Ethan's Inferno- part 1: take 1

Ethan's Inferno
Brad Johnson


He should be dead by now. Hell, in truth he should’ve been dead sometime yesterday. He’s been sitting, uncomfortably, in the tub for the past two days. In this ice cold water. He’s so numb his teeth don’t even chatter. Maybe he’s just too weak from blood loss. I didn’t do it wrong, he thought. And he didn’t; long and deep. "With veins like mine you don’t miss," he told no one.

The water was half blood and deep red. He should be dead by now.

The heater came on, warming the tiny bathroom, but causing a slight breeze to freeze him even more. He rose from the blood water hoping to dry off and maybe get warm. Or do I want to be cold? He thought. I am trying to kill myself here. His face wrinkled, "Who am I kidding? I’ve been sittin’ here two fuckin’ days just dripping and freezing."

As he dried himself he tried to remember if they had any gauze in the house. If he wasn’t going to die, he certainly didn’t want to drip blood all over the freshly cleaned home. He worked so hard to make it sparkle for when she came home; a final present for her. Maybe it would help her forgive him.

"Shit!" he called when he tripped over his bottle of Jack Daniels, at least it was empty. The tub was stained red, pink when he rinsed it. "Damn it! I hope bleach will cover that."

Still cold, he dressed himself in a trademarked black t-shirt and cargo pants. He had found the gauze, and now looked like a character out of a poorly made action movie. The kind that star the people on his wife’s exercise videos. The ones that go straight to VHS, surpassing DVD.

As he choked on the bleach fumes, a knock came to his door. "Who the Hell?" he accusively asked. No one knocks on my door, he thought, looking over his arms for any leakage. That would be embarrassing, to open the door to some stranger with bloody gauze draping your arms.

He recognized the guy at the door as soon as it was opened. Lives down the street, he thought.

"Hey, man, I uh-- can I get a ride?" the stranger asked with vacant, unfocused eyes.

Are you shittin’ me? Am I being punked by God? He looked past the stranger and to the street and around his truck in the driveway, but he failed to find any cameras or crew. He wasn’t sure if he felt relief or not. Did this guy have a habit of going around to different people’s homes and asking them to give him a ride? With his dead eyes.

"Yea, sure. Hold on," the man said before even realizing. Blood loss will make you do crazy things.

"I’m Ethan," he said to the stranger, as they backed out of the drive. He was slightly perturbed when the stranger simply nodded in acknowledgement. The bouncing of the pickup on the scarred pavement dislodged a moment of clarity for Ethan and he realized he was missing vital information, "Where we headed?"

"Up to you," the stranger said, "this is your ride."

Fair enough, Ethan thought, as he drove downtown. Let’s see what kind of trouble me and my new friend can get into. What the Hell, I could drop at any moment. Maybe kill both of us. The road seemed to disappear and Ethan felt like he was floating. There were no bumps anymore, no potholes, no weather cracks. Is this what a coma feels like? He figured his blood sugar was low. He was just waiting to pass out at the wheel.

"There’s a new gallery I want to check out," Ethan said, "that cool?"

His companion shrugged, wrinkling his brow and mouth in a way that reminded Ethan of DeNiro and nodded a yes/ maybe.

"Not the talkative type are you?"

"When I need to be," the stranger said.

Before he knew it, Ethan was walking in the middle of the street leading away from the parking garage where he parked his truck. He didn’t remember which floor he parked on. Guess I’ll have to look for it when I’m ready to go, he thought. A small wood and steel wind chime announced their arrival to the gallery.