Big Giant Floating Head

by Christopher Boucher

  “Send the Verb!”

  “Verb is the worst!” she said. “Last time he came back with an empty bucket!”

  “Send Om.”

  “Om is on the register,” she said.

  “How about Never?” I said.

  “Screw it, I’ll go out myself,” she said.

  Half an hour later I drove my truck back to Melody’s house and parked it on the street a few blocks away. Thankfully the door was asleep, gently snoring on the front steps, so it didn’t see me or hear me. I sat in the car and read a novel that I’d taken out of the bargain bin at the store—one that was so weird, no one would buy it. A week earlier, I’d held it up to a Marsha on the way out the door to go catch stories—I was looking for something to read by the riverbank. “Can I borrow this?” I said.

  “Take it, keep it,” she said.

  “You sure?” I said.

  “Please—you’d be doing me a favor,” she said.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, the garage door finally yawned and Melody’s Hyundai drove out. I put down my book, started my car, and followed her—down the street, onto 201, to a parking lot about a mile away. She parked and walked into a big building made of red stone. There was a sign out front that read “St. Paul’s.”

  What was she doing at a church? And what would happen if I followed her inside? It had been so long since I’d been inside a church that I didn’t really remember how they worked. Was there an admission fee? I didn’t have any money. I mean it—not a single dime. My car ran on the memory of gasoline.

  “Should I go in?” I asked my heart.

  “Into the church? Absolutely not,” my heart said. “You shouldn’t even be here, Chris.”

  “I’m going to go see what’s happening in there,” I said.

  “She’s probably a member of this church,” said my heart. “And you’re not—you don’t belong.”

  “Where do I belong?” I asked him.

  “That’s not what I mean,” said my heart.

  I got out of the car and walked up to the big wooden doors. “Blessed be,” one said to me.

  “OK,” I said.

  “Are you here for the meeting?” asked the other door.

  “Yes,” I said, and both doors swung open.

  * * *

  On the other side was one of the most beautiful rooms I’d ever seen, with rows of big wooden benches and colorful windows and a big elaborate stage in the front. The room could have held hundreds of people, but right now there were only fifteen or twenty, all of them sitting in the front two or three rows of benches. Several of the people—the women, even—were bald; one person was in a wheelchair. They were all focused on a heavy-set woman who was standing on the floor in the center aisle, saying something that I couldn’t hear.

  I looked for Melody, and spotted her on the far right side. As I was watching her watch the speaker, the big doors opened again and three more people walked in and passed by me. I followed them down the left aisle and into the fourth row of benches. I ended up sitting next to a woman with a yellow bandanna on her head.

  I couldn’t really follow what the speaker was saying: something about people being connected, with occasional mentions of God. Then she said, “I want to try something. OK? Just bear with me here. I want you to take hold of the hand of the person next to you.”

  The woman with the yellow bandanna took my hand. On the other side of the room, Melody turned to her left to speak to her neighbor; when she did, she saw me across the aisle. Her face ghosted and she stood up and stormed out of the church.

  I would have gone after her, but I didn’t want to offend the woman holding my hand. She was looking at the stage and whispering, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know,” she said, over and over again. And she was squeezing my hand really tight, as if she was trying to suck the livingness from my body to hers.

  “Pssst,” I said to my heart.

  “What?” it said.

  “Go find out where Melody’s going.”

  “Fuck you,” said my heart. “I will not contribute to the trouble you’re causing that woman. Isn’t she suffering enough? Can’t you just let her go?”

  The woman squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back. I lived inside that squeeze for a moment. This is where I belong, I thought. This is my home, right here in this story. But then the speaker told us we could let go of each other’s hands, and we did, and I was alone again, and there was no home, and there never had been and never would be.

  The speaker continued on about salvation, and heaven, and many other ideas that I had trouble following. Soon I lost track of what she was saying. I felt tired and bored. Plus, I had to go to the bathroom.

  I turned around to look for doors marked with the bathroom sign—the blocky man with the round head, the triangle skirt of the woman—when I noticed a balcony at the back of the room. What was up there? It was dark on the balcony, but as I looked closer, I thought I saw—

  Was that a face?

  I looked closer.

  Then I saw it blink. It was a face.

  There was someone up there, staring down at us—at me.

  The speaker finished and everyone clapped and stood up. People began to talk in groups, and a woman with a clipboard approached me. “Is this your first time here?”

  “In a church?” I said.

  She smiled. “At the support group,” she said.

  As I spoke with her, I saw the man from the balcony—that face, and a very thin body dressed in overalls and a flannel shirt—moving up the side aisle toward the front. I read his eyes as he passed me.

  “Do you want to leave your contact information?” the clipboard lady asked me.

  “What for?” I said.

  “So we can send you news and updates,” she said.

  I wrote down my email address, bowcherbooshay@gmail.com. “S-H-A-Y?” said the woman. I said yes. “I don’t have a computer,” I said. “I can only get my email at work.” She handed me some brochures and she moved on to someone else.

