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  “Well?” Isadore said, as she drove down the country road like demons chased her, before turning onto a gravel road.

  “Well what?” Ruin kept both feet braced to the floor of the cab, his right hand strangling the open window frame. In the side mirror, he watched a dense wall of dust coat every nearby tree as they flew.

  “Did you like it? Did you get anything from church?”

  “Yes. Stomach cramps.”

  She gave a sigh of disbelief. “Very funny, seriously. Surely you got something.”

  He watched the caramel colored water of the bayou speed by through the trees on his right.

  “Seriously. That’s it. He recited things I’ve read and only confused what I thought I knew.”

  “Don’t worry,” she nodded, adjusting her eager grip on the large steering wheel. “Old Man Ghospired will have plenty to say.”

  “Yes, let’s hope it’s meaningful.”

  “Now, he has a son—” Isadore said as she came to a skidding halt at a stop sign, slapping her blinker on. "He's deaf, so, don't say anything crazy that would offend him."

  Ruin let out a sigh of relief at finally reaching pavement. “What would offend him?”

  “Well… don’t treat him differently, for one.”

  Ruin quirked a lip. “But he is different.”

  “Yes, I know that,” she glared at him, like he was being deliberately dumb. “Don’t say anything that would make him seem…handicapped.”

  "But he is."

  "I know he is!" she said exasperated.

  Ruin shook his head. “Why is it that you like to hide the truth? What is it about the truth that you despise so much? He’s deaf, why can’t we just say it and be done. Hey, I’m Ruin, I like killing wicked people, the end. Do you think if you treat me a certain way that it will make me that way? Do you think if you treat him like he isn’t deaf, then he’ll be able to hear? I don’t get that.”

  “No, you have it all wrong,” she said. “I mean I don’t want you to pity him. Don’t treat him special because he’s deaf, or that he can’t do things like others can.”

  “Well, he can’t hear like others can.”

  “Oh my God,” she cried. “You’re just being difficult.”

  “I’m just saying the truth. He can’t hear. I can’t seem to lie. You don’t see me crying about it or wishing I could or trying to find ways to. Maybe he’s accepted he’s deaf, maybe people should too.”

  “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “Well… you’re just a piece of work, that’s all. You remind me of a big brat.”

  “Maybe you’re the brat; always busy trying to make things what they aren’t.”

  “I try to improve things. Fix them. If I thought like you, I’d be so depressed I’d likely hang myself.”

  “Maybe that would be the first logical thing you’ve ever done. Please look at the road, the truck can’t drive itself.”

  Her jaw dropped as she gave her attention to driving again. “I cannot believe you just said that.

  You are one pessimistic bastard. I’m optimistic, sue me.”

  “Sue you for what? Your optimism? I don’t want it; it’s just empty lies anyway.”

  She gasped. “It was a metaphor, fuckwad!”

  “Fuckwad.”

  She nodded with a sweet smile, throwing him into the door while taking a curve too fast. “You like it? I told you I have many uses for that word.”

  Ruin realized the fire and ice was eager again. For her. He loved her when she was angry. And he was convinced it was because she was her most honest in those moments. And that aroused him. In every sense of the definition.

  “Well did you like the praise and worship at least?” she finally said after a long while.

  Surely her God was against him. Why that question? “It was… unlike anything I’d ever heard.”

  Judging by the proud smile and nod, she didn’t catch on to his clever evasion. “It never fails to lift my spirits.”

  Ruin raised his brows. He cringed to think how low you had to be for that kind of auditory dysfunction to lift you. They turned off the paved road and bounced down a dirt lane.

  “That’s it,” she said, raising her finger at the house in the field before them. “He’s got a few mean pit bulls, but they’re chained. And blind. He’s very poor too, so try not to say anything about that.”

  “I’ll do my best not to open my mouth.”

  “Don’t say it like that, I want you to talk, I just don’t want to offend him. He’s been known to kick people out of his house.”

  “For what?”

  “Oh, like for speaking against God, for one. So be sure and don’t do that.”

