A Quiet Saturday Night (Part 3 of a short story)

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

After returning home from shopping, unpacking, and having a late dinner, she put their son to bed while her husband tended to their cats. Then he sat at the dining table for his evening shot of whiskey.
    She came out of their son’s room and sat across from him.
    “Scotch?” she asked. “You know I hate the way that makes you smell.”
    “Yes, I do. That’s why I’m having a shot of mezcal instead. Sombra. It’s the best.”
    “So, after what happened tonight, you actually think I might let you close enough to me that I could smell what you are drinking?”
    “I always have high hopes.”
    She stared at him.
    “So, do you want us to take a shower and go to bed?” he asked, “Or do you want to go on to bed while I go in the office and do those pushups I didn’t get to this morning?”
    “Seriously? You are seriously asking me this, right now, when you could have been killed tonight?”
    “Are you worried that I might have been killed? Or are you worried that I might have had to kill someone right in front of you? Right in front of our son?”
    “I…I really don’t know. How do you think that would have affected him? To see that.”
    “He's a tough little guy. I think he would be fine. But I think you might be freaked out forever.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes. Really.”
    “Would you have killed that girl? She was so small. Would you have done that?”
    He sighed, then realized he had involuntarily rolled his eyes. Damn.
    “There was no way I could take a chance on her doing something to our son while I had to take on a guy less than half my age. It was her, or our son, and she was old enough to know better than to be doing what she was doing. Our son was the innocent party there. Hell, I was an innocent party there.”
    “Innocent? You were about to drive a metal stake through her throat. How is that innocent?”
    “I didn’t start it. I gave them both a warning. That makes whatever happens not my fault.”
    “You don’t drive a stake through someone’s throat by accident. That would be your fault.”
    “That’s not a fault,” he said. “That’s a skill.”
    He looked at her, a tilted head look that was different than she had ever seen from him. Then came that voice she had only heard once before, back at the store. “What do you think is going to happen if someone kicks in our front door and I can get to a gun? Will that be my fault?”
    She stared. Then she began to cry. “All I wanted for my birthday was a quiet Saturday night. No big trips, no big deal. Just something normal. Why can’t we just do something normal? Why can’t anything ever just be normal? Damn.”
    “Normal? Quiet? It’s your birthday. Aren’t we supposed to do something epic, instead of normal?”
    “You asshole.”
    He laughed, that loud, real laugh that meant he was quite proud of himself.

“Before we got married you sure didn’t seem to mind your birthdays. I’m supposed to be the old and tired person in this relationship. What’s your problem anyway?”
    “You really are an asshole. Damn!”
    “We know I’m not ordinary. I always liked that Avril Lavigne song. I always liked her kick-ass attitude. Kicking ass instead of baring it, that’s what they said about her. Ordinary people get their asses kicked in dark parking lots. Or hand over their cash without a fight. Screw that. Go down in battle and Valhalla awaits.”
    “You would rather be in Valhalla, as if it even exists, than here?”
    “If it is real, then maybe there really are Valkyries and maybe they really are hot. Who knows? But…no, I’m in no rush to find out.”
    “Wait a minute. You are way too old to know anything about Avril Lavigne.” She laughed, a laugh that said she was quite proud of herself.
    “I even know of Savages, and Imagine Dragons. You forget that I actually photographed Alanis Morissette.”
    “But I do remember you photographed Steve Prefontaine. So you are really old. He’s been dead longer than I’ve been alive.”
    “Funny. I was very young when I photographed Pre. You can be such a bitch sometimes.”
    “Yeah. But you love me for it.”
    “I might love you more if you weren’t quite so good at being such a bitch.”
    “No, you wouldn’t, you like the challenge.”
    He downed the rest of his drink. “Do you want to take a shower and go to bed, or just go to bed by yourself?”
    “Seriously, how can you even think about sex when you could have been killed tonight?”
    “Because I wasn’t killed. Hell, having sex at my age may be more dangerous than what happened at the store. But I will still risk it, since it’s your birthday.”
    She glared. “Do you realize that as you get older, you have to change? Even people my age think about how to play it safe. Handing over your wallet would be better than getting beaten up. Or killed.”
    “Do you really want to share your life with a practical coward? Really? A lot of my old friends played it safe; they’re all dead. No thanks.”
    She sighed, bit her lip. “You can be such an ass… No, I don’t want a practical coward, but I don’t want a dead hero, either. Please learn to be more careful.”
    “Being prepared is the better part of being careful.”
    “You weren’t prepared at the store.”
    “I had an eight-inch metal stake in my hand. That would have more than done the job.”
    She shook her head. “Do you ever see any gray in your world, or is it all just all black and white?”
    He laughed. “I mostly see lots of colors.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    “Gray is overrated. When you get right down to it, things generally turn out to be black or white. There really isn’t any gray. Those idiots at the store were going to back down, or someone was going to wind up in the hospital. Or the morgue. There’s no gray. Like we are either going to properly celebrate your birthday, or we aren’t. There’s no gray. It’s black or white.”
    She glared. “Damn. I hate you and your logic.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes, really.”
    “Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.”
    “Someday, if it all goes to hell between us, that’s about all you will say, isn’t it?”
    “I’m sure I will tell people I miss the fights. And the sex.”
    She turned and stared hard out the window, across their dimly lit pond, into the darkness beyond. It was that same hard look she so often gave him, like she was trying to see through the shadows, trying to get a clear look at what lay beyond, even though she knew it was impossible.

“My dad said he always thought you killed the guy who stabbed you with the screwdriver. You were only 16. Did you…did you really?”
    He turned his shot glass, studying the ruffed grouse etched on the side. “My next-door neighbor had just taught me how to break a brick with my right hand. After the guy stabbed me, I hit him in the throat with my right hand. He started gagging and staggered out the door to a car. A ’69 Chevelle, blue, with Cragar mags. Someone drove him away. I don’t remember what happened after that.”
    “You remember the car had Cragar mag wheels, but you don’t remember if the guy lived?”
    “Nope. Don’t think I ever bothered to ask the police. What was the point? He stabbed me. I hit him. So?”
    “So, you might have killed someone. Isn’t that sort of an important thing to know?”
    “Why? I didn’t start it. I was lucky not to have been killed. He was trying to stab me in the neck, but I blocked it with my arm. Point went all the way to the bone. You’ve seen the knot.”
    “That knot? You said it was scar tissue from an old injury.”
    “It is. Being stabbed qualifies as an injury, doesn’t it?”
    “But you made it sound like it was a sports injury. Or maybe a work injury. Not a could-have-been-killed injury.”
    “I didn’t want to make it sound like a bigger deal than it was.”
    She crossed her arms, looked up at the ceiling. Shook her head. Then she got up and walked around the table, standing behind him with her hands on his shoulders. She sighed, shook her head again.
    “A quiet Saturday night, that’s all I wanted. I give up. Let’s go take that shower.”

Copyright © 2019 by Paul Clark