Draw Another Breath (It might be your last)

Chapter One

Consuela Vargas parked her rust brown, multiple-dented, Toyota Corolla in the parking lot, and rummaged in her handbag for the clear plastic coin purse that contained the change for the snack machines in the federal prison visiting room. She slipped the driver’s license out of her wallet, put it into the clear plastic coin purse, and snapped it closed. Consuela felt as if her life snapped shut a little more each time she came here, closed up this coin purse, and went in to visit Manuel. He would never change, no matter how many drug programs he went through. She might as well go back to Mexico and live with her parents and sisters.

She stepped out of the car, locked it, and secured the big leather handbag in her trunk. She was almost an hour late, and Manuel would be furious. Fuck furious though. He’d always driven around in a tricked out Lincoln, while she puttered now in this heap and worked for a janitor service cleaning up other people’s shit for nigger wages. Now that he no longer dealt heroin, and drove a lawn mower tending the warden's lawn, he had to come down a notch or two.

The hard rain pelted her as she turned to head for the entrance to the prison camp, and she nearly bumped into a gringo wearing inmate khakis and walking fast. He dodged her, mumbled excuse me, and trotted to a blue Mazda, fired it up and drove out of the lot. Connie went back to her thoughts, and walked to the prison for another sexless two hours with her husband. Maybe Jose would come over tonight and she could get satisfied.

* * *

On a rainy Sunday afternoon during visiting hours, Jeff Bravis walked away from the federal prison camp in Western Oregon. He was supposed to be in the visiting room seeing his latest lover, a woman garnered from the many form letters he sent out on a monthly schedule to sad, heavy-set women he located in the lonely hearts sections of newspapers. Walked away really didn’t accurately describe the situation. Actually he drove away in a car with the keys conveniently left up in the visor by a correctional guard he’d bribed with a mere ten thousand dollars. Some souls came rather cheap, and to people like Jeff ten thousand was chump change.

As he sped west along Highway 18 towards the ocean, he removed his khaki prison issue shirt and tossed it out the window onto the rain slicked tarmac, ran a hand over his brown brush- cut hair, and pondered the last two years of his life. He felt satisfied it hadn’t been all that bad. They kind of treated him like a celebrity. Oh yeah, hell, the detention centers he stayed in prior to his conviction, before he settled in at the minimum security camp, were shitty and boring, but he’d caught up on his reading. At the camp he could roam free, use the internet during his job assignment as a clerk for the construction crew, and no fences surrounded the area. Lots of workout equipment, he took his right hand off the steering wheel, made a fist and flexed his bicep narcissistically. Good food, lots of fat guys around to prove that. But nothing in the daily routine to challenge his abilities.

He drove the Mazda to Lincoln City on the coast, parked the car in the Chinook Winds Casino parking lot, went inside the building and located a cash machine, entered one of his bank account numbers and withdrew a thousand dollars in twenties. Next he cruised the Mazda through the parking lot for five minutes and found what he wanted, a dark blue 1990 Jeep Wrangler, parked near the back of the side lot. Jeff slid the Mazda in beside it and opened the hood of the Jeep, moved the jack aside and found a magnetic key holder with keys to the vehicle. It appeared there might even be a key to the person’s house. Too bad he didn’t have time to stop and steal something for his trip. Funny, it’s always the macho type vehicles that keep a spare key. Pickups and Jeeps. Must need it in case they get too fucked up in the bar and lose the keys in the shitter while they’re barfing up Cheetos. He fired up the Jeep and drove out 101 to the outlet center on the south side of town, parked and went inside. Might as well pick up some new clothes, and get rid of the rest of these prison reminders. The place was massively decorated for Christmas, and pa-rum-pa-pom-poms reverberated from every speaker system. He bought a pair of Levis 501, stonewashed jeans, white Nike runners, and a blue hoodie. Finally he traded a set of license plates with a Chrysler Town and Country van, and headed out of town south on 101.

Jeff felt alive now, full of juice, like he did when he’d successfully taken someone’s identity and used it to make twenty grand in a couple of days. Hell, his parents died and left him and his sister a pile of dough and the old house where his nutty sis stayed. But it wasn’t the money that made him continue his criminal pursuits, even though he had millions. It was the juice. No drug could do it better. Nothing else made him feel more alive. Jeff was addicted to adrenaline. He gripped the wheel of the Jeep tight and laughed out loud.

* * *

Walt sat on the barstool in a cozy bistro in Yachats, Oregon, about sixty miles south of Lincoln City. He really didn’t sit at all, but perched, and held on to the bar with both hands so he wouldn’t careen off the round seat and fall on somebody having dinner at one of the restaurant tables behind him.

