MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 10

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Karen tried to sleep. Miles had quickly passed out on the couch, the irritating hiss of the television droning on the background. She was grateful it was only barely audible from the back bedroom where she lay, eyes wide open. She had managed to sleep for about an hour, before a series of disturbing dreams jolted her awake. The window was open, but the desert was deadly quiet, not a sound drifted in from the empty horizon. The sky outside the window was pure black, even the stars seemed to have abandoned her.

Her conversation with Miles earlier in the evening haunted her. Of course life had purpose. Of course God had a plan. She found she was deeply and profoundly disturbed by the idea; she tried to dismiss his philosophy as the rant of a lonely and intoxicated man, but here she was – alone and tired and stripped of her illusion. Here she was, with the one man she thought could provide her with answers, and he was pushing her away. Here was a man with a gift she didn’t fully understand, and he had no intention of helping her.

The only man, perhaps, with answers – but not the only one: God still stood by her. But even that notion seemed hollow. Where had God been when her husband’s spine was crushed and he bled out in the street? Where was God when her children were trapped in the van, scared and injured and alone, only to both die in the hospital? When she was pinned behind the steering wheel, hurt and unable to help, unable to save her children, unable to…

Why was she spared?

The man – Miles, she corrected herself. He has a name. The man’s name is Miles. Miles knew his would happen. No, she thought, he knew something else. He told her she would die. But something had changed, hadn’t it? She had changed something.

God’s plan is infallible. He is in all things; His will be done – on earth as it is in heaven.

What did that even mean?

Still, she had purpose. She had a place in God’s world.

She was…

She stopped. Everything she was had been taken away. She was a wife and a mother, and now…

Karen began to cry again, quiet sobs, not letting herself think any more. She would try and sleep. In the morning she would go home. Her trip had been a wasted effort, a journey to nowhere to find someone uninterested in being found. Miles would not help her. He was right, there was little he could do. And everyone else was right as well: the nurses, her sister-in-law, the therapist she had seen for the weeks following the accident. There was nothing she could have done, they said. It wasn’t her fault. There was nothing she could have done. His kingdom come. His will be done.

She had taken the wheel, she thought. She had changed something.

She had taken the wheel – the realization hit her like a blow to the chest, knocked her breathless. Gasping, she clutched her breast, and the memory of the trip flooded back.

She had taken the wheel. She had asked to drive. When she saw the highway marker, after meeting Miles in the bar. Paradise, he had said. She thought she’d be safer. She thought she’d be able to protect her husband and her children. The thought had been fleeting; the feeling of danger had been dismissed. But she had known. She had tried, and she had failed. She wouldn’t make it to Paradise.

She was supposed to die. Miles knew; he tried to warn her, and she wasn’t ready to listen, wasn’t able to understand. John was supposed to live – John, the caring and handsome man she’d loved her whole adult life. She was supposed to die with her children, and John was supposed to survive the accident. He was the strong one, he’d find a way to carry on. He’d know how to bear the grief, how to live a normal life, how to stand against the angry tides of time. She needed him. Without John she was lost. Without Michael and Gabriel, there was no reason.

She couldn’t bring herself to pray; she couldn’t bear the thought that no one would answer. A cold wind drifted in from outside – finally she stood, crossed the room, and closed the window with a decisive heave.

A course of events had been set in motion, an intended sequence that she had interrupted. She, in her fallible human way, had thought herself able to steer the course if history, but had only succeeded in leaving herself alone, in casing herself out of the light that was God’s intended plan.

Slowly the idea crept in, soaking her like water in the parched desert. Slowly, the idea took her, rising her up above the tangibility of her grief until she could barely feel anything. She had no place here. God had not intended her to survive.

His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 9

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V

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“You can stay here if you like,” Miles offered, but it was less a question than a statement of fact.

“How do you I need–” she began, but Miles cut her off.

“I know you have no where else to go. If you did, you’d have gone there first instead of bothering me in the middle of the night. I don’t what possessed you to find me, but I know you don’t have a plan, much less a place to stay. So it looks like you’re spending the night here.”

Karen was silent a moment, and considered a number of retorts, but came up dry.

“Bedroom’s down the back. Left side. Sheets are clean. I never sleep there.”

Karen reached for the bottle, resigned. She poured herself another slug, and grimaced again as it went down. Miles looked momentarily amused; this was the first emotion Karen had seen since the terror and surprise outside had melted away into cool indifference.

