The Hide-a-Way motel ...

As the sun set and I was dropping F_ and Jaimie off at Darlene’s – unknown to any of us – Razor was sitting in his room at the Hide-a-Way motel staring at the drapes that covered the one lonely window.  The stillness in his lean body wasn’t relaxed – he was ready to move rapidly if he needed to.  If any man familiar with the wild creatures of the desert saw Razor in that moment, his posture would bring to mind a Mojave rattler – coiled under a dried brush and poised to strike at any hiker foolish enough to set a foot down too close.

In his left hand he held a loaded .357 magnum Smith & Wesson model 360 revolver that he kept cocking then pulling the trigger and easing the hammer back down, over and over.  It was like a form of meditation for Razor, though it was the devil’s own mystery what thoughts were circulating inside his mind.

It could be that he was waiting on someone to pause in front of that window, casting their shadow on the curtain before moving to the door and knocking.  If the answer to a ‘Who is it?’ didn’t come back favourable he’d shoot right through that door.

Or it could be he was pondering all the evidence against him in his present situation; the untrusting looks from D_’s crew; the way conversations would pause when he approached and resume as he passed out of earshot; the way D_ flinched when he saw Razor in the company of M_.  Razor knew he was an outsider.  He’d always been an outsider even with his kin.  His own grandma told him that the family all feared him because he didn’t have a lick of compassion for anyone.

Or his thoughts might have been of cousin D_ McCullough, who’d been nosing around over the phone to people down in Harlan County.  Razor didn’t like people prying into his past.  He didn’t like his name spoken at all by people without his leave.

Or he might have been thinking about B_; that sweet piece of tail that was so juicy and so fresh.  He’d only fucked her once when M_ was away with D_ off in the capital, and she said that would be the only time and that it was a mistake.  She made him fuck her up the ass because she said her and M_ were trying to make a baby, but goddamn, he wanted to go back and sample that pussy.  He would too – come hell or high water – and if M_ found out and came gunning for him he’d kill him and take B_ on the road whether she liked it or not.

But sure as the sun would set that evening, Razor was thinking about murder, already seeing the blood and caved-in skulls; D_’s, cousin D_’s, M_’s, and when she got too bothersome; B_’s as well.  Those thoughts did something for Razor that no Mojave snake could do – they made him smile.

So Razor sat with his thoughts until the sun set, then sat in the dark for a time, then sat until one hour before Ruben, M_ and I arrived to murder him.  He sprang from his chair and stuffed his magnum in his jacket pocket as he headed out the door, getting behind the wheel of his old patinaed 1959 Chevrolet Apache stepside pick-up and drove south out of town, down the dark strip of asphalt that split the desert all the way to Mexico.

"Mac&Beth"