Nessus

by Herb Scribner

“Last I heard she wasn’t dead yet.”

  There it is.

  “So you did attack her that night?”

  “Guess there’s no reason to deny it now. Not to you anyway. It’s probably best you know.”

  “But why?”

  “Why?” Samson pauses now and wears a mask of disgust, like Hughes has insulted him.

  “Why? Why did I attack your son’s girlfriend? Is that what you want to know?”

  Hughes shuffles his body and feet, gripping the butt of his gun just a little tighter. The situation could go haywire in a matter of moments. Chaos and loss of normality have hit an all-time high. This isn’t about what’s real and what’s not. It’s about how to survive when a psychotic murderer stands just feet away.

  “Why did you frame my son?” Hughes asks. A more important question.

  Samson snuffs at the idea. He shakes his head, a grin stretching from ear to ear.

  “Oh boy, Mike, you just don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “Any of it. Any of this. You just don’t get it.”

  “Explain it to me then.”

  Samson crosses his arms against his chest and squints his eyes. Hughes can feel the burns from the fiery glance graze his skin, roasting away. How it hurts to have a faithful friend hurt you in such a way, to break you in a manner seemingly unimaginable.

  The worst is incomprehensible until it happens.

  “Man, you’ve been chasing your own damn son for what feels like forever. And look what’s happened. Your son is always getting into messes. Into fights, drug deals, crime, all of it. A horrible record, man. Horrible record. And guess what? His father just happens to be one of the top detectives in the state. In the country, maybe. Isn’t that just a little, you know, weird to you? Isn’t it just a little strange that someone with your son’s record always gets away? Always gets off without a jail sentence?”

  Hughes admits it’s a little off, and he’s faced that criticism before. But Shawn has never done anything to warrant that sort of sentence. His criminal career, other than a couple of misdemeanor drug deals (marijuana, which is not recreationally legal in the state), was really reduced to domestic disturbance calls. He and Mary always had fights. Shouting matches that woke the neighbors and sent the nearby dogs into a frenzy, almost as though it were a full moon every Wednesday night.

  “I’m just saying man, you weren’t going to do a thing about your son. And I was. Okay? I knew you’d go soft and that you wouldn’t find him. He’s long gone and not coming back. I just knew it. But I figure maybe, maybe, if he did something really, really bad, something that would get him put away for sure, then you’d be taken off the case and we’d free up the resources.”

  “You did all of this to make our job easier?”

  “Oh, yeah, that would be nice,” Samson says, and it’s only now that Hughes recognizes the snappy and harsh tone from the boy. He never heard those expressions before. Not from the mumbling, quiet cop. “But no, no, Hughes. I didn’t just do this to make the job easier and get a better assignment. Although, now that I think about it, I will get those sort of things, won’t I? Mathias will see what a waste of time and money you are and just have to promote one of us. And then, oh, look what happens! I have the murderer right here!” he says, pointing down to the fallen Bucky. “An ex-boyfriend who never showed up in any reports or any documents until I came along and found him. Nothing!”

  Hughes knows that’s not completely true. One file exists about Bucky. A text that must have been ignored.

  “But the truth, Mike, is that I couldn’t stand your little bitch ass son. Man, was he an asshole. Think about it. He’d come in here, fresh off a fight with his wife and he’d just snarl at all of us. Call us pigs and bacon, you get the idea. Just walked around here with a crappy ass attitude, baggy jeans and a heavy hoodie and a backwards cap. What is this? Seventh grade. What a joke of a kid. And he’s your son. This entire time he’s your son! What an embarrassment to the force, honestly. Truly. I mean, come on, Mike. Just such an embarrassment.”

  The pieces slowly fit together like a puzzle. It’s desire for a higher paying job, for a promotion, but also the distaste for a cop’s son and a criminal. He’s worried about work and a hater of his supervisor’s kid getting preferential treatment. It’s all of these things, all of these things and more, surely some hidden beneath the surface.

