Slice

it got, the more her ankles swelled. It was if she had literally traded with her man: the more weight he lost, the bigger her stomach got. The stronger his ankle, the weaker hers became.

One day she came waddling up to him while he was cutting weeds and said, “Sorry to bother ya.” He looked up at her. “But can you take me to see a doctor.'

“You having it?'

“Huh uh. I don't feel so good. I feel like I'm gonna puke and my feet are killing me and I'm hurting here an'...” She started to go on with a whole catalog of problems. He sighed disgustedly and dropped the weed slinger, motioning for her to follow him as he headed for the car.

In town the doctor said to them, “This here,” he was talking about her sickness, “is prob'ly just, uh'—he started to say psychosomatic but caught himself in time—'nothin’ to worry over. Step on the scales here.'

“Okay.” She obliged.

“Yeah.” He marked something on a chart. “Step down.” She did so with an effort—each movement was a massive expenditure of energy. “You've gained about six and a half pounds, maybe seven. Perfectly normal. Your blood pressure is only slightly elevated. The diastolic, uh, lower reading is ninety. I wouldn't worry, really. You're doin’ fine.'

“I'm so hot alla time I feel like I'm gonna faint.'

“Just git a lot of rest,” be told her with a chuckle. “Remember, you wanna keep eatin’ good. You're eating for two.” He'd only said that two thousand times.

“Come on,” Daniel told the girl as she waddled back out to the car, “we'll go get you some pizza and have a picnic.” He beamed in a vocal tone so solicitous and warm that she looked over at him.

“Yeah,” she said, beginning to cheer up with his tender, loving offer, “that sounds good.” And she settled back beside him, Chaingang's baby inside her like a seven-pound basketball.

Without exception, each week of his prolonged agony and self-imposed starvation on the fat farm, Daniel had allowed himself one meal as a reward. He would often take Sissy with him and they'd drive in and feast on cheeseburgers, nachos, fish platters, whatever fast-food place caught his eye first would find him as a customer. They gravitated toward places with drive-in windows, as the size and appearance of “that there new man works for Hora” was already a topic of discussion within the tiny agricommunity.

It was close to his weekly treat time and he pulled up at the busy drive-in window of a Pizza Palace. He'd phoned ahead while Sissy was at the doctor's.

“Yes, sir. Welcome to Pizza Palace. May we take your order?” the squawking intercom asked him.

“We called in an order. Name's Selkirk,” he told the box.

“Yes, sir. It's ready. That'll be $18.90, please drive to the window.” He drove the Caprice up and pulled out a fistful of disreputable-looking crumpled bills, counting off nineteen in fives and ones. His massive sunburned arm shoved the money up into the window. Sissy loved to touch him on the arms and back and he sometimes let her. His muscles were rock-hard. His arms, legs, back, neck—all looked as if they'd been carved from solid hardwood. There was not an ounce of fat anywhere except on his belly, chest, and haunches.

They drove away and stopped on the way back to Hora's at a favorite spot for their “picnic feasts,” a spot where Chaingang had once buried a kill. It amused him to bring the pregnant woman there.

“Ummm,” she said, a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni not yet swallowed as she spoke, “this is good.” She ate two pieces from the two giant-size pizzas as usual. She was always amazed at the amount of food he would eat, but she said nothing. “Ain't you hungry?” she asked him now. He said nothing. He had eaten only eight slices of pizza and, to his great amazement, he was full. It actually worried him momentarily, until he realized that he had shrunk to that extent.

“Watch,” he told her, and in something so alien and uncharacteristic for him Daniel stood up and, sucking in his gut slightly, pulled the belt in, cinching it in as hard as he could. The pants he'd just bought two months before to replace the ones that had been falling off were already too big, and he pulled the cow-long belt in nearly a foot. He'd already cut a good foot of leather off the belt.

“God! You're gettin’ skinny.” She smiled. This was her idea of clever wit.

He beamed back and nodded. But the only thought going through his mind as he rebuckled the belt was, he would like to say to her, Do you know where you're sitting? And when she said, No, she didn't, he'd tell her she was having a picnic on a grave. And then he'd ask her if she would like to see what was in it. He thought what great pleasure it would bring him when he removed both her and her mound of a gut from his presence. He allowed himself the barking cough of a laugh.

“That's me,” he told her, “skinny.” This was the longest conversation they'd had in months and she wished she could put her arms around him and hug him, but she was afraid if she tried to move she'd puke the pizza up.

“Could we buy a fan?” she asked him.

“I don't see why not,” he told her, again surprising both of them. “After all, we want you to have a healthy kid, eh?” He wondered, idly, what the kid would look like if he took his bowie and sliced her watermelon open, and took it out of the oven a little early.

“Right here,” he rumbled to her and patted her stomach, where his child was being carried. That's where I'll make the cut, he thought. He traced a line across her swollen belly with a steel finger like a knife point. “This is where a baby is.'

That's right,” she said. “Feel your son in there.'

And he did.

BUCKHEAD

“Ya jes’ fuckin’ with me. Bloated GAWDAMN SHOAT,” he shouted at the agent who yanked him backward and he fell over on the hard floor. “Iffn’ I wasn't tied to this weuns ‘d have us a different story then, tubby.” The standing man kicked him hard and the man tied to the chair spit, started to say something, changed his mind and stared straight up at the ceiling. Fuckin’ faggots.

“You're a real piece of work, aren't ya, Mr. De Witt, or Mr. De Half-Witt—which is it?'

“Yo're a big fuckin’ man now.'

“You're an ignorant, redneck, no-account piece of SHIT, boy. You know that.'

“Fuckin’ fa—” He grunted in pain as the man kicked the top of his head.

“I hated to do that, Mr. Witless, youuns git gooey kid stuff on my shoe. And what kinda language is that anyway, peckerwood? Cain't YOUUNS talk too good?” He mimicked the man tied to the chair. “Are you a fuckin’ hillwilliam, dummy? Is that YOUUNS problem?'

The man named Wendell De Witt stared up at the ceiling without blinking an eye. He'd put up with horseshit like this all his life. It didn't faze him. He looked over at the agent looming over him. “Iffn’ youuns talk real sweet to me I'll let ya’ suck ma pole later on.” He almost blacked out for a second when the man kicked him again in the top of the head. He kicked with the flat of the foot to leave as little evidence as possible, not that he was particularly worried about it. The tough country bumpkin appeared to have passed out, so he passed smelling salts under the man's nose and he came back with a cough and cursing.

The agent opened the door and said to someone in the hall, “Gimme a hand with this, will ya?” The other agent entered the interrogation room and they lifted the subject up so the chair was upright again.

“Listen up, Mr. De Shitt. I'll be back in a few minutes with a couple friends of that cop you assholes shot. And the four of us will play bridge, okay? And YOU'LL be the fuckin’ bridge, tough guy.” He slammed out of the room.

“You okay?” the second agent asked with genuine concern in his voice.

“Yeah. I'm jes’ fine.'

“He loses his temper. I'm sorry about that, man.'

“That's no problem.'