The Dead Yard

11: THE SMOKEHOUSE

The bottle is the most important thing in the world. The dirty Coke bottle on the floor. That no one notices.

Fear is my enemy.

Pain is my friend.

An image. The remains of a man, naked, his skin bruised black and verdant green and lying facedown dead in a sheugh on a one-lane road in the bog country. The rain falling and there’s a breath of wind from out of the Sperrins, a hackle of dogs howling, and the warped glass of a camera lens taking pictures. The body is not the body of a man. His genitals have been torn off, his eyes gouged out with a screwdriver, and his fingernails burned off one by one with arc-welding gear. His kneecaps have been smashed in with a sledgehammer and the synovial fluid lies caked on his shins like dry white spittle. He has been scalped and his feet wrapped in barbed wire. Electrodes have been attached under his arms, where they have burned him and cauterized him hairless. A helicopter is hovering grimly above him with the swamp grass rising to meet it as if it were some monstrous god-the hushed void of peat, vaporous and awed in its considerable presence.

I have seen this picture.

An informer shot in the temple. I have seen this picture more than once. From Samantha’s files. Touched’s handiwork in the flesh. In the washed-out black-and-white tones of the bogland.

With Samantha he exercised what, for him, was a chivalrous restraint.

I know what he is capable of doing.

Someone is shaking me.

Fear is my enemy.

Pain is my friend.

The Coke bottle. Focus on that.

A shake.

“Are you with us, brother Sean?”

A cough. I squint into the dark. I’m tied, naked against a wall. My arms stretched out and my wrists bound about the wooden support beams of the smokehouse. The cuffs wouldn’t stretch round the big beam, but this is better in any case. Tying me out like this is a stress position that’s like a slow form of crucifixion. My lungs are filling with fluid. I’m gradually drowning.

A man has a chair turned round and is sitting in front of me.

“I can see that your eyes are open and I would assume, having some considerable experience in this field, that you are unconcussed.”

“I’m suffocating.”

“So I see.”

“You’re killing me.”

“That’s the idea, my boy.”

“Go to hell.”

“Ha, ha. I admire your pluck, but that is hardly the tone to take with me, considering your position and my position.”

“Fuck off.”

I open my eyes to look at him. It’s Gerry, of course, saying this. He’s wearing a wool cap and sipping from a big plastic drinking cup.

He’s pulled a light on above his head and I notice Peter in the far corner. Also tied to a crossbeam, but his hands are behind his back. He won’t suffocate, he’ll live until the final bullet. They’ve kept him blindfolded, Touched sustaining the pretense of being able to let him go someday.

“I see you have no trouble speaking,” Gerry says.

“Not yet.”

“That’s good, we want you to talk. Come on. Look, let’s make it easy on ourselves, shall we? Just tell me your name,” Gerry says cajolingly.

“Sean.”

“Your real name.”

“That is my bloody real name.”

“You told Kit your name was Michael.”

“I lied. I was trying to impress her. It was all a lie. I’m Sean McKenna.”

“Why would you say your name was Michael? I know you want to talk. You’re itching to. All those pent-up feelings, emotions. We want to know your real name, and your contacts and what you’ve told them about us. We do know one very important thing, though. You haven’t been out of our sight for two days, so obviously they don’t know about this place. No one is going to rescue you. You’re going to die here unless you cooperate.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Gerry. I was just trying to impress her. I think Touched made a big mistake with that woman in Newburyport and I think you saw that too. This is a big mistake too, Gerry. I was bullshitting Kit. I was trying to scare her a little bit, that’s all, and I-”

“Enough.”

He pushes me back against the wall, a simple push, but there’s a sharp stab of pain from the ricochet wound in my shoulder and head. I suppose I’d been lucky that it hadn’t embedded itself in me, festering, breeding bacteria. Adding yet more pain. But as Touched said, probably in a while I’d be praying that it had killed me.

Gerry tugs my hair, looks at me, disappointed.

