Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction Read online

  So by age nine, I wished he cared a little less. The holidays, especially, seemed to bring him to an even higher state of alert. One Christmas, Dad brought home the usual scrawny New Jersey pine tree and Dad, Mom, my little brother Stevie, and I decorated it with bulbs, balls, and tinsel until the holes were disguised and it sparkled with warmth and joy.

  “It looks so pretty!” Mom said.

  Dad nodded. “But we have to make sure it’s watered every day and the lights don’t stay on too long.”

  “I know,” Mom sighed. “I’m not one of the children.”

  “Why can’t we leave it on all day, Dad?” I said. Geez, we get something beautiful, and five minutes later he wants to turn it off.

  “You want to know why? I’ll tell you why. Come here.” He pulled me to the tree, and I knew I shouldn’t have asked. “Here. Touch this bulb.” As I reached my finger out, he barked, “Carefully!” I tapped my forefinger on the hot bulb. “Aha!” he crowed. “Think of it! All that heat—a hundred bulbs pressed against ten thousand dry pine needles. One needle’s just a little too dry or one bulb a tad too hot, the heat builds up. Hour after hour. Hotter and hotter. The needles smoke. Then—poof!” He clapped his hands so I jumped out of my skin and seemed to fly around the ceiling. Dad’s face shone with horrified exhilaration. “The whole tree goes up. Tree resin is like gasoline! A giant ball of fire. Flames licking the ceiling. The whole house will be gone in minutes.”

  “Shouldn’t we turn it off?”

  “Not yet. I’ll keep an eye on it.” Then he whispered to me, “When I’m at work, you remind your mother to water it to keep it moist. Can you do that?”

  “Suppose it catches fire when we’re not looking?”

  Dad was pleased that I saw the danger. “You’re right! You’re one hundred percent right! That’s why we’re going to have a family fire drill! Right now. We need an emergency escape plan. Our lives are at stake! Stairway here. Hmm…windows.” His mind clicked. Finally he nodded. “Come on, Stevie. Dot too. We’ll go upstairs to our bedrooms and pretend there’s a big fire down here.”

  I was excited. I loved escapes. Dad’s stories were horrible, but there was always a way out.

  Mom sighed. “I have supper to start. There’s—”

  “No, no, come on. We have to think this out before an emergency happens. Suppose the stove catches on fire?”

  “I’d turn it off?” Mom suggested, as he shooed us upstairs.

  “Now,” Dad said, “When I yell ‘Fire!’ we’ll see if you boys can open your bedroom window to crawl out on the porch roof, OK?”

  I said, “Why don’t we just run downstairs?”

  Dad stared at me like I was an idiot. “Because the hallway will be a sheet of flames. The stairs will be crackling like the pit of hell, and when you step on them, they’ll collapse and you’ll fall into the basement. Burning wood will cover you and sizzle you like a pork rind. That’s why!”

  When I could breathe again, I gasped, “How will you and Mom get out?”

  Dad held up a forefinger. “We go out the window to the porch from our bedroom. See? We’ll meet out there and all climb down the wrought-iron porch posts.” Climb down the porch posts? Wow! This was great! Just like commandos or burglars. At the word “Fire,” I’d be out there like a weasel. Mom wasn’t happy. She didn’t figure to be a good climber.

  Dad said, “That’s the four of us. Now we have to figure out how to evacuate your Grandma.” As he mulled this over, I could see his problem. Her bedroom was on the other side of the hallway—no porch roof there. And she had that bad leg. I pictured her stumping away from the flames, moaning and throwing up her hands. I could tell everybody else was thinking like me. Stevie began to cry. “Gramma’s gonna burn up!” he wailed.

  Dad, ever resourceful, said, “Why, we’ll carry her out!” He clapped my shoulder. “You and me, son. The men will do it!”

  Right, I thought. We’ll dash through the flames of hell in the hallway, lift fat Grandma from bed screaming and fainting, and stagger back through the flames to my bedroom, then shove her out the window onto the snowy roof and make her and Mom climb down the ironwork. Whew! This was unexpected. Dad never did anything so daring. I was ready to give it a try, although I was pretty certain if Mom didn’t object to the rehearsal, Grandma sure would. She’d whack me with her cane if I ever tried to shove her onto the roof.

