It was 1:00 a.m., the pizza was gone, the homework was not finished, and there was nothing on TV. Jay was staying at Cody’s that night. They were both in eighth grade and there were no adults present. In fact, it was Jay’s first time on his own. Jay’s mother had left him there, on the assurance that Cody’s mother, Mrs. Prezzioso, would be home to supervise. She had called twice that evening and had asked to speak to her. The first time, Jay had said that she was out buying them pizza, and the second time, that she was in the shower. Perhaps his mother saw through the lie, or was too concerned about her own mother’s hospitalization, to question closely or call again. What Mrs. Prezzioso did was unclear to Jay, but he knew that she travelled a lot for her boss, Mr. Thing, as Cody derisively called him.
The apartment had two bedrooms and two bathrooms and mismatched furniture. It was comfortably dirty, with stacks of magazines, frayed blankets, and opened boxes of cereal scattered about the rooms. Cody was used to living alone and paid for the electric bill out of money he earned working under the table. He had a bunk bed in his room (he always slept on top) where Jay would crash that night.
They should have been working on their collage for Health Class, which was due the next day. They were supposed to come up with ideas for healthy homes. Instead, they talked about the summer jobs they wanted to get (they could surely pass for sixteen), about Jordyn Loess who had flashed everyone during Gym that afternoon, and about what cars they wanted to get someday. Neither of the boys cared about school, and Cody had definite plans to drop out on his sixteenth birthday. Jay was sure that his mother would make him go to college, and he inwardly groaned at the years of school ahead of him.
That evening, Cody’s neighbor, Mrs. Schenectady, who happened to be their Reading teacher at school, had stopped by to give them a bag of baby carrots, which they had promptly stuck behind the couch. “Does she know that your mom’s never here?” Jay asked, aware that she might tell his own mother what was going on.
“Who cares what the nosy bitch thinks” was the answer, and Jay had to be content. They then swallowed a few cups of wine, poured from a box in the fridge. But the alcohol made them sleepy more than anything. Cody smoked and flipped through the TV channels. Since Cody didn’t have cable, they watched the evening news and made up lewd stories about the weather girl and the gray-haired news anchor. Eventually, there was nothing on, so they went to bed. They didn’t bother to brush their teeth or change. It was dark, and Jay could hear the rumble of traffic from the freeway. Cody groaned so Jay knew that he was still awake. But he was thinking about a film strip they had seen in school that day. “What do you think it was like to go into the gas chamber?” he asked.
Cody groaned again and replied, “Who knows.” Jay didn’t say anything, but he kept seeing their faces for some reason. Suddenly, he missed his mom. His mom who cut the crusts off the ham-and-cheese sandwiches he threw away at lunch and who made him take a shower every day.
The upper bunk was quiet and still. Slowly, Jay got out of bed and went to the living room. He ripped off the top of the pizza box and found a roll of tape and some scissors. Taking a stack of Home Today magazines, he cut out pictures of couches, lawn chairs, and barbeques, and taped them to the pizza lid. After he finished, he folded his collage and put it in his backpack. He went back to bed. He laid there until morning.
Sarah Daly is an American writer whose work has appeared in Down in the Dirt, The Dribble Drabble Review, Umbrella Factory Magazine, Synchronized Chaos, and elsewhere.
Image: leekgarden.com
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Heavy Feather Review 