Fat Man and Little Boy (22 page)

THE BABIES

Another summer, after breakfast. Fat Man tickles the newborn baby underneath her chin. She coos and grasps his finger, hers sinking into the fat of his. Fat Man says, “What's the little beauty's name?”

“You don't remember?” asks the mother, feigning hurt. He begins to apologize. “That's all right,” she says. “I know we all keep you busy. We're calling her Rose.”

“After the widow?”

The new mother nods.

The baby is a blonde. Ghostly strands spiral in a crown, shining all around her head, half invisible against it. He smells her head. The sweet baby potato smell. He rubs her little tummy.

“What a good little tummy,” he says. “What a good little girl. No crying.” He kisses her head.

“She never cries when you've got her,” says the father. “You've got a way with the little ones, don't you?”

Fat Man lowers his head, shielding his eyes with the wide brim of his hat. “They seem to like me. Who knows why?”

The father rubs Fat Man's back without recoiling from the pool of sweat between his shoulder blades. “Don't be so modest. You've made us feel at home this whole year. What's for dinner tonight?”

“Swordfish,” says Fat Man, tickling the undersides of the baby's feet. She kicks and kicks. Her eyes lock with his. Lovely blue. “Ice cream for dessert. American-style sundaes, actually—banana splits, chocolate sauce drizzle, salted peanuts, sprinkles, lots of whipped cream, and a cherry on top. A chocolaty stout is recommended.”

Now come the former newlyweds, now the hotel elders—patriarch and matriarch—a wailing baby in each of Daddy's arms: the twins. Their firstborn toddles behind, tugged by a long red ribbon tied around her wrist by doting mother. “Can we borrow John a moment?” asks the panic-stricken patriarch. “They won't stop.”

“Of course,” says the first father. Fat Man passes off little Rose and takes the twins, who immediately quiet. Baby Rose looks over her father's shoulder to watch as Fat Man rocks the babies to peace. He cups their rumps and blows on their bare bellies. They laugh and laugh.

“Pretty babies,” says Fat Man. “Good little boys. You be good brothers to each other, okay?”

Now Little Boy comes by. He sets down his cleaning things and asks for a baby. Fat Man gives him one of the twins. Little Boy makes faces at his share of the brothers. They show the babies to each other, holding them beneath their arms, bobbing them up and down. The baby brothers touch their feet. Everyone laughs. But then there are more babies crying. Everyone is having such a rough day! Fat Man laughs and laughs, like a baby. So does Little Boy. They laugh and laugh together. Everyone laughs with them. Someone loads each brother with another baby. The matriarch's ribbon-bound toddler latches on to Fat Man's knee with her free hand, the other extended as far as possible so she can reach, pulled taut by the red ribbon clutched absently by her mother. Soft, sweet skin presses on the brothers from all directions. Fat Man can't keep track of all the good little babies.

Soon Rosie comes upon the happy gathering. “Now what have we here?” She touches John's back, as the father did, between the shoulder blades, in a pool of damp and stick. “Are my boys being good?”

“He's so good with babies,” exclaims the matriarch.

“Come along John,” says Rosie, very nearly flirtatious. “We're going to a movie.”

“I want to come,” says Little Boy.

The young matriarch says, “You need to stay here and help us with all these babies.”

Fat Man and the widow leave them in this way: mobbing Little Boy, bringing children peace by proximity. They take the widow's car. When he is a driver Fat Man keeps his eyes on the road, searching for obstacles, mindful of every possibility, every physical necessity. He drives as if a crash is imminent. As a passenger, he is more laconic, gazing a long way down the road. The widow touches his knee, once, lightly, only a little. He says, without looking away from the rural blur where the land meets the sky, “Do you ever miss your husband?”

“It's a damn fool who parachutes into a foreign country when they've got machine guns aimed up his rear.”

“Do you ever miss me?”

“I haven't had the chance.”

