by J. C. Allen
She’d be ashamed to have ever said she married a man capable of calling another woman a cunt. It said something that just thinking about that word, and how I had said it, and who I had said it to, left me with a lot of grief and feeling of repulsion.
And I was most certainly not a man who got easily offended, disturbed, or grossed out.
Go home. Come back and apologize to your wife’s resting spot when you have your shit together. And think about what kind of man you want to be.
One that believes the people he loves, or one that lets alcohol, emotions, and manipulations control his beliefs?
Because heaven knows the man you are isn’t any of those things. The type of man you are now?
Nobody is going to want to associate with that man, let alone love them.
I tried to get up, but my back screamed at me as I shot upright. Pins and needles assaulted my left leg. I glanced down and saw I’d fallen asleep with it crossed under my right, and I was paying for it now. Figured. Can’t even sleep right.
Though I had no way of knowing if I’d slept this way or if I’d done this subconsciously upon awakening, my fists were clenched—they were ready for a fight. Every bit of me was ready for a fight. A fight with myself, a fight with the world, a fight with fate…
A fight with everyone except, obviously, Eve.
But even then, I was fighting with myself over how to handle her and when to handle her. I needed to apologize, clearly—but how? And when? And in what venue? And—
Goddamnit, Derek, let’s just get home.
It’s not like fighting did any good, anyways. I’d been fighting for, what, two, three years now? And what had that gotten me?
A dead family, a dead wife, and a girlfriend who wishes she was dead to me.
“Great…” I said, struggling to unclench my hand so that I could wipe the filth of sleep from my face. “Waking up like a real winner today. Doing good for yourself, Derek Knight!”
Sweat-caked brow, crusted eyes, dried snot, settling drool around my mouth and nose, and dry skin made up for what could only be described as the worst I probably ever looked. It was probably a fair guess that I had bugs crawling over me, dirt caked into my face, and God knows what else. I was a fucking terrible mess, and as I reached up to my eyes, I realized it was even worse than I had suspected.
Had I been crying in my sleep? My thumb backtracked to the corner of one eye, found a few still-damp trails of salt-crystals cutting through the no-doubt grimy surface of my cheeks and sinuses. Yes, yes I had been crying.
I was such a pitiful mess, had sunk so low, let myself reach such depths of embarrassment and shame, that I almost began to cry again.
You don’t get to cry the way you treated Eve, you fucking asshole. You have nothing to cry over. She’s the one who can cry.
… I know.
Then why did you do it? Why did you treat her so bad?
I wanted to be mad at the voices in my head yelling at me, calling me a piece of shit and things even I recoiled at. I shouldn’t have for all of the things I’d said, done, and witnessed, but the words in my head got to me in a way that I just could never have anticipated. Then again, when had you ever anticipated anything in the last couple of years?
Your family’s death. Maggie’s death. Everything with Eve…
It brought back the memory of my dream from the night before, the one in which I had had that same vision as I usually did with Maggie. I saw her murderer and I, as I always did, pummeled him into submission, leaving him on death’s doors before he uttered the words that had haunted me for months on end.
But unlike most dreams, in which he said the Saviors were dead, this one ended with Eve being dead.
“Eve is… dead!”
It had felt awfully real in the dream. I had beaten to death the Black Falcon in my dream just as I had beaten him in real life, but his words had crossed from the dream world into reality. What if Eve really was dead? What if my actions had pushed her to a situation in which death was not only inevitable, but preferred to the alternatives?
I shuddered at the thought, but if she was out on her own, away from my home, where else was she going to go? Roost’s, maybe, but Roost would always take my side. Granted, that didn’t mean he’d toss Eve out on the streets, but it didn’t bode well.
Which meant the Black Falcons… they’d have eyes on her… they’d just need a good opportunity, likely one at night. Likely one last night. And as soon as they had their eyes set on her, as soon as they honed in on her and captured her…
Maybe what I had dreamed wasn’t so much of a dream as it was a prophecy of sorts. And whose fault is that, you drunk fuck? Who all but delivered her over to the Falcons?
