by Pete Hautman
Fingerprints and chalk spill were getting scarce. Bigg hung up the towel and spray bottle and retired to his office, where he sorted through the basket of papers on his desk. He ran across the membership application that the new guy had filled out. Charles Thickening. The address he’d given was care of something called ACO Ministries. Funny. The guy didn’t look like a preacher. Bigg flipped through his pile of unanswered mail. Most of it was ignorable: catalogs from vitamin supplement manufacturers, solicitations from bodybuilding promoters looking for sponsors, and bills for nonessential services. Bigg threw away everything except the utility bills and the latest issue of MuscleMag. He briefly considered the invitation to Hyatt Hilton’s wedding, shook his head and threw that away, too.
The cold vinyl on his back and knurled steel against his palms took Chuckles back to the iron pile at Stillwater. He turned his head to look at his surroundings. Infinite rows of red upholstered benches and neatly stacked weight racks. This was no prison weight room. This was the real world, where you could eat a Big Mac and open any door and sit under a tree on the grass. Chuckles gripped the barbell and lifted it off the rack. It felt heavy, but that was to be expected. It had been nearly a year since he’d been granted parole, and he hadn’t touched a weight since. Chuckles had never much enjoyed pumping iron, but in prison it was something you had to do just to stay even. In prison, the last thing a guy wanted was to get small. Bigger was safer. Maybe that was true on the outside, too. Maybe he should get back into it. According to Amaranthine theory, he should be able to shape his body without the inconvenience of physical exercise, but lately he had noticed that the cells around his middle had been growing faster than the cells in his arms and chest. A little exercise wouldn’t hurt.
According to Beaut, the guy with the broken foot, Flowrean did her workouts in the morning, usually about nine or ten, sometimes earlier. Chuckles had decided to get there early, be there when she showed. He didn’t want her to think he was following her. He wanted it to be, like, a coincidence. He’d seen what she was like when she was scared. His thigh was still throbbing, and his arm had stiffened up where the nurse had given him his tetanus shot. He did not want to frighten Flowrean. He just wanted to get acquainted.
During his three-year bid at Stillwater Penitentiary, Chuckles had spent a great many hours quietly constructing his fantasy woman. At first, inspired by magazines, television, and his own memories, he had experimented with different types of women—black, white, passive, domineering, tall, short, young, and old. He imagined women named Mai Lee, Gretchen, Thulani, Starflower, Dorita, Punky, and dozens more. He saw them in bathing suits, leather chaps, business suits, evening gowns, and birthday suits. He directed his mind to consider new combinations of physical features and bizarre behaviors—anything to distract him from the raw, cold fact of his incarceration. He conjured up a woman with four breasts, a woman with the brain of an Irish setter, a woman ten feet tall, and a woman who was turned on by the smell of his feet. As the months passed, he discovered common elements in his fantasy women, certain qualities and traits that felt right and true, and he found himself returning to an ever-shrinking repertory of fantasy players. Experimentation slowly lost its appeal and, about fourteen months into his bid, the women in his dreams had coalesced into a single construct: a female of mixed heritage, both fearless and afraid, large and small, alien and familiar. In short, he had conceived a woman very much like Flowrean Peeche.
Since his release from Stillwater, Chuckles had been with four dozen different women, every one of which had been a disappointment. Even his encounters with the First Eldress left him strangely unsatisfied. He understood this to be his own fault, something to do with a discordance between his expectations and the realities of the physical world. As the First Eldress would say, he was not sharing the fullness of his flesh. Sharing was a big part of the Amaranthine Way. The Sharing of the Flesh was one of the keys to stepping out of the Death Program.
Polly was a smart lady. She scared him, but she was smart.
Polly would answer all concerns by telling Chuckles to follow the Sharing of the Flesh, to let his cells lead him beyond his own physical form.
Rupe would tell him to focus his thoughts on a cellular level, to drive out the cells of self-destruction, to open his flesh to a new, life-affirming cellular structure. It came down to the same thing, Chuckles supposed: You get laid a lot.
