Clean Nighthawks by Meagan Masterman

         Thomas Hawk CC



Clean Nighthawks


         “You got 75 cents?” Josh shouted. He cupped his hands around his mouth. There was no doubt that the couple in the SUV could hear him, though they made no acknowledgment. The couple were about 30, clean cut and East Coast casual. They had a Coexist bumper sticker.

           “Hey!” he shouted. His voice echoed off the dumpsters in the motel parking lot. “Just seventy-five cents?”

          The couple, white with squeamishness, finally looked at Josh and Robbie. The woman squeezed the man’s arm and the SUV took off, heading back toward the highway.

          “I guess they didn't need directions after all,” muttered Robbie.

          Josh turned to him. “Aww screw them. What are they doing out at 2:00 a.m. anyway?”

        Robbie looked back at the motel. Almost all the room doors were propped open. He squinted as their light poured into the muggy night. Mosquitoes whined past his ear and in the distance frogs called out, though he didn’t know why. The motel was called the Zanadu Inn.

         He smacked at a mosquito perched on his jugular. “Come on Josh, let’s tell Maggie what we got to tell her and get out of here. I’m tired,” he said.

          “Always ask the people for 75 cents,” said Josh, clapping a hand on Robbie’s shoulder. “It makes you seem modest. And then they’ll give you a whole dollar, because no one wants to root around for change in front of you. It’s embarrassing.”

          Josh clamped harder and harder on Robbie’s shoulder, only letting up when he got Robbie to wince. Josh liked to that prove he was the strong one. Not that it needed much proving. Josh was 6’2”. Blond and burly with dark eyebrows that danced as he talked. And then there was Robbie – scraping 5’7” and perpetually skinny, his skin still rough with acne scars.

             “Are you sure Maggie’s here?” asked Robbie.

            Josh scoffed. “You know she comes here all the time.”
  
         Usually when Josh started acting cocky Robbie would shove him. Josh would hardly wobble, but that would be that.Tonight Robbie would let all bullshit slide. Josh’s girl Linda had been sentenced on drug charges. Two years of her life.

        Josh couldn’t attend the sentencing hearing. There was a warrant out on him for what they called “theft by unauthorized taking or transfer.” Josh called it going to that shithead Tyler’s house and lifting a shotgun that was rightfully his.

         Linda’s sentence had come down that morning. They’d been kicking around Robbie’s place, which was his mother’s house. He was trying to move out, working every double he could at the sheet metal joint. So was Josh. They’d gone to high school and now they were together again, sweating with the machines. Maggie, Linda’s sister, had to be told. But her phone was disconnected again, so they went to the motel she hung out at.

          Josh sat down on the pavement in the parking lot and pulled out his phone. He found Linda’s mugshot on the website of a local free weekly. In the picture, her mouth was slightly open, just enough to see a flash of her tongue ring. It was white. Josh shook his phone at Robbie. “You know they made her take that ring out right after booking? Cut it out with pliers.” He looked rueful, stroking the screen with the pad of his thumb. “I loved that thing.”
Robbie nodded. “I know man. It’s bullshit. Come on. Let’s go inside,” he said.

          “I can’t keep living with this warrant breathing down my neck. It's only right I should be locked up if she is,” said Josh.

          Robbie pictured the county jail and its discomforts. The TVs loud, the lights bright, the spaces cramped, the toilet right out in the open, the sorry excuse for a bed, the ever-shouting men. He’d only spent a couple weeks in the joint and didn’t plan on doing any more. Josh had done months on end and would again.

           “I know,” Robbie said. “But you don’t have to turn yourself in today. Let’s go inside and find Maggie. It’s cold.”

          Room 8 was dim. The walls were a white that had aged into an uneven yellow. There were five or so people milling around. A couple laid on the bed, fully dressed with shoes on, watching Rock of Love.
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         Josh walked into the bathroom and sat down in the tub, moving fluidly and without thought. Sitting on the sink was a girl. She was skinny in the unhealthy way, a body made from junk food sparsely consumed.

