Johnny couldn’t wait to see the expression on Maria’s face.
He’d only been on parole for a week and he was already back in the swing of things. Doing time had made him faster, harder, and stronger. It didn’t matter how many times he’d nearly been slaughtered in the prison showers. It didn’t matter how many times they’d threatened to shank him if he didn’t sponsor their perverted needs. Hell, one guy told him, everyone gets ass-raped in prison at least once. But twelve times in six months had been enough for Johnny. He’d had it with those fuckers. Now that he was out, back in the real world, he’d show them what he was really made of.
Johnny couldn’t wait to see what Maria thought of her birthday present.
He’d tried so hard to come up with a suitable gift, but Maria wasn’t a suitable girl. Strippers usually weren’t. Johnny had known Maria for five years, way before he ended up in the joint for that handful of convenience store robberies, and she had promised to wait for him. Six months wasn’t much of a wait, she had said. And besides, it wasn’t like Johnny had killed anybody. He’d just stolen some snacks and some soda, and maybe one or two of those cheap fleece blankets, so he could keep warm during the winter and belay the ravenous hunger he’d been fighting after his last stint in the joint.
Yes, this was Johnny’s second term as prisoner of the year. The first time was for a hit-and-run when he slammed his rusted Acura Legend into the back of a Mack truck carrying a load of Tastykake goodies for all the good little girls and boys. He really should’ve gotten those brakes fixed when he had the money, but he couldn’t resist Maria’s private dances, or the sex that came afterwards. Maria may not have had much of an imagination in real life, but when it came to the bedroom, the gloves came off (along with everything else) and she became a completely different animal.
Johnny spent eight months in county for the hit-and-run. Most of that was in the prison hospital, where his crushed legs were looked after. The prison doctor told him that his Legend had gone under the Tastykake truck, crunching the front end of his vehicle and breaking nearly every bone in his legs. Johnny went through that awful prison rehab with the lesbian therapist (at least, Johnny thought she was a lesbian, with the way she cut her hair and how flat-chested she was), and after he was released, he skipped his rehab sessions at the orthopedic office in favor of seeing Maria. Sure, Johnny’s erection wasn’t as big as it used to be, and sometimes his left leg would go numb and send him falling to the floor, but Maria wiped those thoughts from his mind and made him feel like he was whole again.
Johnny couldn’t wait to tell Maria how he got her birthday present.
It was simple, really. Johnny had planned the whole thing while he was in the joint, in-between the beatings and the rapes. The job was nice, neat, and clean. One man, one shot, one body, no problems. Maria would be so proud of him, how he manned up and took a stand. It didn’t matter that Scott, Maria’s brother, had called Johnny trailer trash and a limp dick. No, that didn’t matter anymore. It also didn’t matter that Scott had been using Maria as his personal punching bag ever since they were kids. Their mama turned a blind eye to it, blamed Maria for not standing up for herself. No sweat, Johnny thought. Maria was his girl. He’d do the standing up for her.
The first step was getting some money. You don’t exactly leave prison with loads of cash; you leave with what you came in with, and if you came in broke, then you left broke. Such was the case with Johnny. A quick convenience store robbery fixed that problem. Johnny was suddenly flush with five hundred dollars. He took that money and went to the projects to visit Sal, their self-proclaimed mayor, and used three hundred dollars to buy himself a gun–a Stoeger side-by-side shotgun, to be exact. It was scratched, worn, and in need of a serious cleaning, but it was all Johnny could afford. Sal threw in four twelve-gauge shells for shits and giggles and didn’t bother to ask Johnny what he wanted them for. Sal knew better than to ask his clients anything; discretion and ignorance were the best policies.
From there it was a short walk to Johnny’s sister’s house. Devon was so high from smoking “medicinal” marijuana that she had no idea Johnny was even there. He took the keys to her Mitsubishi Galant and backed it out of the driveway just as her asshole boyfriend, Marcus, was coming home from the state store with a case of Keystone Light. Marcus was riding one of those retarded motorcycles with a sidecar that he used for groceries and beer. Johnny jerked the Galant’s gearshift onto the letter “D” and shoved the gas pedal, rocketing down the street and skipping the stop sign, right as Marcus climbed off his bike and started screaming Johnny’s name. He added a few choice words to the end of the name, but Johnny ignored them; he’d heard worse in prison.
Then came the hardest part: locating Scott and turning him inside-out with the shotgun. Johnny drove downtown and rang Sunny, Maria’s cousin, at her row home. Sunny told him to fuck off when he asked about Scott. Johnny had never hit a woman until that night, but he hit Sunny across the mouth and kicked her in the stomach, right there in the vestibule of her home. Sunny looked so vulnerable, dressed in a tank top and boxers, as Johnny slammed her up against the wall and asked her the same question. Sunny crumpled under his demands and spilled the beans: Scott was at Motel Luna, off the turnpike, pushing some meth he’d cooked up with his trailer park buddies. Johnny thanked Sunny, she told him to go to hell, and he drove away, his hands shaking, his body quivering, and his penis the size of the Empire State Building.
