something?”
“Shoot.”
“Why you hate that kid so bad?”
Jimmy shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s hate, man. It’s just…Come on, you don’t find that mute little fucker just a little spooky?”
“Oh, him ?” Pete said. “Yeah. He’s a weird little shit, always staring like he sees something in your face he wants to pluck out. You know? But I wasn’t talking about him. I was talking about Brendan. I mean, the kid seems nice enough. Shy but decent, you know? You notice how he uses sign language with his brother even though he don’t have to? Kinda like he just wants the kid to feel he ain’t alone. It’s nice. But, Jimmy, man, you look at him like you’re two steps from slicing off his nose, man, feeding it to him.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“Straight up.”
Jimmy looked out over the Lotto machine, past the dusty window onto Buckingham Avenue lying gray and damp under the morning sky. He felt Brendan Harris’s shy goddamned smile in his blood, itching him.
“Jimmy? I was just playing with you. I didn’t mean nothing by—”
“Here comes Sal,” Jimmy said, and kept his eyes on the window, his head turned away from Pete as he watched the old man shuffle across the avenue toward them. “About fucking time, too.”
6
BECAUSE IT’S BROKEN
S EAN D EVINE’S S UNDAY —his first day back to work after a week’s suspension—started when he was yanked from a dream, ripped out of it by the beep of an alarm clock followed by the seizure-realization, like a baby popping from the womb, that he’d never be allowed to go back in. He couldn’t remember much of the specifics—just a few details, unconnected—and he had a sense that there hadn’t been much of a narrative flow in the first place. Still, the raw texture of it had sunk like razor points into the back of his skull, left him feeling skittish all morning.
His wife, Lauren, had been in it, and he could still smell her flesh. She’d had messy hair the color of wet sand, darker and longer than in life, and wore a damp white bathing suit. She was very tan and a light dusting of sand had speckled her bare ankles and the tops of her feet. She’d smelled of the sea and the sun, and she’d sat in Sean’s lap and kissed his nose, tickled his throat with long fingers. They were on the deck of a beach house, and Sean could hear the surf but couldn’t see any ocean. Where the ocean should have been was a blank TV screen the width of a football field. When he looked in the center, Sean could only make out his own reflection, not Lauren’s, as if he sat there holding air.
But it was flesh in his hands, warm flesh.
Next thing he remembered, he stood on the roof of the house, Lauren’s flesh replaced by a smooth metal weather vane. He gripped it, and below him, at the base of the house, a huge hole yawned up at him, an upended sailboat beached at the bottom. Then he was naked on the bed with a woman he’d never seen before, feeling her, sensing in some dream logic that Lauren was in another room of the house, watching them on video, and a seagull crashed through the window, glass spitting onto the bed like ice cubes, and Sean, fully clothed again, stood over it.
The seagull gasped. The seagull said, “My neck hurts,” and Sean woke up before he could say, “That’s because it’s broken.”
He woke up with the dream draining thickly from the back of his brainpan, the lint and fuzz of it clinging to the undersides of his eyelids and the upper layer of his tongue. He kept his eyes closed as the alarm clock kept beeping, hoping that it was merely a new dream, that he was still sleeping, that the beeping only beeped in his mind.
Eventually, he opened his eyes, the feel of the unknown woman’s hard body and the smell of the sea in Lauren’s flesh still clinging to his brain tissue, and he realized it wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a movie, it wasn’t a sad, sad song.
It was these sheets, this bedroom, and this bed. It was
“Shoot.”
“Why you hate that kid so bad?”
Jimmy shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s hate, man. It’s just…Come on, you don’t find that mute little fucker just a little spooky?”
“Oh, him ?” Pete said. “Yeah. He’s a weird little shit, always staring like he sees something in your face he wants to pluck out. You know? But I wasn’t talking about him. I was talking about Brendan. I mean, the kid seems nice enough. Shy but decent, you know? You notice how he uses sign language with his brother even though he don’t have to? Kinda like he just wants the kid to feel he ain’t alone. It’s nice. But, Jimmy, man, you look at him like you’re two steps from slicing off his nose, man, feeding it to him.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“Straight up.”
Jimmy looked out over the Lotto machine, past the dusty window onto Buckingham Avenue lying gray and damp under the morning sky. He felt Brendan Harris’s shy goddamned smile in his blood, itching him.
“Jimmy? I was just playing with you. I didn’t mean nothing by—”
“Here comes Sal,” Jimmy said, and kept his eyes on the window, his head turned away from Pete as he watched the old man shuffle across the avenue toward them. “About fucking time, too.”
6
BECAUSE IT’S BROKEN
S EAN D EVINE’S S UNDAY —his first day back to work after a week’s suspension—started when he was yanked from a dream, ripped out of it by the beep of an alarm clock followed by the seizure-realization, like a baby popping from the womb, that he’d never be allowed to go back in. He couldn’t remember much of the specifics—just a few details, unconnected—and he had a sense that there hadn’t been much of a narrative flow in the first place. Still, the raw texture of it had sunk like razor points into the back of his skull, left him feeling skittish all morning.
His wife, Lauren, had been in it, and he could still smell her flesh. She’d had messy hair the color of wet sand, darker and longer than in life, and wore a damp white bathing suit. She was very tan and a light dusting of sand had speckled her bare ankles and the tops of her feet. She’d smelled of the sea and the sun, and she’d sat in Sean’s lap and kissed his nose, tickled his throat with long fingers. They were on the deck of a beach house, and Sean could hear the surf but couldn’t see any ocean. Where the ocean should have been was a blank TV screen the width of a football field. When he looked in the center, Sean could only make out his own reflection, not Lauren’s, as if he sat there holding air.
But it was flesh in his hands, warm flesh.
Next thing he remembered, he stood on the roof of the house, Lauren’s flesh replaced by a smooth metal weather vane. He gripped it, and below him, at the base of the house, a huge hole yawned up at him, an upended sailboat beached at the bottom. Then he was naked on the bed with a woman he’d never seen before, feeling her, sensing in some dream logic that Lauren was in another room of the house, watching them on video, and a seagull crashed through the window, glass spitting onto the bed like ice cubes, and Sean, fully clothed again, stood over it.
The seagull gasped. The seagull said, “My neck hurts,” and Sean woke up before he could say, “That’s because it’s broken.”
He woke up with the dream draining thickly from the back of his brainpan, the lint and fuzz of it clinging to the undersides of his eyelids and the upper layer of his tongue. He kept his eyes closed as the alarm clock kept beeping, hoping that it was merely a new dream, that he was still sleeping, that the beeping only beeped in his mind.
Eventually, he opened his eyes, the feel of the unknown woman’s hard body and the smell of the sea in Lauren’s flesh still clinging to his brain tissue, and he realized it wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a movie, it wasn’t a sad, sad song.
It was these sheets, this bedroom, and this bed. It was
Similar Books
