Split

Chapter 2-2

I was in my office today, at that dreadful bank I loathed, and decided to indulge myself in another dose of the past. I sat at my desk, eating lunch—a boring cheese sandwich and a glass of tomato juice—and read a few more pages of my childhood.

Dear Bump…

I saw Jesse Chao in church yesterday. He said he’s been practicing every day for the last month. I haven’t played chess since June. Dad said, “You gonna let some little c***k boy take first place again?”

Dad suffers from that thing I learned about this week. It’s called racism. Besides, Jesse isn’t Chinese. He’s from Australia. His mom sang opera in Sidney, and his father is a cowboy who used to be an astronaut, until the war broke out in the West, and he and Jesse’s mom had to go undercover to fight against the rebel snakes that had taken over a place called Pennsylvania.

Dad says, “That’s a bunch of bullshit, son. You just got the kind of face people enjoy lying to, Derek.”

After the special church service in your honor, all of us were invited over to the Lunds for lunch. I tried to fake an asthma attack, but Mom got too upset, so I had to stop. There was no use in trying to die.

I was going to have to eat around Nick Lund.

In the Lunds’ apartment, I carefully hugged the hallway wall, tiptoed down the stairs, and slithered into Boone’s bedroom.

I found him sitting on his bed. “O’Reilly, check this out.” Boone’s face glowed like a red party lantern.

I walked up to his bed and sat on the edge. “What?”

“Smell this.” He held something up to my face. It was white and crumpled like an old Kleenex.

“Are yo—ou cra—azy? I’m not g—gonna smell some old used up t—tissue.” My stuttering has become a problem in the last year, but Boone doesn’t seem to notice.

His eyes darted up and the sun poked yellow dots into them. “Red, trust me. You need to smell this. Remember the fancy Italian chocolates Mrs. Bastone used to give us at Easter, the ones with the plastic cup at the bottom?”

I remember those. They were sweet and tangy all at once.

“This is how these panties smell.”

At the sound of that word, my nose met my mouth, like my face had folded over itself. “Ew! Boone, who’s p—panties are—”

His bedroom door flew open. And my eyes popped out of my head.

It was Nick.

Boone and I jumped to our feet. Boone was quicker than I thought, because he’d managed to stick the underwear in his back pocket before Nick had passed the threshold, but from where I was standing, I could it see it plainly sticking out.

Nick c****d his head a little. “What you got there, Bunny boy?”

My heart beat hard against my ribs. Could Nick hear it?

Nick took a step in Boone’s direction, and Boone stiffened at my side. “We were talking about Hulk Hogan,” he blurted out in a small voice.

Nick frowned a little, his eyes shining like two pieces of blue glass. “Hogan’s a fake.” For a second, he looked Boone up and down, and then turned around.

I tried to swallow all the spit that had gathered inside my mouth. Thankfully, we were going to live until lunch.

But just when Boone’s shoulders had dropped an inch from relief, Nick lunged at him. We both shrunk back in shock.

Nick yanked the evidence out of Boone’s pocket. “What the hell is this, you little c*m stain?” When Nick unfolded the underwear, his eyes widened. “Oh man,” he said, smirking, “you’re so f****d. Mom’s gonna flip. Stealing underwear. That’s a federal offense.”

Everyone knew about Mrs. Lund’s temper. “Nico, please don’t tell her,” Boone begged.

Nick gave a little snort. “I don’t know…”

Boone pleaded harder. “I’m already in trouble for the Playboy, and for the—”

“Where d’you get these anyway?”

Boone seemed surprised. He squinted and mumbled, “Well, in, uh, your bedroom, Nico. Under your bed.”

Nick’s pale eyebrows curled above his nose as he stared at the panties for a few more seconds, twisting them between his long fingers. He scoffed. “Well, s**t. Guess she was right.” The hardness settled back into his face. “Bunny boy, I catch you taking stuff from my room again, I’ll make you wear these, and only these. Then we’ll take a nice little stroll around the block, got it?”

“Yeah.” Boone nodded. “Got it.”

