Читать книгу Fat Man and Little Boy - Mike Meginnis - Страница 11

WHAT THE SHADOW LOST

When they wake the next day wind whistles through the holes in their overnight shelter; the edges of their piled blankets flutter; there is a one dollar bill blown up against the wall as if it is a picture hung there. The wind lets up and the bill floats down to the floor. The wind picks up again and the bill climbs back up where it was. This is the greenest thing they’ve seen in days.

Little Boy says, “Grab it!”

Fat Man lunges for the bill. Snags it. “Don’t know what good this is going to do us,” he says, spreading the dollar smooth in his upturned palm. It does feel good though, the slightly fuzzy grain of the paper.

“The Americans are coming,” Little Boy says. “They’ll be all over this place soon. People are going to want their money. I want their money.”

“So do I,” Fat Man says, handing over the bill. “How do we get it?”

Little Boy says they find where this one came from. He tucks it in his breast pocket.

“Can we leave before the soldiers get here?” says Fat Man.

“Probably not,” says Little Boy. “We need time to plan. We’ll hide.”

They drape Fat Man in another robe, which he can’t close. They wrap his waist in someone’s pants. They put a blanket over his back like a cape, tie the corners around his neck. This will keep him warm. He knows it also makes him look a little crazy. He asks his brother if he has to wear it.

Little Boy says, “I don’t want you catching cold.”

Outside they find a small cloud of dollar bills drifting over the waste. Little Boy scurries, catching what he can and shoving them in his pockets. Fat Man teeters clumsily in pursuit, snags one here and there, keeps them balled up in his fists for lack of pockets. Anyway, he’s too hungry for this. He asks Little Boy if this money will buy them food. Little Boy’s too busy to answer. Fat Man trips on a bit of concrete from a building no longer there. Lands flat on his front.

Little Boy shouts, “Where are these coming from?”

Still lying on his face, Fat Man points in what seems to be the general direction. Little Boy demands that he get up. Fat Man struggles to his feet. The green trail laced across sharp bits of glass, cement crevices, and other broken things leads them into a place between two buildings, the one on their right collapsed almost completely, and leaning on the one to their left, which in turn leans on itself. Together they form a sort of arch, which, as the brothers follow deeper, collapses further, becoming deeper darkness, a wind tunnel. Here and there a stray dollar brushes Fat Man’s ear, Little Boy’s cheek. One strikes Fat Man where his heart would be if he wore it on a chain. Another bill strikes his eye. They catch as catch can. The wind whistles. The slope falls. They crouch to walk. There is a bright place ahead of them where the slope of the right wall ends—light in threads, motes of dust suspended on the threads, paint chips also, gray crumbs.

There comes a point Fat Man can’t advance. Little Boy crawls through the small end of the tunnel and out into the light. Fat Man kneels to follow but he can’t get through past his shoulders. The light blinds. All flares and clarifies. He sees the shadow on the wall.

From Fat Man’s perspective the shadow seems to reach for him, though in fact it is after the money. Little Boy caresses the wall on which it was projected—the profile of a stumbled man, fallen nearly to his knees, reaching for something fallen to the ground. The open cash case. The case’s hinges were dashed against the wall by the force of the blast, or by the case’s fall from the gone man’s hand. They came loose, the locks on the other side—gold, once—melted, and on the melted locks the case hinged, as in all the violence it opened on the wrong end, revealing its payload. The hinges came apart like teeth, the gold locks bent into a new shape.

“What luck,” says Little Boy. “We can buy you a damn suit.”

“And some food. We can get meat.”

“We can leave. We can get out.”

“How much?” says Fat Man.

“Let me worry about money,” says Little Boy. “That’s a big brother job.”

The case will close if Fat Man puts his weight on it. The gold locks are still a little soft, so the brothers slide the rod back in one of the hinges and this serves as a lock. The other hinge’s teeth are too crushed. The case is otherwise, it seems, invulnerable—the corners and edges protected by an iron exoskeleton, identical in color to the woven wires embroidering the leathery material that is its skin. The corners are especially tough, their shell thick and sharp, like a steel-toed boot.

Little Boy tells Fat Man to carry it. He passes it through the small end of the tunnel to Fat Man, who carries it out to meet Little Boy, who goes around the tunnel, around the collapsed building. The weight is less in Fat Man’s hands than he thought it would be. The money shifts inside.

“Now we can have anything we want,” says Fat Man to Little Boy.

“We can have a few things we want,” says Little Boy. “If we can convince anybody to trade us.”

This means finding people, which means leaving the city. At the far edges there is woodland, there are fields and farmers. They go toward the sun. Fat Man tears cloth from the pants they wrapped around his waist, wraps the strips around his feet for shoes. This offers some relief from the pain of travel. Little Boy holds Fat Man’s free hand. Fat Man asks his brother if he wants to take a turn carrying the cash. Little Boy says no, he would not like that; he says it is too heavy.

As they go, they pass the car Fat Man saw. The lovers still twist their heads to see each other, angling for a kiss.

They pass the tree Fat Man touched. It is split, charcoal all over, but not destroyed. The pulsing warmth of the orange barrier reef inside has become the inert gray-black of pencil lead. The branches are fallen and cooked down to nothing. Fat Man thinks of his hands.

He asks his brother, “Do you think they are a symbol?”

“What’s a symbol?”

“My hands. Do they suggest guilt?”

“Do you feel guilty?”

“I do.”

Little Boy asks him what for. He says hands are not a symbol. He says there is nothing to feel bad about. They are not thieves. The money was just lying there. No one had a claim to it. The shadow was dead.

Fat Man says, “That’s why I feel guilty.”

Little Boy says, “Nothing you could have done.”

Fat Man feels the tree is pulling him in again. He feels he wants to touch it. He lets go of Little Boy’s hand. He goes to the cold tree and presses his palms to it.

Little Boy asks him what he is doing.

The cool of the tree as it stands does not cancel the heat that lived inside it before. It does however smudge his body dark in several places where skin touches smooth memory of bark. This smudge will come away—Little Boy comes to him and rubs it off with spit.

They go on together. They find a Western-style door thrown on its side, wooden, with heavy finish, dark grain, knob melted so it looks like a wilting brass flower. There was black lettering before that is now burnt away, leaving a streak of scorch.

“This is where the soldiers found me,” says Fat Man. “I was crying.”

“What for?” asks Little Boy.

“Am I a good brother?” says Fat Man.

“So far you’re fine,” says Little Boy. “Just do as I say.”

They pass another man’s shadow projected on a wall. He is reaching toward what killed him. The cinders that were the body remain face-down on the road.

“He looks like he wants our money,” says Fat Man, fearful, squeezing Little Boy’s hand.

Little Boy squeezes back. He does not deny the shadow wants. Stooped body, thin wrists. It would take what it could get.

By night they come to the outermost edge of the city, where the wilds begin to encroach and the crickets insist.