Chapter Text
Late afternoon yesterday—after Ma brought Mikes inside for busting his knee up on the pintail—something loud coming up over the hill caught my attention. It's too far away for anyone else to hear so slip on my headphones and pretend not to notice. Something I've gotten really good at. Then when the dusts starts to puff up in the horizon I lift my Bans up and squint out into the distance.
From the porch anyone could see it. '67 cherry red Chevy pickup. It's in pretty good shape but the muffler is blown to shit. Loud and cranky. They've got yellow plates.
The radio's playing Sting but the kid in the passenger seat's listening to fucking Ska on a cassette player. A fucking cassette player when you've got the miracle of the iPod nano. He's tapping to the beat with one hand on the dashboard and the other on a duffle bag. They've got a little yappy terrier in the backseat.
It takes them awhile to climb down the hill but when they get there the Horowitzs' from across the street come out and so do the Jones' kids—hockey sticks and all.
I press my lips together into a hard line and watch them pull into the cul-de-sac. Jersey plates and Ska cassettes and no daddy will get anyone's attention—small town or not. People will probably pity her if she's nice enough and works something honest like nursing or teaching. Maybe even waiting tables. There's another single mom in the trailer park down the street who's not so honest about what she does. And everyone knows. Lots of late nights with fat fucks from the truck stop and men in suits on their way to Detroit. They always smell like Hennessy and cigars and sweat. Almost enough to cut out the hunger entirely. Almost.
People will probably talk about her son, though. No one gets away with black-dyed hair and painted nails in this town. Especially on a guy.
Mr. Horowitz is giving the truck an up-down. His son's a mechanic in the next town over, and he'll offer her a discount if she's pretty. Ma used to get that treatment until the cigs and Long Island iced teas caught up with her. Now I work on our truck.
"Gee, honey—where's the second skin?" Ma calls out from the kitchen. Mikey's dripping all over the goddamn lino but I don't budge. We share a room so it's pretty much background noise at this point. Plus he's so doped up all the time that the taste isn't even that great anyway. The shit he smokes is cut with K and other cheap shit that stays in his system for hours. Sometimes I have to get it out of him if he goes too deep, which helps build tolerance over time.
He's usually way too spaced out to even notice.
"Guest bathroom!" I say over my shoulder. This exact situation happened last week. Or maybe it was the week before last. It's hard to keep track of time when it's the summer and you don't have to get up and get dressed for anything. Or when time just stops. Nobody really keeps track of anything in this house as long as the disability and alimony checks get here and I remember to pay the landlord each month.
The Norman Rockwell calendar above the stove still thinks it's 1999.
"Welcome to Saugatuk," Mrs. Horowitz says. She's got a basket of raisin scones at her side, edging her way closer to the truck.
The kid doesn't look up from his player.
"Thank you, Fran," the woman says. She makes her way around the nose and pulls her into a hug, "It's been all these years and the place hasn't changed. Last time I was here was probably...huh...eighty-seven? Right before Frankie was born."
She leans up against the side door and knocks on the hard body. The kid slumps over and slides further down the cab until he's out of view.
Mrs. Horowitz clicks her lips together, "Oh my goodness I didn't even recognize him! So grown and handsome. Nineteen already?"
The woman shakes her head, "Almost. Nineteen in October. Can you believe it?"
She glances back at the kid and he's still staring down at the player, eyebrows furrowed together and pulse jumping in his throat. She sighs and whispers through her teeth, "Frank. Seriously."
The kid huffs and pulls his headphones off, "What!?"
The woman laughs uncomfortably and turns back to Mrs. Horowitz. She's grey and tired around the eyes, but everyone will think she's beautiful. Bleach blonde and dark at the roots. Her son looks a lot like her.
"It's been a long drive."
Mrs. Horowitz just nods and puts a hand on her shoulder. This is the first year of her retirement from the post office, and she's spent almost every day of it out in the garden. Her hands are tanned and wrinkled from the sun but she is happier—fresher. Her front yard looks great.
She only cut herself once on the knock-out roses last spring.
"Well," Mr. Horowitz starts. His voice is low and raspy, and he spends most of his days down at the county courthouse working pro-bono. He was retired for approximately one day before he was back at it again. Ma's always had a thing for him even though he's twenty years her senior. She talks about him back when she was in high school and he was working in the private sector. She typed for his office for fifty cents an hour. It was a different time, "Sam can fix her up if you ever have any trouble. This a '70?"
