DEATH IS A BOY
By Tony Bertauski
Punk.
Blake ignored what the thoughts were saying. When you hear it that many times, it loses its meaning. Or it sinks in so deep you don’t even know it’s there, like a ticking clock.
The thoughts lived in Blake’s head forever. When he was five, he talked back to them. He’d be up in the attic room playing games with them. First he’d get a turn, then they would get a turn. His parents figured it was an imaginary friend. It was normal. Healthy, they said.
The thoughts changed when Blake was eighteen, wanted things Blake didn’t. They wanted things Blake shouldn’t. That’s when he started ignoring them. They didn’t like that.
Crazy people give names to thoughts that lived in their head. Blake refused to do that. He just called them thoughts. Sometimes they were loud, sometimes asleep. But they were always there.
He was on his back, ignoring them. Snow had drifted over him. He was beyond cold. The shivers had racked his body like electricity, but that was over now. They ended… he couldn’t remember how long ago they ended. How long had he even been there? Two hours? Eight? Funny, he didn’t know that, either.
Blake had bought climbing gear in
The top of
At 3000 feet, Blake had passed two retreating climbers crusted with snow. They warned him. Called him crazy. Me? Crazy? One of the climbers grabbed Blake. “It’s suicide, man. You got a deathwish?” The climber tried to force Blake back with them until Blake connected with a right hook above the guy’s ear. Pain lanced the back of his hand. He broke a knuckle, but it was a sweet punch. Put the climber on his back. Made the thoughts giggle.
“Go on, kill yourself,” the guy said.
We will.
Five hundred more feet up the mountain, the blizzard was all around. The wind had blasted skin off his face. The cold flattened his lungs. He thought maybe he remembered the sulfuric smell of Devil’s Kitchen, maybe even made it to the base of Hogsback Ridge. Or maybe he fell down after passing the climbers.
Freezing to death ain’t so bad, really. It sucked at first, sure, but after the body ate up its energy reserves everything went numb. It was kind of pleasant, really, like half a dozen Vicodin. The thoughts still muttered, but even they were drowsy. Maybe they would shut up for awhile.
A hang glider appeared in the snow.
Blake found the strength to sit up. The wind was still blowing, but wasn’t so
cold. In fact, he climbed on quite nimbly, pushed off the side of the mountain
like he’d hang-glided all his life. He soared out of the storm and away from
His house was nestled in the woods below, smoke leaking from the chimney. He bought the cabin ten years earlier for next to nothing. Everything was cheap in the middle of nowhere. And that’s where Blake wanted to be, miles away from everyone. Trees didn’t talk back. And if animals got in your business you could shoot them between the eyes. No law against that.
Too bad he couldn’t outrun the thoughts. In fact, they just got louder in the country. Nastier. Wanting this, wanting that, go here, do this, you’re stupid. You’re fat and disgusting and perverted. They whispered when he hunted so as not to startle the deer. They shut up when he made the kill and dressed it right there on the spot. They hummed, like a fat kid swimming in chocolate. Sometimes they told him to do strange things, like cut the eyeballs out and piss in the skull. Blake refused. That was sick.
They listened to pain. Like when he
put a hot iron on his leg, oh, they listened. Once he hung himself from a
doorknob and until he blacked out. They shut up for a whole week. He pounded
10d nails through his hand, pulled a molar out with pliers and even peeled a
fingernail off his little finger just to get them to shut up. But they always got
bored, always had another idea. But it was Blake that came up with the
Yeeeeesss.
Blake was afraid seeing the cabin might wake them so he steered away from it. He wanted to go to sleep, too; drift off in a nice and numb blackness. What if they changed their mind and wanted to climb down the mountain?
Blake turned the hang glider for
The Vegas strip illuminated the sky. Blake could teach Sade a lesson this time. You know, right on the dance floor. Nothing illegal about pretending to do that.
The lights flickered. He’d have to hurry. He tipped the wings, aimed at the hood of a BMW pulling in front of the Bellagio. He’d impale the thing, maybe the driver, too. Two for one. But he didn’t spear the car. Didn’t even land on the strip. The pavement turned to black water. City lights dimmed and the sun was setting on the far end of a marsh. Blake crashed in a wetland.
The
Lowcountry was the last place Blake wanted to be. That was the whole reason he
was in
Snow had completely covered his face. And he wasn’t numb anymore, either. He was smoking hot, in the last throes of hypothermia as the blood vessels constricted. He must’ve pissed himself while he was gliding, emptied his entire bladder into his pants. Why the hell did he have to think of the Lowcountry? Everything was going just dandy fine and then that. He didn’t want to die remembering all the things he done. The thoughts were right, he deserved to die. And he deserved to die more painfully than that. He should’ve shot himself in the stomach or stuck his head in the fireplace. This was too easy.
It’s not too late.
Blake pulled himself up. His urine-froze pants crunched. Blake fumbled at his coat, but his fingers were like wood. He wanted to feel death’s hand. He wanted to feel it rip the last breath from him like a bullet. He deserved that.
The thoughts woke up, adrenaline
dumping into his flattened veins. That’s
the spirit!
A pale hand touched his.
Blake’s eyes filled with water. He blinked several times. He was hallucinating, again. Yeah, he was still laying in the snow, dreaming he stood up trying to take his clothes off. He blinked again. Maybe he was already dead. His balance was off. He was going to fall but the pale hand held him steady. A boy stood in front of him, dressed like it was July. His black shirt fluttered violently in the wind.
“Am I dreaming?” Blake said.
The boy shook his head. His lips moved, but Blake could not hear him. His skin was smooth. His hair black, lips slightly blue. His hands were pale but not the sickly pale like Blake’s skin had become. It was like porcelain.
Blake was lying in the snow, for real this time. The boy hovered over him, his nostrils flaring. The boy’s touch was somehow colder than the air.
“Are you an angel?” Blake said.
The boy spoke into his ear. “Of sorts.”
An angel. Of course, he was the Angel of Death. Blake hadn’t thought it would be so literal, an actual boy coming for him, but then again this was his first time dying. Somehow he pictured Death wearing a black cloak riding a fire-spitting black horse. Big fangs. The stink of death preceding him like a rotting corpse. Turned out Death was a boy with an ageless complexion and a respectful disposition. Who would’ve guessed?
The boy took Blake’s hand away and unbuckled the top of his coat. The wind rushed inside, down his neck and over his chest. He couldn’t feel much. The boy massaged the side of Blake’s neck. It began to hurt.
“Don’t save me.”
The boy continued to rub.
“I don’t want to live.” Blake grabbed his arm, tears swelled in his eyes. “I don’t deserve it.”
