The Art of Breathing

by TJ Klune

  I buck my hips up (thinking how egregiously pornographic that probably looks to anyone who might be watching), and Corey falls off to the side, cursing as his elbow strikes the floor. I jump up to my feet and brush myself off, as if there might be errant hairs or semen on my front.

  “I’m ready,” I mutter.

  Dominic nods, whirls his keys on his finger, then turns and walks out the door.

  I spin on Corey. “Your death,” I hiss at him, “is not going to be quick and easy. You will feel pain as I slowly squeeze the life from you.”

  He clucks his tongue. “Not a very good vegetarian,” he says.

  “I’m not going to eat you!”

  “You won’t?” he says with an exaggerated pout. “That’s no fun.”

  “Corey!”

  “What?”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you!”

  He grins up at me from the floor. “Absolutely nothing, dear heart. I’m just going to make sure this is a summer you never forget. Trust me, by the time I’m done with you, you won’t know what hit you. And neither will he.”

  Rather than murdering him, I leave him there on the floor. It seems easier.

  18. Where Tyson Gets Screwed at His Own Birthday Party (And Not in a Good Way)

  IT MIGHT have seemed easier earlier, but by the time the party starts, I’m pretty sure I’m starting to understand why murder seems ridiculously easy. I just need to find a way not to get caught. I have the brain power so I should be able to figure it out. A vat of acid should do the job nicely.

  To say that lunch with Dominic was awkward is an understatement.

  The car ride over to the restaurant was done in a heavy silence punctuated by half-hysterical attempts at conversation, with such gems coming from me such as “So, what did you think of the sports game on TV last night? I sure enjoyed when the half forward made a basket!” And “Oh, look! That bus bench has a sign for a personal injury attorney that says he only takes 23 percent! How positively fortuitous!”

  Dominic, ever the conversationalist, remained as stoic as ever, grunting his responses as opposed to using his mouth for what it was made for (this, of course, led to a line of thinking that I had no right or reason to think about involving his mouth, my mouth, and a whole lot of suction. These thoughts were immediately erased when I found myself with a burgeoning erection. Have you ever gotten half a hard-on when you can’t seem to stop talking about sports and lawyers? I have. It’s awkward).

  Besides, I scolded myself, I wasn’t supposed to be thinking of him in any way other than an off-limits friend I hadn’t seen in a very long time who I’d wronged and had just made things kind of right with again. That simple.

  But for whatever reason, I couldn’t get over the guilt I felt at having him walk in and seeing Corey (that rat bastard!) kissing me. I told myself it was nothing. I told myself it didn’t matter. I told myself Dominic had plenty more to worry about than seeing his old friend kiss another boy. And I realized how ridiculous that thought was as soon as I had it.

  So lunch occurred, and I barely remember what the food tasted like, much less what I ordered. Everything was too bright, too shiny, and I couldn’t focus on a damn thing. For what it’s worth, Dom seemed distracted, too, and though I wondered at it, I didn’t think it was my place to ask.

  Conversation was stilted, the silences stretching too long, both of us starting to speak at the same time, then stopping, laughing nervously as we both motioned for each other to speak, only to have the silence return even longer than the time before.

  And for the life of me, I couldn’t quite stop staring at his mouth.

  Creepy, right? Seriously.

  I watched as a noodle disappeared between his lips and thought, I really need to look somewhere else. But then he darted his tongue out to get a bit of butter sauce and apparently my body thought that was the most erotic thing to have ever have happened in human existence, and I spilled my water all over the table as my hand jerked into the glass, knocking it over. I’m pretty sure everyone in the restaurant turned and stared at me and wondered why the obviously mentally deficient child was babbling and trying to mop up the table with his shirt.

  And then he asked it. The jerk.

  “You and Corey, huh?” he said in an off-handed tone.

  I gaped at him, suddenly and without warning unable to form any kind of coherent sentence. Instead, I said, “Gah?”

  He nodded. “You guys look… nice… together.”

  “Guh? Gah?”

