After the Bite

by Lovato, David

  It was a nice day for Robert Young and his crew as they worked. With rakes in hand they slopped the concrete into place, and evening fell as they neared the end of the driveway they were laying.

  Robert threw his rake down outside the plot of concrete and reached for the skimmer. As he grabbed the bar, out of the corner of his eye he noticed a jogger. It was a young man in a loose-fitting brown T-shirt with big white letters splayed out on the front, reading “FNP” in a gritty Papyrus. Robert raised an eyebrow, then returned to his work.

  “Ready, Boss?” Robert said. He motioned with his hand to one of his co-workers, a skinny man with unkempt stubble and a wife beater clinging to his sweat. Kessler walked over, tossing a cigarette into a section of driveway they had yet to fill with concrete. He nodded and strafed over to the other side of the skimmer, taking it in tow, and moved it away from him.

  “Hold it Kessler, just a sec.” Robert nearly fell over trying to get over a large rock that was partially submerged in the concrete. He dropped the skimmer and grabbed the rock. He heaved it out of the way. Some of the excess concrete shot off in different directions as it made a crunchy THUD on the gravel just between some of the rebars. “Hey, Kessler. Take the sledgehammer and bust that bad boy up. We can’t have some lump in the pour.”

  Kessler moved a bit awkwardly through the cement to the sledge hammer that was strewn out to the side, almost into the neighbor’s yard. He lifted it up and carried it to the tossed rock. With a few good heaves, he was able to reduce it to several small chunks, good for helping to stabilize the concrete. He tossed the sledge hammer away and wiped his face with the slightly yellowed wife beater, then moved back to the skimmer.

  “Good, good. Let’s finish flattening this out. Ready, Kessler?” Robert bent and grabbed the metal bar with both hands.

  “Yeah, Rob. Ready.” Kessler grabbed the other end of the skimmer, and together they pulled it along. The thick concrete proved tricky to skim, but it began to take shape as Robert and Kessler moved the metal bar toward the street. The little chunks of gravel peeked out still, but that would be handled once they got this section poured. The truck sat in idle, rumbling quietly. The driver, Ellis, smoked himself a cigarette, sitting partly in and partly out of the vehicle.

  Robert stood up once their supply of concrete on the ground had run dry, and swirled his finger. The truck rumbled louder and the drum spun faster. Robert pointed at the ground, lifting his hand up and down, and the chute lowered. Cement cascaded down and made a good sized pile that flowed over the rubble and the rebar supports. When he was satisfied, Robert signaled for Ellis to kill the flow.

  After raking the concrete for a moment, Robert and Kessler got into position, and together they began evening out the cement.

  Another worker, Jessup, came around from the back of the house. He had been on break, talking over some things with the owner, who walked with him toward the driveway.

  “Guys, I gotta go for now. Daughter’s got volleyball practice. I should only be gone an hour or so. If I miss you, Robert, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, we’ll be here in the morning, ‘round nine.”

  “Good deal,” the owner said. “See you all later. Good work so far. Looks nice!”

  “No problem,” Robert said. He nodded with a smile, and looked back at the progress they’d made so far. The owner of the house got into his car and took off down the street.

  “You have the time?” Kessler asked Robert.

  “Yeah, it is…” Robert looked at his beat-up old watch, and then back at Kessler. “Half after six.”

  “So, we got an hour,” Kessler said, whipping out a cigarette. “We should be able to get this part done. You think?” He took a long, deep drag after lighting up.

  “Yeah, there should be no issue,” Robert said. He found himself leaning more of his weight on his right foot, relaxing as he stood there. As if breaking a magic spell, he snapped into life and went back to work. He and Jessup worked to flatten out the rest of what Ellis had poured.

  They started pouring more concrete on the driveway. Kessler worked beside Robert for a few minutes, the concrete sucking at their boots, raking the chute since it was starting to clog. Kessler began to slow down. Then he stopped.

  “You okay, Boss?” Robert asked him. Kessler’s head was tilted downward. He wasn’t even looking at the chute, and then he dropped the rake in the new pile of concrete with a PLOP!

