Chris Lynch - Kill Switch

“Criminal stupidity,” I say in Jarrod’s direction. “Just add it to the list. Because thanks to you, they will be here any minute with a long list of all our crimes and misdemeanors, and a very short list of our futures. For those of us who had them.”

Jarrod leans on the wall for support, tries to hold his blood in with his hand over his mouth, holds his balance with his other hand flat on the floor. Tries to talk to me. “It’s okay, Danny Boy. It’s okay, ’cause I told Lucy to turn off her phone.”

This. This is what Da is trying to warn me about. Be cool, keep your wits about you. Decide what needs to be done and be prepared to do it. Your head rules. Your head is the almighty, your heart is the devil, deceptor.

Stupidity is a crime, punishable and unacceptable, no matter how nice a guy is.

“Lucy?”

She will not trifle with me here, this much I know.

“Did you turn your phone off?”

“No, Dan. In fact, I was talking on it mostly the whole time I followed behind Jarrod’s car.”

I stare flames at Jarrod in front of me, listen to my sister as she walks around behind me to check the death-sleep of the old man. I know his breathing like nobody does. I know he’s fine.

“They did send me for you, Dan,” she says. “Nobody is coming after you yet, because they sent me. It’s me, right? Lucy. Don’t be all paranoid. I’m giving you a chance. To just bring him back. Let it go. He has done wicked things, Dan. More than you even know, I’m sure.”

“Sure? Being sure is for chumps, Lucy.”

“Fine, whatever. But he is dangerous.”

“You know who he’s a danger to? Only to the guys who are just like him. Or just like he used to be. He’s harmless, Luce.”

“He is dangerous. Seems like he’s making you dangerous, too.”

“We are not dangerous. We are misinterpreted.”

“Fine, whatever.”

“Please stop saying that,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Right. The thing is, they have a procedure now that can help him. Because of who he is, he’s lucky. He has friends, he has access. He needs this, and I think you should make it possible.”

She is making me angry. I breathe slowly and think, head over heart.

The stillness is torn by Jarrod’s unexpected contribution.

“Makes a lot of sense to me,” he says, all mush-mouthed.

And it’s like somebody way off, much farther up the pipeline, has just turned a valve and let off about 50 percent of the pressure. I feel the powerful urge to laugh.

It makes a lot of sense.

To Jarrod.

It makes sense , to Jarrod .

I walk up to him, the mess at the base of the wall outside the little room above the porn shop. He cowers like I am there to stomp him into a form of lifelessness different from the one he already inhabits.

“No,” I say, laughing a little, reassuring him. If there is such a thing as a lovable toxic sight, this is it. I reach out and playfully grab each of his ears. I toggle his head around, and around, and he smiles, all blood and innocence.

You’d have to be a beast, I think, looking at the blood.

“Please, Dan,” he says, and I notice he stops smiling, tears are in his eyes. “Please? I won’t… you’re hurting me. Dan-o, it’s me…”

I am squeezing his ears now. Twisting them, pulling them, tearing a little.

Jarrod puts his hands up, but does nothing to stop me hurting him. He lays his hands lightly on top of mine, and I feel it.

“Jesus,” I say, taking my hands off his ears, placing them alongside his cheeks.

He stays frozen there, covering his ears. “Sorry, Dan-o,” he says. “Sorry.”

I nod at him. What I want to do now is to hug him. Instead, I just hold his cheeks, just like that. “I am protecting my grandfather,” I say, pathetically. It feels true. It feels stupid. I am worthless. I can’t protect anybody.

I feel his jaw muscles flex beneath my fingers as he speaks, “Do you think your grandfather might be protected by your pulling my ears off?”

That answer should be easy.

“I don’t know,” I answer.

He nods. “Okay, but if you do, go ahead.”

Lucy is tapping my shoulder. I look up.

“Do you set bunnies on fire these days too, big man?”

She tugs me up away from Jarrod and walks over to where Da lies.

“Hiya, Granddad,” Lucy says, as the Old Boy stirs.

She has sat on the side of his bed and is brushing a sad strand of his yellowed gray hair aside. I have turned in time to see his dawning, blinking, squinting entry into this weird and wondrous world that has bloomed in his absence.

Then I see his eyes go wide with terror and shock, followed by his hand shooting out like a bolt.

He is choking Lucy with such strength they are both instantly blue with the strain.

“Da,” I say, jumping down and prying at his fingers. His has a grip like an eagle’s talon.

“Ella,” he rasps. His wife. Our grandmother.

Lucy gags, tries screaming.

I have to punch him. I do, twice, in the cheek.

She jumps up, clutching at her own throat. He rolls over and cowers, panting, as if she was the one who attacked him.

“It’s the condition, Lucy,” I say. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? He didn’t mean to hurt you. He hasn’t had his meds yet.”

She is whistle-breathing, but certainly it is at least partly an act.

“We are not going with you, Lucy.”

She wheezes.

“You could help us out, though. Just forget you found us. Give us a chance. He deserves a chance. I have to save him.”

She chokes again. Very dramatically.

“Start running, brother,” she says. “I couldn’t care less if you saved him now. I was never really even into him before, frankly. Now… to hell with him.”

She walks to the door, where she walks just about into Matt.

“Well,” he says approvingly, “ now we’re getting somewhere. Is this a party?”

She shoves past him, steps over Jarrod. Da squeals something unintelligible behind me, and I feel that urge to laugh again.

That urge goes away very quickly.

“Danny!” Lucy shrieks from the hallway.

I rush out to find her path blocked by one of the other nightcrawlers Matt has rented a room to. He is almost as burly as the landlord, but a whole lot more oily. He is standing spread across the whole narrow hallway. He has a hand down his sweatpants and the other one is pawing the air in Lucy’s direction.

I run down the hall, practically knocking my sister down on the way to the guy. I crash right into him, and he is soft. He doesn’t move much, but he is backed off.

“Jeez, pal,” he says, like he is unaware of anything unright on his part. Like he is a victim of something.

“Did he touch you?” I ask my sister.

“Only… just, nothing much, no matter.”

“Just get out of here, right?” I say, pointing to his open door and making a stupid little fist with my other hand.

“Whatever, whatever,” he says, still working his pants hand. As he backs away he looks at Lucy with a leer and the most stomach-churning fat-lizard tongue flick imaginable.

Lucy actually makes a retching sound.

“Just get in there, creep,” I say, so tough.

“That’s it?” Da says from just outside our door.

I am surprised to find him there when I turn. “What?” I say.

“That’s your sister ,” Da says with naked disgust for me.

“I recognize her, thanks.”

“It’s fine now,” Lucy says. “Leave it.”

“That is your sister.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“You can’t figure that out? You get all worked up to smack the crap out of your defenseless little junkie friend, and suddenly you run fresh out of outrage, is that it?”