by Joel Arnold
Underwater, the bullets sound like grease splattering on a flame. Tab swims deeper. Swims back, to the right, forward, to the right. Impossible to see past the blood rising off his wounds in the dark water. He surfaces. Takes a breath. Plunges back in.
His brother stops squirming.
I am so sorry.
How many times has Tab woken at night, crying, panicking, the memory so fresh and urgent? How many times has he gotten out of bed to check on Carl, to make sure he was okay, make sure he was breathing? How many times?
Night. Dark. The sounds of flowing water and chirruping frogs. Carl snores heavily in his room. Tab rises from bed and creeps barefoot through the cabin out onto the pine needle strewn ground. He feels his way over the short path that leads to the river, finds the rope that holds the canoe, and unties it from the tree. He tosses the loose end into the canoe and pushes until the current grabs hold. Moonlight glimmers on the water, the canoe a black void traveling slowly down the middle.
Tab walks back to the cabin, feeling guilty. Relieved.
But — morning—
Carl is gone. Tab steps into the daylight, his eyes turning to the tree where the canoe was tied, and his muscles tense at the sight of the rope secure around the tree.
How can that be? He didn’t release the canoe from the rope, he released the rope from the tree. And now there it is again, tight around tree. Had he only dreamed it last night? But there on the ground are the impressions of his feet in the soft pine needles.
Did the canoe come back?
And did Carl take the canoe out again?
Tab hurries back inside and goes straight to Carl’s room. He digs through the drawers, rifling through the clothes and books and videotapes. What am I looking for? Drugs? No. Maybe, yes, but…
Nothing. He finds nothing. He opens Carl’s closet. Pushes the clothes aside. Freezes. Scrawled on the back of the closet wall is the word Farbanti. And curled up in the corner of the closet is a heap of black cloth. Tab picks it up and shakes it out. A black, hooded robe. And beneath that lies a bundle of black candles, bound together with the same kind of rope that held (did it really hold?) the canoe in place.
Carl comes home late. He isn’t sweating.
“Where have you been?”
Carl eyes him suspiciously. “What do you mean? I was on the river.”
“Where does the river take you? What do you do on the river all day? Who do you go see?” Tab holds up the robe and candles. “What are these?”
“You went in my closet?”
“Answer me!”
“Nothing. Just stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
Carl’s eyes harden. “You wouldn’t understand.”
And Carl’s neck. A red scratch disappears beneath his shirt…
“Take off your shirt,” Tab says.
“Father—”
“Now!”
Carl takes off his shirt. Tab gasps. His chest is covered with long, deep gouges.
“They’re just scratches.” Carl puts his shirt back on. “It’s nothing.”
“Who’s doing this to you?”
“Friends.”
“What friends? Who?”
“I’m going to my room. I want to be alone.”
“No,” Tab says. “What kind of friends do this? What would your mother say?”
“I don’t care what Mom would say. She’s not—”
Tab grabs Carl tightly by the throat.
Carl’s eyes widen. “Stop it. You’re choking me.”
Tab shakes. “Don’t ever talk about your mother like that again.” His anger is intense, but brief. He drops his arm. Swallows. “I’m sorry.”
Carl sucks in his breath, chokes back tears. He turns and flees to his room, slamming the door behind him.
Soon Tab hears the sound of Carl’s television, the volume shaking the small cabin’s walls.
Is it gangs all over again? Even up here? In the north woods?
What can I do? Lock him in his room? Forbid him to go out?
Move again?
No…
We’ll survive this, Tab thinks, not really believing the words even as he thinks them. We’ll survive.
The roadhouse. Packed. Loud. Full of cigarette smoke. The reek of beer.
“Who’s this?” Tab scribbles Farbanti on a napkin and passes it to Jim.
Jim squints. “Hell if I know. Why?”
Tab looks up at the bartender, the only man in the area with whom he’s ever had a decent conversation. His voice cracks. “I think I’m losing my son. I don’t know what to do.”
