Soundless

Soundless

It was so much easier to be loved than to have to do any of the desperate work of loving.

Patrick Ness — Release (a novel)

Soundless

I whispered

And you whispered back

I think it was morning

Wrongly, perhaps

And the light filtered through windows

They weren’t mine

Demands and flames

Hot memories of you

Quick pressure, you knew it would work

On me, at least

Such weakness

Such submission; only ever yours

You were on top from word go

Just what I wanted

Marks burnt

Remnants of our mess

The fire that we started with fever

So quick to appear

All of it ruined

Fast and dark

Extinguished before the light returned

Perhaps it was morning

I whispered 

And you whispered back.

Big Black Demon

Today, unfortunately, I am finding it hard to disconnect from reality. Most days it comes as second nature for me, but of course, on the days when bad things happen I tend to find myself rolled up like a sausage in pastry, unable to detach from anything or stop remembering, or thinking, or dwelling. Either way, writing is my usual style of dealing (though, to be fair, I still haven’t written about a fire, unless you count the hell fire in my WIP second novel) and so here is Bradley. And the shittiest day of Bradley’s life.

Maybe if I make Bradley suffer, I won’t have to suffer myself.

Though isn’t it just normal that we suffer ourselves, just like we suffer everything we can get our hands on.

** I apologise for the fact that this short is pretty close to home, and so it might be a little boring. Also I apologise for the title which sounds a little pornographic now that I read it again.

Big Black Demon

Some things were very clear in Bradley’s mind. Some things stuck there — in his mind — like photographs of pure clarity. Crisp and clear.

The cannula in Bradley’s leg was starting to ache. To be fair it had lasted the three days that it was supposed to last, but he was crossing his fingers that it would do him a solid five or six, only because he was out of money, and time, and fucks. As he rolled over in bed, the skin on his outer thigh glowed with the dull heat of a slow-building pain, and the alarm on his phone beeped. Four o’clock in the morning was too early for anyone to be awake, yet there were people who woke much earlier than he did. And they woke at that time everyday. They woke without complaint. They woke in the dark of night. They woke yesterday. They were already awake.

Yesterday Bradley repeated to himself, in the hopes of creating some forward motion. It didn’t work.

Fifteen minutes later his second snooze alarm was going off and the dusty blue haze of dawn was peeking through his curtains. Bradley got up to take a shower. 

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

The bathroom needed a clean; the tiled corners were choked with hair and dust.

The sink needed a scrub as well. 

The kitchen was a mess from last night’s foray into cornbread baking.

The living room was strewn with books and projects and things that should have been long discarded.

There was a dead cockroach in the hall.

There was a burnt out candle on the mantle.

Bradley ignored all of this — he was late as it was. With no time for a coffee on the way out, he grabbed a small bag of grapes and locked the door behind him.

Through the suburbs the going was easy despite the recent storm damage. He hit every light, but they changed quickly and before he knew it he was peeling along the motorway in his canary yellow hatchback, twenty minutes late, but with a kind-of smile on his face — Tuesdays were easy, and he was sure that this one was going to be no different. 

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Bradley asked Siri to call his brother who had already been at his own job for a few hours. Ryan answered after the first ring.

“Dude! What the fuck? What’s wrong?”

Bradley laughed. “Nothing man, just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, dickhead!”

There was silence and then… “Oh, fuck. Ha! I forgot. Wait, am I forty or forty-one this year?”

Bradley couldn’t help but smile to himself. He and his twin brother Ryan always joked around on their birthday, but this year Ryan had sounded completely surprised, as if he’d actually forgotten their birthday. 

Laughter petered out into civil conversation and then Ryan had to go because apparently science was happening and it couldn’t or wouldn’t be stopped. 

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

There were newly installed electronic road signs in this part of the city. Signs that could project words for traffic advice and missing children and numbers to call if you needed such and such. There were some that showed the speed limit and they changed when conditions changed — slower, faster, lanes closed, lanes opened, lanes flooded, specific limits for certain incidents.

Today the electronic signs were all flashing and though Bradley saw that they were urging him down from 100 to 60 kilometres per hour, he only barely registered it. He was a conscientious driver, and so he braked gradually without thinking about it and brought himself down from 90 to a solid 50 and slowing. The cars in front of him were easily doing 40 while they let merging traffic in from the side.