The boy did not blink. Blake somehow knew he was not trying to save him. He was beyond saving. The boy was helping him die. Of course, he was. He was Death. The boy continued rubbing as if it were a ritual. The thoughts in Blake’s head faded. Die, punk. He saw the Lowcountry marsh again. The sun had nearly set on the horizon, only a sliver of the orange disc left. Blake felt the sticky mud wrap around his ankles. He saw the messes he left behind. The things he’d done.
“Boy.” Blake’s lips hardly moved. “Do me a favor.”
The boy looked annoyed.
“Find my family. Tell them… tell them I’m sorry.”
The boy hesitated, continued rubbing. He heard. Blake knew the angel heard. Blake imagined the Lowcountry wetlands as if to draw him a map. He imagined the house he left behind ten years ago, where his family still lived. The boy flinched as if the thought stung.
The boy nodded, imperceptibly. He nodded because he understood.
Blake’s breaths were numbered. They came shallow and slow. The thoughts were gone. For once in his life, it was quiet. We were right to come to this mountain. For once, we got something right.
Blake
Barnes passed from life on
Thank you.
And just before it all went black, the boy took from Blake what he came for.
Annie was starting the midnight shift at the Waffle House. It was her second shift that day. She wiped her hands and grabbed the coffee pot to make the rounds. Ernie, a fat man, smiled at her with eggs stuck in his bristle mustache. Ernie started a conversation while she topped his coffee mug. Something about bowling. Ernie was a regular. He was also a good tipper, so she listened. She was nodding, laughing, and snorting, but she wasn’t really listening. She was looking to the end of the counter where a kid stared into his cup. Ernie noticed. He tried to change the subject, talked about what Annie was doing when she got off her shift.
Annie walked off, mid-Ern-sentence, and filled the kid’s cup. “You new to the Lowcountry?”
The kid snapped out of his thoughts, noticing Annie there with steam rising out of the coffee pot. He was no local, his skin was far too white. Almost pearly. He exuded charm like a fragrance. Annie leaned on the counter. She wasn’t opposed to accepting rides from customers, but she wasn’t sure if he was old enough to drive. Why did he seem older?
“So where you heading?” she said.
His eyes were mostly pupil, outlined by a sliver of blue, like the black was winning the war on the irises. She could see her reflection in them, in a three-dimensional sort of way, like they were liquid. She leaned in a few more inches, studied the details of her reflection. The Waffle House disappeared around her. There was no sound. Only her reflection.
The air turned cold.
Annie jerked backed, shook her head.
“You sleeping on the job?” Ernie
the fat man said, bouncing as he laughed.
Annie frowned. The young man stared back into his cup. She picked up the coffee. Steam was no longer rising from the top. It was lukewarm. She put it back on the hot plate. Who screwed with the air conditioner?
The kid finished his coffee and slid the cup across the counter. He placed a crisp bill on top and started for the door. Ernie spun on his stool and stuck his foot out. The kid politely stopped. Ernie mumbled something to him. The kid did not respond. Ernie stood, pulling his belt up under his belly, snorting a layer of phlegm back in his throat. He was going to sort out some business.
Annie was fishing forks out of a basket but noticed Ernie grab the kid. Ernie was the jealous sort. Annie had never accepted a ride from him, but that didn’t stop him from trying. And if she didn’t get over there, there’d be a fight. They’d thrown Ernie out of the Waffle House for protecting Annie’s honor once before. If he wasn’t careful, he’d have to eat his midnight eggs down at IHOP.
But Ernie stopped working his belt back and forth. In fact, he froze like a scratched DVD. He went back to his plate, a shade whiter. The kid walked off, opened the door for a customer and left.
Annie took Ernie’s plate and wiped the counter. “How many times I got to tell you, Ern?”
“What?”
“You hassling customers. I ain’t your girlfriend.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He wiped his mouth and threw the napkin on the plate. She couldn’t tell if he was joking or just dumb. She cleared all the abandoned plates away. When she reached the end of the counter, she pulled a hundred dollar bill off a coffee cup. She snapped it tight and held it up to make sure she read the zeros right.
“Where’d you get that?” Ernie said.
“That kid left a hell of a tip.”
“What kid?”
She folded the bill in her pocket. “The one sitting here drinking coffee, that’s who.”
Ernie
shrugged, jammed a toothpick between his teeth and took his bill up to the
counter. He is dumb.
Annie could see the kid through the condensation-streaked windows. He crossed the street. No luggage. No backpack. And in no hurry.
Nobody walked the back roads unless they were lost. The kid was pale, like his skin never seen the sun. He stood on the side of the road, staring across the wetland. Had to be a Yankee, so Aaron nearly took his ear off with the side-view mirror. He didn’t want to hit him, just buzz him.
The dogs were boxed in the back of his truck. Aaron’s little brothers fought over the radio. He didn’t have time to take any of these idiots home. He was told to pick the check up at noon and not a minute later. It was nearly 1:00. He about took out a line of mailboxes thinking of an excuse, but then he turned the corner and, what’d you know, Bo was closing up the mailbox. He didn’t need an excuse after all.
Aaron smiled wide. He hadn’t run into Bo since school let out for the summer. Bo was his all-time favorite punching bag. He locked the front brakes and stopped inches from the mailbox. Bo stumbled into the ditch.
“Shut up!” The dogs were yapping. Aaron stepped out of the truck. His brothers started climbing out. “Back in the truck.”
Aaron pushed his long, sweaty hair under his hat. “Hand me the check, Bo.”
“It’s in the box.”
“Hand it to me.”
“I’m no delivery boy, you know where it’s at.”
“You’re a delivery boy if I say you are.”
Bo plucked his white t-shirt nervously, then started back down the private drive.
“I’ll let the dogs loose,” Aaron said. “They’ll give your horses a run all day. They ain’t going to make it long in this heat, you know.”
How many times had they snuck on their property to screw with them horses? He’d do it even if Bo handed him the check. Shit was fun.
“What?” Bo put out his arms. “You want me to come over just to hand you the check?”
“Disrespecting me is disrespecting my dad. You don’t want to piss off my dad.” He jabbed at the mailbox. “Now deliver the mail.”
Bo heaved a stick into the trees, cursed under his breath. He yanked an unstamped envelope out and wadded it up. Aaron snatched his skinny wrist before he could turn away, yanked and twisted in one fluid motion, throwing Bo into the truck’s grill. He cranked his arm up his back and ground his face into the muddy hood. The horn blared, dulled Bo’s right ear.
