The Monster Variations

by Daniel Kraus

  James did feel bad, but not for those reasons. He looked at the bag, confused. What was it, then, that pressed its heavy weight against his shin?

  Again his father read his mind and in an instant was leaning over the bed, opening the bag, and before James could scream or recoil, the apple box was yanked out and planted on the bed so hard the mattress shook. Particles of old, painted wood disintegrated into James’s covers. A margin of dirt and dust marked where the box edges struck down against the sheets, and James knew he would never get the stain out, not ever.

  His father pointed a finger at the Monster. “A pony skull. How can you not see that’s a pony skull? And those bones there? What do you think they are? They’re squirrel bones, tied together. You ever seen a dead squirrel on the road? These things here are called turkey feathers. James, those come from a turkey. Those—” Here he faltered, unable to immediately identify a delicate string of bones wired to one another. They looked to James like a human finger, and he thought of Willie’s missing arm, how it had disappeared, how none of the boys knew what had become of it.

  His father peered at the thing, momentarily fascinated before disgust once more overtook his features. “I’m just grateful no one will find out about this, because, James, if you think your little world is difficult now? You have no idea, you really don’t. People would laugh and would hold it against you. Adults, teachers even. It’s wrong, but that’s what people do.”

  James said it again, only this time he didn’t plan it, it just came out: “I’m sorry.”

  His father grabbed the apple box in one hand and hastily crammed it back into the bag. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “Tell that poor kid. We’re taking this right back to where you got it. Come on, before your mother wakes up.”

  * * *

  In fact it was still early morning, not even six. James did not know why his father was up so early—could it have been another odd-hour rendezvous with Reggie’s mom? Even if that was true, James’s numbness prevented him from producing a reaction. The two of them climbed into the family van and rode in silence, the laundry bag quivering on the floor between them.

  He lifted a listless finger and pointed the way down the trail. When they arrived at Tom’s house the morning was bright and clear. Tom was in the middle of the yard walking slowly toward them as they pulled to a stop, wiping his hands on his jeans and toeing aside a group of cats. Behind Tom, the barn doors were thrown wide on both ends, and in the field beyond the horses pondered the meager grass, their ribs visible even at a distance. The time had come for James to pick up the Monster and tell Tom what he had done.

  James realized that this was the moment he had been waiting for, a way to prove he was a man worthy of his father’s respect. But now that the moment was here he didn’t want it. Stranger still, his father did not seem to want it either. There was regret in his dad’s expression. His face softened and he looked down at James as if he were still a little boy in need of protection, and under such a gaze James felt exactly that way, fragile and helpless.

  “We all have monsters,” his father whispered. He reached over, picked up the laundry bag, stepped from the van, and began walking toward Tom. They met halfway across the yard.

  James strained to watch without drawing attention to himself. He had to resist crying out in relief. He was off the hook! He wouldn’t have to face Tom and meet those sad, crooked eyes. The pressure lifted and he breathed deeply, exhilarated, but then deeply repentant, too. As he watched his father’s lips move, James swore to himself he would apologize when his dad returned to the van. He would make oaths about good behavior, he would ground himself, he would be a good boy for the rest of the summer—no, the rest of the year, all the way through Christmas. Reggie was a bad influence, clearly that was true, and James suddenly missed Willie Van Allen, an innocent kid who existed on a plane far removed from this one of guilt and shame. He would spend more time with Willie, work harder on his schoolwork, position himself to become the ideal college candidate, and this perpetual sickness he felt over disobeying his folks would finally dissipate. James felt optimistic, good about his father, about himself. Things would be all right. Things would be as they used to.

  He watched his father hold out the bag and saw Tom raise both hands, palms out, before diverting his eyes and taking a step away, shrugging in disinterest. James’s father held the bag a moment longer. Tom would not look at it—he stared out at the horses. Finally, James’s father set the bag on the ground, said a parting word, and walked slowly back to the van.

