A Bolt From The Blue - An Avery Story

Kirk hated those little pricks. He hated every single one of them. As his freckled hide had gradually thinned to resemble tracing paper covering an uncooked, but mottled sausage, the insulin pen was sure to piss him off. Finding an injection site was like looking for a particular horsefly on a warm pile of sun-crusted manure. He had to puncture that crust and get the drug into his blood, or he’d feel like he’d eaten the dung and swallowed a mouthful of his own piss. Even worse if he overdosed and caused a hypoglycaemic incident…they were the worst.

If Kirk’s blood sugar levels descended too low, he’d begin to see the world through Picasso’s deranged kaleidoscopic eyes, before breaking out into a febrile sweat drenching his clothes in seconds. If left untreated, his eyeballs would roll back into his brittle skull like a shark’s just before the bite. Lockjaw would strike and clamp down with ferocious force on his tongue, spewing blood and saliva in crimson dribbles over his wrinkled chin and neck.

Unconsciousness would swiftly drag him into multiple spasms, as they turned his frail body into an overly animated marionette’s puppet fighting off a swarm of soldier ants. Blue lipped, pallid and defenceless, he’d rapidly fall into a coma and from there sequential organ failure would be inevitable.

So far, his diabetic condition had fucked him about, but he’d only ever been on the ropes, not the canvas. It amused him that the same needle that regularly saved him, could also kill him. Only a pathologist with access to his records would know what had sent him to hell, as the insulin would decompose and leave no trace of its organic agency.

Kirk had visited his brother for a week, leaving two days ago. Kirk wanted to see Jasper one last time and get things off his chest before the doctor’s prognosis took away the microphone. Tongue cancer had him on those ropes, and he knew no referee would be stepping in to break up the vicious beating. The final count had already begun even if he could not hear it. It would be a points decision, but the verdict would be unanimous and not in his favour.

The two men had sat out on the veranda most days, shielded from the raging sun by the rusted, multihued corrugated sheeting covering the veranda with its ineffectual absurdity. They sank beer after beer, only leaving their chairs to piss or get a refill. The silence roared like a chevy engine in reverse.

The few taciturn words they did exchange acted like knife cuts, slicing into the septic flesh of their mutual hatred. Deep, careful cuts calculated to rupture the sinews of the lies both dividing and uniting them. They both spoke fluently in Avery’s acid-laced dialogue and used each syllable as ammunition in an unwinnable war. Brotherly love, brotherly hatred. A sympatico forged in Hell.

Kirk stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. The acrid blue-grey smoke drifted into the air, immediately chased towards the Mars-red vastness around him by the hot desert breeze. He coughed uncontrollably, spitting the muck from his diseased lungs onto Avery’s dusty scrubland, ever grateful of any moisture it could get.

The old windmill whirled, its sonorous moan rising and falling in malevolent sympathy with the bone-dry wind. Kirk took another short pull and used the cold beer to sluice the sandpaper and grit lining his old throat. He’d said what he needed to. Conversation over.

Jasper had known about his brother’s visit for nearly three months. He’d made no plan for the occasion, but that did not mean he’d not been planning. Fear an alligator most when it looks like it’s asleep, or dead. The man waving the knife, is never a threat for the same reason. The man with the knife to fear was the one who only unsheathed it a moment before plunging it into its surprised target. If Jasper was a weapon, he was the gun you never saw, the blade mercilessly buried in your throat before you knew things had got ugly.

Jasper checked his watch. Colby would arrive within the hour. Jasper had told him the station wagon’s reconditioned front brake shoes were ready, and added that Colby’s account was redder than the blood flowing from a fresh cut-throat. Colby had laughed and told Jasper, “to fit the fucking parts, or he’d be the one doing the bleeding”.

A civil exchange by Colby’s standards, but he’d cut the old bastard some slack and teach him some manners one evening when he’d had enough of knocking his wife around the kitchen. Like her, Jasper would be unlikely to fight back. Colby liked those odds almost as much as he appreciated the sound of his thick palm violently connecting with an unprotected cheek. Like his own father, Colby knew how to treat a woman, but regularly returned to school for additional lessons. His was a devoted study.

Colby got out of his battered station wagon and took a rickety seat on the veranda. Jasper handed him a beer and told him to help himself to more. He’d be done within the hour. That was the thing about Jasper, he always told it straight. Not necessarily linear, but always straight.

Jasper wiped his oil-stained hands on the grubby cloth and passed Colby en route to the kitchen sink. The ancient fridge door opened with a vaguely complicit sigh and Jasper grabbed what he needed. Swallowing a mouthful of beer, he smiled for the first time that month and soaked the grimy cloth under the tap’s muddy flow.

He wiped the back of his leathery neck and shoved the rancid cloth under both damp armpits. Jasper had never suffered from mysophobia, but Avery’s dirt was best removed before it ate its way into a man’s soul. He wrung the cloth out and wiped his salt-crusted face. Cleanliness is next to godliness after all, and Avery was living proof of that theological proposition.

Colby was about to get into the wagon when Jasper stumbled on a loose rock and lost his balance, stopping his fall by reaching out for Colby’s back. He stabbed the insulin pen into Colby’s unguarded flesh with surreptitious force, letting his knee drive itself painfully into Colby’s calf. He lay on the arid, grit strewn track like a crumbled brown paper bag. Hauling himself unsteadily to his feet, he stood on the empty pen and pantomimed fear.

“Fuck me you old bastard ! You watch your step, or your walking days are gunna be over. Clumsy old fucker. I’d knock you down real good right now, but we’ll do that one night when you ain’t expecting it, and I need the exercise”.

Colby angrily cranked the ignition and roared off towards Avery’s dusty version of the Elysian Fields. Jasper would be crossing Colby off his list. Balance Paid. Kirk’s peace offering might not bring Colby any comfort, but it certainly made Jasper feel better. Clarke would assume a stroke had been responsible, but Jasper knew he’d be wrong…more of a bolt from the blue. Jasper would make sure his brand of lightning would strike more than once. Four more names on his list acting as conductors, and all needing to be carefully earthed.