Hint. It ain’t Chuck this time.
I had to move. Eve and I could hash out our differences later—and by that, I mean I could try and explain myself and hope that she would find it in her soul to forgive me. Such an outcome seemed laughably slim, most especially for how much of a dick I was, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, especially when they’d become beggars but nuking the bridges toward prosperity.
For now, I just had to make sure she was safe.
I stood, started walking forward, and tripped on myself.
“God, fucking, damnit,” I said—and it didn’t help matters that my stomach roiled in response.
But then, as if a sign had been given to me, my phone started to ring. Eagerly, I fumbled in my jacket’s pocket, thinking that Eve was giving me a call, a call I didn’t deserve but one I was glad to take. I was already rehearsing the words in my head.
“Hey Eve, I’m so sorry.”
“Eve, I need to say something about last night.”
“Eve, I know I don’t deserve this, but I just wanted to let you know… I just wanted to say…”
Well, turned out I really didn’t deserve it, because it wasn’t her who had called.
“Hello,” I said, but when the word came out, it sounded so slurred. Depending on the ear, it could have sounded anything like “heywoah” to “heveh.”
In other words, nothing even close to comprehensible.
“The fuck did ya just say?”
Roost’s familiar voice filled the air. With all respect to Roost, it was about the last voice I wanted to hear. He may have always had my back, but no one was so eager and so willing to kick my ass if he felt it necessary, and I had a feeling I was not going to have a metaphorical bruiseless ass at the end of this call.
In a very sick way, being drunk may have been the best state to be in. It would excuse me from getting my ass kicked right now.
Of course, that doesn’t prevent him from kicking your ass later, dumbass…
“I said hello,” I said, speaking my words very slowly.
The world around me spun and I struggled to think of what I had actually said. Yeah, I was shitfaced.
“What is it?”
“What’s it always, kid? Business. Ya fuckin’ deaf?”
Of course it is. Not like Roost is calling me to make sure I went to bed on time last night.
“I heard you,” I said, moving the phone away from my mouth to avoid him having to hear a burp. “I just wanted to make sure.”
“Only fuckin’ thing get my cute ass callin’ ya when I should be cruisin’ for a little twinky action.”
I decided it was better not to ask if he was referring to snack-cakes or skinny gay guys. Knowing Roost, it was a bit of both. And really knowing Roost, it was possibly a little bit of both in close conjunction to each other, if not simultaneously.
But that didn’t mean I could push him in that direction.
“So then go and get some action of that kind or something or whatever,” I said, failing to realize I was drunkenly rambling until it was too late. “Ya know, blow off some steam or get fat or get laid or whatever. I mean, isn’t that what we’re all trying for, anyways? Aren’t we all just doing things to get laid? Isn’t this whole, this whole goddamn war, isn’t it just a move to—�
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“The fuck happenin’ to ya, Derek?”
I sighed, trying so hard, so damn hard, to pull it together.
But that was the danger of drinking too much. Someone in a pissed off mood could instantly fake being happy for just a single phone call. Someone who needed to lie could do so without detection if they were good.
Being this drunk didn’t shut off until hours later, though. This level of being drunk was something that even a five year old would pick up on.
And if there was anyone who not only could pick up on drunkenness but also knew me better than I knew myself, it was the man on the phone.
“I’ll, I’ll, I’ll,” I said, belching and nearly puking in the process. “I’ll tell yaaaaa when I get to… to the shop, OK?”
“Well, get yer ass over here, then. I’m already here. Ya sound like ya need a good slap across the face, get yer ass back together.”
Fuck me. I gotta get going right now then, and I can’t even stand on my own too feet.
