“What the hell?” Josh spun and looked around. “Hello?”
The Winnebago’s awning was open and the little man sat in a lawn chair. Next to him was a beer cooler, and a few inches from that was a hibachi grill, tiny hotdogs roasting. How the…? Where did…?
“Well, ain’t that something?” The roof of the motorhome had been slipped out and stood on an arm as an awning, leaving the top wide open. Inside was the bench seat in the kitchen area, set on the table, revealing a storage compartment. The salesman at Cooper Collectables didn’t even know about this, how cool was that? “But, who…?” He gave his head a little shake, lips pursed. The simple answer was obviously the right answer, a bed-turner came in and couldn’t help themselves, had to play.
And how could he be mad? They’d revealed a secret.
He put everything away and put the man back behind the wheel. The toy returned to its box and he placed it on the desk. Somebody would come in to make the bed when he was gone.
Before he left, he spun Claire’s cellphone beneath the index finger of his left hand, the little blue light at the top blinking, pregnant with message. He put it in his pocket.
“No change,” the nurse said. This was a different woman, short and wearing the intrigue all over her face. “And she hasn’t had any other male visitors.”
“What?” Josh said, but knew, got it clear as a mountain stream.
“Some women from her conference, but no men.” The woman’s eyebrows disappeared behind her curled bangs.
Not thinking, no reason to do so, but doing so anyhow, he leaned in close and said, “I found lingerie in her suitcase. I’ve never seen her wear it.”
The nurse curled and tilted her head while straightening her back. Her eyes wide and her mouth in a tight pucker. If an illiterate’s audio dictionary existed with photo explanations, this expression would define the word SCANDALOUS.
Nothing better to do, Josh went to the theater in the mall. He thought maybe he’d see something horrific or at the very least, something thrilling. Nothing showing until four, so he went to the toy store and looked at all the plastic junk. By noon, he was back in his room with a large pizza and a plan to watch the very worst television had to offer.
“What in the hell?” The Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka was back on his bed, out of the box. He set the pizza next to the TV and crouched to look at the man in the little bedroom, mounting a little woman, her legs spread in a V. Both the man and woman wore pants. “What in the hell?”
Someone was…the simplest answer…the same person who’d entered when he was in the shower had the toy at home, or parts of it anyway, and was filling out his accessories. He should be mad at the invasion upon his privacy and belongings, but how could he be?
The hibachi was back beneath the awning by the cooler, and Josh said, “Better hurry or those dogs’ll burn.” He then sat back and grabbed the TV remote, found the show Relic Hunter and settled in.
Josh awoke in the early evening from a pizza coma. The stink cloud of expelled gas seemed to eat the light and for a few moments, Josh had no idea of where he was. He leaned to his left and found the lamp switch. Halos blinked away, his eyes settled on the motorhome. The man and woman sat beneath the awning, next to the hibachi and cooler. A grey cat sat next to the woman.
This was too much. He lifted the landline receiver and dialed the desk.
“You tell whoever came into my room that it’s not cool to screw around with my stuff.”
“Excuse me?” It was a man minding the desk. “Sorry?”
“Someone came in my room and moved my things.” Josh’s grip on the phone was white knuckle tight.
“I’m sorry, sometimes housekeeping has to move items in order—”
“I know that! But tonight, tonight somebody came in and played with my…things!”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah, or maybe this afternoon. I was sleeping and they moved my toys!”
“Your toys?”
“What? Yeah, toys. What does it matter what?”
The person at the desk sighed audibly. “How long are you staying? I can put a note—”
“My wife is in the hospital,” Josh said, letting his grip loosen and his head fall back onto a pillow.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“She’s pregnant, but it isn’t mine.”
“Okay.”
“She was going to see him sometime this week. I found her lingerie.”