  “I’m happy for you, Tyson. I really am. I hope he treats you right.”

  “We’re….” I stopped and cleared my throat. “He’s not… I don’t…. Guh?” I stopped before my eloquence could contribute any more to the human race than it already had.

  “Not what?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I muttered.

  “Oh,” Dominic said. “Fuck buddy, then?”

  It’s probably good thing I wasn’t attempting to eat anymore, because I’m pretty sure I would have choked to death right at that moment. “You said ‘fuck’!”

  He cocked an eyebrow at me. “I guess I did.”

  “You never say ‘fuck’!”

  “Could you not shout that, please? People are starting to stare. Again.”

  “You can’t curse,” I hissed at him, barely lowering my voice.

  “Why not? Last time I checked, I was of an age where I can say what I want.”

  “You’re… you… you’re Dominic!”

  “I suppose I should be relieved you can remember my name,” he said, eating more erotic butter noodles with that dirty, filthy mouth of his.

  I couldn’t figure out the words to explain to him that in all the years I’d known him, I’d never heard him say the word “fuck,” and for some reason, it was making this whole situation that much worse because if he could eat erotic butter noodles and say the word “fuck,” what chance did I, a mere mortal, have of not thinking of him in any way other than wearing nothing but the pants of his police uniform and twirling a pair of handcuffs on his finger?

  “We’re not fuck buddies,” I said weakly. You can’t be fuck buddies with someone whose death you’re plotting in your head. Well, not in good conscience, anyway.

  “Could have fooled me,” he said, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. He watched me, and I knew he was turning on the whole “cop stare” again.

  “That was….” What was that? What Corey did?

  “That was?”

  “Corey,” I finished lamely. “He’s… odd.”

  “Seems like a nice guy.”

  “Oh, he is.”

  “Great.”

  “Yeah, great.”

  Excruciatingly long, evil silence. We just stared.

  “So,” I said for lack of anything better to say.

  “So,” he said.

  “I guess I’m no longer a teenager, huh?”

  “Guess not. Twenty years old.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not quite legal, yet.”

  “For all the things that count,” I said without thinking.

  “Oh?” he asked maddeningly. “What things would those be?”

  “War.” FUCKING! “Smoking.” FUCKING!

  Dominic frowned. “You going to join the army?”

  “No.”

  “You going to start smoking?”

  “No.”

  “And if I catch you with alcohol,” he growled, “you’re in for a world of hurt.”

  Yes, officer. “I won’t!” I squeaked, as if puberty and I had just become casual acquaintances.

  “Good to know.”

  He paid for lunch while I prayed to Jesus or Buddha or Krishna (I’ve found when in a high stage of panic, you really don’t care, just as long as someone listens) or any deity at all to send a meteor the size of North Carolina to smite me from this earth to save me from myself. Unfortunately, Jesus and Buddha and Krishna all seemed to be away on some kind of God Retreat a
t Camp Screw You, Tyson Thompson, and no meteor fell from the sky and ended my life, so I couldn’t make my current situation any worse.

  Just my luck.

  The car ride back wasn’t any better.

  In front of the Green Monstrosity, he parked his car. We sat there for a moment, and I wanted to say something, anything, but my throat constricted and all I could do was focus on breathing.

  “Tyson,” he said, and I looked over, sure he was about to say something that would change everything.

  “Yeah?”

  “We should probably go inside,” he said.

  Get a grip, man! “Yeah.”

  And that’s what we did.

  People shouted surprise! when the door opened.

  I smiled and pretended to be just that.

  Streamers fell. Balloons flew. People laughed and clapped.

  And now, an hour later, I’m glaring at Corey, who’s laughing way too fucking loudly at something Dominic says and reaching up, trailing his fingers along Dom’s biceps, and I imagine that Corey wouldn’t have the same smile on his face if someone smashed his fingers (and kneecaps) with a ball-peen hammer (and for a moment, I’m distracted on how it is exactly that I know what a ball-peen hammer is—I’m so full of useless crap).

