The Whole Stupid Way We Are

by N. Griffin

“That’s neat, K. T.,” says Dinah. “Skint, even so, you can’t just take the stuff in here and give it away. People really need that food.”

  “Oh, you’re right,” says Skint. “What am I thinking? Giving food away in a food pantry?”

  “Skint!”

  “What?” says Skint. “I’m agreeing with you! Hoarding is clearly the rule of thumb here at Saint Francis! Hang on to donations until Bernadine decides a body is fit to have them. That’s the way God would want it, right?” Skint slams the lid of the freezer shut.

  “I’m going to eat this stuff later for snack,” says K. T., indicating his can.

  “Great,” says Skint. “Here, I’ll get you a can opener.”

  “Skint, you are twisting my words. You know I hate what Bernadine did, too!”

  “All I am saying is that withholding food would be in keeping with the ethics of this whole Food Pantry operation.” He stops and looks at her. “Bernadine’s part of it, I mean, of course.”

  “Tchah.” Skint knows as well as Dinah does who is the bottom line of the Food Pantry. Mr. Beach, church warden, that’s who. Skint may be feeling suddenly solicitous about her father and Dinah’s position, but Dinah is not. For once Mr. Beach is going to have to do something about that beastly Bernadine. “That’s the solution, Skint. This is my dad’s mess! He should be the one to clean it up!” Dinah wields her broom like a saber. “You can bet that I will be having a word with good old Mr. Beach,” she says.

  “Swell,” says Skint. “Then you and I can both have one with Bernadine.”

  “Why? Let my dad deal with her! He can fire her.”

  “This guy is a space guy,” K. T. says, and loops his ball through the air.

  “I thought he was a birdperson,” says Skint.

  “What?” says K. T. He spacemans his ball through the air. “Mneep, mneep.”

  “You just want a showdown, Skint. You just want to yell at Bernadine because you hate her.”

  Skint looks at her. “And you don’t?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Well, then!” Skint takes down Bernadine’s section of red cans and starts slinging them about into new groups. “Who organizes a pantry by aesthetics?” he cries. He looks over his shoulder at K. T. “That hash tastes like barf, K. T., but if you want to chow down—”

  “Skint!”

  K. T. has set down the can and is resting his cheek on the counter, marching his Super Ball along its surface. “This guy just landed,” he murmurs. “He’s looking around the planet.”

  “Here,” says Skint. “Let’s tuck that can in your pocket so you can have it for later.” He fits the hash into the pocket of K. T.’s coat. Then he sticks the can opener in as well. “You might as well take that, too,” he says.

  “Skint! Come on,” says Dinah. “Quit goading me.”

  “I’m not goading you!” Skint wheels back to the cans and heaves diced beets over near whole and tomato paste next to crushed.

  “Goats are nice,” says K. T. He bounces his ball gently in front of his nose.

  Dinah and Skint exchange glances.

  “They are,” says Dinah. “K. T., if you are bored, you can be the one to work the mop if you want.”

  “No, thank you,” says K. T., his eyes on his ball. “I just want to play in here a minute.”

  “Okay,” says Dinah. She bundles the fingertips of her left hand and Handcreature pecks at Skint’s head, hard.

  “Don’t be an ass,” says Skint, bopping Handcreature away with his hand, but she rears back up and fixes him with a glare.

  “Don’t you call people”—Dinah glances at K. T.—“things to do with a rear end! Especially when there is a small person here!” Dinah is relentless. Handcreature stabs at Skint’s knuckles in time with each word.

  “Assiness is not to do with a rear! It means like a donkey!”

  “Fine, then! I’m proud to be like Walter!”

  “Excuse me,” says K. T.

  “Quit it!” Skint begs, flapping his elbows at Handcreature, but she bites at his fingers all the more. Then Skint feigns left and grabs Handcreature tight in his hand.

  “HA!” roars Skint.

  “HEY!” roars Dinah.

  “Excuse me!” K. T. shouts between them.

  Dinah and Skint jump. Handcreature ceases her furious struggles.

  “Sorry, K. T.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You shouldn’t hit him!” K. T. cries.

  “It wasn’t really hitting,” says Skint.

  “More like poking,” Dinah agrees. “I’m sorry, K. T. We were only playing.”

  “He might hit you back sometime.”