“Do you mind if I just talk to you for a while?” she asked. Miles shrugged. “I’ve prayed ever night, Miles. I’ve asked God for answers. I’ve prayed and I’ve begged and I’ve bargained and I’ve pleaded for a reason for all this.” She trailed off. Her words were falling on uninterested ears.

“And?” He looked at her with pity, and she felt anger rise up in her. She accepted pity graciously, but his pity was laced with scorn. “What did God say?”

“God has been quiet of late,” she said quietly, trying to suppress the anger that bubbled dangerously and held her on the verge of angry tears, and then her words gained momentum and she spoke as though reciting from memory. “But God took my children, and He’ll make His reasons clear in time.” Those words brought her strength.

“God,” Miles scoffed. “God had little to do with this. Brake failure is a human invention. God didn’t cause the accident, any more than God… clipped your fingernails for you. A person took your children’s life – a person backed by a thousand pounds of steel and machinery – but a person nonetheless. A man killed your family. Not God.”

“But that must be a reason. God has His reasons. There must be intention or meaning or a higher purpose, otherwise what’s the point in even—”

“There is no reason!” Miles slammed his glass down on the table as he spat out the words. “There is no purpose. There is life, and it is followed very shortly by death. The only purpose we serve is the purpose we give ourselves. They say a life without purpose is meaningless and that’s bullshit – a life without purpose is just life. There is nothing else. We have no reason to be; we just are.”

Miles half rose from his seat in frustration – but the violent outburst seemed to drain what little strength he had left. He looked hopelessly at the empty glass, seemed to consider momentarily pouring himself another, but instead pushed the empty glass away and stumbled to his feet. He stood, unsteadily, staring down at Karen, who had backed away from the table in startled surprise. Suddenly very unsure of himself, Miles picked up the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and gestured towards her in offering. She shook her head.

Karen looked at him for a long time. “What are you going to do to me?”

Miles looked surprised, almost amused. “To you? Nothing. I am, however, going to continue drinking until I fall down somewhere and I am going to try my damnedest to forget all about you.”

Miles crossed the room and pulled the knob on the television. Violent static filled the air. Miles sat down, bottle in his hand, rocking unsteadily. His body seemed to move with the noise from the television, shaking and shivering with the bursts of sound.

Karen stood tall, clutching herself, feeling very much alone. After a moment she spoke, her voice barely enough to be heard over the television.

“Can you really forget all about this?”

His face fell.

“…No. I never can.”

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 8

A noise from the kitchen drew her attention – a small clatter, like something falling. She peered around the corner. “Miles? That is your name, right? I’m sorry… I’m sorry I attacked you, I just—”

Miles sat at his kitchen table, a towel of ice pressed against his forehead. He didn’t appear to be bleeding anymore. A rocks glass sat near his free hand, the amber liquid sparkling over ice. An empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s lay on its side; Miles made no move to pick it up. He looked tired and sad, like a hungry and beaten dog. A deep purple bruise was welling up on his face where Karen had struck him.

“—are you okay?” she asked, recognizing the irony of the question. Karen bit her lip, near tears again as she bore witness to the product of her wrath. Miles looked up at her briefly, a near unreadable expression – perhaps tired resignation, she couldn’t quite tell – across his heavy face. Deep lines cut into his brow, dark circles hung under his eyes. He was nearly unrecognizable – a completely different man than the one she’d met months earlier – like he’d aged thirty years since she last saw his face.

“I’m so sorry,” she began again, not knowing anything else to say, but he waved her away. He didn’t seem angry, which surprised Karen, only distracted or perhaps merely disinterested. He raised the glass to his lips and drank, sucking down the remains of the liquor in one mighty swallow.

She stood in the doorway, a timid animal, curious and afraid and yet full of wonder at this creature who looked so harmless across from her, slumped over the table and peering up at her in a peculiar manner. He studied her for a moment and without speaking gestured into the kitchen, waved his empty glass at something out of sight. She tried to walk quietly but her shoes clicked on the wood floor as before, the only sound in the quiet house. A paper sack – presumably more alcohol – stood upright on an otherwise empty counter. She reached inside and pulled out another bottle of the amber Tennessee whiskey. She spied an empty glass in the drying rack next to the sink.

