Nothing but Tolerance
Justin pulled off the main road, gravel popping beneath the tires of his Yamaha as it rolled onto a cracked stretch of concrete that looked more like a forgotten war zone than a parking lot. The buildings ahead barely resembled a motel—two long rectangular husks of rotted stucco and decaying plywood, running parallel around a sunken, dry swimming pool. No sign, no name, no neon. Just chainlink fences, graffiti-tagged walls, and a general sense that the cops had given up on this place decades ago.
This was the Tolerance Motel. God help anyone who asked why.
He slid his bike into a space half-covered by the shade of a leaning chainlink gate. Across the courtyard, weeds clawed their way up through broken slabs, reaching toward the rusting frame of a pool that hadn’t seen water since before the war. In the center of the pit were three plastic lawn chairs, one cracked in half and one turned upside down. An old folding table leaned to one side like it was waiting to be put out of its misery.
Justin killed the engine and dismounted, slipping off his helmet and shaking out his hair with one hand, cigarette already dancing between his lips with the other. He took a drag and scanned the building. Bars on every window. No cameras—too poor for that. No sign of movement, but the place watched him. Places like this always did.
To the north of the courtyard, within the fence line, was a pitiful garden. Rows of dead squash and discolored tomatoes, long since abandoned to the sun and the rats. Someone had made an attempt once. Now it was just a rotting memorial to good intentions. A moldy ruined couch seated among them.
Room numbers were painted in cheap black stencil, years of wear making them look more like suggestions. 100s on the ground floor, 200s up top, 300s on the third. Twenty-four rooms in total, and every one of them was probably a crime scene.
As Justin approached the office door, it creaked open on a half-hinged welcome. A large black man stood behind the check-in counter—shirt half-buttoned, eyes half-lidded, arms like a gorilla’s crossed over a wide gut. His skin had the oil-slick sheen of someone used to long days in broken air conditioning, and his gaze was one of immediate judgment.
Sitting still, focused on the instrumental of music unfamiliar to Justin, until he saw the cover of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s F♯ A♯ ∞ album. Tyrique Tavian. Owner of the motel.
Justin exhaled, a long, thin stream of smoke curling into the dusty air, thinking about the miracle of a pre-war CD and player still playing properly, though if one were to find such, it would be in a place like the Tolerance..
“You Partain’s boy?” Tyrique asked, voice deep, molasses-slow and thick with spite. He didn’t look up from the tattered ledger in front of him, though Justin wasn’t sure he was reading it.
“Depends who’s asking,” Justin said, giving the room a cursory scan. Bullet holes in the drywall, mildew in the ceiling tiles, a flickering light that sounded like it was dying a slow death from the wide open fridge behind the man.
Tyrique finally raised his head. His eyes were narrow, dry, contemptuous. “Ain’t no boy of mine. But you ain’t got the look of law, and you sure as hell ain’t DEA—too pretty. So, I’m assumin’ you’re with the doctor.”
Justin smirked. “That how you treat all your guests?”
“This ain’t a bed-and-breakfast, Mr. Designer Denim. This is Tolerance. You pay cash, keep quiet, don’t bleed on the furniture, and maybe, just maybe, you don’t get stabbed on your way out.”
He handed over a rusted key labeled ‘330.’ Justin took it, brushing a smear of something he hoped was grease off the fob.
“Third floor, dead center. No neighbors. No maids. You get visitors, I don’t want to hear ‘em. You get dead, I ain’t cleanin’ it up.”
“Charming place,” Justin muttered.
Tyrique finally cracked something that might’ve been a grin. “Don’t get it twisted. I ain’t charming. I’m necessary.”
Justin stepped back out into the courtyard and lit a fresh cigarette, the last one barely a stub. As he passed near the base of the building, he heard heavy footsteps above — then a deep thud against the brick wall. Again. And again. In tune with the radio that played from the room they were outside, playing Grinderman’s Bellringer Blues.
