sirens

The sirens went off every Saturday at noon. The boy was always surprised, but then remembered that it was only a test. No tornadoes were coming.

What would happen if a tornado came at noon on a Saturday, would everyone just continue pushing their carts down the produce aisle and making sandwiches and folding the laundry? Would they hear the noise before it was too late and run to the far corners of their basements. Would they have time to save the dog?

Why hadn't any adults thought of this problem? They were supposed to be in charge.

This is what he was thinking when his Grandpa came into the room.

The boy's Grandpa was a kind old man, soft around the middle, with deep creases in his face. He'd raised the boy since his son dropped the boy off for the weekend and never came back. It didn't effect the boy much, he was so young, but to his Grandpa it meant a lot. He knew he had to be better than a father, better than a mother, better than a family.

And he was better. He raised the boy with more attention and love than his son ever could have.

The old man was sick though, but they still went about their daily routines, the boy’s Grandpa pretending he wasn't getting weaker and the boy pretending that he didn't notice.

The boy took on many of the tasks the old man couldn't manage anymore. He cooked their meals and helped with the cleaning. He did a good job too. He had never gone to school because his grandfather didn't believe in it, but he had managed to learn enough along the way.

Now it was his grandfather who was startled by the sirens, and every Saturday the boy had to dry the old man's eyes and reassure him they were safe.

The only thing the old man had any energy for was destroying his belongings.

He'd push glasses off the table to watch them shatter. He’d tear houseplants out of their pots. The boy didn't mind because it was something he used to do when he was little. And because it made his Grandpa happy, the boy would sometimes help.

Their favorite thing to do was to tear the pages out of books. Sometimes they'd spend the whole afternoon shredding one text after another. Reader's Digest, War and Peace, The Joy of Cooking. Even the Bible. Their house looked as though a small tornado had made its way inside and devoured everything in sight, leaving only the walls and furniture intact.

When it was time for his Grandpa to die, the boy helped him into his best suit, now worn thin at the knees and elbows. The boy cooked and they talked and laughed all morning.

When they ran out of things to say, the boy led his Grandpa to his room and placed a pillow beneath his head. He crawled into bed next to the old man, and this time when the sirens went off, it was the boy who cried. When the sirens stopped, the boy wiped his eyes, kissed his Grandpa's cold cheek, and walked out the front door.

Sex Ed

How was I supposed to know what it meant?

I mean there's blow jobs, hand jobs, tug jobs, strap-ons, hard-ons, money shots and 100 different things. Like I'm supposed to keep it all straight.

Everybody knows it was me too because Mike told Sarah. Mike knows because I asked him what it meant last week and he told me it was something you buy at a porno shop. Now Sarah told all her friends and the girls keep laughing at me in the hallway.

I hate Mr. Tunney too.

He just kept smiling and whispering to Miss Kemper, even after they'd gone on to the next question. Why do we even have to go to sex ed anyway, it's not like I'm going to need to know this stuff anytime soon. Especially now that everyone thinks I'm an idiot.

I've never even kissed a girl who wasn't my mom or my grandma, and it's not exactly like that's good practice for anything.

It was after they told us about wet dreams and showed us close ups of women with chlamydia. After the video of a baby coming out and the diagram of the penis. After they told us that condoms can break and lectured us about teen parenting.

It was after all of that when they passed out note cards and asked us to write any other questions we had and pass them to the front.

I almost didn't write anything, but they hadn't answered my question and I figured that nobody would know it was me anyway.

Miss Kemper collected all the cards and brought them to the front, and Mr. Tunney pulled out the first one and read the question.

"Can you get A.I.D.S from a toilet seat?"

"No," said Miss Kemper. "That's a common misconception, but it would be almost impossible to get A.I.D.S., or any other sexually transmitted disease for that matter, from a toilet seat."

"Alright gang, next question," Mr. Tunney said as he pulled the next card out of the basket.

