TIC-TAC’S FATHER HAD MADE A HABIT OF LIGHTING HIS cigarettes on the stove. He also had a habit of trying to force Tic-Tac’s stutter out with his fists. When Tic-Tac’s parents were around, he kept all his answers to nods and headshakes. The less he spoke, the less embarrassed he felt, and the less he worried about his dad’s violent episodes. Tic-Tac wondered if his father’s anger stemmed from having once had a stutter. Did his father look at him and see a weaker version of himself?
The morning snuck in over the house. The sunlight filtered through the cracks and crust of Tic-Tac’s window. He made his way to his sister’s room and sat on her bed. She had caught the flu a few days earlier and rarely left her bed since. Her face was pale. Twice a day he helped change her sheets, which were soaked through with sweat and vomit. The night before, his mother had pressed her open hand to his sister’s cheek and said “It’s going to be okay.”
His mother had left for work earlier that morning. Sometimes she left before sunrise and didn’t return until long after dark. His father hadn’t been to work in days, which meant he had lost another job. He sat around on the couch or tinkered in the garage on projects he swore he would finish soon. His father mostly moved around metal tools, clanked them together, and changed the oil on the old Camry; it was the most useful skill he had. This morning he had woken up the house, screaming that “that damn stove” was broken again.
Tic-Tac sat on his sister’s bed and pressed his hand to her forehead.
“Nat-Nat—” he held his breath. It helped stop his uncontrollable repetition.
“It’s like the hiccups,” Natalie once said. “Try it for up to ten seconds.”
Sometimes he had to try again when the same stammer continued; he puffed out his cheeks and felt flushed.
“You feel b-b-b-b—” he stopped again.
“It’s okay,” Natalie said. She made a strained but sincere smile. Her eyes were half closed. The doctor said the sickness needed to run its course. Tic-Tac helped to make sure she was hydrated. She looked sullen but not unhappy. Soon she would get out of bed and they would take the one-and-a-half-hour bus ride to the beach, make their way to the sand, and watch the surfers twist around the barrels.
The time he spent with his sister was his favorite. They could sit alongside one another in silence and say as much without words as others did with words. The waves would crash on the beach. People would throw footballs around the sand. Dogs would bark and nip at roller bladers. Seagulls would steal food out of people’s hands. Tic-Tac and Natalie would sit at the center of it all, never wanting to leave.
“You feel b-b-b-b—” he tried again.
“Bet,” she said. “One syllable at a time.” Her voice was groggy and rough. Tic-Tac didn’t know if it was from the sickness or the early morning. He pressed his lips together and paused. “Bet—ter,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I am feeling better. Get going to school.”
“I’ll c-c-c-c-come home after.” He forced the last words out in a rush. People often jumped back from the force at which he spoke. Their reactions embarrassed him as much as the stutter.
She nodded. Tic-Tac didn’t speak at school. His father’s fists he could take; it was harder to take the ridicule of other children. He preferred to keep to himself and act like a ghost rather than pop like a firework when he couldn’t complete a word. Whoever said “Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt me” never met children who threw insults like rocks at a public stoning. Enough kids in Tic-Tac’s class remembered him from second grade, before he knew his stutter wasn’t normal. On slow days when the kids lacked entertainment and social niceties, they remembered Tic-Tac and the day he had stood up in front of the class and attempted to recite a line from the “Gettysburg Address.”
“The brave men, living and d-d-d-d-d . . . ” He had stood in front of a mirror for a week practicing the line over and over again, noting where he stuttered and stammered. He tried his hardest to keep the words from getting stuck on his lips. Natalie had seen him one afternoon, his brow furrowed, his eyes piercing the mirror, watching his throat.
“Why are you staring at your throat?” she asked.
“I thought I—” The words formed in his head, sat on his tongue, and stayed. “I-I-I . . . ”
“You can do it.”
“I-I saw wh . . . ” He couldn’t figure out the disconnect between his mind and his mouth, his vocal cords and his thoughts. “ . . . Where the words g-g-got stuck.” He looked away from Natalie’s reflection. It was a stupid idea, he thought.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He showed her the Gettysburg Address.
“I remember doing that,” she said. “Mr. Tibits?”
He nodded.
“Try bouncing into the lipped letters. The P’s and the B’s. The letters you press your lips together for. It’s a short speech, at least. You need to do the whole thing?”
Tic-Tac shook his head.
“You can do it,” Natalie said.
“Not likely,” their dad said. Tic-Tac hadn’t heard the garage door open. Natalie rolled her eyes.
“Leave him alone,” she said.
“The day that kid recites the Gettysburg Address is the day I get my stock broker’s license.”
“I think one is far more likely,” she said.
“Exactly,” their dad said.
“I’m betting on you,” she told Tic-Tac. “Go light another cigarette!” she said to their dad. She turned away and left Tic-Tac alone with his reflection.