  “OK,” I said, “Let’s go!” I unlatched my window, shoved it up, and started to crawl out.

  “What are you doing?” Dad grabbed me by my belt and yanked me back.

  “Sorry. I forgot to wait for your signal.”

  “Are you crazy?” he said. “There’s ice out there. You’ll slip and break your neck!”

  And Then

  Joe Novara

  Epoi?” Seems like that’s all I ever say: and then, and then, and then.

  “Un chilo di sanguine.”

  Reach and grab.

  Throw the produce on the scale.

  Add it up.

  “E poi?”

  Take the money.

  Next.

  I can do this in my sleep. I do do it in my sleep. So boring. But I can’t help looking, checking eyes all the time. Take that lady, third in line. Always comes to my side of the stand when we set up on Tuesday and Saturday. Always the sly smile when I drop the change in her right hand, the one without all the rings. Got so many on her left hand—hope she takes them off in bed. She’d give her husband a concussion if she rolled over and whacked him. Would serve him right, so unsure of himself that he has to load enough gold on her hand to give her carpal tunnel or something. Still…she smiles at me. Maybe the rings are meant to remind her. “E poi, signora?”

  Nice legs, the little I can see when she struts away. But, just another customer…I hope.

  You get to recognize some of them from each day’s market. Monday, Piazza Garibaldi. The old lady with the football-shaped pooch. Looks like he’s going to roll over when he lifts his leg on one of our stands. After all these years, he’s probably baptized every single table leg. Then she only buys rucola. One bunch.

  And Wednesday, at the Indepedenza, there’s the zucchini guy—two kilo a pop. What can he do with all that zucchini, even in a whole week? I swear he looks a little green around the ears. Is he eyeing me, or is it my imagination?

  I smile. I wink. Pretend to know them. They’re all just hands, money, and an open bag…like baby birds screeching for me to drop food into their gaping mouths. Or are they?

  Look at my boss, Renzo, eyes moving all the time. Hands and eyes. Shouting in his booming voice, “Un regalo! Due mango per sei euro!” Some gift. We normally sell them at two euros each. But this is his life, learned from his father. He can’t stop. If we grab a grappa after the truck is packed and everything is ready for tomorrow, even then he can’t just be still. He keeps scanning the bar, talking in short sentences, like a machine gunner spitting bullets, shouting at everyone who walks in. Is that what I’ll be like after thirty years of humping artichokes and onions and pears from square to square around the city? Can’t sit still. Don’t know how to relax. I’m getting that way after just a year and it’s not from hawking zucchini.

  They asked where I wanted to go after I fingered the shooter. South Dakota? Alberta? I grew up hearing Neapolitan. I could speak a little Italian. Why not hide in plain sight? In a busy Italian city? In for a nickel, in for a dime…I said how about being a street vendor who moves around town? Really keep it loose.

  So they hooked me up with Renzo. I throw around a little slang. Got just enough Italian to sound like I never finished grade school, and I fit right in. But I can’t stop looking. Not like Renzo, looking for customers, for someone snatching a pear. Me, I’m checking out the eyes that hold a fraction longer than necessary, the someone I notice more than once, cutting me a glance. Gotta watch…all the time. Make sure I don’t see the same face, especially on different days at different market sites.

  Here comes that strange
American-looking guy who puts his grandson in the grocery cart and then hand carries the food. I shouldn’t have to worry about him tagging me. Not someone wearing a New York Yankees baseball hat and lugging a kid around. Where does he think he is? In New York? Some people just don’t get the picture. But I like the way he takes his time. Very calm. Compares prices. When he comes here, he always gets our best buys. He’s mellow. Probably old enough to be retired. That’s what I want—just enough money to be comfortable, maybe grow my own vegetables and never have to see another fruit stand…watch eyes, faces.

  Wait a minute. What is he doing here? This is Piazza Minitti. He’s supposed to be at Porta Genova on Thursdays. He’s staring at me. Pissed. Oh, man, here it comes.

