John Hart - Iron House

Okay.

But then you light it, and it melts and drips and goes ruined and ugly. Well, sometimes it feels like that when the lights go out. Like everything is wrong.

I don’t understand.

It’s like everything melts off in the dark. Like the dark is the flame and the world is wax.

The world’s not a candle, Julian.

But how do you know if you can’t see it?

Why are you crying?

How can anybody know?

Just the thought of it made Michael angry. So what if his brother was soft? “Who did this, Julian? Hennessey?”

“And Billy Walker.” Julian started crying again, bright, oily tears. He sniffed loudly, smeared dirt with a forearm.

“Who else?” Michael asked.

“Georgie-boy Nichols. Chase Johnson. And that fuck-head in from juvie.”

“The one from north Georgia? The big one?”

“Ronnie Saints.” Julian nodded.

“Five of them?”

“Yeah.”

Michael stood, even angrier. Furnace heat pulled sweat from his skin. “You have to stand up for yourself, Julian. Once you do that, they’ll leave you alone.”

“But, I’m not like you.”

“Just show them you’re not scared.”

“I’m sorry, Michael.”

“Don’t say you’re sorry…”

“Please don’t be angry.”

“I’m not angry.”

“I’m sorry, Michael.”

Julian buried his eyes in a forearm, and Michael stared down for a long second. “You have to stop, Julian.”

“Stop what?” Big eyes turned up. A heavy swallow in his narrow throat.

“Stop mooning around all the time.” Michael hated the words. “Stop singing to yourself and looking lost. Stop running when they chase. Stop flinching-”

“Michael…”

“Stop being such a pussy.”

Julian looked away. “I don’t mean to be. Please don’t say that, Michael.”

But Michael was tired of the worry, the fights. “Just go to the room, Julian. I’ll see you there later.”

“Where are you going?”

“To handle this myself.” He shouldered the awkward door and left so fast he missed the look of hurt on his brother’s face, the diamond tears and determination. He didn’t see the way Julian’s arms shook when he stood, how he pulled the knife from behind his back and squeezed until his hand was bone.

“Okay, Michael.”

His brother was gone.

“Okay.”

Julian glared at the knife, then at his skinny arms and birdcage chest. He didn’t have muscles like Michael did, not the wide shoulders, or the strong blue veins that showed in his arms. He lacked the sharp eyes, the even teeth and steadiness. He had over-pale skin and lungs that burned when he ran; but the weakness went deeper than that. An uneven place lurked behind the bones of his chest, and part of him hated Michael for not having the same, soft place inside. Sometimes that hatred was a terrible thing, so strong it threatened to show on his face; sometimes it disappeared altogether, thinned so much by love that Julian remembered it like a dream.

Julian stood for a long time, humiliated and ashamed, his eyes shiny wet. His mind rolled with the memories of a thousand small hurts: taunts and abuse, Hennessey’s spit on his face, an old man’s pants and the taste of bat shit in his mouth. And he thought, too, of the big hurts, the pain and fear and self-loathing. The disappointment in his brother’s eyes. That one most of all. Julian smeared snot on his face and wondered how he could love his brother and hate him at the same time. They were both so big.

The love.

The hate.

Julian wanted to be steady on his feet. He wanted people to say hello to him in the hall and to not hurt him just because they could. If he was like Michael, he could have those things, so Julian decided that’s what he would be. Like Michael. But when he stepped for the door, the damaged ankle rolled and he went down so fast and hard his face hit concrete with the sound of cracking wood. The knife clattered away, and he curled in the dirt, lonesome and hurt and wanting to be in his brother’s skin.

Michael…

Julian’s head ached like the bone above his eyes had split, like something sharp and hot had been jammed through the crack. He cupped his face and cried, and when his eyes opened he saw the rust-speckled blade on the floor. His fingers found the handle and metal rasped as he rolled onto all fours, head loose at the end of his neck, vision blurred. He heard a strange noise in his throat, and his face twitched as something in his head gave with a glassy snap. He felt different when he stood, dizzy and distant, limbs heavy. He swayed as the world grayed out, and when his vision cleared, he heard the sound of knuckles tapping the wall, hard, bony thumps as a far part of his mind said: That hurts…

But the pain belonged to some other boy.

Stop being such a pussy, the boy said, and Julian’s feet scraped on the blackish floor. His hand found the rail that angled up, and stairs led past the basement kitchen as the air filled with the smells of sugared tea and fatty meat, white bread and fake butter. Julian climbed another flight, then made a left turn that led to the dining hall where, already, boys had begun to gather. He stumbled past the door, then pulled himself up more empty stairs and down a long hall, knife hard against his leg. He passed a few other boys, and some part of Julian knew how bad he looked, filthy and limping and hurt. Boys stared at his bruises and rotting pants, the swollen knot above crazy eyes. They stepped out of his way when they saw the knife, their backs flat on the rough plaster walls. But Julian ignored the way they looked at him, the pity and the jeers and the odd, kind question.

No, said the boy with Julian’s voice. We don’t need any help.

He found Hennessey alone in the first-floor bathroom at the end of the north hall. He stood at the urinal, and turned when the door swung closed, his disbelief twisting into a leer. “Jesus,” Hennessey said, then turned his back and flushed. The bathroom smelled of bad aim and disinfectant, the lights white and cold behind metal cages on the ceiling. Julian kept the knife behind his back as Hennessey spit once on the floor and stepped closer, the freckles dark as flung mud on the slope of his nose.

“I’m not scared of you,” Julian said.

Hennessey was tall and wide, eyes muddy brown under red hair. Pale fuzz covered the backs of his hands and a single bad tooth marred the right side of his smile. He flicked a gaze over Julian, and shook out another laugh. “Look at you. Girly muscles all bunched up. Got your angry eyes on.” He waved fingers, made a circle of his mouth and said, “Ooh.”

Julian’s head titled, his eyes dark and dull. “I’m not a pussy.”

“Yeah.” Hennessey shoved hard and pushed past. “You are.”

“You take that back.”

“Or what?”

Hennessey didn’t even turn. He got one hand on the door before the knife went into the side of his neck. It slid in with a crunch, and Julian stepped back as the big kid went down thrashing, two hands on his throat, eyes rolling and white. One hand rose, wet and stained, fingers spread. He saw blood and confusion changed to terror. “Julian…”

For that instant, a terrible satisfaction boiled in the place Julian’s fears were normally found, but a deep-down voice cried out that this was wrong. It said call a grown-up. Get help.

Shut up, you pussy.

The words rang in Julian’s mind, so strong they rocked him back on his one good foot.

Such hate.

So loud.

Julian fell into a stall door, clattered inside, porcelain cold and hard on his back. He held his head as Hennessey’s legs thumped twice and grew still. So much pain behind his eyes, like something had torn. He squeezed harder and the room tilted into something foreign, angles all wrong, gravity that pulled sideways. Julian let go of his head and hauled himself from the stall, wretched and hurt and confused.