Eating Memories (4 page)

Pete and Hady got out the deer rifles from their saddles.

“They’re going hunting with Pa again,” Daniel said.

With a little groan of horror, Zeke grabbed up his brother quick and tried to lead him away. Daniel wriggled out from under his arm and ran across to the grown-ups.

“Danny!” Zeke wailed as he saw the flash of Daniel’s feet and the glint of Hady Miller’s gun as he set it on his shoulder. To the side Pa put his hands up to his face, a gesture more like Ma would have -made.

Daniel’s head burst open in a spray of pink. It looked like Hady had shot into a melon. Momentum carried him two steps more before he fell in the dust of the yard. Ma banged out the door and Pa caught her. She was shrieking as loud as Zeke was.

Pete Jones put a gouge in
a pine tree two feet from where Zeke stood. Peter never had been much of a shot. Zeke ducked under a pine bough, fled a few yards into the forest and stopped, bewildered. There was no other place he could go. Turned out like he was, there were no other people who would take him in.

Pete and Hady were out on the porch. Pa, Ma and Reverend Sorenson had gone inside. Daniel lay spraddled in the yard, his legs twisted as if he were still running.

The space captain would help him, if only Zeke could wait the six months till he came back. Zeke guessed he probably couldn’t make it. He thought about living out in the wild without Daniel. He thought about hunger. He thought about cold.

Daniel had died in ignorance, but Zeke decided he wouldn’t. He didn’t want to die by chance, either. Chance might be a whole lot worse. He and Daniel had done something they shouldn’t have, and, one way or another, they were going to pay. Zeke was old enough to understand the relationship between God and man; between man and boy.

He stepped out from behind the tree and started down in a steady walk towards the yard. Hady—thank God it was Hady—raised his rifle and sighted slow.

Author’s Note:
This was another challenging POV: a retarded person who also had the instincts of a bee. About this time in looking over the proofs I began thinking, why the heck do I always do tear jerkers? Well, my only excuse is that I loathe chirpy TV announcers and overly happy endings; The Sound of Music was the only movie I ever walked out of.

Still. Hanky alert. “Sweet Tooth” may be my tear jerkiest story of all.

The bang scared him, scared him so much his hands flew into the air and he made an “uh” sound with his throat. Home spun in his head and made him dizzy. In the curved triglas around him, where he had first seen the bright light that came with the bang, all there was was orange-black-orange-black. The emergency horn over his head went WA-A-AANK, WA-A-A-ANK so loud it hurt his ears.

His stomach felt the way it had felt when Jean had taken him on the roller coaster in the park. The cars would go slow up to the top and then they would nearly stop for a second before they started running down the hill as fast as they could go.

It was the down side he had liked. Jean had held his hand. The steel bar had been hard against his thighs so he couldn’t fall out.

The soft, plastic emergency bar of the chair that had flipped down during the bang was hitting his lap in almost the same place. His chest thumped against the shoulder harness. He was afraid but at the same time he was happy because he remembered the roller coaster. He remembered Jean’s hand in his.

Orange-black-orange-black. It was like someone was throwing flip cards real fast over the triglas. He knew the orange was the big color of Jupiter; and the black was the big hole that was space. REACTOR RUPTURE, the computer was saying in its deep, machiny voice. He could barely hear the computer over the blat of the horn.

“Reactor rupture,” he said because he liked to repeat things.

Then he laughed. He closed his eyes. Home went round and round in his head like a searchlight. His body bumped against the seat. He put his hands way up in the air like Jean had told him to when they went down the hills in the cars.

“Sweetie? Sweet Tooth?”

He opened his eyes when he heard Jean’s voice behind him. He knew she had opened the lock to the ship, but he didn’t bother to turn. The orange blips caught his eyes and held them.

“You all right?”

“Fun, Jean,” he told her, squealing a little. “Put your hands up, it’s funner.”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s fun. But now I want you to get up and come here, okay, Sweetie? Real quick now. Quick like a bunny.”

He had trouble unfastening the plastic bar at his waist.

“Hurry up, honey,” Jean said.

“Uh huh,” he told her. His body couldn’t move good. When he got up he fell against the wall, then back against the other wall. Jean gave him her hand. She pulled him through and held on to him because the ship was doing roller coaster things.

“Shut the goddamned door,” Martingale said. He was sitting in his chair. The bar had come down over his legs, too.

“I’m trying, I’m trying,” Jean told him. She sounded mad. Her fingers didn’t close right on the wheel, so Sweet Tooth helped her. The ship pushed them against the wall over and over again.

Sweet Tooth liked it when Jean moved. Her hands danced. Her arms made pretty cut-outs of the blue wall behind her. He liked watching her from across the room, but he liked it best right beside her where their bodies swam in the air so close that he could feel the breeze from her movements against him.