  “Your bones will poke through the skin,” I promise him darkly, unaware that anyone can hear me.

  Which, of course, someone does.

  “That sounds unpleasant,” Otter says, coming to stand next to me where I stand partially hidden behind a gaudy fake tree/plant thing Bear found at a swap meet that for some reason he adores. Otter and I have both tried to accidentally light the aptly named Gross Bush Tree Thing on fire. Both times, Bear caught us. He was not amused. “Who are you threatening?”

  “Oh, Dom!” Corey practically shouts as he all but rubs his entire body up against Dominic’s huge body. “Aren’t you just dear! I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who has put me in such a good humor!”

  “Ah,” Otter says sagely. “Now it’s as clear as mud.”

  “Shards of bone,” I growl.

  “Who are we staring at?” Creed asks, coming up to stand by his brother.

  “Death by raging fire,” I say with a scowl.

  “Tell me, Dom!” Corey says, louder than the thirty other people in the room. “What’s your favorite position? You know. In sports. I prefer to play all over the field!”

  “Oh,” Creed says. “Now I get it. I think. Whose death are we plotting?”

  “I think right now it could be either or,” Otter says. “Or both. Or neither.”

  “So we’re plotting behind Gross Bush Tree Thing, then? I feel my life has been missing evil plots as of late. Anna’s pregnancy makes me tired.”

  “What about Anna being pregnant?” Otter asks.

  Creed waves his hand. “All she has to do is carry the little bastard. I’m the one who has to lose sleep next to her when she kicks me awake all night because her back hurts.”

  “Yeah, probably shouldn’t let your wife hear that.”

  “Too late,” Anna says, cuffing Creed upside the head. “If it bothers you that much, you can sleep on the couch. Why are we hiding behind Gross Bush Tree Thing?”

  “We’re planning murder,” Creed explains.

  Her eyes go wide. “Oooh! It’s been so long since I’ve done that.”

  “What about last week when I left the toilet seat up again and you fell in at three in the morning?”

  She smiles sweetly at Creed. “No murder. Not yet. Once I get your spawn out of me, then we’ll talk. I don’t want to be pregnant in jail.”

  “It’s a love for the ages,” he says, kissing his wife on the nose.

  “Who are we going to murder?” Anna asks.

  “Tell me, Officer,” Corey says with a giggle and all the subtlety of an atomic bomb made of unicorns and glitter. “Do you ever get to use those handcuffs and nightstick for anything more… adventurous?”

  “The black plague in your brain,” I mutter.

  “Ah,” Anna says. “Have we figured out which one?”

  “Not yet,” Otter says.

  “I have an idea,” Creed says.

  “You don’t have many of those,” Anna says. “Hold on to it while you can.”

  “I forgot how much fun you are when you’re pregnant,” Creed says. “It’s like being married to a—”

  “Choose your next words very carefully,” Anna says. “Especially if you ever want to do that one thing again.”

  “—wonderful woman who brings nothing but joy and laughter to my life and for whom my heart beats eternally,” Creed finishes.

  “Gross,” Otter says. “I don’t want to know what that one thing is.”

  “Yes, you do,” Creed says. “Anna can clench her—”

  “What are you all doing? You better not be lighting that on fire again. Otter, I swear to God you’re going to burn the house down!” Bear storms over and glares at Otter.

  “Try to set something on fire once and you get blamed for it the rest of your life,” Otter sighs.

  “Four times,” Bear reminds him.

  “Gross Tree Bush Thing is just begging for it,” Creed says.

  “Don’t call it that! I paid good money for it!”

  “Against any and all judgment and pleadings on my behalf,” Otter reminds him.

  “It’s my Charlie Brown Christmas Tree,” Bear says, lovingly stroking the plastic. “All it needs is a little love.”

  “Good money?” Creed asks. “Think of all the starving children in Argentina or Kentucky you could have fed with that money. You know, Bear, once you have children, you won’t be able to spend money on such frivolous and hideous things. You’ll need to save for college or bail money and an attorney. I haven’t yet decided what direction I think an offspring of yours would go.”

