free 3rd chapter: rest stop

2:30 in the morning at QuikMart. Todd made the subs - 13 meat & cheese, 10 Italian, 5 roast beef. After that, sweep the store and take out the trash. After that, restock the beer in the cooler and forget thee not the cigarette rack. If there was time, rotate the canned goods. Then wait on the early risers – in summer, usually assembly line workers and fishermen - until Beth came in at 7. After that...

Don't think. Don't. Baby?

The radio, tuned to the public station in Bemuth, droned on about the state budget crisis. Essential state services ‘hung in limbo’, according to the pudding-voiced reporter. The police and the postal workers toiled on, but the rest of the civil servants were on a forced summer vacation, their offices deserted, with no indication when it would end. The reporter speculated that it might even mean a delay in the start of the school year.

It also meant no lifeguards at the beach. Karyn was a lifeguard. That meant she was stuck home for the foreseeable future. Todd wondered if and when he might get a phone call.

Don't think. Think… baby.

By now, most of the ancient, wrinkled rummies and high school kids that came to refresh their buzz were passed out or possibly even dead somewhere. You saw a lot of alkies, working the night shift.

Todd refused to sell to anyone without a valid ID, no matter what they told him someone on another shift did. Most tried to pretend - even if only to themselves - that their case-or-two-a-night habit was nothing out of the ordinary. And for their crowd, maybe it wasn’t. Todd could always smell them coming - their skin sweated poison, and the older ones had a doughy, translucent quality, as if decades of drinking left them partially dissolved from the inside out, digested by decades of yeast.

They all seemed to smoke, too. That made it even better.

What can make THIS better?

Todd wasn't ready to be a dad. Until yesterday, the thought had never entered his mind. His dad was a dad, and look how well that had gone - years of swing shifts had made the old man a stranger, and his sullen silence created a wall even when he was home.

The closest Todd ever felt to his father any more was when he came home late and found the old man asleep on the living room floor in front of the TV. He looked almost human then. Vulnerable. Sometimes Todd would cover him with a blanket, if he didn't think it would wake the old man and bring the smoldering stare down, and the questions that were traps waiting to spring.

Nineteen. His dad had been nineteen when Todd was born, the same age that Todd was now. Maybe that was why things had turned out this way - the new generation repeating the mistakes of the last, and with the same result.

What Karyn had told him only confirmed what he’d already known in the pit of his stomach: She was pregnant, it was his, and life was going to be very different from here on.

Different? More like over. College? Forget it. He would be stuck at Quik-Mart until he died. And the old man - oh, God…

How could he have been so stupid? He'd known the condom was slipping off, had felt it happening, but Karyn was too far gone to stop and then so was he.

Afterward, there was the incredibly awkward time spent fishing it out, then the silent drive home, neither of them knowing what to say, followed by the quick kiss at the door, guilty eye contact that felt like a blow.

And in the weeks that followed, conversations that felt like someone else was having them, tears, hugs, promises.

Todd couldn't remember what he’d said, that first night. Something stupidly brave, for her sake. He got her to smile, just as she ducked in the kitchen door, rubbing the tears away in case her mom or dad saw her coming in. He wondered how her folks would take it, and felt sick when he thought about facing them.

How could I have been so stupid? Why couldn't I have waited? Or at least pulled out?

Karyn wouldn't have an abortion - he was sure of that. Adoption was probably out, too, unless her parents forced her into it. What did that leave? Marriage? What kind of marriage would that be, and what kind of answer to give a son or daughter?

"Well, honey, we had you because Daddy's rubber came off at the worst possible time, but that doesn't mean we don't love you just as much as if we’d actually planned to have you. In fact, we don’t resent giving up all of our hopes and dreams at all. Really."

