Disintegration (18 page)

My mind is empty on the walk north, gray all around me, the sidewalk abandoned in the cold rain. It's late afternoon and everyone is holed up someplace. A cup of coffee, and a Danish, a little afternoon delight, hunkered down to avoid the elements, and I don't blame them.

I find myself dripping outside the den of iniquity, and slip the canvas bag over my head. Downy wings and a bloodshot eyeball, the walls coated in the blood of my past, I rap on the glass and wait.

He pulls the door open, skinny and pale, a chain around his neck secured with a padlock, stubble on his face, scrawny arms under a Black Flag T-shirt.

“Hey, man, long time no see. Come on in.”

I step in and the glow of the soft light bounces off the drapes, the dark walls a cocoon, and I feel sleepy already. I take off my coat and hang it on the wall. I walk over to the wall of tattoos, but I already know what I need for Cammie, long overdue. I point to red lips and a distended tongue.

“Right, Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger. A classic.”

I take off my shirt and point to a small space on the right side of my neck.

“I can make that work there, sure.”

I try not to think about Cammie, her lips on mine in the back of the car, her heat. It morphs into her glassy stare, head lolling in her car that night, out of it, lost. So I sent her home. So what.

I find what I'm looking for just a bit farther down. A small circle is in the middle of three other elements, the earth centering the graphic. Around it flows water, which blends into air, which turns into flames. It's for the thugs in the Section 8 housing, Damon and his crew. They all had mothers, they were all born into this world, and someplace along the way things went wrong. I find a spot on my back, under wide wings and other etchings. He nods.

And finally I point to a small page of ring tattoos and extend my pointer finger, my trigger finger. This one is for my twin, the man drenched in wine and regret. A constant reminder every time I pull the trigger—that I'm not alone in my darkness, not the only killer out here, nor will I be the last. I honor his attempt at righteousness with a simple band of black.

He nods.

“Take a seat, this may take a while.”

He pours me three fingers of an amber liquid and I accept it. I take a gulp, recline in the chair, and close my eyes. He goes to work. The smell of burnt wood chips and musk drifts to me, and behind my eyelids I see a bonfire in the woods, a ring of people standing around it, bullet holes, knife wounds, all heads turning my way. The buzzing is like flies around my head, and the sting at my neck lulls me to sleep, like a tiny school of piranhas nipping at my flesh, and I take it, I wallow in the stinging jabs, and each time the needle breaks my skin, I hear a gunshot, an echo in a dirty apartment, a hollow pop in the front seat of a car. I hear glass breaking, grunts and screams, bodies falling to the earth with a dull thud, and I fall into a deep sleep.

On my way out the door, bandages in place, hot spots on my body throbbing every time my heart beats, we toast. I drop an envelope of cash on the table.

“Thanks, man, you always take good care of me. Stop by anytime.”

He sits down, tired.

“Man, I've been working too hard. Maybe I'll take a little nap.”

I nod and point to the couch.

“Right. Next time, we should pierce something, right, bro?”

I nod my head. Not a bad idea.

He slides over to the couch and lies down. I close the door behind me with a tiny, audible click. He looked peaceful. And I'm jealous. He'll have a tomorrow. Myself, I can't be so sure.

Northbound, suburbia beckons.

I guide the great white whale north on I-94, drifting through the rain as if cresting over waves, deep in the ocean, and I can almost hear a foghorn in the distance. I'm back to my old commute, nose to the grindstone, and it sickens me while it triggers déjà vu. So many times I made this trek, but not once with a gun on the passenger seat of my car, tattoos singing from my flesh. The city falls away behind me. A glance in the rearview mirror and the metal skyscrapers push out of the soft earth, tilting toward the sky like the bottom row of teeth on some massive snaggle-toothed beast.

I could just turn around. I could run. I could take the split at I-90 toward O'Hare and fake my way onto a plane. There's a bundle of cash in the glove box, which doesn't ease my mind. Guy left it behind, but not on purpose.

