Page 5 of Layne Closure Ahead

A series of liquor bottles were smashed, leaving behind a river of mixed spirits along the back shelves. A framed abstract painting was another casualty of her rage-fueled assault. Layne continued to take swings at anything that pissed her off.

The final blow was tossing the entire baseball bat itself at a full-length mirror shattering it into an infinite amount of shards. The asshole could pay for that, too.

Layne stood there alone with only the sounds of her heavy breaths, hating how tired she felt with the shit cards she was always being dealt these days.

CHAPTER TWO

A month later

“Oh yeah, baby, does that feel good? How do you like that? I bet you haven’t had it this good ever.” The scruffy-looking construction worker she had picked up at the bar panted against the back of her neck as he thrust into her from behind again. She hadn’t even bothered to catch his name, or if he had given it, she had already forgotten.

“So good. Keep going.” Layne didn’t even attempt to fake it in her voice, let alone her expression. Her eyes gazed at the hand-written graffiti on the bathroom stall’s partition in front of her between her hands bracing against it. Things like phone numbers for a good time, random doodles, and names of people that were going to be together ‘4 Ever’.

Forever? Seemed like a pretty far-fetched concept to Layne. Nothing lasted forever in her life.

The whiny groans of the man pumping himself into her in the sole stall in the men’s room distracted her from her thoughts momentarily. Layne wondered if he realized his thrusts were in sync with the tune of Danny Boy. How fuckin’ depressing.

Her body jostled with each of the man’s movements. Half of her clothes were still on, and his pants were stuck at his knees. When he came to an unimpressive finish into the condom he was wearing, she shoved him away from her not feeling any sense of satisfaction.

Yanking her pants up and straightening out her shirt, Layne swung the stall door open.

While washing her hands in the sink, she wished she could just shower away the rest of the filth she felt elsewhere. “I’ve got a meeting to get to.”

Reaching into her jacket pocket she grabbed a prescription bottle partially filled with round white pills and popped one into her mouth chasing it down with a swig of water from the palm of her hand out of the running faucet. The label on the plastic orange bottle noted to take it as needed for shoulder pain. The same shoulder pain that had subsided a few weeks after the man she had grown up calling uncle, Mick, had shot her. So much for family loyalty.

Layne needed something to dull the painful memory of the pitiful disaster that had just transpired in the dimly lit public restroom at McGregor’s.

The man lingered hoping maybe she would grace him with a more affectionate goodbye, but Layne shut it down by wiping her hands dry on the thighs of her pants and exiting the lavatory. Not so much as giving him a polite smile.

She waved a hand goodbye to Sean who was filling drink orders as she made her way past the bar which was currently half-full of inebriated patrons. He gave her a nod of his head in return.

Once outside, she involuntarily shivered from the chill cascading over her body as the air temperature had dropped drastically in anticipation of a hell of a nor’easter expected to hit the city in the next hour or two.

Walking down the sidewalk, she avoided colliding with other passersby as she began to send a few texts on her phone.

Layne

Got hung up on a few things. On my way.

Liam

You better have good news when you get here.

Layne

Feeling hopeful?

Liam

I’m as optimistic as a nun hoping there are no sinners in prison.

Did Layne have good news for her brother? Not in the slightest.

When Layne arrived at the cemetery in Brooklyn, just slightly southwest of Prospect Park, she already saw Liam off in the distance across the sprawling terrain sprinkled with an assortment of headstones.

She had heard that Mick’s family had buried him in this very same cemetery. Perhaps one day she would find out where just so she could piss on his grave. However, there were larger and much more real issues on their hands than insulting cemetery dirt.

After attempting not to trample over anyone’s final resting place, she stepped up next to him and handed over a grease-soaked paper bag that had the aroma of freshly cooked french fries emanating from it. It was her attempt at a peace offering to help soften the blow of the news he wasn’t going to want to hear.

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