We the Animals

by Justin Torres

  Paps leaned against the wall and watched her adjusting herself back into her harness; he grinned and he growled. We watched him watching her, we studied his hunger, and he knew we were seeing and understanding. Now he winked at us; he wanted us to know that she made him happy.

  "That's my girl," he said, slapping her bottom. "Ain't another one like her."

  "They're going to catch pneumonia," Ma said, so he fished us out of the tub, one at a time, and stood us on the toilet seat and toweled us dry. He grabbed our ankles and dried the undersides of our feet, and we had to hold on to his shoulder for balance or grab a fistful of his Afro. He ran the towel between our toes, our butt cracks, our armpits, tickling us, but acting as if he couldn't comprehend what was so ticklish. He dried our heads for a long time, until we were smarting and dizzy.

  Each time Paps finished drying one of us, he would place our palm against his own palm. He didn't say anything to Joel or Manny, but my hand he held up a little longer, looking close and nodding his head.

  "You grew," he said, and I smiled and straightened my back, broadening my shoulders, triumphant.

  Ma and Paps started talking to each other about our bodies, about how quickly we were changing; they joked about needing to make some more boys to take our places. We watched them; they looked each other in the eyes, teasing and laughing; their words were warm and soft, and we snuggled into the gentleness of their conversation. We were all together in the bathroom, in this moment, and nothing was wrong. My brothers and I were clean and fed and not afraid of growing up.

  We climbed back into the empty tub, still in our towels, and our parents pretended not to notice. We saw them pretending and it thrilled us. We slid the shower curtain closed and huddled together, looking at each other with wide-open, eager eyes.

  "Hey, wait a minute," Paps said in mock surprise, "where did the boys go?"

  We pressed our fists into our cheeks to keep back the giggles.

  "Oh my," Ma said. "They just disappeared."

  We clenched ourselves together into a tighter ball. Our knees tensed with excitement. They were going to find us. Maybe they'd scare us, yanking back the curtain and shouting "Gotcha!" Maybe they'd scoop us up and tickle us; maybe they'd be sneaky and stand on the rim of the tub and peek over the top of the curtain, waiting for us to notice. Maybe they'd roar like dinosaurs; maybe they'd devour us. Maybe Paps would take Joel under one arm and Manny under the other, and maybe Ma would grab me and swing me in a circle, but whatever happened, we would be found, my brothers and me, huddled together; they would grab us and take us up and into their arms and own us.

  But then they didn't look for us at all; they found each other instead. We listened to their kissing and soft little moans, and after a while we got down on our knees, lifting up the bottom edge of the shower curtain and spying on them. Ma was balanced on the sink, her back to the mirror and her legs folded around Paps's waist. She dragged her fingers up and down his back. Her hands were little and light, with painted fingernails that traced ridges into Paps's skin.

  Paps's hands seemed massive on her tiny frame. He clutched her hips, moving her toward and then away from him, steadily, stealthily, squeezing hard enough so that his fingers appeared to be sinking into her sides like into quicksand, and when I looked at her face she looked like she was in pain, but she didn't look frightened, like it was a kind of pain she wanted.

  We saw everything—that Paps's blue jeans were faded in the spot where he kept his wallet, the muscles of his stomach, that Ma closed her eyes but Paps kept his open, that he bit, that they were both gripping tight, that Ma's ankles were crossed and her toes were pointed. Her legs clutched and released him, and he was leaning her back so that her skin touched the skin of her reflection, like a picture I once saw of Siamese twins. The faucet poked into the base of her spine, and it must have hurt her, all of it must have hurt her, because Paps was much bigger and heftier, and he was rough with her, just like he was rough with us. We saw that it must hurt her, too, to love him.

  Paps leaned Ma all the way back, her hair mixing and reflecting, doubling itself in the mirror. He bit into her neck like an apple, and she rolled her head over and spotted us. She smiled. She pulled Paps's head away from her and turned him until he spotted us too.

  "I thought you disappeared," he said.

  "You were supposed to look for us," said Manny.

