Fragile Beasts (5 page)

For the first time since Dad died, I realized what a loss it was for Bill, too. He and Dad did everything together. They were drinking buddies and fishing buddies. They watched football and NASCAR together and went to all of Klint’s games together. But probably most important of all, they hung out with each other almost every single night after Dad got home from work. The weather didn’t matter. It could be pouring rain or bitter cold or stinking hot, and they’d stand on Bill’s back porch, throwing back a few beers, shooting the shit, and bitching about life in the good-natured way of guys who don’t mind the problems because they know overcoming them gives them something to do.

The worst part about someone dying is his eternal absence. I’ll never see my dad again. I’ll never talk to him. I’m going to have a big hole in my life now that can’t ever be properly filled by anyone else. Maybe over time I’ll forget the feel and smell and sound of him, the same way I am starting to forget Mom, but I’ll never be able to forget that he should’ve been here.

All this funeral stuff—people dressing up, bringing casseroles and pies to the house, standing around casting pitying looks at me and Klint, whispering behind our backs—is meaningless to me. It has nothing to do with the reality
of Dad’s death. Even the casket sitting ten feet away from me has nothing to do with it. I know Dad’s body is inside it but he’s not. There’s not a man in there, just a corpse.

We weren’t allowed to see him. I don’t know who made that decision but Bill stood by it. No one’s going to see him again. It’s a closed casket.

Apparently as Dad’s truck was somersaulting down over the mountain while he was dying instantly, he crashed through the windshield, face first.

It’s the kind of detail Dad would’ve loved hearing if it had happened to someone else.

The funeral home director comes over and says a few words to Bill. He’s asking about Klint. I glance around behind me, searching for him, and catch sight of Aunt Jen walking through the doors holding a little girl’s hand. It takes me a second to realize the girl is Krystal. I haven’t seen her for two years, and she’s changed a lot. She’s taller and thinner, and her hair is lighter. It used to be really long and she always wore it in a braid down her back; now it’s cut to her shoulders and she has feathery bangs.

She’s wearing a dark blue dress and I want to call out and make fun of her because she always hated dresses, but the way she’s walking so straight-backed with a sort of snooty expression on her face makes me think she doesn’t hate this one. She’s clutching a matching purse in the hand that isn’t holding on to Aunt Jen.

I smile and wave at her.

She gives me a startled look, then squints at me like she’s trying to figure out who I am. Finally, she surrenders a little smile; it’s not the kind of smile I expected, but it is a funeral after all. I wonder how Krystal is taking Dad’s death. We used to talk on the phone. She used to talk to Dad, too, but about a year ago she stopped being available. That’s the way Mom always put it: Krystal isn’t available, like she was some kind of hotshot bank executive instead of a nine-year-old little girl with freckles.

They find Mom and just as they’re all sitting down together, Klint and Tyler come walking in.

Tyler takes a seat with the rest of the team and Klint strides up the aisle, not looking at anybody, especially not Mom, and sits down next to me.

I try to zone out during the speeches. They’re either too heartfelt and painful or too phony and disgusting for me to listen to. Dad would’ve liked some of them and would’ve laughed at others, especially the one from the
minister who hadn’t seen Dad inside his church for over ten years and probably wouldn’t have recognized him even before his face went through a windshield. He called Dad an “occasional Christian,” which I think was a nice way of saying he needed to tend to his hangover every Sunday morning instead of going to church.

I try to put my mind somewhere else, but all I come up with is thinking about the dead chipmunk Mr. B left for me this morning. I found it on the porch when the first lady from the casserole brigade arrived at the front door. She was standing as far away from it as she could get, and Mr. B was staring at her with his completely bored yet wholly alert cat gaze from his perch on his favorite tree branch. If she had gone anywhere near the chipmunk, he would have sprung to the ground and scooped it up in his mouth and trotted off with it, but there wasn’t any chance of that happening.

I let her in and as soon as she was gone, Mr. B joined me, purring ferociously and rubbing against my leg. I reached down and scratched him behind his ears to let him know I appreciated his thoughtfulness, then waited to see if he wanted the chipmunk for himself. He gave his paw a lick and walked off with a flick of his orange tail, which meant it was all mine.

