Every Fox is a Rabid Fox

by Harry Gallon

  She pulled the covers off and looked down at me.

  ‘Naught boy,’ flicking the wet waistband of my pyjama trousers. ‘Don’t worry, I’m here now,’ she said, becoming a child again, less weight on my chest pushing down, breathing, pushing down, ‘to tell you how you will die.’

  THE NEXT TIME I WENT OUT SHOOTING

  The next time I went out shooting with my father I pulled the head off a wood pigeon.

  Snap.

  Its bones didn’t so much as crack as sort of just tear. Skin mottled under feathers jostled by my pubescent, bloody fingers, inexperienced but determined to prove that I could do other things besides piss the bed. A cute trickle of blood courted its beak while its eyes bulged in terror and anticipation. It was only a little thing. But then, so was I. My shotgun, smaller size, still managed to shoot this pigeon out of the sky as it tried to come in to land amongst the decoys my father had set out, after perusing his shooting textbook for twenty minutes.

  ‘We won’t throw it in the bag,’ my father told me. ‘We’ll keep it out there, ready.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked him.

  ‘To lure others in,’ he said. ‘We’ll hold him up in the cradle.’

  “The first time I held you, when you were born,

  you were perfect: so sweet and so pure.”

  ‘But, you see,’ said my father, not quite the same colour as a tree, ‘You’ve not quite killed it.’ The bird was flopping around in the stubble. ‘Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?’ I asked.

  ‘Doesn’t matter, just grab it.’

  I climbed out of the hide we’d spent the last hour constructing in the far northern hedgerow of one of the fields behind our house, about two-and-a-half miles from the barn my brother and I had burned down. ‘Wait,’ said my father, double barrelled, pointing to my .410 while I was halfway out of the entrance, ‘break that first, young man.’

  So I broke it, passed it to him, walked out into the field, which we chose because it had been recently harvested, twenty yards, feeling naked without the gun and wondering if my brother was watching me from somewhere through a telescopic sight.

  ‘When you kill a pheasant this way,’ said my father, ‘it’s quicker to grab it round the neck, just below the head, with your thumb and your forefinger touching, then spin the body round sharply. Its own weight will snap the necessary vertebrae in its neck. Much like that rabbit you killed the other day.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Except a pigeon is much smaller. Put your hands together around its neck so that they’re touching, then twist as you pull them apart.’ This only seemed to strangle the bird, slowly. Its eyes bulged garishly, blood rejecting the beak and escaping to the ground. When the head came off my father said, ‘Well,’ in a shrugging sort of way. ‘Don’t worry about that.’ Then he took the corpse from me, attaching it to the cradle (head included, though strangely inclined). After breaking his own gun and passing it to me, he climbed out of the hide, walked twenty yards back into the field and placed the cradle in the decoy formation we’d already laid down. The cradle had a long string attached to it which, when pulled from a distance, flapped the bird’s wings for it.

  ‘That should bring more in,’ said my father.

  PERAMBULATORS

  Willow pours coffee from a large cafetière in her garden. There are five cubes of feta cheese on the green plate by the back door. ‘Have you got any sugar?’ I ask.

  ‘You take sugar now?’

  ‘How about milk?’

  ‘Might be some in the fridge. Do you want any food?’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ I tell her, standing by the trellis while a cat tightrope walks across some wire that holds up a dead grapevine. ‘I just feel bloated, so I’ve been trying to walk a bit more. Leg’s still sore, though.’

  ‘Well, you did break it,’ she says. ‘How much longer are you signed off from work?’

  ‘I got it extended.’

  She nods, unhappily.

  ‘Well, go easy,’ she says. ‘You don’t want to hurt it again.’

  ‘I don’t see what difference it would make. I don’t want to go back to work anyway.’

  ‘They’re paying you while you’re off, right?’ she says. ‘It was only a broken leg. You’ll be walking properly on it again pretty soon. Are you going to those therapy sessions?’

  I don’t think she believes what she’s saying. Willow starts her day with The Guardian app. She sits on the toilet and reads the news. She sits on the toilet and hopes that something grey and lifeless plops out of her into the piss water.

