Nicolas Lepre
for anything. There is someone out there, someone who intends to cause irreparable harm. The shadows look frightening at first, but once Lenny stares at them for five or ten minutes, they are texture, like everything else.
At two in the morning, Lenny goes to the kitchen and eats a box of leftovers from the refrigerator. He is not hungry, but he feels the need to do something. He takes off all of his clothes except for his plaid boxers and eats a half reuben and steak fries cold, out of the styrofoam box. Lenny never made a move before they lived together. Danielle’s devotion to Chuck seemed impenetrable and pointless to challenge. Now that Chuck is back, Lenny should have been cast aside. Redundant. Unnecessary. But when Lenny moved in, it was obvious that there were cracks everywhere, and Danielle was the one who reached out in the hall that night as Chuck snored in the bedroom. He thought about it before that night, sure, but she reached for him.
Chuck sits down in the wooden chair next to Lenny.
“Why don’t you microwave that?”
They have spent hours watching basic cable action movies and staring at
the street through the daisy curtains. At first, it seemed a fine way to spend a Tuesday night; Lenny had nothing better to do, and it was exciting to be on the precipice of danger. But the enemy is nowhere and though Chuck is content to keep waiting, Lenny is tired and regrets his decision as the night ticks away.
Lenny tells Chuck about the lump.
“It sounds like a spider bite.”
Chuck tells a story about a private one of his buddies supposedly knew,
whose unit set up camp outside of Kirkuk. Three camel spiders ate through the tent and attacked him in his sleep. Chuck keeps saying they are as big as dogs to
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