Mercy

When I offered to remove the remnants of Billie Joe’s irreparable guitar from his room, he hesitated and initially failed at presenting me with an answer. It was a simple suggestion to say the least, and leaving potentially hazardous, sharpened objects strewn about the floor was an injury waiting to happen, yet the old bastard faltered long enough for me to be taken aback once again by his showing of any emotional attachment, especially towards something as inanimate as a guitar. I suppose a proper musician would beg to differ, claiming that such an instrument pours as much vivacity and soul into a crowd as the guitarist himself, though for one such as myself who hadn’t touched so much as a fucking kazoo at any point in my miserable existence, imagining an instrument as anything more than an object to be had was beyond me. For Billie, however, all it took was a peek at the immense sense of loss written deep within the worry lines of his aging face and a glimpse into the internalized agony glimmering in his eyes to know that that particular guitar was the stickered quintessence of his puzzling spirit. Staring down upon its stringed carcass was enough for him to believe that a part of him had been brutally murdered in his son’s drug-induced rage as well.

After a lengthy bout of nothing but the pair of us staring down into the dizzying array of dead guitar, a question bubbled up from the back of my throat that I felt as if I already knew the answer to despite never having known the old man’s connection with the instrument. It was too perfect, and it completely solidified a peculiar, pre-determined correlation between the two of us that never failed to both amuse and disturb me. I asked him if he’d ever named the guitar, but as he opened his mouth to speak the name, I whispered it aloud so that the word was twice amplified by our dual utterance.

“Blue,” we murmured in unison.

Billie Joe hardly seemed startled that I was able to guess the name.

“Funny, ain’t it? Everythin’ blue’s gone now ‘cept you ‘n’ my gran’baby. Everythin’ blue’s been taken from me. You ain’t gonna let yourself be taken from me too, are you, Fairy?” he whispered, eyes shining with more than grief or loss. At that point, a dying declaration of determination and need were mixed within his crystalline tears.

“No…why do you think I’m gonna be taken away from you?” I questioned lightly, yet the old bastard lapsed again into his precious silence.

“Shit happens,” was all he replied with, though I knew there was more to it than that. It wouldn’t be so significantly bothering him if he was simply wary of shit happening. No, there was something specific he was afraid of, and I couldn’t begin to explain how irritating it was that he still was not comfortable enough with me to share something personal.

“So what am I doing with Blue?” I asked again, studying his face for some sort of clue pertaining to what from his past kept holding him back. Unfortunately, my lack of his maddening, empathic clairvoyance made it impossible for me to see beyond the pain and confusion in his furrowed-brow grimace.

“Ask Jake to fish a box out o’ his ol’ room in the basement. I’m not lettin’ you go down there alone,” he instructed me, and I was once again aggravated by what was left unsaid by his fear.

“Why?” I pressed, ravenous for answers.

I wasn’t the least bit shocked to find that he didn’t plan on providing any for me. As I staggered from his room only to find Jakob conked out on the couch with an equally unconscious infant curled upon his chest, my resentment towards the old bastard grew. Had my outburst not been convincing enough of how his failure to rely on me with his innermost qualms was further destroying what little self-confidence I had left, or did he simply not care? His imploring me to stay with him appeared to deny any hint of apathy towards me that he might possess, but something in his guarded nature continually brought me to doubt his sincerity. Besides, he admitted to having killed a man. One he apparently had loved.

Weren’t murderers notorious for being pathological liars?

Ambling my way back into the lair of one who had once been narcissistic enough to take a life, I wondered if he had similar plans for me. He’d already remarked on how I reminded him of this mysterious Frankie character, and that was nauseating enough without factoring in how I’d promised to stay with him. Fuck, was I naïve.

“Jakob and the baby are sleeping. Looks like Blue gets to stay down there until morning,” I told him bluntly, no longer searching his features for some sort of a portal into his soul. I was far too terrified of what I might stumble upon if I did manage to break through.

Billie swallowed a lump from his throat before croaking, “That’s just fine. Can I ask you ‘nother favor?”