  “I’ll speak the truth.”

  She put the truck in park and looked around. “You speak what you know.” She turned to him, her wavy brown hair bouncing. “How about we assume for a moment, or at least while we’re here, that you don’t know it all, and you could be wrong about what you think you do know.”

  Ruin studied her, unable to disagree with that idea. “That’s actually very logical.”

  She poked her lower lip out, making Ruin wonder over the texture. Did it feel like her secret parts? It reminded him of it. “What?” she suddenly asked.

  Ruin’s heart nearly stopped at the smile she gave him. For an instant, everything brightened and cast doubt on all those things he thought he knew. Made him wonder if she might be right. While seeing her like that, there was purpose for hope. At least for him. To wake up to that smile. Go to sleep to it.

  Study it. Taste it. Bring it. “You’re beautiful when you smile.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, and he could only wonder what went through her head, but judging by the negative way the fire behaved, it was something that brought her pain. But why? Why did the truth have to hurt her?

  Chapter Eleven

  Standing at the door, Ruin glanced around at the wretchedness of the place. Everything was broken down, falling apart, and dying. Vehicles, furniture, the shack, the tiny little pen for sick looking animals—all of it was a living graveyard and it made the fire in Ruin want to torch the entire place. Purify the five-mile vicinity with fire.

  The two blind pit bulls laid like death on vacation, breathing because it was all they had left to do until they couldn’t do that anymore. “Ruin, fix your face,” Isadore whispered after knocking.

  He glanced at her. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “You look disgusted!”

  “I am.”

  “Well… can you hide it?”

  “Lie with my expressions?”

  “Or just hide it? Can’t you find a look that isn’t a lie but isn’t the brutal truth either? Geez, come on, work with me here.”

  “I can’t think of an honest expression that would help. This place is the motherboard of wretched.”

  She widened her pretty eyes and punched his arm. “So it’s wretched. Get over it already. Do you think pretending for a little while that it’s not will make it any less wretched?”

  He couldn’t keep from smiling at her cleverness just as the door opened.

  “Isadore, I thought that was you.”

  Ruin eyed the young man who spoke the way a deaf person would that had learned to talk, despite his inability to hear.

  The screen door opened. “Sam, it’s so good to see you!” Isadore hugged him, and Ruin followed the exact location of the man’s hands. Both on her back, the lower one seemed far too low for a friend.

  “Sam, this is JD, JD, this is my good friend Sam.”

  Good friend? And he was just JD. Ruin regarded the man’s extended hand, trying to remember what the gesture meant. Handshake. Putting his hand in his, he locked gazes with this Sam, immediately bothered by his smile and the knowing look in his eyes. What did he know, wretched human that he was?

  “Come in,” he said to Isadore now. “Dad is waiting for you.” He eyed Ruin again with that smirky secret smile and turned to lead the way
. Isadore punched him in the arm and he met her huge smile and bright gaze. The fakery of it reminded him he was supposed to play nice.

  But he wouldn’t lie.

  Walking into the house, he was greeted with the smell of incense and… something cooking. It reminded Ruin of simmering death in fecal matter. The first room they entered was small but oddly clean.

  Sparsely furnished with one decent couch, a non-matching chair, small TV and a tree wrapped in a white sheet. Odd.

  They entered what seemed to be the kitchen next. “Izzzzzyyyy,” a semi-old man greeted from the head of a table in the center of the small room.

  “Old Man Ghospired!” Isadore gushed. “How are you?”

  The man stood, and she rushed to hug him. Ruin took quick note of his odd attire. Really short blue jean shorts-- cut off-- a see-through-thin shirt that snapped up the front, only he didn’t snap it, he tied it at the bottom of his big, tanned, hairy belly. On his head he wore a green head band, and a puffy black beard-- grayed near the mouth-- covered his face.

  “Saaaay, who we got here?” The man sat, and Isadore did too, indicating for Ruin to sit next to her while Sam thankfully sat across from him.