  “And so you hurt her?”

  “I hurt her,” he says strong and confident. “I did what I had to do and I was just lucky that your boy left town. Look at that. The day that I take down his ex-girlfriend, he does me a favor and hops out of town. He couldn’t look more guilty if he tried. It just all fit together so perfect, Mike. So perfect.”

  “So what now? I have you here, confessing all of this, with a gun pointed at your head. And you think you’re gonna be able to walk away? You think you can just walk away from all of this?”

  “I know I can. And it starts with killing you.”

  The glass comes flying and Hughes has little time to react. He raises his arm to shield the blow, but the slices of glass bite against his arm. The gun sails into the air, banging against the tiled floor. Hughes falls on his back, his eyes now on the ceiling and the spinning fan that swirls around and around like time. He rolls over his side to stand, and when he gets to his knees, Samson is there with the gun. It’s so dark down the barrel that Hughes feels a breath of cold air float through him. The sudden realization that death awaits him with the slip of a finger.

  “That was easier than I thought.”

  “Samson, you don’t have to this, okay? We can figure this all out, okay? None of this is on the record books, none of this is detailed in the files. We can work something out.”

  “What? Like make me go free? You’re gonna let me walk free after all of this? I highly doubt it, my friend. I highly doubt it. There’s only one way to end this and it begins now.”

  Hughes opens his mouth to protest, but he knows its useless. The boy has the gun pointed right at him and it’s just one click of the trigger before he’s gone. He never thought this would be the end, on his knees before a fellow cop. He always figured he’d be beaten by a true criminal, a horrible murderer or gangster. But kneeling here below a man who looked up to him only made the situation all the more depressing. He failed as a father, he failed as a mentor and now he failed as a cop.

  His entire life — a failure.

  A car door slams outside. A siren bellows in the distance. The front door bangs open as a slew of bulky bruisers with blue blood burst inside. Mathias is at the lead with a gun in her hands.

  “Drop the weapon!” she yells.

  Hughes jumps to his feet and slaps the gun from Samson’s hand. It goes twirling toward the ground and hits the coffee-colored side cabinet. He tackles Samson to the ground and restrains his arm. Mathias and the team rush forward from the back of the home to the front, boots clapping against the tiles, the squeaking floor protesting each footfall as they bang against the checkered boxes below.

  “You alright?!” Mathias calls out.

  “I’m fine.”

  But then he’s not. Not fine at all. A white hot pain fills him, from his leg up to his temple. He gazes down and sees that Samson’s hand holds a shard of glass, the tip of it digging into Hughes’ leg. Red worms trickle down his leg, and he loses all sense of touch and reality. He croaks as he falls over, the shard stuck in his leg, dug deep inside, locked in. His head bangs against the floor. He watches the blue blur of the police crowd around Samson, snatching him like predator and prey. All becomes flurry and foggy before the darkness overcomes him and sends him into a deep sleep.

  California

  Exit

  The corner bores them. Or maybe worry sets in. The three of them aren’t sure, but they do know that they’re connected. A mutual feeling of concern and anxiety weighs down on them. So they leave the corner and hop into Shawn’s Impala. The air thins when they’re in the car. It feels like
eternity since he’s last driven it. His feet aren’t comfortable against the pedal and the brake. Shawn and Cassie in the front, Brandon and his bloody shirt laying in the back. An aimless drive through Los Angeles without a destination. Nothing makes sense for them now. The disaster from this week bound them together. For some, the bond is blood. For them, blood paves the bond.

  Shawn thought he knew who Cassie was until now. He thought he understood her, figured her out. But it had all been a sham. She didn’t hate men because of past experiences. She despised them for ongoing circumstances. Still with an abusive man, stuck in a dark relationship. She wants out, to escape with Shawn somewhere. An unknown haven that will only provide peace and serenity.

  Of course it’s a pipe dream. They can’t escape anywhere. They’re all on the run.

