Ty raised his left eyebrow and looked exactly like a demon, Tom thought. In spite of his best efforts to hop gamely out and face this unexpected visitor, Tom found his stomach jumping with butterflies. Who the hell could it be standing there on
He took a step toward the huge hulking figure, and then, even before the guy lit a cigarette revealing his long, haggard face, he knew.
The man was none other than Crazy Louis Wetzel, and the shock of seeing him here, right here where it had happened so long ago, made Tom break out in an icy sweat.
“Hey, look who it ain’t,” Wetzel said, spraying some spittle in Tom’s direction.
He smiled a weird, gap-toothed grin at Tom, and reached out to shake hands. Tom hesitated. He didn’t want to shake this jerk’s hand. He had spent years in therapy because of him, and now the guy was offering him his hand in a gesture of friendship? Fuck that.
And yet, if he refused to shake hands with him, then Wetzel would know how much pain he’d caused Tom, which would make him happy, the sadistic son of a bitch. More than anything he didn’t want to make Louis Wetzel happy.
So he reached out and took the big man’s hand.
“Good to see you, Tommyboy,” Wetzel said, taking it and holding on.
“Yeah,” Tom replied. “How you doing, Louie?” Why the fuck wouldn’t he let go?
“Great. ’Cept for my back. Had an accident downa Point… I worked at Bethlehem for years. Was working inna rod factory and shit got overheated and jumped on me. Got third-degree burns on my legs, and when I fell down I fucked up my back.”
“That’s too bad,” Tom said. Good, he thought, may it hurt you every day for the rest of your sick fucking life, you piece of shit. He finally managed to extricate himself from Wetzel’s grasp.
“That must seriously limit your mobility,” Ty said, leaning on the hood of someone’s ’76 Caddy.
“Nah,” Louis said, glaring at Ty, as though he’d been cursed out. “Not that bad at all. I could still take you, buddy.”
“Don’t doubt it at all, Lou,” Ty said.
“’Course, if I had a way wif words, like Tommyboy here, I could write me some movies and make a ton of money. ’Cause you guys know I got the fucking stories.”
“No doubt,” Ty said. “Let’s hear one. Just for old time’s sake.”
“Shouldn’t we be getting along?” Tom said. He tried not to look at Louis as he spoke, but glancing down at the street was even worse. For just below him was the sewer grate, rusted, ancient… Was it possibly the same grate from twenty-five years ago? Sure it was… Nothing stayed the same except the sewers in Baltimore.
“What’s a matter?” Louis said. “You don’t wanna hear my story, Tom? You only listen to stories now if they pay you, is that it?”
“No, that’s not it.” Tom felt the weight of Louis’s reptilian gaze glowering down at him, but in spite of it, he felt angry now. He really wasn’t the helpless kid he’d been back then, with a father who didn’t speak to him and an insane mother. Hanging out in bars as he had for so many years, he’d had more than his share of fights, physical as well as verbal. Indeed, the only place he felt really helpless was when he was back home… Baltimore was like some great behemoth that he could never quite slay.
“What is it then?” Louis said.
Tommy found himself smiling at Louis, and sticking his own face in the big man’s chest.
“It’s you, Lou. I know what story you want to tell. But I don’t want to hear it.”
Wetzel laughed and glowered down at him. “Yeah? What story is that?”
“You wanna tell the one about how you stuck me in the sewer when I was eight years old. How you stepped on my fingers when I tried to push the grate up, and how you found a rat and threw him down there on top of me. And then left me down there for four fucking hours.”
Louis looked taken aback. He wasn’t used to such impudence from his victims.
“Well, the thing is, Tommy,” Louis started, suddenly grabbing Tom by the neck and squeezing, “the story ain’t done yet. See, in the earlier version you got away, ’cause Herbert Snyder happened to be home on leave from the navy and the shithead let you out. But this time you stay down there for good, you rich little Hollywood cocksucker.”
The pain in Tommy’s neck was unbearable. He managed a weak swing, clipping Louis on the side of the head, which accomplished nothing but further infuriated the big man.
“Down we go,” Louis said.
He pushed Tommy to his knees, and just for a second Tommy had the optimistic thought that Louis would have to pull off the sewer grate to stuff him inside, and during that interval maybe he could-if he could get his breath-run away.
But now he saw what he should have known all along. The grate had been pulled aside already. Jesus, this had been Ty’s plan the whole time.
“Down we go, asshole,” Louis said. “Just like days of yore.”
Tommy couldn’t stand it… being thrown into the same hole by the same lunatic bully he’d encountered as a child. He gasped, and bright lights glittered in his eyes. There was only one thing he could do, but if it didn’t work it might cost him his life. But why not? He’d rather be dead than go through the sewer treatment again.
Tommy shot out his fist and punched Louis Wetzel in the balls. The big man screeched and let go of his death grip on Tommy’s neck. His hand came down to his crotch but Tom hit him again, and the tormentor fell to his knees. Tommy had no idea what to do next… Panicky, he punched him in the face, and then took several pokes at Louis’s eyes.
From behind him he heard a cheer. “Brilliant,” Ty said.
“Fucking brilliant.”
Tom looked up and saw Ty’s happy, demonic smile framed by the moon.
“You really showed me something there,” Ty said.
Then he raised his arm and pounded Louis on the head with a crowbar. Tommy heard Wetzel’s skull crack, and saw blood drip down his ears.
“And one for good luck,” Ty said. He waved the crowbar over his head and brought it down again on Louis’s huge head.
The big man made a horrible gasp and fell off the curb, his head and shoulders dangling in the sewer.
Ty laughed and kicked him the rest of the way in. “Here we go, Tom,” he said, in a jovial way. “Give me a little hand with the grate, hey, pal?”
Tommy stood up, rubbing his neck, which was raw and throbbing with pain. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Well, duh,” Ty said.
“Is he… dead?” Tom asked.
“Oh, I imagine so. You can’t really live all that long without a brain, and I expect what’s left of Lou’s is a pile of jelly by now.”
They put the grate in place, then sat on the edge of the sewer, Tommy gasping for breath and both of them looking down every so often to see if Louis was going to make some kind of horror movie comeback.
“Why… why’d you do this?” Tom said.
Ty lit a Camel and smoked in a satisfied way.
“You’re gonna get a kick out of this,” he said, offering a cigarette to Tom, who took him up on it.
“I am?”
“Yeah, you are. See this whole thing started with your mother.”
“Bullshit,” Tom said, accepting a light from Ty.
“I swear,” Ty said. “See, these days I’m a physical therapist. I work over at Pinecrest, and about a week ago I get a call to go up to apartment 354, and who’s there? None other than your lovely mom, Go-Go Flo, as we call her, ’cause she’s always up to something. Hugely popular in the dining hall. Anyway, we get to talking about you and she told me you’re a big shot now and hardly ever talk to her, and after I’m working on her back awhile, she says to me, ‘We oughta take Tommy downa peg.’ So we cooked up this little trick to, you know, scare you a little. Just a gag. Believe me, I never expected Louis to go that far. I think when you told him you didn’t want to hear his story… well, that sent him around the old twist.”
“Jesus, Ty,” Tom said. “You and my mom cooked this whole sick thing up?”