“Get it closed!” Martingale shouted in a voice that made Sweet Tooth afraid and angry at the same time.

Jean slammed the door bang like the sound the ship had made. Sweet Tooth, because he was stronger, turned the wheel to LOCK.

The ship wasn’t turning as fast now. Even though there wasn’t a window, Sweet Tooth knew it. Home went swish for a few more turns and then stopped somewhere to the left of him. When it stopped, Sweet Tooth felt something that made him pull hard at his lip.

“Don’t,” Jean said, slapping his hand.

He put his arm down at his side, His fingers played with the loose material of his pants.

“What’s the matter?” she asked him.

He was afraid to tell her, afraid that he had done something wrong.

“What is it? You can tell me.” Jean smiled at him. She had a nice smile, but this wasn’t her nicest. Her nicest was when she opened her mouth and showed her teeth. This smile was just straight across her lips. The look in Jean’s eyes made his throat want to move a little.

“What the hell’s the matter with him?” Martingale asked.

“He’s scared, Bill,” she said, “We’re all scared.”

“We’re all scared,” Sweet Tooth repeated. “We’re all scared,” he said in a little bitty voice.

Jean leaned down to him so close he could smell her perfume. “What is it, Sweetie? What’s bothering you?” Her voice was warm. It sounded as good as his stuffed rabbit felt when he hugged it.

It sounded so good that he told her. “Home,” he said and pointed to the place that was getting smaller and smaller every minute.

“He’s still in touch with the base,” Jean told Martingale.

“Home,” Sweet Tooth said and wailed.

“Yeah. Yeah. Play navigator for a little longer, kid,” Martingale said. “Your holograph’s out.”

“Home,” Sweet Tooth said, stretching out his arms to the place where home was disappearing. His fingers wriggled on the ends of his hands.

“Bill will get the ship moving soon, Sweetie. And you can point to where home is and we’ll go there, okay? We’ll be there in a little while.” Jean took his hands down. She held them. It felt good, but not good enough.

“Home’s going away,” Sweet Tooth said.

Jean and Martingale looked at each other. Martingale’s mouth went open with a plop. Then Martingale stared at Sweet Tooth. His eyes were cold and dead the way the stars looked out of the triglas. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” Martingale said.

Jean took Sweet Tooth by the hand and led him back from the bridge to the passenger cabin.

It smelled in the cabin, and it was all red, too. When Sweet Tooth saw where the red had come from he started to scream. Jean had to hold him again. She made him sit down and then she threw a blanket over Dunaway. On the other side of the cabin Larry was making noises and his leg was twisted up under him. She gave Larry a shot.

“Dunaway,” Larry said. Larry’s voice wasn’t soft and nice like it usually was. It was little and sounded squeezed the way toothpaste goes out of the tube. Sweet Tooth thought maybe the shot had hurt. “Oh, shit. Poor Dunaway.”

Jean was holding his hand just like she did when Sweet Tooth had to have a shot.

“Jesus Christ! My leg.” He was crying. Sweet Tooth stared at him hard. He had never seen a man cry before. It made him feel odd in his tummy the way the tumbling of the ship had done.

“Pain’ll be gone in a minute.”

Dunaway was still leaking a little, The blanket was red. The floor was wet around him.

“What happened?”

“Martingale got us too close to Io’s field.”

Larry had stopped crying. He looked over at Sweet Tooth.

“No,” Jean said. “It wasn’t Sweet Tooth’s fault.”

“Martingale. That stupid, egotistical bastard,” he said.

“Don’t say that,” Sweet Tooth told him, putting his hands over his ears.

“Sorry, Hummer.” Larry tried to smile. Sweet Tooth smiled back. He hoped his smile looked better than Larry’s.

But Sweet Tooth couldn’t keep his eyes away from the blanket Dunaway was wrapped in. “Sick,” he said to Jean. “Dunaway’s sick.”

“Real sick, Sweetie,” Jean told him without looking his way.

“Sick,” Sweet Tooth said out of a throat that seemed too dry.

Jean didn’t pay any attention. “We need to get you strapped in the chair, Larry. Can you get up?”

Larry acted drunk the way Martingale had once when he had gotten in real bad trouble. Sweet Tooth was scared that the shot Jean had given Larry was whiskey. He didn’t want the bosses to talk to Larry the way they’d talked to Martingale.

“Help me, Sweet Tooth,” Jean said.

He came over to her. His fingers pulled at the legs of his trousers.

“Get him up, okay? And put him in one of the chairs.”

“Larry’s sick, too,” Sweet Tooth said.

“Yeah. Larry’s real sick, honey. Pick him up under the arms and don’t let his legs drag the floor.”

