All Due Respect Issue #1 (5 page)

Madeline stood in the doorway, hugging her thick, cable-knit sweater to herself.

“Yeah?” Albert felt himself flush just having her in his space.

“Did you finish the requisition forms yet?” Albert noticed that she always had her head turned slightly away from him on the side with the burn scar, that her eyes would dart almost imperceptibly from his when they met. That was okay with Albert. When they were at Diman, his palms would sweat whenever she would look at him. Her inability to maintain eye contact with him (or anyone else, for that matter) since coming back from “over there” made things slightly easier on Albert’s blood pressure.

Albert’s ears went red at her question, regardless. Mrs. Medeiros, who used to have Madeline’s job before her stroke, would always help Albert with the forms. He wasn’t any good with forms, with letters and words, but was too embarrassed to ask Madeline for her help.

Madeline glanced over at the obviously incomplete forms. “Can I help you?”

Albert gulped and nodded slowly. “I…would appreciate that.”

A light curl of a smile flicked at the corner of Madeline’s mouth and Albert’s heart warmed. It was the first time he’d seen anything resembling a smile on Madeline since she came back from “over there.”

He went to stand, to offer her his chair, but Madeline waved him to sit back down. “It’s okay, I’ll stand. Do you have the parts number?”

Albert flipped through the papers on his desk to find the right one. He pulled what he thought was the correct pink sheet from the pile and turned back to Madeline.

She bent low at the waist, looking over what little Albert had thus far been able to scratch out on the form. Albert smelled flowers and soap. He closed his eyes and tried to push the memory of her scent into a place where he wouldn’t forget it.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that the wide neck of her oatmeal-colored sweater draping open. Immediately, Albert’s eyes were drawn to the pink rose at the clasp of her bra. His throat tightened as he marveled at the light coffee color of her cleavage.

Then Albert saw her other scar. Thick and angrily puffed up from the skin, the scar started two inches above the rose and bisected her breasts. Albert’s gaze followed the path of her scar. It continued down, stopping just shy of her belly button.

Albert had heard that Madeline had been badly hurt “over there,” which was why she was back here in the first place. He heard the old Kozak twins gossiping about it one day. Albert tried not to listen in, as he felt that eavesdropping was rude, but was unable to stop himself once he’d heard Madeline’s name mentioned.

Albert was hypnotized by the scar.

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in this life.

Albert heard himself gasp. Madeline looked at him when she heard his soft intake of air, saw where he was looking. She stood up too quickly, clutching the neck of her sweater.

“No…
wait!
” Albert reached for her arm, but she stumbled back. She slammed into the wall with enough force to knock dust motes into the air, the wind pummeled from her lungs by the impact. As she came crashing down onto the concrete floor, her wig shifted halfway off her scalp.

The white-gray burn didn’t stop at her hairline, but arced over her ear, the waxy scar reaching up almost to the crown of her head like the hand of a fiery giant had molded the flesh back with indelicate fingers.

Hoarsely gasping for breath, she held one hand tightly to the neck of her sweater, the other trying to reset the wig with palsied fingers. Her entire body trembled violently, knees clenched tightly to her chest as she sat on the floor.

Albert reached for her, but was afraid to touch her. “M-M-Madeline..?”

When she regained her breath, she looked up at Albert with haunted eyes.

And howled.

The ferocity of the sound drove Albert back into his chair, both hands pressed tight against the sides of his head to stop the noise.

Mr. Souza was the first to arrive. The shock of the scene before him froze him, mouth open. He was followed by several of the women from the floor, all of whom had accusing looks for Albert. Especially the old Kozak twins, who shot him withering glances before they helped Madeline to her feet and hustled her off to the ladies’ room.

Albert tried to follow, but Mr. Souza placed a firm hand on Albert’s chest. “What happened, Albert? Where are you going?”

“I need…I need to talk to her!” Albert could hear the pleading note in his voice as it cracked. Hot tears filled his eyes.

“No, Albert, give her a minute.”

“I need to tell her, Mr. Souza.”

“Tell her what, Albert?” A deep concern was lighting behind Mr. Souza’s eyes.

“I need to tell her that it’s the most beautiful thing in the world, Mr. Souza. That scars are beautiful, Mr. Souza.”

Albert couldn’t hold it in any more. He started crying as he pointed at the nubs of his own fingers, hoping Mr. Souza could understand. “Scars…scars mean you
survived
. Scars mean that you’re still alive. She…she needs to know that!”

Mr. Souza ran a hand over his thin comb-over, reminding Albert of the way Madeline’s wig had shifted. “Albert…”

“She…I…” The rest of the words caught in Albert’s throat as the tears streamed down. The guilt—the feeling that he’d somehow done Something Wrong was a thick, knotted ball at the base of his throat. He needed to make it right.

“Albert, listen…” Mr. Souza seemed to have a sudden weariness overcome him. “… just go home for the rest of the day.”

“But…but I haven’t finished—”

“Just go home, Albert. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Mr. Souza held up his hands to Albert and backed out of the workroom, leaving him alone.

