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Emil’s brother was really fucking weird. Everyone probably said that about their brothers, but when Emil said it, he honestlymeant it, meant it to the deepest fibers of his being. Emil’s brother was one of those people who still read the newspaper, and who had a flip phone.
And who still hired a fucking milkman.
It was summer break, and it was around a million degrees in the sunny suburbs of Arizona. Emil was in his boxers. He had filled up the kiddie pool. It was in the middle of the living room. He was sitting in the water, playing with the ice cubes.
Lukas was at work, and Emil was melting. The satellite dish had probably melted, too, because none of the TV stations were working.
Lukas worked for a weirdo. A weirdo who moved his workers around the country like he was playing checkers. The two brothers had started in Maine, then hitchhiked to Ohio, then down to Mississippi, meandered their way through Colorado.
Lukas hated the heat. He hated the new school he was going to start, hated that his brother’s boss was crazy, and most of all he hated the fucking milkman.
There was a knock on the door. Emil wanted to hiss, but he dragged himself out of the kiddie pool instead and answered the door. The milkman raised an eyebrow. The milkman thought he was God’s gift to the world.
“You don’t have clothes on,” the milkman said.
"Yeah, and you have a bowtie,” Emil snapped. “Where’s my brother’s fucking milk?”
The milkman handed over the milk. Emil gave him the empty bottles from three days ago. The milkman leaned to his left, trying to catch a better look of the pool.
“Is this, like, a summer gig?” Emil asked, crossing his arms.
The milkman shrugged. “Yeah, sort of. My adopted-dad was a milkman, and he wants me to be a milkman.”
“Oh.” That was fucking weird. “You have a Kik?”
The milkman was a fucking loser. His family was all messed up—even more than Emil’s, so that’s saying something—and he thought his Snapchat story was a lot cooler than it actually was. The milkman’s name was Leon, or something. He had, like, two names.
The milkman was sharing Emil’s kiddie pool.
“So, it’s just, like, you and your brother?” Leon asked. The milkman asked.
“Yeah.” Emil returned from the kitchen, cups of ice at hand.
“You lived in Maine?”
Emil dumped the ice on the milkman. “Yeah, when we first moved here. It was, like, awesome. It was snowing, and it almost seemed like our home. But then Lukas’ fucking boss made him move. Sucked.”
“My adopted-dad is from England.”
“Cool. Hey, should you, like, deliver the milk?” Emil collapsed into the pool, sighing contentedly.
“You guys are the only ones who order milk.”
Lukas chose this time to walk into the living room. The brothers looked at one another, having a silent conversation. It was mainly Emil yelling at Lukas to just walk away.
“Why is the milkman sitting with you in the kiddie pool?” Lukas asked, playing with his car keys, face deadly calm. “Did he at least bring milk? Also, we’re moving.”
The good thing about Lukas’ boss being a crazy son of a bitch was that he didn’t care when Lukas brought a third member along. That was probably because Lukas’ boss was a gangster, or something.
Lukas terms for Leon joining them: bring all the milk bottles.
"Milk tastes better when it's from glass bottles," Lukas explained.