Aaron slapped the crumpled envelope on Bo’s face. “The next time you ruin my check, I’ll take the change out of your ass.”
He tossed him on the road. Bo wiped the mud off his lips and started to get up. Aaron planted his boot in the middle of his chest.
“You get your jollies from this?” Bo said.
Aaron grabbed Bo’s flailing hands and pulled him against the bottom of his boot like he was stretching a bow. He snerked phlegm to back of his throat and let a snotwad hang off his lip. Bo shook his head side to side. Aaron lined up with Bo’s face. The tobacco-specked hocker rolled over his lip in slow motion, stretching toward Bo on a slimy string. Bo twisted and squirmed. The string broke, dropping the payload in Bo’s nest of brown curly hair.
The horn blared and his little brothers bounced on the seat. The dogs howled.
“Let’s have some jollies,” Aaron said.
Aaron could swing this little punk around like a ragdoll all day. He grabbed Bo’s hair. An involuntary knot twitched inside his stomach, like the feeling he got when his dad stormed red-faced into his room.
The dogs felt it, too; started barking like they’d tracked a doe. Something was in the woods. Maybe Bo’s mama was coming down the drive with a rifle. Was she hiding in the trees? He rubbed his chest, could feel the crosshairs on him.
“Who’s out there?” Aaron walked to the edge of the road, looked through the trees. “I wasn’t going to hurt him. Bo just got a little mouthy.”
Bo stood in the road, a big muddy print on his white shirt, looked dumbly past the truck. Someone was a hundred yards down the road. It was the guy Aaron buzzed back around the turn, walking down the middle of the sandy road. Each step he took shook the knot in Aaron’s stomach, now the size of an orange. Cold sweat broke across his head and the knot broke open like an egg. Spilling fear.
Aaron puked grits and eggs and gravy like a bucket of mud. He put his hands on his knees, slimy spit draining into a puddle of vomit. He puked until there was nothing left but green bile, thick and foul. His little brothers didn’t honk the horn. They didn’t tell him to get up and kick the guy’s ass. And the dogs didn’t make a sound.
A well worn pair of hiking boots stopped inches from his fingers. Aaron wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. This kid couldn’t be no older than a sophomore. He looked up into the trees as if reading a street sign.
Aaron spat vomit-flavored snot. “You got no business here, so get on your way.”
“I’m in the right place.”
He spoke with a strange dialect, like he’d mixed Spanish and good old American. But underneath it was a Southern flavor – the twang of home-cooked country– diluted many times over.
“You mistaken, boy,” Aaron said. “This ain’t your stop. This is nowhere you want to be.”
Aaron slowly, carefully, pushed himself up. Straightened his hat. Nothing made a sound, not the dogs, bugs or wind. Aaron would show them all what a man does in a situation like this.
Aaron feigned sluggishness, let his hand limply hang and wiped his mouth. He turned like he was going to the truck. With his hand already up, with his hips turned, he struck like a cobra. In a single, swift motion, he balled his fist and turned on the kid like a power hitter, to knock his smartass over centerfield.
But his hand did not move. His momentum stopped. The muscles along his back tightened like 240 volts were rammed up his ass.
It was moments later that he could see again. His knees were in the puke. The kid gripped him by the neck, pinching nerves that screamed to the bottom of his feet. Panic swept through Aaron’s belly, slamming into his balls.
“Get along, boy,” the kid said.
When Aaron could feel his legs, he stumbled to the truck. His brothers stared out the window, mouths hinged open. He put the truck in gear and trenched the sandy road on his way out of there. He saw his reflection in the rear-view. White and pasty.
Come, fear. Fill the belly.
Drayton watched the driver of the truck that nearly hit him vomit all over his boots until the lining of his stomach was coming loose. Drayton stirred the nausea throughout his body, could’ve kept him vomiting until it was blood, but he showed mercy. The kid mistook his kindness as an opportunity. Drayton clamped the brachial plexus near the base of his neck, introduced him to a world of raw pain. He couldn’t spin those fat tires fast enough.
The shaggy-hair kid picked at his shirt on the side of the road, breathing through his mouth. Thick eyebrows and dark eyes, he was Blake Barnes’ son.
“You know he’s going right back to his daddy’s house and tell him everything.” He picked at his shirt faster, not letting it fall to his chest before he picked it again. He lost focus, caught up in his thoughts of what might happen after that.
“I’m looking for a place to stay,” Drayton said.
“I, uh…” He studied Drayton’s face, the thin lips, and deep, black eyes. He fell into the eyes and could not remember what he was thinking. Drayton took the opportunity to calm the boy’s nerves, slow his heart and cool his skin. When he stopped picking his shirt, Drayton looked away.
“Your home is a bed and breakfast, is it not?” Drayton asked.
“I suppose.” He looked him up and down. “You live around here?”
“I’m from out of town.”
“Visiting family?”
“I could use a place to lay my head,” Drayton said. “If I could see your quarters?”
The boy drifted back into his eyes, again. Drayton looked away, repeated the question and Blake Barnes’ son shook his head, nodded like he forgot the question. He started down the shady drive, toeing the strip of stringy weeds growing between two sandy tire tracks. They walked a full minute to the end.
“Thanks for what you done back there.” He walked backward, stuck out his hand. “My name is Bo.”
Drayton considered his extended hand, then shook it. His grip was cold as well water in December. A strange look stamped Bo’s face, but he did not comment.
An old house sat on columns of brick pillars, the white paint peeling off the walls, and a dilapidated barn on the left. Brown fences, paint peeling just the same, were beyond the house around several paddocks filled with horses. Massive crape myrtles with sinewy, peeling trunks grew in the open, pink blooms poking through thick layers of Spanish moss. Further back, oaks reached out from the surrounding trees, their branches ancient and flexing.
Drayton dragged his feet through the tall grass. The smell of horse manure and straw filled the humid air like a county fair. A black thoroughbred galloped to the fence and snorted.
“My mama’s not here at the moment,” Bo said. “You can wait on the porch, if you want.” The wispy curtains fell on the front window. “I got to check on my brother, real quick.”
Bo leaped up the steps. The screen door chattered in the doorframe. Drayton stepped onto the porch and sat on one of the rocking chairs weaved from grapevine and bended saplings beneath a ceiling fan that pushed the heat around. The horses gathered at the fence with the thoroughbred staring at Drayton. Mosquitoes landed on his arm and probed for blood. They found none, flew off to search somewhere else.
He heard a thing or two inside the house, but it was mostly quiet. Someone was watching him from the window. It was sometime later an old car rattled up the drive, dying to a stop. Mrs. Barnes eyed him through the windshield.
