Fragile Beasts (40 page)

If he were here right now, the last thing he’d do is let me talk about my feelings. He’d never sit around and listen to me call Klint a selfish jerk. (He’d never let me say anything bad about Klint.) He’d have no interest in hearing about Shelby, about how she thinks I’m a cute, nice guy—which is the kiss of death when it comes to the possibility of ever getting laid—or how Mr. B’s affection for me turns out to be meaningless because he’ll hang out with any asshole with a warm bed, or how much it bothers me that Krystal hates me now, or how much I miss my mom every day.

He wouldn’t want to hear about these things because he couldn’t change any of them and that would make him feel bad, but he wouldn’t want me to feel bad either because he loved me, so what he’d do instead is take me with him to Wal-Mart to pick up some new long underwear for our next hunting trip, or take me over to the Go-Kart track and let me beat him every time, or let me drive the truck once we turned off the main road, or have me come sit with him and watch TV and let me drink a beer.

Dad wasn’t a fixer; he was a distracter. But when none of your problems are fixable, a distracter can be your best friend.

There’s a knock on my door.

I know it’s Miss Jack. She probably heard me slam the door.

“I’m doing my homework,” I call out.

“Are you kidding me? On a Saturday afternoon? You can’t possibly be that boring.”

It’s Starr. I didn’t even get to say good-bye to her after Thursday’s game. She disappeared into thin air like she has a habit of doing. Sometimes I’m convinced she’s not entirely real.

I go open the door.

“I thought you were Miss Jack,” I explain immediately, trying to appear as cool as any guy can be who’s spending his Saturday alone and doesn’t even have a TV or an Xbox in his room.

“Obviously,” she says, peering over my shoulder. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

She walks past me, and I stand in the doorway and watch her.

It’s the first time I’ve seen her bare legs. She’s wearing a black miniskirt and a pair of high-heeled shoes. Her white shirt looks like a businessman’s. She has the cuffs rolled up, the collar open, and a lot of the buttons undone. She’s carrying a purse, a leather jacket, and the cap she wore to Klint’s ball game. She throws it all on my bed and turns around to face me.

“I was visiting my aunt and thought I’d come say hi. Thought it would be the polite thing to do.”

I’m trying hard not to stare at her legs, but their length and nakedness make it almost impossible. When I try and look up, I’m staring at her boobs in a black bra peeking out of her shirt. Making eye contact with her is the worst thing of all because I feel like she can see into my brain.

I’m spending so much effort trying to figure out where I can look, I’m incapable of making conversation.

“I saw your brother rushing out of here with his usual scowl on his face. Does he ever lighten up?”

“He’s got a lot on his mind.”

“I bet,” she says.

She picks up her purse and takes a flask out of it. She opens it, takes a drink, and extends it to me.

“How old are you, Kyle?” she asks while I take a swallow.

It’s whiskey. I’m not used to drinking it, but I do my best to seem nonchalant.

“Fifteen,” I cough out.

She starts strolling around my room, touching things. She stops in front of Stan Jack’s portrait, and I realize with a sinking heart that I never took down the T-shirt this morning.

She yanks it off and laughs when she sees it’s her grandfather in the picture.

“Scary SOB, isn’t he?”

“Kind of,” I reply.

She covers him back up and continues checking out my stuff.

“I remember fifteen,” she says. “I lost my virginity when I was fifteen. A friend of my dad’s. He got me really drunk. I threw up afterward.”

She laughs.

“Don’t worry. You should see the look on your face. I wasn’t raped or anything like that. I was willing. As a matter of fact, I’d been a terrible flirt with him.”

She takes another slug from the flask.

“I thought I wanted to do it, then when it came down to the moment, I didn’t but it was too late.”

“Kind of like committing to a pitch,” I suggest, not quite sure what’s appropriate small talk for this particular subject.

“Once you start your swing, you gotta follow through even if you know you’re going to strike out,” I further explain.

“Something like that,” she says, smiling. “You know a lot about baseball.”

“Sure.”

“But you don’t play? It’s all from watching your brother?”

“I guess.”

