Fragile Beasts (35 page)

We take out the Arizona Diamondbacks sweatshirts and ball caps and hold them gingerly in our hands like they might be contaminated with a flesh-eating disease.

If we were countries, this would be considered an overt act of war.

“She really hates me,” Klint says under his breath.

He puts the offending items back in their box and pushes it as far away from him as possible.

I dig around in my box to see if there’s anything else. All I find is a store-bought card signed, Love, Krystal.

“Is there a problem?” Miss Jack asks, peering at the contents of my box. “You wear sweatshirts and baseball caps all the time. I thought you liked baseball.”

“We do like baseball,” I explain, “but not this team.”

“And that makes a difference?”

Klint continues shaking his head in dejection and disbelief. The tips of his ears have turned red.

“Yeah,” I say. “A big difference.”

“Here, Miss Jack,” I say to her and hand her a box.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a present from me.”

“This is entirely unnecessary,” she says, sounding flustered, but she can’t hide the pleasure in her eyes.

She takes the wrapping paper off very carefully like she might save it and use it again, then pulls out the piece of pink, green, and yellow watercolored silk from the tissue paper.

She holds up the material and rubs it between her fingers.

“Kyle, I’m deeply touched. This is beautiful,”

“I know you like scarves.”

She puts it over her head and laughs like a little girl playing dress up. For a brief moment, I see the woman she might have been if she had been able to
spend her life with Manuel and maybe have children of her own. She’s not an unhappy woman or a cold one. She’s incomplete.

She takes off the scarf, folds it, and puts it back in the box.

“I promise I’ll wear it very soon. And now, it’s your turn.”

Her eyes dart toward the biggest package. It’s flat and rectangular.

I pull it toward me and tear off the wrapping paper. It’s a wooden case with a gold clasp and leather handle. Inside it is a collection of paints, pencils, charcoals, and every size of brush.

“This is great,” I gush. “I’ve never had a kit like this. I usually steal my art supplies from school.”

Miss Jack smiles broadly and seems even more excited than I am.

“I’m glad you like it. I know you’re going to get a lot of use out of it. And now, Klint. That one is for you.”

Klint’s been off in his own world since opening Mom’s gift. He hasn’t been paying any attention to us, which is okay by me because I already know exactly what he thinks about scarves and art supplies.

Miss Jack points at a present that’s obviously book shaped, but I’m not sure if Klint realizes this since he spends so little time around them.

I’m thinking it might be a classic novel like
Moby-Dick
or maybe
Table Manners for Dummies
, but it turns out to be
Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero
.

Klint looks like he might cry when he opens it and sees Roberto’s face on the cover, but I can’t tell if it’s because he’s touched or because he knows he’s going to have to read.

“Thanks,” he tells her, sounding a little confused but also respectful.

He realizes she’s managed to find a way to get him to undertake a task entirely against his will by giving him something he can’t resist.

There’s one small box left beneath the tree along with our gifts for each other, and we know they’re computer video games because we picked them out and bought them together.

Klint reaches for it and hands it to Miss Jack.

“From me,” he tells her.

“Thank you, Klint.”

She opens the box and takes out a blown-glass horse the same bright pink color as El Soltero’s socks.

I recognize it immediately.

“It was my mom’s,” Klint states flatly, his tone making it sound like Mom’s been dead for years.

“Well, Klint. I don’t know what to say,” Miss Jack replies. “Shouldn’t it still belong to your mother?”

“No. Kyle and I bought it for her when we were little. Remember, Kyle?”

I’m instantly stabbed by the unwelcome memory of the love I felt for Mom at the moment I spied the fragile treasure glimmering among tons of junk in the dusty front window of the Goodwill store in Centresburg, and how I understood in a flash of childish instinct that the only thing I wanted to do in my life was please her.

I nod.

“When she came back to get the rest of her stuff, she left it behind,” Klint explains to Miss Jack.

“It was a mistake to give it to her. I know that now,” he goes on, his words having a harsh, hollow sound to them. “But it’s not my fault I didn’t know it then. She was my mom. I trusted her.”

