Back to Issue Fifty-Nine

HYENAS

by LESLIE PIETRZYK

1975

“You mean the chick at Dairy Queen? Who gives out free cones?”

“That all she’s giving out?”

“What else you getting for free, Danbo-boner?”

The voices of Danny’s two brothers are a mess up in his head; they’re flies swarming, bees; something easily swatted away if he’d bother to, which he won’t. Let them yak. Let them amuse themselves at his expense. Life’s a wheel, Danny knows already at age sixteen, coming around again and again.

“What’s so great about her?”

“Stuck-up bitch.”

“DQ sucks.”

The three boys are in the chilly basement, driven there by their mother’s insistence that the central air—installed in May, two months ago—whispers voices, spelling out complicated words in different languages—Farsi, their mother claims, a language no one’s heard of but her—so she has to shut it down or she won’t sleep, she says; she says she’s desperate for peace and quiet. If she could rest, have one night of pure sleep, she says, which she hasn’t had since—. She won’t speak their sister Donna’s name, but the brothers know any space in their mother’s relentless chatter, in her tangled mind fills with these words: since Donna disappeared.

Three years ago last December.

Two of the three boys sprawl on the rug that used to be upstairs in the living room, and Danny’s lying on the sofa, also from the living room. Everything in the living room when Donna was—say it—alive—is in the basement. Upstairs in the living room are (only) folding chairs and two card tables for when their parents’ friends come over for bridge. Everyone’s used to it now. “Easy to clean,” Danny overheard one of the wives say, before she slammed her hand across her mouth.

It’s eight-thirty. It’s that pivot point of summer vacation where everyone’s bored.

The TV down here’s busted, so it’s only a radio tuned to KRNA. The music this summer sucks, sad sack songs about love. Danny has a feeling that somewhere, maybe in another universe, there’s cool music this summer, but he’s stuck in Iowa with no access to it. Nights downtown, on break, he stands outside the Astro movie theater where he works, watching certain cars flash past, trailing glimmers of jangled notes, a word or two, a mood, a feeling. He’s missing it all.

“Wasn’t that DQ chick Donna’s friend?”

A different sort of silence falls. John farts into it, but the heaviness remains, and Dooser (real name Wayne Jr.) whacks John, because that’s the routine.

Danny’s the first to speak. “So what? And you know her name’s Holly.”

“If that’s what you’re into,” John says. He’s seventeen, heading into senior year, same class as Dooser, nineteen, who was held back in third and seventh grades. But never remind him of that, or he’ll pound you into the ground. The brothers know each line never to cross and when to cross them anyway. There are two older brothers: one sells pot in the U of I dorms, and the other drives semis across I-80 and calls collect on Mother’s Day. Sometimes Danny confuses him with a dream, that thing half-remembered in early morning light, like their sister Donna, age twelve, disappearing after buying peanut M&Ms at Drug Fair. Now no one in the family eats M&M’s. That’s maybe solidarity, maybe how they know they remain a family.

John farts another ripper.

“No one cares,” Dooser says. He’s flipping a nickel off his thumb, letting it land on his chest, not checking heads or tails before the next toss. He adds, “Could be fifty heads in a row.”

John says, “How much beer can that nickel buy?”

“Jesus Christ,” Danny says. “You ever listen to yourself?” No one would imagine he’s the youngest of the boys, the absolute youngest now that Donna is—say it—dead. Danny has imagined his parents at his birth, watching him pop out, and his mother sighing, “Another boy”; his father crossing his arms to announce, “Try again, goddammit.” That’s a reason—maybe the main reason—it was easy to hate Donna when she was alive: she was the wanted one. Who’d care if a brother went missing? Not these parents.

Dooser says, “This summer sucks balls.” He’s been fired from the pool, the auto parts store, and most recently Pleasant Valley nursery where all they trusted him to do was water shit and haul bags of dirt. Dooser will be the next to go, Danny assumes, knifed in a bar fight or careening a car off a dark, twisty road, something bloody and dramatic versus the icy hush of Donna’s disappearance. Danny shared this thought with John, who ratted him to Dooser, who said, “Cool.”

