enjoyer of old things

“Boy, come to sleep,” his father boomed, an old, mean grumble emanating from deep inside the cavern of the house that ripped through the night. His echoing voice turned their home bestial, made the walls thrum with a hairy, gun-oil snarl, as though it housed a grizzly bear, its paws fat with the weight of its gait but calm for now, not yet roused to rise from its resting spot.

“Coming, Pa,” Kai called back rushedly, scrambling to get off the creaking steps. He flicked off some bugs that had crawled onto his ankles, a slight yelp escaping him as he shook off sandaled feet. His head thrummed with the buzzing electromagnetic signatures of starlight.

The crickets screamed in full force from somewhere unseen.

“Latch the screen door,” his father rumbled. Their house was so small, or maybe the bearded man was so big, that his presence filled every corner, so Kai felt already in the swell of his father’s arms, his watchful shock-blue eyes pinned to Kai’s shoulder blades as he checked the back door and their kitchen window, maneuvering to each corner of their meager shack one by one.

Kai rinsed the soles of his feet quickly and padded up the stairs, taking extra care to not track dirt into the bedroom once meant for his parents. His father was sitting up in bed, slightly slouched with the muscle of his broad back hooked against the headboard. He nursed a whiskey glass in the crook of his right elbow, the corn-silk fields of his chest hair lit by the low light of the lamp on the dresser.

Kai tucked his wrinkling nose into his shoulder, pulling his shirt off over his head. His father’s languid gaze on the untread road of his back burned like alcohol scraping down his throat. 

The scrap of his shirt fell to the ground in a soundless heap.

“Come here, baby,” his father patted Kai’s spot beside him in bed, already warmed by the side of his meaty thigh. This close, Kai could better hear the slight slur of his voice; Pa was sedated from drink. He was not the man on the field in his tractor, tilling all day til his skin cooked to a russet tan. He found that, oftentimes, it took a minute to place the morphing shape of his father, what version of himself he’d be that day; Kai learned to accept him in his multitudes.

Kai climbed into bed, tucking himself in under the quilt, side by side with his father like sardines in a tin as the older man put down his drink.

“Good night, Pa.” Kai gave the older man a wavering smile before turning over into fetal position, arranging the hem of the quilt up to his chin. The heat would become unbearable in a few minutes.

He lay there, still as stone, staring off into the slightly ajar closet door, a dark secret in the night, though he’d looked inside its empty mouth many times before. He had curled up in it as a boy, hiding from the sweltering heat of the day until his father found him.

Kai’s breath hitched as his father’s thick arm came to wrap around him, nearly swallowing his silhouette. His rough fingers played over Kai’s fluttering heart, twitching on one occasion, smoothing and kneading on another. Kai could feel the swell of his father’s chest on his bare back, expanding and contracting as his breathing slowed, billowing warmth over the shell of Kai’s ear. His beard tickled.