Free When Everything Feels like the Movies by Raziel Reid

a piss on the fence, and the other two were drinking beer and sharing a joint. They stopped talking when they saw me. One squinted his eyes and the other laughed.
    “What the fuck are you?” he asked.
    He said it with such awe, it was almost flattering. I didn’t stop to wonder what it was about me that they saw. I had tried to look like everyone else, but maybe it was written all over my face. I kept walking. There was dog shit on the path. I told myself not to step in it, but I did anyway. It was like I stepped in it because I told myself not to. It was fresh, not yet frozen, and I felt it squish under my foot.
    “Hey, Brian, I think this fag wants to watch you piss. You want to see his cock, faggot?”
    Maybe it was my fury over stepping in dog shit that made me lunge at him. Or maybe it was that I did indeed want to watch Brian piss. In fact, I wanted him to piss in my mouth. I wanted to drink it. Instead, I decided to drink blood and clawed at the guy’s face, but didn’t get to do any real damage before he punched my nose, and I flew backward into the snow, miraculously missing the dog shit. The other two came after me, but I quickly got on my feet. Blood dripped from my nose, giving me red geisha lips.
    I didn’t feel the pain. I just felt the silk kimono that in my head I was wearing, with its obi trailing behind me as I ran. The wind whistling in my ears was like the strings of the shamisen. I was running for my life, but in my mind I was dancing like I was available for the night.

11
    Train Wreck
     
    A ll the lights were off in the house when I got home, but I could see the glare from the TV flashing through the front window, lighting up Ray as he sat on the couch. I stood on the sidewalk, catching my breath, tasting blood, coming in and out of focus as the snow blew off the tree branches onto my head.
    When I walked through the front door, Ray was watching TV in the living room. Keefer was asleep on the floor, curled up without a blanket and sucking his thumb like he would sometimes, even though Ray always slapped his hand out of his mouth. My mom was at work, which is why Keefer wasn’t in bed; Ray always let Keefer fall asleep in front of the TV, just like he let him watch TV sitting so close that you could see his breath on the screen. As if Keef wasn’t brain damaged enough. My mom didn’t show until she was nearly five months pregnant, so she kept dancing. All that spinning, who could blame him for being special.
    I intended to go straight down to my room because I didn’t want Ray to see my face, but I knew he’d let Keef stay there all night, so I bent down to pick him up off the floor.
    “He’s fine,” Ray said, shifting his body because I was blocking the screen. I heard him crunching Doritos under his ass. “Leave him alone.”
    I picked Keefer up anyway and took him to his room. He didn’t wake up. That kid could sleep through anything, which was definitely his saving grace. I lay him in his bed and put the covers over him. There were toys everywhere, and his sheets were on the floor because he’d been trying to make a tent. I told him that I’d help, but I never did.
    Ray was standing next to the basement door when I walked out of Keef’s room. I felt drunk just from smelling him. You could tell Ray had been really good-looking in high school—tall, dark, and bad. You could also tell that he still thought he was good looking. But his baby blues weren’t as irresistible when they couldn’t even focus.
    “I said he was fine,” Ray said, blocking the doorway. “You just don’t listen, do you? You always have to fuss with him.” He took his calloused hand and grabbed my chin, lifting my nose to the hallway light. “What the hell happened?”
    “Don’t touch me,” I said, trying to pull away.
    “Someone put you in your place?” he asked, laughing.
    “I deserved it, huh?”
    “Your words,” he said, stepping away from the door. “Not mine.”
    I went down to my room and