Death by Toilet Paper

by Donna Gephart

  Someone presses a glass to my lips. I sit and sip, vaguely aware that water’s dripping down my chin and into my shirt, then I’m gulping like I’m in the desert and haven’t had a drink for days.

  Unfortunately, the water sloshing in my stomach makes me think of Barkley floating in the toilet paper water. And I vomit. All over myself. All over the Taylors’ nice couch.

  “It’s okay,” a deep voice says. “You just drank too fast, Ben.”

  I think it’s Mr. Taylor’s voice. But those tiny stars flash again, and it’s hard to hang on to words or anything else.

  Someone’s saying my name really loudly and slapping a cold cloth across my forehead.

  I blink, look through my glasses and see Toothpick standing over me.

  He’s out of focus, like I’m seeing him through a camera lens that isn’t adjusted yet. Or through murky water. When Pick becomes clearer, there’s a pretty bad injury on his neck. I wonder if we were in some kind of accident and we’re in the hospital together.

  My throat’s sore, but I manage to say, “You don’t look so good, Pick.”

  His hand goes to his neck and he smiles. “Look who’s talking. You’re the patient here.”

  “Am I in the hospital?”

  “Heck, no. You’re on our couch.” Toothpick looks at me like I’m weird. “Are you okay, man? You’re sort of scaring me.”

  I find the energy to nod.

  “He’s going to be fine,” Mr. Taylor says, pressing the back of his thick hand against my forehead. “You have a fever, buddy,” he tells me. “Your mom said it’s okay to give you something for it. I’m sure you’ll feel better in no time. You young guys get over these things fast.”

  I relax onto their couch, except the couch is kind of damp and so am I.

  “Thank goodness I wasn’t working tonight,” he says.

  I interrupt Mr. Taylor by burping, and they look panicked at first, then laugh.

  “Thought you were going to barf again,” Pick says.

  His dad shoves Toothpick’s shoulder. “Michael!”

  “What?” Toothpick asks, rubbing his shoulder. “He’s like a barfing machine.”

  That’s why I’m damp. I must have puked. I hope I didn’t ruin their couch. “Sorry.”

  “Not to worry,” Mr. Taylor says, giving Toothpick the evil eye. “Ben, I’m going to call your mom again and tell her how you’re doing. Then I’ll get you some ginger ale and …”

  “Mom.”

  “She told me what happened to your fish,” Mr. Taylor says. “I’m sorry, son.” And his strong hand is rubbing my shoulder, just like Dad used to do.

  This makes me cry, but I wipe my cheeks and hope Toothpick doesn’t notice.

  Mr. Taylor wraps me in a thick blanket, and Toothpick sits next to me, away from the wet part of the couch, occasionally bumping his shoulder into mine and touching his fake wound.

  And that’s all. No questions. No talking.

  I like it that way.

  Mr. Taylor brings me a mug filled with ginger ale.

  They watch me drink, which is kind of uncomfortable, but the bubbly soda feels good going down my dry, acidy throat.

  Toothpick still has a worried expression on his face, and I realize I might look like one of the living dead from his movie-makeup magazines. Getting robbed in the locker room, walking about a million miles and losing one’s pet all on the same lousy day can do that to a person.

  Mr. Taylor pulls up a chair and sits in front of me while I sip the ginger ale.

  “I called your mom.”

  I nod.

  “She said to tell you she loves you and hopes you feel better soon.” Mr. Taylor pats my knee. “I’m sure you’ll be fine in no time.”

  I’m not so sure, but I’m glad Mom suggested I come here, even if Mr. Taylor and Toothpick are seeing what a mess my life is. What a mess I am.

  “And she said you can sleep over, Ben. I mean, if you’d like to.”

  I want to tell Mr. Taylor I’d like that a lot, because I don’t want to go home and see my dead fish again. But my throat is so tight I just nod and hope he understands how much I appreciate his offer. For once, I need someone to take care of me.

  “Good.” Mr. Taylor stands, then sits again. “Ben, if you’re feeling up to it, after you get a good night’s sleep, we’ll be celebrating Michael’s birthday tomorrow—Saturday.”

  I’d completely forgotten my best friend’s birthday. I look at Toothpick and try to tell him I’m sorry with my eyes. “The usual?” I ask.

