GRANDMA BETTY

VILE SELF PORTRAITS, CHAPTER TWO

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Grandma Betty ordered us three different pies with cinnamon sticks and icing dip. We ate like fiends off paper plates in the game room using our shirts as napkins. The steel wool couch cushions were peppered with years of adolescent dandruff and pizza crumbs. The television’s glass bubble screen shocked anyone who touched it. Below it were scattered DVD cases, a gray PlayStation, two working controllers, one broken, memory cards, and a stack of scratched games. Rob, Smitty, Kyle, and I were watching Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, sipping soda with sticky teeth and wet cement in our stomachs. Grandma Betty would come in occasionally, smile at us, say, "How’s the movie, guys?" then return to the nineties flatscreen in the front of the house to binge another pixelated soap opera. It was around 10:00 p.m. when she went to bed. "Get ta sleep soon, guys. No funny business," she said sternly, smiled, and waddled upstairs to my parents’ bedroom.

"We should sneak out!" Kyle blurted, dislodging the glutinous, sperm-like icing still stuck in his throat.

"Shut up! She’ll hear you, fuckin’ idiot!" Rob snapped.

"Fuck you," Kyle whispered angrily.

"I’m not going," Smitty said, indifferent.

"Joey’s too pussy ta do it, anyway," Rob said with his signature shit-stuffed smirk.

"I don’t wanna," I said.

"Because you’re scared, right?"

"No, I just don’t wanna go outside."

"Pft, you’re sucha pussy, Joe," Kyle said.

"You’re the pussy, you fat fuck!"

"I’m not fat you fuckin’ idiot! I’m strong!"

"It’s not like you’d do it."

"I don’t hafta do it, faggot. I’m olda than you."

"So?"

"Everyone shut the fuck up!" Rob yelled, slamming his hand onto the couch.

"You guys are fuckin’ dicks," Smitty said, belching as he turned over in his sleeping bag.

◆◆◆

Three empty, grease-fingerprinted pizza boxes were stacked in the corner by the television. Movie credits rolled over the children’s pudgy faces as they yawned in unison. Rob and Kyle, the older kids, had claimed the couches, confining Smitty and Joseph to the floor. Joseph was the last awake. He stared at the ceiling for a while wondering if it would fall and crush them. He eventually decided that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it did. At midnight he went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and stared numbly at its contents: a gang of Sprite Zero cans, a bright yellow tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!, a tray of leftover chicken parmesan, various deli meats and cheeses, a curdled half-gallon of skim milk, and a single cup of low-fat yogurt. He wasn’t hungry or thirsty. He didn’t feel much of anything besides a surreal fuzz diffusing from his skull.

The house was silent.

He peered outside at the glowing streetlamps and thought about running. Leaving. Walking until he was elsewhere. Barefoot, he edged the front door open, assured it was unlocked, and slipped into the night. An orchestra of crickets droned in the distance. He avoided the driveway’s motion sensor and reached the sidewalk, glancing back to inspect the windows of his parents’ bedroom where his grandmother supposedly slept. Following the sidewalk, stopping occasionally to dig pebbles out of his feet, he reached the four-way stop at the end of the street. He tilted his head up at the suburban starscape and wondered if the sky would ever fall and destroy the world. He eventually decided that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it did.

A car sped past and stole his thoughts.

He hurried back, carefully selecting each step. Fear surged as his house came into view, but subsided when he saw every window still dark. He felt a sly pride in knowing that he hadn’t been caught, that he could hide in the night, that it would never mind his presence.

It was his friend.

He avoided the driveway’s motion sensor again and slinked up the steps toward the front door.

It was locked.

He tried again and again with the same result. His sly pride contorted into undiluted dread. He thought about giving up, ringing the doorbell, and accepting whatever punishment his grandmother saw fit. On a whim, he crossed the front lawn and mindfully unlatched the gate to the backyard. He stood on his toes before the window of the game room and looked inside. Directly under the window was Kyle, his blockish face half-illuminated in moonlight, snoring on the couch, dreaming about his deadbeat father who molested him. There was a quarter-sized hole at the bottom of the mesh window screen. It had spread over the years, centimeter by centimeter. Joseph used his pinky to rip it wider, then slashed the other side of the screen with a rock, enabling him to reach inside and release the locks. He slid the screen up and opened the window. Kyle’s snores met the outside world, and the outside world didn’t approve. Kicking off the vinyl siding, Joseph pulled himself into the house, crashing down onto Kyle.

"Huh? What… what the fuck are you doing, faggot!?"

Joseph avoided Smitty’s head as Kyle shoved him to the floor.

"Wait!" Joseph whispered, rising and reaching over Kyle to shut the window.

"Were you tryna fuck me, faggot?"

"No."

Rob woke. "What’s goin’ on?"

"Your brother tried ta fuck me!"

"Would ya shut the fuck up? I’m sleepin’! Go the fuck ta bed, Joe!"

Joseph scrambled into his sleeping bag as footsteps descended the stairs. His heartbeat blasted the floor. Kyle fake-snored. Rob sighed.

Smitty slept through all of it.

"Joe? Joseph, c’mon, I know you’re up."

Joseph lifted his head and wiped imaginary crust from his eyes.

"Yeah?"

"What’s goin’ on? Whadaya doin’? The front door was unlocked and I thought I heard someone outside…"

"Outside? Naw, I was sleeping, Grandma…"

"Are ya lyin’ ta me? Ya swear on your mutha’s life? Think about your answer, Joe."

"I… I only went out for a coupla minutes, I swear!"

"Unbahlievable! I’m very disappointed, Joseph. Wait until ya fahtha hears about this! Sneakin’ out on your grandmutha, ya should be ashamed!"

"I’m sorry!"

"Get ta bed! Now!"

Betty crossed her arms and stomped upstairs. Joseph shut his eyes and released tears. Kyle leaned over and punched Joseph’s arm.

"Faggot! Ya evah touch me again, I’ll fuckin’ kill ya!"

Joseph said nothing, just pulled his sleeping bag over his face and quietly cried. He knew his parents would be home in the morning. He rubbed his left cheek where his father’s fist usually connected. Screams reverberated throughout his head. He knew sleep would never come, only a ceaseless barrage of tormenting thoughts. He wanted to run. To leave. To fall and keep falling, down, down, down. To find elsewhere, make a nest, and decay. He couldn’t name what he was feeling, but he felt it nonetheless, and it lingered, multiplying, corroding his will and warping his desires.

That feeling took everything.

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Chapter three, “DIRT BIKE,” coming 02/11/2025.

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VILE SELF PORTRAITS AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO DRUG ADDICTION.