David Gates - Preston Falls

Mel sighs. "Wolf."

He looks at her. "You're kidding. That's really the dog's name? How did you know that?"

"They made us read it last year."

"And you remembered the name of the dog? That's amazing."

She shrugs. He can see she's having trouble with the corner of her mouth. Trying not to smile.

"I didn't think they read that in school anymore," he says.

Nothing. So he has to fucking spell it out. "Why were they reading 'Rip Van Winkle'?"

"We were studying the cultures of the thirteen colonies."

"Ah." Heel of hand to forehead. "Dutch Culture Day." Shitting on her for the school they sent her to. He switches to his attentive slash respectful mode. "So what did you think of it?"

"I don't know," she says. "Sexist. Oi course.''

"Why of course? "

"Everything is that's old. Did he, like, hate women?"

"You mean the way he does Mrs. Rip?" A vista opens: father-daughter literary discussions. "Yeah, you do sort of wonder what her side of the story would be like."

Mel says nothing.

"Listen," he says, "did the Mom say when she'd be getting back? Oops. Sorry."

Mel sighs. "She said not long."

"So listen, I guess I better go up and have a word with your brother." He gets up and stretches, fists high above his head.

"The Terminator," she says.

"Right," he says. "So do you have any theories?"

"Yeah. Testosterone."

"I think he's a little young for that," says Willis. "I don't know, maybe not." One more thing he's pig-ignorant about: do you only get testosterone at puberty, or does it come with testicles automatically?

He climbs the stairs, Rathbone right beside him, tail thunking against the balusters, and knocks on Roger's door. "Yo. The Rog-meister."

"What," Roger says through the door.

"I'll huff and rU puff."

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"What do you want?"

"Roger, if you don't open this door by the time I count to ten —"

"It is open."

Willis opens the door, and Roger's sitting against the wall, legs out, with what looks to be a five-pound weight in each hand, keeping his trembling arms straight. "Hey How's it going?"

Roger doesn't answer. Willis walks over and sits at his work station. Fucking mess. Papers, cassettes, marker pens, little plastic superheroes. A bottle of mucilage with the wedge-shaped rubber top, glue drooling out of the slit.

"So your mom told me something happened at school this morning," Willis says. "You want to tell me your version?"

"No."

"I guess I phrased that badly," says Willis. "What happened?"

Roger lowers the weights, slowly, still keeping his arms straight. At the last inch he loses control, and they thud on the floor. He takes a deep breath, lets it out. "I hit a kid, big deal."

"What kid?" says Willis.

"I don't know what his name is."

"How old a kid?"

"I don't know."

"Older or younger than you?"

"Same age."

"So he's in your class, but you don't know what his name is?" No answer. "What did he do to you, this kid?"

"Nothing."

"Then why did you hit him?"

"He was getting on my nerves."

"And how did he do that?"

"I don't know, he's just a feeb. I didn't want him there." Slowly, Roger raises the weights again.

"Is that a reason to hit somebody?"

"He wouldn't move when I said."

"Why should he have to?"

No answer. The weights inch up.

"Suppose somebody started ordering you around," Willis says. "How would you feel?"

"So what? I'm not him." Roger's got the weights at shoulder level, arms absolutely straight.

PRESTON FALLS

"What did you call him — a feeb? What exactly is a feeb?" Roger can't possibly know the word ephebe, right?

"I don't know," says Roger. "Some little feeb. That can't do anything right." The weights start down.

"Well, you know," says Willis, "sometimes people think they're mad at one person but actually who they're really mad at is somebody else. Or they're even mad at themselves." Poor kid's probably thinking, Will somebody get him the fuck out of here?

Roger sets the weights on the floor. "I'm thirsty," he says.

Willis follows him down to the kitchen (Mel looks up at them, then back down at her book), feeling like a stupid, doomed apeman dragging his knuckles along the floor while compact, wily Roger belongs to a race adaptive enough to survive. Roger goes up on his toes to get a glass down — so lightly that it gives WiUis a pang — then opens the refrigerator and pours milk. Rathbone (who knows where meat is kept) sits like a good dog, gazing at the open refrigerator and sweeping his tail back and forth on the linoleum.

"I think I'll join you in one of those," Willis says.

"You don't drink milk." Roger takes the glass of mflk in one hand and a cardboard canister of protein powder in the other, and shuts the refrigerator door with his foot. Willis goes to the cupboard and takes down a glass. Roger puts his stuff on the counter and gets a spoon out of the silverware drawer.

"I'm just going to say something," says Willis, opening the refrigerator. Rathbone's tafl starts up again. "You're old enough that we don't have to dance around this, okay?" He takes out an almost-brand-new half gallon of orange juice. (You can count on Jean.) "I've been spending quite a bit of time away, you know, on weekends, and of course now we're looking at a couple of months when I'll mostly be up in Preston Falls. Because the house needs so much work." He pours orange juice, puts the carton back and shuts the refrigerator door. Rathbone lies down. "Anyhow, what sometimes happens," he says, "is that when the routine changes around home, kids will sometimes blame themselves, or think they've done something wrong. You know, when it's not their fault at all. Or anybody's.'' He sits down and takes a sip, like an orator pausing. "And this in turn can get them upset, or angry, and sometimes they're not even sure what they're angry about, you know? I'm not saying that you we been feeling this way, necessarily, but I really just want

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you to understand and remember that Mommy and I both love you and Mel very much. And we care very much about each other."

And let him find a loose end in that.

Roger finishes stirring protein powder into his milk, sucks the spoon a second, then carries it over to the sink. He replaces the lid on the canister and puts it back in the fridge. Then and only then does he take his first sip.

"So what do you think about all that?" says Willis.

Roger shrugs. "I don't know. I guess it's pretty normal."

"What is?"

"I don't know," says Roger. "Tyler's mom and dad got a divorce. And so did Adam's."

"Whoa," says Willis, "wait a minute." He puts his glass down. "That's not what's going on here. At all. Did you think that? Mommy and I aren't— Rog, believe me, it's not anything like that. It's just a time when I have to be up at the house to do some fixing and Mommy has to work and you guys have to go to school, right? And meanwhile Mommy and I are going to be using this time, each of us, to think about how we could all have more fun together maybe than we've been having. You know?" He waits a beat, giving the earth its chance to swallow him up.

"Mel says you're getting a divorce," says Roger.

"Well, I don't know where Mel gets her information." Fucking Mel, thanks a lot. Willis gets up to look into the living room; she's no longer on the couch. "I guess I need to talk to her about this too."

Roger's picking at a scab on his elbow. "Mel says that's what Mom says."

"Don't do that," says Willis. Roger stops picking. The upstairs toilet flushes. "Well, obviously there's been a miscommunication somewhere. Which we're going to have to get straightened out, because that is not what's going on. But you know, if that's what you thought, I can understand why you'd be upset. And maybe that had something to do with what happened at school, you know? But what you don't do in that situation, you don't take it out on some poor kid. Okay? Because you think he's a feeh or whatever he is. If you're feeling angry, you talk to somebody. Right? You know that. Me or Mommy, preferably, but if we're not available right at that time, you go to a teacher or a teacher's aide or to Ms. Schoemer. Or your sister, even."