You drunk enough yet Walt? the bartender said and wiped the surface in front of him.

Nope, Walt slurred. If’n you give me a ride home tonight, I could get much drunker.

One for the road then, the barkeep brought another double bourbon, took money from Walt’s pile on the bar, and went to work washing glasses.

Some miserable tourist came in and sat beside Walt. He knew the guy was a tourist right away, because he chatted up Herb the bartender, and then he called the town Ya-chats. Walt couldn’t stand it when they did that, and when the guy said it, Herb automatically moved away from the bar a full step, expecting a tirade from Walt.

It’s Ya-hots asshole, Walt said to the young man beside him. Ya get it now. YA-HOTS!

Jeff clapped his hands in applause, bought the drunk a round while he drank his beer and ate two packages of corn nuts. Jeff rewarded him for the etymological lesson and offered him a lift home, knocked him on the head with a tire tool in the parking lot, stole his wallet and his ‘95’ Ford Ranger pickup. The truck had a full tank of gas. He switched plates with the Jeep and headed south again.

150 miles or so down the road, he arrived in the timber town of Port Orford. The whole way it had poured torrential rains the way only water could fall from the sky in the late fall on the Oregon coast. Not in sheets, or showers, but in buckets and barrels. Less than a mile out of town, on the twisting two lane road above the ocean, he almost ran down a hitchhiker in dark clothing, slewed the truck to a stop and waited while the man came up to the driver’s window and tapped on it.

Catch a ride to California with you? the guy said. The water drained off a blue Mariner’s ball cap and fell onto the soaking wet navy-blue pea coat.

Get in, Jeff closed the window against the torrent and watched as the man walked around the front of the truck, stepped into the cab and closed the door.

In the brief glow of the interior light, the guy appeared average, with short brown hair when he pulled off the cap and banged it against his leg to remove some of the water.

Jeff put the truck into gear and sped along the narrow dark highway perched above the Pacific Ocean’s rocky shore, far below.

Smoke a joint? the guy said.

Sure thing, Jeff said. I’m Brad.

Gregory, the guy said and put out his right hand.

Jeff shook it, Gregory lit a fatty, took a huge toke and passed it to Jeff, who tried to suck half the joint in one hit.

Take it easy man, Gregory said, there’s more where that came from. He hit the joint and passed it to Jeff.

Jeff looked down to grab the smoldering joint, inadvertently touched the coal at the end, and hollered, Shit, as the truck came around a bend, and slammed head-on into a pile of rocks and debris that had slid off the hillside and blocked the road.

Immediately Jeff pressed forward hard against the shoulder restraint, his chest hit the wheel but didn’t break any ribs. The man beside him hadn’t fastened his belt yet, and he catapulted halfway out through the windshield, his head and face bleeding in the rain from the glass cuts, his neck turned unnaturally sideways. Jeff poked him in the ribs.

Hey buddy, hey Gregory, you all right?

No answer. The guy’s face was definitely fucked up, shards of glass poking out everywhere creating blood trails. Jeff unfastened the seat belt, reached out, touched the guy’s neck and couldn’t locate a pulse. Shitfire, broke the dummy’s neck. At least he died with a joint in his hand.

Jeff thought fast. He didn’t need someone to come along and paste into the truck with their car and kill him, he had to get out of there. Gregory’s face was pretty well chopped up after his encounter with the windshield. Maybe he could use the body for a ruse to take the heat off himself. Jeff slipped his prison ID card out of his pants pocket and put it into Gregory’s hip pocket, pulled off his wet pea coat and put it on, went through his pockets, took a bag of weed and some rolling papers, a lighter, a Buck clasp knife and his wallet. Nothing else to do here but put the guy into the drivers seat, smash out the windshield from the inside on that side too, and get the fuck out of here. He found a large rock on the slide pile, pushed it trough the windshield, dragged Gregory’s body into the drivers seat, and slammed it into the steering wheel a couple of times hard to break a few ribs, then he climbed over the lowest point of the slide and started walking. A few minutes later he heard the sound as another vehicle plowed into the truck.

