بخش 05 - فصل 18

18 At quarter to three that afternoon, Brady leaves his Motel 6 room for a breath of fresh air and spies a Chicken

Coop on the other side of the highway. He crosses and orders his last meal: a Clucker Delight with extra gravy and coleslaw. The restaurant section is almost deserted, and he takes his tray to a table by the windows so he can sit in the sunshine. Soon there will be no more of that for him, so he might as well enjoy a little while he still can.

He eats slowly, thinking of all the times he brought home takeout from the Chicken Coop, and how his mother always asked for a Clucker with double slaw. He has ordered her meal without even thinking about it. This brings tears, and he wipes them away with a paper napkin. Poor Mom!

Sunshine is nice, but its

benefits are ephemeral. Brady

considers the more lasting

benefits darkness will provide.

No more listening to Freddi

Linklatter’s lesbo-feminist

rants. No more listening to

Tones Frobisher explain why

he can’t go out on service calls

because

of

his

RESPONSIBILITY TO THE

STORE, when it’s really

because he wouldn’t know a hard drive crash if it bit him on the dick. No more feeling his kidneys turning to ice as he drives around in the Mr. Tastey truck in August with the freezers on high. No more whapping the Subaru’s dashboard when the radio cuts out. No more thinking about his mother’s lacy panties and long, long thighs. No more

fury at being ignored and taken for granted. No more headaches. And no more sleepless nights, because after today it will be all sleep, all the time. With no dreams. When he’s finished his meal (he eats every bite), Brady buses his table, wipes up a splatter of gravy with another napkin, and dumps his trash.

The girl at the counter asks him if everything was all right. Brady says it was, wondering how much of the chicken and gravy and biscuits and coleslaw will have a chance to digest before the explosion rips his stomach open and sprays what’s left everywhere. They’ll remember me, he thinks as he stands at the edge of the highway, waiting for a

break in traffic so he can go back to the motel. Highest score ever. I’ll go down in history. He’s glad now that he didn’t kill the fat ex-cop. Hodges should be alive for what’s coming tonight. He should have to remember. He should have to live with it. Back in the room, he looks at the wheelchair and the explosives-stuffed urine bag

lying on the explosives-stuffed ASS PARKING cushion. He wants to get to the MAC early (but not too early; the last thing he wants is to stand out more than he will just by being male and older than thirteen), but there’s still a little time. He’s brought his laptop, not for any particular reason but just out of habit, and now he’s glad. He opens it, connects to the

motel’s WiFi, and goes to Debbie’s Blue Umbrella. There he leaves one final message–a kind of insurance policy. With that attended to, he walks back to the airport’s long-term parking lot and retrieves his Subaru.