The Trouble with Bliss

It’s the hardest hundred bucks Morris ever earned.

  After the beating he served up, Jetski wanted Morris to stay, sit out the night in the precinct with him, making certain the squatters didn’t return. In the morning, two of Jetski’s crew would take over.

  Jetski had given him the money. Morris felt underwater, his head so clogged. He could leave, but he reluctantly agreed to stay. He felt he owed it to Jetski, especially after shooting him.

  All night, Jetski wouldn’t shut up, talked and talked and talked about everything and nothing. “Remember that time…” he’d start out, then relate some stale tale from high school. High school was his world, the focal point of his life, all things referencing back to it. It saddened Morris to hear him speak of that time as halcyon days, brilliant and gleaming. Morris didn’t view them that way, always felt high school was a placeholder, an action to burn time. He has no glowing memories, didn’t really learn or experience anything special there. What he knows he knows from his own studies, from life.

  Sunday finally opens, dawn slow to arrive. “My wife’s the first woman I slept with, Bliss,” Jetski confides in the grainy light. “Can you believe that? The first, and probably the last. She got pregnant that first time we did it, middle of senior year. What’s the chances of that? When I’m lucky, it’s always with bad luck. But you should see my daughter now,” he says, “a beauty. But she’s grown up now. I don’t feel the same around her anymore, you know? She’s a woman now, which is weird. My baby girl a full-grown woman.” Jetski pauses, pondering. “You got a girlfriend, Bliss?” he asks.

  “You hungry?” Morris asks, uncomfortable with the conversation. Uncomfortable with Jetski talking about Stefani. He wipes his nose. “I could slip out and grab something,” he says, his clogged sinuses making him sound like he’s speaking through glass.

  “I’m a smart guy, Bliss,” he says, ruminating. “I could’ve done things, but I had responsibilities. My girlfriend was pregnant so I had to get married. At nineteen, I had a wife, a child. I had to work. It’s hard to get past stuff like that, Bliss. You got to believe me on that. I’m a smart guy, but that’s some hard stuff to get past.”

  “You’ve got a nice family,” Morris says, wanting to leave, to get some air. Jetski’s confession, his desire to bond, makes Morris ill at ease. It reeks of desperation. Morris stands. “Steven, I’ve got to go.”

  The front of Jetski’s shirt is splattered yellow; his face is black with grease paint. He looks like an abstract bumblebee. “Yeah, well,” he says, visibly disappointed by Morris’s leaving. He stands, too. “You said you’re hungry.” He checks the time. “You know, the crew’s to be here in an hour to take over,” he says. “The place is probably all right for an hour, don’t you think?”

  Morris sees where this is going: Jetski asking him to breakfast. “Should be fine,” Morris says, thinking through excuses.

  “What do you say to breakfast, Bliss? Head over to the Double Dog Diner? My treat.”

  “I’d love to,” Morris lies, “but I’ve got to get ready for church.”

  “Right, Sunday. Church.” He nods his head. “All right, then.”

  Morris offers his hand. “Well…” Morris says. “It’s been good.”

  Jetski firmly shakes it, his Frankenfinger burrowing into the back of Morris’s hand. His smile’s wan, distant. “No, Bliss,” he tells him, “it’s been great.”

  Chapter 20