There was nothing to smile about as she made the Kraft cheese and macaroni while the pork chops sizzled in the oven. He was going to kill his own son. She couldn’t get over it. His own son.
Forty-five minutes later, the three of them ate dinner. As always, Jason said grace to himself the way his mom had taught him. While he did this, Roy made a face and rolled his eyes. Little sissy sonofabitch, he’d drunkenly said to Jason one night, sayin’ grace like that.
Roy said, “Guess what I found today?”
Angie said, “What?”
“I was talkin’ to the boy.”
“Oh,” Angie said, irritated with his tone of voice. “Pardon me for living.”
She got up from the table and carried her dishes to the sink.
“Guess what I found today?” Roy said to Jason.
“What?”
“A real great spot for fishin’.”
“Oh.”
“For you and me. I always wanted to teach you how to fish.”
“I thought you hated to fish,” Jason said.
“Not anymore. I love fishin’, don’t I, babe?”
“Yeah,” Angie said from the sink, where she was cleaning off her plate. “He loves fishin’.”
Angie knew immediately that Roy had figured out how to kill the kid. He hated fishing, and even more he hated do anything with the kid.
After supper, Jason went into his room. Most kids would be out playing in the warm spring night. Not Jason. He had a little twelve-inch TV in there and he had a lot of X-Files novels, too. He was well set up.
While she was doing the dishes, and Roy was sitting at the table nursing a Hamms from the bottle and watching some skin on the Playboy Channel, she said, “You’re gonna do it.”
“Yes, I am.”
“He’s your own flesh and blood.”
He came over and pressed against her. He had a hard-on. Seems he always had a hard-on. She didn’t have no complaints in that department. He groped her and kissed her neck and said, “We’re free kind of people, Angie. Free. And with the kid along, we’ll never be free. Especially with what he knows about us. One phone call from him and we’ll be in the slammer.”
“But he’s your own son.”
Jason’s door opened. He went to the john. Roy said, “You let me take care of it.”
Twenty minutes later, Roy and Jason, they left. She couldn’t think of any way to stop them without coming right out and warning Jason about what was going on.
She paced. She paced and gunned whiskey from a Smurfs glass. She was so agitated her heart felt like thunder in her chest and every few minutes her right arm jerked grotesquely.
And then she remembered the gun. She didn’t even know what kind of gun it was. One of her lawyer friends had given it to her once when one of her old boyfriends was hassling her. She’d shot it a few times. She knew how to use it. She kept it in the bureau underneath the crotchless panties Roy had bought her, his joke always being that he’d personally eaten the crotch out of them.
She got the gun and she went after them. Her only thought was the river. About half a mile on the other side of some hardwoods was a cliff and below it fast water that ran to a dam near Cedar Rapids. One time they’d been walking and Roy said it was a perfect place to throw a body. His cellmate, a lifer Roy had a lot of respect for, had said that while bodies did occasionally wash up right away, there was a better chance they’d give you a five-, six-day head start from the law.
The dying day was indigo in the sky, indigo and salmon pink and mauve spreading like a stain beneath a few northeasterly thunderheads and a biting wind that tasted of rain. Rainstorms always scared her. When she was little, she’d always hidden in the closet, her two older sisters laughing at her, scaredy-pants, scaredy-pants. But she didn’t care. She’d hidden anyway.
The way she found them, they were sitting on a picnic table near the cliff, father and son, just talking. Darkness was slowly making them grainy, and soon would make them invisible.
Roy said, “What the hell you doing here?”
“She can be here if she wants to,” Jason said.
She smiled. The kid liked her and that made her feel good.
“I guess I need to go to the bathroom,” Jason said.
He walked over to the hardwoods and disappeared.
“I was afraid you already did something to him,” Angie said.
He looked at her. Shrugged. “It’s harder than I thought it would be.”
“He’s your own flesh and blood.”
“Yeah, yeah, I guess that’s it. I started to do it a couple times but I couldn’t go through with it. I mean, it’s not like shootin’ a stranger or anything.”
“Let’s go back.”
