Family Jewels

by Emery C. Walters

  Should I go back upstairs while my dad might still be in a good mood? Oh hell, why not. I hoped Gene was okay about being left here like that. I knew my sister would take good care of her—physically and emotionally. Like our mom would have. I felt so close to Mom down here.

  The first person I saw was Dad. He was sitting at the cleared table drinking a glass of brandy. “I gotta tell you,” he started between sips and swirling the amber liquid around. “That boy was the most obnoxious piece of work I’ve ever seen. Mike can’t stand him either. I tipped that little faggot in the kitchen $20, and told Mrs. G to never bring him here again. You never thought I had it in me, did you? What a jerk! I never did like Mike’s brother. What an ass. Entitled little piece of tripe. You,” he pointed his glass in my general direction, “made my day. Mind you, if I believed you for a moment, I’d have to kill you,” He stopped to laugh at himself, but I only felt a shiver go up my back. “But I couldn’t have put that kid in his place better myself.”

  I had no clue what to say. “So is Georgina staying with us a while? Or did they just forget her?”

  “Nah, she’s staying with us. She just didn’t know it. Mike even had her stuff in the trunk and brought it in before they left. He had to make a big show about us paying for the boy’s suit to be cleaned, but who cares. It was worth it.”

  “He was kind of easy to dislike,” I said carefully. “On the snobbish side.”

  “Yup,” said my father, “just like his old man.”

  And for some reason, right then I began to feel sorry for good old Cornelius. Let alone Georgina! Sis and I would have to make this up to her—she must feel like crap being shuttled around like that. And without even being told about it.

  But Dad was getting his serious face on again already. His ruddy complexion got a little redder; you’d have to know him well to notice it, but believe me, I did. “So, what were you doing in the basement?” he asked, as if it didn’t matter one little bit. But why should it?

  I blurted out, “Sulking,” which made Dad at least smile if not laugh outright.

  His eyes narrowed though. “You got your suit dirty. It’s a mess down there. Better not spend much time down there, all righty?”

  Why? What did he care if I got my clothes dirty or not?

  “You don’t want the girls down there. I pay too much for their, at least, Chris’s clothes. All right? Set a standard for them. Keep it up. Yeah. We men have to keep our standards up. Hey, did you fill out those apps for football yet? They’ll be starting practice soon.”

  Fear jumped into my throat. Get naked with all those thugs? It would be worth my skinny little life. Certainly if any of them knew what I was; or if, God forbid, my body decided, like the eighth grade diving board incident, to announce it right there. “I’ll look into it, Dad,” I said pleasantly, if dishonestly, “but I signed up for the advanced calculus class and hope to volunteer at the county food bank.”

  He rolled his eyes, sighed deeply, and sipped his drink. Did he know I was hiding something? Did he understand deceit? I was positive he did. I wondered if he, too, had deep, well-buried, secrets.

  I almost made it out of the room when he said one more thing. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  I froze. It took a huge effort to turn. Before I could say anything he laughed, and added, “I’m just hoping it was you who took the condoms. I would really hate to think it was Chris. But from now on, buy your own!” And he ended all that with a wink and a pointed finger at me, clicking it as if it were a gun.

  I made it to my room alive.

  Chapter 3

  After changing into shorts and a T-shirt, and controlling my spurts of giggles, I started to feel sorry for Dad, all alone on His Day. Not sorry enough to go—oh okay, I told myself, I’ll go downstairs and make nice, or at least try. As I passed Chris’s door I could hear crying. I kept going. I stopped at the foot of the stairs as I heard Dad on the phone, his voice low and happy sounding. “I’ll be right over. You know how it is on Father’s Day, you gotta be home so the kids can…uh oh, gotta go. See you soon, dear.” I did an about face and headed into the kitchen instead of toward the living room. Luckily the hall was long enough to do this without being seen. I had an almost irresistible urge to ask him if he needed some of his condoms back, but instead I opened the fridge. I was afraid I’d start laughing again. And I did, but not because of Dad. Inside the fridge, propped against a carton of cream, was a hand written sign. “Jesus Was Here” it said. And there was a phone number. It might as well have said, “For a good time call…” I smiled and stuffed the note in my pocket.

