by Daniel Kraus
“We don’t need them,” Ry said.
Jo Beth turned her face to her son in disbelief.
Phinny’s frown deepened.
“You don’t need them.”
“Nope.”
“Huh. You don’t say.”
Ry looked at Jo Beth for backup. She withheld reaction, perhaps thinking of that trip to the emergency room she wanted for Sarah, but what else could she do? She nodded to Phinny as if passing along wonderful news. Ry’s nerve endings tingled with the audacity of the gambit: Marvin’s escape plan surely hinged upon the car, and the car would not run without the spark plugs, and Ry, following his father’s directions, was going to send those spark plugs away. It was a thicket of risks and rewards, a minefield of dangerous outcomes, but once spoken there was no option besides total commitment.
“Yeah, we got them already,” Ry said. “Sorry about that. Found them in town.”
“That right?” Phinny was unnaturally still. “Whereabouts?”
Ry shrugged. “Oh, let’s see.” His voice was all over the place. “Riley’s Gas. I think that’s right. Yeah, that’s it. He just happened to have them on hand. Sorry I didn’t mention it. I was going to call this morning, but …”
“The phone pole. Went kablooey.”
Ry forced a laugh. “You should’ve heard it.”
Phinny took his time switching feet. A funny smile emerged beneath his beard, one that said: You can’t fool me, you little shit. Ry intensified his stare to send his own message: Back the fuck off. Controlling facial muscles, however, proved tricky—his head was pounding and the sweat rolled heavy as blood.
Phinny’s sigh was theatrical. “Well, I hate to do this to you, pal. But I’m going to have to ask for payment anyhow. Two whole boxes and whatnot. You know how it is.”
Ry turned to his mother with a slowness that he hoped communicated the caution with which she needed to respond. Jo Beth looked down at her body and found that not only did she not have a purse, she had no proper clothes, either. Her forearms twitched as if longing to cover the areas where lace packaged her skin. Phinny looked apologetic, just for a moment.
“I don’t know that we have it,” Jo Beth said. “Ry?”
“No,” Ry said. “I don’t think we do. Tomorrow, though. How’s that? No reason to waste your time. I’ll bring it by.”
“I’m in no hurry.” Phinny spoke with such calm that Ry expected a yawn. “How about I come inside and you see what you can dig up? Even a buck or two would be great. I’m thinking about grabbing a bite and could use a little tip money.”
Jo Beth’s naked arm rattled the screen door chain. Despite Marvin, the gun, the meteorite, everything, Ry could tell that she was seconds away from letting the mechanic inside. Phinny saw the same thing and lifted a foot to take advantage. Ry shoved himself into the man’s intended path.
“Don’t,” Ry said.
“Smells out here,” Phinny said. “You burning something?”
“It’s the wires.”
“Doesn’t smell electrical.” He planted his foot in a new direction.
“Come on—don’t.”
“At least let me in out of the sun so we can talk.”
Honor among men was strong. Ry never knew how strong until he had to betray it. He summoned all of his bile, his hatred, his frustration, and redirected it at this man who even now was proving the definition of friendship.
“I don’t appreciate what you’re doing,” Ry said. “You were late. Very late. This is always how it is with you. It’s a disgusting way of doing business, and if you honestly expect me to pay for that kind of service, then I don’t know what to say. Making my mom feel bad? Making demands? She’s here in her nightgown. Can’t you tell she’s not feeling well? And you’re trying to push your way in? I’m glad this happened because now I know never to deal with you again. Get the”—and here his voice snagged and faltered—“get the hell off our property.”
Phinny Rochester drew himself up to full wilderness height. No one dared address him this way, at least not since Marvin Burke had left the scene. His eyes drained of their cunning and went flat as pavement. Ry raised his chin and chest, a paltry defense.
It was Jo Beth who played the deciding card. She gestured at the world beyond the front porch and said, softly, “Please go.”
Phinny bared his teeth and looked from Jo Beth to Ry and back again. No matter his instincts, there was a deeper code imprinted into him regarding the requests of women. He inhaled.
“All right.”
