Pivot

by L C Barlow

  Chapter 8

  ONE, FOR THE MONEY

  "The lock I need picked belongs to the back door of a small house about an hour and a half from here," Patrick told me. "The house I used to live in and own. You know how I told you I was paranoid?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Well, the meth back then made me really fucking paranoid. I'd hide things - out in the yard, taped to the back of the toilet, in the brick of the fireplace."

  "Wow," I said.

  "Yeah, it's a little fucked up."

  "Or unintentionally brilliant," I said.

  Patrick's eyes no longer had joy in them. "Well, one year my Father got fed up with me and came with two men to get me. They put me in a car, took me to a rehab center, and wouldn't let me leave.

  "They got me clean over a half a year's time, enrolled me in college, got my life back on track. I'll admit that. They did. But while I was in rehab, my Dad sold the house. I didn't know till later."

  "Ah," I said, the realization quickly stabbing me. "And there was money you left behind."

  He sighed loudly. "And things." He rubbed his hands on his legs repeatedly. "I don't even know if they're still there. But I also don't want to risk tipping the new owners off that there's something worth my coming all the way back a year and a half later to get. If I were to tell them exactly what it is I'm missing, they certainly won't let me in."

  "What did you leave behind?"

  Patrick sighed again and ran his hands through his hair. "Well, what I think I can get back, hope I can get back, is fifty grand in cash and a rosary worth... quite a bit." He looked at me with vulnerable eyes.

  "You must have been pretty fucking out of it to forget about that shit," I said.

  "I was," he replied, quietly.

  "And where did you put these things?" I asked.

  "I definitely put them in the fireplace."

  "In the fireplace?"

  "Well, in one side of the fireplace. One of the bricks pulls out. I hid the money and the rosary in a few pockets I carved out inside the fireplace wall."

  I sighed. "This is insane."

  "This is meth."

  I shook my head, shrugged my shoulders.

  "I'll help you," I conceded, and this shocked Patrick into perfect stillness. I also knew, in that moment, that he would agree to anything. "But on one condition."

  "I will pay you..."

  I swatted these words away. "What I really need right now is... your car."

  "My car?"

  "For tomorrow. The whole day."

  He breathed rapidly, bit his lip hard. It bled, and he wiped away the blood. With the same hand, he shook mine. "We have a deal."

  Chapter 9

  ECONOMICS

  I was there the first time Cyrus taught Alex to kill. It was two years after my experiences with Roland, and Cyrus had an old dog that needed to be put down. The damned thing had been screaming for days, and we - me, Roland, and Alex - were brought to the back of the property to a wooded area with a small stream.

  Cyrus never told me or the others point blank why, only we knew. I knew. Alex knew. Roland knew. Even the damned dog knew. His head hung low, ears drooped, he shook all over. We didn't shake.

  Cyrus was using his resources wisely. He had a dog that needed to be put down, and he had a son who needed to learn how to put "dogs" down. It was economical.

  I remember when Cyrus put the .357 in Alex's hand, though, it didn't feel right. Something about the way Alex twisted the gun, took off the safety, turned his head, I didn't feel well about it. But when I looked to Roland, he simply leaned against a tree, stock still, and folded his arms. I knew then it was happening no matter what... it was what it was.

  Cyrus had Shakespeare - the brown lab - lay down. He motioned for Alex to stand a few feet behind him, and Alex did. Then, we all put bright orange ear plugs in our ears.

  Cyrus put his finger on one of the skull bones that protruded over Shakespeare's neck. "Right here," he said to Alex and handed him the gun. "One bullet here, and we start digging."

  Alex cocked the gun, and before I could blink he fired. One. Two. Three. Four. Five shots. They were so loud, I smacked my ears with my hands and shut my eyes tight for a split second.

  After a few moments of ringing, I could hear Shakespeare. When I looked, he was still alive, quivering, crawling along the dirt, whimpering. Alex had not pierced the head.

  Alex had poured into Shakespeare like a claymore mine, and the dog was now bloody and white from a milky foam was seething out of a hole in his back. His left paw was blown completely off.

