1714 hours
Jesse was feeling good. Better than good, actually. Absolutely fucking fine.
Ever since he had hooked up with Kayne, nothing could go wrong for Jesse. He always had money in hand and there was never a shortage of crack or whores; Kayne was very generous with his friends and he had only one friend. Jesse was intent on keeping it that way. He got to help Kayne on his “quest.” That’s what the fucking guy called it: a quest to be the baddest mother-fucker on the streets. He wanted to be remembered or some shit like that. Jesse didn’t care. As long as Kayne kept the money and drugs coming and Jesse got to crack some bones along the way, Kayne could carve as many Ks as he fucking desired.
But right now putting the boots to someone was not high on Jesse’s list of priorities. In fact, Jesse was feeling far too fine to do anything other than lie back on the floor of his apartment and . . . just . . . feel . . . good.
They had just left some poor asshole in a laneway somewhere. If Jesse tried to remember where, he might be able to come up with the general vicinity, but really he just didn’t give a shit. After relieving the asshole of his stash of marijuana, Kayne had cut open his forehead with the piece of slate he called his talisman. Then they went back to the room, feeling fucking fine on the liberated weed.
Jesse’s room faced the street and was one of the two largest in the two-storey rooming house. Prior to hooking up with Kayne, Jesse had had limited cash and been relegated to living in one of the back rooms, a tiny cell he could cross in three steps. The place had stunk like shit and another resident had told him that the previous tenant hadn’t left the room in years, not even to go to the bathroom. The talk of the building had it that when the police and ambulance had finally hauled the old fuck away, he had fucking cockroaches living in him. Not on him but fucking in him. And Jesse could believe it, too, for under that new paint smell had been a stench that made dead fish on the beach seem fucking appetizing. As soon as the warm weather arrived, he’d planned on moving his ass out of that shithole.
But then he’d met Kayne and everything had changed.
All it had taken was a wave of cash under the landlord’s nose and Jesse was in the ground-floor front room, the previous tenant not knowing what was happening until his ass hit the sidewalk. Now Jesse had room for a bed, a couch, a chair and the room’s crowning glory: a TV. True, the furniture was all old and ratty, having belonged to the last occupant and the TV only pulled in three fuzzy stations, but Jesse was living like a king.
With all the cash rolling in, he was contemplating some new tattoos. When his brain was clear enough to think, that is. Both arms were already sleeved in skull tattoos: skulls with snakes, skulls with knives, grinning skulls, skulls of all shapes and sizes. He was mulling over the idea of one huge, kick-ass skull on his back.
But that was for later. Jesse was sprawled on the floor, the cushions from the couch heaped behind him to prop up his head and shoulders. Kayne was in the chair, one leg thrown carelessly over a padded arm, his chin resting on his chest. Jesse thought Kayne might be asleep but couldn’t tell in the shadowy haze: milky light wormed through the threadbare shades to tinge the smoke from the train of joints they had smoked a greyish blue. They had sucked back enough of the weed to envelope the whole building in its sickly sweet stench, but none of the residents had complained. They all knew to steer clear of Jesse’s new friend and his new friend’s temper. Word was circulating that he was the crazy fucker carving people up, writing his name on their faces with a knife or some shit like that. Jesse was sure the residents knew it was best to leave well enough alone.
Jesse studied his . . . friend? No, not friend. Guys like Kayne didn’t have friends. They had . . . followers, that was it. Kayne wanted someone to watch as he smashed people, someone to admire him and gush over him as he ripped open face after face with his talisman.
“Talisman, my fucking ass,” Jesse muttered, dragging deep on his rolled cigarette. “It’s a fucking piece of rock.”
“What the fuck you say?” Kayne’s eyes had cracked open, but his chin was still propped on his chest and the words had come out slurred: Whuh thuh fuck you shay?
Jesse’s heart lurched. “Nothing, man. Just wish we had some rock.”
“Get some later,” Kayne mumbled — Geh shum la’er — as he drifted back to sleep.
Lisa, the green-haired whore Kayne had taken into his troop, was passed out on the floor by Kayne’s feet. Her mouth twitched at the mention of rock.
Jesse blew out a shaky breath, then soothed his nerves with another drag. A deep one. If Kayne had understood what he had said . . . Jesse wiped his brow, his sedated mind all too able to imagine a bloody K torn into his skin. And he would be lucky if Kayne stopped there. His attacks had escalated in the last few days; they were more vicious each time he pulled out that chunk of stone. Jesse figured it was only a matter of time before Kayne killed “one of the weak ones,” as he called them.
Or was killed himself.
How long before he ran into someone with a gun? Or someone who got tired of his antics and simply ordered him gone? Or maybe, most likely, one of these times Kayne wasn’t going to be the baddest fucker in the fight. It could happen.
Jesse wriggled his shoulders, walking them up the cushions till he was sitting upright; he could never think well lying down. He looked at Kayne, drooling on his naked chest. Really looked at him. His torso and arms were heavy with sinewy muscle, not the swollen size of some steroid freak — Jesse had seen enough of them during his time inside — but big like pit bull muscle. Size that said the man behind the muscle could seriously fuck you up, as Kayne had done many times over. But could it last?
Kayne might have worked out like a madman in the pen, but now? Now he was on a steady diet of crack and those muscles would not last long. Jesse had seen it before: guys came out of the pen jacked to the shit, but then they get back on the crack and in no time they were fucking toothpicks. Once that happened to Kayne, people would be lining up for a shot at him. Jesse figured it would be best to get as far from this questing freak as possible. Guilt by association and all that.
But for now life was good. No need to bail quite yet.
Jesse leaned over, shoved a dirty finger up his left nostril to plug it and blew out his right one. Or tried to. Ever since that fucking cop had broken his nose by smashing his face into a plate of eggs — completely undeservedly; he hadn’t done a damn thing to warrant such abuse — it always clogged up when he smoked. Breathing through it was a pain in the ass and for months he had endured taunts of “egg face” and “egg snot.”
Jesse snotted a yellowish lump onto the floor and sniffed back what was dribbling down his lips. Staring at the snot as it soaked into an old cigarette butt, an idea came to him. He turned from the snot to Kayne and the idea took hazy shape in his cloudy mind.
Jesse fingered his crooked nose and smiled.