God, what have I done? thought Todd. Nineteen, and my life is over, and Karyn’s only 17. Please God, I’ll do anything if you’ll just let me take it back, if not for my sake, then for hers. Please…

The radio started into a Chrome Bones song, one that Karyn had sung to him as they danced at her prom. It was too much; without a thought, Todd slapped the radio off the counter, yanking its cord out of the wall and sending a dozen plastic pieces scattering across the floor on impact.

Which was when the Stench walked in.

It was wrapped in an army surplus coat and the dirtiest pair of jeans that Todd had ever seen. It clenched a bulging plastic garbage bag in each fist. They dripped onto the floor.

"You take Shtroths?" said the Stench, revealing gums al almost entirely free of teeth. A wet-looking cigarette hung from the corner of its mouth, ringed by at least a month's worth of dirty grey stubble, topped by a guhe pair of greasy glasses and comically enlarged eyes.

"Pardon me?"

"Shtroths. You take Shtroths?" It shook the bags at him. They rattled and drip, drip, dripped onto the floor.

"Strohs? Yeah, we take Strohs. But you can't smoke in here."

The man nodded, pushed the door open with his foot and flung the butt out into the parking lot. So much for sweeping.

"Got a ton more. Where you want'em?"

I don't, thought Todd. The thought of sorting bottles and cans touched by those hands - let alone the ditches where the bottles and cans had probably come from - was almost as bad as the man's smell. Had he ever had a bath in his life? How could anyone live like that?

"You can put'em in there," Todd nodded to the side room. The man nodded and disappeared. He was gone long enough that Todd almost followed him. Then he popped back out, the Stench preceding him like a wave.

"Use your potty?" he asked.

Potty? What was he, five?

"We're not supposed to let anyone. Sorry."

The man grimaced. "I really gotta go. Squirts, me."

"Sorry. I'd get in a lot of trouble. But the gas station on the corner has one you can use."

The man's face was as open as a child's. Incomprehension flew across it, then frustration, then acceptance. "How 'bout you help me get the rest outta my car, then?" he asked. "Get me outta your hair quicker."

Todd hesitated.

"I really gotta go." He bobbed up and down for emphasis, like a kindergartener. Todd wondered things about the Stench that he instantly regretted.

"Okay," he said. "But if anybody drives up, I've got to wait on them."

"Sure, sure." The man fairly danced to the door, held it open for Todd and waved him through as if he were a prom date.

The car was about what Todd expected - a decrepit Olds Delta '88 that might once have been some shade of blue. The windows, thankfully, were too dirty to see through, but the crowded shadows inside suggested that the car might be both transportation and accommodation.

The man watched him in a funny way as he unlocked the trunk, as if afraid that Todd might change his mind. The trunk came open, and the smell filled the world, beyond words, sickly sweet and foul.

Todd saw what was in the trunk. Doubled over and heaving on his shoes, he tried to back away, eyes wide.

The man appeared puzzled, watching him. Then he looked in the trunk, too. The expression of surprise on his face would have done credit to a cartoon character. He blushed, red as an apple, and Todd realized that the reason that the Stench didn't bother him was because he lived in it, night and day. He had simply forgotten about it, as he had also apparently forgotten about the long-dead little boy in his trunk.

What the fishflies saw:

Clouds of other fishflies swirling around the lights, circling the two men as they move, as if the scene was underwater, winged plankton in the current.

Todd backs away, retching up everything, and when there is nothing left, dry heaves. Fishflies alight on his clothing, arms and face. He turns toward the store. Stench-Man runs to his car, fishflies breaking like surf before him. He throws the door wide, grabs a red bandana and something else from the front seat.

Todd reaches the store entrance just as Stench-man grabs him from behind and shoves the red bandana violently into Todd’s mouth and nose. Todd falls to his knees, blinded, one hand on the door handle. He pulls the door open, trying to shake the man off. A swirl of fishflies flies past him into the store.

Stench-Man won't let go.

The two fall sideways, Todd reaching back to push weakly at the other man, but the bandana is clamped over his face like an iron band. Todd's hand slips. His eyes roll up into his head. Both men fall to the pavement.