  My throat stiffened. I watched as Shakespeare's tongue lamely licked at the dirt and a river of blood sloshed onto the thin grass.

  "Goddamnit Alex!" roared Cyrus. Alex stared blindly at his Father. Cyrus grabbed the gun from him and knocked him in the face with it. Roland, meanwhile, calmly strolled from his tree and retrieved a pistol from his inner pocket. He pointed it at Alex. I remember the darkening in Alex's eyes, how he winced despite himself, and that pleased me.

  "Move out of the way, so I can do your job for you," Roland said. Alex scooted towards me. When he moved, Roland shot the dog in the back of the head twice, and Shakespeare stopped turning.

  "Need I remind you that I am in charge?!" fumed Cyrus. He quickly walked across the dirt and dead leaves and pushed Alex to the ground. "What was the use of that? What did you think that would accomplish? Tell me!"

  Alex stared at Cyrus, and I think that was the bravest moment he had ever had, not looking away. But it quickly broke, as do all great things supported by bad deeds, and Alex began whimpering like he and Shakespeare and switched places. "I just..." Alex said.

  "You just what?!"

  "I just wanted to do well."

  Cyrus pushed Alex to the ground with his foot. "What is it exactly that you think we do here? Hm?"

  "I... I... don't know." A tear trickled from Alex's left eye.

  "Exactly. You don't know." He pointed at Shakespeare. "You don't fucking know. Well here is your first lesson. We never do this to one of our own. Never! You want to torture something, and you choose the family dog...!" Cyrus shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.

  "I'm sorry," Alex said.

  "Fuck you are. Get up!" Cyrus yelled, and he took his foot up from Alex's chest. "You're going to dig that damned grave on your own. I want it perfect."

  Alex pulled himself up, wiped his nose and slunk past Shakespeare to where one of the shovels lay against a tree. "You'll need the spade first," Cyrus said. Alex, wiping his eyes, walked the two feet of distance to where a spade lay on the woods' floor, reached down, his blonde hair falling into his eyes.

  "Now start digging," said Cyrus. "And you'll keep going until your body hurts. And you'll still keep digging. And then your arms will give out. And then you'll claw through that dirt a spoonful at a time. You won't stop until I say."

  Alex sniffed, looking less like a king and more a pawn. He squinted at the ground below his feet. Halfheartedly, he broke the ground with the spade, split the first slice of soil in two, wedging the pieces apart until he could gain further entry.

  Then, he hit a new spot of soil and did the same thing. And again. And again. He was better at digging graves than shooting dogs, I thought, as we watched him for a good hour, saw the tiny beads of perspiration form on his forehead and roll down the sides of his face. I watched the grit begin to collect into the tiny crevices between his nose and cheeks, saw the light seep from the part in his mouth until there was only an exhausted, drained husk of a boy, and yes, this contented me.

  Roland leaned against his tree. Cyrus clenched his fists now and again. I stood, too wary to move amongst the enormous strands of tension strung through the air.

  As time passed, I eyed at the leaves in the trees surrounding us, saw them blow in the wind, drop sometimes, their red and yellow blotting out the darkening ground, sometimes landing on Shakespeare, sometimes hitting me. They reminded me of butterflies that
could not stay afloat.

  After the first hour, the three of us found seats in the dirt. After the third, I knew rigor mortis had set in for Shakespeare, but Alex was moving ever fervently, toiling to show that he couldn't be beat. After the fourth, the sun was going down, and Roland went to the house and came back with sandwiches for himself and me and Cyrus. He brought flashlights - giant, million candlelight ones - and set them up in a circle around Alex.

  We kept watching him, watched the dirt fly in the air in front of the flashlights like a cleansing mist. It felt like a campout, except calmer.

  After the sixth hour, Alex was done digging. Cyrus gently placed Shakespeare into the hole, kissed his head, apologized for his son's behavior, and then we watched for the next hour while Alex filled in that hole, packed the grains neatly like files in a filing cabinet.

