UGR: Have A Good Day (786 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.84 on 21 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by katy (View user info) at 2006-06-19 23:32:36 EDT
www.ubersite.com/m/89285 ------ the thingy for the thingy that this thingy is a part of.
i'm insanely sorry for the length of this, but it's damn late and this is all i could work on right now.
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Ella pinched the cherry off her cigarette and eviscerated the rest of it into the ashtray. Lighting up another cowboy killer she counted the thumps the tires made as she went over the bridge joints on the way back into the city. It was like the beating of a heart. The Continental rode smoothly over every bump and she regretted the fact she'd have to dump it when she got back in. Putting her elbow out the window and working her fingers into her shirt she finds the St George's pendant hanging slightly between her breasts. St George, the patron saint of soldiers, the only person she could talk to now. Sometimes she swore she saw him watching her, in approval, while she did the things she did.
She wound her way around the pedestrians, couriers and cabs to the building she was living in. Not exactly home, but still good enough. Her home was put up for sale by the state after her parents were killed when she was 13. Maybe that wasn't exactly a home either, just another house. Ella wished she could say she was sorry her parents were dead but she doesn't like to lie if she doesn't have to.
Her mother used to be a heroin addict, a living skeleton whose teeth were rotted behind the veneers. The bruised hollows under her eyes were only barely covered by the paint the funeral home used. It's good they sew the mouths of the dead shut, even the smell of formaldehyde couldn't cover the rot emanating from that corpse. Blown veins lead to opium smoking or maybe it was just that the tourniquets finally had nothing to tighten around and the pipe was easier. Ella wasn't even sure her mom knew what was happening that day. She doesn't remember hearing her mom scream so maybe the bitch was lucky and passed out before she was shot.
Dear old dad wasn't any better. He beat her up until the day he died. The only thing Ella could ever say good about him was that if he wasn't going to hit her he wasn't going to touch her in any other way. Daddy bought all of mom's smack for her. Daddy also bought the house and the cars and the clothes, the jewels, the weapons and the toys. Daddy took care of his family on the outside. Expensive care. He also remembered never to hit a girl in the face. When she was younger she would run to him wondering why Mommy wouldn't wake up and he'd slap her, just once. When she got old enough to fight about it he'd beat her until she shut up. He screamed that day. Cried too. Don't fuck with the wrong people they always find you.
The state had her out for dead, well, missing presumed dead, until she hit 18 and turned up in the system again. She'd been living with her aunt. The only person besides St George that she ever told everything. Her aunt was the Catholic one, the one that told her about the saints and angels and took her to church every Sunday until she was killed last year during a store robbery. The little bodega on the corner got hit by some 12-year-old thug who'd pissed himself because it was his first time. Her aunt was shot in the face.
Driving past her building, her home she guessed, she flipped off the cop walking down the road. He gave her the salutary return finger and she pulled over.
"Hey, Dave. How goes?"
He looked her up and down for a minute before asking the obvious. "Not your car is it?"
"Nope."
"Who'd you jack it from?"
"Some asshole in Red Bank. Don't worry, he deserved it. Doesn't even know it's gone yet I don't think."
"Nice. Eventually I'm gonna have to arrest you for this shit you know."
"I know. I also know you'll warn me anyway and I'll just run and come back later like always."
He sighed. He did know. He guessed he was that "big brother" type that every girl who was hard up had. The ins and outs of paperwork and the law were his job to cover. The ins and outs of actual criminal workings were hers. He let her be, like always. They were both soldiers in the same fight. He hoped anyway.
"Drop the car off by the pier. I'll make sure someone finds it."
"No prob, Dave." She exhaled a wreath of smoke around her hand on the wheel. "Hey I got another one for tomorrow. I'll let you know when it's good. 'Kay? It's gettin' dark, I'm gonna see if I can pick up another one or two before then."
"Fine." He looked at her again, something close to pity flashed over her face and he saw it. "Ella..."
"Yeah?"
"Be careful."
"Careful doesn't work."
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Later that night she dressed for the hunt. Any manner of filth that happened to walk across her path was prey. She put on dark jeans, low cut but still loose and a belt to hold them up when her legs pounded the life out of the pavement running. And a dark t-shirt with a dark hoodie over it. Everything had to be dark because everything had to be harder to recall the next day. No make up, nothing distinguishable from anyone else, nothing to etch a picture of her into the minds of anyone watching or even anyone seeing and not knowing she was there. Tomorrow she had something big for Dave, but tonight she'd play.
