Photo by iyinoluwa John Onaeko on Unsplash
Once we finish eating dinner, Marion collects the dishes, piles them in the sink, and looks at me. This means it’s my night to clean up.
I nod at her and smile. With my face I try to tell her that I got the message, that I’m eager and willing to help, that everything will get done just the way she wants it, but before I can make a move toward the sink, my eleven year-old son Jimmy climbs out of his chair and darts to the basement where my older brother Kenny and the PlayStation await. Now I stand and follow my son to the basement. As I pass my wife, I hold out my hand to try to quell her frustrations.
“I know. I’m going to talk to him about it right now.”
Marion blows a heavy sigh, turns to the sink, and switches on the faucet.
Hearing this I take a quick left and turn off the water.
“It’s my night, so I’m going to do it,” I tell her, my fingers gripping the silver lever of the faucet. I consider moving my hand to her shoulder, but I don’t want to make things worse, so I stop myself. Since she’s refusing to talk to me while Kenny is still living with us, it goes without saying that touching is off the table too. “I’m going to talk to him right now, and then I’m going to clean this stuff up. It’s going to get done. I promise.”
Marion walks away without a word. Moments later I hear the stairs creaking as she goes up to the bedroom.
#
By the time I get down to the basement, Jimmy and Kenny are already playing a new Sonic the Hedgehog game I’ve never seen before. Since I don’t remember buying it, and since my son doesn’t have any way to purchase it himself, that only leaves Kenny. But where he got the money is just as much of a mystery. It’s been four months since Kenny got fired from his baker’s job at Value King, and he hasn’t worked a day in that time.
But instead of pointing this out and putting my brother on the defensive, I thump down on the couch next to him and look to the TV. Sonic curls into a perfect blue marble and screams across the stage. He roars over pixel-art hills, slashes past sixteen-bit waterfalls.
“Is this a new one, Jimmy?” I ask my son.
He ignores me and keeps playing.
“You better not be bringing that Jimmy garbage down here, bro,” Kenny says with a grin, grinding a sharp elbow into my ribs. “The only guy I see here is my main man, Jim.”
I lean forward and search my son’s face for a reaction to this, but it stays blank.
“You’re going by Jim now? Since when did this happen?”
“A while ago,” he says without looking away from the TV.
“You never told me that.”
“I told you that literally yesterday. And a hundred times before that.”
“When? I don’t remember you ever saying anything about this.”
Jimmy scoffs and keeps playing.
After a minute of silence, I try again.
“So is this a new game? I thought they stopped making Sonic games because they were so bad for so long.”
“Not this one,” Kenny says, throwing a heavy arm around my shoulder. “With this one my boy Sonic is back on top. This one puts that chump-ass plumber of yours to shame.”
“But the Mario series has some of the best games ever made. How does one Sonic game put all that to shame?”
Kenny leans to the side and squeezes out a sputtering fart.
“That’s how,” he says, laughing. “Plus those games are boring as hell. Especially with how you used to play, all obsessive-compulsive, taking forever to get every little coin, playing each level a hundred times to make sure you did it perfect. Watching you play Mario is about as exciting as doing my taxes.”
“But you’ve never done your own taxes. I do them for you every year. And even if you hate the way I play, that doesn’t erase the incredible level of quality the Mario series has maintained for over thirty years.”
“Ninety-one on Metacritic, bitch,” Kenny says, pointing at the TV.
Hearing this Jimmy bursts into laughter, pauses the game, and high-fives Kenny.
Feeling tired and exasperated already, I decide to drop this particular argument. With the big one that’s sure to come when I tell Kenny to move out, I need to conserve my energy. So I look to the TV and watch my son play the new Sonic game. Charging ahead at full speed, no concern for safety, blasting past ninety percent of the rings and power-ups, Jimmy plays just like Kenny used to when we were kids. Back then, the only thing that mattered to Kenny was the thrill and pleasure of screaming through the stages at top speed. If he ran Sonic into some spikes or off the side of a cliff, he’d grin at me as if he was the happiest guy in the world. Because as long as he got to have his fun, he didn’t care about the consequences. Looking at him now, thirty-nine years old, unemployed, living in his brother’s basement, still going out to the bars every weekend with his friends, it’s clear he hasn’t changed very much. But when you’re the life of the party and no one ever challenges you to get your shit together, I guess it’s hard to be motivated to change.
Moments later Sonic rockets off a red trampoline and flies into a wall of spikes. The dozen rings he was carrying go flying everywhere.
“Bitch!” Jimmy yells at the screen.
Shocked by this disturbing display, I stand up and step between my son and the TV.
“Okay, you’re done with that right now,” I say to him. “Now go upstairs and get started on your homework.”
