by Chamber Four
“At the Tiger Den on 69.”
The man grabs the brunette’s hair with both hands and pulls her head forward. The brunette gags.
My mother says, “Stay there, I’m sending the cops,” and clicks off.
“Jesus Hubert Christ,” says Gordon, entering the room. “Look at that filth.”
And we do, for several more minutes anyway, until the men reposition the brunette to their liking. Gordon makes a disgusted sound and begins thumbing through a stack of DVDs. I tell him Sarah is sending the cops. “Excellent idea,” he says, without looking up. “This place needs to be shut down.” I watch more of the movie. The men are doing something to the brunette I didn’t know was possible. She howls, though it doesn’t sound convincing.
Gordon holds up one of the movies from the stack, eyes bulging.
“Holy. Mother. Mary.”
I snatch it away. On the cover a naked man resembling Cheetah is embracing another man, also naked, under the title Backdoor Butlers 4.
“Could be him,” I say.
“Could be? Look at the blessed tattoos.”
Yes, indeed.
“That son of a bitch,” Gordon snarls. “He probably gave Sarah Jane the AIDS.” He pounds a fist on the counter, knocking movies to the floor. “That hippie son of a bitch.”
* * * *
Cheetah explains the scam as we leave the porn shop. It involves a rich old widow, a bogus contract for a new roof, a huge payment. For an easy hundred, all Gordon and I have to do is wear hardhats and circle the mansion, pointing up and looking dour. Her eyesight is so bad, Cheetah says, the old bag will think we’re seasoned roofers.
Now, I don’t consider myself particularly naïve. In the two months he lived with us Cheetah made only one cross-country run with his rig, yet he was always flush with cash. I knew he was up to something, but swindling old ladies? Man-on-man porn? I almost wish he was dealing.
This is the point where Gordon should be raising holy hell, lecturing Cheetah about responsibility and all that, but the kid’s in a zone: jaw set, fists clenched, eyes locked on the dirt lot. I haven’t seen him this livid since Billy Berbin called his father a Nazi and Gordon got after him with his nunchucks.
He bends to tie a shoe, letting Cheetah get ahead. “We’ll take the work van,” Cheetah says, heading toward a nondescript white vehicle. Gordon rises, takes several long strides and trips Cheetah from behind. He goes hard to the ground and turns with a scowl. I’ve never seen the scowl—it’s menacing, a grownup scowl, a scowl that promises pain—and I wish suddenly for a customer pulling up, a freak hailstorm, anyfuckingthing.
“You little motherfucker,” Cheetah growls. He stands and advances, and I wonder what Gordon will do now—he’s a foot shorter and stick-thin, but smart, smart enough to have a handful of sand. He does the sand-in-the-eye trick and Cheetah yells and brings his hands to his face, staggering back. Gordon pounces, using the bigger man’s momentum to take him down.
It’s a dreadful sight: Gordon perched on Cheetah’s back flailing his scrawny arms. “Bad Cheetah,” he yells with each punch. “Bad Cheetah.” Cheetah, meanwhile, is wiping the final bits of sand from his eyes; he’ll be in control momentarily and God knows what he’ll do. A series of thoughts roll through my head. Did Sarah get through to the cops? Where the hell are they? The old sand-in-the-eye trick really works, no shit. Cheetah has a buck knife on his belt—I hope he doesn’t pull it; we’re only fifteen, for Christ sake. Does he really like it in the ass?
So here’s my best friend defending my mother’s honor and what am I doing but standing around thinking my idle thoughts, avoiding what should be my confrontation, and Cheetah begins to rise with Gordon attached to his neck like a ninety-pound leech. With one arm he reaches back and flips my boy to the ground. Gordon lands hard on his back and immediately clutches at his chest, gasping for air.
Cheetah leans over and spits on him.
I haven’t moved. The entire time, I haven’t moved a goddamn muscle. Cheetah sees the look on my face and sneers.
“Piss your pants, did you?” He moves my way, motioning down at Gordon. “At least he got in the game.”
“Yeah? At least I don’t suck cock, porn-man.” I don’t know where this comes from. I feel sick in the chest after I say it. I prepare to run.
But Cheetah stops, lips parted, eyes wide.
