“Doesn’t look like it’s bleeding.”
“But it hurts like hell.”
Bobby stood up. “Oh, does it?” He ignored the flash of heat rising from his stomach. He felt the bugs in him clawing their way up to his chest. The apartment shrunk around him as he walked to Jake and said, “Does that little scratch hurt?”
Jake said, “Never mind.”
“Does it hurt?” Bobby raised his foot and lowered it onto Jake’s side, right over the wound. “Tell me if this hurts.” Bobby stamped down and Jake yelled out.
Bobby said, “Hm. That didn’t seem to hurt enough. It wasn’t like when I was in the fucking garbage can and had fucking bugs crawling into my body. No, you little fucking goddamn son of a bitch.” Bobby stamped on Jake again, then moved back and kicked him hard in the stomach. The sudden jerking twisted something in Bobby’s stomach and he stopped, backing away and holding himself. The pain was too much, and he vomited on the floor. He knelt over, and spewed green bile. Remnants of the bennies, maybe. He spat out the taste and stood back up.
“Fuck, I ought to just kill you now and leave.”
At first he thought Jake was crying, but then saw that he was laughing. Bobby said, “What the fuck?”
Jake raised his head and turned to Rachel. He said, “All things happen through strife and conflict.”
Bobby said, “Hey, asshole. I’m talking to you.”
Jake closed his eyes and rested his head. “Death and life are one.” Bobby wiped his mouth and moved to Rachel. He said, “I wasn’t done with you before.”
Jake opened his eyes. “Stop.”
Bobby said, “Oh, that bother you? What’s the fucking deal here? I thought she was his wife.”
“She is,” Eugene said.
“Share and share alike? What a nice brother you have,” Bobby said to Jake. “Maybe you all can share her with me.”
“Fuck you,” Eugene said. He struggled, and tried to stand. Bobby moved towards him, but hesitated. Instead of kicking him, Bobby picked up a small statuette and swung it at Eugene’s head. It hit above his ear and Eugene fell over. “Doughboy, you’re nothing. You’re a piece of shit to me.”
“Leave him alone,” Jake said. “He’s got nothing to do with this.”
“He’s your brother. He’s got everything to do with this. What a piece of work.” He glanced at Eugene, whose face was scrunched up. “Oh, no. You’re gonna cry? You’re gonna call out for your mommy? Pathetic fat piece of shit.”
Eugene turned his head away.
Bobby laughed and moved back to Rachel. He touched her hair, and she flinched. He ran his fingers down her neck, and brushed across her breasts. She tried to back away, but he just stepped forward.
“I’m warning you,” Jake said.
“You are warning me.” Bobby shook his head. “You’re classic.”
“Leave her alone,” Eugene said.
Rachel gritted her teeth. He touched her breast again, rubbing slowly. He said, “Maybe I take you to the other room.”
She stared straight ahead.
“Or maybe I get a little right now, right here,” Bobby said, moving closer and unzipping his pants. A paper towel with dried blood spots fell out. “I tell you what. You give me a blow job in front of them, and I let you live.” He saw Eugene struggling, breathing hard. He was crying.
Rachel sat up, knelt on one leg. Bobby raised his gun. He said, “And if you don’t, I shoot doughboy.” He pulled out his penis, slowly getting hard. She turned her head. He saw Jake try to roll over. He aimed his gun at Eugene, and looked down at Rachel. “What do you say?”
She closed her eyes, looked down, and shot up on one leg. Her head moved up so fast that Bobby didn’t have time to react, and she head butt him in his chin, knocking his head back and stunning him. He flailed his arms, trying to regain his balance and she butted her head into his chest and he fell back, hearing Jake yell “Get his gun!” and then the brother screamed something and jumped on Bobby.
