When We Join Jesus in Hell Read Online Free PDF Page A

at himself. “But I changed myself, didn’t I? I tramped down a path I thought you expected of me and it only created more discord, and you loved me less the more I buried the man I used to be, the one you fell in love with, and this other guy, this worker bee with heavy wings, burst forth, ready to bustle and do what he had to do to give you guys what a family should have. And neither one of us were wrong or right, but that doesn’t make things easy. It may only make it harder because there isn’t much middle ground. You can’t be all things to all people or you’re nothing.” He shakes his head, reaches over and takes her hand. “There’s no way to go back.”
    Her head turns and her eyes are blacker than the cesspool outside the car. She whispers, We strangled each other with expectations .
    “I know.” He watches the street, unable to meet her gaze. He says, “You have to change to adapt, but that doesn’t mean you have to like it, and that’s where I messed up. I tried to like it. I wasn’t being myself. I could have done like my dad and trained someone, been a mentor to some kid on his way up, some underdog with enough passion and heart to see him through, but I let it fall to the wayside because I thought you needed something else.”
    She squeezes his fingers.
    I never needed you to be anyone else …
    A sob racks his body and he doesn’t want to talk anymore. He wipes his eyes with his sleeve and looks for a napkin to blow his nose but he’s kept the car cleaned out for years now, and so he sniffles and watches the black world roll by, unable to measure the pain accumulating in his chest, the meaning of suffering. He wants to pull over and hold her and Bethany and just cry, I love you so much! Don’t leave me! Don’t go ! But a thickness fills his heart, the black bile of reality, and he presses the accelerator.

Three

    This city has always been alive with roaming darkness.
    Fist watches a man grab a woman and jerk her into the mouth of an alley stationed between two weatherworn and crumbling buildings. Karen doesn’t have to say anything. He pulls over and jumps out, a pistol in his hand, cold and solid, as he leaps on the sidewalk, sees the man undoing his belt, his forearm shoved into the girl’s throat. Fist doesn’t care that his shoes are slapping the concrete like gunshots, in fact, he finds comfort in that, maybe a little crazy with passion, with doing what he can now to set things right. The man spins, and the girl’s eyes are on him, and Fist, quick, some of the nimbleness coming back to him as each second grinds down, plants his dad’s .38 in the man’s forehead as the man holds a knife with one hand and his cock with the other until Fist sees Jesus laughing in the dude’s eyes, and he pulls the trigger, the guy falling back, bone and blood painting the girl’s hair red and white, a soft auburn hiding beneath.
    The man hits the bricks, twists for a moment in agony, reaching for whatever it is the dying reach for. Fist stomps on his ruined face, feels and hears the nose crack, bone splinter. The man stills. The girl trembles against the wall. Fist says, “Get the fuck off the street.” She nods and slides away, into the shadows, out of one horrible moment and headed for another, and there’s truth in that that Fist can’t deny.
    He thinks, I can’t protect everyone. Half of them would never even want it .
    But he wants to save the hurting, defend the weak, offer direction to the lost.
    Goddamn he wants to.
    When he jumps back in the car, Bianca climbs on his leg. She stares up at him through the gloom and part of him fears she’s about to impart some bit of wisdom, the thought so strong that he almost puts his hand over her mouth.
    Karen whispers that choked whisper that wrenches Fist’s heart, She loves you, that’s all. She wants to be close to you because you protect her. She’s safe in your presence. You’re her whole world …
    Fist pets Bianca, picks her up, kisses