Half an hour later, Jeff flagged a ride from a man who had tried to go north, then turned around and came back when he found the road blocked by the slide. He took Jeff as far as Brookings, about seven miles from the California border. It was early evening and he was damn hungry by now. He walked into an Italian pizza and sandwich place called Gianni’s. The florescent lights were as bright and blue as a Kmart, and made Jeff feel more like gritting his teeth than shopping for food. He ordered a chicken parmesan sandwich on focaccia, with provolone, sweet peppers, olives, vinegar and oil, mayo, lettuce and sliced tomatoes. He had them hold the onions because he didn’t want to foul up his breath, in case he found some pussy between here and wherever the hell he was going. He drained a cup of lemon tea from the dispenser into a 12 ounce cup, added ice, and watched the clerk build the sandwich.

The Hindu-Italian sandwich maker had just got going on his order, when the door from the outside opened and a scraggly, blond-bearded teenager wearing a dark watch cap pulled down to his eyelids, black pants with holes in the knees, a black duster raincoat, and even black fingernails for Christ’s sake, rushed into the café holding a chrome revolver out in front of him. Shit, Jeff thought, this screwball is going to shoot himself. He tried to point the pistol at everyone at once. That meant eight people and only six bullets. He was screwed. The Hindu sandwich maker and his wife immediately froze like statues, like they were familiar with this game, and wanted to get it over with as soon as possible and return to business as usual.

The kid screamed, All you motherfuckers lie on the floor, and don’t make a move or I’ll blow you away. I mean now, and he emphasized it all by firing the pistol into the light fixture, showering himself with hot glass fragments. Now he was down to five rounds for eight people.

Spittle flew from the boys cracked, sticky white lips. A meth-head in action, no less, Jeff thought. Probably needs the money to finish out the weekend’s partying. Jeff felt sure he was fucked now. Only hours from the prison he’d fled, and he had to be witness to a holdup. The cops would come, he’d have to stay and provide a statement, they’d arrest him, and he’d add another five years for escape to his sentence, plus they’d put him in maximum security where he couldn’t get away again.

Excuse me, the cop would say, do you have a driver’s license I can see to verify your personal information?

Jeff‘s adrenaline fired him into his spontaneous mode.

What the fuck do you think you’re doing, he screamed at the kid before thinking what he wanted to say.

The boy faltered for a moment, and pointed the pistol at Jeff and said, On the floor faggot, now.

Jeff noticed the boy’s momentary hesitation, and played on it before he lost the potential for the upper hand. Jeff wasn’t very tall, but he’d buffed up well in the joint. Now he pushed his eyes open wide and bugged them, a trick he’d learned as a kid making faces for fun. He could scare the shit out of his sister and her friends.

He coupled that glare with a forced, manic-looking grin, and repeated, What the fuck do you think you’re doing? These poor schmucks don’t have anything you can use for your dope habit. Shit, it’s late in the day, and you think they haven’t made a deposit at the bank? Dumb-ass kid, they probably have fifty bucks in the till if that. Why don’t you go find a nice shylock, check cashing business, or a highway-robbery gas station on the road, and rob them instead. You’ll do the public a service too, if you know what I mean. But my recommendation is you get the fuck out of here before you get caught for robbing this place and do ten years inside for a twenty dollar bill, and an Italian number one combo sandwich with pickles. Ya hear me yet, he increased the volume of his voice. I said get out now. He took what he hoped was a menacing step towards the meth-head, the kid looked at his round bulging eyes, screwed up face, and he turned and ran from the shop into the dark.

Jeff resumed his normal composure, breathed out a sigh of relief, walked around behind the counter, picked up his unwrapped, but completed sandwich and put in onto a paper plate. He grabbed a couple of napkins on the way to the door.

Thanks for the comp on the food, he said, and walked outside looking in the direction the robber had taken.

He saw the kid firing up a black and white, beat up F150, stalked over to the driver’s door and yanked it open before the kid put the truck into gear.

Here Bra, quick, put these inside for me, he said, and handed his sandwich and drink to the kid, I need a ride.

The surprised youth took his hands from the wheel, and put the sandwich and drink on the seat beside him.

What do you want now, he said, the whine apparent in his voice.

I just want to help you out see, Jeff said. You’ve got a nice truck, I’ve got a head full of ideas how to use the truck and make us both some money. Okay?

The kid appeared to think it over, then nodded his head and said, Get in.

No, Jeff said, I want to drive, he reached up and grabbed the kid by his face, locking his big hand tightly, pulled him out of the truck, turned his body on the way so the kid was way off balance, and finally slammed the back of his head onto the concrete with a loud crunch as he fell over. It was too dark for Jeff to see his eyes go blank in death. He quickly searched him and found a wallet, a small glassine bag of meth, and the pistol. He kept the wallet and left the rest. Didn’t need a gun, they’ll only get you into trouble.

