Bedfellow

by Jeremy C. Shipp

  “Just how high are you right now?” Hendrick says. “Is it your meds or did you bring some recreational shit into my house? Tell me the truth, Marv. I don’t want that shit in my house.”

  Without another word, Marvin drops the marker and heads for the stairs.

  “You stay where you fucking are,” Hendrick says.

  “Keep your voice down,” Marvin whispers over his shoulder, still wearing that damned rounded backpack under his robe.

  Another headache hits Hendrick, like a hundred goatheads pushed against the top of his skull. The pain doesn’t dissipate this time, so he shuffles to the couch and collapses. His eyes feel as if they’re about to erupt. He massages his eyelids with the tips of his fingers. When the pain finally fades, he stands and glances around the room. Imani, or one of the kids perhaps, turned on the stained-glass floor lamp, but they’re not here anymore. If Imani’s awake upstairs and asks him where he was, he’ll tell her he went downstairs for a glass of root beer and he heard a sound coming from the basement. He’s not sure exactly what word to use to describe the sound. A knocking? A grumbling? He wants her to take the sound seriously, but at the same time he doesn’t want to frighten her so much that she won’t fall asleep again. What about a clanking?

  Heading for the lamp, Hendrick spots a black marker on the floor with the cap removed. He performs a quick scan of the room, but he doesn’t see the cap anywhere. Why someone would leave a permanent marker lying around like this, he can’t begin to fathom. He picks up the Sharpie and when he stands, he notices a lopsided picture frame on the wall. He straightens the frame. And for a while, he stares at his wife as she holds Tomas against her chest, the two of them wrapped up in the same fuzzy pink blanket that they brought from home. She won’t even look up for a second for the camera. Imani’s eyes stay on Tomas, on his weird cone-shaped head. Marvin’s off to the side, holding Kennedy up so she can see her new brother. She’s reaching out to him with both hands, her fingers spread wide. Marvin’s face glows red and yellow and green, reflecting the light of the stained-glass lamp. When Hendrick turns away from the photo, the spots of color remain for a time, floating in his vision, following him wherever he turns. He turns off the light and carries the marker into the upstairs bathroom, where he mummifies the thing in toilet paper and throws it away.

  Thankfully, Imani isn’t waiting for him on their bed, sitting with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s lying on her side, in another world, her eyes quivering behind her lids.

  While sitting on the floor, removing his oxfords, Hendrick feels the sudden urge to break from his system. He wants to tell her about the false bricks and the money and maybe even Brett’s apartment. That crease will appear between her eyebrows and she’ll shoot daggers at him, and swords, and missiles. She probably won’t talk to him for a few days, but she’ll forgive him, eventually.

  But of course the feeling runs dry, the way it always does, and Hendrick climbs slowly into the bed. Imani stirs a little as the bed creaks. For a few moments, Hendrick stays perfectly still, his heartbeat thrashing in his neck. Then he rolls over, facing the darkened photos on the wall, and he lets everything go.

  SUNDAY

  Kennedy

  Sunday Bunday isn’t off to a great start with a fox demon emoji fuming there on Kennedy’s phone. It’s always a bad sign when Alejandra sends a single emoji without any text. That means she’s too pissed off for words.

  What’s wrong? Kennedy texts back.

  And of course, Alejandra doesn’t respond all the time Kennedy dresses in her gray leggings and slightly grayer tank top. She doesn’t respond while the teenager searches her bookshelf of stuffed animals for that pastel penguin with bunny ears. Kennedy leaves the penguin right outside of Tomas’s door and then heads downstairs with her phone balanced on her head. But she abandons the balancing act as soon as the device begins to slip. If she obliterates another phone, her dad’s head will probably go supernova.

  In the kitchen, she finds her mother sweeping curved shards of emerald glass from off the floor.

  “Don’t come in without shoes,” her mother says, still looking at the floor.

  “I’m wearing shoes,” Kennedy says.

  The girl sits at the table with the rabbit-themed tablecloth. Her mom doesn’t always go all out for Sunday Bunday, but today seems to be the exception. Kennedy attempts to balance her phone vertically on the table, on top of a pipe-smoking rabbit in a purple overcoat. Her attention meanders to a little white feather stuck to her mother’s cardigan, and then to the speckling of rain outside, too light to even hear.

