They waited. Five minutes passed, though it seemed like an hour.
“You think he’s dead?” Ricky whispered, his voice dry and weak.
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly, the door opened, and the man stepped out. He was crying and mumbling, and he staggered to the rear of the car, where he saw the hose in the grass, and cursed it as he shoved it back into the tail pipe. He held a bottle of whiskey and looked around wildly at the trees, then stumbled back into the car. He mumbled to himself as he slammed the door.
The boys watched in horror.
“He’s crazy as hell,” Mark said faintly.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ricky said.
“We can’t! If he kills himself, and we saw it or knew about it, then we could get in all kinds of trouble.”
Ricky raised his head as if to retreat. “Then we won’t tell anybody. Come on, Mark!”
Mark grabbed his shoulder again and forced him to the ground. “Just stay down! We’re not leaving until I say we’re leaving!”
Ricky closed his eyes tightly and started crying. Mark shook his head in disgust but didn’t take his eyes off the car. Little brothers were more trouble than they were worth. “Stop it,” he growled through clenched teeth.
“I’m scared.”
“Fine. Just don’t move, okay. Do you hear me? Don’t move. And stop the crying.” Mark was back on his elbows, deep in the weeds and preparing to ease through the tall grass once more.
“Just let him die, Mark,” Ricky whispered between sobs.
Mark glared at him over his shoulder and eased toward the car, which was still running. He crawled along his same trail of lightly trampled grass so slowly and carefully that even Ricky, with dry eyes now, could barely see him. Ricky watched the driver’s door, waiting for it to fly open and the crazy man to lunge out and kill Mark. He perched on his toes in a sprinter’s stance for a quick getaway through the woods. He saw Mark emerge under the rear bumper, place a hand for balance on the taillight, and slowly ease the hose from the tail pipe. The grass crackled softly and the weeds shook a little and Mark was next to him again, panting and sweating and, oddly, smiling to himself.
They sat on their legs like two insects under the brush, and watched the car.
“What if he comes out again?” Ricky asked. “What if he sees us?”
“He can’t see us. But if he starts this way, just follow me. We’ll be gone before he can take a step.”
“Why don’t we go now?”
Mark stared at him fiercely. “I’m trying to save his life, okay? Maybe, just maybe, he’ll see that this is not working, and maybe he’ll decide he should wait or something. Why is that so hard to understand?”
“Because he’s crazy. If he’ll kill himself, then he’ll kill us. Why is that so hard to understand?”
Mark shook his head in frustration, and suddenly the door opened again. The man rolled out of the car growling and talking to himself, and stomped through the grass to the rear. He grabbed the end of the hose, stared at it as if it just wouldn’t behave, and looked slowly around the small clearing. He was breathing heavily and perspiring. He looked at the trees, and the boys eased to the ground. He looked down, and froze as if he suddenly understood. The grass was slightly trampled around the rear of the car and he knelt as if to inspect it, but then crammed the hose back into the tail pipe instead and hurried back to his door. If someone was watching from the trees, he seemed not to care. He just wanted to hurry up and die.
The two heads rose together above the brush, but just a few inches. They peeked through the weeds for a minute. Ricky was ready to run, but Mark was thinking.
“Mark, please, let’s go,” Ricky pleaded. “He almost saw us. What if he’s got a gun or something?”
“If he had a gun, he’d use it on himself.”
Ricky bit his lip and his eyes watered again. He had never won an argument with his brother, and he would not win this one.
Another minute passed, and Mark began to fidget. “I’ll try one more time, okay. And if he doesn’t give up, then we’ll get outta here. I promise, okay?”
Ricky nodded reluctantly. His brother stretched on his stomach and inched his way through the weeds into the tall grass. Ricky wiped the tears from his cheek with his dirty fingers.
THE LAWYER’S NOSTRILS FLARED AS HE INHALED MIGHTILY. He exhaled slowly and stared through the windshield while trying to determine if any of the precious, deadly gas had entered his blood and begun its work. A loaded pistol was on the seat next to him. A half-empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s was in his hand. He took a sip, screwed the cap on it, and placed it on the seat. He inhaled slowly and closed his eyes to savor the gas. Would he simply drift away? Would it hurt or burn or make him sick before it finished him off? The note was on the dash above the steering wheel, next to a bottle of pills.