  ‘I read an interesting article the other day’ she says, while I pour milk into my coffee. It turns solid, looks like lava. ‘It was about a man who had extreme anxiety and paranoia.’

  ‘Your milk’s off,’ I tell her, pouring my coffee away.

  ‘He spent his whole life convinced that he was going to do something terrible. Is black okay?’

  ‘Sure.’

  The cat’s eating feta cheese, loudly. Apparently he won’t eat anything else, now.

  ‘You should see his crap,’ says Willow. ‘Anyway, he spent all his time signed off from work because he had extreme anxiety and paranoia, and possibly some schizophrenia too because there was this part of him that knew he was going to kill someone, and part of him that wanted to. He said it started off small, worrying he’d accidentally spill a drink over somebody in a pub. Then it grew and he knew it wasn’t about accidents, it was about potential. Rape somebody. Castrate somebody. Post nude photos of somebody on the internet. Push a buggy into a canal.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘He couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ I say, ‘a strange figure standing by the edge of his bed with–’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘–hands pressing down on his chest?’

  ‘So you’ve read it too?’ she says.

  Is he terrified of himself? Does his fear cripple him? Sofa paralysis. Lying prostrate for days. Heavy breathing in strictly regulated bags. Inhalers with large volume spacers that look like penis enlargement pumps and only increase his anxiety. An old friend tries to take him out on late morning walks, but he feels too conspicuous and the attempts are destroyed by the presence of children on swing sets and micro scooters. Police sirens in the distance seem to be waiting for him. Always were. Families dragging dogs. Dogs dragging sticks. Mothers pushing perambulators along tow paths are easy targets. An accidental nudge and the baby has had it.

  ‘Have you heard from Stephanie?’ says Willow.

  ‘No.’ Pausing. ‘She hates me.’

  ‘No she doesn’t.’

  ‘She’ll tell their children to avoid me.’

  ‘No she won’t.’

  ‘It’ll be like I never existed.’

  ‘You’re not listening,’ says Willow.

  ‘Sorry.’

  She sips a little coffee. ‘You should call her,’ she says. ‘She’s family, remember?’

  I cough.

  Does he wake up in a sweat, having pissed himself? Does he lie the rest of the night awake, convinced that his body is rejecting him? Guts are black. Legs are broken. And if he cuts himself open his entrails won’t be red, dark red and yellow fat of cholesterol, colon brown, and bone white.

  No.

  They’ll be crude oil black. Immediate oxidisation. Instant rot. Colours changing behind his eyes. Instant death, much like when a doctor tells a middle-aged man he’s got a terminal illness; that it has to be removed if he wants to live longer than two months more, and even then the odds aren’t great. But if he hadn’t booked the appointment, if he hadn’t gone at all, he’d simply have a cough, or strangely enlarged testicles. Would’ve lived to become one of those ninety-two-year-olds who smokes and drinks and eats red meat and doesn’t recycle.

  ‘And your parents?’ says Willow. ‘Have you called either of them?’

  ‘This garden’s a mess, Willow.’

  She rolls a cigarette. ‘It’s important to separate work
and home,’ she says, touching the grapevine, shrugging off a flowerbed. ‘Well, at least you’ve got your sister.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Was she at the bar the other night?’

  This joke’s been going on for too long. It’s too late to explain. And anyway, Willow wouldn’t understand that when I asked her to choke me with that belt, that as I got close to passing out, close to coming, it was my sister riding me, not her. Hands on her waist. White knuckles. Up and down. Willow looking a lot like how my sister might look if I hadn’t accidentally killed her.

  ‘Close your eyes, brother.’

  Alive.

  ‘Close your eyes.’

  Pulling the belt tighter as I let go inside of her.

  Just a joke, right? Just that guy you met at university, who got pissed and told that story about a twin sister who died before infancy. Not your fault. Ghosts aren’t real. Good round the dinner table, though. Good with some coke and discussing how to save the world at 4am. I knew her then, didn’t believe it much myself. Can’t deny it now, though. She knows me: ‘You’ve a history of hurting others. Remember,’ said my dead little sister as she choked me, spoke dirty, ‘when you killed me?’ It was her that night. Putting pressure and pressure on until I almost died.

