Saving Grace

28

Godric left; the guilt didn't.

So I endeavoured to crush it out by making use of a bottle of scotch and a quiet withdrawal into my own head. By the time I was ready get up and leave, the new bartender had to scrape me off the floor and dump me on the kerb, before chucking my jacket out on the concrete beside me.

I breathed in the scent of cool night air and gasoline and suddenly I was standing – or, rather swaying – with one hand gripped on the lamppost and the other rummaging around in my pocket, looking for my phone. It was loud that night; cars raced by in blurs of colour and light, honking their horns and screaming profanities for reasons I cannot recall. I didn't hear the beady-eyed janitor approach me from behind.

"Y-you're wrong, Richie."

The sound took a long moment to register – even longer for me to figure out where it had come from. I flung around, vision spinning like a turning top, and I narrowed my eyes as he came into focus.

"Who are you?" I slurred. "How do you know my name?"

"W-what you said to the Russian man – you were wrong, you know? This man who l-loves Grace, leaves her presents a-and wants to take care of her. He w-would never hurt her."

I tried to stand up straight, felt the world move beneath me.

"What are you talking ab- you... you said Grace. How do you know Grace?"

The man, short and plump with his back hunched and his eyes staring at his shoes, shook his head.

"Y-you don't understand," he said. "Neither of you un-understand me or what I'm trying to do."

He suddenly met my eye, grabbed me by the collar and reefed me in.

"Y-you have to tell her he l-loves her," he stuttered, coffee-breath potent and intrusive. "You have to. He'd never hurt her!"

"Get off me!" I roared, shoving him away. "Who are you? What's your name?"

"She has to understand," he mumbled, sulking away. "I'll have to make her understand."

I stared in bewilderment as he shuffled backwards, head down, eyes darting. There I noticed on his hip a laminated ID badge. He looked up at me, froze. The badge straightened. Nicholas. Before I had the chance to read his surname or call out to him, a car pulled up beside me and the sound of my brother's awful scratched CD poured out of the passenger window.

"Richie!"

I staggered backwards, looked in through the window.

"Scotty," I slurred. "W-what are you...?"

Scott jumped out of the car and steadied me with one arm.

"Jesus," he said, looking me up and down. "What have you done to yourself?"

I looked back in the direction of Nick the janitor, but he was gone.

"I – "

"Come on," he said, pulling me towards the car. "Let's get you home."

I stepped onto the hard road, muttering incoherently, my attention sewn completely to the end of the street. I desperately tried to find the strange man in a sea of darkness, but the phantom had vanished; the shadows had swallowed him whole.

© A.G. Travers 2018