by Sean McGinty
> mm we can hop so much
in so many different ways
“Yeah, I’m fine. TSD. Hold on. I gotta do a hard reboot.”
But then I saw that she wasn’t alone. My dad was standing there next to her.
“What’s going on?” he said. “What are you doing here, Katarin?”
And Katie was like, “Arnold fell and had some kind of seizure. I was making sure he was OK.”
And my dad was like, “Arnold?”
And Katie was like, “He was only out for a second.”
And I was like, “It’s no big deal. Just a TSD glitch-out. Just a little more than usual but nothing—”
> yay! now for bunny_luvr21
“It’s nothing big. Hold on.” I jammed my fists into my eyes. “There’s no place like home!”
And my dad was like, “Who the hell is Arnold?”
And Katie was like, “Him. Your nephew.”
And the bunny_luvr21 was like,
> oh please hop me
“THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME!”
With a pop! the rabbit disappeared, and it was just Dad and Katie, and they were both looking at each other strangely.
“Aaron is my son, Katarin. His name is Aaron. He’s seventeen! He’s in high school!”
Katie spun to face me. “What?! Is this true? But why?”
I was too stunned to think of anything but the truth.
“Because I wanted you to like me.”
“So, wait a second,” said my dad. “You two know each other?”
“Yes!” I said. “Duh! Of course!”
The cat was out of the bag—or more like the rabbit. The evil, hairless rabbit of truth.
But that wasn’t all. What I hadn’t realized was that there was another rabbit—or, I don’t know, maybe there was another bag. But anyway, there was more to it. Because why should he care whether we knew each other? And why did he keep calling her Katarin, so formally?
I’m sure genius is a burden, but what about those of us with only slightly above-average intelligence? So often you find yourself in these situations where you’re smart enough to realize something’s going on and yet you’re too dumb to figure out what it is.
But I was beginning to figure it out.
As I looked up at them looking down on me, I remembered something—the thing that Katie had said to me right before I glitched out. There’s something I need to tell you. Clues cascaded through my brain.
The play.
“Complicated,” she’d said.
The undies on the record player.
Their shared love of Sparkl*Juice™ and gin.
Oh, wow. Oh, shit. Oh, YAY! for the stab of truth, the way it scratches with a flurry of claws, the way it bites with bunny teeth, the way it lays waste to everything you ever thought you knew.
But how? When? Where? Why?
For God’s sake, Why?
I had a lot of questions, but I didn’t get a chance to throw any of them at Katie. She was getting into her truck now. She was slamming the door and cranking the ignition.
“Wait! Holy shit, just hold on a sec!”
But the windows were up and the engine was going and she didn’t hear me—or anyway she didn’t answer me—and then she was driving away.
So then it was just me and my dad.
No one said anything, not at first, because where do you even start? Suddenly all I could think about was that pair of undies I’d found, the ones with the see-through crotch. How exactly did they end up on the record player? What sordid scene unfolded before that? It was too much to think about. I had to get it out of my mind. I had to leave. But I couldn’t leave until I knew.
“What happened between you two?”
“Between us?” he said. “How about you? How do you even know her? Why was she calling you Arnold?”
“She thought that’s what my name was.”
“So you lied to her just like you lied to me and Evie.”
“What happened between you two?”
“None of your business.”
Ever wonder if you could take your dad in a fight? Me too. All the time. Usually the answer is no—but this time I was just angry enough to give it a shot and see what happened. Definitely I could get in one good hit before he knew what was going on—the element of surprise. The question was, how hard would he come back at me?
“Just tell me!”
Finally Dad gave a shrug. “We were in a play together last spring. Romeo and Juliet.”
YAY! for the play and the movie and the pizza franchise—but not really. Romeo and Juliet?
“What happened?”
“I guess you could say there were some sparks.”
“Sparks? What’s that mean? You’re like twice her age!”
“And you’re half!”
“Not even!”
Dad laughed. Suddenly everything was funny to him. “Know what? It’s over between me and her anyway. You have my permission to see her.”
“Permission?! I don’t need your permission!”
He stood there smirking.
“I don’t need your permission!”
Sometimes when I’m mad I can’t think of anything to do but repeat the same stuff over and over.
“I don’t need your permission!”
“OK, I get it! You don’t need my permission. Fine. All I’m saying is she’s old news to me anyway, and it’s too freakin’ cold to argue out here. Can you walk on that ankle, or do you need help?”
No, I didn’t need help. I wasn’t going in his house anyway. I was going to Evie’s.
On my way over to Evie’s I had some time to think. One thing became clear: mad as I was, it was probably best not to tell my sister. She didn’t need to know about the whole weird love triangle—things were screwed up enough already without adding her expert testimony.
My sister answered the door in her jammies.
“It’s time,” I said.
“Time for what?”
“Time for Grandpa’s. I need a ride.”
“I already told you, I’m not giving you a ride.”
“Come on, Evie! Help me out, here.”
“Are you OK? You seem…agitated.”
“I’m fine!”
Evie gave me a look. “What time is it, anyway?”
