Debris by Kevin Hardcastle Page A

Matthew’s rounded face with a rounded jaw and that thick, wide-set neck below it. They looked at each other awhile. Paul’s eyes were clear, though they skittered around. Matthew’s eyes, bloodshot from the drink, were still as the burnt and breezeless world around them.
    â€œWas Mum outraged last night?” Matthew said.
    â€œShe didn’t say one way or the other,” Paul said, “but I guess you probably could have come back here first to drop your shit off. Instead of straight from the airport to the bottle.”
    â€œI know. I should’ve.”
    â€œI talked her down though, before she took off for work. Told her you’d be back to the house this morning to go with me an’ that you’d see her tonight. I also told her your future wife was likely at the party. That you might shack up with some townie and quit your fuckin’ philandering.”
    Matthew stood there with his mouth part open. He blinked hard and his eyelids were out of sync. Paul started laughing at him.
    â€œYou’re still plastered, you idiot.”
    Little laughs came out of Matthew’s maw for a few seconds, and then he inhaled hard and stood up straight.
    â€œYou should’ve come out last night.”
    â€œI’d say I’m sort of way past partied out. It’s not so bad when you just come back home for a little while and cause some shit. But when you live here you’d rather punch yourself in the dick than go out with those idiots.”
    â€œYou just didn’t go ’cause you couldn’t have driven today. You’d be in bed ’til five with your hangover.”
    â€œI have to drive ’cause your license is suspended.”
    â€œIt’s suspended ’cause I was driving your uninsured fuckin’ car when you were too hung over.”
    Paul looked at Matthew for a second and then turned away. He nodded. When he turned back he had a crooked little smile on his face.
    â€œYeah, I know,” he said. “We’ll sort that out too.”
    Paul put the key in the lock and turned it, then opened the door. The heat inside swarmed him. He made a funny sound and hit the button to unlock all the doors. Matthew still couldn’t get in.
    â€œStop fuckin’ pulling on it,” Paul said.
    This time when Paul hit the button Matthew’s door unlocked and he opened it. He leaned back from the car when he felt the air and then he took a deep breath. He looked over at Paul and they shook their heads and got in. Paul put the key in the ignition and turned it, and they wound down their windows before shutting the doors.
    â€œI don’t care about losin’ the license,” Matthew said. “I don’t even have a car.”
    Paul looked over at him and nodded. Then he turned the radio on.
    â€œYeah, but you might have one someday,” Paul said.
    â€œFuck it. I ride the bus. I’m gonna get a bike maybe.”
    Paul smiled. “Man, you’ll die riding a bike in that city.”
    â€œI don’t die doing anything,” Matthew said. “And it sure as fuck wouldn’t be in that city.” He let out a short, loud laugh.
    Paul fished a bottle of water out of a cooler in the back seat and drank deep. Matthew waited for him to pass it over, and all the while he stared through the front windshield at the house they’d grown up in. The narrow two-storey farmhouse stood at the head of the driveway, simple and ancient. If it had not been handed down to their family with the outlying fields and firs they would have had little at all. Not ten years ago those boys had set down to eat a mess of bacon and egg and fried steak in the damp, stone-walled kitchen, their parents gone for the night. The greasy plates had just hit the suds in the sink when a black sedan rolled into the driveway carrying five men, all of them bent on laying Matthew out and stomping him bloody into the gravel. Paul racked rocksalt shells into an old