by T. J. Klune
Maine was Maine. I miss my friends but I have you now.
That’s not even funny! I’m not laughing!
Can you pass me the mustard before Kelly uses it all like a jerk?
He said:
One time, we went to the mountains and went sledding.
I suck at video games, but Carter said I’ll get better.
I bet I can run faster than you.
He said:
Can I tell you a secret?
Sometimes I have nightmares and I can’t remember them.
Sometimes I can remember all of them.
The table went quiet, but Joe only had eyes for me.
I said, “I have bad dreams too. But then I remember I’m awake and that the bad dreams can’t follow me when I’m awake. And then I feel better.”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
I PASSED all my finals. Fuck Stonewall Jackson.
pretty boy/fuck off
MY MOTHER met the Bennetts halfway through summer at one of the Sunday dinners. She was nervous, like I’d been. She ran her hands along her dress, smoothing it out. She curled her finger in her hair. She said, “They seem so fancy,” and I laughed because they were and they weren’t.
My mom smiled anxiously when Elizabeth hugged her. Later, they were in the kitchen drinking wine and Mom giggled, her face a little flushed with drink and happiness.
THOMAS WORKED from home. I never understood what he did exactly, but he was always on the phone in his office late at night, calling people in Japan or Australia, and always early in the morning with New York and Chicago.
“Finances,” Carter told me with a shrug. “Money something something blah blah boring. You can’t die on this level, Ox. It’s too easy.”
ELIZABETH PAINTED. She said that summer she was in her green phase. Everything was green. She’d spin a record on the old Crosley and say things like “Today, today, today” and “Sometimes, I wonder,” and then she’d begin. It was always a controlled chaos and every now and then she’d have paint in her eyebrows and a smile on her face.
“Apparently she’s good,” Kelly told me. “Has shit hanging in museums. Don’t tell her I said this, but I think it all looks the same. I mean, I can splash paint on a canvas too. Where’s my money and fame?”
I WALKED down the dirt road after work and Joe was waiting for me. “Hey, Ox,” he said and he smiled so very, very big.
SOMETIMES THEY had days where I wasn’t allowed to go over. Two or three or four days in a row. “It’s family time, Ox,” Elizabeth would say. Or, “We’re keeping the kids in tonight, Ox,” Thomas would say. “Come back on Tuesday, okay?”
I understood, because I was not part of their family. I didn’t know what I was to them, but I forced the hurt away. I didn’t need it. I had too many of my own to add more on top. They didn’t mean it in a bad way, I didn’t think. I’d find Joe waiting for me on the road a few days later and he’d hug me and say “I missed you,” and I’d follow him home and Elizabeth always said, “There’s our Ox,” and Thomas always said, “You all right?” Then it would be like nothing had happened at all.
I’d lie in bed those nights, lost in my thoughts, hearing far-off sounds I would have sworn were wolves howling. The moon was fat and full and lit up the room as if it were the sun.
THEY NEVER came inside my house. I never asked and neither did they. I never really thought about it.
“YOU STILL cutting out early today?” Gordo asked me one humid day toward the end of August.
I looked up from the alternator repair I was doing. “Yeah. Registration. Already.” I’d brought a change of clothes so I didn’t go stinking of metal and oil.
“Your ma’s working?”
“Yeah.”
“You want me to go with?”
I shook my head. “I got this.”
“Junior year. It’s tough.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up, Gordo.”
“You going to take that pretty boy with you, papi?” Rico shouted from across the shop.
I flushed, even though it was nothing.
Gordo’s eyes narrowed. “What pretty boy?”
“Our big boy has got himself some prime real estate,” Rico said. “Tanner saw them out a couple of nights ago.”
I groaned. “That’s just Carter.”
“Carter,” Tanner sighed, his voice all breathy.
“Carter?” Gordo asked. “Who is he? I want to meet him. In my office so I can scare the shit out of him. Goddammit, Ox. You better be using fucking condoms.”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “Make sure you get the fucking condoms instead of the regular ones. They’re better. For the fucking.”
“Ba-zing!” Rico cried.
“I hate all of you,” I muttered.
“That’s a lie right there,” Tanner said. “You love us. We bring you joy and happiness.”
“So you’re fucking him, then?” Gordo said with a scowl.
“Jesus, Gordo. No. We were getting pizza to take back to his little brothers. We’re friends. They just moved here. I’m not into him like that.” Though I didn’t think it would be that hard to be. I did have eyes, after all.
“How’d you meet him?”
Nosy bastard. “They moved into the old house next to ours. Or back into the house. I don’t know quite which yet. The Bennetts. Heard of them?”
And then a funny thing happened. I’d seen Gordo pissed off. I’d seen him laugh so hard he pissed himself a little. I’d seen him upset. I’d seen him sad.
I’d never seen him scared. Of anything.
Gordo didn’t get scared. Never once since I’d first met him when my daddy took me to the shop one day and Gordo had said, “Hey, guy, heard a lot about you, what say you and me go get a pop out of the machine.” Never once. If asked, I would have said Gordo didn’t get scared at all, even if I knew how ridiculous that sounded.
