A Web of Black Widows Read online

  Ed came in first. He took off his cap, wiped his brow with the back of his arm, then settled into his seat at the head of the table. There was a ring in his hair where the hat had rested. He tucked the yellow napkin into his shirt as he always did, then dished a heap of eggs on his plate. He never looked at her.

  Say something, spider.

  Jonathon came in next, his hair still wet from the shower. Nelson followed, still wiping the sleep out of his eyes. The boys ate quickly, not saying much except pass the food, and can I have some more, Mom. Ed ate more slowly, but he ate big bites, and soon the food was gone. "I'm going into town to get some more hog feed," he said.

  He put his hat back on, then stepped outside. A moment later she heard the rumble of the Ford. The boys scooped up their lunch boxes, said bye Mom, and were out the door. She was alone, and the walls whispered to her again. It was Ed's mother's voice.

  "He's a really good man, dear. I know you don't want the baby, but you'll be happy. I was happy with Gary, you know. In time, you get used to it."

  Get used to it, little spider.

  Nancy stood at the living room window and looked out at the long stretch of dirt road that split their cornfield from the Bausch's. It was all flat farmland for miles, and if you squinted at the road, it seemed like it kept going until the end of the earth.

  She could get on that road. She could keep going until the end of the earth. The keys to the Buick were on the kitchen counter.

  Go, go, little spider.

  When the pregnant woman entered the restaurant, Steven felt a cold chill sweep up his back. There was so much resemblance to Julie. Yes, this woman was bigger. Yes, her hair was a slightly lighter shade of brown. But the fierce angle of the cheekbones. The pinprick dimple in the chin. The way the lips parted like she was always ready to say something. He wanted to hold her and run away at the same time.

  She looked down the aisle. The customers and the waitress were eyeing her the same way they looked at him. Suspicion. Contempt. Who was this crazy lady in the blue bathrobe? It made Steven want to stand and shout at them. Don't look at her that way. She's better than you. All of you. But he couldn't. His heart started going crazy. Sweat broke out on his brow.

  The woman seemed immune to the stares. She strode up to him, her gaze never wavering from his face. Her belly brushed up against the table.

  "You do tattoos?" she said.

  She had the same kind of Midwestern accent Julie had. He swallowed. "That's right."

  "I'd like one."

  He glanced at her belly, realized what he was doing, and quickly looked down at his glass of water. A bead of moisture ran down the glass and formed a tiny spot on the table. He wiped it out with his thumb. "Don't know if you should do that," he said.

  "I want one."

  Steven glanced uneasily around the diner. Everybody was looking at them. "Maybe you could keep your voice down."

  "I want one."

  He picked up his menu, stared at the words he couldn't read. She stood in front of his table a long time, but he didn't put the menu down. Finally, she turned and walked outside.

  He opened the blinds. She was getting into a caramel-colored Buick with Iowa plates. He waited to see if she would leave, but she just sat there. The waitress took his order, and he told her he wanted the special. She scribbled it on a pad without ever looking at him. The food came quickly, along with the tab. He took his time eating, every now and then glancing out the window. The woman was still there.

  He decided he couldn't wait around. There was only so much daylight and the waitress kept glaring at him. He left a ten on the table and walked outside. A breeze smelling of dust and dry earth blew across the parking lot, stinging his eyes. Down the road, where the town stopped and the cornfields began, he saw a tiny cyclone stir up dirt and disappear. He hadn't taken two steps toward his car when the woman got out of her Buick.

  "I'd like a tattoo," she said.

  His keys jangled as he pulled them out of his pocket. He had trouble finding the right one. So many keys. There was a time when he used to know what they were all for.

  "I told you no," he said, unlocking the driver side door.

  "How much it cost?"

  He looked at her. She had funny way of looking at him. She hardly ever blinked. If he looked closely into her brown eyes, he could see himself, tiny and obscured. He didn't want to do this. He wanted to get back in his van and drive. Julie had eyes just like that. Christ. "Five hundred dollars a tattoo," he said.

