All characters are adults.
Reminder. This tale is noire, and noire is neither kind nor gentle nor uplifting. It's supposed to stun and sting and offend.
*****
I got sick as shit one night so they tied my sixty-five year old ass up in a straight jacket and hockey mask, like I was Hannibal fucking Lector, and led me off to the infirmary with an armed escort.
The faggots there stuck fingers in my ass, squeezed my balls, and the blood work came back a few weeks later. I had cancer of the something. A day later they paroled me, and I was on my way to the bus station with one hundred bucks gate money in my pocket, and a one way bus ticket back to Salt Springs. I took no souvenirs or keep-sakes or other shit with me. I had nothing that mattered.
The two hundred mile bus ride took eight hours including a stop for a greasy burger and a piss. The bus was filled with niggers and white carnival freaks dressed in cowboy hats and leopard spotted hot pants. A kid in jeans and a tee shirt with high top sneakers asked to sit beside me as the circus made him nervous. We rolled into town about four o'clock. I didn't hardly recognize the place after so many years. I got off the bus, waded through a terminal of winos, and got the fuck outta the place.
Since I didn't bring shit with me from the prison, my first stop was the army-navy store close to the bus station. The store was fulla every kind of military gear you can imagine. I needed clothes and shoes but my size is tough to dress, so I bought a duffel bag and left.
The halfway house I wanted was a good two miles away from downtown, near the state college campus, in an old motel. I handed the clerk my referral and voucher, filled out some papers, and got my room key.
The clerk was a plump Spic of some racial mix, prolly Mestizo, that is, Indian and something else, usually white. Salt Springs was fulla plump latina girls, all with a dollop of African or Indian or whatever in them. This one looked forty or so with a wide ass, small tits, big lips, long hair, around two hundred thirty pounds, and five-three tall. She wore a gold wedding band and handed me a business card.
Your room is on the second floor, at the very back, and close to the Come & Go convenience store next door," she said.
The air conditioner was broke but the room was clean enough. I opened one of the windows. The water was hot.
A Filipina maid came in with linen and towels. "You wanna girl friend? Lemme know before I go home." Her name-tag said, 'Feliciata.'
"How much?"
"Twenty dollah," she replied.
I was on my own for meals. I bought a sandwich, a pint of chocolate milk, a tooth brush and paste, and some scratch-off lottery tickets from the store. No tv in the room, so I ate, took a shower, climbed in bed, and thought, "We'll give it hell tomorrow."
At sixty-five years old I was bald and looked like Mister Clean. I had kept myself up and believed I was healthy, till the clinic visit. But sixty-five ain't twenty-five.
I slept okay the first night out. After forty-something years in prison falling asleep ain't a problem. I awoke at five, same as at prison, shit, brushed my teeth, and got dressed. I then bought a sandwich and coffee from the store, and set out to find my parole officer and get squared away. It took a while to get aboard the right city bus, that took me close to the parole office where I sat on a bench for an hour, waiting for the place to open. My parole officer was a black girl named Malaysia KΓ€mpfert. I later learned she was married to a white sissy named Kevin.
She studied my paperwork before she spoke.
"You Marlin Kane?" She asked.
"Uh huh," I replied.
She studied my parole paperwork some more. "Why you out? Don't make no sense to me."
"I got cancer."
"For real?"
"That's what they told me."
"How long you got?"
"They told me I won't be around long."
"An you being sixty-five, an a lifer, you got no social security an no Medicare. You're fucked. I don't see where I can do shit for you. What'd you do in prison?"
Her skirt was short. I invented racism but my cock ain't having shit to do with it. It loves every pussy.
"I made myself useful," I replied.
"Huh?"
"They kept me busy most of the time. Odd jobs and shit work."
"Oh. Got any family?"
"I'm an orphan."
Malaysia looked twenty-two or three. Lotsa white in her blood and she coulda passed for an Indian Desi or one of the Kardashians. Long black hair with small tits. I guessed she weighed a hundred and fifteen pounds. She didn't talk like ghetto trash and I never got the idea she was. Malaysia didn't have Kim's big ass or hips but they coulda passed for sisters. Had a wedding band.
"I need fifty dollars for your parole fee."
"Fifty a month?"
"That's right."
"How much to sniff your coochie?" My cock wanted to know.
She looked at me. "You're never gonna have that kinda money, so gimme the fifty and git lost."
"How much for your coochie?" My cock persisted. I handed her the fifty.
"Come see me if you ever got more in your pocket than lint."
The rest of our interview was blabber and chatter. She gave me a card with our next appointment on it and I left.
I stopped at the Come & Go for coffee. The store featured a wall filled with machines dispensing coffee, tea, soda, cappuccino, snow-cones, icee-licious flurries, and soft ice cream. A couple with four kids followed me in. Momma got a gallon of milk and bread, daddy fetched a carton of beer, and the kids swarmed about the candy bins and machines. The oldest, a girl who looked about fifteen, had a conspicuous tattoo on her thigh, a pierced eye-brow, and a tee shirt with printing across the front: A WORK IN PROGRESS at the top, and GOOD TO GO at the bottom. She also had a baby bump.
One of my scratch-off tickets was a winner for a free ticket. The free ticket was a winner for five-hundred bucks. The cashier paid me after the manager opened the safe, I bought a few more tickets, and went off to open a bank account some place and get an ATM card. Afterwards I went shopping for a phone, clothes, and other basic essentials.
Later, back at the halfway house, with my shit, I invited Feliciata to come see me. I went to my room, laid on the bed, and checked my extra tickets. Holy shit! Another winner!
I went back to the store with my ticket. They didn't have that much money, so the cashier gave me the address and phone number for the lottery office. To make a long story short collecting the money was a royal, cluster fuck wrapped in red tape but it all worked out in time, and they deposited six-hundred thousand in my new bank account after the taxes and other shit got deducted from it.
I returned to the motel.