Mostly Dead Things

by Kristen Arnett

  Okay, we’re ready. Come on.

  I followed her back to the empty lot where we’d found the box, and she sat down with the basket of improvised water balloons. They jiggled obscenely. I waited for them to pop, stuffed next to sprigs of sharp plastic, but they stayed whole and glistening.

  Wish I had a Coke. I threw myself down on a patch of grass and picked at some of the V-shaped weeds, pulling them apart and tossing the remnants to the side. Or an ice cream Snickers.

  No, you don’t. Remember last time?

  I remembered. Brynn and I and some of our friends were hanging out while we waited for boys’ track practice to end. Chocolate from the ice cream had melted onto my hands and face, but Brynn hadn’t told me. She’d just licked at her strawberry Popsicle, holding the dripping mess away from her white overalls. Milo found us then and told me it looked like I’d gotten shit on my mouth. Brynn laughed so hard I thought she was going to piss herself. She’d given Milo the last of her Popsicle, and he’d crunched into it with his front teeth. The two of them had looked so cozy, like they knew everything about each other—every stupid secret, every bad idea. My skin felt tender and porous, as if their actions had actually scraped my flesh.

  That was the funniest thing ever, she said now, laughing. I wish I could see it all over again.

  Talking about it made me want to dig a hole in the earth so I could bury myself. I dropped the weed remnants and grabbed a rotten sliver of oak. I picked at the wood, the bits turning to dust in my hands, lodging up under my fingernails and turning my skin chalky.

  What should we do with these? Throw them at passing cars?

  There’s not really anyone around, I said, dusting off my hands.

  Brynn picked one up. She tossed it up, one foot, two, then almost three feet over her head, catching it each time. Pausing, she held it by the tied tip, staring into the microcosm of water and lubricant.

  So oily in there. She tossed it again, lightly. Catch!

  It hit me before I could put up my hands. Instead of breaking, the condom bounced off my face, smacking with enough force to turn my head. Stunned, I sat there with my hands pressed over my nose, which hurt so bad I could barely breathe without yelling.

  What came out was a bullfroggy croak. Brynn laughed hysterically, running over to pick up the balloon from where it had rolled. It sat in a patch of weeds, lightly dusted with sand.

  She threw it up and caught it again, bits of leaves flying off. The dirt coated her hands and she made a disgusted face. Dropping it, she wiped her fingers on the seat of her tiny shorts.

  That hurt, you asshole.

  Oh, get over it.

  My nose felt swollen to three times its normal size. Carefully touching my nostrils, I searched for the blood that I was sure must be streaming down my face. There was only a bunch of clear snot.

  You could have broken it. It’s maybe broken.

  No, it’s not. It’d look way worse.

  Brynn picked up a fresh balloon from the Easter basket and tossed it, higher and higher. I watched its trajectory as a plane flew overhead, the droning buzz loud as it lowered for landing. My nose throbbed. I wanted it to hurt anywhere else on my body, even for a second, just to give my face some relief.

  It really, really hurts.

  You’re such a baby about everything. She rolled her eyes and squatted down. Thrusting up with a grunt, she threw it the highest yet. It wriggled into crazy, jiggling shapes in the air. Brynn ran for it, knocking into my legs and sprawling on the ground. It hit beside her and popped with terrific force, spraying water on her legs and top, drenching my jeans.

  Ugh, what the hell. She kicked at me with her flip-flopped foot, digging her toes into my leg. I was going to wear these tomorrow!

  When she kicked again, the muscles in my calf tensed, half cramping, and I snapped. I kicked her back, hard. It wasn’t something I’d ever done to Brynn before. It was the kind of physical fight I’d have with my brother—the two of us reaching out and smacking, pinching, slapping. Brynn had never been on the receiving end. I was wearing sneakers and my heel jammed directly into her kneecap.

  Oh! she exclaimed, eyes wide with shock. Then she kicked me again and I kicked her back, this time connecting solidly with the meat of her thigh.

