The Cool Part of His Pillow

Chapter 2: A Seismic Event-1

Chapter 2: A Seismic Event

My transformation into a beast begins, a creature with no restraint.

Some poor bastard from St. Vitus drew the short straw and had to drive the bereaved home, exactly retracing my path. From the front seat of his van, I see Andy’s Jeep at Chik-fil-A, left when the cop drove me the rest of the way to the hospital.

“I can call anyone for you.” He offers his cell phone. Mine is still in what’s left of Mercy B., taking a charge. I’ve personally contacted everyone I could think of and told them Andy’s been in an accident, to turn on the TV or radio. If someone was unreachable, I left no message.

I try to reply to his offer and froth leaks out of my mouth.

“Do you have a ready support system?” he persists.

Support system: a complicated series of straps, pulleys, and hand-cranks to keep Barry upright.

“My people are coming,” is all I can muster.

The driver parks.

I’m rabid. My sticky hands clench and unfold.

The driver tells me, this wild animal loping out of the car, that I have an awesome house.

I cannot wait to destroy it. If a crane can steal Andy and Gertie and Noel away from me, then I will be the wrecking ball that dismantles what is left.

I go to the pool. I scream at cicadas calling from the mature pines: “Shut up, everything, just stop!” They don’t.

I’d begin with the concrete, I’d break it up if I could, but we don’t have a sledgehammer. Or maybe we do. Tools were Andy’s thing. He even installed a workbench in the basement.

Instead, I throw everything I can into the water. I scoop stone from the fire pit and skim those across the water. I push the beverage cart down the three tiled steps. I tear a market umbrella from its base and swing it around and around. Spokes snap as I release it into the trees, where it snags on branches.

Watch this! See the splash this urn makes! The soil swirls to the surface like an underwater smokestack.

I pick up an outdoor speaker and catapult it. It floats and roils before sinking. I swing the ragged jump rope Gertie and Noel would endlessly tug between them like a lariat, and it joins the umbrella in the tree.

I am bound for the diving board with Venus de Milo over my head when hands restrain me. The voices of people I know coax me down. Hands stroke and steer me into the house and away from more destruction. Still, I manage to chuck an obelisk into the pool before they can stop me.