#gene.

It is the fifteenth anniversary of Gene’s death and Job is holed up in a corner room at the Discount Inn off the US-50 just outside his hometown of Pueblo, Colorado. Though the Mountain View Cemetery is only about a ten minute drive from the motel, Job won’t go there today. His family will be there and neither of them wants to find themselves in that encounter. Well, really, Job would like to see them, but knows better than to hope that they want to see him too and finds that respecting their wishes, especially on this day of all days, is more important than his own desires. Last he spoke to Noah — about five months ago — he’d told him Cat was pregnant. Holy shit — one of his baby sisters, about to have her own kid. It’ll be their mother’s first grandchild (admittedly a tad late, with her firstborn dead and the secondborn estranged). She must be very happy. Pa must be proud.     Fuck, he wants to see them.     But he won’t go there today. No, he’ll go tomorrow, when no one he knows will be there to see him, and find a fresh bouquet resting on the gravestone. A picture of the family (or what remains of it), if he’s lucky. His mother’s dried tears on the marble — or maybe not, maybe enough time has passed that they’ve all stopped crying for Gene — though he seriously doubts it. The wound is open and bleeding still and hurts them as much as it does him. How can they not hurt at the loss of someone like Gene? If only Job could be half the man he was, at only sixteen.     He’ll crouch before the gravestone and scan over its letters as though he were studying his brother’s face. Then he’ll cry, because he always does. It’ll start quiet and turn into gross sobbing, because it always does. He’ll lean into the gravestone for comfort, as though it were a torso and he were expecting two arms to reach around his shoulders and hold him, because he always does. He has Gene’s school photo to remember him by — Patience had managed getting that for him before his mother cut all ties with her as well — but everything else is fading. The sound of his voice; the texture of the skin of his hands; just how tall was he? Would he have been shorter than Job, now? He would have been thirty one. Would he have been married? To whom? Probably some beautiful brunette with a big rack (Gene’s words, not his) and a warm personality like Ma’s. Would they have had kids? How many? Boys or girls? What would they have looked like? Would they have called him Uncle Job? Would they have sat in his lap, big eyes turned up to him, ecstatic to see what sort of shit he’d gotten them on the road? In a different world, where he were normal — would they have played with his own children?     He hates this time of year. How appropriate that Gene should have died in the height of the coldest, most alienating season. He was fucking — everything to him — his closest friend, always — Lord, he misses him so much.     Job sits in the corner of his corner room, each shoulder-blade pressed to a different wall, knees pulled up to his chest, unsure how he’s gotten here to begin with, and cries. No sobbing or shaking or sniffing his nose, just watching a heart-shaped water stain on the carpet go in and out of focus while silent tears run down his face, lips quivering and twisted in a broken line until he bites down on the bottom one as to prevent himself from making any sound. He’ll never have that again, ever, and he’s soiled him, too. His memory. You ruined him, Ma said and boy, was she right. Job will never be able to get that image out of his head — it will forever be a way of remembering him.     He watches a drop fall from the ceiling and plop down over the heart-shaped stain. The room is crying with him. There are many other ways, of course, of remembering his brother; crouched down beside him as he shows him how to collect eggs from the chicken coops, or waiting for him outside of school once classes were over so that they may walk home together, or helping Pa shovel snow from the front yard; but they are all fading, and this one remains engraved into Job’s mind like the name on that tombstone (Eugene Isaac Edwards Jr., beloved son and brother, 1987 - 2003); sitting slouched in his bed, his eyes empty, void, drool collecting at his bottom lip and dripping down to his chest.     Job’s head has sunken down between the palms of his hands, fingers raking through his greasy hair and he find himself pulling on it, eyes and lips squeezed shut. He’s sorry. He’s so sorry and he deserves to be this lonely forever for what he’s done, it is his only chance of redemption — but he doesn’t want to be. He can’t. It’s too much — God did not award him a courageous or generous heart. God did not award him selflessness. Instead, God has made him a coward, a pathetic, selfish little worm — and this he knows with his fingers clumsily shoving into the pocket of his jeans as they retrieve his smartphone, old and broken-screened. He finds the contact whose name is nothing but a bear emoji and hits the dial button. Théo will understand. Théo will know. They are brothers, after all. He is no replacement to Gene — but it isn’t a contest. They are both different people with different ways and Job finds different things in them. But God, it will be just as great a loss if anything ever happens to Théo. Job isn’t sure he can take another blow like that and hopes it never comes to it (ignoring the fact that it already had once — but he had given his own life for Théo’s that night, even if he hadn’t actually died only by the grace of God. He had done for him what he should have done for Gene). If only he can hear the sound of his voice, maybe he can stop crying. Maybe he won’t be so alone. Maybe he can make one brother as happy as he should have made the other.     The phone rings once before Job abruptly hangs up. No, fuck — what in the fuck is he thinking? He can’t call Théo now. He needs to cut it with this Godawful habit of only calling the man when he’s on the brim of some mental breakdown or another. No, he’ll only make Théo worry for him — even more than usual, that is. And calling him when he’s hurting for Gene only makes Théo seem like a cheap replacement — which he isn’t, he isn’t, he isn’t. He is so much more than that. He is one of the kindest, purest — one of the best fucking people that Job has ever known. He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve to have such a shitty relationship with such a shitty person for a younger brother.     The phone is already vibrating when Job lets it drop down to his lap, a soft banjo playing a heartfelt melody. Théo calling him back. He can’t talk to him now. He’ll text him something stupid a few hours from now; buttdial, lol sorry, flushed emoji, laughing emoji. The phone buzzes on and on; Dee’s thoughtful voice sings of Jesus and children and dreams; Théo persists. But Job doesn’t answer. The phone slips down from his lap and onto the carpet as he shifts, drags himself over to the heart-shaped stain and lies down on his back so that he can reach more comfortably into the pockets of his jeans. Retracts his wallet with Gene and Théo’s pictures in it; tosses it on the carpet beside him. Finds his crumpled pack of Pall Malls and tosses that as well. Finds what he has been looking for — a sandwich bag curled around a crooked joint and about half a bud — and unwraps it.     Dee stops singing mid-word. Théo isn’t the type of person to call anybody twice. He’s worried now and Job is sorry for that as well — but it’s better this way than the other. Better Théo worries about hypothetical situations than real ones. Better he thinks this was only an accident.     Job parks the joint at the little slit in the middle of his bottom lip and sets it ablaze it with the Zippo lighter engraved with Théo’s initials. Takes in a long, slow hit; lets it go in a thin stream of smoke. Takes another; stops midway and begins coughing profusely. Good. It’ll hit him soon and hard. Takes a third and a fourth to be absolutely sure he gets violently high and sets it aside, propped up on his discarded wallet, to put itself out, and hopefully not burn the carpet and then the room to the ground with Job still inside. Watches a drop grow fat on the ceiling (as big as Cat’s belly must be, he ponders, head only beginning to swim) and then explode on his chest through heavy-hooded eyes.     He lets them flutter shut again as he feels the tips of his fingers begin to tingle. Soon thereafter, he falls asleep.

tag   drop.

im crying y r the genes i think r pretty expensive as FUCK i just want a wasp/bee/capsule in the right colors,