Prodigal Blues

"You do not have it in you to do this," said Grendel.

"Just watch," replied Christopher, stepping outside without so much as a glance back.  I followed him, closing the door behind me.

"Are you serious?" I asked him.

"Goddamn right I'm serious—and don't look at me like that.  It's more of a chance than he ever gave any of us!"  He started walking toward the entrance.  I followed after him.

"Christopher, please don't do this."

"Give me one reason why not."

I grabbed his arm and spun him toward me.  "Because you're better than this!"

"No, I'm not.  Maybe once, but not now.  It was sure nice to believe that for a while, though.  Thank you for that."  He yanked his arm from my grip and kept walking.

"I can't let you do this!"

He whirled around.  "And how exactly do you plan on stopping me?  You want to do the stumblebum routine again?  Because I'm about wrung the fuck out, Mark!  Do you understand?  I don't have any fight left in me!  I got one thing left to do, one lousy goddamn thing and it's the only thing I've got left to look forward to, and then there's nothing!  NOTHING!  Everything else has been taken away from me, so now you're go

"Don't you dare lay this at my feet!  Don't you fucking dare!  I will not stand here and let you force me into letting you commit murder again!"

"Murder?  Again?  Are you listening to what you're saying?  You think what I did at the truck stop was murder?  You think this is taking another human being's life?  They're not human!  They never were!"

"Yes, they are!  We may not like the idea of being part of the same species as them, but that doesn't change the fact that they're people!"

"By whose definition?  Yours?  The Bible's?  Tell me, Mark—under whose definition does Grendel qualify as a human being?"

"Please don't do this, Christopher.  Please."

"This is getting boring."

I was starting to panic.  "Maybe boring for you, but for me—pure scintillation.  On my deathbed when my grandchildren ask me what was the high point of my life, I'll tell them without a doubt it was standing in an abandoned mine wired to explode and arguing the finer points of the evolutionary scale with Christopher Matthews while he was being an unreasonable horse's ass."

He grabbed my collar and pulled me up into his face.  "Answer me one question, okay?  At what point do you say 'no more'?  Can you tell me that?  Can you tell me at which point Mark Sieber says, 'I will give you all the benefit of every doubt up to a point, but once you cross this line, you lose your right to call yourself a human being and walk safely on the Earth?"

"Stop this."

"Where's that line for you, Mark?  Or does it even exist?  Fuck!—I'll bet you're one of these people who think that Hitler might've been okay if he'd gotten a few more hugs from Mommy."

"Stop this."

"GIVE ME ONE REASON!  Just one!"

"Because I'm your friend and I'm telling you that if you do this, it will diminish you for the rest of your life and make everything you and the others have been through meaningless."

He froze, staring at me.

"If you do this," I continued, "you will never forgive yourself.  Because somewhere inside you know that if you carry out this unbelievably sadistic act, you'll be dragging yourself down to his level and there's no coming back from there.  He's hard-wired, but you're not.  Do you want to be just like him, Christopher?  Do you really think you could live with yourself after this was done?  Because if you do think that, then all of this has been for nothing.  Everything you've been through and lost, all the pain and humiliation Arnold and Rebecca and Thomas suffered at his hands, the deaths of the other children, all of it will made worthless."

"Then what's left?  Can you tell me what's left for me to believe in?"

I reached up and gripped his wrist.  "This," I said.  "You feel that, my hand on you?  This is my hand and my word.  I am your friend.  You have that.  You have my friendship.  But that ends the moment you activate that timer."

"Is that a threat?"

"No.  It's just the way it'll be.  I'm sorry."

"Me too."

We stared at each other for a few more moments.

He let go of my collar.  "Pretty smart for a janitor."

"I have moments."

He looked at me, at the bomb, then walked over and yanked out all the wires.  "Fine.  There.  Happy now?"

"Yes.  Thank you."

He stared at the mass of wires in his hand.  "You want to know something terrible?"

"What's one more?  Sure."

"The other collars, the ones he had us wearing?  They're mixed in with the foam and C4.  They're still active.  Even if he'd managed to get out and make this far, once he was seventy-five feet away, this thing would have gone off, anyway.  He never would have made it."

"You're right.  That's terrible."

"Yeah."  He threw down the wires, then peeled back the C4 and removed the collars, tossing them into the rain and mud.  "We need to load up the bike."

"You're not going to believe this."

"What?"

I patted down my pockets.  "I think I dropped my wallet back there."

He shook his head, almost smiling.  "Then you should go and get it."

"Be right back."

He started strapping everything onto the motorcycle and packing up the bags in the side compartments.  I looked back every chance I got to make sure he wasn't watching.  I got to the trailer, waited until Christopher's back was turned, then stepped inside, closing the door behind me.

"My hero," said Grendel.  "Did my sweet boy have a change of heart and send you to rescue me?"

"Yes and no."

I pulled the gun from the back of my pants and shot him in the center of his forehead, then kept firing until the clip was empty and the silencer was a smoking, charred glop of melted plastic.

Tell me, Dad, what would you have done?

I'd've shot him a lot sooner.

How's the fishing?

Fine.  I enjoy it here.  Don't you worry about me anymore, you hear?

Am I still a good man, Dad?

I'm a little biased on that point, Mark.

I stepped closer to Grendel's body, tilted my head to admire how the blood had blossomed out against the back wall; it looked like a giant grisly rose.

"I am a good and decent man," I said to the rose.

It was a prayer.

Christopher was just finishing with loading the motorcycle when I came back.

"Find your wallet?"

I patted my pocket.  "Got it."

He handed me a helmet, then looked back at the trailer.  "Suppose we should call the police?"

"No."

He cocked his head to the side.  "You answered that awfully fast.  There's at least three ways I can think of that he can get away."

"Christopher?"

"Yes…?"

"He's not going to get away."

His eyes widened.  "What did you do?"

I shook my head.  "You didn't ask me that."

He stared at me for a moment longer, gave a quick nod of his head, then reached out and squeezed my shoulder.  "Thank you."

"Can we go home now, please?"

Christopher put on his helmet, swung onto the bike, and I climbed on behind him.  He gu