“Uh, that’s not…what do you need me to…what room are you in and I’ll make a note—”
Josh cradled the telephone. His pocket suddenly seemed on fire and he heard that voice, he’s calling, calling right now, now, now. He grabbed Claire’s phone and swiped past the lock screen. No incoming call, but there were dozens of missed calls. Aside from Claire’s mother was a contact labelled Pharmacy. Pharmacy had called her fourteen times.
“Pharmacy?” It had to be fake. Josh lifted his face and looked at the motorhome. The barbeque had been packed away—how? how!—and the people and cat had retreated inside. The husband and wife in the bed, flat on their backs and the cat curled up on the driver’s seat. “But.” The cat was hard plastic, immoveable, and hadn’t been curled. The thing sat upright before. Josh wiped his eyes and jaw, his guts began clenching and he hurried to the toilet. Claire’s cellphone in his hands, elbows on his knees, ass on the toilet seat, he expelled something hot and awful, but not as hot and not as awful as the traded messages between Claire and Pharmacy.
“Mr. Dolan, visiting hours are over. There’s been no change, come back tomorrow.”
The nurse was a man this time, tall and muscular. Josh wondered if this was him. Somehow. He pulled Claire’s phone from his pocket and dialed Pharmacy. It rang six times before reaching an automated mailbox.
The nurse was frowning at Josh. “So, come back tomorrow?” he said, making it both a question and a demand.
“You have your cellphone on you?” Josh said.
The nurse grabbed his pocket. The cellphone shape stuck out on the leg of the man’s light blue scrubs. “Why?”
Josh shook, sneered and spun on his heels, made for the elevator.
Instead of heading back to the room, he returned to the theater. The latest of the Fast & Furious franchise was about to begin and he sat just in time. Usually, the movies dealt with high octane cars that nobody ever owned in the real world, but this one…The Rock was behind the wheel of an old, white with green accents, Winnebago motorhome.
“Hey baby, you get rid of that loser yet?” he said and raised his right eyebrow.
Claire came from the back in the red lingerie and purred, “Soon.”
Josh squinted tight and put his hands over his ears. The end credits were rolling by the time he opened his eyes. He looked around the dim seating area. The sparse crowd made for the exits. He inhaled a deep popcorn and candy breath before rising to his feet and following the designated route.
With each step, the fog of shock drifted over him. At the snack counter, he bought a bag of Snickers Bites and a blue slush Fanta; in the parking lot, his car shifted into gear; in traffic, a left-turning cab driver flipped him off for running an orange; in the lobby of the hotel, a beautiful woman invited him for a drink at the bar while she rubbed her breasts on his arm; in the elevator, a man asked him if the hooker tried to get him too; in his room, he stood over the motorhome in the dark with Claire’s cellphone in hand. He flipped the main light switch and was not surprised to see the woman in the bedroom and the man asleep on the bench behind the kitchen table. The cat was gone.
He clicked open the last message from Pharmacy and typed I thought we were meeting?
He set the phone on the nightstand and grabbed the comforter blanket from the bed he hadn’t used and cocooned himself next to the Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka, careful not to disturb the sleeping man and woman. For hours his eyes remained pinned, trying to catch movement in the lifeless toys, before he finally drifted off to sleep.
Josh blinked at the light overhead and rolled to his left. He picked up his phone to find more messages from Claire’s mother. He then picked up Claire’s phone to find the same, but also one from Pharmacy: I’m so happy you’re out of the hospital, can I tell people at the conference, we’re all so worried. Second message: And baby if you’re up for a visit I’m more than willing to oblige. The third message was a picture of an average-sized, white, upward-hooking erection. Fourth message: Baby? Fifth message: Claire?
Josh typed, How about tonight in my room?
Pharmacy replied immediately: I called the hospital when I didn’t get a reply. I understand this looks bad but please respect our privacy and space.
As if a sour taste suddenly invaded his entire face, Josh vibrated and twisted his head backwards to escape the sensation. His eyes fell on the motorhome. The man was on the kitchen bench, while in the bedroom, the woman stretched out, legs in a V as a new man pumped into her.
A knock landed on the door and a voice said, “Housekeeping?”
