The Gate 2 Part 12

Oh, I know what you're thinkin'. You're thinkin' I'm linked to the P.I., ain't you? Well, I paid the guy in cash, so there's no record, and I hired him for his reputation for discretion, so I doubt he made any notes. But I went through his office, just to be safe. The cool thing about that is I managed to get a s.h.i.tload of dirt on a lot of people. That's going to make things even more fun when they catch me. Do you know what the governor of this state has been doing on our tax dollars? Shocking s.h.i.t.

Oh, c.r.a.p. I went off track, didn't I? That still hasn't changed. You used to say I had adult ADD, remember? I guess you mighta been right. I can never stay focused on one thing for very long. That's why I brought all these toys. See? I got at least two dozen of 'em, and they are all a blast. I use one for a minute, then switch to a new one when I get bored. It's a perfect system, really. Plenty of new things to try. I ain't gotten bored yet.

Tears? Why you cryin', sweetheart? I ain't gonna use any of 'em on you. No, really. I promise. None of these shiny, bladed doohickeys are for you. Not one.

Ha! Merle must think he's your man, now. The way he's nibblin' on your ear is almost tender. He sure is friendly, isn't he? That's gotta sting a bit, though. Y'know, I read somewhere that everywhere a male rat walks, he leaves a trail of urine 'cause his dong drags along the ground all the time. I wonder if that's true. I hope not, or you have about a dozen trails all over your body. That's kinda disgustin'. But at least you won't have to put up with it for too long.

The only real b.i.t.c.h about this is I can't send this tape to the cops like I did with the last two. I've said you're my ex-wife on here a few times already, and I even said Brian's name. That would make it too easy for those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. But that's okay. I'll take this tape out and put another in just before we start. This part of the conversation is always more for me, anyway. The part I want the cops to hear is what comes next.

So, you ready?

More tears? Shakin' your head? Come on now, hon. This is no time for that. We got work to do. What are you lookin' at, anyway?

Oh, right. The saws. Don't worry. Those are for later. I gotta take a few steps to hide your ident.i.ty from the police. Gonna be hard for 'em to figure out who you are without fingerprints and s.h.i.t. By the way, you still got that tattoo on your a.s.s? Never mind, I'll find out myself after it's over. As a bonus, Brian and the boys won't know what happened to you. You'll have just disappeared one day and never come back. I like that idea. That's what happened, after all. You left this house one day and just never came back.

But like I said, I'm over it. Mostly.

It's time to get started. Let me change over the tape real fast.

Okay. Done.

This is the tape I'm gonna give the cops.

Hi cops! Ha ha ha. It's me again.

That reminds me of that Ray Stevens song, "It's Me Again, Margaret." Funny s.h.i.t. You ever heard it? c.r.a.p. You can't talk. I keep forgetting about the gag. Just nod or shake your head.

No? Don't wanna? Fair enough. I guess I can't blame you, what with Merle takin' chunks outta your cheek like that. Anyway, it's been nice catchin' up, but I think we need to speed this along, don't you?

Oh, so now you can shake your head. You got a nice, wide stubborn streak, don'tcha?

Anyway, as you can imagine, it's gonna take Merle an awful long time to finish the job. I ain't got that kinda time. That's why I brought a few of his friends over. Check this out.

Oooof! This box is f.u.c.kin' heavy.

There. Got the top off. Here you go, honey. Here are some more friends to play with. Three dozen of 'em, to be exact. Took me forever to catch all of *em. I made sure they were all males, too. Call me old fashioned, but havin' females in there would just feel weird, y'know? I guess that means you gotta put up with the urine trails. Sorry about that.

But don't worry, I'll stay here with you until it's over. And since you got that gag, you can scream as loud as you want. That should help a little.

Wow. You're gonna break your spine doin' that.

- David McAfee is the author of many books, including 33 A.D., 61 A.D., The Dead Woman (The Dead Man #4), and Saying Goodbye to the Sun. His stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, including his own collections The Lake and 17 Other Stories and Devil Music and 18 Other Stories. David lives a currently nomadic existence with his loving wife and two wonderful children. To read more about his ideas, works, and general musings, visit http://mcafeeland.wordpress.com.

THE CANOE.

by Joel Arnold.

He lives with his son in a cabin next to a cold, rusty river. The rust reminds Tab of blood spilled in the Mekong. His blood. His mother and father's blood. Caught in a hail of bullets as they swam toward freedom. But that was many years ago, and this rust comes from the taconite processing plant twenty miles upstream.

His cabin has two bedrooms, a small living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a fireplace that pops and hisses during the winter and the cool, spring nights. Tab wishes his wife were still alive. She always talked about living in a home with a fireplace.

The Kraemer River smells like fish and rust and pine. The walleyes and northerns are spa.r.s.e, and those caught are thrown back in. The DNR says the mercury levels are too high, that eating the fish is dangerous. But sometimes Carl and Tab sit on the bank and throw in their lines and struggle with the slippery fish, reel them in with whoops of joy, admire them briefly, and throw them back in. It's times like those when Tab feels he's getting his son back.

Forest. Deer. Moss. Pine. The air tastes sweet and cool. The sun is a mellow orb through the trees, the rays neither harsh nor demanding. The forest can be dark, even when the sun is high in the clear sky, but the pine and birch branches shelter, they do not menace. A big change from New York City. No gangs. Carl is sixteen now.

"Are you bored here?" Tab asks.

"Sometimes."

"What about your school friends?"

Carl shrugs.

Life is so much better here. During the year, Carl became involved in basketball, his grades improved. Good people here.

Carl says, "People in school call me a gook."

Tab's smile vanishes. "What? Why is this the first time I'm hearing this? Who calls you that?"

