The Monster Variations

by Daniel Kraus

  It was a bad day to go anywhere, and James was headed for a funeral. There had been a wake the night before—this, he had learned, was when everyone filed by the casket to get a peek at the dead person. He was not allowed to go and was too scared anyway. Willie’s parents did not allow him to go either; ever since the second hit-and-run, the Van Allens had become even more protective of their son. Reggie, of course, went to the wake, and because his mother worked nights he did it alone. James didn’t know how Reggie got so brave, but Reggie was determined to see a dead kid, and if the funeral home had sold tickets, he would’ve arrived early to get a good seat. Reggie owned no dress clothes, but borrowed one of his mother’s white button-down blouses and tucked so much fabric into his pants it looked like he was wearing diapers. He owned only white sweat socks, but soon enough found a black marker and went to work.

  After the wake, Reggie had come knocking at James’s bedroom window. It was easy to do: if the family van was parked in the driveway alongside the house, Reggie had only to scale it, leap onto the lower roof of the three-story split-level home, dart across the shingles, then tap on James’s windowpane. Before the accident Willie also used to do it, but these days he had to use the door.

  According to Reggie, Greg Johnson was definitely dead. Three people took the podium to speak. There were twenty huge bouquets of flowers, and more Styrofoam cups of coffee than Reggie had ever seen. Four people left during Mr. Johnson’s emotional plea to find the killer. Eleven people cried. Twelve people hugged Reggie, despite the fact that he didn’t recognize any of them, aside from Mrs. Van Allen. By the time it was all over, his socks were almost white again, and Reggie guessed it was all those damn teardrops that did it.

  “What did he look like?” James asked.

  “He looked pretty good” was the response, but looking was not enough, not for an opportunist like Reggie. He hung back to the very end of the viewing line—at least, that was what he told James—and then leaned his elbows on Greg’s casket, settling his chin against the cold, new metal.

  “There was something weird with his eyes,” Reggie reported. “I’m not kidding. There was something all wrong with them.” When asked to explain, Reggie would only hint that the protuberance of Greg’s eyelids was somehow unnatural, either too big or too small, perhaps hiding objects that were not Greg Johnson’s eyeballs at all, but artificial glass that the mortician inserted after scooping out the originals—or, maybe, after the original eyeballs had been knocked out by the truck that struck Greg in the back. James imagined something terrible: one of Greg’s eyeballs mashed beneath a truck wheel, and the other eyeball carried away by an industrious squirrel. James wished his brain didn’t think of things like this, but he couldn’t help it.

  “I couldn’t reach it,” Reggie said, “but there was something in Greg’s hair, near the back, back here.” Reggie touched his head where fathers got bald spots. “I thought it was beads. You know, like religious beads, but why would there be beads in his hair? Then I thought bugs. I thought they were ticks, maybe feeding on him.” Reggie spoke calmly in order to shock James. It worked. Reggie shrugged. “But I think it was some kind of stitches. Big huge stitches. Or maybe staples. To keep his head shut.”

  Then there had been motion in James’s house—heavy footsteps on the spiral staircase, drawers banging shut, the squeak of the medicine cabinet. James’s parents, both of them, were coming to his room, clutching stiff penny loafers and a tie for the funeral, so instantly Reggie vanished through the window, lowering himself onto the van roof before disappearing into the dandelions.

  And now here was James, his hair dull, his face nervous and ashy, feeling in his bones each pebble that passed beneath the van’s tires. He was off to the funeral, his first, and he felt sick. He hoped Reggie wouldn’t be there because then James would have to hide his sick feeling. But he knew Reggie would show up, even without his mother, who inevitably would be working the lunch crowd—Reggie wouldn’t miss this for the world. “You’re chicken,” Reggie would say if James skipped the funeral, and he would be right.

  The van turned and a cemetery mausoleum suddenly leapt into the sky, then Jesus on a cross. Then, rising like an army, tombstones, hundreds of them. James read the names: Smith, Kaufman, Brown. No Johnson that James could see, and for a moment he hoped it was all a mistake. He looked harder. Even through the grayness of the day the grass in the cemetery was too green. He wondered why and felt even sicker.

