Goat (12 page)

Inside my room she takes my chin and pulls my face toward her and she smells like cigarettes and perfume and her mouth is slick and I don’t even like her but, really, I love her for being here now. She moves in front of me, reaches around and clutches my back. The dim lamplight falling in bands across her stretched arms. The television painting her face. She slides against me. My hands on her hips, she takes my wrists and I let my fingers curl open slowly, she traces the grooves in my palms and pulls them to her breasts. My mouth is in her hair and my eyes are closed and she turns around and kisses me and I want to breathe in all of her, take every dancing cell into my mouth to keep from being alone. I crack my eyes to watch her mouth tremble, and everything is sleek from our open mouths and I close my eyes again. She pushes me down to the bed, hands against my chest and I feel like nothing and I want to tell her about all the dark things inside me, about the smile and the breath about the brothers and how they’re fucking me up, but I don’t, I just keep staring at her because I love her for kissing me and not saying a word. She touches my face with her hand. Lies down beside me. Closes her eyes. Her breath slow and warm against my face. I watch her breathe. When I wake up she’s gone.

BRETT AND I leave on a Friday. Pledges are not supposed to leave on weekends but I do it anyway and Brett doesn’t care. He drives and smokes and we pass idle cows and fields laid like grids and I keep expecting him to say something, to say anything, but he just stares and turns the radio loud. I roll down the window and let air rush through and I fall asleep with half of my head hanging out the window and for once my mind is quiet but I know that this peace is fleeting and that Monday will be silent and gray and we will have to come back.

——

OUR HOUSE SMELLING of damp and burnt wood. My parents beam, look at us like we’ve been gone for years. My mother looks at me and says I told you you’d be all right, and I want to say I’m not, I’m all wrong, but it wouldn’t matter, she wouldn’t understand, and even though she’s a nurse, she couldn’t help me at all. She’s in bed by nine. My father, Brett and I stay up and watch television until my father is snoring on a recliner beside the fireplace in our den. Brett on the couch with a blanket pulled up over him. Me on a chair beside my father. I go over and stare down at him, put my fingers close to his face, flick his nose and he shakes, bleary-eyed, and Brett and I laugh and my father tells us to fuck off, rubs his eyes, waves a hand at us and goes down the hall to the bedroom. Deep snoring a minute later.

Man, Brett says, he can fucking snore.

Yeah, I say. No doubt.

You, too, Brett says.

Not like that, though.

You’ll be there soon enough. In your blood.

Whatever. In the dark room the television punches light on Brett’s face.

You remember, he says, how we’d come home late as shit and open the door all quiet and listen for those snores?

Yeah, I say. All the way from the back of the hall. Loud as a sonofabitch.

Brett laughs.

It’s how we knew if we were cool coming home late, if we opened the door at two or three in the morning and could hear our father’s snoring from the den. If we didn’t hear it, we’d just sit outside and smoke cigarettes and then check again. My mother has trained herself to ignore the snoring but her ears were tuned to hear us, and if we weren’t quiet enough, we’d wake her and she’d appear in the dark all drunk with sleep and ask us where we’d been and we’d say oh just watching a movie, started it late you know? She’d nod and stumble back down the hall. This is how my mother is. If she wakes in the night, she’s delirious, doesn’t know what’s going on, but still stumbles around the house checking on us or cutting off lights we’ve left on, picking up shoes or books we’ve strewn around. My father, if he woke up for some reason, would just smell our breath and tell us not to be stupid and drive around drunk. We’d nod, say nah, man, we don’t do that. He’d always say you know you can call me if you’re drunk. I’ll come get you.

BRETT AND I sit up and watch television for as long as we can and Matthew isn’t home yet from his Friday night. My parents had had enough by the time he started high school, so he’s pretty much free to do what he wants. Brett falls asleep and when I get up to go to bed, trying to be quiet, he looks up at me bleary and says night. It’s always like that. I always try to get back to my room without waking him just to see if I can but he always wakes up. No matter how quiet I am. It’s like he’s asleep but part of him is always listening to see if I’m still there.