“You don’t know, do you? He laughs. “How precious is this? He. Doesn’t. Fucking. Know.”
At this point the fat man sticks his head out the door and says something about a buddy cop of his calling. Cheetah ignores him. His eyes hold mine.
“Your old lady,” he says. “Where do you think I first met her?”
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Cheetah,” says the fat man. “They’re on their way. Get those little shits out of here.”
“On the set,” Cheetah says. “I met her on the set.”
“Bullshit,” I say, but I know he’s right. My mother hasn’t always managed a department store, yet we’ve always had the house and food and nice things. I remember her telling me, six or seven years ago, that she entertained people for a living. In my little-kid mind that meant a singer, or even a magician. She never filled in the gap.
The sick feeling has turned to anger. I’m trembling all over.
“That’s right. It was me and three other guys, in fact. You ever hear of a train, son?”
Cheetah makes a crude humping motion. Gordon has made it to his hands and knees and is crawling forward. As he comes to his feet I see blood from a nostril but the same rabid expression. My best friend will never quit.
“Cheetah—” says the fat man, but I don’t hear the rest. I take the front, while Gordon takes him from behind.
Nothings
by Aaron Block
from Alice Blue Review
The Olufsens’ annual Accomplishments Exhibition started at 8:30 a.m. when the first movement of a twelve-tone symphony composed by fourteen-year-old Nolan Olufsen sounded from the PA system set-up at the bottom of the driveway and blanketed the neighborhood. The music woke me but not Lyndon, my son, who I found downstairs on the couch, eating a bowl of cereal in front of the TV and holding the invitation to the festivities he’d received a week ago. He was already dressed, in socks and shoes even, his mother’s yellow rain jacket folded next to him, which he’d brought from the closet because last night the weatherman said showers were likely in the afternoon.
I put a fried egg between two stale pieces of bread and fielded Lyndon’s questions about last year’s Exhibition, whether I remembered the potato-mashing machine Dr. Erik Olufsen built from wire and his hand-made, precisely measured gears, or the way Maddy Olufsen sang her husband’s songs while standing on the roof, wearing a costume she’d sewn herself from clothes worn by her grandparents when they emigrated to America. I lied and told him sure, I remembered all that and the year before, too. It was Rosanna, his mother, who took him every year, who was better at pretending interest in the neighbors’ projects. The invitation was delivered the day after she left. Lyndon made me read it to him three times at dinner, once more before he went to sleep; I knew I’d have to take him.
He was ready to go as soon as I’d finished my sandwich, but I made him wait by the door while I brushed my teeth and shaved, making sure to get the bristles under my bottom lip that I always miss. While I was at it, I cleaned my ears.
By the time we’d finally crossed the lawn to the exhibition, Nolan’s symphony was in its fourth movement: loud, percussive and quick, like a sadistic march. Nolan sat at a table with the score spread out before him, gesturing as he explained to Mrs. Morrison from two streets over how he selected the prime series and what the variations meant. He was blond and tall, like the rest of his family, and spoke clearly without condescension. I pretended to browse through the article about Schoenberg he’d written for context and watched Lyndon walk immediately to Maddy, who smiled and straightened the front of his rain jacket as she put one of the pale, creamy candi
es she’d made into his hand. He thanked her and turned to look for Dr. Olufsen’s table, his favorite because of all the hinges and gears that spun and clicked, and Dr. Olufsen’s willingness to let anyone turn the crank, or press the button, to put it all in motion.
I stopped to flirt with the oldest daughter, Ingrid, home from college this weekend just for the Exhibition, despite a fractured tibia that kept her from performing the dance she’d choreographed. She showed me pictures of last semester’s recital and tried to explain how her piece was different.
I found Lyndon again by the side of the house where Dr. Olufsen’s machines were spinning, accomplishing their simple, worthless tasks, part of a crowd gathered for the demonstration. Everyone laughed as Lyndon pushed a big red button over and over again, which somehow caused a small aluminum basin to fill with water until it tipped and the water turned the wire gear. Dr. Olufsen explained what was happening for everyone, but I couldn’t follow. In the end it just made a quarter spin on its side for as long as the button was pressed. The crowd applauded, and Dr. Olufsen thanked my son, called him “our little guest of honor,” and shook his hand.
