Double Stroller

Her neighbor asked if there was something wrong. Like what? With that one. His eyes and all. His head it flops. He has been checked out?

He has been checked out.

Her babies sat in a double stroller made by Swiss, an engineering marvel really, its frame hollow yet strong like bird bone. But the babies perched inside had a few kinks: Sal in shotgun with his eyes and all, his lolling head; Michael bringing up the rear, bug-eyed and fetal. Both cautiously bundled, tiny bodies wedged in a nest of blankets.

Their neighbor was from some South American country too war-torn for tact, though she made the most wonderful watermelon punch. She pointed to the back. “He is the healthy one?” The mother nodded. Right. It wasn’t obvious. “That’s good,” she said. “You can give the other one away.” She smiled sweetly. It was a condolence.

The mother tried to smile back. “I love both my babies,” she said. She sounded convincing. It was true.

“Of course,” their neighbor said. She leaned over and pinched Sal’s cheek. “Cute.”

Jesus. Mary. Joseph. “Say bye-bye,” the mother told her babies and pushed forward. Go back to the hut you came from, she wanted to say, though her neighbor said the husband had been in government, an exile. Maybe he murdered people. Or gave them away to be murdered.

Down the block, children hit a blighted tree trunk with cardboard swords covered in tin-foil (hi-ya!), the silver flaking into the grass. A yard over, kids played keep-away with a foam football, a whimpering child darting back and forth between her tormentors. Good if her babies were never that. Don’t run. Don’t even walk.

The mother had wanted these babies so bad, wanted to be a mom. She waited patiently for her husband to finish med school, and when he dropped out, they started trying. It took two years and one miscarriage, but it finally happened. She taught the new girl how to feed numbers into the computer and would cut back her hours when she got closer. Then at work she pissed her pants. God, she’d never hear the end of it. What else could it be? It was too soon. And then.

Feed the numbers through again. This can’t be right.

She had walked with her friends and their babies and knew the protocol: how people fawned and humiliated themselves, suddenly fluent in some idiot dialect. But when they saw her babies they paused. Their eyes darted up (I’m sorry), then back down. They chose their words carefully. How cute. There was something wrong.

She pushed them along the uneven sidewalk. It needed repaving. The Swiss should’ve made shocks. They can’t think of everything. She didn’t want to be crying when her husband came home. On the phone to his mother he’d said post-partum. He’d said tough time. But it wasn’t like she didn’t have a reason. And he was far from fine. When he got home he smoked cigarettes on the deck as if he’d rather go off by himself and get cancer. She didn’t want to think about it. They were babies. They cooed and cried. Shit machines. But they were supposed to come with working parts.

Her husband wouldn’t show her Sal’s brain scan, but she saw the dark patch, the gray petal. It was behind her baby’s eyes. The doctor said it was the worst bleed he’d seen, as if she should be proud, as if her baby was already so accomplished. Maybe vegetable, the doctor said. Could be a cabbage in the front seat. The mother was a gardener. She would lay him in the soil, cover him in peat moss, and wait until he grew into something else. But her husband said the baby was plastic. His brain would grow back if given enough. Wait and see. She’d shake the rattle in his face. Grab the ring. Straighten those eyes. Say: No, I can’t do that yet.

When she got them home, she’d lay them down on knitted blankets. Michael’s left eye would start to drift, going lazy as he tired. She’d snap her fingers in his face and he’d blink, steadying his pupil before it wandered off again. Where do you think you’re going? Might self-correct, the doctor said. Might not. Every morning she crossed her fingers. Wake up straight. Not you too.

But for now, she pushed them down the block. They were hers. She had to practice.

Ramp

It was uneven. As soon as he drove home the nail, he knew. The boards didn’t kiss up against each other. He had measured carefully. Used math. Carried the one. Double-checked. Watched countless hours of This Old House. His calculations, the very laws of the universe, said these boards should conform. And still, there was a bump.

She would complain. Not right away. She’d say she loved it and walk down the ramp to the sidewalk and up again, pushing Sal in his new wheelchair. She’d say, ‘VIP entrance,’ or something. His wife knew he could do it, even though she said to hire a guy. But the father was right to build the ramp himself, because they were tight on money, and he’d taken shop in high school. He’d watched a kid saw off his finger, which rolled in the wood dust like another scrap. He wasn’t exactly skilled, but he also wasn’t that kid. He’d do the moonwalk down the ramp and up again. She’d laugh and kiss his cheek. She might even forget about it. Then, days or weeks later, she’d trip, or Sal would catch a wheel on the crooked board, or Michael would trip (he was clumsy as hell), or she’d just plain notice it often enough, and he’d come home to her mad. But it was too late to fix.

