Billy Summers

Well, he thinks, she’s alive all right.

He picks up another splinter on the steps, but then he’s inside. He can’t leave the outside door to bang in the wind, so he sets her down in the foyer and pulls it closed. When he turns back to her, the girl’s eyes are half open. He can see a big purplish bruise on her cheek and the side of her nose. Can’t be from the pavement because she didn’t go down on her face. Besides, the bruising is too well established for that.

‘Who’re you?’ the girl slurs. ‘Where—’ Then she vomits again. This time it backwashes down her throat and she starts to choke.

Billy kneels behind her and gets an arm around her midsection. He uses her breasts as a brace and hauls her up in front of him. Now his fucking boxers, wet with rainwater and a little too big to begin with, start sliding down his legs. He gets two fingers in her mouth, hoping to God she won’t bite him. Infected cuts are the last thing he needs. He gets a wad of stuff out, flings it to the floor, then tightens his grip on her midsection. It does the trick. She hurls like a hero, a banner of puke that hits the foyer wall with a splat.

A car, one that would have spelled his doom just three minutes before, is coming. Billy can see its headlights brightening the rain-splattered glass of the front door. He drops to one knee, still holding the girl in front of him. His stupid boxers are now spread between his knees and he actually has time to wonder why he ever gave up Jockeys. Her head is lolling forward, but he thinks the rasping sounds he now hears are snores, not choking. She’s out again.

The headlights brighten, then diminish without slowing. Billy gets to his feet, hauling the girl up with him. He gets an arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders. Her head lolls backward. He shimmies his legs and his shorts fall to his ankles. He steps out of them and kicks them aside. It’s like some nightmarish vaudeville skit.

Her dank hair drips and pendulums back and forth as he sidesaddles down the stairs, trying not to overbalance and fall. Her upturned face is as pale as the moon. There’s another bruise on her forehead, above her left eye.

And Jesus, his feet are killing him. Never mind his half-gone toe, those fucking splinters! He makes it to the foot of the stairs without falling and bumps open the door to his apartment with his butt. She starts to slither out of his grip, her body forming a limp U shape. He raises one leg into the small of her back, shoves her back up, and staggers inside. She starts to slide again. Ignoring the splinters digging into his cold-reddened feet, Billy sprints to the couch. He makes it just in time. She lands with a thump, gives out a fuzzy grunting noise, then resumes her snoring.

Billy bends forward with his hands braced above his knees to ease his back, which is trying to cramp up. The stink of puke rising from her almost makes him feel like puking himself. He can smell alcohol too, but it’s faint.

Well, she offloaded it, he thinks, but if she really got her drink on he should still be able to smell it on her breath. He should have smelled it in the foyer. And—

He lifts his leg, smelling the mostly liquid vomit on his skin. He still gets only the faintest whiff of booze.

He looks her up and down. The skirt she’s wearing is denim, frayed at the hem, and short. He could see her underpants if she was wearing any, but she’s not. He sees something else. The outsides of her thighs are pale and white – like the moon – but the tops of the insides are speckled with drying blood.

3

The girl retches again, but weakly, and nothing comes out except for a dribble of cloudy drool down the side of her mouth. Then she starts to shiver. Of course she’s shivering, she’s soaked. Billy pulls off her sneakers. Tiny ankle socks come with them. There are hearts on the tops. He gets her to sit up, muttering ‘Come on, little help here,’ although he knows she can’t help. Her eyelids flutter and she tries to talk. She may even think she is talking, that she’s asking all the questions anyone might ask in a situation like this, but the only words he can make out are who and you. All the rest is just huzzz and whaa.

‘That’s right,’ Billy says, ‘all okay now, just don’t die on me.’

Although even now, as he’s trying to cope with this fucked-up situation, Billy realizes it might simplify things if she did. It’s a rotten thought, but that doesn’t make it untrue.

He gets her jacket – cheap, thin, and not real leather at all but some synthetic – off. Beneath is a T-shirt with BLACK KEYS NORTH AMERICAN TOUR 2017 on the front. He tries to pull it off over her head and it gets caught on her chin. She moans and he gets three words in the clear: ‘No, don’t choke.’