Pillow

by Andrew Battershill

Sometime in the several empty seconds between watching Emily leave and closing his door, two homicide detectives arrived to interview Pillow. Lieutenant Sally Avida stretched a long, bony hand across his door and stepped out from behind it. Her partner, Simon, hulked up behind her, scratching his ear.

  Pillow smiled and moved out of the doorway.

  ‘Come on in, detectives. Me casa you casa.’

  Avida and Simon took two steps inside, then stopped and turned back to face him. They were trying to get him in a corner. Pillow nudged the door further open behind him.

  Sally Avida was the head of the homicide division. She was tall and slight, and had one of those necks with no muscles and hardly any veins. She also had a long, curving beak of a nose, a chin the shape of a canoe, and a thin, upturned moustache tattooed on the side of her index finger.

  ‘Pillow, Pillow, Pillow, great to see you.’ Her fist bounced off Simon’s shoulder like a BB hitting a tank. ‘Jessica Hannah Christ, don’t you just want to rest your head on him until morning. Or tuck him under your ass during sex.’ She pinched Pillow’s cheek. ‘Get it? Because you’re a pillow. Those are the things I do with pillows.’

  Pillow leaned forward to kiss her hand.

  Avida rolled her eyes as she took her hand back. ‘That’s funny. You’re funny.’ Although she was never less than half-joking, Avida almost never laughed.

  Her sergeant, Michael Simon, was no wider than a highway and no uglier than a piece of roadkill. He had giant, bulging eyes and a few foreheads, a healthy helping of jowl hanging off a stingy slice of chin. He looked like someone who smelled like the inside of a crowded shipping container.

  Simon shifted his weight, and the entire earth didn’t shake. ‘So I guess you know all about that shootout at the bar last night. We heard you were there.’ He reached into his front shirt pocket and pulled out a loose, old cigarette and put it in his mouth.

  Pillow had tried and failed many times to understand how anyone thought they were allowed to smoke cigarettes. He stretched to his full height, laced his hands behind his head and looked down. ‘I doubt it. See, I didn’t do a ton of school, but I stuck around long enough to know the difference between things I guess and things people tell me.’

  Avida flicked Simon in the bottom ribs, the cigarette bobbing like an unhealthy stool.

  ‘I told you, Sarge, the man picked up a few brain cells on layaway.’ She cast a quick, careless glance back at the living room. ‘Nice place, pal, I think I saw it on the cover of Depressed and Tasteless Living once.’

  Pillow was now busy trying to get his hip to pop. Sally and Simon were known to take money. Once in a while they’d unload some stolen drugs with Breton, or tip him off for cash. They had to be playing an angle on the coins. With one last torque back, Pillow felt the hip give, and he swung his leg forward then back. ‘Sorry, guys, I sort of phased out there for a second.’

  ‘Got something on your mind? Something to share?’

  Pillow grinned and clapped a hold of Avida’s shoulder. ‘You know what, I do! When I was a kid – I think this is important, could help you – when I was a kid I thought that you meant me, y’know, because when people said you they were always talking to me. I still feel that way sometimes, for like a half a second when somebody’s just started talking.’

  Avida waited in silence until Pillow looked her in the eyes again. ‘You’ve eaten about twenty thousand too many punches for my taste, Pillow, but you still remind me of this very cute boy I took home once. I drank some whiskies with him – I’m celiac so I don’t drink beer – and we talked, and he told me all about his little thoughts. And then I demanded that he get naked, and he did, and I left the room and came back with two raw eggs in my hands. I cracked one over each of his shoulders, then I kicked him out into the empty street, with no idea where he was.’

  To say Pillow liked her style was an understatement.

  ‘Do you know what the moral of that story is, Pillow?’

  ‘You’re really messy and kind of a cocktease?’

  ‘The moral of the story is that when I look people in the eye and tell them what’s going to happen, I tell the truth. And you’re not going to touch me without my asking you to ever again. We know what you and Louise Aragon were doing there. We know about the coins, and you’re going to tell us about them.’

  She shrugged his hand off. Pillow kept the arm moving, rested against it on the wall.

  ‘I don’t know anything about coins. I have enough trouble counting them out to pay for an apple.’