There was shouting inside the house. Bo was explaining. The shouts turned to murmurs. We need the money. That was the trump card. Although Mrs. Barnes was the only one arguing otherwise, even she couldn’t over play that one. They needed money.
Drayton looked innocent enough, but plenty of good predators do. John Wayne Gacy, anyone? If they knew what Drayton was, there would be no room available, end of discussion. Not like that would matter.
He rocked silently, watching the shadows creep across the yard. The horses grazed, occasionally looking at Drayton. There was something comforting about the scene. He explored his memories to see if he had been there before. He could remember back a hundred years like yesterday, but after that it was fuzzy. Memories were like long-past ghosts of another life, like an old man remembering the thrill of his first kiss. Try that when you’re five hundred.
The screen door stretched on a long twangy spring. Mrs. Barnes carried a big leather book and sat on a porch swing opposite Drayton.
“You may call me Ms. Sheila.” She opened the ledger on her lap and tapped her pencil. She bounced the tip off the page with an erratic, nervous beat waiting for the boy to talk. “You got a name?”
“Drayton.”
She scribbled in the book. “That’s your birth name?”
“Nickname.”
She slowly flipped the pencil and erased her last entry. “I need your birth name.”
“Drayton will do.”
“You don’t understand, young man. I need your birth name because I’m going to do a background check to find out if you’re a psycho. I don’t take kindly to crazy people in my house. Now, I’ll ask once more or our business here is finished.”
Drayton’s
birth name was probably the only thing he remembered from the early days. He
didn’t use it often because, quite frankly, no one cared for foreigners in
“
Sheila scribbled in the book. The pencil remained poised over the page as the silence stretched over long moments. “You’ve got a last name, don’t you?”
“Rauttu,” Drayton said. “Nassua Rauttu.”
“Let me see an ID.” She looked over her wire glasses at Drayton, sprigs of kinky gray hair spraying around the frames.
“I don’t have identification.”
Sheila narrowed her eyes, rethinking the whole thing. Yeah, they needed the money, but what good would it do if he cut them open at night to bathe in their blood? She had enough people trying to hurt her. Drayton let her look deep into his eyes. She fought the temptation, like everyone did, but soon found herself soaking in his soothing grace. It allowed him the opportunity to see inside her.
She was tough as weathered rawhide, unyielding as an oak. But she was mortal. Her scent was familiar in hospitals around the world. She was dying and didn’t know it. A tumor in her brain. He took another short whiff. It was small, just forming. She had plenty of time, two years, maybe five, before it would start affecting her memory and balance. It was hard to tell, so many variables. There was no sense in telling her, she was better off living in this moment than worrying out her fate. And, judging by the wrinkles around her mouth, there was plenty to think about.
Drayton looked away. Sheila composed herself, writing the word slowly. “Rauttu?” she said. “You Chinese or something?”
Drayton grinned so faint his lips did not move. “I have some Chinese in me.”
“You’re no Southerner.” She frowned. “You even American?”
“Drayton is my nickname,” he said. “If you’d like to write that down.”
“Drayton may be a Southern name, but it don’t make you so.” She turned the pencil over, erased the last name. “Naussa Drayton Rauttu. How many nights you want to stay?”
“A week. Maybe longer.”
“That’ll be $300 with a $100 deposit.” She went back to scribbling in the book. “I don’t take credit cards and I don’t take checks. So if you plan on paying with either then our business here is finished.”
Drayton peeled four bills off a roll of money and placed them on her book. She stopped scribbling, watched him put the roll back in his front pocket. He could rent the room for years.
She stared at the bills, untouched. “What’s a boy like you doing with a wad of cash like that?”
“I’ve invested well.”
“What’s your business?”
“Living,” was all he said, as if that was all the answer she needed. “In the meantime, your hospitality is much appreciated.”
She watched the bills, as if they’d sprout teeth and tear through her faded floral blouse. The ceiling fan made them tremble on the page. She gently placed her hand over them to make sure they didn’t sprout legs, too. She creased them in half and slid them into her pocket. “You have a room for one week, Drayton. If I see anything I don’t like, you will leave my property with no refund. Do we have an agreement?”
“Indeed, we do.”
Sheila snapped the book shut. “Come along.”
He took his time going into the house. No sense in rushing. Delivering a message wasn’t about words. He couldn’t stop by and tell them their absentee, runaway husband and father says he’s sorry. It wasn’t about that. Drayton had to deliver the message, and sometimes it took awhile to figure out what the message was.
There was no rush. Drayton had all the time in the world.
There was a time when Sheila would rather starve than take a risk. She blamed her ex-husband. He was enough risk for a lifetime and didn’t pay off. Taking on that kid was the stupidest thing she’d done since he left. When she saw Drayton on the porch, she had every intention of marching in the house for the shotgun. Don’t know what stopped her.
She lay in bed that night staring at the ceiling wondering what she done. That floor hadn’t creaked once since she led him to the upstairs room and those boards whined if you thought about them. He must’ve gone right to sleep because it was dead silent. Don’t say dead. Sheila wondered if she would sleep at all. That money would only last a few weeks. Then what? That boy could be a lifetime of trouble.
She rolled back and forth, the risk just wasn’t worth it. She was about to get out of bed and sit at the foot of the steps with a gun, just in case he got any ideas. But sleep rolled on her like a rogue wave.
Sheila didn’t own an alarm clock. She woke every morning at 4:00 AM, no matter what time she went to bed. She would lay there half an hour and pray for her sons, then get up to make breakfast. Sheila hadn’t been late for the morning in twenty years. She was late that morning.
The horses were whining. Sheila blinked. The sun pierced the room in flat lines through the blinds. The clock read 8:30. She sat up, checked her watch. Still 8:30.
She come storming out of her room pulling on a robe. The house was silent. Sheila leaned over the kitchen sink, looked out the window. The horses stretched their necks over the fence, pawing at the ground. They hadn’t been fed.
“Bo!” She fired up the stove. “Time to feed!”
Bo stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. He stared at the clock, pulled on his boots. The back door slammed and he ran to the barn. The horses called after him, waiting at their stations.
Sheila melted butter in the pan. She’d let Young sleep until breakfast was ready. He was a late sleeper anyhow. Probably slept right through the shouting. She had dreams that night. Dreams. Something about a park and the water. There was a sailboat, too. She could still feel the breeze on her face and smell the ocean.