John’s bending his fingers and wrist backward as far as possible because his summer goal is to touch a finger to his forearm. Dooser says, “That’s impossible, moron,” and John says he saw a guy do it. “Which guy?” Dooser demands, but John can’t remember. John lies, everyone knows. The two of them argue, their voices floating up off the floor, and Danny sits perfectly still, that way he does when things move ahead without him, his mind and his body floating separate.

Danny breaks in: “Let’s get Dad’s car. We’ll walk to the mall, grab his car from the parking lot, drive around and dump it off before he’s done getting blasted at the Robin Hood Room.”

Danny’s simple genius quiets the quarreling brothers.

Key to this plan is that Holly’s Dairy Queen is on the edge of the mall parking lot. The DQ closes at nine, and surely Holly’s got a shift tonight, so possibly she’ll accept a ride home since at fifteen, she’s too young to drive. Everyone silently adds this up. Then the three of them lunge, grabbing shoes and smokes and licenses and crumpled bills. Someone says, “Gotta piss,” so they all do, in a sloppy distance contest that Dooser wins. John jams the last slice of Wonder Bread into his mouth, and Dooser snags the heel, and the empty bag gets stuffed into the bread box. No one goofs on Danny when he rubs toothpaste over his front teeth, gargling them clean with water he spits into the toilet. He should flush, because their mother falls apart when any crap’s left in her clean toilets, but the slop looks artsy, almost an omen of good luck, so Danny leaves it. I’ll be back, he thinks, feeling the rocket-jolt of a chill as he runs through the front door, keys jingling, catching up to his brothers already at the foot of the driveway. He tries to ignore this thought: Were those Donna’s last words? I’ll be back.

Depending on the route, it’s twenty-two minutes walking to the mall or thirty. Everyone looks at Danny, who’s imagining Holly sucking a DQ curlicue off the top of a cone, her tongue sliding curves around the soft serve. He says, “Cutting through the cemetery’s quicker.”

“No way,” Dooser says.

“Scared of ghosts?”

“Hell yeah. Anyone with a brain’s not messing with ghosts.”

“That explains that. Danbo-boner’s got no brain.”

They walk down their street, darker than usual because last week Dooser and some guys shot out a couple of streetlights with a pellet gun. Holly’s psycho grandfather called the cops and the mayor’s office and the newspaper, but no one’s replaced the lights yet. Cicadas whirr, the sound rising then falling. Someone slaps a mosquito. The boys angle across the street, filling as much space as possible. Sidewalks are for pussies.

“Come on,” Danny says. “No one for real believes in ghosts.”

“We’re surrounded by ghosts.” Dooser swings both arms wide, as if machete-ing a couple dozen. “Think about everyone who died unhappy and them wandering around. We’re outnumbered, man, by this whole invisible underworld smack in front of us. This restless army, seeking revenge.” He jabs his fists like he knows how to box. “Gotta watch out. They stick together.”

Danny says, “If there’s an army of ghosts right here, why the big deal about the cemetery?”

“Numbnuts,” Dooser says. “If you don’t know.”

John laughs, but Danny says, “Okay, the long way.” He doesn’t believe in ghosts because he’s never seen one, but imagining an unseen army on the move gets him edgy. Mostly he wants Dooser to calm the fuck down and shut the fuck up. Danny picks up the pace, breaks into a light jog the others match. The benefit is that his brothers—both heavier smokers—are too winded to talk, too stubborn to ease the pace even if it means dropping dead on the asphalt and joining this ghost army.

There’s traffic on Muscatine, where they need to cross, so the three stand for a moment, panting roughly, including Danny, who’ll have to do better if he’s going to make even lowly JV basketball. Sweat slicks his skin, his brain. His thoughts tumble, landing each time here: Was this the route Donna took to Drug Fair, where Donna waited to cross the street? Of course. It’s how anyone too chickenshit to cut through the cemetery walks to Drug Fair. Not everything means something, right? His sister disappeared, and that fact doesn’t turn him different. Not like he’s responsible.

Two cars pass, one a red Camaro thrashing out sound. “A-hole,” Dooser shouts, flipping a two-fisted bird. He kicks at glass shards on the sidewalk, crushes some under his sneakered foot. “Jesus Christ. I hate guys driving Camaros.”

