What Burns Read online

  Books by Dale Peck

  Fiction

  Greenville

  Body Surfing

  Shift (with Tim Kring)

  Night Soil

  Gospel Harmonies

  Martin and John

  The Law of Enclosures

  Now It’s Time to Say Goodbye

  The Garden of Lost and Found

  Nonfiction

  Hatchet Jobs

  Visions and Revisions

  Children’s and Young Adult Fiction

  Drift House

  The Lost Cities

  Sprout

  Copyright © 2019 by Dale Peck

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Soho Press

  227 W 17th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Peck, Dale, author.

  What burns : stories / Dale Peck.

  ISBN 978-1-64129-082-1

  eISBN 978-1-64129-083-8

  LCC PS3566.E245 A6 2019 (print) | LCC PS3566.E245 (ebook)

  DDC 813/.54—dc23

  Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Science, like philosophy, has sought to escape from the doctrine of perpetual flux by finding some permanent substratum amid changing phenomena. Chemistry seemed to satisfy this desire. It was found that fire, which appears to destroy, only transmutes: elements are recombined, but each atom that existed before combustion still exists when the process is completed. Accordingly it was supposed that atoms are indestructible, and that all change in the physical world consists merely in rearrangement of persistent elements. This view prevailed until the discovery of radioactivity, when it was found that atoms could disintegrate.

  Nothing daunted, the physicists invented new and smaller units, called electrons and protons, out of which atoms were composed; and these units were supposed, for a few years, to have the indestructibility formerly attributed to atoms. Unfortunately it seemed that protons and electrons could meet and explode, forming, not new matter, but a wave of energy spreading through the universe with the velocity of light. Energy had to replace matter as what is permanent. But energy, unlike matter, is not a refinement of the common-sense notion of a “thing”; it is merely a characteristic of physical processes. It might be fancifully identified with the Heraclitean Fire, but it is the burning, not what burns. “What burns” has disappeared from modern physics.

  —Bertrand Russell

  I.

  I know everything. Names, places, dates. The number of the dead and the location of the bodies. The secret histories of love and war and the tally of coins fallen behind the cushion. When you were a baby your mother called you by a name not even your father knew, and then she died. When you were twenty-seven you finally shared that name with the woman you’d asked to marry you. For weeks afterward you kept thinking about how the word sounded on her lips—it was the first time you’d heard it spoken aloud since you were four—when, tenderly, she turned you down. That was eleven years ago. Now you can’t remember the name. I know it; I could tell you. But this and a thousand other facts will die with me, and soon.

  Not Even Camping Is Like Camping Anymore

  Davis was pushing a tiny wheeled cart across the living room carpet when I walked through the front door. The cart was attached to a long stick painted some pinkish red color halfway between old white lady lipstick and dog’s penis. As it rolled back and forth a propeller connected to one of the axles batted a bunch of wooden balls around a clear plastic bubble like the thoughts in a crazy person’s head. The cart was John Deere green and if it looked like anything it looked like a lawnmower, but Davis called it his Lectroluck, which where he picked up that word is anybody’s guess. We had a Hoover, and I seriously doubt his mom even knew what a vacuum was.

  Hey, Gayvis, what’s up?

  In my experience gay is one of those words, like penis, that’s always good for a laugh. Davis, however, didn’t laugh, or look up from his vacuuming. He wore an apron made from one of my T-shirts held in place by one of my belts, double wrapped around his soft tiny waist.

  Well look who finally decided to come home? Would it have killed you to pick up a phone?

  I dropped my gym bag in the middle of the floor and headed down the hall.

  Blaine Gunderson! After I slaved all day to clean this house for you, and dinner still to get ready! The least you could do is—

  I slammed my bedroom door on Davis’s rant. Davis’s mom worked as a waitress at the titty bar out by the interstate. She worked the day shift, when there were six, maybe seven cars in the parking lot, tops. One of them was hers, and one of them was the stripper’s, and one of them was the bartender’s, and plus Davis’s mom was a little fat, so you know the tips sucked. My mom said flat out that the only way she could possibly make ends meet was by blowing truckers. I could see how a mother like that could drive you crazy. My mom wasn’t half as bad as Davis’s, and she made me nuts.

  I cracked my laptop just as Davis hipped open the door, his Lectroluck clackety-clack-clacking into the room behind him, my backpack hanging off his tiny shoulders like a catamount mauling a calf.

  Don’t you close the door when I’m talking to you, Blaine Gunderson.

  My mom wasn’t very good at covering her tracks. The cache of Internet Explorer said that after she checked for updates on the gay porn site she read every day she looked up recipes for tuna casserole and green beans almondine, which turned out to be green beans with almonds. Great. Green beans and nuts.

  Davis vacuumed my floor, his little voice barely audible above the racket. All day I slave, and do I hear one word of thanks? One Honey, the house sure looks great, or Is that a new hairstyle, darlin’, or even Screw it, babe, put the pork chops back in the fridge and let’s go to Olive Garden? No. Nothing.

  Davis, if you keep pushing that toy around I’m gonna shove that lipstick penis so far up your rectum you’ll have to vacuum with your ass.