  “This is JD. JD, this is Old Man Ghospired.”

  “You can call me Bill,” he said, laughing loudly like it was a great joke.

  “I’m Ruin,” he said, locking eyes with the old man now.

  The man’s chocolate eyes widened under hectic brows. “Ruuuuiiiin! That’s your real name?”

  It was hard to know if he was being serious. “Yes.”

  The old man’s laughter rang out while his bright eyes were kept nailed on Ruin’s. “Sounds like a great villain name. Hey, you wanna hear my latest masterpiece?” He raised those bushy brows at him.

  “Yes,” Isadore gushed, sounding thrilled. “Let’s hear your latest masterpiece.” Her hand wrapped around Ruin’s fingers under the table and he stared at her. “Would you like to hear it, JD?” she squeezed his fingers hard and gave him those wide eyes. Right.

  Ruin regarded the old man, feeling like the only right response was yes. “Read us your latest masterpiece.” It was as good as he could do, because he sure couldn’t say he wanted to hear it.

  Two things became apparent in the literal second the man began to read. He genuinely believed it was a masterpiece. And the piece was a poem.

  The man read, his voice booming and lashing with dramatic inflections, even his body spasmed with it. The poem was as wretched as any. About a Bastard and a Harlot with a side-kick named Stupid.

  Ruin strived to get at the meaning of what he heard but instead got at the reason why he hated poetry. It was absurd. A weave of lies, sometimes elegant and clever and sometimes just straight forward word sorcery. If there was any truth in any of it, it was designed that the reader must unravel it with their own interpretation, making the truth subject to the reader. How utterly pointless and backwards.

  At the end of the piece, the old man’s eyes were lit more than ever with excitement. He slowly pushed his tablet away from himself in hushed, self-awe as though he’d just performed a sacred ritual.

  Isadore clapped and bounced in her chair. “Oh my God! That was wicked excellent Bill!”

  Finally, something he could agree with. “Yes, wicked excellent.”

  You knew Bill grinned beneath his beard only by the squint of his eyes and the spread of the poofy facial hair at his mouth. He gave rapid nods of his head in agreement with Isadore's praise. “Wrote that one this mornin’.”

  “It was one of your best," Sam said.

  “Thank you, thank you. Hey,” he said to Ruin, “I got fresh coffee, you want some?”

  “Ohh, I am so ready for a cup.” Isadore turned and put her other hand on Ruin’s arm. “Would you like one? I’ll get us some.” More hand squeezing under the table.

  He wasn’t really wanting coffee. He’d had three cups already. “I’ll take water.” Ruin said.

  Bill’s brown eyes lit up. “I got Kool-aid, and Kool-aid cubes.” This he announced with a quick huge grin and more brow bouncing. Like everything he did and said was just fantastic.

  “Dad fills the ice-trays with Kool-aid,” Sam added. “Helps us to stay cool in the hot summer.”

  “Well, I’m having coffee,” Isadore shot up. “Are you two still playing chess while you suntan?”

  Isadore looked at Sam from the coffee pot.

  “Yes and I beat dad two rounds,” Sam bragged.

  “He sure did,” Bill said. “It was close. Next time, dear boy, next time.” The jolly way he said it made Ruin sure the man didn’t really care one way or another who won. It was the playing he enjoyed, not the end result.

  “I’ll take the Kool-aid,” Ruin said to Isadore.

  “I’ll get it.” Sam hopped up now. “By the way,” he paused next to Isadore. “When are you coming to sunbathe with me again?”

  “Ohhh, soon, I’m still handling up on those bait wars.”

  Ruin watched Sam next to her, eyeing the way Isadore touched his arm, like she’d done with Ruin. The idea infuriated him. The memory of how her fingers felt made him sure of one thing. That wasn’t for Sam to feel.

  Sam leaned against the counter next to her, completely forgetting Ruin’s drink. “I told you I would be happy to come by and help with that.”

  Sam put his mouth to Isadore’s ear and whatever he said made her eyes widened and hit him lightly. The playful act caused the fire and ice to become alarmingly aggressive.

