Free Chinese Handcuffs by Chris Crutcher Page A

dumb, his heart pounding in his ears.
    â€œAt a loss for words?” Preston mocked. “You?”
    Dillon said, “Yeah, I guess I am. I mean, I don’t really know what’s wrong, Pres. I didn’t even know you were pissed at me.”
    Preston smiled and relaxed a trifle, and Dillon believed there might be a chance. “Ah, it’s not just you. You’re only a little of what’s the matter, really. Got time for a story?”
    â€œYeah,” Dillon said, moving a little closer, “I’ve got all the time you need.”
    In a flash the gun was back to Preston’s temple. “Just sit tight,” he said. “I can tell it from a distance.”
    Dillon stopped, and Preston lowered the gun again. “When I left last night, I was hating you bad. Both of you.”
    â€œMe and Dad?”
    â€œYou and Dad. I was sick of all the patronizing bullshit. All the goddamn support. All the time telling me I’m not the reason Mom and Christy left. Where’d youguys learn that stuff? You been talking to a shrink?”
    Dillon said, “Dad talked to a drug counselor, I think. Hey, man, we didn’t know what to do. You wouldn’t go get any help or anything.”
    â€œYeah, well, I was full up to about here of you guys,” Preston said, measuring off a spot just under his chin to show exactly how full of them he was, “and thinking I’d been straight just about long enough. So I went over to the Dragon to look up a few of my old buddies. By the way, Dad’ll be a little pissed when you get back. He’s missing about three hundred bucks. Square it up for me, will you? Like, tell him I’m sorry.”
    â€œI’m not going back alone, Pres,” Dillon said.
    Preston smiled. “Oh, you’re going back alone, all right. Unless you pick somebody up on the way.”
    Change swept over Preston before Dillon’s eyes. The meanness drained out of him like dirty bathwater. “It’s not you, Dillon. That was a bad rap. If it were, I’d shoot you. All you ever did was show me what I’m not.” He was quiet for a long minute; Dillon stood frozen, realizing for the first time that Preston really meant to kill himself and that he had no chance of doing anything about it unless he could keep him talking until Preston came down from the drugs.
    â€œThere was a woman in the Dragon,” Preston said, and he was glazed over now. “A girl, really. I’d be surprised if she was seventeen. Nobody checks ID. She was crazy to be there. Everyone else was bikers and biker’s mommas and dopers. The place was thick with meanness, and this girl was pushing it all the way, waving her boobs around like they were water balloons at a summer picnic, grinding her butt in the air over by the pool table. Picked herself up a following.” Preston put the gun up to his temple and made a firing sound with his throat, as if in dress rehearsal, then rested it back in his lap.
    â€œI had about a half dozen cross tops in me and a nose full of coke, washed down with a pitcher of Bud, and I was making a deal for a little crack—four months of clean living wiped out in fifteen minutes. And I tell you, little bro, being on shit is the only way I ever felt big. And I was feeling big.
    â€œSo somebody—hell, it might have even been me—said we oughta give this honey some of what she was asking for. It went up for a quick vote and came back by God unanimous. Wolf goes over and picks her up—she’s squealing and pawing at him—and throws her on her back on the pool table; you heard her head hit. All of a sudden she’s scared, real scared, starts to fight him,but hell, one of Wolf’s tattoos weighs more than her whole self. He just pins her down by the throat with one hand and tears off her skirt and goes to town. And then they line up.”
    Preston stopped a second and lowered his head. Dillon quickly