Nueva Localización by Jimmy Callaway

Stillwell lit two Luckies and handed her one. The streetlight threw vertical shadows on her face as she smiled up at him. “What’s this?” he said, touching his finger to the pucker of skin on her belly.

“Cigarette,” she said.

“Boyfriend?”

“Father.”

“Huh,” he said, taking a drag. “You two didn’t get along, I take it.”

She shrugged. “That’s the only mark he ever left on me. He felt bad about it afterwards. Seemed to, anyway.”

“Huh.” He watched the smoke curl from her Lucky, the ash beginning to crumple under its own weight. He took an ashtray from the bedstand and placed it on his own naked stomach. “My old man was no angel himself.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The belt, that was his, y’know...”

“Favorite.”

“Yeah. But then one day, I don’t remember what I did, but I had the belt coming. So I decided, bent bare-ass over my own bed, to not cry. And I couldn’t see his face, but it was like, whap! whap! And then he paused, y’know, waiting for the reaction. But I held it in, y’know. And I couldn’t see his face, but I could, y’know, I could picture it. Confused. He wasn’t a smart guy. But then he got it after a minute. Still, one more time—whap!—and that was it. Never got the belt again.”

“Yeah,” she said, and handed him her cigarette.

He took it from her and stubbed it out, and then his. They slept, her with her head on his chest.

She called a few times, but gave up after a week or two.

#

She’d been angling to get Zero into the bedroom all night. He finally just let her blow him on the couch, not only shutting her up for fifteen minutes but also letting him continue with the block of Roseanne on TV Land. The blow job was pretty good, too.

After she was done, during a commercial, Zero said, “Hey, what’s that on the back of your neck?”

“What?” she said, feeling back there.

“That scar, man.”

She said, “Oh, that. Nothing. I was in a pretty bad fight once, with some bitch trying to steal my boyfriend.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Just stupid high school shit, at some party. When I had her on the ground, one of her friends hit me with a broken bottle.”

“Man.”

“Yeah. Eight stitches.”

“Man,” Zero said. The commercial was over, but Zero said, “Y’know, I haven’t thrown a punch since fifth grade?”

“Yeah?”
“Yeah, this kid, I don’t remember his name, was being a real prick at the bus stop, man, just being a real jerk-off. Throwing rocks at kids, just being a prick. And then, I dunno what happened, but I just snapped and beat the shit out of him. Right there in front of everybody.”

“Wow,” she said, “Did you get in trouble or anything?”

“Nah, no grown-ups around, nothing. None of the other kids were gonna narc me out, they all hated him too. But there I was, standing over this kid, crying in the gutter. And then I realized I was crying too. Or at least I had tears coming out of my eyes. All worked up, man, all excited, and for what?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Yeah.”

They fell asleep in front of the TV, Zero’s pants still undone. Zero scrambled some eggs for them both in the morning.

He never called her again, but ran into her on the street a couple weeks later. She seemed real glad to see him, but they never hung out again. It never came up, really.

#

Bronson had been trying for a couple of weeks now to get this girl into the sack, but it was totally worth it. She was round, she was firm, she was more fully packed than a Who concert in the ‘70s.

They lay there, panting. “Man,” Bronson said, “That was fun.”

She laughed a little in the back of her throat.

Bronson rolled over onto his side, facing her, his head resting on his hand. “Hey, what’re all those little scars on your back? You fall into a thresher or something?”

“Hm, no,” she said, “I had a boyfriend who was into BDSM.”

“Oh,” Bronson said, “What is that, like, an industrial band or something?”

She laughed again. “No, it’s, y’know, bondage and stuff. He had this cat-o’-nine-tails he’d use on me.”

“Jesus.”

“Not your thing, huh?”

Bronson pulled a face.

She said, “Have you ever tried it?”

“Well, no. But I did date this one girl who wanted me to rape her all the time.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, it was no big thing, it was just kinda weird, that’s all. Every time we’d do it, she’d ask me what it was like raping her.”

“And what did you say?”

Bronson shrugged. “Oh, well, y’know, I said it was great or whatever. But I couldn’t really say, since I’d never raped anybody. She seemed to like it, though, y’know. I aim to please.”

She said, “Well, an element of danger can be, y’know, a real turn-on.”

