Strange Mammals by Jason Erik Lundberg Read Free Book Online Page A

sweat from his face, and breathes heavily. He feels quite exhausted. His shoulder aches and he still can’t move his arm. The woman steps into view with the machote falso ’s revolver in her hands, aiming at its former owner. She glances at Spider-Man.
    “Nice pajamas,” she says.
    “Thank you.”
    “That was really fucking stupid what you did. He could have killed you.”
    “Yes. But he also could have killed you, citizen. And I could not let that stand.”
    “Well, thank you for that.” She adjusts her stance. “Do me a favor, web-head? My bag’s over there on the ground, and my cell phone’s inside. Why don’t you call 9-1-1 and get the cops here quick before this bastardo recovers, yeah?”
    Spider-Man does as he is told, and within fifteen minutes both police and paramedics have arrived. The machote falso is unceremoniously cuffed and thrown in the back of a squad car. Spider-Man sits down on the curb next to a row of newspaper pay-boxes as a female paramedic attends to his shoulder and a male police officer takes his statement. He doesn’t know where the young exec has gone.
    “Lucky for you,” the paramedic says, taping gauze over both the entry and exit wound, “it went straight through and didn’t hit any bones.” She jogs over to the ambulance and returns with a blister pack of little white pills and a support strap for his arm; he refuses the latter.
    “It will interfere with my web-slinging,” he says.
    “Suit yourself,” she says, and drops the strap into his lap. “You’re going to need to get checked out at the hospital.”
    “I will be fine,” he says. “Spider-Man does not go to the hospital.”
    The police officer interjects: “Do you have someone who can take you home? Anyone you can call?”
    And before he can tell them both that Spider-Man does not have a home, he has rattled off the memorized series of digits that was once his home telephone number. The officer steps to his patrol car and relays the number to the dispatcher.
    “Would you happen to have a cigarette?” Spider-Man asks the paramedic. “I don’t normally smoke, but this is not a normal occasion, and I’m craving one right now.”
    The paramedic looks around her, then digs in a pants pocket, produces a pack of Salems, shakes one out for him, and then lights it. The smoke expands within him, but does not fill all of the gaping holes of his self. Still, a slow wave of calm cascades through his body.
    Some time later, after everyone else has left, Spider-Man still sits in the same spot as a black Saab stops in front of him. A beautiful Latina in a very expensive pinstriped pantsuit and long-sleeved doctor’s white coat steps out and approaches him.
    “Daniel? Can you hear me?”
    Spider-Man doesn’t look up. The name is unfamiliar, so he assumes she’s speaking to someone else.
    “Danny? It’s Liliana, your wife.” At his continued silence, she sighs and says, “ Papi?”
    At the mention of his old pet name, he finally raises his head and says, “Spider-Man doesn’t have a wife. Or a daughter.”
    “No, papi ,” she says, her voice catching in her throat, “he doesn’t, not . . . not anymore.” She reaches a hand down and helps him to stand. “Look, you’re staying with me tonight. I told the police I’d take care of you. You’re coming home with me. Do you understand?”
    Spider-Man looks into familiar brown eyes flecked with gold, the same eyes as those of the ten-year-old biracial girl who won’t stop falling to the ground. Thalía. He makes himself say the name out loud, and the Latina’s face drops, and then she is hugging him close and asking where he has been for the past year and saying many more words that he can’t catch because they come out in such a rush of both English and Spanish, and he finds himself gripping her back and inhaling the clean insistent smell of her.
    “Come on,” she says, stepping back to wipe at her eyes and then taking his left hand in her right.