“Why don’t you play?”

“Sports aren’t my thing.”

“What is your thing?”

“I don’t know.”

She stops in front of the art kit Miss Jack got me for Christmas and picks up one of the brushes. I have it opened up next to the painting I’m working on now.

“I’d say art’s your thing. Interesting subject matter for a fifteen-year-old boy.”

“It’s for my sister.”

“I didn’t know you have a sister. Where is she?”

I join her where she’s standing in front of my desktop easel looking at the painting of the four fairies representing earth, sky, sea, and fire. Sky is an ethereal blonde draped in silvery white and pale blue. Fire is a redhead in scarlet with wings that look like flames. Sea has lavender curls tangled with green seaweed and is covered in glistening multicolored scales like a rainbow trout.
Earth is a brunette wearing a bikini made of leaves and nothing else. She looks a lot like Shelby. I hope Starr doesn’t see the resemblance.

“She’s in Arizona with my mom.”

“So your mom just took your sister and left? Was your dad okay with it?”

“No, but he didn’t really have a choice.”

“What do you mean? Of course he had a choice. One parent can’t just run away with one of the kids. He could’ve hired a lawyer.”

I shake my head.

She hands me the flask, and I take another drink.

“We couldn’t have afforded anything like that. Plus I don’t think my dad saw the point in trying to drag back someone who didn’t want to be with him. He didn’t want to fight with her. He couldn’t make himself hate her no matter how much people told him he should.”

“Your dad sounds like a decent guy. What did he do?”

“He was a miner when he was young, then he got laid off.”

“Good old J&P Coal.” Starr toasts me with her flask and drinks again. “What a bunch of bastards we are.”

“The last job he had was being a janitor,” I add quietly.

“Then you should be really proud of yourself. And your brother, too. You’re both going places. Moving up in the world.”

I know what she’s implying. I don’t say anything because I could never explain how I feel about my dad to someone like Starr.

I might end up being more than him but not better.

“It’s a beautiful painting,” she says.

“It’s not done yet. I still have a lot of work to do. And I want to add some glitter. She used to love glitter. I don’t know if she does anymore.”

Starr walks over and sits down on the end of my bed. I watch her, not caring at all anymore where I’m looking. I’ve only had two slugs of whiskey, but I already feel a little weird. Not bad. Just different.

“Maybe you could paint something for me someday.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe I could pose for you. Do you think I’d make a good fairy?”

“I see you more as a sorceress.”

She smiles her slow, sexy, disturbing smile at me.

“I like that.”

She pats the bed beside her, and I go sit down next to her.

“Skylar’s more the fairy in our family. You haven’t met her yet. She’s beautiful but stupid. Don’t get me wrong. I love her. I love her like a sister. But she has trouble connecting the dots even when there’s only two of them.”

Before I know what’s happening, Starr is sitting in my lap with her miniskirt bunched up around her hips and her thighs clamping my thighs. Her breasts are directly in front of my face.

I brace myself by digging my hands into the mattress.

She sits back on my knees.

“What do you think of Shelby?”

“Huh?”

She puts her finger on my lips like she’s trying to keep me from saying it.

“You don’t have to answer. I know you’re crazy about her. What do you think about me?”

“You’re hot.”

She takes her finger away and runs it down my throat.

“That’s easy. What do you think about my personality?”

“You seem very nice.”

She laughs.

“You’re so full of shit.”

She slides off onto the floor and kneels between my legs. She starts unbuttoning her shirt.

“Do I scare you?”

I shake my head no.

She takes off her shirt, and I’m left staring at real live human girl breasts covered by only two tiny scraps of see-through black material.

The nerve endings in my fingertips start to burn and the muscles in my arms start to tremble. I’d give anything to put my hands on them, but I’m still not sure I’m allowed.

“Not even a little bit?”

I shake my head again.

“You’re breathing like you’re scared.”

She reaches up her hand and places it on my boner. For a second, I’m pretty sure I’ve swallowed my tongue, and I get panicked thinking about how embarrassing it would be to go into seizures and suffocate to death on one of my own body parts.

