Sex and Murder Magazine

By B.L.Morgan

I sucked in the smoke of the joint that Bobby Chavez passed me from the back seat, feeling it slowly fill my lungs and enjoying the feeling of thickness behind my forehead. This was some good shit, Mexican weed—good to the last toke.

Maria, my girl, was driving. She's a short, stocky, Mexican woman with thick sensuous lips, long black hair, and deep brown eyes. She seems to always have this idiot grin on her face when she's stoned.

The music of The Doors filled my head, sending messages of sweet, soft death.

This is the end, beautiful friend

This is the end, my only friend, the end...

Yeah, sweet death, come and take me. The gray smoke from the weed filled my mind. It matched the overcast sky above us.

Victoria Texas in the winter time; we cruise the back roads regularly. We've been dealing for awhile, Maria and me. But sometimes we just got to get away from these idiots that come knocking on our door, needing to get stoned.

Hell, we need to get our relaxation every now and then, but junkies just don't take a break. They need to get stoned every day.

Bobby is a pretty cool guy. At around six three and two hundred and thirty pounds, with an ugly scarred up face, he doesn't get messed around with too much. He talks his shit. Telling us how we're his family now and how he'd eat a bullet for either one of us. Well, that's why we let him hang around us and smoke so much of our dope for free. He's like a type of bodyguard.

He'll back his shit up too.

Like the time this guy came up from Matamoros. He was supposed to be some kind of relative of Maria’s, a cousin or something. He came to us to buy some weed. Why he came to us when Matamoros is like weed city, I don't know. But, he had money, so I'll sell to him.

He'd bought his bag and was sitting in our front room smoking with us when Maria’s fourteen year old daughter got home from school.

Now, Leticia is a little too developed for her age and everyone knows it. But, she's a kid. You don't stare and you keep your fucking mouth shut. You treat her like a kid.

This guy, maybe his name was Carlos, I can't remember, he didn't have no fucking sense.

Leticia walks in and he's like a dog in heat. He's ooooin and ahhhhin and looking at her like she's a piece of meat and he ain’t ate in months.

Then he said, "You need to lick my balls, little girl."

That was it. Maria lit into him in Spanish. I ain’t never learned too much Spanish and when I'm stoned sometimes English is a foreign language. So I didn't know what passed between them, but he said something to Maria that made her and Leticia stomp right out of the room and into the kitchen.

Bobby passed me a look that had death in it.

Carlos, or whoever the hell he was, didn't catch the look.

"Let’s get the fuck away from these bitches," I said to Carlos. "We can smoke on the porch."

Carlos went ahead of us and I passed Bobby a quick glance that told him what he wanted to know.

Our porch had a wooden railing, and six big wooden posts held up a roof over our heads. Carlos parked his ass on the railing next to one of the posts. Bobby was on his left side I was on his right.

I fished in my shirt pocket for a fresh joint and Carlos started talking his shit.

"I don't let no bitch tell me what to do," he said. "No fucking bitch is ever going to rule me. Not this fucking cholo. No fucking way. I am one bad mother fucker."

I held out the joint to him.

He reached for it.

Bobby drew back and slammed his fist into the side of Carlos’ head driving it into a wooden post. Something crunched inside his head. I think it was teeth breaking. Carlos’ eyes rolled up in his skull. He fell backward off the porch and landed in a heap in the dirt.

I came down the stairs. Carlos was barely conscious.

"You think you're gonna talk that shit to my woman and her kid and get away with it," I yelled at him.

He got to all fours, which was what I was waiting for. I reared back and kicked him hard in the face. This time, when I heard the crunch, I knew it was his teeth breaking.

I kicked the hell out of Carlos until my feet started getting sore. My legs were getting a little tired from the dance I was doing too.

Bobby came down off the porch. Carlos was yet again trying to get to his hands and knees.

He just wouldn't learn. Bobby came up from behind him and made a run at Carlos like he was doing the opening kickoff in a football game. He planted the toe of his boot between Carlos’ ass cheeks.

From the sound Carlos made, I knew that for weeks he was going to be spending some uncomfortable time on the crapper.

To make it short, we pitched and he caught and I don't think he liked the game we were playing.

