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This is no Family. Just a mockery of warmth and closeness. Yet there's this chasm of distance that stretches far beyond the limits of this dinner table, far beyond this home, far beyond the farm. It's a void to fill. Perhaps to replace what should have been. But in it, among the echoes Tom emerged drenched in grief filling the chasm with his cries that saturate my being in tears and blood.
All Tom.
He sits in the shadows of my brother. Sulking in his clothes, sleeping in his bed, rolling in our fucking sent. He’s protruding his head from the womb of my life. In hopes of what? To be reborn? To be delivered from the grief of his sad life? Tom carries himself like his body is too heavy to bare, simply dragging it along. Wearing down the marrow in his bones. Hollow, he forces himself into lives that aren’t his. Taking up space. As if that would make him whole.
It’s been a quiet dinner that seems to stretch impossibly long. I exhale heavily through my nose, watching him, over the table just an arms stretch away. I hear echoes of cheek bones against hardwood. Splintering pains fading into dull aches. An imaginary game played out in my mind's eye with Tom’s face smashed against the dinner table. Hard enough to crack his nose against the wood.
It’s been days since he took my car into town. Yet now he sits
Just an arm stretch away..
And I could almost hear the crunch of his bridge bone
Just an arm stretch away..
And I could almost taste the blood dripping through his nostrils
But he sits just an arm stretch away and I keep wondering to myself why the damn faggot came back.
I’ve etched the shadow of my hands onto Tom's skin. Drinking in the sight of his throat littered in purple hues fading into blotchy greens and yellows over his pale skin. My eyes trail over the junxion between his mouth and fork as he eats. In that brief moment Tom returns my gaze as if he could feel me boring holes into his flesh. Purple blooms around the rim of his eye socket, remnants of his escape and the kiss of my fist before the world went black. My eyes dart between the edge of his jaw clenching with every chew and the slope of his neck, adam's apple bobbing as he swallows.
Tom anxiously returns to his meal. Scanning the scraps along the plate pushing them around with his fork just trying to keep his hands busy. He seems to mull over something, turning it over within his mind before rising and throwing a soft smile at Agathe and collecting his plate.
“Merci.” The words spill from his lips as he cleans and excuses himself. I’m left at the table. My mother rises from her seat with the slow methodical movements of age. Wandering over to the kitchen, she washes her dish over the sink along with mine.
“ You look at him like you’re just about ready to break the man. Always bickering. Such an angry dog you are, Francis, be happy that your brother is home.”
Somewhere along the seams of Guillaume clothes and the space between Tom’s flesh and fabric my mother has forgotten the lies. All of it melted away by the curve of Tom’s lips around a smile. Fused together in her mind. I’m not sure she knows where Guillaume ended and Tom began. Or maybe she enjoys playing pretend.
“ You must be losing your mind”
This is no Family
***
The bedroom is casted in a looming shadow. Echos of objects paint the walls in dark figures. Tom lays in the bed adjacent to mine. Taking my brother’s place.
It's become difficult to remember what it was like to live with someone else. I think back to Guillaume. The tether between siblings, every moment of our years spent together. Nothing of privacy because through shared blood I flow through him. Within veins, oozing from wounds. It’s difficult to remember what it’s like to be inside someone. Beyond the layer of skin. It’s a sick kind of nostalgia that hardens the crease of my brow and the clench of my jaw. I shift in the dark spreading out my limbs, hoping sleep will take me.
But Tom’s lungs fill with the swell of something awake. Alive. With his back turned from me, my eyes gaze over the slope of his shoulders and the tension in his arms. The apprehension in his muscles pulls his shoulders taut. He’s hunched over himself and the strain almost looks painful. But the site isn’t too dissimilar from the stress of his jaw when my hands slap roughly against his face, painting him in hues of contempt. Or the clench of his eyes clamped shut when I spat into his mouth. A taste of me lingers in his throat, on his teeth. I’ve found my ways inside him. But I’ve seen the ways he looks longingly at the streets beyond the farm and the remnants of Guillaume. Pulling apart the chasm between this family, the farm, us.
The cows here see through me
Tom’s body looks rigid. Afraid to breathe. His agitation threatening to pull everything apart.