The butter crackled in the pan. She broke open four eggs and noticed the tea pot was out. It was still warm. Bo walked in a hurry with stainless steel buckets across the backyard. Off to the right, under the largest oak on the property, was the boy. He sat at the iron table with his legs crossed, a teacup on one hand and a saucer in the other. He watched Bo dump buckets into the feedboxes and the horses stuff their heads inside. He sipped his tea elegantly, lifting the cup to his lips with little finger poised outward. She’d never seen anyone drink tea like that, except on television maybe. It was like royalty.
She hated to say it, but until she saw him out there, she’d forgotten about him. And Sheila never forgot about anyone on her property. She always said she could smell people when they were on the other side of her twenty acres and that boy slept upstairs while she slept like the dead.
The eggs spattered.
Don’t
say dead.
Drayton had been in prison hot
boxes in the
So he contemplated Blake Barnes. He listened to the house. Inhaled the essence of the life intermingling with the walls. A deep peace fell over the house and the three people sleeping in it. At sunrise, he walked downstairs without a sound, found a box of Earl Grey in the cabinet and fixed a cup. He went outside to greet the day. Before long, Bo was hustling to the feed room and Sheila was preparing breakfast.
By mid-morning, a black Hanoverian horse came to the fence sniffing at Drayton. His lips flapped and he snorted. His coat was radiant. His eyes fearless. Drayton had ridden many like this one through battlefields. He was a warmblood horse, his descendents trained for war. A magnificent beast.
“His name’s Blackjack.”
Drayton eyed the young boy in the wheelchair beside him. The grass was pushed over in tracks leading from the house.
“He’s a Hanoverian,” he said. “My mom’s horse.”
“Beautiful horse,” Drayton said.
The boy pushed thick glasses up his nose, held out his hand. “I’m Young.”
Drayton shook his hand, nodding imperceptibly.
“Explain something, Dray.” Young took his hand back. “How in the world are you cold?”
“Bad genes.”
Now that Drayton had a good look into the boy’s eyes, he could see he was fifteen, bound to a wheelchair all his life. Drayton sensed the disease that ravaged his immune system, degraded his muscles and nervous system. In fact, he was supposed to be dead already but was too stubborn to do so.
“You don’t exist,” Young said.
“Pardon me?”
“I researched you last night.” Young pulled a laptop from the saddlebag along side the wheelchair and flipped it open. “At least not by the name Nassua Rattu.”
“You can’t afford air conditioning, but you have a laptop and Internet?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, my legs don’t work. There are government grants that take care of me.” He tapped his keys as if case closed. “You either lied about your name or you’re hiding something, I can’t find anyone named Nassua Drayton Rauttu in the last hundred years.”
“Depends on how you look at it.”
“Are you a liar or have I met my match?”
“I’m neither hiding nor lying,” Drayton said. “I don’t exist.”
Young waited for a follow up. When there was none, he pulled a broken radio antenna from the saddlebag and poked Drayton’s leg. “Lie number one. You do exist.”
“I was speaking metaphorically.”
Young spun the chair around, looked over his shoulder to make sure Drayton wasn’t looking. Young typed loudly. He looked over his shoulder once or twice, as if comparing Drayton’s face to a picture. Young smacked the keys then abruptly snapped the laptop shut. He let go a long frustrated breath. “I accept the challenge.”
Drayton raised his eyebrows.
“You exist, as I just proved, therefore you’re out there.”
“Very well.”
Young wheeled over to the ramp that led to the back door. He stopped in the doorway, pointed two fingers at his own eyes and then at Drayton. “I’m watching.”
A smile touched Drayton’s lips.
So far summer sucked. Bo tore the chore sheet off the door of the feed room. He couldn’t keep up. Every time he ticked off a line, two more sprouted up. It was like pulling kudzu. The fence still needed mending on the back paddock. An auto-fill valve was leaking on one of the water troughs. And the horses’ hooves needed trimming.
Sucked,
big time.
He lined the stainless steel buckets along the bench. Each had a name taped to the side with a special formula, depending on what the owner wanted for their horse. Bo started scooping beet pulp and adding salt, molasses and even beer. Once he got the ingredients mixed, he’d add water to let them soak for evening feeding. He turned to the sink.
“HO!” He jumped back. Drayton was standing next to him. “You need to wear a bell or something, man. I damn near filled my shorts.”
“Apologies,” Drayton said. “Could you use help?”
“You want to help with chores?” He handed a bucket to him. “Be my guest. Follow the instructions on the side of the buckets. When you’re done, throw a towel over them to keep the flies out.”
Bo watched him measure out the water and deliberately and carefully fill the bucket. It wasn’t rocket science, so Bo took to the barn before Drayton changed his mind. He was adding up the time in his head. With Drayton kicking in, maybe he could get that list knocked out.
Gertrude, Evie, and Dahlia were due for trimming. Bo brought Gertrude in and dropped the tools on the floor. He needed a drink before he started wrestling that draft horse. He come out of the house with a cold bottle of water pressed to his head and stopped in the breezeway. Drayton was already bent over with Gertrude’s front hoof between his legs, taking the clippers to it and filing it clean.
“You done this before?” Stupid question, seeing as the hooves were already done. And done right. Drayton was just finishing the last one.
Bo extended his extra bottle. “Drink?”
Not that Drayton looked hot. Not a drop of sweat on his forehead. Bo was holding out the bottle, staring at the perfect hooves. He didn’t want to ask questions as it might spoil the dream. He coaxed Evie into the stall. Evie was always a pain when it came to trimming, needed to be tied to a short rope.
Drayton patted Evie on the neck and, what do you know, she trotted into the breezeway like there was a bucket of mints with her name on it. Next thing, Drayton’s working her front hoof and she ain’t throwing her head around or twisting her legs. She’s just letting him have his way.
Bo
retrieved the list. He was scheduled to do ten horses that week. In a week? How about today? He was out in the
pasture calling
By lunch, trimming was done. Drayton had yet to break a sweat.
“Let’s eat,” Bo said.
“You go on.”
“You sure? We don’t feed boarders, but I think you earned it.”
But Drayton wouldn’t accept. Bo finally left him in the barn. He plodded across the yard, the sun beating down. He chugged the rest of the water. Young was at the window, staring, like he’d been watching Drayton do his chores. He’d have to have a talk with him, make sure he didn’t tell Mama. She got funny about other people helping out.
But then at lunch, Bo heard pounding. He thought one of the boarders was working with their horse, but it was a rhythmic hammering that started and stopped. He looked out the kitchen window. There in the back was Drayton, mending the fence. Bo cursed silently and quickly rinsed his plate. He rushed out there to join him. Having him help was one thing, but having Drayton do it alone would get Bo’s ass dipped and fried.
