Þuglife

Þuglife
by
Bobby Derie


Night's-end came, and the city's claws cut the sunlight as it fell onto the streets, leaving deeper shadows.


The city stirred to life, and I went about my work. Love-peddler, dream-dealer, feeder of rats: OG, I, and no fools would I suffer.


Dusty D., snow-slave, was my first stop on that cold morn. Broken puppy-eyes pleaded for mercy, yet I had none; bones crunched beneath my heel until he rendered up what was mine.


Then I went to rouse my sullied angels, langorous and bitchy. Ophia was up with a sick child, belly bulging with another bastard; Maria courted the pleasures of the rock, lost in the glass dick between her lips, teeth already browning; the crimson foe had come again to Lucy, who both rued and yet was glad to see it return. I surveyed my horses and their stables, for it is a good master to care for his beasts; Maria was rambunctious and I took her for a gallop, ere I quit my labor.


It was Thor's Day, and I met my boys on our corner, to hold our accounts; together we walked to pay our respects. A false Corleone, yet a man does not stiff his source, and every damned soul gave the local Satan the rent for his territories. We talked briefly, stiffly, of pleasantries; the powder-sickness was upon him, feeding his ambition, and the talk was of war, rebellion, and expansion. No sky-rat am I, yet I resolved something must be done, for I am no man's soldier.


Day's end began at a package store and night caught us at the club; firewater and hand-rolled gardner's-bane over cards, as pleasant surgeon's subjects cavorted around us, flashing their swollen attributes. Benjamins piled and crossed the table, and then: an accusation, a hidden painted lady, a cheat. Our light game ended as a darker game began.


In the building-crack, on his knees, he sucked at the cold-steel cock through broken teeth. A click, a roar, and a Pollock-painting blossomed on the wall.


Our flight by bridge and tunnel found us in the Garden State by night. In a secret cove I set to the fishes' food with a fervor, for the good feeling of the night had worn off, and the smoke-sickness had taken to my spine, looking ever over my shoulder as I drove back to Eve's overripe fruit, resolving to burn the clothes and have the car detailed.


So night's-end came again.

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