17. Florida Man Has Breakdown, Redecorates
In the end, two Espinosas had to drag Rainy off of Adler so they could hurry him off to meet Nasrin. He tried to fight them off half-deliriously as Adler was pulled from his arms.
“No,” he insisted. Who’s going to hold him? Someone has to hold him.
“Rainy,” someone said in his ear. It was Eduardo, holding his shoulders. “Rainy, easy.”
They don’t know that someone needs to hold him.
“It’s okay.”
Adler disappeared, fragile and pale. Rainy was left standing in the aisle, his hands shaking. He only registered that other people were moving around him when Seong spoke again, still looking at Emilio.
“You have my attention, Mr. Espinosa. Now, let us hear the rest of this proposition.”
“If there’s a chance for him to live,” Emilio said, “my daughter-in-law will take it. You have my word.”
“And how much is your word worth?” Seong asked stiffly. His men had put away their guns, but two of them still pulled in close to him, shooting threatening glares.
“You turned on me first,” Emilio pointed out.
“Only because it was obvious that you would betray my trust. I am a prudent man.”
Emilio shrugged, half-apologetic. “So am I. You know the business. Can’t trust or be trusted.”
“I have found,” Seong said, “that the only man who can be trusted in this world is the one who can be trusted to do what you suspect he will, not what you wish him to. I suppose that makes us both trustworthy men.”
Emilio paused for a moment, considering. Then he tipped his head back and boomed out a laugh.
“I suppose it does,” he said. “Since we are both trustworthy men, here is my proposition: either we can keep fighting to the last man, as you’ve made it clear you’re willing to do—or we lay down our arms and each walk out with something. As per our original agreement.”
“Mm.” Seong’s mouth curled into a thin smile. “I have also found that the only way contracts are carried out as written is if both sides test the limits and lose. I suppose we have found ourselves in such a situation.”
Emilio held out one of his large, scarred hands, stretched like half a bridge across the void of the warehouse aisle.
“We call a truce and split the pot.”
Seong shook his hand. Rainy felt tension he hadn’t realized he was holding flow out, and he slumped against the shelves.
“I think,” said Emilio, “that this may be the start of a long and profitable business partnership, Mr. Seong.”
Seong sized him up. “It might seem that way,” he said, voice going cool again. “But only if he lives.”
Then he turned his unguarded back on Emilio and walked off to bark orders at his men.
Emilio directed Felix to scramble the men. The commotion would draw cops sooner or later, and they wanted to get the crux of their business done first. Rainy was just wondering whether he was meant to follow Felix when Emilio turned to him. Rainy froze. They were alone in the dim aisle. Emilio walked over to him with measured steps and held something out.
It was Rainy’s Colt, retrieved from where he’d dropped it to catch Adler as he fell.
“Looks like your luck hasn’t run out just yet, Rainy boy,” Emilio said. “If you’re still a praying man, you might want to fold those hands and start kissing ass.”
Rainy looked numbly down at the proffered handle of the gun, shimmery with pearl. He reached out to take it. Before he could, Emilio flipped it up so his finger was on the trigger and the muzzle was pressed right into Rainy’s stomach through his blood-soaked shirt.
He leaned in so his mouth was just next to Rainy’s ear and said, quietly:
“The next time I see your trigger hand shake like that, I’ll make sure you never work in this state again.” Rainy felt Emilio’s jovial smile like a tap against his jaw. “And if you ever let your dick get in the way of my business again, I’ll cut it off myself. Understood?”
He pulled the gun away from Rainy’s abdomen and released it so it dangled from his finger again, handle up.
“We can discuss how you’ll make it up to me later. I don’t take broken promises lightly.”
Obediently, Rainy took the gun. Emilio left him there in the aisle staring at it. He ran a finger down the stock, scratched with a nail at the etched initials on the bottom. RP.
He stood there until he managed to get control over the shake in his hands, then tucked the gun away and walked out into the tumult of men and crates. Eduardo waved him over with a roll of bandages. Rainy was confused until he looked down and remembered the dozen vicious slashes up and down the backs of his forearms. The pain rolled back in with the knowledge. Blood was still oozing from the cuts, but nothing urgent enough to require immediate stitches. He allowed himself to be hastily wrapped up before joining the loading process.
Normally, after a fight, he felt electrified. Now, he was only hollow. He walked and carried and supervised where he was told like a windup toy. Somehow, he blinked and found himself with a crate in his hands, carrying it to a truck. When he handed it up, there were bright red handprints smeared over the lid.
