Everything You Need: Short Stories Read online

  Recorded events commence at 20:38, according to time code, though there is evidence that the motion-sensitive CCTV camera failed to trigger at some earlier point, as a FIRST MAN is already in vision at the start of the recording. He is visible from behind, sitting against the edge of the terrace.

  At 20:38 a SECOND MAN enters the field of view. He is bulky, wearing denim jeans and a plaid shirt, and in middle age. He is carrying a supermarket paper sack under each arm, with some difficulty. When he gets close to the barbeque one of these starts to slip. He elects to place both hurriedly on the ground.

  MAN 2: Fuck me that’s some heavy shit. I never realized how heavy all this shit is. You could have helped, man.

  The FIRST MAN grunts.

  MAN 2: Yeah, right. Wear the young ones out first, huh? Like dad always said. I get why, now.

  Man 2 puts his hands on his hips and looks out into the darkness over the lake.

  MAN 2: Fuck, bro. How long has it been? I mean... how long? Seriously. I was trying to work it out on the way here. But it’s like, I’m driving, and it’s dark and actually I’m pretty fucking drunk. ’Course we don’t have to worry about traffic on the roads, right? That’s one thing. But let’s work it out. I’m forty-seven, which is a fucking joke in itself. How did that happen? And the last time I remember us all being here, the entire family and cousins and dah dah dah, is... It was the year before I moved to Chicago, right? I was twenty nine. Which is like... a zillion years ago. No, hang on, come on. Forty-seven. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight? No way. It can’t be nearly thirty fucking years. Oh. Eighteen years, duh. Shit. That’s still long, man. That’s still really fucking long. Seems like it was, okay not yesterday, but, you know, not... that long.

  Man 2 is silent for a few moments, swaying slightly.

  MAN 2: That’s some pretty easy math I was fucking up there. I’m amazed we got here in one piece.

  Man 1 grunts again. Man 2 turns back to look at him.

  MAN 2: Right. Whatever. Let’s do this.

  He squats down and starts removing things from the bags he put on the floor. He takes out a large bag. He takes out a smaller bag wrapped in white plastic.

  MAN 2: Burgers, plain and simple. Steak? Ha. No fucking chance. When’s the last time you saw a steak? Right. Steak would have not been... realistic. Suits me fine. I always thought burgers kicked steak’s ass on a barbecue anyway.

  He peers down at the barbecue.

  MAN 2: Basic fucking grill this is, man. Guess you got to make the best of what you got though, right? If it was enough for Dad to work his magic, it’s good enough for us.

  He takes out another, lighter bag.

  MAN 2: Buns. Uh, right. Yeah. Buns. Fuck - did I remember mustard?

  He leans down to rootle through the second bag. Loses his balance and keels over until he is lying on the grass.

  MAN 2 [MUFFLED]: Crap.

  After a moment he moves his head, peering.

  MAN 2: Ha. Found the mustard, though. And the JD, halle-fucking-lujah.

  He pushes himself up to a seating position and pulls a bottle of Jack Daniels from the nearest bag. He takes a large gulp, and holds it out toward Man 1. No response.

  MAN 2: Good call, man. You’re wasted enough. Okay. Let’s get these burgers rock and rolling.

  He gets up, surprisingly fluently, and starts unpacking bags onto the support area around the barbecue.

  MAN 2: Duh. Might want to start the fire, right?

  He picks up one of the larger bags, tears vaguely at one end, and eventually opens it. He pours charcoal into the grill. Then brings up a small tin, which he up-ends and squirts liberally over the coals. He pulls a box of matches from his pocket. Lights one, tosses it in. The fuel ignites noisily, momentarily whiting out the image on screen.

  MAN 2: Whoops.

  The image settles and the sound of flames dies down, to show Man 2 lighting a cigarette off another match. Man 1 grunts again, louder this time.

  Man 2: Are you kidding? You’re giving me a hard time about smoking — when the world’s fucked to shit? Fuck it. Not to mention we’re in the fucking outdoors, dude. Lake fucking Tahoe, man. First cigarette I ever had was by this lake, matter of fact. Your eighteenth birthday, did you ever know that? I remember... I remember you were standing with Mom and Dad, must have been pretty much right here, and I’d got this half pack of smokes somebody had given me at school, who was it: yeah, Jimmy Garwhen, fucking asshole he turned out to be. And I’m fifteen and Dad’s let me have two beers because it’s a special special occasion and I’m thinking fuckin’ A, this is the life. This is the grown-up thing, right here. And I went around the back of...

