by Tyler Wolfe
The bartender smiled indulgently and shook his head, the boredom gone and a sympathetic look in his eyes. I didn’t know whether it was the skill of long bar-tending, or he really did care about the guy sitting across the bar from him. The two of them talked as if they were old friends.
Maybe this bartender is the only friend this guy has. That was depressing. Again, it reminded me of Diasko...but the tired, dirty barfly didn’t seem anywhere near as nasty.
“Eh, I’m sure he’s just fine. He’s a man now Marlon. You know that. And you know you two have been butting heads since his Mom left.” The bartender leaned over and started clearing off the empties, then returned as I kept listening.
“I know, but he’s still my boy. He always comes back when he runs away. The longest he’s left has been a couple weeks. But he’s been gone for months now.” His gnarled fingers knotted together, ashy skin almost grayish in the dim light. “He should have called by now or something. He knows I worry.”
...What the hell? My heart leaped, and the hot room suddenly felt chilly. Cold sweat between my shoulder blades, I listened with sudden intensity to the conversation, trying to piece together what was being said.
It can’t be. After all this time? I have to be mistaken.
But deep down, I knew I wasn’t. I listened in mutely, my blood running cold, as I started to suspect why the man looked familiar.
CHAPTER 20
The Father
The bartender went to get the bikers another round of beers, and came lumbering back with a hamburger on a paper plate. He shoved it insistently at his alkie friend, who nodded gratefully, but only picked at it.
The bartender watched him until he actually took a bite, and then asked, “Do you know where he coulda gone…I mean…have you gone looking anywhere?”
Marlon shook his head, looking even more exhausted. “I dunno where I’m supposed to look that I haven’t already, Lucky. He’s got no friends or any other family, all he’s got is me.” He was starting to get choked up, with real worry in his voice. “He didn’t pack anything, he left with the clothes on his back. And I know he ain’t got no money.”
“And it’s been months? Did you call the cops?” The question came out grudgingly, as if involving police was something the bartender preferred to avoid.
Marlon shot him a shrewdly annoyed look. “No Florida cop is gonna help a black man with a record find his son. Nobody with a badge cares about the kids in our community, and they would probably blame me. Maybe even make my ass a suspect.”
Lucky smiled tightly. “Oh. Yeah. Guess that was pretty white of me to say. Sorry.”
“I just want him to come back home, that’s all.” Tears welled in the man’s eyes and dripped off the end of his nose as he slouched over the bar. The taste of my drink soured in my mouth suddenly, and I set the glass down.
“Why the hell did he leave in the middle of the night?” Lucky squinted in confusion. “Did you two fight again?”
Marlon went quiet, toying with his beer, his head ducked, eyes looking everywhere but his friend.
“...Marlon?”
He looked up sullenly, his eyes dull. “Yeah. Yeah, we uh, we got into it pretty good.”
My uneasiness grew as I listened. A runaway son, on the young side, a loner. A young black man, missing.
Oh God. Can it really be the same kid? Did I kill this guy’s son? All signs point to yes. I turned to look at the man as long as I could, searched for a resemblance, and found one.
That narrow jaw. The wide, dark eyes. The pattern of his hairline.
Nausea boiled up my throat suddenly; I choked slightly, and sat back, wiping my mouth. Both men glanced at me briefly, and I focused as hard as I could on the television.
There was a warning on the news about not taking the chilled, unconscious wild iguanas inside this winter. At any other time, I would have found it funny as hell that this had to be explained to people. But now, I was too focused on the conversation a few feet away.
“He’s got nowhere to go, is what I’m saying. That’s why I’m worried, I keep wondering.” Marlon kept on. “The boy’s got problems. He’s got a good heart, and he’s good at school, but he’s like his mama. He runs away when things get tough, and he might not have run somewhere safe.” He licked his lips and drained the rest of his beer, then shook his head. “Plenty of places in this town that aren’t safe at all.”
