by Dan O'Shea
“Now that we survive?”
“We clean up with gasoline, start removing debts in Indiana.”
THE OWLS
Nik Korpon
An owl’s hoot echoes through the trees as the blade of Ruth’s shovel pierces the dirt. She grunts and throws it aside, adjusts the cigarette bitten between her teeth then continues digging.
‘Any time you want to jump in here, don’t worry about your nails.’ She rests her fist on her hip, shoots Benny a glare she’s sure he can see even in this dark. The kid pinches his lip a couple more times before making his way over.
‘I was trying to stay out of the way.’
‘You’re getting in my way by staying out of the way.’ She inhales hard, nods at the small hole in the ground. ‘So start digging.’
Benny takes a couple tenuous steps toward her, glancing over his shoulder at the station wagon, then sinks his shovel into Leakin Park’s dirt floor. The night air is mild for the fall, one of those odd Baltimore conditions when the moon seems to give more heat than the sun. As the hole grows, sweat begins to bead on Ruth’s forehead, but she just shrugs it away with the shoulder of her flannel shirt and inhales through her teeth, holds in the smoke then blows it out her nose.
‘Make sure you bend at your knees. I’m not trying to have your momma come read me the riot because you threw out your back.’
Benny freezes mid-scoop. ‘You’re telling Ma?’
‘I just don’t want you to get hurt is what I’m saying.’
Another owl hoots, the noise reverberating in the empty space between them.
‘But Ma won’t know, right?’
‘Christ alive, child. Why the hell would you say that?’ Ruth stabs her shovel into the pile of dirt and points at the blue tarp in the trunk of the car. ‘Ain’t nobody going to know about that, and nobody better ever find out.’
‘It’s just, I just don’t understand.’ Words fall from Benny’s mouth like concrete chunks from a failing building. ‘He didn’t, he—’
Ruth walks around the hole and cups her hand beneath the boy’s chin. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart. You’ll figure it out in a couple years when you got a child of your own. Right now, you only need to listen, not understand.’
‘He didn’t need to die.’
Ruth chains a cigarette from the one between her teeth. ‘Yes, child. He did. This has been a long time coming.’
‘No he didn’t.’ His voice wavers, is near to shattering. He shakes his head, tosses half a shovel of dirt to the side. She takes the shovel from his grip and props it against a tree. In the moonlight that bleeds between dying tree branches, the boy’s skin looks like the salamanders he and her daughter, Katharine, used to collect when they were little. Feels about the same, too.
‘He done my baby girl wrong and he needed to die.’
• • • •
Kathy pulled the brush along her index fingernail, leaving a streak of pink behind. She pressed the bristles against the edge of her cuticle then blew on them. Her toes held tufts of cotton balls between them. She’d just dipped the brush back in the bottle and started on the middle finger when a bang made her jump and smear the nail polish. Her skin radiated pink up to the knuckle. Benny waved at her from outside her bedroom window.
She slid back the glass to let him in, extending her middle finger.
‘That’s a rude way to greet your favorite friend.’
‘You messed up my nail.’ She screwed the brush back into the bottle and waved her hands to dry them. ‘Ruth’ll kill me if I ruin this blanket. Why can’t you knock normal?’
Benny looked both ways before coming in, like a mouse preparing to cross an open room. ‘She’s not here is she?’
‘Asleep.’ Kathy flicked her head toward the ceiling. ‘I think she’s drunk. Maybe ate too many Vicodins.’
He lowered himself onto her bed. ‘You don’t have to pretty yourself up just for me, you know.’
‘I wasn’t.’ She picked at the pink streak. ‘Dwaine’s taking me to the carnival tonight.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Well, we’re meeting there. You don’t have a couple bucks, do you? I don’t think he got paid yet.’
‘No,’ he said. She knew Benny didn’t need to listen to the question to say no. Anything about Dwaine was a no anyway. He hopped down to the floor, fishing his hand inside his jeans with his back to her. ‘She going to be out a while?’
Kathy shrugged, then Benny turned around and grinned, waving a tiny plastic bag of powder. She smiled. ‘Yeah. Comatose.’
