Free Naked, on the Edge by Elizabeth Massie

special edition Cap'n Crunch left over from Christmas, stirred up some instant milk to wet it, and took it to his mother. She was awake, and clawing at the arm of her wheelchair.
    Elliott put the cereal on the nightstand. "Where you going, Mom?"
    "Got a cramp, got to get up and get it out."
    "Want help?"
    "Course I do. I can't do without you."
    Elliott watched for a moment. In his mind he saw his mother falling onto her face and breaking her nose. He saw the blood bleeding down into the cracks of the old linoleum where her food scraps and her cats' pee and her own existence seemed to be drawn.
    "I know," he said. He helped his mother into the chair. "I got you breakfast."
    "Mixed it up with that shitty milk I bet."
    Elliott watched as his mother struck a match on the side of the wheelchair and touched it to the tip of the cigarette in her mouth. "Well, yeah."
    "I don't like it."
    "I'll give it to the cats."
    Elliott's mother grunted and drove the heels of her hands against the wheels. The chair shuttered then rumbled out of the bedroom.
    Elliott followed her. She went into the living room and, after tugging weakly at the curtains until Elliott pushed them back himself, settled before the window and looked out at the yard and the cracked walkway and the untrimmed brush and the county road.
    In the kitchen, Elliott picked up the phone book.
    Already, Mosby's picture was scuffed and bent. Elliott's father had used the phone book, treating the artwork like he treated everything else around him, as something made for a purpose, a single purpose, and nothing else. Daddy's purpose was to work and sweat and be the head of the household. Elliott's job was to go to school like all the other boys his age, like the boys who weren't sick and didn't have a ruined penis and boys whose mothers weren't dying. And Elliott's mother's job was to go on and die.
    The grimy, strawberry-shaped clock over the stove read ten-thirty seven. Mrs. Anderson wouldn't be there for another three and a half hours.
    Elliott went into his bedroom and sat on his cot. He pulled the paper bag out from under his pillow and looked at it. Even with the dull pencil lines, the horses were good. He was a good artist.
    "Mom, you think I draw good?"
    From the living room, "Huh?"
    "You think I draw good?"
    "Whatever."
    Elliott put the horses back. He walked through the living room into the kitchen, where, through the open door, he looked at the bony back of his mother's neck as she looked out the window.
    He turned on the stove. He filled a pan with water and set it down to boil. He wondered how bad scald burns would look. He wondered how they would feel. He felt around in the junk drawer and took out the little knife he'd used to sharpen his pencil. He wondered how hard someone would have to push if neck skin were to part?
    He went out to the living room and stood beside his mother. From outside, he could hear one of the cats picking on the door.
    "Cat wants in," said his mother.
    Elliott opened the door. The cat trotted in. Cats, Elliott thought, were like his father. Cats believed people had a single purpose—to serve them. Elliott shut the door and the cat ran into the kitchen in search of food.
    Elliott said, "You want me to turn on the T.V.?"
    "My head hurts too much. You gonna give me a massage on my head, Ellie?"
    Ellie rubbed her head with one hand. In his other, he held the little knife.
    He stopped then, because he could hear the water boiling in the kitchen. He left his mother and went to the stove.
    Before lifting the pan, he went to the window, unlocked it, and pushed it open an inch. May air bled into the stuffy room. The crusty orange curtains trembled as if afraid of the breeze.
    Elliott looked over at the Campbell's yard. He thought about their children, taken away.
    He turned Mosby's wrinkled painting upside down.
    The knife was put back into the drawer for next time, if the water wasn't enough.
    Then, sucking air through his clamped teeth, he poured the