  Brandon decides to ask the obvious. He’s been quiet for most of this car ride.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know,” Shawn responds. Even he can taste the agitation.

  “We’re going to have to stop moving eventually.”

  “For gas, maybe,” Shawn says.

  “I just want to get out of here,” Cassie says, leaning against the window, her hair twirling with the wind.

  “Yeah, because that’s so easy.”

  She sends daggers toward him. “You don’t have to be an ass.”

  “And you didn’t have to lie.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “You said you left your relationship,” Shawn contests, “that’s not at all what’s happening.”

  “Well, I want to leave it. And I want you to take me away from it, okay? How could you be upset about me wanting to spend more time with you?”

  “Because I’m not the guy you’re looking for,” he says.

  And he’s right. He’s just as bad as her former boyfriend probably. His laundry list of ex-girlfriends wouldn’t support him in the slightest. He’s dangerous, evil and a troublemaker. A womanizer with no empathy for women or anyone who got to close. Always cares about the family and the friends, the people from the streets, those he met when he was a child. The girls don’t matter. Those who try to win his heart don’t matter.

  Fights. Smashed walls. Broken coffee tables. Blood. Scars. Late nights. Shattered vocal chords. A past full of horrors.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just as bad as your boyfriend,” he says. “I get into fights and I’m just not a nice guy, okay?”

  “He’s really not,” Brandon muses from the back seat. “He’s a real ass. Just ask all his exes.”

  “Thanks for that one, man.”

  Cassie ignores the blood-soaked backseat ballbuster. Instead, she leans back in her seat and sighs so heavy that Shawn worries she’ll cough up a lung. She won’t though. There are potentially much worse things in her future than that.

  “So what are we going to do?” Cassie asks.

  No more playing around and driving through Los Angeles in hopes of stumbling upon salvation. They need a real plan, something that will save their destinies and put them on the right path.

  True salvation. That’s what they need.

  “There’s always the nuclear option,” Brandon says from the back.

  “And what’s that?” Cassie asks him. It’s the first time that the two have spoken to each other. Her anxiety has climbed that high, like a spider unaware of the flood about to befall upon her.

  “We go home.”

  The dagger strikes and cuts deep. Flashes of his former life rush toward his head in a snap second. He sees his old apartment. The cops showing up to break up fight after fight. The cherry red and blueberry blinding lights spinning upon their cars. Troubles from his past stumble into his brain. Those fights where he broke noses. Those attacks on the streets during his late night walks. The women he screamed at. The women he pushed. The women who pushed back. The smashed coffee tables, the broken paintings, the shattered windows. In a heartbeat, his past comes back to him. Illness floods his stomach and climbs up his throat. The hot and acidic bile ascends toward his mouth, knocks on the door of his teeth and beckons for release. He swallows it. It sizzles down to his gut, splashing in the rising pool of a breakfast he barely finished. It’s only mid-morning. So much more time left in the day.

  “We can’t go home,” he says at last.

  “Why not?” Cassie says.

  “Because,” he pauses, trying to think of the reasons and whether he should tell her or not. “I just can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of his dad,” Brandon interrupts.

  “What does your dad have to do with this?”

  “He’s a detective. One of the best in the city and he’s always trying to keep Shawn out of trouble. Ain’t that right, Shawn?”

  One punch. That’s all he wants. One punch to Brandon’s chin to knock some sense into him.

  “Thanks buddy.”

  “Why is he always looking for you?”

  “I ran into some trouble,” Shawn says, “and I know he’s looking for me. He always does that whenever something’s going on, you know? He’s always trying to save me and bring me home. That sort of thing.”

  “He just can’t let you go?”

  “I don’t think he wants to, not until I get my act together or whatever,” he says. The car rolls to a stop at a red light. He and Cassie exchange a glance, their first meeting of eyes since they got into the car.

  “Like I said, I’m not a perfect guy.”

  She waves off the notion.

