Boy in the blue hammock, p.2
Boy in the Blue Hammock, page 2
Tao stares. The room need not be entered to know the scene. If Woman, Man and Girl couldn’t resist the hounds, then Boy was easy prey. And, truth be told, Tao doesn’t want to observe more loss, though this loss would mean less than the others.
The itch, though. Pressing. Kneading. Issuing a command that must be obeyed.
The dog bows his head, licks the red blotch on his paw. His tail curls under his hips, a question mark without the tittle.
He enters.
* * *
Against the northern wall, a double bunk. The top bed, vacated by Girl five years ago, carries a box of assorted Playmobil figures and a special edition hardback of The Gingerbread Man. Opposite the bunk beds is a small table, its painted-purple surface displaying words neatly written in black Sharpie: apple, seven, mom, yellow, kasper, please. The night light burns as though trying to match the sunshine streaming through the dusty blinds. Piles of Lego dot the floor, the mounds like plastic anthills. On the southern wall, a map of Gilder—village, farms, roads, parks, hospital, schools.
The room is controlled chaos.
Undisturbed.
Tao sniffs a small harmonica on the carpet beneath the bunk bed’s ladder, then sits. He stares at the hammock hanging from a hook on the ceiling. Boy is inside—Tao can tell by the hammock’s teardrop shape. Boy climbed into the hammock on most days, often with Woman or Man standing by. If the moment was happy or calm, Boy would lay down and stretch, hands and feet leaking out the edges. Swing and make noises and laugh. Sing songs: “The Wheels on the Bus,” “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” Boy would stay for hours, until hunger sparked a quest downstairs for a bowl of cereal or a box of rice crackers. If the moment was difficult—a word Woman used from time to time—retreat was favoured over advance. Boy would curl into a ball, turning the knuckles and the knees white. Cry and shout. Scream. Maybe laugh; not the full-throated, joyous hoot of a time not difficult, but a staccato giggle that saw the hands shake under the command of an unkind puppeteer.
Tao leans in and nudges one of the folds in the blue polyester. The hammock turns slowly, clockwise, then counter. Tao puts his nose on the round bulk and pushes. The hammock eases forward, back. The knotted rope creaks as it writhes against the metal hook. There is no other sound, no movement inside the teardrop.
Tao yawns and exits the room.
He never understood why this soft, vulnerable breed occupied a special rank in Family. Boy should’ve been the lowest in the pack and, yet, ate with everyone else, sometimes before the others had begun. The food, made separately from the main meal, was plentiful. Boy never had to wait for permission to take a place on the couch. When the five of them went out together, he walked in step rather than behind.
One time, Tao challenged the error. Sitting on the living room rug together, Boy reached for the tennis ball lying between them. Tao bared his teeth and growled, the message clear: know your place, understand what you are. The result, though, fell short of the desired dominance. Boy paused but didn’t withdraw. Blinked. Tilted the head to one side. Produced frog-like sounds from a slightly open mouth. There was nothing in Boy’s face and body that Tao wished to see: no deference, no apology, no fear.
The fear belonged instead to Woman. She shouted and shook her finger and grabbed the baggy skin on the back of Tao’s neck. She flung open the back door and cast him out into the courtyard. It didn’t matter that it was snowing outside, or that he hadn’t eaten. He remained in exile until the snow turned to rain and the rain gave way to sun. Until he knew his place, understood what he was.
There are no places now. No order. Only a final measure of loyalty. And there is no doubt as to where loyalty ultimately lies. As he limps once more across the threshold of Woman and Man’s room, he is positive the hounds killed Boy first.
Avoiding eye contact with the masters’ motionless bodies, Tao lays down on his bed. He sighs, puts his head between his paws and, before the next gust of wind rattles the warped screen in the window, he is asleep.
* * *
He dreams about a time four and a half years ago when moments of joy and laughter were still plentiful, before bans and lockdowns and war zone streets, before unease settled permanently in the house like a stubborn stray.
At first, the scene is true to memory. They are at the lake. The sun shines down from a forever sky and the water, though cool, is irresistible. The cedars lining the far bank shrug and nod in the gentle spring breeze. Tao, swimming with the fevered, near-frantic paddle innate to his breed, is in a moment of delicate balance. He is euphoric, playing with Family, surrounded by shrieks of delight, raw skin soothed by the lake’s crisp touch. He is also anxious; the water is deep and he is adrift, unsure of where his feet can find solid ground again. As the current picks up, the balance is disturbed. The pack climbs onto a pontoon twenty metres from the water’s entry, first Girl, then Man and Woman. Boy is last, but there is no concern—a vault out of the green wash and onto the feet without a hint of helping hand.
Tao is alone in the water.
In the true memory, he is not forgotten—Woman watches his restless approach, then, at the cusp of the platform, she cradles his haunches to aid a scramble onto dry land. In the dream, there is no such rescue. The harder he swims, the more the pontoon remains out of reach. He yelps and barks, hoping to alert Family to his struggle. They stand backs turned, facing the far bank, oblivious to his plight. His desperate paddling starts to falter. Water enters his mouth, throat, lungs. He sinks, darkness enveloping him. Stars on the surface of the lake flicker, then wink into nothing.