  He indicates vaguely with his hand toward beach houses outside our FOV.

  MAN 2: ... and lit one up. Coughed like a fucking maniac. Had two more later, though. I worked at it. You’ve got to work at that shit, right? Even bad habits don’t come easy.

  He regards the fire for a moment.

  MAN 2: You know what, I’m just going to put these babies right on there now. Going to take forever otherwise. I’m hungry. You hungry?

  MAN 1 grunts, louder this time.

  MAN 2: Right. Bet you are.

  He opens the white plastic bag and takes out a couple of patties. Dithers for a moment, then holds both in one hand.

  MAN 2: Dude... the barbecue sauce. Dad’s special blend, the secret recipe, made by my own good self. But you got to remind me of this shit. If we’re relying on me to get this thing done right, we’d be better off chewing on twigs.

  He picks up a plastic bottle. He squirts the contents onto the burgers. And his hands, by accident. And his jeans. He slaps the burgers on the grill portion of the barbecue. There is a hissing sound and flames leap up, whiting out the screen again. He rears back, staggering slightly.

  MAN 2: Guess they’re going to be pretty fucking chargrilled, huh.

  He picks up the bottle of Jack Daniels and comes to sit on the wall fairly near Man 1. He takes a drag of his cigarette and flicks it out toward the lake. Thinks a moment.

  MAN 2: Ah, shit.

  He gets up, trudges into the darkness out of sight. There’s a faint splashing sound. Then he trudges back into vision, holding something, slumps back down near to the other man.

  MAN 2: Still can’t do it. Nobody here, whole world’s gone to shit, and I can’t flick a butt in the lake. Not this lake. You know, in my whole life, I never smoked in front of Mom and Dad? Not once. Even at Dad’s funeral, I’m shaking and totally fucked up and I still went and hid behind a tree so Mom wouldn’t see even, though I was forty-two years old. But you, you used to do it right there at the table. And then you gave up smoking and they’re all “You rock, son”. Though of course I didn’t give it up. Ha. Looking back, I really do not regret the decision not to give up. That turned out okay for me. But I still remember you smoking the first time some year, you were like seventeen or something, right at that picnic table over there, and it’s Thanksgiving as usual and everyone’s hanging out and you just pull out the Marlboros and light up like it ain’t no thing. And nobody bats an eyelid. That was cool, man. You’re good at that shit. Seen you pull that all your life but I never learned the lesson. And now... nobody... gives... a... damn. I could drop my pants and fuck a dog in the middle of the street and nobody... would... care.

  Man 2 takes another pull off the bottle of alcohol – holds it out to Man 1, who grunts, but doesn’t take it.

  MAN 2: Burgers starting to smell good, though, right?

  He laboriously get to his feet and lurches toward the barbecue. He picks up a burger with his fingers and turns it over.

  MAN 2: Holy FUCK that’s hot.

  Nonetheless, he does the same with the second. Then flaps his hand about, before slowly stopping. He is quiet for a full minute before speaking more quietly.

  MAN 2: You know what I regret? Not coming that one year. When I was twenty fucking nine. I don’t even know what the fuck that was about. Okay, I’d gone to Chicago and it would
have been a lot further to come, but... I still don’t actually know why I didn’t do it. I could have got on a plane, whatever. I guess it was an age thing, maybe. You think you’re getting too old for the family-all-together shit. Plus Julie didn't get why I’d do it and she didn’t want to come and... I really wish I’d come, man. And the next year too. I remember you calling me that second time, you were standing here with Mom and Dad and eating burgers and I was... I don’t know, in a bar, I think, drinking away the fact the dumb bitch Julie had then left me, I guess, and you called and I didn’t pick up because I was wasted and I figured you’d be wanting to give me a hard time for not making it to the big rah-rah family event... and in fact you just left a message saying “Wish you were here.”

  He turns back to look at the seated man.