“But it’s only Friday night! Mom said I could do it whenever I want as long as I finish it before school on Monday.”
“Well, if you don’t want to do that, there’s a whole sink of dirty dishes waiting for you in the kitchen. Take your pick.”
Jimmy’s face flushes red with rage.
“But that’s your job! Mom told me I’m not supposed to do those for you.”
“It’s one or the other. Now get moving,” I say, my palms going sweaty with anger. “And don’t even think about locking your door tonight, because me and you are going to have a serious talk about that disgusting performance you just put on.”
Following this Jimmy stomps up the stairs to the kitchen. Just before the door slams, I hear him mutter something to himself.
Dickhead.
Once he’s gone, I slump down on the couch. As my body sinks into the soft cushions, my anger dissolves into a heavy exhaustion.
“Sorry about being a dickhead about the whole nickname thing with Jim, but I figured you knew that already,” Kenny says. “You’re usually so on top of everything.”
“The IRS is auditing us at work,” I say, rubbing my eyes in little circles. “So naturally, me and everyone else in the accounting department is scared shitless. So it’s been kind of tough to stay focused with all that going on.”
Just then my phone vibrates in my pocket. Checking it, I see that Marion has sent me some texts.
What’s taking so long?
And why the hell is Jim doing the dishes instead of you?
In an instant her words jolt me from my exhausted stupor.
“Shit, I’ve got to—” I start to say, but then I remember the conversation I’m supposed to be having with Kenny right now, the one where I tell him to move out so I can save my marriage. “I’ve got to go upstairs to clean up, but I was supposed to come down here to tell you that you need to move out. Marion thinks you’re having a bad effect on Jimmy. I hate to say it, but I think she’s right. You saw what he just did. We can’t have him talking like that. The only reason he’s acting that way is to impress you. And with all this shit I’m dealing with at work. It’s killing me. I’m sorry, Ken, but you got to go.”
In response to this Kenny grins at me and cracks an imaginary whip.
“Man, she’s got you good, doesn’t she?”
“Ken, I’m serious.”
After a long look at my unsmiling face, his grin fades away.
“Alright, alright, I get it. I could probably be out of here by tomorrow night if you want, I just have to make a few calls.”
“Can you actually do that?”
“Yeah. Pat Jameson just moved into a new place, so I’m sure I can talk him into letting me stay there for a while,” he says. Now he stands up and touches his toes with the tips of his fingers. Coming down here I always forget he still lives on his night-shift baker’s hours, and that this time of the night—seven-thirty p.m.—is the beginning of his day.
Moments later he straightens up with a groan.
“Now that that’s settled, why don’t you stick around for a while and check out this new Sonic. It’s pretty sick.”
“I can’t, I really need to—”
“You really need to have some goddamn fun for a change. That’s what you really need,” he says, grinning at me. “And don’t worry. Jim ain’t going anywhere. Neither is the IRS. You can bet your ass they’ll be waiting for you first thing Monday morning. So come on. Let yourself have some fun for once in your life.”
Overcome with relief that he agreed to move out without a fight, I decide to take him up on his offer.
“Alright, hand me that controller.”
#
Hours later I wake up on the couch in the basement. The clock on the cable box tells me it’s a few minutes before noon. Kenny is snoring on the floor at the foot of the couch, his long body wrapped in a cocoon of tangled blankets.
Opening the door to the kitchen, I see that all the dirty dishes from last night have been washed and put away. Now I go upstairs to the second floor to talk to Jimmy about his behavior from last night. But when I step into his room, I see that both his closet and dresser are cleaned out and empty of clothes. Sitting in the center of his neatly made bed is a note. The words are written in Marion’s smooth, looping cursive.
Since you care about your brother more than your wife and child, you can keep him. Took Jim to my parents’ house. Don’t call.
After reading the note a few times, I drop it on the bed beside me. Now I lay back and check my phone. There are three new texts, but none are from Marion. The only messages from her are the texts from last night, the ones I never answered. The new texts are from Kenny, sent at eleven-sixteen a.m.:
ill be passed out when you read this bro, but i just wanted to let you know that pat will be coming by around eight to help me move out
im sure ill see you and marion and jim before then, but in case i dont, always remember
when the IRS has you bent over and your pants are around your ankles, the correct response is Thank you sir, may I please have another!
Once I finish reading Kenny’s texts, I slip my phone into my pocket and stare up at the ceiling. The bed creaks. The house is silent. I laugh at Kenny’s joke. There’s not really anything else to do.
Steve Gergley is a writer and runner based in Warwick, New York. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in A-Minor, After the Pause, Barren Magazine, Maudlin House, Pithead Chapel, and others. In addition to writing fiction, he has composed and recorded five albums of original music.