Infected

But if he couldn’t go to the hospital, what was he going to do? What the h.e.l.l could he do?

Fear slowly sank its claws into his consciousness, squeezing out his breath, joining with the biting cold to make his big body s.h.i.+ver.

"I need a drink," Perry whispered. "And just a little time to figure this out."

He did a U-turn and kept driving. He didn’t stop until he reached the Washtenaw Party Store. The pay phone was not in use, for once — he didn’t talk to anyone, he didn’t look at anyone, he made his purchase and left.

34.

TURKEY SHOOT

Perry shambled back into his apartment carrying two bottles of Wild Turkey — one full, the other already half empty. The promise of violence hung off his frame like the potential energy of a safe hanging fifteen stories over a crowded street.

Friday night, and it was party time.

Perry calmly set the bottles on the kitchen table, then strolled into the bathroom. The floor there was crusted not only with dried vomit, but with dried blood as well. He noticed a good three inches of water remained in the tub, still and dead like stagnant pond water, disturbed only by the plunk of occasional drops from the shower head. Chunks of the thick orange skin clogged the drain. Smaller parts floated on the water’s filthy soap-sc.u.m surface. He heard a faint trickle slipping down the drain, filtering past the disgusting clog.

He hadn’t even thought about it when he’d showered. The orange skin apparently came off on its own. His free hand gently touched his collarbone, fingers tracing the slightly too-firm outline of a triangle. It felt more defined, the edges slightly more discernible to the touch. The blue looked a bit more p.r.o.nounced, still faint, but now clearly visible with a color like that of a faded tattoo.

He walked back to the kitchen. He grabbed a fork and then a knife out of the butcher’s block, eyes once again lingering on the thickhandled, thick-bladed chicken scissors. He was dying. So many things yet to do, to experience. He’d never see Germany, never go deep-sea fis.h.i.+ng, never visit the Alamo or all the historical sites of colonial America. He’d never get married. Never have children.

It wasn’t all bad. He’d lived a full life. He’d been the first in his family to attend college. He’d played Division I football, been on

But for what? For nothing, that’s what.

He sat down at the kitchen table, set the knife on the tabletop, then took a long pull from the half-empty fifth. It tasted awful and seared his throat, but those sensations barely registered on his brain. He knocked it back as if it were water. The Wild Turkey was already roaring through his head. By the time he finished the bottle he knew he’d be three sheets to the wind. Ripped. Drunk-a.s.s wasted.

He’d be feeling no pain.

Tears of despair tugged at his eyes. It wasn’t fair. He refused to cry. His father hadn’t cried once during that whole cancer ordeal, and if Dad hadn’t, Perry wouldn’t, either.

Good old "Dirty Bird" carried a kick as severe as its taste. Perry felt light-headed and his toes tingled. His thoughts seemed thick, syrupy. He sat for a few minutes more, fighting back the tears, the Wild Turkey worming its way into his brain.

He picked up the knife.

The blade was almost ten inches long. The kitchen’s fluorescent ceiling lights seemed to glint off of each and every tiny serration. When he cooked chicken or beef, he used the sharp butcher knife to cut through the no no no raw meat with little effort. Perry doubted that the knife would be any less effective on human flesh, particularly the thin skin atop his s.h.i.+n.

His eyes blurred a little and he shook his head. He realized he was about to cut into his own body with a butcher knife. A little Wild Turkey goes a long way. Yes, he was going to cut himself, but there was something in his body that no no no didn’t belong.

He was going to die, sure, so be it, but he was taking these f.u.c.king triangle things with him. It was time for the Big Six to lose a member. Perry laughed out loud — anytime you drop players from the lineup, you have to make a cut.

He polished off the last of the fifth, the liquid searing its way down his throat. He tossed the empty bottle aside, then used the knife to cut right through his jeans. The denim offered little resistance to the blade. In a few seconds, his pant leg hung in two long, ragged strips, exposing his tree trunk of a leg.

Perry lifted his foreleg and laid it on the kitchen table like a pot roast served at a family dinner. The wood felt cool against the back of his calf. The Wild Turkey buzz droned through his mind like a horde of lazy b.u.mblebees. He knew if he didn’t act soon, he wouldn’t be able to do anything but babble, drool and pa.s.s out.

It was time to get down to no no nokillbusiness.

Perry steeled himself with a few deep breaths. He was acting crazy, he knew that, but what difference did it make to a dead man? He poked at the triangle with the fork. Nothing had changed since his earlier examination.

"You’re going to kill me?" Perry said. "No-no-no, my friend, I’m going to kill you."

He pushed the fork into his skin, just firmly enough to hold the triangle in place. The three metal tines made deep indents in the bluish skin.

Small flecks of rust dotted the knife blade. He’d never noticed them before. He noticed them now. He was suddenly noticing a lot of things about the knife, things like the nicks in the wooden handle, things like the two silvery rivets that fastened the comfortable wooden handle to the blade, things like the grain of the wood, like a hundred little minnows forever trapped mid-swim in a soft, warm, brown stream.