  MAN 2: I got back into it after that but then Paul started skipping every other year and Marie did the same the other way around and the cousins stopped bothering and it just seemed like it was never the same as it had been when we were kids, except for Mom and Dad were always here. Feels sometimes like it was my fault it went that way. Like I fucked the whole thing up. Did I? Was it down to me? If I hadn’t skipped those two years, would it have kept... shit. Whatever. I don’t know. You think you know every damned thing when you’re young. You think great, thanks for all the years and I love you still but I’m out here on my own now. Big fucking mistake. If you got a family and it likes getting together once a year... just fucking do it. Bite the bullet and get on the fucking plane. There’s plenty of time and a million different ways to be an asshole. Don’t feel you got to get them all done at once.

  He leans forward and peers at the barbecue.

  MAN 2: Getting there, bro. Getting there. Better get the rest of the road on the show. And at least we’re here now, right? That’s something. And that’s down to me. If I hadn’t come got you, it wouldn’t have happened. Score one to me. ’Course getting there earlier would have been even better, but that’d have meant getting my shit together and not being a fucking asshole, and it’s too late for that now.

  He starts pulling stuff out of the bags on the floor. Buns, a bag of lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard, two paper plates. Lays them out on the side. He starts moving things around, trying to things in a particular order.

  MAN 2: You not going to do this? You always did this part. Me, I’d’ve probably just picked the meat up in my fingers, left to myself. You were always up in it with the got-to-be-just-so and do-it-right. And you were right, as I came to appreciate in the fullness of fucking time. And you know what? You know... what?

  His hands stop moving. He has started to cry.

  MAN 2: This shit changes nothing. You were right. Do everything just so. Do it right. If the rest of the world can’t be fucked, then fuck ’em. Do your thing. Do it right.

  He stands, no longer trying to do anything, shoulders heaving. Then he sniffs, pulls his sleeve across his face.

  MAN 2: Okay then. Glad we got that straight.

  Then suddenly he looks off to his right. Stands absolutely still, and silent, for twenty seconds.

  MAN 2 (quietly): You hear that?

  He’s silent again, staring off into the darkness.

  MAN 2: You hear your buddies? Off down along the shore. Seems like maybe there’s braindeads still in these woods after all. I knew there would be. Told you so. I never thought those things were as dumb as everybody makes out— and they’re getting smarter now, too. Lots smarter. And they gotta being loving that smell, right? Burgers cooking in the open air. Cooked by someone you know, in a place you’ve been to so many times it feels like home. There is no food in the fucking world tastes like a burger eaten with people you’ve known your whole life. That, my friends, is the word of God.

  He grabs the bottle of alcohol and takes another big gulp, before shouting into the darkness.

  MAN 2: You like that smell? ’Course you do. That’s meat cooking, and it’s meat done right. Old Man Stegnaro’s special sauce. Fucking shitheads just gnawing dead shit. That’s not how it’s done, don’t you fucking get it?

  He’s quiet for a moment, looking off along the shore.

  MAN 2: Fuck, dude. There’s a lot of them. Not sure we got enough to go ’round all these fuckers. ’Course you probably won’t be eating your burger and be honest with you I don’t really want mine, what with the ground round having come out of your actual fucking leg, but that’s the kind of joke you would have loved, bro – say it ain’t so. You make do with what you got, right? You were always telling me that. And you’d have made me bring all this other shit if you’d been alive to have a say-so, and so that’s what I done. Standards must be maintained. You can turn the Stegnaro brothers’ world to crap but we ain’t coming down to your level. Still here, still standing, still doing it right.

  He looks off along the shore and cackles triumphantly – gesturing toward himself as if instigating a fight. He addresses people out of frame.

  MAN 2: You want some? You fucking want some? If you’re going to eat, you dead fucking assholes, then do it right.

  He holds the barbecue sauce bottle above his head and squirts it liberally over himself.

  MAN 2: Fucking deadheads.

  At the left and right extremities of the screen, we can make out shadows of human size, lurching toward Man 2. The fire is unsettling them, but they are neither retreating or halting their progress.

  MAN 2: Yeah, yeah – ‘Oh, look at us, we just keep on coming.’ Assholes. And don’t forget the mustard.

  The encroaching shapes are now within yards of him. He picks something else up from the ground. He holds it, flips the cap, looking over at the slumped other man.

