shut-up toilet.
“Well,” he called out to me, “what is it?”
I began talking about the nightmare I’d had, and through the heat in the bathroom, an extra heat seemed to come from out of me, overpowering it. I took a minute or two to explain the dream properly.
When I finished, all Rube said was, “So what?” The steam was getting intense.
“So what should we do?”
The shower stopped.
Rube stuck his head around the curtain.
“Pass me that towel.”
I did it.
He dried himself and stepped out, breaking through the steam with, “Well, it’s certainly a disturbing dream you speak of, son.”
He had no idea how disturbing. It was me who dreamed it. It was me who had believed it when it was in me. It was me who.
End.
End this.
No …
It was me who had woken up in the darkness of our triumph with sweat eating my eyes out, and a silent scream pressed down on my lips.
In the bathroom now, I suggested, “We’ve gotta take the sign back.”
Rube had other ideas, at first.
He came closer and said, “We can ring the RTA and tell ‘em the sign needs ing.”
“It’ll take absolute weeks for
them
to replace it.”
Rube paused, then said, “Yeah, good thinkin’.” Unhappiness. “The state of our roads down this way is a disgrace to the nation.”
“So what do we do?” I asked again. I was genuinely concerned now, for the safety of the public at large, and I also remembered a story I’d seen on the news a year or so back where these guys in America got something like twenty years for stealing a stop sign because it caused a fatal accident. Look it up if you don’t believe me. It happened.
“What do we do?” I asked again.
Rube answered by not answering quickly.
He walked out of the bathroom, got dressed, and then held his head in his hands as he sat on my bed.
“What else
can
we do?” he asked, almost pleaded. “We take it back. I s’pose.”
“Really?”
Savages, all right. Savages, frightened.
“Yeah.” He was miserable. “Yes. We take it back.” It was as if Rube himself had been robbed of something — but what? Why this need to take things? Was it just to feel how it felt to cut up the rules and feel good about being bad? Maybe it was that Rube felt like a failure and he was proving it to himself by trying to steal. Maybe he wanted to be like the hero in the American movies we see on TV. Frankly, I had no idea what was going on in his head and that was that.
Before we went to school, he pulled the sign out and gave it one last sad, adoring stare.
That night, Friday night, we took it back at around eleven and nobody caught us, thank God. It would have been pretty ironic — busted for stealing a sign when we were actually returning it.
“Well,” he said when we got home, “we’re back, empty-handed. As usual.”
“Mm.” I couldn’t get a word out just then.
One thing I will always remember about that night now is that when we made it back home, Steve was sitting out on the front porch in the cold. His crutcheswere still next to him, because his ankle was still very screwed up. He sat there, on our old couch, with a mug perched up on the railing.
When we slipped down the side of the house, sort of ignoring him, I heard his voice.
I returned.
I asked.
“What did you just say?” I said it just very normally, like I was interested in what he’d said. He repeated.
This: “I can’t believe we’re brothers.”
He shook his head.
He spoke again.
“You guys are such losers.”
To tell you the truth, it was the vacancy he’d said it with that chewed into me. He said it like we were so far below him that he could barely be bothered. Then, considering what we had just done, I could almost see his point of view. How could Steven Wolfe be of the same blood as Rube and me, and even Sarah for that matter?
All the same, I only stopped slightly before walking off, hearing a high-pitched noise cut open my head, from inside. It whined, as if injured.
Back in our
“Well,” he called out to me, “what is it?”
I began talking about the nightmare I’d had, and through the heat in the bathroom, an extra heat seemed to come from out of me, overpowering it. I took a minute or two to explain the dream properly.
When I finished, all Rube said was, “So what?” The steam was getting intense.
“So what should we do?”
The shower stopped.
Rube stuck his head around the curtain.
“Pass me that towel.”
I did it.
He dried himself and stepped out, breaking through the steam with, “Well, it’s certainly a disturbing dream you speak of, son.”
He had no idea how disturbing. It was me who dreamed it. It was me who had believed it when it was in me. It was me who.
End.
End this.
No …
It was me who had woken up in the darkness of our triumph with sweat eating my eyes out, and a silent scream pressed down on my lips.
In the bathroom now, I suggested, “We’ve gotta take the sign back.”
Rube had other ideas, at first.
He came closer and said, “We can ring the RTA and tell ‘em the sign needs ing.”
“It’ll take absolute weeks for
them
to replace it.”
Rube paused, then said, “Yeah, good thinkin’.” Unhappiness. “The state of our roads down this way is a disgrace to the nation.”
“So what do we do?” I asked again. I was genuinely concerned now, for the safety of the public at large, and I also remembered a story I’d seen on the news a year or so back where these guys in America got something like twenty years for stealing a stop sign because it caused a fatal accident. Look it up if you don’t believe me. It happened.
“What do we do?” I asked again.
Rube answered by not answering quickly.
He walked out of the bathroom, got dressed, and then held his head in his hands as he sat on my bed.
“What else
can
we do?” he asked, almost pleaded. “We take it back. I s’pose.”
“Really?”
Savages, all right. Savages, frightened.
“Yeah.” He was miserable. “Yes. We take it back.” It was as if Rube himself had been robbed of something — but what? Why this need to take things? Was it just to feel how it felt to cut up the rules and feel good about being bad? Maybe it was that Rube felt like a failure and he was proving it to himself by trying to steal. Maybe he wanted to be like the hero in the American movies we see on TV. Frankly, I had no idea what was going on in his head and that was that.
Before we went to school, he pulled the sign out and gave it one last sad, adoring stare.
That night, Friday night, we took it back at around eleven and nobody caught us, thank God. It would have been pretty ironic — busted for stealing a sign when we were actually returning it.
“Well,” he said when we got home, “we’re back, empty-handed. As usual.”
“Mm.” I couldn’t get a word out just then.
One thing I will always remember about that night now is that when we made it back home, Steve was sitting out on the front porch in the cold. His crutcheswere still next to him, because his ankle was still very screwed up. He sat there, on our old couch, with a mug perched up on the railing.
When we slipped down the side of the house, sort of ignoring him, I heard his voice.
I returned.
I asked.
“What did you just say?” I said it just very normally, like I was interested in what he’d said. He repeated.
This: “I can’t believe we’re brothers.”
He shook his head.
He spoke again.
“You guys are such losers.”
To tell you the truth, it was the vacancy he’d said it with that chewed into me. He said it like we were so far below him that he could barely be bothered. Then, considering what we had just done, I could almost see his point of view. How could Steven Wolfe be of the same blood as Rube and me, and even Sarah for that matter?
All the same, I only stopped slightly before walking off, hearing a high-pitched noise cut open my head, from inside. It whined, as if injured.
Back in our
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