Did You Ever Have A Family

Silas

It is winter and there are no cicadas, but he hears them. He crouches next to the boxes of Ball jars, his back to the stone shed, and he hears the night frogs. They sound wild, tropical. It is cold but he can remember the warm air, the too-bright moon. He is where he was. And everyone is as they were, everything is still intact. He can see and hear it all. The words, the porch door, Luke’s white shirt glowing across the field, June following behind.

The ticking hasn’t stopped. He wonders again if there is anyone else in the house. Is it possible Lolly is alone? How can she not hear it? How can anyone sleep through something so fucking loud? He pictures her topless, wearing only panties, sleeping above the covers. He imagines her skin — perfect, glowing — not like the girls from town who seem less protected from the elements. WAKE THE FUCK UP! he thinks and almost shouts. The ticking continues and there is no sound of movement in the house. He scans the field and tree line for signs of Luke and June, but there are none. Someone has to turn off the stove, and he knows there is no one but him. It will just take a second, he tells himself. He’ll be in and out before Luke and June are back and without anyone in the house knowing. Just a twist of the knob and it will be okay. He won’t get caught. If he left now, who knows what could happen. He’s heard stories of houses filling with gas and with the flip of a light switch blowing a mile high. But aren’t these just stories parents tell their kids to scare them into being careful? Shit, he mutters under his breath, and starts to move slowly along the side of the house. He inches quietly to the porch door, opens it as carefully as he can, and steps through. He crosses the porch and takes two cautious steps up the slate stairs into the house. He stands at the foot of the dark stairway that leads to the second floor. He dares himself to look along the railing, up. There is no sound there, no movement. No one has heard him. The ticking is louder than the sound of his feet on the wide-plank wood floors, and he times each step to coincide with the beat of the stove’s threat. He steps up to the old white devil and looks down into the burner and sees the little hammer tap without sparking each time it ticks. No markings are on the stove or the dial to tell him which is off and which is on. No words are on the stove anywhere. He tries the knob closest to the burner and without thinking turns it to the left. It ticks once, and right away a small explosion of flames billows before him with a whoosh. It is nothing more than a flash, and just as quickly as it explodes, the flames recede to a few inches. The ticking stops. He turns it back to the right and the flame goes out. He stands there, rattled by the burst but relieved the ticking has stopped. And then it starts again. What the fuck he whispers, scanning the burner, the knob. He turns it to the left again and the ticking stops and this time there is no flame. Maybe it was just because so much gas had built up before. Maybe that’s why when he turned it off there was a flame. It just needed to burn through. He’s suddenly confused and he wishes he’d never got out of bed that morning, never worked for Luke that day, never smoked pot on the Moon and lost track of time, never left his fucking knapsack behind in the shed. He looks at the stove for answers and there are none. The ticking has stopped but it doesn’t make sense that the stove is off. He thinks he smells gas but isn’t sure. If there is gas, it must be lingering from before. Or is it? He didn’t smell it when he came in. He’s sweating now, his hands are slick. He closes his eyes, thinks. It has stopped ticking so it must be off. He tries to think through all the movements — left, right, left. Or was it right, left, right? Didn’t the flame go on when he turned it to the left? How could that be off if he had to turn it back to where it was? Or did he? He blinks his eyes a few times, roughs his hair, and tries to focus again on what just happened. He hears a floorboard upstairs and knows he has to get out of the house. It’s stopped ticking, he reasons one last time, so it’s off. Before he leaves, he looks around the kitchen. It is bright, and as old as the stove is, the other appliances are new, sleek. Thick slabs of white marble are on the counters, and below the window is a deep double sink with a high, curving faucet. The cabinets are painted pale yellow, the walls white. He takes one last look at the stove, sniffs for gas again, and this time is sure he smells it, but just a trace. On the counter he sees a pair of cat-eyed sunglasses he saw Lolly wearing when she was talking to what must have been her fiancé’s family in the lawn that afternoon. He moves toward them, but before he reaches the counter, he hears a door open upstairs and then footsteps. All at once he is moving, across the kitchen, down into the screened porch, toward the door. He knocks against a wicker chair and it skids a few feet across the slate. As quickly as he can, he gently lifts it back into position, symmetrical with the couch and opposite another chair. As he lowers the chair to the floor, he notices the tossed white and blue cushions, a soft beige blanket folded over the low arm of the sofa, scattered candles, extinguished now, their wax melted down, wicks black. He knows he should hurry but something holds him there. The just-used space, the lingering smell of citronella and perfume, the dimpled cushions where people had only minutes before been sitting. He remembers Luke’s mom and June Reid there earlier, laughing. A toilet flushes upstairs and he steps back, turns away, and leaves through the porch door, which he accidentally lets bang behind him. He lunges for his knapsack, which he’d left next to the shed, sprints across the front lawn, up the dark driveway, and onto the road. He fetches his bike from the weeds, curls the knapsack over his shoulder, and tightens the straps to his chest. He swings one leg over the bike and grips the handlebars. His hands are shaking. I’m going, he mutters, confirming and challenging what is happening, what should probably not be happening. He toes the left pedal and imagines the first blessed hit. The tires begin to roll on the asphalt beneath him. He feels the bong shift in the knapsack behind him. I’m going, he says again, this time convinced.

He pedals furiously until he’s passed the church and turned left onto an old, unused logging road. He can practically taste the smoke in his mouth as he jumps off the bike, unzips his knapsack, and lunges for the bong. His arms are still shaking. What the fuck just happened? he mumbles to himself, remembering the smell of gas. What did I do?

He thinks, briefly, of going back, calling upstairs into the sleeping house to wake Lolly or anyone who will listen. He considers this as he packs his bowl with thick pinches of pot and fishes in the front pocket of his knapsack for a lighter. He settles down in the grass next to his bike and crosses his legs, Indian style. He runs through the consequences — the police, his parents, Luke. He pulls the bong toward his lap, leans forward, and as he slowly fills his lungs, his mind empties. He holds off exhaling for as long as he can, and when he does, pot smoke curls around his head and dances above him like ghost flames. He closes his eyes and pulls his knees toward his chest. The preceding hours, minute by agonizing minute, become less urgent, gradually vanish. He smokes another hit. His body calms, he exhales, and the world is, again, simple: the humming cicadas, the spark of a lighter, and the sound of one boy breathing.