THUGLIT Issue Four Read Online Free PDF Page A

up.”
     
    *****
     
    Forty minutes later the room was disinfected and mopped cleaner than it had been in years. Charlie curled in a ball on Herb’s bed, asleep and twitching every now and then.
    Martin’s body was rolled in a sheet on the floor, looking like a giant cocoon. They used one of the sheets with a rubber barrier against bed wetting. It kept the blood pooled inside and away from their spotless floor.
    Herb took a moment and leaned against the dresser. He watched Floyd as the machines breathed for him, drained the piss from him, and kept the reaper at bay. The old bastard with the scythe had to settle for a substitute this night.
    “What do we do with him?” Ruth asked.
    “We could dump him in Roy’s old room,” Herb said.
    Roy kicked off last month. Natural causes, they said. The ones who could hear would tell you he called out to the staff for an hour that night. When he finally went quiet everyone assumed he gave up. In a way, he did.
    “Won’t they find him?” Ruth said.
    “Yeah, that’s no good.” Herb ran his hand over his head, his scalp clammy with sweat. Another day in this hellhole and it’s gone shittier than usual. And all he wanted to do was have some fun, just like the night of the fire. Can’t an old man enjoy a goddamn cigar anymore? Was it his fault he fell asleep? Was it his fault they didn’t have a goddamn fire extinguisher?
    Ask his son and he’d say yes. That bitch of a wife would say Si .
    “I got an idea,” Herb said.
     
    *****
     
    Distracting the cab driver had been fairly easy for Ruth. She let the men get the “luggage” while she explained where they were headed. Getting Charlie awake enough to help stuff the mummy-wrapped bod y in the trunk had been harder.
    He moved un derwater-slow, his eyes always at risk of falling shut. They let him sit against the open window as they drove in case he needed to puke again, and maybe the cold air would sober him up.
    When they pulled up in front of the address the cab driver asked, “This is where you want to go?”
    Herb said yes and made Ruth pay the man as he and Charlie retrieved the luggage.
    Two years on and the house was still nothing more than a pile of old cigar ash. The char-blackened chimney bricks still stood, so did much of the back porch, but the bones of the house stuck out of a charcoal pit like a dozen burnt matchstic ks shoved into the earth.
    The cab pulled away and they dragged Martin’s wrapped and ready body into the pile of ash, smoothed over a coating of camouflage to last at least until the next rain.
    They all stepped back to the sidewalk, clapping soot from their hands. They turned to face the nonexistent house.
    “You did this, huh?” Ruth asked.
    “Yeah,” Herb said, examining the full extent of the damage for the first time. “I guess I did.” He really had fucked up bad. Damn good thing they didn’t have kids. “What a fuckin’ mess,” Herb said.
    Ruth put a hand on his arm and Herb ran his eyes over the pile of nothingness. Herb told himself to call his son and apologize in the morning. And to finally le arn his daughter-in-law’s name.
    “Look at me,” Charlie said. Herb and Ruth both turned. Charlie had taken soot from the pile and given himself an Al Jolson blackface. His teeth practically glowed white as he smiled against his pitch black face.
    “Oh, brother,” Herb said. He and Ruth got on either side of Charlie and escorted him back to the Four Palms. They were all out of cab fare.
     
    *****
     
    They returned to Herb’s room ninety minutes later and each breathed a deep sigh of relief. By then Charlie had mostly sobered up, but seemed overcome by tiredness.
    “Should we get Charlie to his own bed?” Ruth asked.
    “No, don’t bother. I’ll take his.” Herb guided Charlie to his own bed and let him collapse. 
    Ruth noticed the syringe lying on the dresser top. Herb saw it too.
    “After all this,” Ruth said. “Do we?”
    “It was a hell of a lot of trouble to go