John McManus - Born on a Train - 13 Stories

You know what time it is? said Shawn.

You’re the one with a watch.

It was time for a cigarette break. Shawn fetched two orange drinks from inside and handed one to Jason, and they sat down on the oily concrete. Shawn’s head blocked the sun. He lit a Marlboro but didn’t offer one to Jason, who felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t care about opposites anymore. Eighty years wasn’t enough; he wished it were a hundred, and anyone who’d ever seen his face would be dead.

It scared him to sit so close to Shawn. It was worse to be nervous than to be alone. The drink’s orange dye fed the twinges in his bowels as he tried to think of how to leave. He couldn’t run away forever; it was the only place to buy milk.

When he sliced his middle finger open with his pocketknife blade his eyes stayed as still and furtive as a prowling cat’s.

Ow, Shawn said when he saw the blood.

It doesn’t hurt, said Jason.

It’s a knife.

Once I did it to all ten.

What for? said Shawn.

It changes your fingerprints.

There ain’t nothing wrong with my fingerprints.

So they can’t ever catch you, said Jason.

I ain’t done nothin to be caught.

Jason flinched at the word. He was dangling by the quarry in the breeze; there’d be a breeze when Mama found them. Shawn would remove his belt and hoist himself onto Jason like a deadweight pendulum, gripping his shoulders so they could swing together, two acrobats sharing a trapeze. Mama never read until her soaps were over, because of her eyes. He’d never heard her say some of the words he’d used; he wondered if she knew them.

Come back here with me for a second.

Jason was sweating so heavily his shirt was plastered to his skin. He laid the broom down on the concrete and said, I need to run home for a minute.

When Shawn laughed at him he turned red.

I forgot to put the fire out.

A fire in June? said Shawn.

Jason shook his head. The oven.

Shawn laughed again. Call your mama.

There’s no phone.

Shawn pointed to a pay phone by the road.

I mean at the house, said Jason.

What happened to it?

We can’t afford one.

You don’t afford a phone, said Shawn, you just get one, and Jason’s shoulders burned when he tried to move them for a response. He wondered if he should walk to the left or the right on the road to hitchhike to another state. He knew every direction had a state in it.

Pa ain’t gonna let you go.

It would just take half an hour, said Jason, but he didn’t even want to go anymore. He might as well work the whole day if he was going to run away afterwards.

Come back here with me for a second.

Back where?

Shawn pointed to the trees.

Jason wanted to be alone, so he could feel nervous on his own. It made it worse to have to talk at the same time. He didn’t understand what Shawn could want with him. He followed Shawn into the thick woods where birds had defleshed the skeletons of rats. The air smelled like bourbon as they passed beneath an upside-down hammock of dead vines, and Shawn stretched his arms into the heat. You talk the same way I talk, he said.

Jason froze. What kind of way?

The way you say words.

Jason put his hands in his pocket to stop their shaking.

I learned it up in Knoxville, how you tell.

You’re from Knoxville? said Jason, looking away.

Shawn shook his head. It’s not just the words.

You said your pa didn’t want us to leave the station.

He don’t really give a shit, said Shawn.

Then I should run to the house.

Shawn put a hand on Jason’s shoulder.

What are you doing? said Jason.

There’s this place where they learned me how to tell.

What kind of place?

This bar, said Shawn.

Jason nodded.

It has to do with your fingers.

Jason looked down at his fingers and Shawn’s fingers.

How long they are, said Shawn. He held his hand up to Jason’s, which was bigger, and pulled it back and said, Just against theirselves, not the whole thing.

The sun was beginning to sink. Jason looked at the sky and saw fire.

Don’t get nervous.

I’m not, said Jason.

I could tell it from your fingers.

