The whole point of a career change is to move up the ladder.
But here in the Gutter, a job change means ending up in ... the gutter.
But here in the Gutter, a job change means ending up in ... the gutter.
Gusher by Tom Leins
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The
rain is so heavy I can barely see the cop car.
Red
and blue lights dance across the parking lot, like diseased ghosts, so I know
they are out there. Fat cops in government-issue windcheaters, clutching pump-action
shotguns worth more than my life insurance policy, are likely out there right
now. Squinting at the Testament Savings & Loan Association, blinking away
the greasy rain.
Walter
convinced me to smash all of the strip-lights, in case one of those bastards
out there wants to try a head-shot, and now we are sat in darkness.
Dumb
fuck.
*
Walter
‘Waxwork’ Wallace is tall and gaunt. He is a man of degenerate appetites. He is
the kind of guy who uses prostitutes as alibis. He quit wrestling after
suffering a prolapsed rectum almost a decade ago, but stuck around Testament
like a particularly virulent STD.
Walter
was what is known in the trade as a gusher. A dude who would blade himself for
shock value. Open up an old cut above his eye and wait until the blood was
dripping off knuckles, boot-heels, turnbuckles. What with the blood-loss and
his albino complexion, he would end up looking like something out of a fuckin’
snuff movie.
I
only agreed to the bank caper to shut him up. He knew that I’d done bad shit
south of the border. Hell, I’ve done bad shit north of the border too, I’m just
less inclined to boast about it.
Walter
smiles benignly, scratching at one of the fibrous boils on his neck. His
hunting rifle is balanced across his shoulder.
“Are
you having fun yet, Gringo?”
I scowl
at him and spit on the linoleum at his feet.
Rotten
motherfucker.
*
The
great Gringo Starr: reduced to robbing banks. If my fans could see me now...
I
could have been a contender, once upon a time, but I got greedy – like I always
do. Wrestling paid well enough, but I followed the lure of the Peso down to
Tijuana, and fought bare-knuckle for a man named Ballantine. He had thinning,
sandy hair, and a face that was scarred up like a bar-room toilet seat. He set
me against the worst of the worst: drug-addicted ex-cons and Tijuana Cartel
enforcers. We would fight in a drained swimming pool out near the airport in
Otay Centenario, while elderly gringos in open necked shirts got drunk and
talked amongst themselves. Ballantine would pace the algae-streaked tiles, taking
bets on a satellite phone. He smiled no matter who won. Either way he got paid.
Every
few weeks I snagged a legitimate wrestling gig in Mexico City or Acapulco, but
the crowds never warmed to me. I don’t blame them. My face and torso were
ragged with scars from the unlicensed fights – and the fights after the fights.
The ones with broken bottles and box-cutters. Most of the time I would just fight
to the death in the T.J. swimming pool.
My
stay in Mexico ground to a halt when I found out that Ballantine was
trafficking eight-year-olds out of the slums to work in a boy brothel he
co-owned Zona Norte. I snapped his neck so hard I almost dislocated my own
shoulder. I left town that afternoon – my stash of Pesos crammed into a duffel bag
and returned home to Testament.
*
The
cashier is sat on a stool, playing with her rosary beads.
“What’s
your name, darlin’?”
She
looks up, eye makeup smudged with tears.
“Rosa.”
“Rosa.
That’s a pretty name.”
“I
guess. The nun’s gave it to me.”
I
grunt, already bored. She reminds me of a girl I went to school with named
Tupelo. She was a smart cookie – an academic compared to most – learned how to
offer head in three languages before she was 15. She was around for a good
time, not for a long time, and wound up dead in a dumpster, gutted with a hook
before she turned 21.
I
lean against the counter, and picture the cashier in transparent stilettos,
working the afternoon shift at the Slop Shop, my greasy dollar bills stained
with her pussy sweat, and the thought makes me hard underneath my stolen
Testament Electric boiler suit. She looks at me and shudders, and I almost feel
ashamed. Almost.
*
The elderly
security guard is face down on the linoleum. In the darkness it looks like
someone has spilled a bucket of red paint next to him. Only the ruptured mess
where his guts used to be gives him away.
The
triggerman was Walter’s estranged half-brother, Wade. The brain-trust
reconvened at a halfway house in Testament Heights, and decided to plan a
heist. Wade was a lanky streak of piss. He turned up shivering, despite the
heat. The rent-a-cop shot him through the neck as soon as he saw the cheap
nickel-plated pistol trembling in his junkie fist. Wade managed to put a slug
in him, and the old bastard seemed to burst on impact.
Then
Walter shot the bank manager in the face, just to prove a point. The only man
with code to the fuckin’ vault…
*
I was
working as a slaughter-hand when I signed my first pro-wrestling contract in
Testament. I’m not afraid of a little blood, but Walter has traipsed it across
the bank, and I find it distasteful – even in the dark.
He is
next to the cashier, whispering sweet nothings into her pretty little ears.
Cigarette-stained fingers wandering across the curves under her rayon blouse,
playing with her hair.
“Hey,
Walter…”
He
turns around, diseased-looking smile between his thin lips.
“You
ever miss the wrestling?”
He
stops scratching his boils and runs a finger across the deep scar that
stretches from jaw-to-ear.
“I
guess not.”
I
nod.
“Dumb
fucking racket, right? You know what a smarter man than me once said?”
He
shrugs again.
“Wrestling
is just like show-business, but with more blood.”
He
smiles, knowingly.
Then I
squeeze the trigger and blow his brains all over the motherfucking counter.
