They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee

A Certain Romance

MacClough agreed to come. He thought I was making progress. If getting someone killed was making progress, then he was right. It didn’t feel like progress to me. It was difficult to discern what it felt like with a six-pack and half a bottle of vodka in me. I wasn’t any good at regulating hurt with alcohol. I don’t think anybody is, really. But there are people, people like MacClough and my Uncle Saul, who derived a certain liquid catharsis from binging. Even in the nausea of the next day, they found a strange satisfaction which escaped me, a certain romance. It wasn’t romance I was looking for.

I could not remove my gaze from the newspaper, from Steven Markum’s impassive face. I thanked God, for lack of a reasonable alternative that it wasn’t one of those photographs with penetrating eyes. They were neither the eyes of the omniscient oculist nor eyes to pin you wriggling to the wall. They were eyes bored of waiting on line at the motor vehicles office. I raised my glass to Steven Markum. We were quite a pair, Markum and me, numb and number. Numbness was underrated.

“To Captain Acid! Beware of incoming red tracers.”

He remained unmoved.

There was knocking at my door. I made myself not hear it and continued on the second half of the bottle. It would not go down so easily as the first. The headache had since started crawling into my sinuses and dinner wasn’t liking it. too much in my stomach. The knocking grew louder, insistent.

“Dylan!” Kira’s voice was worried. “Dylan, are you all right?”

I did not answer.

“Dylan, please let me in.”

Again, I did not answer.

“Dylan! Please. I hear you. What’s wrong?”

“You’re wrong!” I lashed out. “Get the fuck outta here!”

“Dylan!”

“Play time is over, Kira. Go and find some other kids and play grown-up with them.” I could be so brave behind a closed door.

“I’m frightened, Dylan.”

“For chrissakes,” I blustered, “stop calling me Dylan. I know my fucking name!”

“Do you want me to get some help?”

“No! I want you to go fuck somebody your own age and leave me the fuck alone. I don’t want you here.”

“Dylan-”

“Shut up!” I paused. “You know what I’ve been won dering, Kira?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’ve been wondering how you got so good at fucking old men. I-”

“Don’t do this, Dylan, please.”

“I’ll do what I want. Answer the question.”

“Please, Dylan, don’t-”

“Answer the fucking question!”

“What did I do wrong?” she quivered. “Why do you want to hurt me like this?”

“I’m not hurting you. I’m doing you a favor. Now do me one and get the fuck away from me!”

There was silence. No more pleading. No footsteps. No sobbing. Then:

“I hate you. I hate you for this!”

That made two of us. If she hesitated for a moment or ran down the hall, I couldn’t say. I was far too busy gagging on my own self-pity to notice.