Apophenia Chapter Ten

 

The Conan brothers are tanning in their front yard. Both of them are wearing Speedos, their faces down, the murky light of the sun bronzing their hides a golden brown like meat on a roaster. Arnold has sunglasses on; his breathing is slow and relaxed, a great beast slumbering in his den. I pick up a rock on the sidewalk and beam him on the ass, and he barely twitches. Dave’s golden mop mixes with the browning grass. The Conans can never keep their lawn alive. They perform too much bullshit on it.

"The one, the only, the Leona Chaney," says Arnold, his voice a rumbling purr. "The queen broad to rule them all. The attitude. The chip on the shoulder. The ass that can’t be ignored. Even Dave looks, and as we are all aware, Dave is damn-near impotent. She’d turn a queer man straight, and then back again. How are things in the world of Leona? Is everything fine and dandy? Right as rain?"

"Things suck," I say, plopping down on the brown grass beside the tanning bodybuilders.

"I’ve heard a rumor that there is a very special poo residing in your toilet," mumbles Dave, still resting face down.

"A religious poo. A poo of knowledge," continues Arnold.

"An idiot scheme by my mother’s boyfriend. He wants a priest to bless it and declare it a miracle. He thinks he can make money, charge people admission to see it." I shake my head and lie down like the Conans.

"To make money off of shit," says Arnold. "That would be an accomplishment."

"Certainly a challenge," responds Dave. "Does it really look like Jesus?"

"If you use your imagination," I admit. "I’m not even religious, and I find the very idea blasphemous. I don’t want to go home. I feel like that house will be swallowed by a sinkhole or struck multiple times by lightning.

"God is dead, and no one cares," says Dave.

"Can it with that Goth shit," say Arnold. "Do you remember when Dave wore eyeliner in high school? He was a mopey motherfucker. Listening to the Cure and Bauhaus. All those records are stacked in the basement along with his stormtrooper boots."

"We all go through stages," I say.

"You can always live with us," says Dave.

"Yeah, this place needs a woman’s touch," says Arnold. "And I don’t mean that in a sexist way. The house smells like the asshole of a truck stop tramp. We need someone who reeks of flowers and perfume to counteract our stench. Someone who might rearrange some messes. Clean some dishes. Make a sandwich or two if needed."

"You’re really selling the place," I say.

"I do my best, twenty percent of the time," responds Arnold.

"Youth is its own aphrodisiac," murmurs Dave.

"Huh?" says Arnold.

"Where’d you get that line?" I ask.

"I read it in a book that I found in a garbage can. Hitler’s Beard or something."

"Stalin’s Mustache?"

"That’s it. It’s full of some trippy poems."

"I told you he was a gloomy bastard," says Arnold. "What are you doing reading poetry?"

"I like it," says Dave.

"Do you like smelling daisies and wearing pink underpants? Do I need to get you some bath salts for your bubble bath?"

"Might be good for the skin," responds Dave.

"One of my professors wrote that," I explain. "One of Gibbons’ better lines. I guess a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while." I pull up some brown grass and throw it to the wind.

"I shot a squirrel the other day. Hit it right between the eyes with a .22. Dave skinned it and we had ourselves a squirrel snack. Not a lot of meat on a squirrel. Stuff is really high in protein, though. Three ounces has about twenty-six grams of protein. I don’t really feel like I’ve eaten until I’ve had at least sixty grams of protein during a meal," says Arnold. "But squirrels are free meat."

"What about rats?" I ask.

"Or dogs?" says Dave. "Lots of cultures eat dogs."

"Barbarous cultures, and usually I’d mean that as a compliment," responds Arnold. "The more barbarous the better. But dogs have too much personality. I’d rather eat a human than a dog."

"Sausage is one of his favorite dishes," says Dave. "Man-meat."

"Look who’s the hillbilly bigot. This is the twenty-first century, motherfucker. I’ll do what I’ll do," responds Arnold.

"Are you gay?" I ask.

"Shit, do I look gay?" says Arnold, flexing his biceps.

"In your Speedo, greased up, sun tanning? Very much so," I say.

