Southern Ouroboros

by Matt Kilby

  “Is that enough time to order anything?” Suzanne asked.

  “Wings and nachos.”

  Vick nodded. “We’ll take both.”

  “To drink?”

  “Water,” Suzanne said fast. Vick nodded again when the woman looked at him. When she was gone, Suzanne stared straight ahead.

  “Did I do something wrong?” he asked after watching her a full minute.

  “Which time?”

  He didn’t know what to say. This was bait for an argument he didn’t want, but the next few days would be impossible like that. Watching the side of her face, he crept through the mine field.

  “What did she say to you?”

  “Who?”

  “Maribeth.”

  “She told me to be careful and remember who you are.”

  It stung but didn’t surprise him. The way Maribeth treated him that morning, he knew the conversation happened, but there had to be more. He could prod and dig, but there was no way it would end well, so he slumped his elbows to the counter.

  “I don’t know how many times to say sorry,” he shook his head. “If you give me a number, I’ll hit it by the time we finish eating.”

  “I don’t want apologies,” she shook her head. “I don’t want anything from you.”

  “I know and that’s fine,” he said, “but we’re here for however long it takes to find Eric. Can we at least agree to be civil?”

  “You mean can I,” she said.

  “Well yeah. You’re the one who keeps the past between us.”

  “It’s a pretty messed up past,” she said.

  “It is, but if you let it go, we could at least be friends again.”

  “I think you mean ‘at most’.”

  “Fine.”

  “No,” she turned to him. “I want you to say those words. Say we’ll never be together, even if that’s the only thing that brings Eric home and makes him a real father. Do that without flinching and prove Maribeth wrong.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “Say it.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I’m not hungry anymore,” she met his eyes, slipping off the stool and walking to the door. He didn’t watch her go, his eyes on the empty seat she left as he tried to figure out what just happened.

  “Your friend leave?” the bartender asked when she brought their food. It was more than the two of them could have eaten and too much to handle himself. He thought about asking her to join him but knew where that would lead. For Eric, he kept his mouth shut.

  “Forget the water,” he told her. “Get me a shot of your cheapest bourbon and whatever’s on tap.”

  “We close in less than an hour.”

  “Plenty of time,” he said, and she gave a wicked smile he could have turned into much more a year ago.

  He took down three shots and two beers by the time the bar closed. With the hum of alcohol between his ears, he walked back and climbed the stairs to their room. He didn’t know what to say to Suzanne to get her talking to him again. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything and hope tomorrow was better. After all, he was bound to say something wrong with all that liquid stupidity running through his blood. So he made up his mind to go to bed as he unlocked the door. Not that it mattered. As he stepped inside, the first thing he noticed was Suzanne gone, her suitcase missing too.

  3

  Withdrawal felt like dying and came too fast, gnawing at Carly from the moment she left her apartment. The cowboy’s constant touch on her wrist kept back the worst, but worry made her nauseous. She never tried cold turkey. Kicking with methadone was hard enough, back when she decided to go home to Pine Haven to try to be a mother—before Snead talked sense into her as he kissed her neck and stuck a needle in her arm. Between cold sweats and stomach cramps, she found nothing short of Hell, even with a support group to talk her through. Driving south, she knew in her blood and marrow it would all soon feel like a Sunday stroll.

  The question was how soon it would come when the hand went away. The thought made her wonder if she was still in her living room, losing her mind as the heroin killed her. Maybe she was dead and this the dream she’d live until fading to final darkness.

  She debated it all to stay occupied as she drove. The cowboy wasn’t much company. Though he practically held her hand, he didn’t say anything as he stared through the windshield, following road signs with his eyes.

  “Looking for something specific?” she asked at the Georgia border, but he only muttered something and shook his head.

  “I didn’t catch that,” she said.

  “I’m trying to remember,” he answered without a glance in her direction.

  She stomped on the brakes, the back tires pulling toward the shoulder and almost off before the car stopped in the middle of the road. He looked at her then, though not with any expression she expected. His eyes didn’t grow into saucers as he shouted, Are you crazy? He didn’t tighten his hand and squeeze until she thought the bones under his fingers might snap. Instead, he watched her with nothing on his face. No frustration. No impatience. He stared a moment and took his hand away. As soon as he did, she threw up again, this time over the steering wheel.

  The agony was sudden, relentless. She doubled over with her head between her hands, forehead on the wheel’s warm, wet rubber. She tried to push her head through and curl into a ball, sobbing when it refused to budge. A hard chill ran her back, forcing her teeth to chatter. The cowboy observed without a blink—without mercy, but also without a sign he enjoyed it. After a minute, he put his hand back on her arm and took her suffering away.

  “What did you do?” she gagged, rolling down her window to spit out the taste.

  “Nothing,” he said and turned his eyes to the road. “That’s what normal feels like right now. I’m holding it back so you can drive away from the men who came to kill you and the police who’ve found the bodies in your apartment by now. If you want to go back, you can, but this hand goes with me.”

  He lifted fingers away with his last sentence, but she clamped her hand on his. She would agree to anything then to avoid that feeling. Back on the road, she debated what to do when she couldn’t.