  I walked up to the stage and found the thin man behind a big table, on his hands and knees. “Excuse me,” I said.

  “What are you doing?” my heart shouted into my mind. “Do you know what that is?”

  The thin man looked up.

  “Are you—praying?” I said.

  He shook his head. “Cleaning,” he said.

  “Stop talking to that thing right now!” my heart said. “Don’t you know it’s a Suicide?”

  Of course I did—I knew a Suicide when I saw one. I watched him scrubbing some substance on the floor. “Is that blood?” I said.

  “Somebody puked back here,” he said.

  “Nice of you to clean it,” I said.

  “Nice has nothing to do with it,” he said. “It’s my job.”

  “You’re a janitor?”

  “Building maintenance,” he said, standing up.

  “What a cool building to maintenance,” I said.

  He laughed. “Think so?” He took out a flask and brought it to his lips. He must have seen me eye it, because he looked down at the flask and then held it out to me. “Sip?” he said

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Watered-down death,” he said.

  “No,” said my heart to my mind. “No, Chris.”

  But another part of me figured, why not?

  “Because it’s death is why not,” said my heart.

  I took a sip. The room went shaggy and low.

  “What’s your name, pardner?” said the Suicide.

  “Christopher,” I told him.

  * * *

  The next day I went back to work at AquaBooks. Usually they sent me out story catching, but some days, like today, I worked in the shelves. Once, years earlier, I’d owned a bookstore. But I couldn’t manage it—I lost it all investing in expensive, experimental texts. Luckily, a Marsha knew my uncle, and called me after
I closed the store and offered me a job. We sold all kinds of books at AquaBooks—lakebooks, streambooks, pondbooks, oceanbooks, puddlebooks, you name it.

  That morning, my mind was still turning from the drink I’d shared with the Suicide, and I knew that a Marsha could see something floating in my eyes. Also, I felt nauseated—I could still feel that death sloshing around in my belly. I decided, right then and there, that I would not go back to the church. Religion just didn’t sit right with me, apparently.

  But later that week, the Suicide walked right into AquaBooks; I was ambling out of the stockroom, with my story-catching equipment in hand, and he stepped out of the stacks. “Hey,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said. “Hi again.”

  “Remind me of your name?”

  “Christopher,” I said.

  “I didn’t know you worked here,” he said. Even though, when I drive back to those old paragraphs? I distinctly remember telling him that I worked at AquaBooks. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Browsing,” he said. “I think I found a good one.” He held up a book called The God of the Martians. “Do you know it?”

  I shook my head. “But it looks interesting.”

  The Suicide put the book under his arm. “You should come back to St. Paul’s,” he said.

  “To the support group?”

  The Suicide shrugged. “Or just—to hang out, shoot the shit. I’m there every night,” he said.

  I said I’d try, and I shook his hand and left to go catch stories. As soon as I stepped out of the store, though, my heart started nagging me. “Suicides are not good people, Chris,” said my heart. “Not people at all, actually. They want different things than you or I want. Right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “You don’t sound very convinced.”

  “      .”

  “Chris?”

  “What?” I said.

  “Things aren’t that bad. Are they?”

  “They aren’t good,” I said.

  “You’re just upset about Melody,” said the heart. “But hanging out with a Suicide is not going to help any. I want you to promise me we won’t go back to St. Paul’s.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Promise.”

  “Cross you and hope to die,” I said.

  The heart nodded in my chest. “Now let’s go catch a story,” he said.

  * * *

  Catching a story is simple: you just go out to a river and cast your line. The best stories lie at the bottom of streams, lakes, or oceans. To find a good spot for stories, look for the faces—the old lives now fictioned. Hook a character or sentence and reel it in. Then you dry it out, bind it, and put it on the shelves.

  Of course, you have to read the water. Every river and stream works differently. Some rivers—rivers without story—are actually swimmable! Other streams, though, are very magazine. And those that contain stories, or memories? You can’t expose yourself to that water unless you yourself are ready to be memoried and storied.

  I spent that whole day on the Coolidge River, catching until dusk. Late in the afternoon, I put my bucket of stories in my truck and drove back to Aqua. By the time I dropped the stories off it was almost eight o’clock. When I got back in the car, I felt a pang of loneliness. I tried to ignore it, and started driving home, but the car—it was the car, I swear it was—steered us towards Geryk. By the time my heart figured out what was happening we were already on 117. “Wait a second,” he said. “Chris. Where are you going?”

  “It’s not me,” I said. “It’s the car. It’s driving of its own accord!”

  “Bullshit,” said my heart. “You promised, Chris.”

  “It’s out of my control!” I lied.

  My heart slunk down and went silent; I could feel it crossing its arms in my chest.