"67, actually. It was Frankie's grandfather's. I fought for it in court," the woman says. She looks proud as she crosses her arms over her chest. Frank makes a small exasperated noise in the front seat.
"Rich, let's let Lind get situated," Mrs. Horowitz says. She's tugging on his jacket now, pulling him away, "Front door's unlocked, dear. We took a look inside to make sure everything's square. It's a lovely little house."
The woman laughs a disbelieving laugh as she opens the bed of the truck, "This is definitely not Newark. What do you think about that, Frankie? You can finally skate further than a block without giving me a heart attack."
Frank raises his eyebrows and purses his lips together. He's got a lip and nose piercing, and maybe a little bit of black make up under his eyes too. He looks just as tired as his mom. He's picking at a loose thread on his jeans, grazing the skin of his knee in the process. Mikey will probably want him over at the park to skate and light up when the sun goes down. There aren't many kids around here who will longboard on these roads.
I watch quietly as the little dog jumps out of the cab after Frank. He's barely an inch taller than his mom and kind of stout, but not frail. Solid. It would probably take about fifteen minutes—maybe twenty if he fought back. Definitely enough for a few days and then some. As he gets closer to the house I can start to feel the warmth radiate from his pulse. He smells sweet like licorice and vetiver.
Syrupy and pure.
The screen door behind me slams shut suddenly and I jump. Ma is standing there with dried up blood all over her hands. She says, "Ah, the city folks Fran was talking about the other day. Cute boy. A good friend for Mikey."
"Don't want him fucking him up," I mumble under my breath. She lets all the neighborhood kids smoke in the house as long as they don't tell their parents. Something about better they do it here than out on the streets. Not that there's much trouble to run into on the streets around here, but still. Maybe it's just the principle of the thing. Or maybe it makes her feel important.
Ma would probably change her tune if she knew about all the Special K and the PCP, though. Or the amount of times Mikey's heart has stopped.
I never let him go too deep.
She waves her hand in the air and sighs. Shes got an unlit cigarette between her teeth, just sitting there. I pull a lighter out of my pocket and light her up.
After the first inhale she says, "A friend for you, then."
I say nothing and turn back to watch Frank drag his bags up the front porch. The house next door had been vacant for months, and during that time I'd watch some of the kids from school break in to drink and hook up and host seances with candles and shit. Our window faces the back bedroom so I could alway hear them coming in. Excited whispers and pitchy screams from the girls. Sometimes they'd toss rocks at the side of our house all night long until Mikes came out with pot and whatever weird liqueur shit mom picked up the day before.
She'd always pretend not to notice when it was gone the next morning.
Ma waves at Frank and says, "Hey there! Welcome to the neighborhood!" all loud and booming.
Frank stops and stares at Ma with big eyes. He looks like he's about to be rung up and tied to the hood of a 1500. Frozen and afraid. He shifts his eyes down to me for a millisecond before picking up his dog and pushing through the front door.
Ma chokes out a laugh through the smoke and hits me on the shoulder. She says, "See? An anti-social just like you."
Frank snickers from inside the house.
❧
The next morning I hear Frank's mom sneak out at the ass crack of dawn. Right at five. She's wearing purple scrubs and her hair is pinned back into a tight bun, and when she goes to leave she gets into some minute argument with Frank about getting up earlier than noon or something. Inconsequential.
It's dark out so she doesn't see me on the porch until she beams her headlights at me. Like a goddamn spotlight.
She gasps so I snuff the cigarette out quickly and wave at her as she passes by. I'm twenty-two but some parents still get tripped up about things like that. The 'gateway drugs.' So I wait to smoke another until she's well up and over the hill. Out of sight.
I only really smoke cloves even though the nicotine does fuckall for me. Like drinking fucking decaf. But the smell is stronger and the smoke sort of burns my eyes, so I keep doing it. Plus I kind of have this tradition where I always smoke after a kill. Like cigarettes after sex except you end up alone and feel a little bit like shit after. A cruel, twisted up thing.
