Benjamin Hale - The Fat Artist and Other Stories

“He was sayin’ somethin’ about his grandma.”

“He’s probly with Caleb right now and he didn’t want to let him know he was talkin’ to you.”

Kelly felt sick and hot and achy all over his body. He hadn’t slept. Instead he’d fought with Maggie. They both broke some stuff. She cried. The kid cried throughout the duration of the afternoon. The dogs outside were barking.

His stomach was an empty bag twitching with nausea. It was half past ten. The last time he’d slept was about twenty-four hours ago.

“I ain’t slep in twenty-four, twenty-five hours,” said Kelly. “And I ain’t gonna sleep for sum’n like twenty more. I ain’t gonna get to sleep for almost a whole nother day.”

Maggie didn’t say anything.

“ ’Cause I gotta go to work after this, and then I gotta go to work again, so the next time I get to sleep is like, what? a whole goddamn day from now.”

“Please shut up,” said Maggie. “You got a cigarette?”

“We’re outta cigs.”

Kelly had switched from coffee to NoDoz. He’d been popping them like jellybeans all night and now his heart was rattling against his ribs and his hands were shaking like machines that were about to break. He stretched out the fingers on his hand, made a fist, stretched it out, made a fist, just to make sure it’s his, yes, and it’s obeying the commands from his brain, yes, it’s working, yes. They had dropped Gabie off at Kelly’s parents’ house. He handed Gabie to his mom while Maggie waited in the idling truck, and Gabie was squirming in a dirty diaper. He handed her the squiggly little shit-smelling, howling kid and said they were going to see a movie. That’s right, a movie. Date night. Right. Then he went around to the front of the house and borrowed a crowbar and a flashlight from the garage.

Maggie was sitting next to him just a little ways off the trail, on a mound of dirt, on sticks and leaves and rocks. Kelly was holding the crowbar and Maggie was holding the flashlight. They’d been sitting like this for an hour and a half. The night was clear and crisp and warm and they could see a lot of stars. Maggie was playing with the flashlight, clicking it on and off.

“Don’t do that,” said Kelly. She made an ugly face at him and he apologized. “I’m sorry. I mean, they’re gonna see you. Don’t advertise us.”

She stopped playing with the flashlight. They were trying to stay silent, so they could hear them when they approached. Cars and trucks clattered by within earshot along Lookout Road, and occasionally they’d hear the crescendo/diminuendo of a vehicle coming/going up and down the road matched with the movement of the long shadows of trees shifting in the headlights.

Thousands of crickets chirping together made a throbbing rhythm all around them. There must have been a cricket hiding under every leaf. The racket they made was deafening, their incessant krreepa-krreepa-krreepa .

A heavy truck rumbled by on the road, quietly at first, slowly gathering volume, then the sound changed pitch as it passed and sped off down the other side of the hill, and the noise quickly faded.

“You know why they do that?” Kelly whispered. The crowbar was slick with sweat and warm in his palms from his handling it.

“Do what?”

“Change sounds when they go by.”

“No.”

“It’s called the Doppler effect. When a car’s comin’ at you, you hear the noise get louder and louder, and when it goes by, the noise changes from goin’ up to goin’ down. It’s got to do with waves. Same reason why you look at a star in a telescope it looks red ’cause it means it’s moving away, which means the universe is constantly expanding.”

They looked up at the stars.

“The universe is constantly expanding and it’s infinite at the same time,” said Kelly.

“Why do you think I’m stupid?” said Maggie.

“I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“Then why you talkin’ to me like ’at, tellin’ me all this mister science shit like you think I’m a fuckin’ kid?”

“Oh fuck off.”

“Don’t tell me to fuck off.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Quit sayin’ sorry.”

“What the fuck you want me to do?”

“I want you to grow a dick.”

They were silent after that.

Kelly squeezed the crowbar till his knuckles whitened and for a moment he wanted not only to bash Caleb Quinn’s brains out but all the brains of everybody everywhere and then he’d never have to worry about money or other people and he could go to the mountains by himself and just simply live, and maybe catch some fish.

They had been out there long enough that they had become used to the rhythm of the crickets chirping, so they noticed it when the crickets stopped.

There was a piercing flash of light somewhere in the distance, up ahead, in the trees. It was followed by another.

“What’s that?” said Maggie.

“I don’t like it,” said Kelly.

A snake egg started growing in Kelly’s stomach.

There were two more flashes of white light, but they weren’t accompanied by any discernible noise. They were quick, slicing pops of cold, silent light. They were happening pretty far away, maybe two hundred feet into the woods, but it was hard to tell.

Then they heard voices of people coming down the trail. They couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Kelly thought he recognized Jackson Reno’s voice. Kelly gripped the crowbar, loosened his grip, tightened it.

“Get the light ready,” Kelly hissed at Maggie.

Maggie snatched up the flashlight and took a few steps back.

Kelly was hot, weak, hungry, nauseated. The egg in his stomach hatched and a snake came out and started swimming around in his guts.

Two people came around the bend in the trail. One of them was wearing heavy yellow rubber boots. He was in front. Jackson was behind him. The one in the yellow boots saw that someone was there. Maggie clicked on the flashlight.

Caleb Quinn winced in the light.

Kelly stepped onto the trail and hit him with the crowbar as hard as he could in the gut. The sound of it was strangely muted, silent: a dull, flat noise of metal smacking flesh. Caleb doubled over, and Kelly jumped back and hit him in the side of the head, on his temple. Caleb pressed a hand to his head and blood came down his face. Kelly tried to get him in the balls, but missed and hit him in the thigh, and Caleb was covering his head and face with his arms as Kelly hit him in the gut again, and when he moved his arms, he hit him again in the head. Caleb fell down, and then Kelly hit him repeatedly all over his body. Kelly flipped the crowbar around and hit him one more time on the side of the head with the uglier end of it, the end with the hook on it, and there was the noise of something audibly breaking and an enormous amount of blood came out of Caleb’s head.

Kelly didn’t realize that Maggie was screaming until she stopped screaming because Jackson had pinned her arms behind her back and slapped a palm over her mouth.

“Kelly, chill,” said Jackson.

Kelly chilled. He looked at Jackson and Maggie. It was dark. Maggie had dropped the flashlight and the beam was pointing uselessly into the grass. She was struggling.

“Let go of her,” said Kelly.

“Why the fuck did you bring the girl, Kelly?”

“Let go of her.”

“This bitch was screaming her goddamn head off. What the fuck were you thinking bringing the bitch along?”

“Let go of her.” Kelly was the one screaming this time.

Jackson let her go. She ran over to Kelly and punched him in the face.

“Fuck,” Kelly said, and dropped the crowbar and covered his face with his hands. His nose and cheek where she’d hit him were tingly and hot. “What the fuck you doing?” he shouted.