by J. Thorn
It started with Patches. His mom brought the dog home from the pound in an uncharacteristic move. Tommy and Mara’s parents were rarely home and even less fond of showering their children with gifts for no occasion.
The puppy shit on the floor and tore through the kitchen knocking the overflowing garbage can on its side.
“I’m taking it back, goddamnit,” his mother said from the living room. “I will not have that dog shitting in my house.”
It was Tommy, not Mara, who came to the dog’s defense. He grabbed a handful of paper towels and scooped the dog shit into his hands. The odor nearly knocked him over but Tommy staggered through the kitchen and pushed the screen door open into the paralyzing chill of a Michigan January. He tossed it into the snow and ran back inside, shoving handfuls of soggy cabbage and eggshells back into the plastic garbage can before his mom could come inside and really get angry at the mess on the floor.
“I got it, Mom. He’s scared. He doesn’t know where he is. I’ll take care of it.”
Their dad sighed, standing in the open doorway between the dining room and the kitchen. The yellow stains on his white T-shirt matched the grease splatter on the stove top. He tipped a sixteen-ounce can of Pabst back and held it there until beer trickled down his beard and on to his shirt.
“Agh,” he said before belching and walking back into the living room where a mindless show blared from the worn television.
“Please, Mom,” Tommy said. He looked up at her as she stood by the refrigerator surveying the mess and looking for the whereabouts of that fucking dog.
“One more chance, Thomas.”
Tommy blinked and forced a single tear out of one eye. He knew the use of his formal name meant serious business. It usually came with a spanking and so Tommy thought about what that would mean for the new puppy, his Patches.
“He won’t, Mom. Promise.”
Mara laughed from the living room, the only one paying attention to the sitcom. The sound broke the silent pause making the situation even more uncomfortable.
Tommy’s mom held up a finger and began to say something before the vodka crawled halfway back up her esophagus. She ran to the sink and heaved, spitting a foul strand of saliva into the dirty dishes from three nights ago. Tommy watched her stumble towards the dining room and the liquor cabinet. He sighed and put his head down knowing he outlasted the drunken rage of his mother. At least this night.
“Patches,” Tommy said.
Mara’s laugh came again followed by a wet belch from her dad and a low mumble from her mom. He ignored them all and looked to the screen door.
“Patches. Here boy.”
Tommy didn’t know if Patches was a boy or girl puppy, but he thought the name sounded masculine. He thought the dog was probably cowering behind the furniture or underneath a table. There were only a few pieces of torn, smelly furniture in the old row house in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood.
He heard whimpering coming from beneath the dining room table. Tommy looked in and saw that his mother left the vodka bottle and the liquor closet door open. He was not old enough to be interested in experimenting with it. Tommy saw movement out of the corner of his eye and saw the frayed, dingy bottom of his mother’s robe moving up the steps and towards the bedroom. He could hear the ice clinking against the side of the glass as his mother talked to her drink more than she did her own family.
“I’ll help you. Here boy.”
Tommy didn’t want to scare Patches. He needed to earn the puppy’s trust before they could play. He went back into the kitchen and took a pretzel from the jar sitting on the counter. Tommy didn’t know what dogs liked to eat, but he once saw one eat another’s shit, so he figured a pretzel had to be better than that. He took a bite for himself and had trouble chewing the stale, dry stick. Even the salt on the pretzel tasted old. Still, Patches was a dog. It was as good a bait as anything. Tommy doubted his mother thought more than two hours ahead. She obviously brought the dog home in a drunken impulse and so it never occurred to her the thing might need to eat.
He heard a whimper and saw the beagle’s eyes embedded in the white and brown patchy fur on its face.
Patches, Tommy thought. Someone really spent a lot of time on that name.
The dog whimpered and poked its head around the leg of the table. It sniffed the air and looked at Tommy.
“Got a pretzel for you,” Tommy said.