  Through the van window he saw a blue tarpaulin stretched over maybe two dozen metal folding chairs. The tarp snapped loudly in the irritable gusts. James looked up. The clouds were like wet paper sacks—rain threatened to soak right through. There were already people congregated, all of them glancing at the sky, holding black umbrellas at their sides, murmuring to each other and offering small handshakes. It looked to James like these handshaking grown-ups were inviting each other into the fresh dirt hole at their feet.

  Staring up at the casket was Reggie, looking small and pale next to all the grown-ups in black. Willie would not be attending. As James’s parents had cinched a tie around his neck and stuffed away a rogue shirttail, they had said that the funeral would be too emotional for Willie, who was already such a delicate child even before all this terrible stuff happened, before he got that ugly puckered scar on his neck, before his mangled shoulder had to be softly snuggled inside a safety-pinned shirt sleeve every single morning. Later, James reported his parents’ observations to Reggie, and while Reggie did not agree that Willie was all that sensitive, he did concur that it was smart to keep him away. According to Reggie, if the grown-ups at the funeral saw Willie’s stump it might be like the wake all over again, only worse—this time people would be crying right out in the open.

  The van stopped. Doors were opened and dry air swept in. James felt a puff of wind peel his forehead from the glass. He was outside. His butt was in an uncomfortable metal chair next to Reggie. And there was Greg Johnson’s casket, kid-sized, as silver as the truck that probably hit him, latched shut and already striped with bird dung. The kid was dead. His back snapped like a stick. His eyes popped out. His head shredded against concrete.

  He had died fast. Or so they said.

  The funeral service was short. A man read scripture. The sun emerged from clouds and the shadows of the tombstones reached for the mourners, yet no one ran. One of the shadows fell on James and he felt his heart yanked. It made him want to vomit, and when that feeling passed a whole bucket of tears filled his eyes. He tried to hide them. He didn’t want Reggie to see. He didn’t know why he was crying. He barely knew the kid. He took a deep breath, smelled soil, and wondered if Greg’s obituary would end up in that scrapbook his mom kept, or if one day his own death notice—JAMES WAHL, DECEASED— would find its way into the pages.

  Four men stood to put Greg Johnson in the dirt. The coffin was lowered on thick straps connected to some sort of pulley, and it shuddered like it was too heavy and filled with wet laundry, old rags. James wiped his eyes—it was filled with old rags, it was. One corner of the coffin dipped too fast. Men’s arms trembled at the weight, and they leaned backward to correct the mistake. James caught his breath, certain that the casket would tip and Greg would spill out, his staples undone, the loose skin of his head flapping. The men fought for control. Their shoulders curved inward and their muscles clenched. But the weight was too much because it was death, and eventually it took everyone down.

  Kids (Poor Creatures)

  Often Fight Good Sense

  Reggie lay on the roof of James’s house for a long time. He thought about his own house and how you could fit the entire thing inside of James’s living room, but how it was still better than his previous two homes, both short-lived experiments crowding him into the spare room of one of his mom’s now ex-boyfriends’ houses. He watched as the Wahls’ housekeeper, Louise, left for the evening, perhaps tired of waiting. Reggie had known Louise most of his life and loved her dark humor and vivacious demeanor—but he
could outwait her any day of the week. He listened as the ancient grandfather clock in Mr. Wahl’s den tolled six, then seven. It was no different than holding air under water: if he took slow, even breaths and did not move an inch he could remain in this state all night. He had done it before.

  Finally he heard the Wahls come home. He kept breathing, in, out. He smelled cooking meat and tasted bread and green vegetables in the air. He heard china plates being set for dinner. Chairs clopped and squealed to meet the table. Glasses sang, silverware spat. He waited.

