by Rick Ochre
The lake, green-skimmed and calm, ahead. Karl trod downed cattails and soft earth. The old duck blind near the water’s edge, splintering planks, open to the sky. All the good shooting on the other side, nobody out now—not until the season started in September. Ted, in the blind already. Smoking. No way he didn’t hear Karl coming, but—
“Hey.” Karl said it tonelessly, his gut already tightening, a narrow throb beginning behind his eyes. Only then did Ted turn, a lazy smile wrapped around his cigarette.
“Hey yourself.” He shifted over on the worn plank seat. The blind hadn’t been used in a long time—except by them. There were others, newer ones, better ones. But none so well hidden.
Karl sat, gingerly, as though they were in a canoe. He noticed that Ted had flicked a couple of butts on the floor. That same rage, it flashed by fast, just like when he looked at Sidnee.
The first time they came here, there were torn potato chip bags, crushed beer cans. Shotgun shells. A couple of discarded condoms. Dirt and leaves and bird shit. After the second time, Ted had slipped him an extra twenty, “Clean this shit-hole up for next time. We’re not bums.”
#
Half an hour before Karl came home, Sidnee stopped by. Erland was surprised but he tried not to show it. Offered her a Pepsi. Was ashamed of the mess he’d made frying eggs—still figuring out how to do things one-handed. The accident had left the driver’s side of his truck dented in so far you wouldn’t think a man could fit inside. In the hospital, a few lucid moments, he couldn’t bring himself to ask about the arm, the mashed elbow.
Coming out of surgery; well, there was his answer.
“I thought I’d stop by in the middle of the week for a change,” Sidnee said. She’d brought half a pie, filched from work. Strawberry rhubarb. Erland didn’t care for rhubarb, but he accepted a piece. Watched the girl reaching into cabinets for plates, couldn’t help remembering Margie all those years ago: same cabinets, same plates. His longhaired skogsra.
“And Sunday I’ll bring a pork roast.” Sidnee said that as though they had been chatting non-stop, but the truth was that between her and Erland there were always silences. Though they both tried hard.
“That would be nice.”
Sidnee took a breath and said it fast, “I’m worried about Karl. He’s so quiet. And I don’t know where he goes. Do you think—do you know—” she couldn’t finish, but it didn’t matter: Erland had no answers.
#
This time Karl demanded the money first. Two hundred dollars. The first time Ted gave him fifty. Three tens, a twenty, already folded into a roll, hot and wrinkled from Ted’s front pocket. For fifty dollars Karl was pretty sure Ted could get blown in Duluth—by a woman or a man, take his pick. But Ted kept coming back to Karl.
Karl didn’t want to understand, but in a sickening, slow accumulation of knowledge as the weeks went by, there were clues.
Ted started coming around in March. He sat at the counter and drank coffee in the evening every couple of weeks. Karl had no trouble remembering him after the first time: Ted dressed better than the usual crowd, had a better haircut, brought a folded Wall Street Journal. It was good to have someone to talk to in the slow final hour of his shift. Ted talked about his job—he had received a promotion, sold medical equipment all over northwestern Minnesota. Drove from Duluth out Highway 2, spent the night in Grand Forks, then went from hospital to hospital for a few days, working his way down to Fargo, and drove home.
“It’s ultrasonic scanning,” he explained. Like on TV, when they rub the thing on a pregnant woman’s belly, the screen showing a triangle of pulsing green on black.
After a few weeks, Ted bought him a couple of beers at the Holiday Inn across the street and talked more. There were other kinds of scanners, too. Some for looking inside—a probe, you slid it up someone and you could see everything, all the organs laid out there, all three hundred sixty degrees, just spin it around. The thought strangely arousing, Karl said little, waited for his erection to die down.
They walked back across the parking lot and Ted pointed out his car, the Mercedes, rare enough in Perrysville. Ted shook his hand, said he’d see Karl in a couple of weeks.
The next time Ted came back, after the beers, they got in the Mercedes and Ted drove back behind the tire store and put his hand on Karl’s belt.