Stench-Man maintains his hold a few moments more, then rolls over and stands, looking at a hand that has been bloodied in the struggle. He kicks Todd once, hard. Then he looks around quickly, his hair and beard so coated with fishflies that he looks like a child's nightmare of Santa Claus. He slings Todd awkwardly over one shoulder and duck-walks him back to the trunk, where Stench-man dumps him like a bag of laundry. He slams the trunk, takes one last look around, then climbs into the driver seat.

Like a big boat, the Olds rolls out of the driveway, fishflies popping like bubble-pack beneath its tires. The fishflies don't mind. Like many creatures in the summer night, their brains are too small to hold more than one thought at a time.

This is what's on their mind tonight:

Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck…

free 2nd chapter: rest stop

"Motherfucker!"

On impulse, Lewis smacked the clock radio off the nightstand for being the bearer of bad news. He had heard that the state was running out of money, but who knew the governor would suddenly sprout a dick and decide not to sign the budget extension?

The radio rattled off the list of government agencies and services that were shutting down as a result: libraries, unemployment offices, the license bureaus, and - most importantly - summer grounds-keeping services. That meant no cutting the grass at the park and the highway rest areas. That meant no paycheck. Which meant that Lewis had to sell some weed.

Mother-fucker.

He rolled out of bed and onto his phone, speed-dialing. Busy. He swore and hit redial. When Gary, his boss, picked up, it was obvious from his tone that he'd been repeating himself all morning.

"... so we have to lock up the rest areas and the park. Lewis, did you hear me?"

"Yeah. So when do we go back?" He fished a cigarette out of the pack on the dresser, thinking weed, weed, weed.

"Nobody knows. Just make sure you lock up by five today, and put up the signs. Then turn in the truck."

"Man! Do I hafta? My ride's busted." Lewis didn't mention that this had been the case all summer - using the state's truck for personal transportation was verbotten.

"Herb can drop you home, if you get back to the garage by six. After that, you're on your own."

Mother. Fucker.

"Yeah, okay. See ya when I see ya." He thumbed the button and speed-dialed his folks' house. His mother answered.

“Hello?”

"Hey, ma - you know that couch you guys never use?"

"Hello, Lewis. What? What do you mean - the one in the family room? We use that couch sometimes."

"Ma, when was the last time you sat on it? Christmas, right?"

"I sit on it, sometimes. When I’m reading."

"Can I have it?" He spoke quickly, before she could say no. "Mine's a wreck, and dad's always saying how he's going to buy you guys another one, but he never does it. If you gave the old one to me, he'd have to."

"Oh, honey, I don't know..."

"Please? I can't afford decent furniture for this place. Did you hear the news? Thanks to that governor you voted for, I just got laid off."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What are you going to do?"

"They'll probably call us back in a few days. But in the meantime, I'm really short on cash."

"Do you need some money? I could mail you a check..."

"That’ll be great, ma, thanks. So what do you say about the couch? I could pick it up this afternoon."

"I think you should ask your father..."

He had her. Any time she deferred to the old man, she was already taking the bait.

"Ma, you know what he's going to say. Is he even around?"

"He went to get some charcoal..."

Set the hook.

"I could have it out of there before he gets back. Then he won't wreck his back trying to help me."

"How would you get it out?"

Take up the slack in the line. Get the net ready. "I've got my truck from work. I'll back it up to the sliding door and take it out through there. Take me ten minutes. Then you can give me the check, too. Save yourself a stamp."

"Honey, I wish you'd wait until your father is home..."

Into the boat. Raise the club.

"Fine, ma," he spat. "Only I've got to turn in my truck tonight. How am I gonna get the couch then? I thought I’d do you guys a favor. You know what? Just forget it."

She sighed into his ear. Thwack! went the club.

"Just don't mark up the walls," she muttered.

"I won’t. I promise I'll be really careful. See ya in a bit."

Lewis smiled as he hung up. The day was turning out better than it had started, at least.

