This choice: Continue reading "The Pet" • Go Back...Chapter #27The Pet, Part 3 by: Seuzz   "Feeling the pressure yet?"
So said Michael Stroud a few seconds after John rounded the corner of the gym and bounced off his chest. His eyes glittered with an enigmatic malice.
"What pressure?" John said. "You mean tomorrow's game?"
"No, I mean from the sidelines." Michael smirked and leaned in on the hapless junior. "When Kathleen leads the cheers, who's she going to be cheering for? A bunch of ball-bouncing pansies? Or you?"
John felt his cheeks redden. "Who--?"
Michael sniggered so hard snot came out his nose. "Your brother's got a big mouth." He grasped John's shirt. "I assume it's her-- here--"
"Hereditary."
Michael's fist flashed past John's ear, and he flinched. "So I assume you got a big mouth too." He dropped a meaty arm around John's shoulders. "Tell me about it."
"We got together and studied," John said carefully. "And we went for a walk."
"Ooh, sounds romantic."
"Not really. My dog got out of the yard and we went to look for him. Turned out he was just hiding in a hole he'd dug next to the foundation. Well, that's where I found him after Kathleen left."
Michael stared stonily down at him. "Is that all?"
"Isn't that enough?"
Michael sighed, and drew John into walking along beside him up the portico. "I s'pose it's okay for a first date. You can't expect Ice Princess Zebra--" He paused, blinked, then resumed. "You can't expect a girl like her to get all unfrozen on the first date. You feel comfortable with her?"
"Yeah."
"You charm her?"
"I think so."
"Think you could be cool and relaxed around her at school?"
John shrugged, but Michael's tightening grip on his shoulder told him that was the wrong answer. "Sure," he said.
"Then try being that way with her. Don't try to impress her, but try being better than you are."
They rounded the corner and came in view of the practice field, where burly guys in shorts and padded shoulders and hard helmets were standing around. Michael regarded them thoughtfully, as did John. When number 34 started to remove his helmet, John stepped forward and turned around, so that he stood between Michael and the field, with his back to it. "She's like a different person at school, though," he said.
Michael gave him a pitying look. "So be a different person at school too. Be like that guy you were at your house." He looked over John's head at the field. "I gotta get to practice. I'm late because of you." With a swift strike he punched John in the stomach; it wasn't a heavy blow, but neither did he pull his punch. John gasped as he hunched, and he felt and then tasted something foul rush up his esophagus. Michael clutched him by his hair and hauled him up. "I'm late because of you," he said in a quiet voice. "So don't fuck things up with Kathleen."
* * * * *
"Dude is whack," Jan said that night when John told him about the conversation. He shook his head.
"He may be whack, but I think he's serious."
"Seriously whack." Jan rubbed his nose with the heel of his hand, then jerked his head. "Maybe he's living vicariously through you. Like, he's pretty sure he can't get her, but if he helps you--"
"Right, I get it," John says. "But after we're together, he'll pound me for getting her when he couldn't."
"So ignore him. Forget what he said."
"Then he'll pound me for being a pussy."
"So ask Kathleen out, then fuck it up."
"He'll pound me for being a fuck up."
"Look, he's going to pound you anyway--" Jan said in an exasperated tone.
"Which is what I just said."
"--so just do what you want to do."
* * * * *
"What the fuck do I look like, Wikipedia with boobs?" Kathleen ignored the titters at the cafeteria table and concentrated her laser-like gaze on John.
But John neither wilted nor blushed. "I wasn't asking for help," he said. "I was asking if you wanted help. We've got that AP History test coming up." She leaned back with an appraising look. "So what do you know about the War of the Austrian Succession?"
"What're you saying, you're Wikipedia with a wiener?"
More laughs, but John only smiled gravely. "I got lots of things Wikipedia hasn't got. Including a sense of humor. 'Wikipedia with a wiener' is pretty funny," he laughed dryly. "So if you're going to study for the test, who would you rather study with?"