#
Every time, Ted did the same thing: he rubbed himself while he jerked Karl off and then he finished, watching Karl with unblinking eyes and making wheezing sounds in his throat, then muttering “Oh Christ oh Jesus” when he came. Once Karl turned away, sickened, and was startled by the force of Ted’s exclamation.
“Don’t!”
So that was part of it. Ted wanted to look at him and it didn’t take forever to figure out what he liked. Karl’s hair was practically white-blond; Ted couldn’t keep his eyes off it. “Grow it out,” he pleaded sometimes. He would reach out to touch it, but Karl pushed his hand away. No touching, other than…that. Ted tried every time, but Karl wouldn’t bend. He also asked for more money. It was crazy, he knew; no whore made what he did for the little that Ted got, but that was Ted’s problem.
Ted liked Karl’s eyes. “So fucking blue, it kills me.”
Sidnee, almost four years ago, the first time they made out, “I love your eyes, they’re so gorgeous.”
Ted, busy working his cock, pants and boxers pulled down his hips. Bolder now, a steady stream of dirty talk, Karl swallowing hard, trying to make himself deaf, unable to turn away, it was like modeling for an artist, he was afraid to scratch his nose or shift in his seat, to break Ted’s concentration. “Oh Jesus you little whore you gorgeous fucking whore I’m going to come you want this hot come on you you want it in your ass you want me up your ass…” On and on it went. Ted’s jiz stream was weak, it arced only far enough to soil his own thighs, his boxers. He wiped it with Kleenex from a box he kept in the back seat.
In April, Karl looked at the stack of twenties when he was at the bank making a deposit—skin crawling, these bills had been in Ted’s wallet—and decided to tell him it would be a hundred fifty from now on. Maybe that would be enough that Ted would quit him.
It wasn’t. Soon after, Karl showed Ted the duck blind and said for another fifty bucks they could just meet there. Skip the beers. Ted liked it fine; he brought a flask.
#
Erland waited until a commercial. Reached for the remote, muted the TV.
“Want a beer, Dad?” That was Karl, now—so quick to anticipate his needs.
A far cry from the boy he’d been senior year, high spirits and missed curfews and talking back. Then a disastrous first semester of college, skipped classes, failing grades—back for Thanksgiving, standing in the kitchen wondering which of them was going to throw the first punch. Karl about to lose the whole damn scholarship with his shitty grades. Wouldn’t call Sidnee—he was seeing a girl from the Twin Cities; her father was an orthodontist. Banging her, Erland was sure of it, calling her late at night on a cell phone she gave him, Karl’s voice low and seductive in the hall.
Erland: you’re not half a man, disrespecting me like that, when I was your age I worked two jobs. Karl threatening not to go back to school. Inside: Erland wondering if it was finally catching up, the boy not having a mother. Or, having a mother like that.
Karl went back to school. Then Erland had the accident. Karl came home. Dealt with the doctors, the insurance, the billing department. Got his old job back. Got his old girlfriend back.
“A beer would be nice, son. Sidnee came by. Brought pie—it’s in the fridge.”
His son flicking a glance at him; that careful expression, who’d guess Erland would prefer the yelling over this damned silence now.
“You not seeing as much of her anymore?” he tried again. But it was all the same question, they both knew it. It was no good.
“I’ve got almost five thousand, Dad,” Karl said after a moment. “I think by the end of summer I’ll have enough. Get you set up and I
can still get in ITT for fall.”
It was the boy’s plan: a few computer courses at ITT. Better money than if he’d stuck it out at U of M. Besides, he and Sidnee would both work, they’d get a small apartment, a studio if they had to. There would be enough money to send home and enough to save. Down the road: Move to Duluth with us, Dad. Get on at the Home Depot. They’d be lucky to have you.
Erland listened, but kept his own counsel. He wanted to refuse, but wasn’t sure he had the right anymore. His son, fully able, was the man of the house now. And it was true, there would be work for him in Duluth, things he could still do, even with only one arm.
But the woods, the small house, the porch. The peonies Margie had planted right after their wedding, which still came up every year. Even the skogsra, out there at night, moving among the trees, plotting against him. Even the skogsra were a part of him. Erland was not sure he could leave.
