Some Are Sicker Than Others (13 page)

“You know what you look like to me, Dave?” the cop said, inching closer, the smell of dip and coffee thick on his breath.

“No sir.”

“You look to me like one of those Colfax crack roaches. Is that you, Dave? Huh? Are you a Colfax crack roach?”

Dave clenched his jaw and shook his head nervously, casting his eyes down towards the pavement. “No sir.”

Just then, the other officer appeared behind them, holding what looked like a long, black billy club. “What’s up Donny?” he said, as he walked towards them, his black boots crunching on the shoulder’s dirt infused snow.

“Looks like we got ourselves a DUI, Jimmy.”

“Really? With all these kids on board?”

“Yep. Looks that way.”

“Wow. That’s not good.”

“Nope.”

All of a sudden, the one called Donny grabbed Dave’s collar and, in one quick thrust, slammed him face first against the hood of the patrol car. “Spread your legs dickwad!” he screamed as he kicked Dave’s legs out from under him and mashed his cheek against the hot metal of the hood.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Dave shouted, squirming, the heat from the engine searing his cheek.

“Stop that whining or I’ll give you something to cry about asshole.”

Dave tried to move, but he was paralyzed—the cop had him laid out like a fly on a wall. He was able to turn his head just enough to see the one called Jimmy, strapping on a pair of black leather gloves. “You got anything on you we should know about?” Jimmy said as he began running the gloves down Dave’s torso, across his hips, and back up his arms. “Weapons, drugs, needles, anything like that?”

“No,” Dave whimpered, his voice cracking like a fourteen-year-old boy.

“You sure? I’m gonna be real upset if something sticks me. You sure you don’t got nothing down there you wanna tell me about?”

“No, I don’t have anything. I swear.”

“Alright, you better not be lying to me.” He shoved his hands inside Dave’s jacket pockets and turned them inside out then moved onto his jeans. He hesitated for a moment when he grabbed hold of something bulky then leaned forward so that his lips were just above Dave’s ear. “Well, what do we have here?” he said, as he pulled it out slowly then tossed it on the hood beside Dave’s head. “What’s this coach? Hmm?”

Dave grunted and turned his head slowly. Aw shit. He forgot to take out the pill bottle and pipe.

“That looks like a crack pipe to me, coach. What about you, Donny? Is that what it looks like to you?”

“Yep. That’s exactly what it looks like.”

“Better call it in, huh?”

“Yep.”

The one called Jimmy went around to the driver side window, leaned inside, and picked up the radio. “Yeah we’re going to need some back up out here. We got a 23152. Girls’ volleyball team on their way to Estes Park. Bus full of kids. Coach is all strung out. Better bring the paddy wagon.”

Donny bent down and got within an inch from Dave’s ear: “You hear that Dave? Backup’s coming. You’re fucked. Hope you like prison shit head, because that’s where you’re headed.”

Jimmy leaned in the window and hung up the radio then marched back around the car and bent down by Dave’s face. “You think it’s fun driving around all fucked up with a bunch of high school girls? You realize what could’ve happened if you lost control of that bus? Do you?”

The one called Donny grabbed Dave by the back of his collar then jerked him up away from the patrol car. Then, he reached into his holster, produced a set of handcuffs, and tightly secured them around Dave’s wrists. As he read Dave his rights, he grabbed him by the bicep and marched him around towards the back of the car. Just as he opened the door, something caught Dave’s attention, something large and blurry, charging from the front of the bus. Dave turned his head. Holy shit. It was Larry, charging through the snow like some kind of crazed rhino, screaming, “Daddy!” at the top of his lungs.

The cop released Dave and went for his holster and whirled around with his hand on the gun. But, Larry was too quick for him and plowed right into his stomach, sending the cop backward and hydroplaning through the snow. But, Larry didn’t stop there. He ran up to the cop and jumped on top of him and started flailing his fists against his nose. Dave was frozen with shock. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d never seen Larry this violent before. “Larry!” he screamed. “What are you doing? Stop it. Get off of him.”

But, before Dave could even blink, the altercation was over, as the other officer came out from behind the patrol car and shot Larry with a set of cylindrical probes. Larry immediately stopped moving—his body went rigid then he rolled off the cop and went into convulsions.

