Cleaning Up

Summers used to mean storming the cabin, bickering over turns on the rope swing, and spitting cherry pits into the long grass. Malakai remembers how Grandpa would drive them over the crunching hill into town to show them off: Freddy with his arms tanned copper from afternoons spent playing football with friends, Malakai with his spare frame partially shielded behind his brother, inattentive to the action. At the bar, Grandpa’s employees asked after Freddy’s grades and championships. He was at home in the performance, all lively gestures and jokes. After the family disappeared through the door, those employees would turn to each other in hushed tones, confessing how sorry they felt for Malakai, his anxiety charging the air around him, asserting how lucky he is for having such a strong brother. All they really have is each other, you know? If those people knew themselves better, they might have recognized the way that Malakai’s gaze made their fingers twitch in discomfort. It wasn’t that he avoided their eyes; he looked through them into something they wouldn’t have wanted him to see.

Now, Malakai bores that gaze into the rain-soaked cabin through his windshield. He wonders how much longer he can stall before the others notice his car outside. Maybe all night.

Darkness has started its early siege of the October sky. Fog hangs on the shingles and crows bark from the needled trees overhead. Autumn feels wrong here. Grandma’s car is too shiny parked in the muddy drive. Malakia has never before wound through the mountains while they were blanketed in colors—too bold for death. This place of boardshorts and peaches has been bastardized into something he doesn’t recognize.

A pair of eyes catch on his beaten sedan from the kitchen window. Freddy fixes him with narrow glare. Then, something snatches Freddy’s attention inside and as he turns, his eyes widen—too big. Not human. Malakai realizes it’s Fake Freddy who saw him, not the real one. There’s still nobody who knows Malakai is here. He makes himself relax against the car window, trying to enjoy his secluded grief while he can, before he’s forced to share it. Too soon, the front door swings open with a leak of lamplight, dribbling out Real Freddy hauling a garbage bag to the bin. He sees his little brother, pulls his lips into a tight imitation of a smile, and tosses out a wave: come inside, already.

“M finally made it,” Freddy booms as they stomp their boots out on the mat.

Malakai, the younger one thinks. Christ, just let me have all of my name.

The cabin is bustling with twice as many bodies as anyone else can see. Malakai takes a moment to grasp hold of reality. Real Freddy marches back into the kitchen to grab the recycling while Fake Freddy sulks on the couch. Real Mom and Real Grandma gesture Malakai over to the floor around the coffee table to show him a picture from when Mom was a little girl, lamenting the fact that Grandpa didn’t have any pictures of Mom’s graduation or wedding or any baby pictures of the boys.

As they thumb through the album, Malakai sneaks glances around to tally his imaginary friends.

Fake Malakai has found the corner. Fake Mom is assessing the wear on the recliner with her spidery fingers, trying to decide if it’s better to donate, sell, or keep. Fake Grandma is wandering around the cabin, her saucer eyes glazed over. Malakai has always been thankful it’s so easy to tell Fake from Real. The Fakes have uncannily large eyes and mouths and long limbs; their expressions and gestures are sickening exaggerations of what a Real can emote. Instead of Fake Grandma’s head being cocked slightly to the side, her neck is bent at such a rubbery angle, her head is barely hanging on, her face slumping beneath the line of her shoulder.

An overactive imagination, the psychiatrist said when Malakai was little. She insisted she was certain but she kept eyeing her notes with something like worry. She was the last in a series of doctors—including optometrists—Mom and Dad begged to diagnose their son. When Malakai caught Mom sobbing to Dad one night, whimpering about how she didn’t want to send her baby to a psych ward, he decided to stop mentioning the Fakes. It’s been decades, but she still watches him, her face darkening when his eyes drift away to an empty space.

Grandma fights to lighten the atmosphere, suggesting the boys make lists of what they want to keep. They know what she isn’t saying—what they don’t keep will be sold off as if it wasn’t part of their childhood.

Freddy and Malakai calmly find a legal pad and some pens, but the Fakes have hunger in their cavernous eyes. Fake Malakai even licks his lips with an overly long tongue. The real one blushes in embarrassment before taking comfort in the fact that no one else saw the desperation. His temptation to write the cabin almost squashes his knowledge that he shouldn’t. The thought of living out his life in this Eden, where nobody knows he’s insane, warms him like sunlight.