* * *
Tao wakes. Noises. Footfalls. Creaking floorboards. Shifting carpet. The huff of a door opening, the soft bump as it touches the wall. No siren, though. No surprise—Tao knows the presence of the hounds isn’t always announced.
He has no fear. He remains on his bed, head between his paws, unmoved. Where he wants and needs to be. He exhales through his nose and blinks twice. The end has come and he is content, duty done. Even his skin is a tranquil garden.
The expected enemy appears at the entrance to Woman and Man’s bedroom. Tao lifts his head, cocks it to one side. The pack he’d been anticipating—it is elsewhere. The figure at the threshold is alone.
It isn’t a hound.
3
We watched the march cross in front of the car. Fewer protesters than the previous week. The fewest to date. Placards tilted left and right. Some rested on shoulders. Far fewer held high in clenched fists. The police looked on. And others new to the fray, wearing brown uniforms with bold badges, letters in all caps on their backs: Homeland Union Security HQ.
“We’re sitting here doing nothing,” I said.
“We’re raising a family.”
“There are families out there.”
“They don’t have a disabled child.”
“Regardless, we should be fighting.”
“I am fighting.”
“You are?”
“Every day.” Jay turned the car away from the straggly line of resistance. “I’m fighting to…not…think.”
In my side mirror a clutch of the brown uniforms confronted a woman carrying a effigy at the front of the march. “To not think?”
“Yes.”
“Is that wise?”
“It’s essential.”
“So, you just want to pretend everything’s fine with the world?”
Jay looked in the rear-view, confirming the scene in the back seat. The kids asleep, heads leaning toward each other as if magnetic. Like this, you could imagine them as bookends.
“The world can take care of itself,” he said. “Our son can’t. All the thoughts that go along with it…that’s what I’m fighting.” He turned the wheel. Passing St. Mark’s and its most recent sign gone viral—“We Are Better Than This”—he recalled the admission his brother had once made to him: “The times I am clean, I allow myself to think about getting wasted for five minutes a day. The other twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes, I fight to not think about getting wasted.”
“That’s me,” he said. “Five minutes a day. I think about things I’m shit-scared of for our boy. Meltdowns in the middle of the street. Bullies. Getting lost. Ending up homeless, wandering the streets. To name a few. Then I think about the things he doesn’t understand, will never understand. He’ll never be independent. Never have a partner. Never have kids. Mom will die one day. Dad will die one day. Gab will die one day. He’ll die one day. I think about all of it for five minutes. Then I fight.”
Jay wiped his eyes with the knuckle of his index finger. I offered him a tissue from the glove compartment. He waved it away and I dabbed at my own tears.
“I know what those people back there are saying. I know what’s making them take to the streets. The country is going down a bad path, a scary path. For our children’s sake we can’t let it happen. We need to turn it around for them. And those people back there—they will win. Fear has a shelf life.” He pulled into the driveway. Killed the engine then ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Not so for our boy. The world won’t ever turn around for him. The world was scary from the moment he opened his eyes. It was beyond his comprehension the day his words died.”
He got out, opened the passenger door and kissed our still-sleeping son on the forehead. As he lifted the limp body into his arms, he murmured, “My five minutes is up.”
“Kasper.
“Kassssssper.
“Once there live Kasper.
“Once there live Kassssssper.”
Kasper opens his mouth to speak again, pauses, then taps his thigh. In his right hand, he holds the hardback of The Gingerbread Man. Draped across his shoulders is a brown blanket. He wears yellow headphones. He stands on tiptoe.
* * *
Tao stares, unsure if Boy is real or conjured from his dream. He looks toward the bed. If Boy has risen from the dead—it must be so; if this were a dream, the mossy smell of the lake would be apparent—then perhaps the masters will rise too?
He shifts his gaze, from Woman to Man, again to Woman. No change to their stillness. Tao turns back to Boy, whimpering.
* * *
“Made the shape.
“Made the shaaaaape.
“Currans for eyes.
“Cherry for nose.”
Kasper lets the book slide from his hand and onto the floor. Three steps. A half dip, a jump. Soon, he is at his destination: the window with the rattling screen. He places a finger against the mesh and brings his right hand up close to his mouth. The finger lifts and the rattle is gone. He pulls on the left headphone, lets it snap back against his ear.
He shuffles toward the bed, gaze fixed on the framed family photo wedged behind the headboard. He steps over the pillow on the floor and, with a strength belying his thin stature, reefs the frame free. For several seconds, he holds the photo close, the glass almost touching his nose. Then he extends his arms—past the headboard, past the frozen features of his mother—and slips the frame back onto its hook. Standing once more beside the bed, he wipes his dusty hands down the front of his shirt and points at the picture.
“Mommy…Daddy…Kasper…Gabrielle…
“My family…
“Deep breaf…huuuuuh…
“Deep breaf…huuuuuh…”
Through narrow, averted eyes, Kasper scans the scene in the bed. He picks up a pair of glasses from the floor, wipes them on his sleeve and places them on Mom’s face, ensuring the frame is straight and fitted over the ears. He wraps his arms around her discoloured neck.
