Thank You, Goodnight by Andy Abramowitz Read Free Book Online Page A

right back into my head, and I instantly understood why my scuffed saddle-tan loafers had carried me all this way.
    “Heinz-Peter,” I said, dropping my bag onto the front walk.
    His eyes lit with pleasant recognition.
    I moved swiftly up the front steps. “Congratulations on the Tate, fuckbag!”
    As I reached the top step, I swung hard and landed my fist on his chin. The punch knocked him into the screen door, which slapped against the side of the house under his crushing weight. Stunned, he touched his face, glared at me, and howled something foreign. He took one step in my direction—Christ, he was a bear of a man—and soon my field of vision was consumed by a meaty set of knuckles headed for the bridge of my nose. The blow sent me clear off the porch, and the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back looking up at the cloudless sky. It’s pretty, I thought. They do nice skies here, wherever this is.
    My nerve endings got up to speed on recent developments, and raw sensation kicked in. A warm liquid trickled down my throat and my mouth flooded with a screaming pain. No, make that my whole head. Just as I began to process my wounds, that lovely view of the sky was eclipsed by a hulking figure. Like some kind of giant, Heinz-Peter straddled me with his massive legs, and I believed with great certitude that my life would end there. I die in Switzerland, I thought. That’s my deal.
    He leaned down, his nose to mine, and with a roar that shook the sleepy countryside, bellowed, “Why you do dis?”
    You started it, you fucking idiot , I wanted to shout, but I couldn’t seem to form words.
    I lifted my head off the ground. My skull weighed a ton and the liquid sliding down the back of my throat was now gurgling in a puddle around my tongue and dripping down my chin, not unlike the mango salsa in that infamous photo. Once again, life imitates art, I thought, as my head thumped back onto the cool grass like a dropped bowling ball.
    Heinz-Peter was massaging his jaw. He seemed to be awaiting my response to a question I hadn’t understood. An extraordinary wave ofnausea washed over me, but I was too woozy even to sit up and puke. I got off one garbled “Fuck you, fucking mutant,” before everything went dark.
    *       *       *
    When I came to, the hazy blur cleared onto a pair of Cadillac-blue eyes. They belonged to a pretty, blond teenager. I was stretched out on a sofa, the girl perched in a chair next to me, holding something cold to my lip and studying my battered face. My mouth throbbed and an ice pick of a headache seared through my skull.
    “Don’t worry,” the girl chirped. “I stopped the bleeding and the ice should keep you from getting too much of a bump.” She let out a giggle. Her English was crystal clear with perhaps a dollop of Germanic Eurospeak. She had pristinely smooth cheeks and eager eyes, a hint of a teen pout in the curve of her lips.
    “I’m Tereza,” she said.
    “Teddy,” I croaked.
    She adjusted the ice pack. “I know who you are.”
    Heavy footsteps suddenly began to hammer up a flight of stairs, and it dawned on me for the first time that I was in the photographer’s home. I righted myself and took in my surroundings. We were in a living room of sorts, rustically decorated, photographs of all sizes crowding the walls.
    “I can’t believe you tried to beat up my father,” the girl said, amused. She nodded at the lower hemisphere of my face. “You lost a tooth, you know.”
    “What?” I dispatched my tongue to explore my dental landscape and met an unfamiliar gap just right of center. “Jesus Christ.”
    The thick bootsteps came to a stop and my enemy overtook the doorframe. He stood there with his arms folded, perfectly still and perfectly huge.
    The girl rose. “I’ll go get some medicine.”
    “That’s okay. I’m fine. Really.”
    Ignoring me, she disappeared, leaving me alone with the Jolly Green Giant.
    Heinz-Peter lumbered over to the couch and dropped