Aaron Frigard<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This is what I told the fetus in the red cooler. I might have been crazy, but I felt like all the time I was talking, it was listening.<\/p>\n
And so it was me and it that night, driving in the Nova on the 86.<\/p>\n
I just wanted to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name is Dave, by the way,\u201d I said. \u201cYou would\u2019ve been my brother- or sister-in-law, I guess. Your sister Janine would\u2019ve made a good sister. She\u2019s made a helluva wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cooler remained silent.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what to do, Doc,\u201d I said. \u201cThat used to be a saying of ours in our battalion. Whether it was serious or just a spider bite, whenever someone in our battalion got into trouble, we\u2019d say the same thing. \u2018You know what to do, Doc.\u2019 Funny that it didn\u2019t matter if the guy you were talking to was a medic or not. Mind if I call you Doc?\u201d<\/p>\n
Whiskey was on my teeth as I wound up the road, the engine slightly laboring. The yellow stripes brightened by my headlights. I turned down the radio. Jazz. The signal faded the further I drove. My right hand on the wheel, the empty sleeve of my other arm gently flapping in the wind. Whenever I drive I can feel my left arm still there, a tingling right down to my fingers. I lost it all up to the shoulder after high school. Da Nang.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyways, Doc. Janine\u2019s in human resources now. You can\u2019t run a business these days without good human resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen there\u2019s your mother,\u201d I sighed. \u201cHer name was Alice, but she made me — only me — call her Mrs. Parker. Parker would\u2019ve been your last name. That\u2019s an odd behavior, asking grown men to use surnames. At the shop everyone calls me Dave. Not sure anyone even knows my last name.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cooler gently rocked, tears of condensation rolling down its side.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut your father, Mr. Parker. He was a good man. He died three years ago and we still miss him. He was like a father to me. And he let everyone — including me — call him Carl.\u201d<\/p>\n
The road was dotted with dead squirrels and raccoons and other animals or pieces of animals I couldn\u2019t think the names of. And if there weren\u2019t the carcasses lit up by my headlights, it was the crimson color of their blood that streaked the highway.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe didn\u2019t want to come,\u201d I said, putting the napkin back on the dashboard. \u201cJanine that is. We didn\u2019t expect to find you the way we did. You were in the freezer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The red cooler sweat in the passenger seat. Quiet. As if contemplating how it got there or perhaps transfixed by the vibration of tires on the road. Either way it would be a prisoner no more.<\/p>\n
In the war I knew a lot of guys who spoke to corpses. But that\u2019s so much other history.<\/p>\n
Still, I felt a strange obligation to fill the empty chalice of history. The latest from the front. I have these experiences whenever I meet veterans in line at the gas station or Food Club. We\u2019re all compelled to relay the latest, like we\u2019re still brothers.<\/p>\n
The vibration of the chassis rose through the floor. The steering wheel as smooth as my wife\u2019s arms. The warm, soothing odor of gasoline.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe?\u201d I said. \u201cI work on cars now. This thing we\u2019re in now is what we call an automobile. Some call this century the Century of the Automobile, which makes it a good business to be in. Even though I know you\u2019re probably thinking that a mechanic can\u2019t work with one arm.\u201d I explained how this Nova was left at my shop by a customer who got drafted and never returned to claim it. How I\u2019d waited on him for three-and-a-half years before his niece called. All it needed was a muffler and new calipers.<\/p>\n
\u201cJanine doesn\u2019t like to drive but she likes this car. She says it feels safe, and it is. Especially compared with these Japanese cars flooding the market.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I approached the yellow deer crossing sign I flipped on the ceiling light and steered with my knee, reading the directions to the lake scribbled on the napkin. The deer crossing sign was right where Lonnie said it would be, which meant the lake was only five miles away.<\/p>\n
Earlier that day, Janine and I had returned from Mrs. Parker\u2019s funeral. I was in my black suit and my brown shoes. She was in a black dress, her arms bare and tan.<\/p>\n
She helped me out of my jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. She unpinned the empty sleeve of my white shirt and refolded it and pinned it close where I liked it, just below my shoulder.<\/p>\n
