After my second abduction, I began hiding a duffel bag with spare clothes behind the AC unit under my bedroom window. The sluggers don’t always return me totally naked, but when they do, I assume it’s because it amuses them to watch me attempt to sneak from one end of Calypso to the other without being arrested for indecent exposure.
As I dressed, I tried to wrap my brain around the possibility that the world was going to end, and the absurd notion that aliens had chosen me to determine whether the apocalypse would happen as scheduled or be delayed. I simply wasn’t important enough to make such a crucial decision. They should have abducted the president or the pope or Neil deGrasse Tyson.
I don’t know why I didn’t press the button for real when I had the chance other than that I don’t think the aliens would have given me such a long lead time if they hadn’t wanted me to consider my choice carefully. Most people probably believe they would have pressed the button in my situation—nobody wants the world to end, right?—but the truth is that nothing is as simple as it seems. Turn on the news; read some blogs. The world is a shit hole, and I have to consider whether it might be better to wipe the slate clean and give the civilization that evolves from the ashes of our bones a chance to get it right.
I used the spare key under the dead begonia by the front door to sneak into my house. The smell of cigarette smoke and fried eggs greeted me, and I sauntered into the kitchen like I’d come from my bedroom, still bleary-eyed and sleepy. Mom glanced up from reading her phone. A cigarette hung from the tips of her fingers, and her curly bleached hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. “About time. I was calling you, Henry. Didn’t you hear me calling you?” My mom is shaped like an eggplant and often sports bags under her eyes of the same color.
I leaned against the door, not planning to stay. Alien abductions always make me feel like I need a boiling bleach shower. “Sorry.”
Nana smiled at me from the stove. She slid a plate of pepper--flecked fried eggs onto the table and set the mayo beside it. “Eat. You’re too skinny.” Nana is gritty and hard; she wears her wrinkles and liver spots like battle scars from a war she’ll never stop fighting. She’s the gristle stuck between Time’s teeth, and I love her for it.
Mom took a drag from her cigarette and jabbed it in my direction. “I called you a hundred times.”
Before I could reply, Charlie stomped into the kitchen and swiped my plate. He ate one egg with his hands as he flopped into a chair, and then set to work on the rest of my breakfast. Sometimes it’s difficult to believe Charlie and I come from the same parents. I’m tall, he’s short; I’m skinny, he used to be muscular, though most of it turned to fat after high school; I can count to five without using my fingers. . . . Charlie has fingers.
“Henry didn’t hear you because Henry wasn’t home.” Charlie smirked at me as he grabbed a fistful of bacon from the plate in the middle of the table. He grimaced at Mom. “Do you have to smoke while I’m eating?”
Mom ignored him. “Where were you, Henry?”
“Here.”
“Liar,” Charlie said. “Your bed was empty when I got home from Zooey’s last night.”
“What the hell were you doing in my room?”
Mom took a drag off her cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. Her mouth was pursed and tight like a bright pink sphincter, and her silence spoke louder than any slammed door. The only sounds in the kitchen belonged to the eggs frying on the stove and Nana whistling the Bunker theme song.
“I couldn’t sleep so I went for a walk. What’s the big deal?”
Charlie coughed “bullshit” under his breath; I replied with one finger.
“You’re not . . . sleepwalking . . . again, are you?”
“I was walking, Mom, but I was definitely awake.”
Charlie whipped a toast wedge that struck me below my eye. “Two points!”
“Did you just try to blind me with toast? What the hell is wrong with you?” I grabbed the toast off the floor to throw it away, but Charlie held out his hand and said, “Don’t waste it, bro.”
Mom lit another cigarette. “No one would blame me if I smothered you both in your sleep.” I think my mom might have been pretty once, but the years devoured her youth, beauty, and enthusiasm for anything with an alcohol content of less than 12 percent.
Nana handed me a paper bag stained with grease. “Don’t forget your lunch, Charlie.”
I peeked inside the bag. Nana had dumped two fried eggs, three strips of bacon, and hash browns at the bottom. Broken yolk oozed over everything like sunny pus. “I’m Henry, Nana.” As soon as she turned her back, I tossed the sack lunch into the garbage can.
“Do you need a ride to school, Henry?” Mom asked.
I glanced at the clock on the microwave. If I hurried, I’d have enough time to shower and walk to school. “Tempting. I’ve read that beginning your day by doing something absolutely terrifying is good for you, but I’m going to pass.”
“Smartass.”
“Could you drop me off at Zooey’s?” Charlie mopped up the last of my eggs with the projectile floor toast and stuffed it into his fat mouth.