by J. T. Warren
There were many ways to handle this. There were all types of avenues of explanations Anthony could attempt—he could even just tell his son to get the hell back in his room and not come out. This was Adult Business, after all. But Anthony couldn’t do that. All he could do was slump back against the bed, the fresh blood almost touching him, and resign himself to guilt.
“I … did something horrible,” he said. “Can you call the police? I don’t have the energy.”
When Brendan didn’t respond for several seconds, Anthony turned to him, expecting tears or the dawning realization of what horror had transpired. Instead, Brendan had entered several feet into the room. His mouth had closed, his facial features tightened.
“No,” he said. “I won’t call the police.”
“Daddy did something … terrible and …”
“Don’t worry, Dad. There’s someone we can call.”
9
Tucked among the pages of Brendan’s tale of Detective Bo Blast and the Darkman was the list of various ways to sacrifice someone to the gods. The book had described the ancient ritual in detail, but heart-removal had been out of Brendan’s capability. Brendan had been capable of murder, however. Like son, like father.
Before his revelation last Saturday (Number 47—drop bowling ball onto car), Brendan had crafted a diverse list that included: number 4—burn person’s house down; number 7—bury person alive; number 32—kick person off ladder; and number 39—beat person with hammer.
Standing in the doorway of his parents’ bedroom, Brendan thought that’s what Dad had done: beat Dr. Carroll to death with a hammer. He didn’t notice the tire iron with pieces of skin and hair stuck to it in bloody patches until he walked closer and assured Dad that everything would be alright.
Dad looked at him with eyes so filled with pain and confusion that Brendan nearly started crying. All he wanted, all he had ever wanted, was for his family to be happy. That went for both Dad and him. Dad was a good man who had been pushed too far. Brendan was a strange boy (he had accepted that long ago) but he cared about nothing so much as he did his family. In that way, he and dad were almost identical. Dad would do anything to make everything right. But Brendan knew how to do that.
“What do you mean, someone else?” Dad asked.
Brendan removed the business card from his pocket, where he always kept it since Dwayne had scribbled his cell number on it and said that if he needed anything, anything, to call. Brendan had already called once about Sasha Karras and Dwayne would be around in a few hours to explain how she was to be handled, but this situation needed to be handled now. What if Mom or Aunt Steph woke up? What if Dr. Carroll’s body started to rot? Would it begin decomposition that soon? How would they get the blood stains out of the carpet?
Dad took the business card from him and stared at it silently for a while before he said, “Holy shit.”
* * *
Dad made the call while Brendan sat near Dr. Carroll’s body and wondered if the creepy bastard had had any sense of his imminent demise. Had he known he would be dead in only a few minutes when he explained to Brendan how he used to lay with naked, half-dissected corpses? Had he any sense at all when he entered the Williams’ residence that he wouldn’t be walking back out?
Brendan hoped he had known it or at least sensed something threatening waiting for him. He hoped that this man who had given him pills to help him focus better in school last September (pills Brendan hadn’t taken in over a week; Pillie Billy wasn’t necessary anymore—he was an undistracted, guided missile of purpose), that this man who had turned his mom into a barely-living mass of withering tissue had known, even if for only a moment or two, that his death was upon him. Maybe he had even seen Death, black-cloaked and scythe-carrying, standing in the corner of the bedroom before Dad caved his face in with a piece of metal. Hopefully, Dr. Carroll knew it was coming and hopefully it hurt like hell.
The back of Dr. Carroll’s head where the tire iron had caved in a chunk of his skull looked like it hurt a lot. He probably hadn’t felt it, though. The man was dead before he knew it. Brendan turned Dr. Carroll’s head so it was resting against the side of the bed, face toward him. Half of one cheek had been torn off, exposing the gums and teeth beneath. A few of the teeth had been fractured and split into jagged fangs. Dark purple and brown bruises surrounded the eye on this side. Had he not died, the bruises would have spread farther, puffed up like batter cooking in an oven. His jaw was out of its sockets. Brendan touched his chin and tried to close the man’s mouth but bones ground against bones and refused to move. At least that must have hurt. At least that much.
