just gets so fucking angry. You gotta know what that’s like, right? How women make you feel? Fucking cunts, all of ’em.”
Coffin paused here, studying Lincoln and looking perplexed. “What I fear, Lincoln, is that you’re not really following me here.”
“I am, though.”
“Then tell me. What’s my point?”
“That we don’t do right by girls?”
The other man cocked his head, his eyes narrowing dangerously, and Lincoln could read his mind: Are you making fun of me, Lincoln? And he did his best, wordlessly, to convey that nothing could be further from the truth.
“No, Lincoln, that would be my…my overarching theme. My point is that when we take this jerk-off outside, it’s really him we’re trying to protect, not her. If he keeps this up, something bad is going to happen to him, and we don’t want that. We don’t want him to lose his job, if he’s got one, or his kids, if he’s got any.”
“Right,” Lincoln said. “I’m with you.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Lincoln, but ask me why we even care about this asshole. You gotta be at least a little curious.”
“Why do you care about him, Mr. Coffin?” Lincoln said, because, yeah, he did want to know.
“Well, probably back in high school we knew him, or somebody like him. If we’re the same age, maybe we were teammates.”
“Like you and Troyer, playing for the Island Cup?”
He ignored this. “Or if we were younger, maybe we watched him play and wanted to be like him when it was our turn. Okay, sure, now he’s this pathetic fuckwad, but we knew him when. In our opinion what he needs to do is remember who he used to be and become that guy again. It’s that guy, the one we used to know, that we’re really trying to get through to out there in the dark. What we’re hoping is that he’s still in there somewhere. That’s where we’re not too bright, Lincoln, because he’s long gone.”
Gone as in long, Lincoln thought, the phrase Mickey had used that morning to describe Jacy. “Mr. Coffin—”
“Whoever the fuck we’re talking to, we need him to say he understands what we’re telling him, because those are the magic words that’ll make us disappear: I understand. As soon as he says that, poof, we’re outta there.”
“Mr. Coffin—”
Now he held up a cautionary index finger. “You’ve been a good boy, Lincoln, and we’re almost done. This is the home stretch we’re in.”
Lincoln nodded, took a swig of shitty warm beer.
“Here’s something else you’ve got to be wondering, Lincoln. After he says those magic words, do we go back inside and check on the woman before leaving?”
“I’m going to guess no.”
“And you’d be right. We do not. Why? Well, to be honest, we don’t want to see her sitting at the kitchen table holding a sock full of ice cubes on her eye or lip. What would we say to her then? You know this guy’s not going to stop, right? She knows that already, or part of her does. You’d be better off leaving him? Maybe she would and maybe she wouldn’t. The next guy could be even worse. Damned if she knows how, but she always seems to attract the bad ones. There’s a safe place you can go? Yeah, we could say that. And maybe there is someplace safer than where she’s at right now. But eventually, unless she goes off island, he’s gonna find her. That’s a given. In fact she’ll probably call him herself, tell him right where she is. So no, Lincoln, we don’t want to talk to her. We’re a couple of big, husky guys, but you know what? We’re scared of her. Afraid that if we go back in that house, she might actually thank us. Thank us for coming out and calming him down. Because that’s all he really needed to do. Sitting there bleeding into a paper towel, that’s what she wants us to understand—that deep down he’s a good man. Give her half a chance and that’s the lie she’ll tell you.”
At this point Coffin unexpectedly exploded into laughter, causing Kevin and the men at the other end of the bar to glance over. “See, Lincoln, if I was to write that book my daughter-in-law wants me to, about my experiences as an island cop? What I’ve been telling you would be that book.”
Lincoln decided to try one more time. “But again, why tell me all this, Mr. Coffin? What am I supposed