  “And diapers,” Anna says. “And clothes. And toys. And shoes. So many pairs of shoes.”

  “And video games,” Creed says. “And alcohol for yourself because it’s going to be the only way you’ll make it through the next eighteen years. Don’t worry, though. I’ll teach you how to day-drink and not look like you’re drunk.”

  “He doesn’t day-drink,” Anna says, frowning at Creed.

  “I’m drunk right now,” he assures her. “Completely shattered. Want to go mess around?”

  “Not even a little bit,” she says.

  “Disappointing,” he sighs.

  “I read in an article that the average cost of raising a child is over two hundred thousand dollars,” Bear says, looking sad. “Think of all the stuff we could buy if we saved that money for ourselves.”

  “Or,” Otter says, “think of the joy when our son or daughter says ‘Daddy’ for the first time.”

  “Or when he or she screams how much they hate you at the grocery store because you wouldn’t buy them a candy bar,” Creed says. “And then everyone stares at you because you’re so obviously a bad parent and you can’t control your little spawn of Satan.”

  “That was one time,” Anna says. “And to be fair, you told him first that you were going to buy a candy bar for yourself, and that JJ was going to get a can of wet cat food.”

  “Fucking with him is the only way I’ll survive since you won’t let me day-drink,” he says. “How else am I supposed to live since you trapped me with a baby?”

  “Tyson?”

  God, they’re all so weird. “Yes, Anna?”

  “Whatever your plans are for Corey and/or Dominic, please make room for Creed in them on the receiving end as well, with me standing by your side. Might I suggest waterboarding them with bleach?”

  “That would work perfectly,” I grumble darkly as Corey lets out another one of his braying-donkey laughs as he all but fucks Dominic in front of everyone. It’s funny, really, when you realize your best friend is nothing but a big fat whore who needs to shut his whore mouth and fall off the earth.

  But to complicate things (I am me, after all), I’m also slightly
(read: extremely) annoyed with Dominic for just standing there with a bemused expression on his face, taking such advances in stride. Corey’s my friend and ex-boyfriend, not his, and he needs to back the fuck away from Corey before I climb him like a mountain and plant my fist in his face.

  Gosh, I’m a remarkably complex and fascinating creature.

  Maybe I’ll just off the both of them and be rid of this entire situation. I think it would make things so much easier.

  “Well, as much fun as plotting evil plots behind Gross Tree Bush Thing is for me,” Creed says, “I really think we could put our focus on the ill-suffering Kid here. It’s his birthday, after all. We can’t have him be murderous.”

  “I’m perfectly fine with murderous,” I tell him, though I find it slightly odd that we’ve all randomly congregated behind a plastic tree bush. No wonder people are under the impression my family is weird.

  “Be that as it may, let’s change things up a bit,” he says cheerfully as he reaches out and shoves the Gross Tree Bush Thing. Bear squawks angrily as it falls to the ground with a loud crash, revealing the five of us standing in close proximity in the corner of the living room. “Tyson!” Creed says quite loudly. “You need to be more careful! That could have killed someone!”

  Everyone stares at us, including Corey and Dom. Corey, that motherfucker, has a knowing smirk on his face that makes me want to rip his lips off. Who knew I had such a propensity for violent fantasies? I should probably bring this up the next time I’m in therapy. Just my luck, I’m on my way to being a serial killer on top of everything else. That’s something I really don’t need.

  “I will destroy something you love,” Bear promises angrily, bending over to pick up the tree.

  Well, if I am going to be a serial killer, at least I’ll know where I got it from.

  “Yeah, yeah, Papa Bear,” Creed says, rolling his eyes. “Because you’re so threatening.”

  “He tries,” Otter says with a sweet smile. “It’s rather adorable.”

  “Gag,” Creed says. “I could have lived my whole life without hearing my older brother describe my best friend as adorable. You really outgayed yourself this time, Otter, which honestly, I didn’t think was possible, what with the whole ‘gay sex’ thing. Congratulations.”