  "I guess I found something better," Paps said, and Ma slapped him on the chest and called him a bastard. She unwrapped herself from him and fidgeted with her clothes and smoothed her hair. He tried to kiss her neck again, but she wiggled away.

  "Get my boots from the closet," she said. "Please, Papi, I'm already late."

  We sighed and sank onto our butts, but the moment Paps left the bathroom, Ma turned off the light and shut the door and got into the tub with us, pulling the curtain closed behind her. It was completely dark; we couldn't even see her, but we could feel her arms around us, her hair tickling my bare shoulders.

  "We'll show him," Ma said, and we loved her then, fiercely.

  We heard him clomp up the stairs. We got ready to pounce. Then his hand was on the doorknob, he paused, and for a second it seemed as if he might have figured us out, but he came in and flicked on the light, and we rushed out from behind the curtain, tackling him into the hallway and onto the floor. Ma sat on his chest and we tickled him everywhere. He laughed a throaty all-out laugh, kicking his legs, saying "No! No! No!"—laughing and laughing until he was wheezing and there were tears in his eyes—but even then we kept on tickling, poking our fingers into his sides and tickling his feet, all of us laughing and making as much noise as we could, but no one as loud as Paps.

  "No! No! No!" he said, crying now, laughing still. "I can't breathe!"

  "All right," Ma said, "that's enough."

  But it was not enough. Our towels had slipped off, and blood pumped through our naked bodies, our hands shook with energy, we were alive and it was not enough; we wanted more. We started tickling Ma too, started poking her, and she collapsed onto Paps's chest and covered her head, and he wrapped his arms around her.

  Then Manny slapped Ma hard on the back. It sounded so satisfying, the thwack of his palm on her skin.

  "You were supposed to come find us," he said.

  Joel and I froze, waiting for some sign of trouble, waiting for Paps to react, threaten him, hit him, something. We stood there, hunched and alert like startled cats, but nothing came. Manny slapped her back again, and still nothing. Silence. Ma only moved both her hands to Paps's wrists. Her hair covered their faces, and we understood that we could do this, that this would be allowed, and never spoken of.

  Joel kicked Paps's thigh as hard as he could.

  "Yeah," he said, "you're supposed to find us."

  I joined in, kicking for Paps but hitting Ma; it felt dull and mean and perfect. Then we were all three kicking and slapping at once, and they didn't say a word, they didn't even move; the only noise was the noise of skin and impact and breath, and then our protests, why don't you come find us, why don't you do what you're supposed to do, come and find us, why don't ya, because you're bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, why don't you do right, why can't you do right, we hate you, come and find us, we hate you, everyone hates you, you better come and find us, next time, next time you better come.

  We hit and we kept on hitting; we were allowed to be what we were, frightened and vengeful—little animals, clawing at what we needed.

  Night Watch

  PAPS FOUND A NIGHT job, and since Ma still worked graveyards at the brewery, where there was no place to hide little boys, weeknights we went to work with Paps and slept on the floor, in front of the vending machines. Paps was the security guard, the night watch.

  One night I woke sweating and twisted inside my sleeping bag. I kicked free and stood looking down on my brothers, their faces painted orange from the light coming through the window, and their shadowed jack-o'-lantern eyes. I walked over to the desk where Paps sat watching a
little television monitor, leaning back in his chair, holding both cigarette and beer bottle slack-armed and low to the floor.

  I asked if it was almost time to go home.

  Paps did his dog growl, he snapped his teeth, but then he set his bottle down and pulled me onto his lap anyway. I rested my face against his chest, and he ran his hand down along my spine from the base of my skull to my lower back; he kept doing that.

  "I like sleeping in a bed," I said.

  "Me too," Paps said. "Me too."

  From his lap, I could see outside the window. A few feet away, on the brick wall of the next building, a single orange bulb was locked inside a metal mesh box.

  "Why is that light in a cage?" I asked.

  "Same reason you cage a bird," Paps said.

  "What's that mean?"

  "So it don't fly away."

  "Can you unlock it?"

  "What do you think?"

  After some time, Paps shut the little TV on the desk.