I can’t sleep.
With a heavy sigh I pull myself from the bed. Walking in long strides from the bedroom to the kitchen to the quiet of the barn. At first pacing for a moment before pulling out a box from one of the shelves. It stares back at me, its surface decorated in floral partners. Inconspicuous. What lay inside; a small bag of coke paired with a hand held mirror. Pulling out the contents I shovel the remains of the coke into thin lines. One swift inhale and my head reels back. I steady myself staring down into the reflective surface as familiarity washes over me in waves . I find my brother's features in the amalgamation of my flesh. Seeing him within myself.
“ you smell like him”
“ and the voice too… same fucking voice.”
Tom’s words ring through my head like bells. Exhaling hard through my nose, flaring my nostrils as I do. I lean over the mirror to take in a second line, inhaling sharply and pushing on my left nostril as I pick up my head tilting it farther back till it pops. Groaning softly I let the high wash over me. I won’t grieve over the boy that left me here to watch corn grow. The boredom is all consuming. But none of that matters now Guillaume is gone and from his corpse Tom grew into the roots of this home. I slam the small box closed shaking my head in hopes my thoughts will crawl back into the recesses of my mind where they belong. I need a fucking drink.
I stomp my way back into the house. It’s silent, eerily so. I riffle through the cabinets till I find the bottle of whiskey. Popping off the cap, I drink in long gulps till my stomach burns fading into warmth that radiates off my skin. I sat where I had been during dinner, right across from Tom. The chairs are positioned in a way that forced eye contact. Forcing strange bonds. But he’s in the other room now, laying on Guillaume sheets. Soaking his own sweat and tears into the fabric curled in on himself staring holes in the wall as if they’d open up and take him from this place.
Tom dreams of escape. I don’t have to look in his eyes to know.
Tom dreams of Guillaume. Seeing him in me. I can hear it in his voice. See it in the strain of his throat and the tension of his shoulders. I think of the corn field and my hands pressing bruises into Tom's skin. Pale hues fading into purple contusions bordering on black. I think of the corn leaves slicing through his skin layer after layer till Tom is nothing but his own grief oozing over the dirt seeping into the soils of my life. The small of Tom's back large hands encapsulating him and the curve of his lips while uttering the words
“ I hate myself..”
From Tom’s blood I read all the synonyms for sadness, words of which I didn’t know I could express. From Tom’s blood fear grows in his place.
Chest to Chest. Looming like a pillar. Hands clasped together dancing like lovers, like brothers gliding along the barn. Tom breathing heavily along the bridge between my jaw trailing up to my ear. Breath coming in small huffs. I dream of stretching flesh and agony. It all melts into one another. I dream of Tom and thrashing bodies as he bucks against my hands. Feeling the patter of his pulse beating against my grip. In the reflection of Tom’s eyes I watch blood pool along mounds of mangled flesh. A mouth stretches far too wide. The skin yielding to the force and tearing apart to reveal teeth and gums.
Within the terror of Tom’s eyes I see Guillaume. Screaming and shouting.
Begging me to Stop. From Tom’s blood fear grew in his place, his roots entangling me.
I stand at the entryway of our shared room. Watching Tom breathe. I think briefly of the ditch where we throw the carcasses of sick cows, Tom’s body laying motionless among the corpses. Maybe grief is a plague.
Tom’s jacket lay discarded. I feel through the pockets for a pack of cigarettes. Slightly crushed on the verge of being empty. I pocket the pack. Tom breathes silently with the rhythm of something alive but as my steps close in I can hear the way his lungs halt as if even the muscles of his heart contracted to stop his beats. Playing dead.
“Get up.”
“ I know you're not asleep. Get dressed” Not a request but a command. My voice travels in harsh tones cutting through the silence like a blade. He turns to face me still laid out on the bed, expressionless.
“What ?”
“I’m not fucking stupid get up.” I settle myself heavily on my bed taking a swig as Tom dresses. Slipping his thin frame into my brother's clothes that hang loose off his physique. Always wearing his fucking clothes. I chuckle lightly as Tom ties his shoes.
