by Darren Hynes
Wayne waits until his father pushes himself away from the door and walks down the hall before getting up and going over to sit at his desk. He opens a nearly filled notebook and grabs a Razor Point extra-fine pen and writes:
Dear Pete The Meat,
Is it the way I walk? Talk? Is it because I’m small? Is my laugh strange? My voice? Do I smell funny or dress stupid or style my hair the wrong way? Are my eyes too far apart? WHAT? Or maybe I’m juts just an easy target, slow and easy to grab hold of and to give a wedgie to, is that it? Do I remind you of someone you hate? Is it because I sometimes piss my pants and this is something for you and Bobby and Harvey and Kenny to laugh about and point fingers at and then get other people’s attention so that they can laugh and point too? Am I a joke? Am I like a wrestling mat: something for you to lie and sweat and bleed on? Is it because I’m weak? Because I like drama and writing, but I also like UFC, did you know? Is it because your dad’s not your real one and that you had a tough start but lots of kids live with people that aren’t their biological parents and they turn out fine. Is it because you’re afraid of me? I don’t mean in the physical sense, but is there something about me you fear? Is that what this is about? Do you think it doesn’t bother me? That I can get up and walk away and just forget about it? Do you think my pissy clothes wash themselves? Do you think I like eating yellow snow and being tackled by Bobby and having to smell tuna on your breath? Maybe I hate you too, even more than you hate me and maybe someday I’ll wait outside your door and when you open it I’ll shoot you in the head and then you’ll be sorry, won’t you? How would you like that? I just wish you’d leave me alone becasue because I’m tired and I’m only fifteen so I shouldn’t be, right? I’ve been searching for a reason, you see, and I can’t find one and I’ve come to believe that things don’t just happen. So if there’s something I’ve done let me know and I’ll stop doing it ’cause I just want to get these three years over with so I can get out of here.
The one you pick on that would like to know the
reason,
Wayne Pumphrey
Wayne opens his eyes and sees his father sitting there: checkered shirt and brown slacks and hair actually combed and slicked back like Tony Soprano and his cheek’s so swollen it looks like he’s stuffed grapes in his mouth and he’s playing with his Zippo lighter. He looks at Wayne and says, “You’re awake.”
Wayne nods and thinks he was a youngster the last time his father sat on the edge of his bed like this: a tugged toe, a hand messing his hair, a prickly kiss on his forehead. “What time is it?”
His dad glances at his watch. “Ten-thirty. How’s your stomach?”
“Gurgling,” Wayne says. “Might need to sleep all day. How’d you get in?”
His father flips open and then closes the lid of his Zippo. “That lock’s useless.”
Wayne looks at his father’s face and says, “Your cheek broken?”
“Naw. Sore as Jesus, though.” His dad focuses on the space between his feet and says, “What’s the real reason you’re not in school?”
Wayne lies back down and pulls the sheets up. The silence presses down on him and makes it hard to breathe and he thinks it’s even worse than having toothless Bobby on top.
“Got the strangest call a few minutes ago,” his father says at last. “Turns out Donna Hiscock was staring out her back window this morning and what do you think she saw?”
Wayne turns over on his side and tucks his knees into his chest and closes his eyes and hears the lighter flicking open again, then closing … opening … closing.
“A bunch of boys is what … picking on another boy. A smaller boy.”
Wayne imagines giant hands coming through the ceiling and plucking him from his bed and covering him and carrying him somewhere where there’s no Zippo lighter and no father with a swollen cheek and no piss-soaked pants in the hamper down the hall …
“Now she couldn’t be absolutely sure—her eyes being what they are—but she could have sworn that the tiny boy belonged to the sweet woman named Ruth that she used to work with at Woolworths.”
… and no iron ore mine and no eight months of winter and no band called Nickelback and no mother swinging a heavy frying pan and no girl up the road with a dead father and a mother who may as well be …
“She would have called sooner, but it took her a while to find your mother’s number. Would have grabbed a broom and gone outside herself, she said, if not for being seventy-odd.”
