Joel Arnold - Fetal Bait Apocalypse - 3 Collections in 1

Mom’s got peppermint tea on. Dad and I munch on homemade chocolate chip cookies. Kelly’s husband Bruce stands at the bay window scratching his neck and draining a glass of bourbon.

“Nice view,” he says, staring at the snow swirling in the darkness.

His sarcasm grows more pronounced with each drink that slides past his well-oiled tongue. I’ve only been here thirty minutes, and I’m already sick to death of him. But instead of giving into the urge to tell him to shut the hell up, I ignore him and divert my parents’ attention.

“Am I crazy, or does anyone else recall a junked up Cadillac sitting out on Lake Pepin when I was a kid? Folks took bets on when it would fall through the ice?”

“You’re crazy,” Dad says around a mouthful of cookie.

“I remember that,” says Mom. “You’d buy a ticket and write down the date and time you thought it would fall through the ice. Sure I remember that.”

“You think a car could still drive out there?” Kelly asks.

Bruce grimaces. “Are you nuts? You’d fall through in a second.” He swirls the melting ice in his glass. “I could use another drink, Kel.”

Her shaking is worse than ever. It’s mainly her head, and we’d feared Parkinson’s, but her doctor insists it’s just stress.

She starts to stand, but I wave her down. “I’ll get it.” I pour his drink and set it on the table with a loud thunk.

Stress.

“Russian Park,” Dad says.

My mind back-pedals. “What?”

“That’s where they put the cars in at. Russian Park. Drained the oil and gas so they wouldn’t leak. Attached a chain to the axle so once they broke through they could winch them back in.”

Cars on the ice. Back to that again.

“They stopped doing it once kids started spray-painting cuss words on the exterior. Ken Olson said they found used condoms in the seats. Remember Ken Olson?” he asks.

Mom nods. Her and Dad’s hair have turned the same shade of silver, and it’s already hard to remember it any other way.

Bruce finishes his drink with a loud slurp and comes back for another.

When I arrived that day, the ice out on Lake Krenshaw looked rippled and distressed. The fishing shanties had been hauled off, except for one that broke through two weeks ago and refroze half in and half out of the lake.

“I bet you could drive out there,” Kelly says. “As cold as it’s been lately.”

“Take the goddamn truck out there and try it, then,” Bruce says. “But when you break through the ice, I’m going after the truck before I try saving your sorry ass.”

“ Bruce ,” Kelly says. It’s just the one word, but we all catch the inflection she gives it.

Bruce’s eyes harden. He’s a piece of work, all right; a blustering, unkempt, alcohol slurping piece of work. “What?”

Kelly ignores him. The shaking of her head seems like an attempt to hold in her anger.

But Bruce won’t let it go. His lips twitch. “What?”

Kelly nods at his drink. “Take it easy.”

He grunts and pours himself another.

The intensity of Dad’s breathing increases through his nose. Mom searches the cupboard and pulls down a container of Tylenol, pops two in her mouth and follows it with a swig of tea.

“Enough, already,” Kelly says.

“Enough what?”

All five-foot-three of Kelly stands and grabs the drink from his hand. She dumps the contents into the sink. “Stop embarrassing me.”

Bruce grabs another glass, slams it on the counter and fills it to the top. “ Me embarrass you ?”

Funny thing is, now I want a stiff drink. I want to numb the shit I’m hearing. I want to make it easier to deal with this stress .

Huh — stress.

Listen, stress is driving behind a semi spewing slush on your windshield. Stress is your baby burning with fever. What makes Kelly’s head shake, doctor , isn’t stress.

“Bruce,” Kelly says.

“What?”

How many times have I imagined my arm uncoiling like a snake, my fist connecting with the bridge of Bruce’s nose, the feel of his cartilage and bone crumbling beneath my knuckles?

“Bruce!”

How many times?

But tonight, his hand flies out. Connects with Kelly’s cheek and nose. Makes a sound so awful, the sound of skin hitting skin, and damn it, I could sure use a drink, I could sure use permission to cover my ears, close my eyes and chant “nah nah nah” loud enough to take away that sound, that sickening sound that no one should ever have to hear.

Kelly’s face turns bright red. Blood trickles from her nose. Her eyes grow wide and wet.

The rage, the anger I feel, immobilizes me. I look at my mother. My father. Mom’s frozen, too. Dad says, “Hey,” and starts to stand, but he stops. Frozen. It’s so foreign to us. So unreal. See, this isn’t our world, this isn’t our life.

We sit and watch like deer caught in headlights. Why can’t I speak? Why can’t I do something?

Then Mom, God bless her, rolls her shoulders back, sears Bruce with her eyes, and says, “We do not hit in this house.” In her voice are forty-some years of teaching crowded elementary school classrooms.

Bruce grunts, grabs a pack of Camels off the kitchen counter and walks out the front door into the cold, slamming the door behind him. We let out a collective breath.

Stress, huh?

Mom wets a washcloth and hands it to Kelly. Dad drops onto the sofa. His eyes find refuge in a basketball game. Kelly wipes the blood off her nose and tears from the corners of her eyes. Mom takes the washcloth from her and rinses it out in the sink. I wonder if Dad sees the game, or does he still see Bruce’s hand striking his daughter?

“C’mon, Kel,” I finally say. “Let’s go watch the snow.”

I take her hand and lead her out to the screened-in porch beneath the deck out back. Wicker furniture stands covered and stacked against the walls. Cold wind blows through the screens and stirs up the smell of freshly stained wood. I feel light-headed and hollow. “How often does he hit you?” I ask.

Her trembling stops for a moment. Her eyes fix on the lake, on the dark pools of water forming on top of the ice. “He’s slapped me a few times,” she says. “When I’ve done something dumb.”

I stare at her. Crumble inside as her head starts shaking again. “God, Kelly. You’re not dumb.”

She wipes at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Gotta be dumb to still be with him, don’t I?”

“You can’t live like this.” The words come out in ragged syllables, and I almost choke on them. “You’ve got to leave him.”

The snow and wind stops as if someone’s flipped a switch and the moon appears as a dirty talc haze behind emaciated clouds.

Kelly’s cheeks are streaked with the trails of hot tears.

“Kelly? Look at me.”

She looks, her lips pressed tightly together, breath forced slowly in and out through her nose. Then she looks out at the lake. I follow her eyes. The ice is covered with dirty slush and deepening pools of black water.

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Come stay with us.”

She smiles, her eyes still on the ice, head trembling. Then the smile disappears, and she says quietly, “I don’t think Bruce would handle that very well.” She turns away. “I better go check on him. Make sure he hasn’t passed out in the snow.”

Inside, Mom is sitting with her elbows propped on the dining room table, the backs of her hands supporting her chin. She looks her sixty-four years and then some. Why is it in times of distress that a person’s age really shows? I gently rub her back.

“It’s hard to watch that,” she says.

“I know.”

“I don’t know what to do.” She rubs her forehead with the palm of her hand.