“You need to wear your own fucking clothes” Tom watches me through his peripherals . Dressing himself in the dark. His shadow dances on the wall, stretching up over him. I turn the bottle over in my hand. Gripping the neck to hide the tremble of my hands. I think of the blood under Tom's nails and the calf we birthed.
“ All that shits been stewing in that closet. Makes you stink like grief”
Punctuating the end of that sentence with a scoff and a sloppy gulp of whiskey that leaves some dripping onto my lap in tiny drops. The coke left me itchy and festering like a scab that Tom seems to keep picking at. Tapping the tip of the glass against my teeth I stand crowding Tom as he knots his laces. I take the flannel and jacket he wears in one unforgiving grip that leaves my knuckles white with the strain. Pulling him up to meet me.
“ It’s pathetic to wear a dead man's clothes. I don’t see why the fuck my mother lets you walk around like that.” Bottle in hand I push against his chest to solidify my point .
“ I’m sure she hopes every morning to see Guillaume in those rags walking across the kitchen instead of you.”
“You're too skinny to be Guillaume, too small..” I whisper against his face laughing lightly. Searching his expression, the force of my exhale caused his eye lashes to flutter. Looking back at me with tired eyes and a lazy smirk distorting the curve of his cheeks. The corner of his lip lifted only slightly revealing clenched teeth. Almost devilish if it weren’t for his current predicament between my hands. I release him, his leather jacket creaking with a high pitched whine. I drop myself against the bed. Silence fills the room. Thick and suffocating.
***
“You know my brother and I used to play..out in the fields we’d chase each other like coyotes and hares”.
“ Where are we going?” Tom asks me matter of factly. Worn out from my nonsense.
“ He never played coyote. I always wondered if he just liked being chased.”
“Francis.” Tom huffs laced in tones I can’t read, spread over his tongue like a bitter flavor. He stands before me. Towering this time as I sit on the bed. His hair disheveled atop his head falling over his eyes in clumps. He watches me through the shadow, eyes only faintly illuminated by the light beyond the door , reflecting myself back at me. Within it I see lips and teeth. Crimson colors against soft flesh. Saliva glistening.
I trail my eyes along the walls till I see the light peeking through the open door of the bedroom. I extend my hand pushing the bottle against Tom's chest.
“ Drink. We’re going for a walk”
“ Right now? At this time?”
“You want me to drag you instead hm?” Tom goes silent. Sucking the flesh that lines the inside of his cheek between his teeth to chew. It hollows the side of his jaw. An expression of discontent. Even with my eyes turned away Tom always seems to linger in my sights, within my mind. I think of the once empty bed across from mine and the wood of the kitchen table rotting away. A familyless dinner and quiet nights. Yet Tom is painted in the after images. I look down at the sheets beneath me. My childhood rests in these fabrics and it’s washed fresh every now and again just to be filthy . Every stitch in the seams of these cloths brings me back to Guillaume, back to the lies that keep us sane.
“Come drink”
Tom trails behind me as we exit the house. It rains along the porch. A soft drumming whispers in the background of the farm. Each drop sliding off the slope of my nose in a pleasant stream. Tom blinks away water that crowds against his eyelashes as he gulps down whiskey. It blooms in his stomach. We walk. Aimlessly. Dirt roads fade into grass melting into fields that stretch beyond my own existence. This farm will be here even after I die.
I see myself in the echoes of the field. A younger me. Running. Growling like the coyotes would, pulling it deep from my throat. It vibrates against my vocal cords and rattles in my chest. Guillaume never played coyote. Always running. Always trying to get away. Until the day he finally did. Within the reverberation of the farm I see grappling hands. Lips and tongues against clenched teeth. Always trying to get away.
“I threw my brother in the ditch, the one for the cows. Before he left and after everything at the bar he said he was going to leave so I threw him in.”
I pull the pack I had taken from Tom’s jacket. He looks over watching as I reach for two cigarettes. I light mine and hand him the other. My breath mingles with white clouds dancing along the crisp air that cuts through me in the wind with freezing blades. It's only faint, a light burn as the wind whispers against my being. Telling me to stay. The gravity here weighs heavy on my bones threatening to collapse my spine. I can’t leave. My roots are planted in these soils, my body has been molded by the farm. All my labor, all my life rests here. We smoke in silence as the rain quiets to a soft drizzle, all the water has soaked the soil melting away the cracked earth to mushy mounds that squelch beneath our feet with every step. A moist rhythm.