  Reggie had no brothers or sisters and his father was in prison. His mother worked most days and nights at a restaurant—according to her, this was still not considered “full-time,” though this baffled him—and so rarely did they dine together. Instead, she brought home food and Reggie would reheat it and eat alone in front of the TV, between bites bending the antenna to steady the wobbling picture. Reggie was usually envious of the dinnertime James enjoyed—Louise’s feasts spread across that spacious, gleaming table beneath that glittering chandelier—as well as the conversations his family shared, discussing world news and the stock market, grilling James about his homework and friends, repeating to him the importance of establishing a good routine that would carry him through into college: Keep your eye on the donut, not the hole. But not tonight. Tonight Reggie was glad to be alone. He cracked open the window so he could catch the after-dinner conversation.

  Mr. Wahl’s voice was too low-pitched to cut through the drone of the air-conditioning units and James’s mother wasn’t speaking. Only James himself could be heard. Reggie closed his eyes and listened.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’m normal. I’m fine.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know.”

  “I know.“

  “I don’t know. Not really.”

  “Some. I knew him a little.”

  “I don’t know where. Maybe from the playground?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes. But usually he played by himself. He was just some kid.”

  “Willie? I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”

  “Of course I know: Willie got hit by a truck.”

  “No, it was a truck. A silver truck.”

  “Because Willie said it was a truck.”

  “Because he said it was silver.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I don’t go on those roads.”

  “I don’t go on those roads anyway.”

  “Dad, I stick to the main roads.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Reggie? How come?”

  “He’s not.”

  “He’s not. It was just that once. Reggie never usually hits anybody.”

  “He’s fine.”

  “Reggie’s fine, Dad.”

  “He doesn’t. I mean it. I do what I wanna do. Reggie doesn’t make me do anything. I do what I say.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “Fine, I’ll tell him.”

  “I’ll tell him what you said.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  “No. I’m not hungry.”

  “No, thank you.“

  There was some silence, then soft footfalls up the stairs. The door opened in James’s room, then shut. Reggie counted to fifty before rolling through the window. He put on a smile.

  “Hey,” said James, flopping onto his tangled bedspread. His hand blindly reached beneath the twisted sheets and came up with his baseball cap. He crammed it over his neatly combed hair and relaxed. His hand played along the edge of the bill, which was soiled with years of dirt and sweat and summer.

  “They asked me a hundred questions,” said James. “I didn’t think it was ever going to end. I’m starving, you got anything?”

  “Me? I was counting on you,” said Reggie.

  “ Nuh-uh.”

  “Well, crap.”

  They said nothing for a moment and the silence felt different than ever before.

  “Tell me what?” Reggie asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You told your dad you would tell me something.”

  “Oh, right.”

  James paused and looked around his room. He was suddenly embarrassed by the room’s size—in comparison, Reggie’s room was a closet—as well as the amount of little-kid toys scattered about. Reggie had long ago pawned his army men and building blocks for pocket change.

  “He says we shouldn’t hang out so much,” James said.

  “Huh.”

  “I mean, he always says that.”

  “Right.”

  “He says especially at night. Especially at night we’re not supposed to hang out so much.”

  “No kidding.”

  “It’s not that he doesn’t like you,” James said. “He likes you okay. Seriously. It’s just for some reason, he thinks you … I mean, I don’t really know what he thinks. But don’t worry about it, okay? I don’t care what he says. I mean, you know. It’s summer.“

  James shrugged and looked away. He felt small and restless beneath Reggie’s patient gaze. James fidgeted with his cap and looked out the open window.

  After a moment, he spoke again. “Have you really thought about it? I mean, him being dead?”

  With a long, quick arm, Reggie punched James in the shoulder. James recoiled—Reggie always hit a little too hard—and remembered his father’s comment about Reggie’s aggression. Sure, there had been some incident at school where Reggie had punched a kid. So what? It had been one incident among many. Lots of kids hit lots of kids. James couldn’t figure out why his father always singled out Reggie.

  “Don’t say another word,” said Reggie as James lifted defensive fists.

  “Ow.”

  “We can’t talk about this dead stuff without Willie,” said Reggie.

  “How come?”

  Reggie smiled, but there was something in the expression that James did not like. He said, “You’ll see.”