He cried and talked to himself as he waited for the gas to hurry, dammit!, before he’d give up and use the gun. He was a coward, but a very determined one, and he much preferred this sniffing and floating away to sticking a gun in his mouth.
He sipped the whiskey, and hissed as it burned on its descent. Yes, it was finally working. Soon, it would all be over, and he smiled at himself in the mirror because it was working and he was dying and he was not a coward after all. It took guts to do this.
He cried and muttered as he removed the cap of
the whiskey bottle for one last swallow. He gulped, and it ran from his lips and trickled into his beard.
He would not be missed. And although this thought should have been painful, the lawyer was calmed by the knowledge that no one would grieve. His mother was the only person in the world who loved him, and she’d been dead four years so this would not hurt her. There was a child from the first disastrous marriage, a daughter he’d not seen in eleven years, but he’d been told she had joined a cult and was as crazy as her mother.
It would be a small funeral. A few lawyer buddies and perhaps a judge or two would be there all dressed up in dark suits and whispering importantly as the piped-in organ music drifted around the near-empty chapel. No tears. The lawyers would sit and glance at their watches while the minister, a stranger, sped through the standard comments used for dear departed ones who never went to church.
It would be a ten-minute job with no frills. The note on the dash required the body to be cremated.
“Wow,” he said softly as he took another sip. He turned the bottle up, and while gulping glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the weeds move behind the car.
RICKY SAW THE DOOR OPEN BEFORE MARK HEARD IT. IT flew open, as if kicked, and suddenly the large, heavy man with the red face was running through the weeds, holding on to the car and growling. Ricky stood, in shock and fear, and wet his pants.
Mark had just touched the bumper when he heard the door. He froze for a second, gave a quick thought
to crawling under the car, and the hesitation nailed him. His foot slipped as he tried to stand and run, and the man grabbed him. “You! You little bastard!” he screamed as he grabbed Mark’s hair and flung him onto the trunk of the car. “You little bastard!” Mark kicked and squirmed, and a fat hand slapped him in the face. He kicked once more, not as violently, and he got slapped again.
Mark stared at the wild, glowing face just inches away. The eyes were red and wet. Fluids dripped from the nose and chin. “You little bastard,” he growled through clenched, dirty teeth.
When he had him pinned and still and subdued, the lawyer stuck the hose back into the exhaust pipe, then yanked Mark off the trunk by his collar and dragged him through the weeds to the driver’s door, which was open. He threw the kid through the door and shoved him across the black leather seat.
Mark was grabbing at the door handle and searching for the door lock switch when the man fell behind the steering wheel. He slammed the door behind him, pointed at the door handle, and screamed, “Don’t touch that!” Then he backhanded Mark in the left eye with a vicious slap.
Mark shrieked in pain, grabbed his eyes and bent over, stunned, crying now. His nose hurt like hell and his mouth hurt worse. He was dizzy. He tasted blood. He could hear the man crying and growling. He could smell the whiskey and see the knees of his dirty blue jeans with his right eye. The left was beginning to swell. Things were blurred.
The fat lawyer gulped his whiskey and stared at Mark, who was all bent over and shaking at every joint. “Stop crying,” he snarled.
Mark licked his lips and swallowed blood. He rubbed the knot above his eye and tried to breathe deeply, still staring at his jeans. Again, the man said, “Stop crying,” so he tried to stop.
The engine was running. It was a big, heavy, quiet car, but Mark could hear the engine humming very softly somewhere far away. He turned slowly and glanced at the hose winding through the rear window behind the driver like an angry snake sneaking toward them for the kill. The fat man laughed.
“I think we should die together,” he announced, all of a sudden very composed.
Mark’s left eye was swelling fast. He turned his shoulders and looked squarely at the man, who was even larger now. His face was chubby, the beard was bushy, the eyes were still red and glowed at him like a demon in the dark. Mark was crying. “Please let me out of here,” he said, lip quivering, voice cracking.
The driver stuck the whiskey bottle in his mouth and turned it up. He grimaced and smacked his lips. “Sorry, kid. You had to be a cute ass, had to stick your dirty little nose into my business, didn’t you? So I think we should die together. Okay? Just you and me, pal. Off to la-la land. Off to see the wizard. Sweet dreams, kid.”