  His father slammed the door and started the engine. He looked tired and old, and occupied with matters too complicated for a little boy. James’s promises, as earnest as they were, never reached his lips. The van wheeled around the yard. As they drove away, James hid his face and in the rearview mirror saw Tom look down at the laundry bag, which lay a motionless lump in the dirt. And right before a car filled with teenagers rumbled past, obscuring his senses with dust and smoke and music, James was pretty sure he saw Tom drop to one knee and smile.

  An Animal Eats and

  Never Suffers Again

  Reggie stood alone.

  Seen up close, the baseball diamond was not as impressive as he had hoped. The bases were authentic, but flat and discolored. There was a mound but it was low and off-center, and if there was a pitcher’s rubber it was lost beneath the dirt. There were no baselines at all; this realization was the harshest. He had imagined straight white lines of infinite distance, so sharply drawn not a single spot of powder broke rank.

  Reggie hitched up the duffel bag on his shoulder. He moved with purposeful inelegance, scuffing his toes through the dirt and kicking up dry clouds, spitting and not watching where it landed. He slouched to home plate and threw down his bag with a thump, and did not look to see where the bats rolled, how many balls escaped and lost themselves in the backstop weeds. He coughed—an unnecessary sound that announced his presence as well as his disregard for those who might hear it—and wiped his palms across his shirt. He felt the heat of his armpits dampen the wispy hair that grew there.

  He grabbed a bat and weighed it in his arms. He experimented with a few half-swings, not knowing what he was looking for but nevertheless enjoying the search, and then tossed it aside and picked up another. Yes, this one would do.

  He palmed a ball and tossed it into the air and immediately lost it in the sunset glare. But he was a boy, he’d done this a million times before, and though blind he swung with assurance and felt the satisfying jolt of bat striking ball, and heard the distant thuds of it skipping across the infield and whisking through outfield grass.

  His ears, trained on the junkball diamond, calculated the thuds. This field was larger. Good, it should be. For five years, from a distance, he’d watched the impossibly tall and impossibly talented high school boys play here on weeknights and weekends—sometimes even during regular school hours, which amazed Reggie to no end—the offhand poise of their every catch and throw somehow more startling than that of the televised pros.

  Today the field was vacant. Too hot, Reggie figured, sweat sliding down his eyelids. No matter, he was here to play. Maybe the teenagers would show up later, in twos and threes, smoking and laughing and hanging all over each other, and then they’d discover him, some twelve-year-old kid who played like he was born in a dugout.

  Reggie turned around and reached into his bag for another ball. He found none and looked to the backdrop weeds, yet resisted getting on his knees to search for the balls surely hiding within. Instead he pulled his cap farther down on his head, and charged across the field, bat in hand. He’d find the ball he just hit, and smack it back across the field. The simplicity of the idea appealed to him.

  Why not? The summer was dying like a cigarette. Reggie could almost feel the months wear away like an arm or leg waking from a deep sleep, and the resulting tingling sensation drew his attention to his own body: baked brown, strong and quick. He would play here all night if he felt like it. Who
could stop him? He felt invincible and instantly knew it to be the truth. He was.

  He found the ball, picked it up, tossed it into the air, hit it. It rang against the batter’s-box chain-link. Before the ball even came to rest Reggie was charging at it, faster this time, grabbing for it, tossing it up again, feeling muscles clench across his back, a textbook swing. He went after it. He felt himself wear down to a series of meaningless repetitions, and it felt exciting and adult because he could perfect these repetitions if he wanted.

  There was nothing better to do. His grandest scheme had been ruined when James had lost the Monster. Even though Reggie had felt a peculiar sort of relief when he had found out, he still manufactured some resentment toward James, who had made the classic child’s mistake of falling asleep too quickly.

