by Jay Nichols
* * *
Russell listened to the Jeep growl up a parallel street. It could have been Maple or it could have been Hibiscus. He couldn’t tell with the windows rolled up, but he knew what the driver was up to. It was evident by the way he pushed the engine—made it roar—that he had blood on his mind—Mike’s blood—and was burning for a taste of it tonight.
Russell’s job was to deny him of that feast. Mike didn’t kill Hector’s dog, so why should he get hurt—perhaps killed—over something he didn’t do? The voice in Russell’s head may hold doubts about Hector’s ruthlessness. Russell, on the other hand, held none.
So when the Jeep’s tires shrieked to a stop at the dead end of either Hibiscus or Maple, Russell flipped the truck’s headlights on. The extra bright halogens lit up the narrow street, turning night into dawn. As the patch of light from the Wrangler’s headlights began to creep up the intersection, Russell poised his hand over the button. The moment the squat, red vehicle turned, Russell switched to the brights and dawn became early afternoon.
Take that, asshole.
Inside the Jeep, Hector raised his forearm over his eyes. Ten seconds later, the vehicle was gone, with only the attenuating rumble of the engine to remind Russell that it had been there at all.
I bet he’s cussing up a storm right now.
Russell settled in to wait for Hector’s return. He’d be back sooner or later, most likely with whisky on his breath and eighty-proof courage coursing through his veins. Next time the asshole would pick a fight for sure. And he wouldn’t care whose blood he spilled, be it Russell’s or O’Brien’s, just as long as his beefy fists were slick with it by the end of the pummeling. Hector was way beyond dangerous; he was way past volatile. He was…
Russell didn’t want to think about what Hector really was. He shunned the image glaring in his mind, turned away from it like he would a double leg amputee. He diverted his attention instead to the reedy chirps of the thousands upon thousands of crickets in the hundreds upon hundreds of lawns. Where did they all come from? his detached mind wondered. And where will their songs go in the morning?
He couldn’t help it: his mind found its way back to Hector and the way he had fake-cried at the foot of Michelle’s street. Russell knew now that the fat tub of lard had been faking it. In hindsight it was obvious. Because people like Hector never change, nor do they cry, because people like Hector are…
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. That’s from the Bible, and it’s the only verse I know by heart. Probably because it’s about dogs. I remember hearing it from that screaming, radio preacher guy who’s always shouting JEEESUS!! from his little one-room broadcast shack in the middle of Bumfuck, Alabama. Population 1. Usually his ramblings are good for a laugh when I’m in the mood for one, which isn’t often these days. But when I heard him say that line about dogs about a year ago, it stuck with me; it resonated. I have no idea what book it’s from, whether it’s from the New Testament or Old, and I truly don’t care. But if that verse doesn’t describe Hector Graham to a T, then nothing does. Because people like Hector are…
…not people at all. They never evolve. They never change. They’re eternally doomed to returning to their vomit puddles over and over again. They refuse to move on to greener pastures, more fragrant bouquets. They prefer the tried and true in life, and the world they see around them isn’t beautiful, because the world they see is a fetid pool of their own sick.
Fuck you, Hector.
Russell peered at O’Brien’s pitiful excuse of a house. At night, with all the lights off, the structure took on an ominous feel, almost as if its occupants had abandoned it years ago, leaving it to rot from the inside out and slowly cave in like a decomposing pumpkin. The way the old oak tree’s branches swept up and over the roof reminded Russell of fingers curled over the edge of a table. The only way he could look at the structure for any measurable length of time was by reminding himself that somewhere inside Mike O’Brien lay sleeping on a sheetless mattress with Huey wrapped in his sweat-slick arms. He saw it in his mind, and somehow that made the wait bearable.
"Why did you rat me out, Mike?" Russell asked the green, glowing dashboard. "Why did you force me to turn him on you?"
To this, the dashboard gave no answer. He wished he had Apollo beside him. At least Apollo looked at him when he spoke. The dashboard, the dark house, the barren street: they were all cold, sterile things, slapped together by uncaring souls whose only motivation had been avarice and the destruction of all things natural and beautiful. They couldn’t offer him solace. They didn’t love him like Apollo did.
[Apollo doesn’t love you. He can’t. He’s a dog. He can only obey orders. If he licks your hand, it just means he wants something from you.]
I told you to shut up and go away!
Russell prepared for a fight. He cued the music in his head and waited, but the voice didn’t return.
That’s right, he warned. You better do as I say.
And the street remained empty, and the house dark, and the dashboard green. Patiently, expectantly, Russell waited for Hector to come roaring back, because, as he knew, the dog always returns to his vomit, and the fool always returns to his folly. Russell was neither a dog nor a fool, but rather an artist, a miscast star shot far from its celestial home only to wind up in a world full of canids and idiots.
And to be neither was to be in hell.
To be alone—so inexorably alone—was the price he had to pay for this awareness.
But there was nothing he could do about that now.
So Russell waited.
Alone.