That’s the slap Danny needs to shake his thoughts. “Only because you’re not one,” he says. “Come on. Hurry it up.”

“Dad’s putting up a stone,” John says, then clarifies, “Gravestone.”

The news is startling. They forget about crossing the now-clear street, and Danny’s pissed John somehow knows this, not him. Pissed at something deeper he can’t identify. “Says who?” He gives his brother a small, unfriendly shove.

“Says Dad.”

“Why’s he talking to you so sudden?” Dooser asks, poking John from the other side. “He never gave a shit about you. You look like the mailman.”

John snarls, “Fucker,” starting a flurry of jostling. A passing convertible blares its horn, heaves a half-full beer can at the boys, which breaks them up as they all shout, “Fuck you, fucker,” at the receding car, then bitch about frat-boy assholes until they can no longer ignore what John has told them.

“For real?” Danny asks John.

“On the phone with Uncle Patrick,” John says. “I overheard him say he put in the order. Ready in two months.”

“Does Mom know?” Dooser asks.

“Mom wouldn’t know if you yelled all that into her face.”

The four-lane road clears again, but no one moves to dash across. How is it that all at once a summer can be half over, feel like it just started, and already have gone on too long, Danny thinks. It’s his only night off in ten days, with a solid week of night shifts ahead. He wants the money, grabbing hours while people take vacation or get dragged to family weddings. No big deal standing around tearing tickets; the job’s like nothing.

“Mom’s going to flip,” Danny says.

“Who’s telling her?” John says. He nudges the beer can with one foot, then bends to pick it up. “Warm as piss,” he says, sloshing the liquid side to side.

“Dollar if you drink it,” Dooser says.

“Show me the dollar.”

“So a stone with an empty casket?” Danny grabs the can of Pabst and chugs it, burping loudly with fake satisfaction. “When they find her, they’ll dig it up and plunk her body in? What date are they carving into the stone? Anyone think anything through?”

“Calm down, man,” Dooser says.

Danny pitches the beer can at his brother’s chest. Dooser catches it, then tosses it to John. John throws it back at Danny. Danny says, “He could’ve asked us,” as he heaves the can in an arc across the street. He’d play baseball if the coach wasn’t the dick who flunked him in math.

John pipes up in falsetto, “Ow, ow! Don’t hurt me. I’m in an army of ghosts, on the move and—.”

Dooser whacks him, landing a hollow thud, but they both laugh.

Hyenas laugh less, Danny thinks. He says, “Dad should ask. Wasn’t she our sister?”

“We’re nothing but the shit brothers,” John says. “You only get attention around here when you’re dead.”

“She was a royal pain alive,” Dooser says. “And still.”

“Maybe she’s not dead,” John says. “What if she’s brainwashed or kidnapped or run away? That’d piss you off, getting home from being kidnapped, seeing your name on a giant headstone your dad slapped up?”

“Maybe she’s a ghost watching us right now, out for revenge,” Danny says, thinking he’s funny. But the words deflate the moment, turning him clumsy. His arms hang stiffly straight, like they’re not his.

Dooser glances over his shoulder, then stares at moths swarming the streetlight. “If she’s watching right now,” Dooser whispers, “she can fuck off. I hate everything about her.”

Before John adds on to that, Danny crosses Muscatine, hoping Dooser and John follow, which they do. John calls, “No running, man. These flip-flops are giving me shin splints.”

“No one said dress like a turd,” Dooser says.

Danny tunes out his brothers. They’ve walked this way countless times, or biked, heading to the swimming pool, to the park; to Drug Fair to buy or swipe candy and 45 records, to scan girlie magazines before getting chased off. Even his orthodontist is on this route, and Danny walked to appointments and back home, mouth throbbing pain from his braces cranked tight. It’s wrong that someone disappears from a boring place in a boring way.

Every year since, Donna’s birthday is the worst, with a pink doll cake from Barbara’s Bake Shop, and him and his brothers cracking, “Donna hated dolls, you know,” or, “wouldn’t Donna be too old for this cake now?” Their mother would collapse into tears, their father yelling how ashamed they should be for making their mother cry. He’d threaten to grab his belt, and—oddly—the shouting made Danny feel better. The cake always got trashed. Last time, he and John snuck it from the garbage and wolfed the whole thing, spinning hilarious theories about where Donna’s mangled body was. Danny was sick for days after and wound up at the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. “I know about that cake, about everything,” his father hissed, “and you’re getting exactly what you deserve.” Who was he going to believe, some Mercy Hospital doctor murmuring, “Cake doesn’t burst an appendix,” or his own dad?

