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Something creepy is happening to Richard. He’s a black hole. “Want me to open the curtains?” I ask.
“No.”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure,” he says.
“So what’s the problem? Why do you have to get out of here?” I ask.
“She’s not in rehab,” Richard says.
“So?”
“She escaped rehab, and now she’s back here trying to move in.”
“Or,” I say, “the biggest liar maniac you know called you and acted like a big maniac liar.”
He shakes his head in frustration / rifles can only shoot if someone’s in charge.
I say, “You’re smarter than this.”
He looks up at me / holes for eyes. “You really don’t know anything about this family, do you? At your age, you really don’t, I guess.”
The age card / Fear and Anger.
“What happened with Giselle Masterson and you when she was thirteen?”
“What?” he says.
“I said, what happened with Giselle Ma—”
“I heard what you said. Who told you that? Mama? She told you, didn’t she?”
“I thought everyone knew,” I say.
“You don’t know anything,” he says. He gets up. Walks right for me / turns left and scurries west into the passage. I hear him crying / skipping rope / yelling in Portuguese a few minutes later. I probably should have handled that better.
GARBAGE DISPOSAL
I see Richard leave in the car a pretend–half hour later. Mama and Daddy are a crashing surf of yelling and crying and stomping. I’m still hungry so I grab a bowl from the cabinet / pour in some corn flakes and milk.
Richard’s book is on the table. Lolita. I pick it up and shove it in the garbage disposal / don’t turn on the garbage disposal / leave the job to whoever gets to the sink next. Finish eating / put Richard’s book back on the table. I rinse my bowl and leave it in the sink / am speaking the language of Mild Disrespect.
As I navigate the skinny passageway on the way to my room, I don’t expect a collision at the intersection with the main hallway.
“Out of my way,” Mama says.
Daddy is behind her, weighed down by his toolbelt. He stops to hammer in a single clip to keep some wires from drooping.
x equals I wish more than anything to stop time.
I know what’s about to happen / psychic or experienced / you choose. I’m frozen with something I can’t describe / truth / white as yogurt. There is no white petal on Plutchik’s flower, same as there isn’t a black petal for Richard. Black is the mixture of everything. White is the absence of everything / I can’t move my legs. The longer Mama stares at me, the less I can speak / move / survive / to understand anything is to understand energy.
Daddy catches up. He says, “Concordia, I love you. Why can you not just come home?”
“Don’t call me,” Mama answers, pushes me gently back toward the kitchen, and then instant as current, she’s out the door.
I look at Daddy, who is now shuffling through the conduit backward, claw hammer out. The noise of his work is infuriating. My insides are worms / snakes / on fire.
PLUTCHIK’S TAKE-OUT MENU
Anger. You will eat Anger until you become a plutonium bomb. You will seethe / your heart will beat out of your chest / your table settings will rearrange themselves / you will not go home / you will eat subpar pizza / you will walk nighttime sidewalks in circles / you will not pull nails / you will give up / this explanation will do.
SUNDAY VISITOR
The car is in the driveway / ours, not Mama’s. No one is awake. Dawn is just poking through the dark sky. As I climb into the me-shaped hole, I wonder if Daddy made any progress on the passage to the attic. He needs to change the air-conditioning filter before it gets hot, but he forgot how to get there from here / too many layers of safety.
I sleep / dream / am woken up by my phone chiming from wherever I left it.
From Carrie. Can I come over? / we still don’t take any visitors.
I debate not writing back at all, but I remember yesterday. And Mama. And Richard.
Text me when you get here. DO NOT ring the doorbell.
Carrie texts five minutes later / arrives on the front porch as I’m navigating the passage between #7, my room, and #1, the foyer. In our house, you pronounce that properly. Even if we did take visitors, Daddy wouldn’t let you past it if you called it a FOY-er.
I open the door and tell her to follow me. Once I climb into the plywood and head back toward box #7, she whispers, “Holy shit.”
I whisper back, “This is the normal part.”
We get to my room and she looks around / looks back at me. “What the fuck is this?”
Before I can answer and tell her everything I’ve wanted to tell her since fifth grade, the intercom squeaks and Daddy says lunch is ready. His Sunday lunches are more like weekday dinners. It’s how they eat where he’s from. Big lunches, small dinners.
I answer back, “Carrie is here. Can she come, too?”
It takes Daddy two full Trojan-claps to answer. “Yes, of course. She is most welcome!”
BRATWURST TACOS
Everyone should know that bratwurst tacos are a bad idea. Even Daddy. The two words shouldn’t fall anywhere near each other in a cookbook.
“These are surprisingly good,” Richard says. He’s sitting in his usual seat. I’m sitting in my usual seat. Carrie is sitting in one of the spare chairs. He won’t look at either of us.
“Thank you, son.”
“Delicious!” Carrie says. She’s on her second taco / not lying.
I nod, a blob of sour cream dropping from my taco.