“Do you mind if I…” she trailed off. Miles shrugged, and broke his gaze, staring off into the distance. She broke the seal on the bottle, poured herself a few ounces, and returned to the table with the bottle. She pulled up a chair, the scratching of the chair leg on the floor an abrasive sound in the silence, and she sat, holding the bottle as an offering. He held his glass out and she poured in complete silence. She stopped halfway and he gestured with the glass again, impatiently, and she filled it to the rim, nearly spilling.

She sipped her drink, the whiskey coursing violently down her throat. She held back a grimace. He raised the glass, but didn’t bring it to his lips; he just sat there with his hand held high in an unsteady salute, his body swaying gently, the whiskey lapping against the sides of the glass – but never quite over. She stared at him inquisitively. He swallowed another mouthful, not meeting her eyes. He didn’t register her presence; he seemed to have forgotten she was even there. He looked so lonely, she thought, in this big house – this beautiful house – like a ghost who barely existed, that just moved slowly from room to room, as every moment faded a little more into memory and dust.

She forced down another swallow before she was brave enough to speak. “Who are you?”

He looked up at her, barely interested. At least he knows I’m here, she thought. Better that than remain a ghost. She tried again. “I know you remember me. My husband – my children – they…” She stopped. She still couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “I lost them when the truck hit us. But you know that, don’t you?”

Miles narrowed his eyes. He finally spoke.

“What are you doing here?” His voice sounded like gravel, hoarse and deep.

“My family,” she said, a hint of desperation bubbling into her voice. “You know things, Miles. You knew this would happen.”

“I saw something. I thought I could help you. I couldn’t. Nothing changed. Only traded one death for another.”

“My husband…” she trailed off, the realization slowly dawning on her. “You thought he… but my children? What about them?”

“Didn’t meet them,” he said, the alcohol slowing his speech. “Don’t know about the children.”

Karen stared at him, trying to glean something – anything – from this stranger, but he had nothing to give, and she wondered why she had come, what had driven her from her home to pursue a man she did not know. Miles shifted uneasily. He was clearly uncomfortable, but made no move to extract her; he just sat, sipping his whiskey, trying his best to ignore her.

Her eyes drifted around the room, soaking in the strange conflict in atmosphere. The cabinetry was certainly hand-made; the wood was unfinished but delicately carved, and clearly neglected – like a carpenter had been halfway through the remodel before disappearing, and the house had been untouched for years since. The rooms were gloomy, poorly lit, and an unnerving weight hung in the air, like the very walls were soaked in misery and despair. Miles sat, unmoving still, and Karen wondered momentarily if it was Miles that created these feelings, and the house was merely a reflection of his mood. The house was beautiful, but at the same time murky and bleak. Miles seemed that same way, she noted – his face would have been handsome without the heaviness under his eyes, and the days of unkempt stubble that wasn’t quite a beard, more just a mess.

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 7

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Karen cried, softly and alone, clutching herself protectively on the great wicker chair that creaked quietly under her gently rocking weight. She was cold, it was after dusk, and the temperature was dropping rapidly. She found her misery couldn’t sustain itself, outside and alone, so she stood, uncertain, and hobbled to the door. She had no strength left, no will to stand, like a balloon animal slowly losing air. But she had nowhere else to go.

She reached for the handle, paused, and knocked on the door. The door had not latched; it creaked open when she touched it. She stepped inside, hesitant and timid, and stood in the doorway, not seeing her mysterious companion but instead soaking in the strange house she had just entered.

The interior was beautiful, though sparsely furnished and poorly maintained. Ornately carved bookshelves lined the walls, even the windowsills seemed custom made. The woodwork was stained with dark cherry tones, which seemed oddly rich against the egg white walls. Two unmatched couches faced the only other piece of furniture, an old-fashioned television in a great decorative frame buzzing with static. The rabbit ears hung loosely from the back of the television, but it was not tuned to any discernible channel – horizontal lines danced up and down the screen across the snowy, indistinct images. The sound was turned up to an unpleasant volume – the television hissed and moaned with a ghostly warble, the noise fading and fluctuating in a disorienting chorus of indeterminate sound.

“Hello?” she called, but she could barely hear herself over the noise. Karen walked across the room, her heels clicking on the wood floor, and she clicked off the power. The room fell completely still, and Karen considered turning the television back on just to dispel the silence, the eerie sense of despair that seemed to fill the empty air.

“Hello?’she tried again, but she heard no one. “I was… I just… It’s cold outside.”

