Suckers (13 page)

When his great-aunt had broken her hip a few years ago, his mom had moved her into an assisted living facility. Aunt Cathy’s furniture, the pieces she’d insisted on taking from her home when his mother sold it, crowded the small room at Elder Haven: towering armoire, poster bed. Two wingback chairs sat angled in front of the window, a claw-footed table between them.

The place was spotless, but only one person could move around in it at a time.

Despite the blinds levered shut at the window, Aunt Cathy wore enormous post-surgery sunglasses. The little peak of her nose stuck out below them. He waited until she’d shuffled to her favorite of the wing chairs before kissing the top of her white hair.

No bees, no buzzing. He smiled a little in relief and took the other seat.

Her thin fingers, the joints swollen with arthritis, felt around the chair arm as she said, “So what’s new with you, Danny boy?”

“Not a thing. We just got back from the road. Time to make another record next, then do it all over again.”

“You get that from your great-grandfather, you know, wandering all over the place. He was a Bible salesman, though if you ask me, he did more than sell Bibles house to house.”

Dan smiled. This was not new news. Aunt Cathy had always been of the opinion—and not shy of voicing it—that his great-grandfather had left children all over the Northeast, several of who she insisted had been in attendance at his funeral, strangers who’d hung at the back and left before anyone could say anything to them. His mother, who’d been a girl at the time, had no recollection of this. Aunt Cathy’s answer to that was that she’d been too short to see over people’s heads.

Not that at four-foot-ten Cathy had had much more of an advantage. “I was taller then!” she’d say, her back stooped.

Now she said, “I hope you didn’t inherit his other proclivities.”

“They make better birth control these days.”

“Oh, you.” She swatted his arm, her head still facing forward in those dark glasses, like she’d gone blind.

“How’d the surgery go?”

“Great, they say.”

“And you say?”

“It beats a bypass. If your next question is going to be about my blood sugar and whether they’ve changed my meds yet, I’m going to start calling you Faye and kick you out. They want to replace my bed, did you know? With one of those ugly hospital beds. Laziness is all it is. Makes less work for them. Tell me something interesting. All anyone ever talks about around here is what hurts and what’s for dinner.”

“I got attacked by a bat in an alley down in North Carolina,” Dan said.

“I hate those things. They get in your hair. Did it bite you?”

“I don’t know. It felt like it did something, but there was nothing there.”

“Maybe you just got a pinch. Was it during the day? That’s a sure sign of rabies, in which case you are damned lucky if it didn’t break the skin.”

“It was at night, after a show.”

“I knew a girl who got rabies once,” she said. “Silly thing thought she was saving a mouse from a cat. Should’ve let the cat have it.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died.”

He felt clammy suddenly. “She didn’t happen to have a thirst for blood first, did she?”

“I don’t think it was a vampire mouse.”

A
ding
went off on the nightstand, and Cathy said, “Poop. Pill time. Hand me that plastic box, will you?”

It rattled as he carried it to her. Three compartments were already flipped open. He popped the lid on the next in line, and she let him dump pills into her shaky palm.

“Water?” he asked.

“Would you?”

She had a glass turned over beside the bathroom sink. He let the water run, the way she liked it. The bathroom smelled like Jean Naté and old lady, the way her bathrooms always had. He filled the glass and brought it to her. While he waited for her to take the handful of pills, one at a time, he itched to pull his phone from his pocket and look up rabies symptoms.

“You’ll bring me a copy of the new album, won’t you?” she asked as he replaced the pillbox on the dresser.

“Always.”

He made it to his car before giving in. Rabies: discomfort, general weakness, headaches. A prickling or itching sensation at the site of the bite. He rubbed the back of his neck, queasy suddenly.
There’s no fucking bite, though
. Cerebral dysfunction, anxiety, confusion, agitation, delirium, hallucinations, insomnia.
There’s no fucking bite
. And no mention on the CDC’s web page of a taste for blood.

It did say that by the time the symptoms showed up, it was fatal.

He leaned back, closed his eyes, and swallowed bile.

There is no fucking bite
. And if he had it anyway, there was no fucking help.

He opened the car door and threw up on the pavement.

“Look who’s here!” His mother gave him a hug at the top of the split-level’s stairs.

“Who are you talking to?” With her arms around his neck, the bees murmured, their faint buzz tickling his vertebrae.
The day gets better and better.

“Myself,” she said with a laugh, oblivious. “That’s what you get used to doing when you rattle around a house all by yourself.” She pulled back, holding him at arm’s length. “Are you sleeping enough?”

“Too much.”

“You look as ragged as you did when you dropped the equipment off.”

“I stopped by to see Aunt Cathy.”

“Oh good. I’m sure she appreciated it. Hope you’re hungry—I have a lasagna in the oven. We can split the leftovers.”

“Sounds good.”

In the kitchen, she gathered scattered sections of the Sunday edition of
The Boston Globe
and dropped them in a box.

“How’re things?” he asked.

“Well, you know, the usual.” She smiled as she went around the counter. “Work, upkeep, a little television and reading in the evenings. Set the table while I start the salad, would you? When are you starting work on the next album?”

“Soon. We have seven or eight songs half ready to go. Or at least we think so, till we hear them again.”

“Are you feeling all right?” She took his arm as he gathered silverware from the drawer, turning him. She touched the cool back of her hand to his forehead. Far away, the bees hummed.

