Calamity

anywhere.

Someone was knocking at the front door. Brendan didn’t move from his spot on the floor in front of the TV, legs crossed, composition book resting on his calves. Dad wouldn’t ask him to get the door; it could be a stranger, after all. Dad was protective that way, which was nice. Brendan needed to choose a method. It had to be done today. If he waited another week, Tyler’s problem might be even worse, perhaps deadly.

Dad hurried through the family room saying, “Breakfast is ready—get it while the bacon fat is still hot and tasty” and answered the front door. On the TV, Bobo and Booboo had put down their rifles for large knives, which they used to dice up carrots while they interrogated the now captured thief.

Brendan added to his list: 46—stab person

Should have thought of that a while ago.

He closed the composition book and went into the kitchen. On the front porch, Dad was talking to people he didn’t know, probably salesmen. Depending on Dad’s mood, the conversation could last a few minutes. Waves of heat bloomed from the pile of scrambled eggs, which were spotted brown from the bacon fat, just the way Brendan liked them. His stomach grumbled. His little white pill, what he called, “Pillie Billy,” waited for him on top of an upside down paper cup. That was Dad’s way to remind Brendan to not only take Pillie Billy but to take it with several large gulps of orange juice. Brendan grabbed the pill and swallowed it with only his saliva. He’d drink the orange juice later, in front of Dad.

The Romans would have called Pillie Billy “a talisman.”

He slowly removed a large carving knife from the block holding several of them. He held it up before his face and smiled at his distorted reflection in the blade. Mom and Dad had used this same blade hundreds, maybe thousands, of times to cut up vegetables or slice meat, especially on Thanksgiving, but it had never seemed so large before. The blade could stab right through someone’s face from under the jaw all the way through the top of the head. This image bothered him but he couldn’t shake it. A stab like that would be fatal, no doubt, but would someone die instantly from such an injury or would they bleed for a while? Blood was messy and could be used to catch him, at least according to CSI.

Brendan touched the point of the blade with his thumb. The dimple of his thumb print indented with the fine point of the knife but the blade did not break skin. Even so, the tip was very, very sharp. It would only take a bit more pressure for the skin to break and the blood to flow. Just a bit more pressure …

“Ow.” His thumb added the extra ounce of pressure and the tip of the blade pierced flesh. He hadn’t realized what his thumb was up to; he had been drifting with his thoughts. Pillie Billy hadn’t started working yet.

Delaney was laughing at the front door. He hadn’t heard her get up. Had she walked past him? Had she seen him with the knife? She might tell Dad and he’d be concerned and Brendan would have to concoct some lie (maybe one of his short stories) because Dad wouldn’t understand the pact Brendan had made with the gods or why it was so important to make The Saturday Sacrifice. Maybe one day he could know but not yet. As long as Dad kept making breakfast, he was doing his part to honor the day. The really horrible stuff was left for Brendan to do.

He returned the knife to its slot among the other knives. He wrapped a napkin around his thumb and tucked it beneath his other fingers. When Dad and Delaney came in, Brendan was sitting at the table with a cup full of orange juice, eating his breakfast. They smiled at him and he smiled back—a perfect Saturday ritual.

4

He had not slept well. Sasha had wanted it. She hadn’t fought him. She could have stopped him, if she had really tried. He told that to Paul last night after he got home, hiding inside his closet and talking soft so his folks or his sister wouldn’t overhear him. Brendan was twelve, so even if he did hear he wouldn’t have the faintest idea what was going on. Tyler had almost driven over to Paul’s house but such a late visit would set off alarms (FIRE! FIRE!) to the parents and things would topple from there. Dad had been asleep on the couch while some infomercial blabbered on about the latest gadget designed to make life easier. Eventually, Dad would wake, see that Tyler’s car was in the driveway, and then make his way to the bedroom. Not that Mom cared; she had probably been well in the tank before nightfall. She took several pills a day and those pills were no joke. He had stolen two a while back and he and Paul had watched a Jersey Shore marathon for eight hours in a dreamy daze and then fallen into a fourteen hour stretch of sleep. One pill had nearly killed twenty-four hours.

“I fucked up real bad with that weird bitch,” he told Paul last night. “I mean, she wanted it, you know, but after … she kept saying, ‘no, no, no.’ I could be really fucked.”

“Oh, shit,” Paul almost screamed. “You boned her? You fucked that weird snaggletooth slut?”

Tyler waited for the laughter and cheers to die before repeating the last part of the scene where Miss Snaggletooth curled into a ball and sobbed that she had begged him to stop. The bitch had even used the word rape. I told you to stop, she said. I said no, no, no, no, and you … you kept going. You raped me. Her tears had been endless.

“Oh, shit,” Paul said, much quieter this time. It was a tone of complete shock and you’re-totally- fucking-screwed-now despair.

“What should I do?”

Paul was silent.

“I mean, she’s going to tell, right? She’s probably telling her mother right now. She’ll call the cops and … aw, fuck.” Tears gathered in his eyes.

“She won’t call the cops, that weirdo bitch is as crazy as her snaggletooth daughter. She does spells and shit. Like a witch. She’ll probably curse you so your balls rot off or something.”

“Be serious.”

“I am. You’ve seen her at those gay Fright Fest things. She really believes that shit. She isn’t putting on a costume and having fun. She’s, like, worshiping her gods or whatever. Seriously, watch your balls. Wash them carefully in the shower, just in case.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m only trying to cheer you up, Jesus.”

“What if she calls the cops?”

Paul grunted. “Tell her what you told me. She didn’t resist. She let you take her pants off. You fucking fingered her, for God’s sake. She didn’t say stop when you pulled your pants off, right?”

“Right,” Tyler said, but he wasn’t sure when Sash started saying no. He hadn’t heard her until it was over.

“I mean, you’re not some rapist or something. But …”

“What?”

“It’s a ‘He Said/She Said’ thing, you know? And they always side with the bitches. It’s fucked up.”

He wanted to vomit, have diarrhea, and pass out all at once. How could he have been so stupid? He only wanted to suck her breasts and maybe get a hand job. Why had he gone so damn nuts all of a sudden? He had raped her, he could admit that to himself at least, but he hadn’t meant it. Did intention even matter in cases like this? Were the bitches always right?

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

“Take a couple of your mom’s pills and forget about it. At least until morning.”

“I take a couple of those pills I won’t be awake for school on Monday.”

“Even better. She’ll probably spread the story around first period and everyone will know by lunch.”

He hadn’t thought of that. Sasha wasn’t the prettiest girl in school and was even a little odd, but a story of rape, especially involving such a nondescript kid like Tyler, would earn her every girl’s ear. Hell, she’d probably be Miss Popular for the day. Then he’d be in Guidance and then The Office and then the School Resource Officer would get involved. And then he’d be really fucked.

“Don’t worry,” Paul said without enthusiasm. “People won’t listen to her. In fact, she’ll probably keep her snaggletooth mouth shut. If, that is, she knows what’s good for her.”

“What does that mean?”

“You have friends.”

“Like tough guys? You gonna bully some girl into lying about being raped?”

“Jesus, man, don’t say she was raped. She wasn’t. Get that through your head now. You did nothing wrong. Bitch was eager, you said she was wet, and she wanted it, but after she had second