  We were a blur of tangled legs. Brynn’s flip-flops had flown off and her bare feet struck me over and over again, gaining traction off my sweaty jeans. We struggled and grunted until my last kick went wild, connecting with the soft dough of her belly.

  Then we both scrambled away from each other. My hair was tangled, half fallen out of its braid. Brynn looked demented. Lip gloss smeared red across her cheek and down her chin.

  You dumb fucking cunt. She rubbed her face with shaky hands.

  I’d heard kids say that word before, but I’d never heard it from Brynn. I sat there in the dirt and stared at her while she breathed heavily and collected her flip-flops, five feet away from each other.

  Sorry, I said, scrubbing the dirt from my hands onto my jeans. It stung. There were tiny cuts and scrapes all over my palms. I hadn’t even realized that I’d hurt myself. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.

  Fuck you! You are sorry.

  I was crying and that hurt too. My nose was so swollen that it didn’t want to let out any of the snot that was building in my sinuses. Sweat dripped from my hairline and mixed with my tears. I scrubbed at them with my palms and felt grit and dirt slide over my lids.

  Stop crying! Shut up!

  It was hard to hear her over the blood rushing in my ears and the whistling of my nose. I kept repeating the word sorry, wondering how many times I needed to say it before she calmed down. But then she was running away from me, stumbling over sticks and clumps of moss. When she got to the edge of the lot, she bent over and picked something up. She yelled again and threw it at me. It was a turtle shell.

  Have another dead thing, you fucking freak!

  Turning, she ran to the trailer. Her mother’s boyfriend opened the door—leaning out in his white T-shirt and boxer shorts. She reared back a little and he leaned down into her face. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I saw her respond to him. It looked like she was still yelling. He grabbed her by the arm, high up near the shoulder, and yanked her behind him into the trailer. She didn’t look back.

  12

  My mother helped me pull the specimen boxes into the living room. They weren’t heavy, but they were awkwardly shaped and some required both of us taking an end. After a couple of trips, her head drooped forward and she leaned against the wall to catch her breath. I sat her on the couch, put on a pot of coffee, and finished unloading the truck. It had stayed clear outside all night, but I wasn’t sure how long that would last, or if the encroaching dew would harm any of the pieces we’d worked so hard to dry.

  Mug in hand, she looked more human. She’d put on her reading glasses, and with every sip, they fogged over, little half-moons of opacity that she let dissolve on their own.

  “Oh wow,” she said, head rolling back on her neck, sinking into the overstuffed couch cushion. “Yes. Wow. This is very good.”

  “When’s the last time you had any?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It was odd to think of my mother without coffee, a woman who got migraines if she went even six hours without a cup. She massaged the back of her neck. Clean, she gave off a soapy, comfortable odor. Her bathrobe smelled like too much laundry detergent.

  Pointing out each item, I showed her the parts that I’d been able to gather. Bat wings, an armadillo shell, bird torsos, a salmon-pink flamingo neck with part of the beak still attached. We had pieces of coat and antler. There were legs from disparate animals—two hog hooves, a portion of elk femur. I’d conserved bones, bleaching what I could. It was hard to see any of my father in the remnants. It wasn’t something he’d have appreciated or understood. I still didn’t quite get what she’d been trying to do, but I thought I was willing to find out more. To be the kind of daughter who’d listen
. Versus the kind of daughter who’d go out of her way to ruin something, who’d secretly call in threats because she was too much of a coward to deal with anything directly.

  When she asked about the sex toys, I produced a solitary pair of handcuffs. All the fur trim had burned off, but the steel was pristine. She took them from me with trembling fingers and put them inside her robe pocket.

  “Your father really loved those.”

  “Okay,” I replied, trying to hide my grimace. “Great.”

  “He acted like a prude in front of everyone, but we actually had a very healthy sex life.” She smiled. “We had some very good times with these.”

  “I’m going to get more coffee,” I announced, taking our full cups back to the kitchen.

