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1.
Ian
I thought Ian would lose his shit.
I thought, like, curtains would tear and the sky would break and rivers would turn to blood and I’d just be here sitting through it all. Instead, it’s… quiet . Weird quiet. Bad quiet. Quiet like someone died, like if you whisper too loud it’ll kick off an avalanche. Maybe it would.
The guys met Ian again at the hospital. Met, as in they came in and he walked out. Must've missed him the first time.
Fuckshit went all like, “Hey, f—gt,” when he passed them by and Ian didn’t say anything, because he doesn’t fight as much as he says he does, I don’t think. That's not the kind of thing you pull in a hospital, anyway. Fuckshit sat on my bed.
“Yo, Sunburn, that dude yo brotha?”
I thought about lying. “Yeah,” I said.
He looked up and around. “Man, yo brotha a pussy, dude.”
I think about bruises bursting out of my eye sockets, of running until my lungs burn and my shoes peel and when I go home, I listen to our mom cry through the walls because of him, because of us. Yell. Wail. Scream. I hate her, but I think I might just hate Ian more. Because when I remember sitting next to him on the sofa and never agreeing on a channel, watching the same thing in the same place over and over without ever so much as understanding each other, I knew that he at least had a chance.
I look around. These guys have been better brothers to me in a quarter year than Ian's been in my whole entire life, and maybe that’s what hurts the most.
So, “Yeah,” I tell them. “He’s the worst.”
I think we could’ve been friends in a better timeline, honest. If mom were happy and if Ian got along with everyone at school. If I could be a better man, stronger. More like Ray.
I think of when I drank my body weight in liquor, when I beat Ian for the first time, screaming and desperate on the dirty kitchen floor. He hasn’t spoken to me since. Not even when I woke up, and he was just sitting there, watching, waiting, frozen in time. And when he finally looked my way, it was like there was water inside his skull, overpouring from out his eyelids and ears. Too much sloshing around in there to make anything out, crying without any tears to put it to.
Even if I said something, I don’t think he would’ve heard me.
Ian always felt too far beyond my reach. A TV show I can’t stay up late enough to watch. I don’t know how it’s even possible, but I think, since then, he’s gotten farther. It’s just – he’s different, is what I’m getting at. Different like I died, like he’s still mourning something we both know we never actually had. Maybe that’s the tragedy of it.
He’s softer now. Younger, less sharp around the edges– a whole lot humbler, too. Too many fights lost, maybe, or just one really big one. He gave me a juice box when I woke up, and sometimes I see him coming out of Scott Palmer’s car even though he’s a total f–g. Ian doesn’t care anymore, I don’t think. He quit fighting, hung up his hat.
I know that he’s changed, anyway. I think I still hate him.
We might’ve switched bodies by accident. Like, once he stopped causing trouble for mom, I started. I think about that a lot. I used to wish, when I was young, that we lived in the 1800s, so Ian could’ve gotten lobotomized. They’d drill a hole in his skull and stick a spit-covered needle inside, and when he’d wake up, he’d smile wide at me, take me by the shoulders and say, ‘Stevie, I’m proud of you.’ I’m proud of you.
We might’ve just gotten along then.
4th Grade
I'm pretty sure something died in that car crash.
If it wasn't me, it must've been someone I forgot about. Someone who maybe shouldn't have died; too young, too good, too curious. Someone who went only because he had to. Or something.
I missed some school. Mom said I couldn't do any homework until I got home, which, I mean, I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth or whatever, so, you know. 4th Grade sometimes brings his math when the guys come to visit. It's the same as mine, even though he's in high school, so he told me I could copy it off onto a napkin. Ray went all, like, “Bitch, you couldn't even pay no one to copy off your homework.”
And we laughed. Everything Ray says is funny, really. He could start a satanic cult, and I’d join it, even though my mom would sooner slit my throat than let me. The blood could be my badge of honor.
4th Grade told us, “Oh, come on, guys. It's not that bad.” But it was, and so Ray started going over it, just to prove his point, and Ruben and Fuckshit put their two cents in.
“x + 3 = 7. Fuckin’ Einstein over here put 3.”
