went, “Ooooggaaa-”
Stroking the center of her chest, gently petting the top of the raven’s head, Lula sashayed over to Clay, throwing all 95 pounds into her hips. “Are you gonna screw me now?”
“Don’t get insulted,” Clay said, “but no.”
“I didn’t think you could handle it. Suck your dick?”
“No.”
“Can I leave then?”
“Sure, but don’t tell anybody about this.”
“Who would believe me?”
“Good point.”
Glass rattled in the window frames, breeze beginning to kick up. Clay yanked at Rocco’s arm and he came along like a kite string being pulled on. He had no weight or solidity to him.
They wandered back down the corridors towards the main office.
“Wait there like a good boy. I gotta get something first.”
Clay moved behind the counter and searched the area for a minute. Mel’s eyebrows were still on the wall but had slid about six inches-cocked as if wondering where the hell the rest of the body had gone. Clay found a door that opened into a closet with cleaning supplies, rummaged around on the shelves checking labels. There it was. Apple cinnamon natural fragrance freshener. He took five canisters.
Rocco stood in the same spot with his eyes rolled up into his head and a smile so wide that the hinges of his jaw had separated.
“Let’s go.”
Rocco blissfully followed him into the parking lot, trailing like smoke.
Clay opened the back door and said, “Okay, squeeze in.”
Rocco started to vomit and Clay took him by the shoulder and aimed him towards the curb. He patted and rubbed Rocco’s back with his free hand, kept the gun pressed into his ear with the other. Finally, Rocco climbed in next to Edward’s baby seat, sat on the Chihuahua and made a small noise of discomfort. Clay said, “Get up for a second.” Rocco eased himself off the seat and Clay reached in and pulled Cuddles out from under Rocco’s ass, tossed the dead dog onto his lap. “There, that better?”
Rocco sighed contentedly.
Clay sprayed the car down with the air freshener and got in, took Kathy’s hand again. “You still with me on this, baby?” he asked. “I know it’s ugly, but it’s the way it has to be for a little while longer.”
Rocco made a noise in the back of his throat and went, “Ooooggaaa-”
CHAPTER FOUR
Getting back onto the highway he hit the other side of that same goddamn ramp’s curbing, and this time he couldn’t hold back a shriek as the car jostled savagely. Cuddles and the road kill bounced around into each other sending tufts of fur into the air. The sluggish flies buzzed angrily and crawled into Rocco’s ears.
Swallowing blood, Clay cleared frost from the windshield and kept waiting for Kath to start talking to him. He knew he was feverish enough to be hallucinating, and he actually wanted it to happen. Anything to help him along. He figured he’d look over at her sitting there next to him, and she’d grin and start giving him hints on what he should be doing.
Edward would be murmuring, “Daaa? Daaaa?” the way he did after Clay read the storybooks to him and drew the blankets up to his chin. He might place one of his tiny hands on the back of Clay’s neck and give him a touch more strength, just enough to finish this.
Wasn’t that how it went? Kath would chuckle and swirl her fingers over his knee, and he’d be blunt enough around the borders to get through with it.
That’s what this sort of burning insanity was supposed to be all about. What good was it letting your fucking mind go if it didn’t go far enough?
“Kathy,” he said. “For Christ’s sake-” He couldn’t manage to put his hand against her skin. “Kath, you listening?”
“Ooooggaaa-”
Not even a ghost of the Chihuahua prancing around, yapping. Nothing. No relief, he wasn’t getting anything from his own dying.
He touched Kathy’s hair and gave it a couple of feeble strokes, trying to feel what she might have now become under the crushing weight of complete release.
She grew that much more ashen beside him, hushed and yet, perhaps, sitting in judgment, her determination unshaken. Did she still hate him for all his mistakes?
“Jesus, baby, were things really that bad?”
“Ooooggaaa-”
He could never tell. She’d always been an inch or two away from him. He’d be over here with the things he could never talk about, and she’d be there with her own secrets. It made life dicey at times but kept it interesting. He never completely knew what to expect from her, and she liked having that little extra edge.
A couple of times he’d come home and found her wearing the cheerleader outfit. Once she was laughing and horny and they’d gone at it on the floor, rough and angry and having a hell of a good bout. Another time she was sitting in the center of the bed with the pom poms at her feet, both of their high school yearbooks torn to shreds and flung all over the mattress. She was crying so hard that he had to get a paper bag from the kitchen and shove it over her face before she hyperventilated.
“Rocco, you prick, you still hanging in?”
“…”
“You still alive?”
“…aah…”
Leaning down, Clay had to spit another mouthful of blood onto the floor mat. He went into a coughing fit for a minute while his vision filled with streamers of gold and orange. He tightened his fists on the wheel until his knuckles cracked and the massive knot in his chest eased up. “Good, I got a question to ask-”
“Yaaah?”
“Did you screw my wife before or after she was dead?”
“Aww…”
Suddenly, it became important to know. “Come on, level with me, I’m trying to work through this as best I can.”
“…it…”
“Say again?”
“…”
“Hey, you can tell me.”
“I liked it…”
“What?”
Even with the H boiling his few remaining brain cells, Rocco nodded back into the world for a few seconds. “I really dug…”
“What’d you dig?”
“…her ass.”
“Yeah?”
“…and I had fun…fucking her and…”
“And?”
“…shooting you…killing you, man.”
“Fair enough.”
Clay had to wait five minutes before there was enough room on the shoulder for him to pull over. He took another two packets of heroin and tore them open, reached into Rocco’s mouth, got hold of his bloated tongue,