Brendan wanted to revel in this feeling but he immediately thought of Delaney. Had she sensed her end coming? Had she suffered pain? If she had, of course, it had been all Brendan’s fault. He didn’t want to think about it but he couldn’t shut off the thoughts. No matter how hard he squeezed the knob, the memories of what he had done continued to seep out one drip at a time, like fluid from that guided missile.
Both he and Dad were killers now. Yet, Brendan could never share what he had done. The pain would be too immense. It would be unfair, too, burdening Dad with the knowledge that his youngest child had killed his only daughter. Brendan would be put in an asylum somewhere in a room with padded walls and doctors would visit him every now and again to give him his Pilly Billies. Dr. Carroll would have the last laugh then.
Dad returned from the kitchen, mobile phone at his side. He looked at Brendan for a while before speaking.
“There’s a lot you haven’t told me,” he said.
Had Dwayne revealed the truth about Delaney? “Yes,” was all Brendan could say.
“Those men, Dwayne and Ellis, you think they are safe, trustworthy?” Dad approached him, sat on the edge of the bed away from the heavy splotch of blood and the two sleeping women.
Brendan swallowed. “I believe they are.”
Dad thought for a moment. “I guess I do, too. I kind of have to.”
“You punched Dwayne at Delaney’s …”
Dad opened and closed his right hand.
“Why did you do that?”
“We’ve never gone to church much. I wasn’t raised in a religious family and neither was your mother, but I didn’t think we’d be punished for it. I never suspected God was so cruel, so heartless, so evil.”
“He’s not evil, Dad.”
“He took Delaney. He took my baby. He destroyed my wife. He made me do that.” He pointed at Dr. Carroll’s body.
“Yes, I know,” Brendan said. Dad turned to him again, blinking. “He did all those things, it’s true, but it’s not to punish you.”
A small chuckle slipped out. “Oh, really?”
“God has a plan for everyone and each path is different and equally impossible to explain.”
Dad laughed. “You could take that act on the road. I’m sure Ellis and Dwayne would love to have you as part of their entourage. Maybe you’d even be better off. Get away from this family, from whatever curse has befallen it.”
“No curse, Dad. It only seems that way. God’s light is there. It will shine upon you if you want it to.”
“It’s that simple?”
Brendan should have felt ridiculous, stupid, out of his element, but he was calm and precise; he knew exactly what to say because some other force was guiding him; God had His hand in this, no doubt. God’s plan for the Williams Family seemed like the scribbles of a madman, yet Brendan could trust that beneath the meaninglessness lay profound purpose. He was on the right path and he was only a turn in the trail away from enlightenment and, ultimately, empowerment.
“It is that simple, trust me,” he said.
After a moment, Dad responded in a resigned tone: “I guess we’ll find out. Ellis and Dwayne will be here within the hour.”
Brendan was too excited to hide his smile.
10
Tyler didn’t wait long after Dad slammed the bedroom door to call Paul and tell him to get the fuck over
here now. It wasn’t the fear of the possible violence that might occur (if Dad managed to get tough for once, the doctor deserved whatever beating he got), it was the pills in his pocket. They were burning a hole in there.
Paul had been in his car, “Just tooling around,” he said though that meant his Mom had sent him out to do errands, and so he was at Tyler’s in only a few minutes.
Tyler left the house just as Dad sounded like he was gearing up for a fight.
“What’s the new plan?”
“Go back to your house. Your parents there?”
“Mom is, sent me out to get bread and milk or something, so we have to stop at the store first, but Dad’s off with his buddies.”
“We need some privacy.”
“Before we have to start saying ‘No Homo,’ how bout you tell me this new plan that’s got you wired?”