He looked up, more curious of the characters to be his teammates than the song, though the music was a bit more his taste.
A tall, lean man stood on the second-floor walkway, his silhouette thrown long by the dying sun. Wild black hair, deeply tanned skin, muscles tight under a sleeveless shirt. His boots kicked against the wall like it owed him money.
Another man leaned against the railing nearby, arms crossed, watching him. This one was broader, calmer. A strong jaw, tighter cropped hair, and a more patient stillness.
The kicker snarled as he paced.
“White!? That bitch fuckin’ painted me white!? When we go back, I’m skull-fuckin’ her, Kabecka!”
Kabecka barely blinked. “Probably saved our skins.”
“She scrubbed the red right off us, man.” Nayati spat. “Put us in the mouths of these white-news bastards like we were just some meth-head crackers from the basin. Took Shashin out the story.”
“She took herself out the story,” Kabecka replied. “Same as we did. Government gets one sniff o’ tribal blood in that mess, and they’d have drones over the Res by noon. She made it clean.”
“She made it cowardly.” Nayati’s boots cracked against the concrete. “Let her husband choke to death on his own belt while she smiled at us from the stairs. Watched the boy cry and didn’t lift a hand. Then had the gall to look me in the eye like she’d done us a favor.”
“None of that happened. But she did do us a favor.”
Nayati froze, eyes sharp as a hawk. “Say that again.”
Kabecka shifted his weight, voice slow and even. “She did us a favor. Took the blood and made it blank. Paper don’t mention Rez. Don’t mention debt. Don’t even mention the gang. Just ‘three white men in black masks.’ That buys us time.”
“It buys her pearls,” Nayati hissed. “You saw that fuckin’ bath? Marble so white it hurt my eyes. I thought it was a damn tomb.”
“Turned into one.”
For a second, neither moved. The only sound was the creak of rusted metal, the hum of a bug zapper failing at its job.
Then Nayati laughed — bitter, breathless. “You always were the poet.”
Kabecka shrugged. “You always were the executioner.”
Justin listened from below, the smoke in his lungs curling tight. He hadn’t known these two longer than a shadow’s stretch, but he could already feel it — they weren’t muscle. They were missions. And mission was always messier than mercenaries.
After all, mercenaries didn’t care. You paid ’em, they pointed a gun, then vanished into the smoke. Simple. Efficient. Safe — in a professional sort of way. But the Shashin boys? They didn’t come for cash. They came to make a point. These two didn’t move like hired guns — they moved like scripture. Like every bootstep was ink on a story they’d already carved into their bones. Justin had worked with men like that before. Ideologues. Patriots. True believers. And while they bled easy enough, they rarely died quiet.
“Hey! Hey whats you doin’ mothafucka‽” Tyrique’s voice burst out like a shotgun with a crooked barrel, echoing from the motel office doorway as he stepped into the courtyard, shirt clinging to his chest with sweat and spite.
Nayati kicked the wall again, not stopping. If anything, his boot came down harder.
“The fuck I tell you about beatin’ on my damn building?” Tyrique hollered, pointing up. “This ain’t your mama’s drum circle, Red!”
Nayati snarled and turned, his voice sharp enough to skin bark. “Then maybe your mama should’ve built something worth standing still for.”
“Boy, I’ll knock you back into your tribal test scores.”
Kabecka chuckled, arms still crossed. “That’s it, T. Go for the racism card early. Real dealer of peace, you.”
Tyrique just shook his head and spat into the weeds. “Y’all been up there a week, sulkin’ and stompin’ like kids off Ritalin. Get your minds right before I start chargin’ rent by the tantrum.”
“We got our minds right,” Kabecka said, finally pushing off the railing, knowing he might have to hold Nayati from jumping down and fighting depending on Tyrique’s next few lines. “Ain’t about that. We’re just still stewin’.”
Nayati muttered something in Lakota under his breath, pacing away from the edge, fists clenched.