  “Frank?” Jessup said. He squinted from a few feet away, taking short drags from his current cigarette. “Man, you okay?” Kessler turned to Robert with a strange expression on his face. His eyes were different; they seemed the same, but they weren’t right, like they were focused on something far away even as they looked straight at Robert.

  “Kessler? Something wrong?” Robert eyed him like one would eye a madman. Then Kessler’s mouth formed a scowl, and he lurched forward. Robert dropped his rake, and his first instinct told him to bolt, but he did make the attempt. He was standing in nearly two feet of wet, thick concrete. His right foot turned as well as could be expected, but he slipped in the concrete and fell backward as Kessler toppled down on him. It all was a blur.

  “Fuck, Kessler! What are you doing?” Jessup said. Kessler didn’t respond or even pay Jessup any mind, and Robert was regaining his bearings, but was moaning a bit from the pain he felt upon landing. His back had hit a rebar, as well as a small chunk of rock from the old driveway. Kessler’s weight pressed him down onto both.

  “Get the fuck off me!” Robert said. He wriggled around, trying to get up out of the wet cement, and Jessup had rushed up to help. Robert punched, trying to hit Kessler, but was too disoriented to make a connection. Ellis was not aware of the goings on outside the cab, and was leaning on his fist, listening to the radio. The drum spun slowly on.

  “Kessler!” Jessup grabbed an arm, and Kessler turned toward him, gnashing his teeth. He bit down, catching a small flap of skin on Jessup’s forearm, and tore it away. Jessup screamed and flew away to the left in pain. Kessler jumped onto Robert, who was still having trouble getting out of the concrete, which felt like it was hardening around him. It was newly poured, so it definitely wasn’t doing anything of the sort, but all the same he couldn’t escape.

  In his struggle, Robert felt around the surrounding concrete and found a piece of rubble. It was a good sized chunk, weighing in at about four pounds, and it was pointed even. He lifted it up and clocked Kessler in the face. It hit his forehead, pierced the skin, missing his eye, but it staggered him. Kessler took a couple wobbly steps backward and fell right under the flow of wet concrete. The pressure helped bring him down, and it began covering him up. It splattered over his twitching body. Jessup regained himself and helped Robert get up from the concrete.

  Kessler was a scrawny little guy and could not get out of the concrete. He wasn’t moving too much anyway; he was in a sort of limbo between consciousness and unconsciousness. Robert was slumped over a bit from the weight of the concrete still clinging to his clothes and skin. He was tired, but he jumped when he realized the concrete was still flowing, and he tried to move the chute. The last load had coated Kessler nicely, and by the time Robert moved the chute away, it was too late. Kessler was completely buried and no longer moving.

  Robert looked down at Kessler for a moment, wondering just what the fuck had happened to his friend. Robert and Jessup stood motionless, silently mourning their friend.

  “Robby, let’s go,” Jessup said. He and Robert bolted to the driver’s side of the cement truck. Ellis killed the flow and climbed down from the cab, looking bewildered.

  “When were you gonna tell me to stop pour—” Ellis said, but stopped when he saw Robert and Jessup covered in blood and cement.

  “Damn, you are a couple of pieces of work, men! What in the hell happened?”

  Jessup stepped forward, and Robert was glad he could catch his breath while Jessup explained everything. Instead Jessup said, “Wehhhhrr…”

  “Wh
at happened to your arm, kid?” Ellis asked. Jessup shot forward and dug into the man’s neck. The force made him fall backward, and he screamed as blood spurted down his chest and arm.

  “Oh my… fuck!” Robert couldn’t take his eyes away as Jessup began eating Ellis. Control returned to him, and he looked up into the cab of the truck, then back at the scene playing out before him.

  “Help… help me!” Ellis flailed around a bit, choking on his own blood as Jessup dug deeper. Robert turned toward his own vehicle, booked it to the driver’s side, and climbed in. Ellis’s screams faded when Robert closed the door and turned up the radio volume. He turned the car on and took one last look at the driveway that should have been a simple job.

