Big Stupid (POPCORN) (7 page)
Big Stupid loomed over me. “I killed two others upstairs.”
“G-Good.” I staggered to my feet. “Christ.”
I looked down at the man Big Stupid just crushed. He looked like he was made of paper mache. All smashed in.
“What’s in the duffle bag?” Big Stupid asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Forget it.”
I grabbed the duffle and slung it over my shoulder. There was the overwhelming urge to open it and gander at the cash, but I didn’t want Big Stupid to see and complicate things.
“Go start the car,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
He hesitated.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We’re done. We’re leaving.”
“Okay.” He left.
I suddenly felt sore and fatigued. The duffle weighed me down. All I wanted to do was get to Big Stupid’s Humvee and sink into the passenger seat and have him drive me back to Baton Rouge.
She sprung out in front of me in the hallway and stabbed the knife into my stomach.
“Take it, you faggot,” Sandy said. “Fucking take it and die.”
She pulled the blade from my gut and thrust it in again higher.
I sucked breath, eyes wide.
She pulled it out and thrust it in one more time.
I grunted and felt nauseous.
Sandy pulled the knife out again, hate gleaming in her eyes. “Die, you son of a—”
Big Stupid was there again, behind her. He grabbed the back of her neck and squeezed like it was nothing at all. There was a raw, wet snap and she went limp and slipped dead out of his grasp and flopped to the floor.
My hands came away from my guts sticky and red.
I was dying.
I tried to hold my guts in, heard a soft whimpering and realized it was me. My head went dizzy, and the room spun as I felt Big Stupid lift me up and carry me out of the house and into the hurricane.
My eyes popped open. I was slouched in the passenger side of the Humvee, and we were on the move again, driving through the hurricane.
“Where … what …”
“I’m going to try to get us back to the Interstate,” Big Stupid said. “It’s elevated.”
I think I went in and out of consciousness a few times. Paine flared then ebbed in my gut. I felt could.
We were back on Canal Street.
I opened my mouth to tell Big Stupid we needed to find a hospital or a paramedic or something. But the Humvee suddenly lifted and bobbed and turned the street lights a blur in the wet window.
“What the fuck! What the fuck!”
“Levy broke,” Big Stupid said. “Surge of water. Hang on we’re going to—”
The Humvee shuddered with a loud metal clang, and I was thrown against my seatbelt. Fire exploded in my gut, and my vision went fuzzy.
Then I felt rain on my face.
I looked down. Big Stupid was waist deep in water, carrying me down Canal Street.
He had the duffle slung over one shoulder. I looked back and saw the Humvee smashed up against a lamppost, tilted up like one of the tires was on top of something.
My stomach hurt so bad.
“S-set me down someplace,” I said. “Just f-for a minute.”
He carried me to the median where the water was not so deep and spread me out on a park bench that was barely an inch above the waterline. The wind pulled at our clothes, rattles street signs.
“Hey, man,” I said. “Look at my wound, okay? Tell me what it looks like.”
He lifted my shirt and splashed some water on the wound, wiped away the blood. “Bad.”
“Am I going to make it?”
A long pause. Too long. “No.”
“Okay, now wait a minute,” I said. “Look again. Look real good okay, and tell me if I’m going to make it.”
And whatever Big Stupid said, I’d believe him. Like he was a world famous Johns Hopkins surgeon. Because Big Stupid would lie.
He looked at my belly, back up to my face. “You’re not going to make it.”
“Okay. Fuck. Just fuck. Okay. Open that duffle and bring it over here so I can see.”
He brought the duffle around where I could see what having to move too much and unzipped it. Inside were bundles of tightly wrapped hundred dollar bills. It was full of money. Enough to do anything.
“It’s getting wet. Zip it up.”
He zipped it.
I felt cold, colder then I’d ever been.
“Take it. Get out of here and take it.”
He stared at me, blank.
“Take it for your mom and Sissy,” I said. “H-hey. Hey. You know what you should do? Hey, you listening?” The world faded, colors bleaching out around the edges.
“I’m listening.” His voice was calm but somehow loud, like it could cut right through the hurricane.
“You’re going to need to launder that much cash,” I said. You should open a comic book shop.”
Big Stupid didn’t say anything.
“Walter.”
He still didn’t say anything.
“Take it for Sissy, Walter. Take her someplace where people can live.”
I faded out just a bit. I rallied myself just a bit and lifted my head. Big Stupid waded slowly, moving away like some prehistoric beast, the duffle bag across his back.
Ray was going to be pissed and thinking that started me laughing pretty good.
I let my head fall back with a splash. The water was rising.
I thought it would cover me over, but it lifted me up and I started floating.
The electricity finally went and plunged the world into darkness.
I wasn’t cold now.
There was only darkness and the roar of the storm like the sound of a giant machine cranking the world around and the sensation of floating away off into some endless unknown dream.
THE END