Lyndon had a little league game at noon, so after 30 minutes at the Exhibition we had to go. Maddy and Ingrid both hugged him. Maddy insisted we take more candy, and said to let her know if we wanted a batch all to ourselves.
While Lyndon changed into his uniform I walked from the kitchen to the garage, where the storage boxes I’d bought two weeks ago for Rosanna’s clothes were still leaning against the water-heater; bicycles, a ladder, and a few rakes lined one wall, boxes of Christmas decorations another, resting on top of cans half-full of paint that hadn’t been touched for five years. I thought I might drop Lyndon at his game and come back to spend the next hour or two taking everything from the living room, kitchen, bathrooms, both of the bedrooms, and dragging it all out here to the garage, so that I could then look at it all and be proud, and show Lyndon, when he came home, exactly what we had. And if it was nothing, we’d be happy to have nothing, and be nothings, the little holes in the road your tires roll right over without a sound.
Dragon
by Steve Frederick
from Night Train
Watching his breath steam the frozen air, Wyatt considers tugging loose the tumbleweeds one by one and burning them in a barrel. Weeks of hard frost and winter wind have stuffed the wire fence along his property line with the long nest of tangled debris. After struggling with a few of the prickly spheres he decides instead to burn them where they sit. In his work shed, he finds a can of gasoline and some newspapers. While inside, he lifts a pint of vodka from a drawer and pauses for a few long swallows.
At the fence corner abutting the county road, he wets a corner of the paper with gas and strikes a match, ignites a few of the weeds and steps back. The oily twigs sputter and flare, the fire creeping along the fence like a lit fuse. He drops the smoldering paper, stamps it out, and hustles to the side of the house to get a hose running.
When he turns the faucet handle, the water won’t come; it’s frozen inside the coils. Pulling the hose straight he’s startled by a pop from the gas can, followed by a whoomp from the fuel that sends a fireball rolling across the lawn, the heat hitting him in the face and pushing him stumbling backward. Amazed, he watches as the spreading fence fire reaches the dead cedar near the house and climbs the outer branches. In moments, the entire tree erupts with a towering roar.
His wife, Dawnell, runs from the house screaming. Wyatt turns desperate, yanking on the hose in panic. She yells, “Stop it, Wyatt! You idiot!” The hose breaks off the spigot and water streams onto the lawn. “Shut up!” he yells.
Dawnell stands agape, watching the cedar throw off coils of flame, and runs screaming into the house. Wyatt jerks on the broken hose till it saps his energy, then stands helpless, holding the useless end. Derailed by indecision, he considers running for a bucket or an unbroken hose; but instead he lights a cigarette and watches as the fire on the lawn begins to subside.
The blackened fence wire smokes with smoldering strands. The cedar wood crackles and flares, expelling plumes of white smoke. Wyatt feels the abrupt bite of the cold. The stink of the calamity steams from his jacket. He stamps into the house, where Dawnell is breaking down and weeping over the kitchen table. “You stupid, stupid fool!” she wails.
“You take care of it then,” he says. He slams the door, revs his pickup, and throws gravel down the length of the driveway.
* * * *
Two hours earlier, as the sun cleared the horizon, Wyatt was already pouring bourbon into his morning coffee. The weekend had begun dry and cold. The yard was a mess—Dawnell had been on him about it for days. He had the dead cedar to cut down. He intended to clean everything up. He just needed time to brace himself.
By the time Dawnell got out of bed, he was watching the Discovery Channel, spinning his kid’s globe, taking note of nations that no longer exist. Dawnell stalked into the living room and frowned. “Stop doing that!” she said. “You’ll wear it out. You make me dizzy just watching you.”
“How about a vacation?” he said. “Let’s all go someplace we’ve never been.”
Dawnell rested her fists on her hips. “With what money, Wyatt?” she said, bobbing her head. “You’re always on vacation these days.”
His daughter, Amy, still in her flannel nightie, peered from behind her mother and smiled. Her brown eyes sparkling, she stepped between them and hugged him, squeezing hard. He patted between her shoulders, felt his heart revive, remembering when those eyes filled the tiny universe of her face, when he’d lift her up and her baby legs would curl underneath.