… and no old ladies staring out of windows and soggy turkey sandwiches and cancer-causing Crunchits and small bladders and snotty noses and tears and places to always have to fit into—
“Wayne?”
“What?”
“Why were you throwing your pants in the hamper?”
Silence.
A hand gripping his ankle and squeezing and his father saying, “Who were they?”
“That lady’s blind.”
“Turn around, Wayne.”
“Let me sleep.”
“I said turn around— Ouch!” His dad covers his cheek. “Don’t make me yell.”
Wayne turns, finds a place beyond his father’s shoulder to set his eyes.
His father rests his elbows on his knees. Interlaces his fingers. When he speaks again his voice is calmer. “A scuffle every now and then is to be expected. But what happened to you is something else.”
A long silence.
“They hurt you?” his dad says.
“No.”
“Speak up.”
“No, I said.”
Wayne looks away from the wall and down at his father’s hands and notices blood pooling at their fingertips. His father says, “How long’s it been going on?”
Wayne shrugs.
“Give me names.”
Wayne won’t.
“You’re not a tattle and that’s good, but sometimes it isn’t, so tell me who they are or would you rather I went to the school myself?”
“No, don’t!”
“Then tell me.”
Wayne goes to speak, but doesn’t, so his father gets up and goes to the door and grips the knob and says over his shoulder, “Drive on over now, perhaps—”
“Pete The Meat.”
His dad turns around. “What?”
“Pete The Meat.”
“What kinda name is that?”
“It’s because he’s got veins in his biceps and can make his chest muscles move without touching them.”
His father pauses. “He have a last name?”
“Moved here three years ago and he had a tough start and has a second father and he struck a teacher once.”
“Wayne.”
“Avery. His last name’s Avery.”
“Okay. Who else?”
“No one.”
“Who? I said.”
“Harvey and Bobby and Kenny, but they only do it ’cause Pete makes them.”
His father goes quiet for a moment, then says, “Where’s he live, this Pete The Meat?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Just answer me.”
“I don’t know and I wish now I never told you anything.”
“Get up.”
“What?”
“You’re no sicker than I am and I think we’ll pay Pete’s parents a visit.”
“No!”
“Or we’ll go see the principal. Your choice.”
“You’ll make it worse.”
“Let’s go.”
“His parents are working.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“I don’t know where he lives, I already told you.”
“I think you do, Wayne. Now get your jacket.”
“No.”
“Wayne!”
“I’m weak like a girl already!”
“What—”
“And I eat yellow snow and if you go to Pete’s I’ll be the one who needs his dad to fight his battles too, and I’ve always come second to you before so why can�
�t we just keep it that way!”
His dad opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out and he tries to leave but can’t seem to get the door open, so he faces Wayne instead and for the longest time doesn’t speak, but then finally he says, “No point crying.”
Wayne wipes his eyes. “I’m not.” For a moment he thinks his father might come over and sit on the bed again, but his dad steps back instead, letting the door take his weight, and puts his hands in his pockets and stares down at his wool socks. After a while he goes, “Your Uncle Philip was small too.”
Wayne fiddles with the comforter.
“In school he could make up a joke on the spot and deliver it like a stand-up comic and he’d have the bullies laughing so hard they’d forget why they were picking on him.”
Wayne sets his eyes on his father’s.
“So I never had to worry. But you … I don’t know, you’re different … softer. What are you supposed to do if you can’t fight back or say something funny, so we’ll go and talk to this Pete’s parents and no one else has to know.”
Wayne turns away and imagines those giant hands again and this time they’re taking him to a place where fathers don’t make bad situations worse and where small and weak and soft are things to be admired, then he turns and looks up and notices his door is half open and his father is gone, so he lies back and dreams of another half-open door and slipping through it like a phantom, away from everything.
