We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night

by Joel Thomas Hynes

  N-n-no . . . I needed . . .

  You needed some supplies?

  She says this part right quiet though, lookin up at me with this fiery . . . this real stabbing kinda . . . lookin right through me, aint she? Doing her goddamn job. Sees right through me. Cause I doubt I’ve done meself proud to conceal what I’m up to. Christ Johnny, you cant stagger into a drugstore in the middle of some arse-bang town out this way and do first aid on yourself and fill your pockets and not expect folks to be smart enough to suspect what youre all about? Look at yourself. Filthy. It’s like you dont want to make it to the west coast. Like you dont want to pull this off.

  I stares right back into her lovely green or grey or blue eyes and I feels like letting her see me. I dont look at her eyebrows or the bridge of her nose, I looks right into her eyes. She looks at me some more, not at me, mind, not like at the state of my face or the clothes I got on, this gal, she looks right into me fucken brain, right back into my eyes, into my, like . . . what’s it called . . .

  Lets get you outside for some fresh air sonny. How does that sound?

  I nods again and she doesnt quite smile but slowly spins alongside me and hooks her arm into mine and we walks down the aisle towards the store exit like easy lovers out for a stroll. Except she’s in full security uniform and I’m filthy bleeding and infected and cant barely walk and half me face is mashed over the wrong way. Other than that, lovers, us. She pushes the exit door open and then it’s that flashing orange light and the long slow moan of the security buzzer going off. Fuck shit piss. It’s the deodorant, I betcha. Betcha there’s a security sticker inside, up underneath the cap. This is me good and shafted now, cause if she didnt know before, well she cant be this fucken stunned. Can she? I tenses up, braced for the inevitable, but she turns, all casual, to someone over near the cash and waves it off like it’s some glitch, same old problem they’ve been having off and on all year.

  Then we’re outside, me and this security guard.

  She leans me against the cold brick of the building, steps back and takes me in. I dont know what she sees, but she stands there staring at me for the longest time. A thick, gooey green wire pokes through her flesh and springs out of the side of her cheek, below her eye socket. It sorta jiggles and fizzes and drips a greasy black liquid onto her stark white collar. She doesnt pay it any mind so I dont bother to mention it. She stands and stares, finally lets out a big sigh and starts rooting through her coat.

  I can list off everything that’s in your pockets right now . . .

  I . . .

  But considering what those items are, and the shape youre in, I’m going to cut you some slack. If you caught me on a normal day, which this is not since my son got convicted of trafficking pills and my daughter hasnt been home in a week . . . well normally I wouldnt hesitate to detain you and call the police and have you charged. Okay? Because that’s my job, sonny. But something tells me . . . something tells me that having you arrested is by far the lesser evil than letting you carry on to whatever fate is awaiting you out here.

  She lights up a cigarette, a menthol, takes a few hard draws, and then places it between me lips. I lets it smoulder there without drawing on it while she pops a stick of gum in her mouth. I cant meet her eye no more, not like I could inside the shop. Wanna say thank you, but it sounds so lame. All that comes out of me is:

  One of your wires is poking out of your face . . .

  She sorta snorts at me and starts walking back to the store entrance. Her hand on the door handle, she growls back at me:

  You have five minutes to disappear, sonny.

  Three minutes left to disappear and I’m almost struck down in the parking lot by some coolio in a black Toyota. Yakking into his phone. He jams on the brakes and then gestures at me to get a move on and I wishes with all that’s in me that I wasnt so demolished right about now cause I’d haul him outta that rig so fast . . . But the truth is I am this way right now. Truth is I wandered out into the road without even lookin. The truth is, according to that cyborg back there, the truth is that there’s a lesser evil fate . . . no, gettin arrested is . . . wait now . . . the truth is that she thinks I’m headed for some sort of reckoning, some sort of meltdown. Well? Well what? Of course youre not Johnny! Come on man, fuck. I mean you just set yourself up with everything you needs to survive. Meal-replacement shit and deodorant. Throw that twenty-five bucks into the tank and see how far the van takes you. Walk the rest of it. Walk it. What’s the difference? It cant be that much further can it? After coming all this ways? Another day of travelling. One day. I can make that. Do that with my fucken eyes closed. Shit man, love to close the eyes for a while. Maybe I could find some place to hide away with the van for a few hours before I hits the road, pull off into the woods, somewhere handy. That’ll do me. I’ll be right as rain then, whatever that means.

