Jim Shepard - Project X

My mom stands up. She wasn’t annoyed before, but she’s getting there. “Give me your pizza, hon,” she says to Gus. “I’ll warm it up.”

“It’s warm,” he says. He’s still holding his head where he hit it.

“No it isn’t.” She puts her finger in it. “See?”

“There she goes again with the finger,” my dad says.

“It’s warm,” Gus says. His other hand’s got his sippy cup in his mouth, and he’s talking around it.

“No it isn’t,” she says.

“I want noodles,” he says.

“We’re not having noodles,” she says. “We’re having pizza.”

“Pizza?” he says.

“Pizza,” she says. “This. Right here. With the cheese and the sauce.” She takes the dish over and slides it into the microwave. There’s a big clatter. She cranks the thing.

“I think we’re gonna have soup when that’s finished,” my dad says to me.

She looks at him like if she had a fork, she’d pin his hand to the table.

Gus is watching us, still sipping away.

“You take a dump on Pengue’s table?” my dad asks. He doesn’t seem amused.

“ No ,” I go.

“Your friend the Nightrider?”

“No,” I go.

“Don’t lie,” my mom says.

“He may have,” I go.

Gus’s cup makes little noises.

“What do you want from me?” I finally go.

“Re lax ,” my dad says, and Gus starts to cry.

“ Stop it,” my mom tells me. “What’s the matter with you?”

My head feels like the main parts of it are blowing in different directions.

Gus wipes his eyes with the side of his sippy cup. He can stop crying like on a dime.

They’re both just looking at me, because that’s how it is: everything’s my fault. If anything goes wrong anywhere, I’m to blame. Keep that in mind. My dad’s giving me his I-maybe-a-cool-dad-but-that-doesn’t-mean-I’m-a-pushover face. My mom’s giving me her I-try-to-understand-can’t-you-meet-me-halfway face. I have to book. I have to get out of there. I have to get out of my chair and up the stairs at a high rate of speed. At least I don’t break anything on the way out. “Come back here!” my dad yells.

“What’s the matter with him?” I hear my mom ask again, scared. I slip taking the turn in the upstairs hallway and end up in my room on my hands and knees.

“He doesn’t even like music,” I hear her say, after a minute. “What kid his age doesn’t like music?”

Gus says something. I get off my hands and knees.

“He’s not mad,” my dad tells him.

“Do you know anybody his age who doesn’t like music?” my mom asks.

I can’t hear what he answers.

I shut the door and get in bed with my clothes on. Now I’m sweating. I’m sweating through my pants. My body’s all haywire. I pull the covers over my head. It’s daylight out and I’ve got the covers over my head. What is wrong with me?

“You’re fucked up,” Flake says when I ask him. “You’re fucked in the head. You’re never gonna be normal.”

“I’d settle for para normal,” I go.

He laughs a little. “You think it’s a joking matter,” he goes.

We’re in his room, the next day after school. His room’s a box on the second floor. His dad let him paint one wall black, but only one. He’s got a sticker on the window of a cartoon duck with no head and Magic Marker blood gushing out of the neck.

He’s got something from his Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century boxed set going. It’s the only thing we play.

“Put on the one with the guy who’s always talking about the Reds,” I tell him.

“I will if you tell me the guy’s name, ” he says.

I throw his dresser knob at him. His furniture’s always falling apart. There’s a bottom desk drawer he hasn’t opened in a year and a half. I didn’t really wing the knob. “Ask Bethany,” I go.

“You’re not interested in anything constructive,” he tells me. “You just sit around and piss your time away.”

“You don’t give a shit about anything,” I tell him back. “You don’t have the slightest regard for private property.”

We’re doing our parents.

“You shit in your nest,” he goes. “And then the mess is supposed to be our problem.”

We laugh. Sometimes he makes us both laugh.

“They’re so worried about us but they do whatever they want,” I go.

“I’m tired of talking about them,” he goes.

“So let’s talk about Bethany,” I go.

“You are such a dildo,” he goes. He says it like it surprises him every time.

“Let’s talk about extracurriculars,” I go. “So: you running for Student Government?” I go.

He laughs a little. He lies back and looks at the ceiling. There are marks up there from his throwing something. He bends his fingers until there are cracking noises and I can’t look anymore. “So I had this idea,” he goes.

Outside there’s a banging noise. His dad’s beating on something. He’s a mediator for married couples who want to split up and a part-time hockey coach at the high school. He’s always building something in his garage workshop and then getting pissed off when it comes out wrong.

Flake’s pinching his eyelid like he found something strange there. He’s still lying on his back but seems like he lost interest in what he was going to say. “Know how in cartoons,” he finally says, “the coyote or whoever can run out over a cliff and hang there a second and realize what’s going on before he falls?”

“Yeah?” I go when he doesn’t say anything else.

“That’s not that funny,” he goes. “That can really happen.”

We both think about that while his dad bangs away outside. There’s the noise of tools being thrown onto the driveway outside the garage.

“So what’s Grant up to?” I ask him. I call his dad by his first name, and for some reason this always pisses him off. This time it doesn’t work.

“I feel like jerking off,” he says, like it’s like going away to a beautiful island.

“I’m not stopping you,” I tell him. He makes a face.

“God damn it,” his dad says outside. There’s one more bang and a ringing sound.

“Whoops,” Flake goes. “My hands smell like something,” he goes. “Do your hands smell like anything?”

“So what was your idea?” I finally ask.

“I lifted some shit from Pengway’s garage when I took that dump on his picnic table,” he goes.

“Nice move, by the way, with the table,” I complain.

“Why? You get in trouble?” He sounds interested.

“Course I got in trouble,” I tell him. “What’d you think?” But it doesn’t really bother me, and he knows it.

“I got this bug powder,” he goes. “Roten-something. Supposed to be like supertoxic.”

“So now I’m gonna get shit for that, ” I go.

“You’re not gonna get shit for anything, Mr. Fearless,” he goes. “I took like a pound from a twenty-pound bag.”

“What’d you carry it in?” I go.

“What do you give a shit?” he goes. “What’re you, an environmentalist?”

“You’ll probably get sick now,” I go.

“That’s right. I’ll get sick now. Weenie,” he says. “You want to hear this or not?”

“I want to hear this,” I tell him.

“Roddy, get down here,” his dad yells from the garage.

“What do you want?” Flake calls back. There’s no answer.

“Roddy!” his dad finally yells.

“What do you want?” Flake yells back.

“I want you to get down here!” his dad yells.

Flake gets off the bed and stomps downstairs. I can’t hear what they’re arguing about once he gets to the garage.