  MAN 2: Sorry I didn’t get there sooner, bro.

  He holds the thing in his hand up and squeezes, squirting something else all over his clothes and head and body. Then pulls something else out of his pocket, as he squirts the fuel over the shapes now closing in on him.

  MAN 2: I love you, man.

  He lights a match and holds it to his chest. The flare of the flames whites out the screen. Dark shapes surround him, also burning, grunting.

  MAN 2: Gonna be pretty fucking chargrilled, huh.

  A shape reaches out toward the camera.

  TAPE ENDS.

  The Stuff That Goes On In Their Heads

  I first heard the name on Monday night, when I was putting him to bed. Kathy was out for an early dinner and catch-up with a friend, and so it had been the Ethan-and-Daddy Show from late afternoon. The recurring plot of this regular series boils down to me preparing one of the pasta dishes which have gained my son’s tacit approval (and getting him to focus on eating it before it turns into a congealed mass), and the two of us then watching his allotted one-per-day ration of Ben 10: Alien Force. After its conclusion I coax him up to the bathroom and into the bath — against sustained and imaginative resistance — followed by the even more protracted process of getting him to leave the bat, Ethan having in the interim realized that the nice, warm tub is the best place in the world to be, and an environment he is not prepared to leave at any cost. Then there’s the putting-on-of-pajamas and the brushing-of-the-teeth and various other tasks which sound (and should be) simple and quick but always seem to end up taking forever — little tranches of time which add up to really quite a lot of time when taken together, time that I’ll never get back. We had Ethan relatively late in life (he’s six, making me exactly forty years his senior) but what the older parent may lack in energy and vim is hopefully tempered by what they bring in terms of perspective, and so I understand that it won’t be so very long before my presence in the bathroom (or anywhere else) will not be enjoyed or even tolerated by a child who’ll grow up faster than seems possible. Two more lots of six years, and he’ll be leaving home. I get that. I try, therefore, to take all these little tribulations in good spirit, and to enjoy their fleeting presence in my life. But still, at the end of a long day, you do kind of wish they’d just brush their bloody teeth, by themselv
es, without all the stalling and prevarication.

  For the love of god.

  Eventually we got clear of the bathroom and processed in state to Ethan’s bedroom — him leading the way, regal in pint-sized dressing gown, chattering about this and that. He resisted getting into bed for a while, but without any real purpose and in a pro forma manner, as if he knew this section of the evening was merely part of a ritual and he was doing it for my sake more than for himself. Eventually he yawned massively and headed toward the bed. He was tired. He always is on Mondays and Wednesdays because of after-school club. The trick with tired children is to resist in a passive, judo-style fashion, putting up no specific barriers for them to kick against, instead letting them use their own strength against themselves. This, at least, I have learned.

  When he was finally tucked under the covers I asked him how his day had been. I’d meant to do this earlier, but forgot, which meant the enquiry was doomed to failure. Ethan appears to blank his working day within minutes of leaving the school gates, as if what happens there has no more reality than a dream, and melts like ice under the fierce sun of The Outside World. Or perhaps the opposite is true, and that theres’ a fundamental reality about the universe of the school that is impossible to convey to we shades who live in the unconvincing hinterland outside.

  Either way, he appeared as usual to have zero recollection of what had occurred between nine a.m. and four p.m. that day. When pushed for a definitive account, however, he issued a brief statement saying that it had been ‘fine’.

  ‘And how was after-school club?’

  Many of the kids who go to The Reynolds School have parents who both work. This means the school runs a slick and profitable range of activities to tide tots over from the end of actual school to the point where their stressed-out handlers can pick them up. Ethan’s after-school diversion on Mondays is swimming. This is a bit pointless, I can’t help thinking. Partly because Monday happens also to be when his class does swimming anyway — and so all his piscine endeavors are concentrated on the same day; mainly because said classes boil down to the children spending most of the half hour shivering on the edge of the pool, waiting for their brief turn to splash about. Ethan’s already pretty confident in the water — courtesy of a vacation in Florida last year — but untutored in terms of strokes, beyond a hectic doggy-paddle that is full of sound and fury but conveys little in the way of forward motion. We hoped the after-school club would help refine this. So far, he seems to be going backwards.