He ducked, forks and knives in hand. “I’m all right. Just coming down with a bug, I think.” He rounded the counter and started setting out the napkins and flatware.

“Do you have a scratchy throat? I hear that’s going around.”

“No, I’m good. Just a little tired, a little headachy.”

“You probably just need to eat.” She touched his forehead again as he passed on his way to the dishes cabinet.

“Are we having garlic bread?” he said.

“Of course. Get out of your coat already. No wonder you look flushed.”

After laying out the plates, he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair.

“What do you want to drink?”

“Water’s fine.” The buzzing, right at the base of his skull, welled and ebbed like a thick heartbeat. He pulled out the chair and sat, rubbing his palm against the edge of the table to distract himself.

Rabies
.

Untreatable once the symptoms start.

“Here’s some orange juice.” She set a glass in front of him.

“I said water’s—”

“Just drink it and be quiet.” She headed back to the cutting board to work on a cucumber. “How’s Ray?” The knife went
chop-chop
on the cutting board.

“Fine.”

“And Jamie?”

“Ray and I took him to detox a few days ago.”

“Oh? How’s he doing?”

“I don’t know. Good, I hope.”

“Can he get letters?”

Dan rubbed his nape.
I’m going to die from rabies if that’s what I have
. “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask.” He took a swallow of orange juice, sweet on his tongue, cool in his throat.

“I got this new jalapeño ranch dressing.” She ruffled his hair as she set the jar on the table. The bees kicked up a storm at the touch.

“Excuse me.” He pushed back his chair, knocking his fork to the floor. The pressure around his skull swelled as he bent down.

“I’ll get you a new one. Are you sure you’re all right?”

He caught the fork between his thumb and finger and stood. “Yeah. Just need to use the restroom.” He made his way to it, where he shut the door and leaned against it.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He had a twenty-five-minute drive back to Manchester, and he was losing it. Not completely. Not collapse-into-unconsciousness losing it, not yet. But still.

Shit.

Not that getting home was going to solve anything, but the last thing he needed was to attack his own mother.

He wasn’t stalking her yet—and he needed to get it the fuck under control before he started.

He pushed away from the door and looked in the mirror, leaning against the counter, pulling his eyelids down with his fingers.

He didn’t see anything in there.

But how long?

He slid open one of the vanity drawers, pushed through its contents, opened another.
Bingo
. He withdrew a small box, half full of razor blades, cardboard slips covering the sharp edges. He pulled the paper free of one, laid the razor on the counter, and put the box back in the drawer. A box of Band-Aids sat in the medicine chest. He slipped one out, tore it open, and laid it on the counter, ready to go. He turned his arm palm up and hiked his sleeve up.

He pressed the blade against his arm, squinting so he’d only have to half watch what he was doing. With a wince, he drew it across his skin. A line of red chased the blade.

He set it down and pinched the cut, bringing more bright blood to the surface.

The sight flooded his mouth with saliva. He swallowed and pinched again.

When a fat drop started to roll down the curve of his arm, he bent his head and closed his eyes. His tongue flicked, his teeth scraped, his mouth sucked. It was—

It was hardly anything. Not even a teaspoon, just enough to take the edge off, maybe enough to get all the way the fuck home without his vision going out.

He washed up, applied the Band-Aid, slipped the blade back into its cardboard sleeve, and pocketed both it and the trash from the bandage. Mom wasn’t going to find anything incriminating in her bathroom.

“Dinner’s served.” She set a steaming casserole dish on the table as he walked in. A towel-covered basket gave off the smell of garlic. He went up to her as she cut through the lasagna and gave her a light kiss on her hair.

The bees were reasonably quiet.

She smiled, and he sat down at his plate.

As she cleared the table after dinner, she said, “Want some ice cream?”

“No, thanks. I actually—I think I’m gonna head out. Get some sleep.”

“That sounds like a good idea. You don’t want to be getting sick.”

“Nope.” He pulled his jacket off the chair and shrugged into it as she dished lasagna onto a plate and wrapped it with foil.

“Here you go.” She smiled. A foil of garlic bread sat on top of the lasagna mound.

“Thanks.” He put an arm around her as he took the plate, the bees buzzing lightly.

“Thank you for going to see Cathy,” she said.

“Yep. Take care of yourself.”

“You too. I mean it, Dan.”

He tromped down the steps and out the front door, into air that had turned crisp with fall. His shoulders relaxed. He could get through this, if he could get away from people. He climbed in and pulled onto the dark road, hunching over the steering wheel, as if he could outdrive it.

101 was deserted, I-93 only marginally busier. His neck buzzed. A rush of air cut through the window he’d cracked open. He chewed his lip till he merged onto 293. In another few miles, he hit his turn signal and coasted to the end of the off-ramp. Another few hundred feet, and he was pulling into his parking space behind the apartment building.

He opened the door, climbed out, then stood, holding on to the doorframe. He put his forehead against the backs of his hands. The cool air felt good. Maybe he
was
feverish. It just felt good, fresh. It didn’t stop the buzz or ease the headache clamped around his skull, but it felt good. He reached in for the plate of leftovers, then pushed the lock down and closed the door.

When he did, something scampered over the garbage cans at the back of the lot.

He looked in the direction of the noise, trying to pick it out in the dark. He took a step forward, then another.

A trashcan lid clattered to the ground as a cat jumped off and sped, stiff-legged, past the front of Dan’s car.