I light another between my teeth and pick at the undersides of my fingernails with a Bowie knife. I was lazy last night and caught a tourist outside a seedy dive bar a little over an hour from here. Somewhere between Kalamazoo and Plainwell. He was wasted and stumbling around in the parking lot, yelling at people and trying to scrounge up money for a cab. When I offered him a ride and he called me a faggot, so I pulled him into the alley behind the bar and drained him for a few minutes. Just enough to drop his blood pressure. Then I carried his limp body back to my truck and drove us up the 131 until we hit a big stretch of dark woods. Somewhere far enough away where the troopers don't go. I pressed him up against my chest and bit into the carotid artery and fed until he went completely cold and quiet. Boring and easy. Then I dumped his body near the pig farm up the road and made the trek back to Saugatuk before the AM station cut through the static.
He wasn't a student but he was young. Barely old enough to drink.
He kind of looked like Frank minus the dark punk exterior. Just a normal, everyday stranger in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fated, maybe. If you believe in fucking fate.
I try to stick to my own rules about this stuff even though they're kind of arbitrary and meaningless if you really think about them. Like an unsolvable equation. But I won't turn Mikey and I don't kill townies. I try to get out of Saugatuk too but sometimes I don't quite make it all the way. On the first night I killed the librarian pulled over on the side of the road with a flat. She knows my truck so she flagged me down before I could stop myself. Too easy. It was cold and rainy last September so you couldn't see shit from the main road either. Just sharp little pellets of hail beating down on the windshield the entire time. It had been less than twenty-four hours so I was practically paralyzed with the overwhelming need to consume. The bloodlust pulling me down deeper and deeper under the current until I couldn't feel anything anymore. Just this strange, empty numbness as my instincts took over. I didn't know what I was doing either so I ripped her throat out and watched as her body stilled into shock. Tensing up all over before dropping into a terrifying, quiet calm. Then I drank the little that was left from her wrist as she faded away from me—eyes wide open staring back the entire time.
Afterwards I changed her tire as promised and wrote a note and slit her wrists. She was pretty dry at that point so I had to get creative with the blood placement and whatnot. They don't hold candlelit vigils for suicides but they will put a fucking plastic cross up with flowers and votive candles and pillars with the Virgin Mary on them. The same type of shit you'd see for a car accident when it was your fault.
A displacement of blame.
Mikey was pretty upset when he found out about that one. He went on a week long bender and didn't talk to anyone the whole time. Just shut himself in his room and played Louder Than Bombs over and over on the stereo and cried. Miss Annie had been the librarian ever since he was little—fresh out of grad school. Sometimes he would hang out in the library all evening and read the Japanese comics when Ma forgot to pick him up from school. Then at some point he'd stopped going and started getting fucked up behind the Citgo with his new friends instead.
A lot of those kids came in from Holland and brought rocks and other white trash shit that didn't belong here. The fucking methheads. So he got caught up in that too for a while. Then the first time he OD'd I drove him out to some rural patch of farmland in Fairview and drew it out of him until he was clean. He tasted like dish soap and cough medicine but I kept going 'cause I could feel him slipping away from me. A slow free-fall. Then the next morning I told him everything and he just sat there and stared at me with blank, grey eyes. Sippin' on a glass of orange juice at the diner while I smoked another cigarette.
❧
Every afternoon at around four the local station plays 90's thrash and grunge. It's usually the same shit recycled over and over 'cause the guy who runs it—Jim Adkins—is a Seattle out-of-towner turned Midwestern country boy who's nostalgic about the good ole' days. And knows a good thing when he hears it. Today they've got on STP and Slayer and a few hits from Rust in Peace.
Ma says it's too angry so I only play it out here in the shop shed when I'm working on the truck. She and Mikey have a thing for The Smiths even though Morrissey is one of the angriest motherfuckers out there. It's all in the delivery.
Trippin' on a Hole comes on as I slide the drain pan underneath the loose plug and let it drip. They will charge fifty bucks for this at the Walmart across the lake and then tell you something's wrong with the goddamn spark plugs. Fucking extortion. The only downside to doing it yourself is getting little black fingerprints everywhere for the next few days after. It's a pain in the ass to get off of the fucking drywall but Ma never says anything. Or maybe she doesn't notice.
The sun out here is bad too so I try to go quick. It's not like the dramatic stuff you hear about in movies or TV shows but there's a subtle little burn if you're out in it long enough. Similar to how it was before but twenty percent worse. I don't actually know what kills me but I've heard some others talk up near Lake Erie. A lot of them hunt up there 'cause the trees are good cover and the water keeps the bodies cold like a meat locker. Sunk at the bottom of the lake. I go every couple of weeks to dump leftovers and talk to the others if I see them passing through. Most of them just stick to each other 'cause their families and friends have been gone for years. Centuries, even. Some of them turn their spouses or children and live like that together. Like one big happy family. Mikes asked once but I could never do that to him.
