I have never in my life felt an emotion like that one. Like I was the elephant, you know? All loaded and cocked to rape the living shit out of anybody who even dared look at me the wrong way.
And now I’m wishing you were here to tell me it was a good thing I felt that day. In fact I almost wish I was back over there with you right now, back there breathing sand every minute, working our way door to door, death waiting behind every wall and around every corner. I’d do every minute of that hell over again if I could, because if I could do that, I could come back home again in one piece, and that would change everything. I mean if there was only one single moment I could change, I got to be honest with you. As much as I wish I could see that big-toothed grin of yours again, and talk to you again in person the way we used to, I’m sorry to say I’d have to let you be. Because the moment I’d change is that wet-looking morning last summer when Cindy catches me staring out the kitchen window at a dawn sky filled with dark clouds, and she says to me, “You want me to get the girls up?” That’s the moment I’d have to redo, Spence. I’d give her the biggest smile in the world and say, “Yeah, babe. You mind?”
The day after I nearly ripped Donnie’s head off, about ten or so in the morning, somebody knocked on the back door. I was with Emma in the living room, playing under a blanket I’d stretched over the couch and coffee table. She had all of her stuffed animals in there with us, pretending like we were the Wild Thornberrys. Emma was Eliza, of course, so she could talk to all of the animals and tell me what they said.
Anyway, when the knock came on the back door, the first thing I did was go to the front window and look out. I was still wound tight as a guitar string, but instead of being scared I was in full-bore attack mode. It was like my minute with Donnie had flipped a switch or something. But the driveway and the curb were empty. So I told Emma to sit tight, and I went out through the kitchen to the pantry. That girl Shelley, the one I’d carried in from the rain, was standing outside the door.
I didn’t know whether to open the door or not. If it had been one of the McClaine boys I might have ripped the door off the hinge to get at him, but seeing her instead, and knowing that she had already taken at least one beating because of me, it took all the starch out of me. I felt sleepy and tired all of a sudden and I wanted to walk away from her and everything she represented. It wasn’t like I thought the whole mess was going to miraculously disappear. I knew it wouldn’t. But I didn’t want to have to deal with it anymore.
I opened the wood door and stood there looking at her through the screen.
She said, “I just came to talk.”
“We have nothing to say to each other.”
That was when Phil came out around the corner and slid in front of her. His brother was right behind him.
Phil said, “We have a lot to say to each other. And we’re going to say it now.”
I stepped back to close the door but then Phil punched his fist through the screen and shoved the door back against my hand. “You think a door’s going to keep us out?” he said.
Every muscle in my body went tight and hard. All I wanted was to kick open that screen door and start swinging. But a part of me knew better—knew I couldn’t take both of them empty-handed. And Bubby was grinning like he wanted me to do it. Like he was just waiting for a reason to pull out his knife or a gun.
I reached into my pocket then for my cell phone, but Phil yanked open the screen door and stepped in fast, shoving the wood door all the way open. His brother and Shelley were right behind him. Right away I’m calculating how fast I could run out to the garage and grab Pops’ revolver out of the saddlebag.
He said, “Put the phone away. Unless you want Bubby to go see how little Emma’s doing.”
“You fucking touch my daughter—”
“And what?”
“I swear I’ll fucking kill you.”
“How can you do that when you’re already going to be dead?”
By now that fat Neanderthal Bubby was standing right up there beside Phil, both of them with shit-eating grins on their faces. They’d pushed me back till I was up against the dryer. I figured I could probably take Phil, but both of them together? And me with bruised ribs and no room for moving around? That’s when all the air went out of me.
So I said, “I’ve been planning all along to give it back to you.”
“I wouldn’t think it would take much planning.”
“You threatened my family. That pissed me off.”
“I’m sorry about that, Russell.” He put a hand on my shoulder, which made me stiffen and jerk away. “No hard feelings, okay? Hand over what doesn’t belong to you, and you can go right back to babysitting.”
That was when I knew for sure that Donnie was messed up with them somehow. Who else could’ve known Emma wasn’t in daycare? Cindy might’ve told some people at the bank, but how many of them would know the McClaines? No, it was Donnie for sure. Maybe Janice too.
I told him, “I don’t have it here.”
“Where do you have it?”
“Nowhere I can get it till tonight. After Cindy gets home.”
“Then I guess we need to work out some details,” he said.
I heard little feet on the kitchen linoleum then, so I called out, “Stay there, honey. Go back in the living room, okay?”
Bubby turned to her and said, “Hey, baby girl. You having a tea party today?”
“That was yesterday,” she said.
“I’m sorry I missed it.” And now he went into the kitchen and toward her. “How about showing me what you’re doing today?”
I grabbed Phil by the shirtfront then and got up close in his face. He kept grinning. “You get him the fuck away from her now.”
“I’ll go,” Shelley said. She went into the kitchen then and whispered something to Emma. “Okay!” Emma said.
Pretty soon Bubby came back out into the pantry. He said, “They’re going to play hide-and-seek.”
“See?” Phil asked. “Nothing to worry about. Shelley’s good with kids.”
I was breathing hard. Everything around me was in gray, everything but those brothers. “I can bring it to you tomorrow night,” I said. “But then that’s the end of it. You leave my family alone.”
They kept looking at me. Neither of them was grinning now.
I said, “I made a mistake. I’m sorry. All I want now is to make things right and be done with this.”
After ten seconds or so, Phil smiled again. Then he laid his hand on my shoulder and sort of pulled me toward the kitchen. “Let’s negotiate. Out in the garage.”
With him leading the way, and Bubby breathing down my neck, we went into the kitchen and then to the garage. The man had never been in my house before but he seemed to know it already. All I could think of was that fucking Donnie.
So we go out to the garage and Bubby closes the door behind us. Then he finds the light switch and flips it on. I keep walking until I’m up close to my bike.
Phil says, “Who else knows you took it?”
“Nobody,” I say.
“Your wife?”
“Not even her.”
Bubby says, “Keeping it all for yourself, huh?”