The Weirdness by Jeremy P. Bushnell

Author:Jeremy P. Bushnell [Bushnell, Jeremy P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61219-316-8
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2014-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

Billy spends the ride looking out the window and mulling over what the Devil said. It’s never been your decisions, but your resistance to your decisions? It had a sort of horoscopy applicability that made it ring true at first, but the more Billy subjects it to careful scrutiny, the less he thinks it actually makes sense.

Stop second-guessing! says the part of him that really wants to latch on to the Devil’s diagnosis.

But that’s just it, says the more rational part of him. Wasn’t your first instinct to just say no to the Devil? So agreeing, today: that would be the part where you’re second-guessing yourself. And that would make this batch of reservations technically third-guessing. The Devil didn’t say don’t third-guess yourself.

Well, he has to admit, that’s true.

“Okay,” says the driver, pulling up on the curb next to the gallery with the Styrofoam shapes in the window. “Here we are.”

Billy peers miserably out at the Seafood Warehousing building, which looks dense and imposing even when it’s not in its Warlock House form. He makes no move to get out of the cab.

“Hey,” he says to the cabbie, suddenly. “That guy I was with: he’s paying for this ride, right?”

“Yep,” says the cabbie.

“So if I wanted to go somewhere else? If I wanted to have you drop me off in Queens, instead?”

“Yeah, whatever, buddy,” says the cabbie. “I’ll take you all the way to Florida, just say the word.”

Florida! thinks Billy, for a second. That could be good! But no. Instead he thinks of Denver. You could go to her. You could go to her, and apologize, and explain. She would understand.

Or you could go through with this plan, says his internal counterpoint. He’s not sure if this counts as second-guessing, or third-guessing, or fifth-guessing. You could save the world. Be a real writer. Have a different life.

He remembers Lucifer saying Do you think you don’t deserve someone better?

But I don’t want someone better, he thinks. I want Denver.

Then go to her, he tells himself.

And he’s about to tell the cabbie to take him to Queens when someone he recognizes walks by outside. Of all people. It’s Anton Cirrus, marching along with a businesslike stride, his trench coat billowing in the wind. Billy’s blood begins moving. He thinks the same word he thought last night at Barometer: enemy. He feels a sudden urge to confront Cirrus, to engage him in argument, to come out on top in some exchange of verbal jabs. To win, for once.

“One second,” Billy says to the cabbie. And he lets himself out.

“Cirrus!” Billy shouts at Cirrus’s back, which has gotten a good ten paces ahead of Billy by this point. “Anton Cirrus!”

Anton stops and turns, and when he sees Billy he wrinkles his face into a mask of distaste, as though Billy has just opened the conversation with a robust fart.

“Do I know you?” he asks.

“Do you—” Billy begins, incredulous, and then rage throttles his voice and he goes silent. I’m going to kill you, he thinks.

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