Chuckles slowly lowered the barbell to his chest, feeling his pectorals stretch, feeling the cells lengthen and separate. He pushed, raising the weight, straightening his arms, squeezing his pecs, then lowered the bar again, repeating the movement, expanding and contracting his muscles. After sixteen reps he racked the bar and closed his eyes, directing the cells in his chest to divide, to grow, to draw nutrients from his blood. This was one of the more advanced Amaranthine skills, one he had been working on for the past several weeks. The process required absolute concentration. It was difficult with his leg and arm throbbing so, but he gave it a few minutes, imagining his chest swelling with new growth.
All things considered, Chuckles’s life was going remarkably well. He was free, immortal, employed, and getting oral sex from his boss. But he was still searching for his soulmate, for the one who would bring the present into phase with his self, a woman who could help him share the fullness of his flesh. He had a feeling about this Flowrean Peeche. He thought that he would like to Share his Flesh with her.
Yesterday, Flo had felt embarrassed and sad over her ill-fated luncheon with Joe Crow. What had she expected? She was a musclebound waitress who reeked of dead fish. Last night she had looked at her image in her bathroom mirror and cried. Who would want such a creature? Flo slept fitfully. She dreamed of being lost in an enormous mall, bigger than the Mall of America, but it wasn’t a mall, it was a gym, and all the men were looking at her, and she realized she was naked, and all she could think of to do was to dance, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
She woke up at dawn, hollow-eyed and irritable. She no longer felt sad, she felt angry. If Joe Crow was a fool, she was lucky to be rid of him, lucky to have kept her options open. There were two billion men on the planet, and no reason whatsoever to waste another moment on a man who refused to appreciate her. She should be glad.
Flo zipped herself into a black nylon coverall and grabbed her gym bag. She let her anger propel her out of her condo and into her Miata. She needed to get to the gym, work it off. Who did he think he was, kissing her off like some damn stalker groupie? She banged through the gears, pushing the little car hard through the early-morning traffic. Treating her like a little teenybopper with her first crush. Telling her about his girlfriend in Paris. Paris? Like hell. Probably didn’t even have a girlfriend. Probably gay. She was lucky to be rid of the rat weasel skunk son-of-a-bitch.
Flo pulled into the Bigg Bodies parking lot ten minutes after leaving her apartment, some kind of record. Other than the two limos parked at the back, there were only two cars in the lot: Bigg’s Cadillac and a yellow Corvette. Joe Crow’s car wasn’t there, and that was fine with her, though she really didn’t give a damn one way or the other.
Bigg was working on the payroll, trying to decide whether to fire Beaut, when he heard the front door buzzer. He leaned across his desk and looked out of his office, caught a glimpse of Flowrean Peeche as she blew past the counter, not bothering to sign in, and headed for the locker room. He regarded the papers on his desk. The numbers looked like meaningless scribbles. He squeezed his eyes closed, then opened them. Nothing had changed. Bigg got up, closed and locked his office door, turned out the light, and climbed into his viewing closet. Flowrean was standing directly in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection. She wore a silky nylon coverall, black with gold trim. Her gym bag, unopened, sat on the bench behind her. Bigg waited for her to unzip, to shake loose those breasts and flex those remarkable thighs. He waited for her to open her bag, to dress herself in her reeking sweats, to drape that dead-goldfish necklace aroun
d her neck. But Flowrean didn’t move. She simply stood staring at the mirror, almost as if she were looking straight through it.
Was he watching her? Flo wasn’t sure, but she smiled, aiming her eyes at a spot six inches on the other side of the glass. She gave it half a minute, then turned her back to the mirror. She thought about going into one of the shower stalls to change, but that felt wrong. It would be like hiding. She opened her bag and pulled out her workout sweats. The anger she had felt on the drive over was still with her, but now something else was happening, a hollow feeling in her womb, a shiver at the base of her spine. She tugged down the zipper on the front of the coveralls, took a deep breath, and dropped them. It took her less than five seconds to step into her sweatpants and pull on her sweatshirt. She turned back toward the mirror and lowered the necklace of dead goldfish over her head. Three of them had fallen off, but the other three were still hanging in there.
