Steve Katz - Kissssss - A Miscellany

“No,” Eukan mumbled.

“You know what happened to him, don't you?”

Eukan covered his mouth with his hand. “Only what Dojie told me.”

“I told him what I knew.” Dojie shrugged.

Nonawi lowered her eyes, and pulled in a deep breath. “I don't think I can.”

“Please, tell him,” Dojie said.

Eukan moved closer to her, and Ajieck blew air through his horn. “Tell me what happened to him. Please,” Eukan said, softly, as Ajieck started to climb the B minor scale.

“He was my big brother,” Nonawi began. “And I was only twelve, and I didn't know about the pünkscheit , the way Dojie does; otherwise, I would have helped him.” She paused and sighed.

“Now you've got little Ralck Agelb, and he's a cute little drone, very handsome, I'm told,” Dojie tried to reassure Nonawi.

“I don't… I can't even look at him; I mean, I should. He's my little brother; but it's like I know why he's here and I miss Verri Hoxnepi so much. I don't even want to see any Ralck, even if he's a perfect kid. I can't… ”

She stopped again to still her sobs, and they listened to Ajieck slowly step down the B minor again. Then she went on. “Late that night I woke up. I thought it was because the ticking of the clock my mom had just put in our room was so loud, and I looked at the clock, then I saw my mom and dad kissing by Verri's bed. They kept kissing forever, and when they finally separated I saw Verri lying on the bed, on top of his blankets. He was all naked.” She sobbed, and grabbed the slide of the trombone, as for support.

“Right then I knew something was wrong, but I didn't dare make a noise. I remember the time. The clock said it was three thirty-three when they picked my brother up, his whole body. I don't know if he was dead yet, or what, but they carried him out of the room. I waited a moment, and then I followed them. As they carried him down the stairs they were singing a song, like ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone.' I hate that song. I followed and they hauled him into the kitchen, where a huge pot of salted water was boiling, like I'd never seen a pot that big before, and it took up the whole surface of the stove, all the burners. They laid my brother out on the counter, and his arm and leg slipped off and he almost flopped to the floor, but they caught him. I couldn't see if he was breathing or anything. I hope he wasn't. I hope he was dead already, and couldn't hear my dad sharpen the carving knife, swiip swiip swiip , and then I hope he couldn't feel anything when my dad cut through his belly. The guts slopped into a bucket my mother was holding. I don't know, but he looked at me. Maybe I imagined it, but I remember he smiled. I still see that smile.” Nonawi paused to wipe some tears from her eyes. “Do you want to hear the rest of this?” she asked Eukan. Eukan grinned meekly, and shrugged.

“Did you watch the rest of it?” Ajieck asked, putting down his horn.

“I saw all of it,” Nonawi said.

Dojie sank to her haunches, and held her hair wrapped around her face.

“Then you should tell it,” Ajieck said.

Nonawi looked at Ajieck as if he was a hostile stranger, then she continued. “It was so messy, so much stuff inside my brother, and blood, and Dad kept cutting and Mom kept cleaning up, except when they stopped to kiss again. They kissed plenty, their faces all bloody, and I watched it all. They had him down to a carcass, with the skin still on. He seemed so small just as a carcass. ‘That's good enough,' mom said, and they stepped back from the job they did, leaned against each other, and held hands. ‘Thank you Verri Hoxnepi,' they said. ‘You are a good son.' Then they folded my brother up, and dropped him into the boiling pot. I remember the first rays of morning stabbing me through the kitchen window, through the steam that rose from the water that had splashed to the floor, and I remember his hair, a long braid of hair, hanging over the rim of the pot.”

“He was so much the emptiest drone,” Dojie sobbed. “He was drash beyond drash beyond the beyond.” She was crying.

“Yes, he was, Dojie. He really was, wasn't he? You should have known him, Eukan. So what I did was when my progs went outside, and they were doing that morning sun thing they still do, I went down to the pot, and cut off Verri's braid, and took it back to bed with me, and wrapped myself all around it, thinking maybe I could bring my brother back with just my own little body. That braid is all I have left of him. Still I sometimes comb it out and braid it again. It's all I have.” She paused and looked around. No one was looking at her. Dojie had pulled Eukan down to herself, and was trying to hug him. Ajieck sat on his stool, his trombone at his feet, his fingers tapping on the bell. “That's about it,” Nonawi said. “I never told this before. It's weird to tell it. It feels different.”

“Did you ever eat any?” Ajieck asked.

She screwed up her face at him again as if he were some kind of alien antagonist, but she answered. “I couldn't have. Progs don't offer that meat to the sister, but I could never, anyway. Who could? Oh, yes, about a week after they sogged him I came home early for lunch. Both progs were still at school, teaching. I went into the garage, and there was Verri Hoxnepi's head propped on a rotating plant stand my mom had once used for winter narcissus. It was almost nothing but skull. They had eaten the lips and cheeks. They were waiting for the brain to ferment. It was streaked with black, teeth all yellowed and gross. It didn't even look like Verri, but who else would it be? Anyway, I pulled up a chair and sat down there, spinning the top of the plant stand slowly, and just looking at Verri Hoxnepi. I sat there for hours, ’til I heard my mom's car. I didn't say a word to him, because I knew he couldn't ever answer me again. Before I left him in the garage I kissed him goodbye, his yellow teeth.”

“You kissed a skull, kissed it?” Dojie wrinkled up her face.

“That was my brother's. What would you do? I'd never see him again.”

“You could have walked away. You didn't need to look at that,” Ajieck shouted. While everyone was listening to Nonawi, he had untied the boat at the bow so it flagged out into the river, and then he had pulled out his antique bayonet from his stash and had run balanced along the gunwale and stood on the stern with his machete raised, ready to cut the boat totally loose. “Since when is there a law somewhere that you have to watch? It was your choice. You could have turned your back, gone somewhere else. It's because there's no place crazier than here. We should burn the whole place down. You're not a grownup. You didn't have to watch that nasty stuff.”

Dojie had bunched herself up into a ball of sobs, rocking in the middle of the boat.

“What are you doing, Ajieck?” Eukan suddenly roused himself from the tragic reverie. “Don't cut it. Don't cut that.”

“We're all gonna go. We can't stay here. We're all going.” Ajieck lifted the machete above his head.

“Ajieck, drop that thing. This is my boat. If you cut that rope, it's mutiny. And you're not my friend after that.”

“We're not… we can't be… we're leaving.” He brought the machete down in a broad slash against the rope, but the edge was too dull, and the bayonet sprang back up, almost tossing Ajieck into the water. He knelt down then and sawed across the rope, trying to sever it thread by thread.

Eukan picked up Ajieck's trombone, and held it over the water. “If you cut any more, I'm dropping this into the river. Say goodbye to your happy ‘bone.”

At first Dojie thought, after hearing the story, it wouldn't be so bad to leave right then. Everything about Monisantaca seemed calamity and horror. Then she remembered she hadn't finished her body tinting, and she didn't want to leave anywhere till she proved to herself she would do it, till she finished enough to display herself for all of her brideys.