Breaker

by Richard Thomas

  This is Logan Square.

  My stop anyway, so I get up and head for the doors.

  This is a Blue Line train to Forest Park.

  “I like cock—wanna party with me?” I ask, as I grab the kid in a headlock and drag him out of the train. I can’t hear anything he says, as his face is tucked into my armpit, the smell and shock of it all sending him into a fit of rage and spasms.

  I keep walking toward a tall blue metal box and run his head straight into it. He falls to the concrete below, unconscious. I look around and the station is empty. I keep walking.

  I turn to check on the girl.

  Doors are closing. Next stop, California.

  The girl smiles and wiggles her fingers at me, mouthing the word, “Thanks.”

  I’m sure she could have handled the asshole, but what the hell, hard to sit by and do nothing, and I could use the extra karma.

  I give her a smile and a head nod and keep walking. Cameras. They’re everywhere. I stand out enough as it is.

  Chapter 10

  Natalie

  Natalie has the ability to become invisible. She can disappear anytime she wants to, in any situation. It is an acquired skill, one she has developed over the years, culled from a magical combination of being ignored, remaining quiet, and blending into the woodwork. And while she can still see herself in mirrors—she isn’t really disappearing after all, she can still see her breath when it’s cold outside—she feels as if she’s gone transparent.

  For example, when Ray comes home tonight from his boxing match at three in the morning, Natalie is standing in the stairwell, having heard a strange noise outside, a cat wailing, in the middle of its death throes. She has crept out from her bedroom dressed only in her nightgown and opened the apartment door, walking down a flight of stairs, listening for the cries, feeling there is something she might be able to do, to comfort or help the dying cat. When she hears the front door open and sees Ray walk in, she pushes back into the shadows, into the corner, and watches. She sees him lurch in, layers of gray on a stairwell filled with darkness, a form hardly there at all, moving with a quiet grace. When Ray notices the cat lying on its back, crying out, blood seeping out of its nose, the foyer reeking of urine, the poor beast twitching and growling, he leans over and grabs it by the neck, twisting its head in one movement. Snap, and the beast is finally quiet. She wants to believe it is mercy, but it’s horrible nonetheless. She pushes back against the wall, willing herself into the paint and plaster, and he glides past her without even glancing her way. He smells of sweat and death, of musk and rot, but buried underneath it all something sweet, like vanilla. In this moment, she stops breathing, her vision swimming in the night.

  Tomorrow, she will disappear in plain sight at the breakfast table, sitting down to a bowl of corn flakes, a glass of orange juice, and a piece of toast with butter and strawberry jelly. Her father will wander in, pour a cup of coffee, and stand there, looking out the window. He will scratch his ass and sigh, setting the mug down for a moment to rub his temples before turning and leaving with the coffee back in his hand. Natalie will exhale. Her mother will likewise enter the room, open the refrigerator, and pull out a nearly empty bottle of white wine. She will pop the cork and suck it down, tossing the glass container into the garbage. She will moan, rub her back, and reach back inside the fridge for a vanilla yogurt, turn toward the living room, and exit the kitchen, leaving a mist of floral perfume, and the slight scent of spoiling blood. Again, Natalie will exhale. When the door opens and shuts, opens and shuts again, they will have disappeared out into the world, the day, stumbling toward work, tamping down addiction, praying for whatever lost hope might still exist in the world for them. Not that they deserve it.

  And Natalie? She’ll breathe in again, and exhale, washing her bowl out in the sink (with soap), rinsing off the spoon, and setting them in the dish rack. She will go get dressed, wearing her favorite sweater, the fuzzy green one with the yellow flower in the center, oblivious to the fact that the boys in her grade know this outfit all too well. They wager quarters on whether it’s the green or yellow socks to match. She’ll put her hair up in a fuzzy tie, lime green with yellow plastic beads, having worn the same faded underwear for a week now, the same soft pink shirt underneath it all, the one with the “S” framed large in the middle of the fabric. She is a clean girl—she showers daily, brushes her teeth twice a day, dabs after she pees, and wipes from front to back, never the reverse. She uses deodorant and a spritz of her coveted Justice perfume, BeYOUtiful Pink Justice—which works for her on a number of levels. The black cherry, peach, and berry remind her of how sweet she is, still innocent; and the vanilla, freesia, and amber make her think of distant lands—what might come next, what might still be out there for her. She hasn’t given up hope yet.