“Yeah, I get that. I dunno. It’s dangerous enough out there for me, thanks. I mean, not to sound braggy or anything, but fuck. I’ve been beat up, shot at, all kindsa crazy shit. So when I’m in the company of a young lady, y’know, I’d like to...let my guard down a bit, I guess. That’s living dangerously, you ask me. Not that you did.”

She laughed.

He grinned. “I guess I’m just an old-fashioned guy,” he said.

“I think you’re sweet,” she said.

They slept, and then she let him have sex with her again in the morning.

She never returned any of his phone calls after that.

ROBBIE V WANTS A JOB By Cameron Ashley

John G comes back into the cafe. He adjusts his pants, pulling the waistband up over his under-gut, wipes his palms on his thighs, leans over the counter and picks up his short black.

Mark sits at the rear of the cafe, combing his greasy ducktail back into a shape it never really lost in the first place. He taps his fingernails on his Cooper’s stubbie, drawing John’s attention. John waddles over and sits down.

“What’s up, mate?”

“Someone here to see you. Says he knows you. Says he wants a job.”

John sighs, his coffee-breath clouding Mark’s personal space.

“Where is he?”

Mark smiles and points to a table at a front corner of the cafe.

John, eyesight fading with age, squints at the shape hunched over his table, then fumbles for the glasses in his pocket. They are crazy thick black-rimmed spectacles, the kind hipsters wear for irony’s sake but John wears out of cheapness. John says,

“Fuck me.”

“Yeah, thought you’d say that.”

The shape in the corner stares out at Lygon Street. John turns back to Mark.

“This guy’s going to scare off all the pretty girls.”

“Take a look around, boss. You ever see any pretty girls in here?”

“Smartarse. Who is this freak?”

“Says he’s Robbie V. I was gunna just toss him, but he swears he did some work for you a few years back.”

“That guy’s Robbie V?”

“So he says.”

“No way he’s Robbie V.”

“Well, that’s what he says.”

“That guy...he’s...all cut up.”

“I believe he’s what’s known as a modern primitive.”

“A what?”

“A modern primitive. They’re into weird body modification and post-humanism and...”

Mark smiles into his latte cup.

“...alternative sex.”

John makes a face like someone cupped a fart in their fist and released it under his nose.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Had a quick chat. Seems like a nice guy.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“This modern...whatever stuff.”

“I read, John.”

“You and your perverted books.”

“I once went out with a chick who had a piercing through her thing. What was her name?”

“Through her what?”

“Her thing. Christ, John, don’t make me draw a picture.”

“You’re wrong. There’s something very, very wrong with you.”

“She had to take it out. It made her cum all the time, like just walking around and stuff, off she’d go.”

John shakes his head, says,

“What is happening to this world?”

“Nancy! That was it, her name was Nancy. Shit, I should check in with her.”

“You need to find a nice girl.”

“Are you going to give him a job?”

“Doing what? Scaring little children?”

Mark laughs, says,

“Keep it down, boss. He can probably hear you.”

“I don’t give a shit. What happened to him? Such a handsome boy. Look at all those scars...”

“I don’t mind the scars, look how they swirl, such intricate patterns. It’s the earrings I find a bit off.”

John takes another look. Huge, heavy, metal hoops are inserted into Robbie V’s lobes, stretching them out so far you could put a midget’s fist through them. Mark says,

“Pretty gross, eh?”

“I can’t talk to him.”

“Do you really know him?”

John whips off his glasses, leans in close.

“I do. He used to do what you do.”

“Ah.”

“He then got some weird girlfriend...went all...weird.”

“Ah.”

“He up and left. Last I heard he was in Nimbin or something.”

“Well, he’s back now. Maybe she dumped him, the weird girlfriend.”

“Good riddance. I can’t talk to him.”

“John...”

“I can’t. You do it. You tell him I have no work for him. My heart has broken. Such a handsome boy.”

“John, surely we can use him for something.”

John stands, shakes his head, shuffles off to the kitchen, says,

“What is he thinking, coming back to me looking like that?”

Mark drains the last of his beer. Rubs his eyes. He hates disappointing people and this dude’s potentially a bit of a wild card and wild cards he hates disappointing the most. He walks behind the counter and grabs two more beers. Robbie V hears Mark approach, he looks up and smiles.

