gods with a little g

by Tupelo Hassman

  And we aren’t having any fun.

  The Dickheads aren’t themselves. There is no yelling, no punching, no daring. There isn’t even very much belching. Rain is not saying a word, just hugging a fifth of vodka she brought for herself, and Winthrop is quiet too, though he smiles when the Dickheads talk to him about getting ripped at the farm. “It’s like a 24/7 gym,” Bird says, more than once. He says it in a way that doesn’t sound like he is calling Winthrop out for his weight, but also like he can’t think of another good thing to say. Because there isn’t any.

  The tire yard is so quiet we can hear Eddie’s keyboard clicking in his office as he taps away doing what, nobody cares.

  Sissy finally throws herself down on the couch and says, “Someone at least make a fart.” And even though there is still beer left, we start packing up.

  CHAMPION OF THE WORLD

  If you are a fighter, your past is right there in your fist, no palm reading required. And as everyone is saying goodbye to Winthrop, giving him a sock on the arm or a fist bump or whatever, Bird’s past unfolds straight from the life line he keeps wadded up in his fist like it’s some garbage he forgot to throw away.

  * * *

  Bird says to Winthrop, “Hey, man, seriously, don’t worry about anything out here. I’ll take care of Hell.” It’s an actual nice thing that could not have sounded less nice because it is coming from him. Because it is about me.

  And Winthrop says, in the loudest voice he’s used all night, “Thanks, Spencer.”

  Bird was already headed for the door, as eager to get out of a moment of kindness as most people are to get into one, but when Winthrop says this, he stops.

  He isn’t leaving now. No one is leaving now. The heavy silence falls again with a thud, trapping us all under its weight, and Bird turns around. Comes closer.

  Everybody steps back.

  Except Winthrop.

  “What?”

  “I said, thanks.” And here, Winthrop takes a breath. And as he lets it out, he loosens his tie. “Spencer.”

  Wham.

  Pow.

  Shazam.

  The tire yard is a comic book of sounds as Bird punches Winthrop in the face. Not once. Three times. And Winthrop doesn’t flinch.

  Not once.

  And then Bird stops punching. Which is one of your more surprising moves when you are giving someone an ass-kicking.

  “What, now?”

  And Winthrop says, through the blood pouring from his nose, he says, “Thanks. Spencer.”

  And we all sit down. Wherever we’ve been standing, our bags in our hands. We sit.

  And Bird hits him again. Once in the face, twice in the stomach.

  And Winthrop doesn’t move or fall or vomit. And he doesn’t hit back.

  Which is when things get really weird. So weird that even Eddie comes out from his office. Because Bird, instead of laying into Winthrop now, finishing him off, he starts hitting slower. He stops between hits. Pauses. Like he and Winthrop are having a conversation. A whole relationship is happening between and inside the punches, between the fingers tight in Bird’s fist, between the blood that drips onto Winthrop’s stomach from his face.

  “What’s my name?” says Bird.

  “Spencer.”

  “What?”

  Winthrop clears his throat now, spits blood onto the cement. Says two names, more slowly than before, more clearly, so there can be no mistake. “Spencer. Doncaster.”

  Fast Eddie shakes his head. He goes back into his office, comes back out, passes out beer. Free of charge.

  You’d think we would do something. Or, you’d think we wouldn’t, because we are Dickheads and live for this, because we don’t actually care about anyone, even each other, but that’s not it. We don’t do anything because we do care. We are following the Golden Rule.

  As the beers open all around, the sound of them cracking open is mixed with the sound of Bird asking, “What?” over and over again. The sounds of punching, panting. And then something else. A moaning, a whimpering. But the moaning isn’t coming from Winthrop.

  Bird has started to cry. There are tears rolling in his sweat and then, instead of asking, “What?” he pounds into Winthrop and starts asking, “Why?”

  With each punch.

  Why?

  Why?

  Why?

  Aside from his stomach rippling under the hits, Winthrop doesn’t move. It’s like he was born for this. Like he could stand there for days, forever, or at least until the sun rises and it is time to leave for juvie with a police escort.