“He’s what? Sixteen? You gotta let ’em go sometime.” Jim places a shot glass in front of Tab and fills it to the rim with Jack Daniels. Tab drinks. Sets the glass down. Nods at Jim, his face blank. Jim fills it and says, “It’s a bitch. Don’t I know it.”
Gone. When Tab gets back to the cabin that night, Carl and the canoe are gone. Tab sits at the edge of the river, throwing handfuls of sticks, pine needles and dirt into the water. The moon is a bright pearl through the trees. A female moose splashes clumsily through the water thirty yards upstream.
Tab stands and brushes debris from his pants. When he looks downriver, he sees the black silhouette of a familiar shape. The canoe. Floating upstream against the steady current. Tab squints, shields his eyes from the glare of the moon. The canoe is empty. Tab steps back, away from the shore as the canoe glides to a stop where he’d sat. It rocks gently from side to side as tiny ripples of water slap against its hull.
Is this a trick? Tab looks down the shore as far as he can. Is Carl just out of sight, laughing? But Tab sees no one, hears no movement.
“Carl!” he yells. He cups his hands around his mouth. “Carl!” His voice echoes through the forest, the cry of a wounded bird.
The canoe slowly turns in the water, its bow pointing downriver, yet maintains its place despite the pull of the current.
“Carl!”
Tab steps toward the canoe. He cautiously leans over it. There is only the paddle, yet its blade rests in a pool of dark liquid. Blood? It is hard to tell in only the moonlight, but if it’s blood—
“Carl!” Desperate now. “Carl! Please answer!”
Nothing.
He steps warily into the canoe’s stern. It wobbles, but Tab holds out his arms and the canoe steadies. He sits carefully. Picks up the paddle. Holds it close to his face and smells the blade. Is it blood?
The canoe slips slowly from shore and the current grabs hold. Tab sits frozen in place, barely able to breath, remembering the bullets, the blood of his mother and father, remembering the moment his baby brother became still in his arms…
“No!” he cries.
He lifts the paddle. Sticks it hard in the water. If the canoe is to take him somewhere, than he’ll be the one to guide it, to conform it to his own pace.
Sweat. Paddle. Propelling forward through the thin, rusty river.
How much loss can a man take?
He paddles on one side, then the other, determined to find his son.
Sweat. Muscles screaming.
We’ll talk. About where I come from. What he means to me. We’ll talk, father and son, and we’ll fish and canoe together. I won’t be afraid to share my pain with him. He’ll understand. We’ll be friends. We’ll be together. We will survive.
I will not lose you.
A wooden flute. Voices through the trees. Tab feels eyes all around piercing his skin. He sees torch-light in the distance.
Murmuring. Whispers. His paddling has no effect on the canoe. It slows. Drifts.
Altar. On the river. The cold, rusty river.
The canoe turns toward shore.
Chanting. The sound of the flute close by. Figures in black robes appear and pull the canoe onto gravel. The gravel scrapes the aluminum hull like bony fingers.
“Where is my son?” Tab asks, his voice unable to conceal his fear.
Pale arms appear from beneath the black robes and lift him
from the canoe. He struggles, but has little strength left. They carry him to an altar made from rough planks of knotted pine and lay him on his back.
“Stop this,” Tab says. “I just want my son.”
They secure his wrists and ankles to the altar with copper wire. Stuff a rag in his mouth.
The chanting intensifies. Tab grows dizzy. This can’t be real.
A figure leans over Tab and pulls back a deep, black hood.
Carl.
He pulls the rag out of his father’s mouth.
“Carl,” Tab whispers. “You don’t have to do this. Please. I have so much to tell you. So much you need to know.” He’ll tell him of Cambodia, of the Mekong, the family who died there. He’ll show Tab the bullet wounds on his back and shoulder. Then he’ll understand. He’ll see how much his father loves him.
“We can survive this,” Tab whispers. “You and me.” He smiles encouragement at his son. Nods. “We’ll survive.”
