North American Lake Monsters

by Nathan Ballingrud

  For now, Alex made no mention of the objects in his car or the hat in his pocket. He appeared to be more interested in Gwen, who was peering around the corner of the living room and regarding him with a suspicious and hungry eye, who seemed to intuit that from this large alien figure on her mama’s couch would come mighty upheavals.

  He was a man—that much Gwen knew immediately—and therefore a dangerous creature. He would make her mama behave unnaturally; maybe even cry. He was too big, like the giant in her storybook. She wondered if he ate children. Or mamas.

  Mama was sitting next to him.

  “Come here, Mama.” She slapped her thigh like Mama did when she wanted Gwen to pay attention to her. Maybe she could lure Mama away from the giant, and they could wait in the closet until he got bored and went away. “Come here, Mama, come here.”

  “Go on and play now, Gwen.”

  “No! Come here!”

  “She don’t do too well around men,” said Mama.

  “That’s okay,” said the giant. “These days I don’t either.” He patted the cushion next to him. “Come over here, baby. Let me say hi.”

  Gwen, alarmed at this turn of events, retreated a step behind a corner. They were in the living room, which had her bed in it, and her toys. Behind her, Mama’s darkened room yawned like a throat. She sat between the two places, wrapped her arms around her knees, and waited.

  “She’s so afraid,” Alex said after she retreated from view. “You know why?”

  “Um, because you’re big and scary?”

  “Because she already knows about possibilities. Long as you know there are options in life, you get scared of choosing the wrong one.”

  Toni leaned away from him and gave him a mistrustful smile. “Okay, Einstein. Easy with the philosophy.”

  “No, really. She’s like a thousand different people right now, all waiting to be, and every time she makes a choice, one of those people goes away forever. Until finally you run out of choices and you are whoever you are. She’s afraid of what she’ll lose by coming out to see me. Of who she’ll never get to be.”

  Toni thought of her daughter and saw nothing but a series of shut doors. “Are you drunk?”

  “What? You know I ain’t drunk.”

  “Stop talking like you are, then. I’ve had enough of that shit to last me my whole life.”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it.” Toni got up and rounded the corner to scoop up her daughter. “I got to bathe her and put her to bed. If you want to wait, it’s up to you.”

  She carried Gwen into the bathroom and began the nightly ministrations. She felt Donny’s presence too strongly tonight, and Alex’s sophomoric philosophizing sounded just like him when he’d had too many beers. She found herself halfway hoping that the obligations of motherhood would bore Alex, and that he would leave. She listened for the sound of the front door.

  Instead, she heard footsteps behind her and felt his heavy hand on her shoulder. It squeezed her gently, and his big body settled down beside her. He said something kind to Gwen and brushed a strand of wet hair from her eyes. Toni felt something move slowly in her chest, subtly yet with powerful effect, like Atlas rolling a shoulder.

  Gwen suddenly shrieked and collapsed into the water, sending a surge of water over them both. Alex reached in to stop her from knocking her head against the porcelain and received a kick in the mouth for his troubles. Toni shouldered him aside and jerked her out of the tub. She hugged her daughter tightly to her chest and whispered motherly incantations into her ear. After a brief struggle, Gwen finally settled into her mother’s embrace and whimpered quietly, turning her whole focus onto the warm, familiar hand rubbing her back, up and down, up and down, until, finally, her energy flagged, and she drifted into a tentative sleep.

  When Gwen was dressed and in her bed, Toni turned her attention to Alex. “Here, let’s clean you up.”

  She steered him back into the bathroom. She opened the shower curtain and pointed to the soap and the shampoo and said, “It smells kind of flowery, but it gets the job done,” and the whole time he was looking at her, and she thought: So this is it; this is how it happens.

  “Help me,” he said, lifting his arms over his head. She smiled wanly and began to undress him. She watched his body as she unwrapped it, and when he was naked she pressed herself against him and ran her fingers over his skin.

  Later, when they were in bed together, she said, “I’m sorry about tonight.”

  “She’s just a kid.”

  “No, I mean about snapping at you. I don’t know why I did.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I just don’t like to think about what could have been. There’s no point to it. Sometimes I think a person doesn’t have much to say about what happens to them anyway.”

  “I really don’t know.”

  She stared out the little window across from the bed and watched slate gray clouds skim across the sky. Behind them were the stars.

  “Ain’t you gonna tell me why you stole a car?”

  “I had to.”

  “But why?”

  He was silent for a little while. “It don’t matter,” he said.

  “If you don’t tell me, it makes me think you mighta killed somebody.”

  “Maybe I did.”

  She thought about that for a minute. It was too dark to see anything in the bedroom, but she scanned her eyes across it anyway, knowing the location of every piece of furniture, every worn tube of lipstick and leaning stack of lifestyle magazines. She could see through the walls and feel the sagging weight of the figurines on the shelves. She tried to envision each one in turn, as though searching for one that would act as a talisman against this subject and the weird celebration it raised in her.

  “Did you hate him?”

  “I don’t hate anybody,” he said. “I wish I did. I wish I had it in me.”

  “Come on, Alex. You’re in my house. You got to tell me something.”

