So they just disappeared with the old man?
No. I found him. He was out there. I could hear him moaning. I found him trying to bury himself, I guess. He was scraping the ground and trying to pull rocks around himself. He was naked and severely busted up. Those two had run him down in the truck, looked like they had probably rolled over him a few times. His legs are crushed and black and purple. His gut is all wrong and distended and the cape had shot him once in the belly. But the old bastard is still alive. In a pile of his own shit. I was still angry but I offered him water but he wouldn’t take it. He was in shock, jabbering in Spanish. I decided if he wasn’t gonna take any water, if he wasn’t gonna let me help him, which I didn’t want to do anyway, I’d lay into him. I asked him if he was selling that girl to those fucks and he said he was helping her. I told him he ruined her life. He was just as guilty of her death as those two freaks who made the last moments of her short life the very worst moments. It felt like venom. I thought about unloading that shotgun on him. But he was so pathetic, digging his own grave, and I calmed myself and just told him I was leaving him. Then he reaches out and grabs my leg and starts pleading with me not to leave him. I told him he was already dead and there was nothing I could do for him. He insisted that these punks were coming back and they would torture him and tear him to pieces. I told him he deserved whatever they did to him. And I tried to leave, Poole. I intended to leave him there scratching his way to the netherworld. But then I saw the barbed wire sticking out of his asshole and the puddle of blood under him. And there’s a shitty bloody piece of PCV pipe laying there.
Oh man. Are you serious? That’s an old Bandito thing. Goddamn.
Yeah. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave him. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Did he want me to wait there with him while he died. If they were coming back, I’d be the one who’d have to deal with them. And probably get myself killed. I was screaming this shit at him. He told me he just didn’t want to die alone. So, I’m thinking I can just shoot him, get it over with. No way. I couldn’t do it. So I offered him the pistol. Get this, he tells me he can’t, tells me he’s a Catholic. I lost it. I tell him, You crazy fuck! You’re gonna die! You’re already dead! It’s your responsibility at this point, right? You’ve got to be in some insane pain right now, I tell him, just do it. No way. So I ask him, Do you expect me to do it? And he says, No. So what the fuck am I supposed to do for you? He says, Just don’t let me die out here alone. So I sat there with him for a while. He kept nodding in and out. The sun goes behind the hills. But he still hasn’t died. And then I hear the motor. You can hear engines for miles out there. And then I see the headlights.
Poole noted the cloudy desperation in Hatchet’s voice, the new animation in his hands, new depth in his eyes. A valve was opening and Hatchet was releasing so many things that needed to be let go. Drunk and sentimental, Poole thought of hills wiped clean of their forests, changed in ways no one will ever fully comprehend.
I started to panic. I shook the old bastard and told him he’d better take the gun and do it or I was going to but he’d slipped. He was gone. I couldn’t understand anything he was saying. Hell, he was so delirious I should’ve left him for those two because he wouldn’t have lasted long. But instead, I grabbed him and started running.
You grabbed him?
Yeah. Threw the fuck over my bad shoulder and started running, straight back to my camp at first until I wised up but this little ravine had no way out except straight up. So me and my spent-ass legs go charging up this fucking hill with this groaning old fart on my back. The sky is going dark and the temperature is dropping. Remember when I told you about my legs failing? Here they go again. And I can hear that fucking truck roaring through the shit down there and I can’t tell if they’ve seen us or not and it sounds like they’re right behind me. My thighs start wobbling. My calves just aren’t there. And the whole works just stop.
But then something happens. Just like when I thought I was cat food on that mountain, this thing, this force rises inside me. Feels like a red hot chain is swirling around inside me, gathering the muscles and ligaments and fusing them back together and suddenly it’s over. I’m there on the top of the hill, looking down on the headlights shooting across the desert floor. I can barely hear them yelling at one another over the sound of my own breathing and the pounding in my chest. But get this: the old dude is dead.
Holyshit.
Croaked off somewhere up that hill. Who knows how far I carried his dead body. So I’m sitting there in the dark clutching his hand I don’t know why but I felt responsible. People shouldn’t leave other people in peril, ya know. I just don’t see how we can stay human if we can’t at least acknowledge one another as something worth saving from ourselves.
