“Hold on, Wendy! Jesus, he could have a gun!”
“Let me go! I want my baby back.”
Slim had only meant to use the kid as a bargaining chip, not a shield.
Footsteps came in fast. Wendy ran into the room, gun out in front of her. The woman was barely twenty five, but looked forty with a three pack a day habit. She fired without thinking.
Blood dripped to the carpet in a soft pitter patter. The body in Slim’s hands trembled. He let go. Justin crumpled to the floor, a ragged wheeze coming from his throat. The beige carpet turned dark brown.
Slim tried to close his eyes in the real world. It did him no good. The scene was still there. Slim watched as he knelt down and put his hand on the boys back. It rose and fell erratically and then stopped altogether.
When he looked up, Slim saw both Wendy and Lenny’s eyes turn cartoon-big. The gun fell from Wendy’s limp hand. They just stood there, watching, waiting for Slim to act.
So he did.
Slim Reuthe broke every bone in Lenny and Wendy Waters’ bodies. When it was finished, he picked up the gun, and put a bullet in each of their heads. Neighbors called the cops and by the time Slim was running through his backyard and hopping the fence, he could see red and blue lights bouncing off darkened windows.
“It was an accident. It wasn’t supposed to go down like that.”
“But it did. Do you know why a child lost his life in your home, Mr. Reuthe?”
Slim said nothing.
“Because you’re toxic. This is what happens when people get involved with folks like you.”
The electrodes pasted to his temples began to burn again. Sweat popped and dribbled. Bile crept up his throat, singing his oesophagus. The world turned into a grease smear and then his father’s face came into view.
“Sometimes, Denny, bitches have to be taught a lesson. Otherwise, they walk all over you. That’s the way of the world, son. It’s one big fucking grinder. Don’t be like me. Don’t let it eat you alive.”
“Can you tell me who this man is?”
“My father,” Slim said.
In this scene a young Slim was seated at the kitchen table. He tried to stand up, but couldn’t. The spoonful of cereal hung in his mouth, turned to mush. He wanted to help his mother. Every second she lay foetal on the dingy tile was a slice out of Young Slim’s heart.
“Do you agree with your father’s sentiment?”
“Sometimes. Depends.”
“On what?”
The situation.”
“Perhaps stealing a hefty supply of steroids and cash from you? Would that be grounds for teaching someone a lesson?”
“Don’t know. I don’t juice.”
The machine dispensed a small piece of paper. On it was a list of drugs with a percentage next to them.
“Your toxicology report says different.”
The memory continued on. Dad wrestled the chair away from Slim’s mother, tossed it across the kitchen. It landed with a loud crash against the cabinet. Glasses and bowls rumbled.
“How many times do I have to fucking tell you, April? How many?!”
“I’m sorry, Beaux!”
Slim’s mother covered her face. “Please, Denny, go watch cartoons.”
“No,” his father said. “He should watch. He needs to learn.”
The vision cut out before the real beating began. Slim was grateful, but only for a second. Without warning the surrounding walls fell away like a box being opened by unseen hands. Slim looked down and the floor opened up and swallowed him.
It was a cycle, Slim realized. His parents had been fucked up and they, in turn, passed on the family tradition. Every deal he made; every jaw he broke; every acrid hit of speed or shot of steroids in a dingy backroom made him just like them. Slim wasn’t blazing his own path; he was retreating his parent’s steps. He wasn’t getting away from their influence; he was nothing but the product of their influence.
Dad had died in a hospice, alone and angry. Slim never visited. Last he had heard his mother was living off SSI and mooching from the last remaining friends she hadn’t alienated with her heroin habit—people sympathized until their shit went missing.
Which left Slim. The remaining Reuthe. A jobless fortysomething that camped out on an air mattress in an almost empty room rented out to him by one of the guys he worked the night-shift at a local grocery store before the higher ups had his ass booted for being too confrontational and aggressive toward the other employees.