  What’s he sputtering in broken Italian? Tangerines? The tangerines had seeds. Says I told him they were seedless. His kid almost choked on a seed. Yeah. Lighten up, man. I’ll make it up to you. Stop making a scene. Everyone in the piazza is staring. Not good. Not good, buddy. You’re drawing attention to me. Not what I need. I gotta distract him. Calm him down. Here. Here’s a perfectly ripe mango I was saving for myself. This is for the kid, okay? I think the guy understands my Italian.

  He looks down. No kid. We both stop. Do a quick scan. I call to Renzo, “Torno, subito,” and then I hustle into the crowd killing two birds with one stone—getting away from the jerk and finding the kid.

  After a minute, I spot the brat reaching for a strawberry. Spinning slowly I scan for the navy blue Yankee cap. I whistle. He turns. I point down.

  We both start talking at the same time. “Hey, goddam, man, sorry about the tangerines. I messed up yesterday…” Down on his knees, gramps is hugging the toddler, going, “Gott im Himmel, Heinrich du nicht fär…” Then we both stop in mid sentence, stare at each other. I’m thinking, you’re not American. He must realize that I’m not really Italian. I watch first surprise, then fear, and finally something like pleading play across his face. He must be in the game some kind of way, too—spook, undercover, on the lam? What is he asking me? Don’t blow my cover?

  He rises slowly, does a palm-down slicing motion. I nod, barely. He picks up the kid and walks away. We won’t be seeing each other again. One less set of eyes to register.

  A minute later I’m behind the barricade of asparagus and oranges and palms of bananas.

  “Mezzo chilo di pere.”

  Grab. Weigh. “E poi?”

  Dead Man’s Float

  Sally Bellerose

  Dad is playing dead, and I’m not in the mood for it. He’s sprawled out on the La-Z-Boy, as usual. He lies with his head dangling to one side and his mouth open. His color is not too good to begin with, so it’s pretty convincing. I’m on the couch knitting and watching Oprah.

  “Cut it out, Dad.” I poke his shin with the tip of my sneaker, not hard, but disrespectfully. Hey, he’s playing dead and he’s already been asked politely to knock it off twice.

  Fortunately for my goal of knitting a few uninterrupted rows, the slightest grin crosses his lips. Otherwise I would have to get off the couch and check for pulse and breath. This is one of his better performances. His chest barely rises and, since I’m not responding to death, every once in a while he throws in a little twitch to demonstrate that he could be in the throes of something significant, but short of dead, like a heart attack or a stroke maybe. He’s had several of each.

  “You’re not funny. How are you going to like it if you actually do kick the bucket and everyone just keeps knitting or reading the paper?” Actually, if I were in a better mood, I would think his stunt funny.

  Sometimes I play dead myself. It’s a good way to fall asleep. It’s a family tradition that started on Haviland Pond, where Dad taught us to swim. The dead-man’s float was lesson one. Are all kids taught the simple joy of lying in the water on their bellies, faces submerged, that other world gone for a minute, two minutes, then to let the air out the side of their mouths slowly and stretch it to three minutes, with practice close to four? Four minutes to straddle here and there. The object of the game to fool a nearby swimmer, preferably a sibling, into thinking we were gone for good, then to spring out of the water at the last possible second screaming and gasping for air. What could be funnier? Unless it was the thrill of being on the receiving end of the game, “finding” your sibling dead in the water, wading over to the corpse, touching the wet shoulder, that luscious horror of that short window of time when you’ve convinced yourself that maybe, just maybe, she was dead, and congratulated yourself for facing the dead body with such courage.

  My sister Kathy stops by on her way to choir practice. She comes into the house without knocking. “Hi, Dad.” She kisses the top of his head.

  “He’s dead,” I say.

  “That’s too bad,” she says. “I brought blueberry pie.” She takes off her coat and puts a pastry box on an end table next to Dad. This makes his eyelids flicker and his mouth twitch. She straightens his head and gives me a dirty look. “He’s going to get a crick in his neck.”

  “He’s dead,” I say. “And you’re weird.”

  “She’s knitting a scarf for a dead man,” she whispers in his ear. “And she calls me weird.”

