Nina balanced her head against the machine. She exhaled. The Hunting Day still stained her, impossible to exhale.
She shut her eyes. Bug cooed. Nina answered by trying to pull deeper into herself, even if it meant away from her baby.
She wanted away from Burl Senior’s world. Away from what had been frozen in her by that floodlight. And away from what had begun nine months ago, when Burl Senior had been found in eight pieces, each stuffed in a Hefty bag, crammed in a tree trunk.
Junior and she had fled that world, after all – after Hunting Day, after they got married, they had escaped Burl Senior’s shadow. They had left Junior’s father’s backwoods business and made for the bright and bustling business of New Orleans. And, for a time, they had escaped the kind of world where it could be so dark, to a place where night was brighter than day.
Nina tried to taste that kind of place: Its sweet food, its light beer, its music. She ended up open mouthed, only the putrefaction of Mississippi forest filling it.
Nina lowered her head and made to close her lips around the taste of decay and asphalt.
A hard, chill feeling at the back of her neck froze them open.
A gun’s steel mouth pressed to her spine. Now Nina could taste only the saccharine of adrenaline.
“Well, well,” Atticus said. “Miss Nina Teena Teeny-Bopper. Back at last.”
***
Fixed to the metal chair with electrical tape, Nina felt freer than she had in nine months. The tape held her wrists and ankles to the chair, which teetered on the curled plastic tiling of Atticus’ den. But it secured her flesh in the definite possibility that soon, this would all be over. Soon, she might be dead.
Only Bug’s wails bound Nina to familiar misery. Atticus had set Bug in the tub and closed him into the bathroom. He’d made Nina watch. She knew her baby’s prison was a place that swarmed with rust and mold and fat-bulked flies. Its dry disease smell stuffed Nina’s nostrils. Her stare was fixed to the bathroom’s peeling door as if by a hook.
Atticus was never one for conversation and paced instead of talking. But he could only glance out the curtained front window so many times, could only pace the lightless room, could only stare at the gun hanging heavier with disuse in his hand.
When he broke the silence, it was with the high-tone of a trip-wire. “Can you shut him up?”
Nina remembered Atticus as the coolest head of Burl Senior’s boys. The one who stared at his boss like a trained falcon. The one who, Nina later heard from Junior, would be sent to do “bone work” on reluctant debtors. Atticus had been cool as a cartridge in a chamber. Now he twitched right to the hairs on his neck.
“Talk baby talk to him or something?” Atticus waved the gun to give it something to do. Nina sighed and stared at him with contempt.
“Baby talk?”
“Say his name all hushed or some shit. What is his name anyhow?”
“Bug.”
“Bug? Why the fuck you name your boy ‘Bug’?”
“He’s Burl Slater the Third. Little Burl. Little Bug. Bug.”
Atticus twitched, every bit of new knowledge adding to the hive nervous inside him.
Nina had nothing but contempt for nervous men. Even though Atticus had every right to be nervous, Nina despised her captor all the more for being out of control. He had surely heard what Junior had done to Kip, Natty and Elijah but, instead of going about vengeance mechanically like her husband, Atticus was acting like his head was already cut off like the three of them.
“Bring him in here,” Nina was not surprised to find her voice calm, “and I can settle him down.”
She expected calm because power, she knew, was a zero-sum equation: You were either the one in power or the powerless. Burl Senior told her that. Junior, fastening her to him with love and then leading her down a path of hate, had proved it. And in this equation, Atticus was clearly not the one in power.
“Nuh uh.” Atticus spat. Another brown stain joined a nebula of them on the floor.
“Why not?”
“To confuse him.”
“Confuse him?”
“Confuse your fucking mad dog husband, Neener.” Atticus glanced everywhere at once, saw nothing he liked, moved the gun more. “So when he gets here, he don’t find y’all in one place. He’ll get to questioning. He’ll wonder where his retard boy is and won’t know what to do. I’ll take advantage of that.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Huh?”
