Bad Things. Michael Marshall
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He thrust it at me like it was on fire.
I looked inside, threw it to Kyle. Then took a step closer to Doug, and looked him in the eyes.
‘Do you understand how lucky you've been?’
He nodded feverishly.
‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘Ordinarily this would go some whole other way. Kyle assures me you're decent people, despite appearances, and so I'm hoping you're not going to wake up tomorrow feeling pissed off and like you should have been more assertive about this, and decide to take it out on Kyle instead.’
‘No way,’ Doug said, quickly.
‘Good. You do, then I'll come burn your house down. Understand? And I don't mean this shitheap you're living in.’
‘Honestly, man,’ he said. ‘W-we're cool.’
I nodded to Kyle, and we walked out the door.
Halfway back to the car I stopped and put my hand on Kyle's arm. He turned warily. He looked about twelve years old.
‘I don't need to talk this through with you in the same way, do I?’
He shook his head quickly.
‘Get rid of that shit, fast. Pay back the people you got it from, then pay back the loan. And do not do this ever again. You are simply not up to this way of life. You piss off someone just one step higher up the food chain and you're going to wind up fucked or dead. I mean you no disrespect, Kyle – this is just career advice from someone who knows.’
He was nodding almost continually now, his chin twitching. ‘Okay.’
‘Here's how this business works. At the top are the guys who make the stuff and run the top-level distribution: the shadows who make the real money and never get caught. Then there's the next tier, the guys you bought your drugs from. They make a bunch of cash too, though once in a while they go down or get shot when the next wave rolls over them. At the bottom there's the guy you're trying to be, the street grunts. Who make a little cash in the beginning but always wind up junkies, or in jail, or dead, about which the guys above do not give a fuck.’
I grabbed his chin and made sure I had his full attention. ‘You really want to be that guy? Bitch for some asshole who right now is sitting on a yacht bigger than any house you'll ever own?’
He shook his head, as best he could. ‘No.’
‘Well then.’ I let go and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘We're done. Let's go home.’
We walked the rest of the way back to Becki's car. She slumped with relief when she saw the bag.
‘How?’ she said. ‘Is everything—?’
‘It's all done,’ I said. ‘And your boy did good.’
I rode in the back. I should have felt okay about what had just happened, but I did not. I watched the town as we passed through, then down at the river as we went south over the bridge, then the dunes and the dark sea beyond.
Becki stopped the car outside my house, a lot more gently than the night before.
‘Thank you,’ she said, but she said it like someone who'd been done a favour.
Then she shook her head, added, ‘See you tomorrow,’ and the feeling backed off a little.
When I got to the top of the path I looked back. The car was still there. Becki and Kyle were holding each other, their foreheads pressed together, her hand stroking the back of his head, the top of his neck. There's nothing to beat that. Nothing in the world.
I let myself into the house, feeling tired and wrong and like I could walk a thousand miles in any direction and have no reason to ever turn back.
I felt better after a shower, and took a Coke and cigarette out onto the balcony. I wanted a beer, too, but I know better than that.
No big deal, I'd decided, as the hot water coursed over my head. Not doing anything would have led to a worse situation for people I cared about. Isn't that as good a justification for action as any? And hadn't I been staring at the waves the previous night, feeling too much to one side of the world?
I shook my head, dismissed the train of thought. I know how much difference a night's sleep can make, that what seems ungovernable and world-breaking at one a.m. can be made to feel like someone else's dream if you put seven hours of unconsciousness between it and you. Tomorrow's not just another day, another person lives it – and every time you go to sleep, you say goodbye. Amen.
I went back indoors and got a glass of water to take to bed. As I passed the laptop I hesitated, then decided I could put the day properly to rest by checking my email one last time.
There wasn't even much spam and I was already moving away before I realized a final message had just come in.
Subject line: !! INTERRUPTED !!
I swore, wishing I hadn't checked. Now I had no choice but to read it. Staying on my feet, I clicked on the email and watched as it came up on screen.
Please email me.
I know what happened to your son.
I saw the sun come up the next morning, though I hadn't been awake for all that time.
For an hour after reading the email I'd alternated between the laptop and the deck, trying to work out what to do. My first impulse was to throw the email away, empty the trash, and pretend it had never happened.
But I couldn't just erase it. After a while I understood this, and had to work out what to do instead. The first question was how this person had got my email address. This address in particular, in fact, as I have several. My main, and most current, which receives nothing but infrequent missives from my ex-wife. Then a Google web mail address, set up for a specific purpose and not even checked in three years, but which presumably/maybe still existed. Finally a corporate address, legacy of a place I once worked. It had become a dead line long ago, but had evidently never been actually deactivated.
The email had come into this last one. The person sending it had either known or found out I had once been associated with the company in question. It was a she, presumably, though I couldn't take that for granted – you can be anyone you want on the Net. It didn't look as though this person was calling upon previous acquaintanceship, and I had no recollection of the name. I typed it into a web search engine and found the usual randomers on their own or other people's personal sites, a few others on the staff lists or minutes of libraries and girl scout troops, and a handful referenced on genealogical sites.
In the end I did the only thing I could think of. I hit REPLY and typed:
Who are you?
I looked at this for a while, unable for once to even hear the surf, aware only of the low, churning feeling in my stomach. Should I send it, or not? For the moment I still had the option of walking away, not checking my mail, carrying on as I had.
But eventually I pressed SEND, and then stood up and went outside.
I drank glass after glass of bottled water, sitting out on deck, going back in to check the mail every fifteen minutes. It was very late. I knew there was little chance that a reply, were it ever to be forthcoming, was going to arrive tonight. But however different they may be in reality, we carry into email conversations a vestige of the expectations implicit in the more old-fashioned kind. We think that if we say something, then the other guy will say something right back.
She (or he) did not.
At three o'clock I locked the doors and turned the computer off. As I undressed I realized that, however it might feel during the day, the year was turning. The room felt cold.
I got into a bed that seemed very wide and lay listening to the