Mike Meginnis - Fat Man and Little Boy

“We didn’t have you then,” says Mr Bruce.

“We’ve got you now.”

“How do you have me?”

“We’ve got a pattern here, developing, as we speak,” says Mr. Bruce.

“What pattern?”

“Two sweet young girls bleeding to death out their cunts,” says Mr. Rousseau. “Both times your fault.”

“I never met Albert’s girlfriend,” says Fat Man. His hands become fists on the table. “What you have are two unrelated, however terrible, events, and a ghoulish outlook on life. The only ones that see a pattern here are you.”

“The girlfriend’s name is Marie,” says Mr. Bruce. “Marie Blanc. She was someone’s wife as well.”

“I never met Mrs. Blanc.”

“Did you or did you not begin lodging with Albert on the night of the murder?”

“I did. We arrived while he was out, probably at more or less the same time he was watching Mrs. Blanc bleed out on the abortionist’s table. His wife Francine will confirm this. So you see it’s impossible for me to have been there myself, and so I couldn’t have participated in any murder, assuming there was one, which I very much doubt. He threatened me with an empty gun that night, which tells you first what sort of terms we’re on and secondly his ratio of bark to bite.”

“You said you needed work,” says Mr. Bruce. “Maybe you found it. We understand you’re lodging with Albert rent-free. He doesn’t seem the giving sort to me, does he Mr. Rousseau.”

“No he does not, Mr. Bruce.”

“What did you do for him?”

“Nothing,” says Fat Man. “His wife gave us the room.”

“How did you buy your fine new clothes?” says Mr. Rousseau.

“I wash dishes at a café.”

“You bought a new wardrobe on a week of dishwashing money?” says Mr. Bruce.

“Are you sure you weren’t there when she died? Are you sure you didn’t help?”

“I wasn’t there, and I couldn’t have helped. I am neither doctor nor abortionist.”

“He means you helped to kill her,” says Mr. Bruce.

“Based on what evidence?”

Though he knows he is innocent of the murder, and in fact believes that there has been no murder, his heart begins to burn as if the police are pouring in a boiling vegetable broth. He mops the sweat from his brow.

“The pattern,” says Mr. Bruce. “The pattern.”

“What do these two things have in common beyond vaginal bleeding?” thunders Fat Man, losing self control just long enough to regret it immediately.

“I’ll tell you what they have in common,” says Mr. Rousseau. He puts his hands on John’s shoulders, as if about to begin a massage. He kneads the excess flesh. “Neither of these girls was supposed to be pregnant. You say Laurel didn’t even know she was. Well no one knew. Her parents insist she was a virgin. She wasn’t known to be involved with any men. We only know she was your friend.”

“We didn’t know each other long,” says Fat Man. “It was only a couple months, and then she was dead. I do miss her.”

“Did you fuck her?” says Mr. Bruce.

Mr. Rousseau sinks his fingers into Fat Man’s shoulders.

Fat Man shakes his head. “She was lovely, sir, but young. Imagine me rolling over onto her small frame. Then I really would have killed her.”

“Like you would be the first heavy man to prefer the woman on top,” says Mr. Rousseau—a sexual position that had not yet occurred to Fat Man in his brief life. “We think you pricked her. We think you had a hand in her death, and so do her poor, mourning parents.”

“Having murdered once,” says Mr. Bruce, “perhaps you didn’t plan to do it again. That is, until you needed work. Needed room and board and clothes to keep you warm. You met Albert. He said you could have a place to stay and some money and he would find you a job if you would help him with Mrs. Blanc. You said, ‘Shit, why not?’ You got away with the last one, after all. So you did the girl and you worked with him and the abortionist to make it look like a mistake somehow, and now here we are, about to bring you in for good.”

“Do you know if we have the death penalty in France, John?” asks Mr. Rousseau, spitting out the fat man’s name as if it is uniquely harsh, stupid, American.

“I hadn’t thought to ask,” says Fat Man. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me.”

“We’d rather let you think about it on your own,” says Mr. Bruce. “Reflect.”

“You know the problem with your theory,” says Fat Man, who is calming now, who is collecting himself, who sees his way out, “apart from the lack of any material evidence or witnesses, apart from the fact that it’s very strictly a theory and so shall remain, is if he’s got a cooperative doctor willing to help kill the girl and hide it, why in fuck does he need me?”

Mr. Bruce looks to Mr. Rousseau, and Rousseau to Bruce. They look back at Fat Man as if they hadn’t thought to ask this question, or, perhaps more charitably, as if they thought he’d never ask it.

“We’ve got you now is the important thing,” says Mr. Bruce.

“Got you in our sights,” says Mr. Rousseau, squinting at Fat Man to drive home the point that they can see him.

“Is that all you’ve got for me today? I was hoping to see the spirit medium with my nephew.”

The show begins with a stage, empty but for a table draped with red velvet, gaudy jade pillars that look like stacked, scowling heads, and what seems to be a golden urn filled with bamboo stalks. Someone offstage plays a piano—tittering Orientalisms and angular, discordant cords. Chi chi chi chi chi-chi, chi chi chong, chi chi chong, chong. A gong gongs.

From both wings, men in black, red, and white kimonos run across the stage, crossing each other as they scamper. They wear wooden sandals and scowling white masks with thick black savage brushstroke eyebrows. Chi chi chi, chi chong, chong, gong , and the stage is empty.

They run across again, this time wielding katana-like clubs, waving them over their heads, screaming sounds that might be Japanese. They crouch as they run.

A careening glissando introduces a proud, tall man with a silken white rising sun on his black, billowing robes, stomping the stage as if he means to crack the wood, which creaks with each impact. He nods officiously at the audience, his actor’s bright, blue eyes glancingly visible through the mask’s eyeholes and their shadows. He pretends to twirl his painted mustache. His robes give the impression of a master of ceremonies.

He removes a bamboo stalk from the golden urn and holds it out to the audience between thumbs and forefingers, running his hands demonstratively over the length of it, as if to say, “This is all of one piece.”

He shouts something from his gut and tosses the bamboo in the air. One of the samurai sprints across the stage, raises his sword to touch the falling bamboo, and then he is gone. The referee catches the bamboo—one half in each hand. He shows the audience the clean cut, then discards both measures, tossing them back into the golden urn. When he turns away from them the audience can see the red ribbons that tie the mask to his face, and the bald, crumpled skin of his head. Someone strikes the gong.

He takes two more stalks and throws them up. Two samurai run screaming across the stage. They slash at one another—one low, one high—and seem to miss. When neither can be seen, both bamboo stalks split in two, fall to the ground. The referee will not deign to bend and lift them. Someone strikes the gong.

Fat Man looks to Little Boy, and sees he is amazed, or feigning amazement. The child nearly shakes from pleasure. Beside him Francine touches her chin. Albert might be sleeping, his face is turned down.