“I already told you—time to go to Grandpa’s.”
“It’s late, Aaron. I’ve got work in the morning. Do you need a place to sleep? You can have the couch if you want. But I’m not giving you a ride.”
So I crashed there and spent the next morning begging my sister for a ride, but she wasn’t having it. She had work to do. I tagged along while she chased down a lead on some story about the spring motorcycle jamboree, but all I could think about was Katie and Dad and how weirded-out angry I was. Even if she’d thought he was my uncle, she could’ve told me something. Just given me a hint. Just to soften the blow.
Late in the afternoon, after all the reporting was done, Evie gave in.
“Fine! I can’t stand the moping any longer. I’ll give you a ride, but first you need supplies—food and warm clothes and toilet paper—and if the road is even a little bit sketchy, we’re turning right around. Got it?”
The first problem was I didn’t have my bag. Katie had it. It was sitting in her truck when she peeled away from Dad’s. Without explaining, I borrowed a sweatshirt and some long underwear from Sam, then we got some food and headed out.
It had been a warm day and the road was clear—dry in places, even—but even so Evie still went at a crawl, and nearly turned around twice, and by the time we got to Grandpa’s it was dark and starting to snow again. And as we pulled into his drive, I had to wonder: Was nighttime really the best time to be breaking into my grandpa’s house?
In all her worries about supplies, Evie hadn’t thought about bringing a flashlight, and I hadn’t either, so I had her put on the brights and wait while I checked it out. There were a couple chairs on the porch, and an old charcoal grill. T
he door was unlocked, and I pushed it open and set my grocery bags down. The light from Evie’s car spilled into the living room, and I could see the outlines of furniture: his reading chair, the floor lamp, a table. I reached in and felt around the door for a switch, but when I flipped it, nothing happened.
Back at the car, I explained the situation to Evie.
“Power’s out. How about you drive me back in the morning before work?”
“What, so you’re afraid of the dark now?”
I knew her tactic—the appeal to my manhood—but unfortunately pride does not equal courage in the same way that, say, cleaning a dirty grill with a balled-up wad of tinfoil does not equal the ease and satisfaction of watching a KitchenTech® Advanced Grill-Cleaning Robot (YAY!) do the job for you.
I stood for a long time deciding what to do next.
“Fine. Leave the lights on while I see if there’s a flashlight.”
Back at the doorway, I paused for a moment to look at my shadow on the far wall. Then I stepped inside, and the shadow took a step nearer to me, drawing closer as I headed toward the kitchen, growing smaller and smaller until as I rounded the corner it disappeared.
It was quiet in the kitchen, and there was a chill to it—or maybe I was just imagining things. There was a smell, too—there was definitely a smell. Stale cigarette smoke and just…staleness. I tried another light switch. It didn’t work, either. I stood there, listening to the sound of my own breathing, wondering what to do next:
> what up original boy_2!
u r a FAIL!
u seem a maybe little tense?
“Go away!”
Feeling along the countertop, I edged my way around the kitchen until I got to the drawers by the sink. They were empty. All the drawers were empty. I crept back out into the living room and down the hallway. There were two doors at the end of it—one open and the other closed. I opened the closed door and peered at the darkness inside the spare bedroom. I could just barely make out the outline of the bed in the corner.
I went back to the car.
“Keep the lights on. Give me a couple minutes so I can see my way into the bedroom. Then you can go.”
Evie looked up from her comfy seat. She had the heater on and was warming her hands. “You sure you’re going to be OK in there?”
“What—so suddenly you care? I’ll be fine.”
“Check in with me tomorrow morning, OK?”
“If I make it through the night.”
“Now you’re just being dramatic.”
I headed back to the house. The handle was jammed on the door, and I’d barely stepped inside when I heard the tires crunch on gravel. As Evie backed away, the last of the light receded like water down a drain, and I was plunged into darkness.
My whole body tingled, and my eyes were doing swirlies from straining to see into the darkness—and it’s strange, but it was like the darkness was looking back at me, like the eye of that bird all those years ago. I just stood there. I could hear myself breathing. I stopped breathing and just listened. The darkness listened back. But there was no one there but me.
It was a long, cold night. There were barely any covers on the guest bed, and I kept shivering myself awake, and then I had to pee, but there was no way I was getting out of bed until I had a little light on my side.
When I did sleep, I had dreams. More like nightmares. First it was my dad and Katie, the two of them mashing their faces together on a velvet couch while I pounded on a bulletproof window. Then the window shattered and I found myself standing alone in a big field. It went on forever, just this gigantic field lit up under the stars with the silhouette of a tree at the far end, this big tree standing out there alone in the brush.
I started walking toward the tree, but then I remembered how bad I had to pee. I paused under the stars to unzip my fly, but just as I was getting ready to go I felt something brush against my ankle. I looked down to find a hand—a bloody hand—reaching up from out of the ground like some kind of monster in a horror movie, just ready to grab my tender ankle and pull me down into the netherworld and eat me alive and—
> happy morning original boy_2!
welcome to another day!
yay! for morningsun™ muffins?