  “You’re quiet this morning,” her mother says, searching the fridge, the feather quivering on her back.

  “I’m practicing my telepathy,” Kennedy says. “Listen.”

  Her mom turns around, holding an egg carton and a tube of cinnamon rolls. “Oh, thanks,” she says. “I am the coolest mom in the world, aren’t I?”

  Kennedy spins her phone on the table. “I read about this guy once who moved into a new house. I think it was in New Hampshire. Somewhere in New England. The first day he stayed there, he kept seeing flashes of red fabric and dirt and roots. He thought maybe the house was reminding him of something from his childhood. Something with dirt. Eventually, though, he started seeing more. He saw hair and skin and muscle. Organs.

  “He kept seeing all this every day. He was too freaked out to tell his family or even his boyfriend, who lived nearby. After a couple weeks of this, he got some different flashes, of grass and a red maple tree. This wasn’t just any maple tree, either. This was the tree in his backyard.

  “The guy didn’t have a clue about what was going on, but he went outside in the rain and walked around on his lawn and looked at the tree. He didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Then he got another flash while he was out there, and this one was of his own tennis shoe. He realized he was seeing himself standing out there on the grass.

  “He still felt pretty confused about everything, but he grabbed a shovel and dug a hole in his lawn, right where he was standing when he got the flash of his shoe. When he told this story later, he said that he didn’t expect to find anything in the ground, but that he needed to know for sure. He thought he could maybe make the flashes stop if he proved to himself that there was nothing there. So he dug and he dug, and he found a dead woman in a red dress, buried in his yard. He learned later that her name was Margo or Margaret, I think. She was a missing person. She was married with four kids and like a hundred dogs and cats. Her family said she went out for cough medicine, and she never came back.

  “So the guy, the guy who moved into the house, thinks that maybe he had a telepathic link with the insects that were eating the woman’s body. That’s why he could see her organs and everything. He never got any flashes after that, and he never did before he moved into the house, either. It was a one-time thing.”

  “Wow,” her mother says. “Where did you read about that?”

  “Online.”

  While watching her mother crack some eggs, Kennedy tries her hand (or brain) at a little telepathy and projects the words Text me into the universe. Tragically, her phone doesn’t vibrate a text notification in response.

  She wonders if the man-and-the-insects story is actually true. And then she wonders if her dad and Uncle Marv ever know what the other’s thinking, the way twins sometimes can on TV. She’s never known her dad and uncle to even finish each other’s sentences, so maybe fraternal twins don’t get those sorts of powers.

  Her mother hands over the Pillsbury cinnamon buns so that Kennedy can pop open the tube and relish the little explosion of dough. Since Alejandra still refuses to text a single word, Kennedy abandons the phone on the table and helps her mom with the plates and cups and silverware. In the back of the cabinet, she finds the faded Bugs Bunny glass that’s been around for as long as she can remember. She also grabs the Speedy Gonzales glass, even though a mouse doesn’t fit the day’s theme.

  While setting the table,
Kennedy notices her mother’s back-feather on a tile near the stove. Between two fingers she carries the feather to her place at the table, and sets what she hopes is a good luck charm on her phone.

  “Everything all right, sweetie?” her mother says, studying her face.

  “Yeah.”

  Kennedy devours her eggs and turkey bacon with abandon. She doesn’t understand why the whole family has to eat fake bacon just because her dad has to, but at least she’s somewhat used to the taste by now. While she’s drinking her mango-orange juice, her brother comes in, gripping the Easter penguin by one ear. He positions the stuffed animal behind his plate and balances a spoon against the creature’s pale pink stomach.

  Kennedy thinks Hello, Tomas, hello, Tomas in his direction, but he doesn’t turn to her or respond in any way. When he stabs at his bacon, the Easter penguin falls face-first onto a puddle of ketchup.

  “Sorry,” Tomas says, quickly removing the penguin from his plate.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kennedy says. “He looks like a vampire penguin now. I like it.”

  Tomas attempts to clean off the ketchup with his napkin and only makes the stain worse.

  “Sorry,” her brother says again.

  At long last, Kennedy’s phone vibrates with life. Alejandra writes, dont play dum. you know why i’m mad. She punctuates the text with two frowny faces and yet another raging fox demon.

