Cei (3) (668 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: Cei
Rating: 1.75 on 22 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2005-04-11 17:00:12 EDT
Cei (1) http://www.ubersite.com/m/63131
Cei (2) http://www.ubersite.com/m/63228
Cei - 3 - OBLIGATORY JUMPCUTS BETWEEN THE GOOD GUYS AND THE BAD GUYS
Cei hung up the phone and looked at her dwindling stack of quarters.
She had passed the last hour in the Jardine Hotel lobby calling Sheriff's stations in the smaller towns that contracted services from the department, after getting more questions than answers from headquarters in San Bernardino. She struck out in every town, and had two more calls to make, to Yucaipa and Yucca Valley.
The desk clerk was sitting only a few feet away, reading a battered copy of Cheek Spreading Ebony Vixens (which he tried to tuck out of sight whenever someone walked by) and sucking on his teeth. He was a frail white man with a bad comb-over and he kept looking at Cei as if she was a potential purchase.
Cei had given the twins cash for breakfast at the McDonald's on the next block (Cei went there and back with them, just in case) and helped them pick some pay-per-view movies on the motel TV. They weren't thrilled with being stuck inside on a sunny California day, but she told them it was important they stay inside, and they promised they would.
After they were settled in she walked down the block and around the corner. On the way to the Jardine early this morning they had passed a beater for sale, an old Pontiac with no rear bumper. Instead of a paint job the car was covered in mottled gray primer.
There were a couple of young Latinos sitting on a stoop near the car.
Cei got the car for three hundred bucks. It was a fair deal. She needed cheap temporary wheels, and the old Pontiac looked like it didn't have too many miles left to travel. She had parked the car in front of the Jardine, checked on the kids, and gone to the lobby to make some calls.
At least this place was quieter. It was a dump, but Cei had seen a few other parents and children here, so she was sure it was much safer than the first place they had stayed once over the state line. And it was cheap.
The Golden Palms had been cheap too, but it was also a HoJos, rooms being rented out by the hour to hookers and johns. Cei couldn't understand how the twins had slept through a night of slamming doors and unenthusiastic grunts and gasps, but she had had enough. And the bath towels had been too damned small.
Cei's money was limited. She didn't earn a whole lot anyway, even though she practically ran the Superprint store around the corner from her apartment back East, doing everything from print runs to billing to unloading pallets of paper into the stock room. She had cleaned out her bank account over a couple of days using her ATM card, and had mailed a check to cover next month's rent, just in case. She didn't want to lose the few possessions she treasured, family photos and old letters. After buying the car, she didn't have a whole lot left.
If she didn't have family nearby, she was in deep shit.
As the clerk gave a mighty suck on his teeth, Cei started feeding quarters into the phone and punching numbers.
*
"What can I do for you, bro?"
Lincoln looked at the pudgy white boy behind the wire. For him wiggers were on a par with dogshit that got stuck in the waffle of a nice pair of sneaks and dried into a hard crust that was a bitch to remove.
"Lookin for a girl," Lincoln said.
Behind the caged-in registration desk was a doorway and a small office. A short older guy with a brush cut was sitting back in there in a swivel chair and keeping an eye on them.
Pudge laughed and spread his arms. "Well, hell, muthafucka, this is the Golden Palms. You came to the right place to fuck some face. I can hook you up, no problem."
The guy in the office was watching Linc. His hair was battleship gray and his sinewy arms were mottled with faded tattoos. He looked like he'd dropped out of a drill sergeant's asshole about the time Ike was President.
Lincoln had a headache. He had drunk himself to sleep the night before, hurting and hollow inside and longing for the pipe like a man aching for a good fuck. He took a picture of Sophia and Cei out of his coat pocket and showed it to the white boy.
"This girl," he said. "The skinny one."
Pudge leaned over the desk and peered through the wire just above the cash slot in the cage. He opened his mouth and was instantly overridden by the guy with the brush cut.
