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hard as Deborah stood on the brake pedal and spun around the truck. We thumped
hard against the curb, running the two left wheels up onto the sidewalk for
just a moment before bouncing down onto the road again.  Very nice, I said as
Deborah accelerated once again. And quite possibly, she might have taken the
time to thank me for my compliment, if only the white van had not chosen that
moment to take advantage of our slow-down to drop back beside our car and
swerve into us. The rear end of our car slewed around to the left, but Deborah
fought it back around again.
The van popped us again, harder, right behind my door, and as I lurched away
from the blow the door sprung open. Our car swerved and Deborah braked perhaps
not the best strategy, since the van accelerated at the same moment and this
time clipped my door so hard that it came loose and bounced away, hitting the
van a solid smack near the rear wheel before spinning off like a deformed
wheel, spitting sparks.
I saw the van wobble slightly, and heard the slack rattling sound of a blown
tire. Then the wall of white slammed into us one more time. Our car bucked
violently, lurched to the left, hopped the curb and burst through a chain-link
fence separating the side road from the ramp leading down off I-95. We twirled
around as if the tires were made of butter. Deborah fought the wheel with her
teeth showing, and we very nearly made it across the off-ramp. But of course,
I hadnot been to church this week, and as our two front wheels hit the curb on
the far side of the off-ramp, a large red SUV banged into our rear fender. We
spun up onto the grassy area of the freeway intersection that surrounded a
large pond. I had only a moment to notice that the cropped grass seemed to be
switching places with the night sky. Then the car bounced hard and the
passenger air bag exploded into my face. It felt like I had been in a pillow
fight with Mike Tyson; I was still stunned as the car flipped onto its roof,
hit the pond, and began to fill with water.
CHAPTER 20
IAM NOT SHY ABOUT ADMITTING MY MODEST TALENTS.For example, I am happy to
admit that I am better than average at clever remarks, and I also have a flair
for getting people to like me. But to be perfectly fair to myself, I am
ever-ready to confess my shortcomings, too, and a quick round of
soul-searching forced me to admit that I had never been any good at all at
breathing water. As I hung there from the seat belt, dazed and watching the
water pour in and swirl around my head, this began to seem like a very large
character flaw.
The last look I had at Deborah before the water closed over her head was not
encouraging, either. She was hanging from her seat belt unmoving, with her
eyes closed and her mouth open, just the opposite of her usual state, which
was probably not a good sign. And then the water flooded up around my eyes,
and I could see nothing at all.
I also like to think that I react well to the occasional unexpected
emergency, so I m quite sure my sudden stunned apathy was the result of being
rattled around and then smacked with an air bag. In any case, I hung there
upside down in the water for what seemed like quite a long time, and I am
ashamed to admit that for the most part, I simply mourned my own passing. Dear
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Departed Dexter, so much potential, so many dark fellow travelers still to
dissect, and now so tragically cut short in his prime. Alas, Dark Passenger, I
knew him well. And the poor boy was finally just about to get married, too.
How more than sad I pictured Rita in white, weeping at the altar, two small
children wailing at her feet. Sweet little Astor, her hair done up in a
bouffant bubble, a pale green bridesmaid dress now soaked with tears. And
quiet Cody in his tiny tuxedo, staring at the back of the church and waiting,
thinking of our last fishing trip and wondering when he would ever get to push
the knife in again and twist it so slowly, watching the bright red blood
burble out onto the blade and smiling, and then
Slow down, Dexter. Where did that thought come from? Rhetorical question, of
course, and I did not need the low rumble of amusement from my old interior
friend to give me the answer. But with his prompting I put together a few
scattered pieces into half a puzzle and realized that Cody
Isn t it odd what we think about when we re dying? The car had settled onto
its flattened roof, moving with no more than a gentle rocking now and
completely filled with water so thick and mucky that I could not have seen a
flare gun firing from the end of my nose. And yet I could see Cody perfectly
clearly, more clearly now than the last time we had been in the same room
together; and standing behind this sharp image of his small form towered a
gigantic dark shadow, a black shape with no features that somehow seemed to be
laughing.
Could it be? I thought again about the way he had put the knife so happily
into his fish. I thought about his strange reaction to the neighbor s missing
dog much like mine when I had been asked as a boy about a neighborhood dog I
had taken and experimented with. And I remembered that he, too, had gone
through a traumatic event like I had, when his biological father had attacked
him and his sister in a terrifying drug-induced rage and beat them with a
chair.
It was a totally unthinkable thing to think. A ridiculous thought, but All
the pieces were there. It made perfect, poetic sense.
I had a son.
Someone Just Like Me.
But there was no wise foster father to guide his first baby steps into the
world of slice and dice; no all-seeing Harry to teach him how to be all he
could be, to help change him from an aimless child with a random urge to kill
into a caped avenger; no one to carefully and patiently steer him past the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]