Robert Boyczuk - Singing the Fat Man.pdf - Robert Boyczuk - allforjesus2001

Singing the Fat Man

Robert Boyczuk

When they burnt Rodny:One I knew they were scanning me. Tight.

Like a coating in my throat. Like skin over bones. Like the Fat Man's thick

sausages pressing into my neck tendons, not hard like, but persistent,

constant, moist .

"Higgily piggily, Rodny, for goodness, gosh sakes," wetly he says,

drip, drip, dripping of sewer walls, "I need a little favour."

Flesh, mounds of it, moved beneath, rocked like a boat I was,

anchored by that damp, greasy grasp, a doll, Fat Man's doll on his knee. I

stayed zipped -- except for squeaking a bit.

"There's a leaky pipe, my boy." Shivers and shakes: laughing. "I

need a filter." Stroking the back of my head gently, lightly, soft touching

finger tips, lap dogging me, then stuck them fingers in his maw, sucking

busily and noisily on the meat to hint me.

Scooped and pan fried, Rodny:One was.

I am Rodny:Two.

His number one Joey in sight, behind, round the Fat Man. I had evil

in my pocket, that weighed heavy and stone like, rock hard rock to smash

against blubbering meat. But the Joey:One full of evil and ready to do the

Devil's work. Bang, bang, bang went my evil against my thigh as the Fat

Man shook, shook, shook.

I remembered Rodny:One.

I let it bang.

"Tiddley piddley, boy, tiddley piddley. What do you say. Are we

on, ok?"

Just a Fat man, asking a Fat question. A man who loves his food,

and some friends who love him as he devours them like his food, Joey

friends, who keep funny notes and run funny errands, who have friends too,

Billys and Daveys and Lillys all, who have friends again and again and so

forth, etcetera, till there's no knowing where an idea came from except to

guess somewhere near the street where it happened. Where things (surprise,

surprise!) happen the way the Fat man wants. But it isn't the tangle it seems,

only means to look that way.

Me squirming: "Let me down, Fat, ok? Pleeeease?"

"Come, come, now," laughing Santa Claus. "I need an answer."

Stroking, wetly probing clammy fingers touching. "You wouldn't want old

Fat to worry? And I could be ever so grateful. Ever so grateful," repeating to

a dumb Rodny, so he sees, see? Dumb Rodny me.

But I ain't so dumb, sometimes. "Favours, favours. What's a

favour?" says I. "Like you want that Rodny covers the paper route?"

Laughter, big and rolling, a barrel on a runway. " HO HO HO! HE

HE HE !" Shaking he shakes me.

"No, ho ho ho," smaller barrel, "Oh no. Joey does that just fine and

dandy. Fine an dandy, don't you Joey?" Melon head swinging round.

Squirming to see past the mountain of meat, behind to the thin

hungry figure, but nothing (too late?), no motion, or maybe a dark shrug.

But Joey eyes like dying coals for me. Evil for me. Why does Fat tell me

Joey does the route? Knowing is danger: too much knowing is death.

Shouldn't have looked at Joey:One. I am dumb. Fat's shaking me other

ways, too, I know.

"Grateful?" I say to keep the uneasy sea rolling.

Smile large as a canyon, dark deep abyss, no bottom. And

movement. Not large. Little, small shift. But I know it. He knows Rodny

knows it. Any Rat would. And me, not your average Rat, knows it too

much.

"Silly Billy. Grateful is the word, yessss," ssssing like a snake, hand

on my shoulder now, resting, not measuring, feeling, weighing. Friendly

like. "Oh gosh, yes! My yes!" Leaning over, too close, lips dripping into an

ear I shouldn't move, whispering wetly, sadly, "Who to trust? Who is selling

out old fat?" Then, closer: "Wherever might I find a new Joey? Hm?

Wherever?" But loud enough so Joey:One behind can capture it, too close to

my Rodny:Two ear so I can't see him digging it behind Fat's melon. I hear

Joey:One shift his weight. Adjust his gear. Things like that, I hear things.

