Deathskull Bombshell (3 page)

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Nick said.
“Beans are pretty weather-resistant.”

“Okay.”

Nick dug the garlic bread out of a forgotten
grocery bag. “My sister called just now, to let me know she’s
coming to visit. She didn’t ask for permission. I think she expects
the house to be permanent crash space.”

Alex nodded.

“We haven’t spoke in years,” Nick added.

Alex nodded again. He didn’t say
anything.

“Score! Yeah!” Parker yelled from the living
room. “Who’s the greatest? Oh, I think that would be me.”

“Oh, come on,” Austin said. “You
cheated.”

“B.S., man. You can’t cheat at Tekken.”

“Well, if there was a way to cheat at Tekken,
you’d figure it out,” Austin said.

“You’re just mad because you lost.”

“Am not.”

“Yeah, right,” Parker said. “Would you be
whining like a little bitch if you won?”

At that, Austin left the living room and
headed to the kitchen, hands shoved in the pocket of his hoodie.
Except for his scraggly beard, he was almost handsome with his
shaggy mess of brown hair and layered clothing, the hoodie worn
over the beat-up flannel shirt. His posture was slouched, and he
wore Doc Martens on his feet. Since moving in, Austin quickly
proved himself reliable with budgeting and rent money, and he
pitched in on chores when he remembered, but he had a depressing
sort of focus on his ex-girlfriend. It was hard to snap him out of
it.

“Couldn’t take the heat?” Alex chided. His
brown eyes glinted, a laughing sort of quiet.

Austin shook his hair out of his face. “I
want a beer.” He rummaged in the fridge and procured a can of
Budweiser from its place on the fridge-door-shelf. He opened the
tab, letting it hiss slightly before opening it completely, then
dipped his head back to drink.

He belched.

Nick leaned over the kitchen sink, damp hair
stuck to the back of his neck. He stared out the kitchen window,
letting the fall breeze hit his skin. It cooled him off. At some
point he’d have to close the window in preparation for the winter
months, but the scent of autumn bonfires felt more important at
present.

He wondered what Brooke was up to on the East
Coast. Why would she visit now, after so many years? Had she
dropped out of school? Her voice on the phone, so unfamiliar. She
might as well have been a telemarketer.

Alex sat at the kitchen table, poking at an
organic burrito with a plastic fork. He had a crush on one of the
girls who worked at the health food store and was beginning to
develop an interest in veganism.

Nick and Alex sighed at the same time.

“Jeez, why so serious?” Austin said. “You
look like
Firefly
just got cancelled.”

“
Firefly
got cancelled a long time
ago,” Nick said. He stared out into the distance, feeling old.

“Homo.” Austin slurped at his beer.

Nick didn’t respond.

“You are way too quiet, man.”

“You remember my sister?” Nick asked.

Austin scratched at the back of his neck.
“Uh… vaguely. You guys gave me a ride to that concert way back
when, but we never actually talked.”

“Yeah,” Nick said, massaging his temples. His
head hurt all of a sudden. “She just called to announce her
upcoming visit. She’ll be staying with us for like a week.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Austin said. He dug in the
fridge again. “Did you buy any hot dogs?”

“No,” Nick said. “It’s not cool. It’s
extremely uncool. Brooke never keeps her word. Sure, she says
she’ll only stay for a week, but before you know it, she’ll move
right back in. She thinks my house is the Hampton Hotel? Fuck that.
I’m a dishwasher, not a hotel guy.” He raked a hand through his
hair. “I can’t stand this. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” He
opened the fridge, letting the cold air hit his face. He shut the
refrigerator door, then opened it and closed it a few times.
Repetition calmed his nerves.

Parker strutted into the kitchen, looking
smug and adorable in his black Dragon Ash t-shirt and faded thrift
store Levi’s. He looked good in everything. Possibly Nick was
biased on that issue.

Parker pointed a finger at Austin’s chest.
“You, sir,” he said, “are a sore loser.”

Austin slammed his beer back. “Round two,” he
said. “I’ll win it, then you’ll be the loser.”

“I doubt it, but okay.” Parker grinned,
tucking a strand of black hair behind his ear. He grabbed a glass
from the cupboard and a can of Budweiser from the fridge. He poured
the beer into the glass. Nick could tell he was hungry from the way
he stared at the beer foam, trying to form bread from distilled
grain. “Name your stakes.”

