Gutshot: Stories Read online

  She sat with her back to me.

  “Here’s what we’ll eat if we have chicken and stars,” I said, examining the label, spinning one of the tinctures on the counter as I read aloud. “Chicken stock, enriched macaroni product, including wheat flour, egg white solids, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid.” Her silence met me; she might as well have slapped the food out of my hands. Such cruelty in such an otherwise lovely girl. “Do you hear me? Cooked chicken meat,” I said, louder. “Carrots, modified wheat starch, lower sodium natural sea salt, chicken fat, celery, cooked mechanically separated chicken, monosodium glutamate. Salt. Sugar. Maltodextrin, onions, corn oil, yeast extract.”

  I sat beside her on the bed, ran my hand roughly through her hair. “You need to eat,” I said. She didn’t move. She wasn’t disturbed by my nudity, by anything about me. It was as if we had known each other for a very long time indeed, our whole lives, or maybe our lives began in that moment, and either way she gazed clear-eyed into my heart and forgave me for all my future sins.

  “Modified food starch,” I said more gently. “Spice extract, cornstarch, beta carotene, soy protein isolate, sodium phosphate, and chicken flavor, which contains chicken powder.” I squeezed her and put my lips to her shoulder. “It’s important to realize all of the angles,” I said.

  She let me lead her to the table and sat while I made the preparations for her meal. “Table for one,” I said. We were going to have such a time together and learn so much. Lucky girls like her didn’t have the capacity to be truly grateful and so I felt grateful on her behalf.

  The Death of James

  There was nothing wrong with him, really. She watched him snoring there on the old couch his parents had given them as a wedding gift, a sleeping bag half swaddled around his big body. He was a good husband who listened to her stories from the grocery store, where she worked behind the customer service desk and had to deal with the guys from the bus stop bringing in lottery tickets they unwedged from the trash, changing the numbers, insisting they were real winners. Jim’s thumb rested in his open mouth, a bad habit he had long tried to break with hypnosis tapes.

  A good man. He would hold her face in his hands and say the sweet things. He spoke of soothing topics like yard maintenance, the work he did with pine bark and fish compost. He hadn’t saved the violets the neighbor kids had trampled but figured the bare patches brought some realism to the scene. It would be properly summative to say there was nothing wrong with him. There were certainly things wrong with her, the blood pooling into her slipper suggested. The layer of tendinous muscle in her belly curled back to reveal a scroll detailing exactly what had gone awry in her own personal history. It fell from her and unfurled, inked script declaring ills: the time she overhanded a pair of bronzed baby shoes at the neighbor’s dog; the time her boss found a tray of refill razors in her purse.

  She bent over her sleeping man, feeling the intentions of her heart suspended in ego like a kitchen sponge in dishwater. Gathering up her nightgown, she tucked her knee under his. The penknife snapped a few seams in the couch frame as she hefted up beside him, holding his shoulder to keep herself aloft. He moaned, turning and settling back. He must have been such an easy child.

  The disposal was stopped up. It had begun to produce an odor, which she had noticed earlier that evening while making his sandwich for the next day and considering the ways Miracle Whip could truly be called a miracle. She had rolled up her sleeve and plunged her hand to the blade, discovering it dull enough to mangle a lemon half without destroying it. Or else it was a problem with the motor, something prohibitively expensive. Either way, it held the fruit to rot, drowned and steady against her scrabbling hand and then the knife, yielding to the slight attack. She didn’t have the strength or skill to fix it. There was so much that was out of her control.

  A Gentleman

  Angie was in the road, leaning against the curb. She had kicked her feet like a child until one of her crummy ballet slippers tumbled into the street, where it was run over by a bicycle. “I wish I had a dog boner,” she said.

  Mason made a noncommittal sound. He got down beside her. She was crouched between two parked cars, her arms all cut up. He reached for her chair to roll it closer but it was just past the grasp of his free hand.

  “We are good friends,” Mason said.

  “To better express my feelings,” she said. He could feel the scars through her thick tights like seams on a fabric doll. Her legs made a graceful arc, ankles as delicate as a fossil of an ancient sea creature, like her body progressed back in time from head to foot.

  “It’s late.”

  He grasped one of her wrists and held it gently. She thrashed and kicked up a soaked piece of cardboard. “I wish I was a dog boner,” she said.

  “We should go home.”

  “I don’t want to,” she said.

  “Your girlfriends said I should take you home.”

  She made a choking laugh. He was trying to heft her body onto his lap but only managed to pull her torso halfway over his knees.

  “It’s true,” she called out. She reached for one of the cars, hooked her fingers around the bumper, and pulled. Her fingernails came back dirty. She smudged them across her face.

  Mason appreciated the independent spirit that soared above her condition. Always since they had met he imagined standing beside her on a television program, maybe with his hand on her shoulder in a public show of pride and support.

  She was vomiting. He turned her body to the side so she could avoid her dress. His hand grazed her breast and he moved it away, down to her belly because he was a gentleman. “We need to go home,” he said.