“You’re wrong and you should know better,” Nina said. “Junior’s not like you. He doesn’t wonder.”
“He’ll wonder all right.”
“He doesn’t question, Atticus.” Nina smiled. Affection for Junior flowered from her heart into her face. It felt good, that old blush, stirred up from memories of how Junior moved their bodies together on the Bourbon Blues Company dance floor. Junior had known all the places to touch when the lights were down. Junior had been – was always – Nina’s voyage to the woman she had to become.
“You’re thinking of Burl. Burl Senior.” Atticus dropped his voice. “He was the man with the plan. That dude could turn blood into money like no other. Not his dickweed son.”
“You don’t think Junior learned from him?”
“Junior learned one thing.” Atticus lifted a soiled finger. “To ask nicely for seconds of whatever his Daddy gave him, whether it was on a plate or from his belt. He learned to be Burl’s dog.”
“Burl’s dead now, Atty.”
“I know!” Atticus swept his arms wide like a man caught in a sudden flood. “And I didn’t kill him!”
“I reckon you couldn’t even think of how.”
“I didn’t and neither did any of them men your husband killed! So why’s he doing this?”
“Because somebody did.” Nina went back to looking at the door welling over with Bug’s cries. “And if Junior learned one thing from his Pa, it was what he’s doing now.”
A bang hit the back door. Nina could hear the splinters born. Only Atticus startled. Bug went quiet.
“That would be Junior.” Nina did not sag with disappointment until Atticus tore his aim away from her head. For a moment, he looked like he was going to use the gun. Something had sung as clear and pure as sunshine inside her. Now there was just tar, like she had swallowed many roads.
Atticus went to the back door.
“Fuck,” he said. Nina heard him trying to bang it shut time and again. She heard a click of a light switch and yellow light from the back cast her shadow before her.
Nina watched it and saw Atticus’ shoes stalk into the room. They circled. They stopped. They paced.
“Fuck all.”
“Confused?”
“Fuck you, Nina.” He was whining and excitement flooded her – bad and liquid and electric all the way to her teeth. Atticus’ eyes caught hers.
Nina felt all this excitement trying to unlock her jaw and press words from her mouth – words that had been wrapped tight since she’d fled to New Orleans. Atticus snapped on the light. His silhouette cast on the front window curtain.
Shots rang. Glass shattered from the front window. The curtain flapped with three new holes.
Atticus fell, crushed like a used can.
Nina watched him flop with his hand on his spurting throat, knowing she didn’t have much time left to confess to a living soul. Soon, his eyes would go out and close the confessional to her forever. Soon, Junior would be beside her and what she had to say could never be told.
“I killed Burl,” Nina whispered. “After he raped me. After he told me he didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
Atticus snorted blood like a cartoon bull. His eyes bulged. Nina understood that was the only answer she could expect for expiation.
Junior reached through the window frame and unlocked the front door. Atticus tilted his sprawl and opened his mouth. Only red came out.
“I tried to bury him good but he just wouldn’t stay in the woods.” Nina whispered and there
was so much more to tell: About how it felt to saw up so much of a man. About how she used to dream of a New Orleans dead and dull and inhabited only by Mississippi pine. About how she knew her son was her husband’s brother.
There was no telling now though because Atticus was dead. Junior entered like he owned the house. Only his eyes were alive.
Nina looked in them, into that same light she had fallen into on many a New Orleans dance floor, and saw something else teeming there.
Junior looked Nina over as if inspecting damage on his car.
“Where’s Bug?”
“Bathroom.”
Nina watched him go – saw the wide set of shoulders that could beat an animal to death and steal a family. Junior was filling out, growing up. The hand that opened the bathroom door had a hardness to it that Nina knew would not suffer refusal.
“Daddy!” Bug cried from the bathroom.
“You’re goddamn right,” Junior said, unsmiling.
