High Machiavelli | Fargo

iii. hot rush of blood

[ iii . i ]

          The tip of his tongue was pinched between his teeth in agitation; the sound of his knuckles cracking one by one filled the room as he tightened his jaw. Dodd lay staring up at the ceiling as the pestilent sound of women babbling filled his black heart with a bitterness he was quite familiar with. He turned against his pillow in time to watch the minute flip to 12:52 in the moonlight that leaked in from the clear night sky.

NOVEMBER 1949

12:53 AM

           It was not the metallic click of the door latch that awoke the boy, nor was it the dull sets of footsteps that followed. It was the hissing of hushed voices that stirred him to sit up--peeling the blanket off his small legs--and sent him pattering down the stairs curiously. A square of light cast onto the wooden floor of the family room and he followed it down the hall. His little fingers clutched the edge of the kitchen door as he attempted to conceal himself in its shadow.

          Though the boy could recognize a few figures in the room, two foreign bodies in high-belted skirts caught his attention as his mother spoke to the taller of them gently.

          "...Das ist Elron und Otto," she whispered almost unintelligibly, gesturing to the men who smiled in return. His father smiled and courteously bowed, uttering a greeting of welcome to them both, which made the boy crane further into the room to hear. It was at this time his mother noticed his head peeping through the crack in the entryway and conducted the room's attention to him.

          "Ah! Und das ist mein jungster, Dodd."

She motioned for him to enter the stage. Shyly did he do so as the two women rotated to face him and an unfamiliar bloom formed in the little boy's chest.

          The girl was sixteen, though in his baby-faced naivety he could not tell thirteen from sixteen and likewise sixteen from twenty. Her dark curls were pulled to the back of her head in a pink ribbon and her eyes glittered green as she smiled at him. He was certain he had never seen anything like her before, something from the cover of one of those girl's magazines they had in the shops. He could not have prepared himself for such a sight and thought he may hurl from the newfound sensation.

          And as she turned away to his older brother he felt as if the floor beneath his feet had turned to dust.

[ iii . ii ]

          The sky at dawn was something more easily felt than seen, Letty believed. It either felt of excitement or dread or hunger or numbness. It felt cold, which she undoubtedly was. Her fingers gripped the curve of a coffee mug for warmth as she tucked a foot underneath herself and leaned over the side of the table, peering down at grocery coupons stacked down the border of the weekly paper. Mindlessly did she run her finger down the edge of the page and inhaled sharply at the sting of a consequential papercut. She held it up to her face, inquisitively watching the slice go from pink to red as a trace of blood seeped out from the fragile skin. She shut one eye and pinched the wound between the nails of her free hand, forcing a bead of blood to form on her fingertip. The shuffling of approaching feet caused her to look over her shoulder and there she found Floyd Gerhardt striding into the doorway, a pair of fuzzy white slippers offsetting her sage three-piece pajama set.

           "Good morning," the older woman announced, robe trailing behind her as she paced toward the coffee pot on the counter.

The girl echoed, "morning," and arched her back against the chair to stretch her arms over the table. Her shoulder popped. Floyd pulled out a chair next to her at the table and lowered into it, both hands on her coffee mug.