Henry Stable
By Nicholas Blakeman
Henry Stable
Copyright © 2013 Nicholas Blakeman
Cover Design, Justin Garrison
(with textual contributions from freestocktextures.com)
*****
Henry Stable
The long wooden spoon scraped at the lining of the copper pot. Henry Stable had never really been the one to cook large dishes, but this was different. To him, this day was of art and beauty. He felt cool serenity as he turned off the heat underneath the bubbling brew. He smiled as he reminisced about the selection of the beans and fillers. He remembered every bean as he slowly had poured the batch into the copper pot. But as for the meat, this he was simply proud of. He wasn’t a butcher of any sort, although as a young boy he had worked in a kitchen that often had prepared steaks of a wide variety. This is where he would later give credit to the well sliced and evenly cut little chunks of meat. The meat in itself, of course, is what brought the entire dish together. He referred to it as a dish in his mind due to the future of it.
This is where our tale takes a dark turn, unfortunately for Henry Stable, we are here to witness every unremarkably calm event taking place. Henry lifted the pot off the rusting stove and rested its body in the center of the uneven, square table directly behind him. A crooked smile arose on his face while he looked over the hungry audience of sorts. In his mind he could clearly remember each one of their names. He addressed them when he served them some of the entirely too hot chili. “Some for Timothy,” he poured a large serving into the already in place bowl. He rotated and lifted the wooden spoon again, “eat up Susan,” he spilled a little here but it didn’t phase him. He turned to his final guest, Bradley. “Alright big boy, you get the most.” He then proceeded to overflow Bradley’s bowl with a very large helping. The cooling chili ran across the table. Its path was intercepted by Henry’s bowl. It methodically wrapped itself around the base and ceased movement. “That’s a good boy,” he said to Bradley before scooping into the still very full pot for himself. He then raised the spoon quite high, almost like a victory sword after a battle of good vs evil, and let the chili fall into his bowl. This is when gravity took over and let the thick and steaming liquid splatter all over Henry and the area surrounding his chair. The crooked smile returned and he sunk the spoon back into the pot.
He sat down at what he described as the head of the table. Not because it was in any way the actually head, but was granted the title the moment he attached his name to it. He sat there without words from his mouth or that of his guests’ for almost twenty minutes. No one took a bite. The irony of the whole thing was: the chili had now gone almost cold. Henry hadn’t moved an inch since he had sat down. Instead his mind wondered from visitor to visitor: starting with Susan, who was opposite him at the table. He was staring at her. Not by choice or reason, but only by circumstance. His eyes had laid their cold gaze on her the second he rested himself in the seat. He pictured her now, in his mind he remembered the first time he had seen her, the super mart. She was with an older woman, the name of whom escapes Henry’s mind. The way she had walked fascinated him. “Simplistically” was the only word Henry knew that could describe it.
His venturesome conscious then wondered onto Timothy. This was an awkward tale if there was ever one. This small victory in Henry’s mind was one of his favorites. The first time he had seen Timothy was in the park. He was with an older gentleman, walking him perhaps. The smile on Timothy’s face is what provoked his curiosity here. It wasn’t one of happiness or innocent simplicity, rather of pure joy. A “do-gooder” Henry had labeled him. His stare was still penetrating Susan’s forehead as his mind raced forward excited to play out the time he had met Bradley.
He was sitting on his rocking chair alone in his now empty house when there was a rap on the door. Surprising him, he jumped up expecting the worst, which of course couldn’t be that bad considering the neighborhood he lived in. He approached the front door with caution, opening it only a crack and peering outside. The piercing light broke through the crack first momentarily blinding Henry then revealing Bradley. Their eyes met and Bradley, without invitation, presented his problem.
“I was walking my dog and the leash got away from me,” he raised his hands as some kind of evidence of his missing leash.
“And…?” Henry replied with a sneer, he hadn’t liked people knocking on his door for some time then.
