Sin City: Dames and Damnation (Closed for CT & me)

[lil_squirter]

(This is a repost/relaunch of an older SRP thread, edited down to just Chronicle Tenko and myself.)

Chapter 1: Wendy

It was raining.

Something new for Basin City and the surrounding neighborhoods, rain was a rarity. It washed things clean, purified the streets, soaked into the ground and flooded the soil with it's redeeming liquid. Even in Old Town the rain was a thing of purity. It washed away the sins and blood and smell of sex mingled with cheap booze and stale smoke.

A week ago the sun had shone.

A week ago birds had the balls to chirp.

A week ago a good man died.

No, he wasn't a good man. Truth be told Marv might have been a real bastard, but he avenged my sister. In my books that counts a as big win on the side of the angels. A week ago they shoved him in a chair and pulled a switch to make him human barbeque. A week ago I got a new piece of jewelry, not flashy, not meant for show, the cross tucked neatly between the soft downy mounds of my breasts. Marvs cross, mine now. My way to remember the man who brought peace to my soul, or if not peace at least it was something that let me sleep. Revenge maybe, just as good as peace.

Goldie, God I miss her. Feels like part of me died. Hard to walk through life missing an arm. Phantom pains they call it, and I have them all the time. Only it's not just an arm or leg or fingers...it's all of me. Gail and the girls help, good girls every last one of them. They work hard, stick together and take care of each other. Hell of a lot more then I've been able to do lately. Not much of a leader these past few weeks, I haven't been much of anything. But Gail's here, she's my strength... it's funny. All these years Goldie was telling me to ease up, relax, I'm too serious and I need to live. She went and died and I fall to pieces. Ain't life a funny thing?


It was raining.

The night they buried what was left of Goldie, Old Town takes care of it's own. We buried my sister here, not even enough for a casket. Just a small box and some big words. Alotta people died for what they did to my sister, one man never should have.

Dammit Marv, why you?

Dammit Goldie, why not me?

Dammit God...where the hell are you anyway?

Cops bleeding on the streets, that coulda cashed us all in real quick. That one Dwight took care of nearly destroyed Old Town, cops need to know better then to come here. Now they do. Nothing they could prove just enough to make them remember why their jurisdiction ends at the bridge. This is Old Town, our town. My town.

Cold glass feels good on my skin, pressing my forehead to it to try and soak in that cool rain drenched clean on the other side. Feels damn good, feel like the world is crying and maybe if it does I can stop for a while. My fingertips brush over that cross, it feels warm, smooth, comforting. I hardly knew him really. Goldie knew him less. But I owe him everything. My heart breaks again for that dead hulk of man who avenged my sister.

But then again, it's easy to love a dead man, they never let you down.

 

[lil_squirter]

Chapter 2: Marv

The first drop was the loudest. Like the hammer cocking Gladys. One loud angry drop upon the cheap wood of his coffin. So this was being dead. Listening to the drub of the world around you. Bored and staring at a cheap pine box.

The second drop was quieter but no less threatening, and the rain fell.

It was raining.

And I woke up because my coffin leaked. Blood pumped slowly at first and I coulkd feel the familiar pins and needles like I'd slept on my arms. But it was everywhere. I was alive again. Just like a week ago.

A week ago I was still in Jail.

A week ago I was waiting to die.

A week ago I was alive again for the first time in 18 months. Alive enough that they had to fry me twice to get me to die. And It still wasn't enough. I could see Goldie, though. When I was dead, Could smell her perfume and touch her perfect skin. By god I could taste the sweat off her body. the Lord really must be merciful, even after all that I did 18 months ago, he still offered me a piece of heaven.

Drops in a steady rain, Dripping against my face, my clothes my mitts. My mitts, I balled up and slammed and the coffin budged. Again and again, I don't know how long I hammered but the cheap wood broke. Wet earth fell over the Dirty bloodstained clothing I was wearing. Bastards who buried me must have had a closed casket funeral; Just like I was always told I'd get.

I dug, dirt and worms, and all other things under my nails and through me. It felt good to get dirty. I couldn't even keep my eyes shut As I dug. how much land did a man need I got asked once, One of them rhetorical questions I suppose. But Six feet is the answer. I said Seven for my height.

I burst out looking like all the world like one of them men from the bible. Rotted and risen, regular Job or Jonah or someone. Dead man that Jesus brought back from the grave.

Why?

