“See, it never would have worked anyway. Do this: Light up, smoke your brains out, and crash. Sleep in here in the capital of nowhere, in the state of oblivion, wake up all new, and we’ll figure out a move. Okay?” I give him a heavy and honest hug around the shoulders.
He doesn’t answer with words, but he does spark up a sapling. He inhales joylessly.
“That’s the spirit,” I say, and head upstairs.
9
People don’t want to suck, said Da. They just do.
I will never lie to you, he said. Unless I feel like I need to.
People need witnesses, to behave.
People need to be unobserved, to be themselves.
They said they had a treatment for his condition. They said.
The silent treatment, I said.
10
I am finding that I can sleep anywhere, and sleep fairly well. I didn’t not know this before, but I didn’t know it either. I just didn’t notice.
With all the business lately, I have noticed. I sense this will be a welcome attribute over time.
Early morning, wherever we are, sounds like early morning elsewhere with the window open. The soothing sound of light traffic in the distance, the clank of a delivery truck dropping crates of bottles on the sidewalk. Urban seagulls menacing everybody. It’s a comfort.
I roll over to find Da on his side, curled up in my direction, snuffling like a proper little old man and needing a shave. The pyramids float above his back, and a breeze sends the curtains to try and get a tickle at his patchy head. His hairline is at just about half tide. I notice he is balding asymmetrically, as well.
As well.
The door is at our feet, and a knock is at the door.
I sit up. “Matt?” I say cautiously. I hardly suspected this would be a bed-and-breakfast arrangement. Da doesn’t stir.
“It’s not Matt,” the voice says.
“My god, Lucy,” I say, jumping up in my shorts and T-shirt, rushing to the door.
I am about to stupidly open it.
“Who’s with you?”
“Nobody. I swear on Grandma’s grave.” She was always a Grandma gal, so this is bankable.
I open the door, yank her inside.
“Ouch,” she says.
“Ouch yourself. What is going on? What are you doing here? How did you
She stares me up and down for a second, then beyond me toward Da.
“How are you? Are you all right?”
“Lucy!”
“Okay, Jarrod brought me, but don’t kill him.”
“I’ll kill him.”
I go for the door, but she grabs my arm.
“Fine, but kill him afterward. He didn’t mean any harm.”
“He never does. Junkie jackass.”
“He was just there, showed up really late… and I was waiting. I was hoping you would come back. That you would have the sense…”
“You were planted there. Is that what you mean?”
“No. That’s not-”
Another knock. I rush to open it.
Jarrod puts up both hands in that “don’t beat me up” sign.
I drive straight through that sign.
I burst through the doorway, grab him with both hands, drive him into the opposite wall. Then I begin slapping him sloppy. Backhand and forehand, across the mouth, bringing out blood from both sides and spraying it around the wall behind him.
I have so many things to say to him, to ask him, like why the hell did you do this, like what were you thinking, like are you a total mental defective or are you criminally sadistic, but I cannot think of one of those questions or any of its answers that are not going to flip the switch that will turn this beating into something more like
Where he slumps, sobbing and bleeding, the hot coffees drooling out of the bag in his left hand, and some manner of fresh-baked goods hotly greasing their way out of the other.
He brought us breakfast.
My whole body is shaking with this.
Look at him.
Dan. Danny. Look at him.
I step back and slam the door shut. Never happened.
“What has happened to you?” Lucy says, opening the door. Jarrod is scrabbling to his feet, the breakfast left as a dying, oozing thing on the floor. He gives up on standing and joins it there, sliding right down the wall with his back.
“Criminal stupidity,” I say in Jarrod’s direction. “Just add it to the list. Because thanks to you, they will be here any minute with a long list of all our crimes and misdemeanors, and a very short list of our futures. For those of us who had them.”
Jarrod leans on the wall for support, tries to hold his blood in with his hand over his mouth, holds his balance with his other hand flat on the floor. Tries to talk to me. “It’s okay, Danny Boy. It’s okay, ’cause I told Lucy to turn off her phone.”
This. This is what Da is trying to warn me about. Be cool, keep your wits about you. Decide what needs to be done and be prepared to do it. Your head rules. Your head is the almighty, your heart is the devil, deceptor.
Stupidity is a crime, punishable and unacceptable, no matter how nice a guy is.
“Lucy?”
She will not trifle with me here, this much I know.
“Did you turn your phone off?”
“No, Dan. In fact, I was talking on it mostly the whole time I followed behind Jarrod’s car.”
I stare flames at Jarrod in front of me, listen to my sister as she walks around behind me to check the death- sleep of the old man. I know his breathing like nobody does. I know he’s fine.
“They did send me for you, Dan,” she says. “Nobody is coming after you yet, because they sent me. It’s me, right? Lucy. Don’t be all paranoid. I’m giving you a chance. To just bring him back. Let it go. He has done wicked things, Dan. More than you even know, I’m sure.”
“Sure? Being sure is for chumps, Lucy.”
“Fine, whatever. But he is dangerous.”
