The Boy in the Tunnel

The Boy in the Tunnel

by Gardner Linn

26.

The first thing she noticed was the blue tattoo climbing the inside of his left arm. No—that wasn’t the first thing she noticed—there were other things, but they were all the same. The tattoo was the first thing she noticed that was different. A coil of razor-wire in prison-ink blue, coiled around his wrist three times, then a single strand shooting toward the crook of his arm, twisted into the cursive word “Alex.”

“Xander?” Renee said.

“What?” Xander said.

And she pushed him off her, his naked legs scissoring up and over and down to the hard institutional carpet of the floor. The Nick Drake CD skipped. Renee pulled the comforter up to her chin.

That’s disappointing, Xander thought. You could at least let me have one last look.

Renee reached for the desk beside the bed, found something solid and winged it at Xander. A gold plastic trophy, the prize from one of Barlow’s Caveman Theatre competitions, twanged off of Xander’s deflating erection.

“Shit, Renee!” A thin line of blood materialized on Xander’s penis. “That thing has fucking sharp edges! Avery bought it for like a dollar!”

“Get out or I cut it off.”

“Ah fuck I’ve gotta find some Neosporin.” Xander rose from the floor, cupping the injured organ in his left hand.

******

The guy was no longer passed out on the kitchen floor, but KRUMMFAUVEN! dust coated the linoleum and needled Xander’s bare feet as he passed through the kitchen toward the downstairs bathroom. His feet picked up the pink-and-orange residue, carried it with him through the hall, ground it into the carpet, where it would stay, never to be vacuumed.

Crisscrossing lines of dried, gunky shaving cream covered the walls of the bathroom—more filth that would never know a cleaning. On the mirror, also in \shaving cream, the words “BABYSHAKERS SUXXX.” No shit, Xander thought. Unlike Alex, he had no illusions about the relative quality or importance of his band. He was in it mainly for Audrey, but that had stopped being a reason so long ago he couldn’t even remember what he originally saw in her.

Xander splashed some water from the sink onto his genitals, hoping to wash away some of the blood that flowed with increasing force from the wound. He pulled open the top drawer in the counter under the sink and rooted around. Nothing but condoms. The second, only hair products. The third, the largest, contained Alex’s Wahl Home Haircutting System, i.e. the clippers he had used to shave everybody’s head before the first ‘Shakers gig a year ago, even Audrey’s, and she had never forgiven Alex (and, by association, Xander) for the alleged trauma she had to endure for the next six months, said trauma largely the result of the untimely release of the film GI Jane.

The only other thing in the drawer was a small, scuffed brown leather pouch. Xander opened it, hoping for some sort of first-aid kit. But instead of Neosporin and Band-Aids, the pouch only contained a plastic baggie full of fine black powder.