  “So, what brings you by, Izzy?” Bill asked.

  She returned to her spot at the table, stirring her coffee too quickly. “Well, JD here had some questions. Of the…spiritual kind.”

  “Ohhhh,” Bill sat back, eyes wide now in curiosity. “What kind of questions?” The man’s eagerness matched his masterpiece performance, but Ruin couldn’t seem to take his eyes from Sam.

  Isadore was back to squeezing his hand under the table, and her touch helped bring the power under more control. Ruin fought to think of what question he needed to ask, and a sudden irresistible one leapt on his tongue. “Can you explain to me why you’re happy when you live such a wretched life?”

  The old man’s loud raucous laughter came along with an angry glare from Sam and much finger crushing from Isadore.

  “JD has no filter what-so-ever Bill, forgive him.”

  Ruin was beginning to think that the man would never stop laughing before he barely managed,

  “Now… that’s a very interesting question coming from a man named Ruuuuiiiin!”

  Another round of laughter ensued with his companions joining him and Sam muttering something about Isadore being stuck.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Ruin said to Sam.

  He raised his brows. “I thought I was the only deaf person here. I said I feel sorry for Isadore and I hope she isn’t stuck with you.”

  “Alright now,” Bill said, “let’s not get all sensitive, everybody here is family.”

  “Isadore isn’t stuck with me.” Ruin didn’t understand how he might mean that.

  “Noooo, I’m not stuck, we’re just friends,” she assured.

  The lie bothered Ruin more than ever. He was sure they were more than friends, but just not quite how much more, so he held his tongue.

  “So, he’s blind too,” Sam said, grinning boldly at him.

  “I can see fine.” Ruin fought to get a grip on the power that was back to swirling inside him, intent on Sam again.

  “Well, for somebody of such great sight and hearing, you are pretty dense.” Sam tapped his temple.

  “Alright Sam,” Bill’s voice bit with warning.

  “What?” he said to Bill. “He’s a rude prick, saying you have a wretched life when he wouldn’t know good if it sat next to him with the name Isadore.”

  “Awwwww, Sam,” Isadore cried, “That is so sweet!”

  “Which part?” Ruin looked at her now, his anger officially out of control. “That I’m a prick or
that you’re good?”

  Isadore regarded him. “Well it was kind of prickish to say; JD, but I don’t hold it against you.”

  She put a hand out toward Sam. “He’s just learning things, I think he had amnesia and is having to relearn everything.”

  “I don’t have amnesia,” Ruin corrected. “And don’t lie anymore.” It was a warning, because the power inside him was gearing up to act and he wasn’t really sure where it would act and what it would do.

  “Don’t talk to her like you own her, you don’t own her,” Sam said.

  “I know I don’t,” Ruin said. “And neither do you.”

  “You both need to calm down,” Bill said.

  Isadore made it all worse with her sweet, “JD, Sam is just looking out for me, now calm down.”

  “Is he? I think he’s doing a lot more than looking out for you.”

  “Oh my God,” Isadore muttered.

  “Says the man named Ruin,” this from a glaring Sam.

  “I would stop now if you don’t want to be hurt.” Ruin needed to leave but the power was erratic, and he was afraid to make a sudden move.

  “Now you are threatening me?” Sam stood.

  Ruin stood then Isadore stood, grabbing his arm. “Stop it!” she hissed.

  “I can’t,” he warned. “He needs to stop.”

  “I think you are the one that needs to stop,” Sam jabbed a finger at him. “I think you need to get the fuck out of this house!”

  Ruin wanted to leave but he was caught in a cyclone of power. “Isadore,” he gasped, fighting for control, terrified she’d get hurt. The power shot into his arm and he swung it like a hammer, slamming it onto the table.

  Red flames shot from his fist and Ruin fought to constrain its path. Only the table, only the table!

  A loud boom came with the instant consumption of particles. Ruin fell to a knee, trembling from the power.