“Shit,” he said, and looked up. His kids were watching from the front stoop. Sal was safe. Sal wouldn’t tell a soul. Mum’s the word for Sal. But Michael was bound to repeat it in the way a four-year-old specialized: Shit. Shit. Shit, he’d sing. The kid stared at the world through those wide-open bug eyes. He still looked shocked to be alive.

She’d parked them out here so she could take a power nap. It was her idea to start the daycare. She felt guilty about staying home, and they needed money. Selling medical supplies wasn’t exactly hauling it in. But now, by the time he got home, after dealing with Sal and Michael and those pint-sized terrorists, her nerves were frayed. She lay on the floor with her feet on the couch. She was too young for her back to hurt like that. With this ramp she wouldn’t have to drag Sal up the steps. Sal sat in his new chair. He was higher up now from the stroller, and he swiveled his head from this new vantage. You could tell the chair made him feel important. Michael’s hand rested on Sal’s handle. He kept touching it. The kid wore those overalls. The father didn’t know why she dressed him like a train conductor.

Their neighbor peeked out of her curtain. It was 6:30. He waved the hammer, which seemed both friendly and threatening, the tone you had to take with her. Uno momento por favor. It was getting dark. His knees ached. He was almost done.

“Michael, can you hand me another nail, buddy?” Michael looked into the shoe box. “One of the big ones.”

Yesterday Michael asked why Sal was in the chair. They were waiting for it, thought they were prepared. But they stammered. What could they say? What’s the right answer? He was in the chair, because he’s not in the stroller. Ha-ha. But that’s not what the kid wanted. The father knew the medical reasons. He saw the scans. He was an almost-doctor, and they paid him the professional courtesy. Periventricular bleed. The motor neuron was almost completely wiped out. Little pockets of cell death throughout, Sal’s brain like Swiss cheese. He couldn’t tell that to his wife. So he said we’ll see. He noted recent studies on brain plasticity and made fun of the doctor’s Australian accent. The doc had said vegetable. He had actually said that. Thanks, mate. The scans translated into cerebral palsy, into mental retardation, but Sal was growing into something else that smiled, that tracked you with his soft eyes, that laughed when you burped. Still they waited for Sal to steady, to stand, for his moans to make words. Say: No, I can’t do that yet. Or ever. So what do you say? How do you tell and how do you answer? His wife spoke first, said something about God and luck. Good enough. Look at the time. No more questions. Let’s play airplane. This is your captain speaking.

Michael was kneeling now, raking his little hands across the metal. He was having trouble, too. They watched him for signs. Michael had run into a screen door and bounced back. His wife said clumsy is not a disability, but the kid took it to a new level. They should probably start playing catch, but he’d get a baseball in the face. Yet, the kid hit all the milestones, if on his own sweet time. He was on the lower end, but still typical, which almost made it worse. He was a constant reminder of what Sal wasn’t doing. In the lab, they would call him the ‘normal control.’ If this was an experiment, which it wasn’t.

“Buddy, it’s the biggest one. It’s right there.” The father could see the nail he needed. Michael’s hand was on it. Grip it. Grab the freaking nail. He dropped the hammer. He breathed. Be careful with the boy. One wrong word. Who knows what he’ll remember?

The boy plucked out the nail and lifted it over his head like a crackerjack prize. “You got it!” the father said. Thank God. The boy walked down the boards and handed it to his father, who settled the point at the pencil mark. He still had to put up railings and stain the wood, but the ramp itself would be done, bump and all. Good enough. “Ready?” he said. He raised the hammer.

Trick-or-Treat

Michael kneeled over Sal and pinned down his wrists, mock-socked him in the gut and jabbed him in the sides until Sal was soundless and shaking, until Sal gasped like he’d been held underwater and laughed again.

He wedged his arms under Sal’s back and rolled, pulling his brother on top of him, Sal’s mouth open and drooling on Michael’s chest until his brother’s forearms found the floor and hoisted him up. Then, hovering over Michael’s face, Sal’s head drooped and wobbled until Sal steadied, raised his head, and roared: “Ahhhhh!” his mouth open wide like a baboon flashing fangs. He meant: Now I’ve got you, or something.

Michael pleaded toward the kitchen tiles: “Help! Mama, help!”

Their mother walked into the living room, wiping her hands with a dishrag. “Be careful,” she said. “Don’t hurt him. Watch his hips.”

