There were no birds singing, no soft-hued brushes streaking the oolors of dawn across the horizon, no gentle stirring of a new day to greet Earl as he came to early the next morning. Without looking at his clock he knew it was early, that the sun hadn't yet risen, and that there was no reason to be up this early. He groaned, but it wasn't his usual groan of salute to a new day this time, no, Earl hurt all over.
     He glanced at the clock and saw that it was quarter to five, about an hour earlier than his alarm was set for. He turned over to fall back asleep and accidentally pulled the pad from his stomach, which awakened him further.
     It was coming back to him now in bits and pieces, momentary glimpses of yesterday assaulting his waking mind as if they were flashes of lightning from a bad storm.
     There was the fight, there were his bruises, there was Scott and there was Vicky. He looked about, panicked, to see where Vicky was and she wasn't in the bed. That didn't really surprise Earl, but he knew that he half-expected her to be here and he was disappointed not to have her lying next to him.
     He looked at the pad in his hand. It carried a blot of his wound and he looked down at his stomach and stretched his skin to examine the bruise. From what he could tell, there wasn't any more bleeding, but he could see that it was still fresh, and that it needed covering. He took one of the pads that Vicky had left on his nightstand and began to stick it onto his stomah when he realized he should probably wash it again, first.
     Earl got out of bed and padded into the bathroom and gently wiped around the bruise with some damp toilet paper. He then applied the pad and headed back to bed to sleep for another hour.
     As he lay in the bed, he wondered about Vicky and when she'd left. Last he could remember, he'd been smoking a bowl and she'd just given him some codeine. He remembered taking them, remembered finishing the bottle of whisky straight from the bottle, and he thought he remembered kissing her. He certinly remembered wanting to, and he pictured her sitting on his bed earlier in the evening in a clinging dress.
     He yawned, and immediately winced. He'd done something to his jaw, and wondered if it had happened over night when he was sleeping. He rubbed it and it hurt like hell, then he remembered the missing teeth and the rest of the badges from his fight.
     He gingerly felt his nose, and it felt large and hot and was painful to touch. His eye, the one that had been swollen shut a day earlier, felt no better today, but he could see out of it. Earl thought again of sleeping, and decided to just get up. He'd be as tired in an hour as he was now, but if he started now he could be awake by then.
     Although he didn't have a kitchen, and that was another thing about the tower room that made it so desirable for Earl, he did have a small coffee pot that he would use sometimes and plug into an outlet in the bathroom. This was a good occasion to use it, Earl thought, and went to the bathroom to start the coffee. After he got the small machine started, he rinsed off the spoon he used for measuring out the coffee and prepared a shot.
     With the methedrene coursing through his system, Earl was immediately awake and, mostly, alert. When the coffee was ready Earl no longer needed it to shake of the lethargy of sleep, but he still poured himself a mug and sipped it slowly, sucking on a cigarette and piecing together the events of the previous day.
     He remembered the fight in excruciating detail, helped no doubt by the soreness that accompanied his every breath or stretch. He wasn't at all a physical person, not one to go hiking or swimming or to perform any athletic activities at all, but when he, had he'd always been sore the next day. This, Earl reflected, left him much off worse than any of those had. It was trite, but true, that Earl ached in places he didn't even know he had and muscles that had lain dormant for years had not only been exerted yesterday, but in many cases they'd also been hit by Scott.
     Earl's face, of course, had received most of the damage and most of that had been in that miserable third round. Earl had lost track of how many times Scott had pummeled him, but it felt to Earl then as now as if he'd been held up for punching practice for a good five minutes.
     He tested the sockets where he'd had a few teeth yesterday morning that were now empty and shuddered as his tongue found purchase in their fleshy hollowness. The blood that had seeped from them must be responsible for the foul taste in his mouth, Earl thought, and he was in the bathroom, toothbrush in hand, when it dawned on him that brushing them would be a serious mistake.
     Earl had no mouthwash, but there were a couple beers left over from last night so he went back to the bedroom and began drinking. He spent the next half hour slowly sipping and swishing his beer, alternating it with coffee, and when his alarm blared into life, Earl was as refreshed as he could be.
     He found nothing to wear in the closet, and remembered that yesterday before the fight he'd told himself that he would do some laundry when the fight was over. He hadn't expected that he'd be completely wiped out, and now he regretted yesterday's postponement.
     He found an older shirt, blue with yellow and green stripes, that he could wear once more, and a pair of jeans that weren't as dirty as some of the others, and slipped into his clothes with a slight reluctance. It wouldn't be the first time he'd worn dirty clothes back to work, and Earl doubted that this would be the last time, either. He didn't enjoy it, but had nothing else that he could do.
     He liberally splashed on some of his aftershave and tucked the tiny brown vial from his cigar box into the change pocket over his right front pocket. He didn't like to shoot drugs at work, and so he didn't bother with his spike.
