In this story, I sprawl on the top bunk, flashlight in hand, re-reading the Far Side cartoons I’ve taped to the ceiling above my head. Even though I’ve seen it a hundred times, I still laugh at all the limp poultry draped over fences at the Boneless Chicken Ranch. You kick the box spring, right under my butt, and tell me to shut up. You are older and stronger and so opposite the hollow version of you that sleeps shrunken and quiet, tethered to hoses and exhausted from stabbing everywhere, all the time, at an enemy that’s perfected a strategy of exhausting its victims.

You fill maybe half a hospital bed, balled in the middle section, and if I squint to watercolor this scene I swear it could be thirty years ago, when HIV was alien, festering in far-off treetops, a dirty secret passed between equatorial monkeys, while you and I spent our days climbing different trees rooted to a distant side of the world. At night, we descended and climbed the stairs to our bedroom and we told each other endless stories. We asked each other endless pointless questions, like how long could a human live without bones? And why did God make viruses? I’m not sure the questions ever helped; little scraps of riddles left blowing around in our skulls, breeding still more questions. But the stories always helped. The stories wove cradles of numbing, tentacled sleep. So tonight I bring a story.

+++

In this story, I sprawled on the top bunk, flashlight in hand, re-reading the Far Side cartoons I’d taped to the ceiling above my head. Even though I’d seen it a hundred times, I still laughed at all the limp poultry draped over fences at the Boneless Chicken Ranch. You kicked the box spring, right under my butt, and told me to shut up. You were older and you got dibs on the bottom bunk, granting you permanent access to my unprotected side.   You were in sixth grade. I would have been in fourth, both of us still waist-deep in our uniform days at Mary Queen of Angels.

“Mikey,” you called from below. I was silent. I smelled a put-down coming.

“Mikey, I want a cookie. Go get me one. Don’t you want one?”

“The party,” I said. “I’m not going down there.”

“I’ll go too,” you said. You always knew what I needed to hear.

We crouched, peering through the white spindles of the banister. We had a full view of the living room, and the dining room beyond, where Mom and Dad’s cocktail party was in high gear. A wall of sound emanated from below---cackles of laughter, the cicada hum of conversations, cocktail glasses clanging in toasts. On the other side of the knot of partygoers stood the dining room table, full of food: tiny weenies in barbecue sauce, spinach dip, five kinds of crackers, six types of cubed cheese, assorted finger sandwiches, and the biggest dessert stack ever, made of alternating layers of chocolate chip cookies and fudge brownies. Getting there, though, would not be easy.

Dad’s boss, Mr. Downing, was sitting in Dad’s favorite chair. He had a Chinette plate full of food perched on his prodigious gut, and Mom kept stopping by with more food while Dad made sure Downing had a drink in each hand. They were treating Downing like he was the King of Monroe County or something. We looked at each other in disbelief. Surely this wasn’t the same Downing that Dad called (at various times) Lard Ass, Dumb Shit, Peckerhead or Jerk-Off? What about the game we played at dinner: Downing’s So (Blank)? We would start around the table, and everyone would try to top the others. Remember? If Dad said Downing’s So Fat He Has to Put Postage on Toilet Paper to Wipe His Ass, then you’d say Downing’s So Stupid He Thinks the Sears Tower Sells Lawnmowers. And yet, there was Dad, grinning at him. There was Mom, laughing at his pathetic jokes.

We both crept down the steps and wedged through the crowd, talking to no one. We grabbed a few empty plates to throw away, to make it look like we had a purpose for being there. Halfway to the dining room table, Downing stuck out a thick leg. “Lester,” he called to Dad, “please tell me that your children know better than to interfere with an office event?” Dad, shocked, said nothing. Downing, drunk, wasn’t through. “Lester, your children should apologize to us for interrupting the party.”

The room fell silent. Dad set his drink on an end table. “Mr. Downing,” I said, and stopped. I swallowed hard. I gathered up my fists. “Mr. Downing, you are so fat that you can take a leak in a different time zone.” Someone gasped. You smiled, and seemed taller all of a sudden. You said, “That’s nothing, Downing’s so stupid that he doesn’t realize everybody hates him and they just pretend to like him so they keep getting their pay checks.”

Mom caught us by the pajama collars and dragged us toward the stairs. People started for the door. Downing glared at Dad. Dad took the half-finished drink from Downing’s hand.

“You know, Downing,” Dad said, “it’s true. The boys are right. You are everything they said. All of it.”

+++

Did you just smile in one dark corner of your face? Someday I will choose to believe you did. Or I might decide it was shadow, tremor, my fleshed-out wishing. Can you remember that night? How we burned with the realization that we already held everything we’d ever need?

Anyhow, I hope you liked the story. It’s all I’ve got. That, and the truth.

You don’t have much time left.

And chickens must have their bones, and monkeys fall from trees, and chairs are never really ours to begin with.