  I took a soda and went down to the basement, sat on the couch for a change, and just did nothing. I do that sometimes, just see what kind of ideas will come up, for essays or what I want to do when I grow up, for pranks which I don’t pull, for getting even with bullies which I occasionally actually do. Usually when they’ve bullied someone else, like the girl we gave the pearls to.

  I dozed. I woke up to see soda dripping down my shorts, up under the cuff (cold!) and down to the floor. Someone’s lower half was stretched out on the floor beside my leg. It was Gene’s. Then the soda reached my crotch. You know the term ‘crotch rocket’? Yeah, I was like that, leaping over the kneeling form beside me and launching myself face first into a teddy bear Chris had hung (by the neck, yes) from a rafter. Chris was right behind it and got the bear in the face. She tried to duck but fell forward onto the couch instead. She was laughing. The form on the floor lay down and reached under the couch, mumbling. I could just make out, “Whoever built this Asinine…Poor excuse of an architect…Stupid…”

  I managed to sit down and accepted the dish towel that Chris reached over to me. After pressing it against my huge wet spot, and staring out Chris’s pointing and laughing, I myself pointed, down at Gene. Raised my eyebrows. What?

  “Gene, tell Nick what you’re doing. Come out of there and sit with us.”

  So we sat in a row. Me on the end, with the towel on my front and more soda soaking into my back, and then Gene and then Chris. Gene dusted her hands. “I’m going to be an architect and I was looking at how your house is constructed.”

  This from a girl who just got dumped and was crying her eyes out fifteen minutes ago.

  “Whoever built this house did a terrible job and took a lot of shortcuts. It’s a miracle it hasn’t fallen down already. I found traces of termites too, and your Dad is going to have to have that taken care of. I mean the whole house should be tented and sprayed, the crawl space opened up, everything. I even found mouse droppings. You should get a cat.”

  “We had a cat. Her name was Purrl.” Chris made a purring sound to explain the joke, which, of course, wasn’t funny anymore.

  I pointed at the hung bear. “There’s that,” I offered, wincing as the cold soda found my—butt. And other parts. “I’m going to need a shower again,” I muttered.

  “Your shower leaks. Use the downstairs one,” Gene said almost gleefully.

  I liked the kid. She was unpredictable and sincere, funny and serious, all at the same time. I put my arm around her and squeezed, while tugging on my sister’s hair to include her. Gene snuggled closer to me. “And there’s a crack in the floor under this couch. If it goes under that wall behind us, which is a retaining wall I think, then, well, you’re in trouble.”

  Wow, I thought, is Dad going to be grateful to hear all this, or angry? Well, not my problem. At least, not today.

  It was quiet. It lasted about thirty seconds. Irrepressible Gene sat up straight, bouncing on the old sofa’s unreliable springs. I worried for her hind end. “Are you gay?” she asked me suddenly, peering into my face like there was a sign there. Maybe there was, the bullies had been calling me names since junior high. I had no idea how they could have known before I did though. “Because Jesus, the waiter? He goes to my school and he is as queer as a two dollar bill!”

  “Three,” was all I got out. Wait, he goes to her school? Where the hell did
she live then? I asked her.

  “Mooreville. It’s only two towns down the highway. Maybe he’ll come visit us. His mom likes me. She likes him best out of those three boys of hers, but she shouldn’t have named him Jesus. He just goes by Jay at school. Did you see what he did to Corny? I laughed so hard! He’s awful. When we were at our uncle’s he was always picking on me and wanting me to bring him a beer or something. I didn’t like how he looked at me; I don’t like him at all. I’m glad I’m here instead.” But, tears were washing down her cheeks as she said this.

  I had a light bulb moment. “You’re really angry about it though, aren’t you?” I asked, pulling her onto my lap.

  She nodded like a six year old, but moved around on my lap like a precocious teenager. She wasn’t going to get the response she might have been looking for though.

  I started to laugh. “Yes, I’m gay,” I stated, “Can you tell?” My sister was blushing horribly.

