Eric Puchner - Model Home

He got the handgrip from the basket of exercise equipment in the corner.

“Put an amen to it, Reverend,” Dustin said. “Ain’t no time for prayin’.” He’d begun talking like this last week, as though he were John Wayne; Warren had the uncomfortable feeling he wasn’t trying to be funny.

“Remember what the OT said? You’re going to get contractures.”

“Is she Comanche?”

Warren stared at him helplessly. “You want to play guitar again, don’t you?”

“No, doc,” he said melodramatically. “The didgeridoo. I want to didgeridoo one last time before I die.”

Warren picked up his son’s arm, slipping the handgrip into his fingers, but Dustin threw it on the floor as if he were a toddler. It was not unusual for him to behave this way. Warren retrieved the grip from the corner, a stab of pain twanging up his back.

“They’ll have to cut your arm open,” he said, “and do another graft. Is that what you want? Remember how fun that was?”

“I’m not having any more operations.”

“Besides your face, you mean.”

“No,” Dustin said quietly. He grabbed the remote from the bedside table and turned up the TV. “I don’t want any more surgery.”

Warren’s spine went cold. It was the same feeling he’d had when he saw Dustin at the hospital, putting a little peg into the hole of a baby’s toy: the therapist had cheered as though it were the Olympics. He was scheduled to have a Z-plasty on his cheek next month, the first of several plastic surgeries. “We’ve been waiting this whole time for your scars to heal. They’re going to fix up your face. Like normal.”

“ Normal, ” Dustin said. “You’re the one who wants me to look normal so bad. It’s all you fucking talk about.”

“That’s not true.”

“You can’t wait for me to look better again!”

“That’s not true,” Warren said. “I just want you to have the same opportunities as everyone else.”

Dustin laughed. “What, so I can go to UCLA? You couldn’t have sent me there anyway.”

“We could save the money,” Warren said quietly.

“Right. Maybe you can teach me how to sell knives.”

Warren stepped back from the bed. He did not know what to do with this meanness: it was not the show-offy kind from before, dished out for the benefit of Dustin’s friends, but a casual, remorseless hostility that seemed to trap him like a bug. “I’m trying to help, Dust. You might show a little bit of kindness.”

“What have you done to help me?”

I saved your life, Warren wanted to say. Perhaps Dustin was able to read his thoughts, because he made a strange face at the TV. Or rather, he took his already strange face and tweaked it into something stranger, ghastly, a tightening of the skin that winged his nostrils. If you’d wanted to help me, the face said, you would have let me burn.

Warren left the room, carrying the sandwich out with him. He stopped in the hallway for no reason and stared at a large, fungus-shaped beetle crawling up the wall. He stood there for a long time. As always after visiting Dustin, he had to will his legs to work, focusing on each step as though he were climbing a ladder. In the kitchen, Jonas had his ski goggles back on and was slicing an onion into perfect, arboreal disks. Not for the first time, Warren wished it had been his youngest son who was injured. He would trade Jonas’s life to get Dustin’s back. Warren wanted to grab Jonas by the shirt, to shake this sacrifice somehow into being. Instead he sat down at the table and forced himself to eat the sandwich, which was soggy and disgusting. He almost gagged but took another bite, and another, his punishment for thinking such a thing.

“We’ll get fucked up and pretend to be Mormons,” Biesty said, grinning. “Like old times.”

“I don’t remember that,” Dustin lied.

He watched the shimmering green signs of the freeway pass overhead. They were headed to Manhattan Beach, where some of Biesty’s rich UCLA friends had rented a house for the summer. Dustin hadn’t been to a party since the accident, and Biesty had turned it into a Religious Event: he’d decided that Dustin needed to go, and there was no convincing him otherwise. He’d even driven all the way to Antelope Valley in his beat-up Karmann Ghia to pick him up. Dustin suspected he was feeling guilty, both for not visiting him very often and for going off to college while Dustin had to stay home and rot. Actually, rotting was one of Dustin’s favorite activities, but the fight with his dad earlier had made him want to grab some fresh air.

“So the band’s playing tonight,” Biesty said, glancing at him before switching lanes.

“What?”

“Now a Major Motion Picture.”

Dustin stared at him. “That was my fucking idea. The name.”

“Was it?” Biesty smiled, unfazed. “As soon as your arm heals, you’ll be playing lead guitar. That’s why I wanted you to meet the guys.”

He honked at a Mercedes that was trying to edge into their lane of traffic, flipping it off through the sunroof without losing his smile. This was part of his Moonie routine. If he stopped smiling, Dustin’s face might catch him off guard and insert itself into their friendship, like an unwelcome girlfriend. Dustin pulled the eyedrops from his jeans and cocked his head back, lifting his sunglasses to drip some in. The lid graft was supposed to have fixed his tear ducts, that’s what they’d told him in the hospital, but their promises weren’t worth shit.

“Plus there’s going to be a surprise tonight,” Biesty said. “Something you’ll like, I think.”

“What?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

Biesty slipped a tape into the stereo, a melodic crush of guitars. Dustin managed to eject it with his thumb.

“It’s the new Hüsker Dü,” Biesty said. “You don’t like it?”

“No.”

“It’s a bit of a sellout, I guess.” Biesty opened the glove compartment. “What do you want? I’ve got some X. Wild Gift .”

“How about some silence for a change?”

Biesty glanced at him with his stupid smile before stretching to pick up some tapes that had slid into Dustin’s lap. The truth was Dustin couldn’t bear to listen to any of the music he used to like. Eventually they turned off the freeway and headed into Manhattan Beach, the streets narrowing into a warren of touristy, beach-flavored shops. Dustin felt a sudden rush of fear. It was still light at eight-thirty, though with his sunglasses on everything seemed strange. They passed a Jeep full of shirtless boys, surfboards jutting out the back, their leashes flapping like tentacles in the wind. It amazed him that people still drove around with hunks of foam, that they waxed them and floated on top of the ocean and stood up on waves. Downtown a few girls were walking around in their bathing suits, the tops of their bikinis showing through their T-shirts. Dustin’s heart filled with sorrow. He stared at the surf shops and taquerias and tiki bars spilling with people. They seemed to belong to another world. He’d thought a lot about this world since the accident, but had failed to remember its sparkling invulnerability. It was like peering out of a spaceship: it was hard to imagine that he’d ever lived out there, sharing the same air.

They picked up some burritos at a taco stand and ate them in the parking lot. Dustin took a couple bites and then put his burrito back in the bag, too sick with fear to eat. At the party, he stayed in the car after Biesty climbed out, his hands clasped in his lap. The seat went back; he could stay there and maybe even sleep.

“Come on,” Biesty said.

Dustin didn’t move. Biesty leaned into the driver’s-side window, still sporting his infuriating grin.