Fat Man and Little Boy

by Mike Meginnis

  Little Boy went looking for his nurse. He searched outside, where young people shared the cigarettes they’d found and watched the sun set over those parts of the city still standing. She was not there. He searched the improvised operation rooms where surgeons sutured, disinfected, stanched gut wounds, and pruned dead skin. They shooed away Little Boy. She was not there.

  Next, the empty stage, on which the policeman slept. Little Boy slipped behind the curtain. It was dark there. Hanging on the walls, grotesque masks, whether pale or demon-faced, all glaring and grinning and twisted, distressed. Shadow puppets dangled from hooks, limp and cheap-looking. Costumes were heaped and hung on trunks and racks. More suits in other sizes, and dresses, Western and Japanese. There was a long paper dragon with many, many bright streamers coiled in the dark corner.

  At the dragon’s tail end, behind a rack of clothes, Little Boy heard his nurse’s coarse, husky whisper drift on the air. The young man, her friend from the search party, stood behind her. Little Boy could make out their shapes because of the light that spilled from the window, but it was a small window, it was faint light. The young man breathed in her neck.

  No doubt, thought Little Boy, watching them through a gap between the silken costumes hanging from the rack, the vivid colors flattened by the window’s graying light, No doubt he takes great pleasure in her smells of scorched caramels and dried vanilla. The nurse’s friend was speaking into her ear or he was licking it. She swayed in his arms like a dead tree in the wind.

  She said something.

  Her friend said something back.

  She was shaking her head.

  He was nodding and kissing her neck.

  She was lifting her checkered turtleneck sweater.

  He was running his hands over her abdomen.

  From waist to neck her skin was marked.

  Smudged, like ink fingerprints.

  Like charcoal squares, in checkers.

  Burnt in the pattern of her sweater.

  The nurse’s friend kneaded her breasts as she fumbled to hitch up her skirt in the back—as they twisted their heads to unnatural, perhaps painful angles, like graceless swans, so that their eyes could touch, so that their lips could meet.

  The masks on the walls made faces at the couple. They floated like ghosts. They seemed to react to the scene. Some with horror, some with great sadness, and some with a fiendish delight. Little Boy’s nurse whispered something, leaning into the man. He hushed her.

  Little Boy felt himself between his legs. There was nothing, no response. They backed away from him, into deeper shadow, so that he could not see what he heard, or know.

  He felt very alone.

  The sun was set. Only a thin red line on the horizon. Only the sound of their love, the soft squelch, like sucking a pool of thick spit through his teeth and pushing it out into the reservoir of bottom lip, again, and again. He chewed his cheeks to pulp. It was quiet there.

  When they were done he ran away. Some days later, on news of the second bomb, he began to search for what would be a brother.

  WHAT THE SHADOW LOST

  When they wake the next day wind whistles through the holes in their overnight shelter; the edges of their piled blankets flutter; there is a one dollar bill blown up against the wall as if it is a picture hung there. The wind lets up and the bill floats down to the floor. The wind picks up again and the bill climbs back up where it was. This is the greenest thing they’ve seen in days.

  Little Boy says, “Grab it!”

  Fat Man lunges for the bill. Snags it. “Don’t know what good this is going to do us,” he says, spreading the dollar smooth in his upturned palm. It does feel good though, the slightly fuzzy grain of the paper.

  “The Americans are coming,” Little Boy says. “They’ll be all over this place soon. People are going to want their money. I want their money.”

  “So do I,” Fat Man says, handing over the bill. “How do we get it?”

  Little Boy says they find where this one came from. He tucks it in his breast pocket.

  “Can we leave before the soldiers get here?” says Fat Man.

  “Probably not,” says Little Boy. “We need time to plan. We’ll hide.”

  They drape Fat Man in another robe, which he can’t close. They wrap his waist in someone’s pants. They put a blanket over his back like a cape, tie the corners around his neck. This will keep him warm. He knows it also makes him look a little crazy. He asks his brother if he has to wear it.