One trip, two trips, four. On the way back to the main warehouse, he split off from the group and stood in the center of the gravel shipyard, breathing in the night.
Overhead, the tentative clouds had slunk away, leaving the stars glaring down unusually bright and cold. Their light prickled like needles sinking below his skin. Their gaze felt invasive and prying, unwelcome. Rainy stared back, unseeing.
His hands squeezed and released at his sides. The fingers were stiff and cramped from being clenched too hard in Adler’s clothes. Drying blood across his knuckles cracked and flaked.
The voices of the men were distant. Silence gathered in the clearing like a crowd of onlookers.
Rainy caught a glimpse of his own face in the flat glass surface of a puddle. There was a broad smear of red across his forehead, left from a swipe of his hand through his bangs. His hairline and right eyebrow were gummy and crusted with blood. It flaked off his eyelashes.
A metal claw closed around his ribs, squeezing and sinking in through the slots and piercing his lungs. He yanked the hem of his shirt up to frantically scrub at his face. The blood smeared and flaked. He scrubbed until his skin burned and his eyes watered. When he dropped his hand, his face was new.
Gravel crunched and pinged against metal. Rainy’s head snapped up.
“Sorry, bro,” Julian said. “Didn’t see you there.”
He leveled an easy smile at Rainy, the well-greased rapport of years of friendship. Rainy didn’t return it.
His arms were red to the elbows. The blood only stained Julian’s knuckles. His hands were nearly clean.
Julian read the tension in his expression, and the smile slipped.
“Do we have a problem, man?”
Rainy clenched his fist at his side until his sore knuckles creaked. He felt still inside, but this was beyond the usual adrenaline-readiness of a fight. This was what he imagined a lion crouching in the grass felt. The stillness of a predator in which nature had never bred doubt.
This was how he imagined Adler felt all the time. The thought was like… well, a knife between the ribs.
“Come on, Rainy, are you for real?” Julian folded his arms and leaned against a nearby shipping container. “You didn’t want the guys to see you faltering, did you? I was doing you a favor.”
Rainy looked down at his bloody trigger hand, remembering the shake in it.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know you were.” Then he crossed the narrow strip of gravel and punched Julian in the face.
“ Fuck you!” Julian shouted. There was a smear of red on his cheek now from Rainy’s bloody fist. He tried to swing back, but Rainy deflected easily and hit him again.
Julian had always been clever with a knife, but he’d never been much of a brawler. His defenses crumbled like the siege walls of a sandcastle under Rainy’s hands. Rainy slammed him back against the shipping container, smashed his fist into his face over and over until he felt bone crunch and his knuckles were wet with fresh blood.
“I’m sorry,” Julian gasped, mouth thick from a broken nose. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
Rainy didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t. He grabbed a fistful of Julian and threw him down onto the gravel.
“I’m sorry,” Julian gasped again. All Rainy could see was Adler’s blood, the way he’d crumpled. All he could feel was the ghost of breath against his ear. He drew back and kicked Julian in the stomach, hard. Again. Again. He remembered bringing his heel down on Adler’s ribs and hearing the crack. He paused.
Julian was curled on his side in the gravel, retching and bloody. Rainy felt wild; unmoored, unmade, like the atoms of him were breaking apart and all the meaningful pieces of him were sliding and shifting. He crouched and hauled Julian closer by the front of his jacket.
“Either I kill him, or nobody does,” he said. “He’s mine. Got it?”
Julian’s face contorted, and Rainy didn’t want to hear a reply. Instead, he slammed him down into the gravel, then raised him up and did it again, and again, and again, and—
Hands were hooked through his elbows, pulling him off, dragging him back. Rainy fought them, vision red.
“Rainy,” Marco said in his ear.
Julian was trying to scrabble away, pressing back against the shipping container. Rainy started to throw Marco off and go after him.
“ Rainy, ” Marco murmured again, close enough for only him to hear. “He’s okay. He’s in surgery, but Nasrin says he’s stable. He’s going to be okay.”
The fight ran out through his feet and into the gravel like he’d sprung a leak. He slumped back, and Marco loosened his grip.
Julian pushed himself up against the wall and glared as Marco pulled Rainy to his feet.
“Get him away from me.”
“Shut the fuck up, Julian,” Marco said. “Don’t pick fights if you’re going to be a little bitch about it.” Then he fished in his pocket and emerged with the fallen oyster knife, its blade haphazardly cleaned of Rainy’s blood.
