Breaker

by Richard Thomas

  “Was worried about you in there, son,” he says. “When I saw him flick his knife over, wasn’t sure you noticed, didn’t want to see that pointing out of your face.”

  “Occupational hazard,” I mumble. “But thanks.”

  “Here, this is yours,” he says, holding out a brown paper sack, like he’s sending me off to school—peanut butter and jelly with the crusts cut off, Cheetos, and an apple juice, a tiny Snickers resting at the bottom. “Your cut from tonight. Almost fifty grand.”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Guess a lot of suckers wanted to see you lose.”

  “Guess so,” I say. “Do you, I mean, your action, do they…”

  “I’m fine. Got mine, boyo, I always do.”

  I take the bag and then a slow breath, pain in my ribs.

  “So, is this it then?” he asks. “You running now? I would. Fuck it. Get out of Dodge. You’re still pretty young.”

  “I don’t know, Eddy. I really don’t. Maybe. My sister…”

  “Fuck your sister,” he says. “No offense.”

  More and more I feel like maybe he’s right.

  “There’s this girl next door, Natalie…” I say.

  “And?” he asks.

  “Just want to make sure she’s okay before I go. You’re right about one thing: I may be pretty young still, but I’m getting older every day. If I keep at this, the ring, the gangs, it’s only a matter of time before the police show up, or one of the Disciples drives by and takes a shot or twelve. After tonight, yeah, I can’t say it’ll get any better. Now the Kings have me on their radar, even though I didn’t touch their boy.”

  Eddy nods.

  “I can hear the clock ticking, Ray. Seems you can, too.”

  I hold out my huge, swollen hand and he shakes it gently, being careful not to crush his long, bony fingers, my body still vibrating and shaking from the fight.

  “When it’s time, Edson, I’ll send you a text. I owe you that at least.”

  “Thanks.”

  And like that, I lean out of the car and slam the door shut. I take one slow step at a time, up and up, the pain radiating out from my chest, and I start to sweat. I see the old man looking up and give him a head nod, a wave of my hand, and he’s gone.

  Not sure I’ll ever see him again.

  At the back door, I fumble with my keys, my head spinning after the trip up the stairs, and I can feel the blood trickling down my stomach and that’s not good. I drop the keys and they clatter to the floor, and I curse, leaning against the door now, as the urchin slips out of her apartment and picks them up, still in jeans and a sweatshirt.

  Blackhawks.

  “You’re hurt,” she whispers, inserting the key and pushing it open. “Get inside.”

  I listen.

  I peel off my jacket, sweating like a pig, and lumber on down the hall toward the couch. I pull off my sweatshirt as I go and drop it in the hall, my T-shirt next, and then collapse into a pile on the cushions. The bandage has shifted and blood is seeping out, the gauze soaked through.

  “Oh my God,” Natalie gasps. She runs to the kitchen, coming back with a roll of paper towels and the white plastic garbage can.

  “I think I need your help,” I say, as my head swims. She pulls off a few paper towels and folds them into a large square, then sets it on the table.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” she says.

  She pulls off the soaked bandage, cringing, and drops it into the garbage can, and the wound puckers open, seeping blood. She presses the paper towels down.

  “Hold this,” she says.

  She runs to the kitchen to get some disinfectant, coming back with hydrogen peroxide and a pint of whiskey from under the sink.

  “Yes?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I moan. She opens the liquor and hands it to me, and I guzzle some down. It calms me a little bit, and I motion her closer.

  “Needle and thread, in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. You have to stitch me up.”

  She stares at me for a moment and pauses, my heart pounding in my chest, and then she nods, and scampers off to get the supplies.

  I lift the towels up and splash the hydrogen peroxide on the wound, and it stings like a motherfucker. I wince and feel the liquid run down into my sweats and underwear. I place the towels back on the wound and hold it tight.

  Natalie comes back with a needle, black thread already shoved through the eye, holding it in her right hand, a gleam in her eye.