I went to grab my cross, and it wasn't there. Of course it wasn't. Goldie had it, She came like an angel of mercy and took it from me. I sure wouldn't need it where I was going, and her touch was all the heaven I would receive. But I was alive now, and how could I look my momma in the eye without it? I shivered in the rain as it washed the Dirt from me. I'd need a coat.

I wandered towards Basin from the cemetery. Likely take me into Old town from there. Old town. Katie's. Goldie. I still loved her, Loved a dead woman. I had even died for her.

It's easy to love a dead woman, she'll never leave you more than once.

 

[lil_squirter]

Chapter 3: [Wendy] Rain, wrath and ruined cigarettes

Things never change, even in the rain the girls still worked the streets. The money and liquor flowed and Old Town staked it's claim on the night. I spit on the window, watch the watery trail slide down my reflection matching the rain that pounded the outside of the glass. Filth, we were all up to our necks in it and it would take more then this temporary deluge to wash us clean.

I could hear the sharp clacking of my heels on the hardwood floor, could hear that door creaking open letting me step out to the street. Gail was there, already looking out over the town in her vigil. Finger sink into the pocket at my hip, pulling out a small box. I knock a cigarette from the pack and offering one to the deadly mocha skinned woman to my side. I put another between my lips, red like blood, glowing like the cherry that soon tips the cancer stick. A deep draw...god that feels good. Filling up my lungs making the emptiness go away. Like having an empty bed, and empty heart...nothing ever felt the same.

"Dwight. He's welcomed here, whenever, whatever."

It was all that needed to be said, Gail would know the meaning, she would know it meant the protection of Old Town now extended to one man. These girls would know he was as much a part of their family as any one of them, and afforded all due respect. No one would touch him, you could smell Gail on that boy from a mile away, she marked her men and really..once Gail had had a man he was ruined for anyone else. Dwight was hers and she his in some sort of twisted double helix of death. Still...I was jealous..at least she had someone.

I stepped out, more into that rain, feeling it slid icy fingers down my scalp. Those wet chilly caresses slipping down my neck and over my skin like a dead lover. Weren't they all? More of those staccato foot steps as I made my rounds, checking my girls, checking my town. The rain turned my curls to liquid gold graffiti on the blackness of my coat. Wet spiral tendril slithered into my face like a thin snake, it made me smile. Something about ruin making me smile.

Self destruction was bad, sure I knew that, who didn't? But it was my life to destruct now wasn't it? I raised my arms, letting the rain wash over me, plastering the thin material of my shirt to my body, here came the wind. With it's howl I could hear Goldie, my sister..laughing. I could hear my girls talking about their tricks. I could hear Marv muttering on and on about nothing in particular.

Tomorrow the rain would be gone, but tonight it was my lover, giving me back all I had lost. I can forgive it for ruining my cig.

 

[lil_squirter]

Chapter 4: [Marv] Sometimes a man just needs a coat

Rain spattered against my body. A cleaning I sorely needed as the mud and earth on me washed away to the ground. Maybe this was some kind of second baptism, this time I wouldn't even spit at the priest doing it.

Cars went by and none stopped. I couldn't blame 'em. I wouldn't stop for a guy my size. Well I might but I am my size. Lights and flashes of it reflected off the rain, and I could hear the old sounds, feel the old rhythm. I started making for the pits, always something happening there, always a car to boost there, and you usually never felt bad from taking it off someone who was dumping a corpse.

The Pits and the cemetery were kind of close. Maybe so those warrior angels didn't have so far to go to pick up the souls dumped in either. A hot rod. Good old American hardtop muscle. That was a ride.

Fat Man and Little boy. And a corpse. My lord could Sclubb and Klumpp actually have done something right. Or had taste in a vehicle. I doubted that, but they were taking something in canvas to the pits. Talking in that highbrow tongue they always did. And the car was sitting right there.

"All I'm saying Mister Klump is that whilst your choice of American Muscle does give us the fortitude to make it here and the hold for such Cargo as this body, it doesn't for two assasins to be traveling in a dilapidated, oxidized 68 mustang. And another thing, to this, is. MARV!"

"Marv my precocious undersized friend is dead. he was on death row and the lights went out when they juiced him. He is not coming back to haunt me ever again."

I listened to their blabber till I heard that. I'd been standing behind Fatman or Klump waiting admiring his coat from the shadows. He let the body fall and turned as I clapped my hands to either side of his head. Like the body he fell stunned as my palms closed his eyes, turning him off like a TV.