But Gordo was scared now. Eyes wide, blood draining from his face. It lasted ten seconds. Maybe fifteen or twenty. And then it was gone like it’d never been there at all.
But I’d seen it.
“Gordo—”
He turned and walked into his office, slamming the door behind him.
“What the fuck?” Rico asked succinctly.
“Jealous prig,” Tanner muttered.
“Shut the fuck up, Tanner,” Chris warned, glancing over at me.
I just stared at the closed door.
“I’M SORRY,” I told Gordo later. “For whatever I did.”
He sighed. “It’s not on you, kiddo. I need…. Can you find different friends? Why aren’t we enough?” He sounded miserable.
“It’s not the same.”
“You need to be careful.”
“Why?”
“Forget it, Ox. Just watch yourself.”
“GOT A strange call from Gordo,” Mom said one night.
“What?”
“Wanted me to keep you away from next door.”
“What?”
She looked confused. “Said they were bad news.”
“Mom—”
“I told him to leave it alone.”
“Something crawled up his ass,” I said.
She frowned. “Watch your mouth. You’re not at the shop.”
I BURST through the office door. “What the hell is your problem?”
“You’ll thank me one day,” he said. He didn’t look away from the computer. Like he didn’t have the fucking time of day.
“Too bad she doesn’t give a shit what you think. She said I’m old enough to make my own choices.”
That got his attention. He was pissed.
I stormed out.
HE WANTED to drive me home every day after work. I laughed and told him to fuck off.
“OX! LOOK how many french fries I can fit in my mouth!” Joe then proceeded to shove at least thirty into that gaping maw, making little snarly sounds as he did.
“Gross,” Carter groaned. “This is why you don’t get to go out in public.”
/> Kelly snorted. “You’re just trying to impress the waitress.”
Carter punched him on the shoulder. “She’s hot. She go to our school, Ox?”
“Think so. Senior.”
“I am so going to hit that this year.”
“Ah, the joys of young love,” Mark sighed. “Joe, don’t put french fries up your nose.”
“Hit that?” Kelly asked, incredulous. “Dude. Gross.”
“Oh, I’m sorry if I offended your delicate sensibilities. I meant make love to.”
“Please don’t tell Thomas or Elizabeth anything about this,” Mark begged me. “I’m a good uncle, I swear.”
“Ox, hey, Ox! I’m a french fry walrus. Look! Look—”
They all stilled at the same time. Mark’s hands curled into fists on the table. “Stay here,” he growled. He was up and out the door before I could speak.
“What the hell?” I asked.
Kelly tried to follow him, but Carter held him back. “Let me go, Carter!”
“No,” Carter said. “We stay here. Ox and Joe. You know this.”
Kelly nodded and stood next to the table, arms crossed, like he was guarding anyone from coming over.
I looked out the window of the diner.
Mark was across the street. With Gordo. They were not happy to see each other.
“Motherfucker,” I muttered.
I pushed my way out of the booth. Kelly grabbed my arm and said, “No, Ox, you can’t just—” but I snarled at him something fierce and his eyes went wide and he stepped back.
“Joe, you stay here,” I snapped over my shoulder.
Joe’s eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to retort, but I cut him off, telling Kelly to watch him. Carter was up and followed me out the door without a word.
I only caught bits and pieces of the conversation as I approached. There was no context, no way for me to understand. I saw the look of fury on Gordo’s face. The harsh set of Mark’s jaw.
“Gordo, it’s not the same—”
“You left. I kept this town safe and you fucking left—”
“We had to, we couldn’t—”
“I’ll put up wards around him. Strengthen the ones around his house. You’ll never—”
“It’s his choice, Gordo. He’s old enough to—”
“You leave him out of this. He is not part of this.”
“You know what happened to Joe. He’s helping Joe, Gordo. He’s fixing him.”
Gordo took a step back. “You fucking bastard. You can’t use—”
“Gordo!”
He looked over at me, eyes wide. “Ox, you get your ass over here. Now.”
“What the fuck is your problem, man?” I asked him. I pushed past Mark and stood in front of Gordo, inches from him. I’d never used my size to intimidate anyone before.
But that’s okay because Gordo wasn’t intimidated, even when we both seemed to realize at the same time that I’d grown taller than him over the last few months. He had to look up at me now. “You need to get behind me, Ox. Let me deal with this.”
“With what? You didn’t tell me you knew them. What’s going on?”
He took a step back. His hands were fisted at his sides. His tattoos looked brighter than normal. “Old family drama,” he said through gritted teeth. “Long story.”
“I get this, okay?” I said, motioning between the two of us. “I get this. But you can’t tell me what to do. Not about this. I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“It’s not about you—”
“Sure as hell seems like it.”
He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Let it out slowly. “Ox. I need you safe.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I didn’t understand.
