Page 382 - A Little Life: A Novel

He waited for a while, crying a bit, because he was tired and frightened
and because he was ready to go, he was ready to leave. Finally he rubbed
his eyes and began. He started with his left arm. He made the first cut,

which was more painful than he had thought it would be, and he cried out.
Then he made the second. He took another drink of the scotch. The blood
was viscous, more gelatinous than liquid, and a brilliant, shimmering oil-
black. Already his pants were soaked with it, already his grip was
loosening. He made the third.
When he was done with both arms, he slumped against the back of the
shower wall. He wished, absurdly, for a pillow. He was warm from the

scotch, and from his own blood, which lapped at him as it pooled around
his legs—his insides meeting his outsides, the inner bathing the outer. He
closed his eyes. Behind him, the hyenas howled, furious at him. Before him
stood the house with its open door. He wasn’t close yet, but he was closer
than he’d been: close enough to see that inside, there was a bed where he
could rest, where he could lie down and sleep after his long run, where he

would, for the first time in his life, be safe.

After they crossed into Nebraska, Brother Luke stopped at the edge of a
wheat field and beckoned him out of the car. It was still dark, but he could
hear the birds stirring, hear them talk back to a sun they couldn’t yet see. He
took the brother’s hand and they skulked from the car and to a large tree,
where Luke explained that the other brothers would be looking for them,
and they would have to change their appearance. He took off the hated
tunic, and put on the clothes Brother Luke held out for him: a sweatshirt

with a hood and a pair of jeans. Before he did, though, he stood still as Luke
cut off his hair with an electric razor. The brothers rarely cut his hair, and it
was long, past his ears, and Brother Luke made sad noises as he removed it.
“Your beautiful hair,” he said, and carefully wrapped the length of it in his
tunic and then stuffed it into a garbage bag. “You look like every other boy
now, Jude. But later, when we’re safe, you can grow it back, all right?” and

he nodded, although really, he liked the idea of looking like every other boy.
And then Brother Luke changed clothes himself, and he turned away to give
the brother privacy. “You can look, Jude,” said Luke, laughing, but he
shook his head. When he turned back, the brother was unrecognizable, in a
plaid shirt and jeans of his own, and he smiled at him before shaving off his