EVEN THOUGH I’M home I still dream the same fucked-up things, faceless men scratching at the windows of my room. I’d hoped it would help to sleep at home, that I wouldn’t keep waking up in the middle of the night sweating and then lying still and waiting for the sun to come up. But it doesn’t happen like that. It’s the same thing. All the time.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON INSIDE a convenience store across from my house I’m buying cigarettes and the cashier tells me I’m going to die and I say what? and she says nothing.

I tell Brett about the woman when we’re in his room Saturday night. He’s in his bed reading something about Kierkegaard. I’m on the small couch against the wall. He turns a page.

Did you hear me? I say. He looks up from the book.

Yeah, he says. I heard you. Looks back down at the book.

Well?

Well what?

You don’t think that’s fucked up?

You probably misunderstood her.

No. I heard it. Plain as anything. She acted like she didn’t say anything but I know she did.

I don’t know, man. Even if she did say it, so what?

I just thought it was fucked up, you know? Telling me I was going to die.

We’re all going to die.

Oh yeah that’s fucking insightful.

I don’t know what to tell you, man.

You think I’m crazy?

He looks up from the book. Closes it, holds a finger to mark the page and rests it on his chest.

No, I don’t, he says. I think you misheard her or something.

I didn’t, I say. I swear.

What do you want me to say?

I don’t know. Just that it was weird.

It was weird.

You think I’m going to die soon or something?

No.

Why not?

I just don’t. I mean I really don’t know but I don’t think so. Not like tomorrow or anything.

Okay. And then we’re quiet. Me staring at the television that’s turned down low. Brett at his book.

You sure? I say.

Yeah, he says. I’m sure. Don’t listen to fucking crazy people like that.

Okay, I say. Then I drop it.

Brett looks up again from the book. Does this have something to do with the pledge thing? he says.

What? I say.

I don’t know. Like stress or something.

Nah. I doubt it.

Brett stares at me. Just think about it, he says. Maybe it does.

Okay, I say.

I DON’T THINK about pledging and whether it stresses me because I know Brett’s right. I leave the room and get into bed. I can’t stop thinking about the woman and what she said and how I know I heard it. I fall asleep and wake in the middle of the night shaking again. Sit up straight in my bed. The television still on and muted. I turn it up and listen for the voices of reporters, salesmen, fitness instructors, whoever.

——

FIVE-THIRTY IN THE morning on a Monday and Brett and I leave to get back for class at nine and I sleep most of the way back and Brett just keeps smoking with the windows rolled up and listening to some sad crooner he likes. The glass cold against my face. The seatbelt draped under my chin to hold my head up. I keep nodding off and then the car shakes and wakes me up and my whole body quivers because I don’t want to go back, I would rather just turn around or get out here or keep driving to anywhere and forget about everyone, forget about Will and Dave and all the brothers waiting on me.

But it doesn’t go like that.

Brett pulls into the dorm, keeps the car running, we both just sit there.

Going to class? I say.

No, he says. Fuck class, I’m not going. Fuck this place. These people.

I don’t say anything.

What are you doing? he says. You want to come with me?

Nah, I say. I need to go to class, and I’m lying, because I know he needs to be by himself and I know he can’t help me right now anyway.

All right, he says.

I open the door and get out, reach back in for my bag.

Have fun, I say.

Yeah, he says.

I shut the door and he pulls out.

He doesn’t look over his shoulder and then he’s on the road, a car blaring its horn at him but he doesn’t look back at it or at me. This is what Brett will do: drive on the interstate in any direction. It doesn’t matter. Stare at yellow lines. Drive until he can’t keep his eyes open. He’s always done this when he can’t think or is thinking too much. I am standing alone at nine o’clock with the quilted morning sky and the orange and yellow leaves raining around me like ashes.

I SHAKE ALL day.

On the way to class everything is livid. I don’t know why. It just is. I can see the edges of things. I can barely walk and it hurts to look at things.

I keep my head down the whole way. Stare at cracks in the sidewalk.

IN RELIGION CLASS Whelan talks about the Tao. But I can’t follow him because my head is somewhere else. I can’t think. The smile and the breath, the brothers, these shadows everywhere.

When Whelan’s up at the chalkboard writing something the girl in front of me turns around. Dark skin and brown hair.

Hey, she says.

