Jesus Christ, if she calls me Daddy one more time I think I’m going to cry. “I don’t know,” he said at last, lowering his eyes in shame. “I’ve been thinking about it, but I just need more time.”
“What if you gave them money?”
“Gave who money?”
“Mom and Del,” she said. “Maybe they would let me go if you paid them enough. I bet they would. I know they would.”
“Yeah?” He felt a sadness overwhelming him as he sat before his daughter; a daughter who thought her own mother would sell her away for dope money. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work. Not with any family.
“Yeah, of course they would,” Addison went on, giving his hand another squeeze. “So, what do you say, Daddy?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. Maybe there’s a more reasonable way to approach this.”
“No,” she said, panicking, “no, there’s no time. I have a year until I’m on my own, and…and I’m not sure I’ll survive until then. I can’t take it anymore, Daddy. It’s unlivable. The drugs, the booze, the—”
“Okay!” He didn’t want to hear anymore of this. It was becoming too much. “We’ll try it your way. How much are you thinking here?” Maddox raised the coffee to his mouth and gulped it all down in one swallow.
Addison settled back in the booth, taking a drink herself. “A lot,” she said. “They’re not gonna just let me go for a few hundred. It’s gonna take a couple thousand I’m guessing. Maybe more than just a couple. Like, I don’t know, ten?”
If he hadn’t just finished his coffee it’d have been spat all over the table. “Ten thousand? Do you think I’m made of money, honey? I was only released yesterday. I don’t even know if I have enough to pay our bill here.”
“Don’t worry about the bill.” Addison pulled out a pocketbook from God knows where. “I can cover this.”
“No, that’s okay…”
“Don’t you have connections? Can’t you get them to help you?”
Maddox sighed. He was at a loss. “Yeah, but Addy, I told you I’m not doing that stuff anymore. I’ve changed.”
“But can’t you go back, just this once? For me?” Her lips quivered and Maddox could already spot another treacherous army of tears breaking through the barricades. “I want to be a family again, Daddy. A family with you. Please?”
“I’ll…I’ll think about it. Okay?”
“Okay.” She held a firm grasp on his hand now. Hadn’t he been the one to grab hers in the first place? What happened?
“I love you, Daddy,” she said, and he remembered what had happened. She called him Daddy—the little brat.
“I love you too, sweetheart,” Maddox said, wondering what the hell he was going to do.
* * * * *
Once again the Cadillac was occupied by another lingering silence. If he had spotted a hitchhiker, Maddox would have probably picked him up just to break the tension. This awkward, avoiding eye-contact business was an absolute nightmare. He gave his daughter a hug and risked a kiss on the forehead before pulling away from the apartment building, fighting away tears of his own.
Maddox cranked up the radio and banged his head back and forth like some kind of rabid animal being put down. It was a desperate distraction, but it did the trick and stifled any cowardly crying that may have taken place. There was only one thing he could do and he despised the mere thought of it—yet, it had to be done. Yeah, he had been a cruel bastard at times, but there was no way he was going to reject the pleas of his own daughter. He couldn’t just turn his shoulder on the way she had begged him to save her.
Maddox pounded his fist against the steering wheel as he headed toward the Dan Ryan.
Daddy…
Who could say no to that? It didn’t matter what he had promised himself while rotting away in his cell; the only thing that he truly cared for was to live a life with his daughter and, if it was still possible, patch up a broken relationship. The way Addy had talked to him at the truck stop gave him hope for a future that wasn’t as lost as once feared. And if breaking a vow he had quietly swore so many times to himself while sulking in his cot was necessary to accomplish such an objective, well, then so be it. He didn’t care. He only cared for Addison.
Back before 2001, Maddox would have turned on Randolph rather than Ohio, but according to prison gossip, King had picked up shop and moved elsewhere: a boxing arena located across the street from a methadone clinic. There was no trouble at all finding the place.