"What," the boss said, coming through the doorway, "You see a sign that says 'information' above the cage? Hit the street, ya fuckin monkey."
Linc put the picture back in his coat pocket and then reached through the slot in the cage, grabbing Pudge's left tit through the wigger's t-shirt and reeling back.
Pudge screamed and there was a dull clang as he was pulled across the desk, his face banging against the cage.
The boss tried to get between them, but Pudge was so big and his feet were kicking so much the old guy couldn't get close.
Pudge started to cry. "Mah niggah, please!"
"I'll rip this bitch-titty clean off if you don't tell me what I want to know," Lincoln said.
The boss grabbed a tire iron and opened the door to the cage. "Okay," he said, advancing on Lincoln. "That's fuckin it."
Lincoln smiled as Big Dog stepped out of the shadows behind the older guy. A big black arm encircled a wattled white throat.
"We gonna have us a sit down," Lincoln said, flashing a grin that could have been quite charming, under different circumstances.
*
It was early in the afternoon when she made her last call, to Yucca Valley. This time around, Cei got a little help. A woman told her there were a few towns not listed by the Department as contract cities because they were either very small or their contracts were about to expire, even though Sheriff's deputies covered them. The female officer said she was sure there was a Deputy Johnson in the town of Sunday Morning, out in the wilderness.
Cei frowned. "The wilderness?"
"The town is between two mountain ranges," the officer said, "The Turtle Mountains and the Old Woman Mountains, and their respective wilderness areas." Cei heard fingers working on a keyboard, and the officer said, "Here we go. 'A. Johnson, Sunday Morning Station.' Looks like there's just him, though, so the Sheriff's Station is probably awful small.
"Wow, it sounds kind of remote," Cei said.
"You got that right," the deputy said with a laugh. "The fact that the town is so isolated made it the perfect choice for the government to carry out some kind of research there a few years ago. That pretty much ruined Sunday Morning."
"What happened?"
The officer paused before speaking, and her voice was a little softer now. "You never heard about 'the town that disappeared?' It would have been big news if 9/11 hadn't happened. Aside from some stories in the tabloids and a thing on the Sci-fi Channel, nobody is talking. Word is Washington paid off the townspeople for their loss of livelihood. Soon it'll be a ghost town, and a memory."
Cei gave a nervous laugh. "I'm surprised you're so talkative. No offense, but I've been calling Sheriff's offices all morning, and you're the first helpful voice I've heard."
"Well, I've got in-laws who lost a business back then and moved away without saying much. They were awfully bitter about what happened. I can give you directions, but you better have a reliable vehicle to get there. If you have a breakdown you'll be in trouble. There aren't many cell phone towers out there, and we even have a hard time with the police radios because of the mountains. Satellite TV and internet works okay, but unless you have a dish on the roof of your car you better be careful."
"Don't suppose you could give me his number?"
"Technically speaking I shouldn't even be doing this," the officer said. "You just go there and ask around, you'll find the Deputy Sheriff fast enough."
After taking down directions to the town of Sunday Morning, Cei hung up the phone and counted the cash in her pockets. She couldn't help but notice the clerk. He had put down his magazine and was looking at her ass like a hungry man standing in front of a cooked ham. She wasn't wearing a snug and worn old pair of jeans to show off her ass. She'd learned long ago that a purse or wallet would just get lifted, so she stuffed keys and cash deep in the pockets of her jeans. The denim was so tight on her hips and butt that if anyone tried to pick her pocket, she'd definitely feel it. She didn't like how she was feeling now, though, and she was glad they wouldn't be spending any more time here.
Fuck it, she thought. She would get the twins and hit the road right now. Sunday Morning was only a few hours away, and if she did have a cousin living there, Cei was sure things would work out, somehow. She put any alternatives out of her mind.
*
"What's his problem, boss?" Big Dog cocked his head when he asked the question, as if it would help improve his sight now that he was minus one eye.
