Ray was a god. He knew everything. When the boy grew up he wanted to be a big brother like Ray.
It was a sunny day but there were thunder rumbles, and he thought that was weird but Ray said, that’s Oregon for ya, and the boy felt like a smarter person knowing this wise thing. That was Oregon for ya!
They spent the morning out in the woods tracking deer and elk and hanging out by the millpond, and when they got back Ray showed him how to make grilled cheese sandwiches. Their parents were gone for the day—again—or maybe a couple days, the boy didn’t know and didn’t really care, the longer the better as far as he was concerned, things were better anyway when it was just him and Ray.
Just Ray and him.
When they were down by the millpond Ray showed him that place where the stream twisted around a bend and you could lie on your stomach and watch the water, the minnows and goldfish, the water-skeeters and mayflies.
And tadpoles. Billions of them, wriggling and swarming in the water.
Those’re also called pollywogs, Ray told him as they sat in the kitchen and ate their grilled cheese. In ancient Egypt hieroglyphics, they used one tadpole to stand for the number a hundred thousand, Ray said. In some parts of the world, people ate them for food.
The boy thought they looked scary.
All big heads and no arms or legs.
They gave him the creeps.
Ray took a fat slice of Duncan Hines Devil’s Food chocolate cake out of the fridge for his little brother and set it on the card table in the kitchen to let it warm a little. He said it would taste even better when it wasn’t totally cold.
While they waited for the cake to warm, Ray said, hey, you wanna see something really cool?
The closet was locked, but Ray knew where the key was.
They had guns in there. A bunch of them. Ray took one out and held it in his hand. This is the coolest one, he said, it’s an H&K, they’re the best there is. Ray held it out to Finn. Check it out! The boy wasn’t so sure he wanted to touch it. It looked cool, all right, but it also looked big and cold. It’s not loaded, goofball, Ray said, just feel the weight of it in your hand.
He took it, felt the weight of it in his hand. It was really cool.
His brother beamed at him.
His big brother.
His world.
BOOM!
The boy wasn’t aware of squeezing anything or pulling anything. He wasn’t even sure exactly which little piece of metal was the trigger.
It was like it just exploded in his hand.
They were watching TV one day, him and Ray, and they saw a big hotel in Portland that was condemned and they were televising the demolition, the TV guy explaining how they wired the whole thing with explosives, and all they had to do was press a little button and BOOM, a whole bunch of explosions would go off at the same time and the building would just collapse—and then right as they were watching it happened, just the way the man said, this big humungous hotel just melted down into itself, collapsing like a puppet when you cut all its strings.
That’s what Ray did now.
Ray just stared at him, and then collapsed like a puppet, his knees slammed into the floor, and then his body crashed down too—
a big THUD!—
then a second, smaller thud—
and then a million billion trillion pollywogs came surging up into the boy’s throat and burst out through the top of his head—