Slipping down from her bed, Kathy went to the closet, curled her fingers up around the top of the drywall and found the satin pouch that held her gear. Benny was already sitting cross-legged on her bed, licking his gums. She handed him a piece of cotton from between her toes then gave him the pouch.
‘There’s some ice in there to put in,’ she said.
He gave her that smile that made her want to fuck him, made her think for a couple minutes that maybe it won’t be too weird, and said, ‘Already in, darling.’
While he cooked, she rifled the clothes piled over her chair for a pair of jeans, pulled a belt from the loops and wrapped it around her bicep. Benny kissed the crook of her arm, then the needle did and she melted into his arms, letting the bones in her body turn to water and swish through her limbs. His fingertips left wakes on her skin like tiny swans landing in her lake, rolling along her shoulders, through the valley of her breasts. The ice made her brain spark and snap, thoughts flowing smooth and clear as the liquid that made her body.
‘Kath.’ Benny said it like he’d repeated himself a few times.
‘Yeah, B. I’m here.’
‘I said what the fuck are those?’
Kathy looked around the room, trying to figure out what Benny’s problem was. She pointed to the closet, like that might hold the answer. ‘That?’
Benny shoved her upright, stood in front of her and pointed at her chest. ‘Did he hit you again?’
Her hands covered her breasts without a conscious thought. ‘No, I was wrestling with Sampson.’
‘Your dog didn’t do that.’ He pinched his bottom lip between his fingers. ‘Tell me.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ She reached for the works but he held it just out of reach, arched his eyebrow. She picked at her nail, looked at the blanket, exhaled so hard it made her bangs flutter. ‘He was fucking Erica. I called him out on it.’
Benny took a step back, cocked his fist, let it waver there in the air but kept the needle away from anything that might break it.
‘I think,’ she said. ‘I’m pretty sure he was fucking her.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Those,’ he said, pointing at the bruises dotting her breasts, ‘are what matters. I’m going to kill him.’
‘Don’t.’ She leaned forward, let her palm curve along his jawline, let her fingers flutter against his skin. She wondered if she could press hard enough and their skin would pour into each other. She didn’t love Dwaine, but didn’t hate him either. He filled a space for her the same way Letterman filled the nights she stayed up, waiting to hear that Ruth had made it back from the bar. ‘Just, just bang him up.’
Benny’s jaw flexed under her skin and she could smell the alcohol of his impostor cologne mixed with the sharp sting of nail polish. She wavered on her feet and wondered if she was going to lean forward finally, leading with her lips, or if it was just because she’d already pushed off and left him dry-docked.
A bang upstairs. They froze.
‘Is that Sampson?’ Benny said.
A rattling cough. Benny breathed, fuck. Kathy squeezed so hard she thought she’d tear off a chunk of Benny’s face.
‘I thought you said she was asleep.’ Benny’s voice made Kathy cringe. He jumped onto her bed as she grabbed the satin bag from the carpet.
‘My gear,’ she said.
He handed her the syringe, legs halfway out the window, and pointed at her arm. ‘Belt.’
She r
ipped it off and shoved it in her closet but by the time she’d turned Benny had disappeared. She tasted words to say to him but coughed and spit them out when Ruth appeared in the doorway, cigarette dangling from her lips.
‘Who you talking to?’
‘Erica called.’ Kathy took a breath, told the water in her body to stay still.
‘Didn’t hear any phone ring.’
Kathy picked up her cell phone off the desk, waved it.
Ruth just smiled. ‘Lemme see the call log.’
‘You can’t just barge in here you know.’
‘My house.’ She blew a needle of smoke at Kathy. ‘And I heard another voice.’
‘I was talking to Erica. I just told you that.’
Ruth stepped forward, pulled the cigarette from her mouth and inhaled through her nose for so long Kathy was worried she’d explode and throw chunks of blood and meat all over her new bedspread.
Kathy opened her mouth to say what do you want? when Ruth stole her breath and protests with a quick fist to the solar plexus.
‘Don’t you fucking lie to me.’ Ruth cocked back and hit her daughter twice more on the shoulders and ribs. ‘Where is he?’
Cries made her words wobble and spin. ‘What are you talking about?’
