Blaze of Glory

“Boy,” Buckley began, striding across the room and scooping him up and into his arms. “I don’t know what you just did, but you saved our sorry asses. Why didn’t you say you had magic in that horn?”

“I don’t know,” Rashad said meekly.

“No shit,” Bennie added. “Whatever you did was a miracle.”

“Wasn’t magic, just plain old music,” the boy murmured.

“Wasn’t nothing plain and old about it, child,” Grandma Riggs said. “And I know me a little about plain and old. Them notes you was playing were the most beautiful I’ve ever heard, more so ‘cause they chased away the boogeymen.”

“Way to go little man.” Samuel slid over and ruffled Rashad’s hair. Then he turned his attention to the hallway. “Oh hell. Now that’s what I call a pig in a blanket.”

Everyone except Grandma Riggs, who was sniffing at the air like a coon hound, followed Samuel’s gaze to where MacHenry stood with a blanket wrapped around his large naked middle. Gert peeked over his shoulder.

“What was all that racket?” she asked.

“You been having sex?” Grandma Riggs craned her neck as she sought a scent in the air. “Someone been having sex? I smell sex.”

Bennie perked up.

“Giving away freebies? When you’re done old man, let me have a go. I’ll show her the difference between a used car and a new car, that’s for damn sure.”

Sissy punched Bennie in the arm. Buckley sat Rashad on the couch.

“Listen here, boy. There’ll be none of that,” he said low and easy.

“But she’s a whore, man. That’s what she-”

Buckley’s fist slammed into Bennie’s nose sending him to the floor. Buckley loomed over the young man who was now cradling his face and whimpering.

“There’ll be none of that, now. There’s only us here and we need to depend on each other. Attitudes like that can get us killed. What Gert did or does is her business and not ours. Fuck, boy. You were a crack dealer and you got the gall to call her a whore? To push yourself on her? If I wasn’t the humanitarian I am, I’d kick you just to see you bleed some more.”

“Hold on now,” MacHenry said, cinching up his blanket. “Don’t hurt the kid, Adamski. He doesn’t know any better.”

Buckley stood there attempting to control his rage. It wasn’t all because of the boy’s remark- no. It was also for his own impending death. He needed to tell them soon. He needed to leave. A traitorous thought crucified his good intention. If he’d never gotten these people together, if he’d refused to help and done things his own way, then maybe he'd have actually survived.

Dead cat in the highway, dead bird in the tree,

Dead rat in the gutter, and little old dead me.

Dead sun up in heaven, dead stream at my feet,

Dead calm all around me, earth full of dead meat.

Everyone turned and stared at Grandma Riggs as she sucked on her glass pipe, grinning wickedly.

“Well, that about sums it up,” MacHenry said. “Dead sun up in heaven, earth full of dead meat. Come on, Gert. Let’s get cleaned up.”

They went down the hallway, the used car salesman’s white ass visible through a rent in the blanket. The sound of the door slamming made everyone jump a little.

Buckley backed up and grabbed a towel from the back of a chair. He threw it at Sissy and pointed to Bennie who held his nose gingerly. “Clean him up, girl. He’ll be all right.”

She immediately moved to help the fallen boy. With Samuel’s assistance, she got Bennie to his feet and down the hall to the bathroom.

Buckley wiped the sweat from his eyes and inhaled the staleness of the room. There were too many people in too small a space. The place smelled like a locker room tinged with the sweet toxicity of crack smoke. He turned to leave but paused as Grandma Riggs spoke.

“I smell you, Mr. Adamski. I smell you right fine.”

'What do you mean, Grandma?'

'You know good and well what I mean.'

Buckley sighed. Yeah, he did. “I smell me too, Grandma. I best be finding a way to get clean.”

“That sounds like a grand idea. Maybe Little Rashad here can help you. Go help our Garbage Can Dictator, Rashad. Mr. Adamski’s got hisself a boogeyman problem.”

CHAPTER 9

She'd heard nothing but her own breathing for hours.

The noise had gone on outside for so long, even when it had died out, she thought she heard things from time to time. Screams. Cries. She’d even thought she’d heard her name once or twice, but a tiny part of her that commanded with her mother’s voice told her they were phantoms, that they weren’t real.

Finally she screwed around her courage and crawled to the door. It was a tortuous journey, across hard cold things she wasn’t familiar with, her imagination filling in the possibilities where her knowledge ended. At the very edge of terror, she finally embraced the metal door and placed her ear against it.

Her mother and father were out there somewhere. Scenarios ran through her mind where they led the white worms on a merry chase, always one step ahead, always safe. Her mother laughed. Her father skipped fearlessly down the street. An image of him feinting left and running right, like he’d done with Uncle Brian during the football game after Thanksgiving last year made her grin, the expression scaring away webs of fear.

But as soon as it lit her face, a frown crept in and replaced it. Her daddy wasn’t going to be playing any more football. Uncle Brian wasn’t going to be coming down from Pennsylvania anymore. There’d be no reason for Thanksgiving dinner, because there’d be no more family.

She suddenly wished she wasn’t alone. She wanted to be with someone, anyone. Her breathing filled the silence. She listened to it for a time and wondered if maybe she wasn’t alone. What if the sound she heard wasn’t her breathing, but someone inside the freezer with her?

The very idea made her hold her breath as terror once again engulfed her.

CHAPTER 10

Fifteen minutes after he punched the banger in the nose, Buckley found himself staring at the bottle in front of him. Unopened, it promised the redemption of forgetfulness. The clear liquid cajoled him, its promises of better times stretching through the glass. He felt like Alice — Drink Me all but written upon the vodka.

Rashad sat next to him sucking on a root beer, both of the boy’s large black eyes fixed upon him.

“What made you think to blow the horn?”

“I dunno. It just felt like the right thing to do, I guess.”

“Why that song?”

“What?”

“Why did you choose that song to play? Why not another one? You do know some other songs, right?”

The boy nodded.

“So why Rocky?”

“I dunno.”

“Is it your favorite?”

“No.”

Buckley was stumped. He knew there was something important going on. One of the ideas that’d been