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  But that was only one incident. He still came that weekend and successive weekends until there was the big argument between his parents. They were threatening each other with divorce. They were threatening each other. His father didn’t come back for a few weeks but they talked on the phone a couple of times. His father promised to stay in touch, promised to take him on vacation, and take him on trips, but they felt like more lies. And then suddenly it was over. He stopped calling. There were no more visits, no more promises and no more lies. Simon didn’t think much of it at first. After about nine months he remembered thinking about his father, trying to wish him into existence on some night he was arguing with his mother but he wasn’t there and he didn’t call that phone number. He didn’t want to speak to that other woman. Eventually he forgot about the man in his daily life, in his need for some other parent and it was just him and his mother.

  His thoughts were broken by the sound of Conrad coming into the house. Simon was flat on his back on his own bed by then and he didn’t move even though he had an impulse to do so. He had an impulse to go to Conrad right then and tell him about his mother, Heather, and what happened, to try and work out some plan. But there was no plan to work out. Conrad was terrible with plans. Conrad didn’t make plans. He would only think the worst. He would worry about his own safety, maybe he’d leave or maybe he’d threaten to do something himself. He could call the police. No, Conrad wouldn’t have a solution, he told himself.

  And yet the pain in his stomach felt worse, because wasn’t that what people were for, to help you in times of need. Simon closed his eyes as he felt himself about to cry. His eyes watered so he opened them again to let the tears be contained there as little pools of water until they dried out. He wouldn’t give the satisfaction of crying over something like this. He had been through worse. And yet it still hurt, he could still feel, and the worst sensation was the emptiness and the loneliness. He balled his fist and opened his mouth to cry out but there was no noise, no sense in making any. He knew he had to keep it all inside but when he closed his eyes to keep the feeling he felt the tears roll down his cheeks and he began to sob, little, almost controlled spasms that moved from his gut up into his face.

  It all had been something. This life it had to mean something. His suffering had to have a reason. And yet there was nothing, no one there to witness it so it felt like it had no meaning at all.

  Chapter 21 - Friends Like These

  Without DJ at the bar Conrad was desperate for new clients, addicts and dealers to get rid of his stash. If he was going to run then it had to be with cash because there was too much risk in pills. He had spent the days following his tryst with DJ in any public space he could find. He lingered in the library, the coffee shop, every restaurant, and store, trying to find someone who looked like they did drugs but could also be approached, someone maybe even weaker than himself. But there didn’t seem to be another person, not anyone like DJ.

  In a town like this a person could get his head caved in just for being gay let alone looking at someone else funny or asking them if they were interested in drugs. Finally at the gas station as he was buying a bottle of water and a snack he thought he found the perfect person.

  Lean with a slight limp to his walk he was taller than Conrad but looked fragile, his jeans sagged down around his ass showing a nice area of boxers. He wore a long sleeve shirt under a t-shirt, a wool cap. Conrad paused at the door to watch him. His fingernails were long, hands were dirty. He bought a pack of cigarettes with wrinkled dollar bills and loose change.

  Conrad stepped outside and moved along the wall until he came to a spot where he could stand. He spotted someone who could be a friend of the guy inside so he tried to size him up without drawing attention. The friend was skinny and short with long hair but he looked just as strung out. Sure enough when the guy from inside came out they met up and shared the cigarettes. This is my moment, Conrad thought. He pushed himself from the wall and approached them.

  “Hey, can I uh bum one of those?” Conrad asked.

  The tall skinny one looked around before he said, “yeah sure” and then offered a cigarette to Conrad. The shorter one looked Conrad over from his feet to his head then back down before he seemed to relax.

  “I’m new in town,” Conrad said. “I’m staying with a friend but he doesn’t really know where any of the parties or anything are happening, not for people our age. The bars are all full of old bastards. I saw you inside and I thought maybe you know a thing or two.”

  “Who’s your friend?” the tall one asked.

  “Simon Winters,” Conrad said.

  “Really?”

  Conrad nodded.

  “Holy shit, I’ve heard of him, a real psycho. Why are you staying there?”

  “Uh, we’re, uh, cousins,” Conrad answered.

  “My name is Tim and this is Elliot,” the tall one said.

  “I’m Conrad.”

  They shook hands. And then Conrad put his hands back in his pockets and they looked around.

  “So what are you looking for?” Tim asked.

  “I’m just looking to have a good time. Simon is kind of a prude, you know, and I’ve been living in the city for a few years. He doesn’t think people here in this small town party like they do in the city but I told him someone has to know how to have a good time.”

  “We know how to have a good time,” Tim said.

  “Yeah, if you want to come hang out with us we can show you how we do it here.”

  Conrad looked around the parking lot again. The earth felt heavy beneath his feet, the motion of the cars and people was too much. He needed an escape. He nodded and they ushered him along back to their apartment just off Main Street in a building that looked like it should have been condemned. He followed them up old, narrow stairs, down a long, skinny hallway to an apartment. Tim opened the door with a key and stepped inside first. Elliot paused to let Conrad go ahead of him and for a moment he wanted to stop, wanted to run away. This is how bad things happen, he told himself. But he went ahead anyway.