He had grown timid, shy with his dependence upon me and perhaps remorseful with his inability to unveil the secrecies he’d kept bottled within himself for God knows how long, and those goddamn tattooed arms of his had wound around his abdomen in his telltale, unsettling signal of feeling vulnerable. It should have softened me, for the pathetic way in which he hugged himself had once brought me to pity him.

I suddenly found it insufferably frustrating.

“Jesus, you’re so fucking needy,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest in annoyance as I wordlessly urged him verbalize what he so desperately needed.

“Ne’ermind, it don’t matter. It’d just be awkward ‘cause the ol’ Limpdick’s all stiffer’n a corpse right now, anyways…”

“Voluntarily or involuntarily?” I snorted, finding his untimely dysfunction to be far more entertaining than it should have been.

“I can’t tell,” he stammered, face burning crimson with mortification. “Prob’ly involuntary.”

“Aw thanks, way to make a gal feel special,” I chuckled mirthlessly.

“Now don’t go takin’ it personal, Fairy. That battered look you got goin’ for you is sexy ‘n’ all, but this ain’t exactly the time for…for sexy shenanigans. All I was gonna ask you was to find me some sweatpants to change into ‘n’…”

“You pictured me taking your jeans off and got hard. Sounds voluntary to me, Old Man, so congratulations…your dick is not defective,” I interjected, face oddly contorted to keep from laughing.

“You’re a bitch,” he snapped, though his lip had curled into a defiant sneer. “But that’s more’n ok with me. Wanna come celebrate?”

My imprisoned laughter broke free and rang throughout Billie Joe’s room prior to inquiring, “Where do you keep these sweatpants?”

The old man squirmed, sneer transforming into a full-blown grin as he pointed at an old-fashioned, certainly hand-crafted mahogany armoire situated against the wall opposite the bed. With its brass handles and handsomely constructed exterior, it did not look at all out of place. Antique appeared to be the general theme of Billie Joe’s quaint little dwelling, the most impressive display of the fact being the piano he had taunted me with in hopes of compelling me to show him exactly what Elliot had done to me time and time again. I grasped a handle in one hand and gingerly pulled one of the armoire’s two doors open to find three shelves with all of the old bastard’s clothes neatly piled upon each one. I snatched the first pair of sweatpants my eyes landed upon and closed the door as gently as it had been opened before making my way to Billie’s bedside.

“It ain’t gonna break if you’re rough with it,” he commented, poking fun at how carefully I’d handled the armoire. There was an unmistakable innuendo woven within his harmless remark, and I chose to mischievously disregard it as my bandaged fingers began working at the fastenings on his jeans. Billie Joe licked his lips and watched with fascination as I manipulated his garment with the exact meticulous caution I’d used on the antique. Once I had his pants removed to reveal an excitement which created anomalies in the fabric of his boxers, I waltzed myself to the opposite side of the bed and crawled in, plopping the sweatpants down right on top of the tent in his undergarments. I giggled at the shameless hiss that escaped his lips upon contact.

“I think you can handle putting those on yourself,” I stated, rolling over so that my back was to him.

“Dammit, Fairy, you ain’t gonna do nothin’?” Billie whined, using every ounce of self-control he could muster to keep from kneading the swell in his boxers.

“Nope.”

“Fuck, you really are a bitch. You’re even blockin’ the bedside table that has the naughty lotion in it so I can’t even jack it right!”

Without a word, I turned to face him once more and fished his erection from his boxers in one fluid motion that left him dazed and rendered him momentarily speechless. Lowering my head, I took his length into my mouth, swirling my tongue about until I had him sufficiently coated with my saliva. He groaned, bucking his hips to force himself deeper, but I pulled away and returned to my position which faced away from him.

“I think you can manage beating off now,” I informed him, smirking to myself once the old bastard began to do so. He moaned and mewled to himself, the combination of his hand and the spastic way in which he bucked into it causing the bed to awkwardly shift with his movements. As he reached the height of his climax and came into his palm, he uttered a single name which caused my breath to hitch in my chest with outright astonishment.

“Mike,” he moaned.

It was the first time he referred to me as something other than Fairy.