He pulled his cap down so that it pushed out his ears, the only parts of him that were undersized. The boxes of spark plugs were palmed; Ry felt a pang of loss. Phinny patted his other pockets out of habit and turned, ducking his head to fit beneath the motionless chimes, the hanging fern. Ry followed his progress down the steps and path but did not see any truck; the hazard of the live wires must have forced Phinny to park down the road. He began to wander off the path and Ry craned his head to watch. Then, mercifully, Jo Beth pulled the storm door shut, doing it so quickly the screen seemed to capture the entire world like a butterfly in a net.
2 HRS., 32 MINS. AFTER IMPACT
Marvin’s sooty paw snatched the front door and pushed it shut. There was a clatter as the shotgun barrel traded parries with dead bolt and knob. For a moment the objects seemed locked together, and Ry, backed against the staircase, saw a way to the gun if he could only move fast enough. But of course he couldn’t—if he had learned anything at age ten with the red bat, the sewing shears, and Scowler, it was that he could not, when the shit came down, finish the job.
The locks thrown, Marvin backpedaled. He was noticeably sweatier. His prison-issue shirt was ready to tear like tissue paper. His arms and hands seemed inferior to the insurgence of the gun, which jerked about with such force that it threatened to go airborne. The hallway had never felt so small.
“No car.” His voice crackled. “And no one was going to say a thing.”
“I didn’t think of it,” Jo Beth said. “So much was happening.”
“And I suppose you sold off the tractors.” Marvin kept creeping backward. “And the combine and the baler and the mower, too. You’ve sold off everything. You’ve sold off yourselves, too—you’re just too stupid to see it. And look how rich it’s made you. Just look.”
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
“Neither of you considered that we might need the car to drag out that rock? That I might need it to take that rock with me? Those things didn’t cross your minds? Or did you just decide you’d try being clever?”
“That’s not it at all,” Jo Beth protested. “Phinny was coming inside; we had to say something.”
“You’re not nearly clever enough,” Marvin growled. “Not by half. You know what this changes? Nothing. I’m still taking that rock with me. Doesn’t matter to me one bit how we bring it up. Bare hands? Fine. We’ve all got a pair of those. We’ll bring it out with our bare hands.”
“You’re shaking,” Jo Beth said. “You’re tired and hungry. Breakfast—I can make cheese eggs just like you like them. Or lunch, anything you want.”
“Food? Jo. You play your cards so quickly.”
“What? No. You misunderstand.”
“How much time can we kill? How long until the sirens show up?”
“Marvin! Stop it! You’re hungry! That’s it! We’re all hungry!”
“I hate that you think me so underhanded, Jo.”
“I hate that you think it of me! It’s food, Marvin. I’m not going to force it.”
“Force?” He held out the Winchester. “See this? This does not mean nothing, Jo.”
“It means—” She closed her mouth. No one could bury a glare like Jo Beth Burke. She spoke more softly. “I don’t know what it means.”
“Thank God I’m here, then,” Marvin said. “I’ll tell you what it means. And pay attention, both of you, because there is to be no more of this cheap purchasing of time. We have a car,
we don’t have a car. We need to go to the hospital when something’s just a burn, just a regular burn. Enough of it. This is the end. Here’s how it’s going to go. Listen up.”
Phinny slung an arm around Marvin’s throat. He had come from the dining room, the kitchen, the back porch, the unlocked doors that were country habit. Marvin’s arms went ramrod straight, the shotgun held vertical like a staff, while his features squeezed down to rodent proportion. Ry’s body made the smallest of hypnogogic jerks. The struggle, so sudden, featured almost no sound or motion. The men bent like wet wood. Phinny shortened—evidence of bearing down—and veins shot up Marvin’s neck, his skin flushing purple. Both men held a Vitruvian pose, filling the doorway, until Marvin whipped back with the shotgun and struck Phinny in the forehead.