“I think this is yours,” he said, and tossed it. Julian had to dodge to avoid the blade.
Marco turned Rainy by the shoulders and guided him out of the shipyard.
“Fuckin’ hate that guy,” he said cheerfully, making a show of dusting off his palms. “Now, where’s your car?”
“Why?”
“I’m driving you home. Come on, there’s nothing left for you to contribute tonight.”
Rainy allowed himself to be led out of the complex of warehouses in the direction of the garage a few blocks away where he’d stowed his car. The inside of his head felt empty and sticky, like something syrupy had filled him up and then been poured out.
“You are my friend,” he told Marco. “Sometimes, you’re even a good one.”
Marco laughed. “Selfish reasons; don’t worry. After seeing what you did to Julian for stabbing the guy, I’m just trying to keep your mind off my little water torture incident.”
A whip-thin Espinosa kid Rainy didn’t recognize ran up to them, mop of brown hair flopping comically. Emilio must have really called out everyone to break everything down in time.
“The cops are here,” the kid told Marco. “Eduardo sent me to tell you. They’re keeping them occupied at the south end.”
“Did he tell you which district?” Marco asked.
“Uh, yeah. Central.”
Marco’s face broke into a slow beam that Rainy had come to know and dread. “Central, you say?”
Sometimes, Rainy thought Marco was like one of those pull-string toys; something would give a little tug on his chain, and suddenly he would be bouncing from foot to foot and moving his hands at a mile a minute. He was transparently raring to race off in search of his beloved Sergeant Tessa, the rest of the world forgotten. Then his eyes landed back on Rainy, and he winced.
“Tell Eduardo…” he hedged.
Rainy rolled his eyes. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
“Yes! Thank you, Rainy!” Marco grabbed Rainy’s head in both hands and planted a smacking kiss on his cheek. Then he sprinted off, spraying gravel.
“Um,” the kid said awkwardly.
“Go make sure he doesn’t get shot,” Rainy sighed. The boy’s eyes widened and he gave chase.
The walk back to his car was quiet. This part of town was empty this time of night, and he didn’t pass a soul. It felt like striding through a city post-Rapture. Everyone else had gone and left Rainy behind in his own little personal perdition.
There was a tiny metronome in the back of his brain. Every few moments, it ticked, and an image of the light fading from Adler’s eyes flashed through his mind.
He was okay. That was what Marco had said. He was in surgery, but he was going to live.
He was going to live.
That small, silly hope gave a tiny flutter of its wings.
When Rainy got to the garage, he crawled into the back seat of his car to get at the fresh clothes in his emergency duffel. Each piece of clothing he peeled off felt like a piece of plate armor removed after battle. Everything was stiff and dark and half-damp with blood. The enclosed space reeked of copper and brine. The pain in his arms crested and ebbed like the sea.
Back in the front seat, he flicked on the headlights and pulled out of the garage. The ticking of the metronome in his head was getting louder and faster, like gravity was running in reverse. It filled up and reverberated through the empty space in his skull, until it was all he could hear.
He made another turn onto a dead and empty city block. He cursed and pulled the car over.
He couldn’t hear himself thinking over the noise. He just wanted quiet. He just wanted it to stop.
He slammed his fist into the dash. The plastic groaned. Rainy felt immediately repentant. His faithful car hadn’t done anything to deserve it; he didn’t want to hit it. He scrambled to find who the urge was directed at, who he did want to hit. But he didn’t want to hit anyone. He was so fucking tired of violence.
He was so tired of bloody knuckles and black eyes. He was so tired of breaking things in ways that could never be fixed. But there was nothing else he knew how to be. There was nothing else out there for him. He’d forgotten how to be a person.
He’d forgotten how to want to be one.
Once upon a time, Rainy had known how to pray. He’d measured out the words carefully in the tiny room he and Miguel had shared, his little hands clasped in his lap and his eyes screwed shut to keep out any interference with his direct connection to God. And then, one day, that room that could barely contain two burly teenage boys felt massive with only one left. Rainy hadn’t forgotten. Miguel had taken all the prayers with him. He’d grabbed one silken end and run until the last of it slipped through Rainy’s fingers and he was left totally empty.
“You did this,” he said to the gray predawn silence.