Before he knows it, Malakai is bested. Freddy has already claimed the coffee table and Grandpa’s treasured cast iron pan. He wants to slap the smug look off Fake Freddy’s face, but he knows the smirk would morph into too satisfied a scowl, one saying, what the hell are you doing, you lunatic? There’s no one there.

Even the Fakes know he’s crazy.

Grandpa didn’t know. He was swallowed into a midlife crisis for the first part of Mom’s adult life, only reemerging after Malakai had started school, long after the commitment to normalcy. By then, he established himself here in the mountains. Neither Real nor Fake Grandpa ever gave the boy that disturbed look he is so familiar with.

Malakai shakes his head to clear it. In childhood, he noticed his brain moves slower than everyone else’s—especially Freddy’s. Maybe because it’s bogged down by unreal things. He rises to explore like Fake Grandma, in search of whatever items aren’t coming to mind.

Grandpa’s bedroom embraces him as he steps inside. The boys used to lay in the bed with him while he read chapter books out loud, and Malakai would close his eyes and let his overactive imagination take him away. Often, Freddy would bubble with complaints and pleas for video games, saying the books were too boring. Malakai took satisfaction from the frown that came over Fake Grandpa’s face.

Freddy has no right to his stuff, he thinks. He has a home everywhere; he is normal everywhere. Grandpa is mine.

On the yellow paper, Malakai jots bed frame and books, then he burrows into the closet. Emerging, he unfurls an armful of sweaters across the bed. The one Grandpa wore last Christmas offers the lingering perfume of tobacco. Malakai pulls the scratchy wool over his torso, letting it envelop him. Let Freddy have the expensive things. He’ll have what made Grandpa Grandpa. Maybe he’ll take up smoking so Mom won’t be alone on the patio at Christmas.

He is ready for pleased smiles at the sight of the sweaters when he returns to the living room, but the room is choked with a somber haze. Fake Freddy is in tears, and the real one is hugging Mom.

“I know you miss him, sweetie,” she murmurs.

Freddy clutching Grandpa’s christmas ornament, the one with a big bear and a baby bear, labeled Grandpa and Freddy. The younger brother seethes. The door slams behind him as he carries his haul of knitwear to his car. He stops, his hands gripping the wet car roof, looking out over the grey river. Freddy has the whole world. Can’t Malakai have this? He should be the one hurt and the one comforted.

The porch groans behind him and he turns to see Grandma, her arms grasping each other as if the posture is how she’s holding everything together. “I think we could all use a dinner break. What do you think?”

At the bar, they order a spread of appetizers and a round of beer. The bar isn’t too packed, but with the extra crowd of Fakes clogging it up and adding their unnatural bearing, Malakai feels claustrophobic. Often, like now, Fakes outnumber Reals. There are at least five lumbering freaks without a Real lookalike to balance the score. He leans into his sweating pint glass. Alcohol helps dim the creepy.

His third golden drink loosens him, and he is nearly normal. He participates a bit in the stories his family trade about Grandpa, including many nights at this very bar, either visiting with him as customers or watching him work. Mom always said this bar was his second family, that the bar was the affair he chased that doomed his marriage.

The door hinges and the figure of a squat old man slips in the door and through to the back room; Malakai sends him a smile and lifts his hand to wave before freezing, his hand dangling by his shoulder. Freddy’s story fades into the clatter of patrons around them. Grandpa reappears from the door and glides back out through the front, turning right and heading toward the parking lot.

It might not be him, Malakai tells himself, preparing for disappointment. This town has more than its share of old men.

Excusing himself to grab something from the car, Malakai drops from his stool and commands his feet to move. He side-steps puddles on the way around the building, toward the side door to the bar’s office. There, in the shadowed drizzle, the old man pats his pockets as if feeling for the key. It’s him.

Malakai is certain he’s about to either puke or drop into the fetal position to scream. Childish with hope, he can’t help it—-he chokes out, “Are you real?”

Two vast eyes turn to him with hyperbolic shock. The wide mouth parts, closes in uncertainty, and unlatches once more. “Malakai? Can you see me?” His voice has the same rust as the real one did. This Fake—who never acknowledged him before—is now looking between Real and Fake Malakai, as if seeing both for the first time.

“Yes,” he whispers. He hadn’t thought about what might happen to his imaginary friends when their lookalikes die. The relief that swells in his chest is overwhelming; maybe his insanity isn’t only a curse.

