Mike Meginnis - Fat Man and Little Boy

“It’s not true,” says Fat Man. He shifts on his feet, fighting back the gut-buster. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Little Boy stares out at the crowd, arms hanging from his sides like streamers.

“I told you she was a liar,” shrills Barbara Trudeau, the daughter-killer.

The medium spits, “These readings are for entertainment purposes only !”

“Who the hell are you?” says Fat Man.

“Did they kill Marie Blanc?” shouts Mr. Bruce.

“Was the fat one in cahoots with her lover?” shouts Mr. Rousseau.

Mr. Bruce yells, “What about Laurel?”

The medium circles the brother bombs, sizing them up. Little Boy trembles, and scratches himself, and—unaware of what his hands do—pulls at the foreskin of his penis through his trousers with one restless hand, squirming, as young boys sometimes do.

“Who am I?” says the medium. “Who are you? Do maggots form in the flesh of your victims with terrible speed? Do infants pour from every womb you see, unfinished, rushing to be near you? Does the food on your fork sprout mold before it reaches your lips? Do spiders crawl from inside dead bodies? Do you dream at night of mosquitoes devouring your flesh? Do you LIVE in SHAME and FEAR of EVERYTHING AROUND YOU?” She rears up, claws hoisted over her head. “Do you wake up sometimes soaked in your own mess and piss, flailing for something to break your fall, screeching like a goddamn harpy?”

Little Boy sobs—a snot bubble growing from his nose. “Yes,” he cries, “yes I do.”

“Shut up,” says Fat Man, not to Little Boy, but to the audience, which is silent. He holds his arms out like wings, displaying his bloated body. He feels his entrails roil inside him like hot tar.

“I want to die every day and I’m not even sure why,” says Little Boy.

“Does the guilt bring you pleasure,” hisses the medium, who fairly gyrates on the stage. “Does it, to know what you’ve done to them, the lives you destroyed, you took for your own, and their fascination, and the way they suck and clutch your fingers?”

“I don’t know.”

“You are fat with them,” she says, jabbing Fat Man’s belly.

“I’m fat with food,” says Fat Man. He squeezes his carriage in his arms. The blood is rushing. His heart burns. He is sure to explode. “I eat too much.”

“You hardly eat at all, most days,” says the medium. “I know you eat what you can get, I know, but your fat comes from the children. They’re lining your insides, like good soldiers throwing themselves on a grenade, wave after wave .”

Fat Man looks down at his body. “They can’t be.”

Little Boy falls down on his ass for no obvious reason. The audience is mystified, but cannot speak, cannot look away. He wails like a newborn. “Leave us alone,” he pleads. “Leave us alone. I am Matthew. I sweep the floors clean, and kill no one. Please ma’am, my brother is the killer.”

“Not me,” bawls Fat Man, rocking on his heels, stumbling back against the table. “It isn’t so. Not me.”

“Come clean,” calls Mr. Bruce.

The table rattles beneath his fat, shaking hands.

“I’m going to explode. I’m going to explode.” Fat Man’s sphincter flutters, pulses. There is such a force inside him.

The medium pulls the feather needle from between her eyes. She holds the point up, gesturing at the ceiling, which is painted thickly with cherubim and other naked things. She wrenches the needle, once, twice, showing the audience. They murmur or remember to breathe.

She marches on Fat Man. He lurches around the table, collides with one jade pillar, upending it. The ugly stacked pillar faces put their ears to the ground, and sway forward and back, listening to the thrum of spirit medium and Fat Man, Little Boy’s shoes scraping the boards of the stage.

Fat Man pants, and feels the cold, itching rivulets of saltwater running down his peaks and valleys. He holds out his black burnt palms. “I’ll explode! You don’t want to see! You don’t want to be here! I’m sorry!”

He chokes down vomit.

The medium plunges the needle in between his eyes. It scrapes the bone. He raises up his hands as if to lift the ceiling.

The gas he’s been holding explodes from his body, hot and sulfur, wet, like a failing machine, like a rhinoceros goring a hog. He screams. Deflates. His arms fall to his sides. He falls too, and lands on his ass. A simple, sad expression spreads like grape jelly over his face.

A bead of blood rolls down his nose.

He can hear Little Boy’s piss trickling down his pant leg and onto the wooden stage.

“Are you ashamed of what you have done?” demands the Oriental spirit medium. Much of the audience is leaving. The short policeman and the thin one walk against the outflow, truncheons at hand.

“Yes I am ashamed,” says Fat Man, hoarsely. “I am ashamed. Yes I am ashamed, yes I am ashamed.”

“See what I see,” says the medium. “Know what I know.”

She’s retrieved her box from the table. They are swimming in the eggy fumes of Fat Man’s explosion—the air is hot, and seems to warp and bend around them.

“Touch the wooden box with me,” she says. “Hold it as I hold it.”

She proffers the box, kneeling beside him.

“Are you Japanese?” says Fat Man.

“I am.”

“You survived,” he says.

“I did.”

Fat Man reaches for the box.

It’s cold. The grain is smooth.

Fat Man and Little Boy wake up on the stage, spent and alone. Fat Man has had another wet dream, as the stain crusting the front and inner thighs of his slacks testifies. Little Boy merely wet himself.

Fat Man, sitting up, finds a handwritten note at rest on his gut.

It reads:

we are sorry for what the medium has done to you, and any shame it brings. we tried to wake you, but could not. instead we thought it best to let you rest. we will clean the stage in your absence. please leave the building at your earliest convenience. francine says she’ll be waiting for you with warm soup.

signed,

the management

Fat Man folds the note and puts it in his pocket.

“You smell awful,” says Little Boy.

“Well you’re a bed of fucking wildflowers,” says Fat Man. “You’re a goddamn spice rack. You’re a basket of scented soaps and rare cosmetic treatments.”

“I get it,” says Little Boy, rubbing his arm where a bruise is forming—he doesn’t know why there is a bruise.

“You’re a goddamn Parisian perfume counter.”

“I get it! At least I didn’t fart on stage.”

Fat Man goes backstage and Little Boy follows. The samurai costumes hang from a rack on wheels, on wire hangers. The robes are very light and cool to the touch. Their swords are sheathed and piled on the floor. The table and jade pillars like ugly stacked heads are behind the piano, an upright with yellowing keys and cigarette burns, and ash around its base. Someone left his hat on top of it.

They find the medium’s dressing room, but she will not answer no matter how they knock. Fat Man shouts into the keyhole, then kneels and peers, cold in his come.

Little Boy leans against the wall and sucks his fingernail. He says, “She’s not there or she’s not answering. Knock down the door or let’s go.”

“I’ll knock you down,” says Fat Man.

They leave, holding hands.

In the lobby there is a table. The marshal’s white stone head is balanced upside down, the bald top sanded flat so it can stand on what’s left. He is painted in spatters, the colors of the flag. He seems panicked. He watches the brother bombs go.

It’s night. Neither can say how late, but they can see the moon and the stars, and there are few people out. It’s quiet. They hear the distant burble of some body of water, one they never heard before. Someone’s horse wanders the street, alone, no saddle, shoes heavy and muffled with accumulated mud. Little Boy watches for the horse as they walk. He would like to see it. He would like to touch its mane.