  And finally, Bird just stops. He stops hitting.

  He says, “Why?” not really to anyone. Kind of to himself.

  And that’s when Winthrop says, like he planned it, like he broke into Bird’s house and sat in his secrets when he wasn’t home, played with them, and then put them back just like he found them. Like he knows.

  “Because fuck you, that’s why.”

  * * *

  Mo goes up to Bird and kind of grabs him then, before he can punch Winthrop some more or fall over or whatever it is you do when someone takes you apart and then hands you the pieces. Spencer Doncaster, no matter what he is trying to pretend with that nickname he chose for himself, is never going to be able to fly away from here the way his daddy did.

  Even so, Mo looks at me like it is my fault as she walks Bird out. And so does Rain as she wipes Winthrop’s face with paper towels and they go through the door.

  And as I hear the Lost City Bread van pull out of the parking lot, so do I. I look at myself that way too.

  THE GOLDEN RULE

  Beat other people the way you would like to be beaten.

  LOVE IS A DOG FROM HELL

  I have the curtain open so I can see when Winthrop turns the corner.

  He has Pen with him. I thought if he brought her, I would hear her first, but she is quiet. They make a perfect pair, big and slow and terrifying, especially now. Even in the streetlight, I can see where Winthrop’s face is crumpled and red from the beating.

  “I talked her into being quiet,” Winthrop whispers. And when she sees me through the window, she doesn’t moan or make the polite throaty barks she has started making to let me know she is pleased to see me and would like some scratching around the ears. This dog can really follow orders.

  And we’re all quiet. I don’t know what to say. I answered the phone on the first ring, and not because I was afraid of it waking Dad or Iris but because I had so hoped he would call that I basically had my hand right on it. When Winthrop heard my voice, he only said, “Bedroom window,” and when I heard his voice, I was too relieved to ask why.

  I know the questions to all the answers I want but I don’t know if I can say those questions out loud. Does he hate me? Is he scared? He has to be scared. He doesn’t have to hate me.

  He knows the answers to all the questions I have. Could I write to him? I’ve already asked, he’s already said no. But I say it anyway, “I want to write to you, Winthrop.”

  He shakes his head. Looks away.

  “I’m obviously no good at reading between the lines, Helen.”

  Ouch.

  You know that feeling when you stub your toe against the leg of the bed and you want to scream and fall down and hold yourself but it’s the middle of the night and the house is quiet and it was your own stupid fucking fault in the first place so you just hold your breath and kind of limp along?

  I feel like that.

  Maybe Winthrop can tell that I want to collapse on the floor now and rock myself back and forth until the pain goes away, because he adds, “I told Rain no letters either. I just want someone to help her take care of Pen while I’m gone and”—he looks down—“your aunt said you should do it.”

  “Aunt Bev?” Like I have another aunt, but that’s not what I mean. He’s talking to Aunt Bev and not me? Getting her advice? I suppose she’s going to write to him. “You guys talked?”

  “You’ll watch Pen?” but it isn’t a
question and he turns to go and this is worse than toe-stubbing, that this is how he wants to say goodbye.

  Pen leaps for the window then, her front paws pushing into the screen’s edge, pushing through it to rest on the sill. I tear the screen up so I can rub her head. “I’m coming to see you, Pen, every day, every single day.”

  When she jumps down I leave my hand out in the night air. “Winthrop.”

  And I stretch my hand out farther as he walks away.

  TIRED

  Without Winthrop at the tire yard, it isn’t the same. Like reading porn alone, it isn’t fun. And when I get home all I want is to get the smell of Fast Eddie’s out of my hair. I thank all the gods of Rosary, from Dad’s to Aunt Bev’s, for the small miracle that no one is in yet. Dad is at his men’s prayer group, Iris is shopping, and there’s no Bird.