  We retrieved all of the flashlights, trekked back to the house, and as we walked, Cyrus said to Alex, "I thought you loved that dog."

  The words that came from Alex's mouth were garbled from exhaustion, and I almost missed them. "I did," he said.

  We went to one of the East Wing's dens. Alex walked straight upstairs, headed to his room. Cyrus followed him and was gone, leaving Roland and me behind. That was when Roland asked me:

  "What would you call that?"

  "What Alex did?" I said.

  "Mm-hmm." His eyes peered at me in the dim light.

  "I don't know. I don't understand. He went insane."

  Roland looked at the cuticles of his nails, but didn't really look at them. "And that's just the beginning," he replied. He slowly gazed up at the ceiling and cocked his head, his eyes distancing.

  "I'm not going to work with that boy. Teaching him to kill... it won't be me. Not like how I was with you." He put his right hand on his hip and used his left one to place against the wall. "We need to get you a lock for your room." When he said this, an awareness crept into me that had not existed before. "As you know, Jack... I'm not always here. Cyrus isn't always here." He shook his head. "I'm glad I taught you well. I'm glad you were the first to learn."

  "Roland," I said.

  "Hm?"

  "Can Cyrus bring me back? Like he does with you?"

  Roland smiled at me, and he opened his mouth to laugh, but no laugh arrived. "There's no need to worry about that. Adults die in this house. Children do not."

  At this, I noticed the feel of my heart slowing, and I remembered the first time, when I had killed Roland, that I thought I would die with him. I suddenly felt very tired. "Roland?"

  "Yes?"

  "What do you see... when I kill you?" I asked.

  He paused for a great while, and in this pause he seemed more statue than human, and that frightened me more than he had ever before. "It doesn't matter what I see," he whispered, and it felt as though a doll were talking to me, not a man. "Because you and I... we are similar, but we aren't the same."

  "What are you?" I asked.

  "Not Cyrus. Not Alex. But not you." I did not press him further. I did, however, have one more question.

  I whispered his name yet again.

  He didn't say anything for a moment, as though he knew what I would ask and dreamed not to answer. "...yes, Jack?" His words were so low, they sounded like the beating of a heart.

  "If Alex dies, can Cyrus bring him back?"

  Roland pulled out his pack of cigarettes and hit them against his palm. He stared at them as he hit them and would not look at me. "No," Roland said. "He cannot."

  It was then that I felt the conversation was over, and I headed in the direction of Cyrus and Alex and my room.

  Before, I could reach the stairs, however, Roland said, "Two things you should remember, Jack. Just two things." I turned to him as he lit his cigarette. "Nothing comes between a man and his son. No matter how bad the boy gets, no matter how good of a service you provide for Cyrus, you are worlds apart.

  "The second. There is a certain amount of equaling that goes on in this world, and what Alex did to Shakespeare... some equaling is due. When that equaling comes, you best get out the way. Each and every time, you best sit back and watch - for there will be other times. And as you watch, you get it through your head, that no matter your fury, no matter your pain, it's the equaling that's Alex's fate. The equaling gets the job done. Every time. Not you.

  "The same goes for every person.

  "The same goes for every time I'm on that slab."

  * * *

  When I was going up the stairs, I considered Roland's words - and the cogs in my head made sense of it exactly as he meant. I wasn't really killing him, not really. The equaling was, and I happened to be there. But at that age, experiencing the goodness that Roland had to offer, I couldn't understand why he might need any equaling at all.

  Cyrus was headed back down the stairs as I was headed up. "Goodnight, Jack," he said, and he stopped me, gave me a kiss on the forehead. I smiled. A sweet moment. A fatherly one. I told him goodnight.

  I went up the steps to my room, opened the door, flicked on my light, and Alex was standing at the foot of my bed. He appeared absolutely dreadful - covered in dirt, eyes red. His hair was disheveled, his body almost lifeless. "What are you doing here?" I asked him.