Once upon a time, he might have been talking to his brother’s soul, up there in the ether. Once upon a time, he might have prayed. But Rainy wasn’t Catholic anymore. The only thing listening was the sound of his own voice reflected back off the windshield.
“You dragged me down with you, Miguel.” His voice cracked. “You dragged me down with you.”
The ticking was still there, but he recognized it now. Because it was always there. It was the reason behind all the running, the late nights and flashy clothes and different beds and the hiding and the lying and the metamorphosing. It was the sound he heard whenever he was left sitting alone with himself.
It was an echo. The click of a pebble dropped a long time ago. The sound bounced off the tracery and ribbed vaults and flying buttresses, a hundred million tiny facets of masonry and stained glass. It bounced and reflected and doubled over itself infinitely in the flawless echo chamber of a perfectly empty cathedral.
It was the sound of total emptiness.
Rainy was tired of running from it. He sat and listened.
He stayed parked haphazardly in a fire lane as the sun rose over the city, tentatively and then all at once. When the world was light, he turned over the ignition and put his hands on the wheel, and discovered he didn’t know where he was going.
He wanted to go home, he realized.
Not to his empty, lifeless apartment. Not to his parents’ house.
For the first time in a long time, he wanted to go home to a place that was home.
But that place didn’t exist. It hadn’t for nine years. He didn’t know what that place would look like for him now. He didn’t even know where to start.
He didn’t know where he was going. He just started driving.
He ended up at a hardware store.
Rainy stared at the door until the open sign flicked on, then rested his forehead against the steering wheel and laughed.
When he got back to his apartment, the sun had fully risen. It illuminated his living room where he’d left the curtains open. Rainy closed his eyes and felt it warm his face before setting down with a thud the approximately one hundred pounds of hardware store merchandise he was carrying.
The girl at the paint counter, irritated at having a customer so early, had grown even more annoyed when he hadn’t been able to tell her what color paint he wanted.
“What’s your favorite color?” she’d asked, exasperated.
“I have absolutely no idea,” Rainy had realized aloud. “Just give me one of each.”
So that was how he’d ended up with seven gallons of paint in wildly different colors. Rainy didn’t know anything about paint, but that was probably enough for four rooms, right?
He planted his hands on his hips and surveyed the main area of his apartment. The dove-gray walls blended into the gray vinyl plank floor blended into the stiff, uncomfortable couch. There wasn’t even a floor lamp in the living room; Rainy wasn’t sure he even knew where all the outlets were. The longest he’d ever actually stayed consecutively within these walls was a three-day period a few years ago when he’d been knocked out by the flu.
Taking in the empty space felt absurdly like staring up at the peak of a mountain he was meant to climb. With no gear, in flip-flops.
“This is stupid,” he said, and stayed frozen to the floor.
Eventually, he made himself cross to the kitchen and tug open the drawer where he tossed all the accumulated crap that other people might have displayed on tables or shelves. He buried his arm in to the elbow and dug around.
His fingertips found a cool, crimped ceramic edge. He drew out the small bowl his mother had given him two weeks ago.
Nine-year-old Rafael stared out at him from the bottom of it. Miguel beamed in the sunshine.
Rainy walked over to the front door, where there was a little alcove between the wall and a support beam.
“This is stupid,” he repeated to the empty room.
He stared at the bowl in his hand. Two brothers stared back, innocent and forever the best of friends. The empty alcove loomed. Rainy’s hand was shaking violently, the way it had when he’d held the gun to Adler’s forehead.
Slowly, almost fumbling it, he placed the bowl inside the alcove.
The walls didn’t come crashing in. The water didn’t come rushing into his lungs.
He dug a hand into his pocket and fished out his keys, then placed them in the bowl.
“Oh,” he said.
Then, something did come rushing in. Not violent, but steady and inexorable like the tide. Rainy was bowled over by it. He needed… he needed…
He snatched up a brush and a can of paint without checking the label and marched over to the nearest vast expanse of blank wall. Cracking open the can, dunking the brush in. No time for a drop cloth. He slashed the brush across the wall, but not the way he would slash a knife. This, for once, didn’t feel like breaking.
The paint was purple. It broke through the gray-white like the first hint of spring through snow. Like a field of violets rising from the forest floor. Rainy brought the brush down again and again. His shoulders were shaking, and he realized that he was crying.
Crying, and laughing, and smiling so wide his cheeks ached.
The gray disappeared, slowly and then all at once, like the rising of the sun.
That was the feeling, he realized.
Peace.
It felt like peace.