  His eyes pop open. “Boo,” he says loud while her face is still an inch away.

  “Dad!” she squeals, making his day.

  His eyes dart to the pastry box. “Is it made with that crap?” He means Splenda, the sugar substitute.

  “No,” she says.

  “Liar,” I say. I’ve been sitting with a dead man all afternoon and my sister steals the “boo.”

  The Taste of Failure

  Andrew S. Williams

  The Greatest Marvel of the Twenty-First Century sat on Raylen Kosta’s plate between a half-eaten sprig of asparagus and a cooling mass of potatoes au gratin. The morose expression on Raylen’s face, however, was at odds with the illustrious occasion.

  “Where did we go wrong, Patrick?” He prodded the Marvel with his fork. “When did our dreams turn to madness?”

  Patrick Farlin shifted in his chair and fidgeted with his long white lab coat. He was young but brilliant, and already one of the most renowned geneticists in the world. He leaned toward his boss, elbows resting on the table, in violation of everything his mother had taught him. “I don’t get your meaning, sir.”

  “This!” Raylen waved a hand at the opulent space around them. The restaurant had not yet opened, but the surroundings were ready and poised, awaiting the flood of diners soon to come: Dozens of tables lay under crisp white tablecloths, surrounded by an honor guard of elegant mahogany chairs. Above, a chandelier with a hundred lights and a thousand glittering crystals cast its sparking light across the wide space, while in the background, the chords of Bach’s third Brandenburg Concerto (First Movement) drifted through the air.

  But at the moment, none of it mattered to Raylen Kosta. For all he cared, he might as well as have been sitting on a lawn chair in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven.

  “I was the most well-known critic of my generation, Patrick. The New York Times restaurant review had nothing on me. When I walked in, four-star chefs would tremble in fear!” He pointed at the ceiling as he spoke, his words thundering in Patrick’s ears. “A word of praise from me could make a chef’s entire career; a few words of scorn, and restaurant chains would tumble! And now this?” He slammed his fist down on the table, and Patrick jumped. “I’ll be the laughingstock of an entire industry! The entire world!”

  “Surely, you’re too hard on yourself, sir,” Patrick said, trying to comfort him. “This restaurant is the most novel concept in a generation, perhaps in the entire history of restaurants. Foodies will flock from the world over merely to get on the waiting list!”

  “And when they arrive, they will taste nothing but failure!” Raylen pointed at the delicately prepared flank of meat, seared on the outside and cut open to reveal a succulent pink interior. The millionaire gourmet appeared to be on the verge of a breakdown: His graying hair was frazzled,
and dark circles lined his eyes. “We have welded science and the culinary arts in a way that has never been done before, and what will they say?” A tear ran down Raylen’s face. “They will say—”

  “They will say,” Patrick interrupted, “that they dined on the most exotic cuisine in history! From woolly mammoth to pterodactyl wings to brachiosaurus steaks! The tissue we have grown using DNA once thought lost forever—”

  “Perhaps it was better lost,” Raylen snarled. “Your team succeeded, Patrick, but the shortcuts…oh, the shortcuts.” He wiped moisture from his cheek. “When you told me the gaps in the gene sequences could be filled with modern DNA…”

  “It made sense at the time,” Patrick said. “The genome in question was already sequenced. Many of the species we were working with were related to modern avians. And it worked!”

  “But the consequences! Oh, we who tamper with nature are foolish beings indeed!” Raylen hung his head, sobbing onto one of the most expensive meals ever created. “What mockeries hath science wrought…”

  “Please, sir,” said Patrick. “Be reasonable. Perhaps the chef can—”

  “Oh, Patrick, you fool, the problem is in the very essence of the meat, not the trappings of preparation.” Raylen did not look up. “Millions of dollars, years of development, and for what?!” Tears flowed down his face, threatening to drown the remnants of the asparagus, and doubtless infusing the carefully prepared meat with an undesirable saltiness.

  “Don’t you see?” Raylen cut a piece, took a careful bite, and chewed it, then threw his fork across the table in disgust. “It tastes like chicken!” he wailed, pounding his fists against the table in despair. “Every single thing you’ve created tastes like chicken!”