CHAPTER 17: BOBBY
Leaned over the toilet, I tickled the back of my throat. I gagged but nothing came up. My skin and clothes reeked of funk and gasoline. In the shower, I scrubbed myself down with soap made with tea tree oil, whatever that is. I washed my hair with apple and cinnamon scented shampoo. I sat and washed my feet with the soap, then poured the shampoo over them and washed them again. I massaged my face with an apricot facial scrub, then spread the scrub on my chest and exfoliated that.
The room was steamy and fragrant. I dried and sat on the toilet and pretended I was relaxing in a sauna at the Athletic Club. I had just merged two companies and made a million dollar profit. I was waiting for my accountant to call to tell me a safe place I could put the money to avoid taxes.
But too soon, the steam went wherever steam goes and goose bumps popped up. I picked up my clothes but immediately dropped them and decided to wear the towel instead.
I was startled by the white envelope on the living room table. I’d carried it inside without thinking, like how I carry my hand. As I had rushed to the shower, I must’ve tossed the envelope on the table. But I had and have no memory of saying to myself, “I want to put this on the table” and then doing it. What I had to do for the envelope was so much bigger than whatever was inside it, the deed crushed the envelope out of existence.
And anyway, I saw it as Marcus’ money. How inefficient: Marcus distributes money, I hold it, then hand it back. He could’ve kept it all to begin with and saved everyone a lot of grief. I counted the bills: seven hundred and fifty dollars. Even if I could reach to the boxes under the beds at home, which was impossible, I’d still be short.
I thought, I took Marcus seriously so why didn’t I take him seriously? I fell into complacency and now Benny, jacked-up and blood-hungry, was going to hunt me down. Or maybe Marcus himself, who once chopped off a debtor’s foot. What did I think was going to happen at the end of the week? Why didn’t I do anything? Why did I wait till the day before it was due to panic? What’s going to happen? What’ll become of me? Will it hurt?
But the answer was obvious, so obvious that I felt stupid for not seeing it before. I didn’t have to pay Marcus at all. The money in the envelope became mine in the second it took to call it mine, and I became as close to carefree as I’d been maybe ever.
As soon as I knew I wouldn’t pay Marcus, I knew I had to take off and I knew my destination was Uncle Rick in Florida. One second I had a hopeless debt. The very next second, I had hope and a nice amount of cash. Life doesn’t need much time to change.
I thought the lady was joking when she told me how much they charge for the next flight to Fort Lauderdale, but she was serious. The man at Greyhound gave me a more reasonable price, but I had to wait till the next afternoon. That was okay. I’d promise Marcus I’d have all the cash to pay him at six. At that time my bus would be somewhere in West Virginia.
I’d arrive in Florida and I’d go back to school and get a job. A real job. A lifeguard or something else fun. I would stay with Uncle Rick at first until I saved enough for my own apartment. My mom would quit her two bad jobs, come down and find one good job and a nice place of her own. Wendy would come and get a good job too. We would live together to save on bills and decide if we wanted to get married.
I called her. “It’s me. Don’t hang up. I’m really sorry about whatever I said. I’ve been going through a lot.”
“You should’ve seen your mom at the funeral.”
“I know. I wanted to go.”
“No. I mean, you should’ve seen her. Been with her.”
I told her before: if I had attended the funeral, next stop would’ve been prison. But she didn’t want to treat me with sensitivity. She decided she was always right and nothing, not even facts, would make her humbler and nicer.
“How was the funeral?”
“How the fuck can you ask me that?”
The word almost knocked the wind out of me. She had nagged it out of my vocabulary, then used it herself? I didn’t know her mouth was capable of forming that syllable.
I told her I was going to Florida. She didn’t care. I asked her to come along. She said she wasn’t going to throw her life away and that I can’t run from my problems.
“But I’m not running away. I’m running towards something better.”
“You’re a coward.”
“Coward? Do you know what I’m ready to do?”
“Yeah. Run away.”
“What about us?”
“There is no us.”
“You’re breaking up with me?”
“We’re already broken up.”
I heard a click and she was gone. Dang it, why didn’t I dump her when I had the chance? Five minutes earlier, we were living together in sin in Florida. Now we were split. Life is fast.
I fell on the couch and turned on the TV. A handsome man chased a disfigured man through a sewer. He pulled a hand cannon from his holster and fired a warning shot and yelled for the bad guy to freeze. The bad guy stopped and asked, “Can’t we talk?” The handsome man said, “Talk to this” and fired. The bad guy’s brain matter exploded from the back of his head and splattered across the wall. The hero holstered his gun and said, “Nice talking to you.” The credits rolled.