  Dinah starts. Her eyes meet Skint’s over K. T.’s head.

  “I would never, K. T.” says Skint, looking into the little boy’s face. “Never, okay?”

  K. T. furrows his brow.

  “He wouldn’t,” says Dinah. “Really, honey, he wouldn’t.” Oh, K. T.

  “Is that what happens at your house, K. T.?” asks Skint gently.

  K. T. picks at the plastic seam of his ball and doesn’t answer.

  What do we do? Dinah thinks. What do we do?

  Skint releases Handcreature and puts his hand on K. T.’s head.

  K. T. looks up at him. “What I was wondering is, what is ‘goating’?” he asks.

  “It’s turning someone into a goat,” says Skint. “Giving them horns and hooves.”

  “You can’t turn people into animals,” says K. T.

  “No need to,” says Skint automatically. “We already are.”

  “What?” K. T. asks. His eye is caught by a box of Pop-Tarts Skint has positioned halfway between the breakfast and snack items. “Could I please have one of those?”

  “Sure,” says Skint.

  “Skint!”

  K. T. drops his ball. “My space guy!” he cries, and looks for it this way and that. He spots it and stoops to pick it up. “Whoo, whoo,” he sings, and sails the ball about the room.

  Dinah hides the Pop-Tarts box under her coat.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Skint says.

  Dinah’s stomach roils and she gouges at the floor with her broom. “Stop swearing with K. T. in here. And don’t be so mad the whole time!”

  “Why shouldn’t I be? Aren’t you supposed to be mad when someone’s an ass? And small-minded? And unkind?”

  Of course yes, but Dinah is too worked up to think what else to say.

  A piercing squeal sounds from the foyer.

  Skint looks questioningly at Dinah. “Beagie?” he asks.

  “Beagie,” she confirms.

  “What’s a Beagie?” asks K. T.

  “A bipedal puppy, functionally,” says Skint as Dinah answers, “My brother,” and punches Skint in the bicep.

  “What’s ‘bipedal’?” asks K. T. “I like how you use other kinds of words.”

  “Dinah!” That is her dad calling.

  Hating Skint, Bernadine and the rest of the world, Dinah thrusts the dustpan at Skint without a word and leaves, with plans to train Beagie up against him.

  In the middle of the big room, Mr. Beach clutches Beagan, who beams when he sees Dinah and tries to leap out of his father’s arms.

  “Yeeee!” Beagie cries.

  “Yeee!” Dinah cries back.

  “Stop encouraging him, Dinah!” Her dad looks grim. “My God, the squealing we’ve had all morning.”

  His words enrage Dinah, and, to judge from his ensuing howls, they enrage Beagie as well.

  It’s true Beagie screeches all the time, but he is only thirteen months old and can’t help it if he can’t talk much yet. He’s doing his best. Dinah never minds his yowling attempts at speech but other people do. Their mother, for instance. Mrs. Beach says she won’t take Beagie in to the Center for visits anymore until he’s got some more words to replace the screeches. Dinah thinks that’s nuts. How will Beagie ever learn to talk if they stop him from having people to practice on? Even though Dinah avoids the Center her
self, from all accounts, the people there love her brother. Besides, many of them are sort of deaf.

  Dinah reaches for the baby.

  “No,” says her dad firmly, holding him away. Beagie flaps his arms with rage. “We have to go, right now. I can’t bear to have to pry him off you. I just wanted to remind you two to remember to turn up the heat.” He winces as Beagie seizes his hair.

  Dinah beams approvingly at her brother. “That’s what you get, Mr. Beach,” she says, “for always sticking up for Bernadine! Wait till you hear what she’s done this time!”

  “What’s the matter with you? What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Bernadine is what I am talking about! Bernadine the . . . the Christmas Fiend!” she sputters. “You want to know what she gave the people who came to the pantry at Christmas? That three-year-old cod, is what! That grayed-out, rotted-out, freezer-burned cod!”

  Mr. Beach eyes widen. “What?” he asks.

  ”Yes! And guess what? The Christmas turkeys are still in the freezer!”

  “Dinah, are you sure about this?”

  “Yes!” says Dinah. “She’s hoarding the turkeys like a miser hoards gold! And here’s you, always defending her the whole time, you old Mr. Beach.”