  Little Boy says, “I don’t want you catching cold.”

  Outside they find a small cloud of dollar bills drifting over the waste. Little Boy scurries, catching what he can and shoving them in his pockets. Fat Man teeters clumsily in pursuit, snags one here and there, keeps them balled up in his fists for lack of pockets. Anyway, he’s too hungry for this. He asks Little Boy if this money will buy them food. Little Boy’s too busy to answer. Fat Man trips on a bit of concrete from a building no longer there. Lands flat on his front.

  Little Boy shouts, “Where are these coming from?”

  Still lying on his face, Fat Man points in what seems to be the general direction. Little Boy demands that he get up. Fat Man struggles to his feet. The green trail laced across sharp bits of glass, cement crevices, and other broken things leads them into a place between two buildings, the one on their right collapsed almost completely, and leaning on the one to their left, which in turn leans on itself. Together they form a sort of arch, which, as the brothers follow deeper, collapses further, becoming deeper darkness, a wind tunnel. Here and there a stray dollar brushes Fat Man’s ear, Little Boy’s cheek. One strikes Fat Man where his heart would be if he wore it on a chain. Another bill strikes his eye. They catch as catch can. The wind whistles. The slope falls. They crouch to walk. There is a bright place ahead of them where the slope of the right wall ends—light in threads, motes of dust suspended on the threads, paint chips also, gray crumbs.

  There comes a point Fat Man can’t advance. Little Boy crawls through the small end of the tunnel and out into the light. Fat Man kneels to follow but he can’t get through past his shoulders. The light blinds. All flares and clarifies. He sees the shadow on the wall.

  From Fat Man’s perspective the shadow seems to reach for him, though in fact it is after the money. Little Boy caresses the wall on which it was projected—the profile of a stumbled man, fallen nearly to his knees, reaching for something fallen to the ground. The open cash case. The case’s hinges were dashed against the wall by the force of the blast, or by the case’s fall from the gone man’s hand. They came loose, the locks on the other side—gold, once—melted, and on the melted locks the case hinged, as in all the violence it opened on the wrong end, revealing its payload. The hinges came apart like teeth, the gold locks bent into a new shape.

  “What luck,” says Little Boy. “We can buy you a damn suit.”

  “And some food. We can get meat.”

  “We can leave. We can get out.”

  “How much?” says Fat Man.

  “Let me worry about money,” says Little Boy. “That’s a big brother job.”

  The case will close if Fat Man puts his weight on it. The gold locks are still a little soft, so the brothers slide the rod back in one of the hinges and this serves as a lock. The other hinge’s teeth are too crushed. The case is otherwise, it seems, invulnerable—the corners and edges protected by an iron exoskeleton, identical in color to the woven wires embroidering the leathery material that is its skin. The corners are especially tough, their shell thick and sharp, like a steel-toed boot.

  Little Boy tells Fat Man to carry it. He passes it through the small end of the tunnel to Fat Man, who carries it out to meet Little Boy, who goes around the tunnel, around the collapsed building. The weight is less in Fat Man’s hands than he thought it would be. The money shifts inside.

  “Now we can have
anything we want,” says Fat Man to Little Boy.

  “We can have a few things we want,” says Little Boy. “If we can convince anybody to trade us.”

  This means finding people, which means leaving the city. At the far edges there is woodland, there are fields and farmers. They go toward the sun. Fat Man tears cloth from the pants they wrapped around his waist, wraps the strips around his feet for shoes. This offers some relief from the pain of travel. Little Boy holds Fat Man’s free hand. Fat Man asks his brother if he wants to take a turn carrying the cash. Little Boy says no, he would not like that; he says it is too heavy.

  As they go, they pass the car Fat Man saw. The lovers still twist their heads to see each other, angling for a kiss.

  They pass the tree Fat Man touched. It is split, charcoal all over, but not destroyed. The pulsing warmth of the orange barrier reef inside has become the inert gray-black of pencil lead. The branches are fallen and cooked down to nothing. Fat Man thinks of his hands.