No. I found him. He was out there. I could hear him moaning. I found him trying to bury himself, I guess. He was scraping the ground and trying to pull rocks around himself. He was naked and severely busted up. Those two had run him down in the truck, looked like they had probably rolled over him a few times. His legs are crushed and black and purple. His gut is all wrong and distended and the cape had shot him once in the belly. But the old bastard is still alive. In a pile of his own shit. I was still angry but I offered him water but he wouldn’t take it. He was in shock, jabbering in Spanish. I decided if he wasn’t gonna take any water, if he wasn’t gonna let me help him, which I didn’t want to do anyway, I’d lay into him. I asked him if he was selling that girl to those fucks and he said he was helping her. I told him he ruined her life. He was just as guilty of her death as those two freaks who made the last moments of her short life the very worst moments. It felt like venom. I thought about unloading that shotgun on him. But he was so pathetic, digging his own grave, and I calmed myself and just told him I was leaving him. Then he reaches out and grabs my leg and starts pleading with me not to leave him. I told him he was already dead and there was nothing I could do for him. He insisted that these punks were coming back and they would torture him and tear him to pieces. I told him he deserved whatever they did to him. And I tried to leave, Poole. I intended to leave him there scratching his way to the netherworld. But then I saw the barbed wire sticking out of his asshole and the puddle of blood under him. And there’s a shitty bloody piece of PCV pipe laying there.
Oh man. Are you serious? That’s an old Bandito thing. Goddamn.
Yeah. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave him. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Did he want me to wait there with him while he died. If they were coming back, I’d be the one who’d have to deal with them. And probably get myself killed. I was screaming this shit at him. He told me he just didn’t want to die alone. So, I’m thinking I can just shoot him, get it over with. No way. I couldn’t do it. So I offered him the pistol. Get this, he tells me he can’t, tells me he’s a Catholic. I lost it. I tell him, You crazy fuck! You’re gonna die! You’re already dead! It’s your responsibility at this point, right? You’ve got to be in some insane pain right now, I tell him, just do it. No way. So I ask him, Do you expect me to do it? And he says, No. So what the fuck am I supposed to do for you? He says, Just don’t let me die out here alone. So I sat there with him for a while. He kept nodding in and out. The sun goes behind the hills. But he still hasn’t died. And then I hear the motor. You can hear engines for miles out there. And then I see the headlights.
Poole noted the cloudy desperation in Hatchet’s voice, the new animation in his hands, new depth in his eyes. A valve was opening and Hatchet was releasing so many things that needed to be let go. Drunk and sentimental, Poole thought of hills wiped clean of their forests, changed in ways no one will ever fully comprehend.
I started to panic. I shook the old bastard and told him he’d better take the gun and do it or I was going to but he’d slipped. He was gone. I couldn’t understand anything he was saying. Hell, he was so delirious I should’ve left him for those two because he wouldn’t have lasted long. But instead, I grabbed him and started running.
You grabbed him?
Yeah. Threw the fuck over my bad shoulder and started running, straight back to my camp at first until I wised up but this little ravine had no way out except straight up. So me and my spent-ass legs go charging up this fucking hill with this groaning old fart on my back. The sky is going dark and the temperature is dropping. Remember when I told you about my legs failing? Here they go again. And I can hear that fucking truck roaring through the shit down there and I can’t tell if they’ve seen us or not and it sounds like they’re right behind me. My thighs start wobbling. My calves just aren’t there. And the whole works just stop.
But then something happens. Just like when I thought I was cat food on that mountain, this thing, this force rises inside me. Feels like a red hot chain is swirling around inside me, gathering the muscles and ligaments and fusing them back together and suddenly it’s over. I’m there on the top of the hill, looking down on the headlights shooting across the desert floor. I can barely hear them yelling at one another over the sound of my own breathing and the pounding in my chest. But get this: the old dude is dead.
Holyshit.
Croaked off somewhere up that hill. Who knows how far I carried his dead body. So I’m sitting there in the dark clutching his hand I don’t know why but I felt responsible. People shouldn’t leave other people in peril, ya know. I just don’t see how we can stay human if we can’t at least acknowledge one another as something worth saving from ourselves.
Edit 12.16.2018