  "I think the noise woke you up," he whispered close to my ear, and I nodded approvingly. I could feel the muscles in his chest, and underneath, his heart working. I fell asleep.

  The next time I woke, I was still in Paps's arms, but he was shaking me awake and setting me down and saying, "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

  He stepped over to where Manny and Joel were sleeping and prodded them with the tip of his boot.

  "Up," he said. "Hurry."

  My brothers groaned and tried to roll away from him.

  "Get a move on," Paps hollered. "We're late!"

  Before they were even fully standing, Paps was already on his knees gathering up the bedding, yanking so wildly that Joel got tangled and fell back down. We busted up laughing until Paps smacked Manny openhanded across the face and Manny yelped; then we were silent.

  "Take your brothers out to the car and get under the covers and stay there until I come out." He shook Manny back and forth by one arm. "Entiendes?"

  When we got outside, the morning man was there, Paps's replacement—taller than Paps, and white. He blew into a Styrofoam cup, and the cup billowed its own steam back at him. When he spotted the three of us, he stopped blowing and set the cup on a low wall that separated the sidewalk from the building's narrow yard.

  Left to right, right to left, his gaze, cold and curious, touched down on each of our faces, our heaps of blankets, even our little rubber snow boots. No one spoke; only Manny shifted slightly to cover his cheek with a blanket. Then Paps came out and broke the spell, pushing past us on the stairs and extending his hand to the other man, shaking it once and firm, saying "Morning" loud and direct in his face.

  "These yours?"

  "That's what she keeps telling me."

  The man lowered himself to his haunches. He frowned.

  "Well, at least you're only half as ugly looking as your Daddy is."

  We were half as ugly, half as dark, half as wild. Adults were always leaning in and explaining that we must have inherited this from Ma and that from Paps. We all three kept our eyes above the man, on Paps, who was still standing. He flashed us a look that was impossible to interpret, but serious, so serious.

  "What's all this?" the man asked, tugging at a corner of my sleeping bag.

  I looked at Joel standing next to me; Joel looked at Manny.

  "Listen, man," Paps said. "Let's you and I have a talk."

  "Your Daddy got you sleeping on the floor?"

  "I said let's you and I have a talk."

  The man rose up to his full height.

  "Talk?"

  Paps reached in his pocket, pulled out the car keys, and rested them on top of Manny's bundle. "Get your brothers settled in the car," he said quietly, "and don't drop anything."

  Turning back to the man, Paps said, "What? You can talk to my kids, but not to me?"

  In the car, we squished into the front, kneeling on the passenger seat, leaning our elbows on the dashboard, and cupping our faces in our hands. We peered out the windshield to the steps, where Paps and the other man smoked and gestured back and forth, Paps aiming a finger at the man, or at us in the car, or up at the sky, and the man mostly holding his hands, palms out, up by his chest and pushing the air away from him. Steam and smoke rose from their mouths, and the coffee cup sat untouched on the low wall.

  "How much you wanna bet Paps slugs him?" Manny asked.

  "Look at that man," Joel said. "That man don't want a fight."

  "He fell asleep," I said.

  "Who?"

  "Paps. He fell asleep."

  Joel and Manny quit jostling for the best position and studied Paps more closely.

  "So it's not our fault?" Joel asked.

  "Some," Manny said. "Some's always ours."

  Paps walked over to the man's coffee cup and smacked it, swinging wild, like he was trying to fly it out of the lot. We watched the brown liquid jump up in an arc and splatter on the pavement. The man narrowed his eyes at Paps, shook his head, and spat on the ground, walking away from him, into the building.

  By the time Paps opened the car door, Manny and Joel had already hustled into the back and buckled up, trying to shrink to invisible, but Paps turned in his seat, grabbed hold of Manny's hair, and said, "Keys!"

  Manny handed him the keys.

  "When I say move, you move, you understand me?"

  No one said anything.

  He let go of Manny and turned to me, gripping my chin and digging his fingers into my cheek. "Understand me?"

  "Yes, sir."

  We drove home in silence, each one of us sliding fingers into the condensation on our windows. Close to home, Manny had the nerve to ask, "You gonna get fired?"

