Mystery Magazine 2018

The Girl by the Dumpster Jameson Tucker It was a late and hopelessly hungry night that started it all, the kind of night that takes you around the bend and down the street to the bad side of town, the kind of night where you meet someone like her, the kind of night that almost always, invariably turns out bad…

There was a pregnant full moon hanging in the night sky like a beacon that night, the smell of pancakes and Ben-Gay lotion in the air, and a dog was barking somewhere in the distance. The hormones were barking, too, running in circles and yanking at their leash like hungry Chihuahuas hot on the scent of a taco. The only thing on my mind that night was burritos, big hot juicy ones with extra cheese and guacamole and a little sour cream on the side, the kind that make women scream and old men cry in their soup. Alas, the restaurants were already closed and I was low on coin anyway; with no better plan in mind, I headed for the seedy side of town.

The next thing I knew? Morning. We both woke up by a Dumpster in a nameless back alley behind a nameless watering hole of a bar. The pavement was sticky, and smelled of cheese, and there were used breath mints stuck to the side of her head. Obviously it had been a night to remember and then some, if only I could.

I couldn’t, and maybe that was for the best. The sky and seemingly everything beneath it was gray and ugly and had the unhealthy pallor of an old woman’s armpit, the really scaly kind that smells bad and hints of things best left unsaid, the overall morning-after ambience all but screaming of things best left unremembered. A lingering aftertaste of fetid shellfish seemed pretty much to concur.

I shook my brain for a beat, trying unsuccessfully to rustle it back out of 64