He finishes his strange declaration.

Miss Jack looks to me for some kind of guidance as to how she should respond, but I can’t offer her any. I’m not sure what he was talking about, but I don’t think it had anything to do with a little glass horse.

“I didn’t want to throw it away,” he adds. “You like pretty things. I thought you might appreciate it.”

She holds it up in front of her face and turns it from side to side to catch the light coming from the Christmas tree and admires the delicacy in the details of the mare’s flowing mane and tail, the slenderness of her prancing legs, and the sparkle of her tiny fake gemstone blue eyes.

“I certainly do appreciate it,” Miss Jack says solemnly and places it on an end table next to her chair where we all stare at it.

The richness of the room and its contents should overwhelm the little knickknack and make it look as cheap and common as it is, but it has its own stunning value.

S
TARR WAS SUPPOSED
to eat dinner with us but she called and said she couldn’t make it and would be over later.

We had a traditional Christmas turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Luis wasn’t able to prepare a meal like this ahead of time, so Miss Jack had it catered because she insisted no one else on her staff—including the versatile Hen—can cook.

Later I find Miss Jack warming herself by the fire and then drifting off to stand in front of a painting in the room that I didn’t notice earlier. I walk over and find another portrait of the same man, same suit, same cold penetrating black stare I’ve been forced to share my nights with.

“Is this your brother?” I ask her.

“Yes.”

It’s official, I tell myself: Satan’s Banker is the Ruthless Bastard.

“What was he like?”

She purses her lips and taps them with the end of one of her index fingers while she considers the question.

“He was very ambitious. Very focused.”

I nod. Ambitious, focused: the polite way of saying ruthless.

“Very self-assured,” she goes on. “Very assertive.”

I nod again. The polite way of saying bastard.

“Did he die instantly?”

“What a strange question,” she exclaims, looking at me curiously.

She drops her hand away from her face and studies her brother again.

“I suppose he did. He had a massive heart attack while relaxing at home one night.”

“Luis said El Soltero died instantly.”

“Yes,” she agrees haltingly. “That’s what the newspapers said.”

“The cop said my dad died instantly. I’m not so sure about it.”

“Is it important to you?”

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t like to think of him being scared and alone.”

“I’m afraid there’s no way to avoid being alone when we die. We’re even alone when we’re alive. We can surround ourselves with other people, with noise, with glory and possessions, but it doesn’t change the fact that ultimately we must face everything by ourselves.”

She continues staring at the portrait, and I’m sure she’s talking to it and not me.

The tinkle of bells suddenly comes from somewhere outside the room. The sound gets louder, and Baby appears running at full speed wearing red
booties, a red sweater, and a red elf hat, all of it adorned with white fur and jingle bells.

“Oh, good God,” Miss Jack exclaims.

The dog runs past both of us and leaps onto the same chair where Miss Jack sat earlier.

All the color drains from her face.

Before she can do anything, Starr strolls into the room. She’s dressed entirely in black. Her jeans are leather, her boots are sky high, and her sweater is scattered with tiny glittery stones that give the impression of stars against a night sky.

She’s definitely not chasing after Baby. She moves slowly but without seeming lethargic or lazy; she just seems like someone genetically incapable of hurrying.

“Merry Christmas, Aunt Candace.”

“Get this animal out of here.”

“I promised Mom I wouldn’t leave him alone on Christmas Day.”

We all look at the shivering Baby, who fixes us with eyes bulging from his small head like black marbles.

“He can’t be in this house,” Miss Jack insists.

“Oh, come on. It’s just for a few hours.

“Hello, Kyle,” Starr says on her way past me to grab up Baby.

A brief surge of excitement rips through me as I realize she remembered my name. I try to think of anything I can say that might interest her.

I wish she’d seen me a month ago when I still had my black eye and the gash on my forehead. Starr’s exactly the kind of girl who could appreciate the merits of a man who can take a punch or two in the face.