Since he got his license in May there’ve been fewer reasons to walk this route, cutting through parking lots, crossing mid-block, all the tricks to shave off seconds. Compared to driving, walking felt common. His mother essentially gave up leaving the house, so her old station wagon was supposed to be available—“only for work and school”—and since Danny had the job at the movie theater, he got the car. Dooser rails on him for hogging but not Danny’s fault Dooser’s license is suspended through October.

Damn transmission (and did Dooser have something to do with that?). No one says a word to their father these days without getting chewed up, so the car got worse until it broke down. “Who’s paying for that?” Dad shouted. Now the car’s moldering in the garage.

The lights of the mall are ahead: cross one more street and they’ll reach the close edge of the vast parking lot. Packed during Christmas season, but mere smatterings of cars now, since the only late-night mall businesses are the bar their father’s in and the uncool movie theater with the kiddie shows. On the corner, separate from the mall, are the Dairy Queen, which is attached to the Hy-Vee, along with a dry cleaner and the aquarium store.

“Where’s Dad’s car?” Dooser asks.

“He’s going to be pissed,” John says, as if the possibility has just occurred to him.

“Pussy,” Danny says. The Dairy Queen’s neon sign glows red, and as he veers toward it, the sign goes abruptly dark, and his brothers howl out laughter. “Shut it, hyenas,” Danny says, and they mock him as they cross the street, Danny heading diagonally toward the DQ. His brothers follow. Sure, they all hate each other, but maybe somewhere in their hearts, they also have to love each other, right? He feels like the leader of an army, a small one.

John says, “Hand over the keys, in case, you know, you’re distracted at DQ.”

Danny ignores him. He points to the grocery store and says, “Go hit up Hy-Vee, turds.”

His brothers laugh, and there’s that annoying falsetto: “Okey-dokey, Danbo-boner. We’ll grab some Hamburger Helper for din-din.”

Holly’s mopping the floor, centered in the big picture window. Her cutoffs are so short that only fringe shows under the striped smock she wears. No sleeves, and Danny imagines a skimpy tank top, or a stretchy tube top, imagines it sliding inch by—

Her head snaps up as if she’s been startled, and she clearly sees the boys because her face mashes into a tough-girl scowl. (Danny likes how she won’t take anyone’s shit at school.) She shakes her head “no,” pointing to the sign on the door: CLOSED. This army of brothers keeps walking, marching in lockstep, Danny imagines, bearing down.

Holly balances the mop inside the wringer bucket and angles her arms on her hips. Danny lipreads: We’re closed.

He lifts one finger, arranges his face in (he hopes) a charming look of appeal, mouths, pleeease? He’s right up at the door now, so he yanks the handle, expecting rattling glass to halt his army’s advance, but the door swings wide open.

“Ha!” John crows, as if he’s part of this, and the brothers file through.

“You forgot to lock the door,” Dooser says.

Holly grabs onto the mop handle and says, “Read the sign. We’re closed.”

Dooser reaches over and snaps a metal knob on the door. “Now it’s locked,” he says.

She says, “The manager’s coming any minute.”

Danny says, “We’re just here saying hi.”

His brothers, those rabid hyenas, laugh yet again. John presses both thumbs into an empty napkin dispenser. The springs snap and squeak. “Better fill this before he gets here,” John says.

“She. The manager’s a woman, you sexist pigs,” Holly says.

“We are damn sexy,” Dooser says. “Thanks for noticing.”

“Sexist,” Holly says. “Not that I’d expect you to know the huge difference between those two words.”

Danny’s night is slipping away, and he understands now that fussing with his brothers and worrying about dead Donna only wasted time. That walk should have been him concentrating on what to say to Holly and figuring out how to dump his brothers. He messed up. His pits go sticky, so he presses his elbows into his ribs. He has to say something. “We’re Donna’s brothers,” he says, maybe too loudly. Dooser rolls his eyes.