Mark sniffed the air, then noticed the pistol lying between them. He glanced away, then stared at it when the man took another drink from the bottle.
“You want the gun?” the man asked.
“No sir.”
“So why are you looking at it?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Don’t lie to me, kid, because if you do, I’ll kill you. I’m crazy as hell, okay, and I’ll kill you.” Though
tears flowed freely from his eyes, his voice was very calm. He breathed deeply as he spoke. “And besides, kid, if we’re gonna be pals, you’ve got to be honest with me. Honesty’s very important, you know? Now, do you want the gun?”
“No sir.”
“Would you like to pick up the gun and shoot me with it?”
“No sir.”
“I’m not afraid of dying, kid, you understand?”
“Yes sir, but I don’t want to die. I take care of my mother and my little brother.”
“Aw, ain’t that sweet. A real man of the house.”
He screwed the cap onto the whiskey bottle, then suddenly grabbed the pistol, stuck it deep into his mouth, curled his lips around it, and looked at Mark, who watched every move, hoping he would pull the trigger and hoping he wouldn’t. Slowly, he withdrew the barrel from his mouth, kissed the end of it, then pointed it at Mark.
“I’ve never shot this thing, you know,” he said almost in a whisper. “Just bought it an hour ago at a pawnshop in Memphis. Do you think it’ll work?”
“Please let me out of here.”
“You have a choice, kid,” he said, inhaling the invisible fumes. “I’ll blow your brains out, and it’s over now, or the gas’ll get you. Your choice.”
Mark did not look at the pistol. He sniffed the air and thought for an instant that maybe he smelled something. The gun was close to his head. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“None of your damned business, okay, kid. I’m nuts, okay. Over the edge. I planned a nice little private suicide, you know, just me and my hose and maybe a
few pills and some whiskey. Nobody looking for me. But, no, you have to get cute. You little bastard!” He lowered the pistol and carefully placed it on the seat. Mark rubbed the knot on his forehead and bit his lip. His hands were shaking and he pressed them between his legs.
“We’ll be dead in five minutes,” he announced officially as he raised the bottle to his lips. “Just you and me, pal, off to see the wizard.”
RICKY FINALLY MOVED. HIS TEETH CHATTERED AND HIS jeans were wet, but he was thinking now, moving from his crouch onto his hands and knees and sinking into the grass. He crawled toward the car, crying and gritting his teeth as he slid on his stomach. The door was about to fly open. The crazy man, who was large but quick, would leap from nowhere and grab him by the neck, just like Mark, and they’d all die in the long black car. Slowly, inch by inch, he pushed his way through the weeds.
MARK SLOWLY LIFTED THE PISTOL WITH BOTH HANDS. IT was as heavy as a brick. It shook as he raised it and pointed it at the fat man, who leaned toward it until the barrel was an inch from his nose.
“Now pull the trigger, kid,” he said with a smile, his wet face glowing and dancing with delightful anticipation. “Pull the trigger, and I’ll be dead and you go free.” Mark curled a finger around the trigger. The man nodded, then leaned even closer and bit the tip of the barrel with flashing teeth. “Pull the trigger!” he shouted.
Mark closed his eyes and pressed the handle of the gun with the palms of his hands. He held his breath, and was about to squeeze the trigger when the man jerked it from him. He waved it wildly in front of Mark’s face, and pulled the trigger. Mark screamed as the window behind his head cracked into a thousand pieces but did not shatter. “It works! It works!” he yelled as Mark ducked and covered his ears.
* * *
RICKY BURIED HIS FACE IN THE GRASS WHEN HE HEARD THE shot. He was ten feet from the car when something popped and Mark yelled. The fat man was yelling, and Ricky peed on himself again. He closed his eyes and clutched the weeds. His stomach cramped and his heart pounded, and for a minute after the gunshot he did not move. He cried for his brother, who was dead now, shot by a crazy man.
“STOP CRYING, DAMMIT! I’M SICK OF YOUR CRYING!”
Mark clutched his knees and tried to stop crying. His head pounded and his mouth was dry. He stuck his hands between his knees and bent over. He had to stop crying and think of something. On a television show once some nut was about to jump off a building, and this cool cop just kept talking to him and talking to him, and finally the nut started talking back and of course did not jump. Mark quickly smelled for gas, and asked, “Why are you doing this?”