The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [106]
Annie turned to her brother just as he sent a stream of vomit across the table, deep brown and dark red, the remains of a shredded animal. Mr. and Mrs. Fang gasped; Mr. Fang tried to hold a saucer under Buster’s chin but it was too late for that. Buster made a sound like the air had been kicked out of him, and the other patrons in the restaurant turned to face the Fangs. A waiter began to rush toward the table and then, hesitating, turned back to the kitchen. Buster’s hands covered his face, and he muttered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and Annie watched as her parents seemed incapable of action. They were watching the event with surprise, with interest. Annie pushed her chair over, rattling the glasses on the table, and took Buster in her arms. Somehow, Annie did not understand how, she lifted her brother without effort, and he wrapped his arms around her neck. She carried him through the restaurant, a blur of color around her, out the door, into the open air. She set him on the sidewalk, and she stroked his hair. “I’m sorry,” Buster said, and Annie kissed his forehead. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.
The van was locked, and Annie searched the parking lot for some implement to pick the lock or to smash the window. She would leave her parents behind to do whatever it was that they had waited so long to enact. Buster, his color returning to him, rested against one of the tires, suddenly hungry again. And then, just as Annie had begun to wrap her coat around her arm in order to bust into the van, their parents appeared.
“I’m sorry,” Buster said, but Mr. and Mrs. Fang surrounded their son and embraced him. “You have nothing to be sorry about,” Mr. Fang said. “You did great.” He lifted Buster onto his shoulder and then unlocked the van, slipping his son into the backseat. “Did you get to perform your event?” Annie said. “We didn’t have an event,” Mrs. Fang said. “You did. You children did it for us.”
Annie, the van now on the interstate, heading home, felt heat radiating through her body, her hands clenching and unclenching. “That was mean,” she said to her parents. Buster rested his head in her lap and she stroked his hair, sticky with sweat, cooled by the AC. “That wasn’t nice,” Annie said.
“It’s no different than other times, Annie,” Mr. Fang said. “We always tell you that something is going to happen. Even if you don’t know exactly what it is, you are always a part of it. You see now, don’t you? You and Buster are Fangs. You are a part of us. We put you in a situation and, without even trying, you made something happen. You created something amazing.”
“It’s inside of you,” Mrs. Fang said. “It’s what we do; we distort the world; we make it vibrate, and you kids did it without any help from us. No direction. No idea of what would happen, and you created such chaos. You manufactured it from somewhere inside of you.”
“You made Buster so nervous that he made himself sick,” Annie said.
“You think we’re mean, but we’re just trying to show you how it all works,” Mr. Fang said. “Even if we die, when it’s just you and Buster, you’ll be able to do this. You are true artists. Even when you don’t want to make it, it manifests itself without your permission. It’s in your genes. You make art. You cannot help it.”
“We’re mad at you,” Annie said. “We don’t care about this.”
“You’ll be mad at us sometimes,” Mrs. Fang said to her children. “We’ll make you unhappy, but we do it for a reason. We do it because we love you.”
“We don’t believe you,” Annie said. Buster was now asleep, twitching and yelping.
Mrs. Fang turned around to face Annie, her hand resting