“You invite that boy to supper,” Mama told Bo. She watched them mend that fence all afternoon. Drayton done it the right way, too. It wasn’t no patch job. No, sir.
Drayton wouldn’t accept supper. “Pass along my regrets,” he said to Bo. “I’m a bit tired this evening and would like to retire.”
He didn’t look tired. Bo had soaked through two shirts finishing that fence and Drayton had yet to stain his pits. Not sure what kind of a person works in heat like that and doesn’t sweat. Must’ve been some sort of deformity, no sweat glands or something. Mama wasn’t going to take no for an answer, but Drayton insisted.
Later that night, a boarder called. She forgot her camera in the round pen. She’d been filming that day and asked if Bo could bring it in so it didn’t get dew on it. He broke away from the Braves game on television and found the camera hanging from the post. He admired the sleek design, the way the digital panel flipped out. He turned it on, switched it to night mode and panned around the pasture while he walked back to the house. He zoomed in on the kitchen window where Mama was cleaning up, then swooped toward the second floor. Drayton was standing at the window. His face glowed like a full moon.
Bo looked up from the camera. The window was empty. Couldn’t have been him, he had to be exhausted. Besides, the floor hadn’t creaked once since he retired. Bo went back to the Braves game. Forgot all about it.
Drayton watched the sun come up the next morning. He took careful sips from his tea, savoring the aroma of Earl Grey, even if it was old and stale. It was still a gentleman’s drink.
But his time as a gentleman was drawing to a close. Yes, he would have to leave the farm soon. His skin was beginning to draw tight. He was enjoying his time; the scent of mowed grass, grain, and manure was refreshing. He would like to stay much longer, but it was no place to be when the hunger returned. Certainly not around the family.
Still, he had a few things left undone.
Bo woke up late. This time past nine.
The kitchen was empty, too. Except for the tea kettle, the counters and stove hadn’t been used. Mama must’ve been sleeping in, also. That was two in a row.
The horses didn’t seem too upset. None were tromping around the pasture. In fact, they were already grazing at the round bale. Bo figured out why when he reached the feed room. Drayton was prepping the buckets for the evening feeding.
Bo pulled a Coke from the tiny fridge under the sink. “’Morning.”
“It is,” Drayton said.
Bo went to the list. There were still a few things left. Drayton had things under control in the feed room, he could get on with hauling out some straw. He went around back and turned the key on the tractor, but the engine just wouldn’t catch. He turned the key again but it just whined. The old beast ran rich, fouled plugs left and right. Bo already done cleaned them a dozen times. Make it thirteen.
He hopped off and opened the barn doors to let the breeze in then got to business. Sure enough, the plugs were black and greasy. Bo rubbed them on his shirt. Wasn’t much of a cleaning, but it might get her started.
Drayton walked up one side of the tractor and back down the other.
“If I don’t get her started,” Bo said, “I’ll be hauling bales out with a wheelbarrow, and that ain’t fun.”
Drayton smoothed his hand over the hood, tracking lines through the caked dust. He squatted down, looked into the engine.
“You know anything about ancient tractors?” Bo said.
Drayton cocked his head to the side, peering inside at every angle.
“It belonged to my granddaddy. I’m no mechanic so it’s just been dying a slow death here on the farm. It could use a good hand.”
Drayton reached inside, tweaked something. Bo nudged the bucket of rusted tools toward him. Drayton selected a flat screwdriver with the edges rounded off. Bo tried to see what he was doing to the carburetor but there wasn’t much room for Drayton’s hands, let alone another pair of eyes. He could see he had the fuel line pinched off and that was about it. Bo pulled out another plug. This time he took sandpaper to it like he was supposed to. By the time he finished the last plug, Drayton was done.
“Give it a turn,” Drayton said.
Bo climbed into the seat and the old beast fired up in one turn, belching black smoke into the rafters.
“There’s nothing you can’t do!” Bo stomped the accelerator and let the engine eat. He put it in gear and pulled out. Drayton sat on the edge of trailer. He bucked the bales on and off the tractor. All Bo had to do was drive.
Sheila called for Young a third time. He hadn’t come out of his room in two days. She had to bring supper to his room. He was all hunched over the computer, had that look he got when he was stuck in a project. Sheila let him do his thing.
She went back to the kitchen and finished the BLT on a small plate, along with a bowl of pickled ochre. She wiped her hands and looked out the window. Bo was driving around the back and Drayton was doing all the work. She’d have a word with him when he was done. It was all right to have the boy help but not all the work. Whether Drayton wanted to or not, that’s not the way they did things. Besides, with the amount of work he done already, she should be paying him.
But it wasn’t just the work. It felt nice having him upstairs. It felt safe. Sheila even caught herself whistling that morning. Only thing that whistled around their house were birds. Certainly not Sheila.
Cockroaches
were a part of the Lowcountry. Sometimes you lived with them, other times you
had to grind them under foot. Snap,
crackle, pop.
Hal Towgard
was sweating just thinking about the heat. His pits were soaked before he left
his air-conditioned house. He squeezed behind the steering wheel, wiped his bald
head with a handkerchief and shifted ten ways to
Aaron stepped in the garage talking on his cell phone. The moron didn’t close the door all the way. Hal could feel the electric meter spin. He pushed a button, rolled the passenger window down.
“Close the door.”
Aaron took his sweet ass time doing it, that cell attached to the side of his head. He damn near stopped on the last step. Hal punched the horn. It echoed inside the garage. Hal Towgard, waiting on his son. When Aaron pulled open the passenger door, Hal tore the cell phone off his head and rifled it against the wall. It dented the sheetrock and skittered beneath the truck.
“Get in back,” Hal said.
Aaron held an empty hand to his face. Rage boiled under his blank expression, flickering past his eyes. He pushed it down – all of it – and climbed into the bed of the truck. Hal adjusted the rearview mirror and watched the boy. If that anger showed on his face he’d dent the sheetrock with the boy’s head. Hal backed out of the garage and the phone crunched under his tire.
He turned up the music. It was a thirty minute drive and he didn’t have anything else to say to Aaron. He’d heard enough. The boy explained what happened and his little brothers backed it up. Hal slapped the hell out of the three of them. Children make excuses. Men take care of business.
Hal turned down the long winding drive. There was business at the end. Hal would attend to it and be back for dinner. He parked next to Sheila’s piece of crap car, gunned the accelerator. He didn’t honk. He didn’t need to. People knew when Hal Towgard arrived. They felt it in their bones. And if they didn’t… snap, crackle, pop.
A truck eased up to the house. Bo stopped measuring the beet pulp in the feed room and looked out the window. He passed the steel bucket to Drayton without a word and started toward the man climbing out of the brand new Chevy, his belly hanging over the belt buckle.