  When he saw Tim sit on an old couch and turn on the television it was a comforting act so he relaxed and went to sit beside him. Elliot retrieved three beers and passed them out before going to sit in a lawn chair next to the couch. Conrad smiled to them, raised his can to cheer them, and drank deeply.

  “Enough of that,” Tim said before letting out a burp. “Time to get down to business. Hey, do you have some money to chip in?”

  Conrad nodded and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a few bills and dropped them on the table, still unsure what they would be used for but in need of this, this act, this scene, this punishing reality. Tim got up and left the room. For a moment Conrad thought he would return with a gun, maybe a baseball bat or some other weapon, and he’d be robbed, maybe worse. Tim came back into the room with a little bag of powder and a mirror with a razor blade.

  “Cocaine, here?” Conrad asked.

  “It passes through town,” Tim said.

  “We have some connections,” Elliot said.

  “Since you’re the guest you can go first,” Tim offered. He began to prepare the powder on the mirror.

  “Thanks,” Conrad said. “I haven’t done coke in a long time.”

  He was tempted to roll a twenty dollar bill to try and look cool, maybe impress them, but he settled for a straw instead and snorted a line. There was an initial burn in his nose that happened when anything was snorted, a feeling as if he had sucked his face down through his throat, and then it hit him. His nerves felt like fireworks and he became aware of the tension in his shoulders and his feet. These guys are okay, he told himself.

  Eventually Tim brought out the marijuana and rolled a joint to flatten out their energy level because they were beginning to feel like something needed to be done. They took turns drinking, smoking, and snorting until someone decided to buy pizza with the cash on the table. Elliot ordered and almost an hour later he paid the delivery guy at the door. He se
t the pizza on the coffee table amongst everything else, knocked an empty beer can to the floor and everyone ignored it. Conrad sat back in the old couch and gripped the arm rest.

  Reality was clear to him. He could see himself there on the couch. It was like an out of body experience. He could see himself as an object in space. I’m so little, he thought, I can’t stay this way. He let out a laugh as he was unsure if he had actually spoken the words or somehow the guys heard him, could understand him just from his body language, or maybe they were having the same experience. This can’t stop. I need to keep going. This town can’t hold me.

  “Are you okay?” Elliot asked.

  Tim moved to him, slapped him gently on the face, took hold of his chin. Their guest had lost control in just a few hours. He thought about rolling him then and taking him somewhere but they didn’t know anything about him. He was from the city and maybe he had some money. He slapped him again and turned to the pizza, got himself a slice and told Elliot not to worry about it, they’d deal with it later.

  Hours later, Conrad awoke with a jerk of his body. He was warm and covered in a blanket, but nothing else was familiar. His nose was against the back pillow of a couch that smelled of dry rot. And he wasn’t wearing any clothes, or at least many clothes. He reached down to his crotch to feel his briefs were still there. He rolled onto his stomach to relieve the pressure in his kidneys, a bit of an erection helped too, but he was suddenly embarrassed as he looked over to see Elliot in the lawn chair.

  Luckily the room was dark, especially where he was and Elliot probably couldn’t see everything. How did this happen? Did the guys strip me? Did I do anything with them? How did I get fucked up so quickly? It had been years since he took so many drugs in such a short amount of time. He reached down and tucked his dick between his thighs, rolled to his side and sat up a little. At least my asshole doesn’t hurt, he thought, though he’d have to double check it in private.

  “Where are my clothes?” he asked.

  “On the floor,” Elliot said.

  “What happened?”

  “You took them off. You said you were tired and needed some sleep.”

  “I did? I must have blacked out,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it. It happens to everyone.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost nine o’clock,” Elliot said.

  “Really?”

  Conrad sat up, his dick felt relaxed but the urge, pain, to urinate was worse. He pulled the blanket aside and picked up his jeans, put his feet inside and stood to pull them up around his waist. He checked to make sure everything was still in his pockets. Elliot hadn’t moved.

  “How much did I drink?”

  “I’m not even sure. You drank more than us though.”

  “Do I owe you guys anything?”

  “Not today, but if you come by any party favors we could do it again.”

  “Yeah, really?”

  “Of course,” Elliot answered.

  “Man, I really need to pee,” Conrad said.

  “That way, the light is still on. I think Tim is in there but don’t worry he’s probably passed out too.”

  Conrad looked up to see a sliver of light from around a hallway corner inside the apartment. His feet felt weighed down but he knew he needed to move. He realized he was shirtless but that was less important than relieving himself. He walked towards the light, down the little hallway and to the bathroom door that was partially open. He entered to find Tim was asleep in the bathtub, naked and on his back. There was no water but he looked wet from his bellybutton to his face and even his hair. His pubes were wet. He smelled of urine.