85
Jake watched his brother rip his hands out of the knots behind his back and lunge for Bobby, his fingers clawed. Rachel fell back, while Jake writhed across the floor towards the gun. He rolled painfully over his bloody side and tried to grab the gun from behind, pulling on the cord that dug into his flesh, his fingers groping. But then he realized that Eugene had body-slammed Bobby and was choking him with both hands, using his weight to keep Bobby down, and ignoring Bobby’s hands as they flailed and tried to punch and scratch Eugene’s arms. Eugene’s face was frenzied, his teeth bared, and he shook Bobby’s head back and forth as he choked him, almost getting kicked off at one point, but then straddling Bobby and slamming his head back into the floor. Eugene was muttering, “Look what you’ve done look what you’ve done look what you’ve done…” as he gripped Bobby’s throat tighter, and Bobby’s arms stopped flailing, and Eugene pushed more of his weight into Bobby neck and shook him back and forth, up and down, slamming him, and saying, “Look what you’ve done look what you’ve done,” and Jake watched, frozen.
86
Bobby was already blinded from the head butt, but now as everything became fainter, as his breathing halted and his body crumpled, he heard the underwater echoes of yells around him, the voices warping. He feebly tried to fight off the hands on his throat. He raked his long fingernails against them, but everything only tightened. He was fading. The sharp pains in his groin and stomach disappeared, all the sensations lapsed except for the distant feeling of descent, and this, too, seemed to edge away as he thought of his jewelry and cash and everything he had worked for that would be gone when he awoke. He would no longer be able to buy a motor home and drive up to Seattle to flaunt it to his mother and tell her, See, I’m not what you think. And then Bobby heard his brother laughing at him, saying, At least I went down fighting. Bobby tried to curse him, the acid burning through his thoughts, and the last thing that flashed through him in the last glimmer of consciousness was an image of Kevin covered with bullet holes and blood with a cat in his arms, and then Bobby died.
87
Jake told his brother to calm down, but Eugene kept slamming Bobby’s head against the floor, Bobby’s limbs dancing and jerking with each crash, until Eugene had no strength left to lift him, and collapsed. Eugene was panting, Bobby lay still. Eugene rolled away, and covered his head with his arms, mumbling to himself. He said in a cracking voice, “Can’t fucking take this.”
Jake saw bloody pieces of hairy scalp on the floor, and pulled himself up, motioning to Rachel to untie him. Rachel stood, staring at Eugene, and backed up towards the dining room table. She picked up Jake’s knife, and crouched next to him. Looking over her shoulder, she carefully cut the wire tying his wrists and ankles together. He took the knife and sliced the rest of their knots free.
They approached Eugene cautiously. Bobby’s neck was purple. His eyes were open, blank. Jake searched for a pulse around Bobby’s crushed throat, and found nothing. His fingers just sank into the soft, collapsed neck. He moved to Eugene, who was still covering his face, and said, “Hey, you okay?” He saw the scratches along Eugene’s arms and hands.
Eugene tried to sit up, but couldn’t. His left eye was now swollen shut. His right eye, a deep scratch directly over it, was bloody. Eugene blinked pink tears. He held his scratched arms up, and said in a broken voice, “Can’t…see.”
“Don’t move,” Jake said. “Let me get something for those cuts.” He limped to the bathroom and grabbed bandages, disinfectant, and cotton balls from the medicine cabinet. He returned and saw Rachel still staring at Bobby. As Jake leaned over his brother, he felt his back and ribs tighten in pain. He stopped. He asked Rachel to help.
They cleaned and bandaged the cut over Eugene’s eye, and helped him sit up against the sofa. He blinked more tears out and looked down at his scratched arms. Eugene looked at Bobby, his expression moving from incomprehension to anger. He watched Jake and Rachel bandage up his arm. Bobby had dug his nails deep into Eugene’
s forearm. Then Rachel put a new bandage on Jake’s side.
She whispered to Jake, “What should we do?”
“Are you okay?”
She nodded.
Jake glanced at Bobby. He needed to check again to make sure he was dead. He said, “We clean up.”
“How?”
“I’ll get rid of him,” Jake said. He saw Eugene turn to them. Jake asked him if he was okay.
Eugene said quietly, “You take care of him, and then you leave.”
“What?” Jake asked, surprised by the clarity of his brother’s voice. “You clean this up, and then you get the fuck out of here.”
“Wait,” Rachel said. “We—”
“You’re leaving me.” Eugene stood. “You’re leaving me and you’re fucking my brother. You’re not allowed to say a word.”
Rachel froze.
“You are, aren’t you,” Eugene said.
