Ness set down the wire mesh he’d been gluing around the aquarium filter and stepped over the Burger King wrappers bulwarking his computer desk. He grabbed the mattress, grunted, and heaved, inching it back toward the door.
“You think so?” Shawn laughed. Casually, he shoved Ness to the ground. Ness’ knee scraped the gym-style carpet. Shawn booted a crumpled shirt across the floor, flopped the mattress to the ground, and wiped his hands on his jeans. He wore Wranglers, a red flannel over a ribbed white wifebeater, and a new and stupid mustache. “Great to see you again, little brother.”
Panic, anger, and baffling shame flooded Ness all the way to his neck. He scrabbled out of the bedroom and dashed to the double-wide’s living room, where his mom sat at the breakfast nook mumbling at her Facebook game, a block-shooter that would have looked primitive on an original Nintendo. For once, the quaintness of her game didn’t bother Ness.
“Shawn’s in my room,” he said.
His mom blasted another block. “Get used to it.”
“What happened to his house? Did he try to drink it?”
“Lost it. Couldn’t pay for it. You even know what a mortgage is?”
“Mom,” he whined. “He can’t be in my room.”
“Your room?” A falling block crushed her cursor. She swore and swiveled to face him. “If you’ve been paying rent, the checks have been lost for five years now.”
“I pay for my food.”
“That just leaves the roof, hot water, your cell phone, the electricity to that computer—”
The screen door banged. Shawn trundled down the hall, a cardboard box in his arms. Their mom turned away and started up another game.
“What am I supposed to do?” Ness said.
“Get used to it,” his mom said. “Shit’s tough. You think he’s any happier about this than you?”
Ness watched her play her stupid backwards game, waiting for her to come to her senses, rise from her cat-shredded office chair, and banish Shawn from the house. She did nothing. Ness returned to his bedroom, not quite daring to go in. Shawn thumped down a box and yanked off the tape. He wadded the tape into a lumpy silverish ball, lobbed it into the corner, and began unpacking small green boxes of ammunition.
Shawn didn’t look up from his work. “Did you just run off to tell Mom?”
Ness knew the lie was foolish—Shawn had been coming in and out, he’d probably snooped the whole conversation—but couldn’t stop himself. “I was helping her with her computer.”
Shawn chuckled. He jerked his head at one of the aquariums, a ten-gallon freshwater flickering with a school of tetras, their blue, red, and silver scales flashing under the tank light. “Can you use those things for bait?”
“Don’t touch my fish,” Ness said.
“Look like the perfect size for a hook.”
“I said don’t you touch my fish.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t you set up a new tank with all the ones you don’t like?”
Ness’ neck was hot and itchy. In a moment, he would either start screaming or hit Shawn, and either way would end in tears. He darted into the room, grabbed his shoes, and ran for the door. Shawn laughed.
Ness ran down the driveway past Shawn’s truck, gravel jagging his socked feet. He sat down where the road turned in to the drive and laced up his shoes. He didn’t have the first one tied before an orange bolt burst from the knee-high grass and leapt onto his shoulders, purring. He shoved Volt away and she jumped right back up.
Once his shoes were on, he headed straight up the mountain. Volt trotted beside him, flinging herself at the moths that staggered from the grass. It was spring and the sky was cloudless but it would have been cold if he weren’t moving. Behind him, Moscow, Idaho filled the shallow valley, a hive of naive undergrads and fearful locals. He reached for his iPod, but he’d left it on his desk.
The road ended. A pheasant spooked in a blast of wings and Ness threw his arms above his head. The bird settled in a pine, clucking like a car that’s just been shut off, tail angling from the branch. Volt put back her ears. Other people said exercise made them feel good, even high, but Ness took walks to vent the tension. This time, the climb wasn’t helping. Back in his room, Shawn was unpacking his things—his shotguns in their cloth camo cases, his subscriptions to Guns & Ammo and Soldier of Fortune, his rap CDs with their cracked cases—leaving oily fingerprints on the aquariums and saturating the room with his stink of beer sweat, engine grease, and Winstons.