           “You seen Maggie?” asked Robbie. The girl shrugged. Her eyeliner had flecked off like freckles around her under eye. “We really got to talk to Maggie. Do you know her?” The girl rolled her eyes and typed furiously on her phone.

            Robbie looked down at Josh. He was scowling and kicking the spigot softly. “It’s my fault what happened to Linda,” he said.
  
           “No it ain’t,” said Robbie, even though it kinda was. Josh and Linda ping-ponged bad ideas off each other and did them all.
  
            Josh slid further down in the tub. “Don’t say that just because you’re supposed to say that. I should’ve set a better example for her.”
    
            “You did, man! You got your three month chip right there in your pocket.”

            “That don’t count. I didn’t get clean until she was already upriver. You know that.” Josh took the chip out. It was a round of wood, slim and a little flexible. The Serenity Prayer was carved on the backside. He ran his thumb over the grooves.
  
            “Well, you’re on track. And after you serve the warrant, I bet Roland will let you come back to work. Plus, I’d bet my left nut Linda gets paroled early. She’s not one to start trouble.” Robbie wiped the back of his mouth with his hand and shot the girl a dirty look so she’d clear out. She left.
    
          “I can’t duck the warrant even a minute more. I have to do it now, while Linda’s in. There’s too many girls out here,” he gestured to the door, where the skinny girl had gone.

           Robbie nodded. Josh, he thought, was too calm. It gave him dread, like he was watching a horror movie and waiting for the jump scare, knowing it was coming and knowing it’d get him all the same.

        The couple in the other room started arguing, each sentence inflated by a few more decibels. The girl came in and locked the door. “Every fucking time,” she muttered. She sat back down on the sink and dug around in a makeup bag. It was pink and glittery. Inside was a plastic container of baby wipes. She pried the cover open and withdrew a spoon and a small Ziploc bag.

            “Where’d you get that?” asked Josh.

            “Room 4,” she said. She grinned at him.

            Josh grinned back. Robbie saw the light in his eyes. It was a sick glint. Then Josh looked at Robbie soft and trusting. It was so jarring, so uncharacteristic that it stunned Robbie into silence in a moment where he should’ve been anything but. He wanted to tell Josh to stay in the tub, the way a mother warns her children in the midst of tornado sirens. But he couldn’t. Then Josh was gone.

           Robbie followed. He stood on the cement walkway that ran the length of the motel, watching with lead feet as Josh got further away, half jogging to Room 4. Robbie wanted to catch up, but something in the muggy night air slowed him. By the time he made it to Room 4 Josh had already gotten what he came for.
    
            “Come on, man. Think of Linda. Think of your three-month chip,” said Robbie.
    
            The look in Josh’s eye made it clear he was thinking only of one thing. “Don’t sweat it. I’m going to be in the pen for nine, ten months starting tomorrow. It’s been a hard day. So don’t be a bitch because I’m only going to buy one.” He said it like he was unwinding with a beer after a long day at the office. “I can’t have goodbye sex with Linda. But I can have breakup sex with this,” he chuckled, fiddling with the packet in his pocket.
    
             “We’re supposed to be lookin for Maggie.”
  
             “Whatever. She’s not here. Take me home.”
  
             “Why don’t you stay at my place tonight.”
  
              “With your fucking Mom?”
  
               “Then I’ll stay with you. You just shouldn’t be alone.”
  
               “Because of Linda?”
    
               “Yeah. Because of that.” Robbie was thinking of fentanyl.
  
               “Sure. Whatever. Stay over. Just drive me.”
    
               Robbie’s car was a gray Pontiac Sunfire. It drove with reluctance and did nothing else. Josh had to manually crank his window down. He vaped out it, the smell of synthesized vanilla cupcake filling the air. “I don’t even know why I’m doing this.”

                 The bad feeling eased off of Robbie for a moment but came back full force when Josh was finished a long pull of his vape.
    
