Eric Puchner - Model Home

“We’d better not let Mom see this place,” Dustin said, looking up at the Cigarettes Cheaper! sign buzzing over the entrance. “Dad pulled into the 7-Eleven. I think so she could buy more marshmallows.”

“Not really.”

“Really. She’s in there right now. It’s like a scene from one of her movies.” He hunched down like a drug addict, teeth chattering, pulling a pretend bill from his pocket. “ Dame mas marshmallows, por favor. ”

“Stop,” Lyle said. “You’re hurting me.”

At the campsite, Dustin helped his father put the tents up before dark, pounding stakes in with a rock. This was part of family tradition. You were supposed to find a rock in the desert and heft it back to your campsite, risking a fatal scorpion bite, rather than bringing along the perfectly good sledgehammer you had in the garage. You were also supposed to pretend to enjoy yourself, taking frequent breaks to admire the view, which — as far as Dustin was concerned — consisted of a bunch of ugly, squidlike trees, their branches all squidding in the same direction.

He knelt in the dirt to finish off a stake, wishing he were back home in the garage with a Budweiser. On the far side of the bathrooms, a rock climber crept her way up a boulder, dangling from one arm as she dipped her hand into a chalk bag. Her ponytail hung down like a plumb line. Something about the way she balanced there, inadvertently beautiful, reminded him of Kira. He didn’t know how much Kira knew; since she hadn’t called him, though, he figured she had a pretty good idea. It was a mystery how his depravity had emerged. He’d erased the message itself, well before the police had confiscated the answering machine. He didn’t even know how Taz had managed to get home the night of the party, though it was easy enough to imagine the scene: the Shackneys awake when Taz arrived, cornering her in the kitchen until they’d forced out the truth. Her little brother’s pleased-as-shit face, grinning from the hallway.

Dustin had woken up the next morning, so stung with remorse it hurt to breathe. It was his punishment for betraying Kira. He’d believed that until he looked under his arms and saw the faint gray bruises on his ribs.

“Man, I’m parched,” his father said, wiping his hands on his blue jeans. He always said this when they went camping, as though they were lost in the Sahara and hadn’t brought ten gallons of water with them. To complete the impression, he was wearing a safari hat that cinched around his chin like a bonnet. He nodded toward the next campsite, where some kids were cranking AC/DC from their pickup. “Is that good music?”

“If you like arena rock,” Dustin mumbled.

“Who’s that? The lead singer?”

“ Rock and roll. Played in a sports arena.”

Dustin glanced at Lyle reading in the backseat of the Volvo, wishing Jonas and his mom would get back from wherever they’d gone with Mr. Leonard. Two days ago, when Mr. Shackney had called the house to tell them he’d phoned the cops, Dustin had found himself hoping his dad would get arrested. He’d wanted him to pay for screwing up so royally and ruining his life. But when he’d actually watched him getting hauled off to jail, his dad ducking into the back of the squad car, small as a criminal, his face dazed and frightened and toddler-like — when Dustin had seen all this he had not felt particularly good. He’d felt crumpled and small, as though he’d just killed something by mistake.

Later, describing to Biesty what had happened, he’d had a different feeling. A surprising twinge of pride. There was something about his dad being hauled off to jail in the middle of the day that sounded like an X song. Biesty had seemed impressed, though not nearly as impressed as when Dustin showed him the bruises under his ribs and explained how they’d gotten there.

“Think they, um, have any beer over there?” his dad asked now, eyeing the pickup truck. The musty smell of pot hung in the breeze.

“I don’t know,” Dustin said.

“How about I investigate.”

Dustin shrugged, crouching down to fix a flip-flop. His father — out on bail — wanted to drink a beer with him. Dustin followed him past the Volvo, where Lyle was still hiding from the sun, and into the next campsite, stopping at a large cooler sitting by the fire pit. A pair of woman’s underpants, pink as a kiss, was laid out on a rock to dry. Affably, Dustin’s father approached the truck and knocked on the roof over the driver’s seat before leaning down to talk to the kids inside. The truck roared to life and took off in a cloud of dust, rooster-tailing to the road, wheels spinning for a moment before catching dragster-style on the asphalt.

“I didn’t even get to introduce myself,” Dustin’s father said, returning.

“It’s the hat,” Dustin said. “They must have thought you were a ranger.”

His dad walked over to the cooler and peered inside for a minute before pulling out a dripping six-pack.

“You’re going to take that?” Dustin asked, incredulous.

“They won’t miss it. Anyway, I’ve got a record already.”

They walked back to the campsite, scrambling up a rock overlooking the tents. At the top, his father handed him a beer and they sat side by side in the hot sun, staring at the giant, egg-shaped boulders spidered with climbers. The wet can numbed Dustin’s hand. It was the sort of thing you didn’t tell your friends about: how the best part of drinking a beer sometimes was holding it, your fingers going old and creaky with the cold.

“It’s beautiful, even with all the mountain climbers,” his dad said, sipping his beer.

“Rock climbers, you mean.”

“I guess I really screwed up your life,” his dad said finally.

Dustin shrugged. “It was already pretty screwed-up, to be honest.”

“Did you and Kira Shackney break up?”

“Probably.”

“I’m sorry.”

His father seemed genuinely eaten up, holding his Pabst Blue Ribbon with two hands. Dustin didn’t tell him that it was not Kira he thought about all the time but her fifteen-year-old sister, the same girl who’d taken over his dreams. Last night she was naked and tied to a stake, surrounded by a mob of angry witch-hunters. Dustin had rescued her on a horse and then galloped off with her to the woods, where the nights were so cold they had to kill the horse and slit open its belly, sleeping inside of it to keep from freezing to death. It had been romantic, not bad at all. By the end of the dream they were both old people, in their forties, Taz’s hair as white as her forelock.

Down below, Jonas and his mom were returning to the campsite, their arms laden with thorny twigs. Mr. Leonard hobbled over to the ring of rocks surrounding the fire pit, crooning at them and pacing in circles, determined that none be neglected.

“Is he in heaven or hell?” Dustin’s father asked.

“Hard to say.”

Lyle emerged from the Volvo, watching Jonas and his mother stack kindling. “We’re drinking beer!” his dad called down, lifting the six-pack, and the three of them looked at Dustin, expecting him to be embarrassed.

Warren sat by the fire, watching his family roast marshmallows. Was there anything so mysterious as their motley approaches to this simple task? Camille poked hers at the fire, browning it in quick, vigilant stabs; Lyle sat as far away as possible, roasting hers with a four-foot stick; Jonas, epicure of marshmallows, held his high above the flames, turning it like a boar on a spit; Dustin dunked his right into the fire and pulled it out when the whole stick was aflame, letting it drip into the dirt — the last gasp of a sparkler — before blowing it out.

“Your father has something to tell you,” Camille said, in between marshmallows. Warren had hoped, against reason, that she might let him off the hook. He did not want to disturb the trip. The beer he’d stolen had only made him fumbly and sentimental, more besotted with the faces of his children waiting for him to speak.