Holly’s mouth opens, and she stares at the floor. “I know who you are,” she finally says. Her fingers clutching the mop handle loosen, and she sways the wooden handle side to side so Danny thinks of dancing. She’s short, petite, big-boobed: some guys might call her a “tight package.”

Dooser says, “Danbo, finish mopping up for her.” The words are screws twisting deep, crushing through wood. “Why don’t you?”

If only Danny could lay him out with one walloping punch. He sucks in breath and says, “I was going to say that.” He steps right up close to Holly, smelling cones and sweat and a soft perfumey note he imagines wafting from some secret crevice in her body, and that smell abruptly reminds him of something, and unfortunately, that’s his sister, Donna. He forces his mind off all that as he wraps his big, dumb hand onto the mop handle, purposely touching his pinky to Holly’s forefinger. She jerks away both hands, crosses her arms over her boobs.

“I’m done anyway,” she says, pointing to the streaky floor. “Or was, until you came in and clomped all over everything.” She waves one hand at their dirty feet, then smirks at Dooser and lifts an eyebrow. “Do that part over again,” she says to Danny, pointing at the floor. “Why don’t you?”

Danny glances between his brother and Holly, both laughing, feeling awkwardly unsure whether she’s flirting, unsure how to tip conversation his way, assuming this is some kind of test. He’s terrible at tests, always freezing up. Like now.

“While Danbo’s scrubbing like a housewife, how about you giving us free cones?” Dooser purrs in a sly voice Danny barely recognizes.

Holly says, “Ohhh. Machines are cleaned and shut down.” But there’s her smile, and she flicks her ponytail. Dooser’s passing with flying colors, damnit, while Danny’s standing around like a prop in his brother’s story. That’s what it means being nineteen, not sixteen. Dooser doesn’t even like her, just hates Danny liking her.

John gets the napkin dispenser squeaking faster.

Holly says, “What about a Dilly Bar instead?”

“Buster Bar,” Dooser says.

“Those cost too much,” she says. “They track inventory.”

Dooser puffs his lips into a fake pout. “But they’ve got peanuts.”

“Come on,” John says, though no one looks his way.

Holly says, “Okay, one Buster Bar for you. Dillies for them.”

Them. Danny rages fire inside, furious with his turd brother.

As Dooser nods, and the two of them edge cozy-close to the counter, John laughs (why? nothing’s funny) and grabs three plastic saltshakers and starts juggling them, another thing he’s learning this summer. It’s Danny, alone, holding the mop, Danbo-dumbass-boner mopping the floor.

John eyes the flying saltshakers but hisses, “Jesus Christ, man. You’re mopping for this chick who—.”

“Shut up,” Danny says.

A saltshaker hits the floor, salt spewing out, and Dooser calls, “Seven years bad luck.”

“That’s breaking a mirror,” Holly says. “When you spill salt, you throw some over your left shoulder into the devil’s eye.”

“Oh, the devil,” Dooser says, lifting two fingers into wiggly horns on top of his head which gets John snort-laughing.

Danny steps away from the mop, leaving it balanced in the bucket. He can get out of this. He says, “Tell her about that army of ghosts you’re so scared of.”

“Shut your yap,” Dooser says.

John says, “Who tosses the salt? Me? Or anyone?”

“You never heard this before?” Holly asks.

“How about you do it?” Dooser says. “Bend over, Holly, and throw salt at the devil. Get on your knees and—.”

“Oh brother,” Holly says. “You pig. All of you, get out.” She points to the door.

A flash of nausea rakes through Danny. Never boss Dooser. Anything he does has to be his idea.

Dooser’s lips tighten, and his face flushes sweaty-red. John grabs another saltshaker and resumes juggling. “Yippee,” he calls.

“Get out,” Holly repeats.

Maybe everything will be okay—if a shaker whacks John’s head and everyone laughs; if Dooser laughs and scoops salt off the floor himself; if Danny’s tongue and brain unfreeze and out comes something hilarious; if Holly laughs and grabs three Dilly Bars from the freezer case. Maybe maybe maybe.

But Holly says, “I warned you my manager’s coming right back,” and in that second, everyone understands that this is a lie, that Holly’s by herself tonight.