I went and got a shovel and slid it under the limp little body and dumped it into the trash can. I used to bury everything he killed, but he would always dig it up and bring it back to me. Eventually I realized he expected me to eat it. The bodies were gifts. I could tell because he never purred so loudly as when he watched me encounter the latest clump of bloody fur or feathers he had left for me to find.

Even though my heart wasn’t in it, I always tried to look happy and make my voice sound pleased as I thanked him, just like Mom used to do whenever I’d give her one of my construction paper Valentines.

Klint tries not to pay attention to the speeches, either. At one point I think he’s fallen asleep, but he’s only staring intently at a blue bead sitting near his foot on top of the funeral home’s stiff mustard-colored carpet. I wonder if it came off a lady’s dress and if she was alive or dead at the time.

Finally the talking is over and everyone starts to get up. Klint and Bill and I are riding together to the cemetery.

I tell Bill I’ll meet him at the car. I want to say hi to Krystal.

I manage to catch up with her outside on the sidewalk where she’s standing with Mom and Aunt Jen.

“Hey,” I call out to her happily, maybe too happily under the circumstances.

I stoop down and hold out my arms.

“Aren’t you gonna give me a hug?”

She looks up at Mom, and Mom nods her head.

“Give your brother a hug,” she commands and Krystal does but not very enthusiastically.

“I almost didn’t recognize you. You look all grown up in that dress.”

She looks at Mom again, and Mom nods again.

“Thanks,” she says.

I’m beginning to get this creepy feeling that she can’t say anything to me without Mom’s okay. It’s a stupid idea. It wouldn’t make any sense but I can’t help feeling it.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask. “Just the two of us?”

She flashes Mom a look of panic. Mom shrugs and nods while she lights up a cigarette.

I take a few steps away. She hesitates, then catches up to me.

“You sure got quiet since the last time I saw you.”

She doesn’t say anything.

Her whole manner has changed. She doesn’t smile, and she’s lost her spunk. Maybe it’s all part of the growing-up process for girls but when I think back to girls I knew when I was ten, they were some of the bounciest, chattiest, craziest creatures I ever knew.

“So how do you like Arizona?”

“We have a pool,” she says flatly.

“That sounds great. If I had a pool I’d swim every day. Do you remember going swimming in the pond at the Hamiltons’ farm? You used to love to jump off the tire swing into the water. You used to scream so loud.”

“Our pool is clean,” she states.

“Yeah, well, I’m sure it is.”

I’m starting to get even more creeped out and also a little annoyed.

“So how do you like living with what’s-his-name?”

This topic wakes her up. She opens her eyes wide and throws her head back.

“Mom told me you’d ask that.”

“It’s just a question.”

“Jeff’s nice. Much nicer than Dad.”

Her words feel like a punch in the gut.

“You shouldn’t say stuff like that. Dad was always nice to you.”

The color starts rising in her pale cheeks. I hadn’t noticed before but her freckles are gone. It doesn’t make sense. They always got darker in the sun. After a summer of sitting on the steel bleachers at Klint’s games, they used to stand out against her skin like a spattering of cinnamon.

“Do you remember that time he wouldn’t let me go horseback riding with Ashley Riddle?”

I do remember because I had to sit in the backseat of a car with her for two hours while she cried and screamed about it.

“You were too little to go, plus Klint had the Dog Days doubleheader that weekend.”

She screws up her face triumphantly.

“He always loved you and Klint more.”

“That’s not true.”

“Mom told me you’d say that.”

“It’s not true. Dad loved you very much. He missed you like crazy.”

“Then why’d he kick us out?”

Another punch to the gut.

“Dad didn’t kick you out,” I cry. “Mom left.”

“Mom told me you’d say that.”

“I was there Krystal. I know what happened.”

I saw the look on Dad’s face when he found her note. I even saw the note. It said: “I’ve found someone else. Krystal’s with me. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave us alone.” She didn’t mention me and Klint at all. Dad left it sitting on the kitchen table for a week before Bill made him throw it away. Dad wasn’t embarrassed by it. He didn’t care who saw it. He constantly wandered into the room and picked it up and just held it. I couldn’t tell if he did this in order to make himself believe it was real or if it was because it was the last thing she had touched.