“America’s peacekeeper,” he said, smoothing her hair. “Someday you’ll run the United Nations, little girl.”
The child waited for him to smile. “Let’s have waffles!” she said. She pulled the remote from his lap and changed the channel.
Dawnell’s gaze fell on the bottle. She folded her arms and glared.
Wyatt set his teeth. “What, dammit?”
“You’re off to the races already? I can’t believe this.”
He rose and opened his arms to gather her in, but she edged past him without a word, pulling along Amy, who rolled her eyes and shook her head. Dawnell turned back at him. “You lied to me,” she said, her voice steady and cold.
He hoisted his mug. “About this?”
“About the yard. About everything.”
He bit back his answer, tightening his lips. Amy ducked into her room.
“You want me to just ignore it?” Dawnell asked. “Is that it?”
He raised the glass with a dry smile, as if proposing a toast. “There you go.”
“Not this time, buddy. Not on your life,” she said. “I told you. I fucking warned you. This is it, mister. This is the end.”
He put a palm to his temple and closed his eyes. “Warn, warn, warn. You’re always warning me,” he said, his tongue going thick. “I haven’t done anything,”
“Of course not! That’s the problem, Wyatt. You never do anything,” she said. “You really don’t get it at all, do you?”
She shook her head and turned away toward the kitchen. He followed, pulling his jacket from its hook. “No problem, Dawnell. I’m on it. OK? I’m on it right now.”
Then he went outside, puttered in the shed awhile, and, despite his best intentions, set half the yard ablaze.
* * * *
Barely slowing for a stop sign, Wyatt turns off the county road and onto the highway. Before the heater has time to kick in, his cell phone rings. He sees his home number on the display, flips the phone open without speaking, and shuts it off. He drives eastward for two hours on the rural highway to Ogallala, smoking cigarettes and talking to himself, and rolls onto Interstate 80 with no destination in mind. The hypnotic four-lane, carrying freight trucks and impatient cross-country travelers, stretches before him, steady and monotonous across the Platte River bottomland. He stops at a co
nvenience store for a quart of beer to pass the time and drives for two more aimless hours, letting a Garth Brooks tape cycle twice before ejecting it and tossing it out the window.
“Bitch,” he says out loud. How could he still be with her after half a decade?
She wasn’t the girl that he’d fallen for, that was certain, not the demure predator that his high-school buddy, Simms, had dropped into his lap on a double-date road trip to Thermopolis. Dawnell had played all her cards at once—tinted contacts and tight jeans, a gauzy red bra under her thin white T-shirt. She laughed at his jokes, ran crimson nails across his thigh. Along the way, a cold drizzle gave way to heavy snow. Simms’s date, using her mother’s credit card, booked them all into a room with a fireplace and two beds. Simms took a look outside, yanked off his clothes, and led them, whooping and naked, across the deck to a steaming outdoor tub.
Dawnell floated toward Wyatt in the dark, letting her nipples brush his thighs. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” she whispered. Wyatt tipped back a jug of lukewarm chablis and then held it to Dawnell’s lips.
“The snow’s piling up on your head,” he said.
“That’s good,” she replied, her hands busy under the water. “Otherwise, I’d be naked.”
Two months later they married, embryonic Amy tagging along on the honeymoon.
* * * *
Wyatt turns on his cell phone and pecks out a number. “Simms, you wild man!” he says. “I’m on my way. Get your ass to Swede’s tonight and buy me a beer.”
Wyatt slaps himself to sharpen his wits. A night on the town might lift his spirits. But the sun’s still high overhead and already he’s wearing down. He pulls off the interstate at a truck stop, heaps two cold donuts onto a napkin and fills a quart-sized soft-drink cup full of coffee. He leaves the busy freeway, crosses the shallow Platte, and turns east onto the Lincoln Highway. The old two-lane runs parallel to the interstate, threading tiny heartland towns, alongside barns pitched askew by prairie wind, fenced country headstones sticking up like bad teeth. Wyatt passes a corral of tiny burros huddled beneath the sunburst vanes of a gray wooden windmill, among them a forlorn zebra, chilled and mystified, half a globe gone from the Serengeti.