Johnny paid the fifteen-dollar toll for the turnpike and pushed the Galant to seventy miles per hour. Fifteen lousy bucks got him to Exit 401, in the middle of cornfields and Amish folk. A horse-and-buggy went by and Johnny didn’t know if he should stay behind it, pass it, or ram it. He passed it when the other lane was clear, kicked the Galant to sixty, and found Motel Luna in under ten minutes. It was a sleazy joint where you paid by the hour or the day, because nobody ever lasted a week. The neon sign out front was shaped like a crescent moon and advertised air conditioning, cable TV, and free HBO.
Johnny pulled the Galant into a space outside room eight, the last one on the right. Scott’s Buick LeSabre was parked there, and Scott himself was busy smoking a rolled cigarette as he leaned against the Buick’s rear bumper. Johnny exited the Galant and left the driver’s door open, his shoes crunching the gravel in the parking lot. Scott turned, his eyes widening in alarm, his cigarette dropping from his lips and bouncing off his shoe. Johnny ripped the Stoeger from its brown grocery bag as Scott backed away, waving his hands, pleading with Johnny and saying something about having the wrong guy. Johnny was too full of adrenaline to hear anything as he pulled the trigger and blew Scott’s insides all over the Buick. Scott slammed into the ground and laid there, blood staining the gravel from gray to red, as he choked on his own blood and slowly, ever so slowly, slipped into the abyss.
Johnny looked around then, silently hoping for someone else to shoot. No one came out, no one screamed, no one called the cops. That’s the way it was in this town. Everyone minded their own business. Even those Amish folks knew better than to dial up the fuzz; they handled things their way, and so had Johnny. He had a hard time lifting Scott’s body into the trunk of the Galant, and didn’t realize that Mitsubishi lacked the foresight to make their trunks large enough to accommodate a human corpse, but Johnny found a way to make it work by lowering the back seats and laying Scott sideways. Sure, he’d bleed out all over Devon’s upholstery, but that was Devon’s problem, not Johnny’s. Besides, she was so high she probably wouldn’t notice.
It took all of Johnny’s concentration to get back on the turnpike, pay another fifteen fucking dollars, and drive the distance to Maria’s house. Maria didn’t work Sunday nights; she told Johnny it was because of the Sabbath or some shit like that. Johnny was almost euphoric as he piloted the Galant through the back roads, ignoring stop signs and not slowing down for man, beast, or vehicle. Tastykake trucks be damned; Johnny was on a mission, to make Maria’s birthday the best she ever had, and he was only a few minutes, a few miles, a few steps away from accomplishing that goal.
Before he knew it, Johnny had arrived at Maria’s double-wide trailer. It sat on top of a hill with a steep gravel driveway. The Galant’s tires spun on the tiny stones, found purchase, and scooted up the hill until they arrived outside the trailer’s back door. Johnny climbed out of the Galant, popped the trunk, and looked around. There were two cars besides his parked in the mud outside Maria’s trailer. One was Maria’s car, a newer Pontiac Grand Prix. The other one was a dirty pick-up truck, possibly a Ford Ranger, covered in mud, grease, and dents. Johnny wondered who the vehicle belonged to; he’d never seen it before. Just to be on the safe side, he grabbed the Stoeger and held it in the confines of his overcoat, where Maria wouldn’t see it.
Johnny called Maria’s name. There was no response.
Johnny called Maria’s name again. No answer.
Suddenly, the back door opened, and Scott stood there, zipping his jeans over his bulging erection and fastening the button at the top. He was shirtless and shoeless otherwise.
“What the fuck do you want, limp dick?” Scott asked.
Johnny stared at him, unsure of how to answer. Shock set in, like Johnny had stepped out of his body and was wandering somewhere in the world of spirits. This couldn’t be Scott. Scott was in the trunk. Johnny had blown a hole clean through Scott with his shotgun.
“Hey, limp dick!” Scott shouted. “Don’t make me repeat myself!” He walked down the cinderblock steps, crossed to the Galant, and saw that the trunk was open. “What the fuck is this?” he wanted to know. “You bring me some kind of present?”
Maria was at the back door now. Johnny’s eyes fell to her and her curves, barely concealed beneath Scott’s shirt.
“Scott?” Maria asked. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t know, sweetheart,” Scott replied. “Limp dick brought you a present for your birthday.”
Maria gave Johnny a tender, but disappointed, glance. “You didn’t have to do that for me, Johnny…”
Scott advanced to the trunk. Johnny didn’t bother to stop him. His whole world was moving in a fog of confusion and dismay. Hadn’t he killed Scott at Motel Luna? Isn’t that where Sunny told him he’d be? Hadn’t he wanted to see the expression on Maria’s face when she got her birthday present, the present he was so proud of?