Hey, I say. Look up at Whelan and he’s still scribbling.

You’re a Kappa Sig, right?

Pledge.

Yeah, that’s what I meant. I’m Erin.

Brad.

Cool.

She smiles and turns back around and I take my fingers, plug my ears until I see people bending beside their desks to get books and leave.

ERIN STOPS ME in the hall. Touches my arm.

Hey, she says.

I look around, hope I don’t see any brothers.

Hey, I say.

So, I’m pledging Kappa, she says.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah. It’s great.

I don’t know what to say to her because my mind is all over the place. I scratch my head.

Okay, she says. So, maybe I’ll see you around.

Yeah, I say. Maybe.

Bye.

Bye.

Erin opens the double doors.

AFTER CLASS IN my room I lock the door and turn the lights off because the glare hurts my eyes. Everything hurts. The air hurts, it hurts to breathe because I don’t want to do this pledge thing anymore because I’m scared of everything, of closing my eyes, of waking at night but I’m also terrified of what I will be without the fraternity, that I will be nothing, that I am already nothing. I know it with each step and breath. I know it more than any truth. I know I’m nothing.

——

AND THEN IT’S done.

I call my brother and when he picks up his phone I hear music blaring in the background. The Thursday-night party that I’m supposed to go to.

Where are you? he says.

I can’t come, I say. Can we talk for a second? He pauses, the phone scraping his chin. The music rises and he tells someone to stay the fuck out of his room.

Someone says excuse me, motherfucker. The door shuts and the sound shrinks. The air between us silent.

Where? he says after a moment and I can barely talk. I tell him I don’t know where and he tells me in the stairwell that connects the two sides of our dorm, between the third floors, and I say yes, that’s fine, and I know he hears the salt in my voice, my shaking hands.

BRETT SITTING ALONE on the top step. Waiting for me when I open the door. I walk to the stairwell slowly, and he tells me not to worry, there’s no one around, but I worry anyway.

I smooth my jeans out, pull the hat down over my eyes. Brett takes a pull from his cigarette and thumps it against the wall. It bounces, sends red ash like sparks from hot steel. One branch from an oak bounces against the window in front of us. Brett takes a drink from his beer.

After the drink he says talk and I don’t want to because I know I will cry. I can feel it coming already.

It’s hard to talk, I say and he nods, stares at the glass, brings the beer to his lips again. I open my mouth again and I can’t say anything. I drop my head against my chest. We sit and I cry and Brett says nothing. The door opens to our right. I look up and my face is all wet and red and Chance stops when he sees us.

Whoa, he says and Dixon is behind him. He peeks over Chance’s shoulder and I bring my head down again. Brett turns, springs up, rushes at them and grabs the doorframe. He slams it closed and pounds his fists against the green metal.

Stay the fuck out, he yells, stay the fuck out. He pounds his fist into the door again and backs away. Throws his beer against the door and foam spirals over the floor and he kicks the can against the wall.

Goddamn you, he says, I fucking hate you hate every one of you fucks. He backs away and lowers his head, brings a hand to his forehead. Sits beside me again.

I’ll tell them you’re done, he says.

I don’t know, I say, maybe I should stick it out.

He shakes his head.

No, he says, you’re done. I’ll tell them tomorrow.

I want to tell him that he’s all I’ve got left and I’m terrified of being alone, that maybe these brothers are all I’ve got, that I’m scared of them but I’m scared of what I’ll be without them, but nothing comes out and I just sit there with my head bowed.

Brett gets up.

Lock your door tonight, he says, and don’t answer if someone knocks.

He steps back down the stairwell and the door downstairs opens and thick music lifts and the oak taps the glass again softly and through the haze I can see the moon cut by dark leaves.

——

I PASS FROM them quietly, and then nothing’s left. No one remembers my name.

Brett tells the brothers the next day that I am done and they act worried, concerned, and want to know if everything is okay with me. He tells them I’m fine and they all nod, hands laid flat over the pleats in their khakis. Eyes pinched into small slits. There is no ceremony to strike my name, no ritual to simulate my death, no walking the gauntlet between rows of brothers and pledges, each head falling like a domino, eyes turned down to the floor as I pass. This is how it goes: