Excerpt: Conundrum

(btw, lotsa swears here)

Someone knocks on the door, and he doesn’t bother turning around. It’s like it echoes through his mind, and he’s not even sure what’s going on.

“Dallas? Bradford’s here, he, uh… wants to talk to you.”

Bradford. Fucking Bradford. “Yeah, okay. Can you… stay here with him?” He feels stupid asking, but does it anyway. “I don’t… I don’t want him to be alone.” Charlie nods, and enters the room. “Where is he?”

“The lobby.”

Dallas is out of the room before Charlie can say anything else. He doesn’t take the elevator – too slow – but he doesn’t think far enough ahead to realize that four flights of stairs is a long way down, and he hasn’t been working out much. By the time he reaches the lobby, he’s mostly out of breath and tired, but the adrenaline flushing through his veins makes up for it.

Bradford’s standing with his back to him, reading the mission statement plaque on the wall.

He storms from the stairwell and says loud enough to echo over the room, “You bastard!”

Bradford turns around and Dallas sprints the last ten feet or so. It’s only after Bradford hits the ground that Dallas realizes that he punched him in the nose. Some of the hospital staff – including the cop that just so happens to be there. “You fucking bastard! What happened to him, it’s all your fucking fault!”

Bradford, with the help of two nurses, is rolled over and helped to stand up. “What are you talking about, have you gone completely whacko?”

“Alex, you louse!” Dallas tries to pull back from the cop and another guy, but fails. “You fucking asshole you had no right to drag him into this!”

“Sir, I think I’m going to have to escort you from the building—“

“No,” Bradford cuts in, pulling out of the nurses’ grip. “We’ll be fine. Is there a family room empty we can have for a few moments? Maybe an empty hospital room…?” he flashes his ID and one of the nurses damn near faints. Dallas rolls his eyes, even though he’d done the same thing that afternoon. They escort them to the room, in the lower level. The cop says he’s not going anywhere until they settle whatever’s going on.

“So,” Bradford finally starts once they’re alone. The adrenaline has almost completely gone from Dallas’s body but he knows that the second Bradford starts spewing shit it’ll be back. “What’s got your panties in a bunch?”

“You and your fucking tricks. Why Alex? Why the fuck did you have to bring him into this? It’s not about him, it’s about me, and it’s about my unhappiness in life. Alex wasn’t supposed to be part of this deal, he was supposed to be happy.”

Bradford hums in disagreement and shakes his head. “That wasn’t part of our original agreement.”

Dallas screams, “I don’t fucking care! All I cared about was getting Alex back, keeping him alive! If you were just going to kill him anyway why’d you even give me the choice in the first place!?” Bradford opens his mouth to explain but Dallas butts in before he can. “And don’t you give me that bullshit about trying to teach me a lesson, I’m twenty seven years old I don’t need a fucking lesson.”

With a sigh, Bradford sinks into one of the chairs. Instead of it giving Dallas the upperhand like he always thought that it would, it just makes him feel immature. Like he’s unable to let this go. “Dallas, I was trying to teach you a lesson. If I would have said that when I first offered you this, you never would have taken the offer. You would have known that there was a catch, that there was some ulterior motive.”

“Why Alex? Why… Isn’t it bad enough that I had to watch him die once already? Isn’t it bad enough that the only friend I had, ever, died?”

“Don’t lay a guilt trip on me, kid, this is my job. And you’re not twenty seven, you’re seventeen. You’ll always be seventeen because the lesson you had to learn would never have been learned. And I got sick of your attitude.”

“Ohoho, my attitude? How come none of the others ever got sick of my attitude, huh? Why did anybody else never get this fucking pissed off? Is it an old man thing? Because let me tell you, my grandfather was the same way and he never complained about my attitude.”

“Can you hear yourself?” Bradford says, gripping his head. Dallas wonders why the hell this guy is his agent, in any universe. “You’re still a whiny, angst ridden teenager that has nothing better to do than complain about how much God has shit on him during his seventeen years of living.” Bradford gives an exasperated chuckle, all condescending. Dallas wants to punch him again; the bruise isn’t nearly big enough.