“ I just stood over the edge and watched him scream and cry covered in blood and bits of rotted cattle , he always hated it here, always trying to get away. Maybe I should’ve just broken his fucking legs.” I chuckle and take a long drag off the cigarette it bellows into my lungs, swelling my chest full.
“You never thought to talk with him. To apologize?” .The question hangs heavy in the air, it doesn’t flow with the wind. It stands stoic, choking the breath from our lungs before the smoke can taint it. I take long gulps of whiskey to fill the silence letting Tom listen to the clench of my esophagus with every swallow, as if this is my response. None of it would’ve mattered all the words I couldve said then fall flat into flowing blood. I tore apart the bond between Guillaume and I the moment I wedged my hand between that boy's teeth in the bar and pulled. With tearing flesh came apart years of our existence. With tears and screams came the revelation of my love for Guillaume and another reason for him to leave. In the gore of that boy's face Guillaume saw a field that stretched to infinity. Where he could never leave his blood. Where I finally caught him.
In a family like this we learned that lying and hating feels a lot like love. Where flowing blood seems a lot like water. I wasn’t like Guillaume. I couldn’t spill my feelings on to paper in scribbles or words that flow into pages. All my pains and frustrations came in bursts of violence. All my affections came in rough grasps and clenched fists because I speak better with my hands. All my love was depraved. Something akin to brutality and hatred.
I hated Guillaume the way I hate Tom.
I glance back at the house briefly. It's nothing but a point in the horizon now. Within my mind the rain soaks into the wood, rotting away in heaps of mold that fluffs around the edges like fur. It grows along the walls, spreading over the furniture. My mother lay in the center rotting with it all. I think of the empty bed across from mine.
Alone
I stop abruptly. Tom continues to walk ahead seemingly unaware. I yank the collar of his jacket to stop him. The fabric constricts around his throat pulling in the opposite direction to his current course violently choking out his breath in a fit of coughs. Pulling him towards me I breathe heavy against his cheek. His back flush against my chest. I whisper against him all slurred and smooth like butter spreading over my tongue just to fall from my mouth.
“Are you happy with me? Hmm?” I tilt my head over Tom's shoulder to glance at his face. His jaw stiffens and he brims with tears that glisten around the edges of his eyes threatening to fall.
“ You’re happy with me, no? You won’t run like you did before?” I shake the hand I've tangled into his hair, thrashing his head with it . The grip is tight as if the follicles of every strand clings to me too.
“I’m sorry, Francis please.” Tom yelps between gritted teeth. His breath comes in erratic pants that paint his face in beautiful shades of agony. I lift the bottle that sloshes in my grip. Half empty. I force the neck to Tom’s mouth, clinking the glass against his teeth hard enough to send the vibrations coursing through the bones of his jaw. I rip my hand from his hair to cram my thumb along his lips till it wedges into his mouth forcing it open awkwardly. I ram the bottle in pulling his head back as I do to let the whiskey stream directly down his throat. He breathes through his nose harshly as I pull the bottle from his mouth letting my fingers hook around the bottom row of his teeth trailing onto his tongue till every muscle of his body contracts in a dry heaving mess. Tom groans and pierces my fingers. Clamping his jaws around the flesh till his teeth rub against bone. I let go and Tom’s body collapses against the mud. He curls in on himself choking out globs of saliva mingled in traces of bile.
“ fuck you” The rasp of his voice tortured and strainging against his vocal cords like the serrated edge of a blade.
“ I know you want to leave.” Tom turns to face me. Head tilted up to meet my gaze. Saliva still glistens on his lips and the blush of alcohol leaves hues of pinks and reds that pepper themselves along his skin.
“ I watch you Tom, and you sit at that damn table looking at me with that face. Like some fucking dog. You could’ve left then with my truck. But it’s you, it’s your fucking fault just go. You have legs. No? RUN.”
