KIERAN SHEA’s fiction has appeared in dozens of venues including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine,Thuglit, Dogmatika, Word Riot, Plots with Guns, Beat to a Pulp, Crimefactory, and Needle: A Magazine of Noir ...as well as in some beefy-looking anthologies most of which will make you question the tether of his shiny, red balloon. To his self-deprecating astonishment he's also been nominated for the Story South’s Million Writers Award twice without sending the judges so much as a thank you note. He co-edited the satiric transgressive fiction collection D*CKED: DARK FICTION INSPIRED BY DICK CHENEY and his debut novel KOKO TAKES A HOLIDAY is out now from Titan Books. Kieran divides his time between 38°58′22.6″N- 76°30′4.17″W and 39.2775° N, 74.5750° W.
5/16/09
THE HOGDOGGIN' VIRTUAL MOTORCYCLE RALLY: DAY TWO, #2
In the Last Episode, Lafitte was left dazed and confused after a run-in with the Central Crime Zone team, apparently off to save the world.
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Fry had watched what went down between the Wolfman and the Irish in the bar like it was a movie.He hadn’t seen the Irish in a while, thought the man might’ve been dead.But there he was, alive as the day is done.
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After, Fry found the man sitting on the ground, leaning against his scooter, legs stretched out while reading a book--a paperback with the stomach-churning title Gutted.His Weber charcoal grill was belching white smoke, and it seemed he had raided a liquor store before heading on down, all the bottles lying in the grass around them.
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“The fuck kind of ride is that?”
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The Irish peeked over the frames of his shades.“It’s not compensating for a small dick, now, that’s for sure.”
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“Where’s your Super Glide, man?
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Irish hung his head as if at a funeral.“Well, at least when the coppers caught me, I went straight to the hospital instead of jail.Alas, my ride didn’t survive.”
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“Pisser, man.”
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“Indeed.”
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Fry helped the Irish up and pulled him into a bro-hug before shootin’ more shit.Irish offered him his choice of bottles.Most were cheap tequila.“Cheap, but good.It’s what Mexicans buy.”
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“You’re shitting me.”
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“Would I do that?”Irish grinned.
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They laughed.Fry remembered the last time.Somewhere down around Kansas City, some little get-together before Steel God had split from the Outlaws.They’d drunk each other under the table and then woke up sometime around noon to get right back at it.Fry tried to interest Irish in some speed to keep the party going, but he declined.
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“A man’s got to know his limits.There’s something dignified about passing out.It’s a tradition!’
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Irish had been rambling around for years--nobody’s enemy, but nobody kept him close, either.Like they were all afraid of him, his accent, his endless expertise on all things alcoholic.He also ended up fucking a lot of other bikers’ women.That’s fine if you’re just talking skanks and such.No, Irish one upped that mess.He went after their wives and sisters.Guiltless charming little homewrecker.Until the one that wrecked him.
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Fry took a swig from his bottle of Pueblo Viejo Blanco, let it burn his whole mouth before he swallowed.Then said, “You remember Kristal, right?”
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Irish got some sort of wistful all the sudden, staring off into the clouds.“A sweet girl she was.Smart, too.Make you believe the sun was cold enough to touch, that one.”
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He unconsciously scratched his shoulder.Fry knew what that was about.It was where young Kristal, trying to score her way into the good graces of this crew of jackasses--even though she must’ve come from solid upper-class Midwestern stock--got in good with Irish and tried to collect on a hit some Bandido pack leader had put out on him for, of course, sleeping with the man’s daughter.Kristal got as far as dry humping his sorry ass while he was obliterated on whiskey, sprawled on his back, and that’s when she pulled out the .38.
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Everyone heard the sound, ran round back of the gas station to find her straddling him, big ass hole in his shoulder.She claimed it was his gun.He’d pulled it.But the man was in no condition to lift a finger, let alone a revolver.That bitch was going down, though.You had a whole bunch of pissed off men and women holding that girl in a nearby barn until the ambulance and cops had come and gone.As usual with his charmed life, Irish was able to bounce back soon enough, only the wiser for nearly bleeding to death.
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Kristal, however, was surely going to die.Or at least pull the longest motherfucking train in One Percenter history.They were going to wear out all her parts in one night, about forty good fucking years down the drain before she was even twenty.
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Until Steel God walked in.Guy had appointed himself judge, jury, and Jesus Christ.This was before people knew him the way they did since.Back then, he was a badass, sure, but just one of many badasses on bikes.Still green on the throne, even though he’d been riding with the Outlaws since ‘81.
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Like any man in the room was going to stop him.He settled on a bale of hay, hands on his knees, and waited for someone to tell him why the girl had to die.
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“You don’t shoot Irish,” some dumbass said.“He’s neutral.”
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God laughed that laugh of his, the one that made what you just told him sound like a drooling whistle.He stood.He went over to the girl, wrapped a paw around her shoulders and said, “A job is a job.Not like any one of you hasn’t thought about it yourself, except the man’s generous with his booze.She was just trying to collect on a fair deal.She’s one of mine now.”
