There was kind of a symmetrical nature to the twin cracks as Gray’s fist collided with my jaw and slammed my head into the dust. A fresh surge of blood flavor joined the swirling tastes of cigarette smoke, crushed amphetamine pills, and broken teeth. I worked my jaw a couple times in the sand—it was easier than standing back up—and felt it hit a hard barrier about halfway open. I reckoned I might be able to break that barrier, but it would probably never shut again if I did. I nodded a few times appreciatively, filling my sweaty hair with sand. Both of us had gotten much better at this.
A house stood in the middle of the yellow dustbowl, its roof bowed in like slumped shoulders and its paint peeling off in rolls one or two feet wide. A rust-brown weather vane stuck out of it at an angle that would give flashbacks to an ER surgeon, and turned slowly in the wind like an aging stripper around a pole. Beyond a tree that had long since considered drying up a mercy and Gray’s dust-stained, overpriced coupé, we were the only occupants of the shallow desert valley. The sun, obese to the point of bursting with overbearing heat, breathed down shimmering waves onto the sands as though it was trying to melt them into glass, and the breezes that brought relief were apathetic and flaccid in response.
I started to speak, but paused as I felt something slipping between my gums and lower lips. I paused to unearth a dislodged tooth with my forefinger and thumb, then used my tongue to check where it had fit in. Pretty far back, a canine on the left side. No great loss. I rolled onto my back, bearing my swollen belly to the sun and squinting against its light.
“It’s hot,” I said.
“Fucking hot,” agreed Gray, as he turned his back and walked a few paces towards the house. He fished in his pocket for a moment, then I heard the clacking of his index finger packing a tin of dip—Black Griffon. Always was.
“Bum a hit?” I asked, careful not to use my jaw too much. The tin arced back over his shoulder in answer, and I scooped a wad out and stuffed it into my lip. It was soaked through with blood almost instantly, a clod of hot metallic mucus against my teeth. I squinted in his direction again.
“You know they put glass shards in this stuff?”
Gray didn’t know.
“Like microscopic bits of glass that cut the inside of your mouth, so it gets into your bloodstream and you get a buzz faster.”
“Dickheads,” he commiserated, “sounds like something they’d do.”
With a sigh, I flipped over onto my hands and knees, then pushed back onto my legs. With a brief pause to work out some kink in my spine, I straightened and gave a little double-jab with my fists. It was a habit by now, though I wasn’t sure where it came from. Part of my brain said it was a sort of check to make sure they were still working, though I was fairly certain I’d be able to tell if anything went that wrong. Another part said it was from some half-remembered film or show.
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“Good?” Gray asked, turning and doing that mouth-opening thing he did when he had dip in it. I bent my head to either side in a sort of half-nod, slimy dust descending from it in both directions.
His left flashed out in a jab towards my jaw, and I managed to grab his wrist. He closed the remaining distance between us and lashed with his knee, pulling away to throw me off balance. I soaked the knee and the tug both, slamming my jaw into its maximum openness as air rushed out of my lungs and blew out a jet of blood and saliva. I rolled with the fall, heaving Gray on top of me as I tumbled. As his head descended towards mine I bore the top of my skull to him, and felt my efforts satisfyingly rewarded through the sensation of crumpling cartilage. He reeled back like a rider in a rodeo, a red bow expanding outward from his ruined nose as his head rocked backwards. I took advantage of the distance he had created by seizing the collar of his shirt, and hauling his face back down as I punched. Through the target, not to the target, I reminded myself as my knuckles collided with his flattened nose.
Still muddy-headed from the pain, Gray simply swayed on top of me for a moment. I took his right ear in one hand, and struck his other with an open palm for good measure. The blow was enough to roll him off of me and I stood, licking my skinned knuckles.
I walked to where his tin of dip had landed—the knee to my stomach had exorcised it from my mouth. I hadn’t screwed the lid back on, so some sand had blown in, but I didn’t mind. It would prevent it from absorbing blood as quickly this time.
“You dow,” Gray observed, his voice now entirely absent nasal qualities, “I thik this bight really be our last ode.”
I nodded without saying anything, and for a long moment just stood and steamed in the sun as he recovered. “If I win,” I said at last, “you got the keys for that ride?”
“Still id the igditiod,” he answered. “Dot sure how good I got you, but you still bight black out before you cad bake it anywhere.” It wasn’t a threat—just an observation as to our mutual states.
I heard the scraping against the sand as Gray pushed himself to his feet once again and turned around to face him. Something felt a little different in the air between us as we stood, something a little more broken and a little more sad in our postures. Fuck, it was hot out.
“Gray,” I started, but there was really nothing else to say. What I could see of his mouth behind a curtain of viscous red slime quirked into a half smile.
“Yeah,” he said, “I dow. Sabe to you, Jo.”
I gave another nod, absently looking over the blood-speckled sand between us. I felt, or maybe heard him, draw in breath, tense up his muscles and ready himself to fight.
I jabbed at the air twice, just to make sure they were still working.