We sat in the kitchen where the midday light came through the window above Mrs. Parker\u2019s sink. On another wall hung a crinkled movie poster featuring our newly re-elected president, Ronald Reagan. The movie was Bedtime for Bonzo<\/em>, with the president posing with his arm dangling around an orangutan.<\/p>\n Janine cut the limes on the counter and was mixing the drinks with the knife. The sunlight through the kitchen window turned her brown eyes gold. There was a building next door, a twin to Mrs. Parker\u2019s. Five stories of concrete pocked with rectangular glass windows. Laundry hanging on the fire escapes. You could always tell where the bathrooms were because those windows were smaller.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you want ice with this?\u201d she said. Then she looked away, knowing it had slipped from her, momentarily, what else was in the freezer. Two days before, as we had begun cleaning out the apartment, I discovered the fetus there. It had been wrapped in a blue plastic bag and stashed under a pile of batteries. When I offered to show it to her, Janine sat Indian style on the floor and reached for her cigarettes. Then she said we\u2019d talk about it later.<\/p>\n \u201cSo now it\u2019s later,\u201d I said, taking up the knife to twirl in my warm drink.<\/p>\n She took a pull from her cigarette, looked away. \u201cFor the love of shit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho do you think it was?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho? The thing in the freezer?\u201d She set her cigarette in the ash tray and sipped her drink. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she said. \u201cProbably an older brother or something.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy older?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I was an only child. Because that bitch thought I was a devil. I don\u2019t know.\u201d She leaned back in the chair. The light from the window was catching the gold earrings I had given her for our tenth anniversary.<\/p>\n I looked around the apartment, which despite our efforts was still littered with stuff. Dusty vases. Plastic flowers, fruits. Trunks of clothes, shoes. Dolls, their paint peeling, sat on shelves. Two rugs that had been rolled up and were stacked against the wall.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do we do?\u201d I said. \u201cCall the hospital?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbout the thing?\u201d She was staring glassy eyed at her mother\u2019s cheap bottle of gin. \u201cLeave it to Alice to drop this in my lap.\u201d<\/p>\n For as long as I had known her, she only referred to her mother by her first name.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we can just bury it in the courtyard,\u201d I said. \u201cOr flush it down the toilet.\u201d<\/p>\n Janine uncrossed her legs and tiredly leaned back. \u201cI never told you this,\u201d she said, \u201cbut there\u2019s a reason she made you call her Mrs. Parker. It\u2019s because your name is David.\u201d She chortled. \u201cAlice thought you were Jewish. She said I would\u2019ve been better off marrying a milking goat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe thought I was Jewish?\u201d<\/p>\n Janine raised her eyebrows and brought the glass to her lips.<\/p>\n A thick summer breeze billowed the sheer white curtains above the sink. The windows had been open for two days and the apartment still smelled of smoke.<\/p>\n \u201cShe must have moved it from the old place,\u201d I said. \u201cI remember visiting after she moved in here. I remember we were looking for something to eat and I took hamburgers out of this freezer. What if I had taken that thing out instead?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s disgusting,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat the hell is wrong with you?\u201d At the funeral, Janine\u2019s eyes had been stoic, but now they were redder, angrier. Mrs. Parker was a suffocating presence, and now that she was gone it was as if all the onions she had suppressed in my wife were now beginning to burn her eyes.<\/p>\n I sipped my drink and my eyes dropped to the floor where I saw another unsprung mousetrap by the fridge.<\/p>\n We resumed packing, emptying the closets and stuffing everything into oversized garbage bags I had taken from my shop. She held the bags open. The walls were stained yellow by cigarette smoke.<\/p>\n The light from the living room window lit up her silky black locks. Her freckled tan calves flexed as she began to collect a bowling ball from a shelf in the closet.<\/p>\n \u201cJesus,\u201d I said. \u201cDo you want help?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n I curled my right arm around her waist to spot her. I could feel a phantom tingling where my left hand used to be. An instinct. As if it, too, were trying to wrap around her waist.<\/p>\n She waggled her hips, shaking my arm away. On her toes, arms extended. Gold bracelet slipping down her forearm. The green bowling ball slowly rolling off the top shelf.