The Withdrawal Method

by Pasha Malla

  FINALLY AT THREE fifteen the bell rings. Everyone goes running out into the hall and it's Easter. I get my bag at the rack and I'm putting on my jacket and Jared Wein comes up and goes, Wanna walk home? Jared's okay, he wears glasses that are always falling down his face and he has to scrunch his nose to move them back up. Igo, Yeah. Also he usually gets a nosebleed.

  On the way home from school Jared and I go down to our fort in the woods to check if it's okay. There's a path with trees that grow over from each side and make a tunnel, the branches bend in and touch over top and you have to duck when you're walking along. Then it opens up and that's where our fort is. We call it The Inner Sanctum, and it always needs fixing because teenagers come down and drink beer and light fires and mess everything up.

  It's been raining so today The Inner Sanctum is wet and sort of cool, and dark, and it smells like worms. There's a log to sit on so Jared goes and sits there and he pats the log beside him like he wants me to sit down too, but I get a stick and I start whacking the ground until it breaks. It breaks into a smaller piece, and then I whack that on the log, and it breaks even smaller, and I throw that piece into the woods. There's a beer cap on the ground so I pick it up and sniff it: pennies and sugar.

  If we stayed late enough it'd get dark and we could lie back and look up at the sky and see the moon up there through the space in the treetops, white as bones, full or half or waxing or waning (part of The Earth was to learn about the moon) and we'd lie back and I'd maybe let Jared put his head on my tummy and we'd both look up at the moon and I might tell him, That's my Mom, Jared, that's Mom looking down. Then I'd wave at the moon: Hello, goodnight! But I wouldn't cry. I wouldn't cry or anything.

  But we can't stay that late because I have to get home for Brian. Besides, if Jared Wein gets a nosebleed we don't have any Kleenex.

  We fix up The Inner Sanctum and Jared goes to his house and I come home but Brian's not there yet. My dad Greg usually gets in at five thirty from his job at the parking garage. If he's not home for dinner you got to make hot dogs, one for you and one for Brian. Sometimes my dad Greg'11 leave you a note and sometimes he won't.

  INGREDIENTS TO MAKE HOT DOGS FOR DINNER:

  Okay. You take the hot-dog wieners out of the freezer. You take a paper towel. You put one of the hot dogs on the paper towel and you put it in the microwave and you microwave it for i:io. You take the other hot dog and other paper towel: repeat. Then you put the hot dogs in the bread and a piece of cheese on the wieners and you can even do them together at the same time, and you microwave them on a paper towel for forty-five seconds. I put mustard on mine, and ketchup, in two straight even lines. Brian has them plain. If they're too hot make Brian wait because if not he'll just stuff them in his mouth and burn himself and he'll cry and then you have to hug him and rub his hair and stuff.

  Oh, I forgot to say to WASH YOUR HANDS. Before and after making hot dogs, with hot water and soap. There are germs everywhere and if you get them in your mouth you could maybe get, I don't know, cancer or leukemia? Not really, I'm not an idiot. But kids get leukemia all the time and then they have to get bones from their brothers or sisters. I'd have to get bones from Brian. Or give him some of mine.

  IT'S 4:06 AND I'm washing my hands when the bus pulls up outside. It's always the same: it sounds like Granny when she gets all wheezy, then the doors open and you can hear all the kids screaming inside the bus, and then the doors close and it roars and goes away, and then it's quiet. Brian comes in the front door with his backpack and he sees me and yells, Hi! and he gives me this big hug and yells, Hi! again, and then I tell him to wash his hands.

  Sometimes Granny comes by to see if we're okay before my dad Greg gets home. She's his mom and smells like cigarettes and old people. He doesn't have a dad.

  But today it's just me and Brian. We play Trouble. We eat Fruit Roll-Ups - me: grape, Brian: orange. Sometimes I let Brian win Trouble, sometimes I don't. I have to help him move his men. He's always red. I'm always blue. Today though he wins by himself.

  I let Brian watch Tv at five, but only for half an hour. After last Easter when the TV got ruined my dad Greg bought a new big-screen one and put a satellite dish on the roof. There are lots of satellite channels that are inappropriate for kids. We're only allowed to watch channel z - my dad Greg's rule. He watches TV a lot now. Not me. TV ROTS YOUR BRAIN!