“No!” Dave screamed, watching in horror as Larry thrashed around like a shark on the deck of a boat. “Stop it. You’re killing him.”

The cop smiled as he squeezed the trigger, sending a current of electricity through Larry’s skull.

“Stop it. It’s not his fault. He doesn’t know any better.”

The one named Donny stood up and brushed the snow off of him then wiped the blood trickling down his face. He picked up his baton and walked over to the patrol car, grabbed Dave by the arms and yanked him to his feet. “Who the fuck is that? Huh Dave? Why didn’t you tell me you had a god damn psychopath in there?”

“He’s not a psychopath. He’s my son. He doesn’t know any better.”

“Your son? You expect me to believe that?” Donny pulled his pistol from his holster then lodged it into the small of Dave’s back. “March dickwad.”

“You god damn bastards, stop it. You’re killing him.”

“I said march asshole!”

As the cop opened the door, Dave looked back at Larry, at his son’s now motionless body, face down in the ground. He tried calling to him, but Larry didn’t answer. He was a lifeless lump of flesh steaming in the snow.

Chapter 9

The Apartment

MONTY awoke in the early morning twilight, slimy leeches of sweat slithering down from his head. His teeth chattered, his entire body trembled, and every bone in his body ached with a sharp, cold, pulsating pain. As he rolled himself over, he pressed his nose into the mattress. The stench of sweat and stale urine emanated into the damp, alcohol-saturated air. His mouth was dry, his lips were blistered, and chunks of vomit burned like acid on the top of his tongue.

He flipped over onto his back and kicked off the blankets then opened his mouth and tried gasping for breath. But his throat was restricted and he couldn’t get enough oxygen. He felt like a fish slowly drowning in air. Instinctively, he lifted his hand and reached for the bottle on the nightstand, but the bottle was empty, not a single drop left. Shit. He was going to have to get up. He was going to have to make it into the kitchen. A couple more swigs and he could go right back to bed.

Clenching his teeth, he forced his eyelids open then pulled himself up against the headboard of the bed. The room was dark, the walls washed with blackness, no trace of light except for the blinking, blue glow coming from the power button on his computer screen. He twisted to his side and leaned over the edge of the mattress, straining for the digital alarm clock on the floor beside the bed. He grabbed it by the power cord, yanked it upward, and read the numbers from the green digital display. It said 3:05, but was it day or night?

He dropped the clock and looked towards the windows, but the glass was shrouded with clippings of newspaper secured with duct tape and spray painted black. What the hell? When did that happen? It must’ve been recently, because he could still smell the spray paint’s strong, chemical stench.

He shook his head and scooted to the edge of the mattress then dangled his legs out over the bed. After a few deep breaths, he shut his eyes and rolled his shoulders then tilted his head back and popped his neck. It made a sound like someone stepping on bubble wrap as the bones in his back crunched against the muscles in his neck.

He let out a groan and planted his feet into the carpet then pushed himself up from the bed. But he got up way too fast and his vision became tunneled, his legs turned to liquid, and his head became a balloon. He swatted the air for something to grab onto, like a conductor directing a symphony in the dark. But his fingers found nothing and his knees buckled and he smacked his chin on the nightstand on his way to the floor. The pain was like lightning rippling from his cheekbone, splitting down his jaw line, and exploding in his head. He opened his mouth and let out a soft whimper as he flexed his jaw and cradled it with his right hand. Something warm and wet began to ooze through his fingers, across his palm, and down his wrist. He laid there for a while, breathing in the fibers of the carpet, as the blood dribbled out from the cut in his chin. Then everything went dark and silence consumed him and his eyes slowly rolled into the back of his head.

After about an hour of lying in the darkness, Monty awoke to the sound of voices penetrating the apartment walls. He opened his eyes and pulled himself up against the bedpost then looked towards the sliver of light between the door and the floor. The voices seemed to be coming from the living room and it looked like there were feet moving on the other side of the door. He rolled over, pressed his hands into the carpet, and slowly began to crawl towards the bedroom door. As he approached the light, the voices grew louder, like fluttering moths trapped inside a porch lamp. What were they? Who were they? Were they real? Or were they just a hallucination?

