by John Rector
Peter nodded, and even in the dark, his eyes looked wide and scattered, almost glowing on their own.
I waited until he was out of the room, then I went into the kitchen and leaned over the sink. The room spun around me, and I could taste a bitter mix of beer and blood in the back of my throat. I closed my eyes and waited to throw up, but it never happened. Instead, all I saw was the man’s face after I’d pulled Peter away from him.
What was left of it.
I heard the water come on in the bathroom, followed by the loud clatter of the bat dropping into the tub. That was all it took. I turned on the faucet and leaned over the sink. This time, everything came up, and for a while, I thought it would never stop.
But eventually it did.
I washed my face and rinsed out the sink. I let the disposal run for a minute before shutting everything off. Then I sat at the kitchen table with my head in my hands.
The next time I looked up, Peter was standing in the doorway, watching me. He was wearing only boxers.
“Where are your clothes?”
“In the tub with the bat.” He hesitated. “There was a lot of blood.”
I nodded and sat back in the chair.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
I told him I didn’t know.
“We’re going to jail.”
“It was self-defense,” I said. “We won’t go to jail.”
Peter stared at me. “Self-defense?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t think it’ll look like self-defense. I lost it out there, Evan. I couldn’t stop.”
He was right, and I knew it.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when we talked to the police. All we could do was to tell them what’d happened, step by step, and hope for the best. It was self-defense, at least at first. After that, it became something else.
Something ugly.
I tried to remember everything that’d happened, starting with where we first saw the man in the khaki jacket, when we noticed him following us, and where we were attacked. I wanted all the details set in my mind before I made the call, but my thoughts were thick and jumbled and nothing seemed to make sense.
I figured we’d be OK as long as we told the truth, but part of me knew better. Even if the cops agreed that it was self-defense, the brutal beating of a homeless man was going to make the news, and our names would be all over it.
Both our names.
I thought about Veronica and what she’d say. I knew she would stand by me, but I wasn’t sure about her family. Future son-in-law or not, that kind of publicity was the last thing they’d want, especially when it was focused on the man engaged to their daughter.
Thinking about it made my chest ache. My heart was pounding so hard against my bruised ribs that I could feel it in my throat. I tried to force myself to calm down, but it was a struggle, and I was losing.
“What are we going to do?” Peter was still in the doorway. “He’s lying out there in the middle of the sidewalk. Someone’s going to see him.”
“Who?” I asked. “There’s nobody else around for two miles in any direction.”
“We still have to do something.”
“I know,” I said. “Just let me think.”
Peter turned and paced the living room, mumbling to himself. I blocked him out and tried to think of something, anything I could tell the police that wouldn’t end up with our names splashed all over the news.
With Peter gone, it was easier to think.
I got up, stood at the window, and looked out over the street below. Everything was deserted, quiet. All that moved was the wind and the lost things it carried.
A few minutes later, Peter came into the kitchen. He went straight for the phone and started dialing.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting it over with,” he said. “If we don’t call now, it’s going to look like we have something to hide.”
“Hang up.”
Peter frowned. “What?”
I didn’t tell him again. Instead, I grabbed the phone away from him and hung it up myself.
“What are you doing?”
“Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way.”
“No, the longer we wait—”
“The longer we wait, what?” I asked. “What’ll happen?”
Peter stared at me, silent.
“Let’s play it out. If we did nothing, told no one, what’ll happen?”
“Someone will find him out there.”
“But probably not until tomorrow when the warehouses open,” I said. “Then what?”
“The police will come.”
I nodded. “They’ll file a report.”
“They’ll investigate, find evidence, hair and fiber, DNA, and all the rest.”
I shook my head. I was starting to see. “I don’t think they will.”
“You don’t think they’ll investigate?”
“They’ll investigate,” I said. “But those tests cost money, and that’s something the city doesn’t have these days.”
Peter looked at me. He wasn’t convinced.
“Think about it,” I said. “Why would they run a bunch of expensive tests when they can take one look and know exactly what happened?”
“How?”
“It was a street fight,” I said. “A couple of drunks had an argument and one of them lost. It’s open and shut.”
“You don’t know that, not for sure.”
“What’s more likely? They break open their budget to run pricey tests, or they make a quick decision based on what they see and move on?”
Peter looked away, didn’t answer.
“The city is broke. It’s why half those guys are out there in the first place. A month ago they were locked up down at Rain Tree, but after the budget cuts, where do you think they went?” I pointed to the window. “They’re all out there, and everyone knows bad things happen out there.”
“So, you don’t want to do anything?”
“It’s an option.”
“It’s risky.”
“If we call the police, even if they believe us, it’ll still be on the news. I’ll lose my job, maybe Veronica too. I don’t know.”
