CHAPTER THREE
“It’s those stupid movies of yours and those grotesque stories,” said his father.
He was blaming it on the movie they watched the other night. It was a horror movie about a monster with a chainsaw who killed all of these teenagers at a party and then got killed at the end; chopped into a hundred pieces and dumped at the bottom of a lake. But in the last scene, its fingers twitched and its eyes opened and it wasn’t really dead. It was pretty scary yeah, but that didn’t give him nightmares like his father were suggesting and it wasn’t the reason that he wet the bed.
“He’s not old enough to watch those movies,” said his mother.
“I’d never watch them,” said one of his sisters.
“Me neither,” said the other.
His brother looked at him. He looked disappointed as if he had given Alex a chance to be like him, to be older, but he had gone and acted like a baby and now it was he who was getting in trouble for it. His brother gave him that look that said, ‘never again’.
Alex looked at his brother and he wanted to tell him why he wet the bed. He wanted to tell him, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know how. He didn’t have the words. He didn’t have the courage. And he didn’t want to look stupid because these kinds of things only ever happened to him so instead, he just looked like a wounded pup, looking up from his sunken head with his apologetic eyes, not at his mother and not at his father; but at his brother, who probably wouldn’t let him watch another movie again.
“And I don’t want him listening to any of that satanic music either. It’s not even music. It’s just noise” his mother said.
His brother looked like he was about to shout back. Alex studied him. He was drawing from whatever his brother was feeling. He watched and he glued himself to his brother’s eyes and he could see a hint of rebellion brewing. And he felt for the first time, some courage building of his own, some steam to fire his own voice. But his brother lowered his head to the table and chewed his toast without dissent. He raised his head every minute or so to look scornfully at Alex who, in the silence, understood what nobody had the courage to say.
“It’s popcorn day today mum,” said one of his sisters.
“Oh yeah. We need fifty cents for one bag” said the other.
“Why am I only hearing about this now?” his mother asked.
The two girls looked at each other and shook their shoulders. Alex’s brother picked at his toast, grain by grain.
“I don’t wanna go. Can I stay home? I feel sick” said Alex.
His father finished his coffee and left the table to find his tie and get ready for work while his mother looked at him sternly.
“No. You have to go to school” she said.
“But I don’t like it there,” he said.
“That’s tough,” she said. “We all have to do things we don’t like.”
His sisters sniggered behind their bread. He couldn’t hear them, but he could see it in their eyes. His brother was still upset and he said nothing, he just continued picking at his toast as if it were the last piece in existence, eating it grain by painful grain.
Alex’s father was like a raging bull whenever he had to be somewhere and especially when he was getting ready for work. Their last house was really big so Alex never really saw or heard his father getting changed and cursing because the bloody belt wouldn’t go through the stupid fucking straps or because the back was always turned over the wrong way, and he couldn’t make it bloody right.
And when his father got mad, his mother got mad. She would have a smile on her face, but you could see she was thinking or feeling the contrary. Everyone got really nervous when she wore that smile and they all kind of looked somewhere else, either at their plates, at a magazine or they just closed their eyes and tried to remember the sound of their father’s voice when he was happy and not so rushed.
Alex used to think about the times he watched his brother riding on the back of the motorcycle with his father. For him, it was amazing. His brother used to be allowed to ride it every day after their father got home from work and his sisters were allowed too, but they were always too scared.
His brother was really brave though and he sat on the back of the bike and held onto the little pegs at the back of the seat and he never looked like he was joking around or having any fun. He looked really serious like he was trying to solve a puzzle or act tough to some kid that maybe wanted to fight him. And he didn’t smile. He just squinted his eyes and he tensed his cheeks.
Alex wasn’t that brave.
He did feel brave, though, watching his brother as the motorcycle drove by. He got this wave of energy wash over him and he felt like he could do just the same. But then when his brother passed, so too did the feeling.
But then when his brother passed by again, he’d get that feeling once more and he’d imagine himself doing brave things. He never imagined himself on the motorbike, but he did feel like he could do countless other things like riding his BMX up the big hill or even being able to ignore his father’s cursing and swearing as he knocked things over on purpose, acting like they had gotten in his way.
Alex had no idea what his sisters would think about. It was hard to think like a girl, especially two, but they looked really still, like dead fishes, whenever their father was in a mood. It must have been hard to be the oldest son because when they were angry, dad’s always said things like “hurry up” and “you should have known better.”
And no-one ever said that kind of stuff to Alex.
They didn’t expect him to know anything.
“Where’s my bloody wallet?” shouted Dad.
“Where did you leave it?” asked Mum.
Alex was sitting on the couch with his father’s wallet in his hands. It was so big that he couldn’t even close it. It just kept springing open and then little bits of paper would pop out. And he was so amazed flipping through all of the papers and even though it must have been really hard to be an older brother, it must have been super important and difficult to be a grown-up because they had so much stuff with their names on it.
Alex never had anything in his pockets. They were just spaces where he could keep his hands warm when he was made to stand outside the principal’s office. But his father had so much stuff and Alex had no idea what any of it was.
He wanted to be grown up so much. One of the things he always wanted was to get mail. Grown-ups always got mail. It was a sign that you weren’t a kid anymore. People all around the world wrote to you and you’d always be so serious opening the letters and then putting them in that special place with all the others stuff on top of the microwave.
But Alex never got letters. Sometimes though, on his birthday, he would get a card and it would be from his mum and she would write this special message on it and she would read it out to him, and his mother would show him all the people that signed the card like his father, his brother and his sisters and he always thought it was neat how they all wrote so proper, even his sisters, who were terrible at cursive writing.
Alex took five dollars from the wallet. There was a lot of money folded in halves between a big chunk of papers. There were a couple of green notes, some yellow ones, a couple of red ones and this pink one he had in his hands. He crumpled the note up and shoved it in his pocket, the one that was almost always empty. He thought about taking more, to give to his brother so he could get some popcorn too, but he didn’t.
“Dad,” he said, holding up the wallet. “Your thing is here.”
His father rushed over and snatched the wallet from his hands and Alex was sure he’d know that he’d taken the money. He was waiting for him to open it and see that one of the notes was gone and then he’d be in a ton of trouble.
He didn’t.
“I’ll be back later. Have a good day everyone.”
His father kissed everyone on the top of the head except for Alex’s brother. Instead, he brushed the top of his hair with his palm and nodded and his brother smiled and nodded back and A
lex looked at his brother and he was smiling so much; not because anyone said anything funny but just because he was really happy. And his brother gave him a funny look, stranger than ‘ha ha’ and he got up and he ruffled Alex’s hair and he said, “Come on, get your stuff ready. You can walk with me today.”
Alex smiled.
He acted real cool like it didn’t matter.
But it did.