by Peter Styles
But Jeremiah was definitely tiring. His legs were like lead. He couldn’t move them fast enough, like they were made of cinderblocks and he was dragging them instead of being propelled by them. Death drew closer and closer behind him. He pumped his arms and tucked his head down to try and gain some speed but he had already attempted those things some time back. There was nothing else to do.
Another alley opened up at his side and he took the turn… and collapsed hard onto his hands and knees as his feet tangled together and tripped him. “Ah!” he cried out, clutching his bleeding palms to his chest. Pain distracted him for a moment, but a moment was far too long to spare. He tried to stand again, to run once more, but his legs were gelatin. They wobbled and quivered but couldn’t move.
I’m dead.
Another set of footsteps slowly padded up behind him, accompanied by a distinct metallic scraping as the modified baseball bat was dragged over the concrete. The mugger took his time, unhurried. Like a wolf that bled its prey and wore it down, he knew there was no longer any chance of escape.
“I’m sorry to do this to you, kid.”
It didn’t sound like a very heartfelt apology. Jeremiah cringed in on himself and covered his head with his hands, mouth opening to sob even though there was no breath in his lungs with which to weep.
“It’s just business, you know? Someone wants you gone an’ I’m the only one who can make it happen. So say your prayers.”
The information given to him almost carelessly took a moment to sink. This wasn’t a mugger then. This was a hitman. But why? Maybe it didn’t matter. He was already dead.
Which meant he had nothing to be afraid of. If death was here, it was here no matter how uselessly he held up his hands or flailed around.
Suddenly, all his fear melted away. There was no escaping this. Jeremiah turned to face it head-on, sitting up straight and tilting his head back to look up at the attacker right in the eyes. What could be seen of the eyes, at any rate. He wore a ski-mask. There was no way of telling what any of his facial features looked like, or the color or length of his hair. He was of medium build, neither unimpressive nor anything to write home about.
Maybe, just maybe, the baseball bat made up for all those things that were distinctly lacking.
“Done praying?” the man asked, lips moving beneath the fabric of the mask.
“Go… Go screw yourself!” Jeremiah spat.
Though he couldn’t see, he felt the other’s anger. “Maybe I’ll screw with your corpse!”
And the bat raised up, metal and wood polish glinting in the sunlight. Jeremiah stared up at the tangle of wires and closed his eyes to let the first blow land where it would. He imagined the ripping, tearing pain; the first splash of blood hitting the ground…
“NO!”
His eyes snapped open in time to see a large, tanned blur go flying past and tackle the mugger directly from the side. Both men grunted and collapsed on the concrete, hands clawing and struggling to reach for the bat that fell only a few inches away. Chris adjusted his grip, no longer reaching for the bat but holding the other man’s collar in his fist. His other first came slamming down repeatedly against the mugger’s face, over and over so hard that the opposite cheek slammed into the concrete with each strike. Blood flew in little streaks and splatters across the ground.
Not about to become a damsel in distress that could only stand by and be rescued, Jeremiah reached for the baseball bat. A heavy, dirtied hand settled over his. “We won’t need that. Best not to get your fingerprints on it anyway.”
Jeremiah turned to face Chris. “But… what if he wakes up?”
“If he wakes up and gives us some trouble, you can whack him. Otherwise, I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
Jeremiah looked over at the unconscious mugger and shook his head, tucking his body in close to Chris as the stronger man hugged him tightly. “How did you do that?” he whispered.
“I told you I take dance lessons.”
“And?”
“I may have neglected to tell you that I’ve also taken self-defense classes.”
Leaning his head on Chris’s broad shoulder, Jeremiah said, “Is there anything you can’t do?”
Chris was silent for a minute. Somewhere in the distance, police sirens wailed. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re safe. I don’t know what I would have done if I lost you.”
Jeremiah nodded. His bravado toward the end there felt like something that didn’t entirely belong to him. “I just don’t understand what happened here.”