Fuck me, his teeth are filed.

Mark pops the top off a beer and passes it to Robbie. He does the same with his and takes a seat.

“Listen, mate –”

“He didn’t go for it. I heard. It’s okay. I just thought that maybe he could use someone with a look, you know.”

“Yeah. Well, I think that it’s just that you’re a little...distinctive, mate. I mean, you stand out like a sore dick. I mean, you look like Killer Croc.”

“Killer --?”

“Croc. From Batman. Look, never mind about all that, okay? I’m pretty sure someone somewhere can use a man of your distinctive talents. Whatever, uh, they may be.”

Robbie V leans across the table. He’s quite the side of beef. The table gives out what may be a final death rattle. Mark makes a mental note to start reinforcing these cheap pieces of shit before there’s an accident. Robbie V bares his fangs and says,

“I am a man with a broken heart who has lost all faith in everything except the modification of the flesh. I have transformed myself into something post-human. I have gone through rites of passage you cannot even comprehend. I know how to burn symbols into skin, how to suspend a body from hooks through the flesh and how to take a man through a journey of such pain that it will leave him either transcendent or dead. I have no interest now in anything except pain and its power and what it can do.”

“...Right...”

The guys sit there, eyeballing each other. Finally, Mark says,

“So. You have any pictures of yourself, like, hanging from meat hooks or whatever?”

“Not on me, no.”

“Right. Well, tell you what, I like you, mate. I’ll put in a good word for you and, even though we try not to torture-slash-maim too much these days, you never can tell when such a situation may arise. Leave me your number. We’ll be in touch.”

Robbie V nods, reaches for his wallet. Mark waves it off.

“Beer’s on me mate.”

They shake. Robbie stands, smiles at Mark with those shark teeth.

“Thanks, mate.”

Mark nods, holds his breath till Robbie V is surely well on his way back to Freaksville. Mark sits and drinks his beer and thinks about piercings for a bit. He pulls out his phone, scrolls through some numbers and dials.

“Nancy? Hey, it’s Mark. How ya been?”

My Brother's Keeper by Brian Lindenmuth

“I knew there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but wanted to help. We are probably those referred to as “our brothers keepers,” possessed by one of the oldest and possibly one of the most futile and certainly one of the most haunting
of instincts. It will not let us go.”

– A River Runs Through It

He stood there, in the middle of his brother’s living room, and felt
the sounds and bustle of family and domesticity wash over him. He was
less then twelve hours out of jail after doing twelve years for a
crime he didn't commit and these sounds were foreign to him. His
brother had picked him up from the motel, brought him to his house
then left him in the living room with shouts to "make yourself at
home", not knowing quite what to do with him. He felt vaguely dirty
and guilty as if he was eavesdropping. Buried beneath all of this he
felt longing. He longed to possess these sounds and take them into
him and keep them forever. He so badly wanted his own set of domestic
sounds. The unfulfilled desire coupled with the knowledge of its
absence hurt him deeply. The only thing worse than hurting was knowing
why and being unable to do anything about it. He was lonely and alone
and he knew it.

Twelve years ago they said he beat her and punched her in the gut hard
enough to lose the child few knew she was carrying. He hadn’t, his
brother had been the violent one that night.

His prodigal brother’s star had always been on the ascendancy, shining
bright in others eyes. The star blinded many to his brother's
shortcomings and a ready excuse was always quick to free him of blame.
Unlike his brother he had always been written off and cast aside.
But those were the actions of others and he still loved his brother.

Living in the glow of his brother's radiance had taught him to be an
observer and in silence he became a quick study of people. He saw the
changes in his brother's girlfriend before anyone else did and he also
saw his brother's eyes after she told him. When their old man told
him that his brother and her went to the quarry instead of their usual
Friday night movie he knew.

He knew what his brother was going to do that night and was unable to
get there in time to stop it. He knew that he could protect his
brother by taking the blame and not one person would doubt it. He
drove his brother to the end of the street where they lived and let
him out to walk the rest of the way home telling him he would take
care of it. He did it because he believed that any man who turned his
back on his family was no good and he didn't want his brothers more
promising future to be jeopardized. He was stronger than people
thought and he would lie about what happened and his brother was
weaker than people thought and would let him.