  After a long moment, he said, “The guy I stole the car from. I call him Mr. Gray. I never saw him, except in dreams. I don’t know anything about him, really. But I don’t think he’s human. And I know he’s after me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have to show you.” Without another word, he got to his feet and pulled on his jeans. She could sense a mounting excitement in his demeanor, and it inspired a similar feeling in herself. She followed him out of her bedroom, pulling a long T-shirt over her head as she went. Gwen slept deeply in the living room; they stepped over her mattress on the way out.

  The grass was wet under their bare feet, the air heavy with the salty smell of the sea. Alex’s car was parked at the curb, hugging the ground like a great beetle. He opened the rear hatch and pulled the closest box toward them.

  “Look,” he said, and opened the box.

  At first, Toni could not comprehend what she was seeing. She thought it was a cat lying on a stack of tan leather jackets, but that wasn’t right, and only when Alex grabbed a handful of the cat and pulled it out did she realize that it was human hair. Alex lifted the whole object out of the box, and she found herself staring at what appeared to be the tanned and cured hide of a human being, dark empty holes in its face like some rubber Halloween mask.

  “I call this one Willie, ’cause he’s so well hung,” said Alex, and offered an absurd laugh.

  Toni fell back a step.

  “But there’s women in here too, all kinds of people. I counted ninety-six. All carefully folded.” He offered the skin to Toni, but when she made no move to touch it he started to fold it up again. “I guess there ain’t no reason to see them all. You get the idea.”

  “Alex, I want to go back inside.”

  “Okay, just hang on a second.”

 
She waited while he closed the lid of the box and slid it back into place. With the hide tucked under one arm, he shut the hatch, locked it, and turned to face her. He was grinning, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Okeydokey,” he said, and they headed back indoors.

  They returned quietly to the bedroom, stepping softly to avoid waking Gwen.

  “Did you kill all those people?” Toni asked when the door was closed.

  “What? Didn’t you hear me? I stole a car. That’s what was in it.”

  “Mr. Gray’s car.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Who is he? What are they for?” she asked; but she already knew what they were for.

  “They’re alternatives,” he said. “They’re so you can be somebody else.”

  She thought about that. “Have you worn any of them?”

  “One. I haven’t got up the balls to do it again yet.” He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and withdrew a leather sheath. From it he pulled a small, ugly little knife that looked like an eagle’s talon. “You got to take off the one you’re wearing, first. It hurts.”

  Toni swallowed. The sound was thunderous in her ears. “Where’s your first skin? The one you was born with?”

  Alex shrugged. “I threw that one out. I ain’t like Mr. Gray. I don’t know how to preserve them. Besides, what do I want to keep it for? I must not have liked it too much in the first place, right?”

  She felt a tear accumulate in the corner of her eye and willed it not to fall. She was afraid and exhilarated. “Are you going to take mine?”

  Alex looked startled, then seemed to remember he was holding the knife. He put it back in its sheath. “I told you, baby, I’m not the one who killed those people. I don’t need any more than what’s already there.” She nodded, and the tear streaked down her face. He touched it away with the back of his fingers. “Hey now,” he said.

  She grabbed his hand. “Where’s mine?” She gestured at the skin folded beside him. “I want one, too. I want to come with you.”

  “Oh, Jesus, no, Toni. You can’t.”

  “But why not? Why can’t I go?”

  “Come on now, you got a family here.”

  “It’s just me and her. That ain’t no family.”

  “You have a little girl, Toni. What’s wrong with you? That’s your life now.” He stepped out of his pants and, naked, pulled the knife from its sheath. “I can’t argue about this. I’m going now. I’m gonna change first, though, so you might not want to watch.” She made no move to leave. He paused, considering something. “I got to ask you something,” he said. “I been wondering about this lately. Do you think it’s possible for something beautiful to come out of an awful thing? Do you think a good life can redeem a horrible act?”

  “Of course I do,” she said quickly, sensing some second chance here, if only she said the right words. “Yes.”

  Alex touched the blade to his scalp just above his right ear and drew it in an arc over the crown of his head until it reached his left ear. Bright red blood crept down from his hairline in a slow tide, sending rivulets and tributaries along his jaw and his throat, hanging from his eyelashes like raindrops from flower petals. “God, I really hope so,” he said. He worked his fingers into the incision and began to tug.

  Watching the skin fall away from him, she was reminded of nothing so much as a butterfly struggling into daylight.

  She is driving west on I-10. The morning sun, which has just breached the horizon, flares in her rearview mirror. Port Fourchon is far behind her, and the Texas border looms. Beside her, Gwen is sitting on the floor of the passenger seat, playing with the Panama hat Alex left behind when he drove north. Toni has never seen the need for a car seat. Gwen is happier moving about on her own, and in times like this, when Toni feels a slow, crawling anger in her blood, the last thing she needs is a temper tantrum from her daughter.

  After he left, she was faced with a few options. She could put on her stupid pink uniform, take Gwen to daycare, and go back to work. She could drive up to New Orleans and find Donny. Or she could say fuck it all and just get in the car and drive, aimlessly and free of expectation, which is what she is doing.

