The Whole Stupid Way We Are

by N. Griffin

  “Are you sad?”

  Tears spilled across Dinah’s nose onto the ground.

  “Do you want me to get your mom?”

  Dinah shook her head no against the dirt. She reached over and put the stones on top of Skint’s shoes.

  Shuddering. Dinah couldn’t catch her breath. All this stuff coming out of her nose. Her dad wiped it away.

  “Me, too,” he said, holding her close. “I want her back, too.”

  Skint was gone. “He won’t be back for first grade,” Dinah’s mother said. He moved away, far away, with his dad and his candy and his mom who hugged him hard and was always saying it was time to go home and slop him.

  Dinah sat in her closet and palmed her stones to wait.

  Now the wind is tangling in Dinah’s floating-down hair. It’s hard to breathe, dangling upside down like this, so Dinah pulls herself back up to the bar and then drops to the ground. She starts back across the play yard toward Skint, who is still sitting hunched and unmoving by the bulkhead.

  Someone else is moving across the play yard, too, someone small in a too-big coat with a skull stitched onto the back.

  “K. T.!” Dinah calls.

  K. T. stops and turns around.

  “Hello,” says Dinah as she catches up to him. “How are you? Aren’t you supposed to be down in the Sunday school?”

  “I’m being out here right now instead.”

  “How come?”

  K. T. doesn’t answer.

  “Skint’s over there,” says Dinah. “Want to come with me and say hello?”

  “All right.”

  Skint’s eyes open at their approach.

  “Hey, there, my friend,” he says, and holds out his hand to K. T.

  K. T. doesn’t take it.

  “I waved to you yesterday,” says K. T. “On your bike.”

  “I know,” says Skint. “You were standing by your mailbox.”

  “You didn’t wave back.”

  “Yes, I did,” says Skint. “I turned around and waved, but you were looking at the ground.”

  “You did not,” says K. T.

  “I did,” says Skint. “You just didn’t see me.”

  K. T. thumps his mittened hand against the wall of the church by Skint’s head.

  “Is something wrong, K. T.?” Dinah asks.

  “I don’t like it in there,” says K. T. “The Sunday school lady doesn’t like me.”

  “Who couldn’t like you?” says Skint. “You’re great.”

  “I am not.”

  “Yes, you are. Me and Dinah think so.”

  “Does the Sunday school lady know you’re out here?” asks Dinah.

  K. T. shrugs and thumps his hand.

  “Hey!” says Skint. “I almost forgot!” He works something out of his pocket and tosses it up to K. T. “Catch.”

  K. T. catches the object, but it falls out of his hand and bounces away. “My Super Ball!” he cries, scrambling after it. “I thought I lost it!”

  Skint grins at him.

  K. T. stands back up but he is not grinning. “Why did you steal my Super Ball!” he shouts.

  “Easy, kid,” says Skint, his own smile fading. “I didn’t steal it. It rolled under the cabinet in the food pantry yesterday. I fished it out to save for you.”

  “It’s mine!”

  “I know,” says Skint. “That’s why I kept it in my pocket for you.”

  “I hate you!” K. T. cries.

  “For finding your ball?”

  “You were going to keep it!”

  “Never,” says Skint. “What’s the matter, K. T.?”

  K. T.’s nose starts to run and his eyes fill with tears.

  Dinah and Skint exchange glances. Dinah touches K. T.’s shoulder, but he jerks away from her. Clutching his Super Ball in his puffy blue mitten, he hurls it awkwardly against the bulkhead. It bounces off with a clang and hits the side of the church, high up near the window, and thonks back down to the ground. Skint pops up and catches it in one hand.

  “They’ll hear you in there,” he says and takes K. T.’s hand. “K. T., what’s bugging you?”

  “Give me my ball!” K. T. grabs his hand out of Skint’s, his brow anguished and creased. There is an eyeball drawn in marker on the palm of his mitten.

  “K. T., what’s wrong?”

  K. T. snatches the ball from Skint’s hand. Then he smashes it against the ground so hard it flies up and hits him squarely in the head.

  K. T. sobs.

  Dinah squats down beside him. He pushes her away, and the force of the push tips them both backward onto the ground.

