Blood Relations

by Chris Lynch

  “But it’s not really my real name,” she said. “My real name is Esther. A teacher started calling me Honey when I was younger, because, he said, I was such a sweet thing, and it stuck. That’s a nice thing, don’t you think?”

  I watched Evelyn smile, reach out, and touch Honey’s hand as gently as you’d stroke a new kitten. “That’s a very nice thing,” she said.

  “But Evelyn is a pretty name too, of course,” Honey said.

  Evelyn backed away from that. “Yes,” she mumbled. Ruben hooted at her.

  “Ya, about your name...” I said. “Is your name really Juana?”

  She threw her brother a wicked stare. He looked at his feet.

  “You can call me Evelyn,” she said harshly to me. “Or you can not call me at all.”

  “Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn...” I said.

  Even Toy seemed amused now. “Juaaana,” he said, drawn out and exaggerated. “Hhhhwwwaaaa-nnnaaa.”

  She marched right up to him. “Yes? Angel? What can I do for you, Anhelll?”

  “Hey,” he snapped, but she didn’t move.

  “You have the most beautiful name of all, and you hide it. What’s that all about?”

  “I like Toy,” he said, retreating.

  “I like Angel,” she said.

  “I like Angel too,” I said.

  “I like Toy,” he barked at me.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Toy sounds better.”

  Ruben pointed at me. “This is freakin’ fun. Yo, Matt, what’s your real name?”

  “Mick,” I said. I’d rather have said Esther.

  “No, isn’t it really Michael?” Evelyn said because she knows everything.

  The muck of my embarrassment was up over my ankles now, heading for my knees. “No, it’s actually Mick. My father thought Mick was the coolest thing, for reasons of his own, and I’d rather not go into it any further.”

  Luckily, nobody else wanted to go into it any further, either. With the silence, Sully found his moment to get back into it.

  “So, you gonna take my sister out, or what?” he said, deadly serious.

  I had to smile. “I’m sorry, Honey,” I said.

  “For what? Don’t worry about it. I got plenty a boyfriends.”

  “No, Sul. I’m not gonna take Honey out.”

  “I will,” Ruben said, jumping up and scurrying to her. He stood smiling up—she was a head taller than him—wiggling his tongue in the spaces where his teeth weren’t. She smiled back.

  “The hell you will,” Sully said, grabbing her by the arm and whisking her away.

  “Nice meeting you all,” Honey called back.

  “Bunch a friggin’ phonies,” Sully called.

  Evelyn walked to me. “We were going someplace?” she asked.

  “We were.”

  As we started to walk away, Ruben hopped up behind us again. “I’m havin’ a great freakin’ time today. Where we goin’ now?”

  “Come on, man,” I said. Begged, actually. “Give us a break. Go hang with some of your other friends for a while.”

  “He hasn’t got any,” Evelyn snapped.

  “I do so got friends. I got two. But they dead now.”

  Toy stepped up behind him, grabbed Ruben by the collar. “Have a good time,” he said, waving to us.

  “I want to apologize, for Sully,” I said when I finally knew what I wanted to say. “He’s just crude. He’s ignorant and, I don’t know, I feel like he’s something I should apologize for.”

  We were walking up the stairs of the old brick boathouse by the pond, to watch the boats and the ducks and the still water.

  “Don’t apologize,” she said. “You should be proud. That boy loves you a lot.”

  Augie’s Dogs

  GETTING OUT OF MY neighborhood, or getting out of my family, was a lot like getting out of the priesthood. You couldn’t just wake up one day and say “Okay, I’m not what I was anymore,” and that would be it. There was a lot of explaining to do, maybe some vows to be broken.

  Also, both groups were big on ceremonies, and holidays. The big one in the neighborhood was of course St. Pat’s. But that one was a lot of show, and open to the public. The event that probably said more about The Terry Style was May Day. Because it was more secret. Because it was more violent. And because it neatly summed up my brother’s worldview: If you aren’t in our circle, then you’re in our sights.

