Read Online North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nathan Ballingrud
Tags: Fiction, Short Stories
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T?”
“Like I said. Try it and see.”
Big Jake slammed a pan down behind them, making Nick jump. “Goddammit, get your silly ass outta here! T, get back on the line! We got tickets comin in.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” said Nick, and he slid around Tyrone and headed out into the warm October afternoon, where he kept walking until he was out of sight of the restaurant and then leaned against the painted brick of a 24-hour bar, breathing deeply, while his heart threw out flaring arcs of rage and frustration like an effulgent red star.
Nick’s mother used to saythat they’d lost his father to the horses.
Throughout his childhood, Nick thought that meant that he’d been killed by them: trampled beneath a galloping herd, or thrown from the back of a bronco; when he was younger still, he imagined that they’d devoured him, dipping their great regal heads into the open bowl of his body, lifting them out again trailing bright ropes and jellies. At night, when the closet door in his bedroom swung silently open, the boogeyman wore an equine face, and the sound that spilled from its mouth was the dolorous melody of his mother’s sobs. Even now that he knew better, knew that his father had fled in part because of gambling debts incurred at the track, horses retained their sinister aspect.
His mother’s frequent struggles with depression apparently taxed his father beyond endurance, and what comfort he couldn’t find at home he made for himself at the Fair Grounds. He left them when Nick was four years old; he’d burned through their life savings, and apparently decided that there was nothing else worth coming home to. He existed from then on as a monthly child-support check, which supplemented his mother’s income as a receptionist in a dentist’s office.
But even that changed a few months ago, when the high school guidance counselor took him aside and informed him that his mother had been in a serious car accident. She was at the hospital, and it was not known if she would survive. He took Nick back to his office, and they waited there for well over an hour, Nick sipping a lukewarm carton of chocolate milk from the cafeteria, the counselor looking at him with naked, cloying concern, his whole body freighted with the sympathy of the uninvolved.
She survived, of course: paralyzed from the waist down; both feet removed; with a grotesque head wound that became a scar so large that her left eye seemed pulled out of true, giving her a wild, glaring aspect even while she slept. She commenced a free fall into depression, unable to work and neglecting the bills until the utilities were cut off and mortgage payments went delinquent. Finally he understood that the medical bills far outweighed her negligible insurance, and that they were in dire financial straits. She developed an antipathy to sunlight, covering the windows with heavy curtains and protesting angrily even when he lit too many candles at night. Darkness pooled in the house and grew stagnant; shortly afterward, his mother’s affliction manifested into its current gruesome incarnation. It was his duty to assist her, and to clean the blood off the plates when she was finished.
His father’s monthly checks still arrived, but the man who wrote them maintained an absolute radio silence that swallowed all hope of rescue.
It was around this time that he found Trixie—or rather, that Trixie decided to retrieve him from the scrap heap of social inconsequence, for reasons which were still mysterious to him. She provided him with an excuse to spend more time away from the house, which was almost as good as spending time with her. It was a precarious but practicable existence, until it became clear that his father’s checks would not be enough to sustain it. He would have to get a job.
So three weeks ago he waited by his high school’s front gate for the final class to let out. He spotted Trixie coming down the steps and remained there until she strolled up to
“Like I said. Try it and see.”
Big Jake slammed a pan down behind them, making Nick jump. “Goddammit, get your silly ass outta here! T, get back on the line! We got tickets comin in.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” said Nick, and he slid around Tyrone and headed out into the warm October afternoon, where he kept walking until he was out of sight of the restaurant and then leaned against the painted brick of a 24-hour bar, breathing deeply, while his heart threw out flaring arcs of rage and frustration like an effulgent red star.
Nick’s mother used to saythat they’d lost his father to the horses.
Throughout his childhood, Nick thought that meant that he’d been killed by them: trampled beneath a galloping herd, or thrown from the back of a bronco; when he was younger still, he imagined that they’d devoured him, dipping their great regal heads into the open bowl of his body, lifting them out again trailing bright ropes and jellies. At night, when the closet door in his bedroom swung silently open, the boogeyman wore an equine face, and the sound that spilled from its mouth was the dolorous melody of his mother’s sobs. Even now that he knew better, knew that his father had fled in part because of gambling debts incurred at the track, horses retained their sinister aspect.
His mother’s frequent struggles with depression apparently taxed his father beyond endurance, and what comfort he couldn’t find at home he made for himself at the Fair Grounds. He left them when Nick was four years old; he’d burned through their life savings, and apparently decided that there was nothing else worth coming home to. He existed from then on as a monthly child-support check, which supplemented his mother’s income as a receptionist in a dentist’s office.
But even that changed a few months ago, when the high school guidance counselor took him aside and informed him that his mother had been in a serious car accident. She was at the hospital, and it was not known if she would survive. He took Nick back to his office, and they waited there for well over an hour, Nick sipping a lukewarm carton of chocolate milk from the cafeteria, the counselor looking at him with naked, cloying concern, his whole body freighted with the sympathy of the uninvolved.
She survived, of course: paralyzed from the waist down; both feet removed; with a grotesque head wound that became a scar so large that her left eye seemed pulled out of true, giving her a wild, glaring aspect even while she slept. She commenced a free fall into depression, unable to work and neglecting the bills until the utilities were cut off and mortgage payments went delinquent. Finally he understood that the medical bills far outweighed her negligible insurance, and that they were in dire financial straits. She developed an antipathy to sunlight, covering the windows with heavy curtains and protesting angrily even when he lit too many candles at night. Darkness pooled in the house and grew stagnant; shortly afterward, his mother’s affliction manifested into its current gruesome incarnation. It was his duty to assist her, and to clean the blood off the plates when she was finished.
His father’s monthly checks still arrived, but the man who wrote them maintained an absolute radio silence that swallowed all hope of rescue.
It was around this time that he found Trixie—or rather, that Trixie decided to retrieve him from the scrap heap of social inconsequence, for reasons which were still mysterious to him. She provided him with an excuse to spend more time away from the house, which was almost as good as spending time with her. It was a precarious but practicable existence, until it became clear that his father’s checks would not be enough to sustain it. He would have to get a job.
So three weeks ago he waited by his high school’s front gate for the final class to let out. He spotted Trixie coming down the steps and remained there until she strolled up to
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