Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

He grinned crookedly like it was a bad joke and he couldn’t figure out the punch line. He scoffed and let out a chuckle. Then his face hardened. He finished his drink and slapped the glass down hard enough that it rang like a bell. “What the hell are you saying?”

“You did it, Grey.”

“You’ve got to calm down, kid.”

“I am calm.”

“Your imagination is working overtime. You’re bent all out of shape. Is this what’s been on your shoulders? This is what talking to your brother has done? No wonder you’re acting flighty.”

He moved toward me and I backed up. He kept coming and I kept backing up into the living room. He unbuttoned the top button of his collar. His hands moved incredibly fast. He continued smiling. I stood a little straighter. I stopped trembling. “Don’t do it, Grey.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Look at your hands, Grey.”

He looked down. He found that he was holding his tie twisted between his fists. His chin came up again and he met my eyes.

“Terrier, you need to listen to me. Just calm down, kid. You need to calm down.”

“I am calm.”

“Talk to me.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I asked. I could feel the tears in my throat. “Do you know who I am?”

“Talk to me, Terrier. We can talk this out. We need to talk this out. I’m here for you. I’m here to listen to you.”

“Do you even know who you are anymore?”

He came at me so casually, his face passive. He let the tie go slack between his hands, winked at me the way he used to when I was a kid sitting beside him at a ball game and the team he’d bet on had won the game. He never lost that kind of bet, it was always a sure thing. He’d sit back in the stands with a beer halfway to his lips and he’d give me a wink and hit me with that grin, the one that said nothing could stop us, nothing could ever beat us. I took another step backward. He brought his hands a little higher. I whispered his name. I was strong and fast. He was sixty-two. He had powerful hands. I could outrun him if I could just stik,get my legs to work. I backed up and passed in front of the television screen. As I blocked out the cartoons, Gramp’s head fell forward, then came back up. I wanted him to look at me again. I wanted him to tell me I was right. I hit the far wall. Maybe I’m wrong, I could be wrong. Grey came closer until our chests were nearly touching, like he wanted a hug.

“Don’t make me do this,” I begged.

“Do what?” Grey asked. “What are you going to do? Tell me.”

He got the tie up to my throat and began to press. He couldn’t get much purchase. He tried to turn me, hoped to get behind me. I coughed and said his name again, tried to push him away. We wrestled across the room, knocking pictures off the wall: Collie graduating from high school, smirking, thinking he had the world by the balls with his stupid blue mortarboard and tassel; Dale and my mother grinning into the camera, my sister about six, missing one front tooth, really giving it her gleeful all; Gramp at twenty-one, hip and not quite handsome, but with amused eyes like he’d already snatched the photographer’s wallet. Glass shattered on the floor.

We bashed up against a curio cabinet that almost went over. I got a flash of Gramp’s eyes and thought I saw a hint of sorrow in there. I wondered how much of his family’s destruction he would hold himself accountable for. I thought of Scooter fifteen years from now, when she’d be a beautiful young brown-haired woman jogging in the park. I thought of Grey still on the prowl. He said, “Stop it, Terry!”

I croaked, “Let go,” and drove the heel of my hand under his chin. It wasn’t enough. I hit him again. Two rivulets of blood poured out the sides of his mouth, but he wouldn’t stop. JFK started barking like mad outside, leaping at the screen. I hooked Grey twice to the belly and he pulled away. His eyes were fiery but without personality. Without any of the Grey I knew in them. He’d vanished that quickly into the underneath.

I hauled off and hit him in the face again. He dropped his tie on the floor and fell back, reaching out to steady himself against the card table. He touched his jacket pocket and drew his hand away as if he’d been burned. The symbols of our life intensified over time and controlled us right to the end.

He went for his trouser pocket, moving so fast that I barely saw him draw out Collie’s knife.

It was a switchblade. A weak choice-the thin blade tended to break easily-and I wondered why Collie had bought one off Fingers Brown in addition to the pistol. Did he need the feeling of sawing through flesh?

Grey snapped it open and rushed me. I dodged but not quickly enough. He stabbed me in the side. I screamed, or tried to, but the sound stuck in my throat. He tried again, and I lashed out with an uppercut that raised him onto his tiptoes and forced him away. I dropped to all fours and clenched my right hand over the wound and tried not to writhe. As I scurried back, my left hand touched Grey’s tie. I snatched it up and got to my feet. My uncle was coming for me again.

The latch on the screen door snapped and JFK burst through. He barked frantically without any idea of what to do or who to do it to. He circled us as we faced off again.

“Grey-”

“Just calm down,” he said, his jaw broken, the words flailing from his mouth.

He stabbed at me again and I tried to wrap the tie like a cord around his wrists, bind them together, but he fought free. He slash an,ed me across the belly and I barely felt it. My rage and panic were loose. I’d either hauled him down into the darkness or he’d done it to me. We were both going to die and I was fine with that.

I hissed, “Not Scooter, you prick.”

He got me in a choke hold with his left hand and pushed me back against the front window. Glass cracked behind my head and I started to bleed into my ears.

I heard footsteps. I glanced over and saw Dale rushing us, her expression frightened and then not concerned but furious, bitter, as if she too were showing her true self. I could smell beer on her breath and the sweet scent of marijuana on her clothes. She’d been out with friends or Butch again, and the guy had dropped her off at the curb. By the time she made it to the porch she’d heard the action inside. Instead of running off or calling the cops, she’d jumped into the fight.

JFK continued to bark, so frantic now he was practically out of his head.

The switchblade danced in front of my belly. Grey shifted his weight, ready to thrust through my guts.

My sister’s eyes met mine. I saw her pull the butterfly knife from her pocket, the one she’d wanted for protection. I wondered if she was going to help Grey kill me. I saw a flash of her teeth. I started to count off the major grudges she held against me, but there could be a thousand more I wasn’t aware of. Collie would never know all my resentments. No one would.

I closed my eyes and waited for her to slide her blade into my belly a moment after Grey eased in his. Maybe they’d leave me in the backyard crawling around on the lawn in my own filth. I couldn’t bear the idea of my mother seeing that and I let out a gurgling moan.

Dale shoved the knife into Grey’s back.

He cried out and glared at her over his shoulder. She said, “Oh God-”

She had trouble withdrawing the blade. It stuck between his shoulders for a moment before she finally managed to wrench it loose.

“What are you doing?” she said, her eyes full of confusion. She looked at Grey’s blood on the knife and covering her hands. Then she looked up at me. “Why did you make me do that?”

Grey glowered at her as if seeing her for the first time. A vicious, humorless leer widened across his face like a deep scar. Without turning, he prodded me again with his left hand and I went a little farther through the window. He let out a laugh as the switchblade in his right fist flailed in front of Dale. I’d never heard a laugh like that before. I reached for his wrist, but his hands were so goddamn strong and fast. It took everything I had to move him off a foot, then two, then three, just trying to get him away from my sister.