A POMPOUS, THUMBSUCKING ASS
Bernard absorbed The Admiral's abuse from the doorway of his study, looking like one of Medusa's cursed. Dried dust and toilet water coated Bernard hair to hide in shit-smelling plaster. Only the blood snaking down from shrapnel cuts and the cracks at his joints revealed the man under the statue. That and the stink.
"First you fail to kill the library bitch and now this! They. Got. Away." The Admiral could hardly draw breath for the words, hatred burning the flesh from his bones. Soon he'd be nothing but a pile of bleached ribs and a phrenologist's dream of a skull.
Bernard scratched the nape of his neck. Plaster fluttered to the ground. "The chubby one pulled something out of his pants right before your paid inmate started the dinner riot. Some sort of rod."
"A rod?" The Admiral swiveled to Bernard. "What kind of rod? Why did you let anything into their cells?"
"I didn't let anything in," Bernard said. "They must have already had them. I had a gun, why did I care?"
The Admiral took a deep breath and plunged a hand into his peacoat. Remnant instinct from his childhood blankie, he rubbed its silk lining between his fingers. Magnetism pulled his thumb toward his mouth. But not with the oaf here, the Admiral thought. He redirected his thumb, made a great show of smoothing his moustache.
"Okay," the Admiral said. "Okay. Go on."
"Well, they flushed the rods and the toilets exploded." Bernard closed his eyes against the expected backlash.
"Exploding toilets!"
Bernard opened his mouth but the words were superglue, his voicebox a useless lump. He swallowed hard.
The Admiral's face washed purple. His arthritic fingers snapped. A guttural wail rumbled from deep in his chest. He turned his wrinkled face to the frames hanging over his desk. The civic awards, the publishing honors. Each gold-sealed parchment seemed to mock him. Look how far the mighty have fallen. The Admiral punched the typewriter to life and jammed a hand into his coat.
"Do you know the trouble you've caused? The money you’ve wasted? You oaf! You stupid mutant! That was our one shot! All my work, and you let them have contraband? I swear, Bernard, why my father splashed his seed into your whore of a mother still puzzles me."
The jab sliced Bernard like a blade. With a swift pivot, Bernard thundered down the darkened hall. The front door called to him. If that pompous, thumbsucking ass was going to speak ill of Mother (God rest her soul), then the Admiral could go sit on a tack.
"You know what?" Bernard roared with animal force, rattling pictures hanging in the hallway. He tore at the front door, icy air gusting sweet into his lungs. "You go to hell Sebastian! I don't need you! I'll finish this myself!"
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