When we were bored with the beating we were laying on Carlos, we dragged him to the edge of our yard and rolled him into a ditch half filled with sewage. He looked right at home among all the floating turds.

The next morning he was gone. His car was gone. We've never heard another word from him or about him. He wasn’t missed either.

Yeah, Bobby's my boy. I passed him a new joint to light while I tried to keep the smoke from my last hit in my lungs. The numbing in my brain felt good. It was like I had a layer of thick air between me and everything else. The inside of the car must have looked like we were carrying a fog bank with us.

The roads out here are just gravel, spread on top of red dirt. There is always dust in the air.

Just as Maria was reaching over her shoulder for the joint Bobby had lit, an old, light blue Chevrolet of some kind came around a bend and passed by us. Maria kept on driving.

She took her hit and handed the joint to me.

Jim Morrison spoke to me from the tape player.

Of all you love replies the end

No safety or surprise the end...

I took a deep hit of the joint.

"That bastards behind us," Maria said as she looked in the rear view mirror. "I thought I saw him earlier. He's been looking for us."

Both Bobby and me turned around and looked.

The blue Chevrolet was behind us, pacing us.

"Who is this motherfucker?" I asked Maria.

"I don't know," She answered. "I noticed him the second time he went past us."

Maria sped up.

The Chevrolet sped up.

Our car was throwing up too much dust for us to be able to see who was driving the Chevrolet. Bobby wasn't saying anything, he was just watching out the back window. Maria almost lost control of the car on a bend and I told her to slow down.

I had two weapons. A little chrome twenty-two that I wore on my belt behind my back and under my jacket; and a large, heavy screwdriver with a ten inch steel blade. The end of the screwdriver blade I'd sharpened on a grinder, down to a razor sharp point. The screwdriver was under the seat. I pulled it out.

The Chevrolet pulled up beside us. His windows were rolled down.

He shouted at us, "I want to buy some smoke."

It was a black dude. He had some mangy looking dreadlocks.

Maria yelled back, "We don't have nothing."

"Pull over," he shouted to us and waved some money in the air at us.

Bobby looked at me.

"Do it," I told Maria.

She started toward the side of the road and I leaned close to her.

"We ain’t selling him shit," I told her.

We stopped. He parked behind us. I popped my door and stuck my leg out, keeping the screwdriver hidden beside me.

The guy walked up to the driver side door and leaned on our car, looking in at Maria. I stood up in the doorway on my side.

"Get your hands off the car," I told him.

"It be cool man. It be cool," he said.

His Jamaican accent was fake.

"All I want to do is buy me some weed. Dat is all I want man."

"Don't have any," Maria told him.

"We got nothing. Nada," Bobby said from the back seat.

"Ok. In that case," the dreadlocked guys’ eyes and voice got hard. He lost all trace of an accent. "Victoria Police, get out of the car."

Maria hit the gas.

I tried to climb back in the moving car but my door swung shut and I was knocked sprawling to the ground and showered by gravel from the tires passing my head.

Some laughing was coming from the side of me.

"Oh man. That was fucked up." The guy with the dreadlocks said. "I didn't mean to scare your girl like that. I was just fuckin wit ya."

I came up off the gravel with the screwdriver clutched in my fist. Maria slid to a stop about forty yards up the road.

"You think that's fuckin’ funny, huh?" I said to him moving forward.

Bobby came flying out of his car door, running toward us like a locomotive.

The guy was backing up. "Hey, I don't want no trouble."

Well, now trouble wanted him.

I leaped forward and slashed him a backhand stroke across the face with the screwdriver blade. He squealed a scream that sounded like the winner in a hog calling contest. Blood flew in a line through the air. I'd sliced his skin open from his right cheek to his left cheek and cut his nose in half on the way.

Bobby came at him and kicked him in the balls. He whined and went to his knees.

I hit him another stroke across the face with the screwdriver and he went to his back covering his face.

Maria was behind us. She screamed, "Stop! Stop!"

But, there wasn't going to be anyone stopping me. I stomped on his throat and he gurgled and spit blood into the air.

Everything seemed to stop then. He looked up at me. His eyes were clear. They met mine.