I rattle the pills in my right hand, and know this can't be done sober. I'm visiting the morgue where I identified the blackened remains of my flesh and blood. I'm going to kill Holly while her husband and son watch. No, I don't need to be straight for any of this. I pop two happy pills and look for something liquid. Leaning over to the glove box, I pop it open again, pulling the car to the right, horns honking. I grab the envelope and pull it out. Behind it is a pint of Jim Beam. Guy, that drunken loser, was good for something. I pull the car back to the lane it was in, headlights behind me filled with the angry pursuit of drivers I just cut off. They don't want to fuck with me now.

A long gray shark pulls up next to me, revving his engine, and his window rolls down.

This could be fun.

I ease my window down, rain splattering my face, drenching the inside of the car.

“What's your fucking problem, asshole?” the guy yells.

I smile and pull the car to the left. He swerves away.

His face is so angry it makes me laugh.

Why do they do it? Why do people get so angry over a little swerve of a car?

“You think this is fucking funny?” he rages.

I laugh again and reach over for my gun. I turn back to him, and his middle finger is extended, arm trembling.

“Fuck you, buddy, fuck you.”

I smile again and raise the gun, pointing it out the window. His eyes widen and I fill the car with my laughter. It's comical. The funniest thing I've seen in days. I lean out, and point down as he slams on his brakes, suddenly not so cocky.

I fire, hitting his front tire, rubber shrapnel flying into the air, the car buckling and swerving, slowing down, veering off to the right behind me, cars swinging around him, avoiding his bumper by inches. I place the gun back on the seat.

Maybe I should've done this on all of my commutes. It certainly makes me feel better.

The rest of the drive is on autopilot, the drugs kicking in. I sing along with the radio, old Coldplay and Radiohead. The lyrics wash over me and I start to cry. I change the station and turn the volume up on some teeth-rattling Korn, Nine Inch Nails vibrating, pounding the steering wheel, and I try not to notice the violent mood swings that are coming in waves, my head like a hole.

And just like that I'm parked in front of my old house, the empty lot still a shell. Fragments of wood and metal lie in a pile, black and empty. I burned it to the ground. It's a cookie-cutter subdivision, so I don't need it standing to remember what it was. All I have to do is look up the block and there it is in white, there it is in beige, in sage green, in a washed-out blue.

I can still see the white paint on the driveway from the primer Taylor and I sprayed on her dresser. A long rectangle is framed in lavender, just missing the drop cloth we had placed under it. I hear her laughter as she runs around the backyard, chasing a butterfly with a long, extended net. Hot dogs are crisping on the grill, and my son, Robbie, is playing in the sand. He's found an earthworm and keeps burying it alive, and then digging it out. His sleeveless red T-shirt says
I GET MY MUSCLES FROM MY DAD
. He glances up at me and then back to the sand. My wife sits under the umbrella, sipping a lemonade, watching the kids, always watching them. She never left them alone, not for a minute. Every time she would go inside she'd say the same thing.

“Watch them, okay?”

I did watch them, she didn't need to say it. Well, maybe she did. Maybe she did need to say it. Not for me, but for her. The evening news would throw her into fits of panic. Visions of strange men leaping over the fence to grab our children, the big bad wolf in human form, dragging them off to his lair to molest them, have them for his dinner. Go inside to grab a beer, fifteen seconds tops, and she'd have my head on a platter. I thought she was ridiculous. The irony isn't lost on me. The randomness of the swerving drunk finally finding us, tearing us apart, the long gaze of a distant, solitary eye, tracking back and forth across the wasteland, landing on our lot, our space, our tiny bubble of false security, popping it without so much as a word.

I shift the car into gear and roll forward. There's nothing for me here anymore.

It isn't far to the morgue, just a right turn out of the subdivision, the high school looming. The lot is full of cars and I contemplate driving through, kicking some taillights, slashing some tires, the lucky ones that still cling to a normal life. I don't. I keep going, eastbound to Seymour, and then a hard right. Down past restaurants, the dance studio where Taylor took her ballet classes, and I don't think this town is good for me anymore. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't want ghosts around every corner, the echo of their voices, screaming out for McDonald's after T-ball practice, every block riddled with memories, the 4th of July, the Mundelein Munch, the parade, and my heart races out of control. I crack the driver's side window with my fist, nausea settling into my gut, the tiny needles of rain piercing my face, the cold making my eyes water and overflow.

