The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories (11 page)

In Albert’s memory, Ralph swelled fat and
whitish-pink, just like the worms. The swollen Ralph poked a hand
toward Albert and called his name, “Albert…Albert…Albert…”

“…
Albert?”

He started awake and looked into Meghan’s
green eyes. “Megs…”

“
You were out cold. Thought
you might like to shower or at least change before bed.” She pulled
her t-shirt over her head and started on the bra clasp.

Albert rose, blinking heavily, trying to
shake the malaise from his limbs. He watched Meghan’s muscled back
and pressed his hands against her skin.

“
Oh, feeling
frisky?”

He spun his wife, pressed his lips against
hers, and forced his wriggling tongue into her mouth. They tumbled
into bed. After they made love, Albert lay with her pressed against
his naked body for a time, sucking in her sweet scent, trying to
forget the memories.

A week burned away, and Owen sat at the
kitchen table, scribbling small robots on scrap bits of notebook
paper. Albert slipped in through the front door, dropped his
briefcase next to an old wooden desk, and sat down next to the boy.
Owen wore a pale, unresponsive scowl.

“
Hey, buddy,” Albert
said.

Owen cast a quick glance at his father,
muttered “hey,” and dropped his eyes back to the paper. His hands
worked quickly, spreading dark doodles across the white page.
Albert began to notice a different pattern to Owen’s robots.
Instead of fighting each other, the usual motif, Owen had rendered
a handful of large worms poking from the ground and devouring his
creations.

“
Looks interesting.” Albert
smiled as he spoke, trying to engage his son in
conversation.

Owen shrugged. “Guess so.”

Albert watched the boy work for a few more
minutes before the silence ate at him. He moved to the stairs,
glanced back at his son, and hurried to his bedroom. Slipping from
his suit felt freeing; Albert was always happy to shed his work
clothes and throw on a pair of shorts and a worn t-shirt. He took a
deep breath and sat on the bed for a moment. The room darkened
slightly, and Albert turned to the doorway.

“
Hi.” Meghan moved from the
doorway and plopped on the corner of the mattress.

“
Hey.” A moment passed. “Is
Owen okay?”

Meghan slipped one hand on Albert’s back and
rubbed the knotted muscles between his shoulders. “You’re tense.
Carrying too much extra weight.”

“
What’s up with
Owen?”

Meghan’s hand dropped. She moved it to
Albert’s knee. “Lonnie’s been sick all week. I think Owen is just a
little worried about his friend. Maybe you two should go see him
after dinner tonight.” She patted his leg, stood, and walked out of
the bedroom.

Albert pressed the Bowman’s doorbell, and
waited in silence next to his son. Owen had brightened slightly at
the prospect of visiting his best friend, but the trip to Lonnie’s
house had been quiet, almost tense. When the door clicked open,
Albert sighed long and slow. A well-etched face greeted them.

“
Yes?” Lonnie’s mom was a
plump woman, middle-aged with too many worry lines around her eyes.
She brightened a bit upon spotting Owen. “Oh, Owen. Lonnie will be
happy to see you. Come in.”

Owen moved closer to his father as they
crossed the threshold. The Bowman’s house smelled of flowers and
Lysol. “Dad, come with me,” he whispered to his father.

“
Sure, buddy.” Albert
unconsciously reached for his son’s hand.

“
Lonnie? You have company,”
his mother announced at a bedroom door. The odor of disinfectant
swelled from the dark interior, overwhelming the hint of flowers.
She reached into the room and flicked a switch, illuminating the
room.

Lonnie, his face washed like a bleached
desert, lay under a thin blanket on his bed. His cheeks had
collapsed some, lost some of their childish blubber in just one
week. Under the blanket, his body shifted like a loose pile of
bones. His mouth opened as if he would speak, but no sound
came.

Albert staggered, seeing his old friend in
Lonnie’s eyes: Ralph, sick and fading, pale and dying, just like
Lonnie Bowman. Ralph ballooned in his memory and blocked out the
lamp. Some things were better left in the ground. “Owen, I…” He
retreated into the hallway and blew out the sick air. “Owen, I’m
going to wait in the kitchen. You two probably want to talk.”

The boy turned to his father, nodded, and
stepped closer to what remained of his friend.