He shook his head. “Oh, no. You go back alone.”
“But if you can’t do it, why you want to stay out here?”
“I didn’t say I can’t do it. I just said it’s harder than I thought it was. It’s just gonna take me a little time is all. Now, you get that sweet ass of yours back home and wait for me. We’ll be pullin’ out tonight.”
“Pullin’ out?”
They could see Jason coming back toward them.
“Yeah,” Roy said in a whispering voice, “school’ll be askin’ questions, him not around anymore. Better off pullin’ out tonight.”
Jason walked up. “Dad tell you there’s twenty-pound fish in that river?”
“Yeah,” she said, “that’s what he said.”
“Angie’s got to get back home. She’s makin’ us a surprise.”
“A surprise?” Jason said, excited. “What kinda surprise?”
“Well, if she tells ya, it won’t be much of a surprise, will it?”
Jason grinned. “No, I guess not.”
“You head home, babe,” Roy said. “We’ll be up’n a while.”
She wanted to argue but you didn’t argue with Roy. You didn’t argue and win, anyway. And you got bruises and bumps and breaks for not winning.
“Guess I better go,” she said.
“I can’t wait to see the surprise,” Jason said.
She went back but she didn’t go home. She stood inside the hardwoods, inside the shadows, inside the night, and watched them.
He couldn’t do it. That’s what she was hoping. That when it came right down to it, he just couldn’t do it. She said a couple of prayers.
But he did it. Pulled the gun out, grabbed Jason by the shoulder and started dragging him across the grassy space between picnic table and cliff.
All this was instinct: her running, her screaming. Roy looked real pissed when he saw her. He got distracted from the kid and the kid tried wrestling himself away, swinging his arms wild, trying to kick, trying to bite.
Roy didn’t have any warning about her gun. She got up close to him and jerked it out of the back pocket of her Levi’s and killed him point-blank. Three bullets in the side of the head.
He went over on his side and shit his pants before he hit the ground. The smell was awful.
The weird thing was how the kid reacted. You’d think he’d be grateful that she’d killed the sonofabitch. But he knelt next to Roy and wailed and rocked back and forth and held a dead cold white hand in his hand and then wailed some more. Maybe, she thought, maybe it was because his mom was dead, too. Maybe losin’ both your folks, maybe it was too much to handle, even if your own flesh-and-blood dad had tried to kill you.
She dragged Roy over and pushed him off the cliff into the river. The stars were on the water tonight and the choppy waves glistened.
She dragged the boy away. He fought at first, biting, kicking, wrestling, and all. She let him have a good hard slap, though, and that settled him down. He kept cryin’ but he did what she told him. “How you doin’?”
“All right.”
“You hungry?”
“Sort of, I guess.”
“You’ll like Colorado. Wait till you see the mountains.”
“You didn’t have to kill him.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. They were nearing the Nebraska border. The land was getting flatter. Cows, crying with prairie sorrow, tossed in their earthen beds, while nightbirds collected chorus-like in the trees, making the leafy branches thrum with their song. It was nice with the windows rolled down and all the summery Midwest roaring in your ears.
Sixty-three miles before they hit the border, just after ten o’clock, they found the Empire Motel, one of those 1950s jobs with the office in the middle and eight stucco-sided rooms fanned out on either side.
Angie rented a room and bought a bunch of candy and potato chips from the vending machine. She rented a sci-fi video from the manager for Jason.
She got him into the shower and then into bed and played the movie for him. He didn’t last long. He was asleep in no time. She turned out the lights and got into bed herself. She was tired. Or thought she was, anyway. But she couldn’t sleep. She lay there and thought about Roy and about when she was a little girl and about being a kept woman. It had to happen for her someday. It just had to. Then she remembered what she’d looked like in those bikinis. God, she really had to go on a diet.
She lay like this for an hour. Then she heard car doors opening and male laughter. She decided to go peek out the window. Two nice-looking, nicely dressed guys were carrying a suitcase apiece into a room two doors away. They were driving this just-huge new Lincoln. Sight of them made her agitated. She wanted a drink and to hear some music. Maybe dance a little. And laugh. She needed a good laugh.
