“Have you been drinking? What did you expect would happen?”
“I don’t know,” the boy said, so softly Kricorian could barely hear him. “I—I didn’t expect to—find a house with anyone awake—on this road.”
Kricorian let out a huge sigh. This was serious. The boy’s parents would have to be called, the police notified. One more day and his wife was going to let him contact the police about Newton. Mason? Was that the name the boy had given?
“I think we better clean you up. You’re covered with blood.”
“It’s not my blood. It’s Stevie’s. He was leaning out the window. I’m the driver. I killed them all.”
“I—I know,” said Kricorian, not sure how to answer. He went to get a bowl of water and some washcloths. When he returned, the boy was smoking a cigarette, rubbing the ashes into his pants, and watching television.
“What—what are you doing?”
“I’m watching The Bird Man of Alcatraz starring Burt Lancaster. I thought maybe it would calm me down.”
“Listen. I better make those calls. Or you should. You’ll get into big trouble otherwise. And you should be checked out in an Emergency Room—you don’t know for sure you haven’t been hurt. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t smoke in the house.”
Kricorian reached over for the telephone receiver, but the boy’s bloody hand got there first.
“Say, what is this?” Kricorian asked, staring at the boy who was now holding the phone.
“This? This is—a cigarette,” the boy laughed, exhaling a cloud of stinging smoke in Kricorian’s face.
“What—what’s going?” Kricorian cried, his eyes reddening.
“What’s going on?” said the boy.
“Listen, stop.”
“Listen, stop,” the boy mimicked.
“You better . . .”
The boy rose suddenly and gripped Kricorian around the neck. “I better what?”
“Stop . . .” wheezed Kricorian, the gas in his stomach burning out in a long humiliating fart.
The boy chuckled and shoved the man onto the couch. He walked stiffly to the kitchen and returned with a sponge from off the sink. Slowly, methodically, he wiped the television screen. “Fly specks,” he said curtly. Then he marched back to the kitchen and flung open one of the veneer cabinets. A jar of Best Foods Mayonnaise the size of a PTA coffee urn confronted him.
“What the hell’s this?”
“It’s—it’s a joke,” Kricorian fidgeted. “Friends—gave it to us.”
“You got anything to eat?”
“Look—in the fridge.”
“I’ll do that.” The boy blinked a bloody eye.
“Listen . . . what . . . are you going . . . to do . . . ?” Kricorian tried, hearing the quiver in his voice.
“What?” smiled the boy from the kitchen.
“What are you going to do?”
“What are you talking about?” the boy asked politely.
“Don’t jack around with me!” Kricorian bellowed.
The boy crossed the room in two enormous strides and smacked Kricorian open-handed, a blow that sent him flying over the ottoman.
“Do you know who won the war between the Hassocks and the Ottomans?” the boy grinned.
“W-what?”
“Shut up! You just do as you’re told. Jody and Kevin—and Stevie—they’re all dead. Don’t you see that? Me going to jail won’t help them. Nobody knows I was out with them—it’s Jody’s car. I pulled him over behind the wheel. Nobody knows anything. Except you. And you’re not going to breathe a word. Are you? Are you? They’re not coming back from the dead. And I’m not getting busted. You just forget I was ever here. Okay?”
“But!”
“No buts! You’ve never seen me.”
The boy turned and headed back to the kitchen. Then Kricorian made his move. From the counter he swiped a thin prong that had come with the self-basting turkey his wife had purchased the week before. He advanced toward the boy, pointing the sharp wire, sputtering.
“What do you mean by all this bull! What are you? There wasn’t any car accident! Don’t you think I know that? What’s going on with you? Tell me! What are you trying to pull? Where—where did you come from?”
A look of extreme exasperation crossed the boy’s face. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “I fucking don’t believe you!”
“Shhh!” Kricorian commanded. “You’ll wake my wife.”
“What’s the matter with you, man? You got a concussion or something? I’ve told you five times what happened. I was driving along, going home by myself—and you just ran out of the woods in your bathrobe. Like some madman. I tried to stop but I couldn’t hit the brakes in time. I had to swerve. Don’t you remember? I was going to use your phone.”
“Wait a minute,” interjected Kricorian. He had the prong poised against the stained neck of the tall boy. But he pressed too hard, and a bead of fresh blood appeared at the tip and ran down the wire. Kricorian burst out weeping. He staggered back to the EZ Boy, rocking it, rocking it until it sounded like it was going to break off.
“Don’t,” the boy whispered. “Please, don’t.”
“Don’t go!” moaned Kricorian.
“I have to.”
“Oh,” sobbed the man, biting his tongue. “Well . . . couldn’t you . . . no. At least have a glass of milk. I poured one for you earlier. It’s—it’s just there.”
“Okay,” the boy said, stepping over to the counter.
He gulped at the lip of the glass. Some of the flakes of dried blood on his face dropped into the glass and swirled around. “Here, you finish it.”
Kricorian did and wiped his mouth. “Don’t go.”
But the boy was already at the door to the garage.
“You won’t come back, will you?”
The boy glanced down at his blood-spattered sneakers.
