“Hi, I’m a piece o’ shit”, he said. His words, not mine…not even now.I’d been expecting his name.

However unusual his parents might have been, this couldn’t be how they’d christened him.

“Hi, I’m Geoff”, I responded. My parents had been pretty conventional.

I steadied my eyes on his. His spasmed to the left, to the right, to anywhere other than the place he could meet my gaze. As I’d strode towards him, he’d given me a look I wanted to give back – moist, unsteady eyes leaking anguish and fear in equal parts. You know the look, seen it in zoos where the residents work and live in. Its how they look when they want out, back to places they felt in their paws but had never seen. Its why they look, pacing up and around and down, lying to live. That’s the way he looked. And he smelt.

He was the brother of the woman I loved. Years of tears ago she’d taken an overdose. Sure, she’d injected enough to put down  Jabba the Hut and most of the Hut family but she’d been very lucky. ‘Very lucky’ were my words, not hers. Being lucky to survive was an oxymoron in her language, the language she used in the past but that was gone now along with a lot more.

It was one man and his dogs that summer day who found her, covered in a ditch so no one would. She’d always been good to dogs but that day their sense of smell ‘betrayed her’. Her words this time, not mine. Nearly too late, but not quite. Just enough blood in the chemical stream.

Even so, she had had the last rites…twice – they didn’t work the first time. Kind of a contradiction I always thought.

He’d taken it personal - the attempt, the sadness within her echoing his, and the fear of being alone without her. He’d sat by her bed after all the others had taken their shoe shuffling silences and ‘oh, wells’, ‘she seemed so…’, and ‘thank god’s away. And he watched her, still, pale, disconnected, more wired than she’d ever been but this time machines, not nirvana.

She never knew till he told her. Neither did I. That’s what made those first words of his right, some would say.

When no one was looking, not even him really, he got in bed with her between the wires and the rubber mattress protector and did what brothers don’t do. But she lived on, not knowing. So did he, knowing.

I looked at him. It was a cruel thing to do. Looking at him, that is. He could feel it even when I wasn’t. And he didn’t want to feel it or anything else, see, because he was a piece of shit, his words, still not mine.

So now he’d confessed, to himself, to her, to me, and, last but most, to the police.
Born in the shallow end of the gene pool is how he looked but they had checked his record, found his pedigree, and believed him, with elation. Now they wanted a witness statement from her. That was going to be short but it was all going to court.

That’s not what worried the two of them.

Hazel was what upset them. 72, widowed, in poor health and their mother. To be exact, mother of two sons and two daughters. He was one, Sheila, my lover, was another. There were two more. What upset them was the maths. Of the four of them, Wayne and his brother were alcoholic and Sheila and her sister were victims of abuse. Hazel, one by one, found them out, found a way to believe. She lived through the torment of the moment four times...just, but barely just.

‘Torment of the moment’ sounded like a headline. There would be more, soon. Neither Sheila nor Wayne believed Hazel could do it again. More to the point, neither could they.  I was sure.

For all of that, they still had a common bond – neither wanted to live. And one other thing they shared, neither yet had the strength to do it.

Right now, they were cried out, both of them. I poured them their drinks. I didn’t forget mine. I dumped the empty miniatures in the wastepaper basket with all the others they’d bought themselves.

“Is that the front door? ”, I said.

“I didn’t hear anything…..”, she said. Neither had I but I went anyway and opened it.

“I must have been lying”,  I said with a smile, dropping the latch as I closed the door to.

I sat down and let Sheila nestle up to me, her eyes were already drooping. Wayne was well out of it, the drinks I’d poured already gone. I kicked out my feet, my heel fetching up against the basket clinking those miniatures. I reached for my drink and paused, looking at my watch for no particular purpose. It was time to drink up, I sniffed my glass. It was cheap hooch and I hadn’t used the normal, branded mixers. I’d got some other stuff I thought would do the job instead. You wouldn’t know the difference, neither did I but for a slight metallic aftertaste.

As my eyes flicked around the room in the grey, growing quiet of the evening, I could just hear them breathing, just. I was getting drowsy too.

I could still make out the front door I’d locked.  This time there would be no dogs for her, or for any of us. I was sure.

It was for the best, my words not yours.