Tom flinches watching me through the curtain of his bangs that curl around his eyes. Body ridged like an animal playing dead. Looking for the right words to say.
“Even if I broke you’re fucking legs you could always crawl.” kneeling beside Tom I grip his leg, slotting my hand on the underside of his kneecap yanking him forward. His jaw is locked about ready to bite, like a fucking dog. I stand seizing tom by the neck, gripping the skin that stretches thick around the back bringing him to stand. There's a sway to our stance, slow and leaning. Alcohol tampering with our coordination. My body inclines forward, crowding the air between us. Breathing deep and heavy. My diaphragm expands almost inhumanly as if to steal Tom’s breath before he can take it. Like some kind of pseudo asphyxiation. But Tom takes all that I could give. Gulping down my humid exhales like fresh oxygen.
“ When I dragged you from that field bleeding you couldve cried to those doctors till they locked me up!...But you didn’t. You could’ve begged Sarah to save you, drive you back to the city. But you sat in that bar waiting for me like a patient puppy while I fucked her. ”
“I bet you wish it was you” My hand moves from Tom's neck dragging up along the slope till I’m gripping the base of his skull in one hand. He’s gone silent watching my eyes looking for something within me.
“Open”
Tom’s eyes shift a haze of confusion washing over his expression. “What?”
“Open your mouth” Bringing what's left of the bottle to crash against his closed lips before he has time to process. Thrashing his head to the side trying to buck off my grasp. I redirect his head tilting his chin with the base of my thumb from the hand that cradles his skull. He accepts the intrusion. His fight dissipated with the alcohol on his tongue . Outstretched on his taste buds the way a cat stretches its back. The whisky dribbles from his lips at first in drops that collect into streams flowing down the curve of his jugular disappearing into his shirt. Gagging along the neck of the bottle. Tom leans over holding my shoulder to steady himself as his head falls against my collar bone. I drink the rest till my own stomach lurches. We stand for a moment breathing heavily. Tom collects himself, licking the whisky from his lips.
“ You smell like..it’s like you live in the same skin. I can’t-”
I shove Tom and he scrambles to the floor smirking to himself from behind the curtain of his bangs. Always getting so close. Tom knows something I don’t.
“Go! Run like you did before, you won’t find Guillaume here.”
“ You pry yourself into lives that aren’t yours putting your grief onto me. ITS FUCKING PATHETIC”
I throw the bottle at his feet. Tom flinches guarding his head with shaking arms and open palms. Like a surrender. The glass crashes beside him. He moves to stand but I push the toe of my boots covered in mud and years of use against his outstretched leg. The leather is worn and faded to an ashy black. The pressure is unbearable; his ankle and foot bend back against the ground crushing it into the mud. Frantically he shoves my foot away as he creates distance between us before I could break him, pushing himself back on his hands. Dragging across the mud. Feet kicking his hand brushes with the glass slicing at his palms. He stares down at the blood that trickles onto the soil. I come forward unsteady and wavering. I thump my boot, this time against the center between chest and stomach. sliding up so the toe rests along his sternum he falls back. His breath leaves him as his head collides with the soft earth.
“ You wear his clothes, you sleep in his damn bed but you look for him in me.”
I lean over my spine curving in on itself, morphing into the coyote that chased my own brother away. The one that bears its teeth and growls to outstretched hands. The same animal that desecrated a boy years ago into mangled flesh casting a shadow of shame that looms over its family. The coyote that feeds off the rot that stews in the ditch I threw Guillaume in, hoping somehow I'll find traces of him there.
“ And you let me play pretend, watching me…r-reminding you of him and all the things you’ve done and it fff-fucking trotures you.”
Tom's breath comes in uneven pants that wheeze at the end of his sentence adding to the slur. The boot dangerously constricted against his chest, crushing the bones of his ribs against his diaphragm causing him to sputter. But he dons that same curve to his lip, the way he does when he lies, not quite smiling but just enough to hold that same warmth, speaking through others as if it were him. All the words he’s too afraid to say himself. My fist collides with Tom’s cheek bone, head whipping to the side. He rests his cheek against the cold mud looking out at the dirt road that stretches beyond us.
“But we’re all looking for replacements.”
