When We Join Jesus in Hell Read Free Page A

says, You’re killing her .
    Fist runs a hand over his arms and the gooseflesh there feels like pebbles beneath his fingers. He blinks tears away, thinks about all they’d had at one time, and how easily it all slipped away, and he has believed life was just like that sometimes, that it was all out of his control. But he shakes his head now, whispers, “Lies you told yourself. You never tried hard enough. No one was ever able to take anything from you. You gave it up.”
    His father waves from the front door.
    Fist doesn’t know if when this is all over if he’ll come back here, maybe call the cops from his dad’s phone, or if he’ll shove the pistol in his mouth on some quiet, dirty street and fill the night with fiery sleep.
    * * *
    Fifteen minutes later he’s cruising down Cicero with his headlights out, people moving in the darkness, and he knows them because one time he used to be them. Back before he’d hung up his gloves, back when the sidewalks had fewer cracks and the street had more light. Fist finds the address he needs and parks alongside the curb. A few blacks stroll by, glance into the car, angry at first because all they’re seeing is this silly white family in their neighborhood, but they’re smart, not stupid, and they see that the woman and the kid are far too pale and the man getting out has blood all over his shirt and they move on down the street without a word.
    Fist watches them go, staring after them, second guessing himself because none of them looked like Jesus but you never know. They could be just as bad. He doesn’t want to leave Karen and Bethany and Bianca in the car but knows that he can’t carry them in and do what he has to do. He rolls the window down to give them a little air, then squeezes his wife’s hand. Music rattles windows, men and women laugh somewhere off in the dark, bodies are slapping, tongues are lapping and he feels like all of it is about to drive him out of his head.
    He tucks the pistol into his pants and loosens his tie. When he turns to face the house he sees a curtain to the right of the door fall back into place.
    “Too late,” he says. “I know you’re here.”
    The air around him thickens.
    The clock ticks…
    He stands at the door. It opens a crack, the smell of meatloaf and something bitter and medicinal clawing its way out, slapping him in the face, reminding him that while the world he knew has ended, other lives go on, and he thinks there is terrible meaning in that, a quiet desperation that rattles the remains of his soul.
    An older black woman pokes her head between the door and jamb. He knows she has her foot against the other side but that if he wants in, and he does, she isn’t going to be able to stop him.
    Her eyes are lined with her own sorrow, her own individual demons and memories, the things she can never let go, the dreams that have faded and taken part of her with them. She looks past him, at the car, at his family and he thinks she might cry, she might hold him the way his mother never had, but she only says, “Jesus do that?” Her gaze goes from the car to his bloody shirt, to his face.
    He nods. “Is he here?”
    She shakes her head, fingers tightening on the door as if any moment now she expects he’ll launch an attack, and he thinks, You’re right. I’m sorry, but I have to take from him what he’s taken from me. Life isn’t always pretty, and it’s rarely fair .
    “Move aside,” he says, pulling the pistol from the front of his pants, the cold steel biting at his palm, making his fingers itch. He puts a hand to the door and pushes in but it catches on a chain. He slams his shoulder to the wood and the chain snaps. The woman shakes her head, her hands up to protect herself. She says, “You can’t just go breaking in people’s houses. You better leave right now. You should—”
    Fist pushes her back down the hall, part of him listening to her, knowing she’s right, part of him trembling as he says, “Where is