Otter shrugs, and I don’t think he’s going to answer when he says, “Felt like I needed a change of scenery for a while.” He takes another sip of his beer and doesn’t speak further, and it drives me fucking crazy.
He’d graduated from the University of Oregon in Eugene and had stayed in Seafare for a while. After my mom left, some shit went down, and then Otter was gone too. I have only seen him once in the last three years. I know he works for some kind of photography agency down there where his work is apparently hot shit. The house I’m in right now is full of his pictures, his mom’s equivalent of hanging coloring pages and good test scores on the fridge.
“Uh-huh,” Creed says. “Are you sure it’s not troubles with your boy—”
“Uncle Creed?” The Kid calls out from the living room, interrupting Creed, but not before I see the warning look that Otter shoots him.
Creed smirks and yells back “What’s up, Kid?”
“Did Otter go get my soy ice cream yet?”
Otter laughs. “Is that your way of telling me I need to go get it right now for you?”
“Yes. I was trying not to be rude, but I would like ice cream for when my show comes on.”
“What show is that?” I ask, trying to remember if he’d told me.
“It’s a show about the history of slaughterhouses in the 1920s,” he calls back.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” I mutter. There’s nothing quite like the buzzkill of seeing how hamburger gets made. And nothing quite so boring as the history behind it. I turn to apologize to Creed and Otter, but Creed stops me, as he knows where I’m going.
“Shut up, Bear, and let the Kid do what he wants.” He finishes off his beer and reaches in to grab another one, saying, “Besides, I want to watch it, too, and see how long it takes for me to get drunk enough to see if it gets funny. Why don’t you go with him?” he asks me. “Give Ty some Uncle Creed time and you some time off.”
I can think of at least four hundred reasons why that’s a bad idea and look at Otter who is scouting around for his keys. “Do you want me to go?” I ask. The moment I say the words, I regret them. My mouth tends to move on its own.
He looks surprised but readily agrees. I tell him I’ll be right back, and I go to find the Kid.
I walk through the hall, pausing to look every now and then at the pictures on the walls. There’s one from, like, fifteen years ago of Creed, Otter, and their parents. There are separate ones of
Creed and Otter and other family: grandparents, aunts, uncles. It used to weird me out seeing these pictures. We didn’t have anything like that hanging in our house. My mom said that when I was seven, she took me with her and had our pictures taken “professionally,” I remember her saying proudly. But when I asked her where the pictures were, she said she couldn’t remember.
I get to another picture in the hallway and stop. It’s black and white, taken when me and Creed were fifteen years old. Otter had taken it, showing us jumping on a giant trampoline that they used to have in the backyard. Otter had caught us mid-jump, our longer hair frenzied about our faces, our shirts bunched slightly up around our stomachs, revealing white lines of skin. I look at myself then and realize how different I look now. How different things are now.
I was too skinny all through high school, until finally I got sick of it and started working out. I’m nowhere near as bulked up as Creed is, but it’s a lot better than where I started. My face isn’t tragic and my skin is clear. I don’t have a tan, but then most people that live here don’t. I have brown eyes and black hair that needs to be cut. I have a white scar on my forehead near my right eyebrow where Creed had accidentally hit me with an aluminum bat when I was thirteen years old. That took four stitches, and my mom sat with me in the emergency room, saying I should see if I could get any Vicodin. I did and gave it to her.
I’ve never been one to be concerned with looks or vanity (for the most part). To be honest, I don’t have the time. I don’t have fancy clothes or expensive haircuts and don’t really see the need for it. I’m more worried about keeping a roof over our head and buying Tyson new shoes almost every other week. I don’t know how it’s possible for a nine-year-old to go through so many pairs of damn shoes. So, with all that, I’ve learned it’s significantly easier to be humble when you’re forced to do it. You can consider that a life lesson from me to you. You’re welcome.
I take a deep breath and look back at the picture, a moment caught from what feels like a lifetime ago.
I go out to the living room and see the Kid reclined out on the sofa, head on a pillow, eyes opened wide as he watches yet another show that looks like it belongs in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. “Kid,” I grumble at him, “I don’t know how you don’t have nightmares from this. This creeps me out.”
“Maybe you just feel guilty about what you eat,” he deadpans, never raising his eyes to look at me.
“You little punk,” I growl, leaning down and tickling him right under his ribs where I know he gets it the worst. My mom and I are the same way. He tries not to laugh but is soon howling at me, “Bear, Bear!” trying to wiggle this way and that. I stop, and he looks up at me with such a look that for a moment I am blinded by my love for this kid, my Kid, that it feels like my breath gets knocked out of me. I kiss the top of his head, and he says, “Ah, gross!” but that’s okay.
“You gonna be okay here with Creed for a little bit while Otter and I go get your ice cream?” I ask when I’ve recovered myself a bit.
His eyes steal away from the TV and lock onto mine. “You’re going to come back, though, right?”
I smile reassuringly and ruffle his hair where I kissed him a moment ago. “You got it, Kid. I shouldn’t be gone long at all. It should only take a little bit, but to be on the safe side, give me an hour, okay?” He looks at his watch and notes the time, then nods. I do, too, seeing it’s almost seven. “You have your cell phone with you?” I ask. He nods again and pulls it out of his pocket. “Alright, then. I’ll be back in a little bit, but call me if you need to.” He nods again, already back into his show. I touch his head again and walk back toward the kitchen.
It may or may not be weird to you that he has a cell phone. It seems like a lot of kids his age do these days. It’s not really something I can afford right now, but I make do. I learned early on after Mom left that if he had his own way to reach me, he felt better about being apart from me. He never uses the cell phone to call anyone else, and aside from Creed, Anna, Mrs. Paquinn (our next-door neighbor, more on her later), and occasionally Otter, no one else calls him on that phone. If someone needs to reach him, they do so through me.
I’m about to reenter the kitchen when I hear hushed voices, and I pause, immediately feeling guilty for eavesdropping. But I listen anyway. They’re talking about me, so I figure I’ve got the right to hear what they say.
“What were you thinking, saying something like that to him?” Otter hissed.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Otter?” Creed sounds slightly amused and slightly pissed off all at the same time, which he has a great talent for. “He already knows. I told him a while ago. It’s not a big deal. He doesn’t care.”