He must have told Touched that he could get more out of me with the gentle approach. Softly, softly, catchee monkey, and all that malarkey.

Well, perhaps it’s an opportunity.

If I can drive a wedge between Gerry and Touched, the rest will go with Gerry. Sonia and Kit must be appalled by what’s been happening and Jackie didn’t look too impressed with what Touched did to Samantha. It’s a thought. A possibility.

“Gerry, I want you to believe me. I made that all up for Kit, I’m not what you think I am. But it doesn’t matter, I know you’ll kill me no matter what; Touched killed that woman he thought was an agent. He’ll do the same to me. But I’m no agent. I’m a builder. A navvy. I’m on your side, Gerry. It’s the truth, I’m telling you the truth,” I say as convincingly as I can.

“So you’re not going to open up to me?”

“I am, I have been,” I insist.

“Sean, you don’t want me to let the boys play with you anymore. You already look like yesterday’s dog’s dinner. Tell me your name and we’ll go easy on you,” he says.

“It’s Sean.”

“Do you want a drink of something? Tell me and I’ll give you a drink. Help me here, Sean, work with me, come on,” he says, holding out the plastic cup.

“How can I help you when I keep telling you the truth and you won’t fucking believe me?”

Gerry leans forward with the cup, which seems to contain iced tea. I’d sell my soul for one sip.

“Come on, you want a drink.”

“Yeah.”

“Well then, tell me your name,” he says softly.

“I’ve told you, Gerry. I’ve told you the truth.”

His patience slips away. He puts the cup down, gets laboriously to his feet.

“Listen to me, you wee fuck. How stupid do you think we are? We know everything. We know you are called Michael, we know you were working for the FBI. We know that woman Touched killed was working with you. You are fucked, mate. What can you possibly hope to get out of this?”

He slaps me across the face. I recoil from the blow and the waves of pain. It throbs through me for a minute or more.

“To stay alive as long as possible,” I say in answer to his question.

“And you think the longer you hold out, the longer-”

“Yes,” I say, interrupting him.

“We’ll make you talk in the end.”

“Probably in the end I’ll say anything Touched wants me to say. I’ll confess to fucking anything to stop the torture.You know that, Gerry. I’ll say I’m a British agent. I’ll say I shot JFK. I’ll say I faked the moon landings. I’ll tell him anything.”

“So why not make it easier on yourself? Tell me, tell me the truth, let’s keep him out of it,” Gerry says.

“I’ve told you the goddamn truth.”

“We’re deadlocked then.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not convincing me.”

“Or you convincing me.”

“No,” he says and almost laughs.

Instead he sighs, looks around the smokehouse, shakes his head. He kicks away the chair and leans in. His breath bad, smelling of onions and some kind of spirit.

“Ok, goodbye now, Sean. I’ve given you a fair chance for a quick death. It’s all been me. I took you into my home, I gave you a job, and this is what you do to abuse my trust.”

“I didn’t abuse it-”

Gerry puts a meaty paw around my throat and squeezes hard to cut me off.

“Abused my trust, fucker. And a worse piece of shit I have never seen in my life. And when I do blow your fucking head off, Michael, I’m going to go back to Ireland and find your ma and cut her throat too. Your ma and da and brothers and sisters. I’m going to top them and burn their houses down and make them wish they’d never heard of you. Do you hear me?Do you fucking hear me?”

He releases the grip on my throat so I can answer him.

“You won’t be going back to Ireland, Gerry. You won’t be going anywhere but a fucking federal prison,” I say as smugly as I can.

“What does that mean? Open those eyes. Look at me, god-damnit.”

Thumbs grub into my eyes and open them in a violent tug.That fat face staring at me.

“I’m going to tell you something, traitor,” Gerry says and pauses to catch his breath.

“Anything but one of your Latin maxims,” I reply and even manage a little smirk.

He grins, but only for a second and then a hard punch in the mouth jerks my head backwards forty-five degrees, thumping it into the back of the wooden wall.

Blackness.