I pull into the parking lot, bouncing over a pothole the size of a cow, my jaw snapping, and I bite my tongue, my mouth filling with coppery liquid. I pull up to the brick and cement box that is the residence of death—the morgue. The police station sits over behind it and I watch the cars ease in and out. Men in blue stand in front of the well-lit building, smoking cigarettes, out of the rain.

I turn the ignition off and get out of the car, placing my gun in the back of my jeans. I don't know what answers I hope to find here, but here I am nonetheless. Maybe they'll remember me, can tell me more about how it went down. I don't know.

There are no lights on as I approach the front door. I grab the handle, but it's locked. There's a sign in the front window of the door, and it simply says
FOR RENT
. A red box surrounds the type, a phone number in hasty permanent marker, and little else. I walk down the sidewalk, and a plaque is bolted to the wall.

Mundelein Animal Hospital.

I step back out into the rain, and the sign over the building says the same thing.

What the fuck is this?

Back to the front door and there is a handwritten note below it, behind the glass, on faded yellow-lined paper, barely visible in the gloom. I can't read all the words. It says something about relocating to over on Lake Street, a rezoning, a new space, to better care for your pet.

I don't understand.

I turn to look at the phone number, and memorize it. At the end of the parking lot is a pay phone. I walk to the car, open the door, and fish a couple of quarters out of the ashtray.

My head is a vast, empty space. I'm walking, but I don't feel anything. The rain is a beaded screen blocking my sight, and it beats down on me with no end in sight.

I lift up the receiver, drop in the quarters, and punch in the digits from the door. It rings. A tingling sensation runs across my spine and I hope I am wrong. I stare at the cops standing on the front porch of the cop shop.

“This is the Mundelein Police Department, Thirteenth District, Officer Weis calling….”

Nobody is going to answer, because the number doesn't go anywhere.

“…I am so sorry to make you come down here….”

It's a dead end.

“…I may have some information for you….”

The phone clicks and a Russian voice speaks.

“Da?”

My heart stops.

“Yes? Who is this?”

I hang up.

Vlad.

I stand in the rain, cold and wet. It always comes back to that hawk-nosed asshole.

The phone rings and I jump. I'm not answering it.

I walk toward the police station, one more question on the tip of my tongue. When I'm twenty feet away, the cops stop talking. I'm still in the parking lot, but they sense my presence. Both heads are turned to me and their expressions go blank. Their faces are a leather patchwork, alligator skin, mottled and green, their red eyes turned to slits. I shake my head. One puts a hand on the butt of his gun.

I smile.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, Officers, quick question for you.”

I keep smiling, wet, my hair falling into my eyes.

“Yes?” the one closest to me says, his hand still on the butt of his gun.

“Is Officer Weis working tonight? He helped me out with something in the past, and I had a couple of questions for him.”

They look at each other. Long red tongues flick out, sniffing the air.

The same cop answers me, the other standing very still, watching me.

“Weis, you say?”

They look at each other again.

“Yes, Officer Weis,” I repeat.

I wrack my brain and I only get a fuzzy picture. To tell them he was a fat, white Irishman, well, that might not go over too well.

“This station?” he continues.

“I think so.”

“No Weis here that I know. You, Joe?”

“Nope. Got a West. Wallace. No Weis.”

I stare at them, feeling more and more like a drowning rat on a sinking ship. Their jaws tighten and the color in my face drains away.

“Ah, maybe I got things confused. Maybe it was Vernon Hills or Libertyville. I wasn't in very good shape back then.”

They eyeball me a bit more, slowly nodding their heads.

“You all right, buddy?”

“I'm fine. Thanks, guys, I'll figure it out.”

“Something we can help you with?” the cop says, taking a step in my direction.

“No, no…no big deal. Thanks.”

I turn and walk away before they can say any more. I turn around and their pale white faces shimmer in the wet light. Normal. Their eyes stay on me, tracking me across the parking lot and around the corner of what I thought was the morgue.

I bend over just out of sight and vomit. Maybe I grabbed the wrong pills?

I pause for a moment, contemplating the next stop.

Somebody has answers. It might as well be Holly.