A month ago they’d removed Sal’s cast, a white plaster shell up to his waist. They cut his bones and put them back together with a pin. Michael had seen the X-rays: his secret skeleton brother glowing with a bolt in his bone, under the red line of raised skin under Sal’s diaper. Sal only cried at night now. He was back to his old self.

“No, he’s beating me,” Michael said. Sal Ahhh-ed again. “Sal just said his hips are fine.”

His mother smirked. “He did?”

“Yes.” Michael was not supposed to say what Sal was saying.

“Is that what you said, Sal?”

Sal had no comment.

“You want help?” she said. “Okay. I’ll give you both help.” She tossed up the dish towel, and before it hit the carpet she was over them, wiggling her long fingers into both their sides, Sal collapsing onto Michael’s chest and biting his T-shirt as they shook together, as she took both their breaths.

“I’ll pee,” Michael said. “I’m peeing.”

“Bet you wish you had Sal’s diaper,” she said, jabbing him again until it was not funny, until it hurt. When she retreated, Michael pushed Sal back on the blanket. He dabbed at the slobber marks on his T-shirt. Wet blotches. Damp wounds.

It was Friday: Halloween. When their father came home, Sal would be a ship. Michael would be a pirate. Michael really had no choice, as everyone already expected the costume on account of admitting defeat and not self-correcting. He’d been wearing an eyepatch for three weeks to get his eye in shape, their second try. Next stop eye surgery, but for now, in first grade, children arrrr-ed at him. They called him “matey.” They told him to walk the plank, to swim with the sharks, to drink rum and get drunk and die. Or else during recess he was forced to be the generic “bad guy” and summarily pink-bellied. He wanted to be a devil, something really evil, but his father said just go with it. “Pirates are plenty evil. And it’s one less costume piece to buy.”

Their mother fried ground beef to violins from a horror movie. Someone screamed. As if to match it, Sal let out a howl that ended with a “Momma.” Michael asked him to please repeat. Even with the clue, he hadn’t heard him clearly, which was happening more often. Michael might be losing it. He called into the kitchen: “Sal said he wants you to get on his costume.” It was a guess.

“When your father gets home,” their mother said. “He just called. He’ll be late.”

“When is he gonna get here?”

“Michael, enough. He said he’d take you guys.”

Michael was especially not to say what Sal was saying when his father got home. Their mother let him, but she didn’t ask Michael to translate anymore. It wasn’t just that Michael could guess what Sal was thinking from the shapes of his eyes, the slant of his brows, the flex of his cheeks, and curve of his lips. Any idiot can read a face. But Michael could read Sal’s sounds like Morse code. Before the hospital Sal said nice things. I love Michael the most. You are the best mother. Sing to me. Hold my hand. Their mother would ask and Michael would tell her. Their father shrugged and said it was a twin thing, well-documented. But then Sal and their mother went to live in the hospital, and the twins’ bedroom was too quiet. Michael had to turn on the humidifier just to fall asleep. When Michael visited the hospital, all Sal said was It hurts it hurts it hurts. Michael wrote his name on Sal’s cast with a felt-tip marker and drew a jagged face that was supposed to be smiling, but the plaster was too rough. The face was more of a smudge. Not his best work.

Afterwards, Michael’s father took him to the toy store and Michael got a giant plastic Godzilla that he drowned in the tub. Michael asked if Sal would come back fixed. His father said, “No, but he’ll be more comfortable.”

When Sal came home, he wanted things he missed. Bring me a juice box. Fetch me that bear. Play me the Muppets tape. He said, Don’t worry about those jerks down the block. Play with me. Then one day Sal was sitting in his wheelchair at the dining-room table, staring down at his casts, Michael coloring beside him. Sal said, What kind of face is this? He wanted a new face, a happier one. Draw it right this time. “It’s too rough,” Michael said. Then somewhere else. That wall looks good. Michael made perfect swoops with blue crayon, demonstrating fine-motor skills.

His mother thought it was funny, and kept saying, “Sal, did you get your brother in trouble?” which made Sal laugh and Michael feel better, especially after his father forced Michael to scrub the crayon until his elbow ached.