  "You're lying."

  "Sorry. Find somebody cheaper."

  He opened the door and was about to step inside when her fingers clamped down on his arm. He froze. He didn't like to be touched by anyone except Julie, and she was gone. But there was another feeling in there, too. A stirring deep inside that made it hard to breathe.

  "Wait," she said.

  When he turned, she was reaching into the front pocket of her bathrobe. She pulled out a wad of cash so thick it shocked him. The bills were folded over and tied with a red rubber band.

  "Here," she said, handing it to him.

  "I can't take that," he said.

  "I want a tattoo."

  "What is your problem?"

  "I want it."

  "Why?"

  "I just do. You take the money and give me one."

  He yanked his arm away and climbed into his van, slamming the door. Crazy woman. The inside was littered with fast food packaging and smelled of cigarettes. He was shaking when he put the key in the ignition. He was aware that she was still out there. That she was standing right outside. That she hadn't moved.

  He turned the key and the old van sputtered and came awake.

  Doing tattoos was the only thing in life he was good at. It made him feel good doing it for people. It also made him forget about himself for a while, as he lost himself in the design, and that was always a good thing. He hadn't done any since Julie died, not even one, but he wanted to feel good again. He wanted to forget.

  He looked at the woman. Her expression had not changed. Her eyes were wide, expectant.

  After throwing six bags of hog feed into the back of his truck, Ed Carroll drove his Ford the extra twenty miles to New Falls, crossing the Wisconsin state line. He had a tuna fish sandwich at Smoky Weather Diner, one of his favorite places, then drove on in to the New Falls Cryobank. It was inside a four-story building with an all-mirror exterior.

  He parked in the back, his old truck looking out of place among all the shiny new sedans. He left his hat on the seat, fixed up his hair with a comb he kept in his back pocket, then wet his finger and wiped off the dust on his nose. As he walked to the entrance, he heard the loud roar of an engine that had no muffler. A kid on a Harley streaked by, the sound hurting Ed's ears. In an instant, the white-flash of hatred swept through him.

  Kill the fucker. Punk kid. Take him down and slit his throat and bury him out back.

  And then the feeling was gone, even though all the muscles in his arms were still tense and his stomach still churned. It happened all the time, ever since Ed got back from the Gulf War. One moment he was fine, the next he was ready to kill, the taste of Iraqi sand in his mouth and feel of the scorching sun on his brow. It scared him, so he never spoke about it.

  The glass doors slid open as he approached, and he stepped into the air-conditioned lobby. He took the red-carpeted stairs up to the second floor, took a drink of water at the fountain because there was a blond woman in a lab coat coming from other direction, then, when the hall was empty, stepped through the tinted door into the New Falls Cryobank.

  There was nobody in the waiting room. The brunette behind the granite-colored counter smiled up at him.

  "Hello, Mister Carroll," she said, handing him a clear plastic cup. "Go ahead. Room is empty."

  Ed nodded wordlessly and went through the door to the room at the back. A stocky black woman in a white coat was pushing a medical cart down the aisle. She smiled at him, and he averted his eyes. He fel
t a trickle of sweat on the back of his neck. The small room at the back was open and he went inside and closed the door. His first time there, the brunette jokingly called it the Mastorbatorium. He had laughed, but what he had really wanted to do was slap her face until her nose bled.

  The room was brightly lit, no bigger than a bathroom, and the air freshener attached to the back of the door gave off the slight odor of pine. There was a plush blue love seat, small table, and a rack with magazines. He locked the door, placed the plastic cup on the table and sat down on the love seat.

  He heard a woman's laughter outside, and he felt the white-hot anger flash briefly.

  Fucking bitch what's she laughing at.

  He ignored the magazines, pulled out a slick, wrinkled page from his front pocket and smoothed it on his lap.

