Lamentation Read Online Free

I’m sure he’d been outside in worse.
    Nothing but static on the radio, which was normal for these parts. CD player was broken and only made a clacking sound when you stuck in a disc. I had a new stereo Tom had given me, still in the box, shrink-wrapped and everything, but I hadn’t bothered opening the package. Which sucked, because I kept my entire music collection in the truck. Anytime I was in the mood for some tunes, stuck fruitlessly twiddling the knob, I’d gaze down at all the music I couldn’t play, and it only served as a reminder that I couldn’t get my act together.
    Usually, I didn’t mind the quiet, but tonight, sitting next to my brother, the silence only amplified the distance between us.
    The roads hadn’t been plowed, and the town wouldn’t send out trucks until the storm calmed. Couldn’t go faster than fifteen miles an hour or I’d fishtail into a culvert.
    “Where we going?” Chris finally asked.
    “My place, I guess. Unless you have somewhere else you need to be.” It was a dick thing to say, since we both knew he didn’t. As much as he disgusted me at that moment, I wasn’t kicking my brother out to roam dark, snowy streets in a T-shirt. I didn’t know where he slept mostnights. The bus station in Longmont? The Y on Kirby? One of the motels on the Turnpike? A crack den? No fucking idea. This was my flesh-and-blood brother sitting next to me, and the reality of his life was as graspable to me as ether.
    Following Turley’s story down at the jail, I’d been anticipating nonstop conspiracy theories and antigovernment gibberish about all the ways the authorities were out to screw Chris. Which was a recurring theme in my brother’s life. Because it was always about him. It was pathetic how Chris tried to inject relevance into his existence this way. He didn’t understand that he was inconsequential, didn’t matter; that he was expendable. They could find my brother frozen beneath a tree in a park or with a needle in his arm in some skid row room, as they most certainly would someday, and nobody’s life would be impacted. Not even mine. In my more honest moments, I’d have to admit, if to no one but myself, that any sorrow I might feel for this loss would immediately be offset by the tremendous sense of relief.
    Hank Miller had closed up the station already, so the tiny lot was pitch black. I parked my truck behind the squat brick garage, and made for the small apartment above it. This is where I’d lived for over a decade. What’s that? One-eighth of my life? Maybe more, depending on if I get cut down as early as my folks. Never really thought about it that way. Certainly hadn’t envisioned a future here when I rented the place just out of high school, but that’s what it became. My future. Like everything else in my life, a temporary plan that had turned permanent. My job with Tom. My situation with Jenny. My less than stellar start to fatherhood. Someday, it would all change. Someday, I would make it right. Only someday never comes, does it? I’d been in this same shithole for ten years. Three different women had lived there with me, including the mother of my kid, but, in the end, I always ended up alone.
    I usually had a decent outlook on life, but anytime I hung around Chris, this is what happened. Another reason I avoided the guy. Nothing good ever came of it. I never walked away from seeing my brother, saying, “Gee, sure glad I did that.” His mere presence could put me in a funk that would last for days. Not to mention all the trouble he had caused in my relationship with Jenny.
    I remembered the night she left, the night she packed up our son and moved out on me. I couldn’t shake the scene. Pissing rain pelting the roof. Aiden wailing in his car seat carrier. Tears streaming down her face as she pleaded with me to believe her.
    Chris had stolen some pills from her purse, painkillers the doctor had prescribed following the birth. Just a few pills that she never