Season to Sleep - Story Excerpt

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Pete is snoring so fucking loud I’m amazed I ever fell asleep. I tighten the moldy blanket around myself on the bare mattress. Water is leaking somewhere by the window, the blinds are bent and cocked. Outside the streetlamp’s orange light gives the room an eerie glow. I turn to the wall. I’d kill for just one of those pillows from the Macy’s. Ray, that colossal asshole, says if I want something I’ve got to earn it myself – including blankets and boots. It’s no use; can’t sleep. Standing up off the floor, blood rushes through my head and things go dark for a second. I stay very still and let it pass.

The linoleum is cold, and spikes like lightning up my legs. The kitchen is small; a bald bulb attracts a moth above the stove. At the round wooden table, my back against the cabinets, I watch soft, orange snow drift outside. Footsteps, and Angie materializes in the kitchen. Her ratty pink and green robe is open, revealing a black thong and tank top. She’s not wearing a bra. Mascara smudged and sparkling across her eyes, like some trailer park sorceress. She might transform into a fire-breathing bird and soar away at any moment.
            Hey Jules, she says. Joining the League of Insomniacs and Serial Killers tonight?
            Guess so.
            Right on. She pours some Cocoa Puffs and wipes off a spoon with her robe. No milk, fuck, she says.
            There’s some beer on the bottom shelf, I offer.
            She considers it, and lets out a laugh. Yeah, why not? You want one?
            Sure.
            Setting down the cans with a hollow tap, blue and brown curls drape over her freckled skin. God, she’s beautiful.
            When do you turn 21? she asks.
            I gulp the brown liquid, almost choking to hold in a cough. Tomorrow, I say.
            She laughs. It comes so easy to her. Liar, she says. You wouldn’t be here if that were true.
            You got me.
            So really, when?
            Four years. Another lie, though not by much. She doesn’t seem to notice.
Heat pours down my throat and sits comfortably in my bones. She is Pete’s older sister, but you’d never know it by looking at them. First off, Pete’s a massive jock with a ruddy face like an alcoholic, and a temper like one too. The only thing me and Pete ever agree on is how much we hate Ray and his fucking car, and his fucking mustache, and his fucking house with its cigar smell that clings to our hair and clothes. The state must be pretty desperate if they’ve got to approve sleezeballs like him.
Angie even crunches her food in a sexy way. Ringlets of color fall along her breasts. I reach out to touch, but my hand only makes it as far as the cereal bowl.
            What happened to your parents? she asks.
            I shrug. Why’s she bringing this up now?
            Come on, Jules, she whispers. Tell me. I want to know.
            I can never resist when she calls me that, and she’s well aware. I never knew my Dad, I say, taking another gulp of beer. I think he’s in Mexico or something.
            What about your Mom?
            I snap the tab off the beer can. I dream about her a lot. Well, not her, her funeral. I dream about her funeral, I say in a lower voice than I mean to.
            She passed?
            Yep, I reply. This isn’t so bad. I drink again.
It comes out of nowhere. A chill; my heart shuddering wildly in my chest. All the blood in my body is trying to get to different places at once. I see cold, blue hands and sightless eyes. A slack mouth with a rivulet of spit. It’s filling my brain. I hold my head, my gut clenching, trying to bury it. Angie is speaking, but I can’t hear her. All I hear is my pulse, pumping in my ears. She’s hugging me, rocking. No, stop. Stop. I don’t hug her back.

Angie waits until the tears dry on my face, and lets me go. Standing up, she bends down and presses her lips to my forehead. So gentle, I close my eyes and breathe in rum and strawberries, only a hint of smoke. Let me love you, Angie, I say. She laughs, but this time it stings. She takes the rest of my beer. I can hear the liquid fizz as it slips down the drain. Don’t grow up too fast, boy, she says. I keep my eyes shut, not wanting to watch as she disappears.

I don’t go back to bed. Shoving on Pete’s boots and coat, I walk out into the snow. Krumph, krumph. Krumph, krumph. Cold January air runs its fingers through my hair and around my neck. I pull out his cigarettes and light one, holding the flame from the wind. Breathe out and up at the sky. The stars look like bowling pins, aligned and teetering. I’ve never been bowling.

 I turn left down the street for no particular reason. Garbage spills out over the bins. Wrapping paper and broken ornaments blow and glisten. One house on the street’s already taken down their decorations, their home is all naked and exposed in the night lights. It’s better that way. They’ve got nothing to hide. This holiday garbage, it’s just a distraction. It isn’t real. I see the comfort in it though – the comfort in something warm and beautiful when the world is so cold and shitty.

I haven’t thought about Mom for a long time. I get those nightmares when I’m unconscious, but in the waking world, she never crosses my mind. Who has time to remember things that don’t even exist anymore? Who’s to say they ever did? Fuck, I haven’t thought about Gabe for a long time. It’s like remembering a movie you saw once, years ago. That’s not your life. Just a plot, rehearsed and rehearsed. Ask me if I have a brother, I could say no, and it wouldn’t feel like a lie. That’s terrible, isn’t it? I’m a terrible brother, a terrible son. He’s been searching –

You know what? No. Time to give up the fantasy. I don’t know where he went; just that he never came back. I wish he had gone to prison, at least then there would be a record of him. Grow up Julian. No one’s coming to the rescue.

All the way down to the filter, I flick the cigarette into the snow. Don’t be a victim. I turn the corner and familiar headlights make spots in my eyes. A billow of toxic smoke rolls out as he puts down his window. It’s Ray. Want a lift home? he says. I imagine his filthy mustache on Angie’s neck and I feel sick. Why doesn’t she move out on her own? She’s old enough. Ray blinks his eyes hard at me, impatiently. Normally I’d say no, but Pete’s coat isn’t as warm as it looks. Parking, he puts out his cigar but misses the ashtray. I leave him cursing at the quarter-size circle burned into his fake leather seats. Tonight wasn’t a total loss.
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