“No sleeping…No wake…”
After a full minute, he stands up straight. He feels a scream building in his chest, the kind of choking shriek his classmate Patrick Brough would release when he had to use a public washroom. Kasper slaps his sternum five times. Then he wipes his eyes and makes his way to the other side of the bed.
There is a fly on Dad’s arm. Kasper claps his hands then rears back as the fly lifts off and buzzes out into the hallway. He scours the room, making sure there are no other bugs. Then, rocking to and fro on the balls of his feet, he returns his focus to his father. He touches the shaved head, the full beard. Rests his forehead against Dad’s cheek.
The bulging eyes—Kasper doesn’t look at them.
* * *
Tao readies to move, then stops. He watches Boy climb onto the bed and squeeze into the small gap between Woman and Man. He has seen them together in bed like this many times; after the sirens became inescapable, it might’ve been every day. Tao returns to his mat. It is good that he is not alone in honouring the fallen masters.
He is readying to sleep when he senses a shift in Boy. Sideways looking at him. Sitting up, climbing over Woman’s legs, stepping onto the floor. Walking toward him on tiptoes.
* * *
“Poor fing…
“Poor fing…”
Kasper settles beside the left front shoulder of Tao. He sits, crosses his legs, jabs his left hand into the waistband of his jeans. A sound like flapping wings skitters from his pursed mouth. At the window, the curtains shift. Strains of faraway shouting followed by a pop-pop-pop seep into the room. The warped screen judders again. Kasper isn’t bothered this time—his focus is reserved for the family pet that has largely remained a stranger during their five years together. He places his right hand above the dog’s head, palm down, as if bestowing a blessing. Taking care not to touch, he runs his hand down the neck, along the spine, until he arrives at the misshapen back leg.
Kasper frowns. Though he leans forward for a closer inspection of the damage, his hovering hand stays put. A small twitch finds the tip of his pinky finger.
“Oh, noooo…Poor fing…
“Poor fing.”
* * *
Instinct tells Tao to back away. He has seen Boy inflict pain. It is a hunger, not unlike his own appetites to fill his yawning stomach and quell his fiery skin. One taste, one bite…It is never enough.
But Boy never fed on others—only himself. In all their days together, Tao observed only self-harm. A bumped head led to three quick slaps at the site of the blow. A bad meal saw fists gouge deep into a distended belly. A gashed leg instigated fingernail scrapes until Man and Woman held Boy’s wrists and Girl pressed a towel to the bloody wound. At no time has another suffered at the hands of Boy.
The dog knows these incidents are in the past, when life was predictable and understood, and the actions of humans made sense. Now the world is a tornado, and suffering at the hands of others is its eye. Perhaps with Family gone, Boy wishes to share his pain?
Tao watches the palm poised over his damaged leg, then turns his attention to the face. The usual displays—the tics, the twists, the twitches—they’re absent. In their place is a silence the dog has rarely before encountered. And a resolve; in the eyes, in the set of the jaw. He leans in, intending to lick Boy’s arm. He misses, swiping only the acrid air with his tongue.
* * *
Kasper gets to his feet, taps out a quick march on his thigh and, after collecting his blanket, walks toward the door. At the threshold, he bows his head. The Gingerbread Man lies next to his left foot, the pages awkwardly bent under the weight of the splayed cover. He picks up the book, smooths out the creases. As he exits, he speaks in a low voice that comes from deep inside his chest.
“Smiley mouth…
“Free buttons on shirt…
“Into the oven…
“Outoo the garden…”
* * *
After Boy rounds the corner, Tao swallows the meagre strands of saliva in his dry mouth and sits up. His stomach shudders. The crimson sores on his body cry out. His busted leg beats like a snare drum.
The itch has returned, deeper, louder. It speaks now. The voice of Trainer with new commands.
Lead
Lead him
Out
Away
Tao stares at the picture of Family that Boy replaced on the wall. Defiant order amidst the chaos.
Far away
From wrecked doors, ruined toys, lost masters
From the sirens
Beyond the scent of the hounds
Tao considers the bed beneath him. The pattern of black and white, the sharp-toothed zip. Hair shed from his body, now woven into the fabric as if part of the design. He was never comfortable in the bed, could never spend an entire night on its mealy support. He always sought out a better place.
Come
To a better place
The place you knew
The place you know
That thin film of hair over the calico and cotton.
It resembles a discarded skin.
Bring the boy here
Bring him home
Tao rises. He looks toward Woman and Man one last time. Boy’s time in the bed has turned their heads. He sniffs. A faint trace of rot, hanging in the air like a cirriform cloud. Outside, spots of rain fall.
He exits the masters’ bedroom with as much urgency as three legs can muster.
4
I paced in front of him like a caged animal. Tao, laying on the couch, watched my back-and-forth with eyes wide and ears primed.
“There’s no other choice, Jay.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“We need to leave. Before it’s too late.”
“You’re overreacting.”
