Syntax Issue 2 - Fiction

butch

jamey gallagher

We wait in the unemployment line. The guy in front of me has a body-builder's body and a blond crewcut, just like me. We wait for a long time, looking at the back of the head of the person in front of us.

Then, fed up, me and the guy start pounding each other's shoulder blades-- boom! boom!-- over and over, like a toy where you pull a string. I don't know who started it. We butt our heads right against the other guy's shoulder, clasp our hands, raise them up, then jack-hammer them down. Man, it feels good.

We become buddies.

He steals my girl, I steal his girl.

When I fuck her, I picture him fucking the other one, and it's like fucking two girls at the same time.

We have achieved the impossible.

I carry a pocket magnifying glass with me everywhere. One day he falls asleep on the beach and wakes up to a bush fire in his chest hair. Ha, you lousy bastard, I yell. He beats at the fire with a paw like a large rock and just glares.

A few months later I wake up at a friend's house after a party, my toenails painted pink, lips smeared red, eyes this garish sparkling blue. Some joke, I say. He calls me Nancy. I have to hide my boner-- wherever that came from.

Sometimes we bang into each other like we're in a house of mirrors. Sometimes we laugh, other times we push each other away. Sometimes we butt our heads into each other's shoulders and pound away-- boom!, boom!-- breathing like bulls, like Muhammad Ali, the Rumble in the Jungle.

Who is this guy, my mother says. I don't like him, I don't trust him.

Then he brings her a Tupperware container full of chocolate turtles that he made. When we're leaving, she kisses him on the cheek and leaves a smear of brown.

I love this fucking guy, she says.

Was it just the turtles, I wonder.

To substitute for not having any work, we smash things with baseball bats. Old TVs, obsolete computer equipment, junkers that we steal from the street, sometimes driving them back with sparks flying from their rims. We hold our guns against our well-developed shoulders and target practice with the canned peaches my mother gives us. Later we throw them at each other. The mason jars crash and spatter, thick syrup running down our chests, coagulating in our chest hairs.

We buy a big dog and the dog licks the syrup off us. We call the dog Butch and laugh because his head is a perfect cube.

I watch him sleeping sometimes and it's like I don't need to sleep myself. I've taken up origami. I make him a little paper AK-47 and plant it on the pillow next to him.

And, of course, there's the working-out.

We should start our own fucking war, he says, because we missed ours. Too young for the Gulf. He stares out the window wistful at the dying lawn.

Wait a while, I say.

We take Mom out for her birthday to some fancy bar where an old guy sings Frank Sinatra karaoke. The guy wheels around an IV machine and seems about to die. We order sushi and talk about our new dog and Mom's hormone treatment.

Then, at nine, they start the strobe lights and the dance music. It's like another whole place. He asks Mom to dance. Watching them, it's all I can do not to throw up my sushi. I swear to God she sticks her tongue in his ear. His huge hand rests on the small of her back. They are both laughing.

Everything's a fucking tragedy to you, he says.

We're close, in the hallway, and I pound him on the shoulder blades. Bam! Bam! I want him to fall on his knees, but we're too evenly matched. He's the same body type as me. We've been doing the same workout routine. Boom! Boom! I should get him drunk and do this, I think. Then we'd see who went down.

A fucking tragedy, he says again.

I drive his truck, he drives my truck. It doesn't matter. Sometimes we drive together, flipping other drivers the bird, yelling at the faggots, the losers, the morons who don't know enough to stay out of our way. This is our road, motherfucker.

Butch is incontinent and it's always me who's cleaning up after him, holding an old workout shirt to my nose, scrubbing with the special foaming spray. Butch gets the shakes at night and it's always me that holds him until he stops. Leave it to us to buy a dog with a terminal disease.

Poor, beautiful, dying Butch.

I get into the shower and start lathering before I realize that he's in there already. He narrows his eyes and smiles. He looks at me and I look at him. He is so blond, so cut. I only hope I look as good.

He steps out of the shower, leaves me alone.

Hey, I say. He smiles when I smile. He raises the same eyebrow I do. Then I realize that that's not him, that's my reflection in the mirror.

Back from the unemployment office, I find Mom in a black evening dress that's not like anything she'd usually wear, lying on the kitchen floor with Butch, who's panting raspily. He smells bad. Like death.

Mom's crying.

Your dog's dying, she says. And I'm so fucking old. Her hair is mussed and her face is lobster red. Upstairs I hear the shower going. He’s singing something. It takes a second to place it. Frank Sinatra. "I've Got You Under My Skin."

I just stand there. Maybe the smell is not death, I realize.

He makes me a nice Caesar salad, watches me eat it.

Good, I say.

He shrugs and looks away. What's happening here?

I wake him up by punching him in the face. He just looks at me. Then he punches me in the face. I take a jar of peaches and pour the syrup on his chest. He lets me rub it in. Then he knees me in the crotch and I knee him back.

I start bumping into walls, windows, mirrors. I'm like one of those birds that fly into the picture window. Dazed. I sit up with Butch, but I'm not sure anymore who's shivering and who's comforting.

I remember the good times, like fucking his girl and pounding him on the back, shooting jars, smashing an old TV, riding around in his or my truck.

You don't have to call me Dad if you don't want, he says.

He wrestles me onto my back. His breath smells like a strawberry daiquiri. I wrestle him onto his back. We punch each other's faces. He's wearing a tux, for god's sake. Talk about tragedy.

Butch gets worse and worse, but I still don't believe he's going to die. I start bumping into Butch, because he's gone to Cancun with Mom.

I have three job interviews scheduled for Monday. I decide to shave my entire body. Afterwards, I look at myself in the mirror, and don't see him anymore. I look smooth and natural.