The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [14]
There was an awkward silence and then Joseph said, “I wrote this story last week for my class. It was about this guy who had just come back from Iraq, but it’s not supposed to be me. It’s an entirely different person. This guy lives in Mississippi. So, he’s back in his hometown after being away for almost ten years, and he’s having a drink at this bar. When he goes to play some pinball, an old friend from high school comes up to him and they start to talk.” Joseph paused and then squeezed Buster’s hand. “Are you still awake?” he asked. Buster tried to nod, but couldn’t and so he said, “I’m awake. I’m listening.”
“Good. Okay,” Joseph continued, “so they’re catching up and getting drunk and the bar’s starting to close. The main character tells this guy about how he’s trying to get a job and make some money so he can move out of his parents’ house and get his own place. Well, this guy tells the main character that he’ll give him five hundred bucks if he’ll do something for him. How does that sound so far?” Buster wondered if he was dying, if, when Joseph reached the end of his story, he would be dead. “It sounds pretty good,” he answered.
“The guy has this dog that he loves and now his ex-wife has the dog and won’t give it back to him. So he asks the main character to steal the dog and bring it to him and he’ll give him five hundred bucks. That’s the conflict. So the main character thinks about it and he goes back and forth and finally, two days later, he calls the guy and tells him he’ll do it.”
“Uh-oh,” Buster said.
“I know,” Joseph said, “bad idea. So he breaks into the ex-wife’s house one night and steals the dog but something goes wrong. The dog thinks he’s an intruder, which he is, and starts to attack him, takes a big chunk out of his arm. Well, he manages to get the dog outside and into the car, but when he gets home, he realizes that the dog is dead, that he crushed the dog’s windpipe or something, I wasn’t too specific. Anyways, the dog is dead.”
“We’re almost there,” Kenny shouted.
“So the main character takes a shovel and buries the dog in his parents’ backyard. When he’s done, he walks to the bus station, buys a ticket, and gets on a bus without knowing where it’s headed. So he’s on the bus, his arm is bleeding like hell but he’s trying not to let anyone notice, and he hopes that wherever he ends up next will be a good place. That’s the end.”
“I like it,” Buster said.
Joseph smiled. “I’m still working on it.”
“It’s really good, Joseph,” Buster said.
“I still can’t figure out if it’s a happy ending or a sad ending,” Joseph said.
“We’re here,” Kenny said, the car coming to an abrupt stop.
“It’s happy and sad,” Buster said, drifting off. “Most endings are happy and sad at the same time.”
“You’re going to be okay,” Joseph said.
“I am?” Buster asked.
“You’re indestructible,” Joseph said.
“I’m invincible,” Buster corrected.
“You’re impervious to pain,” Joseph continued.
“I’m immortal,” Buster said and then passed out, hoping that wherever he ended up next would be a good place.
a modest proposal, july 1988
artists: caleb and camille fang
It was time for a vacation, so they all got fake IDs. The Fangs had just recently received a prestigious grant, more than three hundred thousand dollars, and they were going to celebrate, the counterfeit IDs spread out on the table. Mr. and Mrs. Fang were Ronnie Payne and Grace Truman. The children were allowed to choose their own names. Annie was Clara Bow, and Buster was Nick Fury. In exchange for this staging of real life, their parents had promised Annie and Buster that there would be no art during the four days they would be at the beach, nothing but a normal family getting sunburned and buying trinkets made out of seashells and eating food that was either deep fried or dipped in chocolate or both.
Inside the airport, Mr. and Mrs. Fang read magazines about people who were supposedly famous but whom they had never heard of, forcing down banal information about miracle