Maybe I'll change my mind when he starts to look like the older brother.
"Shit, ah! Toad!" I hear Frank say from across the yard. I look up from the hood and watch as he trips on the last step of the front porch—falling face first into the muddy wet grass as his dog comes barreling towards me.
He stops when he gets to the truck and barks at me, teeth barred and frantic. I set down my wrench and stare down at him. Animals can always tell before people do. It's that innate survival instinct. I can smell the fear off of him as he starts to back away from me. It's always the little ones that have the biggest balls—an evolutionary mystery.
Frank jogs up my driveway and bends over to dust the mud off of his knees. He says, "Hey uh—sorry. He doesn't usually snap at people like that."
I shrug and wipe my hands on the shop towel around my shoulders. He smells like shower gel and coffee. Clean and untouched. He picks up his dog and presses him into his chest, staring past me for a second before saying, "Oh, Stone Temple Pilots. Sick album."
"It's 102.5," I say, staring down at his shirt. Homemade block-print lettering with Rancid across the top and an iron-on Frankenstein patch underneath. The neck is stretched and worn-out.
Frank's pulse jumps as he follows my gaze down. He looks back up and says, "What?"
"The station," I say. His hair is wet and reflects patches of blue in the sun. It curls around the bottom of his jaw and down towards his neck. Hitting right at the midway point.
I clench my teeth together and look back down at the oily hot engine underneath me. Frank takes a step backwards and says, "Oh. Oh yeah okay. Hey you work on old trucks too?"
"This is an old truck," I say.
He's still a stranger right now. Inconsequential. People would probably think he ran away if he disappeared. Another punk kid sticking it to his mom or whatever the fuck.
No one at school knows him—not even Mikey.
Frank laughs nervously and takes another step back. His eyes are green and dark in the sun. Like a flickering silverfish. He looks like any other kid from a big city. Easy and reckless. He says, "Well, okay. But I mean like, old-old. Ya know? My mom's truck is a total piece of shit and I don't want her fucking with some other dude tryna get in her pants. Okay?"
"What's wrong with it?"
"Fuck if I know," he says. The dog fidgets in his arms and he drops him back down on the ground, "Come by at seven and find out. I have beer."
He sounds hopeful and a little bit excited when he says it. Almost like pleading.
The radio suddenly cuts into the intro to Drain You:
One baby to another says
I'm lucky to've met you.
I nod, "Okay."
❧
Frank's mom pulls into their driveway at around six looking worn out and exhausted. She smells like iodine and latex—but underneath it I can still smell the blood from about twenty different people. Faint, but there. It always gets stuck in the strangest places when you aren't paying attention. Like between the tiny grooves in your fingers or the creases at the corners of your nose. Most of the time I've gotta pick it out with a knife or a toothbrush until it relents. Mikey hates watching me do that.
At seven she's showered and the smell is gone, and I shower too and tell Ma I'm working on Frank's truck as I head out the front door, not waiting around to hear anything anyone else has to say about it.
Frank's mom answers the door with her hair done up and curled. She looks surprised when she says, "Oh, hi. Gerard, right?"
There's a little bit of blood underneath her fingernails leftover. Someone old and dying. Or already dead.
Frank runs up behind her padding sticky barefoot feet. He struggles to get a shirt up over his shoulders as he says, "Mom I forgot to tell you!"
She whips around and gives him a confused look. Frank pants out, "Gerard's gonna...uh...work on the truck."
Her eyes flick to me, then back to Frank. I say, "Was just gonna take a look. I'm not even sure I can fix it yet."
"We were just about to head over to Fran's," she says, tugging at her hair. She's wearing make up too, and her eyebrows are arched and pitched high just like Frank's. Everyone will be talking about her tomorrow.
"I don't wanna go to that shit anyway. C'mon mom. There's pizza in the fridge. You go. It won't take long, right?" Frank asks me. He's sort of breathing hard now, face flushed and warm. I get this weird urge to reach out and touch his cheek but I keep my hands right where they are. There's no point in stirring shit up now.