Albert didn’t know what to do. He could hear,
feel
the hum of the mill around him, voices talking about him.

He couldn’t pick out words or sentences, but he could sense it.

On his way out, Albert quietly walked into Mr. Souza’s office and left his Ring Ding on Madeline’s desk.

The dog was dead.

She lay at the base of the tree, her form partially covering the bodies of her puppies, as though she’d tried to breathe life back into them by sacrificing the last of her bodies own warmth.

Albert took off his glove and stroked her stiff fur with the nubs of his fingers.

He hadn’t slept at all.

The incident with Madeline kept him awake all night. He needed to make things right. He needed to do a Good Thing, even if it wasn’t for Madeline.

He’d decided to try to take the dog again.

He left his house a half-hour before the sun came up, figuring he could take the dog before the man inside the house was awake. He would give the dog a home. He would keep her warm and safe.

Maybe someday she would have puppies again. Maybe he could give one of those puppies to Madeline.

Albert drove to the road and parked at the end of the lane. He crept quietly on the new snow that had fallen the night before.

But the dog was already gone, and all Albert could do was kneel in the snow next to her and weep as quietly as he could, so as not to wake the man inside the house. He pet the dog’s fur until his cold-numbed fingers could no longer feel it bristling against the skin. He kissed his fingertips and patted the dog one last time before he put his fingers back inside the thick winter glove.

Albert closed his eyes and faced the rising sun, feeling its warmth on his face. The diffused light danced beautifully through the tears trapped behind his eyelids. He turned and walked to the house.

Albert walked up the rickety steps, uncaring whether or not the creaking woke the man inside. He pounded a fist against the door three times and waited.

He heard movement inside, then; “Goddamn it, Dex. I know your tweaked ass can’t sleep, but some of us—”

The door jerked open violently.

The man had only a moment to register that Albert was not Dex. He reached for the side of the door, but Albert brought the ball-peen hammer down between his eyes before he could reach the gun on the table.

The sound reminded Albert of the one his frozen windshield made the day he poured hot water on it. The man face-planted into the table by the door, the gun skidding away from him on the scratched hardwood. The man moaned from the back of his throat and tried to stand. Blood streamed from his nose and his left ear. One of his eyes danced out of sync with the other as he tumbled back into the living room.

Albert followed.

The man tried to reach for the gun, but fell again, his face smashing into the corner of the wall where the living room met the kitchen. The man’s cheek split from the impact, two teeth clacking to the floor. Inside the kitchen, Albert could see a science kit like the ones advertised on the back of his old comic books. The sharp, chemical smell assaulted his nose even through his cold-stuffed nostrils.

The man reached the gun. Albert let him. Albert wasn’t afraid of the man inside the house anymore.

The man’s blood-slicked fingers reached around the butt of the gun despite the spasms in his arm. His hand clenched, and the gun fired, the bullet slamming harmlessly into the floorboards.

He tried again, more throwing his hand toward Albert than taking actual aim. The gun fired. The second bullet went out the taped-over window three feet to Albert’s left.

Albert didn’t move.

The recoil flung the man’s hand over his head, the fingers firing off two more shots as it did so. The first bullet popped the light hanging overhead, the second zipped into the kitchen, striking the science kit.

Immediately, the kitchen burst into bright flame. The man moaned again through his broken face. He tried to lift the gun again, but only managed to lift it off the floor a couple of inches.

Albert walked over to the man and stepped on his wrist, pinning it to the floor. He leaned into the man’s face. He watched the twitching eyeball slowly come to rest in its socket. The man emitted one last cow-like bleat, then was still.

Albert looked into the kitchen. The fire had already engulfed the entirety of it, and bright orange flames had started licking the ceiling of the living room.

Albert decided it was time to leave.

He drove to work with the radio off, trying to decide how he felt about what he’d done.

Albert didn’t know what to feel.

It didn’t feel like he’d done a Good Thing.

But it didn’t feel like a Bad Thing either.

Albert sat in his car and ate the extra turkey sandwich while he waited for the mill to open. He was eager to start another day, to finish working on the rapier and get the Sulzer running again.

To fix something.

Todd Robinson
is the creator and Chief Editor of
Thuglit
. His writing has appeared in
Blood & Tacos, Plots With Guns, Needle Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Strange, Weird, and Wonderful, Out of the Gutter, Pulp Pusher, Grift, Demolition Magazine, CrimeFactory,
and the anthologies
Lost Children: Protectors
and
Danger City
. He has been nominated for the Anthony Award, three times for the Derringer Award, short-listed for Best American Mystery Stories, selected for Writers Digest’s Year’s Best Writing 2003, and won the inaugural Bullet Award in June 2011. His debut novel,
The Hard Bounce,
is now available from Tyrus Books.

Amanda Will Be Fine

Renee Asher Pickup

C
OREY’S BLUE EYES STARE
up, wide. At nothing. His mouth hangs open, his once rosy cheeks pallid. The house is dark, save for a yellow glow from the light over the stove in the kitchen leaking into the living room. The blood seeps out from beneath his body and soaks into the cream rug I bought this afternoon. I cry for the first time in years.