Killing Time in Crystal City by Chris Lynch Read Free Book Online

lovely home you have here. Lovely home. Lovely home. It just needs a juicer. You need a juicer, Kiki. Kiki, buy the juicer now.”
    I looked toward the TV, where the screechy and jittery info-pitchman was going on rabidly about the life-changing capabilities of the juicer.
    â€œWell done,” I said. “But, really.”
    â€œReally, um, no offense, but there’s not really anything for me to go on. It’s an all right place. Kinda bland. Not a lot of personality, warmth. But it’s okay, I guess. Comfortable enough.”
    I looked at him silently for a few ticks, and I nodded.
    â€œI think the house makes me angry,” I said.
    Once more Jasper gave me the quizzical expression.
    â€œSo, you want me to go have a word with my house, have it come over here and kick your house’s ass?”
    â€œYeah,” I snapped, “would you, please, and then we can watch them fight? Just shut up for a second, will you? I think I know what I’m trying to say, and I need to say it before that window closes.”
    With that, Jasper pulled a shocking maneuver on a par with my attempting to construct a joke—he got earnest and respectful.
    â€œGo,” he said, hammer-punching my knee like a judge’s gaveling.
    â€œI was so sure this was where I belonged. I was so sure this was the right decision that I pretty well destroyed the remaining other part of my life to be here. Now I’m here, and Dad seems just confused by my presence. And this house, right, it’s not somebody’s home. Certainly not my home. And not his, either, in any real way. If I just broke in like a burglar I would not have a clue I was robbing my own father. He has no pictures, no . . . I don’t know, stupid knickknacks, mementos from those years, you know. It’s cold and it’s blank, and I hate it and it’s this way by design , I realize, because he is trying to forget it all. He’s wiping it, making like our previous life never was.”
    He was holding his composure an impressive length of time, and I appreciated the hell out of it.
    â€œIt was a wicked divorce, you said,” he said.
    I nodded, nodded, nodded.
    â€œAnd I understand all that,” I said. “I really do. But, I’m here now, Jas. I’m fucking right here ! ” I was shouting, and aware, and did not care. “I am the solution to that problem, aren’t I? And now, look, I’m going to cry and I fucking hate that, too.”
    â€œThat’s cool,” he said. “Afterward you’ll feel better. You’ll be able to relax some.”
    â€œI don’t want to relax. This is exactly the way I’m supposed to feel. I’m doing just what I’m supposed to and he is not, goddammit.”
    â€œAm I stupid if I say maybe you should talk to him about this?”
    â€œYes, you are, but it’s not your fault. It’s him. Of course I talked to him. But I can’t talk to him, not about something he doesn’t want to let out. I never could. He’s good with words, you see.”
    â€œYou’re good with words. You’re great with words.”
    I shook my head vigorously enough that I felt as if I could sense my brain sloshing against the insides of my skull. “No, he is of a different order. The only thing that ever drove me on to get better with language was to catch up with him, to meet him there. But there was always elsewhere by the time I got there. He would always leave me in a state of thinking we had talked about what I wanted to talk about but only later would I realize that the real things, the stuff he wasn’t offering up, didn’t come away with me at all the way I thought it did. The only difference now, since I have been here, is that I know this is how it goes. So when he starts it, when I see it happening, I don’t play on. I rage, Jasper. I pop off and I know I sound like I am criminally insane. I know it, but cannot do anything