فصل بیست و هفت

TWENTY-SEVEN

Louis didn’t really know he was drunk until he got back in his own garage.

Outside there was starlight and a chilly rind of moon. Not enough light to cast a shadow, but enough to see by. Once he got in the garage, he was blind. There was a light-switch somewhere, but he was damned if he could remember anymore just where it was. He felt his way along slowly, shuffling his feet, his head swimming, anticipating a painful crack on the knee or a toy that he would stumble over, frightening himself with its crash, perhaps falling over himself. Ellie’s little Schwinn with its red training wheels. Gage’s Crawly-Gator.

Where was the cat? Had he left him in?

Somehow he sailed off course and ran into the wall. A splinter whispered into one palm and he cried out ‘Shit!’ to the darkness, realizing after the word was out that it sounded more scared than mad. The whole garage seemed to have taken a stealthy half-turn. Now it wasn’t just the light-switch; now he didn’t know where the fuck anything was, and that included the door into the kitchen.

He began walking again, moving slowly, his palm stinging. This is what it would be like to be blind, he thought, and that made him think of a Stevie Wonder concert he and Rachel had gone to – when? six years ago? As impossible as it seemed, it had to be. She had been pregnant with Ellie then. Two guys had led Wonder to his synthesizer, guiding him over the cables that snaked across the stage so he wouldn’t stumble. And later, when he had gotten up to dance with one of the back-up singers, she had led him carefully to a clear place on the floor. He had danced well, Louis remembered thinking. He had danced well, but he had needed a hand to lead him to the space where he could do it.

How about a hand right now to lead me to my kitchen door? he thought … and abruptly shuddered.

If a hand came out of the darkness now to lead him, how he would scream – scream and scream and scream.

He stood still, heart thudding. Come on, he told himself. Stop this shit, come on, come on— Where was that fucking cat?

Then he did slam into something, the rear bumper of his Civic, and the pain sang up his body from his barked shin, making his eyes water. He grabbed his leg and rubbed it, standing one-legged like a heron, but at least he knew where he was now, the geography of the garage fixed firmly in his mind again, and besides, his night-vision was coming, good old visual purple. He had left the cat in, he remembered that now, hadn’t really wanted to touch it, to pick it up and put it out and— And that was when Church’s hot, furry body oiled against his ankle like a low eddy of hot water, followed by its loathsome tail, curling against his calf like a clutching snake, and then Louis did scream; he opened his mouth wide and screamed.