You Can Never Spit It All Out

by Moore, Ralph Robert

  The heavy front length of the caterpillar reared up out of the cocoon of bandages, curling forward, towards his bowed shoulders, maw meshing sideways.

  He kept cutting down its abdomen, side legs popping free, waving.

  Halfway down its abdomen, the front end rose up to the white ceiling, curled down with a horrible sinuousness, hanging in front of his lowered scalp.

  He didn't raise his forehead to look at it. Hair standing on the back of his neck, shit sputtering out his asshole, urine leaking down the front of his pants, he kept cutting, freeing the length.

  When he got to the bottom, he hopped off, stumbling backwards against a wall.

  The released caterpillar, long as a bus, used its dozens of side legs to rapidly crawl across the ceiling, with the thunder of running down a hallway, front end lowering, questing at him. He raised his face, saw the familiar maw hanging in front of him, upside down, non-human, ammonia breath.

  The caterpillar sent ripples along its segments.

  He ground his teeth, letting out long farts.

  The insect lowered itself off the ceiling. Curled into an immense spiral.

  Rattled its rear end.

  More twitches. Rear antennae rising.

  Ripples down its furred length.

  Whoosh!

  A mucous-covered body slid out, skidding across the floor.

  Inside the expulsion was the ghost.

  The caterpillar's length deflated, skin loosening.

  Wade crawled over to the body, two arms on one side, thirteen on the other, pulling gluey skin away.

  Using his spread fingers, he cleared thick membranes away from the drowned face.

  Looked down at the black and white features.

  His father.

  Wade reared back his head. "You were the ghost?"

  His father stared up at him, seven eyes, three noses. Fourteen sets of teeth chattered loudly, head vibrating uncontrollably. The five lips came together, slowly, painfully.

  "What, Dad?"

  His father's eighteen right hands gripped Wade's shoulder. His heads raised off the expulsed slime on the floor. "D-d-d-d-"

  "What? What, Dad?"

  The single eye looked up, a father's eye looking into his grown son's eyes. "D-D-Don't."

  "Don't?"

  Rhythmic blasts of wind blew Wade's hair straight back.

  He looked up.

  A butterfly the size of a helicopter stood with its back to Wade, tall, spindly black legs. With each wing flap its width grew smaller, smaller, until it was no bigger than a thumbnail, sulfur yellow. As Wade watched, the butterfly flitted forward, left, right, up, down, through an open window, and away, into the evening.

  He looked at the floor.

  Josh, sprawled on his chest, stared up at him, tussled hair, wet like seaweed, brown eyes blinking.

  Maggie and Wade stayed at the hospital another two hours while the staff transferred Josh down to one of the lower floors, cleaned him up, ran some tests.

  He rested, recovering, in a white-sheeted hospital bed, red-lit pulse monitor clipped over his right index finger. Maggie asked permission to hold his hand, which Wade granted.

  Josh fell asleep while holding Maggie's hand, smile on his face.

  After a decent period of time had passed, Josh snoring peacefully, Wade looked at Maggie. "Do you want to go to my place, or yours?"

  Using her curled fingers, she brushed a strand of brown hair away from the side of her face, with the sideways motion of wiping a sheen of sperm off her lower lip. "Your place?"

  They rode in separate cars.

  He let her in his apartment, realizing it was a little messy. "I guess the maid didn't come today."

  Her large brown eyes slid towards him, shyly flirtatious. "Is that a joke, or do you really have a maid?"

  "I really do." He thought a moment, then added, in the spirit of full disclosure, "She's not live-in."

  Like usually happens when someone has visitors, they wound up in the kitchen.

  She looked down at the front of her body. "I should shower."

  "Well, me too." He still had some of the caterpillar's dried slime on his shirt, like snot, yellow stains down the front of his pants, brown stains down the back of his pants.

  "Is it okay–Would you mind?–If we showered separately?"

  He stood back. "No. Of course." Smiled, happy. "There's no rush."

  He sat at his kitchen table, sipping a cold glass of white wine, uncorked bottle on the counter, empty wineglass, like a chess piece, on the kitchen table across from him. From where he sat, mucous drying on the sleeves of his shirt, he could hear water running. She's in my apartment, naked in my shower, using my Irish Spring soap, my white washcloth.

