Read I Am the Messenger for Free Online

was denied.) I sit like normal in my kitchen with the Doorman and the Ace of Diamonds. The newspaper’s on the table, folded over. There’s a sweet picture of the gunman as a child. All I can see are his eyes.
    Days pass, and gradually it works. I forget about him.
    Really, I think, what’s a guy like that going to do?
    It makes more sense to look forward, and I slowly work my way toward the addresses on the card.
    First up is 45 Edgar Street.

    I try to go on a Monday but don’t have the courage.
    I make a second attempt on Tuesday but don’t manage to leave the house, reading an awful book as an excuse.
    On Wednesday, however, I actually make it out onto the street and head across town.
    It’s nearly midnight when I turn onto Edgar Street. It’s dark, and the streetlights there have been rocked. Only one survives, and even that one winks at me. It’s light that limps from the globe.
    I know this neighborhood quite well because Marv used to come here a lot.
    He had a girl here, on one of these slummy streets. Her name was Suzanne Boyd, and Marv was with her back in school. When the family picked up and left, almost without a word, he was devastated. Originally he bought that shitbox car to go and look for her, but he didn’t even make it out of town. The world was too big, I think, and Marv gave up. That was when he became extra tight and argumentative. I think he decided he’d only care about himself from that moment on. Maybe. I don’t know. I never give Marv too much thought. It’s a policy I have.
    As I walk, I remember all of that for a while, but it disappears as I edge forward.
    I make it to the street’s end, where number 45 is. I walk past it, on the other side of the road, and head for the trees that stand up and lean all over each other. I crouch there and wait. The lights are off in the house and the street is quiet. Paint flakes from the fibro and one of the gutters is rusting away. The flyscreen has holes bitten into it. The mosquitoes are feasting on me.
    It better not be long, I think.
    Half an hour passes and I nearly fall asleep, but when the time comes, my heartbeat devours the street.
    A man comes stumbling over the road.
    A big man.
    Drunk.
    He doesn’t see me as he trips up the porch steps and struggles with the key before going in.
    The hallway explodes with light.
    The door slams.
    “You up?” he slurs. “Get your lazy arse out here now!”
    My heart begins to suffocate me. It keeps rising until I can taste it. I can almost feel it beating on my tongue. I tremble, pull myself together, then tremble again.
    The moon escapes from the clouds, and I suddenly feel naked. Like the world can see me. The street is numb and silent but for the giant man who’s stumbled home and talks forcefully to his wife.
    Light materializes now in the bedroom as well.
    Through the trees I can see the shadows.
    The woman is standing up in her nightie, but the hands of the man take her and pull it from her, hard.
    “I thought you were waiting up,” he says. He has her by the arms. Fear has me by the throat. Next he throws her down to the bed and undoes his belt and pants.
    He’s on her.
    He puts himself in.
    He has sex with her and the bed cries out in pain. It creaks and wails and only I can hear it. Christ, it’s deafening. Why can’t the world hear? I ask myself. Within a few moments I ask it many times. Because it doesn’t care, I finally answer, and I know I’m right. It’s like I’ve been chosen. But chosen for what? I ask.
    The answer’s quite simple:
    To care .
     
    A little girl appears on the porch.
    She cries.
    I watch.
    There’s only the light now. No noise.
    There’s no noise for a few minutes, but it soon starts up again—and I don’t know how many times this man can do it in one night, but it’s certainly an achievement. It goes on and on as the girl sits there, crying.
    She must be about eight.
     
    When it finally ends, the girl gets up and goes inside. Surely this can’t