“Homemade tortilla,” Daddy says. “Make anything taste good.”
Carrie finishes her second taco and sits, watching us. Carrie was never taught to eat slowly and mindfully. Most people weren’t. I am glad for Daddy and the stability he’s given us in the parts of life that no one ever talks about. I guess Mama did that too / I should give her credit but I don’t / she’s not here / this explanation will do.
“What’s that?” Carrie asks. She points to the nest of boxes around the switch outside the kitchen doorway.
Richard, Daddy, and I freeze.
“It looks like you’re building one of those mazes for mice,” she says. “But human-sized.”
Daddy’s face twists. Not angry, but embarrassed.
“That’s a switch that needed to be covered up,” I say. “And the rest is my dad’s project. He’s an artist.”
Daddy looks satisfied.
“I didn’t know that about you, Mr. Becker,” she says. “How cool.”
“Yes, cool,” Daddy says.
Richard pushes his chair from the table suddenly / says, “I have to study.” He leaves his plate unrinsed in the sink and skulks into the southwest passage.
Daddy gets up and starts to do dishes and when Carrie and I go to help, he says, “Go! Go! Visitors do not have chores!” like he’s some kind of grandmother. He adds, “Truda, I need supplies and will go to hardware store after. Will your friend be staying for the day?”
Carrie and I didn’t work out a specific plan, so I just say yes and figure I can change my answer later. When we get back to my room:
“You live in a really weird house,” Carrie says.
“With really weird people,” I say.
“I don’t even know what to say. I came over because I was pissed about my parents fighting all weekend, but this is—it’s—I don’t know.”
“Shocking?” I ask.
“Different.”
I watch Daddy leave the front door and get into the car from my window. I grab my crowbar. “I have about a half hour of chores I have to do. Can you chill for a bit?”
“Sure?” she says, then looks at the crowbar. “Why are you holding that?”
“I have to pull nails,” I say. “It’s part of Daddy’s art. I take out the nails he puts in when he’s not here. He says it’s a representation of life in America.” I put on my best Daddy voice. “I am common laborer / crowbar represents oppressive capitalist government and culture.”
She laughs. I take off to box #4, Daddy’s bedroom. I hook the crowbar under nail heads, pull them, put them in my sweatshirt pocket, then wind my way back through the living room #2 / and the foyer #1, pulling as many as I can.
The whole time I burp bratwurst tacos. I know Daddy is burping, too, over at the hardware store. He feels shame, I bet. It’s our main emotion. Shame isn’t on Plutchik’s Clock by name, but it’s / I’m / wedged somewhere between Sadness and Disgust.
* * *
—
When I get to my room, Carrie says, “I don’t know what’s going on around here, but I don’t like it.” She’s serious, too. “Are you okay? The vibes are weird. The whole thing is weird and Richard was a silent creep at lunch and I’m worried about you.”
I start to cry / not used to mothering.
She hands me tissues. I say I’m just tired / we bond over parental arguing / Don’t call me. But then she won’t let it go.
“So our parents are a mess. Okay. So what’s this all about? It’s not art.”
I want to argue with her about art / remember that Carrie has known me since fifth grade when she moved here.
“Does my sister still call you?” I ask.
“I finally blocked her a few months ago.”
“Why?”
“She sent me a bunch of dick pics. She’s not right, you know?”
“I know,” I say.
“Is this about Richard?” she asks. “You know—the—thing?”
“It’s so much bigger,” I say through sobs. “So much bigger.”
I tell her what I know. Which isn’t much.
WHAT CARRIE DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT HER FRIEND
In this house there are four switches.
Energy flows to them
/
they are the energy.
They have names, not numbers.
Daddy is the switch.
Mama is the switch.
Richard is the switch.
I am the switch.
on / off.
on / off.
Someone else runs the energy
even though we no longer
pay the bill.
She asks me why. I tell her there is never a why. Not to the punches / slaps / not to the kicks under the kitchen table. Not to the setups or insults or lies or rumors. That poor bird / our poor family. She has stabbed us all with a screwdriver / watches us squirm / none of us have mouths anymore.
She asks me why again.
“Probably jealousy,” I say through snot. “That’s what Mama always said, anyway.”
Dear Truda, Your legs are too skinny and I hate you for being born.
ERIS
The crying has stopped. The stories of betrayals / tricks. I assert my ability to see it for what it is / AFT3RMATH. “But Richard is still getting phone calls, and my mom, too.”
“Why don’t they block her?”
“Richard says he can’t because she might need him in an emergency.”
“Sounds sketch,” she says, “but maybe Richard’s sketch all around.”
“Do you know how the Trojan War started?” I ask her.
“Not really, no,” she answers. “You’d think they’d teach us that considering the whole Trojan thing.”
“There’s a goddess of strife and chaos. Eris. She started the Trojan War by getting three other goddesses to fight over who was the prettiest.”
“That’s dumb.”
“It’s mythology,” I say.
“Your point?”