Maddox pulled the Cadillac alongside the curb and stepped out, regretting this already as the cold wind slapped his jean jacket roughly from side to side like a weak, surrendered flag. He cracked his neck, took one last deep breath, and approached the building.
There was a small dark green sign nailed above the door with a detailed drawing of a beaten butterfly. One of its wings was torn completely off and blood oozed down its fragile little body. Over the butterfly’s black and blue head, in bright yellow font, there rested the boxing arena’s title:
THE STING
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, Maddox thought, and sighed. He walked through the door wishing he was back in prison where life was less complicated.
Chapter Seventeen
How Much Would You Pay for a Slice of Pizza?
It didn’t matter where Johnny went, there was always that goddamn buzzing following him around.
In the shower, it was there. He could crank up his speakers to its maximum capacity and the buzz would still manage to outweigh the music. It could be loud when it wanted to and it could be quiet when it wanted to—but no matter how loud or quiet, it was always there.
Buzz buzz buzz.
Even when his thoughts decided to take a break for a change and he found time to sleep, every dream was occupied by a deep blackness, and the only sound he heard was a buzz that seemed to increase in volume as the blackness darkened.
It never ended, whatever it was that was happening. He didn’t even know. One night he goes downstairs for a drink of water, meets a talking fly who tries to convince him to kill himself, is refused by a good, old-fashioned chug, and now he’s being punished with the Fly’s—what, dying screams? Would this be a scar branded into his psyche for the rest of his life? Would he be eighty and still be going on about a phantom buzzing that only he could hear?
Maybe he ought to have killed himself, after all.
But that was exactly what this insect wanted! He didn’t know what to do. It was growing impossible to ignore. Pretty soon he’d crack; it was only a matter of time. He’d be strolling casually down the hallway, gritting his teeth and trying his best to look normal, and then he would break down and scream. He’d pound his palms into the side of his head over and over until either the Fly died or he died.
He had a sickening feeling it would end up being the latter.
For a long time there was this knot at the bottom of his stomach that kept tightening no matter what he did. It felt like a wave swaying back and forth, trapping all sensation in the center of some ghetto raft, slapping him into the greatest seasickness anyone had ever experienced in the history of water.
The decision to get help was not made by him, but rather by his new girlfriend. The one who’d been awfully kind to him back at the pool hall, whenever that had been. Time easily escaped him lately. He’d be sitting there and nod off and a whole week would have passed.
“You’re not well,” she commented one afternoon in the school cafeteria. The table was mostly empty, save for a few hipsters fiddling with their latest handheld gadgets. He and his girlfriend had some books laid out around them, attempting to study for their Mac vs. PC exam with little progress. She was too busy twirling her fingers in her hair and he was too concerned about eternal damnation to really care.
“What makes you say that?” Johnny asked. He had just sunk his teeth into a $150 slice of pizza (toppings including caviar, lobster, crème fraiche and chives) and wondered why anyone would pay so much money for such garb
age. It was the most expensive pizza in the world and it took all he had not to spit it back out on the table. He instead forced himself to swallow what he bit into and discarded the rest on the tray. Well over a hundred bucks wasted.
When did the money end? Did it ever?
And to think, he would have just been happy buying a five-dollar buffet at CiCi’s.
“Well, for one thing,” his girlfriend said, “you only take like a thousand years replying anytime someone says something to you.”
Johnny waited another nine hundred ninety-nine more years before saying, with a smirk, “I do not.”
She playfully slapped him on the shoulder and he could have sworn—just for a second—that her hand went straight through him, like he was just a hologram. “Okay, smartass, it isn’t just your response timing.”
“What else?” Johnny took a good long drink of his chocolate frappacino and belched loud enough to startle the insects strangling his sanity.
“You keep scratching your head.”
“It itches.”
“Do you have lice or something?”
Johnny shook his head. “Just flies.”