Tyrique turned back toward his office, waving them off. “Next time you dent my wall, you can take it up with the whole damn foundation when I bury your monkey-asses.”
Kabecka caught Justin’s gaze as Tyrique disappeared back inside and offered a small shrug. “He’s not wrong. We’ve been off.”
Justin took another drag of his cigarette, then flicked the ash in the same direction Tyrique had spat. “Job go sideways?”
Kabecka gave a slow nod. “Let’s just say… the widow lied. Claimed we were white boys. Said it was Aryan mercs what did it — painted it like a hate crime, all to keep the heat off her and hers.”
Nayati spun back around, fire still dancing behind his eyes. “She let that bastard mayor die. Let her own son burn up next to him. All for a payout.”
“Turned the whole story into some racial scare piece towards semites for the evening news,” Kabecka added. “Now the feds ain’t looking for Shashin. Just the usual boogeymen.”
Justin whistled low. “That’s cold.”
Nayati’s voice was quiet now. Low and rough. “Not cold. Just white.”
Justin took one last drag, then tapped the cigarette out on the sole of his boot.
“Well,” he said, voice like dry gravel, “guess I’ll go hang myself in the laundry shed.”
Kabecka barked a laugh. Even Nayati cracked the barest smirk, though he didn’t let it reach his eyes.
Justin raised his hands slightly in mock surrender. “Don’t mind me, boys. Just your resident ghost of colonialism, loiterin’ with intent.”
Kabecka shook his head, still chuckling. “You ain’t wrong, but hell—least you know how to listen.”
Nayati finally exhaled through his nose, the heat behind his glare dimming a degree, easing his sharp face, scarred from too many back-alley fights. “Words weigh different comin’ from the ones who carry ‘em.”
Justin nodded once. “Yeah. And some of us carry with a limp.”
Kabecka adjusted his weight against the railing, arms still crossed. He gave Justin a long once-over—not hostile, just… measuring.
“You with Partain?” he asked.
Justin nodded, slipping the stub of his cigarette into his pocket rather than flicking it. “For now.”
Kabecka grunted. “Guess that makes two of us.”
There was a pause. Not awkward, just coiled. Justin reached down and rested his hands in his jacket pockets.
“Name’s Justin,” he said, tone flat but not unfriendly. “Friends call me Jazz. Not-friends tend to say it with a little less teeth.”
Kabecka arched a brow before jumping from the second floor balcony, then held out a calloused hand. “Kabecka.”
The handshake was firm, brief. A soldier’s grip. Not a gangster’s. Justin felt it.
“Shashin muscle, yeah?” Justin said, squinting slightly against the sun as he peered back up to Nayati for a brief moment.
Kabecka nodded once. “We don’t wear patches. But yeah. Been ridin’ with Red Toad since we were boys.”
Justin glanced toward Nayati, who now leaned over the railing, boots still tapping out twitchy frustration against the iron bar.
“He always that poetic?” he muttered.
Kabecka smirked. “Only when he’s pissed. Otherwise he just sings old songs and carves animals into soap.”
Justin raised a brow at that. “Seriously?”
Kabecka nodded. “Deer, mostly. Bison sometimes. Won’t admit it, but he’s got a real steady hand.”
“Guess everyone needs a hobby,” Justin said. “Mine’s not dyin’.”
Kabecka’s grin widened. “Then don’t cross Partain. Simple as that.”
Justin chuckled, dry as cracked earth. “That ain’t the hard part.”
They stood there a moment, two professionals from very different worlds, staring across the same dead courtyard.
Then Nayati muttered, “You two done holding hands?”
Kabecka rolled his eyes. “Easy, brother. This one’s got manners.”
Nayati didn’t reply, but he didn’t press either. He just watched Justin with that same wary tension, like a man studying the wind before the hunt.
Justin met his gaze with a flicker of something unreadable.
“Looking forward to working with you both,” he said, voice low.
