Dragon Lady by Gary Alexander

Author:Gary Alexander
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9780615675763
Publisher: Istoria Books
Published: 2010-09-12T23:00:00+00:00

15.

I HAVE a permanent case of erectile dysfunction in The Great Beyond. Whether it’s been programmed into me by my masters or it’s just me, it’s a good thing. What am I gonna do with a boner? Unless Smitty’s promised seventy-virgin-strong harem appears and he’s willing to share, the desired outlet is an impossibility.

I’m thinking about this one morning as I lie in bed, looking at the ceiling and listening to “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

And smelling cigarette smoke.

I’m dressing while I go to the living room window and open the drapes. Sitting on the porch of the house to my right is a plain and dowdy woman in early middle-age. She is of average height and weight, and appears shapeless in a flowered dress. Her hair is unkempt brown, streaked with gray. She stares off into some middle distance as she blows a smoke ring.

I tuck my shirt in, slip into shoes, and go outside. I’m too anxious to see who and what she is to tend to personal hygiene. I don’t think she’ll mind.

“Who the hell are you and where the hell am I?” she looks at me and asks in a husky voice.

“I’m Joe and where we are is a good question. I call it The Great Beyond.”

She takes a big drag, exhales, and after a pause, says, “The great beyond. Yeah, that makes sense. I’m Madge.”

“Your cigarette, where did that come from?”

“I guess it come here with me. They don’t let you smoke, but they do let you after your last meal.”

“Last meal?”

“Tater Tots and corn dogs. My favorites.” Madge touches a bruise on the vein between her forearm and bicep. “They say lethal injection ain’t bad if they do it right, and they did. Beats the holy hell outta your other choice, the chair. They say smoke curls outta your ears while you’re still alive.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” she says, flicking her smoke onto to her lawn after she lights another one from it.

I can’t be sure she’s real. “May I touch you?”

She treats me to a smile and a rotting picket fence of yellow teeth. “I gotta take off my panties?”

I feel myself redden. No erection is forthcoming.

“I don’t mean that way.”

“Maybe later on you can touch me where you wanna touch me, but I don’t know you good enough yet.”

I touch her arm and feel flesh.

“What did you do, Madge?”

Expressionless, she looks at me. “I went and poisoned three husbands for the insurance. They only caught me on the last one.”

“Oh.”

“His name was Earl and he deserved it, insurance or no insurance. He used to slap me around.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What’s that music we’re hearing?”

I say, “Elevator music without the elevator.”

“Don’t they do nothing decent like shitkicker?”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

“Who lives on the other side of you?”

“A young man named Smitty. He is--was a suicide bomber.”

“Like them over there in those A-rab countries?”

“You got it.”

Her face is a question mark. “Why would you kill somebody you don’t even know?”

I walk back home, wondering why me? Why did our gagster

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