“Bull,” Dooser says. “Plenty of time for Buster Bars.” He plops into a chair, tilting back to thump both feet up on a table. One of his shoelaces is untied, and he leans in to tie it, slowly, getting the bow eerily perfect.

Danny’s thoughts are of things he hates about his older brother: like that mat of dark hair carpeting his chest and the whistly S that sometimes sneaks into his words that no one dares make fun of and every last fiber of every last muscle built on the weight bench in the garage. He’s seen his brother drop a five-pound weight on a nest of baby rabbits, snap a cat’s tail in half, clear ten bucks a week stealing grade school kids’ lunch money. All five boys are a little rough, sure, because how else you going to get by, but Dooser’s cruelty is legendary. He used to tickle Donna, starting with her giggling and laughing, then squirming and begging and crying and sobbing. Finally, she’d go so limp that for a minute everyone thought she was dead—and still he’d tickle. It wasn’t the “I win” moments he wanted.

Another thing Danny doesn’t like thinking about is how no one said, “Stop,” to Dooser, except maybe their father, if he was around. Danny and everyone watched like Dooser was putting on a show. Sure, Danny picked on Donna too—they all did—she made it too easy—but not like Dooser. Anyway, they all beat on each other. That was growing up, everyone whaling on everyone. “Good clean fun,” their father said, making it clear he wasn’t arbitrating unless precious Donna was involved, which meant someone always asking, “Where’s Dad?” before setting out on her.

In the end, Danny figured they’d all outgrow it eventually, like adults did, like his dad and his brothers. That as a grown up he’d be at Donna’s house for Easter, the way Uncle Patrick came over, or the way the family used to go to Aunt Nancy’s and Uncle Ray’s on Memorial Day for their cook-out. Yeah, some bad things happened like Dooser’s tickling, or other stuff, but that would stop once everyone grew up. Donna’s fault for not sticking around long enough, for not being here to grow up. Like how Holly was just a dumb kid living across the street, but suddenly this summer, she’s worth looking at, she’s glued in his mind.

All that rattles inside, and then Dooser speaks in a casually lazy voice, “How about those Dilly Bars? That’s what we came for. Once we get them, we’re out. Isn’t that what you want, us leaving?”

Holly’s face settles into a scary, still calm, like she’s a lunch lady refusing to dish out extra tater tots. Dooser’s big body is taut, rocklike.

John says, “I’ll take a Dilly Bar.” He catches each shaker, fusses them into a straight line on the table.

Danny’s tongue unfreezes, only to make him a moron: “I just wanted to say hi. See if you need a ride home.”

Dooser snorts.

Holly says, “I don’t see any car. You walked here.”

“Yeah, Danny,” Dooser mocks. “Where’s mommy’s station wagon?”

He can ignore his brother. Danny says, “My dad’s at the Robin Hood Room, and I’m picking up his car—.”

“So he won’t drive drunk,” John says, laughing again.

Ignore him too. Danny jerks a thumb toward his brothers. “These losers are walking,” he says. “So only us two. Just a ride home. You shouldn’t walk alone at night.”

Dooser’s lips mash into an exaggerated kissy-face making kissy-sounds.

Holly says, “You’re disgusting.”

“I love girls talking dirty,” Dooser says. He glances over at Danny, and Danny’s stomach squeezes. Ignore, ignore.

“I’d never, ever get in a car with any of you creeps,” she says. “Look what happened to your sister.”

Abruptly the mop tips over with a tremendous clatter that startles everyone. Gray water streams onto the floor. John drops into a chair, lifts his feet.

“Oh great,” Holly says. “Thanks a lot.”

Dooser’s chair legs slam down. “What’d you say?”

“I said, thanks a lot. Now I get to mop all over again. Now—.”

“About our sister,” Dooser interrupts.

“Donna.” John speaks softly, almost a correction.

“Look,” Danny says. “For real. I’ll mop. Then we’ll go. Or we’ll just go. Come on, you guys.”

Holly says, “What do you think happened to her? She got in a car with thugs like you. Do the math, dumbbells.”