  “You know how to make a stitch?” I ask.

  “Done plenty of socks,” she says. “This about the same?”

  “About.” I nod. “It might get messy,” I say.

  “I know. I’m not a wimp.”

  She sits down next to me, and I lift up the paper towel. The bleeding slowed down for a moment.

  “Lots of tiny stitches,” I say, “to keep it closed tight. Make sure you stick the needle in about a quarter inch away from the cut, so it doesn’t tear later when I’m moving around. And don’t push into me too far—keep the tip at the surface. I don’t need you sewing my liver to my kidney,” I add, laughing gently, coughing, a bit of blood on my lip, which I wipe off with my hand.

  She pales a little.

  “Got it.”

  I take a deep pull at the whiskey, pause, and then knock back the rest of the pint, sitting up straight.

  “You ready?” I ask.

  “Are you?” she says.

  I nod my head and she leans over, her hands shaking as she inserts the tip of the needle into my stomach, pushing it through the other side, pulling it through, bloody, tugging the thread tight. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath. I exhale, my skin burning, just one of several dozen stitches to come.

  “Good. Keep going. I’m going to close my eyes.”

  I lean back, and I feel one tiny hand on my stomach, the other pushing the needle back into my flesh. In and out, back and forth, she keeps going, the needle pinching at my skin, an angry crab picking away at my side. In no time at all, she’s done.

  Chapter 33

  I don’t remember Natalie leaving, just finding my way to my bed, lying down, the pain in my side fading but still stinging, her setting a glass of water and a handful of aspirin next to my bed, telling me to drink it, to take the meds, leaving me and sneaking out the back door, the apartment quiet, the click of the lock engaging the last thing I hear.

  I send her out for some supplies over the next few days, stronger pain medicine and more bandages, soup and some ham and turkey, some bread and cheese, and Gatorade. She doesn’t say a word about the bag of cash on the kitchen table, just takes a few twenties and heads down to the market. I leave the back door open and she comes and goes as she pleases.

  “Your mom and dad okay? They say anything, notice you stopping over here?”

  “No, they’re clueless.”

  “Good,” I say.

  She takes care of me, and I can tell it’s one of the most important things she’s ever done. When was the last time she took care of something, someone else? Normally she’s just finding a way to survive, to protect herself from the adults around her, the punks in the neighborhood, the harpies she follows home from school.

  She’s a trouper.

  On the third day, there’s a knock at the door, and I’m not surprised. I’ve got a list of people in mind, Eddy, Stephanie, perhaps the parents from next door, but no, I was not expecting this.

  Police.

  “Doesn’t anybody buzz anymore?” I ask.

  “We’re talking to people in the area, sir. One of your neighbors let us in. I’m Officer Billie Delmar, and this is Officer Mike Williams.”

  Two of them, one tall with red hair, skinny and pale, Delmar, the other black as night, a big guy, but not as big as me. Must be Williams.

  “You Ray? Raymond Nelson?” the redhead asks, holding a notebook in his hand, flipping through the pages.

  “Yeah. What can I do for you?”

  “Do you mind if we come in for
a moment?” he asks.

  “Actually, I do mind. What do you need?”

  Officer Williams leans in, taking a step closer to the door.

  “We have some reports in the area about a fight club or something, gang members got shot up on the street the other day, and there was that white van you might have heard about. Does any of this ring a bell?”

  “Heard about the van, not the rest. Somebody’s always getting shot around here.”

  I cross my arms and fill up the doorway.

  “Mike, you smell something, is that weed?” the skinny ghost asks.

  “Might be, Billie. Sir, could you step back, please? We have reason to believe there is marijuana in your apartment, so we need to come in and look around now.”

  “Probable cause,” Delmar sneers.

  They knock me back and come in, Delmar pushing me up against the wall.

  “Hey, what the hell…”

  “Just stand there, asshole,” Delmar says. “And this won’t take any time at all. I mean, you’ve got nothing to hide, right?”