THREE
His father pulls into Pete The Meat’s driveway and shuts off the engine. Looks over at Wayne and says, “You ready?”
Wayne nods and goes to grip the door handle but then changes his mind. “They say his second father owns a shotgun and that he spends all his time polishing it and pointing it and firing it like it’s some joke.”
“Wayne—”
“And that he’s got a tattoo of a tear beneath his left eye.”
“What foolishness—”
“And his mother spends hours each day over a huge pot of pork and chicken and she just plunks it down and Pete and his second father reach in with their bare hands and tear the flesh from the bones like wolves and then they even eat the bones—”
“Wayne—”
“And grease is all over their faces and it drips on their clothes and then Mrs. Avery puts the pot back on the stove and starts all over again and she’s exhausted—”
“That’s enough.”
“I’m just telling you what I heard.”
“Come on.”
They get out of the car and walk along the driveway and up the porch stairs and his dad rings the bell, and Wayne imagines the barrel of the gun, then the trigger, and the thick finger pressing against it followed by the arm and shoulder and neck and finally the pale, angry face of Mr. Avery: the little slit of a mouth and a Hitler moustache, probably, and that tear tattoo beneath cold, dead eyes—
A woman’s suddenly standing in the doorway and she’s nothing like the worn, drawn-out wife and mother he was expecting, and she’s wearing a grey cardigan and jeans with holes in the knees and eyeliner and her teeth are perfect.
“Mrs. Avery?” his father says.
She nods. “Yes.”
“I’m Calvin Pumphrey and this here’s Wayne. He goes to school with your boy, Pete.”
She takes in his father’s cheek. “Peter, yes.”
His dad touches his bruise like he’s just as surprised as Pete’s mother to find it there. “You wouldn’t say it by looking at him, but Wayne’s got a hell of a slapshot.”
Mrs. Avery tries smiling while his father says how sorry he is to have shown up unannounced and holds out his hand and what choice does Pete’s mom have but to shake it?
Wayne holds out his hand too and Mrs. Avery grabs it and her grip is soft and warm like fresh bread and she says, “Weren’t you one of the wise men in the pageant last year?”
“I brought frankincense.”
“You tripped.”
“Costume was too big.”
“Upset the manger,” his father says.
Mrs. Avery puts her hands in the pockets of her cardigan because she must be cold with the door open, and says, “Stole the show.”
Another voice then, a man’s. “Who is it, Maureen?”
“Mr. Pumphrey and his son, Wayne,” she says over her shoulder.
“Who?”
“Come see for yourself.”
Wayne imagines two cartridges being loaded into the chamber, then Mr. Avery’s grin, his quick steps up the basement stairs. Bury them in the basement, most likely.
Suddenly Pete’s new dad is standing there and he’s shorter than his wife and smaller boned; he’s wearing a V-neck sweater and slippers and he’s clean-shaven. “Hello,” he says.
Wayne can’t find any tear tattoo.
More handshakes and his dad explains the bruise again and then he and his father are invited in and led to a room off the kitchen where there are floor-to-ceiling windows and a crackling fire and a bearskin rug. Wayne sits on a leather sofa with his father while Mr. Avery settles into an armchair and Mrs. Avery wonders out loud why she’s neglected to offer them tea and something to eat.
“Don’t go to any trouble,” his dad says, but Mrs. Avery flicks her wrist and is gone.
Quiet for a moment, then Mr. Avery looks at Wayne and says, “No school today?”
Wayne shakes his head and imagines popping in the fire like an ember.
His father clears his throat and sits forward and says: “That’s why we’re here.”
“Oh?”
“No sense in beating around the bush, is there?”
Mr. Avery grips the arms of his chair like a nervous flier.
“Apparently your boy’s been giving mine a hard time and you can see how small he is, so it’s a bit unfair.”
Mr. Avery looks over but doesn’t say anything.
His father says, “Tell him, Wayne.”