Awareness.

The pain dissipating so that it becomes localized and specific, rather than one huge seething mess.

An hour or more since he was here.

My lungs seething.

But he’s left the light on.

The kid in the corner, hooded, gagged. A dirt floor. Meat hooks in the ceiling for smoking venison and pig. A Coke bottle in the corner. A retro, old-fashioned bottle made of glass.

Big one. Liter bottle with a broken neck.

Little pockets of pain.

Check it.

The burning gunshot wound. And the lads worked me over pretty good. The pain is bad in the testicles, where I must have been kicked hard. A stabbing soreness that jags and dissolves into the more general numbness around my lower torso.

The ribs. Head. My drowning lungs.

Thirst.

Above all, thirst.

The door opens.

A brief glimpse of light and the woods and the house. It’s dusk. The deadline will be up in the morning. Peter and I have one more night. A shadow in the doorway. He comes in.

The bottle, focus on the bottle.

Because it’s him.

It’s Touched.

His big, menacing silhouette dominating the frame, overwhelming my field of vision.

The door closes.

He sits on the seat and lights a cigarette.

“Hi,” he says quietly.

The good ones know you don’t have to raise your voice to get things done. To make your presence felt. Let the weak yell and shout and waste time and emotion. The strong can devastate with a whisper.

“I’m going to have to kill ya to learn ya, is that right, Michael?” he says in an Irish purr.

Two can play at that game.

With him I will not speak at all.

That’s the rule that will control him and beat him.

“I said I’m going to have to learn you to talk, am I right?”

I gave him a smile.

“Oh-ho, you’re playing a game with me. A game with me? Dear oh dear. Big mistake, my friend,” he says, a twinkle in those cold eyes.

My grin widens.

“Fuck me, Michael, you are fucking brave. Have to wipe that smile off your face… Now, we’ll try again. What’s your full name?”

But I shake my head.

He waits.

The silence annoys him. Gets his goat. Makes him think that I’m smarter than he is.

He rubs his chin.

There are to be no imprecisions of belief permitted here and Touched must say something to cover the hesitancy and convince himself.

“No, Michael, you can’t speak, because I have to teach you a whole new language,” he says at last.

He gets up, and I look at the cigarette, flinch.

He spits. Shakes his head.

“So you think I’m here to burn ye with me fags, do you? Well, don’t have any worries on that score. I just want to talk.See, we want this over with just as much as you. You’re boring me. We just want to know what you’ve told your bosses in London and Washington. What you’ve told them about us.”

I wink at him.

Touched leans on the back of the chair.

“You’ve seen what I’m capable of, haven’t you?”

I nod my head.

His voice is soft again, almost loving.

“You know that that was just the beginning. Right? She was the appetizer. You will be my project, my life’s work. That I assure you. They’ll talk about you for years to come. You’ll be the horror story they tell in Langley to the rookies. ‘The worst I ever heard was about this body we found in Maine.’ And I’ll make sure they find you and they’ll know it’s you. You won’t even look human when I’m done, but I’ll carve a note in your skin explaining who you are and what you did.”

My smile fades, but somehow I force it back onto my lips.

“How’s your arms, Michael? Are they comfortable? Are your lungs starting to hurt? Well, maybe everything else hurts so much you haven’t noticed. But you will. Eventually we’ll tie you higher on the crossbeams, so your feet are off the floor. Later on tonight. When I’ve gouged out your eyes and castrated you. Not now. Later. You see, Michael, I’m patient. I’ve got all the time in the world. Think about it. You just think about that.”

He pats me on the cheek, yawns, and walks over to Peter.

“And how are you, young fella my lad? How are you doing? Are you glad to have company? Let me take that out of your mouth… There. That’s better. The girls are bringing you supper. But no talking now. Understand? If you say one word to them I’ll cut out your English tongue. Nod your head if you get me.”

Peter nods.

“Good. You take care now, you too, Michael. I’ll be seeing you.”

