Elsbeth was going to leave him. The revelation was like the dull ache of the flu coming on. Maybe not tonight. Maybe not even this year. But her unhappiness, her discontentment, was beginning to swell. It was like a cancer, some poisonous thing that was growing, and he worried there might be nothing he could do about it. She was teetering at some terrible precipice, but instead of grabbing hold, pulling her back, he’d been standing there dumbly watching her, waiting for her to fall. He knew he needed to do something.
The sky had warned him, but he hadn’t heeded its admonishment. And so now, as he walked the two miles back to the house, the wind and rain were merciless. Punishing. By the time he walked into the midnight kitchen, his flannel shirt and jeans were heavy with rain. His hair was drenched, and his shoes were soggy. He peeled off his wet clothes and dried off as best he could, but as he crawled into bed with Elsbeth, the thunder scent of him (of the sky he carried in, in the anger that still thrummed in his chest) woke her.
“Kurt?” she muttered. “Were you walking again? In the rain?”
But instead of answering her, he just pressed his body against hers, enclosed her. Held on tight.
He dreamed about a train. About the bright headlights of a train racing toward him, about his legs once again failing him as he stood paralyzed straddling the tracks. The ground rumbling under his motionless feet. The whistle screaming in his ears. He dreamed the blinding light and deafening sounds.
“Kurt, it’s your phone,” Elsbeth said, pulling him from the tracks and back into the soft nest of their bed.
His heart was pounding in his chest as the world came sharply into focus. He grabbed the cell phone from his nightstand, and struggling to focus on the screen. It was Maury. It was five
A.M.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Kurt, you better come over real quick. It’s Jude.”
He listened to Maury explain what had happened and then Kurt hung up and got out of bed, yanking on his pants, which were still wet from his walk in the rain.
“What’s going on?” Elsbeth asked, sitting up.
“Pop’s in the hospital,” he said. “He’s had another stroke. Maury found him this morning. He was lying on the bathroom floor since yesterday.”
T
revor planned to tell his mother he wasn’t feeling well, that he might even throw up. It was true. Every morning for weeks he’d woken up feeling like his guts were tied in knots. But today especially, his stomach was cramped and angry. There was no way he could go to swimming lessons today. No way he could deal with one more morning of Ethan and Mike taunting, teasing, the girls in his class giggling, the small new kid, Rudy, laughing at him. The chlorinated sky even seemed to be mocking him with its brightness, its smug placidity.
He knew that whatever was going on with his stomach probably had to do with Ethan and Mike. It was like all the anger in him was turning his intestines into a knotted fist. And the longer he let them harass him, the tighter the fist inside him became. He knew that eventually something would have to give. He was a head taller than both of them; he was stronger. He could hurt them if he wanted to. He could hurt them really badly. And without Mrs. Cross around to put her foot down, without someone to stop him, he was afraid of what he might do.
It was early, just past seven, and his father was backing an old trailer into the backyard. As the sun rose, Trevor watched his dad carefully maneuvering the trailer into the spot where the oak tree used to be. Pop had been in the hospital for two weeks but he was getting out today, and he would be staying at their house. Well, not exactly at their house, there wasn’t room for that, but in this trailer on their property. Until a spot at the nursing home opened up anyway. He knew from his parents’ hushed discussions at night that until somebody at the home moved or died, Pop would be living in their backyard.
Like white trash,
his mother had said when she thought he wasn’t listening. And Trevor thought about all the work they’d done on Pop’s house, all the trash they’d cleared away only to have this happen.
He’d heard his parents arguing every night for the last two weeks. He’d covered his ears with his pillow, but still, somehow their words found their way in. Ever since Pop’s stroke, and his father announced that Pop would be staying with them, she’d been acting crazy. She was always, always angry now. Not just at him. She was mad at Kurt. She was mad, even, at Gracy.
Earlier that morning, Gracy had reached across the kitchen table for the sugar bowl, and she’d knocked over her glass of orange juice. It spilled all over the newspaper, and all over his mom’s pocketbook, which she’d left there. It dripped down onto the floor, under the table, where it made a puddle around the legs of the chair.