  I’d left the bearskin back at the shop. Mr. Gennaro had done a fantastic job with the cleaning, though he’d threatened to charge me double if I ever brought in an animal again. The head was fluffy, coat so shiny it barely looked real. Even the teeth looked brighter.

  Whitening toothpaste. He’d cleared his throat and busied himself with some receipts lined up on the countertop. Tell your mother I said hello.

  I brought him up while I explained the bearskin, and she looked away too, stroking one of the soft rabbit ears between her fingers.

  “What do we do with all this?” she asked. The boxes were spread around us, open, bits collected on the floor and on the coffee table next to our mugs.

  “Honestly? I don’t know.” It was only pieces, a puzzle laid out, waiting for us to solve it. “I just . . . wanted to give you back some of it. Show you that I want you to be happy, even if I don’t understand what you’re doing.”

  She took my hand. I looked away, down into an open box, to stare at the body of a platypus, legs twisted and broiled, but the face still sweet and earnest. “I appreciate that,” she said. “I mean it.”

  “I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what I feel willing to help with. But I want to try.” I lifted up the smallest box and held it in my lap. It held baby animal parts: raccoons’ paws, singed feathers, and small, bristled tails.

  “Try what?”

  I patted the duck beaks and cow hooves, combed my fingers through part of a horse’s mane. “Something. Anything.”

  My mother brushed the hair from my temple and curled it behind my ear. “I think that sounds nice.”

  Milo and I went to check out the empty building next to the shop. The property had been used for a lot of things, but in its last life, it had been a restaurant. When we got inside, it still smelled like one. There was a sweet, spoiled odor like milk gone sour.

  A bar ran along the right wall with liquor bottles strewn across its top. Milo picked one up and shook it.

  “Nada.” He picked up another, then another. “Shit. You’d at least think I’d get a drink out of this.”

  Booths took up the front, slick menus still scattered over paper place-mats, ketchup bottles with tacky red rings at their bottoms twinned with little jars full of yellowed peppers soaking up juice.

  “Let’s check out the back,” I said. “This isn’t what we’re here for.”

  There was a bank of freezers, stoves, and fryers. The heavy smell of rancid grease hung thick in the air. A stairwell stood at the back wall, a spiral that led up to the second floor. “Come on,” I said, pulling Milo away from the refrigerators. He’d opened one of the doors and a rank funk emerged that reminded me of the Dumpster smell at an amusement park.

  He put a hand over his nose and gagged. “Holy shit. I think there might be a dead body inside.”

  We proceeded upstairs single file. It was slow going. The stairs were rusty and creaked under our combined weight. The higher we rose, the more oppressive the heat became. When we reached the top, I was happy to see that all the stuff was still there.

  “What the hell is this?” Milo walked ahead, boots marking tracks on the dusty linoleum.

  It was an exhibition space. Dozens of glass cases formed pathways through the mess. Faded, ancient mannequins stood in some of them. None wore clothes, aside from a solitary figure in the first display. That one was dressed in a leafy loincloth and held a wooden club made from papier-mâché.

  “They had that Christian historical museum here,” I said, leaning down to look into a display full of old Bibles. “You remember. The anti-evolution stuff?” We walked around another case that contained oversized plastic dinosaurs and a dusty tree full of shiny, fake apples. “We had to come for a field trip.”

  Milo stopped in front of one that held remnants of palm trees. Wax animal figurines stood beside them, half melted from the heat. “I never did that. It was just you and Brynn.”

  One of the cases stood open. I reached inside to pluck a wreath of flowers. Its petals spilled clumps of dust when I shook it. “Only happened that one year. They got into a bunch of trouble for it.”

  Milo tapped an empty case. It made a hollow sound that reverberated off the walls. “What are we doing here, Jessa?”

  “Looking to see if we’re interested.”

  He turned in a circle, taking in the strange menagerie of creepy mannequins and faux greenery. “Interested in what?”

  The whole place would have to be scrubbed down and disinfected, downstairs completely gutted. We could break through the walls of the shop and expand into the first floor, but that would take a lot more time and money. “We’re going to rent this space. For Mom.”