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Everything was quiet and calm. Traffic was slowing. Bradley braked and braked again. The merging traffic was going too slow. Too slow. There must have been a crash or some kind of incident up ahead. There was no way to tell. Bradley braked once more and saw, in his rear vision — 

The Big Black Demon.

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

The car came up on him quickly but Bradley didn’t think that anything could be wrong, he only worried that perhaps the black car behind him was a little too close. He looked back at the car that was slowing in front of him and that was when The Big Black Demon — 

CRACK! 

The world snapped into darkness.

The impact, at first, felt like forward motion but it changed with rapidity. 

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Everything was thrown forward. Bradley, his glasses, the car, reality. We, all of us that Bradley knew, moved forward faster than we should have, and then the Big Black Demon was gone, because Bradley had closed his eyes and he was hurtling forward in his yellow hatchback, spiralling towards the traffic in front, spiralling back around again, spinning and flailing inside his car, moving inevitably towards the cement pylon that he couldn’t see; was lucky not to see.

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

Turning and turning. As if he was in a blender. 

Bradley’s glasses flew off his face upon the initial impact, but he didn’t notice. His hands came off the wheel and and dangled out in front of him. His body was thrown to one side and then the other and then back again. The impact on the pylon wasn not as bad as he had anticipated — a dull thud that shook the car and brought him back to life, forcing him to open his eyes. 

Bradley had been sure he was going to die that day. He had been sure that he was going to feel his own death. He had been sure that he was going to experience his own death.

Some things were very unclear in his mind. 

His car had turned a little over 180 degrees in the crash, but if you were to ask Bradley, he would have said the car turned at least two and a half times - 900 degrees. If you were to ask Bradley, he would have said that he shouted out and groaned as the car started to spin, but he didn’t. He made no sound at all. If you were to ask Bradley, he would have said that the Big Black Demon was an SUV or a Utility or a truck of some sort, but it wasn’t. It was a lowered hatchback with custom rims and specialty sticker decals. 

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Bradley knew that this wasn’t the last time he was going to have to deal with a Big Black Demon.

This Is Not An Exhaustive List

This Is Not An Exhaustive List




    Bye bye baby blue
    I wish you could see the wicked truth

        ~ Glass Animals, The Other Side of Paradise


Anya didn’t want to get out of bed but she knew it was what she was supposed to do, and so she got out. She rolled to the side and hoisted her sleep-heavy arm up to turn off the incessant alarm on her phone. The sun was just starting to filter in through the curtains. Maybe it was going to be a nice day, but who was she to say? She knew she had a good life but that didn’t mean that every day was nice.

She buried her feet in her fluffy slippers. The light in the hallway was on — Jeff always switched it on for her when he left for work — and she flicked it off as she scuffed down the hall, eyeing the door at the end. Locked, she reminded herself. The locked door at the end of the hall.

Anya felt her jaw tighten/clench and took a sharp right-turn into the kitchen where she found the mess from the night before. That was just one of the many things that Jeff pointed out was wrong with her. At the end of the night she never wanted to clean up and though he always urged her — Jeff loved a pristine house — Anya hated being tired and cranky and restless, and then having the added chore of washing the damn dishes. So she never did it. She left them there until the morning, which was when she woke up and immediately regretted having left the mess. It was a vicious cycle that she willingly enabled and she constantly whined at Jeff about Why they couldn’t just hire someone to do that stuff, They had the money.

Just like all the vicious things she enabled within their relationship, probably most of all, the door at the end of the hall. The locked door. But she didn’t want to think about the door right now, she wanted to wash the dishes so that she could relax and make a coffee and a bagel and sit the fuck down. Anya knew her life was nothing but spoils but that never made any difference to how she felt.

What she had — the life, the things, the ease with which it all hurtled towards her whenever she needed it — was much more than the average person could have imagined. Still, she wanted more. Still, she remained unhappy.

The special order stainless steel bagel toaster hummed a buzzing tune on the kitchen bench alongside the coffee machine, who gurgled and spluttered until he released a thin but creamy stream of espresso into Anya’s silver cup; Anya had decided that she wasn’t going to wash the dishes this morning. Maybe Jeff would finally crack and they could hire someone.

With her feet up on the porch railing and the bagel smeared with cream cheese resting on her lap under the mottled light beneath the palms, Anya wasted away the morning. She had worked before — she had vague memories of diners and gas stations and supermarkets — but she couldn’t really remember what it had been like. She knew that Jeff got up every morning at sparrow’s fart and returned home every evening well after dark, but what he did in between was a mystery to her. Banking, she sometimes thought. Or hedge funds? Whatever they were. Or maybe, just like, investments? All of those words sounded as if they shouldn’t be coming out of her mouth at all. Whatever actual work she had once done seemed to be gone from her mind completely.

