Дж. Хатчинс - Personal Effects - Dark Art

I shuddered, shaking my head. Breathing was very difficult right now.

“He did keep the blood that spilled, though,” Dad said. “Kept every drop. And when she finally went, he went too, went out in the streets, naked, covered in buckets of her blood. God almighty. I had no idea he was out. Means he’s been watching me—us—for a while.”

The granite sternness in my dad’s face ebbed, just a bit.

“You’ve always been like your mother, Zachary,” he said. “You’re caring and, yes, curious to a fault. And like her, you’ve always rushed into the fray, buying what people are selling, asking questions only after the damage is done. You needed history here, son. Context. You should have talked to me.”

I didn’t know what to say. Dad filled the silence.

“What did he tell you?” he asked. My father’s eyes narrowed, predatory once more.

My reeling mind reeled itself in. I snagged on that question, coaxed my perspective into something more critical and defensive. Was Dad asking this because he was protecting me from a lunatic ex-con? Or was he asking because he was lying, lying right now, lying through his serrated lawyer teeth?

I thought of the card in my pocket, and what I’d been told. It didn’t happen the way they said it did. It’s all lies.

Fold, or call?

I lied back.

“Nothing. He kept saying he was the Invisible Man. Just said it over and over, Invisible Man, Invisible Man.”

My father harrumphed.

“Yeah. That’s what he said back then, too. That’s why he bathed in his wife’s blood. To finally become ‘visible.’ Now do you understand why I did what I did? Why I wanted to protect you?”

I nodded. The traffic on East 77th Street rushed past.

“All right, Zach,” Dad said. “Let’s put this to bed and get back to Gram.” He smiled. “Cool?”

The wind gusted, chilly and unfriendly. He nodded.

The two of us walked back to the funeral home. I shivered the whole way.

I don’t know which couple was hungrier: Me and Rachael, or Dali and Bliss. The cats were certainly the more vocal pair, tickled to see us as we entered our one-bedroom on Avenue B. Bliss served up throaty purr-chirps. Dali nuzzled our legs in his ecstasy to greet Those Who Provide Food.

“Hey kitties,” I said. Rachael squirmed past Dali’s snugglefest, beckoning me to pass her the takeout from YaKnowYa Szechwan It. I handed it off, and now both cats were doing figure eights around my legs, meowing.

Bliss pounced on my shoelace. Feed us, human, or the worm gets it .

Rachael strode into our postage-stamp-sized kitchen, snatching plates and chopsticks and a bottle opener from the cabinets. I shuffled to the pantry and liberated the Meow Mix. I resumed our conversation as I poured the food into the cats’ hand-painted ceramic bowl.

“…so yeah, Dad gets the Bond Villain Award for the night,” I said to Rachael. “What a jerk.”

“Hear, hear,” Rachael said. She carried our dinner and two Rogue Chipotle Ales into the living room, and placed them on the battered steamer trunk that doubled as our coffee table. She plopped onto the couch with a tiny oof , slipped off her dress shoes, wriggled her toes. “You’ve been spooked since that guy came up to you. And you! Agent 007! What did that guy say when you chased him outside?”

She closed one eye and pursed her lips. She pointed an index finger at me, her thumb up like a gun hammer. Kiss kiss, bang bang.

I love Rachael. I love our life together. I love this breadbox apartment in which we live, on a street that’s as electric and eccentric as we are. I love the comfort she brings to my life, the way she looks at me, the way she kisses me, fucks me, cheers me, knows me better than anyone else.

She takes care of me.

But if what the Invisible Man had said tonight was true, then this was rotten family history, emotional sludge. I didn’t want to go there with her just yet. It was too soon, too new. Too raw. And hell, Dad could be right: none of it might be true at all.

“He was nuts,” I said. “Dad said he was a killer, fresh out of Sing Sing or something.”

“Gah. There’s a million stories in the naked city,” Rachael said as she pried off the cap with the bottle opener. “Why do you always get the weird ones?”

I gestured to the corner of the room where I made my art. Like my office, it was a four-car-pileup of sketches, easels, mason jars filled with muddy water, paintbrushes. “Guess it’s the luck of the drawer.”

Rachael mimicked a punch-line trumpet: wah-wah-wahhhh.

“Bad puns. A Zach Taylor specialty.”

I gazed down at the cats, inspired. “Well, hello, Dali!”

Rachael laughed through her mouthful of noodles.

“Hey. Hottie.” She slapped the cushion beside her. “Get over here.”

I tossed my coat and tie onto the comfy chair in the room’s corner, then sat next to my girl.

“Seriously. I’m sorry it happened,” she said. She placed her chopsticks on her plate and cupped my face in her hands. I was deep-sea diving in those blue eyes. We kissed. I gave an appreciative mmmm as she pulled away. “Can I do anything?”

“Just accept my apology for Dad flexing his prick-fu action grip.” I plucked up a slice of chicken with my sticks. “He was in rare form. So was Papa-Jean. Me and Eye, we’ve got… single-minded fathers.”

“They always get their man,” Rachael affirmed. She reached out and stroked my arm. “Just like me. Hey. Don’t wig. You turned out just fine.”

My eyes flicked around the room and mentally cataloged the other rooms in our cozy, cramped apartment. Past the bookcases stuffed with comic trade paperbacks, video game guides, sci-fi novels and technothrillers… past the paintings with “ZT” in their corners, the framed movie and video-game posters, the art prints… past Rachael’s spectacular widescreen TV, sound system and racks of game consoles… past our cramped corners where we performed our passions of writing and art… past all of these things were Zach lights. Zach lights in every room.

Here in the living room, a string of cheerful chili pepper-shaped Christmas lights, stapled to the walls, glowed above us. In the kitchen and bathroom, light-sensitive gizmos plugged into wall sockets. In our bedroom, a desk lamp with a dimmer switch that was always on, glowing softly, always on. Rachael had learned to appreciate sleep masks.

I hadn’t turned out just fine. I couldn’t tell you why that was, just that it was. Broken Zach, scared of the dark. A blind man had reminded me of that, nearly five hours ago.

I faked a smile. “Maybe a little undercooked, but I guess I’ll do in a pinch.”

Rachael grinned, leaning her shoulder against mine.

“You’re my fella,” she said. “You’re doing me just fine.”

We shared a smile, and munched in amiable silence, surrounded by that warm blanket of familiarity and comfort. We ate our Szechwan, sipped our Rogues. Rachael chatted about the review of Bloodwire she was cooking up for PixelVixen707. I laughed at the probable headline: “Fan-fraggin’-tastic.”

But the shadow-fingers slowly crept back into my mind. My father wasn’t the only Taylor man to obsess about his work. I brought my baggage home, too: the whispers, the taunts. You want to save the blind man? Then fucking earn it .