I marched Peewee in a textbook headlock along the asphalt\u2019s verge to my sister\u2019s place.<\/p>\n
\u201cTy, she\u2019s lyin\u2019, my dude. She\u2019s\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHold your pistols, Pewee. This is an arbitration, and all parties ain\u2019t present.\u201d<\/p>\n
We jack-knifed down the long dirt drive to my folks\u2019 farm, or what was left of it, me kicking my heels to give his downturned face a dusting.<\/p>\n
I scanned the spoils, dominated by that corrugated stretch of chicken shed. A burn pit simmered. The hulk of a\u00a0tractor rusted. The sloppy fences bowed and bent. It was all familiar blight, just new layers of rot.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you taking care of your responsibilities \u2018round here, Peewee?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure! I-I\u2019m tryin\u2019!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTry harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
I jostled him to the porch, sitting and squaring him on the busted white steps. He rubbed his neck, spluttering and spitting. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t exactly all milk and honey when we took over, y\u2019know!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know, I know,\u201d I shunted open the front door, rushing through the haunted house with its paper walls that held me \u2018til seventeen. \u2018til I could get the hell out. I grabbed two cold bottles of Bud\u2019 from the fridge, retracing with my eyes closed, my breath held. The smell of bleach-scrubbed animal waste still lingered.<\/p>\n
\u201cTia, get your ass down here!\u201d I yelled back before the screen door slammed, slumping next to her worthless husband, cracking his beer open with my teeth and clomping it down.<\/p>\n
\u201cThem\u2019s Tia\u2019s,\u201d he said, studying the brutal blue horizon. \u201cI don\u2019t drink no more. I\u2019m in a programme.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m drinking. You\u2019re drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I ain\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alcohol was a friend that always showed up and stole from you. It had that in common with Peewee. He was the agitator in our hometown crowd\u2014the mouth. The grifter. The shithead.<\/p>\n
I took a swig from mine. \u201cSuit yourself. Thanks for stopping.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would have chased me, and you know where I live. You think our trucks will be alright out there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t change the subject. Why did my sister have a black eye, Peewee? My girl at the Dunkin\u2019 Donuts saw her, clear as day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCall her! Ask her, instead of dragging my ass!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI called her. Her phone\u2019s dead. Tiaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!\u201d I tossed over my shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe she ain\u2019t here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure, she is,\u201d I gestured to her pick-up with a glistening bottle neck. It was our daddy\u2019s, bequeathed to the dutiful child, older by ten minutes, who stuck around to oversee both parents\u2019 end days. They\u2019d always pitted us against each other\u2014me with my football scholarship and ability to take a belt, Tia with her sneaky good humour and knack for dodging even a promised whooping.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid I tell you I saw Bobby the other day?\u201d Peewee appealed, his buck-tooth smile glinting. I felt a rush of the glory days.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuh. Bobby. No way. Was he still wearing his mom\u2019s fur coat?\u201d<\/p>\n
Peewee snorted. \u201cWhy the hell did he wear that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe went to New York once.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, he\u2019s a goddamn high school English teacher, now\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBobby is?! He used to eat gum off the bottom of the bleachers!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, but he was always a word pervert. You remember when we caught him reading in the strip club?\u201d<\/p>\n
I scrutinized Peewee\u2019s nervous profile\u2014his pockmarked cheeks had filled out, living high on the hog of my inheritance, no doubt. He was welcome to it. Tia was his nightmare now. Her heart, or whatever, was a righteous theft. They\u2019d been together for the guts of a year. I\u2019d shown up for the wedding, for the sake of the old faces. To save mine, maybe.<\/p>\n
She and Peewee were a meeting of vacant minds and serpent spines. I was there when Peewee skewered his testicles in junior high, breaking into the junkyard, so spawn seemed unlikely. Small mercies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t hit her, Ty. Well, not \u2018black eye\u2019 hit her, anyway. But you gotta know she gives as good as she gets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why I\u2019d stuck around after the ceremony was harder to say, orbiting between odd jobs and working the door of our favourite dive bar\u2014my juvenile pissing patch. Egged on by Peewee, I\u2019d broken a three-hundred-pound biker\u2019s jaw there before I needed to shave. Now, I turned the dark side of my other cheek to the curled lips of entitled freshmen\u2014a nameless moon without a planet.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s got this new crowd, Ty. They\u2019re no good, y\u2019know, but I don\u2019t have the headspace to babysit a grown woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