  In the picture were two naked black men on a warm, sandy beach. One man was much smaller and younger than the other. The older one was standing, striking a pose, his muscular body like a statue. The younger, slimmer, somehow more vulnerable one was down on his knees, giving the older man a blow job. Ed thought the young man had a beautiful body, and he loved the way his limp penis lay sideways in a nest of thick, curly black hair.

  Feeling tears well up in his eyes, Ed unzipped his fly.

  Steven helped the pregnant woman into the back of his van, then slid the door closed behind them. Since most of the windows were tinted, and since there was a black curtain partition that separated the front from the back, they were lost in darkness. He stumbled past her, caught the scent of wood smoke from her hair, and pushed through the curtain into the cab. He started the van so that everything would have adequate power, then flicked on the overheard fluorescents. The lights buzzed quietly.

  When he returned, she had already swept his sleeping bag off the thinly padded bench.

  "Lay down here, right?" she asked.

  He nodded. He turned on his electric needle so it could warm up. "What you want, anyway?"

  She looked at him with her Julie eyes. Jesus, she never looked away. The rumble of the engine made the floor tremble beneath his boots.

  "Spiders," she said.

  It seemed a little odd for such a plain-looking woman. He might have expected it at one of the concerts, but not out here among the corn folk. "You sure you don't want a dolphin or something? I could put a nice one on your ankle."

  "No. A spider."

  "Why?"

  "I like 'em."

  "You understand it's forever, huh? Even if you get rid of it later, there'll still be a scar."

  "I want a spider."

  "All right, it's your body."

  He pulled out his sketchpad from underneath a pile of magazines that people used to get ideas. Grabbed an HB pencil from the cabinet of supplies he had mounted on the wall. He flipped open the pad to a blank page. "What kind?" he asked.

  "I don't know. Not a tarantula."

  "Okay. You like black widows?"

  "I don't know. What's one look like?"

  He sketched one for her. He had done them lots of times.

  "I like that," she said.

  "Okay. Where?"

  "On my tummy," she said, and opened her robe.

  Steven froze. Not much happened inside his van surprised him. People wanted tattoos in all sorts of strange places, and after years in the business, he had gotten used to it. But he had never seen a pregnant woman's naked body in real life. From the pictures that he had seen in magazines, he had always imagined that all pregnant women looked the same. Gently sloping bellies with nice smooth skin.

  This woman didn't look that way. The lower portion of her belly, much whiter than the rest of her, was grotesquely swollen and marred by red stretch marks. Her naked breasts sagged like two plastic sacks of water. Her hips were wide and thick, and the white panties were thin enough that he saw the dark black hair between her legs.

  Julie had always wanted children. They had tried for years. She went in to a specialist first. Found out her eggs were all good. Steven went next. His sperm count was found to be low. They would have to adopt. Julie said no, she didn't want to do that. She only wanted Steven's baby. He tried to convince her, but she said it was all right. They didn't have to have children.

  His pulse quickened. Seeing spots in front of his eyes, he pointed to the bench. She climbed up, lay down with her arms at her sides. She closed her eyes.

  "Will it hurt?"

  "Not much. A little. It hurt more before the electric needles. How big you want it?"

  "I don't care."

  He was a little scared with the baby underneath. Six months earlier and he never would have done it. But now, he decided it was her choice. She could do what she wanted. Who was he to try to change her mind? Holding up the needle with his right hand, Steven placed his left on her belly, gently tracing where he would draw. He had been at it so many years, he didn't even use flash anymore before going at it with the needle; his drawings always came out the way he imagined.

  "You know," he said, "the female black widows don't usually eat the males after mating. It only happens once in a while. It's really very rare."

  "Oh," she said.

  It was the most he'd said in months. He didn't know why he said it. Maybe he'd seen it on the Discovery Channel. Julie used to like to watch those nature shows. Or maybe one of his clients told him.