  “But so am I, so we’re even!” laughed Gene. She bounced on my lap. “I don’t understand the fascination. Dicks are ugly. They’re just ugly little lumps of flesh! Even if I transition, and I don’t know about that yet, maybe, maybe not, I’ll still like girls. Girls are pretty. Everybody likes boobies. They’re round and soft and squishy.”

  Chris looked both confused and horrified. “But I told you that’s what I want to do too! If I transition, you won’t like me anymore!”

  “I know,” Gene soothed. “Big deal. You’ll get rid of the outside parts I like, but you’ll still be you on the inside. I barely know you yet but I really, really like what’s inside you; who you are. That’s what counts, not what’s down here.” And with that she reached toward Chris, who almost fell leaping up off the sofa. “I’d be okay with you having a hooteroffame, but I wouldn’t like it if you had an addadictome!” Somehow I actually understood both of those terms and it cracked me up. It took Chris a couple of minutes longer. It was so funny watching her face as she figured the terms out.

  “It’s what’s between your ears,” Gene said, serious now, “Not what’s between your legs, that matters. Well, mostly.” And the little imp went to grope Chris again, but Chris was backing away from us now, her face a mask of amusement, concern, horror and affection. I think.

  “Oh just because your brother’s here now,” Gene scoffed, sticking an elbow into my stomach, “Now you’re all coy and shit? You weren’t…”

  Chris hopped back over, leaned down and kissed Gene quickly, to shut her up, I figured, and stood back up so fast her head hit the hung teddy making it swing through an arc like a killer boomerang.

  “There, see? You like me too! I knew it. Well, that was fun,” Gene, said, levering herself up by pushing a hand down onto my crotch, where it encountered firm, if confused, resistance. She stood up, tugging me up after her. “And hey, your brother likes me too! Too bad for him though. Let’s move this couch out away from the wall,” she said, all business now. “I want to see if that crack extends into the crawl space.”

  Chris grabbed one end of the couch, muttering gaily, her face blushing beet red, “She said ‘crack’.”

  I grimaced. Ugh. Girls. They changed so quickly. I could never keep up. No wonder I liked boys. Boys have nice, ugly, lumps of flesh. Lumps that can do tricks. So there.

  The three of us pushed, pulled and heaved. Something was caught up under it and one of the legs broke. We finally could see the wall. We finally knew what had happened to our cat, too. There it was, just a dusty pile of bones beneath the sofa now. There was something tied around its neck bones, the other end tied to the now broken leg of the couch. We all just stood there staring, frozen in place like a game of Statues gone bad. I know my mouth hung open in shock. Finally I blinked; I was about to cry. I stammered out, “Uh, let’s go upstairs. We could order a pizza—or not.” I had to swallow hard around the lump in my throat.

  Upstairs, Gene went straight to Dad’s liquor cabinet. It was like she had lived here all her life. Chris got three glasses, big ones, and we all sat down at the kitchen table while Gene filled them. As I swirled mine, I said calmly, “Dad said he gave her away because we didn’t clean her litter pan often enough.”

  Chris said, “I cleaned it every day. I loved that cat. Oh poor Purrl!” Tears seeped down her face. I sipped my wine and coughed it out again; ugh, it was so sour. Then I leapt up and walked into the downstairs bathroom, but Chris came behind me and I could not hide my sobs. “Did you see the rope tied around where her neck bones were?” she asked, aghast, wanting to not believe what she had seen. “He tied her to that couch. I remember him saying the key to the basement was lost. Remember? God, I hate him so much.”

  Gene had followed us and we all three were standing close together in the bathroom. “I’m so sorry. I never should have suggested we move the couch. Really, but that crack, well you don’t want your house to fall down either! I might be in it!” Poor Gene, you could hear how bad she felt. Poor all of us. The fact that the cat was there, and had been all this time, was bad enough, but the thoughts that came up around it, well, they were worse. Dad, what else might you have done?

  Nobody wanted any more wine. Gin maybe, but I didn’t ask. It would be bad enough to give Dad the news later tonight—or tomorrow—sober and without explaining where all his liquor went. I wished there was some way out of it. Maybe we could go away for the day and leave him a note? I even said that out loud, wistfully. We’d finally gone back into the dining room and were waiting for the pizza that we didn’t really want. We had to figure this out but I was so depressed and so, okay, to be honest, scared.

