Chris Whitaker - We Begin at the End

“Robin’s easy. He’s all … he’s the best of me. He’s a prince.”

They sat in the sand.

“Thirty years, Walk. And then bam, just back into the town you left behind. I thought about him, too much I thought about him over the years. And I know you liked that, you wanted to talk about him like we’re all the same people.”

He felt the heat then, the sweat across his back. “You do this, get drunk or high and nearly die, and then we walk and talk and nothing much changes.”

“You were cursed with pathological honesty, Walk. You carry weight you don’t even see. It’s not me who Duchess looks up to, it’s you.”

“No, it’s not—”

“You remind her of everything good. You are the man in her life, the person that doesn’t lie or cheat or fuck people over. She doesn’t say it, but she needs you. And you can’t ever let her down, because that’d be like turning out the light.”

“You’ll be alright. You can be that person for her.”

She tilled the sand, scooped it and let it run through her fingers. “What do I do? How do I stop being me?”

“See him.”

“Forgive him?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Every time I slipped or fell, it was him I was thinking about. I’m not strong enough to deal with it. What it all means, what having him back in my life means. And it’s not just my life.”

“He’s better than Dickie Darke.”

“Fuck, Walk. You’re like a kid. Better and worse. Bad and good. None of us are any one thing. We’re just a collection of the best and worst things we’ve done. Vincent King is a murderer. He killed my sister.” Her voice wavered. “I should’ve moved. I should’ve moved like Martha did, left the Cape behind.”

“I’ve watched out for you, and the children.”

She gripped his hand. “And I love you for it. You’re the best friend I ever had. There’s a grand plan, Walk. There’s cosmic forces, cause and effect.”

“You really believe that?”

“The universe finds a way to balance the good and the bad.” She stood and dusted the sand from her. “When he asks, you tell him I was done with him a long time ago. And don’t mention him again, Walk. And as for Duchess and Robin, they’re all that matters. And I’ll do all I can to prove that to them.”

He watched her leave, and then turned back to the ocean. They were words he had heard many times before, and words he prayed that this time she meant.

* * *

Midnight and a low rumble, headlights swept across the room, the closet without doors, the dresser with the broken drawer.

No posters of her own, artwork, hints at her thirteen years. A carpet worn thin, nylon threading to bare boards, and a small bed beside her brother’s where she slept tormented hours.

She checked Robin, sound, out of his sheets, air so warm his hair was slick. She closed the door tight, then went to the street door and opened it on the chain.

Star lay on dead grass.

Duchess went cautiously.

Up the street, the coruscation of brake lights as the Escalade made the turn away.

Duchess rolled her mother over, skirt hitched, indecent.

“Star.”

A mark by her eye, her lip fuller, the skin just about damming the blood.

“Star, wake up.”

Across the street she saw drapes move, the silhouette of the butcher, always watching. And then beside, the hard glow of Brandon Rock’s security light as it cast over the covered Mustang.

“Come on.” She slapped her mother’s cheek.

Ten long minutes to get her up, another ten and into the house. Star puked in the hallway, a kind of hard retching like she was bringing up her charcoal soul.

Duchess got her to the bed and lay her on her stomach, like she knew, pulled free her heels, cracked her window to cigarette smoke, sweet alcohol and perfume. Sometimes her mother woke her late when she stumbled in from a shift tending bar at Darke’s place. But this was the first time she had been beaten.

She went to the kitchen and filled a bucket. She cleaned the vomit so her brother would not see, then washed up and pulled on her jeans and sneakers.

In their bedroom she found her brother sitting up, a vacant look as she lay him back to sleep. She pushed the button, locked their door, lifted the window and climbed out.

Cape Haven slept, Duchess rode streets with care, away from Main and Sunset, where Walk sometimes sat and watched out. She thought of her mother and Walk, and the draw of alcohol and drugs that lessened the world.

A mile out, along Cabrillo, a half hour and her thighs burned.

The club came to view, The Eight, Duchess knew it because all the kids knew it. There was light pressure to close it every few years, when the primaries opened and the mayor elect chased wholesome votes.

Monday night, late enough for the lot to sit empty, the place lost in dark, dead neon and empties in the gravel.

Across Cabrillo Duchess saw the bluff, rocks of no shape, a cluster of trees waved her way, culling the breeze. The water at night, so far and dark it might well have been the edge of her world. Not a boat or a passing car, just her, and she dropped her bike and crossed the lot, tried the big wood doors but knew they’d be locked up. The windows were blackened, peeling at one edge. A sign promised HAPPY HOUR FROM TWO TILL SEVEN, Duchess wondered what kind of man visited when sun lit the sin.

Above, piped neon, a profile of ass and legs but dulled now. At the side she found a rock and hurled it at a pane, saw it crack and tried again. Breathless when it broke, for just a moment deafening, then nothing at all. A beat till the alarm called out, so loud she finally did hurry. In her bag was a book of matches and she stepped through the jagged shape, not crying out when her arm caught and sliced. She moved with aim, found herself in a dimly lit backroom, mirrors of light, stools and makeup and the kind of costumes she did not know. A smell, sweat but sanitized.

There were lockers, too many, each carried a photo. She looked at faces and pouts and swept-back hair. Beside them were names that promised innocence and purity. She moved along and ran a hand through feathers and corsets.

In the bar glasses lined in front of a mirrored wall. She took a bottle of Courvoisier and emptied it over a leather booth. She took the matches from her bag, lit the book and dropped it, watching the flames crawl blue and hypnotic.

She stood and stared for so long she did not notice when the heat reddened her cheeks, when her chest grew tight and she began to cough. She stumbled back as the fire crawled and gathered. She clutched her arm, blood on her fingers as flames ran up and out, along to the lights and tables.

Almost out and she remembered.

She ran back through thick smoke, hooked her T-shirt over her nose as she opened door after door till she found the office. Mahogany desk topped with green leather, another, smaller bar, crystal glass and a box of cigars. She found a bank of screens beside and opened the cabinet beneath, popped the security tape from the machine and shoved it into her bag.

She moved fast, head down as the flames ran for her.

In the night air she panted and grabbed her bicycle. On her T-shirt were stars and a half moon with a face that smiled out. Behind her she heard it, crackling and carnage. And then, finally, the call of the alarm being answered.

She rode hard, Cabrillo sweeping down and then climbing. She passed a car, kept her head bent then followed the trees away from the road and into Cape Haven. She cut down Sunset then onto Fortuna, where she drew up by a pile of junk, an old side table, boxes and trash bags spilling and ready to be hauled into the truck. She dropped her bike, ran across and stuffed the tape into a garbage bag.