"Uncle Joe, when did you get here?"

He refocused on the present. "Just a little bit ago."

"Where's Frank" He knew his niece had stopped saying Dad awhile back
but to hear it was jarring.

"He said he'd be back in a minute."

He still hadn't lost his heightened jail sense, the one that told when
shit was coming, the one a man learned to trust in order to survive,
the one that kept him alive. He knew something was wrong. He knew
something was coming.

"You knew that didn't you? Were you listening from the kitchen?"


"I was."


"Why."


"Frank and I don't do the same room thing anymore."


He thought he saw a ghost of a look on her face, one he recognized
from jail. The broken look that new guys wore after a few nights and
sometimes many more after. A look of personal hell and violation. He
shook it off because he wasn't in jail anymore and knew he was still
trying to adjust.


With all of the light tone he could manage he asked, "What'd you do to
your arm?" He almost said kiddo but stopped just short.


This time, as she pushed her sleeve down, he knew he saw the look.
Looking through him she said, "Frank".


He felt movement upstairs coming closer. For the first time she looked
right at him and his jail hardened soul jumped.


"I really don't mind the scars," she said.


With that confession she let him into a small select club. She looked
at him fully with eyes older then her age to see if he understood
that. He did. He held her gaze and nodded slightly.


He stood there for four breaths, unable to speak. The silence fitting
and necessary. The third breath was the deepest of them all and the
fourth held a finality to it, as if a decision had been reached.


He knew he had to leave. With something breaking inside of him he
left in silence, quickly and quietly. After the door clicked shut a
question, directed towards him, hung in the air, then fell away
unanswered.


In a moment of strength he turned his back on his family because after
the things he did in jail he knew he was no good. He knew that
sometime later, in a moment of weakness, after some preparation, he
would again be who they all thought he was. He'd be back.


Once, he'd gone to jail because of his brother. Now, he'd be going
home again because of him.

The Lesson of Blood by Keith Rawson

My eyes opened down a dirt track, sitting next to my father in one of his old cars. I can't remember what kind of car it was? Just another rusted out heap in a long line of rusted out heaps.

My father thought he could fix everything with his hands.

#

-I thought you said....
-I know...I know what I said...but I can't. I can't, not any more.
Blood rushed through him, his skin going hot/cold, beads of sweat popping, coursing down the jagged valleys of hard flesh which peppered his shiny scalp, his cheeks, his neck and chest. The puckered, raised flesh were a life time of labor, like a permanent Employee of the Month photo stapled to his back.
-We need the money.....
-We haven't needed the money in ten years...I can't watch you do this to yourself anymore. What are you trying to prove?

#

The cracked vinyl bench made my bare legs itch. The front struts squealed under our weight. My family were large people, even at 6 or 7 I weighed 150 lbs. My father was a walking brick wall, my mother the same. Both of them liked to drink. They never seemed drunk to me, just mad. Mad at the little house we lived in, the shitty jobs they always lost six months or a year after they got them, mad at each other for being so fat and knowing no one else would have them.

I think we'd left the house because my mother had lost another job waitressing, or working at the seed factory and she was trashing the house. I know I was scared and my father didn't like to see me scared, so we left, driving until he decided he needed a drink, so we pulled off the road, parking out in the scrub brush and dying saguaros watching the sun dip into the flat desert.
He was raising the short dog of Makers Mark to his lips when the other car slammed into our bumper and throwing us hard into the dash.

#

-I have NOTHING to prove! I am the GREAT SHIEK! Terror of the SQUARED.....
-You're DELL LANGLEY! DELL LANGLEY, MY HUSBAND! THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN! YOU ARE NOT THE GREAT FUCKING SHEIK!
He briefly met her eyes, his tiny wife. She seemed so fragile and in need of protection when they met fifteen years ago. But her body was a mirage, a trick of the eyes hiding a fierce predator. It was what he loved most about her, this hidden strength. He shifted his gaze to his feet, squatting away the tears, trying to focus on the curled toes of his familiar boots.
-Dell...If you go out there...if you go out there, you'll never see me again. I can't live with another scar. I can't live with the blood anymore.