  "I just need to tell you something." He walked in a slouched manner towards me until his face almost touched mine. I could smell his salty breath, felt the hairs on my face tickled by it. I looked in his blue eyes, and his eyelids drooped just below the tops of the irises. He looked stoned.

  "What?" I asked.

  "I told you I'd do it better than you when Dad started teaching me."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," I said. "I could have killed five dogs. You didn't even kill one."

  "But I made him feel it," he said. "I made all of you feel it."

  "Why does that matter?"

  "It's the only thing that matters," he said, and he shoved me.

  I didn't even think. I pulled out the knife I always kept in my back right pocket and sliced his face with it. It was about a two inch cut across his rosy-red cheek, the same cheek that Cyrus had struck with the butt of the .357.

  Alex slapped his right hand to his face and looked at me with wide eyes, shaking his head back and forth. "I'm telling Dad!" he yelled, and he dashed out of the room.

  He did tell Cyrus.

  Cyrus never brought it up with me. It was never mentioned. Instead, Alex was locked in his room for the night.

  Yet it didn't calm me, Alex being shut away. I could hear him all through the night fiddling with the lock on his door, trying to pick it. And he kept muttering to himself, over and over, which I heard through the crack of the door, "Must do better. Must be better." I knew what it meant - that I must do better, as well. But I was beginning to get so tired.

  Chapter 10

  EQUILIBRIUM

  Three weeks had passed before the woman showed up on Cyrus's doorstep. I happened to watch her enter his home, and I sat on the staircase next to the living room of the entryway so that I could listen to them speak.

  She unnerved me, as she appeared a life-size doll with black hair and eyes too large for her face, her body looking as though it wasn't sewn together just right. She seemed so synthetic, with lily white skin, and her dress was disheveled, a bit too large for her.

  She was escorted by another woman whose graying hair was pinned in a tight bun - this older woman was probably her mother, I had guessed, though I was not sure. Both of them nodded their heads to me when they entered, just like they nodded their heads to Cyrus, and then he asked them to step into the den.

  As they walked past me, I noticed something even odder about the girl that perhaps would not have bothered me had her presence not already resonated in my spine. Her arm was incomplete. Her left hand and part of her left arm were gone. I saw the bandaged nub against her side, the white standing out against her purple dress. Then she was in the living room, and Cyrus was pouring all of them lemonade. I heard the tink tink tink of ice in glass.


  In quiet moments like those, I checked for Alex in case he was nearby - I had learned to do this automatically - and when I saw he was not there, I sat quietly on the wooden steps and listened.

  "I am so sorry to hear," Cyrus said. "What exactly happened to you dear? Was it a car accident?"

  "No. No." There was a long pause. "I was in the barn with my brothers. And we were swinging on the big rope."

  "Yes?" said Cyrus.

  Another long pause. Something that sounded like tissue being pulled from a box.

  "John needed to go to the bathroom, and I started walking him to the house. By then it was so dark outside... I didn't even hear it. It's like it appeared out of thin air! One of the nurses said that dogs are quiet like that when they attack. They only bark and growl when they want you to know they're coming. But it bit me and shook me so hard I thought I'd die.

  "I fell down, and I screamed for John to go get help, and when I heard the cracking sound, I started crying. Because I knew what it was. Couldn't see it, but I knew. It was tearing me to shreds."

  Another pause. "It hurt so bad, I can't even describe the pain. And I just kept hitting it. And hitting it. And it wouldn't let go. And I grabbed a rock..." Another long pause and what sounded like sniffling.

  Cyrus mumbled something low. The next person that spoke was the older woman.

  "John ran back to the barn. He told Walter and Jesse what was happening. Walter got a shovel. They ran out, found Lisa, and you can imagine. They hit the dog, and it ran off, but her arm was shredded.

  "The doctors said the only thing to do was to give it time to see if it would heal. They couldn't stitch everything. But the arm didn't make it. So they had to amputate it."

  I could hear Lisa crying, and for a while it was just her sobs, but finally she said, "It still hurts. It still hurts so bad."