Model Home by Eric Puchner Page A

girl giggled. “You wouldn’t even.”
    Breakfast seemed to contemplate this. “I might make love to her by force,” he said thoughtfully.
    â€œWhat about you?” the girl said, looking at Dustin. “Would you rape her?”
    Dustin didn’t know what to say. There was something witty or dangerous to express, but the exact words eluded him. “I have a girlfriend.”
    The girl looked at Breakfast, and they both laughed. Dustin wanted to tell them that he’d rape her anyway, but it wasn’t true and he felt conversationally out of his element. He’d been to some wild parties in Herradura Estates, but nobody ever tried to take off each other’s braces. He walked over to the fridge and opened it: an old can of olives, the sag of an empty twelve-pack. On the inside of the door, someone had Magic Markered REAGANOMICS MAKES ME HUNGRY . The same person, perhaps, had drawn the picture of a lobster on the lone carton of milk, doodled under the words HAVE YOU SEEN ME ? Dustin felt a surge of happiness. This was what people did if they didn’t care about refrigerators:they defaced them. They dropped out of the refrigerator game altogether. Lobsters, lost and unheeded, roamed their apartments.
    A girl with a white streak dyed into her hair opened the back door, clutching the handle for balance. She looked familiar. She was wearing a plaid skirt and saddle shoes, which made her appear even younger than she was. After sliding the door shut again, a two-handed endeavor, she glanced up and caught Dustin’s eye.
    â€œOh my God,” she said.
    â€œWhat?” Breakfast said.
    â€œIt’s my sister’s boyfriend.”
    â€œWe were just talking about her,” the girl in the cowboy hat said.
    â€œFucking bitch,” Taz said. “I’m going to destroy her with voodoo.”
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” Dustin asked, staring at Kira’s little sister. The happiness he’d been feeling had evaporated.
    â€œWhat am I doing here? Fuck. That’s a good one.”
    â€œYou know these people?”
    â€œWe met at a Flag show,” Breakfast explained. “Greg Ginn was trying to get in her pants.”
    â€œActually,” the beautiful girl said, “he’d already taken them off.”
    Taz looked at Dustin’s belt buckle. “Yucko, bucko. That’s one ugly belt.”
    â€œShe and Suze have been doing PAM snorts,” Breakfast said apologetically.
    Dustin didn’t ask what a PAM snort was. Taz wobbled over to the fridge, the lightning bolt in her hair bisecting her eyes; he was only beginning to figure out that the saddle shoes were an ironic gesture. Both of her ears were covered in little jewel-like scabs. Dustin frowned. Somehow, through no fault of his own, he’d gone from being a guest at this party to an unwitting accomplice in the drug use of his girlfriend’s sister. His girlfriend’s fifteen-year-old, mentally disturbed sister. He’d either have to risk getting in deep shit with Kira or call her and look hopelessly uncool in front of Breakfast and his friends.
    He was relieved when Breakfast suggested they go on a beer run. Dustin offered to do it himself and bring Taz along for company. He needed to figure out if he could be held responsible. He checked for Biesty on the way out, but he’d disappeared somewhere with the hash smoker.
    â€œYou like this shit?” Taz asked, pointing at the tape deck. Getting her in the car had been psychologically complex, achieved in the end by the promise of cigarettes.
    â€œIt’s X. The best band in the world.” He turned it up.
    â€œIt’s, like, stomping on my buzz.”
    â€œWhat do you listen to?”
    She shrugged. “The Buttholes.”
    â€œThe Butthole Surfers?” He laughed. “You just heard that at the party.”
    â€œProbably because it was my tape.”
    Dustin wondered whether she was telling the