Half an hour into fucking Julie Dietz for the fourth time that night, Thad knew he could keep on driving into that train wreck until the cows came home and it wasn’t going to do him a lick of good. Those first two times he came easy, but by the third go he was pounding Julie Dietz more out of sheer boredom than anything else. And, looking down on her now, listening to her wheeze and moan like some dying animal, Thad was pretty sure this was a wasted effort.
A low blue glow came through the curtains and it wouldn’t be long before the sun was up. Thad stared at the wall and tried to conjure some image that would get him off, but that sunlight had made him lose focus. He turned back to Julie, who squirmed beneath him. She clenched the sheets in her fists behind her and shook her head wildly as her rib-slatted torso contorted away from the mattress. He thought for a second that, given the right circumstances, she could’ve been pretty, but the dope had eaten her alive. Thinking that, he just felt sorry for her so he pulled out altogether and left her lying on the bed.
In the living room, Meredith was sprawled on the couch staring at the ceiling, but wallowed up when Thad came into the room. She squinted her eyes, then opened them wide, as if to try and decide if Thad was real or just some redheaded hallucination. Thad shook his head and wandered into the kitchen. He opened one of the cabinets and reached behind a bag of cornmeal to where he’d hidden a Slim Jim beef jerky from Aiden a few weeks back. He wasn’t so much hungry as just knew he needed to eat something. Thad peeled the wrapper back, bit the beef stick between his teeth like he was chomping a cigar, and slapped the cabinet door closed.
“Where the hell was you hiding them?” Meredith shouted. She’d just lit a cigarette and tossed the pack and lighter onto the table in front of the couch before leaning back to get comfortable.
“I ain’t have but one,” Thad said.
“You got any more?”
“You deaf or something?” Thad stood there looking confused. He could hear Julie blowing her nose in the bathroom as he chewed a bite and loped into the living room. He grabbed his pack of cigarettes from the table and tried to shake one loose, but the pack was empty. “You smoke every cigarette I had?” Thad asked.
Meredith just sat there with a look on her face like so-what-the-fuck-if-I-did and took a long drag.
“You better hope to God there’s another pack out in the car,” he said, slipping his feet into his boots by the table before heading for the door.
There was a slight chill in the air outside even though it was the middle of August. Thad headed down the steps and tromped across dew-covered grass to where Aiden’s Ranchero was parked in the yard. They always kept a carton of cigarettes slid under the bench seat, but there weren’t any left, so Thad checked the packs littered around the floorboard and came up empty. There wasn’t a thing in that car but an ashtray piled high with stubbed-out butts and one half-smoked Doral 100 that Aiden had left burning when he went into the Sylva Roses a month before. Stale as hell, but it’d do, he thought. Thad lit what was left with a lighter on the dash, slammed the car door, and headed back inside.
Julie Dietz stood in her underwear by the edge of the couch with twisted wads of toilet paper shoved into her nose. Thad walked in right in the middle of something, both Julie and Meredith going still as stone with eyes wide when he barged through the front door. Julie had just handed something to Meredith as Thad came in, and now Meredith was doing everything she could to keep it cupped in her hand so that he couldn’t see.
“What are you doing, baby?” Julie asked, and as Thad turned to face her he caught Meredith, out of the corner of his eye, try to slip whatever she was holding into the waistline of her boxers.
When Thad looked over at Meredith, he could see the corner of the bag of dope peaking out of her waistline. He turned to the table to try and find the one thing he’d need, but it wasn’t there.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Julie asked.
And all of a sudden Thad remembered that he’d taken that revolver into the bedroom to be on the safe side. Aiden was right all along. A man couldn’t trust a soul in this world.