  He pissed on himself, Conrad thought, how funny, maybe I could piss on him too. He looked out into the hallway and thought about Elliot. It was risky enough that Tim might wake up while he was doing it, or maybe think he urinated on him anyway even if he used the toilet, but to actually do it was crossing a line. No, he lifted the lid to find a toilet bowl that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years. He pissed into the toilet and closed the lid as quietly as he could. He rubbed at his face and looked at himself in the crusty mirror. I’m messed up but at least I’m not in a tub with my own piss all over myself. He shook his head and headed out to the living room. He found his shirt among some trash and finished dressing.

  “Call tomorrow and we’ll do something,” Elliot said.

  Conrad pulled out his phone and asked for their numbers. He typed them into his phone and put them under the proper names before he thanked his new friend and began to exit. Amazing what a person can do when they’re trashed, he told himself.

  Chapter 22 - Fit to Print

  Wherever Kevin went, whatever he did, he kept thinking about the cut across Heather’s forehead, picking her up from the hospital, and the way she looked when they dropped her off the next morning back at her house. There was something that had to be done. He had to do something to stop her from continuing the relationship. The Winters family was dangerous. Simon had stabbed someone and now his mother had attacked Heather with a knife, cut her clean across the forehead. How bad did it have to get?

  He called Thad while taking a break from class. It was Thad’s idea to do some research at the newspaper and the library, find all of the articles about the Winters family. He started with the databases, moved on to the scanned files of microfiche, and then decided to ask his boss for help. He took the man a cup of coffee and a donut when he knew he wouldn’t be busy.

  It was easy to come up with everything he wanted, everything that would give her reason to doubt, to not trust, Simon. It wouldn’t be easy in a small town like this but Simon had once kept to himself and he could easily do it again.

  That night he drove to Heather’s home after she had gotten back from work and knocked on her door. She welcomed him inside gratefully and showed him to the kitchen where she was brewing coffee and snacking on an unsold donut.

  “Do you want one?” she asked.

  “No thanks,” he said. “And coffee at this hour?”

  “I can drink a cup and go right to sleep,” she said.

  “I’ve got some things I want to show you.” He moved back through the house to the dining room where he turned on the room light, placed his bag on the table, and sat. He pulled out several folders, looked into the top one to make sure before he slid it across the surface for her. She walked in with her coffee and donut and sat across from him.

  “What’s this?” she asked. “Research for your project?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “I need you to look inside.”

  “Do you mind if I get powdered sugar on them?”

  “No,” he said.

  She licked her fingers then dried them on her jeans before she opened the folder. She looked at the contents briefly then to him.

  “What’s this?”

  “I need you to look at everything,” he said.

  Words and phrases like ‘suspicious death’, ‘terminally ill’, ‘mercy killing’, ‘police investigation’, ‘corroborating evidence’, ‘unsubstantial’, and ‘inconclusive’ stuck out to her as she looked over the photocopied articles about Simon’s mother. The few about Simon said less.

  “What am I supposed to make of this?”

  “His mother is crazy,” Kevin said, “like homicidal crazy.”

  “Well, we kind of knew that.” She pointed to her forehead. “And this doesn’t really say much. People die in hospitals.”

  “I thought you’d be suspicious,” he said.

  He pulled another folder from his bag and laid it on the table, opened it, and pulled out another photocopied article. He had highlighted the headline, Simon Winters Sr. Disappears, Leaves Debt. He slid the paper to her and she picked it up. She looked it over carefully, read a few paragraphs.

  “His father was a deadbeat?”

  “The article says that he had books about creating a new identity, a hidden room, and all of the stuff to do it. I’m thinking of two reasons he would
want to runaway. One is debt and the other--”

  “--Is Simon’s mother, as in she was so scary that he created a new identity and fled the area. They were divorced. She’s barely a hundred pounds. I’m scared of her but she had a knife.”

  “And maybe she killed him, got rid of the body, and made it look like he fled. Maybe she knew about his plan for a new, secret identity and she got angry.”

  “Okay,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. She let the paper fall to the table and it drifted back towards him before it settled.

  “Huh?”

  “So what, I’m not going to see him anymore.”

  “It might not be that easy. I talked to my boss at the newspaper and he said there were lots of rumors around town he couldn’t print. He said that Simon was infatuated with Josh’s younger sister Lucy. You see they were in the same grade and he used to follow her home. She used to think someone was spying on her and then one night they caught him. It was the summer before the stabbing. He was outside her window masturbating. Of all things it was his mother that actually caught him. She created this whole scene, the neighbors and everyone saw. She dragged him home and nothing was done about it. People didn’t see him the rest of the summer except at church. Then, there was some kind of confrontation after school started and he stabbed him. I’m not one to defend jocks and the rich people in town but he stabbed a guy.”

  Her jaw was clenched tight as she stared at him. She pushed away from the table and got to her feet. The boy, the young man, who had been so nice in bed might not be so nice after all. She stepped to the kitchen counter and picked up a cup, poured herself some more coffee.

  “He’s dangerous is all I’m trying to say,” Kevin added.