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That’s the night Fry knew something had changed.It’s had been more like an itch until that moment, the past few weeks of riding alongside, hearing him talk about how things weren’t no good.How the things they’d always taken for granted--drugs, booze, fighting with Hell’s Angels, treating women like shit and Harleys like Idols--were nothing compared to riding because of the people who rode with you.It was one thing to feel the road beneath your wheels, but another to look over at your brother or sister who felt it the same as you.
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All Fry knew was that he liked smoking meth, smoking his tires, and smoking sluts.As long as the big man didn’t fuck with his lifestyle, Fry had no trouble sticking around.Besides, the giant son of a bitch could throw down when he needed to.Nice to have him on your side.
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Fry cleared his throat and Irish returned from wherever he’d gone in his head.
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Irish said, “You were saying?”
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“Kristal.”
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“I take it you didn’t end her life, then.”
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Fry shook his head.“We took her in.Not my choice, but I’m just saying.She lost her man a while back, rides with Lafitte now.”
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“The cop? I heard about him.”
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“Yeah, him.I don’t get that guy, but he’s been nothing but solid.But ain’t that the way they train undercovers?You wouldn’t expect a boy scout.”
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Irish shook his head.“I’ve done many a bad thing to a man, including not an hour ago.And I’ve done many a lovely thing to those men’s women.But ever since that young lass did what she did to me…”Took him a minute to get it out.“I don’t get the respect I used to.Not what I deserve, even.”
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Fry nodded.“Damn straight.”Clinked bottles with Irish, took a stiff pull, then back to staring at the ground in front of them.Until Fry chirped in with, “You could do it yourself, you know.No one would fault you that.”
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Irish pursed his lips.Watched Fry.“What are you trying to do?”
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“I’m just saying.If the opportunity presented itself--”
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“Enough.Shush, man.I don’t kill women.I fuck em, but I don’t kill em.”
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“If it makes you feel any better, just don’t think of her as a woman.”Fry reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a beat to shit snubnose.“Take this, and keep your eyes open.That’s all I’m saying.”
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He held it out to Irish, but Irish kept his hands wrapped around his bottle in his lap.Didn’t say a word.
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Fry finally left the gun on the grass beside the man.Stood, slapped the dust off his jeans.
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Irish looked up at him.“What’s she ever done to you?If she tried to kill me and I won’t kill her, then what’s she done to you?”
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Wasn’t a fair question.Not a chance at a fair answer, either.All Fry could do was shrug, say, “Just seeing her reminds me that I’m not the man I pretend I am.”
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He left his old friend there in the fading light.He wasn’t even ten steps away when Irish started singing again, louder and louder with each word.Maybe he would kill the bitch, maybe not.But whatever it was, it sounded like he’d gotten his mojo back.
*
First time Kieran Shea wrote me, it was to tell me about Pueblo Viejo.I still haven’t been able to find the stuff, but he put it like this--it’s half the price of the fancy stuff and tastes just as good, maybe better.
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And if that’s the way he sells you booze, then just imagine how he sells you stories.
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When I read “Thoroughly Yours” for the first issue of the re-launched Plots with Guns, I knew we had a winning story.But when I read “Proxy 529”, I knew we had a burgeoning master on our hands, able to convey a tense scene with the skill of Hitchcock and DePalma.I still can’t get this moment out of my head:
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Just after midnight there’s a knock at our motel room’s door.
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Dad rockets to his feet.
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There’s never been a knock at our door.
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And then it gets worse:
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Dad calls out, “Lady, you got the wrong room!”
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Pause.
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More sharp raps on the door.
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“Dale? Come on, Dale. I know you’re in there. I’m sorry, OK? Please, honey. Come on…open up. I’m real sorry.”
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Dad’s head counters left, then right, then left again. He centers his aim on the door.
Then the muffled sounds of light heels clicking the concrete and fading away.
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I tell you, I can see it as if on film. Hear the eerie music, all that.
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Check around to the other sites where he’s been published, and you’ll agree that Kieran Shea won’t be long in our cyber ghetto.And just wait until you see what he’s cooked up for the Ray Guns issue.
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A lot of his success with writing has to do with voice.For me, a character’s voice, rendered sharply, can carry me through nearly any story.I want to be drawn along by something urgent I hear in the telling.Shea’s writing makes me want to keep going.It’s not trying to distract me from the story or take the scenic route.After all, the scenic route is better in context.
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And I hope I passed the bar on that with Hogdoggin’, because it’s not just one or two voices I’m striving for in that one, but several.Al these characters needed to be heard.I couldn’t give them short shrift.But I think they all fit within the big picture.
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See what you think about it on June 1st, HOGDOGGIN’ MONDAY, when I hope you’ll join all of the others who said they would put in their order or chase down the book at one of the stores I will have hit by then (which would be Once Upon a Crime, Pudd’nhead, Subterranean Books, Davis-Kidd, and Square Books).The Steel Army would be very grateful (and they’d stop staring at you funny across the bar).
