The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [44]
untitled project, 2007
artists: caleb and camille fang
When Annie walked off the escalator to baggage claim, she saw her brother, Buster, holding a sign that read: FANG. His face was as damaged as he had led her to believe, and she relied on her natural talent to feign a lack of surprise, feeling her stomach knot and tighten in response to the struggle to maintain her composure on the surface. Neither one of them knew what to do when she finally walked up to him and took the sign in her hands. They stared at each other for a long second, A and B, the easy way they fit together in sequence, and then Buster reached for his sister and hugged her.
“I can’t believe you came back,” he said.
“I know,” Annie said. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”
“We’re in a bad way,” Buster told her and she agreed with him.
“Where are Mom and Dad?” she asked.
Buster looked away, took a deep breath, and then said, “They’re in the van, planning. They’ve got an idea.”
“No,” Annie said, a familiar heat radiating through her body. “Please, no.”
“Welcome home,” Buster said, and walked to the carousel to retrieve her luggage.
In the parking lot, Caleb and Camille were standing beside the van, waving wildly as if their arms were on fire, as Annie and Buster tentatively approached. For Annie it was more shocking to see her parents for the first time in years than it had been to see Buster’s swollen face. Her parents seemed like miniature, crooked versions of themselves. Their hair had gone completely gray. Yes, they were still thin and they still possessed an electric kind of enthusiasm that was hypnotic to witness, but they were, it shouldn’t have surprised her but it did, so old.
Their father was holding a clothes hanger that held a bright blue T-shirt that read: THE CLUCK TEAM just below the CHICKEN QUEEN logo, a plump, regal woman holding a drumstick.
“Annie!” Camille shouted.
“What’s that?” Annie asked, pointing at the T-shirt as her mother kissed her on the cheek.
“A gift,” Caleb said, thrusting the shirt toward his daughter.
“No thank you,” Annie said.
“Hear us out,” her parents said in unison.
“Please,” Annie said, “I just got back.” She looked at her brother, who, she now realized, seemed slightly drugged, a sheepish smile on his face.
Her father slid the back door of the van open and gestured for Annie to climb inside.
“I need a drink,” Annie said.
“This is better,” Caleb said, placing his arms around both of his children. “This is better than any drug ever made.”
Annie took a deep breath, nowhere else to run, and stepped into the van. Buster joined her and their parents smiled and then slammed the door shut.
The plan was simple enough, their parents explained. They were driving to a mall near the airport, all the necessary elements arranged in advance by Caleb and Camille. Annie and her mother would don the Chicken Queen T-shirts and take the massive stack of forged coupons. Camille handed Annie and Buster one of the sheets, a fairly professional job, a coupon that offered a free chicken sandwich, no strings attached. The coupon was good enough that a customer wouldn’t think twice about it, but sloppy enough that a cashier at Chicken Queen would know it was a fake. “How many of these did you make?” Annie asked her parents. “One hundred,” they said. They continued to explain the event, how Annie and Camille would pass out the coupons, while Buster sat at a table in the food court next to the Chicken Queen. He would record the initial confusion when customer after customer came bearing bogus coupons. Then,