  “Oh, yeah,” Toothpick says, punching his skinny fist in the air. “The Mütter Museum.”

  Toothpick loves going to the Mütter Museum, and I do, too, but I didn’t make it last year for his birthday, because Dad was so sick then.

  “We’d love for you to join us, Ben.” Mr. Taylor scratches his beard. “If you’re feeling better. Or I could take you home in the morning, if you’d rather, but your mom said she wouldn’t be there.”

  I wonder where Mom will be, now that she’s not working. I guess she’ll be looking for another lousy waitressing job, where she’ll have to serve greasy bacon and coffee to ungrateful people who leave lousy tips swimming in puddles of syrup.

  “What do you say?” Mr. Taylor’s eyes look hopeful.

  “Yeah,” Toothpick says, bumping his shoulder into mine. “You have to go with us tomorrow, Ben. It wouldn’t be the same without you. I really missed you last year.”

  I’m not sure I’ll be up for the Mütter Museum tomorrow. I still feel warm and achy. And sad. But I don’t want to disappoint Mr. Taylor since he’s being so nice to me. And it’s the least I can do for Toothpick, since I didn’t even remember his birthday was tomorrow. “Sure,” I say. “I’ll go.”

  But as soon as the words leave my mouth, they feel like a mistake.

  My throat hurts.

  Toothpick smiles.

  My eyes hurt.

  He gives me a fist bump. “We’ll have an awesome time.”

  My heart hurts.

  Mr. Taylor reaches over and grabs me into a huge hug with my mug between us, and Toothpick pounds me on the back, which hurts and feels good at the same time.

  After I’m done drinking my ginger ale—I take my time, because I don’t want to throw up again—Mr. Taylor brings me a pair of Toothpick’s pajamas to wear.

  They’re way too long, but I cuff the pant legs and sleeves.

  Toothpick’s dad actually tucks me into bed in their guest room, like I’m a little kid. It makes me feel safe. “I’ll have your clothes washed and ready for you by tomorrow morning.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Taylor.” For everything.

  After he closes the door, I look up, almost expecting to see the stars on my ceiling; then I remember I’m not at home in our apartment. After the court date on November 2, we’ll be out of our apartment for good. I can’t imagine where we’ll live, but I know it won’t have stars on the ceiling, so I’d better get used to it.

  I can always pry the plastic stars off my ceiling and bring them with us to our new place—wherever that will be. At least I’d have them, but I wouldn’t have the important part of the galaxy: the comets, planets and moon—the part Dad painted.

  It’s strange, but the guest room in Toothpick’s house is so quiet, I wish I could hear Zeyde’s familiar rumbling snores. I think the sound would actually help me fall asleep tonight. But thinking of Zeyde reminds me of what happened to Barkley, and my stomach clenches like a fist. And that makes me think of what Angus did to me, what he took from me. From us.

  Breathe, Benjamin. Stop thinking. Just breathe.

  At least Zeyde’s seismic snores would drown out the thoughts swirling through my mind, the ones making my heart pound with worry.

  When I wake, Mr. Taylor’s standing over me, slurping from his coffee mug. “How you doing, champ?”

  My eyelids feel swollen. My legs ache. My heart hurts. “Good,” I lie, because what’s the point of telling the truth? It won’t change an
ything.

  “Excellent,” Mr. Taylor says, entirely too cheerful. “Your clothes are in the hallway bathroom, and breakfast is on the table. We’ll leave in about half an hour so we get there when the museum opens. You know how much Michael loves that place.”

  I do. Toothpick could look at the quirky exhibits in the Mütter Museum from open till close every day of the week if his dad would take him. I think the gross things there inspire his horror-film ideas.

  “I’ll be ready in a few,” I say, my throat still scratchy.

  After Mr. Taylor leaves, I force myself out of bed, even though I’d rather roll over and fall back to sleep until, oh, high school. The muscles in my legs are tight and sore and achy all at once. I wonder how many miles I walked yesterday. I must have set a world record or something, because it takes Mom and me three buses to get to the cemetery.