“Jesus Christ!” she’d screamed, startling them both. “Why do you have to be so clumsy? You have to pay attention, Gracy. Watch what you’re doing.”
Gracy, who Trevor was pretty sure had never been scolded before in her life, crumbled. Her face fell, her lip quivered, and her shoulders shook. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to hug her, to let her know that the world was just upside down lately, that his mother hadn’t meant it. But this expression was so new, so horrifying and strange, he quietly grabbed his camera (which had escaped the flow of orange juice) instead. But when his mother realized what he was doing, she’d yanked the camera out of his hands and slammed it down next to the sink.
“Just stop it!” she screamed. “Goddamn it. This isn’t
normal
. You shouldn’t want to take pictures of this. If I catch you doing that again, I’m getting rid of the camera. I will take it away. Do you understand?” Her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. “If you do anything, anything at all, it is gone.”
Trevor nodded and tried not to think about how much her words hurt.
Normal
. What was wrong with his pictures? Mrs. D. had said he was an
artist
.
“Do you have your suits on?” she asked them. They both nodded. Gracy’s eyes were red, and snot was running from her nose. “Your towels are in the dryer. Gracy, come here so I can wipe your face.”
“I don’t feel well,” Trevor tried, as his mother dabbed at Gracy’s nose with a paper towel. “I don’t think I can go to swimming lessons today.”
His mother turned on her heel and glared at him. “Christ, what’s the matter with you now?”
He felt his whole body aching. His stomach was lurching inside his body. What
was
the matter with him? If he could figure that out, then maybe he could change it. Make it better. He shook his head.
She came over to him and pressed her wrist hard against his forehead, then yanked it away. “You’re fine. And besides, we don’t have any choice. Your dad’s working this morning and then dealing with Pop this afternoon. I have to work. If you feel bad, tell your teacher and she’ll probably let you sit out. It’s just a few hours. Can you do this for me?
Please?
” She looked a mess. Her hair was stringy, and she had dark circles under both eyes.
Trevor nodded, his stomach throbbing now. Bile rising sharp and acrid in his throat, turning into hot tears in the corners of his eyes.
At the pool, Mike was sitting at one of the picnic tables eating chocolate Pop-Tarts, looking at some sort of comic book or something. Ethan was nowhere in sight. Trevor prayed he was sick today. Without Ethan, Mike usually left Trevor alone. Trevor dropped Gracy off at her class and then slipped quietly into the boys’ locker room. He pulled off his T-shirt and shoved it into his backpack, hung the pack inside a locker, and put his towel around his shoulders. He took a deep breath and turned to leave.
“Hey, faggot,” Ethan said, shoving into him with his shoulder.
Trevor’s stomach pitched. He tried to keep walking, but Ethan was pushing against him, hard, pushing him back toward the wall of lockers. He resisted, but Ethan had momentum. His breath smelled like bubblegum as he got in his face. “I should kill you,” he said, sneering.
Trevor clenched and unclenched his fists. He thought about his mother, insisting that he come today. Her threats to take away his camera. What would she do to him if he fought back? If he just punched Ethan Sweeney in his face? What would his father do?
“And if I kill you, then you’ll go to hell with all the other faggots.” The word,
faggot,
made Trevor think of bloody Styrofoam trays, of tiny white worms crawling in and out of gray meat. It made him think of garbage and decay. It made his stomach turn.
As Ethan pushed him harder against the wall, he could feel the metal locker handle pressing into his back. He felt nauseous with the pain, sickened by the thoughts of rotten meat, disgusted by the scent of Ethan’s hot Bazooka breath in his face.
Mike came to the doorway then, as if Ethan had sent him some telepathic signal, and Trevor was overwhelmed with terror. Outside the lifeguard’s whistle blew shrilly, and then there was nothing but the watery sounds of summer: kids screaming and splashing, their joy deafening. He was alone. No one would hear him if he cried out.