I tapped the heel of my bottle against my wedding ring. Why did I still wear it? I wanted credit for the intention, I guess. For an attempt at a life outside the faded firefly jar of my boyhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was that girlfriend you had in tenth grade?\u201d I cajoled Pewee, who was rolling a cigarette. Getting comfortable. \u201cYou know, the one with the lazy eye?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cErr, Charnelle?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCharnelle, right. She used to carry that glue bag with her. Then she\u2019d huff it and ride you \u2018round the parking lot like a rodeo clown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peewee hooted. \u201cJesus, me and the wild ones, huh? She works over at the abattoir. She has five kids and a\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I remember you cuffing her at Digger\u2019s New Year\u2019s Eve party.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peewee\u2019s beady eyes blazed. \u201cAnd I remember you laughing your ass off!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou misremember.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peewee swallowed hard. A soft cuck-cuck-cuck cacophony carried on the silence, on the strings of the dry earth and the vast, stingy sky. I hummed Thunder Road to block it out.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, okay. I-I-I haven\u2019t been home in days, Ty. We had a quarrel.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSave it, Tiaaaaaa-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!\u201d I roared at the shell of a house.<\/p>\n
\u201cY\u2019know, she… she\u2019s been out a lot recently. With this… this new crowd I was tellin\u2019 you about. Maybe she got picked up. Maybe\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
I stomped upright, draining my beer in four strides, turning and tossing it like an axe at the floor. The splintered glass showered Peewee\u2019s shins. He cowered, like he did when my wallet fell from his jacket pocket on that road trip to see Springsteen at the Hollywood Bowl.<\/p>\n
My knee brushed his cheek as I hauled myself inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cTia, where you at?\u201d<\/p>\n
I jogged up the stairs, blinkered to the family portraits spiralling diagonally at my elbow\u2014me and her, and us altogether. Graduations. Reunions. Homecomings.<\/p>\n
The last frame blared. I couldn\u2019t resist looking. The old man and me, arm in arm, grinning like eels, him in those stinking overalls, me a foot taller than my maker. Ten minutes after it was taken, he\u2019d asked me to stay, to help with the chickens. Tia was in jail for torching an ex-boyfriend\u2019s Subaru Impreza. I\u2019d tried to explain\u2014college starts again in a week. I\u2019ve met someone. It\u2019s not for me. He didn\u2019t hear. Didn\u2019t listen. We argued. He clapped me across the ear. I could\u2019ve killed him with my bare hands without breaking a sweat.<\/p>\n
I lurched from room to room. \u201cTia, c\u2019mon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTia, come talk.\u201d I hammered at the bathroom door. It swung open, empty.<\/p>\n
I held my breath and stepped into the final room.<\/p>\n
It still sagged with my pennants and shelves of dulled trophies. Apart from those relics, it was just space\u2014a mixed message to callers; that the someone who slept here was worth something once.<\/p>\n
Without the caretakers, there was no forced gratitude. No me versus her. Just an absence, stretched between the skirting boards.<\/p>\n
How did I boomerang here, after all this time?<\/p>\n
I heaved myself down the stairs, the berserker spell wearing off. My toe caught on loose carpet in the hall, freshly laid. Dried blood was smudged underneath. I followed it up to the banister\u2014a speckle of crimson.<\/p>\n
I shoved through the front door, clamping Peewee by the scruff, launching him into the dirt of the drive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere\u2019s Tia?!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI-I don\u2019t\u2026 I don\u2019t\u2026\u201d his eyes darted to the chicken shed.<\/p>\n
I dragged him over there, his shirt collar tearing in my grip, my pulse thumping in my temples.<\/p>\n
Inside, the sea of poultry chattered\u2014the bony, dirty birds in their rows of measly pens, scrabbling through their measly lives. The same stink that permeated my father. Our home. Shit and feed, but something else. That smell\u2014when we found our mauled cat\u2019s body in the crawl space after a month missing.<\/p>\n
In the walkway between the cages, a blue tarpaulin bulged.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d I gulped, breathing through my mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got no clue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTake it off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peewee trembled under the heat lamps. He stood over the plastic sheet, rubbing his fingers together. He turned to me, shaking his head. Begging me not to make him.<\/p>\n
I booted him in the ass. His rat face twisted in impotent resistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cShow me,\u201d I insisted, the sting of dammed tears at my eyes.<\/p>\n
He wrenched the tarpaulin free.<\/p>\n
Chickens. Dead chickens. Rotten. Crawling with maggots.<\/p>\n
\u201cUrgh,\u201d I recoiled, retching. \u201cPeewee, what the f\u2014”<\/p>\n
He bolted past me, into the wide open, pumping up the long dirt drive to the road.<\/p>\n
I charged after him, filling my lungs, muscle memory taking over. I ate up the ground, metre by metre, inch by inch, spearing him through the ramshackle fence.<\/p>\n
