* * *
Eddie’s feet felt like cement blocks. He felt Ray’s steady hand on his right shoulder blade. “Stay here, Ed,” Ray said. “I’ll be back.”
Eddie watched as Ray moved swiftly towards the front door of the bar, but still couldn’t move. Even as it came closer, the scream of the siren from the firehouse three blocks down became muffled as images of Eddie’s father came flooding back.
* * *
He had just turned twenty nine when Pearl came out of the bathroom with a pregnancy test stick in her hand and an unmistakably blissful smile on her pretty face. Eddie had lifted her off her feet and swung her in circles, the two of them crying, laughing, and embracing until Pearl thought to share the news with their families.
“You call your father,” she had suggested. “I think it will be nicer for him to hear it from you.”
“Hey, Pop,” Eddie had said when his father answered the phone. “Got some news for you.”
“Yeah, son, me too,” his father had replied. “I’m glad you called.”
“Really?” Eddie wondered. “What is it, Dad?”
“Ah, it’s nothin’, son,” his father had assured him. “You go on now and tell me what it is you called for.”
“Well,” Eddie began, slightly unsettled, “Pearl and I just found out we’re gonna have a baby, Pop. Pearl thinks she’s about six or seven weeks along, so it looks like we’ve got a while to go--seven months, about, maybe a bit more. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Seven months, huh?” Eddie’s father had asked. “Well, how ‘bout that,” he added with a chuckle.
“It’s great, Pop, isn’t it?” Eddie asked. “Pearl’s really excited,” he added. “In fact, she’s nearly dyin’ to call her family, but she wanted me to tell you first. So tell me Dad, what is it that you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Oh, don’t you go makin’ mountains outta molehills, son,” Eddie’s father reassured him. “It’s nothin’ at all. I just wanted to ask you about some stuff I came across in the garage that you left behind when you moved. It’s no big deal, son. We can talk about it some other time.”
Eddie had been concerned. “But Dad, you said before that you had some news. It sounded like you--”
Eddie’s father cut him off. “What’d I tell you, boy? Don’t go worryin’ yourself about nothin’ now. Not when you got such fine news to celebrate and share with everyone. You go ahead now, and let Pearl make those calls. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay, Dad,” Eddie consented. “I’ll come by this weekend to look through that stuff. We can talk then, if there’s--” But Eddie’s father cut him short again.
“Congratulations, son. I’m awful proud of you,” he continued. “Always have been.”
“Thanks, Pop,” Eddie had answered. “That means a lot to me. I’ll see you this weekend.”
“Take care, now, son. Bye-bye.” And with that, he hung up.
* * *
Eddie and Pearl had called everyone, most of them after her visit to the obstetrician to confirm her pregnancy. That Sunday, Eddie and Ace, his English Setter, had driven over to his father’s place in his old maroon pickup. Ace barked as they turned into the driveway, and jumped over Eddie’s lap and out of the truck when Eddie opened the driver’s side door.
“Dad?” Eddie called as he walked around the side of the house. Ace disappeared into the garage and came out seconds later, sniffing the gravel and spring flowers in the high grass hedging the house as he trotted over to the back door.
“Pop? You in here?” Eddie asked loudly as he knocked on the door. “Dad, it’s me. You home?” Ace whined and scratched at the door, nudging it open as Eddie turned the knob.
Eddie’s father was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table. His body was slumped forward, his face resting on one cheek in a puddle of blood on the yellow vinyl tablecloth. His left arm hung limply by his side, his right hand still gripped around the dark wooden handle of a nickel plated revolver in his lap.
* * *
He hadn’t left a note, but during the wake, Dr. Enfield, an old family friend, took Eddie by the arm and gently led him into a quiet corner of the room and explained that he had recently diagnosed Eddie’s father with terminal lung cancer.
“I begged him to bring you in so I could speak to you together after I ran the last set of tests,” Dr. Enfield recounted, “but he insisted I give him an idea of how long he had.”
