Business

After I smelt and weld the scrap metal, I trade it to guys around the way. For other metals. For parts. For hot dogs. I sell it to the dope heads and the pushers of the world. To the priests and whores of it all. To anybody with a worthless dollar and a shitty dream.

Like Jackie. Jackie was a stoned gem of a guy. He'd come by my garage on weekends to buy out whatever I had ready. Usually in the afternoon, but mostly just whenever he'd had enough time to huff some toluene out of a filthy rag and smoke a poorly rolled joint. His hands shook, and I'd never seen him eat. But he had cash, and when he didn't, he had other stuff. Ammunition. Gasoline. Whores. Business was booming.

He'd bring his girlfriend over for a fuck when the metals were on the way up. She was too good looking to be with a guy like him, but I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. I didn't want to know. I would put her up on the hood of my blue '75 Mercedes and fuck her brains out. Jackie would sit in a dilapidated lazy boy recliner in the corner of my garage and watch, breathing in and out of his rag. When I was finished, Jackie was passed out, and I smoked a Marlboro. Sometimes I smoked a second one.

He'd come to soon enough, pack up his car with whatever he was there to get, and leave with a wave and a smile. The last time I saw Jackie he was fumbling with his car cigarette lighter trying to get a joint to light.

I saw her again. And we made the old Merc's shocks squeak like the rusty box spring on your high school sweetheart's bed.

Back then. When men were men. Back when Jack Daniel's was Viagra and old men's broken dicks weren't everybody's problem. Business was booming.