TWENTY-EIGHT
I GOT HOME JUST AS THE SUN WAS COMING UP. When I walked in, I was relieved to see that Clive had turned on the heaters before bed.
It was dark in the living room, so I flipped on a light. Peeling off my coat, I tossed it onto the couch and frowned when frigid air met my arms. Despite the heaters being on, it was still freezing in the place.
“What the hell?” I grumbled as I turned to the kitchen.
He hadn’t closed the window. I rushed over and closed it, cursing as the cold morning air met my arms. And that was when I saw him.
The door to his bedroom was open, and instead of sleeping in his bed, he was sprawled out on the floor.
I took off to his room, stumbling into the wall as I made my way inside. I pushed the door open farther, and it slammed into the wall with a loud bang. Still, he didn’t move.
“Clive?” I called out from the doorway.
When he didn’t respond, my lungs ached with the sudden stop of my breath.
“Clive!” I called out louder.
I moved into the room, my feet feeling like twenty-pound weights, and moved above him. His eyes were closed, his mouth opened just a bit, and I squeezed my eyes shut and silently prayed that he was just sound asleep.
“Clive,” I whispered desperately, hoping his eyes would pop open and he would bitch about me waking him.
He didn’t move.
I bent over and shook him, and when he didn’t move, I just knew.
Pressing my fingers against his neck where his pulse would be, I was met with no movement.
Clive was dead.
My father was dead.
The only family I had ever had in my entire life was dead.
Everything inside me shut down. Everything Clive had restored in my soul over the past few years collapsed, and my impenetrable walls fell back into place with a loud slam.
If I couldn’t feel anything, then it wouldn’t hurt.
If I couldn’t feel anything, then I wouldn’t die inside knowing the only person who gave two shits about me was no longer a part of our world.
I moved away from his cold body and walked in a zombie-like state into the living room to call 911. As soon as I hung up the phone, I left the apartment. Being there knowing he was lying lifeless just a few walls away from me was too much.
Fifteen minutes later, the paramedics found me downstairs at the bar. I remained on my barstool as I pointed at the stairs without a word. Another paramedic began questioning me, but I was only capable of single words.
No full sentences.
No emotional pleas.
Just a word for every question.
“What time did you find him?”
“Seven,” I mumbled, not even sure that my answer was correct.
I just knew the sun was coming up, and it usually did that around seven.
I kept my head down, focusing on my fingernail as I picked at it.
“And he was already deceased when you found him?”
I nodded, my head feeling heavy and weak.
“Yes.”
Before the paramedic could ask me another question, the sound of more voices brought my attention to the stairs where they were wheeling Clive’s body out of the apartment.
Our home.
My family’s home.
The only true home I had ever known.
“I just have one more question,” he said.
I nodded, my eyes stuck on the sheet covered body of the man I called my father.
“What is your relationship to Mr. Brown?”
It was strange hearing him call Clive, Mr. Brown. I had always known that was his name, but it was rare that I heard it.
They wheeled Clive outside and lifted him into the back of the coroner’s van. I turned away to look back at the paramedic, and one of my walls slipped out of place, allowing a single tear to roll down the side of my cheek.
“I’m his son.”
And no matter what, he would always be my father.
As soon as they pulled away with his body, I locked the bar and left. I couldn’t be there without him. It wasn’t right.
I stayed out all day and throughout the night. The thought of returning to an empty place was sickening. Instead, I froze on the streets as if I didn’t have a warm place to stay. I figured I might as well get used to it again.
Word of Clive’s death filled the streets, and anyone who didn’t already know found out when they tried to go to the bar only to find it closed.
By the time I got up the nerve to return, it was already morning again. When I opened the door to the bar, the rising sun filled the dead space with a dusty morning glow.
I slammed the door behind me and locked it before I moved straight to the bar and pulled out two bottles of Jack. I unscrewed the first bottle and brought it to my lips to swallow down a mouthful. The liquid splashed over the top when I slammed the bottle down on the bar top.
Gripping the edge of the bar, I breathed hard. All I could see was everyone who ever existed in my world and exited.
Deloris.
Jane.
Vick.
And finally Clive.
Whether it was me running from them or them dying on me, everyone was gone, and there was only me.
Nothing.
No one’s son.
No one’s anything.
Squeezing my eyes closed, all I could see was Clive’s lifeless body. My nostrils flared as I pulled oxygen in, but it seemed to get stuck somewhere on the way to my lungs.
I didn’t want to see Clive anymore. It was enough that I had nightmares about the people I murdered, but to see the body of the man I cared for—my father—was the last thread holding the seams of me together.
I dug my fists into my eyes, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t erase the image. So until I could, I would drink.
I’d drink every ounce of alcohol in Clive’s bar if it meant it would all just go away. I would drink until I couldn’t remember anything.
Not Clive.
Not the murders.
Not Vick.
Not Jane.
And not Deloris.
I wanted to forget it all.
Drink until the entire world around me went numb.
By the time I finished the first bottle, the world around me was fuzzy. And halfway through the second, I went numb. I couldn’t feel a damn thing, and a sad sense of relief came with that numbness. Once I was no longer able to feel my arms and legs, I climbed on top of the bar and laid back.
I took short, shallow breaths as I stared up at the ceiling and let my mind drift away. It wasn’t long until the liquor lulled me to sleep, and I welcomed the unconsciousness with open arms.
A loud pounding on the door of the bar woke me. I wasn’t sure how long I had slept, but when I moved to sit up, pain shot down my stiff spine. My headache roared, pounding through my brain with each obnoxious knock.
“Go away!” I yelled out.
Magically, the knocking stopped, but the pounding in my brain remained.
Bringing my legs over the bar top, I slid off the bar and fell on weak knees. My fingers twisted in my dark hair as I latched on to my head and prayed for the pounding to stop. Running my palms over my face, I felt wetness on my cheeks.
I frowned as I looked at the ceiling, thinking maybe there was a leak somewhere. But then I remembered, and the pain came back hard and fierce.
I looked at myself in the large mirror behind the bar. My eyes were red and puffy, my tears making a sloppy trail down the side of my face. A broken sob ripped from my lips when I closed my eyes and saw Clive lying lifeless on his floor once again.
It would never go away.
The nightmares would haunt me for the rest of my life.
My buzz was long gone, replaced by a rage that seemed to fill out the blackness within me. There were so many emotions; no matter how hard I tried to shut them off, the only one I felt comfortable settling on was the anger I felt at knowing I would never see Clive again.
It was as if a part of me had died with every person who exited my life, and Clive had taken the last piece. I felt so fucking dead inside.
There really was no point in trying anymore. Giving up was the only thing I knew how to do. After years of surviving and losing, I was done.
No more.
I no longer wanted to exist.
My eyes landed on the bar top, and a box of matches with the bar name printed on the top caught my attention. Without a second thought, I lifted the bottle I had been drinking from earlier and tilted it, letting the brown liquid splatter onto the floor around my feet.
Once the bottle was empty, I dropped it, the bottle shattering into hundreds of pieces all around my shoes. Grabbing the box of matches, I pushed it open and pulled out a single match. I struck on the side of the box and watched as the flame danced on the tip, mocking me with the bleak future I always knew I would have until finally, I snapped.
I dropped the match, and the flames grew all around me.
I was done.
I was already in hell.
Might as well burn.