     He swallowed the last of his coffee, made an effort at throwing the bloodied and crumpled bedcover over his bed, and slipped the cigar box deep between the mattress and box cover. It wasn't much of a hiding place, but the cleaning woman wouldn't find it and Earl knew he only had to keep it from her.
     He patted around his pants as he closed the door, making sure that he had his keys, his wallet, his pocket knife and phone. The sun was up now, and the sky was a uniform drab gray that seemed to radiate light against its will. Earl noticed that there was golden yellow light in Vicky's window, and he toyed for a moment with the idea of dropping by.
     He was saved from making a decision by the light going out and her door opening.
     "Hey," he whispered. "Good morning."
     Vicky was frozen in her doorway, halted in mid-step. Earl walked over to her door, and by the time he got there she'd recovered from what must have been a surprise.
     She looked at him, fixated on his face, her eyes carrying her usual deep stare and hiding any thoughts that she may be having. "Good morning," she said.
     She didn't sound particularly happy to see me, Earl thought, and he briefly wondered if he'd attacked her or anything last night. He couldn't remember even kissing her in the apartment, and was pretty sure that he hadn't grabbed her or anything.
     "You're up early," he said. "I never see you in the mornings."
     "Yeah, well, I wanted to get out early," she said.
     "You did that," Earl said.
     "Uh-huh." Vicky started walking past Earl, toward the sidewalk and the street where she'd parked her car. Earl turned and began walking beside her. His car was on the street, too.
     "I wanted to say 'thanks,'" Earl said. "For all you did yesterday."
     "It's okay."
     "I think I'd be hurting a lot more if you hadn't helped me."
     "Uh-huh."
     Earl wasn't sure if Vicky wasn't talkative in the morning, or if she was mad. She was certainly being close.
     "Is everything okay?" he asked as they reached the sidewalk. His car, a giant blue Ford, was the first one and hers was two or three cars down.
     "Yeah, fine."
     Earl fumbled with his keys, looked at his car, and kept walking so that he wouldn't have to shout at her. "I haven't heard anything from Perris."
     Vicky kept walking, but Earl could see her hesitate slightly, just for a moment. She reached in her bag without looking around and stepped into the street.
     "Do you want me to call you if I hear anything?" Earl asked.
     Vicky walked over to the driver's door, unlocked it, and got in her car. Earl moved over next to the passenger window and watched her start the car. "you can if you want," she said, and Earl could barely make it out over the sound of her car starting.
     "What's your number?" he asked, but Vicky put her car in gear and drove off, leaving Earl alone on the sidewalk. He shrugged and walked back and got in his own car.
     It leaned heavily as he sat down, the same way it always did, and his seat was hard and benchlike. The cushioning and springs had died long ago, but the Blue Whale continued to run and to get Earl to and from work. He only had a couple mile's drive, and other than the occasional trip to Gerry's to get some drugs or to the store if he needed to buy something, Earl didn't drive much.
     For one thing, he wasn't comfortable driving. It was too easy to do something silly and wrong and get pulled over, and Earl wanted as little to do with the police as possible. Also, this car was a beast on gas, and Earl didn't like paying for gas.
     He got to work and immersed himself in welding together the pieces of some wrought iron fence. The work kept his mind off his pains and the welding mask hid his face and the worst of his injuries from the prying eyes of Ed, the shop's owner, and Mark, the other welder.
     At break time, though, Mark couldn't help but notice Earl's puffed and discolored face. "What the fuck happened to you?" he asked when they got back from the truck after buying some burritos.
     "Long story," Earl answered.
     "We've got ten minutes."
     Earl took a bite and found that he was trying to chew it with teeth that no longer existed. He moved the food around in his mouth with his tongue and eventually found a place where he could chew.
     "I got in a fight," Earl said.
     "Looks like it." Mark began looking around, eventually finding their boss. "Hey, Ed, c'mere. Check Earl out."
     Ed, a short and stocky man in his early forties with black hair turning gray, walked over and sat down next to his workers.
     "Fuck. You look like hell."
     "Thanks," Earl said.
     "What the hell happened?"
     Earl told them that he'd been in a fight, but didn't mention where or with whom. He tried to make it sound like no more than the brief one in the parking lot, and it looked to Earl as if they bought that story.
     "So he thought you jacked his tools?" Ed asked.
     "That's what he thought," Earl said. "But I didn't do it."
     "So who won the fight?" Mark asked. Mark was a few years younger than Earl, a teenager, really, with straight brown hair that brushed his collar and needed constantly to be poked behind his ears. He had a skinny neck with a prominent adam's apple and light blue eyes behind his glasses.
     "I think I did," Earl said at last. "He was on the ground when I split."
     "Fuck. Does he look as bad as you?" Mark asked.
     "I dunno," Earl said. He finished his burrito and dusted his hands. "I just left him there, I haven't seen him since."