The Oriental spirit medium is passed out underneath the tree that's like a willow. The branches pull away from her as best they can, rising up on end. The effect is that of a large, powerless animal raising its hackles, as much to beg for mercy as to press a threat. The shadow avoids the medium as well, falling against the sun, out in the open, diametrically opposite the direction of every other shadow cast by every other thing. The medium's legs are splayed within her red, silken robe, which is parted too far up, a sliver of pale skin, smooth and smooth, and the inner silk, a darker shade of red. There are loose threads at the fringes. Her forearm lies across her eyes to shield them from the light. There is a vodka bottle flat on its side, among the roots, empty of all but the dregs. Little Boy takes the bottle. He tilts it in circles, sloshing the liquor.

Fat Man says, “This is just like in the movie.”

“How is this just like in the movie?”

“They found a beautiful woman on the ground in a park.”

“Who did?”

“Able Hanway. Or Baker. They were playing the same man again.” He kneels, touches the silk, and sniffs his fingers. “I think it was Baker. Anyway, they carry her back to their apartment. She wakes up in their bed and screams. It turns out she has amnesia. That's the premise of the film.”

“Did the beautiful amnesiac turn out to be a fraud who made the brothers foul themselves on stage in front of an audience of hundreds?”

“No,” says Fat Man. “She turned out to be an angel. The main character helped her remember who she was, but the more she remembered the more distant she grew, until finally she had this sort of mile-long gaze, and a strange, almost creepy smile. Finally she had to leave and go to heaven. She said she would see them again someday. But of course it wasn't ‘them,' it was him, because there was only one of them on camera, weeping. I think it was Able. I think he's the one who cries for them. He's good at it.”

“Maybe we should get Masumi,” says Little Boy.

“Let's take her home to him,” says Fat Man. “Maybe she'll be grateful and decide not to hate us anymore, and she'll convince him of the same.”

It's strange to see the Oriental spirit medium outside, especially in daylight. Little Boy claimed to have made sightings in the night, when the medium was said to walk among the cabins and the trees, always alone. When pressed, however, Little Boy had to admit the figure he had seen was only that: a figure. It had always been possible that this medium, though Japanese, was not
that
medium. Many must have left Japan, Fat Man figured—there would be too many ghosts. Masumi still walked and ate and studied language among the hotel's guests and staff, though he often left on trips for weeks at a time, under cover of darkness, when no one could see him go—and indeed, none did. He, unlike his wife, known only as “the medium,” did not like speaking with the other guests outside the library and the occasional comment during meals. He had come to quite like Fat Man's cooking. He had not threatened anyone in some time, though Fat Man caught him, at least once a week, boring holes into Fat Man's skull with his eyes: a steady, focused glare. His wife's leadership was essential to the health of the hotel, both as a community and in terms of finance, which led Rosie to accept the Oriental spirit medium, as well as the unstable, alcoholic Masumi.

Fat Man gathers the medium in his arms. She is light, but not as light as she looks. Very slack. Warm. She shifts in his arms, going taut for just a second, long enough to curl against his body, warming his gut. He wants to kiss her cheek.

“Here,” says Little Boy, and he takes several of her peacock feather-needles from among the grass and roots. He pricks his finger. He says it doesn't hurt very much, though as a drop of blood squeezes through his skin and out, he notes that he can feel his own heart beating.

“How does it feel?” says Fat Man.

“Slow,” says Little Boy. “Like tides.”

Masumi is not home. The brothers knock and knock and knock until they are sure. Little Boy takes out his key and lets them in. Fat Man goes first, and drops the medium on the bed, where her hair fans out beautiful and black, and her feet tangle themselves at once in the sheets. She pulls the sheets up over her breasts, though not her midsection or hips. Her eyes flutter open and closed. She resolves to sleep a little longer.

Masumi's clothes are scattered on the floor in the shape of a flattened man. The white suit jacket, the white slacks, the socks laid out beneath the cuffs, one balled up, the other in the shape of a hockey stick—the shoes, laces still tied. A shirt, an undershirt, in two wads side by side on top of the jacket, like weird linen breasts. Little Boy prods one with his toe.

Masumi's gun is on the dresser. Fat Man toys with it. He runs his hand over the barrel, feels the back end of the handle, all its fancy inlays. The gun is very cold. It makes his skin rise up in goose bumps. He scrapes his arm gently with his left hand's nails, feeling them catch and stutter like phonograph needles on the scabby, gummy little caps that dot his skin.

