by Chuck Wendig
“I can hit her with something else?” Abasi asks.
Tundu flicks the boy in the ear and sends them both running.
He sees Cason. Waves the spatula. “Hey, chief. You’re up.”
“Yeah. Uh.” He rubs his eyes. “This your place?”
“You betcha, man. You betcha. Hey. I got breakfast. Eggs. Sausage. And, aah, doughnuts. You like doughnuts?”
Cason looks down at his paunch, shrugs. “Guess I do.”
THE TABLE ISN’T much of a table—it’s a boxy fold-up card table shoved into the corner of a (barely) walk-in kitchen. Torn-up linoleum lines the floor. The only two appliances in the room are an avocado-green oven and a harvest-gold fridge.
But it smells good in here. Tundu puts a paper plate down, and on it sits a big floppy egg atop a couple sausage patties. On a smaller plate, Cason gets a doughnut that isn’t like any doughnut he’s ever seen—it’s triangular, like an empanada, and crusted with sugar and busted-up peanut pieces and drizzled with a zig-zag of honey.
Cason goes there first. When he breaks the ‘doughnut’ open, a cloud of cardamom perfume hits him square in the nose. Unexpected, but only serves to make him hungrier. He tears into it like a starving dog.
“What the hell is this?” Cason asks, cheeks bulging.
“I told you. Doughnut.”
“Ish no doughnut.”
“It’s a... a Kenyan doughnut, let’s say. Mandazi.”
“Ish good.”
“Yeah, yeah. Not bad, not bad.” Tundu sits, starts digging into eggs.
Cason says, “About last night.”
“Mm. What about it?”
“How much did you see?”
“I saw everything, man.”
“Everything.”
“Your wife beating the shit out of you. The... the little boy with the skillet? I see it all, chief. I see it all.” Tundu laughs.
“And the thing with the Lexus? And the woman and the...” He lets his words drift.
“Whaddya you mean, man? That lady scramble your brain with that pan.”
A thought strikes Cason: did any of that really happen?
“Maybe so.” He rubs his neck. It still feels sore.
“So whatchoo gonna do now, Mister Cole?”
“Cason. Or Case.” He cuts into the sausage. “I don’t really know. Yesterday I had a job, and it was a shitty job, but it was a job. And that job gave me a place to stay, and now...” He chews. “Both of those things are gone.”
“What’d you do for work?”
“Bodyguard bullshit. For someone who didn’t need his body guarded.” Because with a touch of his finger he could have you flailing like a fucking Muppet. “Used to be a fighter, though. Once upon a time.”
“A fighter. Like, boxer.” Tundu mimics the sweet science, both fists up in a comical boxer stance. He fake-punches the air in front of Cason’s head.
“MMA. Mixed martial arts. Little bit of hapkido, bit of Brazilian jiu jitsu.”
“You any good?”
“Was. Called me ‘The Beast.’ They said I was a rising star.”
“Why’d you give it up?”
“I….” He thrusts his tongue into the pocket of his cheek. “I just did.”
“Well, Cason the Fighter-Man, you can stay here for the rest of the week if you like. Cheap! I can even put in a word for you at the cab company. Boss is a real shit, you know—he’s both the turd and the fly eating the turd—but the job is the job and driving a cab is a bit of all right, man. Gives you time to think.”
“Thanks, T., I appreciate it. And I’ll think about it. Hey, can I grab a shower?”
THE HOT WATER’S a scorcher and the cold water’s like a winter puddle, and the shower offers nothing in between. Cason goes with the hot. Leaves him lobster red, but the pain is good. Makes him feel alive. Keyed up.
The bathroom itself isn’t much to look at. All Pepto pink tile. Small, too. One bathroom for a big family and the counter is evidence of that—everybody’s things crowd the counter, leaving little space. Soaps and off-brand toothpaste and a box of tampons and a spilled paper cup of Q-tips and cottonballs.
The mirror’s clean, but cracked. Smudged with fog from a too-hot shower.
Cason stands, fresh out of the shower. With the flat of his hand he opens up a patch of clean mirror and takes a good long look at himself.
Jesus.
He looks like microwaved hell.
He’s let himself go. Once his body was a series of knife-edges; now it’s dull and rounded. Muscle that forgot it was muscle and settled on being fat, instead.