  The squawk of a crow from somewhere up above, Johnny lookin around the sky for it. It does this huge swooping nosedive at me like it’s coming in to finish me off, make away with me eyes and shit. I stands me ground, cause it’s just a fucken crow. I watches it lunge and swirl and glide above the parking lot, then it drops all of a sudden and sets down right on the roof of the Dodge Caravan. My Caravan. I stops in me tracks. I mean, I aint going around being all superstitious and shit, but it’s kinda strange I think. Of all the cars in the lot. And he hadda go and do this nosedive at me first before he went and perched on the van. Like he wanted me to know that he knew it was my rig? It’s like I’m in that movie, that one where the crow shows buddy where to find boots and stuff. What was that called? Some fella was shot while they were making the movie. I takes another step towards the van and the crow starts in cawing and squawking, even does this fluttering kinda hokey dance. I stops moving towards the van. The crow stops squawking. I got Madonna’s ashes in me pocket. All’s in the rig belonging to me is the IV bag with the mystery dope. I can get more dope. If I really wants to. I got half a dozen Tylenol in my gut, more in me pocket. They’re hardly killing the pain but they’re taking the edge off, keeping the fever down.

  I takes a left, out towards the highway. I dont look back at the van. I dont hear the crow no more. I keeps walking, best I can on the broken toes, but walking. The pavement gives over to gravel, I’m on the curb crossing into the parking lot of a travel agency, lotsa distance between me and that rig. When I’m pretty much in the clear of the lot I does a scan of the streets around it. Opposite the pharmacy there’s a woman with two small girls making their way into a hair salon. That arsehole in the black Toyota, he peels out onto the road and almost runs down some maniac out for a jog. Dog-walker scooping his dog’s shit into a bag. There’s about half a dozen cars parked along the roadside. Aint none of em looks like the fuzz. Nobody lookin like they’re watchin the van. Still, I cant go back to it. Maybe I’m slipping, gettin a bit paranoid where I’m feeling, you know, a bit off, what with half the bones in me body broken. But no, it’s my gut, a gut feeling. Or maybe it’s me being superstitious after all. I dont know. Maybe it’s on account of that stupid crow. But I gotta jump ship. It served its purpose, done what I needed it to do for way longer than I expected. I got lucky with it. And there’s been too much blind luck these past few days. It dont sit well with me. Cause luck runs out, just when youre gettin comfortable, letting your guard down, when youre kicking back on Easy Street, then bang, it all splatters back in your face, tenfold. Fellas like Johnny? Lucky? Fucken hell.

  The Caravan looks kinda sad and lonesome in the parking lot with the sky all overcast and the late-morning shadows creeping up the windshield. I almost feels sorry for it. Maybe if I wait and watch for a couple of hours? Or just dart over and grab the IV bag? Ahhh fuck it. Fuck it Johnny.

  I pops another few useless pills and sorta scuffs along, scuffing along, shivering, tryna get some of that wrapping to stay on my hand. Foolish twat I am, forgot to rob some goddamn tape. I leans in a general westward direction and yanks the hood of the poncho up around me face to mop some of th
e sweat off.

  14

  Well I never expected to win neither bloody scholarship or nothing like that any time soon, but I cant believe I was so stunned to walk away from that jeezly van on account of some fucken crow dancing and squawking. I am that stunned though. It was a roof over me head at the very least. Coulda drove it till it broke down and then curled up in the back to wait this shit out. Of course it’s fucken raining, hammering down out of the heavens. Of course that’s the way it goes, Johnny. You cant imagine such a thing as blue sky, sunshine. What it feels like to be dry and warm. I stops and peels the last of the filthy ragged wrapping off me hand cause where it’s fallin off anyhow, soaked and heavy and flappin about and it takes too much energy to keep it in place. The hand is a flame-broiled pus-ridden pulsating mess underneath. Not even gonna attempt to make a fist out of it.

