\n
My wife was leaving me with her brother, who had just left his wife, so she could camp out with her wilderness skills club in order to view a total lunar eclipse.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a tradition,\u201d Carrie said when I asked why I couldn\u2019t come with her, why I had to stay with Morgan, her drunk, dickhead of a brother who was sixteen years older than her and therefore more like an uncle.\u00a0 A drunk, dickhead of an uncle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been getting together since high school for each total lunar eclipse,\u201d she said, wearing a knit cap that had been stitched with the word\u00a0Lunartic<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cWe haven\u2019t had one in almost three years.\u201d\u00a0 She talked about things like tradition and catching up with old friends but I understood that the real reason was that she was going to sleep with some outdoorsy type who had complicated knots displayed on the walls of his study, that she had been sleeping with this guy since high school, and I was not to deprive her of this.<\/p>\n Morgan, her brother, sat on the couch sipping rum and coke through a straw and asked what was so special about a lunar eclipse.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing,\u201d my wife said, \u201cbut a total lunar eclipse is very special.\u201d<\/p>\n She told him the story that I had heard dozens of times, how Columbus\u2014his crew having robbed and murdered some of the welcoming natives\u2014saved his own life by using an astronomical almanac to correctly predict a total eclipse of the moon, inflamed with wrath, in order to scare the chief.\u00a0 \u201cShee-it,\u201d Morgan said, making a wanking motion with his hand, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have fallen for that science bullshit.\u00a0 I would have killed Columbus with my bare hands and then my tribe would have thought I was some kind of heap big badass.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen his crew would have shot you right in the ass with their rifles,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cNot so fast, Poindexter,\u201d he replied.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019d turn sideways, cut their target in half.\u00a0 They wouldn\u2019t hit jack shit with those popguns.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCan I leave?\u201d my wife asked.<\/p>\n \u201cGo on,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease don\u2019t go,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cBye,\u201d my wife said, and she was gone.<\/p>\n I asked Morgan if he knew any of the people in my wife\u2019s club.<\/p>\n \u201cA couple,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cDoes Carrie want to fuck any of them?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n He shrugged his shoulders.\u00a0 \u201cCould be,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cShe likes mountain men.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a mountain man,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d he admitted.\u00a0 \u201cAs far as I\u2019ve seen, you\u2019re not really the outdoor type.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That night, drunk on bourbon and Sun Drop, Morgan took out a very mini-Casio keyboard, almost the size of a credit card, and turned on the rhumba beat.\u00a0 He began to play \u201cUnchained Melody\u201d, slurring the words, \u201cto the open arms of the sea,\u201d so that it sounded like \u201ctootie hope and harms odyssey.\u201d<\/p>\n I watched the World Submission Fighting Finals on ESPN, two Brazilians wrapping themselves around and around each other, trying very hard, I thought, not to accidentally fuck.<\/p>\n \u201cJimmy\u2019s fat,\u201d Morgan then sang, punching the keys of the Casio with great emphasis.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s got two cheeseburgers and a super-sized Coke\u2026Jimmy\u2019s fat.\u201d\u00a0 This was to the tune of Beck\u2019s \u201cWhere It\u2019s At\u201d.\u00a0 I turned off the grappling in mid-heel-hook and faced my brother-in-law, his mouth turned into a cartoon-styled frown.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wrote this,\u201d he said, still playing, the Casio set to\u00a0Funk<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cYou know Jimmy Patrick?\u201d he asked.\u00a0 Jimmy Patrick had been a classmate of Morgan\u2019s and had killed himself a few months ago.<\/p>\n \u201cNot really,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a fat motherfucker,\u201d Morgan said.\u00a0 \u201cI hated him so much.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought you were friends,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were kind of friends,\u201d Morgan said, sounding the same note over and over, staring off into space.<\/p>\n \u201cHe killed himself,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cShit, I know that,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t really know him,\u201d I said, and turned the TV back on to the next match, some fat-ass Russian and another arm-breaker from Brazil.<\/p>\n \u201cFifth grade,\u201d Morgan said, \u201cJimmy stood up to do a problem at the blackboard and when he sat back down, I set up a pencil under him and it went straight up his rectum.\u201d<\/p>\n I turned away from the TV.\u00a0 \u201cWhat now?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cI sent a pencil up his butt,\u201d Morgan said, about to cry.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat now?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cJimmy squeaked and the teacher asked what was the matter, but he wouldn\u2019t say.\u00a0 He just looked down at his desk and wouldn\u2019t move.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou say you put a pencil up Jimmy Patrick\u2019s butt?\u201d I said, and Morgan nodded.<\/p>\n \u201cYou set up a pencil and it managed to puncture the fabric of his pants, the fabric of his underwear, and just so happened to be perfectly aligned with his asshole?\u201d I said, and Morgan again nodded.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m having a hard time believing that, Morgan,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cRight up his butt,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n \u201cFine,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n On the TV, the Russian was putting some kind of anaconda choke on the Brazilian, who kept rolling over, which only cinched the choke tighter.\u00a0 I was positive\u2014as positive as I was that my wife was fucking some guy under the shadow of a blood-red moon\u2014that Morgan and Jimmy had engaged in some weird sex stuff when they were teenagers and it had probably led to Jimmy killing himself and Morgan subsequently leaving his wife.\u00a0 Morgan played the opening part of \u201cLean on Me\u201d and then gently set the keyboard on the table.\u00a0 Ten minutes later, he was dead asleep.<\/p>\n I went outside and stared up at the moon, angry and rusted, ruined.\u00a0 I wished I lived in a time when I could point to the sky, at the oddness occurring for only a brief time, and wield some kind of power over those who had no idea how the world worked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “I understood that the real reason was she was going to sleep with some outdoorsy 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