Arthur Kill

by Jeff Somers

About the Author: Jeff Somers (www.jeffreysomers.com) began writing by court order as an attempt to steer his creative impulses away from engineering genetic grotesqueries. He has published nine novels, including the Avery Cates Series (www.avery-cates.com) and the Ustari Cycle. He also writes about books for Barnes and Noble and Thoughtco.com and about the craft of writing for Writer’s Digest, which will publish his book on the craft of writing, Writing Without Rules in 2018. He lives in Hoboken with his wife.

Excerpt

He stood with his hands in his pockets, staring out at the water, smoking. The moon was huge in the sky, a dinner plate beaming down into the rippling water. It was quiet, and frigid; he thought the only source of heat for miles around was his Saint Luis cigar, a tiny red coal that firmed up when he drew on it and faded away when he let his hand drop to his side. It was a tough draw. He liked the taste, but keeping the thing lit was proving to be a chore.

The beach was his. Someone had left a pile of beer cans down closer to the water line, but they were long gone.

He walked a little closer to the water. He felt good. Light and energetic, filled with nervous energy. It was a familiar feeling—he remembered it as a kid before getting into scraps in the schoolyard, he remembered it when he’d been in the Marines, he remembered it on the job every time he stepped out of the precinct. He didn’t like it—it was nausea and a trembling excitement that always made him want to piss—but it was familiar, who he was.

He walked to the tide line and stuck the cigar in his mouth. Undoing his fly, he spread his legs and tried to piss into the ocean. As usual, nothing happened. He made another in a long series of mental notes to go see a doctor and find out if this was just getting old, or if it was cancer, or what.

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