I’M GOING TO KILL YOU AND EAT YOU FOR FOOD by Henry Hoke

That morning I was supposed to watch my little cousin but instead I fell asleep on the couch with my sunglasses on. When I roused, I could hear my new uncle outside saying And he's just asleep on the couch with his sunglasses on. I looked to the other couch and saw my little cousin was passed out there. I took off my sunglasses and placed them over her face and stepped out through the open doors and onto the patio on the Mediterranean side, looking first to the sea and the distance, over the heads of all the parents assembled around their meat.

Hex, a few aunts exclaimed.

My name is Hex in this story.

We’re going down to the beach soon, Hex, where’s Phoebe. On the couch, I said, sleeping.

My dad snorted. He was asleep too, leaning as far back as the chair at the end of the table allowed.

My new uncle sat upright. He wasn’t a recliner. He eyed me up and down and pointed at my dad and asked me Aren’t you afraid you’re going to look like your dad someday? It was always too early in Spain for my new uncle’s questions.

I had a deep hangover. In the squint light my new uncle looked like Jack Nicholson. Like many guys my age, which was twenty, if I had to die I wanted Jack Nicholson to be the one to kill me. My new uncle was the one who’d rented the palatial house and he and my aunt had invited us all to join. When we arrived, jetlagged from various places, he walked from room to room to room. The title Captain of Industry seemed right. The world was my new uncle’s company and this patio was his recruitment office. I repeated the question in my sore head: Aren’t you afraid you’re going to look like your dad someday?

I went over to my sleeping dad and rested my elbows on his shoulders and snuggled my face up to his. I said No I’m excited and I kissed his cheek and he woke up. My dad had a habit of smiling in these moments of waking. I rubbed his shoulders and walked away to find my gran or someone else who might not grill me. From the lower patio by the path down to the beach the hillsides and sky framed the sea into a perfect triangle. I could still hear my new uncle’s voice. My new uncle’s voice said Tomorrow I’m going to take him out on the boat. This sounded like a threat. I wasn’t aware until then that there was a boat. Now it waited somewhere to take me.

An eruption of small cousins passed me on their way to the beach path. My dad and his younger sisters had a significant age gap. The sisters’ kids were all children, and sudden. They didn’t move with the lethargic of sad that my brother and I held in our lanky bodies. They could still flit.

Did you wish Grandfather a happy birthday?

I turned to meet my gran’s voice.

Oh. I haven’t seen him yet, sorry.

Well that’s okay, he’s somewhere around here. I’m sure you’ll see him before dinner and you can wish him one then.

Of course, I said.

My new uncle had planned a dinner in town for the celebration. Somewhere opulent, a place only here could offer. The whole trip had been formed around this eating moment and this eating moment was tonight. I felt sick. We stood for a minute with the view. The smile that formed in my gran’s gentle wrinkles settled my stomach. She was who I wanted to look like.

More cousins cackled by, Phoebe awake and among them, haunting the property. They chanted To the beach, to the beach, let’s go to the beach. Gran narrowed her eyes behind her sunglasses. She held two towels. She handed me one.

Are you dressed to swim?

I looked at my body to see if I was, and I was. We hiked down, cousins bouncing back and forth around us the whole way like pinballs in the trough of sandy trail.

The Mediterranean was a sea and the Costa Brava was where it started and the wine remnants in my stomach said no to swimming. The cousins splashed and my gran sat down with a sigh. A large rock rose twenty feet out of the water and formed a sharp point like a talon. It beckoned. I left my sandals with Gran and hurried away from everyone else’s fun to wade out and climb. I’d always been a boy to perch. I perched on this rock and looked back at the beach. My new uncle arrived and the sudden cousins scattered. He raised his flat hand to his forehead to shield the sun and watch me, a salute of observation.

Everyone else joined the gathering in the sand. My brother, looking as sea-averse as me, and my grandfather, looking away. My dad. Dad waved and I waved back. He went to stand by my new uncle and they mimicked one another’s placement of hands on hips. I considered how they looked and how I would look. My new uncle’s vanishing hairline and Dad’s bald spot, my new uncle’s taut cyclist rip and Dad’s slight round. Both men different degrees of pinky whiteness. I felt the limits of my future, crushed inside my body on this rock, and saw the open sky above me as a slowly descending ceiling. A waterfall of vomit left my mouth and trickled down to mingle with the arriving tide. I wiped my chin and pivoted to check if anyone had seen. Gran took my picture.

