Mike Meginnis - Fat Man and Little Boy

“Did you all know each other in a past life?” says Baker or Able.

“I used to live at their hotel,” explains Masumi.

“How is your husband?” ventures Rosie.

“He left me,” says Masumi.

“Do you still practice your languages?”

“No. Everyone in Hollywood speaks English, more or less.”

Fat Man concentrates on his fish.

He imagines for a moment there is a mold growing on the cream sauce, as in the old days. But there is no mold. The fish is very good. He finishes his while the other diners are only getting started. He eats what sauce remains from his plate with a spoon. He eats the citrus fruit as well, right up to their skins. He drinks his wine and pours himself another glass. He drinks this too.

“Whoa there big fella,” says Able or Baker. “We can get you more fish.” He rings a silver bell. The chef brings more. Fat Man begins to sweat, devouring the food as soon as it’s in front of him. Rosie touches his arm. He doesn’t look up from the plate.

“Good to see that John still has his healthy appetite,” says Masumi, without apparent judgment. “Do you mind if I use your phone?”

“Not at all,” says Able or Baker.

“Go right ahead,” says Baker, or Able.

She leaves the table, brushing the back of Fat Man’s neck with her hip as she goes. It feels like an accident.

“Gone to call a client no doubt,” says Able or Baker.

Fat Man thinks otherwise: she’s calling the police. He asks Maggie not to pick at her food. Every time she does it makes a scraping sound that he can’t bear.

“It’s good you like the fish,” says Baker or Able, “but save room for dessert.”

“It’s pie,” says Able or Baker. “Chocolate, I think.”

Rosie asks what Keiko does for a living. Keiko says at the moment she’s a mooch. The Hanway brothers explain they met her in a Japanese restaurant and they’re trying to get her discovered. For now they bring her to every meal they have with anybody else and wait for someone to ask if she’s an actor, at which point they’ll say yes and she’ll be discovered. Little Boy asks her is she really Japanese. She says her parents were. He tells her he thinks Japanese women are the most beautiful women in the world.

“What am I supposed to say to that?”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

Rosie tells him that’s rude. The Hanway twins are laughing.

When Masumi comes back to the table she won’t meet Fat Man’s eyes, which he takes as confirmation that she’s called the cops. It would have to take more time than that for tarot, astrology, coffee grounds, or whatever. The United States has extradition with France. He knows because he’s checked.

He eats three slices of the chocolate pie though everybody else has only one. Rosie wipes it off his nose, his cheek. She asks him does he feel all right. He says everything will be fine. She asks him does he want to go home. He says it would be rude.

Afterward Able or Baker asks the women if the men might be excused for a brief conversation. Keiko says she wants to go to bed. Masumi says she’s got another consultation very shortly.

“Don’t worry about us,” says Rosie, taking Maggie in her lap. “We can entertain ourselves.”

The Hanway brothers lead them back to the room with the wax figurines. They sit down on the couch beside the sitting, laughing wax. Fat Man watches the wax police out the corner of his eye, fidgeting with the gun through his suit jacket’s pocket. Little Boy sits cross-legged on the floor.

“So,” says Able or Baker.

“Can we ask you something?” says Baker or Able. “Both of you.”

“We were wondering, where do your names come from?”

“Matthew?” says Little Boy. “The Bible.”

“Mine’s the same, I assume,” says Fat Man.

“They mean the same thing, more or less,” says Little Boy. “Gift of God. Something like that.”

Fat Man nods.

“Ours came from bombs,” says one of the twins. “I was named after Test Able.”

“And me, Test Baker.”

“Those were demonstration bombs dropped in the ocean to show reporters what an atom bomb looks like when it explodes,” says Able.

“They were us,” says Baker.

“I read about you,” says Fat Man. “I saw the pictures. I never thought that there could be others like us.”

“You’re Fat Man,” says Able.

“You’re Little Boy,” says Baker. “We knew the moment we saw you. We felt it.”

“Did you feel it?” says Able.

Little Boy says, “What?”

“What was it like?” says Fat Man.

“It was pretty okay,” says Baker.

“Dandy,” says Able. “I was born a little before he was. I knew somehow that there was going to be another one, so I waited through all that, just sort of floating in the water, and then once he was with me we went swimming.”

“It took us a little while getting to Hollywood, but boy it was worth it,” says Baker. “We just had to get back in the limelight. We couldn’t stand the idea of being thought of as just a flash in the pan, as they say.”

“I mean how was exploding.”

“How was it?” says Able. “How is it?”

“It’s grand,” says Baker.

“If you don’t mind my French, sir, I’d call it fan-goshdarn-tastic,” says Able. “How do you find it?”

Fat Man reels. He wipes the sweat from his head with a sleeve. “You’re telling me you’ve done it since?”

“Done what?” says Little Boy.

“Sure thing,” says Baker. “Like clockwork. Every two months.”

“Right now we’re equidistant, temporally speaking, between two explosions,” says Able. “The glow is just starting to fade from our last one, and over the next few weeks the urge will build in us again until it gets to be unbearable.”

Little Boy says, “Can I have another Coke?”

“What?” says Able, says Baker, says Fat Man.

“Sure you can, kid,” says Able. “You want it now?”

“I can get it for myself,” says Little Boy.

“No trouble at all,” says Baker. “I’ll get it. You want one, Fat Man? Of course you do. I’ll make it two.”

He leaves the room.

Able says, “How often do you manage? It must be tricky with a family. Where do you do it? We bought a little island. We have a guy who flies us out and leaves us there a couple days. It’s in our contract. Contracts. All of ’em.”

Fat Man says, “I can’t explode.”

Little Boy says, “I’m thirsty.”

Able laughs and slaps his knee. He looks exactly like the laughing wax beside him. “But you’re a bomb. Why, there could be nothing more natural. Have you been trying to explode? Do you feel shy about it or something?”

“No,” says Fat Man. “No, no. I never tried to explode. I very specifically try not to.”

Able’s face starts to look very mildly concerned, which Fat Man can tell is in Able’s case really an expression of extreme worry. Able gets up from the couch and goes to Fat Man with his hands outstretched, resembling in posture and attitude the mildly concerned wax police over Fat Man’s shoulder. He puts the back of his hand to Fat Man’s head. “Oh my, you’re burning up. And no wonder.”

“Is John sick?”

“You can call him Fat Man with me, Little Boy, and yes, I’m afraid he’s quite ill.”

Now Test Baker comes back with the Cokes, and this leads to a reiteration of the state of play as Test Able understands it, and the further information that Little Boy doesn’t explode either. The entire time, Test Baker is slowly rolling a cold, perspiring Coke bottle back and forth across Fat Man’s forehead.

Rosie is searching for Maggie. Little Boy has long insisted that she is a poor hider, which made Rosie confident that if Maggie chose to hide in the twins’ labyrinthine mansion then she would be able to find her. So far she has. But with each iteration of the game, her daughter becomes incrementally more adventurous, and Rosie suffers a slightly longer period of mounting panic wherein she believes she will never see her daughter again. Each time she finds her daughter, however, she recognizes the feeling as stupid and sends the girl to hide once more.