“There’s no way in hell he can do it!”
	“He’ll do it, just give him time.”
	“He’s gonna puke.”
	“He’s not gonna puke, he’s just getting his second wind.”
	“Quiet!  Quiet!  You’re screwing up his concentration.”
	Ignatius Bishop sat at the head of the dining table, slumped back in his
chair.  His eyes rolled back into his head as he softly rubbed his stomach and
groaned.  On the table in front of him rested two large biscuits on a crumb
covered plate, a full glass of water and a sizable pile of five and ten dollar bills. 
The small room was filled with people, both friend and foe, hollering cheers and
insults into his ears.  Cigarette and pot smoke drifted up into the air, mingling
together among the lights overhead.
	“You okay Natius?” asked a soft feminine voice.  The young man
looked up through fogged eyes at the worried face of his sister.  He reached up
and sloppily patted her cheek, almost poking his finger into her nostril in the
process.
	“I toldja Vicky,” boasted a broad shouldered beast of a boy, who stood
just behind Ignatius’s shoulder.  “Can’t nobody, specially not your scrawny lil
brother, eat twenty-one biscuits without falling off his chair, puking or both.” 
He bent down on one knee and brought his face close enough to Ignatius’s to
see the gluttonous trance in his brown eyes and smell the buttermilk on his
breath.  “Come on baby, you ain’t got it in you.  There’s no shame in losing. 
Even I couldn’t do it.  Just give up and you can go puke in the bathroom.”
	“Leave him be Jimmy,” ordered Vicky, simultaneously pulling the
brawny teenager away by the collar of his jacket.  “If you’re so damned sure
he’ll puke why doncha up your bet.  C’mon fat ass, put your money where your
gut is.”  And with that she poked at his stomach with her index finger.  “Or
didja spend all your cash on Twinkies.”
	“Ha, ha, ha,” Jimmy chuckled sarcastically as laughter broke out
amongst the group of people assembled.  He slapped Vicky’s hand away and
reached into the inside pocket of his jacket.  He produced a fifty-dollar bill and
dramatically held it over the pile of money on the table before dropping it down.
	“Jimmy?” called a voice from the crowd.  “Dahell are you doing?”  Out
of the midst of onlookers popped a head wearing oversized glasses and an old
Yankees hat with a sweat stained rim.  “Maximum bet was twenty.  Pick the bill
up.”
	“Shut up Don,” the big man grunted in response.  Jimmy’s eyes were
wild with the prospect of taking the pile of money home with him.  He stared at
the tall slender figure with contempt
	“Fuck you, you’re not betting more than twenty.  Now pick it up or I
will.”  Don stepped through the crowd and reached for the pile.  He was
intercepted by Jimmy’s thick hand as it wrapped itself around his wrist like a
vice.  They found their faces so close together that a few drops of sweat from
Jimmy’s blunt nose dripped onto the smaller man’s cheek. 
	“Let go of me.”  It was a demand, as Don’s face became red with
anger.	
“The bill stays where it lay,” Jimmy 
Veins on the massive hand pulsed and Don yanked his hand away as a surge of
pain shot straight up his arm.
	




	Don turned and was devoured by the smoke-puffing crowd, grumbling
all the while.  “It’s not enough that you potheads use my house for your shit,
but you’re too damned wasted to even follow your own damn rules.”  The
laughter of the raucous mob stole the rest of his complaints, adding it to their
noise as he disappeared among them.
	“You sure about that fifty Jimmy?”  Vicky ogled the bill with concerned
eyes, and then looked into the round face of the belligerent young man.
	“Cover it if you can little girl.  If you can’t then you and this scrawny
biscuit eater can beat it.”
	The sharp-faced young woman reached down and pulled a mess of
crunched bills from her sock.  She uncurled them, counted out fifty dollars in
tens, fives and ones and let them fall into the now obese pot.
	Ignatius, who had not moved through the entire little drama, smiled a
big tooth filled grin that exposed the crumbs that were stuck between his gums. 
He sat up in his chair, groaning all the way, and plucked one of the biscuits off
the plate.  In the blink of an eye he chewed and swallowed it, belching loudly
afterward.  The second one joined the first in his stomach with the same lack of
effort.
	“The glass of water,” Jimmy spat, his fat face rapidly going pale.  “He’s
gotta drink the fucking glass too.”
	And down the water went in one long gulp.  Ignatius slammed the glass
down, opened his mouth and a series of short belches poured out, but nothing
more.  Except for the crumbs on his chin the biscuits were gone.  The crowd
waited for a moment, wondering if the willowy young man that sat before them
would puke or pass out.  Neither happened.
	“We win,” Vicky proclaimed, slipping into the seat next to her younger
brother.  The two dragged their winnings to them and began separating the
bills.
	“Wait a damn minute, it’s not over yet.  He could still puke.”
	“It’s over Jimmy,” someone from the crowd answered.  “Let it go, ya
lost.”
	With a low growl he left the house, his thick frame bumping into a wall
so hard that the entire structure shook.  He slammed the front door behind him,
causing another little earthquake.
	“All right,” shouted Don, trying to be heard over the crowd.  “Follow
his fat ass and get the hell up on out of my house.  Right now!”  He waved his
arms like an insane pigeon, shuffling people toward the door.  “Move your ass
before you potheads get the cops called on me.”
	“Two hundred and thirty,” Vicky announced to her sibling.  She
fashioned the money, except for fifty dollars that she crammed back into one of
her socks, into a ball and stuffed it into her jacket pocket.  “Pure profit bro.”
	Ignatius slid into his jacket and crammed his slender hands into a pair of
black leather gloves.  He had just finished putting them on when Don appeared
behind him, prodding him and his sister out of his home.  They were shuttled
out, the front door slamming closed at their backs.
	“Damn potheads,” Don grumbled from the other side of the door.