"Is it true that if you masturbate you can go blind?" No. "When you're having sex can your penis break?" Yes. "Are fake boobs really filled with air?" No...and on and on until finally I saw Mr. Tunney pull out my folded note card.

He started laughing right away when he read it, and then he showed it to Miss Kemper. She started blushing and smiling, but was trying not to show it. I don't get what's so funny about it and I bet a lot of other kids didn't know what it meant either.

How am I supposed to know what Love Handles are, it sounds like it should be dirty.

Good Boy

I'd heard him scuttling across the floor of my bedroom all that morning, his claws tapping on the hardwood each time he came over to check if I was awake. He wanted to go on a walk and I was, in his opinion, rested enough. As I slid my legs off the bed and pushed myself upright he became excited and started doing little figure 8's by the door. I pulled myself into my pants and shirt and we headed outside.

While we were walking I noticed his claws were still making the same clicking sound and I decided to cut his nails when we got
inside. We returned up the stairs and he looked at me expectantly, waiting for his treat. Normally I just drop it on the floor, but this time I made him come get it out of my hand so I could snatch his collar. He crouched and backed away, but I was too fast. I dragged him into the kitchen and got the clippers.

I'd just started on the third leg when it happened. I misjudged the length of the nail and he yelped and jerked his paw from my hand. As the thick red liquid started bubbling from the wound I flinched and reached for the dishtowel hanging on the oven door. The blood was spilling on his chest and I tried to apologize as I wiped it from his fur, but he just looked at me and began to shake. I wrapped the dishtowel over the wound, hastily finished the job and freed him from my embrace.

He stood on the foot well and didn't appear to be in pain, but something would have to be done to stop the bleeding. He sat down and started licking his foot and I got some gauze and tape, competing with his tongue as I secured the bandage. He followed me into the living room, seemingly ok with his new footwear, and plopped down on his blanket next to the couch.

Later that day he got up and started across the room. I looked up from my book and noticed that the bandage was now completely red, so I rose and followed the little trail of paw prints he left on the floor from his bed to his water dish. I watched as he casually lapped up the water, ignoring the growing pool of red liquid forming around his foot. I reached down to lift his leg and the soaked bandage came off easily in my hand. As I secured a new larger bandage around his paw he continued to drink, annoyed at my interference. I cleaned the prints off the floor and left the house for the afternoon.

When I returned later that evening, I again found the room covered in small red footprints. I followed them into the kitchen and then into the living room, where the footprints were concentrated around my dog, asleep on his blanket. I changed his bandage once more and cleaned the floors, but the bleeding continued throughout the night and by morning I was worried.

I phoned the veterinarian and she suggested we come in, so I loaded him in the car, the blood pooling around him on the seat. I apologized to the Vet for the mess we'd made in the waiting room, but she was kind and said not to worry, that sort of thing happened all the time. She cauterized the wound and sent us off, but by the time we got home it was bleeding again. I took him back that evening, but that time only an hour or two passed before it opened up again. We repeated this many times over the next few days, until I finally convinced her to teach me how to cauterize the wound at home. It seemed to work for a while, but after some time the effect of my repeated soldering dwindled to nothing.

As the weeks passed I became increasingly consumed with his care, but no matter what I tried his condition remained the same. I made him a series of washable bandages that I changed many times a day, but he still bled through them while I was at work or sleeping. I spent most of my free time cleaning up the marks and stains he'd leave in the apartment, eventually buying scraps from carpet stores to cover the areas with the heaviest traffic. At night he slept in the bathtub on a little pile of blankets, a small river of blood flowing steadily down the drain.

The first few months were hard, but I'm getting used to it now. When we walk around the neighborhood he leaves a trail of footprints that becomes almost a solid line if it doesn't rain for a while. Everyone knows about us, and most cross the street when they see us coming. It feels as though every surface in our apartment is saturated with his blood, but I no longer mind. I've stopped scrubbing the floors, I've stopped changing the carpet scraps, and I've stopped making him sleep in the tub. I let him sleep in the bed with me now.

