Blood Men

chapter twenty

You goddamn pussy!

“He had nothing to do with it.”

He let your wife die.

“It wasn’t his fault.”

You know what-stop with the bullshit. You’re nothing like your father.

“I don’t want to be.”

Well, you need to be if you want vengeance for Jodie. Or does that not matter anymore?

“Of course it does.”

Then the voice is gone.

I walk straight in the beginning, my legs are solid, but then I stagger a little, then a little more, and by the time I get to the car I’m holding my stomach, the world swaying out of control. I drop to my knees and hold the ground in probably the same way my dad described when me and Belinda would finally climb off the merry-go-round. I don’t think I ever threw up back then, but this time my stomach tightens, my throat catches, then hot vomit gushes from my mouth, frothy beer and bile splashing into a puddle next to my car door. I get back to my feet, this horrid, burning taste in my mouth, and I wipe a hand across my mouth, and then I realize two things at the same time-first of all, I don’t know where my keys are, the second thing is I’ve dropped the bag again. The sobriety that the monster brought with him has just as quickly left with him too, abandoning me, and suddenly the world is spinning one way while my mind sways another, the mixture not good, and I feel very, very ill.

The bag is a few meters away. I head back and snatch it up. I pat down my pockets but my keys haven’t appeared since I patted them down twenty seconds earlier. I reach the car and there’s a black and white cat sitting on the hood, staring at me. It watches me peer inside the car in case the keys are hanging from the ignition, but they’re not. I realize I’ve dropped the bag again. I move around the car and the keys are on the ground next to the puddle of vomit. I snatch them up, then fumble them then drop them right inside the bile-beer stew. Jesus. I pick them up and they drip, and when I try to wipe them on the grass I almost fall over and my hat falls off. I pick up the bag and the hat and spend too long unlocking the passenger door. The cat takes off and hides behind the closest bush it can find. I toss everything into the backseat.

The night has darkened considerably since I arrived, making the Christmas lights on the surrounding houses appear brighter. They’re not bright enough to light me up as I stand against the side of my car finally relieving the pain from my bladder by emptying it on the lawn. It’s either that or piss myself in the car. A half dozen plastic Santas stare down at me, mounted on roofs, all thinking the same thing-that they’d rather be somewhere else.

When I’m done I slouch in the driver’s seat and discover there are two steering wheels ahead of me and two roads, but they merge into one when I put my left hand over my right eye. Small drops of rain appear on the windscreen. Gerald Painter is still inside his house with his family, and he’s probably still crying. I put a hand on my chest to check my heartbeat, thinking that it ought to be racing, but it’s not. I could have been a killer right now, and if the monster had his way, I would be. The question is, how long can I keep it quiet for? No, wait-the real question is, do I want it to be quiet?

I fold my arms onto the steering wheel and rest my head on them. I close my eyes for a few moments, and when I open them again it’s to the sound of tapping on the driver’s-side window and it’s pouring with rain outside.