The Long Road Home

We'd come out for a party and our ride had bailed on us. As far as anybody at the cab company was concerned, that's what happened. Forty minutes after I'd called and said I needed a ride from Lorton to Fredericksburg , a depressing minivan pulled up into the gas station parking lot, decked out in requisite checkered striping and business names and phone numbers plastered all over the vehicle's body.

Amy and I rode mostly in silence. She pulled her cell phone from her bag and fiddled with one of the games for a while, and I watched the darkness swoosh by out the window and absentmindedly rubbed the bruise on my upper chest with my right hand. I thought about taking a look at the knife I'd gotten, since I never really got a chance to check it out, but I didn't want to freak the driver out.

It was nearly one AM when we were dropped off at my house; Saturday was finally over with. The fare went through all of the cash I had left, so Amy had to chip in a few bucks to cover the tip. I felt rather poor for a moment. Just a moment, though.

I had the cab bring us to my house and not drop Amy off first because I wanted to keep exposure on her as minimal as possible. If someone were following us, I didn't want to lead them to her house, and if someone pulled up the taxi company's records or questioned the driver I didn't want him able to give anybody an address. From my place, her house was about a 10 minute walk if you cut through some lawns and hop over a low brick wall meant to divide two subdivisions.

"You'll call the police in the morning?" she asked as we neared her house.
"After some sleep, yeah," I said.
"And you'll tell me which version of whatever-the-hell just happened you're going to be using first?" she asked. Her hands were in her coat pockets, she watched her feet as she walked.
"I'll try to leave you out of it if I can, but I'll let you know either way."
"You might want a lawyer for when you make your statement. They could try to turn it around and make it your fault. Self-defense can be hard to prove."
"Self-defense against pretend cops with bad pony-tails has to be even harder."
"Does your family have a lawyer? This wouldn't be the best time to fish one out of the Yellow Pages. Someone who knows you and you can trust would be best."

It felt like we were acting out the conversation I'd had with myself a few hours earlier, like drama students reading lines and trying to act like they don't know where this is going.

"The only lawyer I know of is the Will guy," I said, "and I don't know if he's like a lawyer lawyer or just a Will lawyer. My dad might have had a lawyer he used for other stuff. He never mentioned it."
"You could ask your mom, she'd probably know."
"Man, my mom. I don't know how I'm going to explain all of this."
"Oh, it's easy," Amy said, "just make it a life-lesson thing. 'Hey mom, remember how when I was a kid you always used to tell me that if I ever get hit in the face with pepper spray, to pour a gallon of milk into each eye? Well, you'll never guess what happened to me today!' Then just let the good times roll."

It hurt to laugh, just like it hurt to walk and breathe.

When I got home it seemed like all of my muscles were just inches away from going on strike. I could feel them rallying together and starting to disobey orders. I plopped down on a chair at my kitchen table and dumped all of the stuff from the plastic bag from the gun store, then finally peeled my license plate from my back and dropped it to the floor, feeling a nice rectangular impression on my back.

I fished through the strewn papers and instruments of death on the table and found the pocket knife and the box it had come in. I only bought it because Amy had spent a long time looking at it when we were at the gun store in the morning, I didn't know anything about it. I guessed I'd gotten it for her, but with all that'd happened after that there was never a chance. Now it was a used knife. There was a film of white powder all over the handle now, I assumed it was from the air bag I'd used the knife on.

The box said it was an Emerson Knives Inc model CQC-7B. I'd heard CQC used for "close quarters combat" and thought maybe the 7B meant I could use it against seven badguys before the warranty expired. The box touted a "patented WAVE feature", which the instruction sheet explained was a small hook built into the blade so that you can draw the knife from your pocket and have it unfold in one motion, by making the hook catch onto the side of your pocket and pulling the blade from the handle. The knife was all black, with a solid handle that felt like raw fiberglass or something and a black clip on the side to secure it in your pocket. The blade swung out by thumbing a small disc on the dull side of the blade, just under the previously mentioned "wave" hook, and swinging it out in an arc. The blade itself was black, perhaps that's what the B stood for in the model number, and reflected no light. It wasn't a very long blade, just over three inches, but it looked serious enough. The end had a sharply angled point to it which was defined by the text on the box as a "tanto point". The forward half of the blade edge was smooth, the back half had a toothy serration. I grabbed one of the papers I considered unnecessary and sliced clean through it. Fancy.

I folded the knife closed and set it on the table next to the gun. I frowned, and picked up the gun now. There was a round in the chamber and the hammer was cocked. I dropped the magazine out and pulled the slide back to eject the chambered bullet, then locked the slide back and set the gun down again. A gun and a knife lay beside each other on a kitchen table. Yeah, don't mess with this kid.

I used the back of the chair to stand up wobbly, eyed the stairs to go up toward my room and decided against them. I instead swaggered gingerly toward the living room and spilled onto the couch. Something round and smooth was poking into my back. I rolled around and fished a small tube of fruity lip gloss from between two couch cushions. Amy must have left it last night. Last night. Felt like weeks. I seemed to have no sense of time anymore.

I got myself into a position where only some of my body hurt, and fell asleep wondering how long the next day would seem.

I awoke around noon, according to the clock on the DVD player staring at me from across the room. My head and neck felt tingly, but my arms and legs were responding to my prompts, so I rolled myself off of the couch and onto my hands and knees. My muscles all seemed to be yelling back and forth at each other, but the dull pain was better than last night's full-on burning. I walked in a circle around the couch until my brain started to unhinge from the corners of my skull and meld into one body of consciousness. I was supposed to call the police or something today, I remembered. The rumbling in my stomach was a higher priority, so I lurched into the kitchen like a zombie and opened the pantry door. Soup sounded good. Anything hot sounded good. A hot bath sounded excellent. With hot Taiwanese girls rubbing my sore legs and back. And chest. And anything else.

I banged and twisted the can opener against the top of a can of chicken noodle until it did its job, then poured it all into a pot and set it on the stove under high heat, then sat down at the kitchen counter, a few feet from the table where my small arsenal and library of car-owner documentation lay undisturbed. While I waited for the fog to lift, I just sat and rubbed my hands up and down my face until I remembered the bit about my eyes from yesterday. The puffiness seemed to have gone away, and I could blink naturally. I got up and started to look for a spoon to stir the soup with when the front doorbell rang.

I figured it was Amy. I gave myself a look-over. I was still wearing last night's jeans, and the itchy gas station t-shirt. I was amazed I slept at all. I walked toward the door and remembered the bit from yesterday about strange men wishing to kill me. I went back into the kitchen and peeked out a window that affords a view of the front door and driveway. In the driveway, where my car usually is, was a black Chrysler sedan with tinted windows. At the front door were two men in plain, black, non-tailored suits that did a rather poor job of hiding the shoulder-hanging gun holsters they were both wearing.

And then the headache crept back in.