"I’m like a one or maybe a two on the Kinsey scale. I’m hypersexual. Anything’s game in the bedroom. If she wants to bring her boyfriend, the more the merrier. Was Alexander the Great gay? The guy conquered most of the known world. I’m not effeminate, if that’s what you mean. I don’t have a lisp, I don’t act like a little princess. I’m an alpha male, and that means I’ll fuck whomever and whatever I want to. I don’t adhere to society’s binary sexual classification system."

"He’s a little queer," says Dave.

"You’re a little queer, with your poems and shit," says Arnold.

"I’m sensitive. I pay attention to the details that you miss," responds Dave.

"Maybe you and your discerning eye should come over and take a look at the poo," I tell him. "Convince them that it’s a fake."

"I’ve never been over to your house before," says Dave, looking at me uncertainly.

"If Dave goes, then I must come," says Arnold. "I would love to see where the queen broad makes her residence."

"It’s a trailer, and it’s nothing special. You guys want to come, fine. Let’s go. I hope you like spaghetti."

"We don’t eat carbs," says Dave.

"We have off days. Maybe today is an off day," says Arnold.

"Well, put some clothes on," I say, getting up. "My mother has enough ammunition for bitching. I don’t need her complaining about my bringing home two naked muscle men."

"Who’d complain?" says Arnold. "Most would be grateful."

"Put a shirt on, you exhibitionists," I say. They vanish into their black hole of a dwelling and emerge just seconds later, each wearing bicycle shorts and sleeveless shirts with gaping arm holes.

"You threw on the first thing you saw, didn’t you?" I ask them. They nod, in sync with each other like automatons. We depart.

…

The Conans look like a circus act inside my mother’s cramped trailer, each of them squeezing their wide shoulders together in an effort to avoid knocking over Mom’s ubiquitous piles of clutter. They look sheepish, embarrassed even, sort of like puppies who don’t know what, exactly, they are doing wrong. Mother, contrary to expectations, fawns over them, oohing and aahing over their physiques, asking about exercise recommendations for weight loss and making them heaping plates of spaghetti without even asking if they are staying for dinner. I watch all of this unfold with silent amusement. Mother doesn’t ask how I know them or why they came over. She doesn’t look at me at all, hardly. The peacefulness of the scene ends suddenly as Diesel announces himself with a roar, rushing into the room, swinging his fists at Dave, his little hands bouncing off the bodybuilder’s quadriceps. Dave puts out a hand and grasps the top of my brother’s head and holds him out of reach. His fists cut through the air harmlessly, though his cursing increases, and spittle flies from his venomous lips.

"Diesel! Behave yourself! These are guests!" says Mom.

"Leona’s stupid boyfriends! We don’t need ‘em! They’re not invited!" he yells.

"Diesel, these are weightlifters. They could crush your little monkey skull with very little effort. Dave, what can you bench press?" I ask.

"Four-o-five," says Dave.

"More like three-ninety," says Arnold.

"That’s over three times your weight, Diesel. Maybe you shouldn’t hit strangers," I tell him.

"I’ll hit who I want!" says Diesel. He’s wearing those damn Captain America underpants that nobody can seem to keep off of him.

"Hey, I got a pair just like that," says Arnold. "I only put them on for the ladies."

"Fuck you," says Diesel before pulling down said briefs and mooning the lot of us. I give him a hard kick right in the naked ass, which sends him sprawling into a tower of boxes. Mother yells; Diesel starts making an ear-splitting noise that’s in between a cry and a scream, while I usher the Conans into the living room. My brother is inconsolable; his anguish and pain reverberate throughout the cramped dwelling, his utterances reaching a crescendo, then breaking up into sobs. The Conans look even more embarrassed, though I’m not, for some reason. I gather them together and point toward the bathroom.

"As predicted, all hell has broken loose. Diesel won’t shut up now, and Mom would be eviscerating me if not for the presence of you two. You want to see the holy poo? There it lies, within the tight confines of that bathroom." I open the door and beckon them inside.

"Yeah, that looks like Jesus," says Arnold.

"It’s uncanny, really," says Dave. "Though there will be doubters."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"How do we know you didn’t sculpt the poo into looking like our lord and savior?" says Dave.