“Yay.”
The darkness was gone. I unballed my fists and took a breath. I really had to pee.
The water in the toilet bowl was frozen, but I didn’t realize this until after I started to go. My pee hissed on the ice, little tendrils of pee steam wafting into the air. But when I tried the sink, it worked, so that was good. At least I had water. There was a single green bar of soap, and as I was holding it I saw something outlined on the face of it—a small, intricate coil: my grandpa’s fingerprint. I rubbed my hands across the bar. The fingerprint disappeared.
I threw open the curtains in the living room, and the light poured in on the floating dust. Even in the light of day it was strange and kind of creepy being in my grandpa’s house. Not much had changed since my last visit all those years ago. The green couch, the brown recliner, the corduroy ottoman, the chipped coffee table—it was all still there. But it was different. Without my grandfather, it was just—it’s hard to explain. It was just a place.
And it occurred to me—Aaron, dude, this place is yours.
And yet as I stood there in the middle of the living room I knew it wasn’t true. This was not my house, it was Grandpa’s house. Even if he wasn’t here, even if it was just a place now, even so—it was all still his. This was his living room. His recliner. His reading lamp his table his television his woodstove his green coffee mug sitting on a table.
And there was the place where his cabinet had stood, the one Evie jacked. And there against the wall, next to the space, was his bookcase—his crosswords, Sudoku, word jumbles. I took a book out and flipped through the pages, looking at the answers filled out in his neat block print. His handwriting. Somewhere, in one of these books, he’d penciled in his last answer.
Puzzles. Right. I reminded myself why I was there: to find the portrait of Mary. If there was one. In the living room there were three things hanging on the wall—a washed-out brown painting of deer in a field, a smaller painting of a steamship on a stormy ocean, and a Northern Nevada Auto Parts calendar turned to December.
So I moved on to the kitchen.
No portraits of Mary there, either, but here’s the strange thing: the kitchen was practically empty. In the sink I found a plate, a knife, a fork, and a spoon—but beyond that, there wasn’t hardly anything. The cupboards were completely bare, no silverware in the drawers, not even a toaster on the counter. Where had it all gone? Even the fridge was empty. I stacked my food on the empty racks, and then I went outside.
The property was all glittery—morning sun melting the last of the snow on acres of sagebrush—but the house itself wasn’t much to look at. A squat brown box, dirty windows, black chimney pipe poking up from the roof. Peeling paint, crooked door, sagging porch—one of the carved wooden posts had been replaced by a 2 × 4. OK. Even if it wasn’t much, it was something. A little outpost in the brush. Things had happened here. My grandma had grown tomatoes. My grandfather had raged at the world.
Out by the shed sat his blue Ford Ranger. There in the distance was his tree, the single Russian olive, bare branches holding up snow. In the other direction, up the valley, I could see another, newer house with a corral and two horses, one white and one black, and beyond this stood the remnants of Coyote Heights—the luxury golf course development he’d sold his property to, the one that had failed after the restructuring. The source of the money I had yet to find.
It was a pretty crazy sight. Like something out of an apocalypse. Houses half-finished. A road that went nowhere. The luxury hotel, tall and square, standing alone in the snow, windows boarded up, Tyvekked walls rippling in the wind.
There was one room left to check out. I’d been avoiding it, but I couldn’t any longer. His bedroom. My whole life, I’d been in his bedroom maybe o
nce. The floor creaked as I made my way to the window and opened the shades. The bed was neatly made. The clock on the bedside table was dead. There was a chair, a dresser, and a desk with a typewriter on it. His typewriter. The one with the messed-up D key where he’d hammered out his final will and testament.
> u like that original boy_2?
want to see more like it?
yay! for vintageshack™ decorative housewares!
“Yay.”
I checked his closet. It was weird. The pale, short-sleeved cowboy-style shirts he used to wear—they smelled like him. The whole closet did: a mix of leather and smoke and old man. I made a quick search—no Mary—then returned to the living room and thought about my next move.
Maybe I’d take a shower.
A quick, hot shower to help me think.
But as the first icy blast hit me—and as I shrieked and jumped out onto the linoleum, and in the moment of clarity that accompanies a shock of cold water—a few things were suddenly very clear. First of all, you gotta have hot water. Second of all, water heaters need power to run. Third, there was one more place I hadn’t checked.
The basement. I hadn’t checked the basement. But then I remembered the basement was where he’d shot himself, and I wasn’t about to check it without light, plus now I was freezing, so I called the power company to get the power turned back on, but the lady had no record of the address on file. I argued with her for a while that this couldn’t be true because I had been to his place when there was electricity, and although this was decades ago I was pretty sure he’d lived out the rest of his life with power—and the house had the outlets and light switches to prove it.
“I’m sorry,” said the lady. “You’re not on file.”
I called Evie, but she didn’t know the answer. She told me to call Dad. I told her I didn’t want to call Dad. She asked me why not, and I said because I was mad at him.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to go into it.”
“You two need to learn to get along.”