It wasn’t as if there hadn’t been people that wanted to help, though. Plenty had tried to lift Slim out of his own pool of bullshit—especially Mariam, the only woman brave enough to stand up to the convict version of the Hulk.
When she agreed to take him in things were fine for a few months. He’d jog in the morning and attend night classes at Mesa College, chipping away at a GED.
It only lasted so long, though. Slim got bored fast. The monotony of a regular life grated on him. There was no stimulation; nothing to keep the demons at bay despite how much effort Mariam put into him.
One night, sitting on the balcony of her Lakeside apartment, Slim knew she was proud of him, but he still didn’t feel proud of himself. He rolled a cigarette over and over between his fingers, contemplating if he should light it. What did it mean if he did? That he took a big leap backward, erased all the progress he’d made?
A cigarette wasn’t steroids or crank, or a night of brawling, but even Slim knew that wasn’t the point.
He remembered his Dad always told him that people had one angel and one demon on each shoulder. It was up to you to decide who led. Slim always felt like he’d gotten stuck with just a demon, as if God ran out of angels that day and said, “Well, they can’t all be winners.”
Only, the demon didn’t sit on his shoulder clad in a black suit with one leg crossed over the opposite knee, like some stylish yuppie-type. No, Slim Reuthe’s demon was an ugly thing covered in boils, riding him all the way down to the pit like a cursed jockey.
Another scene changed and the world shattered in front of him like a splintered windshield. In the shards he could see different moments of his life play out. He saw himself beat Kent Walwatne down outside Norma Jean’s bar because Kent won a game of pool in front of a girl Slim wanted to impress—she left, disgusted by the macho act and Slim went home to jerk off.
There were more: His first steroid injection in the gym bathroom stall; Slim sitting on the lawn of his family’s home, hands beat to shit after a fight with a neighbor. All of these memories bled together, ran over one another, like a big melting pot made out of every shitty decision Slim had ever made, until finally they formed a loose imitation of Slim’s father’s face.
“You are my son,” said the abstract dad face in a sing song voice. “You always have been, you always will be, just a piece of shit like me.”
The visage crumbled and Slim was back in the interrogation room. His hands shook. His mouth tasted of iron from gnawing his lip.
“This is who you are Denny “Slim” Reuthe. You’ve spent you’re whole life running away from ending up like your folks, but the truth is, you’ve been winding that noose around your throat for a very, very long time.”
“Fuck you. You don’t know shit.”
“Truth. Evidence. It doesn’t lie. You’ve seen it right here.”
Slim couldn’t speak. Tears welled in his eyes. He felt microscopic. The muscles he had worked so hard to build became useless sandbags of flesh, hanging in his skin. They were useless here, proved nothing. The interrogator continued to hum, beep, and mock him over and over. It told Slim that he was just a statistic; a floating variable that could be traced back to a junkie mom and an alcoholic father.
Slim brought his forehead down on the metal table, screaming with each hit as the interrogator droned on.
Once.
“All you are…”
Twice.
“…is weak.”
Three times.
“So admi
t what you’ve done.”
The skin of Slim’s forehead split. He kept his head down, grinding it into the table.
“I did it,” Slim yelled. “I killed Lenny and his girl, but not the kid. I didn’t…” His throat hitched. “…I didn’t kill Justin.”
“It was your actions that led to his death, though. And for what reason did this family suffer?”
“They ripped me off.”
“Were you aware that Wendy was pregnant?”
“No,” Slim said.
“The autopsy stated that she was a month into her term. Do you know what that means?”
Silence.
“Mr. Reuthe?”
“Yeah…yeah I fucking get it.”
Slim sat up, eyed the smear of blood he’d left on the table.
The interrogator rose on a piston-like mechanism. Its belly opened and a small drawer slid out. On one side of the drawer there was a photograph; one Slim had seen only once.
