The Brooklyn Rules

their nipples. 'Oh, fuck my pussy. Fuck it! Fuck it!'

It was the last voice she recalled, one of her clients screaming. Then the sun exploded with a burning, blinding light, a light so bright she could see through shut eyelids. But after the light came darkness. She dreamed of pearls in a sea of pink.

She woke up. Wasthesunup too? It was impossible to tell. The room was cool, the lights low. She felt like a bottle of chardonnay being brought down to the proper chill. She could not move. Was she dead? In the ME's ice box? The temperature was about right. But no, the refrigerator light pops off when the door closes. She knew that for a fact because her big sister had shoved her inside the big fridge her parents kept in the basement to store the extra food they never bought. Her sister had held the door shut while she sat there, a bundle of herself, cold and in the dark.

'Fuck you!' she had screamed at her sister when she was let out. It was the first time she had used the F word. She had thought it like a million bazillion times, but never said it. Like her daddy used to say, 'You get arrested for what you do, not for what you think.' Yeah, Daddy, like for coming into your little girls' room at night and fucking one while the other watched. Watching was harder, except the night her sister locked her in the fridge. She enjoyed watching that night. After her sister hung herself, she could not get over the shame of that enjoyment. There wasn't enough hot fucking water to wash that shame away.

She tried remembering her sister's name, her face. Nothing. Maybe she was dead. Fuck! This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Does everything just slowly slip away like a long greased rope between your fingers? Do the details of your life fall into the abyss, one aspect at a time? She was determined that this couldn't be death. She had a plan for her death and this was pretty far the fuck away from it.

Leaving Las Vegas was her ambition. She was gonna kill herself one fucking drink at a time, but better than in the movie. Nicolas Cage, the dumbass with that nasally fucking whine, did it like by the bottle. She guessed that was due to Hollywood time constraints. When you've only got ninety minutes to drink yourself to death and fuck Elisabeth Shue, scarred ass and all, you gotta do it by the bottle. She dreamed about fucking Elisabeth Shue sometimes. Sometimes when she was pulling the pearls out of her clients' cunts, she fantasized they were Elisabeth Shue. Death would taste like vodka and pussy, Elisabeth Shue's pussy.

Her sister hanging herself was bullshit. Ninety minutes! It was over in like ninety fucking nano seconds. Coroner said she snapped her neck. What was that all about? You live how ever many years, endure all the shit life hands you and then snap, crackle, pop, you're dead!

Fuck that, big sister! No, she was going to enjoy her own dying. She'd surf the borderline and when she felt she was losing her looks and that she had become sufficiently tragic-See Monroe, Marilyn aka Baker, Norma Jean-she'd take that last drink. Her liver would do the big bang; her heart would explode; her face would suck into itself. For fuck's sake, it would be a glorious death. Though she was curious. She had heard that some men, when they were hanged, died with huge erections. When she got to the other side, she'd ask her sister, 'Did you come?'

But still, she couldn't remember her goddamned sister's name. Kinda makes for an awkward reunion in hell when you can't remember your fucking sister's name. Don'tI know you from somewhere? It's right on the tip of my tongue. Wouldn't cut it. You were, even in hell, expected to remember your siblings. Hey, fuck on a bike, maybe not. Maybe that's what hell was all about, forgetting. Nah, it wouldn't be that easy. Hell would look and feel like her father's cock.

She gave up on her sister. The name would come to her eventually and, if it didn't, no biggie. She tried remembering her clients' names, one client's name, any client's name. The last client, the one she was fucking with the blue foot-long, the one screaming 'Fuck it!' what was her … nothing. She tried remembering their faces, any of their faces, any face, but they either looked like clenched fists or eyeless mannequins. What the fuck? This was crap. Enough of this shit. Time to move on. The wine was properly chilled.

She could not move. Her arms, her legs, her neck, her eyelids, her lips were just not in the mood. In her head she heard … The shin bone's connected to the ankle bone. The ankle bone's connected to the … What next, the fucking Hokey Pokey? She'd seen a bumper sticker once:

THE HOKEY POKEY- IS THAT REALLY WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT?

At least it didn't ask you to honk if you agreed. This was just stupid, she thought. What next, the Pledge of Allegiance, a Hail Mary, dirty limericks? There once was an escort from … Where was she from? Wherever it was, they spoke English there. The voice in her head spoke English. Well, it didn't have to be that autobiographical. There once was a whore from Lahore who loved to get down on all four. She could drink and fuck and drink and fuck and drink and fuck and drink …

She felt herself tiring. If her eyes weren't already shut, they'd have been fluttering closed. And she wasn't thirsty for a drink, only sleep. She felt herself relax for the first time in her fucking life.

The surgeon walked over to a bored-looking detective sitting in the waiting room. He smelled like a thousand old cups of coffee and someone else's cigarettes. Even so, the surgeon didn't mind dealing with cops. They could be such fucking assholes, but they weren't family. They didn't need to hear his repertoire of false hope and comfort. They just wanted the real deal.

'Hey, Doc. So …'

'I got the bullet out. Looks like a nine millimeter. Bagged it for you.'

'Thanks. It was a nine. Very good, Doc.'

'You knew?'

'Yeah. If all my cases were this fucking easy, I'd stay on the job until I was eighty.'

'What happened?'

'Woman found the vic fucking her 'partner' and decided she wasn't fond of the idea. Put one in the vic's noodle, twelve into her cheatin' 'partner,' and swallowed one for good measure. Nice, huh?' The detective snickered.

'You'll have to excuse me, detective. I guess I missed the punch line here.'

'Sorry, Doc. The vic had a blue rubber, twelve inch strap-on stuck inside the girlfriend. The EMTs had to like pry them apart. Good thing they carry crowbars with 'em.'

The surgeon was right. Cops could be such fucking assholes. Said, 'What's the world coming to?'

'I know what you mean, Doc. Time was you'd expect this shit with husbands and wives. Maybe it is time to put in my papers.'

'Maybe.'

'So what's the prognosis?'

'Who the fuck knows? Bullet went in pretty clean, but it did some damage along the way. She's in a coma. Could be there for quite some time.'

'Hey, at least she's alive, right? The other two are history.'

'That's one way of looking at it.'

###

When she woke up, the world wasn't as cold, but it had gotten soft around the edges. She had dreamt of pearls in a sea of pink, but couldn't think of why. She laid back and enjoyed the buzz. There was fuck all else to do.

King Fixer

Lesson 1- Never trust men named Jake.

Lesson 2- Let men named Jake solve their own problems.

The setup was sweet, so sweet I didn't waste time beating my wings and just went straight for the nectar. Jake knew I would. I was a fixer by nature, a problem solver. Worse, I was vain about it. I was that kid who saw the bus stuck under the overpass and knew without contemplation to let the air out of the bus tires. Solutions just seemed to appear in my head. So when Jake, my former partner in the trucking business, mentioned his problem to me over beers at the Cinderella Pub on Pembroke Avenue …