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Show The Speed of Light Butch and,Fenn Stories 6 "You're in God's kingdom, Fenn!" Butch drops the carp onto the old bureau which is the lab table. "You're the only one in this room in God's kingdom. The rest of us are scientists." He nips the little stomach open with his pocket knife and presses the grey pouch with his thumb; a pulp of refolded waterbugs and weeds pops out. "What'd he die of, Butch?" Fenn says. Butch ignores him, saying slowly: "We come from fish, you know." "I came from Grand Junction." Fenn says. While Butch searches for the heart amid the gnarled little mass of tubular wetnesses, I step away and let Fenn have a better look. From the stairs that lead to fresh air, I turn and see my two friends leaning into the light as if gambling. I heard Fenn say: "What'd he die of, Butch?" That night, with the results of the autopsy still clotting on top of the basement bureau, the cat comes back. We are all sleeping out in Butch's backyard, still trying for the old sleepout record set by Parley two years before: ninety-nine times in a row. At first I think the fish has flown out the basement window, smashing the new glass, sticker and all, but then the wicked and familiar calico spectre flies across our sleeping bags and into the alley. The cat has the fish. Our experiments are eating each other. |