Fuckshit sniffed. “That’s that y=mx+b type shit?”
“No, bruh. It's just 7 minus 3. What's 7 minus 3, Ruben?”
Ruben rubbed his head. He’s smoking, even though you’re not supposed to do that in hospitals. I’m not sure why. Might make the nurses sad. ‘“Fuck. Like 4.”
“See, even this dumbass knows it. Bro, 4th Grade, I ain't never met anyone as dumb as you.” The guys laughed. I did, too. “Like, very respectfully, we love you, bruh, we all have our weakness and whatnot, but goddamn .”
“Shit, bruh, you got it easy,” Fuckshit said. He laughed like a hyena.
4th Grade smiled about it, he held his camera in his hands. I don’t think I’ve ever seen 4th Grade with anything less. He’s never upset, is what I mean. He looks angry a lot, but Ray just says he’s got that kind of face. I’m not so good with words for it, but sometimes I think it’s sad that 4th Grade is dumb and poor, that he’s the kind of person my school runs food drives for. He doesn’t deserve it. I would say no one does, but some do. Just not him.
I sit with 4th Grade sometimes, and he’s quiet. Chill. A song without a singer. When I feel like a bottle ready to blow, I think of 4th Grade collecting litter to cut coupons out of while we’re walking under underpasses. And then I feel stupid for thinking I have it so bad.
That’s what I mean, though; he says all sorts of weird, out-for-lunch things, but it’s what he does that really sticks in your head, laffy taffy between your teeth.
I don’t feel as hung-up as I should for him, though. (I don’t imagine 4th Grade would like being pitied, anyhow. No one does). Mom says compassion is a dying art form, that hip hop and teen pregnancy and kids my age are the ones who killed it.
I guess, what it is, is that I think there’s more to a person, even if I know there’s probably not; that it doesn’t matter if you can count a guy’s IQ on one hand or if he can’t foot the bill for his own goddamn socks, if he’s fun to be around. Sure, I’d look down on somebody who buys knockoff Nikes and can’t recite half the alphabet, but I wouldn’t look down on 4th Grade. I don’t even know if that makes sense. I just think he’s fun, is all.
Fuckshit slapped 4th Grade’s shoulder reassuringly. “Ay, don’t worry about it, bruh, Tupac ain’t gone to school. And, he, like, fuckin’ lit. ”
Everyone started speaking all at once. 4th Grade turned and argued, “Tupac went to school. How could he have not gone to school–”
“What if he’s mormon?”
“Did Sunburn just say Tupac’s mormon– bruh, what even–”
“Tupac went to school. He had to have,” 4th Grade reasoned quietly, like he was putting puzzle pieces together, except they’re cheap and you can’t really tell which fits into which.
“Yeah, Fuckshit, pretty sure, that’s, like, unconstitutional,” said Ray. He was drinking out of one of those floral-print paper cups they pass out in the cafeteria. 4th Grade once told me he imagined they’d been made from the mozzarella faces melting off the most damned souls of hell; bodies piling as high and as wide as the spindly black gates. Their skin would drip down and make those weird, abstract, flower-like shapes you see. Sometimes I hold one up to my ear, and think I can still hear them screaming.
“What if he went and gone to rapper school?” Ruben posed. He sat closest to me, drinking out of one of the damned-soul paper cups that Ray had. I saw him beat up the vending machine over a Pepsi earlier.
“Bitch, there ain’t no such thing as rapper school,” Fuckshit said.
Everyone started talking again. Ruben’s nose wrinkled. “Yes, there-fucking-is. Where you think they learn–”
“No, there’s got to be, they all know each other–” 4th Grade said seriously.
“They know each other ‘cause they famous , dipshit.”
“They literally all come from the same place, y’all, they grew up in the same hoods, why not go to rapper school–”
Ray closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Oh my god. Y’all ret—ded.”
Fuckshit took a drag of Ruben’s cigarette and gave it back. “Nah, they all know each other ‘cuz they all dumb as rocks, bruh.”
Ray shook his head, smacked Ruben upside the head and told him to snuff it out, then smacked Fuckshit too for encouraging him. “How does that make any sense, bruh?”