  Willow doesn’t know about the Five Second Game. I’m too scared to tell her. And too scared to tell my brother’s wife, still alive, raising their child, soon to be children, alone.

  ‘What did he do,’ I ask, ‘the man in this article?’

  Willow flicks her cigarette into an empty terracotta pot. ‘He got over it,’ she says. ‘He spoke to doctors. He got on meds. He quit his job and left.’

  ‘Left what?’

  ‘Everything,’ she says.

  ‘And that worked?’

  ‘He wrote the article, didn’t he?’

  I finish my coffee.

  ‘I just don’t think I deserve to be happy, Willow.’

  She raises her eyes impatiently. The cat throws up.

  RENDEZVOUS

  I was watching Jim from the corner of the bar, surreptitiously sipping a half lager shandy while my brother and his friends looked around sheepishly, fake Ids ready in the event of any challenge. I was watching Gentleman Jim walk in, sit down and wait.

  And wait.

  I was watching him, Uncle Jim, meet a client.

  This was all a coincidence. We’d accidentally walked into the hitman’s date. Luckily, he hadn’t seen us. And my brother was so far oblivious. He was sitting opposite me, facing towards the window and unable to see our uncle, Jim, sipping from a long tall drink, purple tie, hair slicked, and those same thin black gloves we’d seen him hold that stranger’s head in, waist height, through the telescopic sight on that .243 rifle, that night under our pillows.

  Jim had trimmed his moustache.

  And I was kicking the table leg. Aiming for my brother’s ankle but missing and hitting my dead little sister in her dead little head, beneath the table where she, never born (properly, at least), was hiding. Underage. Non-uniform day. One split lip from a punch by some kid I pushed over. Greasy quiff and peanut tie outside the maths block, fracturing the sympathies of my brother who, after wading in, told me that I deserved it.

  ‘You’ll always get it eventually,’ said our dead little sister, not long from the nursery, which backed on to the primary school by the side entrance to our secondary.

  ‘You told me to push him,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ she said, laughing. ‘And you fell for it. What’d that boy even do to you?’

  ‘He made fun of my trainers.’

  ‘Well, they are pretty old. Look, they’ve got holes.’

  ‘Come on then,’ said my brother, who’d waited for me at the gates as usual, while his friends loitered outside the petrol station across the road. ‘We’re going down the road, try to sneak some beers. You can come if you shut up.’ The pub we went to was known for not requesting ID but they still sat me behind a pillar so I couldn’t be seen from the bar. ‘Look who’s there,’ said my sister, hiding under the table. Uncle Jim had walked in a few moments later. ‘He’s looking very smart,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll go hang out with his shoes instead of with yours,’ poking my exposed toe. ‘You’re just a boy, after all,’ squeezing my thigh. ‘Plus, given his dangerous profession he’s probably likely to die soon. Then we can both sit at your feet, although I,’ she said, with the cheese Wotsit breath of a child, ‘know better places to tease you.’

  ‘What the fuck was that for?’ said my brother, after I’d tried to kick my sister, missed and hit him. ‘Look who’s here,’ I whispered, nodding towards Gentleman Jim and the long tall glass of what looked like vodka and cranberry in front of him. ‘Must be a secret meeting.’ My brother laughed, though not in a collaborative way. ‘A covert rendezvous,’ he said, shaking his head taking a drink. ‘He must’ve got here early,’ I said, checking the clock, ‘on purpose, to get a good table with a view of the door. To scope out the floor. Keep a hand on the gun in his pocket, in case the meeting goes wrong.’

  ‘Or well,’ said my brother, smartly, before turning back to his friends.

  My little sister, on hands and knees, was slithering over the floor in long socks and pleats to Jim’s table, under which she crawled, sat cross-legged and winked at me. Meanwhile, another man, a stranger I didn’t recognise, had entered the pub. He approached the bar and asked for a glass of water.

  This was it.

