Microsoft Word - Talkers_Redemption_Lane.docx

the first figure got to him and hit
    him in the back of the bad shoulder with a lead pipe. Brian let out a
    howl, but as Talker ran, looking behind him as he went, Brian
    managed to round back and land the guy a solid in the nose, right
    before Trevor whapped him across the head with a chain.
    Talker started screaming as he ran, and when he made it to
    the front of the club and through the doorway, he realized he was
    screaming Jed’s name.
    Jed was hunched over the front table, eating a sandwich with
    one hand while he tallied bar receipts with the other, and as Talker
    gasped, “Help, Jed, it’s Trev….” Talker thought he’d never seen a
    human being move so fast.
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    “Shawn,” he shouted to one of the waiters, “call nine-one-one
    now! Tell them it’s a fight and they’re gonna need medical! Sandy!”
    he shouted to the lead bartender, “Want to come with?”
    Sandy had red hair and a hellacious temper, and he was
    vaulting over the bar like an action star, even as Talker led the way
    back out to the darkened parking lot.
    Brian was down by the time they got there, a still sandbag of a
    figure lying in the midst of three assailants, all of them kicking the
    crap out of him. Jed shouted, “Trevor, you piece of shit, leave him
    alone!”
    Trevor looked up, and wiped blood that was mostly not his from
    his face. “Yeah, big J? You go ahead and report me for this! Think
    Talker’s fuckin’ roommate’s gonna do good in jail?”
    Jed ignored him, and as the other two men melted like
    December fog, he managed to land a solid punch in Trevor’s nose,
    and Talker heard something crunch as more blood spattered across
    the icy concrete.
    But then Trevor was gone, and Tate had other things to worry
    about.
    “Oh God… Brian… oh shit… Jed… Jed… come help him…
    Brian!”
    Brian was breathing, but his eyes were swollen shut, red, puffy,
    bloody beyond recognition. Half his face was a mass of blood, and
    Tate saw one of his teeth lying on the ground two feet away.
    Talker didn’t want to think about what the rest of his body
    looked like under his ripped jacket or the jeans. He knew that there
    was blood seeping through his tattered T-shirt at his stomach, and
    that his arm was twisted and bent at an odd angle under his body.
    His bad arm, the one connected to the bad shoulder, the one he
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    wrote with and pretended didn’t hurt after a long shift waiting tables
    with the trays at his shoulder—that arm.
    Oh Christ.
    He grabbed Brian’s other hand and squeezed it, holding it to
    his cheek, and the bruised lumps of flesh over Brian’s eyes
    contorted. Brian scowled at him a little. “Told you to run.”
    “I did, idiot. I got help.”
    Brian breathed out, tried to nod. “Don’t worry. Won’t hurt you.
    He won’t hurt you. Won’t let him hurt you….”
    Tate’s shoulders shook more, and his vision blurred, and Brian
    was still mumbling “Won’t let him hurt you….” as the staff of
    Gatsby’s Nick covered Brian in their own jackets and shivered in the
    a.m. cold. He’d stopped mumbling, though, by the time the world
    became red lights and harshly barked questions. Talker just sat
    there, ignoring the authority people and the aching cold coming up
    through the sidewalk to his knees. Brian was lying there, covered in
    other people’s jackets and winter mist and blood. Talker’s grip on the
    battered hand was the only thing that kept Talker from screaming.
    By the time the paramedics hefted him into the ambulance,
    Brian was completely silent. They drove off, after Jed managed to
    get a hospital name from Talker. Brian had insurance which was a
    blessing that hardly registered, because for the moment, Brian was
    leaving, leaving, leaving Talker on the icy sidewalk, feeling as
    though a bomb had gone off and he was the only one left standing.
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    Shade of W
    inter Sky and Concrete

    DR. SUTHERLAND sighed and looked away from Tate as though
    there was something in his tattoo-masked face that was too awful to
    bear. Instead, he caught Brian’s eye, and Tate felt his lover
    physically recoil.
    “So, Brian,” the nice man said in a voice that was a little too
    hearty. “You’re trying to tell Tate that what hurts him hurts you too.
    How did you feel after The Worst. Date. Ever.?”
    Brian, steadfast Brian who could endure about anything, went
    very, very, very terribly