..... Suzie smiled from the other side of the Pleasure's counter. "Be nice to work for a man instead of a little boy."
..... Denny leaned back in his chair, ecstatic to see the first ship jumper. His salvos were sinking it. Water in the hull, masts coming down. Captains ready to hop in the life boat or go down with the vessel. Didn't make a lick of difference to him.
..... Speaking of licking, the girl was getting down to business on a popsicle. Suzie's tits might have been fake. But the fog they made when she dropped them on that glass countertop wasn't. Denny'd seen tits before. Often as a prospective employer. But not since he'd needed a little blue pill for such interviews.
..... The excitement of war…
..... Back in The Life…
..... No pill required.

***

..... Dale dodged traffic, feet hitting the truck stop lot before Dalton's even touched the yellow center line.
..... Dalton yelled, "You give her the combination to the time safe?"
..... "Just to make some change, man." Dale gritted teeth as Dalton met him underneath gas pump neon.
..... "Change for?"
..... "For pizza and shit. Besides, she wouldn't do that, she loved me."
..... By now, the two blondes had caught up, and a laugh fell out of one's mouth before she could catch it.
..... "Oh, we got someone here thinks I'm a comedian." Dale stood over her, hand back.
..... "Dale, don't care what fried cough medicine's running that brain of yours, but you don't touch the girls."
..... "Dalton, you don't have to be nice to them. They're whores!"
..... Just as the first scratch marks, tiny rivulets of crimson appeared on Dale's face courtesy of Blonde Number One's manicure, they discovered the source of their cash flow hemorrhage.
..... Mary Ann, the meth-mouthed lot lizard who was always slumming across the street. Her remaining teeth beaming at the moon. "Getcher tokens! Free tokens! Tokens for titties!"
..... Rocking on heels, giggling, filling the hands of a trucker with lead slugs and pointing to the boys' place of business.

***

..... Denny hadn't had a cigarette in going on fifteen years. But goddamn if he didn't agree that Mr. Joe Camel's wasn't sweet.
..... He flipped the cherry into the street, saw a yellow flare from the truckstop parking lot. Didn't hear the pistol's pops until the picture window next to him fell in a heap of icy razors on the sidewalk.
..... Denny shoved the girl inside and behind the counter.
..... A tornado of lube raining.
..... Cherry. Lemon. Cordite clouds of Jolly Ranchers.
..... A squall of chewed rubber genitals, male and female, buttplugs, ball gags.
..... Lead glancing off handcuffs, burning lycra, raping already gaping pink holes in magazines.
..... Drumming drywall.
..... Brass casings cymbal beating on tile.
..... Denny reassessed his own ban on firearms ownership.
..... Then saw the whip.

***

..... Dalton wondered how small the Uzi was for his brother to carry it unnoticed. But, no matter the size, it was mowing like a Deere. Dale stopped long enough to drop one clip and insert another as they hopped through the smoky picture window and into Pleasures's.
..... Dalton put a hand on his younger brother's heaving shoulder. "It's okay. We gotta get you out of here and back to momma-"
..... The first pop of leather snapped out Dalton's left eye. Second split his lower lip in half. When he finally saw the old man flanking their side, his Adam's apple exploded.
..... Gagged, spit crimson and pointed a finger that fractured like a grade school pencil next.

***

..... Dale leaped on his bleeding brother as girls screamed in the street.
..... Leather rent fabric and skin from Dale's shoulder.
..... Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the old man bringing the whip down.
..... Dodged to the left, bits of hair and scalp floating in the air as his foot connected with Denny's recently emptied balls.

***

..... The tissues were meant for customers heading to the "theatre." But, currently Dalton held a box apeice against his eye and mouth. Barely seeing Dale's Uzi deep throating Denny.
..... Denny choked, lips chapping against the fiery barrel, smoke the color of his hair pouring from his nose.
..... Suzie's neck lodged between the split glass of a display case, spitting copper syrup across tile.
..... Denny couldn't help but cackle. He preferred domestic weapons in his day, but in the early 80's they got a sample batch from the Hassids. Nine millimeter chainsaws. But awful bad for jamming, ring on top sticking halfway between the front and back sights.
..... Like this one's.
..... Easy fix to pull it back and clear the chamber.
..... Unless your eardrums are exploding from an oncoming eighteen wheeler's air horn and screeching brakes, full load of fireworks, headlights blinding you.

***

..... Jake rolled from the cab into the open door, Zippo on a Roman Candle's wick.
..... The first burst hit the tissues in Dalton's mouth, sending him outside for air and onto, then over, the hood of an oncoming Impala. Then under Bronco wheels.
..... The second turned Dale's chest hair into an inferno.
..... Denny returned the ball kicking favor, sending the boy onto a shelf of perfume.
..... Dale smelled hair ablaze before he felt flames tickle the backs of his ears.
..... Ran like The Human Torch, feet skittering across broken glass.
..... Dale saw his boots raise above his eyes, heard a snap as the base of his skull hit the floor.
..... And his world went black.

***

..... The state trooper testified that, in his professional opinion, Billy Joe and Jake acted in defense of their employer during a robbery. And while a geriatric ex-con could indeed not put hands on a firearm, the books said jack shit about whips or hiring a couple fellas to haul in a truck load of fireworks to open a Fourth of July stand.
..... .....The prosecutor, however, felt an urge to mention, in front of twelve parents, the perils of adult novelty stores containing the corpses of under-aged females. Especially one containing a mouthful of the aforementioned ex-con's DNA.
..... Denny lived most of his life without regrets. Never thought he'd regret his last blowjob. At least the last one he'd ever receive. But now, as he lay in a bunk, cell mate's snoring staving off his own sleep, he regretted never standing up to The Old Man and going to college in Tallahassee. Regretted cheating on the first wife with the second. But most of all, as a convict old enough to never walk streets again, regretted never paying that gas deposit and getting one last pan of decent fried chicken.