“I don’t murder little girls,” Dooser says. “What are you saying?” And he stands, edging toward Holly, who steps backward, pushing through the swinging half-door and scurrying behind the counter. John also jumps up, clenching his fists and glancing at Danny, who steps forward, his own fists automatically clenching. I hate being in this family, Danny thinks, wondering if John does too, if maybe even Dooser does. What if Danny’s driving with his brother, and what if there’s a girl walking alone late at night, and what if Dooser says, “Pull over,” and what if he pulls over, and, finally, what if Dooser says, “She’s coming with us”?

Holly eyes the wall phone but doesn’t reach for it. Danny knows she’s realizing she’s got no one to call. Her mom’s serving drinks to drunks at the Robin Hood Room, and her grandfather’s psycho. Of course she walks home alone at night. “Who you calling?” Dooser taunts. “Who’s gonna save you?”

She flings open the freezer then slaps handfuls of Dilly Bars onto the counter. “There,” she says. Her voice wants to be firm. She looks at Danny, half-smiles, which Dooser catches, so Danny stares up at the ceiling, and Dooser lurches to the counter’s edge, pushing close to her. “They melt fast, so…,” Holly says.

“Come on, man,” John says. “Let’s go.”

Dooser slams the heel of one hand onto a Dilly Bar, and Holly’s shoulders jerk. He crushes another, another, until they’re all smashed, ice cream and chocolate flakes, torn paper wrappers, sticks askew. Any girl might have started bawling, and Danny’s secretly proud that Holly isn’t any girl. Her mouth screws up into a thoughtful smirk, like she’s studying each angle of the situation. So smart when girls can be tough, like Donna. “She likes it,” Dooser said about tickling Donna. “Says it’s funny. You know what I mean, Danbo-boner, right?” Now, Dooser says to Holly, “No talking about my sister. Don’t even say her name.”

Holly says, “I know what you did to Donna. She told me and Krista. That day she disappeared, we three got in a fight when we didn’t believe her. Well, I believe her now, her last words.” She talks too fast, sounds unsteady, but when she drags the band off her ponytail and shakes loose her hair, it’s curly and wild and makes her seem larger and more dangerous. “She was no liar.”

“Think you’re so smart,” Dooser says. “You stuck-up bitch. Someone should—”

John’s suddenly busy realigning the saltshakers, but he mutters, “Hey man, she’s just a kid.”

Why can’t Danny say something simple like that? Instead he’s wondering about revenge, like what made his father choose now to order a gravestone; imagining his sister’s name carved into chilly marble, her ghost tracking him forever.

Dooser crushes the sides of his fists into the Dilly Bar mess, swipes it at Holly and the floor, then launches a straw dispenser chaotically at the DQ machine. Loose straws jumble across the floor. But there’s Holly lunging closer to Dooser, trampling chocolate and paper. Unafraid. She presses in and stares, forcing Dooser to look her in the eye. No one could possibly be breathing right now.

She says, “Your sister hated you. Each one of you. You made her miserable.”

John laughs. “You barely knew her. You and your tramp mom just moved in then.”

“Yeah, and first thing Donna tells me is she hates you,” Holly says, absolutely locked on Dooser. “Think about that.”

“No one wanted her born,” Dooser says.

Holly’s eyes sear Dooser. “She hated you most of all, and you know why.”

Danny does know exactly why. They all know why. Yet no one’s ever spoken the words out loud. No one dares. No one wants this true truth, not his brothers, not his parents. Everyone knows Donna’s picked on. Everyone knows Donna never lies. Everyone knows everything. And does nothing. Says nothing. Now Donna’s gone, and there’s nothing to do. Instead of being easier, turns out that’s harder.

All along, Danny assumed what he did to Donna on those nights was something he’d outgrow. That there was time, lots of time to get past those bad, wrong things he couldn’t stop doing. Doozer’s right: She liked it. Quickly he forces himself to ask: “What were her last words, I mean, exactly? What’d she say?”

“Drop it,” John says. “Shut up.” Unclear who he’s talking to.

Holly, staring straight at Dooser, says, “My. Brother. Kisses. Me.” Each word’s a little bomb.

A machine whirrs on, rattles, sounds like it’s about to break. Danny thinks John might laugh again, worries he himself will start laughing and never stop. Not like he killed her, not like he killed her.

