Taken By The Bull

Steve turned back to her, sighing deeply, as he ran a hand over his face. “It’s Seth.”

“Is it?” Staci peered around him, and saw a familiar figure standing out by the fence; his arms were raised, and he appeared to be – literally – serenading the moon. If it wasn’t so unexpected, it would have been rather funny. “Oh, it is him! I wonder what’s wrong?”

“Hell if I know.” Steve shrugged. “I guess, I gotta go find out. Thank the Lord I stopped to put on some pants, or this would’ve been really awkward.” He glanced back at her over his shoulder, his expression serious. “Stay in here, okay Staci? This is likely to be one of those ‘family matters’. You go finish your coffee, I’ll be right back.”

He left the door ajar as he headed back out into the night, and for about half a second Staci considered following his advice. Only half a second, though. Then she was on the move, past the kitchen, into the hallway with the windows that looked out over the side of the farm where Seth was standing. She stopped along the way to snatch up her bag, and her phone was in her hand in a moment; living in the city as she did, it was second nature to want a line available to the cops should everything blow up suddenly in everyone’s faces.

She cracked the window open quietly, staying hidden behind the heavy curtain; the sound of the night drifted in, and could she could hear every word of the greeting that Seth called out to Steve as he approached. “Heeey. Bro! How’re you doing? Everything doing good for you? I bet it is!”

Steve sounded one part exasperated, one part worried. “Seth, you’re drunk.” Even from the window, Staci could hear that this was a premier example of ‘stating the obvious’. Seth’s speech was slurred, blurring around the edges, the words running into each other; and his mood seemed around four hundred per cent more expansive than usual. Plus, he’d just been belting out an off-key ballad to no-one.

She peered through the crack in the curtains, and watched.

“Yes!” Seth seemed rather pleased with himself, pinwheeling his arms unsteadily. “Yes, I am drunk!”

Steve sighed, his balled up hands coming to rest on his hips. He looked a little like a parent regarding a toddler caught in the throes of a tantrum. “Now, you know you get a little antsy when you’ve been hitting the bottle too hard-”

“Cut the san… sancti… sanctimoniousact! You think I don’t know all that… sh*t? I just – I needed it. You know? What’m I talking about? You know!” Seth reached out and clapped Steve companionably on the shoulder like an old drinking buddy.

Steve was not amused. “C’mon, we’ll get you inside, get some coffee into you.”

“I don’t want no stinking coffee!”

“Well, now… That’s unfair.” Steve seemed rather more upset by this, than the accusation of sanctimony. “I make very good coffee, as it happens.”

“No, no! I meant – you know what I meant! It’s from that movie. The stupid movie with the beans and the – the farting. Remember? We used to watch it all the time when we were kids.” Seth grew still suddenly, his hands falling to his side; and he looked a little like the childhood self he was recalling, uncertain and a little lost. “We used to watch it with Dad.”

“Ah, I remember.” Steve’s voice grew low, and he said something that Staci couldn’t quite catch, before saying “Well, perhaps we should watch it again some time? But right now, we could do with getting you sobered up.”

“I miss Dad.” Seth put his hands up over his eyes; and Staci felt her heart crack for him, a little. She knew that feeling, and knew it well. “I miss Mom.”

“Yeah. I know, Seth. Me too. But all of this won’t help, and you know that.”

Seth peered at Steve from between his fingers, swaying unsteadily on his feet. “When did you start – when you did you start being all – thinking you’re better’n me? When did that happen, Steve?”

“I don’t think that, bro.” It was obvious that Steve was taken aback by the sudden whiplash change in mood. “I really don’t think that.”

“You do! Always getting the high scores on the ride. Always getting the attention. Always getting the girl. Getting Dad’s ring. Even that! Why’re you always the favorite? Why are you the one who gets to be on TV?” Seth still sounded like a child; but now an angry one, brimming with unfettered resentment. “Fu*k you, Steve. Fu*k. You.”

Steve paused, casting a glance back at the house over his shoulder. Staci instinctively ducked back behind the wall, even though there was surely no way that he could see her through the curtain. “Is that what this is about? About Staci wantin’ to run a story on me?”

“NO!” Seth stamped his foot; the effort nearly unbalanced him. “I mean, Yes! Sort of! But it’s about her! No, no – not her. The other her!”

“The other…?

“Yeah, the other-her! Dawn! You know – she keeps callin’ me.” Seth paused, his eyes fixed searchingly on Steve’s, as if he were a child asking where people go when they die. “She calls me all the goddamn time.”

“I can see why that might drive you to drink.”

Seth wasn’t about to be derailed; he continued on as if Steve had never spoken. “Askin’ me questions! ‘What’s Steve doing? Has Steve said anything? Who’s the new girl? Where’s her hotel? Does Steve like her?’ Steve-Steve-Steve-Steve! It’s driving me batsh*t! I knew – when you started on with that news girl, I’d never hear the end of it!”

Oh, Staci thought, biting her lip. Suddenly she felt like a stranger, standing in this hallway; a total stranger, and an unwanted one at that.

“Well, that’s nothing to be blaming me for.” Steve was telling his brother. “Just don’t be talking to Dawn no more, and you’ll be fine.”

“Yeah. Yeah I guess.” Seth seemed to deflate like a balloon, and started walking towards the house with the unsteady gait of a baby animal. “Ignore, block. Yay.”

Suddenly he wheeled around and faced Steve; or rather, he tried to. Having overshot the mark by a good forty-five degrees he had to pivot slowly back around again, like the world’s most ungainly ballerina. “She sent people after your girlfriend, you know.” His voice was loud, yet breathy, serious and somehow restrained; it seemed a little like he was trying to whisper, and failing miserably. “And when she told me that, I said she was, um. Being a psycho. She threw a book at my face.”

Oh my GOD! Staci’s hand pressed against her mouth. Dawn sent those guys to chase and scare me, and maybe beat me up? Dawn did that? Of course – now that she thought about it, it made perfect sense. Who else knew what she was doing here in Biloxi, who else had any reason to resent her, at all? And Seth just said, she’d been asking about the hotel. Of course, it made perfect sense… Staci just couldn’t believe that Dawn would be that desperate, and go that far.

“Dawn was behind that whole mess?” Steve put his hand to his face and groaned deeply. “Damn! I hoped that wasn’t true, but I just knew it. In my bones.”

You didn’t say anything about it to me! Staci thought furiously; and then checked herself, remembering that Steve was clearly used to dealing with girlfriends who walked the line between ‘clingy’ and ‘obsessive’. He was probably accustomed to keeping his mouth shut until he was absolutely sure of his facts.

“It was…” Seth’s voice trailed off as he seemed to lose focus, staring at his feet; then his head snapped back up as he remembered what his point had been – or perhaps, he came up with a new one – and seized on it as gratefully as a drowning man seizes on a dangling rope. “It was because of you! I’m always being – being pulled into your sh*t! Remember when Bobby Dolan was pissed at you for the… the… thing. With the shoe? And he punched me in the nose?”

“Yeah, I remember.” It sounded as if Steve didn’t particularly relish that memory. “But what does that have to do with-”

Then, out of nowhere, Seth punched him in the shoulder. Perhaps, he was aiming for the face, and missed.

“What?” Steve staggered back, clutching his upper arm. “What was that for?!”

“I know what you did! I KNOW!”