Blood Test

“You’ll always be their father,” I said, trying to be reassuring without patronizing him. “No one can take that away from you.”

“Right. Hunnerd procent right. Now you go in there and tell that to the bitch in black, straighten her out. Tell her I got to have those kids.”

“I can’t do that.”

He pouted like a child denied dessert.

“You do it. Right now.”

“I can’t. You’re under a lot of stress. You’re not ready to take care of them.” You’re going through a full-fledged manic episode, Mr. Moody. You’re a manic-depressive and you need help badly...

“I can handle it, I got plans. Get a trailer, get a boat, take ’em outta the dirty city, outta the smogclouds, take ’em to the country, fish for trout, hunt for meat, teach ’em the way to survive. Like Hank Junior says, country boy will survive. Teach ’em to shovel shit and eat good breakfasts, get away from scumbags like him and her until she gets straightened out, who knows when it’ll come she keep up with him, humpin’ him in front of them, a disgrace.”

“Try to calm down.”

“Here, watch me calm down.” He inhaled deeply and let the air out in a noisy whoosh. I smelled the stench of his breath. He cracked his knuckles and the silver rings sparkled in the sun. “I’m relaxed, I’m clean, I’m ready for action, I’m the father, go in and tell her.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Why not?” he growled and grabbed the front of my jacket.

“Let go. We can’t talk if you keep doing that, Mr. Moody.”

Slowly his fingers parted. I tried to edge away from him but my back touched the car. We were close enough to slow-dance.

“Tell her! You fucked me up, you fix it, Headshrinker!”

His voice had taken a decidedly menacing tone. Manics could do damage when they got worked up. As bad as paranoid schizes. It was obvious that the power of persuasion wasn’t going to do the trick.

“Mr. Moody — Richard — you need help. I won’t do anything for you until you get it.”

He sputtered, sprayed me with saliva, and jacked upward viciously with his knee, a classic street brawler’s move. It was one of the gambits I’d figured him for and I swiveled so that all he made contact with was gabardine.

The miss threw him off-balance and he stumbled. Consciously sad, I caught his elbow and threw him off my hip. He landed on his back, stayed down for a quarter second, and was at me again, arms chopping like a thresher gone mad. I waited until he was almost on me, ducked low, and hit him in the belly just hard enough to knock some wind out. Moving out of the way I let him double over in privacy.

“Please, Richard, calm down and pull it all together.”

His response was a growl and a snivel and a grab for my legs. He managed to get hold of one cuff and I felt myself going down. It would have been a good time to jump in the car and tool out of there, but he was between me and the driver’s door.

I contemplated a move for the passenger door, but that would mean turning my back to him and he was strong and crazy-fast.

As I contemplated, he bounded up and charged toward me shouting gibberish. My pity for him had made me too careless and he was able to connect with a punch to the shoulder that made my body rattle. Still stunned, I cleared my eyes soon enough to see the follow-through: a left hook aimed squarely at my man-made jaw. Self-preservation won out over pity and I slid away, took hold of his arm, and threw him full-force against the car. Before he could have second thoughts I jerked him up, yanked the arm behind him, and pulled up to the point where it was just short of snapping. It had to be agonizing but he evinced no sign of suffering. Manics could get like that, on a perpetual speed trip, impervious to minor details like pain.

I kicked him in the butt as hard as I could and he went flying. Grabbing for my keys, I jumped in the Seville and spun out.

I caught a glimpse of him in the rear-view mirror just before turning onto the street. He was sitting on the asphalt, head in hands, rocking back and forth and, I was pretty sure, weeping.

2

The big black and gold koi was the first to surface, but the other fish soon followed his lead and within seconds all fourteen of them were sticking whiskered snouts out of the water and gobbling down food pellets as fast as I tossed them in. I knelt by a large smooth rock fringed with creeping juniper and lavender azaleas and held three pellets in my fingers just beneath the surface of the water. The big one caught the scent and hesitated, but gluttony got the better of him and his glistening muscular body snaked its way over. He stopped inches from my hand and looked up at me. I tried to appear trustworthy.

The sun was on its way down but enough light lingered over the foothills to catch the metallic glint of the gold scales, dramatizing the contrast with the velvety black patches on his back. A truly magnificent kin-ki-utsuri.