Austin thought about it. “Whoever wins takes
Nick’s sister on a date when she comes to visit.”

“What?” Parker said.

“Nooooooo,” Nick whined.

“Is she coming back?” Parker said, and Nick
nodded meekly. “No way! Dude! Holy shit!” Parker grabbed Nick by
the collar of his shirt and pulled him close, their faces almost
touching. “Princess Brooke, my favorite person, returned from the
bowels of hell?”

Favorite person? Nick frowned at him.

“I thought she was in New Jersey,” Alex said,
examining his organic burrito.

Nick narrowed his eyes at Parker, who kissed
him softly on the mouth. Reluctantly, Nick closed his eyes as
Parker let go of the collar of Nick’s shirt, smoothed back his
hair, and kissed his brow and cheek.

“Evidently they didn’t want her in New Jersey
either,” Nick said flatly.

“She’s not that bad,” Parker said.

“She ruined my life,” Nick said.

“She’s still your sister, dude,” Parker said.
“Maybe you should give her a chance.” He took a sip of his beer. It
wasn’t cold enough, and he frowned at it. “You never know, maybe
she’s smarter than she used to be.”

“Not if she’s dumb enough to call right when
I finish work,” Nick said. “She has no sense of respect with
regards to other people’s time. I hate it. She’s so…” He paused,
then made a face, not finding the words.

“Alluring? Intoxicating? Titillating?” Parker
said. He smirked. “Well-breasted?”

Alex cracked up, then covered his mouth.

Nick shuffled through the empty grocery bags.
He needed somewhere to put his excess energy. “Remind me to kill
you after Halloween is over,” he grumbled.

“Postpone my murder until Valentine’s Day,
would you?” Parker said. “I want my last meal to consist of Godiva
chocolates. One of those little heart-shaped boxes.”

“Don’t push it,” Nick said. He felt himself
start to smile anyway. It was hard to stay mad with him. “The way
you’re going, you’re lucky if your last meal consists of stale
popcorn.”

“Oh, good. I like it stale.”

Austin finished his beer. “Enough of you guys
and your gay-ass woman talk. You ready to lose yet?”

“So ready,” Parker said. “And by that, I mean
win. Because you’re gonna lose. And then you’ll be a two-time
double-whammy worst place loser.” He downed the rest of his beer
glass in one gulp.

They walked to the living room.

“Who’s gonna win, you think?” Alex asked.

“No idea,” Nick said. “From the sound of
their trash-talking, they’re way too drunk to play accurately. I
doubt they’ll even remember who’s playing what character.”

Alex grabbed another burrito from the
freezer. It was still thawed-out, and he tapped the buttons on the
microwave. “You remember that one time when we all played James
Bond and I forgot which side of the screen was mine and then I kept
dying because you all shot me to death with lasers and hand
grenades?”

“Yes,” Nick said. “Why?”

“Do you think that’s a metaphor for
life?”

“I suppose it could be,” Nick said. “But if
you think about it, pretty much anything is a metaphor for
life.”

“Except death,” Alex said. He picked at his
teeth with the plastic fork, smiling in a way that looked more like
a grimace. He really was a strange kid.

April 2004

Nick was hanging out in his room when Parker
stopped by. They didn’t even bother to knock with each other
anymore. If for some reason they weren’t home when the other showed
up, usually a family member let them in. A good sign, Parker
thought. Maybe. Hopefully. His heart babbled nonsense, and he
shushed it.

He said hi to Nick’s mom, asked after her
work. She was baking something involving an exorbitant amount of
tofu for a get-together in the Women’s Studies department. “I don’t
know why they invited me,” she grumbled, flushed. “I’m an
Anthropology professor, not a Women’s Studies one.”

“There’s some overlap between the fields,”
Parker said. Like he knew anything.

“I suppose,” Nick’s mom said. “But I’ve got
other things to do. And it’s tofu, for God’s sake. So bland. You
know the kinds of things I ate back in Ghana? Israel? Now I’m stuck
in Wisconsin making tofu scramble for a bunch of stuffy middle-aged
cat people.” She grabbed a few mushrooms, dicing them up, then
rummaged around for some spices.

Parker grinned. “Nick home?”