Peter turned toward the window, silent.
“And you—”
“Those records are sealed.” Peter looked at me. “They can’t pull any of that shit.”
I held up my hands, stopping him. “You’re probably right, but what about the grant? If we come forward, you’ll never see that money, not after this.” I paused. “I think this is the best choice, for both of us.”
Peter stared at me for a moment, then turned and walked out to the living room and sat on the couch.
I followed.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Peter leaned forward and thumbed through the ashtray on the coffee table. He found a half-smoked cigarette, blew the ashes off the filter, then put it to his lips. “We’ll have to be careful.”
“I know.”
Peter lit the cigarette, and I noticed his hand was shaking. He inhaled deeply, and when he spoke next, the smoke chopped out from between his lips in short bursts. “What about the other guy? The one you chased away?”
“He won’t say anything.”
“Are you sure?”
“He doesn’t have anything to gain,” I said. “They attacked us. He won’t go to the police.”
“I hope you’re right.”
I told him I was right.
Peter nodded, slowly, and took another drag off his cigarette. He didn’t say anything else, just sat and smoked and stared out at nothing.
And just like that, it was decided.
MY old bedroom was at the end of the hallway. I went in and started searching through all the boxes I’d left behind. Most of the stuff was junk, things I’d collected over the years that didn’t have a place in the new house with Veronica. I’d kept them in storage because I wasn’t quite ready to throw them out
, and now I was happy I had.
I found the box I was looking for. It was labeled “cleaning supplies.” I opened it and took a bottle of bleach from inside and carried it back to the bathroom, then stood over the bathtub. I looked down at the clothes and the bloody bat for a long time. Then I took a rag from above the sink and got to work.
I scrubbed the bat from one end to the other with the bleach before pouring the entire bottle into the tub and letting the clothes soak. After a while, the fumes started to burn my eyes, so I got up and walked out to the living room.
Peter was just coming in.
“I think we’re good,” he said. “I went downstairs and wiped the front door, just in case.”
“What about in here? Did you touch anything?”
He shook his head. “Everything’s clean.”
I looked around, nodded.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked. “No going back.”
Peter had put on a faded Ramones T-shirt spotted with cigarette burns.
“Are you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be the hero who fought off two attackers. I’m the one who—”
I held up my hands. “That doesn’t matter.”
He looked at me for a moment, then turned away. I could tell he wanted to say something else, but whatever it was, he kept it to himself. I was glad too. I didn’t want to hear anything else. All I wanted was to go home.
“Don’t worry about any of this,” I said. “I don’t think the cops will be around long, but if they are, and if they talk to you, just stick to the story. We walked home, and we didn’t see anything.”
Peter nodded. “I know.”
“Give them my name if they ask. I’ll tell them the same thing.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “We’ve got this one covered.”
“OK,” he said. “I believe you.”
“Good.” I let my hand drop, and I pointed to the kitchen. “You got trash bags?”
“You know where they are,” he said. “Why?”
“We’ve got to get rid of those clothes.”
I left Peter’s place a couple of hours before sunrise, driving through the city toward the highway and the long, straight road leading into the hills.
After a few miles, I pulled off the highway and crossed into a quiet neighborhood tucked in under a canopy of trees. The roads here were wide and lined with low shops and vintage streetlights. The houses were dark, and the only sound was the steady buzz of my tires on the pavement.
I found a public park on the edge of town. There was a playground, a boat pond, and a brick gazebo in the center.
Behind the gazebo, a Dumpster.
I pulled in, shut off the engine, and then I got out and walked around back to the trunk. I took the bat and the garbage bag with Peter’s clothes inside and carried them across the playground toward the gazebo and the Dumpster.
There was a stretch of oak trees along the edge of the park, and the wind passing through the leaves sounded soft, almost secretive, like a whisper.
The farther I went, the harder it was to shake the feeling I was being watched. I glanced around at the houses surrounding the park, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine someone watching from inside any one of them.
I shook the thought away.
I told myself I was just being jumpy, and considering what’d happened that night, I believed it.
When I got to the gazebo, I walked around back. There was a single white light shining bright above the Dumpster, and as I got closer, I noticed the locking bar across the lid and felt my heart drop in my chest.
I pulled the lock, but it didn’t move.
I stayed there for a minute, under the bright light, and tried to think about my next move. I had to get rid of the bat and the clothes, that’d been my job, but I didn’t want to drive around looking for an open Dumpster either.
There had to be another way.
Then I saw it.
I moved out from under the gazebo and headed toward the pond. I stood at the edge, next to a low flowing willow tree, and stared out at the black water. I thought it might be three or four feet deep in the middle.
Deep enough.