<\/p>\n I felt the urge to lift both of my hands to help her. \u201cYou should have let me do this,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n She grunted, ignoring me. With both hands she hoisted the ball perilously over her head and waddled across the room like a penguin. Nostrils flaring. The bracelet now down to her elbow. She dropped the ball from over her head and it landed on the couch where it bounced once and then gently rolled off the cushion and onto the floor.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the goddamn love of shit,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This is why I love my wife.<\/p>\n Afterwards, she pulled another cigarette from her pocketbook. She lit it and rose from the couch to inspect the piles on the floor. I had organized them into things to be given away and things to be burned.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s too much to do,\u201d she coughed. \u201cI\u2019m not sure separating helps. Junk is junk.\u201d<\/p>\n She leaned against the wall. We both stared at the floor.<\/p>\n \u201cHoney?\u201d she said. \u201cI want you to take care of it. The thing.\u201d<\/p>\n I studied the ceiling fan caked with dust. \u201cDo you have a preference for what I do?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do?\u201d I asked her if we should call a doctor.<\/p>\n \u201cA doctor? What\u2019s the difference between a doctor and a hospital? I already said I don\u2019t want any hospitals. Why would I want a doctor? I just want it gone. Please. I don\u2019t even want to know what you do with it. Okay? There\u2019s too much to fucking deal with here.\u201d<\/p>\n I poured a new, warm gin and tonic and squeezed the pulp of the old lime into the glass. \u201cWhat if I get caught?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou didn\u2019t get caught when you buried Oscar in the woods, did you? He was a hell of a lot bigger than that thing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s true,\u201d I said. I had forgotten about Oscar.<\/p>\n In the bedroom I found a faded red cooler in the closet behind garbage bags full of wigs, stuffed animals, and god knows what else. My shirt reeked of the stale cigarettes and I stood by the open window. The sun was setting behind the other building and the September breeze was cool and sweet. Mrs. Parker, I remembered, used to say this afternoon light was the color of the beams that would shoot from God\u2019s eyes during the reckoning.<\/p>\n Janine was still in the kitchen going through the mail as I pulled the blue bag out of the freezer. Half a pound. When I had opened it two days earlier the creature inside the bag was a reddish pink color, its hairless shrunken head smaller than the palm of my hand. Its eyes were closed like it was wincing and its arms and legs seemed folded behind its back, all giving it the arched shape and fleshy complexion of a shrimp.<\/p>\n Janine seemed to be trying not to look in my direction as I took it out of the freezer. She was intensely reading a flyer from a Chinese restaurant.<\/p>\n \u201cA little help?\u201d I said, holding the bag up by its neck. \u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n Cigarette smoldering in the corner of her mouth, she closed her eyes and turned her head away as she tied the bag in a knot.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n I placed it in the cooler and waited for her in the hall, which was dark and smelled like sour milk.<\/p>\n She came out of the apartment a few minutes later.<\/p>\n \u201cYou forgot to lock it,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t. People rob dead people\u2019s homes all the time. Hopefully someone will rob this place tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n I was about to say something about asking friends of her mother to help us, but I remembered the funeral and the embarrassing emptiness of the church. Besides us, the only other souls there were three co-workers from the thrift store, all still wearing their name tags.<\/p>\n The drive back to the motel was silent. Instead of human speech, it was the hardened grays and dull oranges of the evening that filled the Nova.<\/p>\n At around seven o\u2019clock that evening we arrived at the motel. Janine got into bed and turned on the television. I changed out of my suit and put on blue jeans and a fresh green tee shirt. Fresh socks. Once Jeopardy<\/em> was over I went back to the front desk to ask the attendant if there was another bar he could recommend.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was wrong with Harry\u2019s?\u201d he said. He was a heavy middle-aged man with a pinky ring.<\/p>\n \u201cToo many kids,\u201d I said. \u201cI need a little quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut did you try the wings? Did you see that blonde with the big knockers? Was she there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey all had big knockers. I just want some place where I can hear myself think.