It was one of the few occasions the Reuthe’s tried to pretend they were a family, Slim’s mother set them up with an appointment at a photo studio. In the picture their faces are strained, as if barbed wire clutched their bodies underneath the thrift shop dress clothes. No matter how hard Mom and Dad tried to craft some semblance of real home life, it always faltered, always broke under the weight of whom they really were.
They were a cancer to each other; and a cancer to their son.
The second section of the drawer held a grey pill.
“What now?”
“You have two options, Mr. Reuthe. Take the photograph and we send you back to your cell, but remember, Mr. Reuethe, prison isn’t kind to child killers.
The Interrogator went on. “The pill, however, is a cure all. Swallow it up and you go away; we go away; the system doesn’t have to waste another dime on a broken human being.”
Slim stared at his only two options. All his life he’d just wanted to be respected. To not be treated like human garbage, so that he could feel something that wasn’t hate or anger. The truth was, though, that in doing so, he’d only taken things from people—stolen lives in some cases. And in the end, it did nothing to salve the scars that burned Slim up day in and day out. No matter how much muscle he put on or skulls he cracked, inside he was still that frightened little kid at the breakfast table, hoping someone would save him.
The demon rode him hard and Slim could feel the flames fanning his face, as he reached out, and made a choice.
12
JUST FRIENDS by Michael W. Clark
Despite his head pounding from being knocked unconscious and his arms being tied to the chair, Jake sat calmly. “Come on Tyler. I’ve known you all my life.”
“I am younger than you.” She held the crowbar as if it were a baseball bat.
“Oh, I can never get people’s age right. I always think people are older than they are.” Jake flexed his arms as far away from his body as he could. The chair creaked slightly.
“Not a very flattering thing to say to a woman.” She swung the crow bar bat slowly.
“Age doesn’t matter.” Jake laughed.
“Don’t say it’s the mileage. That doesn’t help.” She swung it very fast this time.
“Ah, well. I thought we were friends.”
“You used to be fun when you were still drinking.” She moved her hands further up. She was choking the crowbar bat. This swing was faster.
“Was I? I never remembered if I was fun or a bore. Most drunks I meet are bores. Too caught up in themselves to be interesting to anyone else.” Jake flexed his legs against the ropes. The wooden chair creaked louder. “Thanks for being a fan.”
“I wasn’t a fan. I just said you were fun. Well more fun than now. You being a cop an all.” She stepped toward Jake.
“I am a highway patrolman.” Jake relaxed his entire body.
“Still a cop.” Tyler pulled back to get a full swing.
Jake flexed his leg abruptly causing the chair and him to jump in the air. Jake leaned back slightly so the chair came down on its legs at an angle. The legs broke. Tyler screamed at the sound and motion. It made her swing go wild.
Jake rolled toward Tyler and kicked her in the chest with both his feet. She only grunted this time as she sailed back into the concrete wall. Jake jumped to a standing position. “You were right Tyler. We were never that close.” He smacked the remains of the chair against the concrete wall until the wood was splinters and the ropes fell away. He did have to untie the ropes around his wrists. He watched Tyler while he did.
She was small but back in high school he had seen her get hit by a tree branch while she was standing up in a convertible. Jake had been driving. He wasn’t going fast though, because he was driving drunk through a field. She was knocked out of the car into the field. She had gotten up and run after the car. She had seemed fine after that. Jake had been drinking from a bottle of cheap vodka the very instant she got hit by the branch. Was that what she meant by him being more fun while drinking? Maybe she would change her mind about him not being any fun now, since he just kicked her unconscious. “Now where did they put my stuff?”
His mother was calling him. He knew it was her because she had written a song and put it on his phone as her exclusive ringtone. He never knew how she got it on his phone though. Jake looked around the room he was in. It was a bunker left over from World War II and it smelled like it. The song was coming from a pile of trash in the far corner. “It must be lunch time. Mom always calls me at lunch time.” Jake said to no one conscious.
Jake pulled his stuff off the top of the trash pile. His phone was in his hat. Thankfully and stupidly, his gun was still in its holster. He slung the holster over his shoulder and then answered his phone. “Hi mom.”