“The Roman goddess of peace is Concordia. That’s my mom. In Greek, that’s Harmonia.”
“And Eris is?”
“Discordia is the opposite goddess in Roman, and Eris is her equivalent in Greek.”
“And she starts wars.”
“She starts everything. All strife. All discord.”
“Damn. That’s deep.”
“Before my mom moved out, my sister tried to frame my dad in some love affair story she made up. None of it worked. Daddy doesn’t do that kind of stuff. But she even got a bra and showed it to Mama and said she found it in Daddy’s car.”
Carrie shifts suddenly. Sits up. “When was this?”
“Last spring, I think.”
“Red bra with orange lace around it?”
“I didn’t see it.”
“It was my bra,” Carrie says. “She gave me ten bucks for it.”
“Eris,” I say.
“Damn,” Carrie says.
When she leaves for home, she gives me the nicest hug / almost nice enough to trust that she’s really my friend / she blocked my sister from her phone / didn’t sell her a bra on purpose.
THIRD SHIFT
Sunday night while everyone is sleeping, I remove more nails than I ever have before. I can’t stop. My crowbar has incentive. Collapse the house / collapse the family / collapse the idea that everything is fine because look around / everything is not fine.
I wish I could stop time and take all these nails out right now / make the house seem normal by morning. I keep wishing to stop time—since a long time ago / to rest.
x equals Freeze! Nobody move!
x equals Wouldn’t that be cool?
I’m in my track uniform. I don’t know why I put it on / was looking for strength / am trying to get used to it. I’m under the foyer, standing on a pile of boxes in the basement to get at the nails. Something is different / I don’t usually glow / it’s not the glowing.
Everything is silent. Not quiet. Silent. The nails make themselves known by groaning out of their holds / cry for help. I can’t hear the fan in the heating ducts. I can’t hear the timer for the water heater ticking. I consider that I might even be dreaming.
Pull nails / pull nails / pull nails. I push myself because I’ve never been this tired from just pulling nails. It feels like I’ve been doing this forever. I’ve sweat through my uniform and my hair. The bag I strapped around my shoulder is heavy with steel.
I must be getting better at this / that’s all.
I go upstairs for a glass of water.
It takes four paper towels to wipe off my face and neck—I’m that soaked. I smell like the ocean / not on a good day. I stand at the sink and look out the window at the streetlights and gulp. Something is in the front lawn.
Richard.
He’s just standing there.
x equals me tapping on the kitchen window to get his attention.
x equals Richard doesn’t move.
It’s raining. Richard hates getting wet.
I go out the front door and something is wrong.
The rain isn’t falling as much as it’s there / stuck midair / there is no wind.
“Richard?” I’m six feet from him. He’s got the car keys in his right hand, aimed toward the driver’s side door.
I walk right up to him. He’s frozen in time. The trees are frozen. The rain is frozen. The scene is silent. Not a drop of anything here.
I have stopped time / am walking around in time / to understand anything is to understand energy.
I touch his arm. It’s chilly. I wonder how long he’s been here / a mannequin. I reach around to his back pocket for his phone. I put in his passcode / it opens to N3WCLOCK.
N3WCLOCK says it’s 2:03 a.m. This is impossible. I started at pretend–one in the morning and have been pulling nails for at least three hours. I’ve already emptied my nail bag twice / too many to count.
The snakes inside my body return. I worry about Richard. I shake him a bit, try to wake him up or push him out of whatever it is that’s happening. I look to the sky and to the ground and I marvel the lack of energy when everything has stopped / check my hands / still glowing.
I feel responsible / the game I’m playing with Daddy and his nails now has consequences. I go back inside, get my crowbar and pull a few in the kitchen. Nothing changes. I stop in front of the sink again and close my eyes and breathe and tell time to start again.
Nothing changes.
I beg it / nothing changes.
I broke the world, I think. Richard will be forever frozen in our front yard like a middle-of-the-night lawn jockey. Forever feels so real when it’s happening inside my head.
I see one of Daddy’s hammers on the living room side table. I pick it up and find a nail.
For a minute, I think of how great it would be to live in this quiet world. No one would bother me / I would be lonely / wouldn’t matter if Mama never came home / kept her word. I look back at Richard frozen, standing in the grass / the nail in my hand.
Hammer it in / rain hits the roof / wind whooshes.
I go back outside.
“Where are you going?” I ask Richard.
He looks at the keys in his hand / back at me.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“I’m not standing here. I’m sneaking out. Don’t tell Dad.”
He gets into the car and backs out the driveway in neutral, lights off, then heads up the street toward town.
By the time I get back to box #7 / put my crowbar away / lock my door, the house is making its normal noises again / breathing.
I go to bed and dream of nothing / dream of the javelin / arrow stuck in time.
Potluck
THE PLAN
Len has edited his documentary. He said it took him all weekend. I’m glad someone was thinking about the plan while I was busy playing my part at home / the plywood carnival.