Jake tried to move away, but Eugene whirled towards him. “And you. How could I be so stupid? I can’t even begin to…” He shook his head. “I warned you about bringing your shit here. I warned you about involving us. And what do you do? You bring death here.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“And you screw around with my wife? How…why…I don’t understand you.”
Jake couldn’t respond. He felt a pulsing pain in his side.
Eugene said to Rachel, “You take care of this with him. When you get back, I’ll be gone.”
“Where?”
“If you want your divorce, you take care of the paperwork. And you sell this place. I don’t know why I have to do all the goddamn paperwork.”
“Where will you go?” she asked.
“Why’d you do it? Why’d you sleep with him? Didn’t you know that would hurt me?”
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then opened them. “I don’t know.”
“It didn’t have to end like this.”
She said, “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“Don’t tell me what to think.”
Jake said, “Where will you go? Do you need cash?”
Eugene turned to him. “I never want to see you again. Do you understand? I don’t want to hear from you. I want you out of here. Out of my life. That’s it.”
“You can’t mean that—”
“Don’t tell me what I mean.”
“I’m sorry, Eugene. I didn’t know—”
“Sorry?” Eugene said, raising his voice. “You don’t understand. You don’t even know what that means. You have no conscience. You scare me. You can’t tell the difference between right and wrong.”
“Of course I can. Look, I’ll fix everything—”
“No. That’s it.”
“I’ll take care of everything,” Jake said, uneasily. He had never seen his brother like this. “Really.”
Eugene looked sad. “You don’t really care. You don’t really feel. It’s like…it’s like you’re not alive inside.”
Jake shook his head.
“How could you do this to me?” Eugene said. “I looked out for you. I took care of you.”
Jake stared at his brother. “Sometimes you did.” He nodded.
Eugene’s glance went to Jake’s cheek, and Eugene said quietly, “I tried to take care of you. I really did.” Jake said, “I know.”
Eugene turned to Rachel. “I’m taking a cab to the hospital. When I get back I want this thing,” he pointed to Bobby, “out of here. By the time you get back I’ll be gone.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know. I need to start over. I need to start fresh.”
Jake thought of their mother, but didn’t say anything.
Eugene left the apartment. Jake went to Bobby and checked his wrist pulse, then put his ear near Bobby’s mouth, listening for breathing. Nothing. He looked up at Rachel and said, “I’ll need help.”
“What kind?”
“My car is in the garage. I’ll need you to check ahead of me to make sure no one is around while I carry him down there. Then I’ll follow you in your car.”
“To where?”
“Someplace quiet, maybe one of those long highways near the coast.”
Rachel stared at the door.
“Can you help me?” Jake asked.
“I can help you,” she whispered.
88
Jake drove his Honda down 19th Avenue, following Rachel. Bobby’s body was in the trunk. She led Jake onto Highway One along the Pacific, and he followed her down the coast, heading towards Half Moon Bay. He drove for long stretches of empty highway, with only the ocean to his right and rolling hills covered with brush to his left. The bleeding in his side had stopped, the pain a low, steady throb that spread through his midsection. He’d have to see a doctor, but not until all this was finished.
Before leaving the apartment he had stacked all the cash from the Lomax job on the dining room table for Eugene. Fifteen grand with a note: “Sorry. This is for you.” Jake had already decided what he would do. After they finished with Bobby, he would give Rachel the Seattle stash, including the twenty grand, and Jake would take the Lomax jewelry up north. It would be too hot around here. He’d sell off the Lomax jewelry slowly.
Jake secretly hoped Eugene would continue his search for their mother. He knew that this time if his brother went looking, he would find her. This time his brother would be determined and focused and methodical, and would move steadily, and plot his steps as a technician. And their mother would be alive. Oh, certainly she was a survivor, just like they were, and she would have lived a quiet, solitary life somewhere with only the vaguest memories of her former self. Jake knew that this time all Eugene’s questions would be answered, and maybe in a few years Jake would hear from him, and Eugene would tell Jake all about this first meeting, with the tentative and cautious pleasantries, the circling, the words masking the fear and urgency beneath both of their fake smiles. Jake knew for certain that Eugene would not stop until he found her, and then would not stop until he learned what he needed to learn, until those puzzles that shaded their lives were solved, or, if not solved, at the very least acknowledged. What would they say? What would she look like?