I didn’t receive as much notoriety from the fight at the dairy as I would’ve liked. I thought maybe I’d get a little credit for trying to fight back, and I also thought the black eye made me look tough. But the Hoppers and North didn’t waste any time telling everyone that I was a fag who was carrying around an art book and a bunch of dirty pictures of naked kids. By the time they got through talking about me, everyone thought I deserved to be beat up. Klint came out as the hero, as usual, because he defended me.

I expected further trouble. I kept waiting to be ambushed in the halls or dragged off behind the parking lot after school, but the Hoppers left me alone. This hasn’t been much comfort for me, though. I’m still in a constant state of
uneasiness. I’ve come to think of them the same way I think of the gigantic meteors that are supposedly circling the earth and will eventually destroy the planet: I know they’re out there but by the time I realize they’re coming at me it will be too late.

“Hey,” is my brilliant response.

She doesn’t smile at me, but there’s amusement in her eyes.

“Where’s Slugger?”

“He’s around.”

“Here.”

She hands me Baby.

“You saved him. You can watch him.”

She takes Miss Jack’s arm.

“I’m going to visit with Aunt Candace.”

Miss Jack casts a terrible look at the dog, then a pleading one at me.

I join Klint in his room, and we play one of our new computer games while keeping Baby occupied. About an hour passes before Starr shows up and tells us Miss Jack wants us to join her for her traditional Christmas viewing of
It’s a Wonderful Life
.

Klint tells her she’s got to be kidding.

“No, I’m afraid not. We do it every year. But if you want, we can send your little brother to keep her company and you and I can have a beer.”

Klint tears his eyes away from the screen.

“There’s no beer here.”

“I brought some. It’s out in my car. What do you say, Slugger?”

“No way,” I whine. “Don’t make me watch a sappy Christmas movie with her by myself.”

Starr ignores me and walks over and expertly exits the game for Klint.

“Come on,” she urges.

He gets up and follows her.

I do the right thing and watch the movie with Miss Jack. I don’t know where Starr and Klint went to or what they’re doing until about halfway through the movie we hear the front door open and slam shut. Then Starr appears a few minutes later in her coat holding the trembling dog.

“I’m leaving now,” is all she says.

She gives her aunt a kiss and tells me to hang in there.

After the movie is over I look everywhere for Klint but can’t find him in
the house. I begin to wonder if the slamming door was the sound of him leaving, but where would he be going and why?

I throw on my coat and go outside and take a seat on the top porch step. The night sky is hidden behind a blanket of winter clouds as white as the snow-covered ground. The world is without definition, without light or darkness, without sound, without shadows; a cold muffled place void of all color and life but somehow it’s not uninviting. Sitting here I can almost believe I’ve stumbled through a tear in the fabric of reality and ended up in a parallel universe where everything begins as a blank and stays that way.

A flicker of movement breaks the pale stillness. I’m not fast enough to see what caused it, but I don’t have to be because the cat shoots out from under a bush and dashes up the steps toward me.

I hardly see Mr. B in winter. He’s been spending his nights in the barn since it turned cold, and during the day he leaves little evidence of his presence except for an occasional set of paw prints in the snow.

He stops and stares at me, trying to figure out if I’m an animal he can trust. His eyes are black and unforgiving against the white night; ruthless bastard eyes, the chipmunks would call them.

He comes closer, recognizes me, and begins to purr. I scoop him up and slip him inside my coat. The warmth of his body and the vibrations from his purring are starting to make me sleepy and I’m about to go back inside when I see Klint walking up the driveway with his head bowed and his hands deep in his pockets.

He doesn’t say anything—he won’t even look at me—when I ask him where he’s been.

I release Mr. B and go inside, too. Klint is nowhere to be seen.

On my way up to my room, I stop by the Nativity scene for a final reminder of the real reason for this holiday. All of the figurines gaze adoringly at the swaddled baby in the manger except for one shepherd holding a lamb in his arms looking toward the stars. His face is twisted with something that’s probably supposed to be ecstasy but looks like terror to me.