  We ate the whole pizza anyhow. Then Gene said, “Here’s the plan.” God she was cute with her freckles and serious face, what a contrast. She still looked like a girl but she seemed all boy. She was so strong. Maybe that’s sexist of me but that’s how I felt. “We leave a note. We leave the basement just like it is, cat, couch and all. He has to see that crack to believe it. Saving the house is the priority here.”

  “Not having him kill us seems more important to me!” I laughed, not entirely humorously.

  Nobody else even smiled. I added, “Oh. Thank God we never had any more pets—or siblings! There’s a funny smell down there!”

  Gene, still all serious. All business. I’d vote for her for president. “He’ll have to have a builder go into the crawl space.” We all shuddered. “Maybe there are rats,” she added ghoulishly. Chris did not look amused. Chris looked green. Gene put her hand on Chris’s arm, tenderly. “It could just be rats. That would be a good thing, right?”

  Chris whimpered. I looked at her and thought she didn’t quite get it, but when I looked at Gene, I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. What else—or who else—might be under there. I hoped it was only rats.

  Chris caught her breath. “Write the note,” she said. “I want to go away now, tonight. I can’t stand being here with rats, and a dead kitty and who knows what and him, Dad, coming home maybe drunk and…” she could not go on but I agreed with every cell in my body.

  “Get me some paper,” said Gene grimly. “You guys go pack some stuff. Mine’s still ready to go. Then we’ll decide where, and how. Corny has a car…” she ended, almost whimsically.

  “Does Jesus have a car?” I asked, pouting.

  “Yes he does, actually! I’ll call him when I get done here.”

  Chris and I packed, I mean, threw shit in our backpacks. I didn’t care if I ever came home so I added my music and my Mom’s things, at least, the ring and the letters and the photos, at the last minute. When we went back downstairs, Gene was by the door, her bag by her feet, and an excited smile on her face. I didn’t begrudge her that; it wasn’t her house, wasn’t her Dad. “Jesus is coming!”

  “That’s what they all say,” said Chris, sniffing, and shivering, looking all around like she never wanted to see the place again. I understood completely. Gene put her arm around Chris and kissed her cheek, brushing her hair off her face. It got a quick smile from Chris.
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br />   And the phone picked right then to ring. Nobody moved. Dad’s voice came onto the answering machine. “I’ll be home in an hour. I’m bringing some—business associates with me. Make yourselves scarce! Ha-ha, I know you don’t have school tomorrow, but get to bed early anyhow. Maybe we’ll all get up early and go somewhere fun. Ciao.”

  And maybe pigs would fly out of my butt. Dad had never wanted to do anything with us kids. Ever. Maybe he just wanted us out of the way so he could have an orgy. Ick. I must have sex on the brain, but in conjunction with him? It made me want to puke. I shivered, and opened the door in order to see Jesus coming sooner.

  “Hurry up, Jesus,” the two girls muttered at the same time. I glanced back in and noticed the note tucked onto the phone table where Dad would have to see it. If nothing else, he’d notice the answering machine still blinking. That would attract his attention. He might wonder if we’d heard it but I knew he’d assume we had, because didn’t we always do what he said? I didn’t even care what he thought. I would be long gone. Then I had a thought. “Gene, wipe your fingerprints off the note.” She lifted it with her sweater, rubbed at it, and set it back down. Nobody laughed. Not even me.

  Jesus’s car was not at all like what I pictured Corny driving, but it sure fit Jesus. Corny’s father had bragged about buying him either a Beamer or a Mustang, but I didn’t hear which one he picked, nor did I care, except maybe to know when to jump out of the way or something. Jay’s car—whatever it was - looked like it was held together by gorilla glue and duct tape, but when all four of us were crammed in, it was filled with friendship and laughter. We piled in on top of crumpled soda cups, empty French fry bags, school books, a dog-eared copy of Hamlet, and two Ken dolls dressed in drag and taped together in a compromising position. I looked—he’d made little penises out of clay and superglued them to the dolls. Show tunes were blaring out of his radio. He was wearing a blue wig and false eyelashes.