Jacob felt his uncle’s disapproving gaze acutely. It was like a roving eye, searching for impurities and secret shames in the walls, the carpet. He felt the eye slide over the groove he had made in the living room wall with his forehead. Ten minutes of attack, increasingly violent, while no one else was home, until the skin beneath his hairline opened. The eye noted the faint red stain at the dent’s corner. It focused on the hard scabs of chewing gum that Marvin tucked up on the underside of the coffee table—Doublemint, Juicy Fruit, Bubble Yum. It found the bugs and worms that grew inside their flour. It roamed the halls, noting where their father had kicked the vent in, warping the grate. It saw how crooked were the pictures, and the withered jar of potpourri, the pile of New King James bibles on the bottom of the bookshelf, which was otherwise festooned with movies (Short Circuit, Ferngully, Aladdin, Batteries Not Included, Legend, Boys on the Side) and dog fur clots.
The worst was the carpet. Dances with Beef had pottied everywhere at least once, and worse. When they had first moved into their home, Jacob lay down on the carpet and made angels; it was a pale blue before he touched it, and grayer where he rubbed against the grain. Now it was matted down, hardened in places, the color of grease. Sometimes it would stick to your shoes. Their mother was scrubbing the carpet with a big yellow sponge and a bucket of suds. Jacob cleaned up clutter in a widening circle around her, tossing the trash in a garbage bag and piling the rest on the couch to get it out of the way. Their mother told Marvin several times to leave the TV alone and dust the family pictures. Jacob pinched the loose skin on Marvin’s wrist until Marvin did it, and their mother pretended not to see or hear.
He’d found something in his last cup of strawberry like a bit of onion skin. He didn’t know if it was there when he opened the cup or if it fell out of his nose, or if Marvin put it there somehow. Now he didn’t trust anything that came in a cup.
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There were paper plates on the floor crusted with ketchup, severed action figure limbs clutching tiny plastic weapons, crushed styrofoam cups, and a thousand popcorn kernels and fragments. Those would gum up the vacuum cleaner, so it was Jacob’s job to sweep them into his hands. There were twisted paperclips and Starburst wrappers. Their mother found two shards of glass with her bare right knee; she performed the surgery herself, laid out on the recliner, exacto knife in one hand, tweezers in the other. A crash came from the hallway; she startled and cut herself deep. Marvin had knocked down one of the pictures. The frame was fine, but half the glass had come out sharp and small. It was Jacob’s job to pick up the little shards. It was their mother’s job to tie off her leg with a red rag, and then to chase Marvin down—to strive to break another hairbrush on him. It was Marvin’s job to cry, though he had long ago learned to fake tears, and it didn’t mean much.
♦◊♦
They had pepperoni Hot Pockets for lunch because it was fastest. Their mother skipped lunch to save money. She drank two Diet Cokes, allowing the boys a sip from each bottle.
The sudsy water she had worked into the carpet was not enough. She was afraid it would rot. Marvin held the space heater face-down over the carpet, a foot up, moving slowly from one corner of the room to the other as if he was mowing the lawn. Jacob worked the carpet with a towel. Their mother said they could get hamburgers for dinner if there weren’t any more fights or broken things. She was making a grocery list. Its centerpiece was a ten-pound roll of beef, which could be used in hamburgers, lasagna, spaghetti, casserole. She asked the boys if they were tired yet of yogurt; they said no, they were not. Though Jacob was a little tired. He’d found something in his last cup of strawberry like a bit of onion skin. He didn’t know if it was there when he opened the cup or if it fell out of his nose, or if Marvin put it there somehow. Now he didn’t trust anything that came in a cup—pudding either. But yogurt, he knew, was very cheap. She could buy it for 43 cents.
When the space heater burnt out, their mother sent them outside to tidy the garage. Marvin swore he saw a mouse when they flipped the light on. “It went in the garbage bags,” he insisted. “I saw its tail in the pile.”
They gathered broken bicycle pumps and forgotten stuffed animals. The mice had gotten into their mother’s Barbie box, had chewed right through the old cardboard and eaten parts of the dolls. They were missing fingers, noses, ears, chunks of their cheeks and legs. There were droppings in the box. Jacob knew how old the dolls were and he didn’t want his mother to see them because she might think about death and get sad. He picked the droppings out with his fingers (using a shredded Wal-Mart plastic bag as a glove) and put the box on a high shelf.
Marvin found their old light sabers and even though Jacob was almost 13 it was still fun to fight with them. They hit each other’s sabers until the toys were both bent and then they threw them in the big plastic toy bins. Marvin sucked on his fingers for a while after; he said Jacob hit them. Jacob said he was a liar though it was probably true. They had to put the bikes in the corner so close to each other that the pedals got stuck in the wheels, handles locked like antlers. They threw away a lot of paper. They stacked a lot of boxes. There was dirt on the floor, distributed in winding patterns and displaced by footsteps at cross purposes, showing where they’d walked and how they dragged their feet and other things.
♦◊♦
They got Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers off the dollar menu at Wendy’s. Knowing that money was worth less over time, Jacob wondered if they would change the dollar menu at the same pace, so that it was a dollar and a dime, and then a dollar and a quarter, and then two dollars, so that his family couldn’t afford it anymore, or if they would keep making Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers, but cheaper: older beef, less bacon, thinner cheese, day-old buns, meat thickened with corn meal or granola, and so on. He rolled his eyes as Marvin asked for extra mayo packets. They were free though. Their mother had a large fry, double cheeseburger, and a large Diet Coke, but Jacob knew better than to feel jealous.
He knew she worked hard.
When they got home their father was there in his undershirt and his briefs, which were a little wet in the front because he forgot to shake it off. “Why didn’t you get me any?” he said. Marvin squirted extra mayo on the open burgers.
“You can have mine,” said their mother. “Sorry I already ate the fries.”
Their father paced around a little, grumbling. He knocked over the penny jar the family kept in the kitchen, which they called “Our Life Savings.” Most of the pennies stayed in the jar, though. He baked a lot of tater tots and told the family how his day went over the television. “Do you want me to ask off tomorrow?” he said. “So I can help?”
Their mother reminded him he didn’t have any days off left.
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