She stepped farther inside the room. To her right a hallway stretched into what was perhaps a bedroom, or a couple of bedrooms, and to her left an archway led into a dining room, with presumably a kitchen behind it. Books – hundreds of books – lined the walls. She noted books on Philosophy, books on Psychology, books on Human Sexuality, a great number of books on Geography and American History. Miles was clearly a well-read man, alone in this empty house. The Holy Bible, the Torah, the Koran… she found herself inexplicably smiling. This house was occupied by someone searching for something, delving deep for answers. A small voice in her head warned her that she was in a strange man’s house, rummaging through a strange man’s things – she could be in danger. She shook that voice away – the man was twice her size, if he was going to hurt her, he would have outside while she was attacking him. He was more afraid of her than she of him. She looked around the room again, but stopped herself before creeping down the back hallway, into the shadows. Something was hidden back there, in the dark corners of the house, of that she was certain.

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 6

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I I I

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She was alive.

Miles could hardly believe what he was seeing. He tried to focus, to force his mind into a tunnel, a narrow beam of concentrated thought. He failed; the exercise was futile in such a disorienting hurricane of sensation. The whiskey sloshed through his brain, rocking him like a ship in unsteady waters. He was confused, disoriented, struggling for balance. But he knew this was real – this was more real than anything Miles had felt in a long time. She was alive.

Yet he could fathom no reason why she would be here. But he was drunk; he knew he was drunk. Reason was not something coming easily.

For a moment he swelled with hope – a desperate hope that somehow he’d prevented the accident – but she lashed out with such violet anger, and as she struck him he saw her memory: he felt her weeks alone in the hospital, felt the panic and disbelief as the painful sinking realization that her husband and her children were gone was and were never coming back, felt the boiling rage that collapsed into bleak depression when she realized that she was completely alone and her life had fallen apart. Each blow was a burst of new memory, still fresh like a recent burn.

He could feel the anger boiling up in her; the terror and desperation and despair pummeled him in great bursts, like heaving, violent waves crashing on a beach. He was barely aware that she was striking him. She had abandoned the bottle when he collapsed; she was beating him with her tiny fists, a near futile effort if not fueled by her venom and fury. She clawed his face, her fingernails leaving a surprisingly deep cut that welled up and dripped bright red blood down his cheek. She kicked him, hard, and he doubled over in pain. He made no move to defend himself; he just lay there, limp, and finally her will was exhausted, her fury abated. Karen looked down at him, deflated, looked at the pitiful heap of a man, and slumped over in the ragged wicker chair on his front porch. She began to cry, quiet sobs, and tears streamed down her cheeks. She clutched herself, rocking back and forth, her chest heaving under her frail arms.

Miles waited a moment, then gently pulled himself to his feet, glancing once at Karen before limping inside.

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 5

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I I

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Miles ran, the erratic rhythm of his feet into the poorly paved road matched only by the pounding of his heart, thundering in his ears like the beating of mighty drums. The whiskey sloshed through his head, throwing his balance, and he swayed like a pendulum — swinging this way and that but never quite falling.

A memory ricocheted through his head like a bullet from a gun, making its presence known by the impact it created but moving too fast to be recognized. A sense that was beyond his understanding of senses shook him; Miles was propelled by an undefined fear. Danger, the voice said without really speaking. Run the fuck away - do it now. And as he was running he remembered, remembered something he had never seen but knew as though he had seen it with his own two eyes.

There was a woman and she died in the road. But something was wrong with that. For a moment Miles doubted the painful feeling of loss, began to wonder if he’d made some mistake. But she had died. He had seen it. She had been violently torn from this world, suddenly and without mercy. He had seen it.

Miles ran. As drunk as he was, Miles ran.

And behind him, a baby blue Chevy Impala turned the corner from Baron to Del Ray, tires growling in the loose gravel like a beast in pursuit of prey. And the driver, a beautiful brunette, squinted her big brown eyes into the night, the darkness that seemed to more than just an absence of light, but an absence of life as well. The headlights did very little to dispel the darkness; the night air seemed to suck at the light like the desert floor sucked at the rare rain.

The glare of the headlights caught him, and her big brown eyes widened at the sight of him. Miles felt her gaze, even as he was too drunk to notice the sound of wheels slowly overtaking him, even as he was too drunk see feel the halo of light slowly overtaking him he felt that he was being watched, he felt that he was being hunted.

