Knife Fight and Other Struggles by David Nickle Read Free Book Online Page B

you wouldn’t have seen her much. You never went on that trip to Ottawa.”
    “I had the flu. Did McGill’s mother go on that?”
    “Not exactly. McGill was going to go. He made it all the way to the bus. He had this suit jacket, and this crazy old trunk with him that was way too big. He got it into the luggage compartment somehow—I think Mr. Evans had to help him with it. And just before we were going to leave, she pulls up.”
    “His mother?”
    “His mother. Bat-shit crazy. She was driving this old Lincoln or something like it. Pulled it up right in front of the bus, so it was blocked in. She got out—huge woman. Not fat—but big like a linebacker. Her hair was white—she wore a big black fake-fur coat like it was winter. She climbed onto the bus, and pointed at McGill, and she yelled: “I Revoke my Permission! Return my Son to me!”
    “Jesus.”
    “Poor McGill.”
    “Yeah, well he knew what was good for him. He got up and said he couldn’t go to Ottawa any more, and got off the bus. Into his mom’s car. Didn’t even stop to get his trunk out of the luggage area. Had to collect it when we got back.”
    “That sucks.”
    “Yeah. But you know something, Shell?” The flabby blonde leaned across the table. “I think he was kind of relieved.”
    “How’s that?”
    “You weren’t there,” she said. “And it was pretty easy to tell . . . McGill was more interested in you than he was in the Houses of Parliament.”
    Quiet for just a moment, before the three of them broke into a braying round of laughter. The waitress returned with some salads, drinks, and a plate of fried yams. Trickier job this time; she had to sneak in between strollers and the two rattan chairs that’d been displaced to make room for us. She didn’t quite pull it off, and several pieces of cutlery slid off her tray. She promised to get more, bent to grab the ones she could find, and hurried off back into the bar.
    “I barely knew he was alive,” she said.
    “Well, he sure knew you were alive.”
    “Stop fucking—messing with Shelly’s head. Stop messing with her head.”
    “One for the swear jar?”
    “No, really. He was a sweet, quiet kid. With, you know, unfortunate skin. If he had a crush on Shelly—well, everybody had a crush on Shelly. Look—” the skinny one with the teeth pointed at her with her fork “—you’re making her blush.”
    She laughed. “Well, he’s turned out all right now.”
    “It’s nice to know that boys turn into men, eh?”
    “To boys turning into men!” The blonde one raised a glass of spring water, and the others joined the toast. I let myself giggle and clap, and looked right at her as she glanced down. Things were going well, I thought. And at first, I had no idea why her face fell the way it did.
    She nearly dropped her glass as she bent and lunged over me, filling my face for a moment with her sweet-smelling tit. To my side, there was a scream—and I looked over just in time to see her pluck a gleaming blade from the big baby’s little hand.
    He had gotten out of his stroller. He had crawled around beneath the table unseen—by any of us—and he had located a steak-knife the waitress had dropped. And then, the little worm . . . he found his legs.
    He had carried the knife three glorious steps, from his mother’s feet to the edge of my stroller. It appeared as though the fat little tyke had been about to plunge the knife deep into my left eye.

    This kind of event is rare; usually, it happens with a family pet . . . dogs, to be sure, but more perilously, cats. They’ve a fine sense of smell, they do. And that’s why, when I arrive in a new vessel, that’s the first thing I do.
    I make sure the cat is dead.

    But you know all about that.
    The first time McGill and I met after all was over the carcass of a cat.
    Remember that place? Squalid little rooms near the very top of a crumbling old apartment building filled with whores and addicts and murderers. Cheap