  All bad enough, the concentration it takes to stay on me feet now, one foot in front of the other. The left leg, the muscle above the knee, the big one, that dont feel like it’s gonna last much longer cause where I’m having to make up for how useless the other leg is, the toes busted open like that. Maybe the night before last I tried to get the boot off but it dont wanna budge. Every time I sets the foot down it feels like there’s gonna be this squishy pop from inside and toes and toenails and foot guts are gonna come spewing up the side of me leg. And the pain of that, how that feels . . . Sometimes when I forgets and steps on it the wrong way or scuffs it in the shoulder of the road or something, sometimes the pain is so fucken epic that I have to give the jaw a little tap, or I might poke meself good and hard in the ribcage, just to move the pain to some other part of the body, so I’ll live through the next ten seconds.

  How we takes it all for granted. You dont think about breathing until you breaks your goddamn ribs. Same thing with walkin, the foot is gone and fucked and I never thought about how useful it was before now, or how useless I am without it. My fucken foot. Or you hardly thinks about all the ways you can use your mouth until you loses the use of it. I wouldnt even be able to eat pussy right about now. Truth. But dont get me wrong, I mean I’d try. I’d give it a good fucken go.

  Found a rusted piece of iron pipe on the side of the road a ways back and I used that as a cane for a while, but it got to be too heavy. I dont even wanna think about that, not being able to lift a bit of pipe. But for the most part anyhow the pain is after easing off this past hour or two, or the brain is moving the pain onto a different shelf or something, so I can kinda have a look at it from some other side of me head without really . . . I dont know what I’m sayin.

  Gone is the money, the twenty-five dollars. Gas station in Princeton. Pack of cigarettes that fell to pieces in the poncho within the first ten minutes of the rain. Forgot they were there. Good pack too, du Maurier kings. I tries to keep smoking, you know. I tries to keep at it. But I aint never really taken to em. I might take a little smokin binge here and there, or have a few when I’m out on the go with the lads or something, but then I’ll forget all about cigarettes altogether for a while, maybe weeks. Then it’s right exciting, you know, to go and get a fresh pack or to find an old pack. Anyhow, the fancy du Mauriers are gone now, destroyed by the wet. Lucky I wrapped Madonna’s ashes in a plastic bag, stuffed the donut bag down in it. Bottle of aspirin I bought too, long gone. Jug of milk, long gone, spilled half of it tryna run towards a swanky SUV I thought was after stopping for me but was only some fucker pulled over to take pictures of the mountains. The Crowsnest Highway, that’s what I’m on. There’s whatcha-call-it for ya. You know, when something is a coincidence or puts you in mind of something else? I dont know what it’s called, one of them words you use when youre tryna sound smart I spose.

  Saw a sign yesterday morning with the Sasquatch on it too. A joke sign for Sasquatch Crossing with the word Believe! stencilled on a separate rectangular piece under the image. Bigfoot, you know. And I tell ya, stinking and moaning down a cold twisting mountain road in the fog and rain in the middle of the night with the woods dead murky and sinister all around you, strangling in on you like that . . . Well it’s not hard to believe then is it? It’s not hard to piss your fucken pants to be honest, at the sound of a branch snapping out there in the dark. Fucken Sasquatch. Come on you bastard. To the death. To the death. But I walks on, you know. There’s nothing to be said, nothing to be done. Not like I can hide or outrun him or nothing. I been hacking up blood now for the past couple of days so it’s like I’m leaving a trail anyhow. Yeah, the right ear too. Up where the jaw seems to be most swollen, I dont know, me eardrum popped when I got into the mountains and now there’s this itchy trickle inside there, drippin down inside me throat. Dont know if that’s even possible, but the hearing comes and goes, or it muffles over, and ever since the eardrum popped there’s been blood I’ve been hacking up. So I dont know, I dont know. Least of my concerns now. Let the fucken Bigfoot come and nab me up, drag me off into his lair and rip me limb from limb. Or maybe it’s a female, a girl Bigfoot that’s stalkin me. Club me over the head with her big fist, toss me over her shoulder and I wakes up in some filthy cave deep in the woods. Keep me in there for years, making babies, little hairy Johnny monsters. Away we goes.