  Simon talked to Pillow’s sternum. ‘Think about it. Think about whether or not you’re going to be protected on this. You had the door. What use is muscle that doesn’t do any of the lifting? We all know how Breton treats fuckups. So if you want to get out in front of this thing, just give us a call, tell us where the coins are and we have a deal.’

  ‘That deal you’re talking about doesn’t sound super-official to me. Are you off the books on this one?’ Pillow looked at Simon out the side of his eye, then he got caught up with flicking a hangnail on his thumb up and down.

  Simon snapped his fingers to get Pillow’s attention. ‘Let’s just say that we have options. Where are the coins?’

  Pillow nodded, riffled around in his pocket.

  ‘I think I have like seven quarters here, y’know, from laundry day. You want ’em?’

  Simon nodded and pushed Pillow’s arm off the wall. ‘Just think about it. Keep us in mind, and hold yourself tight, Pillow, when you go to sleep.’ Simon let the air fall all the way out of the word sleep.

  ‘Sure, whatever the fuck that means.’

  Pillow shook a small percentage of Simon’s hand.

  The big man smiled as they let go. ‘Like shaking hands with a lace curtain.’

  Simon still had the unlit cigarette dangling out the side of his mouth – Pillow grabbed it and started examining the cigarette, turning it around in his hands to see all sides of it.

  ‘This might be a character flaw of mine, but just so you know for later, you’re going to have to fuck me up pretty good if you want to intimidate me. It’s just how I am. You can talk and talk and talk, and do your cute little low-voice Lawman bit, flash your badge, but I’m not going to believe you until you put it on me. You’re going to have to impress me. I’ve taken some beatings, let me tell you, and I don’t remember any of ’em. Nobody’s made an impression.’

  Pillow put the cigarette back between Simon’s lips. Avida nudged Simon further out the door.

  ‘See you around the bend of Breton’s cock.’ She turned around and clapped Pillow on either shoulder. ‘Nice chat.’

  Avida reached in her pocket and pulled out an evidence bag, let it unroll to reveal Artaud’s dinner fork. ‘Just one more thing, Pillow. If I were to flip you over, would I get the cool side?’ She looked both ways before she took off jogging backward after Simon.

  Pillow did not usually watch television or read, so he spent most of the evening sitting on the couch listening to a five-to-one underdog win seven straight rounds and then quit on the stool before the eighth. Then Pillow watched the faucet drip and ran through the angles in his head.

  Breton’s syndicate was basically a bunch of crazies who liked to stir up trouble. They were always fighting with each other and getting kicked out. Pillow had avoided most of that because he was peripheral to anything important, but he was right in the middle of this one. The problem with Breton was that once you were out, you were out for good. The man was about as forgiving as a trash compactor.

  The bell rang softly enough that it could have been the wind. By the time he opened the door, Emily was balancing the sugar on her head, her arms hovering a half-inch out from either side.

  ‘I thought it might be bad form to wake you up twice in four hours, so I whisper-rang.’

  Pillow took a step forward and lifted the bag off her head slowly. ‘You didn’t bring me any cake.’

  ‘You would have made me feel like a fatty about it.’
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  He turned and made to throw the sugar onto his couch, going through the full motion before turning to her with the bag in his hand. ‘That’s true. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t sweat it, hollow-cheeks.’ She stopped and bounced her palm off her forehead a couple times. ‘Okay, fuck, fuck.’

  ‘Yeah, but we should go to your –’

  She desperately shushed him with her whole hand. ‘I wasn’t sick last week. I was pregnant. I’m still pregnant. I was going to tell you, and then the pimple thing happened and … whateverwhatever, I’m pregnant. I’m like a month and a half pregnant right now. Screw that counting-in-weeks noise.’

  The oldest trick Pillow knew was to take two very deep breaths through his nose and out his mouth. He did that.

  ‘This is the part where you talk to me, Pete. Really. This is the part where you talk.’

  She waited.

  Pillow liked to think he knew a bit about women, but the bit he knew was the bit that only helps when you’re both a bit drunk or sleepy and everybody has a good sense of humour and nothing terribly important is happening in anyone’s life.