“That’s not for us to know. That’s for the police to figure out.”
They held each other tightly, crouching there in the pool of blood until the police arrived. They came on foot because their cruisers couldn’t fit into the narrow alleyway but, judging from the sound and lights, they had the exits blocked. As the cops came, bearing their pistols and brandishing batons, a thought occurred to Jeremiah.
“Chris, how did you find me?”
“Pure dumb luck,” Chris admitted. He hugged Jeremiah even tighter, pulling him into his lap. “I dumped my car in the middle of Lexington Street and ran around asking people if they’d seen a cute guy being chased.”
“But… how did you catch up to us?”
“That’s a secret,” the other man replied.
“It’s because you’re in shape, isn’t it? Of all the times to be bragging, Chris.”
Just then, the police arrived. One of them immediately headed over to the mugger and crouched over his prone, groaning form with a pair of handcuffs. Others guarded the exits, while two came up to Chris and Jeremiah.
“You two do that?” one of them asked, gesturing at all the blood and the dropped mugger. His badge declared him to be a deputy, while the other cop was in plain clothes.
“I did, sir,” Chris replied. “I’m the one who put in the call and this is Jeremiah, my boyfriend who was being chased.”
It was without a doubt the weirdest way Jeremiah had ever been introduced. Nevertheless, he leaned against Chris and nodded a lot to agree that he was indeed the one who was chased.
The cop pulled out a notepad and jotted something down. Chris spoke again as soon as the writing stopped, explaining exactly as he had to Jeremiah how he managed to stumble across the scene just in the nick of time. “I hit him. A lot. But not with that bat.”
“I woulda used the bat,” the deputy grunted. “Bloody faces get cleaned up but this one deserves something he won’t forget. I’ll need both of you to come down to the station with me so I can get your official statements.”
Chris nodded and wrapped his arm around Jeremiah, who managed to stand but only with a huge effort that left him shaking. Though Chris supported him, the deputy noticed.
“You should also go to the hospital and see if you can’t get something to help you rest tonight. We’ll talk more about that later. For now, please come with me.”
Jeremiah turned his head as they walked away, looking to see the mugger also being tugged toward a cruiser. To his surprise, the mugger twisted around and looked back at him as well.
“Wait,” the mugger said. He spoke like a man with a mouthful of marbles, speaking through blood and broken teeth. “This ain’t all on me, okay? I got paid for this.”
Jeremiah stopped in his tracks and twisted out of Chris’s grip to look right at the mugger. “Who?” he whispered.
The man laughed in his face, straining against the cuffs on his hands as the cops dragged him backward. “Who the hell do you think? Markus did! Markus did this! He asked me to get rid of you so you wouldn’t go jabbering about his business to the whole world!”
Stunned, Jeremiah let himself be ushered into the cruiser alongside Chris. The deputy sat in front and they drove off, leaving the bloody crime scene behind. Jeremiah felt numb and uncertain. “Markus couldn’t be that heartless,” he whispered to Chris.
“Oh, you trusting little thing,” Chris said, and that was all the comment he made.
Jeremiah wasn’t done, however. He looked up into the eyes of the other, the one he trusted so much. “Why does Markus hate you so much?” he asked, finally giving voice to a question that should have been asked ages ago.
Chris sighed and hugged Jeremiah, enfolding him with warmth and care. “I wish I could give you some sort of storybook answer where everything makes sense, but this just doesn’t wrap up neatly. We aren’t ex-lovers or childhood friends who had a falling out. He’s not an outcast family member. He just doesn’t like having competition and he made it his life mission to ruin me. Just because he could. Sometimes real life is like that.”
I wish it wasn’t.
Chapter 21
The call came just as they were leaving the police station. Chris checked his phone and felt the blood drain away from his face.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Jeremiah clung to his side. “What’s wrong?”