Shawn moved up against Jason’s body until his face was blurry. It hurt Jason’s eyes. He hoped he’d know how to move his mouth right. Shawn had a chipped incisor. His lips slithered like two wounded animals, pressing Jason’s whole body into the soft pine needles, and Jason shut his eyes. He hated that Shawn was being so gentle. He didn’t even look the same as he had at the quarry; his eyes were smaller, rodentlike. He smelled like cologne. His hair didn’t look like straw anymore. Jason had taken the wrong hill from his house down to the wrong highway, to a station that was separate from his mind. This wasn’t Shawn. The sun was setting over the wrong woods in the wrong west, and Jason struggled to breathe. His throat retreated down into his guts like a withering root.

You’re not paying attention, said Shawn.

Jason’s windpipe closed up. He thought about his bedside table at the house, where he should have hidden the diary, where his yellow asthma inhaler lay in a drawer. He hadn’t used it in nearly two years.

Can I pull a hair out of the back of your neck? said Shawn.

Jason felt like bladders were filling up within his shut eyes.

You won’t feel it.

Yes I will, said Jason.

No you won’t.

Why do you want it?

Why don’t you want me to have it?

Get away from me. Don’t touch me.

Shawn grinned. But I’ve already done it, you big baby.

Jason put his hand to the back of his neck to search for where the missing hair had been. When Shawn held it up to the dying orange light Jason’s skin began to itch all over his body. He scratched himself. He wanted water.

Now I can clone you, said Shawn. I have your DNA.

Shawn wasn’t supposed show affection. It oozed from his fingertips like tobacco spit. Jason picked up a fallen tree branch, because Shawn was worthless to him. Shawn watched him lift the knobby staff and grinned as if he wanted to be lashed, but the stick fell into three pieces. Jason hadn’t seen its rottenness in the dark. He understood now why Mama had always hated sunlight. The sun dripped glue into his eyes, all day long, and it made no logical sense. What was the point of a molten ball that caused him only pain? He picked up a rock, because he wanted the rock to be a part of their world. It made a thud. Jason felt tranquil as he waited for Shawn to tackle him. It was taking a long time, but he had a lot to think about. You little son of a bitch, said Shawn, rubbing his leg like he was the opposite of everything, and Jason relaxed, because Shawn was talking the right way now.

It was two things Lonzoe done, it was the tree farm and the gas stations. It was Annie who he done it for, that night was quite a night, the wind chimes in the wind. It rained and rained. Clyde come in at Billiards slams his money on the table, drinks the honey wheat. Was they out of High Life. Clyde said no Lonzoe I just took a likin to the taste. Lonzoe says you think I give a lumpy shit. Don’t take no fence. Don’t tell me what to do. Clyde starts shootin eightball, Lonzoe lines up lucky number 7. Hey Lonzoe I guess you and Annie have one of them open relationships. Drug it out like real slow words. What ye mean. Seen her with the Breeden boy at Hatcher’s Store for beer they’s headed for the lake. How the hell would you know. Why else would they go that way.

Usual Lonzoe was real practical. When he heard the song about the cowgirl on the ceiling he said that don’t make no sense. The one about the lost highway, he said that’s Highway 72 how it got swallered when they put up Tellico Lake. He whups Clyde three straight games and Clyde he blabbered this and that and if he’d had his glasses on and Lonzoe said eat shit and wandered off. Where’s Lonzoe. There he was against a table like to crush it. I’m gonna kill him Jasper he tells me. Who. That Breeden boy, I’ll slash his throat. That’s what all folks says. I ain’t different from all folks. Went to the pay phone come inside said what’s the number. Call Annie first. I did and she ain’t home. They run that Christmas farm, go look up Smoky Mountain Trees. As if they run the whole damn Smoky Mountain. I don’t know why I said it though I should of known to shut my mouth when his eyes was slants like that. Went out again come in again. You with me fellers. The football game ain’t over, Clyde says. Vandy ain’t even gonna score. I still wanna see it. You big faggot. You cuckold. What the hell’s that mean. It’s what you are Lonzoe if it’s like I seen.