The puppy came out from hiding, bounding off the floor and forgetting all of the previous drama. There was a boy and he was holding food. Tommy laughed as Patches climbed into his lap and licked the salt from the pretzel. The dog turned its face up to Tommy and put a pink, wet tongue on his cheek. Tommy smiled and giggled. Anyone witnessing the bond between child and puppy would have thought it looked so right, so normal. It would have definitely looked that way.
“Quiet itdownaht…” the voice came from the living room.
Tommy looked toward his father’s drunken outburst and smiled. The old man was now officially too drunk to move. Yelling from his filthy recliner was the last stage before he would pass out for the night. Mara would have to come down and wake him up in the morning for work.
He heard the floorboards creak above his head, certain his mother was cuddling with her vodka which would be followed by a menthol cigarette. Mara was watching TV and would have no reason to pay him any mind.
Tommy and Patches would have the entire night to themselves. They would get to know each other and Tommy would introduce Patches to his toys. The toys he kept hidden behind the lawn mower, the ones covered in dried blood.
“C’mon, boy.”
Tommy held the pretzel out and Patches followed him through the living room and towards the door leading down the steps and into the basement. A cold, biting draft of air crept beneath the top of the steps and the bottom of the door and it made Tommy shiver, one of the few things that could. His heart raced and he licked his lips in anticipation of playing with Patches.
“Down here.”
Tommy grabbed the antique glass door knob, something a contractor must have installed with pride in the early 20th century. Now, it barely turned, covered with greasy fingerprints and dried paint drippings. He turned it and the cold air smacked him in the face. The basement would be frigid tonight but Tommy was not worried about it. Playing with Patches would heat things up.
The puppy followed the boy down the first step and then stopped. It growled and the hair on the back of its neck came up.
“It’ll be fine. C’mon, Patches,” Tommy said. He took another three steps down into the basement without turning on the light.
Patches stood there on the first step, growling and starting to turn when Tommy grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. The dog yelped. The sound was drowned out by the laugh track coming from the television. Tommy pulled the door shut and turned the knob to keep it from opening. Mara would not venture down to the basement to save her life and Tommy’s parents were too drunk to use a door knob. He would have all the time he wanted with Patches.
The puppy squirmed until Tommy pulled him to his chest. He was firm but gentle with the dog, but Patches sensed the danger and the touch had the opposite effect. The dog became aggressive and began snapping at Tommy’s arms. Tommy made it to the bottom of the steps in complete darkness before his hand grabbed the chain hanging from the single light bulb in the middle of the basement. The pale, diseased light cast a glow that couldn’t quite reach the corners of the cellar. Patches stopped squirming when the light came on and so Tommy took the opportunity to punch the dog in the nose. It whimpered and bit Tommy’s finger. He screamed and dropped the puppy to the ground.
“What the fuck, Patches?”
Patches ran across the floor and hid behind the water heater. Tommy saw the blue flame at the bottom and decided he would start with some burning. It was a risk. Someone upstairs might smell the burnt hair, but that was a chance Tommy was willing to take. He thought beagles were not as tough as some other animals.
Tommy could not believe his squirrel lived so long after being pinned to a two by four with roofing nails.
***
“Dogs don’t run away in winter. In Detroit. When it’s fifteen below with wind chill.”
“I saw him, Mom. I left the screen door open and Patches bolted for it. I saw him turn the corner by the Jackson’s place and then he was gone.”
Mara looked up over a bowl of cheap, sugary cereal and shook her head at Tommy. She was glad the dog ran away. Mara had enough responsibilities running the household and she wasn’t looking forward to raising a puppy as well.
“That don’t make no sense, Tommy. He was a puppy. Puppies like to frolic and play.”
Tommy’s mom paused, putting two fingers to her lips to keep last night’s vodka from spewing from her mouth. He waited while her face turned white. Her cheeks bulged out and then she blew a rancid burp across the kitchen table.
“It’s Saturday. I’m gonna go looking for him,” Tommy said.
“You go with him, Mara.”
