Samantha Hunt - Mr. Splitfoot

“No? I’ve got a strong feeling Carl knows exactly where to find our money. And he doesn’t even have to talk mumbo-jumbo to find it. No, ma’am.” Zeke is laughing again but silently. His shirt gapes. Ruth can see the top of his chest. “Is he waiting outside, or did you sneak off without him tonight?”

Zeke looks to her for a reaction. Ruth says nothing. How does he know Mr. Bell?

“Thinking of cutting him out eventually? More profit for you two, right? Smart. I see you got your own apartment without him. Cute place above the vet clinic, right?” Zeke slaps his thighs. “But, woo-hoo! I’d be careful messing with Carl. He was trained by the best. He’s ruthless, I tell you. Ruthless.” Realizing his pun, Zeke queers his face. “Oh.” He smiles. “Not you, dear.” Zeke turns his back on her. “So, while we wait for Carl to show up”—he faces his congregation—“who wants to see some stars?”

Shouts of delight are raised. Confucius pours a huge pile of Comet onto his tea tray, a heaping mound. He empties the container. He plucks a fresh straw from his cigarette holder and, holding the tray with one hand like a cocktail waitress, offers the straw to the first of the colorful congregants. The man dives into the pile with relish, delivering himself from the mess of his life, from this moment in time with a toot of toilet bowl cleaner named for an astronomical uncertainty.

Zeke starts to sizzle. Confucius makes his way down the line of people. Zeke moves his hips, grooving. “Yeah!” he calls out. “That’s it!” A coach on the sidelines. He claps. He moves over to the stereo, finds the song he’s looking for, and lifts the volume to a deafening level. The song tells the story of a spaceman devoid of his earthly comforts, floating through the ether. He misses his wife and children. He misses home. The spaceman tries to play it cool, saying, “I don’t understand” and “It’s just my job,” but the truth is something that holds him there in space, floating in the darkness, free from gravity.

Zeke falls into the song. His eyes close. His face twitches from smile to grimace and back. Comet coursing through his thoughts. Sky shot and soaring. His body rocks. His hands try to grip the song, hold it, and all the while, over the volume, the tray of powder gets passed from congregant to congregant, each individually going wild for his or her communion with the stuff, snuffing and huffing, star-nosed moles in a tunnel, smiling and rejoicing at the sacrament. It is sexual. It is scientific. Some see stars. Some start to sway and drool, modern flowing movements, snorting a bleach cleanser. They do not dance with each other. It is a singular journey. A rocket man. A rocket woman. Eyes more glazed, more drugged. Futures and furniture get hazy. Zeke claps his hands. He screams to be heard. “I love this song! Don’t you love this song!” No one is listening. He dips and whirls, swirling. “‘All this science, I don’t understand.’” A storm drawn of chaos and chemicals, and no one is paying attention to Nat and Ruth. She takes his hand. Slowly, slowly, they stand. She does not breathe. Slowly, they slink from the table, from the couch, through the drugged dancers. Moving without motion, slowly, slowly, to stay invisible. The rear hallway shines bright, an escape pod back to planet Earth or at least a window set low enough for a jump. The music is so loud. Up here alone. Zeke’s eyes are still shut, and Nat and Ruth move like plants. No one sees them grow toward their escape. The others dance, sway. The others stumble, smile, blissful in happy catatonia. Nat and Ruth are nearly there, nearly clear.

And then the record comes to a trance-breaking, drug-haze-shaking skip.

The plants sprout legs. Nat and Ruth sprint out the back hallway. Nat finds an exit for them, a porch door that leads back to the world. He pushes Ruth through the jamb. He pushes Ruth back out into the night. Darkness cracks, an explosion — or else it’s just the sound of the screen door slamming shut behind them as they run for Mr. Bell’s waiting car.

I’LL NEED NEW SNEAKERS AGAINin the near future. The road is hell on soles. Before this walk, I’ve never before actually used up a pair of shoes. I’ve never even thought of shoes as a thing that can get used up.

SON SCREEN PREVENTS SIN BURN.

FREE TRIP TO HEAVEN. DETAILS INSIDE.

WHAT IS MISSING FROM CH CH? U R.

COME IN FOR A FAITH LIFT.

FREE COFFEE. EVERLASTING LIFE.

IF YOU WANT TO TALK TO JESUS, TRY A KNEE MAIL.

We pass many churches, many white light signs. The plainest one says GOD LOVES YOU. We pass an auto repair. God gave me a baby. We pass a bookstore. Then God gave me Lord. Then God gave me whatever Lord stuffed up my vaj.

We pass a place that looks like an old Elks Lodge or grange, only there are no windows, just a white clapboard box with a peaked roof. PLAYMATES INTERNATIONAL it says. The idea of international here demonstrates a lot of hope. Maybe “International” in this case means every now and then a French Canadian stops by. A flyer tacked up outside shows a tanned girl with a burlap bag over her head. “The Elephant Woman Takes It All Off.”

God loves the Elephant Woman. The French Canadian.

“Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going?” I have a minor tantrum, stomping on the asphalt. “Who was that man?”

Ruth keeps walking.

Inside a broken Ford Taurus, I wake before her. That never happens. I hold a finger beneath her nostrils to make sure she’s not dead or anything but get distracted by her Walkman instead. It’s on her chest. Her eyes are still shut. I pull the tape player and headphones into the back seat with me. Feels like sharing Ruth’s toothbrush. I lean back. I push play.

The sound I first hear is not recognizable. A machine. Static, clicking, zooming. But I don’t have time to understand because Ruth, wild mountain cat, pounces over the seat, clawing for the headset. Her nails take a scrape out of my neck as the player is yanked from me. She withdraws into the front with her prey. She faces forward. I face forward. Both of us are breathing heavily. “Sorry. I didn’t know it was such a big deal.”

Her shoulders lift and lower.

“I just wanted to hear some music.”

Still no reaction.

“But that’s not really music, is it?”

Ruth pulls hair behind her ears. The great wall of nothing she is all day.

“No,” I answer for her. “It’s not.” Maybe Ruth is a robot. Who else would listen to a machine clicking all day? Who else could walk like this? I try to get my finger under her nostrils again, check for life, but Ruth swats my hand away. She doesn’t look like a robot. We start walking again.

“Your baby will either live or die,” the doctor had said, like it’s a half-alive creature. But Lord’s trick didn’t work. This baby didn’t die and has now grown into something I feel move every day, its own independent thing. I still think of Lord’s hands or neck, his chest pinning mine down. I stay in the flood of his body for as long as I can, imagining him in parts, using the good bits, since taken as a whole, Lord sucks. I don’t know why his parents named him that. They had no way of knowing how he’d crawl into people’s lives and sit there on his throne, ruining everything.

Sometimes the rain doesn’t stop. There’s a nuclear power plant down by the lake. Steam lifts from its core. We pass a club named Dominick’s that advertises an event called “Caged, the Traveling Metal/Sex Circus.” The town has changed a little bit since a meteorite landed here in 1834. This part of the state is haunted by businesses and marriages that didn’t work. Not to mention all the regular old people underground in the cemeteries.