-
Matthew C. Funk is a social media consultant, professional marketing copywriter and writing mentor. He is the editor of the Genre section of the critically acclaimed zine, FictionDaily, and a reviewer. The 2010 Spinetingler Award winner, Best Short Story on the Web, Funk has work featured in Needle, Howl, 6S and online, indexed at his Web domain.
A Whole Lotta Rosie
By Nigel Bird
Fifty years to the day Rose has been walking on the planet. Not that she’s walked on much of it. Sheep farms in the summer. Back home the rest of the time.
Hasn’t been far.
Not that she’s needed to.
A huge fish in a small pond, you might say. Six foot four and eighteen inches round the biceps. The blokes on the station all kid on she’d crush any man who lay between her thighs, but they’ve all taken their turn at one time or another and all gone back for more.
She goes over to the pen. Tucks her golden locks into her polka-dot bandana. Hikes up her jeans and takes out the only sheep on the entire ranch that still has wool on its back. Turns it over like she’s tossing pancakes, grabs onto the fore-legs and drags it backward through the swing-door.
The rest of the crew stand round in their wide-brimmed hats and their sleeveless shirts. They’re smoking to a man and look keen to get down to the pub.
Trapping one of the sheep’s legs between those enormous thighs of hers she gets to work, flat out like a lizard. She’s so busy trimming the fleece that she doesn’t see the crew tip-toeing around and getting into position.
As she makes the last stroke and turns off the switch, she gets up awaiting her round of applause.
Tom Brody, owner of the land, walks up to her with his hand outstretched ready for a shake. He doesn’t know that Rose is intending to crush his bones into dust. She doesn’t know that he’s not going to give her the chance.
He leans forward.
Instead of shaking, he pushes her hard in the chest.
She falls backward over Shifty, who’s curled in a ball behind her.
The sheep gets up and runs for the door.
The other four guys pounce onto Rose and pin her down.
It’s not easy keeping the nation’s arm-wrestling champ floored, but they’re big men and are skilled in stopping wriggling creatures getting away.
“Happy birthday to you,” they sing like a choir of horny dingoes.
“Get the fuck off, you mongrels,” she shouts, but it’s all part of the fun.
She hears the sound of the clippers starting behind her. “Not the hair boys,” she shouts, “Not the bleeding hair.”
***
Two days later and Rose is back in the city. She loves the big nights. The rush of adrenalin and the buzz of the attention.
She watches from the curtain that separates her from the audience. Watches her opponent milk the crowd as she struts down to the stage.
A woman gets under the rope and steps in front of Mo. Next to anyone else, she’d look huge, but alongside Mo she looks small. Her huge cleavage is easier for Rose to look at than the landscape of scarring on her face. She gives Mo a pen then squeezes her breasts together till they look like two bald men kissing. Mo signs them like she’s a celebrity and the woman lifts her shirt so all her friends can see. They whoop and cheer like they’ve never had it so good, a flock of mutton in sheep’s clothing.
Word on Mo has traveled far, even up to the sheep station. Goes by the name of The Maori Mountain and Rose sees for herself that it’s not all about the alliteration.
The way she plays the audience it’s more like a Miss Universe contest than Victoria’s arm-wrestling final, heavyweight division.
The Mountain steps up and flexes. Lets those at the front rub on oil, those muscles of hers straining against her tattooed skin as if they’re trying to burst out.
“Blooming poser,” Rose says and then she sniffs hard at her bottle of salts. Like snorting urinals, she thinks.
The announcer looks over and she gives him the nod, making sure she’s hidden when the spotlight turns in her direction.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” (though it’s mostly ladies), “Undefeated in the professional arena,” (that since the age of eighteen), “The Queen of Victoria, the Maid of Melbourne, The Sheila of the Shears…”
“Christ, get on with it,” Rose says to the back of the curtain. She looks at the wallpaper. The cheap bastards haven’t changed a thing since she first appeared there.
She counts the fading flowers of the pattern while she waits to hear her name.