“I—”
I burped again, but this time, it didn’t stay down so well. The contents of my stomach—almost all liquor from the night before—sought an escape hatch from my mouth, and I remained perfectly still, hoping that this little trick of mine would prevent me from embarrassing myself any further.
“What?” Roost said. “Derek? Ya there?”
“I’m here,” I said, exhaling very cautiously and slowly. “I’m here and present and ready and present and good to go and ready, sir.”
“The fuck?” Roost said. “Derek, ya never talk like this. Are ya drunk or somethin’?”
Might as well tell the truth, dipshit.
“Was working on it,” I said. “I, uhh, ya, I, uhh, had, some… uhh… fuck…”
As I spoke, the liquor decided it had waited long enough. It rose through my throat, burning me on the way up—what a fucking kick of karma—and delivered the payload. I puked, long and hard and loud. I hurled all over my jacket, my jeans, and even my phone.
I tried to make it stop, but the brown liquid coming out of my mouth only poured out at an even faster rate. I was trying to swim up a waterfall, and suffice to say, gravity and the vomit of the waterfall were crushing my futile attempts.
“Jesus ball-lickin’ Christ!” Roost swore, and I thought I heard him stifle a retch of his own through the phone line.
“I’m, I’m, I’m sorry—”
But every time I tried to speak for more than a few seconds, I just ended up hurling some more. All around me, graves which were meant to mark the dead were instead being marred by my own inability to handle my liquor and my emotions—and that included my wife’s.
What a fucking embarrassing mess I was. What a sorry piece of shit I was. What an abject failure I was.
Whoever has to clean this up… I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.
I collapsed into the ground, staring at the sky, breathing and panting heavily as I tried to regain control of myself. I was pretty sure that by this point, the worst had ended, but I had a feeling I wasn’t clear. Vomiting had that way of kicking you right in the nuts just when you think you’d gotten over the sucker punch to the guts, and only careful, full-on defenses against it did the trick.
“Fuckin’ gross asswipe,” Roost grumbled.
“I’m sorry,” I said, even though my mouth was nowhere near my phone. “I know, I know, I—”
“Do me a favor and get yerself a fuckin’ mint—a whole damn bag of ‘em, in fact—before ya get here, kay? And get yer goddamn shit together, Derek. We at war, we ain’t got time for yer visits to the bottle.”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry, Roost, I’m—”
“Don’t fuckin’ apologize to me, Derek. Fuckin’ quit yer drinkin’.”
“Roost, I—”
But Roost had already hung up on me.
I looked at my phone for a good several seconds, wiping off the smear of my failure. What the fuck had happened to me?
Even if I was a failure, even if I was only half the man my brother was and a quarter of the man my father was… that still didn’t require me to drink, drunkenly drive, and desecrate my deceased wife’s grave. Who the fuck did that?!?
Derek Knight does, that’s who.
I let my head collapse into the grass, putting my hand over my eyes, perhaps believing if I did so, I could stop crying.
But it was to no avail as the tears flowed out freely. I sobbed like a little baby, as pathetic a sight as anything humanity had ever seen.
It did, however, have one nice, unexpected effect.
It felt like it released the last of the grief in me, the last of the self-pitying feelings I’d had because of what I had foolishly believed with Chuck and with Eve. As I shed the last tear, though I was still drunk, I no longer felt pity for myself. All the voices in my head spoke in unison. And they all agreed on one thing.
Get sober.
Stay here until you can drive.
And then take care of your goddamn business.
2
Eve
I woke up feeling like I was hungover.
My head ached and my vision was blurry from crying all night. Tara had been there to support me during my breakdown, taking me back to Roost’s house—who either had the courtesy or just the good common sense to be away from my insane, emotional self at that moment—but I still couldn’t wrap my mind on what had changed with Derek.
The night had drawn on in a haze of uncontrolled sobbing until, at some point, I must have just cried myself out. Now my body was cursing me for it, as if I had taken the drunkenness I’d walked in on with Derek. All because…
Because of Chuck.