“I can’t, Mom,” Mara said. “I have to take the car in for an oil change. Dad was supposed to but Ronnie picked him up this morning for work and I’m sure he’ll be too drunk to do it when he gets home.”
“Watch your mouth, girl. Your father works his ass for this family. You should be grateful he grabbed the Saturday overtime shift. He comes home tired, not drunk.”
Mara made eye contact with Tommy who was glad the conversation drifted away from the dog.
“Fine. You go find him. Get your weird, gay friends to help,” Tommy’s mom said to the boy.
“I will. I’ll go looking. But it’s cold, so I don’t know how long I’ll be out there.”
“Pretend its hockey, you spoiled shit. If that dog was on the rink, you’d stay out there looking for him.”
Tommy could recognize the exact moment his mother’s hangover turned into rage. He became skilled at derailing that painful train at the last moment.
“I will. Love you, mom.”
Tommy jumped up from the table and slid his cheap, porcelain bowl into the sink where it crashed into the stack growing mold around the edges.
“Wait a minute, young man. What the hell are you tracking all over my kitchen floor?”
Mara looked up from the cereal box and sighed knowing she would be the one cleaning it up.
“Nothing,” Tommy said trying to get his coat and scarf on as fast as he could.
“On the bottom of your boots. It’s sticky and red. Goddamnit, Tommy if you’re tracking more transmission fluid through the house I’m gonna whip you silly. I told you to leave those boots in the cellar when you’re done working on the engines.”
Tommy stared down at the red footprints on the floor and bit his bottom lip. He was getting too old to be so careless. He grabbed a paper towel off the roll and wiped up the footprints. He sat on the floor and took a swipe at the bottom of each boot. He could almost taste the salty, bitter blood.
“Sorry, Mom. Won’t happen again.”
Mara shrugged as her mother reached for a cigarette and her lighter.
“Fucking kids,” she said to her daughter.
***
Tommy stuffed his hockey gear into the black nylon bag but the damp stink of pre-teen boy wouldn’t fit inside. It lingered in the living room and then inside the car. Mara blasted heavy metal from the car’s tinny speakers so Tommy looked out of the window at the frozen landscape and closed his eyes, thinking about Patches.
That little fucker was different, he thought. It was like he was defiant, looking me in the eyes and stuff.
Mara drove them through the suburbs until the hockey arena broke out of the evening gloom. The domed roof reflected the light from the parking lot making it look like an alien space ship that just landed, the front door about ready to eject a ramp with green men standing on it. Men and boys scurried back and forth in the night with plumes of breath ejected into the black sky. They carried hockey sticks like weapons and the thought of battle, violence and gore brought a smile to Tommy’s face.
Gonna fuck someone up tonight.
“Be on the curb, Tommy. I’m not waiting around. I have shit to do tomorrow and I don’t want to be up late.”
“You going out to look for some dick?”
“You don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about,” Mara said. She looked at Tommy through the rearview mirror. “Get your bag and go play sticks with the boys.”
He laughed and gave Mara the middle finger. He held her eyes in the mirror for another moment before opening the car door and allowing the frozen air to blast his face.
If I kill them all, I’ll do her first. I won’t make her watch while I cut Mom and Dad’s throats.
“On the curb,” Mara yelled through the open car door.
“Don’t be late. Its cold out here,” Tommy said.
Mara pulled away from the curb. Tommy turned his collar up and threw the hockey bag over his right shoulder.
“Gonna fuck someone up tonight,” he said again, this time aloud and with no attempt at hiding his excitement.
***
Tommy was going to make her pay. With every minute that passed, his fingers burned from the cold. The other parents picked up their kids and he was the last one sitting on the curb. The rink manager locked the door for the night and so Tommy couldn’t even stand in the tight space between the glass doors, which would have offered some protection from the wind.
“How am I going to punish her?” he asked himself.
