College Boy

(Caution: Adult Fiction)




The first one was huge..... with great hairy arms smeared with bad tattoos, and a mouthful of rotten teeth. The other was thinner, better looking, with polished engineer boots and a Van Dyke beard. He smiled most of the time, but for some reason – I feared him more. Both rode radically chopped Harley panheads, and both wore sleeveless denim vests with the faded, three patch colors of the Gallows Tribe, Seattle’s worst outlaw motorcycle club.

I turned, my hands trembling, to rock my 305cc Honda Superhawk Twin off its center stand.

“Where’ya goin’, girl?” The large one with the fetid mouth stood in front of my wheel, blocking my way to the street. Behind me, the bearded one stood smiling, while behind him hummed the background hilarity of the usual Friday night tavern people– Grace Slick’s thick and sweet, amplified voice rising above it all. Except for the three of us --- the tavern’s parking lot was deserted.

“Aw, he’s jus’ goin’ for a little ride, ain’t ya, boy?” The thin one with the beard moved toward me, as graceful as a cat. “Wanna go with us to a real party? Do some killer grass? Whaddya think, my little sweet rider? Come and get yerself some good buzz.....?”

“Uh, can’t tonight, guys.” I tried to grin. “Gotta go.....gotta date. Y’know how it is!”

“A date! Didya’ hear the little sucker? Him’s got a date! Holy Shit, a date!”

Fetid Mouth roared uproariously, slapping his greasy, denim-clad thighs.

“Jesus! A fuckin’ date!”

“C’mon, now, guys........” Even I could hear the pleading in my voice.

Van Dyke beard moved even closer to me. Still smiling, his eyes roaming over me, he said, very softly, “better get on that little thing and come with us. We ain’t a’gonna hurt ya, jus’ show ya some things. We might even have some information about that college girl that disappeared last week..... you could then give the information up to the fuckin’ police..... be a big hero, then, huh, college boy?”

I swallowed hard. I glanced toward the front door of the tavern.

The Van Dyke beard looked into my eyes, and laughed, and said, “you’d nevah make it, college boy. Ol’ Crank here’d bust your fuckin’ neck like a twig! Be smart, now, let’s go!”

He grew suddenly angry and bunched his bony shoulders and balled his fists. “Now get on that poor excuse of a little boy’s faggot bike and ride between us,” he snarled. “Now!”

We rode south, along Eastlake and then Empire Way, one in front, one in back, and me in the middle. The roar of their straight pipe Harleys drowned out the hum of my small bike completely. There was little traffic.... no police. My hands were shaking on the grips, my gasping breath fogging my face shield. Tears came to my eyes as I thought of my family and Ginger. Near the International district, they turned off into a littered alley and parked their bikes next to a dark and low building. Fetid Mouth grapped me and shoved me viciously toward the door.

“Get your ass in there, punk, get in there and drop your laundry!”

I turned my head around toward Van Dyke Beard. “Please,” I said. Van Dyke laughed and kicked me with a polished boot. Fetid Mouth opened the door, then grapped me by the hair and drug me across the room, and then threw me onto a filthy, rumpled bed.

“Get your pants off, College Boy. Get your pants off and lay down on that bed....face down.. and don’t give me no fuckin’ trouble.”

Fetid Mouth turned to Van Dyke and laughed.

“Think he’ll squeal much? Squeal like she did?”

Van Dyke looked at me. “Get them pants off.... now.”

Pretending to weep, I fumbled at my belt buckle, and then slid my right hand down into the waistband of my jeans, under my windbreaker, and around my side over my right buttock...... where the familiar, slender, walnut and steel grip of the Colt Combat Commander .45 cal Automatic Pistol rested against my kidney.

Fetid Mouth had unzipped his trousers, and had his penis poked out, erect and ugly. The gun in my hand came out and swung smoothly around, without haste, just as I had practiced it, the butt settling into my other hand, the muzzle almost touching the tip of Fetid Mouth’s ugly, engorged member. I waited until his eyes began to grow wide, just long enough for him to know, and then I snapped off the safety with my right thumb and pulled the trigger.

The gun roared, and blew Fetid Mouth’s organ into chunks of red meat and red mist – and cracked his pelvis in two. He fell backwards unto the floor already screaming, blood already welling through his frantically clutching fingers.

“Ah! Ah! Ah, Christ! Ah, God! Ah! Ah! Ah! Fuck! He shot me! Ah!Ah! Ah!”

For all his cat-like grace, Van Dyke Beard was slow to react, his mouth opening in shock, his eyes riveted on Fetid Mouth’s bloody groin. I swung the gun over toward him almost languorously, deliberately, with audible laughter bubbling up in my throat. With what seemed to be a violent effort of will, he jerked his eyes away from the bleeding man on the floor and reached toward his arm pit. I shot him deliberately and without haste – squarely in the stomach.

All his breath left him with an audible "woosh," and he sat down rather quickly on the bed. “Fuck,” he said. I held the muzzle of my pistol in the middle of his forehead and reached under his left arm. I pulled out a small, pot metal, 5-shot, 2" .38 revolver and threw it across the room.

“Cheap gun, Van Dyke.” I said. “Poor choice.”

Bubbles of blood and foam were forming on his lips. “Who the fuck are you, man,“ he asked, his voice now low and hoarse and raspy.

“Just a college boy.... just going to school on the G.I. bill.... the one you get when you come back from Vietnam.”

“Vietnam,” he breathed.

“Ya heard of it? Screwed up place, “ I laughed. “Screwed up for sure...but didn’t I wash off good when I came home? Didn’t I? Wait here a minute.”

I turned to Fetid Mouth, who was still screaming and writhing on the floor.

“I can handle the screaming, “ I said. “But that gawdawful breath of yours’s gotta go.” I placed the muzzle against his yellow teeth and shot him through the mouth and out the back of his neck. He was instantly still and quiet. I turned back to Van Dyke, and knelt down next to the bed.

“The girl you and fuckhead there were talking about? Her name was Ginger....and she was from my hometown. Used to dance with her sometimes......she could dance, and she was worth a million of you pukes. A bartender I know saw her leaving the Blue Moon Tavern with a couple of Gallows Tribe guys. Ginger was adventurous, always... and too trusting, always... What was she doing? Was she trying to score some weed?”

He was sobbing now. “Please,” he said.

“Where is she?”

“Dumped her in the Sound....but Crank and another dude did her, not me... Please, I need a doctor....”

“Yeah, well....no, no you don’t!”

I rose to my feet, took a quick step to my right, and shot him through his left ear. He flopped over on the bed in that rubbery way the newly dead sometimes have.

I wiped my pistol down with a section of grubby bedsheet, exchanged the magazine with a fully loaded one from my pocket, and stuck it back in my waistband under my windbreaker. I then washed some blood spatter off my face, hands, and my windbreaker at a filthy kitchen sink. It took several minutes, but I found all four shell casings and shoved them deep in the pocket of my jeans. I looked around once more, at the room with the two still forms, the room smelling of blood and cordite, and then walked outside into the cool Seattle night air. The surrounding buildings were dark and quiet and deserted, the only sound a muted traffic hum coming from the I-5 freeway. My well-tuned Honda twin started immediately. I gunned the engine and looked at my watch.

“Damn, only 9:30,” I said to the night sky. “Time enough to get back to the bars... time enough to maybe get another...”

I swung the small, smooth bike out of the dark alley and into the night.