Lewis had a simple philosophy about work: When possible, avoid it entirely. When that wasn't practical, get someone else to do as much of it as possible. If that failed, put off doing it as long as possible, because sometimes they forgot that they'd told you to do it.

That explained why there were still four bags of sidewalk salt in the back of the truck in the middle of July. It also explained why it was 5:30 before Lewis got out to his first work stop, the rest area on I-94. He had let the grass get a bit long - it was shin-high, out under the trees - but the layoff would cover that.

He put the chain up across the entrance drive first, so some moron didn't slide in while he was locking up and slow him down. A layoff meant he didn't have to get up for work tomorrow, which meant Holly might come over and do her famous Tongue Dance. He could pick up a couple of 40’s at the Speedy-Q on his way back from closing the park, then snag the couch and his mother’s check on the way home. Between that and what he could get for the couch and the weed, he could afford to roll a few blunts for himself.

Not too shabby.

He spotted the first fish fly as he was locking up the women's. It spiraled out of the air and onto the sidewalk. Lewis stomped it. The popping sound was surprisingly loud. He spotted a few more on the wing. By dark, there would be a million of them, covering everything in sight and stinking up the place. Already, he could see the spiders busy in their corners, getting their webs ready for the night's harvest. It reminded him of some nature special he'd seen about spawning salmon. Bears, wolves, raccoons, seagulls, all lined up for the movable feast. Everybody got a taste.

Overhead, the big oaks nodded and hissed in the wind. Weather coming, probably tonight, probably rain.

He remembered the bags of salt just as he finished refilling the soap dispensers. The couch would never fit in the truck with those back there, and he'd catch hell if Gary saw them.

The bags were heavy. Lewis swore as he overbalanced and dropped the first one in the parking lot. It burst and spewed salt in all directions.

Great.

He grabbed the next bag angrily, determined to show it who was boss. The bag already knew, of course, and promptly caught on something in the bed of the truck and tore in half, filling the truck bed.

Maybe the day wasn't so lucky, after all.

He gave the next bag some respect, hoisting it up on one shoulder for the hike to the supply shed behind the main building, his back complaining the whole way. As he unlocked the door and checked to be sure that the toothpick he had wedged in the crack during his last visit was still there - a trick he learned while watching The Sting on TV - he smiled, as he did every time that he visited the weed.

His weed, soon to be someone else's. That was what having weed was all about. That, and getting high when life dropped a shit-bomb on you. And what was losing your job, if not a gigantic turd?

In the back of the supply shed, a three-foot wide pipe cap stuck out of the concrete floor. It was used to access the bathrooms' sewer outlet and the huge rain culvert that it joined up with, a relic of 1960's city planning. And it was only fitting that Lewis' pot, another relic of the 60's, shared space here, where no one else was going to look for it.

Lewis took the idiot wrench down off the shelf behind the water main and started working on the cap's eight bolts. Each was as thick as his thumb.

Lewis had been using the pipe cap to hide his stash for almost five months now, ever since his deadbeat-and-departed roommate cleaned him out. It was safe here. Even if Lewis got pulled over, it was unlikely that he'd be carrying more than a joint or two if he could stop here and reload at will.

For Lewis, this bordered on genius.

He stepped back as he lifted the heavy cap, having learned the hard way that pipe-stench could vaporize nose hairs. As hot as it was in the shed, he could still see a heat haze rise out of the pipe, the result of composting shit and God only knew what else.

Hanging just inside the pipe from snippets of wire coat hangers were gallon-sized baggies of the good stuff.

Thanks to the magic of Ziploc, the stench couldn't penetrate the baggies - who wanted to smoke weed that tasted like ass? - but the humidity made the bags slippery. You had to handle them carefully or ...

Shit.

"Motherfucker! What is your major malfunction?" he yelled, staring down into the darkness that had swallowed his weed.