Schlubb or Little Boy aghast at what had happened barely managed to fall over dropping the body on him as he fumbled for something it might have been a gun, it might have been a knife. I've never been the type to really question that. A size 24 shoe slammed into his chest bouncing him up and crushing the hand holding whatever it was he was drawing. The wind knocked out of him he may have been trying for some witty statement, during the gasp. Again not something I was willing to hear or allow and another size 24 stomp later he was unconscious mumbling whatever he was mumbling to the dirt.

Fatman looked to be standing and he looked at me with terror. It was a nice coat, but this fat idiot didn't deserve to die. The body started to move and out struggled some frat boy brat. Now a few years older. I recognized this kid before. Setting a wino on fire. He was about 6'7, A center for his basketball team or something, rich and with a black lambskin coat. Soft leather. How useless, like the matrix shit. I saw remains of sunglasses on his face. Kid probably thought he looked like Neo.

"Keys Fatman. Toss em to me." Odd jingling from the trembling hands produced a faint tinkle as tiny metal pieces flew to my mitt. I caught em and looked to the kid. "That's one fine lookin' coat you're wearin'."

Some little time later Fatman was lying as unconscious as little boy frat boy was a twisted dead corpse and I had a new coat and ride for town. Yessir it was good to be alive.

 

[lil_squirter]

Chapter 5: [Wendy] Coulda, woulda, shoulda... don't mean a damn thing.

The rain was cold, turning colder.

Today was the first day I didn't go to his grave. I felt guilty but Gail says that's how you get over things. I see Goldie everyday though, shoulda brought Marv here but I couldn't bring myself to have him dug up. Not now, not when he finally got to rest. The big lug deserved it, he deserved a lot better then this life had given him. Sure he was no looker, but he had a heart as big as the rest of him. He did what no one else woulda done, coulda done.

My Marv.

We were twins, me and Goldie, we shared everything. Guess that includes him. I never woulda looked twice at a guy like Marv before this, woulda been my loss all the way. I know I was one of the only people in the world that could say Marv would never hurt me. He might be a killer and a madman, but I was never safer then when I was with him.

I feel the chill, that sort of cold that seeps through your skin and wraps around your bones. It's invasive and hard and violating, the kinda cold that haunts you long after you warm up. Cold like the grave, that's what it is. Funny how in the end it all comes back to life and death.

 

[chronicle_tenko]

Chapter 6 [Marv] Can't kill a ford.

As I slammed the door I could feel pieces of it, fall to the ground. Like the rain; beating a hole in the roof, assaulting the window. Louder than Gladys. That old iron bitch. This rain sounded like her ruler, rapping knuckles. Smacking my mitts. The wind outside a pale imitation of the whistle her ruler made, that little hole distorting the air when she swung. The entire storm was her fury, and the car an empty vessel simply endured the beating. Like me.

The seat adjusts when I make it jsut barely enough for me to sink in to the worn leather, cheap wet lambskin sliding off worn leather, cracking and creaking, unwilling at first to deal with me in it's driver seat. Old Ford's of course have a life of their own, and a spirit to match it, but with a groan the seat becomes comfy the moment I spark it's engine.

"Thatta girl, Purr for me." The heater sparks to life as well working doubletime to dry me out. Cars always treated me better than dames, cept for Goldie. Goldie, With her revenge, and with her gone, I hardly know why I'm still alive. With an angel like her gone, there is no justice that a man like me can crawl out of hell, outta the dirt and she can't. No reason niether. And maybe I don't need one anymore, should just crawl to Katie's and into a bottle. Vanish inside one. After all.

Men like me don't ride into no sunsets.​

I shift the car in gear and it moves like it should, into city limits, past the sign that improperly reads Basin City. It rains here and it's where I belong, says a devil on my one shoulder. My mitts grip the wheel as if to say this is where I belong. No sunsets in Sin City, and so few angels.

 

[lil_squirter]

Chapter 7 [Wendy] Picture this

It was picture perfect, sure not the picture you see on glossy 8 by 10's in the drug store shelves. There were no smiling happy family kicking around beach balls or elderly ladies getting daises from young kids. But for Old Town, yeah it was as perfect as things got. I looked down the streets, soaked in rain, that same rain beating down like hammers on the thin tin roofs that covered doorways. I pass by my girls, here and there they work the streets and there are no finer women in this world.