Then, during his dad’s Labor Day barbeque, Sal told Michael to kidnap his cousin’s Baby-Feel-So-Real. Sal was lying on the living-room floor with his casts propped up on pillows. While everyone else was outside, Michael brought the doll to his brother. He pried apart Sal’s balled-up fist and wrapped Sal’s fingers over the baby’s arm. “Does it feel real?” Michael said, and Sal said, No. It’s squishy. Not even fat babies feel like that. “How’s it held together?” Michael said, and Sal said, Let’s see if there’s a bolt in its bones. So Michael went to the kitchen for a steak knife and slid the blade along the baby’s hip until it oozed caramel. More evidence. It made his fingers sweet. Michael dabbed some on Sal’s tongue and Sal smacked his lips. He said, Just as I suspected. You could put it on pancakes. Michael wiggled his fingers inside its skin to scratch at its skeleton. It was smooth, hard plastic, an upside-down Y. But there were no pins or bolts. A complete fake. So Sal said, The jig is up. Get out all the gunk, which required a few more incisions on its shoulder and legs and the soft spot on its head, and Sal counted down Three-two-one before Michael jumped with both feet. The goop shot out in all directions, splattering the carpet, the couch, the wallpaper, Sal’s shirt and right cheek. Sal fluttered his eyelids and laughed while Michael panicked, spread the slime thin with paper towels, and threw the deflated baby-body behind the couch.

Their little cousin cried, and a search party was sent out to shut her up. Michael and Sal were careless and sticky. When the dog sniffed her way into the living room, Michael tried to shoo her out, but she scrubbed the carpet with her tongue. “Who spilled here?” became “What spilled here?” and then the family detectives deduced. The body was discovered. This time their mother was horrified (Am I raising Jeffrey Dahmer?), but their father found it hilarious (At least now we know what makes it feel so real).

Michael got some serious time out. Sitting with his face to the wall, the exact spot he scrubbed a few weeks before, Michael asked why Sal wasn’t also being punished.

His dad rubbed his hair. “He’s sort of always in time out, buddy.”

The last incident, right after Sal got his casts off, neither parent found funny. Sal said, Take the matches from the drawer. He’s the one who wanted Michael to hold the match under his nose so he could watch it spurt alive and curl under the flame before Michael threw it with a hiss into the toilet. He’s the one who said again. When Michael, with his one-eyed depth perception, missed the toilet and hit the shag foot rug, Sal was out of ideas, especially when the rug started to smolder and then jumped with flames. Michael pushed Sal down the hallway, past the alarm that screamed and past their mother (also yelling) to safety. He was a hero, but all his parents could talk about was the two thousand dollars in fire damage, that Michael was getting fire damage for Christmas. When his father came home, he used a belt for the first time. Michael thought he’d never walk again, that he’d have to ask Sal to move over and make room, that he’d have to go to the closet and unfold the double stroller.

After Michael stopped crying, his father said, “Enough. It’s not cute anymore. It’s getting creepy. It’s not nice to your mother. It’s not nice to me. You don’t speak for Sal. You want attention, fine, but you don’t blame your brother.” So he was not, under any circumstances, supposed to say what Sal was saying.

Three weeks ago, he started seeing a psychologist. It was a fun game to imagine what Sal might be saying, wasn’t it? They talked about the difference between reality and fantasy, so much that Michael doubted himself, which was when Sal got all staticky. Come in, Sal. Come in.

Then last Sunday, of all things, Sal started speaking for himself.

They ate manwiches without their father. Their dog whined and barked from the basement as three groups of trick-or-treaters came to the door, with better fathers who loved their children more and were not late all the time. Michael’s mother rewarded them with peanut butter cups dropped into their buckets. She sat beside Sal and held a triangle of manwich between her fingers. She said, “Tell Mommy. Do you want more? Tell Mommy. Eh or eh-eh.”

Sal sat in his wheelchair with his hands splayed out like a praying mantis. His blond hair was framed by a black cushion, and a gray chest strap covered his striped shirt like a plate of armor. A plastic bib was draped around his neck: pastel dog paws. After his hands tightened to fists, he raised his head ever so slightly, as if it held an incredible weight, and grunted: “Eh.”

“That’s my boy,” their mother said. “That’s my baby. You tell mommy. You’re still hungry, aren’t you?” Every word was still a gift. She shoved the end of the triangle into Sal’s mouth, and he smiled before pressing his bottom lip to his front teeth, biting off the end.

“Mom,” Michael said from across the table. “I’m still hungry. I’m really hungry.”

His mother turned to him. Michael thought her pretty enough to be a T.V. mom and had told her so. Her hair was a blond helmet that protected her high cheekbones and beaklike nose. She wore a headband with cat ears. She said, “I know, Mikey, but you’ve already had a whole one. What did we talk about?”

They talked about Michael being a little on the husky side. They talked about switching out potato chips for carrot sticks. They talked about what the psychologist said.

“And you’re gonna eat all that candy. For now, honey, have some corn.” She smiled and passed the bowl of golden nubs still swimming in their can water. She fed Sal another bite and tipped a hard plastic cup to his lips. Michael scowled with his covered eye. All his parents seemed to do now was try to make Sal talk in that grunting idiot’s code.

