A WAY OUT
By Robby K.
Copyright 2011 Robby K.
Smashwords Edition
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How far would you go for a friend?
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“I drown on my mucus… every night. It’s like sinking in a pool of oil. I feel like… my lungs are rotting.” Derrick panted. He took a whiff from his oxygen mask and slumped in the Pontiac’s leather seat.
Alf slowed down, turned off the car’s headlights. “Is that it?” He gestured to a derelict structure on their right.
Derrick nodded, though he barely recognized the building he had grown up in. Only the moon lit the ‘Thousand Shanty House,’ now a leaning tower swallowed in moss.
Alf looked at the structure: “We can’t go in there. It’s condemned and could collapse any minute.”
“We’ll do it out here then. You can put me in the garage after… I’ll be buried in the rubble tomorrow.”
Loosening his tie, Alf sighed. “You insist on going through with this?”
“City’s blowing the building to bits. They won’t check.”
“That’s not the problem and you know it.” Alf could barely hide the quaver in his voice.
Derrick looked to his feet, bit his shaky lower lip. He understood he was asking a lot. “I was born here Alf. I’d like to die here. You’ve served me for thirty years, fulfill this last wish please.”
“Driving a poisoned needle through your skin is different from driving you around. I want to help stop your suffering, but what I have to do ...”
Neither spoke for a minute.
“You’re my dearest friend, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to. You know that,” Derrick finally said.
“I’ve been trying to picture a lot of this you know. Imagining you gone, imagining me killing you, I can’t take it.”
Alf stepped out of the car to breathe, then got Derrick’s wheelchair from the boot and rolled it to his door. “What will I do without you?”
If not for the pain, Derrick would have called everything off at that instant. But a thousand spears were skewering his lungs; had they been balloons, they’d have burst into a thousand shreds.
Picking Derrick up like a breeze would a clover leaf, Alfred noticed how frail his thighs had become and eased him into the wheelchair. He secured Derrick’s belt, rolled the wheelchair to the fence that surrounded the decomposing building and sat on a rusty fire hydrant, arms folded. “What happened to your father anyway?”
“Who the hell knows?” Derrick coughed, spat some phlegm on the sidewalk. “My father insulted me, beat me every morning - used a whip he sewed himself, with nine heads that sunk into skin like claws. That beating was the one family ritual we had. He is gone is all that matters.”
Derrick was sweating despite the slight chill of October so Alf took out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. “You showed me the marks,” he said.
Taking a breath of oxygen through his mask, Derrick nodded. ‘My pain excited him. Once, he slung that whip at me till it turned blood red. I remained on the floor. My mother tried to clean the wounds but did not move me… he forbade it. ‘I can’t bear to watch you suffer,’ she said, before walking out. Never saw her again. I had nothing keeping me there after.” He wiped his nose.
“You left after your mom bailed?”
“I was afraid he’d catch me. I had to slow him down first. I bought kerosene, got to the 7th floor and started by lighting his whip on fire. Everything burned, the fire spreading like a whirlwind.”
“You never told me.”
“Some people died in the fire: Druggies, alcoholics. They were already dead, needing release. Just like I am dead. Their screams are burned in my memory.” He took a syringe from a compartment in his armrest with shaky hands. “I need release, Alf. I killed all those people here. I deserve to die here.”
Alfred closed his eyes. He moved to extend his hand but stopped midway.
His vision was getting blurry. Tears filled his eyes. “Why now?”
“Because I’m tired. I’ve lived through enough. You said you would help me.”
“I’d be killing you.”
“No, you’d be helping me, my friend. Alf, do this for me.” The syringe was slowly slipping. It slid down Derrick’s trembling fingers, but Alf grabbed it as it was falling through.
He took a deep breath. “You sure?” he said, wiping his face. “It’s not too late to go…”Derrick nodded. “Goodbye, Alf.”
Alf wiped his eyes, uncovered the needle and inserted its tip, slowly. “Goodbye, my friend.”
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You can find more about the author at: http://www.robbyspoeticcorner.blogspot.com
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Copyright 2011
By Robby K.