Free Breakers by Edward W. Robertson Page B

and leaned forward, suit drawn tight over his shoulders. "What's up?"
    "I think we're dealing drugs."

8
     
    Walt wanted to die, but he didn't want it to be easy. He packed extra shoes, a toothbrush and toothpaste. He packed as many lighters and matchbooks as he could find and then went to the nearest open bodega to buy more. He packed six pairs of his least-worn socks, a flashlight and extra batteries, his fuzzy-cornered copy of Catch-22 . He packed the aspirin and cold meds he'd gotten for Vanessa, a mostly-full box of Band-Aids, some old rags, a tube of Neosporin, an extra pair of jeans, and two shirts. He packed his rusty old jackknife and a half-eaten bag of beef jerky and a box of saltines. He moved to a second backpack, filled it with a small pan, scissors, paperclips, three pens, two more pairs of socks, a pair of gloves, a windbreaker, some vitamins, a plastic water jug, a sleeve of bagels, a legal-sized notepad. Because, well, fuck it, he combined his remaining whiskey, vodka, and rum into a single handle and jammed that into the first pack.
    Then he sat down, because his stitches hurt, and he dug out his handle of mixed business and poured a drink and thought some more. He decided to wait until he'd recovered enough to walk without pain. He didn't want to die midway through the Bronx or Jersey City, dropped by blood poisoning or because he couldn't hobble away from some thug with a crow bar. He could only die once. He wanted to make the most of it.
    But he did want to die. The urge was like a hand pulling him below the soil, as if the dirt were water and his feet were covered in oil and all he could do was sink and drift and fall, a voiceless lump plummeting through the lightless caverns beneath an empty sea, alone and lost. Vanessa's lavender scent hugged the couch pillows. Her cursive handwriting graced the fridge lists and the end table beside the bed where she logged her dreams, inspirations, and performance notes. By comparison, the death of his parents was a small and sighing thing: he'd accepted long ago they'd die before him. All he'd wanted was to be with Vanessa until the far-off day one of them winked away.
    Nothing seemed worthwhile—why work when the woman he'd worked for was gone? Why move, why watch, why breathe? Walt ate listlessly, cramped by constant nausea, microwaving canned soup and buttering toast. He left his apartment once the day after his return from Long Island. He bought things that would last: beef jerky, canned beans, alcohol. He didn't know whether the whole world was ending or just his own. Either way, money no longer mattered; instead of plastic jugs, he bought handles of Crown Royal, the fat bottles like fantastical potions. Anyway, the couple liquor stores still open had run out of the cheap stuff.
    He watched the city from his window. Ambulances painted their lights on apartment walls, idling while pairs of men in biohazard suits dragged lumpy black bags down to the street. At sunset, a speeding SUV slammed into an oncoming sedan, smearing the sedan's driver over its hood and catapulting the SUV's into the middle of the intersection, where he lay, moaning, until he bled to death. At midnight, a yellow pickup braked behind the wreckage. Two big dudes got out, failed to start the SUV, and finally tried to push it out of the way. As they sweated in the cold, a taxi swung around the corner, tires screaming, and plowed into the remnants of the sedan, jolting the SUV backwards over one of the two men and pinning him under a tire. As his blood filled a black pool in the street, his friend ran screaming. The cab driver got out and approached the pinned man. Moans filtered through the window. The pinned man stretched a bloody arm across the pavement, pawing at the cabbie's shoelaces. The cabbie skipped away, vomited into the gutter, and jogged away down the street, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
    By morning, the street was impassible, a rubble of abandoned cars and hovering flies. A