"Sarge here is a tough guy," Lincoln replied.
They had taken Pudge and the old man into the office and closed the door. Big Dog had yanked the cords out of a radio and a fan and tied the old guy they were calling Sarge into his swivel chair. Lincoln looked at Pudge, just looked at him, and the overfed white boy bent low, puked all down the front of his oversized denims, and passed out.
Lincoln had asked Sarge about the girl. Sarge had told Lincoln to 'nurse on my grizzled old cock.' Lincoln had bitch-slapped Sarge up one side and down the other and asked again. Sarge had said, 'I got no bananas for you fuckin apes.' Big Dog kicked Sarge in the throat and for a while it looked like the old guy was done, but he managed start sucking air again and the purple went out of his face.
"Goddamn niggers," Sarge said, sounding delirious. "Comin in here with your whores and pimps and disease and filth. I'm fuckin sick of all of you."
Lincoln scratched his head. "All we want is a name, old man."
The old man said something unintelligible. "Ffffffffffff." Blood sprayed from his lower lip in a fine mist.
Lincoln slipped his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. Gun, car keys, cell... there it was.
"Now look what I got here," Lincoln said. He held up a small hand tool that looked like a pair of pliers with a studded wheel on one end.
Sarge squinted. "So?"
"This is what they call a leather punch, old man. See, this wheel rotates. I can select any size hole I want by lining up the punch head with the plate. Insert leather, squeeze head and plate together, and you get a nice, clean hole."
Sarge laughed. "What, are you gonna pierce my ears, jungle boy?"
Lincoln reached into an inside coat pocket and took out a pair of latex gloves. He kept a box of them in the car just in case things got messy.
"Not your ears, old man." Lincoln gestured to Big Dog. "Get his pants down."
User Reviews
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-08-03 12:22:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Supreme Overlord damage control...
Submitted by Supreme_Overlord (user info) at 2005-07-21 22:31:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
shite
Submitted by tlozoot (user info) at 2005-04-12 23:51:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yup
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-04-12 12:49:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-04-12 00:32:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I miss sex.
sigh
Submitted by Dannie (user info) at 2005-04-11 23:41:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
GAK!!! I feel so dirty.
sooo....you were saying?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-04-11 23:30:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
There usually isn't anything said at all, actually. She reads a magazine or listens to her iPod while I go at it and then-
uh, wait, this is TMI territory, right?
Submitted by Dannie (user info) at 2005-04-11 23:21:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm thinking, if your wife screams out "Oh Jack you Ubermadness God" anytime before, during or after sex, you have a MUCH larger problem than a bitching Uberite or two.
I mean, when I'M in the midst of quality nookie, I can barely gasp his name, let alone a royal title.
Jeez!
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2005-04-11 23:14:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
OH - and Jack, you ARE one of the UberGod's, and as I have to admit, your writing is MUCH better than "some of the shit the monkey's fling around"
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-04-11 22:33:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Dannie (user info) at 2005-04-11 22:14:05 (#)
Ranking: 2
So, as an outsider looking in, my thought is that you want an honest reaction, not "oh Jack, you big Ubermadness God you"
--
Yerright. Besides, I get enough of the above in bed. I should be happy.
Submitted by Dannie (user info) at 2005-04-11 22:14:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-04-11 17:35:01 (#)
Ranking: 0
Having said that... there is some piss poor writing that is getting solid +2's on this site. I guess I'm fucking myself by setting the bar higher and creating actual characters and stories instead of a series of action vignettes for people to cream over.
Rant over. Can you tell it's a Monday?
--------------------------------------------------------
I'll give you that, but most of us are so impressed when the ass monkeys don't fling shit, we give them a good rating. I know that you know you are a good writer. It isn't like it is a surprise to you, in fact you take pride in it. It comes across. So, as an outsider looking in, my thought is that you want an honest reaction, not "oh Jack, you big Ubermadness God you".