Their mother looked at her watch. “Jesus Christ.”

“You could take us,” Michael said.

She shook her head. “He’s taking you.”

They waited. More children rang the doorbell and hit up their mother for candy. Eventually their “trick-or-treat” became sing-song and slurred, as if the words made them sick.

“All right,” she said. “We have to get ready without him.” Michael ran to their bedroom and threw on his red-striped seaman’s shirt, his black vest with the sewn-on crossbones, and his ripped knickers. When he came back into the kitchen, his mother said, “Let’s get on your peg,” and wrapped his leg with brown construction paper and shipping tape. She handed him his hook, rubbed his chin with charcoal, scarred his cheek with lipstick. She rubbed and scarred Sal too. Then she took sheets of cardboard, onto which she had drawn wooden slats with black marker, and tied them to the sides of Sal’s wheelchair. She duct-taped plastic wiffle bats as cannons to his wooden wheelchair tray, the deck. Behind Sal’s headrest she duct-taped a broom handle fastened with a pillowcase as a sail. She emptied the black leather bag that hung from the back of Sal’s chair, dumping out its wet-wipes and spare diapers, its plastic poncho and sticky insulated lunchbox, its sunglasses and bug spray from summer. “You’re gonna fill this up,” she said.

More trick-or-treaters came to the door. Every knock or door-bell chime was torture. It seemed like his father would never come. Michael thought he might just slip out the door and tag along with strangers. Then, finally, their father pushed through a cluster of kids, using his briefcase like a battering ram.

“Hi,” his wife said. “What are you supposed to be?”

“Sorry?”

“It’s seven. They have less than an hour.”

“I know. I know. I couldn’t help it.”

“I would’ve liked your help. This was supposed to be fun.”

“Okay. Can we not argue then?”

His mother clenched her jaw. Michael worried she’d lock herself in the bathroom again, or start throwing canned goods. They were still trying to eat the dented ones from last time. Now that Sal was better, his father was working longer. The surgery had cost money, but his father was gone too much. Michael was afraid he’d be one of those kids who slept at two houses. But tonight she just pursed her lips. His father walked past her and inspected. “Are we ready? I’m ready. Michael, you’re looking quite evil. Sal, a bit more duct-tape and you’re seaworthy.” He flung off his tie as he jogged to his bedroom and returned in a blue sweatshirt with a rubber wolf mask over his black curly hair. He stuffed his face with manwich, beef crumbling from his mouth. “I’m ready.”

His mother kissed Sal’s cheek and knelt before Michael. “Will you be okay?”

“Yes,” Michael said.

“Remember. It’s just pretend. It’s not real.”

Michael nodded.

“Okay.” She kissed him on his lipstick scar.

They descended the ramp, the father easing Sal over the bump. Their mother yelled, “Get me some gumdrops.”

His father sighed. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“Are you getting a divorce?” Michael said.

His father smiled, lowered the wolf mask, and lit a cigarette. “I don’t think so. Unless you think we should.”

Michael didn’t say anything. Smoke wafted out of his father’s muzzle. “No? Okay. Then let’s get lots of candy so your mother’s not mad at me. Sal, speed it up a few knots.” His father leaned into Sal’s chair handles. Sal creaked forward. Sal set sail.

***

It was dark when they came back to port. Their father pushed Sal up the ramp and rang the bell. Their mother swung open the door, and the dog sniffed Sal’s shoes.

“I’m out of candy,” she said. “How was it?”

“Fine for a while, but he’s doing it again.” She looked down the sidewalk. Michael hobbled in the shadows. “We had a bit of meltdown. I got pissed, and he started pouting. Now he won’t walk normal. He’s method-acting.”

Their father pushed Sal through the door. Michael caught up and swung his peg leg up the ramp, scraping his hook along the railing. His mother asked, “What happened?”

“Sal got mad,” he said.

They had been doing fine. Their neighbor, Mrs. Isabella, set the tone. She opened the door, saw the tandem costume, and said, “Cute.” She dropped coffee-colored foreign candy into Michael’s plastic bag, and their dad swung Sal around to receive cargo. She had to go down several steps. “For my sea-robbers,” she said, walked back up and closed the door.

“She doesn’t have a costume,” Michael said.

“She doesn’t need one,” their dad said.

One house over, the Zeigenhagens pronounced them “adorable.” Mrs. Zeigenhagen, wearing cloth horns, put her hands up at the sight of Sal’s cannons. “Don’t shoot. Take our treasure.”