  When I walked into the church, I found the Suicide playing the organ. “Ey!” he said. “It’s the storycatcher!” He stood up and handed me a chalice with some death in it. I took a sip. “Want the tour?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  He walked me behind the stage, through a series of rooms and offices. One closet was full of chirping robes. Another room held books in different languages. “This is the pastor’s office,” said the Suicide. He collapsed into a leather chair and I sat down across from him. “Haven’t seen you at the support group,” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  “I saw your friend, though. Melanie?”

  “Melody,” I said.

  “What’s going on with her health?” he asked.

  “Chris,” said my heart, through clenched teeth. “Don’t you tell him anything about Melody.”

  “That group?” said the Suicide. “Is for people with terminal cancer.”

  “Melody’s fine,” I said, revising. “She isn’t even sick. She’s going to live forever.”

  * * *

  That was the first of many nights that summer that I hung out with the Suicide—I’d stop by with fast food or a six-pack, and we’d mix the beer with death and sit in the pews and get fucked up. Once, the Suicide dared me to eat all of the communion wafers and I did it. Another time, he climbed the cross on the back wall to see how high he could get. He made it almost to the top before the wall mounts started to whine, and then the Suicide leapt off and landed on the floor.

  Maybe two weeks into my church visits, we were sitting in the benches with our feet up, not really talking, when the Suicide dug into his pocket and said, “Hey. Want to try something?”

  “What?” I said.

  “Here.”

  There were two gold bullets in his palm.

  “What are those?” I said.

  “Bullets, dummy,” he said. He tossed one up in the air and caught it in his mouth. “Now you,” he said, and he held out a bullet.

  “Really?” he said.

  “You suck it until it explodes.”

  “Absolutely not, Chris,” said my heart.

  I put the bullet in my mouth.

  “Do you listen to anything I say, ever?” said the heart.

  The bullet tasted foul.

  “Wait for it,” said the Suicide. His face was a holiday.

  I let the bullet sit in my cheek. It grew warm, and hot, and hotter.

  “Spit it out,” said my heart.

  Then I heard a noise from the Suicide—a crack inside his mouth—and his eyes went wide. “And the world is: beautiful,” he said. He spit the casings out on the bench.

  “Christopher Gerard Victor Boucher, you spit that bullet out right now or we are dead,” said my heart.

  The bullet was hot on my tongue. I could feel holes forming in my mind.

  “Chris!” shouted my heart.

  I spit out the bullet.

  “Aw,” said the Suicide. “Boo. Hiss.”

  “I’m fine without the explosion,” I said.

  “But the explosion is the juice!” he said.

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “You need to be willing to lose,” said the Suicide.

  I said, “Lose what?”

  “Everything,” he dreamed.

  “I lost the only woman who ever loved me—I couldn’t lose more if I tried,” I said.

  The Suicide lay down on the bench. “Loved you. What does that word even mean?”

  “What? It means—” I said, but I don’t think I said anything else. I was having trouble focusing—trouble seeing, even. I slumped over onto my side.

  I passed out right there in the pew. I woke up the next morning to the sound of the organist opening the double doors. The Suicide was gone—there were just a bunch of shell casings where he’d been. I put them in my pocket and ran out the fire door.

  * * *

  Maybe a month after I met the Suicide, Melody died. At least, that’s what the email from the support group said. When I showed up to the funeral home, the room for Melody’s party was crowded with people. The front door saw me and walked right over. I could tell he’d been
crying. “Christopher,” he said. “Shorts, Christopher?”

  I looked down at my pale legs, then back up at the door. “Where is she?”

  The front door took a deep breath, put his arm around me, and walked me up to a big closed box in the center of the room. We both stared at the golden box.

  “Where’s Melody?” I asked.

  The door nodded toward the box. Then he nudged me toward Melody’s family, who were standing a few feet away, all in a row. Her father hugged me and said, “She loved you, Christopher. She really did love you. She just didn’t want you, or any of us, to suffer.”

  “That’s what I want to ask her about,” I told him. “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “Chris!” scolded my heart.

  “What?” said her father.

  “Just tell me where she is,” I said.

  “You’re an asshole, Chris,” said my heart.

  The front door led me swiftly to the back of the room. I was shouting now: “Where’s Melody! Can anybody tell me? I want to see my fiancée! Right! Now!”

  Everyone was staring. The door motioned to the garage door and a shed, and the three of them carried me out of the funeral home.

  * * *

  My heart didn’t talk to me for three days after that. When he finally did, on our way to meet the Suicide for a storycatch, it was only to tell me he was leaving town. “So even my heart is against me now,” I told the Suicide as we cast out our lines.

  “Selfish heart,” said the Suicide, reeling in the conflict. “In your time of need, no less.” He took a sip from his flask and handed it to me, but I waved it away. “Got any bullets?” I said.

  He gave me one and I popped it into my mouth. He ate one too. After a minute I said, “Is it flavored?”

  The Suicide nodded. “Watermelon,” he said. I heard his bullet explode in his mouth. And then the Suicide did something very strange: he walked to the very edge of the bank, so that the memories were only a foot away from his shoes. “What are you doing?” I said.