Rock Bottom by Michael Shilling

Author:Michael Shilling [SHILLING, MICHAEL]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9780316040426
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2009-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

19

BLOOD WAS ALWAYS STICKIER than he expected. Fighting was always more fun. They balanced themselves out.

Darlo kept swinging. He’d swing until his father went straight, his cock quit straining against his pants, and Aerosmith took them out on tour. He’d swing until that girl from the dungeon was safe at home, in her bed, at peace. He’d swing until Adam was safe from harm.

Below him, a face lay covered in red, the bones shifting to the left side, sliding like a seashell into the ebb tide. Now he was an artist like Adam, painting it black.

The skinhead made a noise, whimpering, the sound of fear before the time of the wheel, stripped down, raw tracks unmixed, just like the girl Darlo had found in the basement among the thugs, blubbering in her nakedness, scores on her back, sweat burning down her face.

Darlo thought, You may not share that noise with her, and took out the Magic Wand. You may not dare make that noise. I am a good person. I am not my father. I do not hurt the weak.

He took a second to look at the curve of his precious possession, and the barbs along the blade, and then Joey kicked the knife out of his hand.

“No, Darlo, no no no!”

Joey threw him off the skinhead, and Darlo heard the sound of his own crying and babbling and felt the wetness on his cheeks.

“No, Darlo, no, come on, no!”

Joey pulled him up and he was running. The world rushed at him, mistakes on mistakes, ill-fitting. Darlo fell to the ground again, his legs jelly, but Joey pulled him as if he were weightless.

“Can’t stay, come on, cops, come on!”

He looked back. The skinhead rolled on the ground, no longer imitating the innocent. Darlo had done what needed to be done. Though his father would be putting on gloves right now, wetting his lips, laughing at another nervous girl in black negligee right off the damn bus and there was nothing he could do, he had started to make things right. His proof lay there, in crimson, wiped out.

“Now Darlo, get the fuck up!”

He ran past Joey. He couldn’t wait for her. He bolted into the mass of well-dressed unbloodied Dutchies, over another lovely canal, and spun on the sidewalk.

God if you exist deliver that girl from him. God if you exist deliver that girl from him. God if you —

Joey slammed into him. He wasn’t running. When had he stopped running? Her breath climbed all over him. She pulled him, but he wasn’t running; she pulled him down into the canyon. She would help him find that girl. Into the canyon. She was always there for him. He wanted to tell her. He wasn’t running.

Doors opened, and Joey pulled him into a room. Faucets and tile. Coat of arms and Guinness signs. Leather seats like in the dungeon. Green leather here, black leather there. Going down into the canyon. Not running anymore.

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