From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet by Patrick Michael Finn

Author:Patrick Michael Finn [Patrick Michael Finn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Short Stories (single author)
ISBN: 97819368731487
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 2011-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Hudak reeled in his line and from it dangled a limp yellow rubber, dripping from the mouth of the lure. “Ha ha,” he said. “I only wish I could be that sinful. Can’t get it up no more, between you and me.” He plucked the rubber from the hook and tossed it back into the water and brushed his hand across his undershirt. A barge had just trolled past and its waves tossed and pulled and drenched the raft. Water the color of corpse flesh sloshed and puddled the only room left in the raft for Louis to sit. But he still clenched the ropes even though he knew he couldn’t leave. Even if he did, Hudak would tell the cops where he saw him and they’d cut Louis off and catch him downriver. He’d spent so much time hiding the boat and hoarding the things he’d packed in it that he just didn’t have the heart to let go of the ropes now. He’d be letting go of the only idea he’d ever had. And the thought of wandering the streets just waiting to get arrested, of drowning in the sluggish time of aimless vulnerability, strangled him with agony. What few hours he could stall was all that was left of his life. He could choke to death. The morning landmarks that had symbolized his departure leered at him across the water with intentional menace. He wasn’t going anywhere.

The eastbound freight train rumbled oncoming in the distance, and soon the massive shape of the black engine emerged from a cluster of summer-lush trees that stood at the edge of the abandoned rock pits that pocked the southern edge of the city. The train was fifty empty cars long, returning to the switchyards on the other side of the canal, then north to Chicago, having delivered whatever had been packed in the cars before they moved south and west in the opposite direction. The engine slowed as it approached the bridge, brakes and wheels groaning on the tracks and the hollow bursts of the stalling cars shunting front to back. Louis and Hudak watched two hobos—a black man and an older white pregnant woman—jump from one of the cars and roll down the embankment just before the train reached the bridge, the black man landing on his side and the woman on her bottom with her legs splayed like a propped doll’s and holding the globe of foetus that bulged forth an absurd, hilarious error.

“You know why they jump off there?” Hudak asked.

Louis didn’t say whether he did or did not.

“Because those fucking bums would get the almighty shit kicked out of them by the switchyard bulls.”

The black man wearily pulled himself to stand, then gently helped the woman up as well. She tottered, wobbling, holding her middle, her face slackened with tired alarm. Both of them were raggedly filthy, shuffling toward the fat boy holding the ropes and the fatter man fishing beside him.

“Oh, Christ on his holy goddamn throne,” Hudak said.

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