I stare at the blue veins pulsing in his neck. Like a ticking time bomb of pressure. Alone in the house with him is probably a bad idea, even though I know I couldn't do this to Ma. Or the people on our street. Still, there is only so much self control left over after my fangs drop. Another ticking time bomb of pressure. I blink a few times and say, "Yeah, yes. But I can come back another time if—"
She cuts me off, "How old are you?"
"Twenty-two," I say. Frank rolls his eyes.
"Are you in school?" She asks.
My eyes flick to Frank's. He's staring up at me through his bangs, "Too expensive. Thinking about going to trade school."
She just hums and scans me up and down for a second. She's wearing something floral and acidic around her neck. Strong but not strong enough to cut the scent of Frank standing next to her. She sighs, "Okay. Fine. But do not let him convince you to buy him alcohol. I'll know, Frankie! I'll know."
Frank groans as he grips the edge of the door, leaning sideways, "Okay, bye."
She shoots me one final glare before walking down the steps and across the street to the Horowitz's.
Frank waits until she's fully out of view before exhaling out a hot, built up breath of air. He motions for me to follow him inside as he turns on his heels, and I do.
Next door Mikey's playing Queen from the back bedroom, a thin trail of smoke crawling out the slit in the window. It's Friday night so he'll probably want to go out with his 'friends' from school. Maybe he'll even ask Frank, if he's quiet enough and can sneak past that yappy little dog and his helicopter mother. The Jones' kids stay up late too, and they'll definitely rat him out if they see him and Mikey on their boards headed West towards main street. Plus Mikes is a clumsy little shit and usually wakes up the whole block anyway, even if Frank can manage okay.
Ma gets a call nearly every week.
"So I have Busch Light—but if you want something stronger I found these little bottles of Fireball the other day. Shit fucking burns," Frank says, laughing kind of nervously as he pulls out a six pack from the fridge.
I glance around myself as I follow his voice into the kitchen. This is the oldest house on the block. A cedar-plank boathouse from the 50's. The kitchen's been redone but the molding and floors are warped and musty—their water spots faded and painted a few times over. Above the cabinets there are still traces of the pink frilly wallpaper from before.
It was a pretty nice house a long time ago.
"I'm okay, actually. I don't drink," I say. The last time I forced booze down my throat I was puking all night. Coughing up a fucking lung and waking up the whole damn neighborhood. It's strange to think about taking something so stupid and ordinary for granted, but you do. Not that I try to dwell on the past too much, but the little flashes of memory will come anyway. Quick, fleeting moments from before.
It'll be a year next month.
Frank narrows his eyes at me as he flicks the can open, "What? Are you fucking edge or..." his voice trails off as he goes over to the back door to let the dog in.
He comes running up to me immediately barking and snarling again. Brave and ready to defend his territory. Frank jogs over and scoops him up in his arms, "Jesus, Toad. He is totally not like this normally. M'gonna go put him in the back bedroom."
I say nothing and watch as Frank disappears down the dark hallway. From outside I can hear Mikey slamming the screen door behind him. The scab on his knee is still fresh from the other day but he's got it covered in vaseline or some shit like that. He will probably be okay tonight as long as nobody offers him nitrous again. Or PCP. I would've taken them out a long time ago if it weren't for the fucking pharmacy's worth of drugs running through their veins at any given time. Fucking inedible.
They'll probably all kill themselves off eventually, though. Dropping like flies behind the fucked up dollar general and forgotten the next week coming.
They don't hold candlelit vigils for fucking junkies.
Frank jogs back around the corner bar and retrieves a pizza box from the fridge. He dangles a slice in the air and says, "It's fucking pineapple. Is that okay?"
His heart is racing again, thudding loudly in his chest as he tries to catch his breath. He smells sweet. Like fucking honey. I roll my tongue across my teeth to make sure I'm not too far gone. The hunger is slowly building even though yesterday was enough. Or it had been enough before I stepped foot in this goddamn house.
"Where are the keys?" I say quickly. Frank's eyebrows twitch as his gaze drops down to the floor. He looks a little bit disappointed, maybe.
I should have never come here. He should have never asked me.
I run a hand through my hair and sigh, "I mean, I'll only be a minute. Do you have a jack?"
"Uh, in the garage, I think," he says. Disappointed. He leans up against the side of the bar and presses his cheek into the heel of his palm. The veins on his wrist are green and purple under the fluorescent lights.
I mutter a thanks under my breath as I grab the keys from the ceramic catch-all on the counter and head back out the door.
His fucking dog is barking from the back room the entire time.