Mike started walking toward them, and Trevor felt his stomach clench. Mike laughed, throwing his head back, and Ethan pushed harder. The metal hook dug into Trevor’s kidney. His whole body throbbed with the pain.
“What’s the matter?” Ethan said, feigning sympathy. “Am I hurting you?”
Trevor shook his head even as tears sprang to his eyes. His stomach hurt so badly he could barely breathe. He clenched his muscles together, suddenly aware that his bowels were intent on releasing. It was unstoppable. Unbelievable. He was
shitting
himself, the heat of his feces traveling down the back of his leg.
They didn’t notice at first, and then Ethan recoiled at the smell.
“Holy crap!” he said, letting go of Trevor and jumping backward.
“Did he just
shit
himself?” Mike asked, mouth gaping, his own wad of gum like flesh on his tongue. “What a freak!”
“That’s what happens when you let somebody fuck you up the ass,” Ethan said. And then they were gagging and covering their mouths, racing to the doorway. “God, that is so disgusting!” Then they were gone, the laughter echoing off the cinder-block walls.
Trevor ran into one of the bathroom shower stalls and pulled off his soiled trunks, rinsing them out in the cold water of the shower and then putting them on again, watching as his excrement finally disappeared down the drain. Sobbing, he let the shower soak him, chill him, numb him. And then he stayed inside the locker room, knees curled to his chest on the cold concrete floor, until he heard the final whistle announcing that it was, finally, time to go home.
K
urt kept telling Elsbeth it was just temporary, that as soon as a spot at the nursing home opened up, he’d be moving Pop out of their backyard. But it had been three weeks already with no end to this in sight, and in the meantime, they were living like some sort of hillbillies, the trailer Kurt towed home from the salvage yard taking up half their backyard. And despite the second stroke, Pop was still,
somehow,
managing to fill the trailer up with crap, and it was starting to spill out onto the backyard. She’d had enough.
That morning, she was doing the dishes when she looked out and saw Jude tossing a grocery bag full of something out his door. It landed next to Gracy’s swing set, and something metallic tumbled out. Lids. A hundred sharp tin lids. Livid, she’d dried her hands and stormed out the back door. Jude had already disappeared back inside the trailer, and so she banged on the flimsy door. Hard.
She could hear him moving around inside. For a guy who had two strokes, he sure was pretty mobile. The door creaked open on rusted hinges.
“Morning,” he slurred.
Since the second stroke, his speech had gotten worse. It was difficult to understand much of what he was saying. But she didn’t need him to talk; she needed for him to listen.
“Jude, I know you’re in some tight quarters out here. But I need you to keep the backyard clear. This is where Gracy plays. When you throw your trash out here, it’s dangerous. She could get cut on these,” she said, bending down to pick up a lid.
Jude swayed in the doorway, his head bobbing. He hadn’t gotten dressed yet, and his ratty bathrobe revealed the scar on his chest. Kurt said it happened in Vietnam, his badge of honor, but looking at it, at his pale sunken chest and that raised river of flesh that ran through it, made her turn her head in shame.
“Recycling,” Jude said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s for the recycling. Kurt said to put it by the door.”
Elsbeth took a deep breath, thought about the way he’d chucked the bag out the door and into the yard.
“Well then, you won’t mind if I take it to the
recycling bin,
” she said and picked the bag of lids up. Most of them were still filthy, sticky with baked beans or tuna or whatever the hell else it was he ate. The recycling place would never take these.
Elsbeth turned on her heel and stomped around the side of the house where the trash cans were and dumped the bag in.
She hadn’t always felt this way about Jude. Back when she and Kurt were first dating and then later married, she and Jude actually managed to mostly get along. They used to spend Sunday afternoons at Jude and Loretta’s house. Jude called her “E-beth,” rustled her hair, and when she was so pregnant she couldn’t see her feet, he’d bring her glasses of lemonade mixed with iced tea. That was back when Kurt’s mom was still alive, before she got sick. She had brought out the best in Jude. She wasn’t sure if there was a best in Jude anymore. When she died, everything went to hell: Jude, the house.