Neely Tucker - Only the Hunted Run

Silence.

“And I did you a solid. William fucking Christenberry, a summer class, ten kids, you got to be kidding me. And then, on a day when I damn near get killed, on a day I watch a lady spit a blood bubble out of her mouth before she dies, on a day I see a man with ice picks through his fucking face, on this day you call me, and your concern is not for your only brother, who was less than thirty feet from a mass shooter, but for your kid, who was half a mile away, in what amounts to a basement bunker. It’s touching, sis. Touch ing .”

“Sully, hey?” she said. “You chose to spend your life in a sewer of war and violence. Josh didn’t. The rest of the world isn’t like you. I turn on my television out here, the cable channels are screaming about mass murder on Capitol Hill. How do I know, from this side of the country, what the situation is unless I talk to you? And when I called? You wouldn’t answer. So, really, what did you expect?”

The late-summer drizzle, coming down through the massive oaks, into the open spaces, pattering onto the asphalt, the brick cobblestone sidewalk, dripping off leaves and onto the patrol cars parked on the streets, it all seemed blurry, like it had been painted by Van Gogh. Head. His head.

Heading north on Sixth now. One of the warped bricks in the sidewalk caught his stockinged foot, causing him to stumble, cursing. Crossing A Street. No sound but a chopper in the distance. His house was one hundred and ten years old, at the edge of what his neighbors called “the box”-a rectangle on the east side of the Capitol building that roughly approximated the National Mall on the west.

The way the real estate market was exploding-a neighbor had her house on the market for three hours and sold it for $320,000, after buying it for less than half that eight years earlier-Sully sometimes thought, when he was in a good mood, that he was turning the corner in life.

This night, he was a long goddamn way from a good mood.

He shoved open the low wrought-iron gate, ascending the few brick steps to the front door. He dropped the keys once and then couldn’t get the key in the lock until he stopped and took a long, deep breath. Once inside, he made straight for the kitchen, a glass, the bottle, and he was pouring. He made himself wait to add the ice to the Basil’s but then he drained it in a long gulp, rattling the ice against his lips. Closed his eyes. Yes, Lord, yes. The burn in his chest, the blossoming percussion in his brain. He opened his eyes and poured another deep one, coughed, then went downstairs.

Josh was sitting on the sofa, television blaring, pizza carton on the beat-up coffee table, popcorn, a bottle of beer, half raising a hand in greeting but not turning.

Sully came off the last step, bourbon sloshing, “Hey, slick, you want to tell me that was about, your mother busting my eardrum just now?”

Josh turned, hand still half raised. “What, what?”

Sully grabbed the remote with a free hand, hit mute, threw it back on the couch. “Your momma. My sister. Screeching you were wetting your diapers.”

“Oh, um, that. Mom. I switched off a movie? And it was all over every station, some shooting up there at the Capitol? So I thought I should call and let her know, you know, that I was okay and everything.”

“She says you called like five times, blabbering.”

“Blabbering? Two.”

“Blabbering two what?”

“Twice. I called twice. And I wasn’t crying, I can’t believe she said that. That’s just random.”

“So, what I’m wondering is, why call her anyhow? You know how she gets-Christ, you live with her-and you set her off-”

“No, no. See, no. I, I wanted to let her know I was paying attention, calm her down, let her know I was okay. I thought it was interesting conversationally, the shooting. She asked if I was okay, and, you know, she likes to think I’m still seven years old, so I said, well, I’d feel safer if Sully were here, you know, or I was back home with her and Dad, ’cause I thought she’d like to hear that. Me being responsible.”

“Responsible.”

“Right.”

“Move over. God. What is responsible about torquing your hysterical mother up another notch.”

It wasn’t a question and Josh knew it if Sully didn’t. The couch was soft but, holy shit, his joints. His bones . He got a whiff of himself: musty, sweaty, stale. The kid was looking at him like he was out of a zoo.

“She’s already at eleven,” Sully said.

There was something on the television, a guy in an insane asylum, crosses all over his face and the room, the guy drawing like mad. Josh found the remote and turned the sound up enough that there were mumbles emanating from the screen. Sully closed his eyes and let out a long breath.

“Where are your shoes?” Josh’s voice.

“What?”

“Your shoes? Your feet are soaked. The socks, they got all these holes.”

“I don’t even want to talk about it. Fetch me a bourbon, will you? Three cubes.” He held out his glass with three fingers splayed. He did not open his eyes.

“You told me not to go get you bourbon when you asked for it.”

“Never mind that now.”

“You said it would help you slow down.”

“‘Never mind that now’ seems to be a phrase that most fifteen-year-olds who don’t want their uber-evangelical parents to know they’re drinking beer and binging on horror movies and certain pay-per-view titles I’m not going to mention would understand.”

The weight lightened on the couch. Sully felt the glass taken from his hand. He let it fall back down in his lap. Breathing. He focused on breathing until it started to come even and slow. He’d forgotten to ask the kid for Advil.

When he felt the cool, heavy round circle of the glass back on his knee, he opened his eyes again. Three cubes. Another long pull and he felt his head ease, like somebody had loosened a too-tight belt. Still, the vileness in his gut from the explosives, that seasick feeling.

“Is the shooting thing all through?”

Sully looked at him, the slight frame, the my-mom-cuts-my-hair vibe, the shorts and the bare feet. “Yeah,” Sully said. “Ain’t you been watching the television? After you called Lucinda?”

“For a few minutes. But then it got boring. I put in a movie, one of those we got from the Blockbuster on Eighth. The Evil Dead. Your office called and this guy, he said you would be home late and to get dinner myself. He said I could order pizza or Chinese.”

“‘This guy.’”

“He said that somebody shot somebody in the Capitol and you were there.”

“That about covers it.”

“Is your story finished?”

“I made it on the bevel.”

“Are you okay?”

Sully, eyes still closed, wondered if the lady’s bubble of saliva had made a sound when it popped. Just a tiny one. “Why?”

“Your left eye, it’s doing this weird thing. And your right hand is shaking. Are you cold?”

Sully flopped his hand around. “Didn’t you sort of get curious, the sirens, the helicopters?”

“There’s always sirens going by.”

“True enough.” Exhaustion was hammering at his neck, his shoulders, his fucking knee. “1-D, the precinct, is a straight shot about ten blocks south. So any time they got to go rocketing north, up to H, I, those drug markets up there, they sail right on by.”

“You’re starting to slur a little.”

“Forsooth.”

“Also, somebody named Alexis called. She asked if you were home yet. She sounded like she knew you.”

Christ, Christ, Alex, he hadn’t called her yet. He would in a minute. In just one minute.

“She does. She’s a shooter at the paper. May become an editor. She’s in town for that.”