  I don’t know why you’re mad, Kennedy writes back. Just tell me.

  The teenager cracks her knuckles, one by one, and before she can finish, she gets another text back.

  you missed my bday party last night. you promised you would come!!!!!!!!

  You never told me you were having a birthday party.

  ahhhhhhh! what do you mean? just admit your mistake!

  I’m really sorry. Kennedy adds about a thousand penitent angels to the end of the text, but she knows that it won’t be enough. How could she forget Alejandra’s birthday? Try as she might, she can’t recall a single mention of a party. On Friday, they talked about Steven Universe and what kind of YouTube star Alejandra should be and the plague.

  “Who wants to take Uncle Marv his breakfast?” her mother says.

  “I will,” Kennedy says. She leaves her phone on the table, screen-down, and experiences a mild sensation of relief as she climbs the stairs. She does want to work things out with Alejandra, but at the same time, she wants to be as far from her phone as humanly possible. She would probably join a mission to Mars right now, if given the opportunity.

  Upstairs, she notices the plug-in air freshener on the floor. The white plastic is fractured. The metal prongs that go into the outlet are bent and twisted.

  She finds Uncle Marv sitting in bed, his hands inside an old Amazon delivery box. From this angle, she can’t see inside the box, but she’s assuming this is part of his new project. A bottle of Elmer’s glue lies on the pillow to his side.

  “Oh, hi, Kennedy,” he says, waving at her with a small drawing of a chair in his hand. “I’m a regular Tommy Wiseau, aren’t I? Oh, hi.”

  “Who’s Tommy Wiseau?” Kennedy says.

  “Never mind.”

  Uncle Marv places the Amazon box in front of him, with the opening facing away from Kennedy. He must want the finished project to be a surprise.

  Kennedy gives him a fork with the plate of breakfast, but he uses two fingers to lift the tiniest chunk of egg to his mouth. The morsel drops before he can even take a bite.

  “What is that?” her uncle says, sniffing at the air. “Cinnamon bread?”

  “Cinnamon buns. It’s Sunday Bunday.”

  “Your family really likes cinnamon, huh?”

  “It’s Mom’s favorite smell, remember?”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  Kennedy thinks it’s strange that he would say “your family” when he’s lived here since his divorce years and years ago. This is his home as much as hers.

  Her uncle sits there, not eating, tapping his index finger against the side of his head. “So, what do you think about doing another one of our meditation sessions? I’d like a little more practice, if I’m going to teach my own class someday.”

  “Okay.”

  “Could you ask your mom and everyone? See who else wants to join in?”

  “Yeah.”

  Downstairs, Kennedy forgets all about the meditation session because the cinnamon buns are out of the oven. The new why didn’t you come? tell me the truth!!!!!!! text almost ruins her appetite, but she swallows the dessert anyway.

  “We should get a real bunny for Bunday,” Tomas says to her. “We could set him free on the haunted trail.”

  “It’s not really haunted,” Kennedy says. “Those paranormal investigators checked it out last October, remember? They couldn’t find anything, except one guy said he felt someone touch his back. There weren’t even any EVPs.”

  Tomas nods.

  After she finishes her cinnamon bun, she heads for the stairs, but then she remembers what her uncle asked her. Her mom says yes to the meditation session, and her brother holds up the Easter penguin and says “Okay” in a gravelly voice. Kennedy doesn’t ask her dad, because he doesn’t like waking up early on Sundays, and because he doesn’t like hippie-dippie crap. Her father calls it a worse word than crap, though.

  In Uncle Marv’s room, Kennedy takes her usual spot on the rug, on the golden phoenix with red eyes. He’s holding a vine in his beak that spirals outward, blooming with angular flowers throughout the entire rug.

  “Let’s clear our minds,” her mother sings, from the one chair in the room. “And have some good times. We’ll be quiet as mimes. Do you like my rhymes?”

  “No,” Kennedy says.

  From the bed, Uncle Marv taps at an empty Gatorade bottle with his finger. “Okay, I guess we better get started,” he says. “So, um, you should all close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Yeah, that’s good. Now, when I say go, I want you to tighten all the muscles in your face for a second. Go.” Uncle Marv works his way down the muscles in the body. The shoulders, the chest, the arms, on and on. They tighten the muscles and then let go. “Yeah, good. Now try to clear your mind. If your mind wanders somewhere, don’t try to push that thought away. Observe the thought, like you’re watching a TV screen, and eventually the thought will go away without a struggle. When you’re trying to empty your mind, you don’t want to struggle. Does that make any sense?” No one says anything, so he continues, “Okay, I’m going to stop talking now. Keep your eyes closed. Let everything go.”