Ruth’s teeth touched through her cigarette. ‘Where is Dwaine?’
‘I told you he’s not here.’
‘You want to go back to the clinic?’ Ruth struck out against her breasts, her hip, the edge of her shoulders. ‘You going to take up with that little cocksucker and make yourselves a nice little home there?’
‘Mom, please,’ Kathy said, her arms crossed over her chest.
‘Mom? I’m Mom now? Not Ruth or bitch or you goddamned cunt? I’m Mom now.’
Kathy collapsed on herself, let her body fall back against her dresser, knees tucked under her chin and head beneath her hands. All she could hear was Ruth’s breath rushing in and out. Though she focused intensely on the slash of pink on her middle finger, she reckoned she could feel the cigarette trembling in Ruth’s hand.
‘Hear me now, Katharine Anne. I only hit you because I love you.’
‘I just—’
‘I said hear me. No longer will I keep stead of a no-good junkie daughter.’ Ruth’s swallow was audible, but she held herself from kneeling beside her daughter even though all of her was screaming for it. ‘If I catch hide or hair of Dwaine round here again, I’ll kill the both of you.’
• • • •
‘Remember what I told you about using your legs,’ Ruth says to Benny. She readjusts her hands around the tarp and exhales a cloud of smoke. ‘This is the last push, okay?’
The boy looks peaked, though Ruth isn’t sure if it’s from the moonlight, the exertion or the lump of meat in his hands. He nods, though, takes a deep breath and hefts the body. As they move from the car toward the hole, Benny catches his heel on a tree root and tumbles down, the body rolling on top of him. He starts to scream and the dead arm slips forward, cold palm landing on Benny’s cheek.
‘Shut the hell up,’ Ruth says, slapping her palm over Benny’s mouth. She can feel the boy tremble beneath her. ‘You want everyone to come see our party?’
Benny bites down on his lips as Ruth grunts, yanks the corpse inch-by-dead-inch across his chest and into the hole. When she finally folds it into the ground, she falls back on the dirt, breathing heavily, and searches for her cigarettes. She pulls one out, finds it’s crushed and tosses it on top of the body. Another crushed one before she finds a smoke that’s workable.
‘Hey,’ she says. ‘You okay?’
Benny’s sitting up but not doing much else, just looking down at the swathes of blood across his shirt.
‘I just picked up Kathy’s softball uniforms, so you can change your clothes. They’re girl’s, but I figure it’ll work, considering.’
He nods a couple times, listening to the echo of the owls’ hoots.
‘Take a minute to get yourself together then throw some lime in here. I want to get home soon.’
• • • •
Benny crouched behind a blue Chevelle in the alley of Kathy’s rowhouse, counting the rats crossing the concrete while waiting for Dwaine to show. After thirty-something, he saw a figure enter the mouth of the alley. Benny got a little lower behind the Chevelle, pressing his back against the wall. When he saw feet pass beneath the chassis, he jumped up, fists cocked.
Dwaine could only say “What the” before Benny smashed his fist against his nose. Benny shook his hand a couple times then tackled Dwaine, pinning his arms down beneath his knees. He tagged him twice more in the face, feeling his hand start to numb.
‘Fucking scumbag.’ He spat in Dwaine’s eyes.
Dwaine tried to roll his ruined face away but Benny clocked him again.
‘Think you can just fuck anyone then hit her when she finds out?’
‘Hit what?’ Dwaine’s cracked front teeth sheered his words.
‘Kathy, you cocksucker.’ He slammed Dwaine’s head against the alley floor.
‘I never hit her.’ The kid was trying to scream but blood and fists kept his voice low.
Benny grabbed the collar of Dwaine’s shirt, pulled his face up. ‘The only reason I haven’t killed you is because Kathy asked just to bang you up.’
‘She said that?’ Color bled from the boy’s face, leaving a pale death-mask in its wake.
‘Yeah,’ he said, raising his fist. ‘But I can just tell her you got hit by a car.’
