Chapter 7

I was feeling great at this point; a perfect balance of sensational delight. The only thing missing was the routine of Adam’s companionship, and I was ready to correct that, whether he was bedded down with some hussy or not. As I gulped of my refreshment, I remembered that I had meant to bring him a waking-up beer. Meh. He could grab one if he wanted. The only important thing now was to solve this mystery and resume my daily rituals. I got to his door and, not being as soberly inhibited this time around, I gave it three solid raps. Another low groan; no real words that I could determine. It had come to this. I twisted the doorknob, pushed the door open, and walked in as I loudly barked his name.

The afternoon was settling toward twilight, and his window faced the east, so it was pretty dark in his room. The bad lighting combined with his general mustiness and the scent of still-settling porcine fecal particles lent a creepy feel to his dank little cell. The bulb in his ceiling light fixture had long since burnt out, so I shambled my way to his night stand and clicked on his reading lamp. He was in bed alright, but surprisingly alone. He squinted his eyes more tightly shut and turned away from the light.

“John?” he muttered into his pillow.

“Who else? What are you doing? I figured you were banging some trollop in here. I was hoping to get in on some of that.” I can be a little crude once I’ve had a few.

“No man. I was restringing the ‘Hole Guitar and I got a migraine, so I took a nap. What time is it?”

“Dunno scro.” I looked around for a clock, which was a futile endeavor. The day Adam has a working timepiece in his room will be the day that advertised Vietnamese potbelly piglets turn out to be a good idea. I did see that the ‘Hole Guitar was propped up against the bed, and the bait knife was sitting next to the lamp on his night stand. I grabbed the knife.

“What were you doing with the bait knife?” I sat down on the side of his bed and examined the blade in the dim light, taking a few experimental swipes and stabs. It was a cool little knife, but, costing only 94 cents, it couldn’t be that sharp. I didn’t know much about bait knives.

“I couldn’t find any wire cutters, so I was using it to cut the ends off the new strings.” That should’ve clued me in on the danger of the weapon I was bearing, but I was borderline drunk by now.

“Why in the world would you put new strings on the ‘Hole Guitar? You know people will just steal them. What possible good could come of this?” I jabbed and stabbed at the dark air in front of me. I was really getting into the feel of knife-wielding.

“I dunno man,” he mumbled. “I thought, hey, maybe someone might actually play it someday. It seemed like a good idea to give a functionless guitar a fair chance.” He shifted a little and turned to face me, eyes still squinted against the lamp-light. “Hey, did you hear about the NORML Fish Fry?”

“I heard some things.” I had heard all about it, but, not being a student at the university, I wasn’t allowed to attend. “How did that go?”

“It was great. So many people showed up, and at first I didn’t think there was enough fish to feed them all, but somehow I managed. Just when I thought we were running out, more fish seemed to just appear in the cooler. I think my dad might’ve had something to do with it.” Adam’s dad helped out at the Fry, and he always had this thing where it seemed like he could just create something out of nothing. One would think he’d use that talent at a homeless shelter or something, but he only cooks for people that know him.

I got to thinking about getting back into school. Most of the time it just seemed like a futile endeavor; I mean, if you don’t go to school, and just work, you typically don’t like your job and don’t make a whole lot of money. But if you spend a ton of money on getting an education, chances are you still won’t get a job that’s even half-fulfilling, and you have to pay back student loans for years, which puts you right back into the same boat. You might survive long enough to pay them off and then really start making decent money, but by then you’ll probably be married and your wife will take most of your cash to use as she sees fit. Or you could be married and have kids, and you’ll have to dump all that money into their welfare, so they can grow up, get an education, and start the same meaningless cycle over again. It was hard to see the point.

Adam hadn’t said anything for a while, and I was afraid he might be going back to sleep. I nudged him and said, “Hey buddy, want me to grab you a Southpaw? They’re cold.”

“Nah man, my head still hurts. I think I’m gonna sleep for another few hours.”

“Nonsense. Drink a beer and you’ll feel ten times better; trust me. I’ll be right back. Don’t go back to sleep!” I put the bait knife back on the night stand.

“Okay.”

I left the lamp on to encourage his wakefulness and headed back to the kitchen. My beer was close enough to being finished, so I killed that and grabbed two from the fridge. I glanced out the kitchen window and saw two squirrels chasing each other around a tree in the yard, so I opened a beer and stood in front of the window, sipping and watching. It was weird seeing squirrels out this close to dark; I could barely follow their erratic dodges and jukes. Then I realized I was watching two moths flitting around close to the glass. God, I was drunker than I thought. I headed back to Adam’s room.

When I opened the door, I noticed that Adam had turned his lamp off and was gently snoring. Friends can be so unreliable sometimes. I had only been gone a second, and I was getting him a beer for chrissake. I stumbled to the night stand, flicked on the light, set his beer on the floor, and sat on his bed. The bait knife was glinting in the dim light, so it caught my attention; I picked it up again.