Touched opens the smokehouse door. Pauses. The sun has set, but I notice that up at the house there’s a person walking this way. Two people. Is she one of them? A hundred thousand synapses have been destroyed by blows to the head. And it’s dark. Seeing is difficult. But yeah, that’s her. Holding something, touching her fingers to her lips. Something glinting. A crucifix around her neck. Fine time to find religion. She’s nervous. Her chest breathing hard, almost hyperventilating in that big brown sweater.

Touched closes the door. But I’ve already seen them. Seen her. Walking over with food for Peter.

And I want to tell her. And I’ll tell her.

Kit. The world is going to end tonight. No matter what happens.

Don’t look for it in the skies.

And that cross won’t protect you.

It’s lying on the floor.

If I can get it.

I will get it.

Kit, honey, you should read The Brendan Voyage as a manual on perseverance in the face of the apocalypse. Aye. The world will end tonight, for one of us at least. Turn the handle. Turn the-

The door opens for the third time and the third character in the story enters. There are snowflakes on her sweater and hair. September snow. What a delightful rarity. Be another lovely Frost poem, but for the torture and the hostages in the bloody woodshed.

Sonia behind Kit, carrying a tray. They leave the door open and the cold air is a welcome balm. They come in and Kit goes to pull the light on but sees it’s already lit and hesitates. Neither of them gazes at my side of the smokehouse.

“Hello, girls, remember me?” I say, lisping from a cracked jaw.

She doesn’t want to, but then her head turns. She looks and it all collapses. Her face, the white of her hand, and it appears for a moment as if she might swoon. She steadies herself. I know your mantra. This is his just desserts. He betrayed all of us.

Sonia pours water from a bottle into Peter’s mouth and feeds him from the plate.

“Sonia, I’m so thirsty, please,” I say.

Her hand shakes but she ignores me, stealing only a quick glance back. Sonia is not the one to work on. She’s been sucked into all of this and has accepted the journey down to hell. No doubt Gerry has comforted her with a line from the bloody Aeneid. I catch her in another wee look and she stares through me, blinking stupidly.

And no, I’m wrong. She’s not going along with it, she’s just overmedicated. Painkillers, booze. Numb.

In any case, she ain’t the one.

Kit comes over.

“Hello, Kit.”

“Hello,” she says in two-point lowercase. Mouse speak.

Barely a whisper.

“You did what you had to do, Kit. I don’t blame you,” I tell her.

“I did what I had to, yes,” she says, as lifelike as Deep Blue.

She rubs at her eyes, trying to erase the sight of so much blood. She pulls down the sleeve of the massive sweater. It’s too big for her, it’s one of her dad’s, and she looks lost in it.

Like an orphan child.

She steps back.

“You weren’t expecting snow, were you?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Sean, I, I…” she tries to explain.

“I know. Don’t worry about it, Kit. You made your decision, and by this time tomorrow both Peter and I will be dead, murdered, and it’ll all be over. You can think about it then.”

On the other side of the room, Peter chokes on his food, but he’s careful not to respond.

“I have to go,” she says and walks to the door.

Hesitates.

And stands there in silhouette, the door creaking as she pushes it with feigned indifference and then the hint of a skitter smile, trying to be brave and hard, like Ming the Merciless. Snow falling on one arm outside and not on the one inside, teasing me with the scent of the external world.

This is much more effective and such sweet torture.

You, in indecision. Torn between the cause and the family and me. Standing there, emphasizing the alignments of power in the room and the fact that you have the control and are exercising it to close out the cool air and the snowflakes and the pale and sulfurous external light.

Sonia finishes feeding Peter.

She joins Kit at the door.

“We should go,” Sonia says.

And if I could speak and think, what would I say to her? How would I convince her?

Oh, Kit, I lied, but your dad’s the bigger liar. Your whole fucking culture is built on warped, pisshead sentimentalism. There were no old glories, just ugly massacres and men murdered on their doorsteps, or kids blown up in fish-and-chip shops, or taxi drivers gunned down behind a warehouse in the stinking docks.