Kathleen looked him up and looked him down and stuck a tongue in her cheek. "Tonight. Seven o'clock. City library," she said in a clipped voice. "Be prepared, because I don't give second chances."
"Bring lots of paper," he retorted, "because I give pop quizzes."
A chorus of "oohs" went up as he strode quietly back to the table where Jan waited. The latter grinned and surreptitiously fist-bumped his brother. "I'll take mom to the movies again tonight," he chortled.
"We're meeting at the library."
"I wanna see that movie again anyway."
* * * * *
John was dancing on air when he walked into the house, but froze when he saw Jan slumped on the couch. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. How was Kathleen?"
"Cut the bullshit. You're hurt."
"Go to bed."
"What happened?"
"I said go to bed!" Jan's voice rang with five different timbres.
John stared at him stonily. "My bedtime is yours. Come with me."
Jan grimaced, and stood stiffly. He took a step, then tumbled forward into John's arms. His brother grasped him around shoulders, and when he raised his hand he saw blood in his palm. "Oh God!" He stared at Jan. "I passed police cars at the theater, but I didn't-- You fucking idiot! What were you thinking, robbing a box office!"
"We need the money," Jan murmured.
"I have to get you to a hospital."
"And what'll they do to me?" Jan asked. He stepped back and collapsed against the couch, and the immense red stain he'd left against its back cushions. As he fell, his face changed wildly, all at once--Jan, Mom, Dad, Kathleen, Michael, Daniel, Esther, and more--until a shadow fell across it, obscuring his features. "I'll extrude the bullet during the night," he said in an indistinct voice. "I'll be fine in the morning."
"But what if you're not?" John gasped back a sob. "If you--" He knelt at the other's knee. "Don't be so fucking noble. Think of me, you asshole! Who'll take care of me?" He lifted his eyes to the hallway and the long-since empty bedrooms at its other end. "No mom, no dad ..." His voice trailed off.
"I'll be okay," the other said in a voice that was firm but faint. "Just help me to bed."
John rose and tenderly lifted him; he was astonishingly light, like a thing of rags and straw. "Please don't die," he whispered. "You're all I've got left." He swallowed at a lump the size of a softball.
"I'll be fine. The real hell of it, though, you know, is--" Jan chuckled weakly. "Afterward, how are we gonna pretend we didn't have this talk?"
John's mouth twisted into a smile. "You're good at pretending, remember? I'm not bad at it myself."
"I know. I never could have done it if--"
"Yeah. If I didn't know how to look the other way." He carried the other gently along the hallway.
John stayed by his bed for hours. But by the time he decided he had to call an ambulance, it was too late.
* * * * *
John patted the mound of dirt in the corner of the back yard with the flat of the shovel, then laid it aside. He stepped back. His mother--her wrist enclosed by an immense diamond bracelet--took his hand, and his father put an arm around his shoulder. "I'm so sorry," John said.
"For what, sweetheart?" his mother murmured.
John hiccupped, and fought back tears. "When you got him for me, I promised I'd take care of him. I said I wouldn't let anything happen to him."
"You did everything you could," his father said. He looked around. "We'll have to close up this house. You'll move back home to the Hamptons with us. There's no way we can explain the disappearance of your, ah, 'twin brother'."
"But if I did everything, why did I let him die?" John cried.
"Honey, you gave him what he needed," his mother said. "Someone to take care of. That's all that ... things like him ... need and want. He died doing what he wanted, which was to look after you."
Tears streamed down John's face, and the hiccups came more quickly. "I know. That's what I told him at the end, to get him to pull through. Repeated that lie about ... not having parents."
"Maybe we can get you another one," his father said. He glanced at his watch: he needed to be in Geneva in fourteen hours. "There must be more doppelgangers out there, hiding in plain sight."
"A replacement for a replacement," John said bitterly. "What a joke."
"It's what they are," his father said. "What they do."
But John just looked down at the empty dog collar, and laid it on the grave. "Maybe I'll just get a dog next time," he said. "A real one."
* * * * *
To continue investigating the room: "Disposing of Lucy"    indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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