  The end of the truck was still dripping little bits of concrete over the hard lump that once had been Robert’s friend. The blue drum still spun, mixing its contents gently. Jessup continued to feed on the corpse of the cement truck driver, who had died quickly, more quickly than seemed possible, two lives gone in two minutes. Robert left the work site full of regret, listening to the news on the radio. He listened for some answers, and as he got some, he decided he should go home to his family and see if they were still alive.

  Dead and Gone

  The following is a poem written on a blood-stained scrap of paper, found resting on a park bench one foggy morning by a young woman and young man, as they walked across the dew-covered grass on their way to nowhere, from nowhere, just trying to get by.

  Just like everyone else.

  Ode to a World Now Dead and Gone

  What once was a man,

  But is a man no longer?

  What doesn’t kill a man

  Is said to make him stronger.

  Yet here I stand, and I feel weak.

  I am alive, and I am well

  And yet my world is bleak.

  I had a family long ago

  By now they’ve turned to dust

  The locks we forced upon our doors

  Have all begun to rust

  Our lights are out, it’s all gone black

  And silence fills the airwaves now

  Grass sprouts up through sidewalk cracks.

  And all I see around me are

  Shells of people, monsters now

  Some of them look so familiar

  As they shuffle all around

  I can’t be caught, but I won’t hide.

  I lost all worth fighting for.

  I watched their faces as they died.

  I could live within the shadows,

  Run until my feet are sore.

  But I’ll just sit here, don’t you get it?

  This world don’t fucking need us anymore.

  Acceptance

  Why am I thinking that this meeting with him is going to go smoothly? I have no idea. I just know that today has already begun horribly, and I’m trying to keep my spirits up. Not too high though; you lift your spirits too high and they’re likely to get cut down like grass. You hear that loud rumble and you’d better get ready. That mower will always come, like clockwork.

  Paul has been an interest of mine for quite a while now, and I think he’s always felt similarly about me as well. I hope so, at least. He’s certainly put out those signals, but I’ve always been afraid. There are those who are so hateful toward people like us. It’s ridiculous, I know, but who wants to admit something to the world when you’ll just be hated by most of those around you? For God’s sake, people have been beaten, even to death, for something we’re born as.

  We’ve been secretly dating for a little while now, and he’s been pushing me to tell my father. He really cares about me, but if only he knew my father better. See, my mother was the more understanding one out of the two of them. God bless her soul. I lost her when I was seven. My dad has always tried to be there, but we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye.

  Today is the day to do this. I’ve got to. For me. For Paul, for my father. He may be the biggest reason I am doing this. He should have some idea of what I’m going to tell him, if he has any brains at all. He just won’t like to hear the truth come out of my mouth. The truth hurts, I’ve found, but it’s a necessary evil. Lies are just accessories to a great fall. You build a base when you tell one person, and then you pile more on top of it. This tower of lies will eventually get so tall, it’ll become unstable, and, well, it’ll collapse. The truth will set you free. It’s worth it in the end. After all, he is my father, and he does love me. I just hope his love is strong enough for this.

  I’m on the phone with Paul; I just finished with my father about tonight’s plans. Paul’s voice is soothing to me, especially when I’m having a bad day. Today is my only day off work, and I’m sitting in the living room of our two-bedroom apartment. We had gotten a two bedroom place so that my father wouldn’t suspect anything. After tonight, he will know the truth. I hear someone’s voice interrupt our conversation. It’s his boss. He’s just praising Paul for good work on the website he recently finished.

  “I’m glad you’re finally doing it, Kevin,” Paul says. “He needs to know.”

  “You’re right. You’ve always been right; I just hope he doesn’t absolutely freak out, you know?” I hold the phone with a shaky hand, and look down at my lap for a moment.

  “If he does, then that’s his problem. He really will just have to accept it. If he won’t, then…” Paul trails off, and I hear him sigh.

  “I love my father, but right now I wish I had yours. He was so accepting of you when you came out.”