Settled.
That word. That’s what he’s done.
He gave everything up that night on the highway. Had to. Wanted to. It was the only way. Not that it made sense. But you hit a certain point where you see that things don’t add up and you just stop caring. You tune out. Look away. Stare at the wall. Pretend that the car accident never happened. That your family was never in danger, that it was all just a dream. That the man who saved them—and by proxy, you—is nobody special, even though you’ve seen him wield power over others, a seductive sway that can’t be chalked up to a smooth chest and a dab of Drakkar Noir under the ears. Most of all, pretend that not seeing your family is your decision, not some proclamation from on-high, some supernatural law whose contravention brings down some serious and inexplicable shit.
Cason leans forward, fists finding rare real estate on the counter.
Face once handsome, now tired. Old scars and contusions rising to the surface like sunken wrecks beneath a shrinking sea.
He used to stand like this before a fight. Bobbing. Ducking. Throwing fake punches like Tundu did at the table. Give himself a little pep talk.
And that’s what he does now.
“You’re going to get them back,” he says. “You love them. They love you. Something is in your way and you’re going to find that obstacle and you’re going to remove it. If it’s got a pulse, you’ll wring the life out of it until it’s gone. And if it’s something worse...” His mind flashes back to last night. A woman exuding beauty the way a broken reactor bleeds radiation. A lunatic with wings. A monstrous driver—oh, also with wings.
Was any of that real?
Maybe it wasn’t.
Of course, if that wasn’t real—well, soon as he starts picking those paint chips off the wall, the whole image starts to flake away. And behind it lies a troubling tableau—if she wasn’t real, if E. Rose (Eros?) wasn’t real, then that means his family hates him just to hate him, wants him dead because of something he did; and that can’t be right.
Because all he did was want them to still be alive.
And now he wants to be with them again.
Cason towels off one last time, resolving to once more plow the fallow field that is his body—tighten and toughen and strengthen. If there’s a fight ahead, then he’d better be ready to throw a few punches and take twice as many in return.
OUTSIDE IN THE living room, Abasi’s got one long arm extended to the ceiling. Afrika is jumping for it, but in this game she’s destined to be the loser.
That’s when Cason sees what he’s holding.
A big red apple. The stem as black as the Devil’s umbilical stump.
Suddenly there’s a woman there wearing a nightgown and shaking an old clam-shell cell phone at the two children, her hair wild and frizzy.
“Hey, you kids are too damn loud.” She’s got Tundu’s accent. Sister. Wife. Cason doesn’t even know. “Gimme that.”
She reaches for the apple, but Abasi plays keepaway with her, too, ducking her hand and his cousin’s hand like he’s got no bones at all—just bending and twisting out of their reach and darting suddenly to the other side of the small living room.
“Mom!” Afrika yells. “I want the apple!”
“That’s actually mine—” Cason tries, but his voice is lost underneath the little girl’s sudden shriek. Abasi just laughs and goes to take a big bite of the fat fruit.
Cason has no idea what that’ll do. All he knows is, the apple is more than an apple. It’s proof that last night happened. It’s—
Well, it’s goddamn magic, is what it is.
Cason races to grab the apple out of the boy’s hand, but Tundu is there first, appearing like Batman to save the day.
“That’s not yours, little man,” Tundu says, swiping the fruit and flipping it quick to Cason. “That’s his. What I tell you? You don’t take people’s things. You do that again I’ll slap your butt so hard it’ll be white. You hear me?”
Abasi pouts and runs into the kitchen. Afrika hurries after him and her mother follows, pressing the phone to her ear.
As she passes, Cason tries to introduce himself but it’s to no avail—she just flips up her hand and keeps talking: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Irene, no, no, you need to—listen to me—you need to just go to the salon and get it done—listen now, listen, your feet look like dead birds! Everybody says so...”
Tundu shrugs after she’s gone. “Family, you know?”
“I know. Least yours isn’t trying to kill you.”
“Sometimes I wish they would, man. You wanna go? I take you to meet Mister Urbanski—he’s the taxi boss. Like I said: real shithead, that guy, but the job is the job.”
Cason shakes his head. “Not today. I got somebody I gotta go meet.”
