Calamity

Tyler laid out the pills on a card table and sent Tyler hunting for the tools he needed.

He lined up the pills in rows. By the time he had fished all of them out of his pocket, pieces of lint clinging to the last few, he had formed four rows of twelve pills—forty-eight in all. That was a lot. Christ, he had been overzealous in his excavation of Dr. Carroll’s bag. the idea had just been so good and come on so strongly that he hadn’t stopped to think that he didn’t need too many pills, this many, to make it work, certainly not forty-eight. However, since he had this many, his plan could grow more detailed, more intricate, more solid.

Paul returned with a small plastic container meant for leftover vegetables or applesauce, a small white marble mortar and pedestal intended for grinding spices. He set these next to the rows of pills.

“Damn, man,” he whispered.

“Your mom ask why you wanted that stuff?”

“No, she just wanted me to get some baking sheets out from under the stove. When she’s baking, she’s off in another world.”

“Good for us.”

“You’re not going to use all of those, right?”

“No,” Tyler said, “but they will be used.”

“We sort these things out and we can make some money, just selling them at school.”

“Fuck that. I don’t need to press my luck. I need to solve my problem.”

“Yeah,” Paul said with a note of resignation.

The first few pills Tyler picked up were plastic caps, which came apart easily. He emptied the powdery contents into the mortar. After that, he picked out many of the solid pills from the lines and dropped them onto the powder. He used the pedestal to grind the pills into dust, mixing all the contents together.

“This is hardcore shit. Cops come busting in here and we’d be fucked.”

“We’re not dealers. We’re trying to save my ass.”

Tyler kept working, adding more pills, crushing their contents, until Paul asked if he was sure Sasha was pregnant.

“Who knows? She’s crazy, right?”

“No shit. She could be lying, though, trying to hook you in.”

“Does it make a difference? If this goes right, she and her mother won’t be a problem anymore—baby or not.”

“You could be a father,” Paul said with awe, “and look what it’s done to you.”

Tyler appreciated the contents of the mortar; he had filled it almost an inch deep. Paul was just being a smart ass but he was right: in a week’s time, he had deteriorated into a thief and drug-pusher who was about to cross all kinds of moral boundaries. One hell of a week, he thought.

“I’m not a father.”

“Not for long if you are.”

After Paul ground a few more pills into the mix, he dumped the contents into the plastic container. Then he returned to the diminishing lines of pills and started grinding again. After he finished this time, using far fewer pills, there were only eighteen pills remaining. He wasn’t sure what they were or which ones he had already used. In the end, it wouldn’t really matter.

“Now what?” Paul asked.

Tyler took out Delaney’s cellphone. “I make the call.”

11

The guard working the main gate called the house. The ring of the phone, still in Anthony’s hand, startled him out of a reverie in which he and Chloe were happy. He wasn’t sure what they were doing in this daydream, only that they were smiling and laughing. It felt like fantasy: there might have been knights and dragons and wizards, too.

The guard said that two men had arrived and were requesting entrance to visit him. Anthony told the guard to let them in and then went outside. He left Brendan in the bedroom with his drugged mother and aunt, and the corpse, of course. That had the making for one of those exploitative headlines: FATHER SLAYS FAMILY DOC, MAKES SON GUARD BODY.

A black Lincoln stopped in front of Anthony’s driveway. A large black van with the emblem of a cross on the side parked behind it. The cross appeared to float above a black nothingness. It was like that Dali painting of Christ on the cross where the savior hovered above Hell.

Ellis and Dwayne, both wearing their Sunday Best, got out of the Lincoln. Whoever was in the van remained there, the engine idling. Anthony saw part of a large arm and a section of a barrel chest. Even preacher men needed a security detail.

Not security, the Logical Voice interrupted, it’s the clean up crew.

“We’re so glad you called,” Ellis said. He took Anthony’s hand in a friendly shake and then held it while he continued talking. Anthony wanted to pull his hand away but there was something reassuring about holding this man’s hand. Comfort could be found in his smile. “I know this seems like a horrible tragedy, just one more black mark against you in a long list of horrible events, but it’s not. We’re here to show you that what happened, whatever you had to do, is the first great step toward your empowerment in God’s eyes.”

“Sounds like a cover up,” Anthony said.

“If there is justice to be paid it will be—God will see to that—but it is only your guilty conscience that insists this is a negative event.”

The thwank of metal against bone …

The hollow clank of bone against the headboard …

“I’m not sure you understand.”

“We do, Anthony,” Ellis said. “We really do. You see, if you were truly guilty, you wouldn’t have called us, or at least we wouldn’t be receptive. You would have tried to hide the mess yourself. Or you might have even confessed.”

Which is what I should do. It hadn’t dawned on him completely yet that he had indeed killed a man, but Anthony was starting to sense the grave seriousness of the shit that happened in his bedroom. If he ever fully realized what had happened (This is called shock, the Logical Voice said), he might use the tire iron on his own head or take a handful of Chloe’s pills and curl up with her. That might not be so bad. When the police finally discovered the bodies, they might even think it sweet: a lover’s suicide, practically a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

“We will handle the mess,” Ellis said with a slight nod to the waiting van. “I will handle the more serious mess.”

“Which is?”

“Your soul.”

Ellis squeezed Anthony’s hand and leaned toward him, eyes wide. The knot of his black tie was askew and for some reason it kept pulling Anthony’s focus. He wanted to reach out and fix it, straighten the tie and— ta da!—the world would be right again.

“Focus, Anthony. This is no time for diversions. We have serious soul-excavating to do.”

“That sounds painful,” Anthony said in barely a whisper. Why was the stupid tie pulling his attention? He’s not who he says he is. The thought was clear and came without argument. It could have come from the Logical Voice or the This is Dangerous Voice, but instead it simply bubbled out of his subconscious as a pure Anthony Williams thought.

“Let’s go to my car. While the team works, so shall we.”

Anthony shook off his thoughts. Suspicion was a great thing to have if it benefited you; this time, suspicion would only lead Anthony to a stiff mattress in a cold prison cell. “My son is up there… . I left him alone.”

“Dwayne will take care of your son. He’s a very special boy, that Brendan. Of course you know that, don’t you?”

He did (didn’t all parents believe their kids were special, at least in some way?), but the real question was why Ellis did. You will need this, Ellis had said last week when he held out the Jesus flyer, trust me.