4.3.2002 [4:52am (urk)]

heh. 2nd installment.

*****

One of his earliest recollections was of the oak-shaded road in front of their one-story house. The road, the lawn, the hard flat glare of Michigan sunshine and his brother holding his hand.

"You gotta wave, Eddie." His brother wasn't old enough to call him kid yet, and he had thought there was something funny about his brother's voice. Something fuzzy about it, a ton he never heard before or since. "You gotta wave and smile like you mean it, you hear, Eddie? You gotta wave."

So he waved. He smiled and he waved, and there was the road leading away and the oak trees that shaded it; their lawn behind them and the smell of fresh-cut grass, gasoline, asphalt baking in the summer sun. He smiled and waved, and there was the road and the asphalt and the car, the taxicab with the woman in the back seat.

"You gotta keep waving. Smile and keep waving, Eddie." He thought his brother was holding his hand too tight, too, but he wasn't sure why. His brother was big already, seven years older than him. He was knee-high. His brother was big and smart and strong, but he sounded funny, and he was squeezing his hand so hard it almost hurt.

"C'mon, Eddie. Wave."

He waved. And the woman in the back seat was getting smaller and smaller, and he thought maybe she was waving back, and he remembered her getting into the cab with a suitcase bursting with her belongings, and he remembered her hugging his brother and then him, smelling like what he'd one day know to be lilacs, telling them to be good, be good boys.

"When Dad gets back," said his brother, whose voice was wavering now, "we gotta smile and not say anything, all right?"

He nodded, not understanding, waving. Not understanding why the lady was leaving, why she smelled like lilacs, why she was crying when she got into that taxicab even though she was smiling.

"We gotta be strong, Eddie, because that's what we gotta do. Grin and suck it up. Grin..."

His brother broke off. His brother was crying, too. He knew it, but he was afraid to look. So he watched the car get smaller and smaller until he couldn't see the lady waving anymore. Until he couldn't see the lady anymore.

Until he couldn't see his mother anymore.

You gotta smile, he told himself, just like his big brother. You gotta smile and wave and be strong.

*****

It was Monday. It was 9:13pm. It was raining. It seemed like it was always raining in this town. Concrete and rust. Asphalt and dust. His shoes squished on the pavement. They leaked. He needed new ones. He thought about the money in his pocket and the gun in his belt, and he knew he needed a lot more than new shoes.

Gettysburg St. Daceton. Vicar St.

Pulling the collar of his coat up, he turned the corner and squinted up at the dripping streetsigns. 114. He had a long way to go. A passing car with some rich man and his beautiful bits of fluff inside raised a white arc of water from the gutter, and he didn't quite dodge fast enough. Cursing, he walked on.

225. 227.

229 Vicar St. was a Victorian-style apartment. He stood in front of it, head tilted back, looking up. Rain splattered off the brim of his hat, soaking through his coat at the shoulders, dripping down his back. Hands in his pockets, he noted the open window on the third floor, the fire escape. He thought about the dame in the bar, her soft mouth and her hard eyes. He thought about the cash. He thought about what she had in her purse. Dames like that, kid, his brother said once, you stay far away from.

He should've listened.

Then he grasped the wet steel of the fire escape and started to climb. Slowly. Carefully. A car passed on the road and he swung himself over the railing on the third story. The entire fire escape rattled and shook. He flattened himself against the wall and waited for the vibrations to stop.

He could hear a phonograph playing Ella Fitzgerald inside. Good old Ella. Couldn't go wrong on her. Cautiously, he put out a hand and tested the window, which slid up easily and quietly.

One leg, and then the other, he slipped inside. The carpet soaked the water that dripped from the hem of his overcoat, which he shucks at the window. The jacket follows, and then the vest. In his shirtsleeves, he pulls the gun from his belt and cocks it, holding his breath when the sound ricocheted off the walls, loud as breaking glass.

No reaction.

One foot in front of the other, he moved out of the room. His heart thudded in his ears as he located the stairs and descended to the second floor...then the first. Ella sang; he followed the sound.

One foot in front of the other. Around the corner. Fireplace, phonograph, loveseat. Two heads and a soft gasp. He froze. The gasp became a moan. He lets out his breath in a low, slow rush, steps around the sofa, levels the gun. He has just enough time to see startled blue eyes, hands coming up in surrender, before he squeezed the trigger.

One, two. Someone was screaming. The girl was screaming. The startled blue eyes squeeze shut; the man's body jolted with the impact of the bullets. He could feel the gun bucking in his hand, the cylinder rotating.

Three-four-five.

One bullet left. He turned the gun on the girl. Redhead, nice legs, grabbing for her blouse, screaming her pretty head off. He cocked the hammer back...and he couldn't pull the trigger.

"Go on." A growl. He hardly recognized his own voice. "Get outta here."

Still screaming, smudged in her lover's blood, she ran. A moment later he heard the door slam and wished he'd pulled the trigger. Too late now.

He looked at the fire for a moment, and then stepped forward and stood over the dead man, who was sprawled at a strange angle. Blood was slowly crawling down his trailing arm, dripping on the hardwood floor.

The startled blue eyes still looked startled, and after a minute, he closed them. Checked for a pulse: nothing. Clearminded, he flicked out a handkerchief and dipped it in the blood of the dead man. Folded it up and tucked it into his pocket.

Proof. He would need that.

He was shaking. He fumbled a carton out of his pocket, shook out the last cigarette, tossed the empty carton into the fire and lit up with the lighter on the coffee table. It was a nice one, so he pocketed it. For about ten minutes he stood and smoked, staring into the fire with his back to the dead man, and he heard the distant sirens.

His mind switched back on. Throwing the cigarette into the fireplace, he ran up the stairs three at a time, grabbed his coat from the floor, swung out onto the fire escape and clattered to the street below. The sound of cars turning a corner; the sirens were much louder now. He hurried to the end of the block, swung around the corner, pulled his coat up around his ears and slowed his pace to a leisurely walk. A police cruiser skidded around the corner and he ducked into a doorway with a sleeping bum, crouching quickly among the scum of the earth. Not that he was much better. The cruiser streaks past and he breathed again, waiting for a minute...three...ten, before getting to his face and strolling away with blood on his hands and a revolver with one bullet in his belt.

Heading back toward the bar where he met her.

*****