  He asks his brother, “Do you think they are a symbol?”

  “What’s a symbol?”

  “My hands. Do they suggest guilt?”

  “Do you feel guilty?”

  “I do.”

  Little Boy asks him what for. He says hands are not a symbol. He says there is nothing to feel bad about. They are not thieves. The money was just lying there. No one had a claim to it. The shadow was dead.

  Fat Man says, “That’s why I feel guilty.”

  Little Boy says, “Nothing you could have done.”

  Fat Man feels the tree is pulling him in again. He feels he wants to touch it. He lets go of Little Boy’s hand. He goes to the cold tree and presses his palms to it.

  Little Boy asks him what he is doing.

  The cool of the tree as it stands does not cancel the heat that lived inside it before. It does however smudge his body dark in several places where skin touches smooth memory of bark. This smudge will come away—Little Boy comes to him and rubs it off with spit.

  They go on together. They find a Western-style door thrown on its side, wooden, with heavy finish, dark grain, knob melted so it looks like a wilting brass flower. There was black lettering before that is now burnt away, leaving a streak of scorch.

  “This is where the soldiers found me,” says Fat Man. “I was crying.”

  “What for?” asks Little Boy.

  “Am I a good brother?” says Fat Man.

  “So far you’re fine,” says Little Boy. “Just do as I say.”

  They pass another man’s shadow projected on a wall. He is reaching toward what killed him. The cinders that were the body remain face-down on the road.

  “He looks like he wants our money,” says Fat Man, fearful, squeezing Little Boy’s hand.

  Little Boy squeezes back. He does not deny the shadow wants. Stooped body, thin wrists. It would take what it could get.

  By night they come to the outermost edge of the city, where the wilds begin to encroach and the crickets insist.

  A BAG OF RICE

  They find a home. It is a flimsy-seeming thing. Damp rags flutter yellowed on a line of cord stretched nearly taut between a pole and a tree branch. If there were a sun they would dry by its light. Little Boy looks up to his little brother. Fat Man wears a tired, bearlike expression, fists clenched, head seeping down into neck and chest like a mudslide.

  “There must be food inside that home,” Fat Man says, “but there are also living people.”

  “If I give you some money,” says Little Boy, “can you go inside and get the food?”

  “I thought you would get the food. You’re supposed to be my big brother. You have to take care of me.”

  “I’m just a little boy. I’m scared to go inside.”

  “But I’m even younger than you,” Fat Man pleads. “What if they know I left you out here? What if they come out here to get you because they know you’re really in charge? What if they’re angry because you sent your little brother?”

  Little Boy strokes the fat man’s gut. “You need to be brave and do as I say.”

  “I’ll go in if you come with me. You don’t want to be out here alone if the soldier comes, or the man who had our cash case before we did. He might not be dead. We never saw his body.”

  “I’ll hide,” says Little Boy.

  “Come on,” says Fat Man. “You’re coming.”

  With a grip that hurts, he grabs Little Boy by the shoulder. They march to the home and knock on the door. It rattles. A woman cracks open the door, draped in purple robe and white sash. Her eyes take them in without comment. She has seen stranger things than white men in mismatched clothes. She does not move to welcome them.

  Little Boy elbows his brother, whispering, “Go on. Food.”

  “I don’t know Japanese,” says Fat Man, as if this has just occurred to him.

  “Mime it.”

  Fat Man looks down at Little Boy and back at the woman. Jagged white patches of her scalp shine through thinning hair. Fat Man brings his hand to his mouth as if cupping a handful of rice and eats from his palm. He nods to the Japanese woman, repeats the action. She does it back—and also, by way of an offer, pretends to drink a cup of water. Fat Man smiles and nods.

  Little Boy fans out a small handful of bills. She snatches one from his hand; one of the white crescents of her long, dead nails nicks his skin. She peers into the face of Lincoln, perhaps imagining a name for the face (not Roosevelt, not Truman) before settling on the numbers in each corner. The rate of exchange is a mystery. What does the woman think the bill is worth? She secrets away the bill inside her robe and leads the brothers inside.