Mrs. Bowman offered Albert a glass of water,
and he sat sipping in silence. For her part, Mrs. Bowman bustled
about the kitchen, finishing dinner dishes and scrubbing the stove
top. She tried to ignore his presence, but seemed haunted by
something. The silence grew, Albert fidgeted on his stool until he
finally broke.

“
What does the doctor
think, you know, about Lonnie’s condition?” he asked, blushing and
embarrassed like he was a child again.

She stopped her bustle. “Doc Wilson doesn’t
know what to think. His tests come back showing anemia and all
sorts of malnutrition, but he can’t find any cause. He has these
pink marks, swollen in places—little lines, but the doctor doesn’t
know what they are.” She laid the dishtowel on the counter, and
shook her head lightly. “I don’t know what to do—”

“
What to do about what?”
Owen stood at the entrance to the hallway, cradling a white cube
under his arm.

Albert turned. “Nothing buddy. We were just
talking. You ready?”

Owen nodded.

Mrs. Bowman pinched her face into a forced
smile. “Thanks for coming. Really. I’m sure it meant so much to
Lonnie.” She paused for a moment, took a breath, and steadied
herself. “He’ll be back in school before you know it.”

Father and son sat next to each other in
Albert’s car, both riding in silence and staring ahead into the
dark night. Something writhed in Albert’s memory, and every few
minutes he would glance at the Styrofoam box resting on his son’s
lap. His hands tightened on the steering wheel until the question
burned from his mouth.

“
What’s in the box,
buddy?”

Owen opened the lid slightly. “Just the
worms. The ones we dug out of old Jantz’s garden.” He pushed the
lid shut. “I’m sorry, Dad. Sorry about going there, lying…”

Albert closed his eyes for a moment,
stuffing his memories further into his brain. He sighed. “It’s
okay, Owen.” He directed the car into their driveway.

“
I think some of the worms
got out.”

“
What?”

“
Some of them got out.”
Owen pulled open the box again. “Only about half of them are
left.”

“
I made him leave them in
the garage. For the night at least.” Albert thrust his hands under
his head and closed his eyes. He tried to relax as Meghan contorted
during her nightly yoga routine. “I think we should dump them in
the morning.”

Meghan stood and stretched, exhaling as her
fingers extended to the ceiling. With a light sigh, she moved to
the side of the bed, flipped up the comforter, and slipped in
beside Albert. There was a purpose in her silence.

“
Meghan?” Albert propped
his head on one arm.

She closed her eyes. “Yes?”

“
Don’t you think we should
dump the worms in the morning?”

“
Look, bub, I don’t think
those worms have anything to do with Lonnie’s illness. They’re not
hurting anybody here.” She opened her eyes slowly and turned to
Albert. “As for Jantz—all that happened long ago. Ralph’s death
wasn’t your fault
or
Elroy Jantz’s.” Meghan touched his face lightly with her
hand. “That was all a long, long time ago.”

The weekend filled with rain, but on Monday
morning Albert stood on the sidewalk in front of Elroy Jantz’s old
house, a weary bungalow just blocks from the local high school. The
old man was dead now, had been for the past eighteen months, but
Albert still heard the threats—angry words that kept him away from
that sidewalk for almost twenty-five years. He listened as the
bulldozer growled angrily, creaking and clanking toward the small
structure. His eyes seemed fixed on the house, but they saw a
different time.

He remembered years before—a bright Saturday
afternoon when he rode to Jantz’s house with his friend, Ralph.
They crept through the old man’s back gate, slipped past the no
trespassing sign into his vegetable garden, and pawed in the rich
earth for the best bait worms in town. Jantz burst from his
backdoor, spewing curses at the boys, catching Ralph by the collar
before he could scramble to his feet and run.

“
Mr. Roberds?”

The voice yanked Albert from his memory.
“Yeah—yeah, what is it?”

The foreman stepped forward, handing him a
phone. “Your wife, sir. Something about a friend of your boy…in the
hospital.” His voice was ground under the cracking and rending of
old wood as the bulldozer crushed the small house.

When Albert came home that evening, he
checked the container of worms, verifying that they were still
there.

Elroy Jantz came to visit Albert in his
dreams that night. The old man’s pinched and grey face swelled
before him, just as it had twenty-five years ago. Albert was a
child again, a boy cowering before the gnarled man that held his
best friend. He wanted to run, to hide, but the magnetic pull the
old man held him locked to the moment.