"Joey? A leaky pipe?" I whisper, softly, softly, hoping Joey ears

don't hear, wondering at Fat's game. Someone turning the trick on Fat,

selling him down and out. And me a Rodny rat, to snuffle through his

garbage and find him out.

"Oh ho! No, no!" He laughs and his flesh flows and ebbs.

"Joey:One here is a good boy. A nice boy. He'd never blab on old Fat," lip

smacking, wetting wetly with tongue. "He'll give it to you straight."

Three Joeys there are.

So I say, "Joey:Two?"

The melon bobs, like on a thick, flat metal spring.

"And :Three?"

Nods again. Looking behind his pie eyes, the promise hangs

between us, a thick-linked heavy chain, pulling our heads closer, me actually

thinking about working for Fat permanent-like: freelance no more, me a new

Joey (number unknown?) while the old leaky Joey:? pipe is plugged up,

disappearing like he never was and never will be.

"Dear, dear!" A rush of dank air, a sigh, a sigh. "Oh my! Poor old

Fat! What am I to do? Who else could it be, who else? My, my, my."

Leaning over again, conspiratorial like. "You just run a little filter, yes, a

little scan on Joeys(:Two and :Three). I want to know who's a nice boy and

who isn't. It won't do to have naughty children, oh no!"

Tight scan on Joey(:Two and :Three). And if they come to know ....

No choice, I know, no none. Ask Rodny:One. Who I now know,

some time ago, had this same talk with Fat.

So I nod ok, scared, but not showing, and thinking about me, a

dumb Rodny, being Fat's Joey, if I don't get burned, and go on nodding like a

dumb Rodny till the Fat Man stretches out his lumpy leg and I slip down the

slide of flesh to the floor.

Only one Fat Man, there is.

Later, when I can know again, Joey:One has me somewhere outside,

upside, klicks from where he dug me up before, and hustling, bustling,

bumping, pushing me, while I think, think, think, and try to ignore my evil.

"Here."

Into my hand slides a set of addresses. Good numbers. Clobbering

numbers. Numbers to make it easier to put hooks into :Two and :Three.

Joeys that is. I could probably do it without, but I ain't telling. But lots

easier, anyway.

I turn and look at Joey's face, dark cloud warning, an angry horizon,

thin where the Fat Man's is round and full.

"Rats should stay underground." Voice like a knife of ice. Like I'm

a dumb Rodny again. "I don't like Rats." Push and twist and I stumble away,

Joey:One at my back, hearing him finger his evil, but muffled sound in his

pocket, only in his pocket. So mine stays put, waiting for the sound, waiting.

But it doesn't come, and I have my skin still -- and Joey:One brought

me here.

He is too shook to fry me?

Or Fat is playing him too?

Or he is playing Fat playing him?

Naw, to the last -- he's a dumb Joey.

Or a very good Joey.

Me a Joey?

Too many thinks.

And when I turn round, Joey:One is gone -- only dying trees and

shadow buildings on a dark tumble street I don't know, the sounds of

scurrying under gutter garbage tickle my ears with the clicking of tiny claws.

Find a hole, I keep thinking, a nice safe hidey-hole, a warm dry nest

full of happy things, cuddly things. I gotta hole nobody knows, not even Fat.

I think. Good idea I keep saying to myself, but I know when I come out for

air, and I'm going to have to sooner or later ... well, you can't fool the Fat

Man.

So Up I go to do his work.

To do Fat's job I need the BIG machine. The connected machine.

So I need to go on the Up. TomDickandHarry who work the BIG machine

dig Rats like me hanging round. Like status or something. Like they wished

they were Rats, but they're too scared of tunnels, too scared of traps that will

fry them clean down to the bone, too scared, maybe, of stuff they shouldn't be

knowing, or each other, or maybe what they might find out about themselves.

Anyway, I make the call.

"Hi. Todd there?"