“Son,” he said instead. “You aren’t making that kind of money at Ivey’s.”
His son said nothing for a long time. On TV, the baseball game resumed; muted, the players threw strikes and took swings. Finally, Karl turned away from him.
Mumbling, “You’re right.”
#
Ted in town nearly every week now. On his way out west, and in between, just to see Karl. So now it was two hundred dollars plus gas and mileage, forty miles from Duluth and forty miles back. Karl told Ted to his face that he was crazy. Ted agreed, laughing—“Fuck-crazy, that’s me. You make me crazy. You know you do.”
Ted pulling Karl’s hand to him, pressing it against his cock, Karl jerking his hand back. Part of the ritual now. Did his hand linger a little longer each time?
Ted laughing. Ted, so sure of himself, peeling off the twenties; taking his time, counting them out loud, looking into Karl’s eyes while he does it.
One time, Ted’s hands on Karl’s cock, his fingers moistened with spit—Karl, eyes squeezed shut thinking of Jessica Alba, her sweet pussy, her legs spread wide, her own fingers on her nipples—Ted saying, conversation-like—
“Would you say I’m the same age as your dad?” Not looking for an answer. Pumping, sliding those fingers. “I’m forty, what’s your dad, forty-five, fifty…”
Karl slammed his fist down hard on Ted’s forearm, heard the thud of it against the wood plank, it had to hurt like a bitch, might even have broken something—
He yanked his pants up, the zipper, didn’t bother with the button. He had the cash in his fist, bolted out of the blind, made that sucker shake on its foundation. Running all the way back to his car he could hear Ted laughing.
#
He avoided his father. Didn’t talk to Sidnee except when he had to; saw her crying, huddled with another waitress. Smiling at him whenever he came near, though, seating customers in her station. She wouldn’t break. She just wouldn’t break.
Driving out to the lake, he got a knife out of his backpack and slipped it into his pocket. Nothing from the restaurant—his own knife, a Sani-Safe skinner, the one he used for fishing. If Ted said one word like last time, Karl was going to cut the fucker’s cock off.
And it was going to be two hundred fifty now. Ted laughed at that, taking a long draw on the flask. Laughed like it was the best joke he’d heard all damn year and then counted off the bills with exaggerated cheer in his voice. “Don’t spend it all in one place, cowboy,” he chuckled, putting his wallet away.
The usual, but Ted kept quiet this time, his hands working at Karl, taking his time, making it last. Karl hated admitting it but Ted had figured him out, he knew what made him hard what made him harder, where to rub and where to pinch and where to slick the gobs of spit. Jessica, Jessica, Jessica Alba with her legs over his shoulders, yes like that, Karl had never concentrated so hard as he did to keep her in his mind long enough, just long enough.
After, Ted slid his pants down fussily. It was impossible to keep them as clean in the duck blind as he could in his car, but he didn’t seem to care much. He had them down around his ankles, his knees falling open, and he was hard. Like always.
“I never asked you what you’re saving up for,” he said, in that same conversational tone.
Karl said nothing.
“I bet it’s a car. A car like mine, maybe five, six years old, I bet you’d like that.”
He fondled himself tenderly, thumbing the head of his cock.
“Course you’ll need more than I’m paying you. Maybe you need to find a few more guys like me.” Laughing. Another damn good joke, he eyes never leaving Karl’s face. The fury simmering, every word Ted said stirring it up, stirring it up.
“Come on, don’t be an idiot,” Ted said, suddenly serious. His hand on his cock stopped. “I’ll pay you more. Just…”
His hand reached out, not for Karl’s hand this time, but to rest on the back of Karl’s neck. Ted’s fingers were warm, splayed against his neck, dipping under his T-shirt’s crew neck.
“A thousand bucks. One time.” His voice was a whisper, but he pulled Karl toward him. Not hard—gently, he pulled, and Karl resisted, pushing back against Ted’s hand, staring at Ted’s cock, looming, listing slightly to the side, rock hard, Ted taking his hand off Karl’s neck and tugging at his back.