“Employer?”
“My brother. You mind giving me a ride?”
CHAPTER SIX
Whiskey’s Thicker Than Blood
TUNDU PULLS THE cab up to the corner at H Street and Ontario—not far from the elementary school Cason went to, once. He thinks suddenly about what it’d be like if Barney went to that school. What he’d go through every day. The fights. The drugs. The teachers paid a pittance to teach an overstuffed classroom of kids that’d rather hit you with a book than read one.
“That the place?” Tundu asks. He lifts his chin, gestures toward the corner bar. Dirty red overhang. Sign that reads GIL’S BAR in white. Also smudged with the filthy fingerprints of this perpetually grimy city.
Cason nods. “Yeah.”
“You got my number?”
“Mm. What do I owe you?”
Another big laugh from Tundu. “Don’t worry, chief. I’m calculating. Mister Tallyman. Up here.” He taps his forehead in the center with a thick tree-root finger.
Cason claps him on the shoulder and exits the cab.
The city breathes heat. It’s not even summer yet and the whole town’s got a muggy, gummy feel to it. And it smells like a sewer system backing up.
Into the bar, then.
Bell jingles. It’s cool in here. Ceiling fan blows air scented with spilled beer and old wood. It’s dark and dim, like an old forgotten bar should be. A few old salts lined up at the watering hole. A woman in her 40s—heavy-lidded eyes look over pock-marked cheeks into a tall glass of something boozy. Like a witch at her cauldron.
And it’s only 10:00 in the morning.
But these people don’t matter.
Only the man behind the bar matters.
Connor—‘Conny’—looks up. He’s younger than Cason but somehow looks older. Bonier, for sure—all bedknobs and broomsticks, this guy. Whiskery wire-brush chin. Dark, deep-set eyes. His nose is a mountain with many smaller peaks. Soon as he makes eyes on Cason, he clucks his tongue, shakes his head.
“Cason, you fuck,” Conny says. Big bright smile. Contains no happiness. First thing he does as Cason walks up is start pouring a beer. “Yuengling lager, unless you want one of those fuckin’ hoity-froofy craft beers. Which I don’t have, by the fuckin’ way.”
Cason takes the beer. Doesn’t drink it. “Conny. Been a while.”
“A while? Been a fuckin’ ice age.” Conny leans in, squinting. Lowers his voice a little. “Hey, by the way, heard about your guy’s house getting’ blown to fuckin’ hell’s asshole and back. Supposing you’re out a job.” He leans back, resumes his normal too-loud volume. “Don’t think you’re gettin’ work here, you lazy shit. Unless you feel like swabbing Flynn’s syphilitic spit from his pint glass, ain’t that right, Flynn?” Conny throws a glance toward the nearest old salt, a bald, liver-spotted eagle of a man whose white beard is mopping the bar. Flynn says nothing, just shoots up a crusty old middle finger. “Flynn, you old fuckin’ prick, you’re the best. I mean that.”
Cason’s turn to lower his voice. “How’d you know? About the thing.”
“The explosion? I know all, big brother.”
“Can we—can we talk about this somewhere else?”
“Don’t think we need to. These fine fuckin’ patrons are my friends and compatriots.” He offers a sloppy hand gesture to indicate the whole of the bar. “Each and every one of them, you see.”
Another eat-shit-and-die look from Flynn, the Bar-Top Mop.
“Fine. I need—”
“A job, and I told you no.”
“I don’t need a job.”
“Good. Because Father was fairly clear about that point.”
“I’m sure he was. I need information.”
Conny flips up a rag, starts scrubbing the dark wood of the bar-top. He ignores the statement, as he’s wont to do. “What’re you up to now, then? Going back to the ring? More of that? That your plan?”
“No. I’m looking for—”
“You look like shit, by the way. Like a pile of deflated truck tires decided to put the deep dicking to a big jar of marshmallow fluff and you’re the baby they had. What happened to you? You know, even in your prime I coulda fuckin’ taken you.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“Hey! Hey.” Conny thrusts out both his wire-brush chin and a waggling index finger. “Don’t you disparage me, elder brother. I coulda taken you then, and I sure as sheep shit could take you now.”
This, Cason thinks, is what it comes down to in the end with them.
