Unlearned Behaviors
In this version of the nightmare, an oak tree inhales splinters, spits the final bullet skyward. The slug retraces a mile-high arc, whistles back to earth at a rate far surpassing terminal velocity before chasing bone flecks through the boy’s crown, down past the maxilla and the mandible into the barrel of a rifle. Aiming with abandon, the boy uncoils his finger—twenty-six shots reclaimed on smoke clouds, spent shells reformed inside the chamber. Blood runs uphill. Bodies rise from the blacktop. Screams turn to laughter as starlings pause above the bell tower and fall back to power-line perches, drawn from scattered flight like filaments to a magnet.
Soon the scene dissolves into a typical afternoon, if unseasonably cold for the San Fernando Valley. Students in baggy flannel and college sweatshirts loiter about the courtyard, anxious with early release energy, oblivious to the boy now moonwalking past the loading dock, through a lot monopolized by sport utility vehicles, on towards a shaded corner near the groundskeeping shed, where an ancient Corolla (purchased from his parents via interest-free loan) awaits. The boy flings the weapon onto rags and slams the trunk before pondering his rear-window reflection—acne-pocked cheeks, sallow skin, eyes shielded by sunglasses that will never make him cool enough.
Driving home, he hovers at the speed limit, five miles in reverse. Amazingly, even on the highway, the forward horizon holds his gaze, peripheral vision chief among newly acquired powers. Over the stereo, heavy metal meant to steel his resolve siphons adrenaline instead. The refrain—played backwards, as if sung through a scrambler—is this: who do you know where do you go when you’re trapped in the show?
At a condominium complex in Reseda, where for the last seven years the boy has lived with his father on a bi-weekly basis, he babies the car into a visitor spot before climbing the stairs with a duffel slung over his shoulder. Inside, the boy kneels beside the crawl-space safe and disassembles the instrument he once believed could solve problems, placing each component—buttstock, receiver, magazine—into contoured foam. He strikes the combination from memory, along with the legal pad discovered days prior in the shallowest kitchen drawer, mingled with rubber bands and stencils. In lieu of a half-mumbled curse, the boy utters a prayer.
Over the next few days, his room brings clarity. He collects potato chip bags littering the floor, unpeels posters of scantily clad mutants levitating over ruined cities, thumbs through books on sorcery and early homo sapiens. Sleep colors his cheeks, as do countless hours sparing animated insurgents brutal fates brought on by special ops. In battle after battle, the boy doubles back, summons RPGs from midnight barracks and sleeping villages as his allies scream sabotage. When his father knocks, he opens the door and spits pills into a Dixie cup.
During school, he stops feigning nausea, hiding in bathroom stalls, scrolling social media accounts featuring lives far better than his—blown kisses from tropical vistas, crop tops and waterfalls and washboard abs. One gloomy Tuesday in January, he extracts a cafeteria fork from the palm of a particularly obnoxious classmate, who soon repays the favor in the PE locker room, healing a handprint on the boy’s naked back. The boy swallows loogies and recommits to his studies, collecting bombed tests and dutifully unwriting bullshit answers only to turn in blank sheets, new beginnings.
Before long, he is refolding laundry at both homes, vacuuming in a way that merely spreads dust. His father lowers his voice. His mother, back from business dealings overseas, buries the part of herself that expects results, that has opened a seemingly impassable gulf between them. When she says good job, the boy believes her.
More and more, he gets outside, circling the block, jogging backwards with renewed ambition. He spends an entire afternoon at Vista Hermosa, scrambling a Rubik’s Cube on a picnic blanket, the sun sucking burns from his vampire skin.
His facial hair—wispy scraps, mustache outline—retreats, as does the fuzz encircling his genitals. His voice stops cracking, returns to a higher, softer octave.
His mother learns to love her previous career; his father forgets unfulfilled dreams, stops seeing the woman from the office. They return to Rose Hill, where, beneath his childhood bed, pressure-packed stuffed animals remain, friends sworn off in a short-sighted temper. He whispers their names, rescues action figures marooned on closet shelves, puzzles together shards of a shattered lampshade.
Downstairs, one by one, doorjamb notches disappear.
His handwriting deteriorates, but little by little, watercolor sets and magic kits awaken new sensibilities.
Teenage thieves return his unlocked bike to the front yard. Now he backpedals past cul-de-sac houses, unwrites tracks in damp front lawns, peers through window screens well after dinner, waits in the morning mist for doors to open. Once again, he becomes the kid who craves contact.
At the beach, he backs into the water, undeterred by heavy surf, the thrilling sensation of ball-sucking cold. Afterwards, he summons seashells from the shallows and arranges them above the tideline.
That same year, his runaway cat comes home. Weeknights, she purrs on his lap while the family watches Jeopardy! The boy takes comfort in facts, doesn’t mind listening to Alex Trebek, to teachers and coaches, practice makes perfect, eye on the ball. Years pass, blissful enough save for bee stings and bloody noses and bedwetting spells and one unfortunate episode at the end of second grade.
The boy has been left off a birthday party list, every classmate invited except him. His mother discovers the omission the day before—slip of the tongue, carpool request—but, to prove a point, decides to go anyway. His father drives the new Corolla, silent and stern behind the wheel while the boy lays up in the back seat, consumed with car sickness by the time they reach Klondike King Adventures. Inside, the boy staggers past bumper cars and bounce rooms before sidling into the laser tag line. When the operator slides a choking vest over his chest, a shiver tickles his spine. He pictures himself lost in the gold mine maze, frozen beside a box sluice, puke dribbling down his chin, footbridge chains rattling overhead, peers mercilessly tagging his blinking core. But as the timer counts down from sixty, the boy cannot put to words his premonitions. Besides, even if he could say what he felt, if he could tell his parents—currently in heated conversation with Mrs. Reilly behind party zone plexiglass—what difference would it make? Bells ring from somewhere far away. The boulder blocking the entrance rolls aside. Duty-bound, the boy follows squealing children into epileptic darkness with his blaster trained on the fog.
Edward Helfers
Edward Helfers writes short fiction, music, and the occasional essay. His work appears in The Sonora Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rupture, DIAGRAM, Conjunctions, Puerto Del Sol, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from Columbia University, and currently teaches critical and creative writing for the Literature Department at American University in Washington, D.C.