Free Rage Is Back (9781101606179) by Adam Mansbach

the stack of snapshots in my hand was Wren 209, sun-faded and begrimed and looking all of seventeen: her hand a jutting peace sign, her hair a peace-out natural, her earrings huge gold doorknockers. Of course the Karen Billy chose to carry with him would be a Karen he hadn’t yet fucked over, a Karen unaware of the bullshit he’d soon pull. I had the urge to press a thumb to my mother’s eyes, shield her from both of us.
    Patrick appeared, handed over two Pad Thais, then had the class to make himself scarce. I sat on the toilet lid, shoveling spongy noodles into my mouth and waiting. Billy Rage nestled beneath his blanket of water, did his corpse impression. It wasn’t until I’d devoured everything including that little mound of bean sprouts they always give you that I caught him peering out from his thicket of dreadlocks.
    I pretended not to notice; I’d fucking done enough. Once or twice, my father shifted his lips and swallowed a mouthful of bathwater. Otherwise, nothing. Just eyes in the primeval forest, like this shit was a Joe Conrad novel. In the next room, Patrick fired up his Xbox or his PlayStation or whatever and the sounds of carjacking and cop-killing wafted through the air.
    Half an hour ticked away before Billy’s fingers slithered out of the water and his talons curled around the scalloped edges of the tub. The bald mountain peaks of his knees disappeared as he leveraged himself upward, inch by shaky inch. Finally, and with great strain, he managed to raise his entire mossy, dripping head above the surface.
    â€œSerá este lugar el infierno?” His voice was sludgy with disuse, but calm. I had no idea what he’d said.
    â€œDígame,” he whispered. “Es el infierno?”
    â€œMi español es muy mal,” I told him. “You remember how to speak English?”
    Billy laughed, if you could call it that: a dastardly, low rumble like the sound of a kid falling down a flight of stairs.
    â€œI should have known,” he said, skull falling back against the porcelain with a dull knock, “that they’d speak English in hell.”
    â€œThere’d be no bathtubs if this was hell.”
    His arms slipped out of view, and some part of him beneath the water made a swishing sound.
    â€œThis is Brooklyn,” I offered.
    Billy parted the curtain of his hair with his left hand, and before it fell back over his face I caught a quick freeze off his eyes.
    â€œDon’t fuck with me. If this is hell, say so.”
    â€œIt’s Dumbo. Have some Pad Thai.”
    A grunt, a squelchy sound, a flash of limbs, and then Billy was on his feet, looming tall and gaunt as filthy water sloshed over the bathtub’s sides. I was eye-to-dick with my father. His was the same as mine. I’m talking Ravi-John identical. Except for the color.
    Before I could grant that fact the proper scrutiny, Billy threw back his head and bellowed a stream of syllables, in a language I had never heard.
    I didn’t need to understand to feel its power, the same way you see a ceremonial mask in a museum and know it was used for some diabolical shit before reading the info plaque. These sounds were an incantation, or a prayer—what you’d say to the devil if he offered you some lunch, I guess. The veins of Billy’s neck engorged and he clutched his stomach with both hands, like he was trying to push the noise out. Or hold his guts in.
    Not for nothing? I felt like blood was going to start trickling from my nose. There was an echo in the chant of that eternal, animal
now
I’d seen in Billy’s eyes when he’d attacked. As if these sounds did not come from but through him, my father’s body the amplifier for some ancient dirge.
    Billy lost his balance and the sound broke off—or perhaps it was the other way around, the incantation all that had been holding him upright. He latched on to the cheap plastic shower curtain, trying to break his fall.