Scott Heim - Mysterious Skin

I heard Brian above me, stomping to the roof. I remained at the window. In seconds his shadow cast its freakish proportion across our lawn. I could tell he was wearing his down coat, mittens, a stocking cap peaked with a fluffy ball, even the bulky earphones that pounded out his favorite spacey computerized music. This was Brian’s private time, his brand of monasticism, and watching him filled me with both embarrassment and guilt, as if I were viewing him in the shower: He lay on his back on the pebbled shingles, one leg crossed over the other, lazily twirling a foot in the air.

Then his shadow lifted the binoculars to his face. Instead of spying on Little River, he lifted his head and peered toward the moon and stars. He scanned the night sky for something, some inviting slant to his life, excitement he couldn’t get in the house below.

I missed him already.

Before bedtime, Brian left the roof and reentered the house, where the rest of us were waiting. According to ritual, my family spent Christmas Eve by gathering in the living room to open one gift each. Brian slumped next to me at the base of the tree, his stocking cap still on. My mother sat in one half of the love seat, hunched over, her face close to ours, not wanting to miss a single detail. Across the room, my father leaned back in the rocker, pulling handfuls of popcorn from a silver bowl. The Christmas lights flashed from the window that overlooked Little River. From our hill, we could see the entire town, lit in reds and blues and greens like the cobbled surface of a fruitcake.

As with every year, my father went first. I chose a gift for him, avoiding the package that said TO GEORGE FROM M, trying to decide between gifts from Brian and me: the tackle box, the Old Spice aftershave, or the key chain. I settled on the key chain and handed it over. He ripped the paper in one motion and dropped it to the carpet. “NFL,” he said, thumbing the gold emblem. “That’s neat.” He only used words like that at times like these.

“I’m next,” Brian said. He selected a package. “From your sis,” he read. Smiling penguins ice-skated across the wrapping paper, treble clefs and quarter notes trailing from their beaks. Inside was a hardback book, the type of gift that appeared most on the lists he’d slipped into my mother’s purse and under my bedroom door. He held the book for my parents to see: Loch Ness: New Theories Explained.

“That’s just what he needs,” my father said. He squinted toward the tree, to other obvious book-shaped gifts. “Let me guess. Those are Bermuda Triangle, UFOs, and Bigfoot.” He reached for the Loch Ness book, skimmed to the center’s photo spread, and tossed it back to Brian. “A load of bunk,” he said.

My mother received a bottle of White Shoulders perfume from Brian and me. She tipped the bottle against her thumb and streaked a drop beneath each earlobe.

My gift was last. I tried to conceal a blush as I unwrapped a boxful of bras from my mother. “Whoa-ho-ho,” my father said.

“You can always use new underthings,” my mother said. The lights flickered emerald green against her face. “No matter where you’re living, Little River or San Francisco.” Brian watched my reaction. I smiled at him, and he looked away.

That night I woke to hear my parents screaming downstairs. Whenever this happened, I usually sandwiched my head with pillows. But that night their bickering amplified. When my father yelled “Fuck you” and my mother fired “Fuck you” back, I knew they meant business.

I opened my door and padded into the hallway. There was Brian, listening at the top of the stairs. They had woken him, too. He put a finger to his lips when he saw me.

“Sick of everything in this life…” It was my mother, and it sounded as if she’d been crying. The radio mingled with her voice, a tinny chorus of children singing the first verse to “O Holy Night.”

My father cleared his throat. “Then why don’t you just end it all.”

“Why don’t you just go to hell.”

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere you’re going to end up.”

I held my breath. I knew Brian was doing the same. The electric heater in his room made a hollow click, the sound of a knuckle, cracking.

Stomping feet, a drawer opening, and the clink of kitchen utensils floated toward us from downstairs. I heard the crash of knives and forks and spoons dumped onto linoleum tiles. This was my mother’s method of expressing her rage: the kitchen was her territory, and she could just as soon serve my father meals with the silverware as stab him in the throat. Once, after a fight at dinner, we’d seen her fling a plate at the wall as if it were a Frisbee. The scratch was still there.

They continued shouting. But this time, their words had a finality that made it clear they had wearied of fighting, that twenty years of it was enough. Looking back I think it didn’t matter that the following morning was Christmas. Somehow my parents must have known that Brian and I sat at the top of the stairs, listening. I believe they wanted us to understand that it was over.

“Fuck you,” my father said again, and then he was off. He tore through the house, the door slamming behind him. He revved the pickup’s engine once, twice. He sped from the driveway, tires skidding in icy puddles.

Silence. I imagined my mother standing in the kitchen, silverware strewn around her feet. Amid that quiet, my mother blew her nose. For some reason, I found that hilarious. Brian looked at me, and we both clamped hands across our mouths to keep from snickering.

My mother blew her nose again, and the sound trumpeted toward the second floor. This time, Brian’s laughter burst from his mouth, resonating in the air like a shook tambourine. He sprinted down the stairs, taking them three at a time. I heard him trace our father’s path through the house, out the front door. He’ll freeze out there, I thought. He was still laughing when the door slammed behind him.

I tiptoed down. I didn’t want to see my mother’s tear-streaked face, but I figured I should help her clean the mess. “Are you okay?” I asked. She wasn’t in the kitchen. I stepped into the living room: toppled chair, overturned lamp, cinnamony-smelling potpourri spilling from a chipped bowl. A slice of pumpkin pie lay smashed in the floor’s center, leaking a dollop of whipped cream like a teardrop. The fire in the hearth had fizzled out, but the Christmas tree’s lights still blinked, casting rainbows over the wadded remnants of wrapping paper.

I turned and saw my mother. She shuffled toward the window, unaware of my presence. She bumped her shin on the fallen rocking chair. “Owee-owee,” she said, and I remembered her speaking that way when Brian and I were kids, when we’d come to her with scratches or cuts. She continued to fumble forward, her arms held out as if offering something to the dark. It horrified me to see her like this: she had always held reign over these rooms, and was now suddenly blinded and clumsy within them. When she reached the window, she brushed aside the curtain. “You’ll catch pneumonia,” she yelled to Brian. Her breath misted the glass.

I slid into a pair of boots and walked outside. Snow fell in orderly specks, dusting the evergreens. Somewhere, far away, a sparrow was shrieking. I followed the footprints. Brian, dressed in his pj’s and gym socks, stood on the hillside, facing the field. In the distance, the taillights from my father’s truck became smaller and smaller, two minuscule rubies dissolving into black. I wondered if he had used his new key chain to start his engine on this, the night he had finally left.

When the lights on my father’s truck were completely gone, I waved toward his unknown destination. “That’s that,” I said. The words seemed awkward and inconsiderate, and I immediately wished I could take them back. But Brian hadn’t heard me. He lifted his head and stared at the sky. He had stood just like that years before, on the night we’d seen the blue lights in the air above our field. Now, nothing resided there but the snowfall, a mass of white that blanketed any trace of moon and stars.