“Am I all the things you could have done?”
Tom has poked and prodded at the scab that runs along the surface of my flesh. Chipping away the crust of dried blood that shelters me. Within Tom’s eyes I see reflections of myself, the way you would while staring down at the mirror of a knife's blade. In it I see the coyote, snarling and heaving above Tom. Starved to bones that protrude from flesh. You could see the sharp edges poking through its fur. Teeth bared in a mockery of a smile that promises violence. I settle myself, kneeling over tom. Legs barricading him underneath my weight.Crowding myself over him. Tom’s eyes are focusing on me through the haze of alcohol hanging over our heads, weighing on our eyelids and flowing through our muscles, curving around our veins. Yet there's a gentleness, a calm in the way Tom slows his breath waiting, searching through my eyes. Finding revelations in the voids of my irises. A stillness to the air that builds tension in the curve of my spine. A blanket of tranquility before a storm, it swaddles me. So confining I can’t breathe.
“ I’m sorry ”
Tom looks at me as he did with the calf we birthed. All sympathy and knowing. It broke its leg upon birth. Hitting the ground with a wet crack. The cold grounds of the barn being its first introductions to life. All it knows is violence. Exiled from the warmth of the womb and soon it will be put down. Tom watches me the way you would a sick man grappling at the hands of a nurse. Anything for touch. Just don’t let me die alone.
Maybe grief is a plague
My hands wander the expanse of Tom's features. Thumb rubbing across his cheek. Stretching the skin and warping the curve of his lips. Increasing the pressure till I’m palming at his face distorting the flesh, as if I could mold him. There's an itching beneath my skin. It tickles along the muscle. Worming its way into the space between tendons guiding my hands in its disjointed violation. I rock on my knees. Tipping forward as if the proximity would relieve me. I tug at Tom's cheeks, flesh all too yielding. Platient with the ache of my grasp. He knows our games and he plays them very well. I pull him up by the skin of his face daring to rip it apart. Close to me. Invading his senses.
“You’re not happy with me?” My breath is lodged in the confines of my throat. Beating at the walls of my esophagus till I’m laughing over Tom's face. Curving into myself feeling the clench of my abdomen, the muscles screaming. Punching at the mud beside Tom’s head. My hand sinks into the mush. It swallows me, spreading between my fingers and finding its way under my nails. I smear the sludge against Tom’s face. All pale hues of peach and red are now covered in blacks and brown. I sigh clumsily, a groan hidden within the exhale. Just a click of the throat. As if the touch of Tom’s skin soothes the itch within me. Reaching to the places I can’t scratch.
“Like a hare”
Tom babbles. The words fading before they can reach me as I shovel dirt into his slack jaw. The itch buzzes in my brain. Drowning all sound. Tom wrenches. Spitting clumps of wet dirt back at me. My hands envelop his throat, squeezing the breath from his lungs before he can savor it. His head veers forward as if to slide out of my grasp. My thumb jabbing into the cleft between jaw and throat where his pulse beats erratically against the skin. Pushing up, Tom gasps, eyes falling closed. I could feel the clench of his diaphragm, chest almost pulling into his body. Attempting to find oxygen deep in the echo of his empty lungs.He squirms, legs kicking fruitlessly against the mud sinking him further into the grime. He buts his head against mine. Once then twice till my head throbs and bleeds. Streaming down the bridge of my nose. Droplets falling onto his face. I grip his chin to steady the thrash of his head. Laying punch after punch till Tom stills. Breath whistling through his nose. Staring through the sky.
“Do you…..”
He swallows
I follow the rhythm of his shallow breaths
“See him in me..”
My fist meets the jut of Tom’s jaw. Forcing his teeth to clamp down on his own tongue in the process. I watch the crinkle of his eyelids closing as if to block the pain, but it all blooms and gushes from his mouth that opens and closes around silent groans. I crack my knuckles against Tom’s teeth and the bones of his cheek till my hands ache. My pulse drums erratically as my adrenaline descends from head to toe. Burning in my belly. It spreads through the tissue of my abdomen, sliping between the fibers, itching from within. The curve of my spine aches and my legs shake to the twitch of my hips.