When she came out of the locker room, Bigg was standing behind the front counter studying the morning newspaper, frowning with concentration. Flo walked past him, going directly to the squat rack where she began her warm-ups, a set of twenty-five deep knee bends followed by some long, slow stretches.
The only other person in the gym was a guy doing bench presses. Flo paid no particular attention to him, except to note that he was big and black. She was thinking more about the way she had felt in the locker room, imagining Bigg on the other side of the glass, there but not there, real but not real, like a creature watching her from another dimension. It reminded her of being a little girl, of the excitement she had felt undressing alone in her room at night, wondering if God was peeking.
Chuckles stared at the woman with the snarled hair and rumpled, dirty-looking gray sweats. He wasn’t sure. She was about the right size, but she looked different when she wasn’t running and screaming and leaping and dressed in gold snakeskin and lime green pumps. She was barefooted. If he could get a closer look, maybe he’d recognize her feet. He searched for an excuse to walk past her, spotted a drinking fountain, and headed for it. She was on the floor doing a hurdler’s stretch, her face to the mat as he walked by. The feet looked right—long and slim, about a size seven, maroon polish on the nails. Chuckles drank a few ounces of water, then made a second pass. This time she looked up, right into his face, showing him those golden eyes.
“S’app’n,” Chuckles rumbled, moving quickly past. It was her all right, but what was that smell? It reminded him of something out of his past, something sour and sweet and overwhelming. He sat down on his bench and took a deep breath, inhaling the gaseous fragments that had clung to him in passing, and remembered. The smell came from years ago, from his old apartment in St. Paul, across the alley from a Vietnamese restaurant. That was it. The Vietnamese restaurant’s dumpster in August: fish sauce and lemongrass, rotting fruit and maggoty meat. He raised his eyes. Flowrean was on her feet, staring at him. What was that around her neck? It looked like a bunch of dead fish.
Chuckles smiled and gave her a little wave. Did she remember him?
She turned away and began a set of calf stretches, looking back over her shoulder every few seconds, as if she thought he might sneak up on her. Chuckles decided to continue doing his bench presses, give her time to get used to him. He added a pair of ten-pound plates to the bar, bringing the weight up to 245, and managed to squeeze out eight reps. When he sat up, she was gone. No. She was at the other end of the gym talking to the guy at the front counter. They both looked at him. Chuckles returned a friendly smile. The counter man smiled back, but Flowrean looked away.
Chuckles loaded another twenty pounds onto the bar and lay down on the bench. He stared up at the knurled steel, his fingers laced across his chest, thinking about two things. He was imagining Flowrean watching him, and he hoped he could still handle that much weight. Back at Stillwater, two sixty-five would not have presented a problem, but that was a year ago. He’d lost a lot of muscle tone since then. Eaten a lot of longjohns.
“Want a spot?”
Chuckles rolled his eyes up to look at the man standing behind him. It was the counter guy.
“My name’s Bigg.”
“You the owner, huh?”
“Yup. I haven’t seen you here before. You just join?”
“Last night. My name’s Chuckles. Your man with the sore foot sign me up.”
“That would be Beaut, my assistant manager.” Bigg checked the plates, snugging them up against the collar. “You look like you could handle more than this,” he said. He added a five-pound plate to each end of the bar. “There you go.”
“I don’t know,” Chuckles said.
“Sure you do,” Bigg said. “So, you know Flowrean?” He inclined his head toward the squat rack, where she was performing a set of slow, deep, warm-up squats with the empty bar.
“We met,” Chuckles said.
“Yeah, that’s what she says.”
“I didn’t think she’d remember. What’s she got ’round her neck?”
“Those are her pet goldfish. They give her that little extra something, you know?”
“Uh huh. She got a boyfriend?”
“Flo?” Bigg laughed. “You gonna do your set or not?”
