Free You and Me and the Devil Makes Three by Aaron Gwyn Page B

it’s not being frazzled that has you twitchy. It’s the presence that’s entered the car, like an actual fourth person. Usually, situation like this, you’ll do what you always do—bow up, get fierce—but there’s that foreign thing in the air, strange you didn’t smell it sooner, and before giving it another thought, you take the ball of foil from the pocket of your sweatshirt and pitch it into the Ohioan’s lap.
    “Like you to get out,” you say.
    The Ohioan turns his head very slowly and stares.
    “Not looking for drama,” you tell him. “Not trying to disrespect you. Give you ten for the line and we’ll call you a cab.”
    The Ohioan continues staring. His eyes are very blue.
    “More than fair,” you say, starting to get agitated. You’re not used to explaining yourself, and if he wasn’t Jackson’s boy, you’d tell him to fuck on off.
    The Ohioan’s jaw bulges. His hearing aid looks like a prop. He points to his temple and says, “There’s a thing on your face.”
    You turn to look at yourself in the rearview and are sorry as soon as you do. In your periphery, you see the Ohioan take the pistol from his waistband—snub-nose .357—reverse it in one hand and grip it by the barrel. The revolver is at the Ohioan’s waistband and then there is a sharp pain in your mouth and your ears are ringing and the revolver is back in the man’s lap. The Ohioan has you by the shoulder, clutching your hoodie in his fist, and he grips the pistol like a hammer and strikes you with it again. There is a bright flash and the rage rises up inside you, stomach to sternum, but before it can reach your face, you feel it collapsing, and then there’s another flash, and the Ohioan is pointing at the windshield, the volume turned way down.
    “Light’s green,” he says, strikes you a fourth time, and you feel your world wobble and your mouth tastes bad.
    “Light’s green,” says the Ohioan, and he says he’ll kill you if you don’t drive.
    “I’ll kill you right here on Harris,” he says. “You think I won’t kill you? I’ll absolutely kill you right here on Harris. Put your foot down and keep driving, ’cause I’ll absolutely kill you on Harris right here.”
    You pull through the intersection—the world like something seen through the wrong end of a scope—and keep between the lines somehow, and you feel fluid running down the back of your throat and the Ohioan is still talking.
    “Lot of fucking people think I won’t kill them—it’s thirty-five through here—lot of people think I won’t fucking kill them, but it’s a mistake to think I won’t fucking kill people, ’cause I absolutely will. I’ll kill them like the Spanish Inquisition. Speed up: It’s thirty-five. I’ll kill them like they killed those Inquisition people, ’cause people who think I won’t kill fucking people are making fucking mistakes.”
    The world is becoming sharper, but your mouth hurts worse. You press your tongue against your front teeth and feel a gap. One or two missing. Several more loose. Your mouth fills with blood and when you swallow, something sharp travels down the back of your throat like a hard, slick pill. The Ohioan still has you by the shoulder, something almost parental in his grip.
    “First mistake,” he tells you, “is the only mistake you get. Think I’m some cunt’s going to lay down and take it. Think I’m some lay-down cunt. You wanted coke, you got coke. You want it, you got it. Going to back out of a deal, leave me standing on the side of the street, ’cause no one’s ever thought of that?”
    You concentrate on keeping the car straight and the steering wheel in your palms. You blink several times, try shaking the cobwebs out of your head, but everything is in reverse. It should be you gripping the Ohioan by the shoulder and telling him what to do, but you can’t manage to tell the Ohioan anything, and you think he must’ve broken your jaw. Not that it matters. If your jaw wasn’t