  By the time I shower, brush my teeth with my finger and get dressed, my toasted bagel is hard and my eggs are cold, but they still taste good. The pink protein shake Mr. Taylor makes for Toothpick and me tastes like blueberries and bubble gum.

  “Ready to go?” Mr. Taylor asks, rubbing his palms together. “We’ve got a birthday to celebrate. And we don’t want to miss a minute of gore. Right, guys?”

  “Definitely,” Toothpick says, fiddling with the skinny birthday candle sticking out of a new fake neck injury. “You like my birthday wound?” he asks.

  I nod, feeling like I might be sick again.

  Toothpick raises a fist. “Then let the birthday festivities begin!”

  His dad laughs and lends me one of Toothpick’s old jackets to wear. I have to roll up the sleeves.

  Toothpick nudges me and asks, “Hey, why’d you run out of PE like that yesterday? Were you going to hurl or something?”

  I nod and am grateful when Pick doesn’t ask any more questions, and we get in Mr. Taylor’s car to head to the museum.

  Going to the Mütter Museum will be good for me, I decide. Besides the fact that we’ve done it almost every year on Toothpick’s birthday, it will be a chance to forget everything a while longer. To put off dealing with what I’ll have to face back home. And I can’t even think about what going back to school Monday and facing Angus Andrews will be like.

  But once we park on Twentieth Street and walk past Mama’s Vegetarian Restaurant and a bunch of row houses on Chestnut Street and tromp up the stone steps to the College of Physicians, where the museum is located, and Mr. Taylor pays our admission at the front desk, I realize it was a mistake coming here.

  I should have asked to go home.

  My body aches. I still feel weak. And every time I think about Barkley, I feel like I’m going to puke again.

  Pick runs past the giant glass display in the first room and heads down the stairs, where most of the exhibits are. I pace back and forth near the entrance, wondering how long it would take to get home if I took the El and a bus. But I don’t have money for SEPTA, so it doesn’t really matter. Stupid Angus has all my money.

  I’m stuck here.

  “Can I help you?” the lady at the front desk asks.

  “No, I’m good,” I say, and slink down the hall toward the first exhibit: skulls.

  With my back to the exhibit, I look over the railing at the floors of exhibits below, but it makes me dizzy. So I turn toward the giant glass display case filled with shelves of skulls. Human skulls.

  Since there’s nothing else to do, I examine each skull and read the little card about how each person died. Some of the skulls belonged to kids who died centuries ago. Lots of the skulls belonged to teenagers who were not much older than I am, and hardly any of the skulls belonged to old people, because years ago people didn’t live nearly as long as they do now.

  Of course, even now, not everyone lives as long as he should. Some people get hit by a SEPTA bus or fall off the Benjamin Franklin Bridge or get a lousy disease, like lung cancer.

  With each skull and story in the display case, I envision my dad lying in that hospital bed in our living room/dining room/kitchen. The skin over his face was so tight and thin and he’d lost so much weight that I could actually make out the structure of his skull—deep eye sockets, sunken cheeks.

  No one should see his dad look like that.

  I hurry downstairs, to the exhibits on the lower level, wondering why this place is bothering me so much today. It never did before. Normally, when we came on Toothpick’s birthday, I found the exhibits super cool. I loved the one about how President James Garfield didn’t die from a bullet wound from his assassin’s gun but from the bacteria that entered his body when doctors put their unwashed fingers into the wound to try to retrieve the bullet. The bullet probably wouldn’t have killed the president, but infection, because doctors didn’t know to wash their hands back then, did.

  Today the exhibits don’t interest me at all. They’re creepy and make me sick to my stomach.

  What’s wrong with me?

  Toothpick’s opening little drawers that contain items people have swallowed and had removed from their stomachs—safety pins, buttons, coins, a spoon—and he looks really excited, like I used to when we came here. I mean, there aren’t too many places you can see a gigantic colon or the skeletons of a dwarf and a giant. The Mütter Museum is usually amazing.

  I swallow hard a few times to calm my stomach and find one of my favorite exhibits, sure I’ll feel better soon and will be able to enjoy the rest of Toothpick’s birthday.

  Three jars perch on a shelf in a glass case. Each jar contains a different animal brain suspended in a clear, thick liquid, probably formaldehyde. I examine the little pinkish-gray brains. The biggest of the three brains is the dog’s, then a smaller cat’s brain and a tiny mouse brain.