You’re going to kill me, and then what are you going to do? Wipe out every Protestant in Ireland until it’s ethnically pure?Then the Jews, Chinese, blacks. It’s so silly. It’s so twentieth century. We’re a couple of years from a new millennium. Don’t you see that, Kit? I’m the future. You’re the past.

Someone clears his throat and a man appears behind her in the doorjamb. It’s too late to say anything now.

“What’s keeping you two? You didn’t give bloody Benedict any, did you?” he asks.

“No,” Sonia says meekly.

It’s Jackie, and such is the change in the dynamic of the group that he, who is half Sonia’s age, has her cowed, scared.

“Out of there, the pair of you,” he orders, and they go scurrying away up to the cabin. Jackie makes sure they’re long gone, shakes the snow off his jacket, and walks in carrying something. A tree branch or a billy club or a-

He runs at me and thumps it down on the top of my head.

“That’s your supper, mate,” he says and, chuckling to himself, pulls the rope to the bulb, extinguishes the only light, and slams the door.

I fought the blackout. If I passed out now I could die during the night, so I had to stay awake, conscious, sentient.

The pain was my great ally. They’d done me a favor, break- ing my ribs and kicking my head in and punching me.

I heard the footsteps march away from the smokehouse and back to the main cabin. Where was it? That bottle, that fucking Coke bottle. The light was failing and there wasn’t going to be much time left to look.

I blinked the blood out of my eyes and strained on the ropes.

There was going to be no Houdini on those cords. They’d tied me with a hangman’s knot so that as I pulled it got tighter. The only way I was getting out of these bonds was if I could somehow cut them.

I stretched my body as far as it would go. Pointed the toes of my right foot. I leaned and strained with every muscle left.

The Coke bottle was a few inches away. Wouldn’t matter if it was a few miles. I tried to reach it but it was impossible.

Come on, you son of a bitch.

I pulled and twisted. My lungs feeling as if I’d inhaled hot pitch.

I stopped the stretch and took a breath.

Lay back on the wall, tried to rest my ass on a raised knot of wood. Anything would be better than no support at all.

I sucked in the air.

A voice. English.

“Hello?” Peter said.

Sonia had forgotten to replace his gag.

“Hello,” I replied once I had recovered.

“I’ve been listening to you all afternoon,” he said in an Essex-boy London accent.

“Yeah?”

“I think they’re gone for the day now,” he said hopefully.

“Aye.”

“I want to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“I’m afraid,” he said simply.

“Don’t be. We’re going to be ok,” I told him.

“They’re going to kill us, aren’t they? You’re an FBI agent and I’m a British general’s son. They’re going to kill both of us.”

“They’re not going to kill us.”

“They fucking are, oh my God, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die,” he said and cried quietly for a minute or two. I let him get it out and then I told him.

“Peter, if you’re going to talk to me you gotta keep your voice down. They’ll be back tonight to check on us periodically. So keep it down, pal.”

“I don’t want to die,” he said, quieter now, but still sobbing.

“Listen to me, sonny. Every single word I say costs me a tremendous effort so I’m not going to repeat anything. We’re going to be all right. I need you to keep it together. If I can find a way out of here, you’re coming too. Whatever happens, I’m going to need you to be on the ball. If you’re girning like a wean and paralyzed by fear and I have to worry about you as well as them, we’re both as dead as a ham sandwich. Understood?”

He thought for a few seconds. Took a deep breath.

“I understand.”

“Ok, good. That’s what I like to hear. It’s going to be ok, but you’re going to have to work with me.”

He shuffled a little against the pole. The way they’d tied him, he could stand or sit. Now he was sitting. The blindfold was a bandage they had wrapped round his head and covered in duct tape.

“What do you need me to do?” he asked, a wail creeping back into his voice again.

“I need you to calm down and trust me. I need you to compose yourself. It’s going to be ok, but, Jesus, you’ve got to trust me. Ok?”