  A long time after he heard the shower turn off, she walked out into the kitchen.

  White towel wrapped around her nakedness.

  Long brown hair wet, braided to one side, looking black. Shoulders bare, as if wearing a ballroom gown. Bottom right and left sides of the wrapped white towel not matching, left side showing more leg than the right. Her bare feet. He had never seen anything more delicate, feminine. He wanted to hold her small feet up to his lips, kiss their warmth, as if they were an entry into her, like pink ears.

  He half-filled her glass with wine. "I put on WRR, for some classical music. Is that okay?"

  She lifted her wineglass, slid her eyes towards him. "Sure."

  "I'm just going to take a quick shower myself, then I'll be back."

  "Okay."

  He stood in the same warm shower she had used, hot water spraying down out of a hundred small metal holes, flattening his hair, running down his chest, past his erect cock, down his strong legs. In the mist, he lifted the white washcloth from its shell-shaped ledge, still wet and soapy with her. Rubbed its nubble over his face, smelling the chemicals within the soap, smelling within that artificial perfume, the butter-bubbling mushrooms of her body, her cunt.

  When he came back out into the kitchen, wrapped in his own white towel, she was still there, seated, listening to the Waldstein concerto, still wrapped in her own towel.

  He stood by her chair. "So how do we do this?"

  She rose to her full height, just a bit shorter than him. Those brown eyes looked into his. "A deal's a deal. How about I just drop my towel?"

  The happy look on his face when she rose faded when she said, A deal's a deal. But he answered, "Okay."

  Her brown eyes looked downwards, at a slant. As he watched, her small right hand reached up to the top of her white towel, pulled the towel's tucked-in flap apart.

  The white towel dropped off her beautiful, bare body.

  Large breasts, larger than he expected, long maroon nipples, small triangle of curly brown hair at the bottom of her belly.

  The curly brown hair got to him the most. So delicate, so feminine, so sure a sign, her showing it to him, that she would let him fuck her.

  She raised her long, naked arms, wrapping them around his neck. Lifted her lips to his right ear. "Do you want me, Josh?"

  He pulled away. "Wade. My name's Wade."

  She removed her arms, mouth sickled. "I'm so sorry!"

  He stared at his refrigerator. "I mean, is it that hard?"

  She looked distraught. "I'm doing the best I can!"

  His cock, which had been pointing at Heaven, slanted down to point at the lower kitchen cabinets, where pots and pans of all the meals he had eaten alone were piled. "I know you like Josh. But this is supposed to be our night."

  "I agreed to sleep with you if you saved Josh. I'm still willing to have sex with you."

  His cock, sticking out above his pubic hair, was the size of his thumb. "Forget it."

  She made no attempt to pick up her towel. God, she was gorgeous. "Don't be that way. I could give you a blow job."

  "And we're even? I risk my life getting eaten by a giant caterpillar, because I love you so much, and my reward is you'll suck me off before skipping back to your boyfriend, passionately
kissing him with my sperm still on your lips?"

  She shifted the weight on her hips. "Don't put it that way."

  He closed his eyes, sighed through his nose. "Fuck it."

  After she dressed, looked at him, and left, and the wineglass he threw against the closed front door exploded, wine dripping down from the eyehole, he sat in his easy chair in the living room for a long time, black remote in his right hand depressing his thumb through hundreds of channels on his fifty-two inch screen, nothing worth watching, left hand lifting glass after glass of whiskey to his sad lips. He staggered sideways out to his bedroom closet, yanked shirts, suits, trousers off their hangers, revealing, at the back of the closet, the tall shotgun leaning against the wall, the same shotgun he had leveled against his eye as a kid, hunting deer with his Dad.

  He carried the shotgun out to the mood lighting of his living room, feeling its weight in his right hand, sat in his easy chair, facing his apartment's front door.