Fifteen minutes later, she was fixed up pretty good, white tank top and red short-shorts, the ones where her cheeks were exposed to erotic perfection, her hair all done up nice, and enough perfume so that she smelled really good.
The kid wouldn’t miss her. He’d be fine. He’d be sleeping and the door would be locked and he’d be just fine.
* * *
Their names were Jim Durbin and Mike Brady. They were from Cedar Rapids and they owned a couple of computer stores and they were going to open a big new one in Denver. Ordinarily, Jim would fly but Mike was scared to fly. And ordinarily, they would stay in a nicer motel than this but they couldn’t find anything else on the road. Her excuse for knocking on their door this late was the front office didn’t have a cigarette machine and she was out and she heard them still up and she wondered if either of them had a few cigarettes they’d loan her. Jim said he didn’t smoke but Mike did. Jim said he’d been trying for years to get Mike to quit. How do you like that? Jim said. Guy doesn’t mind risking lung cancer every day of his life but he won’t get on an airplane?
They had a nice bottle of I. W. Harper and invited her in. It was obvious Mike was interested in her. Jim was married. Mike was just going through a divorce he called “painful.” He said his wife ended up running off with this doctor she was on this charity committee with. Jim said Mike needed a good woman to rebuild Mike’s self-esteem. That was a word Angie heard a lot. She liked the daytime talk shows and they talked a lot about self-esteem. There was a transvestite prostitute on just last week, as a matter of fact, and Angie felt sorry for the poor thing. He/she said that’s all he/she was looking for, self-esteem.
Angie got sort of drunk and spent her time talking to Mike while Jim took a shower and got ready for bed. Angie could tell he was taking a real long time to give Mike and her a chance to be alone. And then they were making out and his hands were all over her and then she was down on her knees next to his bed and doing him and he was gasping and groaning and bucking and just going crazy and it made her feel powerful and wonderful to make a man this happy, especially a broken-hearted one.
When Jim came back, wearing a red terry-cloth robe and rubbing his crew cut with a white towel, Angie and Mike were sitting in chairs and having another drink.
“So, what’s going on?” Jim said.
“Well,” Mike said, and he looked like a teenager, excited and nervous at the same time, “I was going to ask Angie if she’d like to come to Denver with me. Spend a couple of weeks while we get the grand opening all set up and everything.”
Jim said, still rubbing his crew cut with the white towel, “This is a guy who does everything first-class, Angie, let me tell you. You should see his condo. The view of the city. Unbelievable.”
“You like Jet Skiing?” Mike said.
“Sure,” Angie said, though she wasn’t exactly sure what it was.
“Well, I’ve got two Jet Skis and they’re a ball. Believe me, we could have a lot of fun. You could stay at my condo and do what you like during the day—shop or whatever—and then at night, we’ll get together again.”
Jim said, “God, Angie, you’re a miracle worker. This sounds like my old buddy Mike Brady. I haven’t heard him sound this happy in three or four years.”
Mike grinned. “Maybe I’m in love.”
And he leaned over and slid his arm around Angie’s neck and gave her a big whiskey kiss on the mouth.
All she could think of was how strange it was. Maybe she’d met the man who was going to make her into a kept woman. And this one wasn’t married, either. He could marry her somewhere down the line.
She said, “Wait till I tell Jason.”
Mike gave her a funny look. “Jason? Who’s Jason?”
Jim came over, too. “Yeah, who’s Jason?”
“Oh, sort of my stepson, I guess you’d say.”
“You’re traveling with a kid?” Mike said.
“Yeah.”
Mike didn’t have to say anything. It was all in his face. He’d been outlining an orgy of activities and she went and mined it all with reality. A kid. A fucking kid.
“Oh,” Mike said, finally.
“He’s a real nice kid,” Angie said. “Real quiet and everything.”
“I’m sure he’s a nice kid, Angie,” Jim said. “But I don’t think that’s what Mike had in mind. Nothing against kids, you understand. I’ve got two of my own and Mike’s got three.”