The room was messy, all red and stinking. Larry and Dunaway had made it that way, To Sweet Tooth it felt nasty, like when his hands were dirty and he needed to wash them. He grabbed Larry under the arms and carried him to the wall.

“Sweetie? Here. Right here.”

Sweet Tooth walked past Jean to the door. His right hand pulled at the lever that said EMERGENCY EXIT.

“No!” Jean shouted. She pulled at Sweet Tooth’s jacket.

Larry twisted in Sweet Tooth’s arms trying to get away, but he wasn’t strong enough. Not when he was drunk. “Don’t open the door, okay, Hummer?” Larry said, “Hummer, please! Jean! For God’s sake do something!”

It was hard opening the door when Jean got in the way like that and Larry fought him. Sweet Tooth tried to flip the lock without hurting her, but his fingers slipped and he dug gouges in the back of her hand. She didn’t take her hand away.

“Sit down, Sweet Tooth! Sweet Tooth!” Jean screamed. “Look at me! Look at me, damn it!”

He looked at her then. She shouldn’t use words like that. It made the room feel dirty some more.

“You’ll hurt me if you open the door, Sweet Tooth,” she told him. Her face was very close. Larry stopped struggling a minute and just lay like a pile of heavy rags in Sweet Tooth’s arms. “You’ll hurt me real bad if you do that.”

His hand slipped off the lock.

“Set him down now. In the chair.”

“He’s sick. He needs out,” Sweet Tooth said with a frown in his voice. Jean didn’t look like she wanted to understand. He put Larry down in the chair the way Jean had said.

“Don’t get mad at him,” Larry told her. His lips got in the way of his words. “It’s just instinct Get the dead and sick out of the hive. He can’t help what he is.”

“It’s not fair that they’re all like that, and they still create them. It’s not fair to us or to them,” Jean said. She looked at Sweet Tooth before she looked away. Sweet Tooth twisted the ends of his jacket in his hands because he knew he had just done something bad, and he didn’t know what that thing was.

“Come here,” Larry said, holding his hand out to him. Sweet Tooth came over and sat in the chair next to his friend. “Don’t cry,
”
Larry told him. He put his hand on Sweet Tooth’s head. “Don’t cry, Hummer. Everything’s all right now.”

“Sick,” Sweet Tooth said.

“I know. But don’t open the door. Okay?”

“Okay,’” Sweet Tooth said. He thought Larry and Dunaway should be outside the ship, but if Larry and Jean didn’t want it, he’d just ignore that flippy feeling in the pit of his stomach. That was simple. It was so simple it made him happy again.

Larry turned to Jean. “How bad is it?”

“Reactor rupture in the navigation cabin . . .”

Blink. Larry’s eyes were on Sweet Tooth again.

“He’s okay,” Jean said. “We got him out before the steam started to escape. Probably a sauna in there now.”

“Rads?”

“Building,”

“Building,” Sweet Tooth said. He hated it when he wasn’t part of the talking. He liked the talking. Sometimes when they talked, he’d hum Iittle tunes Jean had taught him: Farmer in the Dell” and “Jingle Bells.” That’s why Larry called him “Hummer.”

“So what about the holograph?” Larry asked. “Without Sweet Tooth in there, we can’t use the holograph. How do we know where we are?”

“Sweet Tooth knows,” Jean said.

That made Sweet Tooth feel proud. Larry’s hand came down on his cheek, but it wasn’t working real good, so the hand slipped off, down past his chin, dragging his lip open for a minute.

“Good kid,” Larry said. “Good kid.”

“Good kid,” Sweet Tooth told him. Then he said, “Home’s going away now.”

“Yeah?” Larry said, wrapping his arm around Sweet Tooth’s shoulders. It stayed put this time.

“Martingale got the ship stabilized, but we still have a lot of lateral motion.” Jean was looking at Larry, but Larry was eyeing Sweet Tooth. He had a silly smile on his mouth.

“Martingale’s stupid, isn’t he, kid?” Larry asked.

“Martingale calls me stupid,” Sweet Tooth told him. Larry’s arm was a little heavy on his shoulder. The heavy arm pulled Sweet Tooth’s face real close to Larry’s so that Larry spoke into his ear.

“Right in here,” Larry said, rubbing the knuckles of his other hand into Sweet Tooth’s forehead, “is everything a bee knows. So you can’t ever be stupid, Sweet Tooth. You’re a genius of a bee who just looks like a human. That’s all. A bee genius.”

“A genius,” Sweet Tooth said. He didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded nice.

The ship went “clang” and rocked a little, but Larry had his shoulder harness on, so it was all right. Jean, who didn’t have anyone’s arm around her, fell off her knees a little way to the floor. She didn’t hurt herself. It wasn’t that big a bump.

“I’d better get back,” Jean said.