Lewis stared at the shed's ceiling for support, but found only spider webs. He counted the remaining baggies. If he took two to smoke and sold two, plus his mom's money… Hm. He could get by for a month or so, but what if the governor didn't give a shit about how much pot Lewis had left? And he would certainly want to smoke more, eventually. The question was, how much more?

He stared down the hole again. Jesus, it was stanky.

So hold your fuckin' breath, bro’, the weed called up to him, safe and dry in Ziploc land. Nobody's been shitting around here for at least an hour. Ain't nothing but rainwater down here. But I'm lonely down in the dark, bro.

"I'm comin', I'm comin'," he sighed. "Jesus, the things I do for weed."

There was a flashlight next to the wrench - one of those long, solid, cast-steel jobs that you never saw any more. It was beat to hell but still worked just fine, thank you very much.

Lewis shone it down the pipe. It was a little bit wet down there, but that was all - no deep water, no rats, no shit. It wasn't even that much of a drop. Lewis climbed up on the lip of the pipe and swung one leg over, blocking the light above and his view below.

Something caught on his boot.

At first, he thought it must be one of the wire baggie holders or a tree root or something. When he tried to pull his leg out, though, something pulled back, hard, slamming his nuts against the edge of the pipe. Lewis doubled up, sick to his stomach and thinking of nothing but

my balls o god my balls i'm gonna puke

he lost his footing and fell, cracking his teeth on the opposite edge of the pipe on the way down.

The bag of weed was all that saved him from becoming a literal crack-head. As it was, the baggie exploded herbal confetti and he got the wind knocked out of him, hard enough to keep him down a few moments.

Which was, in the end, all it took.

As soon as the cartoon stars went away and his probing tongue verified that yes, he had lost two front teeth, Lewis opened his eyes. The flashlight lay next to him, the lens cracked but otherwise unscathed, shining down the length of the tunnel.

Lewis blinked. Something was moving out there, just beyond the flashlight's beam. He couldn't quite see it in the glare, but a hungry boss sewer rat was not something he wanted to think about right now.

He stuck his hand in front of the light to block the glare. There was a whip crack sound, followed by a protracted scream that rose and fell, eventually ending in a wet gurgle. Then silence, long and deep.

As the sun fell out of the sky in the world above, a belt buckle jingled quietly down in the dark. Completely by coincidence, it kept perfect time with the first few bars of Up on the Housetop as sung by the Three Chipmunks.

When Lewis failed to turn in the truck at 6:00, Gary locked up the garage and swore about it all the way home. Lewis was lazy as hell. It had been a waste of time to wait. Oh well… at least he could go fishing tomorrow.

Later that night, Holly (who liked company and knew how to find it) revealed the mysteries of the Tongue Dance to a young stud who worked in Chemical Valley. After he managed to get his shapely, satisfied ass out the door, Holly showered and slept and dreamed that something crawled into her skin with her. It paid half the rent, though, so that was cool, but then it claimed out of the blue that she was a lousy roommate because she partied too much. The creature gave her three days to move out, but something in its tone suggested that now would be better.

The next morning, uneasy for no reason that she could name, Holly took off to Ohio for a few days with her girlfriend, Melody.

Lewis' mom and dad were used to their son’s frequent no-shows. Since he only called when he wanted money, it was something of a relief not to hear from him. Not least of all because they both liked the couch in the basement, because there weren’t any windows down there, and sometimes they liked to play dress up – a fact that would have bothered Lewis unnecessarily if he had known about it.

Not for the first time, his parents regretted not taking the more difficult road with their son when he was growing up, and actually saying "No" once in awhile.

Next time, promised Lewis's mother to herself, putting on her Catwoman outfit. Next time.

The net result was that no one bothered to call, no one bothered to check up, on, in, or around. Why mess with a good thing?

The summer sun crawled over the horizon, nursing one hell of a hangover. Fishflies began to gather around the streetlights, their numbers growing with each passing moment.

Down in the dark, the sound of feeding.

Two weeks went by.