Charlie Huston - The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

He laughed.

– Dude, you could be the poster boy for PTSD.

He untwisted the sleeve of his black T, where he'd tucked his pack of smokes.

– But knowing what the situation was, that didn't help me to figure out how to help.

I was still wearing the cleaning gloves. I pulled them off.

– I didn't know you were doing all that.

– I know you didn't. You didn't have a clue.

He lit his cigarette and blew smoke.

– Web, it wasn't just me, it was everyone you know. At first, anyway. We were all running around trying to figure out how to get your shit together. The guys from the tattoo shop, teachers from the school, Po Sin, some other parents from over there. But you were so, man, acting like such a dick. People just got tired. They didn't know how to deal and got frustrated. It was tiring, man. Jesus, it is tiring.

He looked around for an ashtray, couldn't find one, flicked on the carpet.

– So. I went and saw L.L.

– Man. I.

He held up a hand.

– No. Don't. Now is not the time. I mean. I went over to Chez Jay took a look at him, man, I started to cry. And. You know, not because I was pissed. It was, man, it was so fucking good to see him, you know.

He clenched his teeth.

– And that hurt like a son of a bitch. Let me tell you it did. Talk about feeling guilty. Anyway. He turned around, saw me. Know what he said?

I nodded.

– The wrong thing.

He took a long drag.

– You got that right. Said, Ah, Chev, come to see me after all these years. What's gone amiss, son, lost the strength of your convictions?

I closed my eyes, tried to imagine he was mistaken about what my father had said, knew he was not.

I opened my eyes.

– Did you hit him?

Smoke drifted from his nostrils.

– No. I walked out. Because right there, man, in that moment, I ceased to care anymore.

He leaned forward, elbows on knees.

– The man had finally, after the, after the accident, after the shit he told us, he had finally, in that moment when something could have been done, he had finally gone too far. Man, I didn't even know there was road left to travel on that route, but he found it and drove it and that was the end of the line for me. I didn't hit him. I did not want to hit him. I just wanted gone. I walked out.

– Good.

He nodded.

– Yeah. Good. But here's the thing, man, the point.

He looked at the floor, shook his head, looked back up at me.

– Like fucking father, Web, like fucking son.

I opened my mouth.

He closed it.

– No. Wait. Listen.

I listened.

– He wasn't always like that. He was always a son of a bitch, always talked shit, but he wasn't always mean. That didn't really start till after the accident. He didn't really start forcing everyone out of his life until after the accident.

He scratched his shoulder.

– If that rings any bells.

He got up.

– So it's not about the money. Or about you seeing L.L. If my dad were still around, no matter if he'd turned out to be the biggest bastard ever, I'd want to check on him every now and then. It's not even about you hurting my new girl's feelings so bad that she doesn't want to come here and I had to go to her place and sneak in and out of her bedroom because her folks would freak out if they knew her new boyfriend was a twenty-nine-year-old rocker with a tattoo parlor.

He walked to the hallway, stopped.

– It's about you not trying to get better. It's about everyone else trying so hard that they wear themselves out and can't try anymore, and you just letting them beat themselves against you while you act like nothing fucking happened. Acting like you're no different. Like you haven't changed at all.

He turned from me.

– Web, it's about me getting tired, man. It's about, I, man, it's about I feel like I'm on that same road I was on with L.L., about thinking we're almost out of blacktop. And you just keeping the pedal to the metal, and not even trying to put on the brakes.

He put a hand on top of his head.

– And I hate that feeling, man.

He walked into his bedroom.

– I hate it.

And he closed the door.

Me, I sat on the kitchen floor and thought about how it was a good thing I'd cleaned up as well as I did. Because if Chev had known a man was killed in his apartment last night, the shit would really have hit the fan.

Then I got up, cleaned myself up a little, put on some clothes, got the keys to the Apache from Chev's jacket, and went out to go talk to a man about why the girl I'd fallen for, and, you know, already thoroughly alienated, had been kidnapped.

– Cut you bad, cut you like Rambo cuts a redneck.

– Yeah, sure, I know. To avoid that, I'll stay over here.

– Cut you like I cut that other motherfucker.

I sat on the stripped mattress.

– Yeah, about him, you may find that it's in your best interest not to brag overmuch about how you cut him.

Jaime emptied his nip bottle of Malibu and added the empty to the vast array of them heaped at his feet. To judge by the population density around his chair, and by the paths worn through them between the chair and the door and the bathroom, he'd apparently done little since I last saw him other than drink Malibu, void his bladder to make room for more, and stumble to the liquor store on the corner for fresh supplies. He'd most certainly not had the maid in during any of his sojourns out.

He felt in the plastic bag in his lap, found it lacking, turned it inside out, found it still lacking, and dropped it on the floor.

– Well how the fuck ‘bout that. Ain't that a bitch?

He pawed in his pockets and found the twenty I'd just given him in order to persuade him to let me into the room.

– Need to go hit the store. Back in a sec.

He stood with the great care and instability of the tragically inebriated. I watched him take a step and place his foot squarely on a couple empty bottles that rolled from beneath him, and let gravity take it from there.

– Ow! Fuck! That hurts.

I got off the bed and walked over and held out a hand.

– C'mon.

He took my hand and I pulled him halfway up and let go and watched Newtonian physics at work again.

– Ow! Fuck!

– Sorry. My bad.

I stuck out my hand. He took it. I pulled and let go.

With anticipated results.

– Ow!

– Whoops.

I stuck out my hand. He eyed it. And decided, I imagine, that based on a model of the universe drawn from the Hollywood catalogue, no one could be so cruel as to intentionally abuse a poor drunk in such a manner.

I proved him wrong.

– Ow!

I held out my hand.

He slapped at it. Missed.

– Fuck you. Fuckin'.

He got to all fours, crawled to his chair and climbed back aboard, where he knew he'd be safe.

– Cut you bad, motherfucker.

I bent over and picked up the knife that had fallen from his back pocket.

– You might want this.

I tossed it on his lap.

He looked at it.

– Right. Thanks.

He picked up the plastic bag from the floor and stuck his hand inside.

– How the fuck ‘bout that.

He dropped the empty bag.

– Fuckin’ tragedy that is.

He pushed himself up, the knife falling to the floor.

– Gonna go hit the store.

I put a finger in his chest and pushed and he dropped back in the chair.

– Jaime, that guy you cut. Talbot.

– Yeah, weakass Talbot, cut him bad.

– What did you steal from Talbot and his friend?

He squinted.

– Fuck you talking ‘bout? Didn't steal shit. ‘M a producer. I facilitate the vision of the talent. Bring it together with the money.