  “It doesn’t matter. I still think it makes sense for us to go back there,” she says. “You have nothing to lose. I can finally get away from this relationship. And your buddy back there won’t be taken away to jail.”

  “It would be a good alibi,” Brandon confesses.

  “I just don’t think I can,” Shawn says.

  He’s going to be the tough one out of the group, and he’s okay with that. Too long in his life has he succumbed to the wishes of other people. For too long he listened to what other people wanted and abided by their rules, their desires, their wants.

  The light turns green and he guides them forward. They push ahead down the road. As they do, they speed by a store that catches Shawn’s eye. A shelter. Of all places to speed by on such a light, it’s a domestic shelter for the abused and the wounded, the broken and wounded.

  He doesn’t think of himself, nor Brandon, nor any of the girls he’s wronged in the past. Only Cassie comes to mind. Shawn sees her and a faceless stranger, a tall shadow of a man with thick, heavy hands slapping her across the face. A beet red print paints her face, tears drip to cool the warmth from the blow. Like a shutter, an image of her on the ground, taking kicks to the gut, grunting and crying out in pain, clicks into frame.

  A single tear pools at the corner of his eyes and slaps his arm. It’s cool against the California sun.

  He can’t let it happen. Not now. Not again. Not ever.

  “Are you sure it’s what you guys want? To get away? To go home?”

  “I want it,” Brandon says. “I can definitely disappear while this whole mess blows over anyway. Maybe one day come out of hiding and write a new album. Something like that.”

  Shawn checks on Cassie. “And you?”

  “I want it,” she confirms, “there’s just one small problem.”

  Of course there’s a problem. There’s always a problem.

  “I have to get my stuff from his place.”

  They’re already in the car and ready to hit the highway home. Another distraction will only put off the escape. A distraction will only delay the inevitable.

  But Shawn’s clothes are still at the hotel, too, so he’ll need those if he’s realistically going to get home. He hasn’t even begun to think about how his life will change once he gets there. But that’s something he can think about on the drive home.

  “Yeah man, I could use my clothes, too,” Brandon says. “Change my shirt so people don’t think I’m a
psycho when we stop for gas or anything.”

  “Fine,” Shawn says. “We’ll go back. We’ll swing by each of our places and grab our stuff and then go. Okay?”

  The three agree. An exit appears before them. They’ve chosen to take it.

  Massachusetts

  Awake

  Hughes emerges from the fog. Darkness dissipates. The hanging florescent lights glow like headlights through a tunnel. He sees a sign on the wall with words written about pain management. His eyes focus on them and soon his world becomes more in-depth, a little more rigid and solid. He widens them to accept the new world and soon he’s there, alive and well.

  A beeping sounds off to his right. Heart monitor. An IV tube travels from the crevice of his arm up to a bag of translucent liquid. He lays in a hospital gown, his bare butt cold against the sheets. Chelsea sleeps in one of the two chairs on the side of his bed. He keeps his eyes on her for a second longer, knowing it’s not too long before she wakes up. Their son crosses his mind. What it would be like to spend time with the son again, in a real family environment. Together on a car ride through the countryside, just enjoying company together.

  That’s the thing about family, though. You can’t always recapture the magic. Sometimes it’s a calm lake. You can view the ripple of memory, but at the end of it, you’re still staring at a flat, unmoving large puddle.

  Chelsea shuffles a bit in her chair, and when she does, she hops in excitement. She shouts his name, beguiled by seeing him again, sitting there with his eyes open. He smiles, ear-to-ear. She asks him if he’s okay, and he is.

  The thought travels back to him about how he wound up in the hospital. What drove him there? He rolls through the rolodex of memory and stumbles upon the incident. Samson and his glass shard cut a hole through his leg. Blood had seeped out and sent him to the floor and writhing pain. And then he blacked out. Confusion sets in like a toxin. He’s still unsure about what happened.

  He wiggles his toes. They move just fine.