Fat Man and Little Boy by Mike Meginnis

home to home, raping wives and sisters, mothers and daughters. Some of the women they kill, but mostly they can’t be bothered. There are no trials. If these men cannot be tried, then how can Fat Man? The wife and her daughter, if they have given testimony, may well have told the truth, in which case it was self-defense. If the mother and her daughter lied, then Fat Man is still an American—a well-fed one. One who wears a suit. Though it is always the same suit. He may have connections. Perhaps he knows MacArthur. Or so they may think. Or it may be they are waiting for Fat Man to implicate himself. To break down sobbing. It is not precisely guilt he feels for what he did, though on other days it has been guilt. To what could he confess? Not the pigs. Not the babies. But neither the father: the father least of all. His palms are black. Do they think this normal? Do they see it as a sign of guilt?
    It may be the language barrier protects him. They do not know how to interrogate a person with so little Japanese. Are confused by the fact that he has any in the first place. They cannot accuse who they cannot interrogate. Or they empathize, perhaps. They imagine him on the witness stand, if there is a witness stand, if in Japan they have such a thing. They imagine the prodding questions of the prosecutor if there is a prosecutor, or a judge if there is only a judge. They imagine Fat Man listening dumbly, waiting for a word he knows. His pidgin responses. Unresponsive, even inappropriate, puzzling and puzzled. He might think they didn’t care about his guilt if not for the hardness in their faces, if not for their resemblance to the dead soldiers, one short and one tall.
    It may be these sickly men could not arrest him if they wanted. These do not carry guns. They have only truncheons. They are perhaps too weak to wield the truncheons. He could maybe crush them, or they may think that he could crush them, that there is no arresting him without the aid of others. He has seen so few other policemen in this city on the coast. They are watching him. He is looking back at them. He is looking at the evidence case. Perhaps they mean it as a gift. He could close the case, slide its hinges into place, and go—a memento. The sound of a knife in a suitcase, the sound of scabbed money. Some dirt. Luggage, only luggage. Only what he carries.
    The tall one closes the evidence case. The hinges click into place.
    Or it may be there’s no point. Even assuming the possibility of arrest, of conviction. There were these bombs. Not here, but nearby. There were these bodies. The bodies are gone. There is no good count of these bodies. There were other bodies? What’s a hog farmer’s body? What’s a stillborn baby? What are two crying women? Compared to two cities and all the bodies therein, now gone?
    They cannot know he was the thing exploded. Or can they know? They cannot know.
    Still there are his hands.
    â€œAre you sorry?” asks the tall one. But Fat Man does not understand.
    â€œI need to go,” says Fat Man. “The boat is going.” He realizes he can say “without me.” “Without me,” he says. “The boat.”
    It occurs to him he can leave. The small Japanese home may be the home of the policemen. They do not seem at home here. But there are signs that someone lives here. Used dishes, an open book, a telephone in the corner, on the floor. A painting of mountains hanging on the wall. A sock, discarded. These things all could be theirs. This home is not a prison.
    He stands. He leaves the small home. The policemen only watch. As he passes through the doorway, one of them—the tall or the short, he does not turn to see—reaches for his hand, and holds it. The policeman’s skin is cold. His grip is tight. Not painful, but tight. Not a threat, but tight. Not angry, but tight. What the hand seems to say is, Wait. What the hand seems to say is, We can talk.
    Fat Man