He toppled into the dining room while Marvin stood gasping for air and spewing stringy liquid. Ry thought one word—Sarah—and tried to get a fix on her. Marvin’s neck ballooned with a great, pink inhale, and he spat in Ry’s direction with a whistling rage. Ry felt Jo Beth press herself into the front door. But then there was the squeak of wet flesh against tile and Marvin turned, allowing Ry a better glimpse into the darkened dining room. No Sarah that he could see, but there was Phinny on all fours, big as furniture, taking deep breaths and watching marbles of blood drop from his brow and crack against the floor.
Marvin stepped bowlegged into the dining room as if to sneak up on a willful horse. Phinny’s verdant eyebrows popped up and he darted his left arm outward. It snapped around Marvin’s calf like a whip and an instant later Marvin was on his back, a whoosh of air blasting from his chest. At that very moment Ry shouted, “Sarah, run!” but the cry was lost when the gun landed flat on its side with Marvin’s outstretched hand on top of it, the metal crash unlike anything that had ever before disturbed the house. Phinny made a lurching crawl at Marvin, but his right knee scrawled through the blood puddle and he dropped to the floor. Phinny gave his first cry of pain and pressed a hand to his hip.
It had been seconds, no more than fifteen, for all of this to happen. Fantasies of entering into battle and delivering a heroic kick seized Ry, but just as he swayed in that direction his mother began fussing with the locks, and Ry paused because this, after all, was what Phinny was fighting for—the chance for them to escape. The first lock was thrown and it rang like gunshot; Ry instinctively ducked and saw Marvin, spread-eagled, push a hand into Phinny’s face. The larger man clasped his paws around Marvin’s wrist and wrenched it. Marvin fought to a knee but Phinny kept twisting the arm, and Marvin, making a series of quick grunts, found himself tumbling over his own legs into a full roll. He hit the deck and for one second the men lay opposite, head to feet.
Ry cringed at a sudden hot smack of sunshine and an inrush of aching fumes. The front door was open. Jo Beth shoved at the screen door but then stopped and looked at her son; the door, meanwhile, swung wide, singing, and then inched back as if offering second, third, and fourth chances. Ry tried to guess what she was thinking: Could she get away without her daughter? Could she get away with her daughter? Or was it that valuable chunk of rock waiting in the back field that gave her pause?
Bones clacked—clavicle, elbow, jaw, tailbone, heel—as the men went at each other. Their grappling had a sloppy playground quality. The shotgun was still there, grabbed and slapped with hands and feet, its steel reverberation punctuating the soft whump of clothing and flesh. Ry took a step toward the dining room to intervene because he had to, even if failure was assured, but Jo Beth snagged his shirt. Her lips pursed, about to call out for Sarah, waiting for a single second’s pause in the bedlam. Then, with one accidental thrust, things changed.
Ry was not sure he saw it right. The barrier of Phinny’s shoulder appeared to slide just enough to allow Marvin’s elbow to shoot forward. It was a rubber-band movement, and the result was the muzzle of the rifle jumping at Phinny’s face and punching into his left eye. It withdrew just as fast, and Marvin, jarred by the quick and confusing event, scuttled away and backed himself against the far wall next to the kitchen.
Phinny was frozen, his mouth agape, his hands rigid as if holding a basketball between them. An endless moment ended: He released a howl of acid fright. Ry gulped a breath—he too had been breathless. Marvin did not move from his seated slump; in fact, he held the shotgun away from him as if fearful of its malice. Phinny held out his arms as if totally blind instead of halfway there and pushed himself to his feet, giant but trembling. His fingers patted delicately at his cheek. They did not like what they felt—they pulled away and Phinny screamed.
His walk into the hallway was ungainly. Ry and Jo Beth backed onto the first steps of the staircase and cowered there. It was an awful thing, and they knew it—a friend grievously injured and this was their response. But Marvin was only a few yards behind and looking unhinged. Phinny slumped into the hallway, a skyline of blood drawn across the wallpaper by his fingers. Two more steps and he was in the sunlight’s warmth. Ry shuddered at the sight. The shotgun muzzle, when it had entered the socket, had squeezed the eyeball to one side and, unable to contain itself, the vitreous humor had ruptured and now jiggled against Phinny’s cheek like smeared egg. He kept moving, though, his arms outstretched in toddler fashion, staggering past Ry and Jo Beth. He kicked the screen door wide.
