Will Work for Drugs by Lydia Lunch Page B

was. I was no longer sure I knew. My high was folding, crumbling. I reached across the seat to pet the paper bag, praying the booty of firewater would by proxy rekindle a small flare-up in Johnny’s loins. I’d be back home in a matter of minutes, where I could throw my arms around his neck, slip my tongue in his mouth, and breathe. I was halfway through the intersection before I saw the squad car. Too late to stop, I simply played good citizen and pulled over. Routine bullshit. License, registration, insurance.
    â€œWhere you headed?”
    â€œHome.”
    â€œWhat’s in the bag?”
    â€œSchlitz and Jack Daniel’s … Fancy a shot?”
    â€œTurn off the ignition.”
    â€œIs that really necessary?”
    â€œDo it. And get out of the car. Hands on the hood.”
    Believe it or not, I know when to quit. Did what was expected. Got out of the car. Typical traffic stop, but with a twist. Everyone was under suspicion now that the Bank Street Boys, a notorious gang of teenage hustlers, were turning up facedown in the Gratz River. Dead bodies were hitting double digits. Downtown hood rats scurried home after dark, turning bored traffic cops into Bad Lieutenants. Tried to make small talk just to distract the bull from looking too close into my pinwheel eyes, runny nose, nervous condition. Not that they’d suspect a woman. Women don’t kill for no reason. When a woman murders, it’s usually a crime of passion—lover, ex-boyfriend, husband. Not a pack of prostitutes. That’s man’s work, right? Killing off over and over again, the replicons of their first, their last, their ever-present rejection. Killing again and again, their lousy mother, the haughty cheerleader who snubbed them in tenth grade, the prom queen who at the last minute went to the dance with the football hero, the night nurse, the convenience store clerk, the women who represented to their tortured libidos all those who wouldn’t give it up before, but were selling it off in little chunks now, to anyone who could afford it … That’s what Bundy and Speck and Ramirez did. That’s not what women do. But that’s just the coke talking, so I keep it to myself and nod like a good girl, hoping all my papers check out and I won’t have to give this creep my mouth, just so I can hurry home to Johnny, who I’ll have to suck back up again after being gone now for a good forty-five minutes anyway.
    Officer O’Riley, or McKenna, or O’Rourke, or whatever the hell his smudgy badge reads, gets an APB on his car radio as I’m ruminating on my serial killer psychobabble, and without so much as a spit of dismissal, hops in the front seat of his cruiser and speeds off. Good thing. Because I was starting to scare myself. Wondering just how many ounces his Smith & Wesson clocked in at, and just how fast I’d need to be to get away with kicking him once in the nuts, poking him in the eye, grabbing his gun and firing off a round or two, hopping back in my shitty spitfire, and riding the gas all the way back home to that hunky fuck who by now was probably passed out.
    I could hear Johnny’s panicked ranting before the key was in the lock. Feel the vibration of boots cracking against the door. He’d take two steps forward, check the peephole, kick the door frame, take two steps back, and repeat. He flung the door open with such force he fell backwards and landed on his ass. Sprung up like a coiled rattler, ripe with venom.
    â€œHA! I knew it was you … Where the fuck have you been?”
    â€œHey, slow down, tiger, I was out getting drinks, remember?”
    He towered over me, insisting I look him in the eye. His were red and bulging, dirty tears now dried, streaking his cheeks. A new three-inch laceration over left eyebrow, ruby-red and congealing. A bloody smudge under his left nostril. Caked with coke. Neck ringed with sweat. Wet hair framing his contorted face. Lips