  I wonder how big Barkley’s brain is.

  Was.

  This isn’t working.

  I turn to another exhibit. It’s a corset—some weird kind of undergarment worn by women years ago to make themselves look skinnier under their dresses. In this case, a woman had her corset tied so tightly that it pushed one of her ribs into her lung, which killed her.

  Killed! By a piece of underwear!

  I press my palm against my chest and feel it rise with each breath.

  Dad’s lungs were in bad shape. His left one was full of tumors. One time it collapsed, which must have been horrible for Dad, because after the doctors reinflated it at the hospital, I heard him tell Mom he felt like he was drowning.

  Barkley basically drowned by not having enough clean water in his tank.

  An ache fills my chest, then drops into my stomach. Even though I’m in an exhibit room with Toothpick, his dad and plenty of other people, I feel empty and alone.

  I wonder if Barkley is still lying in that awful, toilet-paper-filled water? Did Mom take him out and put him somewhere else? Did she—gulp!—flush him? Is Zeyde okay?

  I want to go home.

  I need to go home.

  But Toothpick is still opening the drawers of things people swallowed. And I don’t want to mess up his birthday, so I walk to the next exhibit.

  Why am I such a wimp?

  I look at the giant colon that held over forty pounds of poop, which is kind of cool. Then the wax model of the lady with a horn on her forehead, which is neat. And President Grover Cleveland’s malignant tumor. Ugh.

  Dad’s tumor was malignant.

  Surgeons tried to cut it out—two different times—but it grew back. The stupid cancer started in his left lung and eventually spread throughout his body. I’m glad Dad’s tumors aren’t in this museum. They’re nobody’s business.

  I never thought about it before, but the Mütter Museum contains collections of horrible things. I always thought they were neat, but not today. Today I feel sorry for all these people.

  I feel sorry for myself.

  Toothpick’s standing in front of the display of the liver from the famous conjoined twins, Chang and Eng, which reminds me that he wants us to be conjoined twins for Halloween. I don’t even
feel like trick-or-treating this year. Pick’s dumb birthday candle protrudes from his fake neck wound and quivers. He kind of looks like he could be in one of the exhibits.

  I walk over and tug on his jacket sleeve to get his attention. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

  He nods, the birthday candle bobbing up and down. “You okay?” he asks. “You still don’t look so good.”

  I don’t feel so good. The contents of my stomach are roiling and making a beeline toward my throat. I’m afraid to open my mouth, so I barely nod and dart up the stairs, past groups of people walking down, past the display of skulls and past the admission desk.

  I turn down a hall and hope I make it to the bathroom in time.

  I do.

  A stream of vomit erupts into a toilet in the first stall. I’m glad no one else is in the bathroom, because I’m making retching noises. They’d make a good sound effect in one of Pick’s horror films. Bits of egg and bagel are pink from the protein shake Mr. Taylor made.

  I wish Mom were here. But she wouldn’t be in the men’s bathroom with me even if she were, so I wish I were home. Home in bed, with Barkley swimming beside me. And Zeyde, healthy and still living with Bubbe Mary. And Dad … I wish Dad were still alive, sitting in his recliner in our living room/dining room/kitchen, screaming at the Eagles’ head coach about a rotten play he just called.

  How come I didn’t realize how good I had everything back then?

  After catching my breath, I go out to the row of sinks and rinse my mouth with water, but it still tastes acidy, and the back of my throat burns.

  The bathroom door opens.

  I’m relieved when Mr. Taylor walks in, but the look of concern in his eyes makes me feel like crying.

  “Michael told me you came in here. Said you didn’t look so good.” Mr. Taylor presses the back of his hand to my forehead. “Hmm. Still a little warm. You feeling okay, Ben?”

  This time I tell the truth without any words: I shake my head no.

  He grabs me and holds me to him just as a waterfall erupts from my eyes. What’s my problem? Maybe when Angus smashed my head into the locker, he broke something in there that made me even more of a wuss. After yesterday’s waterfall, I didn’t think I had any tears left inside, but apparently I do, because I blubber onto the front of Mr. Taylor’s shirt like a baby.