  Could it be May Day again already? Seemed like it was only last week it was May Day and all of us were sitting on the Cambridge side of the river at three A.M. watching the bonfire. Terry had broken into the boat shed and dragged out all the equipment of not one but two college crew clubs to make his personal flaming tribute to higher education. No actual boats—though he tried his ass off to get one out—but life jackets, rubber shoes, oars, white plastic first-aid boxes, and a generous splash of 151 rum that made a foul, brilliant, chemical-fueled green and blue and yellow and red flame that reflected off the flat river and popped with small explosions.

  If I was at all serious about making a break from all the ignorance once and for all, I had to break from May Day. Only it’s not just a day. It’s forty-eight fearsome hours over the second weekend in May when Terry and his disciples gather and celebrate the exodus from their town of all the “faggot-ass college students who don’t belong here anyhow.” It officially starts on Saturday morning when Augie blows in through the front door towing two cases of Ballantine ale and his two dogs, Bunky and Bobo. He plunks himself down in front of the TV, turns up World Wide Main Event Super Heavyweight Battle of the Ages Championship Wrestling so loud you can hear the fighters drool, and he cracks open his first bottle.

  From my bedroom I heard the first “psshht.”

  “Did I hear a beer?” Terry yelled as he threw open his bedroom door. He punched my door loud on the way by.

  “Have fun, you boys,” Ma said as she hurried to scram. My parents do their part by making their one smart move of the year. They clear out. Last year it was to Franconia to visit their friend the rich ignorant plumbing contractor who eats with his mouth wide open. This year it was North Conway for knickknack crap nobody wants.

  “Don’t break nothin’ this year, Augie,” Dad growled just before stomping out. “And if you do, replace it before I get back.”

  I heard Augie laugh. “Lighten up, old guy. Here ya go, have a suck for the road.”

  There was a pause. “It’s a two-hour ride, for chrissake,” Dad said, disgusted.

  “Pardon me,” Augie said, then I heard a lot of clinking as Dad left with an armful of bottles.

  For a half hour the two of them yelled at the TV, belched, crashed around the living room body-slamming each other, hurled empty bottles down the hall, and howled high-pitched howls to make the dogs crazy so that together they sounded like a four-mutt barbershop quartet. I stayed in bed with my pillow over my head. Jesus, I hope they forget about me, I thought.

  “Hey! Get yer ass out here... you,” Terry screamed from the bathroom as he took a loud leak with the door open. “You’re way behind. You don’t wanna miss the May Day festivities.”

  Oh yes I did. I was there last year and the year before and the year before, back to when I reached the local official drinking age of twelve. I liked it then, drunk off my ass and puking up more guts than I ever thought I had just because Southern Comfort tasted a little too much like berries. And I didn’t even mind it too much last year when I got clocked by that big stupid college rent-a-cop, because, well, I did hit him first and I was holding the spray paint can and I did after all get the big laughs I was after when I painted him to begin with.

  But not now. As I listened to Terry and Augie and Bunky and Bobo yuck it up just a few feet away doing what they’d done before, only now they sounded like I didn’t even know them even though I knew them too damn well, I had but one thought. And that was to run. This was not a good place for me, and it would get worse quickly.

  I needed a shower. I didn’t take one
. I pulled on yesterday’s dirty baggies, buttoned my shirt up to my neck, watched my hands shake as I pulled on my socks and shoes. I threw on my Ruben Cruz fedora and stepped lively out toward the front door.

  “Hey,” Terry ordered. “Get your sneaky little ass down here.”

  I stood with my hand on the knob, thinking about just going.

  “Don’t make us send Bobo after you,” Augie laughed.

  Bobo is a shiny brown, square, mean and stupid Rottweiler-Great Dane mix, almost as tall as me. He looks like a UPS truck, and is legend for throwing himself on whatever Augie tells him to, even a moving police car once.

  I turned and walked back to the living room.

  “Where are you goin’?” Terry asked. “Din’ you hear me jus’ tell you it was May Day?”

  “Yo, Mickey-boy,” Augie said from way down in my father’s soft, shredded armchair, “you wanna see what Bobo can do?”

  “No.”