Her work now was to keep her mouth shut. She liked to think of herself as a silent partner who had no input and also didn’t really know what a silent partner was.

She had it made. She always wanted more and longed for something else, but she never said it out loud, because she had made it. She never did anything about her unhappiness because she had made. That was the best way to keep what you already had and to get more of the things you liked.

The new iPad with the shiny copper case that she hadn’t powered up.

The refurbished study that she never used. It was filled with an arrangement of lovely indoor plant that she didn’t tend to.

The set of chrome cookware that hadn’t seen a drop of oil or butter.

Anya lazed in her chair on the porch and let her bagel go stale in the morning sun. The golden palms rustled above her in the breeze.

She woke to the sound of a motor and looked up to see the motorcycle postman pulling into the bottom of the driveway. Jeff was going to spit chips when he saw those gouges in the front turf. Anya smiled quietly to herself. A bee in Jeff’s bonnet usually proved to be a cherry on her pie of amusement. He’d get angry and distracted and leave her alone for a while and she could pretty much do whatever she wanted without supervision.

But of course, not the locked door at the end of the hall. Never The Door.

The postman got partly off his motorcycle and leant over towards the slot of the box. Anya called down to him and shuffled across the porch, still in her pajamas, completely aware that the hard nipples on her small breasts were obvious to anyone who was looking.

Anya waved and the postman waved back. There was a moment where they just looked at each other — she with a curious eye, he with eyes behind dark lenses; eyes that couldn’t be read. That moment lasted a lifetime. And then it was over and then Anya was standing aside as the postman came up the steps of her porch and past her to the golden palms, where he gently ran his glove-clad fingers over their fronds and said nothing. 

Anya ached with anticipation. She stayed where she was, next to the steps. “Is there mail for me?”

The eye-less postman turned and smiled. He held out a wedge of letters and junk mail towards her. Anya took a few steps over to him and knew he was looking at her nipples. She was immediately wet. She thought about the gouges in the lawn and that was when the sky started to darken. The morning sun disappeared, the clouds rolled in, too quickly, but the postman on her porch didn’t move an inch.

“I think it might rain,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “You could come in for tea?”

He said nothing. He stood still, with his gloved hand on the porch railing next to the palms.

Anya felt herself falter. Normally this part was easy for her. Normally she breezed through this part like the adulterer she was.  “I’m sorry,” she said, wringing her hands together despite herself. “You’ve probably got a lot of mail to deliver. I’m sorry I held you up.”

“I’ll come in for tea,” he said, his voice even and deep.

Anya smiled. “Oh. Okay.” She felt a rush of blood to her fingertips and earlobes. This was the shit she lived for.

Inside he was not as she had expected. The thunder and the rain came down and Anya worried that she had perhaps done something wrong this time. The postman with no eyes finally took off his sunglasses and he was blind. The marjority of his eyes were white and milky and Anya immediately regretted her judgement.

“You’re looking for the key,” he said, quietly.

Anya was confused. “No? No, I mean, I don’t think so.”

The blind postman cocked his head slightly and seemed to ponder a moment. “Yes. You look for the key. And I have it.”

Anya didn’t know what he was talking about. “No, I’m sorry. I think you might have the wrong person.”

“The right person would say that. Please, he —”

He held out a small enveloped with ‘Anya’ written on the front.

She took it and watched him walk back out the door and down to his still running motorcycle. No tea was to be had, after all that. Anya stood and considered for a long moment. She didn’t get mail. She never got mail, as it were. The mail was always for Jeff.

The envelope was brown and lumpy and heavy. Anya turned it over and over in her hand listening to the postman’s words inside her head — You’re looking for the key.

Was she? Anya thought she was only looking for ways to be a cunt; she wasn;t looking for a key as far as she could think of. She had everything she needed. She had only really let the postman in because she was hopeful he wanted to fuck her, but all he had done was given her an envelope which she was guessing had a key inside. Anya continued to turn it over in her hands, feeling it’s weight, not quite ready to open it just yet, still thinking about the solid postman with the unreadable blind eyes, wondering how he would have felt between her thighs.

She closed and locked the front door. She was feeling a little tousled — the whole situation seemed off somehow. It was just as she was turning back to the kitchen that Anya felt her eyes slip down the hallway, to the locked door at the end of it.

