“I think he gave it to the brother. He ain’t gonna lie now, Ole Mr. Hard Punch. He ain’t gonna do that, knowing things can be okay, he tells the truth. Am I right, Mr. Hard Punch?”
He kicked me in the kidney. I grunted. Got my breath. I knew things couldn’t, and wouldn’t be okay, but I said, “Right.”
“I believe him,” Snake said. “He likes this woman.”
“Yeah,” Fat Boy said. “I believe him too. I was him, I’d like this woman.”
Fat Boy thumped ashes on Beverly’s pubic hair. He blew on the tip of his now short cigar and made it glow bright again. He reached over without looking and stuck the cigar against Beverly’s stomach. She jerked so hard at her restraints the mattress curled on the sides. I could smell her flesh burning. I dove for Fat Boy.
I wasn’t quick enough.
He came out of the chair fast for a fat man and brought the. 45 around and slammed me just above the left ear. A flash of white went through me and blinded all vision. I came to a moment later, lying on my side. Little specks, like black sawdust in water, swirled before my eyes. The taste of vomit was in my mouth. I had convulsed and thrown up on the floor. I felt as if someone had a crowbar jammed in the side of my head and they were lifting up on it, trying to get my scalp off.
I tried to get a knee under me, but my knee cap felt as if it weighed about as much as a small car. I couldn’t do it.
Snake gave me some help. I could smell him before I saw him. He got me by the back of my coat collar and pulled me up and kneed me in the stomach and sat me on my ass, gasping. I wanted to do all kinds of things, and in my mind I was doing them. Coiling my feet beneath me, preparing to jump, but in reality I was sitting on my ass, trying to get my breath back, feeling as if a dentist’s drill was going off in my ear, burrowing and burning its way into my brain.
Snake pushed me on my side and jerked my hands behind my back and I my ay felt something go around my wrists, and by the time I got my wind back enough to actually try and do something, my hands were tied and so were my ankles.
Snake got hold of me and pulled me up on my knees. “You like that okay? That comfortable?” he said.
“Piss on you,” I said.
He laughed. “Piss on you, huh?”
He made a move with the knife hand that put it behind him and out of sight. The hand came back empty and he got me by the neck. He unzipped his pants with the other hand and got himself free of his underwear and started urinating in my face. I tried to roll away, but he caught me by the hair and pulled me close and stuck his dick in my face and kept pissing. The hot urine hit my forehead and closed my eyelids and ran down the sides of my nose and over my clenched lips. I could smell the ammonia. I could smell Snake. I heard a sad sound that made my skin crawl and I realized it was me.
“Come on,” I heard Fat Boy say. “You’re the one wants to go. We could have made a night of it.”
“I don’t know we still can’t,” Snake said. “You talk like the plan’s to make her come. So, I miss a credit or two.”
Snake’s grip on my hair tightened, and he shoved me on my side. “There’s a little gift for you, Mr. Regular Guy. A little anointment for your head.” He shook his dick at me. “I could make you suck this, I wanted. Piss on you, asshole. Piss on you, you goddamn whining motherfucker.”
I opened my eyes and looked up. Snake’s face was all smiles, the tattooed cobra was made hot and livid by a bright flash of lightning. Snake moved toward the bed, pushing his pants down below his ass. I was trembling and couldn’t stop crying. I kept telling myself if I could stop that, everything would be all right, but I couldn’t stop.
Fat Boy came over, walking as if his feet were filled with shards of glass. He blocked my view of what Snake was doing. It wasn’t intentional, but I almost wanted to thank him. I heard the bed springs squeak. Beverly made that sad horrible sound I had heard earlier.
“I had to leak,” Fat boy said, “I’d go on you too. But I got some problems. Little prostate difficulty. There’s times it’s like trying to piss a boulder out of my dick. Man, you just thought you was something, didn’t you? You ain’t a thing. You can’t take care of your woman and you cry like a baby when you know your time’s up. You’re something, aren’t you?”
Fat Boy kicked me then, in the face, and it was so swift and sure I didn’t feel it. I just went away, down into the darkness or whiteness, or whatever the true color of blankness is, and if I had any thought before my departure, I’m sure it was the sincere hope that death would come swiftly to us all.
Part Three
Cataclysm
22
Pain throbbed me awake, or perhaps it was the reek of Snake’s urine. I could feel it drying on my face. I was still on my side and I hurt horribly, especially where Fat Boy had hit me with the. 45. Under my chin didn’t femy ay couel so good either. There were other little aches and pains. I was surprised I was alive.
Neither Snake nor Fat Boy were visible and there was no sound. I made an effort to roll and get my knees under me, but I could only make it to my back. The room was like a tilt-a-whirl ride.
I lay for a moment and watched the darkness through the window go bright with lightning stitches. Drops of rain splashed against the glass. I tried to determine how long I had been out and couldn’t. It could have been a moment. It could have been hours.
I lay still and the room stopped moving. I decided getting to my knees was too much trouble. I felt better on the floor.
A moment later, I had a new plan. I pivoted my body around and got my feet under the chair Fat Boy had been sitting in. I cocked my legs back and lifted it off the floor. The chair seemed heavier than it ought to be. I bent my knees deep and pushed the chair with all my might at the window. It hit the glass and broke it. Glass fell on me and a heavy piece pierced my shirt and stomach and stuck like a spear. Other pieces rained around me. The chair tumbled on its side against the wall. The air from outside was cool and damp and ripe with the smell of wet leaves and earth; it perked me up a little.
Neither Snake nor Fat Boy appeared.
I turned so that the heavy glass shard on my stomach fell off me. The point of it broke off in my flesh as it went. I felt around with my bound hands and got hold of it. I held it tight as I could. The broken edges cut into my palms. I bent my legs behind me, managed to spread my heels slightly. I shoved the glass between my heels and clenched it with my shoes. I got my legs positioned so I could push my wrists against the glass and saw at my bonds. They cut easily. They were strips of sheet. My wrists cut easily too.
I got my hands free and took hold of the glass and slashed my feet free. I sat up without the room taking a spin.
I stood up. I only hurt a lot now. I didn’t see Snake or Fat Boy. Nobody pissed on me.
Beverly lay on the bed. Her eyes were wide open. The baby oil bottle lay between her legs. It was coated with something dark.
I got the piece of glass and cut her free. I helped loosen the gag and she took the ball out of her mouth.
She sobbed. “You bastard,” she said. “You worthless bastard.”
“I know,” I said.
I got the. 32 out of the cardboard box on the top shelf of the closet. In a drawer by our bed I quickly found the locked metal container with the ammunition clip in it. The key to the container was taped to the top of the drawer. I worked it loose, opened the box, got the clip and fitted it into the. 32. I got the flashlight from under the bed.
I glanced at Bev. She was sitting in the middle of the bed, her knees drawn under her chin.
I went into the hallway. I didn’t hear anybody. I couldn’t decide what was going on with Snake and Fat Boy. I thought about JoAnn and Sammy and another wave of fear went over me.
I crept down the stai doghtrs looking through the railing as I went. The house smelled strangely. My nose hadn’t been working too good because of the smell of piss on my face and because the house was tainted with Snake’s odor, but now I could smell something else.