“And?” Eddie asked.
“Six months. Maybe more, but I wanted to be honest with him about the worst case scenario,” the doctor said sadly. “He was a good man, Ed. I missed him before he even left my office that day.”
* * *
Following the funeral, Pearl had gone to bed with some cramps and miscarried overnight. Ray closed the bar down for Eddie, and they didn’t reopen until the first leaves changed colors. When he finally had the countenance to clean out his father’s house, Eddie stared at the black rotary phone for hours, remembering the last words he and his father shared.
* * *
Back at The Eddie Bear, Eddie stayed behind the bar until the man’s body was removed from the sidewalk outside. The police came in behind Ray and questioned him and Eddie for some time. Gerry had gone to have dinner with Pearl after the emergency technicians from the ambulance declared the man dead. Ray and Eddie closed up the bar late, and when Eddie returned to open it the next morning, the concrete in front of the bar’s front doors had been cleaned.
Just past noon, later that day, Eddie and Gerry shared a pitcher of beer, which was normally something Eddie wouldn’t have done. Under the circumstances, however, it felt like a good idea.
Ray walked in carrying the local newspaper under his arm, and laid it on the bar between Gerry and Eddie. He filled the men’s glasses with what was left of the beer in the pitcher and sat down beside Gerry.
“You boys are not gonna believe what’s in here,” he said, tapping the paper with his pointer finger. “I just found out what happened with our friend yesterday. Are you two ready for this?”
Gerry leaned forward in his stool. “What the hell happened, Ray? What is it?”
“Ed? You alright with this?”
Eddie nodded. “What does it say, Ray?”
* * *
“Well,” Ray began, “according to the article in here, the guy--Cooper was his name--was out on a boat trip out along the coast with a couple other fellows about a month ago. Something went wrong with the boat--the motor was disabled, somehow, and they were stranded,” Ray said, shaking his head. “These guys had nothin’,” Ray continued. “They weren’t planning on being gone long, and they had no supplies. “After a few days in the sun, they were hurtin’,” he went on, “and one of them was sick. Real sick. The guy in here yesterday, Cooper, was bad, too, I guess,” Ray said. “He was dehydrated, weak, and could hardly move off the floor of the boat. But he was still better off than the other guy,” Ray explained. “Poor son of a bitch died.”
“No way,” Gerry groaned. “So what happened then?” Eddie came around the bar and sat down next to Gerry.
Ray resumed with the story. “So the third guy--this guy,” Ray reiterated, pointing to the paper, “figures the only way they’re gonna survive is to...” Ray trailed off, shaking his head and covering his mouth with his hand.
“What?” Gerry cried. “Is to what, Ray? What the hell happened?”
Ray sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “He said he saw a few reptiles--some turtles, a few snakes. Mind you, they had no fishing gear, so the poor guy apparently tried like hell to catch a snapper with his hands. They were starving,” Ray reminded them. “And he knew our buddy Cooper wasn’t going to last long in the shape he was in. So he--he cut into the dead fellow. Says he had to. Otherwise, he claims they would have all died.”
Gerry moaned. “Good lord, Ray! Are you shittin’ me here, or what?” He clutched his stomach with his arms and keeled over, his head close to his knees. “That’s s
ickest thing I’ve ever heard. God almighty!”
Eddie was nearly speechless. “Damn,” he said. “So then what? Because I still don’t get why the guy came in here yesterday, after all that, and did what he did outside my bar.”
“Well,” Ray continued, “according to this fellow, our friend Cooper wouldn’t have none of what he had to offer--you know, from their late friend in the boat. So he had to lie outright to the poor guy, and tell him he was feedin’ him a snapper--says that’s the only way he could get him to eat. Otherwise, he never would have made it to the day they were rescued by another boat.”
“I still don’t get it,” Gerry said, baffled. “What does that have to do with your soup, Ray?”