“And one more thing, you should never touch a girl’s panties, even if she isn’t wearing them. Unless she lets you. Don’t be a perv, Boone. Lunds aren’t pervs.”

From the moment Nick had stormed in, my knees had been locked. I don’t think I took a whole new breath either, but he hadn’t even looked at me once. Like I wasn’t there in the room with them.

Like I was watching TV.

“O’Reilly.” Just like that, Nick spoke to me, but didn’t make eye contact. “Sorry ‘bout your brother,” he said softly. Then finally, he looked into my eyes. Only for a second. “Really sucks.”

A river rushed through my ears. Was someone blow drying my face? I opened my mouth but couldn’t move my lips, so I nodded my head up and down instead, letting a sound stream out of my mouth, something half between a grunt and a moan.

Without another word, Nick left the room.

My knees were like roasted marshmallows. The skin around them couldn’t hold the middle. I plopped down on the bed, staring at the empty doorway.

God, he was so beautiful!

Boone sighed. “Hey, my dad taped last week’s wrestling match. You wanna watch it?”

* * * *

Bump,

Mr. Lund and I are going to play chess together every Saturday morning.

He has a wonderful board, and all the pieces are handcrafted, made out of pink and black marble. They’re heavy, too. I think he’s happy about it. He says he hasn’t played in a long time.

I went to the dentist this morning. I was supposed to go with Mom, but she wasn’t dressed. Aunt Frannie came instead. We rode the bus together and she let me use her Walkman. Aunt Frannie works for a lawyer, and her office is on the 21st floor of a building I can see from my window. I don’t remember the name of it, though. Something Marie.

On the way back, we shared a peanut butter cup. Those are my favorites.

“Your mom’s gonna feel better soon. She’s got the blues, that’s all.”

The blues.

I’m not sure what that is. It probably has something to do with blood. I read that blood is actually blue. It only becomes red when it’s out in the open. That’s my nickname. Red. A lot of people call me that. Because of my hair.

A lot of people call Nick Blue. I don’t know why, though. Maybe it’s because of his eyes. They’re so blue, they make the sky look green.

Aunt Frannie says she might move in with us. Just for a while.

When I came home, I took my finger paints out of my closet. It was still pretty good, so I mixed the red and blue together.

The colors turned into purple. I made a purple heart and wrote Nick’s name inside.

Then I gagged. I cut the heart all up with our kitchen scissors and flushed the pieces down the toilet.

* * * *

Bump,

School starts in two weeks. I already packed my school bag. It sits by the door, waiting.

This summer is really long. All the days seem to be wearing the same clothes. It’s hard to tell them apart. Aunt Frannie says grownups feel that way all the time. “Sometimes I have to check the calendar to remember what year it is.”

I think grownups don’t know what year it is because they don’t celebrate their birthdays.

Mom’s blues haven’t healed yet.

Aunt Frannie says, “It’s like when you empty the tub, Red. It takes a while to fill it back up.”

I wish I could fill Mom up.

The only days I enjoy are Saturdays. That’s when I get to play chess with Mr. Lund. Johan. He asked me to call him Johan. It’s pronounced Yo Ann. We play on the back porch. Mrs. Lund, Helga, serves tea and ham sandwiches. The ham isn’t the kind Mom buys. It doesn’t have any purple spots on it and doesn’t sweat. Their bread is almost black and kind of hard, but I like it. Sometimes Helga makes a fruit salad and tops that with whipped cream.

Dad doesn’t like me eating their food. “We got plenty of food in the fridge. It ain’t good enough for you, now?”

We don’t have plenty of food in the fridge. Since the day you didn’t come home, all we eat is Spam and tuna. Sometimes Dad buys bananas. I had cheddar popcorn for supper last night.

Aunt Frannie lived with us for three days, but she left. She called me later that week. “Have you read Treasure Island?”

I hadn’t.

She seemed to hold her breath and then whispered, “Red, I’ll bring it over next time I come. Be a good boy. Keep dreaming.”

She hasn’t come yet.