  And then there was Willie, who a few days ago found his way to the junkball field and made a scene in front of James and the other players. He yelled at Reggie for not inviting him along to steal the Monster. He made other weepy accusations about flashlight beams in his tree house, about being left behind for junkball, about being left behind, period. Reggie did not feel anger toward Willie as he led him aside and nodded for the other boys to go ahead, keep playing, this wasn’t going to take very long. Willie was wild-eyed, one-armed, his cheeks red, his balance precarious. Reggie said very little and tried to scoot Willie along his way. He actually pushed him in the direction of home, firmly but gently, feeling the twiggy fragility of Willie’s backbone beneath his shirt.

  Then James came to Willie’s aid and things complicated. Reggie had been expecting something like this from James for days. Following their failure with the Monster, James had shunned anything even remotely connected with fun, always went home before curfew, and talked about the upcoming school term like it was something he anticipated. Even getting James to the junkyard had been a struggle.

  Suspicions were now confirmed: James was on Willie’s side. There was silence from the boys as Reggie examined his feelings. It did not take long, as he found very few feelings at all. He told James to mind his own business and then there was shouting—Reggie could no longer remember specifics—about how you don’t abandon friends, treat them like garbage, stuff like that. It gave him a headache.

  So Reggie chose a remark that would shut James up: “When I saw your dad at my house, he didn’t mention anything about the Monster—if that’s what’s got you so uptight.” Reggie felt some regret speaking aloud these facts, though he was not sure why. He knew facts could not hurt you, not if you chose to ignore them. James, though, looked angry and confused all at once, and as a result could not act upon either emotion. James instantly faded back; Reggie felt serene; and then Willie came to James’s defense, roaring, spoiling everything.

  Nearly foaming, Willie leapt forward and hit Reggie, a girlish knock of knuckles against Reggie’s chest—nothing, really—but before Reggie could retaliate, Willie’s fist was back, this time against his chin, then nose, then throat, and though none of the blows was key, together they worked: Reggie was backpedaling, his arms were rising to shield his face. He felt Willie’s forehead thump into his ribs, felt hot spit tack across his cheek, felt fingernails rake down his side, and none of it made sense, this was not how boys fought. There was no method at all to Willie’s attack, if that was what it was, and Reggie gasped at the heat now rushing up his neck—why, he was scared. This feeling quickly turned into anger, for it reminded Reggie of a year ago, when he still cried over minor injuries, still felt sorry for himself that no one kissed his boo-boos. He was not that boy anymore—he knew it, he just had to remember it.

  He banked to the side, lifting his shoulder to protect himself, and felt Willie’s entire weight smash into his back; there was a wheeze from Willie and a surprised bleat from James. Willie’s arm wrapped around Reggie’s knees and he felt Willie’s arm-nub wedge inadvertently into his groin. More in disgust than anything else, Reggie made an instinctive hop to the right, and moments later both boys rolled their bodies through the dirt. Reggie, having two arms, was the first back on his feet.

  Willie hurled his arm at Reggie but the blow seemed to take forever; Reggie even had time to see the blood-brother scar that marked the center of Willie’s palm. Reggie made use of the moment. All right, there it was, easy—he saw just how to prevail. Reggie stepped to the right and struck Willie once in the chest. Willie coughed and to his credit immediately swung at Reggie again, but again Reggie shifted right and struck Willie’s chest, knocking him back. James made jerky movements in the background, like he was dying to get in there and feel the collision of bone yet for some reason could not do it. Willie snorted and hacked but kept coming, his knotted face now as disfigured as his body, but Reggie kept moving away from Willie’s remaining arm: to the right, right, right.

  After too many circulations spent swatting at the air, Willie at last landed choking and crying in the dirt. In front of all the other junkball players, it was utter humiliation: snot, tears, slobber, all cascading down his face and neck. Much too late, James found a small amount of courage and moved to Willie’s side. He lifted him, slinging an arm around his heaving body and pressing his cheek into the burning wetness of Willie’s own. Bound together, they limped away. Hours later, when Reggie himself left the junkball field, he knew something none of the other boys knew. He was never coming back.

