SUCKER! (Published in Concrete Magazine)

Talking to the Repo-Man, as he calls himself, his sullen leer peeking forward through the gloom; 

He says, “Nothing ordinary about my profession, as it were. Nothing ordinary at all.”

He says this with the snarling stench of truth, coarse as sandpaper, only denser and with malice to coat itself. He talks with the cadence of an old croaking viper, like he has been growing in a foul soil his whole life. He wears that rank terroir; lets it hang all over him. 

The Repo-Man is telling me about his dreams while I shine his patched and scummy old shoes. I am kneeling before a specter and charlatan who has found for himself a real calling. I can only envy him. My present purpose does not exist beyond a pair of gloves, leather dyes, brushes, and saddle soap. His loafers are my only real priority, and there is still the matter of payment. 

“Of course, a man cannot live doing just one thing alone. A man could go crazy like that. No, you’ve got to have a hustle.”

He says the word “Hustle”, and I can feel cancer on his breath, yellow and miasmic. It is a spearmint aftertaste, tucked in the puckered-up lip, staining every molar and canine. He has a year to live, maybe. I repeat the word back to his shoe, and he goes on without hearing. 

“You see a lot of real crazies in this profession. All of them the same in my books. Whether you a skipper, a deadbeat, a junky, or a cokehead attorney. Makes no bit of difference to me. But then what’s to say I’m really doing anything worthwhile at all? Still, can’t let the days get too similar on you.”

The Repo-Man leans down and expects me to stop what I’m doing. His old straw hair stretches out for me, but it’s too old, too atrophied to reach its mark. Up close, he has a sore developing under his hook nose, and there is a waxen stuff built up all around the nostrils. Up close, I could almost think of him as a dog– the admixture of alien breeds, all mixed into the same repugnant Petrie dish and grown up into a sore, jaundiced skeleton. 

“I collect their tattoos, you see,” he smiles, and maggots practically materialize between his veneers, “Only the interesting ones; truly unique designs.”

I am shining the part of his shoe that has already been shined. I can see a warped, blackened silhouette of myself. Just at the perimeters of the glint, I can make out the curve of my jaw. Supposing I show any signs of finding the Repo-Man’s story odd. Supposing I cast just one furtive glance upwards, askance, as if I were a church-goer. He might stop right there. He seems the agitated type, so there is every possibility he takes offense and leaves. There is the matter of payment, of course, and I am late on rent again. Supposing I don’t react at all, hardly breathing, and keep on shining the same part of the shoe. 

“And I’m no Philistine so it’s slow going,” he is saying, “It’s taken me nearly forever just to get to where I am now, and I’m still lacking for parts, you know. Parts, pieces, projects, whatever you call it.”

I don’t doubt him either, as far as I can follow his rambling. He is speaking to me conspiratorially and I am struck by the scent of gunpowder, and mausoleum floors, and matricide. The words spill out over his vulgar tongue with the weight of gelatin, slippery and flaccid, the finality of grey church bells pealing; of all my debts come home at last. 

“I’ll tell you certain parts are easier, you know. Easier in two ways. Easier to find and easier to obtain. Easier to find means the arms, you know. The arms, the chest, the calves, the bicep. Folks get ink there all the time. And easier to obtain, well…”

He smiles again, and there is the unmistakable perfume of depravity. 

“Skin round the stomach just slides right off, you know. Same goes for the flabby bits of the arm, the fatty undersides of the thigh.”

He lets his vowels run long, practically drooling as he speaks to me. I have still fixed my eyes downwards, so I am beginning to think that I now know how it feels to be watched by a slobbering jackal, or perhaps a half-dead one, still wet and gaunt from the hunt. 

“Once I had to pay a visit to this one lady. She went on crying her head off about how I can’t do this to her and all I could think about was how lucky I’d been to meet someone with a tattooed tongue. Needle in my eye: she had a jet-black tongue. Told me it took nearly three weeks to heal up right. Never mind that; it’s in my collection now.”

The Repo-Man’s raspy inhales resumed, reminding me sharply that he had not been breathing the entire time he had been speaking. It all dribbled out of him– geysers of putrid horrors do quite a number on the listening ear, and so I took a moment to breathe as well. Turning my head did no good, and his cologne followed me, musky damp soup, runny sewer water, purulent acid. 

“I’ve got some real gems too. You ever met a man with tattooed teeth? I got his whole set. Yes, sir, I’ve done my due diligence. Travelled damn near as far as you can go. Seen it all, and come back with real treasure to show for it. Real treasure.”

Repo-Man sucked a stinking cigarette and considered the scene around us. For all I cared, it was just us. Just two of us occupying a grey space. Maybe an airport terminal or a bus stop or maybe just a filthy lunchroom. Wouldn’t matter in the slightest. Men like this are liminal animals. They are creatures that never really look as though they ought to be anywhere at all. So, miraculously, they spawn into these dusty corners of well-traveled areas. They hang around for a while, drink a black coffee until it’s cold, and then they are onto the next dead-end shopping centre, or motel pool. Animals like him are always lingering in motel pools, wreaking of chlorine and cheap booze. 

“Now, you might be surprised, but some still elude me. Might shock you to hear it, but I haven’t gotten a right hand yet. Left hand I obtained a good while back,” and his eyes went far off with some sinister reverie.

It’s an electric panic when I have realized that there is nowhere left to shine. Slick and glinting, the Repo-Man’s vamps watch me with hesitation. I’ve done all I can do: no more brushing or polishing for me, nor any amount of fidgeting with the gloves or the rags that can prolong my looking into the Repo-Man’s weathered, predatory eyes. Currents of blue dread drip upwards to my arm, collecting in between my lips and my nose. Droplets of a pearled sweat demand that I ask for his money, though just then I’d have welcomed getting stiffed. 

“What’ll it cost?” he asks, and I think he may be smiling, or leering. There is the sticky sound of gum separating from teeth, so he is most definitely smiling above. Fissures open and from the newly opened cicatrice, there is every pungent nightmare at once. 

He is pulling about his overcoat for some cash. Maybe it’ll be today: the wheel spins and I’m lucky for once. It’s always the same game with me, that’s my trouble. He gropes through his coat, pawing at the pockets the way a man might caress a drunken lamppost. One, two, and three, and he is unsheathing a beaten wallet. If there is a god, the Repo-Man will rip me off today, skittering into the waiting grey.

But he has found some money, as he always will. Some crumpled bills, broken bones contorted, involuted as a body bag. Ghastly fingernails, the shape of death, grip the cash as it hovers beneath my nose. On a different day, I might be some exterminator or maybe a cab driver waiting on the corner of a bombed-out cul-de-sac. I prefer their chances. 

I set down the brushes, and the polish, and the rags. Hanging like a last leaf, a president’s pupils swim into focus. He is tipping me well today, so there is a celebration in order. I am setting down the saddle soap now, and at long last I must believe. Here I am, slipping off one glove and then the other. 

Ah, there is the slight gasp– imperceptible inhale through the coarsely tightened nostrils. Yellow-boned chest rises and falls, and if I would look up, there would be the passing of a protuberant tongue across arid lips. There is the posture, shifting as the priest who has found his holy spirit. If I were ever to look up, it is possible that I would scream. Only now, as I consider the hanging cash, I can see my own palm, right hand inked with a tattoo. It’s as striking as ever. And I know that he agrees.