\u201d<\/p>\n The attendant leaned back in his chair. There was a Playboy<\/em> on the counter behind the window. \u201cLonnie\u2019s is down the highway a little farther,\u201d he said. \u201cHer wings aren\u2019t as good but it\u2019s quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow much farther?\u201d<\/p>\n The attendant took off his bifocals and rubbed the ridge of his nose. \u201cIt\u2019s the last stop on this highway for about three weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n At the bar I ordered a whiskey and Lonnie poured it for me. \u201cYou look like you just off the 86,\u201d she said with a chuckle. She had a bleached, toothy smile and her blond bangs formed a ridge over her saggy eyes. Like most people, she regarded my missing arm like it was its own person. I could feel my old elbow resting on the bar. She gave a solemn nod to it, as if she could see it resting there, too.<\/p>\n The place was mostly empty except for a few boys playing pool in the back. The dark wood and dim lights made the room seem smaller than it was. There was a buck\u2019s head mounted over the mirror behind the bar, its antlers glossed by time. We talked about nothing in particular for a while.<\/p>\n \u201cCan I get you anything to eat?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n I dabbed my finger in the empty glass and tasted the whiskey. \u201cIf I wanted to bury something like a cat,\u201d I said. \u201cWhere would I go?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAround here? You can\u2019t use your back yard?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n Lonnie toweled a mug and put it under the bar. \u201cI suppose you could go to the lake,\u201d she said. \u201cDrop it in there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs it close?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbout fifteen miles up the road.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut what if the tide takes it to shore?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no tide in a lake.\u201d She put her elbows on the bar and leaned forward. \u201cMy cousin once got in a world of trouble for burying his dog in the cemetery next to his father\u2019s grave. He might have gotten away with it, but it was too shallow and coyotes dug it up and spread the carcass all over the cemetery.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGeesh,\u201d I mumbled as I slid my empty glass back to her.<\/p>\n \u201cWhose cat was it anyways?\u201d<\/p>\n She refilled my glass as I looked at my reflection in the mirror over the bar. Deep circles under my eyes, which looked green instead of blue. My dirty blonde hair was greasy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a friend\u2019s cat,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n Lonnie shook her head. \u201cIt\u2019s a shame with animals. Knowing when to put them down. My mother used to say that it\u2019s the privilege of a pet not to suffer. What was the cat\u2019s name?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cName? I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n I drank down the shot and put money on the bar. As I lifted myself off of the barstool, I could see my reflection beneath the buck\u2019s head. Mine looked so small by comparison. \u201cTell me where you got that buck,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n Lonnie affectionately tousled its jowls. \u201cThis fella?\u201d she said. \u201cMy first husband got him. Anniversary present. That\u2019s almost thirty years ago by now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe was game?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, he was road kill. About forty miles down on the 86.\u201d She glanced up at the big head and then took my money and put it in the cash register.<\/p>\n I stood there looking at the foggy glass eyes of the buck. It had been dead for nearly as long as what was waiting for me in the car.<\/p>\n Lonnie returned. \u201cHow about another for the road?\u201d<\/p>\n I sat back down at the barstool. The boys playing pool had stopped their game and were looking at me. \u201cI\u2019ll take another,\u201d I said. \u201cIf you can tell me where this lake is at.\u201d<\/p>\n Once I passed the yellow deer crossing sign, the highway merged into one lane.<\/p>\n \u201cI loved your father, Doc,\u201d I went on. \u201cWe used to talk about things. Carl lost his thumb and two fingers in the war. \u2018Sitting at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean,\u2019 he used to say. Your dad used to joke that he liked the company of a fellow amputee, though neither of us had our parts amputated. But \u2018amputated\u2019 sounds too clean. They were just blown off. Mine by grenade. His by mortar. Really, we weren\u2019t sure what to call ourselves. He said Janine must\u2019ve been attracted to my missing arm because the rest of me wasn\u2019t that pretty. That\u2019s the kind of humor your dad had. You see, sometimes a woman sees things in her father that she wants in a husband. His fingers, my arm. Does that make sense?\u201d<\/p>\n The cooler let its plastic handle fall forward. It seemed to be relaxing. The moonlight shone on its white lid, turning it a pale blue.