Across the California border, past Crescent City and Eureka, he turned southeast towards the hills, and began to look for a small town with a gas station and a motel where he could crash for the night.

* * *

Chapter Two

The two grizzled bikers parked their Harleys on the shoulder of the road at the top of the two lane blacktop hill that led down to the piss-stop-in-the-road town below. They stepped off the bikes onto the pavement, standing in badly scuffed and run down at the heel motorcycle boots, complete with leather straps running through stainless steel rings, uniformly filthy jeans, grease stained, and dotted with the rust color of dried blood from knuckles barked turning a wrench under the bike, and wiped on the nearest location. They would have been a matched set, salt and pepper, beans and rice, whatever, except for their size and stature.

So what the hell you want to do now, Artie said, and tugged at the Fu-Manchu mustache ends trailing down his face, and onto his chest. The origins of the hair on either side of a deep scar in the center of his lip right under the nose, where he’d encountered a broken beer bottle wielded by his friend when he was eight years old. He stretched trying to pull out the kinks of the two hundred miles they’d just run under their wheels, his back cracked, and the gristle in his shoulders ground, belying his forty plus years.

I see a gas station, Dirk said. "Lets cruise on down and work on our putts a little, change the oil, gas up and head out again. He hunched his shoulders forward, trying to ease the strain from too long leaning into the handlebars that shortened his six feet four by three inches. Permanently clean shaven, the benefits of being full-blooded Pima Indian, he tugged at his pony tail and smiled. His eyes crinkled at the corners and nearly obliterated the three tiny blue teardrops tattooed beside the right eye, indicating the number of men he’d murdered in the joint.

Ya think the guy will let us use his tools? Artie said.

Who gives a shit, Dirk said. Come on, I’m tired and need to sit on something that doesn’t vibrate, and don’t make no dirty joke out of that or I’ll have to pop you one.

Yeah, yeah, Artie said, you’ll like pop me in your fuckin dreams Tonto. Lets go, I’ll race you to the station, last one buys the sodas.

He jumped onto the Harley, kicked it to life and screeched off down the hill, Dirk two feet behind him to the left. They turned off the highway like that, speeding, and jammed the brakes on to slide through the gas pump area and stop in a cloud of tire smoke in front of the bay doors.

Cheater, Dirk said digging some change out of his jeans pocket after he stepped off the bike.

You are so slow, Artie said. How the hell did you ever get to be a boxer.

I just said I was a boxer, I didn’t say if I won or not, Dirk said. One thing for sure, they might hit me ten times to my one, but my one always knocked them on their asses.

He threw his leather jacket onto the Harley seat, and shrugged more comfortably into his deerskin shirt, dangling fringes of many lengths a testimony to the years he’d worn it without washing. A nervous tic jumped at his right cheek, and twisted the lip quickly upward a couple of times.

Let’s go inside and stir up some shit, Artie said, tilted his bike onto the stand and swung off onto his feet. I need a beer, but a soda will do, especially a free one.

At six feet even, he walked like a sailor just off a ship, his gait rolling back and forth. He looked back to make sure Dirk followed him, strolling casually along, interrupted by the hitch caused by a right foot clubbed since birth. Kicked like a mule with that foot though, like that football place-kicker for Kansas City, what the hell was his name. Dempsey, yeah that was it. Menace flashed out of Dirk’s walk, like he might pounce on you just for fun. Artie pushed his nearly all gray hair back from his forehead, then shoved open the office door to the Union 76 station. Dirk followed him in across the once black and white linoleum tiles, now black and brown, and they stopped in front of the steel gray desk and faced the slender, wiry-armed, sixtyish man who sat in a rolling chair, his dirty boots propped up on the desk.

Verne Townes, the proprietor of the Union 76, looked up from his Penthouse magazine when the two men walked into the office. He suddenly felt the way he had every day after school in sixth grade, when Jimmy Brannigan waited to kick the shit out of him. He tossed the magazine onto the desk, his hands were grimy with grease and yesterdays dirt, banged his feet down onto the floor, and leaned his elbows on the desk, his eyes fixed between the two bikers looming in front of him, a question on his face but saying nothing.

Need to use your station for a bit, Artie said in his quiet voice, almost a whisper, compared to his usual growly, cigarettes and neat whiskey basso.

The man turned in his chair, lifted his arm and pointed a knobby arthritic finger at the sign on the wall.

Can’t you read. No habla fucking Englese? he said with a sneer. It says we don’t loan tools, and customers will keep out of the service bay. Insurance liability and shit like that, you understand.