  Kennedy’s not one for sitting still, but she tries her best not to open her eyes or wriggle or toes. She pictures herself like a gargoyle on a gothic cathedral, dribbling rainwater through her pointed teeth. She listens to Uncle Marvin as he taps at the bottle. She listens to the rain peppering slantwise against the bedroom window. The sounds intensify and echo within her mind. Her body feels droopy and lifeless in a way that surprises her, even though she experiences this sensation every session.

  While her body may not move, she imagines herself again as the gargoyle on the rooftop. A crack zigzags down her gray torso, and then the stone coating her body shatters into dust. Her eyes open, red and incandescent. She outstretches her wings, the golden feathers quivering as a groaning gale attempts to push her backward. Instead of stumbling back, she leaps into the wind, face-first, and she soars. Black clouds burst as she passes through them. Lightning strikes her body, but she feels nothing. From here, her mind wanders to a memory of her brother crying uncontrollably on a plane, throwing every toy they hand him onto the floor. “Shut up,” her father says. “Can’t you shut him up?” Uncle Marvin says, “Switch seats with me. Let me talk to him.”

  Her mind takes her away to another time and place, where she feels her foot pressing into wet cement. The plaster oozes between her toes. As she admires her print, Uncle Marv writes her name into the cement, using a chopstick.

  She remembers walking around the artificial oak tree, holding Uncle Marvin�
��s hand. “Somebody took the ugly pineapple man,” Tomas yells. “No, he’s right there,” Uncle Marvin says, pointing.

  In another memory, she’s lying on her bed, buried under a mountain of stuffed penguins. Uncle Marvin adds a final emperor penguin in a tuxedo on the top. “Is that better?” Uncle Marvin says. “Yes,” she lies. She loves being buried by penguins, but tonight, they can’t help her. She feels itchy and slimy and sore. She wants the chicken pox germs inside her to die already. Uncle Marvin sits beside her and tells her a story about a duck whose bill falls off because he has the duck pox. The duck tries to replace his bill with a pinecone and a cattail and a pair of spoons that he finds inside the hollow of a tree. When he tries to talk to his badger friend, the spoons clank together and the badger dances around to the rhythm. The duck tries to dance too, but he ends up in a coughing fit. Eventually, he realizes that he needs to stop trying to pretend that he doesn’t have the duck pox. He needs to take care of himself. He needs to rest.

  After the story, Kennedy closes her eyes and wills herself not to scratch her skin. Uncle Marvin places a hand on her forehead, as if he’s checking her temperature, but when she opens her eyes, veiny streaks of rosy red light travel down his arm. She can feel the light funneling into her head. Suddenly, she feels less itchy and slimy and sore. The here-and-now Kennedy, meditating in Uncle Marvin’s room, isn’t sure how anything like this could happen in real life. It was probably a fever dream. Then again, didn’t she see that rosy red light another time, on the haunted trail, when Tomas cut his leg on a rock? Didn’t Uncle Marvin glow a little then too?

  She remembers a panting dog lacking the tip of his tongue, and the smell of her grandmother’s candied yams, and that safe, warm feeling of her father carrying her to bed, and sparks of pale red light, and the clumpy red pieces of a dead rabbit in the haunted trail. The memories yank her from place to place, and she tries to observe the scenes like she’s watching a TV screen. She tries not to push the thoughts away. Every other meditation session made her feel airy, like the golden phoenix. But now it’s as if she’s stuck on a roller coaster that won’t stop looping. She remembers her mother weeping downstairs in the middle of the night, and a marble she accidentally swallowed pushing its way down her throat, and Uncle Marv’s studio downtown with the papier-mâché T. rex and the zombified penguins and the art lessons. The memories press her from all sides. She tries to imagine the phoenix but his face contorts into the half-eaten head of the dead rabbit. The roller coaster feeling intensifies, and suddenly her head erupts with pain, and then she falls, fast and empty-headed into darkness.