Wielder
1.
Dixon watched from his washed-out sedan, drawing on another menthol, jetting smoke from his nostrils. He parked in the last stall of a cracked blacktop parking lot. The surrounding apartments once represented untold promises, soon revealed as vacuous, arrogant lies. Promises to gentrify, promises to lift up, promises as empty as alchemical fantasy. Each monolithic slab of drab brick now bled mortar, while their concrete pilings were stained with rust from arthritic fire escapes. Faded sheets hung in windows in place of curtains, drawing out from their screenless frames by a slight breeze, sucked back inside with a sigh.
The apartment complex formed a horseshoe around his daughter's house. The homeowner three decades ago had refused to sell to the apartment developers, so they built around him, hemming him within their protective arms.
Dixon snubbed his cigarette, then cursed himself for killing it before he could use it to light another. His head hurt. It always did when he pushed too hard. He tried to focus on the task at hand, imagining the weight of the weapon in the younger man's hands, the sound of its meaty impact. Down to the grain of the sledge's wooden handle, he focused.
Then he pushed.
He futilely strained for sounds coming from the house. Too distant to hear telltale screams, he would certainly see blood whenever Gavin emerged.
Sure, he'd ruined her, but he felt no responsibility. Not anymore. And he was years beyond regret. He just wanted it to end.
His daughter, Betsy-Anne, had been fifteen when Joshua found the Dixon home and rapped on the screen door at half past midnight. He'd had an agreement with the boy. No contacting him outside of work. But he did. Said he knew something Dixon might want to act on. Something juicy. He wanted to brain the kid, but instead, he left the room to get his wallet. That's when they met. Betsy-Anne, unable to sleep, went searching for a late night snack, but instead, found a boy with a bruised face and dirt under his nails standing at the back door. Dixon didn't learn of their meeting until a week later, when curiosity made Betsy ask where Joshua lived. He didn't know how or why, but sometime thereafter their stars crossed once again, immutably dimming the luster from both.
That night ruined her. That small secret meeting. Dixon had thought about it over the years, how things might have been, thought about it until he had to see a head doctor. By then he had an ulcer that doubled him over like nothing. He could've turned the boy away, but his ambition had gotten the better of him. He could've raised a protective hell over his daughter's questioning. He could've ended it all, saved everyone in one collective package with a pretty bow on top, if he'd just had a twenty in the pocket of his pajamas.
Dixon checked his watch. It should be over with by now, but Gavin was still inside. Time was getting away from him. He'd been in there over an hour. Things were getting out of control. He only wished he could have done it himself. It would've been so much easier. But of course things often became complicated when family was concerned.
Joshua had been easy to push. His brain like putty from years of meth, Dixon used him as an armed meat puppet to take out half of the south side's drug dealers. Too bad one junkie got too close with a straight razor. It had been a good run.
But this… this was not going well. Not well at all.
Dixon snubbed his butt, immediately craved another, and opened the door. He kept an eye on the surrounding apartments, but all was quiet as he cut across to the house.
2.
The door opened to a languid woman and her filthy kids pressed against the screen. A misplaced, wanton smile upon her lips. A sagging shape sheathed inside a threadbare housecoat. Gavin winced. Standing before him, the blight of idyllic thought and aspiration--rotting souls reproducing like fleas.
