Christopher Hebert - Angels of Detroit

“She’ll still see it,” April said, not realizing Holmes wasn’t talking to her. She turned off the faucet and let the soggy hoodie flop into the sink.

“I’m sorry,” Holmes said.

Over in the kitchen, McGee was slapping slices of soy cheese onto the bread with far more force than necessary.

“Anyway,” Fitch said, more loudly now, as he and his cup swerved back to the sofa, “I meant his body was stiff.”

“Why are we still talking about this?” Holmes said.

“Because it’s interesting,” Fitch said.

“The only one who’s interested,” Holmes said, “is you.”

Fitch shrugged and turned toward Myles, who seemed to be staring at the wall. He’d been out of it all day, ever since they got bailed out, as if his head were still back in that jail cell.

“The guy looked like a mannequin,” Fitch said. “He was standing on his toes, ramrod straight, his ass cheeks tight as fucking walnuts.” He stood to demonstrate.

Holmes muttered, “Jesus.”

“There was a stream coming out of him like a fire hose,” Fitch said, tapping Myles on the knee, trying to get his attention. “It’s like the guy was drilling a hole in the back of the fucking urinal. It was like a fucking laser beam. And he had this serene look on his face, like he was channeling the energy of the entire galaxy into his cock.”

McGee, who’d been knocking a knife around inside a jar of mustard, paused to listen, but Myles still looked as if he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open.

“This is the last time we let you stop at a liquor store,” Holmes said.

Fitch sat down at the edge of the sofa. “I was at the sink washing my hands when the guy finally ran out,” he said. “Behind me I could hear him moaning.”

“Jesus,” Holmes said again, and Fitch’s eyes flashed toward him.

“Why don’t you just let me tell the story?” Fitch’s gaze was clear and steady. Maybe he wasn’t drunk at all. Maybe it was just this loft that made people crazy.

“When he came over to the sink,” Fitch said, more measured now, “there was sweat along his hairline.”

“Maybe he had kidney stones,” April said weakly. She was sitting on the arm of the love seat in only her T-shirt, rubbing her arms for warmth.

“The guy splashed a couple handfuls of water on his face,” Fitch said, “and then he told me I should try it.”

“It?” Holmes asked, already wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

“It?” April repeated.

“What?” asked Myles, his eyes suddenly coming into focus.

Fitch raised his cup to his lips, savoring the anticipation. “The secret Taoist method of urination.”

Holmes fell back with a groan.

“He says it strengthens the kidneys,” Fitch said with a grin.

“Great,” Holmes said. “Can we talk about something else now?”

Fitch said, “It’s like a fire hose.”

“And why,” McGee said, rising now from the table with a stack of sandwiches on a plate, “would you want to pee like a fire hose?”

Fitch stood there openmouthed, seemingly stunned by the question.

“I mean,” McGee said, “is it really necessary to turn even something like peeing into a competition?”

“The fire hose,” Fitch said, “is just an added benefit. The real point is your kidneys. When your kidneys are strong, you function better — sexually.” And Fitch patted his stomach, as if trying to figure out where his kidneys were.

“You talk about your dick like it’s a sports car,” McGee said.

Holmes was relieved he was no longer fighting this battle alone. “He’d put mag wheels and a spoiler on it if he could.”

Fitch flashed his famous smile, the long, glinting eyeteeth. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Flames and racing stripes too,” Holmes said. “You’ve got me all figured out.”

Fitch tugged gently on one of his sideburns, and his eyes moistened with laughter. “You’re such a weepy drunk.”

“I’m drinking cranberry juice,” Holmes said. “You’re the one that’s drunk.”

Fitch raised his empty glass. “That’s even worse.”

April went back to the kitchen table and returned with the vodka bottle.

“Don’t,” Holmes said. “He’s had enough.”

April poured.

Fitch said, “What are you, my mother?”

“How can you drink that?” Holmes said. “It smells like it was distilled in a rain barrel.”

Fitch sprang up from the sofa and pirouetted around the steamer trunk. He grabbed April by the hand, and she let out a shriek.

“ ‘Save your sobs for thunderstorms,’ ” Fitch sang out in his raspy voice, “ ‘and your tears for when it rains.’ ”

“It’s been raining all day, you idiot,” Holmes said.

“It’s stopped now.” April had wriggled free of Fitch, escaping to the wall of windows at the back of the apartment. “Why does it only rain when I’m outside?”

With a glance in her direction, Holmes saw it had grown dark. But inside the apartment, under the fluorescent lights, nothing had changed. He wondered sometimes if it ever would. It was possible, wasn’t it, to love one’s friends and be driven crazy by them, too? People couldn’t spend this much time together without occasionally dreaming of murder.

McGee had taken the empty spot on the love seat next to Myles, ignoring the wet cushion. The two of them looked like an old couple on a park bench, lost in thought and memory as the world went by. For all their differences lately, it was one thing they still had in common, the ability to be absent even in the midst of a crowd.

On the wall above McGee and Myles’s heads hung a painting, one of the ugliest things Holmes had ever seen. The canvas looked like a lunch tray on which the remains of a thousand meals had permanently congealed. Over the top someone had smeared a layer of something thick and shiny, the texture of fossilized gravy. Everything about the piece was revolting, and yet it demanded to be touched. The painting called out to Holmes every time he was here, and the only way to resist was to avert his eyes, to turn away, even if that meant having to look at the crooked outhouse he’d built. But for once Holmes couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the canvas.

“Where did this come from?” he said.

“She used to have a studio here,” McGee said, “the woman who painted it. She left it behind.”

“I can see why,” Fitch mumbled into his cup.

“It’s supposed to be this building,” Holmes said. “I just realized that. After all this time.”

Fitch said. “I thought it was meatloaf.”

“It looks like trash,” April said, not judgmentally.

“Those are wrappers,” McGee said. “Bits of newspaper and parts of containers and packages and advertisements. It’s made of stuff she found on the street outside. Then she put paint on top.”

The whole time she was talking, Myles was shaking his head.

“What?” McGee said, glancing at him sideways.

“It’s just, I mean”—Myles looked at her helplessly—“of all the things to use to describe the place you live,” he said. “Trash.”

“You think she should lie?” McGee said. “Sugarcoat it?”

“It’s like giving up,” Myles said. “Accepting the worst.”

“I think it’s more of a reminder,” McGee said. “To keep you going.”

Fitch broke out in a fit of laughter.

April looked up. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Fitch said. “Nothing at all. It’s all so deadly fucking serious.”

Fitch fell down onto the sofa with all his weight, and Holmes, as if on the other end of a teeter-totter, immediately sprang to his feet. He didn’t know why at first, other than that he’d been sitting there too long, and suddenly the space seemed so small, the high ceiling pressing down on his head. And also, he realized now, he needed to take a piss, but he didn’t want to go in that outhouse. He’d rather go outside in the alley. He’d rather go out the window. He’d rather go anywhere but there.