Big Swiss(100)

“Just don’t let them get fat. They have a tendency to balloon out. My donks are on a diet right now.”

“I’d love to meet them. Where do you live again?”

“Tivoli,” Dave said.

“We should have a playdate sometime,” Sabine said.

“We should,” Dave agreed.

Greta pulled out her phone and texted Sabine right there: “You should eat weed every morning just so I can hear you say shit like ‘cute overload’ and ‘playdate.’ He wants to trim your hooves, if you catch my drift. I’m going outside to give you privacy!”



* * *



IN THE YARD, the donks stood side by side, swatting flies off each other’s faces with their tails. They were geniuses, Greta decided. They trotted up to her, desperate for more gingersnaps. They sniffed her legs, pawed at the ground near her feet.

“I got nothing,” Greta said. “My pockets are empty.”

They accepted this, stuffing their mouths with grass instead. Greta’s phone rang. The same unfamiliar number kept calling and not leaving a message. She answered this time, expected a marketer’s recording to start playing, nearly hung up, but then she heard breathing.

“Who is this?” Greta said.

The breathing was heavy and ragged.

“Keith?” Greta said.

Now a loud hiccup, followed by rustling. More pervy breathing.

“Fuck, man, are you drunk?” Greta said. “How’d you get this number?”

Low, brutal keening. Startling, contagious.

“Say something,” Greta said, close to tears, “or I’m hanging up.”

“It’s me,” Big Swiss gasped. “I’m calling—I can’t—I’m not going to make it tonight.”

They’d made plans days ago. Big Swiss and Luke were leaving for Ecuador soon, Big Swiss wanted to say goodbye, Greta had suggested a final roll in the hay in the only private place left to them, the donkey shed.

“Yeah, well, the shed’s taken—”

“I won’t be there,” Big Swiss said. “Everything’s different now. I can’t see you anymore. All right? I can’t see you again.”

Greta felt a twinge of vertigo. It had been weeks since she’d had the pleasure—and pain—of hearing Big Swiss’s disembodied voice, always sharper without her face to soften it, without her smell to humanize it, but it was even lower-pitched than usual, raspy, and Greta knew that she’d been crying for hours, perhaps days. Now she wept loudly, directly into Greta’s ear.

“What happened?”

“Punctured lung,” Big Swiss said, wheezing slightly. “Severed spleen.”

No wonder she sounded so winded. She’d been attacked, her lung punctured, her spleen… what?

“What’d you say? About your spleen?”

Big Swiss seemed to be talking around something in her mouth. Blood? Broken teeth?

“Where are you? Tell me where you are!”

“The hospital,” Big Swiss said, slurring. “Since Sunday. My phone broke. I’m in the ICU.”

“I’m getting in the car. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“No,” Big Swiss said. “It’s Luke—Luke’s here—I’m here with Luke.”

“Luke attacked you?”

Big Swiss groaned.

“Who did this to you?”

“I wish it was me.”

Greta collapsed in a lawn chair. The donks stood nearby, munching grass, regarding Greta with their shiny, black, honest eyes.

“I told him everything,” Big Swiss said, and blew her nose. “How it started, how it went, how I was desperate for it to continue, and he wasn’t angry or upset, just… resigned, like he’d made up his mind about something. He wanted to clear his head in the mountains. I told him yes, okay, I understood. He left the house with all his gear, but… he forgot the dog. That’s when I knew something was off. I called, texted—nothing. Hours later, the hospital called. This was after midnight. His stomach was lacerated, they said, he’d lost a lot of blood. By the time I got here, he was already in surgery.”

Greta closed her eyes. Please don’t tell me he jumped off the bridge. Let it be something else. Anything.

“Two cops were waiting for me in the lobby,” Big Swiss said. “They told me Luke had been stabbed. Seven times.”

Greta’s throat closed. “With his own knife?”

Big Swiss sobbed again. “Yes, well, he didn’t stab himself, obviously.”

But he may as well have. He’d unwittingly followed in Greta’s footsteps and confronted Keith on his own turf. Only a suicidal person would do such a thing. If Greta hadn’t been in Keith’s face the week before, maybe Keith wouldn’t have been so vicious.

“I should’ve known,” Greta said.

“About what?”

“Keith,” Greta said.

“So you heard about it,” Big Swiss said. “And didn’t think to call me?”

Greta’s eyes watered. “I heard someone talking about it, but I didn’t realize they were talking about Luke. Or Keith,” Greta said. “It was just a story I overheard, about a guy pulling a knife on a townie.”