Ella was tall, model tall and model skinny. Not exceptionally pretty but she had an odd look and an open, curious face that invited stares. Unconventional beauty her aunt used to say. Took after her mother, she'd say. But in looks only. "You're nothing like her. You're lucky, remember that." Ella's lithe figure, mostly due to a steady diet of cigarettes and street cart fare, was home to a cabling of muscle that she covered up with layers. She walked purposefully hunched over, not just to hide her height but to give the idea to the other predators that she was a victim. It worked most nights.
She walked up to Canal St and hopped the subway riding the maze of tunnels around the city. She'd take the longest routes possible always in the last car or two just waiting for the harassment that almost always came. She knew where to find them it never really took long.
Riding the train was comforting. The other heartbeat of the city. She figured if no one crossed the bridges and no one rode the trains then that would be the end of the city's heartbeat. She liked the subways. It made her think she was flowing through the arteries of a living being. She felt like she was a part of something. Ella rode the trains and crossed the bridges to keep her world alive.
The targets got on her car about 3am. It was her fifth trip into Grand Central for the night. Thank god you could ride the trains all night and never pay again once you got over the turnstile. She was getting a little sick of the thick, stale air and had almost given up the soul dredging for the evening. Five guys, all about 25-30, all drunk, and all very aware of her, walked into her otherwise empty car and sat right across from Ella.
"Hey girl. Sup?" said the leader.
She'd purposefully kept her face turned away from them when they got on. It showed fear. Glancing up she caught her breath. She knew this one. Anthony. Anthony something. It was a long time, maybe she never even knew his last name, but she remembered his face. He was the son of one of the "associates" his father had. She remembered the picnics where he and his friends would take her into a back room and put things in her. Never themselves though, just things.
"Please..." she trailed off on purpose. Putting a quiver into her voice always got them excited. She had incentive now and didn't want to lose this one.
Anthony reached over and brushed a piece of her brown hair out of her eyes. She stared up at him, chin held down almost to her chest, and welled up a fake tear in her eye.
"Don't cry honey, it ain't gonna hurt all that much. Promise." Then laughter. All of them laughing.
The train pulled into the station and she got off. Walking a little quicker than she normally would, she gave them the chase. Glancing over her shoulder now and then to make sure they were following her and speeding up for a couple steps every time they smiled back at her acknowledgment. The chase always got them excited too.
Pausing just outside the door, she stopped to light up another cigarette in front of a cop. The guys paused too, waiting for a her, and talked while she faked nervous looks over her shoulder at them. The smoke would be on her tongue in her lungs when the real run started.
Exhaling completely and pulling back deep she took a long drag and held the smoke for a while. The dry burning taste filled her mouth and lungs giving her that headrush she was looking for. She needed to be in the mood for these things too. Another half a cigarette before putting it out and giving the butt to a bum begging for smokes near by who bitched that it wasn't a full one. No good deed.
Putting the lighter back in her pocket, she fondled the handle on her knife. Beautiful, warm steel, eight inches long, with the tang and sheath crafted from the antler of something wild. The person who shaped this metal was so true to the form of the antler there was no other blade in the world curved this way. Rounded and twisted, every time she put her hand around the handle and caressed the edge she'd picture dry, dusty heat, grass, cicadas, a sun fit for the Inferno. Somewhere far from here.
Pulling out St George she whispered her prayer from her lips to his image, kissed him, and put him back to his place slightly cradled between her breasts. Now came the work. She stepped half into the door and watched the pack with an almost vaudevillian look of fear painted on her features. Anthony smiled. This would be easy.
Ella turned back through the door and went to a crosswalk. They followed. She stepped off the curve and went straight for 7 blocks. They followed. Turning right, turning left. They still followed.
"Hey honey where ya goin this late? You know it's not safe around here. You shouldn't be alone. Let us take you. We'll watch you," a laughing voice.
They were all the same. All of this garbage she ever took care of like this was always the same. Ella hated it. They said the same taunting things, no originality. The same cruelty, the same path. Everything. Usually the easiest prey was the familiar but sometimes they had a few tricks in their death throes. Anthony was special though, she was right on key singing his dirge in her mind as he followed her in and out of alleys.
Eventually they all came to a spot where the roads stopping going anywhere because the people stopped using them. People say the big apple never sleeps but around 4am you wouldn't really know. Four was always the perfect time for these things. Someone said once 4am is the darkest hour of the soul, before even the birds can bear witness. Maybe God's not even watching then.
"Nowhere else to go..." he spoke plainly to her face. Coming so close she could smell the pricey vodka on his breath and see remnants of coke on his nostril, he whispered into her, "You're gonna do us all a favor aren't you."