Tyler relayed the plan to Paul, explaining how it would go down and why he believed it would work. Paul listened as he drove to Stop&Shop and asked questions while they walked around the store and then nodded his head in agreement while they stood in line at the cashier.
“It’s a good idea,” he said, “no doubt about it. Sick, though.”
“No sicker than your idea.”
“My plan would have worked if you hadn’t turned all pussy.”
A short woman hunched over a nearly empty cart with bifocals slipping down her nose coughed in line behind them. Tyler had been so caught up in explaining his plan he had forgotten where they were. Paul, however, didn’t care. If the old woman was offended she could turn off her hearing aid.
“It’s true,” Paul went on. “But your plan has some real potential. I never would have guessed you had it in you.”
“Desperate times, right?”
Paul nodded, exchanged empty chitchat with a pimple-faced girl working the register, ‘Brunelle,’ her name tag read, paid the bill, and let Tyler carry the bag of bread, milk, cheese, and eggs. He also carried a smaller bag holding two items he had purchased himself. Back in the car, Paul asked, “You have all those pills on you?”
Tyler removed a handful of multicolored and various-sized pills from his pocket. He held them out like a secret treasure.
“Shit,” Paul said. “There’s oxycontin in there?”
“I don’t remember what it looks like, but yeah.”
* * *
In Paul’s basement (his mother upstairs occupied with making cookies or a cake or something for Easter), Tyler laid out the pills on a card table and sent Tyler hunting for the tools he needed.
He lined up the pills in rows. By the time he had fished all of them out of his pocket, pieces of lint clinging to the last few, he had formed four rows of twelve pills—forty-eight in all. That was a lot. Christ, he had been overzealous in his excavation of Dr. Carroll’s bag. the idea had just been so good and come on so strongly that he hadn’t stopped to think that he didn’t need too many pills, this many, to make it work, certainly not forty-eight. However, since he had this many, his plan could grow more detailed, more intricate, more solid.
Paul returned with a small plastic container meant for leftover vegetables or applesauce, a small white marble mortar and pedestal intended for grinding spices. He set these next to the rows of pills.
“Damn, man,” he whispered.
“Your mom ask why you wanted that stuff?”
“No, she just wanted me to get some baking sheets out from under the stove. When she’s baking, she’s off in another world.”
“Good for us.”
“You’re not going to use all of those, right?”
“No,” Tyler said, “but they will be used.”
“We sort these things out and we can make some money, just selling them at school.”
“Fuck that. I don’t need to press my luck. I need to solve my problem.”
“Yeah,” Paul said with a note of resignation.
The first few pills Tyler picked up were plastic caps, which came apart easily. He emptied the powdery contents into the mortar. After that, he picked out many of the solid pills from the lines and dropped them onto the powder. He used the pedestal to grind the pills into dust, mixing all the contents together.
“This is hardcore shit. Cops come busting in here and we’d be fucked.”
“We’re not dealers. We’re trying to save my ass.”
Tyler kept working, adding more pills, crushing their contents, until Paul asked if he was sure Sasha was pregnant.
“Who knows? She’s crazy, right?”
“No shit. She could be lying, though, trying to hook you in.”
“Does it make a difference? If this goes right, she and her mother won’t be a problem anymore—baby or not.”
“You could be a father,” Paul said with awe, “and look what it’s done to you.”
Tyler appreciated the contents of the mortar; he had filled it almost an inch deep. Paul was just being a smart ass but he was right: in a week’s time, he had deteriorated into a thief and drug-pusher who was about to cross all kinds of moral boundaries. One hell of a week, he thought.
“I’m not a father.”
“Not for long if you are.”
After Paul ground a few more pills into the mix, he dumped the contents into the plastic container. Then he returned to the diminishing lines of pills and started grinding again. After he finished this time, using far fewer pills, there were only eighteen pills remaining. He wasn’t sure what they were or which ones he had already used. In the end, it wouldn’t really matter.
“Now what?” Paul asked.
Tyler took out Delaney’s cellphone. “I make the call.”
