The Broken King by Brian Panowich

Author:Brian Panowich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

2

Waymore Valley Township, Georgia

Clayton Burroughs listened to the message from Scabby Mike for a second time, and then tucked the cell phone back in his pocket. He had been standing in the last aisle of Pollard’s Corner Gas ‘n’ Go long enough now to forget what he was even doing there. The Percocet did that sometimes. It made him foggy. With his hands tucked deep in his pockets, he fiddled with his phone and wallet, waiting for his head to clear, and then looked around aimlessly at the length of dusty aluminum shelves. Jars of Duke’s Mayonnaise, pull-top cans of Vienna Sausages, and Dinty Moore Potted Meat were lined up in neatly kept rows in the often forgotten grocery section of the small outpost. Clayton doubted that any of it had been bought or restocked in years. No one was going to overpay old man Pollard for out-of-date pickled eggs or dented cans of baby formula when there was an IGA just a few miles up the road.

Wait a minute … baby formula. Finally, a bell went off. Clayton’s eyes settled on a stack of Carolina-blue packs of baby wipes and the fog began to lift.

Diapers—right. That’s what he’d written on the note. But was it Huggies or Pampers?

He could never remember. He was pretty sure Kate preferred Huggies. He recognized the red plastic bag they were packaged in from somewhere in his travels around the baby’s room, but he wouldn’t bet his life on it. The drugs made him forget shit from minute to minute. That’s why he’d written himself a note, but now he couldn’t find the note, either.

Jesus, Clayton, if you’re going to use diapers as an excuse to leave the house early, you should at least remember the brand.

He dug around in his pockets again, pulling out the same wallet and cell phone he’d already taken inventory of three times. “Goddammit,” he mumbled, and then walked over to the baby-supply section, bent down and snatched up the red plastic brick with a huff. He tucked it firmly under his arm like a football and decided not to spend another second of his day worrying over it. He had a fifty-fifty shot at getting it right. Maybe for once he’d get lucky.

Yeah, right, considering my recent streak of good fortune, he thought. It’s more likely I’ll find out the kid don’t even use diapers anymore.

Kate probably used a box of his old Sheriff’s department T-shirts. It would make sense. After all, he was a shit magnet. He almost smiled at the absurd extent of his own negativity, until he tried to straighten himself upright, and lightning shot down his left side from armpit to kneecap. Every time he got cocky, or the pills made him forget it was there, the pain hammered him back into reality. It was always there—always—and it would never let him forget. It would never let him forget what happened—or what he did. The pain was particularly nasty today. He figured that it was penance for being shitty to Kate the night before.

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