  Terry bellowed. “No? No, you didn’t hear me tell you it was May Day? What are you, goddamn deaf or goddamn stupid? Augie, you hear me tell him, like, pretty goddamn loud?”

  “Heard ya, bro. Personally, I think he’s goddamn stupid, not goddamn deaf.”

  “No. I didn’t say no I didn’t hear you, Terry. I said no I didn’t want to see Bobo’s stupid trick.”

  “Here, watch,” Augie said anyway. He reached over to the end table beside him, took a bottle cap and dunked it into a bowl of onion dip, covering two fingers and a thumb up to the knuckle. “Bo. Yo, Bo,” he said, and flipped the dog the coated metal cap. Bobo snapped it out of the air and chewed on it, crunching and grinding until he’d pulverized it, then swallowing. When he finished, he scooted up closer and sat in begging position in front of Augie. Augie tossed him another cap, without dip, and the dog did the same thing again.

  By now, Terry had walked right up to me. He smelled bitter like vomit even though it was still a little early for that. “So like I said, where are ya goin’?”

  “I’m going out,” I said.

  It was as if he had prepared this, had been waiting for it. “Ya ain’t supposed ta be goin’ nowhere, ya supposed ta be wid us. Ya wid us, Mick?” He spoke low, which was not his way, and with a smile, which was not his way. Slowly, he reached up and unbuttoned the top button of my shirt. “We don’t do that,” he said. “Ya made a mistake, when you was dressin’ so fast.”

  Then he reached down and started tucking the front of my shirt into my pants, never taking his eyes from my eyes. “Yer just such a mess taday, boyo. Ya don’t know which end is up, do ya?”

  I didn’t look away either. I stared right into him as I slowly raised my hands and started buttoning my top button again. “I like it this way. No mistake.”

  “Mistake,” he snarled, and as he tucked, jammed his fist down into my pants. I froze.

  “Now ya wanna see what Bunky can do?” Augie chirped. “It’s even better, ’cause he’s a lot smarter than Bobo. He’s the brains, Bobo’s the brawn.”

  “Get it out,” I said to Terry.

  “In a minute I will. When I’m ready.” He reached up with his free hand and snatched the hat off my head. With his knuckles still jammed against my balls, he tossed the hat into the middle of the floor. “Get it, Bobo,” he said, and when after a few seconds Augie repeated the order, Bobo set himself on the hat. He pressed it to the floor with his big paws and with his mouth tore at the felt like it was wet paper. First he made about a dozen jerky strips, then swallowed each one.

  Terry yanked his hand out of my pants, stepping back and smirking. “I had ya. I let ya go. I can have ya again, anytime I want. Remember.”

  I gave him no reaction, except to untuck my shirt again.

  “So, pull up ya chair, boy,” Augie said, uncapping a Ballantine short-neck bottle and aiming it at me.

  “No,” I said.

  “Why no?” Augie was genuinely puzzled.

  “Because I don’t want it,” I said.

  He stared at me, head tilted to one side. “Your hair’s gettin’ pretty damn long there, kid.”

  “I know it is.” I was starting to feel it, starting to feel the closing in all around. I started to sweat.

  “I ain’t seen him take so much as a sip lately, Augie,” Terry said, snatching the bottle from him. He brought it to me, stuck it under my nose. “Lost the taste, have ya, Mick?”

  It was then I realized that I hadn’t. The carbon bubbles were popping, tickling, carrying the strong yeasty Ballantine head up into my nostrils. My mouth watered, but my stomach clenched.

  “You need a haircut, freak,” Augie said.

  I pushed the bottle away from my face. “You’re right,” I said, pointing at Augie. “I do. And I’m gonna get one, right now.” I quickly started backing way, back toward the front door.

  “So have a goddamn blast before ya go,” Terry said, following me halfway to the door with the bottle. “Get back here and drink the damn thing.” His voice rose. “It ain’t like the goddamn barber shop is goin’ any goddamn place.”

  “I don’t want it,” I said.

  He was infuriated now. He ran to catch me at the door, but I ran faster to get away. He screamed at me from the porch. “What are you, good? You good now or somethin’, Mick?” And he heaved the full bottle at me, missing me by a mile as it shattered and splattered on the curb.