Above him the porch light flickered and hummed, distorting his unsteady vision even more. Miles scrambled up the steps on his hands and knees, still convinced he could escape, until her shadow fell over him and he paused, a collision of fear and wonder. A scattered collection of empty bottles clacked and tingled between his arms and legs. The night air seemed to still for a moment, if only to accent the sudden clatter of a bottle bouncing down the short steps and spinning slowly to a halt in the dirt below the porch. Miles turned, and the alcohol-fueled world spun upside down and sideways. The woman stood above him, the lamp-light flickering just behind her head, and between the flutter of the faulty bulb from one direction and the shimmer of the moon from the other, her cascading curls glowed with a supernatural light, and for a moment Miles thought he was looking into the face of an angel.

“You’re alive,” he whispered, not believing the words as he said them. He stared up at her beautiful face, as hope intersected fear and both were derailed by complete and utter disbelief.

“Karen,” he said. “You’re alive.”

Then the bottle came down across his brow, knocking him senseless, and anything else he might have said was lost. The bottle came down again, and her face was a mask of unrestrained anger as she beat him, blow after blow, until the glass bottle ran thick with his blood.

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 4

“Fine lookin’ woman in there.” Willie wasn’t really asking, nor was he expecting a response, he just lacked the complex vocabulary to find anything else to say.

Patterson lit his cigarette with a decorative Zippo and mumbled something unintelligible as a reply.

“Damn, if that don’t beat all,” Willie added, admiring the womanly curves now visible from his vantage point behind her.

Through the picture windows the three – really the two, since Patterson Malone didn’t gives two shits about what was going on inside – could see the woman talking to Doc Brown, and they could hear bits of the conversation. That’s when Del noticed a distinct lack of presence at the far the end of the bar.

“Where the hell is Miles?” asked Del.

“He left,” mumbled Patterson, not looking up. “He ran out of there like he heard his house was on fire.”

“Sonuva bitch,” said Del settling into a chair on the porch and lighting a cigarette. Willie allowed himself one more longing glance through the window at the bar before sitting down and lighting a cigarette as well.

“Well, yer choices are a bit limited tonight,” said Doc Brown. “But I’d be happy tah give you the nickel tour.”

“I was here three months ago,” she said, annoyed. “With my family. There was a man here, he… he had a seizure of some kind. You can’t have forgotten him.”

Doc Brown turns away and continues drying dishes. “Sorry, miss, he ain’t been here since. And if’n you ain’t gon’ order nothin’ then I got nothing for ya.”

“Could you tell me where he lives?” she asked. “Where I can find him?”

Doc Brown looked down, unable to meet her gaze. “It ain’t mah place to say,” he replied. “Doctor-patience privilege, ‘n all that.”

Doc shuffled away, focused intently on drying glasses. The few remaining men in the bar refuse to make eye contact. Karen looked around, desperately.

“Please, it’s important,” she said. “I need to find him. Can’t anybody here tell me anything?”

Still outside smoking, Willie and Del could hear the woman’s raised voice.

“Please, anybody! Somebody here knows him! I need to know where he is! I need to know what he knows!”

Doc Brown leaned in and addressed the woman quietly.

“Best just leave that man alone, y’hear? He ain’t right inna head. But if’n you just gonna make a fuss, I’m canna do nothing for ya.”

The woman’s face fell. She turned for the door, deflated and dejected.

“Sorry to bother you. I’m sorry…”

The woman walked outside. Patterson watched her leave, then ground his cigarette butt under his heel and walked back inside. Del and Willie sat and watched her, smoking in silence. Del scowled and Willie shook his head in disbelief.

Karen was halfway to her car when Del shouted to her.

“Lady,” he cried. “Hey, Lady!”

Karen stopped and turned around.

“You looking for that sonuvabitch Miles? Yeah, he was just here. Bolted with his tail between his yellow legs.”

Karen’s eyes grew wide. “Miles?”

“Lives next the abandoned Auto Parts store on Del Ray,” Del continued. “Big goddamn sign.”

Karen bolted for her car as Del continued to shout, his arms flailing wildly.

“You tell him he’s in for a beatin’! That boy’s gonna wish he was never born!”

The wheels on the blue Impala spun in the gravel, spitting rocks and dirt as the woman peeled out of the lot.

“There goes one well-built chassis,” said Del.

“The car was pretty nice-looking, too,” said Willie, and they both chuckled.