▲

When I got back up to the house, wrapped dainty in a towel and dripping, it was time for another nap. My new uncle had assigned my brother and me the farthest bedroom from the sea, not a true bedroom but a former garage where someone had put a bed. I dried, stripped and lay. My head was a wall away from the coastal road and a diesel smell lingered.

On the way to sleep I remembered meeting my new uncle, nearly as old as my grandparents, at his and my aunt’s wedding at their hillside house in the Bay Area a few years before. The memory mixed with dream in the diesel fumes. Our meeting happened at the reception, once the moon had replaced the sun. I kneeled backwards on one of his couches the way I like to do, shoes just off the fabric, elbows up on the couch’s back, chin resting on my knuckles. This was the romantic way, by the window. I kneeled backwards on the couch and looked at the moon.

My new uncle was behind me before I heard him, he was champagne and cigar and his tux was a little danced in.

Aren’t you going to introduce me? He gestured to the moon, hovering over the city in the distance, as big as the city in the distance.

I made the introductions.

She’s tremendous. I’m glad she could join us for the nuptials. My new uncle talked like that, in dreams at least.

I said Yeah I know I’m really proud of her. My moon was a sight to see.

You make a good couple, my new uncle was probably smirking. She’s as big as a planet tonight, I said.

Yes, but she’s not a planet.

She doesn’t like being looked at by anybody but me.

My new uncle left the room. But my moon had already retreated, had become a distant speck in the sky again. Just the moon like the moon you’re used to. A rock without its own light. I waited for it to return but that didn’t happen, and I waited for hours. My new uncle’s house was the highest house I’d ever been up in.

What happened, said my new uncle, bowtie-less. It’s over between us, I said.

That’s too bad. There’s cake left. Your Aunt’s turning in.

I’m worried, I said, Worried what she’ll become without my watching. Maybe a meteor, is that so crazy? Then what’ll happen to the city below, what’ll happen to our real planet. My new uncle butted in: It won’t reach us, the blast.

I thought about nodding, about turning away.

We’re safe up here from the end of the world, he said.

▲

I woke in Spain and it was close to dinner. Europe in the early years of the new millennium was a place where someone could leave you a note like We headed into town already, walk the forest path and meet us at the restaurant and that would be fine. That exact note in Dad’s handwriting was stuck to my forearm. I put on my only collared shirt, a sheer blue patterned one, and khakis. Occasion wear. I walked out the seaside doors toward the occasion.

My breath came easy. Town wasn’t far. Someone was following me. I felt a chill and tried to reason out who it was without stopping or turning around. I hadn’t checked the house for other sleepers. It wasn’t my grandparents because they would be taking a car. It wasn’t Dad because he would be driving the car. It wasn’t my new uncle because he’d be first to arrive. It’s a stranger, I thought, and finally I looked. It was no one. I could still hear footsteps somewhere in my head. I leaned against the antler of a tree and felt stalked by my inevitable future; my father-faced, weathered self.

He was over the ridge or up in the canopy or somewhere beyond that.

When I was little my dad taught me how to fight nightmares. He placed a toy pistol on the bedside table to bang bang on waking. When the nightmares leaked into real life, when I was gripped by fear in some school hall or wilderness, I had what I thought was a better idea. More grown-up. Instead of being afraid of the creature coming after me I had to imagine myself as the creature, to become the thing I feared, the hunter and not the hunted. I pivoted my thinking and my feet moved again. A hunter needs prey. I pictured my new uncle’s face if I showed up late.

I arrived at twilight in the seaside town. The occasion was unmissable, a café with its doors thrown open to a concrete patio above the beach. A long table set for the twenty of us, candelabra-lit and draped in seafood like an asshole’s dream.

Glad you could join us, my new uncle said in a particular way that I don’t feel like describing.

Happy birthday Grandfather, I said. My grandfather gave a distant nod from a foot away. I saw two empty seats. My dad wasn’t there. I made a gesture that indicated a desire for hand washing and my aunt pointed inside.

