Fish in the Sky (9 page)

Vipera berus
glides very carefully from underneath the fallen leaves, long, thin, and soundless; only her cloven tongue twitches, her eyes cut in stone. Faster than the devil himself, she strikes with her jaw wide open, and the pretty little forest mouse is no longer among the living. It disappears slowly and surely down the throat of the snake. Its last message to the world a tiny twist of one of its hind legs. Maybe it’s just waving good-bye. The snake continues to swallow and swallow, and the mouse moves under the glistening skin until it has reached the middle of the snake. Then the stomach liquids start to dissolve the poor little thing, or rather to change it into energy, as the narrator puts it, so the snake can continue to glide around the world with her cold blood and stony eyes and kill some more. What are snakes for? I lie on my stomach in front of the TV and shoot a glance at my cousin who’s spread herself all over my mom’s TV chair, which once upon a time was Grandma’s radio chair. She dangles a long leg over the side of the chair, chews her gum, and flicks through a fashion magazine, turning the pages so fast that her bracelets jingle ceaselessly. She’s wearing a thin but wide sweater with a very low neck and the precious short skirt. Her thighs are bare. We haven’t said a word to each other since I entered the living room, turned on the TV, and lay down on the floor with my book,
Life and Creation.
She didn’t even ask me if I wanted to sit in the chair, although it was obvious that I was going to watch TV. It’s time to make her aware of some rules that apply in this home.

“That’s Mom’s chair,” I say.

“Really?” she says, not looking up from the magazine.

“If she wants to watch TV when she’s home, then she is to sit in that chair,” I add.

“It wasn’t labeled,” she says, like it’s none of her business. “Where is she, anyway?”

“She cleans on Tuesday nights,” I say, and try to make it sound as if Mom has to work harder because Gertrude is now living with us.

“Cleaning! Christ! I would never do that,” she mutters into the magazine.

I’m coloring the shadow on my drawing of the snake. For a while there’s silence, apart from the occasional sigh and the sound of her chewing gum. Then she stops leafing through the magazine, and I can feel a tingling in the hairs on the back of my neck. It must be because she’s looking at me.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

The pencil stops in front of me, and the sharp point is right under the stone-carved eye of the snake. I clench my jaw and lower my head closer to the book, determined to act as if I didn’t hear the question.

“Are you deaf?”

This remark is followed by a light kick to my right calf. She has positioned herself in the chair so that she can poke me in the legs and the backs of my thighs with her toes. Then she starts to chew on this joke as she chews the poison-pink gum. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her black-painted toenails dangling over the side of the chair.

“Joshy boy? Got a girlfriend, huh? Tell cousin Trudy. Joshy Woshy boy? Girlfriend?”

Poke in leg, poke in thigh, poke in leg.

“Stop it,” I say, trying hard to keep calm.

“Still a virgin boy, boy? No dirty thoughts yet?”

I climb to my feet, black with anger, holding the book,
Life and Creation,
tight to my chest, like armor. I don’t realize what I’ve said until I’ve already blurted out a damn good insult.

“Shut up, Gert-Rude.”

First the magazine comes flying in the direction of my head — an immensely thick catalog, as a matter of fact — and I duck just in time to avoid it. Then comes my cousin, full force, with all her claws stretched out, hissing in the air, jumping on me, knocking me to the floor like nothing and sitting astride me. I notice she’s wearing black lacy underwear. She grabs my wrists, pinning them to the floor. This girl knows how to fight; I’m stuck in a vise. She’s much stronger than she looks. I could possibly shake myself loose by thrusting my hips upward. But somehow it doesn’t feel appropriate. I’m a victim, stuck in a trap, and it’s a curiously exciting feeling that shoots from my head down into my crotch. Her face is close to mine, and her breasts, large and heavy, swing gently back and forth under the sweater so I can almost see them above the rim of the open neck. She hooks her long legs around my feet so I can’t move except for my head.

“Well, then,” she pants. “Want a little fight, boy?”

