BLACK STATIC #41

by Andy Cox

  Tom kept staring where Peter had pointed. “I don’t know.”

  “What’s it like to be a retard?”

  “Shut up!”

  Peter reared his head back. “Oh, you want to wrestle?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Peter put his hands on his hips, above his bare legs. Raised his jaw confidently. “Assume the position.”

  “What? Now?”

  “Assume it.”

  Tom obediently got down on all fours. The younger boy climbed on top of him, wrapping his bare legs around Tom’s waist. “Giddy-up, little horsey!”

  Tom struggled, but by giving Peter the superior position, even his tallness and being a year older didn’t help. Peter easily wrapped his bare legs around Tom’s throat, choking him, then forced him over onto his back. After that, both boys knew how the wrestle would end. Peter easily pinned Tom down on the attic floor, sat on his chest. “Say it.”

  Tom, wrists held down, Peter’s bare thighs alongside either side of his face, dominating him, looked up at the younger boy’s smug face, far above. “Uncle.”

  Peter slid his hard weight off Tom. Reached down, slapped him across his nose. Tom’s face scrunched, but this time he didn’t object.

  Tom and Peter walked home from school, passing back and forth a cigarette Peter had hidden in his front pants pocket.

  Tom looked down at his expensive sneakers. “My dad told me I have to try to fit in.”

  “My mom told me that, too.”

  Peggy caught up to them at the street corner, clump of azalea bushes to one side. Blue eyes, freckles. Looked at Tom. “Hey!”

  Peter made a face. “What do you want?”

  She ignored him, walking in front of Tom. “You’re in my Chemistry class.”

  Tom brightened. “Yeah, I saw you there. You’re really smart.”

  She tossed her long blonde hair. “I know the symbols for all the different elements. I think I’m probably the only one in class who does.”

  Peter slapped Tom’s nose. “Let’s walk down this street. I want to tell you something personal.”

  “No. I want to walk this way, with Peggy.”

  “Tm is Thulium.” She winked at Tom. Put her hands behind her head, pearl buttons on the front of her white blouse rising, sliding her eyes to the left.

  “Do I have to beat you up in front of her?”

  Peggy snorted at Peter. “I don’t think you’d stand much of a chance.” She bugged her eyes at Peter. “Tom’s taller and older.”

  “Yeah? Let’s see.”

  Peter reached up, slid his forearm around Tom’s throat, yanked him down to the sidewalk.

  Peggy stepped back with a squeal, small hand over her lips.

  Tom struggled under Peter’s weight to get a handhold on Peter’s armpit, to flip him off, but as he tried to balance himself under Peter, the younger boy slipped his thigh between Tom’s.

  Both boys struggled, faces grimacing, to gain the upper hand over the other.

  Before, Tom would have easily won. But now, after so many times of assuming the position, giving into Peter, he felt his torso getting twisted over under Peter’s superior weight.

  With a bang, Tom’s back landed on the sidewalk.

  Peter climbed on top of Tom’s body, triumphant. Locked his muscular legs around Tom’s neck. Started squeezing. “Say uncle!” He easily held down Tom’s flailing hands, squeezing his thighs even tighter around Tom’s neck.

  Tom reached out his hand, not to grab Peter above him, but to try to reach his finger out to the dirt just beyond the sidewalk. The finger managed to draw three sides of a square in the dirt before Peter’s thighs yanked him back to the center of the concrete.

  Tom, defeated, croaked out his surrender.

  Peter, lying across the sidewalk, thighs still wrapped around Tom’s neck, looked up at Peggy. “Still think Tom’s stronger?”

  Big blue eyes. She shook her head, smoothing her hands down her hips.

  “Watch this.” Holding down Tom’s wrists, Peter sat on top of Tom’s face. Farted.

  Peggy’s blonde eyebrows jumped.

  Peter farted down onto Tom’s struggling face again, looking up with a smirk at Peggy.

  She tossed her hair, bright red color atop both her cheeks. Distractedly lifted her hands up to behind her head again, but this time pointing at Peter. Giggled.

