Free Lost Echoes by Joe R. Lansdale Page A

pallet he’d made. The pillow had a faded Batman pillowcase. Batman had come to look more like an inkblot than the Caped Crusader.
    “I made you a pallet, right after you puked in the bushes outside.”
    “Outside where?”
    “My apartment. It was hell getting you upstairs.”
    The man studied Harry.
    “You know, if I sucked your dick, I got to apologize. I like women, but when I drink, who knows what I do. Maybe I thought it was a tit.”
    “Nothing like that.”
    The man blinked, adjusting his sight. He looked about some more. What he saw was one small room, a couch with a sheet and pillow on it, a chair, a table, a cheap bookcase stuffed with books, a lamp on top of it. On the table was a hot plate, some paper plates, cups, plastic utensils. There was no sink or kitchen. There was only a little mini refrigerator in one corner. It hummed like a tone-deaf moron.
    All over the walls were flattened cardboard boxes and egg cartons. They had been taped to the walls from top to bottom. There was a pile of flattened cardboard boxes in the corner of the room.
    “You slept on the couch?” the man said.
    “Always do. That’s my bed.”
    “This place sucks.”
    “Thanks. Three-fifty a month, plus bills. You can’t imagine how proud I am.”
    “You got a shitter?”
    “There’s this room and the shitter. You might have to suck it in some to get in there, and the toilet wobbles. Try not to go all over the place. You did before, pissed on the wall. I had to clean it up. Don’t want to do it again. By the way, it smells like Lysol in there.”
    The man started to get up, couldn’t quite make it. Harry helped him toward the bathroom.
    “I don’t get it,” Harry said. “You were drunk as a skunk back at the bar, and you whipped three guys tried to roll you.”
    “I did?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s why my face hurts?”
    “One of them hit you.”
    “That’s what did it. I got hit; instinct took over. I think sometimes it’s stronger than drink.”
    The man pushed through the door into the bathroom. Harry returned to his chair. A few minutes later the man came out. He looked fresher. His face was moist from washing, and his thin hair had been dampened and was combed back. He was walking better. He leaned his ass against the wall and, with his legs slightly out in front of him, crossed his arms.
    “You been lurking over me all night?” he asked.
    “We’ve only been here about an hour or so.”
    “Why’d you help me, kid?”
    “I don’t know. It wasn’t just me. Friend of mine, Joey. He helped me get you to the car. I dropped him off; then it was just me and you, out there dancing on the curb, then you throwing up in the bushes.”
    “You could have let them have me.”
    “I didn’t do anything about that, keeping them off of you. I might have thought about it, but I never had the chance. You whipped their asses. It was funny to see it. It was like you were stumbling, but everything you did was right. I think you broke one of ’em’s knee.”
    “No shit?”
    “No shit. How’d you do it, drunk like that?”
    “Lucky.”
    “I don’t think so. Was it some kind of martial arts?”
    “Something like that. You want to know something? I don’t remember doing it.”
    “Do you remember taking their money?”
    “Money?”
    “You went through their wallets, took their money, stuck it in your front pocket.”
    The man reached in his front pocket, pulled out a wad of bills. “I’ll be damned…. Hell, I made forty-two dollars.”
    “And you don’t remember doing it?”
    “Nope. Guess it was a sense of fair play. Tit for tat. You said they were going to take my money, didn’t you?”
    “Looked that way.”
    “Guess I wasn’t as drunk as I thought…. But I was drunk enough I don’t remember much.” The man moved away from the wall and stuck out his hand. “My name is Tad. Tad Peters. Thanks for not leaving me in the alley. Drunk luck only goes so far.”
    They shook and Harry told him his