Tic-Tac stopped in front of the class, held his breath for five seconds, and swallowed hard. Kids smelled fear the way bees and dogs did. They pointed and laughed, called him mumbling Matthew. Once a month Tic-Tac would play dodgeball, or tag, or kickball, and a kid who thought himself clever would remind the class, screaming out “Mumbling Mat-Mat-Matthew!” to derail any semblance of normalcy Tic-Tac almost gained.
He survived another day without his voice. He had slunk into the corner of the classroom and disappeared. He drew his sister a card with a teddy bear on it. The teddy bear had an eye patch and held balloons. It had a word bubble above the bear that read, “Eye Can See You’re Better.” He colored it in with colored pencils. His sister didn’t like the waxy build up from crayons. When Tic-Tac came home, his dad was asleep on the couch. The house smelled faintly of rotten eggs, but it wasn’t the first time. A nearby natural gas electricity plant sometimes gave the neighborhood a spoiled smell. Tic-Tac went upstairs to his sister’s room, sat on the edge of her bed, and handed her the card. Her cheeks were rosy. The sun forced its way through the crusted window and shined over the floor and walls in a pyramid of light. Used, crumpled tissues were scattered across her duvet.
“Thank you,” Natalie said. “It looks exactly like Prudence.” She held her teddy bear with both hands. “Except for the patch.”
“It added c-c-character.” Tic-Tac sniffed the air. “It smells like e-e-eggs.”
“For Christ’s sake!” their father screamed. He had woken up hungover from his mid-morning binge. If Tic-Tac went into the garage, he imagined he would find three different types of wrenches, two hammers, four screwdrivers, and an empty bottle of vodka spread over the floor. “Matthew, get down here!”
“Go,” Natalie said. “You know how he gets.”
Tic-Tac found his father in the kitchen with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. “You seen my lighter?” his father asked. “I can never find that thing.”
His father twisted the nobs on the stove and bent over to light his cigarette on the flame, except the stove didn’t light. One of the knobs hadn’t moved at all. He kept his head close to the burner. The smell of gas was stronger in the kitchen. The cigarette dangled in his mouth. The stove clicked.
“This damn knob is stuck again.” His father tapped at the knob but didn’t try to move it. “You do your chores?”
Tic-Tac shook his head.
“You need to say something. You can’t go through life shaking your head at things.”
“No,” Tic-Tac said. He stood in the doorway and saw his reflection in the window over the sink. His father peered at him.
“No, what?”
“No, s-s-s—” he cringed as his father’s hand lashed out to slap him.
“We need to scare that damn thing out of you like the hiccups.” He laughed and coughed. The cigarette bobbed in his mouth but clung to his dry lips. “Take out the trash. It smells like a rotten monkey’s ass in here.”
Tic-Tac grabbed the garbage bag. The stove’s fumes leaked into the air. The scent of gas continued to fill the kitchen. The bag was heavy and wet. Few things smelled worse than wet garbage, except for hot, wet garbage. And possibly rotten eggs.
“Maybe you can find my damn lighter while you’re at it,” his father yelled. “We got any matches around here?” His father searched the drawers. Tic-Tac walked out of the house replacing the smell of gas with the smell of hot grass, wire fences, and the putrid garbage he tried to distance himself from. The asphalt waved in the heat. Beads of sweat formed on Tic-Tac’s forehead. This must be how Natalie feels, he thought. He wanted to catch her sickness, crawl beneath his covers, and hide from his father in the comfort of his sheets, waiting for his mom to come home.
Sometimes his sister would stay home and read books, tucked in the nook of her bedroom. She would read the stories to him. She would go over the lines with him and try to teach him how to say the words without getting caught on them. She was patient and kind. She understood that he tried his best. When he made it through a sentence without a single stammer she praised him. When he couldn’t do it, she encouraged him. He wanted to get upstairs and see what she read today.
Tic-Tac pulled the lid off the trashcan. He heaved the wet bag into the can and closed the lid. He held his nose to avoid the rotten garbage smell. The stagnant neighborhood filled with wind. The scent of gas was absent out here . . .
The silent air turned explosive. The house expanded in a burst of flame. The force heaved Tic-Tac over the trashcans and into the street. Wood shards rained down around him and clattered on the concrete. His head pounded with a million blows. Where was he? Why was the ground so hot? Why was the sky so far away? What happened to his head? He didn’t know his father had left the stove on. He didn’t know his dad lit a match after filling the kitchen with gas. Tic-Tac didn’t know his mother would return to the remnants of their house, surrounded by fire trucks and paramedics, and break down, forever inconsolable.
The earth rang in his ears. Blood filled his mouth. His ribs ached when he breathed. He looked up to where his house had been and found remnants of his childhood scattered in pieces across the yard.