Tough Lessons by Chris Freeman

Author:Chris Freeman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION/Thrillers
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2013-06-23T16:00:00+00:00

12

They brought Eddie back late morning but he was a different man. Gone was the wiseass humor and bantering comebacks of Eddie in a good mood. Gone too was the cantankerous foul mouth of Eddie in a bad mood. Joseph missed that almost as much. In its place was a listless old man who wasn’t interested in anything. He was helped into bed, still wearing the pajamas Marjorie had found somewhere amid the disordered chaos of his bedroom. She had laundered them and Joseph had brought them down to the hospital for Eddie so he would have something clean to wear on his journey home.

They propped him up with pillows stuffed behind his back and then surrounded him with items at arm’s reach, which he studiously ignored. Books, magazines, candy, and messages from a handful of well-wishers were barely glanced at, even the card from Yomi. He quietly turned down all offers of food and nonalcoholic drink. Instead, he stared off into the middle distance of his apartment window, contemplating the sky intently, as if he was sure something interesting might fall from it at any moment.

When he communicated with Joseph and Marjorie at all it was only to answer their most direct of questions with a single word.

“You okay, honey?” asked the concerned old lady.

“Yeah.”

“Can we get you anything?”

“No,” pronounced nyaah with strangled Jersey vowels.

“You want the radio on?” Joseph asked but the question didn’t seem to even warrant a reply.

Eventually, Marjorie asked, “You sure you don’t want me to fetch some of my soup?” and she finally received a sentence from him.

“Quit fussing over me, woman, goddammit,” he growled.

“Normally I’d have torn you a new asshole for that,” she told him calmly, “but you been beat up bad enough already. I’ll come by again later, see if you in a better mood. Come on, Joseph.” And they left Eddie alone with his thoughts.

“He didn’t badger us once for a sip of Irish whiskey,” said the old woman confidentially in the corridor. “Things must be bad.”

She was right, thought Joseph. He hadn’t and they were.

His old Lago friend Cyrus was waiting for him down at the Impala with a huge, toothy grin and a bottle of cold beer. It was an appointment he could do without right now, but Cyrus had said he had a proposition to put to his friend. Joseph thought he’d better turn up to make sure it wasn’t some damn fool idea that would get them both in trouble. Cyrus attracted trouble, like horseshit attracts flies.

“Joseph, my brother!” he called and waved the bottle of beer at his friend. Joseph waved back and crossed the floor. As always, the Impala was full of off-duty taxi drivers, minimum-wage hotel workers, and barmen on a break, all spending their tips on a little bit of West African food to remind them of the home they had left behind. Joseph hadn’t thought he was hungry when he walked in but that soon changed when he passed

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