Jim Shepard - Kiss of the Wolf

He was sweaty. He was in just his pajama bottoms, but he was hot. He kicked off the covers.

He’d had a dream about the Holy Trinity. Jesus had looked thin and pale and seemed too disappointed to speak. God the Father had done most of the talking. The Holy Ghost had been behind them, the way it usually was in the pictures, no help.

He got up. Maybe she’d called. Maybe things were starting to work out, the police on their way.

He was standing at his bedroom door, squeezing the nap of the rug with his toes. He strained to pick up what was on the radio. It changed to an ad jingle.

What he was wearing was suddenly stupid. He wasn’t going to be arrested wearing Minnesota Viking pajama bottoms. He changed into soccer shorts and padded downstairs.

His mother and Audrey were playing the piano. She was kneeling, the dog was sitting. They were just plunking around. The piano was half a foot high and had quarter and eighth notes painted on the sides. They were doing one paw at a time.

This was not Audrey’s favorite way to spend the morning. When she saw Todd, her tail thumped the carpet.

“There’s some breakfast out there,” his mother said, concentrating on the keyboard. “I cut up some honeydew.”

“What’re you doing?” he said.

“Audrey and I’re riffing around,” she said. “You know. We’re just noodlin’.”

He went into the kitchen. The radio was on top of the refrigerator. The guy was doing the national news. The local news was after that.

Todd’s place was laid out, the honey dew in a Tupperware tub. He thought of the catechism stories of boys tested by God in various ways: one boy gave his lunch money to the beggar with sores, one didn’t. One sat down and ate the breakfast he was offered, knowing he’d committed a crime.

He sat down. His mother still hadn’t called. He hated that he had to bring it up. He hated the fight they were going to have.

She came into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door and stood there. She was always after him to not leave the door open.

She had pretty skin, with freckles, and was wearing her hair longer now, down to her shoulders. He liked the color, but she said she was an Italian brunette, like she wasn’t happy about it. He watched her mouth while she bit her lip, deciding what to have. He imagined guys she’d meet in the future wanting to kiss her, because she wasn’t like some women he’d seen who had almost no lips. She used a little tub of Carmex a lot instead of lipstick, and it picked up the light from the refrigerator door.

She pulled out a box of raisins and a tub of vanilla yogurt. She always bought something like the seventy-pound size. She spooned yogurt onto his plate and pointed to the honeydew.

“That’s enough,” he said.

She opened the raisin box and shook it over his plate. Nothing happened, and then they came out in a clump and spattered the yogurt. She got a paper towel and wiped it up.

When she finished, she sat down opposite him.

He didn’t eat.

She got back up, poured him a glass of milk, and brought over her coffee mug and a spoon. She spooned coffee from her mug into his milk. She worried about caffeine and he wanted coffee and that was their compromise. He’d liked it also because she’d sometimes make fun of Mass when she did it.

She gave him four spoonfuls. The milk barely changed color.

“You didn’t call,” he said. She was wearing the same pants from the night before, but a new shirt.

The local news came on. They listened. There was no story about the accident, or any accident. Audrey padded through the kitchen and collapsed near his feet.

“Are you gonna eat?” his mother said.

“Are you gonna call?”

She got up from the table and went outside.

He sat in front of his breakfast, wondering what to do. He wanted all of this to be handled by someone else. He felt like a wind was coming and going on his forehead.

Audrey went to the door, and he let her out and watched to see where she went.

His mother was weeding on her hands and knees in the garden.

The phone rang. He saw her sit up and look back at the house. He thought, Let her get it.

It kept ringing. She was still looking toward the house. He stomped around in little half circles with his fists at his sides and then finally tore the receiver off the cradle.

It was his friend Brendan. “You get it?” Brendan said.

It took him a second: the lacrosse helmet. They’d figured Todd’s father would get it for his confirmation. Todd had mentioned it in a letter to his father with that in mind.

It felt like if he was going to say something, he had to do it now, before he kept going with this other life.

It took him too long to answer. Then he said, “The helmet?”

“Du- uh ,” Brendan said. “No. The Uzi. Whadja think?”

Again, it took him too long. “What’s wrong with you?” Brendan said. “You get it or not? You didn’t get it?”

“Yeah,” Todd said.

“Yeah you got it or yeah you didn’t get it?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“What colors?” Brendan said, exasperated. “J’ou get any team?”

“White,” he said. “It’s all white.” He pulled the phone cord over to the window. His mother was still sitting up, looking at the house.

Brendan was doing something on the other end while he talked. “I thought you were gonna get Syracuse. You gonna be around?”

“Now?” Todd said. He put his hand over his eyes.

“No, Easter. What ‘now’? Acourse now. ”

“I was goin’ out,” Todd said. He looked around the kitchen, like a lie would be written there for him to say. “I was gonna go do something.”

Brendan asked him what. Todd didn’t know.

Brendan was getting fed up. Todd put his hand on his hair and rubbed it like he was shampooing, and said to come over now, then.

Brendan made a big sarcastic point about how grateful he was and said he’d be over. Todd wanted to say, You can’t come over because my mother killed somebody last night. He hung up the phone.

His mother was still looking toward the house. He went onto the back porch and cranked open the window.

“Who was that?” she called. He could hear the shakiness in her voice, and he felt like a terrible son, suddenly.

“It was Brendan,” he said. He wasn’t sure she could see him, with the morning sun on the screen. “He said he was coming over.”

She kept looking a minute and then turned back to the garden. Audrey was in her sphinx pose in the dirt between two rows of tomatoes, watching.

He wandered around the house doing nothing.

He sat on the back porch with his hands together.

Brendan took his time. When he finally got there, Todd let him in the back. Brendan walked in and sat at the kitchen table like someone going to a restaurant. He was wearing surfing jams and a white Portland Trailblazers tank top that had a picture of their front line standing there with their arms folded under the words JUDGMENT DAY. He found Todd’s dish of M&M’s from the night before and ate a few. Todd felt like the M&M’s had given him away, somehow. He stood there until Brendan finally said, “So where’s the helmet?”

Todd looked at him a second longer and then realized the helmet was in with all the other presents in the car.

“The helmet,” Brendan said.

“It’s in the car,” Todd said.

Brendan dropped an M&M back in the dish and stood up. He stretched. Todd realized he was supposed to be leading the way. When he didn’t move, Brendan gave him another look and headed out the door. Todd followed him.

His mother turned around again and said hello. She waved a little three-pronged rake or scraper. She watched them head to the garage. She peered at Brendan’s tank top.