“Don’t you think he’s smart enough to stay out of trouble, though? I mean, he’s nineteen, and with everything you two have been through, he’s gotta know that the world’s no bed of roses.” Lucky was still trying to keep his friend calm and hopeful.
“Yeah, yeah he’s smart...until he’s not. He’s a young man, after all.” He hesitated, then mumbled in a lower voice, “He’s also got my temper.”
A creeping suspicion started to enter my head alongside the first, and in its own way, it was just as horrifying. I had always wondered what that kid had been doing wandering the streets that night, where he had come from, and why he had been so crazily aggressive.
Maybe he had already come from a fight...or just a beating. His own.
Maybe he was an abused kid running away, adrenaline still spiked, maybe carrying bruises I couldn’t see. Maybe he was so crazy because he was desperate, and because for most of his life, bullying people was just a way of doing things. Of course, he would do the same if he was scared and wanted to feel powerful.
The bartender scratched his beard, looking at his friend shrewdly. He hadn’t missed the fact that Marlon just skipped right over his question.
I found myself staring fiercely at the bar top, the television forgotten. What did you argue about with your boy, Marlon? Did you argue with your son over college? Money? Work? A girl? Your drinking? Or was it what you did to his mother? Or to him?
Did you go off at him? Say more than you had planned? Hit more than you would ever admit? Did you drive him out of your house into the streets?
Just how bad of a temper do you have? What fucking mental disease did you pass on to him? I had spent months wondering why that kid had attacked me that night, and now that I knew something about what had happened, I was starting to really wonder about the rest.
Would that boy have died, and would all of the hell that I went through have happened, if your drunk, dumb ass hadn’t brutalized your son?
The answer was no, and I knew it. But I also knew that he would never admit what he had done, and he would never know what he had cost his son. His son would vanish into memory. Marlon would vanish into a bottle. Even he wouldn’t properly mourn, because even though he was responsible for what happened, he would never know that.
He would never admit his suspicions, whatever they were, because that would be admitting responsibility, at least on some level. Unlike me, he wouldn’t lie awake nights wrestling with it. I’m sure he had booze for that.
And suddenly, I knew with fierce clarity that I hated him for that.
“Marlon,” Lucky asked slowly in a very gentle, careful voice, “Why would he run away like that if you’re all he’s got? I know you two argue, but you’ve never said how bad it got.”
Own up, you fucking coward, I thought as I sat there seething. I quickly took a swallow of my drink to cover my scowl.
Marlon ducked his head down quickly and stared firmly at the scarred bar top. His nails scraped at the resin-covered wood, making tiny noises in the quiet. When the bikers roared with laughter outside, he flinched slightly. Finally he mumbled something so low that neither of us could hear it.
“What was that?” The old bartender lifted an eyebrow, starting to look annoyed. I wondered if he had kids at home.
I took another swallow of my drink, my heart banging in my head. The silence stretched out between the two, and I felt a sickness welling in the back of my throat again. I didn’t know what was worse: the guilt and horror of facing the man who didn’t know I had taken his son away, or the sheer frustrated rage of facing the man whose actions
had driven his son onto his collision course with me.
Lucky sighed heavily. “How bad did it get, Marlon?” he asked in an exasperated voice.
Marlon’s gnarled fingers knotted and flexed on the bar top as his scowl deepened. “Man, it’s none of your business. It’s a family matter.”
“It’s a family matter that ended in your son running away when he had no money and nowhere to go.” Lucky was quickly becoming my angel of vengeance, and he didn’t even know. A touch of my rage ebbed away as he persisted. “You wouldn’t be bringing it up if you didn’t want to be talking about it.”
I took another swallow of my drink. I really needed that alcohol now.
“Yeah, yeah.” Marlon rubbed his face hard, and looked around briefly before answering. I felt his eyes settle on me and kept my eyes on the television screen firmly until he shifted in his seat and looked away. “...Yeah, we got into it pretty good,” he said again.