“Ok,” he said softly.

“What are you tied to that thing by?”

“A chain.”

“Can you get out of it?”

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“Ok, well, I want you to try. It looks like you’re chained to a big wooden beam, so if nothing else the chain should be able to saw through the wood. Find a rough spot on the metal and start sawing. I’ll tell you if anyone comes in.”

“Ok,” Peter said.

And I’ll do my work.

I leaned as far to the right as possible, but even my outstretched little toe could still not touch the goddamn bottle.

“What’s your name?” Peter asked.

“Michael Forsythe,” I told him. “No more talking. We’ve work to do.”

I tried again. If it was another six inches to the right, I’d have no chance. But as it was, it was just close enough to exercise my frustrations. They’d done the same to that Greek guy, years ago. Tantalus. Poor fuck.

“They’re going to kill us, Michael, aren’t they? Tell me the truth,” Peter said.

“The truth is, Peter, we have a pretty fair chance of getting out of this. I left a note for the peelers on your boat, telling them where we were taking you. I didn’t know the exact location but, believe me, they’re coming. They’ll be here. Maybe not soon enough for me, but the deadline on you doesn’t expire until tomorrow, so if you keep calm and your fingers crossed, you might make it out of here.”

“Are you saying that to make me feel better?”

“No, I’m not. Now shut up for a minute.”

He was quiet and I was quiet and he began sawing into the wooden beam with a smooth iron chain. He could do it if he had a couple of years, but it was better to keep him busy.

I spent the next hour trying in vain to touch the bottle with my foot.

But it was not possible. I’d need an atypical Maine earthquake or the assistance of a friendly Disney animal if I was ever going to reach it.

Nah, the only way would be to ask Kit if she could fill it with water for me if she came in next time without Sonia. She just might to do it out of compassion. Sonia wouldn’t let her do it. But Kit might.

There was a noise outside.

A chain saw being jacked into life.

The door opened.

Touched was standing outside the smokehouse, obviously drunk, holding the saw, the chain whirring, smoke pouring out of the exhaust, a stink of sawdust and petrol.

I wasn’t afraid.

If this was it, well, I’d given it a damn good shot.

He was grinning, stumbling, whirling the saw about his head.

“Here we go, Mikey boy,” he said, laughing.

There was someone with him. Two people. Jackie and Gerry. They pulled the light, closed the door, and then there was an argument.

“What do you think you’re playing at? Need to go lie down in the snow for ten minutes, this is fucking serious,” Gerry was saying.

Touched said something incoherent.

The chain saw got turned off.

“Fucking show you both a thing or two,” Touched said.

Wiser heads had prevailed.

“My way,” Gerry said.

Touched muttered something.

Gerry opened the door.

Touched behind him, Jackie too. They’d all been drinking.

“Go ahead,” Gerry said. Touched and Jackie clenched their fists, rushed me.

And it all began again.

Tenses change. The room implodes. Touched kicks me in the stomach and punches my limp head. My skull bangs against the log wall.

Punches and kicks. A yell and a swinging away of noise and light. Blood streaming onto my chin, a terrible noise that turns out to be me screaming.

Touched, Jackie standing back, breathing hard from the effort.

“Well, that’s a sweet hello,” I manage.

Jackie laughs.

“His name is Michael Forsythe, he told me, that’s his name,” Peter says.

Touched stops, turns to Peter.

“What did you say?” Touched asks.

“He told me his name. Michael Forsythe. See, I’m helping you. I’m on your side.”

“What else did he tell you?” Touched asks.

Whatever you do, don’t tell him about the boat, Peter, or he’ll kill us both right now and flee the goddamn house.

“He, he just told me his name. Michael Forsythe. That’s all,” Peter mutters.

Touched looks at me.

“Michael Forsythe? Where have I heard that name before? Let me think,” he wonders aloud.

“I’ll spare you the trouble. I was the man that killed Darkey White, ratted out his gang, and went into the Witness Protection Program,” I say.

