RACHEL INGRID ROBBINS


Blow


Then the LORD opened [the man's] eyes: he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword drawn, and he bowed down and fell flat on his face before him. The angel said to him, "What do you mean by beating your [wife] three times like this? (Numbers, 22: 31-33)

It don't matter what he's done. There's always going to be a story to top the last one. Maybe he raped his wife on her wedding night, laughing at her screams. Maybe he shot her dog, staring at her while he pulled the trigger. Maybe he crashed into and killed her best friend while DWI and got away with it. Maybe he just roughed her up sometimes. Maybe he told her every day what an ugly, worthless, stupid piece of shit she was. Maybe he kidnapped her baby boy, just to give her a good scare. Maybe he molested her young daughter, just because he knew good little girls don't talk. Maybe he fucked her sister. Maybe . . . maybe . . . maybe he just ignored her. Sure. Come home from work every day, crack open a beer, pick up the remote, pack a bowl and don't say a word. Not a word, ever. Maybe he's a switch hitter; a combo, a full meal deal. There's no telling. It don't make no difference, like I said. The less I know, the better.
I can't tell you who I work for, and I can't tell you where I'm from. Figure it's nobody's business. I do the job and then hit the
highway, faster than you can yodel the theme from Lone Ranger.
All you ladies need to get me hired is to wish for it once, with feeling. The boss knows the difference, so don't you never no mind if you set off a false alarm. Nobody gets hurt. The boss listens, weighs out the magnitude of the situation, and the motivation of the the speaker. If it's legit, he talks to his yes men and gets a yes.
That's when I get called in. I'm sitting outside my bullet trailer somewhere Out West, where the sky's so damn big and it just makes you want to watch tv. So I done drag my portable outside, set it up on the spool I drug out from the refuse pile out by the gully, and plug in an extension. There's a rerun of Bonanza and the sky's a mad purple and red. I'm thinking it's time for a burger to wash down my beer when the phone rings.
"Yup. Yup. Umn. Ray Pulsifer, huh? Name rings a bell." I turn down Bonanza. "Yeah, weren't he that carpenter a few years back? The false alarm?"
I kick a stone and look at the sun. Yeah, I know. I once had a momma told me the same thing. But I ain't blind yet and I been
looking into that same sun since I was just a squirt. Gives me hope.
So the Boss is trying to tell me this ain't no joke; to pack up my gear and get.
Seems to me that I was just out on a run yesterday, and I'm still pretty beat. "Oh, so it's the real thing this time. She means business, then."
Boss says he's serious as a heart attack. Or something like that.
"Hope you're right about this, old man, 'cause I'm in no hurry to
head back east, I'll tell you what." My last trip east was trouble.
Boss sometimes forgets his own rules and starts filling me in,
trying to get me wound up.
"Nope, none of that. Less I know the better. Like jury duty, you say. I don't want to know nothing on the case." I fire up the grill. Gonna be a long night of driving and I don't eat road food. "You make up the rules, I make up the fools."
"What attitude problem?" Boss's been real touchy lately. "Yeah, I been to Maine. 'Course it's pretty. Everywhere's pretty. I got to
head, old man. You just give me an address."
Well. I just got me another contract on a contractor. I kick at the cowskull sitting by my mailbox. You know, there's all these books for lonely women about how to snag a fellow. I could write me a book if I had the time or talent. I got neither. But if I did, I'd write a book of rules for women that ain't out there and should be. Chapter One is just one sentence long. Here goes. "Don't get tangled up with construction." Maybe I got time for this, after all.