  Mr. Beach’s brow is furrowed. “You’re positive? Not just assuming?”

  “Yes! We just were . . . cleaning out the freezer and we saw! And the meat parcels were flat at Christmas. Have a look for yourself.” Dinah stamps. “Do something!”

  “Hush,” says Mr. Beach, his brow furrowed. “I have to think.”

  “What’s there to think about? Fire her!”

  “Stop talking like you’re waving a pitchfork, for heaven’s sake. I said I need to think about it. Thank you for letting me know.” Mr. Beach shifts Beagie to his other arm. “Come along, Beagie, we need to get home.”

  “What!” Dinah explodes. “You aren’t even going to go in there and see?”

  “Calm down, Dinah. I believe you.”

  “Calm down?!”

  “Yes,” says her dad, and levers Beagie down toward her. “Kiss your brother good-bye.”

  “How can you?” Dinah kisses Beagie distractedly but rears back in revulsion as her father presents his own cheek. “How can you just let her do like that and then just keep going along, tra-la?”

  Her father withdraws his cheek. “Don’t be unfair. You know how much she cares for you and how much she does for this church. For people all over this town, for that matter, volunteering here, at the hospital, all over. You can’t not take the whole picture into account and I for one refuse to be hasty, even to satisfy my own ghastly firstborn. Come on, Beagan, darling.” Mr. Beach unpeels Beagie’s fingers from his eyebrows. “Time to go and feed you. Good-bye, Dinah,” he says and carries the baby out the door. Dinah glares. She does not say good-bye back.

  Calling Beagie “darling”—who cares if Mr. Beach is sweet with endearments when at his core he is a Bernadine-be-evil enabler who ignores his duties as warden? Her father is as awful as Bernadine.

  Skint is scrubbing down the counters when Dinah returns to the food pantry. The reorganization of the canned goods is nearly complete, each item arranged on the counter by meal or snack type, and alphabetized. K. T. is tossing his ball up and trying to catching it one-handed, over and over again. Sometimes he is successful.

  “Well?” Skint, still scrubbing, his back to Dinah. “What’s the verdict?”

  “Nothing,” says Dinah. “No verdict. He says I am unfair and that Bernadine does a lot for the church.”

  “Oh,” says Skint. Then: “Oh.”

  “He’s a wuss!” cries Dinah. “He wouldn’t—” She breaks off, staring at K. T. With one hand he tosses and catches his ball, it is true. But with the other, he delivers a rectangular pastry to his mouth at regular intervals.

  “Skint!”

  “What?” Skint takes in Dinah’s furious face and the torn foil wrapper that she has snatched up from the counter, which contains the mate to the Pop-Tart in K. T.’s hand.

  “Oh, come on!” Skint says.

  “What’s the matter?” K. T. asks, his face anxious.

  “Nothing, K. T.” It is not K. T.’s fault. He deserves to enjoy his Pop-Tart and Dinah does not want to wreck it for him. “I am . . . I’m only surprised that Skint and I still have so much more cleaning to do.”

  “I don’t like cleaning,” says K. T. and takes another bite.

  “Oh, I am with you there, my man,” says Skint.

  “Tchah,” says Dinah. Skint’s statement is belied by the sparkle of the counters.

  K. T. bounces his ball against the cabinets and Dinah takes advantage of his not paying attention to glower some more at Skint. Mindful of K. T., she keeps her voice at a furious whisper. “For the last time, giving away the food in here to just any old body does not punish Bernadine! It punishes the people who come here needing food! It punishes the wrong people!”

  “I don’t think the people who come here would mind that I gave K. T. a Pop-Tart,” Skint replies in his normal voice.

  “How do you know? Maybe someone is hoping for them specially,” Dinah says. “Besides, what if K. T.’s mother doesn’t believe in sugar or something?”

  “Sugar exists, man,” says Skint. “I have seen its evil ways.”

  “My mom believes in sugar,” says K. T. unexpectedly. “She has some. We bake with it. Today we are, even! I have my visit with her. I get to stay overnight and we are going to make cake.”

  “There,” says Skint.

  “We made a house out of cookies at Christmas. I like baking,” K. T. confides.

  “Me, too,” says Skint.

  Dinah fumes. K. T. turns his attention back to his ball.

  “What if my dad asks me about those Pop-Tarts?” says Dinah. “What if there’s some big Inventory check after all this goes down?”

