The Guardians

'Why you were in that house.'

Carl climbs up onto one of the steel struts and sits on it, perched with his legs swinging beneath him.

'You own a nightclub or something, right, Trev?'

'Used to.'

'Get a nice price?'

'My real estate agent is stil sending me flowers.'

'There you go. Even Randy here has been working. I saw you in that Rug Rubber ad a few months back.'

'You saw that?' Randy says, clearly touched.

'You were dressed up in fur or something?'

'A dust bunny.'

'Yeah! And then this giant worm—'

'The Rug Rubber.'

'It ate you.'

'More like it sucked me.'

'That's right! You were good, man.'

'What's your point here?' I ask.

'My point is I don't have any money. And not just 'I'm a little short this month,' but nothing.' ' With the departure of his smile he grows instantly thinner. 'My plan was to come into town, pay my respects to Ben and get out on the train that night. It was pretty much al I could afford to do anyway.'

'But you didn't go.'

'No.'

'Why not?'

Carl is standing now. He'd like to pace, but the slope of the trestle makes it too difficult, and he is left bent over at the waist, shuffling under the girders.

'I haven't used in over six months,' he says. 'It's been hard. The hardest thing I've ever done. But I've been clean for longer than a week for the first time since I was thirteen years old, and it feels good. I'm actualy proud of myself, know what I mean? Then I come here. And as soon as I get off the train I can hear his voice. The boy's voice. Teling me to do things.'

'Like what?'

'Give in. To go out and cop a rock, fuck myself up. He wanted to see me fail. No, not even that.' Carl wipes the back of his hand under his nose. 'What he realy wanted was to watch me die.'

'It didn't work,' Randy says.

'But it almost did. The first night I'm here and I'm caling up some guys I know, asking who's dealing in Grimshaw these days. Less than an hour after they put Ben down in the ground and I've got a loaded crack pipe in my hand, sitting on a bed out at the Swiss Cottage, where they've given me the off-season special, teling myself that if I smoke this shit, if I go back to that life, it'l kil me.'

I don't want to ask this, but I do. 'Did you light it?'

'I wanted to. The voice was telling me to. The boy was saying how my life was never worth much anyway, so why not enjoy myself a little before joining my old buddy Ben for a nice, long dirt nap. I came close about seven thousand times over the next day and a half. But no, I didn't.'

'You could have come to us,' Randy starts. 'We would—'

'I know you would have helped, Randy. Or tried. I know you both would. That's why I came to look for you tonight.'

'You looked for us in the Thurman house?' I ask.

'Over the nights I stayed at the Swiss Cottage, I'd go for walks around town. One way or another I'd always end up at the bottom of Caledonia Street, keeping away from the streetlights, looking at that fucking house. And then I saw Trev going into the McAuliffes'. Figured that's where you were staying. So that's where I headed first tonight, to see if you were there. But I didn't get as far as Mrs. A.'s door.'

'What stopped you?'

'The house.' Carl looks up through the slats at the slices of night sky overhead. 'What I saw in the house.'

Randy shoots me a look. One that says that he's not going to ask, so it's up to me.

'What did you see, Carl?'

'A girl in the window. One of the upstairs bedrooms. Remember, Trev?'

A picture of the boy returns to me: standing over the bed, over a girl's body, the pattern of blood on the wals. I have to squeeze my eyes shut and open them again to push it away. 'I remember.'

'She was looking down at me,' Carl says. 'Just a kid. A totaly scared-shitless kid. Trying to claw her way through the glass but at the same time not wanting anyone to hear her, y'know?

Because she wasn't alone in there.'