I'm restoring some quaint old piece of shit house in some quaint old piece of shit town in Maine, working for some quaint old piece of
shit cokehead who thinks he's got a new buddy to snort with.
Quaint's just the word for these guys, you know. There's this streak of pure pink pussy in every one of the jobs I've worked. This is one of the simple facts that makes this work so damn easy. They fear that streak of pussy inside their lily-livered selves so bad it makes them hate women. On the other hand, they do backflips to get some old leatherface cowboy sort like yours truly to drink a beer with them. Go figure. So I got 'em eating out of my hand by the time the whistle blows.
"Hey, Tex! You ready for a break?"
I don't look up at first. I forgot my new stupid cowboy name. Pulsifer didn't even blink at Tex Walker. I come up with some good ones. Last job called me "Tiny." So this week I'm Tex.
"Brought you some coffee," he says.
The crew gathers out on the porch we finished this morning and
enjoys the May sunshine. Pulsifer enjoys a Bali-Shag with his
coffee. A pack of Marlboros is circulated, which I decline. Damn
cold in these parts, but you got a nice ocean view.
"I ain't never seen the Atlantic," I lie to Ray, who is sharing my view.
"Really?" Ray sniffs. "I got a boat. You ought to come out this
weekend. Meet my kids. They'll like that cowboy hat."
"Got younguns?"
"Cute little bastards," says some roofer named Matthias. "His boy's the spittin' image of Pulsifer. You stick a ponytail on him and they're the same exact thing."
"His little girl's gonna be a heartbreaker," another adds.
"She's a little flirt." Ray grins at me. Bad teeth. "Had her up last weekend. These guys were up to my place and we started given her sips off our beer. Just a little bit, nothin' too serious. She's like her mom-no tolerance. Drunk as a skunk! Cutest thing you ever saw. Dancing around in her little underwear-"
"She was on my lap!" adds Heartbreaker. "And my boy, he put her to bed I guess. Real good brother. Did I tell you they're twins?" He claps me on the back. "You'll meet 'em this weekend."
"She was on my lap," repeats Heartbreaker, who I look at, right in the eyes.
"What'd you say your name was?"
"Wright. Dickie Wright."
"Right." I think I took care of his grandpa. "You a junior?"
"Richard the third." He stares at me. "How'd you know that, Stranger?"
"You wear your family name with pride," I say. "With pride."
The idiots talk about how smart and mysterious old Tex is, and Ray invites me to check out one of the four bathrooms in this hole and do a line.
"That shit'll kill you, Pulsifer." I straighten my hat. "I got
work to do. You go chat up the owner. We don't need him walking in
on nothing, do we?"
The shorts-wearing-freak who owns the joint is pulling up the
quarter mile long driveway in his new Land Rover, all Sunglasses and Grins.
"Thanks, Tex," Ray says with gratitude. "Don't know where my head is today. I didn't even see him pull up."
"Your head appears to be up your ass, Pulsifer." I clap him a
little too hard on the back. He chuckles.
One more thing I might add in my little handbook for single women is, "Make sure your man has a strong father figure." I swear, every one of my jobs I took even ten minutes to know just wanted me to be his dad. Which means the one he had was just like him. I'm what you might call preventative medicine. Yeah, I like that. Preventative medicine. I'm the hair of the dog that bit you. Take a swig of me first thing in the morning with your breakfast before that headache comes. I keep things real simple.
The others are milling away, trying to appear busy.
"No troubles." I stare into the great beyond and wonder if I will
kill him today or tomorrow. Here we are on the porch, after all. I
always have a clean getaway.
"You know," Ray says. "I was watching you work this morning. You're good. Real good."
"I get the job done."
"Well, I been looking for a new sub. There's this guy-well, it's a long story, but I'm going to have to let him go. You interested?"
Ray puts his hands on his head, a gesture of false surrender common to most of my jobs.
"You ought to watch me at least a week before you make me an offer."
I hope he don't let me talk to him like that. I like to have at
least an ounce of respect for the job.
"You're right," he agrees, and starts going on about salmon and a bachelor party and his bitch ex-wife and conspiracy theories and the
fatalities which've stacked up due to the over prescription of antibiotics. Been a few months since I had to listen to this booger-shit, and I consider just throwing him off the porch to shut him up.
I decide to wait. I think he was telling the truth about a stripper
who balanced twenties on her nipples. I ain't seen that in a while. Great trick.

Bachelor party at Matthias the roofer's brand new double wide trailer with cathedral ceilings. His wife and littluns are at his folks for the night. Ray is in the bathroom, snorting coke with the stripper. Got to keep tabs on the job at all times. So it turns out ol' Heartbreaker Dickie Wright is the dude getting married. I figure I'll be back to visit him in a couple years, maybe less. He is getting drunk in the kitchen with me, bitching like a woman about how he should be the one getting tail, seeing as it is his bachelor party.
"Hey, the chick likes blow," I tell him. "What're you gonna do?"
I should've just shoved bastard Ray off the porch. The stripper couldn't balance the bills and was altogether a waste of my time. I take a sip of coffee and plan my next move. When I said Dickie is drinking with me, I meant he is with me, drinking. Physically, in the kitchen. We decided not to go out with the others on the lawn and play with the potato launcher. I didn't mean I was joining him in drink. You want to do a job and do it right, go in straight but caffeinated. Black coffee, always. Though unlikely, a jobber like myself runs the narrow risk of befriending someone and that just makes work no fun.
Yeah, you heard me. I like what I do. Enjoy it, even. If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it. Plain and simple. You don't get born into this life, you get picked. And you can say yes or no. Plain and simple. Boss is a fair guy. But you really got to think long and hard before you defy that thing some folks call destiny. I ain't real defiant.

