Free Flesh and Bone by William Alton Page A

Mom says.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œI want you to stay home,” she says.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œStay out of your grandfather’s whiskey.”
    â€œSure.”
    She gets up and goes to the bathroom. The shower pulls water through the pipes and the pipes whine and groan. I have nowhere to go. I have nothing to do. The television talks to me, but I’m not listening. Why would I? It has nothing to say that I haven’t heard before.

Going Nowhere
    T OO HIGH TO move. The room is distant and the walls are warped. Beer posters and coasters decorate everything. Laundry and ashtrays clutter the floor, the nightstand, the dressers. We lie on the bed, not touching, not moving, going nowhere. The heroin is smoked up.
    â€œAre you fucking my uncle?” John John asks.
    I don’t know what to say. What does it matter to him? Will he be pissed if I admit to it? Is he too high to kick my ass?
    â€œSometimes,” I say.
    â€œDo you like it?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    I don’t. I like the sex, but I don’t like his uncle. I don’t like the way his calloused hands touch me. There is something wrong with him. He’s old and he wants to be young again. Fucking me makes him feel fresh. He can make himself believe that he’s not too old for excitement.
    â€œI hate it,” he says.
    â€œIt’s just sex,” I say.
    â€œHe never asks. He just does it.”
    â€œYeah.”
    He cries a little into his pillow. I don’t know why he’s crying. Maybe he’s too angry to do anything else. Maybe he’s too high.
    â€œI’m not gay,” he says.
    â€œMe either.”
    â€œWe’re getting fucked,” he says.
    â€œThere’s nothing we can do about it.”
    â€œWe could tell someone,” he says.
    â€œThen everyone would know.”
    He thinks about that for a moment.
    â€œWe could kill him,” he says.
    â€œNot me.”
    â€œI could do it,” he says. “I wouldn’t even have to think about it.”
    â€œThey’d lock you up forever.”
    â€œI don’t want to go to prison,” he says. “Prison’s full of faggots.”
    We lie there and I think about killing Harold. Blood splatters in my imagination. I can see it happening, the gunshot, the knife slipping between the ribs, the hammer crushing the skull. I can see it. I can feel my hands shaking. There has to be a better way. No one needs to get hurt. But nothing comes to mind. Nothing ends his groping hands, his probing tongue. If I could find a way to make it stop I would, but there’s nothing I can do withoutruining my own life. Maybe someday he’ll just stop. Until then, I’ll just let him do what he needs to do and pretend it’s not happening.
    I curl onto my side and let the bed rock gently under me. John John looks all stretched and out of proportion. I touch his face and he curls away.
    â€œDo you love me?” he asks.
    I don’t know what love is. I seldom think of people when they’re not with me. I live most of my life detached from myself. I float in the air overhead, watching myself going through the motions of life. I try to feel things, but the feelings are muted, distant. I cannot seem to make myself experience anything.
    â€œWe could fuck,” John John says.
    â€œWe could.”
    â€œBut I don’t want to,” he says.
    â€œThen we won’t.”
    He turns his back to me. His shoulders are round and hard. His neck is knobbed with bones. I want to feel something. The walls arc over me. Light falls through the window, outlining John John’s waist, the arc of his thigh. Dust dances in the simple light and I close my eyes. John John and I may never fuck, but lying here with him ties me to the earth. It is impossible to fly with him tangled in my arms.

Saddled
    T HE HORSE’S SPINE runs parallel to my shoulders. Bekah saddles it up and shows me how to mount. I crawl into the