Chapter Text
The world as Carmy remembers it started in the kitchen. How fucking fitting.
The summer air smelled hazy and warm and the clean laundry was in a basket on the windowsill. The lowing sunlight shone in through the window by the tap, yellow and strong. A stray cat dozed outside on the pavement, the pink pads of its feet exposed in the sun. It's tail flicked. It must have been dreaming. Barbie Girl sounded from the cd player in Sugar's room as she danced. Mikey hummed along as he rustled in the cupboards.
Carmy was only a little kid back then, in his red overalls with his hair overgrown in curls. His feet didn't reach the floor when he sat in his chair and he didn't even know his abc's yet. His eyes were still the size of saucers and full of honest innocence. He was hungry, stomach growling, but at least he had the best older brother in the world to help him out.
Mikey ruffled his hair, "You want to do the jelly, Bear?"
"Yeah!"
Mikey let him spread the raspberry jelly on the slice of bread in front of him, laughing at Carmy's generous handiwork. It took concentration and effort to grip the butter knife in his small hand, the same ham-fisted grip he used on crayons when filling in his coloring books. Carmy made a mess of course. He accidentally smeared red sweetness all over the edges of his bread and onto his plate, then tried to clean it up with his fingers and ended up getting them sticky. It didn't matter. Mikey didn't mind.
"Good job, Carmen! Now, remember how we make the sandwich? Like this."
That was Carmen's favorite part, when Mikey would put the bread slice with the jelly on top of the one with the peanut butter and press them together. Watching him assemble the sandwich was like magic. He would cut it into different shapes, triangles, rectangles, squares whatever Carmy wanted.
"All done, Bear."
"Thanks Mikey!" Carmy helped himself to his lovingly made peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Outside the city rumbled along in the evening heat. The two of them sat down on the sofa to watch a new episode of Sesame Street together. The shining sun cast everything in gold. Mikey ruffled Carmy's hair, messing it up. He liked to do that. Back then it was all so easy.
*
There are loads of pictures in the old albums. Grainy home photos, chronicling early years of Halloween costumes, birthday parties hosted at Uncle Jimmy's, stills of eating ice cream in the summer heat or opening a present on Christmas day. Richie appears in a few, flipping off the camera from the background. As the years went by, the photos get more sparse and are taken further and further apart. The promise to capture special moments eventually fell through. The photo albums abruptly come to a stop with nothing left but empty blank pages.
Nowadays, when Carmy looks at those photos, he can barely recognize the quiet, smiling kid staring back at him.
*
There's this story of when Carmy was little. It's the embarrassing kind, like how Sugar was scared of Slimer from Ghostbusters, or how Richie learnt to swim because his grandfather threw him in the deep end of the pool head first. The humiliating kind of childhood story.
It goes like this: picture day, first grade. Mom really wanted Carmen to look good for his picture so she went out and bought a brand new little outfit especially for the occasion. A puffy pink gingham dress, frilly white socks and a cardigan with hearts for buttons. She did his hair up in corkscrew ringlets with a matching pink bow clipped on the side. He was perfect, she said. A little angel, a doll, a princess. He was beautiful, so pretty for the camera. Carmy cried his eyes out the whole way to school and all through first period. He cried and cried so much that his teacher called him up to her desk to ask what was wrong. He remembers his teacher's thin glasses frames with the purple beads, the way she smelled sweet like perfume, the pitiful smile on her face like what he was doing was adorable somehow. He couldn't explain to her how he hated the dress, how wrong it made him feel inside, and how much he wanted to take it off. Carmy didn't have the words yet. When he did try, his fucking stutter got in the way and choked up all the words inside him.
"Don't be upset sweetie," she reassured him, "It's such a beautiful dress! And you're going to look so pretty in your picture, the prettiest girl in the class!"
That made Carmy cry even harder. He couldn't use his words. They wouldn't come out of his mouth. The eyes of all his classmates were staring at him confused, the blotchy red-faced kid shaking in indignant anger at the top of the room. It was almost his time to have his picture taken.
"But I'm not a girl!" He had insisted and right there in front of everyone, Carmy ripped the gingham bow from his hair and stomped it underfoot until it was a limp, pink wad of fabric. The other kids just gaped and laughed. He was still made to have his picture taken, a clump of hair ripped out of place, face stony. The portrait was framed and put in the hall at home so whenever someone came into the house, they could see it.
Mom held onto that story for years afterwards. Once she had enough wine, it would be dredged up and retold to everyone again and again. At birthday parties, family gatherings, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, you name it. She would imitate his squeaky kid voice, "But I'm not a girl!" and everyone around the table would laugh. Carmen's face burned with shame every time. He would just stare down at whatever food was on his plate and try to keep his mouth shut. It was funny. It was really, really fucking funny until it suddenly wasn't, because it turned out to be true. Then the laughter stopped. Mom didn't tell the picture day story so much after that. One day the infamous photo disappeared from its spot in the hall, It vanished in the night, leaving behind a gaping blank space. Carmy later found it still in the plastic frame, thrown in the bottom of the trash. Six year old him, ringlets awry, frowned out from behind the smashed glass cover.
After that no one mentioned first grade picture day ever again.
*
The last time Carmy saw his mom was the summer that he turned eighteen. That also happened to be the summer that he started testosterone.