Carl blinks. Slowly stands. He pulls the hood back over his head, his face disappearing in shadow.
“I don’t want to survive, Father.” He steps back. “I want to belong.” He lifts an axe high into the air. “I want to belong.”
Swallowed
Rick Lamont looked down the rusty barrel of the shotgun shoved in his mouth. He tried not to gag, but the taste of it, the feel of rust flaking off on his tongue, the scrape of metal between his teeth forced his tongue to jerk the barrel up against the roof of his mouth. His throat spasmed as he took a step backward.
Rough hands grabbed his shoulders from behind. “Stop squirming.”
He fought against the panic. Shifted his jaw back and forth over the gun’s barrel. Let himself choke a bit so that he could concentrate on breathing through his nose. Concentrate on ignoring that awful taste.
He was cold. His shirt was soaked with sweat and the night air was a frozen hand pressing it to his skin.
He didn’t know what time it was. Hell, it was almost closing time when he left the Slaughterville Roadhouse. Almost closing time when he opened his car door and…
And then nothing. And then here he was.
With these two.
He had no idea who they were.
The one in front spoke, the voice harsh and murderous.
“Why’d you fuck her?”
He tried shaking his head, but with the shotgun lodged between his teeth, mashing down his tongue, he could barely do that. His lips closed around the barrel trying to form the word ‘No’ but the only sound that came out was half moan, half wheeze.
“Don’t lie to me.”
The beam of a flashlight struck his eyes. The rough hands of the man behind him moved from his shoulders to his throat, the fingernails digging painfully into his goose-pimpled flesh.
“He’s lying, Silver. He’s lying.” The voice behind him was like a mosquito in his ear, the breath hot and putrid.
Silver.
The name was familiar.
Too familiar.
Tears streamed down the sides of Rick’s nose, falling off his cheeks and collecting on his upper lip, making it that much harder to breath.
He’d heard stories of Silver. Stories that would make even a cop cringe. He’d seen Silver’s aftermath. The bandages, the casts, the thick white scars that ran like snakes down the flesh of those unfortunate enough to cross him.
But what have I done? Fucked who?
He wanted to say You got the wrong guy, wanted to say I don’t know what you’re talking about, but he couldn’t say a goddamn thing. All he could do was fight back the urge to gag and vomit and shake so that he wouldn’t nudge the gun just a little too much and the goddamn fuck on the other end would accidentally slip and blow a hole through the back of his skull.
Tears and sweat stung his eyes. The flashlight beam felt like it was burning holes into his brain.
The worst was knowing that if the trigger was pulled, it wouldn’t even have time to register in his mind. From standing there in terror to nothing. Fucking worm food and nothing more in the blink of an eye.
He blinked.
Silver’s voice penetrated his thoughts like a chisel.
“Why’d you fuck my sister?”
His mind raced. What? His sister? He thought he’d been talking about a girlfriend or wife, but sister?
Sister?
Oh shit.
The gun jerked painfully against his teeth. A molar popped out of its socket and warm salty blood flowed over his tongue. He started to hyperventilate. Shook his head as best he could.
Last thing he remembered before waking up to this was getting out of his car at the parking lot of the Slaughterville, his left foot crunching on gravel, then the lone sodium arc light in the parking lot eclipsed by a huge shape. There was a single sharp blow to his temple and the next thing he knew—
“I think he’s trying to say something,” the one behind him said.
Bruce. That must be Bruce.
“I think he’s trying to say how good her pussy felt.”
The barrel lurched painfully to the back of Rick’s throat, blocking even the air pulled in through his nose. He jerked back, took a breath of air, but was shoved violently forward. The rim of the shotgun broke off his two front teeth. They fell to the back of his throat and rattled with each breath like dice in a wet paper cup. He’d never felt such pain.
Oh God, oh Jesus…
He tried to see into Silver’s eyes, but he only saw two bright glints of moon staring back at him, chips of ice that smoldered in a cold, cold void. And where did the dark side of that moon go? What was on the dark side of Silver’s moon?