I turned this new plan over in my mind and looked for a reason why it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t think of one.
I knelt down and opened the bag with Peter’s clothes inside. Then I stepped back and searched the ground for rocks. I found several. I dropped them in the bag and tied the ends tight, and then I picked it up and swung it out as far out as I could.
The bag hit the water fifteen feet from shore and sunk fast. The sound of the splash was loud and it echoed all around me. I stood as still as I could and looked around at the houses for any signs of life.
All quiet.
I reached down and picked up the bat, and once again, the image of Peter standing over the man in the torn blue coat came back to me with force. The image was so strong that for a moment I couldn’t breathe.
Without thinking, I flung the bat into the pond, watching it helicopter in the air before falling fast and disappearing under the water.
“It’s done.”
The sound of my voice surprised me. I don’t usually talk to myself, but this time it made sense, like a prayer at a gravesite, a letting go. And wasn’t that what tonight was supposed to be about?
Letting go of an old life.
I thought about Peter, and for the first time I really understood this was the end. I thought we’d always be friends, but from now on it would be different.
I don’t know how long I stayed there, staring out at that dark water, but after a while the wind picked up, and this time it was more than a whisper.
It was time to go.
I turned and crossed through the park toward my car, and I never looked back.
I pulled into my driveway and shut off the engine. I didn’t want to move, so I stayed in my car for a while and stared up at our bedroom windows reflecting the yellow of the streetlights.
When I felt ready, I got out, crossed the lawn to the front door, and went inside. There were no lights on, and I moved carefully toward the stairs and our bedroom.
Veronica was asleep, the covers pulled up to her chin. I undressed as silently as I could, then climbed into bed next to her and draped my arm over her hip.
She stirred, half turned to face me.
“Hey, you.”
I kissed the side of her head. “Sorry to wake you.”
“Did you have a good time?”
“Sure,” I said. “I guess.”
“You guess?”
“You know how it is. You can never go back.”
Veronica moaned and pushed back, curling into me. “Thank God for that.”
I kissed her again, then rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling and the jagged shadows thrown in from the streetlight and the branches of the ash tree outside. I tried to close my eyes, but every time I did, I didn’t like what I saw.
It was a long time before I slept.
“COME on, get up. We’re wasting the day.”
I opened my eyes just enough to see Veronica standing in the doorway, fully dressed. “What time is it?”
“Late,” she said. “I told you I have to pick up the invitations for Wendy’s shower today, so come on.”
“Ugh.” I rolled over. “Go without me.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun.”
I didn’t say anything, and I could feel her standing in the doorway, staring. A moment later, I felt her hand on my back, pushing.
“This is what happens,” she said. “You go out with Peter, you drink way too much, and you end up sleeping all day.”
“So what?”
“So, I’m not going to let you this time. We had plans, and you agreed to come along, so get up.”
She pushed again, harder this time, then walked out.
I stayed in bed a few more minutes. Then I slid out from under the covers and sat up. My head felt too
tight, and I leaned forward, elbows on knees, and waited to see if it would pass.
It didn’t.
A minute later, Veronica came back into the room carrying a glass of water and two white pills I recognized immediately.
“Thank you.” I took the pills, finished the water. “That was exactly what I needed.”
“Good,” she said. “Now if we hurry, I bet we can get done before lunch. We can try that new place on Sixteenth.”
I nodded, stretched back. “Sure.”
“I’ve heard good things—”
Veronica stopped talking and inhaled, sharp. She walked around the bed and stood in front of me.
“What the hell happened to you?”
At first, I didn’t know what she was talking about, then I looked down and saw the heavy purple bruise running along the side of my chest and spreading out under my arm.
I stood up and looked in the mirror over the dresser.
“Jesus, Evan.” Veronica reached out and touched the bruise, soft. “This is terrible.”
I was still half-asleep, but the look in her eyes changed that. Everything that’d happened the night before came back all at once, one image after another.
“Evan, say something. This looks awful.”
“I know.”
“What happened?”
I hesitated, trying to think of something. “It’s stupid, don’t worry about it. I’m fine, really.”
“Oh no.” Veronica shook her head. “Don’t you dare pull that shit. Tell me what happened to you.”
“The fire escape.”
“The what?”
“It’s really dumb,” I said. “Pete and I were drinking outside on the fire escape. I got up to go inside, and I slipped, landed on the railing.”
“You might have broken your ribs.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “It knocked the wind out of me, but I’m fine. Nothing broken.”
“Can you breathe?”
“I’m talking, right?”
Normally a comment like that would’ve started a fight, but not this time. She was too focused on the bruise, and I wasn’t sure she’d heard me at all.
“You should see a doctor. Get it checked out.”