     "Lemme know," Mark said.
     Earl shrugged his huge shoulders and stood up. He walked back over to his table and slipped on his helmet. He said, "yeah, right," but he knew that no one could hear it, and he went back to work.
     Later that afternoon, after he'd finished his section of the fence and had begun another, Earl's phone rang. He shut off his torch and lifted his visor and saw a number displayed that was strange to him.
     "Hey."
     "Earl?"
     "Yeah."
     "This is Perris. How ya doin, big guy?"
     "Hang on." Earl laid the phone down on his table and took off his helmet. "Still there?"
     "Yeah."
     "So what's up?" Earl asked. "Do you know anything about Scott?"
     "That's what I called about," Perris said. "He's in the hospital."
     "Holy shit. Is he okay?"
     "He's alive, yeah. But they're still checking him out."
     "Is he gonna be all right?"
     "Just a sec," Perris said, and Earl could hear him deal with a customer or something. He looked at the clock and figured that Scott must be at work.
     "So, yeah, the doctor's are running some tests and stuff."
     "What's going on?" Earl asked.
     "Can you come by the store when you get off? I need to talk with you."
     Earl wondered what Perris was hiding, or afraid to talk about on the phone. It wouldn't be a big deal to go to the liquor store and he got off work in half an hour. "Yeah, I can do that."
     "Cool. See ya then," and Perris hung up abruptly.
     Earl stared at his phone a minute before sighing and replacing it on his belt. He picked up his helmet, slipped it back on, and pretended to work until he was done for the day. He was wondering about what Perris had said, or hadn't said, and was more worried about Scott than he had been ever since the fight. It couldn't be good news if he was in the hospital, and it didn't sound encouraging that doctors were running tests.
     Earl wasn't completely sure that what Perris had told him was the truth, though. He may have been waiting until Earl came into the store to give him the real story, but Earl couldn't imagine why Perris would call and give him mysterious bad news.
     He quickly got in his car and dug out the vial, tapping a small helping of the white powder onto the back of his hand. Earl didn't enjoy snorting speed, and especially hated doing so with his nose in this shape, but it was quick and he wanted to get to Keg and Bottle Liquor as soon as he could.
     He replaced the bottle in his pocket and drove off, straight down the street. He lit a cigarette and reached the liquor store before it was halfway done. He stubbed it out on the ground on his way in, and saw Perris behind the counter, talking with Mort.
     Perris looked nearly as bad as Earl felt. He didn't look as if he'd slept at all since Earl had seen him last, and while he had no bruises, he looked completely beat and haggard. He hadn't even shaved, Earl noticed as he approached the counter, and his normally well-mannered hair was disheveled and wild.
     Earl caught Perris's eye and it looked to Earl as if he was being asked to hold on. He wandered over to the cooler and spent some time looking at all the beers before he heard the conversation behind him stop. He grabbed what he'd come in for, two tall cans of malt liquor, and walked up to the counter.
     "Hey," he said as he laid the cans on the counter.
     "Is that it?" Perris asked. Earl saw him glance over at Mort, who was watching the transaction with all the passion that one would display watching someone by a newspaper from a rack on the street.
     "Got any matches?" Earl asked, stalling for time.
     "Um, yeah, sure." Perris reached under the counter and threw a couple books of matches on the counter. "That it?"
     Earl shrugged. "Guess so." Perris rang up the sale and took Earl's money and made some change. He was working, Earl noticed, quite slowly and with much deliberation. It wasn't clear to Earl if he should ask Perris anything or not, not with Mort right there. Earl had a feeling that Mort didn't like him, and he didn't want to get Perris in any trouble.
     Earl thanked him and walked out of the store, muttering aloud something about going home and watching TV. Since Perris knew where he lived, he would just wait there and see what he had to say when he came by. If he got a break or something, Earl felt that Perris would come over then.
     As he got in the car and got ready to drive off, Perris came out of the store with an armful of empty cardboard beer flats. He signalled Earl with his head, dashed around the corner, and came sprinting over to Earl's car.
     "Thanks," Perris said. "Ya gonna be home?"
     Earl nodded.
     "I'll be by in about an hour, at my lunch. Be there," he said, and Earl wasn't sure if it was a threat, a warning, or a plea.
     "That's where I'll be," Earl said, and drove next door to the Single Spire Motel. He knew better than to expect a parking place in the lot, so he pulled over on the street right in front of the office. As he got out of the car he looked up at the tower room, his desire, and it's black windows looked hollow and sad. The entire motel seemed to be hiding, to be holding its breath and attempting to be unnoticed, and Earl found himself tiptoeing across the gravel lot and into his room. Once inside, he exhaled, and realized he'd been holding his breath and Earl had no idea why.
     His room felt close, felt shuttered, and as if it were holding a secret from him. He checked, and nothing was amiss, but nothing felt right, either, and Earl settled in for an uncomfortable wait.