               “There’s no smoke smell. I don’t need to blow it out the window. It’s only going to make your car smell better. Right? I bet they’ll let me vape in prison. Fuck nine months without a smoke. Not being able to smoke makes me feel like a little kid.”
    
                Robbie was tired. He shouldn’t be driving. If he had to drive, he should take Josh somewhere else. Somewhere full of distractions. In just a couple hours the early morning stuff would open. He could get Josh something at Dunkin’ Donuts then take him to the police station at 9:00 a.m. sharp. Just a few hours to kill.
    
               “I’m so glad we’re going to my house,” said Josh. “There’s some stuff I have to pack away before I go. Can’t leave my grandma to do it.”
    
                  That was that.

                Josh’s house was a studio “apartment” above his grandmother’s garage. It had been built to store bicycles in winter and Christmas ornaments in summer. He flopped on the futon and Robbie took the recliner. They automatically augmented themselves towards the TV.

                   “Have a beer with me. Okay?”

                   “You can if you want.”

                    “What about you?”

                  “Jesus Robbie. No offense man but you’re really making me wish I’d brought home that bathroom girl. Can’t you just chill out for five seconds?”

                     “I just...I don’t want you to fall asleep on me because I’m wired and I can’t. So stay up with me.”

​                     They locked eyes, both knowing what Robbie was asking. “Please,” he said.

                    In elementary school they made kids climb a cargo net. If one kid got all the way to the top and touched the rafters, they got a gold star and the undying admiration of the whole class. Josh was determined to make it. But they both saw other boys, taller boys, try. They’d get 2/3rds up there and get too spooked by the net’s swaying. There was only a gym mat to catch them and it felt hard beneath them, too firm to do anything but slightly soften their post-fall splattering.

                     Robbie was small even then, but it was him that Josh turned to. Josh asked if Robbie would catch him. Maybe it was only because they were assigned gym partners. Robbie said yes. But he knew he’d fail. The weight of Josh’s falling body would crush them both. There was nothing he could do, but still he promised.

                 Josh went up the cargo net. Everyone watching. He got almost to the top and fell. Robbie didn’t move, didn’t catch him. Josh landed flat on his back. For a moment he was still. Then he bounced up, laughing, saying it felt like a roller coaster. He never brought up Robbie’s broken promise. And it was stupid that Robbie remembered it all the time.

                     “Get me a couple beers,” said Josh.

                    Robbie did so. Josh put on the TV. It would be dawn in not long. Most channels only had infomercials. People with bright and even fingernails selling miracle products. At night you could buy 15 life changing devices in a single sweep. Think how different life can be with 15 changes in one night.

                    They ended up watching an all-night Murder, She Wrote marathon. Everyone was very casual about the murders, having cocktails or bake sales or filming a movie afterwards. Insisting that Cabot Cove was a neighborly village when someone was slaughtered every other day.

               It was Josh who was wired. Robbie was exhausted. There was that blue light from nowhere that comes before dawn, slowly covering up the stars, lacking warmth. The warmth would come later. And he didn’t think he would be awake when it happened. The TV seemed strangely muffled and as much as he wanted to stay awake, it pulled him under. At the last second he sensed Josh’s restless fidgeting and tried to say something.

                  When he woke it was warm in the room. Stuffy. Another summer day, humid and heavy. The TV was playing Law and Order, or some show like it. Robbie looked up at the ceiling, the exposed rafters. If he stood on the chair he could touch them. Get Josh a gold star. If he fell, it was only a few feet. He knew Josh wasn’t moving. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he’d start moving any minute.

                   But Robbie didn’t look. He didn’t move. He stayed still in the recliner, looking up at the rafters. Thinking about how he was 5’7” and skinny. Still too weak to catch anyone.

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Bio: Meagan Masterman is a writer from Maine. Her work has appeared in Funhouse, Unbroken Journal, and Maudlin House. She co-edits Reality Hands. Find her online at https://twitter.com/meaganmasterman
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