Thrust

by Tom Piccirilli

  The thunderous noise of metal smashing metal was like nothing that had ever existed before.

  He felt—he knew—that for an instant he had somehow ceased to exist, as the pain erupted across him all at once. His neck, shoulders, and legs burned in agony even while his hands were doing magnificent things without him.

  He didn't understand it and simply watched while he wrenched the wheel and tried to ride out the mad careening spin.

  Plumes of dirt spit up across the hood and brush toppled before the vehicles. His driver's door had buckled inward and the pressure against his knee made him groan and gnash his teeth.

  He looked out the window and saw a child's frightened eyes, cheeks tear-streaked and nubby fingers pressed into the hollow of her throat.

  "Christ!"

  Beyond her the driver of the truck glared at Chase with his top lip curled over his teeth, mouth dropping open into a howl of fury.

  They had run off the parkway and were cutting back towards the Falls. Chase looked away and tried to turn the wheel farther but the column had locked.

  The Oldies tunes continued to play and he sang along for two words, "…here…we…" before hitting the stone wall that surrounded the south side of the hospital grounds.

  There was a final tearing of steel and rattling blast of breaking glass, the crumbling of rock and a fitful wheeze of steam, before the vehicles separated slightly and then converged once more to crash.

  A crescendo of insane silence burst around Chase and became, forever, a part of him.

  A minute later: the child's moaning for her Daddy, that guy shushing her and promising murder, the sloshing of gasoline and other liquids pouring over the brutally hard earth, and then nothing at all to remind him that he might be alive.

  Shake was staring hard at him, chewing 30, 31, 32, and said, "Where've you been?"

  "Back where it started."

  "That's a long way to go, man."

  Chase nodded. There was a half eaten omelet on the plate in front of him. The waitress brought the check. Written on it with a hasty scrawl were the words

  not my fault

  He paid the bill and left.

  7

  Even without all the shrieking sirens and the cops shouting, Chase knew he'd wandered into calamity just by looking into the father's bloodthirsty eyes.

  In his drunken haze, Chase kept missing out on what the police were telling him, watching the EMT's taking the little girl away. She was dead and they had her in a body bag but the zipper had stuck about halfway up. One hand remained poised at her chin, and her mouth was drawn into a thoughtful smile. Lots of pink barrettes clipping her blonde hair into little stained clumps sticking up all over.

  Her front teeth had a small space between them and her tongue, drying now, had stuck there. She was perhaps six years old. A small splash of blood had turned to rust just over her right ear. Her eyes, still half-open, were large and blue, and her dead gaze speared Chase where he stood.

  They drew her away and the tiny hand flapped as if waving goodbye.

  The pickup had flipped twice, lying on its side with most of the mangled hood torn off. The passenger side window bloomed with a spider-web crack just above the door handle, where her head had snapped into it.

  Chase leaned forward but a beefy cop kept him in place with a large hand pressing hard against his chest. Chase's shoulders, neck and legs were bruised and swelling. The whiplash was killing him. You see people in the funny neck braces with their chins pushed up and you want to laugh, but man, it fuckin' hurts. He'd chipped both shins against the bottom of the dash. When he came back to himself he was in horrible pain, but he only felt it in boiling waves as his lucidity came and went.

  Joe Singleton.

  Chase kept hearing the name and finally glanced at the father, who was in handcuffs, being braced by the police.

  He was shirtless and covered in blood. A lit cigarette dangled from his bottom lip although his wrists were shackled behind him. One cheek had been smashed so badly that bits of bone stabbed out through the awful rips in his face. The bloated, broken nose had been mashed upwards into a piggy snout. He must've been in agony but didn't appear to notice. He chatted easily with the cops and even grinned from time to time.

  Okay, so: Joe Singleton, the fuckin' maniac.

  His torn shirt lay at his feet, red and wet from where he'd tried to staunch the flow of blood from his battered face. Indistinct and faded tattoos littered his muscular chest and arms, the long hair pulled into a ponytail and tied back with rubber-band. A jagged, raised scar wove across his belly and vanished beneath his belt.

