Potboiler

The creek fed a murky pond. At long last Fyothor released him and walked to the water’s edge, standing with his back turned, looking out. Now or never, Pfefferkorn thought. He crouched noiselessly and pulled a stone from the mud. It made a sucking sound but Fyothor did not notice. He was talking about coming to this spot as a boy, pouring out his troubles to the fish and the trees. He had not visited in years but he felt happy to be here now with Pfefferkorn, his friend. Sockdolager had said that the right place to inflict blunt-force trauma was at the temple, with its abundance of blood vessels and nerves. The important thing was to commit. A pulled punch was worse than no punch. Pfefferkorn rolled the stone in his hand. All the moisture in his mouth seemed to have been redirected to his palms. He was thinking of his one experience inflicting violence on another living being. His old apartment had mice. Usually they were clever enough to skirt the glue traps he put out, but one evening while reading he heard a series of frenzied squeaks. He went to the kitchen and found a mouse stuck by its hind legs. It was trying to pull itself across the linoleum by its front paws. He had given up on ever catching any mice and so had no plan for what to do if he did. He’d heard of people drowning them in a bucket of water. To him that sounded sadistic. He gave it some thought, then picked up the trap by the other end and put it in a shopping bag. He tied the bag shut and took it down to the street. The bag twitched and squeaked. He untied the handles and looked inside. The mouse was going berserk, like it knew what was coming. Pfefferkorn thought of removing it and setting it free but he was afraid of ripping its legs off. So he just looked at it for a long minute as it shrieked and clawed at the plastic. At times like that he wished he had become an electrician or a bus driver. Real men did not stand around, staring dumbly into a shopping bag. They knew what to do. But did the job make the man or vice versa? He retied the bag, lifted it high in the air, and smashed it against the curb. There was a crunching sound but he could still feel the mouse squirming. He smashed the bag again. The squirming stopped. He gave the bag one more whack and dropped it in the sidewalk bin before running upstairs to take a shower. Then as now his whole body shook. He broke the problem down into steps. He visualized. The problem with visualization was that, done well, it made the task ahead more concrete and divisible but also intensely tangible and gruesome. He was feeling the stinging reverberation in his palm as the rock made contact with Fyothor’s skull. He was seeing the bloom of blood and hearing a sound like a fistful of potato chips being crushed. He swallowed back acid and tightened his grip. He supposed he had killed plenty of spiders in his day, too, but they didn’t count. He stepped forward. Fyothor turned and saw what was happening and smiled knowingly and said “Ah yes” and with breathtaking speed his hand darted out and snatched the stone away. Pfefferkorn wheeled backward and dove to the ground, rolling with his arms clamped around his head for protection. He ended up crouched behind a log, poised and ready for action. But Fyothor was not charging him or taking out a gun. He was staring at him in unadulterated confusion. Pfefferkorn stared back. There was a silence as they stared at each other. Fyothor shrugged and wound up and sent the stone skimming across the pond. It bounced three times before sailing into the bushes on the far bank. He picked up another stone and offered it to Pfefferkorn. “Your turn.”

Pfefferkorn did not move.

Fyothor shrugged again and skimmed the second stone. “Akha,”

he said. “Very poor. When I was young . . . pip, pip, pip, seven times or more.” He extended his arm along the imaginary trajectory. Then he addressed Pfefferkorn with a look of concern. “How is your lip?”

The back of Pfefferkorn’s neck prickled.

“To continue making that face for so long must be tiring. Certainly, there is no need to perform on my account.” Fyothor smiled faintly. “I can see the glue where it pushes out.”

Pfefferkorn said nothing.

“There have been others like you, before. None of them have survived.”

There were no other rocks within easy reach.

“You have secrets. I understand. Who among us does not? Who among us does not suffer because of them?”

There were no broken branches, either.