Damascus Road by Charlie Cole Read Free Book Online

school,
earned his tab,” Ellis said. “The rest is, well, tragedy of war.”
    “Tragedy of war,” I repeated. “It certainly was that.”
    “Will you help me?” he asked.
    I took another bite of my steak, but the flavor was lost to
me. All I tasted was flesh and blood. I swallowed hard.
    “After this is over, we’re going to talk,” I said. “About
everything.”
    “Agreed,” Ellis said.
    “And we’re going to talk about what happened with Tom,” I
said. “And Mom. Okay? All of it.”
    Ellis opened his mouth to object, but stopped short.
    “Fine,” he said.
    “Bon appétit.”
    We ate our meal in relative peace after that.
    “I arranged for a room for you,” Ellis said. “It’s in my
hotel.”
    “You were that sure I was going to say yes?”
    “Not at all,” Ellis confessed, “but if you did, you’d need a
place to stay. I couldn’t just turn you out onto the street.”
    The thought that he wanted me close was not lost on me.
    I navigated the ‘Cuda back through the city and into the
parking garage of the hotel. My bag was in the trunk. We walked inside
together. I expected to walk to the front desk, to check in like every other
palooka on the planet.
    “Here,” Ellis said. He was holding out my key to the room.
    “Oh, thanks,” I said. What else was there to say.
    “I’m right across the hall,” he smiled. “Good night.”
    Ellis left me standing in the hallway, holding my key.
Without much recourse, I turned and let myself into my room. The bed was bigger
than I needed, but looked comfortable. The bathroom was startlingly white with
a coffee pot next to the toilet of all things.
    I dropped my bag in the empty closet and sat on the bed. The
remote for the television was on top of the set, but I was too bone weary to
retrieve it, nor did I have a lot of interest in seeing what was on.
    Instead, I pulled open the drawer of the nightstand. I
reached in without looking and touched something cold and smooth. My hand
recoiled, and I looked in the drawer.
    Inside, resting atop the King James Bible was my balisong
knife. Stainless steel in construction and razor sharp to the touch, my father
had bought it for me during one of his trips abroad to Batangas, Philippines. I
was a teenager when he had given it to me, and I carried it for years.
Somewhere along the line, Ellis and I had crossed paths, and I had left home in
a huff. I remembered my car keys, but the balisong had been left behind.
    I picked up the knife in my right hand, the Bible in my
left. I remembered the heft of the knife, the cold steel against my palm. The
handle of the blade was actually two pieces, concealing the blade in inset
grooves when closed.
    I flipped the blade open in a slow, awkward movement.
    Click-click-click-clack.
    I reversed it, closing it.
    The feel of the knife was familiar, like a bike you used to
ride or your favorite dish at a restaurant that you haven’t had in a while.
    I opened the blade again.
    Clickclick-clickclack.
    Oh yeah.
    I closed the blade, folding it back into the handle.
    Open.
    Clickclickclickclack.
    Flipped closed.
    Open.
    Closed.
    The blade was liquid metal in my hand, twirling in a
razor-bladed blur. Opened and closed and back without pause, without
hesitation. Tumbling over my fingers, index, middle, ring and back again. Open
and closed. Just like old times.
    I slammed the closed knife down on the nightstand. The lamp
rocked back with the impact, teetered, then settled back on its base.
    Nothing…was ever going to be just like old times again. I
nudged the knife back into the drawer with the Bible and pushed it shut.
    Sighing deeply, I sat on the bed, kicked off my boots, and
laid back on the pillow. I cracked open the Bible and started reading.
    My sleep was interrupted by the sound of a door closing. I
sat up, head blurry with sleep, still fuzzy, getting my bearings. A hotel room.
Bible open on my stomach. I rubbed my eyes. I had fallen asleep reading.
    Sitting up, I pulled on my