R. Sebastian Bennett taught Fiction Writing at the University of California – Los Angeles and founded the literary journal, The Southern Anthology. His recent book publications include The Final Yen, a novel about working in Tokyo; and A Taste of Heaven, a collection of short fiction. His writing has also been widely published in venues including Alécart (Romania), The Bombay Review (India), Columbia Journal (USA), Fiction International (USA), The Galway Review (Ireland), Modern Literature (India), and Paris Transcontinental (France).

Feeding the Barracudas

By Sebastian Bennett

Heavenly Keys Home for the Elderly is too cold. No one comes to visit me. Every day, the nurses tell me, “Raúl, you have no letters.” One day, I will write a letter to myself.

The nurses are gordas del norte. They like it cold. Their fat keeps them warm, or maybe it is menopause. The central air conditioning is on full blast and my teeth chatter, even under the blankets. Oddly, I perspire. Sweat drips down my neck, my shoulders, and my legs. It soaks through the sheets and into the mattress. I feel colder and start shaking. I hold one hand with the other and hug my arms against my chest. I lift my knees and curl into a fetal position. I pretend that I am dead.

Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. I get up and turn on the hot water faucet to try and steam-heat the room.

At 10:00 pm, the nurses come to check on me and tuck in the sides of my sheets. They are angry the room is steamy. They shout, “You peed the bed!” I tell them I did not. I point to my genitals and explain that this part of my body still works well . . . I offer to demonstrate.

One of the nurses frantically calls the front desk on her cell phone. She lowers her voice so I can’t hear what she is saying. Almost immediately, three orderlies rush into the room. They pick me up and lift me out of bed. They look clean in their white uniforms and rubber gloves, but they stink of marijuana. They pull the mattress out from under me, fold the bed-frame, and wheel it towards the door. One of the orderlies throws a pillow and a blanket on the floor. “Here is your bed,” he says. “No more pee-pee!”

Ignoring him, I sit in the armchair. I stare at the wall and remain absolutely still—not moving or flexing the slightest muscle. I even stop breathing. An aching pressure builds in my lungs. It hurts. I tremble. The pressure in my chest grows and swells into my throat. I feel a burst of panic, but I concentrate and imagine that my soul is trying to rise from my body, trying to escape out of my heart. . . I know that soon it will emerge, a sphere of light which ascends into the night sky. I keep holding my breath. The pain in my lungs is intense. My cheeks burn. I’m about to vomit—Then I give in and gulp for air. I gasp for breath—in and out. . . And gasp again—in and out . . . I am shaking.

Eventually my breathing calms. But my lungs still ache. I take shallow breaths. I try to relax. Slowly, I lift my hands in front of me and extend my fingers and turn my hands until the palms are facing each other. Millimeter by millimeter, I move my hands closer and closer, until they are almost touching, fingerprint to fingerprint, skin to skin. I feel a warmth between my fingers. They share heat. They share connection. They share energy. I close my eyes and imagine the warmth as a body extension, which soon envelops me until there is no more extension, only being.

Fortunately, the nurses can’t lock me in my room because I personally signed the contract with Heavenly Keys Home, and I pay the bill every month. Often, the manager comes in and wants me to sign more papers—for “Full Care,” which is four times as expensive, since it involves medical treatment. She tells me the papers are just revised contracts, but I know she is lying. I always refuse to sign. Almost every week she comes in, pretending each time is the first, and when I remind her that she has come again with the very same papers, her face transforms in condescension, and she tells me I am imagining things. She says I need a visit with the psychiatrist. This goes on, week after week. It is always the same. But I never sign.

I decide that I hate it here. And I have nothing more to lose. I make a plan.

There will be a personnel shift change at 2:00 am as usual. I watch the clock. At 1.45 am, I put on my trousers and slippers. Then I sneak out of my bedroom and walk down the hall into the kitchen. I hide in the closet. An open box of individually wrapped Little Debbie Cream Pies is on the shelf. I take three and put them in my front pants pocket. When I hear the new shift arriving, I open the back door to the porch, climb over the fence, plod through the flower beds—careful not to step on any blooms. I escape out the delivery entrance to the street.

The summer night air is humid. It is garbage day. Trash cans sit by the curb. There are few cars. There are no dogs. There are no mosquitoes. From under a bush, a feral black cat stares out at me. Its eyes are a piercing amber. I meow at the cat. It lifts its head and blinks slowly. I blink back. I tear open one of the cream pies, break off a chunk, and toss it down on the sidewalk. The cat waits until I am a safe distance away, then slinks out to eat. “Buen provecho, Señor Gato,” I say.

Keeping a slow steady pace, I walk back to my old beach house in Boca Chica. I remember the route—it’s easy, only two right turns off US 1. But it takes me more than three hours to get there. The sole of my right slipper rips loose and I stub my toe. I stop once to eat the rest of the cream pie. Then I keep going, although my breaths are wheezy. Finally, I arrive.

The windows of my house are broken, the hedges are overgrown, the roof is sagging, but the lock is still on the rusted tin shed. I remember the combination, even though I made it up years ago. I set it to the last day of my previous life: My birthdate—minus one day. It was a trick, so no one else could guess, and I can easily recall it. 9-12-44. Left-right-left. But I cannot recall who I was in my life before this one. I can’t remember who I was before I was me.

I lean against the shed, close my eyes, and wait for . . . for . . . something.