Jake had never seen his brother so angry, and he tried not to think about it. Eugene couldn’t have meant what he said. How could you never see your brother again? They were family. Jake wasn’t sure what he’d do. Lie low. Maybe he would move to the mountains and live off grasses and plants.
Jake pressed his hand over his heart and felt it beating. He heard his brother’s bitter words. Jake shook his head; he wasn’t like that. He knew right from wrong. He had a conscience. He wasn’t dead.
His side throbbed. He pulled up his shirt. The bandage, brown with dried blood, was holding. Zombies don’t bleed. Zombies don’t feel pain.
As he passed Moss Beach and El Granada, the sky glowing with the impending dawn, he saw a small shoulder with a dirt road leading into the brush. He honked at Rachel and pulled off the highway. He drove slowly along the dusty road until they were a few hundred feet from the entrance. He wanted to be sure they were far enough in, and then he parked. Rachel pulled up behind him. She stayed in the car.
In the trunk Bobby was rolled into a rug, and Jake dragged him out, ignoring the pain in his side, and set him down next to the driver’s side. Jake unrolled him, then hoisted him into the car, shoving him over the gear shift. Rigor mortis was setting in, and Bobby was half standing. Jake folded up the rug and threw it in the back seat. He unrolled the windows, and unscrewed the gas tank cap. He walked towards Rachel’s car and motioned for her to pop the trunk. She did.
He pulled out the one-gallon gas can that Rachel had filled before they had left. He walked back to his car, poured the extra gas throughout the interior, soaking Bobby, and making sure there was a heavy dose of gas on the exterior leading to the gas tank opening. He threw the gas can into the front seat, next to Bobby.
He motioned for Rachel to turn the car around. She did.
He opened her passenger door and said, “When I get in, we head home. Drive normally.”
She nodded.
He walked back to his Honda, lit a book of matches and threw it into the back seat. The upholstery flared up, and he walked quickly to Rachel’s car and climbed in, and she drove off.
He glanced back and saw the flames leaping up, soot blackening the rear windshield. He thought he saw Bobby’s hair on fire, and for a moment it seemed as if Bobby was shaking his head, writhing in pain. He blinked and the image disappeared. He turned around and settled in for the long ride back. His fingers smelled of gasoline. The world is fire.
89
Late, late night. His brother had fallen asleep at the foot of the steps. Jake’s father was in the living room upstairs, mumbling to himself, arguing in Korean, descending into a drunken haze. Jake had stopped shaking, and touched his face lightly. He checked the dressing his brother had applied over his cut cheek, a mix of butterfly bandages and gauze, studying the contours of rising bruises. After Jake had cut himself, his father had ordered Eugene to clean the wound and then sent them downstairs.
Jake noticed movement in the corner of the basement, something rippling in the darkness. He heard his brother grinding his teeth.
He focused and thought he saw a goblin hurrying by. His brother groaned in his sleep.
Jake kept still, hugging his legs and listening to the click of the furnace, the sign of the flame kicking in. His skin prickled with anticipation.
Jake couldn’t believe his own actions. He had taunted his father. Speak English! Speak English! And he had seen the purplish veins popping out on his father’s forehead, knowing what was going to happen, and yet Jake hadn’t been able to stop himself. The first backhand sent Jake flying across the kitchen floor, and after a stunned moment, Jake pulled himself up unsteadily, and said in a tight voice, You can’t do that to me! Then, Jake wasn’t sure what happened. He started charging his father again and again, only to be swatted away and then pummelled and kicked. He couldn’t get up from the quick kicks and yelled for his brother’s help, but Eugene stood motionless, staring. Help me, Jake yelled again, but his father pointed his finger at Eugene and said something in Korean, and Eugene shook his head and cried, his arms at his side. Speak English, Jake yelled, and felt that last blow to his chest turn everything off, and rolled away and grabbed the knife from the counter. His father crouched down, arms ready, and Jake dove at him, knife poised, but his father moved quickly, effortlessly, and the next thing Jake knew he was suddenly on the floor, his face bleeding, the wind knocked out of him. He couldn’t remember how he had arrived there. He wasn’t even sure where the knife had come from. It had appeared in his hand.
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