“Gerald! Come on down, you fucking cocksucker! Come on down you murdering son of a bitch!” Buddy Lee screeched. Two small terra-cotta lions sat on each side of the front door next to a glazed clay planter. Buddy Lee obliterated each lion and planter with a couple of swings from his bat. Plaster chips flew up and landed in his lank hair.
“You were fucking that girl, Gerald. You were fucking her and Derek found out!” Buddy Lee bellowed. He hopped down off the steps. A picture window to the left of the door felt the fury of his bat. It took two hard swings, but the window eventually broke into a million pieces.
“Buddy Lee! Stop this!” Christine shrieked. She was standing on the other side of a cloth-covered chaise that sat in front of the former picture window. Buddy Lee pointed at her with the bat.
“He killed our son, Christine. He killed Derek. HE KILLED HIM!” Buddy Lee bellowed.
Christine put her hands to her mouth. “What are you saying?”
“Derek found out he was cheating on you with this girl named Tangerine. Come on down, Gerald. Or should I call you Wynn? That’s what she called you, right, you son of a bitch!” Buddy Lee said.
“Gerald, who is—”
Gerald’s voice cut her off midsentence. It echoed through the house with the unmistakable tinniness that came from a speaker.
“The police have been called, Buddy,” Gerald said.
“Come out here, Gerald. I’m gonna bash your fucking brains in, but not before I make you say my boy’s name. Get out of your panic room and come on out here, boy,” Buddy Lee said.
“Buddy Lee, the police will be here any minute,” Christine said.
“You think they can get here before I shove this bat down Gerald’s throat? Come on out, boy. Face me. Face the father of the man you killed. You got the stones for that? Or do you get the Breed to do all the work for you?” Buddy Lee said. Gerald spoke again. Buddy Lee could hear the smirk through the speakers.
“This isn’t a B movie starring Warren Oates, Buddy Lee. I suggest you put that bat down and get on the ground. Right now, you’re just looking at felony destruction of property and trespassing. Don’t add attempted murder to the list,” Gerald said.
“I ain’t attempting anything, bitch. You ain’t coming out, I’m coming in,” he said. He went back to his truck. He tried starting it. The engine sputtered but didn’t catch. He tried again.
“Last time, ol’ girl,” he thought. The truck turned over but just barely. Buddy Lee backed up and disentangled himself from the garage door. He slipped the gear shift into drive.
Gerald came out of the darkness with his cell phone in his hand. He stood behind Christine as she stared out the hole that used to be their window.
“Did he leave?”
“No. Who is Tangerine?” Christine asked with eerie calm.
“Oh my God,” Gerald said. He grabbed Christine by the arm and snatched her away from the picture window just as Buddy Lee’s truck came careening into their living room. The bricks around the window cracked, shifted, and fell to the ground like a meth head’s teeth. The chaise crumpled under the weight of Buddy Lee’s truck. The front wheels spun across the wood floor leaving black streaks of rubber in their wake. Buddy Lee fell out of the truck with the baseball bat in his hand. Using it as a cane, he climbed to his feet.
“I’m coming, you fucker. I’m gonna see what your insides look like,” Buddy Lee said. Gerald dragged Christine through the batwing doors that separated their kitchen from the dining room. Buddy Lee followed them, digging holes in the Sheetrock with his bat as he stalked them. He knocked one of the batwing doors off its mounts with one swing. Gerald stood behind Christine. He had a butcher knife in his hand.
“You ever killed a man, Gerald? Up close and personal like? Not over the phone. Felt his blood splatter on your face? Heard the last rattle of his breath in his throat? Smelled the shit in his pants when his bowels let go? I have. So believe me when I tell you that knife ain’t gonna slow me down one fucking bit,” Buddy Lee said.
“Please, Buddy Lee, stop,” Christine said.
“HE KILLED OUR BOY!” Buddy Lee roared. He swung the bat in a whistling half circle and took out the coffee maker sitting on the granite countertop than ran the length of the far-left wall.
“Say his name, Gerald!” Buddy Lee yelled. He slammed the bat against a juicer that had evaded his first attack.
“Say it! DEREK WAYNE JENKINS!” Buddy Lee shouted.
“Drop the bat!” an authoritative voice said behind him. Buddy Lee froze.