Oh Yeah, My Baby's Low Down (1257 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: twin_human_highway_flares
Rating: 1.9 on 27 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Stagger Lee (View user info) at 2007-02-05 09:06:57 EST
She never had much of conscience.
I always wondered about what went on in her head, during those long, hot nights in the loft bedroom. Shitty wiring in the roof meant that light bulbs never lasted long in the overhead socket, so we eventually stopped trying. The solitary source of illumination was a small lamp on the floor, casting its yellow glow over the almost empty room. There was a mattress, a couple of wicker baskets, and us. And the money, of course, a few hundred thousand dollars in small bills, stuffed into a couple of gym bags.
We'd been holed up in this loft for a good week and a half. I hated it, but I was the one who kept insisting we stay. If it were up to her, we'd have left at least five days ago, and (more than likely) caught.
She never could plan.
She was a creature of action, of impulse. I just hurtled along in her wake, trying to steer her, trying to reel her in. I didn't really succeed.
We hadn't eaten for a couple of days. The landlord downstairs was an old friend of hers. He was supposed to bring us food, but he'd gone for smokes two days ago and didn't come back. We couldn't leave the house. She wanted to, almost needed to; she spent days pacing around the house, all but scratching on the walls in her blind lust to be free.
She never could stand to be caged.
The man she'd shot had to have been dead for at least a week by now. I remembered him at night, staring out the loft window. I remembered how the blood had spilled from him, fast, viscous and nearly black. He looked at me, I don't know why, and he tried to speak, but then she seized my arm and pulled me from the store. It didn't seem to bother her, but she avoided the subject.
We came in to his shop, on the run, desperate, and he'd recognised us from some bulletin or other. Fucker went for a shotgun under the counter. She was quicker, she was always so goddamn quick, and she blew a hole in his guts with a gun that I didn't even know was loaded.
That was the day that I decided it was time that we disappeared for a little while. There was too much heat on us to leave town, we couldn't make it out. She told me about this friend of hers, this old friend, this guy who owed her. Said he had a loft.
I stared at her, wondering what was going on in that head of hers. She was unusually still, staring up at the skylight, even though she couldn't possibly see anything out there, not with the lamp on. She hadn't cracked her knuckles, or sighed, or cleared her throat, or any of her million other little fidgets, in far too long.
"What if..." she spoke, and in the still room her voice was far too loud. Like gunfire. She stopped, as though ashamed, and she stared at the floor.
"What if what?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said, too firmly, wanting me to drop it.
"No, what?"
Sometimes, on these long, hot nights, I wished for the strength to leave her. To bail out from her destructive little whirlpool. But I had no backbone to walk away. Oh, I knew she'd be sad at first, but she'd get over it, I knew that. I wasn't the unique one in the relationship. She was a once-in-a-lifetime, and I had to go with it as long as I could.
She never had many regrets.
"What if he had a family?"
"Everyone's got a family," I told her, and instantly thought better of it. Too late to take it back, but I rushed on. "But I mean, I reckon, I'd bet he didn't have much of one."
"What makes you say that, though?"
Stupid, stupid, I thought. Think before you open your fucking mouth, I told myself. "Oh, I don't know," I said. "Just didn't seem the type," I finished, lamely. Inspiration struck, weakly and belatedly. "We hadn't got a wedding ring, at least."
He had. It was obvious when his hands came up from behind the counter, gleaming against his finger that was wrapped tightly to the shotgun. That little band of incriminating gold.
She looked at me, and I realised she hadn't looked directly at me for hours. "Really?" and a note of hope was there in her voice, pushing its way up from the depressed cadence of her speech. I couldn't deny that hope to her.
"Yeah, yeah," I said, "Positive. I'd have seen it."
She smiled a brittle smile at me. "You could always see the details," she said.
I smiled back, and my watch alarm went off, a series of three quick beeps. I fished around in my pocket and pulled out a jewellery box.
"It's midnight," I said, "You can open it now." I tossed the box to her, casually, and she caught it with one hand. "Happy anniversary."
"Happy anniversary," she said. We sat in silence for a moment. "I saw his wedding ring," she continued, "But thanks anyway."
I considered that, and then nodded. "Are you gonna open it?"
"In a minute," she said.
User Reviews
Submitted by TechnoRatty (user info) at 2007-02-19 11:14:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant!!