  I squint at him and take a breath.

  “Get the fuck out of my apartment. There’s no weed in here….”

  “Shut up!” Delmar yells in my face, his left hand on my chest, my neck, pushing me against the wall, holding me there, the other hand unsnapping his gun and pulling it out. “You hear something from the other room, Williams? Go take a look.”

  Williams unholsters his weapon and goes farther into the apartment.

  “You own a white van, Nelson? Drive one recently? You like little girls, is that it? You look like the type.”

  “Fuck you,” I say. “I don’t have a car at all.”

  He steps back from me and holsters his gun.

  “You gonna do anything stupid?” he asks.

  “Do I look stupid?”

  He hesitates.

  “Where’s your license?”

  “My ID is in my pocket. Told you, I don’t have a driver’s license.”

  “Pull it out slowly, and don’t get cute.”

  I reach into my sweatpants pull out the state ID, and hand it to him. He clicks on his radio at his left shoulder and steps away from me, talking into it, reading off my information. Williams is in the kitchen now, looking around, opening drawers, and then he’s in my bedroom, the door open, rooting around.

  The gun. Fuck.

  The money is in the back of the closet, most of it, in a sock, in a shoe box, in a suitcase, under a bunch of old sweaters. But the gun, I forgot about that.

  He steps back out and rattles the door to Mother’s room.

  “What’s in here?” he yells. “Why’s it locked?

  I don’t say anything. I tense up and Delmar puts his eyes back on me, talking into the microphone.

  “Where’s the key, Nelson?” Officer Williams asks.

  The gun, the money, but most important—Mother. I have to make a decision quickly and the options are bad and worse. Motion to my right and I turn my head.

  “Hey, Ray, what’s going on?”

  It’s Natalie, still in her winter coat, hat on, gloves—her eyes on me and then to the cops.

  “Honey, move along—we’re talking to your neighbor.”

  “I can see that,” she says. “Ray’s a good guy. Why are you harassing him?”

  The cops stop what they’re doing and walk to the door, shit-eating grins on their faces.

  “Listen, sweetheart…” Delmar starts in.

  “Did he do something? Is he in trouble?”

  They look at each other and laugh.

  “Miss, you’ve heard about the white van, the girl that got killed, right?”

  “Yes. She was a friend of mine,” Natalie says.

  The officers stop for a moment, Williams rubbing his face.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “There have been shootings in the area recently, some fights going on at night, we’re looking into…”

  “Ray’s a teddy bear,” she says, walking in and giving me a hug. Sweat runs down the inside of my armpits. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Delmar hands me back my state ID.

  “The door, Mr. Nelson?” he asks.

  “The keys are in the kitchen drawer,” Natalie says. “Ray’s got nothing to hide. He’s a good guy—I know that for sure.”

  I turn my head to her and she nods at me.

  “I help him clean up sometimes, to earn a little extra money,” Natalie says. “That used to be his mother’s room. I think he keeps it closed and locked because it makes him sad. She died a few years ago. Right, Ray?”

  I find my voice, croaking out an answer.

  “Yes, Natalie. That’s true, but there’s no reason for them…”

  “It’s okay, Ray,” she says, staring hard at me. “You don’t have any secrets from me. I know you’ve been sad. And that there’s nothing to hide.”

  To the officers she says, “Trust me,” but she’s eyeballing me the whole time. “There’s nothing in that room to worry about.”

  Officer Williams returns from the kitchen with the keys and clicks open the room as I tense up, ready to run.

  “Delmar, come see this!” he yells, and the other cop walks over, his eyes on us. When he steps inside, I turn to Natalie.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “I took care of it.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  The cops step out of the room.

  “Man, that room! Who was your decorator, Heidi Fleiss?” Williams says, and they both laugh. I walk toward them, and I can see inside the room, the bed empty, the wallpaper screaming out lies, lies, lies.

  “My mother,” I say.

  They stand in the living room, still laughing.