I try to break loose, but I don’t want to get free just yet. Her earring is dangling at my face. I could bite it and rip it out of her ear. Her dark hair falls over my face and tickles my nose. I try to move to the side, but it’s hopeless.

“Don’t get too excited,” she purrs, and arranges herself on top of me. The two hills under her sweater rise and fall, and I can smell the sweet fragrance up from the open neck. The smell is quite different when she’s put it on, much warmer and sweeter.

“Now, I won’t let you go until you’ve had a proper kiss,” she says.

I react immediately, trying to break free, but she spits her chewing gum on the carpet and sticks out her lips, kissing the air between our faces. This is the sickest and most disgusting situation I’ve ever known, but at the same time so exciting, so exhilarating. I’ve never felt such a powerful tingling inside of me. It shoots down my thighs and out of the soles of my feet, on one hand, and on the other it runs up into my head and out of my ears.

She’s trying very hard to kiss me on the lips, but I jerk my head to the sides so her kisses fall on my cheeks, my neck, my ears. I scream and shout and pretend I want to break free, but really I don’t want to. This is so horribly exciting that the humiliation is completely worth it. At least for as long as she doesn’t figure out that I’m actually enjoying it. She chuckles as she nibbles my earlobes and growls. Then the excitement is about to overwhelm me, and she must not realize that I am about to shame myself by the natural function of the male body in this situation, so without thinking I grab the last straw that every cornered victim is forced to apply if he’s going to run free. I spit right in her eye. She howls with a piercing noise, moves her hands to her face, and jumps to her feet. I run like a cockroach, on all fours, down the hall, up the stairs into my room, then slam the door, turn the key, and lock it.

Panting, out of breath, I fall into a heap at the door and listen to my cousin’s thundering noise as she storms toward my room, throws herself at the door, and shakes the doorknob. But when the door won’t open, she bangs her fists on it, and the sounds from her are far from being made by a human throat. It’s like a terrible ogre is trying to break down my door, wanting to tear me to pieces. And most likely that’s exactly what she has in mind. I sit on my bed, trying to catch my breath. I have to get calm and figure this out. While the door is locked, there’s nothing to fear. I stumble to my fish tank, open up a can of food with trembling fingers, and sprinkle the tiny flakes onto the still water. How many fish do I have now? It’s been a while since I’ve counted them. Are there eighteen or twenty? I close my ears to the swearing and cursing by the door and start counting my fish. The buzz dwindles down, and my body corrects itself; everything is as it should be, my breathing calm, my heart at ease. The program was really educational and showed conclusively that snakes are the most disgusting creatures on the planet. They’re ice-cold and slimy and don’t have any feelings, no more than a rug. They are, in fact, nature’s greatest blunder because they’re completely useless but ruin things constantly for others. They murder small animals who just want to live in peace and quiet — wind themselves around them until they choke or else paralyze them with poison. Just like my cousin there, who has finally ceased the beating and gone over to pleading.

“Josh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be nasty. Let’s be friends, OK? Are you all right in there?”

I listen for a while until I feel it’s time to show my cousin how noble I can be. I feel really good about myself, having shown her how tough I can get and having drawn the line in our relationship in such a decisive manner. I hope that this will teach her a lesson and that she will show me a little more respect from now on. I turn the key, and the knob slowly turns until a small crack appears and Gertrude peeks through, eyes cut in stone. I realize my mistake; my cousin, the snake, has not forgiven my counterattack. She throws the door wide open so it slams into the wall, jumps on me, screaming louder than ever before, shakes me like a rag doll, and throws me against the radiator. I roll up into a ball while her beating and cursing pound on my back. She fills one fist with my hair and clenches the other, but then a key is turned in the front door. Mom’s home.

Gertrude looks at me for a second, fiery red with anger, her hair standing on end and her shoulder exposed as her sweater has slipped off to one side. Then she lets go, walks briskly into her room, and slams the door.