  The beefy cop gave Chase a breathalyzer test, found the Haldol, and sealed his fate. The man's voice was firm and demanding but also kind, reminding Chase of his grandfather before the old man started calling him Freddy. Chase was going to be arrested for driving while intoxicated and taken to the station, where everything would be sorted out.

  Of course it would.

  Joe Singleton turned to stare at Chase, blinking the blood out of his eyes, and nodded once.

  Chase relived that moment in dozens of nightmares over the last five years—the beautifully frozen second forever unchanging and still blazing.

  Those insane eyes so similar to his own.

  You know the meaning of rage. You understand the wrath of a patient man, and that's what Singleton was telling you. Saying how he could bide his time, wait a few months, a couple of years if he had to, but he'd eventually settle the score.

  He thrust his belly out, showing off the knife scar. Like he's making his intention clear, going, This is the life I lead. Violence and the ripping of flesh. I handle it with ease. I can take one in the guts and keep right on rolling.

  Hey, hold that thought, I'll be back soon.

  When Chase shook off his stupor he was sitting in the 3rd Precinct cell surrounded by other drunks. Reality started tightening around his throat. The cops went over his statement again. They questioned him for over an hour, placid, friendly, offering him coffee and cookies. They told him about Joe Singleton. His blood chemistry was fragged and the sugar didn't help. Eventually he got the full story.

  Singleton, an ex-con petty criminal with a history of forging check and running scams on the elderly, had arrived on his ex-wife's doorstep despite a restraining order. He'd been rambling around out of state for almost five years, working oil rigs, hustling old ladies, and doing some time. He hadn't seen his daughter Stacy since she was two.

  He battered his ex-, Annie, around her apartment for the better part of an hour, leaving her with two black eyes, three broken ribs, and a dislocated vertebra in her lower back.

  Singleton watched her crawling across the carpet with blood leaking from her ears, stole fifty bucks out of her wallet, and promised to return to kill her boyfriend within a few days.

  Then he led Stacy from her bedroom and out the back door, while Annie Singleton moaned and cowered unable to reach the phone. He took his daughter to a local burger joint where he ordered jumbo plate specials while Stacy sobbed in quiet terror. He ate both meals himself and skipped on the check.

  From there they stopped at an ice cream parlor. Stacy was getting used to him and had stopped crying, though she constantly asked about her mother. They had a banana float and Singleton ran out on the bill again after a brief scuffle with the two teenage boys employed there. One kid wound up with a dislocated shoulder when Singleton shoved him over the counter and into a frozen beverage dispenser.

  Singleton was headed back to his ex-wife's home, either to kill her or simply release their daughter, when a state trooper spotted the truck on the parkway and gave chase. Three other police cars joined in within three minutes. Singleton kicked his pickup to ninety-five and the rattling piece of shit threw its muffler and nearly shook apart.

  Eight miles later the pursuit ended when Chase, lost in his own drunken stupidity and with a head full of 50s tunes, hit the exit at the wrong time.

  They released him on a tw
o grand bail. Over the next several days he watched as events grew and carried on with no assistance from him. He hadn't said a word to anybody, but the papers were quoting him on page three.

  When they got around to charging him with criminally negligent homicide and the court case got under way, there were folks who rallied on the sidewalk. Somebody tried hiding the records showing he had three times the legal alcohol content. Local benefits were held for him. Death threats were made. Somebody hanged his neighbor's cat from a lamppost because they thought the calico belonged to Chase.

  Everyone took a side. One city paper called him "a heroic victim of misfortune, who attempted to stop a kidnapping in progress only to find himself at the mercy of an overzealous legal system."

  Another labeled Chase "a mentally challenged drunkard who caused the early death of an innocent, frightened child after a loaded joyride."

  The Greenwich Downturn Weekly, an underground rag run out of a condemned building in Alphabet City, noted him as "a brave citizen who intentionally swerved into the path of known criminal Joe Singleton in an effort to save the life of a petrified little girl." At least one police officer attested to this.

