Alix Ohlin - The Missing Person

I reached out and flicked my index finger against the thickly callused sole of his right foot, which he moved. I flicked the other foot and he moved that one too, then moaned softly. I flicked his arm and said, “Hey. Wake up.” He nestled his cheek deeper into the dirt, apparently too comfortable to budge. “Let’s play cards,” I said. “Or Monopoly. I’m bored.”

After some more flicking and a couple of well-placed pokes, he opened his bleary eyes. The circles beneath them had faded to a vaguer blue. “What are you, six years old?”

“I bet I can still beat you at hearts.”

“In your dreams,” he said.

“My years away from the game have only sharpened my thirst for victory,” I told him.

He sat up. He’d tied his hair back again, and although it was still shiny and thick, he’d managed to rub some dirt and weeds into it during his nap. He was looking like his old self again. “Youth and ability are on my side,” he said. “Let’s go.”

We spent the afternoon playing cards and drinking orange juice in the quiet living room, listening to so-called edgy pop music on the radio. I had the feeling that our truce would hold as long as I didn’t mention guerrilla tactics, mother’s wishes, alternative lifestyles, or weird friends. As a result conversation was limited. We stuck to the game and, in a hobby that dated back to childhood, the construction of elaborate snacks from whatever we could find in the kitchen. After a multi-course meal involving peanut butter, chips and salsa, bananas, ice cream, and popcorn dusted with Parmesan cheese, another round of napping ensued.

Our mother came home at the dot of five, and she didn’t come alone. Two seconds after I heard her pull into the driveway, a second car parked alongside the curb. David Michaelson stepped out into the street wearing another Western-style shirt and blue jeans held up with an elephantine silver buckle that would have been useful for attracting the attention of search-and-rescue planes overhead. Two young men then emerged, each a variation on the theme of David Michaelson: beefy, with dark curly hair and thick chests, but slimmer and clean-shaven. They had to be Donny and Darren, the sports stars.

“Oh, God,” I said.

Wylie didn’t even look up from his most recent snack, an open-face sandwich layered with tuna fish, cheddar cheese, shredded carrots, and olives. “And you wonder why I don’t like to come home.”

The Michaelsons helped unload countless grocery bags from our mother’s car and conveyed them up to the front door, as Wylie and I braced ourselves in the living room.

Our mother came inside first and greeted us with a brisk smile. “Children,” she said.

We were having a dinner party. Our mother established headquarters in the kitchen and ordered everyone about: arranging for the unstocking of groceries, the placement of appetizers, the ordering of cocktails.

“Lynn,” David said. “Wylie. What can I offer you both to drink? I believe we’ve got a full bar.”

I looked at Wylie, who sat with his head bowed, licking tuna juice off his thumb. “I’ll have some wine,” I said. “I’m sure Wylie wants a beer.”

“Alrighty then!” David slapped a large hand on my shoulder and went back into the kitchen, crossing paths with his sons, who sat down and slouched back in their chairs, so far that their muscular legs were almost parallel with their heads. Their faces were pale. I knew they both spent a lot of time playing hockey, but couldn’t remember which was Donny and which was Darren.

“So,” one of them said. “Long time no see.” He was wearing shorts and a pair of flip-flops with little fishes stuck on the plastic stems between his toes.

I gave them what I hoped was a polite smile. “Since we used to live next door, I guess,” I said.

“Yep,” the other one said. “Long time.”

When their father came back with the drinks, I drank half of mine and asked them how school was going. One of them launched into a complicated story about a fierce rivalry with another team, a saga of violence and retribution that had been going on all season. This led to a greatest-hits list of reminiscences, with highlights about practical jokes and personal vendettas. “So then we go, right?” Donny or Darren said. “And he body-checks me? And gets thrown out of the game?”

“That landed Donny in the hospital,” David said to me. He was sipping from a glass of red wine, and the bottom of his mustache was wet. “He had to have sixteen stitches. This kid was violent.”

“And that’s when Darren hatched his nefarious plan.”

“What was that?” Wylie asked.

Michaelson Sr. sat down on the arm of the couch, next to me, with his legs crossed and his arm stretched along the back. The last time I’d seen him, over enchiladas, he was counseling an intervention for Wylie, but he didn’t seem about to confront him now.

“My plan involved a frog,” Darren said. “Actually, several frogs.”

“Where we live — you guys remember — we had a lot of frogs in our backyard,” Donny explained. “We captured them, and put ’em in a shoebox and then stuck ’em in his shoes, so when he took off his skates, right. .” He had to stop, since he was choking on his own laughter.

“He squishes these little frogs with his feet!”

“Oh, man! You should’ve seen the expression on his face!”

All three Michaelsons were paralyzed now, clutching their stomachs and listing from side to side, their laughter coming in breathless hoots.

“And the smell!” Darren said.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s really gross.”

The brothers bobbed their heads up and down in asthmatic hilarity.

“Yeah,” Donny finally got out. “Gross!”

“So, you’re saying you killed them in advance?” I said.

“Well, yeah, obviously. Otherwise they would’ve jumped out of the shoes.”

“How’d you kill the frogs?” Wylie said. I glanced at him, but his tone and face were set and calm.

“We, um, squished them.”

“But carefully, you know, so that they’d still be squishy in the shoes.” Darren wiped a tear from his eye and shook with a few final tremors.

David Michaelson looked at Wylie. “Now, I realize it might not be too politically or animalistically correct,” he said, “but you’ve got to admit it’s pretty funny.”

“You had to see the guy,” Darren said, “running around the locker room with frog parts stuck to his feet, yelling ‘What the fuck! What the fuck!’”

“I thought I was gonna die it was so funny,” Donny added.

“They were probably toads,” Wylie said.

“Is that a fact?” David said.

“Where you live it was more likely to have been toads,” Wylie said. “Wide and fat, with warty skin? Their habitat’s around the Northeast Heights. Some of them are desert toads. Down by the Rio Grande there are a lot of bullfrogs, but up where you are there’s less water, so, yeah, I think you actually killed a lot of toads.”

“Toads, huh?” Darren said. He thrust his hands in his pockets.

“Ah, well,” David said, “boys will be boys.”

“And toads will be toads,” Darren said. Donny elbowed him in the ribs and said, “‘What the fuck! What the fuck!’” and they both cracked up again.

Our mother came out into the room, smiling another brisk and terrible smile. “Who’d like another drink?” she said.

“I would,” Wylie and I said at the same time.

I followed her back to the kitchen, where things were simmering in multiple pots. The oven was on and onions were turning golden in a sauté pan. Everything smelled excellent, and it occurred to me that she was capable of much better cooking than anything she’d served me so far this summer. In the other room I could hear the Michaelsons launching into yet another story guaranteed to please Wylie, probably involving the torture of puppies or the wanton discarding of recyclable materials.