  “I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble, Dinah,” says Skint, squeezing out his sponge. “Besides Bernadine, of course. And I really don’t imagine your dad is on the job at the level of the Pop-Tart.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean!” The urge to punch Skint in the sternum is overwhelming. But K. T. is staring at her with eyes big as dishes. He wipes his nose on the shoulder of his coat.

  “You guys fight all the time,” he says.

  Skint’s chest rises and falls but he forces a smile at K. T. “We don’t really,” he says. “Not really. Are you too hot in that coat, K. T.?”

  “Yes,” says K. T. “But I’m not allowed to take it off because of if it gets lost.”

  “I’ll hold it for you,” Dinah offers but K. T. shakes his head no.

  “I can’t. I lost it for a little while last night and my dad was mad.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Dinah and Skint look at one another. Dinah hugs K. T.’s shoulders and fumbles with the Pop-Tart box.

  Skint squeezes out the mop and begins on the floor.

  “Maybe my dad will reconsider,” says Dinah hopelessly.

  “Right,” snorts Skint. “Maybe he’ll kick her ass from here until next Tuesday.”

  Dinah slumps over her broom.

  The door to the pantry swings open. A tall man in a windbreaker stands in its frame. It’s Mr. Vaar, K. T.’s dad.

  “K. T.” Mr. Vaar nods to Dinah and Skint, who nod back. “K. T., what are you doing in here? Where did I tell you to wait for me?”

  “Hunh?” says K. T. He loops his Super Ball over the countertop in long, slow arcs. “My space guy has balloon boots on. He does big bounces to go where he needs to.”

  “How fitting,” says Mr. Vaar. “A fellow space cadet for you.” He gives a short laugh and winks at Dinah and Skint, who look coldly back at him.

  “K. T.,” says Mr. Vaar again.

  K. T. wafts his ball over the countertop.

  “K. T.!”

  “Dude?” Skint says to K. T. “Your dad is talking to you.”

  “Hunh?” K. T. looks up. “This guy can fly,” he tells Sk
int.

  “Cool,” says Skint. “Better than space boots if there are parts of the planet he can’t stand on.”

  “Someone’s going to get a space boot in the ass if he doesn’t start paying attention.” Mr. Vaar emits another laugh and looks knowingly again at Dinah and Skint.

  Dinah hates him. Skint’s face is implacable as he turns back to K. T.

  “K. T.?” he says.

  K. T. turns around. He sees his dad and smiles. “See my space guy, Dad?”

  “I see two. I also see that you disobeyed me.”

  K. T.’s smile fades.

  “I see that you chose to come in here and play some little game rather than do as you were told.”

  K. T.’s cheeks grow red.

  “Where did I tell you to wait?”

  “In the foyer,” he mumbles.

  “In the foyer. Is this the foyer?”

  K. T. stares up at him.

  “Is it, K. T.?”

  “No.” K. T. shakes his head. He blinks.

  “No,” says Mr. Vaar.

  K. T. blinks some more. Dinah moves toward him but Mr. Vaar puts up a hand to stop her. “I’m talking to him,” he tells her. “Don’t you start with the crying, K. T. When I’m doing things here, your job is to do what you’re told. Last night I could hardly concentrate on my singing with you running all over the place. I can’t do my best when I have to worry about you getting in everybody’s way.”

  “He wasn’t in our way, Mr. Vaar. He was just visiting,” says Skint. “He was helping us.”

  “I wasn’t helping!” K. T. cries, surprised, his cheeks and eyes red. “I was playing space guy!”

  Mr. Vaar yanks at K. T.’s arm. “Get over here,” he barks. K. T. stumbles and drops his Pop-Tart, which shatters on the floor.

  “Hey!” says Skint. He pushes himself off the counter.

  Mr. Vaar cuts a look at him. “It never occurred to you to find out where he was supposed to be?”

  “We knew you were here,” says Skint. “Fixing the roof.”

  “So you thought you’d just hang on to him where I couldn’t find him?” Mr. Vaar glances at the Pop-Tart on the floor. “And feed him a crap snack without getting permission?”

  K. T. looks down at the Pop-Tart with chumped-up cheeks.

  “I don’t think a Pop-Tart is so bad, sir,” says Skint.