But do you really think Derek would have fallen for that, Eve? Do you really think your brother persuaded him that easily?
It’s possible… and if that’s the case, would you really want to be with a man who believed your brother? Do you want to be with someone who was like all the other college boys, blindly believing whatever your brother said about you being a slut? A whore?
“You a whore or not?”
… Derek sure thinks I am…
Groaning, I clenched my eyes shut—trying to will the world away through blindness—and chanted “fuck” to myself. It was a silly, vulgar mantra, but one that surprisingly seemed to work. I managed to calm down a bit, to get a grip on my awakening emotions, and avoided erupting into a new round of sobs.
That was victory enough after everything that I had gone through the night before.
I opened my eyes and sat up. I knew I was on Roost’s couch, but it still felt unnatural to be here. I’d spent so many nights at Derek’s, even on the nights when he wasn’t there, that waking up in this home just felt like I was in an alternate reality. Even having taken a nap here didn’t do enough to put my mind at ease.
Even hearing him say those words…
It just didn’t feel like Derek really saying them. I was rationalizing terrible behavior, I knew, but he was drunk, and if Chuck had gotten to him, there were far too many awful things that could have hurt his mind. Surely, in the morning, now that he’d had a chance to sober up and think about some things… he would come back, right?
I glanced down at my phone.
No missed calls.
No messages.
No communication.
He meant what he said.
“Fuck…”
I chewed my lip, asking myself if I should try to contact Derek. I wrestled with the idea of calling him, toyed with the idea of texting him, and then, finally, slipped off into a plane of thought that came to the same tough but reasonable conclusion.
He had to start. He was at fault. Much as I wanted to comfort him, say it was OK, and forgive him… he had fucked up. There was no getting around that.
He has to be the one to engage the dialogue that fixes all of this.
That is, if there’s anything to fix. Which there’s probably not after what he said.
Let’s be honest. There’s nothing
left to fix, and you’d just be wasting your time in trying to talk to him.
So…
Just like that.
It’s over.
My lip trembled. My eyes watered. I found myself shaking as the very thing that had given me such an emotional hangover threatened to produce even more of the same for me.
And then I stopped it.
“Why the fucking shit should I be sad?” I said to myself, given that no one else was awake or around me. “I don’t even know what his problem was! God! Why couldn’t he control his problems? I don’t know how the fuck to handle him!”
But that wasn’t entirely true.
However, as the sadness inside me began to boil into rage, logic and reason fizzled away, as drops of water-like enlightenment evaporated on a hot, angry skillet and vanishing like steam on a breeze. And in its place, unbridled emotion—perhaps the very kind that had driven him mad, the kind that had compelled him to hit the bottle once more—rose.
And boy, was that emotion fucking pissed off.
I hate him! I hate him! I hate that he called me a cunt! I hate that he thinks I lied behind his back! I… I…
“Fuck!”
Growling, wanting to slap him, I jumped to my feet and consulted my phone yet again. Nope, still no text, no missed call from Derek. Fine, he wanted to play that way? Fuck him. I didn’t need him.
… For now.
I composed myself, reminding myself I wasn’t in my place—not that I even had a place—and needed to at least be put together for Tara and Matty. The other girls would have to deal with me, but for the shit they probably saw in the Black Falcons, I probably looked quite sane in comparison
I checked my phone again to see that it was nearly noon. I stood up and headed to the kitchen table, telling myself I was going to make myself some food even though I wasn’t the least bit hungry. I hadn’t thought about food since my Waffle House trip with Matty, and it didn’t have anything to do with the amount of food I ate there—which, honestly, wasn’t even that much to begin with.
Instead, I went right past the kitchen table and out to the backyard porch, looking into the downtown of our city. Somewhere in those mass of buildings lay Derek’s high-rise apartment—somewhere in there, Derek was waking up, either still drunk or battling a hangover. Somewhere in there, I thought, Derek was probably missing me.
