish I could say my pun sounded as smooth as it did in my head, well, what was left of it, but the truth was, my speech was already slipping due to many important and severed neurons.

“Amy, I’m so sorry, I never...I mean...I didn’t want...”
“Shut up Gary, please, just shut the hell up.”

Blurred and dizzy, I could make out O directly behind him. I couldn’t tell if it was shock or relief on his blowzy face. All these years, thanks to me, I’ve convinced him that killing our mother and severing our umbilical noose was the only way that justice could be given to our father. Now, I’m the one dying, bloody and in bits.

“O, I am sorry. I am sorry I never stood behind you. That I laid whispers in your ears and put this burden on you. Forgive me.”

O turned and without word walked up the steps and with one good eye I watched him disappear forever, feeling exiled from everything he ever cared about. With blood stuffing my ear full, I heard an all too familiar click, heavy inhale and the sound of an empty glass hitting the bar. Slipping in and out of consciousness, I don’t know exactly when she left me alone with Gary, my accidental murderer. I guess it suits me, tragedy embracing tragedy.

“Amy, I’m sorry. I love you”

“Gary, shut your whore mouth, please. Just go, just go before someone sees you.”

What’s the point in making nice now, It’s all pretense. I looked upon the defeat in his face one last time and tried my best to force a half smile. He stood, fascinating patterns of crimson spread out in the threads of his dirty jeans. He left me, just as I asked and somewhere deep in my damaged head, I’m already missing the asshole.