  Someone stopped above them, a man and a child. “We’re fine,” Mason said toward the man’s knee. The child put its foot in the vomit and Mason placed his palm on the child’s face and pushed it off. They went away.

  “If I was a dog boner I would be vanished,” Angie said.

  “It’s past our bedtime.” He pressed his hand against the side of her head.

  She produced a high growling noise. He saw her jaw working. He shushed her and she shushed immediately, which made him feel good.

  “Cookies,” she said, after a while.

  “Let’s go.”

  She moaned. Her bare feet looked cold and he closed his hand around one to warm her. He thought of himself as a gentleman.

  Away From

  He showed me a bottle and said he could use some company. I figured I could use some, too, and so I went, as he was my neighbor and we had common ground between us, I mean underfoot. Think about all the times you ever wanted to rest. He was my neighbor and I saw him around every now and then walking. We went to his house and picked up lighters from the corner store on the way. He didn’t seem that strong at the time.

  His house was big and there was a grill on the porch. In Vegas we were all trying to stay low to the ground like lizards, but here, houses can be three floors. There was a lady sitting on the couch and, not being friends or strangers, I said Hey, and she gave me this look and I said All right. And then going up the stairs he put his arm around me and said Honey, hey honey? We walked together like that, like I was his old girlfriend.

  Quick as that, we were alone. We smoked and kissed some; he seemed very strong all of a sudden. He tied my hands together above my head with a power cord and got my shorts off, watching me the whole time, my face. He said he was preparing to kill me and there wasn’t anyone who would notice, not during and not after, since he was right there by Ted’s, and he had a point, Ted’s being a place that sells meat.

  I thought to myself Well now you are in a predicament. I decided to act as if this was a normal thing and we loved each other very much. I would have held him gently if I had use of my hands, but I did not and so talked of the weather, which had been fine that morning. Once he was finished he started crying and talking about the things that made him do it, for example a girl he was dating and the drug. He was trying
to understand something and I realized if he figured it out, this might change things in a way I was not prepared to handle. I suggested we rest a little and work things out later. He fell asleep right away, which I found stranger than anything.

  My child and I lived in Vegas for two years in a house I rented from a lady I found online. She left the keys for us in the mailbox. It was a little place with one bed and a busted wall unit but the price was right. I would sit with my back to the window open to the windless night and watch my child while she slept. She had my full attention in those days. We walked through the places on the strip, never stopping for anything, just to get out of the heat, holding hands like I was taking her to the bathroom. She was five or six then and has since been taken from me by the state. She liked the gardens at the Flamingo and I read the plaque they put up there for Bugsy Siegel while she ran around. The thing about Bugsy Siegel was that he was a gangster and a white man. I read up on him while I waited. When the bank took the house we had to leave and I never did meet the lady who owned it.

  This all occurred to me as the room showed itself like it was rising from a sea. First it was me and the man and the bare walls, and then I saw we were on a mattress, and then the clutter of paper sacks from Ted’s and old clothes. There were five pairs of women’s shoes lined up under the window. All this washed over me. There in the man’s house on his mattress on the floor it got in my head that if I left his side—his arm draped over me, the cord wrapped round my wrists above my head—if I even breathed too deep, there would be a psychic energy disturbed and he would know. My gut had carried me this far, I mean through my life, and also through the day’s events, and I did notice there was an open window in case he blocked the door. My arms went numb and I slept soon after by some magic brought on by stillness. When we woke up later I asked as natural as anything if he could untie my hands because I had to go pee, and he did like from a dream and went back to sleep.

  In the bathroom I noticed the mirror and sink were very clean, but there was stuff jammed up under the bowl like maybe rust stopped with wadded-up paper. It reminded me of a time a boy in school bust his lip in the lunch line and it bled through a cloth. I figured it was time to go.

  I didn’t want to flush because then he’d rouse from bed and expect me back, but I didn’t even want my pee standing in that place and so I flushed to ensure it would flow out through the pipes and find a river. My shorts and shoes were gone but I knew it was important to leave right then and I could ask the woman downstairs for a towel to cover myself. I could already see the back of her head from where I stood on the stairs. I took one step and the next but the third creaked and his hand clamped over my mouth.

  I tried to think of when my luck had changed. It was maybe when I got off the bus and saw him sitting there, watching it roll on, and my brain said That one right there. It pointed, my brain: That one. Right there. The thing about drugs is you can fight them all your life but you’re fighting a brain that wants you dead, and the thing about fighting is you can’t fight forever. The thing about Bugsy Siegel is that his room at the Flamingo had one way in and five ways out. Anyway, he dragged me back.

  Fifty Ways to Eat Your Lover

  When he buys you a drink, plunge a knife into his nose and carve out a piece.

  When he asks you what you do for a living, dig into his spine with a broken juice glass.

  When he wonders aloud if you ever get that feeling about someone, bite his tongue out of his mouth.

  When he says you have a beautiful body, seize his Achilles tendon.

  When he slides his hand under your thigh, sliver off his earlobe.

  When he persuades you to spend the night, sink your teeth into his collarbone.

  When he asks if you’re on the Pill, squeeze your pelvic floor until his penis pops off.

