Black Rabbit and Other Stories

Black Rabbit and Other Stories

OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR

POETRY
What Happens at Canals
(Mansfield Press)

CHAPBOOK (STORIES)
Outside
(Black Bile Press)

ANTHOLOGY
Particle & Wave: A Mansfield Omnibus of
Electromagnetic Fiction

Salvatore Difalco

Copyright © 2007 by Salvatore Difalco

Anvil Press Publishers Inc.
P.O. Box 3008, Main Post Office
Vancouver, B.C. V6B 3X5
CANADA
www.anvilpress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, with the exception of brief passages in reviews. Any request for photocopying or other reprographic copying of any part of this book must be directed in writing to access: The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, One Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5E 1E5.

L
IBRARY AND
A
RCHIVES
C
ANADA
C
ATALOGUING IN
P
UBLICATION

Difalco, Salvatore

Black rabbit & other stories / Salvatore Difalco.

ISBN 978-1-895636-78-9

      I. Title. II. Title: Black rabbit and other stories.

PS8557.I397B53 2007        C813'.6        C2007-901757-6

Printed and bound in Canada
Cover and interior design: HeimatHouse
Author photo: Bruno Crescia

Represented in Canada by the Literary Press Group
Distributed by the University of Toronto Press

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (
BPIDP
), and the Province of British Columbia through the B.C. Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

For Giuseppe D. & G. & the other ghosts . . .

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
:

Some of these stories first appeared, in various forms, in the following magazines and journals:
Armada Quarterly, Broken Pencil, Carousel, Collectanea, Dalhousie Review, dig, Fiddlehead, FreeFall, Grey Borders, Hammered Out, Johnny America Online, Kiss Machine, Malahat Review, Nashwaak Review, paperplates, Skive, Stationaery, subTerrain, Switchback, Transition
.

Many thanks to Brian Kaufman and Anvil Press; William Morassutti, Matt Firth, Kent Nussey, Carmela & Celestina G., Angela Difalco, Brandon Sunstrum, the
PYC
crew, and, of course, Alexandra Leggat.

Black Rabbit

Two Cups

Pink

Alicia

Miss Alligator

The Dream of Giraffe

The House

Country Road

Reckoning

Love in Time

The Skunk

Lion Days

The Venetian

Ham and Eggs

Maid of the Mist

Rocco

Coop

The Dog Went Out and Sat in the Snow

Grassy Brook Trail

Outside

The Fishhouse

About the Author

Uncle Toto took my hand in his and led me through the crowded parlor. The tail of his black scarf flapped in my face. It smelled of onions and ashes. People touched me as I passed them, their hands falling on my head, and murmured things I could not understand. A woman I did not know with a long neck and red eyes pulled her hair and started screaming when she saw me. Uncle Toto jerked me away from her, squeezing my hand until I felt the bones. My father, in a tight black suit, stood by a casket on wheels lighting a candle. He looked at me and smiled. His eyes rolled back.

Someone had died. People wept. Three old women in black occupied a brown velvet divan against one wall, nodding and weeping as they wolfed down tomatoes and tripe. One of them dropped a fork. I stepped over it. Uncle Toto pulled me into an unlit back room, leaving the door open. A wedge of yellow light spilled through, only to thin and disappear as a draft shut the door. I stood still as Uncle Toto fumbled with something in the middle of the room. I could just perceive his outline as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the large head, narrow shoulders. He was talking to me or to himself, I could not understand a word. It was too fast. He was dry, he sounded dry. His silhouette thrashed. Then a naked bulb flickered on, shedding amber light.

Uncle Toto stood at one end of a heavy wooden table examining the contents of a brown paper bag. He gestured for me to join him.

“Hurry up,” he whispered. “What's wrong with you? Don't you want to see?”

“What is it?”

“Come and see.”

In the dim light Uncle Toto's missing eyeteeth looked like black fangs. His white forehead gleamed. I hesitated.

“Come on,” he said.

“I don't want to.”

“You're a donkey.”

I tried to move my legs but could not. I slapped my thighs and felt nothing. What was this? Uncle Toto pulled at something in the bag. Then he turned to me and moved his mouth as though he were speaking. But I heard nothing. Was this some kind of game? I wondered. His wide-eyed, braced expression suggested that he wanted an answer to whatever he had asked me. But my tongue felt like a piece of paper and my vocal chords refused to issue any sounds. Uncle Toto struck the table with both hands and appeared to be shouting, but again I heard nothing. He hurled a shiny object in my direction. It missed me and struck the wall, shattering into silvery shards. Uncle Toto clapped his hands and brayed with laughter. Then he picked up another object and reared his arm, threatening to throw it also. I gathered myself, and with a great pull lifted my right foot off the floor and heaved it forward. The left proved more difficult. I found myself in a ludicrous lunging posture, my arms spread for balance. I tried to straighten myself out but my feet felt cemented in place, the left foot far back from the right.