I’m lying limp on the floor when Mom appears in the doorway. For some reason I find all this terribly funny and start to giggle.

“Josh. Are you lying on the floor?”

“No,” I say, and rise up slowly.

“Where’s Gertrude?”

I nod in the direction of her room and try to keep a straight face.

“Gertrude, dear,” Mom says, and knocks gently on her door.

“My name is Trudy, goddamn it, if you could try to remember for once!” she screams from behind the door.

Mom jerks backward, staring surprised at the door, then at me, then back at the door.

“I’m so sorry, my dear,” she finally says, devastated for having forgotten once again. It would have been something else if I had screamed at her like that.

“I was just going to ask you when you have to be in school tomorrow morning,” Mom says.

“Eight o’clock,” the voice behind the door snaps back, boiling with anger.

“Then I’ll wake you at seven, darling,” Mom says, and then looks at me. “God, I’m tired,” she says. “Aren’t you going to bed, dear?”

“Yes.”

“Well. G’night, then.”

My mother drags her feet out into the hallway and closes the door behind her. Now I become a little frightened that my cousin will seek her revenge for real; maybe she’ll sneak up on me while I’m sleeping. A sudden chill of disgust and excitement shoots through me. But nothing happens.

I sneak up to her door and peek through the keyhole, like a mouse peeking out of its hole to see if everything is safe. The snake sits all curled up on her bed, sobbing into the palms of her hands. Her shoulders are trembling, and it’s clear she doesn’t want anyone to hear her sobbing, because she grabs her pillow and buries her face in it. Then she falls onto the bed, and the sobbing goes in waves through her spine. Suddenly I feel like a bad person, like an evildoer and a thug. Is she crying because of me? Or is she maybe homesick? Well, who asked her to move to the city, anyway? I know I didn’t.
Yeah, sob all you like,
my mind shouts, icy and remorseless, while I undress and crawl under my comforter. Sob away and then sod away back north.

I have a hard time falling asleep; I toss and turn and listen now and then to hear if she’s still crying. But I don’t hear a thing. I’m angry and sullen. I thought we were enemies and was starting to look forward to our next fight. But there’s no fun having an enemy that you’ve started to feel for.

In a basement room at Peter’s house his father, Jonathan, is lifting weights. He clenches his short fingers around the bar, puffs out his cheeks, sticks his ass out, and lifts. Sometimes he farts, then Peter and I giggle.

He works out hard on the weights — on the bench press, with free weights, and with hand weights. Then he shows us his biceps and lets us feel them.

“Try this,” he says, and gives us each a hand weight. We can hardly lift them, but we still try, getting red in the face and sweaty, then we burst out laughing and our strength is gone.

“There now, try to do this properly,” he orders, and we try but give up.

“You have to work on your muscles, boys,” he says.

And Peter tries harder again and again, but I don’t bother.

Peter watches his father practice, helps him count the lifts, writes down the weight. Then he gives me a look of admiration.

“Man. He’s got two hundred pounds on the bar!”

Jonathan used to be quite a sportsman and the basement walls are covered in photographs from the time when he was competing in athletics — running or gymnastics or skiing. And even though Peter is not as much of a sports hero as Tom, he’s still no wimp. He is built exactly like his father — broad, strong, and stocky, with auburn hair and short, thick fingers and legs. They’re like father and son should be. They’re very close; they’re companions. And to Peter, all this is very natural and obvious, since he doesn’t know anything else.

“Aren’t you going to lift it?” Jonathan asks.

“It’s too heavy,” I say.

“What kind of talk is that? It will continue to be too heavy if you don’t practice. Go on, take it.”

And I push myself on the hand weights, mostly so I won’t irritate Jonathan and feel ashamed of being a wimp. Maybe he thinks I’ll be coming here on a regular basis to practice, maybe he thinks I’m enjoying myself, here in the Sweat Hole, as he calls this joint, watching him work out and listening to him fart away. Maybe he thinks I’m enjoying watching him being such a great father to Peter.