Feel free to rant until Tuesday.
Submitted by PukingDog (user info) at 2005-04-11 18:26:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I haven't been around for awhile, so I miss those who actually put out some fiction. This was entertaining to me, and I have to say I have not read the others, but I will. Had to read this to see if I liked any of it before going back...
Relatively speaking, I found it well-written and interesting, regardless of the genre. There is a lot of bullshit that gets 2's all day long. I think ratings should reflect effort (READ: Cookie Monster post).
You used the word "mottled" twice though, close together. But overall I thought it easily gets a 2.
Submitted by domenad (user info) at 2005-04-11 18:25:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Dammit, everything McCallum writes is like he's been writing just that for fifty years and has worked all the bugs out. Bastard.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-04-11 18:19:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
goin' south in a hurry - if I wanted 'Pulp Fiction', I'd watched 'Pulp Fiction' - I'm guessing/hoping it'll come around soon...
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-04-11 18:08:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked it. I agree that it didn't flow as well as parts 1 & 2, but I still think it's +2 worthy.
I thought there should have been some reaction to Lincolns appearance by Sarge or the wigger...y'know, about not having a lower lip anymore.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-04-11 18:00:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by mbstateside (user info) at 2005-04-11 17:50:20 (#)
Ranking: 2
...I'm at work and could have left 15 minutes ago and cracked open a beer but I stayed to read your stuff no if that isn't a shinning endorsement I don't know what is.
--
Now THAT made my fucking day!
Submitted by mbstateside (user info) at 2005-04-11 17:50:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Don't worry Jack I still love you! Keep up the good work.
As an aside though to respond to your point. I think the likes of yourself and a few others on here who are generally good writers can be judged a little more harshly than others. I think this is because your setting your own standards. From what I've seen people are being honest with you because they are genuinely intrested in helping you with honest feedback. It's kinda like sports where you review your best players performance slightly more harsly than a rooky because they are being judged on what people have come to expect.
For instance I can kinda see a point in what a couple of people below put but on the whole I was still enthralled so you get a +2 Or to put it another way I'm at work and could have left 15 minutes ago and cracked open a beer but I stayed to read your stuff no if that isn't a shinning endorsement I don't know what is.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-04-11 17:35:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Having said that... there is some piss poor writing that is getting solid +2's on this site. I guess I'm fucking myself by setting the bar higher and creating actual characters and stories instead of a series of action vignettes for people to cream over.
Rant over. Can you tell it's a Monday?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-04-11 17:32:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeah guys, I got my head so far up my ass...
I have a week to write a story for my niece, that's what I do for birthdays. Thing is, I usually write for my nephews, but my bro and his wife had to screw things up by having a little girl.
Boys are easy. Farts, belches, stepping in shit, go for the gross-out and they are entertained.
Six year-old girls are a whole different animal.
Anyhow... hopefully I can get my shit together and come up with some nice little fairytale hogshit for her and then get my head back into Cei's world. There is a lot of ugliness to some...
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2005-04-11 17:22:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I agree with the 1.5. so I'll give it a 1 to balance the 2
In the previous stories you made it sound like the twins were barely more than infants, and now Cei is giving them money to go to McDonalds? Also, the bit about the jeans didn't really fit. But still, taken with the previous 2 parts, good story line, look forward to the rest!
Submitted by ruthless (user info) at 2005-04-11 17:17:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Rawr.
Submitted by Dannie (user info) at 2005-04-11 17:13:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Run Forrest...er..Cei, Run!
Honestly, I wish we had a 1.5 button. I am going with a 2, because I thought the first two in the series were excellent. This one seemed a little awkward at times. The whole bit about describing why she wore tight pants just didn't flow with the rest of the story. I don't know...can't explain it. I guess I know that she is street smart, so that just jarred me out of the rythym of the story, and I thought it wasn't worded as well as your normal descriptions. I expect more from you Jack! *melodramatic tears and sobbing*