He would have to think about that on the ride home. The past few months with Mara made Tommy feel weird inside. She was his sister, so he thought she was always kind of gross. But in the fall, he opened the bathroom door as she was stepping out of the shower and he saw her completely naked for the first time since they were little kids. His mind took a snapshot of that moment. Her dark hair dripped water on to her firm breasts and her nipples stuck out. He saw the dark patch of neatly trimmed pubic hair between her legs. Mara screamed and grabbed a towel from the rack but Tommy was frozen, his eyes cataloging all of the details he would keep filed in his mind. She yelled at him and used her free hand to push him backwards out of the bathroom and then slammed the door in his face. Tommy heard the slide bolt engage and knew she would not make the mistake of leaving it unlocked again.
Later that night while lying in his bed Tommy thought about the moment he walked in on her. He could see her naked body again as if she were standing right in front of him. His dick twitched and he felt a burning down there. Tommy’s hand reached down and squeezed a growing erection. He did not understand why the sight of his naked sister was making his dick grow, but it was. The more pressure he applied with his hand, the better it felt. Tommy squeezed harder and began moving his hand up and down until something happened that surprised him. Something came out. It wasn’t pee but it was wet just the same. He shuddered and felt a rush to his head followed by an immense wave of embarrassment.
He moaned her name while stuffing the shame down into a dark place. Tommy kept all of his human emotions there, the useless ones like empathy and compassion.
Tommy smiled at the memory and decided he would try to sneak a peek when they got home tonight, if the little bitch ever showed up. It was months ago and the mental image of his naked sister was fading. Maybe this time he’d hide in her room and get a bit longer stretch while he “jerked it” as his hockey teammates called it.
“C’mon, Mara. I’m freezing my dick off out here.”
The comment combined with the lingering memory made him laugh and that turned into a shiver as the temperature outside stole his body heat.
He saw headlights enter the parking lot and knew from the rust on the door that it was Mara. Tommy was sitting on his hockey bag and he raised his stick into the air to get her attention even though he was the only one there. Mara pulled the car to the curb, put it in park, and released the trunk latch. Tommy walked to the rear and swung the bag around to gain enough m
omentum to get it up and over the edge of the bumper. He leaned in and pushed the bag deeper into the recess of the trunk and then laid his stick on top. Tommy ran to the passenger side and jumped into the backseat.
“I scored on the power play tonight. We had a scrimmage and the coach was the ref. He ran the clock so it was almost like a real game and then we got a penalty, but the coach said they had two slashes so we got the power play, so I skated it over the blue line and deked out Joey who was playing goal and then buried it top shelf.”
Mara made a right out of the parking lot onto Route 24, smiling as Tommy did his usual word dump in the car. His mouth moved as fast as his skates.
“Was Coach Mike there? I thought he was out of town with his daughter, that tournament in Ann Arbor.”
“No but Coach Jason was and he…”
Tommy ran on about the practice with details Mara neither cared about nor could decipher. Hockey players spoke their own language. She passed through an intersection and came down Route 24 near the car dealerships and the Italian restaurant. She turned up the volume on the Metallica record as Tommy went on and on about the hockey drills. He took off his seatbelt and moved to the center seat hoping to get Mara to pay attention to him.
“…which ended up more like a two-on-one drill than a breakout.”
Tommy felt the car sway and realized they were moving down the highway in an unnatural motion. Mara hit the brakes and the car was in a fishtail. He grabbed the top of her seat to keep from sliding into the door. Tommy saw headlights pulse through the windows as the car spun and deep down inside he knew what was about to happen. The events slowed to a crawl and he felt as if he was watching it on a movie screen.
He saw the front of their car come around and the headlights of the oncoming car were now right in front of them. The hood shot into the sky on impact and the sound of ripping metal drowned out the heavy metal coming from the stereo. The force of the collision threw Tommy into the passenger side door, his head smashing the window and the right side of his body crushed as it made contact with the steel frame of the car. Tommy heard Mara scream through it all and that was the last thing he remembered. Everything went black. The next time he opened his eyes, he was lying in the dirt on the edge of a road with a tattooed rocker guy and the Grim Reaper standing over him.