The time, as they say, is nigh. I generally ain't one for making a
scene, but I got a good idea of what's going on in that there bathroom. A few minutes ago Dickie joined Ray. Tagteamers. I'll be damned if they hurt that poor untalented stripper. Trouble is, I got to keep a good hands off of Dickie. Sure, he's low down, dirty, and as bad a seed as Ray if not worse. He'll be doing things to folks neither you or I could probably imagine, but it don't make a goddamn bit of difference. He's not my assignment, so I can't job him. Just like I can't try and like nobody, I can't
let myself hate nobody, neither. I leave the judgement up to the Boss.
What I'm aiming to say is I got to kill Ray Pulsifer right under Dickie's candy-coated nose and be out of town before sun-up. Messy
as hell, and I only got myself to blame. I should've done it on the
porch when the coast was clear and so goddamnably beautiful. I thump on the bathroom door. Ray pokes his horsey head out and looks at me." Oh, Tex, man. Only you. "He laughs like some idiot hyena. "Come on in. Plenty to go around." Yep. I knew it.
I open the door to see something I've seen before. Stripper's on
her knees in the corner, sobbing as she sucks off Dickie. Ray's fly is down, and he sniffs the air like a bloodhound.
"You go next, Tex. She's all yours!"
I step toward the pair, while Ron grins a yellow Bali-Shaggy grin. Dickie looks over his shoulder, startled. Think I broke his concentration. "Aw, hey, Tex. Made me jump. Go ahead, ol' man. I'll save the juice for round two."
You know where this is headed, right? I grab old Dickie by the scruff and ruin bachelor night, I suppose. I twist his shirt collar
with a flick of my wrist, get that spot, and immobilize him in less that a second. He drops to his knees. I release my grip and he hits the floor. I'm guessing I got five minutes. I wish the stripper wouldn't cry, she's distracting as hell.
"Tex, man, what the fuck?" Ron is laughing still, but he's pissed. You can see it in how he stands. "Your turn was coming right up."
I look at the girl in the corner and pull off the dress shirt I got tucked into my pants. Yeah, I got me a big-ass buckle on this belt. Ron is excited again, and looks like he thinks I'm going to take off my t-shirt, too. But I hand just my button-down to the girl for a bathrobe. Hey, she's just in her skivvies here. She wipes her make-up streaked face on it.
"Get dressed." I tell her. "Put this on and get. Go on!" She obeys and runs out the door, slamming it behind her. I hear the jeers and catcalls of the boys outside, but she'll be all right.
Until tomorrow night, anyhow.
"All right, Walker, what the fuck's going on here?" Ron puffs
himself up, and I want to laugh. Cat can't be 160. "What's wrong
with you, man?"
I'd like to tell you there's some little speech I give. A prayer I recite. Or even a pause to let the poor little fucker beg for mercy. But that's not my job. I spot the mirror with white powder all lined up real nice, and blow. Just to get him a little riled up. The dust flies all over the sink and countertop. See, I may feel some pride in my line of work, but in good conscience I got to have every job somehow come under self defense. If only in my mind. A man's got to sleep at night, and as you all know, cowboys only sleep with one eye open. So that don't make for a real restful night. That and all the goddamn roaming buffalo.
"You mother fuckin' sonofabitch." Ray Pulsifer grabs me by my
collar, and I shake him off.
"You watch what you say about my momma, punk," I say, grabbing him by the ponytail and shoving his head down onto the faucet. Once, twice, three times. Little fucker's dead.
I look at Ray for just a minute. Yep. And little Dickie sprawled
next to him, out right cold. Maybe I can't out and out and kill the
guy, but Boss don't say nothing about complicating a man's life. I
reckon he's going to have some explaining to do when the boys find
them in here with both their flies open and one dead Pulsifer. Looks
to me like a lover's quarrel of some kind. Powdered sink's a nice
touch, too. Smokey'll love that.
Well, I walk out of the bathroom and scrub my hands off in the
kitchen; get Pulsifer's blood off me. Living room's quiet except for
the stoned laborer playing Nintendo on the rug in front of the big
screen. Outside the boys are still launching spuds. I stand in the
doorway, watching. One of them hits the neighbors' barn and clanks
against the tin roof. Everybody cheers, including yours truly. But
it's time for me to go. I toss the roofer a dishtowel I snagged off the countertop.
"Thanks for your hospitality, Matthias."
"Yeah, Tex, hey. Can I get you anything? Another cup of coffee?"
He looks at the towel. It's got a print of a windmill on it.
"Naw, I'm gonna head. The bathroom's locked. I got to take an
almighty piss."
I look off in the distance. He's got a decent piece of land. All kinds of trees.
"Hope you don't mind me stepping into the woods before I move on."
"Hey, no problem. Jay, go see if Ron and Dickie fell in." He looks at me.
"Try out the launcher?" Matthias is okay. I won't be seeing him again.
"You take care of the missus, you hear?"
"Sure, Tex. You really takin' off, man?"
"Oh, yeah," I say, and let the screen door shut behind me. "So
long, all. Happy trails."
"Night, Tex," they chorus.
It's late April. The peepers are out. This is where I should be
hopping on my horse and riding off into the sunset, but it's already
dark, so I just walk off and sort of fade away.

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