Eddie stood up from the stool and looked out through the glass of the front doors, into the sun hovering over the smokestacks, nodding in apparent understanding.
“Well,” he said, “My guess is he took one bite of Ray’s snapper soup and realized it didn’t taste much like what he had on the boat.”
END
God Be Damned
by T.G. Arsenault
Originally from Auburn, Maine, T.G. Arsenault retired from the U. S. Air Force after 22 years. He has received a BS in Workforce Education, Training and Development from Southern Illinois University and a MS in Management from Troy University.
His first novel, FORGOTTEN SOULS, was published in November, 2005 by Five Star Publishing. His short fiction has also appeared in multiple online venues and the anthologies Octoberland, R.A.W. - Random Acts of Weirdness, Made You Flinch: Stories to Unnerve, Disturb, and Freak You Out, and most recently, The Gallows. His short story "The Eighth Day," also received an honorable mention in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Sixteenth Annual Collection.
T.G. Arsenault resides in Western New York. His latest novel, BLEEDING THE VEIN, is available now from Gallows Press.
Visit the author at: www.tg-arsenault.com
Goddamn, it wasn't my day!
Thick and heavy, the air loomed redolent of bacon, eggs, and sausage, usually a welcome smell. I observed those around me, though they were the furthest from my thoughts. People ate, people conversed, people laughed. 2:00 a.m. and they kept coming in, freshly drunk and obnoxious. I sat alone in a back corner of the restaurant's smoking section, waiting, thinking about the previous day, a smile never to appear on my unshaven face. Teetering on a crooked edge, a partly crushed pack of cigarettes sat on the table before me. Eyes bloodshot from being awake at this hour and shedding a few tears—yes, tears—I waited patiently.
At first.
Thirty minutes had gone by before a fucking asshole of a waiter had even asked if I'd been helped. Thirty motherfucking minutes! I knew exactly how long I'd been sitting there. I didn't wear a watch—didn't need one. Ten Winstons were stubbed heavily into the amber ashtray in front of me. Roughly three minutes for each cigarette, fifteen drags each—right down to the filter. Chain smoking.
I gave thanks for still having the freedom to smoke in this particular restaurant. Everything else about it wasn’t worth a shit.
I didn't answer the waiter the first time he asked for my order, maybe to give him a lingering taste of his own medicine. Or perhaps, just to squeeze every bit of cockiness out of a head that seemed too small for his venous biceps and chiseled abs, both revealed beneath a shirt that appeared purposely small.
"Excuse me, SIR, have you been helped?" he said in a voice complete with an irritating nasal whine. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and looked everywhere but at me, his customer. From somewhere below the table, I heard his foot tapping quickly. I only looked at the open menu bent and trembling within my gnarled fingers, waiting for him to come to his own fucking conclusion.
I refused to answer until he looked directly at me.
After three long drags pulled from my cigarette and exhaled into his squinting, beady eyes, he did. Gritting my teeth, trying my damnedest not to scream into those mocking eyes, I ordered a large breakfast and a pot of coffee through lips stretched tight across my teeth.
First licking the tip of a pencil, he scribbled down my order then walked away with a stride that hobbled on thick thighs.
I shook my head and continued to wait, looking at the other customers. They were all eating—even the drunks who’d staggered in after me. I watched my waiter move between tables, whispering into the ears of his coworkers every now and then, spending more time in one girl’s ear than the rest. His eyes met mine on more than one occasion and a sneer formed upon his face as if I was some sort of festering inconvenience.
Asshole!
I tried to cast him out of my thoughts, but could think of nothing other than wiping the grin off his face with a little help from the pavement outside. I pulled another crooked cigarette out of my pack, contemplated the effects it could have on my life, and realized it just didn’t matter. With a quick flick of a Zippo, I had the cigarette lit and half smoked within one long, depressing drag.
A moonless night pressed against the exterior of the windows, giving the impression that the people inside were the only people left on the face of this godforsaken Earth. Dim reflections of those inside danced upon this makeshift mirror, their shapes distorted by the glass. Beyond that, not even the headlights of a vehicle penetrated the thick blanket of darkness.
