by Jay Nichols
* * *
"One quick look. Then I’m gone."
Russell sat up taller and drew a deep breath. He had no idea why he was sweating so profusely. Since he had no intention of leaving the truck, what did he have to be afraid of? Hector shooting a bottle rocket at him from his living room window?
He would do that, he thought. He’d get a kick out of it.
Or Hector getting in his Jeep and chasing him down?
He’d do that, too…if he’s drunk enough.
All of a sudden Russell wanted to turn around and go back to O’Brien’s house and wait for Hector there. He didn’t think the kid had given up on Mike quite yet—not if he was still riled up, like he’d been three hours ago. When he was in that state, Hector wasn’t even Hector anymore; he was the other thing.
Bearing down on Pritchard Street, Russell sensed the familiar tendrils of dread slipping around his belly. The sensation reminded him of pre-performance jitters, which he actually preferred over the God-awful dizziness that had swept over his body five minutes earlier. That vertigo—that atrocious sinking spiraling feeling—had sown seeds of doubt in his mind, making him question his handle on what was real and what he thought should be real. The butterflies in his stomach, however, were at least things he could quell if he chose to do so. But tonight, he’d allow them to stay. He relished those fluttering wings tickling his ribs like angel fingers. He permitted them to spark his nerves and clear his groggy mind, because there was a performance coming soon, whether he wanted one or not, and he had to be on top of his game like he had never been before.
He sucked in another long breath and let it slowly seep out his nose. He then turned onto Pritchard Street and headed for the one place he didn’t want to go but had to see nonetheless.
The road before him was lit even worse than Peach Street. He slowed the truck to a crawl. It didn’t help that every window was pitch black, the people behind them asleep and worry free, dead to the balmy summer night.
"Okay, Hector. Where are you?"
The truck idled over gloomy, potholed asphalt. Russell squinted at the photo-negative façades to his left, trying to make out the addresses painted above their doors. "You’re up here somewhere, tubby."
Then he saw it. About a hundred feet ahead. It was the only house with lights still on inside. As he drew closer, he spotted Debbie’s Monte Carlo under the carport. In front of the house, on the street, was a silver Camry with dealer’s plates. Russell parked in front of the Camry and looked at the house again.
She has a friend over. Good. That way, when Hector comes back, she won’t be stuck alone with him.
And speaking of Hector…
"He’s still out," Russell said. His mind filled with images of Mike’s broken and bloodied head cradled in Hector’s enormous paw. Too clearly he saw Hector pummeling away at Mike in the moonshade of the old oak, then leaving his twisted, mangled body on the ground to collect morning dew.
I told him to stay inside. If he ignores me, it’s his own damn fault.
Russell killed the engine and got out. The crickets sang their reedy, nocturnal songs as he made his way to the front door. He tried working out the words he wanted to say in his head, but how do you explain to someone’s mother that her child is evil? How do you even begin that conversation?
He wished he had a plan, and as he climbed the steps to the porch, he also fought the urge to turn and run to the safety of his truck and drive back to his fortress of a house. What was he doing out here anyway? This wasn’t his place. His place was on Deer Street, upstairs in his room with Apollo, playing guitar. But there was something inexplicable driving him, a beckoning desire to see Debbie and hear her charming Southern accent. Most of all, he needed to make sure she was still alive, because if Hector could kill O’Brien…
Hector’s not going to kill Mike. He’s passed out in his Jeep somewhere.
…then he might have the temerity—or the pure gall—to kill his mother, too, or at the very least injure her severely.
Standing on the small stoop, Russell pressed his hand flat against the door like he had at O’Brien’s house, but this time he paused before knocking and listened.
Inside, the old Steinway and Son’s baby grand babbled hurriedly: clashing, dissonant notes in the lower register, glimpses of itinerant, halting climbs in the upper.
Russell winced. "You suck, Debbie."
Without thinking, he turned and hopped down the narrow steps, walked around the side of the house, past the kitchen window and carport, through the short aluminum gate, which was wide open, and up the steps to the back porch. The piano rang clearer now, but the noise coming out of it was beyond atrocious. The sounds were so exceedingly random, it was almost as if the player thought the instrument was a pair of bongos instead of a piano.
Russell assumed it was a kid. After all, Debbie had a guest over, and if that guest had brought along a son or daughter, then the noise would make sense. But—Russell checked his watch—at this hour? Twelve-fifty in the morning was pushing the bounds of a social visit.
He approached the window, keeping close to the house. The blinds were drawn, so he knelt down in order to peek through the gap between the bottom of the window and the sill. The outward rush of refrigerated air instantly dried his eyes, forcing him to shut them and turn away, but not before catching with his nose a whiff of something sweet.
Is that pie?
The luscious fragrance, suffused with the grating piano, made Russell want to scream out for one of them to stop. Each was the antithesis of the other, but instead of cancelling each other out, they just confounded the brain, making his head ache and his senses throb.
They shouldn’t exist together.
He blinked and went in for another look. This time, he would keep his eyes open long enough to see the person butchering the very essence of music with his or her stupid, lazy fingers.
How can she stand it, Russell wondered, thinking of Debbie. It sounds so grotesque.
From his angle, all he could see were the brown curves of the piano’s casing. He tried angling his head to catch the kid’s legs dangling below the bench, but he couldn’t do that either.
He was about to give up and go knock on the back door when an idea struck him. It was more impulse than idea. He grabbed the bottom of the window and slowly moved it skyward. He then inserted the first two fingers of his right hand between the blind slats and scissored them open.
Above the instrument’s mahogany back piece, the crown of a filthy blonde head bobbed to a beat that didn’t exist. Like a tiger flailing against its cage, disharmonious staccato chords punched the walls of the tiny room. The dirty head darted from side to side while hidden fingers executed long glissandos back and forth across the keyboard.