  No woman he had fucked had ever cooked him breakfast. No woman had ever taken a shower with him. No woman had ever cut his hair. No woman had ever urinated in front of him, let alone taken a shit. No woman had ever cried in his arms. No woman had ever bought him a gift. No woman had ever offered to clean his apartment. No woman had ever tried to gently find out about him, what made him tick. No woman had ever asked him to meet her friends, her family. The few times he was sick, with a cold, the flu, or having eaten something bad, no woman had ever offered to stay, to nurse him back to health. No woman had ever confided, I've never told anyone this before, but…

  In a moment of decision, he jammed the barrel of the shotgun into his mouth.

  Pulled it out, wincing.

  Ran his tongue over his top teeth.

  Fuck! The barrel had chipped a front tooth.

  His rolling tongue rechecked.

  Fuck!

  Of course, what did it matter?

  He gently slid the barrel back up between his lips, wide, cold holes at the end of the metal barrel aimed at the red roof of his mouth.

  His right index finger curled around the spring-sensitive trigger.

  Eyes blinking around the shotgun barrel in his mouth, he looked at his TV screen. Gene Rayburn, long black sideburns, hosting, in a garish plaid suit, The Match Game.

  I'm leaving this world, but not with The Match Game.

  With his free hand, the one not holding the shotgun angled up into his mouth, he gently changed the channel. Cartoon show.

  His thumb depressed the remote button.

  News. Stock market prices sliding left in a multi-tiered ticker at the bottom of the screen.

  Depressed the button again.

  An old black and white rerun of The Andy Griffith Show. Andy sitting at the kitchen table, helping himself, in gray sheriff's uniform, to a casserole Aunt Bea, in her long black dress with large white flowers, had prepared.

  He tightened his right index finger around the trigger, pulled the finger towards his palm.

  The front doorbell rang.

  He ignored it.

  Knocking.

  He ignored it.

  More knocking, louder. "Wade?"

  He spoke around the barrel in his mouth. "Wha?"

  "Can you open the door?"

  "O away!"

  "Can you open the door?"

  "Geh owa my lie."

  "What?"

  "Geh owa my lie!"

  "I can't understand you."

  He pulled the barrel out of his mouth. "Get out of my life!"

  "You saved me. You had the courage to rescue me. I want to thank you."

  Wade sat with the long shotgun in his lap. He lifted his head. "You just did. Now go away."

  "Can I come in?" The doorknob turned left, right.

  "No."

  "Why?"

  "I'm doing something."

  "Will you at least let me shake your hand?"

  Wade looked at the shotgun in his lap. Raised his head. "With the same hand that fingers Maggie's clitoris while you fuck her?"

  From behind the door, "Well, yeah."

  "At least you're honest."

  "Can I come in?"

  Wade let out a tremendous sigh. Tongued his chipped front tooth. Fuck. That means having to get a crown. "Hang on."

  He got up, put the loaded shotgun on the table next to him.

  Walked over to his front door, unlocked it.

  Josh walked in, Maggie behind him. She looked at Wade. "I was worried about you."

  "I'm okay."

  Josh, standing in front of Wade, seeing the shotgun on the table, put his hands on Wade's shoulders, which to Wade seemed kind of homosexual. "Don't end your life. Don't."

  "Don't?"

  "No! Whatever happens in life, you've got to learn to accept it, move on."

  "You sound like my Dad."

  "Well, I'm sure your Dad had a lot of sense. Don't think what you were before is what you always have to be. Don't get so hung up on the past. Don't think of your life as what other people do to you. Think of your life as what you do."

  Wade looked at him. "Really?"

  "That's it. Don't."

  "Really? Don't?"

  Josh nodded, kneading Wade's shoulders, looking into his eyes. "Don't."

  He's good, Wade thought. "Okay."

  "Really? Okay?"

  "Yeah. I'm not going to kill myself. I'm going to call a dentist."

  "Seriously?"

  Wade thought about it. "Yeah. I don't really want to kill myself. Maybe there is someone out there for me. I have a lot of money."

  Maggie came forward. "So you're not going to commit suicide?"

  Wade shook his head. "No. The moment's passed."

  She threw her arms around Josh. "You're a hero! Again!"

  Shrimp cocktail.