  There is a shirtless man lying motionless on a bed mat; he glistens with sweat and his skin is blotched purple. At eye-level, he has a small potted tree with sweet green leaves like flower petals. One arm extends to touch the pot. The other’s wrapped around his face, which is obscured from mustache to hairline. His lips part and whistle softly with each breath. A second man, a soldier, is propped up against the wall, his machine gun wrapped in both arms and framed by crossed ankles, like a strut supporting his body. A helmet falls over his eyes. He has a patchy beard, and his shoulders and chest are dusted with fallen hairs. His hands are bloody at their knuckles. He is also purple-blotched.

  Fat Man squeezes too hard. Little Boy shrugs off his brother.

  “That’s him,” whispers Fat Man.

  The woman sets up a small stove, fills a pot with water.

  “Your soldier?” says Little Boy.

  “I think so.” Fat Man folds his hands together and begins twiddling furiously. His stomach rumbles. The woman gives both of them a cup of water. Little Boy hands her another bill. They chug the water, wipe their mouths with the backs of their hands. The woman brings them more. This time Little Boy does not give her more money. If she wishes to protest she does not have the words.

  “We should go,” says Little Boy.

  “But I’m hungry.”

  “We can get food somewhere else.”

  Fat Man whispers, harshly, “You already gave her the money.”

  “We have more.”

  The sitting soldier starts. The woman looks at him. She looks at the brothers, clamping her hand shut in front of her mouth.

  “It means shut up,” says Little Boy out the side of his mouth.

  “I know what it means,” says Fat Man.

  They wait. The water comes to a boil. The woman pours in rice. Little Boy cranks his arm in circles, motioning for more. She glares, relents, adds more—and more water. Now she must bring it back to a boil. The brothers stand hapless at the door, swaying on their tired knees. There is a red radio in the corner with several batteries scattered beside it. They might be spent or waiting for their chance.

  “Do you think they’re loaded?” whispers Fat Man. “The guns?”

 
“Shut up,” whispers Little Boy.

  “I never actually saw them fire. All this time I’ve just been assuming.”

  “It’s the safe assumption,” says Little Boy. He pinches his brother’s thigh. Fat Man grits his teeth, thumps Little Boy on the back of his head. The woman in the purple robe stares at them. A lock of gray-streaked hair falls from her scalp.

  She empties the rice into a brown cloth sack. Fat Man takes the sack from her. She motions for them to leave. When they hesitate, she hoists an invisible rifle and fires off several rounds, heaving from the recoil of each shell. She mimes pushing a helmet up from over her eyes to better see her kills.

  “I wanted meat,” moans Fat Man. “All my life so far it’s always been rice. I need something else. Something filling.”

  Little Boy rolls his eyes. He holds out the rice in one hand, demonstrative, and then his other hand, empty. He motions with it for something else, something more. He takes a ten-dollar bill from his pocket. The woman shakes her head, crosses her arms, waits for them to leave.

  “Please,” says Fat Man. He rubs his tummy. Speaks slowly, as if she’ll better understand. “I am so, hungry.”

  “Shut up,” says Little Boy. He pockets the bill, hands his brother the rice, and tugs him by the elbow. The sitting soldier snorts. His head lolls forward and his helmet drops off. It hits his kneecap and thuds on the ground. His eyes shoot open. He squeezes the gun with his whole body. He sees the white boy, the white man—his prisoner—and nearly falls on his face trying to lift the gun. He calls out. The man with the potted tree shudders awake. In his panic he knocks over the little tree.

  There is a moment where the man with the potted tree looks merely startled. He wears the blankness of confusion. Then a malice enters his body. He looks on the brothers with hatred—knowing hatred, as if they are old enemies.

  “Run!” screams Little Boy.

  Fat Man knocks the sliding door crooked as he forces his way through.