Fiction

April

Distasteful Flannel

Molly Lea

The captivating image of children at play, concentrating on a rough game of tag. The energy of the boys was infinite and the roughness of their game absurd. The older boy practically bowled the smaller child over each time he tagged him. The eldest was often “it” and resigned the responsibility to his competitor by creating a small convulsion in the shoulder of the younger boy. The older boy gleefully darted away while the younger gently massaged his aching muscle, attempting rejuvenation.

The boys ran after one another until it appeared they would burst. Pushing their last bits of energy until their lungs filled up with air, and when they appeared to be at the breaking point they went further. True athletes are made not by endurance, but the love of activity. When they got bored with the game the boys ran down the hill and towards the river.

“I can’t see them anymore,” Susan said sounding concerned.

“All the better,” replied the voice from inside her bedroom. Susan left the window and walked into the room to see Mr. Bradford had already situated himself under her sheets and was staring at her, radiating a repulsive animal lust. The sheets, she thought as she remembered opening them as a wedding present. Who were they from? Her mother, his mother? Apparently someone thought the couple would like to sleep under the warmth of flannel. Susan did not really care who they were from, the point was the sheets would have been used appropriately had her family moved up North as she wanted. Susan believed wholeheartedly that the bright Vermont summers and cold winters would have held their family together.

As pointless as the sheets were Susan had managed to put them to use. They were the only sheets she shared with Mr. Bradford and she made sure they adorned her bed before he came over. Pointless to own but good to use on occasion. That was exactly what the sheets meant to Susan, a perfect reflection of the man whose skin they grazed. She never would have meticulously planned for their presence if she were staring at her husband. Had he been in the bed the sheets would be the highest thread count of Ralph Lauren she owned.

Susan stood in her doorway glaring at the imposter in her bedroom. Did he think she never changed her sheets between rendezvous? She figured it probably did not cross his mind, considering their sins had been growing for nearly a year and a half and he never commented on the sheets. Susan clenched her teeth realizing she wanted nothing more at that moment than to go outside and take her son out for ice cream. Instead she removed her clothes and joined the man in bed. Waffle cones and rainbow sprinkles danced in her thoughts as he moved slowly inside her.

“Hey Levi, Levi, hey, hey man I bet you can’t do this.” A boy of twelve was playing on the rope swing that hung above the river. He had managed to climb up the tree and was holding onto the rope between his hands.

“Levi, you want to climb up to? Oh wait, babies aren’t allowed up here. You’re scared aren’t you? Afraid you’ll fall? Mommy not here to catch you?” Levi’s eyes became as large as quarters as he stood on the ground observing Pete.

“My mom says not to go up there,” the eight-year-old called from the ground. “She says it’s dangerous because it’s high and the river runs really fast. She won’t lemme climb it.”

“Man, what a baby. I bet you still have recess at school, don’t ya Levi?”

“Yeah,” Levi replied sheepishly.

“Well, when you get to be older like me, in middle school, you’ll learn recess ended with naps. We don’t even get a break during the day, we just have classes and the teachers hit us with sticks if we don’t behave. Yeah, that’s right, sticks. You ever been hit with a stick?”

Levi winced in remembrance of his father.

“You know what else we do in middle school?”

“What?”

“We go to a special class where they separate the boys and girls and we learn about sex. They have to put the girls into a different room because they don’t have to know how to have sex, only how to have babies. After class I tried to talk to Wendy and she was too embarrassed to even look at me. I couldn’t believe it! It’s probably the diagrams they show them or something. You ever seen a woman give birth? I have, right on TV. She yells and gets sweaty. When she finally pushes out the kid, all this gross slimy stuff comes out with it, sucker. Man am I glad I’m not a girl.” Pete, exceedingly proud of himself, began to climb down from the tree in order to get closer to the victim of his boasting.

“Hey, Levi, that’s a nice shirt. Your Mommy pick that out for you?” Pete asked as he hopped off the final rung. Levi self-consciously fingered one of the red squares that corresponded with the black to create the pattern on the button up. His mother had made him wear it before he left the house, warning that outside might be damp.

“Good idea, maybe you’re not such a waste of space after all. I saw some poles over there when I was in the tree we can use as swords.”

“Those are to mark the trail.”

“Screw the trail. We’ll put them back, come on.”

“Fine. We’ll use them. Do you want red or blue?”

“You should probably have red to match your ridiculous shirt.”

“Fine, you take blue.”

The boys swung the poles back and forth at one another, taking jabs and failing recklessly. Levi felt the vibration from each of Pete’s blows in his arm. The feeling stung as it was indeed chilly outside, his mother had been right. Each hit caused the throbbing in Levi’s arm to increase and stiff numbness crept below his skin.

Levi knew he did not want to be out in the woods playing with this boy. He hated Pete and had for months. Levi’s imagination faded into itself and he envisioned his mother coming down the path. She would scoop him up in her arms and carry him to the car. The warmth of her skin against his would ease the pain. They would drive away, and spend the afternoon together.

Levi’s body did not reflect his fantasy as he swung, back and forth against Pete. Pete’s strength was such that he jolted Levi out of his daydream and back to the game at hand. Levi was trying to hold on, but Pete was older and stronger and Levi was slowly losing his grip with every clash of metal. The loud twanging sounds from the poles hit the trees, reverberating into the river and up the hill, and for a reason beyond Levi’s imagination his mother was unable to hear.

Pete’s antics were beginning to remind Levi of his father when he came home intoxicated late at night. Pete was prancing around Levi with a swagger to this step and slurring his words to form his best pirate accent. Levi recalled his father coming home one evening and greeting him warmly with a “Hey there Charlie, my boy.” Charlie was the boy Levi’s father preferred over his own son. He told Levi if he were more like Charlie he would grow up to be a man and know all about cars, poker and women. Instead, Levi was fated to age into his mother.

Levi put the pole in his left hand quickly and swung hard at Pete’s. With a mighty blow he was able to knock Pete’s pole out of his hand and it clanked, hitting a rock on the ground.

“Levi that’s not fair. I wasn’t looking. A rain drop got in my eye, it was blurry,” Pete whined, gathering his pole.

The intense combination of throbbing pain in Levi’s hand and his building emotions caused Pete to appear differently. The crouching figure before the boy was not Pete, but all men. Pete became everything that Levi hated and wanted out of his life. Pete Bradford was his father, he was Levi’s father, the blue pirate was about to go down. Levi wiped his eyes and tried to focus on the shape before him as he raised his pole to the sky as though piercing the clouds and forced it down upon Man. One blow to the nape of his neck was all Levi needed for Pete to crumble.

“There,” Levi stated to the paling corpse, “Now I will go home and play inside by myself. I have to tell Mom to stop making these ‘play dates’ for me because,” he raised his hand, touching his forehead, “I have enough friends right here.”

Levi nudged Pete’s body with his foot. In the distance he heard a bird sing from a tree. The woods felt desolate and at that instant he became nauseous. Levi gripped his stomach and vomited into a fern. He then removed his shirt and placed it over the body. He figured it was an appropriate sacrifice to cover his diabolical act considering he did not care for it and when the sun appeared it would be too warm for flannel.