“You can get payouts if you’re dumb enough,” I said.
Ray looked at me. “Shit, Sunburn, really?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s like, like, the government feels bad for you. So, then, they give you disability money, even though all you are is just dumb.” I heard about it from my mom. She was going off about it once, while she was arguing with Ian about college. I don’t know what he’ll do when he’s older. Not like 4th Grade, who’s got everything all figured out, even though he’s dumb and poor and goes to parties. Guess there’s something to be said about ambition, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps or something. Maybe he’s just a better guy than both of us. That’s probably what it is.
“Shit, you know it’s bad when the government be pityin’ you, 4th Grade,” Ray snickered. 4th Grade smiled.
Ruben
It's cold. Cold like some sort of plug was pulled. Cold like the sun closed its mouth and shut itself away and now I'm out in 4 degree weather and flip flops smoking with Ruben. I gave him my jacket because it seemed like the right thing to do. He told me that was gay, but then, like, 10 minutes later, took it anyway.
It's annoying and reassuring in equal parts that Ruben's still mean to me. I honestly thought there was some kind of invisible rule about dropping your beef with a guy once he gets sick or hurt or whatever. I'm glad Ruben didn't, anyway. I don't know why.
Some nights I slip into bed, stare at the ceiling and think about dying. Dying in a way that’d strike a chord, that’d really mean something, you know? Too young to go, a tragic end to what barely can be described as a beginning.
My name would be on headlines, on missing-person posters and empty milk cartons. Kids would eat breakfast every morning and stare at my face. Mom would cry– and she’d really cry, I mean– cry harder than when douchebag #3 stood her up on her birthday or when Ian first came home in a cop car, bloody fists and black eyes.
Oh, and Ian— god, would Ian regret me. He’d feel responsible for once, weighed-down, weathered. He’d look at photos of us as kids and think about all the times we fought, all the times he turned the channel on a show I wanted to watch. He’d call me his brother again, and he’d mean it, too. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to make me think I matter. Or something. I dunno.
Then I think about Ruben. Ruben would have that look on his face, the one he always does nowadays. Rocky, mountainous, unfazed. He wouldn’t care about me any more if I was dead than if I were alive, and that…
That makes me feel calm.
Calmer than thinking about mom, or Ian, or even the guys. I don’t know why. Death isn’t a party, anyway, I just don’t think people should celebrate it. (although it feels nice to think about.) Not even in tears or glasses of beer or lilies you leave on graves. That's all.
“She’s a bitch,” Ruben tells me, uninvited. I sometimes think that he’s having private conversations in his head, conversations I’m not a part of and have no context for.
“Yeah,” I easily agree, because I don’t want to argue with Ruben. Especially when he gets like this. He doesn’t like it, but I feel sad for him sometimes. “Who?”
Ruben looks at me. He thinks I’m stupid. Then: “My ma, dipshit.”
“Oh, yeah. She’s a bitch.” I don’t know her, which makes that easier to say. I’m sure she is a total bitch, though. Mom doesn’t like when I call girls that, but there’s really no better word for it.
Ruben looks at me, eyebrows pressed. He clicks his tongue, and looks away, losing a fight he hasn’t even started yet. “You can’t say that, dumbass.”
“What? But you just–”
“ I can say my mom’s a bitch, Stevie, you can’t. Rules.”
“Oh. Sorry, I get it.” I don’t really get it, though. Ruben can tell.
“You’re so fucking stupid, Stevie…” he says aloud.
“Yeah,” I agree. I know he’s angry with me now. I knew before, too, I just… I just care more. I thought back then that he was impossible, carnage in a car crash he could’ve stopped if he really wanted to, but never did. He hated me, thought I was competition or something, but he didn’t have to. I was trying to get the guys to like me, I didn’t think it had to mean disliking him. Maybe I'm an optimist. Maybe I'm just stupid.
I always tried, though, and maybe that’s why I answered the door, why I’m on the porch now, smoking where anyone could see me.
“Are you okay?” I ask Ruben, because it feels like the right thing to do. There’s a big red bruise on his jaw, a ring-shaped cut right below it. I try not to look, because it feels too vulnerable, and Ruben thinks I’m a pussy anyway, but if I stop caring, I might never be able to start again.