“Yeah, see, that’s another thing. You keep going on about these flies but no one else ever sees them. They’re not really there. Also, I didn’t want to bring it up, but it’s been almost two weeks since you bought me a present.”
Johnny sighed. He didn’t remember Candy Blossom being such a greedy pain in the ass. But then again, Candy didn’t have big boobs, either. “Didn’t I give you earrings Wednesday?”
“Um, first off, those weren’t real rubies. Secondly, I saw the sticker. They were marked 75% off. And thirdly, I may have lost one of them.”
Johnny took another bite of his $150 pizza and regretted it immediately. “I would think you’d want me for me and not my money.”
“Yeah,” his girlfriend snorted, “and I would think you’d want me for me and not my pussy.”
“Touché.”
“This isn’t some lovey-dovey public high school relationship, understand? You’ve moved on, Johnny. Welcome to the world of adulthood. You like what you see here? Of course you do. I’m fucking hot—even I know that. Well if you want to continue having me then you better step up on your game and quit screwing around. It’s that purple shit, right? You’re taking too much of it. I would advise dropping that vice before it consumes you whole. I’ve seen it happen to too many people, and normally I wouldn’t care, but this time it’s getting in the way of my presents and I will not stand for that, dammit!”
Johnny smirked. “I’m fine, really. If anything, I should be taking more of the stuff.”
“Is that so?”
He nodded.
“Then would you mind telling me why the hell you’re sticking a butter knife in your ear?”
Johnny hesitated. He felt the cold steel of the silverware in his clenched fist, in his ear, and wondered how long he’d been going at it.
“How else do you expect me to get any peace and quiet?” he asked. “You try living with these things and see what you do.”
“For God’s sake, Johnny, you’re bleeding!”
He laughed. “Nah, I don’t think that’s my blood. Enjoy your time in fly hell, you little bastards.”
Slowly scooting off the edge of her stool, his girlfriend said, “Okay, that’s it. You are getting some help and that’s that.”
Johnny rested the crusty knife back on the tray and finished off his chocolate frappacino. Afterward he said, “Hey, I can’t hear the buzzing anymore. I think it’s actually gone. Isn’t that wonderful?”
But of course it wasn’t wonderful, for not even five minutes later Johnny found himself once again tormented by the droning of a thousand winged devils.
Chapter Eighteen
Stepfather and Stepdaughter Bonding
Addison stood outside the apartment building and watched her father drive away.
She had managed to stop crying shortly before exiting the Cadillac. Her father had helped comfort her some, but for the wrong reasons. There was no way he would ever know the true influence of her embarrassing burst of sobs back at the truck stop. How could someone reveal such a terrible secret to another human being? And Connor expected her to go the hospital.
Exhaling a frosted cloud of air, Addison turned around and entered the apartment building. Her face was still a little numb and certain places hadn’t eased on the soreness, but all in all she felt loads better than the night before. Though that wasn’t to say everything was all right, either. She took small, slow steps up to the third floor, and the door was locked. She hesitated. The door usually wasn’t locked unless her parents were shooting up and paranoid about a SWAT team barging in. Understandably, they didn’t want Addison’s presence during these memorable family moments.
But where else was she supposed to go? She wasn’t dressed for the weather outside. It was either wait out in the hallway or risk it.
Addison inserted her key into the knob and turned it. The door creaked open and she stepped inside, doing the best she could not to make any noise. She closed the door behind her and tiptoed into the living room. She froze in place, gasping, then choking on her own breath.
There, on the carpet floor, beside the cardboard TV stand, were two figures. The one on top, with the wired cage mask, was thrusting rapidly into the woman underneath. Pants down to his knees, hairy bare ass sticking up in the air. It wasn’t the first time Addison had walked in on her mother and stepfather having sex. She thought about turning around and leaving the apartment, but the fear of having nowhere else to go overwhelmed her. There was simply no energy left in her body to walk over to Connor’s.