  Skint scoots over and puts his hand on K. T.’s arm. “Tell us what’s wrong, K. T.”

  “You don’t even know how you’re supposed to bounce that kind of ball!” K. T. gulps raggedly through his tears.

  “I’m sorry,” says Skint. “Do you want to show me how?”

  K. T. shakes his head and weeps.

  Dinah pats his head, and this time he lets her hug him to her. “What’s the matter?”

  K. T. hiccups indiscernible words into her armpit.

  “What was that?” asks Skint.

  K. T. lifts his head.

  “I’m not allowed to see my mom anymore,” he sobs.

  “What? Why not?”

  “He came to pick me up this morning—”

  “Your dad?”

  K. T. digs his skull into Dinah’s chest and nods.

  “And I couldn’t find my little guys.” His face creases again with weeping. “My mom was helping me find them, but my dad was yelling at me because of being late for church. And my mom—” He gulps. “My mom was upset because of my dad yelling and then my dad hollered, ‘That’s it! I’m sick of this!’ And he said she can’t have me visit there anymore.” K. T. sobs again. “I hate my dad!”

  Skint lays his hand gently on K. T.’s head.

  “He said he was going to make it so she can’t see you?” he asks.

  K. T. nods, weeping.

  “K. T., I don’t think he can do that. He was mad, and that’s probably why he said that, but I don’t think he’d be allowed to stop you from seeing your mom. I don’t think that’s legal.”

  K. T. lifts his head. “What’s ‘legal’?”

  “It means it would be against the law for your dad to do that. It means your mom has the right to see you, and if he doesn’t let her, your dad would be in trouble.”

  K. T.’s face crumples again.

  “My dad said my mom would be in trouble. He said the police would take her to jail if she tried to come get me!”

  Dinah hates Mr. Vaar. Swelling around in his stupid zippered shirt—

  She and Skint meet each other’s gaze.

  “This,” says Skint, “is not acceptable.”

  “We’ll talk to him!” Dinah cries.

  “Sure,” says Skint. “That’ll work. Because he’s so kind and so rational.”

  K. T.’s eyes stream. “I want my mom,” he weeps.

  “K. T.!”

  It’s the Vole. He’s come around the side of the building and stands stock-still when he sees Dinah and Skint.

  Dinah adjusts herself and K. T. so they are sitting more solidly in front of the tarped box. She fans out her elbows to hide it better. K. T. burrows his head into Dinah’s chest and refuses to look up.

  “K. T.!” barks the Vole again.

  Dinah glowers at the Vole, who snorts and looks past her to Skint, who looks evenly back at him. Skint looks like he is about a hundred years old.

  “K. T.” The Vole turns away from Skint. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

  K. T. doesn’t answer.

  “What is wrong with you? You can’t just run away like that. You have to get back in there.”

  “No.”

  “Leave him alone,” says Skint.

  “Shut up, Rotmouth.”

  “He’s upset, fungus.”

  “My brother is not your fucking business.”

&nbs
p; “What’s ‘fungus’?” K. T.’s muffled voice.

  “I guess you’re right, Avery,” says Skint. “His lachrymal effusions already speak so movingly to your family’s compassion. I’ll just step back and let him be cradled in its palm.”

  “Shut up, ass-wipe. Come on, K. T. Cut the crap. Get back in there and act like a normal kid.”

  “What name did you call Skint? What did you call him with ‘mouth’?” K. T. lifts his head at last. His eyes are swollen and damp.

  The Vole hesitates. “What’s going on?” he asks.

  K. T. looks down again and shakes his head. He pulls his mittens halfway off so the drawn-on eyes cover the tips of his fingers.

  The Vole doesn’t say anything. Then: “Come on,” he says, not unkindly. “I’ll walk you back in.”

  “No.”

  The Vole looks at K. T. “Did something happen? This morning?”

  K. T. shrugs.

  The Vole glances at Dinah.

  She glances back at him and then turns to K. T. “You want to stay out with us here a minute, K. T.?” she asks. “You can tell his teacher he’s with me,” she says to the Vole.

  “No!” K. T.’s head snaps up. “Don’t tell my teacher!” His voice breaks. “That dumb lady doesn’t even call me by my kindergarten name.”

