Free The Laughterhouse by Paul Cleave

lights switch off and nobody climbs out. The alleyway is so dark there is no room for any shadows, and the car and the people inside it are lost. He parks opposite and tightens his grip on the steering wheel and breathes hard and fast and his head spins and his hands—especially his right one—begin to ache. He lowers his forehead onto the steering wheel. He wants to head-butt it to make himself hurt. He takes deep breaths to try and calm the urge to vomit. The inside of the windshield starts to fog up. He wipes at it with his sleeve.He opens his mouth and closes it around the top of the steering wheel and bites into it. He wants to scream.
    He picks up the knife. Sure, there are people around, not many—another hooker half a block back, a few people driving past, another couple walking the street—but he could probably walk right over to that car and spill a lot of blood before anybody called the police.
    He puts the knife back down. It’d be stupid. He can’t afford to get arrested when he’s not even halfway done. There are teeth marks in the steering wheel. He stares out the windshield at a huge billboard overlooking the car. It’s for a travel agency, there are pictures of islands and water and people laughing and it’s the life he wants. He focuses on the billboard, staring at all the things he can never have. It only makes him angrier.
    The car starts to back out of the alleyway and stops. The passenger door opens and the interior light comes on and Ariel climbs out. She closes the door without looking back and heads back toward the intersection. The car’s headlights flick on and it goes the opposite way. Ariel reaches into her handbag and comes out with another cigarette, fiddling around with a lighter as she walks. He can still see the car she climbed out of, it’s parked up at a set of lights.
    He follows it.
    He can’t help it. He looks at his watch. It’s ten-forty. This is going to throw him off schedule, but he still has all night. He should just carry on with the plan and come back and see Ariel later on tonight, try and time it for when she’s finished work.
    It’s what he should do.
    Only he doesn’t.
    The scenery changes. They leave town and enter the suburbs. Some are nicer than others. He grits his teeth as he drives. They drive for ten minutes, finally pulling into a suburb full of middle-class homes, the streets empty, streetlights cutting circles of light into the darkness. The car slows. It pulls into a driveway. The automatic door begins to open. This is the kindof neighborhood you can’t hang around in for too long in a beaten-up car with a knife in your hand and not have somebody call the police.
    Best make it quick.
    He brings the car to a stop and brings the knife out from under the seat.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Make sure you don’t kill anybody.
    Schroder’s words are rattling around in my mind as I leave the retirement home. He makes it sound like it’s become an occupational hazard for me.
    The sky is dark with clouds and the night is lit up by the city and the life running through it. I head to the nursing home where my wife lives. I step through the main doors and into the foyer, warm colors and warm air enveloping me. It’s eleven o’clock and the nurse behind the reception desk smiles and asks how I’m doing. I tell her I’m doing okay. Visiting hours ended three hours ago, but the nurses know me well enough to let me in most hours unless I’m getting in the way.
    I make my way to my wife’s room, looking for her nurse along the way, always hopeful that one of these days she’ll be there to greet me at the door with some good news. As it stands the news is always the same as the day before—which is no news. My wife’s condition doesn’t change and never will. When she isn’t sleeping, she stares straight ahead, enough synapses in herbrain to make her chew when she’s being fed but not enough for her eyes to focus on anything, not enough firing synapses for her to