Josh tried to shout the woman away but couldn’t form words—only his vowels were working. He slipped from the bed and unravelled the wrapped blanket. Across the stiff grey carpet, he crawled to the door, got to his knees as the housekeeper’s key card opened the mechanical lock.
“Oh!” Josh wailed and flopped his body against the opening door.
“Sorry. Sorry. I’ll come back in an hour. Sorry.”
He remained there, gathering himself until her heard tiny metallic pinging and an even smaller squeak. As far as he could tell, nothing moved in the motorhome, but…he crawled back to the bed and looked through the windows—the canopy had been closed. The woman was in the back with two babies held to her chest. The other man sat behind the steering wheel; he wore a captain’s hat and a matching white sailor’s suit. The husband stood a foot away. He wore a ball cap and a rumpled suit, looking as if a localized storm had drenched him, in his hand was a small leather suitcase, the tail of a plaid shirt jutting from a seam. The wee expression on his wee face was of sorrow and loss as he stared back at the motorhome that was once his.
“She took it from him and gave it to someone else,” Josh whined into his palms, pressed tight to his mouth. He couldn’t let her do it, he couldn’t.
No fog; his mind was clear. He got to the hospital, stepping past three nurses who recognized him from the gossip mill, and went into the room that his wife shared with three other patients. The curtain circled Claire’s bed, so they’d checked off one step for him. He unplugged the heart monitor attached to her finger, silencing the beeps of her heartbeat. He then yanked the pillow out from behind her head.
Her eyes opened and her lips smacked. She blinked at him. “Josh? Why are you here?”
He faltered, pillow clutched in his hands. “I’m not letting you take anything away from me. Not one damned thing.”
“It’s already done,” she whispered and smiled a mouth full of gold teeth. “And it feels good.”
Fury roared inside. Outside, Josh exhaled heavily through his nose and pushed the pillow against his wife’s sleeping face and kept tight a 300-count after the twitching muscles in her arms ceased their languid movements. He grabbed her hair and pulled her scalp forward to place the pillow behind her head. Not a word to anyone, he jetted from the hospital, jogged to his car, drove through the city, parked in the Radisson lot, and hurried up to his room, so focused that he saw nothing outside the narrow path he followed.
Claire’s cellphone in hand, he typed I HOPE YOU CAN SWIM! and grabbed the man in the sailor suit from the Winnebago and charged to the bathroom. The man sank into the great abyss of hotel waterworks when Josh flushed the toilet.
“I hope you can swim!” he shouted and laughed. Licking his bottom lip, mouth open, eyes stretched wide, he ran back to the bed and wrenched the little babies from the woman’s arms—they were really snug in there—and took them to the microwave. He tossed them in and put twenty minutes on the timer. “Gonna be a warm one!” He laughed harder, his chin pressed to the top of his chest in the universal maniac expression. He grabbed the woman and looked around the room. Back and forth, his head jerked until he saw what he needed. He unwrapped a water cup and wound the plastic over the woman’s face. “This won’t hurt, you’re already dead.” As he set the woman on the bed, plastic around her head like a mummy wrap, someone knocked on the door.
“Mr. Dolan, are you in there?” the voice was mannish, deep, and for some reason Josh thought it sounded as if it came from behind a moustache.
He quietly crossed the room and checked the peephole. Two cops, both big, fat men—sans moustaches—and a small man in a Radisson button-up stood in the hallway. Josh flipped the U-lock over the ball and backed away. His plan had no more steps, but this wasn’t how it was supposed to end.
“Mr. Dolan? Open this door.”
The electronic key card beeped and the door pushed open an inch and a half. “He’s in there if that lock’s engaged, right?” a voice said, heavy mannish, but not the same one who’d said Josh’s surname.
Josh began breathing fast, faster.
“Josh Dolan, open this door! We need to talk to you about your wife!”
Faster, faster, hyperventilating.
“I can get it open,” the man from the desk said, his voice was TV show host smooth. “Just take a card like this and close the door a smidge.”