	


	An angry February wind whipped about as the two siblings made their
way home.  It gusted violently, biting at their cheeks and ears.  They hurried
along, trying to beat the oncoming darkness of night and avoid the merciless
cold that came with it.  Shadows jumped out at them, making snarling monsters
of the trees and houses.
“I’m telling ya bro, we gotta start doing bigger hustles.  This small time
stuff is gonna get us killed, or at least ruin your liver.  I’m seventeen, I’m
getting old quick and I don’t wanna waste all my youthful brilliance on stupid
morons like Jimmy.”
Ignatius made a face at her, raising one of his eyebrows and wrinkling
his nose.
“I’m only thinking of your health,” Vicky laughed, walking a little
faster.  “I’ve got an investment in you.”
	He shook his head at her, half smiling.
	Suddenly one of the shadows jumped out at them and became horribly
real.  A thick arm swung out at them like a wild wrecking ball.  Vicky was
knocked to the cold concrete, her top lip split and blood poured into her mouth. 
Ignatius stumbled over her and fell hard to the floor, tumbling head over heels. 
He came to a halt against a chain link, his back banging into the steel post.
	“Having a laugh at my fucking expense eh?”  Jimmy stepped out of the
darkness, broad, tall and mean.  He snatched Ignatius up by his throat and
looked into his face.  “Cheat me will ya?  I should cave your skull in.”
	“Jimmy?” Vicky managed to ask, her mouth filling with blood.  She sat
up just in time to be kicked hard in the stomach and crumble into a ball.
	“Well look what we got here, the goddamn biscuit twins.  That’s what
I’m gonna call your ass from now on ya scrawny bitch, Biscuit.  Yeah that’s
fucking perfect.” 
	Ignatius did not speak; he just looked into Jimmy’s cruel face.  In the
weak light of dusk the large teenager’s round cheeks and small eyes became
wholly evil as the shadows played with them.  His nose snorted and flared like a
wild boar, and the collar of his jacket curled up like a pair of savage horns.
	“Gimme my money Biscuit.”
	The slender young man calmly nodded in his sister’s direction.  Jimmy
released his grip on him and crouched down to go through Vicky’s pockets,
turning his back on the smaller youth.  “You two don’t even need the money,
you’ll just blow it on pot and fucking biscuits.”  The cold blade a knife touched
his neck just as his hand landed on the wad of bills in her pocket.  For one
moment in time, his heart stopped.
	“If you move one inch, I will cut your throat from ear to ear.”  It was a
soft breathy voice, as if the wind itself was speaking, not a human.  A
leather-clad hand slithered into Jimmy’s hair and grabbed hold, yanking his head
back to expose his thick neck even more.  
	“You ain’t got the balls Biscuit.”
	The knife sunk into the flesh, just enough to hurt and send a stream of
blood flowing down his neck.  
	“You should have left us alone.  You don’t know me well enough to
know whether or not I would kill you right here like it was nothing.”
	“I know people like you Biscuit, nothing but little bitches.”



	“My name is Ignatius, and you don’t know anyone like me.”  He placed
the blade just under Jimmy’s left ear and began to put pressure on it.
	“Natius!” Vicky called, her speech a bit slurred.  She spat out a
mouthful of blood and wiped her mouth.  “Don’t cut him.”
	He paused, the blade ready to plunge down into the soft flesh beneath it. 
Despite his boastful words of defiance, Jimmy was sweating like a river.  It
poured down his face, stinging his eyes.
	“Dammit Natius, listen to me.  Don’t do him.”
	He looked up into his sister’s eyes.  She was pleading with him; he
could see it on her face.  He brought the knife to just under his captive’s left
eye.  It was an obscene blade, almost a foot long and as thick as his wrist.  It
had been hidden in his jacket, resting in its scabbard in a hole in the lining.  A bit
of Jimmy’s own blood trickled down the side of the blade, pooling on the hilt.
	“You see that girl sitting there bleeding all over the concrete?  As far as
you are concerned, she is Jesus, your savior.  Because if she wasn’t so nice, I
would cut you open.  My name is Ignatius.  Not Biscuit, and definitely not
‘scrawny.’  Do you understand me?”  Ever word was spoken evenly, with no
hint of irrational rage.  There was something sinister in that fact, and it sent
chills down Jimmy’s back.
	His reply came in the form of a whimper as the tip of the knife came
dangerously close to his eye.
	“Answer me.”
	“Yes.”  
The knife was slowly removed and the hold on Jimmy’s hair was
released.  As he began to stand Vicky spat in his face.  Blood and saliva dangled
from his nose and eyes, threatening to fall.  He wiped his face with the back of
his hand and stood up fully.  The siblings stood in front of him, tensed in case
he decided to charge.  Natius still held the knife, its blade shining like the sun
even in the dim light.
“Leave,” Vicky ordered.  “Now!”
	He looked at the two of them for a long moment and then backed down
the street.  He didn’t turn his back on them until he was a block away, then he
spun and ran as fast as his legs could carry him.  He knew that he was lucky to
be alive, and that the thin boy he had intended to be his victim had proved to be
something more than human, something vile and terrifying.  
Natius wiped a bit of blood from his sister’s chin and slid his weapon
back into its hiding place.  
	“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Vicky ranted through
blood-drenched teeth.  “No more of these damn small hustles.”
	
End