  There were miles before that. Alabama. Mississippi. Louisiana. There, his eyes lit up and he said, Not long now. Then the dread found her, gnashing in her ear as he directed her to a highway 71 and a motel that needed sterilization or a reliable arsonist. Parked in the lot, he reached into his coat and unfolded a stack of cash she was sure started the day in Snead’s safe—the seed of their naive future. As he counted out bills, she noticed a man through his passenger window, watching with his elbow leaned on a newspaper dispenser. As skinny as he was, she guessed he was on meth but kept crack as a solid back-up.

  “It’s a bad idea to flash that much money in a place like this,” she said.

  The cowboy looked at her and followed her nod to the man. With an audience, the addict’s posture shifted into a confident swagger, imagining himself a gangster or simply figuring out how many drugs all that money could buy. She recognized his needle-sharp focus as greed—the kind that made a guy like that stab his grandma for dope money. Greed that feral would lead to something stupid, most likely attacking the cowboy as soon as he got out. The cowboy figured the same thing because his hand dipped back into the coat and came out with the ancient-looking revolver. She held her breath, but he only showed the man what trouble would earn. As those bloodshot eyes widened, the man scrambled away.

  “Better?” he asked as he put the gun away.

  “That’ll do,” she nodded. “What now?”

  “We get a room.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have money. There are better places around.”

  “I thought these were your people,” he raised an eyebrow.

  She shook her head. “Snead’s, not mine.”

  “We stay here,” he said. “We always do.”

  “What do you mean always?”

&nbs
p; “We’ll talk about that later,” he said. “When you’re better.”

  Her stomach turned as the worry came back. He had to let go eventually, and the hurt would return.

  “Did you forget?” he narrowed his eyes.

  “No,” she said, “but it will be better in a comfortable place. A soft bed and clean shower.”

  “People next door who’ll hear you scream,” he added. “You’ll do plenty of that before you’re able to stand again. Here, they won’t notice.”

  With a whimper, she lowered her eyes. She didn’t have a choice—losing that when she kept going in Georgia. Too many people would be looking for her. The cops would have questions. Mr. Ciasto would want his product and money before he punished her. Things were bleak and getting bleaker, the only glimmer of light a man dressed like a cowboy who may prove this all some elaborate setup to lure her to a place where he could murder her. As his fingers adjusted, she knew he had more to him than that. Something in his hands was real magic.

  He stared at his hand long enough to know his mind. He had to take it away to get out and around the car to touch her again.

  “Go ahead,” she whispered and braced the best she could. The torture was ready for the moment his skin left hers, twisting her guts into a corkscrew that forced her eyes closed and head down. She ground her teeth and repeated in her head don’t throw up as he got out and slammed the car door hard. The ache was so intense the noise warbled beyond her as if underwater. At the thought, she couldn’t breathe but sucked air when the idea slipped away. In the century out there alone, she wondered what the person at the desk thought about the cowboy or if they thought anything more than it was Monday. She wondered if he locked the car when he got out so Crackhead McCurious didn’t slither that way. When those thoughts were lost to the throb in her head, she wondered how long it had been but was afraid to find out. Less than ten minutes. Less than five. Less than one. Another whimper came softer than the first as she maneuvered her head so the steering wheel’s curve pressed into her eye sockets and across the bridge of her nose. She found a cool spot to relieve the tension behind her face. As much as this sucked, she was only tasting the icing.

  The cowboy came back and ripped her door open so hard Carly thought the whole thing might come off the frame. He grabbed her left arm, and everything receded into the dark. She gasped a breath as if resurrected and put her other arm around his neck. He pulled her out and dragged her until she found her legs. Blinking hard, she looked back at the open car and thought about the addict who stared at them, probably still watching from around the corner.

  “Close the door,” she slurred, her voice weak. With a shiver, she understood his touch wouldn’t help much longer.

  “It’s fine,” he grumbled, dragging her toward the steps to the second floor.

  “No,” she shook her head against his chest. “Someone will steal it.”

  “They won’t.”

  She didn’t have the strength to do more than slump against him and let him handle the rest. He did without so much as a stumble as he pulled her upstairs. Inside their room, he eased her onto the bed and stood looking down at her.

  “How’s that?”

  “I need a shower,” she mumbled with an arm across her eyes. Though the room was dim with the heavy curtains drawn, the light was still too bright for her. “This might be my last chance for a while.”

  “Can you stand long enough?”

  “If not, I can sit. Trust me, you want me to start these next days smelling as good as possible.”

  “You need help?”

  She imagined the kinds of things that happened in that room and smiled as she sat up on one side of the bed, building courage to stand. He spoke too plain to imply anything more than his arm to help her across the room, but an idea found her as she rose on shaking legs. The nausea returned and brought pain, reminding her she was far from the mood. Her husband was dead, and she was in the opening stages of withdrawal. This man was a stranger, but that didn’t keep the bad idea from budding.