Submitted by r0fl (user info) at 2007-02-08 00:41:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Gold, Brosef.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-02-06 20:24:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ah, young love. Always with the jaded murderiness, you.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2007-02-06 16:28:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Love persists in even the strangest of hells.
Submitted by yhywstudios (user info) at 2007-02-06 14:02:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-02-06 08:04:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2007-02-06 03:24:21 (#)
Ranking: 1
This may well be the first time I've given you anything OTHER than a +2.
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Haha, personal worst.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2007-02-06 07:10:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2007-02-05 11:42:52 (#)
Ranking: 2
She got an apartment where the property was cheap. Next to the freeway. She said, "I save lots of money, but I lose lots of sleep. In my apartment where the property is so cheap."
....
Throwin' rocks at her window what could she do...
If I throw enough rocks one might get through...
It's a song, Stag. A live version where the singer goes on a wild improv tangent for about ten minutes.
Susie D. might be my new hero.
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2007-02-06 05:31:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I know that girl
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2007-02-06 03:24:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
This may well be the first time I've given you anything OTHER than a +2.
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2007-02-06 00:28:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Neatsie-keen.
Submitted by Zebra (user info) at 2007-02-05 21:42:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Zebra (user info) at 2007-02-05 21:42:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I liked the ending but the story fely unfinished if that makes sense to you.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2007-02-05 21:00:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'll even let you get by with the British spelling of jewelry...
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-02-05 19:05:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2007-02-05 11:42:52 (#)
Ranking: 2
She got an apartment where the property was cheap. Next to the freeway. She said, "I save lots of money, but I lose lots of sleep. In my apartment where the property is so cheap."
....
Every day we're dumping a body, she and me. Every single day. And we'd laugh about it.
That's when I knew it was time that we'd both kill ourselves, together. Together, we were nothing but a menace. Apart, we were nothing but lonely.
I read too much, I thought we should kill ourselves. She doesn't read a thing; she believed me. "Are you really the messiah?" "Yes, I am." She was younger than me, too. She was younger than me. And I said to her. I said, "You know, Pauline? No-one stamps on a burning bag of shit any more. Nobody.
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Que?
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-02-05 16:55:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Lido Shuffle
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2007-02-05 13:19:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
staggerstaggerstaggerstaggerstaggerstagger... LEE!!!
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2007-02-05 13:13:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I really enjoy your stories.
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2007-02-05 11:42:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
She got an apartment where the property was cheap. Next to the freeway. She said, "I save lots of money, but I lose lots of sleep. In my apartment where the property is so cheap."
....
Every day we're dumping a body, she and me. Every single day. And we'd laugh about it.
That's when I knew it was time that we'd both kill ourselves, together. Together, we were nothing but a menace. Apart, we were nothing but lonely.
I read too much, I thought we should kill ourselves. She doesn't read a thing; she believed me. "Are you really the messiah?" "Yes, I am." She was younger than me, too. She was younger than me. And I said to her. I said, "You know, Pauline? No-one stamps on a burning bag of shit any more. Nobody.
Submitted by DrogoRoch (user info) at 2007-02-05 11:32:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Not your best but I still liked it.
Fuck who am I to comment anyway?
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2007-02-05 10:27:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2007-02-05 09:58:27 (#)
Ranking: 2
Worst crime against humanity since the g-string.
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yeah, right on, sister!
I mean.....wait a minute.... I've never worn a G-String......honest.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2007-02-05 09:58:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Worst crime against humanity since the g-string.
Submitted by phuzzygish (user info) at 2007-02-05 09:55:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Did I ever tell you about my maw? She was a great whomping pig of a whale's cunt.
Or something. I forget the quote.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-02-05 09:49:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Worst crime of fiction since the alienation of predatory novels.
Next.
Submitted by phuzzygish (user info) at 2007-02-05 09:46:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was the worst crime against aliens since the predatorisation of novels.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2007-02-05 09:28:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Worst crime against fiction since the novelisation of Alien v Predator.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-02-05 09:21:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm so happy to see you review something of mine again you could've -2'd it and called it the worst crime against fiction since the novelisation of Alien v Predator.
So, yeah, um, thanks.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2007-02-05 09:17:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Okay... I liked it. It was very clear.. how they got there, where they'll end up. Nice.
But, dude, edit. It was messy as hell with no beauty in the language, not even the stark cold kind I'd expect from a piece like this.