Zero at the Bone by Michael Cadnum Read Free Book Online

statue, giving me that cat hello, a gentle blink of the eyes. He was licking his whiskers. It was a little unusual for Bronto to come home at all, much less make his way into my room.
    The form Coach Jack had given me was on the dresser, under a pile of paperbacks, the kind of novels I didn’t like anymore, time travel and chopped-off heads. One edge of the release form was still curling from where Coach had rolled the paper up.
    My eyes started to itch, and I looked in the mirror. The whites of my eyes were pink, thanks to Bronto. I was starting to look like a boxer who was losing a bout, all puffy and flushed. In another few minutes I wouldn’t be able to see. I fumbled through my top drawer.
    My room was a museum, the way I used to be. I keep things. I care too much to give favorite toys to Goodwill. I don’t keep everything, of course. But here was a beanbag monster, something from my early childhood, and here was a yo-yo that long ago had done tricks. Plastic space creatures, powerful, half-human figures—they were all there, in a great pileup with useful items, dead batteries and virgin batteries all mixed up together.
    I wasn’t even that interested in galaxies anymore, I just kept the space creatures for decoration. I found some Benadryl in the corner of the drawer, among the lint and yo-yo strings. The pills make me sleepy, but I’m allergic to cats, and the mirror showed me the face of a boxer who was going to be counted out, not because he was hurt, but because he was growing too ugly.
    One of my favorite novels when I was younger was a story about a television reporter who hears a voice in his sleep. It is someone from another time, another reach of the universe, someone in trouble with his world. The powers of his time and place want him dead, and he can only escape by finding a person in a distant time to change places with him. And it happens: The drowsing man in Los Angeles wakes up in a landscape with scarlet skies and five moons.
    But there is a conversation with this space fugitive, and I can’t remember how it goes. I can’t remember if the man in L.A. is convinced that he should come to the assistance of this dream voice, or if he is forced to change places whether he wants to or not.
    I found one of Bronto’s fleas on my ankle, right by the heel bone. When I dug a fingernail into the tiny insect, it broke in two, scrambling and going nowhere, leaking a little bit of my blood.

8
    When I woke I sat up at once, thinking: What was that?
    Bronto was gone, and there was a light on in the house somewhere. Someone had forgotten to turn it off, I told myself. I could forget about it and go back to sleep.
    But the light was bright, a lance of it falling through the bedroom door. The door had opened somehow, and the light was getting brighter the longer I lay there. I would have to climb out of bed, go downstairs, and turn off the lamp. It was one of those simple problems that loom when you are still half-asleep and don’t want to get up.
    And then I heard my dad’s voice. I knew he was on the phone by his tone, and the rhythm of his speech. He would talk, and then there would be a silence. Then his voice again, even more tense, and another silence. He was arguing with someone, keeping his temper. I could not hear the words.
    It was one-fifteen. I tried to tell myself that this was one of those Dad problems, an issue that had nothing to do with me. Sometimes he stayed up late, calling Poland, where the bentwood chairs were made and shipped in pieces, spools and chair legs, to be assembled here. I heard my mother’s voice, questioning.
    I never have figured out what to wear to bed. I hate pajamas, largely because I always outgrow them so fast, and when they are tight not only do you look gawky, with your arms too long, but when you wake up with an early-morning erection it sticks out obviously and embarrassingly. Even when no one is looking, I don’t like to feel