Please, don't kill me.

I knelt next to his chest, like some Aztec priest, and I drove the blade down into his heart.

Maria screamed so loud I thought she would deafen me.

Bobby was holding Maria. She had buried her head in his chest.

I stood up. Maria was sobbing.

"Shut the fuck up," I told her. Without a word she went to the car and got in.

Bobby looked at me. "What are we gonna do?" he asked.

I pulled the screwdriver from the guy’s chest and cleaned it in the dust. We went through the guys pockets. He wasn't a cop. His driver’s license said he was James Blair. He had fifteen dollars and some change on him. He'd been waving ones at us.

Blair’s’ keys were still in the ignition. We opened the trunk and loaded him in. He was probably just some guy who was going to try to pull a scam on us.

I told Bobby I knew of a deserted farm not far from there that hardly anyone ever went to. The place had been foreclosed on and no one had ever bought it from the bank. There was a deep lake on the property. We would just drive James Blair’s car in, with him in the trunk. No one would find the car or him for years.

I lead the way, driving our car. Bobby drove the blue Chevrolet.

Maria sat in the rider’s seat crying the whole way out to this deserted farm. She was doing Hail Mary’s and asking for forgiveness and shit like that. I tried to talk to her and tell her that we handled the situation the only way we could. She only cried louder. I popped the Doors tape out of the tape player. There was no use in trying to listen to it with her wailing like that.

This is never going to fucking work, I thought.

We arrived at the farm and the gate was only tied shut with some wire that was no problem getting off.

We drove onto the property crunching dirt clods and ancient cow pies under our tires. I drove past the old house. It was dried out and looking like it could collapse at any moment.

Maria’s bawling was getting on my nerves. She really knew how to ruin a good buzz.

I pointed Bobby at the spot where we would have to drive the Chevrolet in. He parked in front of the lake, I parked beside him.

Maria and I got out of the car, and I went to the back of the Chevrolet. Bobby walked toward us.

"Did you hear that?" I asked Bobby.

"What?" He said.

"I heard something in the trunk."

Maria asked, "Is he alive?"

"I heard something from in there," I told them.

Bobby fumbled through the keys and found the trunk key. I stepped back.

He popped the trunk open and leaned forward to take a look.

I pulled the twenty-two from under my jacket. Bobby looked up. I shot him in the center of his forehead.

He slid down the trunks bumper and sat on the ground. He looked up at me with a questioning look. He was probably already dead, but he looked like he was looking at me.

"Sorry Bro," I told him.

I shot him through the left eye.

He went to his back, and blood began to pool around his head.

Maria was looking at me with wide staring eyes, her mouth open in shock.

"Why?" She whined.

"Why?" I answered her, "Cause there's no way he was gonna let me do what I know I got to do. Shit, I'm gonna miss Bobby. He was all right by me."

Realization hit her then and Maria turned to run.

"Nope," I told her. "Can't be lettin’ you get away."

I took aim and pulled the trigger. The bullet caught her between the shoulder blades. She went down face first and her nose plowed up some dirt.

I went to Maria and rolled her over with my foot. She looked up at me. She was coughing blood.

Her eyes looked beautiful. Maria always did have the prettiest eyes.

"This is really going to pain me to have to do this," I told her, "I really did want to make a life with you, but you just would not have kept your fucking mouth shut."

She opened her mouth to say something and I pulled the trigger and blew the back of her head out. Her pretty eyes still stared at me, so I shot those out too.

I put Maria and Bobby in the back seat of the Chevrolet and started it. After placing a big rock on the gas, I took the car out of neutral and put it into drive. It drove itself into the lake and slowly disappeared under the water.

I got into my car, took one of the joints out of the glove box, and lit it.

Why doesn't anything ever go right for me? I asked myself.

I go from town to town, from woman to woman, nothing ever stays right for very long. After awhile something always happens and I have to run.

I plugged the Doors tape back in

The end of laughter and soft lies.

The end of nights we tried to die...

The birds were chirping in the trees as I drove out of the farm’s gate. I put the wire back in place.

Nothing ever stays perfect, I thought.

Well, maybe next time.


































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