  Sully loves me. What is she talking about, Sully loves me? What a mental thing to say. A lot that’ll get me anyhow, Sully’s love. That’ll get me far.

  Whether I believed it or not, that’s where I found myself when I escaped, Sully’s house. I stood there on the sidewalk looking up at his bedroom window, in the house that looked just like my house. Like I’d done a hundred thousand times before when I was just looking for someplace to go to that wasn’t my place, that didn’t have my parents or my brother inside. The difference though was that this time I didn’t have two fingers in my mouth whistling myself blue for him to come down and claim me. This time I looked, stared up there like a freak on the sidewalk, and went on my way. If he had just happened to come to the window that would have been okay, I could maybe have stayed there for the weekend till May Day blew over, if he invited me. But he didn’t, and I couldn’t call or whistle for him this time. It just didn’t feel like I could do that now.

  I walked on, no destination, just on. I thought about it, where I wasn’t going, and felt a small scared shiver. It was the same nothing for me in both directions, forward and back. I had no home. My parents had cleared out, surrendered the place to the barbarians. Never even mentioned it to me, that they wouldn’t be around for a couple of days. And even though this was a regular thing for May Day and even though we all know they are going, is that right, that they shouldn’t say something to me? It’s like, the home, it isn’t there for me.

  But it was never important before, so it wasn’t important now. There were other places for me, even if they were few.

  “Hey freakin’ ho, muchacho, ain’t this a damn treat,” Ruben said as he pulled back the curtain from the small front door window. I listened as he unlocked three dead bolts, then threw the door wide open. “This may surprise you, but I don’t get a whole lotta visitors, specially on no Saturday morning.”

  It was such a happy, welcoming thing, Ruben’s broad gap-toothed smile, that it almost made me feel right. It almost made nothing else matter. “You want some breakfast?” he said. “I think I got a egg and a little skinny-ass frozen sausage.”

  But I had to tell him the truth. “Thanks, man, that’s really nice. But actually, I’m here to see Evelyn. Is she home?”

  Slam. Bolt, bolt, bolt. Ruben was gone from view and the door was again well secured. I sighed, rang the bell again.

  “Who is it?” Ruben’s voice sang from the other side of the door.

  “Come on, Cruz, it’s me.”

  His small fine face appeared in the window again. “Jehovah’s Witness?” he asked.

  “No. I’m here to see Evelyn.”
r />   “Evelyn?”

  “Your sister. Cut the shit.”

  “Sorry, I ain’t got no sister Evelyn. You mean Juana?”

  “Fine. I mean Juana.”

  “I ain’t got no sister Juana. Listen you, you better get outta here or I’m gonna put the dog on you. I mean it.”

  I turned and walked down the stairs as Ruben went into an inspired fit of snarling and yowling and hurling himself against the door. I hopped the fence, passed the Mary and flamingo statues, and snuck around to the back door, hoping Evelyn could possibly hear the knock before her brother White Fang cut it off. But just as I turned the corner in back, I was blasted backward by a growl so low and nasty I didn’t hear it, I felt it under my feet.

  A dog. They had a dog, a real dog, a massive black dog on a chain with a spiked collar, a dog too mean even to bark for fear that victims wouldn’t get close enough for mangling. He curled one lip at me as he growled, a red pulpy piece of something hanging off a lower front tooth while the rest of the pulpy red something—maybe it was a rabbit or a cat or a smaller dog—lay a few feet away at the entrance to its tar-papered dog shed.

  I backed out of the yard, watching the beast, my whole body shaking.

  “Whatchu think, I be lyin’ ’bout my dog?” Cruz laughed from the porch as I passed. “I don’t know what you was thinkin’ that you could jus’ come on over here an’ y’know, have your way an’ shit...”

  I walked away as quickly as I could, with my legs still rubbery from the dog scare. I didn’t even look at Ruben.

  “Hey, where you goin? I thought we was gonna do somethin?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you!” he yelled, trying to sound tough. In the next breath, though, he sounded like a little boy. “Where’s the hat I gave you...? Hey... I was just playin’...”