Read Online The Dangerous Kind & Other Stories by Robert Chazz Chute - Free Book Online Page B

and full of blue piss! Fetch me another bottle quick before I sober up.”
    His father was a happy drunk and gravely melancholy when sober. Burt decided he must have inherited the same taste for alcohol his father had, but regretted he didn’t seem to enjoy the compulsion nearly as much. Now that Burt was an old man himself, the world had changed the rules on him. Alcoholism was a disease now and that new ugly fact spilled the fun out of each day.
    Silas—how come guys weren’t named Silas anymore?—had taken pride in starting each day with a shave so Burt lathered up, too. Maybe that was the trick. Looking better might be the key to feeling better. Then he thought of Genie using his razor to shave her legs and how he had bellowed at her not to do it again. She’d run off for two days that time.
    Everything that gives me a moment’s happiness reminds me to be sad.
    His wife, Helen, had always been the buffer between him and Genie. Helen was a librarian now. He saw her sometimes, across the parking lot at closing time. He had assumed that, since she had already put up with so much, her capacity to forgive was bottomless. Burt wore her out. After Genie died, his wife didn’t seem to have any energy left to make him feel okay anymore. He had begun to drink more after Genie passed, but he figured he was entitled. If you don’t drink after losing a child, when was a better time?
    The DJ was still blathering loudly through the static from the clock radio. “Shut up, Marcus!” Burt said, and kept shaving. The razor was old and cut him several times. “The wages of sin are razor bucks,” Burt said to his reflection. The haggard old face that emerged from behind the whiskers was little better than the hairy mask that had grown over it while he dreamt. He missed half his chin but he had already put three dots of toilet paper on his nicks so he decided he’d drawn enough of his blood for the day. 
    The day she left, Helen’s last words to him were, “Make God the center.” He’d tried, but Burt was tired of apologizing. How much contrition did one man have to drag up before he could be free of eternal condemnation by a bunch of celestial busybodies? God didn’t understand how hard it is to be a man. And sometimes, if you’re unlucky, He answers your prayers and still gets it wrong in the end.
    It was then that he caught a few phrases and realized Marcus was talking to him. He was sure he heard “eternal damnation” and the words “sorry prick.” 
    Burt stalked to the bedroom and finally tuned the radio. “What mischief are you up to, Mr. Marcus in the Morning?” The static drained away and it was as if Marcus was standing in Burt’s bedroom, yelling at him. 
    “…if you believe in reincarnation, let me tell you what that is, friends and neighbors,” Marcus said. “Reincarnation is a hamster wheel.”
    “Okay,” Burt said. What happened to the usual mix of Johnny Cash, Stompin’ Tom Connors and Elvis?
    “If you believe there’s an old man in the sky watching your every move, how can you ever get naked or evacuate your bowels? I’ll tell you what your fascist God makes us. A damned ant farm! And I use the term ‘damned’ not carelessly, but advisedly.”
    “Jesus!” said Burt.
    As if he had heard Burt, Marcus said, “Jesus won’t help you now. Jesus died to get his Dad in a forgiving mood. Would you let one child, your favorite no less, die just so you could forgive your other children? That we might live , my ass! ”
    He almost skidded and fell as he headed downstairs for the phone. “Jesus!” Burt cried. It was half an exclamation. The rest was a call for help.
     
     
     
    Marcus figured he had less than a minute to go, so he did his best to pour it all out before Donegal, the station manager, came banging through the door to haul him off the mic and out of the booth. He couldn’t help thinking of his hero, Reverend Ted, who had been hauled away from his pulpit one memorable Sunday