She pointed up the staircase with one hand,
adding nutritional yeast with the other. The expression on her face
reminded him of women who smile too hard, their polite tranquility
giving way to heavy sadness when nobody was around to notice
it.

Shoving those thoughts aside, Parker headed
upstairs. He heard “Rock Star” by Hole through the door. Nick sang
along in his off-key voice. They could never agree on Courtney
Love. Nick thought she was a creative genius, while Parker
recognized her work as spiteful and malicious. But some things were
more important.

Bracing himself, Parker knocked a few times,
then opened the door to Nick’s bedroom.

Nick’s room looked the same as it always had,
ever since they’d known each other. Spotless floor. Bed made,
hospital corners. Bookshelf arranged according to size and color.
There were no store-bought posters, only framed black-and-white
photographs of Kurt Cobain and Davey Havok and the guys from NOFX
and the Vandals and Sex Pistols. At his therapist’s suggestion, the
walls were painted a dull light blue-grey, like the sky on a stormy
day or a stone you’d find by the beach. Blue calmed the nerves.

“Hi,” Parker announced.

Nick waved at him from the floor. He was
overheated, lying around on the cool tile floor and listening to
music to mellow himself out. The transition from winter to spring
warped his internal temperature, and his lung condition often left
him fatigued and out-of-breath.

Sometimes Parker felt like a doctor, having
to monitor his boyfriend’s health, always taking mental notes in
case something happened.

Parker sat on the floor, cross-legged. Taking
a deep breath, he looked out the window. It was a struggle to find
the right words. Outside, the aimless spring wind blew pink and
white flower petals everywhere, gently tossing them like
confetti.

Nick looked up at him with a tired smile,
dark circles under his hazel eyes. “What’s up?”

Breathe. “You want to go to prom?”

Nick closed his eyes for a moment. “No.”

Parker opened his mouth, then closed it, not
knowing what to say. He felt like a fish, opening and closing his
mouth like that, dumb, stunned into quiet. Giigoonish giigoonish,
he thought. Fish fish.

Courtney Love sang a few choice words in
typical fuck-you format, echoing Parker’s hurt heart in a backwards
sort of depression. He didn’t know what to say right then, his
fishy rejected self. Nobody goes to prom with a fish, anyway. Fish
don’t dance.

“Why would you want to go to prom?” Nick
said. He exhaled, blowing a few wisps of cinnamon-colored hair out
of his face. Heartbreak king, destroyer of romance. “Prom
sucks.”

“You suck,” Parker said.

“Well, that’s mature,” Nick said. He smiled a
little, to show he didn’t mean it.

“I don’t know,” Parker said, answering his
previous question. “I just want to. We don’t do shit like normal
couples do. I feel like we just sit around and listen to music all
the time.”

“Dude, we went out for Valentine’s Day.”

“Yeah, to Taco Loco.”

“So what, then, you want to stuff me in a
tuxedo and slow-dance to trashy John Mayer songs? Why do you care
what they think?” Nick said. He grabbed a Marlboro from his shirt
pocket and stuck it in his mouth, fumbling for his lighter. “Dude.
No thanks. Most of those people hardly talk to us. Even if I wanted
to go and make some, like… statement, I don’t have the money for a
tux.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth. Damn Brooke had
stolen his lighter again. He sighed. “You can go if you want, but
you’ll have to find someone else.”

“But I don’t want to find someone else,”
Parker said. His throat felt funny all of a sudden.

Nick sat up and looked at him, exasperated.
He reached out to put a hand on Parker’s. “Jesus, dude, I didn’t
mean like breaking up. I just meant for the night. If you want to
go to prom with someone else it’s totally fine.” He raked his hair
back with his other hand. “Just don’t fall in love with them or
anything.”

“Don’t worry,” Parker assured him. “Love’s
for faggy straight people.”

Nick cracked up. “Right.”

November 2008

Corey and I sat on the couch. She looked deep
into my eyes, then tucked her sandy blonde hair behind her ear. Her
expression was impish, like she had a secret. “I have a surprise
for you.”

“Okay?” I said. She wore a button-down dress
shirt, baggy cargo pants, and a silk tie. I failed to see what
could be more surprising than my girlfriend in men’s clothing.

She undid her tie and slid it over my eyes.
My heart beat fast. Was this kinky sex? If this was kinky sex, I
was totally down. Or up. Or sideways. Whatever.