Sluts, whores, tramps....call the ladies of Old Town whatever you like, you just better pay them first. Some of my gals don't much like the down talking. Hell Kitty has a God Damned doctorate degree in physics and found herself making more money here. My girls, my family. All I have left since Goldie went and got herself killed, it was a wonder they didn't come for me too. Or maybe they are just biding their time. The men, the ones who got Marv and put him underground, they could still want me dead, they want us all dead. Think we're no better than cockroaches until they need to get a thrill in the back of their expensive caddy.

Still it's been quiet, every says that. Been real quiet since so many died. All those lives hooked together because of Basin City. None of us are above it, we all were painted red in the wash of blood that brought down a senator, a holy man and corrupt police. Funny how all those high and mighty bastards fell and we rose up atop them. How's it feel to be the one to get fucked this time O'Rourke? How's it feel to be the one paying with an ounce of flesh..or in his case closer to two hundred pounds of it.

I don't mourn those bastards, let them all rot in Hell as far as I care. But I mourn Goldie, and I morn Marv. God help me but I do. Big lug, nothing but fists and ugly but he cared. When I went to him that last night, I let him call me Goldie, I know he never loved me. He loved the way I made him feel, he loved what I reminded him of. But Marv only ever loved my dead sister, I guess it's enough. He loved her enough to kill for her, and I loved him enough to be her.

Fingers touch that cool chunk of metal, the cross his mama gave him he'd said. A thing of a God he didn't very well believe in or care for. But he always wore it. They wouldn't let him fry with it, wouldn't let him wear it to the grave. So I have it, little bit of Marv that gives me strength. It's like him, not fragile or fancy, it's hard and rough and bent up at the edges but it's still a cross, make no mistake about it. Feels scared under my touch, like Marv did, never thought a man like him could be gentle but he was.

It's raining and I'm soaked to the bone memorializing a stone cold killer who was about as far from sane as I am from a nunnery. I have to laugh, a deep throaty sound that I haven't heard form my lips in a long time. Feels good, feels damn good. I think I'll get me a drink, maybe check in at Katie's, say hey to Nancy. Try as I might that girl will never come work for me, but I still have to ask. It's almost a ritual now.

As I drive to the newer cleaner part of town where the bar is I start to laugh again. Thought strikes me and it's too funny not to. 'It's picture perfect.'..but come to think of it a picture is only a picture once it's printed. I guess maybe we're all still just developing.

 

[chronicle_tenko]

Some things never change

Chapter 8 [Marv] Some things never change

Long spells of the road call for country music. And in through town I start itching for anything that isn't Toby Keith. The man can't sing for a hill of shit, and if he talks about peeling labels one more time I was going to have to find him somewhere, and feed him the damn bottles. City limits came into view and immediately I felt a weight leave my shoulders. It was still here, ugly and old, brick falling apart from the mortar chipping, so many bullet holes in some of the streets that no rain can wash away the smell of burnt cordite.

"I'm home." The words are spilling from my lips like a badly poured head off a beer, wasting themselves on nobody. I'd need a drink at Katie's that had to be my destination. The ford creaking as it took corners past old town. Whores walking the street, working no matter the weather. Somehow the sight comforted him, as reliable as anything, and more than most things was Old Town. In a way I wished that I had some of those newer tinted windows. My mug was the reason why I never came down here. When a woman you'd pay for tells you no it takes something from you, When she can't stand the sight of you for any money then you know you ain't made for people like them. That was what made Goldie such an angel. Touching a three time loser like me, but I got em good for you. "I got 'em good."

And all it cost me was everyone and everything I'd ever had or known.

Katie's. The bar never closed, and it was the hangout of every horrible two bit loser like me, and everyone in between. The doorman let me in without a hassle, in fact he looked like he'd seen a ghost. Maybe he had. When I walked in the door, everything but the music stopped, pounding bass from the strip, and Loretta Lynn seeming her lungs out about Jesus to anyone who'd listen, and that wasn't even me, though the jukebox never failed. Bless her soul. Someone stood up and Katie dropped a glass that she was polishing. "Marv?"

The words were spoken in a hush, like people who couldn't believe what just came in. It was as if one of the regulars had just peeled off his face and revealed a gold encrusted turd where his brains would be. All eyes were on me, and I could feel my control slipping away, no one ever looked at me like this before, even nancy stopped her routine, a schoolgirl and she dropped the college books that she likely used to study in the backroom with. "Marv?" the words repeated the question invasive, attacking, so I responded back as best i could.

"Yeah. A shot and a brew Katie, and keep them coming."

The hush remained before it broke a spell over the bar lifted. "Sure marv, Coming right up." Some things never change.