The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [47]
“Do you want this sandwich or not, sir?” the girl asked.
“Let me talk to your manager.”
The manager came out. “Something wrong with your order, sir?”
“This coupon is fake.”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Did you even look at it?” Caleb said. He was shouting now.
“I did, sir. It’s official.”
“Oh god, you people. You people. It’s a fake. You’ve given out all these free sandwiches for counterfeit coupons.”
“Sir, please take your sandwich and step out of the line.”
“I wouldn’t eat this sandwich if you paid me,” Caleb said. He was pounding his fist on the counter. People were starting to watch the event unfold.
Buster filmed the entire thing. “Oh, shit,” he said.
“Sir, I’m going to call the police if you don’t leave,” the manager said.
“You people have the tiniest responsibility. All you have to do is your job and I do the rest. I do all the hard work. All you have to do is let the thing happen.”
“Sir, leave right now.”
Camille came over to Caleb. “Let’s just leave, honey,” she said.
“I do all the goddamn work and you get to witness the beauty of it all. That’s all you have to do.”
Camille pulled her husband away from the Chicken Queen. The entire food court was watching them. Caleb took the rest of the coupons from his wife and threw them into the air. No one moved to retrieve them.
Buster turned off the camera. “That,” he said to his sister, “was awful.”
Annie nodded. “That was bad.”
As they waited at the van, Annie and Buster talked about the inescapable fact of their parents. They were losing it. Not just their artistic sensibility, but also their minds. Without Buster and Annie, is this what had become of them?
“I mean, they always had a radical idea of what constituted art,” Annie said, “but this was almost silly. Did he really think he was going to lead some coup on the Chicken Queen? Did they really expect people to lose their minds over a free chicken sandwich?”
Buster nodded, still hazy with pain pills. “They’re in a bad way,” he said.
After nearly a half hour, their parents finally appeared. It looked like both of them had been crying, their faces somber and tinged red.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Buster said, but Caleb didn’t respond.
For almost the entire ride back home, they traveled in silence. Annie watched the unfamiliar scenery become familiar once again. Buster held his sister’s hand, feeling safe in the tense atmosphere of the van. Finally, only a few minutes from home, Caleb began to snicker. “Goddamn Chicken Queen,” he said. His shoulders were shaking. Then Camille began to chuckle. “What a disaster,” she said, shaking her head.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Buster said again. “I’m sorry, Mom.” His parents waved him off.
“Great art is difficult,” Caleb said. After a few moments, he said, “But I don’t understand why it has to be so difficult sometimes.” He tried to smile, but to Annie and Buster, he seemed ridiculously tired. His hands trembled as they gripped the steering wheel and Annie resisted the urge to ask him if he wanted her to drive them home. Caleb took his wife’s hand and kissed it. She pinched his ear and smiled. By the time they arrived at the house, their parents were already thinking of new ideas to create the chaos that they believed the world deserved.
They paused before they stepped out of the van, every Fang in their place. The four of them then walked up to the house, their home, and each of them had the undeniable feeling that, now that they were together again, they could not hope to prevent the thing that would come next, whatever it would be.
Chapter Six
Though the swelling had gone down, his body inexplicably capable enough to repair itself, Buster continued to wear the protective eye patch. The lack of depth perception that it induced seemed to be canceled out by the pain pills in a way that made him feel as if he had extrasensory perception. Half-reading a comic book from his childhood about superpowered elephants, he tested his newfound abilities by guessing the time without looking at the clock. The numbers flickered