“I’ve never seen you,” Kricorian said. “I’ve never seen you.”
The bloody eyes blinked and vanished into the darkness of the garage. A second later, Kricorian heard the heavy clicking of the ungreased chain. He figured the boy had to roll to get out under the door as it was closing. But maybe not.
NIGHT FILMS
MIKE KLEINE
12 Months, 9 Days.
The woman with the yellow hair walks into the man’s apartment.
“What are you watching?” she asks.
“An airplane movie,” the man says.
“What’s an airplane movie?”
“A movie with airplanes, I guess. I’m not sure.”
“What else?” the woman with the yellow hair says to the man. “In the movie, besides the airplanes?”
“I don’t know, it’s only been airplanes so far.”
The woman with the yellow hair stands and watches some of the airplane movie.
The program is called World War II-era Airplanes.
She knows this because it is written in canary yellow Constantia font on the television screen.
On the program, World War II-era airplanes keep changing colors. And the sound of World War II-era airplanes is replaced by the sound of motorcycles.
For example: on the television screen, a Cardinal red Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 makes the sound of a Honda CB400N and gets shot down by a Navajo white Kawasaki Ki-100 making the sound of a Suzuki GSX 650F.
“Why are you watching airplanes,” the woman with the yellow hair says to the man, in the form of a question with no question mark.
“It seemed interesting, and I was bored.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, I was bored, but it might—it may get better, I don’t know.”
A gunmetal grey Kokusai Ku-8 appears on the television screen and makes several Lubero G5 sounds, before disappearing in a haze of dust and smoke.
The number 700 flashes, in bold white lettering across the television screen.
Then the credits.
The song ‘Stay’ by Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs begins to pla
y.
“It’s so infinite,” the woman with the yellow hair says, to the television screen.
17 Months, 29 Days.
The woman with the brown hair says she lost her shoes. Or, that someone took them. She isn’t sure.
She says, to the man from yesterday, “I lost my shoes.”
And the man from yesterday says, “Okay.”
This isn’t enough so the woman says, “No—not yesterday. I mean, maybe today, someone took my shoes.”
“Okay,” the man from yesterday says, again.
“I think.”
Again, the man from yesterday says, “Okay.”
“Let’s call some people,” the woman with the brown hair says.
First, the woman with the brown hair calls Allen, a friend from university, and Allen says, “No, I wouldn’t—don’t know where the shoes are.”
Then the man from yesterday calls Gérard, the personal trainer of the woman with the brown hair, and Gérard says, “If you have a space underneath your staircase in the house, then there is a chance the shoes maybe are in that place.”
The man from yesterday looks at the woman with the brown hair.
“I don’t have a stairs,” she says to the man from yesterday.
And to Gérard, he says, “I don’t have any stairs.”
Five minutes pass before the woman with the brown hair calls Emili, from work (not Emili from Leicester), and Emili says, “I’m a little tired right now, so call tomorrow, please.”
She hangs up.
“I feel nauseous,” the woman with the brown hair says, to the man from yesterday.
“I feel nothing, at the moment,” the man from yesterday says, to the woman with the brown hair.
The woman with the brown hair leaves and goes to take a nap.
During this time, the man from yesterday decides there is enough time to watch a program on the television.
An hour passes before the woman with the brown hair wakes.
She walks into the room and sees that the man from yesterday is watching a program on the television.
“What program is this?” the woman with the brown hair says to the man from yesterday.
“South America and Volcanoes.”
“We need to meet new people,” she says, to the man from yesterday.
“Yes, people,” he says, to the woman with the brown hair.
The woman with the brown hair squats and turns off the television.
The man from yesterday stands and dials a number to call Hannibal—actor and old friend to the woman with the brown hair—and Hannibal says, “I’m making a movie—post-modern on the road film genre—it’s all going to be done next week.”
The woman calls Twyla, from the nursing home, and Twyla says, “Patty’s dead. And her grandson is missing, so I don’t know where she is. I think this is important.”
The man from yesterday calls Antoine, famous physics professor from the university, and Antoine says, “There’s a book release party for my book this Thursday, if you can make it, I’d be delighted.”
The man from yesterday looks at the woman with the brown hair and says, “Antoine says there is a book release party this Thursday for his book, and he’d like for you to make it.”
“Tell him I’m not going,” she says.
The man from yesterday stares at the woman with the brown hair.
She stammers.
“I can’t,” the woman with the brown hair says to the man from yesterday. “Just—just make something up.”
“I can’t,” the man from yesterday says to Antoine.
“A pity,” Antoine says.
The man from yesterday presses the end button on the telephone.
The woman with the brown hair calls André, collector of old books and reviewer of published essays, and André says, “I’m flying to Morocco, this week. Something work-related, I think. Need some time off—to get away.”
The man from yesterday calls Hervé, who lives in Madrid, and Hervé says, “It’s nice out, today, the sun is here and I can feel it on my face. How are you? Serge tells me you left your shoes here last month. At the picnic. Near the gazebo he thinks, or something, remember.” And Hervé says something to Serge. “Yes, he says—Olive shoes?”
The man from yesterday looks at the woman with the brown hair and says, “Olive shoes?”
