hole in the wall

It’s the pain that comes back first. Then air, then sound. There’s pinpoint pressure heavy on his chest. His eyes shoot open and find the world’s back up to speed, there’s a face in front of him, visceral blue flickering frantic.

“Stay down, idiot,” a familiar voice hisses. He tries to disobey but there are hands on his wrists, there’s a knee on his sternum, he’s pinned to the asphalt. It scrapes at his joints when he squirms. “You get up again, you’re dead. You understand?” The voice is gravely serious. He manages a shallow breath. “Wilson. Tell me you understand.”

Oh, that’s right, he’s Wilson. Wilson scowls.

“Don’t,” voice warns. He voice. His voice. The guy, the one — with the eyes. “Listen to me.” Wilson’s mouth is dry. He smacks his lips, he blinks, he turns his head to see what all those wooshing lights are about. “Hey, Major Tom.” Hand on his jaw now. Back to blue. Hello, blue. “I’m going to get my car,” voice is looking around like a dog, “and we’re going to go.” Wilson makes an indignant noise. “If you get back up I’m leaving you here to die, got it?” Yes, he got it, he nods.

Eyes-voice likes this so he stands up and all the pressure goes with him. “Good.” Then, “I mean it,” as he goes.

Wilson props himself up on his elbows.

Bar parking lot, North Jersey, summer-dark, drunk-as-a-skunk, blood on his lip. Some Big Fuck, something about Bonnie’s cunt. Something that made his knuckles itch. A clumsy dodge, a punch, a fall, a kick to the ribs, another punch after that.

Big Fuck is still around, he’s over by a rusty car crushing a beer. He sees Wilson and burps, spits in his general direction, almost falls over. “Fuck you!” he calls.

“Fuck you!” Wilson echoes.

He staggers to his feet and they get all tangled up again. Feels good, feels like college, like his hands have purpose. He’s pinned and he sinks his teeth into Big Fuck’s shoulder and the motor’s screaming and Big Fuck starts glowing, he’s bright white, he’s got his hands in Wilson’s hair and he’s lifting his head off the pavement and thnk!

Fuck takes a boot to the skull and Wilson’s hits the tar but he’s so shitfaced it barely registers. Eyes-voice is back — he looks like Butch Cassidy, how dreamy — angel in the station wagon headlights. “What did I say?”

Butch is angry. Stupid.

“You said he’d kill me,” panting, wry smile, blood between his teeth, pretty thing. “He didn’t.”

Butch smiles. “Lucky break.” He crouches down, he’s close enough to smell now, old spice and cigarettes and weed. He pulls Wilson’s eyes open and looks around inside his head. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

He’s holding up three so Wilson tells him three. That’s right, that’s good.

“What’s your name?”

It’s James, that’s right too.

“Who am I?”

Oh, yes, he knows this one. “Butch Cassidy,” he says definitively.

House looks at him.

“I don’t wanna shoot with ya, Harvey,” Wilson slurs in his best Newman.

House laughs, a warm thing. “Okay, Sundance, up we go.”

And so they go. To Denny’s. And House patches him up in the parking lot. And it’s yellow there, and the moon is out and it looks like a fingernail, and Wilson stops to squint and hold his thumb up to it and House waits for him, and that’s a very nice thing to do. House buys him a plate of pancakes and bacon and eggs and he gets himself a pot of black coffee and Wilson feels like he’s in a movie. The waitress has a name tag and it says Dottie and she doesn’t bat a lazy eye at his blood and bruises. The line cook just put Hotel California on the jukebox. It smells like powdered sugar and hot grease.

House doesn’t bother him while he eats. He watches, but like he’s far off somewhere else, thinking of another time in another diner when Wilson maybe looked just the same amount of willfully ignorant to his own desolation. The headache is starting to come on so he downs a cup a water. He finishes his coffee too, and then he cleans off the eggs, and by the time he’s done with that House has already poured him a new mug.

“Thas very thoughtful,” says Wilson through a mouthful.

House looks at him, amused, lazy like a cat. “Don’t mention it.”

“You’re really,” he swallows, “actually a very thoughtful guy. Not a lot of people know that,” Wilson points with his fork. “But I do. I see you.”

House wears a different face now, somewhere near tender. If you didn’t know any better you’d call it bashful.

“I’m serious,” he continues. “You’re nice.”

House rolls his eyes but not really. “I’m not nice.”

“I never met a soul more affable than you,” Wilson tests out an abysmal southern accent.

“Then you’re a party of one.”

“You’re a dick to everyone but me. And also me. But sometimes you buy me breakfast, and that’s nice.”

“You just had your ass handed to you,” House clarifies. “It’s common courtesy.”

“But it’s still nice.”

“A good deed does not a good person make.”

“Is it so bad for people to think you’re good?”

House thinks for a long time and he looks sad while he does it. He figures Wilson won’t remember any of it but he will, and he’ll think of it often. “Yes,” House decides. “If you don’t deserve it.”

Wilson gazes at him openly. “You have to tell yourself you do, and then you will.”

“That’s naive.”

“Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s stupid.”

Dottie comes over and asks if they want more coffee and they do. The coffee here is good and warm and strong and their knees are knocking together and House is asking what the fight was even about in the first place and truly, Wilson can’t remember.