  Gentleman Jim hadn’t seen him yet. He was drinking his drink and sniffing the menu. When the stranger approached him he put his hand on Jim’s shoulder, quickly, before sitting down. ‘Can I have another?’ I asked my brother, who was drinking cider but who’d only allow me the one because, ‘We’re already pushing our luck here.’

  My sister was listening to Jim’s conversation. I peered round from behind the pillar again and saw Jim take his black gloves off the table top and put them into his coat pocket.

  It was a black coat.

  They were both very shady.

  Just as you’d expect men to be when they’re dealing in oral contracts.

  If I’d been older I’d have gone round the corner and watched them through the window from under a fedora and waited until they left. I’d have followed them, expecting to find them in some warehouse or other, if they were working together, choking mercilessly some doomed enemy. Hands and knees. Repeating the name. Maybe a belt round the neck. A black leather belt. Gets on his knees as Gentleman Jim frees the belt from his trousers. Smacks him around. I’d be watching all this through the window, a spy, trying not to slip off the bin, watching, stroking the gun I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to use. An .08 Luger, or Browning high-powered pistol.

  Double tap.

  A leather strap around the neck.

  My sister, who’d already suffered death by rotisserie umbilical cord, flopping around beneath the table, had infiltrated the meeting on my behalf because I couldn’t be seen by my father’s brother, and he, by the looks of things, didn’t want to be seen by anyone.

  The menu was clearly a ruse. A way for Jim to look true in his position as possible friend while this strange man sat opposite him without taking off his suit jacket, only occasionally sipped his water and talked an awful lot. Talked an awful, awful lot.

  Reached across–

  I was bent round the pillar.

  –and took Jim’s hand.

  ‘Well,’ I said to my sister later that night, after everyone involved had left to either dream about teenage sex or commit murder before going to bed. ‘Well,’ after lying to my mother about my swollen lip–

  “You don’t have to play contact sports if you don’t want to, love.”

  –and after lying to my father about my swollen lip. ‘Well,’ to my sister, who was lying underneath my cabin bed on the futon I used to play PlayStation on instead of studying Roosevelt’s New Deal or algebra. ‘Well, I didn’t expect Jim to tell him that his time was up in public. Do you kn
ow what he said?’ I asked her. ‘Did you hear what Jim said to the stranger? Why he wouldn’t stop talking? Why he looked so sad and scared and took Jim’s hand and pleaded?’

  ‘He just said he was sorry.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He just kept saying honey, honey, honey.’

  Over.

  And.

  Over.

  ‘Honey?’

  ‘I think it was a nervous twitch,’ she said. ‘Probably saw it on the menu Jim was holding in front of him. Saw honey-glazed ham. Honey-roasted vegetables. Milk and honey. Honey and whisky. Probably got stuck in his doomed head. Prob–’

  ‘Makes sense,’ I said, two feet from the roof while my brother was asleep on the other side of the room. Just then a loud creak. Footsteps on the ladder, approaching the ceiling.

  ‘Keep it down.’

  ‘When are you going to ask them to get rid of this thing?’ said my sister, climbing on. ‘You’re not much of a child, are you. How many children do you know who have committed murder?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  She was sitting by my feet.

  ‘Take your hands out of your pants,’ she said.

  ‘Not very manly, is it? All that begging. And in such a public, um, position. Probably why the guy who’d hired Jim in the first place wanted the stranger dead. You can’t have weaklings in that line of work.’

  ‘It wasn’t the same stranger as the stranger we saw before, was it?’

  ‘How could it have been?’

  ‘They looked awfully similar.’

  ‘But you only saw the back of one’s head. No, he’s dead. These kinds of men go from one job to another like that.’

  Click.

  ‘He must’ve given something away,’ she said. ‘Something important. To the police, or a rival gang.’

  Pause.

  ‘Where do you think Jim did it?’ I asked.

  ‘Did what?’ she asked.

  ‘Killed him,’ I said.

  ‘I saw them by the door to the kitchen,’ she said. ‘I think maybe Jim strangled him there.’

  ‘Go to fucking sleep,’ said my brother.