Phoenix Noir

Saturday morning ride-along. Eddie in the shotgun seat of his father’s shop, touring Mesa’s underworld. The only time he enjoyed being with his father. Before the day, and the drinking, got hot. They were in the avenues off Mesa Drive. A menagerie of stucco and cinder block fortified with iron bars and junked cars. Speed bumps that once protected kids at play now protected drug dealers from police raids.

“Real people used to live here. Families. Back when I was a kid, before old Mesa High burned down and the mud people took over.” The old man hit the steering wheel. “Politicians have turned their back on the city. Call it good growth. It’s abandonment. Of course, they’ll deny it. Hold out their little Main Street shops as proof. Expect us to defend it.”

Eddie loved watching the old man work the streets, holding dominion over the freaks and the loons. Bust them or blast them, help or hurt. Decided on an arbitrary scale that his father called justice. The old man patted his leg. “Can I tell you something?”

“Okay.”

“You remember when I shot that guy last year?”

“The rapist. Yeah.”

“What if I told you I shot him in cold blood?”

“I thought he came after you. With his knife.”

“He had a knife, all right. But he wasn’t holding it when I shot him.”

“So you killed him for no reason. Why?”

“Because I could. It gave me satisfaction.”

Eleven-year-old Eddie did not see the fire in his father’s eyes, only the power of its glow. He swelled with pride at the knowledge he’d been entrusted to guard.

“Are you still one of the good guys?”

“I’m still wearing the badge, aren’t I?”

“You think maybe when I grow up I can be a police?”

Eddie sat ramrod straight, arms folded in his lap. His mother sat across from him at the table. They stared at each other over their untouched plates of food. Had been that way since his father sat down at the table, pulled out his handgun, and set it beside his utensils. “I’d appreciate a little quiet time tonight,” he said.

A domestic-violence lullaby put Eddie to sleep. Woke fast when the book bag tied to his doorknob rustled. Early Daddy Defense System. In the light from the hall he saw his mother slip into the room. She knelt before his bed, face pitted from abuse. She kissed his forehead, sobbed, kissed his mouth. Her breath was copper-hot with blood and alcohol. Awkwardly, Eddie tried to embrace her.

That first time couldn’t really be called sex. But as she pressed herself against him, Eddie saw relief spill into his mother’s features. Terror replaced by a strange and haunting nothingness. Eddie decided he would do anything to see that look of peace on his mother’s face. In the morning he wasn’t sure if he had dreamed the episode.

“Eddie, get out of bed,” she called. “Oatmeal’s getting soggy.”

The puppy’s neck had been twisted so severely that its dead eyes were staring back at its haunches. Its body lay on the patio next to a scattering of dead leaves. A stain on the carpet and the smear on his father’s polished shoe told the story.

“I asked you to start picking up after your dog!” the old man yelled. “Now pick up your dog. Trash bag and shovel are waiting for you.”

His dog’s name was Bandit. Eddie had carried him home on his bike from the store, made a house out of cardboard and towels, snuck him in at night, and let him chase his toes under the covers. He tried not to look at the creature, whose only crime had been reliance on Eddie. Tears filled his eyes.

“Don’t you dare cry, boyo,” his father said. “Dog’s a lesson. Everything gets taken away.”

The house breathed pain. The wrongness of it stopped Eddie cold at the back door. Bandit must’ve sensed its threat too.

The dog sniffed and nipped at Eddie’s shoes, growling defensively as he tried to get past.

Eddie bent down and stroked Bandit’s fur, overcome by sadness at what was to become of his little friend. He thought of how the spade vibrated as he tamped down the dirt around the trash bag. He picked the dog up and pressed his face into its fur.

It took a moment for the significance of the gesture to register.

Eddie knew the horror show that awaited him inside. He was eight years old again, home from a half day of school with plans to dump his bag, snag a juice, and get gone.

He remembered the frigid blast of air-conditioning that froze the sweat on his back and legs, the gurgle of the fridge, and how the light from the boxed windows formed a floating cage across the kitchen. He saw the empty whiskey bottle on the table and his father’s gun belt slung over one of the chairs. He passed quietly through the light bars, aware that a low keening had interrupted the preternatural stillness.