  Reggie’s shirt was now a second skin, slopped to his torso with a bucket of sweat. He peeled it off with a snap and tossed it in the dirt. He hit the ball, ran after it. Hit the ball, ran after it. This was no longer junkball he was playing, this was baseball. No—it wasn’t baseball either, but something more, some military ordeal he could not bring himself to quit. He was not sure why. He felt his head spin. His lungs ached with each guzzle of air. His muscles trembled and threatened to collapse. It was torture, but inevitable and necessary, like rings through ears, ink into skin, the swallowing and heaving up of alcohol.

  His eyes stopped seeing. There remained a blur of dim light, but he operated now on his other senses, the smell of sweat, the troubled hiss of dead grass, the rotten texture of the tape wrapped around the bat. The narrower Reggie’s focus, the more confident he became in his strength and cunning. Brains did not mean memorizing lists of figures like James, or stupid strings of words like Willie. Brains were figuring out how to swipe the answer key from the teacher’s desk. Brains were figuring out how to ingratiate yourself with bigger and more powerful people, until you were the one big and powerful. That was what he was doing on this field, this field upon which no other kid his age dared tread.

  The rush of superiority was strange and wonderful. For so long he had felt that his abilities lagged behind those of James and Willie. He had met James in third grade, and the first thing he’d appreciated about him was his ability to take a punch. That’s right—he remembered it now. At recess, just beyond the monkey bars, where a group of older kids had held James in a headlock while his face grew purple. When James had finally dislodged himself there had been a flurry of blows and James had come away bloody. It was an expected series of events with expected results—the nurse’s office, an ice pack, the works—but instead James turned away, snorting the blood into his throat and spitting it out in forceful globs. Reggie tracked him at a distance, admiring each red splotch as they grew smaller and diminished into the blacktop. Reggie made contact with James that afternoon, and by nightfall they were friends.

  Reggie had known Willie even longer, since kindergarten. Back then they had been the same size, and remained that way for years. He remembered being on his knees in a playground sandbox, and how Willie had shown him how to construct fantastic underground labyrinths. He had loved Willie for that, and had continued to love him for the inventions he created in first grade (melted-chocolate tar pits for their plastic dinosaurs), second grade (faked UFO photographs using cardboard cutouts and clean windows), and so on.

  But as years passed, Reggie spent too many recesses indoors redoing botched homework, a
nd would locate James and Willie through the classroom window and feel twinges of resentment. What am I doing wrong? he used to think. Now he knew he had done nothing wrong. Because here he was, stronger, smarter, and fiercer than his two former playmates, and any remaining jealousy now turned into something closer to pity.

  Willie’s body had stagnated while Reggie’s had grown thicker and taller. Willie’s teeth had spread like petals on water, while Reggie’s baby teeth twisted out with force and blood, and replaced themselves with teeth stronger and larger. It now seemed to Reggie that Willie had lost an arm because it ceased to have any worth—it could not help Willie, so it withered away and died. Even Willie’s mind had lost its way, trapping itself within a loop of senseless wordplay. Reggie thought it would be sad when Willie finally realized all of the living that he had missed.

  James’s transformations had been less dramatic, but Reggie’s sharp eye noticed them all: his anxiety, his timidity, his obsession with a future already plotted out by his parents. Though physically James was not unlike Reggie, he could not make a move without tripping over one thought and blundering into another. Reggie felt again the finely burning point of his own focus and was thrilled.

  There were so many things he could no longer tell James and Willie: the blunt words of high school boys, the laughter and occasional touches of teenage girls, the satisfaction of a thick roll of paper money in his back pocket rather than the delicate jingle of pennies and nickels and dimes.

  Most of all Reggie could not tell James and Willie what he knew about Mel Herman. Weeks ago, Reggie had snuck back inside the school. He’d told no one, because he was no longer interested in their admiration. This time he had waited until just after sundown, then experimented with first-floor windows until one of them slid open. Once he was inside, the familiar isolating chill had gripped him, but he plunged through the darkness, telling himself it was like dunking your head underwater for the first time. Surely he’d resurface alive.