Holding up one finger to quiet him, Chris answered the call while moving over away from the station doors. “This is Chris Finley speaking.”
“Mr. Finley, it’s your father.” The speaker was a nurse he knew well by now, one who often tended to his father during his frequent hospital stays. Despite the fact that he’d been expecting this call, his heart still sank. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. “He took a turn for the worse about an hour ago and hasn’t bounced back. We think this might be it. You should come.”
“I’ll be there.” He hung up, and stared down at his feet.
A soft touch on his arm reminded him of Jeremiah’s presence. He turned to look into the dark eyes of his lover. “What do I do?” he asked, shoulders low. For once he didn’t want to be the strong one.
Luckily, Jeremiah understood just like he always did. Leaning down, he clasped Chris’s hand between his and held it tight. “Let’s go to your father. Your car is still stranded so we can either catch a cab or ask one of the officers for a lift.”
Chris hesitated, torn by indecision. Before he could give his answer, he saw a very large black man striding in their direction. Jeremiah stiffened at his side, becoming a wooden puppet judging by the way he moved.
“Markus,” Chris snarled. He couldn’t stop himself.
Luckily, Markus didn’t stop himself either. He glared at them like a caged tiger but continued on past and into the police station.
Chris turned back to Jeremiah. “I think I’d rather take a cab.”
Jeremiah gripped his hand tightly, offering him what reassurance he could. “Then let’s go. What are we waiting for?”
Unlike certain others in positions of power, Chris had never really lost his taste for driving. There were times when it couldn’t be avoided, having a driver, but he did preferred to do it himself as much as possible; he supposed it was like his version of making tea, having something to focus on when he needed it. Now, when he needed that distraction the most, it had come to this where he could only sit and watch helplessly as someone did it all for him. The streets went by, features all the same. The signs meant nothing. The skyline was unchanging.
Chris fidgeted with his hands in his lap, fingers churning over and over like he was in the middle of lathering up a bar of soap. Jeremiah just leaned into his side, offering comfort with his presence. Although he wished he could be soothed, Chris couldn’t. He could only think about what he was losing.
Half an hour later, he raced inside the hospital and up to the front desk of the emergency room. “My name is Chris Finley,” he gasped out. “My father—”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” the old crone behind the window said. “I remember you. Your father is down in Critical Care. Let me page someone for you to come and get you.”
God, but she moved so slowly. Chris stood anxiously in front of the window, drumming his fingers on the thin lip of counter. The room on the other side of the glass was small and tight and cluttered, but the old crone with a nametag of Dorothy somehow took forever even standing up. He could hear her joints popping, her bones creaking even through the wall and the glass separating them. Laboriously, she got to her feet and then took a single shuffling step over to a table off to the side. Another step, and then another, each one a calculated motion planned out beforehand.
I’m going to go out of my mind.
The frustration rising up inside his chest felt very much like rage. He clamped both hands on the counter, knuckles white from the strain. Not even Jeremiah at his side could ease the tension as seconds turned into a full minute.
Agitated, Chris glanced over to the side to look out at the full waiting room. No one looked at him. They were all busy with their own aches and pains. Someone was clearly nursing a broken arm. Another held a thick, bloody cloth to his forehead. However, none of them were dying or even close to death as far as he could see. His father was more important than all of them. They had family and loved ones, and he was about to lose his after regaining it for only a short time. That wasn’t fair at all!
In the back of his mind, he knew he was being a hasty fool but he couldn’t stop. He had only felt like this once before and that was also today. He didn’t know how to deal with this twice, especially when he thought it was all over.
“Sir? Mr. Finley?”
Chris looked up. The nurse was back, looking at him with a sympathetic expression. “Yes?” he growled. Jeremiah tugged at his shoulder, clearly trying to warn him to be nice.
“Someone will be along shortly. In the meantime, if you’ll please take a seat?”
