Sargent.
When will the power be on? Dad says, neck stiff, veins bulging like electrical cables. He stares straight ahead through the windshield. The car’s roof glazed in afternoon sun. The air conditioner wheezing against the glass.
I just called the electric company, Mamma says. It’ll be at least a few hours.
Well, I’ll just stay in here until they get it back on.
Sargent, don’t act a fool. I—
I’ll stay out here. Rolling his eyes a little to raise the volume of his voice.
Bright sun forces Hatch to blink. Up and down the street, trees shake in a hot breeze, light dripping, sweatlike, from their leaves.
Then I’ll sit out here with you.
No. Sun on Dad’s face, a small glowing window.
Sargent, let me keep you company.
No.
Don’t act a fool.
Dad doesn’t speak or move, eyes staring straight ahead. A feeling silence.
Well, can I get you anything? A nice cold glass of aloe vera juice?
The sun hits Dad’s bald head with a dull thud. His shaped goatee glows like vanilla ice cream. No.
Why don’t you drive around some, Hatch says.
Mamma looks at him. Go in the house. Hatch doesn’t move. Boy, don’t make me use my belt. Hatch starts his legs. Mamma turns back to Dad, whose blank face gleams. Sargent.
He says nothing. Deaf. Oblivious.
Open the door.
Narrows his eyes and clenches his fists on the stationary steering wheel.
VII
Cosmo leans around the corner, cautious. He looks back and takes Hatch’s hand. Come on. They move swiftly to the bathroom. Cosmo leans outside the door, takes another look around, face bunched as if a firecracker had just exploded near his ears. He straightens up, tears off a square of toilet paper, crumples it into a ball, and pushes it into Hatch’s hand. Here. He gets himself some. He carefully places the balled-up toilet paper into his mouth, then chews like an old man. Go on. Hatch pops the white ball into his mouth. Cosmo tears another sheet from the roll.
Mamma touches Cosmo’s hair, slick wonder. Grease glistens on her fingertips. She rubs them together like money. You think you Mr. Cool in that bebop suit. She looks Cosmo up and down. He keeps his head bowed, thumb and forefinger shaping the brim of his fedora. Look like a pimp.
I ain’t no pimp.
What you say?
Nothing.
Wait till your father hear bout this.
Cosmo stands there, head bowed.
You know I’m gon tell him.
If you must.
Mamma scrunches up her face. Let me advise you. Detest who you are. Build a better self.
VIII
Six o’clock. The alarm trumpets. Hatch lies very still in his bed until he hears Cosmo’s door shut. He throws back his quilts, leaps up, opens his own door, and tiptoes down the hall. Bends over slow and careful to avoid knocking his forehead against the doorknob. Peers, squint-eyed, through the circle of the keyhole. Cosmo throws his clothes into a bundle, onto the floor, picks up a book, and slides into bed, genitals swinging. Hatch had hoped for something more.
After a while, Cosmo puts the book aside, then slips beneath the covers. Squirms on his belly, reptilelike, to get comfortable. Imprisoned in shoe boxes under the bed, rats squeak like heels on a basketball court.
His room is sorely neglected. The garage is his domain, where he spends most of the night on a queen-sized mattress on a patch of floor clean of oil stains and gasoline. Space arranged in an order he works hard to maintain. Something about the colors and their careful placement suggests motion. Dozens of stacks of aviation books and technical magazines. Engines in various stages of repair. Mechanical refuse from the neighbors’ trash and yards. On the regular he invites Hatch into his world, his secrets. Kodaks of a woman with two assholes. A six-tittied dwarf. A man with a big fat titty where his dick should be. And other wonders: A glow-in-the-dark penis. A crystal vagina. Aluminum condoms. Specimens in fluid-filled mason jars. He offers these revelations with a straight face, hot sunshine pouring through the high single window. Hatch aims through the glass and shoots down flying saucers with his water gun.
Want to hear something? Cosmo asks.
What?
This one time, I ate a whole bar of scented soap. For the heck of it.
What happened?
For a whole week, my turds come out white and smellin like expensive perfume.
Seven o’clock. Hatch rushes to his door, parts it a little. Cosmo approaches from down the hall, underclothing tucked against his side, suit trailing behind his shoulder, old-man shoes untied, genitals swinging.
Fully dressed an hour later. Breakfast on the table. He eats in one minute flat.
Gon choke to death one day, Mamma says. Eatin like somebody crazy.
Yes’m. He kisses her cheek. Leather satchel in hand, clean dungarees folded over his arm, he rushes out to greet the new day. Walks bent forward, like somebody pushing through slanting snow.
If you gon be a pilot, how come you tinkering with that lil-bitty engine?
Cosmo cracked his knuckles, popping one at a time. Look, I ain’t gon be no pilot. That’s a lawn-mower engine. And, those there, Volkswagen. I’m studying power-plant mechanics. I overhaul air-cooled engines. He went on, sounding like one of his books.
Hatch kept his distance. Drew his water pistol and considered firing.
Cosmo looked him in the face, grinning at the threat, liquid danger. Opened his arms and gestured, expansively, his smile wide. These are machines for living.
Ain’t you gon be a pilot?
I never said that.
What did you say?
Cosmo frowned into the bowl of his hat. I’m gon be a mechanic, a power-plant mechanic. See, they got this program at school that’ll low me to get both my power-plant license and my body license.
You got five schools offering you scholarships, Mamma said.
Cosmo snapped the brim of his hat.
Dad looked steadily at him, pulling his silver-streaked goatee with long strokes of his fist.
I like to fix things.
Where you go last night?
Ma’am?
Are you deaf now too? Where did you go last night?
Nowhere.
Nowhere?
Drivin.
Drivin where?
Just drivin. Nowhere in particular.
Nowhere in particular smelling like cigarette smoke?
Cosmo keeps his eyes lowered, fedora in hand.
I don’t know what path you’re on, but I’ll tell you this: don’t swap horses in the middle of the stream.
The room shines with the shimmering of the street. Cosmo stands rigid, lean face in shadow, following with a blank look his pacing father. Though he maintains an appetite, eats his meals in greedy helpings, he has a polelike appearance, skinny arms, narrow shoulders, and no hips or buttocks. And that hungry-ass face. The only thing big on him is his hands. He looks like some mechanical figure from one of his aviation books.
I don’t understand why the boy so skinny. Look like somebody over in Africa.
Dad quickens his pace. Hatch’s skin grows warm with fear and excitement. Dad halts and looks Cosmo straight in the face. They are watching each other, separate nightscapes of parked vehicles and moving traffic flowing across each face.