Shooting Marbles

“Grow up.” 

“But I hate onions.”

“Just eat them, stop being a baby.” When his mom stops looking, Eli reaches his fingers between the bun and the patty of his cheeseburger. Delicately, he removes the onions from the bed of ketchup and lettuce. He flings them onto his napkin like little tapeworms. He’d recently seen a video about parasites on Youtube and, like many preteen boys, he had an affinity for gross things.

It’s a desolate, Midwestern Sunday in January. The sterile, blue sky peeks between bare branches. Dust and gravel kick up like dead wishes and complacency when trucks cruise into the parking lot. Eli, his mom, and his grandma have just picked up his fourteen-year-old brother, Skyler, from the park where he does his mandatory community service. He’s usually lethargic after they pick him up due to a combination of sleep deprivation and resentment. But lately, he has been increasingly unpredictable. His hand tremors slightly on the table. He fiddles with his fork to try to hide it, but Eli, sitting next to him in the booth, notices. The boys’ grandma asks him how it was today.

“Alright.” The waitress comes by to refill their glasses. Their mom smiles at her with pinched lips because nothing anybody does is ever good enough for her. “I stayed pretty busy today.”

“I know you did, Skyler.” Their grandma winks at him from across the table, then takes a long sip of decaf coffee. He takes a bite out of his turkey wrap.

 “Doing what, Skyler?” Their mom asks with a hint of skepticism and a mouthful of lettuce. She stabs her salad with her fork. A cherry tomato bursts and the seeds spill out, like little larvae, Eli thinks.

Skyler busted out the storefront of a local Macy’s. He loaded a pair of paintball guns with marbles and shot out the windows. It was later that night that the police were at their house. There had been witnesses, apparently. Their mom was furious. In the days that followed, she exercised rigorous self-care, painting her toenails and cooking pasta. Their grandma, a religious and kindly woman, said, “I know you didn’t mean to, I know you were just having fun, Skyler.”

He recently started at his second placement. The first one had been at the local outdoor shopping mall, changing trash bags, sweeping the curb, and washing windows. He’d asked his probation officer if he could change his placement because he claimed someone almost hit him with their car. Now, he is at the park picking up litter at the playground.

Their father is incarcerated so “statistically speaking,” said a very sophisticated officer, Skyler is more likely than the average kid to end up in prison. As if Skyler could understand statistics. Their dad sent them letters on occasion, written in first-grade scrawl. Sometimes they would arrive all crumpled up, probably because he was noncommittal and hated himself. So, he threw them away before he decided to send them. Every time he sent a letter to Eli, it read, “I can’t believe you’re not a baby anymore,” or, to Skyler, “I can’t believe you’re not still in preschool.” Which made sense, because the last time he’d been a part of their family was ten years ago.

Skyler strokes his temple. “Uh, cleaning graffiti off the slide.”

His knee bounces under the table. It reminds Eli of the days when Skyler wanted to be a drummer and would practice with the pedal. Discreetly, Skyler slips his trembling hand into his jacket pocket, his fingers wriggling around like a ball of worms. If it’s chewing gum in his pocket, he better share it, Eli thinks bitterly. 

“Good, Skyler, young kids don’t need to see stuff like that. Why do they do it?” Their grandma tsks and chews her food slowly, considerately. Next to her, their mom stabs at her salad like a knife in the heart, a crime of passion, a bit of sadism too.

“What did it say, Sky?”

“Um…”

“Don’t answer him.” Their mom points her fork at Eli. Her rings are too big for her fingers so they slide across them like an abacus. “Eat your goddamn cheeseburger that I paid for. Put the onions back on it.”

While their mom scolds Eli, Skyler slides forward in his seat and slips a few fingers into his jean pocket. Presumably, he’s looking for whatever he didn’t find in his jacket. From the corner of his eye, Eli can see something glinting in his lap. Quickly, Skyler shoves it back into pocket. Eli cannot think of a kind of gum that comes in clear plastic. 

“I want to give you something….” Their grandma pulls a ten dollar bill out of her wallet. “Here. Take it. I know they don’t pay you.”

“Because it’s not a job. He’s in trouble, Jean.”

Skyler takes the money.

“Well, I think he does a great job and he deserves something for it.” She nods at him encouragingly. “He needs new headphones. Didn’t Theodore get a hold of the cord and chew it up?”

“Yeah.”

She stuffs her wallet back into her purse. Instead of going back to her plate, she carries on with Skyler: “Have you made any friends? You’re out there with other kids your age, right?” He crams the bill into his pocket.

“Yeah, I met a couple.” He takes another bite of his wrap.

Skyler tells Eli someone named “Zeb” gave him the pills. He holds them in his palm for Eli to see. The two are sitting on Skyler’s bed. Peach lamplight illuminates the walls and their young faces. It is the best time to take drugs. Their grandma is mostly immobile and busy watching The Price is Right in the living room. And their mom is at the grocery store where she works as a clerk.

“Here, take one.” Skyler holds a little, white tablet out to Eli. He examines it warily.

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, don’t be a baby.”

“What will it do?”

“Well, you won’t know unless you try it, will you?” 

“Can I only take half?” Skyler sighs and rummages through his nightstand drawer. He pulls out a pair of craft scissors. Then, he puts the tablet on the table, stretches the scissors open wide, and, with his hand cupped over it, pushes the blade down onto the tablet. The cut is very uneven. Eli picks up the smaller piece. 

Looking at him sideways, Skyler slips some of the tablets into his mouth. Eli is not sure how many, only that it is more than one.  