  Peter let Tom go. Got to his full height, slightly shorter than Peggy. Crooked his finger at her. “C’mere.”

  She followed obediently, into the green clump of azalea bushes at the street corner. Peter motioned to Tom to join them. “I want you to watch.”

  The three of them hiding within the azalea bushes, hearing cars pass by, Peter lay on his back. Pulled down his red pants. Pulled down his white underpants, letting out the rigid length.

  Peggy got down on her hands and knees, lowered her mouth to Peter’s cock. Bumped it between her lips, into her warm mouth.

  She started sucking.

  Peter lay his head on the dirt, like a king, flop of brown hair across his forehead, both hands on the back of Peggy’s bobbing head, knuckled fingers prominent, staring up at Tom from around his big nose. “Is this your first date with your girlfriend?”

  •••

  Friday morning at breakfast, Tom asked his dad if he could sleep over Peter’s house.

  His dad chewed on the remainder of his power bar, washed it down with the rest of his orange juice. “Do you like Peter?”

  Tom blushed. “What do you mean?”

  His dad pulled out, from between the buttons of his white dress shirt, the wideness of his red tie. “What do you think of his mom?”

  Tom, confused, tilted more of his cold glass of skim milk into his mouth, buying time.

  “She’s pretty cool, huh?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You’ve probably noticed I’ve been spending a lot of time with her.”

  Tom said nothing.

  His dad, at their stainless steel dishwasher, put his empty orange juice glass upside down in the top rack. “Do you miss not having a mom to come home to?”

  Tom jerked up his head. “Is mom coming back?”

  “Well, not your original mom. But what if you got a new mom?”

  “Like who?”

  “Like, for example, Lisa. Would you like that?”

  Tom lowered his head. “I don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t.”

  “Well, it’s something to think about.” His dad pulled out the vibration in his front pants pocket. Looked at the lit screen. “Tom, I just want the best for you. You’re my son. I love you.” He looked around at their new kitchen. “Maybe having a two-parent home again will help you. I have to take this. That’s fine if you sleep over Peter’s. But no horror movies. And don’t go on any Internet sites on his computer that aren’t kid-friendly.”

  •••

  “Know where your dad and my mom are right now?”

  Tom, sitting on the edge of Peter’s bed, looked over at his friend, who was sprawled, legs spread apart, against one of the pillows. “No.”

  “They’re at a hotel downtown. Know how I know that?”

  Tom shook his head. Scrunched his eyebrows under his crew cut. Using his right forefinger, he secretly drew a square, with four squares inside, on Peter’s white bed sheet.

  “I saw all these receipts for hotel rooms in my mom’s purse. They stay at the Hyatt Regency Columbus.” Peter watched Tom’s face absorb the information. “They get room service so they don’t have to leave their room. Last Friday, my mom got a chicken breast dinner, and your dad got a filet mignon dinner. They shared a buckeye cheesecake. Plus there are charges on the bill for porno movies.” Peter kept watching Tom’s face. “What do you think they do in that hotel room all night?”

  “How would I know? I don’t work for the FBI.”

  “Your dad’s putting his penis in my mom, and maybe putting it in her mouth too, like I did with your girlfriend Peggy.”

&nbs
p; “She’s not my girlfriend anymore!”

  “Maybe your dad’s even putting his penis in my mom’s butt. I heard a rumor that it feels really good to have a penis up your butt. It feels the same way peppermint candy tastes.”

  “I seriously don’t think so.”

  “Want to see something?”

  “What?”

  “The ghost that lives up in the attic? It’s been active.”

  Peter led Tom back up the attic stairs, Tom’s eyes big and fearful.

  Peter crooked his little finger, leading Tom behind the huge red-brick chimney in the middle of the attic, its rise slanted to one side, like the leaning tower of Pisa.

  Behind the chimney, on the rough wood floor, the little brown dog that roamed the neighborhood, wagging its tail, easily tricked by putting your thumb between your ring finger and your index finger.

  The dog was dead.

