Big Jack Is Dead Read Free

from him.
    He watched her recede, crossing the room quickly. The bedroom door closed and Jack turned his attention to the television. From the other side of the wall, Daryl said something but it was muffled. Music started to play.
    Jack sat watching Speed Racer. It was shortly after one in the afternoon and he remembered his hunger. The television was up loud and the sounds of cars accelerating and exploding echoed off the walls. During a commercial break, he slid off the couch and made his way to the kitchen.
    Rummaging around in the pantry, he found a loaf of bread, untwisting the tie with his small fingers. Standing in a kitchen chair, he slathered two slices of bread with a layer of margarine before dropping them into the toaster. He'd been told before to butter the bread only after toasting it, but with no one around this was a small rule that he generally broke. If he buttered it first, the bread tasted better, coming out of the toaster in a dozen shades of gold and lighting his tongue up with the pleasures of grease, salt and burned things.
    Big Jack, his father, had walked in on him once while he was toasting the already-buttered bread. Jack was sitting on the counter after a slow climb up from the tiled floor, aromatic smoke filling his senses. Watching the toaster greedily, he was barely aware that his father had entered the room.
    Big Jack was short, probably five foot seven, with skinny arms and legs. A basketball-sized belly was molded to his lower abdomen and a pair of B-cup tits sagged from his chest. Intermittent patches of wiry hair covered his pale, freckled skin. Watching his son up on the counter, it had taken Big Jack a few seconds to realize what was going on. He looked dully at the toaster before his eyes flared with anger. “Boy!”
    Jack jumped, his heels banging against the cabinet door.
    “What're you doing? You want me to knock you through that wall?” Big Jack took a step closer. His eyes were red-rimmed from cigarette smoke and bulged in outrage. Standing in front of the counter, he stared straight into his son's eyes.
    “No, sir,” Jack said. He looked into his lap.
    Big Jack held him with his gaze as the toast smoke rose next to them. When the toaster catapulted both pieces of bread up to the top of the twin slots, Big Jack took them immediately, holding them in the palm of his calloused hand with no regard for the heat. As a welder, his skin was impervious to the glowing tip of a cigarette. Hot toast didn't even register.
    “Don't put this shit in there already buttered. You're gonna burn the fucking house down.” Big Jack boomed down at his son, “Is that what you want? To kill us all?”
    “No, sir,” Jack said weakly.
    “Now get down off the goddamn counter.” Finished with the lesson, Big Jack left the kitchen and went out back.
    Jack's stomach was in knots, but he relaxed as soon as his father walked away. He waited until the kitchen was quiet then pushed himself forward off the counter. Dropping to the floor, he misjudged the fall and scraped the small of his back on the way down. He twisted and moaned, crouching and rubbing his back. Letting out a sigh, he collected himself and started out of the kitchen.
    As he passed the door to the back porch, Jack saw his father outside gobbling up the toast, finishing off each slice in only a few bites. Mouth stuffed with toast, Big Jack swiveled his head like a hostile, backyard blue jay. Unable to speak, he communicated with his face, furrowing his brow severely, scaring the boy into motion.
    That had been months ago. Now Jack stood on a chair, mouth watering as he made toast in the middle of the afternoon. He watched wispy smoke rise up from the toaster and at that moment his father's battered black truck roared up into the driveway, home from work.
    Panic ran through him as he remembered his mother. Hopping down from the chair, Jack raced through the living room. He reached the bedroom door and hammered against it with his hand. The