“Well, my dog ran off and when I chased him down the sidewalk, I saw him crawling under your fence in the back of your house.”
“You’re telling me your filthy animal-“
“Cooper,” Bradley interjected with a smile of hopeful approval.
“Your filthy, Cooper,” Henry continued, “is in my backyard?”
“Yes,” Bradley answered with curiosity due to the unintended and unprepared for curtness.
“Well get him,” Henry said as he swung the door open and stepped aside. This is where Bradley had impressed Henry and had made Henry’s interest peek. He entered the house without hesitation and the smile still present. Henry guided him to the door in the back of the house and opened it. Bradley ran out and met his dog with excited laughter. That was it: the laughter. The high pitched at first then receding to a guttural chuckle. Henry’s eyes had lit up with instant joy when his ears were bombarded with the boy’s sound of excitement.
It was with that same excitement that he now looked around his table. “Is no one hungry?!” It wasn’t anger that filled Henry Stable’s voice, only pure confusion. “I found you all and brought you all together for dinner! And this is what I get?” He pounded his fists into the table. He took a deep breath in, relaxing his hands and raising them slightly to rest on their finger tips. “Maybe everyone needs cutlery?” Henry said. He began dragging his finger nails back and forth on the raw wood table. His jaw started quivering as he scratched faster and faster. Henry stood up abruptly leaving little lines of blood on the table. His eyes darted from guest to guest, yet there was still no answer to his previous question.
He pushed back his chair and walked calmly to a drawer adjacent to the stove and yanked it open. Inside there was a carefully sorted cutlery set: spoons, forks, knives. He violently plunged his hand inside the drawer ignorant of the sharp pain delivered by the metal devices. Gripping a fist full of spoons he spun around and threw them at the center of the table. They smashed into the pot, bowls and the empty table surface and bounced wildly everywhere. Henry smirked and returned to his place at the head of the table and sat down.
“You know what he said, don’t you?” Henry was referring to his therapist. There was a knock at the front door. Henry didn’t flinch only continued, “He said I had imagined my entire life and had some sort of disorder.” Henry belted out with a mechanical laughter cut short by a louder knock on the door only this time accompanied by a harsh voice yelling orders. Henry still didn’t look at the door, only grabbed a nearby spoon that was resting in a puddle of cold chili on the table. He quickly jabbed it into the chili sinking it to the bottom of his bowl. “You know what else he had called me?!” Henry was raising his voice now, only to be met with further silence from his guests and louder and louder banging at the door. “He called me-“ It was now obvious the door was going to be knocked open within moments.
“Revolting!”
A smash at the door.
“Unimaginative!”
Another smash, more violent.
“Ugly! Horrible! Repulsive!” Henry was full out screaming as the door was ripped from its hinges sending splinters of wood piercing through the still and anxious air. Bits of wood assaulted Henry’s face from what seemed like all sides. He let one more word go before shoving the spoon full of chili into his mouth while being tackle
d off his seat by the first police officer, “Disgusting!!”
The eleven year old boy struggled wildly as the officer flipped him onto his stomach and pulled his hands behind his back. Lieutenant Daniels quickly looked around as he cuffed Henry and officers hurried past to search the house. Daniels was utterly horrified by what he saw. Around the table, in the seats, were various stuffed animals; a bear, an elephant and some sort of princess. They were tightly duct tapped to the back of their seats. The stove, along with the boy, were covered in blood, knives lying everywhere around it. “The kids are gone…” Daniels said in despair.
“Delicious,” Henry gurgled past the chili sliding down his gullet.
Other titles by this author:
Something Warm
Aisle 14
Sickeningly Human: Advena
Numb
Bulletproof Birthday Cake
A Dream to Consider and Letters to the Worlds
Nicholas Blakeman lives in Idaho (USA) with his wife and son. Currently he is enrolled in Idaho State University. He has several other short story publications. He has recently been focusing all his writing on an up and coming epic fantasy. Be sure to read more of this new and promising writer as his career matures and progresses.