He couldn’t believe his mom had done this to him.
His feet crushed weeds just released from winter, stirring chlorophyll, the scent of milky sap, and one repeated thought: unfair, unfair, unfair. He reached the thicket of pines along the ridge. Volt had disappeared sometime in the last half hour. On the other side of the mountain, the trees gave way to another grassy slope that leveled off into the Rogers’ farm, winter wheat rising in a short green blanket. Widget barked from the front steps, saw it was him, and wagged her flaggy tail.
Mrs. Rogers let him in to Tim’s room. Tim sat on the carpet, shooting Germans on his 21” TV. Ness frowned. The landline was choppy as ever. He grabbed the second controller, waited for the match to end, and joined up.
“Shawn moved back in to the trailer,” he said.
“That sucks,” Tim said.
“He’s in my room right now.”
“Why? He has that sweet house. Who wants to drink beer with their mom?”
Ness’ avatar was shot by a sniper and fell into the fields of France. “The bank took it. You know he drank up all his money at the Plant. That’s his problem.”
Tim paused to mash buttons until he died. “Well, what do you want? He can’t just be homeless.”
“He’s been talking about 2012 since Y2K. He can live in the hills and stab grubs for breakfast. That’s what he wants.”
“He’s your brother.”
“He’s a dick.”
“Well, what are you going to do? Get a job? Move out?”
Ness’ neck itched. He shot a German in the head and swung his view to the body, then emptied his clip into the fading pixels. “He should just leave.”
“Yeah, but he won’t, will he?” Tim died again—lag—and swore. He threw down the controller and shut off the PlayStation. “Well, I have to eat dinner.”
Ness left. By the time he got home, Shawn’s truck was gone from the driveway. For a minute, he let himself hope his brother had gone for good, but his bedroom was still full of unfamiliar clothes and magazines and Shawn’s stained mattress. He fed his fish and scrubbed their tanks and logged onto his game.
Shawn returned after midnight, letting the screen door slam. He swayed up behind Ness. His breath stunk like beer. “How long have you been on that thing?”
Ness didn’t turn from his laptop. “How long were you at the bar?”
“You never even been drunk.”
“It kills brain cells.”
Shawn leaned over his computer, breathing sour liquor. “Does it take a lot of brains to live with your mom and stay up all night shooting your fake faggot friends? You ever want to shoot a real gun, come out with me to the range some weekend.”
“It smells like you ate an outhouse,” Ness said.
Shawn went to the bathroom, which shared a wall with the bedroom, exposing Ness to every rattle of the medicine cabinet and echoing bout of flatulence. Shawn hawked phlegm, flushed the toilet. He came back to the room, flopped on his mattress, and inhaled deeply.
“Your cat pissed my bed.”
Ness didn’t look up. “No she didn’t.”
Shawn sniffed harder yet. “I can smell it. Right here.”
“Maybe it was you. Volt is trained.”
“Whatever.” Shawn fumbled with his alarm until it beeped once. For a while, all Ness could hear was the soft burble of the aquariums, the gentle clatter of his keyboard, and his friends joking over chat. His guild was waiting on a respawn; if they could loot it fast enough, they’d go raiding after
.
“Will you turn that thing off?” Shawn said. “I can’t sleep over here.”
“Have another beer.”
“We’re out.” Sheets rustled. “I said turn that fucking thing off.”
“If you don’t like it, go back to the house you couldn’t pay for. The bank probably won’t shoot you.”
Shawn rushed from bed, stomped across the room, and slammed the laptop shut.
“What the hell!” Ness yelled.
His brother grabbed the back of his chair and tipped him over. Ness’ head hit the carpet. On his back, he swung for Shawn’s balls, but Shawn bent his knee and dropped it onto Ness’ chest with all his weight. Pain shocked through Ness’ body. He shouted.
Shawn slapped his face. “What are you gonna do about it?”
“Get off me!”
Shawn slapped him again. “I told you to turn that fucking thing off. Some of us got jobs. I’m not gonna wake up tired ‘cause you spend all night whacking—”
“What are you two idiots doing?” The lights flashed on. Their mom stood in the doorway, face puffy with sleep and red with anger.