He felt the shotgun barrel twist back and forth between his teeth. Heard Silver breathe hard between clenched teeth. Heard the snot escaping Silver’s nose in tiny bubbles.
He forced his eyes to be still, forced his eyebrows up and together in a plea. It was all he had left. The only facial muscles he could send a message with, a message that could only be read as Please don’t kill me.
“What’s that?” Silver asked. “You trying to tell me something?”
Bruce squeezed his shoulders tight. “Trying to say how good she tasted. Trying to say she was the best piece of ass he ever had.”
“You fucked her ass?”
Trembling, jerking his head back and forth, no, no, no…
“You fucked my sister’s ass?”
Oh Jesus, make them stop. Let me wake up. Let this be a dream. A nightmare. Let this end. Now.
Now.
“He sure did, bro. He fucked Cassie’s ass real good. She even told me. Said he forced her to do unnatural things. Just like all them others did.”
Shut up.
“He says her ass was the tightest thing he ever put his dick in. Tighter than a rubber hose.”
Shut up!
The grip on his shoulders tightened. The nudge of the gun barrel in his mouth grew violent, breaking another tooth as it slid in and out of his mouth, poking the back of his throat with more force. What if he pushes it all the way through? All the way out the back?
And part of him wished Silver would pull the trigger. Pull the goddamn trigger so that the bullet would rip through his throat and explode into that idiot brother behind him. Rip his face off, and he wouldn’t have to hear another stupid, ignorant word issue from that mouth ever again.
The gun pounded into the back of his throat.
Another tooth. Blood smearing over the barrel, pouring down his chin, the pain so intense it felt like every nerve in his head and neck had been lit on fire.
Then the gun was out of his mouth. Rick spat. Coughed up his teeth and spit them to the ground. He gulped in oxygen, swallowed the air. Such a relief even though it still tasted of rusted metal.
The beam of the flashlight blinked off. There was nothing but blackness and two phantom spots hovering in the air.
“I’m giving you one chance,” Silver said. “Did you fuck my sister?”
He heard crickets. Shut his eyes, bu
t the two phantom spots remained.
“Did you fuck my sister?”
Twelve years ago. Tenth grade. Cassie.
Their sister.
Took his virginity like it was a piece of licorice. Practically attacked him. Making out on the couch in his parent’s basement and then her face was in his lap and all he could see was the top of her head. Wild brown hair. Bits of dandruff. She dug her nails into his hips. Sucked so hard her teeth left tiny bruises on him which he didn’t notice until an hour after she was gone.
He forced his eyes open. That was twelve years ago. Twelve years. They were young. They were kids. He shook his head frantically. No.
“No,” he said, his voice hoarse and weak. “No.”
Silver stepped back.
Bruce laughed.
Rick’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness. He watched Silver’s hulking silhouette turn away, heard the sound of his boots crunching gravel, the jangle of metal on his belt. The click and squeak of a car door opening. Silver clearing his throat. A cap being unscrewed from a bottle, and the glug of whiskey into Silver’s gullet.
Then Bruce. “Save some for me, eh?”
The bottle smashed onto a rock. The car door slammed shut. Boots on gravel and a growl of rage.
“Liar!”
The shotgun barrel swung up again and Rick swung his head back and forth, his lips shut tight.
“Hold him,” Silver barked.
Firm hands squeezed his head, kept it still.
“Open.”
No way. No way was he going to open.
“Open!”
Bruce dug his thumbs into the hinges of Rick’s jaw, forcing his mouth open. The barrel plunged painfully inside. The taste of it came back in full force, and the blood of another tooth lost to the force of the old hard metal.
He waited for the blast, waited for his life to blink out in an instant of heat and light. Through his sweat and tears he saw that Silver held something where the flashlight had been. A book. It lay open within the stretch of his long bony fingers.
“March 31st, 1990,” Silver read in the faint glimmer of moonlight. “I let Rick Lamont fuck me.”