Wayne’s just about to, but then Mrs. Avery walks back in carrying a plate of sweets, which she sets down on the coffee table in front of him and his father before making her way back over to her husband. Pete’s second dad moves his hand and she sits on the arm of the chair and says, “It’ll be a few minutes for the tea.”
“Thank you,” his father says, grabbing a snowball. He looks at Wayne. “Say thank you.”
Wayne does, then takes a Rice Krispie square and sets it on his lap and what time is it—does anyone know? Couldn’t The Meat walk in at any minute?
His dad’s trying to swallow what’s in his mouth and talk at the same time and what he’s saying is: “Donna Hiscock was staring out her window this morning and saw a bunch of boys picking on Wayne here and one of them, the ringleader, was your boy, Pete—Peter, excuse me.”
“Who was staring out their window?” Mr. Avery says, followed by Pete’s mom saying, “Our Peter?” and then Mr. Avery going, “Did you say ringleader?”
“That’s what Wayne told me.”
The Meat’s parents exchange glances and then Mr. Avery says, “You’re sure about this?”
“What did Peter do?” The Meat’s mom says. “He’s very sure. Aren’t you, Wayne?”
Wayne imagines the looks from the girls standing beside the water fountain when word gets out. The boys, too: smoking and pointing and flicking their lit cigarettes and calling him “rat,” and he can already feel the weight of Pete and Harvey and Bobby and Kenny as he’s being pinned face first into the snow. Now hump it, Pumphrey. Thatta boy. Faster.
“Wayne?” his father says.
Wayne looks up with a start and his Rice Krispie square falls on the floor, so he picks it up and blows on it and puts it back on his lap and says that, Yes, he’s sure, then an ember shoots out of the fire and lands on the hardwood and Mr. Avery gets up and stomps on it as if it might burn the house down and then he goes over and grabs a poker and stokes the flames despite there already being enough heat to melt the skin off their faces.
Mrs. Avery says, “Would someon
e please tell me what’s going on?”
Pete’s second father turns around to face his wife, the poker still in his hand, making Wayne wonder if the V-neck sweater and slippers and neat haircut are all a front for what he really has in mind … to bludgeon them to death with the smouldering poker.
“Peter’s been bullying Wayne,” Mr. Avery says.
Pete’s mom looks over at Wayne and his father like she doesn’t remember having invited them in, then sort of laughs and says, “There must be some mistake.”
Mr. Avery finally puts the poker down and goes back over to the chair, but he doesn’t sit, preferring instead to rest a hand on his wife’s shoulder. He looks at Wayne and says, “How long’s it been going on?”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Mrs. Avery says. “He’s been so good,” to which her husband replies, “There now, Maureen, there now.”
“Tell them, Wayne,” his dad says.
Pete’s mom looks on the verge of tears, then the kettle starts whistling and Mr. Avery wonders if she wouldn’t mind going and making the tea and taking the young one with her because he needs to have a private word with Mr. Pumphrey and not to worry because he’ll fill her in on everything later.
Pete’s mom heads off, and Wayne’s father squeezes his thigh and tells him to go too, so Wayne follows her into the kitchen and stands beside the table, gripping the back of a chair.
“Sit,” she tells him.
He does.
She makes tea and sets everything on a wooden tray and leaves, then comes back and puts what’s left in front of Wayne and says, “Don’t be shy.”
Wayne takes a cup and adds milk and sugar and stirs and then rests the spoon beside his Rice Krispie square.
“Peter would eat the whole tray if I let him,” Mrs. Avery says.
Wayne takes a bite and strains to hear the words coming from the other room and they’re mostly jumbled, but a few he makes out: youngster, neglected, resentment, fresh start—”
The Meat’s mom is saying something.
“Sorry?” he says.
“What’s he done? I asked.”
Wayne takes another bite and imagines The Meat walking in and seeing him there. A lot worse than eating yellow snow then, he bets.
Another word seeps into the kitchen. Therapist. Then another. Happier.