“A whole lot of Wrestling Rose Robbins.”
The floor shakes as the guitar booms in.
Ba da ba da ba da ba.
The shrieking and the booing begin, the shrieks winning on a split decision.
This is the part she hates. All the frills and nonsense. The only things that matter take place at the table. Even so, she does the sponsors proud, hitting the high-fives, punching the air, singing along to her theme-tune.
“She ain’t exactly pretty,” (her fans scream), “She ain’t exactly small,” (like the song was written for her), “42, 39, 56,” (in her dreams), “You could say she’s got it all.”
The sweat’s pouring down her face by the time she reaches the stage. Has something to do with the synthetic fibers of the wig, cheaper than the natural stuff, but not as forgiving.
“Nice look,” George shouts into her ear as he goes over and kisses her cheeks.
“Might even buy you a drink after this is done.” It’s true. She looks good in the pink bob, like Louise Brooks after a few good meals.
“Might even accept,” she tells him, pulling off her silk cloak and handing it over.
She points to the words written on her t-shirt, OFTEN LICKED, NEVER BEATEN, and draws another cheer and a couple of boos for her effort.
Mo gets in her face.
Other than big, she’s everything Rose is not. She works out, does her nails, moisturizes, conditions her pit-black hair and holds it in place with sprays.
Her dark eyes stare at Rose like she can see inside her skull.
It’s nothing Rose hasn’t seen before, but it’s better than most. Like she really believes she can win.
Rose knows better than to stare back. Instead she admires the tattoos that cover her arms. She’s seen their likes before on her travels. Thought about getting her own done till the artist pointed out it would just make her skin look older.
Kisses her ring for luck. Won it on a coconut-shy when she was still a virgin. The fake emerald leaves the taste of polish on her lips.
She tightens up her lifter’s belt and sits down at the table. Spreads her legs and takes hold of the post with her left hand. Flexes her fingers around it till the grip feels right, then sticks.
Mo does the same at the other side of the table.
George starts talking then brings the hands together.
Mo grips like enormous pliers, the vein on her arm pulsing like a snake.
First round it’s easy for Rose. Sh
e moves through the gears so fast that Mo hasn’t time to react. She’ll learn, one day, that strength without technique is like water without a bottle.
Second round, though, it’s all attrition. Stuck in the middle for a while, then inching one way then the other until a shooting pain works its way from Rose’s elbow to her shoulder. For a moment she loses focus. Thinks her heart’s giving up on her. Wishes she’d given up the smokes. Feels the back of her hand on the table and realizes she’s not dying. Not tonight.
Round three’s the decider.
The pain has faded. A quick rub like it’s no big deal and they’re back at it.
Things aren’t the way they usually are. All Rose can do is defend, her wrist an inch from table’s top.
Only her hand-strength keeps the bout alive, her reputation solid. The rest of her body trembles with the tension and is crying out to submit.
Mo tries again to shift the lock. Digs her nails in to gain an edge.
Rose bites her lip to find a different kind of pain.
She knows she’s beat. There’s no way back. Just a case of going out with pride.
A stream of sweat peels off her nose to meet her eyes, stinging like pokes from a pair of chilly fingers.
Her left hand wipes them clear and snags her wig on return, only she’s too focused to notice.
As if the Lord descends, she feels Mo’s pressure slacken and knows it’s time to act.
Throws every ounce at one last stand.
Feels Mo’s arm push back and give. Hits the back of her hand to the table like she’s in a game of snap.
It’s all over.
Rose stands up and punches air.
Looks out to gather adulation.
Can’t believe there’s none of it around.
Instead it’s the hysterical laughter of playground shame.
Mo’s the same. Pissing her sides and pointing.
The only straight face she sees is George, his mouth down-turned like a falling, crescent moon. He puts the microphone to his face. Rose doesn’t hear it all, like her brain clicks on and off like alternating current. “… disqualified for taking her hand from the table… new heavyweight champion... The Maori Mountain.”
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