  That's what he thought, sitting in his armchair, alone, TV and shotgun, after they left.

  The first time he ever ate by himself in a restaurant.

  Just a boy, right pants pocket heavy with dollars and quarters, looking at the tall menu spread by his small hands, eyes switching, tennis match style, from meal descriptions to prices, back again.

  He ordered shrimp cocktail.

  It arrived in the Negro waiter's hands, beige undersides of fingers and palms carrying the iced silver cup, like a chalice.

  Above the crushed ice, in a small silver bowl, four large shrimp hung off the circular rim, orange and white. Within the rim, multi-green iceberg lettuce, julienned, red cocktail sauce spooned atop, ketchup swirled with short white shreds of horseradish.

  When Wade dabbed the top of the first shrimp into the cocktail sauce, raised the fat white and orange reddened curve to his lips, and bit down, tasting the complex heat and sweetness of the sauce, he realized he had entered the adult world.

  That optimism is what he remembered now, sitting in his easy chair, shotgun to his right, TV in front of him, tears on his face.

  My Dad is dead. I'm ready for a woman.

  Sons all want the same thing. Fall in love with your Dad, hold your small hand up so it's led, like a kite, in your father's grasp, riding shotgun in the station wagon, just the two of you, to the blue lakeshore, fish jumping, Dad's big fingers guiding yours, slipping the soft, wriggling worm over the hardness of the hook, past its barb, down its curve, sleeping in the cabin together, Mom back in the small city, the two of you walking through the woods, the sunshot clearing pocked with the bare heels and toes of your feet, his larger feet, trees reaching up to the clouds, Dad's big fingers guiding yours, slipping over the soft, wriggling worm, the hardness of the curve, coming back home, leading you by your small hand to the tomato garden at the rear of the property, away from Mom and her martinis, afterwards, too many times afterwards, amid the red and green tomatoes, pocked knee prints in the pink dirt, lips pulling away from his yellow teeth, shriveled face whispering, "Don't ever tell."

  BOYFRIEND

  Jessica opened her menu, which on a date is like opening your legs. Smiled acro
ss the white tablecloth at Brandon.

  He lifted an eyebrow. Which impressed her. It takes a lot of mirror practice to get that kind of muscle control. "Please don't order chicken. I know there's that whole thing mothers teach daughters about not getting anything too expensive on a first date, but believe me," the eyebrow lifted higher as he leaned his face forward across the table, "I could buy this restaurant if I wanted."

  She laughed, touching her pearl necklace. "Actually, I thought I'd treat you to dinner." She went back to silently reading the selections, slight smile on her face, hoping he was looking at her, hoping her voice had come out melodious.

  Sarah was right. He was handsome. Light brown hair, lock hanging in front of his forehead, hazel eyes, nice lips, even teeth, strong jaw.

  "So what did you think when you first saw me?"

  She looked up from the Arial font of the selections. "Honestly?" She made him wait while her eyes went left. Decided to flirt by challenging him. "Pampered." Her eyes slid left again. "Yep. Pampered."

  He reared his head back, exactly the effect she wanted. Both eyebrows went up this time. "Really! That's…the first time a girl's ever used that word."

  Behind his ears, in the high-ceilinged restaurant, tall, slim waiters slipped by, right elbows lifted, palms transporting silver trays.

  She reached over, put her palm on the back of his blue-veined hand, their first touch. "Brandon, you have better skin than I do. Come on. You look like you've lived a pampered existence." She tilted her face to one side, so he could watch her dark hair fall across her bare shoulder. "But that's good. It's making me wonder what your cock looks like."

  His cheeks colored. She could see the wheels turning, him trying to figure out what to say.

  Actually, the most important thing her mother taught her was, Keep them off-balance.

  Their waiter came over.

  Curly black hair, round face, big grin.

  Brandon sat up, giving a stern once over look.

  The waiter stood by their table with his body-building shoulders. Looked right into Jessica's eyes. Spread his hands apart. "Okay, beautiful. Ready to order?"

  "Where's your tuxedo jacket?"

  The waiter turned his ape face towards Brandon. "Hey! It's hot back there."