It always does.
Except this time, doubt pulls at his gut like a grabbing hand. He really has gone to pot. Hasn’t had to throw many punches during his time with E.—it’s not that E. didn’t make people mad, it’s just that he had this way of defusing any bomb that came his way.
Well. Except for that one actual bomb.
Still, this is happening whether Cason likes it or not. Because here comes Conny around the far side of the bar, craning his bony neck left and right, the spine crackling like a sheet of bubble wrap in the hands of a rage-fueled toddler. He starts shoving aside tables—pushing a chair with his foot, hip-checking a two-top to the edges.
“Here?” Cason asks. “Now?”
“That’s right. Ohhh, now I see why you wanted to take this conversation elsewhere. You were afraid these fine patrons were going to see me kick your fuckin’ nuts so hard they rattle around your empty skull like a pair of lottery balls. Well, too bad, brother.”
“Let’s do this, then.” Cason gets into a basic stance—one foot ahead, one behind, hips turned. Body coiled like a whip. At least, that’s the theory. He feels sluggy. Like his frame is carrying extra meat—and it is. Worst part of it is that his body doesn’t even feel like his own. It’s like taking somebody’s shitty beater car for a drive when you once tooled around in a Ferrari.
“Hey-hey, watch that fuckin’ table there—” Conny says, pointing a finger.
Cason turns to check. Finds no table there—
When he looks back to Conny, a hard fist pops him in the mouth. Cason staggers. Tastes pennies. Sees stars.
Conny spreads his arms out wide, braying like a donkey. “Oh ho ho! Conny Cole gets first blood and the crowd goes—”
Conny goes down. Doesn’t even see the kick snapping for the side of his head. Cason’s boot clips him across the temple and Conny literally spins like a drunken ice skater before falling forward, face-first, into his own bar. Bottles and pint glasses rattle.
And that’s where Conny stays. Propped up by his own chin on the bar-top. Like a beached whale baking in the sun. He moans.
/> Flynn doesn’t even look away from his pint glass. The haggard lady in the corner gives a sloppy three-clap round of applause and then falls silent once more.
Cason walks up behind his brother.
Which, as it turns out, is a little like walking up behind a rattlesnake.
Suddenly Conny moves fast—his face is like a twisted rag milked of all its moisture, and in his hand he’s got a beer bottle. He pivots, slams the bottle against the bar to break it—
And it doesn’t break. It just thunks dully against the wood.
He tries again. And again. Thunk. Thunk.
“Godfuckindamnit!” He turns, wings the bottle at Cason’s head. It’s an easy projectile to dodge. It sails against the far wall of the bar and shatters. Suds everywhere. Rising cloud of beer-stink. It was a full bottle, the dumb-ass.
That finally gets a response from Flynn. The old man’s shoulders jiggle like a couple bowls of Jello and he emits a rough, raspy sound that might be a chuckle.
Red-faced and with all his meager bird muscles corded tight, Conny wheels on Flynn and screams. Spit gathers at the stretched margins of his mouth. “You old fuckin’ kid-toucher motherfucker, get the fuck out of my bar!” When Flynn doesn’t move, Conny mutters, “...you laugh at me...” then grabs the old man’s pint glass and dumps it in his lap. Flynn backpedals off his stool, nearly falling down in the process. “Now get the fuck out of my bar!”
Flynn hobbles out of the bar, muttering and cursing, wiping beer from his lap.
Cason gives it some time.
Conny stands, sallow chest rising and falling behind his white t-shirt. He’s got a Neanderthal hunch to him—something weighing him down. Shame, rage, something else, Cason doesn’t know. But that’s Conny. Now and forever. Classic.
Also classic Conny? He suddenly straightens up, offers a big mouthful of smiling yellow teeth, then says all bright and chipper: “So, it was information you wanted, big brother?”
THE BACK ROOM of the bar is even dimmer and danker than the bar itself. A small desk sits in the corner, heaped and mounded with papers and kept books. The walls aren’t wood, but rather cheap wood paneling. On which hang beer posters and unlit neon from twenty years ago—St. Pauli’s Girl, and Dab Beer, and Spuds Mackenzie in a Hawaiian shirt surrounded by a couple of tease-haired bikini babes.