  “Your kindergarten name?” Skint asks. “What’s your kindergarten name?”

  K. T. doesn’t answer.

  The Vole puts his hands in his pockets. He glances at K. T. again, then at the ground. “Come on, K. T.,” he says at last. “I mean, Kevin Todd. Come on. I guess we can stay out here a minute. Let’s go swing or some shit.”

  “Will you tell, Avie?” K. T. asks anxiously. “Avie, will you tell?”

  Skint raises his brows at the “Avie.”

  “No,” says the Vole. “Whatever. Come on.”

  K. T. gets up off Dinah’s lap. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll swing.”

  “See you later, K. T.,” says Skint. “We won’t forget your problem. We’ll think about what we can do.”

  “My brother’s all set, Gilbert.”

  “Right,” says Skint.

  K. T. and the Vole make their way to the swings.

  “I hate mankind,” says Dinah. Her rear is freezing from sitting on this concrete.

  “So do I,” says Skint. “Let’s get rid of them all.”

  He pushes himself up off the ground.

  “I’m going,” he says. “If you really don’t mind doing the cans by yourself.”

  “I don’t mind,” says Dinah. “But what about the pantry-raiding at my house?”

  “Later, maybe. I want to be by myself awhile.”

  Dinah bites her lip.

  “Do you think the Vole noticed the box of cans?” she asks.

  “I doubt it, what with your great heaving self in front of it the whole time. I don’t think he’d give a shit about it if he did, Dinah.” Skint brushes off his pants. “I’m off.”

  “I’ll call you?”

  “Later, I guess. If you want to.”

  He’s already gone. Dinah watches as he hunches away down the road without looking back at her at all.

  Everybody’s gone at last except the choir in the nave; another rehearsal, a long singing day. Dinah sets the box of cans down on the floor in front of the bulletin board inside the incense-smelling church.

  Nobody ever deals with the outdated notices on this bulletin board, she thinks. They just staple new ones over the old. Though maybe she is the one who is supposed to weed out the old ones. Maybe it is technically in the domain of the sexton.

  Rip. Off go the old Auxiliary Aid minutes and the call to donate cans for the Christmas food drive. (Shut up about that right now; stop stop stop.) Off, too, goes the notice about last week’s choir rehearsals, written in Dinah’s dad’s beautiful, even hand.

  “Donkey Minuet” reads another notice, and Dinah carefully loosens that one, too. She folds it up and puts it in her pocket and heads toward the food pantry.

  “. . . he went up to his chamber . . .” the choir sings as she steps into the Pantry. Dinah doesn’t know what she was expecting in here. Things tossed about, perhaps, cans lying where they have rolled to a stop. But if you didn’t know better, you’d think no one had touched a thing. The Pantry looks just the same.

  Except there. The side door. The doorjamb busted and a strip of jagged torn wood; new wood exposed and sharp under splintered brown paint.

  Skint, in the dark, walking up here, fast and angry. Not monk kind of angry but angry with a goal, angry he can’t keep in or call her up and tell her about, a bigger kind of angry than she’s ever seen. Skint, in the dark, hitting the door as hard as he can; ragged splinters cutting up his hand.

  What can she do? What is helping?

  Make Skint not be so angry. But she doesn’t know how. All she can think to do is take Skint’s hand in hers and hug the part that is scraped.

  The choir moves into that difficult fugue with the notes that sound like crying.

  “. . . Absalom, my Absalom . . .”

  One by one, Dinah puts the cans back in their proper spots on the shelves. One of the tenor voices breaks over the rest like a waterfall, his voice lambent and clear. Who is that? Mrs. Wattle is singing a bit more quietly than usual, and even though other people are missing notes here and there, it all does sound sort of nice. Her father’s work is paying off.

  The cans away, Dinah moves back into the foyer and peeks through the door into the nave. All of the choir is looking intently at her dad as they sing. Mr. Beach’s hair sticks straight up as he works his shoulders and hands to direct them. The lovely tenor voice is breaking, falling; which man is it?

  That one, there, eyes locked with her dad, his music clutched tight in his hand, singing as if his life depended on it, as if this song must be sung now, and by him.

