Go For The Throat

by Mel Cartagena

“So tell me pops, does it make you bleed to take a single out of your twenties?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at me like a dumb mule. I had to keep my voice down. Too close to an intersection, someone might be awake in the house behind us. His sad grey eyes were on my hand, the one holding the .32. I decked him with the butt. Don’t know why. Maybe I was feeling mean.

The loose skin under his chin shook and jiggled, and he whimpered, crawling into himself. This was fun, but I had to get going; I could hear footsteps somewhere, crushing grit. 

I gave him the butt again, this time letting go of his baby gray hair. He went backwards like a soggy board, making funny groaning noises. Then I was on his pockets; the Pierre Cardin foldout had 60 green and two plastic. The old bastard could have saved himself some pain if he’d given me a single, just a cup of coffee. I thought about stripping him of the jacket. It was fleece, but it was getting late. I had to boogie. Whoever owned the lawn of the house where I left him would find him in the morning and give him some wet rags for his head. Hell of a lot better than what I get when The Man works me over for standing on a street corner too long.

I ran two blocks up the street and then I was on the path, what they call the “greenway” here, nice little lane for joggers. Three miles to the bunk and hungry like a mutha, but it’s cool. I can use the plastic to get some more cash. Old geezer wrote the PIN’s on the back of the cards, like I figured old fogies do. I was going to be okay for a while.

But every now and then I heard steps. The same kind of boots crunching on dirt sound from awhile back, and little puffs of breeze over my head, like something whizzing by me real fast. I don’t shoot up anymore, so I know I wasn’t tripping. Maybe adrenalin from smacking the old dude, but no trips. It’s dark and quiet, but I ain’t scared. The .32 feels good in my pants. 

Then something was on me, fast and strong, grabbed me when I passed the tall bush. I wasn’t scared, not right away. I was going to use the smart end of the gun, and then he bit me. No, it was more like a nick. He stuck to my neck like a leech. I twisted and tried to fight him off, but he stayed strong, and I got foggy and weak, and then I got scared. I got weaker, couldn’t fight anymore, and then I blanked out. 

I came back and was in the same place, and weak. Weaker even than the time when I had nothing to eat for three days, when I used everything I had on me to get into a house, and scored me the .32 and some food.

He was kneeling next to me, but the light from the pole was in my face and he was just a black hump going through my pockets. He took my .32, and the cash and plastic I’d just boosted off the old guy. He turned from the light a little, and I saw his face. It was all sharp angles and pale, with stubble, but still clean-looking. I tried to say something; all I got out was a mumble. His eyes shifted to my face. They were green. 

I tried to move, but I was so tired. When my head shifted I felt something on my neck. I could move a hand, and while I got it up there he stood up. I felt warm, wet stuff on my neck, and then I knew who he was, but I couldn’t believe it. I put everything I had into getting that cleared up. “I thought…I thought you guys lived on blood.” 

He looked down at me. He was tall, with an ankle-long coat. He grinned at me; his teeth were white and red with my blood.  “Times are tough. Gotta roll with the punches.” 

Then he turned, his coat flapping like batwings, and left me there, weak and tired and wondering what the hell he wants with the plastic and cash. I hope gets a junkie next, someone with pure dust running through his blood. Maybe it’s best this way for me. 

I’m tired of going hand to mouth.

Mel Cartagena was  born in New York, raised in Puerto Rico, and currently lives in Massachusetts. His fiction and nonfiction have been featured in various American and Canadian magazines. He has written two novels, as yet unpublished (publishers reading this, take notice).