  ‘Okay, fine.’ Emily couldn’t help it anymore. ‘I am keeping it. And I know this is sort of a weird spot to do that in, but I started feeling really anxious and sad and empty when I thought about getting rid of it, and I know that’s not the best reason, but I can do this and I want to and I won’t ask anything …’

  Pillow put a hand on her hip. ‘That’s perfect. I’m in. Whatever you want to do. Whatever you want.’

  After she grabbed his hand, hers stopped shaking. ‘Okay. Here’s the deal. I am going to have two drinks tonight, and I am going to smoke one cigarette. The last one. And you should come to my apartment and do those things with me. Or just watch me do those things. But still, come talk to me.’

  Pillow whipped the sugar into the room behind his back.

  As Emily talked, Pillow stared at all the different ways light shimmered off the translucent frills around her neck and sleeves. Wearing that shirt, she reminded Pillow of a lot of places and times that he had never experienced, like Western Europe or the 1920s.

  The chairs and tables in Emily’s apartment didn’t match. They were a combination of very solid lawn furniture and very rickety restaurant furniture. It seemed like it was on purpose, though. It was the kind of place where your first guess would be that the woman who lived there had worn clear glasses without prescriptions in them when she was younger and still loved natural history museums.

  They’d been talking for a long time without pausing. Pillow was fairly drunk, and Emily’s third drink was just a bunch of melting ice now. Pillow had never talked to her about his health situation before.

  She said, ‘And how does that manifest itself, like today?’

  Pillow was sort of amazed, not for the first time, by all the tiny swirls, veins and patterns moving in his drink, because the gin was a different weight than the tonic. He looked back up at Emily, and she was smiling at him, or possibly at the magical way clear mixed drinks move.

  He said, ‘Well, I was trembling a little bit earlier, but that’s mostly gone now.’

  She slid forward on the cushion. Pillow noticed and was reminded that she had a small round scar on her temple, one of those scars that is just a dent in the person’s skin.

  ‘Dude, I totally feel you on that. Last week I was shaking so hard at work, but it was only in my pinky finger, like all the tremble-juice in my whole body was gunked up in just my little finger. My littlest finger.’ And she didn’t nod her head in the usual way. She bobbed her head, neck and shoulders up and down. Each time she went up she’d cover the painting of a forest behind her head so only the tiny canvas sky was visible, and when she went back down Pillow could see the whole thing.

  ‘Dude, man, we need to talk more. We need to talk about this stuff. We’ve been doing this for a year, and we need to get serious, and I need you to be all in or totally out. That’s it.’

  ‘I’m in. Trust me, I’ve watched elephants feed their babies with their trunks for a really big amount of hours. Like, a long time. I know what parenting is about. A baby elephant is big enough to be a linebacker the second it’s born.’

  ‘Dude, seriously. I need you to stop talking about exotic animals and answer my question seriously. Like a human being would. Do you know how big human babies are?’

  ‘Yeah, I am. Yes. I can do this. It’s all pretty scary, obviously, but we’ll make it happen. Yeah. Let’s do it.’

  Pillow stopped talking after that, but he made a mental note to confirm how big human babies were later.

  ‘We need to be … we need to let each other in. That’s superlame to say but we have to. We said we loved each other uncomfortably early and that was actually really nice, but we sort of didn’t follow up on it, and we’ve never been on a date, and I’ve seen your apartment like six times, and it’s a floor above me, and we need to sort this stuff out.’

  Pillow rubbed his eyes. ‘Yeah, we will. We’re good. We’re good.’

  ‘Pete, I found out your real first name because I read that “Whatever happened to?” feature about you in Sports Illustrated. I’m not being pushy when I ask you to communicate with me a little bit better.’

  Pillow could see the humour. ‘Yes. I get it. Fire the cannons.’

  Emily drained the rest of the ice cubes. ‘It’s. Dude. I’m not firing cannons, okay? I’m not storming your walls, all right? I’m asking you for some really basic personal information.’

  ‘Sure. I’m sorry. Ask.’

  ‘You’ve never told me about boxing, ever. I mean, I know you were good, but were you very good? Do you miss it now?’

  ‘Those are the ones you’re not supposed to ask.’