  “Yes, for the public eye, but he still hasn’t come completely to terms with it, Kev. And I couldn’t come all the way out. I’ve had to keep my foot in the door for your father.”

  “That’s right, and I’m sorry for that, Paulie. We’ll tell him at dinner. Tonight is zero hour.” I take a swig from a water bottle on the coffee table.

  “That’s for sure,” Paul says after a few moments.

  “Well, we’ll just meet you at Applebee’s then?”

  “Sure thing! Enjoy the rest of your day off, Kev!” I smile and nod, even though I know he can’t see.

  “See you, love you.”

  “Love you too,” Paul says.

  I start getting ready sometime before six. There’s a shirt on the bed that I’ve picked out. It’s a green and white plaid, and it looks very sexy on me. Paul always thought so. He said that the dark greens in it made my eyes pop. I put it on and look in the mirror. I appear to be like any other 25-year-old guy. No one would know by just looking at me that I’m gay. But tonight, my father will finally know the truth.

  “I am proud of who I am,” I say out loud in the strongest tone I can muster. “Nothing and no one can change that.” Still, I’m uncontrollably nervous. My father had always told me, “Even if you’re nervous, pretend you’re not. People can smell fear, and will use it against you. Stand tall, back erect, and be confident. It will take you places.”

  I truly believe in this, but even so, I find it hard to live by it in this moment.

  I jolt when I hear the doorbell ring. I try to relax and conduct a quick inspection of myself, and then make eye contact with my reflection. I smile, take a deep breath, turn the light out, and leave the bathroom to let my father in.

  “Son! How’s it going?” my dad asks. He puts his right arm behind me and pats my back hard. I smile a bit nervously.

  “Good. Great, actually. How are you, Dad?”

  “Never been better. You ready to go?”

  “Yes I am,” I reply.

  “Your car, or mine?” Dad asks.

  “Mine is pretty low on gas. Do you mind if we take yours?”

  “No problem.” He smiles, and we’re off.

  I sit quietly for the first five minutes or so, looking toward my father every now and again. I feel like a stranger, which is very uncomfortable, but there’s no stopping that undeniable feeling.

  “You doing okay, Son?” He looks over at me, he seems a little worried.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m
fine, Dad.”

  “It’s just that you look a tad pale. You feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine, Dad. Healthy as a horse.”

  “Good.” The awkward conversation ends here, but the awkwardness still lingers in the air. I sit here, trying to form what I want to say. What I am going to say to my father, and how I am going to say it? I have to be very delicate about it, as it is a delicate subject.

  It looks to be a semi-slow night at Applebee’s. It’s only twenty after six after all, but still. I am pleased though. As we approach the doors, Paul comes out to greet us. We do our “cover greeting,” something similar to what my father had done with me earlier, and we both turn to my father, smiling. We walk a good distance apart when we go back inside. The hostess has us seated soon after entering. It’s a comfortable booth in the smoking section. I’m dying for a smoke. My nerves need it terribly. My father smokes occasionally, but he doesn’t seem to want to tonight.

  Paul grasps my hand under the table and squeezes it gently, letting out a little sigh. I squeeze back and when he lets go, I grab my pack of Marlboro Lights. There’s a huge weight off my shoulders when I take that first drag. I still want to wait until after we’ve ordered appetizers to break the news. My father wants the seven layer nachos, so we order that and wait patiently for it to arrive.

  “Paul, how’s work going?” my father says.

  “It’s going pretty well,” Paul replies. “Thanks for asking. Finished the website for the cleaning company. Made some good money today.”

  “Great! That’s a good feeling!”

  “Sure is,” Paul says. He looks at me for a moment, smiles, and then looks back at my father. I look toward him as well. I can’t help but feel a little guilty about this. It’s as if we’re ganging up on my father, who is a good man, about to rip his heart out with the news. I try pushing those feelings of guilt out of the way. Our nachos arrive, and we begin to eat them. Paul nudges my arm. I clear my throat and look at my father as he swirls one of the largest chips around in the beans and olives.