Andrew Sullivan - Waste

“Enough. Kid, you need to shut up now!”

As Al released him into the air, Logan Chatterton was still sorting out the look in his mother’s face after he had broken the bathroom mirror.

“Oh fuck, are you kidding me, Al?” Tommy said. “The fucking TV?”

The buzzing and hissing died slowly. The kid’s body was limp and his neck bled over the fake oak varnish. Al kicked at the short, skinny legs but didn’t pull him out of the massive television. The static was gone. Tom Vine dragged the other two boys out of the yellow bathroom, shoving them onto the floor. The carpet caressed their knees as they stared at what was left of Logan — smouldering and six inches deep inside a television set.

“Well, what do we do now?” Tommy said. “Crane said no one, not without an order or a decision. Oh, fuck, he is going to be pissed. First the girl, and then this?”

“He didn’t even know about the kid,” Al said. “We don’t gotta say anything.”

“No, but he’ll find out,” Tommy said. “And we can’t do three at once.”

“We bring them with us. They can fucking tell him the story, all right?” Al said. “We gotta pack them back up and take them, but whatever. Beats having to explain ourselves. We found them with the bear, we come back, we find the door’s busted, Crane’s lady is gone.”

“Was it his lady? Files are a mess.”

“I know what he wants, but he can’t always get it. We couldn’t get him the tiger, right?” Al said. “And he just had to deal with that. She might not be the right one.”

“It’s the right one, man,” Tommy said.

Al Vine grabbed the chins of the two boys on the floor.

“You’re going to tell him exactly what happened. You don’t even need to lie. You just tell him how your friend went crazy,” he said. “Tell ’em how we came back here and all that shit was busted up. The bathroom door off the hinges, and your friend, he was just — well, he was crazy. He’ll listen to you guys, it’ll sound better.”

Logan hadn’t moved since they were dragged out of the bathroom. Small sparks still crackled from inside the box. The floor was wet under the boys. B. Rex had pissed himself.

“We’re going back outside,” Al continued. “And it’s almost morning, so keep it quiet. We’ll take the tape off your mouths in case someone sees, but not a word.”

Tommy Vine grabbed the drills and tested the batteries. They were running low again.

“None of this shit holds a fucking charge. You got a receipt?”

“No, we didn’t keep it,” Al said.

“Fuck. They won’t take it back, then. No returns without a receipt.”

Al slammed the door. The Brothers Vine were going to have to change motels. Even with a DO NOT DISTURB sign dangling from the broken knob, you could smell the bodies from the hallway. The staff at the Dynasty was familiar with these smells. They would call the cops when the shift changed over in two hours. There were no real names on the registry.

“Should I grab the quilt?” Al asked.

“It’s got that dude’s ass all over it,” Tommy said. “I don’t think that’s gonna wash out. And the fucking dry cleaner at Helena’s is still giving us funny looks after we had to drag that kid down to the woods. He just ain’t saying nothing yet.”

They would need a new dry cleaner, too. One of the boys in front stumbled and face-planted into the orange carpet. Al booted him in the tailbone.

“Get up, get up,” Al said. “I’m gonna go grab the toolbox.”

Al turned and headed back to the room. When they had killed the giraffe, he remembered Kilkenny crying in the woods. The smell was similar then too, the animal shit hanging like a cloud that stuck to everything and followed them back here. Astor had told them it was part of the job. Al didn’t bother looking at the purple body on the bed or the boy in the television screen. He had seen all of this before. Tom had seen it too, creeping around the edges of his vision when he shut his eyes at night.

The television still popped and crackled. Al grabbed the toolbox from the corner. He reached out a hand for the quilt, but the slumped body made his tattooed fingers retreat. Al didn’t want to believe in ghosts — he had enough voices in his skull. The body lay with its arms spread wide open as if to embrace him. Al backed away from the bed and closed the door. Astor would want answers for this shit. He would want to institute some corrective measures. To make a point. They would need the other boys to prove this was all just one big misunderstanding. This was just another roadblock. The door slammed shut, leaving the two bodies in darkness.

Inside the television, Logan Chatterton’s eyes were closed. He wasn’t staring at anything.

The clerk didn’t even look up when they stepped inside.

“He only stayed on the top floor, and he didn’t even stay,” Elvira said. “He just comes and goes like he wants, never stays, never even writes to me. Because that’s Ted. That’s him.”

The Pillaros wasn’t the tallest building downtown, but it was one of the oldest. Its windows were rarely washed, and its all-day breakfast was frequented by the early birds from the methadone clinic who liked to catch a meal at 3 a.m. Elvira Moon did not raise a single eyebrow amongst the staff when she barreled through the front doors with Jamie Garrison limping in pursuit. The rifle was shoved down his right pant leg; a temporary solution to his busted foot and the pain recoiling up his femur with each step. No one gave him a second glance.

“Don’t take the elevator, he tries to get out that way every time,” Elvira said.

“I can’t take the goddamn stairs! Get back here!” Jamie said. “My foot, we gotta go up the elevator! I said get back, Jesus Christ, like a child. Where did they find you?”

In the car Elvira had told Jamie all about Ted, about the pills she had started flushing down the toilet, about Ted’s favourite foods, about the flavour of cake batter compared to actual cake. She could not stay on any topic for long. The pills had turned the water purple in the toilet. Someone had stolen her bowling ball. She needed it back. Elvira tried to show Jamie the crack Ted left inside her, but all Jamie saw was a frayed bathrobe and the fear inside her eyes, flickering on and off.

“I told you, he’ll see us on the elevator,” Elvira said. “He’s waiting. Can’t go up that way.”

The Pillaros’ halls only looked cleaner than the Dynasty’s because of the lighting. Small chandeliers dangled every few feet from the low ceilings. The incandescent bulbs could not illuminate all the stains and broken doorknobs like the Dynasty’s fluorescent glare did. Everything blurred in a haze around the edges as Jamie Garrison dragged his broken foot after Elvira Moon. She was still wearing the quilt like a parka. They were on the third floor with seventeen more to go. He could barely keep up.

“Now, I don’t remember what room exactly, but there is only one room on the top floor, I think, because that’s where we were. And there was a waterbed. Did you ever have a waterbed?”

They were on the fourth floor now, Elvira plowing ahead with the red and green quilt wrapped around her shoulders. Jamie had begun to count the spots that appeared before his eyes whenever he leaned too heavily on his right foot. After the third staircase, he counted twenty-seven big blotches and three smaller ones that disappeared before he knew if they were real.

“Elvira, we are taking the goddamn elevator now,” Jamie said. “I know, I know that he won’t know we are coming. Right? Right? No, wait for me! You can’t keep going!”

“But he’ll just leave! We have to surprise him,” Elvira said. “He has a whole speech ready, and he’ll tell me he didn’t mean any of it, but that it had to be done, and then, and then…”