David Ohle - The Devil in Kansas

“Shut up, please. I’m watching Gilligan .”

“Why don’t you two go out and find something useful to occupy your time. Look at Ray out there. He’s cutting the grass.”

Junior rolls a Bugler cigarette. “Would a man in his right mind do it every day? The grass is stunted. He’s killing it. That machine oughta be in Yankee Stadium.” The mower stops. “Peace at last. Good gawd almighty, peace at last.”

Vickie spills a little beer on her nightgown. “His wife, my sister, is dying. Give him some space.”

Ray sticks his head in the door. “Morning all. Lawn’s done. Think I’ll go for my walk…wanna let that big mower cool off before I put ‘er back in the garage.

Vickie gives him a twenty. “Here, pick up a couple pounds of burger and a twelve pack of Lite.”

Ray steps onto the porch. Before setting out for his walk, he slips a half-pint of cheap vodka from a back pocket and guzzles half of it.

A few hours later, Vickie busies herself getting dinner ready, sipping her beer.

Lorna watches The Price is Right .

Junior reads the Weekly World News .

Lorna mutes the TV. “Hey, Vickie? I got a question. Why don’t we put her in the basement, instead of us? It’s cold down there. I hate it. We want our room back.”

“The day after she dies, you get your room back. End of story.”

Lorna grabs two franks from the fridge. “Vickie, you’re a fucking idiot.” She eats them on the way to the hall bathroom. Junior heads for the basement, slams the door hard. The sound of Lorna purging.

A street near the Jitney Jungle. Ray, with the burger meat in a plastic bag and the twelve pack tucked under one arm, walks along, humming “Don’t Fence Me In.” Suddenly, from out of nowhere, comes a stray dog. It chases him, grabs his Bermuda shorts, rips them half off. Ray falls into the street. A truck approaches, swerves to miss Ray, but runs over the beer. The dog chomps into the burger meat bag and runs off with it. The truck continues on. Ray limps toward home, shaking his head, holding his shorts together.

Mickey enters the kitchen-dining area of the Zook home. Lorna, in shorts, black boots and a black bra, eats a quadruple-decker bologna sandwich with loads of mayo and watches the Shopping Channel. Junior sits beside her, sharpening a knife. Nobody acknowledges Mickey’s presence. He slumps down at the dining table. “Bad news, folks. I quit my job.”

Junior nearly cuts himself with the knife. “You shittin’ us?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’m tired.”

Vickie pops another Lite. “That’s like really bad news. We’re gonna end up on the street.”

Mickey summons the energy to speak: “Everybody’s got to go out and earn some money.… I can’t carry the weight any more.”

Vickie objects strenuously. “If I go to work, who’s gonna bathe Wendy up there? Who’s gonna treat her bed sores? Volunteers, raise your hands.”

No volunteers.

Ray enters, limping to the table.

Mickey sits up. “What happened to you?”

“Stray mutt chases me into the street, damned near gets me hit by a truck, then takes off with the hamburger. And the truck runs over the beer. Why don’t you pick up that fucking land shark and gas it?”

“I quit my job.”

“Holy shit, what do we do now?”

“Everybody’s gotta look for work.”

“Who’s gonna hire a sixty-year-old bricklayer with bad legs and arthur-itis. I’m already forking over my Social Security check to you people. What do you want, blood?”

Junior gets in Ray’s face. “It’s like obvious why he moved her in here in the first place — so Vickie, my mother, could do all the nursing instead of him.”

“If I’m a burden, I can go live down at the Salvation Army shelter, if you want me to.”

Lorna mutes the TV. “That would free up a room, wouldn’t it? I hate that basement. I found a snail in my shoe yesterday! A snail!”

An hour later, they silently eat sandwiches.

Mickey says, “I want the job hunt to be in full swing tomorrow. Start with the classifieds.”

Vickie says she has to go brush Wendy’s hair and maybe put some makeup on her.

Junior buries his face in a comic book. “Un-fucking-believable.”

Lorna’s mouth is full. “Brush your own hair, Vickie. It looks like a rat’s nest.”

Ray lowers the Weekly World News he is reading. “Say, Vick, don’t forget to put cortisone cream on her sores. I’d do it, but you know how it churns my stomach.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Lorna angles toward the bathroom, her finger already in her mouth.

Ray shakes his head. “I guess taking on a nurse would put us in the poor house pretty quick.… Do they even have poor houses any more?”

Mickey reclines on the sofa, yawns and closes his eyes.

Ray rubs his hip, surveys his torn clothes. “That mutt’s a menace. Somebody oughta do something. If I thought it’d do any good I’d put out a…what do you call it?”

Junior perks up, “A bounty?”

“Yeah, a bounty.”

By now, Mickey is snoring.

“How much of a bounty? I mean, what would you pay somebody to take care of the problem?”

“Even under my poor circumstances, I’d set it at a hundred and fifty.”

“Serious?”

“Anybody handed me that little land shark’s ears in a plastic bag, I’d fork over a hundred and a half. Sure I would.”

The sound of Lorna purging.

The Zook kitchen-dining area, late evening. Mickey is sound asleep on the sofa. Ray, in his underwear, polishes off a Lite beer, stands beside the sofa. “Mickey? You asleep?” He gets no response. Louder: “Mickey.” Mickey rolls over and falls into a deeper sleep with louder snoring. Confident Mickey is out of it, Ray gets a flashlight from a kitchen drawer and hurries upstairs, tiptoes down the hall and enters Vickie’s bedroom. She’s half asleep. Ray pulls off his T-shirt, kicks off his slippers. “How about a little doggie style?” He pulls down his boxer shorts. “Mickey’s asleep, dead to the world.”

“Not tonight, Ray. I’m tired. I need my sleep.”

“How tired can you be? All you gotta do is lay there. You can doze right off when I’m done.”

“Ray, please. Some other night.”

He picks up his T-shirt and slippers, mutters inaudibly on his way to the door and into the hallway, where he pauses at Wendy’s door, then enters.

Bathed in the light of the Shopping Channel, Ray is ashamed of what he is about to do. Nevertheless, he shakes his head, makes the sign of the cross, and climbs into Wendy’s bed.

Meanwhile, Mickey remains asleep on the sofa, while Junior, dressed in black, looks into the cabinet below the kitchen sink, finds a tin of rat poison, then takes a half-used package of liverwurst from the fridge. When he does, a fly escapes, buzzing off into darkness. He shapes the liverwurst into a ball, then pushes his finger into the ball to form a pocket, which he fills with rat poison and then seals. He places the liverwurst ball into a Ziploc bag and grabs a pair of poultry shears from a drawer.

Junior drives past the Jitney Jungle looking for the dog. When he spots it eating garbage on a lawn, he flings the poisoned liverwurst over the roof of the car. It lands on the lawn and the dog quickly wolfs it down.

After parking the car, Junior rolls a Bugler cigarette and has a smoke while he watches the dog die, a process he observes with great intensity and pleasure.

In Wendy’s room the digital clock says 12:45. Ray, quietly sobbing, stands at Wendy’s bedside. Her hair is mussed, but there’s a hint of redness in her cheeks and what might be construed as a slight smile.

“I’m sorry, sweetie pie.”