  Yet.

  She disappears on her walk to school, blending in with the crowds of older girls, sidling up to them quietly and latching on like a remora, peeling off when it’s time to head to her school, letting them walk on to theirs. She is used to men saying things to her on her walk, shouting out of car windows, making crude gestures, licking their lips. Sometimes they are teens in vintage Trans Ams or Chevy Novas, sometimes they slide past her quietly in white vans with tinted windows. She listens to the girls talk, and gossip, words she does not understand or know, creating images that confuse and excite her. Her face flushes at random words—tongue, for example. She disappears in the hallways at school, knowing what paths to take in order to avoid certain gangs, or malicious girls that are often just as dangerous. She knows what bathrooms to avoid, never going alone before or after school, and which teachers and classrooms are safe havens, those adults willing to look up and help instead of looking away while remaining seated, uninvolved.

  And then like magic, she appears in her classroom, suddenly alive and full of color and voice, friends all around her, the boys eager and willing to tease, checking her socks for sure, but still enamored with her, still hopeful that she’ll notice them and say something nice, send a smile their way, or maybe a laugh. One boy, Jacob, wears a green and yellow set of plastic bands around his left wrist, charities he hardly knows, a secret he keeps entirely to himself. The teacher appears and Natalie is heard, she is seen.

  She’s not stupid—not at all.

  Chapter 11

  I didn’t set out to kill my uncle Tully, at least not at first, but I certainly don’t regret it. Sitting at the kitchen table, another day has slipped past me, the sun already set, my body and face bruised and sore, echoes of Father Brassard in my head, his Cheshire cat grin, the crack of his nose, the spritz of blood on my hands. It will stay with me for a few days, and then I’ll bury it deep with the rest. It’s what I do.

  Four grilled cheese sandwiches, and two cans of chicken noodle soup. Tomorrow it might be a couple of boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. The day after that it could be a box of twenty Chicken McNuggets, a large fry, and a Coke. My diet is that of a ten-year-old boy, although I eat as much as two men.

  There are ways to crush a child’s spirit, ways to render children mute and pliable. For my father, it was the constant criticism, goddamnit this, and goddamnit that, never good enough, nothing I did or desired important in his eyes. Come home with long hair, and I was a faggot. Disagree with his politics, and I was a commie. How many times I stood next to some car he was working on, a 1966 Mustang or a 1967 Camaro, contemplating the jack that held the car up, one little kick and the car would fall down, crushing the man and silencing him forever. The lines and metal on these cars were hypnotic, but I knew nothing about them. It didn’t come naturally to me, like it did with him. His greasy hands were eager to fix things, his running mouth quick to destroy.

  My mother was the opposite, always looking on the bright side of things, never seeing what was right in front of her face. It wasn’t that she merely wanted to see the good in people—no, she just refused to see the bad in them, no matter what anyone said, no matter what evidence was presented
to her. I must have misheard something, or I was exaggerating, or no, it didn’t happen that way. Bruises and cuts, those were from playing sports, roughhousing with my friends. Tully’s presence in our house, it never bothered her; she never saw the red flags, never heard the alarm bells ringing.

  If it had been just me back then, maybe I would have tucked it down deep, put up with Tully and his trips out into the country. The guns, and fishing, and fires we built—I enjoyed all of that, I did. But when night fell, things got strange. Suddenly the trailer wasn’t big enough for the two of us, his bed was wet from a leak—so he had to share mine. Taking a shower, he always found a reason to poke his head in, ask if I was okay, needed anything—soap, shampoo, a washcloth. Changing into swim trunks, my eyes were always turned away. We were just two men out in the woods, it was okay to be naked, sometimes my father joining us on the trip, running down to the pond and jumping in without a stitch of clothes on. We laughed, they drank beer, and when Tully’s eyes began to linger, his pats on the back, on the ass, just a little too often, or too long—that’s when I stopped going to the woods.