Shawn eased his knee from Ness’ chest. “Trying to sleep.”
“You tried lying down instead of beating your little brother’s ass?”
“Does that work for you?”
“He hit me,” Ness said.
Their mom tucked her chin to her chest, gazing down at him with wide and skeptical eyes. “Would you like to file a formal complaint?”
She left the room. Ness unplugged his laptop from the wall. Shawn buried his face in his mattress and breathed. “I smell piss.”
Ness went to the living room and plugged in his laptop and logged back in, but his guild had already entered the instance. He shut down, went outside, and called Volt in from the fields. She licked his face until he fell asleep.
Shawn had picked up a wiring gig the next day, and between that and the bars, Ness didn’t see much of him for three days except when he came home for his lunches. Then, he complained about Volt, who he insisted had peed on his bed again. When he left, Ness bent over the mattress and sniffed, but all he smelled was ashes and sweat.
The gig ended. Ness suspected that was why Shawn had become an electrician in the first place—it paid well enough to let him sit around and drink through the frequent days off. But jobs had been scarce lately, and faced with the choice between Natty Lite and a mortgage, Shawn had gone with the one he could pick up from a gas station at one in the morning.
The day his gig was done, Shawn slept later than Ness, only rousting himself when their mom fried bacon and eggs. After his morning routine of repeatedly spitting into the toilet, his nasal honks cutting through the thin walls, he took the last of the coffee and poured his mug full of cream.
“I been thinking,” he said, seating himself.
Mom twiddled with her phone. “Oh boy.”
“I’ve been thinking about you, Mom. You know I’ll start paying rent next month after the house is cleared.” He jerked his thumb at Ness. “But what about this guy?”
“What about him?”
“He’s 25. I had a job at 15. Don’t you think he’s about nine years past pulling his weight?”
“I bought the eggs,” Ness said.
Shawn smiled. “And I’m sure both dollars are going straight to Mom’s retirement.”
She tucked her chin and gave Shawn her look. “Good luck prying him from that computer.”
“I just don’t think it’s fair that I pay rent and I have to share a room with someone who doesn’t.”
“You don’t pay rent,” Ness said.
“I’m about to.”
“You sure you can fit it into the beer budget?”
Shawn held out his palms, beseeching their mom. “Do you think it’s fair?”
“Tell you what.” She set down her phone. “You start paying rent, I’ll make him, too.”
“Mom!” Ness said.
“What? What’s your plan, anyway? Squat in your room until I die of shame? How you going to pay to keep this place up? You ever heard of a thing called property tax?”
“I’ll invest.”
“With what money?”
Ness’ neck itched. “Dad’s insurance.”
She snorted. “You can hardly pay for Cheerios. Figure it out, kid. You want to live under this roof, you got to find a way to pay for it.”
Shawn nodded. “And tell him to stop letting his cat piss my bed.”
Ness rolled his eyes. It was idle talk. Shawn hadn’t been able to keep hold of his own house; he’d never be able to afford rent. As for Mom, she’d been grumbling for years, and every time she said her piece, Ness went back to his games and she went back to hers. The matter dropped as swiftly as the water glasses Volt nudged off the table.
Shawn sopped up his yolks with charred toast, kissed their mom, grinned at Ness, and walked out the door. His truck rumbled to life.
Ness returned to his computer. Shawn returned hours later with a new gig. That night, instead of driving off to the Plant or Blue Mondays or one of the other bars where he tried to pick up disinterested college girls, he went to the WinCo and came back with a thirty-pack of Natty, which he took to the porch with his pack of Winstons. He was still out there drinking, smoke swirling into the cold mountain air, when Ness went outside to call in Volt.
“You’re gonna learn, Nestor,” Shawn smiled from his folding camp chair, one beer in hand, another tucked into the cup holder built into the chair’s arm.
“What are you even doing?” Ness said.
“A favor. For you. The best one anybody ever done you.”