She fingers my dick and rubs it through the material of my jeans.

“But I guess you wouldn’t have that if you were scared,” she says and stands up.

“Have you ever done it, Kyle?”

I try to answer but no words come out. I shake my head no.

“Would you like to do it?”

“I guess. I mean. Yeah. I think most guys would.”

“Not all guys. Not your brother.”

“What do you mean?”

She kicks off her shoes and slides her skirt down over her legs.

While I’m looking at her, I realize I’d do anything to have her. Promise anything. Give away anything. Forsake people I love. Break laws. Humiliate myself.

It’s a desire that’s stronger than anything intellectual or emotional or even physical. I feel joyously enlightened. I think I even understand how religion works now. If gods can get people to feel about them the way I feel about this girl, it’s no wonder they can convince their followers to sacrifice their sheep, and senses of humor, and firstborn sons.

She crawls on top of me, straddling me again, and pushes me back on the bed. Her hands start pulling at my zipper while she licks my ear and whispers in it, “He couldn’t get it up.”

I finally reach for her. She unhooks her bra for me.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m on the pill. And I’m clean. I get tested all the time.”

I laugh out loud. I can’t help myself.

Fatherhood, disease, and death are the furthest things from my mind yet they’re all risks I’m willing to take.

She takes me in her hand and starts to guide me inside her. I can’t look. I don’t want to look.

I close my eyes.

I’m expecting something spongy or fleshy. Something similar to my hand but hopefully moister and kinder. But it feels like nothing I’ve ever been able to imagine, like a warm, thick, exquisite oil.

She slips her hand between her legs and starts rubbing while rocking back and forth on me.

“I’m going to help myself out,” she says. “I don’t think you’re going to last long.”

She’s right.

D
uring the winter months, the weather prevents me from having my breakfast outside. I don’t approve of breakfast in bed. I think if one is awake enough to dine, one is awake enough to get dressed and sit at a table. Therefore, when I’ve been forced indoors, I have traditionally eaten my breakfast in the sunroom, where I have a lovely view of the grounds extending off into the tree line and the hills beyond.

My increasing inability to get a good night’s sleep has led to my getting up ever earlier, which meant, eventually, that I was awake at the same hour as Kyle and Klint while they were getting ready for school.

They ate in the kitchen and even though their passage through that room rarely lasted for more than fifteen minutes, it was filled with enough banging, crashing, slamming, and foul-mouthed verbal exchanges to lead an uninitiated guest to believe there was a prison cafeteria somewhere in my house.

I decided to start taking my breakfasts with them in the hopes that I could tame them. They’ve improved, but they still have to be constantly reminded, and certain acts—such as shutting the refrigerator door and opening new boxes of cereal—they simply can’t do quietly. I think it may be beyond their control. It may be a question of genetics. Asking them to chew softly is as futile as asking an elephant to tread lightly.

Today is the first morning I’ve attempted to eat outside since November. It’s the end of April and still brisk in the mornings, but the past few days have been mild and the fresh smell of spring is in the air. The trees are covered in bright green buds. Crocuses are scattered all over the lawn in patches of white and purple bullets.

We could still have snow next week. Western Pennsylvania weather is unreliable at best. We’re usually teased with a gorgeous week or two in May, then
handed a dismal rainy June before summer truly arrives in July. But I’ve seen many, many springs and my bones have become adept at knowing when the worst of the cold has passed and I’m sure it has for this year.

I’m wrapped in my coat and the scarf Kyle gave me for Christmas, sipping at my tea and reading the newspaper, when the front door opens and slams shut and what sounds like a small herd of bison thunders across my porch toward the steps.

“Boys!” I shout.

They come to a skidding halt.

Klint is loaded down with what they call his “team bag.” I tried picking it up once and couldn’t budge it. Both of them carry backpacks. Kyle’s is heavier than his brother’s because his contains books.

“Quiet, please.”

They walk toward me.

Luis, having followed the commotion, sticks his head out of the front door. He has my plate of toast.

Kyle is carrying a stack of three bagged bologna sandwiches in each hand. He makes his brother close to a dozen every morning.