He was ready to do some unholy shit to this asshole’s teeth, when something grabbed his wrist. He turned around and caught the outline of Ruth, her face backlit by the sun, cigarette smoke curling from her lips turned electric by the light. Her left hand held tight to Benny’s wrist, her right wrapped around a brick. A chunk of mortar clung to the edge.
‘This ain’t your fight, Ben Junior.’
Benny shook his hand free and tried to swing again but Ruth knocked him aside and saddled up on Dwaine’s chest.
‘My daughter’s a good girl,’ she said. ‘You don’t go near her with that stuff again.’
Dwaine shook his head, said I didn’t then Ruth brought the brick down on his mouth. Benny coughed. Ruth smashed the brick down again, again. His teeth clicked against her fingernails. Benny gagged. Ruth felt his nose crush down under the brick, a hard wet crunching. She felt his eye socket crumple, felt his temple give way. Ditches of marbled flesh glistened where the mortar had dug out skin. Blood bubbled on Dwaine’s lips. Benny threw up through his fingers. A burning sting spread through Ruth’s arm as she brought the brick down over and over.
When she could no longer raise her arm, she rolled to the side, falling off the boy onto the concrete. The cool alley tingled against her cheek. Her fingers were leaden but chest was light, relieved. When her breath stopped rolling and she could rein in the smile, she raised herself up to her elbows and caught a glimpse of Benny, slumped against the brick wall, strings of vomit laced between his fingers.
‘Hey, Junior,’ she said, digging in her pocket. ‘Go bring my car round.’
He just looked up at her.
She tossed her keys to his feet.
‘I failed my test.’
‘And you never went joyriding in your momma’s car?’ She spat onto the alley, found some of Dwaine’s blood had made its way into her mouth. ‘Figure it out, then.’
• • • •
She hands him a cigarette as they sink into the vinyl front seat. Pulling her hair out of the ponytail, she massages her scalp, feels the tension leaving like ants fleeing brushfire.
‘Just don’t start smoking, okay? It’ll kill you, you let it.’ She lets her lungs crackle. This moment has been a long time coming and she tries to resurrect the wave of relief that swallowed her as the bone under Dwaine’s temple split, but it’s as hard to hold as the smoke in her chest.
Benny sits in the passenger seat, pulling at the polyester softball uniform with the unsmoked cigarette in his grip.
Ruth sets her fingers under his chin and raises it until he’s looking at her.
‘Lift up your head, Junior.’ She sucks hard on her cigarette. ‘Preacher says we’re our brother’s keeper, and that applies to you and Kathy, too. Nothing to fret about. You were just keeping after your sister.’
Benny says, ‘Yeah,’ and keeps picking at the uniform.
Ruth considers him with an exhale, pats his cheek then turns the ignition over. ‘You hungry?’
‘Ma was supposed to take me to Rita’s tonight after she got home from bingo.’
‘Mmhm,’ Ruth says. ‘Think I could go for some ice custard myself.’ She slips the wagon into drive, looks both ways for some reason she can’t quite explain. The owls hoot and echo through the park.
CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE HOLE
Garnett Elliott
There’d been no action at Kathi’s booth for two hours.
She was beginning to wonder if the Soulful Spirit Holistic Wellness Expo would be a bust. Only a quarter of the Moscone Center was occupied, and there seemed to be more presenters than actual customers drifting around.
Wait a second . . .
A gray-haired woman came wandering into her section. She clutched several pamphlets against her chest.
“Ma’am,” Kathi said, waving, “over here.”
The woman looked startled, but edged closer. Kathi shoved a tri-fold at her. “I’m representing Koan Tones, the latest synthesis of Eastern wisdom and modern communications technology. Why listen to a standard ringtone when you can receive daily enlightenment?” She pressed a tab on her phone and a strange humming shuddered out of the speakers. “That’s a Tibetan singing bowl. Other options include popular mantras--”
“She’s not interested,” Barbara said, leaning her emaciated form between them. “Am I right?”
The woman raised her shoulders in what could’ve been a shrug, but Barbara plowed on: “I’ve discovered the link between previous existence and current nutritional profiles. With my Past Life Diet Plan I can tailor your best meal options based on who you were before. For example, if someone had been an Egyptian princess I’d recommend lentils, green onions, coarse bread--”