"Junk in the Trunk"
Some Have to DANCE! Some Have to KILL!!!
That title, along with the artwork of the DVD’s cover intrigues Beatriz and she picks it up for further review.
STARRING: CHERRY PLUM
What a score, she LOVES Cherry Plum, she’s her favorite porno star turned B-Movie actress. She doesn’t even read the synopsis on the back; she just KNOWS it’s going to be glamorous trash!
Today is a slow day for her; she’s been running errands since she woke up. She hasn’t eaten yet and her stomach’s upset about that. It growls like an angry beast and aches more than the usual pang.
She’s at the counter with her armful of movies.
“Everybody, be cool! We’re two men with guns and this is a robbery!” a man yells from seemingly nowhere.
Beatriz just stands there, not sure if that was real or not, until two men wearing backwards Detroit Tigers baseball caps with black leather gloves and blue bandanas over their noses and mouths storm the video store with matching Beretta pistols in each hand.
Some hit the ground screaming, some duck behind video aisles, curled into the fetal position, shivering like nervous Jell-O.
Beatriz faints, the tapes thud to the carpeted floor.
She wakes up, disoriented, her head throbs. She’s uncomfortable, her body feels too hot, something annoyingly pokes in her back. She shifts on something that feels like a scoured carpet and groans. There’s light, but when she tries to look toward the source, her eyes squint away. Two male voices are murmuring indistinctly and then become more audible. They are fuzzy and sound far away.
“Are you sure that’s her?”
“It has to be, she’s a dead ringer!”
There’s a pause in conversation.
“She looks better on t.v.”
“I dunno. She looks good to me.”
“She’s a walking STD, man. I heard she had the clap and gave it to Trent King and Gwenivere Jordan.”
She wanted to cuss him, but she was too groggy.
Oh, fuck you, asshole!
“Shit, man, either one of them could’ve had it first…”
The voice’s gloved hand caresses her cheek and rubs a thumb over her parted mouth. Beatriz twists out of its grasp, hazily.
Same to you, fucker.
“Look at that mouth, she’s born to suck!”
What—the fuck—is this shit now?
She feels her arm being gripped and her upper body being drug up. Through the slits of her eyes, she sees the face of a man with a cheeky smile and a blue bandana under his chin. Their faces are close together, too personal. She feels and then smells his hot, disgusting breath blowing on her face. If there were anything in her stomach, she would have vomited right in his face.
“Tell me, baby,” he whispers intimately, she gags a little, “do you spit or swallow?”
She musters all the saliva in her near dry mouth and hocks the loogie. His face freezes after it hits the inner corner of his eye and slides down the side of his nose.
“Goddamn it!”
He angrily pushes her back down and her head collides with something hard and lands on the something sticking into her back.
His accomplice is doubled over in laughter.
“I guess you got your answer!”
He disgustedly cleans his face with his bandana, muttering curses.
“Fuckin’ cunt!”
Beatriz feels herself smiling weakly.
The other guy looks around.
“Hey man, you and her can fuck around later, we gotta make a mad dash.”
He leaves off to the side. The other guy glares at Beatriz.
“Goddamn clapped-up slut!” He shouts at her before slamming the trunk shut.
She wakes up, disoriented, in the stuffy darkness, there’s no motion. She thinks about her day and remembers the stick up at the video store.
What kind of idiot robs a video store? What are the chances of there being two idiots like that?
She remembers her confrontation with the bandits, not sure if it was real or not, then remembers the sickening smell of hot breath and then spitting on one of them.
The quiet dark makes her panic; her slumbered pulse now beats thrice in a second.
Who are they?
Where are they?
What are they doing?
What are they going to do with me?
She’s hyperventilating and freaking out by this point.
“HEY!” she screams, her voice cracking, “HEY! ASSHOLES! COCKSUCKAS!”
She starts to thrash about, smashing her shoulder against the roof of the trunk.
“HEY! HEY! YOU STUPID PUTAS!”
She snatches the thing sticking in her back, and bangs that around.
“HEY! HEY MARICONAZOS!”
She bangs harder.
“LEMME OUT! LEMME THE FUCK OUT!”
She kicks and screams in an adrenaline fueled rage; tears of frustration prick her eyes.
“LEMME OUT!”
Mid-kick, the trunk springs open and she freezes. She sits up slowly, squinting. She’s on an abandoned highway straight through a field, it seems. She climbs out slowly, armed with the tire iron that’s been prodding and looks into the car, out to crack some skulls and bust some jaws, but it’s abandoned as well.
She checks for keys, money, and cigarettes, doesn’t find either one.
She kicks the rear-view mirror and shatters out all the windows.
She breathes the sweet, cool air deeply to calm down and does some stretches to knock out the cramps and leans against the demolished vehicle.
It’s dusk, the sun is setting in yellow-orange-pink-purple. There’s a carnival in the distance, the lights on the rides glow brightly and twinkle in the dimming sunlight.
She sighs and starts for it. She’d freshen up, eat something, ride the Ferris, win a prize or two. She’d be ok.
It ALMOST made up for missing out on Cherry Plum.