  Magazine publishers who'd rejected his work dozens of times turned up on newscasts praising his genius. The literati gathered in Washington Park and read his poetry to middling crowds, even while members of M.A.D.D. and other protesters hissed their hatred.

  An attorney named Ellis stepped up to defend Chase pro bono.

  That's when Chase figured he was truly screwed, when a lawyer walked in and didn't even care about the cash. It meant there would be plenty of theatrics, careers on the line, all the elements of an off-Broadway play.

  Chase met him at his office on the upper east side. Chase had hardly ever been to the east side and got lost twice, unfamiliar with the subway lines. When he finally walked in, twenty minutes late, Ellis' secretary stared at him like she might take him out in the alley and use a set of brass knuckles on him. She had about forty pounds on him, and her reach was at least three inches more than his. She could've taken him easy.

  He didn't think he could melt her heart by launching into one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

  In the office, Ellis gestured towards the opposite seat. About forty years old with razor-wire moussed black hair and an overlapped front tooth, Ellis spoke slowly and concisely as if talking to a moron. Chase appreciated that.

  The lawyer didn't offer his hand or any other social amenities. His face lacked all expression, except for a glint of melancholy deep in the center of his assertive eyes. Chase thought maybe he was Botoxing, freezing out his wrinkles. The man wore silk ties and used a Windsor knot. Old school.

  "First thing you do," Ellis said, "is voluntarily admit yourself to Garden Falls State Psychiatric Facility out on Long Island for a full ten week stay. You go through their detox program, dry up, and get on proper medication to help stabilize your personal disorders."

  "Okay."

  Ellis glanced up at him, gave him the ice age gaze. "Don't bother to agree with me, Grayson. You'll do as I say."

  Chase didn't know whether to say okay to that or not. He decided to let it slide. He'd known guys like Ellis before. They asked for nothing and demanded only obedience.

  You could respect a relationship like that. Everything was out in the open, no tangles or snarls along the way. It's what Chase needed at the moment. He had the cold sweats and shuddered in his chair from time to time, keeping his clenched fists hugged tightly to his stomach. His entire body was sore and he had his legs wrapped tightly with bandages. Nothing broken but everything sprained. His neck was so stiff that the slightest turn of his chin made him want to bellow.

  On top of that, the dry heaves hit him without warning. While he shuddered in bed coughing up his empty guts, his father would come stand beside him, put his hand on Chase's shoulder, talk about the baby again.

  The wind carried the resonant strain of church bells through the room. Ellis crossed his legs, and his trousers pulled up to reveal pale flesh and varicose veins webbing his calf.

  "He's been in and out of prison for the last fifteen years," the attorney said. "This Joe Singleton. Petty larceny and misdemeanors. Forging checks, minor theft. Robbed a couple of liquor stores, but he never approaches the cash register, just takes a bottle or two off the shelves and walks out. He goes to jail for six or nine months, stays out for several years, then goes in again for something stupid. Nothing serious, no felonies. He beat his wife up a couple of times while they were married. Twice he punctured her lung, but there were no injuries to her face, so the police botched the investigation and the DA never followed up."

  Violence without the show. Joe Singleton didn't go in for the macho act as a way to impress the boys. He liked to keep it under wraps, deep in the muscle.

  "Are you listening to me?" Ellis asked.

  "Yes."

  "He was also the prime suspect in two unsolved homicides. He was arrested but never indicted for the crimes. Former friends helped him knock over a small trucking company. Before the cops closed in, they turned up dead."

  "Where was this?"

  "In Jersey. Newark."

  "Mob related?"

  "I did say trucking," Ellis said.

  "How much did they rip off?"

  "The payroll and some cargo off the trucks. Maybe ten grand."

  "No repercussions?"

  The attorney sat back, appraised Chase again, trying to figure out how down in the dirt he could get. He didn't like to explain himself, that was clear, but maybe the more he brought out at the moment, the more helpful Chase might prove in the long run.

