Trouble at Home

Trouble at Home Senior Creative Writing Project Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For a Degree Bachelor of Arts with A Major in Creative Writing at The University of North Carolina at Asheville Fall 2006 By KATRINA USHER Thesis Advisor PATRICK FINN Thesis Director Richard Chess Trouble at Home Three Short Stories By Katrina Usher 22 Tremont St. Asheville, NC 28806 (828) 275-6724 [email protected] Trouble at Home Usher 1 For my father Usher 2 Contents Fishing at the Power Lines................................................... 3 A Sunrise in Winter ............................................................. 1 8 Become the Leader You Were Meant to Be.. ..34 Usher3 Fishing at the Power Lines To look at it, it was just two blond-headed guys swishing through some tall grass down the power lines on the way to go fishing. The big one on the left was Danny White and the scrawny one with the buzz cut was his little brother Roger. They were tall boys, Danny was a good deal thicker but they were both tall like weeds, and they walked like they knew the place. Roger had the poles and the bait and whatever else you might need to go fishing, wearing a thin white t-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans with the cuffs tucked into an ugly pair of hiking boots, and Danny had a mean look and a mullet haircut, and was lugging along a big dirty white cooler full of beers. They didn't bring sandwiches or anything because they were just a couple boys skipping high school and didn't think about things like sandwiches. Well, let's be clear; Roger was the only one skipping high school because Danny left that place in a blazing trail of dust almost two years before. No reason to stay; their father always said you can make more Usher 4 money sooping up cars and moving heavy stuff around for the neighbors. And you could take days off to go fishing that way. Roger was going to leave, too, soon as he was old enough, though he didn't mind school so much. He was actually pretty good at math, though he hadn't cracked an English book since seventh grade. Lot of not-bad-looking girls there, too. They walked like that for a good while, and it was still early but the sun was rising fast and it was becoming one of those muggy New England summer days. Danny was switching the cooler from hand to hand, trying to rest his arms. "Stop for a beer," he said after a while. He put the cooler down right where he was, tossed Roger a can of Natural Ice and kept one for himself, took a seat on the cooler. Roger sat down on the grass with his elbows wrapped around his knees, yawned, and cracked his beer. A cricket jumped on his arm and he flicked it off. "Shouldn't be skipping school," said Danny after a few minutes. "Why?" "'Cause you didn't ask Dad." "Dad don't care." Roger scuffed his toe in the dirt, took a long swig of beer, and made a face. "Stuffs nasty." Danny always bought the worst beer. "Should have asked him." Danny crumpled up his empty can. "It's beer, you faggot, it's not supposed to taste like apple juice." Usher 5 They stood up and gathered their gear, then kept walking through the mist of gnats and pollen. It all stuck to the film of sweat on their faces and necks and arms. Walking quiet like that, Roger thought he could hear the hum of the power lines. He imagined he could feel it, too, all that electricity blasting down the dry strip of grass and weeds and bugs. All that electricity buzzing through everything, straight through his own body. They walked a little further, single file with Danny walking in front. He started switching the cooler from hand to hand with greater frequency. "Just up this one more hill and there's our turn," called Roger, trying to be encouraging. "I know that, asshole, IVe only been up here five thousand times." "You know, if you didnft want me to come you should have said so." Danny looked back at him. "Okay. I don't want you to come." Roger thought Danny acted more and more like their father every day. Like a mean bastard, that is to say. Their father had always drunk too much and had a rotten temper, but Roger knew he took pride in his sons. It wasn't till a couple years before, when their mother died of ovarian cancer, that he'd started acting like a tyrant, pushing the boys around and even starting fist fights with Danny. At night, after he got mostly through a twelve-pack, he often made unreasonable demands on Usher6 the boys, mostly having to do with chores, or work to be done at the shop. "How long I been asking you boys to put up this new mailbox? I'm tired of that rusty old fucking mailbox." Roger mostly deferred to his father, either doing the chore or, if his father was drunk enough, agreeing to do the chore and then just going off to one of his buddies' houses. The next morning, if he remembered it, his father would make fun of him for submitting to his ridiculous orders. "Yes, Daddy," he would mock. "I'll go out in the rain and mow the lawn. Kid's got no balls." But Danny refused to comply with his father at those moments. "No fuckin' way," he'd say, "I'll do it tomorrow." Well, that usually commenced a brawl out in the backyard. The next morning, they would both wake up bruised and sore, but their father would slap Danny on the back and say, "You're a tough kid, I'll give you that." Roger guessed it was a lot of pressure to raise two boys alone, and he didn't envy Danny for being the first-born. First-born and favorite son, Roger thought. It was a lot to live up to, and it didn't make Danny the greatest company. Still, brothers are brothers and fishing is fishing. "Too late now," said Roger, and he paced ahead, swinging his arms out wide. Usher/ At the top of the hill they passed through an entrance out of the sticky sun and into the dank woods. The sound of the stream bubbled up, and Roger could smell the grey clay of its banks with his first breath in. It smelled different from that sweet red clay they brag about some places, dirtier and more straightforward; therefs nothing in suburban Massachusetts as exotic as red-colored dirt. It wasn't far till they met the stream, which was much too wide to jump across. They knew to cross over the wide part just before a little rocky waterfall, where the water was shallowest, and Roger expertly hopped across the slippery roots and rocks that jutted an inch or two out of the fast water. The cooler was heavy and Danny was stepping slowly, trying not to lose his balance. "You want to pass me that cooler?" Roger called over the rush of the stream. "Fuck off," said Danny, and right then he lost his footing and fell ass-first into the river. "Look what you did!" Roger laughed loudly at his brother's soaked jeans, and turned around to saunter toward the fishing hole. It wasn't far to the little pine grove that housed the campsite with a fire pit full of rusty beer cans. Right by there, like a back door off the living room, was an opening, referred to as the Rope Swing, onto Wildwood Lake. There was a big boulder at the opening, which was good both for fishing from and for getting good air off the rope that hung from the big elm tree. Usher 8 The boys baited their lines, sat down on a couple smooth spots on the rock, opened a couple fresh beers, and started fishing. They didnft say much. Roger liked to sit and daydream while he fished, think about girls or what he'd do after he left high school. Maybe learn how to weld, maybe be a blacksmith. Make swords. There was a market for that sort of thing. He could always work on cars at his dadfs shop; that was what his family expected anyway. A bunch of time went by that way, just him sitting and thinking and drinking his beer. He didn't catch anything for the first couple beers-neither of them had a watch, so beers were the best way to measure time-but Danny pulled out a little perch or two, which he threw back. Roger was feeling a little buzz and didn't care much about catching fish. He was fine going along in his daydreams. "Hey Snow White, you dreaming about Prince Charming?" Danny snapped him out of it. "Cinderella's the one with Prince Charming," Roger said, without thinking first. "Faggot." "Do you have any other words in your vocabulary? You used to be smart." He shook his head. The alcohol was making him bolder. "Floccinaucinihilipilification. Longest word in the English language. It's the act of deciding something's worthless. You little piece of shit." He chucked a rock into the lake and stared at how far it sent the water rippling. Usher 9 "Do you think Dad would be pissed if I didn't want to work at the shop?" Just like that, out of nowhere.

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