#

It sounds cliche, but in that moment, I felt weightless. For a blink of an eye, my enormous body was a bird. I remember smiling, maybe even laughing when my face collided with the wind shield, my nose splintering, blood splashing down my cheeks, glass tearing into my forehead.
I remember my father yelling something, the rumble of it barely penetrating the white noise that filled my ears. His fists clenching and unclenching, his head turning, staring back at the two shocked teenagers who'd run into us. He said something to me and left the car

#

His entrance music began and the English interpreter told him it was time.
It was time.
He looked at his beautiful wife one last time as he fitted his turban on top his head, turned, and walked away.

#

The car that had ran into us was being driven by a boy. That day, I remember him looking so adult--Scared, but grown up. But didn't all people over the age of fourteen look like adults when you were six? The car he'd been driving was brand new. Maybe it belonged to his parents? Maybe it was a gift for a good report card? He had the look of privilege--blond, blue eyed, a deep desert tan face.
A beautiful face.
He had a girl sitting next to him in the passenger seat. I imagine she was beautiful, too, but I couldn't tell because all of the blood.
My father reached the ruined car in four giant steps--he was deceptively quick for a man of his size, a trait I inherited--and put his fist through the driver side window and wrapped his hand around the boy's throat.

#

He was used to American crowds. Americans with their mania for spectacle and their unquenchable blood lust. The Japanese were a fastidious audience, erupting briefly as he burst through the curtains, marveling at his size, but then growing silent, the only sounds the shuffling of feet, muffled coughs.
He charged the ring, sliding his body under the bottom length of barbwire the promotor had replaced the ring ropes with. The crowd popped again as he turned in a slow circle taking in the weapons strewn across the mat.
The bell rang and the attendants set the ring posts on fire.

#


My father dragged the boy through the shattered window, glass tore into him, his mouth opened wide, a scream trying to drag out of his lungs. My father didn't give it a chance to escape, driving his fist hard and fast into the boy's teeth before he even hit the ground. Once my father had him in the dirt, he climbed on top of him, peppering his face and upper body. After five minutes, he finally stopped punching, his body heaving. He stared back at me, his face gleaming with sweat. He held up his fist and I watched the blood and chips of bone drip from his knuckles.
I knew then, you could fix anything with your hands.

#

The Japanese were just like Americans.
Once the fires were lit and he and his opponent began to tear into one another, tossing each other into the fire and barbed metal, they all clamored to their feet, screaming themselves horse, demanding more horror, more blood.
More, more, MORE!
None of this was real.
Even a child could tell you that professional wrestling was a fraud, which is why he jumped at the chance to work matches like this one. Matches where the blood flowed, where he could feel the power of his hands pounding flesh, cracking bone, the energy of the crowd driving him. The feeling, it was something his wife, his children, his few friends outside of the ring would never understand, or that none of the mattered in the least compared to this.

Now Available--Discount Noir edited by Patti Abbott and Steve Weddle

Discount Noir edited by Patti Abbott and Steve Weddle is now available from Untreed Reads. The anthology is available in all the major electronic formats. (including Kindle, which you can find right HERE. Oh, and you can find Crimefactory #5 right HERE)
Here's the full line up:

Patricia Abbott, Sophie Littlefield, Kieran Shea, Chad Eagleton, Ed Gorman, Cormac Brown, Fleur Bradley, Alan Griffiths, Laura Benedict, Garnett Elliot, Eric Beetner, Jack Bates, Bill Crider, Loren Eaton, John DuMond, John McFetridge, Toni McGee Causey, Jeff Vande Zande, James Reasoner, Kyle Minor, Randy Rohn, Todd Mason, Byron Quertermous, Sandra Scoppettone, Stephen D. Rogers, Steve Weddle, Evan Lewis, Daniel B. O'Shea, Sandra Seamans, Albert Tucher, Donna Moore, John Weagly, Keith Rawson, Gerald So, Dave Zeltserman, Dorte Hummelshoj Jakobsen, Jay Stringer, Anne Frasier, Kathleen A. Ryan, Eric Peterson, Chris Grabenstein and J.T. Ellison.

Video trailers for the anthology have been popping up left and right, but we here at Crimefactory are pretty big fans of CF favorite Daniel B. O'Shea's slightly shaky piece of film making. Make sure to check it out below.