Dirk moved back a step from the desk and pretended to read the sign for a few uncomfortable, silent moments, and said, The man didn’t ask you for your tools or your service bay, even though if he wanted one or the other, he could take it pretty easy from a little bandy rooster like you. He said he wanted to use your station for a bit. So if you’ve got a car, hop on into it and toodle to the nearest tavern and have a beer. If you drink fast, have two or three, cause we’re liable to be here for a while. Comprende motherfucker.

The man looked from Dirk to Artie and back, glanced quickly at the door as if expecting the cavalry to ride up and stop all this. But John Wayne was dead, and there was no sheriff in Los Madres, California, no police to speak of but a part-time constable, and at this time of the day he might be banging the waitress from the Dally Inn Café.

You ain’t gonna wreck the place are ya? the man said.

If we were, it would already be wrecked and we‘d be gone, Artie said his voice loud and gravely now, his eye’s narrow and mean. He lit a cigarette and tossed the match onto the floor.

The man eased out of his chair as if he had a bad back, straightened slowly, and sidled around Dirk and Artie at a distance that put his back against the display shelf for oil and windshield washer fluid. He darted for the door quicker than one would have thought for a guy his age, and sped outside. A few minutes later a dirty, dented, green ‘66’ Chevy pickup blew dust, screeched onto the pavement, and down the road to the last tavern they’d seen on the way in to town.

Artie went around the desk and sat down easy in the chair, as if expecting it to crash apart at any second. Once settled, he rolled back and put his feet onto the desk.

You still owe me a pop sucker, he said.

I’ve got your sucker hanging, Dirk said.

That’s a worm not a sucker asshole, Artie said.

A night crawler maybe, Dirk went out into the service area and bought two Cokes out of the machine, came back into the office and tossed one to Artie, peeled the tab on his, and took a long swig.

It ain’t cold beer, but it’ll do until we get some.

I believe we oughta work on the bikes, Artie said. I should stop that oil leak on the pan, maybe he’s got some gasket material here, or at least some perm-a-gasket I can goop it up with.

Yeah, and I need to work on that brake cable, Dirk said. Shit, I nearly ran right through this place and back onto the highway trying to stop. What about the man, he said we can’t use his tools.

Yeah, fuck him, Artie said rolled back, banged his feet to the floor and stood. Let’s get the putts fixed up, then we’ll have time to sit down and plan our next move.

The black, rust, and white Ford F150 pulled up to the gas pumps and the driver remained behind the wheel.

Now what the fuck is this, Dirk said. What does he think we’re going to do, run out and give him service.

I’ll pump the gas if you’ll do the windshield and check his oil, Artie said. Maybe he’s a big tipper.

Let’s wait him out and see if he goes away, Dirk replied.

What kind of crazy gas station was this, Jeff thought. He’d driven all morning after a lousy breakfast with under-done eggs, and too-done, tough bacon. The coffee hadn’t been anything to write home about either. He’d had better in prison. What are those two bozos doing in there. He looked toward the office. Playing cribbage he bet. What the hell else could you do in a rat-hole like this town. He honked the horn twice hoping they’d finish their card hand soon.

So now he’s honking at us, Dirk said. You know what that means.

He’s probably from the big city and got way too much money, Artie said.

Nope. It means I get to break his hands, then his nose, Dirk stepped towards the door.

Don’t get so impatient man, Artie said. It’s not as if the oil company is going to fire us for giving shitty service. Wait a bit and see how long it takes him to come in here to us.

Jeff looked at his watch but he didn’t have one on. He missed his Rolex. He didn’t feel like pumping his own gas. With these high prices, someone ought to give you a blow job while the gas pump fills the car. ‘Yep, she’s full now sir, and by the way, did you cum?’ Now he was pissed. He opened the truck door and stepped out into the cool North California winter sun. Jeff banged the door closed and stalked toward the office.

Here he comes, Artie said. See, just wait him out.

Wow he looks pissed, Dirk said. What do you think will be the first words out of his mouth.

You guys work here, Artie said. Bet ya a pop on it.

Make it a beer when we get out of here and it’s a deal, Dirk said.

Okie-dokie.

Jeff pushed the door open with enough force that it hit the wall behind it, stepped into the middle of the office, placed his hands on his hips and glared at the two bikers, one sitting behind the desk, and one perched on the corner of it.

Who the fuck are you guys, Jeff said, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers?

I win, Dirk said smiling, a missing front tooth making him look like a pleased jack-o-lantern.

Yeah you win, Jeff said. You win the right to go out and fill my rig so I can get out of this town before the dead wake up and start eating the living.