“Why won’t you have lunch with me?” She whined. Her voice was thick and slightly muffled.
“I do on the weekends.” Jake looked over at Tyler. She was still crumpled against the wall.
“No! Not the weekend, Sunday. Just Sunday! Sunday’s not enough.” She slurred her words.
“It’s more than enough.” Jake muttered.
“What’s tha’ mean?” She sniffed. “I’m your mother.”
“I know who you are, mom.” Tyler was starting to twitch. “Mom. I am right in the middle of things.”
“Your crime sluts are more interesting to you than me.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Don’t drink so early in the morning. Especially with the medication.”
“Know what I’m doing.”
Jake didn’t know whether that was a statement or question. “Got my job to do now.”
“Eating lunch is important.” She replied.
“Better than drinking it. Gotta go, mom.” Jake clicked off.
Tyler sat up. She rubbed her chest. “Why’d you kick me?”
“You had me tied up and were going to hit me with that.” Jake pointed at the crow bar beside her on the floor.
“You deserved it.” She swallowed and coughed.
“Did not.” Jake walked over and picked up the crowbar. “Second time someone knocked me on the head from behind. I didn’t like it the first time either. I like it less now.”
“Did not! If I’d done it, you wouldn’t be here.” She coughed again. “Think you broke a rib.”
Jake patted his pants pockets. “My keys!” He looked out the open bunker door. Nothing was there but trees. He was only looking for his patrol car. He looked again. Still, nothing was there but trees. “Dammit, you stole my car too.”
“I stole nothing. I’m right here.” Tyler put her hands in the air. “You see a patrol car in here. A Fiat would barely fit in here. Jesus.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Jake put his holster back on around his waist. “Why were you going to bash me with this?” He bent down to pick up the crowbar and Tyler jumped at him. Jake simply extended his arm and knocked Tyler back on to the ground. “What’s with you? Attempted murder? Kidnapping? Interfering with an officer? Assault with
a deadly weapon? I never thought you would graduate to felony criminal. What the hell happened? I thought, at most, maybe car theft. You could do that, but nothing felonyish.” Jake nodded raising his eyebrows at her.
Tyler stared at Jake while trying to catch her breath. “We didn’t steal your car.” She coughed. “We just borrowed it.”
“New definition of borrowing? Borrowing without asking is stealing, far as I know. Knocking someone out too doesn’t fit with the standard definition either.” Jake threw the crowbar over into the same corner where his stuff had been tossed.
“See! No fun at all.” Tyler mocked. “You’ll get the thing back. Just borrowed without asking because you became no fun at all.”
“And a bash on the head? That punishment for my loss of entertainment value?” Jake rubbed the back of his head before putting on his hat.
“Stew did it. It wasn’t me.” Tyler pushed herself into a better sitting position.
Jake shook his head. “You were ready to prolong it as I saw it.”
Tyler shook her head. “You used to like it rough back in the day.”
“You liked it rough. I didn’t like feeling anything back then.” Jake looked out the door again. Still, nothing but trees.
“I was supposed to just keep you here until they got back.” Tyler gave a slight smile. “I was just threatening. I wasn’t going to beat you up. Just putting on a show. You were the one hit me.”
“Oh, so I’m the bad guy. So, this Stew? That’s the Steward Prin from high school?”
Tyler increased her smile. “Jealous?”
“Of Stew? How could I be?” Jake took out his hand cuffs.
“That’s why he hit you in the head. I told him not to.” Tyler held her hands out like a Lady for Jake.
“Thanks for the support.” Jake snapped the cuff on her scared wrists. “Done this before then? Tell me more. Or all of this will fall on your pretty little head.”
“You think I’m pretty?”
Jake pushed Tyler over to another pile of trash and sat her down. She cooed as he did it. “A bit of advice, don’t do crime while you’re stoned. Just like driving. Don’t do that either while high.”
Walk Hand IN Hand Into Extinction : Stories Inspired By True Detective Page 10