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain.\u201d<\/p>\n The black lines of Lonnie\u2019s map were clear. The spot was marked only by a wooden post that was leaning against an old, rusted guardrail. Frayed hunting notices; notices for missing dogs, children. By the faint light of the moon I could make out the tire tracks in the dirt.<\/p>\n \u201cGuess we\u2019re here,\u201d I said, removing the key from the ignition.<\/p>\n There was an opening in the guard rail, where the metal had been sawed off, leaving its edges jagged. Something resembling a trail head in the opening.<\/p>\n I took my flashlight from the trunk along with the cooler and followed the trail. It wound and sloped downward through the woods. Perhaps it was the whiskey, but I felt a warm and steady braveness in the unfamiliar darkness. The ground was as swollen and tender as Janine\u2019s eyes when I left her at the motel.<\/p>\n Owls cooed and there were coyote howls coming from somewhere far off.<\/p>\n After a while my path was brightened by the reflection of the moon on the lake. The smell of mud, leaves.<\/p>\n I wobbled the flashlight on the ground. No beach. Merely a small gooey opening. Hanging over the shore line were the naked branches of a dead tree.<\/p>\n The lake was small enough to make out the blackened tree lines on the other side. This was one of those accidental glacier lakes. A dwarf lake. Something in-between.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is it,\u201d I said. \u201cYou don’t\u2019 know where you are.\u201d<\/p>\n The bag crinkled in the breeze.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m putting you in a lake. Janine didn\u2019t want to be here. But she\u2019s a good person. Know that. She would have made a good sister, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Somewhere beyond, the soft discharge of rifle fire echoed over the lake. Barks of dogs.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing I can do to fix this,\u201d I said. \u201cWish there was. Fixing is my nature. So this is the best I can do, right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a little drunk, Doc. Sorry. Whoever you are, I promise I\u2019ll throw you deep. I\u2019m not sure what else I need to say. Guess there\u2019s a better chance of peace here than in that freezer. I know that\u2019s not much of a prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n I was feeling antsy. Doubtful. I knelt by the water and cupped a handful and slurped it. Then I did it again. The liquor had made me thirsty.<\/p>\n I stepped away from the shore, beside the trunk of the dead tree. Gathered myself. Whiskey mixed with the taste of seaweed on my gums. Clutching the bag by its neck, the form inside bounced against my thigh, softer than it was before.<\/p>\n I trotted toward the lake, heaving the bag like a discus.<\/p>\n My foot planted into the mud, the suction pulling off my shoe. I lost my balance and tumbled into the water with no arm to break my fall.<\/p>\n It was cold. My jeans and tee shirt soaked through.<\/p>\n I picked up my shoe, sat down on the cooler, and clutched my empty sleeve and squeezed the water out.<\/p>\n The lake was still in the moonlight, its shy currents timidly embracing the shore. The moon over me, glowing through the branches of the dead tree. The shadow of my head visible on the water.<\/p>\n At first I wasn\u2019t sure why I hadn\u2019t heard the bag make a splash. I didn\u2019t think I had thrown it that far.<\/p>\n I shined the flashlight across the mud. Then the lake. On the edge of the water, inside the spotlight of the moon, the faint shadow of a pendulum.<\/p>\n I looked up.<\/p>\n Caught, in the naked branches of the dead tree, the blue bag. Fifteen, twenty feet. A rounded form shaping the bottom of it. It was Doc. Curling.<\/p>\n \u201cJesus,\u201d I shuttered, retreating. \u201cJesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n I sat on the cooler and watched it. Ran my fingers through my greasy hair.<\/p>\n In one corner of the forest, there was the looming hum of a rig on the highway. In another were more pops of the hunters\u2019 rifles, the echoing barks of their dogs.<\/p>\n Suddenly, I felt a tingling down my old left arm. A bloodflow I hadn\u2019t felt in years. But not a phantom bloodflow. A warm throbbing sensation in my fingers. It was as if my old hand was being squeezed and drawn out. Tugged in the direction of the woods. Something calmly telling me it was alright.<\/p>\n I picked up the red cooler and took one last look at the blue bag. Nodded to it. Left.<\/p>\n AARON FRIGARD<\/strong> is in the midst of an MFA program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has work forthcoming in Parcel<\/em> and Yemassee<\/em>, for which he was awarded the William Richey prize for short fiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aaron Frigard \u201cYou know what to do,\u201d she said. This is what I told the fetus in the red cooler. I might have been crazy, but I felt like all the time I was talking, it was listening. And so … Continue reading