  I clean up. I make sure the games are all square on the shelf. The edges have to be even and matched up equally, which is called symmetry. We learned it in math.

  And then I wash my hands. Sometimes I wash them too long and they get all pink and sore, but that just means they're clean.

  Hey, I almost forgot: it's Easter, almost. Moron!

  AT 5:34 THE GARAGE door goes up and the bike comes growling inside like always, and then my dad Greg is in the kitchen in his security guard uniform and he picks me up under one arm and Brian under the other and spins us around. I sometimes forget how big my dad Greg is: he's like four of me, maybe more.

  We sit at the table in the kitchen while he makes beans and toast and eggs for dinner. He sings, Beans, beans, the magical fruit and makes fart noises and stomps around like he's crazy, and the whole house shakes. Brian laughs but then he does that thing where he starts rubbing his face with his knuckles, so my dad Greg has to come over and put Brian on his lap and hold his hands for a bit. Wanna stir the beans, BG? he says to me, so I go over and do it.

  When everything's ready my dad Greg puts the beans out on plates with the toast and eggs. He puts mine down and he points at it to show me the toast is cut in triangles and there's an egg on one side and the beans in a little neat pile on the other, how I like it. Symmetry.

  After dinner he tells me to go do my homework while he gets Brian ready for bed, but I don't have any homework (because it's Easter) so I go up and clean my room, make sure everything's straight and lined up and there's no dust anywhere. I have my own Handyvac but I'm only allowed to use it once a week and I already used it on Sunday.

  Then it's almost bedtime. I put on my pajamas and go brush my teeth and wash my hands. After, I go into Brian's room to say goodnight, but he's already asleep with this big smile on his face, so I lean over the railing and whisper-yell, Goodnight Greg! to my dad Greg who's watching Tv and he turns down the volume and whisper-yells, Goodnight BG! and I go into my room and wait until it's exactly 9:oo so I can get in bed.

  For a bit I lie there thinking about Brian's Easter egg hunt and running my hand over the pillow, feeling for feathers sticking out. I pull them out with my fingernails and drop them behind the bed. One time my dad Greg moved my bed to put up a shelf for my books and he found a big pile of feathers and asked me, Are you taking feathers out of your pillow? I said no. It felt weird, but my dad Greg just smiled and said okay.

  Lying in bed, through the window I can see the moon. It's just a sliver but it's still there. Soon there'll be no moon at all for a few days, a new moon, and then the moon will come back like it's just been hiding or taking a break, slowly, bit by bit, until it's full and as big and round in the sky as the sun.

  I started thinking Mom was the moon when I was little. It was a secret from my dad Greg. I could talk to her and stuff, every night. I know it's dumb now. But it's like tradition and there's nowhere else she can be. Sometimes you can see her and sometimes you can't but every night all around the world Mom the moon is busy pushing oceans in and pulling oceans out. Tides. And all us people are basically water too and at night the moon pushes us into sleep.

  11:38. I'VE BEEN lying staring at the moon and planning the egg hunt for like three hours. I'm going to have to make a list, write it down so I don't forget, so nothing happens like chocolate getting into the Tv again. I keep thinking about Easter, imagining Brian going around with his little basket and finding eggs, all smiles and laughing and happy.

  But maybe I have insomnia? Insomnia is when you can't sleep, my dad Greg has it sometimes. You just stay awake forever. You can die from not sleeping. Yeah, I
think I have insomnia. I should count sheep.

  One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six twenty-seven twentyeight twenty-nine thirty thirty-one thirty-two thirty-three thirty-four thirty-five thirty-six thirty-seven thirty-eight thirty-nine forty forty-one forty-two forty-three forty-four forty-five forty-six forty-seven forty-eight forty-nine fifty fifty-one fifty-two fifty-three fifty-four fifty-five fifty-six fiftyseven fifty-eight fifty-nine sixty.

  Nothing. Sixty seconds is a minute. Sixty minutes in an hour times sixty seconds = three thousand six hundred seconds. Twenty-four hours in a day = ?

  Hold on, I need to write this down. I just have to turn on the light and find a paper and pen.

  24 hours in a day = 1440 minutes = 86,400 seconds. And that makes ... 604,800 seconds in a week. How many seconds in a year? Whoa, hold on.

  31,339,600.