So, she lowered her head and strode past them toward her own bedroom. Only she never made it. Her pace stopped as she stole a glimpse of her mother. Something wasn’t right. Her eyes were wide open, but her pupils were barely visible, rolled up against her skull. Her tongue lay limp out the corner of her mouth. There was something that appeared to be foam dripping down her chin, down her cheeks, down her neck.
She was dead.
No. Oh God no.
Her heart skipped a beat as she looked at her mother, white foam staining the carpet beneath her head, her stepfather violating the corpse. He hadn’t even noticed Addison had walked through the door.
Oh God, she thought, the baby…
“Del!” Addison screamed. “Get off of her!”
She leaped forward on top of her stepfather, smacking him in the back and trying to pull him off her mother. He was too strong. With a simple shove he pushed her away, knocking her against the TV set. It tumbled off the cardboard box and crashed onto the floor.
“Fuck off,” Del muttered, focusing on his wife. He continued to thrust into her, grunting. Addison held back a mouthful of vomit and jumped back on him. She clawed at his shirt, tugging it with all her might.
“She’s dead!” Addison screamed. It was as if someone had turned a faucet in her tear duct, tears running down her face. “Get off of her! Get off of her! Oh my God, don’t you see what you’ve done? Look at her eyes! She’s dead! Get the hell off of her!”
She pulled on his shirt one last time before he shot out his elbow and bashed it against her nose. She fell back in a sitting position, hands cupping her face, a fountain of blood streaming from between her fingers.
Del looked over his shoulder at her, squinting his brow with annoyance. “The hell’s the matter with you?”
Beginning to shake, Addison sobbed. “She’s dead, she’s dead, oh my God, she’s dead.”
“What? Shut the fuck up. No one’s dead.” He turned back to the woman lying limply beneath him and grabbed her jaw. He moved her head to the left, then to the right. “Right, honey?” He released his grip and sighed. “See what you went and done? What I say about interrupting us, huh? She fell asleep, that’s all! I hope you’re fuckin’ happy, you stupid bitch. Now what am I supposed to do?”
Addison stared at him in disbelief. The man
was insane. Insane and extremely high. For some reason, his mouth was stained purple. She spotted the used syringe abandoned on the carpet next to them, next to a couple of strange black canisters. That must have been the fix her mother had gone out earlier to get. Well, now it was all gone, as was her mother.
“She’s dead,” Addison repeated.
Del let loose an incomprehensible howl and spun off Sheryl, tackling Addison with the force of a fierce lion. Pants still around his ankles, she felt his pathetic erection poking her stomach as he wrestled her on her back. He cocked his arm around and brought his fist down upon her mouth.
“What the fuck did I just tell you?” Del screamed. “She is not dead!”
“YES SHE IS!”
He punched her a couple more times until she stayed quiet, spitting up a glob of blood. She saw that he was crying just as much as she was. Then he hit her again.
“All you fucking people are so fucking stupid sometimes, I swear,” Del said. “Why is it up to me to teach everyone a lesson? I don’t know. But I have to, and you know that.”
“What?” Addison cried out, trembling in terror as she felt her stepfather’s hands ripping at her jeans. “No! Get off!”
She heard him snigger. “That’s the plan, ain’t it?” he said. His incompetent fingers grew impatient and finally decided to tear her pants off. She slapped him away and was rewarded with another punch to the face. The back of her head bounced against the floor and she closed her eyes, waiting for it to be over.
It was just like last night all over again. She felt utterly helpless, and it sickened her. Connor wouldn’t be here to the rescue this time. No, it was her choice whether to surrender or defend. To live or die. Which would it be?
Addison clenched her teeth as tears fell down her cheeks. She felt him touching her down there and it was too much. She couldn’t allow this to happen again. She had to fight. Otherwise how would she ever be able to live with herself?
Her hands searched blindly for some kind of weapon, anything of use laying within reach. She came across something long and thin; some kind of plastic tube with a sharp point. The syringe.
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