Chuckles grasped the bar. “Sure,” he said. He lifted the weight off the rack and, not giving himself time to think, lowered it to his chest, then heaved, the small of his back coming up off the bench, his chest bunching, his arms slowly straightening. At one point the bar stopped its ascent and began to tip to the left. Bigg’s hands appeared, lightening the bar by a pound or two, just enough to let Chuckles complete the lift.
“Again,” Bigg said.
“I dunno.” Chuckles was breathing hard.
“Go for it.”
Chuckles took a breath and lowered the barbell. This time, Bigg kept his hands cupped under the bar the whole way. Chuckles stopped it at his chest, then pushed. The bar didn’t move. He focused his mind and pushed harder, to no avail. Bigg’s hands were gripping the bar, but they weren’t helping.
“Hey,” Chuckles gasped. “Come on, man.”
“You need a little more lift?” Bigg asked, pulling up on the barbell. It came up an inch, then stopped again. “Or maybe you don’t need my help.” Bigg leaned on the bar, pressing it down into Chuckles’s ribcage. Chuckles’s arms quivered with effort, fighting the increased weight.
Bigg said, “Flowrean, she likes to be left alone, you know? She comes here, she doesn’t want to be bothered. You bother her. You hear?”
Chuckles gave up a nod. Bigg eased up, giving Chuckles room to take a breath. “We’ve got three rules here at Bigg Bodies. You rack your weights. You pay your dues on time. And you stay the fuck away from Flowrean. Understand?”
Chuckles nodded. He understood. This wasn’t so different from prison after all.
With no apparent effort, Bigg lifted the loaded barbell off Chuckles’s chest and racked it. “Any time you need a spot, you just give a wave.” He gave Chuckles a friendly grin, and walked away.
Chuckles turned his head and looked over at Flowrean doing her slow squats, smiling to herself, her eyes fixed on someplace far away. Sooner or later, he thought, all things must come to pass. One of the advantages to being an immortal was that whether they happened sooner, or later, he would be there.
Polly stood beside the Range Rover watching, her arms crossed, as Rupe lifted the last suitcase into the back and closed the tailgate. Rupe smiled at her and rubbed his hands together. Polly frowned and looked away. She was still sleepy, and angry about being forced to skip her morning café au lait.
“What’s the matter, love?” he asked.
“I’m tired, and I want my coffee.”
“It’s a beautiful day.” Rupe gestured skyward.
“I’m worried. I’ve got a bad feeling. What does Benjy know about running the church? He’s been working full time on Stonecrop. What if something comes up?”
“The Charleses will be here to help him.”
�
�That worries me, too.” She yawned. “Chip’s been acting strange.”
“Chuckles will keep an eye on Chip.”
“He’s been acting weird, too, ever since that woman stuck her heel in his thigh.”
“They’ll be fine, love. They can watch each other. And Sandra will help Benjy with the day-to-day details—she knows the computer system inside and out. Everything will be fine.”
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“You must let go of your doubts, my love.” He held his hands out, palms up. “Give them to me.”
“Jesus Christ, Rupe, give it a rest, would you? This isn’t a goddamn event.”
Rupe pushed his hands closer to her. “Give them to me.”
Polly sighed. She knew he wouldn’t quit until she did as he asked. She reached out her own hands and let him fold them into his own, let him draw her close.
“Give it all to me,” he said again. Polly felt the tendrils of energy reaching out to her, felt the heat of his will. For a few seconds, she resisted, holding back, clinging to the solid comfort of her doubts and fears, but then, as if her psychic arteries had suddenly opened, she felt a stream of energy gush out through her palms into her husband. It lasted less than one second. Her knees buckled. She would have fallen if Rupe had not caught her.
“Are you all right?” she heard him ask.
She nodded shakily. The surface of the parking lot looked bright, the pebbles standing out in painfully sharp focus.
“That was a big one,” Rupe said.
Polly took a breath and looked around, reorienting herself. They were leaving for Stonecrop. Going away for four weeks. She had been worried about leaving the business in the hands of the Faithful. What was there to worry about?
She couldn’t remember. And she didn’t need that café au lait anymore—she felt strong and alert, energetic enough to jog the seventy miles to Rochester.
She said, “I don’t know how the hell you do that.”