“No,” the woman says.
She looks down at the shoes on her feet.
“No,” the man from yesterday says to Hervé.
“The shoes are black.”
63 Months, 1 Day.
The man from now walks into the bedroom.
There is a note on the end table, from the woman with the dark hair, in easy-to-read cursive.
“Someone called and asked to speak with you but I told them you were out. I didn’t recognize the voice and I didn’t know who it was. I don’t really know many—any of your friends. So I asked the voice who is this and the voice said it’s not what is important. And then it asked me when you’d be coming home and I said I didn’t know— you never said when you’d return, but I didn’t tell the voice that, I thought it to myself—so, the voice kept asking for you and where you were and I kept saying I didn’t know but it didn’t seem to matter, what I said. In the end, I decided to tell the voice you had gone on a trip somewhere, alone, so I said, to Las Vegas, I think, and that you wouldn’t be coming back for something like two weeks. I might have said three, I don’t remember, maybe. But then the voice, whoever it was, said something else, I couldn’t hear too well, and it didn’t seem to appreciate much of what I was saying so, I gave up trying to understand and hung up. Hope everything’s fine though. Love you.”
108 Months, 16 Days.
The man from tomorrow walks into the living room.
The woman with the silver hair is sitting.
She is watching something on Netflix.
“I love you so much.”
“I love you too, baby,” the man from tomorrow says.
“No, I love you more than you know,” the woman with the silver hair says.
She looks away from the television screen so she can say this to the man and his face.
“How much more?” the man from tomorrow says.
“What, my love?”
“Your love, yes,” the man from tomorrow says. “How much more?”
“My love for you is as deep as the Euphrates.”
The woman with the silver hair says something else, and she is distracted by what is on the television screen, so she puts both arms out.
The man laughs.
“That’s horizontal baby,” the man from tomorrow says.
He walks over to the woman with the silver hair and pats her on the leg.
“You said deep.”
The woman with the silver hair laughs and says something else about the Euphrates.
The man from tomorrow sits.
“That’s the Nile baby, the Nile.”
He looks for the remote—the man from tomorrow—for maybe a minute, and then says to the woman with the silver hair, “What’s on the television?”
“Something about life.”
On the television: a confusing car chase.
“Have you ever heard the words: zombie caterpillar?”
“Zombie caterpillar.”
“Yeah, zombie caterpillar,” the man from tomorrow says.
A turquoise Nissan Ultima explodes and a hazelnut Toyota is driven into a swimming pool.
Smoke and blue strobe lights.
Like at the disco.
“Zombie caterpillars,” the man from tomorrow says. “When they are ready to die, zombie caterpillars, they climb to the tops of trees, so later, when they liquefy, they literally rain down onto others—the insects and plants—to infect them.”
On the television, a totally white 2010 Nissan Maxima SV Sport suddenly becomes a non-photo blue 2006 Nissan Titan King Cab and something by Angelo Badalamenti begins to play.
Smoke and blue st
robelights.
Like at the disco.
“How strange,” the woman with the silver hair says with a smile. “It’s like real life.”
THESE ARE THE FABLES
AMELIA GRAY
We were in the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts in Beaumont, TX when I told Kyle that I was pregnant. I figured I’d rather be out under God as I announced the reason for all my illness and misery.
I said to him, Well shit. Guess we’re having a baby.
“Lemme see,” Kyle said. I handed him the test and he squinted at it for a second before tossing it into a bush. A stranger set his coffee on the roof of his car and clapped. Kyle flipped him the double deuce. “People these days,” Kyle said.
I said that my mama will be happy.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “Your mama’s dead. And you’re forty years old. And I have a warrant out for my arrest. And I am addicted to getting tattoos. And our air conditioner’s broke. And you are drunk every day. And all I ever want to do is fight and go swimming. And I am addicted to Keno. And you are just covered in hair. And I’ve never done a load of laundry in my life. And you are still technically married to my drug dealer. And I refuse to eat beets. And you can’t sleep unless you’re sleeping on the floor. And I am addicted to heroin. And honest to God, you got big tits but you make a real shitty muse. And we are in Beaumont, Texas.”
I said, These are minor setbacks on the road to glory.
“And,” Kyle added, “the Dunkin’ Donuts is on fire.”
I looked, and indeed it was. Customers streamed from the doors, carrying wire baskets of bear claws, trucker hatfuls of sprinkled Munchkins. “Get out of here,” one of the patrons said. “The damn thing is going up.”
I said, Kyle. Listen. I said, We’re going to have to make it work, we’ll forge a life on our own and the children will lead us.
The wall of donuts had fueled a mighty grease fire. The cream-filled variety sizzled and popped and sprinkles blackened. Each donut ignited those within proximity. Their baskets glowed and charred. The coffee machine melted. The smoke was blue and smelled like a dead bird. I took Kyle’s coffee cup, popped the lid and vomited into it. I felt sadness, because all I had wanted that morning was a Munchkin and the absence of puke. I said that everything would be all right, that we were living in the best of all possible Dunkin’ Donuts parking lots.
In Heaven, Everything Is Fine: Fiction Inspired by David Lynch Page 32