“I swear to God, Bradford, if the cop wasn’t outside right now I’d beat you until you were the one lying in the hospital bed.”

“What would your poor, poor, unknowing fans say if they could hear what you’re thinking or saying right now? You know, maybe you should take a look in the mirror when you call people an asshole.”

“Keep talking down to me and I’ll give you a black eye to match your nose.” Dallas was obviously never a fighter in high school and is obviously making up for it now. “I swear to God, if you don’t fix this there won’t be any of you left to fix it.”

Bradford sits back like he knows everything in the world – then he admits that he does. “Look. See, the funny thing about this life, Dallas, is that you? Have absolutely no control over what happens. Even that punch you threw? I knew exactly what was going to happen. I know that you’re not going to give me a shiner with this cop out there and you’re not going to give me a shiner with him not out there. You’re not going to lay another hand on me, you’re not going to say anything that you haven’t already said. And, you’re going to—“

“Alex, is he going to live?”

“—ask me about Alex.”

“Look, drop the smartass act. Is Alex going to live? That’s all I want to know. Do I have to watch him die or not?”

With a sigh, Bradford squirms in his seat. “I can’t tell you.”

“You come all the way down here, say all this shit about how you know everything that’s going to happen in this life, and then you tell me that you can’t tell me what’s going to happen?”

“All right, I guess it’s more… against the rules.”

Dallas tries not to growl with anger. He’s already enough of an animal at this stage. He’s reminded of Alex’s beeping monitor. A chill runs through his spine, and his voice cracks when he says, “You said there weren’t any rules, Bradford.”

He shrugs. “Look, kid. I get a lot of clients. A lo, hot of clients. As a matter of fact, there’s about six hundred of me walking around doing this for people of all ages. It’s what I do. In this life, in your… alternate universe or whatever you want to call it… here, I’m your agent. I get actors and actresses jobs. In another, I’m the owner of a fish factory. In another, I’m a social worker. It’s all a matter of how you look at things.

“Dallas, look, I’m really, really sorry that this is how life worked out for you—“

“Bullshit, you knew what was going to happen.”

“You remember that night that you got all pissed because your wish or demand maybe is what I should call it, wasn’t ready right away? I have to work things out. I’m not just here to give you another chance at something you blew, I’m here to give you another chance to learn the lesson. You have to learn lessons, kid, there’s no way around it. Life gets in the way, Dallas.”

Dallas hates the way how the magenta walls – why are they magenta in here but blinding white inside the rooms? – make his eyes burn. He’s not crying, dammit. If he never cried in high school, he sure as hell isn’t going to cry now. “Okay, but… why— Why is Alex my lesson? Why can’t it be, I don’t know, Randall’s lizard or the uncle that hates me? Why the only… Why does my lesson have to be my best friend?” He blinks away the wetness, tries desperately not to let Bradford see him… yeah okay fine maybe he’s crying. He just doesn’t want Bradford to see. “Why does it have to be the only person besides my mother that I’ve ever loved? I mean, what cruel God woke up that morning and said, “Hey, yeah, that little guy I’ve never gave a damn about, I think I’ll fuck up his life even more?” Because I don’t even care if you think you know everything, I’ll beat you—“

“Listen to me kid. It doesn’t always happen like this. Some are easier lessons to learn, like… why you have to go to school. Or why listening to your grandfather talk about penile implants is actually a good thing for you…”

“Why’d I get stuck with ‘learning why your best friend has to die prematurely?’”

“Dallas—“

“No, seriously! I want to know. If you can’t tell me if he’s going to die in this hospital, the least you can do is that.”

“...”

“Come on. Please. I swear, it’s the last thing I’ll ask of you.”

Bradford gives him a long, hard look and finally says, “I don’t know, Dallas. I’m not God.”

Dallas nods, tries desperately to not let the tears fall, and fails. “Can you… can you just go? Please? I don’t want to know that you’re here… And I… I uh, I think I need to be strong. For his sake. Whether he… whether he lives or dies.” His voice cracks, but he gets the hell out before he can be made fun of.

The cop asks him if they’re good to go, but Dallas can’t bring himself to answer.