  She went into the bathroom, leaving it dark except for the light under the door. Her hands ran over the sink and back of the toilet, and she avoided thinking about how many stains her fingers passed. She found the shower and turned the faucet, stepping out of her clothes and into the tub to sit and form a plan. All she had to do was let him do what men had since they realized the thing between their legs wasn’t for balance. She didn’t need to be in the mood; hell, there were times she let Snead go at her when all she wanted was sleep. She could close her eyes and pretend the cowboy was him. It was the only way for what she needed. A man with his mind on sex could be talked into anything, and she figured this one could find her a quick fix to ease the next few days. In a place like this, someone had methadone or a little heroin to guide her into sobriety. Or she might not need them. The cowboy kept her suffering at bay by touching her arm. She couldn’t help imagining what would happen with something more intimate. Sleeping with him might bypass days of agony without even a headache. By tomorrow, she would beg to make it stop, but then it’d be too late.

  She told herself she didn’t have a choice as she turned off the water and stood, unsure if she was shivering from withdrawal or cold air. She left her clothes on the floor to walk toward the light under the door. With her hand on the knob, she prepared herself with a sigh and walked out. He sat in a chair beside the bed as if waiting to start his vigil, mouth grim as he looked down her naked body. She shivered again and pulled her arms across her clenching guts as she walked to him, slipping into his lap. The smell of leather and gun oil came back so strong she almost lost her fight against the nausea but managed as she kissed him. He didn’t put his arms around her or shift so her hands could find his belt. He didn’t open his mouth when she offered her tongue. He stared forward and waited for her to understand this wasn’t an option. When she did, she started to cry.

  “I can’t do this,” she covered her face.

  “You can,” he said without a grain of sympathy.

  “I need it,” she moaned and, realizing the way it sounded, clarified with, “heroin, methadone, anything.”

  “You need rest and time,” he said.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I told your father I would.”

  “My father,” she clenched her jaw. Now everything made sense. This was some redneck Lud Arkin paid to track her down. The only surprise was he didn’t sooner. With hate in her eyes, she shoved both hands into his chest and slapped him. She expected him to dump her into the floor, but he didn’t move.

  “I met him passing through Pine Haven and told him I’d see you soon. He misses you more than he’ll admit, but your mother is more open. Things changed there and most for the worst. We’ll give their dreams back first and then you’ll give them hope.”

  “Oh yeah,” she snarled. “How’s that?”

  “You’ll stand as proof nothing is permanent. As easy as they lost peace, they can find it again.”

  “If I can turn it around, they can too,” she said and got off of him. She felt weak on her way back to the bathroom. The light tacked nails into her skull, but she needed to find her clothes. She pulled on her underwear and had her bra in hand when her stomach tightened too hard. Her knees buckled and dropped her. She didn’t make it past the toilet seat in time to avoid throwing up all over it.

  He stood then. She heard the creak as he got out of the chair and his boots brushing across the carpet. He came in and stepped over her to the tub, where he sat on the rim.

  “You have a daughter,” he said.

  “Shut up,” she shook her head with a guttural groan.

  “You named her Lita before you left.”

  “I said shut up.”

  “She needs you more than any of them, and you need her as much, but neither of you will realize that until you get there.”

  “If she’s smart, she’ll tell me to die,” she caught a breath she couldn’t keep. “I’d be happy to giv
e her that.”

  “You’ll give her more, but there are things you need to do before you can.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” she grimaced and couldn’t control the tremors. They ran over her and kept her breaths short and sharp. No matter how many she took, they weren’t enough. Her eyes fluttered and rolled back. The real withdrawal started, and those three words were her last for a while.

  4

  Suzanne stood beside a highway with her suitcase in hand, trying to figure out how she got there. She last remembered walking down the front steps of Maribeth’s house, going around the back of Vick’s new car. A fog turned the rest into a dream and a bad one at that. Every ounce of hatred she once felt for Vick and thought she left behind seeped back, weighing so much its loss made her hollow.

  Part of her welcomed the change from the emptiness that settled into her over the months leading away from last summer. On the day Pine Haven burned, she killed two men, and though they both deserved it and left her no choice, the resulting guilt didn’t accept excuses. It kept her up nights for the first couple of months, seeing them die again in vivid detail. Over and over, every night, she stabbed one in the stomach on the Hovington’s stairs and shot another from the window of what was supposed to be Alice’s nursery. One screamed in agony and the other dropped away without a sound. Things became better after she moved in with Maribeth. She had someone to talk about it with when she wanted to, though she never did. Those kinds of memories were best buried deep and stayed put as long as she kept distracted taking care of Alice and Maribeth, drinking herself stupid when neither was available. The fog was familiar enough, but this was the first time she blacked out and wandered away on a moonlit stroll through swamp country. She didn’t know how long she walked or how far and couldn’t come up with any way back other than calling Vick. Embarrassed, she took out her phone.

  The clock beside the X’ed out cell tower said 4 AM, and she left Vick at the bar at 2. She couldn’t carry a suitcase that long without feeling it. She should be exhausted, but the thought summoned the sensation, threatening to drop her. She put down her bag and scanned the tree line as if it held answers. With a huff, she thought of her father.