  She cries for the first dozen miles or so, and it is such a luxury that she just lets it come, feeling no guilt.

  Gwen, still feeling the dregs of sleep, as yet undecided whether to be cranky for being awakened early or excited by the trip, pats her on the leg. “You okay, Mama, you okay?”

  “Yes, baby. Mama’s okay.”

  Toni sees the sign she has been looking for coming up on the side of the road. Rest Stop, 2 miles.

  When they get there, she pulls in, coming to a stop in an empty lot. Gwen climbs up in the seat and peers out the window. She sees the warm red glow of a Coke machine and decides that she will be happy today, that waking up early means excitement and the possibility of treats.

  “Have the Coke, Mama? Have it, have the Coke?”

  “Okay, sweetie.”

  They get out and walk up to the Coke machine. Gwen laughs happily and slaps it several times, listening to the distant dull echo inside. Toni puts in some coins and grabs the tumbling can. She cracks it open and gives it to her daughter, who takes it delightedly.

  “Coke!”

  “That’s right.” Toni kneels beside her as Gwen takes several ambitious swigs. “Gwen? Honey? Mama’s got to go potty, okay? You stay right here, okay? Mama will be right back.”

  Gwen lowers the can, a little overwhelmed by the cold blast of carbonation, and nods her head. “Right back!”

  “That’s right, baby.”

  Toni starts away. Gwen watches her mama as she heads back to the car and climbs in. She shuts the door and starts the engine. Gwen takes another drink of Coke. The car pulls away from the curb, and she feels a bright stab of fear. But Mama said she was coming right back, so she will wait right here.

  Toni turns the wheel and speeds back out onto the highway. There is no traffic in sight. The sign welcoming her to Texas flashes by and is gone. She presses the accelerator. Her heart is beating.

  Wild Acre

  Three men are lying in what will someday be a house. For now it’s just a skeleton of beams and supports standing amid the foundations and frames of other burgeoning houses in a large, bulldozed clearing. The earth around them is a churned, orange clay. Forest abuts the Wild Acre development site, crawling up the side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, hickory and maple hoarding darkness as the sky above them shades into deepening blue. The hope is that soon there will be finished buildings here, and then more skeletons and more houses, with roads to navigate them. But now there are only felled trees, and mud, and these naked frames. And three men, lying on a cold wooden floor, staring up through the roof beams as the sky organizes a nightfall. They have a cooler packed with beer and a baseball bat.

  Several yards away, mounted in the back of Jeremy’s truck, is a hunting rifle.

  Jeremy watches stars burn into life: first two, then a dozen. He came here hoping for violence, but the evening has softened him. Lying on his back, balancing a beer on the great swell of his belly, he hopes there will be no occasion for it. Wild Acre is abandoned for now, and might be for a long time to come, making it an easy target. Three nights over the past week, someone has come onto the work site and committed small but infuriating acts of vandalism: stealing and damaging tools and equipment, spray-painting vulgar images on the project manager’s trailer, even taking a dump on the floor of one of the unfinished houses. The project manager complained to the police, but with production stalled and bank accounts running dry, angry subcontractors and prospective homeowners consumed most of his attention. The way Jeremy saw it, it was up to the trade guys to protect the site. He figured the vandals for environmental activists, pissed that their mountain had been shaved for this project; he worri
ed that they’d soon start burning down his frames. Insurance would cover the developer, but he and his company would go bankrupt. So he’s come here with Dennis and Renaldo—his best friend and his most able brawler, respectively—hoping to catch them in the act and beat them into the dirt.

  “They’re not coming tonight,” says Renaldo.

  “No shit,” says Dennis. “You think it’s ’cause you talk too loud?” Dennis has been with Jeremy ten years now. For a while, Jeremy thought about making him partner, but the man just couldn’t keep his shit together, and Jeremy privately nixed the idea. Dennis is forty-eight years old, ten years older than Jeremy. His whole life is invested in this work: he’s a carpenter and nothing else. He has three young children, and talks about having more. This work stoppage threatens to impoverish him. “Bunch of goddamn Green Party eco-fucking-terrorist motherfuckers,” Dennis says.

  Jeremy watches him. Dennis is moving his jaw around, working himself into a rage. That would be useful if he thought anybody was going to show tonight; but he thinks they’ve screwed it all up. They got here too early, before the sun was down, and they made too much noise. No one will come now.

  “Dude. Grab yourself a beer and mellow out.”

  “These kids are fucking with my life, man! You tell me to mellow out?”

  “Dennis, man, you’re not the only one.” A breeze comes down the mountain and washes over them. Jeremy feels it move through his hair, deepening his sense of easy contentment. He remembers feeling that rage just this afternoon, talking to that asshole from the bank, and he knows he’ll feel it again. He knows he’ll have to. But right now it’s as distant and alien as the full moon, catching fire unknown miles above them. “But they’re not here. ’Naldo’s right, we blew it. We’ll come back tomorrow night.” He looks into the forest crowding against the development site and wonders why they didn’t think to hide themselves there. “And we’ll do it right. So for tonight? Just chill.”