He was crying now. Crying, like my mom on the phone after another Thanksgiving no-show. Crying like Charnelle at Digger\u2019s New Year\u2019s Eve party; her button nose smashed and streaming.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t just leave them in there like that!\u201d I grimaced, pacing over his quaking carcass. \u201cThere\u2019s disease! They\u2019ll infect the whole flock!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2026 I can\u2019t look after no chickens, Ty! You understand that?! It ain\u2019t dignified work. We\u2026 we have the infrastructure… w-we could grow weed!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTia\u2019s a felon, you stupid prick. You wouldn\u2019t get a license.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, y\u2019know, I\u2014I could set up without Tia. You and me, maybe?\u201d<\/p>\n
A new stench rippled over the decay. The burn pit simmered behind him\u2014a hole in the earth. The volume\u2014the charred contents\u2014too big for chickens. Too big for a tarpaulin.<\/p>\n
I offered Peewee a hand. He took it. I rag-dolled him, locking his breakable arm. He cawed and thrashed as we slow-danced towards the smoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is it?\u201d I spat, the black mass gazing back.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust… stuff. Stuff we don\u2019t want. Mattresses and clothes and… and I hit a deer the other night. I brought it back, I don\u2019t know what I was thinking, but some of its bones, maybe…\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, they\u2019ve got bones, don\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFish it all out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFish? It\u2019s toxic, Ty! It\u2019ll get in my lungs, and \u2013 \u201d<\/p>\n
I unlocked his arm, clapping his ear. He sprawled backwards, yelping and flailing on the anonymous ash, scrambling clear and hugging my legs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI-I was so damn happy when you came back, Ty! Everything that happened to you, man \u2013 \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShut up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2014it wasn\u2019t fair, man\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShut the hell up, Peewee.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were like a brother to me! Your folks, they were good people!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were garbage! They were ghouls! They wanted me and Tia to fight to the death over who would be lord or lady to this… this fuckin\u2019 graveyard!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay. Okay, I understand. You didn\u2019t need to be treated like some service anim\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
I socked him in the mouth at eighty percent, remembering the time he saved me in the creek, when I got tangled in the reeds. He could always swim better. Float better.<\/p>\n
He shunted a shoulder into my knee. I screamed – the hair-trigger pain from the ligament damage\u2014the football injury that forced me to retire at twenty-two. I crumpled down beside him at the rim of the pit.<\/p>\n
Peewee rocked on his haunches. He was laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cY\u2019know, I loved to watch you play, Ty. I came to all your games, remember? Shit, I… I could never believe a stud like you was hangin\u2019 with a goon like me. I… I think that was part of the appeal, with Tia, y\u2019know? A chance to… to be in your shadow again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tia would\u2019ve resisted. She would\u2019ve bled. It\u2019s what she did\u2014how our parents taught us. Stay. Stand your ground, as the drains back up. As home becomes a fetid sewer. As death binds and chokes you.<\/p>\n
I righted myself\u2014a caber, clenched above him, the pity seeping from my marrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see how it is, Ty. You want me to beg? You got the wrong stiff. Y\u2019know, your daddy begged. When your mom got sick, he begged for his son. And on his deathbed. Yeah, I was there, and you better believe, he\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
I punted his jaw. His skull rattled, his unrooted teeth clacking against a tree stump.<\/p>\n
I stooped to the slaughter, like a dutiful son.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My legs splay in the dust. I knead my thick neck on the porch steps.<\/p>\n
My crooked knuckles bleed.<\/p>\n
My ash-caked fingers quiver around a vanishing sliver of cigarette. Pewee rolled them tight. He was better at that. He was careful.<\/p>\n
The restoked burn pit smoulders in the distance. I avert my eyes to the pill bugs scurrying under their home of a dead-headed plant pot.<\/p>\n
I think I hear a harmonica. A piano. The steadfast refrain of Thunder Road.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m deaf to the rumble. The squeal of brakes. The car door.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks, Julie, baby. Next one\u2019s on me.\u201d<\/p>\n
A clot hangs over me. Her dress sways.<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus, baby brother, to what do I owe this pleasure?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTia?\u201d<\/p>\n
I shield my eyes from the haze of heaven.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho else? \u2018scuse the shiner. You remember Clementine Dean, the pastor\u2019s daughter? She found out I\u2019d been foolin\u2019 around with her husband. Turns out she\u2019s got a right hook on her. The way I see it, that bitch only puts out on his birthday, I\u2019m doing everyone a favour.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTia, I\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeewee will freak, no doubt, but I ain\u2019t scared of him. He\u2019s a pussycat these days. Him and his sobriety, sitting in a tree…\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTia… please…\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDamn! What the hell are you so upset about? There ain\u2019t no suckers to attend to at home no more. No bodies to quarrel with, neither.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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