They listened to his heavy steps pound across the porch cement. Marvin appeared at the end of the hallway, back bent, the twelve-gauge gripped tightly by both hands. He looked after the injured man with an expression of numb exhaustion. He sniffed forcefully, trying to imbue himself with power, and shuffled down the hall and out the door without giving his wife and son, the miserable bystanders, a single look.
The ache in Ry’s head doubled. Feeling a sudden need to move, he lifted his feet until he found himself on the front porch several feet behind his father. The porch was an unfrequented place and had become, in the years since Marvin’s incarceration, a purgatory for the doomed: four wicker chairs with moldy cushions, an expired pair of heavy old lamps shaped like owls, and an ineptly rolled tarp that now only bred mosquitoes. Jo Beth joined her son in this graveyard, acting reverent. A moment later Sarah emerged and took hold of Ry’s left elbow with a hand still wrapped in damp cloth. They could run, but they would never make it, not the three of them together.
Phinny had fallen to his knees near the tree. One strap had slipped and his overalls hung at half-mast, revealing the muggy mat of an old T-shirt. Moles and hair were exposed near his hip, and Phinny’s realness gripped Ry with ferocity.
Marvin considered the shotgun, then scanned the horizon. A gun blast was a thing that could arouse interest, especially in a community put on edge by the local prison disaster. His hand strayed to his shirt pocket, drawing strength from the object that hid there. Then he turned around and gave the porch junk a regretful perusal. He reached over, still too far for Ry to make a play for the gun, and took up one of the owl lamps. Marvin shook off the shade and tested the lamp’s heft by bouncing it in his palm.
With the air of one carrying out distasteful orders, Marvin relegated the shotgun to his left hand, took hold of the lamp with his right, and crossed over to stand beside Phinny, whose polite, seated posture suggested one awaiting a picnic. After a few seconds, Phinny lifted his face to the sun and smiled.
“The headache.” Phinny’s tone was beseeching. “I can’t concentrate. I’m sorry. I’m … Can any of you think? I can’t think. You ought to. I lost my thought. The telephone wires, you ought … You ought to. I’m sorry. I meant … I tried to—the smell distracted me and I lost my … I couldn’t get … I couldn’t get my …” He turned to Marvin with a trusting, hapless look that showed off a set of blood-spattered teeth. Phinny’s one good eye blinked hopefully. “I’m going now. One second. I’m … I’ll—”
The base of the lamp cracked against Phinny’s head with remarkable finality. Somehow Phinny did not fall; his arms waggled as if emulating a chicken, and this accidentally joyous dance continued while M
arvin drew back the lamp for another blow. Ry reached out for a porch pillar to keep himself upright but it was too far; his swipe caught air and he landed with his hands on his knees. Marvin’s whine, canine in its register, was what got Ry to look again, though what he saw was murky: that golden owl diving for the kill, a dark dart of blood, a large carcass slumping, a patty of pink meat and white bone where a man’s face used to be.
Ry’s hands found Sarah’s shoulders and turned her around to face the house, and he began saying things in cheery tones, hoping his voice would block out whatever sickening snaps and moist thumps came next. And came they did, and it was as if each blow sent jets of magnetized air up his nose and into his—
Smack.
(oh, there is you)
Smack.
(lookie lee, lookie loo)
Smack.
(lookie you, lookie me)
Smack.
(and oh how happy we will be)
Then it was over, though Ry did not know how many seconds had passed. He was just inside the door, huddled against the banister, Sarah beneath him. Her eyelash brushed his cheek and Ry became aware that she was looking outside and so he did the same. Marvin stood hunched on the back porch, the gun in one hand, in the other the busted murder implement, which rained blood onto the cement. The lamp was half destroyed and Ry choked in disgust. Its cheap production, its novelty shape—an insufficient tool to have taken the life of such a man.
Marvin’s feet dragged across cement.
“No, don’t,” Jo Beth said from somewhere.
His dark shape printed itself into the white rectangle of the open door.
“You.” Marvin’s voice was gored, saliva and bone. “You did this to me.”