Fat Man aims the gun at the door and squeezes the trigger. To his horror, it fires. The sound is nothing like he imagined. The bullet lodges in the door, which puckers all around it, a black quarter in a wooden kiss. The medium sits up like a mousetrap sprung, lifting bodily from the bed, hovering a second, hair rising like the tree's weeping, lifted branches.

She falls into place, her hair collapses, clapping. “What the hell did you do? Get the fuck out of my cabin!”

“I didn't know it was loaded.”

“Then why did you pull the trigger?”

“I assumed it wasn't loaded.”

“Why would you
ever
assume that?”

Fat Man flails with the gun, now pointing it at the medium, not quite recognizing what he's doing, not quite understanding that he means it as a threat. He means shut up. The medium growls and throws herself down on the pillow. She says to get out. She says, “Let me sleep.”

“Public drunkenness is a crime,” says Fat Man. “We're here to keep you in until you're sober. What would your husband think if he saw you this way?”

“He'd probably join her,” says Little Boy, who is meanwhile prying the squashed bullet from the door with one of his keys. His thumb touches it briefly. “Still hot,” he hisses.

Fat Man sits down at the table. He makes himself a drink, mixing lemon juice, sugar, and whiskey. The lemon is a little dry but it still squeezes nicely. He says, “Where is your husband anyway?”

“He's on a trip. Go away. I don't like you.”

“Your husband says he knows who we are.”

“He hates you too. He's a proud Japanese.”

“I want to know who you are.”

She says, “My name is Masumi.”

“Like your husband?”

Little Boy says, “I got the bullet loose.” It lies steaming on the floor. He crouches over it, hands out as if he is trying to warm them.

The medium says, “It's a neuter name. Both men and women have it. So my name is also Wakahisa Masumi. You should leave. Things are much easier for everyone when we don't see each other.”

“What's your problem?” says Little Boy. “What do you have against us?” He nudges the bullet with the toe of his shoe.

“He forgot?” says Masumi.

Fat Man shrugs, sipping his drink. “I can't tell what he knows.”

“I know your names,” says the medium. “You're Little Boy. You're Fat Man. Why do you call yourself Matthew?”

“Other people call me Matthew,” says Little Boy. “That's how a name works.” He looks from one face to the other, awaiting explanation. His eyes are fogged. “Quit staring at me.”

Masumi comes to the table. She invites Little Boy up as well, patting the third seat. She makes herself a drink and pours him one too.

“I'm not allowed,” says Little Boy.

Fat Man says it's okay.

Masumi says, “My husband and I came here with plans to kill you both. We found, though, that you'd changed. You were calmed. The vortex of spirits centered on your bodies has become a much more contemplative swirl. We did not know what it meant. I still don't know what it means. You still glow inside with Japanese, your body swollen with their love and need. It is a measure of your selfishness the way you bloat with them. He tried to kill you both. He didn't try very hard, I guess. He couldn't do it. You've grown.” She holds up her hands parallel and then extends her arms to spread them, illustrating growth. “He has come to see you both as Japanese.”

“Japan is not our home. We were born there,” says Fat Man, “but that's all.”

“That's usually all it takes,” says Masumi. “But it's more than that. You define us.”

Little Boy looks down at the still-steaming bullet.

“We define America,” says Fat Man.

“I've never been,” says Masumi. “I can't say what defines them. The hamburger?” She lights a cigarette and offers one to Fat Man, who takes it happily, trading the gun without a second thought. She gives Little Boy one as well—at Fat Man's insistence, he smokes it.

“As long as you're here and you stay calm, I can guide more ghosts into the world in human bodies, fully formed, good as the ones you took from them before, if perhaps a little whiter. Think of it as an underground railroad. In return, you get to stay in your hotel, with your widow, and enjoy this strange peace that you've made. You get to hold the babies.”

“The babies frighten me,” says Fat Man.

“Because you know what they are?” asks the medium.

“Their love.”

Little Boy says, “I'm getting sleepy.”