Sheila was down the steps.
“I come to check on ya’ll.” Hal wiped his head with a handkerchief. “Aaron said there was some trouble.”
“No trouble, Hal,” Sheila said. “You can move along now.”
“You got company, Sheila?” Hal looked past Bo toward the feed room.
Drayton was in the doorway, looking at the devil Blake Barnes left behind. Tell them I’m sorry. For leaving? Or leaving them to fend for themselves?
“This is none of your business, Hal. Kindly get your truck off my property.”
“Sheila.” Hal tongued his trim mustache with the tip of his tongue. “I’ll get off my property when I’m goddamned ready.”
“As long as I make payments, this is still my property.” Sheila worked her hands open and closed.
Hal hiked up his belt, shifted his weight like he had to fart. He plucked a strand of foxtail from the ground and minced it between his front teeth. “I don’t like trouble, Sheila.”
“That’s a lie.”
He took a deep breath, looked into the trees as if to ask God why he had to live with such shitheads. He twisted the foxtail between his fingers. Bo stepped out of Hal’s way as he plodded past, would’ve knocked right into him had he not.
“Two days ago my boy comes home with your check and a load of shit in his pants.” Hal looked down on Bo, the foxtail dangling toward his nose. “Now what do ya’ll know about that?”
“He-he-he was pushing me down in the road, Mr. Towgard,” Bo said. “Aaron picked a fight.”
“Did you fight him?”
“No, sir. I didn’t want to fight, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“You saying my boy filled his shorts for fun?”
“That’s enough, Hal!” Sheila squeezed between Bo and him. “Your boy makes plenty of trouble and if he got a little coming back, he had it coming.”
“Your mama fight your fights for you, boy?” Hal swung an open hand at Bo. Sheila caught his forearm with both hands and almost knocked her over. Bo was huffing, squeezing fists at his side. Sheila shoved at Hal but his massive frame did not budge.
“You start making threats and you will not walk off this property,” she said. “You will be carried.”
Hal flicked the foxtail at Bo and lugged himself back to the truck, laughing as he went. He pointed at the feed room. “Boy! Come here.”
Drayton casually pushed off the doorframe and started across the grass. He walked like a person with no beginning. No end. Bahiagrass seed stalks whipped his legs, but his pace so casual it seemed like space was growing. Hal’s tongue mauled his mustache. When he could wait no more, he took the last two steps. Drayton stopped before they collided.
“You from around here, boy?”
Drayton turned his cheek, as if the pure, porcelain complexion was answer enough.
“Here in the South we have manners, son. When an adult speaks, you answer ‘yes, sir’.” Hal moved closer, his voice rattled deeply. “So let’s try this again. You from around here?”
There was no edge in Drayton’s voice. He simply said, “No, sir.”
“My boys tell me you were interfering with their business a few days back. Now boys will be boys, son, that’s a fact. But you got no business in my business, you understand? I forgive once, but cross me again, and you’ll see a monster. One with teeth, claws and a truckload of guns. One that eats everything on the farm.” His hard eyes bore down. “Understand, son?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lift your eyes, boy, and behave like a man. Look me in the eyes and answer the question.”
Drayton focused on the third roll of Hal’s neck, the red bumps where he shaved. Hal’s heart pulsed heavy beneath the collared shirt sticking to his chest. Drayton closed his eyes, took a deep breath and inhaled the man’s foul essence, tasted the fear that encased him like a tomb, his pain buried beneath.
His father beat him. Hal felt his father’s rings often. He learned to patch himself up and he learned not to cry. His father was raising a man, not a wuss.
He watched his father beat his mother, too. He stomped her in the kitchen. Called her a whore. An ambulance took her away. Hal’s father sat in the living room with a scotch and water.
No wussies around here.
Hal’s anger hid his sadness like a glacier, a layer that would take centuries to melt. Drayton did not judge this man. After all, it took hundreds of years for Drayton to resolve his madness and rage. Mortals like Hal did not have that luxury.
Drayton opened his eyes, lifted his gaze to Hal’s. With a thought, he removed the ice, exposed Hal’s pain and fear all at once. Showed him the depth of his neglected soul. Revealed the insatiable sadness he had avoided all his life. The things he did not remember. The things he did not feel.
The things he cared not to see.
Hal’s tongue stopped working. His chest heaved once. Twice. The color on his cheeks drained away under a sheet of sweat. Hal took a step back, clutched his chest.
Aaron jumped out of the truck. “You all right, dad?”
Hal concentrated on breathing, yanked his arm away. Aaron retreated slowly, unsure if his father would fall over in the next second. Hal wiped his whole head and all his chins. Twice. His mouth worked rapidly, but words could not make their way out, only the gummy sound of his tongue working for saliva. He felt his way along the hood, still trying to speak, and got into the truck. His pasty, colorless complexion was evident through the tinted window. His mouth still working. He backed the truck up, nice and easy. He didn’t spin the wheels and throw dirt and rocks, he just pulled out.
Hal stopped at the end of the drive, stared straight ahead at the reflective blue marker pinned to the water oak. The truck idled in place. He gripped the steering with both hands. The rubber material twisted under his sweaty palm. He just needed to catch his breath, but no matter how he tried to slow each one, the next came a little faster, a littler shallower.
Once, when Hal was seven, he went to open the gate to the pasture. The wires were hot, but he’d seen his father grab one of them a hundred times. They weren’t all hot. When he touched that wire, a jolt rattled through him, shook fingers, toes and nuts all at the same time. He tried to let go but the wire had him now. It grabbed back, sucked his fingers around it tight.
The boy’s eyes were like that.
Hal flipped the A/C off. It was plenty cold.
Drayton cleaned the last steel bucket and placed it in line with the others. He dried his hands and hung the towel on a hook. Everything was in place. He was just about finished. The sun was down and the sky dimming. Drayton stepped outside the feed room. The horses were lined up at the fences, watching him. Each of them nuzzled his outstretched hand as he passed, bowed their heads.
Drayton
watched darkness settle while dishes clattered inside the house. The light cast
out from the kitchen. Sheila was busy at the sink. They’d asked him to join
them for dinner, but Drayton politely declined. He needed to move on. He had
not fed since Blake Barnes so many months ago. His veins were constricted, his
skin tighter. He could wait no longer. Drayton would go to the city where
feeding was easy. Maybe
The horses pushed each other to get their turn with Drayton. Bo was coming from the house. His heart beat loudly and blood throbbed in his arteries. Saliva gushed under Drayton’s tongue.