  But my sister, she took after my mother: wide-eyed and innocent, her long brown hair and tan skin. Three years older than me, she wasn’t quite ready for high school, but already had a sassy mouth, was on the verge of becoming a young woman. I noticed, the boys in the neighborhood noticed, and Tully noticed too. He was running out of time, for she’d be a woman soon. And that wasn’t what he wanted, not somebody with a full personality, a sharp mind, and opinions of her own. No, he wanted a pawn, a puppet—no questions asked, secrets kept for a lifetime.

  The day I walked past Stephanie’s bedroom and saw Uncle Tully sitting on the edge of her bed, the football game running in the living room, my father yelling, “Run, nigger, run,” a long, fat worm crawled around in my gut, twisting and turning, making me sick. They were just talking, Stephanie taking a nap, just waking up, and he turned to me and smiled, as my legs turned to stone, to ice.

  One final trip to the woods, that was all I wanted. For old times’ sake, I said, and he nodded his head, a small grin working its way across his face.

  It had been a slow progression, things happening in the shadows that I tried very hard not to look at, the next step inevitable. I had trouble sleeping at night, and Stephanie, she was eager for attention, but so unaware of what that meant, what it really implied. On the long drive up to the country, to the trailer, Tully talked about how much fun he’d had with my sister, how she was really growing up so fast, so pretty. On and on he went about her, reminiscing, making me sick to my stomach. I remember him dropping her off after they’d gone bowling, her face flushed, just a hint of beer on her breath.

  Just a sip, to see what it tasted like, Raymond. Relax.

  But no, I would not—not then, and not now.

  How many trips to the bowling alley, the two of them, I can’t remember—seemed like it was all the time. Soon enough Stephanie came home from bowling with Uncle Tully, her face pale, her eyes two lumps of black coal, heading straight to her bedroom. She wouldn’t tell me anything. I hoped and prayed she was still intact, still as innocent as when she had left home that night. It was what I thought of as we headed to the woods.

  With the bonfire blazing—Tully surrounded by a pile of empty beer cans at his feet, eyes darting to me and then away—the memories came flooding back. Waking up naked, and unsure why, not a bruise or pain on my body, but the panic and fear washing over me anyway. The gestures and sounds that came from his side of the bed as I pretended I was asleep, forcing myself to block it out. This night had been a long time coming, and I was ready.

  As the sun started to set behind the woods, we fired rifles at the many cans he’d emptied. I held the rifle and stood tall, Tully standing behind me, his arms on my shoulders, and then running out to place new cans on the rocks that ran around the pond. When he came back, I handed him the rifle, his turn to shoot, my finger lingering on the trigger for just a moment, the tip of the gun angling up toward his face, his eyes going wide as I pulled, the rifle he held going off in his face.

  We were miles from anyone, just the way he liked it, and as he fell back to the ground, the gun clattered to the dirt. He lay in the fading light, gurgling—the wound opening up his skull, part of his head blown off, his eyes blinking at me, unable to speak. I stood over him and watched the light fade out of his confused gaze.

  “Better you than me, Uncle Tully,” I said, my heart racing.

  As the life drained out of him, I slipped on a pair of old gloves and went into the trailer to bring out the rest of the beer cans. I poured them into the pond and crushed them up, just like he’d been doing, and scattered the empties around the fire—easily a case of beer, now. I did not cry. I did not get sick. In the darkness, I found his cellphone inside his coat pocket and called the police.

  “There’s been an accident,” I said. “Oh my God, come quick—my uncle.”

  I sat at the edge of the fire in a ball, rocking back and forth. That’s the way they found me, flashlights splitting the woods. They took one look at the beer cans, the gun, my uncle and me, and nodded their heads.

  “Happens all the time,” one of the officers said, a dark blue shadow on a black expanding sky. “You okay?”

  “I just…I just…I don’t know what happened. It just went off. I thought he was aiming at the cans, he slipped, or set it down, I don’t even know….It was getting dark, I heard him grunt, and it went off and then…”

  They nodded.

