Jeffery Allen - Holding Pattern - Stories

They seat themselves on a hard wooden pew, brightly polished, like a canoe. Hatch’s feet dangle above the carpet’s red bloody waters. Cosmo sits beside him, jaw rigid, face flattened, as if pressing into glass. Words cascade from the preacher’s wine-aged lips. Hatch searches for something firm to grab on to.

Sit up straight!

That bitter and poisonous apple, that hot coal of lust in Adam’s belly.

Cosmo’s fingers twitch, the urgent pulse of awakening life. Cosmo whispers into Hatch’s ear, I drank from a jawbone.

Hatch takes him immediately for what he seems.

The collection plate comes around for the third time — Hatch doesn’t remember sitting on the pew for so long, but he has — coins like sparkling eyes, fish scales. A repetition of images, mechanical proliferation.

Out of the eater come forth meat, and out of the strong come forth sweetness.

Cosmo jerks as if to sneeze and spills his half-digested breakfast into the collection plate.

X

We discussed it. Mamma holds Cosmo in her gaze. Don’t use the car no mo on Saturday nights.

What? Cheek black.

Cosmo has devised a new trick: he can hoard air inside his lungs, then blow it toward tight lips, causing one cheek to expand while the other remains flat. That paradox matched by his gait, neither a walk nor a run but a clumsy advance, leaning forward a little with his chin thrust out, straining to see something in the distance, the inflated cheek black with the heat of the straining engine inside his jaw.

Hatch watches Cosmo through the garage window. Cosmo circles about from corner to corner, crashes into the walls, bug to glowing lamp.

XI

Hatch entered through the kitchen, trying not to make any noise. He raised the water pistol and moved on. What he hoped to avoid awaited him. Cosmo was standing to one side of the chandelier, facing Hatch but staring through Hatch at some vision that Cosmo alone could see. His physical appearance confirmed what Hatch had long suspected, that a strange new life was flowering inside him. One hand jerked as if shaking dice, while the other squeezed and relaxed like tweezers opening and closing or castanets snapping.

Hatch spun and rushed back in the direction from which he had come. He bounded down the back-porch steps, almost crashed into the corner of the house as he turned, stumbled through the lawn area, cut sharply again, and leaped onto the front-porch steps. The porch light made the darkness strangely comfortable. The water pistol warm in his hand.

XII

He could feel something cold rising up in him and thought to turn back. The house taking shape as he watched from his command post in a tangle of bushes and hedges on a low hill. The darkness his shelter. Then he realized he was actually seeing an expanding architecture: the house, the garage, the street, the church, the neighborhood, the jagged-leaved trees that ate the horizon. With this small but significant finding, he felt a new confidence. In time he would face his brother.

You think you grown? What time was you sposed to be in the house?

But Cosmo been aggravatin me.

You a tattletale now?

XIII

The sun is a silver penny pasted onto the sky. A slow rain descends indifferently. Cosmo and Hatch race down the street, their speed a challenge that the sky accepts. A steady downpour. Hatch catches water on his tongue and drinks it. Cosmo hops off the curb into puddles, splashing his pointed old-man shoes, frenzied sharks.

The rain comes in gray swaths. Hatch and Cosmo cut into a doorway where others have also sought refuge. Hatch’s soggy sneakers fart whenever he wiggles his toes. Cosmo turns, faces the crowd from under his fedora. Spreads his arms wide, greeting the rain. We are gathered here today …

Rain transforms the streets into angry rivers, swirling eddies. Hard wind slaps hats off heads. Hair flattened into a flying wave, Cosmo ducks under an awning, shoves others aside to squeeze in, create his own little bit of space, elbow room. Together they stare out silently into the street at a curtain of performing rain and a swollen gutter. Police officers wrapped in plastic direct almost stationary traffic. Cosmo shivers, building up energy for an illumination, which does not come. A full hour before the rain eases. A mocking peck of blue sky.

Morning light fell slant upon the couch, where Cosmo lay under several layers of blankets, feverish — throat clogged, eyes shut in pain — and holding his stomach like a pregnant woman.

You may be sick, but you better keep an eye on yo brother when he get home from school, Mamma said.

Sure.

Make sure he eats his dinner.

Sure.

And don’t aggravate him.

Sure.

The moment the door shut, he rose from the couch, red robe and slippers flaming about him, and stood rigidly in place, the sole of one foot clamped behind his knee, and the palm of his hand masking his eyes. One cheek black and puffy, the other, colorless and tent taut. The morning opened around him and he stood erect in its center, a stamen.

A ripe day. The sky so near that Hatch drew back from its heat. The sun blinked a drunk’s red eye. Red clouds stumbled. He withdrew into shadow, band upon band, bar upon bar. His hands crimson wings.

Constellations as pale as milk. Stars banged against roofs. Hatch passed the lit windows of houses, perhaps a face or two looking out from them. Then home. The porch glowed with light and softened the darkness. He moved cautiously upon the black stairs. Opened the door. Fire shot through the back of his neck.

The hard wooden floor sagged under his waterlogged spine. He squeezed back burning tears. His legs stiff. His neck stiff, caught in some unseen bear’s honed teeth. How long had he been here? He turned his head and the bear bit harder. Two spotlights gawked down at him from the ceiling. A third fixture cast a cone of light on a large white sheet draped along the long window like a sail and flapping freely. The room was completely bare, all furniture gone.

Punk, get on up. I ain’t got all day.

He could not see Cosmo, only hear him. He explored the back of his neck with cautious fingers, trying to pinpoint teeth, triage physical damage.

Forget yo neck.

My neck is fine!

The unseen bear teeth clamped down.

Then get up.

I ain’t.

Get up.

No. You play too much.

I ain’t playin. Cosmo moved somewhere in the room. He stepped into the cone of light wearing a robe and slippers, the same red robe and slippers from earlier. Eyes wide. Skin taut like burns freshly healed. And the swollen cheek, an unwanted growth. His shadow shimmered against the sheet.

Wait till Mamma see what you done. The furniture.

Cosmo stood there, eyes wide spotlights. He spread a slow grin.

I’m tellin. You gon get a whupping when Mamma get home.

Cosmo watched him for a moment. Then he tightened the cord of his robe. We got some business to take care of.

I ain’t doing no business with you.

Shut up.

You can’t make me.

Cosmo moved across the room with his new walk. Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up? Bones creaking, Hatch raised himself to hands and knees. The bear matched his resistance, lodging its teeth into the bone, asserting claim. He tried to rise but found that his legs too had come under new allegiance, chained and posted traps around his ankles. He dragged himself backward into the corner, the most he could do. Cosmo reached him, slapped him upside the head.

Hatch collapsed. I’m gon tell Dad too. He covered his head with his hands.

What! Cosmo flashed a look of pure hatred. His puffy cheek expanded, ready to explode. He leaned forward and slapped repeatedly at Hatch’s wrists.