Prodigal Sons

by Mike Miner

  “You were going to tell me what you were doing in Boston.”

  “Get me a coffee first,” then she added an exaggerated, “Please!”

  “How do you take it?”

  “Guess.”

  “Same as always?”

  “Yup.” He ordered her a sugary sweet double caramel macchiato. When he set it down in front of her, she thanked him.

  “So.”

  “So why am I in Boston?”

  “Mm hmm.”

  “Colorado wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”

  “Did someone crack it up to be a lot? What does that expression mean anyway?”

  “It’s a cold place when your head’s shaved.”

  “But think of all the time you saved in the morning.”

  Ignoring him, she took off her coat revealing a brown sweater that fit her just right. He replayed the memory of the first time they had been together. It was something he did often but with her in the room the experience was much more satisfying. “I hear your brother tried to spring you.”

  When Luke had finally given up on sleep and walked to the TV room, it was two-thirty a.m. The drugs helped some, but they messed with his sleeping.

  He sat down next to her on the stiff couch. “What’s with the bandages?” Her arms were wrapped in taped gauze.

  A mischievous grin. “I keep picking my scabs—the wounds won’t heal right.” She rolled her eyes and pulled at the tape. “What was it like outside?”

  A heavy sigh. “Scary.”

  She nodded.

  She knew from scary, he supposed. He appreciated her understanding. “Do you think it always will be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you think about these Baywatch babes?” On the television, red bikinis danced in slow motion to someone’s rescue. “You think they’re ever scared?”

  “They’re not real.”

  Dana seemed to like that. “You prefer real?” She turned and kissed him. “Is that real enough for you?”

  She had plenty of everything: breasts, ass, hips, arms, legs. He touched her up and down, exploring, their lips parted only to breathe as if about to go underwater. She yanked, fast and rough, at all of him: his shirt, his pants, his underwear, his dick; and the crazed look on her face before she inhaled it made him shudder from top to toe. The bats hung upside down, fat and sated, eyes closed, ears open, listening but content.

  Dana was finishing what she’d been saying. He wondered how to politely ask her to repeat everything she had just said.

  “Anyway, I think it was a big mistake and I think leaving you was an even bigger mistake.”

  Somewhere his mother wept and clutched her rosary beads.

  “So.”

  “So I would like you to take me back.”

  “Until something better comes along?”

  “Until you can’t stand me anymore.”

  “I can’t stand you anymore.”

  “Don’t kid around.”

  “I think you’re the one kidding around.”

  “I’m not going to get into some battle of words with you. You win. What do you want me to say?”

  He wanted her to shut up. “I want you to shut up.”

  A sip of coffee. A lick of her lips. This was a bad idea. Naked pictures of her ganged up on him, but his imagination couldn’t conjure the feel of her, the soft parts, the wet parts, the bite of her teeth. A smile teased her face as though everything were proceeding according to plan. She didn’t speak and he didn’t know what to say. “I just want you to shut up.”

  In his apartment, an unsure silence waited for them, like a held breath. He hung her coat and hat in the hall closet. When he got back, she was sitting on the yellow couch. The wind screamed and feathers of snow became wings twisting around the street lights. Their reflections in the window made Luke self-conscious, like they were being watched, but he couldn’t see the watchers.

  “Why don’t you put on some music?”

  “What do you want to hear?”

  “Anything.”

  He put on Bob Marley, High Tide Low Tide. The music had no history for them. She turned off the lamp and their echoes in the glass disappeared, leaving only the cold street. “In high seas or in low seas, I’ll be by your side,” Bob crooned.

  Their kisses were electric. Her hands on him charged with current. They moved to the bedroom. She pulled off her sweater and stepped out of her jeans revealing firm thighs in the black and white dimness. He felt like a character in a noir film. Her fingers teased the straps of her bra off and her eyes sparkled with an intimate madness. He took off his clothes without taking his eyes off her, savoring the view, her body still fighting gravity—and winning. In this light he couldn’t see any new scars, but he knew she had some, self-inflicted, no scab left unpicked. He stepped to her and the hardwood floor creaked as he gathered her into his arms and felt her cold gooseflesh against his skin. He laid her on the bed and rolled on top of her.

  “Can you…?”

  “This?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Make it hurt.”

  She fell asleep in his arms after and he watched the night develop. When he shifted slightly, he felt her thighs sink against his. He drifted off, the wetness of sex and sweat drying, the smell of it caressing him.

  At some point in the night, she woke and rolled out of the bed and opened a drawer. Only half awake, he watched her from the bed as she pulled out a t-shirt. Winged spies stirred in his closet, the door ajar. Something heavy clattered to the floor with a burst of light and a bullet smashed through the bedroom window. Dana screamed and picked up the gun like it might run away. He was next to her now. Furious, a funnel cloud of bats spun inside the room. She gasped for breath. Bear’s heavy footsteps rebounded off the hallway walls. The bats retreated. The bedroom door pushed open, revealing them stark naked and her holding the gun. Bear rubbed his eyes and squinted to get a better look, as though what he saw could not possibly be true. Dana was still too shocked to cover herself or let go of the gun. Luke pried it from her fingers.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Bear acted as though he was still in a dream, as though this couldn’t be happening. “Is that a real gun? What the fuck?”

