“I have a bad feeling about this,” Claudia said.
“Well, yeah. Uncle Frank is in for a rude awakening, because guess what? The stripper has a boyfriend, a Florida statie. And one night Frank gets pulled over on the highway and the cop—for no apparent reason—starts whacking his Eldorado with a tire iron.”
“Shit,” said Claudia, filled with genuine anguish. The scene was entirely too vivid: headlights racing along the interstate, palm trees swaying in the wind.
“Frank being Frank, he gets out of the car and takes a swing, but the cop is forty years younger,” said Timmy. “Also, he has a tire iron.”
Claudia handed back the pipe.
“So Frank spends two months in the hospital.” Timmy took a long drag. “The doctors say he’s going to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. By the time he gets out of the hospital, his wife is long gone, and he spent all his life savings on the stripper, so he has to live off his daughter. Who, go figure, still idolizes him.”
He handed Claudia the pipe.
“The daughter—my cousin Bridget—married some rich douchebag and lives in a fancy housing development, a bunch of McMansions around a man-made lake. And of course Uncle Frank hates it there. So one night he’s had enough, he’s at his fuckin limit, and he drives his chair straight into the lake.”
“No!” said Claudia.
“He waits until the middle of the night, when the daughter and her husband are sleeping, so they won’t hear him if he changes his mind and starts screaming for help. Which he does.” A long pause. “Finally one of the neighbors hears him and goes in after him, but it’s too late.”
They sat in silence. Claudia studied the piranhas darting across the screen.
“Jesus,” she said finally. “That’s a depressing story.”
“Wait, there’s more. They find the chair a week later,” said Timmy. “They have to drag the lake.”
Why tell her this story? Was there even a reason? It didn’t occur to her to ask. She inhaled deeply, his words washing over her like water—a warm rinse of received experience, not to be questioned. Train Wreck had done its work.
Timmy went to the window and peered out from behind the tapestry at the silent street. “Where is everybody? It’s like a bomb went off out there.”
This was briefly confusing, until Claudia remembered that she’d left her house after midnight.
“It’s late,” she said. “I should go.”
“Not yet.” Timmy jangled his keys in his pocket. “Let’s go for a ride.”
IN RETROSPECT—CLAUDIA KNOWS THIS—HER BEHAVIOR RAISES certain questions. What was she thinking, getting into a car in the middle of the night with a known drug criminal? Was she aware that she was engaging in high-risk behavior?
She was aware.
And yet, in her gelatinous state, it didn’t feel risky. She felt safer than she had in weeks or months or possibly ever; safer, certainly, than she felt showing up for work each morning. Timmy’s hugeness was comforting, a powerful visual deterrent to any Dateline-type predator. Walking down a dark alley with Timmy, she would not be messed with.
With Timmy she would be perfectly safe, unless he decided to kill her himself.
Washington Street was deserted, the traffic lights flashing. As they crossed the street, Claudia noticed the lightness in her pocket.
“Shit. I left my phone in your apartment.”
She could picture exactly where she’d left it, beside her on Timmy’s couch.
“Get it later. You won’t need it,” Timmy said.