We the Animals

by Justin Torres

  "Paps," says the boy.

  The father pulls down the boy's underwear, and he is naked. The father takes him in, stares. Look at the boy, naked from head to foot, searching his father's eyes.

  The father squints at the boy, at this nakedness. As if he were looking at a deep cut or a too-bright morning. He calls the boy son again, Mijo.

  "You smell."

  "That ain't me."

  The father pushes himself into a laugh, into his role. "That's you, my boy. You're smelling yourself right now."

  So the bath begins. Little waterfall flowing down from the tub's faucet. The rising tide. In the father's pocket sits a nail clipper—it has always been there, since before the boy was born. Look how the father brandishes the clipper, flips open the metal file attachment, and digs and files and clips away dead skin. The boy keeps still and quiet. The father presses the hooked tip into his son's foot until the boy curls his toes and groans.

  "Just checking."

  Then the washcloth running over the balls of the boy's feet, his heels and ankles, and down the bridge into the crevices between the boy's toes. The boy's feet have not been wet or touched by another in years. The father speaks of cultures where to wash a man's feet is to pay him the ultimate respect, but the boy can only half listen because there is the wet and the cloth and the touch, all of it so brand new and so familiar. Look at him sucking in air, look how the air sticks, a crisp lump in his throat.

  The father sits on the edge of the tub, foot in hand, inspecting, rubbing, humming. He takes his time, moving the washcloth slowly up one calf, then the next. There is the wet, the touch. The father stretches his neck and peeks up at his son's face.

  "Breathe, boy, just breathe."

  Outside the door, the mother listens awhile, then knocks. She calls out the father's name.

  "We're getting him fixed up," the father calls back.

  Look at how she enters, holding a stack of folded clothes, jeans on the bottom, a sweatshirt, some boxer shorts, and on top a pair of socks bundled together. Except for her face, her wild, beautiful face, she looks like a servile woman, a television mom.

  "The boys are sweeping off the truck," she tells the father. He nods. Hear the way she says it, the boys, how quickly and fully the son in the tub is excluded from that designation; how badly the boy wishes to be out there with his brothers, doing as he is told.

  The mother sits down on the toilet and watches the father bathe their son. She holds the clothes on her lap. The son will not speak to her. She watches him, and she wants to tell him that he can put all his hate on her; she will take it all, if that's what he needs her to do. Listen, really listen, and that's what she is saying in her silence. The boy can't help but hear.

  The father whistles and hums; he is saying goodbye.

  "Yes, ma'am," the father says without looking at the mother. "We're going to get him fixed up."

  And the mother nods, nods.

  The brothers are happy and thankful to have simple work ahead of them—slamming the truck doors with extra force to shake off the snow, scraping the ice from all the windows, pushing the snow from the roof and hood. Their minds are not on the boy and the father in the bathroom. Their minds are not on the mother, crying softly, or the packed duffle bag by the front door. Their minds are on the snow and ice, the simple problem of removal.

  And in the tub, the boy is grateful, too, that his brothers have this task. Outside, they have the fresh cold air to clear their throats and noses after being shut up with that cigarette in the cab. In the garage they have aluminum shovels. They can start at the bottom of the driveway and work their way toward the truck, digging down until their shovels hit gravel—the crunch will echo in the silence around them. In work, they can be together, deep inside a chore they've split over many winters. Only the last task, the salting, will bring their minds to the boy in the tub, to the first winter he joined them out there, bundled into a full-body snowsuit. He was too slow and weak with the shovel, so the older brothers gave him a plastic sand bucket full of crystals and ordered him to follow along behind. Now the salting will be split between the two of them. They will pour the bag off into two buckets and scatter the salt across the drive, like seeds or ash. The boy knows that after the shock of this night, his brothers will treat each other formally, with dignity—if one accidentally throws snow in the other's direction, if one nicks the other's heel with his shovel, the guilty one will say I'm sorry. Listen and you will hear their whispers floating up toward the house, I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry. And a moment later, the refrain, For nothing, brother, for nothing.

  Look, they're opening doors. They're stepping out. Here they go.

  Zookeeping

  THESE DAYS, I SLEEP with peacocks, lions, on a bed of leaves. I've lost my pack. I dream of standing upright, of uncurled knuckles, of a simpler life—no hot muzzles, no fangs, no claws, no obscene plumage—strolling gaily, with an upright air.

  I sleep with other animals in cages and in dens, down rabbit holes, on tufts of hay. They adorn me, these animals—lay me down, paw me, own me—crown me prince of their rank jungles.

  "Upright, upright," I say, I slur, I vow.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to United States Artists, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the Stanford Creative Writing Program, the Ucross Foundation, Lambda Literary, the Truman Capote Literary Trust, and the Tin House and Bread Loaf conferences for their generous support.

  Heartfelt thanks to Jin Auh, my agent, and Jenna Johnson, my editor at HMH, for working with me and working so hard for the book.

  My favorite hobby is finding teachers to admire, then admiring the hell out of them. Here's a partial list: Dorothy Allison, Lan Samantha Chang, Allan Gurganus, Marilynne Robinson, Stacey D'Erasmo, Michael Cunningham, Paul Harding, Edward Carey, Bret Anthony Johnston, Jeffery Renard Allen, Ann Cummins, Elizabeth Tallent, Adam Johnson, and Tobias Wolff.

  Extra special thanks to Laura Iodice, my high school English teacher, who brought me books when I was hospitalized, and whom I love very much.

  And to Jackson Taylor, who taught and challenged me. Without your singular and exceptional generosity, Jackson, this book would not exist.

  Connie Brothers, Charles Flowers, and Sally Wofford-Girand advised and inspired. And then there are the readers, friends, and heroines: Emma Borges-Scott, Ellie Catton, Angela Flournoy, Kyle McCarthy, Khaliah Williams, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Jennifer De Leon, Kristy Zadrozny, Sara Romano, Marissa Beckett, Casey Romanick, Becky Rotelli, Mary Bates, Ian Gold, Suzy Bentley, Kristina Paiz, Arianna Martinez, Sara Taylor, Adjua Greaves, Karen Good, Joyce Fuller, Valentine Freeman, Adam Gardner, Wei Hwu, Steph Krause, Ade Hall, Sara Minardi, my dear friend Christina Wickens, and the entire Dellios family, but most especially the irreplaceable Olivia Dellios.

  Sasha Rodriguez, sister, thank you.

  Jaime Shearn Coan, thank you for being an inspiring writer and an incredible friend.

  And Ayana Mathis, thank you for reading every draft, every wild incarnation, and patiently, lovingly guiding both me and the book toward realization.

  Lastly, vastly, Graham Plumb. I love you.