Chris Lynch - Kill Switch

“Stop it, will you? No.”

“Listen. We are back in an hour and a half, collect our stuff all up, nobody’s the wiser. Perfect plan. If you come with me, you don’t have to worry that I’ll screw everything up. We’ll have Matt bolt the door from the outside-he has to do that sometimes-so even if he wakes up, your Da is safe and sound.”

When he finally stops talking, I breathe in the refreshing silence.

Then, “Leave it, Jarrod. My stuff is gone. Your stuff is gone.”

“Why would they take my stuff? My stuff is still there. Probably yours, too. You can get the rest of Da’s things, the clothes. You can get the phone and everything. It’s perfect. It’s perfect.”

The desperation is as clear as the greasy sweat on Jarrod’s face.

“It’s all gone, Jarrod. All of it. Forget it. They took everything, for sure.”

“Not everything. I’m a good hider. A good hider.”

He is speaking both faster and slower than usual. The words themselves burst out quick, with wrong-long air spaces between them. It’s like a verbal version of the game we played as kids, 1-2-3-red-light.

“What is it, Jarrod?”

“What is what? I want to go home, remember? That’s it. I just told you.”

“What is it you have to go back for, that can’t wait?”

“My stuff. And it’s where I live now. And I got work in the morning. You know how you just don’t feel right when you’re not in your place?”

“I am getting to know that feeling pretty well, yeah.”

“Right. Then. Let’s go.”

He is actually leaning his upper body in the direction of his car.

“Will I guess what it is?”

He stops leaning and looks at the ground. “No, why don’t you not do that.”

“You already have a load of stuff from Matt, so I know it isn’t that. So it’s… other stuff?”

“Stop it, huh, Danny, please? Can’t you just leave me be? I feel worse enough already.”

“Ah cripes, Jarrod. You know, it’s these kinds of reasons why you are what is known as a ne’er-do-well.”

“Are you trying to insult me? With ne’er-do-well? Cousin, I’d ne’er do any-damn thing at all if I could get away with it.”

This is very much like punching water.

“So… dammit… just get something from Matt.”

“Not possible,” he says, putting two hands up in front of him, as if I was coming to kick his ass. Which I should do. “Not possible there, man, so let’s just forget I said anything. Okay. Just let that one go.”

“I think that’s a good idea. Because I can assure you, whatever you left behind is with somebody else now. And you don’t want to go inquiring about it.”

An old, old scratchy voice comes down at me from over my shoulder.

I look up and back, to my window.

“Jeez, Old Boy, who are you, Rasputin? What does it take to pin you down, even for one night?”

“Who is that?” He is pointing at Jarrod, and he isn’t pleased.

“Just sharing a smoke. I’ll be right up.”

“You’d better be. I don’t like the look of him.”

He pulls his head back inside.

“I don’t like the look of me, either,” Jarrod says, dejected.

“See, it never would have worked anyway. Do this: Light up, smoke your brains out, and crash. Sleep in here in the capital of nowhere, in the state of oblivion, wake up all new, and we’ll figure out a move. Okay?” I give him a heavy and honest hug around the shoulders.

He doesn’t answer with words, but he does spark up a sapling. He inhales joylessly.

“That’s the spirit,” I say, and head upstairs.

People don’t want to suck, said Da. They just do.

I will never lie to you, he said. Unless I feel like I need to.

People need witnesses, to behave.

People need to be unobserved, to be themselves.

They said they had a treatment for his condition. They said.

The silent treatment, I said.

I am finding that I can sleep anywhere, and sleep fairly well. I didn’t not know this before, but I didn’t know it either. I just didn’t notice.

With all the business lately, I have noticed. I sense this will be a welcome attribute over time.

Early morning, wherever we are, sounds like early morning elsewhere with the window open. The soothing sound of light traffic in the distance, the clank of a delivery truck dropping crates of bottles on the sidewalk. Urban seagulls menacing everybody. It’s a comfort.

I roll over to find Da on his side, curled up in my direction, snuffling like a proper little old man and needing a shave. The pyramids float above his back, and a breeze sends the curtains to try and get a tickle at his patchy head. His hairline is at just about half tide. I notice he is balding asymmetrically, as well.

As well.

The door is at our feet, and a knock is at the door.

I sit up. “Matt?” I say cautiously. I hardly suspected this would be a bed-and-breakfast arrangement. Da doesn’t stir.

“It’s not Matt,” the voice says.

“My god, Lucy,” I say, jumping up in my shorts and T-shirt, rushing to the door.

I am about to stupidly open it.

“Who’s with you?”

“Nobody. I swear on Grandma’s grave.” She was always a Grandma gal, so this is bankable.

I open the door, yank her inside.

“Ouch,” she says.

“Ouch yourself. What is going on? What are you doing here? How did you find us?”

She stares me up and down for a second, then beyond me toward Da.

“How are you? Are you all right?”

“Lucy!”

“Okay, Jarrod brought me, but don’t kill him.”

“I’ll kill him.”

I go for the door, but she grabs my arm.

“Fine, but kill him afterward. He didn’t mean any harm.”

“He never does. Junkie jackass.”

“He was just there, showed up really late… and I was waiting. I was hoping you would come back. That you would have the sense…”

“You were planted there. Is that what you mean?”

“No. That’s not-”

Another knock. I rush to open it.

Jarrod puts up both hands in that “don’t beat me up” sign.

I drive straight through that sign.

I burst through the doorway, grab him with both hands, drive him into the opposite wall. Then I begin slapping him sloppy. Backhand and forehand, across the mouth, bringing out blood from both sides and spraying it around the wall behind him.

I have so many things to say to him, to ask him, like why the hell did you do this, like what were you thinking, like are you a total mental defective or are you criminally sadistic, but I cannot think of one of those questions or any of its answers that are not going to flip the switch that will turn this beating into something more like violence , until I simply make the carefully reasoned decision to just keep on. So I hit him, belt him, slap, smack-don’t close the fist, Dan, don’t close the fist-until he is just too heavy for me to hold up anymore with Lucy on my back, pounding and even biting at my ear, so I drop him against the baseboard.

Where he slumps, sobbing and bleeding, the hot coffees drooling out of the bag in his left hand, and some manner of fresh-baked goods hotly greasing their way out of the other.

He brought us breakfast.

My whole body is shaking with this.

Look at him.

Dan. Danny. Look at him.

I step back and slam the door shut. Never happened.

“What has happened to you?” Lucy says, opening the door. Jarrod is scrabbling to his feet, the breakfast left as a dying, oozing thing on the floor. He gives up on standing and joins it there, sliding right down the wall with his back.