“I love kids,” Mike said, as if somebody had accused him otherwise.
“He wouldn’t be any trouble,” Angie said. “He really wouldn’t.”
Mike and Jim looked at each other and Jim said, looking at Angie now, “You know what we should do? Why don’t we take your phone number, you know where you’re staying in Omaha and everything, and then Mike can give you a call when he gets settled into his condo?”
Mike didn’t have nerve enough to say good-bye so Jim was doing it for him.
A ball and chain, she remembered Roy said about Jason. Mike wasn’t going to call. Jim was just saying that. And she’d be somewhere in Omaha, maybe with a waitress job or something. And pretty soon school would roll around and she’d have to worry about school clothes and getting him enrolled in a new school and everything. While somebody else would be living with Mike in his Denver condo, and Jet Skiing, whatever that was, and using Mike’s American Express to buy new clothes and stuff.
She said, “You know if there’s a river around here somewhere?”
“A river?” Jim said.
“Yes,” she said. “A river.”
Next morning at seven A.M. she knocked on the door. A sleepy pajamaed Jim opened it. “Hey,” he said. “How’s it goin’?” He sounded a little leery of seeing her. He’d obviously hoped they’d put the Denver matter to rest last night.
“Guess what?” she said.
“What?”
“I said I was sort of Jason’s stepmother? Well, actually, I’m his aunt. My sister lives about ten miles from here and has troubles with depression. She wanted me to take him for a while but she stopped by the room here real early this morning and picked him up. Said she was feeling a lot better.”
Mike could be seen over Jim’s shoulder now. He said, excited, “So you don’t have the kid anymore?”
“Free, white and twenty-one,” she said.
“You’re going to Denver!” he said.
Jim said, “I’m going to get some break
fast down the road. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
He got dressed quick and left.
They did it their first time right in Mike’s mussed bed. Only once or twice did she think of the kid, and how she’d smothered him in the room. She hadn’t had any trouble finding the river. She had to give it to Roy. The ball-and-chain business. She had liked the kid but he really was a ball and chain.
A few hours later, they left for Denver. That night, they had spare ribs for supper at a roadside place. They drank a lot of wine, or vino, as Jim kept calling it, and Mike as a joke licked some of the rib sauce off her fingers. She was scared about later, when she went to sleep. Maybe she’d have nightmares about the kid. But she snuggled up to Mike real good and after they made love, they lay in the darkness sharing his cigarette and talking about Denver and she ended up not having any dreams at all.
Al Sarrantonio
THE ROPY THING
Joe R. Lansdale, Hisownself here. Writing about Al Sarrantonio. He was too modest to do it, so someone had to do it, and I’ve read just about everything he’s written and have known him for years and love his short fiction.
When I was learning to write, one of the writers I was most impressed with and wanted to emulate was Al Sarrantonio. Here was a guy who had a unique point of view. He was always his own man, but he reminded me a bit of the best of Bradbury, had that same poetic echo. He reminded me a bit of an unsung short story writer, Kit Reed. Had that same sort of inexplicable subtext that spoke to your most inner self but wasn’t something you could define in words.
That’s what Al’s done here. He’s written another of his beautiful little fables via horror fiction. It has that special thing that makes a good story more than a story. It has echo beyond the words.
—J.R.L. (Hisownself)
The ropy thing got most of the neighborhood while Suzie and Jerry were watching Saturday morning cartoons on TV. Then the cable went out and Jerry’s dad put on the radio but then that went out too. By then Suzie and Jerry were watching the ropy thing from the big picture window in Jerry’s living room. The ropy thing was very fast, and sometimes they saw only its tip stretched high and straight, or formed into a loop, or snaking over a house or between trees or moving over cars. It hesitated, then shot into the moving van in front of Suzie’s house across the street, pulling a fat uniformed mover out, coiling around him head to toe like a mummy and then yanking him down into the ground. It pulled Suzie’s mom into the ground too, catching her as she tried to run back into the house from where she had been directing the movers from the curb.
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