  Head cut off. His small brown body, red rim above the shoulders, lay by the bricks, four legs curled inwards, as deflated as shrimp legs. A yard away on the wooden floor, his tall-eared head, pink tongue lolling, black eyes staring.

  “The ghost did that. I discovered it when I came home for lunch.”

  Tom put his hand to his mouth. “No way.”

  “Yeah. I told you the ghost is an angry ghost, but now he’s gotten really angry.”

  Tom looked around the attic, looked behind his back. “What’s he so angry about?”

  “The ghost doesn’t like that you and your dad might be moving in here. He likes it where it’s just me and my mom. He asked me, if he did something to you and your dad, something like what he did to this puppy, would I get over it? Would I be willing to find a new friend?”

  Tom looked spooked. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him, yeah, I would.” Peter leaned closer to Tom, upper arm against Tom’s upper arm. He lowered his voice to a warm whisper. “But I was lying to the ghost. I had my fingers crossed behind my back. I wouldn’t kill you. Or your dad.”

  Tom was shaking.

  Peter slid his arm across the back of Tom’s shoulders. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

  “I can protect myself!”

  “No, you can’t. Look what the ghost did to this little dog. Only I can protect you. Let’s go downstairs and get in bed together. We’ll be safer there.”

  They lay together in Peter’s bed, under the blankets, in their pajamas.

  Tom had never been in bed with another person before. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

  “We have to hold each other. Lay in my arms.”

  “No!”

  “Do it, or it’ll get you, just like it got that puppy!”

  Tom, scared, let Peter put his arms around him. Put his arms around Peter.

  “Let me check to make sure the ghost isn’t in your pajamas. Ghosts love to play in boys’ pajamas.” Peter put his hands between the buttons of Tom’s pajama top, onto his bare chest, pinching his nipples. Slid his hands under the waistband of Tom’s pajama pants, feeling the insides of his bare thighs.

  Tom swung his head around on his pillow. “I don’t like it!”

  The bedside phone rang.

  Peter pulled his big right hand out from under Tom’s waistband, lifted the receiver. Listened. “Okay.” Listened some more. In a high voice he said, “I love you.” He hung up. Slipped his hand back under Tom’s waistband. “That was my mom.”

  “When’s she coming home?”

  “She’s not. She said she’s staying over her girlfriend’s, to bake enough funeral cakes for tomorrow’s block party. But we know what she’s really doing. I think your dad had his penis inside my mom’s butt while she was talking to me.”

  “I doubt it!”

  “So it’s just you and me tonight.”

  Tom drew square after square under the sheets. “Well, I guess we should just go to sleep now. My eyelids are really heavy.”

  “Maybe not just yet.”

  “Did you say something? I was asleep.”

  “Lift your rear end. I want to slide this plastic sheet underneath your body.”

  Tom lifted his rear end. “Why do you want to do that?”

  “Are you kidding? Ghosts hate plastic. You didn’t know that? Seriously? Ghosts are really old-fashioned. Plastic is too modern.”

  “I may have read it somewhere, but I wasn’t sure it was proven.”

  “Oh, it is. I’m going to put my knife blade against your throat, but that’s only to protect you, so I can cut the ghost if it tries to climb in your mouth.”

  Tom rolled his head back, panicking. “It hurts! It hurts!”

  “That’s something about my mom, huh? She pays for the hotel room? She eats chicken, while your dad gets to eat filet mignon? She’s pretty fucking desperate, huh?”

  Tom rolled his head further back on his pillow, sucking air through his nostrils, to keep his throat off the sharp line of the blade. His eyes bugged. “Is that your penis? Why is it so sticky?”

  Peter came back from his own thoughts. “I rubbed some unguent on it. That’s how the ghost tries to control you, by touching your penis. The unguent makes your penis slippery, so its hands slide off.”

  Eyes squeezed shut, Tom started to blubber. “Will you take the knife blade away from my throat? Please? Please?”

  “Maybe not just yet. She’s kind of a cunt, huh?”

  “Please!”

  Peter looked at his bedside clock. It wasn’t even nine yet.

  He glanced up at the white ceiling. “Oh, no!”

  “What? What?”

