Lori Ostlund - After the Parade

His father had pointed out houses belonging to drug dealers and a park where a homeless man who eschewed shoes, even in winter, had been found beaten and tied to a swing set by his hair. While they waited for the paramedics, his father had freed the man by cutting off his hair. “I did him a favor,” his father said. “It was filled with bugs and leaves and shit, actual shit, but Rapunzel there actually swore at me for cutting it.”

Everywhere they drove, his father had told stories like these, the town as familiar to him as his own living room, but never once had he said, “That house over there, the white brick with the perfect yard? That’s where my brother lives.” He had never even said that he had a brother.

“Ready to meet your cousins?” asked his uncle, and they went inside the white brick house, where a woman and too many children for Aaron to make sense of at once were waiting at a long table. His uncle sat down at the head and motioned to the empty chair beside him. Aaron wanted to wash his hands first, but he was too nervous to ask. They bowed their heads and recited a lengthy prayer, and because Aaron was not familiar with praying, he kept his head down longer than the others. When he looked up, everyone was staring at him. There was no talking during dinner, just the impressive sound of many forks and knives being utilized at once. A girl slightly older than him tipped over her milk, and his uncle turned to her and said, “What’s that good for?” which was what Aaron’s father had always said when he spilled. At the end of the meal, they prayed again, and the girl who had spilled her milk was told to apologize.

“God, I’m sorry I spilled my milk,” she said, her voice delicate as porcelain.

“That you have so graciously provided,” her father said.

“That you have so graciously provided,” she repeated.

“Fine,” Aaron’s uncle announced. “Everyone who has eaten what was put before him is excused. Devotions will be read in one hour.”

Two boys remained at the table. They sat with their backs straight, staring ahead rather than down at the onions that they had extracted with great care from the potato salad. “So, Matthew, Mark,” their father said, sounding strangely jovial. “No onions for you boys tonight?”

The boys did not answer.

“Well, I guess you know what to do.”

They rose and pushed open the sliding glass door that led out to the backyard, and their father called after them, “And not from the elm.”

Aaron’s aunt came in from the kitchen. “Popcorn with devotions?” she asked.

“Yes,” his uncle said, “but none for Matthew and Mark.”

She spoke to Aaron for the first time. “Do you like popcorn?” she asked hopefully. He told her that he did, and she said, “I’m glad.” He picked up a plate from the table to help the way he did at home. “Aaron,” she said, “that’s not for boys.” He could see the girls moving around in the kitchen, washing dishes and making order.

Matthew and Mark returned, each carrying a stick from which the bark had been peeled. They handed the sticks to their father, turned, and lowered their pants, revealing buttocks as pale as the flesh of the stripped branches. Only then did Aaron understand that the boys were about to be spanked. He wondered what they had thought about as they searched for the perfect sticks and prepared them with the knowledge that the sticks would soon be used against them. His father had delivered spankings with his belt, which he unbuckled and slid slowly from its loops. If he was still wearing his uniform, there was an extra step, the removing of the holster, a step he had conducted with great ceremony, as if the spanking were an official duty.

Aaron did not want to watch his cousins getting spanked, so he studied a clay reproduction of the Last Supper that hung on the dining room wall. The hanging had broken and been mended poorly, the largest crack creating the appearance of a rift between those to Jesus’s left and those to the right, with Jesus himself at the epicenter. Behind Aaron the sticks whizzed through the air, but Matthew and Mark were silent. At last, he heard his uncle leave the room, his cousins zippering their pants and leaving also.

Next to the Last Supper was a painting of a man. “Your uncle painted that,” his aunt said from behind him. “He made it for my birthday a few years ago.” Aaron tried to imagine his uncle sitting in a room holding a paintbrush, but he could not. “It’s the nicest gift I ever received,” his aunt declared. “It’s not paint-by-number. It’s all freehand.”

“Who is it?” he asked.

“It’s Jesus,” said his aunt. She sounded horrified by his question, but Aaron had seen pictures of Jesus and this looked nothing like him.

“Why is he wearing a stocking cap?”

“That’s the crown of thorns,” his aunt said. With her finger, she traced the rivers of blood that ran from the crown down Jesus’s face. The blood was cherry red, which gave the painting a festive quality. She went back into the kitchen, and Aaron crept over to the table by the door on which his uncle had dropped the box with his dress shoes. When he lifted the lid, he missed his mother and their house with a sudden, sick longing.

His uncle came back into the room carrying a rolled-up newspaper. “Don’t stand there gawking,” he said, swatting Aaron across the head with the paper.

“May I use the bathroom?” Aaron asked.

“You’ve got ten minutes before devotions.”

Aaron could hear the sound of popcorn popping in the kitchen. His aunt peeked out. “Aaron, what do you like to drink with your popcorn?” she asked.

She didn’t list possibilities, so he said, “Water, please.”

“Water,” said his uncle angrily, as though Aaron had requested beer.

“You can’t drink water with popcorn,” his aunt explained. “The water will taste like fish.” Aaron had drunk water with popcorn plenty of times and never noticed a fish taste, nor did he understand why a fish taste would be bad.

“How about root beer?” his aunt suggested, and Aaron nodded, though he did not like root beer. Occasionally on Sunday evenings, his father had said, “How about we drive over to the A&W for supper?” His father liked the A&W, where one could stay in the car instead of having to go inside and eat surrounded by strangers. Aaron always asked for orange pop, which his father nixed. “This is A&W,” he said. “You’ll have root beer like everyone else.” The root beer came in Goldilocks sizes, and because his mother always ordered the Baby Bear even though there was a Mama Bear, Aaron knew that she wanted something other than root beer also.

“You better get to the bathroom,” his uncle said. “I warmed the seat up for you.”

The smell began in the hallway, like rotting potatoes. When he pushed open the bathroom door and stepped in, the odor was so thick he thought he could feel it on his skin. He picked up a towel and held it to his nose, but he could not urinate like that, so he held his breath, set down the towel, and lifted the toilet seat. When he had finished, he flushed and watched, first with interest and then alarm, as the water rose in the bowl. A plunger sat in a rusted coffee can nearby, and he jammed it into the toilet, but it was too late. As the water streamed over the sides, he opened the bathroom door and called for help. His aunt came running, and they stood together beside the toilet, his aunt pumping the plunger up and down.

“My goodness, Aaron,” she said, not unkindly but with some dismay as they stared at the coil of feces floating on the surface. It was as big around as his arm. He reddened, wondering how she could possibly believe he had produced such a thing.

“Hurry up,” called his uncle from the living room.