I had missed the tightening part of the movie so I didn’t feel the loosening. Also, the special effects people hadn’t put a bullet hole on the bad guy’s forehead, so it looked like the back of his head had exploded on its own.
But the scene would’ve bummed me out anyway. I didn’t want to see any more killing. Ever. Even fake. Everyone deserves to grow old. Even that bad guy in the movie. Maybe bad guys especially deserve to grow old so they can have more time to mull over what they’ve done and learn from their mistakes. The bad guy in the movie didn’t learn a lesson, didn’t have time to apologize. He died and that was it.
I surfed the stations. Death, sales, applause, music. Then Darryl’s face, his school photo from two years ago. Mom had it framed and hung on the living room wall. It shouldn’t have been on the screen, but it really looked like it was. I wondered if I had snapped, like I was afraid might happen.
An official-looking sort with a bushy mustache and spiked hair said into a microphone, “After a thorough investigation, the officers involved have been cleared from any wrong doing.” The names and photos of the officers popped up.
Zeke Ravella. Now I had the name of the man who killed my brother. He had a fat face and clenched teeth and was exactly the type who would kill a kid in cold blood for no good reason.
Adam Sutler. Puny, with big eyes and a skinny nose. I didn’t see that face at the motel but I had bet he had watched the whole thing happen and laughed about it.
I said their names out loud. Their faces poked me and taunted me. “What are you going to do about it, piss ant?” I chanted their names over and over. They didn’t care what I did.
They vanished. A reporter spoke for a second, then turned into a car ad.
My vision went blurry. The towel fell off. I beat the TV screen with that lamp. I made a small crack. I caught my breath, gathered my strength and rammed the base of the lamp into the glass. Sparks shot out from the hole and a tiny cloud poofed from the back. I fell back and collapsed on the couch. The lamp stuck out from the TV like a tree limb.
If I beat the set to get the poison out of my system, it didn’t work. If I was trying to prove something, I hadn’t. I said, “Sorry,” to the TV. It hadn’t harmed me. But Zeke Ravella and Adam Sutler, I should’ve smashed them.
I didn’t even realize how deeply I hated them until I saw their faces. I wasted so much energy defending myself that I neglected to accuse them for my suffering. If not for them, Darryl would be alive. I wouldn’t have Marcus after me. I would be home. I would have Wendy. The guy in the warehouse would be alive. What I felt for them was bigger than any emotion I ever felt before. Bigger than my love for mom or Wendy, bigger than my euphoria when Darryl gave me the skateboard, bigger than my sadnes
s when dad decided he didn’t love us anymore and moved to Arizona.
They were going to die and I was going to kill them. Sampson had pushed me over the line to make me a killer, forever, so I should at least kill for the sake of justice to correct the mistake of whoever it was who let them off the hook. A first plan burst into my brain fully formed.
The white pages didn’t list a RAVELLA Zeke but they had a SUTLER Adam. “Crestwood Lane.” What the hell’s a crestwood? A new plan: break into Adam Sutler’s house and hold the knife to his throat and make him invite Zeke Ravella over. Then I’d kill Adam Sutler and when Zeke Ravella arrived, I’d kill him too.
I got out the yellow pages and called for a cab. The man asked where I wanted to go but he also wanted to know my name. I told him Sampson Ravella.
“It’ll be fifteen minutes, Mr. Ravella.”
I cringed as I slowly forced myself back into my old clothes. The bright smells from my shower fought the dark smells on my clothes and lost.
Most of the knives in the kitchen were too big to fit in my pocket but there was one that would work. I stabbed the air, as if Adam Sutler stood in front of me. His phantom body hit the ground. I pocketed the knife, grabbed the cash, and waited for the cab outside.
It was getting chilly and dark. I paced and went over my scheme. It seemed airtight.
The cab smelled like stale popcorn. The upholstery was the hard green leather they use in school buses. The driver wasn’t the Middle Eastern type or a gruff New Yorker. He was just a dumpy, balding bore. All those times on the bus when I wished I could afford a cab were a waste. They say the grass is always greener on the other side but it isn’t really.
I took out a piece of paper and gave the driver Adam Sutler’s address and he punched it into a keyboard. A map popped up on a screen on the dash.
“I don’t know about this. It’s far,” he said.
“Good thing I’m not walking.” I had too much money in my pocket to take any crap.
“What I’m saying is, it’s far.” He looked me up and down and tapped the meter.
I was happy to show him my stash. He was happy to see it.