“Mm,” Kabecka replied. “We’ll see if you mean that in two days.”
Taking out his keys, Justin gave a quick chuckle and a quick expression of agreeance before beginning to walk towards the stairs, wanting to head up and see his set up for the next few days. “So… am I the last pretty face to join this circus, or we still waitin’ on someone worse?”
Kabecka was about to answer when a door slammed open just behind Justin as he hit his fourth step, sharp and final.
Room 150.
A woman staggered out first—heels wobbling, one strap of her dress twisted halfway down her arm, face smudged with mascara and something less poetic. She moved quick, like she’d learned not to look back. But her gait told the story—limp in her left leg, right shoulder hunched defensively. Her face didn’t wear shame. Just exhaustion and contempt.
Behind her lumbered a mountain of flesh and bad decisions.
C-Dog.
Six-foot-six, sleeveless shirt stained with sweat and powder, gym shorts clinging to thighs like sausages in shrink-wrap. His neck was red, face flushed, blond hair buzzed so short it looked like the skin never cooled beneath it. He carried a shaker bottle in one hand and a towel slung over his shoulder, like he’d just finished bench pressing the girl.
He stepped into the sunlight, squinting with the expression of a man allergic to empathy.
“The fuck’s with all the noise?” he grunted, cracking his knuckles one by one. “Some of us are tryin’ to decompress.”
The girl didn’t say a word. She just hobbled past the pool and vanished around the corner.
Justin watched her go, then glanced at C-Dog. “Decompress, huh?”
“Yeah.” C-Dog sniffed, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Bitch bit me.”
Kabecka didn’t respond, but his jaw tightened—just slightly.
C-Dog looked up at the balcony, locking eyes with Justin. “You the new guy?”
Justin exhaled slow. “You the entertainment?”
C-Dog grinned like a pitbull finding a new chew toy. “You’re funny. That’s good. We’re all gonna get along just fine.”
He leaned back against the sun-warmed brick, stretching like a man preparing for absolutely nothing.
Kabecka gave Justin a side glance. “Yeah. That’s the full roster now.”
Justin flicked his cigarette over the railing as he got to the second floor, proper. Sarcasm tainting his voice, he adds to the conversation as he approaches the stairs for the third floor. “Great. A poet, a carver, and a bull on bath salts, by the way, should I assume you’re Jake?”
The big man below let out a wet snort, all lungs and loathing. “Do I look like I wear fuckin’ khakis?”
He stepped into full view, sunlight catching on the sheen of old bruises and newer tattoos. One across his chest read C-DOG in block letters that looked like they were scrawled by a prison pen-pal with too much time and not enough talent.
“Nah,” he said, slapping his meaty chest like it owed him money. “You’re lookin’ at C-Dog, baby. That’s me. Capital C, hyphen, D, O, G, Dog. Like the beast.”
Kabecka didn’t even blink. “He insists on spelling it out. Every time.”
Justin raised an eyebrow. “Noted. I’ll be sure to include that in the police report.”
C-Dog gave a loud chuckle, halfway between amusement and warning. “Keep that sense of humor. It’s cute. Might even save your ass.”
Justin looked past him toward the upper floor across the courtyard. “From you, I’m sure. Tyrique said I had no neighbors, is there anyone in the west wing?”
Kabecka gestured with his chin. “Room 340. Top floor, middle right. Hasn’t come out since check-in. Brought his own bag, barely spoke. Just nodded when Tyrique handed him the key. Pertain called him Sam.”
C-Dog scratched his neck. “I even threw a barbeque out here last night and his little ass didn’t come out. I think he’s scared. Scared to come out into the D-O-G pit!” As C-Dog says this, he gives a quick flex as he looks back and points to Justin, causing Kabecka to give out a laugh as Nayati shakes his head, his face showing nothing but peer disdain for the man’s boisterous personality.
Justin chuckled, more out of disbelief than amusement. “Jesus, man. You do that before or after brushing your teeth in protein powder?”