  I run a bath. I find Iris’s lavender oil and I use two drops, refill it with two drops of water so she can’t tell. Just as I’m getting in, I hear Bird come home, and of course he’s not alone. Mo is with him. I can recognize Mo’s voice, from the way it is with him, just him, only used to respond, to mirror, to say back to him whatever he might want to hear. I can hear the hair twirling around her finger. I can hear her performing this version of girl she does so well for him. I lower my ears into the water and stare at the faucet in the silence I find there, perform my version of not giving a fuck.

  But then the water ripples. There’s a pounding. Bird is knocking on the bathroom door.

  “Piss outside,” I yell, without lifting my head, but the pounding continues, and I rise up so I can hear.

  “Hell, for chrissakes, Mo has to whiz,” Bird is yelling, but he isn’t mad, he’s laughing. Probably because Mo is about to pee her daisy dukes.

  When I get up and unlock the door I open it wide so Bird can watch me climb back in the tub. I hear him say to Mo, “You know what to do,” and then she giggles again.

  She isn’t looking me in the eye even more than usual.

  “Sorry,” she says, breathy, as she pulls her shorts down.

  “Just hurry up,” I say. But she doesn’t hurry up, or she can’t go. The bathroom is silent.

  She sits there. I sit there. Bird turns on his stereo. Maybe the noise will help her pee.

  Finally, a dribble, and just as it starts, she moans softly. “Fucking burns.”

  I sink my ears below the waterline again, focus on our reflections in the faucet. Tiny Mo reaching for the toilet paper, tiny Mo pulling up her tiny shorts. Tiny Helen drowning herself to not think about Bird inside of Mo and how he’s tearing her apart, making her swell up so peeing burns.

  I never realized how jealous I was of Mo, of her being with Bird without thinking twice about it, of her being with Bird without thinking at all. There used to be this empty feeling when I thought of her, the way she would stare into space when we were kids, her finger tracing the blue flowers on Mom’s miniatures. The empty space she left when her mom took her away. But now there’s this, this feeling of her here, in my bathroom, back here in my house. The birds her brother tattooed, three tiny letter v’s, like a child would draw, flying away now from the fire burning in her crotch. Everything about her screaming the story of how the small army of God her mom was trying to raise went AWOL.

  As she closes the bathroom door she actually waves at me, a little tiny wave, and I sink my head all the way under the water and hold my breath. Then I move my hand down, around. In circles. Faster and faster. I make some waves of my own. There isn’t enough water to make it so I can’t hear Bird’s headboard hitting against the wall, even over the music, so I keep time with it. Then I pull the plug up with my toe right as my fingers stop their mad circles and let the lavender water fall away from me. I grow heavier as the water circles down the drain and my heartbeat slows. I grow colder against the tub as the water kisses me goodbye.

  HOUND

  Iris had been out buying feta cheese for the monstrosity she made us for dinner tonight and when we sit down, Bird says, “It smells good in here.”

  “Thank you, Spencer.” Iris is more than usual like a pageant winner when she gets compliments on her cooking, or thinks she does.

  He looks at his plate, moves the sausage around with his fork. “Not this. This smells good too, but I’m smelling, I don’t know, flowers?” And he looks at me. I used two drops of Iris’s lavender oil, there is no way he could smell it, but it was on the counter when I opened the door for Mo. Or maybe he can actually smell it on me. Like a dog.

  Iris is not paying attention to us. As usual. “That’s my new scent.” She actually uses the word scent. “Summer Bonanza.”

  “That must be what it is, Ma,” Bird says, and winks at me. “Summer Bonanza. And this smells good too, I worked up a real appetite this afternoon.”

  Iris hears what she wants to hear. “Thank you, honey.”

  Bird moves his knee against my thigh under the table and Iris fades into the background like a runner-up showing she is a good sport.

  WAITING

  Bird. Me. No Winthrop. No Rain. Mo comes in and Bird buries her on the couch. I don’t feel like a beer anymore. I go to Aunt Bev’s and have iced tea. I swear off Fast Eddie’s.