  I don’t think the police really cared. There were lots of guys like Tully out in that neck of the woods. His blood alcohol content was off the charts. My parents came to get me, and I cried, my face streaked with dirt. I was ten. On the ride home, in the dark, Stephanie found my hand in the backseat of our car, and held it between her sweaty palms. She rested her head on my shoulder—a mix of Off and sweat, musky Drakkar and hand sanitizer filling the back of the car. It wasn’t long after that night that my hair turned from light brown to blond to nearly white, and my slight frame started to fill out, slowly on my way to becoming the monster I am today.

  In the kitchen, the soup is cold, but I sip it up anyway. The cheese in my stomach sits like a rock, the darkness seeping in the windows, not a light on anywhere.

  I leave it that way, my hands clenched in front of me, resting on the table.

  I regret nothing.

  Chapter 12

  Twenty years later and my sister, Stephanie, is still going to bowling alleys with strange men, sipping cheap beer, and looking for trouble. Her knock at my door is always the same—shave and a haircut, two bits. She never buzzes in downstairs, just appears on my doorstep like a lost puppy. She is afraid of me, but she is kin. She has seen what I can do, what I have done. She’s grateful, but she’s also cautious. Like me, she is a liar.

  I open the door and she is standing there shivering, a faded jean jacket hardly enough to keep her warm. On her head is a brown knit hat that looks like an acorn, the sides running down over her ears, this Peruvian cap a gift from me just last Christmas. Her lips are hot pink, her cat-eye makeup in black and purple a bit Egyptian in nature. A piercing at her eyebrow, and a small stone in her nose; no new work that I can see.

  A bus to a bus for her to get here, no advance call, just here in the neighborhood—that is, unless she woke up close by and wandered over. She probably wants money, and I’ll give it to her. I don’t mind.

  “Baby brother,” she says, all smiles, stepping through the door to hug me, her head just north of my belly button.

  “Stephanie,” I say. She smells of cigarette smoke, which I hate, always have. I suppose of all the things she could put in her mouth this might be the least destructive. Might. She also smells of strawberries, baby powder, and gin. I smell like mothballs dipped in Old Spice.

  I hold her out at arm’s length and look at her. She smiles, blushing a little, always withering under my gaze, because I know she’s not pure, never was, and I
need to find out how far gone she really is.

  “Sober?” I ask.

  “Mostly,” she says.

  “So the gin I smell on you, what’s that?”

  “I said mostly, you lug.”

  “And the cigarettes?”

  “Jesus, Ray, you going to let me in or not? You wanna strip search me, look up my ass? Would that work for you? Want to check my arms for tracks?”

  Beer, liquor, pot, cocaine, heroin, and meth—her progression was in that order. Clean now, mostly.

  Mostly.

  I sigh.

  “Sorry. Come on in; sit down. You look good, actually.”

  She sits on the couch. It’s another gray day in Chicago—the windows are open wide, but still, a strip of gauze rests over everything.

  “No smoking,” I say.

  She nods, rubbing her eyes, skinny, but not skeletal, her eyes sparkling, her hair long and thick.

  I’m still standing over her, debating what she needs the most—mother hen, father figure, big brother, or just a sandwich.

  “You hungry—soup, sandwich? You need to eat, you look too skinny.”

  “Sure. That’d be nice. Grilled cheese and whatever,” she says.

  “That I can do. Relax, I’ll be back in a second.”

  She lies back on the couch and closes her eyes. I place a pan on the stove, get the bread, butter, and cheese out, and pull a can of tomato soup off the shelf. Her favorite.

  “You working?” I yell into the other room.

  “Yeah, just got a job at Target—over on Addison, so not that far away. Was just stopping by to get my paycheck, which is pathetic.”

  “But it’s something,” I say, butter sizzling, bread and cheese melting together.

  I left my wallet on the table on purpose, trying to see where her head is at, what she’ll do. When she’s stealing, it’s usually worse—her situation, her need for something beyond me. Four hundred dollars even, all in twenties.