  “Bear, everything’s okay. Would you mind?”

  “Shit, excuse me for living. Could you keep the fucking gun play down?”

  Luke made no reply and his look made it clear he wanted Bear gone. Bear opened his mouth to say something, took one more look at Luke’s naked guest then shut the door.

  “Fuck,” Bear muttered as he walked back to his bedroom.

  When his footsteps stopped, Luke put the gun back in the drawer and took her in his arms. They could feel each other’s hearts pounding.

  “What are you doing with a gun?” She pulled away from him and looked in his face.

  His eyes couldn’t lie—there was no rational explanation there.

  “What are you doing with a gun?”

  He looked away.

  “My God, Luke.” She touched his face with her hand—he brushed it aside.

  “I don’t want your fucking sympathy.” Blood rushed to his face and all of it came back to him. The flapping of wings tortured his ears.

  “Baby, it’s just that… I know what it’s like, to want to turn everything off, stop those voices. I thought I was the messed up one.”

  “Just get the fuck out.”

  “What?”

  “Out.”

  “But…”

  “Either you leave or I will.” He fought back a crowd of emotions.

  “Okay.”

  He didn’t move as she dressed. He sensed them, crawling on his back, but couldn’t look with her in the room.

  “Just tell me it wasn’t over me.”

  But it was. Without her in his life, the bats wouldn’t leave him alone. But that couldn’t be the reason she stayed with him.

  “Do you have anything you want to say to me?” />
  “No.”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t know you took it so hard.”

  “Spare me.”

  “I did too.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  A quiet sob escaped her lips. “I don’t want this to be it. Do you?”

  After a long pause, he shook his head.

  She nodded and left.

  He realized he was shivering. Bats hovered outside around the hole in his window, pig noses sniffing, trying to squeeze inside. The sound of the front door opening. As she hailed a cab, they were a blur of wings above her head. She looked back at his window then got inside, pulling the door shut behind her. He heard the cab stop at the corner then accelerate down Harvard Avenue, then the sound was gobbled up by the frenzied riot of his nocturnal familiars.

  He dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and walked to the kitchen. In the liquor cabinet, he found a bottle of Jim Beam. Ice in a glass. Bourbon on top. A sip, the pleasant sting. He put a hand through his hair and let out a sigh. Out the window, bats chewed the remains of Saturday night and spit them out into Sunday morning.

  Bear had stopped him—Luke was pretty sure he would have stopped himself—but that wasn’t what had happened. Alone now in his kitchen, never really alone, in the pre-dawn, he knew it.

  The bats had pounced after his old roommate was gone and Dana had left him. They’d been gathering strength, watching him from the dusty corners of his bare apartment, waiting for the right moment. It was like seeing his own life as though his face were pressed up against a window. He couldn’t pull back and see the larger picture. He’d feigned an interest in firearms with a friend in the army who collected guns. Bought a revolver, liked the old fashioned look of it. Late at night, after a few glasses of Beam, he used to take it out. The first time, he just looked at it. A few nights later he loaded it. Sometimes he’d just put in one bullet and pretend to play Russian Roulette, then he wasn’t pretending exactly, but he never actually pulled the trigger.

  He had his finger on the trigger and had pulled it back a hair. The bats were agitated, their angry buzzing filled his ears. His head ached. If only he could make everything stop, make the world quiet. No bats, no Dana, no worries. The barrel of the gun nice and cool against his temple.

  When the phone rang, he stashed the pistol in his top drawer, as if the caller might see him with it. Had he let down the hammer? Apparently not.

  “Is this Luke?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s Bear. Bear Rogers. At last we speak. Sorry to call so late but you said call anytime so…”

  He hadn’t touched the gun since—but he’d kept it. Why? He knew—he just didn’t think about it. In his subconscious, it was a ripcord for when he was falling too fast, when the bats got too real, when they left bite marks. Dana couldn’t know about it but now she did. He took another sip and set the glass down. Up the hall, Bear opened his door and came into the kitchen. His bed head hair defied all rules of gravity. “That looks good.” Bear pointed at the bottle of Beam. Bear found himself a more or less clean glass and put about four fingers of Beam in it. He took a sip and smacked his lips.

  “Who won the hoops game?” Luke touched his glass to Bear’s.

  “We did. You missed a good one. That fucking Troy Bell is a player.”

  Luke nodded.

  “Did I ever tell you I knew your brother?”

  “No.” An ice cube hit Luke’s mouth and he refilled his glass.

  “Yeah, he was a year older, but we lived in the same building my freshman year.”

  “Williams Hall?”

  “That’s right. Him and his roommate used to look out for us, invited us to parties. He’s a good shit.”

  “Yeah, he is.” Luke tried to figure out if this meant something.

  “He was a wild man. That guy could drink a bottle of tequila and still write a ten-page paper. He dated that blonde chick. What was her name?”

  “Jenny.”

  “Right, Jenny. They were a hot ticket.”

  “How did you get my number?”