The dust settled in the parking lot as they both sat in silence, absorbing the excitement of the evening, cigarettes dangling from their mouths. After a minute, Willie turned to his brother.

“Del, you alright to drive?”

Del shook his head. “Nope. You?”

“Nope.”

Willie pondered this a moment. “You wanna git another round?”

A slow smile crossed Del’s face.

“Yup.”

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 3

The low growl of an engine cut through the quiet night. Willie looked up, surprised to see an unfamiliar car, a beautifully maintained baby blue Chevrolet Impala – a 58’, by the looks of it – with a soft convertible top, pulling into the gravel parking lot. He was even more surprised when the door opened and out emerged a slender and beautiful woman with stunning eyes and long brunette curls that fell about her shoulders.

Del stopped his pacing and stared as well, his cigarette nearly falling from his mouth. She walked up to the porch and passed between them. She glanced up at the two men and her eyes flitted back and forth, not quite meeting their unabashed gawking. She looked scared, but not scared of them; she walked in the bar with a look of a newborn kitten, something naïve and curious and in wholly out of her depth.

Miles had not moved from his spot at the end of the bar when the car pulled in. He could hear the rumble of the engine outside, the sound of gravel kicked up into the underbelly. There was a buzzing in the back of his skull, a nagging feeling that he couldn’t shake, some unpleasant sensation that the whiskey had failed to wash away. Something’s wrong, said the voice inside his head. You shouldn’t be here. He sat up sharply when the he heard the door slam, and the blood drained completely from his face. He stood, unsteady on his feet, and grasped at the bar for support. His head was suddenly pounding. Danger, said the voice. Escape. Escape.

Doc Brown shuffled over. “You all right, Miles?” he asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Miles looked up at Doc Brown, a panicked and desperate expression on his face. “You keep my tab open until tomorrow?” he asked.

“Sure thing, Miles. What’s–”

Before Doc Brown could finish forming the words Miles had bolted to the back of the pub. There was an exit near the bathrooms, and Miles was through it and into the cold air outside in seconds. The room fell silent as he left. Doc Brown stared at the door with a glass and a towel in his hands, completely unmoving. The only motion was Patterson Malone, who stood from his booth and tapped out a cigarette from a fresh pack.

The pub was still quiet as the woman entered through the front, the slam of the door behind her a startling sound in the eerie silence. Doc Brown looked up her, and one by one so did every other head in the room. She hesitated in the doorway, her soft eyes nervously scanning her unexpected audience. Patterson gently brushed past her, cigarette behind his ear, and he nodded politely to her as he exited to the front porch. She stood for a moment longer, clutching her purse to herself in a protective stance, before timidly approached the bar.

“Hello,” she said to Doc Brown. “I’m looking for a man.”

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 2

“Well, how ‘bout you, Miles? You don’t look like you have much goin’ on. Care to join us for a round o’ pool?”

“Leave off, Del,” said Willie from the far side of the pool table. “He ain’t hurtin’ nobody.” Del dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

“You jus’ sit here every night, drinkin’ by yo’self. Don’choo got any friends, bud?”

“You leave him alone,” said Willie, insistently. “He’s crazy.”

“I’m just havin’ a little fun,” said Del, ignoring his brother, “Whatsa matter, boy? You really crazy, that it?”

Miles turned to stare into Willie’s face, his pale eyes blazing. His face was thin and hollow, and in the darkness he resembled a jack-o-lantern, with two burning candles shimmering from inside.

“If I’m crazy,” Miles said slowly, deliberately. “What’s that say about a grown man who fantasizes about little boys?”

Del stiffened, like an unseen puppet-master had just yanked several strings and pulled him upright. “Hey, fuck you!” he snapped.

“Fuck me?” asked Miles, eyes ablaze. “Aren’t I a little old for your tastes?”

Del regained his composure and leaned towards Miles in a menacing stare. “I will fuck you up six ways to Sunday, boy,” he growled under his breath.

Miles stared back, his face showing no signs of intimidation.

“Careful,” said Miles. “I bite.”

Del steadied his gaze against Miles, and the two of them stood locked in a battle of willpower: a wiry viper against an overweight sewer rat. Miles slowly opened his mouth into a toothy grin and hissed – a wet, guttural sound.

Del broke their gaze with a shake of his head, crossed the room and threw the pool cue onto the table with a crash.