“Trying to get me to die under a bridge, that’s a favor? Then what kind of Hallmark card will you have to buy me if I take your shotgun to your face?”
Shawn leaned forward and shook his head. His expression was perfectly sober except for his eyes, which swam as unsteadily as a fish Ness would soon have to scoop from the bottom of the tank.
“You got to learn to take care of yourself, bro,” he said. “One day, Mom won’t be there. I won’t be there. Then what?”
“I’ll do better as soon as the market rebounds,” Ness said. “Anyway, they don’t just let people starve.”
“Foodstamps? A Hook doesn’t take fuckin’ foodstamps.”
“Mom did after Dad died.”
Shawn crumpled his beer and chucked it at Ness’ head. Ness ducked and the can soared past, spraying beer, and dented the trailer’s siding. “Don’t you dare compare yourself to Mom. She’s never done less than everything she could. All you do is jerk off to elves in chainmail bikinis.”
The night smelled like wood smoke. Volt rushed in from the weeds. Ness bent to scoop her up and she vaulted to his shoulder.
Shawn cracked a beer with a hiss. “Get a job, man. It isn’t that hard.”
Ness went back to their room, put in his earbuds, and curled under his sheet. Shawn didn’t understand. Ness didn’t have any proper college. He’d managed an AA, but when he’d looked into applying to the state university in town, the numbers didn’t add up. Even living as a commuter student, he couldn’t afford the tuition. So what was he supposed to do? Get a job at the Subway? Toasting sandwiches for drunk frat boys wasn’t a career.
But it would pretty much have to be something in customer service and Ness just wouldn’t fit. When one of his neighbors said hello, his only response was to smile. He didn’t get how strangers held conversations—what were you supposed to talk about? Yet he was supposed to deal with a constant stream of them eight hours a day, five days a week? The idea horrified him worse than if he were to lift a spoonful of Lucky Charms and find a wolf spider swimming in the marshmallows. And the meds only helped so much.
Anyway, the bus didn’t come out to the hills. He’d have to get a driver’s license and an old beater to drive. A degree he couldn’t afford, a license for a car he didn’t have, a hunt for a job he didn’t want, the strangers he couldn’t speak to—the whole th
ing overwhelmed him, made him as itchy as if he’d dived into a lake of hair. So he stayed at home, stuck in his online world. His mom had learned to stop complaining.
Even so, he didn’t like that he could barely pay for his own food. He didn’t like feeling so incapable. At times, he felt like he’d been born in the worst possible point in history. In an earlier era he could have sold his ingenuity to the wealthy, finding a patron among the court or the merchants to take care of the quotidian details of life that overwhelmed him so easily, leaving him free to experiment and innovate. Meanwhile, in a later time, it would all be automated, computerized. He could work from home without ever leaving his laptop. Take classes, too. Deal with all the bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. Everything handled remotely, cleanly, stress-free, on his schedule. It wasn’t far-fetched at all. It would happen within a generation.
In the meantime, he was stuck in a time he didn’t belong in. Even so, he’d found a way to be happy, in his way.
Until Shawn had come home.
* * *
A week later, Shawn walked through the front door, sweaty, begrimed, and cobwebbed from squirming around in some professor’s crawlspace, and thunked a wad of cash onto the table. He fanned it out and whistled, a high-pitched blast meant to call in the dogs.
“Cold cash,” he said. “So when does Ness move out?”
Ness closed the fridge. Their mom leaned out of her chair and limped to the table. She fixed her reading glasses to her nose and poked the wad with her index finger, sliding one of the bills from the pile.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was legal tender.”
Shawn folded his lower lip between his teeth and smiled, showing his canines. “I’d say it’s March rent.”
She removed her glasses, tucked her chin, and gazed at Ness. “Looks like you get to find yourself a job.”
“Mom,” he said.
“Tomorrow.”
“You know no one’s going to hire me.”
She rolled her eyes. “McDonald’s hires retards. You can’t handle a retard’s job?”
“I can’t talk to people, Mom. What am I supposed to do?”
“Walk through the door and ask for an application. You need me to drive you?”
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 105