“Okay,” their father said. As they turned around he whispered, “We’re gonna get this all night.” They did get it all night, but people also seemed happy to dump extra fistfuls into Sal’s roomy sack. After one particularly large haul, their father swung Michael up by the armpits onto his shoulders, holding Michael’s peg leg while pushing Sal with his other hand. Michael felt like he had climbed on top of a towering mast. His father said, “We’re cute! We’re adorable! Now hand over your freaking candy!”

“Arrrr,” Michael said.

“Ahhhh,” Sal said. Michael clenched his father’s rough chin. His dad didn’t even need charcoal. As he swayed, he looked down. Sal’s bag was almost half-full, the wrappers glittering in the streetlight.

But things were also not fine. The other kids stared at Sal. Michael heard one ask: “What’s he supposed to be?”The kid was pulled forward by his mother, who told him to shut up.

Then at one house the door opened to a man with an arrow through his head and a beer can in his hand. He said, “Let me guess. A pirate.” He pointed down the steps to Sal, tilted his arrow and squinted. “And a hospice patient.”

“He’s a ship,” their dad said sharply.

“Shit,” the man said under his breath. “I see it now.” He dumped half a bag of Snickers into Sal’s sack.

A few houses over, the door opened to a man with brains oozing out, patches of brown hair mixed in, and blood dripping in rivulets from his forehead. He stumbled forward, his arms stiff, eyes rolled back. He said, “I’ve got a bit of a headache. Perhaps I hit my head.” Michael ran down the steps and jumped below deck, crouching behind Sal and whimpering.

“All right,” their dad said. “We get it.” His dad nudged Michael with his foot. “Mike. Come on out. It’s a costume. Thanks, buddy.”

“Look, kid. It’s a pump.” The man held a green plastic ball sloshing with dark liquid and attached to tubes that ran up his plaid shirt. “Jeez. I’m sorry. I have peanuts.”

“You’re gonna do that and then hand out peanuts? You’re sick.”

“I’m a dentist.”

“Then candy’s in your economic interest.”

“I’ve thought about that.”

They turned around. His dad rubbed Michael’s head. “What a jerk. But you’re about the wussiest pirate I ever met.”

“I am not,” Michael said.

His dad shrugged. “I haven’t met that many.”

Sal Ahhh-ed. Michael could not interpret and looked into his face. His eyebrows were relaxed and his lips were slightly parted, his eyes peering forward to what’s next. Sal was in a wheelchair, not blind. He saw the same brains and blood as Michael. He even had two eyes to do it with. Why wasn’t he scared too?

They were fine for a few houses. They got high-quality candy from people with costumes that were clearly fake and maybe purchased at the last minute. Michael forgot about brains and peanuts. He didn’t think about what Sal was supposed to be. Once again they were adorable. They were cute.

Then they came to a nice brick house with flickering electric candles in its windows. Someone had smashed a pumpkin in the lawn, a wax nub on a bed of slimy pulp. Toilet paper hung from a tree like Spanish moss. Michael climbed the steps. He had a bad feeling about this and looked back at his father, who nodded. “Go ahead.” Michael adjusted his patch and pushed the glowing button. It sounded like a telephone.

To Michael’s relief, the door opened onto a grandma, or at least a fat woman with gray hair. It was dark inside. She stooped but seemed too young for it, as if the skin wasn’t loose enough on her face. “Hello,” she said. “What do we have here?”

She laughed sweetly and held a tray of caramel apples, their sticks at attention. “Take one,” she said. He reached out, but stopped. They looked like they were covered in his cousin’s baby doll blood. And then he saw a flash of neon light from the lady’s left, and a glowing skull appeared above her head and growled. Michael screamed, knocked the tray out of her hand and ran. He saw Sal stiffen in his chair, and when he looked back he could see the whole glowing skeleton in the doorway, still howling, with bony hands raised like claws. It had come to steal Sal’s bolt for its own bones. It would make his brother fall apart. But now Sal was yelling and for the first time in a long while, Michael heard him clearly. He said, Ready the guns. He said, Fire. He said, Get away from me, you dickbreath, you fuckface. Michael interpreted at the top of his lungs.

***

Their family sat at the dining-room table. His mother poured them juice, and his father twisted open a beer. “They were very apologetic,” his father said. “Just some hippies having fun. The guy got out this guitar, but he just made things worse. Sal was really upset, because Michael was so hysterical. I have no idea where he learned those words.” He turned to Michael, who had his elbows propped up on the placemat and was holding his face. “What are we going to do with you?”

“Sal said it,” Michael said.