I kept watching him from the corner of my eye. Just tell the truth. How many times did you hit him?
Suddenly the Long Island Iced Tea was threatening to erupt from my throat, along with everything I had eaten today. I got up and lurched for the dingy bathroom, the palms of my hands aching like they had for hours after I had strangled Marlon’s son to death.
The bathroom reeked of air freshener and was so full of graffiti that it took me a dizzy minute to figure out that it wasn’t just a bad post-modern paint job. I leaned on the sink, covered in icy sweat, breathing in and out through my mouth as I tried to figure out if my stomach would keep its contents.
I remembered the crazy-wild feeling that had filled me when I had killed. The way I had ranted at them, both the boy and Diasko, taunting them for trying to bully me.
I tried to meet my eyes in the battered mirror above the sink, and saw the wide, hard eyes of a desperate man who was somewhere between nauseated and angry. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want any of this.
Then another surge of rage. Grrrr, it’s his fault. That guy. He drove his son out of his home and then his son turned around and came after me. Then I had to kill the poor sonuvabitch because he threatened my life! I didn’t even mean to. But how do you “not mean” to abuse your son?
I looked in the mirror again, at the side of me I had hoped to never see again once Diasko was silenced. But, here he was, glaring back at me with the gaze of a rabid wolf.
He should pay for what he did.
But justice was a tricky thing. I knew it. One man’s justice was always another man’s horror. For Marlon to get justice, I would have to suffer, again. But for his son to get justice? Well...I was already suffering from that.
I wished to God that I knew the boy’s name, so that at least I could remember him properly. But his poor excuse for a father didn’t say it once when he was talking about how worried he was about him. I was beginning to wonder if he even remembered it.
It has to be guilt. He knows deep down that he screwed up and now he’s lost his son because of it.
My thoughts continued to make me queasy and I wanted to throw up. It was a few minutes before the sweat dried on my body and I was able to pull myself together enough to think about leaving the bathroom.
The kid didn’t deserve what he got. Just like I didn’t deserve to end up on the wrong end of his anger, and I certainly don’t deserve to end up behind bars because of this fucking mess. The bad guys here are all side players—they’re the ones who made people like me do terrible things.
The kid deserved to live and I deserve to be free. But Joe Diasko deserved death, and so does the drunk child abuser at the bar out there.
I took a step toward the door, then looked back at the mirror. “Don’t do it,” I told the scowling man looking back at me. “You’ve been lucky. Damn lucky. Don’t blow it, not for revenge. Even if he deserves it.”
I took several deep breaths, mopped my forehead with a paper towel, and walked back out.
Nothing had changed but a few patrons. The bikers were still partying outside. Marlon was still hunkered at the bar, working on a fresh beer. The bartender had cleaned up my puddle of melt water, and looked up at me as I came out. “You all right, buddy?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, and sat back down. “Rum and Coke, light rum, please.” I needed to get the taste of bile out of my mouth...and figure out what the hell to do.
His idea of “light rum” was about normal; I sipped it and chewed the ice cubes, feeling my stomach and head slowly settle.
The old bartender was coaxing Marlon to eat more while he cried into his beer. That guy doesn’t deserve you, Lucky, I thought as I pretended to watch television.
“Look,” Lucky was saying. “I’m not sure what to say to you about this. Some people, you just can’t expect a second chance with once you raise your hand to them. You know that after what happened with your wife.”
Marlon glared at the bar top, lips trembling visibly. He looked like a small child about to throw a teary-eyed tantrum.
Lucky pushed it just a bit further and I tensed, knowing at once what would happen. “You can’t just hit people when you’re—”
“I didn’t hit my son!” Marlon snapped back, slamming the beer bottle down on the bar hard enough to send foam spilling from its neck. “It was discipline. That’s all. I was teaching him how to be a man!”
You were teaching him how to be a monster. I stared at him openly for a few seconds. I was sure everyone else in the bar was too. The lie curdled on the air as soon as it was spoken, and I felt tension rise in everyone in the room.
