Re: Motel 77: Cris & Sam
Cris didn't thinka it as leaving his kid behind, 'cause he'd never do that—not 'less it was the only and best thing for her. But, he couldn't leave Sam, alone and sick in some dump, potentially bloodied, definitely high, and all that, just like he couldn't leave Teresita in the house with the eruptiona hell on earth in Manhattan. There were other ways to get Teresa out, there weren't other ways to get Sam. And he got that he was strung taut just then. He could feel it in tendons and sinew, build-uppa acid like static, and he knew it would hafta come out somehow, and she didn't need to be around for that, Teresa. She didn't need to know the world was coming apart at seamsa tectonic plates, scales moving with bone. School would be closed in the city, and Sam's place had a dog, a lake, and people—people who needed a reason to stay where they were for a bit, people he needed to have a reason to stay where they were for a bit, so he could get to Sam, pry her outta clutcha whatever high she'd fallen into and crashed, without them getting in his way—without them telling her stuff like he said she was damaged, and without them telling her stuff like they never cared 'bout her.
Cris didn't bother glancing through the dark at the mirror, 'cause he believed it. Even if only Sam saw it, it was there, and he didn't need confirmationa that. Maybe later he'd ask her what she saw, like getting it out would make her feel better, the way throwing up could sometimes ease the salt-sick in your stomach in a purge, damage done to the esophagus considered the lessera two evils by your body. She did remind him of Sofia then—not stark enough, not bright and crackling enough for him to feel spatter of hot red on his face, where it spackled his lip and caught in lashes—just seeing stuff, talking without the kinda emotion people used when they were there with you.—It only worried him in that he didn't know if that was 'causea meds, seizures, or drugs, or some shitty cocktaila the three. He didn't have a starting line to measure against here, and he didn't like that.
The metric he resorted to was: she's talking to me, she's alive, she's okay.
Cris rubbed, rubbed, rubbed that little cloth on skin, on tanktop, on boxers, on hair, down to single fingers, working blood to skin if he could, and resorting to his palm when the thing gorged itself sopping. He tossed it aside as Sam's fingers found his knee, and he breathed warm near her.
"Yeah," he said about being wet. "Let's get outta here."
He lifted the jacket she was sitting on, peeling Sam up offa those puke-colored tiles slated gray-puke-colored in the dark, and he draped it over her shoulders, making her stand next to him for a second, so he could get his firearm and his bag, before he scooped her back up. Maybe they shoulda stayed and he shoulda gotten her into something dry, but he wanted her outta there. You could hear some woman faking it in the room over, five dollars a suck, ten dollars a fuck, and that meant vultures were nearby, dealers skinny-necked and stoop-shoulders. And Cris knew the feelinga roaches. The skitter reminded hima that room again, and he kissed Sam's forehead hard as he moved toward the door, like if he got her warm enough, it'd stop all that bad shaking.