“On the floor…” Ted’s voice hoarse and breathless now, kicking his feet out of his pants and boxers, crushing the fabric to the floor of the duck blind with his shoe, pulling Karl. Karl not resisting anymore, slipping off the seat, knees hitting the wood hard. Ted’s hands on his shoulders, his face and groaning yessss and pushing his hips toward him and there he was, Karl, the place he never meant to be but suddenly he understood this was where he was going to end up, ever since that very first time Ted bought a cup of coffee.
Ted’s hands were in his hair, and Karl was thinking my hair don’t touch my fucking hair, but Ted was bucking against him and Karl was trying not to gag trying to keep his lips over his teeth. What if I bit him, bite that thing off—but he didn’t. He was still thinking it when Ted shuddered and moaned and spilled in his throat, Karl sure he was going to retch but Ted was too strong, he couldn’t pull away and it was in his mouth, it was hot, it was going down his throat, there wasn’t anywhere else for it to go, and finally Ted went slack and his dick slid out and before Karl could even wipe his mouth on his arm Ted was already laughing.
Laughing, legs open, cock shrinking right there in front of him as Karl scuttled backward, fast, on his knees, and then Ted’s hand on his head, in his hair, petting him like a dog, as he laughed some more.
“Worth every fucking penny.”
And Karl took the knife from his pocket. And he used it.
#
Erland was dozing on the couch when he heard Karl pull in the drive. Twins at Wrigley Field today—Erland had taped it, gotten it queued up, when Karl was ready all he’d have to do was hit play.
Door slamming open. “Dad—”
Leaping to his feet, his son’s voice strangled and scared, Karl lurching into his arms, whimpering, Erland holding him feeling his heart beat through his T-shirt, holding him as tight as he could with his one arm, the other ending above the elbow, even with that stump holding on hard.
“Son…it’s all right…Son, I’m right here, I’m here for you, it’s going to be all right…”
Whatever it was, it was bad.
#
Erland couldn’t do everything with just one arm, but he could do a lot. He could load his truck, the one the insurance money bought, and drive it when his son was shaking too badly. He could drive through a field to the back side of Rex Enquist’s shed, where a stack of concrete blocks lay half-hidden in weeds.
He could keep the bile down when he saw the body, in the light of his flashlight, lying in blood and waste in the blind. He could put his hand on his son’s shoulder and let him know he was forgiven.
He couldn’t tie the knots but he could feed out the rope from the neat coil. He couldn’t row the boat tied up on the other side, but he could help push it in
to the inky water, then ride silently behind his son. He could help drag the body, the body—he wanted to kick its teeth in, break its dead neck—into the boat, then over the side into the black middle of the lake.
He could carry bucket after bucket of lake water as his son scoured the blind, the bleach-sudsed water pink with blood, then finally clear.
He could put on a gardening glove and drive that fancy car, that wretched car, all the way to Duluth, following his son’s taillights, to the airport parking lot. He could walk quickly across the access road to where his son waited, the truck idling.
He could return to his home when the first glow of dawn was melting into the horizon. He could hold the door open for his son, lead him to his room, pull back the blankets. He could kiss his son’s forehead and draw the covers up under his chin. He could sit in a chair watching over the boy until he stopped shaking and slept.
He could go out on his porch and wait for morning and stare into the woods where gray shapes seemed to move among the black branches and he could ask:.
“Are we even now?”
##
SIGN OF THE DEVIL
Wasn’t until she was almost gone that the doubts came. She was breathing frothy little pink bubbles out her lips, which were all gray and slack like the rest of her old body. I’d stabbed her mostly in the gut, but I must have nicked a lung or something.
I always called her Miss Regina like she told me, but these last few weeks it was getting harder to hold on to what she said. She kept turning into my mother. I mean not really into my mother—I know my mother’s dead. I was there. But Miss Regina would ask me to come over and she would do the things my mother did and if she wasn’t trying to bring it all back again, why would she keep doing those things? If she didn’t want to let the devil out why did she keep on inviting him?
#
Miss Regina moved into the apartment next to mine when her own children put her out. Who would do that to their mother?