Guilty, you son of a bitch. Guilty.
I have to get out of here before I punch him in the face. I got up suddenly, my bar stool squeaking on the worn boards. I threw down a ten for my drinks and turned quickly, starting to walk out.
As I stood up and started walking, the bartender and the child beater sitting at the bar turned and looked right at me. Before I could stop myself, I locked eyes with Marlon. I don’t know what he saw in my face, but his eyes widened at once, and he quickly looked away.
I forced myself to walk away. Hands clenched, I walked out to my truck, where I had to sit for a while until I felt less dizzy.
“Holy shit,” I muttered to myself as I sat in my truck in the parking lot. My heart was beating too fast, and I had a feeling of being pushed forward, making me dizzy and queasy. I had to check the parking brake to make sure I wasn’t actually rolling.
The two halves of me were in an all-out brawl. Part of me wanted to wait out here for Marlon, follow him back to his apartment on Fernery, and beat the ever-loving crap out of him. He deserved it. No one could argue that.
But, I didn’t deserve prison for doing it.
The other half of me wanted to confess. Wanted to apologize. Not because that scumbag deserved any closure, but because...
Because why? Because I deserve to be punished? Because the kid deserves a funeral? Because...why?
I closed my eyes and sat back against the seat. “I killed that man’s son.” Nothing that I did now would justify that, or avenge him.
Just let it go, Carter. Let him go. Let his punishment be to live with suspecting that he drove his son away to his death...or that his son has disappeared deliberately to get away from him.
Let him live with that suspense. Let that be enough.
Reason won, and I relaxed slightly. Yeah, I’m not going to risk being arrested just on principles I can’t even really justify right now.
I opened my eyes and was about to fish out my keys when a banging on my window made me jump. I looked over...and it was Marlon practically nosing my window and glaring in at me. Oh, what the hell is this now?
I stared back at him. “Get the hell off my truck!” I shouted at the window.
He just kept staring. Then he said, in a deeper, fake-tough voice, “The fuck was you lookin at, boy? You got something you wanna say?”
For a second I was all the way back on Fernery and it was months ago, and his idiot son was about to grab
me from behind and start beating on me in the dark. Then I was back in the present, and an aging, alkie piece of shit was wasting his last scrap of bravado pounding on my window.
“Fuck off, old man.” I let the part of me out that I had been trying to keep under wraps, and stared right into his eyes. “Don’t make me run you over, you goddamn drunk.”
He took a half-step back, and then steeled himself, his wet lips trembling in a mix of fear and anger. “I said, what the hell were you looking at?”
The other side of me took hold for a moment. I exploded out of the truck, shoving him back with the door as I opened it so that he stumbled back against the side of an adjacent vehicle.
I leaned out, thinking of the tire iron I had under the seat. “I’m looking at a nasty old drunk who lost his son because he’s too damn stupid to keep from beating up his loved ones, you miserable fuck,” I hissed, pointing a finger in his face.
He stared at me, eyes going from wide and aggressive to huge and terrified. “Eh...fuck you! You don’t know me.” he mumbled but flinched back when I put a foot outside the truck.
“No, fuck you,” I growled. “Fuck you for thinking that treating your kid like a punching bag was a good way to raise him. And fuck you for crying all over the goddamn bar looking for sympathy now that your actions have consequences.”
He pressed back against the car, a look of terror replacing his drunken anger. “W-who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m a stone-cold killer, you maggot piece of shit.”
“Someone who knows what happens when a prick like you won’t leave an innocent kid alone. Now get the hell away from my truck before I run your ass over.”
I wanted to with all my heart. With every bit of rage that I had ever felt toward any man who used his fists to spread misery and make himself feel big. With all the suffering and fear I had felt since all of this had begun. It’s your fault if you die tonight. Test me right now. I fucking dare you.
But he didn’t. He blinked first, and turned, stumbling back into the bar, slipping a little on the gravel in his busted shoes.