Nothing comes. The air is still.

I enter the combination and tug down on the body of the lock. It doesn’t release. “Puta Mierda!” I force myself to remain calm and gently wiggle the dial. Then I pull down on the lock again. The shackle clicks open. I twist it out of its clasp and let the lock fall to the ground. The hinges squeak and the shed door swings open.

Light from a streetlamp is dim, but among the shadows, everything in the shed is where I left it three years ago. Everything is just as I remember: my straw hat hanging by a nail near the door, my canoe lying diagonally on the floor, my fishing rods leaning against the back wall, my machete in a sheath dangling from a metal roof beam, and my Beretta Model One revolver in its wooden case on the workbench, next to a bottle of tequila.

I pick up the tequila and carry it outside. It’s new and unopened, Casamigos Reposado. I remember buying the bottle for my friend, Javier, as a present for when he got out of the hospital. He started having seizures—forty-five minutes after he received the Covid vaccine injection. I had told him not to get the vaccine. I had told him the vaccine was only experimental. “Mira la cara de Anthony Fauci,” I said, pointing to Fauci’s smug picture in the newspaper. “No puedes confiar en el . . .” But Javier didn’t listen to me. And he never got out of the emergency room. And he never came home. And he never drank tequila again. They buried him in Big Pine Key, along with a box of cigars in his coffin, as he had requested.

I untuck my shirt and, with the left hem, clean the neck of the Casamigos bottle. Then I spit on the right hem and use it to wipe the bottle again. I am thirsty. The paper strip over the cap is hard to peel off. I scrape it free with my fingernail. I pull out the cork and lift the bottle in a toast. “Javier, mi amigo, Nos vemos en la otra vida.” My vision gets blurry. I take a few long gulps of tequila. I cough. It is stronger than I remember. It got stronger as it aged. That is good.

I go back into the shed to get my pistol. An electric jolt shoots through my body. The hairs on my forearms prickle. In the middle of the shed, hovering over the floor, glow three twisting filaments of blue-white light, about five feet tall. They form an amorphous oblong shape that keeps changing. The filaments pulse and merge and fuse in and around each other. They brighten slightly, then slowly fade. And then they disappear . . .

I realize that I’ve been holding my breath. When I breathe in, there is an odor of tobacco smoke in the shed. Perhaps it is just my imagination. Or perhaps it is the mixed smell of mildew, dust, and earth. I inhale again through my nose, and the smell is still there. Stronger now. It is not the oily odor of cigarette smoke—it is a fruity, woody scent. Another jolt runs through my body—the odor is exactly the scent of Macunado cigars, Javier’s favorite. I inhale deeply. But now the scent is gone. “Hasta mañana, Javier,” I say.

There is a scratching noise on top of the shed. Likely a squirrel or a roof rat. I turn to open the gun box and slip the Beretta in my pocket. It’s hard to fit all of it in. The barrel wedges against the cream pies, still in my right front pocket. To make room for the gun, I move the pies to my other pocket. Then I set the tequila bottle in the bottom of the canoe. I grab the machete and lay it in the canoe as well.

I drag the boat across the road and down through the sand. The moon is a mottled half-circle in the sky. The beach is empty. A seagull skims the surface of the water. Then it flies up and out of sight. “I will see you again, Señora Gaviota.” I drink more tequila.

There is little surf, but there are dark patches of seaweed. I push the canoe into the ocean. Soon it floats, and I wade in until the water is up to my shins. I climb aboard, pick up the handle of the paddle, press it down into the sandy bottom, and shove off. Stroke by stroke, I head out to feed the fishes.

After a few hundred yards, the surface of the ocean is almost calm. Very small waves lap softly at the bow of the canoe. I realize the laps have a perfect rhythm—the rhythm of the universe . . . I time my breathing. One inhalation after every three wave laps. I’m thirsty and drink more tequila. The bottle is half empty. I hear a fish jump and plop back in. “Would you care for a drink, Señor Pescado?” I pour some tequila into the water. “I will see you soon, Señor Pescado.”

The lights from a cruise ship glow faintly in the distance. I turn and look back to the shore. I can see the edge of my beach house. Or maybe I can’t. “I will see you again, mi casita.”

Carefully, so as not to overturn the boat, I swivel my body in the seat. I lift my legs and let my feet dangle into the water. The canoe dips sideways, and I have to lean back over the other side so it doesn’t flip. I grasp the handle of my pistol. The smooth wooden grip fits perfectly in my palm. I remember its feel. Then I remember the feel of my hand on a woman’s breast. I remember the sharp cracking sound when my fist hit a man in the jaw. I remember the last time I saw my father. He didn’t recognize me. “Te amo, Papá,” I said. “Te veré en la próxima vida.” His eyes gleamed. That was all.

I pull the gun out of my pocket. Slowly, I lift my torso and lean forward until the boat tilts and one side dips into the sea. I slide in, keeping my hands above my head. The canoe rights itself. Holding the boat with my left hand, I tread water. My slippers come off and sink into the depths, but I don’t care. I cock the pistol hammer with my right thumb and turn the gun towards my face. I take the barrel in my mouth. It lays on top of my tongue. It tastes salty. I bite down and feel the metal against my front teeth. My chest is hot, but my feet are cold. I gaze into the sky. The moon is gone. My heart beats. I wait to pull the trigger. I wait to become food for happy barracudas and crabs.

Will the Creator be angry with me?