"You have no idea..." she whispered, just as low, into his ear.
He looked down at her face just in time to see a glint of steel out of the corner of his eye. The rancid smile on his face faltered for only a second before his eyes went blank. Too gone to even know he bled to death standing up. His body crumpled in a chorus of laughter from his friends. Crowding around him, forgetting the girl, they poked at him and tried to stand him up.
"You dumbfuck you did too much shit. Can't even get your fuckin cock up can you ya fuckin asshole..."
As the river of his life slowly crawled away from Anthony through the cracks in the asphalt there was just another glint of steel as Ella began.
Familiar prey.
-----------
"Hey Dave."
"Hey Ella. How goes?" he always honestly wondered.
"Not bad."
"Whose car is that now?"
"Another asshole's. Don't worry, they deserved it too."
"I know." He sighed. One day he was gonna have to arrest her. "You got a name for me today? You said you did you know I wouldn't want you to start breaking your promises and shit."
"Yeah I got it, don't worry. I always got it ya know?"
"Yeah Ella, I know. I always know." She wrote the name down on the lid of her latest pack of cigs, tore it off and handed it to him through the window of the new Mercedes CLK she was driving. "You gotta start getting less obvious cars. Someone else is gonna pick you up one day and I won't be able to take care of it."
"Nah. Don't worry Dave. I work the right way."
"Yeah, yeah. I know, I always know just like you always know." He turned away and started walking the opposite way up the street.
Ella cocked the rearview mirror to watch him walk away before pulling a three point in the street.
"Hey Dave!"
"What?"
"Today's gonna be a good day ya know. I can feel it. I promise."
"Right Ella."
"Hey Dave," she smiled. "Have a good day. It's the only one you really have."
User Reviews
Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2006-09-05 13:44:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-06-22 12:26:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-06-22 11:56:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
absolutely phenominal character and imagery and shit, but big holes in the what-the-fuck-is-going-on department.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2006-06-21 09:55:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That was insanely lenghty.
Submitted by ConorJS (user info) at 2006-06-21 00:29:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-06-20 16:39:55 (#)
Ranking: 2
The rancid smile on his face faltered for only a second before his eyes went blank. Too gone to even know he bled to death standing up.
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I thought of Shlongy during this part...is that bad?
========================
As did I, and I wondered to myself... waitaminute what the FUCK?!?
And then I remembered... ah, yes! I will be seeing Rancid in August, and it'll be sweet.
Submitted by gravitas (user info) at 2006-06-21 00:14:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
awesome
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-06-20 16:39:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The rancid smile on his face faltered for only a second before his eyes went blank. Too gone to even know he bled to death standing up.
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I thought of Shlongy during this part...is that bad?
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-06-20 15:33:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BobLobla (user info) at 2006-06-20 14:37:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great post, I am fucked in d-prime...
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-06-20 14:03:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking fuck... this was good. A few complaints that were already covered by other people, but the overall effect brings it squarely into the +2 realm.
Submitted by PeopleAreStrange (user info) at 2006-06-20 12:50:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Feel I should bump it up to a +1 at least.
Submitted by PeopleAreStrange (user info) at 2006-06-20 12:45:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm not saying it wasn't well written, but a lot didn't seem right to me - like when she leaves the train station you say she is pausing outside the door, then stepping halfway back, then out again, that was all a bit confusing.
Also, if she is stealing cars, how does that fit in with killing guys who follow her on the subway? Is it meant to be their cars or not? They walked after her. It also doesn't seem believable that she can take out a whole gang of guys by herself. I can appreciate stabbing one guy by herself but there was no description or explanation about what happened with the rest of the men.
Also, if they were going to rape her it would be more realistic for it to happen quickly in the train, while the others held her down, between station stops. Or they would quickly catch up to her in the streets.
I find it difficult to believe in characters where everything happens on their terms (unless they're some type of superhero), so I didn't enjoy this piece of writing as much as I should have done. Good effort though.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-06-20 12:19:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I REALLY enjoyed this.
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-06-20 11:13:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Everytime I read your stuff I enjoy myself.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-06-20 10:45:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Really good. The only thing that bothers me is that you used a lot incomplete sentences. Some of your imagery is fantastic, too.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2006-06-20 10:36:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-06-20 09:26:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i really liked this. you're a good storyteller
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-06-20 08:48:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
excellent
Submitted by Coleslaw_Murphy (user info) at 2006-06-20 01:23:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The description of the knife was cool, among other things.
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-06-19 23:59:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'll read this tomorrow, it's too long and too late.
Submitted by MrSparkle847 (user info) at 2006-06-19 23:45:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Coo