  Rectum: another one of those words. Davis didn’t seem to know this, but at least he dropped the penis stick and pulled his feather duster from the belt of his apron.

  Was it creepy that my mom looked at gay porn? Or was it only creepy because she did it on my computer? The computer’d been a fourteenth-birthday present from my dad, which sent my mom through the roof. Can’t afford child support but he can drop a thousand dollars on a computer? How’m I supposed to pay the mortgage with that? I doubt the computer was worth a thousand bucks new and it was beat to hell by the time I got it, but at least my dad’s porn, or the porn of whoever he bought it from, was gender appropriate, even if the girls were my age.

  Davis’s duster flitted and fluttered over the computer screen.

  Blaine! Looking at those kinds of pictures, and in front of me! Imagine!

  This way I don’t have to imagine. Hey, Gayvis, why don’t you clean under the bed? Or in the closet? Or maybe on a busy highway?

  Davis worked his way down the desk and reached his duster up to the windowsill. He’d had it with him the first morning his mom dropped him off at our house, and before she left he was already running it over the TV and stereo. I caught the scene as I was heading off to school: a five-year-old with a feather duster and a kerchief tied around his head, I had to stop. His right pinkie stuck out as though he held a teacup and a golden cloud enveloped him, iridescent in the morning light.

  Static electricity draws dust bunnies like bees to honey!

  I looked at the mother of the freak. A couple inches of stomach rolled o
ut between her cutoffs and a Double-O Inn T-shirt. The Os circled her boobs and the inn had an arrow at the bottom of the second N that pointed to her vagina.

  Don’t you worry about Davis, she said, sucking on a cigarette. He just has his little routine.

  I know how housework can get away from you, Mrs. Gunderson, Davis said, lifting a china figurine from the TV, dusting it, setting it back down. But don’t you worry, I’m here now. If you’ll just show me where you keep the cleaning supplies, I’ll have this place spic ’n’ span before you know it.

  I get off at four, Davis’s mom said, reaching a finger into the fold of her navel and pulling out a belly ring. But sometimes I run a little late. She let go of her belly ring and it disappeared again. I looked up to see if maybe her hair had gotten longer.

  Blaine, Davis said now. I want to talk to you about your mother. I know I must sound like a broken record on this, but I’m not sure how much longer I can continue to live with that woman.

  On screen, Tina told me she’d been saving it all for me, but I knew she hadn’t.

  Always with the telephone, and the TV, and the nail polish. All day the woman does her nails. Would it kill her to do one load of laundry, or even rinse her toothpaste blobbies down the sink? And our love life has suffered since she moved in. I hate to say it, Blaine, but you know it’s the truth.

  No, Tina hadn’t saved anything. But she was willing to show me what she’d learned from giving it away. That’s what I liked about Tina.

  And her friends! Don’t even get me started on her friends.

  My mom’s “friends” were the other kids she babysits. This had been her brainwave last spring, which coincided with her getting canned from the café for spending more time flirting than working: unlicensed day care. Substandard service at bargain basement prices. The business didn’t actually have a name, but my mom referred to it as Broken Homes, Not Broken Bones.

  Meanwhile, Tina wanted me to take it out of my pants. Just then there was that knock/open thing my mom did, and her face appeared in the doorway with the phone tucked under her ear. As a well-prepared teen, my computer faced away from the door, and I glared at my mom over Tina’s teased hair as if it was me who’d caught her doing something.

  Davis, honey, your mom just beeped in. She’s gonna be late so you’ll be having dinner with us, okay? It’s tuna casserole, your favorite.

  Davis had clambered on the bed and was running the edge of his apron—i.e., my shirt—between the posts of my headboard.

  It’s not Could we have tuna casserole tonight? or even I’m feeling like tuna casserole, what about you? No, it’s It’s tuna casserole, your favorite, as though it was my idea all along.

  Green beans almondine, honey. You’ll love it.

  And does she even ask what my husband, her son, who pays for the roof over her head, wants for dinner? No-o-o.

  Your husband hates tuna casserole. And green beans. And nuts. Except his own, of course.

  Oh, Blaine, don’t encourage him, he’s weird enough as it is.

  With a little scrolling I was able to make Tina’s face disappear, and my mom’s took its place. The result looked like one of those caricatures you get at the state fair, with the head all big and the body tiny, and the boobs sticking out from either side of the skinny abdomen like balloons tied to a stick. It occurred to me that the creepiest thing about my mom looking at gay porn on my computer was that she looked up recipes immediately afterwards.

  I do not like it when you look at me that way, Blaine Gunderson. You are a very disturbed boy. No, Dan, not you, she said into the phone. My other boy. And baby? The yard is looking a little raggedy. You think you could get out the mower and—not you, Dan. My other baby. She closed the door, her giggles faded down the hall. An afterimage of red nail polish hung in front of my eyes, although I couldn’t remember actually seeing her hands.

  Fine, I’ll make your tuna casserole. Anything you want, Mother Gunderson.

  I closed the laptop on Tina’s headless body, swiveled the chair to face Davis. He was taking the soccer clothes out of my bag. T-shirt, shorts, socks. Despite the fact that they were soaked with sweat and caked with mud he folded them one at a time and put them in my dresser. He stopped when he came to the jock, which he held up with a questioning look on his face.