"I'm sorry, he's out of his office at the moment. May I take a

message?"

"Sure. Could you tell him Jerome called, and that I'll be at the Cafe

at five?"

"Ok. Jerome called, cafe at five, right?"

"Right. Thanks. Bye."

"Bye."

Then I giggle in the dark, like always, cause the voice is not mine,

but Homer's I mined and refined from an old show when I was a kid. Then

stop giggling when I remember howcum I called, the shadow of Fat weighing

down on me.

Later, when I watch Todd drift by the scan, all angles and elbows,

lanky and tweed, going into the place, I really go Up, like right Up, and into

that box like I belong to it and it belongs to me. And I shiver inside stepping

up to the door when I think, maybe it will, just maybe it will, when I'm a

Joey.

When I'm a Joey .

"Hey, Todd!"

"Jerome, good to see you," he says, not knowing my Rodny, cause

he's a Todd double d and on the Up side where they all think their names are

their own. "How've you been, man? It's been months since I've heard from

you."

"Good. How about you, man? How are things in academe?" I say

cause that's what he waiting for, what he has ears to hear for.

"Not bad," he says, smiling his I'm important smile. "I got my

grant."

I know this already, knew before he did cause I unravelled it:

expedited it, as ole Toddy might say, gave him his plum, with a bit o' bit

twiddling on one of my favourite lines. But act surprised anyway: "Great!

That mean you're staying at the College then?"

"You bet. I'm in there for the duration. I'll tell you," he lowers his

voice, and gets close like, "now I can really do what I want with my project."

"Glad to hear I'm not going to lose another friend to the Corpse."

That's the way they say it, TomDickandHarry, like with an e on the end,

when they look up with little nervous eyes at the ice towers in the skies. Do

they giggle, too, in their florescence, like us Rats in the dark?

"Naw," he says leaning back, working the salt shaker to keep his

busy hands busy. "I'm really not cut out for the real world. This is where I

belong."

"You'd only be wasted there anyway," I say, cause he wants to hear

that, listening to it inside my head in my Goober voice, so I can swallow it

though it tastes like stone.

But instead of thanks says, "You're right," uncertain smile around it,

running tongue over lips, tasting the change, almost believing himself,

surprising me. Be careful, I think, don't give him too much line or he'll try to

cut me free. Or strangle himself. An ambitious TomDickandHarry associate

might unwind him.

I nod, anyway, cause I can't think of what else, and he says, "So

what have you been up to lately?" making me a happy Rodny.

"I've been working on some really interesting stuff. You might want

to take a look sometime."

He nods, and a smile turns the corners of his mouth, a smile full of

knowing, plain for anyone to see, and inside I think to me: hope no one's

watching. But I doubt it. He's a TomDickandHarry and there's no getting

around it. "Listen, I've got the whole weekend pretty well free. How'd you

like to drop by the lab and we can have a look at some of your stuff ."

Wince so hard it almost shows on the outside, but plug the crack and

smile anyway, somehow, and nod "Ok, sounds good to me," and talk of time,

place, of other things, anything, but no more cracks, no, not here, for Fat, or

another Rat, or anyone who might be watching, to see.

So, anyway, there's Mother.

Big and grey and cold.

Furious little particles tickling her cold heart. In almost silence. Up

boys can't hear it. But I can hear: singing to me of Fat and Joeys and Pipes

and Filters. Veins spilling out all over. Spaghetti lines, allover everywhere,

like no one cares or knows, or could know, where they go, what they say,

when they say, who they say. Cause they can't hear like I can.

And there's Todd, smiling his Todd smile, little Todd eyes on my

box of tricks.

So I give him a new toy, and he jacks in on one deck, me on

another, making Momma sing for him, slipping something nice and soft into

her so she hardly feels it. She knows me, knows my touch, from the before

times.

Hello.

Hi, I say back.

How are you Rodny ? she asks.

Ok, I say.

Who's your friend ?

Robert Boyczuk - Singing the Fat Man.pdf

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