“
I’ve been watching you.
You threw rocks—broke my window, trampled my garden, and now you
boys want some worms, huh? Well, have some, have some.” He forced
Ralph’s jaw open and shoved a wriggling thing inside. “Eat up,
boys.”

The twelve-year-old Albert panicked, burned
with terror upon seeing his friend’s wide, frightened eyes. He
turned and ran, left his bike behind the old man’s fence and
sprinted home, lungs exploding all the way. The old man yelled
after Albert. He closed his eyes, but Jantz’s face swelled again,
and a voice rose in his head. “Your turn’s comin’ boy. You’re
next.”

Albert woke with a thick coat of sweat
covering his head and arms. He heard a sound, maybe small feet
working up the stairs, and then a click of a door. Albert rose,
moved quickly from bed, out his door, and through the hallway to
Owen’s room. Inside, the boy lay quiet and still. Albert turned
back to his bedroom, and noticed a small smudge of mud on the
carpet. He returned to bed and stared at the ceiling until
dawn.

On Tuesday afternoon,
Albert stepped out of the hospital into the bright sunshine. Lonnie
had looked
worn and
grey
, much like his memory of Ralph from
all those years ago. Albert felt compelled to make the visit—he had
to check Lonnie’s arms, see for himself all the unnatural pink
lines under his skin. In the parking lot, a man stepped from behind
a truck—just a pale shimmer of a man, a flicker in the afternoon
sun. Elroy Jantz.

Albert’s breath caught in his throat, and he
forced his eyes away. The air fell heavy on his bare skin, loaded
and icy—enough that Albert shivered and drew the collar of his
jacket about his neck. A quick gust of breeze whispered past his
ear, and curiosity ripped his eyes back to the old man. He was
gone, devoured by the grey air. A voice spoke in his head as Albert
rushed to his car.

Elroy Jantz’s ghost chased Albert home. His
anxiety grew as he sped through quiet, residential streets,
knuckles whitening as he clutched the steering wheel. The worms had
to go—maybe back to the lot that once held Jantz’s little house or
dumped by the roadside out of town—but they had to go.

He guided his car into the driveway and
waited as the garage door slowly rose, allowing a growing bar of
muted daylight inside the dark space. The worm box rested on the
workbench, and Albert snatched it quickly and tucked it under one
arm. Meghan’s voice punched at him from inside the house as Albert
turned back to his car.

“
Albert!” she called again,
almost shouting to snap his hypnosis.

He stopped and turned. “Yes?”

“
Albert, I’ve tried to call
all afternoon. Your phone—”

“
I shut it off.” He backed
a step toward the car. “I went to see Lonnie Bowman
today.”

Meghan stepped into the garage, her face
pale like fresh wax. “Oh. Albert, Owen came home sick today.” She
pushed at her hair, an anxious gesture.

Albert blinked. The box felt heavy, and he
dropped it on the hood of his car. “Sick?”

“
He doesn’t look good. His
arms…I’ve called Doc Wilson.”

The box seemed to throb. Albert pried off
the lid and peered inside. He scanned the black earth, started
clawing at the dirt, and only found a few, fat worms. He dropped
the lid and dug a clump out with one fist, a writhing thing just
visible between his fingers. “Not the boy…me…my turn…” he muttered
before shoving the fistful into his mouth.

9: The Surgeon of An Khe

His name was Gerard
Karnowski, and he hailed from Hoboken, New York. Legend held that
some of the guys in the platoon tried to drop the nickname
Carney—as in carnival sideshow freak—on him, but that happened
before he was dubbed The Surgeon. Before he
earned
the name. I met The Surgeon
during my time in-country, stationed with D Company,
1
^st
Infantry, 22
^nd
Regiment outside of An Khe, Republic of Vietnam.
Regulars, by God.

During my first few weeks in the bush, we
walked. We walked in the rain, in mud, orange creeping mud that
sucked at your boots as a reminder that you walked on a foreign
planet. The insects, especially the mosquitoes the size of
hummingbirds, swarmed and buzzed, harassing us day and night. We
sometimes walked in the thick, humid night to set up an ambush,
waiting for the invisible enemy. When we weren’t walking, we dug
into that red-orange mud, trying to create a small pocket of
security in an alien jungle. While on patrol one day, I
unexpectedly stumbled on The Surgeon at work.