  He hung forward again, placed his palms flat on the cherry oak table, and the glint of melancholy faded. It reignited as something else. Chase had his number now—Ellis had a jones for melodrama.

  "What do you mean by that?" Ellis asked.

  Cue the stabbing violins.

  "If it was mob-related," Chase said, "why didn't they handle it themselves? Why would Singleton turn on his pals when it left him holding the bag alone?"

  Ellis drummed his fingers, enjoying this but not showing it. "It's one of the reasons he was cleared. He had no real motive."

  But of course he did. Singleton was vicious, maybe even dumb, and he liked to ride the big edge. He was probably disappointed with the haul and decided to lay his buddies out for the mob as an offering. An example was made, they got their revenge, and they probably tossed Singleton small jobs from time to time.

  But it could've gone the other way. They could've just as easily taken him out for the fun of it. Tie up all ends. Singleton balanced his boredom with great patience. Chase saw it all in that little nod Singleton had given him.

  "So he's a killer."

  "Not that anyone's proven," Ellis said. "I just thought you should know some of the pertinent information about him." He eased back in his chair, as if ready for a brandy and a cigar now. He appeared to want to frown, if only his eyelids weren't paralyzed. "The fact that you've never been in trouble before weighs heavily in your favor. How'd you manage to keep from getting any DWI's before this? You've been a hard drinker for a while, I can see."

  "I'm careful."

  "And these psychiatric reports… you haven't been keeping up on your prescriptions."

  He was afraid to agree with the lawyer again, so Chase buttoned it, just nodded.

  "What made you go out that night, Grayson?" Ellis asked.

  "It's part of the pattern."

  "What pattern?"

  "It helps to calm me."

  Somehow it had become ingrained in him, the obsessive need for movement as he kept circling town, driving back and forth between the community college and the library, heading out on the parkway to gun past Garden Falls. It was always the same, and thinking about it now was like reciting a poem—the first line preceded the second, which preceded the third. Even thinking about the pattern was a pattern itself, and he had to follow the flow.

  Compelled
now to remember heading out on the parkway to gun past Garden Falls, where the shadow of the buildings sliced down alongside the moon. He'd stop off at bars and have a few more, speaking to no one. He wanted to think about something else but couldn't get loose until it had all finished out the way it was supposed to be. He did that for a couple of years, biding time, feeling a slow movement and rise under his skin.

  That was all right.

  Chase gasped in relief as the memory, the poem, finally finished and he managed to slump in his chair. The movement caused such a knifelike pain in his neck and shoulders that he had to grit his teeth, gripping his belly harder.

  "We'll play it up for the jury," Ellis said. "How you're a noted performance poet with a history of mental illness, who attempts to deal with the traumas of his past through his body of work. A cult figure in New York City, you're as well known for your mania as for your poetry."

  "Sure," Chase said.

  "Singleton's a white trash career criminal, a wife-beater, the kidnapper of his own child. He'll be up on criminal contempt of court charges. Assault, violating the order of protection, fleeing police, endangering the welfare of a minor, and possibly kidnapping. We'll focus the case away from your accidental involvement in it. You'll admit yourself to Garden Falls tomorrow." It struck him then, so that he let out a huff of air. "Ironic. That's the parkway exit where the collision occurred?"

  "Yes."

  "I'll make the preparations tonight."

  Ellis looked down and started to riffle through paperwork. Chase realized he'd been dismissed, but still had a question. "What happens if they make the case against me?"

  "Fortwell, I'd guess. It's bad, but not as bad as some of the others. Sing Sing. Arlingville. Hardwick."

  "For how long?"

  "Worst case… five years at the outside for criminally negligent homicide. A child died and the media frenzy's already begun. There will be a hell of a lot of pressure from the likes of M.A.D.D. and other watchdog groups. You'll probably get eighteen to twenty-four months. It's a good thing you're a calm drunk and didn't give the officers any trouble."