“You don’t know for sure,” Krystal says. “You only know what Dad told you, and he was a liar.”

I can’t have this conversation anymore. I’m starting to feel sick. I reach into the pocket of my suit pants and bring out her silver Barbie doll shoe.

“Here. I found this in the house. I thought you might want it.”

She takes it, looks at it, and flicks it away into the street.

“Thanks,” she says, “but I don’t need it. I have tons of new ones.”

“Krystal, honey.” I hear Mom’s voice.

She joins us and Aunt Jen slithers up alongside her. She’s dressed entirely in black: black shoes, black stockings, black dress. She’s got black liner around her eyes and has extra thick black lashes. Her hair’s pulled up in a big messy yellow knot with two black sticks stuck in it. She’s even wearing black nail polish.

“Where’s your brother, Kyle?” Mom asks.

I search the crowd milling around behind us, heading for their cars.

“I don’t know.”

“I need to talk to you boys.”

“Can’t we talk later?”

“We’re not going to the burial. Krystal’s too young to see something like that.”

Mom notices Bill and Klint and calls out to Bill.

He turns her way and she waves at him.

“Bill! Bring Klint over here.”

I wonder if Klint will come. So far his method of choice for dealing with Mom has been staying as far away from her as possible, but he surprises me by heading this way the moment Bill talks to him.

Bill ambles along behind with his rolling limp.

Klint arrives and stands at attention in front of her. When Dad died he fell apart at first because he was blindsided but now that he has it together, nothing will rattle him. Standing here in his dark suit and tie with his black shoes shined to perfection, he looks like he’s the adult who should be telling everyone what to do.

“I’m going back to Arizona in two days,” Mom announces from behind a veil of smoke, “and you boys need to be ready to leave with me.”

“You’re doing this now?” Bill asks.

“I don’t need any shit from you, Bill,” Mom snaps at him.

Klint laughs.

“We’re not going anywhere with you.”

“I told you,” Aunt Jen whispers to my mom.

“I’m your mother. Your father’s gone now, and you’re going to live with me.”

Klint laughs again. I know he’s not much of an actor so he must genuinely find her suggestion funny.

“We don’t have a mother,” he replies, all the humor suddenly draining from his face.

“I told you,” Aunt Jen says again, louder this time.

She puts an arm around Mom’s shoulders sympathetically.

“I told you what he’s done to them.”

The devoted sisters: they only support each other when they’re both fighting against someone else.

“You have to come with me,” Mom repeats. “You have no choice.”

Klint crosses his arms over his chest.

“Why is it so important to you? You didn’t want us before.”

“I did. Your father wouldn’t let me take you.”

He drops his arms and takes a step back from her.

“Your lies won’t work on us.”

He raises his hand and I see it trembling. He jabs a finger in the air at her.

“There’s no way you can make us live with you. We’ll run away. We’ll drop out of school and get jobs and live on our own.”

“You can’t do that. I’ll send the cops after you.”

“Send all the cops you want. Drag me back as many times as you want. I’ll die before I’ll live with you again.”

People have come to a standstill and are gawking at us.

“And so will Kyle. Right Kyle?”

“Huh?”

“We’ll drop out of school,” Klint repeats. “We’ll run away. We’ll die first.”

Everyone looks at me. Bill comes to my rescue.

He clears his throat and shifts his weight on his cane. I know his good shoes have got to be killing his feet.

He shakes his big shaggy head.

“I’m putting a stop to this right now. This is not the time or place to be having this conversation. Come on, boys. We have to get to the cemetery.”

We turn to go.

“Dad was a drunk,” Krystal pipes up in her high-pitched voice.

The hostility and inappropriateness coming from such a little kid makes us all stop and fall silent. Even Mom and Aunt Jen look shocked.

A mix of grief and revulsion passes over Klint’s face like he can’t decide if he wants to bawl or puke.

“Yeah, he was,” he tells Krystal while staring straight at Mom with tears glittering in his eyes. “And Mom’s a slut. One big happy family.”