I’ve really fucked up this time. Here I am bleeding all over Smokey’s back seat, here’s Dave holding my head in his lap, pressing his T shirt against my shoulder to hold it all in. All I can think is that I should have gone with the .22 instead of the .38. I opted for the .38 because I knew we’d end up working our way up to it anyway, and I didn’t want Dave or Smokey to beat me to it. I would have gone higher, but anything like a .44 or .45 probably would have blown my arm right the fuck off. Smokey already had a .38, and it beat having to buy a new one for a one time deal.

"What’ya do with the gun, Smokey?" My voice sounds strange, distant.

Smokey is spooked. He’s driving like a maniac. Dave keeps yelling at him, but I can’t put his words together, it just sounds like garble. He turns back to me every so often and says that it’s going to be alright, which I know is bullshit. I’ve gone too far this time and they still haven’t figured out what to do with the gun.

To think that this all started over something that Dave said. I bet he’s feeling like a real asshole right now. Dave’s a paramedic. Just about a week ago he came to me with this story of a couple of kids on coke fucking around with a pistol, and one of them ended up shooting the other in the leg because he told him to. I guess the kid turned out alright, but it got me thinking. Neither of us has ever tried scarification before.

Dave told me that the best place to do it was in the ass or the shoulder. Maybe I should have gone with the leg after all. But Dave said there are too many arteries down there. There must be a few up top also. After all, here I am bleeding to death all over Smokey’s interior, all the while getting colder and shuffling my thoughts together rapidly.

Dave leaves for medical school in a week. Fucking unbelievable. He first had his tongue pierced and so I got my nipples done. It earned me the nickname Shithead. I had the name tattooed across my chest in big gothic letters, so then Dave got this huge devil in the same spot on his chest. Only it’s this new kind of 3D tattoo thing, with horns that actually stick out from the skin - just little ones, but it still blows mine away. Even in regular life Dave is three steps ahead of me: He’s going to be a fucking doctor and here I am jobless and broke. I just lost my fry cook position at the Red Lobster a couple nights ago. It was the closest thing to a career that I’ve ever had. So basically this whole thing was about beating Dave.

The cool night air blasts me from the open window above. My eyes throb violently and I’ve been seeing double for several minutes now. With my head this far down I can’t see shit, and so I have no idea where we’re going. I don’t know if this is intentional or not. I told them we should have done it closer to a hospital, any hospital, even a shitty ghetto hospital. But at least in the middle of nowhere no one heard the shot. It was Dave who pulled the trigger. Dave, my best friend Dave - it was Smokey’s gun, so Dave pulled the trigger: So now it’s on both of them. We did it in a patch of forest out on the highway, a few miles north of town. Dave figured if everything was done right, and even if it wasn’t that we could get back in time. But we’ve been pretty unlucky so far tonight.

Looking up into Dave’s panic-stricken face I can see it again, once more attached to the arm with the gun attached to the other end like a prosthetic extension, pointed straight at me. Dave, you know you’ve always wanted to get rid of me. No joking, no laughs. Then one . . . two . . . blam! Horrendous pain and that was it. Dave tried to take some of the tension away by surprising me, hitting me with it at two. I don’t see what difference it possibly could have made. The bullet went clean through, just like we’d planned. Dave checked that first thing, crouching over me and breathing heavily. He had me stand against the tree so that they’d know where to look for it. I wonder if they’ve dug it out yet. No, not yet. They’ll probably go back tomorrow when it’s light. Or maybe later tonight, so that no one happens upon the crime scene before it’s too late. Maybe they’ll try and clean up some of the blood. Smokey will have to get rid of his back seats, maybe the entire car. I hate to think that he’d be forced to do something like that because of me. He saved up for a year to get this car. It’s a Mustang. A ’98. A real fucking piece of work.

"How’s he doing back there?"

"Not good. Fading fast. Keep driving."

I don’t remember much after the hit except that the throbbing pain went numb but the blood kept flowing. Now I don’t feel anything but pressure from Dave’s shirt and the temperature, which despite this warm stickiness all over my body, keeps dropping. While shivering I struggle to speak:

"Where are we going?"

"You’re doing great Shithead, just hang in there buddy. Keep going straight! I’ll tell you where to turn at."

The car rattles on. When I was nineteen I had a bull’s eye tattooed on my forehead. Dave wouldn’t touch it. I called him a pussy even though it kept me from landing a decent customer service job. I’ve thought about getting it removed many times but have never been able to afford the operation. It could be argued that I outdid Dave. Or it could be that Dave passed on the competition merely to get farther in life. I keep my hair long enough to cover it usually. It’s only now that I find the whole thing kind of funny.

Now I see lights. I can see them out the side window, passing overhead like angels. I wonder if they are angels, but then I realize that they are in fact lights. Street lights shooting overhead, blurring past like the wind. Smokey slows down and looking up I can make out Dave’s devil tattoo, buried beneath a layer of blood. The horns stick out like hardened nipples. He’s getting fat and the tattoos are starting to stretch. He doesn’t press as hard with his shirt. The shirt is a soggy mess now, so it probably doesn’t do much good. I think we’re still going south.

Eventually the lights pass altogether and Smokey picks up speed again, this time going faster than before.

"Where are we going, Dave?"

Dave doesn’t respond, but I can see him staring out the window to his right, looking past whatever lies outside. He’s white as a ghost. I wonder if I said it or thought it.

I’m not surprised when, after a lapse of time occupied by momentary drifts in and out of consciousness, the car comes to a stop and the driver’s side door opens and slams back shut. Then Dave’s opens and shuts, and then mine opens and I am carried out into some tall grass at the side of a bridge. It’s very warm but there is a slight breeze. And Dave lays me at the side of the road, behind some bushes so that I’ll die before anyone sees me. Smokey throws the gun, which is wrapped up in Dave’s bloody shirt, over the side of the bridge. Dave says something like, "This was too far, Shithead," and pats me on the shoulder. He paces a little, indecisively, and then Smokey comes over and leads him back toward the car. They both get in and I watch through a screen of branches, through the darkness as the car pulls a hasty u-turn and speeds off in the other direction.