"What do you mean ‘our lord and savior’? You’re not religious," says Arnold. "Religious men don’t masturbate four times a day."

"I consider myself a Deist. I’m simply using a common phrase."

"God, you’re full of shit, Dave," says Arnold. "It should be your face on that poo."

"My face looks like your face," says Dave.

"So you’re saying, gentlemen, that there’s no way to prove that this so-called ‘miracle’ isn’t a fake?" I ask.

"Any miracle requires a certain amount of faith. Though, I’m not sure what this is," says Dave.

"A miraculous bowel movement, that’s for sure. Who’d this thing come out of?" asks Arnold.

"My mother," I respond. The Conans exchange a look. I feel a stabbing pain in my left calf muscle and look down to see a pencil emerging from it. My brother stands a distance away, his features distorted into a bat-like scowl. His chest is smeared with pasta sauce, a streak of red overshadowing his brow like war paint. He flexes his tiny arms, grits his teeth, and then picks up a handful of spaghetti from the plate beside his feet.

"You little bastard," I say, pulling the pencil from my muscle. "I’m going to kill you."

"Don’t even think about it, little dude," says Arnold.

"You’re a penis," says Diesel, before flinging the spaghetti. The noodles land with a sickening smack right on Arnold’s chest, sauce splattering all over Dave and me, red specks dotting the walls. Arnold leaps forward, seizes my brother in his arms, flips him upside down while the nearly naked hooligan screams and thrashes about like a banshee, his little hands grasping and clawing at anything they can reach. He latches on to the carpet for approximately three seconds before Arnold pulls him loose and drags him toward the toilet. I know what he is planning; he’s going to dangle Diesel above the precious feces and threaten (I hope) to plunge his gargoyle head into the foul waters. Mother’s in the room now; she sees Arnold hauling her little boy to the bathroom and starts screaming. I do nothing to stop the chaos. Dave stands and watches, but a look of satisfaction and anticipation crosses his normally stoic visage.

"What the hell’s going on here?" says Dale. We all stop our ruckus and stare at the mulleted man coming through the doorway. He’s wearing a jean jacket, a cigarette smoldering in his mouth, a leathery expression on his gnarled face.

"Little dude needs to be taught a lesson," says Arnold, gesturing at his spaghetti-stained chest.

"Well you ain’t his daddy, and you ain’t doing nothing with that poo in there," says Dale. He pulls back his jacket to display a Bowie knife hooked to his hip. Arnold drops Diesel on his head and takes a step forward, his fists balling up, Dave moving to his side. I don’t want to see one of the Conans gutted, nor do I want to see Dale pulled apart by the surviving brother, so I do my best to diffuse the situation.

"Gentlemen, let’s throw down arms, shall we?" I say, stepping in between the two parties. "No one’s stabbing anybody. The poo is untouched, Diesel unharmed. The little varmint is to blame, to be sure, but he’s just an idiot child. All the teachers say so. Dave and Arnold and I were just about to leave, isn’t that right, boys? We’re going to let bygones be bygones."

"Leona, don’t you go off with those two," says my mother. "You don’t need to be seeing two men. It ain't decent."

"I’m not seeing anybody, Mother, and believe me, the irony of you commenting on my sex life is noted," I respond, incensed. The presence of Dale, my mother's hypocrisy, and Diesel's general shittiness have rendered me irate. "All the sex is drained out of me from work. You know that erotic shop, Les Adultes? I work there. I’m a phone sex call-girl. I satisfy the desires of depressed, perverted men. That’s how I pay my way through college. That’s how I make my daily bread. And there's nothing wrong with that."

"Are you Jasmine?" asks Dale. "I thought I recognized that voice."

"No fucking way," say the Conans, simultaneously.

"Leona Chaney, you can just get the hell out of here," says my mother. "I won’t have that sort of indecency in my house. You come back when you’re clean."

"I’m not a drug addict, Mother. Have fun selling your blasphemous feces. Let’s go," I say, smacking the Conans, kicking clutter out of my way. I stomp out, not a single possession in my arms. From a distance the trailer looks sad to see me go, only two lights on, mournful eyes, haunted and blinking back tears. The boys don't say a thing. The possibility that I have made a mistake doesn't cross my mind.