A Tree Born Crooked by Steph Post Page A

have to.
    “Christ, James. Don’t you ever answer your goddamn phone?”
    Rabbit sounded either high or terrified. It took James a split second to decide that he was both.  
    “It’s four in the morning.”
    He didn’t want Rabbit to know that he had already been awake, waiting for this phone call. He didn’t want him to know that he had expected it.  
    “Whatever. James, you there? You still there?”
    Rabbit’s voice reached a pitch on the verge of hysteria. James could hear the sound of air rushing through an open window in the background. He tried to make his voice as calm as possible.
    “I’m right here. What’s going on?”
    “Oh, man. Oh, Jesus, I can’t believe this shit. Why in the hell? What in the hell I ever do for this shit to happen? Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man—”
    “Rabbit, hey. Hey! You need to slow down. You need to talk to me. I don’t know what you’re saying.”
    He could hear Rabbit moving around, breathing hard, and then a car door slamming.
    “I need you to come meet me. Right now. You gotta get over here.”
    “What happened?”
    “I can’t talk on the phone. James, I just need you to meet me. Please?”
    Rabbit could not have sounded more desperate if he had been drowning, reaching out to the devil himself. James shut his eyes. He could see Rabbit’s face in front of him and knew exactly what it looked like at that moment. He also knew that he had made his decision the instant he answered the phone.  
    “Okay. Where?”
    “At the trailer. Delmore’s trailer. I mean, my trailer, too. Shit, you know what I mean. You remember how to get here?”  
    “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
    James was already pulling his boots on when the line went dead.  
    ~ ~ ~
    When James had first set eyes on Delmore’s trailer, he had been sure it couldn’t be much worse on the inside. He was laughably wrong. James had lived in quite his share of roach motels, but this took the cake. The carpet had been ripped out of most of the main living area, so the floor was a mottled combination of yellow carpet padding and splintering plywood. The only furniture to sit on was a couch that looked like it had once graced someone’s front porch, but now would embarrass even the most avid porch furniture collectors. There were no cushions, just an old electric blanket tucked in over the boards and springs. A line of German cockroaches was trooping across the baseboard behind the couch without fear. It was clearly their accustomed trade route.  
    Flattened beer cases, grease-soaked pizza boxes, cans of supermarket brand soda, piles of stained clothes, both men’s and women’s, and empty orange plastic pill bottles covered the kitchen countertop and spilled into the sink. A mountain of crushed Natty Light cans had been bulldozed aside to allow a path back to the single bedroom. Its door had been ripped partly from the hinges and was held open against the wall with strips of duct tape. The indoor plumbing had long since been disconnected and there was a hole in the bathroom wall where the sink pipe had been torn out. The bathroom now harbored an array of possums, raccoons, and the occasional rat snake that came and went as they pleased. It was safer just not to go in there.  
    James took all of this in, as well as the overwhelming perfume of stale beer and urine. He wasn’t sure which one was the substance soaking the carpet padding beneath his boots. Rabbit had offered him a place on the couch, but James said no thank you, he’d rather stand.  
    “Okay, I’m here. You mind telling me what the hell happened? No, wait. Just calm down a second first. You want to go outside? Get some air, maybe?”
    Rabbit was pacing back and forth across the short length of the trailer. When he had opened the door, James’ suspicion that he was high on something had been confirmed, but it was mostly adrenaline and paranoia. James had seen Rabbit scared before, but this was something else entirely.  
    “Nah,