Johnny turned to Scott as he lifted the trunk lid and looked inside. Scott’s pupils shrank to almost nothing as his eyes filled with an unquenchable rage.
“You sack of shit!” Scott screamed. “What the hell did you kill my cousin for?!”
Cousin? No, that couldn’t be right. Johnny had killed Scott. He’d asked Sunny where Scott was. She’d told him, he’d gone there, he’d…
“Oh my God, Johnny!” Maria gasped, her voice breaking from the tears rising in her throat. “Why did… you do this…?!”
“It’s your birthday present,” Johnny managed to say, finding his voice somewhere in the pit of his stomach. “Happy Birthday, Maria.”
Johnny looked at Maria, wanting to see her expression, and yet not wanting to at the same time.
Maria was sobbing, her expression twisted in sorrow, her face turning ugly colors.
He had failed. This was Maria’s worst birthday ever. She’d never forget this day. But where had he made the mistake? And what were Scott and Maria doing together in her trailer?
Johnny’s eyes darted to Scott, to Maria, then back to Scott. Scott shoved the grieving Maria aside and charged at Johnny, his right fist cocked back for a devastating punch.
“You dumb-ass peckerwood!” Scott cried. “Why’d you have to go and kill our cousin?!”
Our cousin? That didn’t make sense. That just didn’t…
Scott’s fist collided with Johnny’s jaw like a firing pin to a bullet. The spark it set off inside Johnny’s mouth made him bite his tongue so hard it drew blood. Scott finished the first punch up with a left hook that slammed into Johnny’s throat, stealing his voice away and rendering him unable to speak in his defense. Scott dropped to the ground as Johnny staggered back, his world twisting like a boat lost in a storm, and delivered a sweeping kick that threw Johnny onto his back and into the mud. Scott was on top of Johnny in seconds, his hands wrapping around Johnny’s throat, choking away his wasted life inch by inch.
Johnny’s only thought fell to the Stoeger tucked inside his coat. There was one precious shell left inside its last barrel. With all of the strength remaining in his body, Johnny lifted the shotgun from his coat, pressed it against Scott’s hardened flesh, and pulled the trigger. Johnny went deaf for a minute but could see Scott reel backwards, his abdomen covered in blood, before he rolled off Johnny and laid in the mud, breathing the last breaths of his life. Johnny stood from the mud and watched in a detached state of mind as Maria knelt over Scott and held his hand. Her tears fell onto his chest and trickled down, mixing with the blood. After a few moments, Scott was dead, with Maria crying over his chest, her shirt and skin stained red.
Johnny forced his legs to walk over to the trunk of the Galant and look inside. The man he shot wasn’t Scott, or at least, the Scott he thought it was. He had killed Sunny’s cousin, who shared the same name as Maria’s brother. Johnny had been so full of rage that he had imagined his Scott’s face on Sunny’s cousin’s face. So determined he was to give Maria the perfect birthday, he hadn’t listened to what the other Scott had been telling him about having the wrong guy. Had he somehow known what Johnny intended to do? Maybe, and then again, maybe not. It didn’t matter now. Both Scotts were dead – one who didn’t deserve it, and one who did.
When Johnny looked around for Maria, he couldn’t find her. Had she gone back inside the trailer to call the sheriff? Johnny raced to the door of the trailer, ripped it open, and felt something rip through the right side of his chest, shattering his ribs and turning his organs to ground meat. He fell into the mud again, looking straight up at the stars, as Maria stood over him, holding a Kimber hunting rifle in her hands. She worked the bolt on it, ejecting the spent cartridge, and knelt by Johnny as darkness threatened to swallow him.
“You son of a bitch,” Maria said in a soothing voice. “You really thought I loved you?” She shook her head. “I was just playing with you was all. I pitied you, especially after that accident.” Johnny felt her smooth fingers caress his scalp. “Did you really think I would wait, Johnny? A woman has needs. A convict can’t provide them. And after that accident, you couldn’t exactly get it up like you used to.” Maria leaned in close and spoke in Johnny’s left ear. “The truth is? Scott and I have always been together. It was kinky, and it wasn’t right, but we didn’t much care, and it didn’t matter how many times he beat the shit out of me – I would always be his girl.”
Johnny felt hot tears spill out of his eyes and sprinkle across his cold cheeks. No, this couldn’t be true. Had he really been that stupid? Had he really convinced himself of the delusion that Maria was his and his alone?
Maria took her thumb and wiped Johnny’s tears away. “Oh, don’t cry, Johnny,” she soothed. “Your misery will end soon.” Maria stood, put the rifle against her shoulder, and looked down the sights at Johnny’s head. “Happy Birthday to me, Johnny. I’ll never forget what you’ve done today.”
Maria squeezed the trigger.
And Johnny decided he could live with that.
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