In the seashell-decked restroom my dad was finishing a pee. It hit me that we hadn’t spoken since the drive up from Barcelona airport the day before, me leaning on my brother and murmuring from lack of sleep while Dad marveled at the coastline from our tiny car.

I stepped to one of the two sinks and washed my hands as Dad flushed. He joined me in the mirror, rinsing his larger hairier hands at the sink to my left. We looked into each other’s eyes and the space between our faces closed.

Hex I’m so happy you’re here, he said, with room-filling warmth.

My dad looked different in Europe. His eyes opened up. Right then, in the silence of my smile and blush, Dad and I shared a rare moment of mutual omission. He didn’t tell me what happened to him in England and I didn’t tell him what happened to me in England. His England story was from back when he was my age, and mine was unholy fresh.

My dad cupped his hands under the faucet until they were brimming with water and splashed the front of my khakis.

At the table I sat quick to hide my soaked front. My new uncle’s knife-to-glass signaled time to toast.

Let us rise, my Dad said, smirking and looking in my direction.

Everyone stood and raised their wines and their sodas. I’m sure my new uncle’s toast was well-rehearsed, but for me the sound dropped out and I saw his mouth moving up and down silently like a deer chewing a piece of grass. The deer was played by Jack Nicholson. I was suddenly hungry.

We laughed and ate and felt the privilege of the place and time. The adults got drunk and my cousins got restless and my grandfather stared off into sky and reminded us all that nothing is unforgettable. These were delightful southern people. I don’t know who I inherited my hard heart from.

I hear you’re going out on the boat in the morning, said Gran. I looked past her to the dark sea. The phantom boat lapped somewhere, ready for tomorrow.

▲

When we got back to the house it had changed. Without the sun illuminating the view it was just a huge house that could be isolated anywhere, the sea breeze blocked by closed doors. We all behaved accordingly mundane before our various bedtimes.

Phoebe found me in a hallway and handed me back my sunglasses. I put them on and was nearly blind. I followed her as she scampered to join the other cousins on an epic L-shaped couch in the room with the TV. The TV was off because they were all reading the same book about the magic boy. Two were sharing a copy. The magic boy and I had the same initials.

Should I read those books, I asked.

No, they all mumbled.

It was unspoken that I wasn’t allowed near the bedroom wing where all the real adults were passed out. I staggered down the other hall in the direction of the diesel smell. I thought In ten years he won’t even be my uncle anymore. In ten years I’ll have a place like this all to myself. In ten years I’ll wear a gown and walk from room to room to room, not a Captain of Industry but a Queen of God.

My brother was already asleep in our shared bed because my brother was still growing, his legs, arms and neck lengthening perceivably from month to month. The small brother of youth had become the long brother of now. I climbed into bed, scrunching up to give my brother plenty of room. I had stopped growing. I fell asleep with my fear close and my truth still far away.

Who knows how much later I woke and felt watched. A sudden cousin sat on the bed next to my feet and stared at me from the underglow of his Gameboy.

Hey, I said, what’s up.

I shifted my body one eighty so my head was over by him and my feet were on my pillow.

Can you beat level seven? The cousin asked and shoved the Gameboy against my face.

I’ll try, I said and took it, rolling over onto my stomach, propping up on my elbows and placing my thumbs on the buttons. I looked over at my brother who had shifted into the fetal position and was in heavy slumber mode. The cousin kept bumping his head into my shoulder like a small goat as I navigated the video game’s jumps and squashes. He was adopted from some country-ass place where teenagers had raised him, the equivalent of wolves, both a golden child and a tiny chaos.

Ooh, the cousin cooed loud and I held a shushing finger up to my mouth and my Gameboy self died. I handed the device back.

Sorry buddy it’s sleep time, I said, exactly like Dad would. I’m gon’ bite you now, the cousin said.

We don’t bite, I said.

Yes I will, he said, and then did.

▲

The great kid threat of my life came from my first boy friend. We had vastly different families but our dads decided that we’d get together and play. We’d play gentle or rough, mostly rough. Sharing was important, we learned. We had a joint birthday party and we both held bunches of balloons. My first boy friend counted and decided I had one. More. Balloon. Than he did. Things became rougher than they’d ever been. And when they pulled him off me, our hair full of grass and the balloons escaping into the sky, he looked me right in the eyes and said I’m going to kill you and eat you for food.

