"Tony," Ken almost whispers," what' s gonna happen the day some dealer or his bitch pulls a gun on you?" Ken' s voice chills the air and the laughs drop frozen and shatter into silence. "Are you gonna shoot them dead?"

Mike sinks back into the shadows deep inside the view mirror, and Tony' s countenance becomes as rigid as pavement.

"You know, shit happens," says Tony in an unconvincing voice, like if he had never thought of that possibility.

"Yeah, shit happens," says Ken in a whisper.

Sparrows and Bones

Sparrows, dozens of them, a whole flight; yes, a flight. Debbie remembered that much from school. Fishes swim in schools; animals run in herds; wolves hunt in packs; sea gulls fly in flocks; helicopters fly in gaggles (where did she learn that one? She couldn' t remember). Airplanes fly in flights, and she remembered that one from watching CNN. Now she was confused. Is it a flight of sparrows, or a gaggle, or a flock? Whatever it is, the sparrows stood outside her window jumping over the serrated fence top and bouncing like Mexican jumping beams among bare, spidery branches, so happy and so carefree.

Her face hurt. Bruce' s hand had left her skin blue and bruised. No good for business. Her head hurt with a deep and pounding headache, like a pulsating beach ball trying to pop out of her head. She had tried not to mix drinking and drugs, but she could never resist.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember last night. Dance, dance, lights and heat, dance, dance, money and touching hands. Coke in the bathroom, coke in the dressing room, uppers at the bar, nicotine in the vending machine, alcohol in customer' s glasses. The rat standing in the hallway.

Of course she remembered the rat just outside her door, waiting for her arrival, dirty, filthy thing. And Bruce too, drunk and all fucked up.

"Hon, I' m dead tired. Can we do it in the morning?" she asked. He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her on the bed. His hand felt hot on her face, more times than she cared to remember. "Don' t you tell me what to do!" he yelled. His breath slathered over her sweaty skin, a breath like the smell of stale beer in a hot can abandoned on a parking lot, and she felt his penis proving, bending itself into inconceivable shapes, penetrating.

Debbie opened her eyes and tears fell, one by one, warm and humid they rode down her swollen cheek. The sparrows danced outside her window in a bliss of cold morning sunshine. Her sphincter flared in burning pain. The bastard had done it again. Her body shriveled in to a tawny parchment and her skin dried up into cracked tissue, and then shed into pieces that landed on the sheets to turn into dust. Her bones turned black and her whole skeleton dropped flat like the armature of an old cage. Her spirit hissed out intact through the window mesh and joined the sparrows on the branches, so warm under their coat of fluffy feathers.

The sparrows took her high above the roofs, high above Atlanta and its trees, and a new country showed itself to her, so big and so free.

Debbie jumped out of bed in an outburst of pain and anger and tears.

"I don' t have to put up with this crap!"

New cities awaited, new pains too. She filled her one bag in a hurry. Put the clothes in, leave the memories out.

Her body tilted to the side holding the luggage as she walked towards the bus station. Under yellowing maples, her feet kicked brown dead leaves like parting waves in front of a steamer carrying a miserable cargo in its hold.

Easy Money

The topless girl lay by the pool, and her taut breasts stood straight as if attracted by Coral Gables ' sun. This represented a conspicuous example of the gravitational pull between bodies, thought Ken; but again, it also remained Ken of other things.

"I bet you, you can tell time by looking at her nipple' s shade, just like a sun clock," said Ken with a Jack Daniel' s on the rocks turning into water in his hand. Clink-clink went the ice cubes around and around.

"To hell with time," said Tony. "I bet you she knows better tricks than that."

Foreign voices came from behind, and to Ken they sounded like"Vengaporaqicompadreyakitiyakyakitiyak." A handful of rough looking characters sporting jewelry that beamed glints of opulence tailed a dark, bold and mustached man in a white suit. Ken and Tony put their drinks down and stood facing the arriving party.

The rough characters surrounded them at a distance with hands crossed on their laps. The bold man advanced, smiled and stretched his hand to Ken," You must be the fly boy that Tony told me about."

"Ken, my name is Ken, sir." They shook hands. A strong handshake.

"Raú l Ortega," the bold man said with a polite smile. "You can call me Mister Ortega." Ortega pointed to the chairs and with a grand sweep of his hand said "please." They all sat down and Mister Ortega said something to one of his minions. Ken heard him saying yakitiyakwishkeyatikiyak, so he figured Mister Ortega had ordered some whiskey, or maybe he had said "stupid Americans." Ken couldn' t tell, not that it really mattered either.

Ortega' s lackey returned with a golden drink full of ice cubes. No napkin, no coaster and no little umbrella, but of course, Ken figured, what' s to be expected from a guy hired to bust heads?

"Your friend Tony says you want to fly for me," said Ortega, all business now. The waiter-bodyguard stood two steps behind Ortega with hands crossed on front and a bulge under his Hawaiian shirt. The rest of the lot was checking out the sun clock. Yakitiyak sounds came from that direction carried by the breeze that whirled around Ken' s face.

"Yes sir, Mister Ortega," Ken said, and then he paused to check his words before they came out of his mouth. "I just want to hear from you what' s the scoop. I know there are risks, and I can take risks, but I' m not suicidal."

"The scoop," said Ortega pronouncing it tet escop," is straight. We give you a plane, you fly south, we load it, you fly north, we unload it, and you go home with your pockets full of cash."

Ken looked Ortega right in the eye. "Mister Ortega, let me ask you this," said Ken and then he paused again to carefully pick the right words. "How many pilots and planes have you lost?"

Ortega smiled and took a long sip from his drink, gold and diamonds sparkling from his thin, brown, manicured fingers. "I don' t care about the planes. They are paid for, or we just borrow them." He laughed and his bodyguard echoed him.

"The only pilots I have lost are the ones that tried to screw me," said Ortega, a cynical smile spreading under his lust mustache. "They all went for a swim in the gulf, and now are heading for Canada." His bodyguard laughed like if it were meant to be a joke.

Ken put on his poker face, unreadable, even though his stomach got squeamish. He missed stealing pot from the rednecks in the swamps, being up to his chin in brackish water among snakes, predictable snakes.

"Of course," added Ortega. "One of my pilots got caught. What a dumb ass he was. If you' re smart, the Feds will never lay a hand on you." Ortega didn' t mention that the dumb ass pilot had also jumped in the gulf while on bail.

Ken lay back on his chair to think about his future, or lack of. The villa' s stucco walls radiated pure whiteness under red tile roofs and the sea breeze tousled the umbrella' s overhang. Comfort everywhere.

He was falling behind on his student loan after he had quit driving Tony and Mike around on their excursions. He had decided armed confrontations were not his calling after Tony couldn' t sit for a week because his ass was full of bird shot; he had to pull it all out with tweezers and then had to patch the mess with Band-Aids and a bottle of peroxide while having to look at Tony’ s hairy ass crack…