  Milo sighed, long and heavy. His “exhausted with Jessa” sound. “Why?”

  “It’s right next door, it’s cheap, and it’ll make her happy.”

  “Couldn’t we just give her the window display?”

  I could have brought up the fact that he’d shit on that idea before, but I ignored that instinct and took my time answering. I set the wreath down on a mannequin’s head like a crown. “It’s a good location. It’ll be a smart investment.”

  “You mean financially?”

  “Yes. Maybe.” I paused and thought for a second. “Also . . . artistically. I’ve got work I could display. I’m creative.”

  I picked up the wreath again, touching each of the flowers individually, counting them. Calming myself. “You could have some space too.”

  “I’m not an artist and I don’t do taxidermy.” His body language told me he was looking for a fight: chest outthrust, hands fisted. His jaw clenched rhythmically; it was something I’d never seen on him before. It reminded me of our father. “What the hell would I put on display?”

  “I don’t know. Something. It could be meaningful.”

  He looked confused, as if I’d spoken to him in a different language. “Meaningful? The fuck are you talking about?”

  “I’m just saying we could get some closure.”

  The floor was so covered in grit that my feet slid every time I took a step. It was messy and would need a ton of work, but I could see it. Creating displays and putting together the lighting. Assisting with the mounts, making backgrounds, crafting scenery. There could be spaces for me, for Mom. New work from Lolee and Bastien.

  “I don’t need closure. I’ve got closure!” Milo slapped his hand down on one of the cases. It made a sharp, clinking sound.

  “Jesus, don’t break them. They’re not ours yet.”

  “You’re not listening to me!” He grunted, throwing up his hands. “But you never listen. It’s always about what you want. What’s best for Jessa.”

  The sheer nerve it must have taken for him to say something like that. I was almost impressed. “That’s not remotely true,” I replied, pacing my words until each was nearly its own sentence. My face and neck felt hot, blistering. “Everything I do is for this family.”

  “You’re completely selfish, and the worst part is you have a savior complex about it! Like any of us need you to save us? You’re not God, Jessa. You’re not in charge.”

  I lowered my voice, trying to calm him down. Calm myself down. “I know that. I just want everyone to be happy.”

 
He laughed. “Yeah. Happy. We’re all so fucking happy in this family. It’s a regular Disney movie.” His face contorted until I couldn’t tell if he was about to yell at me again or cry. “This is stupid. It’s just so fucking stupid.” Turning away, he leaned over the case and braced himself against the top. His back rose and fell with labored breaths. “We should have made Mom go see somebody, you were right. Maybe you should see somebody.”

  “Maybe. But I’m gonna do this too.” I walked closer to him and he jerked away. “And I think it’ll be good. Why not try something different instead of the same old shit that’s been making us miserable our whole lives?”

  “I haven’t been miserable my whole life!”

  “Really? I’ve been pretty miserable.” His shoulders were tense, raised nearly to his ears. “Neither of us can deal with anything because we refuse to let anything go. We learned it from Dad. Look at him, he killed himself rather than deal with anything. It shouldn’t be like this.”

  One sharp slap and he broke straight through the glass. It rained down onto the animals inside and collected on the plastic baby Jesus’s face. When he raised his hands, they were coated with blood. “Look what you made me do,” he said, eyes watering. “I’m gonna get tetanus.”

  “You get tetanus from rusty metal, dumbass. Not glass.” I grabbed his wrist and looked at the cuts in his palm. We were both shaking. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but we both know why we need to.”

  Blood dripped from his palm and licked across his forearm, down to the joint of my thumb. It dropped into the dusty linoleum and left behind bright patterns. “I hate talking about Brynn,” he whispered. “It always fucks me up.”

  “I know, me too.” I dug out some of the glass from his skin. The slivers were small, difficult to grasp. “But don’t you think it’s weird that we both loved her and neither of us can talk about that? She was mine, she was yours. That’s something that won’t change. Even if she’s gone, that still happened.”