Eli had caught him with a cigarette before and it horrified him. Seeing Skyler swallow the pills is almost nauseating. But he is curious about Skyler. He wants to know the truths about him because he is his older brother.

 “How is it going in there, boys? Need any help with your math?” their Grandma calls from the living room.

“No, it’s going well, Grandma,” Eli replies while he puts the tablet on his tongue and takes a swig of diet Pepsi. He smirks at Skyler. See, I’m not a baby after all. 

Eli jabs his phone screen with his thumbs. His brain feels a little bit numb, almost as if it is floating inside of his skull. There is also a tingling in his limbs. But that’s about all so far. Skyler has been sitting against his pillow, playing a mobile game, too. The two talk lightly about their teachers and about their games, making small utterances of annoyance as they play. There is a warmth in Eli’s beating heart because he has not sat on his brother’s bed and talked to him since he was under ten. 

But the warmth turns into a chill when, eventually, Eli notices Skyler is slumping further and further down the wall. He drops his phone in his lap. The game’s tune still plays on loop.

“Skyler?” His lids are droopy, so that the whites of his eyes are in a crescent shape. His palms open up toward the ceiling.

Eli picks up Skyler’s phone and places it into his limp hand, assuming that will rouse him. His fingers barely twitch.

“Skyler?” He starts to mumble something incoherent. Eli pushes Skyler’s golden hair out of his face as if he might kiss his forehead, as if he might kiss him goodnight.

“Can you hear me?” Skyler doesn’t respond. His breathing is no more than a whisper. Eli crawls close to him and listens to his chest. He can still hear the air, like a winter breeze, in his lungs. It is foreboding and thin.

What he can hear more distinctly is the television in the living room: “Ahh” says the audience in tandem. Unsure of what to do, Eli leans back and appraises Skyler from across the bed. He chews on his nails.

“Skyler, this was a mistake, Sky, this was a mistake,” he whimpers. He knows can’t go get Grandma, he can’t tell Grandma that Skyler has died or is dying. She would for sure freak out. And if he told her about the pills, she would be so disappointed. Not only that, but she might have to call for help and then Skyler could be in trouble which is almost just as bad as dying. What if he had to do more community service? What if they sent him back to the shopping center and made him chase bottle wrappers across the parking lot again?

Eli also has fleeting and inappropriate thoughts, maybe like all people have when they panic. He remembers that Xbox game he wanted last year, the one he obsessed over and finally got for Christmas, how awesome was that? He remembers watching Skyler hold the paintball gun in his left hand and load the marbles with his right hand. He remembers how Skyler admired one of the marbles, one with swirly green and gold and he didn’t fire that one, he kept it because it was cool. Eli tried to think of where it was because it did not end up in that store, it did not end up in that store because Skyler put it in his pocket, he didn’t load that one. He shouldn’t have helped him handle the guns, but Skyler is his older brother and he wants to know him and his truths.

Eli knows Skyler is fourteen-years-old and he should not die. But he is not certain what to do because he is twelve-years-old, and his brain can’t solve such complicated and immediate problems. Because he can’t rely on his brain, he relies on his fist. He hits Skyler in the face and he falls sideways, knocking the lamp off of his nightstand so that there are strange shadows cast on the wall and ceiling–a result of the contorted lamp shade.

Skyler lies twisted with his hair fanned out across the nightstand. He moans, and it is not like a normal moan, it is long long long and eerie and inhuman. As if he is a zombie. Eli wishes he wouldn’t have agreed to take that tablet. He wishes he would have done things backwards; that is, eaten onions and not taken the tablet. Maybe if he would have just eaten the onions he wouldn’t have had anything else to prove.

He picks Skyler up, all dead weight, and shakes him desperately. When he releases him, he slumps back against the wall into a position that hardly looks natural. He makes a small sound, maybe a word? Eli grabs his face. “What is it, Skyler? You have to say it louder, I can’t hear you.”

Running out of ideas after only trying two things, Eli lays a cold washcloth on Skyler’s face like a pall and for the first time he begins to cry. It doesn’t rouse him. Eli peels the washcloth away and stares at Skyler’s face. Eli doesn’t care what that probation officer said. Skyler looks nothing like their dad.

Down the hallway, the phone rings. Shortly thereafter, their grandma calls again, “Your mom wants to know if you boys changed the litter in Theodore’s box.”

Speaking through the cracked door, Eli answers mechanically, “Yes, we did, Grandma.” Then he decides he definitely will not tell Grandma. He closes it and turns the lock.

Eli gets a blanket from Skyler’s closet and wraps it around his brother’s bony shoulders while he coos like a baby. It’s as if Skyler’s bedroom has detached from the house and is falling into a black hole. Their grandma keeps calling them about chores, about homework, about dinner, but Eli feels like he exists in a different world now. Her voice becomes a figment of his imagination as his head fills with white noise and his pulse. His pulse has become his entire being. He is a pulse. 

Eli cuddles close to Skyler and feels, somehow, both secure and disemboweled. What he wanted and what he didn’t. An unconditional attachment. A funeral suit.

While he lays with Skyler, Eli notices that there is a white cord with the insulation chewed apart hanging out of the nightstand drawer. The cord is held together by a few hair-thin wires. Eli sits up and plugs them into Skyler’s phone. He opens his music app and, after a long hesitation, plays a song. He’s afraid to know. But he can hear the music, though faint and a bit garbled. He lays back on Skyler and listens. And waits for him to wake up.