  Dear?

  It’s the wrapper from some head cheese I bought today.

  Davis put his free hand on his hip and frowned skeptically.

  No, really, smell it. It smells like head cheese.

  The jock was gray and kind of caky, the cup still in it. Davis brought it close to his face and his nose wrinkled. He sniffed once, then a second time. Then a third.

  I don’t believe I care for head cheese, dear. He threw the jock in the wastebasket beside the bed, which was mostly filled with tissues.

  Oh, do you have a cold? He pawed through the wastebasket, taking out tissue after tissue and lining them up on the windowsill like sharp-edged snowballs. You should tell me these things, I could have picked up some Nyquil while you were at work. You’ll be up all night. Blaine! Davis called as I walked out of the room. I hope you didn’t forget it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow!

  It was July 20, 2005, seven months to the day into George W. Bush’s second term of office. Davis was still five years old.

  So. Mowing the lawn’s cool, or at least it’s something you can do and see what you’ve done—as opposed to soccer, say, which is something that’s gone as soon as you do it. Don’t get me wrong. I liked soccer, and camp got me out of the house during the summer, as my mom liked to say, but I didn’t quite get the point of it. There was nothing to hold on to unless someone took a picture—and that’s not soccer, it’s just someone else’s memory. And it wasn’t like I enjoyed mowing the lawn or anything, though I did like the tracks of cut and uncut grass. That day I mowed the word FUCK into the front yard and then mowed it out. Whenever a Japanese car went by I flipped the driver the bird. I don’t have anything against the Japanese, or their cars, but you have to have a system, right? Otherwise you end up hating everything.

  Speaking of systems: Davis walked back and forth between the front door and the trash bin on the street. He held his apron up by the corners and carried something in the dimple with great delicacy, as though it were an unhatched egg. When he got to the bin he transferred the two corners of the apron to one hand and threw the lid open with the other—he had to heave his whole body to get the hinged lid to lift past ninety degrees and fall against the back of the bin—and then he pinched two fingers into the dimple of the apron and pulled out . . . wait for it . . . one of the tissues from my bedroom. He threw the tissue away, then turned around and repeated the process. He always closed the lid before he went back inside, and to top it off he only walked in the lines I’d mown, so that each trip took about five minutes. I appreciated his method, but god, the kid had issues. More issues than I had tissues, har har.

  The whole Davis-is-my-wife thing started about a week after he began coming to our house. I got home from school and found Ari and Ina, the six-year-old Eggleston twins, sitting side by side on the couch, staring at Davis with expressions half fascinated, half paralyzed.

  Ladies, Davis was saying, even though Ari was a boy, I’ll tell you what my mother told me when I was your age. There are three things you need to do to keep your man. One. Never say no. It don’t matter if your ankles are swollen from a double shift out to the Oh-Oh Inn and all you want is a tequila slammer and a Sominex. When the little soldier lifts his bayonet you lie down flat and take one for the team. Two. Dinner at six. Always. A full man is a sleepy man, and a sleepy man won’t be out chasing tail, let alone starting a half-breed family in the trailer park on the south side of town. He is also slower on his feet. And three. Always keep your waheena clean. There is nothing that makes a man bust your lip open faster than a stenchy waheena, and believe you me, thirteen stit
ches take a longer time to get over than the sting of a little douche.

  Ari, shy and obedient, raised his hand.

  What’s a waheena?

  Ina, more worldly and dominant, elbowed Ari in the ribs.

  You don’t have one.

  Ari looked like he was going to ask his question again, but then his eyes went wide and he clapped both hands over his mouth.

  Now watch, ladies, as I demonstrate the proper way to greet your man when he comes home from a hard day at work.

  Davis walked into the kitchen. The refrigerator door opened, followed by the sound of a popped top. A moment later, Davis reappeared with one of my mom’s Silver Bullets. He leaned provocatively against the doorframe, one hand stretched above him so that his dirty T-shirt rode up over an inch of equally dirty belly.

  Hello baby, he said in a breathy voice. Can I offer you a cold one? Or would you prefer something . . . hot?

  Just then my mom walked in the back door.

  Don’t even think about it, Blaine. She pinched the beer from Davis and took a swig. Then, realizing Mrs. Eggleston was due any minute, she put the open can back in the fridge. Isn’t he cute? He’s been going on about you all day.

  Davis regarded my mom with his hands on his hips and a disapproving frown on his face.

  Really, Alice. You had him for the first fourteen years of his life. It’s time to cut the cord.

  Davis’s mom showed up late that night, funky with booze and cigarettes, a sort of misty/smoky cloud enveloping her body, and then sharper blasts (the word stenchy came to mind) when she opened her mouth. A crusty stain, like brown gravy, or feces, stood out prominently on her stonewashed miniskirt.

  Maybe it was because she talked so much trash behind her back, but something about Davis’s mom made my mom nervous, and she stood up from the couch and held out her hand. The only time I’ve ever seen my mom offer someone her hand like that is to pull them out of a pool or something.