  ‘Curiosity only ever killed cats and young children. Spill.’

  Pillow rubbed the back of his neck the way he did for headaches, but he didn’t have one right that second. ‘Forty-seven wins, four losses and one no contest. Six knockouts. Two-belt champ at 154 pounds. Nine years ago I was about the seventh-best pound-for-pound boxer in the world. For like five months. Which sounds pathetic but is sort of amazing, all things considered. I really, really miss it. I miss it so much that I just don’t think about it. I try not to. I miss it really bad. But, on the other hand, nobody fuckin’ steals from me anymore, I don’t have to weigh food and nobody calls me at five a.m. to do roadwork. That’s running.’

  ‘You still go running that early.’

  Pillow looked at the floor and cracked a smile like a hardboiled egg rolled on the table. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Why did you retire?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t exactly want to. I did it a little bit because I was getting older, breaking my right hand every fight, slowing down some, and a big bit because Julio Solis knocked me out for six and a half minutes with my eyes open. And the neurologist said I had to.’

  ‘Jesus, I didn’t realize it was that bad.’

  ‘It’s funny. I don’t know this because I never watched the tape. But they told me when they were taking me out on the stretcher I wouldn’t stop asking if there’d been a fight. Or if it was just practice. I must have said it a dozen times.’ He laid his right hand flat on the cushion, ran his fingers over the knuckles.

  ‘Was there a fight?’

  Pillow closed his eyes. ‘I believe that it happened, you know. It must have. But I don’t remember a second of that fight. If you gave me a polygraph and you asked if it happened … And sometimes right when I wake up and I know it’s going to be a bad day, just for a few minutes, I let myself think maybe I’m still in the dressing room getting my hands wrapped. That I’m still getting warmed up. That it’s always only just about to happen.’

  He smiled at her. Pillow knew how creepy it was when someone smiles at you with their eyes closed, but he did it anyway. Then he opened them. Emily seemed upset.

  ‘It happened. I understand that, enough people have told me, I get it. It’s gone. But I was so fucking good. Peo
ple don’t even know. Pure boxer. If you understood, man, it was beautiful. I couldn’t just sit down on a straight right, make it count, and if you can’t do that you’re always running, y’know. But I worked it. I fought all the brawlers and knockout artists, ’cause they get tired and they couldn’t handle my footwork. I had cardio for days, and I was slick as hell. I played it smart, for years. They couldn’t hit me. I move pretty good.’

  Emily leaned down and kissed his hand. She sat up smiling. ‘I know, I’ve seen you dance. I remember we went to that party and I had to go pee, and I came back and just watched you dance for a few minutes. You were bustin’ it, dude, and you had your eyes closed, all blissed out, and I thought to myself, all right, self, he might be a bit sketchy, he might be a bit of a dick, he might even be a bit retarded, but nobody dances like that without a soul. A soul and a half.’

  ‘I know. A lot of people have told me that actually.’

  ‘Annnd I was right about the dick part.’

  ‘That hurt my feelings.’

  ‘Awww, really?’

  ‘Yep, both of ’em. Both my feelings. I’m not retarded, though.’ Pillow took a deep drink and snapped an ice cube with his teeth. ‘I’ve been told I’m pretty far ahead of schedule, brain-wise.’

  She pulled skin under her eye tight, then she let it go and stared intently at her hands as she talked. ‘Okay, so the part where I’m a crass asshole, a crasshole, as someone who isn’t that funny might say, is that I’m totally broke. I don’t make a lot of money, and I’ve been frivolous, I’ve been very, very frivolous with money for a long time, and I have debt. Like a pretty, pretty decent amount of it. And, umm, just how much money do you have? It seems like not very much.’

  Pillow tucked his chin under his shoulder and rolled with an imaginary punch. ‘Depends what you mean by “not very much.” Do you think nothing isn’t very much?’

  They both laughed.

  ‘I have one moth in my wallet,’ he said. ‘I could show you, but then he’d fly away and I’d have nothing.’

  Emily moaned and collapsed into her own lap. Pillow followed her down and kept talking. ‘His name is Matthew. Cool guy, but he’s totally cockstruck by this girl named Any Lightbulb.’