  I needs the strength, that’s the main thing. Keep moving Johnny. And there’s no one, not a fucken soul comes down this road after dark. Two, three nights in a row I pretty much staggered all the way into the first light of day, dying to sit down, lie down. But the effort to get back up out of it, no mistake. And you dont even notice the cars passing by in the daytime then. Youre so delighted to’ve made it through the bitter night and finally be able to see what’s around you. You remembers that youre sposed to be gettin some place and that you should be sticking the thumb out but then realizes there’s been streams of vehicles for maybe hours and youve done nothing to make it known that youre tryna get somewhere.

  Drooling. Cant stop that either. Where me teeth dont fit together no more and it’s just easier, more comfortable, less fucken horrifying, to let my mouth slack open. Long stringy goops of it all down me chin and slicked onto me neck, blending in with the rain. Salty stench of saliva. Bottom lip, I can grab that and pinch it and twist it but it’s numb dead meat. I dont know b’ys and girls. I do not know.

  I hooks a ride at the bottom of a long sloping hill sometime in the evening. Couple of old fellas who looks like brothers, coming from duck hunting. There’s a sleepy-lookin terrier dog tied on in the back of the pickup, little wiry black-and-white thing. The feller on the passenger side who gets out to help me up into the truck, he dont look too pleased that they’re stopped atall. He’s got one of those chins, pointed and strict, self-righteous. Thin pinched lips, jowls all wrinkled from clenching his jaw. But he’s gentle enough with me I suppose. I slides into the middle of the long bench seat, flanked on either side.

  Larry the driver and Glenn the stuffy passenger. They asks me the usual questions, how far I’m going and where I’m from and all that, but when I tries to answer I finds I cant talk, cant make the tongue go where it’s sposed to go, cant make the mouth do the little tricks it needs to do to ahhh . . . make words. All that comes out is this slurried mumble. I can feel the two of em exchanging glances at one another. Glenn pipes up then:

  Youre a hell of a mess son, a hell of a mess.

  I lays me head back against the seat and dozes off for a little and I wonders if they can smell me but prolly not cause it aint like either one of them is too fond of a bar of soap neither. Fuck it anyhow. I snaps to at some point to find Glenn is pressing a wad of tissue under me chin to collect the drool pouring out of me open mouth.

  . . . a hell of a mess this one is Lawrence, hell of a mess . . .

  Closing in on dark when I comes round again, literally squat in the middle of a halfways heated argument about beagles, whether or not you should ever let em in the house or even rub em down or do any of the stuff you does with normal dogs. But they both seems to be arguing to the same end. Larry says it’s a surefire way to lose your do
g, if you gets em used to people, cause then they’ll take off when you brings em in the woods and they’ll go with anyone. Stuffy Glenn says no, it’s because you softens the dog too much, that they’re not as keen on the cold weather once they knows the comfort of the indoors, that they need only know one purpose, that their sole luxury should be when they’re let out to hunt. Either way, I feels bad for the poor old scrap in the back of the truck cause I knows right where he’s going when he gets home.

  The rain is stopped and it’s pretty much full dark when the truck pulls over to the exit for Chilliwack. I tries to mumble the word Vancouver, but I knows I sounds like a burnt-out fucken retard. Larry, the driver, keeps sayin over and over that he wished he could understand, wished he could understand. I spies an old pen on the dashboard as I slips down onto the road. I grabs that and writes the word out on the back of my nasty hand and shows it to the driver. He squints at the scrawl and gives Glenn a look. Glenn, who’s standin out on the road next to me now, tryna help me over to the shoulder, he nods on down the road:

  Bout an hour and a half’s drive thataway son. Think you’ll make it?

  I tries to nod, but the eardrum thing, well the balance is kinda shot from not being on me feet. Glenn reaches out to steady me. He pulls a bright-orange handkerchief out of his coat and places it to my forehead. I couldnt care less where it’s been, whose nose it picked or whose hole it wiped. It’s so fucken nice, the cold of the cloth, his hand on my forehead. The handkerchief comes away from me head stained black with sweat. He lays the handkerchief gently across me shoulder and leaves it there. Next the old codger snaps something in front of my face and I catches the flash of a folded twenty-dollar bill that he slips into the pocket of the poncho. He winks, then puts his finger to his lips and nods back towards Larry.

  I wanna smile and I hopes I looks like I’m smiling, but I highly fucken doubt it.