Brendan wanted to revel in this feeling but he immediately thought of Delaney. Had she sensed her end coming? Had she suffered pain? If she had, of course, it had been all Brendan’s fault. He didn’t want to think about it but he couldn’t shut off the thoughts. No matter how hard he squeezed the knob, the memories of what he had done continued to seep out one drip at a time, like fluid from that guided missile.
Both he and Dad were killers now. Yet, Brendan could never share what he had done. The pain would be too immense. It would be unfair, too, burdening Dad with the knowledge that his youngest child had killed his only daughter. Brendan would be put in an asylum somewhere in a room with padded walls and doctors would visit him every now and again to give him his Pilly Billies. Dr. Carroll would have the last laugh then.
Dad returned from the kitchen, mobile phone at his side. He looked at Brendan for a while before speaking.
“There’s a lot you haven’t told me,” he said.
Had Dwayne revealed the truth about Delaney? “Yes,” was all Brendan could say.
“Those men, Dwayne and Ellis, you think they are safe, trustworthy?” Dad approached him, sat on the edge of the bed away from the heavy splotch of blood and the two sleeping women.
Brendan swallowed. “I believe they are.”
Dad thought for a moment. “I guess I do, too. I kind of have to.”
“You punched Dwayne at Delaney’s …”
Dad opened and closed his right hand.
“Why did you do that?”
“We’ve never gone to church much. I wasn’t raised in a religious family and neither was your mother, but I didn’t think we’d be punished for it. I never suspected God was so cruel, so heartless, so evil.”
“He’s not evil, Dad.”
“He took Delaney. He took my baby. He destroyed my wife. He made me do that.” He pointed at Dr. Carroll’s body.
“Yes, I know,” Brendan said. Dad turned to him again, blinking. “He did all those things, it’s true, but it’s not to punish you.”
A small chuckle slipped out. “Oh, really?”
“God has a plan for everyone and each path is different and equally impossible to explain.”
Dad laughed. “You could take that act on the road. I’m sure Ellis and Dwayne would love to have you as part of their entourage. Maybe you’d even be better off. Get away from this family, from whatever curse has befallen it.”
“No curse, Dad. It only seems that way. God’s light is there. It will shine upon you if you want it to.”
“It’s that simple?”
Brendan should have felt ridiculous, stupid, out of his element, but he was calm and precise; he knew exactly what to say because some other force was guiding him; God had His hand in this, no doubt. God’s plan for the Williams Family seemed like the scribbles of a madman, yet Brendan could trust that beneath the meaninglessness lay profound purpose. He was on the right path and he was only a turn in the trail away from enlightenment and, ultimately, empowerment.
“It is that simple, trust me,” he said.
After a moment, Dad responded in a resigned tone: “I guess we’ll find out. Ellis and Dwayne will be here within the hour.”
Brendan was too excited to hide his smile.
10
Tyler didn’t wait long after Dad slammed the bedroom door to call Paul and tell him to get the fuck over here now. It wasn’t the fear of the possible violence that might occur (if Dad managed to get tough for once, the doctor deserved whatever beating he got), it was the pills in his pocket. They were burning a hole in there.
Paul had been in his car, “Just tooling around,” he said though that meant his Mom had sent him out to do errands, and so he was at Tyler’s in only a few minutes.
Tyler left the house just as Dad sounded like he was gearing up for a fight.
“What’s the new plan?”
“Go back to your house. Your parents there?”
“Mom is, sent me out to get bread and milk or something, so we have to stop at the store first, but Dad’s off with his buddies.”
“We need some privacy.”
“Before we have to start saying ‘No Homo,’ how bout you tell me this new plan that’s got you wired?”
Tyler relayed the plan to Paul, explaining how it would go down and why he believed it would work. Paul listened as he drove to Stop&Shop and asked questions while they walked around the store and then nodded his head in agreement while they stood in line at the cashier.
“It’s a good idea,” he said, “no doubt about it. Sick, though.”
“No sicker than your idea.”
“My plan would have worked if you hadn’t turned all pussy.”
A short woman hunched over a nearly empty cart with bifocals slipping down her nose coughed in line behind them. Tyler had been so caught up in explaining his plan he had forgotten where they were. Paul, however, didn’t care. If the old woman was offended she could turn off her hearing aid.
“It’s true,” Paul went on. “But your plan has some real potential. I never would have guessed you had it in you.”
“Desperate times, right?”
Paul nodded, exchanged empty chitchat with a pimple-faced girl working the register, ‘Brunelle,’ her name tag read, paid the bill, and let Tyler carry the bag of bread, milk, cheese, and eggs. He also carried a smaller bag holding two items he had purchased himself. Back in the car, Paul asked, “You have all those pills on you?”
Tyler removed a handful of multicolored and various-sized pills from his pocket. He held them out like a secret treasure.
“Shit,” Paul said. “There’s oxycontin in there?”
“I don’t remember what it looks like, but yeah.”
* * *
In Paul’s basement (his mother upstairs occupied with making cookies or a cake or something for Easter), Tyler laid out the pills on a card table and sent Tyler hunting for the tools he needed.
He lined up the pills in rows. By the time he had fished all of them out of his pocket, pieces of lint clinging to the last few, he had formed four rows of twelve pills—forty-eight in all. That was a lot. Christ, he had been overzealous in his excavation of Dr. Carroll’s bag. the idea had just been so good and come on so strongly that he hadn’t stopped to think that he didn’t need too many pills, this many, to make it work, certainly not forty-eight. However, since he had this many, his plan could grow more detailed, more intricate, more solid.
Paul returned with a small plastic container meant for leftover vegetables or applesauce, a small white marble mortar and pedestal intended for grinding spices. He set these next to the rows of pills.
“Damn, man,” he whispered.
“Your mom ask why you wanted that stuff?”
“No, she just wanted me to get some baking sheets out from under the stove. When she’s baking, she’s off in another world.”
“Good for us.”
“You’re not going to use all of those, right?”
“No,” Tyler said, “but they will be used.”
“We sort these things out and we can make some money, just selling them at school.”
“Fuck that. I don’t need to press my luck. I need to solve my problem.”
“Yeah,” Paul said with a note of resignation.
The first few pills Tyler picked up were plastic caps, which came apart easily. He emptied the powdery contents into the mortar. After that, he picked out many of the solid pills from the lines and dropped them onto the powder. He used the pedestal to grind the pills into dust, mixing all the contents together.