Growing Up

Dad pushed himself back from the table. Looking down at the space he had made between himself and the table he started to speak, but then stopped himself and sighed. He looked over the round kitchen table at my plate. "Don't you like it?" he asked. I just shrugged and pushed the noodles around with my fork. Dad got up heavily, took his dish and walked past me into the family room.

He paused in front of the enormous potted plant that now took up most of that drab little room. Looking up at the canopy it formed above his head, he reached into the branches and plucked a brown leaf in a quick motion. I saw the edges of his mouth turn up slightly. He let the leaf fall to our floor and continued into his room. I heard the TV turn on and looked back down at my plate. I slid forward in my chair and let my feet touch the ground. I collected my plate and put it in the sink, watching the noodles slide slowly into a little pile near the drain.

Dad came out of his room with his small hand shears and started pruning his plant. He took enormous care in this, looking for any errant growth or sign of fatigue. After 10 minutes or so he stuck his thick finger into the soil, took it out and moved it under his nose. He inhaled deeply and went back into his room, returning with a small watering can. He walked past me in the kitchen and filled the can in the sink. Returning to the plant, he poured the water around its base in practiced motions, careful to let each dose absorb before administering the next. When he was done he looked up again into the plant's branches, glanced at me, said goodnight and went to bed.

Every night went like this, I'd come home from school, let myself in and wait for Dad to return from his job. He'd get home, ask me how school was and start dinner. We'd eat in near silence, then he'd watch TV or take care of the plant. When Mom left the plant had been small enough to fit in the corner behind his chair, but in the weeks and months that followed I watched it grow at an alarming rate. Dad was constantly fertilizing, pruning and repotting the plant, and his work paid off.

The plant soon became too large to keep behind the chair and was moved to the main part of the room. A few months later it became so large it blocked the television, so Dad moved the TV into his room. That was ok, I didn't like watching TV with him anyway. He always laughed in places that weren't funny and sighed anytime someone said something he didn't like. I preferred to stay in my room and look at magazines.

One night I awoke to go to the bathroom, which was directly off of the kitchen, and stopped in front of the plant. It was a nice plant really, tall and proud, its branches healthy and heavy. I could still hear the TV coming from Dad's room, but I could also hear him faintly snoring through the door. I looked at the plant again and undid the snap on the front of my pajamas. With my eyes still trained on Dad's door, I took out my penis and peed a little bit into the pot...not a lot, just a little. I quickly shuffled to the bathroom and finished peeing.

Every night for the next few weeks I repeated this act, growing bolder as the weeks went on and my sabotage went undetected. Dad was starting to notice changes in the plant however and his concern with the plant's health increased. The once luminous leaves had started to brown around the edges, slightly at first, but now it was noticeable.

Dad checked out several books from the library to try to diagnose the problem and started brewing up remedies in the kitchen. Fish parts mixed with vinegar, diluted bleach solutions to spray on the leaves, ground mint on the soil to deter pests...but none of his cures had any effect. He became increasingly desperate until one morning he emerged from his room to find 5 or 6 leaves on the floor around the pot where the plant resided. He reached up quickly to touch the plant, horrified when another leaf fell to join its siblings. Still every night I repeated my ritual and every morning he awoke despondent.

He stopped going to work, calling in sick with imagined symptoms that seemed to mirror those of the plant. Weak limbs, no appetite, hair loss-his boss said it sounded serious and agreed to give him a few days to recover. None of this deterred me though, and the plant’s condition continued to worsen. Now whole branches were dying and breaking off and it looked like the plant's days were numbered. I returned home a week later and found Dad sitting on the floor, his shoulders shaking. He was surrounded by the fallen leaves and branches of his plant and I felt the corners of my mouth begin to turn up slightly.