Russell watched in abject horror as it dawned on him whose head floated atop that piano and whose fingers clumsily attacked her antique, ivory keys.
"Mike, what the hell—"
O’Brien’s head jerked and the piano fell silent. He stood and ran out of the room, leaving Russell more flabbergasted than he had been before opening the window.
How did he get here so fast? He was just at his house.
Russell pushed the blinds out of the way and stuck his head inside the house. "Hello? Debbie?"
When he didn’t get a response, he lifted the window until it wouldn’t go any higher and crawled into the room. He rounded the baby grand, looking down at her keys as he passed by. Dark blue smears stained the length of the scale, making him think that maybe it had been a kid after all, and not Mike, who had been playing the piano—a kid who had forgotten to wash his hands after finger painting and had accidentally defiled a priceless instrument.
But he knew what his eyes had seen, and he knew that there had been nothing accidental about it. Mike had known exactly what he was doing when he chose to sully the keyboard.
You idiot, Mike.
"Debbie? Can you hear me? It’s Rusty. I need to talk to you."
/> No answer as he stepped into the dark hallway. To his right lay the bedrooms and bathroom; to his left the living room and, beyond that, the kitchen.
If not for the light spilling from the kitchen entryway, and to a lesser extent from the piano room behind him, Russell would not have known in which direction to head. As he walked toward the source of the illumination, a shadow moved lithely across the kitchen floor. He pegged it as Mike’s right away, because had it been Debbie’s, there would have been a long, ebony cascade pouring from the shadow’s head, instead of a round, shaggy, black corona.
Russell’s knee collided with a small end table supporting a bulbous, onion-shaped lamp. Reaching up the lamp’s shade, steadying it from wobbling, he turned it on. A dull, yellow glow filled the living room. Immediately he spotted the squat, pudgy animal laying stomach-down underneath a similar table in the room’s opposite corner. The creature wheezed softly, its sides expanding and contracting double-time, its head crammed in the dark corner as if ashamed of dying. Russell identified the animal by its stubby tail, because he knew the dog the tail was attached to almost as well as he knew the caster of the shadow in the kitchen.
"Mike, get out here. I need to talk to you, too."
The soft smooching sound of the refrigerator door opening filled the quiet house. Huey heaved a violent gulp of air, and the refrigerator door slammed shut. The shadow stood still.
Russell quickened his pace. "Goddamnit, Mike—"
He entered the kitchen, where he looked upon Mike O’Brien for the first time in weeks.
Russell refused to allow his jaw to drop, even as his feet melded with the floor, anchoring him in place. Nor would he avert his gaze, no matter how much difficulty he was having just looking at the vile chimera before him.
Because Russell had to see.
And as he soaked in what Mike had become, the first of the broken pieces began falling into place. This was the start of the performance he had been preparing his whole life for, the only performance that mattered. He didn’t know what the first note would be. All he knew was that he had to listen and react when the time was right.
That’s all I know. Think from the heart, act from the gut.
Russell crossed his arms in front of his chest while a preternatural calm fell over his body. A twinge of fear still buzzed somewhere inside of him, but he suppressed it and said:
"Get that thing out of my face."
With deep-set eyes, Mike stared at Russell. After thirty seconds of silence, he said simply, "No."
Russell sighed, growing bolder with each passing second. His feet gradually began loosening their holds on the floor. Now his skin was accreting, adding a second layer of armor over his vulnerable dermis. He sensed the change and welcomed the comfort and protection that it brought.
"You idiot," Russell said, swatting at the object in Mike’s hands. "I said get that thing out of my face! Where’s Debbie?"
"I hate you, Rusty."
"I’m not scared, Mike. You don’t even know what you’re doing."
"Yes I do. I know lots of things you don’t."
"Really? Like what?"
Mike barely moved his mouth when he spoke. "I know that you’re going to die tonight."
Russell retreated inwards and let the threat bounce off him. He could easily evade O’Brien’s jabs, but Mike was no match for his. He had neither the vocal acuity, nor the wit, to subjugate Russell.
Try this out, you son of a bitch:
"That’s fine with me. Me and Huey can die together."
"WHAT?!"
"You heard me. Huey’s going to die soon. Are you really that stupid, Mike? What have I always told you about bulldogs? The heat gets to them. They’re not built for it. You killed him. He might not be dead now, but when he does die, it’s going to be your fault."
"YOU’RE A DIRTY LIAR!!!!!!"
"Just wait."
"I HATE YOU!!"
"I know."
"Get in the living room. NOW!"
Russell did just that. He had little choice.
But as he turned to walk, he grew more brazen. "I got your letter, you little shit. It was hilarious. Me and Hector had a big laugh over it."
A sharp point dug into Russell’s back, quieting him.
"Ha-ha, you’re so funny," Mike said dryly.
In the living room, Russell plopped down on the sofa and turned on the nearby lamp. Mike walked around the coffee table, pivoted, and gazed at Russell. Russell stared blankly back at his former friend (no, he was never even that). What Russell knew—and Mike didn’t—was that it was the silence between the notes where the music was made. If he had to, he’d wait an eternity for Mike to talk. He’d gladly turn to dust before breaking the silence.
Red blotches began blooming on Mike’s dirty cheeks; his brow furrowed. Russell glanced over the arm of the couch at Huey’s butt poking out underneath the end table. When he looked back up, he curled the corners of his mouth into the snidest smirk he knew how to make. Grabbing a magazine from the stack on the coffee table, he licked the tips of his thumb and forefinger and began flipping through the pages.
"I hate you so much," Mike said finally, breaking the standoff that only he had chosen to be part of. "You’re the biggest meanie I know."
Russell smiled at the grade school insult and continued thumbing through the magazine.
He’s no match for me. This will be too easy.