His face hidden in shadows, Uncle Toto continued handling the contents of the bag, at one point punching it. Voices registered just outside the door. Cousins, perhaps, other mourners. No one told me who had died. My grandmother was still alive, I had seen her earlier in the bathroom, removing her dentures. I wondered where she was now. With all my strength, I forced my left foot forward and it flopped beside the right. The legs lacked all sensation. I sat down and stretched them out. Sawdust covered the floor and several empty brown beer bottles stood under the table, labels peeling. Uncle Toto appeared at my feet. He waved his arms and hoofed me but I could not get up. His lips moved but I heard only the rustling of the brown paper bag on the table.

Uncle Toto grabbed me under the armpits and lifted me to my feet. Then he guided me to the table, forcing my chest against the edge. I caught a glimpse of something dark in the bag before Uncle Toto's shadow covered the table like black cloth. I could feel his hot breath on my neck and his hands buried in my armpits, fingers wriggling. I pushed against the table, into his chest, and he released me, moving to my side. I glanced at the bag. It rocked back and forth a few times then rolled once.

“She's angry,” whispered Uncle Toto.

“What is it?”

“I'll show you.”

His hands reached inside the bag and removed from it what at first looked like a black cat. But then a floppy ear popped out and I saw it was a rabbit, its limbs bound in twine. Its upper lip looked torn, its choppers exposed and blood-streaked. Uncle Toto slapped the rabbit's haunches and it kicked some. He told me to touch it. I refused.

“Touch it,” he whispered. “For good luck.”

“I don't want to touch it.”

“You'll die, then.”

I tried to step back from the table but Uncle Toto's hand held my shoulder firm. The door flew open and a wave of sound—chattering, laughing, crying—flooded the room. Then the door shut with a bang. Uncle Toto laughed. He removed the scarf from his neck and formed a circle with it on the table. In this circle he placed the bound black rabbit. The rabbit twitched a little but had lost its will to fight.

“People have to eat,” Uncle Toto said. “The tripe is almost finished. It's almost finished and what will the people eat when they come to pay their respects? They have to eat. Rabbit is the best thing. You like rabbit, I know you do, I've seen you eat it. You like the leg. Look at the leg. Do you like it now? Touch it. Touch the leg.”

Uncle Toto grabbed my hand and pulled it to the rabbit, forcing my knuckles against the warm haunch fur. The rabbit stirred to my touch. I wanted to cry out but when I opened my mouth Uncle Toto's hand covered it.

“No screaming,” he said. “If you scream I'll kill you.”

His hand fell away from my face. He fished around in his pocket and produced a small curved knife. He held it up to the light, his shoulders shaking. He waved the knife under my nose. It reeked of garlic. Then he seized the rabbit's rear feet and lifted it above the table. The rabbit squirmed. I could hear it panting. Pink foam dripped from its jaws.

“Kill it,” Uncle Toto said.

“I won't.”

“You're afraid.”

“I'm not afraid.”

“You're afraid.”

Without another word he jabbed the rabbit in the abdomen with the tip of the knife. The rabbit bucked like a fish. Blood trickled from its wound. Uncle Toto jabbed it again, this time in one of the legs. He turned to me with glittery black eyes, a smile twisting his lips. Then, while the rabbit was still alive, he started skinning it, cutting a slit along its spine. Just before he tore away the black fur he held the knife to me again. I took it and without hesitation pierced one of the rabbit's eyes. Blood spewed. The creature yelped once and fell silent. Uncle Toto grabbed the knife from me and plunged it into one of the black haunches, working with a sawing motion until the right rear leg came free. He held it out to me, blood dripping off his knuckles.

“There's a leg for you,” he said.

“I don't want it.”

He slapped me. “You think you're smart, eh? You're not smart. You did a good thing though. In the eye. Nice.”

“Shut up.”

He slapped me again, harder. I could taste blood. He slapped me a third time across the ear and I felt something pop and then I heard nothing from that ear but a roaring sound. Uncle Toto now flayed and quartered the rabbit carcass. He pushed aside the black fur, scooped up the watery blood with his hand and licked it off his palm. He ordered me to do the same but I refused. He went to slap me again but stopped in mid-motion as the door flew open. My grandmother
stood there, dressed in black with a black veil covering her face, tiny, severe.

“Come here,” she said.

I thought she was talking to me but when Uncle Toto stepped toward the door I relaxed. He walked with his shoulders hunched, shuffling his feet. He kept some distance from my grandmother, shaking his head as she addressed him. I could not hear what she said. When Uncle Toto started speaking, rubbing his hands together and bowing his head, she lunged at him, slapping his face so hard she knocked him backwards over a stool.

My grandmother now called for me. But I could not move. Uncle Toto stood up and brushed sawdust off his trousers. My grandmother called me again, and with great effort I shifted my legs and dragged my feet toward the door where she stood waiting with her hands on her hips, her face hidden. She cupped her hands and stirred them before her breasts. I stopped well out of reach, but she insisted I come closer.

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Yes.”

“Don't be afraid of me. Did Uncle Toto hurt you?”

“He slapped me.”

“Did he kill the rabbit?”

I looked at Uncle Toto who leaned over the table. He winked at me as he picked up the scarf from the table and draped it across his shoulders.