“Fuck this action, Willie. That boy’s outta his mind,” he said with a snort. “Settle our tab. We’re the fuck out of here.” Del stormed out, leaving his brother to look uncomfortably around the bar before pulling a wad of bills from his pocket and handing them to Doc Brown. Willie looked over at Miles nervously, but Miles had turned his attention back to his drink, staring back to an empty spot in space, and he did not acknowledge Willie’s furtive glance. Willie pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tapped it in his hand and left the bar and joined his brother.

Doc Brown worked his way down the bar with a towel, wiping down the surface of the counter. He picked up the half-poured pint, and sipped it as he cleaned. He paused when he reached Miles. “One of these days, boy, you gonna start something you won’t be able to finish.”

Miles looked up at him, unconcerned. “Another double,” he said. “And mind your business.”

Doc Brown wandered away, continuing to wipe down the counter, and reached for a fresh rocks glass. He looked around at the near empty bar. “This is my business,” he said under his breath.

Outside, Del paced angrily, sucking frantically on his cigarette. Next to him on the porch, Willie sat lost in thought, taking deliberate drags off his, exhaling the smoke slowly into the cool night air.

“That sonuvabitch,” said Del, his voice laced with venom. “That sonuvabitch, I’ll kill ‘im. You heard what he said. I’ll fucking kill ‘im.”

“Don’t pay him no mind,” said Willie. “He don’t know nothing.”

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 1

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I

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DEL AND HIS BROTHER WILLIE were playing pool. It was a Wednesday night, and Doc Brown’s Pub and Eatery was nearly empty. Patterson Malone sat alone in a booth, nursing a whiskey. Martin Fletcher and his wife sat at a table, laughing and joking over dinner. Janine Milner had wandered through earlier with her girlfriends, but they had quickly left when it was clear there were no boys to chat up, no free drinks to be had. Theodore and Pontius sat at one end of the bar, arguing like old men do. And, of course, Miles Braeburn sat at the far end of the bar, alone and away from the other patrons, his finger securely wrapped around a Jack Daniels and ice. The room had gone quiet when he walked in, but Miles had sat down in the same spot he always sat and ordered his whiskey, and the room had quickly returned to its normal volume. Miles wanted to be ignored, and soon he was.

Del lined up his cue, and the table exploded with sound and motion, balls scattering across the table. The seven ball shot across the table and dropped cleanly in the corner pocket.

“Willie,” said Del, obviously pleased with himself. “You gotta learn to play more defensively, else I’m gonna run you right off of this table.”

Del was a physical opposite of his brother: Del was extremely fat while Willie was rail thin; Del was short while Willie was uncomfortably tall; Del’s face looked like someone has mashed it in when he was a child while Willie’s face was bony and angular, his nose long and hooked like a bird’s. Beyond those differences, they were unmistakably brothers; they shared the same pale skin, the same dark and beady eyes, the same greasy brown hair. They even sported the same baseball cap with the logo of the shipping company for which they both worked.

“I ain’t playing for the sake of winning,” said Willie. “I’m jus’ playing for the sake of playing.”

“Seems you is playing for the sake of losing,” said Del, sinking another ball. “Now git us another couple drinks.”

“I got these last couple,” said Willie, frowning as Del lined up against the nine. “B’sides, the Doc’ll be around in another minute; he’ll get us then.”

The cue ball shot across the table and made fierce contact with the nine, which rattled momentarily in the pocket before dropping into the hole and clattering through the mechanisms under the table. Del looked at the table smugly, and then across the room, his eyes falling on Miles, still sitting in the shadows at the end of the bar. A crooked, wicked grin crept across his face.

“Yeah, I’ll git it,” said Del. He crossed the room to the bar, a slow swagger that more closely resembled the waddle of a penguin than anything else. He nestled in between two barstools a few feet from Miles and, still holding the pool cue, flagged down Doc Brown.

“Mr. Brown,” Del said. “Another round for my brother and myself.” Doc Brown grabbed two fresh glasses, eyeing Del suspiciously. “It seems my brother is an unworthy opponent, and grows weary of my kicking his backside every night. I can’t help but wonder if there’s anyone here willing or able to provide me with a bit more of a challenge.”

Doc Brown marked two tallies on their running tab and drifted to the taps, saying nothing. He tilted a pint glass against the spout and pulled the handle without looking at it, his deep-set eyes still watching the two men at the bar. Del turned to Miles with a flourish.