streaming eyes. He was getting better at this.
Rolling Robert onto his back with his foot, the father surveyed the long fellow more closely. Rangy shanks and old bones. He hadn’t bathed in a while either and smelled of sour cream and
vinegar.
The father unholstered his bottle of chemically treated saline from his rucksack and doused Robert’s face, shaking the container empty. Robert moved his hands to let the tepid liquid
relief swill and rinse out his eye sockets. He spluttered, coughed like a bull, then fell to groaning and clawing at the kinky shit between his gums, now stuffing up his head with old Wellington
boot fumes.
‘Nasty, evil shit. Can’s full too. And I’m not shy with it, Robert. I’ll discharge it all day in this room until it rattles dry. I’ve seen eyes bulge like beef
tomatoes after two doses.’ The father tapped Robert’s hip with the toe of his hiking boot. ‘On your feet, or your knees if you can’t see shit. And take me to your
stash.’
Sat in the recliner, Robert was scared, chilli-eyed, shuddery, and locked in by a dinner tray like a baby in a high chair. Cuffed hands lay limp in his lap. His media devices
were lined up, side by side, on the coffee table. ‘That’s all in the past. I’ve never reoffended.’ And that was all Robert seemed inclined to say.
‘When you were barred from the care homes, how did you get your fix? Who was in your last crew? Names, Robert. Names and addresses.’
‘I told you, I never reoffended. My wife . . .’ He swallowed. ‘My wife was seriously ill, and I—’
‘You ever really cared about her, you wouldn’t have put her through seven kinds of hell.’
The father felt his advantage slipping away. A recurring problem with the spray was the escalation of fear in the victim of a second dose, or something else just as bad. The discomfort of the
gas was intolerable, and the afflicted even began to believe they’d done nothing wrong, that they’d hung up their boots and never been near a single mother with a drug addiction again.
That was no good, and nor was a false confession to stop the agony: a timeless problem with torture.
The father put the can on the coffee table so that Robert could see the little yellow pillar from hell, filled with compressed fire and brain-freezing skull-fuckery. ‘Robert, we both know
your predilection is something you’ll never recover from, and it’s not something you will ever resist when it calls. You may not even be in control of your legs when you see a set of
swings and a seesaw. Until your sex drive starts to resemble the dead lawn out back, it’s a white-knuckle ride. I’ve done my homework and I understand, so denial is just no good to
me.’ The father checked his watch. ‘I’m on a clock.’
‘Someone is coming . . . friends, they—’
‘Sure, sure they are. And you’ll have plenty of time to freshen up once we’re done.’
Something that might have been hope flickered across Robert’s face, before the emotion’s strength failed and could not pick up the miserable, suspicious, downcast mouth that would be
set in stone long after the father left the premises. And now the two of them were in the living room and the tussle was behind them, the father was beginning to self-hate. A distant version of
himself wanted to beg forgiveness for what he had just done to an old man in his bedroom. But the father wheeled that self away and shut it inside a back room of his head, and then he swallowed the
key.
He went rummaging in the rucksack again, fetched out the photograph in the plastic bag, moved closer to the easy chair. Robert’s eyes followed him, wary, but no longer beseeching because
the contempt was seeping back. In what little of the father’s face that he could see, the eyes and nothing more, Robert had just glimpsed a trait that he believed he could work on: a
weakness. The father had seen this near-hidden but eager expression in men like Robert before; they wanted a
Rolling Robert onto his back with his foot, the father surveyed the long fellow more closely. Rangy shanks and old bones. He hadn’t bathed in a while either and smelled of sour cream and
vinegar.
The father unholstered his bottle of chemically treated saline from his rucksack and doused Robert’s face, shaking the container empty. Robert moved his hands to let the tepid liquid
relief swill and rinse out his eye sockets. He spluttered, coughed like a bull, then fell to groaning and clawing at the kinky shit between his gums, now stuffing up his head with old Wellington
boot fumes.
‘Nasty, evil shit. Can’s full too. And I’m not shy with it, Robert. I’ll discharge it all day in this room until it rattles dry. I’ve seen eyes bulge like beef
tomatoes after two doses.’ The father tapped Robert’s hip with the toe of his hiking boot. ‘On your feet, or your knees if you can’t see shit. And take me to your
stash.’
Sat in the recliner, Robert was scared, chilli-eyed, shuddery, and locked in by a dinner tray like a baby in a high chair. Cuffed hands lay limp in his lap. His media devices
were lined up, side by side, on the coffee table. ‘That’s all in the past. I’ve never reoffended.’ And that was all Robert seemed inclined to say.
‘When you were barred from the care homes, how did you get your fix? Who was in your last crew? Names, Robert. Names and addresses.’
‘I told you, I never reoffended. My wife . . .’ He swallowed. ‘My wife was seriously ill, and I—’
‘You ever really cared about her, you wouldn’t have put her through seven kinds of hell.’
The father felt his advantage slipping away. A recurring problem with the spray was the escalation of fear in the victim of a second dose, or something else just as bad. The discomfort of the
gas was intolerable, and the afflicted even began to believe they’d done nothing wrong, that they’d hung up their boots and never been near a single mother with a drug addiction again.
That was no good, and nor was a false confession to stop the agony: a timeless problem with torture.
The father put the can on the coffee table so that Robert could see the little yellow pillar from hell, filled with compressed fire and brain-freezing skull-fuckery. ‘Robert, we both know
your predilection is something you’ll never recover from, and it’s not something you will ever resist when it calls. You may not even be in control of your legs when you see a set of
swings and a seesaw. Until your sex drive starts to resemble the dead lawn out back, it’s a white-knuckle ride. I’ve done my homework and I understand, so denial is just no good to
me.’ The father checked his watch. ‘I’m on a clock.’
‘Someone is coming . . . friends, they—’
‘Sure, sure they are. And you’ll have plenty of time to freshen up once we’re done.’
Something that might have been hope flickered across Robert’s face, before the emotion’s strength failed and could not pick up the miserable, suspicious, downcast mouth that would be
set in stone long after the father left the premises. And now the two of them were in the living room and the tussle was behind them, the father was beginning to self-hate. A distant version of
himself wanted to beg forgiveness for what he had just done to an old man in his bedroom. But the father wheeled that self away and shut it inside a back room of his head, and then he swallowed the
key.
He went rummaging in the rucksack again, fetched out the photograph in the plastic bag, moved closer to the easy chair. Robert’s eyes followed him, wary, but no longer beseeching because
the contempt was seeping back. In what little of the father’s face that he could see, the eyes and nothing more, Robert had just glimpsed a trait that he believed he could work on: a
weakness. The father had seen this near-hidden but eager expression in men like Robert before; they wanted a
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