face.
Dennis’s right eye has already turned shades of black and blue. A purple welt on his cheek appears ready to explode. His upper lip is cracked and encrusted with blood. He looks desperate for care, but I’m not sure how to extend him any. Hugs go far in rectifying some problems, but I don’t know Dennis well enough to hug him, so I sit down on his bed close enough for our knees to touch. I watch for his reaction, to see if he’s too upset with me to have me this close, but his watery eyes remain focused on the TV. I follow them to a menu screen for Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. Before long, he presses a remote control button that starts the movie.
After a slow forming New Line Cinema logo, a narrator tells of hapless victims who once fell prey to a cannibalistic clan of serial killers. When the narration concludes, a sledgehammer rises. A woman’s screaming face fills the screen. The sledgehammer swings forward. A vicious white splat forms the title. Between credits, a filthy, hulking man slaps down the woman’s severed face onto a workbench, cuts the skin into pieces, and stitches them back together. Dennis leans forward with a grin, as though death has fulfilled him.
“Why does this make you happy?” I ask.
He replies, “Because I’m not her.”
Someone in the hallway clears his throat. Fearing Barry’s arrival, I bounce away from Dennis and look to Nathan with mild relief. He’s standing in the door frame with his lips curled over his teeth and his eyes sunken in a gloomy haze. “Come upstairs,” he says to me, “we need to talk.”
I follow Nathan upstairs, which takes quite awhile since he can only manage one slow step at a time. In the living room, a wooden chair is already set before his recliner. Two full glasses of lemonade are waiting on the end table. When I sit down, Nathan eases into his recliner and hands me a sweaty glass. I haven’t had a drink since biking through the sun, and I suck down half before realizing I must look like an animal. Nathan waits for my final swallow before saying, “We’re not bad people.”
“No, sir,” I reply.
“We just need to make sure you keep a low profile.”
“I understand, but I’m not used to hiding.”
He rotates his wedding band a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, releasing a steady stream of breath. “About this morning.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“Aside from Lori, who’s not much of a personality, there hasn’t been a female presence in this house since my wife had a stroke two months ago.” He leans to his left and pries out a wallet from his right pants pocket. He opens it, sorts through a plastic accordion, and extracts a small picture that he hands to me. On a park bench, seated beside an impossibly young Nathan, is a youthful woman with light hair and dark glasses. Their hands are entwined and they’re smiling.
“Come this September, Gail and I will have been married fifty-four years.” The baby monitor on the TV stand crackles. A moan sounds within the white noise. “You’d have liked her. She once had an association with God. When she was in her late teens she was in practice to become a nun, but then she met a certain churchgoer.” He softly puts a hand on his chest. “We courted quietly for several months, and were on the verge of calling it quits so she could continue with her vows but . . . you see, she became pregnant.”
“With Barry?”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