  The other thing you can do if you can't sleep is have some warm milk. So I wait until exactly 12:00 midnight and get up to go down to the kitchen. I stop on the stairs. My dad Greg is still up. I can hear the TV. I lean over the banister and look into the den, all quiet. Like a spy.

  The TV's on. There's a lady moaning, like she's being hurt or something? My dad Greg has the sound way down, but I can hear it. He's sitting on the couch - I can see him, with his feet sticking out from under a blanket. He's sort of twitching or something and the couch is going creak creak, and the lady on the TV is going uh! uh! and he's making noises too, like grunting. Creak creak, uh uh, grunt grunt.

  I take another step down on the stairs and lean even more over the banister so I can see the TV and there's a lady with her boobs shaking and flopping around, like slapping up against herself, and now there's a man on her too with his butt in the air and I realize he's humping her, and the blanket on the couch is shaking in time with the boobs and the butt and I can see my dad's face and his face is different, it's like a secret side of him I've never seen, mean and hungry and weird, and the couch goes creak creak and the lady with the floppy boobs goes uh uh and my dad Greg goes grunt grunt. But then something in my tummy goes gloop and I have to pull away from the banister because my head is all funny, and I turn away and run upstairs to the bathroom.

  And then I'm washing my hands. I didn't even turn the lights on, so now I'm washing my hands in the dark with hot water and lots of soap, hard, and the water's too hot and it hurts and I can already feel my hands burning from it, I know they're going pink but I don't care.

  I hear someone behind me but I don't look. I hear my dad Greg go, BG. He leaves the lights off and comes over, so he's right behind me. I still don't look.

  He reaches over and turns off the tap. My hands are sore, my stomach still feels weird and like gurgly. BG, he says again. I don't turn around. We stand there in the dark. Then he reaches out to put his arms around me but he sort of stops and just stands there, and then he pulls a towel off the rack and holds it out to me, but I don't take it. I just want him to go away.

  PENIS: DINK DICK wang schlong dong winky wiener cock peter rod pud monkey johnson prick willy member purplehelmeted-warrior tackle twig-and-berries banana sausage meat doodle noodle package privates one-eyed-monster rocket hard-on boner steamer stiffy erection.

  THE NEXT MORNING I wake up at 7:47 but it's not really waking up because I didn't sleep very much, obviously. I have to wait until exactly 8:oo to get out of bed, so I just lie there for thirteen minutes thinking. The curtains are closed now, my dad Greg must have come in during the night and closed them, and that makes me feel weird - the idea of him being in my room when I'm sleeping, looking at me, standing over me, being there.

  Through the curtains the light comes in grey, and I can hear the rain hissing outside. I decide it'll have to be an indoor day, which means games, so at 8:oo I get out of bed and go into Brian's room, and he's just lying there with his eyes open like he's been waiting for me. He looks at me and smiles and goes, Hi! I lift the covers and crawl under. Brian hugs me. He's warm.

  Brian it's almost Easter, I go. Are you excited for the Easter Bunny?

  He kicks his legs and goes, Yes! Yes!

  That's cute, how he still believes in the Easter Bunny? I put my arm around his chest and I can feel his heart beating. Bub bub, bub bub, says his heart. I rub my hand on his chest and he kind of purrs like a cat. And then I slap him on the tummy and he laughs, so I do it again. I leave my hand on his tummy and it's like round and I can feel the dent where his bellybutton is. And then, sort of quick, I move my hand down a bit and touch his wang, just to see: it's small and weird, a little rubber tube.

  Brian's gone all still. I smack him again on the belly. Wanna get up? I say, and he goes, Yes! Yes! and nods his head so hard he nearly shakes me out of the bed.

  TOP SECRET LIST OF EASTER EGG HIDING PLACES! (SO FAR)

  Kitchen - between the Wheaties and Sugar Crisp boxes

  Kitchen - in the handle of the silverware drawer

  Kitchen - on top of the breadbox

  Kitchen - in the fruit bowl

  Kitchen - under the kitchen table (stuck with tape!)