  Mr. Vaar? How can he be that voice?

  “. . . would God I had died for thee . . .”

  Suddenly exhausted, Dinah leans away from the nave. The basement. No one will be down there, and if she puts three chairs in a row, she can lie down on them, sort of; she can fall asleep for just a minute. Then she’ll wake up and be ready for thinking. She’ll be able to figure out what to do.

  She heads slowly down the stairs, palming the tin in her pocket, square with rounded edges.

  Skint would rather be on his bike, but walking will have to be good enough; hard fast walking. It’s freezing out here, ground too hard, sky too bright. Skint puffs down the road, walking faster and faster until he’s jogging, running jogging running. The Rural Routes appear in his mind, then fade; empty porch gray and dark.

  Fucking humans. Fucking humans letting each other freeze. What is wrong with us?

  We suck, as Ellen says. Or used to say, whenever his dad would get upset and unhappy and need to write another article. “Have you looked much at humanity lately?” she said once. “Because pretty much we’re shits. We only care about ourselves or our own little families and we don’t do anything for anyone else. Won’t make do with less for the sake of someone else. Me included.”

  Her included, me included, all of us included. Monks made to stand in tubs of shit, shot, tortured, in hell, and Skint does nothing, nothing; all he does is rage with Dinah. Monks in shit and kids made to be sad; K. T., so happy to be baking with his mom and his ass of a dad comes in and takes that away—Skint can’t bear it. He can’t, the happiness fading from K. T.’s eyes and his chest gone hollow, his face gone hot, tears in his eyes and that asshole of a man loving to crush his own little boy.

  Hurt of K. T., hurt of those monks, unbearable hurt when he thinks of his mom in the store picking out those plush frogs, the longing and grief and pain and grief. And his dad, his dad.

  “I look just the same,” his dad told a friend on the phone a few months before they moved back here. “If you saw me, you’d think I was fine.”

  “Listen to him,” said Skint’s mother. “The conditional in place, even
as memory fails.”

  His dad smiled a little. Then his eye fell on Skint and his mouth corners dropped, fell down; uncurled themselves down. His eyes unbearable, worse than sad. Devastated, despairing, gone.

  “My God,” said his dad. “My God.” Eyes creased and watered and his hand at his mouth. “My God,” he said, still looking at Skint. “My God.”

  He got up and left the room.

  Footsteps thumped up the stairs and overhead, then stopped. From above came ragged sounds of weeping. “My son. My son.”

  Too much. Too much hurt and not eyes enough to see; too much pain and not hands enough to help. Skint can’t take it anymore, he can’t. Full of enough crying for eleven crying heads, all of them raging—but he won’t do it, he won’t. He won’t start, because if he does he’ll explode; he’ll never fucking stop.

  A horrid smell of hot vinegar and cheese hits Dinah as soon as she opens the door to her house. Artichoke dip. Dinah’s parents make it for every occasion. Panicked and sore-backed from her too-long nap—two hours, it turned into!—which she took crumpled up on the wooden chairs, Dinah finds the smell too much to bear. And the nap didn’t even help. She has no more ideas now than she did before.

  At least her parents will be out at their book club potluck for the evening, so as soon as Beagie is asleep, Dinah can be alone, alone, alone. She doesn’t want to have to talk to a soul. Except for Skint. She has to talk to him. She’ll call him once the house is clear.

  “Dinah, darling!” Mr. Beach calls from the kitchen. “Come and have speech with us!”

  Ugh. But if she doesn’t go in there, they will only hunt her down to say hello. Feeling undarling and hollow, Dinah steps into the kitchen.

  “Hello,” she says.

  “Hello, Dinah!” her mother calls from the pantry. Her father is sitting at the table, tea mug in hand, an old book of songs open before him.

  “I need to hang up my coat,” Dinah tells him, twisting her feet. “Is it okay, please, if I at least hang up my coat?”

  “I forbid it,” says Mr. Beach. “I forbid it most specially. You must first regale me with tales of your day.”

  “I don’t have any,” says Dinah.

  “Then I will regale you with mine. Church was lovely. And the choir is shaping up rather nicely, I think. I have contained the Wattle and Mr. Vaar is leading the tenors quite beautifully—”