He said this because his father, who shot the deer waiting hot on the table, had taught him that it was only ever alright to take a life if you used it to sustain yours, if you needed it.

I could feel the heat coming off this boy I was supposed to grow up with and I understood hunting. That was our last joint birthday, but he didn’t kill me and we stayed friends. The threat became a funny story our dads told to women. From then on I thought of my body as meat, as something to be consumed.

▲

In the Spanish morning the cousin was curled at my feet like a puppy. I got up to go to the sea and my fate. Outside I found a ham slice and a stale end piece of bread and ate them. My dad was asleep on the patio again. I joined my new uncle on the beach and he asked Is your dad asleep on the patio again. I said Yes. It felt like a betrayal. My new uncle stood next to his boat. He was knee-deep in the tide and chugged a manly water bottle. The boat wasn’t like I’d pictured. It was a small skiff, only a little longer than me. Life vest, my new uncle said as he handed me a life vest. While I strapped it on he gave me the tour.

This is the rudder, he said, pointing to the rudder. That’s how we steer.

This is the motor, he said, caressing the outboard motor. You crank it just like a lawnmower.

That was everything. I climbed into the front and he climbed into the back.

You didn’t bring any water? He asked. I hadn’t brought any water. He nestled his own bottle, big and steel, in the slat between our seats, a kind gesture. He cranked the motor.

Like a lawnmower, he repeated, and I pictured his groundskeepers.

It’s a perfect day for this, he shouted over the churn. He craned his neck to the side as he steered us ahead, proud, like a huge dad. We were wearing the same thing, white t-shirts black swimsuits and sandals, and now with the vests we fully matched. I turned around to face forward, out to the triangle the cliffs made of the sea. That end piece was stale, I thought, about the stale end piece I’d eaten.

We left the cove of our beach and turned north along the forested coast. It was the first time I’d been on an open body of water in something so small. It was humbling. My new uncle was giving me an experience.

When I was little and going to bed my dad would read his favorite poem to me. It seemed more like a story than a poem and it was about a sailor who killed a bird. The only line I could remember at twenty on this skiff in the Mediterranean was Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink. If I looked to the right it was just me and the sea. To my left me and the cliffs. But I still had a nose and my nose could smell the gas from my new uncle’s motor. My nose reminded me that he was in control.

He slowed the boat as we neared the end of the cliffs to our left, the entrance to the bay that held town. I watched my new uncle ease the rudder into a turn towards civilization. We gunned toward the bright beach where we’d had the occasion the night before. I had a vision of myself as a princess being delivered to a doomed marriage, a jeweled bird around my neck.

A yacht drifted twenty feet from us in the middle of the bay and my new uncle cut the motor. Our skiff was dwarfed by this high pleasure boat. I took off my life vest.

Just for a sec, I said.

The look in my new uncle’s eye alerted me it was question time again. You’re going to Barcelona next, with your dad and brother?

I nodded.

You’ll need to wake them up, he said, in that same particular way that I don’t feel like describing, not even in the moment before his death.

You’re almost done with school, he continued, Have you thought about the practicals?

The what, I asked.

The practical, the future.

Before I could answer he cut in with an Oh, look alive.

Two women had appeared on the deck of the yacht. They wore the bottoms of bikinis. My new uncle squinted.

Do they have their headlights on? He asked. He meant tits.

As my new uncle ogled, the creature in my head said Mortality is awesome. It's an equalizer. Now is your chance.

I saw the water bottle between us as the blunt object it was. If you’re not going to be anything else, you might as well be a murderer.

Grab the rudder, barked my new uncle, I need to take a leak.

I let the water bottle drop and we switched places. He was so much one thing. I felt like at least two. The hunted and hunter, the kid and the creature.

This wasn’t any kind of fate for me.

Henry Hoke wrote The Book of Endless Sleepovers, the story collection Genevieves, and The Groundhog Forever. His work appears in The Offing, Electric Literature, Hobart, Carve, and the Catapult anthology Tiny Crimes. He directs the performance series Enter>text, and has taught at CalArts and the University of Virginia Young Writers Workshop. Sticker, a memoir, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons.