Waste Read Free

Cutcherson should be happy he only lost a few teeth, because this girl has to have tubes hooked up to—”
    There was a blur in front of the headlights and Jamie jammed the brake. Moses slammed against the glove box, popping it off the hinges. His face left a greasy imprint on the windshield. The car bucked and thumped into a shape on the road. Jamie’s eyes caught a blur of hair before he cracked his head against the driver-side window and then off the cold steering wheel. The car had no airbags. Moses was bleeding from one ear.
    â€œJamie, what the fuck did you hit? Is that a kid?”
    Jamie remembered stories his grandfather told him about moose up north, how the impact usually only broke their spindly legs, sending their massive frames head first through the windshield. By the time the police arrived, usually only the moose lived, its massive head mounted between the front seats wearing a wreath of cracked glass. Sometimes the kids in the backseat were still screaming when the cops pulled them out.
    â€œNo, not a fucking kid. Too big to be a kid. My neck, goddamn.”
    Jamie pulled himself up in the seat. One of his headlights was busted. The other clicked on and off as he tried to put the car in park. Moses opened the car door.
    â€œWhat are you doin’?” Jamie asked.
    â€œI gotta see who we hit.”
    â€œWe didn’t hit anyone. A car doesn’t stop when it hits somebody,” Jamie said.
    â€œWell what is it, then?”
    The crash rearranged every bone in Jamie’s back. His shins burned and buckled as he kicked the door open and his vision blurred once his feet hit the ground. He sat with his head between his knees, fighting the urge to puke up the meatball sub he’d swallowed in three bites for dinner.
    â€œGoing to yak?”
    â€œFuck off, Moses.”
    â€œHey, I’m not the one who fucked up your ride. My neck is pretty messed up, though.”
    Jamie stood up and stretched his arms over the roof. He laid his face on the cold metal. “That’s why you’re supposed to wear a seatbelt.”
    Moses walked toward the front of the car. “Don’t freak out, all right, it’s just a—oh, goddamn!”
    Jamie moved to the front of the car. Each time the busted headlight flashed, Jamie spotted the blond fur and massive paws crushed beneath his front wheels. The grille was imprinted deep into the rib cage. A long tail with a brush at the end of it poked between Jamie’s boots.
    â€œYou see its teeth, man? Imagine if we hadn’t killed it,” Moses said.
    Jamie never went to the zoo as a child. He only knew about zebras and giraffes from TV.
    â€œYou killed a fucking lion, J.”
    The head was massive, the snout dwarfing even Moses’s large, lopsided egg. The gums were black and pink, still coated in a thick layer of saliva. The mane was long and tangled, but the lion looked well fed. No mange or patches of discoloured fur. Each paw could have suffocated Jamie in his sleep. The two men stood over the body, their shadows flicking across the two-lane road.
    â€œIs it dead? I think it has to be dead. It’s dead, right, J?”
    Jamie could tell by the eyes. Massive yellow and black eyes, the lids frozen open, but snuffed out. No flicker. The pupils no longer reacted to the changing light. A tire had crunched through the top of the beast’s rib cage, splintering the bone and popping organs until all their juices ran together. Steam rose from the congealing puddles.
    â€œA fucking lion, J. Shit, wait until I tell—”
    â€œYou aren’t telling anyone shit, Moses.”
    â€œDo you think we can fit it in the trunk? I know this guy from down the hall, he has a brother out on Keewatin. The guy does taxidermy.”
    â€œWe aren’t going to fit this in the trunk,” Jamie said.
    â€œThe lion? No, he’s too big. So we come back with a truck. You think your brother will come by? Maybe do