  Paps laughed—one quick, nasty bark of a laugh.

  Manny tried again.

  "What'd that man say to you, anyway?"

  "What do you think?"

  Paps punched the ceiling. The noise jolted us to attention, and we braced ourselves for worse, but nothing followed.

  "Man, that's what he always says—'What do you think?'" Manny said in a too-loud mocking voice, but Paps didn't seem to hear; he just drove.

  "Yeah," I said. "That's what he said last night. About the light."

  "What light?"

  "The light in the cage outside the window. I asked if he could unlock it, and he said, 'What do you think?'"

  Joel considered this like a real thinker, one hand tucked up in his armpit and the other pinching his chin. "What do you think?" he asked.

  "That's not the point," Manny said.

  "I bet he could unlock it," Joel said to the two of us. Grabbing the back of his seat and leaning forward, he said to Paps, "I bet you could unlock that light. Couldn't you?"

  Paps cleared his throat and swallowed hard, but he didn't speak.

  "Sure he could," I said, leaning in with Joel. "Sure you could, Paps, couldn't you?"

  "Course he could," said Manny, joining us. "Nobody's saying you couldn't unlock it, Paps. Nobody's saying that."

  Paps started making odd, wheezy, gasping noises. He slammed the dashboard with his palm, then closed his fist and really started thumping with force, but slow and steady, as if he was beating down a nail. Eventually, he fell into a three-beat rhythm, more like beating a drum, keeping time to some music only he heard. He wiped snot from his nose and water from his eyes, but went on pounding. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  "He crying?" Joel whispered.

  "What, with his fist?"

  It didn't seem much like crying, seemed like something else, meaner than crying; steadier, too, but not one of us had ever actually seen him cry, so we couldn't know for sure—and Paps, he didn't say a word about it, just the thump, thump, thump, for miles. When we thought he would stop, he didn't; when we thought he would speak or scream or cuss, he was silent. His breathing calmed some, but the water and snot kept coming, and the wheeze, and the gasp.

  After a while the pounding, so spooky at first, was just there, and a while after that, Joel started smacking his own fist against the wind
ow, in time with Paps.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Then it was Manny against his window, matching the beat. Paps didn't turn back or acknowledge us at all; he just kept up his pounding, so I pounded on the hard plastic armrest in the middle, and it felt like we were building something, a tribe—us four together, us four angry and giddy and thump-crazy, together.

  Once we turned onto our street, we tried out little three-word chants to the beat of our pounding.

  "No More Work!" said Manny.

  "No More Floor!" I said.

  "No! More! Coffee Cups!" yelled Joel, and we all bust up laughing; even Paps spat out a little laugh of surprise.

  We rolled all over the back seat, slapping our thighs, trying to chant "No More Coffee Cups" but choking on the words, we were laughing so hard, until Manny said, "Stop, stop. I can't anymore. I'm crying."

  Joel responded by pounding out "No More Crying!" on the window. And soon we were all pounding it out.

  "No More Crying! No More Crying!"

  All the way down the street and into the driveway, we chanted, up the front steps and into the house, where Ma had already arrived and undressed for sleep and came now to the bedroom door in her bra and underwear, rubbing her eyes, asking what in hell was going on; we chanted and pounded the walls, we pounded the coffee table in front of the couch, where Paps had slumped and covered his eyes with the palms of his hands. "No More Crying! No More Crying!"

  Ma tried to holler over the noise; she kept asking what in hell was going on, calling on Paps by his first name to tell her what in hell was going on, sitting by him, putting the back of her hand to his forehead, and then to us saying, "He's just tired, he's just tired is all," and then looking at him, "You're just tired, baby, aren't you?"

  Paps kept his palms over his eyes; he spoke like that.

  "We're never gonna escape this," Paps said. "Never."

  We didn't know who he was talking to, but it hushed us. Our thumps softened to taps against the tabletop; we still chanted, but it was almost a whisper now and no fun.

  "You talking about escaping?" Ma asked.

  "Nobody," Paps said. "Not us. Not them. Nobody's ever escaping this." He raised his head and swept his arm out in front of him. "This."