Ruben breathes out smoke, a dragon with fire for words.
“Stevie, quit askin’ me all that gay shit–”
“I’m just wondering,” I say quickly. Then, quieter: “I won’t tell anyone.”
Ruben looks at me. “I’m fine .”
“Okay,” I reply easily. I feel bad for him still, but I don’t say anything. Even though we fought and we crashed and I know he’s just gotta hate me by now, I can’t think of Ruben as a bad guy. I yawn, and rub up and down my arms. “It’s late,” I tell him. “Do you want a Pepsi?”
- Fuckshit
“Whatchu wanna do when you’re older, Sunburn?” Fuckshit asks. We’re at Motor Avenue, and it’s snowing. 4th Grade said something about global warming earlier, that you really know the world’s ending when it’s coming down like this in Cali.
“When I’m older… Um. Go to the beach, probably,” I tell Fuckshit. He never really asks about this kind of thing, it’s usually Ray, but Fuckshit’s been thinking about the future more, ever since the crash. I don’t know how to feel about it.
“Go to the beach, get sunburnt?”
Ray whistles from behind the counter. “A’course he does.”
“What d’you mean, go to the beach?” Ruben goes, making a face at me. I can never tell if he’s mad or if he’s making a joke. “We live in L.A, idiot. How have you not been to the beach?”
“Well, I have, it’s just. I wanna be old and be on the beach.”
Ruben looks at me real hard. “Fuckin’ weirdo,” he just says.
Fuckshit drives me home nowadays, even though Mom tells me I should never go in a car with him ever again. Ray says the same thing, funnily enough. Fuckshit’s not even allowed to drive anymore, I don’t think, but I can’t really skate home when it’s so hot out. (Even on days it snows.) Mom would be madder if I died from heatstroke than a car crash anyway.
“Ay, whatchu think of this, Sunburn?” Fuckshit asks. He’s talking about the new Usher CD he shoplifted from Target, but I can’t really hear it over the A.C. I tell him I like it anyway.
“One time, me n’ Ray, we was going to see ‘im at the Universal Ampithat-whatever-it-was-called,” He tells me. “I spent, like, the entire summer just straight-up hustlin’. Like, I would’ve sucked my daddy’s dick, I wanted money so bad.”
I pull a face, and tell him, “Ewww.”
“I know right? I was playing, like, all his music, pumpin’ me up while I was workin’ like a literal dog. Even listenin’ to the shit album. Ray was doin’ it, too, even though he be talkin’ shit all the time about his songs n’ he don’t like R&B that much. And, the funny thing is, Sunburn, dude wasn’t even, like, headlining or anything. It was… It was, like, Mary J. Blige, or some type shit.”
I’ve never heard of her, but I nod along anyway.
“Anyway, so, after summer, I’m skippin’ school picking up cans, and 4th Grade’s there, showin’ me the ropes, ‘cause apparently the brother’s, like, the trash king or somethin’. But, then, like, I’m getting in shit at school for bein’ gone, right? And I don’t think I can make enough to buy a ticket. And then, we’re walkin’ around by Motor Avenue, and I’m talkin’ to this girl, when 4th Grade asks me if he can have a quarter. ‘Cause the chick was in front of me, I said, ‘yeah, man, sure, bro.’
I thought bruh was gonna buy, like, gum or somethin’, but then he goes over to this motherfuckin’ claw machine, and I’m thinking ‘this fuckin’ loser’ and then, I shit you not, he wins this huge, like– polaroid camera. And, y’know, 4th Grade, he never shuts up about, like, Super Baby or whatever it is, so he was, like, over the moon, Sunburn, fucking droolin’. I think ‘cause his old camera was dirt shit, or somethin’. But then he sold it. He gave up his camera so me and Ray could go n’ see Usher opening up in this crowded ass building with a sticky floor and too much air pollution.”
“He did that? Really?”
Fuckshit nods, and laughs bitterly. “Fucker don’t even like Usher,” he tells me, gripping the steering wheel tighter. The radio skips to the next track on the Usher CD.