  * * *

  By the time they reached Willie’s house it was almost seven. James couldn’t believe it: in one hour it would be illegal to be outdoors.

  Normally the boys would have met in Willie’s tree house. It was right beside his home, nestled within tall, strong branches. Built by Willie’s father, it was unusually formidable, big enough for three boys to lie down in sleeping bags and spend the night, which they had done many times over previous summers. Now when Reggie and James looked at the tree house it was different, and James knew why. It was because Willie would never again reach it. For a second, James’s eyes felt funny, like he might cry, but he coughed and made the feeling go away.

  They knocked on the door, and after a while Mr. Van Allen’s face appeared. After searching above their heads as if expecting a cadre of police officers instead of two twelve-year-old boys, he looked down at them and his expression changed to one of muted pain. Ever since Willie’s accident, Mr. Van Allen seemed disoriented, as if he never knew exactly how he’d found himself standing there at the front door. As dads went, James had always figured Mr. Van Allen was all right, even though he had spent most of his leisure time within a nest of magazines, playing cards, and televised sports, making occasional loud offers to fetch James a can of beer. James had always assumed these offers were jokes, but nevertheless they had made him uncomfortable.

  But that Mr. Van Allen, as intimidating as he had been, was preferable to the unkempt, plodding automaton whose face they only ever saw on the other side of a screen door. Mr. Van Allen had just a little bit of hair around the sides of his head, and these days it stood up in wiry twists. His eyes were red and the skin around them was blue, and it looked like his sockets were sinking slowly into his skull. Mr. Van Allen had always smelled of beer, but now smelled like he bathed in it. He still smiled when he spoke, but his smiles made James and Reggie nervous.

  “Willie’s upstairs, boys,” he said, thu
mbing open the door lock.

  “Thanks, Mr. Van Allen,” they said, and ran past him as fast as they could.

  Willie’s house was nowhere as big as James’s—few houses in town were—but it was bigger than Reggie’s, and done up nicer. Still there was something about it that felt phony to James, as if the entire home was a scaffold dressed with fancy ornaments that, if you looked close, were not very fancy at all. It smelled harsh, like cleaning chemicals, and was always too hot. James and Reggie hurried to Willie’s room, where they could open a window to escape the suffocation.

  It was strange to have a friend with only one arm. For two weeks after the accident, they weren’t allowed to see Willie. As usual, Reggie had acted like he knew everything. “He could die at any moment,” Reggie had said for over a week. When that proved false, Reggie started saying, “There could be permanent brain damage, you know. He might not be able to talk. Maybe spit will just come pouring out of his mouth whenever he tries.”

  But when Willie had returned home from the hospital, he seemed fine. His skin was paler than before and his hair longer, but he had on a great big grin and brand-new baseball cap. The main difference was that where his left arm used to be was now just a little lump, though it was always hidden inside a sleeve fastened shut with two safety pins. James and Reggie had still never seen it.

  They had been allowed to stay only a few minutes that first time—Mrs. Van Allen had shooed them out, flapping her hands and laughing. Unlike her husband, Mrs. Van Allen had grown cheerier following her son’s accident, though this too troubled James. Why was she working so hard to convince them that everything was wonderful when the contrary evidence was right there in Willie’s stump?

  A couple of weeks later Willie was back running around with James and Reggie, almost like normal. Only now his missing arm caused a curious imbalance, and at seemingly random moments he would holler and fall on his face. He couldn’t play junkball anymore, but actually it worked out perfectly: the boys had always wanted an umpire and Willie had always been the worst player. It wasn’t all his fault—he was the shortest kid in sixth grade and one of the skinniest, too. The problems continued from there. His ears stuck out and he had a long nose. Even his teeth were screwed up—the metal braces he wore weren’t scheduled to come off for three more years. Willie said the braces were going to “scrunch up his teeth.” James thought it sounded like a good idea because each of Willie’s teeth was about a mile away from the next, and sometimes globs of food would settle in these spaces until Reggie noticed it, groaned in disgust, and demanded Willie go rinse out his mouth.