“Adam. Wake up.” He was facing away from me; the covers were only up to just above his waist, so his right shoulder was exposed beyond the yellowish wifebeater arm strap. He remained unconscious.

I really liked the weight of the bait knife in my hand. “Adam, if you don’t get up and drink this beer, I’m gonna cut you with your own knife.”

His response was deafeningly silent; he had stopped snoring at least. I poised the knife above his arm and made little etching motions in the air around his shoulder.

“I’m serious; if you don’t get up right now, I’m going to flay your skin open and watch you bleed.” I was kind of hoping he would stay asleep so I would be justified in using the knife, as dull as I thought it was. He didn’t move or say anything.

“Have it your way, buddy. Prepare yourself for my gouging wrath.” I made an experimental little slice along his bicep, with almost no pressure applied at all. No blood, so I figured it must be safe.

I went up and down his arm with the bait knife, cutting here and there, really enjoying the empowering feeling that the shitty little blade gave me. If he got a scratch, fuck it. It was his fault for not getting his selfish ass out of bed.

After about the thirteenth cut or so, I noticed that the first slice-wound had started to bleed. What the fuck? In the dim light provided by his reading lamp, I hadn’t noticed that I was actually cutting his skin open. Just to be sure, I dragged the blade’s edge along the fleshy part of my thumb. I could barely even feel it, but, sure enough, as I fiddled with the new cut, I actually felt the stinging little pain of a bad paper-cut. And I had applied only minimum pressure. This bait knife must’ve been razor sharp. God only knew how deep I had cut Adam.

The other cuts on his arm were starting to flow, so I really shook him, hard. He didn’t move, and my hand felt wet, so I examined it in the dinky little light afforded by the lamp. It was covered in blood. Aw, shit.

My hand was already smeared with his life-blood, so I shook him again and said, “Adam! I cut you and you’re bleeding now. You should get up and put some peroxide on your arm or something. Seriously man, your sheets are getting all gory.”

He slowly stirred himself awake and looked at his bloody arm. “Dude, what did you do?”

“I dunno man; I didn’t think the knife was that sharp, and I thought it would be funny. I tried to warn you.”

He propped himself up on an elbow in order to better examine his now-red and wet arm. “You cut me?” He was still pretty groggy.

“Yes, Adam, I cut you. It was an accident. I thought it would be funny.” I tried to hand him the bait knife. “Here, cut me, and we’ll be even. I probably won’t even feel it.”

“I’m not gonna cut you, John. Do you want to cut my other arm too?” He proffered his unmarked shoulder to me.

“I’m not going to cut you again. Really, take the knife and cut me, and call it even.” I actually felt kind of bad about the whole thing. He sat up, propped against the wall behind where his head-board would’ve been.

“Nah man. I see how it could’ve been funny. Just give me that beer and we’ll be square.” I handed him the beer, and even cracked it open for him, but I still felt pretty bad about the future blood-stains all over his sheets and wifebeater.

“Seriously man, cut me and make it even. It’ll make everything better for everyone.” I had no idea what I was talking about.

He took a nice long gulp and said, “Nah, I get it. I should’ve gotten up sooner, right? I broke the routine and this is what I get.” I think he was trying to be sarcastic.

I sighed and said, “Fine. If you won’t get me back, I’ll do it myself.” I held the knife in my right hand and slid it down the top of my forearm, about halfway between wrist and elbow. My skin opened up like a blooming flower; I had used much more pressure on myself than I had on Adam, partially for repentance, but mostly because I was too drunk to know what I was doing. I put the knife down and examined my new wound in the lamp-light. I could literally see the inside of my arm. Fat, muscle, severed veins, but no bone. I figured I was in pretty good shape.

I stared at my new cut for a moment, and then Adam said, “Dude, did you just cut yourself? What are you, an emo kid?” He took my wrist and checked out my forearm. “Man, you really fucked yourself up. You should put something on that.”

“You’re probably right. You got anything?” He got out of bed and headed for the door. Now we could get to the routine of after-work kickin-it. I followed him to the bathroom and he futilely searched for some kind of antiseptic. Suddenly I was struck with an idea.

“Hey, let’s just pour beer on it. That has alcohol in it. It might work.”

He gave me a funny look, like I was the idiot or something. “Okay John. We’ll pour beer on it.”

“Hey, first, you wanna be blood brothers?” I hadn’t ever had a blood brother before, and since we were both bleeding at this point, I figured the time was right.

“Sure man. Let’s be blood brothers.” I pressed my gaping chasm of a cut against his bloody shoulder, held it, and we became blood brothers. Then we poured beer on my arm and his shoulder (he didn’t think it was necessary, but I did it anyway), and we settled into the routine of talking about the crazy morons in this world.