Eric Puchner - Model Home

“Whoa. Uncool. Death would be really uncalled for right now.”

“Dude,” the guy with the motorcycle jacket said, “you are not having a heart attack.”

“I’m not?”

“I’ve had one before,” he said proudly. “I think I’d know one when I see it.”

“How many of those space cookies did you eat?” Suzie asked.

“Space?”

She looked at Breakfast. “Houston, we have a problem.”

“Is your left arm numb?” Breakfast asked.

Dustin nodded. In truth, he’d forgotten it existed. What mental powers remained were focused on his heart, which was drumming so fast he’d stopped counting beats. It had turned into an alien creature. This was not his loyal, laid-back, intimate companion, but a stranger with a name tag. my name is: YOUR HEART. Dustin left the room, in search of a phone. He’d have to call 911 himself. But if he called 911, they would discover the drugs in his system and he’d be arrested for drug possession, even if his heart was attacking him. He was nauseated and afraid and his feet were bare. After a long and eventful search, he found a room with some futons in it. It seemed to be a different bedroom than before. Bizarrely, it was nearly identical to the other one, right down to the gun on the dresser. Dustin ignored the gun and picked up the phone, which bore no instructions.

He decided to call Kira. She’d know what to do. She was a genius in times of crisis. He loved her desperately; she was the only person who understood him; how could he possibly have thought Taz was worth the risk of losing her forever? He dialed the Shackneys’ number. The phone rang several times in his ear, so slowly that Dustin wondered whether he would die before anyone picked up. Just as he was giving up all hope, the answering machine came on and Mr. Shackney’s prerecorded voice barked into his ear, telling him to leave a message.

“Kira, are you there? I’m having a heart attack. My pulse is, like, off the charts.” Silence. He could hear himself breathing, panting into the darkness of the Shackneys’ kitchen. He could hear it, too — the Shackneys’ kitchen — breathing on the other side of the line. The sleepless hum of their Sub-Zero refrigerator. He realized that these might be his last words. He would have no other chance for forgiveness. “Kira, I have to… oh God, please forgive me… Taz is here. We’re at a party. There’s something… I can’t even say it. The word. We did it. Your little sister. There’s something wrong with me. A day before our… our anniversary.”

Dustin hung up and closed his eyes, waiting for death. His teeth were chattering. His soul was unburdened, but he didn’t feel any better. He sat on the floor and hugged his knees. He wanted to walk out into the front yard and lie down in his father’s leaf pile. He used to do this as a kid. He’d crunch into the warm pile and then burrow into the cooler leaves, toward the damp and nougaty center, which smelled of sweetly rotting spinach. He’d stay down there, waiting for his father to find him. It was dark and cold and scary, but you knew that he was coming for you. It was part of the game. He would rescue you with his big hands and pull you out of the dark, your sweater stuck all over with leaves, shaking you softly like a present.

Dustin opened his eyes: someone was standing over him in the purple room, one sleeve rolled atop her shoulder. Taz. It seemed possible that her face was turning purple as well, adapting to its environment.

“Please,” he said.

“Please what?”

“Help me.”

She looked at him unhappily. It occurred to him that the unhappiness was not solely because of his death. He had the distressing sensation that she was in love with him but would rather let him die than see it. But he was probably imagining this. It was the one inarguable feature of being human: you never knew what people thought, and then you died.

Dustin waited for her to leave, then picked up the phone and called home.

Warren drove through the rainy streets of Torrance, Dustin perched beside him in the front seat. There was something peculiar happening to his son. He was staring at the shuddery arc of the wipers, pupils full as moons, leg twitching up and down in hummingbird time. Now and then his eyes would snag on Warren — a wild, amusement-park look — before returning to the road. Hash, was what Dustin had told him. Warren found this hard to believe. He’d smoked hash once in college, before he’d met Camille, and the only effect was a persistent tingling in one foot. This was a different thing entirely. Dustin had babbled into the phone about his heart rate, something to do with cardiac arrest, but when Warren had finally gotten there — breathless and alarmed — Dustin claimed it had been a mistake. Warren had checked Dustin’s pulse himself, just to make sure: seventy-two. He might have taken him to the ER anyway, but Dustin had gripped his sleeve so earnestly, flashing him such a desperate, pleading look, that Warren couldn’t resist the chance to please him.

“I wish I was a dog,” Dustin said now, still perched at the edge of his seat. The overhead light was on, making it difficult to see the road; Warren had tried to turn it off, but his son had yelled at him in a strange voice.

“A dog?”

“You can do whatever you want. Everyone forgives you. You even get your own door.”

“I like you as a human being,” Warren said.

“Doggy door,” his son said, frowning. The term seemed to impress or offend him, Warren couldn’t say which. His eyes drifted to Warren’s slippers, as if noticing them for the first time. “Did I wake you up?” he said nervously.

“No. We were playing Monopoly.”

Dustin looked at the clock on the dashboard. “At one in the morning?”

“Lyle can barely move. Jonas and I had to distract her.” The rain had turned to a drizzle; Warren switched off the wipers. “Your mother’s pulling an all-nighter at the office.”

Dustin stared at his twitching leg. He seemed hurt. It was something Warren and the kids used to do when Camille was gone: stay up late playing Monopoly, sometimes for hours. They’d keep the money in their wallets, pulling it out with hammy, tortured looks. Warren could feel the candy-colored bills there now, swelling his back pocket: a wonderful, meaningless lump.

“Was Lyle the dead Scottie?” Dustin asked.

“What?”

“That was always her special piece. She’d put the little dog in the wheelbarrow, legs up.” He looked at Warren, as though he were discussing something of grave importance. “Don’t you remember?”

“Son, listen. I want to tell you something.”

“I can’t believe you don’t remember that,” he said angrily.

They rattled around a curve, sharply enough that the naked Barbie hanging from the mirror canted to one side. What did Warren want to tell him? Everything? Drugged out, helpless, his son was less likely to hate him. Perhaps he wouldn’t even remember in the morning. Dustin was making a strange noise, like an animal; it took Warren a moment to realize his teeth were chattering.

“Actually, Dad? I need your help?”

Warren eased up on the gas. “What is it?”

“I really, um, did something. Fucked-up.”

He began to tell a story, his words jumbling together. Warren had trouble following it, except that Dustin had mistakenly believed he was dying and had told Kira’s answering machine that he’d slept with her little sister. Kira was going to hear it in the morning and break up with him. He needed Warren to help him steal the tape before the Shackneys found out.

“That’s true? You had sex with Kira’s sister?”

“No.”

“Then why did you say that?”