  Den - between the couch cushions

  Den - on top of the VCR

  Den - under the lampshade

  Hallway - on the frame of the picture of me and Brian

  Stairs - one egg on every stair, in the corners

  MY DAD GREG spends the whole morning in the garage working on his bike, which is good, because after me and Brian play like a hundred games of Trouble, at lunch (1:24) when he comes in to heat up some Chunky for us he's weird and doesn't look at me really. He puts our bowls of soup down and coughs and just stands there for a minute. Then he grabs an apple and goes back into the garage. Then at precisely 4:09 he sticks his head into the kitchen where I'm reading Harriet the Spy and Brian's colouring and he says, Hey, stopped raining, taking the bike for a spin. The way he says it is too happy, like he's trying to be happy, and he's got this fake smile. I just nod okay. He's quiet for a bit, then he goes, You okay holding down the fort? So I nod again and then he's just gone.

  Granny's coming tomorrow to make us Easter dinner. At 5:14 she calls and says, Happy Easter! and tells me about the great ham she got. Ham? Grody. But I don't say that. I say, Yum. I say, Sounds good Granny. I tell her my dad Greg is out on his bike but should be back soon and she asks if we're okay. I say, Sure. Then she wants to talk to Brian. He gets all excited and takes the phone and yells, Hi! and Yes! and then just laughs a lot.

  When Brian hangs up I notice something sort of smells so I get down and sniff his bum. Yup. He crapped himself. This is one thing I can't handle: crap. So I tell him to just stand in the middle of the kitchen until our dad Greg gets home, not to touch anything. I open the window and sit there watching him, glad he's wearing pants with elastic ankles.

  My dad Greg gets home at 5:58 and smells Brian right away and goes, Woo-wee buddy! He picks Brian up over one shoulder like a fireman and carries him upstairs. The tub goes on. I can hear them both laughing from my spot at the kitchen table and the water splashing around while my dad Greg washes the crap off my brother.

  After dinner (fried baloney, Tater Tots, hot V8) we watch a movie on satellite. My dad Greg tries to get us to all sit on the couch together with the blanket overtop like usual. I tell him I'm okay and sit on the floor. The opening credits come on and I can feel someone like nudging me in the back with their toe. I just stare at the TV as if I don't notice but it's hard to focus on the TV, it's like I can see the pictures but my brain can't figure out what they are.

  The movie we watch is The Parent Trap. My dad Greg is all excited because it's a movie that was out when he was a kid. At dinner he told me, It's more for girls than boys - you'll like it, BG. When he said the name I thought, Cool, a parent trap, what an awesome idea. You'd dig a hole and cover it with sticks and leaves, maybe put a case of beer on the other side for dads. Somethi
ng else for moms? Then dads would come along and be like, Oh great, beer! and when they went to go for it they'd fall through and into the hole. A parent trap. Then you could study them and stuff, poke them with sticks, do experiments and tests.

  But it turns out to be Disney! The worst! There's this girl and she's got a twin sister but she doesn't know or something, and then they try to get their parents married. There's no trap really, just a plan, and not even a good one. I squirm around on the floor a lot and my dad Greg keeps going, You want to come up here with us? But I don't say anything to that.

  The movie gets done at 8:58, kind of late, so my dad Greg hustles us off to bed. And then goes back downstairs, so I'm left lying there wide awake, thinking about what he's maybe doing down there under the blanket with the groaning ladies on the Tv. But I guess I'm tired from the night before so after not too long I forget about my dad Greg King of the Perverts and start to get really sleepy and before I can even check out the window to see the moon I fall asleep.

  I WAKE up and I feel swampy and slow but I have this idea there's something I should be doing. It's - 4:17 a.m. There's something, but everything feels cloudy and my brain is only just winding up, still maybe half asleep. I roll over and then I'm drifting off to sleep again, when it hits me.

  Easter.

  The egg hunt.

  In like three hours Brian is going to get up and go hunting for eggs and I forgot to even finish my list, let alone hide any eggs. I wait until 4:20 (which isn't perfect, but this is an emergency) and swing my legs over the side, get out of bed and it's like slow motion, all heavy and weird, and in the dark my room is sort of blue from the moonlight through the window.

  Moving out into the hall I still feel underwater, swimming, looking around, trying to adjust my eyes to the dark. Wait. There's an egg on the floor outside Brian's room, a little dark lump against the carpet. I lean down and it's like I can't believe it and for a second I think maybe the Easter Bunny really did come. But then I realize who would have put it there, who knew it was my job and went and did it himself anyway.