A Swollen Red Sun by Matthew McBride Read Free Book Online

way he looked at her was different. There was something about the way his eyes hadn’t left her. How they followed her from room to room.
    At the time, Fish hadn’t noticed, but now it was apparent. There’d been a hunger in the both of them that only the bonding of flesh could gratify.
    Fish loosened his grip on the wheel, which was bending. Kept thinking. About the way she’d looked at him back. She’d smiled. Laughed at his jokes—and then there was Thanksgiving. They’d been drinking and snorting lines, and for one reason or another, his wife and the girl his cousin brought with him had flashed their tits.
    It was a very good night, which they had all enjoyed. An evening filled with yard bird and crank. Holiday memories they would always cherish.
    But the way Fish now remembered it was different. His wife had been behind it. He knew it. She had orchestrated all of it just for him. For Early. And the more Fish thought about that night, the more he thought about everything.
    He smoked crank out of Jackson’s pipe and thought, until finally, Fish had come up with a plan to fix them both—especially the cousin. You don’t steal from kin , and his cousin should have known that. Some things weren’t worth the price you had to pay in the end—and this price was a bit on the steep side. Even if she was a whore.
    Fish fell apart inside as he drove. He would be alone without her. His parents were gone. Everyone who had ever loved him was gone. Except Raylene. And by the looks of it, she was gone, too, though Fish was bound and determined to prevent that from happening.
    Kenny Duane Fisher had gone by Fish for as long as he could remember. His mom called him Fish. Even his dad, when Fish was around, though Fish was sure he used worse names when he wasn’t.
    They’d lived on the edge of town, by the county line. His mom cleaned houses, and his dad sold tires. His parents did their best to provide, but his old man had a way with the back of his hand that would find Fish beside his jaw.
    It wasn’t that he didn’t love him, but that he didn’t know how to love him. That’s what his mom had said. But his mother said a lot of things, and Fish learned long ago what to believe and whatnot to, though it was not her fault and he knew it.
    It was his father’s fault. Or it was God’s fault.
    To this day, he didn’t know which. He didn’t know what to think or who to blame. But a part of him died in a hayfield back when they were kids. It was the last good year of his family’s life—because the Fishers shared a burden that was hard to let go of.
    It was easier to forget.
    Fish had a sister who died when she was six, but the family never talked about that. Some things were best unsaid; at least that’s what his mom had claimed—though for weeks after the funeral, she set Karla’s plate at the table, until Big Fish set her straight.
    “She’s done in the ground, Mary Ann. What you’re doin’s just makin’ things worse.”
    “But I miss her.”
    Big Fish grunted with a nod of understanding and forked a load of beans in his mouth. Big Fish got to drinking after that, even more than he had before, and then the bottle became his family, and any quality of life they had previously known was gone.
    Fish returned to his driveway. Lost in thought. Filled with pain and wired from meth. He would not permit Raylene to leave him. Or take his sons or their home—assuming the bank didn’t take it first. They were a half-year behind, and Bay Bank was threatening to reclaim. Fish swore he’d catch up, but Ms. Dixie made a habit of following through.
    Fish would smoke crank and think about the ways he could turn things around. For weeks, he’d had a cooler full of product to sell, but that never happened. Now it was too late.
    He thought about his wife and his cousin, and those thoughts birthed hurt, the deepest he had ever felt. It metastasized within him, until the hurt that became anger had become cancer, and it surged