Twelve Stories

Josh Denslow

My best friend Marvin is allergic to a lot of things. Milk, eggs, cantaloupe, chocolate, and mushrooms are just the beginning. He’s constantly getting sick. He doesn’t know it, but it’s sort of a joke around my house. One of us will rub our stomach after a meal and ask meekly to be excused. It’s funniest when my Dad does it.

My sister once told me that my boyfriend just needed to “take a good shit.” Marvin isn’t my boyfriend, though. I have a crush on Nate Foster. Nate grew out his shaggy hair over the summer between seventh and eighth grade and all the girls whisper when he walks by.

As a rule, I normally ignore my sister. She’s crude, anyway, always screwing her boyfriend on the basement pool table when my parents aren’t home. There was a time when I refused to play pool, but I soon learned that nowhere was safe in the house; my sister and her boyfriend had been everywhere. I locked my bedroom door when I left.

This afternoon, Mom and Dad went shopping, so I made Marvin and me two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and we brought them down to the basement. Marvin is already looking pale. I’m stretched out on the tattered couch and Marvin idly rolls balls across the pool table. His dark brown hair sticks straight up in the back, but the front hangs down into his eyes. He has a light sprinkling of freckles across his nose.

I lift my feet up over my head and see that my pink nail polish is chipped on both of my big toes. I wish I could ask my sister to repaint them like she used to before she started high school.

“Hey Amy, want to see a trick shot?” Marvin asks.

I bounce up from the couch and lean against the table. I arch my back and my hair tickles my shoulders. “Impress me,” I say, trying to sound like a movie star.

He puts the three ball in front of the side pocket and puts the nine ball at the end of the table closest to the stairs. The cue shakes slightly in his grip as he lines up his shot. Bang! The cue ball heads straight for the nine. On impact, the nine bounces off the edge and starts in the other direction, lightly grazing the three. The three rolls toward the side pocket but stops short, hovering over the edge.

“Nice shot,” I say. If I were to give the table a bump, the ball would fall in. I couldn’t have gotten that close.

He props the stick against the table and looks at me like the puppies in the pet store at the mall. “May I use your bathroom?” The doorbell rings upstairs.

“Sure.”

The door shuts behind him as my sister thuds down the stairs to the basement as if she’s trying to crush each stair with her feet. She’s wearing a pair of shorts and a bikini top even though it’s thirty degrees outside. “Where’s Mr. Constipation?”

I try not to talk to her too much. I don’t want her to be under the impression that I like her.

“Well, you guys need to beat it. Darrel’s here.”

“Not today,” I say. “Marvin’s doing trick shots. It doesn’t work if there’s a slut and her deluded boyfriend on the pool table.”

“Leave, or I’ll tell Mom and Dad where your report card really is.” She knocks on the bathroom door. “Let’s go, shit boy! I’m sure you got a toilet at your house.”

The water is running but Marvin doesn’t say a word.

“You got ten minutes.” My sister runs back upstairs.

“Come on Marvin, let’s go to your house. My sister is being a bitch. She must be in heat or something.”

The water shuts off but Marvin doesn’t say anything. I put my hand on the knob. “Marvin, I’m coming in.” I wait a moment then slowly open the door. Marvin is crouched in the corner next to the bathtub like a pile of laundry.

I step in and close the door. “You OK?”

“I was hoping you’d play pool with me.”

“Today’s not a good day. In fact, if we’re not out of here in ten minutes, we’re going to get our own peep show. I think if I see Darrel naked I may become a nun. Or get neutered.”

“Spayed.”

“What?”

“I think females get spayed. Males get neutered. At least that’s how it works with cats.” He gets up and puts both his hands on the sink.

“Can we go to your house?” I ask.

“But I don’t have a pool table.”

I sometimes wonder what I’d do if Marvin and his family moved away. Or if he died or something. He eats things at our house that he knows will make him sick. That’s how much he likes to have dinner with my family and me.

“If we hurry, maybe you can try one more time,” I say.

He grabs me lightly by the elbow and leads me back to the pool table. Tiny hairs stand up along my shoulders and neck.

Before he can even pick up the stick, the basement door opens and my sister yells down the stairs, “Move it, cunt, or I’ll be on you like the fucking plague.”

Marvin’s face is as white as our brand new kitchen countertops. “Can’t you hang out in your room?” I say to her.

“What’re you crazy? It’s a mess in there.”

“What about Mom and Dad’s room? They have a TV.”

She pauses and I hear her conversing with Darrel. “Darrel thinks they might come home, so no dice. Time for you to vacate the premises.”

There’s only one option left. I reach into my pocket and pull out the small key to my room that I keep on a keychain shaped like a pizza. I step to the foot of the stairs and look up at her. For a moment, she looks like she did before she started high school, when we used to sneak bricks of cheese from the refrigerator and eat them in the upstairs closet. Her hair is down and the dimple on her right cheek has blossomed.

“You can use my room,” I say and toss the key up to her. She snatches it out of the air in front of her.

It’s the two of us against the world again.

Then she rolls her eyes. “All right. And you have to do all the dishes tonight.” She snickers.

The door shuts and I yell, “You better burn the sheets when you leave!”

Marvin smiles as I roll the balls across the table to him. “Okay, try it again.” He rubs his abdomen one more time before picking up the stick.

“I’m glad we’re friends, Amy.”

“Me too. Just make this shot so we can try another.”

The cue ball smacks against the nine, which bounces off the rail and grazes the three. The three rolls toward the pocket and stops, hovering right in front of the hole.

I give the table a little bump.

_______________

Josh Denslow lives in Dripping Springs, Texas with six dogs, three cats, three rabbits and a hot wife.  His stories have appeared in Black Clock and Upstreet and are forthcoming in Smash Cake.  He has written and directed five short films that have played at a few festivals. His short story collection Frequently Mistaken and his novel TOUCH are both looking for homes.  They make a dashing pair.