“Shit,” Mark muttered. “He’s your tether.” He chuckled darkly. “Oh, the fucking irony.”
Gordo’s eyes flashed open. He tried to step around me, but I wouldn’t let him. “Take a walk, man,” I told him. “Cool off.”
He snarled at me but turned and walked away.
I whirled on Mark. “What the hell was that?”
He was watching Gordo walk away. “Old family drama.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter, Ox,” he said. “Ancient history.”
I ASKED Gordo to explain. I asked him how he knew Mark and the others. Why he had lied to me and acted like he didn’t know them at all.
He just scowled until I walked away.
I ASKED Mark how he knew Gordo. Mark looked sad, and I couldn’t handle that so I told him I was sorry and never brought it up again.
IT WAS the last Sunday dinner before school started. Joe and I sat on the porch watching the trees.
“I wish I could go with you,” he muttered.
“Next year, yeah?”
He shrugged. “I guess. It’s not the same. You won’t be around as much.”
I put my arm over his shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m scared.”
“Of?”
“Things are changing,” he whispered.
I was too. More than he could ever know. “They will. They have to. But you and me? I promise that won’t ever change.”
“Okay.”
“Happy birthday, Joe.”
He laid his head on my shoulder and his nose brushed my neck. He breathed me in as we watched the sunset. It was pink and orange and red and I couldn’t think of a single place I’d rather be.
“FUCKING RETARD,” Clint sneered at me the second day of school. Because that was his thing.
I ignored him, as I always did, shoving books into my locker. It was easier.
Apparently not for Carter, though. He grabbed Clint by the back of the head and threw him against the row of lockers, pressing his face against the cold metal. “You talk like that to him again and I’ll rip your fucking heart out,” he hissed. “Tell everyone that Ox is under Bennett protection and if anyone so much as looks at him funny, I’ll break their arms. Don’t fuck with Ox.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said quietly as Carter and Kelly pulled me away. Carter had his arm around my shoulders and Kelly held my elbow. “They go away eventually.”
“Fuck that,” Carter snarled.
“They don’t touch you,” Kelly growled. “Ever.”
THEY CAME into the school with their fancy clothes and their perfect faces and their secrets and everyone talked about them. The Bennett boys.
High school is the same wherever you go.
It’s rumors and clichés and innuendo.
They’re in a gang, people whispered.
They’re drug dealers.
They had to leave their other school because they killed a teacher.
They take turns fucking Ox.
Ox fucks them both.
I laughed and laughed.
We sat in the lunchroom and I had friends. Sometimes, I wanted to talk. Sometimes, I had nothing to say and opened my book. They always stayed.
They always sat on the same side of the table as me, crowding in close.
THEY WERE physical. The whole family.
A hand in my hair.
A hug.
Elizabeth’s kiss on my cheek.
Joe on the dirt road as I walked in the sun. His hand would go into mine and he would lean up against me as we headed home.
Kelly bumped my shoulders as we passed each other in the hallway.
The weight of Carter’s arm on me as we walked to class.
Thomas’s hand shaking mine, the grip strong and callused.
Mark’s thumb against my ear.
At first it was just me.
But as winter approached, they started to include my mother.
GORDO TOLD me about Joe. Part of it, anyway.
And I hated him for it.
“You have to be careful with him,” he said. We were on a smoke break, even though I didn’t smoke anymore.
“I know,” I said.
“You don’t. You don’t know the first t
hing.” He touched the raven on his arm. Smoke curled up around his fingers.
“Gordo—”
“He was taken, Ox.”
I stilled.
“They took him. In the middle of the night. To get back at his father. His family. They hurt him for weeks. He came back and he was broken. He didn’t even know his name—”
“Shut up,” I said hoarsely. “You shut your fucking mouth.”
He must have realized he’d gone too far. He closed his eyes. “Shit.”
“I love you,” I told him. “But I hate you right now. I’ve never hated you before, Gordo. But I hate you so fucking bad and I don’t know how to stop.”
We didn’t say anything for a very long time.
AND THEN everything changed.
or never/eight weeks
CHRIS’S MOM died and it was bad.
He cried in the middle of the shop, and I put my head on his shoulder. Rico touched his neck. Tanner laid his head on Chris’s back. Gordo ran his fingers over his buzzed hair.
He went away for a while.
He came back with Jessie. His little sister. She’d just turned seventeen and was going to live in Green Creek with him.
She looked like her brother. Brown hair and pretty green eyes. Fair skin with little freckles on her nose and cheeks and one on her ear that fascinated me. He brought her to the shop and she smiled quietly as he introduced her.
“And that’s Ox,” he said, and I walked into a wall.
The guys all stared at me.
“Did he just…?” Gordo asked.
“This is awesome,” Tanner said.
“Hi,” I said. My voice was much deeper than it’d ever been before. “I’m Ox. Oxnard. Call me Ox.” I tried to pose against a 2007 Chevy Tahoe but I slipped and skinned my elbow. I pulled myself back up. “Or Oxnard. Whatever.”