He reached up and turned the doorknob then nudged the door open with the top of his head. As he crawled through the doorway, he glanced towards the living room and noticed a strange light splashing colors against the wall. He strained his eyes and crawled a little farther, and noticed that the television was off its stand and sitting sideways on the living room floor. Jesus—what the hell happened? Did he do that? He must have.

He stooped to the floor and cocked his head sideways and stared at the infomercial that was flashing across the screen. There was a short, spiky-haired guy holding a mop handle over what looked like a puddle of dark brown shit. He said that the mop head was equipped with new, exciting space age fibers that NASA had developed when designing their rockets.

He redirected his eyes across the dining room and crawled towards the bathroom at the end of the hall. Once he got inside, he flipped on the light switch. The bathroom fan kicked on, revving up to a soothing hum. He leaned forward, his head hovering above the porcelain, both palms resting flat on the bathroom floor. He relaxed his jaw, shut his eyelids, and waited for the acidic fury to come. The first heave was dry. It felt like sandpaper ripping away the soft tissue lining the larynx wall. Then his eyes bugged out and his entire body tightened as snot bubbles the size of grapes respired from his nose. But nothing came out—it was all just saliva, pouring from his cheeks, dripping from his tongue. What he was really after was that hot, potent poison, bubbling in his liver, diffusing into his blood. If he could just get at that then everything would be better—his body would relax and his head would calm. He waited a few seconds, breathing steadily, letting the oxygen fill up his lungs. Then he clutched the rug and curled his toes inward, relaxed his esophagus and reached deep into his gut. The poison began to rise within his belly, crawling up his ribs and into his throat. It reached his mouth and slithered from his esophagus like some kind of putrid, alien bug. As it splashed into the water, it disseminated slowly like long, yellow tentacles descending towards the bottom of the bowl.

He laid his head down, curling next to the toilet, pressing his cheek firmly into the linoleum floor. His muscles relaxed and his body stopped shaking, and, all at once, a wave of calm seemed to swallow him whole. He stayed there for a while, breathing in and out deeply, listening to the fan whisper its long, droning hum.

Then there was that sound again, the sound of cracking, like teeth getting crunched between a pair of pliers. He opened his eyes and looked all around him. The floor was giving way like ice cracking beneath his legs. He shut his eyes and tried to block out the images, but the harder he tried, the clearer they became—shards of glass raining down from the ceiling, buckets of blood-tinged water pouring in through the dash. Vicky just sitting there as lifeless as a puppet, her eyes unblinking, her hands limp in her lap. No, he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t just lay here. He had to do something. He had to get up. A couple drinks, that’s all he needed, a couple more drinks and he could crawl back into bed. He didn’t want to think, he didn’t want to dream, he just wanted to be sedated, no memories, no thoughts, nothing in his head.

He reached up and grabbed the towel rack, and using it for balance, he straightened his legs. He opened the door and spilled out into the hallway, staggering through the dining room across the carpeted floor. When he got to the kitchen, he stopped at the threshold, his body frozen by what he saw. The place was a disaster, a spectacle of ruin, like something out of a Hitchcockian film. There were shards of glass strewn across the counters and blots of dried blood spattered along the walls. The faucet was still running and the freezer door was wide open, a gash in the plaster from where the handle must’ve smashed into the wall. He sighed and looked down at his knuckles, noticing that the flesh was torn to the bone. Jesus—what the hell happened? Did he do all this? Was that his blood?

He cursed to himself and stepped into the kitchen then carefully tiptoed his way through the maze of glass shards. When he got to the sink, he shut off the faucet and crouched down until his knees were touching the floor. He opened the cabinets and peered into the darkness, searching for that one thing that would make him whole. But there was nothing there except for a bottle of blue dish detergent and a couple of ratty, mildew-ridden dish cloths. Where was it? Where did he put it? He hoped to God it wasn’t already gone.

He jerked his body back, scooted across the linoleum, and started opening and closing every single cabinet door. But still, he found nothing—nothing but a couple of red Dixie cups and some empty pickle jars. Christ. Where the fuck was it? Where in God’s name did he put that thing?