The door moved a hair and a card wiggled against the U part of the lock. The door closed more.
Josh stopped breathing, grabbed the Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka and set it on the floor.
The arm of the U-lock swung, freeing the ball end.
Josh picked up the little man, tilted his head back, and dropped him down his throat. He fell to his hands and knees, pressing his face hard against the open roof of the motorhome as the door burst open.
The cops charged in, both had hands on their gun holsters. “Where is he?” one said, “Not in the bathroom,” the other said, “Maybe under one of the beds?” the concierge said.
They checked everywhere and decided the U-lock must’ve engaged accidentally.
Shauna Amry grinned from ear-to-ear as she stood by the storage unit with the others picking up their winnings from the online police auction. She scored an amazing Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka for twenty bucks, and if it was half as nice as the pictures suggested, she might just flip her lid. Her thirteen-year-old niece had recently gotten into retro toys—she had a four-foot dollhouse, a horse track, a few cars, a tractor, and the better part of a train set.
The door went up and the three officers began doling out seized prizes.
An hour after that, Josie Amry was bouncing on her heels, shouting, “O-M-G! O-M-G! It’s amazing!” In her bedroom after supper, she plucked the little man from behind the wheel and a slip of paper fell onto the driveway she’d painted on the dollhouse platform. She picked it up and turned to let the light fall on it directly. Help I’m stuck in here. She scrunched her face and set the little sheet aside. “Weird.”
Shauna came up to kiss Josie goodbye. “I’m so glad you like it.”
“I love it,” Josie said.
Josie’s mother shouted from down the hall, “Bedtime!”
Shauna smiled, patted the girl’s dark brown hair, and headed for the door. “Goodnight, sleep tight.”
Josie finished, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
The room was dark and the house was quiet as quiet got, which wasn’t very quiet, not since he’d changed. Everything was loud, but he understood the types of loud and saw this as his best chance.
Josh Dolan climbed down the beveled leg of the table and sprinted from shadow to shadow. He grunted and sweated as he pulled and kicked his way up the dangling bit of duvet hanging from the little girl’s bed. Leaning on his knees, back bent, he caught his breath. It was better that he hadn’t gone to prison, but it had been a long six months trapped in the Winnebago, that toy.
Ready, he continued
on, weaving over and under the girl’s splayed and bent arms and up onto her pillow. “Sorry,” he said and wiggled in between her lips.
Josie jerked upright, gagging as the little man that came with the motorhome travelled down, down, down. Her stomach clenched and she ached, hands pressed tight at her bellybutton. She moaned and rolled to the floor. She felt her body shifting, changing…shrinking, but then the pain shifted.
She began gagging anew.
Something was coming, something hard and painful.
She convulsed on three dry heaves before the little toy clanked plastically on the hardwood floor. It was a little brown girl—a tiny facsimile of the body Josh Dolan now occupied. He picked her up and started down the hall, stopping at the first open door. He found a light switch and spotted exactly what he sought. He—no, she—lifted the toilet seat and dropped the little girl toy in.
Josh-cum-Josie whispered, “Sorry. I hope you can swim.”
Sepia Grass
Sam Hicks
My father was a drug dealer and I know that sounds bad, but it wasn’t. It was nothing heavy, just a bit of cannabis resin and grass (he hated calling it weed). Money was tight when I was born and tighter still when Mum died, too young, a few years later, and after that, it became clear that Dad’s part-time job wouldn’t bring in enough to keep us. My father was a clever man, but he’d messed up his education and didn’t exactly have first choice of lucrative careers, so in his hour of need, he turned to his one transferable skill—getting high—for help. It was drugs that paid for my school uniform, for holidays and birthday presents. It was drugs that saw us through, and we owed them thanks for that.
Dad wasn’t stupid about it, though. He kept his job in the supermarket as cover and his clientele small, and he resisted the temptation to upscale. The universe had, he said, always found ways to stop him overreaching.
The Half That You See Page 3