  When he wakes up in the morning, clip his eyelashes and snort them.

  When he makes the bed, open up the vein inside his elbow.

  When he stops by your place after work, crush his skull with a tire iron and lick his brain.

  When he gives you a book he likes, dip him into a deep fryer.

  When he asks you out again, stab him with a box cutter and suck the wound.

  When he wants to know what movie you’d like to see, wrap a piano wire around his testes until they drop into your mouth.

  When he takes a picture of you, grind his toes with a pestle.

  When he asks where you’ve been all his life, clamp your mouth to his side-meat.

  When he asks you if you’re going to write about him, push a corkscrew into his shin and chew what curls out.

  When he takes you to meet his parents, smother him with a pillow and eat his middle finger.

  When he moves his books into your apartment, take a grater to his knuckles.

  When he brings home a puppy, shave the skin from his heels.

  When he tells you he loves you, paper-cut his fingertips and suck their blood.

  When he asks you to marry him, panfry his foreskin.

  When he takes you to Paris, wrench his wrist and gobble the tendon.

  When he builds you a desk, tap a piece of bone from his hip with an awl.

  When he asks you to get off the floor, wedge an oyster knife behind his kneecap until there’s space in there for your tongue.

  When he works late and won’t discuss it, peel off a layer of his facial dermis.

  When he slams the door, spread citric acid across his nipples and latch on.

  When he kisses someone else, flay his abdominal skin.

  When he says he’s sorry, snatch his nose.

  When he tells you that you don’t love him, rip a fistful of hair from his head and put it on your cereal.

  When he wants to know if he’s made himself clear, press your thumb against his eye socket and slurp the goop.

  When he says he’s sorry you feel that way, peel off his toenails and sprinkle them on a salad.

  When he says he needs some time off, jam his hand into a toaster.

  When he shows up with flowers, nibble the hair from his arms.

  When he invites you on a walk, crush his elbow in a vise.

  When he asks if you’ll take him back, tuck your fingers under his lowest rib and pull.

  When he draws you a bath, sever his smallest toe.

  When he offers you his arm, squash his neckflesh in your fist.

  When he asks you to wear the dress he likes, slice off a slab of his buttock and serve it to yourself on a plate.

  When he wants to know if you think he’d be a good father, broil his viscera.

  When he marvels at how much time has passed, gnaw the skin between his fingers.

  When he asks you to take it down a notch at the Christmas party, pour wine into his ear and drink what drains out.

  When he teaches your kids to drive, masticate his chin.

  When he takes you out for your anniversary, squeeze his forearm until it bursts.

  When he says you’ve looked a little pale this year, open his throat with a rough wedge.

  When he drives you to the doctor, cut a knot of muscle from his upper thigh with a handsaw.

  When he sits with you for months, chew off the tip of his thumb.

  When he tells the hospice nurse to leave you both alone, work a tube into his larynx.

  When he says you’ve had a good life together, force your finger into his mouth and scrape out his soft palate.

  When he says he’ll miss you, dig a spoon into his belly button.

  When he says goodbye, eat his heart out.

  The Moment of Conception

  We wanted a child so badly! Even then, when she suggested the procedure, I wasn’t sure about it at first. It didn’t seem natural.

  She pointed out that the fact we hadn’t made a child, when we both wanted it so much that we each dreamed about it every night, was not very natural, either.

  It was true. My nightly dream featured a wide, dark field lined with bowing branches, a line o
f dogs running ahead of me in a single-file line. Their feet would pound the earth and I would feel an earnest and magnetic connection to them, my body being pulled along behind.

  Meanwhile, she often dreamed that she was walking through a hallway of carriages filled with sand. She would wake crying if she had a chance to touch the sand, which she described as being very cold.

  We were sitting up in bed together, sharing a bowl of chocolate pudding in the nude when she spoke of her plan. Neither of us much wanted sleep. We had made a life together, a quiet house. In the center of our home was our bedroom, and in the center of our bedroom was an extravagant bed, which we had specially made. The mattress was out of reach from the floor and getting in required scaling one of two ladders mounted to either side. We would take our meals there.

  She dipped her spoon into the pudding and licked it off. She said, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.

  It would be nice if you would alert me when you were thinking of things like this, I said.

  I have the supplies ready, she said. She told me she had read about certain creatures in the ocean who experience this phenomenon naturally.

  You might as well show me the supplies, I said.

  Getting down onto her naked belly, she scooted toward the stepladder. She was always a handsome woman and had only grown more so with the sprouting of wiry gray hairs, each reminding me of a sensitive antenna tuned to the stars. I recently discovered a gray, almost white hair jutting proudly out of her mons pubis. The other hairs seemed to show it some deference, curling below.

  She padded to her closet and returned with a shoebox. She placed it at the foot of the bed, out of reach, before mounting the stepladder. At the top, she got on her belly again and scrambled up, rolling toward the center of the bed and patting the mussed sheets around her. She pushed the box over to me. Inside were sewing needles curved like half-moons, thick coiled thread, a hunting knife, and a vial of white powder atop a folded plastic sheet.