It was a strange time. Carmy was so excited to finally experience the changes he had dreamed about for years, he was overjoyed at the euphoria it brought, but Mom wasn't happy. "You're going to regret this, Carmen," she kept telling him, "You're making a mistake. This isn't you." There was a lot of shouting and even more endless arguing. The worst part was that Mikey and Sugar weren't around to protect him anymore. They were adults by that point and were busy with their own shit. Mikey had the restaurant, which he barely left. When he did leave, it was only to spend a night out getting wasted. Nat had college. Shit, even Richie wasn't there to stick up for him at that point. Carmy wasn't a baby anymore. He had to make his own decisions.
Eventually he ended up sleeping on the sofa bed in Fak's basement. It was just temporary, he told himself, until he found his own place. But after a few weeks passed, he found it harder and harder to roll out from under the covers in the morning. He didn’t know how to leave. He mostly slept the days away, or stayed up all hours playing Mario Kart with Fak.
One night, they raced on Rainbow Road and Carmy was tailing near last place as always. It didn't matter how tightly he gripped the controller or how hard he jammed the controls, he just couldn't catch up. Both of their eyes were glued to the screen. Fack zoomed into first place. That guy had so much stupid luck.
"Listen, man, uh-" Carmy cleared his throat and kept his gaze on the blinding screen. He had to coax the words from his chest where they sat heavy, "I don't know how to thank you, for letting me crash here. For the food and clothes, all of it. You didn't have to-"
"-Of course I had to, Bear! What kind of friend would I be if I fucking left you out there all alone, man? Don't sweat it. You can stay as long as you want! The basement is your fucking cave, your secret lair, your gaming palace."
On screen, there were two more laps of the track left. Carmy inched a place or two up the leaderboard. Against the dark, the flashing colors hurt his eyes.
"You know, your mom's like," Fack continued, and sighed a big sigh, "Sort of the worst? Like, yikes, you know what I mean? She's a bit crazy. But um, no offense, Bear."
"It's okay, none taken."
"Yeah, well I- Fuck!" In the game, Fak drove into a banana peel and was sent spinning. The other karts passed him by. Then he and Carmy were both in last place, "I guess I'm just glad you're okay, man."
"Thanks, Fak."
Mikey had been the first to come and see Carmy, the day that it all fell apart. "You stay where you are. Give me ten minutes, I'll be there." He had left work to run all the way to Fak's place. He had barely made it in the door without looking around, "Where is he-" When he saw Carmy, he took him into a hug without a word. Finally the tears came. Mikey had reeked of beer.
"What did she say to you? What happened, Bear?" He kept asking, holding Carmy's face in his hands, his eyes all wide. But it wasn't a single thing or action. The past few years had been like walking on eggshells everyday. Of course if Mikey had spent more time with him at home instead of always being in the restaurant or out on a bender with Richie, he would have known that. Whatever. Carmy didn't have the energy to be mad about it. He was happy that his brother was there to hold him. It took hours for his shoulders to stop shaking. Mikey stayed with him the whole time.
Sugar was out of state in college. She called him almost every day for the first week. Carmy had to convince her not to hop on the next flight to come back for him. She should focus on her own stuff, not him, he said. At one point even Richie had stopped by, hands in his pockets, frowning.
"I'm sorry, cousin. This fucking blows." He managed.
Carmy nodded, "You're telling me."
At that point, Fak had interrupted, "At least he has me! And unlimited frozen pizza, for as long as he wants!"
Richie's brow had creased then. Carmy had expected him to wheel around, "Cousin just got kicked out of his fucking house and you're talking about frozen pizza, you fucking moron?" but he kept his mouth shut. Thank god for that. He even gave Carmy an awkward half shoulder pat, half hug before he left.
There was no one else to live with. Mikey still technically lived at home with Mom, even if he didn't spend any time there. Richie had his own tiny place but there was barely enough room for one person, plus the toilet water was permanently brown and there was probably cocaine baked into the carpets. Sugar was out of state in her college dorm. Not a whole lot of options.
The TV screen stung his eyes as they started another race with the full knowledge they were going to fucking lose. On the sofa bed next to him, Carmy's phone buzzed. He ignored it. Every few hours Mom sent him a text that said something like Just want my daughter back. He should have blocked her fucking number.
"But like, things will be okay, right Carmy?"
"Hm?"
"Things will be okay in the fall- you've got college plans and shit, don't you?" Fak asked.
Oh.
The controls moved sharply under the pads of his fingers. He stared at the bright colored screen and ended up looking right through it.
"Yeah- yeah of course I do," He lied, "Don't worry about that- hey, what the fuck, Fak? I'm in first place! Finally!"
They stayed up playing until the sun rose so that Fak could have a win too. Guilt and dread curdled in Carmy's stomach. He didn't have any plans for the fall and he didn't want to coast off of Fak forever. He needed to get a job and a place to live. He needed to do something.
All he knew is that he wasn't going back to his mom's house. And in hindsight, he was right, because even now that his brother is dead, Carmy still hasn't stepped foot in that place. He didn't go in to lie down and cry on Michael's bed, to collect the old comics that Mikey had always promised him, to trace the walls of the rooms where they had grown up together. The only person in the world that could have coaxed him to go into that house, who shared so many warm memories there, was gone.