If only my dumb-ass waiter knew my story …
* * *
The tumor in my head was the size of a lemon. A big one. Two months to live at best. Why couldn't it have been a tumor in one of my lungs? So far, I still had two of those. Or even gangrene? I could do without the use of one appendage.
Besides the tumor, something was growing alongside it, as if it were feeding on the tumor, increasing in size just as fast. A pool of magnifying shadows, it had an abstract shape of its own.
And a pulse.
The entire staff of the hospital had huddled around the pictures of my brain clipped against a fluorescent light and determined a pulse existed in the mysterious shape through the change in its size every few seconds, each caught on a different frame.
I couldn't stand looking at their faces while they perused the images with wrinkled brows and jaws a little too slack to make me feel comfortable. And when they tried to explain things, they never seemed able to look me in the eyes. They looked only at each other or their shuffling feet, hoping someone would come up with a grain of truth they could transform into cryptic babble I would swallow like a candy-coated lozenge.
I knew better.
* * *
I hadn't been home since three o'clock yesterday afternoon.
After leaving the doctor's office, numb and in disbelief, I had driven around town for hours, images of X-rays and CT scans going through my diseased mind, only stopping for gas when necessary. The sun set and hookers perched on the city’s darkest corners. I almost invited a fairly attractive brunette inside my car, but doubt if I could've erected anything other than her curiosity.
I was only feeling desperate. And alone. So I drove. And drove some more, going over the last few months, trying to make sense out of the nonsensical, bring order to something that had become overwhelmingly chaotic.
The nails on each of my fingers and toes had been growing at feverish speeds. Those were the initial symptoms—weird, I know. At first, it was no big deal. I chewed my fingernails constantly, so I didn't realize how fast they were really growing. I also cut my toenails once a week, enough to keep any ingrowns from puncturing the sensitive skin of my big toes. I started cutting them every other day when I realized my socks had more holes in them than usual. My nails were starting to become stronger, thicker, and the nastiest shade of yellow I have ever seen; a color I’d normally associate with something near death, exhaling its final fetid breath. Minor headaches quickly turned into explosions of pain. The sudden pale color of my face painted a reflection of the man struggling to live inside its ghastly shell.
My wife had scheduled yesterday’s appointment knowing damn well that I wouldn't do it
and followed up by calling the doctor's office to be sure I actually showed.
She hadn't heard from me since.
I went in for a manicure, a tan, and something to get rid of these fucking headaches, but came out with something strange growing inside of me and feeling like a dying misfit toy. The doctor wanted me to stay away from any stressful situations, as my condition could increase dramatically. I tried to appreciate the irony of what he was saying—my visit to his quaint little office sure didn’t help matters. Storming out of his office, I did my best to ignore the violent spikes of pain in the back of my skull and the shadows starting to breed and creep along the shrinking boundaries of my vision.
I couldn't go home until I found a way to break the news to my pregnant wife that our new baby would have no father.
That hurt the most.
Where the hell was God in all this? Forget the starving children in third world countries, natural disasters, the depleting ozone layer, or the threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of infidels. And praise be to the almighty fucking God, forget about the constant reminders of Armageddon coming from televised saviors.
This was about me!
* * *
Three additional smokes added to my collection and creating some semblance of a pyramid with the other stubbed filters in the ashtray, my waiter returned.
With the wrong fucking order!
I told him so with a steaming whisper and spat what I thought was a fingernail onto the table then wiped it off with a lazy brush of my arm.
His eyes rolled again as he snatched the plate off my table and mumbled something beneath his breath. A thousand spiders seemed to crawl just below my skin. I felt like kicking this steroid-loving waiter square in the nuts. Instead, I merely smiled and he ran back to the kitchen, face almost as white as my own.
Widowmakers: A Benefit Anthology of Dark Fiction Page 59
