Chapter 41

 

Before leaving, they commandeered jackets from a downstairs closet. Cat’s was too big, Steve’s too small.

"Snazzy," Cat said when Steve modeled his find. "Purple and green."

"You like?"

She nodded, laughing.

Steve shuffled back and forth, flapped his arms, and threw some punches. It was tight, but it didn’t bind him. He had no intention of wearing a straight jacket to his next fight.

Cat rolled her sleeves. It would work until they found something better.

"Ready?"

They hit the streets, walking. They would hoof it out of town, find some cops, unload the Herbert theory, and then they’d say vaya con dios to College Heights.

Steve was glad he’d burned the blend. He felt good. Better, anyway. Awake. The pain receded in his gut, and he no longer felt like going to sleep. He was careful not to move around too much or talk too fast or anything. Cat didn’t need to worry about him going over the edge. When he’d offered her the bowl, she’d stuck to her guns, waving it off, and that was cool. She was holding up all right without it.

Damn, was she hot.

"How about we break into another house, check out its bedroom, too?" he asked.

She smiled, but it was forced, he knew. She was all business. She wanted to get to the cops, let them know about Herbert, and get the hell out of Cheery Valley. Not a bad plan, all in all. Still, he thought, looking her up and down, getting her back in the sack sounded like an even better idea.

"Are you cool?" she asked, surprising him.

Steve made his face serious. "Cool? Yeah, I’m cool. I’m Mr. Cool." But then, feeling the manic hilarity building up inside him, he put the brakes on his mouth.

"Well, then, stay on your toes, Mr. Cool. Keep a good lookout, okay?"

"Yeah," he said and meant it. He’d promised her he wouldn’t go around the bend. Not that he was going around the bend. He just didn’t want to give her that impression, laughing too much, making everything into a joke. So he tightened into himself and kept his mouth shut, and about half a block later, his vigilance started to wig him out a little.

This was some crazy bullshit. Why the hell weren’t they hiding out somewhere?

We already discussed that. Don’t fuck around and upset her.

They crossed upscale, residential neighborhoods marred with occasional scenes of naked atrocity. A burning house; a scattering of human teeth spread across the sidewalk like abandoned oracles’ bones boding ill; what appeared to be the arm of a child, lying discarded in a driveway like a broken toy. Like other streets they had passed since crossing Ackerman, however, these were relatively quiet, regardless of their grim milestones. Still, the contrast between streets of unspoiled suburbia and sporadic pockets of mayhem made for a surreal atmosphere somehow more unsettling than the full-blown madness they’d encountered in town.

By the time they reached the intersection of O’Brien and Lavender, it seemed to Steve that every breeze was a whisper, every shadow a crouching crazy. He half expected Banjo to step in front of them, frothing green, that little arm clutched in his mouth.

Fuck that.

Keep your shit together. Just keep your shit together, and this will all be over soon enough.

"Did you say something?" Cat asked.

"Huh? Me? No."

"Let’s turn left up here. That points us out of town, right?"

Steve agreed. Did it, though? Yeah. Right?

They turned onto Maple. Halfway down the block, Steve squinted at a fire hydrant. Had they already passed this spot? Were they walking in circles?

And then, all at once, he had to take a piss. Its sudden urgency and undeniable certainty were oddly comforting. He stopped. "Hold up."

She waited in mock impatience, smirking.

Steve stood in a gap between the hedges and took a leak, the arch of piss steaming in the cold night. In front of him stood nice houses, their windows dark, situated upon wide, flat yards. He’d never put much stock into the old white picket fence and never would, but even now, here, in the midst of all this insanity, he knew that meeting Cat had changed him in some fundamental way, had opened his mind to things he’d rejected wholesale in the past. He’d never end up in a columned estate, discussing mulch with shiny neighbors, but the basic idea of settling down no longer seemed ludicrous. A part of him had always seen it as weakness, settling down, like people just couldn’t make it on their own so they settled for someone and both of them agreed to split housework, pay bills, and share a slow death. And he supposed maybe there was some truth in that.

But with Cat, he saw another path. His choices were no longer limited to remaining Mr. Tumbleweed, blowing town to town, or selling out and settling down with some robotic, female agent of conformity. Cat represented a new option, one he’d never previously entertained, at least not beyond the wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if degree of entertainment. Cat was smart and strong and sexy as hell, and after only a single day together, he knew she was, at her very core, much different from other girls he’d known. She had backbone, grit, and her own lurking moral code, one that didn’t just mirror the weak ass ethics of the hypocritical world. She read. She thought. She’d lived and would continue living, making memories, trying things. She was an individual, and in any extended union between them, even if you called it settling down, she’d remain an individual. It was no wonder she’d cut out of high school, with all its bullshit and cliques and long, boring-ass classes. She was too strong for that.

Finished, he zipped up, and when he turned, he saw the green bottle on the ground, just under the hedge. He picked it up and showed Cat. "Cougar Beer, the world’s number #1 microbrew," he read. Then turning it, he read, "‘According to the Surgeon General, consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.’ After tonight, I guess they’ll need to update the warning label, huh? Consumption of Cougar Beer can cause other negative side effects including, but not limited to, pyromania, cannibalism, and total psychosis."

Cat laughed. "In-fucking-dubitably."

He smiled at her, and she smiled at him, and he thought, No shit, this is love. This is what love is like. He opened his mouth to congratulate her use of tmesis, but at that moment, a bullet traveling at over 1000 feet per second passed through his skull, wiping out the words, his memories, his plans, his life.