  “Through the grapevine. I put the word out I needed a place and I guess your brother heard and gave me a call.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  Bear kind of half smiled and did something with his eyebrows and Luke realized that he would never stay mad at Bear Rogers. “Your brother said not to mention it. Something about you not appreciating his involvement.”

  Luke chuckled. Matthew was probably right. “What else did he say?”

  Bear hesitated and looked at the glass between his fingers like he wasn’t sure what the liquid was inside it.

  Luke waited, wondering how close Matthew had been to the truth.

  “He may have mentioned that you’d had a pretty rough breakup and he might have asked me to keep an eye on you. You know, big brother stuff.”

  Luke shook his head and laughed, cursing Matthew for knowing him so well.

  “He also said that dame is bad news.”

  Luke sighed and rolled his eyes. “You saying you’re not gonna let me see her? You gonna tell my big brother on me?”

  Bear chuckled and his chins trembled. “Look, as long as I get a peek, you can see whoever you want.”

  Luke smiled.

  “Who you see might be none of my business and it might not be any of your brother’s business but as for that fucking gatt you keep in your room… I’ll be needing you to hand that over.” Bear’s face turned serious. Luke thought he’d probably make a good lawyer some day. “Right now.”

  Luke let out a breath, relieved more than anything.

  In his room, for a moment, the weight of the gun in his hand comforted him. He looked at the hole in his window then walked back to the kitchen and placed the gun on the table.

  Bear took a sip of bourbon before touching it like a dog sniffs a dead animal or like a woman touches a man for the first time. He lifted it in his fat fingers and aimed it out the window, squinting one eye. After a second he held it in both hands like an offertory and turned to Luke.

  “How do you unload it?”

  Luke took it, pressed the release and snapped the chamber open. He pointed the gun at the ceiling but no bullets came out.

  Bear looked at Luke. “There was only one bullet in it.”

  It seemed strange to Luke to be looking at the gun with someone else. It had been such a private affair. Bear’s eyes held only curiosity, no judgment.

  “It’s heavier than I expected.”

  “Yeah, I thought so too. I don’t know what I expected though.”

  Bear nodded, looking like he was chewing something that tasted bad but that he couldn’t spit out. Luke supposed he looked fascinated.

  “Are you going to see her again?”

  Bear didn’t look like he expected an answer. Not that Luke had one. “I suppose.”

  Bear refilled both of their glasses.

  “What time is it?” Luke squinted at the clock on the stove.

  “Fuck if I know.” Bear was starting to slur his words.

  Luke stood so he could read it. Just after four. He felt like calling someone, Matthew maybe, but what would he say? His brother’s concern was like a warm spot of sun on a cool day. He wondered if he looked as bad as Bear did. Weary, bloodshot eyes smiled at him. Outside, nothing stirred in the windy darkness. They stayed up until a pale light through the window reminded them they had not slept enough. Luke’s bed was a cloud and he slept a drunken, dreamless sleep. Even the howling and whistling of air through the bullet hole in his window sounded like a lullaby.

  MATTHEW 3

  “Is that it?”

  “That’s it.”

  The Vegas skyline was a neon ransom note.

  Matthew pointed out the city like it was a planet just above the horizon. A funky-colored star in a remote constellation. They continued toward it and the skinny I-15 slithered through the oily black desert beneath an enormous, starless sky. It took a long time for them to notic
e any progress.

  After a spell, the lights began to separate and reveal their shapes and Vegas took on an Emerald City feeling. He turned and saw the lights reflected in Tommy’s sunglasses. Her mouth was half open. In wonder, he guessed. He hadn’t seen that expression on anyone in a long time. The city grew until they could make out The Strip and then each hotel on The Strip. Their excitement intensified as the city expanded. They were both squirming in their seats by the time they reached the neon daylight of Las Vegas Boulevard.

  There were some new casinos but it was the same old song and dance for Matthew. Tommy’s head seemed to swivel 360 degrees as they pulled onto the strip. It was as though all the stars had fallen or been kidnapped and hung on these absurdly oversized buildings just for her. He knew there was a bulb for every sucker who got lured here, every lost pot, dashed parlay, every hot streak gone cold. But why ruin the first smile he’d seen since Los Angeles?

  Somewhere in between they had pulled into a Shell station in a sleepy silver mining town. He had stopped at the pump. A sign read, “please pay first.” An old timer stood like a cactus at the register inside and winked at him.

  “For luck,” the old timer said, stirring to life.

  “Thanks.”

  He grabbed a six pack of Pacifico beer and asked for a pack of Barclays. His father’s father had smoked Barclays. What would Papa have done in Matthew’s place? Tough to figure.

  Twenty dollars of unleaded later, he started the jeep and she woke up.

  “Why did we stop?”

  He finished lighting a cigarette.

  She lifted her sunglasses to see where they were and he saw the puffy bruise underneath her left eye. Feeling his eyes, she pushed the glasses back on and cleared her throat. Took his cigarette and put it in her mouth.

  He fished out another one and lit it still looking at her.

  “I hate these.” She crinkled her nose and exhaled.

  He shrugged.

  She flicked the unsmoked cigarette out the window. “How long ’til we get there?”

  Another shrug.