11
The guard working the main gate called the house. The ring of the phone, still in Anthony’s hand, startled him out of a reverie in which he and Chloe were happy. He wasn’t sure what they were doing in this daydream, only that they were smiling and laughing. It felt like fantasy: there might have been knights and dragons and wizards, too.
The guard said that two men had arrived and were requesting entrance to visit him. Anthony told the guard to let them in and then went outside. He left Brendan in the bedroom with his drugged mother and aunt, and the corpse, of course. That had the making for one of those exploitative headlines: FATHER SLAYS FAMILY DOC, MAKES SON GUARD BODY.
A black Lincoln stopped in front of Anthony’s driveway. A large black van with the emblem of a cross on the side parked behind it. The cross appeared to float above a black nothingness. It was like that Dali painting of Christ on the cross where the savior hovered above Hell.
Ellis and Dwayne, both wearing their Sunday Best, got out of the Lincoln. Whoever was in the van remained there, the engine idling. Anthony saw part of a large arm and a section of a barrel chest. Even preacher men needed a security detail.
Not security, the Logical Voice interrupted, it’s the clean up crew.
“We’re so glad you called,” Ellis said. He took Anthony’s hand in a friendly shake and then held it while he continued talking. Anthony wanted to pull his hand away but there was something reassuring about holding this man’s hand. Comfort could be found in his smile. “I know this seems like a horrible tragedy, just one more black mark against you in a long list of horrible events, but it’s not. We’re here to show you that what happened, whatever you had to do, is the first great step toward your empowerment in God’s eyes.”
“Sounds like a cover up,” Anthony said.
“If there is justice to be paid it will be—God will see to that—but it is only your guilty conscience that insists this is a negative event.”
The thwank of metal against bone …
The hollow clank of bone against the headboard …
“I’m not sure you understand.”
“We do, Anthony,” Ellis said. “We really do. You see, if you were truly guilty, you wouldn’t have called us, or at least we wouldn’t be receptive. You would have tried to hide the mess yourself. Or you might have even confessed.”
&nbs
p; Which is what I should do. It hadn’t dawned on him completely yet that he had indeed killed a man, but Anthony was starting to sense the grave seriousness of the shit that happened in his bedroom. If he ever fully realized what had happened (This is called shock, the Logical Voice said), he might use the tire iron on his own head or take a handful of Chloe’s pills and curl up with her. That might not be so bad. When the police finally discovered the bodies, they might even think it sweet: a lover’s suicide, practically a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.
“We will handle the mess,” Ellis said with a slight nod to the waiting van. “I will handle the more serious mess.”
“Which is?”
“Your soul.”
Ellis squeezed Anthony’s hand and leaned toward him, eyes wide. The knot of his black tie was askew and for some reason it kept pulling Anthony’s focus. He wanted to reach out and fix it, straighten the tie and—ta da!—the world would be right again.
“Focus, Anthony. This is no time for diversions. We have serious soul-excavating to do.”
“That sounds painful,” Anthony said in barely a whisper. Why was the stupid tie pulling his attention? He’s not who he says he is. The thought was clear and came without argument. It could have come from the Logical Voice or the This is Dangerous Voice, but instead it simply bubbled out of his subconscious as a pure Anthony Williams thought.
“Let’s go to my car. While the team works, so shall we.”
Anthony shook off his thoughts. Suspicion was a great thing to have if it benefited you; this time, suspicion would only lead Anthony to a stiff mattress in a cold prison cell. “My son is up there… . I left him alone.”
“Dwayne will take care of your son. He’s a very special boy, that Brendan. Of course you know that, don’t you?”
He did (didn’t all parents believe their kids were special, at least in some way?), but the real question was why Ellis did. You will need this, Ellis had said last week when he held out the Jesus flyer, trust me.
* * *
In the car, the seats smelling of old leather oil, Anthony went on the offensive. “You made my son lie to me. Why?”
