Eight Minute Infraction

Segment III

Segment III: unedited

“Turn. Turn here, for God’s sake!”

Keane slammed his shoulder into Gideon’s, groaning. The bitter aroma of alcohol clung to his clothing, and his cheeks were flushed red and dusted with golden stubble. Three hours ago, he had wandered into the mansion drunk. Shouting. Demanding to be taken to his girlfriend.

It had taken one steady glance at him to figure out why – he was too intoxicated to remember to walk in a straight line, let alone find where the car had been parked, get in, and navigate to Poison Ivy. Gideon hadn’t wanted to take him, at first. Keane was insufferable enough sober. But then he had recalled the girl, how her lips were twisted and her eyes were wide. How the ends of her hair looked like waves, the ocean spilling over her shoulders, and how she had called him a duplicate.

The memory of that was enough to drive him down the steps. He had looped one arm around Keane’s shoulders and helped him hobble out the double doors. The car had been parked in the shed behind the house, covered in white sheeting to protect it from sunshine. His grandfather didn’t care about many things – Gideon included – but he adored his vehicles. Keane had coughed into the dusty air and promptly thrown up in the corner, right over a set of fresh spare tires.

Gideon shouldn’t be driving him. But he was; because he had to, and because Keane was too forceful of a boy to be reckoned with.

“Gid. Turn left.” Keane was slurring. He lashed out angrily, grabbing Gideon’s arm and wrenching it back in its socket. “Left! She lives left!”

The car skated to the side of the road, wheel wobbling underneath his fingertips. Gideon’s arm was burning and tears had swollen up in his eyes, but he maneuvered them back across the yellow line. The heel of his boot dug into the gas pedal, pressing it into the floor. The sooner he deposited his brother, the better.

The car smelled like vomit. Keane was screaming, swearing, hands knotted in his hair. Slumping, mumbled defeated curses under his breath. A landscape of mossy trees and grey, empty sky flashed between the windows.   

It was too much to take in. So much that his fingers turned white, and his breath lodged in his throat. He was responsible for this. For Keane. For whatever happened to his girlfriend – which wouldn’t be a beautiful thing, he knew that.

Nonetheless, he had an obligation. This compelled him around the corner and towards the hotel. He released the gas pedal as the car rolled to a stop before the entrance. His leg, he discovered, had cramped painfully.

“She’s waiting.” Keane was staring at him intently, fingers poised over the door handle. “Waiting for me.” He contemplated this for a moment. Suddenly, his face paled. He jerked the car door open and vomited on the sidewalk.

Gideon stared straight ahead, examining the muddy flecks on the window shield. The sound of retching was unavoidable, and the foul aroma drifted over to the driver’s side. He was quiet. He had to be – Keane was unpredictable. From vomiting to infinity, no matter how despicable.

When the noises subsided, he got out of the car and helped Keane unfold himself from the passenger seat. Gingerly avoiding the pile of waste, he walked his brother up to the doors of the hotel. It was as dismal as it had been the first time he visited; the air was stale and the lobby was eerily quiet.

“You can’t come in,” Keane informed him, stumbling onto the elevator. “She’s waiting for me.”

Gideon followed patiently, pressing the button to the third floor. He ignored Keane and stood in the corner, staring through the murky glass of the ceiling. He didn’t want to be thinking. He didn’t want to be feeling this odd, churning mixture of regret and anger in his stomach.

He was the indifferent one. Keane, by default, was more buoyant and emotional, sparked by the promise of a life that awaited just beyond his grasp. Today, however, he did not feel indifferent. There was a growing sense of dread lodged like a symphony in his throat, a composition of apologies that he owed this strange, beautiful girlfriend.

This time when he reached the door, it did not swing upon of itself. It creaked – slowly, hesitantly. Her eyes appeared first, as clouded and mysterious as he remembered. Then the rest of her, skinny limbs and soft hips. Her hat was missing, and her dyed hair was a wild, tousled mass upon her small head.

“Keane?” Her gaze to Gideon, and her lips twitched. “This is your message?”

“In the flesh,” Keane told her. He stepped right through the crack in the door, effectively widening, and cupped her face in his hands. “Miss me?”

Gideon couldn’t hear her answer. He couldn’t hear anything. Static was pounding in his ears, and accompaniment to the orchestra confined behind his teeth. There was too much to see, nothing he wanted to witness.

Her pleated skirt, drifting in a shaft of air from the hallway. The edges of her messy hair and her fingers, white with panic, as she tried to push Keane away. But he was too strong to counter, too tall and wide to push aside. His hair fell across his neck like a golden banner, vomit staining his cuffs and the edges of his trousers.

When he pulled away, the girl was staring straight through him. She was fixated on Gideon, wearing the same scared, accusatory look. “You can leave.” Her voice was hoarse. She seemed ashamed. Maybe it was his imagination; maybe it was because he wanted someone else to feel the remorse for his actions.

Keane turned slightly. His wide hands gripped her forearms, eyes still glazed and breath still acidic. “Leave.” He said curtly. “I’ll walk home.”

“At midnight?”

“In the morning.”

With that, Keane moved closer to the girl and kicked the door shut. It slammed in Gideon’s face, a black, empty gateway to a world where justice was a matter of consent.

He didn’t leave.

There seemed to be many things he hadn’t done that day. He should have left – should have wanted to, even. But for some reason, he couldn’t will the motivation to move. He stood in front of that closed door and tried not to listen. Tried not to think. Tried to move, but he couldn’t.

Why did he keep succumbing? Why was he so helpless in the face of his brother’s anger? He was an object, easily manipulated and discarded. Useless.

He counted the seconds to ten, and shook the weariness from his bones. Just as he was walking away, he caught the end of a sentence, one that made him freeze in his tracks. The girl was telling Keane her name. Lumi.

“It’s Finnish.” Her words were muffled, desperate. “For snow.  Because–”

The words stopped. It was silent for a moment, and then the static began roaring in his ears again. Gideon turned on his heel and walked away, feet moving faster and faster until he was running down the hallway.

A desolate world blurred past him, windowpane snatches of a dead April afternoon. It would have been beautiful – grey sky, green ground, red bricks – but he kept running. Until his pulse was pounding and his legs were burning as much as his arm. He sprinted down the steps and out into the sunlight, shoes scraping against the pavement.

Yet nothing was quite as painful as what he had done.

He could hear again, but all he could hear was Keane’s bellowing directions, and the sad, defeated way his girlfriend had told him her name: Lumi.

She was winter. A solstice of her own, finite and fleeting. Keane was infinity, a towering shadow that stripped away the sunlight.

And Gideon was simply Gideon – a boy who, possessed by fear, had done everything wrong once again.