"Some of the kids."

"Which kids?"

"I don't know. It doesn't matter, anyway."

"When did they call you this?"

"A bunch of times." Carl looks at his father, his eyes steady and cold. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want us to move again."

"You know why we moved."

"I liked New York. I had friends there."

"Thugs and hooligans. We live here now. These are good people. Maybe some are ignorant, but soon they'll see we're good people, too." Tab smiles encouragingly at his son. "We'll survive here. We will, Carl. We'll survive."

An aluminum canoe with fading red paint washes up on sh.o.r.e while Tab and Carl cast their lines to the river's poisonous fish. There is crude lettering on the bow. FARBANTI. There are dents, too, but they can be pounded out with a rubber mallet.

"Help me push this out into the river," Tab says.

"Why don't we keep it?"

"Because. Maybe someone is waiting for it."

They slide it over the muddy bank into the water where the current takes hold. It straightens like the needle of a compa.s.s and disappears into the evening's dim light.

New York. As many people as insects. Ceaseless noise.

But this is where Tab married. Where Carl was born. Where Mina died.

One sweltering night, when Carl was only fourteen, there was a knock on the apartment door. Rare to get visitors. Tab opened the door a crack, leaving the chain attached.

Carl. In handcuffs. Smelling of beer. Cigarettes. A cut on his face. An ugly bruise. Suspended between two policemen.

"This your kid?"

Tab unlatched the chain and opened the door wide. "Yes, this is my son."

"We saw him jump out of a van, throw a punch at a college student. When we intervened, the van took off."

"Is this true?" Tab asked.

Carl's jaw was set. He stared at the floor, breathing sharply through his nose.

"He said it was his initiation into the Laughing Tigers. A Vietnamese gang."

"We're Cambodian. American, now."

"Yeah, well. He didn't give us much trouble, said he lived here. I told him as long as you were home, we'd turn him over to you." The cop unfastened the handcuffs. Carl hurried past Tab into the apartment. "Keep an eye on him," the cop said. "I won't be so nice next time."

"Yes, sir," Tab said. "Thank you."

How do you keep hold of your son, your only son, the only family you have left, when you don't know what he does during the day? When he doesn't come home until two in the morning on school nights?

You move. Move someplace safe.

The river. Always moving. Giving and taking with indifference.

The canoe washes up again, its stern caught on the protruding roots of an ash tree. The bow bobs in the flowing river.

Farbanti.

Again, Carl asks, "Can we keep it?"

Tab looks up and down the river, wondering where it came from. "If no one else claims it." He pulls it onto the sh.o.r.e so the tug of current won't reclaim it. "Go inside and grab some rope. We'll tie it to this tree for now."

"Let me take it out on the river," Carl says. A warped paddle lies across the canoe floor. Carl looks up at his father. "Come with me. It'll be fun."

"Neither of us knows how to ride this."

"I do. It's easy."

"I don't think-"

Carl shoves the canoe into the water and straddles the bow. "Forget it," he says. "I'll go myself." He pushes off from sh.o.r.e, carefully steps across the bottom to the stern, sits, picks up the paddle, and straightens the canoe.

"Be careful," Tab calls.

Carl and the canoe slip easily around a bend in the river and disappear from view.

Tab fashions a flier on yellow paper and carries it to the roadhouse. There is no community center up here, no coffee shop, no VFW. There is only the roadhouse, and if anything needs to be said or learned, this is the place to go.

Tab sits at the bar. "Anybody missing a canoe?" he asks Jim, the bartender.

"Haven't heard anything." Jim pours a cup of coffee for Tab and slides a container of half-and-half across the bar.

"It washed up at our home the other day." He shows Jim the flier. "May I put this up?" He staples it to a bulletin board by the door on which other fliers announce items for sale, property for rent, dogs and cats lost and found, rides offered out of town to Duluth and the Twin Cities.

Tab comes back to his cup of coffee. Sips it. Carl has already taken the canoe out on the river each of the last two days, and was gone for hours both times. This is good for a boy his age, isn't it? Out in the forest, in the branch-filtered sun? Good exercise. Fresh air. Better than sitting in his room all day playing video games and watching television. Why is it, then, that Tab feels the familiar pangs of worry in his heart?

"Something wrong?" Jim asks.

"No." Tab looks up. "Nothing is wrong."

But what about drugs? Maybe that would explain Carl's melancholy. Once, Tab found marijuana in his room in New York. But here? Up here where there is clean air and warm sun and a pleasant river flowing nearby?

No. Not here, Tab decides. Carl's lonely. He's a young man. He has no girlfriend. That's all it is.

Three round, pink scars throb like fluttering moths on Tab's back and shoulder. Three round, pink scars left by bullets all those years ago while crossing the Mekong River. Maybe someday Tab will tell Carl about them. Maybe someday. But it is too hard to talk about now. Too hard to think about. Maybe someday.

River. Slow and steady. Carl gone all day long. What is downriver that interests a teenage boy so much? When he comes home each evening, he is full of sweat and quiet. Goes straight to his room as if he's got a secret. Three weeks have pa.s.sed since the canoe showed up. Every day Carl has taken it out, letting the current ferry him away, only to come back in the evening, paddling hard.

And last night Carl didn't come back until past midnight. Tab drove the Volkswagen down a service road adjacent to the river, shining a flashlight through the trees, looking for the talc.u.m red glow of hull in the cone of light, but saw nothing. He stopped at the roadhouse and asked if anyone had seen him. No one had. When Tab drove back to the cabin, there was Carl in bed, snoring heavily. He would wait until morning to scold him.

But come morning, Carl is gone, the rope that kept the canoe tied to the ash tree frayed and loose, floating in the river like a dead, sun-dried snake.