5.21.2010

The Exchange

The pain in his gut was so intense it made his head buzz. He lay on the cold concrete, his warm blood seeping beneath him and staining the ground, his clothes, his backside.

"And my mom said to always wear clean underwear," he thought. "Good use that's doing." He smiled to himself, thinking of his mother: her warm cocoa eyes, her smile to him when he was a child, the way her hands made soup for him when he was sick.

"Now don't worry, Joshie," she would say, "this is going to warm you up and put you good as new in no time. Just you watch." She would hand him the soup in an overgrown Papa Smurf mug, he laying bundled in blankets on the cinnamon-colored couch in the living room. She'd bend down to him, the back-side of her palm touching his forehead, then cheeks. A quick warning of the soup's heat and then she'd slip two ice cubes in like skinny dippers. He loved hearing the ice crack under the heat of the soup, the cold cubes touching his lip as he sipped, the warmth of the broth seeping down his throat, cascading into his adbomen. "You know," she said once, "I never can tell what your temperature is with my hands, especially after holding that chicken noodle," and she bent over and kissed his forehead.

"Definitely feverish," she said, "but definitely mine." She smiled down at him and he smiled back - feverish, sick and happy.

Now he lay dying in a pool of his own blood on the cold concrete ground outside the elementary school. Perkins said they should meet here and Josh brought the package, as demanded. They met just out of range of the streetlight, each man hiding his wickedness in the shadows. He gave Perkins the brown paper bag and, upon inspecting its contents, Perkins gave him 2 slugs from his .45 for his troubles.

"Thanks mate," the sluggish Aussie said. The streetlight showed the man's shadow lumber back to the Lincoln Towncar. The engine started and then receded into the night.

His breathing was beginning to come in gasps and he could taste the blood in the back of his throat. "Nothing like mom's chicken noodle," he mused. Closing his eyes, breathing through his nose, he thought of her and what she might think of him tonight, bleeding out in the chilly evening.

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