  “Sorry,” Williams says. “We’re good here,” and walks out the front door.

  Natalie clings to me as Delmar approaches.

  “Stay out of trouble, Nelson,” he says, looking down at my hands. The bruises and cuts are fading, the stitch in my side throbbing. “You’re a hard one to miss.”

  And he’s out of the apartment, so I close the door and lean against the back of it, taking in a deep breath of air.

  “We need to talk, Natalie,” I say.

  Chapter 34

  I stand at the back window, in the kitchen, and look out at the tiny yard, the patch of grass that leads to the alley. On the left-hand side I can see the dirt that has recently been turned over, covered in leaves and garbage, but still visible—to me, anyway.

  Natalie is standing behind me, and I am grateful, I am relieved, but I am also worried, flush with embarrassment, and uncertain of what comes next.

  “See, you can’t even tell where I put the bones,” she says.

  “No, not really. You have to look hard.”

  She remains silent.

  “And the gun?” I ask.

  “Unloaded, in my room, in an old shoe box, surrounded by Barbie dolls, inside an old teddy bear that I hollowed out.”

  I nod my head. I can’t look at her.

  “Thank you, Natalie. You saved my ass.”

  She doesn’t speak.

  “I guess I should explain a few things. Do you want to ask me anything first?” I say.

  “Did you kill her, your mother?” Natalie asks.

  I don’t answer. It’s complicated, and then again, it’s not.

  “My mother and father weren’t good people, Natalie. And I learn more every day. It’s shocking. You saw the clippings, I guess. You read them?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “So, while I never heard it uttered from their lips—they never confessed to me directly anything that they did—I have my suspicions. I have memories, some hazy, some crystal clear. Of my father, and his late-night crying at the foot of my bed, a struggle in him that I never really understood. Until recently, that is. My mother, she…she…was not the same after he left, after she kicked him out. She saw in him, in my sister and me, in the entire bloodline, something tainted. That was her struggle as well.
My older brother, that’s still uncertain, but I now think that he didn’t die of SIDS.”

  “She killed him? Smothered him?”

  “I don’t know for sure. And why she spared my sister and me, if she did, it makes no sense. Maybe she was uncertain back then; maybe it was an accident. But my sister left the house as soon as she could. When I started to get sick, I looked closer at my mother and her archaic cures and medicines. The powder for the rats, maybe it was ending up in my soup. Stephanie would never talk to me about anything, about my father and what he may or may not have done to her, or my uncle Tully, who I know was sick, who I shot in the woods to keep him away from my sister.”

  I hear Natalie gasp.

  “I was ten at the time. And he was the first person I killed.”

  “There were more?” Natalie asks.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I say, turning my head to look at her, the little girl hiding in the shadows as the sky outside darkens, and the world moves closer to an end. “You see me coming home, you’ve heard things on the streets. I’m not innocent, Natalie. It’s been a long time since I was anything close to innocent.”

  She stares at me, and I look away, back out the window.

  “I started to get sick. Something about the way she was around me, tense, sweating, pale—it wasn’t normal, wasn’t right. I caught my mother slipping arsenic into my food, and decided to flip the tables. My soup and her soup, I switched them every time we sat down to eat. Her milk and my milk, our plates of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, anything I put in my mouth. And if I couldn’t switch it, I’d pour it down the sink, making excuses to get her to leave the room, disappearing to the bathroom as I faked the early symptoms, vomiting and diarrhea, her saying I had the flu. When she started to get sick, I told her she must have caught it, and she nodded, so blind to my rage and vengeance that it never crossed her mind what I was doing.”

  “My God,” Natalie said.

  “You have to understand that I was heartbroken, Natalie. My father was gone, my sister just as predatory as the rest of them, my own mother trying to kill me. It was eat or be eaten, so I gave her several bowls of chicken noodle soup, with her crackers, as she lay in bed, unaware. I doubled the doses, tripled them, and in a few days she was dead.”