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SINISTER

11.

I really wanted a beer. The craving made my chest tighten and forced me to clench my teeth. I dropped Garren off at Taco Grande, then drove home with my stereo blaring. I passed the exit that would take me back home and drove south, speeding toward Colorado Springs. If I couldn’t have alcohol, I could at least feed my other addiction – music played so loud the windows should’ve shattered. I didn’t drive far, just enough to get my fix. It was still daylight when I got back home and the house was full of warm cooking smells.

“What’cha making?”

My mom had something simmering in a black pot and a green mound of sliced peppers on the chopping block beside her.

“Spicy bean chili,” she said. “Your dad used to call it – .”

“Cowboy caviar.”

Sometimes she remembered him with a fondness I couldn’t comprehend.

“I talked to him today,” she said. “He asked me if you’re mad at him.”

“I’ll call him tonight.”

“Yes, you will,” she said, “right after you retype your paper for Mr. Creedy.”

That soulless little man… He’d ratted me out.

“I’m done retyping the paper,” I said and reached for some green pepper. She stopped my hand before it even got close.

“You don’t type that fast.”

“Well, it’s still done,” I said.

“So you made Garren type your paper?”

“No.”

“Anthony.”

“Of course not!”

She stared at me.

“He offered,” I said.

“Are you going to take Garren with you to college?”

I don’t want to go to college, mom. If I do, I’ll spend all day in my dorm room writing songs while I’m drunk and you’ll hate me for failing you. You’ll hate me. I almost said it.

“Can I?”

“Go call your father,” she said.

“I’ll talk to him later tonight.”

She gave me her look. She’d used that look when I was seven, casting it a moment before spinning me around by the arm and wailing on my bottom with a wooden spoon. The spanking had stung my pride more than my backside, but she’d programmed that look deep into my psyche. I still jumped when she gave it. I’ve always thought that must have been her intention.

Garren’s piece of shit guitar was still on the floor, a wooden corpse in its casket. I stared down upon it. The neck was barren and because it had no strings I could see gouges in the wood, tiny places where its previous owner had pressed steel strings so hard he’d ground off the rosewood. The neck was almost scalloped between the 9th and 11th frets. Guess he liked the key of C-Sharp.

I thought about Garren then, and the way I’d found him in my room earlier, on his knees and leaning over the guitar. Last night, when I’d been drunk, I’d touched that cracked wood and heard music, bright and wicked. But I dismissed it. It was audible junk, a trick my brain played on me because I’d soaked it in beer.

I thought about Garren’s thought on souls, too. It was like him to think that trees and rocks had souls, the goof. I knew from his answer that he’d thought about it, too. He’d probably written all about it in one of his journals. He’d never be one of the cool kids and it was all because of the way his mind worked.

He’d also said, “…That’s why it’s okay to kill them.”

And that grated on me because I never thought he’d be one of the dangerous kids either.

“Anthony!”

My mother could yell from the kitchen and scare birds off our roof.

I hollered back, “What?”

“You dad’s on the phone,” she said. “I dialed for you. Pick it up.”

I looked down at the guitar again. She looked back at me with one volume-knob eye, her silver mouth agape. I sat on my bed and grabbed the phone.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Where you been, junior?”

I hated the nickname he’d given me.

“Just busy, you know.”

“I hear that,” he said. “Between school and girls there’s not much time for anything else. Am I right?”

“Ha! I wish girls were keeping me busy.”

Then I heard a noise, a distinct tick.

“Good looking kid like you, I bet your mom’s beating them away with a stick.”

The tick tick returned, almost like an old wind-up clock, but not as regular.

“Nah,” I said. “It’s just – .”

Tick.

It was the sound of something hitting glass.

“What’s that?”

I leaned over to check my window. Then I got off the bed and on my feet because red wasps, more than a dozen of them, were dive bombing the windowpane.

“You still there, son?”

I watched one of them make a long, half-circle then aim for the glass. It collided with the window hard enough to make the tiny noise I’d heard. It didn’t die from the collision, just bounced off and upwards as it regained its balance. It flew off, probably to try again with more speed.

“Dad, I gotta go.”

“What? I haven’t heard from you in a month and all I get is two minutes?”

“A family of wasps is building a home outside my window.”

After a beat of quiet he laughed at me.

“Still scared of little things with wings? Maybe that’s why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Ha ha ha, you’re hilarious. Talk to you later.”

“I’ll see you at your graduation.”

“Okay.”

“I wouldn’t miss that for a millions bucks.”

“Okay, bye.”

He told me he loved me and I disconnected before I thought to say it back. The wasps circled outside my room. I took a few steps towards them and leaned forward to look outside. I saw more of them burrowing into the windowsill, red insect bodies squirming against white paint, crawling into a black crevice in the wood. Gooseflesh broke out all over my back and I hurried back downstairs, the phone in my hand.

“That was a short conversation.”

“What the number to maintenance?”

“Why?” She transferred the cowboy caviar from the pot to a glass bowl. “What did you break?”

“I didn’t break anything, Mom. There’s like a swarm of wasps outside my window.”

“What?”

“It’s getting late and I don’t want them flying around that close to my head while I’m trying to sleep.”

“I don’t think you’ll get a hold of anyone right now,” she said. “We can call them tomorrow. What’d you and your dad talk about?”

“Girls,” I said. “You’ll call them first thing in the morning?”

She smiled, patient with my hatred and fear of creatures with wings and stingers.

“First thing,” she said.

“They’re building a nest,” I said. “I’m sleeping in the living room until they’re dead, just letting you know.”

“That’s fine. So you talked about girls? What about them?”

“I don’t know, nothing really.”

“What else?”

“Mom, we don’t have a lot to say to each other. We don’t have anything in common and we barely know each other anyway.”

“I know this,” she said, nodding. “You know what else I know?”

“What?”

“You need him more than you think.”

“So where are you going tonight?’

“Alumni planning party,” she said. “It’s a potluck.”

I pointed at the bowl, now covered in silver foil. “Did you leave me any?”

“Enough for a king,” she said.

* * *

As soon as my mom left, I jogged into the woods to Dane and Bomar’s. It was dusk and none of their lights were on. The door was locked, but a piece of paper was folded into the screen. It had my name on it.

What up, alcoholic? We’re gigging in Denver – left you something in back.

I trotted to the back of the house. A small cooler, white with a blue lid, was on the porch next to the back door. I popped the lid off. Dane had left me 3 shooters of Jack Daniels and three cans of generic soda.

“Thank you, Dane.”

I popped the first can open, poured out about half and replaced it with whiskey. Then I guzzled as much down my throat as I could before my lungs ran out of air. I took a deep breath, chugged the rest and burped. The belch tasted like sugary and was sticky like booze. I liked it. Warmth blossomed inside me, settling me, granting me instant comfort.

Jack Daniels, I knew, had been my dad’s favorite whiskey when he was drinking. I bet she didn’t remember that as fondly as she’d remembered him calling her chili cowboy caviar. I had to laugh about it as I sat down and prepared the second drink.

“You need him more than you think,” she’d said.

We’ll see about that, I thought.

I savored the next drink, taking it down in short gulps instead of two long swallows. I hadn’t had a lot of mixed drinks, but I liked this one. Sugar and brown soda slipped inside me quick and easy.

Had my mom known how much of the father was alive in the son, I thought, she’d have been really disappointed – and probably frightened, as well.

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