Family Life by Akhil Sharma

used both hands to rub the insides of my thighs.
    “You’re a freak,” Michael said.
    “It’s the truth,” I answered. To say the horrible truth and to know that I had seen unbearable things, made me feel that I was strong and Michael was weak.
    Fifteen minutes later, inside my classroom, all of us stood by our desks and said the Pledge of Allegiance. I stood with my hand over my heart, and Jeff did the same thing two feet in front of me.
    Once the pledge was done, before we took our seats, I told Jeff about the naked girl. “She’s down the hall from my brother. She’s eighteen or nineteen. Her boyfriend strangled her, and when he thought she was dead, he put her in a closet. She didn’t die. She became brain damaged.” Jeff turned around and glared. “Nobody comes to see her, so she’s almost always naked. They only dress you at the nursing home if they think you’ll have visitors. Otherwise, it’s too much work because the people who live there are always soiling themselves. Sometimes the door to her room is open. Her pussy has black hair. The hair looks like ants.”
    I finished speaking. Jeff didn’t say anything. I had been nervous and I became even more so. I put a hand on my desk and tried leaning casually against it. Jeff punched me in the middle of my chest. I felt as if a wave had gone over me. I stumbled backward and fell.
    Mr. Esposito skipped lightly across the room. He grabbed Jeff’s wrist. Jeff’s hand was still clenched. Mr. Esposito shook Jeff’s wrist till the fist opened.
    I pushed myself onto my knees and stood. “I fell,” I said.
    T HAT SATURDAY MY father and I went to Jeff’s house, a blue ranch-style home with vinyl siding and cement steps that rose up to a cement platform and a screen door. Behind this was a blue wooden door.
    The door opened, and there stood a tall, slender woman in black jeans.
    “I’m Rajinder Mishra,” my father said. I had brought my father there because I felt that perhaps Jeff did not appreciate how terrible it was to have Birju the way he was, and if somebody else told him about Birju, he might then perhaps become sympathetic. I had told my father that Jeff did not believe that I had a brother in a nursing home and that it was important that he understand. “Ajay,” my father said, glancing down, “is a friend of Jeff’s.”
    I held up two Superman comic books. Returning these was the excuse for visiting. “They’re Jeff’s.”
    Jeff’s mother led us into a kitchen with blue counters and cupboards. Several brown grocery bags sat on the counters near the refrigerator. Mrs. Miles shouted, “Jeff!” She then asked my father if he would like some coffee.
    “Could I have water?” My father’s lips were white and chapped from the dehydration of his drinking.
    Jeff’s mother poured him a glass, and my father drank it quickly.
    Mrs. Miles opened the refrigerator and began emptying the grocery bags into it. My father and I stood silently side by side. After a moment, my father said, “Your son has been very kind to Ajay.” Mrs. Miles looked over her shoulder and smiled.
    My father put his hand on the back of my neck. I sensed that he was about to talk about Birju, and I regretted having brought him.
    “My other son, Ajay’s older brother, had an accident in a swimming pool and was severely brain damaged two years ago. Two years this August.”
    “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Miles said. She closed the refrigerator door and turned toward us. She had blue eyes and a strong, masculine jaw. She looked serious and handsome.
    “We had only been in America two years when it happened. Ajay is sensitive. Your son has been a good friend.”
    “Jeff’s a sweetheart,” Mrs. Miles said.
    “Ajay’s sensitive, and it’s difficult for him to make friends.”
    Mrs. Miles opened her mouth to say something. Jeff came into the kitchen. He was wearing gray sweatpants and a white undershirt. There was a diagonal crease on one cheek as if he had been lying on it.