There were no empty seats, not that Chris wanted one anyway. He chose to pace up and down the length of the hall instead, struggling to get rid of some of the excess energy brewing inside him. Jeremiah stood against the wall, arms crossed and head lowered but eyes raised to watch.
Shortly, a man dressed in blue scrubs came striding down the hall. Chris stopped and stared hard at him, waiting.
The man flashed a friendly smile. “Hi. Are you Chris?”
He would have nothing to do with friendly greetings right now. “Take me to my father.”
The man’s face fell and became an impudent mask. “Of course. Right this way. But who is this?”
Jeremiah gripped Chris’s arm, clearly intent on coming with him no matter what. “I’m his boyfriend. And his support. I’m coming with him.”
After hesitating for a moment, the man nodded. “Very well, but I’ll ask that you comply with any requests to leave the room.”
Neither of them liked that, but if it was the only way…
The man led them deeper into the hospital and up an elevator, and down another series of corridors. Chris kept his hand firmly around his boyfriend’s, not just to keep them from being separated but because he needed the support. He hated hospitals. All he could think of was his mother dying, of being rushed to a place like this where they tried and tried to revive her. Of seeing her body, already cold and congealing like a bad dinner dumped in the trash.
He shuddered.
They passed into a waiting area equipped with sinks and all the tools necessary for hand-washing. All three of them did so. The patients in Critical Care were obviously unstable. Any errant germ could mean the difference between life and death.
At least they were allowed through the doors. This part of the hospital resembled every other except for how quiet it was. No chatter from the nurses, no crying babies or music filtered in through speakers. Only silence, and an occasional murmur of television.
No, not exactly silent. Like a forest at night, full of nocturnal going-ons, a hospital could never truly be quiet. Computers beeped and chimed, machinery whirred, and soft footsteps echoed.
The man in blue scrubs took them to one room in particular, near the back. One of the quiet ones, with only a deep hissing sound coming from within. “The doctor will be along shortly. Please push the call button if you have need of assistance.”
Chris hesitated outside the room. “I’m not really sure what we’re going to find in here.”
�
��I can handle it,” Jeremiah whispered, and kissed him. It was a chaste sort of kiss, one that involved only the lips, but it was perhaps the most meaningful kiss they had ever shared. Their foreheads touched and they breathed together before pulling apart.
Chris knocked on the door and then stepped inside.
The sight was exactly what he expected it to be, and yet far more painful. He’d seen this same thing plenty of times during these visits but it hurt him deep inside to know that this would be the last.
The old man lay on his back in the hospital bed, arms down limp by his sides. He already looked as if he was embalmed in his casket at the funeral home, waiting for burial. His skin sagged loose, almost like melted wax. Heavy wrinkles marred his face, nearly hiding his mouth and eyes. What hair remained on his head was sparse and crinkly, devoid of nutrients.
Chris sighed softly, earning a tender squeeze on his hand from Jeremiah. He would have walked up with the other on his arm but this was something that needed to be done alone. Pulling his hand away, he approached the bed.
A breathing mask covered his father’s mouth, and there were tubes up his nose. Every part of him was connected to machinery by wires or needles or catheters. The smell was one Chris had come to know intimately, of harsh soap, urine, and a strange sweetness.
The sweetness was death; a slow rotting from the inside out as organs and extremities shut down to protect the heart and brain.
The old man didn’t open his eyes or even register that Chris was there at all. The only sign that he was alive was the rush of oxygen entering and leaving his lungs.
Chris grabbed a chair and moved it over to a clear spot beside the bed where there were no wires. He dropped down into it and looked at his father, feeling like a scared child.
“Hey, Dad.”
No response, and no reason to try again. Real life wasn’t like the movies. People didn’t always get to wake up to have their last words.
He was proven wrong by a sudden rattling. His father pulled in a deeper breath than he had been taking before, eyes slowly opening and turning in his direction. Chris’s heart gave a terrible wrench. Those eyes were so tired. They had given up.