“Jesus Christ. You do not speak for Sal. He’s not your imaginary friend. He’s your brother. He can speak for himself. Listen.” He scooted his chair closer to Sal, who was still in his wheelchair though they had untied the cardboard. “Did you call that guy a dickbreath?”

“All right,” their mother said.

Sal smiled.

“Sal,” she said. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“Sal, eh or eh-eh.”

Sal took a breath, curled his fingers into fists and lifted his head ever so slightly. But he just held it.

Their mother got up and went to the back of Sal’s wheelchair. “I think what Sal is saying is what’s the big deal. Right, Sal?” She unhooked Sal’s leather bag and balanced it on the table.

“It’s not a big deal, because you secretly like it. You let him do it. You encourage it.”

She glanced at Michael. They had been discovered. Michael wanted to cry. She would not let him do it anymore. Sal would only get to grunt. “Can we not talk about this right now?” she said. “You’re the only person on earth who can be this unhappy in front of this much candy.” She spilled the candy onto the table, as if she had just busted a piñata. Michael thought that very T.V.–mom of her.

“Fine,” their father said, rummaging through the pile. “I’m sorry.”

“Pick out the tootsie rolls. It’s the only thing soft enough for Sal to eat.” She spread the candy with the back of her hand. “Where are my gum drops?”

“It’s trick-or-treat. It’s basically begging. It’s not like we went to the store.”

***

Michael couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t just that he had eaten too much candy. It wasn’t just that Sal was snoring at exceptional volume on the mattress across the room. When he closed his eyes, the skeleton appeared as he ‘d first seen it, glowing in the darkness of the doorway, before the lights came on and the guitar. He kept looking at the closet, thinking he’d see toes illuminated under the door, right before the thing jumped out and fell upon Sal, wiggling its fingers inside the scar on his hip, leaving Sal a mess of parts and goo. And then there was the guilt. Because as they separated out the candy, as his parents poached favorites for themselves, all he wanted was his brother’s sad little hill of Tootsie Rolls. He hadn’t even liked Tootsie Rolls before that. They looked too much like his class rabbit’s shit-pellets, but as soon as the candy became exclusively Sal’s, he wanted it. He didn’t like this about himself. That didn’t matter. The psychologist said he only had to recognize his feelings. He thought about the candy so much that after taking a piss he went to the kitchen drawer where his mother stashed Sal’s cut in a sandwich bag, and he’d eaten two pieces. They were delicious. They made his spit taste like chocolate, and for a moment made up for the fact that his parents loved Sal more, that his mother wore a bathing suit with Sal in the bath and held his head to her chest as she soaped him while Michael got to shower alone or with his father, shivering in the cold until his dad stepped sideways and let the warm water hit him. Most of all, he was worried that his dad and the psychologist were right. He was worried that Sal had not said what Sal was saying.

Michael checked the closet door for glowing toes one more time and swallowed hard. He peeled back his covers and crawled across the carpet with chocolate on his breath. He reached Sal’s mattress. Sal was breathing like Darth Vader, but his eyes were wide open. In the moonlight Michael could see the whites of his eyes. His pupils flickered over Michael’s face. His neck was hot and sticky. Their mother had put on too many blankets again, so Michael ripped one off.

“Hi,” he said. He pushed Sal toward the wall, crawled under the covers, and slid his arm across Sal’s back. He said, “We had a good time. I won’t let the skeleton get you.”

Sal kept his steady rhythm, his back heaving up and down. His face was slack, with his mouth open and tongue still.

“Can I have some of your candy if I don’t let the skeleton get you?”

Sal’s snore broke. He closed his mouth, hissing breath through his nose and swallowed. “Wa,” he said. Michael took that as a yes.

“Do you forgive me?” Michael did not know for exactly what. He waited. Sal’s cheek was flush against a pillowcase with a damp balloon of drool around his mouth. “Can you talk to me?” Michael pulled the pillowcase forward, giving Sal a dry section. Michael folded over the slobbered cloth and scooted closer, so their faces almost touched, so that Michael could feel Sal’s warm breath wash over his lips. “Can you say something, Sal?”

Sal’s head moved. Michael heard the springs creak. Sal said, “Ehh-uhhh-eh.” Michael shut his eyes to let Sal’s sound enter his ear and vibrate in his brain until it signified in a voice like his own but not. Michael didn’t dare move, not even to disturb a spring, and held his breath so long his heart started thumping in his chest, and he felt like he was drowning. But the voice didn’t come. He had lost Sal forever.

The brothers watched each other for a long time. Before Michael fell asleep, he saw Sal scrape his bottom lip over his front teeth. It might’ve been a kiss.