*****

The box was obvious. The box couldn’t be ignored.

Anya bit the inside of her cheek and stared at it. The thing looked heavy where it sat, not quite in the middle of the previously locked room. Rectangular and solid and edged with a thick rim of drilled copper plate. There was a padlock on it and when Anya finally lurched forward and let her teeth disengage from the soft interior skin of her cheek, she only found that the box was, indeed, locked. She tried the key that had opened the door but it didn’t even fit into the padlock.

So much for that.

She was in the room, but now she needed to get into the box.

She looked around the room she had never been in. It was plain, painted in the same cream as the walls in the rest of their house, but in one corner there was a tall filing cabinet, taller than her and a little dusty on the top. She walked over to it and found it was locked as well. After a little searching, she found the key stuck with blue-tack to the rear edge. Amateur.

The top drawer squealed on its rails as she pulled it out. On tip toes she was barely able to see inside, so she lifted out a handful of papers. She flicked through a couple of pages — they seemed to be instruction manuals and warranty forms from a company called EasyLife. As she rifled, a small card fell from the papers. Anya picked it up.

Your unit comes preloaded with memories and preferences that are suited to your lifestyle and tastes — no need for long and bothersome setup sequences — our new XP units are plug and play :)

Anya didn’t care about this computer stuff, she wanted to know what was in the box. She needed to know.

In the second drawer she found more paperwork, tons of it. She flicked through, looking and looking, and then, at the very bottom of the metal cabinet drawer, she saw it.

A tiny gold card. A gold key was stuck to it with red wax.

Enjoy. That was all it said.

Anya snatched it up greedily and hurried back to the box.

The key worked, of course, and she swung open the lid. She found herself.

She found herself. Paper pale skin. Dull, lifeless, fragile. It was Anya — crumpled, naked, inside a box.

She found herself. Inside the box was Anya. At least, another Anya. She took a step back and realised she was holding her breath. Her heart was jungle drums inside her chest. She reached out her hand and touched the Other Anya. The skin was cold but soft — it felt real. Was it real?

There was a warning label on the inside of lid. With one eye on the Other Anya, she read it out-loud to herself, hoping the act would wake her from the apparent dream she was having.

!WARNING! Warm unit for at least thirty (30) days before use. If unit is engaged without sufficient warming we cannot guarantee a desirable interaction. Insufficient warming may result in some, if not all, of the following potentially undesirable unit traits:

    •    Crankiness
    •    Subjugation
    •    Screaming
    •    Obsession
    •    Infidelity
    •    Scratching
    •    Gluttony
    •    Denial
    •    Independence
    •    Hysteria
    •    Sarcasm
    •    Obesity
    •    Laziness
    •    Impatience
    •    Ambition

**Please note — This is not an exhaustive list and any other potentially undesirable unit traits that may occur due to insufficient warming time are regrettable. EasyLife is unable take any responsibility for potentially undesirable unit traits however we do offer twenty-four hour replacement should units become unmanageable due to potentially undesirable unit traits. Remember to enjoy your purchase.
    Anya looked at the Other Anya in the box in the previously locked room and bit the inside of her cheek. She wondered if Jeff had waited. If he had waited for her to ‘warm sufficiently’.

    She figured Probably Not.

The Maker of Bad Decisions

The Maker of Bad Decisions



    for Billy










Sylvia heard him dump his boots in the hall only just a moment before she could smell the cigarette.

“I need a snack!”

Her husband was drunk. Again.

Sylvia wiped her hands on her apron and attempted to ignore the banging and the cussing that always followed him home from the pub. It wasn’t every day, but it was most days. She had noticed that the closer it got to Christmas, the more days it had been.

“A twelve hour day!” he hollered from the living room, where Sylvia knew he was already slumped in his chair in front of the box.

He shouted at her when he wanted sympathy, love, and everything else, and she hated herself knowing she’d give all of it to him. Despite the shouting. And despite the fact that he was mean — a mean guy who happened to be her husband and the father of her only son.

Sylvia dumped a packet of salted peanuts into a small festive ceramic bowl and filled her lungs with air — trying to float above it. Her life. It, the air, tasted of tobacco. She walked quietly, out of habit, from the kitchen, careful not to disturb the unseen demons. It didn’t matter if they were real or not.

