Scatter
His Bones
Someone is sobbing. Orr stands up in his closet before he’s even awake. He ducks when his scalp connects with one of the brass hooks near the door. Too late. It throbs. He’s walking before he sees the blood from his head on his hand. The sounds are getting worse, deep and ugly. Is this how it feels for people to hear him melt down?
There’s a light in the kitchen. It bounces off the freshly waxed avocado linoleum and turns the whole room green. Even Jane looks green kneeling there on the floor.
Orr knows he should hide before he knows why. He crouches in the dark hall to see Jane better. She doesn’t see him. She’s looking at Red.
Jane reaches for Red’s belt buckle. He smacks her hand away. “Get off, bitch.” His voice is incinerating. Orr looks for the imprint of Jane’s charred skeleton in the air. Dragon man. Evil Wyrm.
Orr stands and walks in. “Get of here,” he says.
“What the hell?”
“Leave!” Orr yells.
Red says something but all Orr hears is Jane. She’s back to life, furious. Furious. With . . . with him?
“Orr,” she says, standing. “Get out. Now.”
Red smirks. His face is pale as a pancaked clown’s, his red-dyed mohawk an ugly joke.
“Get out, Orr,” Red mimics in a high, silly voice.
Orr hates that. Hates mimicking so much. When he and Iph were kids, it was the one thing she could do that made him lose his cool. That and her icy feet.
“Get out now!” Red says again. His stupid cartoon voice is nothing like Jane’s.
Orr steps between Red and Jane. “You called her a name. You made her cry. You need to go.”
Red moves closer. So close, Orr can smell him. He smells like sex, Orr thinks. How does he know this? There’s a movie Mom loves, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The wife smells another woman on her cheating husband’s face, in his hair. That’s what this fight is about.
“You lied to her,” Orr says. “You’re a cheater.”
Red pushes. Orr stands his ground.
Red lunges. Orr’s fist shoots out. Red is on him. A fist to his face. Spit in his eyes. Orr’s hands balled up, hitting back. Not stopping.
Hands clawing, pulling at his back. Orr shrugs the weight off his shoulders, a heavy cape of fur. His forehead throbs in twin points of pain. He bucks, turns, pushes. Jane! It’s Jane. She flies across the kitchen, lands at Mika’s feet.
“Get out.” Jane is crying. She’s not talking to Red, who is doubled over by the refrigerator. She’s talking to Orr. She’s rubbing her head, cradling her arm.
She is hurt.
Orr has hurt her.
“Leave, Orr. And don’t come back.”