  The skin was soft and warm. When he lifted his hand, he was embarrassed that his fingers left a sweat mark. He picked up a hand rag—he was glad she had her eyes closed, because it was dirty—and wiped the area dry.

  He began to draw. She winced and bit down on her lip, but kept her eyes closed. Unless someone told him to stop, Steven never did, because the only thing worse than hurting someone was putting an unfinished design on a body. When he finished, he gave her a hand mirror and told her the usual spiel: soak it in warm, soapy water several times a day for a few days to avoid infection. Almost nobody did, but he had to say it.

  "It seems kind of red," she said.

  "It's just your skin. That will go away in a few days."

  He handed her the bathrobe. Instead of putting it on, she tucked it under her arm and continued to gaze at the tattoo with the mirror. While working on the design, Steven hadn't been embarrassed. That was part of the job, seeing people with their clothes off. But now that he was finished, and she wasn't getting dressed, he was uneasy. He cleared his throat.

  "Well, I gotta get going."

  She handed him the mirror . "I like it."

  "Good. I'm glad."

  There was an agonizingly long moment when she stood there staring at him. Finally, she slipped on her robe and tied the sash. She pulled out the wad of bills and held it out to him.

  "Take what you need," she said.

  He held up his hands. "It's on the house."

  "No, really. You need to take this."

  "I won't take your money."

  "Please. I want to pay you."

  "No. I don't do this anymore."

  She took out a couple of hundreds and left them on the bench. He decided it wasn't worth fighting. Maybe he'd give it to some charity. He opened the door for her. In the time they were inside, the sun had gone down, yet there were still the last remnants of light. She thanked him, and he told her to just remember to keep the tattoo clean.

  He started the van and got back on the I-80. The way ahead was now dark, and he kept his gaze averted to avoid the headlight glare of the oncoming cars. He turned on his heater. It blew out cold air, and still hadn't warmed up when he noticed that a car behind him was flashing its lights.

  The car followed him to the shoulder. When they stopped, the headlights behind him went off, and he saw that it was the pregnant woman in her Buick. Christ. The crazy woman probably wanted the tattoo taken off now.

  She walked up to his window. He rolled it down. Cars buzzed past, the wind blowing hair in her face.

  "Something wrong?" he asked.

  "I want another one."

  "You're kid
ding."

  "No, I want another spider."

  "Lady . . ."

  "Please. I'll pay you double. Triple even."

  "I don't care about the money. I'm tired."

  "If you're tired, then why you driving?"

  Steven didn't feel like telling her why he was driving, that he was compelled to reach the Pacific Ocean. That he wanted to stand in the same spot where he met his wife ten years previously. That nothing else mattered.

  "Go home," he said.

  "Please," she begged. "Please, I really want this. Don't go."

  He had taken his jacket off and his arms were bare. She reached through the window and placed her hand on his arm. Her touch was like a bolt of lightning right to his heart.

  Ed returned to the farm shortly before two in the afternoon, the two hundred bucks he got from the New Falls Cryobank a bulge in his back pocket. Secret money. He kept it stashed in an old cigar bin in the barn for the day when he would really need it. He had over four thousand dollars. He didn't know what he was going to do with it, but he knew he would use it for something important.

  The sky was gray, the sun nowhere to be seen. It had rained briefly for a few minutes, so the smell of earth was in the air. He pulled into their dirt driveway, the truck settling into the deep grooves that lined the way.

  The first thing he noticed was that the Buick was missing. He assumed Nancy had run in to get something from the store, or maybe to pick up one of the kids because they had gotten sick. It wasn't until he was in the house, and saw no note on the kitchen table, that he knew something was wrong. She always left notes. He had punished her in the past for not doing so, and now she knew better. Always leave a note.

  He looked all around the house and didn't find it. Rage blazed through his body like a wild forest fire.

  Fucking bitch.

  Can't count on her to do anything, she'll always forget and leave him in a lurch. He would teach her good when she got back.