There he sat — Scott, her husband — in his chair and his dirty socks, plump and sweating and reeking of stale beer. He never failed to fill a room, but it was always in an insidious kind of way. As if he was a disease that spread out as soon as he was given the chance.

Sylvia carefully placed the bowl of nuts on the the small table next to his chair and tried to smile. “I thought you were going to pick up Scotty Jr from school today?”

Her husband picked his nose with a fat finger and scoffed at her. “Did you just hear me, woman?”

Sylvia stayed quiet, calm, holding his eyes with her own.

“A twelve-hour-fucking-day and you want me to put my boots back on and go and pick up your son from school, before I even have a fucking snack?!”

“He’s our son,” Sylvia noted, quietly.

Scott burst into a fit of laughter, his jelly-like stomach jiggly grossly, and stuff a handful of peanuts into his mouth.  “Our son?” he shouted. “You get pregnant and squeeze one out and now he’s our son?”

It took all that Sylvia had to resist the urge to bite her lip until it bled — until it hurt and she could dissolve into that pain as opposed to this pain. Her husband continued without prompt.

“A twelve-hour-day. Can he not catch the fucking bus?”

“His leg is broken.”

Sylvia’s husband — Scott — stuffed another handful of peanuts into his wide, greasy mouth, and called her a word that she could never, and will never, repeat.


~~~


Scott was tired. Macmillan had given him an earful over the whole Calthorpe fuck up from last week, and then, he’d copped a speeding ticket on the way back to the warehouse in the afternoon. The last thing he had need was back-chat from the woman.

All he wanted to do was relax in his chair and pretend like this day had never happened.

Scott put his boots back on an stomped (loudly) down the front stairs. The bitch was probably already crying herself hoarse in the bathroom anyway.

He turned the keys in the ignition, but if he was going anywhere, it wasn’t to Sylvia’s son’s school.

Scotty Jr’s school.

Oh no. He wasn't going there.

He knew of a place out behind the local department store that seemed to be open all the time and let pretty much anyone in. Scott parked his truck in the lot behind the store, and checked his cell phone. Two missed calls from Scotty Jr and a short text from Syl.

    Please don’t make him catch the bus. I know you’ve had a long day, but please.

Even her text messages had fucking punctuation. Scott needed another cigarette, so he got out and lit one.

It was cold out but the fresh air on his face was nice and for a moment Scott thought of Scotty Jr, who was probably…

Oh whatever…

The kid was grown; he could fend for himself.

“Hey buddy, I’m afraid you can’t smoke here.”

Scott looked up (well, up…a little bit) to see a midget sitting on the stairs that were bolted to the back of the store. Flanking the little guy, Scott counted five other midgets and no word of a lie, they were all dressed in matching red and green elf costumes, gold bells dangling from the tips of their pointed shoes and hats.

Scott couldn’t help himself — he burst into laughter. It was the laughter of a man who’d had a long day and a few too many beers.

The group of midgets were not impressed but Scott didn’t notice, he was still laughing and lighting another cigarette.

“Seriously though,” continued the first midget who was holding a half-eaten salad sandwich. “If you want to smoke there’s a designated area over there, away from the building, man.” The midget pointed beyond where Scott stood.

“If it’s okay with you, little man, I think I’ll stay right here and finish my Marlborough.”

A midget behind the first one stood up on his step, a similar salad sandwich in his hand. “I think Franklin made it pretty clear that we’re not okay with you smoking anywhere other than the designated area.”

Scott barked out another laugh and in the back of his mind, noticed that his eyes felt heavy and sleepy — perhaps he should have stayed home after all. Or gone to pick up Scotty Jr. Oh well, once he finished his cigarette he was going to get shit-faced at the bar and then maybe sleep in his car.

If only he could get these midgets off —

THWACK!

The blow to the right side of his face seemed to come out of nowhere, but Scott was verging on all-together drunk so it was only really a surprise to him. He didn’t see the second one coming either.

POW!

Scott stumbled back and felt himself unable to stay upright. His butt and lower back hit the ground, hard, and the world spun, as if reality was orbiting his head. On the edge of his vision he could see the midgets were surrounding him. Down on the ground now, where he was, he couldn’t help but think they seemed a lot bigger.

A lot more intimidating.

FWAP!

One of them slapped the back of his head, like you would a naughty child.

“Hey!” Scott was starting to get pissed off. “I’m just going over to the bar across the lot. I didn’t ask for trouble.”

“Mister,” said the first midget, the one who’d told him he couldn’t smoke, “if you came here…you came looking for trouble.”

Scott coughed and there was blood on his hand. He stood up. His cigarettes were strewn across the ground.

A midget with holly embroidered on his buttoned vest stepped forward. “This is our territory, you big oaf.”

Scott coughed again, and laughed again. “This ain’t the North Pole, sonny," he said. Then he laughed once more — at his own joke.

FFFFFSSSHHAK-BLOD!

One of the midgets had launched himself off the ground, tumbled in the air, and landed a punch right to his gut. Scott’s gut. Scott’s soft lower belly.

He crumpled, and even with his eyes closed, he felt the presence of the little guys all around him.

“We asked you nicely.” The voice was behind him.

“We were polite.” This voice was to his left.

The next was right in front of him. “Are you always such a dick, guy?”

Scott did his best to speak over the pain he was holding behind his hands. “If you’re done with this, Fun-Size, I think I’ll go over to the bar now.”

“Oh,” the fist midget laughed, “is that what you think?”

And all Scott knew was a dull THUNK! under his jaw and a strong urge to lean back off the proverbial cliff.