Gerry nods his head.

“Yeah. That’s right. I remember you, I read about you.

Even in Boston that was a story. You killed some of his men, too. Isn’t there a price on your head?” he says.

“Aye, there is, bound to be close to a million bucks,” I mutter.

“Million bucks, dead or alive, actually,” Touched says.

“Nice wee bonus for us, Gerry, nice wee bonus.”

I shake my head.

“I don’t understand. Who is he?” Jackie asks.

“He was working for the feds, Jackie. Weren’t you, Michael? You’ve been federaled up the ass for at least, at least five years now, I suppose. But why us, pal? You’d think you’d want to keep a low profile after Darkey White.”

“I couldn’t resist your charming personality, Touched,” I tell him.

“Yeah, I heard you were a fucking cocky son of a bitch. Did you think you could take us down, like you took down Darkey? You were impressive then, but look at you now. Look at the state of you. This time you’re a bit out of your league.Don’t you think?” Touched says.

“Nobody said he’d only one fucking foot, though. That’s a distinguishing feature they forgot about. And his hair doesn’t look the same,” Gerry says.

I say nothing.

“I can’t believe this is what the feds make you do to pay the bills,” Gerry adds, drinking from a flask and slurring his words.

Fear and a thought. Have they all got drunk enough so they can get the moral courage to butcher me?

“Have to talk about this one, won’t we, Ger,” Touched says.

Gerry looks pained and confused, but finally he nods.

“One more for good measure,” Touched adds.

He kicks me in the stomach with his booted foot, a real good kick, nothing held back. I cough and spit blood and phlegm, wheezing and riding with the ripple of the blow. The pain almost knocking me out again.

“Come on,” Gerry says, “we’ll discuss this over a wee dram.”

“Nah, one more, Gerry, I’ll learn him for Darkey White, too,” Touched says and takes his little green toolbox from his back pocket. He removes a thin knife.

“Now you listen to me, you wee bastard. You’re going to tell us everything from the beginning or you’re gonna wish your ma had a miscarriage instead of you, I swear, boy,” he says.

With that he stabs me. The knife, small and cool, cutting into my flesh like a scalpel into tenderloin. The blade carving into my skin and the pain unbearable. Touched slicing up my skin, steady and relaxed, as if he’d done this hundreds of times before. Gliding it effortlessly under the soft membrane of my chest and digging through the tissue and blood vessels and hair with a harsh and unnecessary deepness. Touched coughs like an old man, leans forward with a bony hand and those yellow nails, and rips away a bloody square of skin and holds it up to me.

Someone’s screaming.

It’s me, the weak noise bounding back at me from the log wall. Screaming. Gasping at the air to breathe it in. I bite my tongue to stop it. I take a breath.

We face each other.

In the lines of dark with nothing between us.

Nothing.

It’s not loss or rage or resentment or revenge. Nothing.

Only the muddy light and an odd calm. One breath upon another.

Touched tosses away the patch of skin, irritated. He can read a situation like a master and he sees that he still has not yet mentally beaten me. He picks up the old wooden chair and smacks it into my legs, breaking it into pieces. I buck from the pain and fight another blackout.

“We have to go now, but we’ll be back,” he says.

He throws the remains of the chair onto the floor.

It clinks into the Coke bottle, knocking it against my foot.

“We’ll be back and we’ll bring Sonia and Kit, too, and we’ll all take our turns on you, and you’ll talk. You’ll tell me everything. It won’t be like that bitch, your boss, in Newburyport. Won’t be in a rush. I can take it nice and fucking slow with you, pal. Jack, Gerry, let’s go.”

He spits at me, misses, turns, exits, and slams the smokehouse door behind him.

He will be back. I shiver uncontrollably, horribly scared, for a minute or two. And then I breathe and count to ten, twenty, a hundred.

And remember that this is the night and I should not be afraid because fear is the enemy.

Pain is the friend.

Fear is the enemy.

And down there on the floor is the Coke bottle that no one notices.