  And hours and hours and hours left before his mom came home.

  •••••

  This is Ralph Robert Moore’s third appearance in Black Static. Recently published stories of his can be found in the anthologies Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Journeys into Darkness, Of Devils & Deviants, and forthcoming in Darkest Minds. His website SENTENCE at ralphrobertmoore.com features a wide selection of his writings, and includes purchase information on his novel As Dead As Me plus short story collections Remove the Eyes and I Smell Blood. Rob lives with his wife Mary in Dallas, Texas.

  EQUILIBRIUM

  CAROLE JOHNSTONE

  I just want to feel. It’s as though I’ve forgotten how; as though my skin has become shrunken and ossified, my internal organs indurate, my thoughts polished marble. I sit and I breathe, I sip warm water from the plastic jug by the bed, I hold his hand, and I can feel none of it.

  “How is he today?” I ask the nurse through numb lips, and there are no vibrations inside my chest, my throat when I speak.

  Her smile is kind, wary, distracted. “He’s comfortable.”

  I stand up and look down at his paper thin skin and the slow, blue blood beneath it. I stroke the hard/soft curve of his bald skull and pretend that I can feel it: the warmth, the downy fuzz that is nearly white. He once had beautiful dark hair that was silky smooth to the touch, long enough to grab inside fists.

  “You’re going already?”

  I try to smile at the nurse, but am not certain I succeed. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” I say.

  •••

  It’s very quiet at home. Sometimes I start to believe that I can no longer hear either, but I know it’s not true. My stony heart thuds slow inside my ears. I make myself eat some dry toast before I turn on the computer again, though I have no appetite. Mostly I forget to eat; other times I cram my belly full of everything and anything until I’m sick, and only then do I remember to stop.

  I log onto the site, but I don’t check my profile. I go straight to his. His photo smiles with straight, white teeth, and he’s standing on top of a daisy-sprung hill, his dark hair blown over his forehead. Immediately, his name pops up in the small window at the bottom of the screen. ManlyBeardMan. The first time he made contact, the name made me laugh when I thought nothing ever would again.

  ♂ Hey! Where u been?

  ♀ Sorry

  ♂ Bad day?

  I look at his p
icture again. I’m so wary, always so wary of getting it wrong.

  ♀ Just tired

  There is too long a pause, too long. I try to ignore my panic because it doesn’t help, but I stare at the blinking cursor inside that small window at the bottom of the screen. I wait for the electronic beep of severed contact. Sometimes it comes out of the blue, when I’m smiling and mid-flow and nearly sensate again; other times hours pass in kind or funny or even flirty exchange until I forget to be cautious. There is no pattern, no learning curve for my mistakes. I always vow not to be the one to give way to these silences, but my need for connection, my need to feel again is too great, and so I nearly always do. The silence presses in around me until I can’t even hear my stony heart.

  ♀ I want to hear your voice

  Am I allowed to say that? Allowed to ask it? I don’t know. But I need to hear something, I need to hear him. And my vision has grown blurry; I can hardly see his smiling face anymore.

  ♂ Next time

  •••

  “He had a bad night,” the nurse says, looking at me carefully. She doesn’t know what to make of me; none of them do.

  I sit carefully down next to the bed. He’s connected to new bags, new machines. The crooks of his elbows are punctured purple and framed a sallow yellow. Micropore wraps around the needle in the back of his hand, but it can’t hide the dark, congealed blood between cannula and gauze. His arms and wrists are still big, still covered in dark hair, but underneath pale and translucent, running with that slow, blue blood. I kiss his temple and his eyes open, dark and shot through with crimson thin threads. His face is swollen with steroids, nearly as unrecognisable as mine.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “Hi,” I say, letting his dry fingers curl around mine because I can’t feel their squeeze. “Are you in any pain?”

  He tries to smile, but soon gives up, dry lips trembling. “No.”

  It strikes me suddenly how different we’ve become. He seeks only anaesthesia, while I long for the return of pain, of any kind of feeling at all. “I’m glad.”

  His eyes become momentarily sharp. As do mine; long enough, at least, to see it.