The horses reared up and fled
across the pasture. Drayton gripped the fence, eyes closed, bringing control to
his body. Soon.
“What’s with them?” Bo rested the heel of his boot on the lowest rail of the fence.
“A little spooked.”
“Yeah, well, supper’s ready. Mama ain’t taking no for an answer. She saw all the work you been doing and wants to feed you.”
“Your hospitality is much appreciated, but I must excuse myself, once again.”
“She ain’t going to like that much, Drayton. She’ll come out here and feed you like a baby if you keep resisting.”
Drayton smiled. Bo leaned on the fence next to him. The horses had settled down in the far corner, keeping a wary out for predators.
“You’ll make a fine gentleman, Bo,” Drayton said.
Bo bowed his head. His laughter so punctual it gave the horses a start. “What’re you talking about? Gentleman? I’m a good ole’ boy, Drayton. If you want me out there sipping tea with you in the morning, it ain’t going to happen any time soon.”
He smacked Drayton on the shoulder, started back for the house laughing as he went. “I’ll tell Mama you ain’t coming,” he called. “You best hide.”
Young’s room was dark but for the blue glow of his computer screen. He was tapping the keys, muttering to himself. Sometimes arguing with himself. His mother called him for supper. He shouted, “In a minute!”
He ran his finger down a list of names, mumbling them in supersonic speed. He unfolded a lined sheet of paper and jotted some down. The lead broke. He wheeled the chair around.
Drayton was sitting on his bed.
“Crap!” He grabbed his chest and heaved. “You going to give me a heart attack. How’d you get in here?”
“You were busy.”
Young looked back at the computer. “Yeah, well you win. I can’t find you anywhere. You are a man of mystery. I don’t have a prize for you, if that’s what you came for.”
Young went through all the searches he’d done, and they included CIA agents, past and present, and witness protection candidates. He had his doubts how thorough or accurate those databases were but they came up blank anyway.
“I did find a Nassaurauttu,” he said. “It was one name. He came up on a Civil War veteran database. But unless you’re a hundred and fifty, I think that was a miss. You don’t look a day over a hundred.”
Great
party, the Civil War.
“The same guy fought for the North and the South. Unless I missed a history lesson, soldiers picked a side and stuck with it.” An idea suddenly hit him. “Unless he was a mercenary…”
Young spun around and attacked the keyboard. He compared two lists, side by side. “What am I doing? Who cares, unless he’s a relative of yours. Do you think…”
Drayton was looking at the shelf above his bed. Mostly books, a few trophies from Spelling Bees and Academic competitions, a Lego Challenge award and one picture. His mother framed it for him. They were at the beach. Bo had built a huge sand castle for a sand sculpting contest. He got third in his category. In the picture, Bo was lying in the hole in front of the castle. Young was only a few years old. He sat on the castle like a throne. His mother was on his left.
Drayton took the picture down and touched the white space that had been cut out on Young’s right. He traced the outline of a man that was once in the picture, now reduced to an empty figure.
“That was my father,” Young said. “He was no good.”
“What was he like?”
“How should I know?” He took the picture from Drayton. “He left.”
He wiped the dust from the glass. Drayton heard his pulse bang in his chest. Energy bent the space around him in waves. Young stared at the photo and absently thumped his hand against the armrest of his wheel chair in time to his heartbeat. He moved to his useless leg, beat it with the same steady rhythm.
He
left.
Drayton squatted next to the wheelchair. Young stared straight ahead, resolute. Drayton could feel the blue vein just under his skin beat as if it were on the tip of his tongue. He placed his hand over Young’s forehead and turned his head, let him look deep into his eyes.
Drayton took Blake Barnes’ life. He held his memories in his eyes and Young saw the extent of his father’s tortured life. The haunting thoughts. The divided personality. Young saw the insanity that ate his insides and eroded his rationality.
Blake Barnes did not abandon his family, he abandoned life. He did not leave because his son was crippled and broken, he ran because he was frightened. He ran because he lacked courage. He ran because he was lost.
Not because of Young.
A tear rolled down Young’s cheek. In those few moments, he absorbed his father’s life and understood his past. He finally knew what his mother had been telling him all his life. It wasn’t your fault.
More than that, the last few words of his father’s life absolved much of the pain and heartache Young carried like a string of weights attached to his chair. In two simple words, he gained what he believed he had lost. Drayton delivered the message.
I’m
sorry.
Young was still holding the picture. Drayton wasn’t there. He was down the long, winding driveway. Young was slumped in his chair, weeping, when he left. Sheila came into his room and held him. Drayton heard the wailing. Felt the tenderness of his mother’s touch.
Hal skipped dinner.
He sat on the edge of his bed. The shower ran in the bathroom. Steam flooded out of the open door. There was a knock on the bedroom door. “Are you all right?” his wife called.
“I’m fine!” he snapped.
Hal was not fine. A sickness had settled in his stomach. Something foul spread throughout his mid-section. The stench of his insides permeated his senses. He had hovered over the toilet with his finger in his throat, but he couldn’t make the ache stop.
He’d had viruses that kept him puking through the night, but never had felt such a deep sense of ache. A sadness soaked through his stomach and chest. Tears were knotted in his throat. He felt like a wuss.
He retrieved the Pepto-Bismol from the bathroom, fumbled with the lid, dropping it on the floor. He lifted the bottle to his lips, ignored the dried crusty flakes that slogged down his throat with each chug. But it did not coat the sickness. It did not dispel the sadness.
He lifted the bottle again then suddenly dropped it on the bed. The pink liquid glugged over the floral bedspread. Hal clutched his chest. Hal tried to breathe. He hit the corner of the bed and rolled onto the floor. The world washed past his senses, dark and blurry.
“Hal? Are you all right?” The door knob rattled. “HAL?”
The pain radiated from his heart and engulfed his entire chest. Veins bulged along his forehead, down his neck.
The boy stood at his feet. His skin was paler, drawn tightly over his cheeks. A darkness settled around his eyes.
Hal moved his lips.
The boy took Hal’s arm and smacked the inside of his elbow, popping the veins hiding under layers of fat. Hal knew he invited this monster into his house many years ago, the day he accepted all of Blake Barnes’ debt. The day he began taking money from his pathetic family. His fate was now plumping up veins on his arm.
The boy’s lips were cold against Hal’s arm. He felt a pinch, then a warmness soothed the ache in his chest. His life drained away from him. The boy lifted his head, his lips red. The darkness had vanished from his face.
Big sleep fell on Hal. He muttered his wife’s name, but heard nothing but the final words. The boy spoke softly. Genuinely.
Thank
you.