“I guess you must have been disappointed.”
“I guess I must have been.”
I didn’t have anything else, it had been years since I had thought about never seeing him again. He was a story I told when I had too much to drink or when one of the kids would get hurt and I just couldn’t keep from spilling over the side. Ten years ago I might have had something, maybe twelve.
“That it?”
I took a long pull from my beer, the foam came up the neck and pooled around the coaster. I didn’t even have a nod in me. I just looked at him, turning my neck between hunched shoulders.
“How about’how’d you get out,Jake?’”
“How’d you get out Jake” my voice was flat against my tongue.
“I didn’t. “
I waited. It’s the kind of thing a guy says to spook you. I mean any guy, not someone you know. Knew.
“Cops pulled me out of that wreck. DA stacked reckless endangerment, grand theft, manslaughter 1, manslaughter 2, parking the flaming husk of a girlfriend in a tow away zone, no left turn signal in ---“
“Stop.”
“… Yeah, Where’ve you been?”
“Right here.”
“ I had an axe murderer as a bunk mate for three years, three years in the middle, he got paroled.”
“What the fuck do you want Jake? I’ve been right here.” I couldn’t get the flat out of my mouth.
He took the bar in, I followed his eyes tacking his keel across the pool table, the beer light, the couple making out by the jukebox. I actually said to myself ‘man, you should be scared’ but the flat was spreading over me like a blanket. I saw all the people and things that were only going to mind their own business even harder when the ashes blew.
“I want everything.”
The flames rose.
Loading comments...