Holly says, “You’re shit. You.”

Dooser bites his lower lip so hard Danny can’t believe it’s not gushing blood. No braces for Dooser because only his bottom teeth are crooked. John taps a finger on each saltshaker, up and down the row, as if drowning everything out with a song only he hears.

Danny should say something. What could end this night and close this conversation? What could rid him of the rock lodged in his gut? What could he possibly—ever—say? That he’s, what: sorry? That soft, perfumy smell. How in a pack it’s easy to hide in the open. Things happen, unplanned things, that go unnoticed because there’s always someone worse than you. “Don’t tell,” Danny whispered in Donna’s ear each time. “No one’s gonna listen because no one wants to.” Like now: Dooser could tell the truth, but Holly won’t believe it.

Dooser sighs, a strange sound, like emptiness hollowed out. He says, “You’re not as smart as you think.”

Danny exhales, inhales; the air’s cool, like minty gum.

Holly looks away, and the moment she does, she seems to shrink. Five feet tops. This little girl? Who wants her anyway? Still. He’ll never dare talk to her again, never dare relax around any girl who knows he’s Donna’s brother, any girl ever. You know why. The words scorch his skin darker than any tattoo.

She says, “Now, please, can you just please leave so I can clean up this stupid mess? Please?”

John says, “All you had to do was ask nice. We’re going.” He glides to the glass door, flip-flops clacking through the silence, and flicks the metal knob, unlocking the door. “Doesn’t seem very secure,” he says, “or safe. Probably should complain to the manager. Make him fix it or something. Even with this locked, I could just”—he shadow boxes a one-two punch at the glass door—“right through and unlock it and there I’d be: inside. Think about it.”

Holly says, “Yeah. Good point.” A pause. “Thanks.”

It’s Holly’s weak “thanks” that allows Danny to imagine they’ve won, to assume they’re leaving in vague triumph or at least not slinking out losers.

They file through the door, Danny last, then just because they can, they pause after the door swings shut. He shouldn’t look back, but he does, and there’s Holly, edging out from behind the counter then dropping to the floor, into the puddle of mop water. She tucks her knees up into her chest, arms wrapping round to squeeze her body tightly into itself.

He turns away. It’s not like he like-liked her or anything. He’s just bored. The summer sucks. That’s all.

Dooser says, “I got half a mind to bust out that front window,” and John says, “Could be cool,” and Dooser says, “Hy-Vee closes at eleven, so we’ll wait till then,” and John says, “Nah, Hy-Vee’s open til midnight,” and Danny lets them squabble, though it’s a dozen steps to the sign on the Hy-Vee door that lists hours. Finally, they spread out and amble through the parking lot, Dooser and John arguing bricks versus cinder blocks.

Danny interrupts: “Thanks, you fucking hyenas.” Honestly, he’s terrified he’ll cry, so it’s all he can do to get that out. Thanks might not be the right word, but if he takes too long to think of the right word, he won’t say anything.

“Don’t be a pussy,” Dooser says, landing one on his shoulder like it’s a punching bag. John gives him an equally hard shove. Danny stumbles then catches himself, pretending he wants to start up running. She never told the cops, he thinks, why not? So does he owe her? Owe Dooser? He imagines cops coming to lock him up for the rest of his life. Even if he doesn’t know what happened to his sister, he knows what he did.

Dad’s Ford is parked in the second aisle, and they pile in, Danny driving and Dooser shotgun. Danny turns the key and switches the radio to KRNA. Shock: some sad sack love song.

“Now what?” Danny says.

“Just drive,” John says.

“Doesn’t much matter where,” Dooser says, “does it? Where’s there for us to go?”

author pic here

Leslie Pietrzyk has published three novels and two collections of short stories, most recently, Admit This to No One (Unnamed Press, 2021). Her first collection of stories, This Angel on My Chest, won the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Short fiction and essays have appeared in, among others, Ploughshares, Story, Hudson Review, Southern Review, Iowa Review, The Sun, Okay Donkey, Cincinnati Review, The Forge, Pithead Chapel, and Split Lip Magazine. Awards include a Pushcart Prize in 2020. She’s @lesliepwriter on social media and Substack.

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