~~~


“Dude, you’re dad’s not coming.”

Scotty shuffled, trying to find a more comfortable position. His cast was itching like crazy today. “Mum said she’d ask him to pick me up today. He’s coming.”

“Dude, no he’s not.”

Scotty knew Gavin would be right in the end, and that there was no point in arguing. Still…

“Dude. Seriously. This is getting old.”

“What?”

Gavin swung his backpack up onto his shoulders. “This. This whole thing where you try to convince yourself that your dad isn’t an absolute cunt.”

Scotty stayed quiet. He hated that word. He also knew Gavin didn’t say that word unless he deemed it necessary; unless he was trying to make a clear point.

The point was made.

Gavin shrugged at Scotty’s silence. “I can give you a lift, dude. If you want?”

Scotty stared down the empty road behind their school and knew that he had never expected to see his father’s car. He had wanted to see it, but he had never really expected it. He sighed and turned awkwardly — he was still getting used to the crutches. “Okay man. I guess you were right. But can we stop and grab a burger?”

“Dude! It’s like you’re in my head sometimes.”

Scotty laughed but it was with half a heart. Maybe food would distract him.

The two boys started their journey to the student lot where Gavin’s second-hand Prius was parked. Scotty hobbled and Gavin walked (considerately slowly) and texted on his phone.

“Love messages to Liz?” Scotty asked.

Gavin paled. “Uh, actually, just letting my dad know I’ll be late.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Sorry. I mean, you can totally share him.”

Scotty laughed. “Thanks man. Your dad is the best. Hey! Remember that time he tried to teach us how to fly fish in the stream when we went camping.”

“Dude! That was such a fail. We are clearly not fishermen in any sense of the word.”

They both laughed. Scotty tripped forwards and almost lost his balance but Gavin was right there with a steady hand pulling him back up by his school shirt.

“I have no idea what made you think you could land that triple without ruining yourself in the first place.”

Scotty fell back into step with his friend. “I dunno man. I guess I just wanted to do something impressive for once.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “Dude, all of your gymnastics shit is impressive. Trust me. Liz can’t shut the fuck up about how impressive you are.”

Scotty felt a dull blush come to his cheeks.

Gavin quickly changed the subject. “So, burgers and then I drop you home yeah?”

“Uhhh, burgers and then you drop me a street away from my house.”

Gavin made a dramatic sigh. “You still haven’t told your folks that I got my license?!”

Scotty pretended to be sorry. “Hey man, I’m an invalid right now. All I wanted was for them, I mean, for dad, to maybe give half a shit.”

“That’s manipulative, dude. And I fucking love it!”

They fell silent again and the gravel crunched beneath their feet and the ends of Scotty’s crutches.

Gavin eventually broke the silence. “Ok. Burgers and then I drop you a block from you house.”

“Thanks.”

“Can I say something?”

Scotty stopped and looked up. “Of course. But this seems serious.”

“Oh,” said Gavin, “this is deadly serious.” He paused for effect and brushed the hair out of his face. “I bet, right now, that your dad is getting beat up by a bunch of Christmas-clad midgets.”

“What?”

Gavin burst into laughter. “Yeah. Like they’re totally dressed in elf costumes and they’re just beating the shit out of your stupid dad. That’s what I think.”

Scotty laughed as well and wondered if there was any justice in this life. “Gav, you’re a freaking nutbag sometimes.”