  WAITING

  The next day at Fast Eddie’s, Rain is trying to swing, arm over arm, across the top rack. Cy and Sissy are betting on whether she’ll make it or not. Bird and Mo have their tongues deep in each other’s faces and I’m betting on whether I can stand another minute of this before I set a match to Fast Eddie’s couch and join Winthrop at the State Home for the Care and Nurturing of Young Sofa Arsonists.

  IDLE HANDS

  If I were going to put Fast Eddie out of everyone’s misery, I would do it slowly, take my time. Rub him raw with the dull edge of shame. I know Eddie’s secret, and not because Aunt Bev told me, not because I saw it on the big screen behind my eyelids. I found out this secret from some plain old-fashioned detective work. Which is to say, on accident. And I spied on him.

  * * *

  I am running over to the tire yard, the one I have sworn off visiting, I’m trying to get there early and pound one beer before the Dickheads arrive, so the only one who gets to see my tits is Eddie. The others are rolling in later and later and Eddie has started letting them close up without him. Things are changing. It’s like we all decided we were grown-ups a long time ago and now actual grown-ups are starting to agree with us. Some of them, anyway.

  Today, the side door is locked, and I am just jumping down the steps to go around to the front when a car pulls into the lot. I shrink down behind the steps, frozen. I don’t know why, what I’m afraid of. That it’s the mail delivery and someone would report back to my dad? The USPS has eyes everywhere? But I hide, and when the car’s engine turns off, no door opens, and everything is quiet for too long, I peek my head around the corner, just peek, and see Fast Eddie there in his champagne-colored Buick. Or what used to pass for champagne but is all flat now, dull as the morning after.

  This isn’t his usual parking spot and he isn’t acting like his usual self. He is still behind the wheel, staring at a picture he’s holding in his hand. The other hand has hold of something else. I can’t see, but I can guess by how focused he is that he’s jerking off. Or trying to. First Cy, then Mrs. Gillespie, now this. I want to make a joke here about things coming in threes, but I’m too distracted by whatever Eddie is doing in his car.

  I don’t know if something is wrong with his dick or with the picture in his hand, but there is something wrong with Fast Eddie’s face. It’s like he’s constipated, he is trying so hard. It is pretty horrible to watch. Which doesn’t mean I stop. And it doesn’t really seem like it is worth the effort, if you ask me, but Eddie finally gets things to work, his body takes over, and when he’s done he rests his head back for one moment, just this second of peace. He slides the picture up under the visor.

  And then Eddie takes one finger and he dips it into the palm of his other hand that is holding whatever dusty mess he man
aged to squeeze out and he smooths his cum above his head, onto the roof of his car. Like Michelangelo and that painting. A masturbation piece.

  As Dad is so fond of reminding me, judge not. Lest ye be totally weirded out.

  When Eddie gets out of the car, finally, I shrink toward the wall, hoping he won’t come around and see me and know that I know whatever it is, in fact, I now know. But he goes around toward the front.

  Which frees me up to do a couple of things. I could wait a few seconds and then knock on the side door, just two feet from me, go inside, and have a beer as planned. I could walk around the corner and hop up on the bay, jump on the door with the Dickheads as they pull it down, act like nothing has happened. Basically, I could try minding my own business. Or, I could pull that picture from the visor of his car and see what all the fuss is about.

  * * *

  It is a formal portrait from one of those mall studios but instead of the golden imprint of the studio in the corner there’s a name, Heidi Momoca Laine, and the dates that bracket a life, 1974–2013. She is pretty and earnest but everybody looks earnest in these stupid portraits, earnest as the fall leaves in a golden pile behind them, or whatever backdrop they’ve chosen, the starry night, the calm sea. The big lie.

  Heidi’s skin is the color of the cinnamon-and-sugar donuts that sell out at the Donut Hole early every morning. She is wearing a purple blouse and her black hair falls silky and neat right to the pearl buttons on the collar. Her hands are set before her, folded in a completely unbelievable way, I can almost hear the photographer suggesting this pose, clicking away, and then I recognize the gold band on her ring finger. I’ve seen it on Eddie’s own pinkie. I don’t think I ever knew Eddie’s last name before. I never really thought about him having one. I never really thought about him at all.