“Oh my god,” the Fake lets out an eerie, coyote-like jolt of laughter. His distorted face alights with awe. “You’re the first living one who can.”

Malakai, who has been fighting the urge to run up and embrace this abomination, no longer needs to stop himself. He is frozen, questioning. “What do you mean? First living?”

Grandpa hesitates, unsure how to start. When he finds what he wants, his wolf-mouth grins, all wild sharp corners. “Can you see the others?”

“Others like you? Yes.”

“The ones without bodies?”

By bodies, must mean Reals. “Yes.”

Excited now, his jaw is moving too big, too fast. “They don’t have living bodies. They’re the only ones who can see and hear me. Until you.”

Malakai shuts his eyes, reaching for reality—if he can’t find it outside, maybe he can fake it inside.

This is too much. He’s too crazy. This is impossible.

No Fake has ever been able to talk to him, or accept that he can see them in any way. To be fair, he always avoided the Fakes without Reals; those were too creepy. Maybe they've been the missing link he just hasn’t bothered to investigate.

“Can I come sit with you? I’d like to be around my family,” Grandpa asks, his endless eyes filling with tears.

They get Malakai’s jacket from the car and head back inside. Freddy has predictably taken over the conversation, so Malakai takes the opportunity to observe the other Fakes-without-Reals. He isn’t afraid of them, now. He notices for the first time how they hover close to other Fakes, one Fake in particular for each one. One pair of Fakes (one young woman with a Real, one older woman without) go separate ways after a while. When the younger woman’s Real steps away for the restroom, the young Fake follows, striding along beside her. The older Fake remains still, following a conversation between two other Reals, before she’s yanked away as though on a leash. She drifts backwards after the younger Fake.

They’re tethered to someone living, Malakai realizes with a possessive glee.

Malakai rejoins the conversation with renewed ease. Stories come quick and easy as they all reminisce, painting their past summers on the river. Grandpa listens with gleaming eyes, watching his ex-wife and daughter with a glint of regret, listening to his grandsons with a beam of pride. Yet, Malakai has him all to himself—their knowing glances prove it to be true. With the competition won, Malakai lets himself settle into something resembling brotherliness with Freddy, their stories taking a nostalgic twist toward each other and their cherry-spitting days.

The beers and the emotion of the day catch up with them, and yawns announce it’s time to go back to the cabin. The thought of Grandpa hitching along in the car back to his home, with his family, makes Malakai’s breath catch. He’ll never be alone again.

They crowd into the car, Grandpa in the back middle, nestled between Malakai and Grandma. The patter of rain on the roof is a sleepy comfort. It feels like Grandpa’s bed. Mom steers the car onto the road and they start away on the bumpy path. Malakai, lazy with lager, eases his head down toward his grandfather’s shoulder, drenched in the comfort of young summer nights. His eyes closed, his head never lands.

Oh well, he thinks. That’s the way with ghosts, isn’t it?

He lifts his head, pulling out of the empty space his fake grandfather occupies. When he blinks his eyes open, Grandpa isn’t there. He snaps his head around, and there’s Grandpa, still as a fence-post beyond the back window, standing on a bed of wet autumn leaves in the gravel lot of the bar he once managed. His face is a map of guilt with no hint of surprise.

All night, Malakai wonders if Grandpa is attached to a person there—maybe a woman—or the spirit of the bar itself.

The air mattress in the living room belongs to Malakai. He holds Grandpa’s sweater close and inhales the cancer tucked into its fibers. Freddy scrolls on his phone on the couch, safe in his ignorance. A glance to the corner reveals Fake Malakai pouting like a child. Fake Grandma still wanders, in search of how to grieve someone she probably shouldn’t. Fake Mom sorts through the bills, always the adult.

A sob trickles from Grandpa’s bedroom. Rising silently, Malakai tiptoes over. Grandma snores in the bed, as out of place as her shining car. Fake Freddy, his shoulders heaving, holds one of Grandpa’s paperbacks while sitting on the edge of the bed. Malakai watches in silence, wondering about the things brothers keep from each other—wondering who he will haunt, and if he will have a choice in the matter.

He pads over to the bookshelf and takes a handful. He carries them out to Freddy. The older brother looks up at the gaunt face of the younger, confused. He softens as Malakai holds the books out to him. “No, M. You loved those.”

Malakai shrugs. “It’s your turn, then.”

They sit together, taking turns reading chapters out loud, trading the role of Grandpa. Their Fakes listen like little kids.