***

She said wait until his father got home. He’d eaten his brother’s candy. He’d only meant to eat a few pieces after school, but he kept coming back to the drawer when his mom was out of the kitchen, and then there was only a few pieces left. He thought if he took it all she’d forget where she put it. He had not self-corrected. He had not been good. He had proved that he needed to see the psychologist, for him to nod and scribble and whisper to his mother behind doors. He had proved he was a fat-ass.

The dog screwed him again. She pulled a Tootsie Roll wrapper out of the trash, took it to the living room near Sal on his blanket, near his mother’s feet on the couch, and licked the black taffy still stuck to the wax paper. Michael had given his “Wa” defense. Sal said he could have some, which helped him take the candy, but now when Michael explained, even he didn’t really believe himself. His mother wouldn’t hear it. She asked if Michael thought she was stupid, and Michael paused too long by accident, which made her more angry. What had he been thinking? She didn’t know what to do with him. Wait for your father. Michael thought: The belt. Michael thought: Do it right this time.

Michael, Sal, and their mother waited at the table with spaghetti simmering on the stove. Their father trudged up the ramp, and the door creaked open. “Hi,” he said, tired but smiling. He looked at his mother and then Michael. “What’s wrong?”

“Your son is doing it again,” she said, shifting blame for his existence. “And he ate Sal’s candy.”

“He said I could have some,” Michael said, as a reflex, and because he wanted the belt.

Their father set down his briefcase. He massaged his face. “Can we just have one nice night?” He walked into the kitchen, went to the stove and dished himself some pasta. He came back in, pulled up a chair and sat down. “Let’s eat,” he said, and showered his plate with parmesan powder.

Michael and his mother looked disappointed. They rose and got plates for themselves and Sal. They sat down and ate in silence.

His father cracked open a Diet Coke. He said, “Sal, did you say Michael could have some of your candy? Eh or eh-eh?”

Sal clenched his fingers, tilted up his head, and said, “Eh-eh.”

“There you go, Michael. That’s Sal speaking for himself. No.”

Michael dropped his fork onto his plate. He felt betrayed. He felt a pressure in his throat.

His mother raised her eyebrows and said, “No wonder you’re not hungry.”

Michael sat at the table watching everyone chew and then stayed there after they got up. He wanted the belt. He wanted to pay up. He wanted to cover his free eye with another patch and disappear.

Eventually, his father called Michael into the kitchen. “Okay. Quit moping. You’re so keen on candy. You got a whole mountain to eat.” He sat in the greenback chair, holding Sal in his lap and watching football on the counter television. Their mother was leaning against the counter reading a magazine.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said.

“Don’t apologize to us,” their father said. “Apologize to your brother.” His father held Sal under the armpits, with his brother’s hips balanced on his father’s knee. Sal’s head was on his father’s chest with his hands loose and splayed out. Sal’s mouth hung open. He hadn’t covered for Michael, but was he angry? Did he care? Sal’s face was still. He wasn’t giving anything away.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said.

Sal stiffened and flexed his eyebrows. He said, “Ahhh-rah,” and turned his head.

“Oooh. He’s mad at you. Sal says, ‘I’m pissed off.’” His father grasped the ends of Sal’s fingers, curving his wrists and bobbing them in the air. “He says, ‘I’m gonna kick your butt.’ He says, ‘Put up your dukes.’”

Michael stood with his hands at his sides. He looked at his mother. She had put down her magazine. “Stop,” she said, took a step forward, but then smiled. She relaxed. She would let it happen. She put her fingers to her lips. Was that a laugh? It was a joke then, but his father said, “Come on.”

So Michael raised his fists. He bounced like he had seen them do on TV. Sal’s hands floated in small circles, and Michael moved from side to side. Then Sal swung and Michael weaved out of the way. “All right,” she said, but laughed again. It was all very funny. Sal’s hands kept bobbing. Michael didn’t know what his father wanted. Did his dad want him to punch Sal in the face? Or pretend to, as a joke? Michael stepped forward.

He saw a flash with his covered eye, felt a burst of pressure, and his head snapped back. Then he was sitting on the linoleum. Half of the kitchen was so bright.

His mother said, “Hey, that’s too rough.”

His father said, “He walked into it.”

Michael’s eyepatch had shifted above his brow, leaving his other eye bare and blind. He squinted, adjusting to the light, but he couldn’t see his father. He could only see Sal and his hard wrist, Sal’s soft eyes looking down. He heard Sal clearly for the last time. Sal said, Be careful. Sal said, Even I can hurt you.

 

This story originally appeared in Ninth Letter and has been reprinted with permission of the author.

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